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Can Union Pacific Survive Coronavirus? — Market Mad House | Coronavirus could kill the Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP) as the historic railroad celebrates 150 years on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Union Pacific or UP joined the NYSE on 15 September 1870, a press release indicates. However, Stockrow estimates Union Pacific’s revenue growth fell by 24.16% in the quarter ending on 30 June 2020.
Meanwhile, I estimate the Union Pacific (UNP) eliminated 11,711 jobs in the past two years. To explain, The Omaha World-Herald estimates the UP’s workforce shrank from 44,531 employees in September 2018 to 32,820 in July 2020.
Rail Traffic Collapses
The Union Pacific is cutting employees because its shipping volume fell by 20% between 2nd Quarter 2019 and 2020, CEO Lance Fritz admits. Moreover, US rail traffic fell by 14.9% or 156,797 carloads between August 2019 and August 2020, the America Association of Railroads (AAR) estimates.
The number of coal shipments railroads moved fell by 25.8%; or 85,216 carloads, between August 2019 and August 2020, the AAR estimates. In addition, sand and gravel shipments fell by 24,961 carloads or 25%. Plus, petroleum products shipments by rail fell by 14.3%; or 7,128 carloads, in the same period.
Additionally, rail traffic growth was too low to cover losses elsewhere. For instance, the AAR estimates the number of rail grain shipments grew by 5.6% or 4,683 carloads. Additionally, rail shipments of farm products grew by 168 carloads or 5%.
The Union Pacific Shrinks
Thus, the Union Pacific(NYSE: UNP) has a shrinking business. However, Mr. Market cannot see that shrinkage.
In 2020, Union Pacific’s stock price rose from $182.27 on 2 January 2020 to $197.32 on 22 September. Incredibly, Union Pacific’s shares hit a high of $202.37 on 15 September 2020 to celebrate the stock’s 150th anniversary.
In contrast, the Union Pacific’s quarterly revenues fell from $5.212 billion on 31 December 2019 to $4.244 billion on 30 June 2020. Comparatively, the Union Pacific reported quarterly revenues of $5.596 billion on 30 June 2019.
Is the Union Pacific Making Less money?
Plus the Union Pacific’s quarterly operating income fell from $3.12 billion on 12 December 2020 to $2.651 billion on 30 June 2020.
However, the Union Pacific’s quarterly gross profit fell from $3.12 billion on 31 December 2019 to $2.651 billion on 30 June 2020. The UP’s quarterly common net income fell from $1.403 billion to $1.132 billion in the same period.
The Union Pacific’s quarterly operating cash flow fell from $2.345 billion on 31 December 2019 to $2.37 billion on 30 June 2020. Yet the Union Pacific’s quarterly operating cash flow was $1.941 billion on 30 June 2019.
Is the Union Pacific Generating Less Cash?
Oddly, the Union Pacific’s quarterly ending cash flow rose from -$447 million on 31 December 2019 to $1.517 billion on 30 June 2020. Thus, the Union Pacific makes less money but generates more cash.
Importantly, I do not think the Union Pacific has borrowed money in recent months because it reports a negative financing cash flow. The financing can show how much debt a company has paid.
Notably, the Union Pacific’s quarterly negative financing cash flow fell from -$1.864 billion on 31 December 2019 to -$110 million on 30 June 2020. Thus, the Union Pacific is paying less debt.
I think the Union Pacific could soon report a positive financing cash flow if present trends continue. To explain, a positive financing cash flow shows a company is borrowing money to pay for operations.
The Union Pacific is no longer a Value Investment
On the other hand, the Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) had $2.766 billion in cash and short-term investments on 30 June 2020. That number grew from $891 million on 31 December 2019 and $1.109 billion on 30 June 2019.
Additionally, the Union Pacific’s total assets grew from $61.673 billion on 31 December 2019 to $63.555 billion on 30 June 2020. Hence, the Union Pacific has more value, but I do not consider the Union Pacific a value investment.
I think the Union Pacific (UNP) is not a value investment because Mr. Market overprices its stock and the railroad has no revenue growth. In fact, I do not even consider the Union Pacific a value trap. To explain, a value trap has some positive value characteristics such as enormous amounts of cash. Additionally, a classic value trap has a cheap price.
However, the Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) offers a good dividend at present. The UNP will pay a 97₵ quarterly dividend on 30 September 2020. The Union Pacific offered an annualized dividend of $3.88 and a 1.94% dividend yield on 22 September 2020.
Yet I think the Union Pacific dividend could end or small because of the falling revenue.
Why the Union Pacific’s stock price scares me
The Union Pacific’s stock price scares me because it is far too high. I think Mr. Market could buy this stock only because of its grand name and rich history.
It appears many people are buying stocks without examining the financial numbers. Thus, the Union Pacific shows how America’s modern stock bubble works. Mr. Market pays prices for stocks because they have an excellent reputation and little else. That frightens me because I think it appears to be a pre-crash bubble.
Union Pacific’s present state also shows what is wrong with America’s economy. The company is doing less business, making less money, and killing jobs, yet its stock price is soaring.
Another problem is that the Union Pacific is jobs. Over the past two years, the Union Pacific has eliminated 11,711 high-paying union jobs with wonderful benefits. Thus, America’s new economy kills good jobs and offers no replacements for them. That makes an excellent case for Andrew Yang’s arguments.
Is a Stock Market Crash Imminent?
Union Pacific (UNP) shows why investors need to fear America’s post-COVID-19 economy.
I think America’s underlying economy cannot support the soaring stock market. If there are more stocks with Union Pacific’s characteristics out there, I think a market crash could be imminent.
I think all it will take for the present-stock market to crash is for one big blue-chip company such as Union Pacific (UNP) or Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) to declare bankruptcy or collapse. Such a collapse will panic investors and spark the crash.
However, I do not think investors need to leave the markets. Instead, investors need to read the financial reports and watch for shaky-looking companies such as Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP). I think the stock market will survive and many investors will prosper, but many weaker companies, including Union Pacific, could be far closer to collapse than most people realize. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/can-union-pacific-survive-coronavirus-market-mad-house-ab001e95957d | ['Daniel G. Jennings'] | 2020-09-24 18:39:28.309000+00:00 | ['Stocks', 'Economy', 'Railways', 'Stock Market', 'Value Investing'] |
【紀錄】轉職軟體工程師，我的 why what how 與感謝 | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/han-sharing/%E7%B4%80%E9%8C%84-%E8%BD%89%E8%81%B7%E8%BB%9F%E9%AB%94%E5%B7%A5%E7%A8%8B%E5%B8%AB-%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84-why-what-how-%E8%88%87%E6%84%9F%E8%AC%9D-e8fa19d2b84 | [] | 2021-01-02 03:42:09.638000+00:00 | ['五倍紅寶石', 'Astro Camp', '轉職', 'Ruby on Rails', '軟體工程師'] |
My Map Is Not Your Map | Many of us have our own way of doing things, albeit they change over time and they are entirely influenced by our lived experiences, thoughts and what we believe to be true.
I personally like to introduce and use systems in my own business that support the way I think and work albeit with some inflexibility in areas of regulation and policy. For example, I use particular software for accounting, social media management, project management, image creation, maintaining lists and so on. These are all chosen and mapped to my way of working. I can advise, quite strongly at times, on what from my experience works in different scenarios but ultimately mentees have to take decisions.
If you work with me as a business mentor you are asking me for my insight and expertise and I will provide direction. I will give my opinion based on my experience and that's what you pay me to do. I will share the boundaries in which I work, where my expertise stops and starts and I will make onward introductions. Everything I advise is shaped by my map. What advice you choose to take from me or other mentors is therefore entirely up to you, you have the option to explore my solutions, they will be numerous, or to do something else. What works for you will be influenced by your own map.
“The past informs the present. Memory makes the map we carry, no matter how hard we try to erase it.” Cara Black
You should never feel guilty if you choose not to take someones advice, the key, however, is that you do choose. Don’t let inactivity or procrastination be the determinant of which option(s) to take, the ‘do nothing option’ is rarely the best way forward to an identified challenge. The reason not to feel guilty is that it is your role to take each piece of advice given, to process it in the full context in which you work and then to decide what comes next. No-one other than you is experiencing what you are experiencing.
Surround yourself in mentors and coaches, but if you are wanting someone to tell you precisely what you must do (aside from the legals), you may be waiting a long time. These are your decisions to make and what you choose to do will be influenced by your map. Your map is unique and your stored experiences, conscious and sub-conscious are the constituent parts. No two maps are the same. I make decisions based on my map and you will make decisions based on yours. No right and wrong but different.
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche | https://medium.com/@bethanbishop/191-my-map-is-not-your-map-ad8c2e41b901 | ['Bethan Bishop'] | 2019-07-18 18:43:27.495000+00:00 | ['Business Founder', 'Maps', 'Life Lessons', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business'] |
Vietbuild HCM is an annual international fair, hosted by the Ministry of Building and the People’s… | Vietbuild HCM is an annual international fair, hosted by the Ministry of Building and the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh city. This is also one of the biggest fairs in Vietnam, specifically majoring in building, real estate, building material and exterior/interior decorating. Combined with many realistic activities, it can heat up the market and shopping activities for Christmas and New Year..
Meci PVC net at the fair
A 5% discount for buying our PVC net at the fair
♦ International fair is always a nice way to advertise the images of the brands. More importantly, it can support the development of a company by meeting and learn all the advantages of big brand in the same field. This is also a great opportunity to collect constructive feedback of the customers about the new product.
♦ The fair consists of more than 800 stands with all sorts of different products. Meci PVC net is very glad to be displayed at the fair.
Meci PVC net at the fair
♦ Address: Quang Trung Software City, District 12, Ho Chi Minh City (To Ky Street)
♦ Stand: №408, 409, 416 (MECI Joint Stock Company) A1, A2 area.
♦ Opening time: 8am — 6pm, from 17th to 21th of December.
Meci offers ways to control temperature, block dust and insects from entering houses, factories, industrial areas using PVC nets being imported directly from Korea, as well as other products:
PVC net
Temperature insulated PVC net
Anti-insects PVC nets
Anti-fire blade PVC nets
Bathroom PVC textured nets
Standard PVC plastic rolls.
Bigger PVC plastic rolls
PVC barriers
High speed rolling doors.
Kyungjin wind-shielded fans
Well insect capturing lamp.
Các sản phẩm MECI mang đến hội chợ lần này
Các sản phẩm MECI mang đến hội chợ lần này
A throwback for Quang Minh PVC net in this fair
Five days of success for MECI team at Vietbuild fair 2021
Congratulations for customers receiving the 5% discounts, along with many exciting presents.
A big thanks to all the customers and Vietbuild for creating such a great opportunity for companies and customers to have a chance to connect with each other..
Memorable moment of MECI at Vietbuild fair 2021
The first customer being consult for our products
MECI welcoming the first customers buying the thermal-insulated PVC net
Consulting for transparent PVC nets
Employees consult for transparent PVC nets for these two friendly customers.
Meci want to say a big thanks to all the customers and the partners to spend your time with our products. We will try our best to appear in other fairs to hopefully serve all of you better..
>>> For more information, contact us:
— — — — — — — — — — — -
MECI INDUSTRIAL SAIGON JOINT STOCK COMPANY
Website: https://manremnhua.net/meci-tai-hoi-cho-trien-lam-quoc-te-vietbuild-2021
Hotline: 0979337070
Address: №1767/42, 1A Highway, 2A Quarter, Tan Thoi Hiep Wart, District 12, Ho Chi Minh City | https://medium.com/@manpvcngancontrung/vietbuild-hcm-is-an-annual-international-fair-hosted-by-the-ministry-of-building-and-the-peoples-bbe62f742560 | ['Ngancontrung Mannhua'] | 2021-12-25 09:22:45.346000+00:00 | ['Vietnam'] |
The Fastest Minute in NFL Football Week #15 | NFL Crucial Catch from NFL Football Operations Used with Permission
Donate to the NFL & the American Cancer Society’s Crucial Catch campaign now.
The author gets no compensation from your contribution.
About the Author Photo by Jean Springs from Pexels
Stephen Dalton is a retired US Army First Sergeant with a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a Certified US English Chicago Manual of Style Editor. Top Writer in Fiction, Short Story, VR, Design, & Creativity. Editor of Pop Off, Top Dalton’s Blog, 100WordStory, B.O.S.S., and SportsShorts100WordsOnly
You can see his portfolio here. Email [email protected]
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Reddit | Ko-fi
Subscribe to My Newsletter | https://medium.com/sportsshorts100wordsonly/the-fastest-minute-in-nfl-football-week-15-fae516436891 | ['Stephen Dalton'] | 2020-12-23 02:11:02.282000+00:00 | ['Sports Journalists', 'NFL', 'Sports', 'Sportsshorts100wordsonly', 'American Football'] |
Dependency Injection in TypeScript from scratch | By Liron Hazan, Senior Frontend Engineer at SentinelOne
In the following post, we’ll review the Dependency Injection as a technique which meant to help us produce a more loosely coupled code which is highly important when working on large-scale projects.
Loosely coupled code? Yep, In a multi-paradigm language, a practical system may contain Classes and Interfaces, putting Object Oriented approach and inheritance aside, a class that points to another concrete class becomes coupled to it and thus harder to refactor/replace implementations.
DI most simple form (that you probably know) is in passing the dependency into the consumer constructor as follows:
//Good:
class Bar implements BarStrategyImpl {
doSomething(){}
}
class Foo {
constructor(private bar: BarStrategyImpl){};
doSomething(){
this.bar.doSomething();
}
}// Example without DI:
class Foo {
bar: BarStrategyImpl;
constructor() {
this.bar = new Bar(); // Foo is coupled to Bar
};
doSomething(){
this.bar.doSomething();
}
}
Separation of concerns
In the above example, Bar has one concern (one responsibility) and so has Foo.
By injecting Bar into Foo we keep that separation and by doing that we gain:
If in the future we’ll want to use a different strategy, we’ll only need to replace the dependency without changing Foo — cause we managed the dependency outside of it. In case Bar is a shared service that we aim to instantiate once, we don’t have to implement it as a singleton, that will become the responsibility of the “injecting” layer which IMO keeps things looser. Unit testing is easier, we can just inject mock implementations into the class which is under test.
When do we need a DI system?
Usually when we bootstrap our program (configuring stuff which depends on one another).
Or when constructing an object which depends on several dependencies. Letting a dedicated third side handle it for us gets us a looser.
In the Javascript/Typescript realm, when working with frameworks such as Angular and Nest.js DI comes out of the box.
And there are libraries such as Inversify which can be used for adding a robust DI system into our product.
How to do it ourselves!
In order to implement our DI system in a generic way we will need to know:
How a class in our software is constructed?
Which of that class dependencies are actually instances of other classes?
How to instantiate in the right order (meaning if A depends on B which depends on C we’ll need to instantiate C first then B and then A)?
You’re probably asking yourself — But what if C depends on A? we’ll that’s circular dependency and that won’t work :)
Reflection to the rescue:
“The ability of a programming language to be its own metalanguage” (Wikipedia)
Meaning that at runtime we can get the metadata of our code parts and act accordingly (observe and modify if needed).
In our case: we’ll need to reflect if a dependency of a class is of type of another class.
But in Typescript we use interfaces, and interfaces only exist in design time, before transpiling the code to Javascript by the Typescript compiler.
What we do have in the Javascript standards today is the Reflect API which contains several static methods for interceptable JavaScript operations. Intercept means — to observe an action before it starts and act accordingly.
In Typescript the Reflect namespace has more options at design time.
TypeScript includes experimental support for emitting certain types of metadata for declarations that have decorators.
** Note: If you’re not familiar with decorators read here.
In order to have that reflective types metadata we’ll need to do the following:
1. Install: ‘reflect-metadata’. (currently, that’s the official recommendation, it will augment the Reflect namespace with the metatypes decorators)
2. In tsconfig enable following “Experimental Options”: “experimentalDecorators”: true, “emitDecoratorMetadata”: true
3. Decorate our injectables (services that other class will consume) so their parameter types metadata be emitted.
Let’s write some code:
First, we need to have a decorator for collecting metadata of the service class.
When we enabled the compilerOption we instructed the Typescript compiler to add type metadata to any decorated classes.
We’ll create the “Injectable” decorator as follows:
import {Ctr} from '../../../common/types';
type ClazzDecorator<T> = (target: T) => void;
export function Injectable <T>(): ClazzDecorator<Ctr<T>> {
return (target: Ctr<any>) => {
// this is needed so the design:paramtypes could be collected
console.log('inside: Injectable decorator');
console.log(target.name, ' is used');
};
}
Our decorator is just a function that returns a function that accepts the decorated class as an argument and returns nothing.
Second — decorate the injected service:
@Injectable()
export class DrawerService { .....
Third — creating the injector class — where the work happens
Going over the code we see that the instance resolve(…) method maps a class name to its instance.
The resolve gets the class we want to inject (constructor) and extract the dependencies (tokens) of it by using: Reflect.getMetadata(‘design:paramtypes’, target).
The “design:paramtypes” input is used in order to know which type are the function params (as mention earlier in this post).
To see it all wired together checkout the playable example.
Summing it up, dependency injection IMO is a technique worth knowing, it has many advantages as we saw and keeps our code cleaner and looser, but not every system needs a DI framework, a small system (or library) designed loosely will probably won't need it.
Cheers!
Liron
(Liron’s team is hiring- and you are welcome to join her. See open positions here). | https://sentinelone-tech.medium.com/dependency-injection-in-typescript-from-scratch-d1a4422043a0 | ['Sentinelone Tech'] | 2020-09-21 15:40:36.721000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Frontend', 'Computer Science', 'Cybersecurity', 'Code'] |
JavaScript : ES6 or Modern JavaScript Crash Course | 🔥🔥🔥🔥
One must know the ES6 or Modern JavaScript Concepts before you working on Angular or React
Learn Essential ES6 Crash Course in just one Hour with all practical scenarios.
New ES6 syntax
00:00 Introduction to ES6
00:40 Let keyword
04:12 Const keyword
04:45 Default Parameters
07:13 Rest Operator
09:06 Spread Operator
11:10 Object Literal
13:20 Template Literal
15:16 for of
Destructuring
17:02 Array Destructuring
22:12 Obect Destructuring
Modules in JavaScript
25:43 Modules in Javascript
25:46 What is Modules ?
26:05 Create Module
27:27 Export function constructor and functions
28:26 Import Module
Class in JavaScript
31:40 Need of class in JavaScript
33:50 Create an Object of Class
35:40 Getter & Setter
38:53 Inheritance in Javascript
Arrow Functions
45:40 Introduction to Arrow functions
46:12 Create Arrow Function
46:53 With Single Parameter
47:15 With Zero Parameter
48:02 How this works in Arrow functions
53:57 Arguments with Arrow functions
55:13 When to use arrow functions
Promise in JavaScript
55:36 Introduction to Promise
55:42 What is Promise ?
56:24 Life cycle of Promise
57:22 Crete Promise
1:01 Consuming Promise
1:05:00 Catching Error
1:06:21 Finally
1:06:42 Attach handlers
1:07:51 Chaining Promise | https://medium.com/@codequicklearner/javascript-es6-crash-course-c34ee8796c02 | [] | 2021-09-04 06:14:57.259000+00:00 | ['Beginner', 'JavaScript', 'Angular', 'React', 'ES6'] |
The Middle East needs pluralism, not deeper trenches | Güven Sak
I had written this piece in May 2017. More than three years ago. It was right after President Trump’s sword-dancing visit to Riyadh. It has become more valid after the signing of the Abraham Accord. If Joe Biden is thinking about where to start from in the Middle East, the idea looks simple, if you ask me: The Middle East needs pluralism not deeper trenches… (11/20/2020)
When I was in Kabul years ago, I was positively surprised to see a branch of the Agha Khan Foundation working on building a cellphone network. Last week, the foundation established the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa. Its objective is to create a global platform for comparative analysis, learning and dialogue on the importance of diversity, both in Canada and around the world. I see this as a very timely endeavor — and very important for the Middle East. Anyone looking for a way to integrate the Middle East into the global economy first needs to focus on how to instill an appreciation of pluralism there.
But following the adventures of Donald the Trump this week, I caught myself thinking that maybe the West needs a refresher on this point too. With his half-baked proposals, the president needs a lesson in Middle Eastern history. The Middle East needs more pluralism and fewer trenches, but Trump’s visit sent just the opposite signal: Less pluralism, more trenches. Despite the focus on Israeli-Palestinian peace, this could be a big problem.
Compare President Trump’s first visit to the Middle East with that of President Obama in 2009. Obama first came to Ankara, then flew to Cairo. His speech there was remarkable. “We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist,” is the most memorable line from the speech. He promised us a new Middle East with fewer trenches, but American promises were half-baked at that time too. The last two decades have been an uninterrupted lesson in the limits of American power to shape events in this part of the world. Obama was no exception. Now President Trump came to Riyadh and put forward a completely different vision for the Middle East. His vision is such that I hope President Trump will be at least as ineffectual as his immediate predecessors in delivering on his promises.
Trump seemed to reinforce the sectarian divide in the Middle East. His proposal is not about an Arab NATO or an Islamic NATO, but rather a Sunni NATO, or a Sunni security alliance of some sort. The Middle East needs less, not more sectarianism, and yet the American president embarks on his first regional tour with a totally sectarian message.
I am not proposing that we forget the significance of the sectarian divide in our region. We in Turkey are well aware that geography is destiny. Yet we also know that this is the age of integrating Muslims into the global system. To do this, we need to go beyond sectarianism, and that can only be done by understanding the value of diversity in our region. Our forefathers in Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo and most of all in Istanbul knew that. That is how they established great empires.
And that’s where Turkey is important as a source of inspiration in this century. Turkey is not a country the Shia of our region look up to. That’s Iran’s turf. Turkey is not also a country the Sunnis look up to. Egypt can take a leading role there. Can Saudi Arabia have a stake in this race? I do not think so. What Turkey can offer to the Muslim world is a pluralistic life under the umbrella of secularism. The future of this region lies in more secularism, more pluralism and fewer trenches. Secularism is all about valuing diversity and embracing pluralism. That is what President Erdoğan meant when he told a Qatari newspaper that there is no problem with secularism and Islam living side by side.
Half-baked ideas are always dangerous. We saw problems created by half-baked Obama policies in Libya and Syria. They are now imminent dangers to the Middle East, and this new half-baked idea of a SunniNATO could also be dangerous.
The Global Centre for Pluralism (@GlobalPluralism) needs to take a closer look at the Middle East.
This commentary was published in Hürriyet Daily News on 27.05.2017 | https://medium.com/@guvsak/the-middle-east-needs-pluralism-not-deeper-trenches-52d53a915494 | ['Güven Sak'] | 2020-11-20 05:53:36.373000+00:00 | ['Biden', 'Trump', 'Sunni Shia Conflict', 'Middle East', 'Israel Palestine Conflict'] |
Installing PostgreSQL using Source Code | This is a guide for beginners and also a memo for myself, if I forget how to install PostgreSQL using source code in future. So lets begin.
Ever since I stared learning server side programming, I have seen other developers use Postgresql for almost all of their projects. Because it is the best open-source relational database for most projects, whether it is development or production.
What’s most tedious is the installation process of the postgres. You might find the documentation confusing unless you have experience compiling source codes using make .
Basically this guide is for those beginners who started their projects in Javascript or Python , and want to replace their Sqlite3 or mongodb databsase with PostgreSQL. This guide considers that you are using some distribution of linux, and you can follow along even if you are a mac user.
Download the latest Source file:
Example version: 13.1
https://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/<version>/postgresql-<version>.tar.gz
Extract the downloaded file:
tar xf postgresql-<version>.tar.gz
cd into the extracted directory:
cd postgresql-<version>
Now configure the source:
./configure --prefix=<absolute-path-to-this-directory> --without-readline --without-zlib
Example: ./configure --prefix=/home/user/Downloads/postgresql-13.1/ --without-readline --without-zlib
--prefix=DIRNAME << Install all files under the directory PREFIX instead of /usr/local/pgsql .
The actual files will be installed into various sub-directories; no files will ever be installed directly into the PREFIX directory.
--without-readline << Prevents use of the Readline library (and libedit as well). This option disables command-line editing and history in psql .
--without-zlib << Prevents use of the Zlib library. This disables support for compressed archives in pg_dump and pg_restore.
(you can omit those flags if you want)
Once you configure using the above command, the postgres configure program will run some checks on your system for compatibility and hardware specs.
After configure, start make to compile the postgres:
make
Now this will usually take ≥15 minutes depending on your system configurations. So make yourself a coffee, or probably just for fun go through postgresql’s docs for postgresql queries and commands.
After source is compiled, install the postgresql.
But before that, make sure you check the compilation:
make check
Hopefully everything should be good, then install:
make install
This won’t take as long as make did.
Now we should have postgres installed.
So lets check.
Make a folder called data inside the /postgresql-<version> directory
mkdir data
and initialize the data directory:
su postgres -c “./bin/pg_ctl initdb -D data”
this will prompt for a password to be set, set your favourite password
Now we must start the postgres server so your applications can connect to it
type this to start
su postgres -c “./bin/pg_ctl start -D data”
(reuse the command and replace start with stop , to stop the server)
you can customize the port by passing -port=<port> (default is 5432 )
Enter the PSQL through shell:
su postgres -c “./bin/psql”
You now will be able to interact with the postgres database.
Remember the coffee break, where I asked you to go through the useful queries and commands, this is where its useful.
But, if you just drank the coffee, here’s a gist full of basic commands, PostgreSQL
Finally, you can quit the psql shell using \q ,
read help docs using \h
Ok Bye. | https://medium.com/@manish-sharma2464/the-elephant-in-the-postgresql-ee252f28fa98 | ['Manish Sharma'] | 2021-01-22 15:36:43.323000+00:00 | ['Postgres', 'Python', 'JavaScript', 'Database', 'Sql'] |
Why I Write | Poetry gives me a voice when my heart has no words.
Poetry forges connections between people, many of whom will never meet in real life. Poetry is an expression of our unique human nature, told through the words of an individual in a single moment. Just like an artist might use watercolor to capture the view outside their window, I use poetry to express my relationship with the world around me and the people in it, one moment at a time.
Sometimes the darkest parts of ourselves make the most beautiful poetry.
It’s impossible to lie to yourself when you write poetry. Writing poetry is the art of dissecting the soul. We poke and prod and pull back all the little flaps of tissue trying to figure out how it all works. What makes it tick? What give it life? As a poet, our understanding of the soul is revealed as we put words to the blank page. This cannot be done if we do not embrace our darkness.
Embracing our darkness, accepting it as an essential part of what it means to be human, and then using it as a tool for growth is at the heart of being a poet.
My words are my truth.
The words I write are my own personal truth. They are meant to be a bridge between the writer and the reader who comes to the realization that we all have shared experiences, maybe thousands of miles and many years apart, but we are able to share in that “ah ha” moment and know that we are not alone. | https://medium.com/@hereisme/why-i-write-17462bc6968a | [] | 2020-12-04 01:37:20.215000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Personal Essay', 'Poetry'] |
CARTOON: Bookstore | Cartoonist’s Note №1
I don’t go to bookstores anymore. I’m allergic to potpourri.
Cartoonist’s Note №2
Like this cartoon? You can now buy the print — or get it on a coffee mug, t-shirt, etc.
About the Artist
Rolli is the author of four books for adults and children, including The Sea-Wave and Kabungo. His cartoons and illustrations have appeared in Reader’s Digest, The Wall Street Journal, The Saturday Evening Post and other top venues. Visit Rolli’s website, follow him on Twitter, and subscribe to his new one-man Medium magazine, Rolli.
HELP!
Medium’s unexpected new change in the way it compensates members of its Partner Program rewards creators of long, padded articles, and essentially demonetizes shorter content. As nearly all of my posts are poetry, cartoons, or efficient fiction/essays, I’m faring very poorly under this new system. Since the change was implemented, my Partner Program earnings have plummeted by 90%, and hundreds of others are in the boat. If you want to help, send an email to Medium CEO Ev Williams ([email protected]) and/or to [email protected] expressing your displeasure with the changes. Slowly re-reading this post 100 times would also help enormously ;) So would buying me a coffee.
If you enjoyed this cartoon, you might like these ones, too: | https://medium.com/pillowmint/cartoon-bookstore-82f0c9748ee1 | ['Rolli', 'Https', 'Ko-Fi.Com Rolliwrites'] | 2020-01-28 04:21:37.560000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Life', 'Books', 'Comics', 'Cartoon'] |
Doesn’t it apply to all good/bad postings? | Doesn’t it apply to all good/bad postings? Not saying there wrong, there very helpful to learn something quickly and to compare benefits for two or more subjects, but they can also limit you to be creative and limit you to find a fitting solution for something that needs new and refreshing icons, colors, typography or any other design element.
Sometimes you got to break the rules and make new once and sometimes you have to follow them to get to your intended goal.
It’s al about the timing of the project, the intended business goals and standing out with your brand for me.
Let this also be different for each designer, right? This makes each of us unique in style and approach.
Non the less good article, thank you, keep it up✌️🙂 | https://medium.com/@joostengelen/doesnt-it-apply-to-all-good-bad-postings-665abcdbbf9d | ['Joost Engelen'] | 2020-12-23 07:12:25.705000+00:00 | ['Ui Ux Design', 'Design Process', 'Design', 'Graphic Design', 'UI'] |
1932 Ford Victoria: Bring A Trailer Is Bringing Back The Nefarious Side Of The ‘30s | Beyond this dark and intriguing history, Ford’s cars from the era were masterpieces in design and style. To this day, these sleekly appointed cars, when well preserved and correctly restored, bring back a nostalgia that few other vehicles can. One such example of this was recently posted for sale on Bring a Trailer and it does not disappoint.
This 1932 Ford Victoria was a part of the DeAtley Collection in 2010, when the current owner acquired it. Today it is finished in black with red pinstriping and red bent-spoke wheels. Under the hood is the infamous 221-cid Flathead V8 paired with a 3-speed manual transmission. Inside is a well equipped cabin featuring a gray broadcloth upholstery, a glossy wood trimmed dash, and an engine turned instrument panel.
No matter how perfect a design is from the factory there is always room for improvement and this 1932 Ford Victoria is no exception. Upgrades to the classic car include a dropped front axle, front radius rods, a billet steering column bracket, Westach gauges, modern spark plug wires, and an aftermarket puller fan. Other features include transverse leaf springs, four-wheel hydraulic drum brakes, an Offenhauser intake manifold, and dual Stromberg carburetors.
With just 1,700-miles on the clock since the refurbishment was concluded this car is not offered on dealer consignment in Oregon with a clean Arizona title. For more information click here.
Avant-Garde is well-known as an award-winning, top seller (@911r) on Bring a Trailer. We provide turnkey auction management for our clients. Avant-Garde presents cars in an unparalleled fashion, with a comprehensive history, descriptions, photos, and video for each vehicle. We want to put buyers in the virtual driver’s seat so they can experience a vehicle as if they were present, giving them confidence in their purchase. | https://medium.com/motorious/1932-ford-victoria-bring-a-trailer-is-bringing-back-the-nefarious-side-of-the-30s-60654ace1cfb | ['Sam Maven'] | 2021-06-08 12:30:03.490000+00:00 | ['American', 'Classic', 'Client', 'Handpicked'] |
How to Install wordpress on IBM cloud | Step 1 provision Kubernetes Cluster
· Click the Catalog button on the top
· Select Service from the catalog
· Search for Kubernetes Service and click on it
· You are now at the Kubernetes deployment page, you need to specify some details about the cluster
· Choose a plan standard or free, the free plan only has one worker node and no subnet, to provision a standard cluster, you will need to upgrade you account to Pay-As-You-Go
· To upgrade to a Pay-As-You-Go account, complete the following steps:
· In the console, go to Manage > Account.
· Select Account settings, and click Add credit card.
· Enter your payment information, click Next, and submit your information
· Choose classic or VPC, read the docs and choose the most suitable type for yourself
Now choose your location settings, for more information please visit Locations
Choose Geography (continent)
Choose Single or Multizone, in single zone your data is only kept in on datacenter, on the other hand with Multizone it is distributed to multiple zones, thus safer in an unforseen zone failure
If you wish to use Multizone please set up your account with VRF or enable Vlan spanning
If at your current location selection, there is no available Virtual LAN, a new Vlan will be created for you
Choose a Worker node setup or use the preselected one, set Worker node amount per zone
Choose Master Service Endpoint , In VRF-enabled accounts, you can choose private-only to make your master accessible on the private network or via VPN tunnel. Choose public-only to make your master publicly accessible. When you have a VRF-enabled account, your cluster is set up by default to use both private and public endpoints. For more information visit endpoints.
, In VRF-enabled accounts, you can choose private-only to make your master accessible on the private network or via VPN tunnel. Choose public-only to make your master publicly accessible. When you have a VRF-enabled account, your cluster is set up by default to use both private and public endpoints. For more information visit endpoints. Give cluster a name
Give desired tags to your cluster, for more information visit tags
to your cluster, for more information visit tags Click create
Wait for you cluster to be provisioned
Your cluster is ready for usage
Step 2 deploy IBM Cloud Block Storage plug-in
The Block Storage plug-in is a persistent, high-performance iSCSI storage that you can add to your apps by using Kubernetes Persistent Volumes (PVs).
Click the Catalog button on the top
button on the top Select Software from the catalog
from the catalog Search for IBM Cloud Block Storage plug-in and click on it
· On the application page Click in the dot next to the cluster, you wish to use
· Click on Enter or Select Namespace and choose the default Namespace or use a custom one (if you get error please wait 30 minutes for the cluster to finalize)
Give a name to this workspace
to this workspace Click install and wait for the deployment
Step 3 deploy WordPress
We will deploy WordPress on our cluster
Click the Catalog button on the top
button on the top Select Software from the catalog
from the catalog Search for WordPress and click on it
Please select IBM Kubernetes Service
On the application page Click in the dot next to the cluster, you wish to use
Click on Enter or Select Namespace and choose the default Namespace or use a custom one
Give a unique name to workspace, which you can easily recognize
· Select which resource group you want to use, it’s for access control and billing purposes. For more information please visit resource groups
Give tags to your WordPress, for more information visit tags
to your WordPress, for more information visit tags Click on Parameters with default values , You can set deployment values or use the default ones
, You can set deployment values or use the default ones Please set the WordPress password in the parameters
After finishing everything, tick the box next to the agreements and click install
the box next to the agreements and click The WordPress workspace will start installing, wait a couple of minutes
Your WordPress workspace has been successfully deployed
Verify WordPress installation
· Go to Resources in your browser
· Click on Clusters
· Click on your Cluster
Now you are at you clusters overview, here Click on Actions and Web terminal from the dropdown menu
Click install — wait couple of minutes
Click on Actions
Click Web terminal → a terminal will open up
Type in the terminal, please change NAMESPACE to the namespace you choose at the deployment setup:
$ kubectl get ns
$ kubectl get pod -n NAMESPACE -o wide $ kubectl get service -n NAMESPACE | https://medium.com/@chiragdeol/installing-wordpress-on-ibm-cloud-7ceea8e6f5ce | ['Chirag Deol'] | 2020-12-15 09:02:44.645000+00:00 | ['WordPress', 'IBM'] |
In love with him | One of the most wonderful things about women is how naturally caring they are.Look at you. You’re always there for your guy. You look after him. You always make time for him. You’d do anything for him.You never realize that, in the process…You’re actually taking something away from him. You’re taking away his purpose.You see, he wants to be your hero. He doesn’t want you to be his hero.
He doesn’t want you to be his hero.
Men love heroes. Look at how many grown men are still fascinated by Marvel comics and superhero movies.
Every man on Earth, from the time he was a boy, dreamed of growing up to be the kind of hero who would save the world — and get the girl at the same time.
Most men don’t get to indulge their world-saving side in their 9–5 jobs.
Circumstances don’t call for them to rip off their corporate ties and spring into action, revealing their superman side. Maybe they can’t save the world. But they can still get the girl.
Getting the girl is a worthy challenge for an ordinary guy with the heart of a superhero. It takes superhuman confidence. Superhuman charm. Superhuman immunity to pain. Now, all he needs to find is…
A girl who needs a hero. Do You Need a Hero? Let me guess… That’s not you.
You’re strong. You’re independent. You can fix a leaky faucet. You can drive a stick shift. You can take care of yourself. You’re never going to make that Jerry Maguire mistake of looking for a man to complete you.
Instead, you have a lot to offer a man. You’re generous. Kind. Loving. Giving to a fault. All you want is to find a man who’s willing to receive all you have to give.
And that’s why heroes aren’t showing up in your life. That’s why you’ve ended up with so many takers instead. Guys who take everything you have and leave you high and dry. If you want a hero, then you need to advertise for one. Here’s how. Just CLICK HERE | https://medium.com/@amy.benson/in-love-with-him-995e0592aac5 | ['Amy Benson'] | 2020-06-15 19:28:04.025000+00:00 | ['Love', 'I Love Him', 'Lovestory', 'Love Letters', 'Love And Sex'] |
Can You Believe Your Eyes? | Were you aware that you see in black and white in low light. Most do not realise this. But next time you get up in the middle of the night in a darkened bedroom, have a look around. You will see only black and white – no colours. Now scan your eyes over the hero image for this article, above. Let your eyes wander over it. The discs appear to be moving, but they are not – it is a static image.
Everyone loves optical illusions. To be clear, an illusion is an erroneous mental representation of something. Colour is no exception, of course, so here’s some optical illusions for you that perfectly illustrate our vagaries in perceiving colour.
The insight gained through optical illusions is incredibly important in design, allowing for improved palettes and application, which I cover in my latest book Colour in User Interface Design, available on Amazon or for direct purchase of the ePUB. The book delves into cones and rods (the cells in the eye that detect colour and brightness, respectively) how they function, and how you can use that information effectively in design. But, for the purposes of this article, consider the following illusions as pure entertainment.
Take a look at the image below. The grey square on the left is clearly darker, right? Wrong. Both squares are the same shade of grey. To prove it, hold your finger up to cover the join in the middle.
In fact, the left-hand square has a darker shadow on its right edge. And the right-hand square has a lighter shadow on its left edge. These shadows convince us that the image is 3D. But it isn’t, of course. Our brains are perceiving 3D, so fool us into thinking the squares are shaded appropriately. This is known as the Cornsweet Illusion. Another famous example of this is the Adelson Checker Shadow illusion. If you look at the image below, it is easy to see that square A is darker than square B.
Now let’s cast a shadow over square B, as shown in the image below. Square A still looks darker than square B, but in fact they are the same shade of grey. Don’t take my word for it – measure the colour of both squares with a colour picker!
Why does this illusion happen? The brain uses relative colour and shading to determine what you think to be the colour of objects in an image (and in the real world). Your brain perceives that the cylinder casts a shadow and makes the spurious assumption about the effect of the light source. It is bogus, but there is no correction for it; the squares will always appear to be different shades.
So much for the rods. Cones are also easily misled. Below are two examples of how colours appear when shown in proximity to other colours. In both examples, the small square is actually the same colour, left and right. But we perceive that colour very differently depending on the colour that surrounds it. These experiments (and many similar ones) were devised by Josef Albers (more on him in my book). There is no trick going on, here. It just a breathtakingly brilliant piece of analysis and experimentation to prove that colour is not always what we think it is.
We can take this proximity of colours to the next level by introducing foreground and background stripes. Take a look at the image of six discs, below. You’re probably seeing an alternating pattern of purple and yellow discs.
But what if I told you that those discs are exactly the same colour? In fact, all six discs are dark pink (#E51C76). This is proven by taking away half of the stripes, as shown in the second image, below. So why does this illusion happen? Well, if you look very closely you’ll see that there are two sets of vertical stripes, green and blue. When the blue stripes are in front of a disc, and the green behind, the disc appears purple. But when the green stripes are in front of a disc, and the blue behind, it appears yellow.
Cone receptors in the eye are also very sensitive to shape and form, as well as hue. Some colours and shapes can be so vivid that the cones continue to fire even after we close our eyes or look away. Additionally, cones can get tired if you stare at brightly coloured image for too long – the cones receive the same unchanging stimulus and basically stop responding. Let’s put that to the test. Stare at the animated image of the flag below. Let your eyes drop out of focus, but keep them trained on the centre of the image, without moving your eyes around – almost hypnotically. After 20 seconds the image will change to plain white.
Gaze at the image for a full 20 seconds before it changes to white.
If you completed the exercise, you will have seen a red, white and blue flag on the white paper. It will not have been that sharp, but it was there. And the longer you stare at an image in this way, the longer the afterimage on the paper will persist.
So what’s going on?
Take the case of the cyan stripes, whilst remembering that cones detect red, green and blue. The green and blue cones got tired and stopped responding after a while, leaving only the red ones ready to fire (ready, but not yet activated, because there is no red in the image). Then the image changed to white. White contains all the spectral colours, so although your eyes were receiving red, green and blue from the white card, the green and blue cones were still not responding because they were tired. Only the red cones responded, so the ghosted stripes on the white card looked red. The same thing happened with your rods. But since they are only sensitive to black and white, the black stars and stripes inverted to white.
This also works will complex images, of course. Repeat the same exercise with the animated photo below. Focus on the black dot in the centre. Again, let your eyes fall out of focus, but don’t take them off the dot. After 20 seconds the image changes – keep your eyes trained on the dot. You will see coloured buildings and trees. But after a while, you’ll begin to realise that the second photo is actually black and white.
Stare at the black dot for 20 seconds. When the image changes keep your eyes on the dot.
Here’s another one for you. Repeat the same exercise with the photo below and, once the photo changes, you’ll see a blue sky, green grass and coloured buildings. These effects are all present in UI design as well.
Stare at the black dot for 20 seconds. When the image changes keep your eyes on the dot.
Finally, an example of how the rods in your eyes lack detail. Look at the image below. Find a black dot and let yours eyes rest on it. All the other black dots disappear (since they are in your peripheral vision). Now move your eyes to another black dot, and the others will once again disappear.
These examples are not trick images – rather they are our brains playing tricks on us. It is the human brain trying to make sense of the world for us. Let’s not forget that the lens in the eye inverts images – it is the brain that converts what we see from being upside down to the right way up.
But sometimes our brains get it wrong. Knowing that – and how to to design for it – is very powerful. | https://medium.com/sketch-app-sources/can-you-believe-your-eyes-38ba29421426 | ['Colin Shanley'] | 2020-11-10 20:16:24.137000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'UI Design', 'Optical Illusion', 'Colour', 'Colors'] |
Women Leaders Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights In Pakistan | Dr Syed Azizur Rab — CEO Greenstar Social Marketing Pakistan
On June 9th 2020 amidst the Covid 19 lockdown, Greenstar Social Marketing sponsored the only country panel on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights at International Leadership associations’ s online conference “ Leading Differently” (http://ila-net.org/)
Sexual and reproductive health and Rights are related to human rights, including the right to life, the right to be free from torture, the right to health, the right to privacy, the right to education, and the prohibition of discrimination. Although all segments of Pakistani society suffer from a lack of awareness and access, the focus of this session remained on women and girl due to the inequalities they face and due to the current pandemic which has made these inequalities more visible and evident.
The session highlighted the history of women’s struggle to attain basic rights paving the way for more organized sexual and reproductive health movement. Right after independence in 1947 , the struggle for women’s rights was scattered and slow. The most outstanding woman in this initial struggle was the first, first lady , Ra’ana Liaquat Ali. She formed a large number of women’s organizations which attended to women welfare and legal reforms on women’s rights. The first dictatorship of Ayub Khan gave women a few rights with regard to marriage, the custody of children, divorce and registration of marriages and divorces. There was a proliferation of women’s organizations in the 1960s and 1970s. The 1973 Constitution gave more rights to women than in the past. Article 25 of rights declared that every citizen was equal before law and Article 25 (2) said there would be no discrimination based on sex alone. Article 27 stated that there would be no discrimination on the basis of race, religion, caste or sex for appointment in the service of Pakistan. Article 32 of the Basic Principles of State Policy guaranteed reservation of seats for women, and article 35 stipulated that the state shall protect marriage, family and mother and child. Hence in the seventies many women rose to prominent positions which raised women’s status. Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali became Governor of one of the provinces, a woman educationist, Kaniz Yousaf was made the Vice-Chancellor of a university and Begum Ashraf Abbasi was elected as the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly.
While all these reforms were taking place, the military dictatorship of Zia-ul Haq came as a so called attempt to Islamize. Radical changes were made in the curricula, policies, the media and the judiciary. Women became a victim of most of these radical changes. The entire legal structure was used to support discrimination against women and non-Muslim citizens leading to confrontation, contest and protest.
With the return of democracy through election of Benazir Bhutto’s two stints in government (1988–1990 and 1993–1996) some women-friendly measures were taken. The decade of the 1990s witnessed the mass proliferation of non governmental organizations funded by western countries leading to rapid developments on women’s rights to labor, environment, sustainable development, child rights, sexual and reproductive health, family planning and so on. Although there is still a lot to achieve considerable gains have been made. Many women are now playing a leading role in Government as ministers and advisors, young women have joined hands and there have been considerable gains over last 20 years.
Greenstar Social Marketing is very thankful to all the women leaders who partnered with Greenstar in telling this story at an international forum and reaffirms its commitment to development of women and girls in Pakistan.
Dr Qudsia Uzma — World Health Organization Pakistan
Key messages from the panelists:
“Reproductive health is a fundamental human right. It is a fundamental means of achieving any development goal such as reducing poverty and improving long-term health. Achieving Reproductive Health and Rights is dependent on the recognition of specific human rights. In Pakistan, many women and young people in face barriers that prevent them from exercising their rights. Denying these rights have resulted in grave consequences such as exacerbation of poverty and inequality. It has led to vulnerabilities to gender-related ill health, unintended pregnancies, maternal death, harmful cultural practices are evident from its high maternal mortality ratios, adolescent birth rates and unmet need for contraception. Many Pakistan’s women have dared to break the conspiracy of silence about these issues, about unequal relationships between men and women. They have pursued movements and strategies for acquiring rights not only for women but for everyone facing inequalities. There have almost always been some backlash against women who wish to empower themselves. They have been blamed of following and imposing a foreign agenda. Yet women have made a mark in politics, women rights movements and SRHR movements. Many women are now playing a leading role in Government as ministers and advisors, young women have joined hands and there have been considerable gains over last 10 years. Greenstar aims to tell the story of this struggle and to highlight Pakistan’s positive image. Our real leaders are women in fore front working in field going house to house to spread awareness on Sexual and Reproductive health and rights and bridging gap between communities and services” — Dr Syed Azizur Rab, CEO Greenstar Social Marketing Pakistan
Dr Yasmeen Sabih Qazi — Senior Advocacy Consultant on Family Planning, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
“History is witness about the role of women leaders in leading the change that impacts social norms, SRHR/FP field being one of those. What is important to understand is that women’s rights and reproductive health are vitally important in their own right, as a matter of public health and social justice. They can help slow population growth and help ensure a sustainable future. If women are given contraceptive tools and information, they’ll limit the size of their families of their own free choice, and that makes their families healthier, wealthier, and better able to thrive in a climate-changed world ”— Dr Yasmeen Sabih Qazi — Senior Advocacy Consultant Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“The ILA session brought together an interesting kaleidoscope of experiences, individual journeys of women to policy leadership in health, role being played by our youth as well as our male allies. The rich discussion teased multiple issues and concerns faced by women leaders in the realm of sexual and reproductive health. While many ideas resonated with me, my three key take-away for aspiring women leaders in particular would be: a) to un-apologetically and consistently pursue excellence while being extraordinarily vigilant of our moral compasses, b) to make room for women at every stage and phase of life, especially the youth who are the harbingers of change today, and c) to develop and nurture strategic and diverse alliances and coalitions”. — Dr Shabnum Sarfaraz Member Planning Commission | Visiting Scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health The session was inclusive of youth representation Laraib Abid is Founder — Executive Director MASHAL working on Sexual & Reproductive Health and Rights Focusing Family Planning. According to Laraib “Young women need to be passionate about the health component because a lot of its sub-components are being stereotyped as ‘Immoral’ or ‘unethical’ to talk about. We need to modify these perceptions. Making people aware and trying to brainstorm is the first step. Providing rights and negotiating on the policies, is the next phase. Young people need to be empowered so that they can help themselves”.
