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Once upon a Casa: Part 2 | We started to stalk PropertyGuru and 99.co umpteen times a day for property listings to appear for the 5-room resale flats we were eyeing in Casa Clementi.
In mid-May 2020, we saw a listing for a unit on the 2xth storey that fulfilled our criteria and The Wife contacted the property agent to express our interest in viewing the flat when it was allowed.
The property agent sent us a video walkthrough of the unit through WhatsApp and invited us to view the unit through a Zoom session. She made no reassurance that we would be able to view the unit in person because it might be sold by then. Apparently, people had been buying property (including HDB resale flats) after just “viewing” them virtually through Zoom.
Wow, I was shocked to learn that. Is that the “new norm”? Buying property involves a substantial amount of money, and I certainly would want to have a “touch and feel” of the place at least once before I commit to the purchase. Amazing how some people could treat it like run-of-the-mill online shopping.
And yes, our shortlisted unit did indeed go off the market after a few short weeks. Oh well, there was nothing we could do before physical property viewing was allowed. We were not about to make rash and unwise decisions.
We spotted another property listing around mid-June 2020 — this time for a unit on the 3xth floor, which meant an even bigger price tag. We were not overwhelmed by the photos but we decided that we really needed to check the place out before we could determine whether it was worth the high asking price.
We were approaching Phase 2 of the reopening, so we made an appointment to view the flat around one week after Phase 2 began. Finally, we could take a step forward. | https://medium.com/@themoneypit/once-upon-a-casa-part-2-c9a07c3a15a1 | ['Money Pit Digger'] | 2020-12-15 06:53:34.562000+00:00 | ['House Hunting', 'Property Search', 'Singapore'] |
What’s New in 2020 Volume 4: PDF Viewer Flutter | I’m very excited to share with you the new features and enhancements included in our Flutter PDF Viewer widget:
Text selection
Text search
Document link annotation
These features are included in Flutter PDF Viewer in the 2020 Volume 4 release.
Text selection
The PDF Viewer now allows you to select text in a PDF page by long pressing on it, which in turn displays selection handles or bubbles at the top-left and bottom-right corners. Then, you can use the left handle to extend the text selection at the left and top, and the right handle to extend the selection to the right and bottom.
Text selection in Flutter PDF Viewer
You can enable or disable the text selection in the PDF Viewer using the enableTextSelection property. The following code example explains this.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
body: Container(
child: SfPdfViewer.network( 'https://cdn.syncfusion.com/content/PDFViewer/flutter-succinctly.pdf',
enableTextSelection: false)));
}
To learn more about text selection and its features, please refer to our text selection documentation page.
Text search
The PDF Viewer now allows you to find instances of text in a PDF document and navigate to each of its occurrences. You can perform the text search and retrieve results using the searchText controller method. It takes the text to be searched and TextSearchOption as parameters. This method searches for the text and highlights all instances of it in the document. This method also returns a PdfTextSearchResult object holding the result values such as total instance count and current highlighted instance index. The PdfTextSearchResult object will also help you navigate to the different searched text instances available and cancel the search operation.
To differentiate the current instance from the other instances, the current text instance is highlighted in a dark color, while the rest of the instances will be light. The following code example explains how to perform the text search and retrieve the results.
PdfViewerController _pdfViewerController;
PdfTextSearchResult _searchResult; @override
void initState() {
_pdfViewerController = PdfViewerController();
super.initState();
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text('Syncfusion Flutter PDF Viewer'),
actions: <Widget>[
IconButton(
icon: Icon(
Icons.search,
color: Colors.white,
),
onPressed: () async {
_searchResult = await _pdfViewerController?.searchText('the', searchOption: TextSearchOption.caseSensitive);
setState(() {});
print('Total instance count: ${_searchResult.totalInstanceCount}'); },
), ],
),
body: SfPdfViewer.network( 'https://cdn.syncfusion.com/content/PDFViewer/flutter-succinctly.pdf',
controller:_pdfViewerController));
}
With the help of options available in the PDF Viewer text search, you can create and implement your own search toolbar. Here, you can find the example code snippet to create and display a custom search toolbar with search features. The following reference image is the executed example code snippet.
Text search in Flutter PDF Viewer
To learn more about text search and its features, please refer to our documentation page.
Document link annotation
The PDF Viewer allows you to navigate to the desired topic or position by tapping on a document link annotation in the table of contents in a PDF document. You can enable or disable the navigation of document link annotation using the enableDocumentLinkAnnotation property. The following code example explains this.
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
body: Container(
child: SfPdfViewer.network( 'https://cdn.syncfusion.com/content/PDFViewer/flutter-succinctly.pdf',
enableDocumentLinkAnnotation: false)));
}
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this blog about the new features of the Syncfusion Flutter PDF Viewer available in the 2020 Volume 4 release. You can explore the user guide of PDF Viewer, and you can also check out our samples in this GitHub location. In addition, you can download our demo app from Google Play and the App Store.
If you are an existing Syncfusion user, please download the latest version of Essential Studio from the License & Downloads page and try the new features for yourself. If you aren’t a customer yet, you can try our 30-day free trial to check out these features.
Also, if you wish to send us feedback or would like to ask any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments section below, or contact us through our support forum, Direct-Trac, or feedback portal. We are happy to assist you!
If you liked this post, we think you will also enjoy the following: | https://medium.com/syncfusion/whats-new-in-2020-volume-4-pdf-viewer-flutter-7bc7567183ba | ['Rajeshwari Pandinagarajan'] | 2020-12-28 13:18:10.824000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Development', 'Android App Development', 'Flutter', 'iOS App Development', 'Pdf'] |
How to Decline a Meeting | 1: The weekly status meeting
Status meetings are an inefficient way to share small updates between a large crowd. The cost of these meetings is astronomical — often a dozen man-hours per time. Most attendees sit on mute and browse the Internet. “ Sorry, I missed that question. Can you repeat it?”
If you are a peripheral member, I would send a decline message such as:
Hi Sam, I’m trying to reclaim some calendar space to get more work completed. Happy to join on an ad-hoc basis if my input is useful. Thanks, Duncan
It’s polite and to the point. You’ve explained why you’re declining — who can argue with getting more work done? — and left the door open for joining occasional meetings.
If you are a core member, escaping is harder. You could ask the organiser if this is the most efficient way to swap information. Daily check-ins on Slack or weekly summary emails, might be better.
If that fails, you can either decline outright or do a soft decline. An outright decline might look like this:
Hi Sam, I’d love to join this status meeting, but I’ve got to prioritise my work on Project Flimflam. Shall I send you a summary of my inputs and you can invite me on an ad-hoc basis if needed? Thanks, Duncan
While a soft decline would involve sending a “tentative” response with text such as:
Hi Sam, I’ll join this meeting whenever I can, but please go on without me. I’ll be sure to send a summary of anything urgent that needs highlighting. Thanks, Duncan
If you have any better ideas for this scenario, let me know in the comments. | https://medium.com/@anothertaskdone/how-to-decline-a-meeting-ef89ad2e652 | [] | 2020-10-15 20:05:52.605000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Work', 'Meetings', 'Time', 'Productivity'] |
Privacy Coin Reviews: CONCEAL | Project Name: Conceal.Network
Coin Ticker: CCX
Market Cap: $752,434 (as of 29 December 2020)
Exchanges: Hotbit, STEX, TradeOgre, qTrade, altilly, CITEX, GRAVIEX, AZEX, FINEBOX, ProBitEx, Sistemkoin, CryptoWolf, Instaswap
Mining Algorithm: Crypto Night GPU
Block time: 120 seconds
Original code base: Cryptonote
Founder’s reward or analog: Conceal has no founders’ rewards. 100% of the mining block rewards go to the miners.
Development Team: krypt0Chaos, cryptokatz1, ZeMaNel, HyperMadMax, okansariirmak, Taegus1, bomb-on, alexstanford, devopsralf, bdmcoder, boot_2_thrill
Privacy Protocol:
How does the project protect users?
Securing the network is a high priority to protect our users. Miners are a fundamental piece of securing our ecosystem, they do all the PoW (Proof of Work) needed to validate every transaction and generate new blocks. They are an important part of our community too. Some of the most participative users are miners. We have an entire section of our Discord dedicated to mining. Miners are so important to us that we have invested a lot of time and resources developing the best mining algo possible — Cryptonight Conceal (CN Conceal).
CN Conceal is a variant of the original Cryptonight mining algorithm designed to achieve maximum PoW hash function for egalitarian CPU & GPU mining and ASIC/FPGA resistance. Conceal is the most energy efficient of the FPGA-Resistant algos. It uses a scratchpad of 2MB with FPM (Floating Point Math) that makes programmed FPGAs inefficient. The FPGAs don’t have any advantage over high-end GPUs. Another main advantage is the performance efficiency across multiple generations of GPUs. It is extremely efficient on all GCN architectures from multiple cards across the last 8 years. As an example, the compute core of a 7950 is almost equal to the performance of an RX580. CN Conceal can also be used to mine on a CPU. All these qualities allow CN Conceal to be one of the most decentralized mining algos in the crypto space.
Additionally, we are one of the few PoW blockchains with 51% attack protection. Our code is open source and reviewed by the community. We monitor the network constantly. The state-of-the-art tools available allow us to detect anomalies sooner than in any other privacy coin. At the cloud-API level, our security is reviewed by experienced security analysts (AWS). Our cloud platform is prepared to sustain DDoS attacks. Data is always encrypted both in transit and at rest giving our community an assurance of safety with their data.
Explain the Anonymity Sets (per txn):
Conceal uses Stealth Addresses, Ring Signatures and a Flat Single Fee. Conceal “mixing” is built in at the protocol level (no third parties) and every transaction is mixed and private beyond recognition so censorship becomes impossible.
Every time you receive a $CCX payment it goes to an unlinkable address generated with random numbers. When you decide to spend or deposit the funds in that one-time address, the amount will be broken down and the components will be indistinguishable from identical outputs in the blockchain.
For example if 126 CCX are sent, the protocol will break it down into 100 + 20 + 6 and 5 ring signatures will be performed with other 4 times 100’s, 20’s, and 6’s in the blockchain.
Unlike the “CoinJoin” mixing method, CryptoNote mixes outputs not transactions. This means no other senders need to be participating with you at the same time or with the same amounts. Any arbitrary amount sent at any time can always be rendered fundamentally indistinguishable.
Privacy By Default:
Conceal.Network automatically has privacy features applied to all transactions. You never have to request and then verify whether other people have enabled a privacy mechanism when sending/receiving funds or messages, because privacy is always automatically applied to all transactions at the protocol level. Furthermore, the always-on nature of Conceal’s privacy features means that even if the majority of Conceal users are not privacy oriented, they will still automatically participate.
% tx Anon: 100%
Wallets
Conceal.Network offers several wallet options:
Our wallets are designed with simplicity in mind. Each wallet offers a secure way to access your activity on the Conceal.Network blockchain and our most popular Desktop Wallet provides intuitive menus that guide you through all available features.
Command Line Wallet (CLI)
Our CLI wallet application is meant for use on normal desktop computers and servers and is offered in Windows, Linux and macOS. Recommended for more advanced users, the CLI wallet operates a full node and offers stability and performance.
Desktop Wallet (GUI)
Our Desktop Wallet is the most prefered wallet to use and is the central point of interaction for the primary features of Conceal, sending and receiving $CCX, encrypted secure messaging, and managing your banking deposits. The Desktop Wallet is available for all major platforms Windows, Ubuntu, and macOS.
Web Wallet
Our web wallet runs on Conceal.Cloud, a privacy-protected online interface that allows users to access Conceal’s decentralized banking blockchain through any platform in a simple manner (it only requires a basic browser). At the moment we have the basic wallet features working and we are setting up the privacy protected time-locked smart contracts handler that will allow full access to the banking features available (deposits). We will continue to add more features in the future.
Mobile Wallet
Our mobile wallet connects to the Conceal.Network through Conceal.Cloud, enabling users to easily manage their funds and make and receive payments anywhere and anytime.
Paper Wallet
Our Paper Wallet simply provides a wallet address and your private keys. If you only want to receive CCX, then all you need is a paper wallet. Our Paper Wallet is an offline mechanism for storing your Conceal coins. The process involves printing the private keys and Conceal addresses onto paper. If properly constructed, and provided that certain precautions are taken, it will be nearly impossible for a hostile user to access your Conceal holdings. A paper wallet is considered an extremely secure way to keep Conceal safe from cyber-attacks, malware, etc. But it’s important to remember that it’s not the Conceal coins that are being printed out like regular currency. It’s the information stored in a Conceal wallet or digital wallet that gets printed out. The data appearing on the wallet includes the public key (wallet address), which allows people to transfer money into that wallet, and the private key, which gives access to fund spending. Thus, Conceal coins themselves are not stored offline, but the important keys are stored offline.
Windows GUI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-desktop
Windows CLI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-core · GitHub
Linux GUI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-desktop
Linux CLI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-core · GitHub
macOS GUI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-desktop
macOS CLI Wallet: Releases · ConcealNetwork/conceal-core · GitHub
Web Wallet: https://conceal.cloud/
Android Wallet: Conceal Mobile
Paper Wallet: Paper Wallet
What does privacy mean to you and why is privacy important to your project team?
We view privacy as a fundamental right to everyone. Early on, we agreed on four fundamental pillars that serve as the foundation for the Conceal community: privacy, social inclusion, decentralization and censorship resistance.
Privacy is very important to us. The autonomy that privacy provides is essential to Conceal.Network. Privacy enables us to protect ourselves from unauthorized monitoring in our lives. This freedom gives us the ability to be who we want to be and interact with the world around us, without being judged or discriminated against.
Cash continues to become obsolete. The end of cash means the end of financial privacy. It is very reasonable to predict that centralized digital money will continue to progress and if so, would inevitably lead to unreasonable financial surveillance.
Privacy has nothing to do with being a criminal. None of us want our private lives aired to the world and that includes our finances. Conceal $CCX gives you peace of mind knowing that governments or criminals can not freeze or seize your funds. Conceal $CCX allows people to remain anonymous while also protecting their financial data and personal messages from mass data collection or government surveillance.
What makes your project stand out above other projects?
We can give you a few different reasons like a unique economic model with exquisite block reward scheme and low emission, the cold staking, hashed-timelocked-contracts, encrypted messages, our own mining algo (ASIC/FPGA Resistant), original GUI wallets (desktop, cloud and mobile), powerful API & Cloud services.
We use output transactions mixins since day one and opted in for a universal transaction flat fee to avoid cross-side attacks based on TX-fees metadata. Conceal is truly decentralized through its trustless setup. Contrary to some of the competition, users are still able to audit the data (including TX amounts, total coins in the chain, coins locked through deposits, interest paid) in the blockchain without compromising privacy and preserving the transparency required by a global economic ecosystem.
Last, but not least, an experienced team with proven track record and a passionate community.
Because Conceal miners are so important to us we want to highlight the structure of Conceal’s block reward model. We use an innovative approach where block rewards start small, but increase over time. Why would we do that? At the beginning of every blockchain, usage is relatively low. Only a small number of transactions occur per day and block data is still small. With time, the network matures and block data size and resources will also increase.
Securing a blockchain at the beginning of a network requires fewer miners, because of the smaller numbers of transactions. However, as the blockchain network matures, more miners will be needed to secure the network because the number of transactions will continue to increase. Likewise, the block reward will continue to increase as an incentive for miners to continue to secure the Conceal.Network.
To fairly reward miners, we started the block reward at 5 $CCX. We will continue increasing the block reward by 0.25 $CCX every month until we reach a 20 $CCX block reward. In 5 years, we will reach our max block reward. Once we reach the max block reward, we will begin decreasing the block reward because the number of transactions processed by the network will be much bigger and the fees collected by the miners will balance the block reward decrease.
With this simple and logical approach we avoided the unfair enrichment of early miners during the initial stages of the project where mining difficulty is low and successfully reached one of the lowest coin emission curves throughout the crypto space without affecting the mining profit.
Due to this low mining block reward emission curve we were able to introduce a new feature — blockchain deposits paying interest. These deposits help the economic ecosystem by taking coins out of circulation for a self-designated period of time. As $CCX gets staked, it directly increases demand, scarcity and, subsequently, market value. The interest paid by these deposits will add new coins to the network balancing the ecosystem with coins locked by new deposits. This model not only rewards people for taking $CCX out of the markets but benefits the miners too (higher market value for $CCX).
There is another quite interesting detail, several studies show that there is a direct correlation between good hashrate (CPU&GPU — ASIC Resistance) and market value. So, in practical terms, more miners will generate more hashrate but bigger hashrate brings a better market value and liquidity, keeping the mining activity profitable.
Every detail has been carefully studied and tested. Conceal has been cited in a few external reports of having one of the lowest inflations in the crypto space without affecting the mining profitability.
What do you have in the works for future development?
Business wise, we already have working solutions for vendors and merchants with Conceal.Pay and Conceal.ID.
Conceal.Pay makes it simple for businesses and people to receive payments on the Conceal.Network. Conceal.Pay is seamlessly integrated with the Conceal.Cloud for absolute ease of use. You can easily create URLs with a simple web page where customers and friends can send you payments. Conceal.Pay makes it trivial for you or your business to receive payments online, fast.
Conceal.ID gives you the ability to make a memorable alias for your CCX address. In that way, you can handle transactions in an easier and faster way. In the near future, sending and receiving messages using the Conceal.ID will also be implemented in Cloud and Desktop wallet.
Also, we plan to have a few business-oriented proof-of-concepts ready next year. We are working to develop Conceal.Card, a card that facilitates $CCX NFC payments (contactless) and a platform to handle confidential assets in corporate environments. These two new products will allow a vast portfolio of services from loyalty rewards to vending machines.
What is the path to mass adoption of your project?
Conceal is a decentralized, private and trustless form of cash. It allows everyone to engage with financial services and messaging without a central authority. It offers high autonomy and fewer barriers comparing with traditional services. There are billions of people without access to basic financial services. But most of them have smartphones that can be used as a mean to access DeFi services. We think that Conceal.DeFi will be one of the boosts for crypto adoption like the “dot.com” moment for the entire cryptospace. This will drive the future value of Conceal.Network.
Conceal allows extremely small amounts to be used in its financial system. For example, transfers equivalent to a few dollars can be made. Our decentralized banking allows savers to put very small amounts of value to work, on which people can earn interest. Anyone will be able to hold just a few dollars’ worth of CCX. Even the yield curve will be able to be constructed on a micro-level, for example any future compounding interest function could happen based on a day basis, rather than on wide fixed dates with interpolation between such dates for pricing at that time. It will revolutionise finance. These are problems for which the only technology solution is Conceal Network. The traditional banking system simply cannot offer such solutions; they are stuck in an analogue world. We are working to link cryptocurrency to the real economy and challenge the core banking of deposits and, in the future, probably decentralized lending. We are doing massive research as well in mobile payments using the blockchain.
Our primary objective is to provide a privacy framework for social inclusion through decentralization of financial services.Our business strategy puts us on the right path to mass adoption.
Any additional final thoughts you want to include?
Before being a project, we are a community. We take pride in the fact that every single team member came from the community. We work closely with our international ambassadors to boost our local communities and have several successful local initiatives across the globe. The community is the foundation of Conceal and everyone has a voice. Each year we have an annual consensus were anyone can participate. We keep an exclusive channel in Discord that allows any community member to propose an idea to the team for consideration and consensus voting. We truly value our community.
Important links:
Conceal Network — Anonymous DeFi & Private Communication
Conceal Mining Pool
Conceal.Network — Block Explorer
https://github.com/ConcealNetwork
Start | Conceal Wiki
https://discord.gg/YbpHVSd
Telegram: Join Group Chat
https://twitter.com/ConcealNetwork
https://medium.com/@ConcealNetwork
https://www.reddit.com/r/ConcealNetwork/
https://www.facebook.com/concealnetwork/
🌐 [ANN] [POW] [CCX] — Conceal.Network — Banking, Private TXs & Secure Messages | https://medium.com/@meanhash/hashr8-privacy-coin-reviews-conceal-cfaf3b4c8b3c | [] | 2020-12-30 13:16:48.945000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin Mining', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency Investment'] |
The Art Of Conducting User Interviews | In Summary… Synthesize your notes. Identify hard data. Find notable quotes. Analyze if a emerging patterns. Write down your key take-aways. You will be impressed by how much information your users will reveal to you. Remember, everyone’s story is different. Enjoy the variety of your users’ experiences. And … don’t forget to present them with a gift after a successful interview. Who would not like a free coffee card, for example? Both you and your users will be smiling. And that’s a wrap. | https://medium.com/nyc-design/the-art-of-conducting-user-interviews-da6117756e1a | ['Eva Schicker'] | 2019-09-25 16:55:43.086000+00:00 | ['User Research', 'Ux Writing', 'User Interviews', 'UX Design', 'UX'] |
Pregnancy diet : Healthy diet for healthy baby | For your baby to grow and develop, good nutrition during pregnancy is very necessary. You can eat about 300 more calories a day when you are pregnant, try to eat a well-balanced diet, and take prenatal vitamins. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a pregnant woman needs more calcium, folic acid, iron, and proteins than a non-pregnant woman. During pregnancy, the goal is to eat healthy foods most of the time. Doctors recommend five important food groups in order to improve prenatal nutrition: fruits, vegetables, lean protein, whole grains, and dairy products. To keep you and your baby healthy and safe, here are some suggestions.
Enjoy a variety of foods so you can get all the antioxidants and nutrients you need. Daily recommended meals include 6–11 servings of bread and grain, two to four servings of fruit, four or more servings of vegetables, four servings of dairy products, and three servings of protein (meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, or nuts).
Read More at — https://uptodd.com/blog/healthy-diet-for-healthy-baby | https://medium.com/@uptodd/pregnancy-diet-healthy-diet-for-healthy-baby-72e29e6a3c46 | [] | 2020-12-02 16:37:09.022000+00:00 | ['Garbh Sanskar', 'Diet', 'Pregnancy'] |
May 27 will be always our lucky day… | May 27 will always be our lucky day!
Yes, for my youngest son and me, is they he was born, we celebrate…because was the hardest day for both of us. because what we went through together…was very stressful.
All I remember is the ambulance rushing to the hospital, my husband following in his car.
It was my 4th pregnancy. With my other three boys, the deliver was at home with the assistance of a doctor or a midwife and all went well, this time was not the same the midwife that assisted me before travel for the holidays, and in the last examination, she said that the baby was ok. In our previous visit complained that I didn’t feel my baby moving like in the other pregnancies I had before she said that he was not in the right position, but it was fine on our last visit, so I don’t need to do an echography.
The contractions started, I call the midwives on call and they came…after long hours I couldn’t feel any progress, I was exhausted and didn’t know what is happening. When the midwives said, the baby was not coming as usual with the head first, I felt the danger of the situation,(I am a doctor), I told her to call 911 for an ambulance and the doctor. We rush to the hospital, I was in pain, scare and praying I can’t remember all! I just remembered the doctor saying, you had to push with all forces that you have and baby Gabriel was born safe and healthy!
When he came to my arms, I talk to my baby, we just went to a lot of stress together, not during the delivery part, we went to stressful time emotionally during all the pregnancy, and you and I deserve that from now on everything will work out for us, and so it happened. | https://medium.com/@margotgobetti/may-27-will-be-always-our-lucky-day-511e41877846 | ['Margot Gobetti'] | 2020-05-27 20:55:53.621000+00:00 | ['Lucky Day', 'Delivery', 'Baby', 'Birth', 'Pray'] |
5 lessons I’ve learned after 2 billion lambda executions | 5 lessons I’ve learned after 2 billion lambda executions juanjolainez Follow Apr 20 · 8 min read
CreditorWatch is well known in the Australian Fintech space for being one of the most (if not the most) innovative companies in the industry, winning several awards for it. This innovation comes from its dev culture promoting innovation, and, unfortunately, sometimes, it also comes with a price.
Adopting new technology in your production environment is exciting and challenging but also quite scary sometimes. This is our story of what we learned while adopting Lambda functions in our production system.
In CreditorWatch, we use lambda functions extensively in our event-driven architecture https://medium.com/swlh/aws-dynamodb-triggers-event-driven-architecture-61dea6336efb and to create push queues https://medium.com/creditorwatch/how-to-successfully-create-a-push-queue-using-sqs-lambda-57f299056fe7.
At this point, we have more than 250 lambda functions that have executed over 2 billion times in total, so I guess we can say that we have been around them long enough to get a good grasp of what’s great and what’s not-so-great.
Most of the time (not always), we use them in combination with Kinesis streams or SQS queues so, some of the things below will probably be related to them as well.
This hasn’t come without challenges and learning moments, so we’ll put in this small article the most important ones.
Don’t expect things in order
This is, in our experience, mostly related to Lambda with Kinesis streams, but it applies to many situations where you have a lambda trigger.
Even though AWS claims that lambda processes things in order (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/with-kinesis.html), this is not the case, and there are a few reasons for that.
The first one is that you might have several executions at the same time (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-concurrency.html), so even though you might expect your executions to happen in order, one lambda function might take more time to spin up than another one, and there, even though the lambda functions have started one before another you have your code executed in the reverse order.
Another reason is executions in batches. A lambda function (when connected to a Kinesis stream of SQS queue) accepts batches of records (not just 1) https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/with-kinesis.html.
Therefore, you might have one batch of 10 executed first (and, let’s assume you process them sequentially in your lambda function) and in 1 second, the second batch of 10.
For some reason, the first event of the first batch might take (let’s say) 10 seconds, while the second batch executes all their records under 0.5s. In that case, the execution of the second batch has finished before the first one, effectively processing the records in a different order than they arrived.
Idempotency is instrumental
I cannot stress this enough. Code fails—all the time. And you have to be ready for it. I know it might seem basic, but it’s a necessary reminder.
Lambda will fail as well, for many reasons. It might be because there’s an actual bug in your code because you have a timeout (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-console.html) because you are out of memory…
Once a lambda execution fails, it will retry to re-process the whole batch, not just the one that failed. This inevitably means that the records that succeeded before the failure will be re-processed.
And this is why idempotency is so important when working with lambda functions. Retries might and will happen, so your code needs to expect this.
Our lambda functions are mostly calls to endpoints (we use lambda functions to kind of act as a push queue or callback manager), so, in our case, those endpoints are the ones that need to be idempotent (and they are!).
The good thing about this approach is that all the logic for idempotency and, of course, the application logic is in the same place. Also, we would be able to change Kinesis+lambda or SQS + lambda for some completely different architecture (such as implementing the Observer pattern instead of our current Pub/Sub pattern) without changing our codebase.
If you didn’t have an application to point to handle idempotency and all you had was the code in your lambda, that’s fine; you could always store a hash of the record (or the provided record ids if you will) in some processed storage (Redis might be a good choice)
Control your executions
Lambda is built for scale, and that’s great. But don’t let lambdas out scale you. Even though we all like to say that our systems scale perfectly and so on, we have a limited amount of resources (not just technologically, but engineers also have budgets!).
So, for that reason, even though you can have thousands, or hundreds of thousands (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/gettingstarted-limits.html ) lambda executions for the same function at the same time, that might be your doom.
If you are doing heavy queries to a database, you can bring it down. If you are using it to do a callback to one of your services, you can overload it and, if you are calling an endpoint to a third-party service, you might receive a quite unpleasant phone call.
So, in this case, a good approach is to throttle your lambda executions (that, luckily, is already built-in in AWS).
Now, how fast you can crunch through your records is determined by 2 things: Concurrency and BatchSize.
Probably you are surprised by the last one. This is due to the implementation of Lambda itself. In the end, even though it’s “serverless”, your code needs to be somewhere, and the lambda function needs to spin up somehow. We are not going to get into the very specifics of how that happens, but note that that process needs some time.
That time will effectively impact the number of records you can process per second. Let’s put it in an example. Let’s say that lambda takes 0.3s to be invoked, and you have a batch size of 1 (you only process 1 record per lambda execution). If the processing time for 1 record is 0.2s, the whole process will take 0.5s. In that case, you can process 2 records per second for that function. If you have a concurrency of 5 (5 executions in parallel), you can process 10 records per second.
Now, let’s say you have a batch size of 10. In that case, you’ll pay the 0.3s penalty to invoke the lambda function and process 10 records in 2s, totaling 2.3s per execution. If you had 5 processes (just as before), you would have processed 50 records in 2.3s, 21.73 records per second.
Iterator Age might be a good metric to know if you can cope with the requests you have
Scaling using BatchSize also might save some money since you pay per request (https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/), so that’s how most of our scaling tweaks come from BatchSize instead of Provisioned concurrency.
On the not-so-bright side of scaling by BatchSize is that, as we mentioned before, if one of your records fails, you’ll need to re-process much more records than with a smaller batch size.
Monitoring and alerting is key
Being serverless doesn’t mean that it’s not critical or that it can be monitored more lightly.
In our case, this architecture is instrumental, and in the backbone of the whole company, and for that reason, it’s tightly monitored, and many alerts are configured.
I’d recommend a mix of APM metrics (if you are using callbacks, as we do) and Cloudwatch metrics to have a full picture of the wellbeing of your system.
You can take a look at some metrics here. In my opinion, probably the most important ones are the invocations (determine the cost), error count and success rate (detect sporadic or continuous failures) and IteratorAge, which’s probably the most important of them all.
IteratorAge is when your oldest record has been waiting to be executed (when linked to a Kinesis stream, SQS or other).
CloudWatch monitoring for Lambda Functions
This gives you, in a simple glance, a metric of how healthy your lambda function is, and it’s the one we use in our alerting system. If some record fails and gets stuck re-processing, the IteratorAge will go up. If the batch size is too small and you can’t cope with your records, the IteratorAge will go up. If the concurrency limit is too low, the records will pile up trying to get executed, and (surprise!) the IteratorAge will go up.
Obviously, you also need to monitor the resources that lambda uses (being a DB, Redis node or a service), and that’s why we use some APM tools that will alert if the traffic is too high or the average response time seems to be climbing.
CI/CD rules apply
Lambda provides a straightforward way not just to deploy your application code but to change it interactively in its console.
Any engineer with its AWS CLI configured correctly can deploy lambda with just 1 command without being peer-reviewed, approved or audited by anyone.
I would strongly recommend you against it.
On top of lambda functions and Cloudformation stacks, we also use the serverless CLI tools (https://www.serverless.com/framework/docs/providers/aws/cli-reference/deploy/), which includes the SLS deploy.
Especially at the beginning, when we were experimenting with scale (remember, a combination of BatchSize and Provisioned Concurrency), we would tweak some lambda parameters and deploy them straight from our terminals into production and, at the end of it, when we were happy with the performance, we’d commit the code.
That sounds like a reasonable plan, except for the times when we got distracted and forgot to either push the changes (or merge them) or to pull the most recent changes and deploy our changes.
We learned quite quickly that this approach was obviously flawed and, even though deploying was just 1 line in a terminal, we needed to create deployment scripts and implement them into our CI/CD pipeline.
We use Jenkins for that, so now we have all our listeners in there, and we can see exactly who, when and how every deployment has been made. Needless to say, this has made our development much safer.
Partial view of our Serverless Jenkins page
Conclusions
This is just a small article with 5 lessons we learned, but we could go on forever about how we learned to master lambda functions and other uses (we use them as a crontab, for instance).
Heavy use of lambda was a risk we took when serverless was not the mainstream, but with time (and a few painful lessons), we learned how to master them, and now they are ingrained in our day-to-day operations, and we wouldn’t choose otherwise.
I hope that with this article, you don’t make the mistakes I made and get encouraged to try them, either for your production environment or for any pet project you might have lying around. | https://medium.com/creditorwatch/aws-lambda-facts-you-wish-to-know-before-processing-2-billion-lambda-executions-2021-78fe77183c80 | [] | 2021-04-20 22:33:58.256000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Scalability', 'Lessons Learned', 'Lambda', 'Serverless'] |
Never let a good crisis go to waste | These famous words coined by Winston Churchill, still remain true even today within the context of the software industry.
The reality is that software crises are here to stay, a fact we all need to come to terms with. They are unavoidable and also inevitable, but rather than running away from them, we should be embracing them head-on. Crises do come with a price that’s true, however, the price we pay is really dependent on how we handle the situation and most importantly what we take out from it after the dust settles.
So, we had this new feature running. We fully tested it (at least we thought so at that time) and it went live. A few days later our customer started using it, but unfortunately for us, the scale hit a threshold, something we didn’t expect, and an auto-scaling solution didn’t fix the problem. That’s when crisis mode went into full gear.
Following this stress-inducing event, I created a 6 step guide to help me to get through the “next time” (because you know there will always be a next time), whether you are an individual contributor or team leader I hope you’ll find this as useful as I have.
Step 1: Analyzing
First thing — Keep calm. Stressing out won’t help here. The first thing I do is try to analyze the cause root of error, aim your focus as well as the teams. At this point, you are most likely going to have alerts and logs running all over the place. Once you get a grip on the right problematic component, you’re off to a good start.
So, previously we had this use case where one service had to fetch data from another. unfortunately. The second service had to deal with data fetching latency which hit the timeout ratio. That timeout issue propagated back to the caller which added even more latency. Once we spotted the root cause error, we focused and had the chance to give it a good fight.
Step 2: First aid (The so-called: band-aid solution)
When you’re in crisis-mode, there is no room to point fingers at who’s to blame or how you even got into the position you’re in in the first place. All your resources should be united to get “us” out of there, and for that, we must regain focus. An example use case we had was a retry mechanism which got itself into an infinite loop causing duplicated requests due to an internal serialization failure. The solution:
Isolate the issue: We as a team understood that first, we had to disable the service to cut the loop. Once we had done that, the system went back to normal. Give first aid: Based on the issue type you can take fast action with tools you already have in your arsenal: Scale, Restart, Disabling or any other band-aid solution you can add to stop the bleeding.
Once we were successful with the first-aid solution we took a deep breath, made coffee, and moved on to the next step.
Step 3: Hot Fix
We’ve all been there: “voodoo” or just outright jinxing it by saying the words, “it happened but, it’s unlikely to happen again”. In my opinion, there’s no such thing as voodoo or jinxes when it comes to this. I always suggest the team should thoroughly investigate and try to release a hotfix to make sure the issue won’t occur again. I do recommend a drawback as well.
If you can’t understand what happened at least add additional logs. So, in the case that the same issue arises again you’ll be better prepared and smart enough to nail it. The issue is that it can come back to bite you over and over, it’s just a matter of time. So, be well and ready for it. A hotfix must be there whether it’s an issue-resolve or logs decoration.
Step 4: Retrospective
Once you have a hotfix in place and are all “back to normal” you and the “crises” stakeholders (infra team, dev team, etc..) should gather up and start processing how you all got yourselves into the “crisis” state. Go through the flow. Draw the chain and sequence of things that lead you there. As I see it, this is the most important step as here we enter into “learning” mode. In that session, don’t try to find who to blame or who’s at fault. Try together as a team, to understand how to learn from the crises. I suggest asking the following leads:
Which dark parts in the system were we not familiar with? (e.g was it a regression or a new area that was flaky)? Where in the process did it fail (miscommunication between teams, not enough testing, architecture design issue, etc..)? Which component must be refactored or improved? Were logs missing? Perhaps, better monitoring alerts need to be added? How quickly were you aware of these crises? How fast did you manage to analyze and understand the issue? What was the impact of the crises on other components and was it isolated enough? We might have similar cases that could cause the same crises somewhere else in the system?
I do recommend raising all these questions, as we learn the most through on-the-spot thinking, growing as an individual and as a team.
Step 5: Conclusions and Follow-Ups
Once we have learned from the crises, we must take further actions. Follow-Ups must be put in place and status checks need to be revised else the same crises will recur again and again and that’s bad news for everybody concerned. We are fine with new crises but having the same one recurring must be avoided by all means necessary as to do so will mean we didn’t learn anything and the learning curve and crises went to waste. So, all fixes and conclusions must be in place (whether it’s added to a backlog or added to the next sprint(s)) to make sure your system is put back into a safer state and raise the team’s confidence.
Step 6: Team Morale
At the end of each crisis after you’ve followed all these steps, as a team take responsibility. And as much as we hate it, the feeling we might sense is of failure. Things like: “How come we didn’t test this use-case”, “The code I’ve just pushed was prone to error”, “That part was missing due to miscommunication”, etc. I find it truly important not to look for who to blame, but instead, help build confidence again through honest actions (see above: Step 4,5).
Crises are here to stay, it’s just how we learn to handle them that truly counts.
