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Houston, we have a problem — Anomaly Detection Methods | The previous article in my Houston, we have a problem anomaly detection series was a light introduction to the realm of time series anomaly detection in general. In this article, we will elaborate on some of the common methodologies and algorithms used to actually solve time series anomaly detection problems. Finally, we will see how we can use Oddity — a small tool I developed — to conduct easy anomaly detection on our own time-series data.
The following (and final) post in this series will go in-depth on the math behind Oddity and how it works.
Anomaly Detection Methodologies
There is quite a large landscape of anomaly detection methods, seeing as it is such a large and important domain. The following are arguably some of the most common models/techniques:
State Space Models
ARIMA, SARIMAX, SARIMA, Holt-Winters, etc.
These models are statistical models that are generally used for time series forecasting, however, they can be utilized for anomaly detection as well. By checking points in a time series against a model’s predictions (for that time series), any significant difference from the prediction could indicate that point as being anomalous.
Deep Learning (Supervised)
RNNs (Recurrent Neural Networks), etc.
Recurrent neural networks are a type of neural network tailored for time series data and thus can be applied to the topic of anomaly detection. Generally, RNNs will attempt to learn sequential dependencies within the series and use that to make predictions for future time steps. If there is a large deviation from the prediction, that point may be anomalous. This is typically one of the more popular methodologies.
Deep Learning (Unsupervised)
AEs, VAEs, etc.
Different forms of autoencoders have been used for anomaly detection. Interestingly, CNNs (Convolutional Neural Networks), which are traditionally used for spatial applications, have also been used for unsupervised time series anomaly detection with a good level of success (DeepAnT).
Decomposition
STL Decomposition, etc.
Decomposition is a statistical technique wherein a set of time series data is broken into its constituents: trend, seasonality, and residual. The trend and seasonality of the given time series are identified and then subtracted from the series. This leaves nothing but a “residual”, which is anything that doesn’t completely follow the trend and seasonality perfectly. More often than not, time-series data isn’t perfect, and will commonly have some level of residual. If the residual for a point is remarkably high, however, that might indicate a serious deviation from typical trend and seasonal behavior, thus making it anomalous. For more information see ritvikmath.
Other Unsupervised Approaches
Isolation Forest, Clustering, etc.
Other methods of somewhat simple unsupervised machine learning algorithms are also popular choices for anomaly detection. Isolation forests and DBSCAN for example, work great in identifying outliers in data. It is important to note that clustering alone is not usually the best suited for specifically, time series anomaly detection.
Oddity
Oddity is a small open-source tool I developed that uses additive Gaussian processes and time series decomposition to help identify anomalies in time series data. We will first cover some basic information, and how to get started.
Installing Oddity
First and foremost, the main Oddity engine is written in Rust. Rust has incredible speed, which by extension makes Oddity capable of doing very quick computations on even a few thousand-time steps in seconds. We will therefore need to have the Rust compiler installed:
Next, we will need the setuptools-rust library, which will allow Oddity to compile on our system. It can be installed via pip with:
pip install setuptools-rust
Finally, we can install Oddity itself, also via pip:
pip install oddity
Test Data
Once we have Oddity installed, we will need to have some data. We will use the following time series data as our example:
This is Google Trends data for the search term “ice cream” from 2004. It is a perfect candidate for our anomaly detection experiment because it contains both seasonal and trend components with some contextual anomalies. You can download this data yourself from this link.
Using Oddity
Now that we have some data, we will proceed with a complete example of using Oddity for anomaly detection.
Oddity can be imported as:
import odditylib as od
Importing helper libraries:
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
Reading data:
# Reading our CSV data
df = pd.read_csv('ICECREAM-DATA-PATH') # Selecting only the raw values per time step
timeseries = df['ice cream: (United States)'] # Oddity requires an extra dimension per time step
timeseries = timeseries.values.reshape(-1, 1)
Fitting an Oddity detector:
detector = od.Oddity() # Creating a default Oddity detector detector.fit(timeseries) # Fitting the detector on our data
As a shallow description, an Oddity detector is the sum of Gaussian process regression fittings on the trend and seasonal components of a given time series. We can access the fit, mu, and the covariance matrix, cov:
mu, cov = detector.mu, detector.cov
The fit, mu, is used to generally model the behavior of the time series. Plotting mu alone will look like this: | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/houston-we-have-a-problem-anomaly-detection-methods-2d6e2ebc12c0 | ['Lleyton Ariton'] | 2021-04-18 16:59:08.259000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Rust', 'Statistics', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
No World For Girls | I grew up on cartoons where men fought over women
Where “no” was a funny answer from a prudish woman
And to try again, despite a declined invitation
Was bold and courageous, not offensive and dangerous
I grew up watching Penelope Pussycat squirm within the arms of Pepé Le Pew
Not knowing it was a warning, a sign of things to come
I watched Princess Peach being kidnapped by Bowser time and again
She was a possession, property, nothing more than an object of affection
Not a woman, not human
Human
What does that mean to men who drew cartoons for children?
What does “woman” mean to men who laughed at early animation
And watched Bluto claim Olive Oyl like a prize
Artists watched women scream and men guffaw with smiles on their faces
Wanting little boys to idolize Johnny Bravo as he flexed his muscles
Whilst he leered over women and shouted, “Whoa, momma!”
There is no safe place for women in old cartoons
Princesses are cast into sleeping beauties, cursed until true love’s first kiss
Men think it’s iconic to make girls believe their worth is purely measured by Men finding them desirable
And will only be free of spells and curses if a man loves them so
This is not a plea to male animators and writers of cartoons
This is for all the young girls who grew up believing that men were heroes
And girls are an afterthought, damsels in distress
Where are the cartoons that depict real life?
Give me ghosts, witches, goblins, and magic
Give me glass slippers, dragons, and brave knights
But as they remove their helmets, let me see the long flowing hair of heroines
Show me the truth — mirror mirror on the wall
Where are the worlds for little girls?
For as long as I can recall
It is little girls who have been the bravest of them all | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/no-world-for-girls-f6a4c6839a77 | ['Kat Morris'] | 2020-11-15 13:17:10.654000+00:00 | ['Sexism', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Childhood', 'Animation'] |
Save Money With Attractive Deals And Coupon Codes | Whenever you go online for shopping, you will encounter two main categories of web promotions. One is famous with the name of “coupon code” or you can say “promotional code” and one other is known by the name of “link only” promotion. These are helpful options provided by web merchants as promotions.
These don’t comprise any real coupon code and must be activated throughout the particular link. You obtain the discount after hitting on this live link and will get the special discount as you make payment.
It can fluctuate from one seller to another. There are different places where you can use these coupon codes like Discount Electronics Coupon or Electronics Promo Code. In some cases the code might be entered in the shopping cart. In some cases the coupon must be entered on the review page of order just ahead to the checkout window. Keep a careful look in the submit area of coupon code the first time you shop from any specific website.
Whenever you use coupon code to find best Apparel Deals you have to carefully check the FAQ page of that particular website. It is normally available on the service page of any website. If you are not able to find out it, you can call and inquire the merchant how to use the available coupon codes on their website. The merchant will normally have a page where the sum you are charged is exposed, the amount being economical after entering your promotional code and any other charges fees which applies. This type of information can be available on the order page earlier than you enter approval of the applicable charges. In case you don’t check the reduction upon submitting the code of Best Travel Deals on the page of review then don’t put the order.
Normally a connected promotion takes you straight to the artifact itself that is being promoted or else at a special cost or to the particular page that is promoting your discount. In case it is not the particular case check for it on the order section earlier than accepting the purchase transaction.
Many times the sellers omit an ending date that permits them to check the promotion and stop it in the action it gets more responses than decided for. Web merchants change or will stop any running promotion at any particular time they wish to and thus it is almost not possible to completely understand of what so many people are really doing with advertisements. In the case of your shopping or travel coupon does not properly work, it is good to look for any other one on the similar Best Travel Deals Sites or on some of the many other online coupon websites.
Normal shopping stores are not grateful to online deals except the promotion firmly explains that they will. On the other hand, some kind of stores will respect it as a good manner to you though you print out and get it to the particular store. | https://medium.com/@savedollarsus/save-money-with-attractive-deals-and-coupon-codes-1ba6dea9af41 | ['Save Dollars'] | 2019-11-25 10:38:55.730000+00:00 | ['Deal', 'Coupon', 'Shopping', 'Offer', 'Discount'] |
It’s Okay To Question Your Own Empowerment | It’s Okay To Question Your Own Empowerment
Our feelings—highs and lows—about being a woman are valid.
Image Credit: Summer Arlexis/ Bustle.com
Even in the modern society, it is easy to get lost in your own head and lose track of the rights and the powerfulness of us women. It does not make us any less forward thinking or empowering. When these moments of being lost occur, it is totally okay to ask for help and not avoid these feelings. It just simply makes us human. I will tell you about my downfalls and where it resonates from.
To start, I grew up in a traditional Asian immigrant family and a very shallow one. My mom was one of those women that would preach the whole food group of anti-feminism: Get rich/Meet a rich man/ Get married/ Have babies/Only ugly women work/Don’t age. It came from her “right place”. I love my mother and I am not trying to make her appear to be a villain. Just simply telling you how my she was and still is…
Therefore, I got married/widowed at a very early age. To a military man. He came from a very “progressive family”. Southern white guy/ Catholic/ Lesbian parents/ blended family. It is a very confusing mix, I know. Stay with me though. However, I never remarried/had babies (maybe someday). I always worked and still work in IT/software development (12 years +) and I am definitely aging.
Spoiler alert, my mom still loves me, apparently…
I work in a profession where one does not have to be the “beautiful or fashionable” to be successful. I live in a place where it is nicknamed “Hollywood for Ugly People” (DC Metro Area).I am not sure if anyone else has heard of the nickname. I wish I can tell you that I am totally liberated and screw the unrealistic western beauty standards. That is totally not the case, somedays.
Full transparency, I am 30 years old. However, most of my friends are either in their late 30s -70s. They always tell me that they thought I was much older than I really am, at first glance. I have a colleague who is the same age as I am. People think I am her supervisor and she is an intern. This is probably not because people believe I am such a mature employee. It probably has to do with the fact that I look a decade older than her (or well seasoned :D).
Moments and my “non-youthful” traits like these make me think about my mom. It makes me self-conscious about not spending a fortune on skincare/ makeup/ fast fashion/ luxury goods / whatever. I like all of these things (except fast fashion). It makes me wonder if I should work to accelerate my baby process. I wonder if I am a failure for not making over 180K yearly like my other peers. Is my boyfriend going to replace me with a younger/healthier robot??? ( I don’t actually think he would ever replace me). Should I become a robot ???
The point is, it is okay to not always feel sure about yourself. Being a powerful woman does not always have to be filled with confidence and self-assurance. It is also okay to ask your questions and seek guidance from your fellow humans. I do not always have the answer to my self-consciousness/ low points. I wonder if any women truly do. Please let me know how often you feel such insecurities, even if you are not a woman or identify as a woman. | https://medium.com/atta-girl/its-okay-to-question-your-own-empowerment-93e80924cf7 | ['Yena Choi'] | 2020-12-18 18:20:25.010000+00:00 | ['Aging', 'Self Concious', 'Feminism', 'Humor', 'Women'] |
Making factories smarter | People had long forgotten how to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs when Napoleon’s army came across a large slab of rock buried under the foundations of a building in the Nile Delta. Thanks to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, as it came to be known, scholars were able to use the ancient Greek inscription to decipher the hieroglyphs carved into the same stone. Something similar is happening nowadays in smart factories, where machines, which often “speak” different languages, are relying on the digital equivalents of the Rosetta Stone to understand and share information.
Information is the lifeblood of modern manufacturing. Smart factories use technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to connect intelligent machines and systems in order to enable a real-time exchange of information. This facilitates the vertical integration of the departments in an organization, as well as the horizontal integration of business partners across the entire value chain. In other words, smart manufacturing achieves efficiencies by integrating data from multiple technical systems across domains, hierarchies and geographic boundaries.
Smart manufacturing relies on an efficient exchange of data
In smart factories, digital twins and other core technologies that act as a bridge between the physical and digital world rely on an efficient exchange of data between different departments, factories and even enterprises. There are digital replicas of entire manufacturing plants that are identical in every detail to the physical factories, including all the machinery, production lines, buildings and ventilation systems, for example. The digital twin is used to plan production processes and to programme machines, as well as to design products and test them. As soon as there is an efficient virtual model and all the bugs have been ironed out, the physical factories begin production. The technology allows operators to understand in real time how the environment and their machines influence a product’s tolerances, stresses and design.
A significant challenge for smart factories is that different applications often require custom implementations in order to make it possible for them to understand and share the same data. It is a bit like the Monty Python sketch with fighter pilots struggling to understand each other’s highly idiosyncratic use of language, except that this is no laughing matter, as there are major cost implications.
Traditionally, this information has been distributed in different formats, including drawings, lists and data sheets,” explains IEC expert Thomas Hadlich. “It is presented in different structures and identified differently, for example using different denominations for the same assets or for the same data points. It means the same data must be inputted multiple times and, worst of all, the latest information updated in one engineering tool is not automatically reflected in the same data in another engineering tool.”
A digital Rosetta Stone
The solution is to provide the different departments or enterprises involved with a digital Rosetta Stone: a common base for describing the meaning of the data that enables them to share the latest and most accurate information. That is the idea behind the international standard IEC 62832. The Digital Factory framework standard, which is currently being updated, provides a common reference for the digitization of data related to production systems. It sets out common rules for utilizing data based on computer-understandable attributes and classifications.
The Digital Factory framework is based on an existing standard, IEC 61360–2. It defines a common data dictionary (IEC CDD) for providing classifications and metadata definitions that describe products in an unambiguous way to support procurement of electrotechnical products. Companies use the definitions to provide contextually rich specifications that enable interested customers to understand the characteristics of a product. The Digital Factory framework simply applies this approach to system engineering workflows. It uses dictionaries to describe data in a way that is understandable anywhere in the world. The fact that it is an international standard means that enterprises around the world are able to develop interoperable software more easily and use data collaboratively.
The Digital Factory framework standard
Data dictionaries enable interoperability for exchanging, aggregating and analyzing data from machines that traditionally operated within individual vertical silos, where they would transfer data to industrial automation and control systems. They also facilitate the exchange of information that must take place before a supplier can provide a component to another company. The Digital Factory framework adds value by making it easier to provide quality data not only for monitoring the production, but also about the services.
The Digital Factory framework standard, IEC 62832, has three parts:
62832–1:2020 PRV
Industrial-process measurement, control and automation — Digital Factory framework — Part 1: General principles
Industrial-process measurement, control and automation — Digital Factory framework — Part 1: General principles IEC 62832–2:2020 PRV
Industrial-process measurement, control and automation — Digital Factory framework — Part 2: Model elements
Industrial-process measurement, control and automation — Digital Factory framework — Part 2: Model elements IEC 62832–3:2020 PRV
Industrial-process measurement, control and automation — Digital Factory framework — Part 3: Application of Digital Factory for life cycle management of production systems
Download the information document for a more in-depth look at IEC 62832 and the Digital Factory framework. | https://medium.com/e-tech/making-factories-smarter-4b78703a2cac | ['Mike Mullane'] | 2020-10-07 14:27:40.140000+00:00 | ['Industry 4 0', 'IoT', 'Smart Manufacturing', 'Interoperability', 'Standards'] |
10 Incredible Historical Facts School Never Taught You | 10. The paintings of Adolf Hitler
Vienna State Opera House, Adolf Hitler, 1912 (Wikipedia)
Not everyone knows that, in addition to being the greatest dictator in history, Hitler had a hobby of drawing and painting and was active in this sense from 1904 to 1914. Unfortunately, his artistic aspirations were short-lived, as he was rejected two times at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. After the Second World War, the paintings sold for tens of thousands of dollars.
9. Women before the Islamic revolution
Image Source: Pinterest
It looks like a seaside scene from any Western country. Instead, it is a photo of Iranian men and women before the Islamic Republic with a strict Koranic law supplanted the monarchy.
8. Heroin as a cure for colds
Image Source: Pinterest
The stereotypical image of the cowboy at the bar drinking whiskey after a long and tiring ride on dusty trails is only part of the history of the Old West. In fact, in the mid-1800s, opium dens were scattered throughout the territory and the interesting thing is that narcotics like this were considered a cure for all kinds of physical and mental illnesses, from alcohol withdrawal to cancer, depression, colds, tuberculosis, and even old age.
7. Nuclear spectra in Hiroshima
Image Source: Wikipedia
How can we forget August 6, 1945, when an American bomber dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, killing over 70,000 people. Of the little that is left, one thing is particularly disturbing and macabre. Of the people who unfortunately were in that place, only the shadows (the effect of the bomb’s radiation) that were imprinted on the road remain. This is certainly a warning to posterity.
6. Argentavis, the biggest bird ever
Image Source: Wikipedia
The ancestor of condors and vultures had a wingspan of about 7 meters, like a two-level house! Argentavis is the largest flyer ever discovered. This extinct bird, whose name means “magnificent Argentine bird”, lived at the end of the Miocene (6 million years ago) in Central and South America: several fossils have been found in this very country.
5. The Romans also went to the dentist
Image Source: Wikipedia
Several centuries ago, the smile was important … or at least, chewing was. The ancient Romans were able to build rudimentary bridges that allowed them to recover dental functions with a rather painful technique. The false teeth were made of bone or ivory and held together by gold threads.
4. The Nazi uniforms of Hugo Boss
Image Source: Pinterest
It cannot be said that elegance was not thought of among the German ranks. It seems that the Nazi uniforms bore the Hugo Boss brand, 1934 collection.
3. The swastika symbol of good luck
Image Source: Pinterest
It is not the copyright of the Third Reich: the swastika has been used by some populations since ancient times with a message that is certainly very different. The Japanese have come to the point of wanting to change this symbol, which in their culture is an indicator of peace and well-being.
2. The Vikings and the rings “for Allah”
Image Source: Pinterest
Did the Scandinavians already have commercial relations with Islamic countries between the 9th and 10th centuries AD? Practically an impossible hypothesis for the time, but it would explain the discovery of this ancient jewel. According to archaeologists, it could mean that the Vikings actually went much further than we believe.
1. The Trojan horse was a ship
Image Source: Wikipedia
Do you remember everything you read in the books, the Aeneid most of all? Well, forget it. The Trojan horse was not a horse whose belly hid Ulysses and the Greek soldiers. The naval archaeologist Francesco Tiboni, Ph.D. at the University of Marseille, after careful studies, has ascertained that it was much more likely a Phoenician boat, precisely with an equine head, called for this characteristic “hippos”, actually the same term used in Greek for real horses. Hence the misunderstanding that from century to century has created a real legend: Virgil himself would have translated the texts into Greek, falling into the “gross” error. | https://historyofyesterday.com/10-incredible-historical-facts-school-never-taught-you-14256f2aff6d | ['Jayden Yugie'] | 2020-12-24 09:02:16.352000+00:00 | ['Stories', 'Education', 'Facts', 'Life', 'History'] |
Badassery | Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
I’m not sure how many of you may have noticed this, but it’s very simple to be a badass when you have nothing to lose. Think about it. When you don’t love anyone, when you have no home or no sense of security, when you have no assets to fret about, when you are at the bottom looking up — it’s the easiest thing to look Life square in the face, with a smirk, and say “Make my day”.
Because being attached to nothing makes you fearless. Oh, the courage you have when you are empty. Invincible behind the shields, nothing and no one can reach you.
Life is about change though. Nothing remains as it is. Eventually, prosperity may find you. Love seeps in behind the best of armor. Even a nomad may find shelter and settle in. The creak in our joints and bones reminds us time is passing.
And the having of The Good changes you. Because now you have Somethings — important Somethings in your life — which can be lost. Painful things to lose and if you are not vigilant — Fear starts to walk with you. A gentle hand on your shoulder, He keeps time with your stride.
He creeps in slowly. A story about something horrible happening to someone else’s loved one — and you feel His icy hand squeeze your heart. You think about the dow, identity theft, social security’s solvency. You ponder mortgage rates, crime rates, property tax rates. Soon you are an anxious mess, worried, and robbed of the Joy of the present moment. And Fear chuckles quietly at His handiwork.
But this is when Real Courage happens. Real Courage is staying open to The Grace in our lives without clutching and anxiety. It’s sending blessings out to our children and grandchildren when we would fret over their safety. It’s trusting in the here and now of the eyes who love us and not listening to the ghosts of our past. It’s knowing anyone who would take our worldly possessions is in charge of their own karma and it’s on them, not us. It’s taking the steps on our path with sure-footedness and Courage.
It’s looking Fear square in the face, with a smirk, and saying, “Make my day”. Because being a badass when Life is generous to you is tough as hell.
Namaste. | https://medium.com/recycled/badassery-e47252495d7c | ['Ann Litts'] | 2018-10-30 18:31:24.347000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Self-awareness', 'Courage', 'Living In The Present', 'Life Lessons'] |
An Uneasy Beauty: Pre-Raphaelites and the Feminine Ideal | The flowers that Millais includes are chosen for their symbolic meanings. The violets at Ophelia’s throat represent faithfulness, chastity, dying young and unrequited love. The pink rose at the hem of her skirts suggests the transient beauty of youth and fleeting exhilaration of first love. The white of the daisies represents unsullied innocence. Pansies derive their name from the French word pensée — the same word from which ‘pensive’ is derived. Nettles indicate pain, both physical and ‘of the heart’. The prominent poppy-like red flower has been identified as wild pheasant’s-eye, which represents unbearable sorrow.
The Pre-Rapaelites revelled in the idealisation of beauty, both feminine and botanical, but the surface was nearly always subservient to the symbolic. Millais painted studies of the flowers along one stretch of the Hogsmill river through spring and summer, a period of about five months. So each plant would never naturally be in bloom at the same time, as depicted.
Apart from becoming a composite nature study, this also served the symbolic narrative of beauty halted in its passing. This was a common subject in the Romantic art of the period. Though many Pre-Raphaelite works bear a resemblance to works of their Romantic contemporaries, their ideologies couldn’t have been more different and hint at a sinister side.
Women portrayed whilst still alive, tended to be archetypes from the classics. They’re either manipulators of men or vampiric temptresses. Women who were pure and chaste, such as Ophelia, are often portrayed after death, when their chastity is assured for evermore and their beauty exists in memory alone, unspoiled by the ravages of time. It seems there’s an underlying message that the only ‘good woman’ was a dead one!
Here’s another a woman, this time alive and dangerous…
‘Lady Lillith’ (1868) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti [view license]
Lady Lillith, in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s 1868 painting, is an icon of the Pre-Raphaelite woman. The model was Alexa Wilding and, for a while, Rossetti monopolised her beauty by contracting her to sit exclusively for him. She’s also a notable exception in that he did not take the relationship beyond the professional as he tended to with his models…
Although the attitudes expressed by many Pre-Raphaelite works fall neatly within the sexist, male-dominated norms of Victorian Britain, some images also exalt the power of women and although the Pre-Raphaelites were a ‘Brotherhood’ there were some influential women artists associated with them. On the whole, though, they lived by the privileged double-standards that so aggravated the Decadents.
The Pre-Raphaelite scene was rife with tumultuous affairs and love triangles resulting in much angst and emotional highs and lows. The portrayal of women was often ambiguous. They could be interpreted as chaste and unobtainable objects of beauty, or as manipulative femmes fatale.
The woman in this painting is intended to appear self-obsessed, vainly brushing her luscious locks, clearly aware of the power she may wield with her physical charms. The flowers again provide a commentary. The white roses are the first to assert themselves upon the viewer and represent pure love. The poppy in the foreground is a symbol of oblivion, of abandoning ones senses.
The common name for the digitalis laid on her dresser is ‘foxglove’, derived from its association with the fairy folk — originating as ‘folk’s gloves’. It’s associated with magical deception and trickery. It was known to be deadly poisonous. Yet also used medicinally. So, ‘just like a woman’, it could harm or heal.
According to the ancient tale, The Epic of Gilgamesh, the mythical Lillith was either a magical Sumerian queen or a witch-queen of demons. In later Hebrew myths, she becomes the first wife of Adam in the Garden of Eden and appears in early Biblical texts, surviving into some medieval Latin reprints.
She’s generally associated with fleshy pleasures, sin and death, and probably wasn’t too happy when God gifted a new ‘good’ girl to Adam in the form of Eve. Lillith, sometimes translated as ‘Lamia’, became associated with the serpent and was also said to have been a wife of Samael, the archangel of Evil and Death, often confused with Satan.
By contrast, Rossetti painted The Blessed Damozel in 1878 as a paradigm of feminine perfection. A grand, two panel painting based on a poem he’d written when he was a teenager.
The lower panel shows a man reclining and looking skyward. His gaze leads us into the top panel where we see a woman (Wilding was once again the model) leaning forward to look down upon him. These are two young lovers, who in the poem are separated by death.
‘The Blessed Damozel’ (1878) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti [view license]
Here, the gold dividing frame and the three red-haired angels visually separate the dead girl in heaven from the living man on earth. They look longingly to each other, awaiting the day when death will reunite them. This desired outcome is suggested by the reunited lovers crowding the top of the composition. These heavenly lovers are shown in a garden of red roses, denoting passionate love, and appear almost like a thought bubble.
This is an almost definitive Pre-Raphaelite work in theme, symbolism and overall appearance. The woman has the typical pale skin, ruby lips and abundant red hair, in which shine the stars of the Pleiades constellation. There should be seven, so the implication is that the girl’s spirit has joined them, becoming the seventh.
Like flowers, stars are rich in symbolism and the Pleiades are generally signifiers of feminine beauty, though in Western astrology they can mean grief and the burden of sorrow because of their association with the Hyades. In Greek mythology, the Pleiades and the Hyades were all sisters and each lend their name to faint clusters of stars in the constellation of Taurus. The Hyades are said to weep with grief and it’s their tears that eventually reach the earth as rain.
The pink roses of pure love surround her. She holds three white lilies, symbols of death and of the Aesthetic movement, which overlaps with the ‘gothic graveyard school’ style of Victorian art. The love between the two is chaste, pure and eternal. Although that love has temporarily been defeated by death, it is death that will also bring the eventual triumph of their love.
Love and death…
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848 by seven artists: William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner. The number seven was significant to them, perhaps because of its numerological association with God and creation. They were a reactionary group formed in opposition to the inevitable changes happening around them and published The Germ, an illustrated journal of essays, poems and sketches to proclaim their stance. | https://medium.com/signifier/an-uneasy-beauty-pre-raphaelites-and-the-feminine-ideal-6bf50a47c25a | ['Remy Dean'] | 2020-12-26 11:24:32.352000+00:00 | ['Art History', 'Painting', 'History', 'Mythology', 'Art'] |
Fundraising Solutions for Edhi Foundation | The Edhi Foundation is a non-profit social welfare program in Pakistan, founded by Abdul Sattar Edhi in 1951. The Edhi Foundation provides 24-hour emergency assistance across the nation of Pakistan and abroad. The Foundation provides, among many other services, a shelter for the destitute, free hospitals and medical care, drug rehabilitation services, and national and international relief efforts. Its main focuses are Emergency Services, Orphans, Handicapped Persons, Shelters, Education, Healthcare, International Community Centers, Blood & Drug Bank, air ambulance services, Marine And Coastal Services.
Edhi until his death on 8 July 2016 was the head of the organization. After his death, there is a gradual decrease in funds. So, being a part of the nation, I and my fellows decided to come up with different ways to raise the funds. The three ways that we followed were:
1. Collection of money at Public Places:
To collect money y visiting different places. We went to different people and told them about the current condition of the foundation and asked them to donate the money. For this purpose, we arranged a box for collection.
During collection
This way helped us to collect a vast amount.
2. Awareness to university students:
We decided to start a campaign to aware people about the decrease in funds. For this purpose, we made charts and went to 2 universities “COMSATS” and “Punjab University”.
Many students decided to take part in our campaign. Some students funded as well.
3. Donated money online:
We decided to collect money on a monthly basis from our parents and from our own pocket money to donate online.
This was the way through which we donated online.
“You have two hands. One to help yourself and the second to help others.” | https://medium.com/@lovelymanahil/fundraising-solutions-for-edhi-foundation-a1a6a9ed1802 | ['Manahil Nasir'] | 2019-08-02 12:32:34.294000+00:00 | ['Help', 'Support', 'Fundraising Advice', 'Fundraising Ideas', 'Fundraising'] |
When self-checkout feels more like racial profiling | I’m no stranger to retail. In college, I worked for Walgreens (two years as a cashier, a few months as a photo tech). During spring and winter breaks, I was a cashier and gift wrapper at Borders Books, Music and Cafe. Immediately after graduation, I worked for Walmart (eight months as a photo tech).
So ringing items up, checking prices, correct bagging and price verification is not new to me. It’s the primary reason I prefer self-checkout. I can get in and out, knowing full well my manufacturing coupons were used correctly, the prices are accurate, the bags are not stuffed to capacity and store membership points are credited. The only problem I have is related to the employees at self-checkout in this location — either management and/or the employees have a tough time understanding the self part of self-checkout. In turn, I end up frustrated after every visit to this store location, so I drive past it 99.9 percent of the time during my next grocery run.
When the self-checkout profiling began
It started off small. First there was the white, female cashier who stood behind me to watch me ring up every item. Then there was the cashier who wanted to “help” bag items for me at self-checkout, but not the other three (white) customers purchasing their items. Then there was the cashier who jogged over when I accidentally scanned an avocado instead of typing in the code, loudly yelling, “I knew you would do that!” By incident number three (same cashier all three times), I walked away altogether and she asked me about paying. Meanwhile an older white lady was waving her hand for assistance.
I told her if she got out of my face and helped that lady, I would. Needless to say, she left me alone after that. But that didn’t stop one manager (non-black and male) from deciding he wanted to lean on a store shelf and just stare at me. I pondered on whether the cashier was so annoying because of a direct order.
And even when that cashier disappeared, in came another one (also white and female) with the same overachieving behavior. This new one decided there were “too many people” in line (I was the only one in line but all four self-checkout registers were being used) and asked if she could ring me up with a hand-held checkout gun. This resulted in the lady ringing me up for too many items, not scanning my store points, me forgetting about my manufacturing coupons and her clumsily snatching an empty bag (from a now-empty self-checkout register) to complete the process. I ended up in Customer Service to fix everything and get a refund.
Racial profiling doesn’t stop when you work in retail
Photo credit: Oladimeji Ajegbile/Pexels
While it’s difficult to narrow down whether I’m dealing with overbearing cashiers or whether the cashiers are following orders from management, I’ve seen this behavior on both sides.
When I worked at Border’s, I knew who the plainclothes officers were. I also knew of co-workers who would call the officers’ “book seller” names over the loudspeaker, requesting that they go to certain aisles. “Becky, you have a customer waiting in the Fiction aisle.” That went on and on until one black female officer got fed up and requested that this same cashier stop calling her over to only black customers, who rarely if ever were doing anything wrong — other than reading entirely too many magazines for free. Still though, there is an issue that needs to be discussed in retail. Starbucks may have employees who racially profile, but that restaurant chain’s employees are clearly not the only ones who pull these stunts.
From a business perspective, I understand the frustration. Retail stores deal with $48.9 billion in shoplifting and employee theft annually. And some of that employee theft may be a matter of them doing it or a friend sneaking something out. But there is an underlying bias about who is doing the stealing that is often known and quickly ignored.
I’ve dealt with that too. Two college (black and male) associates of mine entered Walgreens on a particularly slow night. One apparently went to the back to steal condoms while the other guy stayed upfront to talk to me at the front register. At the end of my shift, a (white and male) manager decided to tell me a random “fictional” story about why it’s not OK to help your friends steal. I had absolutely no idea why he was telling me this. When I was putting my coat on to leave, I was informed that boxes of condoms were gone. Then the reason behind that “fictional” story sunk in.
Although the manager and I never spoke about it anymore, I felt a way about how he handled the matter. The thought that I had no idea what was going on never seemed to enter his mind. I glared at him every single time we made eye contact after that, and neither of us spoke to each other for the rest of the time I worked there. I didn’t appreciate his assumption. An email pep talk from my father — who also didn’t appreciate the “story” — kept me from quitting though. I did, however, find both of the college associates on campus. I talked (read: yelled) at them for putting me in a position I had no idea I was in. They listened. And I never saw them in the store again.
Why a race sensitivity training course would do retailers some good
Frankly, not every employee is unaware of internal theft. And not every customer — in and out of the self-checkout aisle — is honest. I get it. But retailers do themselves a disservice by profiling certain customers (and employees) without any shred of evidence that something is suspicious. I’ve long left working in retail — that was 16 years ago. But I’m still bothered by the “Becky at Borders” and “fictional” story incidents. Those were clear incidents in which a race sensitivity training course could’ve gone a long way, or at least called managers and cashiers out on their behavior.
Photo credit: Create Her Stock
Under no circumstances do I want to insinuate that all white employees profile black consumers and fellow employees. These are isolated incidents — that left a lasting impression. Still though, as a consumer, I have to deal with these attitudes in stores and at self-checkout. However, when I see employees (mainly white as well) at a much-better and bigger location for this same store chain who smile, wave and step back politely to let me ring my items, it proves that there is a much more professional and productive way to handle store theft. This group comes over when asked. I don’t feel them breathing down my neck during each transaction.
It’s OK for retailers to keep employees nearby for questionable behavior. It’s OK for retailers to want to keep theft down. But if one location’s employees can politely step back and quietly observe (similar to Becky at Border’s), then employees at this store location should be able to do so, too. Don’t lose honest customers because some of your workers have overactive imaginations and racist mindsets.
* Initially when I wrote this post (Feb. 6), I had no intention of mentioning the store chain nor location (Target, 2209 Howard St., Evanston, IL). But I went in there today (Feb. 11) to see if anything had changed since my last visit. Per usual, the suffocating behavior continues. The self-checkout rep (the same lady who decided it was “too many people in line” the last time I was there) immediately walked over to fiddle with brand new bags at my register, wanted to know why I didn’t have a bag, and came back to stare at me when I purposely got back in line to buy a handful more items. Other customers (all white) completed their transactions without interruption. When I finished paying, she conveniently walked away from the register I was paying from. I’ve had enough. I’m naming names, filling out the survey, writing to headquarters and the Better Business Bureau, and I’m never going to this store location again. | https://medium.com/i-do-see-color/when-self-checkout-feels-more-like-racial-profiling-d8321b55df28 | ['Shamontiel L. Vaughn'] | 2020-02-12 03:37:25.157000+00:00 | ['Retail Industry', 'Retail', 'Racial Profiling', 'Race', 'Self Checkout'] |
What is EXPLORE? (SPSS). So you want to explore your data in… | So you want to explore your data in SPSS? Here are some easy steps to get started.
Step 1 — Open your data file.
If you want to read another tutorial on opening files check out my other article here.
Step 2 — Click on the Analyze tab.
Step 3 — Navigate to the explore… option as shown below.
Step 4 — Explore in Descriptive Statistics pulls up the window below. You want to move any nominal data such as color, or shape.
Step 5 — Once data is moved into the correct fields it should look like this.
Step 6 — Include outliers by clicking on options and selecting the option for outliers.
Step 7 — Select the Plots option. Include Histogram and Normality plots with tests.
Once you have done this your main window will look like the window shown below.
Select ok to continue.
Output
The table below as well as graphs and other outputs will display in the output file. These can be used to interrogate your data.
Each section above should show the segments of your data.
Happy Analyzing. | https://medium.com/git-connected/explore-function-in-spss-easy-tutorial-ce4e28f8a7b8 | ['Graham Waters'] | 2021-01-13 21:21:28.750000+00:00 | ['Explore', 'Tutorial', 'Data', 'Spss', 'Beginner'] |
Point and Shoot Coaching | Point and Shoot Coaching
2 ways you can breathe new life into coaching conversations
Maxine Dorkin
Image: Unsplash
The invention of the auto-focus camera lens revolutionized the world of photography in the 1970s. Before then, photographers grappled with the remarkably difficult manual lens and had to perfect this mechanical art. Though we live in a time of high-grade camera functions which reduce this intricate art to an automatic mechanism, there is a wealth of knowledge we can draw from the intentional, guided art of the manual lens. As leaders in the 21st century, our manual focus and intentionality is amplified through effective coaching conversations. It demonstrates the value we place in the people around us.
Developing team abilities and nurturing interpersonal collaboration within organisations has become imperative for organizational success. As a result, a wealth of research has been invested in learning how capability can be harnessed. A critical skill for all leaders is the ability to have effective coaching conversations.
Coaching allows us as leaders to take control of the lens and use it to amplify the values and skills that we would like to encourage in our teams or those around us.
Any leader who values legacy would agree that one of the most important roles you have is that of a coach and a mentor. It is an opportunity to leave an indelible mark in the organisation.
“Leaders don’t create followers; they create more leaders” — Tom Peters
Here are two ways you could make your coaching conversations more effective in terms of employee performance.
Amplify Strength
Coaching is the art of facilitating performance, learning and development and if used appropriately, is a powerful tool to encourage and inspire growth in the people around us. Our natural inclination, however, is to look at what is not working well. Coaching conversations are then spent largely discussing what a person is failing to deliver, and any mention of what went well seems to be an afterthought. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always produce the intended result. It takes intention to look at what is working well and discipline to turn the dial down on what isn’t.
The art here is to invest more in the point of growth. Experts from the Harvard Business Review have found, based on a study of manager — employee dynamics, that “we do not learn and grow the most in our areas of weakness”, on the contrary, our brains build most on our pre-existing abilities. Furthermore, Research by the Corporate Leadership Council found that when managers focus on the weaknesses of an employee their performance declines by 27%, whereas when they focus on the strengths of an employee performance improves by 36%.
What would be most beneficial is a developmental conversation which highlights one’s strengths and how to best practice these abilities. Dont assume that people know their strengths- ask them what they think are their core competencies (give the strengths names!) and how they think they impact the project they are working on. Ask them which strengths they would like to develop and how they can do so.
Amplify Solution
When it comes to troubleshooting and working through challenging periods in your organisation, there is a natural inclination towards problem diagnostics. Who was inefficient? What system was ineffective? Which department overlooked a tiny detail? Jackson and McKergow, in their book The Solution-Focus, offer a critique of this approach in saying that “there is rarely any sense in emphasising a problem or starting with what’s wrong”.
There is more value, however, in having the solution take centre-stage.
The future of problem-solving is one that is proactive rather than reactive and the way we coach the people around us must reflect this.
Often, as leaders, we can fall into the trap of elaborately describing what we do not want and not communicating what it is we want. This can be as simple as asking “What is the ideal resolution for this problem?” and allowing people to define the outcome they are working towards. The idea here is to shift your team’s energy away from excavating the problem and towards building the solution. A great example of this would be the GROW model which our participants have found particularly useful throughout the Xcelerator program.
Interest to know more about the program? Click here.
About the author: Maxine Dorkin is a Leadership Facilitator with the African Leadership Group. She is passionate about bringing the best out of people and growing teams. She is a Registered Therapist and Coach currently completing her Phd in Industrial Social Work with a focus on Innovation and Workplace Interventions. | https://medium.com/xcelerator-alg/point-and-shoot-coaching-7219a95c3628 | [] | 2019-12-18 07:08:22.011000+00:00 | ['Xcelerator', 'Life', 'Leadership', 'Leadership Development', 'Coaching'] |
Perspective Is Everything | Here’s the Life Lesson
Everyone faces difficult things, but a shift in perspective is the most effective way to get through challenges. It’s not that I like losing a tooth. And I certainly don’t like spending more money on my teeth this year.
However, I’ve been in a great deal of pain for more than a month. I am willing to do what it takes to live pain-free again.
Sure, I won’t be completely pain-free for the next few days as I recover from surgery. But I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.
Shifting your perspective isn’t always easy, but it’s always worthwhile.
Right now, I’m going through an especially difficult point in my life. There have been several financial and work-life hurdles that I either wasn’t expecting or have found more challenging than usual to overcome.
I feel a great deal of pressure as a single working mom, and it’s even harder to talk to other people about my circumstances because I “made more money than ever” in 2019.
So far, after taxes, all of my dental work over the past year, putting my daughter into a private school, and finally becoming a driver, my savings account is honestly not where I thought it was going to be when I first began making better money a year ago.
And I’ve been deeply ashamed of that over these past couple of months. Getting through that frustration and overwhelm has definitely required a change in my perspective, and it hasn’t been so easy as people make innocent and even well-intended comments about how I’m doing so great. | https://medium.com/mind-cafe/perspective-is-everything-4929fb04eb7b | ['Shannon Ashley'] | 2019-12-15 15:47:29.574000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Life Lessons', 'Self', 'Shannon Ashley', 'Mental Health'] |
The persistence of “son preference” - incredible stories of two newly mothers in China. | Gender inequality is a persistence issue. “Son preference” still dominates the family planning in China.
A mother-in-law said, “The baby is worthless!” after her daughter-in-law delivered a second girl to the family.
When a woman knew the newly-born baby is still a girl. She collapsed and went mad by herself. She cried and screamed, “I am sorry to my husband and mother-in-law. I am a bitch!”
Stories from ordinary people in China will help you understand the thousands of years old country better than those from stereotype comments and hardcore reviews.
Perhaps tradition is a good way to understand a country. Today, I want to introduce recent stories about one tradition of China, “son preference.” In other words, sex selection in favor of boys. It is not great, not splendor, and sometimes inhumane. It is only inundated with sorrow and helplessness.
In Chinese tradition, only the son can inherit the family. A family without a son means a cut off of the family.
“Son preference” has caused the gender imbalance in China’s population. According to an analysis by Global Times, In 2019, “the gender ratio among people aged 20–24 and 25–29 reached 114.61 and 106.65, respectively, indicating that at least one out of 11 men would not be able to get married with woman from same age groups.”
“Son preference” has caused issues in marriage and family planning. / Photo from www.irasutoya.com
Marriage is just one of the issues stemming from “son preference.” The post-marriage problem regarding gender inequality will continue.
Photo by Jimmy Conover on Unsplash
Husband and mother-in-law left when she gave birth to a baby girl
According to Chinese social media Weibo.com, a woman in Henan Province of China married a man and had a cute two years old daughter. It sounds like a perfect family life but in China, but there is a traditional concept many people in the outside world could not imagine.
Unfortunately, this concept is strongly recognized by the woman’s husband and mother-in-law. They always blame her for not delivering them a son.
One day, the woman got pregnant again. Both her husband and mother-in-law were very happy and were very solicitous to her. When the due day comes, however, not as their expectation, the new family member was still a girl.
The husband and mother-in-law could not accept this. They confirmed again and again with the nurse and doctor and nothing changed.
They were so disappointed. The mother-in-law said,
“The baby is worthless!” They then left the hospital, leaving the woman who just delivered a baby and even her two years old at the hospital!
The two years old daughter waited outside the door to watch her mother. When the mother came out with the baby, the doctor called the families. And the two years old girl walked towards them and tried to hold her mother’s hand.
A woman got mad after delivering a third daughter
There also has another similar story. According to the Chinese medical online forum DXY.cn, It’s about the third time a woman gave birth to the family. The former two kids are both girls. Her husband and mother-in-law also got the impenetrable tradition concept: son is the key for a family.
Photo by Aditya Romansa on Unsplash
During the time of her pregnancy, her husband and mother-in-law were very nice to her. They brought a lot of food to her. Hope she be healthy, for the potential son. It’s a hard night for the woman. The delivery process did not pass smoothly. With more than four times spinal anesthesia and so many pains and sufferings, the baby came, and it’s still a girl.
The husband and mother-in-law turned back to her and had nothing to say. When the woman knew this kid was still a girl.
She collapsed and went mad by herself. She cried and screamed, “I am sorry to my husband and mother-in-law. I am a bitch!”
Today we notice so many great accomplishments in China, fast-growing state economy, supertall skyscrapers, “the world’s factory,” to name a few. Nevertheless, perhaps nobody cares about the real life of ordinary Chinese people, especially vulnerable women. | https://medium.com/@lucylu641/the-persistence-of-son-preference-incredible-stories-of-two-newly-mothers-in-china-f55f67e45816 | ['Lucy Lu'] | 2020-12-18 15:24:30.774000+00:00 | ['Gender Equality', 'Tradition', 'Motherhood', 'China', 'Newborn'] |
These are a list of wellness articles to binge as 2020 ends. | This is a list of wellness articles to binge as 2020 ends. Like I mentioned in:
and despite having spent a decade in this industry, I am not quite sure why I don’t write more about these topics. But for now, check out:
Watch out for part 3 of “Was this a personality mismatch or something darker?” | https://medium.com/@kokoizuka/looking-for-a-compilation-of-wellness-articles-from-a-health-enthusiast-start-with-these-below-6d97e002a7c1 | ['Nkeonye Judith Izuka'] | 2020-12-19 12:41:12.942000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Wellness', 'Mental Health', 'Short Form', 'Healthcare'] |
Six Things I Learned from Changing Myself for my Partners | Six Things I Learned from Changing Myself for my Partners
Number six: sometimes it’s worth it.
Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash
Call it chameleon syndrome.
When people fall in love, they often try to be exactly what they think their new partner wants. We are great role-players at the start of a new relationship. We are better groomed, better dressed, and more agreeable than we were before we met this fantastic new person who will surely be “the one” and will transform our lives accordingly.
Of course, a lot of this behavior is a performance for the person we want to impress. It might be conscious, or it might be an unconscious attempt to force someone to fit our fantasies.
I think that everyone does this to some extent. Ideally, the more attached we become to our partners and the more they become attached to us, the more both parties are willing to accept less than perfect behaviours and appearances. If we are healthy and in a healthy relationship, we can just let the person “be” whomever they are without feeling threatened. Or we can let them go with minimal drama.
But sometimes we try to morph into the kind of person we think the other wants. Chameleon-like we change our colours until we appear like the ideal person we think he or she wants. We camoflauge our true selves for an idealized, unreal image of whatever definition of perfection we think will make us acceptable.
Being a chameleon is ultimately self-defeating.
As a newly-minted sixty-year-old who is ten years into a healthy and fulfilling relationship, I think I can speak to some of these common tendencies. I met my husband at age fifty, and it took me that long before I was ready for a truly equal romantic relationship. It involved a lot of soul searching, therapy, and a number of spectacular mistakes that I vowed never to make again.
One: If someone has a controlling personality, don’t hesitate to press the abort button.
An excessive need for control is a major red flag. This was a problem with my first two husbands. I should have noticed something was wrong when my first husband didn’t want me to learn to drive. He loved having control over my comings and goings. I couldn’t go grocery shopping by myself, so he got to control all of the food we bought. He was rigid in his food choices, so he decided what all of our meals would consist of. Dinner had to be one of four or five Persian dishes his mother had made when he was growing up in Iran. And it had to be exactly the way that his mother had made it. Which meant I couldn’t make them; if I tried, something was always wrong with the taste. I loved cooking, but if I made anything outside of his dictates, he would refuse to even try what I had made. If I insisted, he would pretend to gag just from the smell of the innocent stir fry I had made.
Needless to say, our marriage was not a happy one.
Ironically, I had the same problem in reverse with my second husband. Instead of making it too difficult for me to learn to drive, he insisted that I learn to drive and that I do most of the driving. This was good, because I really wanted to drive, but he insisted that I learn to drive a stick shift so that I could drive a small truck he owned and save money on gas.
I was hopeless at stick shift. I found it hard enough to drive a car with automatic gears. If he had let me get comfortable with regular driving before introducing a more complicated way involving a clutch, I might have succeeded. But he was impatient and controlling. I had to be forced to drive manual immediately on his command. He dismissed all my fears about driving a vehicle that I couldn’t control when stopped on a hill. One time I actually rolled backwards and hit another car. The woman was pretty angry about the dent in her new SUV. It took an accident to get him to let up on the pressure for me to learn to drive that truck to save a few cents on gas.
Two: If someone is just wrong for you, accept it and get out.
I tried to leave my abusive first husband many times. I always went back. My friends told me to leave him. My therapist told me to leave him. If I tried to leave he would threaten to leave the country and never pay me child support and never see our daughter again. I let him manipulate me like this over and over again. We would separate for a time and he would refuse to give me any money for our daughter. And I would take him back out of insecurity and an inability to make ends meet.
Three: don’t give up something you love just to please your partner.
My second husband came of age in the 1960s. For him the ideal of everything in life, including female beauty, was the hippy era. This included a specific formula for my appearance: long hair, no makeup, casual jeans and t-shirts. When I met him I had short, stylish hair, blonde highlights, and a face enhanced with the latest high-end makeup. My clothes were not retro in any way. This was the way I liked to look from adolescence onwards. Even as a child, I wanted to wear pink, frilly dresses more or less full time. It was a big part of who I was.
That had to go. No problem. I was a chameleon. In exchange for affection, I was willing to become anything he wanted. I grew my hair out. I let him wipe off my makeup the first time I met him. I did not wear makeup the entire two-and-a-half years we were together. I wore a hippy skirt to our wedding.
When I met my current husband, I still had long hair with my natural colour. I had started wearing makeup again. I soon realized I could have blonde highlights if I wanted. He loved them. He loves me in makeup and fancy clothes. Finally my partner and I are on the same page.
Four: addiction is a deal breaker.
I once fell in love with an alcoholic. I didn’t see it as a problem. He was a binge drinker who stayed up all night getting drunk and obnoxious. Why did I put up with this? He could play the cello and he sometimes listened to classical music. I swore that my ultimate man would be a classical music fan. And play an instrument. My first husband had hated classical music, so that was good enough for me. Ironically, I never once heard him play the cello. He had sold his cello when he was 22 and used the money to backpack around Europe. That was thirty years before I met him and he had not played since. He kept threatening to get a cello and play for me, but that never happened.
In line with my chameleon tendencies, I started listening to music that he recommended. I convinced myself that I enjoyed listening to bands like Emmerson, Lake & Palmer. I would coo over Keith Emmerson’s interminable piano solos. I even read Greg Lake’s uber badly written autobiography, Lucky Man. All to please an unfortunate man who had little to offer me outside of a valuable lesson in what I didn’t want in a partner.
Five: do not give anyone control over your money.
Overall, money is always a potential problem in an intimate relationship. It is the number one cause of marital disagreement, along with sex, and can be used as a weapon of abuse for unbalanced personalities.
In my case, I gave far too much power to my first husband over money. He was a recent immigrant and was obsessed with getting ahead in a new country. He insisted on total control over our finances. He would buy things like real estate investments behind my back, houses that he would rent out. My input in decision making was not welcome. Later, when we owned our own house, he demanded a certain amount from me every month and he took care of all expenses. I was never allowed to see his bank balance and he would not tolerate having a joint bank account. When we decided to divorce, he reasoned that he should keep all of our assets, because I had contributed “nothing, except for a few mortgage payments.” Fortunately for me, Canadian law does not allow such rationalizations, and I got half the value of the house in the divorce settlement, much to his surprise and resentment.
Six: sometimes it’s worth it to change.
Sometimes your partner is truly an amazing person and sets a very high standard for you. I like to believe that I was always a good person, but my husband made me think more deeply about what that actually meant. He sets very high standards for his own behaviour and is incredibly disciplined. He is even-tempered and rational. I tend to be lazier, more hotheaded, and disorganized. Left to my own devices, I am a major procrastinator. He always has his taxes done a month before the final deadline. I am happy if I’m only a month late. I now get them done almost on time. He pays more attention to detail than I do and is much cleaner. He has really inspired me to up my game in several areas of life. For example, I can now tell that the carpet needs to be vacuumed before the pattern disappears under the dirt. Not that I go so far as to vacuum it. Luckily, he is happy just that I have noticed it. Then he cheerfully does the job himself.
Mostly, he makes me want to be better. Because of him I exercise, eat healthily, and cook at home every night instead of eating out. I have saved money for the first time in my life. I have become less impulsive. All to make the man who makes me happy, happier.