Meet some of our Frontline women leaders from Lyari Karachi in the videos below.
https://www.greenstar.org.pk/ | https://medium.com/@sanadurvesh/women-leaders-advancing-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-in-pakistan-1cf6d2d5f226 | ['Sana Durvesh'] | 2020-07-07 17:19:00.914000+00:00 | ['Sexual Health', 'Reproductive Health', 'Women Leadership', 'Pakistan', 'Womens Rights'] |
Cosmic | Unseen, black holes swallow galaxies,
shield singular secrets from sight.
Infinite space, boundless time,
but not for you, dirt-born,
gravity-cocooned,
dead in a blink,
dreaming of
azure
skies. | https://medium.com/the-junction/cosmic-2b18e999c0a5 | ['Hannah Whiteoak'] | 2018-07-25 20:16:18.095000+00:00 | ['Space', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Astronomy', 'Poetry', 'Poem'] |
Three Organizations Fighting the Poverty Crisis in Lebanon | As the crises in Lebanon continue to mount, organizations are stepping in to mitigate the chaos.
According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), extreme poverty shot up 15 percent from 2019 with now 55 percent of the population struggling to pay for basic life essentials.
Recent financial mishandlings, wealth disparity, a refugee crisis in Syria, a COVID shutdown, and a massive explosion in Beirut piled up on Lebanon’s people in quick succession. International non-profits from around the world are now responding to help alleviate the crisis.
World Food Programme –
The World Food Programme (WFP), a branch of the United Nations dedicated to combating world hunger, has established a presence in Lebanon since 2012. Working in partnership with government authorities and the private sector, they gave food packages to more than 13,000 students’ families as a response to the COVID lockdown.
After many were left without homes in the aftermath of the Beirut explosions, WFP provided food assistance to 5,000 families that were in vulnerable conditions. In addition, meals were distributed to both victims of the explosion and to volunteers that responded to the blasts.
United Mission for Relief and Development –
United Mission for Relief and Development (UMF) also works to serve the nearly one third of Lebanese citizens living in poverty. Since coming in to assist Lebanon’s economic turmoil since October 2019, UMF has replaced home infrastructure and distributed food rations to those in need.
UMF is addressing the inflation and scarcity of basic goods in part due to the Beirut explosion. Hospitals and medical clinics need supplies and oftentimes cannot supply those resources on their own. The organization works to provide emergency medical kits for those affected by the recent tragedy.
American Near East Refugee Aid –
American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) turns its full attention towards serving the 1.7 million refugees from Syria and Palestinian territories living in the country. According to the UNHCR, Lebanon has more Syrian refugees per capita than anywhere else in the world.
These refugees must live in decades-old tent settlements and abandoned buildings due to their legal and social status. They also face pay discrimination and educational barriers, and Anera works to alleviate all these issues. Among other initiatives, the non-profit uses its donor base to improve waste management facilities and educate thousands of refugees with valuable skills to enter the job market.
Many other organizations are taking steps to improve conditions for the millions of impoverished people barely surviving in Lebanon. The most efficient way for people to help Lebanon is to donate to groups actively in the field amidst all the emergencies plaguing the nation. | https://medium.com/@zacharysherry/three-organizations-fighting-the-poverty-crisis-in-lebanon-eeea227b49bb | ['Zachary Sherry'] | 2020-12-10 17:50:47.011000+00:00 | ['Refugees', 'Lebanon', 'Middle East', 'Crisis', 'Poverty'] |
Moderna confirms the MOH agreement to supply COVID-19 vaccine to Singapore | On Tuesday (Dec 15), Moderna said it had reached an agreement with the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Singapore to supply the country with mRNA-1273, its COVID-19 vaccine.
The agreement will “support ongoing efforts to secure access to a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine for the people of Singapore” the biotechnology company said.
The quantity of dosages and the financial details of the arrangement were not disclosed.
“We recognize that it will take a number of vaccines and therapeutic options to address this global pandemic, and we are proud of the role Moderna has played in this global effort,” said CEO Stephane Bancel.
Data from a Phase 3 study involving 30,000 U.S. participants showed 94.1% effectiveness against COVID-19 and a 100% success rate in the prevention of serious cases the company said.
From 2021, the company expects to be able to produce 500 million to 1 billion vaccine doses each year.
The vaccine remains stable at room temperature for up to 12 hours and at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, the temperature of a regular refrigerator, for up to 30 days. The vaccine remains stable for up to six months at -20 degrees Celsius.
On Friday, Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine received U.S. emergency-use approval. On Thursday, an outside advisory panel of the US Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to review the Moderna vaccine, with emergency use expected to be granted shortly afterwards.
On Monday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that Singapore has approved the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, with the first shipment due to arrive in the country by the end of this year.
Other vaccines are also expected to arrive in Singapore in the coming months and if everything goes according to plan, there will be enough vaccines for everyone by the third quarter of next year, he said in a televised address.
“Multiple bets” were made by the government to sign advance purchasing agreements and make early down payments for the most successful candidates for the vaccine, said Mr Lee. This included deals with Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac, with these deals set aside for more than S$1 billion. | https://medium.com/@tasianaffairs/moderna-confirms-the-moh-agreement-to-supply-covid-19-vaccine-to-singapore-2836a59e5528 | ['The Asian Affairs'] | 2020-12-15 16:36:05.816000+00:00 | ['Asean', 'Singapore'] |
5 Useful Strategies to Plan Your Day | In this article, we are going to talk about the various strategies that have been tried and tested by various sources from all over the organizational paradigm, and they have benefited from them.
Let’s discuss 5 of them in detail.
5 Useful Tips to Plan Your Day
Here’s the list of tips that we are going to talk about in this article.
1. Write Down Your Plan Daily
Planning your day is not an activity that can be completely figured out in a single day. It needs time and many different iterations before you get it just right.
This is why to keep a record of your thoughts; you need to make a write-up of all of the ideas and make sure that you do this every day.
Writing out your day plans is also an important strategy to improve your time management. How? Well, when you jot down all of your ideas every day, it will free up your mind to think about other important things about your life, and not waste time thinking about these ideas over and over again.
The best way to do this thought storage process is to use a note-taking app or use a planning tool that can help you plan out your thoughts into an actual plan to spend your day.
Here’s a list of different note-taking and planning apps to help you in this process.
2. Keep one specific time to plan your day
When you do anything at a specific time throughout the week, month, or even a year, you create a habit. When these habits are put to good use, you can create a sort of route for yourself which helps you keep on track whenever you are falling off the rails.
That’s why you need to make this planning process a habit. When you make this a habit, you can plan more efficiently and seamlessly no matter how distracted or tired you are on any specific day.
A good example of a planning habit is to make sure that you plan your next day at night. Why? Because at night you are going to have complete information about all of the possible distractions that can potentially derail you from your course the next day, and you can plan around them.
It’s just an example, not a law to do that at night because not everyone has the same routine. You just need to find the specific time duration in which you are free every day and mark that time down to plan your day.
To make sure that you maintain this process and follow up on your habit every day, you can use different habit tracking apps to keep you on track.
3. Have One Daily Priority
To make your day a little exciting, you always need to have one priority activity that you have to perform before anything else. You need to train your mind in such a way that it will get excited whenever you will think about doing that activity.
According to New York Times-bestselling authors Knapp and Zeratsky,
“Begin each day by thinking about what you hope will be the bright spot. If, at the end of the day, someone asks you, ‘What was the highlight of your day?’ What’s going to be your answer to that question? When you look back at your day, what activity, or accomplishment, do you want to savor the most? That’s your Highlight.”
As you can see, this priority task is very important for your whole day’s morale, and it’s up to you if you want to perform this activity at the start of the day to make yourself feel refreshed when you start your work, or you push that activity to the end so that the last activity that you perform that day is going to be the best one.
4. Brainstorm Different Ideas and Make a To-do List
Brainstorming is an amazing strategy for a lot of different things, but when you brainstorm ideas to plan your day, it takes the whole day-planning process to a whole different level.
Just writing down the ideas that are closely related to your overall day is not enough, you also need to think outside the box.
To do that, you need to make a to-do list of all of the random ideas that pop up in your mind regarding your day. When all of the ideas are on paper, you can spend time to shape all of those ideas in a form in which they can be beneficial for you.
Your brainstorming list may include:
The deadlines that you have to meet regarding your work or personal errands
The different people that you need to contact via call or email
All of the errands that you need to run on that particular day
Different activities that were left incomplete from the previous day
Don’t worry, you are just going to brainstorm every type of idea and write it on your list, but not every entry is going to make it into your plan of the day.
5. Divide the Tasks that You Brainstorm between Life and Work
The next step after brainstorming all of the different ideas is to divide them into your work life and personal life. Not everything has to be about work, you also need to make sure that your personal life is looked after as well.
Summing It Up:
At the end of the day, there’s a lot that goes into planning. Sometimes, there are setbacks and unexpected things that disrupt plans. It’s not easy; we understand that. However, learn to improvise and you will find the aforementioned activities rather rewarding. | https://medium.com/@ntaskmanager/5-useful-strategies-to-plan-your-day-df641c857574 | [] | 2020-12-18 12:57:42.261000+00:00 | ['Planning', 'Plan Your Life', 'Planning Ahead', 'Plan Your Day', 'Planning Tools'] |
How To Sound More Like Yourself When You Write | How To Sound More Like Yourself When You Write
Use experiences, tone, interests, and expressions to let your authentic voice shine through
Illustration by Cynthia Marinakos.
“Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I first started writing on Medium, I struggled to find my writing voice.
You see, when I write copy for clients, I write with their voice. Not mine.
I use different tones for corporations, universities, not-for-profits, and professional membership organizations. These could be pre-determined by style guides, content format, or simply according to the whim of the department manager.
So when I started sharing my writing under my name, I wrote in a professional, friendly, yet impersonal tone.
But I felt unsatisfied. And as I kept reading the work of other writers, I found a crapload of generic writing out there. Writing that doesn’t sound like anyone. Writing that sounds robotic.
This type of writing doesn’t make me feel. And I want to feel. I want to feel something: happy, inspired, amused, determined… anything. I want to connect to the ideas. To the stories. To the writer. To be understood. To feel less alone.
I realized my writing did help people feel. But not enough. And it was missing something important:
Me.
I was hiding behind my words.
Finding our authentic voice in writing helps us connect with our readers — just as we connect to the people in our daily lives.
You see, it’s easy to blabber out a list of ways to do this or that. Or quote this person or that person with bits of factual, bland fillers in between. It’s easy to write copy-cat inspirational yada yadas.
But it wasn’t as easy to show myself in my words.
What a strange problem, I thought.
I was surprised and confused. I had no idea how hard it was to write with my own voice. I realized it mattered when I was helping small businesses write copy and put themselves out there.
But it never seemed as hard as doing that myself.
I swayed, fumbled, and spewed out crap that left a bad taste in my mouth. Like the morning after a big night out.
It made me think:
What makes the difference between blah and brilliant writing?
What attracts us to one writer more than another?
It’s more than whether they have a journalism degree.
It’s more than whether they’ve written a bestselling book.
It’s more than how well they stick to grammar rules.
I reckon it comes down to this:
Who do you like and trust?
Think about the people you like — why do you like them?
Is it because of what they know and what qualifications they have?
It is because of what job they had last?
Is it because they’ve achieved what we want?
How much money they have?
Or because we envy their masses of followers?
Sometimes it’s confusing. We think we should like someone. But when we dig deep down, we realize we actually don’t like them at all. And the people we do like, why do we like them?
Perhaps they give rather than take constantly.
They‘re on your wavelength.
They empathize with your day.
They make you smile.
They challenge you.
They care about you and inspire you.
They are honest, with no ulterior motives.
They say it as it is.
They follow through.
No irritating “oh look at me, my life is perfect all the time” crap. No preachy “you must”, “you should”, “you have to”.
Just a real person, with the same ups and downs we all have in life. We tend to trust people we can relate to, don’t we?
Well, it’s the same with writing.
That’s why it’s so important that you identify your voice — and write strongly, and consistently in that voice. So readers hear the real you.
If they decide they like and trust you, they’ll be more receptive to your message. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/how-to-sound-more-like-yourself-when-you-write-8065768b169a | ['Cynthia Marinakos'] | 2019-11-23 10:18:22.827000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Self Improvement', 'Marketing', 'Writing', 'Writing Tips'] |
This Week In The Economy: Surging US Daily COVID Cases, Entrenched Weak Recovery Without More Stimulus, Mixed China Growth, Housing Boom, Brexit Latest | This Week In The Economy: Surging US Daily COVID Cases, Entrenched Weak Recovery Without More Stimulus, Mixed China Growth, Housing Boom, Brexit Latest
Welcome to a regular snapshot-review of U.S. and international economic news that aims to 1) provide a window into the challenges and decisions facing businesses today, 2) determine the direction of economic policy — such as the speed at which central banks decide to raise interest rates, and 3) assess what the impact will be for consumers.
US COVID-19 Cases Approaching Summer Levels, Europe Surge Continues
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world once again rose significantly this week, with a corresponding spike in the number of deaths — 41,791,766 confirmed cases, with 12,268,206 active cases and 1,138,671 fatalities.
The outbreak in the United States continues to rage unabted — at the time of writing there were 8,498,360 confirmed cases, 2,914,394 active and 226,314 deaths.
This comes as daily coronavirus cases in the United States surge to levels not seen since the summer, with 14 states reporting peak Covid-19 hospitalizations in the past week: Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
So far this week (from October 18–22), there have been 289,657 new COVID-19 cases in the United States, compared to 249,734 during the same five-day period last week. On Thursday alone, the U.S. reported 69,299 new infections — compared to 61,025 new cases on the same day last week.
India remains in second place, and the number of confirmed cases has risen to 7,763,067. Of that number, 697,205 are active and there have been 117,365 fatalities.
Brazil is still third with 5,323,630 cases at time of writing — 388,373 active and 155,962 deaths. Russia has 1,480,646 confirmed cases, 335,870 active and 25,525 deaths.
Argentina is in fifth place with 1,053,650 cases — 173,852 active, 27,957 fatalities. Spain has moved up to sixth place with 1,026,281 confirmed cases, of that 991,760 are active cases, and 34,521 deaths.
France is surging up the list as well, and is now seventh with 999,043 cases — 856,234 of that number are active, and there have been 34,210 fatalities.
Colombia is eighth with 990,270 confirmed cases, of which 66,922 are active and 29,636 fatalities. Peru is next with 879,876 confirmed cases, 49,173 of them are active and 33,984 fatalities. Mexico rounds out the top ten with 874,171 cases — 149,886 active and 87,894 deaths.
Cases are also spiking in the United Kingdom, with a three-tier lockdown system now in place in which various regions are classified as being on “medium”, “high” or “very high” alert for outbreaks. The cushion the blow to businesses and workers located in impacted areas, UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced additional financial support starting in November:
Part-time job support scheme — for all tiers of restrictions, open businesses experiencing “considerable difficulty” will be given extra help to keep staff on as government significantly increases contribution to wage costs under the Job Support Scheme, and business contributions drop to 5%.
open businesses experiencing “considerable difficulty” will be given extra help to keep staff on as government significantly increases contribution to wage costs under the Job Support Scheme, and business contributions drop to 5%. Self-employed support — A grant for self-employed people has been doubled to 40% of usual average profits, capped at £3,750 across three months. It will run for six months from November.
A grant for self-employed people has been doubled to 40% of usual average profits, capped at £3,750 across three months. It will run for six months from November. Additional business support — Firms in Tier 3 areas (“very high” alert) will be eligible for a grant of up to £3,000 a month if affected by restrictions, even if they remain open. Hospitality, accommodation and leisure businesses in Tier 2 and 3 will be able to get additional grants of up to £2,100 a month.
Federal Reserve Official: Need More Fiscal Support To Ensure Strong Recovery
Democrat and Republican lawmakers have been unable to agree on how much additional fiscal stimulus is needed to help the economy withstand the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, a statelmate that Federal Reserve officials warn could put the recovery at risk.
In a speech this week, Federal Reserve Board member Lael Brainard noted that the $2 trillion CARES Act passed by Congress early on in the crisis “played a significant role in supporting aggregate demand in the spring and summer.”
And with “cash-constrained households” making up a large fraction of the population, more financial assistance will be needed. “With unemployment and reduced hours likely to persist, many of these households are unlikely to be able to sustain recent levels of consumption without additional fiscal support as well as extended loan forbearance and eviction moratoriums,” Brainard said.
And its not just households who need more help. She noted the many hard-hit small businesses who are struggling “as revenue shortfalls persist.” Also, state and local governments “are likely to find it more difficult to sustain employment and spending levels” the longer the outbreak lasts.
“Continued targeted support to replace lost incomes will be an important factor in determining the strength of the recovery,” Brainard said, adding “apart from the course of the virus itself, the most significant downside risk to my outlook would be the failure of additional fiscal support to materialize.”
“Too little support would lead to a slower and weaker recovery. Premature withdrawal of fiscal support would risk allowing recessionary dynamics to become entrenched, holding back employment and spending, increasing scarring from extended unemployment spells, leading more businesses to shutter, and ultimately harming productive capacity,” she warned.
Economic Activity In China Expands For Second Straight Quarter
The world’s second largest economy was one of the few to avoid going into a recession as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and data published this week confirmed China’s — albeit mixed — rebound continues.
Real GDP grew by 4.9% in the third quarter compared to a year ago, following a 3.2% jump in Q2. GDP grew by 2.7% in Q3 from Q2.
Industrial production grew by 1.2% year on year in the first three quarters of 2020, but was down by 1.3% for the first half of the year. Activity in Q3 alone grew by 5.8% year on year, 1.4 percentage points faster than Q2.
The service sector continues to lag behind, however. Activity in the sector dropped by 2.6% year on year. In the first eight months of 2020, the business revenue of large service enterprises dropped by 2.5% year on year.
As for the contribution from domestic consumption, in the first three quarters, the total retail sales of consumer goods fell by 7.2% year on year, and only grew by 0.9% in Q3 alone — the first positive quarterly growth in 2020. In September, the total retail sales rose by 3.3% year on year, the second straight month of growth. Not surprisingly, online sales remain robust; ecommerce sales were up 15.3% in September, accounting for 24.3% of total retail sales.
U.S. Data Roundup: Stubbornly-High Unemployment, Booming Housing Market
A “considerable degree of uncertainty.” That is how the Federal Reserve’s latest survey of firms around the country summarized the mood among business owners looking ahead to the next few months.
The Beige Book reported that “banking contacts in many Districts expressed concern that delinquency rates may rise in coming months,” continued deterioration in the commercial real estate market, a “leveling off” of retail sales, and slow growth in employment — with manufacturing firms reporting new furloughs and layoffs.
The U.S. Labor Department this week reported that there were 787,000 first-time applications for state unemployment benefits processed last week, following 842,000 the prior week. There were 345,440 new claims for the federal ‘Pandemic Unemployment Assistance’ program, following 337,228 the prior week. That is over 1.1 million filing for unemployment benefits for the first time!
The number of Americans continuing to receive unemployment assistance in the week ending October 10 was 8,373,000, a decrease of 1,024,000 from the previous week’s revised level. This drop is less likely due to people finding work, and more the result of eligibility for benefits programs expiring.
The total number of unemployed receiving some form of support for the week ending October 3 was 23,150,427, compared to 1,393,973 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the same week in 2019. Of that number, 10,232,853 individuals are claiming ‘Pandemic Unemployment Assistance’ benefits and 3,296,156 individuals are claiming ‘Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation’ benefits.
The Beige Book also noted in its summary the “steady demand for new and existing homes.” The Census Bureau reported this week that the number of permits granted to build private housing units jumped by 5.2% in September from August, and was 8.1% above the amount granted in September 2019. Authorizations to build single-family homes in September were up 7.8% compared to August.
Ground-breakings on new residential constuction was up 1.9%, and +11.1% vs September 2019. Single-family housing starts were 8.5% above August. As for new housing completions, that soared by 15.3% in September compared to August, and by 25.8% compared to September 2019. Single-family housing completions in September were 2.1% above the August rate.
Meanwhile the National Association of Realtors reported that existing-home sales grew for the fourth consecutive month in September — up 9.4% from the prior month and nearly 21% from one year ago.
The median home price was $311,800, up by almost 15% compared to September 2019. Total housing inventory declined from the prior month and one year ago to 1.47 million, enough to last 2.7 months — a record low — at the current sales pace.
The NAR attributed the surge in buying activity to “record-low interest rates and an abundance of buyers in the marketplace, including buyers of vacation homes given the greater flexibility to work from home.”
Brexit Update: Both Sides Return To Talks But Outlook Remains Cloudy
After missing the October 15 deadline to reach a trade agreement, representatives of the European Union and United Kingdom resumed talks this week — with some hope that a breakthrough might be around the corner.
In an address to the European Parliament this week, Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, declared “I believe that an agreement is within reach.” He had a few caveats to add, however: “if we are prepared, on both sides, to work constructively and in a spirit of compromise; if, in the coming days, we move forward on the basis of legal texts, which is what we want to do, and, finally, if we are prepared in the days ahead to tackle and resolve the most difficult issues.”
“Time is short, very short,” Barnier warned. “We must therefore find with the British, if they are willing, solutions to the most difficult problems.”
While some “possible solutions” are emerging on some areas of disagreement, the main sticking points haven’t changed — ensuring a level playing field between EU and UK businesses, agreeing on a mechanism to enforce the trade agreement, and access to UK fishing waters.
A statement this week by Downing Street welcomed Barnier’s remarks, while also axknowledging that “significant gaps remain between our positions in the most difficult areas.”
“But we are ready, with the EU, to see if it is possible to bridge them in intensive talks,” the UK government said.
At the same time, however, both sides also warned of the possibility that talks end without an agreement.
“That is why we must also be ready to assume the consequences of a possible no deal, and must continue preparing for that scenario by the end of the year,” Barnier said.
“It is essential now that UK businesses, hauliers, and travellers prepare actively for the end of the transition period, since change is coming, whether an agreement is reached or not,” the Downing Street statement said. | https://medium.com/discourse/this-week-in-the-economy-surging-us-daily-covid-cases-entrenched-weak-recovery-without-more-ee80cef4618e | ['Brai Odion-Esene'] | 2020-10-23 15:03:29.640000+00:00 | ['Brexit', 'Coronavirus Update', 'Covid 19 Crisis', 'Federal Reserve', 'Macroeconomics'] |
MEDIA AGENT’S ADVICE FOR ASPIRING SCREENWRITERS | An article by Louisa Minghella, Media agent at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency
Let’s be honest; nobody wants to watch something that isn’t special. Even when you’re watching your guilty pleasures, there’s something special about it, right? And we’re taught that those special, interesting, even non-definable shows are reserved for the people who did their time on the soaps and the conventional crime dramas, or the really really extra special people like Michaela Coel and Laurie Nunn who can just ‘jump out of obscurity’ into some of the most celebrated shows of recent years. Many people believe that their way into the industry is just to be, well, not very special, until they’re allowed to be special because they’ve written enough, or they’re serious enough, or they know enough.
And then a lot of people face this frustrating wall when they’ve done all their work and feel as though they understand what the forms are and can really write a good plot or structure or set of characters, and they’re stuck at this hurdle where nobody’s paying real attention. And you might think “well my script is better than this one and that’s been broadcast” or “my idea is better than his idea, why has he got an agent and not me?” and that is a really annoying and horrible place to be. So my aim is to talk about how you can change your stance on your own work, and, as long as you’ve got the other basics like story crafting and formatting down, it will transform you. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen.
Sex Education (2019), created by Laurie Nunn
Now, before I make grand statements that suggest that everyone should just jump into introspective work and never get broadcast credits until their show gets picked up by Netflix and they win 750 Emmys, I do strongly believe that you should do your homework and write on a small scale, so you can get to know the industry and the way you work within it, hone your craft, and make connections. In fact, I don’t take on clients who haven’t done that already! So when I give my advice I want you to take it to everything you write, whether it’s a commission or a tiny fringe play or your passion project (which, by the way, nobody should stop you from writing even if the idea of it being produced is a mile away!).
But before we jump into that, let’s talk about why I have all of these lofty opinions in the first place.
I started out in the industry proper when I was 16, working in a casting office in central London during school holidays, mostly doing scanning and calling agents, but on the odd occasion reading in for auditions, which included screaming while men tried to pretend-sedate me, and leading an imaginary alien rebellion. All fun, light stuff — and I’ll stress, safe and professional too. At school, I wrote plays under a series of increasingly unsubtle pseudonyms and put them on in tiny performances for a couple of people at a time. I was sure I’d be a writer-director, until I realised I was a disastrous director, focused on writing, and forwent any form of revision for my exams to write a play for the Edinburgh Fringe with my bags packed for a Screenwriting degree at Tisch in NYC. But then I got a job in a writers’ room and ran sideways into my ~career~ with bright eyes and a bushy tail. After that, I took a few jobs in talent management, documentary development, and production because I needed money and I had the experience, and then landed at Blake Friedmann as an assistant in the media department.
You should do your homework and write on a small scale, so you can get to know the industry and the way you work within it
In my head, I was a writer, and that was what I intended to do, but about a month after I started, I read the most fantastic, funny, special script I had ever seen, and it was then that I knew what my calling was. My family had always joked that I could be a critic because every time we sat down to watch a film or a series, I’d wait for the credits to roll and give extensive notes on the storytelling and script. So then, just weeks into ‘this is a great job to prepare me for becoming a writer’, I was an agent. And, reader, I can’t stress this enough, I LOVE IT. It sounds odd to call this job a calling, but ask any agent and they’ll tell you that they can’t imagine it any other way. There’s this assumption that agents are just slimy, dispassionate people who think selling a few people into some jobs is a fun and easy cash-grab, but I’ve never met an agent who thinks that way. We script-edit, we workshop new ideas, we enthuse, we nurture talent, we make sure they make the right decisions for them. We’re like a professional version of that friend who helps you get with your crush. Since starting as an agent, I’ve started building a brilliant, special, beautiful list full of wonderful writers who I might just die for, and I am still building, so you can head over to my page on the Blake Friedmann website to see what I look for and more about me!
So, basically, what I’m saying is, I’ve been around a bit, I’ve seen a slice of what’s up, and I do, at least in this sense, know what I’m talking about.
Let’s take a detour into the idea of being special, which I’ll argue is in reframing the idea of writing from what we know. Remember, we’re not talking about throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. We’re talking about loosening up rigid ideas of what ‘works’ and what groundwork you ‘need’ to do to allow new and exciting things to grow.
Writing what you know almost always starts with writing about yourself. THE GOLDBERGS is an excellent example of that (and a great show). Adam F Goldberg knows the 80s, he knows his family, he knows himself. Boom. Writing what you know. The next evolution is writing about yourself in a fictionalised form. Putting a character who is like you (or has a worldview like yours) in the centre of a story. It’s a pretty appealing idea. The easiest part is, if you’re ever stuck, you just think ‘what would I do?’ and then you’re off again. Writers at this point do one of two things. They either stay there and write lovely characters who are like them or very similar to them (or the kind of person they wish they were), maybe with a little twist like a different passion or talent. Or they pour themselves into huge amounts of research and character building to give themselves a new ‘personality’ to write from that they know inside out. Both great options. Both make writing easier.
The Goldbergs (2013), created by Adam F. Goldberg
But what if you want to write about something you don’t know? What if the world you’ve built doesn’t allow you to originate someone you can relate to, or you can’t envision yourself in? In the case of something like 1750s England or some far-off planet, that’s pretty easy. If the historical background and world-building is there, you can pretty much do one of the above options. But what if you can’t get real insight into the lived experience of marginalised groups or cultures outside of your own? Hate to break it to you, neither of the above will work.
This is not to say that white writers aren’t allowed to write Black characters. Not to say that straight writers aren’t allowed to write queer characters. But you can’t involve yourself in those different worlds and experiences enough to create three-dimensional and engaging stories without a tangible knowledge of what different experiences are like. The answer? There are lots. Starting with talking to people of different backgrounds. Enriching your experiences. Teaming up with writers from different backgrounds. Getting people from the backgrounds you’re writing about to read your work (sidebar: please pay your script readers!).
Even if you’re writing the most conventional structure you can find, write from those building blocks.
Attending classes. Reading books. Doing your research on what the people you’re writing about might reasonably experience, how things might affect different people emotionally and how reactions might manifest themselves. Although those experiences aren’t in any way monolithic, tangible knowledge of different worldviews is paramount for a writer to have an ability to write beyond what they know. And more importantly, sympathy, acceptance, understanding of different worldviews is key. A writer who isn’t tolerant can be spotted a mile off.
So, that’s one way of writing from what you know. And armed with all those skills that I mentioned above about widening your worldview, scope, and references, let’s consider another. Let’s talk about what is special about your experience.
Nobody in the world has had the same experience of the world as you. They might have grown up in a different place. They might have had a different family structure. They might have a different culture. They might have faced different challenges. Even your identical twin will have a different experience to you. Here’s an exercise: write down some of your key experiences, and your perspective on them. The good, the bad, the ugly. Stick them on your wall. Come back to them every few days. Cross out the ones you think someone else could reasonably have had. Circle the ones you think nobody else could have had. Keep writing more as they come along. Think about the wrong turns you’ve made. The things you got excited about that nobody else would have. The unique relationships you’ve been a part of. The stories you tell your friends. The stories you would only tell your therapist. Every time you find one that you think is totally unique to you, give yourself a gold star and keep them in your mind.
That stuff. That unique stuff. That special, personal stuff. That is what separates you from every other writer on the map. If you think “hey, that experience is so special and integral to me”, that experience is going to be gold dust to inform your work. Maybe it’s about a conversation you had. Or a family member you treasure dearly. Or a trauma. Or even a moment that you lay back and looked at the ceiling and just saw something in the world that you didn’t see before. Maybe that experience made you feel different, like you were in a bubble, or your vision distorted, or you forgot about all the things around you, just for a moment. Think about that experience not as the things that happened but the connective tissue within it — the relationship, the space, the perspective, the feeling, what was different about it.
Don’t forget who you are, and what you have to offer.
Maybe for example, you comforted a friend and they sat by you and wiped their tears on your shoulder, and it felt like everything was going to be better again. Remember what happened, how it happened, think about why they made that decision, how long you’d known them, how you felt about them, how you reacted, how the light felt in the room. All of that emotion in one unique moment. Hang on to it.
This, reader, is a very hard thing to do. It might very well wreck you. It’s a truly vulnerable exercise that will make you scared to show your work to anyone ever again. You must, but only because your work will be leaps and bounds better now.
Now, you’ve got an idea of something special that is totally yours. It’s not a character like you. It’s not a world like the one you live in. It’s an emotional, visceral, distillation of yourself. Collect as many as you can. There might only be a couple, or there might be loads. They might be really similar or really different. Whatever they are, hold on to them tightly, and don’t you dare let go.
From here, try to construct a scene. Something to keep in a drawer. Unnamed characters with no descriptions. Just take the feeling and put it into words. Let those ideas sit with you. Take any pitches or ideas from the past, see how those little parts of you might inform them. There’s no hard and fast rule there. But every time you’re lost, remember where you’re writing from. Remember what’s special about you. Use any moments that you felt out of touch with reality, any words that stick with you, inject them into your work. Commit to them. Try to find a way to bring them back throughout your story. Keep grounding your work, no matter if it’s set in your life or in some totally different space altogether, in those experiences. You don’t have to wait for your chance to do this, either. Take these notes out every time you write, no matter what it’s for. This is an exercise that you should make an integral part of your writing. Otherwise, why hire you? Lots of people can write great dialogue, or think up great characters, or invent a fun sci-fi concept. What can you do? Be you. Understand what is unique about you. And people will (I promise) respond to that, as long as everything else is in place.
When I look at my inbox, and the projects offered to me for representation, the first thing I look for is special. This is not a genre thing, or even a style thing. As much as any agent, I look for people who can write brilliant conventional ideas (like crime dramas and soaps) as well as people who write brilliant fantasy and high concept. For me, I am most drawn to writers who come from underrepresented backgrounds who have something to say about the way they see the world. I think that this notion of writing from your experiences in a more fundamental, emotional way can come easier to people from marginalised backgrounds, because they’re more used to taking their experiences and transposing them into mainstream media, which is primarily white-straight-cis-male. There is also the luxury (it’s not a luxury) of having a pre-existing and usually problematic narrative language that has been associated with their background or experience, which can be turned on its head.
When I find writers who I love and can write with this understanding of themselves, I get so excited. When I talk about my clients casually, I always find myself saying “they’re just so special”. That’s what you want to inspire in an agent, producer, actor, viewer. That’s what’s going to make them remember you. That’s what makes shows like SEX EDUCATION and I MAY DESTROY YOU (and all the other brilliant shows out there) great. You might or might not notice it, but that work is soaked in the essential experience of the person who created it.
I May Destroy You (2020), created by Michaela Coel
So, readers, writers, fellow industry members, try to remember this. Where is the special. Where is the special in you? Where is the thing that makes your work unwriteable by anyone else? What are you connecting to in what you’re reading? Even if you’re writing the most conventional structure you can find, write from those building blocks. Take it to the soaps. Take it to the sketch shows. Take it to the meetings. Don’t forget who you are, and what you have to offer. You don’t have to write in a linear format, or a strict genre, or hit the hero’s journey in the order you’re told to. Write from the heart. You can write from yourself even when you’re writing stories totally different to your own. Seek help when you need to learn about other experiences. Most importantly, give yourself the recognition. Give yourself the chance to be special. And good luck. | https://medium.com/filmarket-hub-academy/media-agents-advice-for-aspiring-screenwriters-388f2bb1a11c | ['Filmarket Hub'] | 2020-12-23 12:35:45.222000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Screenwriting', 'Filmmaking', 'Writing Tips', 'Advice'] |
Stop Teaching Kids to Hate Themselves | New Year’s is the worst time to be fat.
January is the month of self-improvement, of addressing flaws and making goals to better oneself.
Naturally, because fatness is widely considered to be abhorrent, January is also the month of weight-loss plans, backed up by a seasonal marketing push by diet and fitness companies.
My first New Year’s resolution to lose weight was for the year 2008.
Our teacher made the whole class come up with a resolution before school went on break — why precisely a bunch of children needed to set these kinds of goals for themselves I’m not sure — and fill out sheets with a drawing and caption.
Being a multi-media kid, I used the frayed Crayola markers to draw myself and a stubby orange crayon for the carrots my 2d self was eating.
2nd grade and I already thought there needed to be less of me in the world.
Perhaps things would be different if my resolution was to eat more vegetables or play more sports, goals tied into health (which, for the record, is also not a measure of value or respectability). These still would’ve been weird choices for a young child’s goal for the year, but at least they aren’t based on something about me being wrong.
But no, as a little seven-year-old, I decided I took up too much space.
For me, it wasn’t about health, beauty, or fitting in. It was about being worthy.
I just wanted to be worthy of respect and other people’s attention.
Because maybe, just maybe, if I could force myself to be smaller, people would like me more.
According to those around me, I was right to think that way.
My classmates and teacher all validated my self-hatred by encouraging weight loss.
I’m not mad at the numerous kids who congratulated me on my idea; they were just children who didn’t realize how they were hurting me.
Kids hurt other kids in this way because they are taught to, and no child should be expected to be critical of messages they are constantly bombarded with at school, from their parents, and through media. The hurt they cause is still so real, but it’s not their responsibility to correct the ideas of what should be trustworthy sources.
Adults, on the other hand, need to do better because they are far more capable of recognizing and discerning problematic messaging.
My teacher didn’t just glance at my resolution, oh no. Neither did she approve it and then shove it in a file or send it home. No, she was so confident that a seven-year-old wanting to lose weight was a good, healthy message, that she hung it up in the hallway with the rest of the class’s work.
Do I retrospectively wish that she demanded I come up with another resolution or later taken me aside to talk about why, out of all of the ideas in the world, all I wanted was to make myself smaller?
Well, yeah, kinda.
More than that, I wish she had explained to me that I didn’t have to think about weight loss, and without any qualifications about how I was still relatively healthy or I wasn’t that big for my age. There was no reason for me to be worried about how big I looked because there is nothing unworthy of respect about being big.
But even if she had, I don’t know if she would’ve been successful in changing my views of fatness because all of my important relationships at that point reinforced what I already knew: if I wanted to be valued, I needed to be as small as possible.
I put these relationships into two major categories: those with authority, like teachers, parents, media, and peers, being classmates. I do so because both types of relationships are fundamentally different, and for me, it takes an understanding of how they are different to confront how to stop kids in the future from thinking they need to be small to be worthy.
The trust that comes from a relationship with authority is inherently different than the trust that comes from a relationship with peers.
Authority is supposed to be reliable, something you can believe has only your best interests at heart. Authority is supposed to be safe. Oftentimes it is not reliable or safe, but in the system we live in, these are the ideals we are taught as children.
Still, it is by necessity, not friendly. Hopefully, it is kind, but friendliness and the ease of comfortability can mess with power structures, and authority can’t exist without power. And that’s all under the best of circumstances: authority is carried out by individual humans who are by nature imperfect, so it is very easy for trust within it to be broken or at least warped.
We trust in authority because we are forced to, not necessarily because we find them trustworthy.
The role of a peer comes with a mutual understanding of the other and their experiences, not identical but complementary. Often it comes with a mutual skepticism or critical view of authority. There is a camaraderie, in best cases, a community, theoretically operating in the best interest of the individuals and the group as much as possible under authority.
Trust in a peer, in large part, comes from a belief in each other, that they have taken the best lessons from authority and brushed aside the worst. This gets more applicable as we get older: we trust each other’s judgment as it tends to not come from being controlled, but from being in the same boat.
Being taught to hate oneself by authority and peers are different, but connected.
Direct disapproval from authority leaves a mark, absolutely, but we know from a young age that authority can be unjustly cruel; from an evil politician in some superhero movie to a mean gym teacher, kids see that power isn’t always a sign of value. Kids are forced to respect and to learn from authority, but they know that authority doesn’t always respect them.
The problem is that kids aren’t always able to differentiate when authority is doing them a disservice.
Sure, adults sometimes don’t either, but through intense awareness and thorough education, especially of oft unspoken concepts like systems of oppression or the faults of our society, they can gain the skills to recognize a bad authority, skills that are inaccessible to children.
When you’re a kid, you should be able to trust authority, and you should be able to trust your peers.
When your peers do you wrong, authority can hold them accountable.
When authority does you wrong, authority has to hold themselves accountable.
This is damn hard to do when, as a child, your authority taught you the same problematic theory that you, now an authority, are now teaching.
So do I blame my 2nd-grade teacher for teaching me to hate myself when she was probably taught the same things when she was a child?
YES
Because she was the only person in that situation who could’ve taken a hard look at her beliefs and decided to change hers and then mine.
It might be too much to ask of an underpaid public school teacher already with far too many things on her plate, and as I admitted earlier I don’t know how well it would’ve worked with the rest of the world in disagreement.
But for a child, any person, really, feeling worthy of respect more than justifies the work needed to make them believe in their value. | https://medium.com/melinas-musings/stop-teaching-kids-to-hate-themselves-3b18661fa929 | ['Melina List'] | 2020-08-18 16:01:00.923000+00:00 | ['Body Image', 'Education', 'Childhood', 'Culture', 'Self Improvement'] |
Rethinking the role of collaboration — 4 questions we should be asking ourselves | The scale and urgency of the world’s biggest challenges have grown at an alarming rate, and for many they can be difficult to absorb, let alone consider how to tackle them. There is no simple solution, but what’s clear is that we can’t do this alone. The complexity and the hope of solving global issues go well beyond the reach of any one organisation or corporation — it’s demanding faster and deeper networked collaborations between private, public, third sector and consumers.
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The urgency relating to climate change is perfectly summed up in David Attenborough’s ‘A Life on our Planet’ — a powerful wake-up call for many who are not yet engaged with the sustainability agenda, setting out challenges with distressing clarity, mixing a sense of impending doom with cautious hope for the future. It’s an ultimate plea for us all to act now. The tipping points identified decades ago are now being played out — with collapsing ice sheets, bleached coral reefs, wild fires, rapid deforestation and a year marked by the highest number of natural disasters (let alone COVID).
The shift towards better business
The Sustainable Development Goals have been in place for 5 years, yet they are not common external impact measures for many businesses. Whilst 72% of companies mention SDGs in their reporting, only 14% mention specific KPIs relating to them. Yet whilst this can feel disheartening, there have been fundamental shifts in the last 2–3 years.
We’ve already seen companies such as Unilever demonstrate that this approach leads to better business performance, where brands with greater sustainability credentials grew 69% faster than those without. In addition, the momentum behind the B Corp movement is a positive sign, with over 3,500+ companies across 70+ countries signing up. B Corps have already shown to be more resilient in downturns — by fundamentally taking a whole business approach, and with a supporting network to help achieve the shift towards better business.
We can see this driving greater transparency — with businesses such as Patagonia leading the way, communicating detailed social and environmental information about raw materials, suppliers, operations and staff. Consumers are demanding a greener approach — with 66% of global consumers willing to pay more for sustainably sourced products, as reported by Nielsen. Not only this, but brands are tapping into their consumer communities to test products before they are produced, minimising the risk of resource waste — take Reebok’s First Pitch, a program that puts the decision to release a shoe or not in the hands of consumers.
Without doubt in the coming year we’ll see businesses being increasingly judged against the delivery of their higher purpose, including their commitments and solutions towards SGDs and net zero targets. Whilst this is all moving in the right direction for a more sustainable future, is it really fast enough to tackle these huge issues around sustainability?
The silver lining of COVID
It has been COVID, whilst turning the world upside down, which has given us a glimpse of a different world — one with eye watering speed of innovation — where life changing products reached the market in record time through collaborations across sectors. Global collaboration between scientists, universities and pharma companies was unprecedented — with over 200 clinical trials taking place less than a month after the WHO declared the pandemic. Take the “VentilatorChallengeUK” consortium with Airbus, BAE Systems, Ford, Rolls-Royce and Siemens. A respirator was designed in under a week, when University College London engineers worked with clinicians at UCLH and Mercedes Formula One to build the device. Not to mention the need for us all to change our own behaviour to keep us and others safe.
COVID showed us that the pace of change is possible when the world really requires it.
Can we make ‘COVID collaboration mode’, the new norm?
Over the decades we’ve seen a shift from transactional to longer-term strategic partnerships between not for profits, and corporations, but also the creation of coalitions to improve the work related to natural resources, such as The Rainforest Alliance, The Palm Oil Transparency or the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). There are also great examples within the corporate world — take Dementia venture capital, where Pfizer, GSK, J&J and Lilly are working together to tackle one major health issue.
Whilst we require all these different types of hugely valuable partnerships and coalitions, ultimately today is about re-imagining how to operate in order to survive. We need to work together to create fundamental, systemic change, creating solutions that serve systems in their entirety and scaling up innovations faster.
The business case is there. Corporates have to create new markets, and new ways of doing business or the resources they rely upon will not be there in the future. This shift can not only identify new revenue streams, but also attract like-minded investors, employees, consumers and partners.
This requires expertise and cognitive diversity from businesses, governments, academia and civil society. Even from a commercial perspective it’s easier to do this with someone else than tackle it alone. The costs are shared, along with the risks and learnings. In the circular economy, for example, the Ellen McArthur Foundation (EMC) works as a pre-competitive space for global organisations to share knowledge and collaborate for systemic change.
What’s clear is that with a sustainability mindset, collaboration replaces competition and becomes a driver for innovation focused on a common goal.
Let’s keep asking ourselves…
How can we build on the pace and momentum of change we’ve seen during COVID? No matter how big or small, collaboration is the only option for us to design and co-create a future where businesses can thrive together with the planet and society. Here are four questions to guide us:
1. Are we clear on where we want to get to?
A strong purpose is the core of the business, acting as the North Star. It’s a higher order reason as to why you exist, beyond making money. If this isn’t yet clear or inspiring, if it doesn’t reflect your core business, or if it’s not connected to the world you want to live in the future, it’s time to rethink. Ikea is a great example, “to create a better every day for the many people.”
An effective purpose needs to be hardwired into the organisation and demonstrated across the value chain and society at large. Ultimately your purpose, the core of who you are, should guide the type of collaborations you need to fulfil your purpose, who to partner with and how to do it.
2. What fundamental shifts can we contribute to as a business?
This all starts with your mindset, working with your purpose and the clarity around your values, and cemented by what you are measuring. As a business or organisation, are you demonstrating how to be a better business — for example — embedding SDG goals, becoming Net Zero, or a B Corp. In 2020, Danone became the first listed company to adopt the “Entreprise à Mission” model created by French law in 2019, which is defined as a company whose social and environmental objectives are aligned with its purpose.
3. How can we achieve this? Should we really tackle this (vision, issue, project…) alone, or can we go faster together?
Identify your key strengths. What’s missing to help you get there? Identify a partner, collaboration or coalition to help you achieve your goals. Allbirds made their sustainable technologies completely open-source in order to support other brands to follow in their footsteps, and most recently collaborated with Adidas after recognising they would get closer and faster to their goals by working together.
4. What is my value as a partner?
Opening up your knowledge, team and maybe IP to others can be a daunting prospect but, to achieve the sustainable development goals, collaboration beats competition. Being clear about the value you bring, alongside your partner’s, ensures there is no tripping up further down the line. Take the collaboration between Elvis & Kresse x Burberry — a great example of sharing knowledge and innovation whilst accessing the scale and platform to reach a wider audience.
Ultimately we’re all in this together. The planet is one, and we’re all connected in one way or another. Be that in Covid or the Climate crisis — what happens in one part of the world will have an impact on another. And in the same vein, so should the solutions. It’s time to move on from ‘what works well for me and my business’ and focus on ‘what works well for us all’.
“T he fate of humanity is tied to the health of the planet. We have a common destiny. We can flourish or we can suffer — but we’re going to be doing it together.” Kristine Tompkins, Earth Activist and Conservationist
………………
Authors: Abigail Taylor and Paula Oliveira
Illustrator: Hermina Olah Vas | https://medium.com/@now-on/rethinking-the-role-of-collaboration-4-questions-we-should-be-asking-ourselves-c96420e462cc | [] | 2020-12-18 12:40:08.516000+00:00 | ['Coalition', 'Sustainability', 'Partnerships', 'Purpose'] |
3 Rules to Success in Content Writing | It always starts with the….
Best story
Write thoroughly researched and well-structured content. Take enough time to do your research. This is the most important step.
When you pick a topic to write, make sure there is everything in it for the reader from A to Z.
Your reader should be able to find the solution by reading your blog and go implement it right away.
Refer to all the 10 pages that are showing up in the Google search when you look for references to write. Those 10 pages are the benchmark for you.
Make sure your blog is well researched than the 10 pages that are currently showing up in the Google search.
Best Audience
Understand your audience, who are they, their pain points, the way they approach a problem, what type of solutions do they need, etc.
Best Time
Update your old blogs or pages every 1 or 2 years. — Add relevant keywords and context. — Keep updating the blogs with more insights every year so it doesn’t die.