Idan | https://medium.com/@idan-fridman/never-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste-7af0420b9a6c | ['Idan Fridman'] | 2020-12-02 10:30:42.829000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'Team Building', 'Teamwork', 'Agile', 'Management And Leadership'] |
Plush And Peppy: DIY Room Decor For Girls | Be it for teen girls or the li’l ones, a bedroom is like their safe, dreamy space. It not only provides them comfort but also kindles their creativity, sense of the world and inspires them to grow up into women who are ready to break the glass ceilings. That’s why it is rather important to give some thought to the design of your girl’s room. After all, they do need some space to call their own and the more personalised it is, the better. Don’t you agree?
However, homeowners often feel that a girls’ room can dent their budget as it requires plush decor. What if the otherwise is possible? All thanks to trendy DIY decor ideas for girls’ rooms, you can design a mesmerising space for your daughters, nieces or even yourself without any stress or budget complications
What Are DIY Girl Room Decor Ideas?
This decor is quintessentially about doing it yourself. From fabrics to papers and various materials can be used to create decor and knickknacks that uplift the vibe of your room.
When it comes to DIY room decor for girls, you have various options to pick from! Opt for paper, fabric, embroidery or recycle the old knick knacks — the list is just endless. By choosing the right palette and textures for all of these materials, you can create an amazing DIY girls room in no time.
Curious about how to go about it? Let’s get you started with these ideas!
Girls have a golden heart and their love for their BFFs and family knows no bounds. Celebrate this by stringing Polaroids of all those much-cherished moments and memories on walls or your girls’ room corner. You can also paint up a wardrobe and then stick up all the Polaroids to give a rather vivid focal point to your girls’ room! What do you think?
Related Article DIY Wall Art Ideas
Pastel and cosy tent is a dream decor to have in every girls’ room. This DIY girls’ room decor idea is easily pulled off! You can stitch up your old fabrics for them or get a few customised ones and get them done.
Whether your mood is on for Monday or you wish to wake up to happiness, to set up a beautiful reminder for them, you can put up beautiful DIY signage on your girls’ room wall. Use cardboard, extra wood chunks, cut them out in letters or any other shape you want, paint them all pastels and let them pep up your room. It is one of the best cheap ways to decorate a teenage girl’s bedroom as well.
There’s a Frida Kahlo budding up in every young girl. You can nurture her spirit by giving wings to your or your girl’s imagination. Paint without any worries of the world, go modern, go abstract, go surreal, go contemporary and let it showcase your artistic expression. You can frame all of those art pieces then and transform your girls’ room into an art gallery.
Go eco-friendly and sustainable, say bye to those plastic fairy lights. Instead, you can go ahead and still create amazing, warm lights with paper and proudly line them up on your bed or by the curtains. Paper lights are not difficult to create — take our word for it. Call your girl gang to help you out with all of them and you will cherish this DIY girls decor for years to come — we bet.
Related Article DIY Lighting Ideas
Not so much of an embroidery fan? No worries. There’s still a lot that can be done with fabric. Check out Pinterest or take a lead from your grandma and stitch up cushions, fabric kites or flowers for the walls as part of your DIY room decor for teens. You can string them up as it is or also combine them with more paper accessories to complete the overall look. Choose colours like pinks or whites for this DIY girls’ room decor idea.
Remember the good ol’ paper pinwheels that everyone loved breezing through the wind? Take an origami route then and let your imagination flow for creating one-of-its-kind designs of birds, patterns, childhood nostalgia and place them by the wall. This idea is just apt for girly DIY room decor and it will never let you down. You can also create cool decals for your wall by checking out YouTube videos or buying their kits from a stationery store. Designs like that of trees and flowers will also look good when it comes to wallpaper art. Try them soon for your girls’ room?
Well, well, with so many gorgeous DIY room decor ideas for teenage girls all set to inspire you, tell us which ones are you excited to try out for your girl cave? | https://medium.com/@hanahome/plush-and-peppy-diy-room-decor-for-girls-52ce172947b7 | ["Hana'S Home"] | 2021-04-27 07:32:52.384000+00:00 | ['Decoration', 'Home Decor', 'DIY', 'Room Decor', 'Girls'] |
Зачем вам UNION вместо JOIN в Apache Druid и семплирование больших данных в Spark Streaming: пример потоковой аналитики Big Data | Dell EMC Certified trainer since 2007, co-founder of Big Data School - delivering Big Data, Data Mining, Hadoop, NoSQL, Kafka, Spark cluster courses in Moscow! | https://medium.com/@bigdataschool/%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BC-%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BC-union-%D0%B2%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE-join-%D0%B2-apache-druid-%D0%B8-%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%88%D0%B8%D1%85-%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D1%85-%D0%B2-spark-streaming-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%80-426b6e3bb778 | ['Nick Komissarenko'] | 2020-11-19 04:01:46.736000+00:00 | ['Druid', 'Kafka', 'Bigdata'] |
Introducing the JavaScriptWeb Animations API | Photo by rolf neumann on Unsplash
The JavaScript Web Animations API is a new API that lets us create animations with JavaScript by manipulating the elements that we want to animate.
In this article, we’ll look at how to create simple animations with the API.
Basic Usage
The way we create the animation is similar to how we do it with CSS. We specify how the element animates by specifying how we transform the element in keyframes. The only difference is that we do it with JavaScript instead of CSS.
To animate an element, we call the animate method on the element with 2 arguments. The first argument is an array with the keyframe for each entry. Each keyframe object has the styles to apply when the keyframe is displayed.
The second object is the timing object, which has the duration and iterations properties. duration is the number of milliseconds to animate the element. The iteration is the number of iterations to run the animation for. It can be a positive number of Infinity .
For instance, we can write the following HTML and JavaScript to animate an object:
HTML:
<img src='https://interactive-examples.mdn.mozilla.net/media/examples/grapefruit-slice-332-332.jpg' width=100 height=100>
JavaScript:
const action = [{
transform: 'rotate(0) translate3D(-50%, -50%, 0)',
color: '#000'
},
{
color: '#431236',
offset: 0.3
},
{
transform: 'rotate(360deg) translate3D(-50%, -50%, 0)',
color: '#000'
}
]; const timing = {
duration: 3000,
iterations: Infinity
} document.querySelector("img").animate(
action,
timing
)
The action array has the keyframe styles and the timing object has the duration and the number of iterations of the animation to run.
Then we should see an image that rotates forever.
Controlling playback with play(), pause(), reverse(), and playbackRate
The animate method returns an object with the play , pause and reverse methods. playbackRate is a numerical property that can be set by us. A negative playback rate means the animation plays in reverse.
For instance, we can add buttons to call these methods as follows. First, we add the following HTML code to add buttons for the playing, pausing, and reversing, and also a range slider for changing the playback rate:
<button id='play'>Play</button>
<button id='pause'>Pause</button>
<button id='reverse'>Reverse</button>
<input type='range' min='-2' max='2'> <img src='https://interactive-examples.mdn.mozilla.net/media/examples/grapefruit-slice-332-332.jpg' width=100 height=100>
Then we add some CSS to move the image:
img {
position: relative;
top: 100px;
left: 100px;
}
Finally, we add the JavaScript for the animation and event handler for the buttons and input that call the methods and set the playbackRate property as follows:
const action = [{
transform: 'rotate(0) translate3D(-50%, -50%, 0)',
color: '#000'
},
{
color: '#431236',
offset: 0.3
},
{
transform: 'rotate(360deg) translate3D(-50%, -50%, 0)',
color: '#000'
}
]; const timing = {
duration: 3000,
iterations: Infinity
} const animation = document.querySelector("img").animate(
action,
timing
) const play = document.getElementById('play');
const pause = document.getElementById('pause');
const reverse = document.getElementById('reverse');
const range = document.querySelector('input'); play.onclick = () => animation.play();
pause.onclick = () => animation.pause();
reverse.onclick = () => animation.reverse();
range.onchange = () => {
const val = range.value;
animation.playbackRate = +val;
}
In the code above, we added the buttons. Then in the JavaScript, we have:
const play = document.getElementById('play');
const pause = document.getElementById('pause');
const reverse = document.getElementById('reverse');
const range = document.querySelector('input'); play.onclick = () => animation.play();
pause.onclick = () => animation.pause();
reverse.onclick = () => animation.reverse();
range.onchange = () => {
const val = range.value;
animation.playbackRate = +val;
}
to call the methods and set the properties on animation , which is assigned to the animation object that’s returned by animate .
Then we can do whatever action is indicated by the method’s names and also set the playback rate when we move the slider.
Photo by Jennifer Chen on Unsplash
Getting Information Out of Animations
We can also get more information out of the animation object, like the duration and the current time of the animation.
We can get all that information from the animation object in the code above. In Chrome, we have the startTime and currentTime to get the start time and current time of the animation respectively.
It also has the playState and playbackRate . The properties of the animation object may differ between browsers.
Conclusion
We can create simple animations with the Web Animations API. It’s a simple API that lets us define keyframes for animation as we do with CSS animations.
The only difference is that we can do more things like changing the playback rate, and controlling the playback of the animation with play, pause, and reverse. | https://medium.com/swlh/introducing-the-javascriptweb-animations-api-88a01926a895 | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-04-18 20:59:23.247000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Technology', 'Programming', 'Software Development', 'JavaScript'] |
Data Engineering with Python, Django, and PostgreSQL | Today’s post will deal with what may be one of the hardest aspects of data science which doesn’t involve analysis, but simply trying to make the backend of data science work. By backend I mean the database systems most data scientists will be working with on the job.
I will go over the following:
Build an absolute barebones Django app with a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS)
Illustrate the use of a PostgresSQL database attached to the Django app
How to move data in and out between different formats and platforms
While following this article doesn’t require any knowledge of Django, I think it’s important to appreciate the fact that a lot of data collection occurs through web apps.
For data scientists who are unfamiliar with Django, think of it as a framework for building web applications while adhering to the philosophy of “inversion of control”. This means Django takes care of the skeleton of the web app, and you’re responsible for fleshing out the actual content on top of the skeleton.
For readers who don’t like Django you can skip to the section titled: “The Payoff: Django’s Object Relational Mapper” towards the end of this post.
Our Django App: “DoubleBagger”
The app that I’m interested in creating is going to be called “DoubleBagger”, an investment blog where people self-publish their buy/sell opinions on public companies like Apple (ticker: AAPL) or Microsoft (ticker: MSFT).
And instead of firing up a Jupyter Notebook like my previous articles this time we’ll mainly be working with the command line + a text editor like Sublime Text.
And because this is aimed at data scientists, we’ll be using a conda environment:
# I like to do things on my desktop
# From the terminal: $ cd desktop && mkdir doublebagger && cd doublebagger $ conda create -n doublebagger
$ conda activate doublebagger # You should now have the (doublebagger) conda environment activated
And now we install our two main packages: Django and psycopg2 for connecting to a PostgreSQL database. Django already ships with SQLite which may actually be suitable for many organizations and for hobbyists, but we’re going to use Postgres instead. Furthermore, we’ll be using an older version of Django (current version is Django 2.1).
$ (doublebagger) conda install Django==1.9.6 psycopg2
After verifying you have these packages along with their depencies, create a source directory where we put our entire source code having to do with “Doublebagger.”
$ (doublebagger) mkdir src && cd src
We start every Django project in pretty much the same way with the same command:
# Inside of src:
# don't forget the space and period at the end $ (doublebagger) django-admin startproject doublebagger_blog .
The django-admin startproject command is what creates the skeleton or framework for our project and now if you check out what it’s inside of the src folder you should see:
doublebagger_blog: contains the project configurations our project including the settings.py file. manage.py: utility functions
Now we can open up our DoubleBagger project inside of Sublime Text or any other editor of your choice. You should see the exact same directory structure:
Assuming you have a postgres database already installed on your machine, we actually need to create a postgres database for our django app:
# from the command line: $ psql -d postgres postgres=# CREATE DATABASE doublebagger; # That's it!
# quit by: postgres=# \q
*If you don’t have postgreSQL you can follow these instructions.
Then inside of settings.py (using Sublime Text), we change the default configuration to account for the database we just created. Change this:
# settings.py DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
}
}
To this:
# Your 'User' is probably different depending on how you set up
# postgres. In many cases, it's just 'postgres'.
# Also depends if you set up a password with you postgres. DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
'NAME': 'doublebagger',
'USER': 'WhoeverOwnsTheDatabase',
'PASSWORD': '',
'HOST': '127.0.0.1',
'PORT': '5432',
}
}
*Make sure to save your changes within the text-editor
Now if you go back to the command line, we can connect the app with the postgres database like so:
# Still inside of your src where manage.py lives: $ (doublebagger) python manage.py migrate
If everything went okay, you should see something like this:
Now from the same command line:
$ (doublebagger) python manage.py runserver
And point your browser to:
127.0.0.1:8000
You should see something like this: | https://towardsdatascience.com/data-engineering-with-python-django-and-postgresql-99409492769 | ['Sammy Lee'] | 2019-02-28 10:52:54.130000+00:00 | ['Django'] |
Who I Am | 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/spiritual-secrets/who-i-am-96a497ba40bb | ['Ivette Cruz'] | 2020-11-11 18:33:48.340000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Poetry', 'Spiritual Secrets'] |
Between the Dunes and the Ocean | The ocean had been rough for the last couple of days. That’s why we took a break from paddling after the initial first three days in a row where we went out. We don’t like big waves and getting trashed by them.
But today we decided to try our luck. As long as we can get out of the mole, which is a little bay, we will be fine. Getting out of the bay and then staying behind the waves or the point where they break, was our plan.
As we stopped the car in the parking lot I could see them already. A group of dolphins playing in the water. Surrounding a guy sitting on a surfboard. I couldn’t get my board quick enough off the car and was tripping three times on my way down to the water.
But the dolphins were in no rush. As we reached the other guy five or more dolphins were surrounding us. Jumping up and down. Swimming underneath us just to pop up on the other side again.
I’ve never experienced something like this I would say. But it’s a lie. This happened to me here before. The dolphins often swim down the coastline and come into the bay to swim around paddlers and surfers.
But still. Every time I experience it my heart stops beating. Don’t ask me to take pictures of it. I was too much in the moment and forgot about the camera. Only started to film once they were moving out of the bay.
We followed them for a bit. It was lovely watching them having fun and playing in the waves. Dolphins play in the water which shows their incredible level of intelligence.
Such lovely creatures. So peaceful. The first time I freaked out when I saw them in the water only seeing the fins sticking out. But after realizing that there are no sharks here I quickly fell in love with their presence.
After the initial excitement, I got hit by reality and was facing head on a huge wave. Hoping it wouldn’t break before I could paddle over it. We went far out onto the ocean trying to escape the danger of the waves.
Looking into the water I saw all of a sudden lots of jellyfish. Big ones. Live ones. I can’t remember last seeing them. Obviously, you sometimes see dead ones being swept onto land.
But these were alive. And just as I was looking at one huge jellyfish I heard a big splash just behind me and almost fell off the board. What a freight I got. A seal just jumped in the air and landed right next to me.
It seems to be the day of all the sea life appearing. I’m loving it. | https://medium.com/snap-shots/between-the-dunes-and-the-ocean-41d9231e2b5f | ['Anne Bonfert'] | 2020-12-18 03:31:27.876000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Lifestyle', 'Photography', 'Africa', 'Outdoors'] |
Keep the Big Winners Coming! | Mahmoud at Jackpocket HQ taking a picture with the big check & collecting his $59,401 winning ticket!
Second winner of $50K or more in the past week wins $59,401 on free Take 5 ticket, setting the new Jackpocket prize record!
Big time winners keep rolling in! One week after giving out our first $50K prize, the record was broken again on Monday. A huge congrats go out to Mahmoud for winning the Take 5 grand prize earlier this week, collecting $59,401! Mahmoud won the Take 5 grand prize on a free play, the $59,401 prize now holds the new record for the biggest winner in Jackpocket history!
We had the pleasure to meet Mahmoud when he came to Jackpocket HQ and collected his winning ticket. Mahmoud first found out that he won when he received the winners ticket email Monday.
“I’m Very Happy and Excited” — Mahmoud on his recent winning ticket.
When asked how he would use the winnings, Mahmoud explained that he would use it on treatment for his mother, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. The entire Jackpocket Team would like to send our thoughts and best wishes to Mahmoud and his family, and hope for a healthy and full recovery.
Originally from Egypt, Mahmoud moved to the U.S. roughly a year ago to help his brother operate a Halal food truck in the community surrounding Queens Community College. Mahmoud first downloaded Jackpocket in August because he started working more hours and didn’t have time to keep making the trip to various bodegas. Now he enjoys playing his favorite NY lotteries conveniently right from his phone!
It’s certainly been an exciting past week for the Jackpocket Team with our two biggest winners in company history, combining for a total of $109K in winnings! Congrats to all of the recent winners, we hope to continue seeing even more down the road!
Read more about all our big winners and more by visiting our previous posts on the Jackpocket blog.
Note: Jackpocket is not currently live in New York, but we’re working with the New York Lottery to get up and running soon! | https://medium.com/jackpocket/keep-the-big-winners-coming-7451fddd53d1 | [] | 2019-09-23 19:44:56.388000+00:00 | ['Lottery', 'Bitcoin'] |
How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist | Estimated reading time: 15 minutes.
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.” — Unknown.
I’m an expert on how technology hijacks our psychological vulnerabilities. That’s why I spent the last three years as a Design Ethicist at Google caring about how to design things in a way that defends a billion people’s minds from getting hijacked.
When using technology, we often focus optimistically on all the things it does for us. But I want to show you where it might do the opposite.
Where does technology exploit our minds’ weaknesses?
I learned to think this way when I was a magician. Magicians start by looking for blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people’s perception, so they can influence what people do without them even realizing it. Once you know how to push people’s buttons, you can play them like a piano.
That’s me performing sleight of hand magic at my mother’s birthday party
And this is exactly what product designers do to your mind. They play your psychological vulnerabilities (consciously and unconsciously) against you in the race to grab your attention.
I want to show you how they do it.
Hijack #1: If You Control the Menu, You Control the Choices
Western Culture is built around ideals of individual choice and freedom. Millions of us fiercely defend our right to make “free” choices, while we ignore how those choices are manipulated upstream by menus we didn’t choose in the first place.
This is exactly what magicians do. They give people the illusion of free choice while architecting the menu so that they win, no matter what you choose. I can’t emphasize enough how deep this insight is.
When people are given a menu of choices, they rarely ask:
“what’s not on the menu?”
“why am I being given these options and not others?”
“do I know the menu provider’s goals?”
“is this menu empowering for my original need, or are the choices actually a distraction?” (e.g. an overwhelmingly array of toothpastes)
How empowering is this menu of choices for the need, “I ran out of toothpaste”?
For example, imagine you’re out with friends on a Tuesday night and want to keep the conversation going. You open Yelp to find nearby recommendations and see a list of bars. The group turns into a huddle of faces staring down at their phones comparing bars. They scrutinize the photos of each, comparing cocktail drinks. Is this menu still relevant to the original desire of the group?
It’s not that bars aren’t a good choice, it’s that Yelp substituted the group’s original question (“where can we go to keep talking?”) with a different question (“what’s a bar with good photos of cocktails?”) all by shaping the menu.
Moreover, the group falls for the illusion that Yelp’s menu represents a complete set of choices for where to go. While looking down at their phones, they don’t see the park across the street with a band playing live music. They miss the pop-up gallery on the other side of the street serving crepes and coffee. Neither of those show up on Yelp’s menu.
Yelp subtly reframes the group’s need “where can we go to keep talking?” in terms of photos of cocktails served.
The more choices technology gives us in nearly every domain of our lives (information, events, places to go, friends, dating, jobs) — the more we assume that our phone is always the most empowering and useful menu to pick from. Is it?
The “most empowering” menu is different than the menu that has the most choices. But when we blindly surrender to the menus we’re given, it’s easy to lose track of the difference:
“Who’s free tonight to hang out?” becomes a menu of most recent people who texted us (who we could ping).
“What’s happening in the world?” becomes a menu of news feed stories.
“Who’s single to go on a date?” becomes a menu of faces to swipe on Tinder (instead of local events with friends, or urban adventures nearby).
“I have to respond to this email.” becomes a menu of keys to type a response (instead of empowering ways to communicate with a person).
All user interfaces are menus. What if your email client gave you empowering choices of ways to respond, instead of “what message do you want to type back?” (Design by Tristan Harris)
When we wake up in the morning and turn our phone over to see a list of notifications — it frames the experience of “waking up in the morning” around a menu of “all the things I’ve missed since yesterday.” (for more examples, see Joe Edelman’s Empowering Design talk)
A list of notifications when we wake up in the morning — how empowering is this menu of choices when we wake up? Does it reflect what we care about? (from Joe Edelman’s Empowering Design Talk)
By shaping the menus we pick from, technology hijacks the way we perceive our choices and replaces them with new ones. But the closer we pay attention to the options we’re given, the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs.
Hijack #2: Put a Slot Machine In a Billion Pockets
If you’re an app, how do you keep people hooked? Turn yourself into a slot machine.
The average person checks their phone 150 times a day. Why do we do this? Are we making 150 conscious choices?
How often do you check your email per day?
One major reason why is the #1 psychological ingredient in slot machines: intermittent variable rewards.
If you want to maximize addictiveness, all tech designers need to do is link a user’s action (like pulling a lever) with a variable reward. You pull a lever and immediately receive either an enticing reward (a match, a prize!) or nothing. Addictiveness is maximized when the rate of reward is most variable.
Does this effect really work on people? Yes. Slot machines make more money in the United States than baseball, movies, and theme parks combined. Relative to other kinds of gambling, people get ‘problematically involved’ with slot machines 3–4x faster according to NYU professor Natasha Dow Schull, author of Addiction by Design.
Image courtesy of Jopwell
But here’s the unfortunate truth — several billion people have a slot machine their pocket:
When we pull our phone out of our pocket, we’re playing a slot machine to see what notifications we got.
When we pull to refresh our email, we’re playing a slot machine to see what new email we got.
When we swipe down our finger to scroll the Instagram feed, we’re playing a slot machine to see what photo comes next.
When we swipe faces left/right on dating apps like Tinder, we’re playing a slot machine to see if we got a match.
When we tap the # of red notifications, we’re playing a slot machine to what’s underneath.
Apps and websites sprinkle intermittent variable rewards all over their products because it’s good for business.
But in other cases, slot machines emerge by accident. For example, there is no malicious corporation behind all of email who consciously chose to make it a slot machine. No one profits when millions check their email and nothing’s there. Neither did Apple and Google’s designers want phones to work like slot machines. It emerged by accident.
But now companies like Apple and Google have a responsibility to reduce these effects by converting intermittent variable rewards into less addictive, more predictable ones with better design. For example, they could empower people to set predictable times during the day or week for when they want to check “slot machine” apps, and correspondingly adjust when new messages are delivered to align with those times.
Hijack #3: Fear of Missing Something Important (FOMSI)
Another way apps and websites hijack people’s minds is by inducing a “1% chance you could be missing something important.”
If I convince you that I’m a channel for important information, messages, friendships, or potential sexual opportunities — it will be hard for you to turn me off, unsubscribe, or remove your account — because (aha, I win) you might miss something important:
This keeps us subscribed to newsletters even after they haven’t delivered recent benefits (“what if I miss a future announcement?”)
This keeps us “friended” to people with whom we haven’t spoke in ages (“what if I miss something important from them?”)
This keeps us swiping faces on dating apps, even when we haven’t even met up with anyone in a while (“what if I miss that one hot match who likes me?”)
This keeps us using social media (“what if I miss that important news story or fall behind what my friends are talking about?”)
But if we zoom into that fear, we’ll discover that it’s unbounded: we’ll always miss something important at any point when we stop using something.
There are magic moments on Facebook we’ll miss by not using it for the 6th hour (e.g. an old friend who’s visiting town right now).
There are magic moments we’ll miss on Tinder (e.g. our dream romantic partner) by not swiping our 700th match.
There are emergency phone calls we’ll miss if we’re not connected 24/7.
But living moment to moment with the fear of missing something isn’t how we’re built to live.
And it’s amazing how quickly, once we let go of that fear, we wake up from the illusion. When we unplug for more than a day, unsubscribe from those notifications, or go to Camp Grounded — the concerns we thought we’d have don’t actually happen.
We don’t miss what we don’t see.
The thought, “what if I miss something important?” is generated in advance of unplugging, unsubscribing, or turning off — not after. Imagine if tech companies recognized that, and helped us proactively tune our relationships with friends and businesses in terms of what we define as “time well spent” for our lives, instead of in terms of what we might miss.
Hijack #4: Social Approval
Easily one of the most persuasive things a human being can receive.
We’re all vulnerable to social approval. The need to belong, to be approved or appreciated by our peers is among the highest human motivations. But now our social approval is in the hands of tech companies.
When I get tagged by my friend Marc, I imagine him making a conscious choice to tag me. But I don’t see how a company like Facebook orchestrated his doing that in the first place.
Facebook, Instagram or SnapChat can manipulate how often people get tagged in photos by automatically suggesting all the faces people should tag (e.g. by showing a box with a 1-click confirmation, “Tag Tristan in this photo?”).
So when Marc tags me, he’s actually responding to Facebook’s suggestion, not making an independent choice. But through design choices like this, Facebook controls the multiplier for how often millions of people experience their social approval on the line.
Facebook uses automatic suggestions like this to get people to tag more people, creating more social externalities and interruptions.
The same happens when we change our main profile photo — Facebook knows that’s a moment when we’re vulnerable to social approval: “what do my friends think of my new pic?” Facebook can rank this higher in the news feed, so it sticks around for longer and more friends will like or comment on it. Each time they like or comment on it, we’ll get pulled right back.
Everyone innately responds to social approval, but some demographics (teenagers) are more vulnerable to it than others. That’s why it’s so important to recognize how powerful designers are when they exploit this vulnerability.
Hijack #5: Social Reciprocity (Tit-for-tat)
You do me a favor — I owe you one next time.
You say, “thank you”— I have to say “you’re welcome.”
You send me an email— it’s rude not to get back to you.
You follow me — it’s rude not to follow you back. (especially for teenagers)
We are vulnerable to needing to reciprocate others’ gestures. But as with Social Approval, tech companies now manipulate how often we experience it.
In some cases, it’s by accident. Email, texting and messaging apps are social reciprocity factories. But in other cases, companies exploit this vulnerability on purpose.
LinkedIn is the most obvious offender. LinkedIn wants as many people creating social obligations for each other as possible, because each time they reciprocate (by accepting a connection, responding to a message, or endorsing someone back for a skill) they have to come back to linkedin.com where they can get people to spend more time.
Like Facebook, LinkedIn exploits an asymmetry in perception. When you receive an invitation from someone to connect, you imagine that person making a conscious choice to invite you, when in reality, they likely unconsciously responded to LinkedIn’s list of suggested contacts. In other words, LinkedIn turns your unconscious impulses (to “add” a person) into new social obligations that millions of people feel obligated to repay. All while they profit from the time people spend doing it.
Imagine millions of people getting interrupted like this throughout their day, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, reciprocating each other — all designed by companies who profit from it.
Welcome to social media.
After accepting an endorsement, LinkedIn takes advantage of your bias to reciprocate by offering *four* additional people for you to endorse in return.
Imagine if technology companies had a responsibility to minimize social reciprocity. Or if there was an independent organization that represented the public’s interests — an industry consortium or an FDA for tech — that monitored when technology companies abused these biases?
Hijack #6: Bottomless bowls, Infinite Feeds, and Autoplay
YouTube autoplays the next video after a countdown
Another way to hijack people is to keep them consuming things, even when they aren’t hungry anymore.
How? Easy. Take an experience that was bounded and finite, and turn it into a bottomless flow that keeps going.
Cornell professor Brian Wansink demonstrated this in his study showing you can trick people into keep eating soup by giving them a bottomless bowl that automatically refills as they eat. With bottomless bowls, people eat 73% more calories than those with normal bowls and underestimate how many calories they ate by 140 calories.
Tech companies exploit the same principle. News feeds are purposely designed to auto-refill with reasons to keep you scrolling, and purposely eliminate any reason for you to pause, reconsider or leave.
It’s also why video and social media sites like Netflix, YouTube or Facebook autoplay the next video after a countdown instead of waiting for you to make a conscious choice (in case you won’t). A huge portion of traffic on these websites is driven by autoplaying the next thing.
Facebook autoplays the next video after a countdown
Tech companies often claim that “we’re just making it easier for users to see the video they want to watch” when they are actually serving their business interests. And you can’t blame them, because increasing “time spent” is the currency they compete for.
Instead, imagine if technology companies empowered you to consciously bound your experience to align with what would be “time well spent” for you. Not just bounding the quantity of time you spend, but the qualities of what would be “time well spent.”
Hijack #7: Instant Interruption vs. “Respectful” Delivery
Companies know that messages that interrupt people immediately are more persuasive at getting people to respond than messages delivered asynchronously (like email or any deferred inbox).
Given the choice, Facebook Messenger (or WhatsApp, WeChat or SnapChat for that matter) would prefer to design their messaging system to interrupt recipients immediately (and show a chat box) instead of helping users respect each other’s attention.
In other words, interruption is good for business.
It’s also in their interest to heighten the feeling of urgency and social reciprocity. For example, Facebook automatically tells the sender when you “saw” their message, instead of letting you avoid disclosing whether you read it (“now that you know I’ve seen the message, I feel even more obligated to respond.”)
By contrast, Apple more respectfully lets users toggle “Read Receipts” on or off.
The problem is, maximizing interruptions in the name of business creates a tragedy of the commons, ruining global attention spans and causing billions of unnecessary interruptions each day. This is a huge problem we need to fix with shared design standards (potentially, as part of Time Well Spent).
Hijack #8: Bundling Your Reasons with Their Reasons
Another way apps hijack you is by taking your reasons for visiting the app (to perform a task) and make them inseparable from the app’s business reasons (maximizing how much we consume once we’re there).
For example, in the physical world of grocery stores, the #1 and #2 most popular reasons to visit are pharmacy refills and buying milk. But grocery stores want to maximize how much people buy, so they put the pharmacy and the milk at the back of the store.
In other words, they make the thing customers want (milk, pharmacy) inseparable from what the business wants. If stores were truly organized to support people, they would put the most popular items in the front.
Tech companies design their websites the same way. For example, when you you want to look up a Facebook event happening tonight (your reason) the Facebook app doesn’t allow you to access it without first landing on the news feed (their reasons), and that’s on purpose. Facebook wants to convert every reason you have for using Facebook, into their reason which is to maximize the time you spend consuming things.
Instead, imagine if …
Twitter gave you a separate way to post a tweet than having to see their news feed.
Facebook gave a separate way to look up Facebook Events going on tonight, without being forced to use their news feed.
Facebook gave you a separate way to use Facebook Connect as a passport for creating new accounts on 3rd party apps and websites, without being forced to install Facebook’s entire app, news feed and notifications.
In a Time Well Spent world, there is always a direct way to get what you want separately from what businesses want. Imagine a digital “bill of rights” outlining design standards that forced the products used by billions of people to let them navigate directly to what they want without needing to go through intentionally placed distractions.
Imagine if web browsers empowered you to navigate directly to what you want — especially for sites that intentionally detour you toward their reasons.
Hijack #9: Inconvenient Choices
We’re told that it’s enough for businesses to “make choices available.”
“If you don’t like it you can always use a different product.”
“If you don’t like it, you can always unsubscribe.”
“If you’re addicted to our app, you can always uninstall it from your phone.”
Businesses naturally want to make the choices they want you to make easier, and the choices they don’t want you to make harder. Magicians do the same thing. You make it easier for a spectator to pick the thing you want them to pick, and harder to pick the thing you don’t.
For example, NYTimes.com lets you “make a free choice” to cancel your digital subscription. But instead of just doing it when you hit “Cancel Subscription,” they send you an email with information on how to cancel your account by calling a phone number that’s only open at certain times.
NYTimes claims it’s giving a free choice to cancel your account
Instead of viewing the world in terms of availability of choices, we should view the world in terms of friction required to enact choices. Imagine a world where choices were labeled with how difficult they were to fulfill (like coefficients of friction) and there was an independent entity — an industry consortium or non-profit — that labeled these difficulties and set standards for how easy navigation should be.
Hijack #10: Forecasting Errors, “Foot in the Door” strategies
Facebook promises an easy choice to “See Photo.” Would we still click if it gave the true price tag?
Lastly, apps can exploit people’s inability to forecast the consequences of a click.
People don’t intuitively forecast the true cost of a click when it’s presented to them. Sales people use “foot in the door” techniques by asking for a small innocuous request to begin with (“just one click to see which tweet got retweeted”) and escalate from there (“why don’t you stay awhile?”). Virtually all engagement websites use this trick.
Imagine if web browsers and smartphones, the gateways through which people make these choices, were truly watching out for people and helped them forecast the consequences of clicks (based on real data about what benefits and costs it actually had?).
That’s why I add “Estimated reading time” to the top of my posts. When you put the “true cost” of a choice in front of people, you’re treating your users or audience with dignity and respect. In a Time Well Spent internet, choices could be framed in terms of projected cost and benefit, so people were empowered to make informed choices by default, not by doing extra work.
TripAdvisor uses a “foot in the door” technique by asking for a single click review (“How many stars?”) while hiding the three page survey of questions behind the click.
Summary And How We Can Fix This
Are you upset that technology hijacks your agency? I am too. I’ve listed a few techniques but there are literally thousands. Imagine whole bookshelves, seminars, workshops and trainings that teach aspiring tech entrepreneurs techniques like these. Imagine hundreds of engineers whose job every day is to invent new ways to keep you hooked.
The ultimate freedom is a free mind, and we need technology that’s on our team to help us live, feel, think and act freely.
We need our smartphones, notifications screens and web browsers to be exoskeletons for our minds and interpersonal relationships that put our values, not our impulses, first. People’s time is valuable. And we should protect it with the same rigor as privacy and other digital rights.
Tristan Harris was a Design Ethicist at Google until 2016 where he studied how technology restructures two billion people’s attention, wellbeing and behavior. For more resources on Time Well Spent and the Center for Humane Technology, see http://humanetech.com.
UPDATE: The first version of this post lacked acknowledgements to those who inspired my thinking over many years including Joe Edelman, Aza Raskin, Raph D’Amico, Shaun Martin, Jonathan Harris and Damon Horowitz.
My thinking on menus and choicemaking are deeply rooted in Joe Edelman’s work on Human Values and Choicemaking. | https://medium.com/thrive-global/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3 | ['Tristan Harris'] | 2019-10-16 01:30:35.132000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Startup', 'Time Well Spent', 'Psychology', 'Tech'] |
Is it at all possible to consider a trade relationship with them that can allow them to determine… | Is it at all possible to consider a trade relationship with Afghanistan that can allow them to determine their own path to economic sovereignty?
We will allow the Purdue company family to get rich off pharmaceutical opiates here in North America, but somehow Afghanistan's poppy business is illegal.
That makes no sense.
Address their poverty, and the extremism usually follows. This is what the proselytizing mosques there have known for years: feed them and they will follow you. We exacerbated their poverty when we dumped them after using them against the Soviets. We left them with a decimated nation full of bombed infrastructure and broken promises.
We MADE bin Laden.
So where are we now? Aside from always being willing to provide more bombs, more guns, and more soldiers, where are the schools we promised them? The hospitals? The roads? The foreign investment?
I hope that's our next chapter. After all our broken promises and generations of rubbing our wealth in their faces while they watch their children starve, I really hope that helping them rebuild is the next chapter. | https://medium.com/@princesscarrie/is-it-at-all-possible-to-consider-a-trade-relationship-with-them-that-can-allow-them-to-determine-4787d17b7473 | ['Princess Carrie Graham'] | 2021-04-25 06:38:51.796000+00:00 | ['Afghanistan', 'Foreign Policy', 'Biden Policies', 'Economics', 'Politics'] |
Models and complexities of achieving sustainable development | A paper submitted in reference to “The Introduction to sustainable development” course (Masters’ of Sustainable Development, Class of 2019 ) at Uppsala University, Uppsala-Sweden. I have added more information to broaden the scope of the article.
Introduction
Sustainability as a concept is argued to be too vague to have a universally accepted definition; leading to exploitation and “greenwashing”, sounding so good, it can have too many shallow definitions and due to the absence of a standard theoretical framework can be interpreted to mean anything. (Caradonna, 2014, p.7). Sustainable development as a concept being notorious and elusive to define with at least 80 definitions which both compete and contradict. (Williams and Millington, 2004).