He has also changed for me in numerous ways. He listens to his gut more rather than hashing everything out logically. He does the lion’s share of cleaning our house; he accepts that it exhausts me more than it does him. He has learned to cook and appreciate fine food from me. He appreciates opera now and we enjoy going to performances several times a year. He introduced me to Eminem, and I actually like the music. I now get why people listen to rap. This list goes on and on. Basically, we enrich each other’s lives and grow spiritually in each other’s company.
Here’s the take.
Basically, don’t give up your identity to your partner. Be proudly who you are and let him or her deal with it. Know your uncrossable lines and your non-negotiable dealbreakers. Otherwise, you could end up in a longterm unsatisfying or even abusive relationship.
If you do feel inspired to change for your partner, it should go both ways. You should be able to mutually influence each other in a positive way.
Don’t settle for less than you deserve. Make sure your partner’s behaviour standards match yours or exceed them. You want to become the best version of yourself; you want to explore the sunny heights, not the murky, hellish depths of life with your significant other. | https://medium.com/an-idea/six-things-i-learned-from-changing-myself-for-my-partners-9ffb110d8249 | ['Shoshana Kaufman'] | 2020-12-07 14:59:11.155000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Psychology', 'Self-awareness', 'Life Lessons'] |
Containers Security Methodologies | A mind mapping approach for implementing secure applications
Photo by Lucas van Oort on Unsplash
As I had the great opportunity to talk a little bit about containers security in the Open Security Summit, I wanted to share with you some mind maps that we created to summarize different mythologies and standards that the Security team can use as a reference when building applications that will run on a containerized environment.
1. OWASP Container Security Verification Standard
As described in the OWASP Web Site “The Container Security Verification Standard (CSVS) is a community-effort to establish a framework of security requirements and controls that focus on normalizing the functional and non-functional security controls required when designing, developing and testing container-based solutions with a focus on Docker”.
Definitely, CSVS is a great framework to help us to design and implement applications in containers. Here is the mind map of this standard with the múltiple stages it has: | https://medium.com/@michaelhidalgo/containers-security-methodologies-ca4f3edc9e0c | ['Michael Hidalgo'] | 2020-12-18 00:34:01.962000+00:00 | ['Containers', 'Container Security', 'Application Security', 'Standardization'] |
Getting Started With Clojure and Visual Studio Code | Clojure is a dynamic, functional programming language that is a joy to write. I’ve been writing it professionally for the last year-and-a-half and wanted to share something I wish existed when I first got started.
This guide is not a primer on Clojure itself. I will not be going over the basics of the language, there are plenty of great guides out there that are a web search away.
This guide, therefore, is aimed at:
Programmers coming from a different language who have decided to try Clojure;
Programmers that are writing Clojure for the first time professionally.
The motivation might be a quick way to get a reliable environment up and running, freeing up more time to focus on learning the language itself.
(Hopefully) after reading this post, you can quickly start to form a workflow for tinkering away at Clojure code in little time.
To keep the scope of this guide relatively focused, I will assume that you are using an up to date version of macOS and understand how to use Homebrew.
While Homebrew works on Linux, I’ve not personally used it, therefore I cannot vouch if the commands have parity.
Dependencies
You will need Java, Clojure, Leiningen, and Visual Studio Code installed.
brew install adoptopenjdk clojure leiningen
brew cask install visual-studio-code
Calva
The only Visual Studio Code extension you will need to be productive with Clojure codebases is Calva. Make sure to have it installed.
I will be using terminology that is specific to Visual Studio Code and its UI elements.
To reduce confusion, make sure to read this document to familiarise yourself with elements of the User Interface.
Let’s tinker
In this next part, we’re going to:
Create a new Clojure project using Leiningen.
Connect to the REPL using Visual Studio Code and Calva.
Evaluate Clojure expressions directly in your editor.
Evaluate and run tests directly in your editor.
Create a new Clojure project
Inside the directory you want to create your Clojure project, run
lein new clojure-sandbox
Open the newly created clojure-sandbox directory inside Visual Studio Code.
Jacking-In
A large part of building software with Clojure is the REPL. Programmers are familiar with the concept of a REPL from other programming languages (e.g. irb for Ruby, python3 for Python).
In Clojure, things are taken one step further. A REPL instance created with Leiningen has a network port that allows incoming connections.
Since the aforementioned port is opened over a socket, a valid client — a terminal session or an editor, for example — can connect to it.
The simplest way to open a REPL instance is to run the command lein run in the clojure-sandbox directory.
We can take things a step further, however, by connecting to a REPL instance from Visual Studio Code using Calva.
Calva takes care of all this for us by providing a command called Jack In .
In Visual Studio Code
Open src/clojure_sandbox/core.clj Bring up Visual Studio Code’s command palette. Type in Jack-In and select the option Calva: Start a Project REPL and Connect (aka Jack-In) Select the Leiningen project type
You should be connected to a REPL instance and ready to evaluate code.
Evaluating Clojure Forms
A quick screencast to help with visualising evaluating forms in Clojure.
By default, Calva opens a REPL window on the right hand side after Jack-In. I will refer to the window as the Calva REPL.
You can start to evaluate Clojure forms in the Calva REPL just like any other REPL. Type in an expression, press the return key and observe the feedback — e.g. typing (+ 2 2) followed by the return key will return 4 .
Since you have jacked into a REPL connection, you can tinker around with Clojure code in your editor and evaluate the code you write. This workflow is known in the Clojure community as “REPL driven development” and is a powerful paradigm.
Type (+ 2 2) anywhere in core.clj and then, with your cursor anywhere on that line, you can evaluate the result of this form by pressing Ctrl + Command + C and E or selecting Calva: Evaluate Current Form in Visual Studio Code’s command palette. This will output 4 to the output window.
Calva: Evaluate Current Form in REPL Window in Visual Studio Code’s command palette will evaluate output the evaluation to the REPL window instead of the output window.
I prefer using the output window on my laptop as I can close the REPL window and use the output window for my feedback loop, saving me precious screen real-estate.
The choice of the output window or REPL is a standard evaluation pattern in Calva. There are other options to output which you should play around with. I will focus on outputting the result to the output window, as that is my personal preference (but feel free to use the output type you prefer).
Once you start to write more complex Clojure, evaluating the result of a form might not do what you expect, e.g.
(let [name "Muyiwa"]
(str "Hello " name))
If your cursor is on "Hello " and you try to evaluate the form, you will get a syntax error because we are trying to evaluate and incomplete form. If your cursor is on name then it will evaluate to a function symbol.
For use-cases like this, you want Calva to evaluate the top-level form. If you start typing Top Level in the Visual Studio Code command palette, you can see your options. The shortcut to evaluate the top level form to the output window is Ctrl + Command + C``Space .
This is the command with the heaviest use when writing Clojure in my day-to-day as the top-level form will work even for the simple examples that we tried earlier like (+ 2 2) . It's a handy shortcut to know.
Running Clojure Tests
To run Clojure tests in Visual Studio Code, open a test file (e.g. test/clojure_sandbox/core_test.clj and start typing calva test into the Visual Studio Code command palette.
The four options:
Run Tests
Run Current Test
Run Failing Tests again
Run Tests for Current Namespace
Should be enough for you to fit into your testing workflow. See if you can make the test pass.
Conclusion
If this is the beginning of your journey with Clojure and REPL driven development, I recommend the following next steps:
Read the Calva documentation and refer to it when you need it.
Memorise the Calva shortcuts for Jack-In and Evaluate top level form .
and . Follow all the exercises under the Learn Clojure official guide, using the sandbox project and REPL driven development for the exercises.
Read the Leiningen documentation.
I hope this has been a useful primer to help you get going and focus on playing around with a delightful language. | https://muyiwa.medium.com/getting-started-with-clojure-and-visual-studio-code-15ef6283c496 | ['Muyiwa Olu'] | 2020-12-13 17:42:43.804000+00:00 | ['Guides And Tutorials', 'Clojure', 'Visual Studio Code'] |
Technology Radar — October 2020 review — Part 1 | Technology Radar — October 2020 review — Part 1
A review of the recent Technology Radar October 2020 update — I review at least three items from Techniques and Tools in this part
Yes! Vol. 23 is out now and this is my review. The Tech radar provides the Software Engineering community, a very good glimpse of what technologies, techniques, patterns, tools, languages, frameworks are recommended for Adopt, Trial, Assess and Hold in four quadrants.
You can also create your own radar, here
These are, however, only guidelines as they stand, based on the research performed by ThoughtWorks. Needless to say, these recommendations doesn’t suit every organisation depending upon your needs. What you are encouraged to do though, is to create your own Technology Radar; see thoughtworks.com for more details.
Photo by William Topa on Unsplash
This article gives you my perspective of the techniques that I identify as ready to be adopted and fit into the current architectural/system design needs of many organisations; no matter the size/team, how disruptive or what you are building. You can also subscribe to the radar so that you won’t miss the radar as it is published.
Check out the interesting themes for this edition; new normal REST APIs with GraphQL, IaaC and low-code, if you are into that type of thing.
The Radar is a document that sets out the changes that we think are currently interesting in software development — things in motion that we think you should pay attention to and consider using in your projects. It reflects the idiosyncratic opinion of a bunch of senior technologists and is based on our day-to-day work and experiences. While we think this is interesting, it shouldn’t be taken as a deep market analysis.
Birth of Technology Radar
As a supplement, if you want to know about the history of Technology Radar, this will help.
Photo by Yves Alarie on Unsplash
Techniques
Interactive radar: https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/techniques
Trial: CD4ML
As machine learning models evolve within respective domains, it is ever more important to enable continuous delivery as part of the MLOps.
Continuous Delivery for Machine Learning (CD4ML) is the discipline of bringing Continuous Delivery principles and practices to Machine Learning applications.
While the concept is in the trial, it is worth evaluating the tools that support the CD4ML from the start as you look to continuously improve ML models, from idea to value.
Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash
TRIAL: Event Interception
This concept is very simple; intercept events and make a copy of it elsewhere so that you can replay and build a new system using the strangler pattern, thus retiring your Legacy.
In the SQL world, Change Data Capture or CDC has been exactly that which lets programmatically intercept the events based on the transaction log and perform actions based on the output. I worked on a simple solution in an Asset Management solution long ago, if you want any insights, please reach out to me.
ASSESS: Kube-managed cloud services
If you are reading this, you are aware of the power of Kubernetes in orchestrating containers, in the cloud and in on-prem. Also being used by teams in Terraform and Pulumi for provisioning infrastructure, the new custom resources definitions supported by the Kubernetes-style APIs are now available in the cloud and offered by AWS, Azure and GCP. You should try if this is something for you if you afford to accept the fact that, it tightly couples your Kubernetes cluster with the Infrastructure.
Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash
Tools
Interactive radar: https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/tools
Tools quadrant is looking good with no items in the HOLD which means it all up for grabs in terms of any R&D to discover anything suitable for your team or organisation. Here is my review:
Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash
ADOPT: Dependabot
The idea of automatically sends your pull requests to update your dependencies to their latest versions is a dream come true! It is integrated with GitHub for you try to and also consider Renovate which supports a wide range of services, including GitLab, Azure DevOps.
A DOPT: Helm
A package manager for Kubernetes and it has greatly simplified the application lifecycle management in Kubernetes, with its dependency management, templating and hook mechanism.
A SSESS: Litmus
Chaos engineering tool for Kubernetes, with a low barrier to entry. It offers beyond random pod kill, including simulating network, CPU, memory and I/O issues. It is also interesting to learn that it supports tailored experiments to simulate errors in Kafka and Cassandra. You could try Gremlin, too.
Kubernetes overview
Principles of Chaos Engineering; courtesy: Gremlin
Photo by Ashim D’Silva on Unsplash
A SSESS: OSS Index
It is super important for development teams to identify whether the dependencies of their application have known vulnerabilities. OSS Index could be used to achieve this goal.
It is a free catalogue of open-source components and scanning tools designed to help developers identify vulnerabilities, understand risk and keep their software safe. It is fast, vulnerabilities are identified accurately and only a few false positives occur.
Supported Ecosystems; courtesy: OSS Index
Rest API documentation:
Photo by Romain Chollet on Unsplash
Create Your Radar
You can create your own technology radar and see where the blips are compared to the ones published by Thoughtworks. It is important for you to understand the differentiator and what makes sense for you and why. There is also constant review needed in order adjust your radar when there is a need for a new framework or techniques that your team want to adopt and they have a credible reason/business case for it. Also, be mindful that you’d also need to create some artefacts including a lightweight Proof of concept to ensure that you are not leaving it too far to figure out any major constraints with the items from our Radar and perform a durable Market scan(s).
Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash
Have you created and used your own Technology Radar for your project/organisation? It’d be great to hear your feedback and experience (comments welcome)! | https://medium.com/cloudweed/technology-radar-october-2020-review-part-1-5e958c4a456a | ['Karthick Thoppe'] | 2020-12-24 11:07:52.290000+00:00 | ['Cloud Computing', 'Software Development', 'Technology Radar', 'DevOps', 'Technology'] |
SoftTech VC Closes $150M Across Two New Funds | Early in January 2016, I was thrilled to announce Stephanie Palmeri and Andy McLoughlin becoming Partners! At that time, we filed SEC Form Ds disclosing the creation of two new funds — SoftTech VC V and SoftTech Plus. We’re delighted to announce that both funds have closed at their hard cap, respectively $100M and $50M — great news as we celebrate our 12-year anniversary. Most importantly, we are beyond excited by the myriad of new, radical innovations we see coming from early stage entrepreneurs and the opportunity we have to help them realize their vision with our active support and capital.
To share a bit of background: we invest our funds on a 3-year investment cycle and will be wrapping up Fund IV (that held a final close a couple of years ago) as planned sometime in Q316. Why raise a fund when we had plenty of dry powder in Fund IV? When we discussed our fund raising plans with Limited Partners (LPs) last year, we were warned that a large number of managers were planning to go to market in the first half of 2016. Their advice: it should be easy for us to raise but we should go out early in order to do it quickly. That’s essentially what we did.
SoftTech VC V
Our $100M Fund V is the slightly larger version of Fund IV ($85M). We will invest in about forty seed stage startups over the next three years, with initial check size ranging from $500K to $1.5M. We will also reserve capital for Series A and B pro-rata investments — with an objective to recycle all management fees and up to 20% of the Fund. We “hard capped” Fund V at $100M as we believe that it is very challenging to have a seed focused strategy, strive for bringing the best possible co-investors and limit founder dilution with funds that are much larger. While we could have raised up to $200M for this vehicle, we elected to be disciplined.
Like Fund IV, Fund V will look at acquiring 7 to 10% of the companies it invests in by writing checks ranging from $500K to $1.5M. We expect to continue leading and taking board seats in 30% of the deals we close — serving on these boards for about two to three years. The rest of the time, we will co-lead or join a syndicate led by one of our peers. Companies we invest in at seed stage will typically be raising $2M to $3M, after developing a product that has received some initial validation from early users or customers. They may have raised a friends and family round, a pre-seed round, or have gone through an incubator.
[caption id=”attachment_82535" align=”alignright” width=”450"]
Core investment sectors, technology and wedges for SoftTech VC’s $100 Fund V[/caption]
Our portfolio construction has evolved over the past twelve years and four funds: way back, I started by investing heavily in “traction-based” consumer internet, gaming and adtech — three categories we have move away from in recent years. Just as new categories of startups have emerged, we’ve evolved our focus areas to take advantage of opportunities ripe for investment. We have updated our sector chart to reflect the areas of interest of Fund V:
SaaS/B2B will again be our core focus, looking for opportunities in cloud infrastructure, vertical SaaS, developer tools and the mobile application stack.
Connected Devices, both consumer and industrial, now have their own sector after years of “New Areas” classification.
Consumer Services and Media will typically have a clearly defined business model (subscription, ad-based, freemium,…), even if it may not be in place when we invest.
Commerce and Marketplaces will primarily consist of investments in B2C and B2B marketplaces and e-commerce infrastructure.
New Areas is our “catch all” sector dedicated to new categories, technologies or types of investments before they become eligible for their own sector. That’s where Connected Devices like Fitbit, August, and Molekule started. In Fund V, “New Areas” deals may include AR/VR, AI, autonomous vehicles, and robotics opportunities.
In addition to sectors, we also have the concept of Wedges — industries in which we invest across quadrants. In the past we have been very active in Education Tech and Healthcare IT. In Fund V, we’ll continue with both, as well as Government and “Blue Collar” tech (which covers non-knowledge workers in construction, transportation, hospitality, etc.).
It’s fair to say that we invest in a very broad set of categories — but we are extremely concentrated geographically. Roughly 80% of our investments are in the Bay Area, 10 to 15% are on the East Coast between New York and Boston, and the rest are in Canada (between Toronto and Waterloo). We’re open to coming back to Los Angeles or Boulder, where we’ve had successful investments in the past — but that’s pretty much it. And while we don’t invest outside of North America, we are more than happy to invest in strong international teams that have relocated to the US.
SoftTech VC Plus
A number of our colleagues have raised Opportunity funds in the last few years. While implementations can vary widely, these are typically late stage vehicles that allow firms to double down on their best companies when the fund that originally invested is out of capacity for follow-on investments.
This is the purpose of the Plus Fund: it will invest $2M to $5M (or more) in Series C or Series D rounds of existing portfolio companies, going as far back as Fund II. Only a subset of deals will a fit for the Plus fund, based on a set of criteria we’ll refine over time (revenues, growth rate, valuation, potential exit multiple, etc.). We expect to invest in 12 to 15 companies over the next three years.
So far, Plus has made one investment: the $35M Series C round of Vidyard led by Battery Ventures, in which we contributed $3M.
A Swift Fundraising
We were fortunate to assemble a strong syndicate of institutional Limited Partners when we raised Fund IV and proudly saw all of them come back in this raise. Per the advice of our LP Advisory Committee (LPAC), we released our data room to existing and prospective LPs on Dec 23rd (our way of wishing them “Happy Holidays!”). We followed with six weeks of fundraising meetings and initiated the closing process — our first close happened at the end of March for $95M in Fund V and $32M in Plus, and the final close took place last week with a handful of new LPs who needed some extra time for their investment process.
Our anchors among existing LPs were Michael Kim from Cendana Capital and Trey Hart from Northern Trust, who are again joining our LPAC. They are joined by Lindel Eakman from FG Next and Greg Millhauser from Glenmede, both new LPs in Fund V and Plus. Other large investors include Knollwood Investment Advisory and the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. In total, we welcomed 40 investors in this raise: 18 institutional, 16 individuals and 6 family offices. And we’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support and their trust.
None of this would be possible without the hard work of the 176 founding teams we have invested in to date — and we want to thank them too.
One More Thing
We’re excited to announce that Nicole Carpenter is joining us as Executive Assistant for all three Partners, after three years assisting the CEO and executive team of Super Bowl 50. A warm welcome to her as the latest member of the SoftTech family.
Ashley Cravens has been promoted to Director of Operations and will focus on managing the firm’s back office, events, HR, and finance operations. I want to thank her for her tremendous support over the last 6 years as my Executive Assistant and congratulate her on this new role!
Twelve Years
SoftTech VC has come a long way, from me on my own in a tiny attic office in Palo Alto investing from modest savings to my team of investment partners and operations support in our thriving San Francisco office, with $300M+ in assets under management. In addition to our 176 deals, we’ve launched a robust series of monthly and annual events (including our Founder Summit, CTO Summit, and expert roundtables) to better connect the amazing network of SoftTech founders and executives.
Our entire team is beyond excited to start a new chapter for the firm with these two new funds and to find additional ways to support our founders. We’re humbled to have the opportunity to back more awesome entrepreneurs whose crazy ideas just might work and to help them build iconic companies that will have a meaningful, positive impact. Finally, I am thankful for the opportunity to serve a 4-year term on the NVCA board, supporting Bobby Franklin and his team in their invaluable service to our industry. | https://medium.com/uncorkcapital/softtech-vc-closes-150m-across-two-new-funds-a32f8d94840d | ['Uncork Capital'] | 2017-10-23 17:31:15.355000+00:00 | ['Softtech Vc', 'Venture Capital', 'News'] |
Java To Kotlin Part 5 — The Five Siblings | This is part 5 in a series of posts intended to help a Java developer convert to Kotlin. Should you be new to this series, you can find part 1 here.
The five siblings are apply , also , let , run , and with . They act in much the same manner but have a few, sometimes subtle, differences.
This post is going to rely heavily on an understanding of receivers. If you’re unfamiliar with receivers, or just want a refresher, please refer to the following:
This is a general article on receivers in object oriented programming.
This contains a particularly insightful StackOverflow answer on receivers in Kotlin.
with , apply , and run act on the receiver inside a block of code by turning the receiver into this . This means that they are very handy for running a set of commands on a single object. let’s use this EmployeeBuilder as an example:
If we wanted to use EmployeeBuilder to create an Employee, we could do the following:
The setting of parameters in the EmployeeBuilder could be done with less boilerplate by making the EmployeeBuilder the receiver. The following will demonstrate some of the different ways we could do this:
With
The with method is pretty simple. It allows us to use employeeBuilder as a receiver:
The with statement is a transformer function. This means that it returns whatever the lambda returns. This means we can call buildEmployee() inside the with block and the following result will be returned:
This is great because we can just in-line the whole function:
Apply
apply works in almost the same way as with . There are two noticeable differences:
The first difference is that apply is called on the object you want as the receiver, as opposed to with taking the receiver as a parameter:
The second difference is that, instead of returning the result like in with , apply returns the object that it was was applied to. This also means that you can’t return Employee from inside the lambda, as it expects an EmployeeBuilder . This is handy, as we can just append the buildEmployee() method onto the end of the apply block:
apply is useful for configuring an object outside of it’s constructor. It’s also useful for general method chaining, especially at any place where you can ignore the return of a method call. For example, apply could be used for setting the attributes of a Calendar class, as it has already been declared and we don’t need to act on anything that results from the setting of the attributes.
When viewing the decompiled Kotlin code, both the standard method, apply , and with generate the same code:
This is notable because it means these are purely convenience functions. They generate no additional overhead during runtime, so don’t be shy about using them.
Run
run can be thought of as a middle ground between with and apply . We call run in the same way as apply , by chaining it to the object we want to be the receiver. Like with , run can return an object inside of the lambda:
Let
let (and also ) binds to the parameter passed into it instead of the receiver. This means that instead of just calling a function belonging to the receiver, we need to call it.[function]() :
As can be seen in this sample, let (like with and run ) returns the contents of the lambda.
Also
Our final sibling is also . As mentioned earlier, also acts on the parameter instead of the receiver. The difference between let and also is that, like apply , it returns the same object that the lambda was called on:
Examples for Part 5 can be found here.
Further reading:
Here is an in-depth article on these methods. Note that in many places these are called the “standard functions”. This is partly true. While the 5 siblings are standard functions, the Kotlin language contains many more standard functions.
Here is a handy spreadsheet that summarizes the functions that were covered in this post. | https://medium.com/tech-travelstart/java-to-kotlin-part-5-the-five-siblings-4d096f276132 | ['Michael Duivestein'] | 2019-03-04 19:28:57.831000+00:00 | ['Kotlin', 'Software Development', 'Java', 'Programming'] |
Here’s how to escape pain | About a week ago (week ago) I had a chat with some folk, which kind of turned into an impromptu intervention. When it was over, someone asked me why I didn’t say anything, since I have a background in psychology and still study it.
I said, “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
I’m very used to giving people advice and them not taking it. I don’t mean this in a whiny why-won’t-they-listen-to-me kind of way. I, for one, am guilty of the same. People, by and large, do not listen to people who know better than they do.
Financial experts can tell you EXACTLY what to do to be prosperous, but you won’t do it. Relationship therapists can tell you EXACTLY what your relationship problems are, but you’ll ignore it. A cookbook can tell you EXACTLY how to prepare your meal, but you will do what you want to do.
And the only way you will listen is when your back is against the wall and you have only one option: Listen to the people you’ve been ignoring/seek help from those who have what you want. I raise my hand in testimony of this because this is me, and it might be you too.
For example, I have/had money problems. But because I was not too uncomfortable, I continued in my normal life and didn’t address the growing problem in the manner which I should’ve. Until it got horrendously bad.
Another example is when I lost a relationship and because I tethered happiness and that person together, I was in a whirlwind of pain. Luckily, a little voice told me where to go to get the answer I needed, and sure enough, I got the help and I’ve been getting better ever since.
People can cry, complain, moan, etc. but watch what happens when you give them a solution. Suddenly the problem isn’t that bad anymore. They can take care of it themselves. If you watch Bojack Horseman, you can see it in Bojack himself. There is knowledge that there’s a problem, but a fear in actually addressing it.
We’re afraid of what we’ll uncover. We think it’ll kill us, when the truth is, we’ll kill ourselves or end up killed because we aren’t dealing with our problems.
When we are suffering, we tend to do something that will alleviate the pain. We are always trying to do something to deal with our pain. We are truly proactive because suffering feels like crap and we want to feel good again.
However, the methods that we take are often escapes. In my humble opinion, there is only one path to healing, and that is through the emotion.
Let’s revisit the money problem. I get backed into a corner with regards to money and now have to fight my way out of it. The first thing I think of doing is to find a job. Makes a ton of sense, right? That should solve the problem, right?
Wrong.
While I do need money and a job is certainly one way to get money, we still didn’t actually address the entire problem. The problem is two-fold. Secondarily, I need to get money. Primarily, I need to go through the pain of not having money.
Now, I could get a job and alleviate my money troubles. However, I would still travel with the same fear of not having enough. And to be honest, I question if I would be able to improve my financial situation simply because if I’m mired in fear about money, chances are I’m going to do some stupid shit or be paralyzed.
It’s like they say, courage isn’t the absence of fear but the ability to act in spite of it. But to act, you have to acknowledge that the fear is there. Denying it isn’t going to help you. Running away from it isn’t going to help you. The emotion is a message that something is off. In my case, it means “As an able-bodied and intelligent person, I should be able to provide for myself and pay for what I use. So to not have money is something I resent.”
Usually, when people try to change their circumstances, what they’re really doing is trying to change how they feel. But the truth is if they could feel calm, cool, collected and copacetic in the circumstance, they wouldn’t try to escape it so much or think more rationally on how to deal with the situation. And when you try to change what is because you hate how you’re feeling, you stay stuck in the emotion and probably the circumstance because what you resist, persists.
So yes, it is perfectly okay to try and change the circumstance but that is largely secondary to the primary problem which is how you feel about the circumstance. (I always feel like I’m going to be ridiculed for making such a point but I keep experiencing it as true.)
Relationships are the same. We need to feel the pain of yesteryear so that we aren’t trying to attach ourselves to people in order to fill the void caused by a lack of love and low self-worth. This one can be deceptively hard because we’ve lived with the pain for so long that if we aren’t in tune with our emotions, we will certainly just choose people who will trigger us like our caregivers did again and again and again.
So make sure you get into a relationship because you have the desire to feel connection, not because of the fear of loneliness or to plug a void or to increase feelings of self-worth and self-love.
Similarly, get money because you have been adding value to the lives of others, not because you’re food insecure or afraid of being destitute or being ridiculed or scared of being a burden on others.
And the only way to get these things and more is to address the suffering that prevent us from taking the healthy route and instead have us walking the paths that lead us to more suffering.
So how do we escape pain? We don’t. We welcome it, it tells us the thing it’s been trying to tell us so that we can move forward, and then it goes. | https://alchemisjah.medium.com/heres-how-to-escape-pain-7166b9222017 | ['Jason Henry'] | 2018-09-28 10:01:01.779000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Personal Development', 'Self Improvement', 'Personal Growth', 'Life'] |
Flashback Christmas Eve, 1998; The Day I Lost My Science Career Due to My Credit Score | The day America murdered my faith in humanity.
I was on a two-week high going into that Christmas. A few months prior I was laid off after six years. Early that December I got a new job. I was to start in the new year. I was hopeful and looking forward to the new beginning, the security, and to the challenge the work would provide me.
I felt free. I felt valued. I felt respected. But only for a moment.
I would be able to put the micromanaging of my last boss who timed my bathroom breaks out of my mind. I would regain my dignity and my self-confidence. I would be able to catch up on my bills again and be a real productive member of society.
It was sometime that afternoon on Christmas Eve 1998 that I received a phone call from the Human Resources department of my new employer. As my phone rang, I felt the black cloud and panic overtake me. My previous life experiences had conditioned me to expect the worst for no reason.
Even though I was still under 30, people had already found a way to torture my psyche. They seemed to get some sick pleasure out of it.
I told myself not to panic as I answered the phone. I had no reason to believe that anything could possibly be wrong. The Human Resources harpy who would have thrived as an assassin or even just a common serial killer informed me that “the company” had to renege my job offer.
The shoddy reason she gave was that my credit score wasn’t high enough for the position. It was not a position handing money. It wasn’t in finance or accounting. It was in science. I just wasn’t born into the right class.
After being laid off because I was human and needed to urinate on occasion, I was unable to keep up on all my bills and had damaged my credit. I would never have thought that an employer would take back a job offer due to recent bad credit. Did they think they would be helping me to improve my credit score by denying me the ability to make a living? Did they think that not having a salary would improve my credit score? It was madness.
What kind of sick, stupid, punitive society takes away someone’s ability to pay their bills because they have been unable to pay their bills due to unemployment? What kind of fucked up twisted mindset does someone have to accept to do this to a decent person? | https://medium.com/illumination/flashback-christmas-eve-1998-the-day-i-lost-my-science-career-due-to-my-credit-score-d0ae82e3fe4a | ['Markus Scorelius'] | 2020-12-25 06:46:26.718000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Credit Score', 'Science', 'This Happened To Me', 'Covid 19'] |
Bigger Than Us #120: K12 Climate Action | Bigger Than Us #120: K12 Climate Action
Laura Schifter is a Senior Fellow leading K12 Climate Action with the Aspen Insititute and a lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Host Raj Daniels 02:01
If you were asked to share something interesting about yourself, what would it be?
Laura Schifter 02:05
So one thing that’s interesting about myself that I like to share and let people know is that I am dyslexic and actually grew up having a lot of difficulties reading. And I think that my dyslexia actually greatly impacts the way that I think about and work on issues today.
Host Raj Daniels 02:26
So that is interesting. I have a couple of friends one very close to me who’s dyslexic, he actually runs quite a successful business. His biggest challenge I want to ask a question for him, then is that how do you handle your emails?
Laura Schifter 02:38
So I actually use technology. I think one of the things that’s amazing is how technology has really advanced to help people with dyslexia. But I use speech to text and text to speech frequently when I’m dealing with emails. To read aloud my emails, I use the text to speech feature all the time, and my computer reads the emails aloud to me, and it makes things a lot easier.
Host Raj Daniels 03:07
You know, you’re right. And I will convey that to him. I think he does something very similar. But I’m always just curious, because, as you mentioned, now that we have the technology to help people with, I’m going to say not learning problems, but my daughter has a very special name for it. She says people are uniquely gifted. Prior to technology, I just kind of wonder, in my mind how people were able to maneuver through some of the required reading, you know, in school and just in everyday life.
Laura Schifter 03:33
Yeah, it was certainly difficult. Growing up, I think one of the things that I was very fortunate to have was parents who really understood that I just needed access to material, that it wasn’t that I was any less intelligent than my other sisters. So they really worked hard. My sister actually used to record books on tape for me. And she would help me with reading by doing that. And I was lucky to have a lot of teachers who also recognized my ability to learn and work with me to get access to the material so that it could demonstrate what I know.
Host Raj Daniels 04:14
It really is amazing. Do you still have the recordings?
Laura Schifter 04:17
I think my mom does still have some of the recordings that my sister had made. Yes.
Host Raj Daniels 04:22
That must be really special.
Laura Schifter 04:24
Yes, it certainly is. And, you know, I think I think my parents and I think my teachers all the time for really helping me get to where I am. I feel so fortunate that you know, I was able to have the academic trajectory that I did. And one of the things I have been working on for a long time is trying to figure out ways to actually have more students be able to have success in their academic trajectory as well and have teachers be able to hold them to high expectations but ensure that they have the tools that they need to reach those expectations.
…with over 50 million children in public schools, that’s nearly one in every six Americans in our public schools, that as we consider needs around mitigation and adaptation, we actually have a real opportunity to help educate, and support teaching and learning so that children and youth can develop the skills that they need to advance a more sustainable society in their future.
Host Raj Daniels 05:05
That sounds beautiful. And speaking of academics, can you give the audience an overview of K12 Climate Action and your role at the organization?
Laura Schifter 05:14
We recently launched an initiative called K12 Climate Action. And our goal with K12 Climate Action is to unlock the power of the education sector to be a force towards climate action solutions and environmental justice.
I think what we have really seen is that the education sector has not been very vocal and its role to address climate change. And likewise, large scale climate solutions haven’t really considered the role that education can play. But there’s both a large need and a big opportunity. There’s a large need because our education sector is a large public sector with a considerable environmental footprint. Our public schools are the largest consumers of energy and public sector buildings, the school bus fleet, with 480,000 buses is larger than all municipal fleets across the country. And schools serve over 7 billion meals annually. So there’s a sizable environmental footprint.
There’s also a lot of need around adaptation. I think one of the things that we’ve seen with COVID is that our schools and our communities are not very well prepared to deal with disruptions to our school system and learning. And yet, we know that climate impacts are going to increasingly cause disruptions for schools as well. So we really need to be thinking about how we adapt and prepare schools more for climate change. But there’s also a large opportunity. Education has been identified as a critical social tipping point, for actually moving society to address climate change.
And with over 50 million children in public schools, that’s nearly one in every six Americans in our public schools, that as we consider needs around mitigation and adaptation, we actually have a real opportunity to help educate, and support teaching and learning so that children and youth can develop the skills that they need to advance a more sustainable society in their future. So what we’re really working to do with K12 Climate Action is to learn more about the needs and opportunities to engage the education sector in this work.
We’ve launched a commission with a lot of experts in the field of education and the environment field, policymakers to come together around an action plan to support our education sector and moving towards climate action solutions and environmental justice.
Host Raj Daniels 08:04
Now, you mentioned 50 million schoolchildren. I had the pleasure a few months ago, interviewing Glenn Branch, he’s the Deputy Director of the National Center for Science Education. And he enlightened me by sharing that there are over 13,000 school districts in America. And essentially, they all march to the beat of their own drum. What is the plan to get to these school districts and, you know, essentially find out what they’re doing and then influence them to adopt the K12 action plan?
Laura Schifter 08:43
The way that school districts and schools operate is there, there is a lot of local autonomy and local flexibility, but there are roles that different levers play so the school district has a critical role in determining certain decisions around things like curriculum in schools. The state also plays a critical role in determining things like state standards and setting expectations for what students should know and be able to do. States can also play a considerable role around funding things like infrastructure improvements in schools as well and set certain policies that help schools mitigate their environmental impact.
Even though the federal government’s role in education is smaller than the state and local role, the federal government also plays a critical role as well. And the role that the federal government plays is usually geared towards helping advance equity in schools and providing supports for those students who are furthest behind. And those levers can also really be used in this context. There’s also I think, real opportunity in the thinking about the federal role right now for schools. And thinking about the transition to a Biden Harris administration, an opportunity to help support schools in this work, I think there’s been a lot of talk about the Biden Harris administration investing in infrastructure across the country. And if you’re investing in infrastructure improvements in schools, you can actually use this as an opportunity to install things like solar, and really help schools move closer to net zero energy consumption, which has a lot of benefits then for school districts locally, because it helps ensure that funding for school districts is going more towards teaching and learning in the classroom, rather than on things like energy costs, which currently energy costs are the second highest cost for school districts behind salaries. So it’s a sizable cost.
So I think in using all these different levers, it’s thinking strategically about how you can best support schools in this work and, and really thinking about too, I think there’s going to be a lot of receptivity among schools and school districts and doing this work, in large part because children and youth in these school districts have shown that there’s a large desire to move towards climate action. So if you get the people in the building wanting to move in this way, there should be a lot of opportunity to engage people in this work.
Host Raj Daniels 11:41
So you mentioned mitigation a couple of times, can you give an example or a couple of examples of mitigation? And you also, you also mentioned net zero? Are there any schools out there right now that are actually net zero?
Laura Schifter 11:52
So first, thinking about mitigation in schools, thinking about energy and infrastructure, within school systems is a huge component of thinking about mitigation in schools. I mean, as I said, energy is the second-highest cost for school districts. So actually thinking about supporting schools in retrofits to become more efficient, and of course, healthy as well. So maintaining a focus on healthy learning environments for children. But thinking about ways to first become more efficient, and then also utilize things like renewable energy in schools, there’s huge potential.
There’s a school district that recently adopted solar panels in Arkansas. And actually, they’re using the savings that they’re making from the energy costs and trips and transferring that money to actually be teacher raises. So there’s benefits both in terms of the environment on mitigation in that component, as well as for the teachers in the school district.
Other issues on mitigation, I think thinking about transportation, and actually ensuring that we have clean transportation and transitioning diesel buses to electric buses is a huge opportunity for school.
And thinking about food consumption in schools, another area where schools really need to think about mitigation. You have the procurement of food, so our schools, our schools getting their food locally, or sustainable food, you have kind of the decisions around what is being eaten in the cafeteria, and what impact that has. And then there’s also thinking about what you do with the food waste. And there are steps that you can take to reduce the environmental impact of each of those along the way.
And then to your last question about net-zero schools, there are several net-zero schools, I believe we just released a state policy landscape that looked at some of these issues across states. I believe 11 states currently have net-zero schools in their state. There is a net-zero school actually here in Arlington, Virginia. It’s called Discovery Elementary. And they use a combination of solar geothermal building design, to actually be net-zero, and the amount that the school district saves covers the cost of two starting teacher salaries in the district. So it actually has a big impact then for the school district itself.
Host Raj Daniels 14:47
Speaking of teachers, I have a third-grader, fifth-grader, and seventh grader, and I can’t tell you that any one of them has come home and said you know, today we’re learning about climate change in school. How do we get the messaging down into the curriculum to the teachers?
Laura Schifter 15:03
So I think the most important thing to help teachers in the classroom with thinking about teaching climate change is to look to the best practices that are occurring. So there are teachers and students that are actually engaged in this work all across the country right now. And I think one of the things that we’re trying to do through K12 Climate Action is trying to elevate and share the best practices that are occurring.
There’s a lot of research that’s been done about teaching climate change in the science curriculum for instance, and how to best support schools and teachers in that work. And several states actually have state standards that do teach climate change through the science curriculum. But there’s a lot less that’s going on out there and thinking about how to teach climate change across the curriculum. And one place that they’ve done really well is actually New Jersey, and New Jersey, just this summer adopted cross-curricular state standards that address climate change. So it provides supports for teachers and thinking about what students should know, in English class, how to engage students in conversations about climate change in English class or in social studies. So thinking about it more broadly.
Host Raj Daniels 16:29
I think the social studies pieces very important. Can you elaborate on that, please?
Laura Schifter 16:34
Yeah, so I believe there are five states across the country right now that currently do include climate change in their social studies, standards. And one of those things that really helps students do is they’re learning about the impacts of climate change on things like government or the impact of climate change on the economy. And thinking about it broader than just the science behind climate change. It’s actually thinking about the impact of climate change on society. And really helping students think about how climate change has these bigger societal impacts, and what it is that we need to do as a society to actually address and approach climate change.
Host Raj Daniels 17:21
Now, if there are parents like myself listening, how can we get involved? What can we do to perhaps help share the message?
Laura Schifter 17:29
So one of the things that would be great to do is, we want to learn more about some of that great work that’s going on across the country. So we’d love to have parents or educators or students come to k12climateaction.org and tell us what their schools are doing or tell us what they think schools should be doing on this work, we really want to build into this action plan input from people’s experiences across the country. So we’d love to hear more about what is currently going on across the country.
Host Raj Daniels 18:03
Now, does the K12 Climate Action Plan also address jobs or future jobs in the sector?
Laura Schifter 18:09
Yeah, so you know, one of the things that our education system does is is a component of that is a career and technical education. And one area that we recently looked at was how career and technical education programs are currently preparing children and youth for jobs in environmental sustainability and clean energy. And there’s a considerable amount of variability across the country, for how career and technical education programs are preparing students currently. One of the things that we’re learning about through K12 Climate Action is how career and technical education programs can better support students in being prepared for green jobs in the future.
The climate impacts that we’ve seen don’t discriminate about where they’re impacting people based on party lines.
Host Raj Daniels 19:00
So recently, we’ve been engaging with quite a few universities, through our show, speaking with professors that are teaching perhaps environmental science or engineering, because what we’ve done or what I’ve tried to do, very consciously, with the show, is covered different industries, topics, segments, you know, in the broader climate change or cleantech area sectors, because we want to perhaps highlight different entry points for students that can engage from a career perspective.
Laura Schifter 19:31
Yeah, and I think that that there are components that can be built into K12 education as well to help students do that. When we think about the jobs that are going to need a different perspective for environmental sustainability, I think it’s things like engineering and some of those clean energy jobs like solar technicians or solar installers or wind turbine technicians. But there’s also going to be a huge need for a different mindset on sustainability for people in traditional business, and for people in politics. So really thinking about what are those skills and those mindsets that people will need to have in the future, about humans impact on the environment, it’s really going to be cross-cutting, and we need to ensure that our schools are providing students with those skills so that whatever field they end up in, in the future, they will have a sustainability mindset.
If we can get break down some of those barriers and move past some of the debates and really start to see what the opportunities are for people, it will help build a bridge.
Host Raj Daniels 20:38
And you mentioned politics and the reason Biden Harris, when there’s a lot of both emotions right now post-election. How do you share this message, removing it from politics?
Laura Schifter 20:53
Well, you know, I think there’s a lot at stake for people all across the country. In thinking about these issues, as we think about things like mitigation, for instance, and, and supporting schools towards reducing their environmental footprint, that that benefits taxpayer dollars, it benefits taxpayers, it makes sure that local taxes are going to schools to support teaching and learning, which is better for everyone, especially when we’re facing the likelihood of real economic shortfalls for our school districts in the years to come. Actually thinking about how to use those, those dollars more effectively, to support teaching and learning can have benefits for everyone.
I also think, really thinking about these issues around adaptation are going to be critical for people across the country. The climate impacts that we’ve seen don’t discriminate about where they’re impacting people based on party lines. And I think thinking about how to better equip our school systems to be more resilient in preparation for climate impacts is going to be critical for everyone.
And I also think thinking about the jobs of the future and thinking about what our next-generation workforce really needs. A lot of people want to make sure that the US remains competitive, that our children are able to access good-paying jobs, and actually having a mindset around sustainability is going to help them do that. And so I think if we try and step back from politics, and really think about the benefits of supporting our schools and doing this work, there’s an opportunity to bring more people in.
Host Raj Daniels 22:47
I strongly agree with you. There’s a big opportunity. I think there’s room for everyone.
Laura Schifter 22:54
If we can get break down some of those barriers and move past some of the debates and really start to see what the opportunities are for people, it will help build a bridge.
Host Raj Daniels 23:08
Yes, it will. So now we’re getting to the crux of our conversation, the why behind what you do. Early in the conversation, you mentioned dyslexia, but you know, looking at your LinkedIn profile, Harvard graduate, so obviously didn’t hold you back. But now, you’re here running K12 Climate Action Plan. What’s your why, what motivated you to come on board for this program?
Laura Schifter 23:36
Most of my background has been in education. It’s been in education policy, and specifically special education. That was my area of focus for a long time. And then, when the IPCC came out with their report on 1.5 degrees warming and the media kind of splashed that out a little bit more. That was the first time I think it really hit me how critical these issues were. And I know there are so many people across the country who have been saying the same stuff for years. And I maybe came to this a little bit later. But that was when it hit me in the face, how important the issue was.
I remember just sitting down with my husband that night. And he’s been, you know, arguing for a long time that I really need to think more about these issues and focus on it. And I just remember sitting down with him and he was just, you know, oh, finally, Laura, you understand? And that moment of clarity just made me feel like for me to feel like my work is purposeful, I knew I had to do something on these issues.
I started researching different environmental organizations, trying to figure out how I could lend myself to this work. And actually, the opportunity kind of clicked for me when Jay Inslee announced he was running for president. And he said, on day one, he would ask every department to submit their plan to address climate change. And it hit me, the Department of Education, we don’t really have a plan to address climate change. I work with all these people in the education policy space, and we don’t really talk about it enough. But there is a really big need and an opportunity to push schools in this work. So maybe this is a way that I can get involved. Maybe I can start facilitating some conversations with the people that I work with, and see if we can try and bring people together and mobilize people to recognize that education both has a responsibility to move towards climate action, and also see education as a key pillar as a climate solution.
And so over the next year and a half, I really started just talking to a lot of different people, learning more about where this work is already occurring in the country, learning more about different stakeholders in this space, and started connecting further with the Aspen Institute to think about that and build out this plan. I’ve been working on it for almost two years, in thinking about this plan, and it’s really exciting to see, you know, how far we’ve been able to come and the number of times since this was just an idea. But we also still have a long way to go to really help ensure that our 98,000 public schools are true models of sustainability.
Host Raj Daniels 27:11
Well, two years into it, what is the most what are some of the most valuable lessons that you would say you’ve learned about yourself in the journey?
Laura Schifter 27:19
I think, certainly, one valuable lesson is to not give up. I feel like with this path, a lot of it took a lot of meetings and conversations and, and trying to talk to different people and float a concept, get feedback, integrate it. And there are certain points where I feel like you think that you’ve run out of people to talk to, because you have so many different meetings and conversations, but then there’s always that next person to talk to. So I think it’s sometimes just continuing to kind of persevere even though you might have a lot of ups and downs on the journey, and you might have people that don’t respond or, or maybe give you feedback that’s critical. And it’s figuring out how to kind of make the most of that to push a concept and an idea forward and keep figuring out ways to learn from the feedback that you’re getting and kind of move things forward.
That perseverance has been tough, especially since a lot of my background has been more in the education side of things. And I’ve had a very steep learning curve on the environmental side of things. But it’s just to continue to keep learning and learning from different people along the way.
Host Raj Daniels 28:48
Well, as a parent, I appreciate your perseverance. Now, I know it’s a relatively new organization. But let’s move into the future. Let’s say it’s 2030. magic wand. What does the future hold for K12 Climate Action? What does it look like? What have you accomplished?
Laura Schifter 29:09
What I would really like to see accomplished that far out are some real policy changes across the country to help support our schools towards sustainability. So kind of across all of those buckets, right now, I believe it’s a little over 5% of schools use solar, by 2030. I think 100% of schools that can use solar, I think should be using solar at that point. I think it’s really pushing more schools so that every state across this country has a net-zero school, if not multiple by 2030. I think it’s making significant headway if not complete headway and transitioning school buses to electric.
I also think it’s ensuring that students are learning about climate change across the curriculum. I think one of the things I said is one state right now has standards that address climate change across the curriculum, New Jersey. And by 2030, it would be great to see a lot more states have those standards if not all of those states have those standards. And that teachers are prepared and supported and help teaching the content across the curriculum, I think there’s just so much potential for how far we can go on this. And given how engaged and excited youth are, I think it’s really critical that we make this push in schools to help support and provide the opportunity for youth to help lead us to solutions.
Host Raj Daniels 30:55
Well I for one, look forward to seeing your vision come to fruition. If you could share some advice or words of wisdom with the audience, what would it be?
Laura Schifter 31:15
I think one thing I would say is that is to recognize that frequently, there’s not really an entirely new concept. I think there’s somebody who’s quoted and saying, there’s nothing new under the sun. And, to some degree, that’s true. So I think when you have new ideas, and you have new things that you think you’re working on, it’s important to approach these things humbly and really look to the fact that even if it might be a new concept to you, you might actually be building on work that’s already done. And by thinking about things with a new perspective, you might help take something in a different direction. But it’s really recognizing that a lot of concepts are already out there. So thinking about how you can build on what is out there to add fresh perspective as you take something forward. And really think about where your value add can be. Approach things with a humble, yet forward-looking perspective. | https://medium.com/bigger-than-us/bigger-than-us-120-k12-climate-action-11355a7cc9b4 | ['Nexus Pmg'] | 2020-12-04 15:06:08.466000+00:00 | ['Climate Action', 'Teachers', 'Sustainability', 'Education', 'Climate Change'] |
Remote work is the present, and should be the future. Will it, tho? | Written before about working remotely, and this will be a bit more of that. Remote work is the tide of history, and we’re about to hit some examples on that too.
Let’s be clear upfront, though: first-world, white-collar work is very tied to technology now. Everyone is always looking for a “tech solution” to solve “pain points” from a “vendor.” Those words are probably said 10,000+ times per day in most offices.
What we all seem to miss is this, however: more tech means more flexibility. If Harry and David both need Google Drive to do their work, well, Harry can be in the office — or on a beach, so long as he can access G-Drive from the beach. (He probably can.) David can be anywhere too. It really doesn’t matter. What should matter are the results.
So, what I just said is logical, but logic has absolutely no place in how we build workplaces. People want to see their subordinates around them so they can “know what they’re doing.” In reality, most managers barely speak to or care about their direct reports, yet they still use this argument. It’s one of the great ironies of the modern managerial age.
Now throw kids into this pie. You got kids? Aging parents? Well, flexible work arrangements would be a nice thing. You could even argue flex work is a vital aspect of modern work. Hell, I’d argue that.
The big picture is this: it makes perfect sense for more employees to embrace remote work, but for a host of bullshit reasons, companies seem to either (a) not get it or (b) create backwards policies around it. And now … examples!
But of course tech giants will get remote work, right?
Let’s start with this Fast Company article.
Example 1 that everyone knows: Yahoo. They had a remote work / flex work program, rolled it back, stood by the rollback, and were ultimately sold for literal pennies on the dollar. Is that the reason? No. There were other reasons. But killing remote work didn’t help them.
Example 2, happening now: IBM. IBM had about 40% of its workforce as remote work a decade ago; some even call them a “pioneer” in the space. In March, they started rolling it back. They’re directing people to HQs now. Last week, they went HAM on it: end remote work or leave the damn company.
The greatest irony of the IBM remote work debacle is this: IBM itself wrote a white paper in 2014 discussing the benefits of remote work. HA! Oh, and a month or so ago, they hosted a panel about the effectiveness of remote work. But now it’s gone, baby!
Quickly: the elephant in the remote work room
A lot of times, companies do this because it’s an easy way to layoff people without actually laying them off. So it’s taking money off the books without the perceived awkwardness, even though the awkwardness is most assuredly still there — just in a different form.
Let’s not even get going on the Gig Economy
The Gig Economy has become a real thing of late. You know it’s arrived when even The New Yorker is covering it. The Gig Economy is, by definition, remote work.
Work sucks, then you die? Naw. Doesn’t have to be that way. But we need new ways to think about work, and that’s what I do in a newsletter each week. Holler!
And let’s think for a second on how we got to people wanting to do this. Let’s say you’ve got two options, right? In Option A (“the green pill”), you can go into an office everyday, have insanely unclear priorities, possibly not even understand your own job role, and get dressed down by a moron every day because hierarchy allows him to do that.
Or you can work at your own pace, when you’re most productive (that’s 3am for some people), benefit the company/client/owner, and sometimes go see a movie at 1pm or play with your dog. Or get lit up if you want. Heck, I’ve done all three.
The tide of history is moving towards the latter, because mobile-first, on-demand societies don’t want people tethered to desks and airport lounges chasing nickels for the man. Remote work is where it’s at. But will companies ever truly “get” this, or hide behind HR memos about innovative togetherness?