If you nail these three elements, there are 90% chances that your blog will go viral. 10% is left to luck. | https://medium.com/@sanjanamurali/3-rules-to-success-in-content-writing-21e05be643e3 | ['Sanjana Murali'] | 2020-12-05 06:22:54.019000+00:00 | ['Content Writing Tips', 'Content Strategy', 'Content Creation', 'Content Writing', 'Content Marketing'] |
Grow with your network | Every single one of us have great aspirations and desire for greatness. We want to make the billions (trillions, in my case), we want that fame, we want to be seen and heard, we want to have assets and businesses, and so on. We struggle and work so hard to achieve these things, and for some, it still seems farfetched.
Well, I believe you're about to have a fresh understanding.
Do you know that the next president of a nation, the next CEO of a fortune-500 company, the next billionaire in dollars or crypto, the next senior pastor of a mega church, the next tech guru, the owner of the next fashion conglomerate, etc may lie amongst your friends and in your contact list?? But we don't realize this because we are looking to those who have gone ahead to give us these opportunities. So, we strive so hard to get "connections."
Do you know that if you see the potential that lies within your network, your age group, your peers, you can hit these goals in time. Your friend would become great tomorrow. Keep cheering them on and show them you believe in them.
Grow with your network. Do business with your network. Enter into partnerships with your network. Stay loyal to your network. Let your network become your connections. Make the same commitment you would make to some person you don't know (who wouldn't understand and appreciate you like your network would) to your network.
Be patient and grow with your network and see how much you would have grown socially, financially, in ministry/assignment, in business and otherwise, in about 5 to 10 years.
God loves you.
CofuDR | https://medium.com/@chinedu.o/grow-with-your-network-a9afa099d310 | ['Chinedu Fredrick Orisakwe'] | 2020-12-21 17:11:05.896000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Growth Mindset', 'Business', 'Networking'] |
Finding Passion & Purpose | Finding Passion & Purpose
Diane Flynn | Co-Founder and CEO, ReBoot Accel
In September, GTB welcomed Diane Flynn, co-founder and CEO of ReBoot Accel, to lead a conversation on “Passion & Purpose.” Diane discussed the power and caveats of saying “yes”; five behaviors that hold most people back from reaching their potential; proven techniques for unlocking opportunities for growth; and strategies on how to align your career to your values.
Diane outlined each of these points after telling GTB about a time she was stuck on the couch and began reassessing her life’s focus, which, for the last 16 years, had been her family. At that point, her kids had grown up and out of the house, and she was looking for a new purpose. Shortly after this reflection, she got a call asking her back to work. Diane said yes — a yes that was outside of her comfort zone, but a yes that has since led her to create ReBoot Accel, teach at Stanford University, speak on national platforms such as NPR and the Today Show and co-write her very own book.
Diane believes that kind of “yes” can transform a tired life to an inspired life.
Diane’s Caveats to Saying “Yes”
According to Diane, when you say “yes” to a new opportunity, you have to accept that you won’t know where it’s going to lead you. “The journey can be the reward,” so don’t miss it by worrying about what’s next.
Secondly, you’re going to fail, which is only a loss if you don’t learn something from it.
Lastly, saying “yes” requires a lot of saying “no.” It’s essential to turn down opportunities that don’t excite or inspire you in order to have time for those that do.
Saying “yes” requires a lot of saying “no.”
Five Behaviors that Hold People Back
Throughout her talk, Diane discussed the five behaviors that she believes hold people back in their lives.
Lacking confidence. To address this, check your internal “script.” Are you speaking positively to yourself or letting “imposter syndrome” make you feel like you aren’t enough? To combat negative self-talk, keep a note or file near you that reminds you of your strengths. Not Recognizing Your Self-Worth. Instead of questioning your strengths and experiences by asking “am I?” turn it around and say “I am!”. This can be a game changer. Fear of Failure. Don’t be afraid of failure. Practice a growth mindset, a concept created by Dr. Carol Dweck, and view challenges as learning opportunities. Perfectionism. Striving for perfection is holding you back. It’s okay to try new things even though they may not go exactly the way you want them to. Inertia. Movement toward your goals is key. Focus on taking one step at a time to make this less overwhelming.
Techniques for Unlocking Opportunities
Diane’s method of success evolved from her time confined on the couch while recovering from surgery. Being “on the couch” allowed her to do an important personal inventory, examining what makes her happy and fulfilled in life. She then used this assessment to create a personal mantra:
“I want to engage in creative collaboration with people I respect around issues to change lives and build community.”
Diane compares each new opportunity that comes her way to that mantra to see if it’s something she wants to invest her time and energy in.
The next step is to “get off the couch”. Diane references the “bias to action approach” and suggests trying things quickly to keep yourself moving. This is where you find out what works for you and what doesn’t.
Diane’s final step to success is to pay it forward and “share the couch”. To do this, she invites us all to make our own personal assessments. As her mantra proves, she found that one of the things that “fills her tank” is doing work that goes beyond herself and helps others. This kind of work might need the help of an “accountability partner”, someone who will help you stick to your goals and with whom you can share your skills and knowledge.
Before she left, Diane invited us to take the OneYesChallenge and try saying “yes” to an opportunity that scares us but could prove to be life changing.
Watch below to hear Diane’s story and advice in her own words. | https://medium.com/gtb-tweets/finding-passion-purpose-a7c34d6073f5 | [] | 2020-01-21 22:02:24.084000+00:00 | ['Passion', 'Purpose', 'Growth Mindset', 'Gtb Talks', 'Gtb Dearborn'] |
WhatsApp Introduces Cryptocurrency Payments Pilot in the US | If you’re anything like me, you’re always looking to be on the front for new tech trends. We’ve all heard stories about what the future might hold with regards to money, and now it seems that WhatsApp may be paving the way for us.
I’ll leave the broader possible implications of this news alone today — let’s focus on what’s currently happening!
The service is launching today in beta form for people who have a US-based phone number. It’s not yet clear how many people are eligible to use the new service.
Ever since the popularity of cryptocurrencies exploded, banking service providers have been looking for ways to integrate these new online currencies with their current offers.
Is this a sign of the time we’re living in?
The chat app, WhatsApp, has introduced a pilot that will enable people to send and receive money from within a chat. In countries with limited access to bank accounts, it may also help people open up their first bank account.
Has the crypto revolution finally arrived in ‘the real world’ or is this just another fad?
A recent WhatsApp chat would be the first to offer this extension — banking service users will soon be able to transfer funds seamlessly across platforms.
WhatsApp has launched a new feature in its beta labs that let users send and receive the money within chats with “limited accessibility” in the US.
Why Novi Support’s Cryptocurrency Payments Pilot in the US?
Affirming something similar, Novi CEO Stefan Kasriel and WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart said in a joint tweet that Novi’s advanced wallet will right now be accessible to WhatsApp clients in the US on a preliminary premise.
A set number of individuals in the US will actually want to exchange cryptographic money through the Novi computerized wallet directly in the WhatsApp visit.
Meta, formerly owned by Facebook, allows some users of its Novi cryptocurrency wallet in the US to send and receive money using its WhatsApp messaging platform.
The encryption capacity will be upheld by Novi, an as of late dispatched computerized wallet claimed by the parent organization Meta (earlier Facebook), and individuals can utilize it to send cash globally.
The program is supported by the Novi Meta (formerly Facebook) digital wallet that was launched as a pilot approximately six weeks ago. Using Novi on WhatsApp, users can transfer money instantly without leaving the chat.
According to the company, they can log in to an existing Novi account or create a new account to use the service.
How WhatsApp Payments Pilot ensures Privacy?
To ensure user privacy, Novi encrypts sensitive financial information and files uploaded by users, such as photo ID, address, and bank details. If you are one of the people who have access, log in to Novi on WhatsApp, just like sending any old attachments.
According to the Novis website, the method of sending payment is similar to the method of sending any other attachments on WhatsApp.
The installment highlight is remembered for WhatsApp as another choice for connections, and there is no restriction on the number of exchanges that can be performed through the informing application.
Clients with admittance to WhatsApp-Novi can choose an element by tapping the paperclip symbol and choosing “Pay”. At the point when the Novi highlight shows up on Whatsapp, clients remembered for the pilot will actually want to make moment installments by adding money to messages as though they were connections.
The following pilot project is the principal example of WhatsApp, which permits clients to make installments in cryptographic money. WhatsApp, the messenger subsidiary of the social media giants, has launched pilot cryptocurrency payments in the US using Novi.
Popular messaging service WhatsApp is piloting cryptocurrency payments in the US. WhatsApp clients would now be able to associate with Novi wallet to send and get digital currency while never leaving WhatsApp. Meta (Facebook) is the backbone of the Novi project, which is currently being tested in Guatemala and the United States.
As of now, just US clients can get to the new WhatsApp move administration. WhatsApp as of now permits clients in India and Brazil to make legitimate installments through its informing application.
The experimental run program permits clients of the scrambled informing application to send and get cash “right away, safely and without commission,” utilizing the Paxos Dollar (USPD) stable coin, which is fixed to the US dollar.
Sending payments via WhatsApp is similar to sending regular messaging attachments. Installments in digital money will be like sending any connection on WhatsApp, Novi said.
Moreover, Novi likewise noticed that it doesn’t charge any extra expenses for installments sent or got, and has no limitations on how regularly installments are sent. The boss also clarified that the use of Novi did not affect the privacy of WhatsApp messages and personal calls.
The Novi wallet and WhatsApp functions mark another attempt by Meta to enter the cryptocurrency field. Facebook’s new name Meta is preparing to introduce encrypted payments using Novi cryptocurrency wallet through its Whatsapp social chat application.
Some users of the US WhatsApp messaging app can now send and receive funds using Novi Wallet, which is an extension of the cryptocurrency payment service pilot program developed by Meta (formerly Facebook’s technology giant).
Conclusion
The cryptocurrency payment function was initially launched as a pilot project, which allows users to receive and send funds in Paxos Dollar (USPD) “instantly, securely and without commissions.”
Nicknamed Novi, Meta Platforms’ cryptocurrency wallet will allow you to send and receive funds through the popular messaging app WhatsApp. WhatsApp is claimed by Meta and is assessed to have multiple billion clients around the world.
The pilot will be accessible to a few US clients, and in the event that you really want more data on Whatsapp joining, you can visit the Novi site.
This pilot will expand on the Meta Platforms Novi portfolio, which itself dispatched as a pilot in October this year, over two years later its underlying declaration. | https://medium.com/@jennifercarnel/whatsapp-introduces-cryptocurrency-payments-pilot-in-the-us-79b891c7b7e0 | [] | 2021-12-16 04:48:11.806000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Meta', 'WhatsApp', 'Metaverse'] |
Erik Voorhees Argues that Bitcoin is the Currency of the Future | Erik Voorhees and Peter Schiff debated Bitcoin’s potential.
The potential for cryptocurrency to eventually replace fiat currency has become a major point of contention in the financial community. To unpack the arguments for and against, Soho Forum organized a debate on crypto’s future in New York on July 02, 2018 pitting Erik Voorhees against Peter Schiff.
Voorhees, the Coinapult cofounder, supported the argument that cryptocurrency will replace fiat as a primary source of payment while Schiff, a known Bitcoin critic, and the Euro Pacific Capital CEO, rejected the notion.
After moderator Gene Epstein introduced the two speakers to the audience, Voorhees was invited to speak first. He began his speech by stating,
Bitcoin or a similar form of cryptocurrency will eventually replace government fiat as the preferred means of exchange.
Voorhees described cryptocurrency as “good money” while calling fiat currency “bad money”. He went on to argue that fiat currency will soon become irrelevant. Bitcoin, he stated, can be subdivided into 100 million smaller units and is also more durable. Digital currencies exist on a blockchain and are more secure than paper currency.
Voorhees also made light-hearted jabs at critics who argue that digital currencies lack any intrinsic value, saying, “Fiat is backed by paper and can be burned in winter. There is intrinsic value. Try that with gold.”
Schiff’s Rebuttal
During his rebuttal speech, Peter Schiff replied by calling Bitcoin a “fool’s gold”, which lacks any real intrinsic value. He pointed out that more than 1,500 cryptocurrencies have been launched so far, each basically the “same as Bitcoin but with just a different name.”
Schiff also pointed to the fact that cryptocurrency transaction costs are very high, making it useless for making payments and better suited to speculation.
It costs $60 in transaction fee to buy $5 of coffee. People are buying Bitcoin because they think they are going to get rich as the price goes up because they believe one day it is going to be money. It is not money now. It is being used as a speculative asset.
An audience poll conducted after the debate revealed that 55 percent sided with Voorhees in the belief that a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin will eventually replace fiat currency. | https://medium.com/bitrates-news/erik-voorhees-argues-that-bitcoin-is-the-currency-of-the-future-ed7e2f8a0fd | [] | 2018-07-04 09:56:03.266000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Market', 'Bears', 'Bulls', 'Bitcoin'] |
Icons8 Photos 2.0. GitHub for Free Stock Photos | All that considerably limits the potential of creators that need photo content but have no time, skills or budget to make a custom photo shooting.
Solution: Diversity of Models for Customizable Photos
When we first released Icons8 Photos, it already offered the photos that were created to harmonically work together and looked consistent. Also, we wanted to go beyond the limits increasing the number and diversity of photos with a simple idea: to make 100 images in the studio, add 100 backgrounds, and get 10,000 photos. In fact, the number strives to infinity if we combine various people, photographed and 3D-rendered props, and 3D-rendered interiors.
That’s what we did. Yet, we got a bunch of comments that our stock missed some characters and that we have more white models than any others. And it was a solid complaint. Though we were doing our best: casting different models, planing photo stories, shooting in Moscow and Buenos Aires, it wasn’t fast enough to fulfill all the requests. We were searching for a way of creating a diversity of photos faster. So, we decided to mask models and objects and combine them. It gave us more stock pictures for sure, but it was just 10 photos masked per day. Still quite slow. Then we implemented AI-based masking. Got much faster.
Next step was to build a Photo Creator that allows users to compose realistic collages from our photos. | https://blog.prototypr.io/icons8-photos-2-0-github-for-free-stock-photos-6e2ead8c24f2 | [] | 2019-08-14 10:33:08.952000+00:00 | ['Content Marketing', 'Photography', 'Design', 'User Experience', 'Resources'] |
Annoying Woman Wants To Know If You Can Look At Comedy Piece Again | photo credit: Trina
Gift to You (Yes, I am using this to bully you into reading more of my work) From Stav
“Please can you look at this? :(,” your annoying friend Stavroula asks about a shitty comedy piece she wrote 15 minutes ago. She really wants feedback, *right now.* “It will be funny, I swear!”*
“Sure,” You say, with no idea as to how much stupid stuff you’re about to be hit with at this point in time. (Or maybe you do, if this is like the third time or more you’ve agreed to this shit? What are you doing)
“Why would you agree to this,” says everyone else who has ever met Stavroula. “You’re about to receive jokes about dicks, feminism, and/or something about yeast infections. This person needs to grow up! Or at least write about one other topic at some point, goddamn.”
“Stavroula, please come see me about these recurrent yeast infections,” says Stavroula’s gynecologist. “It’s NOT funny.”
“I’m sending you this piece because I want edits,” says Stavroula. “I’m not going to deny that I’m kind of a freeloader. But also, I’m sending this to you because I’m thankful for my friendship with you and I’m happy to be able to bounce ideas off you because I enjoy speaking with you and spending time with you, even if you are far away from me or we cannot otherwise see each other in person due to the general world situation right now.”
“ …okay, I also want edits,” she admits shamelessly. “Seriously is this joke about my yeast infection fermenting and becoming beer funny or not???”
Happy holidays friend! If you’re receiving this, it’s because you’ve looked over my work or bounced comedic ideas with me at some point and I really appreciate it! Or I just appreciate our friendship in general. My love and all the best for this coming year (pls be better than this year omg).
*It won’t. | https://medium.com/@comedybystav/annoying-woman-wants-to-know-if-you-can-look-at-comedy-piece-again-c3215bc52e7f | [] | 2020-12-24 09:26:18.887000+00:00 | ['Comedy', 'Satire', 'Gifts'] |
Find the Best Window Tinting for Your Home | There are many things that are associated with changing weather, the ripening of fruits, change in clothes, eating different things according to the season, family picnic and so on. However, one thing that you overlook is the damage to your home caused by changing weather conditions. Thus, there is a need to protect your home from extreme weather conditions. In that case, the installation of window tinting, or films is the best option to protect your home in the best way.
When it comes to choosing the best Residential Window Films for your home. Many of you get confused about how to find the best window tinting, that works best for your home. Numerous factors are discussed below that helps to find the right window tinting for your homes.
Check for safety
While choosing the right window tinting for your home, safety is an important factor that you need to consider. Make sure to choose windows tinting which can withstand extreme weather conditions. Some window tinting breaks due to high winds. You need to look for the strong and long-lasting window tinting for your home.
Check the level of privacy
This is embarrassing when your every move is being observed by people outside of your home. In that case, you need to opt for window films that allow you to have privacy at your home. You can opt for window tinting which allows you to see outside without spotting you inside.
Maintain your room temperature
You need to choose such window tinting that makes your room environment neither too cold nor too hot. It is best to choose insulated window films that help in keeping your room warm in the winters and cool in the summers. For this, you need to ask the percentage of heat ejected by window films.
Avoid fading
Make sure to check the level of UV rays that are ejected by Window films which you will choose for your home. The higher the percentage of UV rays is blocked the higher it is safer for you. UV rays fade the color of your furniture and other items placed in your room. So, you need to opt for best window films that offer maximum ejection of UV rays and prevent fading.
Match with your interiors
There are several types of window film that you can opt for your homes. If you want to enhance the interiors of your home, then you can opt for the decorative window films that match with your interiors. With elegant designs and styles, these decorative windows films add glare to your interiors and help to protect your home.
Residential Window Tinting
Where to find?
Are you confused while finding a reliable Residential Window Tinting for your home? All Spec Sun Control is the right place that offers you with precise and reliable residential window tinting for your home.
They have been providing the best services from the past 30 years in Florida. We provide you with a well-trained professional which helps in the easy installation of window films at your homes. Visit their website for more detail. | https://medium.com/@cedricstellaus/find-the-best-window-tinting-for-your-home-afe820381ad4 | ['Cedric Stella'] | 2020-03-03 04:25:19.944000+00:00 | ['Home Improvement', 'Home Decor', 'Window Film', 'Window Tinting'] |
How to use a Certified Mail Receipt when buying non-KYC Bitcoin with US Postal Money Orders | Introduction
Recently, due to COVID hour cuts and leaves, the USPS has experienced a serious lag in delivery time. What used to take one week with a regular postage stamp, now takes about three weeks. This can pose an issue for those purchasing non-KYC Bitcoin using US Postal Money Orders, especially for those unaware of the situation. Some of these issues include: Exceeding the trading period allotted on Bisq, concern over lost money orders, confusion, and uncertainty. In typical times, when it came to sending a money order through USPS it was completely feasible to use a postage stamp. However, in COVID times, it worth using a Certified Mail Receipt for tracking and quicker delivery time. In this article, I describe how to use a Certified Mailing Receipt when sending a money order.
Procedure and materials
The procedure is the same as described in the article, “How to buy non-KYC Bitcoin with a US Postal Money Order”. That is, first buy the money order and fill it out away from the Post Office (i.e., in the car or outside). However, before exiting the Post Office, grab a mailing receipt (as shown on the title page). These are located at the kiosks in the Post Office or get one by asking the clerk when purchasing the money order. The same materials are required as before except for the postage stamp; the mailing receipt will take its place. Prepare the money order as described in the article mentioned above, including the extra piece of paper for better privacy, sealing it, and writing the “return to” address and “sent to” address on the envelope.
What to do with the Certified Mailing Receipt
Fill out the box located at the bottom of the mailing receipt (i.e., “Sent to”, “Street, Apt, No. or PO Box No”, and “City, State, Zip+4”) using the information provided on Bisq. After doing so, give the sealed envelope and the filled-out mailing receipt to the clerk and pay with cash (~$5). The clerk will hand over a receipt and the stub from the mailing receipt which has the tracking number on it. One can now be confidant the envelope will be delivered securely and in a timely manner.
Tracking
With the tracking number provided, one can search the USPS webpage at: https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction!input.action. While it will not show up immediately, it will in a couple of days. The web-page and tracking number can then be provided to the seller in the Bisq chat window. Doing so makes the seller aware the payment is being tracked and will deter dishonesty. From here, all that needs to be done is to wait for the delivery of the payment. When the payment is received and the funds are released, remember to properly dispose of your receipts and stubs. I like to burn them.
Conclusion
By using a Certified Mailing Receipt, one can be confidant a US Postal Money Order is sent in a secure and timely manner (i.e., about seven business days), especially during COVID times. Using a mailing receipt only costs about ~$5 on top of everything else — a small price to pay for non-KYC Bitcoin. Also, should the seller claim they never received the payment, and therefore enter mediation or arbitration, the buyer can verify the payment was indeed sent. Overall, using a mailing receipt is good practice even though, generally, one can still use a stamp. However, given the extraordinary times, a mailing receipt is currently the best option. | https://medium.com/@heady_wook/how-to-use-a-certified-mail-receipt-when-buying-non-kyc-bitcoin-with-us-postal-money-orders-d7371b0b1189 | [] | 2020-12-25 00:02:16.086000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Guides And Tutorials', 'Btc', 'No Kyc'] |
The Building With a Highway Running Through It | The Gate Tower Building in Osaka, Japan, is a 16-story building that has a unique characteristic unlike other buildings. It has a highway running right through the middle of it.
The highway runs between the fifth and seventh floors of the building, and the highway is the tenant on those floors. The highway tunnels through the building and comes out the other side.
The property owners originally wanted to redevelop the land when approval for such a thing had been granted by the government in 1983. The problem was, the government refused to issue building permits because a highway had already been planned to run through the area.
The owners of the land negotiated with the Hanshin Expressway corporation for five years until they came up with the solution to run the highway directly through the building. It was eventually completed in 1992. The highway doesn’t touch the building in any way, but the highway department still must pay rent on the floors it occupies.
There is sound-proofing on the walls and floor of the building next to the tunnel to eliminate road noise for the workers inside, and since the tunnel is held up by pillars, it doesn’t touch the building, ensuring there are no vibrations from the roadway. The elevators run on the outside of the building and travel from floors one to four and eight to 16. Floors five through seven of the elevator are marked “Hanshin Expressway” and can’t be reached.
Want to delve into more facts? Give a look at Knowledge Stew’s Fact World, here on Medium. | https://medium.com/knowledge-stew/the-building-with-a-highway-running-through-it-b832d2d4a344 | ['Daniel Ganninger'] | 2020-12-17 08:50:56.196000+00:00 | ['Construction', 'History', 'Japan', 'Design', 'Architecture'] |
Let’s Talk About Mental Health … in Hospital Staff | Mental health, in general, is a taboo topic — but it becomes even more so when it comes to doctors and nurses. Hospital staff encounter stressful situations every day on top of long hours.
Unlike other jobs, there’s no time to slack off. Some health care professionals barely get a break throughout their shift.
Medscape’s National Physician Burnout and Depression 2018 report includes some startling details — 42 percent of physicians feel burned out while 16 percent are colloquially depressed.
It’s time to talk about mental health in hospital staff and how to help professionals stay happy and healthy.
Common Mental Health Issues Among Doctors
Image purchased from iStock
As the report above shows, many physicians feel burned out, if not colloquially or clinically depressed. Intensivists and neurologists feel the greatest level of burnout, but family doctors aren’t too far behind.
Specialists who are less likely to work under emergency conditions, such as plastic surgeons, dermatologists and pathologists, felt the least amount of burnout.
What contributes to these mental health issues? Survey respondents said their job, finances and family were the top three reasons they felt depressed. Their depression manifested in these problems at work:
· Becoming easily exasperated with patients
· Feeling less engaged with patients
· Being less friendly with patients
· Not taking careful notes
· Expressing frustration in front of patients
· Making errors
Problems Among Nurses
Image purchased from iStock
Physicians aren’t the only ones with mental health issues — nurses also experience problems. Research by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found more than 18 percent of nurses employed in hospitals showed signs of depression.
Many don’t seek treatment, as there’s a stigma associated with depression and nursing culture where nurses are supposed to help individuals with their problems, not the other way around. Failing to talk about mental health openly may be part of the reason nurses often suffer in silence.
When nurses neglect their own mental health, they open themselves up to physical health problems as well. Some of the more common issues include:
· Heart disease
· High blood pressure
· Asthma
· Obesity
· Premature death
One study found that poor mental health among nurses leads to medical errors. Nurses with poor health had a 26 to 70 percent higher likelihood of making a medical error, which can have deadly impacts.
How Can You Stay Happy and Healthy?
Image purchased from iStock
It’s important to find ways to stay happy and healthy while working as a doctor or nurse in a stressful environment.
For professionals, that can mean getting help for clinical depression and further breaking down the stigma by talking to family and friends. The first step is making an appointment with your physician, therapist, counselor or spiritual leader. They can help determine the best ways to treat your depression.
Sometimes you simply need to take a break to combat burnout. Try taking a day or two off if you notice you’re distracted or you’re neglecting your own self-care. Visit a family member or friend, go shopping, get a massage or exercise during your days off. Be sure to spend some time caring for yourself.
Also, take care to watch for signs of depression in yourself and others. Sadness, irritability, absenteeism, apathy and changes in sleeping habits can all play a role in depression.
You might even notice your love of medicine dwindles, not because you’re tired of the field itself, but because you’re feeling burned out in your current state.
Seek Treatment Today
If you’re suffering from mental health issues or one of your colleagues is, take the time to seek treatment options.
You’ll feel better physically and mentally, and your professional life will slowly get better too. | https://healthcareinamerica.us/lets-talk-about-mental-health-in-hospital-staff-8c076a2ba315 | [] | 2019-01-15 13:06:00.805000+00:00 | ['Medical School', 'Mental Health', 'Doctors', 'Doctors And Nurses', 'Healthcare'] |
Should We Forgive Someone Terrible in Life Once They Have Died? | Should We Forgive Someone Terrible in Life Once They Have Died?
Image Courtesy of Unsplash; Simon Gibson, photographer
I have been told I am not enlightened enough to believe otherwise, but to my mind blindly forgiving everyone in death is disingenuous.
For example, I will not forgive a killer, defined in this context as one whose singular intention is to take an innocent life in offense, as opposed to self-defense. That individual is irredeemable to me. Mental illness is a complex topic, and it can certainly be argued one is not in their “right mind” if they set out to deliberately claim a life. I don’t disagree. We can also blame upbringing and environment.
Regardless, intentional killing, potentially rife with reasons or excuses, is unapologetically a personal line.
Accidental killing, or manslaughter, I consider on a case-by-case basis.
I put officers of the law in these boxes as well.
Would you forgive a terrorist, foreign or domestic, a serial killer, one who beats their spouse or one who tortures animals? Extreme examples, none of which justifies the concept of blind, or blanket, forgiveness.
I would not mourn their deaths, so please refrain from justifying how proper it is for everyone to forgive in all cases.
It’s not. | https://medium.com/illumination/should-we-forgive-someone-terrible-in-life-just-because-they-have-died-8ec32e8c7dca | ['Joel Eisenberg'] | 2020-11-24 00:22:59.300000+00:00 | ['Death', 'Life', 'Crime', 'Culture', 'Forgiveness'] |
Altcoins Questions from Grandpa | Altcoins Questions from Grandpa
Grandpa has just started exploring crypto having bought his first bitcoin a few weeks ago.
Today he asked me
‘Hi I got a video that I hoped to send to you discussing the slowness of bitcoin wrt speed of transactions he pointed out visa/master card do 8000/second so btc was becoming more a store of wealth than transational but their were companies writing overlay systems to solve this like Charding, Zilca that he thought could grow very quickly also spoke about oracles that link block chain to real world like Api3 & chain link sounded like being an early adopter could be good have you got thoughts around the potential these support sectors offer`
Yes btc has consistently resisted changes that make it faster and will never reach Maatercard like speess. The coins that tried to compete with btc in 2012 and 2017 have all fallen by the wayside. For now this has allowed us to realise that the biggest narrative that is effecting the most number of people is the fear of a massive collapse of our financial systems. The endless printing of money and the resulting environmental and sociatal disasters from the Fiat experiment is becoming more and more apparent. The bitcoin is a programmable store of value like gold/Land/Bonds/Stocks or rare pieces of art narrative makes most sense given the current macro economis scenario. The pain and costa of Mastercard and PayPal are not creating enough energy for people to jump over the digital divide yet. If you read the bitcoin standard he does an incredible job of analysing btc in this way. So in the short term 1–2 years I am not particularly excited by the payment gateway stuff. I think now that mastercard have moved into crypto and FB soon to follow they will be far more motovated to solve this problem than anyone in the crypto space and they have the networks so it’s gonna be hard to disrupt them.
There are literally hundreds of projects that are trying to do layer 1 protocols that make transactions faster on both etherium and bitcoin as a payment gateway. Choosing who will be successful feels impossible for me as well as trying mediate the risk that FB via WhatsApp or Mastercard Visa solve this faster and bring there network with them makes an inveatment here seem crazy to me given the obvious opportunities that lie in other areas.
In summary I don’t think the exciting narrative at the moment is the payment gateway it is a difficult one with so much resistance from authirities, tax implications and competition.
What is happening instead is that PayPal, apple pay, Square cash and now Visa and Mastercard are developing payment gateways for crypto's. This is easier as Visa/Mastercard already have the network. Also lots of companies doing payroll and other real world solutions. These are interesting in the long term but I don't think these are the big exciting plays this bull run.
The low hanging fruit are the various Defi projects. Decentralised Finance is absolutely essential in the whole programmable money crypto Ecosystem that exists outside of bitcoin at the moment 95 pct on Etherium.
There are 3 main movements going on here
1/ Tokenising real world assets e.g. a crypto company bought a stock exchange in Amsterdam. Blockchain supply chains etc. The idea for a stock exchange is to use tokens and blockchain to tokenised stocks, bonds and other securities, bringing massive efficiencies in proof of ownership, transfer of ownership etc and bringing transparency and decentralisation to all of this. I.e. You own the shares taken in your wallet. I love this all its easy to understand and no double will have some significant investment in 2021 and IMO this is not a major narrative of this 2021 bull run. This feels like it is a longer play (next bull run) so many of the issues currently being worked out in Dex’s see analysis below will make these more mainstream adoption projects easier so I think they are a little premature for now. This is cool many if the premature projects in 2017 managed to earn enough to develop enough that they are now ready for prime time. As an investor I would rather jump on the sectors that are ready to pump now. This does not mean that all this will not get a lot of attention and investment and profits to be had this bull run but will probably only fully blossom in years to come. Dapps running on Etherium (and it’s competitors) is just not useable enough for anyone but the most faithful to use it. Even the faithful like me get eternally frustrated by the usability, performance and costs and if it was not for the chance to invest in coins that are doing 10 X 20 X in months now while most of the market is flat and likely to have gains of 100 to 1000 X for the good ones in 2021 I would not dable in this tech or try to use it. I would certainly not do it for the tiny profits you can make in a stock market.
2/Decentralised Exchanges (Dex’s) in the Crypto world this is a place where you can exchange tokens from one projects to another project. Projects produce an external API called a protocol which is like the membrane of a neuron. To use a protocol you need the coins of that protocols (neurotransmitters etc that fit into the receptor sites for that project) e.g. If you want to take loan out on say UniLend which is written on Etherium then you will have to pay gas fees in Eth the token used for Etherium project. To get Etherium you would need to exchange another token e.g. Bitcoin (btc) to get Eth. You might even need to pay a small amount of fees in UNILEND and you would then need these tokens in your wallet as well.
This world is for me is the low hanging fruit. You have crypto natvies exchanging tokens with other crypto natives. If you imagine a foreign currency exchange market but one where every project has its own currency. I.e. Projects of 10 - 100 developers, validates, seed investors, germinators, influences are rewarded for their effort in the tokens (currency) of that project. To use someone else’s protocol you need to own their token in your wallet so that you can pay each time you use their service. So you would need to exchange your tokens for their tokens at fair value. So basically an automatic decentralised currency market hundreds of times bigger than our current currency markets. These exchanges are also the primary place where investors can buy tokens in a projects they like so basically the exchanges are nodes where huge amounts of information is transferred between the various projects via their tokens and the value of these tokens relative to each other. Because of these tiny token transactions and the continually refinding fair value between the tokens, the system is super robust and responsive to microchanges making it increasingly antifragile and flexible more so than anything that we have seen to date. In a very real way these exchanges reacreate the barter system1 using technology to ensure that everyone can achieve fair value for their real contribution. This makes all the financial systems that were developed to eliminate the barter system by making it more efficient by creating paper IOU’s from a ‘Trusted’ authority which eventually became money as a standardised universal exchange of value less meaningful.
For me this is the obvious place of huge growth in 2021 because the profit margins from investing in these small and medium cap coins is so huge and the service is thus so essential to all participants in the Ecosystem I.e. It’s a place where early investors (private sales like VC’s of old), germinators (launch pads), developers, users and retail investors meet on exchanges and get the coins they need to pay for the things they use.
Because this is a self referencing feedback loop I like it. The better the cheaper the more efficient the Dex’s get the more healthy the Ecosystem becomes and the more valuable the Dex’s become.
The reason for decentralised exchanges vs centralised exchanges is really simple. It is quicker to add new coins to a decentralised exchange than having to go through the approval process of centralised exchanges which may require all sorts of legislative conformance and at the very least require someone employed by the Central exchange to approve the coin to be added to the exchange and then the exchange having to create the liquidity. The KYC processes to use the centralised exchanges add to there slowness and difficulties.
With Dex’s things are different anyone with coins is rewarded for adding their coins to the liquidity pool, anyone with an electronic wallet can use the exchange to swap coins.
So this is the big excitement here people no longer only Hodl their crypto they can now earn yields of 10–15% APY on top of the capital gains. For investors it becomes easier and easier to buy the coins you want in small exciting projects.
Now we look at what is needed for these exchanges to work.
Oracles
For this to work we need Oracles (they bring Data from outside to the project e.g. Who won a sports match and what the score was to a betting site without relying on any authority). The big Oracle the gold standard is ChainLink. It is the grandpa of this space. It is still very down and side from its ATH I have some but just Holding. API3 is exciting it does something very different and I hold a lot as I think it will gain on Chai Link. There is space for many many Oracles each having its own Niche I like ChainLink with already established market dominance its adaptability and speed of developing new oracles as a direct results having a massively decentralised Protocol will eat the lions share. API3 is the only project doing something interestingly different for me. There big difference is that instead of the disorganised self organising basaar of ChainLink which continually reorganising to ensure the exchange of the widest range of information between all the projects we have an orderly organised protocol. This is a protocol whereby the data provider can provide their own data via a well established API and as a result earn tokens whenever their data is. For me API3 is building railway lines along which reliable data from the most valuable data sources can flow fast and efficient. API3 has insurance for the consequences incorrect data encapsulated directly in their protocol.
Insurance
These exchanges need insurance against hacks etc for large number of people to invest. Because of the nature of insurance where insurers reinsurer with each other in a network. Nexus mutual is the big player here. I like Cover an insurance small market cap with a bigger upside than Nexus. All good insurance plays will do well as Defi grows.
Scaling
It is clear that Etherium just simply cannot handle the volume of transactions even as we are now. Gas fees can run from 10 to 60 USD to buy or sell a coin making the entire economy grind to a halt.
The 2 year rollout that Etherium has proposed for Etherium 2.0 is simply not soon enough. Etherium have all the players, all the projects, all the users and all the infrastructure so a Mass abandoning of Etherium to better performing competitors like Cardano etc seems unlikely right now. There are various projects trying to scale Blockchain in general and Etherium in particular. The more time I spend in the etherium Ecosystem the more I invest in various scaling solutions. My favorites that I have bought are PolkaDot $DOT and scale ($SKL) and MATIC.
Usability
This Defi etherium stuff stuff is barely useable by me. You think holding your own keys in a bitcoin wallet is a challenge try staking, or trading on a decentralised exchange.
Strategy
— — - — - — - — - — - — -
For me it is essential to have an investment hypothesis and a strategy.
It is essential to understand my Investment hypothesis otherwise anything I say is put if context.
I believe bitcoin is the ultimate scarce asset with a fair value for its scarcity of 100 000 USD at the end of this bull run and a fair value of 1 million after 2024 bull run. I believe that this is on the downside as it only looks at btc as a store of value like gold or land and ingores the programmability of crypto currencies and the incredible things that can be done with it that gold or land can never have. So I expect metcalfs law of the exponential increase in the value of a network as it is adopted. This is the law that drives silocon Valley investments and leads to the now famous hockey stick growth as the network goes viral.
From all of the above you can tell that my overidding question is how can I own more bitcoin. What do I need to do to Increase my bitcoin holdings and earning Fiat and blindly HODLing btc is simply not good enough for me.
Since I have a big HODL pouch of bitcoin the first most obvious question is know how to predict those stomach churning corrections we have experiences e.g. 2018 btc falling from 20 000 to 3000. I will be selling large buckets of my btc when the top signals come in probably end 2021 early 2022 and buying again mid late 2022 when the price has retraced. I do not trade in bitcoin on a short term as it feels more predictable and less effort and stress for me to trade in microcap with my Software dev, business analyst and startup investor skills to invest in Alts and use the profits to buy more bitcoin is easier than to try trade bitcoin to buy more bitcoin.
So what am I doing now
In the current market the small cap Alts are pumping returns of 2–5 x’s are common. I am actively pursuing projects here that are tackling problems that I am facing. I am investing in them early and taking out my investment and some profits storing the rest safely in my pouch waiting for the bulls to really run. I am putting the origional investment back into Btc slowly increasingy btc HODL pouch and I’m HODLing these microcapa so that whwn the big bull runs a fair portion of these pouches of coins should fruit with 20 - 100 X gains. I hope that one or 2 will do the 1000 Xs we saw in the lats of 2017.
So in summary the initial investments that I take out are used to increase my HODL position of bitcoin.
The profits I take out I use to buy more Micro caps and occasionally buy a little DOT, LINK or Ether for my pouch so that I am slowly storing some of these more certain projects when the bull runs.
E.g. I only have a small amount of DOT as DOT has already pumped and I am instead investing in the smaller projects which are still mooning right now. As I said I will keep doing this until the bull run really gets going (We break out of 20 000 USD/btc range and we leave 20 000 behind fir good) probably Feb next year. When this happens I will return some money from my trading back into the bigger alts Eth, ChainLink and Dot. This feels safer as no one can really tell me what is really going on under the engine of etherium. More information on how these projects and Etherium. are working and evolving will be available in the months to come and hence I can make better decisions later. The prices are sideways or down and sideways to btc ATM so the opportunity cost of waiting is close to zero. These large market cap projects will not 100 X overnight so we will have plenty of signals to qmkve in when the time is right. For this reason while I believe in many of these projects and want to have a pouch full of them when the bull runs while their prices are moving sideways to btc I see no reason to hold any reasonable amounts of these bigger market Caps I put Eth, DOT, LINK, Nexus MUTUAL in this category. No reason to expose myself to their risk when I could just hold btc at a much lower risk.
So Granpa this is my strategy so far it has been working wonders.
In answer to your question I don’t think the crypto payment narrative is going to be the biggest story of 2022 so I am not investing in any of these.
I do think Defi will be and as such I expect Insurance and Oracles to absolutely blossom in 2022.
Scaling will be huge but no one knows which of the various solutions will work or which combination will work. So we know the scaling sector will boom but there are no large caps that have established their technical, tokenomics and network supremacy yet even the mighty DOT is still untested in this area.
So the clear winners for large caps at the moment are Nexus MUTUAL and LINK. | https://medium.com/@gabrialmagni/altcoins-questions-from-grandpa-4c9fb45dfde | ['Gabrial Magni'] | 2020-12-16 11:11:51.754000+00:00 | ['Eth', 'Cryptocurrency Bull Run', 'Btc', 'Bull Run', 'Alt Coins'] |
Introducing Arc Finance | Decentralised finance has grown immensely since the beginning of 2019 increasing the value locked in contract by 519% and crossing the $1bn mark around February 2020. The ongoing DeFi momentum is in dire need of disruptive solutions that could cater for the DeFi economy. The DeFi sphere is a hotbed for innovations and data is an indispensable part of it. However Defi now encompasses the following categories…
- Lending and Borrowing
- Derivatives
- Exchanges
- KYC and Identity
- Prediction Markets
- Securitisation
Arc Finance is based on the AUM algorithm and implements liquidity premium trading, so that projects with poor liquidity can make higher profits in transactions, and that projects with high liquidity can maintain their profits.
Projects in Arc Finance are less dependent on whales, but they can attract many retail investors to actively participate in the transaction and ecosystem construction of the project.
Arc Finance can help projects to complete basic market value management, so projects themselves can focus on the development and ecological construction.
ABOUT ARC FINANCE
Arc Finance is committed to building a DeFi2.0 liquidity-as-a-service (LaaS) basic economic infrastructure, through the premium mining pool protocol to incentivize the positive behavior of users to create liquidity premium, with which the platform captures premium value to activate the economic ecology of the market.
Based on AUM algorithm and built on Binance Smart Chain, Arc Finance is a DEX for users to achieve the ecological value of Trade to Earn through the Liquidity Premium Pool (LPP).
Projects can create token trading pairs by opening a liquidity premium mining pool in Arc Finance. Liquidity premium values are generated as users trade. Arc Finance will capture the liquidity premium value through tokenomics and give them to users and projects in return.
By giving more incentives to transactions, Arc Finance expects to improve the market behavior of passively providing liquidity to obtain income in the past. This means that users' deposit behavior that passively increases liquidity before will be replaced by transaction behavior that creates liquidity
premium.
Tokenomics
Release And Allocation Plan of ARC:
Total Supply: 100 million
1) Early Investors (2%): 2 million tokens, 20% released after the listing, then 20% every quarter.
2) Angel Investors (3%): 3 million tokens, 20% released after the listing, then 20% every quarter.
3) Institutional Investors (5%): 5 million tokens, 20% released after the listing, then 20% every
quarter.
4) Cornerstone Investors (2%): 2 million tokens, 20% released after the listing, then 20% every
quarter.
5) IDO (1.5%): 2 million tokens, 100% released after the listing.
6) Mining (69%): 69 million tokens.
7) Tech Team (15%): 15 million tokens, 500,000 tokens will be released before listing for market value management (the rest will be released 12 months later, 5% every month)
8) Community (2.5%): 2.5 million tokens will be used for community governance and
development.
Arc Finance DAO
In recent years, the huge gap that had existed between traditional financial markets and digital assets has begun to shrink. Bitcoin (BTC), which was once perceived with skepticism and criticism, has slowly paved the way for other digital assets and accompanying networks. Cryptocurrencies have created a niche as an asset class that has become wildly popular among retail investors and has gained a foothold among professional investors as well.
With the changing mindsets of market participants and rising interest in digital assets among investors, there is a stronger need to bring transparency and standardization to the crypto world.
The Arc Finance platform ecology requires the participation of the community to balance user profitability, transaction fee distribution and
other revenue mechanisms as the community develops. Among them, in the governance of heterogeneous sharding, DAO governance is needed to manage and propose newly listed tokens.
In Arc Finance, we adopt a parliamentary voting method. The community node can be the initiator of the proposal, and any user can stake LP vouchers as the DAO voting right.
Conclusion
Arc Finance is committed to changing the paradigm inherent in DeFi 1.0 in the crypto market.
It enriches the ecosystem with a set of new economic infrastructure to increase the liquidity value of funds, generate liquidity premiums, and capture the value of these liquidity premiums and thereby to provide a
more competitive market for all projects on Arc Finance. While launching the DeFi 2.0 era, we strive to ensure that the use of Arc Finance will effectively address the issues currently facing the DEX platform.
Connect with us on our socials:
Web: https://arcdex.io
Telegram Chat: https://t.me/ArcFinance_global
Discord: https://discord.gg/wbe6B4GrPv
Twitter：https://twitter.com/Arc__Finance
Medium: https://medium.com/@arc_finance
Telegram Announcement: https://t.me/ArcFinance_announce | https://medium.com/@endiongbob2016/introducing-arc-finance-ba55e3655b8a | ['Endiong Bob'] | 2021-12-30 01:36:12.259000+00:00 | ['Dex', 'Laas', 'Bsc', 'Arc Finance', 'Aum'] |
2. Fighting Self-doubt: I’ll Never Be As Good As _______. | Photo by rawpixel on Pixabay
As I write this, it’s 38 degrees here in Australia, which got me thinking about bushfires. We’ve had plenty of those this summer.
When we experience self-doubt, it’s like a bushfire has started in our heads.
They’re both hard to control.
All we need is one spark on a dry day.
One thought begins smouldering. It sets other thoughts alight and suddenly our whole mind is ablaze. Soon all we’re left with are charred and barren remains.
That empty feeling of unfulfilled dreams.
But it’s not all internal. Something sets the spark off in the first place.
Self-doubt is strongly linked to the outside world, or more accurately, to our perception of it.
We read the books and posts of others and wonder if our writing will ever match theirs. Reading about other writers’ successes can either be inspirational or self-destructive depending on our outlook.
As writers, we need to read to improve our craft, but if you’re constantly comparing your work to those who are further ahead, it’s time to take a break.
In her book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron goes as far is to recommend a week’s reading deprivation as a way of refilling the creative well. She claims:
“For most blocked creatives, reading is an addiction. We gobble up the words of others rather digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own.” — Julia Cameron
As a massive bookworm, I can’t bring myself to try this, but I can see the value in it.
I know how easy it can be to lose yourself in a good book. Sometimes it seems like the best antidote to a lack of self-confidence your own writing.
Is this something you struggle with?
If you’re like me and can’t bear the idea of not reading for a week, try limiting your reading time.
I do this with social media. When I upgraded my phone last year, I went into every application and turned the sound off. It’s also the first thing thing I do every time I download a new app. When I check my social media accounts, it’s on my terms. I’ll go in when it suits me — not when my phone thinks I should.
My social media time is usually my commute. I know I only have a short window before I arrive at work. Sometimes at weekends, I go for whole days without looking at my accounts.
Social media is not about keeping up with what everyone else is doing all the time. Its real superpower is that we can use it to find kindred spirits and create communities.
I love connecting with other writers and seeing what they’re doing.
But restricting the time I spend in my accounts allows me to do it in a much healthier way.
I don’t feel compelled to read every update that comes through. When I do log in, I can concentrate on the people I’m interested in. I’m less likely to feel overwhelmed by comparisonitis if I’m not being bombarded by constant notifications about everyone’s lives.
You don’t need to be as good as your favourite author. You need to be as good as you.
And sometimes you need to turn everything off to do that. | https://medium.com/@linda_44105/2-fighting-self-doubt-ill-never-be-as-good-as-14f602c4920c | ['Linda Alley'] | 2019-03-07 09:26:19.090000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Creative Writing', 'Self Doubt', 'Writers Block', 'Imposter Syndrome'] |
Building A Growth Process With Growth Mindset | Elements Of A Good Process
We use a selected process that I created which is an element of old-fashioned methodology, part Lean Startup, part my very own touches. there’s nobody right or perfect growth process. The important part is simply to own one, persist with it, and improve it over time.
I do believe every growth process should have some key elements:
1. how to line big goals against the areas that impact your growth the foremost
2. A structured thanks to continually come up with growth ideas and experiments
3. the way prioritize those experiments
4. some way to efficiently design those experiments
5. Analysis of ever experiment whether it succeeded or failed
6. Sharing of learnings across the team and implementing them into the experiment list.
Get those 6 things right and that I think you’re on the proper thanks to success.
Growth Team: Cross-Functional Teams
We have seen plenty of companies attempt to establish growth teams. The place to begin for that’s nearly always, “What should the structure for the expansion team be? Where should it board the org?” this is often approaching the matter backward.
The first step is defining the problems/areas that have the largest impact on Growth, and dealing your way backward to the team needed to execute effectively. once you try this and mix it with the expansion Process, you quickly realize that to execute effectively you would like a cross-functional team with a combination of eng, product, data, design, marketing, and sales skills. the combination will rely upon the matter area.