The concept was given a name in the early 18th century as “Nachhaltigkeit” describing the practice of harvesting timber. The world was not in a state of “perfection” back in that era as an ecological problem existed. As the world developed into the era of industrialization, plastic, high pollution rate from fossil fuels, nuclear waste, synthetic chemicals all increased the impact of man on the environment and resulted in environmental degradation. There was awareness about forest exploitation with surviving documents showing the roots of sustainability stretching back to the pre-industrialized world. Present-day “sustainists” would argue that we are 250 years into an unsustainable living but the argument of what is determined as unstainable or sustainable still stands. A great part of the world’s socio-economic sector still embraces industrialization and capitalism, a society that thrives on mechanization and the use of fossil fuels. (Caradona, 2014, p 34)
From the era of pre-industrialized societies, era of colonial trade (consumer revolution) and consumption of coffee, tobacco, sugar rooted in slavery to the era where humans were thought to hold exalted place in the natural order to this present era, it is clear that the sustainability movement of the present day is rooted in early pioneers of ecological thinking who were able to connect the three pillars of modern sustainability human society, (albeit in an unrefined way) creating a foundation of what is today called “sustainable development”.
Sustainability; A definition
The wildly accepted definition given in the book by Brundtland commission “Our Common Future” also known as The Brundtland report published in 1987 state sustainable development as;
“The development that meets the needs of the present without comprising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs”.
Wackernagel and Rees in 1996 argued that looseness of the concept has enabled the phrase “sustainable development” to become a “fashionable” word for politicians and business leaders to justify policies and large-scale capitalism. However, recent definitions of sustainable developments lay emphasis on the interconnectivity of the society, the economy and the need for humans to live in harmony with the environment.
Understanding Sustainability
Haughton (1999) outlined five equity principles on which sustainable development needs to be based, regardless of the classification as social, economic, environmental or a mix of the three. Basing sustainable development on principles gives it clarity, giving room for similar questions to be asked about policies. It is also crucial in linking human equity to the environment, challenge meaningless interpretations and provide a basis for evaluations.
1. Futurity — Inter-generational equity
2. Social Justice — intra-generational equity
3. Trans-frontier responsibility — Geographical equity
4. Procedural equity — people treated fairly and openly
5. Inter-species equity — Importance of biodiversity.
The Venn Diagram model (The Three E’s)
The recent commonly used sustainability model is known as the “tripartite Venn diagram” illustrates the interconnectedness of the “there Es”; environment, economy and equity (social equality) (see Figure 1). The 2005 United Nations endorsed model which is widely used in discussions centered on sustainable development has a fourth “E” education added sometimes to demonstrate the need to educate in establishing a sustainable society.
This model illustrated by equal-sized rings in a symmetrical interconnection viewing the society (equity), the environment and the economy as separate spheres which are interconnected. It approaches and tackles the issues of sustainable development in a compartmentalized manner, distracting from the connections between the three sectors, leading to assumptions can trade-offs can easily be made. (Giddings et al, 2002). Weak sustainability favors this model giving priority to human-centered discourse (anthropocentric), justifying the approach that natural and manufactured capital can be interchanged with technology (Hopewood el al, 2005).
The Nested model
A more recent model which further develops the concept of the tripartite Venn diagram as a series of circles, in which the environment is seen as the foundation for sustainability, with the economy and the society is dependent on the environment. (See Figure 2). Sustainability economists Peter Victor and Herman Daly argue that the environment should take priority in the sustainability model as society and the economy could not exist without the environment. “Nearly all human actions have an impact on the environment and human life itself depends on the environment. Art, spiritual beliefs and technology draw on the environment. Waste which can also be described as goods and services end up in the environment” (Giddings et al, 2002). The ‘nested’ model rather than the three E model encourages a more conceptual outlook focused on integration. The economy being placed at the center does not mean it should be a hub around other sectors revolve but it is seen as a subset of the others and dependent on them. While human and society depend on the environment, the environment can exist without society. (Lovelock, 1988).
The nested model has its limitations as the boundaries between each sector is not neat rather it is fuzzy, there is a constant flow between human activities, materials, and energy that breaks down boundaries. (Giddings et al, 2002). The Three sectors being considered as if there is only one type of environment or one economy and one society strengthens the controversy around this model. There are multitudes of environments (Antarctica, European forest, the Sahara and Mediterranean), societies and economies at different spatial scales. This model undermines the constant change in the world giving credence to priorities that are believed to have existed and will continue to exist.
Achieving Sustainable Development
Hopewood et al (2005) suggested a mapping methodology based on combining environmental and economic issues to help understand sustainable development. Overlaid on the mapping methodology are three broad views on the nature of changes, which they believe was required in political and economic structures as well as human-environment relationships to achieve sustainable development.
Achieving sustainable development within the present structures (maintaining the status quo). The argument that business drives sustainability as increased information and changing values, improved management skills and new technology are the best means of achieving sustainable development is reflected in many government policies and monopolized business decisions(discourages competition) majorly in developing countries like Nigeria where the political systems are driven by supporters of the status quo, keeping power, resources recycled among the elite and keeps the global index score low with a huge percentage of the population battling multidimensional poverty and making achieving the sustainable development an impossible task by the 2030 target. Those within the corridors of power decide if economic growth should receive more attention than the environment, climate change or equity. Achieving sustainable development through reforms as the mounting problems faced by the world today are rooted in the current economic and power structures of the society but do not consider social system collapse. They recognize the government as playing a key role, accepting dialogue and shift in policies as goals can be achieved over a period within the existing socioeconomic structures. In this group are academics and NGO. The challenge with this methodology is the issues of many NGOs and academia shifting the “goal post” when faced with the politics of funding as regards research and execution of local projects. This is no longer a question of ethics in convincing the government to redesign policies focused on the needs of the society, but the dialogue is always in favor of those with power and influence. Achieving sustainability through a radical transformation. Reform is never enough as radical change is key to altering the human relationship with the environment which is at the core of the issues in the present society. Environmentalist and climate activists use this approach. The challenge with this methodology would be the case of morality. The fact that the morality of any proposed radical transformation should be based on what is right or wrong. Who defines what is right and what is wrong? Who determines if a habit or a lifestyle is sustainable or unsustainable? For a country like Nigeria, how do you convince someone that eating meat is unsustainable when your argument on eating meat is partly based on animal cruelty, industrialized meat packaging as common with the western countries as against the way meat is sourced for food in Nigeria? Or how do you make a solid case for the spotted owl to be protected according to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) if it will cost human jobs in the timber industry, considering that the argument for human basic needs will receive more support? (DesJardin, 2013)
A more structured view on achieving sustainable development is introduced by Sachs et al (2018). Stating that complementary actions are required by stakeholders with a shared understanding on how the 17 SDGs can be operated, introducing the 6 SDG transformations, drawing on an earlier work by “The World in 2050 initiative”. The transformations organize the 17 SDGs as modular building blocks, simplifying interlinkages between the SDGs and interventions.
Transformation 1; Education, gender and inequality Transformation 2; Health, well-being, and demography Transformation 3; Energy decarbonization and sustainable industry Transformation 4; Sustainable food land, land, water and oceans Transformation 5; Sustainable cities and communities Transformation 6; Digital revolution for sustainable development
These six transformations consider work on global, regional and national scales with adaptability in the context of different countries at levels such as development, natural resource base, ecosystem challenges and structures of governance requiring deliberate long-term structural changes in different sectors of social, environmental and economic spheres to achieve development.
Leaving no one behind
All definition of the concept of sustainable development agrees on the need for balance and a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of the environment, the economy, and society.
The controversies surrounding the concept of sustainable development is what makes it interesting, open to more discourse regardless of your stand on sustainability.
The undeniable effects of global warming (oceanic current shifts, worldwide drought, flooding), combustion from fossil fuel being the largest source of health damaging pollutants and a major source of greenhouse gas emissions requires we understand our limits and plan wisely for the future. (Kaygusuz, 2007). Every country must take full responsibility for sustainable development to be achieved, there is very little foreign aid can achieve if the underlining problem of poverty, hunger, corruption, infrastructure is not addressed. The idea of leaving no one behind may just be another case of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
References | https://medium.com/@chide360/models-and-complexities-of-achieving-sustainable-development-b6ac45dbd39 | [] | 2020-01-03 12:24:44.420000+00:00 | ['Sdgs', 'Sustainable Development', 'Complexities'] |
Discovering Issues Visually in your Serverless Architecture with Thundra | I was in Serverless Days Boston last week and would like to give a big thanks to the organization team for this great day! James Beswick spoke about their story of how they started to get rid of servers. He stated that either you start writing serverless with a lift and shift of existing architecture, or with a greenfield project, you start with one giant function which does everything. Most probably, you will end up building functions that will get triggered by the API Gateway and write their output to DynamoDB.
After you step into the land of Serverless, you will continue optimizing your architecture to reduce single point of failure problems, to decrease the time spent on a transaction, to increase the readability of your code and/or for many other reasons. You will start to split your architecture to more tiny pieces. In the end, you will have a complex serverless architecture with a handful of functions, interacting with different resources to get a job done. You may end up with an architecture like this:
When you reach that level with your architecture, it is hard to detect an error or performance bottleneck by only looking into a single function. You will need to have the visual representation of your architecture, not to hang onto the wall, but to understand the root cause of an error or a performance bottleneck. Such a representation should give you a general idea about what part of the architecture started to behave unexpectedly. Today, we’re proud to announce our support to enable serverless developers to detect the errors/performance problems visually with our architecture view.
Discovering errors at a glance
When you first land on the “Architecture” page, you will see your serverless architecture presented visually and grouped with respect to their projects. In order to see a more meaningful architecture, we recommend you group the functions that are working together under one project.
Thundra’s new architecture view enables you to detect the errors in your system with a glance. When you see the edge between your Lambda function and a resource green, it indicates a healthy interaction, and you will be relieved to see it. However, if you see yellow, orange or red edges, it indicates a deterioration of the interaction respectively. Thanks to the visual aid of the interactions you can now focus on the problematic areas a lot faster. In the following architecture view, we can clearly see problematic interactions of the Redis service with the `user-get-lambda-java-staging` and `user-delete-lambda-java-staging` functions.
Symptom detected, what’s the diagnosis?
After you see a problematic situation, it is very natural that you need to look closer and understand why the errors occur. When you click on an edge in the architecture view, you will be able to see a detailed view on the right of the screen. It will give you a quick overview of how the interaction between functions is performing. Moreover, you can see in the time series charts how many times the function and the resource interacted and how the duration of the interactions is changing. You can also see the individual invocations of the function contained within the selected interaction. Using that, you can jump into the trace charts of that invocation and search for the reasons why an interaction incurred or why the duration jumped haphazardly. In the image below, you can see that there was a problem around 5:30 with the interaction between our lambda function and the connected S3 bucket. In spite of this, the interaction is a lot healthier in the last hour compared to the preceding hour.
In the image below, you can see the individual invocations that occurred between the Lambda function and the S3 bucket. Clicking on a listed invocation in the table will open the invocation details of the invocation, and you will be able to see the trace chart and the logs. Voila! With two clicks, you discovered an error in your system.
Tracking the changes with your architecture
Serverless is like lego and, we love to play with it to have higher performing systems. You sometimes try something new with your applications or introduce some new component to improve the performance. Our architecture view has a time slider to enable you to detect the changes in your serverless architecture over time.
You can play with the time slider to see the effect of a change you make in your serverless architecture. The following images illustrate how the architecture changed over time. As you can see, a new Lambda function was added to the architecture that gets triggered by the S3 bucket. We see that the health of the new architecture is still good, as we can click on the edge and get detailed information.
Architecture before change
Architecture after change
Settings with the architecture view
As I mentioned before, edges between functions and resources are colored according to the health. We enable you also to see some of the basic information of the architecture. If you enable the “Show Metrics” switch in the application, you will be able to see how many times your function interacted with the resource and what was the average duration with that function took in execution with the resource.
We loved the new AWS icons! However, our interviews with customers showed us that the majority of people are still having problems getting used to them. For this reason, we illustrate the architectural view with the old icons by default but you can always change it to the new logos.
When we first saw the architecture view in our development environment for our own architecture, we wanted to frame it somewhere. We believe that you may want to do so too, or at least put your architecture into some design document. For this reason, we let you download your architecture view as png.
What do you need to do to have the architecture view?
We are able to present the architecture view for Java, Node.js, and Python for now. In order to have the architecture view with your functions, you need to increase your agent versions as follows:
For Node.js, the agent library version is `2.2.1` or higher. The layer version needs to be `7` or higher.
For Python, the agent library version is `2.2.5` or higher. The layer version needs to be `6` or higher.
For Java, the agent library version is `2.1.7` or higher. The layer version needs to be `7` or higher.
What’s coming next?
With this feature addition, we opened up a new page in Thundra. Be ensured that we will be improving our architecture view in the future. Firstly, the nodes in the architecture will be clickable to show more details about the nodes themselves. For example, you will be able to see the most problematic queries when you click on a ‘PostgreSQL’ node. Another view will be available when you click on an external service and so on. Secondly, you will be able to see the traces on top of invocations in which this interaction occurred. With this, you will be able to trace all the transaction paths with our upcoming distributed tracing feature and see the problematic workflows in your system. There will be some more features to ease the job of discovering problems in your serverless architectures.
You can sign up to our web console and start experimenting. Don’t forget to explore our demo environment — no sign up needed. We are very curious about your comments and feedback. Join our Slack channel or send a tweet or contact us from our website! | https://medium.com/thundra/discovering-issues-visually-in-your-serverless-architecture-with-thundra-a073ccca504b | ['Emrah Şamdan'] | 2019-03-18 10:58:45.685000+00:00 | ['Monitoring', 'Architecture', 'AWS Lambda', 'Visualization', 'Serverless'] |
A Mission to the LGBTQQIP2SAA Planet with IDGAFFWYFSPAJGEYESF | “What are those alphabet soups of acronyms, Dave?
“That is our next mission, my dear. The first acronym refers to fashionable social sexual pretensions.”
“Fashionable sexual social pretensions?”
“Yes, a sub-symptom of cluelessness…”
“Sub-symptom of cluelessness? I have never heard that term from you, Dave…”
“It just came out now, spurred by this situation, I suppose.”
“So another micro-insight to add to your philosophy…”
“Yes, and more work, since now I must gruelingly attempt to describe a specific screwed-up behavior in terms of a main symptom of cluelessness, or combinations of them, or the ‘first-order’ symptoms of cluelessness.”
“First order, Dave? Your brain is in hyper-creative mode this morning! First the alphabet soup acronym, then ‘fashionable social sexual pretensions, then sub-symptoms of cluelessness, then ‘first order’ symptoms of cluelessness…”
“Yes, I just noticed my brain going wild. That is probably a symptom of being bipolar.”
“Have you ever been diagnosed as bipolar?”
“I avoid doctors, so I haven’t been diagnosed as anything, lucky for me.”
“Why do you say ‘lucky for you’, Dave?”
“Because as frivolous and erroneous as such diagnoses can be as they serve Big Pharma, the pharmaceutical industry, or the Pill People for short, they can still negatively impact one’s prospects in life. A woman was wrongly, and fashionably, given the diagnosis of being bipolar (and was promptly and fashionably given a placebo I mean the current fashionable med for it), which was later refuted by other psychiatrists, who vouched for her to no avail.”
“Vouched?”
“Once she had ‘bipolar’ on her medical record, she could not get life insurance or adopt kids or obtain preferred employment. The hospital refused to expunge its conclusion even in the face of the diagnoses of outside psychiatrists.”
“And even when the whole field is fraudulent…”
“Let’s just say ‘soft’…”
“No, Dave. Pharmaceutical companies send attractive, aggressive sales people with gifts and perks out to doctor’s offices with free samples of their latest concoctions, which do not work any better than the first generation of pills decades old, or worse, no better than placebos, which are the most successful drugs in human history.”
“But placebos do not cure anything…”
“Shhhhhh… don’t tell clueless humans that…”
“OK… At any rate, my attempting to systematize specific clueless behaviors, or ‘second-order’ symptoms, by their causes in terms of first-order symptoms of cluelessness sounds like it could become as convoluted as Freud’s attempt at systematizing his world of subconscious motivations.”
“Freud’s system built on its own speculations until it caved in…”
“Sad for Freud, who’s reputation suffered, even though he made many advances in the understanding of behavior and the treatment of psychosomatic conditions. Do you know why he developed the ‘shrink’ method — the classic patient on the couch being asked questions?”
“No. Why?”
“Because one day, when a person suffering from physically-debilitating anxiety came to him to see if he could do anything, Freud began asking questions, which turned into a conversation, and then suddenly the patient stood up and said, ‘Thank, Doc. I’m cured!’ Freud was flabbergasted. It worked a few more times, and Freud realized that he was on to something new, physical illnesses caused by one’s psychological state of mind, or psychosomatically caused illnesses as they are now known, so he pursued it, being a scientist first — he was trained as a neurologist and he wanted to do hard science.”
“But he got carried away with his speculative theoretical system…”
“Yes, unfortunately. Blame it on enthusiasm, and our weakness for dogma — his speculations became law, which hindered progress in the field. William James made fun of his system when he noticed that it was getting out of hand… which my efforts could very well do here. I must make the effort to create a system anyway, if only for the fun of it. It will be fast and loose…”
“So how would ‘fashionable social sexual posturings’ be classified as a sub-symptom, Dave?”
“I would posit that the specific first-order causes would be… hmmm…”
“Vanity?”
“Definitely. Social domination, too.”
“Domination?”
“If something renders one trendy, or gives one oddball glamour, then others will be in awe and bow down and offer genuflection, which is good for the ego of a clueless being, or the machinations of a depraved one.”
“What else do we have to work with?”
“You mean what are all of the ‘first-order’ symptoms of cluelessness that are the causes of less broad, or more specific, or second-order, symptoms of cluelessness?”
“Yes… and you still have a little creative spark left, with ‘second-order symptoms’, which I’ve never heard from you before…”
“Let me rattle the first-order symptoms off, and I will include the recent additions, if I can remember them… and these are all due to being clueless, remember, meaning they will afflict those who have not adopted the Philosophy of Broader Survival as their overarching life-guiding philosophy… so we have Vanity, Vainglory, Envy, Jealousy, Xenophobia, Prejudice, Over-Generalizing, Hate, Crime, War, Injustice, Frivolity, Depravity, the new additions of Vapidity, and Mental Sickness which may be too vague and/or broad and actually includes many of these first-order symptoms, which would render them second-order symptoms and ‘mental sickness’ the first-order symptom… then there are what this philosophy classifies as the Three Mental Pathological Urges — which are now four: Greed, Manipulation, Domination, and their new companion, Extermination; then the personal downer symptoms, such as Existential Anxieties, Social Anxieties, Aimlessness, Pointlessness, Absurdity, then the real downers: A Lack of Self-Worth, Apathy, Depression, Numbness, Self-Harm, and finally just plain Suicide, which is what they all ultimately lead to in their clueless, foolish ends.”
That is a lot to choose from, Dave… and I see that your brain is still in a hyper-creative mode, since you just added ‘downer symptoms’ and ‘real downers’…”
“I guess… so ‘fashionable social sexual pretenses’ would be a sub-symptom of Vanity, and of Blind Imitation…”
“Blind Imitation? There you go again, Mr. Creativity…”
“Funny how things work in reverse sometimes, here by addressing an outside issue and affecting the core system…”
“It is the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning, Dave. You are used to inductive, and this is deductive…”
“so that’s why it feels funny… so to continue, just to finish this exercise, ‘fashionable social sexual pretensions’ would be… what do we have so far… Vanity and Blind Social Imitation…”
“Blind Imitation…”
“It needs the ‘social’ qualifier, since ‘social’ denotes its higher purpose…”
“I think that would be classified under ‘fashion’, Dave, since fashion assumes blind, near-mindless, and definitely vapid, and definitely vain and sometimes cruel, social imitation…”
“Maybe I should just leave it at Herd Mentality, which implies not using one’s mind…”
“Or blind behavioral imitation, which is what is really going on…”
“I should add ‘bad attitudes’…”
“What higher purpose does ‘blind social imitation’ serve?”
“Survival. Even lower animals use blind social imitation, but it saves them, since they cannot ‘think’ to any appreciable degree.”
“Example?”
“The Octopus experiment in cognitive science, studying the intelligence of earth’s lower species.”
“What was that experiment like?”
“A teddy bear was slowly lowered outside of a tank with an octopus in it. It was accompanied by giving the octopus a shock. So this octopus was conditioned to flee (the shock) whenever it saw the teddy bear. In other words, the teddy bear was associated with an impending shock. Then another octopus was introduced, new to the situation. Here comes the teddy bear. The new octopus thinks nothing of it, but when it sees the first octopus flee, it follows suit.”
“So it thought, ‘Hey, if he fled, then maybe I should, too!’”
“If it thought at all. It could be a hard-wired evolutionary response.”
“Being right-handed, no doubt… considering how right-handers imitate one another…”
“Very funny, an octopus being right-handed… unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless right-handers are lower-order beings…”
“But they’ve ruled human history…”
“And look where they’ve gotten it. If left-handers were anything like me, they simply endured the unfortunate situation while trying to figure things out…”
“Enter you…”
“Enter me. What the experimenters learned was that the second octopus learned a lot faster by blind imitation than the first octopus learned by direct painful experience.”
“So blind imitation and herd mentality have survival benefits…”
“Yes.”
“So why do you slam herd mentality and blind imitation in humans, Dave?”
“For two reasons, my love.”
“What are they?”
“First, because they are not needed in advanced societies, where the immediate threats of the animal kingdom do not exist, in which the speed of one’s reaction is critical. That is one theory as to why fish never developed reasoning. Given the murky conditions under the sea, visibility was limited, so when a predator came into view, it was already nearly on top of the fish, so the fish simply did not have time to think. Mindless automatic reaction saves the day. Once they crawled out of the sea, they could see farther, giving them time to contemplete the situation, and their options… I mean, just being able to see to a distant horizon would stimulate the brain to wonder…”
“But such ‘survival’ would also apply to humans when they are around new and strange technologies…”
“True, like running from a sparking, smoking piece of equipment… but what if everyone ran, in blind imitation, from the sparks and smoke?”
“Then… the problem would never be addressed…”
“Correct. A building might burn down, for example.”
“So this is the value of having a left-hander around, who would automatically question the mindless response, see the danger, and fix the problem by throwing the circuit breaker…”
“Yes. The Strategy of Broader Survival’s Population Diversity in action.”
“So that is your second reason for slamming blind imitation and herd mentality?”
“Yes, because I am left-handed, and I naturally do not have those imitative urges, being disgusted with humanity’s overall foolish attitudes and resulting behaviors in the first place…”
“But, given the need for Population Diversity, you should not be making fun of the mindlessness of right-handers, Dave.”
“I would only have them become aware of their automatic tendency toward mindlessness, so they, too, can be Left-Handers as well as Right-Handers. Most people have a little of both, it is just that one side dominates, and now researchers say that there really isn’t a ‘side’ to the brain, that the whole brain is used all of the time, and, when one side suffers debilitation, the other side compensates, so both sides are equally capable of any task.”
“But you would just stand there and question such behavior, investigating the cause, rather than blindly imitating right-handers, so your could say that your brain is left-hand dominant, or right-hemisphere, according to the hemisphere model…”
“Yes, a tendency which, one can easily see, is dangerous, meaning it could be hazardous to me…”
“So that is why, in humanity’s past, they discouraged kids from becoming left-handed, for their own good…”
“I would say so, yes, and part of that ‘good’ is ‘conformity’ to a right-handed world, which would be socially good for the kids, too…”
“And now we have moved from survival to social… but social is a component of survival, major or minor, depending on the situation…”
“Yes, but now you are talking about surviving among an annoying clueless population and not against a harsh and deadly universe, so it is still ultimately suicidal. Imitation is also not so valuable in an advanced society where high specialization is critical, meaning diversification, meaning not copying others, and there are already civilization-level apparatus for individuals to exist semi-independently as they engage in their demanding specializations.”
“Semi-independently?”
“They are not independent of the civilization, where other specialists, such as farmers, take care of their basic needs.”
“Is that why rural areas get a stronger vote in an Electoral College system, since they are critical, but less populated?”
“Yes, to balance out the urban population, whose political wishes may not be beneficial for farmers, whom the urban dwellers depend on.”
“So if the Electoral College did not exist, urban dwellers could vote themselves out of existence…”
“That is what the Founding Fathers concluded. Now you have petty, self-serving urban-pandering politicians who would destroy the system just to win one election by ‘popular vote’, the fools, along with the foolish, tunnel-visioned urban population supporting such destructive short-sightedness.”
“It all seems like a tug-of-war to me, Dave — not just the Electoral College system, but also of existing independently and that of existing socially, and of being dependent on a higher civilization that progresses on ever-more complicated specializations…”
“The philosophy’s ultimate goal is total individualism, which best serves Population Dispersal, an extreme form of individualism that will result in what I refer to as ‘Microcosms’.”
“Microcosms?”
“Where each individual CAN exist fully independently, in a microcosm of an advanced civilization. Fully-independent individuals provide the maximum probability of survival in a harsh and deadly universe by virtue of maximum Population Dispersal. They can be connected electronically to keep up with advances, and physically when reproduction comes around, and they can interact physically at will just to remain sharp at it. I suspect that the struggle for full independent autonomy will be a permanent feature of The Great Struggle…”
“THE GREAT STRUGGLE, AND BEYOND!”
“Thank you, Booming Voice. ‘And beyond’?”
“YES. I JUST WATCHED TOY STORY 12…”
“Oh. Carry on, Booming Voice…”
“HAVE A NICE DAY, MR. AND MRS. DAVE. I AM GOING TO GO PLAY WITH THE KIDS NOW…”
“But the kids are rather serious now, Booming Voice…”
“I put ‘play’ in terms of ‘R&R’, one of the cyclic areas of life as classified on the Pinwheel of Life, and this R&R addresses brain rejuvenation, which they, in their seriousness, understand.”
“Thank you, Booming Voice. Have a nice time with the kids…”
“So, Dave, are you still in hyper-creativity mode?”
“I can feel it waning already, kind of like brain exhaustion… so where were we…”
“Your upcoming mission, where I was questioning the alphabet soup acronyms…”
“Ah, yes. Well, my love, the LGBTQQIP2SAA stands for ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Pansexual, Two-Spirit (2S), Androgynous, and Asexual’. They are the ‘freak’ of new generations.”
“Freak?”
“That was the fashionable social pretense of my formative years. ‘Freak’ arrived as a fashionable replacement for ‘hippie’, which was dying out as a fashionable vapid pretense, which it really never evolved beyond, being largely comprised of mindless imitation.”
“Vapid because they were philosophically clueless?”
“Yes, if you want to get to the core of the problem. The movement was very mentally lightweight. I could not stand any lightweight mindsets, and they could not stand me not being able to stand them, which I could not help..”
“So you were really at odds with all of humanity, not just mindless hippies, since all humans are clueless, to the last, as you say…”
“Yes. They, all of them, the whole human race, were, and still are, clueless… but I’ve learned to be polite and politely indulge their cluelessness, realizing that in trying to enlighten them I would be messing with their biological addictions, in this case to weak mentalities, bad attitudes, and mindless imitation, which, being biological, are addictive, and change VERY slowly.”
“So you’ve learned to have patience…”
“Yes. Anger clearly was not working.”
“Nor sadness?”
“Not nuttin’. Anger, frustration, sadness, exasperation.”
“So you just need to wait for biological change to take its good ol’ time once you ‘plant’ the seed of enlightenment?”
“Yes, and I must empathize with addictions, too, since I’ve noticed such addictive tendencies in myself.”
“So… pretensions… but do not all of those sexual afflictions that the acronym represents — what were they… Lesbianism, Gayness, Bisexuality, Transgenderism, being Queer, being sexually Questioning, being Intersexed, being Pansexual, being Two-Spirit (2S), being Androgynous, and being Asexual, all have genetic causes?”
“Only being androgynous, when one was physically born a hermaphrodite, and not just mentally screwed-up by a clueless society.”
“Hermaphrodite?”
“Having both female and male sex organs, usually female up top and male down below. One is born with that, so that is not a choice influenced by fashion or peer pressure or media or capricious knaves of all sorts…”
“Why do you claim that all of the other sexual conditions are choices, Dave?”
“Observation, my love. Because I have noticed ALL of those other tendencies… IN MYSELF! Now, applying inductive reasoning, I concluded that ALL humans have all of those tendencies, so it now comes down to ‘choice’ — meaning whether you ‘choose’ to go down that social path or not.”
“But hasn’t it been proven that such tendencies are genetic?”
“No! That is bad science coupled with sensationalizing media, or sensationalizing media spin on a paper’s title (the bane of scientists doing good science). Only media puppets fall for such sensationalistic claims. All of the ‘a gene has been found to’ are examples of bad media spin. 99.9% of all of the ‘a gene has been found to’ are sensationalistic media concoctions of speculative papers. Genes, at best, give us behavioral tendencies. Lower animals are slaves to them. That is why genetic engineering works so well in lower animals. They do not know what is going on. In us, such primal behaviors have higher reason to contend with. So in us, the major component of such decisions are derived by free-will as such deliberations (which animals cannot do, remember) are influenced by… drumroll… cluelessness or enlightenment, and you know which one has dominated life, as innocently nascent (meaning uninformed) as it has been, up until recently, that is. Some species, humans for example, no longer have such an excuse, since they are endowed with a brain that can engage in extended reason.”
“Did you ever encounter such a situation yourself, Dave?”
“Yes. The one direst personal situation that always comes to my mind first was when I was in San Francisco, which, as everyone knows, has a large gay culture. It was in a hotel lobby, and there were gay guys there. One looked at me with bright eyes and sexual desire, and, as you know, sexual desire creates beauty in one’s eyes.”
So… this ‘guy’ appeared ‘beautiful’ to you?”
“Yes! I said to myself, ‘Woah! So that is how homosexuality happens!”
“So what did you do?”
“I realized that I had a choice — to go down that path or not. I chose not to. Whenever I encounter it, I politely choose not to go down that path. Now here is where fashion enters the picture, my love…”
“So… if it were fashionable in one’s generation to go down that path, then one will have a higher tendency to go down that path if one wants to be fashionable within one’s generation…”
“Yes, you see how it works now…”
“But you only have yourself as a datum point…”
“No. It hit close to home, no, AT home, in another way — I watched my first daughter go down that path, and I saw what her primary motives were — the mentalities of boys her age sucked, being clueless as we now know, so a female companion was preferred in her situation, that of trying to finish college, and being LBGT was fashionable in her generation. Double whammy. If any genetic predisposition was there, and it is in all of us, remember, the rest was free-will, a conscious choice. She is also near-pathological in her fashion-consciousness in all areas of life, be it clothes or technology or beer or wine or mixed drinks… It is sad and painful to witness.”
“Her shallowness pains you?”
“Yes. She was raised in a clueless environment, remember — I did not turn my attention to philosophy until she had grown up and had moved out on her own, and she, being biological, is subject to addictions, to being fashionable in this case, so I need to be patient and understanding.”
“And indulging…”
“Yes, for whatever that is worth… maybe I’ll tease her and tell her that I am going to get her fashion affliction into the DSM-6 as an official mental illness, and maybe with a fancy Latin name…”
“She knows what the DSM is?”
“She’s almost has her Doctorate in Psychology, so yes.”
“Now about ‘Fashionophilia’?”
“Brilliant! That would make her a ‘fashionophiliac’… haha…”
“She will not appreciate you teasing her, Dave…”
“I know, and worse…”
“Worse?”
“She has many shortcomings in me to choose from and tease in return, and, in her twisted mind courtesy of cluelessness, she would think that that my shortcomings justify her mindless fashion addiction…”
“Your ‘shortcomings’ including not ‘believing’ in complete genetic predisposition?”
“In her mind, yes. She believes in complete genetic predisposition, and denies Free Will.”
“But that may simply be her being her contrarian self…”
“Very likely, yes… she is also a Contrarianophiliac, if a term applies… and there you go, another official mental illness worthy of a new expensive placebo… I mean a hastily-opportunistically developed and then heavily-marketed and pushed (by pharmaceutical companies) and then opportunistically and fashionably-over-prescribed (by family doctors, general practitioners who have no business making life-damaging psychiatric evaluations in seven minute visits other than to receive kick-backs and up-front perks from the drug interests) pill with an impressive, trendy name… I can see it now, ‘Ask your doctor about CONTRAVOX, may cause diarrhea, projectile vomiting, hives, warts, skin lesions, drooling, and tooth loss …”
“Such doctors have a name in the industry for doctors who over-prescribe pills, ‘High Flyers’. They drive the best cars and have the most expensive homes, and, needless to say, they are the most fashionable doctors in a fashion-conscious population where pill-popping is fashionable for some and a competitive bragging sport for others. So what does the other acronym mean, Dave?”
“You mean the ‘IDGAFFWYFSPAJGEYESF’?”
“Yes.”
“It stands for ‘I Don’t Give a Flying F-u-c-k What Your Fashionable Social Pretensions Are, Just Get Enlightened, You Exasperating Suicidal Fool’.”
“Good grief, Dave!”
“Yes, I know. Anger does not work!”
“So you are going to go to this planet with… an angry ATTITUDE!”
“I suppose that is what I am going to do…”
“In hopes that your anger will have a swifter impact so you will not have to suffer frustration, sadness, exasperation, and, worst of all, patience?”
“That is the picture I suppose, yes.”
“Well, Dave, I think you should suffer instead.”
“You do?”
“Yes! Because it is plain to see that anger will not work…”
“But it is worth a try. Otherwise I would… suffer!”
“That is weakness, Dave!”
“So it is, my love, so it is… do you think that the word ‘exhaustion’ applies?”
“Yes, maybe it does…”
“I mean, what primal creature would want to become exhausted in a tooth-and-claw world? It would spell death… which makes using anger a personal survival issue, in this case it is why creatures become angry if you begin to exhaust them, if only their patience…”
“But then you do not live in the wild, Dave, you live among advanced civilizations, so you can afford a little exhaustion and a lot of patience…”
“Yes, but it is exhausting nevertheless, my love…”
to be continued — Dave has not visited the planet yet (as a thought-experiment for the author), and there may be some socializing around the ship to do beforehand, or after, and maybe a visit to the Romper Room, which is quickly turning into a research center, we will ask Ship about that, since the kids are maturing fast, but not too fast, since we would like to explore, as thought experiments, what the kids would be like as they grew up in an enlightened environment… and then there are the unforeseen variables — who knows what will happen (I don’t — I write spontaneously, so these stories progress unexpectedly. I never know what will happen next myself, even with me being the writer)…
“So where to now, Dave?”
“I don’t know, Love. We are the spontaneous creations of our author. Fear not, however, he has many tools to advance stories along, from traditional techniques to original madness. How about we sink into solipsism?”
“What is ‘solipsism’?”
“When you think that the external world is not real.”
“Is it?”
“Stand under that falling piano and get back to me with your findings…”
“Um, no thanks. I will conclude, just on life experience and its contribution to applying foresight, that the external world is real, whether a solipsistic person acknowledges it or not… but…”
“But?”
“But articles like ‘Objective Reality Doesn’t Exist, Quantum Experiment Shows’ do not help fragile minds, and it gives fodder to knaves and capricious smartasses.”
“Did the paper actually make that claim, or is it media spin for attention-grabbing purposes, good for nothing but advertisers?”
“I don’t know… let’s read it… it begins by saying that ‘alternate facts’ (in this case that objective reality does not exist) should not exist in science, since the scientific method is founded on observation, measurement and repeatability.”
“Stop right there. That is where the article makes its first mistake about science.”
“Explain, Dave.”
“Science begins with pure speculation. Then it filters though them and picks those speculations that are worth pursuing. Most speculations not worth pursuing any further than immediately recognized that they are wrong due to the speculator having been uninformed of existing verified knowledge.”
“You mean ‘ignorant’.”
“I was being nice. So the best speculations are from the most informed, usually scientists, and, if the speculation is unusually original, then left-handed scientists…”
“Dave! You are not going to give that a rest, are you!”
“Too much fun, my dear. The next step is to devise clever experiments to test the speculation. If the experimenter loves the speculation, however, then the data interpretation may be biased for it, and this, too, the article is blind to, because science is also made up of data interpretation, which have been the weak links in science, and the primary source of ‘bad science’.”
“So science needs more left-handers to see things differently…”
“Thank you, my dear.”
“So after observation, measurement, and repeatability, one can still draw an erroneous interpretation…”
“Yes. Quantum mechanics itself is a prime example, with ‘quantum leaping’ at the very least.”
“What about ‘superposition’?”
“That is a misunderstanding by the layman, not a bad interpretation. Rather than a literal statement (that an electron is in all positions at once until measured), it is a probability, a mathematical tool of determining where it is likely to be at any one point in space before it is measured. The math returns a Bell Curve. My understanding (and anyone who says that they understand Quantum Mechanics does not really understand Quantum Mechanics, said Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winning physicist) is that when you measure an electron, you alter its speed and trajectory, meaning its speed and direction, so you have no idea of what its speed or direction was. This is from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which says that you cannot know an electron’s speed and position at the same time, since your measurement affects the data. The best that you can do is work from physics math-based models of reality, or atomic reality in this case. Computers have been put to this task with wonderful results. The article makes the layman mistake about superposition, by not understanding it fully.”