What’s your take on remote work? | https://medium.com/@tedbauer2003/remote-work-is-the-present-and-should-be-the-future-will-it-tho-8a1197680f16 | ['Ted Bauer'] | 2020-12-09 13:58:55.980000+00:00 | ['Future Of Work', 'Work From Home', 'Management And Leadership', 'Work Life Balance', 'Remote Work'] |
What a Cognitive Psychologist Learned From Robotics | I am a dog lover. My earliest impression on robotics comes from Sony’s Aibo dog. Later, I became a fan of Boston Dynamics’ Spot. Like it has only existed in many people’s imagination of the human future that one day we could have our own robot servers at home to help with doing all the boring labors: Robotics had been a word that’s so cool and quite distant from my life.
The first time I learned the ‘not so cool’ side of robotics is when I read a literature on path integration (simply put, how to locate oneself during movement) where it mentions that very simple human path integration tasks such as walking in a circle (technical terms: loop closure tasks, or more prevalently used triangle completion tasks) is really challenging for robots. That’s when I realized that as a cognitive psychologist who study human, I have been taking so many of the good human abilities for granted (e.g., senses, memory, learning, etc.). Whereas robots are just like newborn babies, the world is so complicated and strange to them so they will usually start with failing to do anything: The story behind a cool robot video is usually million times of trials and errors. I started to appreciate the delicately designed stable human system that both me and my human subjects owned.
This year, I was fortunate to attend the 3rd Robot Learning Workshop at NeurIPS 2020 thanks to the generous registration support from the workshop. I was highly motivated to attend this one-day-long workshop for the course I took this quarter on Cognitive Robotics. Professor Jeff Krichmar, who is a neuroscientist, and a roboticist, taught the course. In his course, I learned to implement neural networks on simulated robots to test on some neuroscience theories. To a cognitive neuroscientist who is struggling with human subject recruitment during the pandemic — being able to create own participants (virtual robots) and conduct experiments on them — is purely fascinating. I was eager to learn more. Therefore, when I heard about the opportunity to attend the robot workshop at NeurIPS, I did not hesitate to apply for it.
The day-long robotics learning workshop focused on Grounding Machine Learning Development in the Real World. To me, the most fruitful part of workshop is the discussion section where several roboticists discussed on some hardcore questions in robotics.
Screenshot of David and Teddy taken by Nathan Flemming from the movie A.I. (2001).
Interestingly, just like the pandemic pushes cognitive psychologists to move experiments online using remote testing platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk and Pavlovia, pandemic also pushes roboticists to move experiments from real-world physical experiments to robot simulation platforms such as Webots, RaiSim, and Isaac Gym. This brings up the big topic at the panel discussion on Sim2Real (apply what learned from robot simulation to real-world robots) problem. Here are some valid points I got from the discussion panel (courtesy of Prof. Peter Stone): On the one hand, simulators are never perfect enough to be directly applied to the real life, even if it is ground based. On the other hand, simulators are really necessary and useful. Just like Doctor Strange in the last episode of the Avengers who pre-played millions of solutions in mind trying to find an optimal action to defeat Thanos, simulators largely decreased trials and errors of robot experiments in the physical world by producing well pre-trained networks. Solutions to the Sim2Real problems include 1) Adding randomness to simulations so it can better represent the real-world situation, which is like doing counterbalance in psychology experimental design. 2) Incorporating real-world data and doing Sim2Real and Real2Sim iteratively. This is a superb point. I think the iterative ground-reground thinking can also apply to cognitive research in forming a loop between human subject experiments and computational cognitive modeling. In addition, similar ‘Sim2Real’ concern applied to research on humans. Traditional psychology experiments take place in a dark enclosed room. Well, as a human being, you know that feels different from your real-life scenario, don’t you? Thus, it’s always a concern that whether psychology studies confidently replicate human behaviors in real-world environments. Robotics, however, might give a new opportunity for psychologists to verify how different things actually work out by applying mechanisms we learned in humans to robots, and then observe robots’ real-world behaviors.
Dr. Carolina Parada from Google Robotics gave a nice landscape of the robotics in her talk. Critically, she mentioned the concept of two types of robots: robots used in industry and robots produced in industry. The former one is used by programmers, while the latter one is used by consumers. Often times, we are just thinking about the latter type: the human-centered robots. Just like many people are thinking about social psychology or psychological counseling when coming to psychology, which are really just two branches out of the gigantic tree of psychology.
Similar to appreciating the robustness of the human functioning system, learning about robotics gave me some new lens in understanding humans:
Think developmentally. As I’ve mentioned above, many robots need a learning process to gain an ability which is like human development. As far as I knew, most studies in cognitive psychology are cross-sectional. It is understandable because longitudinal studies really need to invest a tremendous amount of time and money. However, to understand (and in robotics ‘to create’) one ability we really need to add a time dimension to it. Without understanding its developmental history, it’s hard to say that we understand the underlying mechanisms of an ability confidently.
Think holistically. Simply learning the process of how to make a robot move even at a baby step really let me zoom out of the human head and think more about the entire human body functioning as a whole. Well, I cast no doubt on the importance of CNS (central nervous system) in controlling human behavior. However, to complete any tasks, we have to be a multi-tasker. To give you a simple example, to reach an apple on the desk, we have to first see (visual perception, visual recognition) and locate the apple (inertial metrics), then walk toward it (motor system for torso and legs), and finally extend one of our hands to grab the apple (a quick decision making of action selection, proprioception of different joints of the selected hand, and motor system for hands). How many senses and brain areas take part in this process? Many. Only understanding how visual dorsal stream work (the famous ‘where’ pathway in the brain), without a coordinated movement of different body parts, cannot give us the apple. By the way, I need to clarify that the ‘multi-tasker’ here refers to separate body mechanisms that contribute to one task, instead of the commonly said ‘different tasks’ that diverts your attention. I agree that we’d better focus on one task at a time to stay efficient.
Think cheaply. Unless a robot is charged 24/7, it can only do limited tasks before the energy runs out. That pushes roboticists to design the robot system smartly or say ‘cheaply’. Psychology studies, however, require human subjects to complete the same task hundreds of times in one experiment. And as I’ve heard, research on monkeys could require a monkey to complete a task thousands of times in one experiment which is equivalent to testing a human subject multiple times over weeks or even months. Well, in both cases, humans and monkeys were not kept ‘charged’ during the experiment. Of course, healthy humans’ and monkeys’ energy don’t run out that quickly, but is having an extensive number of repeated trials really a good way to study underlying mechanisms of cognitive abilities? I don’t know the answer. I may continue testing my human subjects in the traditional experimental psychology way, but how to do things ‘cheaply’ is definitely one thing I will keep thinking about.
Think tolerably. Robots make mistakes for different reasons. Sometimes a robot fails for a legitimate reason related to the system design, and that could be fixable. Other times the reason seems hard to tell. If you’ve ever programmed, you may know that sometimes one way to ‘debug’ is just to restart the software or restart the computer. How the ‘bug’ gets automatically fixed — someone may tell — I have no idea. It may not be a real ‘bug’. Would it be similar in humans? Maybe not all phenomena we occasionally observed in human behaviors will have an explanation or are necessary to require an explanation. There is also downside of over explaining. From a machine learning perspective, if we overfit human behaviors with branches of explanations, it may overshadow the trunk explanation and make it hard to transfer to understand other similar behaviors. Therefore, keeping some tolerance level for ‘behavioral errors’ in human observations may prevent us from being trapped by unnecessary details.
Although I may or may not go further into the robotics track of research in the future, it is definitely one of the coolest research areas I’ve learned during graduate school and will be keep paying attention to. It is also interesting that when learning about another subject really helps me reflect on my own subject.
Last to cat lovers, here is a social robot companion pet — Orange Tabby Cat — a joyful robot that you can give to your aging loved ones. | https://medium.com/@chengyou317/what-a-cognitive-psychologist-learned-from-robotics-95a58f1e4d93 | ['You', 'Lilian'] | 2020-12-21 18:33:29.488000+00:00 | ['Robotics', 'NIPS', 'Human Behavior', 'Psychology', 'AI'] |
🍷 Everyone Was Drunk that Day | E S S A Y
🍷 Everyone Was Drunk that Day
Or an old lady
Illustration by Rolli
War and Peace was overdue again so I carried it back to the library with both hands.
It was October, but it was snowing.
Everyone was drunk that day or an old lady. Three drunks asked me for money, though I only had a pair of quarters on me. The first drunk needed antibiotics for his dog. The second was distraught over his dog needing hip surgery. The third said she had twelve pups and they’d all had puppies. I gave her one of the quarters.
“Riffraff,” said an old lady into her scarf, as she passed. I wasn’t sure if she meant the pup-woman or me. | https://medium.com/pillowmint/everyone-was-drunk-that-day-8975c6ec49c1 | ['Rolli', 'Https', 'Ko-Fi.Com Rolliwrites'] | 2020-07-02 21:09:21.729000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Nonfiction', 'Life', 'Books', 'Coronavirus'] |
How Smart Home Technology Can Help Families of Children with Autism | Good parents worry about their children’s safety. For most, this centers on keeping toddlers away from medicine, sharp objects, electrical outlets and other physical dangers in the home. As children grow, parents can usually start worrying less about these things and focus on their children’s social and economic welfare.
But not parents of children with autism or other intellectual and developmental disabilities. They also grow concerned about their child’s social and economic welfare, but most likely don’t have the luxury of worrying any less about the physical dangers their child faces at home.
Regardless of their child’s age, parents still sleep with one eye open for fear that they may slip out of bed and find a kitchen knife at 2 a.m.
They still leap to their feet with every creek of the floor, worried that their child is wandering out the front door.
They still can’t leave their child alone to go upstairs for five minutes without worrying that they may hurt themselves.
It’s because of parents like this that Vivint Smart Home is passionate about designing smart home technology that not only makes everyone’s life more convenient, but also gives parents of children with autism or other intellectual and developmental disabilities the peace of mind they deserve.
Smart Home Technology and Autism
If you or someone you know is a parent of a child with an intellectual or developmental disability, here are several ways smart home technology can help:
Keep track of your child — You can always know where your child is with strategically placed interior smart door sensors that notify you on your mobile device when they open a door.
Get enough rest and still keep an eye on your child- With an indoor camera in a bedroom, you can keep an eye on your child even at night by watching live video on your mobile device. This is especially helpful for a child who also suffers from seizures or other medical conditions. Camera footage of a seizure can also be a great tool for medical professionals to determine treatment and medications.
Protect your child from potential household hazards- You can protect and monitor your child by placing smart sensors on anything that opens and closes, like knife drawers, medicine cabinets or closets where you store cleaning supplies.
Monitor in-home therapy session and tutors — If your child receives in-home therapy, a camera is a great way to monitor activity during sessions. By observing sessions via camera, you can also learn from therapists without distracting your child or disrupting the session.
Learn how to better support your child — Viewing camera footage also provides a clear picture of how your child is progressing. While a child may be performing well during treatment, those behaviors don’t always stick. Being able to see what your child is accomplishing in session is empowering and informs your own interactions with your child. You can make requests and reinforce what your child is learning in therapy knowing what they’re capable of.
Manage the people coming and going- With in-home treatment therapists, tutors and caregivers coming in and out of your home throughout the day, a smart lock and doorbell camera make it easy for them to enter and leave, while still keeping your house safe and secure.
Preempt water disasters- If your child loves water, smart flood sensors can come in handy. It’s not uncommon for children with autism to turn on faucets and leave the water running. If they happen to plug the tub or sink, flood sensors in the bathroom or kitchen will notify you of the presence of water before damage occurs.
Prevent wandering — If your child wanders, smart window and exterior door sensors might be the most crucial smart home components you can install. It can take mere seconds for your child to disappear. With smart sensors, your wanderer will trigger an alarm and mobile device notification when they try to exit your home. Paired with an outdoor camera on your home, you can even know which direction they headed should they make it out before you get to them.
Safety and Peace of Mind
Taking advantage of smart home technology to help increase safety and peace of mind. Click here to learn about how you or someone you know might qualify for a discount on Vivint smart home technology. | https://innovation.vivint.com/how-smart-home-technology-can-help-families-of-children-with-autism-258976160117 | ['Holly Mero-Bench'] | 2019-09-10 18:24:40.321000+00:00 | ['Autism', 'Safety', 'Product', 'Children', 'Smart Home'] |
Companies Can Get Procurement Synergies Synthetically Without Merging | Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Synergies. They are used to justify all kinds of activity, but no more so than in corporate mergers and acquisitions. Quantify the amount of this value to be created in terms of incremental revenue or cash flow (depending on the method investors prefer to use in valuing the acquiring company) and you have a pie to be split between the buyers and the sellers determining the acquisition premium earned by the target equity owners.
This estimate, and the appraisal of the attendant risk to its realized accuracy, drives transactions.
When two companies combine, proponents argue that they can create value together in ways that they could not individually.
Sometimes, management will say that they can cross-sell products, exploiting distribution channels more efficiently. Investors tend to be skeptical of these claims. Think of banks trying to sell insurance through their retail stores.
The more tangible, and therefore credible, assertions relate to cost-cutting, specifically when it comes to duplicative administrative overhead. Sometimes, it involves rationalization of productive capacity, for example in industries bedeviled by excess supply, like airlines. But, often, the biggest drivers are the simple, easily quantified activities. This usually includes some blanket, hand-waving reference to procurement savings.
Recently, Fiat-Chrysler and Renault were in serious talks to merge their operations. While a big driver was the consolidation of research for small cars and electric cars due to the unremitting tightening of fuel efficiency requirements in their target markets, procurement was also a key factor, made even more important by management’s rejection of plant closures in an apparent nod to what turned out to be insurmountable political complications.
“FCA and Renault have raised the stakes for themselves by ruling out plant closures. That increases the pressure to achieve more than $5 billion in promised annual savings from pooling procurement and research investments.”
Indeed, procurement synergies underpin the existing Renault-Nissan alliance, as explained in a document called the “Renault-Nissan Purchasing Way.” It explains the integrated approach to procurement from the quasi-merger of the two companies established with their cross-holdings and mutual governance.
“This guide applies in principle to all purchasing activities made by Renault and Nissan including RENAULT-NISSAN Purchasing Organization (RNPO) worldwide. The principles and processes extend to all Renault and Nissan departments involved in the supplier relationship.”
Of course, the additional complexity of this complex governance structure which includes political interdependencies and concomitant unintended consequences was what ultimately killed the Fiat-Chrysler deal for Renault.
“Nissan’s role in particular was an important sticking point for the [French] government … France wanted Nissan firmly behind the deal, fearing that any opposition — or even just lukewarm support — would risk alienating a cherished industrial partner over time. But as the Renault board prepared to meet on June 4 at the headquarters, Nissan’s position became increasingly precarious. CEO Hiroto Saikawa said the Japanese company needed to review the future of the alliance, including contractual relationships, culminating in Nissan’s decision to abstain from a vote.”
Corporate Jenga is difficult.
Of course, some people make it work. But it requires outstanding management and deep cultural sensitivity.
“When Peugeot chief Carlos Tavares unveiled his plan for the German car maker at Opel’s headquarters in 2017, union representatives praised his decision to let it produce for export again, something GM had limited. The move galvanized the workforce, and within 18 months Opel was returning profits and exceeding its synergy targets.”
Even when the deals get closed, merger integration is exceedingly complicated and prone to unexpected problems.
“The investigation, launched after Kraft Heinz received a subpoena from the SEC, found evidence of misconduct in its procurement operations, the company said last month. The company had improperly accounted for arrangements with suppliers, which it described as ‘complex’. In particular, there were problems in how it had recognized costs and rebates.”
What’s even worse is that the antitrust pendulum may be swinging away from its multi-decade tendency to diminished enforcement and towards a more skeptically activist orientation that could make deals less likely.
“But some in the industry are nonetheless reconsidering how they do business in this new era of antitrust fears, even if the political rhetoric doesn’t end up translating into stricter regulatory enforcement. Tech companies are said to be thinking twice about pursuing splashy acquisitions, according to interviews in recent months with venture capitalists, former tech M&A execs and public policy officials.”
Integration is a key problem for conglomerates, such as large industrial-sector roll-ups. The central office often runs the portfolio of smaller industrial companies with a light touch. Each one of them has a separate sourcing system. When it comes to RFPs and procurement, generally, there is little coordination. There may be resistance to such joint activity, as the thin edge of the centralization wedge.
What is a synergy-loving manager to do in this new world?
What if she could have some, if not all, of the procurement synergies from a single deal without the risk of merger transaction? What if she could replicate these synergies multiple times, instead of just with one putative merger partner?
EdgeworthBox is a platform for making RFPs simpler, fairer, and faster. Our combination of three sets of tools with a marketplace engine, layered on top of the buying organization’s incumbent sourcing system, facilitates this kind of collaborative sourcing. By simplifying the administration suppliers face, we make it easier to get them to engage and respond to bid solicitations. Our database of public sourcing activity makes it straightforward to get market intelligence from the public sphere, while the private, organization-specific repository of RFP activity makes finding answers from prior statements of work or precedent proposals fast and accurate. Our social networking, including profile pages and contemporary messaging, makes collaboration within and outside of the organization smooth.
Put EdgeworthBox all together and an organization has everything they need to synthetically create the procurement synergies of a merger without the complications of integration. We call it network-based sourcing™. | https://medium.com/@chandsooran/companies-can-get-procurement-synergies-synthetically-without-merging-7d0d0baf9102 | ['Chand Sooran'] | 2019-06-09 16:25:45.286000+00:00 | ['Rfp', 'Mergers And Acquisitions', 'Sourcing', 'Procurement', 'Startup'] |
Kubernetes 於 Ubuntu 自架且建立多節點 ( Nodes ) 教學. 於 Ubuntu Server 上建立 k8s master / node | 前言
本教學主要在 Ubuntu 20.04 Server 上安裝 Kubernetes (k8s)，並且在多台 Server 上執行 Node 與 Master ( 這裡使用 VM 來模擬多台 Server 情況 )
執行本教學請先至少準備/安裝好兩台 Server ( 本教學使用 VM clone 然後修改 hostname 的方式)，一台我們的主機稱為 Master (主控)，另外一台或多台的 Server 我們稱為 Node ( 節點 )
另外本教學幾乎指令都需要 root 權限，請自行判斷 sudo 與否
本文使用 KVM 來模擬多台 Server 作為 k8s Node
1. Kubelet / Kubeadm 安裝與概念
於欲執行 Kubernetes 的機上，必須要有 kubelet / kubeadm ( Master 與 node 皆要執行此步驟 )
這是 Kubernetes 的主要程式，然後透過 runtime 來實現 pods
這裡的 runtime 可以是 Docker / CRI-O / Containerd
( 詳細參考資料 :
kubernetes components : https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/components/
kubernetes runtime : https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/production-environment/container-runtimes/ )
我們執行官方的安裝範例
a. 先設定 k8s server上網路
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/k8s.conf
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 1
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables = 1
EOF sudo sysctl --system
b. 安裝 kubeadm / kubelet
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https curl curl -s https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add - cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubernetes.list
deb https://apt.kubernetes.io/ kubernetes-xenial main
EOF sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y kubelet kubeadm kubectl
sudo apt-mark hold kubelet kubeadm kubectl
c. 驗證
只要輸入 kubeadm 就可以知道是否安裝成功 ( 如下畫面 )
安裝成功
2. 安裝 CRI-O for K8s
CRI-O 就是設計給 Kubernetes 的 Container Runtime Interface，k8s 當然也可以使用 Docker 作為 Container Runtime，但是我們這邊遵循選擇 cri-o 為主
( cri-o github 於此 : https://github.com/cri-o/cri-o )
本步驟全部以 Root 身份執行
a. 先設定 Linux kernel 模組
modprobe overlay
modprobe br_netfilter
b. 設定網路給 CRI-O
cat > /etc/sysctl.d/99-kubernetes-cri.conf <<EOF
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables = 1
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 1
EOF sysctl --system
c. 安裝 CRI-O
請注意這邊的 VERSION 與 OS，如果你選擇非本教學的版本請自行修改
詳細參數可以在官網看到
export VERSION=1.18
export OS=xUbuntu_20.04 echo "deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable/$OS/ /" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/devel:kubic:libcontainers:stable.list echo "deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable:/cri-o:/$VERSION/$OS/ /" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/devel:kubic:libcontainers:stable:cri-o:$VERSION.list curl -L https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:kubic:libcontainers:stable:cri-o:$VERSION/$OS/Release.key | apt-key add - curl -L https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable/$OS/Release.key | apt-key add - apt-get update
apt-get install -y cri-o cri-o-runc
d. 啟動 CRI-O
如果無意外應該可以成功
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start crio
e. 關閉 swap
K8S 預設不希望我們系統有 swap 存在，所以 :
編輯 /etc/fstab ( 執行 sudo vim /etc/fstab )，將 swap 註解掉( 下行 )
# /swap.img none swap sw 0 0
然後執行 Ubuntu 關閉 Swap 指令
sudo swapoff -a
3. 設定服務自動重啟
( 本步驟全部以 Root 身份執行，後略 )
我們要給 kubelet 預設的設定 ( /etc/default/kubelet )
cat > /etc/default/kubelet <<EOF
KUBELET_EXTRA_ARGS=--feature-gates="AllAlpha=false,RunAsGroup=true" --container-runtime=remote --cgroup-driver=systemd --container-runtime-endpoint='unix:///var/run/crio/crio.sock' --runtime-request-timeout=5m
EOF
還有我們需要這個流程，確保所有的服務在重開機後會自己起來 ( k8s reboot 後依然有效 )
systemctl enable kubelet
systemctl enable crio
4. K8s Master Node 啟動 : kubeadm init
如果你是使用 VM，可以選擇在這步驟完成之前先 snapshot / clone ，或是在另外一台 Server 上執行以上安裝步驟
因為我們要建立 master node 了，其實相當簡單，就是輸入
( 真相不是以下指令這麼簡單，先看完此步驟全文再輸入，或是參考此步驟小總結 )
kubeadm init
然後很有可能會遇到各種挫折… 😜
狀況1 — 機器上 Docker 同時存在，導致 kubeadm 分不清楚是要用 docker 還是 cri-0
錯誤訊息如下 :
Found multiple CRI sockets, please use --cri-socket to select one: /var/run/dockershim.sock, /var/run/crio/crio.sock To see the stack trace of this error execute with --v=5 or higher
解決辦法: 指定我們使用 crio 來執行
kubeadm init --cri-socket=/var/run/crio/crio.sock
狀況2 — 機器 swap 沒關
預設情況下 k8s 機器不能有 swap 存在
錯誤訊息如下:
W0920 04:02:50.683554 7537 configset.go:348] WARNING: kubeadm cannot validate component configs for API groups [kubelet.config.k8s.io kubeproxy.config.k8s.io] [init] Using Kubernetes version: v1.19.2 [preflight] Running pre-flight checks error execution phase preflight: [preflight] Some fatal errors occurred: [ERROR Swap]: running with swap on is not supported. Please disable swap [preflight] If you know what you are doing, you can make a check non-fatal with `--ignore-preflight-errors=...` To see the stack trace of this error execute with --v=5 or higher
解決辦法: 關閉 swap
編輯 /etc/fstab ( 執行 sudo vim /etc/fstab )，將 swap 註解掉( 下行 )
# /swap.img none swap sw 0 0
然後執行 Ubuntu 關閉 Swap 指令
sudo swapoff -a
然後再一次嘗試啟動
kubeadm init --cri-socket=/var/run/crio/crio.sock
狀況3 — Timeout
其實這是因為網路設定不正確導致 kubeadm 與 kubelet 無法驗證
錯誤訊息主要類似 Unfortunately, an error has occurred: timed out waiting for the condition :
[wait-control-plane] Waiting for the kubelet to boot up the control plane as static Pods from directory "/etc/kubernetes/manifests". This can take up to 4m0s
[kubelet-check] Initial timeout of 40s passed.
Unfortunately, an error has occurred:
timed out waiting for the condition This error is likely caused by:
- The kubelet is not running
- The kubelet is unhealthy due to a misconfiguration of the node in some way (required cgroups disabled) If you are on a systemd-powered system, you can try to troubleshoot the error with the following commands:
- 'systemctl status kubelet'
- 'journalctl -xeu kubelet' Additionally, a control plane component may have crashed or exited when started by the container runtime.
To troubleshoot, list all containers using your preferred container runtimes CLI. Here is one example how you may list all Kubernetes containers running in cri-o/containerd using crictl: - 'crictl --runtime-endpoint /var/run/crio/crio.sock ps -a | grep kube | grep -v pause'
Once you have found the failing container, you can inspect its logs with:
- 'crictl --runtime-endpoint /var/run/crio/crio.sock logs CONTAINERID' error execution phase wait-control-plane: couldn't initialize a Kubernetes cluster To see the stack trace of this error execute with --v=5 or higher
解決辦法:
先看一下 crio-bridge 的網路設定
( 執行 cat /etc/cni/net.d/100-crio-bridge.conf )
應該會類似如下
{
"cniVersion": "0.3.1",
"name": "crio",
"type": "bridge",
"bridge": "cni0",
"isGateway": true,
"ipMasq": true,
"hairpinMode": true,
"ipam": {
"type": "host-local",
"routes": [
{ "dst": "0.0.0.0/0" },
{ "dst": "1100:200::1/24" }
],
"ranges": [
[{ "subnet": "10.85.0.0/16" }],
[{ "subnet": "1100:200::/24" }]
]
}
}
注意上面粗斜體的部分，這邊是 crio 的網路位置，一般來說大家應該都是 10.85.0.0/16 ，如果不一樣的話請自行修改以下指令
用以下指令啟動
export CIDR=10.85.0.0/16
kubeadm init \
--pod-network-cidr=$CIDR \
--cri-socket=/var/run/crio/crio.sock
狀況 4 — 已經存在
錯誤訊息類似 : ERROR FileAvailable — etc-kubernetes-manifests-kube-apiserver.yaml /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-apiserver.yaml already exists
W0920 04:18:45.722186 14058 configset.go:348] WARNING: kubeadm cannot validate component configs for API groups [kubelet.config.k8s.io kubeproxy.config.k8s.io] [init] Using Kubernetes version: v1.19.2 [preflight] Running pre-flight checks error execution phase preflight: [preflight] Some fatal errors occurred: [ERROR FileAvailable--etc-kubernetes-manifests-kube-apiserver.yaml]: /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-apiserver.yaml already exists [ERROR FileAvailable--etc-kubernetes-manifests-kube-controller-manager.yaml]: /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-controller-manager.yaml already exists [ERROR FileAvailable--etc-kubernetes-manifests-kube-scheduler.yaml]: /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-scheduler.yaml already exists [ERROR FileAvailable--etc-kubernetes-manifests-etcd.yaml]: /etc/kubernetes/manifests/etcd.yaml already exists [ERROR Port-10250]: Port 10250 is in use [preflight] If you know what you are doing, you can make a check non-fatal with `--ignore-preflight-errors=...` To see the stack trace of this error execute with --v=5 or higher
解決辦法 :
輸入指令清除
kubeadm reset --cri-socket=/var/run/crio/crio.sock
小總結
要避開以上狀況，請先執行狀況 2 ( 關閉 swap ) ，然後狀況 3 設定網路
理論上就可以執行以下指令
export CIDR=10.85.0.0/16
kubeadm init \
--pod-network-cidr=$CIDR \
--cri-socket=/var/run/crio/crio.sock
成功的話應該會看到類似以下畫面
kubeadm init 建立 主節點成功
請保存好這段，這是其他 k8s 節點要加入使用的
kubeadm join 192.168.99.61:6443 --token xxxxxx --discovery-token-ca-cert-hash sha256:xxxx
5. K8S Master Node 驗證
從上個步驟我們看到類似的提示
mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/configd
這個可以使用自己的慣用 user ( 非 root ) 來執行，然後這個 User 就可以使用 kubectl 指令了
我們可以透過
kubectl get nodes
來看看是否運作正常，應該會看到類似以下訊息
我們的 k8s node ready
然後執行一個 deployment 範例
kubectl create deployment hello-node --image=k8s.gcr.io/echoserver:1.4
在輸入 kubectl get pods 觀察狀態，會發現一直 pending
透過 kubectl describe 指令觀察該 pods 會發現類似錯誤訊息 :
( 主要為 1 node(s) had taint {node-role.kubernetes.io/master: }, that the pod didn’t tolerate. )
QoS Class: BestEffort Node-Selectors: <none> Tolerations: node.kubernetes.io/not-ready:NoExecute op=Exists for 300s node.kubernetes.io/unreachable:NoExecute op=Exists for 300s Events: Type Reason Age From Message ---- ------ ---- ---- ------- Warning FailedScheduling 31s (x2 over 31s) default-scheduler 0/1 nodes are available: 1 node(s) had taint {node-role.kubernetes.io/master: }, that the pod didn't tolerate.
這時候需要輸入
kubectl taint nodes --all node-role.kubernetes.io/master-
來整理 nodes ( 參考 https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/scheduling-eviction/taint-and-toleration/)
再觀察一次 pod 狀況 ( kubectl get pods )
k8s 自架 master 節點運作成功
可以看到運行成功，到此步驟為止就是一個可以(實驗)用的 kubernetes 了
關於其他節點的加入，我們下篇再說… | https://tree.rocks/kubernetes-with-multi-server-node-setup-on-ubuntu-server-280066e6b106 | [] | 2020-10-29 01:06:41.799000+00:00 | ['Kubernetes Cluster', 'Ubuntu', 'DevOps', 'Kubernetes'] |
NYC Administration of Children’s Services is Domestic ICE | ACS does not read miranda rights to parents alleged of abuse or neglect, there’s no legal requirement for the agency to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of our peers. Caseworkers may give you a written “Notice of Existence”-stating you’ve been named in an open investigation of abuse or maltreatment but they are not obligated to share with you the specific allegations made against you or the identity of your accuser.
All children present in the home can be strip searched or what OCFS refers to as “observation of normally clothed areas of a child’s body”. There’s no presumption of innocence in an ACS investigation of child maltreatment. The only two possible outcomes are indicated-evidence was found or unfounded-evidence was not found. An unfounded investigation will be opened and considered as credible evidence anytime another allegation is made.
Investigations drop from the end of June to the middle of September, likely because schools are the largest professional cohort initiating ACS investigations.
State Central Registry (SCR) Intakes refers to the hotline number where reports of suspected maltreatment and abuse are made. The call triggers the ACS workers who are mandated to come to the residence within 48 hours.
ACS Deputy Commissioner Andrew White stated in a July 17 panel Automating Inequality in Child Welfare using Predictive Analytics organized by Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) Director Joyce McMillan, that half of all children under 18 living in Brownsville have been investigated by ACS at some point in their lifetime.
Pause to think about the weight of that statement. If you are a middle class family, you likely have access to early childhood programs fostering healthy attachment through “gentle separation”-gradually increasing the child’s attendance over weeks to adjust from a caregiver to a new classroom. Why are there neighborhoods where strip searching and interrogating children under threat of removal is the norm? | https://upfromthecracks.medium.com/nyc-administration-of-children-services-is-domestic-ice-76dba290fe50 | ['J. Khadijah Abdurahman'] | 2018-07-28 01:30:48.639000+00:00 | ['Foster Care', 'Immigration Reform', 'Detention', 'Adoption', 'Surveillance'] |
Importance Of Daily Routine | Until my 12th grade I didn’t care about my daily routine but one fine day when I was scrolling youtube I saw a video titled “The Most Powerful Thing In The world” out of curiosity I clicked on the videos and started watching it and the answer for that question is MIND or in simple words The Human brain. The summary of the video is if you control your brain you will be successful but if your brain control’s you then and there itself your life has no point to be lived coz it is under someones’ control.
Now you may be thinking that this guy is speaking about routine and suddenly diverted into this mind topic what’s going on here? I can answer that our mind is a compilation of three things
-Things that we have done in the past
-Things that we are doing at present
-Things we have planned for future
Now you cant go to your past and correct each and everything and you can’t predict your future and say that only these things could happen so now we are left with our present. The only time which can decide your future is present and for making that successful future version of you some things have to be done that includes getting in a proper routine which does 75% of the job.
Getting into proper routine firstly tests your willpower or determination so if your first step towards your future is right eventually you will get into a right way. A routine doesn’t mean that from 5–6 you have to study, you have to wake up by sharp 5 am all these will be a waste of time.
Your routine should benefit you so it should be created by yourself by copying someone’s routine which is unsustainable just vanishes the concept of daily routine from your mind. This means you have to customize your routine according to your habits like if you are a student or a professional who just started working you cant sleep for 8 hours a day like someone who is the CEO of the company or your school principal.
Compatibility should be the first priority while setting up your routine because if it’s set for one time it should not be disturbed for at least 5–6 years according to me and finally keep a note of your daily tasks and check them at night by this you can verify your things to be done and your routine will become better day by day. | https://medium.com/@sai29112001/importance-of-daily-routine-f95011314eaa | ['Sai Nookala'] | 2020-12-24 07:02:25.084000+00:00 | ['Success', 'Routine', 'Training', 'Brain'] |
The Loneliness that Comes with Covid-19 | The Loneliness that Comes with Covid-19
i wish i could say that covid-19 hasn’t broken me down. i wish i could say i’ve stayed resilient, fighting in silence for my own health. i wish i could say that every morning i woke up and showed up for myself. i wish it was that easy.
it’s been longer than a month since i was tested positive and the things that i went through has been one of the toughest ones in my life. from feeling entirely hopeless as i couldn’t help my family when we were all fighting the same battle, staying strong because someone had to, to eventually drained out all the energy i had left to fight for myself in isolation.
when someone says covid is a mental battle – i second that.
i have been diligent. i take my dozens of pills everyday, i eat just fine, i seek out the sun in the morning when i can. i show up to work virtually, i communicate with people on daily basis to keep me sane. i have tried my hardest. but there are costs in being strong, and one of them is that i have to be hopeful. hopeful enough to believe i will win the battle like a warrior everyone says i am.
unfortunately, when that win seems to be getting further away instead, it plays with my mind. some mornings i dont find the will to get out of bed. one morning i end up crying my eyes out.
im physically fine, i know that because i’ve been in a worse state. but the isolation and loneliness this journey has brought upon me weigh a lot. when you crumble in the middle of the night with no one to talk to, it eats you up slowly. and i know i can be stronger than this, i just dont know if i want to. i am just beyond tired of fighting. | https://medium.com/@selmahalida/the-loneliness-that-comes-with-covid-19-840a0722272c | [] | 2021-01-13 12:58:44.984000+00:00 | ['Corona', 'Loneliness', 'Isolation', 'Covid 19'] |
Image retrieval systems | What is an Image retrieval system?
An image retrieval system is used to search for images similar to the query image in a large image database. It helps in the processing, organizing, and handling of image data efficiently.
Companies like Google and Pinterest use image retrieval systems to provide users with related images.
Google Images: Search by image feature
Some interesting statistics
A study reveals that the number of cameras in the world exceeds the number of eyes. Reports suggest there will be approximately 7.4 trillion images generated by the end of 2020.
History of image retrieval systems
In the year 1970, a text-based image retrieval technique was implemented where images were first annotated manually and then searched using a text query. This method was extremely time-consuming, labour-intensive and
prone to errors in annotation due to the subjectivity of human perception.
Manually annotated images from the CIFAR-10 image dataset
Some years later in the early 1980s, a Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR) system was introduced which used visual features extracted from an image. This method used traditional image processing tools for understanding the colour, texture, and shape-based features of the image. This approach had problems like inappropriate and limited feature representations which resulted in less efficient and non-generalized algorithms.
Face detection using the Viola-Jones algorithm which used handcrafted features
Image retrieval systems today
Today we use Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to perform image retrieval tasks. CNN is a variant of deep learning and is widely used for computer vision applications because of its inherent ability to extract features from an image. CNN has also shown prominent results as compared to traditional image processing techniques.
A CNN followed by SVM. Courtesy: Springer
In a CNN, convolutional layers are used for feature representation and extraction. After the features are extracted, distance metrics are used for measuring the similarity between the query image and the images from the database. Generally, similarity metrics like Euclid distance, Cosine distance and Manhattan distance facilitate finding similar images from the database.
Recently GANs have provided a way to improve the ways we can provide an input to an image retrieval system. For instance, a freehand sketch.
Contextual GAN in action
Hurray! You now know about image retrieval systems
I hope you enjoyed the article. Have a nice day! | https://medium.com/input-blackbox-output/image-retrieval-systems-8d8d4a9028e1 | ['Rutuparn Pawar'] | 2020-11-17 09:36:45.653000+00:00 | ['Image Processing', 'Gan', 'Cnn', 'AI', 'Image Retrieval'] |
Keras Image Classifier on AWS Sage-Maker | I still remember I used to hate Neural Networks subject in my engineering course but after spending 7 years into the software industry and seeing various use cases I decided to give it a go again. Yeah, I know you may call it a desire to solve business problems or just an interest in technology.
Recently after spending nearly 6 months, I got my Professional certification on AI & Machine Learning. I really like how the course was designed and I got a chance to know more deeply about ‘Deep Learning & Neural Networks’ with libraries such as PyTorch, Google’s TensorFlow, and Keras. Among all these Keras is the one which interests me more and I guess why because their tag line is “Keras is an API designed for human beings, not machines.”
Today, we will build a simple fully custom image classifier, using a transfer learning mechanism that you can very easily lift and try using yourself for your own projects. Whether you’re totally new to the platform or have played with the Sage-Maker before, you should walk away from this article equipped with the knowledge necessary to run your own custom machine learning jobs and endpoints on top of AWS (Because I really like AWS!)
The objective of this article is to show how to create and train a simple Keras model to classify an image between two classes of X-Ray: Normal and Pneumonia. | https://pranavk7.medium.com/keras-image-classifier-on-aws-sage-maker-a86669c5a6e6 | ['Pranav K'] | 2020-06-21 16:23:28.495000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Keras', 'Sagemaker', 'Neural Networks'] |
Social Impact Tech: Jonathan Joseph of Little Red Fashion On How Their Technology Will Make An Important Positive Impact | Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?
I was born in Medellin Colombia in 1986 and apparently left at an orphanage until the age of 9 months where I was adopted by my parents. I grew up in the NYC suburbs of Connecticut and wasn’t told the truth about my heritage until about the age of 11. My dad is an academic from Tehran, Iran and my mom is your classic NYC Italian/Irish woman with a quick wit and tenacious drive. I take after her. I grew up rather happy-go-lucky and have apparently not shut up since my first word (which was “hi.)” I was made to be social I guess. I have ataxic cerebral palsy, the rarest form, which affects my depth perception, balance and motor skills. My disability is actually where my love of fashion started. My mom did her best to downplay my AFO leg braces by taking me through the garment district to find long socks to cover them which matched or complimented my outfits. Our shopping exploits launched my love of color and style. For me it wasn’t about hiding my braces, it was about owning them making them a statement. As I aged out of physical and occupational therapy as well as my braces a new-to-me “othering” was brewing.
I grew up LGBTQIA+ in the age of Matthew Shepard. It instilled in me a fire for social justice that carries through to this day and informed my studies in philanthropy and CSR at Columbia and was how I got started as an activist. First on anti-semitism at my temple, then about homophobia and its impact for organizations like the ADL. Classmates of mine can recount the endless ways I was harassed or assaulted by bullies over the years, but I never lost my voice. I thank my mother for that. You could say it’s also a huge part of why Little Red Fashion has a commitment to DE & I at our core as well. Her lessons on personal empowerment is part of the inspiration behind our tagline. Kids are taught to hate and grown ups need more tools to fight that. Knowledge after all, is power.
For anyone reading who grew up with a terminally ill parent, or …or anyone who’s dealing with a future loss of this nature I want them to know that it gets better. Losing my mother as a teenager was a watershed moment in my youth and for as many challenges it brought it also forged me into the leader I am today. It gets better, but don’t make the mistake I did at the time: reach out for help navigating your grief even if you don’t think you need it. I wish someone had told me that then. A huge part of why I’m doing what I do at LRF is to give kids and grown ups new ways of brokering tough conversations that can lead to healing or prevent trauma in the first place in a way only fashion can. I’m not alone either, just look at Christian Allaire’s recent book The Power of Style which does this amazingly. I highly recommend it to any grown up that has kids in their life that they love
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Overall, I think what’s been most interesting as a professional fundraiser and strategic consultant has been the wide variety of industries I’ve been exposed to alone. Fashion yes of course, but also commodities, international logistics, entertainment, legal cannabis, and even music. One story that jumps out immediately has to do with one of our cannabis clients a few years back. We were approached just shy of 2 weeks before a permit application due date by a group who did not have their ducks in a a row. We had almost no time to gut their model, re-fashion it, bring in advisors and a new operations team AND help secure $5M in capital. Somehow, our team pulled it off. I don’t recall there being very much sleep but what I do recall vividly is the day my business partner Ryan forced me to step away from writing and said, “how about you go work on that book about the dress? Take a break.” Without that break, I wouldn’t have finished our first book The Little Red Dress. It just goes to show you that you never know where today’s project will take you in the future.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I couldn’t agree more. Cultivating success is all about finding mentors who engage and inspire you. For me one that absolutely jumps out comes early in my life. I had a social studies teacher in high school, we’ll call him Mr. K. I’ve always been outspoken and articulate by nature, he saw that and without my knowledge signed me up for a leadership program that sent me to NYC, DC, China, and Europe over the next 4 years and allowed me to hone my keynote skills, diplomatic skills, and writing prowess. If not for those early opportunities to step behind a podium, I don’t know how my natural talents would have developed. I bring this up because I’m always obsessed with reminding grown ups just how vital their role is in providing conduits for success to kids even through what may seem in the moment like a small gesture.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
This one is easy, because I literally carry it in my wallet on the back of my mother’s Mass card since 2006 when she passed: “I shall pass through this world but once, any good therefore that I can or any kindness I can show to any creature, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.” As a Buddhist since 2007 or so, that might seem at odds, but I take it to mean that you have but one shot to leave a positive impact. Every thing I do from advising boards or sitting on them to helping empower small businesses or create new tools through Little red Fashion I do through the perspective of this quote. Am I leaving the industries I affect better? Am I helping level the playing field or create access? This quote is my litmus test for life and for business.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Being okay with“no”: As a professional fundraiser, one of the first things I learned from a mentor in grad school was that *everything* is a numbers game; as such if you can’t handle a “no” you can’t handle fundraising, entrepreneurship, most forms of consulting, and a slew of other things. Moreover, you have to be able to handle a long string of them in a row without letting it wear you down so you can get to the “yes” you need. I have failed a million times, I continue to fail (as we all do) even amidst other successes. In today’s media soaked landscape its easy to fall for the curatorial fallacy of perfection that our algorithms force feed us. Embrace your failures and learn from them, own them. It makes it all the more powerful when you push through to success. Just look at our stunning illustrations! It took over 40 “no”s to get to the “yes” that was Silvan who breathed life into my story and set our aesthetic baseline! All those no’s became worth it!
Gratitude: When you’re essentially born into an orphanage with something like CP, you get really used to chalking up the wins as they happen. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been so grateful for every opportunity or connection I’ve been given. My parents instilled a sense of gratitude in me that has been instrumental to my professional trajectory. It’s also something that’s deceptively simple to cultivate. If you ever get a professional email from me you’ll notice that I sign all of them, “appreciatively” because it’s a small subtle way to make sure anyone doing anything with or for me knows their presence and contributions matter to me very deeply. Gratitude also makes my first point about being okay with “no” a lot more easy!
Radical Honesty/Transparency: You cannot please everyone. You cannot be all things to all people. Part of living that truth a commitment to radical honesty about yourself, your business, and everything you do that affects your team and the community. It also means being honest with yourself. Success is about learning to navigate the world while maintaining a commitment to this key piece of the puzzle. If people know you’re radically transparent, if you are an open book more often than a siloed secret keeper it becomes so much easier to team-build or create collective impact. I’ve always been a huge fan of Ray Dalio’s Principles and this one I think is one of the most important things I learned from him. We even have clients teams read a copy or excerpts I keep in the office because I think they’re so effective. Mistakes happen, be honest about them and demonstrate the systems you create to prevent their repetition. That’s what most people are looking for, and it extends to admitting when you don’t know something and empowering those who do to help with your decision making process. Building teams around your weaknesses to compliment your strengths also takes radical honesty about where and why you fall short.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive social impact on our society. To begin, what problems are you aiming to solve?
The fashion industry is guilty of many sins from perpetuating problematic tropes re: cultural appropriation to promoting unrealistic body image, contributing to exploitation of the global south to enable the fast fashion system or the rampant tokenization/racism, and ableism. It’s also guilty of having such a high barrier to entry way too much talent is simply left out of the running because they lack the money or connections to even get a foot in the door. We are here to end the worst of fashion culture while celebrating the best and empowering its more equitable future. It is an art form after all.
Changing the uncomfortable truths about fashion starts with making the field overall more accessible. Changing our industry values begins with better fashion education. It begins with realizing that kids who love fashion have never had comprehensive educational tools for fashion history, production, design and even simple things like mending. I love YouTube as much as the next person but, we can do better. Little Red Fashion is taking this notoriously insular industry as the focus of EdTech solutions that involve turning augmented reality from a gimmick to a genuine tool for immersive learning; we’re using fashion as the fodder for a slew of STEAM & literacy educational workbooks and videos, we’re creating a fashion Mentorship database and AI to power our fashion focused games.
Little Red Fashion’s tech is giving the grown ups who have fashion loving kids in their lives resources a generation overdue and meeting digitally native kids where they’re at: tablets, the metaverse, and beyond.
How do you think your technology can address this?
Fashion is complex, complicated, and brings together a lot of topics under one umbrella. AR enhanced books can make this more manageable and unlike traditional publishing can be updated and improved over time. This turns a formerly static resource into a long-term one packed with evolving value. Our fashion mentorship database in development can help kids & families from anywhere get key insights from professionals across the field in over a dozen disciplines that may inspire them. That used to mean you “need to know somebody” with that knowledge. Our deeper tech includes some things I can’t go into just yet (or my board will kill me) but sufficed to say we’re actively working to give kids a totally new type of control over the creative side of fashion design & practical side of fashion history through smart devices and IoT offerings for textile education.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
There are two answers to this. One direct, and the other indirect.
Directly speaking, I was doing some consulting in luxury womenswear in New York City a few years ago, I had a client that was filled to the brim with many of the most toxic views of the industry. To put it succinctly this person’s creativity stopped at a size 4. I was party to conversations they’d have about how perfectly healthy girls were too fat, watched them laugh behind the backs of their own made to measure clients about their size or appearance and more. It reached a boiling point and I terminated the contract. A few months prior to that I had floated the idea of a kids book about fashion in the workroom and this client shared they too had wanted to do that. So that kicked off me writing the first draft of The Little Red Dress. After that, I started doing market research to guide my next steps and was INSTANTLY annoyed at how nobody had ever come up with a fashion education solution for kids. I got so annoyed that what started as a fun book is now Little Red Fashion. Eleanor Lambert, founder of the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) famously said, “You must always be alert and see the things right in front of you that are not being done and should be done.” So I am. Because 9 year old me made me do it. Your readers should definitely check out my piece about LRF published by the CFDA here, by the way.
Indirectly so, my mother. My mother’s indomitable fight to make her disabled son feel empowered through clothing to counter the bullying about his leg braces inspired me. Her own use of clothing and dress to lift herself up in her darkest moments (especially this one pair of vintage Dior sunglasses she used to wear to chemo infusions) inspired me to feel passionately about giving fashion the respect as a field of study and artistic discipline that it deserves.
How do you think this might change the world?
Our tech can change the world by truly democratizing a trillion dollar industry in a way only truly empowered young people can. It can change the world by creating a truly conscious generation of consumers who see through greenwashing and performative allyship damaging the planet and various social movements. It can change the world by showing kids who are also feeling unseen like I did that people like them are out here thriving and living their best lives. Right now I’m in the thick of writing our second title The Little Red Kit all about sportswear, technical fabric, and the history of soccer kits/insignia through the eyes of a kid with cerebral palsy like me and his best friend Liam. We’re courting all sorts of amazing partner authors for similarly diverse books that dovetail fashion with social impact to change the world one story at a tie. Our AR and other tech will allow these inspired kids to take that energy and focus it in completely new ways. Our later top secret tech in development can change the way cultural or educational institutions and archives teach fashion to the public at large. Little Red Fashion has the potential to use tech as a democratizing force for fashion like never before. The truth is if we can do it for fashion, we can also use our core tech and trade secrets to help other high barrier to entry industries lead their next generation of professionals too.
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
No, honestly I don’t I see no potential drawback to making books more interactive through augmented reality and creating smart tools for textile education. I don’t see a Black Mirror of fashion moment where our mentorship AI becomes sentient and runs amok. But what I do see is the need to be equally as committed to making more tech available to more kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.
What I see is that as a tech company focused on education we must always be working to meet new foundations or charitable individuals willing to help us do that as partners in our Little Red Literacy program. What I see is that fashion ed tech is a win-win situation for kids, grown ups, and the industry at large, but that as such we need to make sure when we say “Fashion is for Everyone” we truly mean “Everyone” and do anything we can to expand that definition over time. Do I think we can get a smartphone or tablet to every kid out there? Maybe not. But we can advocate for better funding in classrooms, we can advocate for more library programs, we can work with charitable partners to provide free copies of our books available or create fashion learning experiences open to the public. Collective impact and collaboration are the ways we prevent our tech from becoming another tool of exclusion in the world of fashion. I talk even more about the future state of Little Red Fashion in my interview with “the gold standard” in fashion podcasting Dressed: The History of Fashion which you can check out here.
Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)
Social impact requires genuine social equity
It is 2021, there is too much capital floating around to merely tack on social impact as an afterthought as many companies do. For one thing it’s disingenuous, but moreover it’s a missed opportunity to solve serious problems particularly in the world of tech. We all know (unless we’re under a rock) that women, LGBTQIA+ folks, and people of color are vastly underrepresented in C suites and on cap tables. At Little Red Fashion that’s why our cap table is as diverse as the audiences we’re trying to reach. There is nothing I hate more than performative bumper sticker CSR and empty buzzwords. Put your money where your values are. Positive social impact isn’t just cute verbiage, it means taking issues to the mat. If you look around C suite/your board and everyone looks the same, you’re already doing social impact in this century very wrong.
Know the problem you’re solving
Too often, I think tech founders want to run before we walk. We’re so excited about what we’re doing that we don’t always allow ourselves the space to do deep research and learn from it. With Little Red Fashion I was so caught up in packing our first drafts of The Little Red Dress with vocabulary words and a fat glossary of terms that I completely forgot about this little thing called readability. If kids can’t get through the book because it keeps getting broken up, how am I actually teaching them? In that instance I was solving the problem of the side dishes instead of focusing on the main course. A few surveys from educators later and we nixed the glossary but worked elements of it into our reading comprehension and literacy e-book concept. Same stuff, new format, better reception! In our excitement to teach kids about fashion, we didn’t solve a baseline issue of readability. Which leads me into my next thing:
Create as many feedback loops as possible
Nothing is more valuable than feedback from the people who support you early, that includes advisors, reviewers or anyone. Our parent and educator feedback loops the past two years have gotten us to where we are. Little Red Fashion might be officially less than a year old, but I’ve been getting feedback on the core concepts for almost 4 years now! Without them we wouldn’t have come up with some of our textile education smart tools! Without feedback loops and questionnaires or direct emails about concepts we thought were great, we wouldn’t be dipping our toes into the NFT and animated content space. Never forget, asking is always free and doing so really puts the social in social impact.