When we say cross-functional teams, these aren’t teams that have weekly rise meetings. These are teams that:
Sit together.
Share the identical metric/goal.
Are running the identical process.
Are rewarded with identical things.
Unfortunately, growth problems are typically thought of from a function-first perspective. after you consider it from a function-first perspective, the question changes from “What has the largest impact on growth?” to “What is that the most impactful thing I can do given the skill sets available to me in my function?” the foremost impactful areas either never emerge or are constrained on what will be solved because only 1 function is represented.
If you’re establishing a growth team, we’ve five tips:
Find One Problem — Find one problem that would help drive growth. Typically this can be a neglected area at the corporate (see above). Don’t try and own all of the growth. it’s too wide and broad and can spread the team thin.
Evolution, Not A Revolution — Respect the culture and principles that made corporate success to date. Evolve from those principles, don’t re-write them.
Expect Failure — Seek quick wins, but expect the team will fail early and infrequently. Give them enough time to figure through it.
Communicate The Wins — Use the experiment wins as a carrot to display how you’re approaching the issues. Change and resources gravitate towards those who have won.
Don’t Call It A Growth Team — Some have the perception that they do not have to worry about growth since there’s a team that owns that.
Some feel they don’t seem to be getting the credit they deserve because “everyone contributes to growth.” Or one among the numerous negative biases around the term penetrate. What to try and do instead? Don’t call them growth. Name the teams by the problems/missions they’re solving for — New User Experience, Lifecycle Team, etc.
You Need a Machine
Your machine must be scalable, somewhat predictable, and repeatable. It must be repeatable.
Machines produce something. In our case, they produce tactics. this is often the output. The inputs to the machine are the method that you simply drive to get and test all the tactics.
There are four goals of the process:
Rhythm: you would like momentum. To do this, you determine a daily cadence of experimentation to fight through failures, find the successes and find the momentum that keeps carrying you forward.
Learning: this can be probably the foremost important goal. It’s constant learning about your customer, product, and channels. Feed that into the method to make off that base of information. this can keep you moving forward towards success.
Autonomy: If you’ve got a growth team, it’s key to allow them to be autonomous. Individuals decide what to figure on to realize team goals. The team leader doesn’t provide specific directions.
Accountability: People on the expansion team don’t always should achieve success. they do not need to hit 100% success on experiments. But, the expectation is that they improve over time in terms of their knowledge of customers, products, and channels. Building a stronger base of data means you will have more successful experiments.
How to Set Goals
Before beginning, you initially have to know where you are going. a part of this is often setting goals. Balfour and his team use the Objective and Key Results (OKR) framework.
Using this framework, they first ask themselves an issue to create their objective. they require to grasp the one thing they will achieve which will drive the most important impact on the expansion curve. This needs them to require a step back and examine things before they dive into experiments. Once they need this, they form their qualitative statement.
After they need their statement, they set a time-frame, which is 30–90 days. Anything shorter than 30 days means they are not being aggressive enough. Over 90 days and they are biting off too big of a piece. It has to be something they feel they will make reasonable progress on in 30–90 days.
Once they need their objective and time-frame, they set three key results. These are quantitative measurements that indicate if they’re achieving an objective. The results are ordered by difficulty.
In KR1 (Key Result 1), Balfour and his team hit these about 90% of the time.
KR2 signals that they’re going above and beyond; they typically hit this about half the time.
If they hit KR3, it’s party time. These are rare, only hitting about 10% of the time, and demand a celebration. They’re typically hit about once a year. If they’re hit more often, their goals aren’t aggressive enough. If they are not hitting KR1 nearly anytime, then they’re too aggressive.
Once they figure all this out, they get to figure as quickly as they will.
The Cycle After OKR Is Set
Once the OKR is discovered, they go in this cycle:
Under each phase, you will see the names of documents they create. These documents help drive the method.
Backlog: this can be where all the ideas are dumped. This doc could be a spreadsheet and contains the experiment name, status, category (an area you’re trying to improve), metric, prediction, and a resource estimate of what quantity time it’ll take marketing, engineering, design, and anybody else. Anybody on the team can contribute ideas to the backlog, it is a public document within the corporate. This document allows them to empty their headspace and target the concept they’re currently executing.
Pipeline: this can be the list of experiments past, present, and future. All past experiments have their results documented. this permits new team members an opportunity to travel back and appear at every experiment to point out how they have to be compelled to where they’re today.
Experiment Docs: this can be the foremost important document out of the four. Every experiment gets one amongst these. This document forces the team to think through the important elements of the experiment. When browsing this document, they need to consider why they’re doing this experiment vs the others, what they expect from the experiment, how they go to style and implement the experiment, and record the learnings.
Playbooks: If an experiment is successful, they struggle to work out ways to systematize them. They’re step-by-step guides for things they need to repeat.
A Breakdown of Each Phase
Let’s elaborate on each introduces method.
1. Brainstorm
In this phase, concentrate on brainstorming on the inputs, not the outputs.
Let’s say your OKR is about improving an activation rate. Don’t sit there and take a look to work out the way to improve the activation rate. There are probably thousands of how to enhance it, and that specialize in this makes it difficult to return up with growth ideas. Instead, concentrate on breaking it down into very small pieces.
If the activation rate had three steps, you’d break down each and brainstorm ideas around each step. Keeping it focused on each step makes it easier to come back up with specific ideas about the way to improve the inputs, which ends up in improved output. Balfour and his team use four ways to get growth ideas (taken from the book Innovator’s Solution):
Observe: observe how others do it, both in your competitive and non-competitive space. If you have got the goal of optimizing your referral program, have a look at other companies' referral programs. Every member of your growth team should select a pair of programs they like, and therefore the team can rehearse each program. You’ll develop plenty of the latest ideas with this process. When seeing what other companies do, take it as inspiration, not a prescription. Take inspiration from them, and determine the way to apply it together with your product and audience.
Question: a standard exercise during this category is named “question brainstorming”. this is often an hour-long meeting that consists of nothing but questions. Team members write questions on notes, announce the question, and put it on the board. They ask as many questions as possible during the now period. This does two things. First, it helps reveal things they do not know. Second, good answers start with good questions. The questions allow members of the team to begin digging for answers. As they learn the answers to the questions, a lot of ideas on the way to match those answers tend to come out of this process.
Associate: there is a technique called smashing, where you are taking what you’re trying to boost and smash it with something completely unrelated. You learn from other processes and take a look at them to use them in your experiment.
Network: Find a network of fine growth people. head to conferences, attend meetups, chat with others on the phone, etc.
Once you’ve got capable of this process, you create the backlog doc.
2. Prioritize
This is where you prioritize what to first work on within the backlog.
Before we (humans) dive into a brand new idea, we tend to overestimate that probability of success. We inflate the impact of success. and that we underestimate the number of your time it’s visiting go for test and implement. Thanks to these realities, it is important to be brutally honest with three elements.
3. TEST
Once it’s all prioritized, it is time to form a Minimum Viable Test. it is the minimum thing you’ll do to induce data around your hypothesis. Outline the test within the experiment doc.
4. TEST
Not much to speak about here; just get the implementation done as quickly as possible. Don’t fall prey to analysis paralysis at this stage as it’ll kill your productivity and progress.
5. Analyze
Once a test is finished, it is time to research. this is often the foremost important step.
Answering the ‘why’ is essential. Why did it succeed, or why did it fail? Why were we close or way far from our hypothesis? Digging into why will facilitate your understanding of things about your customer, channel, and products. this can cause iterations and new ideas of experiments you must run next. Skipping this question means you’re blindly running experiments; you are not taking what you learned into the following experiment.
6. Systemize
Once you discover successful experiments, “productize” them with technology and engineering. If you cannot mate with technology and engineering, build into playbooks. As you hire and scale the team, you’ll be able to point them to the playbooks so that they know what is going on and may repeat with minimal effort. | https://medium.com/@ziad-ismail-taha/building-a-growth-process-with-growth-mindset-54d376a5ae17 | ['Ziad Ismail'] | 2020-12-20 19:28:43.821000+00:00 | ['Digital Marketing', 'Growth', 'Growth Hacking'] |
Digital Covid-19 tracking offers fresh opportunities for the Orwellian surveillance state to spy on Americans and crush dissent — EFF | Digital Covid-19 tracking offers fresh opportunities for the Orwellian surveillance state to spy on Americans and crush dissent — EFF Lighthouse News ·Dec 26, 2020
“The U.S. government is not known for its inclination to give back surveillance powers seized during extraordinary moments.”
“[T]he infamous face surveillance company, Clearview AI, is in talks with the government to create a system that would use face recognition in public places to identify unknown people who may have been infected by a known carrier. This proposal would create a massive surveillance infrastructure, linked to billions of social media images, that could allow the government to readily identify people in public spaces, including protesters, by scanning footage of them against images found online.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/some-covid-19-surveillance-proposals-could-harm-free-speech-after-covid-19 | https://medium.com/@lighthousenews/digital-covid-19-tracking-offers-fresh-opportunities-for-the-orwellian-surveillance-state-to-spy-afc1db0a6f88 | ['Lighthouse News'] | 2020-12-26 05:37:46.165000+00:00 | ['Nsa', 'Contact Tracing', 'Protest', 'Surveillance', 'Covid 19'] |
Surviving Japanese language (日本語) １０１ | I came to Japan with practically zero formal education on the Japanese language and I have just been studying it for five months. I’ve never dreamt of going to Japan, but I’m always fond of its culture, especially as shown in anime and dramas. I was also able to grasp some basic expressions, such as ありがとうございます、すみません、はい、among others. However, when I passed the Monbukagakusho (MEXT) scholarship and got accepted into the University of Fukui as a Research Student and due to the fact that I might stay in Japan for two years, I knew I had no choice but to learn the Japanese language.
Preliminaries: Learning the かな characters
The acceptance letter I received from the University came with a workbook and a reminder that we should, at least, learn ひらがな and カタカナ before the start of classes. So a month prior to coming to Japan, I studied the かな characters and learned the proper strokes and filled in my notebook with these characters until I was able to remember most of them. I did this almost every day during my free time until I can visualize the characters anywhere I go. I began translating letters and signs on the road to かな characters. Kanji, however, is a different story.
The four-month intensive Japanese language course(s)
As a Research Student, I had to take the Japanese intensive course program first for six months before entering my research program. As a beginner, I needed to take the みんなの日本語１ Integrated Grammar class. I also had to take Writing, Speaking, Reading and Kanji classes. I was also allowed to take Research Class with Kuwabara-先生。
The Japanese classes were very helpful. The daily exercises and homework given by the 先生 did not just help us memorize the vocabulary and sentence structures but also allowed us to use the Japanese language in real life situations. Slowly, my classmates and I were using the forms and sentences we learned in classes in our conversations. But I still felt that they were not enough so I had to devise my own methods and habits of learning the Japanese language.
Just a bit of a disclaimer. These methods worked for me because I am a multitasker. Honestly, I have more trouble spending my free time wisely (or rather, lazily). More or less, I’ve spent most of my time studying 日本語 and integrated it in everything that I do (e.g., watching anime, listening to music, hanging out with friends).
Learning Japanese through textbooks
The みんなの日本語 textbooks are effective materials in learning the language. The textbook introduces new vocabulary words and grammatical forms every chapter, and some basic expressions that you can use in conversations. It is also paired with a workbook where you can assess and practice what you’ve just learned in class. The workbook comes with a CD, which contains audio files that you can listen to so you can be familiar with the conversational Japanese language.
As a linguist, I also analyze Japanese language (e.g., how words and sentences are formed, what patterns do each form follow) and it gives me a deeper appreciation and understanding of the language.
Watching anime and movies, listening to music in Japanese
Another effective method of learning a new language is through watching TV shows in the language. This method helps you to be familiar with the pronunciation, the intonation, just like how the native speaker should sound. It also teaches you the various nuances of the language (e.g., slang, colloquial terms and basic expressions used in daily conversations and the contexts where you can use the forms) that you might not be able to learn easily from textbooks.
My method (this might not be advisable for others):
I watch anime and Japanese movies while I study. Although it would be difficult to read the subtitles while I am reading a book, the sound coming from the show helps me tune in. But most of the time, it keeps me distracted. If you’re not much of a multitasking person, you can also listen to songs in Japanese.
Using technology, e.g., mobile applications
Nowadays, there are a lot of mobile applications that are handy and can speed up learning a language. Below are some of the applications that help me learn Japanese.
Writing ひらがな and カタカナ mobile applications. These applications help you remember how to write the characters. They also come with mnemonics and pictures that enable you to better remember. They also have proficiency assessment tests so you can assess your learning. Google Translate Handwriting Mode. This mode of Google Translate is very useful in identifying the reading of a Kanji character. It allows you to draw on your screen and provides suggestions. Yomiwa/Imiwa? or Shirabe Jisho. Such applications function as a dictionary, and can you provide the different meanings of a Japanese character. It also shows you the proper strokes of writing a Kanji character.
4. Language Learning with Netflix and other related applications. If you have a Netflix account, a Google Chrome extension called Language Learning with Netflix can also help you learn the language. The application allows you to use subtitles in more than one language, for example, English and Japanese. Coupled with Google Translate, which I use to write the Kanji characters, the application can help you learn new forms if you have plenty of time. You can also choose Romaji if you’re not yet used to reading Japanese かな. There are also other applications that have the same function as the Language Learning with Netflix.
5. Duolingo and other language-learning applications. It is a language-learning application that allow beginners to practice different aspects of the grammar for 15-minutes or more daily.
Writing in Japanese
Aside from Writing class, I’ve already started using Japanese in writing my report and reaction papers for my Reading class. We were required to read a Japanese book every two weeks and write our impression about the story. Our teachers allowed us to use English but I’ve decided to write in Japanese. This helped me practice and remember かな and use new forms and vocabulary I acquired from the Integrated Grammar class. My 先生 was also very generous in correcting my mistakes. It boosted my confidence and motivation in learning the language.
The act of handwriting helps you better remember the Japanese characters. In my case, my hand have become familiar with the strokes and my eyes have become quicker in reading the characters. This also contributes to learning the language faster.
It is also the same with learning Kanji. The more often you write, the quicker you can memorize the characters. It is advantageous, especially in learning Kanji, because the characters have different reading, depending on how they are used. At first, I’ve tried to decipher the pattern but I’ve failed.
Conversing in Japanese
As a beginner, I didn’t have much confidence in my conversational skills in Japanese. But later on, as I have acquired more vocabulary and learned different forms and sentence structures, I have begun to converse with my fellow international students in Japanese. Even though I still make a lot of mistakes and forget the correct form, speaking Japanese is a practical way to immerse yourself and to assess that you, indeed, have learned the language. I’ve also attempted to hold conversations with my Japanese 先生 and other Japanese native speakers. I also talk to my friends who also went to Japan as exchange students.
My internship at an elementary school has also been a perfect opportunity for me to immerse myself in a Japanese-speaking environment. Currently, I’m following a Japanese Grade 1 class and I’ve been afforded a chance to converse and practice my Japanese speaking skills with Grade 1 students.
I came to Japan without formal knowledge of the Japanese language. After roughly five months, I still find myself wanting to learn the language. This desire intensifies as I’ve found myself often frustrated of not being able to read the signs and understand what the Japanese people are talking about. But this also motivates me to work hard and study more. | https://medium.com/@serkuyamhaws/surviving-%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E-%EF%BC%91%EF%BC%90%EF%BC%91-2b49e0f9e756 | ['Mhawi Rosero'] | 2021-01-04 06:38:35.977000+00:00 | ['Duolingo', 'Japanese Language', 'Foreign Language Learning', '日本語', 'Japanese'] |
How are decision trees built? | 2. Build a classification tree 🔨
If you enjoy math, I encourage you to manually calculate alongside this guide to make most of this blog. In this section, those characters who are parents are abbreviated as pa and the non-parents are abbreviated as np for brevity.
2.1. Using gini impurity (a.k.a gini index or gini coefficient) ☝️
Decision trees are built by recursively splitting into binary nodes from top-down. We can find the best split for a node with the following steps:
STEP 1: Calculate gini impurity (here onwards gini) for the node to split from
STEP 2: Find all possible splits
STEP 3: Calculate gini for both nodes for each split
STEP 4: Calculate the weighted average gini for each split
STEP 5: Determine the best split: the one with lowest weighted average gini
STEP 6: Calculate information gain: split if information gain is positive
The very top node that includes everyone from the training data is known as root node. Let’s determine the best split for the root node with the steps.
🚪 STEP 1: Calculate the gini at a root node
➗ Formula:
two variations of the formula will give exact same result
We can simplify this generic formula to the following and calculate the gini:
this simplfied formula will be used here onwards
We know that there were 2 non-parents and 4 parents among the 6 characters. Using this information, we found the gini to be 0.444 at the root node. Root node can therefore be summarised as below:
🚪 STEP 2: Find all possible splits from the root node
There are three ways to split using any of the three features. For instance, we could split the 6 characters into 2 groups: one group for those with pets and another group for those without. Same goes for the other two features.
🚪 STEP 3: Calculate gini for both nodes for each split
Let’s calculate the gini for each node for the three splits.
📌Exercise: See if you can calculate gini for all 6 nodes before proceeding.
🔑 Answer: Using the same logic from step 1, we find the gini for each node as follows:
Hope these tiny figures are legible 👀 (if too small, try zooming in)
🚪 STEP 4: Calculate the weighted average gini for each split
Now, we need to find the weighted average gini, denoted as w_gini, for each split. Taking was_on_a_break as an example, we compute the w_gini as follows:
➗ Formula: left: node of the left, right: node on the right
📌Exercise: See if you can calculate the weighted gini for the other two.
🔑 Answer: Do your answers match to these?
🚪 STEP 5: Determine the best split (lowest weighted average gini)
By inspecting the results from the previous step, using is_married for splitting gives us the lowest weighted average gini. We can intuitively make sense of this decision if we look at the table from step 3 as well. When splitting on is_married, the tree is able to split half of the data into a pure node on the left. This node is pure because it only contains parents. Gini is 0 for the purest node and 0.5 for the impurest node (e.g. right nodes for the other splits).
🚪 STEP 6: Calculate information gain: if positive, 👉 split
We learnt that it’s best to use is_married if we were to split. Now let’s see if we gain any information from splitting. Information gain is defined as the difference between the gini at the top node to split from and the weighted average gini from the bottom nodes.
Information gain is positive. In other words, we gain information by splitting. Therefore, the correct decision is to split using is_married from the root node.
We have just learned how a split is determined. ⭐️ Let’s repeat the same steps to build the rest of the tree. Time to assess the split for the mustard nodes!
Perhaps we could start from the easier one: the left node containing married ones. We see that all married characters are parents and therefore gini=0. If we split from this node, we won’t gain any information even if the weighted gini is 0 from the split. Therefore, the correct decision is not to split. In this case, this node is considered as a terminal node, the one that doesn’t split further. On the other hand, we have some work to do for the non-married characters in the other node on the right. The best way to make this knowledge stick is to practice yourself, why not try applying what we just learned with the exercise below:
📌Exercise: Complete all the steps to find the correct split for the right node
🔑 Answer:
STEP 1: We already know the answer from previous split: 0.444
STEP 2: We could split either using was_on_a_break or has_pet
STEP 3 & STEP 4: See the image below
STEP 5: The best split is to use was_on_a_break with w_gini of 0
STEP 6: Information gain is 0.444 - 0=0.444, so the correct decision is to split.
Combining the outputs, the final decision tree looks like this:
Root node: A starting node that includes everyone
Internal nodes: All other nodes in between root and terminal nodes.
Terminal nodes: Nodes where decisions are reached
Yay❕ We have built a simple decision tree.
2.2. Using entropy ✌️
Let’s understand what would change if we used entropy instead of gini. The steps remain the same, except we calculate entropy each time.
➗ Formula:
We can simplify this generic formula to:
If we complete all the steps using entropy starting from the root node again, the outputs for steps 1, 3 and 4 change to those below:
With this output, it appears that is_married is yet again the best split from the root node. Information gain is assessed in a similar way:
It makes sense to split given that we gain information. Let’s continue the same steps for the bottom nodes like before.
Because the left node for married characters are pure, we don’t need to split from that anymore. But we will try to improve the right node by following the steps. Outputs to steps 1, 3 and 4 would look like below:
This is the final tree 🌴:
Did you notice that gini is 0.5 and entropy is 1 for the impurest case where the node is split evenly between the two classes whereas they are both 0 for the purest node that consists of only one class?
If you are keen to practice more to consolidate your learning, feel free to use your own small dataset to build a simple decision tree. You can check your tree against sklearn output using the sample script below:
Don’t forget to replace the data with the one you are going to use
3. Final remarks 💭
In practice, more robust algorithms that use decision tree as a building block are perhaps more commonly used as a predictive model than decision trees themselves.
Decision trees tend to overfit easily if you are not careful. We could argue that was_on_a_break was not a good feature to use because it happened to be a very specific feature that only applies to the records in the training data. Therefore, using this feature to build a model can lead the model overfit to the noise in the training data.
Regardless, I think it is still valuable to understand the underlying principles used in building decision trees. ✨ | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-are-decision-trees-built-a8e5af57ce8 | ['Zolzaya Luvsandorj'] | 2020-11-27 01:47:48.437000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Supervised Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Decision Tree', 'Classification'] |
GOP Kavanaughs Yovanovitch | GOP Kavanaughs Yovanovitch
FOX leads assault with on-screen graphics
“We thank you for your years of service to this country, but we don’t give a shit about your concerns,” GOP members on the impeachment hearings panel told career diplomat and former Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during her testimony yesterday. They spent the bulk of the hearings attacking Yovanovitch and Committee Chairman Adam Schiff like Justice Brett Kavanaugh attacked the female members of the Senate during his confirmation hearings — with theatrical outrage and refusal to stay on subject. Kavanaugh, who personally attended the hearings, applauded and encouraged them from the gallery.
After Schiff walked reporters through the highlights of Yovanovitch’s testimony, the house members gathered for reporters and screeched like angry baboons. “Schiff, Schiff, Schiff, Schiff, Schiff,” they screeched in unison as reporters tried to confront them with the facts revealed about Drumpf’s blatant abuses of power. “The rules are unfair, and Schiff face wouldn’t change them to accommodate our unreasonable demands to turn the hearings into a carnival sideshow,” Jim Jordan shouted into a reporter’s microphone.
“The rules are unfair, and Schiff face wouldn’t change them to accommodate our unreasonable demands to turn the hearings into a carnival sideshow.”
“They dumped all over our gracious and patient little Elise (Stefanik, the only female GOP representative, also white, Republicans allowed on the committee),” said Utah Rep. Chris Stewart. “It was terrible, terrible what they did to that precious woman who we need our Second Amendment to protect from Democrats and Never Trumpers trying to oust our President and put their own regime in power.”
“You mean the Democratic, Never Trump regime of Mike Pence?” suggested a reporter with an unhidden tinge of sarcasm in her voice.
“First they impeach Drumpf, then they turn into Never Pencers and impeach him,” Jordan interrupted.
“Pence committed impeachable offenses too?” one reporter followed up, while another shouted, “You mean the VEEP has been in on it all along?”
The entire group resumed their shouts of “Schiff, Schiff, Schiff,” and then threw bananas at the reporters shouting, “Apples, apples, apples.”
After being caught admitting Pence was complicit in Drumpf’s attempt to bribe the Ukrainians, the GOP delegation shouted “Schiff, Schiff, Schiff,” and then threw bananas at the reporters shouting, “Apples, apples, apples.”
GOP members tried to obscure Yovanovitch’s account of Presidential harassment and a rogue foreign policy to benefit Drumpf donors and Guiliani business associates with questions such as:
“Did you pay somebody to write this impressive resume?”
“You’ve never met the President so how could you know the orders written on White House stationary came from him?”
“How can we trust the woman who sabotaged our foreign policy in Somalia?”
“You’re just mad because the President wouldn’t make you Secretary of State if you slept with him even though you’re clearly not his type.”
“Are you proud of yourself for turning into a rat for the phony Feds?”
The questions were conducted in real time with a Presidential Tweet claiming Yovanovitch was a traitor who ruined foreign policy and would be prosecuted for treason, which carries the death penalty. Even though Secretary of State Pompeo used his CIA connections to broadcast the Tweets to every one present at the hearings, Lindsey Graham and every other Republican defended the Tweet.
“Just a boy being a boy. It’s not like she would have noticed it on the big screen behind Adam Schiff’s head. That man’s head is too big for anyone to see what’s behind it,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed.
“(Drumpf’s) Tweet was just a boy being a boy. It’s not like she would have noticed it on the big screen behind Adam Schiff’s head.”
Immediately following the testimony, and the GOP strategy to discredit Yovanovitch, Merriam-Webster has officially declared the word “kavanaugh” to be a verb.
The newest definition to enter the dictionary.
The FOX Factor
FOX joined the GOP chorus by repeating the Wednesday’s strategy of using graphic bullet points to discredit the witness during hearing coverage. During the course of Yovanovitch’s testimony, FOX displayed 97 graphics with messages including:
If Drumpf had been President during World War II, her parents would never been allowed to cross the border. Unlike Roosevelt, we would have beaten Mexico and Canada, who really started the war.
The fact that the Russians were our enemies when her parents lived there but that the Russians are our friends now, proves she’s an enemy agent trying to betray both countries.
Yovanovitch was caught looking at nude pictures of men when she took Anatomy in college.
Yovanovitch speaks fluent Russian, which proves she’s a spy. Drumpf would never allow anyone speaking a foreign-sounding language to work for our government.
Yovanovitch liked the song, “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It,” proving she’s a lesbian.
“Yovanovitch liked the song, ‘I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It,’ proving she’s a lesbian.”
Yovanovitch was excused from class in kindergarten so she could “pee pee.”
Yovanovitch graduated from college, which makes her a liberal elitist.
Yovanovitch has served four Republican and two Democratic Presidents, which proves she is a mercenary with no loyalty to anyone.
The fact that Yovanovitch is so willing to sell out the President proves she is sleeping with Shifty Schiff.
A complete list of FOX ’s claims can be found on their web site, or, if readers wait log enough, they will appear in Drumpf Tweets.
Jonesing for an additional 45 fix? Check out: | https://medium.com/the-haven/gop-kavanaughs-yovanovitch-f0f138783079 | ['Phillip T Stephens'] | 2019-11-17 04:56:59.820000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Donald Trump', 'Congress', 'Satire', 'Impeachment'] |
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Ltc address: LLM56GRxcU5KyQJrE8DszCPYdpsJ9AodLY | https://medium.com/@lengkengamis/defi-banking-professional-staff-invest-cccecfc2fd0a | ['Lengkeng Amis'] | 2021-07-25 14:40:33.069000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Platform', 'Decentralized Finance'] |
Expanding to £4m a year via international marketplaces with Trevor Ginn from Hello Baby Direct | Expanding to £4m a year via international marketplaces with Trevor Ginn from Hello Baby Direct Chloe Thomas Jun 14·4 min read
Trevor Ginn is the founder of Hello Baby Direct. Founded in 2011 they sell via over 20 channels globally and achieve over £4m a year in sales.
About Trevor
Trevor started in eCommerce about 12 years ago when he was still working for Auctioning4u, the UK’s largest eBay trading assistant that was working for the likes of Dixons to sell their excess inventory on eBay. He was helping retailers sell their products online and eventually decided that he could do a better job at selling.
Since the company he was working for was going bust and he just had a kid, he felt that eCommerce was a reasonable market to get into. He went for selling kids’ stuff as his niche and this was how he became a retailer.
For Trevor, getting into eCommerce has its advantages which include the ease with which you can start selling and being able to start on a small scale.
One downside he mentions is the huge competition, but also acknowledges that everything else is competitive as well.
About the Business
Based in Saint Albans which is north of London
With worldwide customers
Sells other people’s products but will start making its own products at some point
Magento platform
Also uses online marketplaces to sell such as Amazon UK, EU, France, Spain, Japan, USA, Canada, Australia; Fruugo and eBay
General advice on selling through Marketplaces
It’s a good idea to use marketplaces because it’s where a lot of the customers are.
Marketplaces charge about 15% to be on their platform which can sound a lot but Trevor says you could also be spending the same amount or more doing marketing strategies and running your own website.
They are also particularly good for international trade. As an example, Trevor mentions being able to sell a few thousand pounds on Amazon Japan which would have been otherwise difficult to do and reach those customers. Amazon is also a catalogue site and this means that the items you sell in one country could easily be made available in another.
From this point of view, selling on marketplaces also makes sense because the speed to market is much faster.
Managing multiple platforms
While Trevor has been mostly doing everything himself, he’s recently hired people to help out.
Although he’s been in the business for more than 10 years, he still feels he’s just starting because there are things he could be doing better at. Being on various marketplaces needs dedicated attention, and hiring the right people has given Hello Baby the chance to improve in certain areas and taken a lot of pressure off him.
Staying on track
Growing to £4 million annually across multiple channels — balancing his own website and the marketplaces — is difficult to do. Here are the key ways he has kept himself on track:
Persistence
Certain love of eCommerce
To get to the next level, Trevor knew he had to get people on board. Doing it alone doesn’t get you a second perspective on things so you might still have unsolved problems even after being at it for so long. He has recognized that he needs to hand off tasks he’s not good at to people who are better than him in order to improve the business.
Software systems
Trevor uses Linnworks which is an eCommerce sales platform.
For him, platforms such as this provide amazing value because of the amount of time it saves you. If you plan to be a substantial business, you need something like this to help you manage everything you have to do and run it properly.
What’s coming up next for Hello Baby Direct
Some of the things Trevor is working on at the moment:
Get better with repeat customer base
Better level of customer service by providing more information about the products being sold by Hello Baby
Doing better on social media
Selling new verticals
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Like to be a guest? Apply Here | https://medium.com/@chloethomas/expanding-to-4m-a-year-via-international-marketplaces-with-trevor-ginn-from-hello-baby-direct-e1f24082a45b | ['Chloe Thomas'] | 2021-06-14 00:21:11.687000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'Magento', 'Baby Products', 'Ecommerce', 'Amazon'] |
Facebook turns down foreign influence operations targeting Africa and Middle East | On December 15, Facebook removed two Russia-based networks and one linked to the French military accusing them of carrying out interference campaigns in Africa and the Middle East.
The reports tied two of the campaigns to Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch nicknamed as “Putin’s chef” for his close ties with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin was sanctioned by the U.S. government after Russia’s Internet Research Agency, which he financed, tried to meddle in the 2016 and 2018 elections.
Countries in the Middle East had increasingly turned to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter TWTR.N and Google’s GOOGL.O YouTube to peddle covert political influence online. The Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), a pro-Saudi lobby group, paid $2.6 million to Washington-based lobbying firm the Podesta Group for public affairs services that included running the anti-Qatar website. Similarly, Qatar took help from Egyptian companies New Wave and Flexell for running anti-UAE; anti-Saudi campaign. A Tehran-based agency “Nile Net online” has quietly fed propaganda through at least 70 websites to countries from Afghanistan to Russia.
Facebook’s move came ahead of elections Dec. 27 in the Central African Republic (CAR), which Facebook identified as the main target of the disinformation, at a time when both France and Russia have been manipulating for influence in the region. Ben Nimmo, head of investigations at social media analytics firm Graphika, said both campaigns used fake accounts to pose as local people, sometimes sharing doctored photos.
Earlier also Graphika released a report related to similar disinformation campaigns run by a few Middle Eastern countries to serve their nation’s interest.
Facebook said that it had taken down the network of accounts that tried to meddle in the Central African Republic, which were among almost 500 inauthentic Facebook and Instagram accounts, pages and groups that targeted users in several African and the Middle Eastern nations with posts about COVID-19, politics or the military.
The French military said in a statement Thursday to The Associated Press that it “firmly condemns” such disinformation efforts and is working alongside the U.N. and European partners to bring peace to the CAR.
“We are examining the results (of the Facebook-Graphika investigation), but at this stage, we’re not able to confirm any responsibility. There are many stakeholders in this struggle, public and civilian, which makes it difficult to assess the situation clearly,” the statement said. | https://medium.com/@mahdiabbastech/facebook-turns-down-foreign-influence-operations-targeting-africa-and-middle-east-3f138280220c | ['Cyber Gulf'] | 2020-12-21 10:30:06.232000+00:00 | ['France', 'Facebook', 'Middle East', 'Russia', 'Africa'] |
Roborock S4 Max review: Roborock’s latest robot vacuum is another winner | Roborock’s S4 Max is an evolution and replacement of its S4 robot vacuum, the company’s first model to not include a wet-mopping function. “MAX” might seem to promise some grand upgrades, but the vacuum offers mostly small, but effective refinements on its predecessor.
Cosmetically, the S4 Max looks identical to the S4. On top is a pair of rubberized buttons that activate auto cleaning and docking, a turret housing the vacuum’s laser sensor, and a 460ml dustbin concealed beneath a lid. There’s a single rolling brush and a silicone edge brush, plus two main wheels and an omnidirectional wheel. The vacuum has an attractive matte black finish, setting it apart from its mostly glossy competitors.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best robot vacuum cleaners, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.It follows the standard process for connecting to its companion app and your Wi-Fi. You press a big plus symbol in the Roborock app, select the S4 Max once it’s recognized, and follow the on-screen prompts. The setup was seamless for me, and the vacuum was up and running in less than a minute.
Roborock The S4 Max can recognize when it’s on carpet and automatically adjust its suction strength.
The first time you run the S4 Max, it creates a map of the room that you can save and modify to make future cleanings more efficient. You must enable the map-saving feature by hitting the Edit button and flipping a toggle in the app settings, though. Ideally, you’d do this before the vacuum’s first cleaning job, but if you forget—as I did—you can do it as soon as the job is done and manually save the map. You can save up to four maps, one more than with the S4, making it a great option for multilevel homes.
Once a map of your floor plan is saved, you can customize it by creating rooms, invisible walls, and no-go zones. Again, this is done through the Edit function and is as simple as dragging and sizing lines or boundary boxes where you want them on the map. With these modifications in place, you can deploy the S4 Max to clean specific rooms—either manually or on a schedule—and know it will stay out of areas you’ve designated as off limits.
Like the S4, the S4 Max has four cleaning modes, though their names have changed from Silent, Standard, Medium, and Turbo to Quiet, Balanced, Turbo, and Max. They’re effectively the same and can be selected from the app’s main screen.
Michael Ansaldo/IDG The S4 Max can save up to 4 maps.
If you only want to clean a specific area rather than the whole room, you can use Zone cleaning. This allows you to send the S4 Max to a space you define on the map. The S4’s “go to” feature, where you drop a pin on the map and send the vacuum to Spot clean the area, is still here as well. The advantage of Zone cleaning is that it lets you define how big the cleaning area is, rather than relying on a pre-programmed diameter.
I used the S4 Max on my downstairs level to see how it performed on carpet, hardwood, and vinyl bathroom tiles. It was able to transition from one floor type to another without issue. It can recognize carpet, and you can hear the suction kick up automatically when it does. It did particularly well here, sucking plenty of pet hair, food crumbs, and dirt from the fibers—far more than was visible to my eye.
The S4 Max navigates as well as the S4 did. Between the vacuum’s sensors and the virtual boundaries I placed in the map, it stayed out of trouble as long as I provided a clutter-free path for it. Its turret prevented it from getting under my couch and the toe-kick under my cabinets, but these were the only drawbacks I encountered.
The Roborock app includes a wealth of options for customizing the S4 Max. These include, language and volume settings for the voice prompt, a “find my robot” feature, and a virtual remote control for manually directing the vacuum. It also maintains a cleaning history that logs details of every job and tracks usage of the vacuum’s brushes, filter, and sensors, so you know how long each has until it needs to be cleaned or replaced.
Essentially the Roborock S4 Max does everything the S4 did, just a little bit better. In the end, its modest upgrades likely make it a better vacuum than if Roborock had just piled on new features. It’s highly recommended if you want some of the best robot vacuum technology has to offer without emptying your wallet.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@renee10402883/roborock-s4-max-review-roborocks-latest-robot-vacuum-is-another-winner-5deefef0ef7c | [] | 2020-12-24 12:56:18.936000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Audio'] |
The Nature and Causes of Corruption | Photo by Jonathan Harrison on Unsplash
The Nature and Causes of Corruption
Complacency, despite the fact that it is often simply a mundane, unquarrelsome acquiescence to the everyday status quo, should be regarded as a major problem the conscientious must tackle, because it diminishes prognosis for bettering our world, preventing spread of commitment to the philanthropic ethic that would further humanity’s collective cause. We must acknowledge that choosing indifference towards universal needs of our species instead of conscience will inevitably lead to an unsustainability of institutional paradigms upon which civilization depends during the worst kinds of disasters.
At the same time, this is not such an urgent issue that we must coerce populations into compliance by force, for a couple centuries of gradual consciousness-raising would be sufficient to hugely enhance the human race’s idealism while oppressive, ethically inferior standards currently in effect throughout most of the world remain as a baseline, perhaps we could call this the least common denominator. Herding around apathetic human beings during minor crises that are constantly cropping up everywhere is something authority has much experience doing, so much so that response to common emergencies is a well-oiled machine. And even if we wanted to somehow rush the aforementioned consciousness-raising, it would probably not be possible if we tried our hardest, for such deeply rooted social and psychological barriers exist in contemporary societies that changing global conscience, absent some powerful new form of memetic transmission, faces an inertia only transcendable over the course of multiple generations.
Unfortunately, philanthropy and civilization in general encounter a greater foe than complacency. Individuals and subcultures not only naively rely on unaccountable concentrations of influence while attempting to utilize the tenuous mechanisms of nonegalitarian social systems to strive after goals, but actively work to compromise the integrity of collectives for their own gain, conspiring against the public interest in ways that can be highly effective, at least when regarded from a short-term perspective. This is the leering beast of corruption, and while its machinations can be found in every organizational sphere, corruptive tendencies obfuscate progress within some of the most preeminent institutions on the planet.
Coopting of empiricism for oppression is a prime example, as technological advancement often centers around developing more potent methods of exploitation. Humans have spent the entirety of recorded history optimizing destructiveness of warfare in a multimillennial arms race, invading neighboring regions whenever tactical advantages materialize, then submitting populations politically and economically with threat and exaction of harm. War accelerated in calamitousness upon arrival of science-driven mass production in the 20th century with its fast-paced progress: from the start of WW1 to WW2, a mere twenty years was sufficient to go from fighting Western civilization’s battles with horseback riding and rifles that fire a dozen or less rounds per minute, to carpet bombing by airplanes at a range of hundreds of miles, armored vehicles, heavy bombing by vessels such as battleships and destroyers, and automatic rifles that fire more than twenty rounds per second, as well as the capacity of top militaries to reach any spot on Earth within weeks. In the 21st century, computerization has enabled U.S. armed forces to fight remote drone warfare anywhere in the world from installations inside the home country. All major militaries have spy satellites that track movement of paraphernalia everywhere, and ability to crack software encryption is on the rise, so that there is probably no virtual correspondence or computer system invulnerable to interception or attack.
Governments closely guard the most sophisticated technologies in order to maintain advantages over each other, but this is even more of a boon to dominating their own populations, as it becomes increasingly difficult for citizens around the world to engage in public advocacy. Modern law enforcement with its perfected discipline and high-tech weapons can easily disperse demonstrations into a chaos of fleeing, scuffling and arrest, which is especially true of countries that militarize the police and tightly regulate gun ownership. Total dependence of the developed world on networked computers makes it possible to monitor everything, so that privacy no longer really exists. This compromising of safety and freedom by invasive technologies of coercion is already proving divisive in its suppression of independent and honest expression, a trend towards inhibiting opportunity and fulfillment of a social kind, diminishing humanity’s aptitude for harmonious relationships as well as the competency of political discourse, our ability to keep the peace. Erosion of collectivity can produce anarchic draconianism in which human beings are more willing to violate each other at the whim of aggressive authority, intensified by a tide of repudiation for conventional law and order as human initiative disassociates from the morally demanding task of sustaining and building upon traditional norms such as customs, values, beliefs, civic responsibilities or respect for fellow members of communities, potentially breaking loose in a flood of social disorder.
As discussed in earlier chapters, the U.S. political system, a representation-based republic with democratically elected officials and voting on some governmental policies as ‘initiatives’, has become more oligarchic since the mid-20th century. Pricing of most products elevates faster than inflation, which is essentially a manipulation of the populace by businesses. This is possible due to corporations buying up most smaller scale companies or driving them out of business, causing a reduction in the competition that in principle places a capitalist check on price increases. Citizens must work longer hours to support themselves under these market conditions, interfering with their ability to agitate for causes and generally participate in architecting society, for the time is simply unavailable. Collective bargaining and activist measures such as strikes carried out by employees unions, which used to garner better wages and benefits, are no longer as effective because corporations can compensate for any losses in one sector of the economy by their involvement in others, with hundreds of businesses potentially shuttered for years before a significant impact would be made on the bottom lines of huge conglomerates. And American corporations have gone international in search of cheap labor, costing the population jobs, with the national government loath to increase taxation on business since the richest can even further shift their operations to other countries that offer the incentive of tax breaks. Altogether, the general population is being brought to its knees by economic mechanisms that usurp political institutions, shrinking the middle class and expanding the lower.
Despite these trends, Americans are still some of the most affluent citizens in the world, and have not lost the right to vote in an electoral system that is relatively free from corruption as well as the intimidative violence found in many countries, at least in theory capable of curbing economic discontents by mass pressure on government to represent the general interest. However, international capitalism not only manages to exact some coercion upon the nation’s government by doctoring the economy, but is infused into the political system itself via lobbying and campaign financing, in some cases making careers of politicians more obliged to big business than local constituents. Ordinary Americans have remained somewhat vigilant about this threat to their power, and too much pandering to large companies at the expense of citizens remains likely to get a representative booted in the next election, but continued move in this direction may one day render the majority impotent to effect public policy changes, as all possible representation will be compromised, pitting an angry, radicalizing nationalism against uncommitted financial leadership and inciting widespread unrest.
Russia’s communist history exemplifies how corruption can arise from not only external economic pressures but also the internal dynamics of a political system. The revolution of 1917 was in part a backlash against horrendous treatment of the lower class by the Czarist administration during WW1, a rebellion which its orchestrators hoped would enable the country to instill empowering egalitarianism for the sake of rapid industrialization so as to catch up with and perhaps surpass progressiveness of the West. Communist ideology glorified worker’s rights, regarding the economic impact of a majority proletariat’s labor as key to reaching the next stage in humanity’s cultural evolution, engendering societies in which disruptions and inefficiencies of class-based rivalry would be abolished. The middle and upper class bourgeoisie, with their ties to the capitalist paradigm, were severely repressed as this system got up and running, and thousands of executions took place. Its single party format was designed to educate the population into a new lifestyle and way of thinking, with representatives well-schooled in communist ideology stationed as employees at all formerly capitalist businesses, assigned the task of clarifying the philosophy, objectives and mechanisms of political conversion as needed. Government was reorganized for redistribution of wealth via centralized control, which Communist theory predicted would dissolve class distinctions and lead to decentralizing collectivization. It was the most ambitious social engineering experiment ever embarked upon, intended to transform the whole population’s financial status by a radical remodeling of the economy, ultimately with the intention of expunging social discontents that had been operative for millennia.
Karl Marx, the originator of communism, anticipated that this system would initially evince totalitarian tendencies as society struggled to overcome conventional presumptions about human nature, cultural prerogative and financial license. He expected the idea that pecuniary status legitimizes dominance to manifest as resistance against transitioning towards collectivization, and went so far as to give the supposedly temporary arrangement that would fight to dismantle deeply rooted attitudes and inclinations a name: the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Whether decline of Russia’s experimental system is attributable to bureaucratic inefficiencies of centralization, the related exigency that its government cover up ongoing logistical failures arising from flawed theorizing of economics, which may have been an exacerbating factor in extreme centralization’s permanence, or some other cause may not be entirely clear, but the country had gone from a dictatorship of principle to party absolutism by the mid-20th century. The tradition of executing those suspected of sympathies with capitalism degenerated into a purge of at least eight million. What had been intended as tutelage of ordinary citizens by party representatives throughout the economy evolved into surveillance networks, a facet of determining who government purges should target. Under these conditions of ubiquitous abuse, unification was maintained by invasively propagandizing the population into rivalry with the U.S., which diverted much of the country’s economy into preparing for a war that never happened and never could have without instantly destroying all of Russia in a retaliatory nuclear attack. This Soviet system, ostensibly still on the road to communism, became one of the most authoritarian states of the 20th century, and alongside the United States terrorized the world with threats of a nuclear end to civilization. The government of Russia was eventually overthrown, its communist movement’s goal of ending the types of conflict associated with class a distant memory.
Over the course of civilized history, many thinkers have devoted effort to social engineering, endeavoring towards understanding the world and human nature in order to construct the best civic systems, analyzing consciousness, behavior, law and order, politics and economics within a wide range of circumstances. Most of this has viewed the cosmos as a static entity, operating according to fixed principles of divine, rationalizable, sometimes enigmatic kinds, but as technical analysis of the past attained proficiency in the Western world of the 19th century, many citizens began to acquire a more robust concept of historical change, with notions that existence’s ontology, the universe, Earth’s environments, and our cultures undergo drastic transformations all coming to the foreground of philosophy and science. At first, systematizing of history tended to look for simplistic patterns of fundamental recursion such as the Hegelian paradigm, but many individuals increasingly contemplated the possibility that spontaneous transfiguration of phenomena may radically defy all precedents for intelligibility.
The most epistemically significant aspect of historical analysis is theorizing of physical evolution, for it seems to promise integration of geological science, the fossil record, heredity and cosmology, a unified account of how the past led to the present and what we can expect of the future, giving humans more than our age-old, static reality to investigate with all its empirical erroneousness, bookended in classical thinking by the illusory conceptualizing of an absolute beginning and end, but rather malleable, long-term direction over which we can wield some control. Charles Darwin’s expounding of biological evolution was its most revolutionary moment, for he immediately made it provable to unequivocality that humans are animals with traits of essentially nonrational, often irrational constitution and temporal antecedence, which might however be alterable in dramatic ways by decisions made according to experimental reasoning in the present. It occurred to many that the most optimal methods for achieving change could in fact be nonegalitarian, perhaps controverting reciprocity as the foundational standard for human relationships, which had manifested in a brand of enlightened idealism instrumental to social development since the origin of law codes in antiquity. It was conceivable that European academia’s Enlightenment era portrayal of the human organism as a rational agent with an ethic universalizable via logic, the culmination of multimillennial discourse, might after all be delusion delaying or even obstructing progress.
Modernizing globalization had been in its preliminary stages during the Enlightenment 18th century, with most of the world not yet technologized to the level of European societies, and even the main body of Europe’s population lacking access to higher education. An upper class existed in every civilized culture, sustaining exclusivity as the most wealthy, learned, and politically powerful demographic, possessing a primary role in determining the course of culture. As economic advantage amongst the home territories and countries of Europe’s empires came to be seen as reliant on a populace mobilized for technical competence, civic-minded humanism gained more traction with intellectuals. The rich began to realize their security depended on committing to some concessions for the sake of the general population’s well-being and satisfaction, leading to groundbreaking philosophies that promoted pursual of egalitarian institutions. This would stimulate transition towards more democratic systems, initially intended as a mechanism by which to uphold legal equalities so that political organization would serve everyone’s interests, making civil unrest obsolete.
Despite the best efforts of enlightened thinkers, conflict erupted across the globe in the 19th and 20th centuries as lingering imperialism struggled to sustain a grip on rebellious locals, citizenries in Europe and elsewhere fought violent battles to overthrow the vestiges of autocratic rule, and oppressed demographics everywhere confronted persecution with civil disobedience and demonstration. The quest for egalitarianism had splintered into aristocracies and bourgeoisie warring for sustainment of their way of life, a proletariat seeking to free itself from the chains of economic exploitation, and innumerable subcultures whose very survival was at stake.