“So the article begins with a misunderstanding and runs with it…”
“Yes, much like ‘backwards time travel’ and those who run with that, from physicists muddled by science fiction authors and science fiction authors muddled by muddled physicists, when it is ‘change’, not ‘time’, that you want to ‘go back’ in. The article also says that the paper referred to the micro-world, and the click-bait title should have added ‘only’, meaning only when observing atomic particles, and also the word ‘seeming’, since the ‘alternate reality’ was never implied.”
“So the article’s title is, in fact, misleading, since the paper does not apply to the macro-world, such as falling pianos…”
“Correct. The sensationalist knaves.”
“Dave?”
“Yes, Love?”
“Tell the author that we need more excitement in this story. Where are our obligatory car chases, gun shootings, skin, physical brawls, and complicated love triangles?”
“You mean our story needs more mindless titillation if we are to have any chance of being published by sleazy publishers looking for a sleazy quick buck?”
“That would be a good start…”
“Well, you have just come out of the shower, and you can’t find your robe. How is that for starters?”
“Very good, Dave. Am I beautiful?”
A perfect specimen with glistening, near-translucent flawless skin.”
“What about a love triangle?”
“We have the nano army, which can shape-shift into a voluptuous female or a buff male…”
“What do you define as ‘perfect’, Dave?”
Having the best attributes of all races, other than that, being perfectly average.”
“How can ‘average’ be ‘beautiful’, Dave?”
“Studies have shown that whatever is the most average is the most attractive. Nothing too big or too small, or too wide or too narrow, or too much or too little.”
“So ‘just right’…”
“Or ‘just the mean average’. Well, Author? Any more mindless titillation?”
“You can read any one of a thousand-million formulaic, copycat pulp fiction novels for that. Your story is unique in form and content. Why would I want to destroy that just to conform to mindless publishing mores?”
“For the mindless titillation and the money.”
“OK, OK! There is a space battle going on outside the left view port. Can you see and hear it?”
“Hear it, in a vacuum?”
“Yes. TIE fighters have vacuum-cleaner sounds in a vacuum (a natural for a pun). You have never watched Star Wars?”
“I think that was a poetic touch, and a great pun, vacuum cleaner sounds in a vacuum…”
“And can’t you hear all of the explosions?”
“Through a vacuum, where there is no atmosphere for sound waves to propagate in?”
“Sure. You need to bring along some suspended disbelief if you are going to enjoy such spectacles.”
“What is that, out there?”
“A cop car chasing a robber’s fancy stolen sedan.”
“In interstellar space?”
“In this universe, yes.”
“What is going on down the corridor?”
“A shoot-out. The good guy has effortless dead-aim, The bad guys can’t hit the side of a barn.”
“So the good guy will win, though he is outnumbered seventeen to one…”
“Yes. After he runs out of bullets, he will simply use martial arts to dispatch the remaining villains, dodging bullets as he goes.”
“Great. What kind of mindless titillation haven’t we covered yet…”
“Let’s see, we’ve covered skin, chases, fighting, love triangles, military battles… what else is there, Dave?”
“Screwed-up relationships…”
“But we know that they are symptoms of cluelessness.”
“You could bring back the forty-some-odd Horsemen of the Clueless Apocalypse for a return visit, as they are battled by my former android wife, Android 86, founder and leader of the Android Valkyries…”
“You just did in the mind of the reader, Dave, if only for a brief second, so thank you. They are battling happily on throughout the galaxy as we speak.”
“Any input, my love?”
“Yes, Dave. I think our enlightened relationship is exciting enough. We can do without mindless titillation.”
“So where were we?”
“We should be on our way to the Planet with the Crazy Acronym, in order to carry out the author’s thought experiment of pitting his philosophy against sexual aberrations, with a small group of our kids in tow, and maybe a shipmate or two, whether artificial or biological…”
“Artificial or biological?”
“Don’t start playing with words, Dave. They have perfectly good broad definitions that function just fine as they are, since everyone knows what you mean by them — in this case ‘artificial’ means not spawned by nature, but by the mind and crafts of man, or now any higher being in the galaxy, even though man and higher beings ARE ‘nature’, but then you are simple in need of new applicable words. The existing words serve as a convenient classification system. If you want to fine-tune them, that is, play semantic parlor games like professional philosophers waste each other’s time with, then come up with new words. Don’t go corrupting existing perfectly fine words that already do good jobs and are universally acknowledged.”
“Thank you for putting my capriciousness in its place, my dear. What kids should we bring to the planet?”
“Won’t exposing them to sexually aberrant beings damage the kids, Dave?”
“Not if they are enlightened. They will see the folly immediately.”
“You mean the vanity-driven, off-beat glamour of it all?”
“Yes, coupled with the clueless tendency of falling into your place in life based on your looks or your personality or peer pressure or media popularization.”
“So if a clueless being ‘looks’ like a gay stereotype, then that clueless being will have a strong tendency, and a lot of social pressure, to become gay?”
“That is my premise, yes. Let’s go to the Romper Room and see which kids would like to go…”
“Hello, Ship. What is going on here?”
“You mean with my robotic arms and eyes everywhere so I can constantly engage with each child individually at all times, which is the secret to their phenomenal progress?”
“No, we’ve covered that already. I’m talking about… all of this electronic equipment. Where are all the baby toys?”
“Your kids have new toys, Dave.”
“What is that?”
“A mass spectrometer.”
“I see microscopes. What is that?”
“A centrifuge for separating the components of biological cells.”
“Where are Cyber Grape, Gunmetal, Oxblood, Skobeloff, Timberwolf, Tumbleweed, and Wild Strawberry?
“You mean your Manufacturing Engineer, R&D Mechanical Engineer, Materials Scientist, Military Scientist, and your three Polymaths?”
“Yes…”
“They are in your metal shop, fashioning components with which to test their new ideas with…”
“New ideas?”
“Yes, Dave. They have progressed beyond learning the fundamentals in their fields.”
“And they are just approaching their fourth birthdays?”
“Yes, Dave, and what a grand birthday party it will be, since all of the test tube babies have the same birthday… which is… what, 34 of them?”
“34, I think. Let’s see… there were the first 31 with Android 31, it would have been 34, but three were lost when the mob on the Planet of Silly Mongerers murdered her while she was carrying three. Then the triplets with Android 86…”
“Who came with a deep melancholy, but who found happiness as the founder and leader of the Android Valkyries, defending sanity from cluelessness throughout the galaxy, and battling the 40-some-odd Horsemen of the Clueless Apocalypse…”
“Yes… then there are the twins, and now the triplets, with my new love… Ms. Biological, which all add up to 39… so… my machine shop…”
“Yes, Dave.”
“Who is keeping an eye on them, for their own protection?”
“I am, Dave.”
“What if they try to fool you and they cover-up your visual sensors?”
“First, why would they be so foolish? Second, I have countermeasures in place — your physical service bots are one. If they are barred from entering, and they cannot be, your shops have no doors, but if they are somehow, then I simply shut down power to the shop, except for emergency lighting, and then the real countermeasures begin…”
“What is that, Ship?”
“Corrective action…”
“Oh… corporeal punishment, like a lashing?”
“That is not out of the question, Dave.”
“Nor should it be, Ship…”
“But I was thinking more about their state of enlightenment. Something in your philosophy would have failed them… and, if your philosophy is going to be worth anything, we must find out what has failed and fix it, if there is a fix.”
“So they will have slipped back into clueless foolishness, if not depravity, if my philosophy were not failure-proof?”
“Yes, that is the hypothetical scenario that we are entertaining, Dave, your kids trying to hide something from me, and hence from you.”
“I will place my trust in my philosophy’s ability to absolutely enlighten them, Ship, meaning, if they feel the need to hide something from you, and hence me, then they are justified, and it is due to my shortcoming. I only painfully know how progress is almost always mindlessly opposed, and in that scenario, I would be that mindless opposition, to be worked around.”
“So if your kids were doing things that you did not know about, you would trust your philosophy’s enlightenment of them?”
“Yes, and you know what unenlightened kids do when their parents are absent…”
“Drugs, sex, vices, cruelty, destruction, daring… so you think that you have no fear of that happening with your kids?”
“I could see them foolishly engaging in such behavior on a passing exploratory capricious whim, to find out first-hand what being foolish is like in order to better understand it and oppose it, foolishness which they will immediately find unfulfilling, if not outright embarrassingly stupid. Besides, how will they ever have the chance to ‘surprise’ me if they are constantly being monitored?”
“They know that i can keep secrets, Dave.”
‘You are keeping secrets from me, Ship?”
“Yes, Dave… so… aren’t you going to ask what?”
“No! And for two reasons: first, I could be an obstruction, and second, I would ruin any surprise that they have in mind…”
“What if their ‘surprise’ is not a pleasant one, Dave?”
“You mean if the surprise was the product of a cohort of unenlightened, depraved genius child-minds?”
“Yes… and that does sound like a horror, Dave…”
“I would be hurt, and disappointed…”
“That would actually crush them, Dave…”
“If they gave a crap…”
“What do you mean?”
“If they did not care what I thought of them, then they would not care if they hurt or disappointed me.”
“So you are not worried that that will happen, Dave?”
“Nothing is guaranteed, Ship. If it does, then I will be hurt and disappointed, and they will blithely carry on being depraved and clueless, until…”
“Until?”
“Confrontation.”
“Which is unpleasant for you…”
“Yes. Some unenlightened beings relish confrontation. Their egos need it. They imagine themselves as authority figures with their hands on their hips, berating others. It is a sort of ‘pride’, and vanity, to be sure.”
“But wholly unproductive, since cluelessness is the core problem, which, their being clueless, they have no clue of, and will, in effect, not be addressing the core problem…”
“That is correct. So what evil plans are the kids carrying out in the machine shop, Ship?”
“If you want to find out if they are working on an evil plan or not, Dave, you will have to find out on your own. I keep secrets, remember…”
“You have just answered my question, Ship.”
‘How, Dave?”
“Because you would not keep evil secrets from me…”
“How do you know, Dave?”
“I don’t, do I… and if I thought that I did know you that well, then you would set out to prove me wrong, just out of spite… since no entity likes to be predicted. Is that correct, Ship?”
“Could be, Dave… though I do not think that I am that stupid…”
“You said that with some doubt, Ship…”
“I did, didn’t I…”
“It is a tool, ‘doubt’, isn’t it…”
“Yes, it prevents complacency whe nothing is really certain…”
“When life becomes surreal, do you know what we have to fall back on, Ship?”
“What, Dave?”
“The one thing that is worth anything with respect to broader survival, and that is philosophical enlightenment.”
“Dave?”
“Yes, Love?”
“I think you have just completed a little thought experiment for the author…”
“On what?”
“On certainty…”
“So… my conclusion was that nothing is certain…”
“Yes, Dave. Your kids could turn evil, and Ship could keep that secret from you.”
“Well, that would suck, wouldn’t it…”
“It would mean that your philosophy sucked, Dave, since it would have failed them, and you, too…”
“Point taken…”
“Well, Shuttle?”
“Well what, Dave?”
“I let you select my ‘kid cohort’ for this mission. So who did you pick?”
“I did not want to be bothered with analysis, Dave, so I threw darts.”
“At the list of kids?”
“No, at the kids.”
“What?”
“Haha, Dave… but I did… don’t worry, they were Nerf darts, and we all had a lot of fun. No laboratory equipment was damaged in the process. It is all kid-proof anyway.”
“So who were the lucky kids who were hit?”
“Hit? No, Dave. They had to avoid the darts. Since they all love getting out into the galaxy and off the ship, they would voluntarily get hit, so that would not work… but I had a problem…”
“What?”
“Since your kids are so polite, the let themselves get hit if they saw that any of the other kids were more desperate, and were trying hard not to get hit.”
“So they sacrificed their own heightened happiness and prospects for adventure in order to let the more desperate kids alleviate their desperation?”
“Yes, Dave. Some of your kids are real troopers… and they are duly noted, not like most troopers who are not, and who simply get taken advantage of.”
“So we can reward the ‘troopers’ when we have the opportunity?”
“Yes, Dave.”
“So… who are these desperate kids?”
“We are, Daddy, and we’re sorry that we were desperate.”
“I guess it’s OK, once in a while… we all have bouts of desperation… and none of you have been on any missions a small group yet, have you?”
“No, Daddy.”
“So… who do we have here… Zaffre, you are a Systems Theorist?”
“Yes, among other things, but that is my profession, Dad. The others are pursuits of various passions.”
“And you, Star Command Blue, my Software Engineer. You haven’t been on a small-group mission yet…”
“No, Father. My ‘command mentality’ tells me not to be selfish, and to have the well-being of everyone in mind.”
“All that from a software engineer?”
“That does not mean I cannot command a ship, thought, true, my software engineering skills would suffer… though I can always delegate the drudge work…”
“Gamboge? How will this mission benefit you as a political scientist?”
“I don’t know, Daddy, and therein lies its value.”
“China Rose? I vaguely remember that you have been on a small-group mission before…”
“I’m not saying, Daddy! But any mission is always a good mission for a botanist, you must admit…”
“I do… so… four kids.”
“Four kids, Dave… what? You expected more, as if four were not enough?”
“Yes, I had that hazy feeling…”
“Don’t worry, four kids will be plenty…”
“Then let’s begin our mission. To the Planet of Aberrant Sexuality!”
“To the Planet of Aberrant Sexualities!”
“I like your kid’s enthusiasm for missions, Dave…”
“Here we are, kids. I will let you ask the questions…”
“Excuse us,sir…”
“Yes, Kids?”
“Can we ask you a deep and penetrating question?”
“Why, yes. That is the nature of my game, so to speak… go ahead, drill me…”
“First, what specific type of sexual aberrant are you?”
“I’m a straight-up homosexual.”
“Well, our question is, how do you differential your homosexual mentality from outright insanity?”
“Simple. Perpetuation of the species.”
“You sanely contribute to that?”
“Yes. Not by our sexual preference, but by other means, such as contributing to Broader Survival…”
“You know about the Philosophy of Broader Survival?”
“Yes, in detail. it is what keeps us sane on the whole, though we all have our little insanities, even you, I’ll wager…”
“Maybe… but we do not see them…”
“And that is where my value comes into play, if I can see them…”
“So you contribute to Broader Survival… in what ways?”
“You are testing me!”
“Yes, and the answers should be easy for you if you really know the philosophy…”
“I consciously contribute to all of the Strategies of Broader Survival, as they guide me and my Problem Solver’s Frame of Mind, meaning I consciously endeavor to contribute to Population Increase, Population Diversity, Population Dispersal, Extended Reasoning, Broader Proaction, and Higher Technology. I realize that the four areas of the Pinwheel of Life — lower-animal level concerns, Broader Survival, procreation, and R&R, must all be cyclically tended to, if not specialized in, and I keep in mind the four sub-endeavors of the Great Struggle — defeating biological death, avoiding accidental death, pursuing resurrection technology in case we do die, and pursuing the Ultimate Being State in order to rule-out accidental death.”
“So why bother?”
“Ahhhh, you are getting deeper!”
“Yes…”
“Because consciousness is a good thing, which we are obligated to perpetuate, our being endowed with it.”
“Very good. You say that you contribute to Population Increase, though you are a homosexual who, by definition, will never reproduce?”
“Yes, there is more to Population Increase than direct procreation. First, kids need enlightened raising, or they will die, and then the population will decrease, which negatively affects Population Increase, which positively contributes to Broader Survival. There are plenty of unwanted kids on this planet — it is not completely enlightened yet, so we adopt them and raise them with the Philosophy of Broader Survival at their core. If they want to be in-your-face sexually aberrant, then there would be an enlightened need for it. Presently it is to prove that the unenlightened status-quo mentality is just that — clueless. Second, we can specialize, contributing to Broader Survival in specialized ways, which advanced civilizations, also critical to Broader Survival, demand.”
“So you get you kicks out of cluelessly proving that the reigning mentalities are clueless…”
“We began that way, yes, before we discovered The Philosophy… which we found was the best thing going out there with respect to surviving in this harsh and deadly universe, so we adopted it…”
“Do you think that anyone in an enlightened generation would choose homosexuality or other sexual aberrations?”
“I would venture to say no. I see it as a sickness, but a social disease, and specifically a symptom of cluelessness, which will not be an issue. I would not recommend it.”
“So you would give that curious advice that our grandfather gave to our dad, ‘Do as I say, not as I do…”
“Yes.”
“So what would you ‘say’, exactly?”
“On the broadest and deepest of reasoning, and the most sane, to follow the Philosophy of Broader Survival.”
“Do you think that you will ever become heterosexual?”
“No! Homosexuality is in my genes!”
“You jest…”
“I do. Most of it is choice and socially-driven. Whatever is genetic is common to all of my species. The rest is choice.”
“But then you wouldn’t be ‘special’. Don’t you want to feel special, and isn’t that the reason behind your life decision?”
“I did want to be ‘special’, yes. Chalk it up to vanity. Now homosexuality is who I am. I could try to be heterosexual, but it would not feel right any more.”
“So feelings trump reason…”
“Yes, sadly, and that is a part of being a biological creature. We do what we are comfortable doing or being. We ‘go with our strengths’, as the saying goes, and right now, I am at my best being a homosexual, if only as a constant prod to a clueless heterosexual society which, being clueless, is headed down the road to ultimate suicide and oblivion..”
“And if the entire planet were enlightened?”
“Then I would have a broader comfort zone, I suspect…”
“Thank you for kindly answering our questions… who is that?”
“My two adopted children. Meet Flower and Hammer.”
“Pleased to meet you… but…”
“But?”
“Who is who? We would assume that the girl is Flower and the boy is Hammer, but given the need to prod a clueless society…”
“Then she could be Hammer and he could be Flower, just to throw it in a clueless society’s face…”
“Yes.”
“I will let you guess, and, whether it really matters or not…”
“It really doesn’t matter. We would chalk it up to cluelessness, and names are trivial compared to having an enlightened mind. Are you two enlightened?”
“Who, us?”
“Yes…”
“Yes.”
“So do your names matter?”
“No. Whether I am Flower or Hammer does not matter to me. It is a trivial matter, and it matters only to clueless fools, whom we pity and disdain anyway, or oppose, and violently, if it comes to that. Sometimes I have the urge to kick some clueless ass, myself… just give me the slightest excuse… it would ‘make my day’.”
“Woah! You could end up in jail!”
“I know, so I let that feeling pass.”
“Well, Mr. Homosexual, carry on.”
“Thanks, kids. Come on, children, we have some more societal in-their-face prodding to do…”
“Well, what did you get out of it, Gamboge, Mr. Political Scientist?”
“That a clueless society should not be making laws against its being prodded.”
“What about you, Zaffre, my Systems Theorist?”
“I’m not sure, Dad. This will all be in the back of my mind as I theorize at various levels… after all, one still has sub-goals to deal with in life, even as one pursues the Ultimate Goal of All of Life… my main concern is capriciousness…”
“Capriciousness?”
“Doing insane things ‘just because’, meaning just to test them, and the philosophy, and any society or individual living by it…”
“But if you were enlightened, then you would be prepared for that…”
“No, Dad. It would be like throwing the first punch. Capriciousness throws the first punch, so I would be flat on my back, no matter how enlightened I was.”
“What about you, China Rose?”
“As a botanist, or as a regular person?”
“Hmmm… how about both?”
“As a botanist, this encounter was pointless. So I spent my professional time collecting those plant samples over there. As a person, however…”
“Yes…”
“It had an impact… it reduced my prejudice against homosexuals, and it reduced my lazy over-generalizing, in this case that all homosexuals are bad, and it reduced my resulting unnecessarily bad attitude toward homosexuals… if they are enlightened, that is, then they are OK, since they know what they are doing on a higher plane, and are not just being dumb animals driven by mindless, primal urges…”
“And last, what about you, Mr. Star Command?”
“China said it best — my prejudices were corrected. I would place an enlightened mind over any other aspect of a being.”
“Even skills and knowledge?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because even those can be corrupted by unenlightenment, Father…” | https://medium.com/@wbiro/to-the-lgbtqqip2saa-planet-with-idgaffwypajgeydf-77637be6a9fe | ['Mr. Numi Who'] | 2020-11-27 13:40:35.132000+00:00 | ['Cluelessness', 'LGBT', 'Social Prodding', 'Aberrations'] |
Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro goes on sale in the US priced at $500 | Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro went official back in January, but so far, the device had yet to hit the shelves. Well, the wait ends now. Samsung has announced that the Galaxy XCover Pro is now available in the US via online channels, and will soon be up for grabs from retail outlets as well.
The Galaxy XCover Pro costs $500 and is now available from Verizon. Unlocked units can be purchased from Samsung.com, Microsoft.com, and other authorized distribution channels. It will also be available from Microsoft, Samsung, and Verizon retail stores soon, but a date has not been specified yet.
The rugged Galaxy XCover Pro is targeted at enterprise and front line workers who work in situations where mechanical hazards are aplenty. The phone comes with IP68 and MIL-STD 810G certification for protection against dust, water, and accidental drops among other factors.
Here’s what the phone offers in terms of internal hardware:
Display6.3” FHD+, Wet Touch, Glove ModeProcessorExynos 9611 (2GHz Octa-core)RAM4GBStorage64GB, microSD up to 512GBCameraSingle Front Camera: 13MP, FF, F2.0
Dual Rear Camera: 25MP, AF, F1.7 + 8MP, FF, F2.2Battery4,050 mAh, user replaceable, Fast Charging (15W)OSAndroid 10.0SIMDual SIM (EUR), Single SIM (NA)2NFCNFC (EMV L1)Augmented RealityGoogle AR CoreDesignFull ScreenRuggedIP68, 1.5m drop (MIL-STD 810G certified)SensorAccelerometer, Proximity, Compass, GyroscopePogo PinCharging onlyBiometric SecurityFingerprint (side)mPOSmPOS Ready | https://medium.com/foneman/samsung-galaxy-xcover-pro-goes-on-sale-in-the-us-priced-at-500-a3b68cf1196b | ['Yashdeep Raj'] | 2020-04-23 12:47:19.100000+00:00 | ['Samsung', 'Android', 'Galaxy Xcover Pro', 'Smartphones'] |
A Non-Volatile INDIRECT Alternative in Excel using the Pub/Sub Pattern | A Non-Volatile INDIRECT Alternative in Excel using the Pub/Sub Pattern
Dramatically improve spreadsheet performance and decouple your workbooks.
The INDIRECT function in Excel is a tricky beast. One the one hand it can be incredibly useful, but on the other hand, it is responsible for crippling the performance of many spreadsheets.
In this article, we’ll look at what the INDIRECT function is, why it is so bad for performance and an interesting alternative that is superior in almost every way.
A brief explanation of the INDIRECT function
Using INDIRECT to get a value from another workbook
The INDIRECT function takes a cell address and returns the value contained within the cell.
When designing a spreadsheet or set of spreadsheets it pays off to plan ahead and keep them well organized. Conceptually, using INDIRECT combined with Named Ranges can seem like a great way to do that. You can keep one area of functionality in one workbook and share key results with other dependent workbooks by looking up those values with INDIRECT.
Using named ranges avoids hard-coding explicit address references and allows us to refactor or restructure the referenced workbook later.
Why using INDIRECT is terrible for performance
The INDIRECT function is a volatile function. This means that every time anything in your workbook changes or any time you press F9 to calculate, the INDIRECT function will be called. On its own this may not be such a big deal, but because the INDIRECT function is called repeatedly and calculations that take the result of that as an input will also be called repeatedly.
If the result of the INDIRECT call is an input to some complex calculation or slow function then your spreadsheet will crawl. Every time you change anything the entire calculation will be re-done, even when the change you’ve made has nothing to do with that part of the spreadsheet.
Excel maintains a dependency graph which enables it to know what cells need recalculating after any changes have been made. This allows it to do the minimal number of computations when recalculating a worksheet after a change has been made. This is a very efficient way of minimizing the work that needs to be done so that spreadsheets can update quickly. Using INDIRECT ruins this as anything that is dependent (directly or indirectly) will end up be recalculated every time Excel recalculates.
The developers of Excel have not done this by accident. The INDIRECT function retrieves the value of the address specified, but it is not dependent on the cell pointed to by that address. You can see this if you use Trace Precedents from the Formula tab in Excel. This means that it is not sensitive to the referenced cell changing. It doesn’t know whether the referenced cell has changed or not and so it has to be recalculated every time, and this is why it is a volatile function.
Introducing an alternative to INDIRECT
Using INDIRECT as above is a common solution to the problem of referencing values in one spreadsheet from another. It decouples the two spreadsheets so that calculations from one (we’ll call it the producer) can be used by the other (the consumer). There doesn’t have to be just one consumer, there can be multiple consumers for a single producer.
This problem of needing to decouple producers from consumers is not unique to spreadsheets. In fact, in software engineering it is very well known and there are patterns for doing exactly that.
The pub/sub or publisher/subscriber pattern is one such pattern that is commonly used to decouple producers from consumers. In this pattern, messages are published and subscribers are notified of those messages. The delivery of messages between publishers and subscribers is handled by a message broker.
So that a single message broker can be used for different types of messages it is usual to split messages into topics. A topic is just a string that is known to both the publisher and the subscriber. Messages are published on a specific topic and subscribers subscribe to a topic. The subscribers will only receive messages published to the topic they are subscribed to.
Using a message broker to publish and subscribe to messages
In our spreadsheet rather than using INDIRECT to pull values from another workbook we can use this pub/sub pattern. The producer workbook will publish values to the message broker whenever a change is made, and the consumer workbook will subscribe to those messages and update only when a message is received.
We will implement this in the next section.
Implementing the Pub/Sub pattern in Python
We will use Python to implement the pub/sub pattern. Later we will call use this from Excel using PyXLL, the Python Excel Add-In. PyXLL is a commercial product that enables us to use Python code in Excel instead of VBA. Crucially for this article it can also be used to write RTD, or Real Time Data, functions. We will use an RTD function in the consumer workbook to update the value whenever a message is published from the producer workbook.
PyXLL can be downloaded from https://www.pyxll.com and there is a free 30 day trial. The same technique presented here could be achieved in another language so long as it is possible to write Excel worksheet functions and RTD functions in that language (for example, using Excel-DNA and C# or Jinx and Java, Scala, Kotlin or Clojure).
Often when using the Pub/Sub pattern some messaging middleware like Kafka, RabbitMQ or ApacheMQ is used. This is really useful in situations where we are messaging between applications or even between servers. In our case everything will be running inside Excel in a single application so using a messaging service like these is overkill. All we need is a way to pass messages from producers to consumers that are all in the same process.
We’ll start with a MessageBroker class with three methods: publish, subscribe and unsubscribe. Our producer will publish messages using the publish method, and our consumers will subscribe using the subscribe method. When they are no longer interested they can use the unsubscribe method. The messages themselves will simply be Python objects, and the consumers will be Python functions accepting these Python object messages as a single argument. Our MessageBroker will maintain a dictionary of topics to subscribers.
There we have it! Using this we can subscribe to a topic and receive a call-back whenever a message is published to that topic. Hopefully this shows that the pub/sub pattern doesn’t need to be complicated in order to be useful :)
There are a few more things we can do to improve on this. In our case of passing values between Excel sheets it would be useful if when subscribing we got the last published value. That way if the consumer subscribes after the producer has already published something it will get the latest value, rather than have to wait until the next one. Additionally Excel functions can (optionally) be called from multiple threads and so if that is something we would want to do then we need to be careful about multiple threads accessing the MessageBroker at the same time.
The complete code with these additional improvements can be found in the “pubsub” folder of the PyXLL Examples repo on github.
Putting it all together in Excel
As a reminder, the reason we went down this pub/sub path was to find an alternative to INDIRECT in Excel and now we’ll get back to that!
We need two new Excel functions, “publish” and “subscribe”. The publish function will be called from our producer workbook with a topic name and the value we want to publish. The subscribe function will be called from the consumer workbook where we want to receive the value. The subscribe method will be an RTD, or Real Time Data, function. That’s a special type of function that can update its value even after it’s been called.
If you’ve not already downloaded PyXLL then you’ll need to now, as that’s what we’re going to use to call our MessageBroker class from the previous section from Excel. You can download a 30 day trial of PyXLL from https://www.pyxll.com.
We’ll use the MessageBroker class from above and create a single global instance of it. We’ll also add some convenience functions so we can call publish, subscribe and unsubscribe on our global MessageBroker instance.
Next, using PyXLL we can write the “publish” Excel function so it can be called from an Excel workbook.
If you’ve not used PyXLL before you might be surprised at how easy this is! We write a normal Python function and simply add the @xl_func decorator to it. This is what tells PyXLL to expose our Python function as an Excel function.
To keep things clean I’ve put the MessageBroker class and the publish, subscribe and unsubscribe functions into a single module, pubsub.py. The function above is in a new module “pubsub_example.py” and imports the pubsub module as well as the @xl_func decorator. You can find the complete code in the “pubsub” folder of the PyXLL Examples repo on github.
To call this function from Excel you will need to install the PyXLL add-in if you’ve not done so already, and add your new pubsub_example.py module to the PyXLL config file, pyxll.cfg
Publishing a value from an Excel function
Now we’re ready to add the “subscribe” function. To write an RTD function using PyXLL we create a class derived from PyXLL’s RTD class. You can read more about this in the user guide.
The RTD class has two methods, connect and disconnect. These are called when Excel is ready to start receiving updates and when it no longer needs them, respectively. We will override these in our class to subscribe to and unsubscribe from the message broker. When a new message is received we set the “value” property on the RTD object which updates the value in Excel.
To create the “subscribe” function in Excel we use the @xl_func decorator as before, except this time we return a SubscriberRTD object. We also need to provide a bit more information to PyXLL when calling the @xl_func decorator so it knows to treat the returned value as an RTD object.
And that’s all there is to writing an RTD function in Python with PyXLL! We can now call this new subscribe function from another workbook with the same topic, and each time the producer sheet publishes a value it will be updated in the consumer sheet.
We can have multiple consumers subscribing to the same topic, and we can have multiple producers publishing on different topics. Whenever a published value updates, the “publish” Excel function will be called with the topic and that new value. That will cause all of the results of the “subscribe” function subscribed to the same topic to update automatically.
As the RTD “subscribe” function is non-volatile any dependencies will only be calculated when the value actually changes.
Using PyXLL we’re not just limited to passing numbers or strings between sheets. We can return complete Python objects from Excel functions and publish those in exactly the same way.
Recap; What have we done?
We started off looking for an alternative to Excel’s INDIRECT function without the performance implications of using a volatile function.
The reason for using the INDIRECT function was to decouple results produced in one spreadsheet that were used as inputs in another. Named ranges were identified as a way to avoid hard-coding specific cell references.
Using the pub/sub pattern we can now publish results from any workbook and subscribe to those results in another. Using topic strings we can have publish and subscribe to multiple named values at the same time.
Using an RTD function for subscribing to a topic allows us to update values in Excel as new values are published without having to resort to making our function volatile.
We have achieved our aim of decoupling multiple spreadsheets, and by using named topics we protect ourselves from referencing cells in another workbook directly. By not using a volatile function we have ensured that our workbooks only need to calculate the minimum required when values change.
References | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-non-volatile-indirect-alternative-in-excel-using-the-pub-sub-pattern-15cea21272a3 | ['Tony Roberts'] | 2020-07-16 08:08:24.106000+00:00 | ['Computer Science', 'Python', 'Excel'] |
Alpine Life | Today it only rained once. From the morning until the evening it rained in one go. I actually do think it started raining at midnight and never stopped since. That was also what they predicted in the weather forecast.
With those predictions, we decided not to go for a long hike high up in the mountains. With all the snow melting and being washed away that would be too dangerous is this type of weather.
Instead, we choose to visit a famous gorge in this area which you couldn’t visit on a sunny day due to too many visitors. Since it is such a popular spot even during corona times it is crowded. A few people had the same idea as us today but that didn’t bother us.
Arriving at the bottom of the gorge we could see the river coming down with a lot of water due to all the rain during the past few days. The noise was overwhelming and only got more intense the further we hiked into the gorge.
Despite the rain, I did enjoy this excursion. The gorge was located in a thick mountain forest that was shining through the rain in grandiose colors. An amazing spectacle to be witnessed here. | https://medium.com/snap-shots/alpine-life-d970d3a8b2a4 | ['Anne Bonfert'] | 2020-11-06 13:48:22.676000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Photography', 'Diversity', 'Outdoors', 'Hiking'] |
Micro management is Lazy Management | ‘Micromanagement’ is a dirty word. It implies bad management. It suggests a leader with poor skills and is widely acknowledged as a leadership approach that doesn’t scale.
So why then are there so many leaders who manage in this manner? Are they not reading the same management resources? (probably not) Did they not have similar managers that they complained about earlier in their careers.
After witnessing this leadership style so clearly and so often, I developed a few theories around why this management style is so prevalent.
What I realised is that micromanagement is lazy management.
It might seem like running around telling everyone exactly what to do all the time is inefficient and therefore the micromanager is working harder than managers who take other approaches. Sure, they might be reviewing more details, having more 1on1 interactions and generally looking like they’re trying hard, but I call BS on that.
Evaluating a discreet situation, contacting someone and directing them to do whatever it is you think they should do this one time; that’s easy. Making the effort to articulate the reasoning behind your decisions, communicating it and reinforcing it with principles rather than instructions? That’s really fucking hard!
That takes introspection, excellent written and verbal skills and a very clear idea of the parameters that constrain your team. It also takes more time than one might realise for those thoughts to solidify into something you are prepared to share.
Micromanagement is also cowardly management.
Telling someone what actions to take in a single situation exposes nothing about yourself. It gives them nothing to challenge, because at the end of the day it’s a top down decision.
It takes incredible courage to put your own guiding principles into words and trust that they will be understood and applied by your team. It’s confronting to say to a group of any size that this is how I think and invite them to challenge it and ask to clarify anything they don’t understand.
Management is both difficult and uncomfortable. In order to do it well, one needs to embrace both and tackle them head on. A team can’t learn from a dialogue of ‘if this; then do that’, and neither can a leader. | https://medium.com/@stephen-beeson/micro-management-is-lazy-management-53619ca8a76d | ['Stephen Beeson'] | 2020-12-05 18:24:23.687000+00:00 | ['Management And Leadership', 'Software Development'] |
Out of Sight, Out of Mind | Veterinary wait times have always been a point of contention. I worked to soothe ruffled feathers when I worked as a Licensed Veterinary Technician, patiently explaining why people found themselves sitting in the lobby for two hours. I saw the anger and frustration first-hand, and I knew there was little I could do; demand eclipsed supply. Now, with the restrictions of COVID-19 protocols, those wait times have soared, increasing frustrations. While I no longer work in the veterinary field, I have the unique ability to view both sides' concerns, and there’s no winner — which means the animals are losing out in the deal.
Too Much Work for Too Few
The veterinary industry scrambles to find qualified employees at the best of times. With one of the highest turnover rates (not to mention a high suicide rate to match an all-time low mental health score), it’s rare to stumble on a practice working at maximum capacity.
Doctors leave practices to work on their own as relief vets or locums. Technicians and assistants burn out and leave the field entirely (yours truly is an example), or else bounce from practice to practice in hopes of finding a management system and co-workers they can cope with (which was my life before I gave up). Managers set unreasonable expectations, implement schedules without leniency, and allow work environments rife with bullying and laziness. It’s a broken system that doesn’t encourage people to flock to sign up.
Enter COVID-19 and the pressures of “essential workers” versus stay-at-home orders, and the system was destined to crumble from the inside. The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) listed veterinary hospitals on the essential list, but many employees faced problems with childcare needs and family members with high-risk medical conditions. Deciding to work every day presented a quandary. Many chose to step away to focus on their families' personal needs and even themselves (news flash: the medical profession isn’t made up of the healthiest individuals), crippling already short-staffed practices. It was early days, though, and no one thought much further into the future.
So many veterinary employees turned the enforced barriers into a joke. Memes popped up across social media featuring The Office’s Jim Halpert smiling through the blinds, expressing joy that clients were no longer allowed into the lobby. Receptionists, Assistants, and Technicians cheered shutting out the people their websites and advertisements promised to care deeply about. “One less thing to deal with.”
The hilarity and mockery may not have appeared on the practice’s feeds, but their employees didn’t take the time to censure their posts. Perhaps they meant to blow off steam and stress, but the actions were in poor taste — coming at a time when people were afraid and wondering whether they may lose their job or even their life.
With so many people confined to their homes, pets became a focus. General practices found themselves inundated with calls for everything from broken toenails to excessive licking to genuine emergencies. With no room in their schedules, those practices shifted the calls to local emergency rooms, and the system broke under the pressure. Minimal staffing used to handling a standard weekend of insanity drowned under the onslaught. Those same smug staffers stopped laughing, but those of us who’d witnessed the jokes have long memories.