Community-building is the only way forward
Speaking of social, tech for social good must be community focused. Technologists looking to solve social issues need to make sure that they’ve got enough community involvement to cover the spread of opinions so to speak. In a pluralistic society it behooves a social impact tech founder to have as many diverse voices as possible as part of broad conversations that drive more nuanced decision making. Having more diverse seats at the decision making table then allows those voices to be heard and championed appropriately. No social impact company in 2021 will get anywhere without building a community as consumers today are finally starting to see through performative lazy CSR and other symbolic ways many companies placate critics. Organic community building is the best way to grow in my opinion. For us at Little Red Fashion that means building our community of fashion loving professionals who feel as I do that our tools are the things they wish they’d had. We do this through our Little Red Village project. We’ve found this translates into a core network of supporters who spread our mission and grow our mission and grow our mentorship database
Iteration not perfection: flexibility is everything
Things don’t always look the way you thought they would. Tech is about iteration and improvement not nailing it perfectly right off the bat. The fact is you’re not always going to like what you put out there in every way but without objective feedback it’s all just echo chamber noise. When I first conceived of Little Red Fashion I was dead set on creating a kids sketchpad off the bat because it was “obvious” to me. But that was a miscalculation. A few months into our prototype it occurred to me that we’re reinventing the wheel and can hold off until a later fundraising round to acquire a sketchpad tech firm. This was corroborated by dozens of conversations with industry professionals who were so much more keen on our mentorship AI and game offering which is where we’ve pivoted our energy since. Especially when your endgame is social impact, you have to be feedback driven and not worry about the negative feedback you need to grow.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Chalk this up to being a Buddhist but like so many things, it comes down to compassion. Having compassion for the planet and for those among us who are marginalized or disenfranchised puts us into a mindset of service and empathy. Make the choice to live in this headspace consciously and with healthy boundaries for self-care and there is no limit to what you can accomplish. No matter what your passions and talents are you can find a way to tailor them to the broader needs of the world and society while living your truth and being excited about it. As the Dalai Lama says, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Don’t be like me, or anyone else for that matter. Just be the best you that you can be and align your passions with the problems you want to solve.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
Michelle Obama, hands down. She’s a quintessentially inspiring erudite scholar, fashion maven, FLOTUS, and activist for the causes she cares about. Full disclosure, she’s ALSO why the little red dress itself is named Michelle! She’s just *that* inspiring to myself and a whole generation of those committed to social justice with a bit of style. I’d ask her how she feels the American system of philanthropy can be improved, how we can create better digital infrastructure for low income kids & their families and how we can use technology to solve issues like food desserts and early childhood nutrition which negatively impact the academic performance of too many children. Lastly, I’d ask her how she feels the American fashion industry can better support creatives from historically marginalized groups and more proactively solve the systemic issues of fast fashion we’ve exported across the globe. You know, light banter.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Little Red Fashion can be found on Instagram at @LittleRedFashionCo or www.LittleRedFashion.com where they can pre-order a digital copy of The Little Red Dress and join our mailing list to find out when our hardcover AR enhanced special editions are available for pre-order. Together, one story or download at a time we can empower the next generation of fashion lovers, leaders, and creatives together. And, if they really want to help us reach our goal of 850 print sales of our amazing artwork they can check that out on our website shop as well! Three of our iconic pages are available as glicée prints measuring 18” x 12” both framed and unframed. Print sales fund our expanded educational material development!
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work. | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/social-impact-tech-jonathan-joseph-of-little-red-fashion-on-how-their-technology-will-make-an-e2a696690d2c | ['Jilea Hemmings'] | 2021-07-22 13:39:36.268000+00:00 | ['Social Impact'] |
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❏ About Movies ❏
Film, also called movie, motion picture or moving picture, is a visual art-form used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations.[1] The word “cinema”, short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.
The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects.
❏ Google Play Movies & TV ❏
Google Play Movies & TV is an online video on demand service operated by Google, part of its Google Play product line. The service offers movies and television shows for purchase or rental, depending on availability.
Google claims that most content is available in high definition, and a 4K Ultra HD video option was offered for select titles starting in December 2016.
Content can be watched on the Google Play website, through an extension for the Google Chrome web browser, or through the available for Android and iOS devices. Offline download is supported through the mobile app and on devices. A variety of options exist for watching content on a television.
❏ Platforms ❏
On computers, content can be watched on a dedicated Movies & TV section of the Google Play website, or through the Google Play Movies & TV Google Chrome web browser extension.[12][13]
On smartphones and tablets running the Android or iOS mobile operating systems, content can be watched on the Google Play Movies & TV mobile app.
Offline download and viewing is supported on Chromebooks through the Chrome extension, and on Android and iOS through the mobile app. Computers running Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS operating systems cannot download content.
In order to view content on a television, users can either connect their computer to a TV with an HDMI cable, use the Google Play Movies & TV app available for select smart TVs from LG and Samsung as well as Roku devices, stream content through the Chromecast dongle, through the YouTube app on Amazon Fire TV devices, or through Android TV.
❏ Formats and Genres ❏
A film genre is a motion-picture category based (for example) on similarities either in the narrative elements or in the emotional response to the film (namely: serious, comic, etc.).[citation needed] Most theories of film genre borrow from literary-genre criticism. Each film genre is associated[by whom?] with “conventions, iconography, settings, narratives, characters and actors”. [2] Standard genre characters vary according to the film genre; for film noir, for example, standard characters include the femme fatale[3] and the “hardboiled” detective; a Western film may portray the schoolmarm and the gunfighter. Some actors acquire a reputation linked to a single genre, such as John Wayne (the Western) or Fred Astaire (the musical).[4] A film’s genre will influence the use of filmmaking styles and techniques, such as the use of flashbacks and low-key lighting in film noir, tight framing in horror films, fonts that look like rough-hewn logs for the titles of Western films, or the “scrawled” title-font and credits of Se7en (1995), a film about a serial killer.[5] As well, genres have associated film-scoring conventions, such as lush string orchestras for romantic melodramas or electronic music for science-fiction films.…Netflix is a streaming service that offers award-winning TV shows, films, anime, documentaries and more on thousands of devices connected to the Internet Marketing Online One Way Streaming. | https://medium.com/@jales32610/google-docs-it-chapter-two-2019-full-m-o-v-i-e-online-streaming-sub-english-2b9146a8c4fa | ['Warung Jumadi Atau Jm'] | 2020-12-18 17:14:30.085000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'TV Series', 'Movies', 'Life', 'TV Shows'] |
Sending Azure Monitor outage notifications to Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service providing infrastructure as a service (IaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) supporting multiple Microsoft Specific and third-party services and systems with 90+ compliance offerings and trusted by 95% of Fortune 500 companies to base their business on.
What is a system downtime and how does it affect me or my business?
According to Webopedia, “Downtime refers to periods of time during which a computer system, server, or network is shut off or unavailable for use. Systems go through periods of downtime for a variety of reasons, including power or hardware failure, system crashes, hacker attacks, system reboots, operating system and/or software updates, lack of network connectivity, and more”. While downtimes may be planned for maintenance, in most cases they are unplanned and unexpected.
The cost and impact of system downtime are rising rapidly due to the business’s increasing dependence on data and technology. System downtime can cause loss of opportunities, productivity loss, confidence erosion, potential employee overtime costs to recover work lost and catching up, service level agreement penalties, supply chain ripple effects, and most importantly, a damaged reputation. Effective communication with staff, customers, and service providers are very important to manage the impact of downtime.
Dispatching critical Azure alerts
A key feature of Azure is its alerting service which enables you to set up alerts to monitor the metrics and log data for the entire stack across your infrastructure. Azure dispatches these alerts via Email. However, for critical metrics indicative of degraded user experience, email may not be good enough to elicit a prompt response and resolution from your reliability and NOC teams. For high availability services with SLA timeframes in minutes, you need to be able to promptly alert the right engineers and teams about a critical issue, and also gather responders, subject matter experts and communicate to the relevant internal and external stakeholders while at the same time, keeping a watchful eye on the SLAs. This is where Zenduty can help you.
Integrating Azure alerts with Zenduty
Zenduty acts as a dispatcher for the alerts generated by Azure. Zenduty determines the right engineers to notify based on on-call schedules and escalations and notifies via using email, text messages (SMS), phone calls, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Android & iOS push notifications.
Zenduty provides you with everything you need you to minimize your mean time to recovery with advanced routing rules, flexible scheduling, analytics and reporting, integrated ChatOps (with Slack and Microsoft Teams), stakeholder communications, and SLA alerts.
Steps to integrate Microsoft Teams and Azure with Zenduty
Below is a step-by-step guide to integrate Azure alerts with Zenduty.
In Zenduty:
Create a Zenduty account here Create a team(one is created by default on signup) In your team, create a service and add an Azure integration. In the Azure integration config page, find and copy the webhook URL for later use. Back in the service page, navigate to the Integrations tab and in the Outgoing integrations section, click on Add integration. Select Microsoft Teams Connector. Click on Configure for the connector integration. You will see an input box. We will fill this input box in Step 9. Open Microsoft Teams in another tab. In the Apps, search for Zenduty. Add Zenduty to a Teams channel and also add as a connector. Navigate to Chat and click on Zenduty(bot). In the chat window, type ‘login’.
8. Authenticate your Teams account. Zenduty is now configured for 1–1 alerts from Azure.
9. To send Azure alerts to a Teams channel, navigate to the Teams channel where you want to send the alerts. Click on the “…” button next to the channel and select Connectors. Select Zenduty from the application. Click on configure. Copy the webhook URL and paste in the MS Teams connector outgoing webhook configure section in Zenduty that we created in Step 4.
Configuration in Microsoft Azure:
Open the Azure portal and click on Alerts. Search on the search bar if not directly visible.
2. Create a new alert rule.
3. Select the resource which you want to monitor. Here we shall monitor a Virtual Machine.
4. Select the condition based on which the alert is to be triggered. Here we create an alert that is triggered when the CPU utilization of a Virtual Machine crosses 50%.
5. Create an Action Group (or use a previously created action group)
6. Enter the Action group name and short name:
7. Enter an action name and select Webhook under Action Type. A dialog box appears in the side.
8. Enter the webhook URL copied earlier from the Zenduty integration page.
9. Enable the common alert schema by toggling the button to yes and then click on OK.
10. Click on OK to add the action group.
The action group has now been created. It should visible under the section of Action Groups
11. Fill in the alert details appropriately. The alert rule name along with the severity will appear as the alert message and the alert description will appear as the summary in Zenduty
12. Click on create alert rule. You have now successfully created the alert.
Conclusion
Using the combination of Azure’s Application Insights along with webhook integration to Zenduty is a simple way to provide 24/7 monitoring and notification. Many aspects of application performance can be monitored with Azure alerts, including custom events detected within the application code. Now all essential Azure alerts and incidents will appear on the Zenduty dashboard enabling you to make use of all the power and capabilities of Zenduty to resolve incidents quickly and efficiently. | https://medium.com/zenduty/sending-azure-monitor-outage-notifications-to-microsoft-teams-65f154641a01 | ['Vishwa Krishnakumar'] | 2020-04-23 21:58:10.319000+00:00 | ['Microsoft', 'DevOps', 'Operations', 'It', 'Azure'] |
Insights on future trends for Robotics and Automation (2020) | There is an end-of-year tradition in tech companies to reflect on the technological trends that happened throughout the year and predict the future. Interestingly, Abraham Lincoln said that “The best way to predict the future is to create it” — which is essentially what we’ve done by founding RIOS two years ago. We’ve articulated a thesis on how the future would unfold in the robotics space in the coming years, and how we should architect a world-changing company to truly make an impact in the world. Two years ago, we made the following predictions below to investors. As with all predictions, there were way more disbelievers than believers. But we’ve seen our vision of the future come to life this year, and we strongly believe that in the next 1–2 years these predictions will become even more prevalent. Below are three RIOS team members who provided their thoughts on the trends in robotics and automation:
Dr. Bernard Casse — CEO
Fullstack robotics companies will prevail
We predicted that fullstack robotics companies will become the most dominant force. The robotics space is so fragmented that focusing on building components alone and relying on other slow-moving partners for integration and distribution, is not a sound strategy. After we exited from stealth mode, we’ve seen a few companies embrace the notion of acting as a systems integrator. Interestingly, even some investors who didn’t believe in our original thesis ended up investing in new fullstack startups after being in denial for 2 years. There’s even the noteworthy case of an investor, whom we pitched during our inception, who recently quit his job at a VC firm to start a fullstack robotics company. We anticipate some existing companies to pivot to own more of the technology stack, and more startups are going to be funded to be fullstack companies.
Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) business model will become more ubiquitous
We’ve long held the belief that the traditional business model of asking customers to pay upfront capital costs (CapEx) for automation will not cut it for new incumbents. We were early proponents of robots-as-a-service (RaaS) — we don’t charge for hardware or software; we deliver services to customers and only charge them operating costs (OpEx). This year, with the toll of COVID-19 on global business, more companies than ever before are gravitating towards a pay-per-use model with no hefty upfront financial commitments. As companies’ revenues decline, this is going to become a permanent trend. We’ve seen startups switch from a software licensing business to a full-service business and adopting RaaS to be more responsive to customers’ needs. We expect more startups to follow the same path.
A Cambrian explosion in robotics is coming
Widespread automation is inevitable — it is only a matter of time. Labor shortages and more recently the pandemic have prompted more manufacturers and industries to accelerate automation. We’ve seen an uptick in customer demand and it’s not slowing down — it’s also very unlikely that a vaccine in sight will stifle automation. Robotics may have been technological curiosities a while back, but are now real options especially for many small and medium-size businesses. There is also a lot of incentive to reshore to reduce the risk of globally distributed supply chains. In parallel, advancements in hardware/electronics, computing horsepower (GPUs + edge computing), AI, and cloud computing have made it possible to engineer more intelligent and capable machines. We’re going to see more startups in the robotics space emerge to leverage this massive technology infrastructure with the goal of grabbing a piece of a gargantuan market.
Mandy Dwight — VP of Business Development
It’s simple — the robotics and automation adoption that allowed companies to stay alive in 2020 will be what helps them thrive in 2021.
Automation remains a tool to survive and, above all, shrink costs
We’ve all heard expressions like, “if you are not thinking about automating now, you are already too late”. This year (2020) really put this into perspective with companies implementing robotics and automation at scrambling speeds in an effort to stay open and keep up with production. With automation, many companies are realizing that not only are they able to produce and ship more product, but they are saving more money than expected on labor and support costs. These realized savings will lead to more investment in automation for 2021. Companies will be able to produce and ship goods at lower costs thanks to automation, a boost in a questionable economy.
Robots are not just for large corporations anymore
We have found large businesses continuing to invest in robotics, as expected, but the pandemic has encouraged small and medium-sized businesses to try robotics, as well. This trend will continue in 2021 primarily because traditional barriers to automation are being removed. These barriers include large upfront equipment costs and the need for costly skilled labor within the facility to program and operate the equipment. Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) models have been instrumental in allowing all businesses to adopt robotics quickly and inexpensively while providing ongoing support.
Flexible robotic solutions will support changes in consumer demand
One thing that hasn’t changed, and will not change in 2021, is consumer demand for a vast number of ever-changing and, often personalized, SKUs. Companies of all sizes will rethink their production processes with the adoption of flexible robotic solutions to support continued growth in these markets. Rigid robotic solutions that are preprogrammed to complete one repetitive task no longer make sense when production needs to change as quickly as consumer tastes. Innovative companies who strive to maintain the loyalty of their consumers will invest in flexible solutions like robotic workcells that are rapidly reconfigurable for new tasks in the warehouse or to the changing needs of a supply chain’s workflow.
Dr. Chris Lalau-Keraly — Director of Engineering
One of the main trends of automation is centered around dealing with tasks that have higher degrees of entropy, i.e., less structure, and the robots being in charge of reducing this entropy, and executing tasks regardless of the initial state they are presented with. We are presented with use cases like these from our clients every day, where a classical approach of how these robots are programmed is simply not viable. The new systems must have a much deeper understanding of their environment than they are used to and must know how to act upon that understanding.
The other trend is the speed at which systems are asked to be developed and deployed, and then repurposed in the field, requiring extreme agility in the design cycle by robotic companies. This is why I believe RIOS is extremely well poised to address this challenge. By using a wide variety of sensing modalities, including our unique tactile sensing capability, and state of the art machine Learning and AI algorithms at the very core of our data processing pipelines, our systems can have a very fine and detailed understanding of their surroundings and their actions. Our agile style of development for both hardware and software enable us to symbiotically develop both for maximum efficiency towards turning around systems for our clients, for whom time to deployment is one of the key metrics that can ensure they remain competitive. | https://medium.com/rioscorporation/insights-on-future-trends-for-robotics-and-automation-2020-afdc9f206467 | ['Rios Corporation'] | 2020-12-12 17:05:42.099000+00:00 | ['Robots', 'Innovation', 'Industry 4 0', 'Robotics', 'Manufacturing'] |
How KFC Won Christmas in Japan | How KFC Won Christmas in Japan
Why a brilliant marketing technique has led to a nationwide tradition unlike any other
via Wikimedia Commons
If you look up Japanese Christmas traditions, you’ll likely be surprised at the top tradition celebrated by most families across the island nation: Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Colonel Sanders and his army of marketers have done the seemingly impossible: they’ve taken over one of the most important days of the year, winning Christmas for the millions of people who call Japan home.
Business Insider and the BBC report that:
“An estimated 3.6 million Japanese families eat KFC during the Christmas season. Millions of people weather long lines to order fried chicken weeks in advance to carry on the tradition.”
How did KFC manage to secure such a vital stake in the country’s celebration of this upcoming holiday? Through a decades-long clever marketing plan and strategy — here’s how they did it. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/how-kfc-won-christmas-in-japan-300d4b06571b | ['Jake Daghe'] | 2020-12-10 15:18:22.648000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Food', 'Christmas', 'Advertising', 'Marketing'] |
What was wrong—and right—about Elon Musk’s infamous coronavirus tweet | Earlier today, Elon Musk tweeted “The coronavirus panic is dumb”. Here’s the evidence:
The Twitterverse didn’t waste time piling on top of him with insults, threats, and demands that we woke folks ought to “cancel” him. Yikes.
Why were so many Earthers upset? Perhaps it’s because:
they didn’t really grok what he was saying tragedy makes us very sensitive to anything that seems to downplay it we humans love lurking on social media waiting to pounce on an offensive celebrity they’re, uh, PANICKING?!?
Maybe it’s more of a combination of all four theories? Either way, he’s attracted quite the boatload of righteous fury.
After the Twitterstorm, you know he’ll need some of the sticky-icky-ICKY this weekend
Let’s break down his sentence, which, c’mon, isn’t exactly a complicated quintet of words. The word “coronavirus” is just a modifier on the word “panic”, which is the subject. He was calling panic dumb, not the coronavirus. If you struggle to understand that, please find the nearest middle school English teacher and ask them to tutor you this weekend.
And Elon’s right. Panic makes people (and mobs) do bad things. It makes people loot and shoot and drives them apart at exactly the time they need to come together with cool heads and compassion. Panic makes bad situations worse. (bad situations, like, you know, global pandemics)
So what did he do wrong? For one, he lacked grace and charisma. Whenever death is involved, try to be compassionate by seeking to NOT trigger people. Just be cool, man.
Also, his brevity came off as a cocky superiority. If he really cared to quell the rising panic in the population, he should have used the other 200+ characters in that tweet to explain it a little further. Or maybe used a cutesy emoji. Or, OHOHOH, he should have used an awesome gif from some cult classic 90s movie!
Or, he could’ve just laid out the truth like this randomly-selected, incredibly handsome, and EXTRAORDINARILY woke (and humble) twitterbro: | https://medium.com/hifi-press/what-was-wrong-and-right-about-elon-musks-infamous-coronavirus-tweet-b8e48d5e6938 | ['Tom Sadira'] | 2020-03-07 00:54:26.202000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Elon Musk', 'Global Health', 'Twitter', 'News'] |
Mass Street University Is Now Mass Street Data School | This has been a long time coming.
When I started Mass Street University my intention was to do nothing more than provide a place to educate clients about the things I was doing for them. MSU has now become so much more than that. Consequently, the name no longer fits the mission.
Originally, the school was named “University” using the nomenclature of the in-house training departments of many large corporations. Those companies that have enough staff to have their own training department often name it their university.
Once the mission of the school expanded beyond Mass Street Analytics clients, I immediately recognized that I now had a marketing problem. I did not want people thinking that we were an actual degree granting university. To prevent the mistake, I had my attorneys write up a nice disclaimer which you see on a lot of our content. But it is not enough to have some fine print. It was clear a full-on name change was necessary.
Changing the brand’s name presents numerous legal, technical, and marketing challenges. We basically have to go through everything, scratch out “University”, and replace it with “Data School”. That is not going to happen overnight.
Everything going forward will carry the MSDS brand which will be immediately recognizable. As time permits, we will start walking backward through our content and replacing branding as we go. The last step will be to change the URL which will be the most challenging part of changing the school name.
Some older material may never get the rebranding treatment as it is just not worth our time to go through every single power point and lecture just to change a word. Please bear with us as we make this transition.
On a personal note, I am excited about the change. It is just one step closer to this school being what I now envision it as. An online technical school that teaches valuable skills at low cost and offers a globally accepted certification as proof of your hard work. We are still a long way from that dream, but I am certain with your continued support, we will get there sooner rather than later. | https://datadrivenperspectives.com/mass-street-university-is-now-mass-street-data-school-b37d3cf71917 | ['Bob Wakefield'] | 2020-12-20 22:50:41.945000+00:00 | ['Education Reform', 'Online Education', 'Edtech', 'Education'] |
Top 10 Christmas Movies All Time | Top 10 Christmas Movies All Time
Top 10 Christmas Movies All Time Hello and welcome back to Most Amazing Top Ten! I am Nirav Parmar.. Today we are talking about the Top 10 Christmas Movies All Time….
Top 10 Christmas Movies All Time
Okay, launching in to this list with a nice transitional Christmas movie, and a personal favorite
Here is the list of Top 10 Christmas Movies All Time :
10. The Nightmare Before Christmas
09. A Christmas Story
08. The Polar Express
07. The Snowman
06. Jingle All The Way
05. The Grinch
04. The Muppets Christmas Carol
03. Love Actually
02. Elf
01. Home Alone
10. The Nightmare Before Christmas
This 1993 movie solves so many of my autumnal issues. I always want to start watching Christmas films the moment it gets cold, but I don’t want my festive excitement to peak too soon. The Nightmare Before Christmas is great because it is both a Halloween and a Christmas film, which means that it is acceptable to start watching it early October. This baby has a fresh rating of 94%, it’s undeniably a goodie.
9. A Christmas Story
I have to admit, I had never heard of this film a christmas story until I watch few time ago. It seems like it is a huge favorite in North America while a lot of us over in the rest of the world haven’t heard of it. I watched it last Christmas eve and it is an American classic indeed. The story is about a kid who wants a BB gun for Christmas, meanwhile his parents get cheeky leg lamp. You have to watch it to understand it for yourself. I gives it 89%.
8. The Polar Express
Oh this is a beauty isn’t it! An animated icy treat with the voice of Tom Hanks as the train conductor, the Polar Express was released in 2004. Visually stunning, this movie really feels like Christmas to me! A steam train is pretty much my actual dream, too! And, if that wasn’t enough, Santa is even there! I only gave it a rating of 55….which I think is not fair. This next movie IS Christmas to me. I don’t about the rest of you, but in the UK, this is always on on Christmas Eve, and I sit around with my family, mince pie in hand, enjoying it. I am talking about
7. The Snowman
We’re walking in the air! The Snowman is actually an animated short of a Children’s book. It is just 26 minutes long, but packs all the festive punch of a Christmas classic. The reason this 1982 film appeals to so many people is that we all know what it is like to be a child who builds a snowman, and wants it to stay alive forever…. But we all know what happens to snow. I really think it is beautiful, like a children’s book come alive…which of course is what it is. 92% Ratings on my opinion which is fair. Okay, I totally get that our next movie isn’t the best by any stretch of the film making imagination, but it is a goodie anyway….
6. Jingle All The Way
There is one big reason this Christmas movie is awesome, and it stats with Arnold and ends with Schwarzenegger. We all know what it is like to be a child who really wants a certain toy for Christmas… and I guess some of us know what it is like to be a parent afraid of disappointing a child at Christmas. This jingle all the way 1997 film is for adults and children alike, and I dare you not to laugh out loud at how enjoyably ridiculous it is at times. Ratings on my opinion 50% which I think is a bit harsh. It has stood the test of time and I try and watch it at least once each holiday season. Coming into
5. The Grinch
You’re a mean one, Mr Grinch… Dr Zeus knows where it is at with a Christmas tale, and this 2000 on screen adaptation is a visual stunner. Whoville is pretty lols, and don’t we all want Cindy Loo Who hair and a Grinch Christmas sweater. The dog, too, the dog is golden. I love how cheeky and sinister the Grinch is, and then his moment of realization when he starts to feel the true spirit of Christmas. 55% Ratings on my opinion, but like…. Come on! Where is there spirit of Christmas? ABSOLUTELY at number
4. The Muppets Christmas Carol
the muppets christmas carol puts a fun and energetic spin on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The 1992 movie is enjoyable, even 25 years after its release, and is filled with songs to get viewers in the Christmas spirit. I love Kermit as Bob Cratchit….I also love Marley and Marleyy…wooooo. 69% Ratings on my opinion.
3. Love Actually
YES. I love Love Actually, there are so many good stories in this one movie. It is more of an adult Christmas film, which is cool as Christmas is for life, not just for pre teens. The 2003 movie is often billed as the ultimate Romantic comedy, which I can agree with. It has tears, heartbreak, first loves, last loves, stolen kisses, snow flakes and mince pies. Oh, and a kid dressed as an octopus…which is a personal favorite. It has 63% on Ratings on my opinion, but I personally think Bill Nighy’s performance alone deserves more than that on its own.
2. Elf
Elf Will Ferrell’s portrayal of Buddy the elf is infectious. I am a big fan of Elf, I think the story is excellent and heart warming. Not only do we get to enjoy sights of New York City and Christmas, we also get to experience the NORTH fragging pole. Zoey Deschanel also gives a great performance as Jovi, the mall elf. The 2003 classic gained itself 84% on Ratings on my opinion, which is pretty great for a Christmas film. Finally, the big guns at number one, it isn’t Christmas until you have watched
1. Home Alone
This was Macaulay Culkin’s finest moment, and his hands clapped around his face on the cover of the Home Alone VHS, yes, VHS, is what I need to get in the festive spirit. 1990s movie Home Alone tugs at all of our inner kids that want to order pizza, play games and dance around the house responsibility free all day. Even the trap setting looked fun. VIA LA HOME ALONE. Also there is home alone 2 or home alone 3 available this are the best movie i ever watched.. | https://medium.com/@nirav-parmar/top-10-christmas-movies-all-time-be1adbaff71f | ['Nirav Parmar'] | 2021-06-07 06:57:44.337000+00:00 | ['Christmas Movies', 'Movie Review', 'Movies', 'Christmas', 'Christmas Gifts'] |
Add Chat Feature to Demo of Amazon Chime SDK React Component Library | Add Chat Feature to Demo of Amazon Chime SDK React Component Library dannadori Follow Nov 30 · 7 min read
Note:
This article is also available here.(Japanese)
https://cloud.flect.co.jp/entry/2020/11/30/125920
In our last article, we posted a brief introduction to the Amazon Chime SDK React Component Library. At the time of writing, the latest update of this library, ver 1.5.0, added Chat-related components. I’m going to use it to add Chat functionality to an official AWS demo.
Like this.
Note: that this article is a bit complicated, using React coding. If you simply want to run the code, the URL of the repository is given at the end of this article, so you can get the code from there and run it.
At First
This time, we will add Chat functionality based on the demo provided by the official. First, make sure you have a working sample of ver 1.5.0, referring to the previous article.
Approach
Generally, the Amazon Chime SDK React Component Library provides React components as well as hooks and providers (Context APIs) that work behind the components to make it easier to use Amazon Chime’s features.
With the addition of the Chat-related components, I was hoping that they would provide providers or hooks to enable Chat functionality, but unfortunately, they haven’t yet. This issue says that you should implement it yourself with data messages for real-time signaling. Please refer to my previous article on data messages for real-time signaling.
So, I would like to implement a provider that uses data messages for real-time signaling by myself.
RealitimeSubscribeChatStateProvider
We will name the provider we will create as RealtimeSubscribeChatStateProvider. The following is a brief description of the content of the provider, in excerpts that we think are important. The entire source code can be found here.
Call userealitimeSubscribeChatState() of this provider so that you can refer to the Chat features and data.
Definition of State
Define the State (Chat function and data) provided by userealitimeSubscribeChatState(). If you just want to create a simple Chat function, the following two variables should be sufficient.
export interface RealitimeSubscribeChatStateValue {
chatData: RealtimeData[]
sendChatData: (mess: string) => void
}
The RealtimeData used in the interface is the actual data to be sent and received. In this article, we have defined the following data structure.
export type RealtimeData = {
uuid: string
data: any
createdDate: number
senderName: string
//<snip>
}
useRealitimeSubscribeChatState()
The method to provide the above State is as follows: when creating a provider using the Context API, I think it’s almost formulaic, so I won’t describe it.
export const useRealitimeSubscribeChatState = (): RealitimeSubscribeChatStateValue => {
const state = useContext(RealitimeSubscribeChatStateContext)
if (!state) {
// handle exception
}
return state
}
Definition of Provider
Sending and receiving data messages for real-time signaling is done by AudioVideoFacade. You can get a reference to this AudioVideoFacade with useAudioVideo() (1–1), and you can get the username with useAppState() (1–2). The user name can be retrieved with useAppState() (1–2). The Chat text data is managed by this provider using useState. (1–3)
In (2–1), we define a data transmission function using data messages for real-time signaling. We call the method of audioVideo (AudioVideoFacade) to send the data. In this time, we specify “CHAT” because we can specify the topic (2–2). Also, since the sender can’t receive the sent data , you should add the sent data to the Chat text data after sending(2–3).
useEffect registers (and deletes) a function for receiving data messages for real-time signaling (3–1), (3–2). The receive function itself just parses the received data and adds it to the text data of Chat, as shown in (3–3).
export const RealitimeSubscribeChatStateProvider = ({ children }: Props) => {
const audioVideo = useAudioVideo() // <----- (1-1)
const { localUserName } = useAppState() // <----- (1-2)
const [chatData, setChatData] = useState([] as RealtimeData[]) // <----- (1-3)
const sendChatData = (text: string) => { // <----- (2-1)
const mess: RealtimeData = {
uuid: v4(),
data: text,
createdDate: new Date().getTime(),
senderName: localUserName
}
audioVideo!.realtimeSendDataMessage("CHAT" as DataMessageType, JSON.stringify(mess)) // <----- (2-2)
setChatData([...chatData, mess]) // <----- (2-3)
}
const receiveChatData = (mess: DataMessage) => { // <----- (3-3)
const data = JSON.parse(mess.text()) as RealtimeData
setChatData([...chatData, data])
}
useEffect(() => {
audioVideo!.realtimeSubscribeToReceiveDataMessage( // <----- (3-1)
"CHAT" as DataMessageType,
receiveChatData
)
return () => {
audioVideo!.realtimeUnsubscribeFromReceiveDataMessage("CHAT" as DataMessageType) // <----- (3-2)
}
})
const providerValue = {
chatData,
sendChatData,
}
return (
<RealitimeSubscribeChatStateContext.Provider value={providerValue}>
{children}
</RealitimeSubscribeChatStateContext.Provider>
)
}
GUI
Next, I’m going to go over the part that displays the Chat screen. Here is another excerpt of what we think is important.
Adding RealitimeSubscribeStateProvider
Modify the DOM of MeetingView to allow the above created providers to be used in the conference room. Add a real-timeSubscribeStateProvider to the (1) part. This will allow the Chat feature to be used in the subordinate Views.
const MeetingView = () => {
useMeetingEndRedirect();
const { showNavbar, showRoster, showChat } = useNavigation();
return (
<UserActivityProvider>
<StyledLayout showNav={showNavbar} showRoster={showRoster || showChat}>
<RealitimeSubscribeStateProvider> // <--- (1)
<StyledContent>
<MeetingMetrics />
<VideoTileGrid
className="videos"
noRemoteVideoView={<MeetingDetails />}
/>
<MeetingControls />
</StyledContent>
<NavigationControl />
</RealitimeSubscribeStateProvider>
</StyledLayout>
</UserActivityProvider>
);
};
ChatView
In (1), we get the chat data and a reference to the data sending function using the userealitimeSubscribeChatState() we created earlier. In (2–1) and (2–2), we use the Chat component of the Amazon Chime SDK React Component Library to generate the display part (more on this later). (3) calls the send function of the chat data.
const ChatView = () => {
const { localUserName } = useAppState()
const { closeChat } = useNavigation();
const { chatData, sendChatData } = useRealitimeSubscribeChatState() // <---- (1)
const [ chatMessage, setChatMessage] = useState('');
const attendeeItems = []
for (let c of chatData) { // <---- (2-1)
const senderName = c.senderName
const text = c.data
const time = (new Date(c.createdDate)).toLocaleTimeString('ja-JP')
attendeeItems.push(
<ChatBubbleContainer timestamp={time} key={time+senderName}> // <---- (2-2)
<ChatBubble
variant= {localUserName === senderName ? "outgoing" : "incoming"}
senderName={senderName}
content={text}
showTail={true}
css={bubbleStyles}
/>
</ChatBubbleContainer>
)
}
return (
<Roster className="roster">
<RosterHeader title="Chat" onClose={()=>{closeChat}}>
</RosterHeader>
{attendeeItems}
<br/>
<Textarea
//@ts-ignore
onChange={e => setChatMessage(e.target.value)}
value={chatMessage}
placeholder="input your message"
type="text"
label=""
style={{resize:"vertical",}}
/>
<PrimaryButton
label="send"
onClick={e=>{
setChatMessage("")
sendChatData(chatMessage) // <---- (3)
}}
/>
</Roster>
);
}
The rest you have to do is enable this ChatView to be displayed from a navibar. The display from the navibar is not essential in this case, and it contains several minor modifications, so I will not describe it. Please check the changes from the repository’s commit log.
Run
Now, let’s see how it works. If you type a message like this, you’ll see a message on your screen with the other person.
For your own message (which has an outgoing variant attribute), it will be a blue speech bubble. For other messages, it will be a white speech bubble.
You can toggle the display of the balloon’s tail (which, in cartoon terms, indicates where the balloon originates) by using the tail attribute, but you can’t change its direction.
Otherwise, you can omit the time or add action buttons.
Repository
You can find the source code for this one in the “chat_feature” branch of the following repository
You can launch it in the same way as the way we ran the demo in the previous article, so check out how it works.
Finally
This is a look at adding chat functionality to the official Amazon Chime SDK React Component Library demo. Although I had to touch the raw Amazon Chime SDK a bit, I was able to create a chat GUI that was consistent with the other components without too much effort.
In addition to the chat function introduced here, the following repositories provide a version with a whiteboard function. Also, Cognito integration and virtual backgrounds are implemented in the following repositories.
Virtual Background
Whiteboard | https://medium.com/swlh/add-chat-feature-to-demo-of-amazon-chime-sdk-react-component-library-9379f6e43e58 | [] | 2020-12-13 06:48:39.032000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'React', 'AWS', 'Videoconference'] |
Coinme Update 1.18.18: ATM and Team Expansion | Expanding the ATM Network
We are proud of the growth of our ATM network. In September of 2017, we expanded our innovative and easy-to-use crypto ATM network to California, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas. There are now 39 locations across seven states, allowing thousands of people to access cryptocurrency, and we are thrilled to announce that we are growing our ATM network even more.
Production images of our Coinme kiosks
We have officially begun development of our next version of crypto ATMs, which will be deployed at the beginning of Q2 2018 across the United States. While exact locations are still to be determined, our team is working hard to fill the need of fair and equal access of cryptocurrency to all. If you have a specific location you would like to see a Coinme ATM; please comment here or reach us on Facebook or Twitter.
Expanding the Coinme Team
We have big goals for 2018, and to achieve those we need to grow our team. We are thrilled to announce that Coinme has hired its new Global Head of Talent! This role is key for helping us refine our organizational culture, and bring in the best talent the world has to offer to build what we know you deserve.
We understand that many of the best people for these roles are individuals just like you in our community. We plan on scaling quickly in many areas, including engineering, investment services, and marketing. If you think you are a great candidate to help grow Coinme, please make sure to follow our updates as we share these exciting opportunities in the coming weeks. | https://medium.com/coinme/exciting-updates-from-the-coinme-team-71f572027889 | [] | 2018-02-10 22:54:06.564000+00:00 | ['Updates', 'Hiring', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Expansion', 'Bitcoin'] |
Biological Prime Time: How to Plan Your Way to Improved Productivity | Productivity tips do not work on a “one-size-fits-all” basis.
The reason?
What you do throughout the day and how you do it is going to vary greatly from person to person.
Although many of the techniques I discuss are extremely helpful in allowing you to boost your productivity, you must first understand how you work and how to get the most out of your time.
This begins with a concept known as biological prime time.
If you want to structure your day in a way that is more efficient for you, let’s walk through what biological prime time is, how you can calculate it, and what you can do with that data to become far more productive all around.
Biological Prime Time: What Is It?
Biological prime time is a term that was created by Sam Carpenter in his book Work the System.
Put simply, understanding your biological prime time means learning when you are most energetic and developing a schedule around those periods of energy peaks and energy dips.
It’s important to know your biological prime time because it will define how you work.
For example:
Let’s imagine you have been on the hunt for productivity tips. Someone may recommend that you take on some of your most important work in the morning (I know I have) so that you can tackle other work later in the day.
However, the person giving this recommendation may be highly-motivated in the mornings, whereas you may be someone who does their best work in the afternoons or the evenings.
This is why you may find that some productivity strategies are not working for you, especially if you are modeling them specifically after someone else’s schedule and recommendations.
Of course, there is a scientific reason behind the energy cycles you experience. In fact, it is something that we’ve discussed in the past.
The Role of Ultradian Rhythms in Your Biological Prime Time
Chances are that you’ve heard of something known as a circadian rhythm, which is the 24-hour cycle that serves to control our daily schedule of sleeping and waking.
However, inside of that 24-hour cycle exists another set of cycles known as ultradian rhythms.
As I’ve covered before, ultradian rhythms (also known as the Basic Rest Activity Cycle) are cycles consisting of approximately 90-minutes of high-frequency brain activity followed by around 20-minutes of low-frequency brain activity.
As humans, our brains are only designed for high-energy and focus for about an hour and a half before they crave rest and rejuvenation.
It is during these 90-minute marathons that you are more capable of taking care of your important tasks, leaving 20 minutes to either take care of minor tasks or spend time engaging in activities that allow you to relax and reenergize.
Identifying your own energy cycles gives you the ability to take advantage of those peaks and dips to get more done.
But how are you supposed to uncover your own energy cycles and learn more about your own working habits?
Although this process is slightly extensive, it is quite easy.
Let’s dive in.
How to Uncover Your Most Energetic Periods
Calculating your biological prime time only requires one tool. This tool can either be a notebook, a spreadsheet, or even an app, but it must be something where you can record all of your observations so that you can return to them later.
Once you have this tool prepared, here are the necessary steps and tricks to begin effectively calculating your biological prime time.
1. Set Aside Three Weeks of Your Time to Conduct the Experiment
As it is with most experiments, more time will yield more data.
If you only track your productivity for a couple of days, you’re not going to have a clear picture of what your typical energy levels look like, which defeats the purpose of this exercise.
The general consensus when it comes to the appropriate amount of time to calculate your biological prime time is about three weeks. This should be plenty of time to learn more about what your daily energy levels look like.
Of course, if you want to engage in this experiment for longer, that will provide you with more data. However, there will need to be a cutoff point.
Otherwise, you will end up taking too much time learning more about your natural cycles and losing out on the potential productivity that your data is revealing to you.
2. Record Your Experience Based on a 1–10 Scale
The biggest question that people will have when they approach this experiment is: “how am I supposed to accurately track my energy levels?”
The best way to do this is to assign each hour of the day a number on a scale of one to ten, with one being very low energy and engagement and ten being the highest.
From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, this number scale will help you record your overall energy levels in a way that’s easy to understand, especially when you look back on three weeks of data.
Just make sure you carefully consider your energy levels before you record them. If you give certain hours the incorrect rating, this could ruin your data and make it harder for you to take action on your observations.
3. Avoid Any Depressants or Stimulants That Could Impact Your Data
For many, coffee is something that they rely on in order to get through the day.
Although it may be difficult, you must stay away from any depressants or stimulants throughout the duration of your experiment.
This means no coffee, alcohol, or other impactful substances that could negatively impact your readings.
That said, some people may have developed a dependence on some of these substances. What are you supposed to do if you rely on caffeine or other substances to get through your day?
The best course of action to take is to start calculating your biological prime time only when you’ve successfully weaned yourself off of that substance.
For example, if you notice that not getting your daily coffee fix gives you severe side effects, wait until you’ve reached a point where skipping a cup of coffee no longer impacts you negatively.
Only then can you start recording your energy levels accurately.
4. Do Your Best to Stick to Your Current Schedule (If Possible)
Sticking with your schedule provides you with a type of self-awareness that is essential to getting more out of this process.
Once you begin going through your schedule, as you normally do, with the intention of recording your energy levels, you’ll start to cultivate an awareness about where you’re really struggling throughout the day.
This will then trigger the lightbulb needed to create real change once you have all the necessary data.
If you have a daily schedule that you currently use, continue to use it throughout the course of this experiment. You’ll see the difference that this exercise will make once you begin working with your energy rather than against it.
Using Your Biological Prime Time to Get More Out of Your Day
So, you’ve made it through three weeks of recording hourly data. What’s next?
Once you have the data you need, the next step is to identify trends within your data that reveal peaks and dips in energy levels.
Let’s imagine that, throughout the majority of the experiment, you’ve found that you’ve had higher energy ratings throughout the afternoon. This would tell you that these time periods may be the best times for you to tackle some of your most intensive work.
On the other hand, you may have had energy ratings of four or below in the mornings, which may reveal that it is best to tackle less demanding tasks when you first get up.
Of course, understanding the data is just the first step in getting the most out of calculating your prime time. If you want to make sure that you’re using this data successfully, here are the next steps.
Develop a Schedule Around Your Data
It’s rare to have a schedule that aligns perfectly with your energy levels.
As such, it is vital that you create a new schedule around the data that you’ve collected.
Set aside some time to block out chunks of time based on the energy rating trends you’ve found in your experiment.
Start with your most productive periods first, scheduling in these 90 minute periods so that you have a better overview of when you’re going to be getting your most important work done.
Once these have been scheduled, turn your attention to periods where you experience lower energy. These can be utilized to take on less demanding tasks that need to get done but shouldn’t turn your focus away from your major projects.
Afterward, figure out where you’re going to fit activities like going to the gym, taking breaks, or other items that are important in your day-to-day life. Make sure to leave room in your schedule so that you can move things around if you find that something is not working out for you.
You will need to get used to your new schedule.
However, you should find that you’re accomplishing far more using this data-based schedule than one that is based on more traditional schedule layouts and routines.
Assign Tasks to Yourself Based on Peaks and Dips
Energy peaks and energy dips determine what type of work you will be doing throughout the day.
Setting a schedule can help you determine which hours will be best for certain types of work.
However, you must go one step further to assign tasks that correlate with those varying energy levels.
During blocks of time where you find you have the most energy, assign yourself work that you may feel too unmotivated to do during other periods throughout the day. Put simply, if you can’t maintain your focus on specific tasks during your least productive hours, you are going to want to make sure these are being done during your energy peaks.
As for your energy dips can be used to focus on tasks that are less engaging or even work that requires less energy from you to complete. You will also want to make sure you are getting plenty of breaks throughout your day and using energy dips to relax and reenergize rather than just power through more work.
Remember, even if you try to fill your dips with less demanding work, you can still experience burnout as a result.
Find Appropriate Tasks for Your Downtime
Hard work demands harder play.
You can’t come back to your work feeling ready to take it on if you’ve never truly walked away from it.
Although it can be okay to occasionally use 20-minute breaks for things like emails, you should also be focusing on making sure that your breaks leave you feeling well-rested and excited for your next time block.
Some activities worth pursuing during your recovery period include:
Engaging in relaxing exercises like meditation or yoga
Cleaning your space
Having a healthy snack (not something that only temporarily boosts your energy like sugary foods or coffee)
Stretching or engaging in some light exercise
Watching funny or inspirational videos
Having a quick chat with someone
Getting out in nature (if possible)
Setting some personal goals
Your body is like a battery. If you continue to take from it without recharging, you’re going to have no energy left to take care of your important tasks.
Moving Forward
Better productivity begins with self-awareness.
It is only when you understand how you function and how you can use that to your advantage that you can begin to reap the benefits of other productivity tips and tricks.
Before you dive into some of my other content:
Record Your Energy Levels : We all have different periods throughout the day where we feel most energized. Pay attention to what your body is telling you, write it down, and start to notice where the patterns lie
: We all have different periods throughout the day where we feel most energized. Pay attention to what your body is telling you, write it down, and start to notice where the patterns lie Schedule Accordingly : Patterns make room for systems. Having this data is crucial to developing a schedule that is right for you. Once you have this data, block out your time based on your energy levels and what you’re most looking to achieve during these time chunks
: Patterns make room for systems. Having this data is crucial to developing a schedule that is right for you. Once you have this data, block out your time based on your energy levels and what you’re most looking to achieve during these time chunks Work Smarter, Not Harder: There are plenty of people who want to muscle through their burnout and work non-stop. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work. Play to your strengths by scheduling your most difficult work during your energy peaks, your less demanding work or tasks during your energy dips, and make sure to get plenty of breaks along the way
With a better picture of how you and your body work, you can develop an ironclad schedule that is best suited for your needs. | https://medium.com/swlh/biological-prime-time-how-to-plan-your-way-to-improved-productivity-7bb797ca3f04 | ['Dan Silvestre'] | 2020-12-16 19:02:21.551000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Performance', 'Energy', 'Time Management', 'Work'] |
An Illustrated Enterprise Release Checklist For Applications | An Illustrated Enterprise Release Checklist For Applications
Words by Noah Mandelbaum, Distinguished Engineer
Illustrations by Mike Damrath, Senior Manager
It takes a large amount of effort to develop applications.
We stand up and then we sit down. We work for weeks to write clean code and to create code coverage. We think hard about how we can make our applications maintainable (using the ideas that Santhi Sridharan laid out in her article on developing maintainable software). Sometimes, we refactor until our vision becomes slightly blurry.
And few things are as frustrating as finding out on release that the application that you lovingly labored to create is flawed or broken in some way.
This broken software can create a negative customer experience, can cause business risk, and can generate a large amount of additional work for teams. So how can we help ensure our releases are more successful?
This checklist tries to strike the balance between having no formal process and the comprehensiveness of Release It! Answering the questions on this checklist can help your team achieve successful releases — plus, you might even smile while reading it or looking at our hand-drawn sketches (even if you hate off hours releases).
Note: We are two software engineers working on systems that are keenly important to both customers and employees at Capital One. We developed this release checklist to help our teams be better prepared for their releases. We know this is not perfect for all use cases and that you might need to modify it for your team — but we hope it will help you as well.
The Illustrated Enterprise Application Release Checklist
In 1735, Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” in explaining to the citizens of Philadelphia the best way to prevent house fires.
In order to help prevent your release from becoming its own house (or dumpster) fire, we have divided up this checklist into three sections:
Pre-release
Releasing
Monitoring
Pre-Release Checklist
We try to follow two general rules as we prepare business intent for a release:
Limit the number of items that are in a release to limit risk: and plan to release frequently. Make sure we have completed our definition of done for all work:
Written unit tests with proper code coverage.
Executed automated functional tests to validate new features and to make sure old features don’t regress.
Completed usability/accessibility testing.
Carried out performance testing (this is particularly important).
Scanned our code for security vulnerabilities — in particular, those that are found on the OWASP Top Ten list.
Documented any technical debt we ran up.
Beyond this, when getting ready for a release, there are number of technical items we look at:
Is the code we wish to deploy checked into version control: and tagged appropriately?
Did we update our production configuration correctly?
If our code has dependencies (like microservices, databases, etc) — are those dependencies deployed in production and ready to take traffic?
Have we made sure the infrastructure we need is provisioned in production with the right network configuration — including DNS, load balancers and (in our case) other AWS resources?
Have we tested what happens to our application when it experiences heavy load — does it scale or does it collapse?
Have we tested what happens to our user experience when we deploy a new version in the middle of the day — do our users experience any errors?
Have we set up any feature toggles we require for canary or A/B testing?
Have we accounted for access control for any application that requires it?
Have we verified the observability information we need to debug in production will be available — are we able to capture and analyze metrics, traces, and logs (note — there are plenty of commercial and open source tools that can help you in this space)?
Is there a rollback plan in place? Can the feature be toggled off if needed? Can we revert to the previous code version if needed? Can the users work around problems if the release goes sideways?
We try to always make sure we have a Plan B and Plan C in place!
When getting ready for a release — people turn out to be important, too:
Do we have a list of key technical contacts we can reach quickly in case our release doesn’t work out as we hoped?
Do we know what impact our changes will have on which users? → Have we tested that our enabled feature toggles include the right people and exclude the right people? Have we tested that access control includes the right people and excludes the right people? Have we lined up people to help verify our release? (People like: product manager(s), intent owners, support engineers, People who should see our changes: and people who should not see them)
Have we completed other release preparations that might make our rollout a success? For example → Updated our training and documentation? Made public announcements about the upcoming release? Sent communications to people who might be interested in the changes?
A lot of big enterprises require a more formal change control process. We happen to work in one of these places, so sometimes we might have to create a change request, including:
Making sure our request to make the change was entered into the change control system.
Making sure our change request does not conflict with other critical items in the change control system like no-release periods.
Releasing Checklist
Having survived countless manual deployments earlier in our lives, nothing beats a good continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline. If you don’t have one, we would recommend getting one: otherwise, you may be stuck with a manual playbook and the huge headaches that come with it.
We are fortunate enough to have a CI/CD pipeline — so, while a release is occurring, we:
Verify that our deployment job has successfully completed by looking at our deployment logs.
Check that all code changes (and associated dependency changes) occurred in the expected manner.
Confirm that all activity has drained from the old code completely and the new code is now handling your traffic.
Analyze metrics and logs (and maybe traces) to make sure no outages or errors occurred during the deployment.
Just as important for us is the user experience — so, we ask ourselves the following questions:
Have the people we have lined up for verification provided confirmation that they can see what they should see? Likewise, have people verified they cannot see what they should not see?
Have the people who verified our system noted any other anomalies — an error screen, unusual latency, an unexpected navigation flow? Sometimes, this provides an almost imperceptible signal that something has gone wrong.
In the unfortunate event our deployment is unsuccessful , we then execute our rollback plan.
Monitoring (Not A) Checklist
There are times in which a release initially appears healthy, but then encounters problems later — this may especially be the case if it is associated with a database or a REST API change.
We have found that if we set up our observability well, we can set alarms that will notify us proactively if errors or other anomalies occur. These alarms alert us if we see unexpected behavior from our infrastructure, our code, and around critical transactions for our systems. For releases that require more granular verification, we may also scan logs for unexpected behavior.
That being said, we also pay particular attention to the first 24 hours after a release — especially if our release took place during a low traffic time.
If this was the case, sometimes we ask the appropriate users to reverify the release functionality and provide verbal/written confirmation of success.
Conclusion
While this release checklist is not necessarily comprehensive for all teams and use cases, hopefully it has entertained you. And hopefully, it will help you in getting your work deployed to your users. | https://medium.com/capital-one-tech/an-illustrated-enterprise-release-checklist-for-applications-3ff1e6353a3e | ['Noah Mandelbaum'] | 2021-06-17 16:32:42.766000+00:00 | ['Release Management', 'Release Engineering', 'Software Engineering', 'Monitoring'] |
Transducers: Efficient Data Processing Pipelines in JavaScript | You may be experienced with something that behaves a little bit like a transducer if you’ve ever used the map method on arrays. For example, to double a series of numbers:
const double = x => x * 2;
const arr = [1, 2, 3]; const result = arr.map(double);
In this example, the array is an enumerable object. The map method enumerates over the original array, and passes its elements through the processing stage, double , which multiplies each element by 2, then accumulates the results into a new array.