In the early and mid 20th century, as population exploded and turmoil escalated in many locales, declining egalitarian idealism and rise of a survival of the fittest competitive principle, already well underway, broke through remnants of moral and political tradition, washing over the human race in a devastating wave of power plays. Fascist Germany overran all of Europe and began to commit genocide against minority demographics in many countries. Imperial Japan severely subjugated the Chinese during its WW2 era occupation. After the war, as mentioned elsewhere, the Stalinist Soviet Union executed many millions. China’s new communism governed its population with surpassing strictness. Corporate capitalism in the Western world became less obligated to promote social welfare and more engrossed in consolidating financial control with every passing year. By the beginning of the 21st century, commitment to progressive reform in the mold of both religious and secular enlightenment had largely been derailed, devolving into a brazen cultural imperialism that may become unflinchingly nihilistic enough to erase every trace of any vulnerable individual on the planet, heedless of principle.
In the contemporary world, finance only stokes the flames of a growing nihilism (in the Nietzschean sense) that is despoiling ethical tradition. Profit models utilized by large corporations judge success based on rate of fiscal growth, with exponential expansion in wealth being the standard of viability in a company’s business strategy, for it guarantees larger salaries amongst top officials, indicates a trend towards market dominance via monopoly, and allows investment in additional sectors of the economy, a diversification which insures conglomerates against misfortune in any particular venture. Unfortunately, there are many aspects of society that are difficult to quantify and thus do not figure into profit assessments: quality of life, values of a culture, financial security of the general population, and the organizational integrity of political systems.
Neglect of more intangible factors that contribute to a society’s health has pushed some parts of the world way beyond what traditions permitted even a couple generations ago. Greedy acquisitiveness is more prevalent in populations than it used to be as corporate leadership spars for hegemony, and ordinary individuals fight to remain solvent in an environment where money is sucked out of their pockets at maximal levels by manipulation of the market. Transmission of memes has lost its sense for the ethical, mimicking the vitiated nature of advertising and character portrayals in corporate media, a shallowness, subversiveness and contradictoriness. Imagery along with behavioral mimesis in many cultures are more violent and sexual than they used to be, desensitizing citizens to exploitation. The empathetic dimension of ethical responsibility is degenerating due to desensitization, and its rational dimension rarely matures as inducement of superficial decision-making proves most effective in stimulating consumption. Individuals are less concerned with cogent discourse and vigilant about the ideological direction of their countries, political systems radicalize as they are infused with a market-driven bankrupting of values, pushing much of the modernized world towards exploitative authoritarianism within acquiescent populations.
In the United States, monopolies in the private business domain are expropriating many of the country’s institutions in order to consolidate financial control and maximize profit. The most sobering factor in this contemporary capitalism is its intersection with media and democracy. Whatever suspect, probably self-defeating economic thrust is being made, media seems to be one of the main vehicles, with mechanisms of publicity often devoted to the purpose of producing an illusion that unifying mass movements are taking place, most likely deflecting attention of some demographics away from declines in wealth, security, freedom and quality of life. Democracy has largely been assimilated into this circus of hype, so that political discourse is becoming more civically incompetent, endless jabbering about manufactured scandals that have no connection with what is really going on in the world. Decadence of official information has become so dire that it is impossible to discern from traditional communications mediums such as news, T.V. shows or big budget websites what exactly the status of the social system is. A network of independent publicity consisting in personal postings such as blogs, messaging and video is coalescing as a replacement for the descent of popular culture towards exploitation, but this format is extremely disorganized, so diverse that the overall course being set is almost incoherent, making it to this point marginally capable of countering imperialistic finance.
Deterioration of the American value system, economic hardship hitting the majority increasingly hard, and rampant disinformation have worsened some long-standing issues in the country. The justice system has always been liable to discriminate against the poor and especially minority ethnicities, with these demographics the most arrested, falsely convicted and harshly punished, while the financially well off have better legal representation and are more apt to obtain lenience. Health care is of exorbitant cost in the U.S., requiring similarly expensive insurance that must usually be paid for as a perk of employment at the top-tier companies, so-called “benefits”. This makes medical treatment prohibitive for a large proportion of the citizenry, ruling out preventative care that would mitigate incidence of many illnesses associated with aging, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, which reduces lifespans and quality of life for lower income individuals. The country is quite multicultural, and tensions between those of different background can occur in many areas. These hot button issues have been inflamed by a less civic-minded lifestyle with accompanying disintegration towards “fend for yourself” and “take care of your own” social mores, exploding into divisiveness along class and racial lines, a subcultural isolationism that foments bullying, crime, hostility towards immigrants, political factionalism, smeared reputations, and prejudicial profiling along with stereotype-based accusations, all placing strain on law and order as well as leading to disillusionment about the feasibility of legal equality as a working standard for progress.
So corruption, the hijacking of institutions for purposes detrimental to the well-being and future of populations, surfaces in many ways. Technological advantages are used as a means to scare, goad, dupe, tempt citizenries towards a warlike lifestyle, making them willing to relinquish political prerogative based on assurances of defense from or sovereignty over cultural rivals, which tends to decrease the efficiency of progress and sometimes threatens societies with comprehensive destruction. Enlightened social engineering is susceptible to transitioning from a progressing sequence of idealistic reforms to mechanisms of oppression that avail themselves of bellicose ideologies such as “survival by conflict” whenever they can. In 20th century Russia, egalitarian idealism evaporated, replaced by a totalitarian state that posed grave dangers to its own populace as well as the rest of the world. In the 20th and 21st century United States, a political system of democratic representation began to transmogrify into elitist oligarchy as wealth was monopolized and consolidated in conjunction with financial mechanisms of the corporate paradigm. Forums of democracy were drawn into this system, with much of the general population becoming poorer while official information sourcing misleads, obstructs organizing, and renders unsustainable the values that had upheld solidarity in all sorts of communities, generating nihilism as well as growing rejection of the culture’s established legal channels. As exploitative capitalism took root in the U.S., the justice and medical systems served wealth more exclusively. All of this economic manipulation caused a multicultural society to be less conscience-motivated, coupled with renewal of the divisions along class and ethnic lines that had been attenuated by reforms some decades earlier, spawning a more hazardous society.
Corruptive forces clearly cannot be linked with any singular component of society or set of local conditions, for analysis of history finds them in many spheres of human activity and every era. Pinning responsibility on particular institutions and then attempting to rail against or otherwise assail these frameworks can be seductive, but corruption must run deeper than any single organizational strategy or form of culture. Does something about human nature predispose many communities to equivalent sorts of discontentments?
Firstly, all kinds of behavior takes place that is not highly normalized. Individuals interact throughout their lives for the sake of pleasures that relationships provide, such as humor, bonding, learning, helping, problem-solving, even the damaging acts of bullying or insulting. The social dimension of life provides entertainment and gives us opportunity to accomplish more, as an integral, simply unavoidable element of daily existence. When social norms are involved, this is frequently of an informal nature that allows for flexibility and personal preference, with any misunderstandings usually insignificant enough that those involved dismiss the incident or harmlessly part ways. Of course depreciation to one’s reputation as regarded by someone else occurs even under casual circumstances, in such a way that conflict is impossible to ignore, but while this can be difficult to deal with emotionally and require some deliberate reconciliation to overcome, most spats are a brief episode of immaturity or nonrationality and do not amount to anything big. However, there is a subset of behaviors, those associated with making the decisions which are core to actualization via collectivity, essential to one’s livelihood, and upon which maintenance of society depends, typically adjuncted to the exigencies of occupations or subcultures, having greater import for lives and presenting us with issues that absolutely cannot be neglected. In these cases, normalization becomes more than incidental or dispensable, but formative to social structure and a determining factor in long-term fates of individuals, the medium for humanity’s most intentional and often explicit purposes, placing the weight of necessity upon us. This is the kind of socialized environment that tends to seed far-reaching progress and on which institutions rest.
When individuals convene to complete a project they care strongly about, in relation to which they take themselves and the outcome seriously, requiring the group to engage in problem-solving of some complexity for the sake of creating something new, where each member’s self-identified success or failure is at stake, what does this entail absent all preestablished norms? First, introductory conversations will take place to break the ice and get everyone comfortable, including some anticipatory shop talk. When the time comes for getting tasks accomplished, their technical challenges resolved, multiple clusters of interaction happen simultaneously, arrangements which morph as affairs proceed. When someone has knowledge that others lack while not feeling too much reservation from personality or immediate conditions, he or she will step up and take the lead, informing collaborators and guiding the effort forward. Some individuals may become displeased with the direction in which the group is going and get animated, but will not be judged with much negativity if what they have to say is important. When an individual is uncertain, curious, recognizes an opportunity to assimilate new information, or is otherwise averse to dominating the proceedings, he or she will grow scrupulous and spend more time listening and observing than imposing on others. Altogether, participants have dual concerns: making sure they contribute expertise sufficient for the group’s objective to be accomplished, and also the adoption of various roles — leader, subordinate, cooperative peer, speaker, listener, pal, initiator — that are more passive, deferential, cordial or assertive as the situation seems to necessitate, a chameleonlike shifting between social postures.
While individuals relate, norms start to coalesce as relations and roles. Some have more expertise in certain domains than others, and acquire a measure of authority in association with technical matters. Some really like each other, some treat each other nicely while never getting that close, some have tepid feelings towards each other, some seem to always encounter friction when they converge, and some prefer avoidance. Those who are more socially adept can become hubs of the group’s organizing, responsible for mediating a variety of relationships.
This spontaneous normalization of a pragmatic collective, the solidifying of relationship dynamics into persisting roles, eventually falls into one of two general types, and often both: logistical norms and status norms. Logistical norms are the social orientations within which it has been determined that behaviors will meet with technical success. When group members have agreed on a particular fact, interpretation of the facts, or procedural strategy, this mutual consent can become informally or formally binding, a foundation for further action. If it is decided amongst a group of physics buffs that their model rocket needs a greater amount of fuel than is on hand, those involved will proceed with getting more under this assumption, or if it is determined that a subsequent meeting is necessary for negotiators to reach compromise, the group will designate the next meeting time. Status norms are social orientations that define implications of behavior for the identity of both individuals and groups as affected by collaborating. This consists in the impact of logistical and relational developments on reputation, defining one’s fluctuating role in the collective as a relative influence upon decision-making. If group members are held responsible for a failure, the status of their judgement may diminish and vice versa, or if individuals are constantly offending or undermining others, they may be suppressed despite technical competence. The two categories often overlap, as in the case of someone with greater know-how becoming a leader, or someone with better social organizing talent granted sway in determining who will contribute to technicalities at which times and in what ways.
Reciprocation is the essence of normalization, for it is rare that someone pursues social behavior long-term without expectation of mutual respect or at least a gratifying response of provocation, tolerance or impotence, with relations that fall short of either party’s consent being almost by definition a conflict. But when differences in capacitation to reciprocate exist and it is vital to accept these discrepancies if collective purposes are to be satisfied, consenting to inequality of status becomes necessary, a trust that goes beyond the desire to have one’s social touchstones honored, further comprised of ceding control to someone else for the sake of procuring benefits or achieving successes.
Already touched upon, there are various criteria for consenting to relationships of dominance/submission during the kinds of collective endeavors regarded as particularly important. If individuals have greater aptitude, they are given a larger role in setting their collective’s course while it seeks to achieve its aims. If individuals are on good terms with many group members or easy to get along with in general, they will often be offered a bigger role in the collective’s activities. If individuals display leadership ability or especially want that role, they will be more likely to attain a commanding position. If structure of the collective makes a moderator obligatory, functional necessity may assign prerogative to regulate or overrule fellow members. Rules may be put in place delegating greater responsibility to some members, so that norms for obedience uphold status disparities.
Status norms essentially consist in distributions of the value that members attribute to each other within a collective. These attributions are complex and flexible networks of social identity that make group assent partially constraining to personal motive, a main determinant of who has license to do or say what to whom and when. Norms of status manage dominance and submission, the relative control individuals have in relation to each other, and when contours of status stabilize, social value transitions into a lasting array of ranks from which hierarchical organization emerges. When social hierarchies are reinforced over time such that they come to transcend individual members, indoctrinated as a condition of even highest ranking involvement in the collective, status norms have become customs, cultural traditions of the kind characterizing our own species’ way of life.
Customs of status are often logistically necessary as practical ground rules for consent, giving behaviors reliable meanings in a way fostering the orderliness and restraint that guard a collective against chaos and dissolution over long periods of time, but also participate in defining the relative worth of each member at any given moment, so that dominance typically corresponds in an approximate way to superiority, and submission to inferiority. Those capacitated for greater reciprocation to the collective as recognized by its customs have more authority, which often places a priority on their decisions, behaviors and well-being. Individuals entrusted with leadership tend to be more respected, better treated, diligently protected, wealthier, and stand a greater chance of becoming legendary. When it is customary for authority to constitute superior stature, the role of leader is in high demand with those inclined towards ambitiously making a name for themselves, so that high-level decision-making for the sake of a collective paradoxically attracts most strongly those desirous to promote themselves, or who unrealistically believe their competence is superior, or who simply view themselves as entitled to a more illustrious and comfortable life. Thus, social hierarchies which would work best by positioning individuals of greatest merit as authorities in actuality attract many of those who are most arrogant or willing to flaunt collective need for the experience of personal superiority. For this reason, logistical norms frequently become subordinated to status norms in ways that can be problematic, with influence more about becoming socially superior than progressing towards the most accurate, truest possible assessments of a situation, best addressed to practical need. Tension between responsible decision-making and the pursuit of prestige is perpetual as authority becomes power, and this power a struggle for supremacy at the more than occasional expense of functionality.
With logistical norms of both role-delineating customs and collective strategizing deeply entwined with status norms of superiority and inferiority in humanity’s social structures, the effort to arrive at working truth puts identity on the line. In an environment of power, the successful application of knowledge is not merely a means to sustain culture but additionally a status symbol, and occupational security as well as advancement depend on more than the collective’s well-being, but also getting one’s way together with politically navigating circumstances such that inevitable logistical failures do not erode respect for personal or collective authority enough to instigate disastrous conflicts. A difficult balance must be achieved between the decision-making group’s viability as an effective, trusted entity and each individual’s convictions and self-interests. When the scale tips in the direction of individual interests, power struggles can ensue with increased deception, and likewise if issues arising in conjunction with an organization or intrinsic to its operations are capable of destroying key decision makers, its overall reputation with the wider community, or its very survival.
An influential collective is always facing three general conflicts of interest: solidarity must be sustained without stunting the freedom of its members to act and cooperate with spontaneous independence or vice versa, and neither solidarity nor independent agency can be emphasized to such an extent that persistence under external conditions is impossible. When a collective strays too far towards concerning itself with solidarity and away from independence, it is overwhelmed by groupthink tendencies, a colluding self-affirmation that detracts from innovatively dealing with novelty, insufficiently mobilized for adapting to its surroundings. If individualism becomes too extreme, complex collaboration grows impossible to coordinate and the collective is incapable of making major decisions or simply disbands. If any mixture of innovative liberality with collusive solidarity is ineffectual in discerning or responding to external causality, from complacency, deficient technical sophistication, inadequate precedents or even mere chance, the collective will encounter crises that may drive it to extinction.
Human prehistory provides exemplification of excessive independence’s consequences. Some scientists suggest that the entirety of Homo sapiens is descended from a single woman in what is currently Botswana, and even if the bottleneck does not ultimately prove to be this extreme, it is clear from genetic evidence that most of the world’s inhabitance germinated from migrations that could be as small as only a few thousand individuals in total over the course of tens of thousands of years. The multibillion strong population of our planet, with its diverse customs, languages, and wide variety of local traits, originated as close-knit, homogeneous communities that probably dispersed for noncombative reasons, perhaps because a tribe became too large, merely from out of wanderlust, or because family groupings had agreed to disagree and placidly parted ways. The species began as a single race, but with lack of commitment to maintaining contact within cohesive tradition, the potent force of genetic, cognitive and cultural drift produced thousands of languages, what seems in our keen intraspecies perception to be a large assortment of strikingly different traits, and the massive collection of beliefs and practices. Prehistoric tribes that had separated for peaceable, harmless reasons could become embittered, feuding rivals as populations swelled, contact was renewed, and competitions for access to territory developed, with regions throughout the world in the grip of recurring warfare for possibly more than a hundred thousand years. Alienation was not utter catastrophe, as precivilized humans were more than willing and able to engage in commerce also, the exchanging of ideas and material goods upon which success of the first civilizations depended, but also resulted in toleration for escalated, sweeping conflicts as a scion of tribal warfare, culminating with invasions, conquests, institutions of oppression, and an imperialistic outlook that threatens to disrupt the lives of millions to this day.
In our own 20th and 21st century time, immigrants with closely related ancestry, who may have been neighbors only a few generations ago, end up fighting massively destructive wars under the banners of their new countries. These citizens have common interests, wants, needs, modes of practical and technical thinking, but governments seem unable to extricate themselves from a competition-based, projection of power approach to political relations despite its long-term futility and encumbrance of progress. If our species had committed to preserving cultural integration as it expanded, beyond what seems relevant for our pleasure and survival, perhaps imperialism would have never existed despite occasional warring, but as it stands this fantasy could not be further from the real, for rivalry and the breaking off of relations are submerged in the very essence of humanity’s lifestyle.
Drawbacks of overstressing solidarity are also easily noted. Though the laissez faire system revealed itself vulnerable to downturns that can, without well-organized interventions, temporarily sink the global economy, lightly regulated capitalism surpasses by a large margin the economic capabilities of totalitarian societies in which access to information is tightly restricted in the service of inducing compliance to rigid centralization. Countries of this type tend to be less innovative, rapid in their adjustments to changing conditions, and seem shockingly unlivable to even the most banally consumerist cultures. These states’ economic inefficiencies and oppressiveness to their citizens make them almost impossible to sustain long-term without assistance from external sources, and even though totalitarianism terribly frightens its populaces into underperforming submissiveness much of the time, it usually succumbs to revolution or solidifies its power with weapons and wealth provided by governments of capitalist societies that are more than willing to contribute a bit of lucre towards cementing their advantage. It remains to be seen whether monopolistic corporatizing of capitalism will veer so far into the authoritarian that problems typical of totalitarianism begin to appear.
Invention of the personal computer in the latter half of the 20th century offers a lesson in how big problems can arise from deficient response to unforecasted conditions. In the mid-1970’s, a troupe of young technology aficionados including original members of what would become the computer corporations Apple and Microsoft had yet to make it in the business world. They were learning the ins and outs of hardware and programming as amateurs, working on their machines from home, then meeting periodically for collaboration in order to share ideas. It was a small-scale effort, but as ideal a collective project as human beings can likely muster, with very little pretentiousness or rivalry. These guys were doing what they loved, teaming up to advance their knowledge and the field of computer engineering as fast as possible from out of sheer pleasure.
Bill Gates, who had dropped out of Harvard to pursue a career in computers, founded Microsoft in 1975, and Steve Jobs quit his gig at an apple orchard to found Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak. A buoyant atmosphere of full bore progress at the expense of sleep, hygiene and a social life persisted as these founders hired their first employees, who possessed the same ethic of dedication. Gates was known to equip a room with pizza and soda for his workers’ all-night programming binges.
In technological terms, this environment was perfect for rapid growth, with a series of breakthroughs that by the mid-1980’s had made personal computers integral to business in the United States, placed a PC in the homes of tens of millions, and designed a GUI (graphical user interface) called “Windows” that has been the operating system template for every mass marketed computer since. But in cultural terms, the full steam ahead, no reservations approach towards developing computers gave rise to some social dilemmas. These unassuming startups quickly became huge, multibillion dollar corporations determined to protect their intellectual property rights and patents, exerting themselves to control the market as all successful companies do, yet individuals throughout the country still inhabited a subculture of spontaneous collaboration in the bent of early hobbyist programming, speedily acquiring levels of proficiency sufficient to produce computer technology of equivalent quality without pay, often distributed to fellow programmers and the general public for free. A battle commenced between big business and the amateur community, with many computer users bypassing technology that had required hundreds of millions of dollars to release by accessing free resources instead, and corporations generating ever more stringent safeguards with engineering and finance to make not-for-profit hardware and software inaccessible to consumers.
The outcome was that this field became obsessed with both cracking down on freedom and utilizing any sliver of freedom that remained for subversive purposes. Major corporations labored to assure incompatibility of their programming code with outside innovation, and many millions of dollars were spent on contriving invasive mechanisms for surveilling user behavior, while hackers continually found ingenious ways to circumvent these measures Robinhood style. The upshot was that a computing arms race between authorities and rebels eradicated citizen privacy, with all computer users subjected to unwanted monitoring. This has reconstituted the fabric of society, as anyone can be policed by organizations or have their information and activities scrutinized by competent coders at any time, with communication increasingly dangerous to both individual citizens and governance of all types. The first computer whizzes gave not a thought to security, and we have probably reached a point where there is no solution. The field of computing blitzed through its technological barriers heedless of impact on the culture at large, and despite some effort to cobble together fixes such as “password strength”, an ineffectual strategy if servers that store user passwords are cracked or keystrokes can be recorded, even the most basic social exchanges have come to involve risk. The safety of honest expression in all mediums of electronic correspondence will most likely be unsalvageable.
In much of the Western world, especially the United States, individualism has been glorified with good reason, for when a concerted effort is not made to champion independence, society falls victim to a toxic mix of mob mentality and divergent subcultural evolution that readily stirs up vicious disputes, as shown by prehistory’s feuding wars and subsequent transition to militant imperialism in civilized contexts. But the individual is not infallible, for one of the sources of corruption in modern society is mere absence of personal vigilance about the course of leadership’s decision-making, and conversely the negligence of supervision to adequately incentivize personal integrity in the education system and additional institutional settings. The typical citizen tends to permit a large amount of corruption in the domain of authority, and typical authorities take little personal responsibility for many consequences of their decisions, especially as applicable to domains within which those immediately involved are regarded as of low social status. Individualism in the upper tiers of a social system breeds corruption due to rogue ambition, intoxication with power, and convictions that one is superior, while individualistic inclinations in lower tiers can foment corruption when systems fail to credit or even grant the opportunity for personal achievement, infusing jaded morale into average civil action and inducing apathy about daily repercussions of familial and collegial roles, a patchwork of many billion thankless moments which nonetheless largely determine the whole temperament of a population.
Inaptness in reacting to logistical crisis is also a potential source of institutional corruption. When problems crop up that are severe enough to deeply tax a collective’s response mechanisms, perhaps because lack of predictive foresight brought an issue on too suddenly for mobilization, or it is unprecedented enough that preparation is deficient, or simply because the scale is larger than an organization’s design can handle, even firmly established, impeccably disciplined hierarchies may start to degenerate. In these cases, collective efforts must deal with sometimes grim failures, and even unavoidable blunder can threaten faith in intendances, leading to panic and a compounding of poor judgement as leadership exerts itself to contain damage to the authority structures themselves, with blame and suppression of dissent intensified into extremes that can destroy formerly powerful individuals as well as respected traditions. Top ranking officials are dismissed, internal squabbling breaks out, enforcement of standard procedure can become harsh or in the worst cases brutally violent, and governing bodies are susceptible to losing their mandate completely as communities they shepherd erupt into malcontented chaos.
So there is more to corruption in complex institutions than malicious abuse of control for personal gains, though contributions from both individualism and logistical complication are often oversimplistically interpreted as conspiratorial or criminal intent of a cabalized kind. The core dynamic from which modern corruption usually springs, by contrast, is drifting of an organization too far in the direction of all-encompassing solidarity, which may be intrinsic to the invasively regulated workings of most 21st century systems.
First of all, strictured settings constrain behavior so that individuals must constantly suppress their affective states in order to meet collective expectations and remain in good standing. This bottled up affect accumulates and festers over time until a particularly stressful or unsupervised moment occurs, at which time all kinds of citizens either act insensitively or blow their top and lash out at those around them, causing damage to relationships and decreasing trust. Even motivation of a more reasoned kind is confined by rules enforced in modern institutions, and individuals must constantly battle against bureaucratic resistance to getting their needs met and interests served, turning collective situations into unceasing disgruntlement, confrontation or litigation, which increases stress, reduces quality of life, and estranges human beings from each other. Pent up affect as well as the cerebral fight for one’s status and preservation often displace into a desire for domination, so that organizations are usually gravitating towards arrangements in which many members seek and acquire excessive control, seizing collective mechanisms for personal gain or recognition as a superior.
Whenever leadership of some exclusivity is achieved by way of self-interestedly exploiting a system, the effects of incompetent decision-making from out of bad intentions, technical ineptitude or flaws in character are magnified to sometimes destructive levels, where ill-advised judgement by single individuals can negatively impact thousands or even millions of lives. While authority pursues inordinate amounts of power, any complacency and passivity of underlings as well as the general population facilitates this effort, so that management often turns a blind eye towards indifference or even promotes it, which commonly conflagrates into so-called banality of evil when unaccountable leadership becomes reckless or malicious without any significant reduction in consent. Exploitation and negligence alike find modern institutions more than hospitable, affording a glut of niches for personal irresponsibility and declines in collective integrity.
Altogether, there seem to be two poles of the institutional spectrum: subcultural division and cultural uniformity. Social divisions of a well-adjusted nature can probably be defined as forms of experimental diversification, with significant problems caused by any trending into maladaptive extremes, such as individualism uncommitted to the collective’s fate, or experimentation dramatic enough that the prospects of whole countries come to depend on untested theory. Salubrious uniformity is something akin to a real democratic framework, where every segment of the system has an opportunity for contributing perspective to collective decision-making, and starts to become precariously radical when consolidated into uncompromising, nonadapting, imperious culture. Much of the contemporary world seems to be veering into the arena of oppressional solidarity, where citizens are forced to conform while independent thought is discouraged. This has the potential to devolve political organization into a coercion of mainstream beliefs and customs that attacks existing diversity, prevents further diversification, and generally cripples the ability of populations to change from out of intrinsic spontaneity, which is more nuanced, rapid and committed than the inertial momentum of extrinsic impetus. This environment is pitting majority culture against individualism, giving authority more control than is probably advisable, and making society more irrational, fallout showing up as a downward spiral into exploitation, nihilism of a conscience-spurning kind, and the displacement of frustrations into subcultural antagonism.
In the United States at least, society has not reached such an advanced stage of corruption that institutions are irredeemable, for the political system is viable enough that public reforms are possible, many remain vigilant and vocal about all kinds of injustices, scientific research continues to make innovations benefiting civilian life beyond that which sustains authority’s power, relatively uncontroversial opinions have forums for articulation in settings such as education and electronic communications, while civic action maintains some latitude for independent initiative. But nonetheless, politics are becoming less democratic and more oligarchic, public activism for progressive causes more dangerous, science more subservient to wealth, and communication less mobilized to bring individuals together for mutual causes in ways unrestrained by the distancing ushered in via dependency on virtual socializing. If culture persists in growing less individualistic and more coercive, then corruption following from conspiratorial collusion at high levels, the disenfranchisement of civic-minded behavior, and groupthink will worsen until we can only divert ourselves away from the inefficiencies and terrors of invasive totalitarianism by agitation that grinds the system to a halt, and if we pass even this point, poorly functioning dystopia may become reality, our “new normal”.
Corruption in modern institutions is like a cultural illness. After emerging in one domain of the system, it is liable to spread, as obedient behavior puts those who do not likewise bend or break the rules when possible at a competitive disadvantage. Individuals and groups engaging in corrupt practices must be occasionally caught to prevent order in a system from completely disintegrating, which leads to beefed up, roving enforcement, the institutional immune system if you will, posing threats everywhere. Enforcement often grows overreactively strict, assailing many who are not chronic rulebreakers, nor any significant danger to the system, as well as falsely identifying many individuals as malefactors, a corrupted anticorruption comparable to autoimmune disorder. If measures for combating corruption are not practiced long enough, widely enough, or effectively enough to completely remedy the problem, a rebound can occur as new strategies are found by which to again make mischievous activity rewarding, much like antibiotic resistance, after which corruptive contagion resumes. If corruption takes hold at high organizational levels, this is analogous to an infection of the nervous system or brain, causing forms of damage which are an acute threat to the whole social organism’s survival as well as its future health and potency.
In tightly regulated circumstances of the modern world, a deliberate deincentivizing, suppression or eradication of diversity can become like immunodeficiency syndrome, assaulting what little developmental faculty is sustainable within rigidly tiered culture, extinguishing independent thought, spontaneous innovation and collaboration, novel action, in essence the collective’s self-tailoring adaptivity. It is tempting to analogize social progressiveness to engineering a perfectly calibrated, flawless machine, but all mechanical systems require an outside agent to oversee their operations, maintaining, repairing and updating them in order to protract working order in the face of inclement conditions and inevitable wear and tear. Without nurturing this upkeep from within institutional civilization by fostering human ingenuity, society’s timespan is limited. Perhaps we can analogize systematized institutionalizing to our model of the living organism, a mechanistic system that adapts. This compels humanity to face a sobering fact: the maximum lifespan of higher eukaryotes such as vertebrates, which are the most intricate and dominant lifeforms on the planet, is usually much less than a hundred years. Even for a society that lacks corruption, absence of revolutionizing creativity and the cognitive flexibility required for a population to assimilate it spells doom.
Education is our most powerful tool because it allows us to reproduce humanity’s cultural consciousness as efficaciously as our physical trait profile. But if we suppress opportunity for individuals to learn and grow within the institutional frameworks necessary for large-scale civilization to function, either by overbearing anticorruption mechanisms or subjection to dictatorial authority that places its own subsistence above the collective’s progress, our species’ long-term well-being may be imperiled, and perhaps our very survival. Human history has thus far allowed ample occasion to improve upon mistakes and deficiencies of our predecessors by simple accident of logistical limitations to institutional invasiveness, but the increasing interconnectivity in human civilization is generating a more extensive tyranny of the present over the future, with recovery harder for subsequent generations to actualize. It will be our challenge in the 21st century and beyond to avoid the permanence of regressiveness and stagnation, negotiating a balance between individuals, collectives, and those qualities of humanity which are universal, optimizing stability and crisis management while minimizing exploitation and the trammeling of progress so as to give our species the greatest possible future. | https://medium.com/@enrique50/the-nature-and-causes-of-corruption-9f7fb1b83525 | ['Eric Bond'] | 2021-02-22 12:18:52.061000+00:00 | ['History', 'Ethics', 'Social Dynamics', 'Institutions', 'Corruption'] |
Philosophical approaches: purity of systems | Retrieved from https://cdn.thomasnet.com/insights-images/embedded-images/99f2f999-0133-4767-9694-9ce8a8af4147/c0322aaf-472e-4ebb-8773-a820008b95ae/FullHD/Spur,-helical,-and-bevel-gears.jpg
Purity comes when a system is not dependent or vulnerable to another one. Math is, for example, is a consistent and pure system in itself because its terminals works always the same on its own space and for every x, there is a y and this is always the same and true for math as far as I know (Cannot be too sure for each operation since I am no math expert). Since flows include external time sense according to my approaches(https://hakbas.medium.com/philosophical-approaches-verbs-and-nouns-in-human-mind-936512dbea56) and it depends on something which is not in the space of the human mind, they should not be considered as ‘pure concepts or contexts’ as they can be reduced into smaller pieces and they will not create a reliable and pure system on their own. Pure concepts, though, can create impure concepts by relating them to external terminals which can later be resolved into themselves.
Science can be done on the systems that is pure because ‘reliability’ can only be achieved if the system is not dependent on other variables unless it is wanted. | https://medium.com/@hakbas/philosophical-approaches-purity-of-systems-e27f6fdcaf0d | ['Hüseyin Akbaş'] | 2020-12-26 23:08:00.229000+00:00 | ['Purity', 'Math', 'System', 'Philopsophy', 'Science'] |
6 reasons why videos are the future of business networking and how you can prepare for it | Many of us have probably experienced this before: you are searching for a job, sending out resumes and applying for countless positions with no replies from companies or recruiters. Finally, you do get a reply — but just as you are about to celebrate, you see the request to complete a video assessment. You start to panic because you have no experience recording videos for career purposes. However, assessments like these are just one of the many examples where videos are becoming more common in job search and career-building.
In this blog post, we will let you in on why you should start paying more attention to video formats and how you can prepare for the future of business networking.
1. Videos communicate non-verbal cues
Videos are the next best thing to face-to-face interaction. Through videos, we are better able to see a person’s body language than over a text or phone call and from there, get a better sense of a person’s personality which we would otherwise be unable to pick up through other means. This is especially useful for job recruitment or networking when we want to meet people and get to know them as a person.
2. Videos garner the most engagement
With both sound and visuals, videos engage viewers more than text or static images. According to statistics from Renderforest, videos have a whopping majority of 74% engagement compared to other media formats such as image and text. It is also the most preferred type of content on social media at 81% as compared to images, text posts, stories, quizzes and lives.
3. Videos communicate information quickly and are fast to consume
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video that is one minute long must be worth millions of words. While seemingly coming from a mere adage, this appears to hold true. In fact, according to Forrester Research, a video is indeed worth 1.8 million words. In this day and age, we also know just how hectic our lives can get — and if there is one format that can communicate information across swiftly and effectively, it is video. Our brains are naturally hardwired towards visual content and this explains why we engage faster with video format instead of ploughing through long chunks of text to find the information we need.
Interestingly, the average engagement of a person decreases as the video length increases. According to a report by Vidyard, average engagement is most optimal at video lengths of 0 to 1 minute. If you are looking to do up a simple video CV or record a video for your own personal branding, this might be worth taking note of if you want to be successful in the video space. More about that below ;)
4. Videos are the norm in social media
Videos have been around in social media for quite some time with short-form video hosting app Vine being launched back in 2013. Fast forward a couple of years and we now have TikTok, a China-based short-form video sharing platform with an estimated 800 million global monthly active users as of January 2020.
Other familiar social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram have also encouraged video consumption in people’s everyday lives through their Stories and IGTV feature. Not to mention that industries such as e-commerce and esports have ramped up livestreaming or video streaming efforts in recent years on platforms like Facebook Live and Twitch.
All in all, the future of video seems bright as online video consumption has increased steadily and is set to rise to 100 minutes per person per day globally in 2021. With videos a major part of social media, people have grown accustomed to watching videos, whether it is for education, entertainment or work.
5. Gen Z & Millennials love videos
It’s official; video content is the most popular amongst the Millennials and Gen Z. Gen Z, in particular, are a unique generation that consumes video content more than their older peers. In fact, while a US study showed that every generation (including Generation Xers and Baby Boomers) uses YouTube at least once a week, Gen Zers use YouTube for almost everything. TikTok has also become a hot favourite with Gen Zers as it emphasizes short-form video content and appeals to their desire to be creators.
As for millennials, they grew up with social media and have grown accustomed to watching videos on streaming platforms like Netflix. Interestingly, millennials watch video not just for entertainment but also to help them with purchasing decisions and finding out more about a company. It is no wonder then that they also like vlogs and watching unboxing videos (it gives them the same feeling of opening gifts) as they value product reviews a lot.
The bottom line? We can no longer ignore video formats. With Millennials and Gen Zers already making up more than half of the global workforce at 59% and this number is set to rise even further, the potential reach of your videos from these audiences is immense. You definitely wouldn’t want to miss out on networking opportunities with these two groups.
6. New trends brought about by COVID-19
Lastly, COVID-19 has thrown a curveball at everyone and we have had to adapt. With social distancing measures and travel restrictions still in place, people are getting used to showing their faces via videos in a business context as activities are moved online. Face-to-face job interviews have been replaced with Skype or Zoom videos while business conferences have largely gone virtual, although some are now trialling a hybrid format. Employees are increasingly working from home and meeting fellow colleagues on video conferencing platforms. Whatever it is, there is no denying that video communication is set to stick around post-COVID.
From the above, it’s clear that videos are going to be the medium of the future in both our everyday life as well as professional world. Thus, it becomes crucial for us to stay relevant digitally, or risk lagging behind our peers. What are your thoughts on this video trend? Let us know in the comments!
P.S. Truffle Technologies is continuously looking for fresh talent and visionaries; extraordinary people who want to be part of our mission and are ready to catapult us to the next level. Sounds exciting?
If you think you have what it takes, apply now at: https://truffletech.com/careers
“Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.” — William Arthur Ward | https://medium.com/@truffletech/6-reasons-why-videos-are-the-future-of-business-networking-and-how-you-can-prepare-for-it-ad85d515570c | ['Truffle Technologies'] | 2021-02-19 08:12:29.188000+00:00 | ['Networking Platform', 'Videos', 'Career Development', 'Networking', 'Professional Networking'] |
Two things | Two things
I am famous for doing two things at the same time. It’s a skill that probably a lot of working moms have and being a working single mom definitely adds a lot of opportunity for practice! But there are two things that can’t be done at the same time: feeling gratitude and anger. These emotions cancel each other out. Adding a smile to almost anything you’re doing, whether it’s holding a particularly long and uncomfortable yoga pose or acknowledging the humor of the universe as one is offered up some particularly wry irony, a default to humor is always a good idea. Laughing at ourselves, with others, or just a general acknowledgment of the absurdity, shared or kept to oneself, adds flow and ease to the day.
Of course different people find different things funny, but I love Darren Bader and his use of humor. He explores the absurd by not just being provocative, but also playful. In this work from 2012 he injected heroin into a piece of lasagna. A later series involves selling money at a price different then it’s “actual value,” some for more, some for less. I bought one of those works. It sits in a file but just knowing that I have it makes me smile and be grateful and that’s part of the incredible power of art. | https://medium.com/@heidizuckerman/two-things-b687c68f234 | ['Heidi Zuckerman'] | 2020-12-15 16:15:50.628000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Life', 'Connection', 'Love', 'Wis'] |
White Paper: Moat:Model Fit | White Paper: Moat:Model Fit
How VCs Can Identify the Newest and Strongest Competitive Advantage in the Marketplace GoingVC Follow Mar 19 · 1 min read
Download Our Latest White Paper: Moat:Model Fit
In our latest paper we start by asking the question, “What makes one company better than another?” and dive into what company value really means by looking at how competitive advantages turn into cash flows. We also discuss in detail how companies should align its operating and business models to their competitive advantage to create a sustainable moat.
We also position network effects as the most compelling competitive advantage available to companies and demonstrate how companies can boost the power of its network effects driven advantage with AI/ML.
About the Paper
How to understand and define company “value”
The difference between the business model and the operating model
How to match business and operating models to the competitive advantage
Why Network Effects are the best competitive advantage
How Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence can hyper charge network effects
To download the full paper, create your account for the GoingVC Research Library (and get access to all our papers, models, guides, and more). | https://medium.com/vcdium/white-paper-moat-model-fit-45376d224fc0 | [] | 2021-09-09 13:58:11.904000+00:00 | ['Venture Capital', 'Goingvc', 'Finance', 'Startups'] |
Part 1. Human vs AV | In the last post, I told about what causes fatal accidents in self-driving cars. In short, cognitive differences and communication failure between humans and machine drivers cause accidents. Today, I would like to talk about the situation and details of the two entities.
1. Cognitive Differences
First, the process of mechanical and human drivers making decisions in the car is not so different. The control loop, called OODA (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act), shows a cyclical process of control machine which was first devised by the United States Air Force.
OODA, devised by a U.S. Air Force colonel
When you imagine the human driver driving the car following the loop, the driver sees the surrounding environment with his eyes, applies and judges the situation with the vision data, and drives the car with his hands and feet. The human is in the car and has done everything himself. In other words, he is in the loop.
However, with the increasing technology in driving autonomation systems, humans are becoming supervisors above the control loop (on-the-loop), and machines control a vehicle in the loop instead of humans. Also, the control loop of the machine has more branches than humans, as shown in the table below.
VEHICLE SYSTEM DYNAMICS 2020, VOL. 58, NO. 5, 672–704
Look around with multiple sensors. Localize themselves in the situation with a computer and cloud networking in the vehicle. Based on data from all sensors and the cloud, judge the next action. Operating the vehicle.
Vision is the first step in the control loop and is currently the most controversial stage in AV.
Self-driving cars use three major sensors to obtain the same visual information as humans. Camera, Radar, and LiDAR. (Exceptionally, Tesla was chosen to remove LiDAR and measure depth and distance only with the camera and Radar.) In addition, a machine driver receives traffic information, such as signal systems and construction roads, thanks to GPS and HD maps.
The reason why the three sensors are combined is that each sensor has different characteristics, such as range of vision and resolution, as shown in the table below. | https://medium.com/@solji-lee-design/part-1-human-vs-av-a7310095b84 | ['Solji Lee'] | 2020-12-15 23:20:13.858000+00:00 | ['Design Theses', 'Autonomous Cars', 'Interface Design', 'UX Design', 'Car Design'] |
How Social Media Has Sabotaged Deep Communication | How Social Media Has Sabotaged Deep Communication
Writing a personal letter is like stuffing yourself into an envelope to pay a visit. A Facebook post is like waving at someone.
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
From the time I was a teen until my forties, the mailman’s visit was the highpoint of my day. Back then mailmen (and they were men) walked their routes, carrying their mailbags or wheeling them along. The mailman delivered personal letters from people you knew or bills you needed to pay. There was only the occasional piece of junk mail.
Before the computers and the internet appeared in my world, there were typewriters and stationery. I made good use of them. I especially loved writing on beautiful stationery. I occasionally wrote in a journal and sometimes wrote poetry, but mostly I wrote letters. I think the longest letter I ever wrote was 28 single-spaced pages. The recipient referred to it as the term paper.
Every one of those letters was personal and written for only one person. Some went to penpals and some to college students away from home. Some went to people wrestling with problems. Some went to extended family. Some went to very close friends.
As I wrote each letter I thought only of the person who would receive it. It was either someone I already knew well or wanted to get to know and understand. Those letters weren’t shallow. They were meant to encourage or sometimes even chastise just one person. That one person would often return an answer that was equally thoughtful. The exchange might go on for weeks. Or months, or years.
The closer the relationship, the more personal the correspondence became. I wrote to an older relative often, even though I saw her every week. Some things I wanted to be private. I wrote to many students in our church college group (we were its advisors) after they moved to a college campus. We discussed spiritual struggles, relationship problems, job interviews, and anything else that was important to either of us.
Letters Were a Means of Continuing Conversations
I’m sure this has happened to you. You’re at a meeting, at church, or at a party having a great personal conversation with a friend, a third person joins you, and the conversation changes. Once another person comes on the scene, the conversation becomes more impersonal. If this happened to me and an important conversation had been interrupted, we would later continue it by mail.
It was actually easier for me to talk to people on paper than in person. It gave me an opportunity to organize and refine what I wanted to say. I could think about each word and the effect it might have. I wasn’t rushed. Sometimes when I left a live conversation it would not be long before I was thinking of what I should have said. I hardly ever thought of what I’d wished I’d said after dropping a letter in the mailbox. I’d had time to think over everything I wrote and include all that was in my mind.
Email Changed How Most People Communicated
When email came on the scene, most of us who had an internet connection switched to it for communicating with friends. Although it was possible to write in depth by email, most people didn’t. If they sent an email they were usually in a hurry for an answer. An email was fast. Most people didn’t want to wait for answers to snail mail letters. So they sent an email — often one they wrote quickly. They left out what they might have put in a real letter.
Photo, © B. Radisavljevic, Taken at Paso Robles Art Association Exhibit, with Permission to Use Online.
The content of snail mail letters was more private than emails sent to a computer that might be shared. Usually back then each family had only one computer. I had more privacy than most because I was the only computer user in my family. I still am. That was not true of my friends. The less private a communication is, the more superficial it tends to be. What young person wants a roommate or parent reading what a close friend writes to them? I know those who wrote letters to me would never have risked sending an email with the same content.
Now We Have Facebook and Talk to Everyone at Once
While a few of us are brave enough to post what we really think or feel, we still don’t post what we would have written forty years ago to a close friend. Not only would it be too long, but we know there are strangers looking at what we say. We can’t discuss situations that involve family problems, work problems or really personal problems because we know that they should be kept confidential. We’d never share something like that on Facebook or any social media site. Yet many of us now use Facebook to keep in touch with the long-distance friends we used to write letters to. As a result, we don’t share as much or know each other as well anymore.
Do You Still Write and Receive Personal Letters?
I’m guessing most people don’t. I used to spend a good part of each day writing letters when I wasn’t employed. When I started a mail order book business, I gradually stopped writing to friends. We were traveling all over the country and when I was home there was business paperwork to tend to. I had to build a website and keep it updated. And I had to ship out books almost every day. If I really needed to talk, I called someone or we got together. I lost touch with most who did not live close to me.
There simply wasn’t time to write letters anymore. The friends I’d written to when they were in college graduated. Then most finally got married. They soon had families of their own that kept them too busy to write except for the traditional Christmas letter, if even that. As a result, our once-close relationships are now fond memories and our communication has turned superficial. I see some of them on Facebook, but others never joined.
Letters Were Treasured Documents of a Relationship
Unlike emails and social media posts, which are ephemeral, written correspondence on paper is as permanent as you want it to be. I still have files of treasured correspondence from people I love who are no longer in this world. Their words live on in my files. I also have letters from decades ago that bring back memories long forgotten. My friends still live on the pages they wrote.
© B. Radisavljevic, Computer print-outs of letter copies
I typed many of the long letters I wrote so that I could make carbons and keep my copy. Why? Because I often poured out my heart in these letters or shared things I don’t want to forget. Instead of keeping a journal, I wrote letters. I often didn’t know what to say to myself, but I got inspired when talking to someone else.
Later, when I got my first computer I could easily print out copies of my typed letters. It was so much easier than making carbons.
I still have almost every Christmas letter I ever wrote and those letters document what was most important in our family history each year. Without those letters, I probably would have forgotten many of the events which once had seemed very important.
Writing Letters Was Therapeutic
When my son died in an accident at the age of fourteen, the Home School Legal Defense Association put me in touch with another bereaved homeschooling mom, Kathy. I had read about her experience in their magazine and knew it might help both of us if we could communicate. That was back in 1991. Our sons had been about the same age. The article below discusses my relationship with my son and how losing him affected me.
The correspondence with Kathy actually led to a personal meeting when she was visiting her parents in California several months after we were bereaved. By then we knew each other pretty well because of the many long letters we had exchanged. She came to the cemetery where my son was buried and we sat on a bench and talked for a long time and then prayed together. Nothing helps a bereaved person quite like talking to someone who really understands what they are going through.
We continued to write for years until we had resolved our grief enough to carry on without exchanging the letters anymore. Now we are Facebook friends and hardly talk directly to each other at all. Hundreds of miles separate us.
Letters Bring Loved Ones to Us When We Most Need Encouragement
The first people we meet and the last we will probably ever see are those in our families. When my mom died, I found a box in her closet that contained all the cards and letters family members and close friends had sent her for years. In her dark moments when she was grieving the death of my father and I lived a long drive away, she still had all those words of encouragement people had sent. She could reread them whenever she felt alone and needed to be reminded that we loved her even when we couldn’t call and visit as often as she would have liked.
After Mom moved a couple of hundred miles from her sister to live near me, the two continued to write to each other every day until her sister died. Those letters were her one communication line to the family she grew up in. Her sister was the only one who shared most of Mom’s family memories and who understood their family life.
Neither Mom nor her sister ever wrote an email. It was letters that kept them connected and allowed them to reveal their most personal thoughts to each other — thoughts no one else might have really understood. Email, social media, and text messages are quick and easy in our busy lives. However, they may have destroyed the kind of communication that keeps friendships intact and close.