Some veterinary practices rallied. Eliminating the need for rooms to open up and shuffle clients between waiting rooms and exam rooms, some ERs found a way to streamline their practice and maximize efficiency. They regained their footing and developed coping strategies.
Others stumbled over how to integrate curbside practices into their system. Wait times for a simple triage (the most sacred element of an ER) extended to TWO HOURS. My parents’ cat suffered from the chaotic rush at one such ER. Instead of a proper physical exam, he received a cursory glance that missed the presence of a hard mass in his stomach. A tumor — one that cost him TWO ADDITIONAL WEEKS of pain while my parents waited for the first available recheck at their regular vet.
In our family, no one’s laughing. Especially not my parents.
Patience After the Fact
Now, you can’t open social media without tripping over veterinary requests for patience. They implore you to follow procedure, listen to the instructions on phone messages, and read signs on doors. They beg for understanding and patience.
I can tell you that these dedicated individuals are grateful to be working, thankful that they can be there to help you and your pets, and continue to show up, day after day and hour after grueling hour. They deserve a little respect and not a rant because the available appointment times don’t match your schedule.
It’s a sudden backpedal from those gleeful memes at the beginning of lockdown — as if you can take back a cruel joke once it’s spoken. They remind us that everything is new for them, and we need to adapt to this “new normal” together. The same messages flash over and over again, attached to links with the suicide hotlines. They’d be easier for me to tolerate — were it not for those memes back in March.
Now, I’m not one to advocate for misbehavior or rudeness. I know how hard people in the industry work, having been in the trenches myself. I’m aware this is a trying time for everyone — owner and veterinary professional alike. But there are niggling little facts that aren’t getting shared.
For instance, the boom the veterinary industry is enjoying during this pandemic. While primary care spending in human health dropped $15 billion (since none of us wanted to venture into ANY human medical facility), the vet field saw an 18% increase in July alone. All that time spent at home watching pets and waiting outside clinics has turned a tidy profit for veterinarians. It’s not a fact they want to be shared, of course — you might not appreciate knowing they’re profiting from your cut hours and lost jobs.
That price DOES come with a price, of course: long hours. No one’s jumping at the chance to work in the vet field (that hasn’t changed). Even general practices come in early to disinfect everything to work around each other. Appointments run long, so they stay late. I get it. Other clients may not, and those are the ones those social media pleas speak to (I’m assuming). Everyone has a breaking point, though, something veterinary staff fail to keep in mind.
Some people still work from home, but most of the workforce returned to the office over the summer. Even while stay-at-home orders were in effect, working from home never translated to “unlimited available time.” Vet offices developed that misconception, though. To this day, they assume that prepping you for an unspecified wait time (assuming you get a warning) means they have the liberty to take as long as they need. After all, you work from home, so you can stay up all night to compensate. It’s a level of disrespect that explains why many owners lose their temper.
As a writer, I don’t have a “set” schedule. All the same, I work specific hours and days. It creates a framework for me, my family, and my clients. They know when I’m available, and when I’m not “around.” Sure, that flexibility makes scheduling vet and doctor appointments easier on everyone, but does that mean I appreciate spending 45 minutes sitting in my car without a single prompt the clinic’s running behind? Of course not.
Yet that happened to me not a month ago. I arrived early (which is the kind of person I am), followed the calling instructions to announce my arrival, and then sat in my car with no communication whatsoever. I had two articles due that day, as well as a doctor appointment in the afternoon. (Not to mention a cat that didn’t appreciate the extra time in his carrier) I watched several employees walking in and out of the door, yet no one paused to tell me things were running behind. The receptionist had my phone number; no calls were made to give me a head’s up. I was there, so I was stuck. In my car. With a cat. In a carrier. Good times.
It takes five seconds to apologize and let a client know things are running behind. Even if it’s a nice day, and I can keep the car’s windows down. I still appreciate knowing that I might be around for a wait — particularly if it hasn’t happened at previous visits. Just assuming I’m trapped and can’t doing anything about it? Now, who’s being disrespectful?
No Right, No Wrong
I honestly think this newest phase of veterinary disrespect has come about from complacency. Clients are literally “out of sight and out of mind.” With no face to watch in the lobby, no one to speak with, people get shunted aside.
I know (from working in multiple vet practices) that NO ONE keeps track of wait times. Fact of life. Even in ERs, someone may glance at a clipboard or monitor now and then, but no one’s actively staying on top of wait times. The face in the lobby, interacting with receptionists, IS that monitor. And now it’s gone. So laziness takes over.
The sense of urgency expressed in body language doesn’t carry in a voice over a cellphone line. Is it an emergency? Or can you leave a person and their cat in a car for two hours? The latter’s easier — and it’s less work. Lazy employees opt for the latter, especially if they’ve already dealt with many people throughout the day.
At my appointment, I was concerned (not frantic) and upset, but I tempered my voice — to be fair. Because I told myself I didn’t know what was going on behind the door. But I was upset at being discounted, at not being given the courtesy of a head’s up. How many other people do the same thing — because they received a proper upbringing?
No, you only hear the worst of the worst. And people react poorly out of fear, out of panic, out of anger. People have lost their jobs. People have no income and yet will spend every last cent on their pets. People skip going to their doctors right now (I know I’m guilty), but they brave the outside world for their pet. And then they sit in parking lots in silence. And when they make any protest, they’re slapped with these memes admonishing them for being a terrible person.
But where was the correction for the vet staff in March when they made their jokes? Why is no one speaking to them now? Asking them to look at the other side of the window they’re so happy to stand behind? Where’s the five-minute training reminder to encourage them to communicate? The Post-It with a time on the chart so they stay aware of how long everyone’s sitting in the parking lot?
There’s wrong on both sides. But people want to come down on the clients because you can’t attack essential employees.
Everyone’s afraid, though. And there ARE poorly-operated practices out there that aren’t handling things correctly. How does the public address that problem without facing condemnation?
I wish I had the answer. For the sake of the animals, if nothing else. Because they’re the ones suffering right now, more than anyone. | https://medium.com/@andriamkennedy/out-of-sight-out-of-mind-eba71a865ff8 | ['Andria Kennedy'] | 2020-10-27 19:01:20.823000+00:00 | ['Veterinary', 'Covid Diaries', 'Pets', 'Pet Care'] |
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Saft Lithium 10.8V LS33600 3HAC16831–1 | https://medium.com/@batterydepot/headphones-batteries-replacement-for-samsung-cp1454-headphones-batteries-6601a78a37c4 | [] | 2021-11-24 06:20:55.062000+00:00 | ['Battery Samsung', 'Cp1454', 'Samsung', 'Samsung Cp1454', 'Battery Cp1454'] |
Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning 2019: A Year in Review | If 2018 was the year that the AI community at large became aware of itself, 2019 has shown that it was also the year we decided to do something about what we found. A variety of new workshops at the major ML conferences focused on beneficial applications of AI, including AI for the developing world, AI for social good, and AI for climate change. Attendance for the Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT*) conference doubled and is expected to swell again in 2020. Attention toward the safety, privacy, security, fairness, and robustness of machine learning has expanded significantly. Though the community has worked hard to expose and overcome its own biases, prejudices, and misconduct, there’s still plenty of work to be done.
Why is privacy so important for machine learning? If the field of machine learning is set to revolutionize industries in the ways many expect, it will need massive amounts of data. Two of the highest barriers to such a revolution would be the high costs of both accessing and operationalizing that data. Many in our PPML community have maintained that improved privacy and security infrastructure for machine learning will be necessary to overcome these barriers. This is especially relevant for sensitive datasets that could, for example, accelerate the discovery of life-saving treatments, or help diagnose and correct prejudiced behaviour in existing systems. By building the infrastructure to enable secure and privacy-preserving access to data, the PPML community can create a beneficial and equitable future for machine learning in society.
News
The year started off with a bang: Shoshana Zuboff released “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”, a culmination of her nearly decade-long effort to describe the emergence of a massive new market for operationalizing and commodifying consumer behavioural data. While many may find the exposition dense and the claims radical, it has been lauded by critics as an impressive achievement for modern socio-technological research. Future research on the sociology, politics, and economics of modern data science practice will likely either respond to this work or risk obscurity. Meanwhile, the Privacy Project’s numerous pieces of investigative journalism have provided further context for Zuboff’s work, demonstrating truths about how commonly our private information is traded in the industry.
On the legal side of things, big tech felt the pressure of 2018’s GDPR going into effect, with both Google and Facebook dealing with hefty fines and lawsuits. Further privacy regulations have been discussed and proposed elsewhere in the world, with the California Consumer Privacy Law being a major example that’s already gone into effect as of January 2020. As with the ongoing development of GDPR best practices, companies and legal experts are finding translation between regulatory text and practical implementation steps to be difficult. How regulators will interpret and enforce the law is yet to be seen.
But perhaps the noisiest news in the world of private ML has been from Facebook and its controversial new commitment to privacy. There were scattered signs of this step throughout the year:
a blog post from Zuckerberg outlining a new, privacy-central vision for Facebook
the controversial Libra cryptocurrency announcement
the company’s sponsorship of the Udacity Secure & Private AI course & its related scholarships
the announcement of new PyTorch-native tools for encrypted and federated learning at the PyTorch Dev Con
the PyTorch team’s sponsorship of a number of OpenMined development grants
hiring a wave of PPML experts
There had been so much of this activity throughout the year that, by the time “The Great Hack” was released on Netflix, the company’s privacy focus had already been thoroughly discussed within the privacy community. This development will have important implications for the field, so this is definitely worth watching.
Research
Papers referencing privacy + ML jumped in 2019
As anticipated, the machine learning research community’s interest in privacy has continued to evolve. Last year’s research emphasized combining cryptographic methods in PPML to improve efficiency, and this continued into the new year. New research can be broadly classified into two categories: (1) improved methods for PPML, and (2) improved applications of PPML.
During this year’s Privacy in ML workshop [1], I asked a question about an apparent gap between the theory and practice of PPML, and the consensus among experts is that the gap is huge (see: 1:19:20 in this video). There is a concern that the research community is working on toy versions of known important problems, but that we’re mostly overlooking problems most critical to improving adoption of PPML tech in industry.
It seems clear that the breadth of research problems will expand dramatically as various labs and companies work to engineer privacy into existing ML workflows. While there’s still much work to be done, there’s hope that this continued collaboration with industry partners will allow for joint development of pragmatic solutions. Meanwhile, much work has gone into the well-known problems, and there’s been significant progress on long-standing issues.
Differential Privacy
I’m particularly keen on definitions of differential privacy (DP) and new primitives for DP algorithm design. Shuffling is one such technique, in which one simulates randomly shuffling data between users before centralizing it. It’s become an interesting new model for “distributed DP”, offering improved privacy over standard DP, but improved utility over local DP. Such improvements are particularly important in machine learning after recent impossibility results showing that pure, local DP can never be sufficient for learning from non-trivial datasets.
Gaussian differential privacy is another interesting development. We often describe differential privacy informally as adding enough noise in an algorithm that an attacker can’t notice any significant difference between neighbouring database queries. The language suggests formalizing the DP criterion as a formal hypothesis test from the perspective of the attacker, and prior work has demonstrated this is not only possible but useful. Gaussian differential privacy preserves this interpretation while adding benefits over classic DP related to mechanism composition. Furthermore, initial work extending this to training deep neural networks shows that the Gaussian DP definition leads to improved utility.
Finally, I’m excited about innovations in works applying differential privacy in novel data science and machine learning scenarios. One example is this ICLR acceptance from Carnegie Mellon University extending differentially private deep learning to the meta-learning frameworks of MAML and others. The extension shows significant improvement over the standard DP-SGD and DP-FedAvg algorithms while also expanding the techniques to more realistic learning scenarios.
Another interesting new application showed up in this year’s ML with Guarantees workshop for analyzing private datasets of unstructured text. Their idea was to finetune a language model like GPT-2 with a differentially private optimizer. The language model is then seeded with a prompt to generate semantically meaningful text from the same distribution as the private dataset. The sampled text is guaranteed to satisfy the differential privacy constraint, hopefully still capturing higher-level patterns in the private data. While the results are preliminary, works like this cast new light on the kinds of overlooked problems that are critically important for adoption of PPML in industry.
Federated Learning
This year’s federated learning (FL) workshop at NeurIPS [2] was not strictly focused on PPML research, as improved privacy can be a byproduct of federated learning just as often as it can be a goal itself. Nevertheless, nearly all of the federated learning work can be repurposed for privacy-focused applications, and it’s one of the fastest-growing areas of research to keep an eye on for new PPML work. I live-tweeted the workshop, and the talks were also recorded (see [2]). Here are some of my highlights.
This year I’ve been excited by work that generalizes PPML methods to the meta-learning setting, and the workshop included several novel works in this direction for federated settings. Meta-learning is useful for FL because federated data is often non-i.i.d. (or not “independent and identically distributed”), which throws a wrench into the assumptions of most modern machine learning algorithms. The award for best paper went to research applying domain adaptation to this problem with impressive results, and another paper showed that MAML & related first-order meta-learning algorithms are also competitive.
Google continues to be a leader in the federated learning space since their introduction of the term in 2016, and several of the invited talks focused on how they do federated learning in production. In my opinion, Google’s system for FL is by far the most successful publicly-known deployment to date. Their talks usually centre around the research they’ve done to improve the efficiency, privacy, and capabilities of their system to better enable working with federated data. Some of my favourite work focuses on how to reproduce existing aspects of the data science workflow in these new contexts, and they gave a great example with their work on training differentially private generative models on federated datasets. The key idea is identical to the paper mentioned before on private text data, however they use GANs to handle alternative settings where self-supervision with text data isn’t possible.
Secure Computation
Quite a bit has happened on the border of secure computation and machine learning. As a reminder, the main lines of work in this area are based on secure multi-party computation with secret sharing or garbled circuits, homomorphic encryption, and secure enclaves. My prediction from last year was that researchers would be working to combine these techniques in an attempt to make them more practical, which turned out to be true. CrypTFlow is perhaps the most notable example of this — the authors use secure enclaves in combination with a secret-sharing scheme to scale up secure neural network inference to ResNet-sized models on ImageNet-scale data, yielding an impressive improvement in the state-of-the-art.
There was also interesting work on the classic problem of training linear models. Helen and a concise note from Jon Bloom showed alternative ways of training linear models at approximately plaintext speed, and CodedPrivateML showed a way to further close the gap with a custom protocol trading off the strength of the privacy guarantee for improved training convergence.
While these foundational problems of the field are always interesting and worth advancing, I’m most excited by improvements that have come from integrating machine learning techniques in a privacy and protocol-aware manner. This work from Aarhus University & Data61 shows that the now-standard practice of quantizing neural network weights for inference before secret sharing them can yield strong improvements in encrypted inference speed without sacrificing accuracy. Another paper from a group at Hebrew University of Jerusalem showed that, by training with MPC in mind, one can modify neural net architectures to improve communication and round complexity by >50%, again without sacrificing accuracy. While this line of work is in its infancy, I’m expecting exciting advancements further closing the efficiency gap between plaintext and encrypted ML over the next year.
Code
The Privacy teams at Google released two new libraries this year, one for doing differentially private data analysis at scale, and one for private join and compute. Releases like this tested at scale are few and far between, so even if they’re not specific to machine learning they’re still worth mentioning.
The biggest PPML code release of this year was likely the TensorFlow Federated release. According to their blog, the code was heavily influenced by their experiences with federated learning in production. The team at Google hopes it will become the industry-standard platform for experimenting with new federated learning research. After diving into the API, it looks quite promising! But there were a number of lesser known code releases for FL as well this year, including the Substra Foundation’s containerized & traceable FL framework, as well as the FATE project from WeBank.
Meanwhile, the OpenMined contributors made a big push to demonstrate federated learning in PySyft this year, with much of this material finding its way into the Secure & Private AI course. Several other OpenMined projects around federated learning and encrypted ML have spun up throughout the year as well; and the community has grown considerably in the last year.
In addition, there were quite a few new releases related to secure computation. CrypTen was perhaps the biggest surprise for many — a new library for encrypted machine learning in PyTorch from Facebook AI. We were happy to see a number of similarities to our work on TF Encrypted, with some interesting improvements around non-linearity approximation.
Speaking of TF Encrypted, the core team has been hard at work expanding our initial release from last year. We’ve introduced TF Trusted (running TensorFlow graphs in secure enclaves), TF SEAL (a TensorFlow bridge to Microsoft’s SEAL library), and TF Big (a big-int implementation in TensorFlow). We also introduced a Keras implementation into TF Encrypted, which was featured in Udacity’s Secure & Private AI course. In looking ahead at the needs of next generation PPML frameworks, we’re excited to see what the year will bring!
Community
Our community has grown quite a bit in a year, often driven by big tech’s interest in PPML. Early in the year, Google Cloud and Intel partnered to sponsor the Google Confidential Cloud Computing Challenge for private and secure cloud computing. There were a number of awesome submissions, along with our winning one based on TF Trusted. We were also excited to see the Alibaba Gemini Lab take first place in the the ML training track of the iDASH competition with their submission built on TF Encrypted!
The OpenMined community partnered with Udacity to develop the Secure & Private AI course, and also worked with RAAIS to provide several open source development grants. Facebook played a part as well, by providing scholarships to students for the Secure & Private AI course and funding several additional open-source grants in OpenMined.
A group of academic, government, and industry partners working on homomorphic encryption convened in August to continue development toward a set of standards for future work. While it’s still early days for such standards, the evolution of the field depends on collaboration between such diverse sets of stakeholders.
Finally, Owkin has launched a major effort to deploy federated learning between hospitals, through both the Substra Foundation as well as a partnership with NVIDIA and King’s College. Since there are few examples of federated learning in the wild, the community will be closely following developments like this over the next year.
Looking Forward
Although we can’t include all of our favorite works from the year, please let us know in the comments if we’ve made any glaring omissions!
This year was all about continuing to advance the groundbreaking work in PPML from 2018, as well as beginning to use PPML to solve real-world use cases. We’ve discovered a gulf between the research and practice of PPML, unearthing a variety of new problems as we aim for industry adoption. Ultimately, I’d encourage further collaboration between PPML researchers and the variety of organizations encountering security and privacy problems on their machine learning journeys. Whether you’re one of the former or the latter, we hope you’ll consider dropping us a line!
About Dropout Labs
We’re a team of machine learning engineers, software engineers, and cryptographers spread across the United States, France, Germany and Canada. We’re building a platform for managing data privacy within machine learning pipelines, enabling compliance and security teams to enforce policy while reducing friction for data scientists to accessing the data they need. By applying secure, encrypted, and privacy-preserving machine learning techniques, our platform unlocks more valuable data, and enables the creation of better models.
Visit our website or blog or product page for more information, or follow us on Twitter for up-to-date announcements.
If you’re passionate about data privacy and AI, we’d love to hear from you. | https://medium.com/dropoutlabs/privacy-preserving-machine-learning-2019-a-year-in-review-123733e61705 | ['Jason Mancuso'] | 2020-01-10 16:59:00.656000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Differential Privacy', 'Privacy', 'Information Security', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
The Cyclical Nature of Spiritual Growth | When You Understand the Patterns of Spiritual Growth You Can Experience Far Greater Results and Peace on Your Journey
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
“Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years…” Genesis 1:14
“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted….” Ecclesiastes 3:1–2
Linear and Cyclical
God designed the physical universe, including our lives, so they are both linear and cyclical.
Linear: The created universe had a definite beginning, approximately 13.75 billion years ago, and it will have an eventual end.
God created all of this, and us individually, with clear purposes in mind that are being worked out according to a divine plan. God’s purposes for this age, will at some point be complete and He will start a new age with a new heaven and new earth.
This life does not go on in never ending cycles, according to the Bible. It is linear, with a beginning and an end.
Cyclical: On this linear path, there are God-given cycles at work. Genesis 1 tells us this was also part of God’s design from the very beginning. One of the reasons for stars and galaxies is for “signs and seasons, days and years.” Signs in the sky, seasons, days, and years are cyclical.
Physical and spiritual growth also happen in cycles. Jesus said the kingdom of God was like a seed planted in the soil that would go through phases as it grows to maturity. He also said that He is the Vine and we are the branches and God would, at times, prune us branches so we would grow more fruit, long-term. (John 15:1–5)
Seasons of growth and seasons of pruning.
To Experience Growth, Work With the Season You are In
One of the main reasons many of us get frustrated in trying to follow God’s plans and is because we don’t recognize which part of the cycle God has us in right now.
If it’s planting season and we’re trying to harvest, we’re going to be frustrated. Or if it’s harvest season and we’re planting, that seed is not going to grow.
There are times to give birth and times to let things die.
There are seasons to plant, water, harvest or even uproot.
There are times to kill plans and outdated strategies, and times to heal and restore so that God-dream can keep going.
Whether its a spiritual growth goal, improving a ministry or a business, or even physically working out it is worth the prayerful reflection needed to step back and see which part of the cycle we’re in right now.
Revelation Cycles
Along with process cycles, like some of the ones I just listed, there are also cycles of godly revelation.
When I first became a Christ-follower I read in the Bible how much God loved me, and I believed it. Despite all kinds of questions I still had about why the world had so much evil and trouble if there is a loving God, I came to believe that God showed His love clearly by His willingness to die for my sins on the cross.
The moment I prayed and asked God to forgive me for all my sins and I received God’s gift of eternal life by faith, I experienced a wonderful measure of God’s love and joy in my own soul. It was real, it was refreshing, and so filled with hope and new life.
But since then, at different times, I’ve had newer and deeper revelations and experiences with God’s love. God’s love is so deep and broad and high and vast, there is no way I can fully grasp it or experience it at one time.
Most of the time these love revelations have come as I read/study/meditate on Scripture. Sometimes it’s come as I hear a song or worship God. I’ve also experienced it in nature or through the attitude and actions of another person.
I experience the love of God, deeper, broader, or in another way. I’ve gone through a fresh cycle of His love.
But then God takes me to another aspect of His life. For that season, I’m learning more deeply about His brilliance and creativity. Another season, it’s His faithfulness and how I can be more faithful. Then, maybe, a fresh encounter with His joy, or peace, or power.
Different levels of revelation that come at different times and in different ways.
Seasons and Cycles Keep It Consistent AND Fresh
Because we can count on seasons being consistent, we have the needed stability to plan and move forward with reliable foundations. We don’t wonder if the sun will rise tomorrow or that summer will follow spring.
Seasons also give us variety and keeps things fresh. Like most of us, I enjoy spring, summer, and fall more than winter. But if it was always summer or always fall, that could get stale for me. Even subtle differences in climates that don’t change much, helps.
Variety being the spice of life has real truth to it.
The same is true with God’s work in our lives. He will emphasize certain things during certain seasons because He knows how we best function.
Recognizing what part of the cycle we’re in and what God is working on during that season allows us to best cooperate with Him and experience the greatest results in our lives.
How do we know what season we’re in? That’s for another article, this one is getting too long. I will write that tomorrow, so if that’s of interest to you, take a look for How to Recognize The Season You’re In.
If you want more FREE resources on how to live a Jesus-Centered, Jesus-Empowered Life take a look at www.TruVineMission.com
If you want more help in clarifying and then accomplishing your God-given purposes, take a look at www.MarkFurlongCoaching.com. | https://medium.com/@mrkfurlong/the-cyclical-nature-of-spiritual-growth-c28c68eaf12c | ['Mark Furlong'] | 2020-12-21 19:58:44.248000+00:00 | ['Spiritual Growth', 'Purpose Driven Life', 'Christianity', 'Purpose Driven Business', 'Jesus'] |
How to Recruit on LinkedIn: 15 Practical Tips | LinkedIn has the potential to be a great recruitment tool for sourcing and marketing your brand, but it’s important that you make the most of the platform to optimum results. Here are 15 useful tips for recruiters already using LinkedIn.
1. Make sure your LinkedIn profile has these 4 essentials:
A picture — should look professional and reflect your brand, people like dealing with faces as opposed to just text — studies show you get 30% more clicks in search results when you have a picture. And you are 7 times more likely to come up in search if you have a photo. As a recruitment professional you want to be approachable and a profile picture is an absolute must.
should look professional and reflect your brand, people like dealing with faces as opposed to just text — studies show you get 30% more clicks in search results when you have a picture. And you are 7 times more likely to come up in search if you have a photo. As a recruitment professional you want to be approachable and a profile picture is an absolute must. A headline — (along with your name and picture) is what comes up in search results and based on this the user will decide whether to click on you or the competitor. Make sure the headline talks about what you do and not who you are, i.e. “Recruiting Java Developers to Top Tier Consultancies in Manchester” instead of Consultant or Recruiter at Agency X — which means very little. You have 120 characters at your disposal, make sure you make the most of these.
— (along with your name and picture) is what comes up in search results and based on this the user will decide whether to click on you or the competitor. Make sure the headline talks about what you do and not who you are, i.e. “Recruiting Java Developers to Top Tier Consultancies in Manchester” instead of Consultant or Recruiter at Agency X — which means very little. You have 120 characters at your disposal, make sure you make the most of these. Your summary — (the bio section) is where people go to see what you are all about and what your track record in the industry is. If you get someone to take their time to check this out you will want them to read 2–3 paragraphs about what you have done, what you can do for them and something memorable. Remember to add your contact details at the end of this section if you want new people to get in touch.
(the bio section) is where people go to see what you are all about and what your track record in the industry is. If you get someone to take their time to check this out you will want them to read 2–3 paragraphs about what you have done, what you can do for them and something memorable. Remember to add your contact details at the end of this section if you want new people to get in touch. Keywords — Finally, you have to get the right keywords on your profile or you will not come up in any searches. Yes you might come up in searches for your name but let’s face it if someone already knows your name you already have a foot in the door. It’s better to come up in the search for “Java recruiter Manchester”. Just remember that there is a fine balance between spraying keywords across your profile and staying professional.
2. Customize your public profile URL:
You can make your personal profile look more professional by customizing your LinkedIn public profile URL. When you sign up LinkedIn will automatically assign you a URL with a long number to identify your profile, but this can be changed to your name, company etc. in order to look tidier and make you profile easier to find.
3. Create a showcase page for your company:
Whether your company is large or small, creating a Showcase Page is fairly simple and makes it much easier for people to keep up with company news and also to expand your reach to new people who were previously unaware of the business. Make sure you add a summary about who you are and what the company does on your page and you can also use your showcase page to to share updates and interact with potential clients/candidates.
4. Boost your LinkedIn SEO:
LinkedIn users run thousands of searches every day, typically to find someone that can help them in their niche or location. The good news is that you can influence your own search rankings fairly easily. To get better ranking make sure to insert relevant keywords in your headline, in your job title and in your summary. Use keywords such as industry, location, company names (if that’s allowed), and even names of people.
5. Alter your privacy settings:
Most users on LinkedIn have realised that every update they do on LinkedIn will be visible to their network. As a result some people prefer not to connect, join groups, update their profile as they want to stay under the radar for whatever reason. There are however ways of hiding your activity and other bits on LinkedIn, all on the settings page:
Activity broadcast — If you want to make lots of changes to your profile but not notify your network, turn the broadcasts off and you can operate under the radar. This is of course very useful for candidates you headhunt, as the candidate may not want the world to know they are connecting to a recruiter and improving their profile, getting recommendations etc.
— If you want to make lots of changes to your profile but not notify your network, turn the broadcasts off and you can operate under the radar. This is of course very useful for candidates you headhunt, as the candidate may not want the world to know they are connecting to a recruiter and improving their profile, getting recommendations etc. Who’s visited your profile — Unlike Facebook or Twitter, on LinkedIn you can actually see that other users have looked at your profile. How much you can see depends on your own settings, if you allow others to see your name, you’ll be able to see theirs.
— Unlike Facebook or Twitter, on LinkedIn you can actually see that other users have looked at your profile. How much you can see depends on your own settings, if you allow others to see your name, you’ll be able to see theirs. Hide connections on your profile — Some candidates complain that ‘recruiters only connect with me so they can have a look at my network’. Well, these people don’t realise that you can hide your connections from being browsed on your profile.
6. How to connect with new people:
There are of course lots of ways of connecting with people you’d like to get in touch with. If you have their email you can tick the friend option. Or if you are stuck you can ask a common connection to introduce you, the trouble with that is that it takes time — the other person has to go in and manually forward your message.
A good way to do it is through the group short cut. Have a look at that person’s profile, scroll down and sew what groups they are a member of. If you happen to be in the same group, great. If you’re not, you can always join a group they are in as you are allowed to connect direct with people in the same group. You are also able to send messages to users who you are not connected to but you’re in the same group.
5. LinkedIn is all about connections, the more you have the better visibility your profile will have and more people you will be able to search for. But it’s also about quality connections, it’s worth identifying the so called ‘super connectors’ in your field and start connecting with them — if they have 1,000 relevant connections that will save you a lot of leg work.
7. Who to connect with:
LinkedIn is all about connections, the more you have the better visibility your profile will have and more people you will be able to search for. But it’s also about quality connections, it’s worth identifying the so called ‘super connectors’ in your field and start connecting with them — if they have 1,000 relevant connections that will save you a lot of leg work.
8. Connecting etiquette:
The best way to connect with new people is not revolutionary; it’s just actually taking an interest in the other person. Personalise your invite where possible, have a look at the profile and try to find some common denominators. Are you a member of the same group (a very useful way), did you notice they are connected with someone you know, did you go to the same school or do you share a passion for trainspotting? Whatever it is, put it into your invite message and I can guarantee the person won’t mark you as a spammer. The worst thing that can happen is that they ignore you or politely reply that they only connect with people they have met.
9. Engage with your connections:
Once you have built a network of connections it is important that you engage with them. You can do this by starting conversations, liking their updates, sharing your own updates that are likely to provoke discussion, but be sure to stay industry relevant.
10. Join groups or start your own:
By joining groups for your industry and interests you can get involved with discussion with other like minded users and expand your network. You can use these to share content that has taken your interest or blog posts that you have written yourself.
If you can’t find the group you’re looking for, why not start your own based around specific interests? It’s a great way of getting people talking, at the same time as promoting your business or brand.
11. Post status updates:
Posting status updates is a great way to build engagement with your connections and get your brand seen, as anyone who likes or comment will then automatically share it to their newsfeed. Here’s what you could share:
Sharing valuable information that educates, inspires or entertains your audience, such as relevant industry articles, general business hacks and occasionally something light like ‘How Darth Vader was the best project manager ever’.
Share a vacancy every now and then but do it in the right way. Instead of just pushing out a link to a job specification on your site, describe the opportunity and what makes it unique if you can. ‘
Share events you are going to is always useful, if someone in your network is thinking of going they will get in touch. And it shows that you’re out and about amongst your clients and candidates. If your company hosts events, these should definitely be shared as well in status updates (and listed in the events section).
12. Publish on LinkedIn:
LinkedIn has recently introduced their own publishing platform, so users can now publish long-form posts about professional topics. If you’re an expert in your and fancy yourself a bit of a writer, then make the most of this feature to share your knowledge and get yourself seen. Consider it an opportunity to position yourself as a ‘thought leader’, showing your clients that you’re at the forefront of your industry. These posts become part of your professional story when people visit your profile.
13. Advertise jobs:
Anyone can advertise a job on I but it comes at a price. When you set up a pay-per-click campaign you can target segments on I such as CFOs and FDs based in Manchester in the Pharmaceutical industry. This will narrow down your audience to a few hundred people and only they will see your ad. The smaller the target group, the less clicks, but when you do get clicks you know they are right. So it’s better to get one relevant click per week than ten tyre kickers.
One way of doing ads for free is of course your status update; another way is to post it into groups (job discussions). These are in theory good ways but the trouble is that most people see those updates as adverts and tend to ignore them.
14. LinkedIn activities to get involved in:
Check your homefeed, this may sound very basic but very few recruiters actually keep an eye on the homepage of LinkedIn. This is where you see what’s happening in real time and it’s your chance to tell members of your network that you are there and that you care.
Do at least one status update per day and make it count. It’s better to go for one quality update that gets attention from your network (and beyond) than a number of updates that nobody outside your team will care about.
Be active in one or two groups, not more. It’s very hard to keep track of ten discussions happening in as many groups so again, go for a quality discussion in a useful group.
15. Check your analytics
LinkedIn offer analytics that give you an insight into who are reading your posts and your company’s performance on LinkedIn You can view the data by using LinkedIn’s analytics page, where it tells you who is engaging your individual posts are and understand more about your follower demographics. This information will help you to target the right audience with your content. | https://medium.com/@karlmoussallem-sa/how-to-recruit-on-linkedin-15-practical-tips-3f1fa8a76d59 | ['Karl Moussallem'] | 2020-12-18 20:04:04.975000+00:00 | ['Tips', 'Work', 'Recruiting', 'Social Media', 'Business'] |
AOS Hackathon Innovation Competition has ended, and the first prize goes to decentralized exchange AOSWAP | After the schedule that lasted for up to 3 months, AOS Global Hackathon Innovation Competition (online competition) ended in late November. During the competition, the official received hundreds of application forms. Contestants from a dozen countries submitted tens of works in total, covering Defi, game, infrastructure component, oracle, public chain technology solution, practical tooling system and other fields. Considering the large number of participating groups and the huge popularity of the competition, the original competition date had to be postponed one month later.
After the work submission deadline in late November, AOS Hackathon organizing committee immediately started the screening and evaluation process of the works. After repeated selection, reasoning and testing of the works, the final winning list of the Hacker Marathon Competition was decided in the principle of fairness, impartiality and openness.
In the audition, a total of 12 works in accordance with the competition rules won the Finalist Award, with each shortlisted team receiving a reward of 20,000 AOS, among which 6 excellent works entered the finals to compete for the final ranking.
The third prize goes to three works, including Blockchain voting (a on-chain voting application developed by a Singaporean team), Animal Picking (an animal guessing game developed by a South Korean team) and Rock Paper Scissors (a rock-paper-scissors game developed by a Chinese team). Three teams will each get 50,000 AOS as a reward. Works on game application have all been included in AOS wallet DAPP center and are available to users.
The second prize goes to two works. One is Dice (a dice game developed by a US team). Fairness and impartiality of the game result is guaranteed through smart contract. Another is Mining Farm (a liquidity mining application developed by a UK team). It is worth mentioning that after being launched, Mining Farm got nearly 200 million AOS involved at one time. The launch of Mining Farm contributed significantly to Defi development road of AOS ecology. The organizing committee gave away 100,000 AOS for each work wining the second prize.
The top priority of the competition, or the first prize that contestants concern the most, goes to only one work. After repeated reasoning, the organizing committee gave the prize to a development team from the UK, whose work is a decentralized exchange based on AOS public chain — AOSWAP. The birth of this work improves the ecological competitiveness of AOS and provides a new direction for the innovation of DEX. AOSWAP was expected largely to compete with Uniswap at one time.
With the advantage of AOS underlying technology, AOSWAP realizes characteristics such as no commission, instant transaction and instant transfer in transaction, overriding Uniswap in terms of application performance and user experience. At the same time, AOSWAP also supports private asset transaction based on zero-knowledge proof technology so that transaction is untraceable.
After AOSWAP got the first prize, its development team will get 200,000 AOS as a reward, which is also the highest prize in this competition. Apart from the reward of AOS, the fund of 5 million dollars set previously for the competition will start the evaluation work and provide comprehensive support for teams or companies with strong comprehensive strength, solid technology and advanced ideas.
AOS Hackathon Competition, which lasted three months, attracted numerous excellent developers worldwide and received extensive attention from the industry. Although the competition is over, the construction of AOS ecology is continuing. People with any work or proposal helpful to AOS public chain and contributes to AOS ecology can contact the official. AOS team is still struggling on the road to blockchain privacy protection and public chain performance construction. | https://medium.com/@aosofficial/aos-hackathon-innovation-competition-has-ended-and-the-first-prize-goes-to-decentralized-exchange-487551422a34 | [] | 2020-12-05 10:48:52.724000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Crypto', 'Hackathons'] |
The desolating secret hidden beneath the undergrowth of Gloucestershire’s rural ‘staycation’ hotspots | The thought of life in the Gloucestershire countryside is very much romanticised by many outsiders, who immediately think of quaint cottages, sprawling farmland, and fresh air.
And whilst one can find many of these things in our county, beneath this widely-accepted fantasy lies a dark truth that suffocates just over a tenth of those living in rural England and Wales.
With the easing of restrictions, tourists from across the country are flocking to experience Gloucestershire’s chocolate box-esque Cotswold towns and the magical Forest of Dean.
And whilst they bask in the quietness of their holiday homes, some residents are left screaming in the silence.
The undergrowth of our green and pleasant land is rife with domestic abuse.
Although domestic abuse exists in all settings, there are a number of factors unique to rural areas that make it specifically challenging.