You can even compose effects like this:
const double = x => x * 2;
const isEven = x => x % 2 === 0; const arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]; const result = arr
.filter(isEven)
.map(double)
; console.log(result);
// [4, 8, 12]
But what if you want to filter and double a potentially infinite stream of numbers, such as a drone’s telemetry data?
Arrays can’t be infinite, and each stage in the array processing requires you to process the entire array before a single value can flow through the next stage in the pipeline. That same limitation means that composition using array methods will have degraded performance because a new array will need to be created and a new collection iterated over for each stage in the composition.
Imagine you have two sections of tubing, each of which represents a transformation to be applied to the data stream, and a string representing the stream. The first transformation represents the isEven filter, and the next represents the double map. In order to produce a single fully transformed value from an array, you'd have to run the entire string through the first tube first, resulting in a completely new, filtered array before you can process even a single value through the double tube. When you finally do get to double your first value, you have to wait for the entire array to be doubled before you can read a single result.
So, the code above is equivalent to this:
const double = x => x * 2;
const isEven = x => x % 2 === 0; const arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]; const tempResult = arr.filter(isEven);
const result = tempResult.map(double); console.log(result);
// [4, 8, 12]
The alternative is to flow a value directly from the filtered output to the mapping transformation without creating and iterating over a new, temporary array in between. Flowing the values through one at a time removes the need to iterate over the same collection for each stage in the transducing process, and transducers can signal a stop at any time, meaning you don’t need to enumerate each stage deeper over the collection than required to produce the desired values.
There are two ways to do that:
Pull: lazy evaluation, or
Push: eager evaluation
A pull API waits until a consumer asks for the next value. A good example in JavaScript is an Iterable , such as the object produced by a generator function. Nothing happens in the generator function until you ask for the next value by calling .next() on the iterator object it returns.
A push API enumerates over the source values and pushes them through the tubes as fast as it can. A call to array.reduce() is a good example of a push API. array.reduce() takes one value at a time from the array and pushes it through the reducer, resulting in a new value at the other end. For eager processes like array reduce, the process is immediately repeated for each element in the array until the entire array has been processed, blocking further program execution in the meantime.
Transducers don’t care whether you pull or push. Transducers have no awareness of the data structure they’re acting on. They simply call the reducer you pass into them to accumulate new values.
Transducers are higher order reducers: Reducer functions that take a reducer and return a new reducer. Rich Hickey describes transducers as process transformations, meaning that as opposed to simply changing the values flowing through transducers, transducers change the processes that act on those values.
The signatures look like this:
reducer = (accumulator, current) => accumulator transducer = reducer => reducer
Or, to spell it out:
transducer = ((accumulator, current) => accumulator) => ((accumulator, current) => accumulator)
Generally speaking though, most transducers will need to be partially applied to some arguments to specialize them. For example, a map transducer might look like this:
map = transform => reducer => reducer
Or more specifically:
map = (a => b) => step => reducer
In other words, a map transducer takes a mapping function (called a transform) and a reducer (called the step function), and returns a new reducer. The step function is a reducer to call when we've produced a new value to add to the accumulator in the next step.
Let’s look at some naive examples:
const compose = (...fns) => x => fns.reduceRight((y, f) => f(y), x); const map = f => step =>
(a, c) => step(a, f(c)); const filter = predicate => step =>
(a, c) => predicate(c) ? step(a, c) : a; const isEven = n => n % 2 === 0;
const double = n => n * 2; const doubleEvens = compose(
filter(isEven),
map(double)
); const arrayConcat = (a, c) => a.concat([c]); const xform = doubleEvens(arrayConcat); const result = [1,2,3,4,5,6].reduce(xform, []); // [4, 8, 12] console.log(result);
That’s a lot to absorb. Let’s break it down. map applies a function to the values inside some context. In this case, the context is the transducer pipeline. It looks roughly like this:
const map = f => step =>
(a, c) => step(a, f(c));
You can use it like this:
const double = x => x * 2; const doubleMap = map(double); const step = (a, c) => console.log(c); doubleMap(step)(0, 4); // 8
doubleMap(step)(0, 21); // 42
The zeros in the function calls at the end represent the initial values for the reducers. Note that the step function is supposed to be a reducer, but for demonstration purposes, we can hijack it and log to the console. You can use the same trick in your unit tests if you need to make assertions about how the step function gets used.
Transducers get interesting when we compose them together. Let’s implement a simplified filter transducer:
const filter = predicate => step =>
(a, c) => predicate(c) ? step(a, c) : a;
Filter takes a predicate function and only passes through the values that match the predicate. Otherwise, the returned reducer returns the accumulator, unchanged.
Since both of these functions take a reducer and return a reducer, we can compose them with simple function composition:
const compose = (...fns) => x => fns.reduceRight((y, f) => f(y), x); const isEven = n => n % 2 === 0;
const double = n => n * 2; const doubleEvens = compose(
filter(isEven),
map(double)
);
This will also return a transducer, which means we must supply a final step function in order to tell the transducer how to accumulate the result:
const arrayConcat = (a, c) => a.concat([c]); const xform = doubleEvens(arrayConcat);
The result of this call is a standard reducer that we can pass directly to any compatible reduce API. The second argument represents the initial value of the reduction. In this case, an empty array:
const result = [1,2,3,4,5,6].reduce(xform, []); // [4, 8, 12]
If this seems like a lot of work, keep in mind there are already functional programming libraries that supply common transducers along with utilities such as compose , which handles function composition, and into , which transduces a value into the given empty value, e.g.:
const xform = compose(
map(inc),
filter(isEven)
); into([], xform, [1, 2, 3, 4]); // [2, 4]
With most of the required tools already in the tool belt, programming with transducers is really intuitive.
Some popular libraries which support transducers include Ramda, RxJS, and Mori.
Transducers Compose Top-to-Bottom
Transducers under standard function composition ( f(g(x)) ) apply top to bottom/left-to-right rather than bottom-to-top/right-to-left. In other words, using normal function composition, compose(f, g) means "compose f after g ". Transducers wrap around other transducers under composition. In other words, a transducer says "I'm going to do my thing, and then call the next transducer in the pipeline", which has the effect of turning the execution stack inside out.
Imagine you have a stack of papers, the top labeled, f , the next, g , and the next h . For each sheet, take the sheet off the top of the stack and place it onto the top of a new adjacent stack. When you're done, you'll have a stack whose sheets are labeled h , then g , then f .
Transducer Rules
The examples above are naive because they ignore the rules that transducers must follow for interoperability.
As with most things in software, transducers and transducing processes need to obey some rules:
Initialization: Given no initial accumulator value, a transducer must call the step function to produce a valid initial value to act on. The value should represent the empty state. For example, an accumulator that accumulates an array should supply an empty array when its step function is called with no arguments. Early termination: A process that uses transducers must check for and stop when it receives a reduced accumulator value. Additionally, a transducer step function that uses a nested reduce must check for and convey reduced values when they are encountered. Completion (optional): Some transducing processes never complete, but those that do should call the completion function to produce a final value and/or flush state, and stateful transducers should supply a completion operation that cleans up any accumulated resources and potentially produces one final value.
Initialization
Let’s go back to the map operation and make sure that it obeys the initialization (empty) law. Of course, we don't need to do anything special, just pass the request down the pipeline using the step function to create a default value:
const map = f => step => (a = step(), c) => (
step(a, f(c))
);
The part we care about is a = step() in the function signature. If there is no value for a (the accumulator), we'll create one by asking the next reducer in the chain to produce it. Eventually, it will reach the end of the pipeline and (hopefully) create a valid initial value for us.
Remember this rule: When called with no arguments, a reducer should always return a valid initial (empty) value for the reduction. It’s generally a good idea to obey this rule for any reducer function, including reducers for React or Redux.
Early Termination
It’s possible to signal to other transducers in the pipeline that we’re done reducing, and they should not expect to process any more values. Upon seeing a reduced value, other transducers may decide to stop adding to the collection, and the transducing process (as controlled by the final step() function) may decide to stop enumerating over values. The transducing process may make one more call as a result of receiving a reduced value: The completion call mentioned above. We can signal that intention with a special reduced accumulator value.
What is a reduced value? It could be as simple as wrapping the accumulator value in a special type called reduced . Think of it like wrapping a package in a box and labelling the box with messages like "Express" or "Fragile". Metadata wrappers like this are common in computing. For example: http messages are wrapped in containers called "request" or "response", and those container types have headers that supply information like status codes, expected message length, authorization parameters, etc...
Basically, it’s a way of sending multiple messages where only a single value is expected. A minimal (non-standard) example of a reduced() type lift might look like this:
const reduced = v => ({
get isReduced () {
return true;
},
valueOf: () => v,
toString: () => `Reduced(${ JSON.stringify(v) })`
});
The only parts that are strictly required are:
The type lift: A way to get the value inside the type (e.g., the reduced function, in this case)
function, in this case) Type identification: A way to test the value to see if it is a value of reduced (e.g., the isReduced getter)
(e.g., the getter) Value extraction: A way to get the value back out of the type (e.g., valueOf() )
toString() is included here strictly for debugging convenience. It lets you introspect both the type and the value at the same time in the console.
Completion
“In the completion step, a transducer with reduction state should flush state prior to calling the nested transformer’s completion function, unless it has previously seen a reduced value from the nested step in which case pending state should be discarded.” ~ Clojure transducers documentation
In other words, if you have more state to flush after the previous function has signaled that it’s finished reducing, the completion step is the time to handle it. At this stage, you can optionally:
Send one more value (flush your pending state)
Discard your pending state
Perform any required state cleanup
Transducing
It’s possible to transduce over lots of different types of data, but the process can be generalized:
// import a standard curry, or use this magic spell:
const curry = (
f, arr = []
) => (...args) => (
a => a.length === f.length ?
f(...a) :
curry(f, a)
)([...arr, ...args]); const transduce = curry((step, initial, xform, foldable) =>
foldable.reduce(xform(step), initial)
);
The transduce() function takes a step function (the final step in the transducer pipeline), an initial value for the accumulator, a transducer, and a foldable. A foldable is any object that supplies a .reduce() method.
With transduce() defined, we can easily create a function that transduces to an array. First, we need a reducer that reduces to an array:
const concatArray = (a, c) => a.concat([c]);
Now we can use the curried transduce() to create a partial application that transduces to arrays:
const toArray = transduce(concatArray, []);
With toArray() we can replace two lines of code with one, and reuse it in a lot of other situations, besides:
// Manual transduce:
const xform = doubleEvens(arrayConcat);
const result = [1,2,3,4,5,6].reduce(xform, []);
// => [4, 8, 12] // Automatic transduce:
const result2 = toArray(doubleEvens, [1,2,3,4,5,6]);
console.log(result2); // [4, 8, 12]
The Transducer Protocol
Up to this point, I’ve been hiding some details behind a curtain, but it’s time to take a look at them now. Transducers are not really a single function. They’re made from 3 different functions. Clojure switches between them using pattern matching on the function’s arity.
In computer science, the arity of a function is the number of arguments a function takes. In the case of transducers, there are two arguments to the reducer function, the accumulator and the current value. In Clojure, Both are optional, and the behavior changes based on whether or not the arguments get passed. If a parameter is not passed, the type of that parameter inside the function is undefined .
The JavaScript transducer protocol handles things a little differently. Instead of using function arity, JavaScript transducers are a function that take a transducer and return a transducer. The transducer is an object with three methods:
init Return a valid initial value for the accumulator (usually, just call the next step() ).
Return a valid initial value for the accumulator (usually, just call the next ). step Apply the transform, e.g., for map(f) : step(accumulator, f(current)) .
Apply the transform, e.g., for : . result If a transducer is called without a new value, it should handle its completion step (usually step(a) , unless the transducer is stateful).
Note: The transducer protocol in JavaScript uses @@transducer/init , @@transducer/step , and @@transducer/result , respectively.
Some libraries provide a transducer() utility that will automatically wrap your transducer for you.
Here is a less naive implementation of the map transducer:
const map = f => next => transducer({
init: () => next.init(),
result: a => next.result(a),
step: (a, c) => next.step(a, f(c))
});
By default, most transducers should pass the init() call to the next transducer in the pipeline, because we don't know the transport data type, so we can't produce a valid initial value for it.
Additionally, the special reduced object uses these properties (also namespaced @@transducer/<name> in the transducer protocol:
reduced A boolean value that is always true for reduced values.
A boolean value that is always for reduced values. value The reduced value.
Conclusion
Transducers are composable higher order reducers which can reduce over any underlying data type.
Transducers produce code that can be orders of magnitude more efficient than dot chaining with arrays, and handle potentially infinite data sets without creating intermediate aggregations.
Note: Transducers aren’t always faster than built-in array methods. The performance benefits tend to kick in when the data set is very large (hundreds of thousands of items), or pipelines are quite large (adding significantly to the number of iterations required using method chains). If you’re after the performance benefits, remember to profile.
Take another look at the example from the introduction. You should be able to build filter() , map() , and toArray() using the example code as a reference and make this code work:
const friends = [
{ id: 1, name: 'Sting', nearMe: true },
{ id: 2, name: 'Radiohead', nearMe: true },
{ id: 3, name: 'NIN', nearMe: false },
{ id: 4, name: 'Echo', nearMe: true },
{ id: 5, name: 'Zeppelin', nearMe: false }
]; const isNearMe = ({ nearMe }) => nearMe; const getName = ({ name }) => name; const getFriendsNearMe = compose(
filter(isNearMe),
map(getName)
); const results2 = toArray(getFriendsNearMe, friends);
In production, you can use transducers from Ramda, RxJS, transducers-js, or Mori.
All of those work a little differently than the example code here, but follow all the same fundamental principles.
Here’s an example from Ramda:
import {
compose,
filter,
map,
into
} from 'ramda'; const isEven = n => n % 2 === 0;
const double = n => n * 2; const doubleEvens = compose(
filter(isEven),
map(double)
); const arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]; // into = (structure, transducer, data) => result
// into transduces the data using the supplied
// transducer into the structure passed as the
// first argument.
const result = into([], doubleEvens, arr); console.log(result); // [4, 8, 12]
Whenever I need to combine a number of operations, such as map , filter , chunk , take , and so on, I reach for transducers to optimize the process and keep the code readable and clean. Give them a try.
Learn More at EricElliottJS.com
Video lessons on functional programming are available for members of EricElliottJS.com. If you’re not a member, sign up today. | https://medium.com/javascript-scene/transducers-efficient-data-processing-pipelines-in-javascript-7985330fe73d | ['Eric Elliott'] | 2018-12-22 20:20:50.136000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'JavaScript', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming', 'Functional Programming'] |
Developing for Windows from Linux | Developing for Windows from Linux
Here is how you setup your Linux computer to code, build and debug apps for Windows Ruvinda Dhambarage Nov 20, 2020·4 min read
Wait.. what?
Yeah.. you read that right! You can use the comfort of your Linux computer, with your multi-monitors and tools setup just right, to develop Windows stuff. No, using a remote desktop doesn’t count. That’s laggy and you can’t use your Linux tools.
I am leveraging SSH here, which is nothing new. But what I found out recently is that it is now insanely easy to setup thanks to the hard work done by.. err.. Microsoft ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What exactly is possible?
I will be using the following two key pieces of technologies for this setup:
Window’s in-build OpenSSH server VS Code’s “Remote Development” extension pack
You can probably see where this is going now. So, basically we will SSH into Windows and develop via VS Code. I am gonna describe the setup process and show you some of the insane possibilities that it enables.
Just to whet your appetite, this is my setup that inspired me to write on this topic:
My “dev setup”
I needed to develop a Machine Vision based Python app for Windows. It’s Windows only because I had to use a video camera that only works in Windows. Therefore WSL was not an option. This Python app would need to expose a web API (e.g. REST endpoints on port 5000) I needed to develop a React JS front end that consumed this web API
A sane person would just setup everything on Windows and called it a day. But I am less fortunate and insisted that I develop from my Ubuntu workstation. So I went about and setup the “setup” shown above. This is what it looks like on Ubuntu with the two IDEs and browser.
Remote Python IDE, Local React IDE and Web browser with video feed from Windows machine
Break points work on both IDEs and I am able to access the hardware attached to my Windows box. Unholy?.. Yes, but oddly cathartic.
Let’s move on to the setup details.
How to set it up
Setup OpenSSH server on Windows
This might surprise you if you are not upto date with all the OpenSource projects that Windows have lately been including with Windows; but I kid you not; Microsoft includes an OpenSSH Server implementation with Windows 10. To enable it; just run the PowerShell scripts from:
Then if you are not a masochist, change the default shell from the default Windows Command Shell to PowerShell:
You will notice that the Windows OpenSSH server implementation doesn’t support X11 forwarding, but local port forwarding is supported; which is sufficient and understandable.
Next we need to setup key based SSH authentication for our Linux user. To do so, copy your SSH pub key from our Linux user to the Windows. Now we need to copy the contents of the pub key to the authorized_keys file on Windows. The location if which is “C:\Users\<user>\.ssh\” for regular users and “C:\ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys” for local admin accounts. If your account is an admin account, you will need to further limit the permissions of that “administrators_authorized_keys”. Run the following PS commands to fix the permissions:
$acl = Get-Acl C:\ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys
$acl.SetAccessRuleProtection($true, $false)
$administratorsRule = New-Object system.security.accesscontrol.filesystemaccessrule("Administrators","FullControl","Allow")
$systemRule = New-Object system.security.accesscontrol.filesystemaccessrule("SYSTEM","FullControl","Allow")
$acl.SetAccessRule($administratorsRule)
$acl.SetAccessRule($systemRule)
$acl | Set-Acl
Credit: https://www.concurrency.com/blog/may-2019/key-based-authentication-for-openssh-on-windows
Linux setup
Verify that you can SSH to your Windows instance without a password.
SSH into Windows takes some getting used too
Now all you need to do is install VS Code and the Visual Studio Code Remote Development Extension Pack. It’s great! Details about how to use it can be found in the VS Code docs: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh.
VS Code automatically does local port forwarding so you don’t need to set it up in your SSH config.
VS Code automatically does the local port forwarding via SSH
That’s the entire setup!
The possibilities
You can use this with Windows VMs or physical machines
You can access hardware resources on the Windows side that would otherwise not work on Linux.
You can local port forward ports between Linux and Windows, so Linux can see services on Windows and vise versa
You can develop using any language that VS Code supports
The possibilities are endless! Thank you Microsoft.. I no longer need to work on Windows to develop for Windows ♥ | https://medium.com/@ruvi-d/developing-for-windows-from-linux-83c7207e5ea6 | ['Ruvinda Dhambarage'] | 2020-11-20 14:11:46.119000+00:00 | ['Windows 10', 'Ssh', 'Vscode', 'Coding', 'Linux'] |
How To Camp Sustainably | Sitting around a campfire, falling asleep under the stars or collecting water from the closest stream — these are just some of the things about camping that make us feel whole and connected to something greater than ourselves. We are all part of the natural world, and that sense of belonging we feel when we connect with it comes with great responsibility. Responsibility to care for the environment and leave it better than we found it. With this in mind, here are five tips to camp more sustainably and respect the natural environment.
Choosing Your Camp Spot
One of the most important aspects of camping is choosing the right spot. The best experiences are the most immersive ones, you want to be surrounded by nature to soak up all the benefits. Choose a site that is close to a resource like firewood (provided you are not in a national park), water such as a river, stream or spring and shelter such as a tree or cave for shade. | https://medium.com/wildark-journal/how-to-camp-sustainably-541399c1abd8 | ['Wild Ark'] | 2018-08-16 03:34:09.916000+00:00 | ['Camping', 'Travel', 'Outdoors', 'Sustainability'] |
The Hidden Dangers in Baby Products | photo credit: Colin Maynar
From the moment that many babies are born, their mothers lovingly wash and pamper their infants with a wide range of baby products. These products might include soaps, lotions, shampoos, and baby powders that might even be used several times a day. Roughly 60% of what we put on our skin, the biggest organ on our bodies, gets absorbed into our bloodstream.
But have you ever taken the time to read the ingredients list for a bottle of baby lotion or shampoo? How would you feel if you found out that the products you have been using on your sweet baby are actually a witch’s brew of dangerous ingredients? Most parents would be very unhappy. They might feel as though they had been duped, and rightly so. Many parents put faith in the companies behind conventional baby products because it never enters their minds that products made specifically for babies could be harmful. Unfortunately, there are many baby products available today that have questionable ingredients. Some of these ingredients include Parabens, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Synthetic Perfumes and Talc.
But what are they and why are they bad? Let’s focus on a few to look out for when buying baby products.
Parabens are preservatives used in personal hygiene products, food products, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. Studies have shown that parabens can disrupt hormones in the body and harm reproductive organs and fertility. They have been found to accumulate in the breast tissue of women with breast cancer. A more common symptom caused by parabens is skin irritation. When shopping for safe baby lotions and shampoos be sure avoid parabens. Natural ingredients like Vitamin E, Grapefruit Seed Extract and Rosemary are sometimes used as an alternative to parabens for their antioxidant properties that slow down the oils from turning rancid.
Another ingredient you should not see in your baby’s body wash is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, or SLS for short. SLS is a harmful ingredient used in common household or personal hygiene products such as laundry detergent and hand soap. It is the ingredient that gives a product like a shampoo or liquid soap its foaming ability. It is a known skin irritant, eye and respiratory tract irritant and toxic to aquatic organisms. According to the journal of the American College of Toxicology, SLS can penetrate and be retained in the eyes, brain, heart, and liver with potentially harmful effects. In a baby product, SLS might cause rashes, eczema or other skin irritations. It is shocking that baby products contain such a harsh ingredient. To add further insult, products containing this ingredient are sometimes labeled as natural or organic because SLS is a detergent derived from coconut oil. Fortunately there are sulfate free baby products available. Simply read the ingredients label when purchasing to look for products free from sulfates.
Synthetic perfumes or fragrances may make those lotions and body washes smells wonderful but they can contain hundreds of harsh chemicals. Chemicals such as methylene chloride, for example, are carcinogenic and others might cause headaches, dizziness, coughing, vomiting and skin irritation. Most synthetic fragrances are derived from petroleum. Once these chemicals are on your body they can affect your brain and organs, nervous and immune system. What goes on your body ultimately goes in your body. Choosing products scented with natural oils is safer and healthier for your baby, the environment and other people around you that might be sensitive to strong synthetic fragrances.
Talc is white-gray mineral powder used as a baby powder. Also known as talcum powder. Moms might use it to keep their baby’s skin smooth and dry but unfortunately term long-term use can produce the same effects as those of asbestos. It has been linked to ovarian and lung cancer. Not only is it a carcinogen but it can cause respiratory issues. Some natural alternatives that can be used are cornstarch, baking soda or rice starch. Some big brand names like Burt’s Bees and The Honest Company offer talc free products you can easily find in stores or online.
These ingredients hardly sound appropriate for sensitive baby skin. So what can you do to avoid these dangerous baby products?
First, read the ingredients and look them up online if you have to. Find out what they are and what they do.
Second, find reputable companies that offer organic and 100% natural products. Since there is no regulation for organic bath and body products you might need to do some research to find the legitimately natural products.
Third, try your hand at making some of your own baby products. If you make your own then you know exactly what is in them and you can feel comfortable that they are safe.
Creating a safe and healthy environment for your baby encompasses more than just what you put on their skin. Organic foods and clothing are just as important. Stay healthy! | https://medium.com/@greengrom/the-hidden-dangers-in-baby-products-a23794bac516 | ['Green Grom'] | 2020-10-09 21:16:26.365000+00:00 | ['Organic', 'Health', 'Baby', 'Natural', 'Non Toxic'] |
How to Survive the Crypto Winter: Why did the Basic Attention Token (BAT) succeed while others failed? | Photo by Keith Szafranski on iStock
In early January 2018, the crypto market was on fire. It was a time of frenzied excitement as token values skyrocketed and the combined market cap for cryptocurrencies soared to $813 billion. Then, irrational exuberance switched to pessimism: the bubble burst and the fallout was swift and brutal. By December, the market had crashed to $101 billion, an overall decline of 88% from the peak.
Needless to say, many cryptocurrencies and blockchain projects did not live to tell the tale. However, some projects managed to weather the storm, remain trading and even begin to record modest gains in token value. So what sort of firms survived the crypto winter and what can this teach us about playing the long game in the blockchain sector?
One token which fits into the survivor category is the Basic Attention Token (BAT). User privacy has gained increasing prominence in recent years as the full extent of online tracking comes to light. The BAT was established to serve as the building block of a new internet browser called Brave, which aims to protect the privacy of users while creating a new model for digital advertising.
First traded in July 2017, like most other tokens of the era, the value of BAT mushroomed in January 2018 to over $864 million before collapsing again during the crash. Since February, however, it has recovered impressively and is now valued at $419 million.The idea behind BAT is to make the digital advertising market more efficient by connecting advertisers, publishers and consumers directly, while cutting out the middlemen.
Headed by Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, the BAT network uses a browser called Brave to natively monitor which website content users are paying attention to. The token will then serve as the basis of a transparent market for users’ attention. Publishers receive BAT when users view ads linked to their content, while users receive BAT for viewing ads. Finally, advertisers need to purchase BAT in order to target their ads to relevant users.
Thus, the BAT network aims to make internet advertising more transparent, while distributing ad revenue more fairly. This is a powerful idea — although they say that “content is king”, in reality, content providers such as newspapers only receive between 40–60% of advertising revenue. When you see an advertisement online, there are often three middlemen between advertiser and publisher each taking a cut, including a supply-side platform, a demand-side platform and an ad exchange. This means less ad revenue for the people actually producing the content. Indeed, it is somewhat ironic that a tech sector which constantly talks about disruption and efficiency has produced such an inefficient market.
By tracking user behaviour natively and anonymously rather than through scripts on the page, the Brave browser provides greater privacy for the user. More importantly, it gives publishers the opportunity to cut out middlemen and potentially increase revenue.
So why has BAT recovered while other tokens faded into obscurity? The first lesson here is that for a token to be successful, it needs to have a compelling concept at its core. BAT takes a genuine problem — the inefficiency of the online advertising market — and aims to use innovative tokenomics to solve it. This is an idea that is interesting regardless of the dynamics of the crypto market and is still as relevant now as prior to the crypto slowdown.
Secondly, the BAT token has a clear purpose and value within the proposed ecosystem. The proponents of many other ICOs of similar vintage were vague about the underlying value of their token and were effectively using tokens as an unregulated method of generating capital. The investment in such tokens was largely speculative and the only true value they had was due to hype and irrational exuberance among crypto investors. Ultimately, most of these projects collapsed during the crypto winter. In contrast, by serving as a measurement unit of user attention, the BAT token plays a central role in the tokenomic ecosystem of the project.
Thirdly, BAT is backed by a team with a proven track record in the field. Brendan Eich created Javascript and co-founded Mozilla and Firefox — that is the sort of CV that breeds confidence in the investor community. Other members of the core team are veterans of firms like Microsoft, Evernote and Yahoo. While obviously not every project will be led by someone with the stature of Eich, this shows how important it is to have proven talent in the core team, not just on the advisory board.
Finally, BAT demonstrates the importance of transparency when dealing with developers, token holders and the wider blockchain industry. The communications team behind the project provides frequent opportunities for community engagement on its website, including regular “ask-me-anything” online interviews (AMAs) with key team members in which nothing is off the table. This shows that in order to build and retain the support of token buyers, it pays to encourage robust debate rather than shying away from it.
At THE RELEVANCE HOUSE, we help blockchain firms with great ideas to manage their STO or ICO. We believe in building brands that can survive and prosper in the long term. This involves crafting a compelling message which clearly explains the function and relevance of your token. Because only relevance has impact. Find out more here. | https://medium.com/the-relevance-house/how-to-survive-the-crypto-winter-why-did-the-basic-attention-token-bat-succeed-while-others-5da22bb9681a | ['The Relevance House.'] | 2019-07-11 11:58:44.283000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Marketing', 'Startup'] |
Key-Works: The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch | Fantasy art from the first surrealist tells the story of heaven and hell
At the time it was painted, circa 1500, this would have been a stunningly original and modern work. This folding triptych is believed to have been commissioned for the altar of a private chapel in one of the grand houses of Brussels, and it is now restored to its ‘original glory’ and displayed in the Prado, Madrid, where I stood before it on a recent visit.
Seen in its gallery room among other late Gothic works, what really strikes the viewer first is the brightness of the colours that leap off the oak panels. The palette appears so modern as does the content: the Surrealists of the twentieth century cited it, along with the sketches of Leonardo da Vinci, as being the earliest expression of their ideology.
When closed, the piece presents an image of a crystal sphere, with God at the top looking down upon the earthly realm he has created, represented by a disc at the equator of the sphere. Of course, the ‘flat earth’ theory was no longer convincing and when the panels are opened up, among the many strange and wonderful things revealed is an array of exotic fruits, which had only just been discovered in the New World during the voyages of Columbus.
the closed altar panel
The altarpiece opens like a big wooden book to reveal three linked paintings. The left panel shows God introducing Eve to Adam in the garden of Eden, populated with many animals and fantastical beasts including an albino giraffe, an elephant, a three-headed oriental pheasant, a unicorn and its seahorse equivalent...
All seems well, but there are couple of tiny details that imply that it may not be perfect after all and harmony is about to be lost: in the background an animal devours a gazelle and in the foreground a cat carries away its prey in its jaws. An owl can also be spotted. At the time, owls were often taken to be symbols of darkness and death and are a recurring symbol here. | https://medium.com/signifier/key-works-the-garden-of-earthly-delights-by-hieronymus-bosch-a2e8951251a8 | ['Remy Dean'] | 2020-12-27 00:38:46.129000+00:00 | ['Art History', 'Painting', 'Art', 'Fantasy', 'Illustration'] |
Deciding between Row- and Columnar-Stores | Why We Chose Both | Row oriented databases
Row-stores are considered “traditional” because they have been around longer than columnar-stores. Most row oriented databases are commonly known for OLTP (online transactional processing). This means that row-stores are most commonly known to perform well for a single transaction like inserting, updating, or deleting relatively small amounts of data. (3)
Writing one row at a time is easy for a row-store because it appends the whole row to a chunk of space in storage. In other words, the row oriented database is partitioned horizontally. Since each row occupies at least one chunk (a row can take up more than one chunk if it runs out of space), and a whole chunk of storage is read at a time, this makes it perfect for OLTP applications where a small number of records are queried at a time. (4)
row-stores save to storage in chunks
Using a row-store
Row-stores (ex: Postgres, MySQL) are beneficial when most/all of the values in the record (row) need to be accessed. Row oriented databases are also good for point lookups and index range scans. Indexing (creating a key from columns) based on your access patterns can optimize queries and prevent full table scans in a large row-store. If the value needed is in the index, you can pull it straight from there. Indexing is an important component of row-stores because while columnar-stores also have some indexing mechanisms to optimize full table scans, it is not as efficient for reducing seek time for individual record retrieval than an index on the appropriate columns. Note that creating many indices will create many copies of data, and a columnar-store is a better alternative (see When to Enable Indexing?). (5,6)
row-store concept overview
If only one field of the record is desired, then using a row-store becomes expensive since all the fields in each record will be read. Even data that isn’t needed for the query response will be read, assuming it isn’t indexed properly. Consequently, many seek operations are required to complete the query. For this reason, a columnar-store is favored when you have unpredictable access patterns, whereas known access patterns are well accommodated by a row-store. (7)
Column oriented databases
As more records in a database are accessed, the time to transfer data from disk to memory starts to outweigh the time it takes to seek the data. For this reason, columnar-stores are typically better for OLAP (online analytical processing) applications. Analytical applications often need aggregate data, where only a subset of a table’s attributes are needed. (8)
Column oriented databases are partitioned vertically — instead of storing the full row, the individual values are stored contiguously in storage by column. The advantage of a columnar-store is that partial reads are much more efficient because a lower volume of data is loaded due to reading only the relevant data instead of the whole record.
For example, if a chunk of storage can hold five values and the database has five columns (ex: one row has five values), one row will take up one chunk and be read together. If only one column value is needed for the query response, a columnar-store can read 5x as fast because you will read five column values in one chunk as opposed to one column value in the chunk containing the row. You also avoid reading the other column values that are irrelevant to the query response.
columnar-stores save columns to storage in chunks
Additionally, in column-stores compression is achieved more efficiently than in row-stores because columns have uniform types (ex: all strings or integers). These performance benefits apply to arbitrary access patterns, making them a good choice in the face of unpredictable queries. (8)
Using a columnar-store
example database
Columnar-stores (examples: RedShift, BigQuery) are good for computing trends and averages for trillions of rows and petabytes for data. (8)
Assuming this table continues for millions of rows, what if we wanted to know the sum of the amount spent on online purchases for company A? Well, for company A’s online purchases table, we would need to sum all of the online purchase values. Instead of going through each row and reading the email, type of purchase, and any other columns this table could have, we just need to access all of the values in the “amount” column. | https://medium.com/bluecore-engineering/deciding-between-row-and-columnar-stores-why-we-chose-both-3a675dab4087 | ['Alexa Griffith'] | 2020-08-10 20:25:03.312000+00:00 | ['Bluecore', 'Data Engineering', 'Programming', 'Data', 'Software Engineering'] |
The Most Efficient Way To Lose Weight | GRAB YOURS NOW ! “ https://cutt.ly/3hM5ol7 ” — Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic
Is The Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic safe?
The Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic is produced by a professional laboratory, backed up by solid scientific research and is made in a clean, modern FDA approved and GMP (good manufacturing practices) certified facility with regular audits and quality checks.
The Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic is free of all allergens, contains natural ingredients and is perfectly safe. If you have a medical condition it’s recommended you discuss it with your doctor.
It’s not a “fat-burning pill”, or medication. It contains nature’s finest nutrients for all day metabolism support. You won’t feel jittery or on edge. Instead, you’ll be overflowing with energy. The Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic is a one of a kind weight loss support supplement that revs up your metabolism to super-fast levels, enabling you to burn off pounds of fat and be in complete control of your weight.
How fast will I lose weight?
It all depends on how much weight you have to lose. Everybody is different. The more you need to get rid of, the faster it’s likely to work. To start needing new clothes in just 10 days happens all the time. In 1 or 2 months, you could be at your ideal weight already. It’s that fast.
How do I take The Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic?
Just take 1 scoop of The Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic around 10am or around 1 hour after a light breakfast. Then, feel the nutrients work their way through your body as they provide their powerful metabolism boosting effects.
How soon will I receive my order of The Okinawa Flat Belly Tonic?
Most people will receive their order in 3–7 days, although those outside the US will have allow for 10–14 days for international shipping and customs. In just a few days from now, you can experience the delicious tonic that. | https://medium.com/@loss-weight/the-most-efficient-way-to-lose-weight-66a3c2006e55 | ['Ivan Choy'] | 2020-12-23 05:39:53.427000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Self Care', 'Weight Loss'] |
Node.js Beginner Guide-Serving Static File. | We already are done with Server Setup in the previous post, now today we are going to learn how to load an HTML page with CSS.
First of all, we need to create an HTML page.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link href ="/public/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type = "text/css">
<title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello, I'm Back</p>
<div class="myblock">
<p>Successfully served Static file!!</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
A very basic boilerplate, as this is not a UI guide so don’t expect any Awesome UI. Notice I already linked my CSS file. My CSS file is under a folder named “public”, down the line I’ll talk about it.
Below is my CSS file.
.myblock{
display: block;
height: 150px;
width:150px;
padding:30px;
margin: auto;
background-color: greenyellow;
font-size: large;
font-style: italic;
align-items: center;
}
We have the HTML and CSS file ready, now let’s connect it to the express server to serve this HTML file.
var express = require('express')
var app = express()
app.get('/',function(req, res){
res.sendFile(__dirname + "/index.html"); })
app.listen(3000,'127.0.0.1')
*NOTE** I used “__dirname” which is used to indicate the current directory and concatenating it with the index.html file that we had created just a few lines above.
Now let's run!
We did it but it seems like our CSS is not loaded. But why?
Let’s resolve this issue. Due to security issues these static files are not loaded directly, they need to be loaded through some middleware. Middleware is just a simple function you can say or something between the request and response. For eg-
app.get('/',function(req, res) //This function is a Middleware
{
res.sendFile(__dirname + "/index.html");
})
Similarly, we can use express middleware “express.static()”. Now we are going to store our CSS file in the folder named “public” and serve that public folder. The reason behind this is that what if we want to upload images, files, and many more we don't want to write the same logic again and again. So storing any image, file in the public folder can catch up with everything that we need.
So Let’s add this middleware in the code.
var express = require('express')
var app = express()
app.use('/public',express.static('public'));
app.get('/',function(req, res){
res.sendFile(__dirname + "/index.html");
})
app.listen(3000,'127.0.0.1')
This is how we use express middleware to serve static files.
*NOTE** in the function, the first argument is the location of the folder which is storing the CSS file and second argument to load the static file( simply that folder name).
Let’s run again-
Browser View
We did it!!
For more information on how to serve the static file without the help of express, you can follow this documentation https://nodejs.org/en/knowledge/HTTP/servers/how-to-serve-static-files/
I’ll be posting more new content about Node.js. Please Give feedback! | https://medium.com/@arpitjain.aj007/node-js-beginner-guide-serving-static-file-7760e7fea982 | ['Arpit Jain'] | 2020-06-15 15:04:36.082000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Web Development', 'Backend Development', 'JavaScript', 'Expressjs'] |
I would be interested in your thoughts about “the other THC,” Delta-8 Tetrahydrocannabinol, which… | I would be interested in your thoughts about “the other THC,” Delta-8 Tetrahydrocannabinol, which appears to be getting a buzz of its own at present. I understand that it serves as a euphoriant for some people, albeit more mild than it’s big sibling (Delta-9), and can help with relaxation. Apparently legal at the federal level, but currently prohibited in eleven states. Any experience or thoughts? | https://medium.com/@zippy5318/i-would-be-interested-in-your-thoughts-about-the-other-thc-delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol-which-5a172840bddb | ['Donald Armstrong'] | 2020-12-19 20:04:54.037000+00:00 | ['Cannabis'] |
Having Regrets Is A Good Thing — Here’s Why | Regret Takes Mental Work
The mechanism of regret isn’t actually straightforward. It requires quite a bit of cognitive work.
Little kids aren’t able to regret their actions at all, and even bigger kids struggle with factoring regret into the decisions they make.
In fact, according to a study published in 2014: “Although children develop the ability to experience regret between 5 and 7 years of age, they do not appear to be able to anticipate regret until later than this.”
As a parent, I can attest to this.
“If you don’t do your homework now, you’ll be sorry later” is something kids and even teenagers struggle to grasp. They may understand it abstractly, but they can’t quite visualize it. When you’re young, you feel that tomorrow’s problems can wait until tomorrow.
And when you’re even younger than that, you can only live in the present. “You ate your ice cream too quickly, that’s why your stomach hurts now” doesn’t make much sense to a four-year-old.
Regret means connecting your past decision with your current state of being. But it’s not just about drawing conclusions or feeling badly about what you did.
When you ask “what should I have done instead?”, you must use your imagination and make deductions based on the information you have about life. Regretting a decision requires you to construct an imaginary world where you chose differently.
These are called counterfactual thoughts and they’re a core component of regret. They require a great deal of mental work, and they’re based on your life experiences.
Now, my cousin isn’t a particularly imaginative guy. Maybe he doesn’t have regrets because he doesn’t like to daydream about other possibilities. He sticks to the real world. But that can’t be all there is to it, can it?
“We Only Regret The Chances We Didn’t Take”
You’ve probably seen this inspirational quote printed across an image of a starry sky or a sunset. Sometimes it’s attributed to Lewis Carroll (but he’s probably not the one behind it).
We can all agree that some inspirational sayings are pure nonsense. But it turns out that this one is actually well-founded by science.
Psychologists say that there are two kinds of regret, and we experience them differently.
Regret for things we did is immediate and overwhelming. You messed something up, and your brain floods you with mental images of what you should have done instead. It causes emotional distress, and it can come with feelings of embarrassment, anger, sadness, and so on. Regret for things we didn’t do tends to develop more slowly. But when this kind of regret takes root in your mind, it’s very hard to eradicate. You can’t stop tormenting yourself with questions about what something would have been like — if you’d only had the courage to do it. The biggest, longest-lasting, most unpleasant regrets all fall into this category.
Allianz, the insurance company, surveyed their clients (over the age of 50) about the top regrets they have in life. Here are a handful of the top ones:
not spending enough time with one’s kids or parents,
not finding fulfillment,
not traveling,
not seeking help.
Interestingly, “getting a divorce” and “not getting a divorce” both ranked highly too.
Risk-takers might be less prone to regrets in the long term. They try everything. They forge ahead in life and don’t stop to think about what could have been. Their life is simply too busy and there’s no time for quiet contemplation.
It’s fairly clear why this attitude is appealing, especially on social media. However, I don’t think it’s the best approach to take.
Too Much Regret Can Mess You Up…
When I let go of my pettiness, I can admit that my cousin’s philosophy has some upsides.
He seems happy in his marriage now, and I’m glad he didn’t stop trying to find love. As far as I know, he is still looking for investment opportunities, too. Even though I don’t agree with his choices, I’m glad he didn’t sink into apathy.
Too many people let regret overpower them. They become passive, timid, and they spend too much time daydreaming. So yes, there’s definitely such a thing as taking regret too far.
It’s just that the other extreme isn’t necessarily better.
… But Regretting Your Mistakes Is Still Necessary
People who never stop to think about past decisions tend to act recklessly.
Since they never think about their mistakes, they miss the opportunity to learn and grow. They keep making the same mistakes over and over again, and they never take responsibility for how their life is going. They refuse to admit that life doesn’t owe them happiness.
Not only that, they’re irritating to be around. They come across as insincere and untrustworthy. In job interviews, when a candidate tells me they have no regrets about their past work experiences, I assume that they’re either arrogant or out of touch with reality.
So, regret serves a social purpose too.
According to social psychology expert Amy Summerville, it “signals to people that we’re learning from our experiences and that we’re going to make changes as a result. Not having that emotional reaction is really actually kind of troubling if there is harm that’s happening.” | https://medium.com/wholistique/having-regrets-is-a-good-thing-heres-why-bfcd73c58b53 | ['Eric Sangerma'] | 2020-11-06 10:59:44.734000+00:00 | ['Regret', 'Life', 'Self', 'Decisions', 'Mental Health'] |
Save Marriage Secrets with Save My Marriage Today — Honest Review - | Save marriage secrets with save my marriage today has been getting all the attention in the digital space recently hence my honest review.
I get the opportunity to review a lot of products that come across my desk, so its easy to lose interest in a lot of what I see. That was, until recently when I met Amy Waterman. Amy, online author of Save My Marriage Today Asked me to have a look over her course and tell her what I thought.
At first I was skeptical, but I thought, hey, I have friends who are in bad marriages. And this information might be good for one of them, so I decided to read it closely and see what insights it could offer me about reconnecting and improving relationships.
By the time I had finished, I was hooked! I realized for the first time, that this book would be absolutely essential for couples who are serious about solving their marital difficulties, and I don’t just mean young couples either.
This book applies to couples young and old. No matter what your marriage situation, if you are male or female, or how many years you have been married, there are tips and tools that can assist every couple with developing sound communication and conflict resolution techniques.
Everybody knows someone who is in a difficult or failing marriage, or it may even be you…..
Nobody said marriage was ever going to be easy, and if they did, they were lying. It’s perfectly normal in a marriage to have disagreements and times when things involve a little more effort than they used to.
In an ideal world we would sit and talk about these changes and differences. In a calm and rational manner, and establish an outcome and move on. Unfortunately things don’t always work like that.
Its all too easy to get caught up in the moment and let things deteriorate to the point where you are both wondering why you are still in it.
Amy has developed a course that encourages couples to break the ice and develop ways to interact and strengthen their failing relationship. She deals with topics such as:
Tips on how to rescue your marriage
How to reintroduce passion
How to repair your marriage after an affair
Self assessment
Gestures that are more important than words
And much, much more….
The first impression of the course was how well laid out it is, in neat, graphically designed ebooks. This is someone who takes their craft seriously. And I am immediately confident that I have purchased a professional course that takes both me and my marriage seriously.
The content is quite impressive though. Not only with the theory but the accompanying exercises at the end of many chapters that helped cement the concepts and apply it to real life marriages.
The other thing that impressed me is the sheer volume of information. Both in the two main Save My Marriage Today ebooks. But also the accompanying bonus ebooks as well. In total it is one of the most comprehensive marriage saving courses I have seen assembled!
Over 2 million couples divorce every year. And many of those could have been avoided. If those couples communicated and applied the techniques that Amy shows us in her life-changing course.
This course can’t work miracles and save every marriage. But if you are serious about resurrecting the love you once had for your partner and saving your marriage, maximize your chances and read and apply the relationship advice that Amy has to offer.
Amy is able to identify where you have been going wrong. She shows you how to avoid those crucial mistakes that actually jeopardize your chances of saving your failing marriage.
In addition to this she has included a free email consultation. So that customers can discuss any specific problems or further clarification that the course doesn’t already cover.
I really do believe Amy is onto a good thing here, and she really can help you save your marriage!
The techniques revealed are thought provoking and have been proven over and over to help save marriages. I was very impressed when I finished reading this material and have recommended it to everyone I know.
But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself! Take a look
I promise you won’t be disappointed, and best of all, it could turn your life around. For a fraction of the cost of a counselor, you can save your marriage! Save Marriage Secrets with Save My Marriage Today — honest review.
All the best
A Father, Husband, Brother, Uncle and a Full Time Blogger. | https://medium.com/@sean-obuseng/save-marriage-secrets-with-save-my-marriage-today-honest-review-e3e923ad3719 | [] | 2020-12-21 21:52:08.996000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Marriage Equality', 'Marriage', 'Religion', 'Divorce'] |
Blockchain Report — 4/3/2018 | Intel Files Bitcoin Mining Patent; John McAfee Tweets For Money; DJ Khaled Promotes Fraudulent ICO
Intel Files for a Bitcoin Mining Hardware Patent
Intel has apparently filed for a patent on March 29th, 2018 for a “Bitcoin Mining Hardware Accelerator”. The abstract of the patent states that a system on chip implementing a Bitcoin mining hardware accelerator may include a processor core, and that the hardware accelerator is optimized to mine digital currency. No doubt this represents a push by Intel to be at the forefront of cryptocurrency mining hardware. You can see the entire patent HERE
John McAfee Advertises That He Will Promote Your Cryptocurrenncy For $105,000
A page from the McAfee cryptocurrency team brags about the John McAfee’s ability to cause a cryptocurrency to rise over 100% as a result of simply tweeting about it. It also states that 259,000 of McAfee’s followers own more than 50% of their assets in cryptocurrency, and that 224,000 of his followers have invested over $20,000 in cryptocurrency. Finally, at the very end of the page it states that McAfee charges $105,000 per tweet.
This should be a wake-up call to cryptocurrency investors — so-called “cryptocurrency experts” don’t always have your best interests at heart. Ask yourself what the person’s financial motives are for recommending a specific cryptocurrency.
I have archived the website in case it gets taken down. You can see the archive HERE.
DJ Khaled Played Himself — By Promoting a Fraudulent ICO
The SEC released a press release on April 2nd stating that it was charging the founders of Centra Tech, which created the CTR token, of orchestrating a fraudulent ICO. If the ICO sounds familiar, it might be because both Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled promoted the Centra token.
According to Fortune Magazine, Khaled posted as a caption to an Instagram photo “I just received my titanium centra debit card. The Centra Card & Centra Wallet app is the ultimate winner in Cryptocurrency debit cards powered by CTR tokens!”. Mayweather also made an instagram post about the CTR token, which has since been removed. This story teaches us a valuable lesson: you can’t trust record producers and boxers with providing good cryptocurrency recommendations. | https://medium.com/blockchain-report/ico-watchdog-daily-roundup-4-3-2018-4a241cb828b4 | ['Christopher Durr'] | 2018-05-10 00:59:05.545000+00:00 | ['News', 'ICO', 'Dj Khaled', 'Bitcoin', 'John Mcafee'] |
Learning or Labeling — are we doing it right? | نہیں ہے بچے کو پڑہنے کا شوق Child is not interested in learning
I have often heard words like duffer, jado, dheet. These words are hard to erase from the mind because as much I you don’t want to remember, my brain had associated a specific emotion to it. So much so that when I started watching Stranger Things and was The Duffer Brothers written on the screen I couldn’t help but cringe.
Learning is a developmental process
Children often say, “I studied, but I did/could not learn anything.” It means that the child memorized or read about a topic, but for some reason did not gain any new knowledge or skills.
We must learn to differentiate between learning and studying. To Learn is to gain knowledge or expertise by studying, practicing, being taught, or experiencing. Studying is to read, memorize facts, attend academic institute to learn about a subject. Studying is one way to learn.
When we say ‘a child is not interested in learning’ it sounds like learning is an object or a toy that the child refuses to play or engage with. I have hardly ever heard ‘Isey toilet jaaney ka shok nahi hai’. It is because parents understand that toilet training is a developmental process and it will take its due time. Thus, It is much easier to empathize with a delay or concern for any physical/visible milestone. Some children might start walking before the crawling stage whereas others progress in a step-wise manner.
What adults need to understand is that every child has a unique set of neurons (brain cells) that are wired in a very peculiar way. Learning is child’s mental capability of using the information effectively to work towards a goal. In school, this goal can be an examination. Learning process follows some steps which is essential for anyone who comes in contact with a child needs to know:
* Input: getting information to the brain through five senses — child’s primary language versus language of instruction, hearing and eye sight related issues
* Register: if all senses are intact, child brain receives the information — this happens when the child is thriving with a balanced need of security, sleep, food, play, security and optimal health
* Making meaning: Once the information is registered, it has to be understood by the various parts of the brain — learning environment, teaching methodology, crowded class, distraction and brain’s learning ability
* Store: Once understood it must be stored for future recall such as an exam — an optimal attention span (paying and sustaining the attention), optimal sleep, and screen time.
* Retrieve: In exams, when brain sends the signal to look for the information asked, it is reproduced either verbally (oral exams) or through muscle activity (writing or drawing).
Labeling
Labeling is never helpful. When someone labels a child, it is not the action but the person they refer to. This does not only invoke guilt of not being the child/student my parent/teacher expected to be but also feels immense shame. Guilt recognizes that the child made a mistake and child is allowed to make a mistake. Whereas, shame defines a child as an unworthy person. Shame causes psychological damage that impedes growth.
Guilt: “I made a mistake. I will correct this and make it right.”
Shame says: “I am so horrible. How could I ever be a good child/student?”
Research has shown that almost more than 50% of children diagnosed with learning difficulties end up with diagnosable psychiatric disorders. When teachers and parents catastrophize any small mistake without acknowledging child’s struggle (consciously or unconsciously), child’s brain starts firing signals — part of the brain responsible for fear. And if that becomes repetitive, the brain begins to fire most of the time. Hence, an anxious child.
An Anxious Child becomes an Anxious Adult
As the child grows up, any tiny perceived or real threat in the surroundings can take them back to their childhood — the safe space. But what happened in that safe space? The child was scared, anxious, and brain mainly fired all the time, signaling fear. Now, what happens when this child grows up? Child is less willing to take risks, makes hasty decisions and immediately wants to rectify the situation. This grown up brain now tends to fire up put of proportion in any stress provoking situation that reminds this adult of childhood experiences.