Close friends need more than superficial communication and the annual Christmas letter. They need to share the thoughts and feelings that are best expressed in person, in live phone conversations, or in real letters. Facebook just doesn't cut it. | https://barbsbooks.medium.com/how-social-media-has-sabotaged-deep-communication-ae4d7c8393e3 | ['Barbara Radisavljevic'] | 2019-04-28 23:18:27.497000+00:00 | ['Email', 'Snail Mail', 'Facebook', 'Friendship', 'Letters'] |
Bringing Core Values to Life: A Look at "Stay Curious" | In today’s professional landscape, 51% of workers are actively looking to leave their current jobsand 73% are open to hearing about new opportunities, which means it’s more important than ever to engage your workforce if you want to win the talent war — and that includes keeping the talent already within the walls of your organization.
A key element to engaging your workforce is ensuring strength of culture through your company core values. Today’s workforce wants to work somewhere with strong moral fiber. They want to be filled with a sense of purpose beyond their projects and daily tasks. In the current talent landscape, candidates consider core values when vetting organizations. They want to know if they exist, what they are, how they are encouraged, shared, and promoted, and ultimately if they are truly part of your company’s DNA. If you do core values well, you’re guaranteed a more engaged and productive workforce.
80% of employees feel more engaged when their work is consistent with the core values and mission of their organization (IBM).
93% of workers at companies with recognition programs tied to core values agree the work they do has meaning and purpose (Globoforce).
Needless to say, core values are important. But you can’t just have them, you have to live them.
First Things First, Identify Your Core Values
At Element Three, our core values serve as the fundamental beliefs that guide our behaviors and decisions as an organization. Each core value was intentionally crafted to serve a unique purpose based on pivotal learning moments from the early days of Element Three. The history behind our core values makes them individually authentic and collectively powerful. Despite the evolution of the agency, our values have remained static and relevant since their inception because the decisions we make as a company are grounded in our core values.
E3 Core Values
Awesome Comes Standard
Business First
Emotional Intelligence
Stay Curious
Transparency
Creative Swagger
Own Selflessly
Defining core values is another lesson for another day. But assuming you’ve identified them for your own organization, the question becomes, “how do I create space within my organization to recognize, promote, and encourage said values?”
Living Your Core Values: Stay Curious
While I could go on and on about all of our core values, I’m going to dive deep into one in particular — Stay Curious — and elaborate on how this value is lived out within the walls of Element Three every day.
Stay Curious: Ask why. Search more. Participate. Create. Don’t ever rest in the belief that you have it all figured out — always be looking forward to what is next.
Questions are powerful, and if you don’t believe me, Forbes thinks so too. In an article titled The Power of Questions, Forbes contributor Jeff Boss writes, “Nothing has such power to cause a complete mental turnaround as that of a question. Questions spark curiosity, curiosity creates ideas and ideas (well, good ones) lead to innovation and dollar signs — ideally.”
At Element Three, employees at every level are encouraged to stay curious. We want folks to challenge the status quo, get to the root cause of an issue, and push others to think differently and dig deeper, all through the power of curiosity and questions.
So how do we ensure our employees embody “Stay Curious?” We infuse it into seemingly small but extremely important parts of our business — onboarding and peer-to-peer recognition.
Onboarding
As part of our employee onboarding, each new member of the Herd must learn and share the core values with someone in the office during their third week of work. And by the following week, they must recite the values by heart. It is a seemingly simple ask of new employees, but it is something we take seriously. Within your first month at Element Three you need to know our values, because you will only encounter them more and more as you move through the organization.
So, are you bringing your core values into your onboarding experience? Or are you simply listing them out, without any specific action to take?
Another part of our onboarding is to schedule meetings with other E3ers to get to know them better. You’d better believe they’re asking questions or that gets really awkward really fast. And finally, every new E3er has to ask Tiffany — the president of our agency — a question.
To live out your core values, you can’t just list them — you need to find clever or creative ways to have your people practice them. And what better time than when someone is fresh to the organization?
Peer-to-peer Recognition
Another place that lends itself to your core values is any peer-to-peer recognition program you might have in place.
At E3, we have a peer-to-peer recognition program in place that is meant to educate, encourage, recognize, and reward behaviors that go above and beyond in representing our core values specifically. It provides a simple platform for peers and supervisors to recognize the positive contributions of the E3 Herd. We’re at about 75 full-time employees currently, and roughly 100 Awesome Blocks (the program name) are awarded each month.
Not only does this keep core values front of mind for employees who honor their peers, but if you can make it visible, others begin to see real examples of the core values lived out in real life (some of which I’ve conveniently included below).
It could be a longtime Creative Director who “is always asking and figuring out how to lead the team and push our clients further and it’s never lost on me how much he cares. I’m doing my best to learn from his leadership style so I can hopefully be a version of how calm, yet powerful he is.”
Or it might be a relatively new employee who stepped into a project management role and “has shown mass amounts of curiosity in her first month at E3 — she is constantly seeking to understand the ‘why’ behind everything we do.”
Or maybe it’s a Senior Digital Marketing Manager who jumped into a project late in the game to provide some subject matter expertise: “His ability to question how and why previous programs were built, and then improve upon those things has been huge for our team.”
Allow a Safe Space for Employees to Practice Core Values
If your core value is to “Think Big” or “Take Risks,” you’d better make sure your team members know it’s okay to fail every once in a while. And if your core value is to “Stay Curious” (like ours), you’d better give your employees a safe space to ask hard questions.
Here’s what it looks like for us: every month our organization gets together for a Business Review meeting. One component of the meeting includes a Q&A session — anyone from the organization can submit a question, and it will be addressed by the appropriate leader. Questions are all across the board, ranging from “What is the meaning of life?” to “Which service areas are we pushing right now?” Seriously.
If your employees fear practicing your core values, they’ll never truly embody them. And as a leader in the organization, you want to help them get there, not scare them away.
Live Your Core Values in All That You Do
In the end, the most simple (and potentially most effective) way to really get buy-in for your core values is to truly live up to them, every day. After all, great leaders don’t just lead with words, they lead by their actions. Show your team what living your core values looks like, and they’re more likely to follow you. Think about your core values when you make decisions, and practice what you preach. Because if you don’t, it’s unlikely anyone else is going to.
Perspective from Maggie Campbell, Organizational Development Strategist at Element Three | https://medium.com/element-three/bringing-core-values-to-life-a-look-at-stay-curious-b89a4018b027 | ['Element Three'] | 2018-06-15 14:49:58.433000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Core Values', 'Startup', 'Employer Branding', 'Agencylife'] |
Türkçe Yazarak Gelir Sağlayacağınız 6 İnternet Sitesi | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/t%C3%BCrkiye/t%C3%BCrk%C3%A7e-yazarak-gelir-sa%C4%9Flayaca%C4%9F%C4%B1n%C4%B1z-6-i%CC%87nternet-sitesi-4ab8ef55e156 | [] | 2020-12-20 21:02:32.656000+00:00 | ['Freelance', 'Blog', 'Yazarlık', 'Türkçe', 'Kişisel Gelişim'] |
Free Yourself From Grants: 21 Crowdfunding Stories For You | Free Yourself From Grants: 21 Crowdfunding Stories For You
This booklet is all about creating a solid, manageable and proper Crowdfunding and Crowdsourcing Campaign for Artivists. Nomadways Apr 22, 2020·2 min read
In 2019 our Anne took part in the “Tandem Europe” programme.
(Get back to our article on her joining the programme here)
It is tailor-made for people who work on creative solutions that make social innovation possible throughout the EU — cultural managers, artists, organisers and educators. People involved in culture and arts.
In this programme, the participants pair with someone from another country to create a joint project and explore the great practice of their work. Anne paired with Lisa from Raumpioniere, a Vienna based agency which provides a service range from participative processes for both rural and urban communities, cities, neighborhoods, event planning with focus on urban or rural topics and public space to Urban/Civic Crowdfunding.
The project: 21 Crowdsourcing Stories
Storytelling was involved in the idea since the beginning. If you have followed our previous publications, you may noticed that the plan was to get stories from people in our communities. However, the idea evolved after Lisa and Anne decided to address a current need: to discover more ways to fund our cultural projects. And since this is something Raumpioniere is quite experienced in, Lisa and Anne joined forces to show us how to do it!
The booklet has tips for each step.
This booklet presents how to launch a crowdsourcing or crowdfunding campaign in 21 steps. For each one of it, a suggested exercise will help you in finding out what you need to do to move further. There are 3 main chapters: Before launching your campaign, During your campaign and After it is finished. With such a clear timeline, it might be quite helpful to understand what deal of a preparation is needed; how active you need to be whilst crownsourcing and what happens afterwards.
>>Download here<<
Remember, this booklet is made to be downloaded for free — share it with your team, friends and community, too. | https://medium.com/@nomadways/free-yourself-from-grants-21-crowdsourcing-stories-for-you-16f22ea7a680 | [] | 2020-04-22 20:26:22.759000+00:00 | ['Crowdfunding', 'Tips', 'Crowdsourcing', 'Artivism', 'Social'] |
‘Joker’ Isn’t Dangerous | ‘Joker’ offers plenty to talk about. And not just the artistic side of it. There’s real conversations to be held about problems that are noted by the movie. Trying to suppress the film by merely deeming it ‘problematic’ and walking away doesn’t solve any problem. It would actually keep people from enriching discussions over delicate issues such as mental health, child abuse, nihilism. Just to name a few that ‘Joker’ does cover.
Would it be better? Not to talk about any of these real problems and shy away, for fear that the movie might incite violence?
I’ll give it to you, the movie does walk a fine, unstable line between warning and exploiting. Except, I think, they handled it with great care not to romanticize any of the violence and uproar. The movie never tries to justify the violence. In fact, it does such a great job of having us empathize with Arthur’s character that we don’t want him to fall on that destruction path.
You’re not exactly rooting for The Joker to cause as many mayhem as possible. Instead you comprehend what led him to that point because you were following him all along. And you might understand that maybe, it could have taken only one person, to extend a hand and offer genuine help, in order to prevent the chaos we see as a result.
What if we discussed that? How sincerely talking, addressing people and their problems could be the one thing that may just contain hell from breaking loose.
The film offers a chance to really talk about mental health and the best way to approach it, and it also does a great job not to simplify it either. It doesn’t carry out the ‘loonie with a gun’ narrative, instead, it provides a bigger picture on how complex these problems are, and how much of a gray area there is in morality. In a way it puts all of us on the spot, because the way society is heading might be the true catalyst to all this mayhem.
But all of this becomes hard to be debated when we simply toss a coin to decide whether something is ‘problematic’ and should be out. Joaquin Phoenix himself said best in an interview to TotalFilm:
“I think oftentimes, in these movies, we have these simplified, reductive archetypes, and that allows for the audience to be distant from the character, just like we would do in real life, where it’s easy to label somebody as evil, and therefore say, ‘Well, I’m not that’”.
The fact ‘Joker’ is so grounded in reality, showcasing the true nature of our society, is what’s gathering so much attention and engagement from audiences. And hopefully it keeps doing what is supposed to do, which is to encourage dialogue.
That’s the beauty of human beings too, we are all unique in our complexity. If we all had the same mindset no new inventions would pop-up constantly. No exciting novels would be written, no breath-taking movies made, no new medical advances. Nothing that’s truly worthwhile could arise if there was no one to think outside the box.
And if you truly think this movie might be problematic and dangerous, then argue about it. Try to make someone see your point of view, instead of labeling and stepping away, refusing to maintain a conversation, because that wouldn’t solve your problem nor anybody else’s.
If you watched ‘Joker’ closely, there’s no way to tell with conviction that what you’ve seen was what indeed happened from beginning to end. The unreliable nature of its narrator opens up room for a myriad of interpretations, reminding us again that there is no definitive answer.
These are not my answers. These are opinions, theories, suggestions at best. None of us has the definitive answers. But maybe if we make the exercise of opening up to real and honest conversations, we might just combine the best of our theories and find an answer.
Put on a Happy Face, | https://medium.com/@luisfelipeborges/joker-isn-t-dangerous-c0e9fb2a56e7 | ['Luis Felipe Borges'] | 2019-10-19 06:13:11.445000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Review', 'Film', 'Opinion', 'Conversations'] |
Combating Writer’s Block by Analyzing My Life — Daily Quote | Who hasn’t experienced this feeling? It is difficult convincing myself to leave my bed. Like Nicola, my spirit is willing, but my body refuses to budge. Anger is my first response, and it often works. It helps me burn the blahs and I force myself to move. If that doesn’t work, I go through my list of usual culprits. Am I drinking enough water? Are my iron levels low? Am I obsessively worrying over something which I can’t control? Do my meals and snacks contain too much junk food? Am I sleeping? Or do I have too many responsibilities?
My review showed three things conspiring against me and contributing to my lethargy. The first was worry. The second was a task list three people couldn’t accomplish. These two items combined to ensure I wasn’t getting a restful night’s repose. Identifying the root cause of my exhaustion is only the beginning. I shifted responsibilities, and recognizing apprehension’s futile nature, helps me monitor and banish those thoughts. Sweet sleep came as I resolved those issues. I could breathe, and when I can breathe the words flow.
What items trigger your fatigue and interrupt your writing?
_________________________________________
Keep on writing.
Jo Hawk The Writer | https://medium.com/@johawkthewriter/combating-writers-block-by-analyzing-my-life-daily-quote-f189cb00a5e6 | ['Jo Hawk'] | 2019-11-20 06:01:01.060000+00:00 | ['Motivation', 'Quotes', 'Exhaustion', 'Self Improvement', 'Writers Block'] |
6 Ways to Do Automated UI Testing in Parallel With Selenium | Local Parallel Testing
Before we jump into the server-side arrangement, let’s consider the client-side, because parallel testing still won’t happen until your test framework can kick off the tests in parallel.
There are two ways to do this:
The first way is via forking. Instead of spawning multiple threads, new processes are created if the test classes exist. In the world of Java, the straightforward ways to do this are with Maven via the failsafe plugin, and with Gradle via the maxParallelForks option. Let’s say your test framework is using Gradle with maxParallelForks = 2, and you have at least two test runner classes. When you kick off the job in Jenkins to run the tests in Chrome, two Chrome browsers will launch and run the tests simultaneously. The second way is to split the tests into batches so you can have each batch targeting a different browser on the same or different displays. One way of splitting the tests is by doing it manually by hands, creating Maven profiles targeting each batch, and finally configuring the Jenkins pipeline to launch simultaneously in multiple jobs and combine the test results at the end.
You could use one of the two methods discussed, or you could use both of them together. So if you have two batch jobs in addition to the fork count of two, the total number of browsers running simultaneously will be four.
You don’t need the Selenium Server package to run tests on browsers locally. However, you need Appium Server to run tests on Android and iOS, both locally and remotely.
Prior to Appium 1.7, the only way to launch multiple virtual and real mobile targets on the same host is by installing multiple Appium Servers, starting them up on different ports, and pairing one target to one Appium Server port. Check out the first diagram in this article, where Node B has three Appium Servers configured on ports 4723, 4724, and 4725 for one simulator and two emulators.
With Appium 1.7 and above, one Appium Server can launch multiple targets by connecting multiple Android devices to one Appium Server on different systemPorts, then specify this capability in your client code to connect to the intended target. For iOS devices, the driver capability is called wdaLocalPort. Note that you are only able to launch more than one iOS simulators on the same host from Xcode 9 onwards.
This is the simplest form of parallel testing as it can all happen in one single host. But we are looking for more hosts and more variety of OS/browser combinations to run simultaneously. Furthermore, you cannot be sure that a single host can reliably run multiple targets at the same time. In fact, changing the focus on multiple targets may actually slow things down. | https://medium.com/better-programming/6-ways-to-do-automated-ui-testing-in-parallel-with-selenium-132e47403c4f | ['Shirley Ong'] | 2020-08-25 10:35:04.558000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'Distributed Systems', 'Programming', 'Technology', 'Software Testing'] |
Suppressed Blunder | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/daily-poetry-meg/suppressed-blunder-87289810b612 | ['Rannae Dawn'] | 2020-11-19 17:04:10.102000+00:00 | ['Poetry On Medium', 'Mistakes', 'Hope', 'Poetry', 'Forgiveness'] |
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time Review | The game’s level design feeds into its tight controls, challenging players across a vast variety of environments, and with an exciting array of both new and old abilities.
Simple platforming challenges that would feel frustrating in the original titles — or their remakes in the N. Sane Trilogy — are a joy to experience in Crash 4.
The new abilities featured generally aren’t anything new if you’ve been playing platformers over the past 10 years. You’ve got your gravity shifting, time slowing, dimention switching stuff, but they all work well as a means to spice up the gameplay in Crash 4.
Mechanical marvels
Like a expertly designed Mario level, you’ll see a new mechanic introduced and then gradually developed and varied throughout the course of the next few levels, building into truly impressive platforming challenges that task you to piece together your mastery of all of the challenges that preceded them.
Some mechanics are short lived, featuring in just one or two levels, and these are used to surprise the player just when you think you understand where things are leading.
The narrative is actually surprisingly full of twists and turns too. At several instances I thought that the game was going to end, only to find that there was another world, and then another world after that.
Part of that was just my content expectation from the previous Crash games. The original trilogy featured around 25 levels each, while Crash 4 features over 40 main levels, and 60 bonus stages.
The bonus stages are generally either variants of existing stages or opportunities to play as one of the newly introduced playable characters. That’s one of Crash 4’s big selling points, the idea that you can play as Tawna, N. Cortex, and Dingodile. For the most part, these levels are great diversions from the core, Crash Bandicoot formula. Dingo and Tawna both play like Crash (or Coco), with extra abilities. While Cortex has a mostly distinct moveset.
Patchy platforming
Unfortunately this is where my first gripe with the game really comes in. While these levels are enjoyable diversions, none of them feel quite as polished as the levels designed for Crash and Coco. Tawna and N. Cortex both feature mechanics where they shoot a projectile into enemies or crates in front of them, Cortex using a blaster to transform enemies into platforms, or destroy crates, and Tawna using a grappling hook to pull herself towards objects, stun enemies, or destroy crates. While for the most part, this works as intended, sometimes it can be a little particular with how accurate you need to be in directing these attacks— and this can really slow the pacing of the level down, or even lead to frustration when it gets you killed.
Dingo Dile on the other hand, actually feels really good to play. He’s a little slower than Crash, but it’s fun to feel more powerful, sucking crates into his vaccum cannon and swiping enemies away with his tail. The only issue with Dingo’s levels is that they tend to be overly long — with checkpoints feeling further apart than they are in the rest of the game.
None of these side characters are bad to play as — don’t get me wrong — but I couldn’t help but feeling that the level design or mechanics are a little less polished than that of Crash and Coco. As a result, I was usually eager to get these over and done with.
But, like many of the levels in Crash 4, these levels with the alternate characters are mostly optional. In fact, you don’t need to play even half of the levels featured in the game to see the basic ending.
Everything but the kitchen sink
The game is overflowing with extra content, and for the most part, this is a blessing. Once you’ve beaten the critical path, you still have all of the N. Verted levels to do, all of the time trials, you can go back and collect all of the boxes you missed in each level, you can complete the levels without dying to gain an extra gem.
Boss fights are among the game’s highlights too, each featuring unique stages and attack patterns. Sure, they all fall into a fairly predictable sequence, with Crash surviving waves of enemy attacks, before getting an opportunity to strike, but they pose satisfying challenges nonetheless. Particularly as they continually spout humorous one liners as Crash deflects their attacks, one by one.
There’s simply so much to do in Crash 4, and this will give people a reason to keep coming back to the game for many hours after the basic clear. In fact, the majority of content here is actually side content. And it’s rewarding to boot. Collect a certain number of gems in each level (through the normal version of the level, and the N. Verted version) and you’ll unlock an additional outfit. | https://medium.com/super-jump/crash-bandicoot-4-its-about-time-review-a953bbb9e79c | ['Jozef Kulik'] | 2020-10-06 15:11:59.640000+00:00 | ['Features', 'Gaming', 'PlayStation', 'Games', 'Review'] |
Higher Order Functions and Closures in Scala | In this blog, we will go through the concepts of higher order functions and closures in Scala with the help of example.
1. Higher Order Functions
A higher order function takes other functions as parameter or returns a function as a result. Let us understand it better with the help of examples:
a) When a method is passed as an argument:
import java.time.LocalTime
object MarketStatus {
val OPEN = "Open"
val CLOSE = "Close"
}
object HigherOrderFunctionEx1 extends App {
import MarketStatus._
def isMarketOpen(timeAsStr: String): Boolean = {
val time: LocalTime = LocalTime.parse(timeAsStr)
time.isAfter(LocalTime.parse("05:00:00")) && time.isBefore(LocalTime.parse("20:00:00"))
}
def displayMarketStatus(f: String => Boolean, transactionTime: String): String = {
if (f(transactionTime)) {
OPEN
} else {
CLOSE
}
}
val marketStatus = displayMarketStatus(isMarketOpen, "13:00:00")
println(marketStatus)
}
Output: Open
In the above code, isMarketOpen checks if the time at which the transaction is made is after 5 a.m. and before 8 p.m. If it is so, then that indicates that the market is open. This function is passed as an argument to the method displayMarketStatus.
The criteria of market open or close can change overtime. So, all we have to do is while calling the method displayMarketStatus, pass the function which contains the latest criteria of checking the market status.
b) When a function returns a method:
import java.time.LocalTime
object MarketStatus {
val OPEN = "Open"
val CLOSE = "Close"
}
object HigherOrderFunctionEx2 extends App {
import MarketStatus._
def isMarketOpen(timeAsStr: String, companyName: String): (String) => String = {
val time: LocalTime = LocalTime.parse(timeAsStr)
val status = if (time.isAfter(LocalTime.parse("05:00:00"))
&& time.isBefore(LocalTime.parse("20:00:00"))) {
OPEN
} else {
CLOSE
}
productName: String => s"Market is $status for product : $productName and company: $companyName"
}
def getMarketStatus: String => String = isMarketOpen("12:00:00", "Company ABC")
val marketStatus: String = getMarketStatus("Iron")
println(marketStatus)
}
Output:
Market is Open for product : Iron and company: Company ABC
In the above program, getMarketStatus returns a function which takes the name of the product and results into a statement stating the market status of the product and company passed.
2. Closures:
Closure is a “first-class function” whose return value depends on the value of one or more “free variable” defined outside this function. It can be either a named or anonymous function.
This will help when we need to pass a scala function around like a variable and the function can refer to some fields that are in the same scope as the function when declared.
class Market {
def marketStatusForProduct(f: String => Unit, productName: String) {
f(productName)
}
}
object ClosureExample extends App {
def displayMarketStatus(productName: String): Unit = {
println(s"Market is $status for product: $productName")
}
val market = new Market
var status = "Open"
market.marketStatusForProduct(displayMarketStatus, "Iron ore")
status = "Close"
market.marketStatusForProduct(displayMarketStatus, "Gold")
}
Output:
Market is Open for product: Iron ore
Market is Close for product: Gold
We can derive the following observations from the above code:
displayMarketStatus method references the variable status from marketStatusForProduct method of the Market class.
In the second call to marketStatusForProduct method, the value of status is updated inside the method. Thus when the closure is executed, it took the most recent state of the free variable (state).
References: | https://medium.com/@knoldus/higher-order-functions-and-closures-in-scala-2d865091b2d8 | ['Knoldus Inc.'] | 2020-10-25 11:21:03.232000+00:00 | ['Closures', 'Singapore', 'Higher Order Function', 'Scala'] |
Les routines quotidiennes d’un copywriter: l’interview de Valentin Decker | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/antisnooze/les-routines-quotidiennes-dun-copywriter-l-interview-de-valentin-decker-5f4f980886a7 | [] | 2020-11-16 14:42:37.090000+00:00 | ['Développement Personnel', 'Organisation', 'Productivité', 'Morning Routines', 'Habitudes'] |
Yeedi K650 review: This robot vacuum is tough on pet hair | Budget robot vacuums necessarily make concessions, and that’s okay as long as cleaning isn’t compromised. Yeedi understands this. Its no-frills vacuums have performed consistently well in our tests even if they don’t have much, if any, advanced functionality. The Yeedi K650 continues this trend, adding a bigger dustbin and a tangle-free brush option that while not particularly sexy are most certainly welcome.
The K650 has a fairly minimal design, and its white finish is a nice change from the hordes of black botvacs on the market. On top are an Auto clean button and a Wi-Fi indicator. The power and reset buttons are located on the sides, and there’s 800ml dusbtin in back. The vacuum comes with a rolling bristle brush and an alternative silicone rolling brush, and it has a pair of spinning side brushes.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best robot vacuums, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.You can control the K650 with the Yeedi companion app or your voice, via Amazon Alexa, though the latter is limited to simple commands. You’ll need the app either way to connect the K650 to your Wi-Fi network, switch cleaning modes, enable boundaries, and take advantage of other features.
Yeedi The K650 has a maximum suction of 2000Pa.
This is the first vacuum I’ve used with the Yeedi app, and a clutch of one-star reviews in the Google Play store raised concerns about its usability. The seamless setup put those to rest, at least temporarily. I just needed to scan the K650’s QR code and the app prompted me through a handful of steps to connect to my network without a hitch.
[ Further reading: The best robot mops ]The Yeedi K650’s default mode is to clean your entire space until it’s done or its battery runs out. You start a cleaning job by pressing the Auto button on top of the vacuum or in the app. In this mode the vacuum cleans in a random pattern, using its onboard sensors to navigate around furniture, walls, and other obstacles. The app displays the total area cleaned, cleaning duration, and battery level in real time.
The vacuum’s two other modes—Spot and Edge—can be activated from the app. Spot cleans areas of deep dirt in a spiral pattern, Edge mode cleans along walls and corners.
Yeedi The K650’s silicone brush is great for pulling up pet hair without tangles and getting it into the dustbin.
You can adjust the vacuum’s suction power by choosing from four presets in the app: Quiet, Standard, Max, and Max+. Quiet lowers the decibels to whisper levels, which is a small mercy with so many of us working at home. The suction tops out at 2000Pa.
I used the K650 on my downstairs level to see how it fared on medium-pile carpet, hardwood, and vinyl tile. It generally did well cleaning all three, but I quickly learned the secret weapon for cleaning the carpet was swapping out the bristle brush for the silicone one. With a quartet of four-legged family members, pet hair is a constant issue. These tend to get tangled in bristled rollers, requiring me to remove the hair with a cleaning tool or to cut it off with scissors. The silicone roller agitates pet hair as well as the bristle brush, but the hair gets where it belongs—in the dustbin. The K650’s extra-large dustbin meant that I didn’t have to dump it as often as smaller ones, which tufts of pet hair fill pretty quickly.
Being a budget robot vacuum, the Yeedi K650 doesn’t offer much in the way of features and customization. It doesn’t map your floor plan, so it can’t remember where it’s cleaned and where it hasn’t. That sometimes left areas neglected. You can’t do zone cleaning or set virtual boundaries, either. The app includes a toggle for enabling magnetic boundaries, but Yeedi doesn’t provide any magnetic tape. That’s something I missed with the Yeedi K600 and K700 as well).
Yeedi The Yeedi app tracks the cleaning area and duration in real time.
In terms of app functionality, you can schedule cleanings, view cleaning logs, put the Yeedi K650 in Do Not Disturb mode, and track usage stats of the vacuum’s brushes and filter, so you know when to replace them. There’s also a Find My Robot feature that prompts the K650 to say “I’m here,” so you can locate it.
I never encountered any of the connectivity or usability issues mentioned in those app reviews. Still, given the number of them, Yeedi is hopefully investigating.
The Yeedi K650 sells for about $50 more on Amazon than the Yeedi K600. Both are solid, no-frills cleaners; but if you have pets, the K650’s bigger dustbin and tangle-free brush are well worth the extra cash.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@july09340771/yeedi-k650-review-this-robot-vacuum-is-tough-on-pet-hair-4ac39624a003 | [] | 2020-12-21 03:48:30.718000+00:00 | ['Surveillance', 'Cord', 'Chargers', 'Chromecast'] |
Call for Submissions: Equality after Election Day | The Call for Submissions and Pitches
On the morning of November 4, will Americans wake to wipe the sleep from their eyes, amble out of their homes and into the streets, join hands, and sing “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” while basking in the warmth of the rising sun? Will all be forgiven in the name unity?
Gotcha!
Even I am not that naive, but you have to admit I had you going for a second.
Truth is all the people you know — the good, the bad, and the ugly — will still be there; online, at work, on the subway, in the grocery store, and at home. And so will you. No matter who wins this November, we still have to live together. Will America make bigger and better strides toward equality? Hopefully, we’ll do it better. Have you given thought to a proper modus operandi? You know what they say, “Fail to plan, plan to fail.” Just sayin’.
Let’s write about it! Yes, I’ve already started writing my article, but it’s not a party unless more people join in the fun (submit articles).
For possible publication in Our Human Family, without getting into the weeds of who you did or didn’t vote for or why, submit your thoughts as to whether you think it’s possible to salvage our broken relationships or not, and how you plan to advocate for equality in your virtual and/or in-person relationships beginning the day after Election Day. We’ve seen and been the best and worst of our fellow Americans (depending on who you ask) and now that we all know a little more about one another than we did previously, how will you move through your world? Will you be on Team Rainbows and Lollipops? Or Team Whoop-Ass? Or maybe a mash-up of the two? Perhaps you’re a student of the Marcel Marceau School of Diplomacy and Activism? Or will you transfer to that remote district office in the South Pacific?
Come on. Tell us . . . we’re all one, big, happy human family, right? If you can’t tell us, who can you tell? Inquiring minds want to know:
Your strategy for advocating for equality over the past four years. How that strategy has worked out for you, the hits, the misses, the near misses. (We invite you to change any names you like so as not to incriminate the guilty.) Is there anything you would have done differently; more this, less that . . . Knowing what you know now, how will you proceed after the election.
Submission Guidelines
If you’re currently a writer for Our Human Family, you know the drill. Potential first-time OHF writers, everything you need to know can be found in our Submission Guidelines. We look forward to receiving your submissions and pitches! Word count range: 100-2,400 words. (Yes, a minimum of 1–0–0 words, color photos are mandatory.)
Deadline
As soon as you can get it written through November 4. We’ll buff up the drafts and begin posting articles as soon as we receive them.
Love one another.
Clay Rivers
Our Human Family, Founder and Editorial Director | https://medium.com/our-human-family/call-for-submissions-can-relationships-be-salvaged-after-election-day-b56770842c2a | ['Our Human Family'] | 2020-10-30 04:12:37.520000+00:00 | ['Equality', 'Call For Submissions', 'Election 2020', 'Racism'] |
Avoiding coin loss | This article is referenced from ElectrumSV, starting with version 1.2.2, in order to help users understand some of the common ways that others lose coins. Bitcoin is complicated, if you don’t take care, you only have yourself to blame if you lose yours.
I deal with a lot of the problems people encounter, and have to try and work out what went wrong with their help. All the existing cases have been unskilled or careless users doing it wrong. That’s not to say that we don’t have bugs, just that no reports have come in that resulted in showing that they were the cause of the users losing their coins.
Table of contents
This is not a summary, if you just read these titles, you probably learn nothing from this article.
Send a small amount first.
Verify that all your coins are split.
Send a small amount first
Never send a large amount you are not willing to lose, if you haven’t sent a small amount first.
Some people refer to this as a “pilot” payment.
Potential problems
Nothing is simple, so what are some of the things you have to keep in mind?
Time
A recent bug report on ElectrumSV was where someone sent their BSV to an exchange six hours before, and the exchange hadn’t received it. The exchange eventually did receive it, but what this demonstrates is that you might have to wait to know for sure.
Coin splitting
Just because you don’t see your BCH move, after you send some BSV, does not mean that it won’t move later. You need to verify your coins are split before you send the BSV.
Verify that all your coins are split
You need to know that your coins are split, thinking you know is not good enough. Don’t assume it, verify it for yourself.
Potential problems
Nothing is simple, so what are some of the things you have to keep in mind?
Receiving unsplit coins
Our Bitcoin Cash friends over at Electron Cash asked us to add a warning to our coin splitting UI mentioning this. It’s a real problem for their users, and ours.
Just because you split your coins once does not make your wallet a magical place where all coins are forever split. This is because when you receive coins in your wallet they are not combined into the coins that are already there, they are separate and remain separate unless you combine them. This may be because you get lucky enough to send them with some of the split coins which makes them split by association. Or it may be because you split all your coins again explicitly, which as part of the process combines all the coins in the wallet with some existing BSV coin making it into BSV. But unless either of these things happen, you can very well accidentally send them and lose the BCH.
It’s an easy mistake to make, the balance includes all your available coins, and people can obliviously assume that their coins are one single thing together, a combined lump if you will, but this is not how Bitcoin works.
It’s impossible to tell what is split or not
ElectrumSV has no way to know if the BSV coins are present in the same addresses on the BCH blockchain, and are unsplit. And if we can’t do it, it’s unlikely users can easily tell.
Yes, we could code up some hack to try and work it out, but we couldn’t guarantee it would be correct. And we could follow the BCH blockchain as well and kind of also become a BCH wallet, but there are only 24 hours in the day and we don’t have the manpower to do that (or to be honest, the interest).
Potential solutions
Education
If you know the coins you have in your wallet, and which are split and which are not, then you won’t have a problem. This doesn’t have to be that hard, you just have to know if your wallet has received any new coins after you last split the ones in your wallet.
Resplitting
When you don’t know for sure your coins are split, or you know you received new coins that may be unsplit since the last time you split them, just split them all again. | https://medium.com/@roger-taylor/avoiding-coin-loss-b8bd66855369 | ['Roger Taylor'] | 2019-06-18 19:35:06.059000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin Sv', 'Electrumsv', 'Bitcoin Wallet', 'Bitcoin'] |
What I’m Listening To Today, Episode #4 | What I’m Listening To Today, Episode #4
There’s A Moon Out Tonight, The Capris
I remain determined to end this week on a positive note. Last night, upon my evening arrival to the homestead, a rare letter from the tax man sat at the foot of the stairs awaiting my return.
“You have paid too much tax”, it began. Wonderful. This is the best of all possible starts to the weekend. Or perhaps that is what I am supposed to think. I occasionally wonder if the tax man does this on purpose. His system of checks and balances includes over and under charging and then sending one of two templates out every six months. A system designed to raise you up, or sink you, depending on how he’s feeling. It’s a cruel game to toy with your emotions, to let you know that you are the state’s plaything.
There was a time when the tax office didn’t tell you that it didn’t know what it was doing. And likewise, you did the same. It was a happy arrangement.
Anyway, I’ve forgotten the letter at home. I was supposed to deal with that today, but it’s now a ‘next week’ task. Instead, I’m sleepily ensconced in my train carriage, listening to this song.
It hearkens back to a simpler time, for many. The fifties were defined by: jukeboxes, formica tables, vinyl seats, poodle skirts and bobby socks, milkshakes, smoking as a healthy pastime, and drive-in movies. Johnny was going to be along any minute to take you to the dance in his Chevy Bel Air. This song was playing on the radio. Your song. You didn’t feel compelled to tell everyone you knew that you loved this song, because you only knew three people, and two of those people were your parents. The other one was Johnny, and he was probably going to ask you to marry him. Social media was still just an evil glint in Daddy Zuckerberg’s eye.
What a time to be alive! Leaving aside the fact that: houses were made of asbestos, there was rampant inequality, civil defence drills, black lives didn’t matter, #YouAlso, half your classmates died from polio, and Johnny crashed the Bel Air on the way to your house and was killed instantly…the fifties were great, weren’t they? No? Well, alright then. Have it your way. No decade is perfect, excepting most of the ones that happened before we got here, I suppose.
But, what got left behind…was the music, and I’m glad to have it this morning, on my way to work, colouring in the world as it passes me by.
Somewhere back in time, there was a moon out, and maybe someone stopped and was moved to write a song about it. In the here and now, even if there was a moon out, you wouldn’t see it because of all the pollution, and even if you could, let’s face it, you’d be instagramming it to infinity.
These are the times that we live in, and we must, for better or worse, embrace those times, providing that the embrace lasts for no longer than three ‘Mississippis’, we are wearing the approved protective clothing for the duration, and you have the signed paperwork proving that it has been independently judged safe for you to do so.
Then you go home, throw your clothes in the incinerator, and bathe in disinfectant for half an hour.
When the night time finally comes, and the moon is out somewhere, you can listen to this song, archived in the pleasingly sanitary environs of the digital world, and you will go to bed dreaming of a pleasant fifties Americana. On the bedside table sits an old photo, a creased but framed picture of Johnny leaning up against his ride, a blue-eyed vision from a different time. | https://medium.com/the-manic-depressives-handbook/what-im-listening-to-today-episode-4-1b4a921f0c21 | ['Jon Scott'] | 2020-07-10 10:53:30.506000+00:00 | ['Fifties', 'Humor', 'Blog', 'Music'] |
How a New Quantum Approach Can Develop Faster Algorithms to Deduce Complex Networks | Complex networks are ubiquitous in the real world, from artificial to purely natural ones, and they exhibit very similar geometric properties. Algorithms based on quantum mechanics perform well on such networks, but their relationship with the geometrical characteristics of networks has remained unclear until now. Researchers from Tokyo University of Science have now shed light on these relationships, opening up new possibilities for the use of complex networks in various fields.
Our world has no dearth of complex networks — from cellular networks in biology to intricate web networks in technology. These networks also form the basis of various applications in virtually all fields of science, and to analyze and manipulate these networks, specific “search” algorithms are required. But, conventional search algorithms are slow and, when dealing with large networks, require a long computational time. Recently, search algorithms based on the principles of quantum mechanics have been found to vastly outperform classical approaches. One such example is the “quantum walk” algorithm, which can be used to find a specific point or a “vertex” on a given N-site graph. Instead of simply going through neighboring vertices, the quantum walk approach employs probabilistic estimations based on the quantum mechanical theory, which drastically reduces the number of steps required to find the objective. To achieve this, before moving from one point to another, an operation called “oracle call” needs to be performed repeatedly to adjust the probability values in the quantum system representation. One main issue is to understand the relationship between the optimal computational time of the oracle call and the structure of the network, as this relationship is well understood for standard shapes and bodies, but it remains unclear for complex networks.
In a new study published in Physical Review A, a team of scientists at Tokyo University of Science, led by Prof Tetsuro Nikuni, dug deeper into the intricacies of these networks in an effort to develop more efficient quantum algorithms. Prof Nikuni explains, “Many real-world systems, such as the World Wide Web and social/biological networks, exhibit complex structures. To fully explore the potential of these network systems, developing an efficient search algorithm is crucial.”
To begin with, the scientists looked into the “fractal properties” (geometrical properties of figures that seem to infinitely replicate their overall shape) of networks. The researchers focused on some basic fractal lattices (structures with a fractal network), such as “Sierpinski gasket,” “Sierpinski tetrahedron,” and “Sierpinski carpet,” to try to find out the relationship between the number of vertices (nodes of the network) and the optimal computational time in a quantum walk search. To this end, they performed numerical simulations with over a million vertices and checked whether the results were in line with previous studies, which proposed a mathematical law or a “scaling law” to explain this relationship.
The researchers found that the scaling law for some fractal lattices varied according to their spectral dimension, confirming the previous conjecture for other lattices. Surprisingly, they even found that the scaling law for another type of fractal lattice depends on a combination of its intrinsic characteristics, again showing that the previous conjecture on the optimal number of oracle calls might be accurate. Prof Nikuni says, “It may indeed be a fact that the quantum spatial search on fractal lattices is surprisingly subject to combinations of the characteristic quantities of the fractal geometry. It remains an open question as to why the scaling law for the number of oracle calls is given by such combinations.” With this understanding, the team even proposed a new scaling hypothesis, which slightly differs from the ones proposed earlier, so as to gain more insight into different fractal geometries of networks.
The research team hopes that, with their findings, quantum searches will become easier to analyze experimentally — especially with recent experiments performing quantum walks on physical systems like optical lattices. The wide applicability of quantum algorithms on fractal lattices highlights the importance of this study. Owing to its exciting findings, this study was even selected as “Editor’s suggestion” in the February 2020 issue of Physical Review A. Optimistic about the results and with future research directions laid out, Prof Nikuni concludes, “We hope that our study further promotes the interdisciplinary study of complex networks, mathematics, and quantum mechanics on fractal geometries.” | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/how-a-new-quantum-approach-can-develop-faster-algorithms-to-deduce-complex-networks-5d835698ec42 | ['Tokyo University Of Science'] | 2020-03-05 02:04:13.196000+00:00 | ['Networking', 'Science', 'Physics', 'Quantum Computing', 'Algorithms'] |
Day #1 with Cloud Workflows: your first step to “Hello World” | With more and more interconnected services, making sense of their interactions becomes critical. With Google Cloud Workflows , developers can orchestrate and automate such complex systems by creating serverless workflows.
In this series of articles, we will learn together how to use Cloud Workflows, and get to know all its features, with short and easy to read tutorials. For our first day, we’ll discover and use the Workflows UI in the cloud console . We will create a simple “hello world” workflow, consisting of a simple step. Going further, in the coming days, we’ll learn more about advanced features. But first things first!
In the Google Cloud console UI, you can locate Workflows in the Tools section of the hamburger menu:
You can pin this menu item, to have it stick at the top of the list.
The first time you are accessing this page, you’ll be greeted with the following screen, which will ask you to enable the Workflows API. So just click on “ENABLE”:
Once the API is enabled, you’ll be in the Workflows home screen:
Click on the “CREATE” button to create your first workflow definition:
Find a name for your workflow (it should start with a letter). You can provide an optional description. Currently, only “us-central1” is available for the beta of Cloud Workflows, but more regions will be available later on.
Notice that we have to select a service account that Workflows will use to call other Google Cloud APIs, however here, there’s a warning telling us that the project requires a service account. As I’ve created a brand new project, I didn’t have any service account created. If you had used, for example, Cloud Functions beforehand, a default service account would have been created. If you need to create a service account, you can create one in “IAM & Admin > Service Accounts”, then use this one.
My first workflow will be called “w01-first-workflow”:
Move on to the next section with the “NEXT” button. That’s where you will define your workflow:
This first workflow consists in one single step, called “sayHello”, and whose sole purpose is to return a hello world message:
- sayHello:
return: Hello from Cloud Workflows!
As you can see, workflow definitions are written using the YAML configuration language.
Click “DEPLOY” to deploy the workflow. You will then see the details of your new workflow. In the “executions” tab, you can see past executions.
In the “logs” section, you can see the logging messages associated with your workflow creation, deployment and executions:
And in the “definitions” section, you can see the YAML description you just created:
Now click on the “EXECUTE” button. You will see the input section (we’ll learn about input arguments in an upcoming article), and the YAML definition. Click the other “EXECUTE” button:
You will see the result of your execution (“succeeded”, with other details about the execution), as well as both the input and the output, with our greeting message:
And here you are! You created your first workflow definition, and launched the first execution of this workflow!
In the coming days, we will have a closer look at the structure of workflow definitions (its steps), how to define input arguments, but also how to create an execution of a workflow from the command-line. | https://medium.com/google-cloud/day-1-with-cloud-workflows-your-first-step-to-hello-world-4b545064759e | ['Guillaume Laforge'] | 2020-12-02 16:14:38.944000+00:00 | ['Serverless', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Google Cloud', 'Workflow'] |
The Ultimate Guide on the Data Science MicroMasters Programs on edX 2020 / 2021 | The Ultimate Guide on the Data Science MicroMasters Programs on edX 2020 / 2021
Which of the 6 programs should you choose?
Photo by Myriam Jessier on Unsplash
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are today a valuable alternative for learning data science.
Not only beginners but also data science veterans are doing MOOCs — like myself.
I am a part-time lecturer on master’s level programs and familiar with many lectures worldwide, and I regularly assess online courses.
Not a few students do in parallel MOOCs in the data science field. These are mostly students from other disciplines that are moving into that area, and for them, it is a fast and flexible way to fill the gap in basics while attending lectures on the master’s level.
So, they often ask me for advice which MOOCs would be best suited for their individual situation.
There are pros and cons to each MOOC. The fact is that with MOOCs alone, you cannot become a data scientist. You need practical experience and exchange with and mentorship from veterans. But it is a convenient way to get access to high-quality education and a fast path to fill gaps.
My observation is that the MOOCs’ quality is increasing steadily, and you have a growing choice of online programs. So, it becomes essential to find the individually right program.
Another question is if you should get a certificate or not. My personal opinion is that when you anyway will get a degree on a graduate level, and it only serves as a possibility to fill gaps, it is not necessary to take a certificate. If it shows additional knowledge that you would otherwise not have, go for a certificate. Benjamin Obi Tayo, Ph.D. has an excellent summary of the consideration for certifications.
Comparing the many different platforms is not a simple task; even the comparison of the many various programs on one platform is tricky for a data science beginner.
Our university is part of the edX platform, so it is the choice of many of our students. For that reason, I am most familiar with the course offered there.
In this guide, I focus on the so-called MicroMasters programs on the edX platform.
A MicroMasters program consists of a series of graduate-level courses, including corresponding assignments, exams, and practical projects. The average length is about one year, with an effort of about 10 hours per week. It corresponds to around 25% of a full master’s program, and the earned credits can be transferred to designated online or on-campus master’s programs.
So, MicroMasters programs are not only a convenient way of gaining relevant and high-quality education but also a way of testing your delight in full graduate education. | https://towardsdatascience.com/the-ultimate-guide-on-the-data-science-micromasters-programs-on-edx-2020-2021-db7646381387 | ['Isabelle Flückiger'] | 2020-11-24 14:11:04.965000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science Courses', 'Edx', 'Online Courses', 'Data Science'] |
Money Lender and Mine | In this article we looks at money lender and mine two cards from the base set of the deck building game Dominion
You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion! In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums. All are small bits of land, controlled by petty lords and verging on anarchy. You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner. But wait! It must be something in the air; several other monarchs have had the exact same idea. You must race to get as much of the unclaimed land as possible, fending them off along the way. To do this you will hire minions, construct buildings, spruce up your castle, and fill the coffers of your treasury. Your parents wouldn’t be proud, but your grandparents, on your mother’s side, would be delighted. This is a game of building a deck of cards. The deck represents your Dominion. It contains your resources, victory points, and the things you can do. It starts out a small sad collection of Estates and Coppers , but you hope that by the end of the game it will be brimming with Gold and provinces. You win by having the most victory points in your deck when the game ends.
source: https://www.riograndegames.com/wpcontent/uploads/2016/09/Dominion-2nd-Edition-Rules.pdf
Moneylender
When you play money lender you trash a copper from your hand and gain a gold.
As with every other card in Dominion, the value of the card is dependant upon the kingdom.
There are many different ways to win at Dominion. One of the ways is to play your money lender trash your coppers and fill your hand with more valuable cards such as gold, action cards, and eventually provinces.
There are other routes to victory for example filling your deck with gardens and as many cards as possible before your opponent is able to buy provinces.
In the early part of the game, money lender works quite well as there are lots of coppers to trash. However, as the game progresses you will fill your deck with other cards and trash your coppers which will make your money lender useless.
When considering buying a money lender look for an appropriate trasher.
If chapel is in the kingdom it is generally more efficient to use it to trash your coppers and your estates and forget about buying money lender.
Buying coppers to feed your money lender is usually not a great idea. However, in a kingdom that generates lots of extra buys, extra actions, and has an appropriate trash for benefit card, such a strategy could work well.
Moneylender makes mountebank a less attractive attack.
Pirate ship on the other hand becomes more attractive if the opponent has a money lender.
Mine
When you play mine you trash a treasure and gain a treasure costing up to 3 more than it.
One of the disadvantages of mine is the cost. there are usually more powerful action cards available that cost 5
Mine is more flexible than money lender especially if there are treasure cards other than copper, silver and gold.