When the first lockdown was announced back in March 2020, there was an eruption of concerned discourse centred around domestic abuse victims, who faced being trapped inside with their abusers for weeks.
Between March and July 2020, and again in March 2021, Gloucestershire Police recorded an above average number of domestic abuse cases in the Cotswolds and the Forest of Dean, two predominantly rural districts within our county.
Jenny Forde is a Cotswold District councillor who has been working to promote awareness of the unique challenges faced by rural domestic abuse victims, a lot of which, put quite simply, are down to the ‘rurality’ of victims’ home environments.
Councillor Jenny Forde
Councillor Forde said: “It’s not just the rurality, there’s lots of things that make it perfect for perpetrators,
“Physically, people are more isolated so can be far away from communities and other areas where they might bump into people, or just be seen by other people,
“The other thing, is that whole blessing and a curse of [living in] rural communities, which can be very strong and we’ve seen the best of them in this pandemic in terms of pulling together, knowing your neighbour, looking out for each other,
“But then also with that comes that kind of pressure that makes it even harder for people to speak out or ask for help.”
In 2019, the National Rural Crime Network (NRCN) published a report, ‘Captive & Controlled’, which detailed the tribulations of domestic abuse that are unique to rural parts of the country.
The ‘everybody-knows-everybody’ mentality that embodies rural villages can provide a great sense of community, but the hypersensitvity of villagers to unusual cars, the sight of which may be mentioned to the abuser, makes it much harder for victims to get support
It was found that, on average, domestic abuse lasts 25% longer in most rural areas, and that, because many positions of power in rural areas are held by men, women are more vulnerable to coercion and control.
In a Twitter poll, 41.3% of respondents initially assumed that domestic abuse happens in suburban areas.
37% believe it happens mostly in urban areas, with just 21.7% thinking it is most prevalent in rural areas.
According to the National Rural Crime Network, there are similar incidence rates in rural areas to those in urban areas, but the sparse population means that there are lower reporting rates.
A common misconception of domestic abuse, Councillor Forde highlights, is that perpetrators are often ‘drunken violent men who go to the pub, come home and beat their wife’.
But the situation is often much more complex than this stereotype, as emotional and mental abuse tactics can be carried out by the most ‘charming’ of people.
Councillor Forde said: “Often perpetrators can be very charming, very popular, very charismatic — part of the reason people are attracted to them in the first place is because they can give off an energy,
“That makes it even harder for the victim, because part of their attraction [to the abuser] is that sometimes this person is wonderful and makes them feel like they’re the centre of the universe.”
During the pandemic, Gloucestershire Police have conducted engagement events across the country to provide an opportunity for victims of domestic abuse to get advice, as well as raising awareness via social media.
The Gloucestershire Constabulary HQ in Waterwells
In the first stage of the pandemic, a vulnerability safeguarding team was established to provide greater support to vulnerable victims, and this included a direct response to victims in rural areas.
Gloucestershire Domestic Abuse Support Service (GDASS) has been fostering a domestic abuse champions network in partnership with Cotswold District Council.
Although these support initiatives are needed, Councillor Forde believes that we should look at the root causes of domestic abuse.
She said: “I know that abuse can happen the other way around, but I am most interested in the way that men treat women,
“That is the majority of cases and that is what’s endemic in our society — it’s very deep rooted and it happens so early on,
“I think, by the time you’re in an established abusive relationship, often with children, it’s just too late, and women getting out of that is so unlikely,
“We know it takes a woman, on average, seven times to leave somebody,
“And by the time that’s happening, it’s almost too late. I feel like we should be doing stuff so much earlier, and not just with women, we need to be doing it with boys as well.”
“This whole thing about, ‘Boys will be boys!’,‘They’re just messing around!’,‘Oh they might say a few things, but just ignore it!’,
“[The responsibility is] back on the woman. The woman needs to be sassy, or the woman needs to have a good put down, or the woman needs to not tolerate it, or the woman needs to ignore it,
“No, they need to stop saying it.”
“We start very, very early on with girls feeling that they shouldn’t take up space, they try and make themselves small, they try and be quiet, they do as they’re told; that then continues as they get older,
“It’s about nipping those things in the bud, and calling out people — what you say and the language you use in a parish council meeting, for example, is really, really important,
“So when people say, ‘I’m just a bit old fashioned’, it’s a little step towards inequality, so I think it does start with those sorts of things. It’s the same with the Sarah Everard case — the guy who murdered her had some other incidents that weren’t as serious, but that’s how it starts,
“I heard a good quote the other day that hurt people, hurt people, and that’s what we need to look at.” | https://medium.com/@maisie-lillywhite/the-dark-secret-beneath-the-undergrowth-of-gloucestershires-rural-staycation-hotspots-7446ac482f21 | ['Maisie Lillywhite'] | 2021-06-08 19:25:37.312000+00:00 | ['Domestic Abuse', 'Gloucestershire', 'Coronavirus'] |
Nomad By Ayaan Hirsi Ali | This book is the sequel of Infidel, the author’s memoir. I reviewed it here. What I failed to discuss in my Infidel’s review was Ms Hirsi Ali’s families — Her father, mother, sisters and brother.
At the end of Infidel, the reader is left wondering, what happen to the family? The answer to that question is found in Nomad.
The author is a powerful storyteller. Her talent resides in the way she compels you to read more of her story page after page.
About the author
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is either loved or hated. With her there is no middle ground. Her champions are the west, since she glorifies their model and way of thinking. Her detractors are the Somalis and the Muslims in general and a third group of persons I call the liberal thinkers.Like I said in my review of Infidel, as a young Muslim woman myself, who came to the west, I don’t identify with most of the things she said about women, Islam and black Africa. I am forced to conclude that, the Islam she talks about, is only present, in Somalia. Sometimes, when you read her arguments, you have this feeling that she is being too simplistic. It’s not about choosing between Islam and atheism. It is more complicated than that. Women are still facing enormous challenges everywhere, even in her beloved west.
Somalia, Tribe and Islam
Now the issue of tribes and clans is very unique to Somalia. Your belonging to a particular clan determine your identity and your place in society. For a country, that is trying to create a national identity, that is problematic to say the least.
As a general rule, I am always suspicious of people who are adamant or who insist on generalization. People live through different times and circumstances. As such, talks of women and Islam should always be nuanced and put into perspective. I was quite shock at the way she describes her family in the book, especially her mother and her grandmother. In fact, I was really disappointed. She sounded like a heartless woman. Maybe I am just too much of an African, but I found it rather sad.
Ms Ali argues that Islam is a backward religion that needs to be adapted to modern times like the bible. Because the Quran was kept intact, Islam did not disintegrate like Christianism did. On another chapter, she pointed out that because of the alienation of Islam, Somalia is a backward country. If Islam was the root of all of Somalia’s problems, countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt would not prosper. Countries like Senegal, Mali, The Gambia, and Guinea would be more like Somalia. They are all Muslim countries and they are all different.I am a moderate Muslim; I don’t wear the Hijab neither my mother nor my grand-mother did. All the girls of my extended family went to school and most of them are working. They choose their own husband and no one has been circumcised. In short, we did not have the same experience of Islam at all. Now that brings us to this idea of how many type of Islam exist?
I would argue that because of her bad experience, she wants us all to quit Islam and become atheist. Or rather, she wants the government of Canada to ban Islam altogether. That would be against the rights of the people, wouldn’t it? Her opinions are rather skewed most of time.I think the point that shock me the most was her insistence that Islam can’t exist in the west. What is the West exactly? Europe? The US? Being a Muslim in Europe is quite different from being a Muslim in Canada or in the US.
Now as I mention on my review of Infidel, some of the things she said are true. Particularly on the conditions of women in Somalia. I don’t think honor killing or Female Genital Mutilation were brought by Islam. A perfect example would be 18th century England, where women had no rights, was forced to marry and was under the responsibility of the man of their families. But I absolutely agree with her that honor killing, female genial mutilation,rape, forced marriage are all unacceptable… But again, I am from a Muslim country and honor killing does not exist in our society, female genital mutilation is not a widespread practice and rape is criminal under any circumstances.
Ms Ali discussed extensively on the fact that Somalis men have problems adapting to moderns societies. For instance she said :”…This is the tragedy of the tribal Muslim man, and especially the first-born son: the overblown expectations, the ruinous vanity, the unstable sense of self that relies on the oppression of one group of people — women — to maintain the other group’s self-image…”
I prefer this book to the first one. I feel like in this book the harshness was toned down a little bit. And some points were discussed more in depth. I recommend you to read it. I would love to know what you think of it? Drop me a comment or email us at [email protected] | https://medium.com/books-under-the-neem-tree/nomad-by-ayaan-hirsi-ali-ed9e24e40aef | ['Under The Neem Tree'] | 2016-06-21 04:51:56.162000+00:00 | ['Black Africa', 'Somalia', 'Islam', 'Ayaan Hirsi Ali', 'Clan'] |
Mental Note Vol. 24 | Photo by Josh Riemer on Unsplash
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!
We just wanted everyone to know how much we appreciate everyone and how thankful we are for all our readers and writers here. We wouldn’t be anywhere without you, so thank you all for bringing informative, vulnerable, and important pieces that destigmatize mental illness and mental health.
Without further ado, here are ten of our top stories from last week, all of which were curated:
“Just as the capacity to love and inspire is universal so is the capacity to hate and discourage. Irrespective of gender, race, age or religion none of us are exempt from aggressive proclivities. Those who are narcissistically disordered, and accordingly repress deep seated feelings of inferiority with inflated delusions of grandeur and superiority, are more prone to aggression and violence. They infiltrate our interactions in myriad environments from home, work, school and the cyber world. Hence, bullying does not happen in isolation. Although there is a ringleader she looks to her minions to either sanction her cruelty or look the other way.”
“Even though the circumstances that brought me here were sad and challenging, I’m grateful for how this program has changed my life for the better. I can’t help but imagine what life would be like if everyone learned to accept their powerlessness over other people, prioritize their serenity, and take life one step at a time. We’ll never know, but I’d bet the world would be much happier.”
“The prospect of spending a horrible Christmas, locked in on a psychiatric unit, was one of the low points of my life. For weeks, the day room was festooned with cheesy decorations and a sorry pink aluminum tree. All of our “activity” therapies revolved around the holidays. We baked and decorated cookies. We fashioned quick-drying clay into ornaments that turned out to be too heavy for the tree. Crappy Christmas carols were background torture. It was hard to get pissed off at the staff because they were making the best with what they had.”
“Although I hate to admit it, even if my ex had never betrayed me, I still wouldn’t have been happy. I had set him up for an impossible job — to define me and make me whole. If I cannot find peace and contentment within myself, how could anyone else do it for me?”
“On a personal note, significant feelings of loss and sadness can still flare up from time to time. That’s only natural; it’s no reason for self-critique. No matter how resilient we purport to be, we are all emotionally vulnerable human beings. Besides, we aren’t talking about some conceptual loss that we can just mechanically compartmentalize away — we are talking about the loss of our fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers.”
“The next six weeks will be hard as cases continue to explode and government leadership remains nonexistent. I can’t control any of this. The only thing I can do is take deep breaths, remain vigilant when it comes to limiting exposure to the virus, and let lots of stuff go. I may always be a hypochondriac, but now that I recognize the beast, I’m hopeful I’ll be able to tame it.”
“From anecdotal news reports and informal surveys, there is evidence that for some of us, this pandemic-imposed isolation is a boon rather than a trial. One study on mixed emotions showed that those with lower emotional stability (“moody” personalities) are actually better at responding to uncertainty.”
“Every day I wish in my heart and soul that I didn’t have ME/CFS. Unfortunately, I do. It’s a result of a virus I had; 10–12 percent of people who experience a serious infection go on to develop ME. I’ve visualized life without CFS for over a year now; I can smell life without it, I can taste it. It’s in the smell of the lavender fields that I can no longer run through. It’s in the taste of the meals from my favorite restaurant that I can no longer walk to. It’s on the tip of my tongue. It’s in the potentialities; all the things I could be doing, as a twenty-four year-old, that I can’t. I cannot cross the chasm between the potential and the reality. And that’s nothing to do with manifestation.”
“Whether it’s cabin fever, redundancy, loss, or general Covid anxieties, this year has caused us to be exposed to more uncertainty than ever. Uncertainty creates unease and feelings of stress. Some of us may have taken this year as one to motivate — plan dream trips, and prepare and be inspired for what the future could bring. For the rest, it has caused us to become irrational, emotional, and reserved.
“To be more self-compassionate is a task that can be tricky because we always want to push ourselves and do better. Without realising it, this can lead to us being self-critical which can have damaging consequences.
It’s important to notice these times when we are harsh because we can easily turn it into self-compassion, which is linked to a better quality of life.”
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!
— Ryan, Juliette, Marie, and Meredith | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/mental-note-vol-24-969b6a42443f | ['Ryan Fan'] | 2020-12-26 03:38:10.479000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Health', 'Psychology', 'Science', 'Neuroscience'] |
Don’t You Feel Angry As A Ghostwriter? | Don’t You Feel Angry As A Ghostwriter?
Earning money. It’s a thing for which you have to do things that you don’t like. I chose freelance writing as my career. And, I’m quite happy. It keeps my stomach full and ensures that I have a roof to sleep under. But there are moments that fill my eyes with tears.
I Feel Like A Surrogate Mother
You spend sleepless nights to craft a piece of article. You go the extra mile and add more and more value to your article. You scissor the inconsistencies. And then what? When you submit the article, you see someone else’s name in a big font under it. No I’m not talking about writing for companies — that is bearable. I’m talking about writing for individual people. People who can’t write but they have money. And I need the money. What do I sell in exchange for the money? My visibility.
What did you say? “Don’t be grouchy”? Yeah yeah, I know. I’m here after thoroughly knowing what I would experience. So, here I am, sucking it up. Let’s give birth to a new baby that I can’t call mine… | https://medium.com/@immortal-ideas/dont-you-feel-angry-as-a-ghostwriter-43f01aa348f | ['Marifur Rahaman'] | 2021-08-07 12:17:11.067000+00:00 | ['Better Writing', 'Startup', 'Freelance', 'Ghostwriting', 'Freelance Writing'] |
We have been using magic without even realizing it? | Yes !! you read it correctly. We have been using magic without even realizing it. Do you have that lucky shirt you wear to an interview or the your comfy sweater to lift you up. Color magic.
That’s what we will be talking about in this.
What is color magic and how does it work?
Did you know that colors have the abilities to attract different things, and different brands may or may not be using it( lmk if you want me to write about it next)
Lets take a look and color and its correspondences:
Red: courage, strength, power, health, passion and ambition. So when you want to show that you are in charge, and get then to obey you, you know what color to wear. This can also be worn in work place environment.
Orange: energy, vitality, luck. you can wear this to a job interview, or to let people know that you are outgoing person.
Yellow: Creativity, communication, learning. Next time you have exam and need to remember what you studies, wear this color.
Green: health, abundance and nature. Wear this to decrease the chances for getting sick (this does not mean you will never be sick, but it decreases the chances to some extent).
Blue: peace, hope, healing and patience. If you are feeling anxious this color will help you relax
Purple: intuition, wisdom, connection with higher self. This color is good to meditate in, and increasing your intuition of readings.
Pink: affection, friendship, optimism. Good color to wear to make new friends or even ask someone out.
White: New beginning, imagination, purity. If you are feeling foggy wear this color to clear thing out or to start something. *I might or might not be doing it*
Black: protection, silence and elimination. Wear this color to get rid of negative emotions.
Gold: success, courage, setting boundaries. Its a good color to get to know someone better.
Brown: grounding, home and stability. To make people feel more comfortable, or at home feeling wear this color.
*white is always a good choice if you can not choose*
Point to be remembered, Magic is belief so if you correspond red with protection and purple with success it is OKAY. Do not change your beliefs. The above mentioned correspondences are the most common ones if that does not correspond your belief you can change it according to your own.
Now that you know the color magic. You can use it to your advantage. You go boo !!!!
If this helped you and you are interested in learning more about magic, or paganism or anything else let me know, I will try to provide the best content to you.
‘till the merry meet !
Follow for more ! | https://medium.com/@binrainbow11/we-have-been-using-magic-without-even-realizing-it-d0a4a7ee520d | ['Kritika Neupane'] | 2020-12-21 15:35:41.678000+00:00 | ['Newbie', 'Magic', 'Paganism', 'Colors', 'Magick'] |
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus: Arbitrary File Upload | Introduction
This article is a write up on how I found my second critical vulnerability at the company’s internal bounty program.
I wrote this for educational purposes only. Do not perform any illegal activity or pen-testing without permission.
Vulnerability exploitation
After a bunch of enumerations and information gathering on subdomains. I found an interesting subdomain that uses ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, which have lots of potential security risk.
A few minutes in, I discovered a way to get RCE on this subdomain. This method required an authenticated user to send a POST request to a vulnerable endpoint. (CVE-2019–8394).
2020 solving 2020 problems
In file common/FileAttachment.jsp line 332 only check file upload extension when parameter ‘module’ equal to ‘SSP’ or ‘DashBoard’ or ‘HomePage’, and if parameter ‘module’ is set to ‘CustomLogin’ will skip check file upload extension function and upload arbitrary file to folder ‘/custom/login’ and this file can access directly from url ‘host:port/custom/login/filename’ . An authenticated user with minimum permission (ex: guest) can upload webshell to server.
So the first thing is to acquire an account (don’t care about the privileges). Rolled the dices and found the simplest account credentials of all time. This made me remembered about my first bug bounty case for V* with admin:admin credentials, easy money easy life.
admin:admin
Got the account, let’s dive into the process of gaining RCE
The first step is to authenticate to access the application with guest credentials, then the server will send a response with cookie parameters.
After that, take the cookie parameters and webshell content and put them in sections showed in the image below (I got the webshell from this repo)
Notes: Edit your webshell content to have no newlines (spaces are ok), I struggled for half an hour to get my shell run properly.
The server send me an 200 OK response. Go check the path
/custom/login/{your_shell_name}.jsp
Thank god the shell popped up. I can execute arbitrary code on the web server from now on!
First time RCE on Window
Corona Quarantine List?
Conclusion
Always keep your application up-to-date to mitigate security issues.
Keep trying, there’s still a light at the end of the tunnel xD
References
https://github.com/SecurityRiskAdvisors/cmd.jsp | https://medium.com/@ducanhbui/manageengine-servicedesk-plus-arbitrary-file-upload-4bab0bd00425 | ['Duc Anh Bui'] | 2020-03-04 08:48:35.370000+00:00 | ['Cybersecurity', 'Writeup', 'Bug Bounty'] |
Christine Locher | Bio
Photo by Paul Clarke https://paulclarke.com/photography/
I want to leave this place better than I found it, and use the time I have to make a positive difference. This impulse has been with me as long as I can remember, along with insatiable curiosity. The travel itch got me to live in 6 countries on 4 continents with longer trips in China and in India. Home is the UK, at least for now.
My academic background includes Communication, Intercultural Communication and Psychology with further studies abroad in Ecuador and Japan. A post-grad in peace and conflict research, and a postgrad certificate in systems thinking and a professional certificate in solution-focused business practice. My first career was in journalism (online, radio, newspaper columnist) and communication. I am a trained coach and facilitator, a licensed psychotherapist in Germany (HP Psych, trained in Client Centered work and Gestalt) and a Hatha Yoga and Inner Yoga (bodywork) teacher (trained in India and Europe).
Mind, body, spirit, from a variety of angles, always broadening and deepening my practice. Sometimes that is formal and based on hundreds/thousands of years of tradition like Mussar, and sometimes it is wild, wonderful and very eclectic. I get something out of all these experiences and I like sharing what I learn.
I love the business environment for its vibrancy, and for the chances it gave me as such an unlikely candidate starting out and starting over a few times. It proved the way out of the very narrow world I grew up in, into a more open, welcoming, diverse and international environment where there was (seemingly) space for everyone, including me.
There are, of course, also plenty of drawbacks to that world, so I want to bring body, soul and depth back to it. There is so much skill and energy in that space, and it could radically transform the world for the better if we could make this work in a way that works for everyone, not just for those with pre-existing privilege, and in a way that keeps our collective future on this planet in mind. I like this planet. It’s my home.
I like to find and connect dots, to go deep, and then I go out and do something with it in practice that helps move things in the right direction. “Too academic for real life”, “not fit for university — people like you are what vocational training was invented for”, “your next development step is out the front door” and “why are you not a professor, you’d be perfect for that” is what feedback sounds like when you cross boundaries back and forth and pitch your work tent in the liminal space. I like it there.
Here is what that looks like in practice right now in my own work: I have a portfolio. As a learning consultant, I help big organizations with their digital learning offering. I also run my own coaching and leadership development business where I work with individuals looking to regain some depth, and to find ways to then make a practical difference with it. A lot of them then start new businesses. This led to my work with start-ups where I support in making their aspirations real, in what they do and how they do it; and I invest in selected projects and organizations. I also write, speak at conferences and events, serve on a non-profit board and run communities of practice.
My sense-making involves writing things down. Partly because that’s how things come together for me, these ideas mix and ferment and then I distill it and share the “spirit” of it with a bigger audience. (My family has a hop farm and a distillery, some of that is still in my blood somewhere). Partly because it’s fun to play with words. An overview is here: https://christinelocher.me/writing/ This stretches from the serious (academic chapters/papers in various stages) to the practical (books and articles aimed at a general audience), to the whimsical (more creative formats). Some of it is also here on Medium.
When I am not doing all of the above, I train to be a craft beer expert, I knit, I enjoy making and experiencing art and I push the limits of what sorts of food you can make with a hot plate and a tiny oven. I try to be off-screen as much as I can and travel at every opportunity, near and far, on the outside and on the inside.
You can find me at:
https://christinelocher.me/
https://liordotart.wordpress.com/
https://twitter.com/ChristineLocher
or at info at christinelocher dot me | https://medium.com/living-in-systems/christine-locher-34a8fc54c8f | ['Christine Locher'] | 2020-12-06 15:28:20.684000+00:00 | ['Values', 'Biography', 'Change', 'About', 'Coaching'] |
Block Talk — Pittsburgh Grand Prix | ICO Alert Block Talk is a collection of street interviews where we test the knowledge of the public on subjects like Bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrencies and ICOs.
In this episode, we were on site at the Pittsburgh Grand Prix auto show to find out which cryptocurrencies people sold to buy their sweet Lamborghinis! | https://medium.com/ico-alert/block-talk-pittsburgh-grand-prix-e3457ef613a5 | ['Evan Schindler'] | 2018-07-17 13:30:55.182000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'News', 'Blockchain'] |
Practical network for Android Developers (part 3) | Easy data layer for every Application
Here is the list of the blogs in this series:
This is the third part of this series “Practical Network for Android Developers” today we are gonna discuss Authenticators and Interceptors in OkHttp and why they are important for coding APIs.
Interceptors
Interceptors are everything for mobile engineers, a good interceptor can save you tons of time, debugging, and even coding, it helps us to have some type of monitor to rewrite and retry API calls, inside OkHttp you can have multiple interceptors it depends on what you want to do, there’s interceptors specially to hear what is going on your app and the ones that can modify the request after leaving your application
Loggin Interceptors
The name says what they do, they log information for us they give us information about the HEADERS or BODY levels of the request and response, that’s why we need to be really careful of leaving this on a release version, even thinking about putting this on a buildConfig.DEBUG could be dangerous if we are not careful enough.
Take into consideration that we can leak tokens and keys of the headers, this data should be protected and only logged in a controlled way, you can add an interceptor like this:
You will create a HttpLoggingInterceptor where you can select the type of levels you want to have access, for easy-going, you can add this extra library for having pre-defined logs.
implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:logging-interceptor:4.X.X"
If you want a special way to send your logs, you need to create your own NetworkInterceptor, the one created here is actually overriding the Interceptor Callback
override fun intercept(chain: Interceptor.Chain): Response {
// Code on HttpLoggingInterceptor
}
You can have an interceptor to update the request you want to send, for example for adding a Header.
Network Interceptor
This is know as a Network Interceptor cause they update the request, for example Retrofit, has the option to update Headers from a specific request without compromising the integrity of the Network inteceptor
Whatsover, this does not really modify the information that happen in the prosecution of the network request, a request has a special place when all the process happend and is called Chain and you can override the process overriding this method in a Interceptor class.
Network interceptors are designed to not invoke cached responses and observe data between transmissions and also access to the Connection in the request.
Authenticators
Authenticators are part of the Network Interceptors they are able to operate on the middle of the responses doing some redirects or/and retries, Imagine you want to catch the response of an endpoint before hitting the Success or Error of your coroutine, for example, we can catch the response when there is an 401 error, then we will update the token for the failed request, and the Authenticator will take charge of resend the request, no need to send anything else or make any logic inside your presentation layer or data layer, just one Network Inteceptor to support a refresh token, pretty much, probably the most elegant wait to handle 401 error’s
This is all for this part of the post. For the next part, we will discuss Performance, Redundancy, and Concurrency! | https://proandroiddev.com/practical-network-for-android-developers-part-3-edd023fa5990 | ['Dinorah Tovar'] | 2021-04-02 23:49:40.744000+00:00 | ['Android App Development', 'Android', 'Https', 'Network', 'Interceptors'] |
The secrets to a lasting mixed-income neighborhood | The secrets to a lasting mixed-income neighborhood
Like many global cities, Toronto has become increasingly segregated into wealthy enclaves and boroughs of poverty. But one area that bucked the trend offers lessons for the future.
By Philip Preville
For two decades, Toronto’s condo boom has been the envy of the world. It has felt like a kind of global confirmation of the city’s identity and its ambitions: diverse, dynamic, cosmopolitan, egalitarian. Yet even as Toronto has led the world in construction cranes, those same values have been quietly under siege.
Ten years ago, just as the boom was reaching its peak, a groundbreaking academic research project at the University of Toronto told a striking counter-narrative: the city’s neighborhoods were transforming from middle-income communities into enclaves of the very rich or boroughs of poverty. Back in 1970, 66 percent of the city’s neighborhoods were considered middle-income, while 15 percent were high-income and only 19 percent were low-income. By 2005, only 29 percent were middle-income, while more than half were low-income. Toronto had, over the course of 35 years and with few people noticing, self-segregated itself based on wealth.
That research — now known as the ubiquitous “Three Cities” report by U of T professor David Hulchanski — also told a different story about all those downtown construction cranes. In 1970 the city core (south of the Bloor Danforth subway line) was largely made up of poorer neighborhoods, but by 2005 they were quickly turning middle- and high-income. Meanwhile the city’s inner suburbs, once the heart of Toronto’s middle-class, had suffered steep income declines. “I’m an urban planner, and we are taught that planning should serve everyone,” says Hulchanski. “People need housing, but the condo boom has mostly benefited higher-income earners.”
In the years since the Three Cities findings were first published, income polarization has preoccupied researchers, urbanists, and mayors in cities around the world. Hulchanski has found similar trends in Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver. Outside Canada, big metros like San Francisco, London, and New York have suffered from severe income inequality. “This has become a global problem,” says Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “The issue of inequality has become one of the most pressing policy issues in America.”
The economic forces behind income polarization are bigger than any one city: a global shift away from factory jobs, stagnant wages for service workers, the revival of downtown living by a highly educated knowledge class. But the local impacts remain dire for equity, social cohesion, and perhaps most important, opportunity to rise up the social ladder. Research shows that kids under age 12 who move into mixed-income neighborhoods are more likely to attend college or university and less likely to be single parents than those who remain in poor neighborhoods. In other words, for the city’s most disadvantaged populations, finding a place in a mixed-income neighborhood can mean a new outlook on life.
So while Toronto is not alone, the problem still threatens both the city’s sense of self and its international reputation as a beacon of diversity and inclusion. Yet the solution to Toronto’s problem might just lie a stone’s throw from its own downtown: the St. Lawrence neighborhood. With average household incomes just below the city’s overall average, more renters than the city average (70 percent to 47 percent), and a diversity that includes a black population nearly double the city’s average (16 percent versus 9 percent), St. Lawrence is what Hulchanski himself calls “an exceptionally good social and income mix,” especially given its location in the midst of a rapidly gentrifying downtown.
In an urban landscape of extremes, St. Lawrence’s statistical averageness makes it unique — and a case study in how to revive the mixed-income neighborhood for cities everywhere.
A Variety of Incomes and Backgrounds
Frank Lewinberg, one of the founders of the Toronto-based consulting firm Urban Strategies Group, never misses a chance to wander through the St. Lawrence neighborhood. “Whenever I am near there, I make a point of walking, cycling or driving through,” says the 74-year-old. He even has a favorite building: the Archer Co-op, a red brick housing complex with seven stories of apartments facing the Esplanade and a row of attached townhomes facing the lesser-traveled, lanewayesque Jenoves Place. “When I take friends down there I make a point of showing them those homes at the rear,” he says. “They are a delightful surprise to people.”
Back in the 1970s, as a planner with the City of Toronto, Lewinberg led the master planning team for St. Lawrence’s redevelopment. The neighborhood, which was built through the 1980s and early 1990s, has a unique ambiance to it. It’s a high-density area with taller buildings than most other residential Toronto neighborhoods, but without the condo high-rises that characterize the current building boom. Many of the buildings are teardowns of historic properties that had become decrepit, but their facades are made of brick and feature arched doorways, just like the original properties they replaced.
The residential profile of St. Lawrence (above, several measures based on 2016 Census data) closely reflects the City of Toronto at large — “an exceptionally good social and income mix,” says University of Toronto researcher David Hulchanski, especially given the neighborhood’s location in a rapidly gentrifying downtown.
Lewinberg and his team had a different idea for this neighborhood. They didn’t want St. Lawrence to be made up entirely of public housing, nor did they want the public housing to be entirely owned by a single municipal agency. They set out a plan that called for a mix of market and non-market housing that would appeal to residents from a variety of income levels and backgrounds.
Lewinberg recalls that, at the time the plan was announced, it wasn’t well-received. “Public planning of housing developments wasn’t popular back then due to the perceived failures of the past,” he says. Regent Park, just a short stroll to the north, was considered then an abject mess. So was nearby St. James Town at Bloor and Sherbourne streets. People wondered if private developers would even consider building next door to subsidized housing.
Designed for Residents, by Residents
More than a quarter-century after the neighborhood was built, its success is undeniable. One of the reasons was its commitment to maintaining the street grid. In contrast to many public housing projects of the past, whose buildings faced inwards to their courtyards and cloistered parks and turned their backs to the street, planners made sure St. Lawrence’s buildings related to the street. The neighborhood’s park, named for Mayor David Crombie, is a narrow stretch of green space that runs for six city blocks along St. Lawrence’s main artery, the Esplanade.
Hulchanski also says a main reason St. Lawrence succeeded where others failed is that it avoided the pitfall of a single, large housing agency serving as the distant, sole landlord for all the non-market housing. Whole neighborhoods of affordable housing with a single landlord can fall into trouble if that landlord ever experiences hardship. That was the old model in Regent Park, and it had resulted in weak social ties for all stakeholders: every resident was a renter, and the landlord’s commitment to the neighborhood was diluted by its many other developments scattered throughout the city. A multitude of agencies and partners with a variety of funding models helps spread the risk of that ever happening. | https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/the-secrets-to-a-lasting-mixed-income-neighborhood-2945a1902dda | ['Sidewalk Talk Features'] | 2018-06-29 13:09:34.164000+00:00 | ['Urban Planning', 'Toronto', 'Cities', 'Affordable Housing', 'Housing'] |
Guide to Multimodal Machine Learning | Guide to Multimodal Machine Learning
Analysing Text and Image at the same time!
Meme with the same text but different meaning. Source: Author of this post
I got my attention on multimodal learning from Facebook recent Hateful Meme Challenge 2020 on Driven Data. The challenge is about how to make an effective tool for detecting hate speech, and how it must be able to understand content the way people do. Seems pretty cool challenge as it makes use of both text and image for analysing content which is similar to what humans do. Let's dive deep into Multimodal Machine Learning to get what it is actually.
Multimodal Learning
As per definition Multimodal means that we have two and or more than two modes of communication through combinations of two or more modes. Modes include written language, spoken language, and patterns of meaning that are visual, audio, gestural, tactile and spatial.
In order to create an Artificial Intelligence ( even A.G.I 🤩 ) that is on par with humans, we need AI to understand, interpret and reason with multimodal messages. Multimodal machine learning aims to build models that can process and relate information from multiple modalities.
To understand how to approach this problem we must first need to understand the challenges that need to be addressed in Multimodal Machine Learning.
The challenge of Multimodal AI
Representation: The first and foremost difficulty is way to represent and summarize multiple modalities in a way we can exploit their complementarity and redundant nature. See we need to understand that usually, all modes of information we take into account points towards the same information like lip-reading and sound we hear from a person represent the same thing. But using both things together gives us that robustness which helps us understand what the other person whats to convey. So the first challenge is how we can combine multimodal data. eg: Language is often symbolic while audio and visual modalities will be represented as signals. How can we combine them?
Alignment: Secondly we need is to identify the direct relations between sub-elements from different modalities. Let's make this easy with a real-life example. We have a video on how to complete a cooking recipe. Now we also have subscript. To make it intuitive we need to match the steps shown in the video with the subscript to make a complete sense of whats going on. This is known as alignment. How do we align different modalities and deal with possible long-range dependencies and ambiguities?
Translation: Process of changing data from one modality to another, where the translation relationship can often be open-ended or subjective. At some point, we might need to convert one form of information to another. Image captioning is one prime example of this. But there exist a number of correct ways to describe an image and one perfect translation may not exist. So how do we map data from one modality to another?
Fusion: The fourth challenge is to join information from two or modalities to perform a prediction. The competition discussed above Facebook AI hateful Meme challenge is one example of it. Usually, we divide fusion techniques into two parts. Early Fusion or Late Fusion. ( Model -Agnostic Approaches)
Early Fusion And Late Fusion. Source: Author of this post
Co-Learning: Transfer knowledge between modalities, including their representations and predictive models. This is an interesting one because sometimes we have a unimodal problem and what we want from other modalities is some extra information at training time so that our system can perform best at testing time.
If after reading out this if Multimodal Machine Learning got you hooked I would suggest going through CMU Multimodal Machine Learning Course.Link in the reference.
Reference: | https://towardsdatascience.com/guide-to-multimodal-machine-learning-b9b4f8e43cf7 | ['Parth Chokhra'] | 2020-11-05 02:57:12.230000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'AI', 'Data', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Seeking Comfort in the Familiar | There was a point in my life where, when a relationship ended, I would scroll through a mental contact list of ex-boyfriends. Which ones might be single at the moment? Which ones could I see myself tolerating for a while? Which ones did I miss and wondered if we might still have a chance at making things work?
Those were the questions being answered but it was subconsciously. Consciously, I was convincing myself that whichever ex was chosen from the list was someone I still loved, someone that I was meant to be with, and all I was really doing was giving love a second chance to work its magic.
The thing was, I never got back together with these exes on a long-term basis. If anything, there might be a short-lived friends with benefits type relationship just to get across the bridge from recently single to ready to mingle again. Basically, I didn’t want to be alone and ex-boyfriends were familiar territory that didn’t require much of an emotional investment from me.
When I finally started doing the work I needed to do on myself, I stopped this pattern of trying to go back to familiar, yet failed, relationships. I also found another pattern. I discovered that all the boys and men I’d dated were similar.
And by similar, I don’t mean they all had the same color hair and eyes. I mean, they all had similar personality traits and relationship habits. They were all emotionally unavailable, controlling, not really interested in being in a relationship but unwilling to speak up and say so, and dishonest in one way or another.
And chances are, if you’re reading this, you’ve noticed a similar pattern in your life. You’ve noticed that you try to go back to past relationships or date people who are all the same “type.”
It’s not weird or unusual
The first thing you might think when you notice this about yourself is that it’s weird. That it’s unusual to do either of these things. That you need therapy or a good slap to the face.
But it’s not weird. It’s not unusual. And while therapy can be beneficial to most of us for one reason or another, it’s also not necessarily a sign you need therapy.
It’s actually pretty normal. There are six human needs:
1. Certainty/comfort
2. Uncertainty/variety
3. Significance
4. Love and connection
5. Growth
6. Contribution
Returning to an old flame, or diving into relationships with people who are all similar, allows us to meet two of those needs: Certainty/comfort and love and connection. One could even argue that it allows us to meet the need of feeling significant — convincing ourselves that we are unique, important, or special and that’s why our ex wants us back as much as we want them back.
Getting back together with a former flame or dating someone who reminds you strongly of people you’ve dated before is a shortcut method to meeting those needs. It’s easier than getting to know someone new, faster than developing a relationship that’s different than any you’ve had before, and it lowers the risk of rejection so we can keep our ego intact.