Adult’s Role
Role of parents and teachers becomes very crucial for learning. The positive predictive factor for a child with learning difficulties is effective coping skills. If the child is struggling with learning difficulties, child has already formed a low opinion of herself. Be an advocate for the child.
I have touched upon only emotional factors that may impede child’s growth in all domains. The subject of corporal punishment demands a space of its own. | https://medium.com/@aishachachar87/learning-and-labeling-are-we-doing-it-right-67d1bd0d972b | ['Dr. Aisha Sanober Chachar'] | 2020-05-22 23:30:03.670000+00:00 | ['Learning And Development', 'School Mental Health', 'Child Mental Health', 'Pakistan', 'Child Psychiatry'] |
The Pursuit of Autonomy | Image Cred: Sergio Bellotto
It’s been two years since I left one of the biggest professional services firms in the world to create something of my own.
I had a core concept of a consulting company that wholly invested in its staff’s development and ultimately helped them to leave by launching their own ventures. For those people it would be a safe off-ramp from a structured career into a world of complexity. Slight issue as I resigned though was that it was just me, with no clients, and no-one who was crazy enough to jump ship with me.
Recently I was discussing my experience over the last 2 years with a good friend of mine who still works at a Big4. The conversation centred around three main questions
“Why did I choose to leave?” “What is different now?” “What advice would I give to others?”
I’m sharing my responses to these questions as a way of clarifying my own thoughts, and providing insights for people that may be considering taking a similar risk or who are feeling they need to find a job with greater ‘purpose’ (more on this shortly).
Why did I choose to leave?
The conversation started off on the differences between working in a large global consulting business (where you can be somewhat limited depending on your role/line of service) vs working in a smaller firm where you can invest every ounce of yourself into anything and receive nothing less than 100% merit (total failure of 100% is also a likely outcome). I had been at a Big4 for a number of years and towards the end of my time there felt completely lost.
Our conversation reflected on our differing experiences over the last couple of years comparing one environment to another. This difference was focussed on the way I described having full autonomy and authority over the work we did, who we worked with and the impact we could have. Two years previous I thought I hated everything about consulting, today it’s the polar opposite. Even though it’s the same work, it’s now my own business, my own clients and most importantly the people that I have always wanted to work with. In essence, that is why I had left. I had left in the pursuit of total autonomy but what is interesting is that wasn’t why I thought I was leaving at the time.
Recently, I have spoken to a number of people who feel and seem slightly lost with what they are doing. It’s an undeniable millennial trait to constantly be pursuing something of ‘impact’ or ‘purpose’, and many people are quick to point that out. I am 100% that type of individual born slap bang in the middle of the millennial cohort. I remember feeling immensely ‘lost’ for years in my career with no idea how to get out — but also zero idea of what ‘getting out’ meant or why it was important ‘to get out’. Interestingly, I think the feeling or desire to find impact/purpose driven work is actually more a desire to find ownership and autonomy in an individual’s life. I know that I certainly feel fulfilled more so that I have found autonomy over purpose because I can use my autonomy to drive the impact and purpose that I wish to have.
How did this all manifest itself? As with any major personal or professional change it is usually the result of something that builds tension over time and then a catalyst ignites that change. The tension I found was very much focussed on the lack of autonomy and authority I had in delivering the work that I did. I fully understand from a risk perspective that you cannot give a junior with limited experience full autonomy, however, more often than not I felt restricted in what I could do and achieve. This compounded over years and evidenced through high performance grades but no promotion to the next level (it’s amazing how nonsensical that feels to me nowadays). Eventually, the catalyst was another promotion rejection and enough was enough.
Why is it different now?
What next? I knew I wanted to start my own business, I actually wanted to start many businesses and invest in many others either financially or through developing founders. But with no capital and with no network becoming the next venture builder was a 10 year pipe dream at least. I therefore hatched a plan, and put it into action. I was very lucky as during my time in the Big4 there was one client where I had full autonomy over the project and team. I loved that project, I loved that client and the work that we did was not only rewarding for us all, but of great benefit to the client. Reflecting on the project it made me realise that actually, deep down, despite being slightly scarred by my previous experiences, I actually loved consulting.
I knew that I wanted to continue to work with clients, delivering impactful work and doing so with amazing groups and individuals. From that acknowledgement, Upside was born and everything since then has been driven by the desire to hire the best people, invest in those individuals and then manifest that talent through impactful work for clients and the creation of impactful ventures. At the heart of Upside is a laser focus on investing in our people. Investing in what is best for them, not what is best for us. By doing this the impact we could have is compounded by the individuals or teams we nurture and the onward impact they will have.
One thing that the above means is that we don’t always make the most ‘rational’ investments of either our money or our time. Does it make sense to pay for an employees ACA qualification when we could run out of money in 3 months, probably not. However, an unfailing belief in courage favours the brave makes me feel that if we continue in this vein then maybe we could just make it work. I don’t want for us to become the next hot shot consultancy, or the next bleeding edge digital agency, or a venture builder that churns out 10s of concepts a year. Scale in this regards isn’t a driving force. Far more so, with Upside, balance is what we view as key to success. By focussing on scaling the 3 pillars of Upside simultaneously, we won’t get distracted by one specific part thus distracting us from our ultimate aim. Balance then plays into the careers and opportunities we offer our people. Our belief is that if you focus 100% on the broader development of a phenomenal talent by giving them varied development experiences then this will lead to incredible things.
What advice would I give to others?
Mine and my friends conversation ended on this last point, what advice would I give to others if I was fortunate enough to be allowed to offer up an opinion. My response would be:.
Unhappy? Pull the rip chord: If you are no longer learning, or unhappy to the point where it is affecting your broader life. Get out. Your joy and talent is like a market. When it enters into a bear market it compounds the worse it gets. This also works on the upside. Therefore cut your losses at all costs and invest in something that drives an upside. Beware the hamster wheel: If you don’t think the career path you are on isn’t for you, trust your gut and do something about it. I know first hand how easy it can be to stay on the hamster wheel of a career always thinking the next step is the solution whereas actually it is just the sticking plaster. Find the next stepping stone: Don’t worry if you don’t have a precise understanding of where you are going next. It likely takes a number of stepping stones to cross the river. Find a learning environment with great people: Regardless of what you do next, focus on finding an environment where you can learn from and be challenged by talented people. Don’t burn bridges: Needless to say, your current colleagues will value your individual talent and therefore will be upset to see you go and likely feel hurt by your departure. Don’t leave in a ball of flames, you never know when one of your previous counterparts is a pivotal piece of your master plan.
The key question at this point is whether the move has given me all the things I was searching for. I would say to a certain extent, yes. Yes it absolutely has based on the points that I raised earlier about autonomy leading to a self-actualisation of purpose. However, as any Founder will attest, you live in constant fear that it all comes crumbling down through a perceived inability to sustain growth against the vision you aspire to. That fear is your worst enemy one day and your best friend the next. It’s your worst enemy as it is all consuming, as someone said to me just today it’s your monkey brain taking over and once that monkey is in, it is very hard to shake it. This affects you as an individual making you closed and transactional (or certainly that is the impact it has on myself that I am acutely aware of) opposed to open, creative and agile. To counter that though it is also your best friend as the fear instils a perpetual drive in oneself to keep at it and to keep looking for answers that lead to continued success. Without that fear one can ebb back into a state of lethargy or arrogance, which in actual terms is your greatest enemy and the kiss of death to any business owner regardless of stature.
I hope this resonates with a few people who’ve made the jump and that it provides courage to anyone considering it. If you read this and feel that you need to talk things through with someone, get in touch with us. Our company is filled with people that will be able to give you some sage advice about what you are doing and hopefully offer some form of guiding hand.
And if you think you may be interested in a role at Upside, we are always on the lookout for exceptional people who may be grappling with what their next challenge should be and are searching for a little more autonomy.
[email protected] | https://medium.com/swlh/the-pursuit-of-autonomy-98f60d90c5f0 | ['Wyndham Plumptre'] | 2019-08-14 20:30:33.808000+00:00 | ['Autonomy', 'Careers', 'Culture', 'Business', 'Startup'] |
How a group of civic technologists helped swing UK’s General Election | It’s 10pm on Election Night at the packed War Room inside Newspeak House, and exit polls are about to be announced. A Wikipedia editathon is in progress, and when the results are projected onscreen, a mixture of groaning, swearing and cheering breaks out. It’s not the Labour majority they were hoping for, but the Conservatives are down by 17 seats. John turns to me excitedly and says: “Our model turned out to be the most accurate after Yougov! And we only began two months ago with a team of volunteer data scientists who’d never met before and had no experience of handling electoral data.” He shows me the screen where he’s adjusting the data, as behind me, a group of Labour supporters in red continue a heated discussion about Corbyn’s chances.
John Sandall is project manager for SixFifty, one of the many groups of civic technologists who’d been working out of the five-storey building in Shoreditch, building tools for the general election. Like SixFifty, most tonight are volunteers who had organically come together to address the needs of this election using technology.
Newspeak House in London has been growing into a hub of activity for technologists and activists over recent years. In the past, it has hosted hackathons, screenings, round-tables and community organising workshops focusing on digital transformation of civil society and the public sector. “When the election was called, I was aware of a significant community of people building technology to influence the election but I knew there’s not been much coherence to this movement,” says Edward Saperia, Dean of Newspeak House. “Because it only happens every 5 years, you don’t get a lot of stability to keep building. The advantage of this is that every time an election comes around you can start from scratch because technology moves a lot in 5 years: if you look back at 2010, we didn’t have smartphones.”
Newspeak House/ Photo: Edward Saperia
Within days of the Snap Election being called, Ed had announced the creation of War Room, a co-working hub set up at Newspeak for the 7 pre-election weeks. But getting technologists, campaigners and journalists under one roof is always a challenge, so Ed turned to social media.
Edward Saperia, Dean of Newspeak House/ Manisha Ganguly
“I created a set of online collaborative documents to collect useful resources for people building technology around the election and shared it around different groups: at last look it had 70 projects listed: from campaigning, to investigative journalism and infrastructure. Lots of community activities were going on where people were commenting, requesting and supplying data-sets.”
Jeremy Evans and Matt Morley, of the start-up Explaain were the first to snap into action. Within 7 minutes of the election announcement, they’d secured the URL for GE2017. “We soon heard about the War Room that Ed had set up and simply turned up. Most of our best opportunities came from connections made at Newspeak, and it’s hard to think of an election-related tech product that didn’t have a connection to the building in some way.”
What followed from this was a remarkable collective attempt at creating digital tools to help people make informed decisions before heading to polling stations: from finding local candidates and voting booths, to automated fact-checking of campaign propaganda and guerrilla-marketing manifestos using games.
Sam Jeffers, co-founder of WhoTargetsMe, a Chrome extension to monitor targeted advertising on Facebook by campaigning political parties, tells me the Press attention for their project has been overwhelming- New York Times, BBC, the Guardian, even Breitbart. “We [Louis Knight-Webb, co-founder] hadn’t even actually met when we began working together.” David Kitchen, of Tactical2017 a website advising on tactical voting, echoes this sentiment: “I saw a spreadsheet which Becky Snowden up in Yorkshire had created and got in touch to build the website. We’ve never actually met.”
A hackathon at Newspeak House/ Photo: Ed Saperia
The combined efforts at Newspeak saw 100,000 new voters registered by election day. GE2017 alone had secured 2.5 million unique visitors by the end of the election, double the previous record for a UK voter advice tool. Ed adds, “We also held a round-table discussion with representatives from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Electoral Commission, Parliament Digital Service, Democracy Club, Bite the Ballot, Full Fact, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, The BBC, The Guardian, Labour Digital, etc. to work on a voter registration strategy.”
As a result, this year’s election saw the largest voter turnout in 25 years, with more than half the youth showing up to vote. In the aftermath of the election, where the Conservatives lost out on the expected landslide majority, I meet up with some of the technologists involved to assess how their efforts impacted this change. | https://medium.com/hacking-digital-britain/how-a-group-of-civic-technologists-helped-swing-uks-general-election-ae8ffed62106 | ['Manisha Ganguly'] | 2017-07-27 18:31:58.243000+00:00 | ['Politics', '2017 General Election', 'Technology', 'Elections', 'Data Science'] |
The Great Stone Mountain Park | Similar to the lengthy and strenuous trails, Stone Mountain Park has a few quick scenic trails for one’s enjoyment. Crossing the historical bridge to Indian Island is the 1-mile loop King’s trail. This trail is a circle of relatives-friendly with some moderate inclines as it traverses the wooded banks of the Northern and jap beaches of Stone Mountain Lake before turning inland via the middle of the island lower back to the car parking zone. the nature garden path can be brief. seventy five-mile loops, but it is full of some of the park’s fine herbal beauty.
The trail winds its way thru a mature all right thickly wooded area presenting usually smooth terrain crossing several mountain streams with roots and rocks along the way. throughout the path are several benches with interpretive symptoms figuring out coloration-loving local flora and flowering shrubs. An extra mild rated trail with a few steep inclines is the 1.5-mile trail of the Muscogee loop, named after the local Indians who as soon as occupied this area. The trail begins with a gradual, sluggish climb through a hardwood wooded area crossing a few ditches and rolling hills before attaining the lake. The return portion of the path alongside the financial institution of the lake becomes greater technical with common grade changes with roots and native granite masking the direction. The 1996 summertime Olympic games Venue for Archery and cycling is now the Park’s Songbird Habitat. The 1.seventy five-mile loop trail winds via meadows and woodlands where native flora thrive.
For a few Stone Mountain history visit the Quarry show off which turned into developed to tell the tale of an enterprise that eliminated the granite from the mountain for use around the world. through the years more than 7.five million cubic yards have been eliminated from the mountain and surely every kingdom has a construction with Stone Mountain Granite in it. As time surpassed, the showcase explains the function modifications in a generation made inside the removal manner. because of the pandemic museums and a few exhibits are closed presently.
For a little of the pleasure faraway from Stone Mountain Park, the world of Coke Museum in downtown Atlanta is a super area for every age showcasing the history of the Coke employer. The complicated covers 20-acres with a couple of interacting well-known shows, from sampling drinks from around the arena to the brand new fragrance Discovery show off. Sampling Coke liquids from around the sector can be pretty a treat in itself as a Coke Ambassador explains information and information about every product Coke functions in other countries. One’s feel of smell is placed to the check by means of guessing the beginning of a variety of scents even as being educated at the anatomy of smell, from reception to perception. The three-D theater is a multi-sensory film enjoy that takes the family on a journey around the sector inside the quest to locate Coke’s mystery system. Bottle Works permits one to get a close-up to examine the device and strategies observed at a bottling manufacturing unit even as learning a few exciting statistics approximately Coke’s bottling history. The loft section of the complex displays the wealthy background of the day gone by’s and modern artifacts alongside one hundred twenty-five years of Coke’s memories. | https://medium.com/@hossain-sagar/the-great-stone-mountain-park-928d2d8805dc | ['Sagar Hossain'] | 2020-12-23 04:20:05.947000+00:00 | ['Stone Mountain', 'Christmas', 'Event Planning', 'Stone Mountain Park', 'Events'] |
What’s My Novel About? | Sorry, I don’t really have my elevator speech down, but if you have a minute…
Photo by Caleb Lucas on Unsplash
It’s sort of a coming age tale, a bildungsroman if you will. Actually, now that I’m thinking more about it, it’s more of a roman à clef of sorts. But also a picaresque.
Does that make sense?
Let me back up. You see, the main character is a White guy. Wait! It’s okay because it’s sort of a comic fable that’s also a satire, like, ‘Can you believe this guy?’ He’s a total jerk. Don’t worry. Like, he’s racist. But wait! The racism is ironic too. I’m not racist or anything like that. It’s total characterization…
Alright, so plot… Are you — ? Sorry, you just were looking at your phone there.
Okay, plot. So it’s sort of a travelogue, but the travel all takes place in the protagonist’s mind, his ambition, and so on. Like, have you ever seen The Muppet Movie? It’s sort of like that, but if they didn’t know they were in a movie and Fozzie was a psychiatrist.
There’s also six main characters, each with their own fully developed plot lines. Which all overlap. In time and space.
It’s not told chronologically. You see, it’s as if the main character has dementia. But is also an alcoholic and knows that he’s losing it. But he doesn’t really have dementia, he’s a hypochondriac and just thinks he does, but that makes him actually have it. And what’s the difference? Does that make sense? The book explores that.
There are strong elements of parody and some really elemental story structure, like Aesop. But it’s epistolary in parts as well. And then part of it takes place online and you actually have to go watch a YouTube video.
See, it’s like All Quiet on the Western Front meets Emma meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail if it were a novel told from the point of view of the guy with the coconuts.
It’s kind of hard to explain, but if you could just get to chapter six, I think —
No, there are no chapters.
It’s like if you took The Brothers Karamazov and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Squadron on the PlayStation 3 and added road salt.
No?
Okay, try to imagine like Harry Potter and a making-of documentary of a Busby Berkeley musical rolled into Catch-22, told through the lens of Bulgarian folklore and a chicken salad sandwich.
Huh? No, it’s not like that at all.
Picture Cormac McCarthy meets Steve Martin meets two half-sibling English Springer Spaniels and the color puce.
I assume you’ve read David Foster Wallace? Even the short stories? No? Hmm. Okay, well forget that then.
Maybe then I could say it’s like where Hop On Pop intersects with a knock-knock joke if Stephen King had been president when World War II started.
It’s like if ultraviolet radiation were metafictional verse.
For you then, try thinking of it like the origin story of the Planck constant in the form of an adult send-up of YA wraith babysitting stories with the prose equivalent of wasabi sauce in your tear ducts.
I’m trying to dumb it down some, but it’s like a revisiting of Huckleberry Finn told as dark matter in a tuxedo T-shirt.
It’s Titus Groan meets the gravitational constant. No?
Ursula K. LeGuin translated by an ancient Celtic auroch hunter?
It’s like the first part of a Decalogue so there’s a lot of long digressions for world-building and old goulash recipes.
In a word, JOMO.
If inertia was a meme.
A diary of barometric pressure readings.
Cuneiform erotica.
Palimpsests of onomatopoeias.
Timespace explained only in Arabic punctuation.
Excited quantum state.
^ | https://medium.com/@jimposter/whats-my-novel-about-5f8c7d41a5cf | ['J.P. Melkus'] | 2020-12-27 17:33:05.016000+00:00 | ['Novel Writing', 'Writers On Writing', 'Writing Tips', 'Humor', 'Writing'] |
“Health Is Wealth” In The Workplace | Corporate wellness programs today have become extremely basic and simplistic. It’s a bunch of one-off assessments, “workshops”, and challenges. These are great until the employees don’t get long term results and a bunch of time and energy is wasted. Health effects work and work affects health! Employers are therefore looking for ways to decrease total health-related costs. And one of the strategies is to invest in evidence-based, well-designed, and comprehensive workplace wellness programs.
These well-designed programs aren’t created with short term intentions. It has to be created with the business bottom line in mind pertaining to health care costs, the employees that are participating, the core values of the workplace, and implementing/incorporating programs in a successful way without intervening with the primary business.
There are 10 fundamental steps to designing a workplace wellness programs that actually works and adds value to the employers as well as the employees:
Appetite For Wellness — an employer has to assess the organization to adopt a workplace wellness strategy. Questions to ask to help this process…Are the business plans or benefit plans designed in a way that support or impede behavior change?…Is there a history of workplace wellness programs? If so, what are some lessons we learned?…How can management and rank-and-file workers receive tailored communication? Develop A Multiyear Strategic Plan — organizations need a well-thought-out strategy for implementing a wellness program. Creating a written plan is critical to success. A strategic plan outlines for the organization what it needs to do based on best practices — and why. Create A Culture — this is a journey that requires support from senior leadership as well as from all sectors of middle management to the employee base. Building a strategic multiyear plan helps lay the foundation of an effective program. Develop A Communication Campaign — the common expectation for employers is to see immediate results. And the employees are not inclined to take actions to change behaviors immediately. So targeted and tailored communication plans help build program support for both sides of the organization. Establish Measurement Methodologies — ROI(return on investment) and VOI(value of investment) define a “well-designed program”. ROI is based on medical plan costs and VOI is broader. It covers elements such as improved performance of the workforce, recognition as an employer of choice, and high employee retention. Provide Education Programs — the first step to behavior change is awareness. Next education prepares individuals to take action. Many tools and sources can be used to accomplished. Initiate Interventions — to decrease the risk of progressing or exacerbating chronic conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes, businesses may opt to go to the next stage by establishing change-oriented health behavior components. These are “interventions” which are change behavior programs. Engage & Integrate — engagement is one of the most difficult and critical challenges in wellness program design and management research has shown approximately 80% of the population is not ready to change their health behaviors of any given time. With this in mind, a well-designed workplace wellness program should offer programs for the individual in all stages of readiness. Offer Incentives — incentives alone do not constitute a wellness program. Incentives paired with targeted behavior interventions and programs can be a powerful lever to initiate and motive change. Conduct Financial Analysis — across the spectrum of health management programs, employers are more likely to achieve savings and an ROI by appealing to the entire continuum of health within a population.
These steps provide great guidance when it comes to coordinating workplace wellness programs. Employers care about the bottom line of their business. And the best way to take care of that is investing in the lifelines of their people.
If you’re a sales professional, entrepreneur, or small business owner that want to optimize your health while accumulating wealth click here to view my personal website and contact me!
Your #HealthIsWealthGuy
@ChristopherRayColeman | https://medium.com/@colemanchronicles/health-is-wealth-in-the-workplace-b611b3d8f749 | ['Christopher Ray Coleman'] | 2019-03-18 20:25:00.423000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Workplace Culture', 'Mental Health', 'Corporate Culture', 'Health'] |
Equity Opportunities Fund | Image Source: Money Under 30
Everyone aims to build wealth and grow his or her money over a certain period. There are an array of financial vehicles available today, which have potential growth and rate of return associated with them. Not investing in growth instruments causes you to miss out on financial growth.
Equity opportunities fund is one such type of financial vehicle which assists you to achieve your financial goals. However, since there are different types of mutual funds in India, one might get confused regarding the mutual fund categories. This article will help you understand equity opportunities funds in India, how to align your financial goals with these funds, and their effect on your investment.
What is an Equity Opportunities Fund?
An equity opportunities fund is a financial instrument, which is made up of capital collected from a pool of investors. This capital is then utilized to invest in securities such as money markets, bonds, stocks, and other assets. Equity opportunities funds are usually operated by experts and professionals, who invest the fund’s assets and attempt to generate gains on the capital for the investors. These experts and professionals structure and maintain a mutual fund’s portfolio to match up with the investment goals in the fund’s prospectus.
Using equity opportunities funds small and individual investors are given access to portfolios managed by experts and professionals. These portfolios may consist of equities, securities, and bonds. Shareholders or investors in the mutual funds, thus share the losses and gains. The performance of an equity opportunities fund is derived by the average performance of underlying investments and calculated as the difference in the overall market capitalization of the fund.
How does an Equity Opportunities Fund work?
Image Source: Paintball Minnesota
Equity opportunities fund is managed by experts and professionals who look across sectors for best-performing stocks and pick a mixture of stocks of publicly traded companies. The fund manager in an equity opportunities fund has full control of the investment decisions and may select from a pool of mid-cap or large-cap stocks, from amongst various sectors. The weightage gives to small-cap, mid-cap, or large-cap stocks in the equity opportunities fund depends on the financial goal of the fund.
The size of a publicly-traded company is categorized based on its value or its market capitalization. These categories are as follows:
i. Large-cap: Companies with a market capitalization of more than INR 20,000 crores
ii. Mid-cap: Companies with a market capitalization of less than INR 20,000 crores but more than INR 5,000 crores
iii. Small-cap: Companies with less than INR 5,000 crores of market capitalization
An equity opportunities fund may exclusively invest in one of these categories or in a combination to suit the goals of the fund.
Who should invest in the Equity Opportunities Fund?
The most important characteristic to invest in an equity opportunities fund is the willingness and ability to take the risk. Most of the equity opportunities funds available in the market are in some way or other associated with equities. This is on account of the high risk and high reward nature of the equity mutual funds. Financial planners often advise that the younger you are, the more should you invest in equity funds, since you have ample time on your side to even out the ups and downs of the market. There different equity mutual fund categories available to suit the goals of investors.
Another important characteristic required in an individual to be able to invest in the equity opportunities fund is the ability to stay invested in a certain fund for a long duration. Investors should understand that volatility is an inherent characteristic of an equity-based fund, which can cause erratic swings in valuation over the short term. Historically, the direction of the stock market has been upwards. Investors need to understand this factor, and stay invested in the fund even in tough times, as the potential reward is surely going to be high. Professionals have advised investors, to stay invested in equity opportunities funds for longer durations, to maximize returns and minimize risks.
Equity opportunities fund is ideal for investors who wish to achieve moderate to high returns in equity-related instruments, and are willing to consider the associated risk. Not all of us have the expertise and time to invest in the stock market, to study all companies. In such a scenario, an equity opportunities fund is one of the best choices to achieve capital gains without the hassle to study the stock market.
Things investors should consider before investing in Equity Opportunities Fund
Image Source: Berley Chartered Accountants
The first step you need to take to choose the best equity opportunities fund for yourself is to assess your own needs. The next step in this process is to determine your financial goal. Do you want to build your wealth quickly, at a moderate pace or low pace? Once you have figured this out, the final thing to consider is your risk appetite. High return generating mutual funds often have a high risk associated with them. These funds are suitable for investors who want to generate quick returns and have a high-risk appetite. If your aim to generate wealth gradually over time, then moderate or low-risk equity opportunities funds will be best suited for you.
Top 5 performing equity funds in India
Image Source: Jeferson Costa
There are different equity opportunities funds available in India, and choosing one, which suits your financial goals, can be a tedious task. The list of equity opportunities funds in India is extensive, and the different kinds of mutual funds available in the market offer diverse options to match up with the risk appetite of investors. Understanding different types of equity opportunities funds in India is easy and learning about them, allows you to make informed decisions. Here is a list of top 5 performing equity funds in India, for your perusal:
Kotak Standard Multicap Fund
Motilal Oswal Multicap 35 Fund
ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund
Axis Bluechip Fund
Mirae Asset Hybrid Equity Fund
Advantages of Equity Opportunities Fund
Equity opportunities funds are known to offer compelling ways, which are both flexible and easy to create diversified investments and generate a new stream of revenue. Equity opportunities funds have investments in various securities, which gives the shareholders access to a diversified portfolio at a low price.
For instance, imagine an investor who invests in only one stock of Hindustan Unilever Limited before the company suffers a rough quarter. The investor in this case is liable to lose all his or her money since it is all tied up to just one company. Whereas, consider an investor who invests in an equity opportunities fund which has some holdings in Hindustan Unilever Limited. The investor in this case loses only a small portion of their capital when Hindustan Unilever Limited suffers a bad quarter. This is because, it is just a small portion of the portfolio, and the loss incurred here is mitigated by the gains from other companies.
Some of the other advantages offered by equity opportunities fund include:
Well regulated
Tax-efficient
Convenient
Diversification
Risk mitigation
Professional fund management
Tax implications of equity opportunities funds
Image Source: HDFC Life
In the case of an investor purchasing and selling stocks in his portfolio, according to current tax laws, he or she will be entitled to short-term or long-term capital gains tax on each stock he or she buys or sells depending on the holding period (greater or lesser than a year). So if an investor holds one stock for 18 months and another stock for 6 months, he would be taxed for the first stock’s long-term capital gains tax and the second stock’s short-term capital gains tax.
Capital gains tax in India:
Short-term capital gains tax: Less than a year or 12 months — 15%
Less than a year or 12 months — 15% Long-term capital gains tax: More than a year or 12 months — 10%
However, when it comes to equity opportunities fund, this is not the case. The asset management company (AMC) does not need to pay the capital gains tax for every buys or sell order that the fund manager places. The investor, in this case, pays the capital gains tax based on the duration of his or her investment. Hence, the difference, between the two instances is that, in the case of the first approach, the investor is taxed at the stock level, whereas in the second approach, the investor is taxed at the portfolio level.
How to Invest in Equity Opportunities Fund?
Here are certain steps you should take to make an informed decision regarding your investments in equity opportunities funds:
You should first understand your level of risk tolerance. This process of understanding the level of risk you are willing to be exposed to is known as risk profiling.
Once you have profiled your risk, you need to allocate your assets. You should ideally divide your capital amongst various assets to mitigate your risk.
Then you should study and select funds, which meet your investment goals. You can compare funds offered by different institutions based on their past performance and investment objective.
In the next step you will need to complete formalities such as know your customer (KYC), and other documentations with the fund house you wish to collaborate with
It is advised that you diversify your investments and follow-up regularly to get the best possible returns on your investments
Final thoughts
It is important to read the policy documents carefully before investing since equity opportunities funds have a certain risk associated with them. Reading the policy documents is of the utmost importance to understand what you are investing in, and the facilities you will be receiving with your investment. Although equity opportunities funds have a low risk compared to directly investing in the stock market, you must gain as much knowledge as you can regarding the instrument you wish to invest in. Learning thoroughly about equity opportunities funds will help you make informed decisions and reap higher rewards with lower risks. | https://medium.com/@serendipitouswriter/equity-opportunities-fund-caba4b814db5 | ['Abhilash Khalkar'] | 2020-12-08 13:10:16.604000+00:00 | ['Equity', 'Stock Market', 'Mutual Funds', 'Growth', 'Investing'] |
Top 3 Cryptocurrency Forecast (12–36 months) | Top 3 Cryptocurrency Forecast (12–36 months)
A Quick Pit Stop To Look At The Top 3 Cryptocurrencies
XRP — $7.9 trillion — 1st place
XRP is destined to become the world number one crypto by an enormous margin. With a projected $100 — $200 price inside 24–36 months, XRP’s $4-$8 trillion market cap will equal at a minimum roughly the total of Japan’s annual gross domestic product. The reason? Simply because most XRP is premined and pre-controlled with respect to supply release, and because Ripple, the currency’s issuer, has no product as of yet to weight its currency and/or its network down in excess utility. Qualitatively, the currency’s mystique movements throughout its history (and earlier this year especially so) more closely resembles Bitcoin’s early stage gains than does any other cryptocurrency. It is hard not to conclude that early major Bitcoin holders are moving substantial amounts of their crypto fortunes into Ripple’s visions for the future of banking — however vague and mirage-like they may seem in the present. This is evidenced in hard numbers by the lack of overall dependency of XRP on either BTC or ETH (just 14%).
ETH — $3.2 trillion — 2nd place
The world’s first unit of smart Blockchain fuel is poised for a massive increase in the next 12–24 months (36 months tops). Ether was just 50 cents in 2014, before rising to over $1,000 in 2017. That is a 2,000 times gain. So big rises in this crypto should be of no surprise, and the coming 8,000% gain mean a return to aggressive crypto buying. Primarily, the big gains are coming as a result of other competing blockchains with smart functionality which will reduce the implied unit inflation that happens with ETH every time an ERC token is created.
BTC — $425 billion — 3rd place
Bitcoin is due for an increase of around 4.2 times, to $25,000. This is the point at which BTC reaches its 25-year average, so it’s highly likely the crypto will remain stable at around this point. BTC’s steady hold — which could last over 10 years or more — will end up bringing about a certain price and perceived market stability thereafter. Thus, while acceding top spot as world Number 1 crypto, BTC will remain the underpinning reason that new capital is encouraged if not so much to come and settle in the market, then to stay. | https://medium.com/the-capital/crypto-forecast-12-36-months-7ed9ea51e932 | ['Daniel Mark Harrison'] | 2018-10-22 07:47:37.562000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Economics'] |
Why Your Freelancing Life Doesn’t Seem Real | Why Your Freelancing Life Doesn’t Seem Real
This super cheesy graphic was courtesy of Pixabay
In another interesting thread from the freelancer writers’ subreddit, /u/StuBermann asked (paraphrased, especially to keep the language PG-friendly for you younglings):
“What’s the end goal for a freelancer? There’s no corporate ladder to move up, no promotions, no partnership or managerial position you can work towards. Even though it’s much better than being a corporate robot, I’m still just trading time for money.”
Stu (I’m going to assume it’s a Stu) then floated a few ideas. He could:
Create a content agency
Build and grow his own network of sites
Go down the course route, developing a writing course (don’t do it, Stu!)
Create a lead generation site for writing work and sell the leads
Keep writing but invest the earnings in something else
Write an epic fantasty series and sell the rights to HBO
Create a software tool for freelance writing
Build and sell content websites from scratch
How Can We Ensure Growth?
Stu’s thread caught my attention because I spent a good chunk of Friday evening discussing this very topic with my reluctant unwitting business strategist (that happens to be a family member). This chat lasted three hours which means that I’ll probably need to do some private journalling time before I can inflict that kind of misery again.
I also thought it was interested that although I know nothing about /u/StuBermann (isn’t that the odd beauty of Reddit?) that it seems as if we’re doing a lot of the same thinking.
For instance I also dream of writing a series and selling it to a television network ( — my script is roughly for a satirical series laughing at the ridiculousness of moving to Israel. I have the opening scene clear in my end which is exactly what happened to me: you get to the airport and the guy who’s supposed to greet you doesn’t show up and then some burly Israeli taxi driver strings your worldly possessions to the roof his taxi with some lanyard that looks like it fell off the back of a truck somewhere in Ashdod while he drives you across the country, to a dingy absorption center, at what feels like twice the legal speed limit. The target audience is probably an Israeli station rather than HBO. But I digress — ).
Like the original poster (OP), I’ve also thought frequently about starting an agency.
But more than those similarities, I also feel like /u/StuBermann and I are going through the exact same thought process — despite the fact that we’re probably thousands of miles away and probably also have relatively little in common besides the fact that we’re both freelance writers.
Perhaps, like me, Stu is inwardly surprised that he (or she) is succeeding at making a living while working from home on the internet. Like me, Stu might struggle with imposter syndrome and wonder if the day is nearing when his clients will realize that he’s actually a massive fraud.
Maybe Stu also feels at times like he’s living his own real life version of The Matrix. He might wonder, at times, whether somebody slipped him a red pill while he was sleeping one night and whether his clients aren’t actually real but rather some clever AI bot that have been imbued with the ability to provide feedback and master corporate speak. (About three months ago, I actually jokingly told a client that I wasn’t sure he was actually a human. “I’m real!” was the pleading message I got back. But it took actually meting for coffee before I was fully convinced…)
Perhaps, like me, Stu periodically pauses after a grueling day at the computer, maybe with his favorite alcoholic concoction in hand (is Stu a beer guy or a whiskey man?) and wonders why — despite making an objectively reasonable salary doing this — there is a voice inside his head that says “WTF am I doing with my life!”
Are You Creating Meaningful Work?
Firstly, I think that ensuring growth as a freelance writer is essential.
My post above covers the various ways in which I think we can engineer that. Here it is again.
Secondly, I’m perfectly fine stating for the record that freelance writing probably isn’t my ultimate goal. Writing is a long term goal of mine in the sense that I love the process of writing and love trying to influence people with words (I also love reading other writers’ work). But writing for corporate clients, at least as a freelancer, might not be.
When I “dream big,” I tend to think more along the lines of running a startup or managing communications for some famous politician (my first career dream was becoming a speechwriter!). Periodically I have great ideas but haven’t found time yet to action them — between client work and writing I’m, well, usually too busy. That time, I hope, will someday come.
All that aside, I think that Stu’s post teases out a few very important observations. And this is where I think we find common ground and probably many others do too:
Firstly, I think that as creatives, us writers need passion projects. I don’t think my clients would be offended if I told them that content marketing, and helping them write it, isn’t my ultimate passion in life, even if I’m perfectly good at it. Although there’s a good chance that they mightn’t hire me again. Has anybody actually dreamed about becoming a corporate blogger when they’re all grown up? Is it okay if we can admit, publicly, that that also includes many of us freelance content marketing writers? I would guess that there are few writers for whom that is truly the case. My hunch is that both Stu and I aspire to creating greater and more meaningful work than the type we currently do for clients. This is why, I’m guessing, we’re both drawn to the idea of creating some of our own work. I think if we’re both wondering “where is this going?” it’s fair to assume that we’re both not feeling a creative itch that our day to day work doesn’t satisfy. It’s leading us to question, in the small hours of the night, where is this going? This is what we’re doing now. But what do we ultimately aspire to do?
I don’t think my clients would be offended if I told them that content marketing, and helping them write it, isn’t my ultimate passion in life, even if I’m perfectly good at it. Although there’s a good chance that they mightn’t hire me again. Has anybody actually dreamed about becoming a corporate blogger when they’re all grown up? Is it okay if we can admit, publicly, that that also includes many of us freelance content marketing writers? I would guess that there are few writers for whom that is truly the case. My hunch is that both Stu and I aspire to creating greater and more meaningful work than the type we currently do for clients. This is why, I’m guessing, we’re both drawn to the idea of creating some of our own work. I think if we’re both wondering “where is this going?” it’s fair to assume that we’re both not feeling a creative itch that our day to day work doesn’t satisfy. It’s leading us to question, in the small hours of the night, where is this going? This is what we’re doing now. But what do we ultimately aspire to do? Freelancers need growth as much as in-house people do. I’ve made this point before. There’s a very real threat that freelancing will turn into the work for yourself version of a dead end entry level job if you let it. I’m currently strategizing how I can upgrade the type of work that I do in the next calendar year. Everybody has ambitions. Few are happy to do the same thing year in year out. In a paradigm in which growth isn’t a built-in feature, it’s vital that we devote time to making it a reality.
Does This Feel Real To You?
Does your freelance work feel like The Matrix?
Let me be brutally honest.
Although I’ve about to enter my third year as a full time freelancer — and my average salary this year has been above the national average where I’m based — freelance writing doesn’t yet seem real to me.
Part of the cause is that I have prioritized working with international clients over local ones. That means that I haven’t gotten out of the office as much as I’d like to meet and great clients and attend things like conferences and trade shows. Increasingly, I realize that this is an unsustainable approach, or at least an inherently unsatisfying approach (for me).
I have a social life — sure. Am I a hermit? No. But if all working life can be conducted from a home office behind a monitor — then I think there’s something deeply unfulfilling about that.
So if you’re in the same boat, I don’t think it’s surprising that you might be thinking along the lines of where this leads to. Because evolution is necessary or you would eventually go crazy.
I have no idea about /u/StuBermann’s work life. But in my case, running an online business —albeit a relatively thriving one — also simply doesn’t feel secure. Again, this prompts me to think about evolution.
If I can’t meet my clients for a drink, get the inside scoop on what’s going on for them, and establish a real-life camaraderie, then I know that I remain but an amalgamation of pixels to them. As they are to me. To succeed in the long term, that needs to change. | https://medium.com/freelance-writing/why-your-freelancing-life-doesnt-seem-real-7d89173ea606 | ['Daniel Rosehill'] | 2020-12-13 15:13:42.979000+00:00 | ['Career Development', 'Freelance', 'Freelancing', 'Professional Development', 'Careers'] |
Dress Segmentation with Autoencoder in Keras | Fashion Industry is a very profitable field for Artificial Intelligence. There are a lot of areas where Data Scientists can develop interesting use cases and provide benefits. I have already demonstrated my interest for this sector here, where I developed a solution for recommendation and tagging dresses from Zalando online store.
In this post, I try to go further developing a system that receives as input raw images (taken from the web or made with a smartphone) and try to extract dresses shown in it. Keeping in mind that challenges of Segmentation are infamous for the extreme noise present in the original images; we try to develop a strong solution with clever tricks (during preprocessing) that deal with this aspect.
At the end, you can also try to merge this solution with the previous one cited. This permits you to develop a system for real-time recommendation and tagging for dresses, through photographs you take while out and about.
THE DATASET
Recently also a Kaggle competition was launched on Visual analysis and Segmentation of clothing. It is a very interesting challenge but this is not for us… My object is to extract dresses from photographs so this dataset is not adequate due to its redundancy and fine-grained attributes. We need images which contain mostly dresses, so the best choice was to build the data ourselves.
I collected from the web images containing people wearing woman dresses of various types and in different scenarios. The next step required to create masks: this is necessary for every task of object segmentation if we want to train a model that will be able to focus only on the points of real interest.
Below I report a sample of data at our disposal. I collected the original images from the internet and then I enjoy myself to cut them further, separating people from dresses.
Example of image segmentation
We operate this discrimination because we want to mark separation among background, skin and dress. Backgrounds and skins are the most relevant sources of noise in this kind of problem, so we try to suppress them.
With these cuttings we are able to recreate our masks as shown below, this is made simple binarizing the image. The skin is obtained as the difference among persons and dress.
Example of masks
As the final step, we merge all in a single image of three dimensions. This picture decodes the relevant features of our original image which we are interested in. Our purpose is to maintain separation among background, skin end dress: this result is perfect for our scope!
Final mask
We iterated this process for every image in our dataset in order to have for every original image an associated mask of three dimensions.
THE MODEL
We have all at our disposal to create our model. The workflow we have in mind is very simple:
We fit a model which receives as input a raw image and outputs a three-dimensional mask, i.e. it is able to recreate from the original images the desired separation among skin/background and dress. In this way, when a new raw image comes in, we can separate it in three different parts: background, skin and dress. We take into consideration only the channel of our interest (dress), use it to create a mask from the input image and cut it to recreate the original dress.
All this magic is possible due to the power of UNet. This deep convolutional Autoencoder is often used in the task of segmentation like this. It is easy to replicate in Keras and we train it to recreate pixel for pixel each channel of our desired mask.
Before to start training we decided to standardize all our original images with their RGB mean.
RESULTS AND PREDICTIONS
We notice that during prediction when we encounter an image with high noise (in term of ambiguous background or skin) our model start to struggle. This inconvenience can be exceeded by simply increasing the number of training images. But we also develop a clever shortcut to avoid these mistakes.
We make use of the GrubCut Algorithm provided by OpenCV. This algorithm was implemented to separate the foreground from the background making use of the Gaussian Mixture Model. This makes for us because it helps to point the person in the foreground denoising all around.
Here the simple function we implement to make it possible. We assume that the person of our interest stands in the middle of the image.
def cut(img): img = cv.resize(img,(224,224))
mask = np.zeros(img.shape[:2],np.uint8)
bgdModel = np.zeros((1,65),np.float64)
fgdModel = np.zeros((1,65),np.float64)
height, width = img.shape[:2] rect = (50,10,width-100,height-20)
cv.grabCut(img,mask,rect,bgdModel,fgdModel,5,
cv.GC_INIT_WITH_RECT)
mask2 = np.where((mask==2)|(mask==0),0,1).astype('uint8')
img2 = img*mask2[:,:,np.newaxis]
img2[mask2 == 0] = (255, 255, 255)
final = np.ones(img.shape,np.uint8)*0 + img2
return mask, final
GrubCut in action
Now we apply UNet and are ready to see some results on new images!
Input — GrubCut + Prediction — Final Dress
Input — GrubCut + Prediction — Final Dress
Input — GrubCut + Prediction — Final Dress
Input — GrubCut + Prediction — Final Dress
Input — GrubCut + Prediction — Final Dress
Our preprocess step, combined with UNet powers, are able to achieve great performance.
SUMMARY
In this post, we develop an end to end solution for Dress Segmentation. To achieve this purpose we make use of powerful Autoencoder combined with clever preprocess techniques. We plan this solution in order to use it in a realistic scenario with real photographs, with the possibility to build on it a visual recommendation system. | https://towardsdatascience.com/dress-segmentation-with-autoencoder-in-keras-497cf1fd169a | ['Marco Cerliani'] | 2020-01-21 23:07:31.749000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Segmentation', 'Autoencoder', 'Towards Data Science', 'Data Science'] |
Having a Hackathon in 2020 | By Janaki Perera, Allison Keane Barr, and Chelsea Zlotnick
The product and technology teams at Quartet have had a hackathon every year for the last few years. Our hackathon is an internal event, held over the course of 2 days, where we come together across teams to pursue project ideas outside of our normal work. It is an opportunity for creativity and innovation and a chance to connect with people we don’t see in our day to day, and it has been an important part of our product and technology team culture. However, we weren’t sure if we should continue the tradition in 2020.
It goes without saying that this year has brought a lot of change, stress and unimaginable obstacles. We know these are unprecedented times; we wake up every day still in a pandemic with no definite end in sight. As a company, Quartet has been fortunate. We were able to transition to doing our work entirely remotely and have been able to remain stable — we’re incredibly grateful for that. As teammates, we are all trying to do our best at work, while taking care of ourselves, our families, and our mental health. With everything going on, it’s harder to feel connected with our colleagues. It also seems easier for everyone to get burnt out.
Ultimately, we decided that, while there would be challenges to it, we wanted to try out hosting our first remote hackathon as a company. We wanted to energize our team and give folks a chance to work with people across the company that they don’t usually see. Traditionally, our hackathon has been a time where we gather the distributed members of our tech teams, pitch ideas in our New York office, and work together in person to see what we can accomplish. People self-organize into teams, and there are a lot of ad-hoc conversations and impromptu meetings. This year, we needed to find a way to do all of that virtually. First, we assembled our hackathon leadership team — three women, representing engineering, product, and design. Then, we got to work. Here’s how we set about planning our hackathon:
In advance — We announced that the hackathon was happening this year and put a hold on people’s calendars. Four weeks before the event, we sent out a Google Form for people across the company to submit ideas for problems to try to solve in the hackathon. Then, with two weeks to go, we shared a signup sheet for individual teams and let people select from pre-submitted problem statements or submit their own.
Week of — We sent out fun hackathon swag by mail to all the participants.
Day before — We held a kickoff happy hour in which each team introduced their project idea, and then we let people join breakout rooms for the teams they were interested in.
During the hackathon — We encouraged teams to start Slack channels to discuss and coordinate work. We then checked in periodically to see how teams were doing. We also set up open office hours with engineering leaders to help teams get unblocked.
Hackathon presentations — We wrapped things up with remote presentations open to the entire company.
Voting on prizes — We shared a recording of the presentations for anyone who wasn’t able to attend, and then solicited votes from the whole company during the week after the event. We announced our winners “in person” at our next all Product and Tech meeting.
Our 2020 hackathon was a success! We had more teams sign up than in previous years, and received positive feedback from participants across the board. We’re not sure if we’ll be in person for Quartet’s next hackathon. Either way, continuously improving our processes is important to us and there are some things we’d love to try for our next go around. This year to give people a starting point for brainstorming we introduced the idea of hackathon themes — , Learning from Our Data, Access to Effective Mental Healthcare, and Better Tools for our Internal Team. — We would like to explore themes further in the future, we could do prizes per theme, or maybe just one uniting theme. Gathering ideas from across the company for hackathon problems to solve worked well. In the future we could find ways to involve stakeholders across the company in teams to foster cross-organization collaboration even more. We would also love to find more ways for teams to engage in brainstorming in the lead up to the hackathon. The breakout rooms in our happy hour kickoff were well-received and effective — people liked being able to discuss the team’s ideas casually and to brainstorm together. Maybe next time, we can set up a couple similar events focused on project idea development in the week or two before the event. We could also keep a running list of ideas for the hackathon, or consider holding mini hacks throughout the year.
We are proud of the enthusiasm and engagement from our teams in Quartet’s first virtual hackathon, and of all the awesome work they did. Most importantly, we believe the event helped bring people together. We have heard from individuals who started at Quartet during the pandemic that it made them feel better connected and engaged with the company:
“Working with people I normally don’t work with in my day to day! It was great to break out of the everyday norm, and break out of the COVID time warp. The creative ideas bouncing around re-energized me a bit”.
“Loved the creativity of the team and that everyone seemed to be having fun and working with people they don’t usually get to on problems that excited them”
Whatever 2021 brings, we know we’ll be doing another Quartet Hackathon. | https://medium.com/quartettech/having-a-hackathon-in-2020-5f871c4db1fb | ['Quartet Health'] | 2020-12-08 14:17:52.377000+00:00 | ['Hackathon Organizing', 'Women In Tech', 'Hackathons'] |
Our Story | Dialogue & Discourse seeks to provide readers with a means for developing informed opinions regarding issues of significance, aiding in the creation of a dialogue between opponents of thought at a time where our society suffers from intense tribalism and partisanship. We strive to curate empirically-centered pieces that share news and ideas truly worthy of discourse, venturing far beyond the qualitative and surface characteristics that have grown to dominate the American news cycle.
Our rigorous editorial standards enforce our core principle of weighing quality far more than quantity. We have had the opportunity of working with some truly incredible individuals, including acclaimed professors, award-winning journalists and world-class scientists.
Our content is carefully curated with the consideration of maintaining a balanced amount of coverage that accounts for all perspectives, specifically on articles regarding political or controversial topics. We are not affiliated or in support of a particular political or social organization, though we avidly strive for roughly equal volumes of liberal and conservative pieces.
We are an international publication, comprised of contributors from every continent and spanning across many of the world’s major cities. This includes the following countries of China, Japan, India, Bangladesh, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Sudan, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Botswana, United Arabs Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Ukraine, Belgium, Portugal, Romania, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia, Russia, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Cuba, Haiti, Panama, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. | https://medium.com/discourse/our-story-b47c7458e342 | ['D D Editorial Team'] | 2020-08-12 02:03:19.757000+00:00 | ['Publishing', 'Write', 'Editor', 'Publication', 'Writing'] |
THE MAN OF ALL SEASONS, THE KOSMIC CHRIST | TNDL: “WE ARE LIVING IN THE SEASON THAT MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AROUND THE ENTIRE WORLD ARE CELEBRATING, THE GREATEST MAN’S BIRTH IN HISTORY, AND HE ABOUT LOVE; AND THEREFORE, WE SHOULD LOVE AND HONOUR HIM, THE MAN OF ALL SEASONS, THE KOSMIC CHRIST.”
Chapter 1 of Matthew’s Gospel recounts Jesus’s birth and naming and the beginning of chapter 2 states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the time of Herod the great
Matthew 1:18–2:23 ESV — The Birth of Jesus Christ -
Chapter 1 of Matthew’s Gospel recounts Jesus’s birth and naming and the beginning of chapter 2 states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the time of Herod the great
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of. Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, …
Luke 2:11–14 (King James Version)
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. | https://medium.com/yahweh-elyon-yeshuas-teachings/the-man-of-all-seasons-the-kosmic-christ-a51d7fef228c | ['J. K. Woods'] | 2020-12-25 03:04:20.013000+00:00 | ['God', 'Jesus', 'Christianity', 'Love', 'Spirituality'] |
Spend Monday… | Don’t just start your week off the right way, but Spend it too! With over 40 million merchants around the globe, know that Spend will always be there no matter what this week throws at you! Visit the App Store or Google Play today and start Spending! | https://medium.com/spend/spend-monday-eb72eb601dd3 | [] | 2019-07-22 21:02:55.506000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Mondays'] |
Tonight’s comic is about hurt feelings. | More from rstevens Follow
I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans. | https://rstevens.medium.com/tonights-comic-is-about-hurt-feelings-79f0dcddb4c | [] | 2019-05-31 02:48:58.455000+00:00 | ['Comics', 'Feelings', 'Robots'] |
A lost diary | Dear diary,
I wish I could write what I am about to tell you in some national journal or widely read newspaper instead but not everyone cares about my story.
I have a thousand stories to tell people but I am not sure I would get a platform any soon. However, I know you are always here to hear me.
On a second thought, you can’t tell me your opinion on that, and how can I be sure you are not just enduring my stories? If only you could give me a piece of your mind.
I have seen and I have heard. I have seen people with disdain in their eyes towards me for reasons I might never know and I might never get a chance to ask why?
I have heard rumours and opinions fly about me and I am lost in thoughts as to how I got caught in a web of unrelatable thoughts and opinions.
I am sometimes lost as to who I really am. Am I what people say or think I am? No. Yes. Maybe. Sometimes I am not even sure of who I am. I am just me, doing me, and trying to live fine.