With potions in the kingdom, mine is often very useful.
If platinum and colonies are in the kingdom mine is a great card as it can turn gold into platinum. Moneylender on the other hand is often a very poor choice when there is platinum. If you can not trash your money lender you will have a useless dead card for a longer period of time.
A big advantage of mine is that the gained card goes directly into your hand rather than your discard pile and can be used during your buy phase this turn.
In general, moneylender favors strategies in which getting high-value cards early is important. Mine favors slower strategies. It is often purchased later in the game for turning silver into gold. Turning coppers into silver is okay but there are usually better options available. | https://medium.com/imperfect-words/money-lender-and-mine-ec19936c96be | ['Jim Mcaulay'] | 2020-12-03 17:17:26.389000+00:00 | ['Dominion Game', 'Humor', 'Jim Mcaulay', 'Imperfect Words', 'Humour'] |
How to search emails with attachments in Gmail | On average, professionals have more than 200 emails in their inbox and receive 120 new ones each day but respond to only 25% of them.
Every individual, whether he is a professional, or doing a job, or working as a Freelancer, majorly their morning will start by reading Emails and sorting the replies, won’t you agree?
E-mails have made our lives simple but it complicates our time, a simple example is if we have received 5 new emails, it will take nearly 20–25 mins to read and reply to each of them. Sometimes we can’t understand how to find an attachment in Gmail. We can’t miss out on work-related Emails, it is a major threat to our professionalism.
The worst-case scenario is when we are finding a mail that has some important attachments and we are unable to catch it, we spend minutes after it and still, we couldn’t find it due to ample e-mails knocking our mailbox. That will surely lead to irritation and frustration.
In such a case, we can NOT ask the sender to resend it as it will risk a Question Mark on our organized way of working also it will delay our further work, as without that particular attachment you will miss out on the data which might be important for you.
Moreover, you will be answerable and accountable to your supervisor for the same.
Can you imagine the chaos raised from being unable to find an attachment?
Thanks to G-Mail, here are easy tricks to escape this entire chaos and excel your proficiency!
Here are shortcuts regarding How to search emails with attachments in Gmail
1. Make an Efficient Use of G-Mail Search Option:
You must be aware that Google allows you to share an attachment to the maximum limit of 25 MB. The data to be shared above the said limit will be shared in the form of the link. However, you can easily share the drive link also as an attachment.
So, whether you are trying to find a file or just trying to find the link, in your over flooded inbox, you simply have to follow three steps and you will be all sorted!
In the G-Mail Search Option, you have to type either:
The Sender’s Name
Sender’s E-Mail I’d
File or Document Name
Once you press Enter, you will be able to see all the filters such as “Exclude Chat” “Has Attachment” “Is unread” “Any Time” “To Me”
So you can select the filter that applicable, just as the name suggests: You have to Select Exclude Chat if you don’t think that the Attachment sent to you in Google Chat or Hangouts.
Or, you can select the option of “Unread” if you think you haven’t yet opened or read that mail and you can continue finding the mail that way.
Also, the option of “Any time” is very useful, as you might be using G-Mail for a good number of years and you are receiving regular Mails with Attachment from the same sender than you can restrict the search of that particular attachment by selecting the time frame.
The “To Me” option is simple, if you think the mail was directly sent to you only and no one else was mentioned in BCC or CC then opt for this option.
P.S If you are finding an attachment it is mandatory to opt for the “Has Attachment” filter, so all extra mails from the same sender will vanish for time being and you will be shown only those e-mails that have attachments.
There is another option of Advance Search, beside the above-mentioned filters there will be a separate option for Advanced Search, you shall click that option and the entire dialogue box will open asking for the below-mentioned details:
From
To
Subject
Date
Has the Words
Doesn’t has
Size
Date
You can find all the details you have or you know and opt for an Advance search, this way it will be easy for you to find the Mail with an attachment in G-Mail.
It is one of the quickest ways to find an attachment in your Gmail.
Also Read:
-[10 Best Gmail Tips and Tricks]( https://contactbook.app/blog/gmail-tips-and-tricks)
2. Don’t underestimate the power of Starred Mails:
If you are looking for a pro-active way to address the solution of search G-mail for attachments then you can use the option of Starred Mails.
To exercise this option you have to be attentive as soon as you receive an e-mail, you read it and feel that the mail received has an important attachment and it is crucial for me for further reference.
All you have to do is to “Star Mark” that option and you can refer to it whenever you want just by clicking on the option of starred emails.
In the mail list, you will find the Star Mark option right before the sender’s name and if you have opened the mail, Star will appear on your extreme right, besides the time mentioned in the mail.
Whenever you want to refer to starred mails, it will be displayed right below the INBOX button on your G-Mail Account.
3. Labels can also help you:
The next option to find attachments in G-mail is to use labels. A lot of people don’t use this option as they are not aware of its fruitfulness.
Just as the name suggests this option is simple you have to label your Emails in the way you want. Either you can label your Emails in the offer of priority or you can do it based on projects you are managing or you can manage it month-wise.
For instance, if you are creating labels based on priority, you first need to create different labels that define priority as Urgent, Not os Urgent, Important, or Less Important.
To create 4 labels, below the Inbox tab you will find several other options as Starred, Snoozed, Send, Draft, Outbox; you have to scroll to the bottom and select the option of CREATE LABELS. As soon as you click it you will be required to name that label, e.g. You created label “URGENT”
After that whenever you received mail while reading the mail, on the header line you will find an option of labeling from there you just have to click and select the label name. That particular mail will be categorized as important and whenever you search that particular label you will find all the emails under that label in one search.
Summing Up:
The first condition to work professionally is to maintain an organized working pattern. When you fail to maintain an organized way of working, you will end up messing with everything.
That is not affordable in any career. Start using these hacks and save yourself from a messy G-mail account, keep things sorted, and work glitch-free. | https://medium.com/@contactbookapp/how-to-search-emails-with-attachments-in-gmail-882566948054 | [] | 2020-12-12 04:50:48.484000+00:00 | ['Email Attachment', 'Gmail', 'Gmail Tips', 'Email Productivity', 'Email'] |
Demystify your ML model with SHAP | What is ML model explainability?
With exception of simple linear models like linear regression where you can easily look at the feature coefficients, machine learning models can often be a bit of a blackbox. It can be very difficult to understand why the model predicts a particular output, or to verify that the output makes intuitive sense. Model explainability is the practice that attempts to address this by
Disaggregating and quantifying the key drivers of the model output Providing users tools to intuitively reason about why and how the model inputs lead to the output, both in the aggregate and in specific instances
Why is it important to explain your ML models?
Humans tend to distrust that which we cannot understand. The inability to understand the model often leads to a lack of trust and adoption, resulting in potentially useful models sitting on the side lines. Even if the stakeholders and operators get over the initial hurdle of distrust, it is often not obvious how to operationalize the model output. Take a churn prediction model for example, the model may be able to tell you that a particular customer is 90% likely to churn, but without a clear understanding of the drivers, it’s not necessarily clear what can be done to prevent churn from happening.
Of course, the magnitude of the hurdles depend on the specific use case. For certain classes of models like image recognition models (often deep learning based), it is very apparent if the output is right or wrong, and it is also fairly clear how to use the output. However, in many other use cases (like churn prediction, demand forecasting, credit underwriting, just to name a few), the lack of explainability poses significant obstacles between models and tangible impact. The most accurate model in the world is worthless if it is not being used to drive decisions and actions. Therefore it is crucial to make model as transparent and understandable to the stakeholders and operators, so that it can be leveraged and acted upon appropriately.
How do I explain ML models?
There are quite a few different approaches (some of which are model type specific) to help explain ML models. Of these, I like SHAP the most, for a few different reasons
SHAP is consistent, meaning it provides an exact decomposition of the impact each driver that can be summed to obtain the final prediction SHAP unifies 6 different approaches (including LIME and DeepLIFT) [2] to provide a unified interface for explaining all kinds of different models. Specifically, it has TreeExplainer for tree based (including ensemble) models, DeepExplainer for deep learning models, GradientExplainer for internal layers to deep learning models, LinearExplainer for linear models, and a model agnostic KernelExplainer SHAP provides helpful visualizations to aid in the understanding and explanation of models
I won’t go into the details of how SHAP works underneath the hood, except to say that it leverages game theory concepts to optimally allocates the marginal contribution for each input feature. For more details, I encourage the readers to check out the related publications.
I will instead focus on a hands on example of how to use SHAP to understand a churn prediction model. The dataset used in this example can be obtained from Kaggle.
Model setup
Since the model is not the main focus of this walk through, I won’t delve too much into the details, except to provide some quicks notes for the sake of clarity
Each row in the dataset is a telco subscriber and contain metadata about the location, tenure, usage metrics, as well as a label of whether the subscriber has churned
Before model training, the dataset is pre-processed to convert boolean features into 1 and 0, categorical features into one-hot encoded dummies, and numerical features into Z-scores using the sklearn StandardScaler (remove mean and normalize by standard deviation)
(remove mean and normalize by standard deviation) Minutes and charges features are found to be perfectly co-linear, so the minutes features are removed
The sklearn GradientBoostingClassifier is used to model the churn probability and GridSearchCV is used to optimized the hyper-parameters
is used to model the churn probability and is used to optimized the hyper-parameters The resulting model has a 96% accuracy in cross-validation
The code that performs the above is as follows
Explaining aggregate feature impact with SHAP summary_plot
While SHAP can be used to explain any model, it offers an optimized method for tree ensemble models (which GradientBoostingClassifier is) in TreeExplainer . With a couple of lines of code, you can quickly visualize the aggregate feature impact on the model output as follows
explainer = shap.TreeExplainer(gbt)
shap_values = explainer.shap_values(processed_df[features]) shap.summary_plot(shap_values, processed_df[features])
Image by author
This chart contains a ton of information about the model at the aggregate level, but it may be a bit overwhelming for the uninitiated, so let me walk through what we are looking at
The individual dots represent specific training examples. The y-axis are the input features ranked by magnitude of aggregate impact on the model output. The colors of the dots represent the value of the feature on the y-axis. Note that this does not mean the top feature is total_day_charge for every subscriber, we will get to explaining individual examples. The x-axis are the SHAP values, which as the chart indicates, are the impacts on the model output. These are the values that you would sum to get the final model output for any specific example. In this particularly case, since we are working with a classifier, they correspond to the log-odds ratio. A 0 means no marginal impact to the probability, positive value means increases to the churn probability, and negative value means decreases to the churn probability. The exact relationship between overall odds-ratio and probability is log(p/(1-p)), where p is the probability. SHAP adds a bit of perturbation to the vertical positions of points when there is a large number of points occupying the same space to help convey the high density. See the large bulb of points for total_day_charge
What we can we learn from this plot
Similar to what you can get from traditional feature importance plots from classifiers, we can see that the top 5 drivers of churn are total_day_charge , number_customer_service_calls , international_plan , total_eve_charge , and voice_mail_plan We can see how each of the feature impact churn probability — total_day_charge impact is asymmetrical and primarily drives up churn probability its value is high, but does not drive down churn probability to the same extent when its value is low. Contrast this with total_eve_charge which has a much more symmetrical impact. We can also see that subscribers who have international_plan are much more likely to churn than those who do not (red dots are far out on the right and blues dots are close to 0). Conversely, those who have voice_mail_plan are much less likely to churn than those do not.
Explaining specific feature impact with SHAP dependence_plot
The impact of international_plan is very curious: why would subscribers who have it be more likely to churn than those who do not? SHAP has nice method called dependence_plot to help users unpack this.
shap.dependence_plot("international_plan", shap_values, processed_df[features], interaction_index="total_intl_charge")
image by author
The dependence plot is a deep dive into a specific feature to understand how the model output is impacted by different values of the feature, and how this is impacted by interaction with other features. Again, it can be a bit overwhelming for the uninitiated, so let me walk through it
Dots represent individual training examples Colors represent value of the interaction feature ( total_intl_charge ) y-axis is the SHAP value for the main feature being examined ( international_plan ) x-axis is the value of the main feature being examined ( international_plan , 0 for does not have plan, 1 for have plan)
We can see, as before, those with international plan seems to have higher churn probability. Additionally, we can also see from the interaction feature of total international charge, that the red dots (higher total international charge) tends to have higher churn probability. Because of the bunching of points, it is difficult to make out what is happening, so let’s change the order of the two features to get a better look.
shap.dependence_plot("total_intl_charge", shap_values, processed_df[features], interaction_index="international_plan")
image by author
Now this plot tells a very interesting story.
As a reminder, the x-axis here is total international charge transformed to the z-score, 0 = the average of all subscribers in the data, non-zero values = standard deviations away from the average value. We can see that for those who have international charge less than 1 standard deviation above the average, having an international plan actually lowers churn impact of international charge (red dots to the left of 1 have lower SHAP value than blue dots). However, as soon as you cross to the right of 1 standard deviation of international charge, having international plan actually significantly increases the churn impact (red dots to the right of 1 have much higher SHAP value than blue dots)
It is not that people who have international plan are more likely churn, rather it is that people who have international plan and also high total international charge are a LOT more likely to churn.
A plausible way to interpret this is that subscribers who have international plans expect to protected from high international charges, and when they are not, they are much more likely to cancel their subscription and go with a different provider who can offer better rates. This obviously requires additional investigation and perhaps also data collection to validate, but it is already a very interesting and actionable lead that can be pursued.
Explaining individual examples with SHAP waterfall_plot
In addition to understanding drivers at an aggregate level, SHAP also enables you to examine individual examples and understand the drivers of the final prediction.
# visualize the first prediction's explanation using waterfall
# 2020-12-28 there is a bug in the current implementation of the waterfall_plot, where the data structured expected does not match the api output, hence the need for a custom class i=1001 class ShapObject:
def __init__(self, base_values, data, values, feature_names):
self.base_values = base_values # Single value
self.data = data # Raw feature values for 1 row of data
self.values = values # SHAP values for the same row of data
self.feature_names = feature_names # Column names
shap_object = ShapObject(base_values = explainer.expected_value[0],
values = shap_values[i,:],
feature_names = features,
data = processed_df[features].iloc[i,:]) shap.waterfall_plot(shap_object)
This plot decomposes the drivers of a specific prediction.
the x-axis is the SHAP value (or log-odds ratio). At the very bottom E[f(x)] = -2.84 indicates the baseline log-odds ratio of churn for the population, which translates to a 5.5% churn probability using the formula provided above.
the y-axis is the name of features being represented by the arrows, along with their respective values.
The impact (SHAP value) of each individual feature (less significant features are lumped together) is represented by the arrows that move the log-odds ratio to the left and right, starting from the baseline value. Red arrows increase the log-odds ratio, and blue arrows reduce the log-odds ratio
This particular example has a final predicted log-odds ratio of -3.967 (or 1.8% churn probability) largely driven by relatively average total day charge, and the low number of customer service calls. Contrast this with the example below, where the final predicted log-odds ratio is 1.667 (or 84% churn probability), and is largely primarily by the very high number of customer service calls.
Takeaways
ML model explainability creates the ability for users to understand and quantify the drivers of the model predictions, both in the aggregate and for specific examples
Explainability is a key component to getting models adopted and operationalized in an actionable way
SHAP is a useful tool for quickly enabling model explainability
Hope this was a useful walk through. Feel free to reach out if you have comments or questions.
Reference
[1] https://slundberg.github.io/shap/notebooks/League%20of%20Legends%20Win%20Prediction%20with%20XGBoost.html
[2] https://github.com/slundberg/shap#methods-unified-by-shap | https://towardsdatascience.com/demystify-your-ml-model-with-shap-fc191a1cb08a | ['Yifei Huang'] | 2020-12-29 22:03:20.037000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Editors Pick', 'Churn', 'Explainable Ai', 'Python'] |
回答5個常見的脊椎側彎相關問題 | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/@fishballcc/%E5%9B%9E%E7%AD%945%E5%80%8B%E5%B8%B8%E8%A6%8B%E7%9A%84%E8%84%8A%E6%A4%8E%E5%81%B4%E5%BD%8E%E7%9B%B8%E9%97%9C%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C-f15675a4b514 | ['杜婉瑜 Diane'] | 2021-01-06 12:17:48.026000+00:00 | ['Teenagers', 'Scoliosis', 'Physiotherapy', 'Posture Correction', 'Exercise'] |
Emergence is Looking for Our Next Investor | Emergence is Looking for Our Next Investor
Emergence is growing and we are looking to add a new member to our investment team!
In this partner-track position, you will play a critical role in supporting the firm’s due diligence efforts, monitoring and assisting Emergence’s portfolio companies, researching investment themes, and helping source new deals.
This is a rare opportunity to build a career in venture capital. We are obsessively careful about growing the Emergence team (historically, partner-track positions have come available only once every two years) and subscribe to the apprenticeship model. In this role, you will be mentored by a tight-knit team of veteran venture capitalists who have partnered with and learned from the founders of companies like Zoom, Veeva Systems, Yammer, Box, ServiceMax, Salesforce, and more.
The founders of Emergence started the firm with the philosophy that the best culture and best performance would be achieved by grooming people from within. Over the past two decades, we have crafted (and refined) an intentional career development process with this as our North Star goal. As a result, all of our non-founding Partners started their Emergence careers in the role we are hiring for today.
Responsibilities for this role include:
Independently driving all aspects of due diligence, including detailed customer and management references, market sizing and mapping, financial modeling, and industry research.
Collaborating with teammates to push our thinking in key thesis areas and developing your own unique perspectives.
Contributing to building the Emergence brand, portfolio, as well as improving our internal processes. We think of ourselves as a startup and as such we are continuously seeking to iterate on how to operate at our best.
Sourcing new early-stage investments by nurturing strong relationships with founders, investors, and the broader VC community.
We’d love to hear from you if you:
Highly analytical: You have a keen eye and are genuinely enthusiastic about analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, and have a strong ability to synthesize key findings. Candidates may have consulting, banking, or technical backgrounds, and must be extremely comfortable working in Excel.
You have a keen eye and are genuinely enthusiastic about analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, and have a strong ability to synthesize key findings. Candidates may have consulting, banking, or technical backgrounds, and must be extremely comfortable working in Excel. Have an entrepreneurial bent: Empathy is essential to what we do. You’ll likely have started a business yourself or worked at an early stage startup. Alternatively, you will have an outstanding network in the entrepreneurial community.
Empathy is essential to what we do. You’ll likely have started a business yourself or worked at an early stage startup. Alternatively, you will have an outstanding network in the entrepreneurial community. Have a default preference for collaboration: Every venture firm is unique in how they operate, and Emergence is on the collaborative end of the spectrum; for example, we require unanimous enthusiasm of our group before we invest in any company. A track record as a low-ego, collaborative team member is essential for success here.
Every venture firm is unique in how they operate, and Emergence is on the collaborative end of the spectrum; for example, we require unanimous enthusiasm of our group before we invest in any company. A track record as a low-ego, collaborative team member is essential for success here. Are an exceptional communicator: You regularly build strong relationships with entrepreneurs of all backgrounds, and you communicate equally well internally. Strong synthesis skills come in to play here as well. What’s the “so what”?
You regularly build strong relationships with entrepreneurs of all backgrounds, and you communicate equally well internally. Strong synthesis skills come in to play here as well. What’s the “so what”? Are an innovative thinker: We’re helping to build the next generation of iconic enterprise cloud companies. And, in so doing, building the next generation of Emergence. We need innovative ideas from all of our team members to help shape our theses and investments. The right team member will have a well-reasoned perspective on where enterprise cloud is headed and be able to identify these opportunities early, with a demonstrated record of communicating that perspective in our community.
The strongest candidates for this position tend to have an MBA and 6–10 years of experience in some combination of consulting/banking, big tech, and startups. We place a premium on diversity of ideas and are excited to add new perspectives to our team.
Does this sound like you? If so, we’d love to hear from you.
Please apply here. We’ll follow up if your background is a potential fit. | https://medium.com/emergencecap/emergence-is-looking-for-our-next-investment-team-member-7789cd9431da | [] | 2021-01-10 04:44:30.184000+00:00 | ['Recruiting', 'Investors', 'Hiring', 'Venture Capital', 'Enterprise Technology'] |
The Long and Windy Road to January 20 | Mr Spira, you deftly traversed the arcane procedures set forth by our Founding Fathers, who apparently suffered an OCD level of rumination so that all election contingencies followed standard operating procedures. I confess, having arisen from a decadent slumber, my mental motor stalled around Argument 2.5. Surveying my options, I confess a marked ambivalence rising from my loins and through the molasses of my mental lazing, much like acidic superchunks that I heave forth. I’m sickened from the heavy stench, sour and acrid, stirred up into a Devil wind by 4 years of brouhaha and frenzy. Nay, I see a pastoral road yonder, leading me away from those dastardly parliamentary procedures and deadly polemics to my Sunday happy place: classical (followed by jazz) on the airwaves, a Major Veg & Cheese 3 egg omelette, crisp bacon (3), whole grain toast (1), butter, jam, half a banana and Huge Mug of coffee with sweet cream in the kitchen, and the “L.A. Times” Sunday Funnies on the table. Call me nostalgic, but God I love Sunday mornings and a 3D newspaper.☺️
(Anyway, you had me at “overnight conservation”). 😆
But I will forward your persuasive essay, hopefully the final word on the matter, to my 40 year old, MAGA baseball cap wearing, Canadian friend (don’t ask; I too remind him Canada really is a foreign country and Justin’s in blackface, so MYOB with your MAGA, eh?!). He doesn’t read the Funnies. Maybe he should.
Now, go get some sleep; seems like you’ve been up all night, conversating. 😉
Let’s all put it to rest.
And to the rest of My Fellow Americans: God Bless US, Everyone! We’ll need it in 2021… | https://medium.com/@patrickinca1/the-long-and-windy-road-to-january-20-f36cc0f01c8f | ['Patrick O Hearn'] | 2020-12-28 03:25:27.002000+00:00 | ['Electoral College', 'Make America Great Again', 'Elections', 'Constitution', 'Voting'] |
🔉We are happy to announce the completion audit Staking smart contract YlFi | 🔉We are happy to announce the completion audit Staking smart contract YlFi
YlFi Staking Smart contract:
https://etherscan.io/address/0xf0ca8e0b6cc679d0d946b7470e26920601ff1c37#code
🔥Dpanquan.com completed yloans.finance — Staking smart contract audit!
⚙️Audit report and certificate please check the links below.
✅Audit result:
https://www.dpanquan.com/storage/13318/files/20201205/20201205183600_58362.pdf
✅Audit certificate:
https://www.dpanquan.com/storage/13318/files/20201205/20201205183651_75628.pdf
Social Links
🌏Official Website: https://yloans.finance
🌏Whitepaper: https://yloans.finance/whitepaper.pdf
🌏Twitter: https://twitter.com/Yearn_Loans_Fin
🌏Github: https://github.com/YlFi
🌏Email: [email protected]
🌏Telegram Community: https://t.me/Yearn_Loans_Finance_YlFi_Chat
🌏Telegram Announcement: https://t.me/Yearn_Loans_Finance_YlFi | https://medium.com/@yearnloansfinance/we-are-happy-to-announce-the-completion-audit-staking-smart-contract-ylfi-5531c8d44f49 | ['Yearn Loans Finance'] | 2020-12-17 09:54:21.843000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Staking', 'Smartcontract', 'Crypto', 'Audit'] |
One or Two | Photo by Nicole Y-C on Unsplash
We might have spoken. Maybe a time or two
for endless seasons that tricked
the sunlight into sighing,
and slowly turn blue.
I remember how the clouds moved above us
like sad and guilty gods passing through
to check on the status of their creations.
You saw me in the twilight,
we shimmered on the crux.
Marching through the days, and the layouts of picture frames.
The evolution of socks and helmets full of thoughts. Those ordinary chapters
obtained the light before the writer led us through the dark. On the grass
the droplets of expired rain cradled the life of One or Two
for a chance to last.
Maybe we had talked too much, some lengthened times.
I said “that’s fucked up” enough
and knew there were lowly crimes,
but love was above all,
so I kept it with mine
until I forgot about luck
to have faith in every fall.
Was love enough? Was love the right thing to do? Was love the truth,
for you? And a bag full of flowers? For you to love me then say you’re stuck.
So why don’t you leave? Why don’t you go? Out to the grass. Out to the mud
where the blown-out dreams call your name through the wind.
Through the pain once again.
We might have loved, as we should have. We stirred
our coffee with honey,
and steered the wheel, deferred,
until the car crashed
in the meadow. We heard
the sound of our own myth
fading away and gashed.
Will I be home again? To meet my wit’s end and fabricate my worth and whine?
To the end. To the beginnings and commemoration. For the goings writhe
until I finally go to sleep only to dream of your magic and your pith
that serenades the night and glorifies the day
to be wakeful in my future’s steps. | https://psiloveyou.xyz/one-or-two-1340cd2da2ee | ['Jesse M. Gonzalez'] | 2020-12-20 13:04:20.816000+00:00 | ['Breakups', 'Poetry', 'Poetry Sunday', 'Poem', 'Love'] |
Crypto Experts Warn Against Selling Off Bitcoin In Wake of ETF Delay | Image Retrieved from Oracle Times
Crypto sunk hard today and rapidly after news was released that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed approving the highly anticipated VanEck Bitcoin ETF.
In 48 hours, the crypto market lost billions of dollars with most major cryptos dropping in value 10–25%.
Experienced crypto investors expected the SEC to delay approval so there is a possibility that this downward trend is just a standard sell off. But, there are some investors that sold quickly over the past 24 hours.
Brian Kelly, Fast Money Contributor, Says Selling is Wrong
“It [bitcoin] has had a tremendous run off of $5,800, and that was all really because people thought there was going to be a bitcoin ETF. The SEC came out and postponed that decision. A little spoiler alert, on September 30, SEC will likely postpone in again, because the market is not ready for it and the SEC hasn’t had the answers to their questions yet.”
This is VanEck’s third time at trying to get a Bitcoin ETF pushed through and the SEC declared they are pushing out their decision until September 30, 2018.
Honestly, the decision will likely get pushed again at that time because the world is just not ready for this product. That’s my opinion anyway.
What is an ETF?
Since I have been asked this many times today, an ETF is a financial product that keeps track of the price of an asset that is listed on an exchange. This means that investors don’t have to actually buy the asset in order to realize gains from it.
This would be a “safer way” for institutional investors to get involved in crypto rather than buying Bitcoin the old fashioned way on a crypto exchange and holding until the price goes up to realize gains.
Image Retrieved from Bitcoin Exchange Guide
Where do we go from here?
Interest in the crypto realm seems to be increasing and new technology is being added to the space every day with so many new projects coming together.
This attempt at a Bitcoin ETF was not flat out denied by the SEC like the most recent attempt from the Winklevoss twins so there may be hope that the SEC is trying to understand crypto and trying to work with the crypto community to bring about change.
VanEck addressed all of the questions raised by the SEC during their previous attempt at filing and the market itself has changed tremendously in the past year.
The changes are:
· Derivatives markets for Bitcoin
· Set share prices will be set at $203,750 to avoid the SEC concern of retail investors raised previously
· The OTC Index will be used for pricing to address raised concerns of price manipulation
In order for us to see the change we need, both sides (the crypto community and the public) need to reach across the obvious divide and learn to work together.
If you are selling right now, that really isn’t the best idea according to the industry experts because now is the time you should hold and just wait for the next run up.
We likely haven’t hit a hard bottom yet so we shall see many more bounces before a solid run up that will indicate the end of this current down market.
Do you think the ETF will be approved in September?
Do you think it will be pushed back again?
Do you think it will be rejected?
Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Thanks for reading,
Ivy | https://medium.com/wespostdotcom/crypto-experts-warn-against-selling-off-bitcoin-in-wake-of-etf-delay-5d1719970ae6 | ['Ivy Riane'] | 2018-08-09 01:56:22.476000+00:00 | ['Sentiment', 'Finance', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Investing'] |
Fusion Versus DevOps — Why the World of Digital Transformation Will Change in 2021 | Companies are transitioning from DevOps to Fusion Teams to support their Digital Transformation Plans
According to the latest thinking by Gartner, DevOps teams are about to get displaced in the enterprise by FUSION teams.
“Many firms pursuing distributed delivery are transitioning to ‘fusion teams’ to bring together IT and business employees to develop digital solutions. As fusion teams become more prevalent, enterprise architecture and technology innovation leaders must actively support these blended, multidisciplinary teams.”— Gartner Enterprise Architecture Research Team, Feb 2020.
The term Development Operations (DevOps) has been on the lips of Digital Officers and CIOs for the past three years. This team of SCRUM crazy tech wizards has been charged with driving digital transformation project forward in double quick time. But, according to Gartner, that world is about to change — and 2021 is likely to be the year it happens.
The Enterprise Innovation Factory
Customers are ever more online, remote, discerning, and seeking personalised experiences. Moreover, they want to be in control of their purchasing experiences, call the shots, not be kept waiting, and they want answers when they seek them.
Technologies like Machine-Learning and Artificial Intelligence, sensor networks (the ‘Internet of Things’), blockchain, AI-driven conversational chatbots, virtual and hybrid reality, and 3D modelling are transforming customer value and experiences.
Every business needs to harness the potential of digital technologies to surprise and delight their customers, and stay competitive. That requires tech teams who can be the ‘tip of the spear’ and lead the charge. Someone somewhere needs to understand the hyper automation journey and what the outcome looks like from a tech-stack perspective.
The rapid pace of change in technologies and tools has left many traditional IT teams disorientated and confused about their role (i.e, ‘Do you want me to focus on upgrading our apps, displacing legacy systems and keeping the lights on or not?’).
The solution for many organization has become what’s known as two-speed IT. Put another way, it’s about parachuting a new team of tech experts to create a Development Operations team that is equipped with the right skills blend and tech tools to implement agile developments. That was good 3-years ago, but today — IT’S STILL TOO SLOW.
The Challenges of Coding
The pace of digital evolution is now SO SWIFT that there’s not enough time to code the majority of apps anymore. A growing demand for short-cuts and code block re-use has popularized the use of Low-Code tools that make coding faster. These solutions, while useful, haven’t done anything to remove one of the fundamental challenges of application ideation: That is the barrier that exists between IT and the business when you use code and script.
Enter No-Code
At one time, any applications design and deployment technology that didn’t show the appropriate amount of love for the art of coding would be shunned by businesses as being ‘amateur stuff’ that wasn’t ‘enterprise-grade.’ Practitioners in the art of coding would argue that any tech platform not focused on the needs of the coder was deemed unable to cater for the vast array of requirements modern enterprise apps dictate. They even had a name for these enthusiastic amateurs — ‘Citizen developers.’
That isn’t true anymore. In the past decade, cloud-based technologies have transformed the potential of Platform-as-a-Service ecosystems to support the design, deployment and operation of applications — all achieved without coding.
Platforms like OutSystems, Encanvas, Mendix, BettyBlocks, Outgrow, AppSheet and Bubble are able to offer enterprise-grade results. Some, offer integrated data crunching and interoperability tools together with the ability to ‘code if you want to’ or add existing DLLs, HTML, Javascript or C#.
Fusion Teams — Bringing ‘IT’ and ‘the Business’ Together
These new tools enable Business Analysts to scope and design solutions, removing the ‘deep technical’ duties from the task of authoring an application. That means business people and tech people can build apps in real-time in workshops without having to create a SCRUM or run off into back-rooms to code.
While the technology is transformative, it’s taken some time for organizational designs and cultures to adjust to this new reality. FUSION TEAMS are the emerging solution to that challenge. | https://medium.com/@ian-tomlin/fusion-versus-devops-why-the-world-of-digital-transformation-will-change-in-2021-95cceb7b7549 | ['Ian Tomlin'] | 2020-12-24 09:44:56.716000+00:00 | ['No Code', 'Digital Transformation', 'Fusion Team', 'Low Code', 'DevOps'] |
E-Learning Art: Improve E-Learning Experience With Colors | E-learning arts used to animate the imagination of learners are more effective when the right color combinations are used.
Specific colors like green, orange, and blue target key motivation centers within the individual and improve conditions like focus, enthusiasm, and productivity.
What would life be like without color? One may have to imagine a dull and banal image to understand the importance of colors in our day to day life.
And it’s not just the lack of hue one would have to contend with because the color does more than add beauty.
Color Communicates
Traffic lights and red danger marks readily come to mind. But these are very basic. It is intriguing the massive role that color plays in communication every day and we may not be aware of it.
The choice of color is, therefore, very important in our environment and in most human settings. In fact, the effect colors have on humans is being harnessed to treat certain conditions through a procedure known as chromotherapy.
Likewise, color can be used to influence the mood and productivity of e-learning participants. The choice of color is a part of the broader aspect of e-learning design known as e-learning art.
Colors Are Important For E-learning Art
It does matter the color used for the background, elements, and other images in an e-learning module. As you will see later on, there are colors that are scientifically proven to motivate the learner in very specific ways.
When used rightly, color combinations can help the learner stay focused during an e-learning program and ultimately to achieve the learning objectives.
Poor colors for e-learning art, on the other hand, can be distracting, annoying, and depressing and can ruin the experience for the learner.
Here are some interesting points to keep in mind when choosing colors for your e-learning art.
Use Green For Concentration
Green — the color of life — is often associated with balance and calmness. Scientifically, it has a low wavelength which promotes focus and efficiency.
In e-learning design, green can be used to boost the concentration levels of learners especially in modules that emphasize clarity and where learners need to avoid errors.
Green is also proven to have restorative properties, so it is a good practice to include green in the e-learning art for modules that you sense would be exhausting.
Build Enthusiasm With Orange
Orange — the color of the sunset — is associated with pleasure and enthusiasm. This is the perfect color to brighten the mood of your learners.
When used for e-learning courses, orange-colored arts can be used to ease learners into new modules or new learning activities.
Foster Productivity With Blue
Blue is often used in corporate settings and academic circles because of its ties to productivity. The e-learning designer can also apply blue to help learners achieve more.
Blue-colored e-learning art is also important because the color triggers motivation for knowledge and communication.
While these specific color tips are very useful, it is important to control the general combination of colors used throughout the e-learning.
Monochromic colors though effective for singular ideas can get boring while warm enthusiastic colors can overstimulate the learner and hinder focus. | https://medium.com/@wizcabin/e-learning-art-improve-e-learning-experience-with-colors-b6048f69b347 | ['Naveen Neelakandan'] | 2020-10-19 16:20:31.402000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Elearning', 'Colors', 'Art', 'Technology'] |
VR storytelling blog #1 — The horseless carriage syndrome | When we first started to make fiction films we had no clue what we were doing. What happened was that we’d set up a camera and shoot everything in one shot, from a wide angle. The result looked something like a theater play.
The first websites we made were just pieces of text with a couple of hyperlinks and buttons. We started to add pictures, very cool gifs and awesome flash animations, but we had no clue what the possibilities of interactivity realy were.
This awesome gif was originally a flash animation that I made when I was 15 (2001).
Throughout time, every new medium was first looked at with eyes that were used to media we already knew. This phenomenon is called ‘the horseless carriage syndrome’. It stems from when the first cars were introduced, which looked like carriages without horses. The syndrome was introduced by media philosopher Marshall McLuhan. Right now we stand at the beginning of virtual reality; the precursor of total immersion (because that would obviously be the Star Trek holodeck). As history tends to repeat itself, I thought we might fall into this same horseless carriage syndrome with VR. So I went looking for it to see if we do.
The ‘horseless carriage syndrome’.
One thing I found is the way Eugene Chung from Penrose Studios thinks about VR. The way I see it is that one of the biggest aspects that makes VR the medium that it is, is the fact that the viewer itself can be in the film. Yes, there are some movies that break the fourth wall; where actors talk directly into the camera. In modern theater or stand up this even happens quite often. But when it does, there always remains that distance between the audience and the stage or screen. In VR a character can look you straight in the eye and walk around you. That makes you present in that space, at that moment, together with the characters of the story. There was never a wall to begin with.
Eugene seems to be very successful in bringing this wall back into VR, where he feels it belongs. In that way it looks like he’s trying to master using VR the way he would use film. He does this by shrinking the whole setting the viewer is placed in, including its characters. This way the viewer doesn’t feel like a ghost when his presence is not confirmed.
My guess is that you might feel more like a God, looking down on the world. After all, between a God and his world there is always a fourth wall. I don’t think anybody ever looked their God straight in the eyes while praying. What Eugene does is smart. He makes it possible to continue using other aspects of VR while keeping the fourth wall of film. Still, I wonder… if I were to tell a certain story that included a fourth wall, why would I choose to tell it in VR?
I do think there is still place for VR stories with a fourth wall. For instance Terres de Hommes’ VR experience ‘Amani’, in which you witness the life of a childslave. Here the fact that you’re there without actually ‘being there’ is part of the way they want to tell the story to you. It makes you feel helpless in the situation. It’s exactly how you’d want to make someone feel right before you’d tell them they’re able to help these kind of girls, with some money.
These are two examples where VR makers made it work to not acknowledge the presence of the viewer, but I could tell you far more examples where it doesn’t. I think the important question to ask is: does it serve a purpose to put the fourth wall back in VR? Also, does the use of the medium still serve a purpose if you do? I’ll write about this in my next blog.
Liked it? Please share. Or subscribe to our newsletter for more blogposts about innovation in media and interactive storytelling. | https://medium.com/hackastory-playgrounds/vr-storytelling-blog-1-the-horseless-carriage-syndrome-f6f57e87b4c6 | ['Nikki Van Sprundel'] | 2016-04-09 22:35:27.452000+00:00 | ['VR', 'Storytelling', 'Virtual Reality'] |
The Office Is Dead | The Office Is Dead
Get ready for the commercial real estate apocalypse
In early March, Jeff Haynie, the CEO of Austin-based software company Pinpoint, was gearing up to find new office space. Pinpoint’s $25,000-per-month lease with WeWork for 1,800 square feet would be up in August, and it was time to move on. He was thinking he’d need maybe 10,000 square feet for his growing company, which makes software for programmers.
Then the pandemic hit, and along with it, the enforced work-from-home orders, and Haynie began questioning his figures. A survey he conducted a month in revealed that roughly half of the company’s 27 Austin employees would be perfectly happy to continue working from home. Maybe Pinpoint could get by with 3,000 or 5,000 square feet — less than half the amount of space he’d thought he needed — foregoing desks for basically a conference room and a little collaborative working space. And maybe, given that fewer employees might need to commute regularly or during rush hour, it could be in a neighborhood far cheaper than the Domain, the hot tech cluster where Facebook and Amazon also have offices. “It’s not something I was even thinking about six weeks ago, but it’s definitely something I’ve been talking about now with my investors,” Haynie says. “Overall it’s a win-win.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg. From startups and tech giants to more old-school Wall Street firms, businesses are rethinking the role of office space and whether they even need it. If, in the old world, an office was a form of corporate peacocking — a flashy location in some iconic building with a boutique-hotel level of design for clients, employees, customers, and investors— in the new world, it is becoming a very costly line item that could be reduced to the equivalent of a single flagship store. Instead of a sprawling, capital-intensive, real-world footprint, all the work can be done virtually, with one scaled-down symbolic home base left for critical face-to-face conversations, like meeting with clients or wooing talent. Perhaps in a space not much bigger than your average Le Pain Quotidien.
It’s something no one could have foreseen three months ago. After a decade of economic expansion, commercial rents had risen to an average of nearly $30 per square foot, or 3.4% over last year, according to an April report from Newmark Knight Frank, a New York-based commercial real estate brokerage firm with offices in some 100 U.S. cities. Many companies had an aversion to remote work — IBM, for one, canceled working from home in 2017 — and few had the technology or infrastructure to make it work seamlessly. IBM was hardly alone: At the outset of the crisis, remote work evangelist and Basecamp co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson Twitter-shamed dozens of companies — including Accenture, ATT, Cognizant, Epic Systems, Tesla, SpaceX, and Wells Fargo — for dragging their heels in allowing employees work from home.
Now, more than two months in, the mass work-from-home experiment has forced many businesses out of their comfort zone, pushing them to make the necessary small investments in virtual infrastructure. Even typically staid financial firms like Morgan Stanley and Barclays have adapted, finding solutions to security hurdles that previously prevented a distributed workforce. Many of these companies are realizing that it is not only less scary than they imagined, but their employees are actually more productive. One analysis of server activity found that workers are putting in longer workdays; imagine what that kind of productivity boost might look like when kids finally go back to school. Now, staring down the barrel of a recession, companies are shifting into cost-cutting survival mode — and the huge fixed cost of office space will, for many, be first on the chopping block.
Since the pandemic, Google’s parent company Alphabet pulled out of deals to acquire more than two million square feet of office space.
A study by SquareFoot, which specializes in helping businesses find office space, found that companies in New York City spend an average of $17,020 per employee annually on office space. As companies fight to survive, that’s an awful lot of cash to burn on something that, it turns out, can be replaced by space in employees’ homes. Many commercial leases — which are often 10 years — require companies to foot the bill for unusable space, such as columns and structural elements as well as a portion of shared areas such as the lobby, bathrooms, and elevators. Among other things, a 10-year lease helps lock in prices, something desirable in times of economic expansion but a potential chokehold now.
And so comes the office space exodus. Since the pandemic, Google’s parent company Alphabet has pulled out of deals to acquire more than two million square feet of office space, including what would have been the biggest real estate deal in the Bay Area, according to The Information. James Gorman, the CEO of Morgan Stanley, recently told Bloomberg that the company has proven it can operate with “effectively no footprint” and will have “much less real estate” in the future. Insurer and financial services provider Nationwide announced plans to close five offices, permanently transitioning those employees to working from home. “We’ve been investing in our technological capabilities for years, and those investments really paid off when we needed to transition quickly to a 98% work-from-home model,” CEO Kirt Walker said in a company statement. Groupon, which recently laid off or furloughed roughly 44% of its workforce, is looking to sublease 150,000 square feet in its riverside headquarters, says the Chicago Tribune. And on Friday, real estate development startup Culdesac announced it would be giving up its San Francisco headquarters. “Remote work is going great for us,” tweeted co-founder Ryan Johnson.
Meanwhile, Roy Abernathy, head of global corporate services workplace strategies at commercial broker Newmark Knight Frank, has started getting requests from clients reevaluating their current situation: “I was just on a call where the CFO said, ‘I want you to go back to the landlord and shed 25% of our space.’” | https://marker.medium.com/the-office-is-dead-16be89f25d01 | ['Courtney Rubin'] | 2020-05-14 16:58:34.831000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Workplace', 'Real Estate', 'Business', 'Office Culture'] |
What is Location-based Recommendation? | A location-based recommendation engine analyzes the data related to the user location along with other related data to generate more accurate recommendations.
Nowadays, the majority of the online platforms (apps and websites) are adopting location-based recommender systems for the customers. Food delivery, salon services, gaming, and hospitality are some of the online businesses that use such recommendation systems to generate location-based suggestions for the customers.
The location-based recommendation systems are utilizing the growing usage of smart mobiles to collect the location-related data of the users.
Use Cases of Location-Based Recommendation Engine
Some of the use cases of the location-based recommendation engine are-
Location Based Social Networks (LBSN)- An LBSN adds a location to an existing social network. This enables the people in that social network to share their locations as the embedded information. Foursquare, Gowalla, Swarm etc. are some examples of such networks which suggest nearby tourist spots, next place to visit etc.
An LBSN adds a location to an existing social network. This enables the people in that social network to share their locations as the embedded information. Foursquare, Gowalla, Swarm etc. are some examples of such networks which suggest nearby tourist spots, next place to visit etc. Online Social Networks- Nowadays social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others use location-based recommendation systems to suggest local events, posts, trends etc.
Nowadays social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others use location-based recommendation systems to suggest local events, posts, trends etc. Online News Portals- Online news portals often use location-based recommendations to provide the relevant local news to the customers.
Location-based recommendation engines are getting increasingly popular among online platforms and it is not just limited to the above use cases but OTT channels, e-commerce stores, e-learning portals, and many more!
Muvi Recommendation Engine Alie provides real-time instant notifications based on the customer data. Alie is scalable, equipped with advanced algorithms and industry-agnostic.
Take a 14-day free trial to know about Alie. | https://medium.com/@streamingexpert/what-is-location-based-recommendation-236137469ac3 | ['Roshan Dwivedi'] | 2021-07-06 09:12:21.544000+00:00 | ['Alie', 'Recommendations', 'AI', 'Recommendation System', 'Business'] |
White Denial is an American Tradition: It’s Time to Bury It | No matter the poll, no matter the year, and no matter the conditions of life in America for people of color, white folks have rarely ever believed racism to be much of a problem. Nothing shocking there, I suppose. Whenever a system works to your benefit, taking that system for granted becomes second nature. We don’t see what others who are harmed by that system see, because we don’t have to.
Most slaveowners never questioned the legitimacy of their system, and most whites — including those who didn’t own slaves — neither joined the abolitionist movement nor supported it. Indeed, most whites have been implacably aligned with white supremacy for the entirety of our nation’s history, only condemning even its most blatant iterations (like slavery and indigenous genocide) many generations after the formal manifestations of those had ended, and when doing so took no more courage than crossing the street.
That may sound harsh. But just because truth isn’t pleasing to one’s ears doesn’t mean it’s any less accurate. And the fact is, most white Americans have never believed that it was necessary for blacks to agitate for their rights and liberties (or their lives) — at least, not at the time that particular agitation was happening. Oh sure, fifty years later, we can look back and view Dr. King as a secular saint and talk about how great the civil rights movement was. But when Dr. King and the movement were actually doing the things for which we remember them, most white folks stood in firm opposition, saw no need for their actions, and believed they were more “divisive” than unifying.
Sounds a lot like what so many of us say now, with regard to Black Lives Matter or NFL players taking a knee to protest racial inequity.
Just to make clear how deluded or disinterested in racial justice most white folks have been, even during times when, in retrospect, racial oppression was obvious, consider the following:
In 1963, a year before the Civil Rights Act was passed, two years before the Voting Rights Act, and five years before the Fair Housing Act, nearly two in three whites told Gallup pollsters that blacks were treated equally in their communities. This, in the same year that Medgar Evers was shot down dead in his driveway in Jackson, Bull Connor plowed tanks through the black community and hosed down children in Birmingham, four young black girls were murdered at the 16th Street Baptist Church there, and George Wallace declared, “segregation today, segregation tomorrow and segregation ‘fahevah’” — a statement that elicited letters of support from whites all across the nation, and not only in the south.
By 1965, the year in which Selma sheriff Jim Clark and his goons beat civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus bridge, and Los Angeles police brutality towards black folks touched off the Watts uprising, the share of whites who said blacks were treated equally had risen to nearly 70 percent. In other words, most white Americans apparently thought there was no real need for the Civil Rights Movement, as equal treatment had already been achieved, which is to say that most white folks were utterly deluded about the nation in which they lived.
Even before that, in 1962, 85 percent of whites said that black children had just as good a chance to get a good education as white children. This, despite the fact that most school systems still had not moved towards meaningful integration, let alone equalizing of resources, eight years after the decision in Brown v. Board. While the idea of equal educational opportunity in the early ’60s might strike us now as intrinsically absurd, most whites believed it was a reality, suggesting once again that white America had not even the most fleeting familiarity with their country.
And as for the civil rights movement itself? Although today most view it as a heroic struggle against the self-evident evils of Jim Crow, that certainly isn’t how most whites viewed it when it was happening.
So, for instance, in a Gallup Poll in 1961, six in ten of all Americans said they disapproved of the Freedom Riders: civil rights activists who engaged in direct action to desegregate bus lines throughout the south. Considering that black support for these actions was high — 92 percent of blacks said the movement and Dr. King were either moving at the right speed or too slowly in pushing for change — one can assume that white opposition to the Freedom Riders was probably more than 2:1.