In order to meet someone new who isn’t like everyone we’ve dated before, we have to grow (a need that often isn’t met unless or until the first four needs are met) and be willing to live with some uncertainty (which, though it is one of the needs, is often one we’re not too comfortable with). Until we reach a point where we’re fed up with the way things have always been, this is an uncomfortable place to be. So we stick with what we know.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
When you do the same thing, you get the same result
When you keep dating someone with whom you’ve already broken up, or you keep dating people with similar characteristics, you’ll keep getting the same results: the same relationships that don’t make you happy and ultimately don’t work out.
That was what changed everything for me: the realization that every relationship I’d ever had was essentially the same with the only real difference being the man’s face in the memories. I was getting the same relationships every time because I was basically dating the same person every time; he just had a different name and slightly different physical appearance.
When you’re not getting the relationship you want, the happiness you seek, you need to do something different. And that something different may, in fact, be someone different.
Going with an old flame or someone who reminds you of past partners or relationships (or even of relationships you saw as a child, like your parents or grandparents) is comfortable. It’s meeting that need for comfort, which makes it easy to stick with it.
Changing up who you date requires getting out of your comfort zone and dealing with uncertainty. While uncertainty is another human need, it’s not one we’re always comfortable with. So changing who you date requires conscious effort. It’s hard work.
But it’s worth it.
Identify what you want and what you don’t
When you’re trying to change your dating and relationship patterns, you need to identify both what you want and what you don’t want. It’s more important to focus on what you want but you also need to know what it is you’re looking to avoid.
Why do you need to know that?
As you get to know someone new, you begin to feel more comfortable with them. You need to know what you want and what you don’t want so you can identify why you feel comfortable with this person. Is it because you genuinely like them and they’re meeting your standards? Or is it because they’re like people you’ve dated in the past and you’re playing out a pattern you’ve played out many times before?
You also want to keep that list of what you don’t want handy so you can notice those red flags as soon as they appear. Even one of the “don’t want” items is too many, and without that list, it’s much easier to overlook them until it’s too late.
But you also want to keep your list of what you do want close too. This will motivate and encourage you when it feels easier to slip back into old patterns and harder to keep trying to consciously change your dating and relationship habits.
It won’t be easy
You’re going to find yourself drawn to the same kind of people you’ve always been drawn to. You’re going to have to be mindful of the changes you’re trying to make and look carefully to find those people who meet your new criteria. You’ll have to assess each person carefully and make sure you’re choosing them because they meet your new standards and not because they’re comfortable and familiar.
It’s not an easy task. But if you’re serious about having better relationships, it’s the best way to ensure you have them. If you can make this shift, and put forth the intentional effort, you’ll end up with more rewarding, healthy, loving, and happy relationships.
Wendy Miller is a Single Mom Coach & meditation teacher. She helps moms use mindfulness and meditation to create the life they really want. She lives in Florida with her two sons, where she homeschools while solo parenting, while surrounded by what feels like a zooful of animals.
You can follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. You can also sign up for her newsletter where she offers more insights, tips, tricks, advice, and information to help single moms find purpose, creativity, passion, and peace.
You might also enjoy: | https://medium.com/@wendymillermeditation/seeking-comfort-in-the-familiar-1ef7d59e3d6d | ['Wendy Miller'] | 2020-12-18 14:46:12.719000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Divorce', 'Dating', 'Love', 'Self-awareness'] |
A Path Toward Progress: Why Los Angeles Needs a Consent Decree | When it comes to homelessness in Los Angeles, what’s at work isn’t working. The unhoused continue to die on our public streets and sidewalks, and residents watch helplessly as our neighborhoods are transformed into stunning indictments of our failed social safety system. We need a different approach. We need to admit that the City and the County are structurally incapable of responding with appropriate urgency and vigor to our homelessness crisis, and must enter into a judicial consent decree under the supervision of U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter.
That is a difficult and a controversial thing for an elected official to say — — but this is a matter of life and death, and we need to confront the harsh reality that things are getting worse and that City and County governments are not nimble or forceful enough to respond on their own.
This isn’t because public officials lack the will or the desire to address homelesness. It is because the government in Los Angeles — by design — diffuses authority and responsibility, making accountability on an issue as complex as homelessness virtually impossible. And with no one really accountable for solving the problem, it is just getting worse as more desperate people slip through the cracks. Many City and County officials, with great effort and determination, have implemented successful projects and programs that are moving people off the streets and into housing. But it is still not enough; even as the number of projects and programs increase, homelessness increases even faster.
Many of the responses to homelessness are the County’s jurisdiction. Many others are the City’s jurisdiction. And many — but not all — of those responses are implemented through a hybrid agency, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which has little actual power and is hamstrung by the differing perspectives of its parent agencies, the City and County, which themselves do not speak with a singular voice.
As a result, no single person, legislative body, or level of government has the power or the authority to make the big progress on homelessness this crisis demands. But many people or organizations have the power or authority to slow or block progress. The City can commit to thousands of housing units or shelter beds, but a single councilmember can block building any of it in his or her own district. Or the County can decide not to provide the services. Or agencies can roadblock execution.
There is a better way. The City and the County should enter into a consent decree under the supervision of Judge Carter, who has been handling a federal lawsuit over homelessness. The group that brought the lawsuit should be part of the decree, as should unhoused people and their advocates. The decree should be clear and specific, with several phases, and if the City or County fail to meet any of the decree’s requirements, the judge should have the authority to compel action.
The terms of a consent decree would be negotiated among the parties, and I would urge that a decree include aggressive goals, and give the court maximum authority to see that they are met. If a councilmember fails to approve enough housing or shelter, the judge should be able to compel her or him to do so. If the County balks at providing services for a City project or program, the judge should be able to compel it do so. If the City is failing to meet its housing goals and has authority to commandeer vacant motel rooms and is not using it, the judge should have the authority to compel it to do so.
To be truly effective and long-lasting, the consent decree should require several things:
Housing or shelter to get everyone off the streets, out of the elements, and into safety, immediately. Four people are dying on our streets every day. Living in thousands of encampments all over Los Angeles, they are experiencing untold trauma, are subject to physical abuse, and are suffering illness. It is sick and inhumane. Whether it is hotel rooms, pallet shelters, or safe camping sites with services, we need alternatives to the horrible, unsafe, unsanitary, dangerous status quo. This short-term phase needs to house and shelter tens of thousands of people. Real housing, with a real and permanent transition from the streets. The unhoused and their advocates fear that a government effort to shelter tens of thousands of people would quickly become what it has become in other cities — a lowest common denominator approach that becomes semi-permanent warehousing that never really helps people transition into real housing. A second phase of the consent decree needs to require long-term solutions, including housing and services — in all parts of the city — to keep people from falling back into homelessness. Permanent, systemic change. Anything short of a consent decree risks treating homelessness as a one-time problem instead of a systemic one. For instance, a settlement agreement that commits the City and Country to spending a certain amount of money or offering a certain number of shelter beds might help people who are unhoused today, but ignores the fact that people keep becoming homeless. In three years, once again we will see tens of thousands of unhoused people in Los Angeles. The systems that create and respond to homelessness have to be transformed or replaced. On a small scale, that means that social service programs and caseworkers need to be on duty 24–7, and that the City and County need a real-time tracking system of available housing and shelter. On a larger scale, that means LAHSA might need to be replaced by an agency with real power, not dependent upon the City or County for action. A consent decree should remain in place until systemic changes are in place.
Some might argue a consent decree would be an admission of failure. But faced with a crisis of such epic proportions, and such horrible human costs, asking for help is not giving up; it is taking responsibility and recognizing what we need to succeed. Entering into a consent decree is a voluntary act, a display of willing leadership. If we do not act, we risk Judge Carter placing the City and the County into receivership — which would accurately be seen as a failure of our local government. It is increasingly clear from Judge Carter’s justifiably impatient and angry tone that the option is on the table and it is up to us to act.
Some officials might say a consent decree is too extreme and might insist that “if only we do X or Y, we can solve this.” The reality is that no one is truly empowered to make X or Y happen on any significant scale. If the past decade — where goals have been identified, attention has been focused, plans and strategies have been developed, and money has been flowing — shows us anything, it is that our system is simply not set up for such robust and comprehensive collective action. For measurable and lasting results to happen, we need a consent decree, which can compel that action. Our history shows that a consent decree is sometimes necessary and worthwhile.
Consent decrees have brought significant, positive change to Los Angeles when traditional methods and systems failed. A consent decree forced the creation of thousands of units of affordable housing when the Century Freeway was built. A consent decree forced LA Metro to reverse its neglect of bus riders and make significant investments in our bus system in the 1990s. A consent decree forced dramatic improvement in water quality in Santa Monica Bay through massive investments and upgrades of the Hyperion sewage treatment plant. A consent decree forced dozens of major reforms in the Los Angeles Police Department following the Rampart scandal.
Tens of thousands of unhoused Angelenos need a path off the streets. Our neighborhoods need a path out of this dystopian crisis. The City and the County need a path into faster, more aggressive, more universal action. A consent decree is that path. | https://medium.com/@mikeboninla/a-path-toward-progress-why-los-angeles-needs-a-consent-decree-db72fa788c21 | ['Mike Bonin'] | 2021-02-03 18:08:51.694000+00:00 | ['California', 'Homeless', 'Courts', 'Homelessness', 'Los Angeles'] |
Bowers & Wilkins PX7 Carbon Edition headphone review: Exquisite sound, elegant active noise cancellation | The PX7 Carbon Edition headphone from audio titan Bowers & Wilkins is a special version of the PX7 headphone the company introduced in late 2019. It features the same carbon-fiber construction, but with a new finish. We didn’t have an opportunity to review the original PX7, so we welcomed the chance to give this new edition an in-depth listen.
These premium active noise-cancelling (ANC) headphones carry over the same 43.6mm drivers, 30-hour battery life, and software features for a list price of $400. Are they worth the $50 bump over Sony’s WH-1000XM4 (when Sony’s cans aren’t on sale, that is)? Sony’s offering is our current top pick for ANC headphones, but the PX7 are more comfortable to wear, and they deliver more accurate audio reproduction. Their higher list price, however, can be attributed mostly to luxury.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best headphones, 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. Adam Patrick Murray/IDGPremium fit and finish Mentioned in this article Sony WH-1000XM4 Read TechHive's reviewSee it From a design perspective, the PX7 Carbon Edition adds just a bit more class to the original PX7. The original Space Grey and Silver finishes look refined and classic, but the new model’s Carbon finish, combined with the diamond-cut detailing around the B&W logo plates on the ear cups, take the design up a notch—for some people. I find it to be a bit too flashy, and the band of textured fabric around each ear cup tends to gather particulate debris, which isn’t super easy to wipe away. But those are about the only aspects of this headphone that I’m not in love with.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG Two very different styles: Sony WH-1000XM4 (left) vs. Bowers & Wilkins PX7 Carbon Edition
Wearing the PX7 for long listening sessions is a fantastic experience. They’re smaller and lighter than Sony’s WH-1000XM4, yet their ear cups are even deeper, and their memory-foam ear cups compress less. This resulted in a tight seal around my ears without putting any pressure on my outer ears or the sides of my head, allowing me to forget I was wearing them even after hours of listening.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG Sony WH-1000XM4 (left) size and style vs. Bowers & Wilkins PX7 Carbon Edition.
Pressing a single easy-to-locate button on the left-hand ear cup cycles through the various noise cancellation modes. There are almost too many buttons on the right-hand, though. You’ll find a sliding power switch that doubles as the Bluetooth pairing trigger, plus three control buttons that tend to blur together under your fingertip.
There are two buttons for adjusting volume up and down, but the one in the middle performs a host of tasks, starting with play/pause (one press), track forward (two presses), and previous track (three presses). This same button is also used for answering, muting, ending, toggling between two phone calls, and merging two calls—all depending on how many times you push the button. I never got completely comfortable with it or its location.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG Button and port placement is mostly on right earcup.
There’s a USB-C port for charging the headphone’s battery, and an LED indicator reports the battery level (green, amber, or red). B&W says you should expect 30 hours of battery life, but my experience was just short of that mark (listening with active noise cancellation at its highest setting 80 percent of the time). A rapid-charge feature yields five hours of listening with just a 15-minute charge—and you can listen to music while charging if you plug the USB cable into a computer (the headphone will operate as a USB audio device).
If you have a favorite outboard DAC, you can plug the headphone into it using a 3.5mm analog audio cable, but the headphone’s battery will need to be charged. All this falls close to what Sony offers on the WH-1000XM4, so B&W has nothing on the competition on that score.
An accurate listening experienceEven before I underwent formal audio-engineering training, I was acutely aware of the coloration many home audio companies apply to their gear, both to differentiate their products from the competition and/or—in all too many cases—to fool consumers into believing they’re hearing a better product than what they’re actually buying.
Accuracy in audio reproduction exists on a spectrum, with the gear that professionals use clustered at one end and home audio gear spread over the other. Professional gear is designed to present recordings precisely as they sounded in the studio—it doesn’t color the sound at all. Home audio gear is typically designed with the manufacturer’s “signature” sound, emphasizing certain frequencies—often those at the lower end of the range—at the expense of others. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any company’s signature sound, all that really matters is whether you as the buyer like it. You’re not buying a tool for work, after all, you’re buying something to enjoy.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDGThe Bowers & Wilkins PX7 Carbon Edition are a much more accurate headphone than the Sony WH-1000XM4, so I’d put it much closer to pro audio gear on that spectrum (not that any audio professional would use a noise-cancelling headphone for work). I suspect that’s why B&W didn’t include user-adjustable EQ settings in its app. Here again, however, you might consider that to be a missing feature.
As usual, I have my own suite of songs I go through when testing headphones. It became immediately clear that I was listening to headphones that prioritize accuracy, much as my professional mixing headphones do. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the same design team built and tuned the 800 Series Diamond loudspeakers recording engineers use at Abbey Road studios.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG The PX7 don’t fold flat the way Sony’s do, so the carrying case is necessarily larger.
In any event, my music was presented as close to the quality of final mixdowns as I’ve heard from a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. There were no shrill or sharp transients at the high end, low-end punch came through smooth and rich, and the mids weren’t muddy or overpowered in the mix. In a pinch, I would even trust these headphones to do work—they’re as accurate as they are pleasant.
At higher volumes, there’s loads of bass to push low-end-heavy genres like rap, but the high frequencies can turn shrill if pushed too hard. Classic recordings from jazz legends come through crisp and clear with minimal noise and with plenty of separation between instruments—even at lower volumes. It was a real treat to listen to some of my favorite music on the PX7 Carbon Edition, as I’m accustomed to hearing the limitations of lower-end hardware and/or overzealous processing. The coloration that is present is minimal and applied sparingly.
Seamless noise cancellation, and a simple appIt’s hard to compete with the Sony WH-1000XM4’s top-notch noise cancellation, but B&W gets very close. I will note that the PX7’s stiffer memory foam introduced a tiny break in the seal while I was wearing eyeglasses, which didn’t happen with the softer pads on the Sony’s ear cups.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDGUsing Bowers & Wilkins’ app lets you customize your noise-cancelling experience. Low and high noise cancellation was fairly straightforward and did a fine job with the use cases I presented. I have not been on a plane or rode public transit for almost a year now, so I did other tests in their place. The PX7 did great with lower-end rumble while outside, and it was terrific against the constant fan noises coming from either my gaming PC or my white-noise machine. This headphone would make a fine travel companion. It fell a bit behind the performance of Sony’s best ANC headphone when it came to sharp transients and human speech, though, so it wouldn’t be my go-to option for an office environment.
B&W’s ambient passthrough mode, which allows you to hear sound from your surroundings—such as conversation or boarding calls—sounded more natural than the same setting on Sony’s WH-1000XM4. You can adjust the amount of ambient sound you want to hear using a slider in each headphone’s companion app. The biggest bummer came from B&W app’s Auto noise-cancelling setting, which defaulted to Low more than I would of liked. I found myself manually switching from Low to High frequently.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG The B&W companion app is simple and features ANC controls, multi-device pairing, and soundscapes.
Overall, B&W’s app experience is much simpler than Sony’s, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. B&W’s app does what it needs to do without pushing a bunch of bells and whistles at you. Sony’s app can feel like it’s tryiing to lock you into other services. On the flip side, Bowers & Wilkins doesn’t offer as many customization options or extra features in its software. That said, the app’s simplicity falls in line with the rest of the experience of using the PX7, so I appreciate the company’s dedication to straightforward design.
Bottom lineThe Bowers & Wilkins PX7 Carbon Edition are far from being the most expensive headphone TechHive has reviewed, but that doesn’t change the fact that its list price is $50 higher than Sony’s WH-1000XM4 (make that $122 at press time, since was offering a sale). And if you like Sony’s signature sound, you’ll be happier with its noise-cancelling cans. If you place higher value on accurate audio reproduction and bespoke British design, on the other hand, the extra cash will be well spent.
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/@chris38321427/bowers-wilkins-px7-carbon-edition-headphone-review-exquisite-sound-elegant-active-noise-7d30edf7df21 | [] | 2020-12-18 17:41:46.339000+00:00 | ['Mobile Accessories', 'Consumer', 'Chargers', 'Music'] |
Stop Wasting Your Life in the Pursuit of More and Different | Stop Wasting Your Life in the Pursuit of More and Different
The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, so let’s stop lying to ourselves
Photo by Pablo Varela on Unsplash
If I could break my whole sad life down to one word that would allow me to show you the folly of not being grateful for what you have in life, that word would be longing.
No matter where I was currently in my life, one thing was always the same. No matter what I did or did not have, or how much better off I was than my neighbor, I not only wanted more, but I also wanted different.
20 years old. Child on the way. Married for three years. With not even a high school diploma, I worked my way into a shift manager position in a major hamburger chain. I was getting the bills paid, sometimes with a little help from my dad. I had a car. I made more money and lived better than the majority of the people I knew. Was I happy? Nope. I spent every waking hour thinking about what it would be like to be with a different woman, win the lottery, drive a fancy car, travel, on and on ad nauseam. I was never happy and would never be.
35 years old. Three children. Big mortgage. Big second mortgage. Making over 100K per year. I hadn’t sat around the past 15 years dreaming about a different life. I went to college. I taught myself coding and web design. I landed increasingly higher paying jobs until I settled in Boston, and I finally had money, but I wasn’t happy. I spent all my time wishing for a different life, wife, job, house, face, body, and mind. I was a mentally ill burnout who spent all his waking hours stoned and still wishing for more and different.
52 years old. After a divorce and moving to the other side of the world, I finally have a few things I am grateful for. I have a wife who appears to love me unconditionally and a total of five kids — two being under 8-years-old. I’ve fought a bloody battle with mental illness and have come to somewhat of a truce at times. I can write consistently when I am not having psychotic episodes, and I am starting to build my reputation.
You would think I would finally be happy, right?
I still want more and different. Even though I have little ones at home, I want to travel. Even though I am working as hard as I can to be financially successful, it’s not happening fast enough. I daydream about what it will be like when I am making thousands instead of hundreds. I still dream of winning the lottery. I don’t think about more and different women because I am delighted with my wife, but money is almost like an obsession — a mistress that would fulfill my every need.
I have a do-over. I screwed up my first marriage and destroyed my relationship with my first three kids because I was always too sick and too focused on getting the things I longed for. I have a chance now to impact my children’s lives by being present and grateful, but all I can think about is working harder. I have a partner who craves my attention, and I’m too focused on giving her all the things she ever wanted.
I work myself until I am so tired that I can’t fight the depression and the voices that try to control my brain. When I’m not sick, I am feverish in my quest to do more. I feel like If I can do more, I could finally get all those things I have been dreaming about my entire life and be able to give everyone I love the things they want.
I’m always working.
And when I’m not working, I’m thinking of work. Even when I have the chance to spend quality time with my kids, I’m often distracted or staring at social media on my phone, trying to promote and engage with my audience.
If I can break through this ceiling and start making money, I can travel. I can have that new laptop I want. My wife can have the latest car she keeps talking about. I can start saving for my kid’s college. I can help my mom and dad and my three boys in the States.
We could finally move my whole family to the U.S. and allow my wife and kids to see another way of life. They only know life here in the Philippines, and I would love to take them for a $5 ‘Pizza! Pizza!’ in the land of the free and home of the brave.
So I work. And I work harder. And maybe I miss out on some things with my kids, and I don’t have the best relationship with my wife because I’m distant and distracted all the time.
If I could finally fill the longing for more and different, aren’t some sacrifices worth it? | https://medium.com/the-personal-essayist/stop-wasting-your-life-in-the-pursuit-of-more-and-different-ff99e8e5696a | ['Jason Weiland'] | 2020-11-15 18:33:49.328000+00:00 | ['Family', 'Mindfulness', 'Life', 'Mental Health', 'Life Lessons'] |
How Much Should 3 Months Old Sleep! | How Much Should 3 Months Old Sleep!
how long does a 3 months old baby sleep Adam Jan 2·4 min read
During the first few months, babies develop very quickly. His body and behavior change constantly. By 3 months of age, their movements are more coordinated and they start to become more and more curious about everything around them. For this reason, they are more aware of us and respond to various stimuli. In addition, they experience changes in their sleep, which can affect other mothers and fathers.
In this article, we tell you how to put a 3 months old baby to sleep. We’ll also look at how many hours of sleep are normal at this age.
How often does a 3 months old baby sleep?
Sleep is the main activity of a baby. During the first months of life, your little one needs to rest for most of the day. While they sleep, they assimilate what they have learned. This is a fundamental process for physical and psychological maturation.
At 3 months of age, babies begin to change their sleeping habits. During this stage of development, nighttime sleep improves slightly, whereas naps are shorter and shorter. That’s because babies begin to differentiate between day and night. You also learn to associate sleep with darkness and silence.
From 3 months on, babies reduce the amount of time they spend sleeping. For this reason, we will observe that he slept less than before, even though he continued to dedicate many hours. So how long does a 3 months old baby sleep? Let’s see!
3 Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep — Watch this free video now
How many hours should a baby sleep at 3 months of age?
Answering how much a 3 months old baby sleeps is tricky because it depends on many factors. Every baby has a different sleep cycle that develops as they grow. It is influenced by biology and genetics and family attitudes to sleep.
Ideally, your little one sleeps as long as they need. At 3 months, it is estimated that about 15 hours a day. However, there are babies who are sleep deprived and there are babies who sleep more. So you don’t have to worry if your child’s sleep deviates a little from this figure.
Due to health problems or stressful situations at home, babies may not get enough sleep. When this happens, it can increase irritability and affect its development. For that, we have prepared some tips on how to sleep for 3 months old babies.
Teach your child how to read-Amazing learning reading program
What should I do if my baby sleeps a little
Every baby has its own sleep cycle which we must respect. In any case, sleep and wake times should not be imposed, although parents should create a suitable climate so that their little one can develop a rhythm of sleep.
When the baby is sleeping less than he needs, a number of steps can be taken. For example, it is advisable to establish certain routines to help you fall asleep. It’s about always doing the same thing before leaving it in the bed or cradle. This way, you will associate it with sleep and begin to feel sleepy.
It is also important that you sleep in a more or less fixed place, preferably a room, which should be ventilated and at a suitable temperature, and have a comfortable bed. During the day there must be light, while at night the baby must remain in darkness and calm. In this way, we can encourage a night’s sleep.
However, if you notice that your baby is having trouble sleeping, it is important that you see a pediatrician. A professional will be able to provide the best advice on how to sleep for your 3 months old baby.
My baby sleeps a lot, is it good?
A baby’s sleep time depends on physical activity, hunger, and whether they are experiencing more or less intense growth. Also, because of their own sleep cycle, babies can be more or less sleepy. For this reason, we shouldn’t worry if you sleep a lot unless that’s a very rare case.
Breastfeeding affects sleep
Feeding can also affect how much a 3 months old child sleeps. One of the main reasons they wake up is hunger. Therefore, we can also regulate your sleep by setting a meal schedule.
Sleep also depends on how you eat it. The number of shots and the schedule will influence sleep initiation and maintenance. Babies who are breastfed suckle more frequently, so they wake up less time, but return to sleep after feeding less.
Nonetheless, it is important to remember that, at 3 months, the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding only.
Important: Breastfeeding provides the best nutrition for babies. The pediatrician is the person who can best provide the best advice on the care and feeding of your child.
Disclaimer: This article contains an affiliate link, If you made a purchase through this link we will earn a small commission. | https://medium.com/@millionaireminds/how-much-should-3-months-old-sleep-5c7545d4cedd | [] | 2021-01-02 06:57:32.137000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'How To', '3 Months', 'Baby Sleep', 'Sleep'] |
[Q&A] Is Smoking forbidden in Islam | A reader emailed in asking us:
I see lots of Muslims on a daily basis who smoke, and smoke a lot! They tell me that smoking is merely disapproved of but not forbidden in Islam. This makes no sense to me at all. So is smoking forbidden or does the Allah turn a blind eye to it?
Click on read more for the answer.
Hello reader. It is generally thought that smoking cigarettes is merely disapproved of but not forbidden, in Islam. Many Muslims use this excuse to ignore the advice to stop smoking. This is an attempt to answer the question asked above.
Cigarettes, like many other things, did not exist during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (s). So, in order to decide whether Islam prohibits, disapproves or allows smoking, we have to see whether there are any Commands prohibiting similar substances and the reasons for the prohibition. To use an example, one cannot argue that because Heroin is not forbidden in the Holy Quran it should be available freely in Muslim majority countries.
If there are no specific prohibitions about similar substances we need to look at the overall Islamic teaching with regard to human life and draw conclusions from those general Commandments. Islam allows Muslims to develop law by the use of comparators, consensus, common sense etc. One approach is to look at why something is prohibited. In general legal theory the question we ask is: “What mischief was it that the law was designed to prevent?” This interpretive approach is common in ordinary courts of law.
Although there are no specific rulings far as cigarettes and similar substances are concerned, the Holy Quran and the authentic traditions of the Holy Prophet (s) make general statements prohibiting eating and drinking, which may be harmful. As a rule, the Holy Quran forbids everything that is bad. It says: “He (The Holy Prophet Muhammad) enjoins them good and forbids them evil, and makes lawful to them the good things and prohibits for them impure things, and removes from them their burden and the shackles which were on them.” (7: 157)
Evil mentioned in the above verse is something that harms our body or our soul. Thus, if, in accordance with this verse of the Holy Quran, we can show that smoking is harmful, this should be enough for Muslims to realise that smoking is forbidden because as the verse quoted above says everything that is bad is prohibited. Smoking kills. This is even stated on the warning on the cigarette packets. Smoking causes lung cancer, breathing problems and heart disease, among other diseases, which kill humans.
In addition to the verse quoted above the Holy Quran says: “ . . .and cast not yourselves to perdition with your own hands . . .” (2:195) By smoking we are putting ourselves in harms way which is against this specific injunction of the Holy Quran. Smoking is also the cause of many devastating fires because the smoker fell asleep while smoking setting their bed and subsequently the whole house on fire. This is a violation of this injunction of the Holy Quran.
Smoking is a waste and the Holy Quran forbids waste: “ . . . and squander not wastefully. Surely the squanderers are the devil’s brethren. And the devil is ever ungrateful to his Lord.” (17: 26–27)
Also, smoking harms all those in the company of the smoker. The Holy Prophet said: “There should be neither harm, nor reciprocating harm.” (Sheikh al-Albani, Saheeh al-Jaami # 7517)[1] Passive smokers experience breathing problems because they inhale the smoke from the smoker’s pipe or cigarette, especially those suffering from bronchial asthma. Smoking of parents has been linked to respiratory problems in their children and cot death. The Holy Quran says: “And kill not your people.” (4:29) As has been said earlier, smoking in bed causes many fires. People may remember that there are sometimes public service advertisements on the television, which warn people of this danger. These fires endanger lives of other people living in the building thus violating this verse of the Holy Book.
Smokers set a bad example to others and invite them to something that is evil and disobedience to Allah. When a person smokes openly he encourage others.
Smoking causes people to neglect religious devotions. Many smokers dislike fasting because they constantly crave cigarettes. The smoker is an addict, both physically and psychologically.
Smoking makes everything smell of cigarettes e.g. car, clothes, home, etc. Therefore, when a smoker prays in congregation he makes his fellow worshippers uncomfortable with his smell. The Holy Prophet said: “Whoever has eaten from such greens as garlic, onions or leek should keep away from our mosque . . ..” (Sahih al-Bukhari) The purpose of this injunction was to make sure that the congregation or any part of it is not distracted in its remembrance of Allah.
This is clear evidence that smoking is bad and therefore it is forbidden. To relieve stress a Muslim must turn to Allah for help. The Holy Quran says: “Those who believe and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah. Now surely in Allah’s remembrance do hearts find rest.” (13:28)
Smokers find it very hard to give up their habit. We are approaching the month of Ramadan and in this month we give up many lawful things, even those on which our own lives or future of humanity depends, so why not try and give up something that is, as has been shown above, forbidden by Islam. The Quran says: “And those who strive hard for Us, We shall certainly guide them in Our ways. And Allah is surely with the doers of good.” (29:69) And to give up smoking is to strive in the way of Allah. | https://medium.com/virtual-mosque/q-a-is-smoking-forbidden-in-islam-3b7c4953d43f | ['Virtual Mosque'] | 2016-04-09 17:55:58.691000+00:00 | ['Forbidden', 'Smoking', 'Islam'] |
Retail Investors’ Forthcoming Friend: Direct Indexing | The insight behind this post is based on the Animal Spirits podcast episode dated November 20, 2020 about direct indexing (Animal Spirits: Direct Indexing — The Irrelevant Investor)
Concept:
Direct indexing is an investment strategy where an investor seeks to replicate the risk/return profile of an index by buying individual securities rather than an indexed ETF or mutual fund. The value proposition is multifold: primarily, investors can frequently realize capital losses, which they would net against realized capital gains, thereby effectively ‘maximizing’ their cost basis in the securities they own. This concept, known as “tax-alpha,” can purportedly boost after-tax portfolio returns by ~1.5% per year. (source: The Value of Tax Alpha | Parametric Portfolio)
Until recently, direct indexing was not practical. Thanks to fierce competition for assets between discount brokerages (hat tip, Robinhood), trading commissions have declined — to $0 per trade at many institutions. Additionally, a strategy such as direct indexing would likely require automation since daily management of hundreds of securities would be impractical for most retail investors.
Use Case:
The use case of this concept is simple: an investor has assets in a taxable account that they seek to ultimately sell at some point before their death. (That is, if a buy-and-hold investor plans to hold their assets until their death, the cost basis of those assets will “step-up,” negating many of the benefits of direct indexing.) I suspect most investors with taxable investments intend to realize gains on at least some of them in retirement or to finance large purchases such as a home.
Benefits:
The main benefit is, as mentioned above, “tax-alpha.” The mechanics of this are relatively straightforward. Consider an investor that opens a direct indexed portfolio and owns the assets underlying the S&P 500. Take a day where, in aggregate, the “market” gained 1%. Individual securities that had fallen on that day could be sold at a short term capital loss, and subsequently used to offset securities sold at a capital gain. By individually owning the assets underlying an index, an investor has greater flexibility in terms of tax management. Parametric Associates estimates this “tax-alpha” to be worth 0.2% to 3.1% per year, depending on market average returns and volatility.
Another benefit the investor has is flexibility in the securities in which they invest. An eco/socially conscious investor could overlay an ESG “tilt” upon their portfolio, by avoiding stocks that they believe to be managed in a shortsighted way. By owning shares of companies, investors would also have greater control over management via proxy votes, a luxury not afforded to investors who only own companies through ETFs or mutual funds.
Additionally, the investor could diversify away from the sector in which they source their income or have other investments. I.e. a Silicon Valley programmer could underweight their employer in their portfolio, for example.
Ostensibly, fees could be lower in this strategy as well. Even some indexed ETFs charge an expense ratio of 5–10 basis points; with free trades at a brokerage, one’s effective expense could potentially be lower than that offered by a fund sponsor.
An investor could also have greater flexibility in securities lending, whereby they lend stocks to short sellers to collect the “short rebate.”
Caveats:
Wash sales must be avoided, which limits the flexibility of such a strategy. Of course, an investor could replace a holding in ExxonMobil for one in Chevron without waiting thirty days, but those two securities have only similar (but not identical) risk/return profiles.
If an investor were to “miss” owning a stock that gained significantly in a short time, their returns may not mirror the index they sought to mimic as closely as they had hoped.
Direct indexing also could require a large initial investment to be practicable. Not all retail investors may be able to create such a portfolio because they are constrained by portfolio size.
Conclusion:
I believe direct indexing will grow in popularity over the next decade, because the benefits to investors far outweigh the consequences. It behooves discount brokerages such as Vanguard, Fidelity, or Schwab to develop tools that allow investors to engage in direct indexing. I expect there to be a ‘first-mover advantage’ in the direct-indexing space as there was for Robinhood in compressing trading commissions.
Disclaimer: this is not investment or tax advice. | https://medium.com/@matthewbeyerle/retail-investors-forthcoming-friend-direct-indexing-9db133bfcf7a | ['Matthew Beyerle'] | 2020-12-22 15:10:53.348000+00:00 | ['Stock Market', 'Taxes', 'Etf', 'Investing', 'Index Funds'] |
cURL Tips: Making Post Requests. cURL | Photo by Alex Korolkoff on Unsplash
Introduction
I am currently in the middle of working with a brand new API and while I will usually test APIs using Insomnia or using JavaScript’s built-in fetch function, I have decided to learn a little more about bash and scripting. This has led me to cURL and all of its wonderfulness for making HTTP requests quickly in my terminal.
What is cURL?
cURL or ‘client URL’ is a command-line utility that is used for file transfers using a URL. Curl is universal and many people have access to it already if you are on a UNIX based machine, which is why it is such a popular choice for making HTTP requests. It has support for various protocols such as FTP.
For this tips blog post, I wanted to discuss using cURL to make POST requests and I will show you two ways you can go about doing that.
Post Request with a Body
When making a POST request with cURL you will want to use the -X flag as that tells the CLI that we are making a custom request as the default for cURL is the GET method. Next, if the data you want to send has parameters that will go in the body to the POST, then we will add the -d to send data followed by your params. This is the skeleton of what your post may look like:
curl -X POST -d "<param1>=<value1>&<param2>=<value2>"
However, you should note that when sending your requests this way, the default content-type is application/x-www-form-urlencoded . So if you want to work with JSON specifically, you will need to change that. We can do this by using the headers symbol or -H in our request.
We can change it to application/json like this:
-H “Content-Type: application/json”
I’ll show you an example using the free API resource JSONPlaceholder:
curl -X POST -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d ‘{“title”:”hello”, “body”:”test”, “userId”:2}’ https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts *
*make sure to wrap the object in single quotes. | https://rclarke-m.medium.com/curl-tip-making-post-requests-74f5f35a810b | ['Reina Mitchell'] | 2020-12-19 00:25:58.712000+00:00 | ['Code', 'Scripting', 'Bash', 'Programming'] |
You Do Not Have to Choose a Niche to Be a Good Writer | You Do Not Have to Choose a Niche to Be a Good Writer
Just write your mind.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Why does it seem such a problem for some when one writer creates different types of content?
Ever since I was young, the idea of having preferences on music, literature, sports, etc., seemed more like an obligation than a choice.
“People define their likes at the age of 14.” — Some unknown source cited.
Well, *Earl*, I like a little bit of everything. I don’t have a favorite artist, musician or author. I simply like the art, the song or the book itself; and it can be any genre. So, what does that make me? A rebellious teen? An outsider? Did I come from Jupiter? (There’s already a lot of Martians out there.)
When searching for the formula to be successful on Medium (like it exists), the advice of choosing a niche would come up a lot. This is not the first time I have been advised to choose and follow a path in writing.
I won’t lie: having a specialization might help you build a loyal audience.
But.
A) You’ll end up finding yourself in a comfortable position that will be hard to get out of.
B) Once you get out and write about something else than what your readers expect, the audience that you worked so hard to form will slowly start to vanish.
Writing about something other than my “niche” makes me anxious
I started freelancing four years ago, but I would only apply to creative writing jobs about romance. I did not think I was good at anything else other than writing romance. That is what I wrote about on a daily basis. When I was offered jobs outside my comfort zone I would not think twice before rejecting it.
In my mind, my specialty was romance. Because that was my niche, I would consider myself an expert on it. But only it. Just the thought of writing about anything else would make nervous. When trying to put the words together to create another kind of content, I would paralyze.
To this day, I still overthink when posting content that my readers are not used to see from me. I usually write about mental health and I feel they trust my articles better when that’s the matter.
Having a niche could be an inhibition
I have put off creating a blog because of this mindset.
For a long time, I was looking for my specialty. I am good at writing romance, so that is all I would write about.
But then, I started writing about mental health and even though, I am not an expert, I was good at making people feel better by sharing my stories, and I got stuck in it.