I want to be happy and be with who I feel good being around but something seems wrong in it. I feel bound to live my life in a particular way everyone wants it to be. Every time I tried that, it ended sour. Every time I didn’t, I heard rounds.
I am not this, I am not. I am not what I heard about me. If at all, I look like what I heard, my conscience never looked like it. My conscience wasn’t pricking me all the way and the last I checked, it wasn’t dead.
However, these opinions and thoughts did more than prick. They got me lost and lost. If only people could stop judging for once and ask questions, maybe I wouldn’t ever need to write this to you again.
I am me and not what I am thought to be. Above all, good or bad, I need no thoughts about me. I am me. I won’t get lost trying to be who they expect me to be but me.
Yours truly,
Me. | https://medium.com/@oyedolat9/a-lost-diary-f3e3a5baaab0 | ['Ayotomiwa Oladapo'] | 2021-06-17 17:23:20.771000+00:00 | ['Lost Diary', 'Diary', 'Ayotomiwa', 'Life', 'Lifestyle'] |
The one reason why I have my Patron’s download the Patreon app | “Knowledge is not power. Applied knowledge is power.”
We Are Built Different
The simple answer is because the more committed you are to a thing the less likely you are to quit it. In order to understand the value of this simple step, I will share how I came to this conclusion with a short story below.
When I created my Patreon in 2017 I would have never imagined I would be sharing what works or not there with you here on Medium. The beautiful thing is many of my Patrons now follow me here as a result of this mind shift.
Since 2016 I have been blogging about Dallas Cowboys fans during my travels from Seattle to South Beach with them. Many are also Patrons, and little do they know that they taught me the most valuable lesson during this journey.
This goes back just a few short years ago while I was working for Comcast. I still utilize all of their services too by the way. When I sold them door to door for 2 plus years I believed in the product and their apps religiously.
This is a great segway on what the Detail of the Patreon app does, and how it benefits both the Patron and creator when utilized effectively. The definition of Mamba Mentality.
The №8
Once I learned that the attention span over video content viewers on YouTube was about 5 minutes or so I knew my long-winded ass would be challenged to reduce my vocabulary as a result.
“According to a study by informED, many students, today are found to have an attention span of about 10 to 15 minutes long. Some studies say that the human attention span has dropped to eight seconds, which is lower than the attention span of a goldfish” the LA Times recently shared.
Patreon creators have to be shakers and movers on social media in order to attract new Patrons with their content. You are fighting for the attention span of fans also at war with those same platforms, and other content generators.
More importantly than converting visitors into Patrons is the relationship you begin to build with that Patron who is supporting your content. After all the effort you put into attracting new Patrons the real work begins once they sign up. After doing so make sure to have them download the app.
The Bonus
For almost 2 years I underutilized the entire Patreon creator platform suite of tools. I did use the embed button to promote it on my blog posts for Cowboys fans though.
Think of all the other platforms that you communicate with your Patrons on. What if they all went down. How would you continue to get content to them daily? How could they communicate with you?
Downloading the Patreon app is the number one way you should communicate with your Patrons. It’s exclusive which is why they are there to begin with. Take it from a veteran here if you’re new to Patreon.
The bonus of this all is creators need to communicate with their fans. The Patreon app is the best way to do that. When I was in sales with Comcast once I sold a new customer in their home they immediately downloaded the app.
With consecutive commitments in a short period of time people buying your product or service are less likely to quit your product or service in the long run. Besides, I didn't get paid on those deals until they were installed later.
Going back to the amount of work it takes to create content and attract new Patrons, every little thing counts for us creators. Like downloading a simple app. If you want your Patrons to hang around long term download that app!
Have You Dialed A Veteran Today?
Call To Action
When I took my Cowboys fan blog and created my Patreon I wanted to build something different. Something unique that’s never been created. Four years later you and I are doing this together here on Medium as a result.
Now I will Combine my content between my blog to support my Patrons with their Cowboys stories, and Medium to cater to my veteran community with fans of all the other 31 teams. They have veterans with mental health challenges too. I know for a fact they all have media entrepreneurs.
If you’re a Patreon creator or a veteran that found any kind of value in my content today be sure to follow me here Barry Gipson. Then before you go be sure to join my “Weekly Smoke” newsletter.
It's designed for veterans who are creators of their own Bullet Proof state of mind. A freshly rolled email packed with cannabis content to burn with your cup of Joe on Monday mornings.
Do have your Patrons download the app too? What other features on the creator platform do you use to engage your Patrons with? Leave a comment below and let's get the discussion started. | https://medium.com/@barrygipson/the-number-1-reason-why-i-have-my-patrons-download-the-patreon-app-90960ab4cc7d | ['Barry Gipson'] | 2020-12-21 16:07:03.564000+00:00 | ['NFL', 'ESPN', 'Patreon', 'Dallas Cowboys', 'NBA'] |
Hyderabad SaaS Landscape! | Special thanks to Rohit Chennamaneni, Co-founder— Darwinbox for helping me put together the Hyderabad value proposition, Genesis & Evolution part of the blog.
With the ‘old world’ of IT going through a rapid transformation, organisations are moving many applications to the cloud boosting the Indian SaaS industry. Moreover, Hyderabad is blessed with all the ingredients necessary for the industry’s success. The prior corporate experience of founders, the availability of digital marketing talent, which is essential to market a SaaS company, approximately 22,000 in strength, are fundamental to the success of a SaaS company. The proximity to customers in the form of large corporates of Pharma, IT and manufacturing sectors makes understanding the client requirements to build resilient products
Genesis & Evolution:
Since Indian IT experts have been catering to the high-end B2B consulting for years, the transition to the SaaS industry has been easy. Since 2010, Indian SaaS companies have received more than $1.484 billion in investments. According to a joint research report by Google and Accel Partners, by 2025, SaaS in India will become a $10 billion revenue industry and will cater to 8% of the global SaaS market. With advantages like the low cost of development and operations and the presence of SaaS companies such as Salesforce, ServiceNow and Informatica, Hyderabad has attracted the best, global SaaS talent.
Entrepreneurs from the city caught the bus with a focus on the US SMEs. Indian enterprises such as Zenoti and Host Analytics occupy this space. Success breeds success, and the success stories from Hyderabad like SumTotal (now Skillsoft), Host Analytics, HighRadius, Gainsight, Pramati & Zenoti paved the way to companies like Darwinbox, Innovapptive, OpsRamp and Simility that are creating commotion in the whole SaaS Community. Ivy Comptech/Party Gaming is probably the largest IPO issuance (by market cap) at their peak. One interesting fact about Hyderabad is many bootstrapped companies like Ozonetel, Talebu have shown steady progress in attracting business. Freshworks has recently started it’s product development centre in Hyderabad, the biggest after Chennai. With High Radius becoming the first SaaS unicorn and, Great exits of NowFloats and Report Garden, Hyderabad revived it’s energy in SaaS space and making its way to become one of the leading SaaS ecosystems in the global market place.
Here’s our snapshot of the Hyderabad SaaS-ecosystem curated from #SaaSBOOMi Hyderabad (Formely SaaSt) group!
This list is ever-growing — If we’ve inadvertently missed your SaaS Startup and you would like to be included in the list,please fill up this: https://bit.ly/2UFoFgQ If you want us to modify the text, please use the same form.
(A — D)
Abda Digital — Digital Business cards platform for the Enterprise
Acculi Labs — Non invasive Diagnostics for corporate wellness and chronic patients monitoring
AEye SoftLabs— Multiple products based on computer vision. Broadly, we are into video analytics for security.
AnswerWise — AI platform that integrates with existing helpdesk and CRM systems
Automate.io — Could software for workflows
Cordys — EIM and BPM Software
CommonDoor — Software to manage hostels & PG’s
Darwinbox — End-to-end HR technology platform
(E-H)
ekincare — Patent-pending integrated health benefits platform
EngageBay — All-in-one marketing, sales and support software for growing companies
eTravos — eTravos is travel market place helps agents, banks, wallet, corporates to enable travel ticket system
Eunimart — Single platform to help SMEs scale their business globally
Facteye Tech Labs — Talent intelligence platform
Flujo — Communication & Collaboration suite for teams
Foyr — Design Software for interior designers and architects
Frejun — Automatic Meeting notes with AI
GainSight — Customer success management
Gaitx — AI assistant for small business
Gamooga — Marketing automation software for B2C companies
GenY Labs — We have created Auris, an AI powered consumer insights platform
Gramener — Data visualization and predictive analytics platform
GreyMetrics — Reporting Solution for Online Marketers
High Radius — AI Software for receivables and treasury
Host Analytics — Financial planning and analysis software
(I-N)
Ideanz — Low-code development platform
Imaginate — Enterprise collaboration platform on smart glasses using virtual reality & augmented reality
IMImobile — Customer engagement software
Innovapptive — Software provider for Oil, Gas, Chemicals, Mining and Manufacturing
IvyComtech — Creating Industry leading solutions for the online gaming
Khaata — Full stack Transaction management for sellers
MartJack — Enterprise Class Multichannel Commerce platform built for Retailers, Brands
MyClassBoard — School Management Software
NowFloats — Cloud-first products that let businesses provide a better digital experience
NumberMall — B2B eCommerce in retail groceries
(O-R)
OpsRamp — Digital operations management, from discovery to resolution, powered by AIOps
Ozonetel — Cloud Communication for businesses
PerspectAI — Skill assessment platform using Games & AI
Pramati — Builds independent social, mobile and cloud-based technologies
Quixy — A platform empowers users with no coding skills to build unlimited enterprise-grade applications
Report Garden — Software for Internet marketing and SEO
Runo technologies — CRM for SME’s
(S-T)
Saras Analytics — Data management and predictive analytics company
SatisFIND — SaaS platform connecting businesses and frontliners with real customers through Mystery Shopping.
SeekNShop — Natural Language Search and Voice Search solutions for shopping domains and the enterprise.
SellersCommerce — B2B eCommerce SaaS
Simility — Fraud detection software
SmatBot — Platform to create chatbots faster and effective
Sociohub — All in one community management platform
Stezy — Do it yourself Blockchain
Stumagz — A Cloud suite for Colleges to become digital
SyncRooms — Enable hotels onto online grid
Sumtotal — Human resource management software
Telebu Communications — Communication and collaboration software
ThoughtFlow Technologies Inc — A Visual Workspace for Product Teams
Tigersheet — Custom software for Business
Troop Messenger — Instant Messaging & Collaboration Platform for Businesses
Truepush — Push notifications services for websites
(U-Z)
Upshot.ai — A full lifecycle customer engagement platform
Vaave — A Platform to manage alumni relations
XaaSOn — AI Powered B2B XaaS Digital Products Market Place
Zaggle — B2B enterprise Saas Software
Zeetaminds — Cloud Based Digital Signage Software
Zenoti — Cloud software for Spas
This list is ever-growing — If we’ve inadvertently missed your SaaS Startup and you would like to be included in the list,please fill up this: https://bit.ly/2UFoFgQ If you want us to modify the text, please use the same form. | https://medium.com/telangana-state-innovation-cell/hyderabad-saas-landscape-a9158e21363d | ['Tarun Davuluri'] | 2020-06-30 13:05:16.649000+00:00 | ['Saasboomi', 'SaaS', 'Hyderabad', 'Startup', 'B2B'] |
Python Microservices: Choices, Key Concepts, and Project setup | Microservices
Python Microservices: Choices, Key Concepts, and Project setup
Distilled lessons from building microservices powering Slang Labs platform. Presented in a PyCon India 2019 tutorial.
At SlangLabs, we are building a platform for programmers to easily and quickly add multilingual, multimodal Voice Augmented eXperiences (VAX) to their mobile and web apps. Think of an assistant like Alexa or Siri, but running inside your app and tailored for your app.
The platform consists of:
Console to configure a buddy for an app,
to configure a buddy for an app, SDKs for Android and Web (JavaScript) providing voice-to-action capabilities,
for Android and Web (JavaScript) providing voice-to-action capabilities, Microservices that SDKs invoke to infer the intent inherent in the voice utterance of an end-user, and extract associated entities, and
that SDKs invoke to infer the intent inherent in the voice utterance of an end-user, and extract associated entities, and Analytics to analyze end-user behavior and improve the experience.
This blog post is to share the best practices and lessons we have learned while building the microservices.
Why Python
At the idea-phase of a startup, one has some sense of destination and direction but does not know exactly what to build. That clarity emerges only through iterations and experimentations. We were no different, so we had to pick a programming language and microservice framework suitable for rapid prototyping. These were our key considerations:
Rapid Development: high velocity of experimentations for quick implementation and evaluation of ideas.
high velocity of experimentations for quick implementation and evaluation of ideas. Performance: lightweight yet mature microservice framework, efficient for mostly IO-bound application, scales to high throughput for concurrent requests.
lightweight yet mature microservice framework, efficient for mostly IO-bound application, scales to high throughput for concurrent requests. Tools Infrastructure: for automated testing, cloud deployment, monitoring.
for automated testing, cloud deployment, monitoring. Machine Learning (ML): easy availability of libraries and frameworks.
easy availability of libraries and frameworks. Hiring: access to talent and expertise.
There is no perfect choice for the programming language that ticks all of the above. It finally boils down to Python vs. Java/Scala because these are the only feasible languages for machine learning work. While Java has better performance and tooling, Python is apt for rapid prototyping. At that stage, we favored rapid development and machine learning over other considerations, therefore picked Python.
Microservice architecture facilitates each service to independently choose the programming language and framework, and there is no need to standardize on one. However, a heterogeneous system adds DevOps and infra overheads, which we wanted to avoid as we were just a couple of guys hacking the system. With time, our team and platform grew and now has microservices in Go-lang and JavaScript too.
Comparison of Programming Languages. 😀: Great, 😊: Nice, 😐: Ok, 😓: Bad.
Why Tornado
With Python, came its infamous Global Interpreter Lock. In brief, a thread can execute only if it has acquired the Python interpreter lock. Since it is a global lock, only one thread of the program can acquire it and therefore run at a time, even if the hardware has multiple CPUs. It effectively renders Python programs limited to single-threaded performance.
While GIL is a serious limitation for CPU-bound concurrent Python apps, for IO-bound apps, cooperative multitasking of AsyncIO offers good performance (more about it later). For performance, we desired a web framework which is lightweight yet mature, and has AsyncIO APIs.
We evaluated three Python Web Frameworks: Django, Flask, and Tornado.
Django follows the “batteries included” approach, it has everything you will need and more. While that eliminates integration compatibility blues, it also makes it bulky. It does not have AsyncIO APIs.
follows the “batteries included” approach, it has everything you will need and more. While that eliminates integration compatibility blues, it also makes it bulky. It does not have AsyncIO APIs. Flask , on the other hand, is super lightweight and has a simple way of defining service endpoints through annotation. It does not have AsyncIO APIs.
, on the other hand, is super lightweight and has a simple way of defining service endpoints through annotation. It does not have AsyncIO APIs. Tornado is somewhere between Django and Flask, it is neither as barebone as Flask nor as heavy as Django. It has quite a number of configurations, hooks, and a nice testing framework. It had been having event-loop for scheduling cooperative tasks for much before AsyncIO, and had started supporting AsyncIO event loop and syntax.
Tornado was just right for our needs. But most of our design tactics are independent of that choice, and are applicable regardless of the chosen web framework.
In recent time, more AsyncIO Python web frameworks are emerging: Sanic, Vibora, Quart, FastAPI. Even Django is beginning to support async.
Comparison of Python Web Frameworks. 😀: Great, 😊: Nice, 😐: Ok, 😓: Bad.
Overcoming Global Interpreter Lock
Before we plunge into design and code, let’s understand some key concepts: cooperative multitasking, non-blocking calls, and AsyncIO.
Preemptive vs Cooperative Multitasking
Threads follow the model of preemptive multitasking. Each thread executes one task. OS schedule a thread on a CPU, and after a fixed interval (or when the thread gets blocked typically due to an IO operation, whichever happens first), OS interrupts the thread and schedules another waiting thread on CPU. In this model of concurrency, multiple threads can execute parallelly on multiple CPUs, as well as interleaved on a single CPU.
In cooperative multitasking, there is a queue of tasks. When a task is scheduled for execution, it executes till a point of its choice (typically an IO wait) and yields control back to the event loop scheduler, which puts it the waiting queue, and schedules another task. At any time, only one task is executing, but it gives an appearance of concurrency.
Preemptive Multitasking vs. Cooperative Multitasking.
Synchronous vs Asynchronous Calls
In synchronous or blocking function calls, the control returns back to the caller only after completion. Consider the following pseudocode:
bytes = read()
print(bytes)
print("done") # "done" is printed only after bytes.
In asynchronous or non-blocking function calls, the control returns immediately to the caller. The called function can pause while execution. It takes a callback routine as an argument, and when the called function finishes and results are ready, it invokes the callback with results. Meanwhile, the caller function resumes execution even before completion of the called function. Assume there is a non-blocking async_read function, which takes a callback function, and calls it with the read bytes. Consider the following pseudocode:
asyn_read(print)
print("done") # "done" may be printed before bytes.
As you can see asynchronous code with callbacks is hard to understand because the execution order of the code can be different from the lexical order.
Python AsyncIO
AsyncIO syntax of async and await facilitates writing asynchronous code in synchronous style instead of using callbacks, making code easy to understand.
import asyncio async def f():
bytes = await async_read()
# f pauses here, yields control.
# Resumes when result (bytes) is ready.
print(bytes)
print("done") asyncio.run(f()) # Append f() to the IO Event Loop queue
When a function is async, it is called coroutine. It must be awaited, as its results will be available only in the future. An await expression yields the control to the scheduler. Code after the await expression is like a callback, the control to be resumed here later when the coroutine completes and results are ready.
AsyncIO has an IO Event Loop, a queue that holds all completed coroutines ready to be resumed.
Derisking by Design
While Tornado has worked out well for us so far, we did not know it then. We designed our microservices such that the Tornado-dependent code was segregated and localized. It was to easily migrate to a different framework if the need arises. Regardless, it is a good idea to structure your microservice into two layers: The Web Framework Layer and framework independent Service Layer.
Web Framework Layer
Web Framework Layer is responsible for REST service endpoints over HTTP protocols. It does not have any business logic. It processes incoming requests, extracts relevant information from the payload, and calls a function in the Service Layer which performs business logic. It packages the returned results appropriately and sends the response. For Tornado, it consists of two files:
server.py contains an HTTP server that starts the event loop and application.
contains an HTTP server that starts the event loop and application. app.py contains endpoint routes that map REST API to a function in the service layer (specifically to a function in service.py, see next).
Service Layer
The Service Layer contains only business logic, and knows nothing about HTTP or REST. That allows any communication protocol to be stitched on top of it without touching business logic. There is only one requirement for this layer:
service.py must contain all functions needed to implement the service endpoints. Think of it as logical service APIs, independent of any Web framework or communication protocol.
Logical service APIs allow the Web Framework Layer to be implemented (and replaced) without getting into the nitty-gritty of the inner working of the service. It also facilitates standardization and sharing of a large portion of web framework code across services.
Testing
We are rare among startups to automate testing and code coverage from the very beginning. It may appear counter-intuitive but we did it to maintain high velocity, and fearlessly change any part of the system. Tests offered us a safety net needed while developing in a dynamically-typed interpreted language. It was also partly due to paranoia regarding our non-obvious choice of Tornado, to safeguard us in case we need to change it.
There are three types of tests:
Unit Tests: Limited to independently test a class or function, mostly for leaf-level independent classes/functions.
Limited to independently test a class or function, mostly for leaf-level independent classes/functions. Integration Tests: To test the working of multiple classes and functions. Out of process or network API calls (such as databases and other services) are mocked.
To test the working of multiple classes and functions. Out of process or network API calls (such as databases and other services) are mocked. End-to-End Tests: To test deployment on test or stage environment. Nothing is mocked, just that data is not from the prod environment and may be synthetic.
We wrote integration tests both for the Service Layer to test business logic, as well as for the Web Framework Layer to test the functioning of REST endpoints in the Tornado server.
Tests for Tornado and Service Layers.
Project Setup
Get Source Code
Clone the GitHub repo and inspect the content:
$ git clone https://github.com/scgupta/tutorial-python-microservice-tornado.git $ cd tutorial-python-microservice-tornado
$ git checkout -b <branch> tag-01-project-setup $ tree .
.
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── addrservice
│ └── __init__.py
├── requirements.txt
├── run.py
└── tests
├── __init__.py
├── integration
│ └── __init__.py
└── unit
└── __init__.py
The directory addrservice is for the source code of the service, and the directory test is for keeping the tests.
Setup Virtual Environment
Using a virtual environment is one of the best practices, especially when you work on multiple projects. Create one for this project, and install the dependencies from requirements.txt :
$ python3 -m venv .venv
$ source ./.venv/bin/activate
$ pip install --upgrade pip
$ pip3 install -r ./requirements.txt
Tools
The script run.py is a handy utility script to run static type checker, linter, unit tests, and code coverage. In this series, you will see that using these tools from the very beginning is actually most economical, and does not add perceived overhead.
Let’s try running these. In each of the following, you can use either of the commands.
Static Type Checker: mypy package
$ mypy ./addrservice ./tests $ ./run.py typecheck
Linter: flake8 package
$ flake8 ./addrservice ./tests $ ./run.py lint
Unit Tests: Python unittest framework
$ python -m unittest discover tests -p '*_test.py' $ ./run.py test
This will run all tests in the directory tests . You can run unit or integration test suites (in tests/unit and tests/integration directories respectively) as following:
$ ./run.py test --suite unit
$ ./run.py test --suite integration
Code Coverage: coverage package
$ coverage run --source=addrservice --branch -m unittest discover tests -p '*_test.py' $ coverage run --source=addrservice --branch ./run.py test
After running tests with code coverage, you can get the report:
$ coverage report
Name Stmts Miss Branch BrPart Cover
-----------------------------------------------------------
addrservice/__init__.py 2 2 0 0 0%
You can also generate HTML report:
$ coverage html
$ open htmlcov/index.html
If you are able to run all these commands, your project setup is complete.
Summary
There are several choices for building microservices: Java, JavaScript, Python, and Go. If microservice involves interfacing with ML libs, choices reduce to Java and Python.
For quick prototyping, Python is more suitable. But it comes with the drawback of Global Interpreter Lock. Cooperative multitasking with non-blocking asynchronous calls using asyncio comes to rescue. Tornado is the only mature Python web framework with asyncio APIs.
Layered design can derisk in case the framework is to be changed in the future. Tests can also be layered: unit, integration, and end-to-end. It is easy to setup lint, test, code coverage from the very beginning of the project. | https://medium.com/swlh/python-microservices-01-tornado-asyncio-lint-test-coverage-project-setup-9fbf4ca3bf90 | ['Satish Chandra Gupta'] | 2020-12-08 09:35:43.749000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Programming', 'Microservices', 'Python', 'Software Engineering'] |
Algorithms 101: How to Use Merge Sort and Quicksort in JavaScript | Quicksort Algorithm
Like merge sort, quicksort is a divide-and-conquer algorithm, but it works a bit differently.
Quicksort starts by selecting a pivot element from the array and partitions the other elements into two subarrays according to whether they are less than or greater than the pivot. The subarrays are then sorted recursively.
The quicksort algorithm doesn’t use any extra space, as the sorting is done in place.
There are several ways that this algorithm can choose a pivot element.
Pick the first element as pivot
Pick the last element as pivot
Pick a random element as the pivot
Pick median as the pivot
Implementation in JavaScript
The key process below is our partition function, which chooses our pivot. In this implementation, this is done using the Hoare Partition scheme, which works by initializing two indices that start at the ends of the array. The indices move toward each other until an inversion is found.
An inversion is a pair of elements — one greater than or equal to the pivot, one less than or equal — that are in the wrong order relative to each other. The inverted values are then swapped, and the process is repeated.
Picking a good pivot is the key to a fast implementation of quicksort. In practice, quicksort algorithms use a randomized pivot, which has an expected time complexity of O(n log n).
function partitionHoare(array, left, right) {
const pivot = Math.floor(Math.random() * (right - left + 1) + left);
while (left <= right) {
while (array[left] < array[pivot]) {
left++;
}
while (array[right] > array[pivot]) {
right--;
}
if (left <= right) {
[array[left], array[right]] = [array[right], array[left]];
}
}
return left;
} function quicksort(array, left, right) {
left = left || 0;
right = right || array.length - 1;
const pivot = partitionHoare(array, left, right); if (left < pivot - 1) {
quicksort(array, left, pivot - 1);
}
if (right > pivot) {
quicksort(array, pivot, right);
}
return array;
}
Time complexity
The quicksort algorithm has a time complexity of O(n log n). In the worst case, this becomes O(n2). The space used by quicksort depends on the version used.
The in-place version of quicksort has a space complexity of O(log n) even in the worst case, while the average-case space complexity is O(n)O(n).
Algorithmic Paradigm: Divide and conquer
Divide and conquer Sorting in Place: Yes
Yes Stable: Default is not stable
Comparison with other sorting algorithms
While the average and best-case run times of quicksort are equal to that of other algorithms such as merge sort, a well-implemented quicksort will have much lower constant factors than other sorting algorithms.
In practice, quicksort is often faster than merge sort.
Quicksort in its general form is an in-place sort (i.e., it doesn’t require any extra storage). Merge sort requires O(N) extra storage, where N denotes the array size, which may be quite large. | https://medium.com/better-programming/algorithms-101-how-to-use-merge-sort-and-quicksort-in-javascript-6d8908562fe0 | ['The Educative Team'] | 2020-12-04 18:37:14.602000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Algorithms', 'Software Development', 'Computer Science', 'Programming'] |
Getting Familiar with Unique Visualizations! | In this article, we have mentioned some of the unique visualizations along with their applications and limitations. The article illustrates various visualizations along with its code. Some of the libraries we have used are Matplotlib, Plotly and Seaborn
Here are some interesting visualization along with the insights drawn from them:
1. Nightingale Rose Chart:
Nightingale rose chart was first created by Florence Nightingale in 1858 representing “Diagram of the causes of mortality in the army of the East”. It is also known as Coxcomb Chart or Plot Area Diagram. It can be seen as an upgrade over Stacked Column Chart which contains stacked column along with the radars.
Use cases:
This chart is widely used when showing distribution over time. It is often used to represent wind speed and directions.
Limitations:
Nightingale chart proves to be less useful when large number of features are to be plotted. The stacked portion might become crowded and hard to interpret when many categories are added.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly
Nightingale Rose Chart
Insights:
The above chart shows the number of goals scored by players during 2014 and 2018 FIFA World cup. Here the years 2014 and 2018 are taken as categories and are represented using stacked slices and the scales shows the number of goals scored.
2. Sankey Diagram:
Sankey Diagram shows flow from one quantity to other quantities along with their proportion. During each stage of a process, arrows can combine or split the path. The width of the arrow shows its value, hence wider the arrow larger the proportion.
Use cases:
It can be used in finance, management and energy analysis or to represent a life cycle of a product. This type of visualization can be used to describe the flow of an entity from source to end. For example, if we want to know how much a product is produced, reused, wasted over a period of time.
Limitations:
Sankey diagrams are limited to flows and life cycles. It has limited representation like nodes, connections and the values. More complex relationships cannot be derived from it.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Matplotlib
Sankey Diagram
Insights:
The above diagram shows the sources of electricity generation in 2018. It is seen that the contribution of coal was the highest followed by gas and reducing down to oil which contributed the least.
3. Sunburst:
Sunburst is an alternate of Treemap to represent hierarchical data but in a circular form. As the name suggests bursting of the sun 😊 the hierarchy moves from the inner circle to outer. Each category of the circle is sliced as a node and the center of the circle is the root node. It’s better to represent a particular hierarchy with different shades of a color to maintain uniformity.
Use cases:
Sunburst can show hierarchical flow as well as part of a whole relationship
Limitations:
If the color scheme is improper then understanding the chart becomes difficult. Further, too much slicing makes chart crowded and hard to read.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Bokeh
Sunburst Chart
Insights:
It is seen that California has the maximum population of 36M in the US and Ontario has a maximum population of 13M in Canada. Total population of the US and Canada from all these 4 provinces are 327.2M and 37.06M respectively
4. Bubble Chart:
You can say Bubble Chart is a sibling 👬 of Scatter Plot but with some difference. Bubble chart and scatter plot both use x and y-axis but the bubble chart also includes a 3rd dimension i.e. z-axis which represents the size of the bubble. You can also include a 4th dimension here by coloring the bubbles. While making a bubble chart make sure that the size of the bubble is relevant to its corresponding value.
Use cases:
A bubble chart is generally used to represent the relationship between three or four features.
Limitations:
If you have large data than bubble chart would look more like a mess as bubbles would overlap and it becomes difficult to interpret. Also, if the variable representing the bubble size is zero or negative than this chart does not prove useful.
Compatible Python Libraries :
Plotly, Seaborn, Bokeh, Matplotlib
Bubble Chart
Insights:
Here Kellogg’s health type cereal got the highest rating of 93 and Quaker’s kids type cereal has the lowest rating of 21.
5. Funnel Chart :
Funnel chart represents each stage of a process. It shows the decrease in values at each stage. Here starting phase is largest and then the size of the bar keeps on decreasing at each stage, hence taking shape of a funnel. The reduction in value can easily be compared with the above values.
Use cases:
It can be used in finance or business sector. E.g. Process of sales flow in a company or activities of a customer visiting an e-commerce website. It shows a complete summary of each stage of a process and can be used to make important decisions. Also, funnel charts are intuitive and easy to understand.
Limitations:
Funnel are simple structures and are inefficient in representing complex relationships among features.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Pygal
Funnel Chart
Insights:
Initially, Vancouver and Ottawa both received 200 and 300 applications respectively. The candidates got refined as the process continued. Only 50 and 57 candidates were selected for the final round of interviews at the respective offices and from them, 15 candidates received offer for Vancouver office and 5 candidates got in the Ottawa office.
6. Ridgeline plot/ Joy plot:
Ridgeline Plot, which was formerly known as joyplot is a useful visualization which helps us to understand the distribution of data. Distribution of various features can be examined at the same time using this plot. Here the features can also be grouped on a particular column.
Use cases:
Ridgeline plots are very intuitive and are used widely for pre-processing tasks. It works well for comparing a small number of features.
Limitations:
It might not be useful for comparing a large number of features as it may mess up the graph. Also overlapping of the curve might be difficult to view.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Joypy, Seaborn
Ridgeline Plot
Insights:
From the above plot, we can see the distribution of values for the carbohydrate and protein content for different cereal manufacturers. It is seen that the values of protein are normally distributed.
7. Tree Map:
If you want to represent hierarchical data than tree map can come handy. In the tree map, each hierarchy is represented in the form of rectangles. Each rectangle represents two values, one is quantitative value and the other is the label. The size of the rectangle is in proportion with its own quantitative value as well as it’s parent’s value. The parent value is total of all its child values. If the parent has no quantitative value than all children are equally divided within the parent.
Use Cases:
It is best to represent hierarchical data. It is used when we want to compare the proportion of different categories.
Limitations:
It is not useful if there is a high hierarchy as the tree map becomes clustered and it is difficult to understand. Also, the rectangles are aligned automatically and you don’t have control over it. It can not be used to represent negative values.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Pygal
Treemap
Insights:
California has a maximum population of 36M in the US and Ontario has a maximum population of 13M in Canada. The total population of the US and Canada from all these 4 provinces are 327.2M and 37M respectively.
8. Waffle Chart:
Waffle charts are used to show the contributions of the features. The proportion of a feature is represented using square blocks which overall forms a waffle-like structure. It is used to compare the proportion of different categories
Use Cases:
It represents proportions in a well-defined color grid format which is easy to view and understand. They are used to understand how much a category or feature contributes to the whole.
Limitations:
It cannot give any more information except the proportion of different categories
Compatible Python Libraries:
PyWaffle, Matplotlib
Waffle Chart
Insights:
The given graph shows the number of products per manufacturer. It is seen that General Mills and Kellogg has the highest number of products i.e. 24
9. Bullet Chart:
Bullet chart is used if you want to compare a value with a target value and want to know whether the obtained value is good or bad. It can be used as an alternative to gauge and meter chart.
Use Cases:
It is used in Business, Finance or Management sector. For e.x. If you want to know whether the total sales surpassed the targeted value.
Limitations:
Sometimes it takes time to understand and plot the chart with coding. Also, only one value can be compared at a time.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Bokeh
Bullet Chart
Insights:
The first bullet chart shows that a movie got a 3-star rating compared to 3.5. From the second chart, it is seen that the movie collected 50 million more money than the threshold value. Hence movie did great in terms of earning and but not with critic reviews.
10. Violin Chart:
We know that the box plot shows data properties like minimum, maximum, median, first quartile and third quartile but it fails to show actual distribution of data. This distribution of data can be shown through a density plot. What if we can represent these two chats in one? Yes, we can 😁 through violin chart. It represents the distribution of data along with box plot attributes.
Use Cases:
It can be used in any field where you want to show the distribution of data along with the statistical insights.
Limitations:
It might seem congested for a large number of features as the statistical information along with the distribution curve needs to be shown.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Seaborn, Matplotlib, Plotly, Bokeh
Violin Chart
Insights: It can be seen that health, diet and regular type has a normal distribution and kids type has an uneven distribution of data. Also, there is a negative value in health type which is an outlier as carbohydrate value can not be negative.
11. Waterfall Chart:
If you want to visualize how a value is reached by doing a number of addition and subtraction operation on an initial value then the waterfall chart fits perfectly. In Waterfall chart colors are used to show different operation e.g. green shows addition, red shows subtraction and blue shows total value received after all the operations. Here all the values between starting and final value are floating, thus the name waterfall chart.
Use Cases:
This chart is commonly used in the business and finance sector. For e.g. how revenue flowed over the months or how stock prices changed over a period of time.
Limitations:
Only the flow of process can be represented using this chart.
Compatible Python Libraries:
Plotly, Matplotlib, Bokeh
Waterfall Chart
Insights:
It is seen that the highest revenue was gained in January (10K), while the maximum expenses were seen in March. The total revenue earned at the end of the year was 13.51K. | https://medium.com/sfu-cspmp/getting-familiar-with-unique-visualizations-a9bbbd9c9be | ['Miral Raval'] | 2020-02-04 07:30:05.916000+00:00 | ['Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Interesting', 'Big Data', 'Blog Post'] |
US vs China: The App Agenda. How technology is the new front in this… | US vs China: The App Agenda
How technology is the new front in this clash of superpowers.
In the last few months, TikTok has had doors slammed in its face by many nations — including America and India — due to the rapidly spreading anti-China sentiment in wake of the coronavirus. This isn’t the first time tensions have flared in Chinese relations: trade, proxies, journalism curbs, you name it; these two nations will fight it out in any avenue they can afford. And they’ve broached another one: a social media application.
The US has historically been on the front lines when it comes to its traditional position on internet governance and online free speech: always for it. However, Trump issuing an executive order that prohibits any transactions with TikTok deviates from this age-old policy. Of course, this isn’t the first spark in US-China relations, this isn’t the first time tensions have flared in US-China relations; the ‘banning’ of TikTok is another one to add to a fast-growing list.
There’s not much the entire world agrees on, but the fact that the US and China are technological giants is one. While people are intimately familiar with the apps offered by Twitter and the Facebook consortium — that is Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp — their Chinese equivalents, although widely used, remain less well-known in the western hemisphere. Twitter’s equivalent Weibo had over 516 million active users as of the fourth quarter of 2019, whereas Twitter had only 300 million. According to Statista, Facebook’s Chinese twin Renren had 257 million users in 2017 and WeChat, a messaging service like WhatsApp has over 1 billion users. Despite having such a large audience, how is it that we don’t often hear about them?
This can be traced back to a Venn diagram: one of the circles of the apps’ users, which overlap very minutely. US citizens have no need for apps such as WeChat or Renren, and Chinese citizens are unable to access the US equivalent of the apps.
Back in 2009, sectarian violence had ripped through Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Province of China. With the result being unrest throughout the nation, the government decided to curb the internet temporarily, but ban Twitter permanently, probably due to their lax position on censorship. The Chinese government also shut down local microblogging site Fanfou for a year, successfully removing all competition as they paved the way for a new start-up to fill the shoes of Twitter; Sina Weibo by the Sina corporation then had the perfect opening to become a microblogging giant. It was only then that the world realised that China was willing to censor its internet in the interests of national security — something the US wasn’t willing to do.
But in 2020, the rules of the game changed. Anti-China sentiment spread almost as fast as the coronavirus, and it has had a huge effect on world politics — to say the very, very least.
What really precipitated the software war, however, was the huge standoff between India and China in Ladakh that occurred in May. In the wake of this skirmish, India banned 50 Chinese apps — including social media giants like TikTok and WeChat. Shortly after India made this move, the US followed suit with Trump banning both apps. Issuing sanctions via executive orders, Trump’s emphasis on security concerns seems more politically convenient than conventional.
Instagram reacted fast — almost too fast? — to TikTok’s demise, launching its own short video feature: Reels. Instagram successfully filled the void left by the ban of TikTok, both in the software and the users' minds. So, one application gets banned, and immediately there’s another taking its place. Sound familiar?
It should because this is the same move that was pulled by the Chinese government back in 2009 for Sina Weibo; it is likely that Facebook had a similar intention.
The developments of August and September 2020 go to show the US position in an even clearer lens. Donald Trump gave TikTok one option: sell. By September 15th, TikTok had to sell their company or risk getting shut down. This seems logical, right? But in early August, Trump stated that any deal that went through would only be allowed if a cut was given to the US Treasury. This does seem like the administration is shaking down TikTok and the internet sector to keep its rights to stay on the air. TikTok was eventually bought off by Oracle and Walmart, two American firms. Trump, predictably, gave the deal blessing, just one day before the ban was to come into effect.
The war ensuing on this front has impacted a great many people. If Trump still doesn’t accept the TikTok acquisition, TikTok creators could be left without a platform to earn their living, leaving them no choice now but to move to Reels — where they must start from scratch. Chinese companies have lost the revenue associated with having millions of users; TikTok had 80 million users in the US alone, as well as 120 million in India. Such a move on the US’ part has inevitably led to an escalation in tensions between the two nations — as was probably intended. While the United States has stated that the ban of the apps was a move to protect user data in the name of security, some of these apps have been around for quite a while. This seems like more of a protectionist move aimed at appeasing those with an anti-China sentiment.
It shows that the United States is willing to take a stand on the internet too, but rather than the censorship of residents, they are willing to further its foreign, and even fiscal policy by controlling local market space. This could be equally damaging to business confidence in the tech sector and US trade with the outside world. The situation seems to be going the same way as China when it comes to its app space, even if for different reasons. This would be vicious for world politics and the industry if it isn’t nipped in the bud.
The question that’s on everyone’s mind, especially after the hot trash that was the Presidential Debate, is: what’s in store for the 2020 elections? Well, Trump’s position is clear, and Joe Biden’s campaign troops have been instructed to delete TikTok from their phones. While one could infer that this is just an election pander, it’s not a huge leap to assume this sentiment will mean that policy will not stray, no matter how the election pans out. | https://medium.com/discourse/us-vs-china-the-app-agenda-d954e0acfb0c | ['Evolv Ideas'] | 2020-10-09 15:40:02.421000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Business', 'Government', 'USA', 'Social Media'] |
When Satellites Collide… | When Satellites Collide…
A Computational Thinking Story With the Wolfram Language
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
Space is big, really big. However, space around Earth is getting more and more crowded. Every time a new spacecraft is launched little bits and pieces end up in orbit around. The US Space Surveillance Network estimates that there are over 100 million pieces under 1 cm floating around Earth, about 900,000 pieces in the range 1–10 cm, and about 34,000 pieces larger than 10cm.
Every once in a while, two of those bigger pieces get really close together. For example, there currently is a risk that on October 16 at 00:56 UTC two objects with a combined mass of 2,800 kg will collide:
To get details on what is going on here I cracked open a new Wolfram notebook session. To get the satellites in question, I used the natural language interface and typed in “satellite 19826” as given in the tweet. This consults the Wolfram Knowledgebase (also used by, for example, Wolfram|Alpha) and gave me the satellite entity:
(All subsequent images by author)
Repeating the same process for “satellite 36123” gives me the two entities I am interested in:
All entities have a certain number of properties that can be queried. For example, here are some of the known properties for the “CZ-4C rocket body” object:
Using these properties we can plot the current position and trajectory for the “CZ-4C rocket body”:
And, with a little bit more code, we can plot where these two objects are expected to be on October 16, 2020:
Update: Newly released trajectories are predicting a higher probability of a collision. New trajectory image:
The details of how this map can be created are described by Jeff Bryant in this Wolfram Community post. The full code is also available in this online notebook.
If “Cosmos 2004” and the “CZ-4C rocket body” collide they will create a big cloud of smaller objects, increasing the amount of space debris near the Earth. There are currently no cost-effective ways to remove this debris. The current focus is to reduce the amount of newly introduced debris. | https://towardsdatascience.com/when-satellites-collide-843bc45f09f1 | ['Arnoud Buzing'] | 2020-10-16 14:16:03.580000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Space Debris', 'Satellite', 'Wolfram', 'Space'] |
Creative Over Christmas | Like many other writers, I have decided to take a little break over the festive period. I never say I am not writing, because the bug can hit at any time, but I have no plans or schedules to keep. If you are like me, then you might like this little competition to keep you creative over Christmas.
To start 2021 off, I am running a writing competition, where the winner will be awarded a £20 gift card for Amazon. I am happy to change this to the currency of your country.
The rules are easy, write an article around the theme of ‘love in a pandemic.’ This can be fiction, non-fiction or poetry. It can also be any length that you wish. Microfiction is as welcome as a 15-minute post. You can also enter as many pieces as you wish, as long as the theme is there. The closing date for this is January 31st and I will inform the winners by 14th February.
Once you have written this piece you can publish it on any platform you wish. If you make money from Medium, that makes no difference to me. If you can’t find a publication for it, then consider my About Life publication, drop a message below if you want to be added as a writer. To keep it fair, I will not be editing any of these pieces, not through my publication or coaching package. You are also welcome, to publish these on your blogs or other social media, just leave me a link to find it.
To enter you need to be at least a £1 member of my Patreon. I will place a post on there where you can drop your links to the articles you are submitting. You can join for a month and then leave after entry, although I would prefer you stayed and enjoyed the other benefits. I would also really appreciate you sharing this competition, so more people enter.
Thank you
Finally, a massive thank you to everyone who has read my articles, offered words of encouragement and generally supported me. The writing community has become an intricate part of my life and I could not imagine not being here.
Writers are some of the most friendly, supportive people I have ever met. Happy Christmas and New Year to you all. I can’t wait to read all your amazing articles in 2021. | https://medium.com/the-everyday-writer/creative-over-christmas-9b673cc1f357 | ['Sam H Arnold'] | 2020-12-19 11:14:36.579000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Competition', 'Inspiration', 'Writing Prompt', 'Writing'] |
Both Sides Alone Cannot Tell the Truth | So my wife and I watched The Day Shall Come last night on Hulu, and I gotta say, while my expectations weren’t super high, once we saw a bit of the trailer, we were in. I loved the premise, and often enjoy political satire. Fifteen minutes into the movie, I was enjoying myself.
Which is why I was so surprised by the end of the film. I wasn’t as much surprised by the ending as I was surprised by my own reaction to it.
It made me angry. Like, I haven’t been this mad at a movie in a while. Once the music started playing as the final credits started to roll, I literally said out loud, “wait… it can’t be over, right? Because that would be… uhhh… bullshit.”
It was, and yeah… it was.
The Day Shall Come is the brainchild of British satirist Chris Morris, who made his name poking fun at Middle Eastern jihadists in the United Kingdom. Here, Morris turns his eye to counterterrorism in the United States. It tells the story of a young nonviolent radical Black farmer revolutionary named Moses Al Shabazz (Marchánt Davis) who is targeted by FBI agents (Anna Kendrick, Denis O’Hare) looking to entrap a brown face to prevent the next 9/11.
It’s not much of a spoiler to suggest that plans go awry and hijinks ensue. Neither would it be surprising to suggest that in a realistic tale of such a standoff (as it purports to be with the disclaimer “based on hundreds of true stories”) a delusional Black revolutionary would not stand a chance against ambitious federal agents looking to advance their careers on the backs of young Black and brown men.
So the fact that the movie ends in the way one might expect — [SPOILER ALERT, I GUESS] — with said agents getting their arrests and the Black people serving exorbitant prison sentences as collateral damage … wouldn’t normally disturb me so much. I mean, if you’re just reviewing the facts of the case, it’s all pretty routine. The American criminal justice system routinely targets young Black and brown men; as an excuse for surveillance, entrapment, harassment and/or police violence, terrorism is just one pretext of many.
And yet, disturb me it did. It’s been almost 24 hours, and I’m still stewing about it. So the question I’m stuck on is… why? Why did I find this movie so frustrating and objectionable?
I think the answer lies first in the genre conventions of satire… and then in something even deeper.
Finley Peter Dunne, Chicago-based newspaper essayist.
Humorist Finley Peter Dunne once described effective journalism as something that “afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted.”
The same is true of satire — even more so, actually. Whereas journalists have a responsibility to adhere to the basic facts of a story, satirists are supposed to go further. It’s the job of the satirist to use her artistic liberty to exaggerate — to humorous effect — the essential truths of a situation, in order to more thoroughly and completely afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. If you’re a satirist, and everyone is happy with your work, you’re not doing your job right.
According to most of its reviews, The Day Shall Come is to be viewed as a work of satire. And in the way it captures the ridiculous inanity in the way that American counterterrorism agencies agencies, it’s spot-on. There’s a hilarious moment where Kendrick’s Agent Glack is trying to sympathize with Davis’ preacher/farmer Moses, and in a startled attempt to find the right words to convey the proper patronizing tone, she just shrugs and says, “communities,” as if stringing together enough inoffensive buzzwords will convince him that she’s really on his side and truly wants to help:
In this moment, Anna Kendrick perfectly captures the moral dilemma of her character. She wants to help him, but not at the cost of letting go of her professional goals, which, because she’s an FBI agent, involve placing him in her crosshairs, both figuratively and literally.
And this is one of the problems with the film. In her NYTimes review, Jeannette Catsoulis described The Day Shall Come as “a slapstick circus that can’t decide who is slapping whom.” There’s an indecision at the heart of the film regarding who is the true protagonist. Is it Moses, the dimwitted-but-innocent farmer? Or is it Kendra, the FBI middle manager who’s using Moses to please her boss, and trying not to feel bad about it?
Director Chris Morris seems to want to have it both ways, but the story suffers from his indecision. I’m not sure if it’s to assuage his white guilt, or to simply create a sense of moral complexity, but either way, it uses the humor of the situation to obscure its abject horror.
Which is problem, because in this story, it’s very clear who is afflicted, and who is comfortable. As a surrogate for the audience, Kendrick’s Agent Glack is the only one who seems even a little bit disturbed at what’s happening, but she’s clearly not enough disturbed enough to stop it. So that would make Moses the protagonist, right? He’s the one we’re rooting for, to somehow elude the ravenous maw of this grotesque system of exploitation that we have the nerve to refer to as “justice.”
But that’s not what happens.
And I suppose it’s possible that, with his directional choices, Morris was trying to highlight the idiotic failures on both sides. That he was attempting to create a moral equivalence between Moses’ delusional moral certainty as a leader and the FBI’s immoral pursuit of terror suspects in the name of national security.
But that equivalence simply does not exist. And this failure illustrates the problem of what critics call “bothsidesism.” It’s most often aimed at news pundits or reporters, but it can happen in satire, too — especially to those satirists who claim to be “equal opportunity offenders” (which is, quite often, a cop out).
To tell the truth, it’s not enough to simply tell both sides of the story. It becomes necessary to adjudicate which sides are right and wrong.
Not only that, but remember — the satirist’s job is to bring down the high and mighty, to give them their rightful comeuppance. And this, ultimately, is what made me so upset. By the end, The Day Shall Come does the opposite. It comforts the comfortable, and afflicts the afflicted. Not only does Moses go to prison, but his friends and family are prosecuted as accomplices, despite the fact that none of them really did anything wrong. And what do the FBI agents get? They get promoted. One of them eventually launches a successful campaign for governor.
It’s a brutal, heartbreaking denouement.
image from “Magnificat (Canticle of Mary)” Watercolor by James Tissot
This instinct to afflict the comfortable and comfortable is not unique to satirists, of course. It’s also a consistent theme in Biblical justice literature. It’s part of the concept of the Hebrew word shalom, which is too-often insufficiently translated as “peace.” Shalom is not merely the absence of conflict, but complete and total justice and restoration. It’s everything broken being fixed, and everything wrong being made right. It’s why the prophet Isaiah wrote in the Old Testament that “every valley shall be be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low.”
And it’s why, in the New Testament, part of Mary’s song of praise to God includes this tidbit:
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty. Luke 1:52–53(NIV)
So as a Christian, it offends my sensibilities that someone could take such an unsparing view of the world’s crooked justice system and respond with a Seinfeldian shoulder shrug and a “hey, it’s f — ed up, whatareyagonna do??”
We can do better, and we must do better.
Which leads me to a really important question — in the context of this movie, what would it mean to do better?
To be fair, from the interviews he’s done on the subject, I believe that director Chris Morris intended The Day Shall Come to be a shock to the system. And so perhaps the frustration that I’m feeling is not really his fault. Maybe I’m assigning more moral heft and responsibility than I should to a movie director. After all, Morris isn’t dictating policy. He’s simply using his creative tools to tell what he feels is an important story.
Actually, this film makes more sense if you view it as a white filmmaker making films for other white people, because there are probably plenty of white folks who experienced the film as revelatory. Part of the reason why the Black Lives Matter movement so thoroughly dominated our American cultural consciousness in 2020 is because for so many white people the death of George Floyd was a major shock to the system. It was the kind of thing that white people thought no longer happens anymore, which is only understandable if it never happens to you or anybody in your circle.
This is all my way of saying that I’m sure Chris Morris had nothing but the best of intentions in making this film, primarily to tell the truth of what’s really happening. And as a Black person who has felt the fear of being targeted by police, I agree — these stories are important.
But I still felt angry at Morris, because the stark nature of the ending belied its comical build up. Not only did I feel like a fool for rooting for Moses — even though the movie was designed to make me feel that way — but I was traumatized by watching his wife and children be accosted by federal troops rolling up with lights, sirens and automatic rifles.
As a viewer, I don’t need to be informed of the cruel depravity inherent in our institutions of law enforcement and criminal justice. I’m Black, and I see that every day. What I wanted was a way for Moses and his clan to find a way back to health and safety, even if it meant giving up some of their “revolutionary” goals and objectives. And frankly, I wanted Moses to get the mental health resources he so desperately needed (which I’m sure his wife would help with, since she seemed to have her head on straight).
But Jelani, that ending wouldn’t be realistic!
So what?!
We’re talking about movies here.
We creatives have the responsibility not only to tell the stories of our current horror, but to tell the stories of the preferred future we want to create.
And we can’t do that if we’re stuck in a nihilistic loop of shock-sigh-repeat.
So I say, if you’re a creative type, do your best to find the balance between reporting the truth as you see it and holding fast to the values you hold most dear. You might not make your commercial breakthrough at first, but if you stay at it…
The day shall come. | https://medium.com/@jelanigreenidge/both-sides-alone-cannot-tell-the-truth-ab1de983c1a1 | ['Jelani Greenidge'] | 2020-12-16 18:56:10.903000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Movie Review', 'Police', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Counterterrorism'] |
Donald J. Trump and Election 2020: Let’s not get lost in the details | The Democrats assert, and there is evidence consistent with the assertion, that the United States of America can do better than Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America.