In the same poll, most whites expressed opposition to sit-ins or any other form of direct action to break the back of segregation, claiming that such actions would do more harm than good when it came to bringing about change. So although the the American south was an apartheid colony, most white folks opposed the people who were trying to do something about it. That is to say, white people sided, functionally, with white supremacy.
In June of 1963, shortly before the March on Washington, 60 percent of Americans (and no doubt more than 70 percent of whites, given high black support for the movement), said that civil rights demonstrations were more a hindrance to black advancement than a help. In effect this means that most white people believed they knew black folks’ needs better than actual black people did.
In 1964, despite the fact that the Voting Rights Act had yet to be passed and blacks were being kept from voting throughout the south, and despite the persistence of housing discrimination, which would not be addressed in the Fair Housing Act for four more years, three in four Americans, and likely well over 80 percent of whites, said blacks should stop protesting for their rights. In other words, most white folks didn’t apparently care that African Americans were being denied one of the most basic rights of citizenship, voting, and that they could be routinely blocked from living in the neighborhood of their choice. In short, most whites again sided with white supremacy.
In 1966, 85 percent of whites told the Lou Harris polling group that civil rights demonstrations had done more harm than good for blacks, and the majority said that if they were in the same position as blacks, they would not think it justified to protest or demonstrate for their rights or opportunities. This, coming from the descendants of people who lost their shit over taxes on tea.
Another poll that year found that half of whites believed Dr. King was hurting the cause of civil rights, while only a bit more than a third thought he was helping, and in 1967 — before the Fair Housing Act, and when opportunities still were obviously not equal between whites and people of color — nearly 85 percent of all Americans (and likely well over 90 percent of whites) said blacks would be better off just “taking advantage of the opportunities they have already been given” as opposed to protesting.
In other words, whites believed blacks should just work harder and stop complaining, even though housing discrimination was rampant and still legal; even though most school systems still had not moved to truly integrate, let alone equalize resources, and even though the Civil Rights Act had only been in place for three years — hardly long enough, even in theory, to end racial discrimination. In short, and as the evidence clearly suggests — without a single solitary piece of counter-evidence — white folks have always wished black people would stop fighting for their rights, no matter how truncated those rights were at the time.
By 1969, a mere year after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., 44 percent of whites told a Newsweek/Gallup Survey (August 19, 1969) that blacks had a better chance than they did to get a good paying job — twice as many as said they would have a worse chance. In the same poll, eighty percent of whites said blacks had an equal or better chance for a good education than whites did, while only seventeen percent said they would have a worse opportunity.
In other words, even before the 1970s, whites were already convinced that things were equal, or even that we were the real victims of discrimination, enjoying even less opportunity than African Americans did. That is to say, perceptions of white victimhood were already brewing, within the first few years after the fall of formal white supremacy.
What can one say about a group of people so utterly divorced from reality at one of the most blatantly unjust periods in American history? At a time when images of racial injustice were beamed into their living rooms every night? At the height of one of the greatest freedom movements in history? What can be said of a people who can stare at those images, and hear the words spoken by black people fighting for their lives, their rights and their dignity — as those people are beaten and killed and jailed — and turn away, or deny that what they are seeing and hearing is real? What can be said about people who despite being otherwise functional — able to hold down jobs, raise children, remember to wash their hands after using the bathroom, and feed their dogs — were so indelibly incapable of understanding the nature of the system under which they lived?
I know one thing that can be said for certain: we needn’t trust the judgment of such a people as this, on any matter of social importance. And when these same persons’ children and grandchildren, fifty years later manifest the same unwillingness to see, we must reject them too. We must insist that their skills for discernment and their moral calibration are both lacking. Because that denial is a form of white supremacy, handed down intergenerationally no less so than our DNA is handed down.
At every juncture of history, black folks have said “we have a problem,” and they have been right. Meanwhile, most whites have said all was well, and we’ve been wrong. So what, other than a staggering amount of racist hubris, would allow us to think that it was black folks who were suddenly misjudging the problem, and we who had at long last become keen observers of social reality?
By now, this denial has become a genuine character flaw, rather than just a mere annoyance. And unless we in the white community who have learned to listen to people of people of color and actually believe that they know their lives better than we do speak up and challenge those in our community who cling to their innocence like a kidney patient clings to dialysis, the future will be one of ever increasing acrimony.
Because until white lies are confronted — lies about our country’s history and its contemporary reality — black lives will continue to be endangered. And the prospects for multiracial democracy will be grim. | https://timjwise.medium.com/white-denial-is-an-american-tradition-its-time-to-bury-it-93173be29a03 | ['Tim Wise'] | 2018-03-09 21:25:40.973000+00:00 | ['Civil Rights', 'Racial Justice', 'Racism', 'White Privilege', 'Equality'] |
Igniting a revolution in export logistics for African SMEs | Ghana Port Authority (Jetstream Africa)
Market liberalisation, globalisation and agribusiness expansion is growing rapidly around the globe. Increased demand for agriculture, especially within Africa, is creating an opportunity for emerging agribusinesses. Yet, weak infrastructure and poor coordination in the supply chain have made it difficult for suppliers to take part in an international market economy that promises higher returns.
Jetstream Africa is taking on the challenge of simplifying export logistics from Africa to the rest of the world with a clear roadmap that focuses on the unique needs of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from country to country. By transferring historically manual processes to a tech platform, Jetstream eases their contribution to an expanding trade economy.
Less than a container load (LCL) booking
African suppliers can pay up to 2–3 times more than suppliers in other regions to move products into international markets. Smaller quantities often do not fill an entire shipping container, forcing SMEs to look towards middlemen for distribution or expensive international delivery services to get shipments across borders. In some cases, these difficult practices have driven SMEs with limited resources out of the export business altogether.
Jetstream’s LCL (less than a container load) feature allows suppliers to consolidate their shipments with other agriculture suppliers on popular trade routes, creating an opportunity for SMEs to participate in the multi-billion dollar industry for agriculture-based products.
Track & Trace from farm to doorstep
In a world where email, messaging and video conferencing has eased cross-border trade, piece-of-mind comes with knowing where goods are and when they will be delivered at any given time.
However, for SMEs in African markets, tracking the status of exports requires multiple phone calls, messages, and sometimes physical visits. Jetstream “Track & Trace” using QR codes eliminates the leg work by sending buyers and suppliers automatic email and SMS notifications at every step of the supply chain.
Catering to both raw material agriculture producers that ship directly from farms, and food and plant-based beauty manufacturers who have already processed and packaged their products, “Track & Trace” sends updates on departure from the farm or warehouse, at the ports, and to the buyer’s doorstep. Staying informed on the location of shipments becomes effortless. | https://medium.com/@cklemzey/disrupting-international-export-logistics-for-african-agribusiness-c886a5d015d3 | ['Clement Udensi'] | 2019-04-09 18:54:58.278000+00:00 | ['Africa', 'Trade', 'Logistics', 'Technology', 'Supply Chain'] |
5 Reasons Why Prismatic Chose GraphQL for Our API | Graphic of GraphQL vs REST
Prismatic is an integration platform used by B2B software companies to build reusable integration workflows and deploy customer-specific instances that handle each customer’s unique configuration and credentials.
When we set out to create Prismatic, it was clear that we needed an API for our web app and CLI to use. Additionally, we wanted our developer users to be able to hit our API programmatically so they could manage customers and integrations as they saw fit. This presented a problem: different developers would naturally have different needs and use cases, and it didn’t make sense to craft a series of custom RESTful endpoints for each individual’s needs. GraphQL was growing in popularity (for good reason!) and was an appropriate choice for us given our needs.
Today I’d like to talk through our thought process as we designed our API, and why we decided GraphQL was the right choice for us.
What is GraphQL?
First, let’s talk about what GraphQL is. If you’re familiar with SQL databases, GraphQL will feel familiar. It’s a query language, but instead of hitting a database you’re hitting an API endpoint. For example, in a SQL-backed application your query for information about integrations might read something like this:
SELECT id, name, description FROM integrations;
In GraphQL, you can make a similar query to an API endpoint:
query {
integrations {
nodes {
id
name
description
}
}
}
Data-modifying SQL queries like DELETE , UPDATE have similar corresponding syntax in GraphQL. In GraphQL you issue "mutations", so you can do something like this to delete an integration:
mutation {
deleteIntegration(
input: {
id: "SW50ZWdyYXRpb246NjQxY2RhMmEtNzkwMi00YjYzLWJjZGEtMmE3NTk0Yzk1YTAy"
}
) { integration { id } }
}
Why Did We Choose GraphQL?
So, why did we choose GraphQL for our API? Simply put, it gave us more flexibility and let us work faster than if we had developed a standard RESTful API. Specifically, here are some of the advantages that made us choose GraphQL over REST:
1. Get Exactly What You Query For in a Single Request
With GraphQL, you as the client developer can query for whatever you want, and get back exactly what you requested. You can even request information about multiple resources with a single request and get as much or little information about each resource as you need.
To illustrate that, let’s contrast how you would use GraphQL and REST with an example. Suppose we want to list the names of all of our integrations, along with the names of the customers we’ve deployed each integration to. If we had a RESTful API, I would expect there to be three endpoints that would help us gather that information:
[GET] /integrations - Returns a list of integrations, including each integration's name, ID, date of last publication, and who last published it.
- Returns a list of integrations, including each integration's name, ID, date of last publication, and who last published it. [GET] /integrations/<integration-id>/instances - Returns a list of instances of a specific integration, including the instance's ID, name, and the ID of the customer it was deployed to.
- Returns a list of instances of a specific integration, including the instance's ID, name, and the ID of the customer it was deployed to. [GET] /customers/<customer-id> - Returns information about a specific customer, including customer name, creation date, and IDs of the customer's users.
We could request information about our integrations from /integrations . Then, for each integration we could request a list of deployed instances from /integrations/<integration-id>/instances . Finally, for each instance we could request information about the customer the instance is deployed to from /customers/<customer-id> .
We could do all that… but there are some major problems:
We over-fetched information. For our use case, we don’t care about when the integration was last published or who published it. We don’t need to know the names of the instances, and we don’t need to know metadata about our customers (like user information or customer creation date). All we really care about are the names of the integrations, and the names of the customers they’ve been deployed to.
information. For our use case, we don’t care about when the integration was last published or who published it. We don’t need to know the names of the instances, and we don’t need to know metadata about our customers (like user information or customer creation date). All we really care about are the names of the integrations, and the names of the customers they’ve been deployed to. We under-fetched information. What if /integrations/<integration-id>/instances yielded customer names instead of IDs? That may cause over-fetching elsewhere, but it would save us some round-trips to the API to get customer names.
information. What if yielded customer names instead of IDs? That may cause over-fetching elsewhere, but it would save us some round-trips to the API to get customer names. We made multiple round trips. Suppose we have 50 integrations and each of those are deployed to an average of 20 customers. We would have made 1 call to /integrations , 50 calls to /integrations/<integration-id>/instances , and (50 integrations) x (20 instances) = 1000 calls to /customers/<customer-id> . 1051 API calls later, we'd have the information that we needed (plus a ton of extraneous information). Gross.
This over- and under-fetching of information, combined with what’s commonly called the N+1 Problem of API development and which resulted in >1000 API calls, makes using this hypothetical RESTful API really unpalatable. Now, we could have created an all-new RESTful endpoint called /gimme-just-integrations-and-customer-names or something, but creating unique RESTful endpoints for each developer user gets unmaintainable pretty quickly.
Instead, let’s look at the same problem with GraphQL. If we want just the names of integrations the names of the customers they’re deployed to, we could issue a single query to the Prismatic API:
query {
integrations {
nodes {
name
instances {
nodes {
customer {
name
}
}
}
}
}
}
The GraphQL-base API will return a JSON structure with exactly the data we want in a single request:
{
"data": {
"integrations": {
"nodes": [
{
"name": "Render Rocket in CAD",
"instances": {
"nodes": [
{
"customer": {
"name": "Mars Missions Corp"
}
},
{
"customer": {
"name": "Smith Rockets"
}
}
That’s much simpler, and definitely faster than issuing 1051 distinct API requests! Our backend server also appreciates handling a single request rather than 1051. Over- and under-fetching and multiple round-trips aren’t just client issues, but affect server load, as well.
2. GraphQL is Self-Documenting
Some companies with complex APIs have entire teams dedicated to maintaining Swagger docs, turning API specs into readable documentation, etc. With GraphQL, you define how resources are interconnected (in Prismatic’s case, an integration has multiple instances, an instance has a single customer, etc.), and schema about your API is automatically generated. Or, you can even go the other way — define some schema and your backend will auto-generate some stub entries and models!
When you open up a GraphQL API client, the client queries the API for schema, so you can click through documentation and view resource relationships and properties as you build your GraphQL queries:
We use the auto-generated schema and pass it through a template engine to generate our API docs. As our API evolves and new features are added, new documentation is automatically generated without the need of human intervention! Our docs stay in sync automatically with our API.
3. Schema is Strongly Typed
Along with being useful for automatically generating docs, the schema that is generated is strongly typed, so you know exactly what kind of response to expect from your query. Not only does schema tell you if you should expect scalar types like String or Float , but it can tell you the structure of objects and their relationships. For example, a customer can have a list of labels of type String , and can reference the org of type Organization to which it belongs. Many GraphQL client libraries let you import schema, so responses from our API can be cast to strongly typed objects in your favorite programming language, and you can have fancy things like tab-complete, etc., all based on types declared in the API's schema.
Internally we use the GraphQL API schema to automatically generate TypeScript structures. That way, our node-based CLI tool and React web app have typing built in, and TypeScript can catch type mismatch errors between our API and application for us.
4. Keep Devs Moving Quickly
As we built (and continue to add to) our web app and CLI tool, we’re querying for different sets of data from our API. On some pages in our web app, we need a list customers and the instances that are deployed to them. For other pages, we only need IDs of instances, and don’t render the name or any other data about them. Customizing RESTful endpoints for each of those pages would be silly, and our front-end developers would be left twiddling their thumbs as they waited for back-end developers to complete their work. Instead, front-end developers have the ability to craft their own GraphQL queries how they see fit, and can work independently from back-end developers. Our frontend developers can dramatically change the data displayed on a page and can make those changes without creating feature requests for corresponding backend changes.
5. Customer Developers Aren’t Locked into a Specific Language or Tool
We encourage our developer users to use the Prismatic CLI tool, but they’re by no means required to do so. You can manage deployment of integrations using your favorite language — most modern languages have one or more GraphQL clients. If you’re a Linux or MacOS fan, you can even interact with the Prismatic API with curl from your terminal:
QUERY='{
"query":
"query { components { nodes { label description key authorizationRequired } } }"
}' curl ${API_ENDPOINT} -X POST \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: bearer ${API_KEY}" \
--data "$(echo $QUERY)"
You’ll hit the exact same API that the Prismatic web app and CLI tool do, so you can do anything with the API that you can do with either the web app or CLI tool.
How to Hit the Prismatic API
Now that we’ve covered why we chose GraphQL, let’s take a quick look at how to hit Prismatic’s API. The easiest way to play with GraphQL queries is through our GraphiQL (pronounced “graphical”) explorer tool in our docs. If you’re signed in to the web app, you will automatically be signed in to this explorer tool. | https://medium.com/swlh/5-reasons-why-prismatic-chose-graphql-for-our-api-67c51a428100 | [] | 2020-10-31 06:22:29.556000+00:00 | ['API', 'Programming', 'Graphql Vs Rest', 'GraphQL', 'Developer'] |
Docker — Difference between Docker Container and Virtual Machine (VM) | Docker vs Virtual Machine
The following are the significant differences between Docker and VMs.
1. OS Support and Architecture
Virtual machines have host OS and the guest OS inside each VM. Guest OS can be any OS, like Linux or Windows, irrespective of host OS. In contrast, Docker containers host on a single physical server with a host OS, which shares among them. Sharing the host OS between containers makes them light and increases the boot time. Docker containers are considered suitable to run multiple applications over a single OS kernel; whereas, virtual machines are needed if the applications or services required to run on different OS.
2. Security
Virtual machines are stand-alone with their kernel and security features. Therefore, applications needing more privileges and security run on virtual machines.
On the flip side, providing root access to applications and running them with administrative premises is not recommended in the case of Docker containers because containers share the host kernel. The container technology has access to the kernel subsystems; as a result, a single infected application is capable of hacking the entire host system.
3. Portability
Virtual machines are isolated from their OS, and so, they are not ported across multiple platforms without incurring compatibility issues. At the development level, if an application is to be tested on different platforms, then Docker containers must be considered.
Docker containers packages are self-contained and can run applications in any environment, and since they don’t need a guest OS, they can be easily ported across different platforms. Docker containers can be easily deployed in servers since containers being lightweight can be started and stopped in very less time compared to virtual machines.
4. Performance
Virtual machines are more resource-intensive than Docker containers as the virtual machines need to load the entire OS to start. The lightweight architecture of Docker containers is less resource-intensive than virtual machines.
In the case of virtual machines, resources like CPU, memory, and I/O may not be allocated permanently to containers — unlike in the case of containers, where the resource usage with the load or traffic.
Scaling up and duplicating containers in simple and easy as compared to virtual machines because there is no need to install an operating system in them. | https://medium.com/docker-and-kubernetes/difference-between-docker-container-and-virtual-machine-comparision-between-docker-and-vm-697330d0761c | ['Ashish Patel'] | 2020-09-12 12:59:14.137000+00:00 | ['Containers', 'Vm', 'Docker', 'Virtual Machine', 'Containerization'] |
Study: China’s BTC Miners Control 66% of Global Hash Rate | Chinese Bitcoin (BTC) miners are now responsible for controlling as much as 66% of global hash rate, a new report claims.
China’s Sichuan province is accounting for over half the global hash rate, according to a study by London-based digital asset manager CoinShares, Reuters reports Dec. 11.
Hash rate is a measure referring to the overall computing power involved in validating transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. As reported, more power suggests greater network security as well as interest in the profitability potential of mining Bitcoin.
The highest recorded hash rate since 2017
According to the report, the Chinese share of hash rate has surged from 60% in June 2019 and is the highest recorded by CoinShares since the firm started monitoring the measure in 2017.
While Sichuan province reportedly accounts for over 50% of the global hash rate, other leading crypto mining centers in China include the provinces of Yunnan, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, the report notes. Other hubs include sites in the United States, Russia and Kazakhstan, CoinShares reportedly wrote.
New spike could be caused by using more sophisticated mining hardware
Chris Bendiksen, head of research at CoinShares, suggested that the recent surge in China’s hash rate is likely to be a result of applying more advanced mining hardware. He noted in the report:
“This is beneficial to the Chinese mining industry […] If you are the first to increase your proportion of the hashrate, and you can do that before your competitors, that’s generally good.”
Bitmain apparently monopolizes China’s crypto market
As recently reported, Bitmain and Canaan Creative are the top mining chip suppliers in China. Meanwhile, Bitmain appears on track to monopolize China’s crypto mining market as some reports claim that the company accounts for a 75% market share of the crypto hardware market worldwide.
According to documents filed on Nov. 20, Canaan raised $90 million in its initial public offering, which reportedly amounted to 75% less than expected.
Another major Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer, MicroBT, is allegedly facing an intellectual property infringement dispute with Bitmain, as MicroBT’s founder was reported to be held by Shenzhen Police to assist in an investigation. | https://medium.com/coinegg/study-chinas-btc-miners-control-66-of-global-hash-rate-cad0f7726b7c | ['Coinegg Exchange'] | 2019-12-14 09:58:23.012000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Hash Rate', 'Bitcoin', 'Mining'] |
What have I done ? | “You just focus on your mission, rest of the things will fall in place” this was what an 18 year old college student which was me used to believe. I believed in it religiously. I gave all my priorities all my time to studying. Everyone else was fooling around. Even in college I was planning for the future everyday I used to tell myself “You’re gonna be better than all of them”. I was honest with my work. I didn’t fool around in college because I was so determined in getting a job. I did like a person from school and deep down I really wanted to end up with that person and lived in that hope throughout the college and beyond. As fate would have it, I did end up in her city and she agreed to meet me out of politeness. I was able to figure out that I had no chance by the way she conversed with me and I just gave up.
In college I used to believe that my professional life will be more fun than my college life ever could be. It is because I was hoping that after college I would give time to other things which I didn’t pursue in college like relationship.
In college I used to see couples all over the campus and deep down it did hurt me. I kept on wondering what It would be like to have someone like that but I used to snap out of it and tell myself “You just focus on your mission, rest of the things will fall in place”. I was wrong.
I did achieve what I wanted but not a day goes by that I not feel empty. I am so lonely that I just melt whenever a person shows slightest interest in me. I cry myself to sleep thinking what a complete loser I have been. All my friends even the ones I used to think were beneath me are having fun, living the life that I used to dream of in college, everyone has found someone except me. I am 25 years old now and I have been miserable for the past one year. Watching couples in real life or online breaks my heart. On my 25th birthday I had a dream that I was with someone, in love and happy. I woke up to my miserable reality and cried all day. Everyday I imagine what it would be like to be with someone, to talk to someone who really wants to be with you. Everyday I long for someone. I pray desperately hoping that maybe my prayers will be answered. Nothing ever happens. I never got a chance to love someone, to express myself. I don’t deserve this loneliness god. Why me ? | https://medium.com/@quarantine-cook/what-have-i-done-1a103c7c4b34 | ['Quarantine Food Journal'] | 2020-12-16 20:40:30.233000+00:00 | ['Loneliness', 'Depression'] |
The Sex Context: Flame That Tune | The Sex Context: Flame That Tune
Stock photo flash fiction
Photo by everett225 on DepositPhotos
By God, his voice is like nails on a chalkboard! I thought he said he was the lead in the church choir, not the led. This is enough to make Baby Jesus weep and climb back into Mary’s womb.
What is this foul dissonance flowing through her fingertips? She said she studied Chopin, not Chopsticks.
Maybe if I otherwise occupy his lips, we can end this blasphemy!
Maybe if I otherwise occupy her hands, we can end this cacophony!
And with that, music once again brings two lovers together.
More from Kiki Wellington: | https://medium.com/sex-and-satire/the-sex-context-flame-that-tune-stock-photo-flash-fiction-f7577c12cabe | ['Kiki Wellington'] | 2020-12-13 08:51:36.367000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Satire', 'Stock Photos', 'Flash Fiction', 'Fiction'] |
The Story of My Inner Children | Luna and Sol
Moon and sun
I have two inner children, one is a boy, his name is Sol (sun), and he is the elder one. Other is Luna (moon), she is my smaller and quieter one. Although at the moment I won’t call them siblings as they don’t have a relationship with each other.
Sol is very angry, he is angry at the injustice he had to face while growing up, he is angry as his self-esteem is hurt by the society around him. His ego is belittled and he only has rage and rage inside of him.
Luna is very hurt, she is too hurt, too quiet, too fragile, and too compliant, whatever she does is for other people, she is just trying to survive. Sol screams at Luna, she listens and doesn’t reciprocate for the fear of the consequences. She stays quiet, and accumulates Sol’s anger in her body. She gets stressed and is in a lot of pain. She wears her pain on her skin, whereas Sol wears his anger on his sleeves.
Journey of reparenting Luna and Sol
Luna gets very happy when I do self-care, I notice her one day and ask her what do you want me to do for you sweetheart? She replies, I want to do bubble bath.
I give myself a bubble bath, she gets very happy.
While it is easy to make Luna happy, I just have to do the dreadful task of getting up from my sleep and do what’s best for her. However, making Sol happy is another task, in our society it is unacceptable for women to express anger. I had to repress that part of my psyche in order for me to survive. In order to make Sol happy, he only has one wish from me, he wants me to express my anger, to lash out at people for taking me for granted, for taking advantage of me, he is even angry at me because he thinks I voluntarily let people take advantage of me. He wants me to express my anger towards the intended people who have harmed me in the past, he wants me to stand up for my rights, he wants me to be assertive and express myself without the fear of rejection. He wants me to say no without rejecting others and without being my own rejecter.
If only I listen to both Luna and Sol and meet their needs, I would have natural boundaries and all the abusive or toxic people would fall away from my life who benefitted immensely from me not having any boundaries in the past.
I hope to reparent both Luna and Sol, so that I can form a loving relationship with them and also hope that someday they both can also have a loving sibling relationship with each other and in turn take care of each other. I will be very happy if my inner children are happy i.e. their needs are met and properly nourished.
I will take care of me for you :’)
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always contact your qualified health provider before implementing or modifying any personal growth or wellness program or technique, and with any questions about your well-being. | https://medium.com/@pritika-guha/the-story-of-my-inner-children-3a5d01ec9921 | ['Pritika Guha'] | 2020-12-26 11:31:16.865000+00:00 | ['Inner Child', 'Self Care', 'Re Parenting', 'Self Love', 'Self Care And Self Love'] |
How do we help ? | How do we help ?
Sometimes comfort is not enough we have to analyze and help identify the problem and its source
We all talk about the bad that occurs, but we do not talk about what could be done to stop the bad is hardly ever addressed. We read all theses articles to help educate us and use them to just talk about the significance of our culture and point out what is wrong with us. I found an article called “How You Can Help Someone in a Controlling Relationship” published by Everyday Health Guest Contributor and writer By Lisa Aronson Fontes, Ph.D, Special to Everyday Health.
Its hard to see people close to you get abused or be afraid to go out and be around the people they care about. The victim begins to draw away because of emotional black mail , they want their significant other to feel as is they are only theirs and that no one else matters more than them. This for of manipulation can turn into abuse and eventually obsession. We have to learn to speak to the victim without judgment and just offer comfort. Also make ourselves available to help them if they ever want a way out but we must remember to let them control the situation and not to take over. We want them to feel as if they a weigh in on their own relationship like their partner is not the only person who can pull strings.
Being a victim to control is hard to identify, so we must wait for the person to feel they can express themselves without criticism from others. We must not give advice that can increase the danger of our loved one. We should try to not bring up the police unless it is thier idea. We have to have bounderies In ever encounter on the subject of abuse. But we can encourage them to seek provisional support. It is not always easy for us to be supportive knowing our loved one is being harmed. So having them speak to somone outside of the relationship can be really helpful to thier well being. It is hard to understand the nature of abusive relationships but it is easy to see what keep them in existance. Focult says “ disciplinary space tends to be devided into as many sections as thier bodies or elemenys to be distributed” and thats how a controlling relationship last when there is a divide of power and someone controlling the function of another person. The victim is usally on a schedule that the abuser is comfortable with so they can monitor thier every mood.
In order for us to even beable to help this we should also eveluate our own relationships. Do we know what abusive contrilling relationships look like ? here are some signs of controlling behavior:
In the context of violence against people, controlling behaviour includes:
isolating a woman from her family and friends
going through a woman’s text messages, emails and social media
telling a woman what she can wear, where she can go and who she spends time with
controlling how much money a woman has
continuous criticism
threats to hurt or kill
threatening to publish private information
rape
emotional blackmail, for example “If you loved me, you would …”
ignoring or refusing to talk.
If we can not see these signs or recognize them we may never be able to give help or seek help. Abuse is a bad effect or for a bad purpose. That could be anything that threaten and upsets a person with indication from another person. So as people lets stop abusing eachother and pay attention to hat makes people happy instead of wanting to use their sadness and control each other. | https://medium.com/gendered-violence/how-do-we-help-a355edc67b91 | ['Lauren Pickwoad'] | 2018-03-28 00:30:38.005000+00:00 | ['Counselling', 'Metoo', 'Support', 'Abuse', 'Domestic Abuse'] |
Deploying Banking Bot using Amazon Lex | In our daily life we often have ambiguous or incomplete sentences. For example, when a customer is talking to a banking partner, he may say “What is my balance?” This request is unclear and difficult to remove if the customer intends to verify their credit card or check the account balance. Maybe he just has a bank account check. The agent can provide a good customer experience by looking at the account details and acknowledging that the customer is referring to the account review.
In customer service, agents should always resolve this uncertainty when interpreting the user’s purpose using the contextual data available to them. Bots have the same flaws and must know the right purpose by adding contextual data about the customer. Amazon Lex provides enhanced understanding and confidence in natural language. It is constantly improving the service based on customer feedback and research progress. These improvements done for better precision in purpose classification. You will know more about user input not included in the training data (except for domain word sets). In addition, it provides support for a trust mark to determine the likelihood of a pair with a specific purpose. Reliability scores for the first five goals emerged as part of the answer. It provides one with a better way to deal with ambiguous scenarios like the one we described. In these cases, when two or more goals are related to high trust, relying on trust when classifying intention can help you determine when to use business logic to create clarity, i.e. the purpose of the user. If a user has only one credit card, Lex can open the balance to show the credit card. If the user has a credit card and account check, Lex can also ask a straightforward question such as, “Is that for your credit card or account check?” before proceeding with the consultation. You now have a better understanding of how to manage the flow of speech and deliver more effective speeches. This post shows how you can use these improvements with confidence scores to trigger the best response based on business knowledge.
Building a Lex bot
This post uses the following conversations to model a bot. If the customer has only one account with the bank:
User: What is my balance?
Agent: Enter your PIN to confirm
Used: 5555
Agent: Your current account balance is $ 1,234.00It also serves as an alternative communication channel, where the customer has multiple
accounts:
User: What is my balance?
Agent: Of course. Is it for your checking account or credit card?
User: my credit card
Agent: Enter your CVV number to confirm on your card
Used: 1212
Agent: The balance on your credit card is $ 3,456.00
The first step is to set up an Amazon Lex bot to assist with balance requests, wire transfers, and payment processing. GetBalanceCreditCard, GetBalanceChecking and GetBalanceSavings provide information about your account balance. PayFills allows you to transfer and pay for TransferFunds to transfer money from one account to another. Finally, you can also use OrderCheck to run checks. If a user requests that the Lex bot is not processed for any purpose, the recovery target is triggered
Deploying the sample Lex bot
Follow these steps to crash the bank. For this post, you created the Amazon Lex bot BankingBot and an AWS Lambda function called BankingBot_Handler.
1. Download Amazon Lex bot definition and Lambda code.
2. Select the Lambda console Build function.
3. Enter the name of the function in BankingBot_Handler.
4. Select the latest Python running (for example, Python 3.8).
5. In the Permissions section, select Create New Duty with Common Lambda Permits.
6. Select the Create function.
7. If your new Lambda feature is available, select the Actions in the Feature Code section and upload the .zip file.
8. Select the BankingBot.zip file you downloaded.
9. Select Saving.
10. Select Actions, Import Amazon Lex Console.
11. Select the BankingBot.zip file you downloaded and select Import.
12. Select the BankingBot bot in the Amazon Lex console.
13. In the Compliance section, for each purpose, including a replacement purpose
(BankingBotFallback), select the AWS Lambda function and select14. BankingBot_Handler function from the drop-down menu.
15. When prompted to Add permission to Lambda function, choose OK.
16. When all the intents are updated, choose Build.
At this point, you should have a working Lex bot.
Setting confidence score thresholds
You are ready to set the trust score threshold. This setting determines when Amazon Lex wants to set the default backend based on target confidence scores. Follow these steps to configure the settings:
1. Select Settings in the Amazon Lex console and choose General.
2. In case of us-east-1, us-west-2, ap-south-2 or eu-west-1, go to Advanced options and
select Yes to choose the accuracy score feature to enable the trust score feature .
These improvements and trust score support are enabled by default in other regions.
3. For Confidence score threshold, enter a number between 0 and 1. You can choose to
leave it at the default value of 0.4.4. Choose Save and then choose Build.
When the bot is configured, Amazon Lex surfaces the confidence scores and alternative intents in the PostText and PostContent responses:
“alternativeIntents”: [
{
“intentName”: “string”,
“nluIntentConfidence”: {
“score”: number
},
“slots”: {
“string”: “string”
}}]
Using a Lambda function and confidence scores to identify the user intent
User “Can I get my account balance?” When he makes such a dark request. The Lambda feature matches the targets recovered by Amazon Lex. If multiple goals have been restored, check if the main goals have the same scores as AMBIGUITY_RANGE. For example, one goal has a confidence score of 0.95 and the other a score of 0.65. , the first goal may be correct. However, if one goal is 0.75 points and the other 0.72 points, you can set two goals aside using the business knowledge of your application. In our case, if the customer has multiple accounts, the functionality is configured to answer an explanatory question such as, “Is this for your credit card or to verify your account?” ? “But if the customer only has one account (for example, a check), put the balance back into that account If you use confidence scores, Amazon Lex returns a probable destination and four optional targets with the corresponding points in each answer. If all trust scores are below the set threshold, Amazon Lex has an AMAZON. FallbackIntent target, an AMAZON.KendraSearchIntent target, or both. You can use the default section or set your threshold. Below is a sample code of the Lambda code that was downloaded when you started this bot. You can customize it to use Amazon Lex with any bot.Lambda shifts the functionality of the handler functionality, but for the purposes of GetBalanceCreditCard, GetBalanceChecking, and GetBalanceSavings, it switches to the specified_intense. The Determ_intent function examines the main event reported by Lex, as well as alternative purposes. If an alternate purpose for the user is useful (based on their accounts) and included in the AMBIGUITY_RANGE content of the main event, add it to the list of possible events.
possible_intents = []
# start with the top intent (if it is valid for the user)
top_intent = intent_request[“currentIntent”]
if top_intent[“name”] in valid_intents:
possible_intents.append(top_intent)
# add any alternative intents that are within the AMBIGUITY_RANGE
# if they are valid for the user
if intent_request.get(“alternativeIntents”, None):
top_intent_score = top_intent[“nluIntentConfidenceScore”]
for alternative_intent in intent_request[“alternativeIntents”]:
alternative_intent_score =
alternative_intent[“nluIntentConfidenceScore”]
if top_intent_score is None:
top_intent_score = alternative_intent_score
if alternative_intent[“name”] in valid_intents:
if abs(top_intent_score — alternative_intent_score) <=
AMBIGUITY_RANGE:
possible_intents.append(alternative_intent)
If there is only one possible intent for the user, it is fulfilled (after first eliciting any missing slots).
num_intents = len(possible_intents)
if num_intents == 1:
# elicit any missing slots or fulfill the intent
slots = possible_intents[0][“slots”]
for slot_name, slot_value in slots.items():
if slot_value is None:
return elicit_slot(intent_request[‘sessionAttributes’],
possible_intents[0][“name”], slots, slot_name)
# dispatch to the appropriate fulfillment method
return
HANDLERS[possible_intents[0][‘name’]][‘fulfillment’](intent_request)If there are multiple possible intents, ask the user for clarification.
elif num_intents > 1:
counter = 0
response = “”
while counter < num_intents:
if counter == 0:
response += “Sure. Is this for your “ +
INTENT_TO_ACCOUNT_MAPPING[possible_intents[counter][“name”]]
elif counter < num_intents — 1:
response += “, “ +
INTENT_TO_ACCOUNT_MAPPING[possible_intents[counter][“name”]]
else:
response += “, or “ +
INTENT_TO_ACCOUNT_MAPPING[possible_intents[counter][“name”]] + “?”
counter += 1
return elicit_intent(form_message(response))
If there are no possible intents for the user, the fallback intent is triggered.
else:
return fallback_handler(intent_request)
To test this, you can change the test user configuration in the code by changing the return value
from the check_available_accounts function:
# This could be a DynamoDB table or other data store
USER_LIST = {
“user_with_1”: [AccountType.CHECKING],
“user_with_2”: [AccountType.CHECKING, AccountType.CREDIT_CARD],
“user_with_3”: [AccountType.CHECKING, AccountType.SAVINGS,
AccountType.CREDIT_CARD]
}
def check_available_accounts(user_id: str):
# change user ID to test different scenarios
return USER_LIST.get(“user_with_2”)
Lex’s reliability scores can be found on the Amazon Lex console or in the LambWatch Logs log file for the Lambda feature. You can also use trust scores to test different versions of your boat. For example, if you add new goals, statement, or closing value, you can test bots and check trust scores for the desired effect of the changes.
Hence, this way we can deploy a banking bot using Amazon Lex. | https://medium.com/@kasireddi-himabindu/deploying-banking-bot-using-amazon-lex-c5728190496e | ['Kasireddi Himabindu'] | 2020-12-17 16:21:40.577000+00:00 | ['Banking Bot', 'Banking', 'Aws Lex', 'AWS', 'Bots'] |
The Making of Meniscus: Dust that accumulates. People who come together. Events that collide. | “Meniscus” by Ghost and John. Photo: Dominic Farlam
Allow me to start this article with an image:
Peeling the tissue apart, starting from one corner, the man separates the plies into three thin separate sheets. Sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, wearing a white costume, he is laying out the three sheets on the ground in front of him. He then picks up the one on his left. Starting from the corner again, he tears the square into a single long strip, then does the same with the other two. He ties the three long strips into one, stands up and holds up the strip by one end. He is a very tall man, yet the strip touches the floor even when he holds it above his head. The thin strip cannot hold its shape against the movement of the air, gently brushing the floor with its end. The man walks around the room and the tissue continues as an extension of his arm, leaving a trace of movement in the air. This fragility of the strip, working in reverse, flows from the contact between his fingers and the end of the strip into the man’s whole body. Slowly, he starts to run. His footsteps mark the ground with his weight as his feet slap the floor repeatedly.
My gaze follows the movement of the man and the strip of tissue across the whole room. I then see more people joining in, men and women with different hairstyles, different heights and different eye colours. All in white costumes, they hold up a single ply of tissue, then tear the square into a long strip with great caution as if they are demonstrating a very dangerous task. As they approach me and squeeze through the gaps between people in the room, the tiny sound of the tissue fibre is amplified through our gaze at the fragile white piece of material.
This is an event about how we occupy space, with movement, objects and sound.
Ghost and I started devising this new multimedia ensemble work in March 2019. The project was originally titled Gallery of Liminality. An experimental session was done through a platform called The Playground at the Rambert Dance Company studios in London in May 2019. We invited the audience to digitally react to the performers’ task-based movement through Telegram on their mobile phones and to rove around the space as if it was a gallery, except that in this case the exhibits were human bodies, transformed into different scenarios through movement and performance states.
The challenge we set for ourselves was to aim at providing a new experience for the audience, theatrical yet also real. By incorporating different media in this performance event, we built layer upon layer of sensory understanding towards the subject matter that we were investigating.
“Meniscus” by Ghost and John. Photo: Dominic Farlam
In the end, the project (now called Meniscus) involved twenty-six artists across four continents: twelve devising performers, one costume designer, one lighting designer, two musicians, one rapper, two photographers, two illustrators, three videographers and the two of us, Ghost and John. There were actually more: production assistants, costume fitters, producers… It was big yet manageable. That is what we intended it to be. We intended to direct a project that challenges the borders of time and space in performance production, that brings people of different backgrounds together, that gathers emerging artists from different art forms together, that makes the audience an integral part of the event. I remember staying up late at night to facetime with Hong Kong videographer Michael Mui to get the narrative of the video right. I remember a long email conversation with Japanese musician Meitei to get the mood of that one section right. I remember hunting visual references with Vietnamese-French photographer Nhu Xuan Hua to get the right colour for the background of the poster. I remember the long discussion, nearly an argument, with Ghost about how the audience should be instructed when they come into the performance.
I see a ball, a ball of shirts, a ball of checked shirts in different colours. It is being thrown around by a group of people. They run round and round, in white clothes. As soon as one of them catches the ball, they throw it across the circle to another. When I look up, I see a ball of checked shirts being thrown here and there. Soon, the ball gets smaller as it loosens up into individual shirts. One by one, people get checked shirts to put on over their white clothes, slow down from running to walking.
This is an event that drills us to collaborate with one another.
“Meniscus” by Ghost and John. Photo: Dominic Farlam
In 1960, lunch counter sit-ins by black college students took place in almost the whole Southern USA. The black students sat down at white-only lunch counters after ordering, physically occupying the space with their bodies, in protest against the racial segregation of that time. This non-violent protest of merely sitting in ‘whites only’ seats evoked a variety of responses from enraged white people: a policeman observing them and hitting the palm with his billy club[1], other customers spilling and throwing drinks at them, dragging them to the floor, punching and kicking them. The black students remained passive and silently absorbed this aggression with their bodies. However, their actions and non-reaction were not silent. The sit-ins were being seen and recorded by many people, including the white Presbyterian minister and college professor Merrill Proudfoot. In his book, Diary of a Sit-in, he described the reaction of the white bodies surrounding these black bodies and how the white bodies became awkward, agitated and outraged. At the Knoxville sit-ins, the white lunch counter manager became increasingly agitated before he finally exploded. “Well, why don’t you go home now? You’ve proved your point, haven’t you?”[2]
In the late 1980s, during the AIDS crisis in the USA, a group of activists formed AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), in response to how the government was being slow to react, or was even ignoring, the pandemic. There were friends dying, families losing members, lovers witnessing their partners passing. An organization with an urgent call to political action was needed. ACT UP activists went on the street, rallying and marching. They made posters, decorated the windows of the New Museum at lower Broadway, New York with photographs of ‘AIDS criminals’, data and figures about the loss of AIDS and a pink triangle. These images faced outwards, projecting their voices loud and clear to the communities of lower Broadway, telling the public about the urgency of the AIDS crisis and the incompetence of the government. They also performed the famous ‘die-ins’ and ‘sleep-ins’, where they physically occupied streets and buildings with their own flesh and blood. The approaches they took were radical, direct, well-rehearsed and without hesitation.
In December 2017, Ghost and I decided to make ourselves into artists. I was working as a research assistant at a marine biology laboratory at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Ghost was an analyst programmer, mainly building Android mobile applications. We came to the realisation that we were both probably not doing what we were ‘made for’. Hence, we embarked on a journey to rediscover who we were. We came to London in September 2018. Nine months later, our understanding of ‘making ourselves into artists’ reached a pivotal point, where it was no longer only about what kind of work we were making, but also what kind of experience we were providing to our audience, our collaborators and ourselves. In this age of great political, social and environmental instability, how can we do things with art?
In late August 2019, Ghost and I were in a studio at The Place, London. Our minds were overwhelmed with the images we’d seen online through our iPhones, iPads and Macbooks. Neither of us was talking, but the room was filled with noise, anger and horror. An hour later, our dancers Lauren, Jim, Claudia and Annie arrived. We passed them each a square mirror, then turned on a projector that was placed on the floor aiming into space. The mirrors were ones from IKEA, slighter larger than A4 size. As they danced with the mirrors, fractions of the projected images were reflected and shone onto the walls of the studio. They stared into the light on the wall, attempting to comprehend the visuals and understand the context.
Perhaps it is the coexistence of all these historical events and personal episodes of objects and bodies occupying spaces, resisting and fighting for the essential meaning of their presence, that are lingering in Ghost and my minds. Every little object that has its place in these events. Everyone who has been struggling in these spaces. We are in absolutely no way trying to say that history and art have the same value and weight, but what if art could be a poetic analogy of history which can have a real function and bring purpose to our society now?
‘Art does have the power to save lives, and it is this very power that must be recognized, fostered and supported.’ — Douglas Crimp, 1987
[1] Cited from the chapter ‘More than Hamburgers’ from Choreographies of Protest, where describes the behaviour of this policeman in the Greensboro incident, which marks the emergence of the sit-in movement.
[2] Cited from from p.58 of Diary of a Sit-in, from Merrill Proudfoot’s first-person narrative.’’
Writer’s note:
Meniscus — a multimedia ensemble work directed by Ghost and John. Premiered at The Place, London, on 1 Nov 2019, later presented at Rambert, London on 29 Nov 2019.
References:
Crimp, D. (1987) AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism. October, Vol.43, Winter, pp.3–16, USA: MIT Press.
Proudfoot, M. (1990) Diary of a Sit-in, pp.58, Urbana: University of Illinois Press
Foster, S. L. (2003) Choreographies of Protest. Theatre Journal, Volume 55, Number 3, pp.395–412. USA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
This article is originally published on Dance Journal/hk on 10 February 2020. | https://medium.com/@ghostandjohn/the-making-of-meniscus-dust-that-accumulates-people-who-come-together-events-that-collide-fa02c86e7c42 | ['Ghost'] | 2020-12-18 18:27:57.768000+00:00 | ['Contemporary Art', 'Art Activism', 'Dance', 'Performance', 'Theatre'] |
Female Sleep Orgasms Are Not a Tabu — You Can Have One! | Female Sleep Orgasms Are Not a Tabu — You Can Have One!
I had a sleepgasm, and it was as intense as any other. Science explains why.
Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels
Women take longer to build up their orgasm than men. We require more stimulus and most of us — about 75% — don’t orgasm with penetration only (source); we need more than one way of stimulation.
Saying this, and knowing my body, orgasming during my sleep was the last thing I expected to happen to me. But it did, and it was incredible.
I’ve heard about men having sleep orgasms, especially during their teens. But women having them is not so common. Or so I thought…
This study concluded that 37% of the women in a sample of 245 have had a sleepgasm. Why aren’t we talking more about this?
When a man orgasms during his sleep, his semen is evidence of what happened. Women don’t have physical trails, even she wakes up immediately after the orgasm, being wet isn’t always a result of having had one.
Lots of women self-doubt if they actually orgasmed during their sleep.
Because I woke up the exact moment I was de-escalating from the orgasm, I didn’t doubt about what happened.
I don’t know if my sleep was interrupted because of the intense orgasm or because my partner moved. But I knew for sure I just had an impressive orgasm!
Facts about female sleep orgasms (sleepgasm)
Having a curious mind and being a sex blogger, I had to research more about the topic, of course. I learned very interesting facts, which I’m now sharing:
Erotic dreams are the usual trigger to sleepgasm
This makes sense: dreaming with sex will make you a “sleeping horny”.
I clearly remember I was dreaming about my partner going down on me while fingering me — which is always a way to give me intense, spectacular orgasms.
I can guarantee you, my sleepgasm was as intense as the ones I have when I’m having sex. How amazing is that? This has a scientific explanation:
In this study, medical doctor David Fisher concluded that while sleeping women have an increased vaginal blood flow. Associated with an erotic dream, this can make provoke arousal, culminating in orgasm.
Women who can’t orgasm can experience sleepgasm
The brain is our main sexual organ.
During sleep, our brain doesn’t stop working, it continues active — including with erotic mental activity, a search for pleasure.
Madeleine Castellanos, a psychiatrist specialised in sex therapy, in her book Wanting to Want: What Kills Your Sex Life and How to Keep It Alive, states that scientific research has given us enough evidence to conclude that women who struggle to orgasm “in real life” can, in fact, orgasm during their sleep.
She reinforces the largely known fact that the most common impediment to female orgasm is the brain. Anxiety, depression, worries; having difficulties in turning the mind off, etc are an orgasm-killer. When we are asleep, we have none of that.
Our daily experiences and thoughts might influence our dreams, but not how we react to them.
When having an erotic dream, our mind is free from external distractions — we are not in control of our mind.
In our dreams, we go with the flow; we allow our bodies to follow their desires. To the point of orgasm!
What are the predictors of sleepgasm?
It’s impossible to predict or control what you’re going to dream.
However, in her study Predictors of female nocturnal orgasms: A multivariate analysis, the researcher Barbara L. Wells concluded it’s possible to pinpoint some predictors for sleepgasm to happen:
Positive attitudes towards nocturnal orgasms;
Knowledge about the matter;
Sexual liberalism;
Waking sexually excited from sleep (without experiencing orgasm).
The results of this study suggested the position you sleep can also be a predictor for having erotic dreams (and, consequently, to have a sleepgasm.)
Researcher Yu, Calvin Kai-Ching, concluded that “sleeping in the prone position may promote dreaming of sexual (…) material.” | https://medium.com/emma-london-writes/female-sleep-orgasms-are-not-a-tabu-you-can-have-one-4b6801b32a38 | ['Emma London'] | 2020-12-09 15:46:49.553000+00:00 | ['Sexuality', 'Life', 'Sex', 'Orgasm', 'Women'] |
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