If there is one flaw pointed out by the Democrats that stands out, it is the attitude, on part of Trump, that merely because he is not a career politician, that merely because he had been a businessman who thrived by making things up on the fly, and merely because it would take him eons of time to, as they relate to his office, update his knowledge of intricacies of the constitution, that there is not any demand that he come to terms, and comply with boundaries imposed on the Office of President by the Constitution of the United States of America.
Clearly, in so far as it relates to his office, relative to upholding of the Constitution of the United States, Donald J. Trump has a fundamental and dangerous flaw.
So then, Democrats field 22 candidates for Office of President of the United States.
The Consensus?
Even now, with the field reduced to about 8 or so candidates, there is not a single candidate who can be deemed to unequivocally tower over Donald J. Trump as candidate for Office of President of the United States. In this respect,
Sanders and Warren are representative of future upheavals, benefits and costs of which remain highly uncertain; Uncertainty as to whatever Donald J. Trump will do next also creates uncertainty about benefits and costs of future upheavals. Biden is representative of the status quo. Trump it would seem is celebrated by Evangelicals. So then, a tie. Buttgieg seems representative of niche interests. Trump has rewarded Billionaires and firms. Yet another tie. Klobuchar? In her defense, Kamala Harris also was ‘too tough’ on minor crimes, and accused of mistreating her staff, so then her deficiencies are not race sensitive. On racial and management issues then, par for the course with Trump and Kamala Harris.
A Recap then. In 2016, Republicans fielded about 10 candidates, 9 of whom were career politicians. It was not the Russians who beat out those 9 career politicians, it was Donald J. Trump who beat them out. So then, Donald Trump, whom is considered a threat to well functioning of Office of President of the United States beat out 9 career Republicans for earning of Office of President of the United States.
Add then 22 career Democrats, who again are unable to distinguish themselves as unequivocally better than Donald J. Trump, and we arrive at 31 career politicians, considered some of the best in their parties, who are unable to distinguish themselves from Donald J. Trump.
The Inference? The Political Machinery of the United States of America is, rather progressively, and across all available factions, losing capacity for creation of extraordinary statesmen and leaders. Should this not be of concern?
Whenever a society progressively loses capacity for creation of extraordinary statesmen and leaders, it always is the case that, simultaneously, the society has stopped incentivizing Character, Purity of Motives, and willingness and effort at fighting for what is right that simultaneously might be unpopular.
No one becomes an extraordinary statesman or leader by never fighting for anything that really is truly meaningful and challenging.
Donald J. Trump, and incapacity of the Democratic Party at providing a candidate who unequivocally can be deemed better than Donald J. Trump, ought to induce a moment of reflection in American society.
If the USA does not waste the opportunity that presents itself, the country looks itself in the eye and asks,
“what values exactly are we rewarding in our society?” and “is it really possible to create extraordinary statesmen if factionalism is celebrated over willingness to fight for what is right?”
If the USA wastes the opportunity that presents itself for reevaluation of social and political values, the time in the wilderness to come just might be longer than the proverbial 38 years that such a waste cost the ancient nation of the Jews. | https://oghenovoobrimah.medium.com/donald-j-trump-and-election-2020-lets-not-get-lost-in-the-details-1aef5b2d0f0d | ['Oghenovo Obrimah'] | 2020-01-27 16:44:21.904000+00:00 | ['Values', 'Leadership', 'Democratic Party', 'Election 2020', 'Donald Trump'] |
Simmer your data science recipe with Python (Part -2) | Python, an open-source high-level programming language. The fact that you don’t know is Python was named after the comedy television show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It was not named after the Python, the snake species. A great programming toolbox for professionals of backend web development, data analysis, artificial intelligence, and scientific computing. It has been proved not less than a blessing for beginners as it comprises of a lot of libraries inbuilt for coding with ease. Also, is a high-level and scripting programming language which has readable and easily maintainable. It is the fastest-growing programming language in the world because of the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) productivity and data science.
33% of the data scientist practice python for their data.
Why learn Python?
A data science practitioner combines statistical and machine learning techniques with python programming to analyze and interpret complex data. Python not just being a highly functional programming language but it can do almost what other languages can do with comparable speed. It is used to make data analysis, create GUIs and websites. Python is simple enough for things to happen quicker than it seems and powerful enough to allow the implementation of the most complex ideas.
Why choose Python?
Not just it covering the pitfalls of advance programming that R language has, also available in various platforms of operating systems like Mac, Windows, Linux, and Unix. Python supports exception handling that would help you make your code less error one. Also, used for scripting (A small code used for automating a small task in a specific environment for sending automated response emails, FTP, etc.) Python could be used for GUI (Graphical User Interface). Most commonly used is Tkinter outputs the fastest and easiest way to create GUI applications. Then PyQT, Kivy, PyGUI, etc. frameworks are used and popular amongst coders now. Game development and Web development is also possible with the same platform. Web development frameworks like Django and Flask made a sensation nowadays.
Where to use which Python libraries?
Numpy provides a high-performance multidimensional array and basic tools to compute with and manipulate these arrays. This library provides fundamental scientific computing. It uses less memory to store data. Matplotlib is a plotting library for the Python programming language and its numerical mathematics extension NumPy. It used for plotting and visualization. Pandas is applied for data manipulation and analysis. Scikit-learn is a library designed for machine learning and data mining. Scikit is a library that provides many unsupervised and supervised for machine learning algorithms. StatsModels is packed with statistical modeling, testing, and analysis. The library is used for the statistical function of the data. SciPy is a bunch of mathematical algorithms and convenience functions built on the Numpy extension of Python. It helps as to do the mathematical and scientific operation and used extensively in data science. Plotly is a web-based toolbox for constructing visualizations. It is famous amongst the generations for plotting the visualizing the various types of data.
Conclusion
Pros:
Python is commonly used as a high-level interpreted language. Many developers use Python to build productivity tools, games as it is easy to use, powerful, versatile, making it a great choice for beginners and experts. A huge variety of statistical packages present in python is widely used amongst data science practitioner. Seaborn and Theano are statistical libraries that are followed by the data analyst nowadays.
Cons:
Python programs are generally expected to run slower than Java programs. The drawback of run-time typing, Python’s run time work harder than Java’s.
Top Learning sites of Python | https://medium.com/codingurukul/simmer-you-data-science-recipe-with-python-part-2-977af2d1414f | ['Shubhangi Gupta'] | 2019-09-10 05:00:08.187000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Analysis'] |
Nudged | Time shattered reflections of my soul
and blew away sharp pieces with a nudge
thin fragments pierced my hunger for control
my skin retained the memory of your grudge
The last bullets freed from war have missed me
my mind can now find comfort in the cold
cruelty won battles I could not foresee
this fight with time requires me to fold
Loud flames burned all bridges to before
new adventures cashed a blank check
my sails laid ravaged by the shore
on peace flags clothing the wreck
Our youth has stripped the future of its fog
leaving landscapes trapped in a mental monologue | https://nunoricardopoetry.medium.com/nudged-80374b5ee5d6 | ['Nuno Ricardo'] | 2020-08-02 09:36:14.403000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Life', 'Sonnet', 'Relationships', 'Self'] |
Analysis of ELMo and BERT embedding similarity for similar sentences | Analysis of ELMo and BERT embedding similarity for similar sentences
Given similar sentences, how similar are their contextual embeddings? Let’s find out
Photo by Myriam Jessier on Unsplash
Embeddings are a key part of modern NLP, they encode the meaning of words or other linguistic units into vectors of numbers. The embedding of a specific word might seem random, but the idea is that similar words have similar embeddings, and opposite words have opposite embeddings.
For example, imagine this is king’s embedding: [2, 3, 1, 0, 5]. Prince’s embedding might be [1, 3, 1, 0, 4], the difference between the vectors is just 2, which means these 2 words are linguistically very close. Queen’s embedding might be [2, 3, -1, -10, 0] where some similarity is mantained (king and queen are part of the monarchy group of words), but other parts are opposite. In this case the distance between the embeddings is much bigger.
This is the classical way of embeddings, just with words. We can experiment with word embedding algorithms (word2vec, GloVe, FastText) and check how different the embeddings are for synonyms, antonyms and unrelated words.
In this post I go a bit further and explore the same concept but for contextual embeddings. How do embeddings change for similar sentences?
Contextual embeddings
Contextual embeddings also assign embeddings to words, but they take into accout the context, the surrounding words. The word king has a different embedding in these 2 sentences:
The king went into his castle after the deer hunt
Last Halloween I dressed up as a king
There are mainly three types of contextual embeddings. As a short description, this is how each of them form embeddings:
ELMo : released in 2018, was the first type of contextual embeddings, they are obtained by using a bidirectional recurrent neural network and simply concatenates left and right context at the last layer of their model. Sentences are processed sequentially.
: released in 2018, was the first type of contextual embeddings, they are obtained by using a bidirectional recurrent neural network and simply concatenates left and right context at the last layer of their model. Sentences are processed sequentially. Flair : released in 2019, they are trained without any explicit notion of words and thus fundamentally model words as sequences of characters. Sentences are processed sequentially.
: released in 2019, they are trained without any explicit notion of words and thus fundamentally model words as sequences of characters. Sentences are processed sequentially. BERT: released in late 2018, is a newer version of ELMo, they condition on both left and right context in all layers of their Transformer model. Sentences are processed as a bag of words.
To obtain a sentence or document embedding, a kind of average of all the contextual embeddings is done. You can read more about these embeddings and document embeddings in the Flair repo docs.
Experiments
So how do contextual embeddings change for different sentences? If I give two ‘opposite’ sentences, their embeddings should be opposite too, right? But what constitutes an opposite sentence?
I built a website to play around: https://share.streamlit.io/anebz/eu-sim/emb_similarity.py/ feel free to change the language and the sentences. You can find the code for the Python code and Streamlit frontend in the Github repo here. You can star the repository if you want to receive updates about new features.
I set this sentence as the main sentence
The doctor invited the patient for lunch
In the sample sentences I tried to capture different events:
negation (didn’t invite)
Subject and object swap (the patient invited the doctor)
Subject synonym (surgeon instead of doctor)
Object synonym (lunch instead of meal)
Similar action (go out for tea instead of invite for lunch)
Nonsensical permutation of the main sentence words
A random sentence in the same language
A random sentence in another language
Screenshot from the website
I tried the classic word embeddings and the 3 contextual embeddings, and these are the similarities of each similar sentence with the main sentence:
Similarity results for sample sentences
Some interesting conclusions:
In my ignorant opinion, linguistically speaking, someone doing something is opposite to someone not doing something. Meaning wise, it is the opposite. Yet it seems that the embeddings are very very similar, over 90% similarity in all 4 cases. This might be because in all the possible ways we can join words to form a sentence, these 2 sentences are talking about the same specific thing and the contrast is only a small part compared to how similar they are.
The embedding similarity is even higher (over 97%) for subject-object swapping.
Subject and object synonyms also yield very high embedding similarities (over 95%) which is logical.
Index 4 is a similar action but with different words, making the similarity slightly lower, 80% or above.
Indexes 1 and 5 contain the same words as the main sentence but changed in order, with a different meaning. Unsurprisingly, word embeddings are exactly the same as in the main sentence.
Index 5 is nonsensical yet contextual embeddings are very similar to the ones from the main sentence.
For random sentences, the similarities go lower with the lowest similarity being for a random sentence in another language.
Yet BERT yield very high similarity even for random sentences in other languages. The random English sentence has a similarity of 76% while the random Spanish one has 80%. It remains a mystery what kind of sentence can generate a very different BERT embedding.
Open questions
I did this research as part of a university assignment and I asked myself some questions, which now I write here as open questions for the readers. I made some experiments and wrote my findings in the talk slides. I recommend trying out the experiments in the website yourself before looking up my conclusions!
Does word order matter in contextual embeddings?
What is the impact of lexical similarity? (Sentences containing the same words)
What is the impact of synonyms?
What is the impact of out of vocabulary words? (Words that the embeddings don’t recognize: misspellings, foreign words)
The website is free to use, you can do as many experiments as you want and I added many languages, you can check how embeddings change and adapt to different languages. Feel free to check the source code on Github, start the repository and chat with me on Twitter if you have any questions, interesting findings or you just want to connect :)
Thanks for reading! | https://towardsdatascience.com/analysis-of-contextual-embedding-similarity-for-similar-sentences-4801cf9d8283 | ['Ane Berasategi'] | 2020-12-22 16:19:59.587000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'NLP', 'Research', 'Embedding'] |
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Flex your fingers and get ready! | https://medium.com/wazirx/bat-on-wazirx-highest-trader-kaun-aa0b3ce70e92 | ['Wazirx Bitcoin Exchange'] | 2018-05-03 06:03:51.938000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto', 'Bounty Program', 'Basic Attention Token'] |
I Lost My Running Base | Running
I Lost My Running Base
How I am getting it back
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
In 2019, I ran seven marathons and had some great PR’s. I had a similar path carved out for 2020, with another seven plus a few ultras planned. But then COVID happened. Everything was canceled, and I lost my way.
Without a race in the foreseeable future, I lost some of my purpose in keeping up with training. The excuses piled up. It was too hot or cold, something just kept coming up, or my energy was down. I lowered my volume and started walking more. My long run turned from 20 miles to six or sometimes not at all.
Before I knew it, I just couldn't run as far and as fast, and I became gassed after a few miles. When I tried getting back to my original conditioning, it was frustrating. I just didn’t have the same endurance anymore. How was I going to run all the races that are rolling into 2021?!?
Photo by Massimo Sartirana on Unsplash
Running is a perishable skill.
If you get injured or take a break after a race, there’s still that muscle memory and psychological edge you have as a base to do it again, but in large part, you may have to go through a lot of training if you take a prolonged break. If you want to keep up with running your current pace or distance, you often need to keep up with a similar average volume. There’s race season and there are peaks and gullies, but overall, there is some average you need to complete to keep your base. There were weeks where I ran 10 miles and others 80 miles, but I felt I could run as long as time permitted or my training advised me to do. Now I was having trouble completing more than 10 miles a week consistently.
Purpose is the key.
Even if I have nothing to train for, I love running. I love getting a good sweat, fresh air, and the way I feel afterward. Without some race goal in mind though, it’s difficult to go that extra mile that led me into high volume in the first place. I feel comfortable doing 10-20 miles a week, but comfort is not great mental fuel for when you want to excel again. As soon as I want to get back to my original volume, it’s like hitting a brick wall. It’s like having superpowers and then losing them!
Find a path.
It's not the end of the world if you can only run some limited miles and still feel good. A lot of people can't even do that, so I don't want to take easier volume as a curse. But I love the marathon format and used to be excited about how far my running would take me as I explored the ultra scene. Without any assurance when the next event will happen, I feel like I needed a new “carrot” on the end of my “stick” to get my legs back in preparation. Even if there’s no race plan to follow, I figured the best way to pump some new vigor into my running was to try a new training method.
Never give up. Just change the course.
I’ve recently started experimenting with wattage training. While wattage training is more popular for cyclists, it’s a new approach to running that has got me fired up. Having less to do with distance and time, it focuses more on sustaining a level of power during different times in training. It’s still the same running but feels new because it’s got my mind thinking a different way about my training. Sometimes the solution to getting past a hump is just to come at it a different way. I have been steadily increasing my volume lately without the same resistance I was experiencing before because I am focusing less on how slow I am or how long I have run.
This is not my first or worst uphill battle. Please check out my article on how I became a runner! — “How I Became a Runner Despite the Odds” | https://medium.com/runners-life/i-lost-my-running-legs-24d795ed2496 | ['Bradley S.'] | 2020-12-03 04:10:16.349000+00:00 | ['Running', 'Motivation', 'Fitness', 'Inspiration', 'Overcoming Obstacles'] |
Pandora | Pandora
A poetic space between knowing and not
Photo by Dennis Buchner on Unsplash
Across the water,
some_________where,
you lie,
without a thought on your mind.
It’s night, but the colours of the sun linger,
it’s right, but the timing could be better.
Just a few days more,
and I’ll know if time went wasted.
Just a few sips more,
and I’ll forget why I even started. | https://medium.com/share-the-love/pandora-2026f5d1dc15 | ['Kim Rashidi'] | 2020-12-18 09:03:40.920000+00:00 | ['Pandoras Box', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Love Poems', 'Sunset', 'Poetry'] |
The Logistics of A Lover, A Husband With Alzheimer’s and Kids | The Logistics of A Lover, A Husband With Alzheimer’s and Kids
My life is too complex to lie about cheating — so I don’t
thumbs.dreamstime
“Wow,” I thought to myself as I read Teresa J. Conway’s article, “The COVID Cheater’s Lies That Are Getting Old,” and considered the logistics of lying and the intricate engineering of affairs. It would be extremely draining to constantly construct reasons and then keep those in my head, for later questioning.
My first few weeks of Ashley Madison meet ups — attempting to find just one equally attracted and sexually fired-up person open to long term lover status — was, well, exhausting. It involved enough mental strain that I finally grew tired of the falsification and just, with a dramatic shoulder shrug (at least in my own narrative), said “screw it.”
I quit contriving socially distanced front porch coffee dates with friends (hey, the weather was much warmer then) and I told my kids the truth.
I told my husband nothing.
In one of his fleeting lucid moments I had asked my husband with Early Onset Alzheimer’s, “if I found someone to fulfill the needs you can’t — conversation, sex — in order to take care of you better and be less angry, would you want to know about it or not?” His response, after a few questions and comments, was “I have to accept that you need those things and that I can no longer give them to you. Just don’t tell me. I’ll probably know, though, because you’ll be super happy.”
So I tell him nothing because —
I respect that he doesn’t want to know, and He wouldn’t remember anyways.
To find out more you can read my article —
When I commented on Conway’s article she, in true writer’s fashion, suggested I pen a piece on how I make it work.
I am extremely fortunate that I can just head out for a temporary fill of orgasms and that I don’t have to lie about my affair. I realize that few mature adulterers have this reality. Does this make the logistics easier? Sure.
But more accessible and completely effortless? Nope.
I have certainly learned that being cautious with whom you share information about having a lover is critical. My sister will no longer talk to me: claiming I am an adulteress who should stop complaining about the state of my sexless and difficult marriage, stop cheating, or simply walk away from my ill husband. So while I may generally promote authenticity and honesty I also, with non-safe and erratic individuals, embrace the idea of omission.
At this point my husband is still able to work because he was transferred from sales back into the factory where he worked as a teenager so the repetitive motions are still engrained in his hole-filled brain. Although he doesn’t shower or wash his hands post-pooping without suggestion and I literally looming over him to make sure he does, he is still able to toilet himself.
And our newly teenage children are able to “babysit” him while I escape. Expectations of anything other than toast being eaten while I am away is rarely exceeded and the hurricane-ish state of our home when I return has simply become one of the costs of having my vulva licked with pure adoration.
Small Town Lovers.
My lover lives a little over an hour away. For us small-town-in-the-middle-of-nowhere folks who are used to having to drive to get anywhere the mileage isn’t a shocker but it does add time — visits are never “quick” or “on the way home from work”.
He is separated and the freedom of us nonchalantly hanging out in a space bigger than a van’s backseat means I am more than willing to drive. We can wander naked. He cooks for me. He even purchased a cheesy but special mug for me to hold our between-fucks morning coffee. Often my visits are overnight meaning I get my “morning cuddles” and then morning cuddles before I need to return to the real world.
Geographical distance means neither his neighbours nor mine raise eyebrows or question. It also means my students’ parents’ Facebooks aren’t cluttered with posts about my unprofessional evening or weekend exploits.
I realize that this will get more difficult as my husband’s Alzheimer’s progresses. Spouses on our monthly support meeting for Early Onset Alzheimer’s can barely steal away for that hour.
It’s already threatening change. My husband and daughter are oil and water. Actually: Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy or Sherlock and Moriarty. My son’s hormones have mushed up his lovely brain almost as much as Alzheimer’s has riddled my husband into a state of stupidity, meaning only my daughter remains responsible.
However, her reminders, of “Dad, you need gloves to shovel the driveway,” or “Dad, you’re looking for milk for your cereal so can you grab it and shut the fridge door now?” drive him to huffing and puffing and door slamming. And on one occasion that involved the Children’s Aid Society, of pushing her and throwing his water-filled glass at my head.
During Covid times, with only my parents in our bubble, the struggle will now involve organizing grandparent-sitters for children and/or a spouse who refuse to admit to needing them.
In this situation having your needs met is rarely easy.
Thankfully, texting isn’t problematic. I have always been blessed with a large circle of tech-friendly friends who send regular messages. And the friend whose flair for sending 1/8 of the sentence per bubble bing-bing-bing-bing-bing times 23 once sparked frustration now often proves highly beneficial!
Friends and family residing out west in a two and three hour earlier time zone difference — who always seem to hit send right near my bedtime — gratitude and appreciation air kissed your way…And slowly building a following on Twitter means quick screen switches to read-alouds to pacify hubby’s questions about why I’m typing so much and so quickly.
“What are your Twitter friends chatting about?’ he’ll ask, crawling into bed, and about the only time he actually commences a ‘conversation.’
And, thankfully, multi-tasking and I have always had a fairly non-rowdy relationship. I can assist my son with maths homework while sexting about what a certain hard cock could do with my very pussy…I can hop between scanning the pedicure my daughter is giving me and my phone screen’s silent but violently intriguing reminder of what is going to be done to me in a few days…I am able to listen to my husband’s endless and recycled-every-2.6 minutes tale of kitten videos or upcoming weather while chatting with my lover about his day…
I make it work because I need it to work…just as I make running at 5:00 am before my family arises work because my heart, lungs, muscles, and cerebellum need their workout. I make an affair work because my emotions, physiology, playful parietal lobes, and clitoris need their workout. I need the exhaustingly dopamine-infused rolling-about-any-and-every-surface-possible in order to face my Alzheimer’s-infused reality with even a little patience and the odd smile.
Thankfully making it work for me means rarely having to lie. Though I did admittedly fib about that box in the back of the van with a wrapped Christmas gift in it…
So, hats (and thongs?) off to those of you who are brilliant enough to intricately engineer the falsifications needed to allow for our needs to be met! | https://medium.com/the-scarlett-letter/the-logistics-of-a-lover-a-husband-with-alzheimers-and-kids-eb08848f3ef3 | ['Jennifer Mcdougall'] | 2020-12-21 16:24:00.976000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Adultery', 'Dating', 'Love', 'Sexuality'] |
The mundane things destroy you in the most unworldly way when everything is over between you and… | The mundane things destroy you in the most unworldly way when everything is over between you and your love. And the beauty is, you will never know what will destroy you if you ever break with your current partner. Because the things which you think will, won’t as much as you expect. It will always be the mundane things which will fuck you up. And it’s so unfair, right?
Anyway.
—
Curtains
Chirping birds
Untouched curtains
A friends concern
A forceful brunch
An Italian cafe
Two lovers
Cliché scenes
A flashback
Numbness
A moment
An excuse
Power walk
A busy elevator
A lonely door
Roadway noise
Untouched curtains
— | https://medium.com/@sahilpatel/the-mundane-things-destroy-you-in-the-most-unworldly-way-when-everything-is-over-between-you-and-b7e1e77b9ad0 | ['Sahil Patel'] | 2020-12-20 14:44:27.764000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Art', 'Heartbreak', 'Poetry', 'Love'] |
The Data Æther | We’re Not Done
There are some niggles that make us wonder how X can exist in the real world. One is that “native” data structures aren’t consistent. I might love Haskell or C# or Python or Prolog (I might!). While I can probably express most of X in my language, my mileage is going to vary. A class in Java is not the same as a class in Javascript. (Can I add a property?) Even basic lists and maps and sets are not the same. (Equality? What about null and undefined and none and empty ?)
Languages do not express data structures in the same or compatible ways.
When it comes to data semantics, at least most programming languages overwhelmingly have one thing in common: they suck at it. All the big, popular languages are imperative. That means they are great at saying ‘do this, do that’, but they have real trouble saying ‘this makes sense’. If I look at a class in Java, it’s really hard to see all the things that are always true, and the things that need to be true before some change is allowed, and the things that are true after those changes. If I’m lucky, someone has added some comments, or assertions, or written some test cases. (Or interface specifications, if I’m really lucky.)
But these things are in the code, and that means they’re re-coded everywhere the data appears. Or not, in which case the bug takes a little while to manifest when the data arrives at somewhere that notices (if it ever does). So, how do I know that a pre-condition was checked when all I get is the post state?
Custom semantics can be hard to express: invariants, allowed operations, inferences. And they must be re-expressed wherever the data appears, or risk later failures.
We want this stuff underneath abstraction X, so my code is guaranteed not to break the rules of the data (preferably at compile-time) but any time is better than never.
When it comes to truth, things are even more complicated. Languages come with baggage. Mutability. Threading. “Volatile” is a thing. This is not going well. Looks like we have a choice. On the one hand, we could reinvent programming; stop using our favorite languages, and move everyone to a language that has abstraction X built-in. But that’s a concept for another article, I think.
So let’s look at the other hand, where we back off from this idea of everything working completely natively. After all, everyone already has to deal with mapping one abstraction onto another, all the time. Let’s just assert what we want about X, and let clever programmers bind X to their language with libraries.
Requirements for Binding X to Code
Once X is bound to a language with a library, we’ll have a syntax for that language. I’d say it’s table stakes that anything that can be expressed natively is; but really that’s up to the binding library author (as they are the expert on that language).
There’s one quality that stands out, because it’s not well-supported by languages in general, and that’s having a universal address space. If we’re truly going to abstract away the vagaries of media and protocols, then we need a way to refer to some data not as a file on a filesystem, or a row in a database, or a memory location.
Beyond that, we need to be able to express and enforce the data structure and rules in X so that the code we write doesn’t break the data. Again, it would be nice if we could do this at compile-time, but it’s also important at runtime. Why? Because most applications have at least some variability in their data on a per-install, per-customer, or even per-session basis. As app developers, we often try to tuck this into carefully managed corners as ‘customization’ features. I have spent a lot of time in that corner.
Data variability at runtime should be a first-class concept.
Truth is the axis for which we don’t have prior art. I haven’t come across any language that addresses it consistently and head-on. We haven’t really got a canonical way to say this data is this far away, and this much out of date, and these will be the consequences of you editing it. There are some ideas — for example, you should check out the proposed Braid HTTP extension.
And naturally, for all of this, if things are going to change — and we know they will — we need a well-defined way to cope with that.
The Consequences of X
So let’s say we’ve done it, we have X and it’s available to our choice of programming language. What would we expect to be different?
The most important thing is that app developers will spend less time wrangling data through protocols and formats and layers. A programmer only needs to learn the correspondence between their platform and X.
But engineers who like doing those things can still get their kicks by developing more and better ways for X to get from A to B, knowing that their efforts will be recognized because the data itself advertises the result.
Physical protocols will only be relevant to those choosing or optimizing them.
And let’s notice one more thing. With X, data is not flowing anymore. I don’t have to think in terms of requesting and receiving and decoding and validating and locking and (briefly) adding value, and then encoding and responding and emitting and unlocking, and am-I-done-yet?
Instead, data is just there, bathing my code, and just a de-reference of an identifier away. Sometimes it’ll take a few milliseconds to arrive, but I already know how long and I can build those expectations into my software design. And tomorrow, when someone clever has noticed that I keep asking for such-and-such data, and makes it available to me before I ask, I can progressively enhance that design.
Final Thoughts
As the author of m-ld, I have my own ideas about how to achieve X, and the Data Æther. I’ll go into those next time. But what do you think? Can we get away from the endlessly expensive but worthless wrangling of syntax, semantics, and truth?
And what would we build if we could?
Update: Let me tell you about where this vision has led me, personally. I’m a practical type, and I’m only comfortable selling hopes and dreams if I can show that important parts of the dream work in a real life… | https://codeburst.io/the-data-%C3%A6ther-da22d28bc938 | ['George Svarovsky'] | 2021-02-12 08:52:33.555000+00:00 | ['Crdt', 'Programming Languages', 'Data', 'Coding', 'Rdf'] |
Celebrating Life with a Pocket Full of Death | Celebrating Life with a Pocket Full of Death
I’m not a fan of social functions. I make it a habit to avoid them. I’ve been to a whole mess of funerals. Those are less avoidable.
Funeral programs from services mentioned in this article. Photo by Andrew Donaldson
“Death,” wrote John Steinbeck, “is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy…Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions.”
I’m not a fan of social functions. I make it a habit to avoid them. I’ve been to a whole mess of funerals. Those are less avoidable.
They tend to come in spurts, the old timers will tell you. Those folks who talk of the “rule of three” — that three people die in close chronological order in any given time — may have a point, but there are seasons of life where death comes in spurts and one places the “rule of three” in a framed picture on the nightstand by the living’s bed. This framing would be done to better facilitate the wistful gazing and hopeless wishing for the day only three folks you knew shuffled off the mortal coil in close proximity. Perhaps there is a superstitious numerical rule to it, or some astrological algorithm dictating such things, but more probably eternity has a certain circadian rhythm to the sleep of death, same as living sleep does. It comes in waves, with troughs and peaks and all manner of choppy water in between to navigate.
Checking the inside jacket pocket of my best suit, worn almost exclusively for the social function portion of death as it is currently my only suit that fits, shows that the Almighty has seen fit to not only enforce the rule of three but square it in recent months. The habit of putting the funeral programs in that pocket, and leaving them there, brought a chuckle of realization at the latest service. A friend sitting behind inquired what I was amused by, perhaps concerned that their Baptist friend was having fun at the expense of their beloved one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church. No, I assured them, and showed the stack of paper I had been carrying around to their sympathetic head shake.
Then it was back to the issue at hand that found us at mass in St Patrick’s on that particular morning for the rather grand sounding “Celebration of the Eucharist and the Rite of Committal” for a friend. Sitting among the two pews full of my daughter’s Girl Scout troop along with the other parents was a new thing, despite my many funerals. All but one of the Girl Scouts, that is, as their friend they had came to support was sitting a few pews further up, at the front, beside and at times on the lap of her father, and roughly ten feet to the left of the pedestal where the processional had put the box of her mother’s remains for the duration of the service. In whispered tones I try to explain to my own children, who had never been to a Catholic Mass before, let alone one as part of a funeral and committal service, the mysteries of the Church of Roman to distract them from the bigger questions that have even harder answers. Questions like how to help their friend, how a woman who was doing scout meetings and cookie booths with them was untimely and shockingly dead, why does the incense smell like that, how life isn’t fair, how death is certain, what time is this over ’cause I want to eat.
Funeral mass with our Catholic friends was a strange combination of the familiar and the mysterious. Feeling like a pilgrim in a foreign land, but a land with many recognizable landmarks. Weeks before I had been to another service, this one far to the south in Florida, in a Methodist church which was the preferred faith of my mother’s side of the family. The church my uncle and aunt had been members of for nearly 60 years did a magnificent job honoring him upon his death. I sat with the rest of the family in the front pews with the “reserved” placarding and laughed at all the stories of a full life, cried through the violin/piano rendition of “Country Roads” by my little cousins, and generally felt it all very well done. But still in the back of my mind were the questions I knew most of the answers too, but which one’s brain asks the hurting heart anyway. Questions like how to help my family members, why a life of adventure and boldness ends in the withering of Parkinson’s, how life can be both fully blessed and unfair at the same time, how death is certain, and what time is this over ’cause I want to eat.
Familiar as that was, it was also different from another funeral just weeks before. Sitting in the Baptist church in which I grew from boy to man, that my parents had attended for 26 years, that felt as much like home as any residence I ever lived in. The crowd was full of folks my own age whom I grew up with, sitting in the pews we had as kids with our own children now the ages we were then, and for this occasion were in our minds. This was fitting as the man we had come to honor was a big part of that growing up experience. We laughed at the stories that I cannot even share- you would think them too outrageous- and cried, and talked about how none of us could imagine growing up without him being a part of it. Like many of the others present, he had given me some of my first paying jobs, doing odd things for pocket money. He had seen both the highs and lows of life, and when the federal government couldn’t break his spirit cancer tried. It too failed. It got his body in the end but not his soul and wit and giant heart.
That isn’t just hyperbole; the hospice folks had to spend three extra days with him because even after all medical activity had ceased — and there was no life left beyond medical technicalities — his heart just kept beating on anyway, fittingly defiant to the end. The service having already been scheduled for the following Friday, he teased being late to his own funeral, almost like he planned it that way but stopped short of doing it so as not to inconvenience anyone. I wept at that information, so fitting a tribute and summation of my friend’s life, and sat through the service and listened to the words and songs but still had those questions in my mind claw up. Questions like how to help his family members left behind, comforting my friends and family around me. Questions of whether I could be half the moral and spiritual giant of this man now dead, one of the most Christ-like persons I’ve ever met of those who claim that kind faith, but who some derided because of a criminal conviction announced in headlines while the injustice of it was only proclaimed by his friends. Questions of how life isn’t fair, how death is certain, how long will this take because I know how well they do food in this church and I want to eat.
That familiar was still different from another place a few funerals before that, the social functions of a death bringing me to a place where my life had began. This was yet another friend, a different life from the others but one that ended just like all lives do, and with friends and family gathering. But this familiar was more like fleeting memory, of the earliest times of my life half remembered and mostly known from being told about them by others. This time in a small country church where the cell reception still hasn’t reached and Google Maps is confused about the location of saw the first decade or so of my life. The people and faces of this small crowd I had not seen in 25–30 years or more in some cases. An odd gap of time, larger than the amount of time spent in the rest of life, adding to the oddly-familiar-but-not-quite feeling. This was a wake, the old fashioned visitation before the funeral and burial the next day. I could not attend the service but made the wake on purpose to show my respect to a great man. A master craftsman, he lay in the front of the church in a casket he himself had made by hand with the help of an Amish community he had befriended. A master musician, the music playing over the speakers in the church was he himself playing along. A strong man of character, his two daughters that are my age and I caught up about how he had raised them himself. A full life. A blessed life. And yet those nagging questions raised in my mind about how to help those I had barely spoken to in two decades, how life was wonderful but not fair, how death was certain, and how long this would take because I was hungry and they were not feeding us here. That night the food was gas station Subway with my father on the ride home.
St Patrick’s Catholic Church fed us much better after the procession to the internment. Even walking behind the priest and deceased out to the final resting place, the questions rose both quietly in my mind and out loud from my children. Questions like why was life so unfair, why was death certain, what happens if they have to walk too far and they run out of Saints to name, can I use my IPhone in a Catholic church, why do bad things happen to good people, how long will this take because I want to eat. And then the words are said, prayers are prayed, the crowd disperses some. I fold the funeral program and put it inside my jacket pocket, joining far to many others. The Girl Scouts are in a mass huddle, first laughing, then crying, then laughing again. Trying to process all those questions I myself have but without the benefit of my life experiences to filter them through, and my knowledge that there is no real answers that satisfy, especially at that age. That the funeral, while also a family and religious service, is a social function where humanity is shared and mortality contemplated since funerals are not easily avoidable, especially your own. Heavy stuff for young girls and hardened adults alike.
Except one answer. Which is, after all, the answer that was needed at that moment to prove to children just beginning their lives that life would indeed go on for a little while longer. It was provided by their troop leader, in the middle of the gaggle of cry-laughing girls, wiping her own tears and raising her voice.
“Ok, enough crying, let’s go eat.” | https://medium.com/yonder-and-home/celebrating-life-with-a-pocket-full-of-death-27d0d82ac9a3 | ['Andrew Donaldson'] | 2020-02-16 03:31:04.205000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Life', 'Death', 'Culture', 'Religion'] |
United States of Ignorance | What Made the U.S. So Ignorant?
This is an opinion; not news, not a solution, and not the blame game. There is no specific group to point a finger at; liberals, conservatives, parents, politicians, extremism, people in general; name a group and there is likely blame to go around. No, this is not the blame game because everyone is essentially to blame. Collective blame on common ground.
Common ground is there for the common good. I do not know who said that, maybe I am the first, but I believe for an intelligent society the size of the United States to succeed this philosophy is a must. Extremism can drive progress but there must be a common ground or divisiveness is inevitable. The common ground seems rarely walked these past few decades.
People in General: People in general are too selfish and that is something I cannot figure the origins of. My needs, my wants, my rights! I am all for individual rights so long as it does not interfere with someone else’s individual rights.
Remember when McDonald’s Kids Meals offered caramel with apples? A small group decided for everyone that caramel needed to be removed. Fries? Oh, they are ok but caramel is the devil’s candy. As a parent, if you are worried about your kids health how about telling your kid no and NOT taking them to McDonalds in the first place.
My generation may have been raised by the television but I at least knew (even as a latch-key kid) if I stepped out of line my parents would handle it. Many parents today have happily given over their parental authority and responsibilities entirely as well as any sense of accountability. Yet parents do not allow teachers to discipline students. Something is dreadfully wrong.
People in general are accountable. Parents are not solely to blame as politicians enable many extreme views on parenting, beliefs, and often answer issues through ill-conceived blanket policies such as standardized education.
Education Changes: Let me be clear early — I do NOT blame teachers, I blame politicians and parents. Lazy parents and politicians trying to answer a problem with wide sweeping policy. People learn differently (hands-on, taking notes, listening, combination) so, HEY, let’s standardize it! As a result our nation’s ability to think critically, to do research, has atrophied.
Teachers once had the ability to actually teach. They still run classrooms but everything is so standardized it makes teaching difficult. They have also been stripped of their ability to discipline disruptive children. Gone are the days when a teacher can send a child off to a corner for being disruptive. Had that happened to me my parents would have asked what I did wrong. Today’s parent (on average) says how dare the teacher. Handcuffed teachers do their best but I have heard the horror stories of disruptive kids and I have seen the frustration from other kids as well as teachers first hand.
Standardization has removed a teachers ability to truly teach critical thinking skills and formulate lesson plans that make children think versus simply take notes to pass a test. My kids would come home with an F on their report, get a B on the standard test, and pass the class but leave the class with out understanding or retaining the subject matter.
I am willing to bet this is a common scenario. Why do I think that? Because as a military family my kids went to school in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida and it was the same everywhere. Disruptive unpunished children and teachers relegated to simply talking about the material, not allowed to teach an understanding of the material. That is the definition of standardization.
Social media has also contributed to this by making information so readily available, too readily available. I am guilty of it, we all are at some point, but ask someone a question and chances are they will not go past the first few links on Google and won’t even verify the source. Ever heard of Google Scholar? It is astounding how few have.
Social Media: There was a time when you could trust sites with .org or .gov but no longer. Anyone with an opinion or conspiracy can create a web site and spread disinformation. Form an organization and you can get a .org, and we all know the disinformation that our government can spread via .gov.
News sources are the worst. Many times media sources have released information without verifying the information which needed to be pulled, opened the door for competitive news sources to discredit the other, and over time this erodes public trust. Throw in a news outlets particular ‘spin’ (spin — I will get into that idiotic concept in a minute) and news becomes more opinion than fact. Choose your sides and pick you ‘facts.’ Ridiculous.
News Media: News in the United States is a joke. I am sure it is bad all over the world but I cannot worry about the world. One should be able to change the channel and see the same facts represented equally because they are FACTS. What you do with the facts, well…that is what should separate the outlets. There is so much competition for consumers news outlets have turned to Spin. A news source should only be allowed to spin facts in sections clearly identified as Opinion. I understand the fight for viewers but every journalist should be unified in their effort to relay facts not their version of the facts.
There is no place in news media for the word ‘Spin’ as related to news. Opinion? Sure but news is supposed to be based on fact. Facts are facts not opinion and there is no spinning facts. Coverage of a protest is a perfect example; the reason for the protest can be discussed in the Opinion section of outlets but the why behind the protest, numbers on both sides, violence or no violence…these are facts.
Public trust needs to be rebuilt in all media, not just the source you agree with.
Accountability: Politicians are not held accountable for lying or pushing personal agendas. Too often they are forgiven or forgotten and debates are filled with mud-slinging instead of true policy debate. It seems as though many on both sides of the aisle have forgotten they are servants of the people. Their constituents, all of them; not just the loud or the wealthy, or Republican or Democrat, are who they work for. The greater good. The common good.
Law enforcement is not held accountable for unnecessary and often brutal tactics. Public trust is lost in people elected or hired to protect citizens of our nation.
Law enforcement in general is doing the best they can and it truly is a few bad police but those bad police are like those loud policy makers. Bad policing does not serve the common good and far too often they go unpunished or rehired elsewhere. Law enforcement should be offered certain protections, better training, but held to a higher standard and accountable for their crimes.
Population: There are approximately 328 million people in the United States and the Court of Public Opinion has too much power as critical thinking is in short supply. With so many people controlling truth is difficult when so few follow up to learn the validity of said truth, opinion is fact when one chooses to believe it.
People still believe humans eat eight spiders in their sleep despite those who released that tidbit on the internet admit to it being a hoax. Why do people still believe it? Because people do not verify what they hear or read, especially on the internet. It is amazing what people will and will not believe on the internet. Scientific facts? Nope. Some crazy pig farmer in the Philippines? Sure.
Freedom of Speech: I love freedom of speech and the 1st Amendment does not need to be altered in any way but our nations founders did not foresee all of the above. When combined with a poorly educated, massive population, who distrust leaders, and are given social media sites to share various opinions, alongside unregulated news media it becomes a recipe for disaster.
The Freedom of Speech should never be taken away but just like you cannot yell fire in a theater false statements should be punishable if not intended as parody or clearly stated as opinion.
What to do: That is a good question and there is no easy answer or quick fix. A quick fix got us into this mess, a long solution is needed to get us out.
I am not an expert. I am not a doctor, or professor, or politician. I am a retired Air Force intelligence analyst, with an associates degree, concerned about our future but something must be done.
Teachers and law enforcement professionals should be paid better for starters. We need people to want those jobs so much the hiring process can afford to be more rigorous.
News should never combine fact with opinion outside clearly identified Opinion sections of their media. We as a nation have lost the ability to differentiate between the two and no longer have the intellectual curiosity to follow-up with our own research. Why should we? Most of the country does not know how to think for themselves so their opinion is fed to them in fifteen second sound bites.
The center of the aisle needs to speak out more. It is hard to be passionate about the center but people need to be. I am! I love the 2nd Amendment but I should not be able to buy a handgun as easily as buying a chocolate bar and I am a combat veteran.
The center is a great place for society to reside, to get along because the further you get out on the wing the weaker the foundation, that is where baseless ignorance lives. | https://medium.com/@j-leegraves/united-states-of-ignorance-a0946b95a957 | ['J. Lee Graves'] | 2020-12-24 06:12:00.505000+00:00 | ['Education Reform', 'United States', 'Ignorance', 'Politics', 'Policy'] |
Mae Taeng ~ Hidden gem @ North Thailand | SiennyLovesDrawing is gonna sharing here her Take Me Tour booking
Hmm…This round at Chiang Mai, the North part of Thailand
Pick 3 ~ Mae Taeng Cycling Trip: Live the Agricultural Life & Enjoy Homemade Picnic ~
SiennyLovesDrawing really enjoyed her cycling tour with Take Me Tour
Nice meet up with the local expert, Khun Pat & her hubby from my hotel pick up, then had a comfy car journey of approximately 40mins for the cycling tour booked & then to check-in for a night stay with the Homestay Maetang Chiang Mai
Do continue reading the whole stories via https://siennylovesdrawing.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/mae-taeng-hidden-gem-north-thailand/
Vlog for you all to enjoy SiennyLovesDrawing’s visual experience being captured from her cycling tour :D
Beautiful photos shared via https://www.instagram.com/p/BsC9rKNgRhH/ , do click in to enjoy all :D
More beautiful photos shared via https://www.facebook.com/siennylovesdrawing/ , do click in to enjoy all :D
Are you now interested for a day tour with local experiences, handpicking fresh vegetables & fruits from an organically-grown garden & enjoy home cooking??
If yes, do enjoy a 500 THB discount for your 1st booking via http://takeme.tours/r/sienny-y
Also welcome to check out SiennyLovesDrawing ’s top contributor account via https://www.tripadvisor.com.my/members/siennylovesdrawing for her recent reviews on the Thailand ’s tourist attractions, food & accommodation stay ya :D
More #blogging of #siennylovesdrawing’s own experiences via https://siennylovesdrawing.wordpress.com/ & vlog via https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2itJEPsMjDQH0qNACTjqFQ | https://medium.com/@siennylovesdrawing/mae-taeng-hidden-gem-north-thailand-2d9380870571 | [] | 2019-08-16 14:15:54.395000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Cycling', 'Thailand', 'Tourism', 'Blog'] |
How a New Mama Can Get Some Sleep | Photo by Laura Lee Moreau on Unsplash
How a New Mama Can Get Some Sleep
It might feel like you’ll never sleep again when baby doesn’t sleep through the night yet. But there are a few things you can do to help make your sleepless nights a little less sleepless.
Babies are adorable and they smell yummy. There are so many wonderful things about new babies. Their sleep habits don’t tend to make that list, though. Many new parents, moms in particular, find that their satisfaction with and duration of sleep reaches it’s lowest point around three months after baby arrives — and six years later, it still hasn’t recovered.
While we may not be able to get you back to pre-baby sleep levels, what we can do is take every step possible to ensure you get as much sleep as possible. But just what are those steps?
Sleep when baby sleeps
It’s said so much that it seems like a cliché at this point, but it’s the straight up truth. Your best bet for getting enough (or at least more) sleep is to sleep when your baby is sleeping.
Naptimes, night times, even brief little dozing after a feeding, it doesn’t matter. If your baby closes her eyes for more than about two minutes, you need to close your eyes too.
As a mom myself, I get it. You have a house to clean, maybe other kids to take care of, a spouse who’s expecting dinner on the table after work. But all of that can wait. You can sit the older kids down with the occasional cartoon, tell your spouse to pick up a pizza for all of you, and take a quick nap.
You might also argue that you should use that time to read a book or exercise or do other things you enjoy. As a huge proponent of self-care, I’d usually agree. But when you’re feeling sleep deprived, catching some shuteye is the best form of self-care you could possibly give yourself.
Photo by LJ Lara on Unsplash
Get moving
Pregnancy, labor, delivery and taking care of a new baby are all exhausting. Some days you just don’t feel like you have the energy to even get out of bed, much less engage in any actual physical activity that even remotely resembles exercise.
But exercise has been shown to improve sleep. And you don’t have to drive to the gym and do a hardcore workout to get better sleep, either. There are plenty of options for easy exercise that you can do with baby in tow.
For example, you can wear baby while you go for a walk around the block. You can put baby on the floor nearby while you do some gentle stretching and yoga. You can also put baby in a playpen while you bounce on an indoor trampoline.
30 minutes a day of light aerobic activity can be enough to see the sleep benefits.
Get rid of distractions
Many moms find that they sleep more lightly than they did before kids. You’re on alert, listening for the little squeaks, squawks, squeals and cries that indicate that your baby is awake, needs you, or is in danger. This lighter sleep to listen for your baby means that you’re also more susceptible to other distractions from sleep.
Turn off the TV and leave your phone in the other room. If you must have your phone in your room, turn it screen down and leave it as far away from the bed as you can.
Make sure the room is cool and dark. Add room darkening shades if needed, or buy a sleep mask to block out any light that may intrude on your sleep. You won’t want to wear earplugs because you want to hear the baby cry, but you can try making sure that as many other sounds as possible are silenced. You can also try a white noise machine to help block out any other sounds that aren’t the baby.
Photo by Mikael Stenberg on Unsplash
Ask for relief
Stay at home moms are especially guilty of thinking they need to do it all themselves, but lots of moms feel bad about asking someone to watch the baby while they sleep. Let me assure you now — it is absolutely okay to ask!
Ask Grandma or Auntie Sue to take the baby for an hour so you can catch a quick nap. If you can afford it, hire a babysitter or mother’s helper to come over for a couple of hours to allow you to nap and perhaps even do a little light cleaning for you.
And don’t forget asking your spouse to get up during the night. You’re in this together. If you both work, equally splitting the nights is definitely fair. If you don’t work and your partner does, and you feel guilty asking them to get up when you know they have to work the next day, then don’t ask them to do it on work nights. Instead, ask them to relieve you on weekends. This allows you to get a couple of nights each week of full, (mostly) uninterrupted sleep while also allowing your partner to feel rested and ready to work each day.
Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash
Put your sleep first
This may be the most important part of getting more sleep. If you don’t prioritize your sleep as important, you will never get enough. If you consistently put cleaning, cooking, work, and everything else ahead of sleep, you will always find yourself exhausted and wishing you weren’t so tired.
Put your sleep first. Make getting sleep a priority. This goes beyond sleeping when baby sleeps. Making your sleep a priority means letting dirty dishes sit in the sink overnight or clean clothes sit unfolded on the sofa. It means turning down an invitation to go for dinner with friends or have coffee with your old boss early in the morning.
Putting your sleep first means setting a bedtime and sticking to it. Putting down the book, turning off Netflix, and stopping whatever else you’re doing to go to bed when that time comes.
Most of all, putting your sleep first means deciding that sleep is the most important thing (other than keeping your baby alive). By deciding that sleep is the most important thing, and keeping that decision at the forefront of your mind when making all other decisions, you’ll ensure that you choose sleep over other things whenever that’s a choice.
Sleep affects your overall health
Sleep, or the lack thereof, affects every aspect of your health. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually, a lack of sleep can cause your health to decline rapidly. Even a single one of those health aspects declining will significantly impact your parenting, but if all of them are affected at once, you will not be the parent you want to be.
Putting your sleep first doesn’t mean you don’t love your baby or that you aren’t meeting his needs. Putting your sleep first actually means you love your baby enough to make sure you are well-rested so you can be the parent he deserves. It means you know that meeting your own needs first is the best way to make sure you meet your baby’s needs.
Do what’s best for both you and your baby right now: close out this article and take a nap. | https://wendymillermeditation.medium.com/how-a-new-mama-can-get-some-sleep-1171522d12b | ['Wendy Miller'] | 2019-10-16 14:09:36.016000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'Sleep', 'Motherhood', 'Health', 'Parenting'] |
My 10 Favourite TV Series of the 2010s | Hannibal (2013–15)
The idea of doing Hannibal Lecter for television sounded terrible. The character had worked on the page and at the movies, but could it work on a weekly basis for mainstream primetime television? Anthony Hopkins was also synonymous with the role thanks to Silence of the Lambs, so what chance did someone younger and more “foreign” have compared to Sir Tony? And it’s from the creator of bright and breezy fantasy drama Pushing Daisies?
Amazingly, Hannibal accomplished everything it wanted to. This was seriously dark and frightening TV, broadcast on NBC (a major network, not cable or streaming), who kept it alive for three seasons — thanks partly to how it was co-financed and didn’t present a massive financial burden for them. Mads Mikkelson made for an excellent Dr Lecter, of course, but the beauty of the show was in the dynamic between his character and fragile FBI analyst Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). Theirs was a compelling and twisted relationship that was intellectual, emotional, and sexual. Lecter loved Will so much he wanted to eat him up — literally — and Will was strangely obsessed with the apex predator of a type he’s trained to outsmart.
And, oh man, the baroque and grotesque imagery! There’s indelible nightmare fuel here, from gruesome crime scenes to horrifying torture sequences and unsettling dreams. Every episode has something to make you gasp or giddy, but also giggle as you start to become strangely attached to Hannibal and his unique approach to life and death, art and food, good and evil. There’s a reason this show inspired an obsessive fandom (the Fannibals) who made amazing artwork celebrating the “gay love story” at the heart of the show. We’ve been teased with the idea of a revival, to remake the only missing piece of the Hannibal canon (The Silence of the Lambs), and let’s hope it happens before everyone ages too much! | https://dansmediadigest.co.uk/my-10-favourite-tv-series-of-the-2010s-515f8a1f7bf9 | ['Dan Owen'] | 2020-04-03 19:26:09.749000+00:00 | ['Features', 'TV', '2010', 'Culture', 'Television'] |
Subsets and Splits