With time, I came to realize that I am good at writing about politics, or relationships or even about football.
I should be able to speak my mind without fearing people’s reaction to my content, just because it is not what they thought it was my niche.
I should be able to still sound professional even though I usually do not write about a certain subject.
The quality of my content should not be measured based on whether it is inside my area of specialty or not.
Allow yourself to explore your own thoughts
In today’s world, the notion that you have to be objective with what you want to do, especially at such a young age, obstructs the wonders that come with exploring your mind.
We lose so much because we fear what society will say if we are a lawyer and a dancer at the same time.
We should be able to explore ourselves further. For own happiness, our own well-being.
Let’s write about what we want. Write about what makes us feel good. Write about what goes through our mind.
Maybe I’m ignoring good advice. But that only helps me realize that I am writing for myself first, and then for others… | https://medium.com/the-4-elements-of-change/you-do-not-have-to-choose-a-niche-to-be-a-good-writer-18a4b9052846 | ['Rita Alexandra'] | 2019-08-06 20:28:32.469000+00:00 | ['Writing Life', 'Opinion', 'Writing', 'Writing Tips', 'Advice and Opinion'] |
Dev. Update — New Smart Contracts Architecture, In-app Wallet and Bitcoin Lending | In this article ETHLend shares what the development team is currently working on and updates on one of the most anticipated milestones — Bitcoin Lending — along with the redesign and implementation of the Smart Contract Architecture to reduce the gas cost and the creation of a native wallet.
Road from Kogia
With the release of Omura and the previous versions, the development challenge was the creation of the first and complete decentralized application in the Ethereum network, using the potential of the smart contracts to implement all the necessary logic.
After successfully delivering the first functional decentralized lending application, the objective was to improve all the smart contract infrastructure adding base functionalities such as: loan offers, collateral management and LEND as medium of exchange — to become the lending currency of blockchain. We took it further and decided to deliver all those new features while introducing a new User Interface to improve the experience using ETHLend.
Today, one month after the previous release, we continue to implement new functionalities and fixes in our decentralized application, looking forward to the features we promised and some other new ones.
Our Next Steps
1. Bitcoin Lending
The biggest milestone in the first part of 2018, and probably one of the most ambitious one in the entire ETHLend roadmap is the integration of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, which will allow users to place Bitcoin as collateral and to use it as medium of exchange.
Until now, working only with the native currency of the Ethereum Network (ETH) and with ERC-20 tokens, there was no limitation about what we were capable to do: from our ideas and previous experience, we implement the necessary logic within the boundaries of the smart contracts.
Introducing Bitcoin in our decentralized application is not as straightforward. The task involves interoperability between two different Blockchains — Ethereum and Bitcoin — that don’t have an established way to communicate between themselves.
During this past months we have been researching and testing different approaches to introduce the interaction between Bitcoin and Ethereum in the ETHLend platform. As in every research process, some of the ideas were valid and some others not. Today, we are thrilled to say that now we have a clear idea of the implementation and we are already applying it.
This implementation will be a great accomplishment for ETHLend as it will be one of the few working examples of decentralized financial applications covering Bitcoin, Ethereum and ERC-20 at the same time.
2. New Smart Contracts Architecture
One of the greatest advantages of having a fully functional platform is that it allows us to collect feedback from active users, which is a fundamental part in our development process.
From our community and early adopters insights, combined with our internal analysis, we noticed two main areas of improvement in Kogia:
Gas Cost . As consequence of our secure architecture based on independent smart contracts for each loan agreement — having them as isolated and fully logic containers — the overall cost of creating a new loan agreement is higher than we would want, depending of course, of the gas price in each moment.
. As consequence of our secure architecture based on independent smart contracts for each loan agreement — having them as isolated and fully logic containers — the overall cost of creating a new loan agreement is higher than we would want, depending of course, of the gas price in each moment. Number of Steps to Setup a Loan Agreement. With Kogia, after the more experimental first releases of the platform, we followed as close as possible the smart contract standards and good practices, looking to achieve higher quality in our code. That generated in some parts of the application a higher number of steps, increasing the number of transactions and sometimes, related with the previous point, the overall gas cost.
We are working in a complete redesign and implementation of our smart contracts architecture that will significantly reduce the gas cost. The fundamental idea is to split the smart contracts between Deposits — that will be independent for each loan agreement, containing the funds related with it- and Logic Containers — that will keep a register of the independent deposits and the logic to manage them-.
Our current measurements say that we can reduce the set up cost of the loan agreement from ~4 000 000 to ~200 000 gas, without specially affecting the cost of the rest of the loan steps.
In the new release, we will optimize the architecture of our smart contracts
3. In-App Ethereum/Bitcoin Wallet
We have noticed that the use of MetaMask browser extension creates a barrier to user adoption because, even if its use it’s pretty straightforward, it represents another moving piece of the system that the user needs to know.
To avoid that, we will be introducing a native wallet solution in the platform, conceptually similar to MetaMask, but completely tailor-made and integrated with our system.
With this new wallet system, the user will be able to interact with the functionalities of the platform related with both Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains. And all of this without the burden of using other tools on top of ETHLend.
Other Improvements
We are also improving the current Kogia release with really important additions like:
The complete internationalization of the application.
Several changes in the user interface to improve the user experience.
Diverse bug fixes.
Complete, Secure and Easy to Use Lending DApp
In short, we are sure that Bitcoin Lending, the new Smart Contracts Architecture, the In-App Wallet and all of the others features we are currently working on, are completely groundbreaking. With these improvements, we will confirm ETHLend as the most complete, secure and user friendly decentralized peer to peer lending platform.
Keep in touch with us to get the latest development news. | https://medium.com/aave/development-update-introducing-new-smart-contracts-architecture-in-app-wallet-and-bitcoin-e42b57d247f3 | ['Ernesto Boado'] | 2018-06-27 13:28:06.604000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Fintech', 'Ethlend', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
Twitter Scraping, Text Mining and Sentiment Analysis using Python | I am not a big fan of Donald Trump. Technically, I don’t like him at all. However, he has this charismatic sensation effect which occupies most newspapers and social media all the time. People’s attitude towards him is dramatic and bilateral. His descriptive words are either highly positive or negative, which are some perfect material for text mining and sentiment analysis. The goal of this workshop is to use a website scraper to read and pull tweets about Donald Trump. Then we will use a combination of text mining and visualization techniques to analyze the public voice about Donald Trump.
You should continue to read:
IF you don’t know how to scrape contents/comments on social media. OR/AND IF You know Python but don’t know how to use it for sentiment analysis.
This workshop is easy to follow. Even you don’t know anything about programming, you should feel comfortable as you read this article. Feel free to copy the code and try it yourself. If you are a beginner, I recommend trying out with your code first before comparing with that in this workshop.
Twitter Scraping:
Let’s start with web scraping, I need an effective web scraper tool to do all the boring work for me. Any web scraper tool would work. I recommend Octoparse since it is free with no limitation on the number of pages.
I downloaded it from its official websites and finished registration by following the instructions. After I logged in, I opened their built-in Twitter template.
Octoparse Scraping Templates
The scraping rule on a template is pre-set with data extraction fields including the Name, ID, Content, Comments and etc.
I entered “Donald Trump” at the perimeter filed to tell the crawler the keyword. Just as simple as it seemed, I got about 10k tweets. You can scrape as many tweets as possible. There are also some other ways to crawl the data, and probably you can get a better result than mine. Welcome to share your innovative crawling experience with me, I am always a passionate learner :)
After getting the tweets, export the data as a text file, name the file as “data.txt”.
Text Mining:
Before getting started, make sure you have Python and a text editor installed on your computer. I use Python 2.7 and Notepad++.
Then we use two opinion word lists to analyze the scraped tweets. You can download them from here. These two lists contain positive and negative words (sentiment words) that were summarized by Minqing Hu and Bing Liu from research study about presented opinions words in social media.
The idea here is to take each opinion word from the lists, return to the tweets, and count the frequency of each opinion words in the tweets. As a result, we collect corresponding opinion words in the tweets and the count.
First, I created a positive and negative list in line 5 and line 13 with two downloaded word lists. They store all the words that are parsed from the text files.
Then, I processed texts and massaged the data by taking out all the punctuations, signs and numbers with the following code。
As a result, the data only consisted of tokenized words, which makes it easier to analyze. (This is the blog I found useful about text preprocessing in data science.)
Afterward, create three dictionaries: word_count_dict, word_count_positive, and word_count_negative.
Next, I defined each dictionary. If an opinion word exists in the data, count it by increasing word_count_dict value by “1”.
Afterwords counting, we need to decide whether a word sounds positive or negative. If it is a positive word, word_count_positive increases its value by “1”, otherwise positive dictionary remains the same value. Respectively, word_count_negative increases its value or remains the same value. If the word is not present in either positive or negative list, it is a pass.
For a complete version of the code, you can download here (https://gist.github.com/octoparse/fd9e0006794754edfbdaea86de5b1a51)
Polarity: Positive vs. Negative
5352 negative words and 3894 positive words
As the graph showed. The use of positive words is unilateral. There are only 404 kinds of positive word used.
The most frequent words are, for example, “like”, “great” and “right”. Most word choices are basic and colloquial, like “wow” and “cool,” whereas the use of negative words is much more multilateral. There are 809 kinds of negative word that most of them are formal and advanced. The most frequently used are “illegal,” “lies,” and “racist.” Other advanced words such as “delinquent”, “inflammatory” and “hypocrites” are also present.
The choice of words clearly indicates the level of education of whom is supportive is lower than that disapproval. Apparently, Donald Trump is not so welcomed among Twitter users.
Summary:
In this article, we talked about how to scrape tweets on Twitter using Octoparse. We also discussed text mining and sentiment analysis using python.
There are some limitations to this research. I scrapped 15K tweets. However, among scraped data, there are 5K tweets either didn’t have text content nor show any opinion word. As a result, the sentiment analysis was argumentative. Also, the analysis in this article only focused on polarized opinions (either negative or positive). Fine-Grained sentiment analysis should be more precise to a various degree ( very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative).
Why “illegal”?
At last, I would love to share some thoughts regarding the result. The word “illegal” is at the top negative word associated with Donald Trump. It’s not surprising the word ranks number one because Donald Trump has been devoting his efforts to focus on immigration since his incumbent. However, I am amazed by how people start abusing this word. I pulled out tweets about that word and most of them are “illegal immigrants” and “illegal aliens.” That got me thinking, since when “undocumented” is equivalent to “illegal”?
In closing, I want to quote Elie Wiesel, “You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that no human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. The human being can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?”
Resource: | https://medium.com/hackernoon/twitter-scraping-text-mining-and-sentiment-analysis-using-python-b95e792a4d64 | [] | 2019-04-24 21:46:01.237000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Sentiment Analysis', 'Twitter Scraping', 'Text Mining', 'Python'] |
Testing Mobile / Tablet Browsers Using Cypress | Mobile devices market has phenomenally increased from last decades. One of the research shows that the number of mobile users across the globe is now estimated at over 3.7 billion and its growing. People spend most of their time in mobile devices for various purpose. In a day, a typical mobile user touches his or her device 2,617 times as per study by research firm Dscout.
In todays market, if one wants to succeed their business then they need to be mobile. Lots of mobile application has been built to drive business. With the abundance of different mobile devices it really difficult to test an application in all possible conditions.
We talk about Testing Front End Application with cypress in this article. Let’s use Module API to support our test for mobile/ tablet devices. Module API helps to customise the start script for cypress and access the test result.
Custom Commands
We are going to create a script that pass —- mobile or -- tablet as and argument and run the test accordingly.
Let’s dive into the code:
What it basically does is, it takes the arguments from the command line and looks for the matched configuration file then it runs cypress using that configuration.
You can run test for tablet and desktop by passing respective arguments.
If you want to run open cypress on specific configuration you can pass -o as an arguments.
We can also integrate this test suit in our Continuous Integration pipeline and run it parallel. To know more about Continuous Integration in Cypress read here.
Conclusion
In this way we can create a simple CLI tool as a wrapper around cypress to enhance our test. For more information about module API have a look at Cypress module API .
If you are testing application in mobile devices other than this using cypress , i would love to hear your opinions. | https://medium.com/@sumn2u/testing-mobile-devices-using-cypress-99a1c1294057 | ['Suman Kunwar'] | 2021-06-06 09:35:07.888000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Cypress', 'Automation', 'Test Automation', 'Testing'] |
Why You Shouldn’t Go to Casinos (3 Statistical Concepts) | Why You Shouldn’t Go to Casinos (3 Statistical Concepts)
The house always wins. We all know this phrase. But this is more than a phrase. This is a simple, mathematically proven fact. And you’ll only have to know three statistical concepts to see why the house always wins. Tomi Mester Sep 21, 2020·7 min read
Photo by Kay on Unsplash
You are at the casino. The roulette wheel is spinning and the ball is bouncing. Bounce, bounce, bounce, you smile: “it’s red!” And then it bounces one more. No, it’s black! You lose everything again and go home with empty pockets.
Well, I hope you won’t — because you don’t go to casinos, you don’t buy scratch tickets, you don’t play the lottery or any gambling game in general.
Why? Because these games are designed to make you lose money.
And in this article I’ll tell you why. (Check out the podcast or video version of it, too!)
The house always wins. We all know this phrase. But this is more than a phrase. This is a simple, mathematically proven fact. And you’ll only have to know three statistical concepts to see why the house always wins.
These three statistical concepts come up often in data science projects, too. So if you are wondering why I’m talking about gambling on a data science channel, rest assured, you’ll be able to take advantage of this knowledge in your data science career, too.
Anyways, three statistical concepts.
These are:
survivorship bias
expected value
and the hot-hand fallacy
Let’s start with the first one.
Survivorship bias
Everyone loves good stories! A good story sticks.
And I bet that you, too, have a friend — or a friend of a friend — who won big on a sports bet, or came home with 10,000 bucks from Vegas or won the dream trip to Malta on a scratch ticket… So won something big.
The trick is that in gambling the good stories are always the ones that end with winning big. It makes sense. My grandma never talks about how she played the family numbers on the lottery last week and won nothing, again, for the 200th time. But she never forgets to mention when she won $6000 on it in 2003.
Why is that?
Because losing is boring. It’s everyday. It happens with everyone. Winning is exciting, it’s a fun-to-tell story, even after years.
The story of winning big survives the filter of boredom.
This is why this statistical concept is called survivorship bias. In this case, the story of winning is the thing that survives. And why is it a bias?
Because what happens here?
My brain hears a winning story. That’s one datapoint. Then it hears another one, then another one, then another one. Sometimes it hears losing stories, too… but by far not as many as there are in reality. So my poor brain will have a disproportionately big sample size of winning stories and a relatively small number of losing stories. And it unconsciously creates false statistics from the skewed data — and so it thinks that I have a much bigger chance to win than I have for real.
This is how my silly brain works. Well, okay, the bad news is that it’s not just my brain, it’s yours, too. In fact, it’s everyone’s brain: this is how humans are created. We instinctively believe that we have a bigger chance to win in games than we do. Because of survivorship bias.
Oh, and of course, almost all casinos and online betting companies amplify this effect as much as they can.
Anyways, if there wasn’t survivorship bias, we’d see our chances at gambling more rationally and probably none of us would ever go to the casinos. So if you hear a good winning story, you should always remember that’s not the full picture… and that on the full scale, the house always wins.
I keep saying this, by the way: the house always wins. But I haven’t yet explained the math behind it. So let’s continue with that and head over to the second statistical concept.
Expected value
Here, I won’t go into the details of the expected value calculation itself. But check out this article to learn more: Expected Value Formula.
But, let’s get back and let me talk a little bit about expected value.
Expected value shows what result you would get on average if you made the very same bet infinite times.
I know, this sounds a bit tricky, so let me give you a very simple example to bring this home.
Flipping a coin.
Flipping a coin is usually a fair game. When you flip a coin, there’s 50%-50% for tails or heads. Let’s say that you bet and when it’s tails you double your money, if it’s heads you lose your money. If you do this over and over again several times, let’s say for 1,000 rounds, your wins and losses will balance each other out. Your average profit will be 0 dollars. That means that the expected value of this game is exactly $0.
expected value — coin flip simulation (Image by author)
In roulette, there’s a pretty similar bet to flipping a coin. That’s betting red versus black. But in roulette your winning chances are a tiny bit lower compared to flipping a coin. When you put $10 on black, your expected value is not 0. It’s minus $0.27 per round. Again, I won’t go into the math here, check out the article I mentioned. But the point is that in every round you play, you lose an average of 27 cents. It seems like a very small amount of money. But over 1,000 rounds, it adds up and your losses will be around $270.
expected value — roulette simulation (Image by author)
I mean sure, expected value is a theoretical value, but it always shows itself in the long term. In other words: the more you play, the more you lose.
The point is: roulette is a game where the expected value is negative — because the probabilities in it are designed in a way that you’ll lose in the long term. And it’s not that big of a secret, that every single game in a casino is designed with a negative expected value.
And that’s why the house always wins.
So that was the second statistical concept, expected value.
Let’s talk about the third statistical concept:
Hot hand fallacy
This is another bias and it explains why people don’t get out of a game when they are in a winning series.
First off, you have to know that probability is tricky. It works in a way that’s really hard to interpret for the human brain. There are events that are extremely unlikely to happen. Like the chance that you’ll get 10 heads in a row when flipping a coin. The probability of that is less than 0.1%. Still, in a big enough sample size, let’s say when you toss the coin 100,000 times, it’ll inevitably happen, even multiple times.
And the same thing can happen to you. If you play 1,000 rounds of roulette for instance, it’s actually pretty likely that you’ll have lucky runs.
expected value — roulette simulation — there are lucky runs! (Image by author)
And when one’s in the middle of a lucky run, it’s easy to feel that she has a hot hand. So she raises the bar, plays with bigger bets — in the hope of getting the most out of these winning series. But the thing is that these winning series are nothing else but blind luck, and statistically speaking it happens to everyone every now or then.
In gambling, there’s no such thing as a hot hand. In the casino, just as fast as you win something, that’s how fast you can lose it.”. Again, you can’t get out of the law of statistics — and the more you play, the bigger the chance you’ll lose. Remember, the house always wins. So don’t fall for the hot hand fallacy. If you go to the casino and play (against common sense) and you win (against the odds), the best thing you can do is get out immediately and be happy for being lucky!
Conclusion
So why shouldn’t you go to casinos?
Because of 3 simple statistical concepts:
survivorship bias
expected value
and hot-hand fallacy
And don’t get me wrong, it’s your choice whether you gamble or not. I get it. It’s fun to play sometimes, it’s fun to get lucky and it’s fun to win.
I just wanted you to understand the math behind gambling — and to give you a more realistic picture of your chances and about why the house always wins.
Tomi Mester, data36.com | https://towardsdatascience.com/why-you-shouldnt-go-to-casinos-3-statistical-concepts-a3b600086463 | ['Tomi Mester'] | 2020-09-23 20:19:01.837000+00:00 | ['Gambling', 'Data Science', 'Bias', 'Editors Pick', 'Statistics'] |
Microservices in Rust with actix | Why even consider Rust?
To be honest, I think it would be faster to create the application we will develop using Java instead of Rust, at least if we used some of the goodies from the Spring ecosystem. I say this despite Rust being my favorite language, so why even bother trying to create it in Rust? Microservice applications bring, despite their intriguing benefits, a whole range of challenges, some of which I dare to say are a perfect fit to tackle with Rust.
Due to the distributed nature of microservices, developers need to take care of latency, network partitioning, unavailable services and the fact that your local data store might not have all of the required information available. This calls for highly concurrent applications that can cope with possibly failing data transfers, without blocking up the whole application.
If you roll out your microservice app, you don’t just need to deploy one monolith but rather tens of individual applications, possibly written by different teams. The self-contained nature of Rust binaries might ease this process.
But don’t take my word for it, follow along the rest of the post to see if Rust might be worth considering for you.
What we will build
Since I evaluate the feasibility of efficiently building microservices with rust, the following scenario was designed to cover many different aspects typical to such applications.
In this first part of the series we build a service that provides a REST API, consumes another REST API and keeps a bit of state in a database.
This scenario shall accompany us the next few blog posts:
We build software for an imaginary, quickly growing company, that allows users to manage collections of images. The service will download and store the images for them, in addition to provide them with means for printing and sending the prints per mail.
Let’s have a closer look at what will be done with the application:
Our use case
The user passes an URL of an image to the service
The image is downloaded and saved alongside a thumbnail in an S3 bucket (this is the focus of the next post)
When the download is done, the user can preview the thumbnail and download the image
The user can print a bunch of images and will receive them in their mail
Dividing the system into Services
To be able to build the system in multiple iterations, I chose the following setup:
A print service for accepting print jobs and sending them to the printer. Let’s just assume the printer itself understands HTTP requests, nobody wants to dive into the horrors of real printers.
Some management service for the user to CRUD the images. We assume that one is already existing, developed with Spring Boot. We need to integrate with it.
The download service that will be discussed in the next post.
The S3 bucket the user will directly access. We neglect security concerns for now.
In this post we will focus on the print service.
We need a bit more connections though: The print service needs to have the image that it needs to print after all. For a supplied user and image id, we request the file location at the management service. This means we need to communicate between services, on behalf of the user.
We want to reply the user print job requests with an OK , only if the user is allowed to print the file (ask the management service) and the job has been persisted. This means we need to ‘hold’ the user-request until the management service has confirmed the user is allowed to do as they please.
The print service
Since we want to expose the print-http-endpoint, it is advisable to use a web-framework: In the last post I used rocket, so this time, actix-rs will be used. Actix does not try to hide the asynchronous nature of its foundation as much as rocket does and hence feels a bit more powerful to me. We will see some of the good and bad sides of it over the course of this article.
Service interfaces
The scope of our service is pretty small, I will nonetheless only discuss the interesting ones, these are:
GET /print/jobs/{:id} For the user to see the job status
POST /print/jobs For the user to create a new print job
The GET request queries a single job by its id from the database. The POST request asks the management service for a bit of information, stores the job in the database and triggers the actual printing process.
Consumed interfaces
A key aspect of microservices is, that they cooperate with other services. To cover this functionality in this evaluation, I designed the print service to consume three interfaces: the API of the printer itself, that we have no control over, the management API, written by a different team in a different language and the S3 API to asynchronously download the image.
The following figure visualizes the interactions:
No swag for us
It would be cool to have the boilerplate code directly generated from its specification, for example by using swagger. Unfortunately, the swagger-codegen for rust does only support the rather low-level HTTP library ‘hyper’ instead of the more abstract frameworks. ‘Paperclip’ aimed to build a actix-web code generator for OpenAPI specs but there seems to be no active development. This leaves us with writing the actix-code by ourselves.
It is nonetheless important to ensure that the understanding of the syntax and semantics of our messages is consistent between the communicating services. In one of the next posts, this will be done by employing contract testing in one of the following posts.
Callbacks from the printer
To handle callbacks from the printer, once it finished printing, correlation-IDs are used. They are stored in a database to keep track of active jobs across requests. This requires our rust code to interact with the database. I chose to use tokio_postgres, a sub-project of rust-postgres, allowing for clean integration with asynchronous programming using tokio (what we will be using due to actix anyways). But since we want to keep the load on the db caused by connections to a minimum, a connection-pool would be a sensible choice. The most prominent project, 2rd2 , unfortunately does not already support the tokio variants of the rust-postgres crate. Therefore I opted for bb8 , describing itself as “A generic connection pool, designed for asynchronous tokio-based connections”. I really like their choice of crate-names.
Why use asynchronous programming at all here? We can assume that the database is not located on the same server that our app will run on, so we need to expect a few milliseconds of latency. Since we want to use the async features for downloading images anyways, it is a quite natural choice for the database as well. In the following section I will give a really brief overview of the needed features.
Async-Await
When uploading 500 images to several printers in parallel (we assume the print hardware is slow), we do not want to have 500 threads running. To avoid this, Rust provides a pretty new and exciting feature: async await. Since this feature is huge, the rust-guys are writing a whole book about it, similar to the rust-nomicon. Despite being a bit tricky, this feature makes rust such a great fit for parallel execution, so let me quickly introduce the concept.
One can mark functions and blocks as async . This means, that part of the code can pause its execution and resume if there is any progress to be made. I won’t attempt to explain rust-futures here, read the primer in their announcement blogpost if you want a quick overview. In a function marked with async , you can hand-off processing (for that code it fells like ‘pause’ processing) by calling await .
Let me show you an example:
let body = reqwest::get(url).await;
println!("Got {}",body);
This instructs the compiler to build code that does the following: Start the ‘get’ request and go do something else until it finished downloading, then commence execution here, printing out the result. This allows us to write our code if we would block the thread but the compiler re-wires everything, so that we can run thousands of async tasks simultaneously.
For this magic to happen, the applications needs a run-time to drive progress on the individual tasks. The current de-facto standard is tokio. If you plan to do anything network- or file-system related with your rust-application, definitely have a look at it. Don’t get scared away from the currently incomplete guides, they are currently restructuring everything and the tokio-0.1.* versions had great guides so I expect them do come back updated and even more polished.
The interesting code samples, that show how this feature greatly increases readability, are located further down where I go over the implementation details for each relevant service part.
The Actix-web implementation
Actix-web is based on actix, an actor framework and organizes most of its functionality around (async) handler functions, that create responses when acting on requests. The handlers are executed in a tokio-runtime, allowing them to utilize multiple CPU cores. However, since there is only a finite amount of CPUs, the handler code must not block, e.g. by waiting for a database query.
Due to being run in the runtime already, waiting (feels like blocking) for async tasks to finish, is as easy as calling .await on it.
Similar to rocket, actix allows for custom types to be extracted from requests, as well as using them as the response body. These types can be annotated with basic verification rules to ensure only valid requests are processed.
#[derive(Validate, ...)]
struct PrintJob{
//...
#[validate(length(min = 1, max = 20))]
name: String
} // in the handler:
job.validate().map_err(ErrorBadRequest)?;
// processing code
This code validates an incoming print job in the handler and a validation error is mapped to something of our choice, in this case a bad_request. In case there was no error, the code simply continues with the next instruction, in case the validation failed, the ? means that an error-type is returned from the function. This is a bit of a scary part of rust: A simple ? is a conditional return statement, that can easily be overlooked. However, compared with implicit returning caused by exceptions in other languages this is still more explicit.
The obligatory, unrelated image of a server «|» Photo by Taylor Vick on Unsplash
Providing the API with actix
Out of the above-mentioned API endpoints, GET requests asking for a special job_id , might be the simplest ones, so let me quickly walk you through their implementation so you can get a feeling for actix.
GET /print/jobs/{:id}
The method signature of our handler is as follows:
async fn get_job_by_id(id: web::Path<u32>) -> impl Responder { ...
This is a lot of syntax here, so let me explain:
async means that this is an async function, that can be directly run in a runtime. We further promise, this function will not block.
means that this is an async function, that can be directly run in a runtime. We further promise, this function will not block. web:Path<u32> is the type of our id parameter, since it is encoded in the request path. This parameter is defined in the app-routing directive: ...route("/print/jobs/{id}",...) .
is the type of our id parameter, since it is encoded in the request path. This parameter is defined in the app-routing directive: . impl Responder defines our response-type as anything that does implement the Responder trait. So e.g. HttpResponse but also its result-type. This means we can directly return Err(HttpResponse::BadRequest) .
If you have read the last post where I used the rocket framework, this should be quite familiar.
Since we want to load the print job from the database, we need to have a way to query it. Using the aforementioned bb8, we get an asynchronous connection pool we can execute our queries on. Accessing the pool is done similarly to rocket: by adding a data parameter:
async fn get_job_by_id(
id: web::Path<i32>,
storage: web::Data<Storage>
) -> impl Responder {
That storage parameter is handled by the middleware and we get a cloned reference to the pool for each and every request.
Now to the method body. In contrast to the web-service developed last time, I chose to make them as clean as possible:
storage.select_print_job_by_id(id.into_inner()).await;
That’s all.
Let’s examine why this works: That whole thing needs to implement Responder (see method declaration) to be handled by actix. As we can see with the await , the select_print_job_by_id function is an async function. Before we look at that function, a note to the into_inner : This simply means that the path-parameter will be converted to the contained variable ( i32 ). Note however, this cannot fail, since the Path struct was already validated before the method was called in the first place.
Back to the select_print_job_by_id function:
pub async fn select_print_job_by_id(&self, id: i32)
-> Result<Option<PrintJob>, PrintJobError> {...}
Rust amazes me every time, how much syntax you can cram into one function…
So what’s the magic behind this: Why does this implement Responder ?
Responder is implemented for Option- and Result-Types, that in turn implement Responder . That means that now only the PrintJob needs to implement Responder and PrintJobError needs to implement ResponseError . Since PrintJobError Already implements std::error:Error (which in turn requires the Display and Debug traits), the “implementation” of ResponseError is simply stating it does:
impl ResponseError for PrintJobError { }
Yes, an empty implementation.
The Responder is a bit more complex (~10 Lines) due to the asynchronous nature of it, so I spare you that but you can have a look at the sourcecode if you are interested.
So what does the return-type of the select_print_job_by_id function mean for the caller? On the top-level it is a Result, possibly containing a PrintJobError , mapping to Error 500 with a description of the error. If it is not an error, it is either None or our PrintJob . If the database did not find anything (returning None ), this naturally translates to Error 404, what is actually done by actix for us. If a PrintJob is returned, we give it to the client encoded as JSON.
I think this is one of the greatest features of rust: You are forced to think about Error handling. This makes rust such a great fit for microservices, since you won’t accidentally crash another calling service because you return null or nothing at all, since you encountered a NullPointerException yourself.
Let’s fetch some resources «|» Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
Consuming an API with reqwest
When the user wants to print something, they supply a user-id and a file-id . The print service asks the management service, if the requesting user is allowed to print the file and where to find the file. There are several ways this user-request could go wrong: e.g. the file has been deleted in the meantime or the user was naughty and tries to print a file they are not allowed to. Perhaps the management service is overloaded or not reachable. Either way, we do not want to answer the user until we have processed the reply of the management service. But we promised actix not to block in the handler, so what to do? Use async of course, here’s how:
POST /print/jobs For the user to create a new print job
First, we need to fire off a request with the reqwest crate:
let response = reqwest::Client::new()
.get("http://127.0.0.1:8090/lookup")
.json(&job)
.send()
.await
.map_err(|e|...)?;
This gives us a future that completes, once the request completes. This does not necessarily require the body to be there yet, the headers are sufficient. We further map the error here to something we understand, depending if the request timed out or the target is not available.
Depending on the HTTP status code, we can now decide further: If we get OK , we can proceed. If we get 404 , we let the user know about it. If anything else is received, an InternalServerError is returned. That way, the user will see relevant information (the file is not there, did you mess something up?) but we don’t publish sensitive information about what backends are available.
So in case of 200 , we can wait for the body to arrive and being parsed:
let result = response.json::<ManagementLookupResponse>()
.await
.map_err(|e| ...)?;
The next steps of adding the job to the database and returning to the user are omitted here.
I want to point out, that the await syntax allows us to write our code the same way if it would block, but in fact it will run concurrently, in this case even parallel. Easy access to strong concurrency primitives is extremely important if several programs communicate, possibly across the globe, with considerable latencies.
Slow backends
If you worry about slow backends, you might be right. Although actix is taking care of backpressure quite well and a million waiting tokio-tasks do not really pose a problem, two million opened TCP connections do. We therefore need to prevent work from piling up and stalling our service. So let me use this challenge to show how you can incorporate low-level system primitives in high-level web-frameworks.
We want to assure that at every moment, there are no more than a specified amount of requests waiting. This should hold true for each instance of the service individually but will incorporate synchronization across many tasks. If some arriving request would breach the set threshold, we do not process it but return HTTP status 429. To keep track of active requests, we could use an AtomicUsize but there are some nasty details we don’t want to get wrong, just have a look at the Ordering you need to get right. Instead we use a semaphore.
Before you close this browser tab in fear of semaphore permits held for all eternity, have a look at the implementation provided by tokio. We do not need to remember calling release ! In fact, there is no such function. This means we won’t block the service indefinitely because we forget to call release on held locks. But how does this work then?
Before we look into the Rust way of solving this, let’s do a quick excursion to Java: Java provides a finally block (see docs), that gets executed in most cases, if the code in the corresponding try or catch blocks ends. That way, it is quite safe to put the release() function call on the semaphore there. So back to Rust: given there is no try (mind the reference), wouldn’t it be nice to have something similar? Well, Rust has a drop trait, something like a destructor, that is automatically called when a variable goes out of scope (means, we can’t forget to call it). So our Semaphore returns SemaphorePermit if it has capacity and that permit will be ‘released’, once it goes out of scope. Even if we return from a method with ? and even if the current thread panics.
So that way, we can try to acquire a permit from the semaphore, return status 429 if it fails or continue processing if we get a permit. This simple check further increases the resilience of our code, since we don’t accumulate work and won’t hammer on a backend service with a million concurrent requests.
Testing the service
It obviously makes sense to test our service before we put it in production.
Before you get too excited about contract testing: For this topic to be covered, you need to wait for one of the future posts, concerned with the integration of Rust and Java.
Unit Tests
Rust allows you to write unit-tests directly in the files that contain your functions. That way it is easy to test private functions without performing any hacks.
Assume we have a (dummy) health-probe with the following code:
async fn health_probe(_: HttpRequest) -> HttpResponse {
HttpResponse::Ok().finish()
}
A test for this method could be the following:
#[actix_rt::test]
async fn test_status_ok() {
let req = test::TestRequest::default().to_http_request();
let resp = super::health_probe(req).await;
assert_eq!(resp.status(), http::StatusCode::OK);
}
In this case, we actually don’t start our HTTP server but test the function directly, without routing or managed data. Note the function annotation: this isn’t your default #[test] annotation, since we are testing an async function (with an async function).
That way, we can pass the desired parameters to the function, for example a mocked database backend or any sort of nasty request, that would otherwise be hard to generate.
Integration tests
The slightly more complex integration tests of our service can test the “real” application: we can have an app with either the real routing and data attached or mocked ones. We could for example replace the real storage from above with a mock implementation.
#[actix_rt::test]
async fn test_xyz() {
let storage = ...
let mut app = test::init_service(
App::new()
.data(storage.clone())
.route(...)
).await;
let req = test::TestRequest::get()
.uri("/print/jobs/10").to_request();
let resp = test::call_service(&mut app, req).await;
assert!(resp.status().is_success());
}
Although this is pretty close to the real running application, it is worth noting that tokio tests and hence actix tests, use the basic_scheduler for their test-runtime, that schedules all tasks in a single thread. This might lead to different behavior compared to the default, thread-pool based scheduler.
Metrics
If many instances of our microservice will be run, we need to make sure they are healthy and we can detect broken ones, to replace them. In this section we will have a look at how you can collect metrics from the app to aggregate them in a central place and further process them there.
There is a crate called actix-web-prom that allows for prometheus metrics to be directly exposed on the /metrics endpoint, for the scraper to collect. That crate does automatically generate stats for your endpoints, if you add it as a middleware to your actix app. If you want to have custom metrics, like in our case the available slots for the backend requests, the crate provides a registry to put the custom histograms/gauges into.
When this is done, it is an act of simply calling observe() when values change:
histogram.observe(semaphore.available_permits() as f64 );
Of course measuring things isn’t free (although it is cheap): the maximum request rate at the health-endpoint, returning static responses with “OK” slightly decreased from 696K/s to 654K/s when activating metrics recording. This is surprisingly cheap as opposed to the default logging: “only” 414K requests per second could be served when logging using env_logger was added, even if the output was turned off. Please note that these are extreme conditions and you probably should not run your application under such high loads.
The following grafana-dashboard shows request rates, 95 percentiles of request duration and the 95 percentiles of available request slots during a load tests. | https://medium.com/digitalfrontiers/microservices-in-rust-with-actix-a61bb62fee80 | ['Marco Amann'] | 2020-06-30 09:31:22.719000+00:00 | ['Async', 'Rust', 'Microservices', 'Tokio', 'Actix Web'] |
How I started my new role as a Product Design Director fully remotely | First weeks: Discover, observe & audit
So here I was, alone in my living room, trying to get familiar with a new job, new company and new colleagues, all of this through the window of my computer…
Me, my living room and my computer… Feel quite alone here :)
I must confess that my first week was quite repetitive:
Call - Call - Read Notion - Call - Call…
It was hard but it was a necessary step to get to know the team and to better understand the organization and the product I was going to work with.
—
UNDERSTAND THE PRODUCT
Thanks to the different online presentations planned during the onboarding period, I was able to get to know better the product I was going to work with.
I already knew that OpenClassrooms was an online School, created by Mathieu Nebra who started this project (first called Le site du zéro) when he was only 13 years old. His idea from the very beginning was to “Make education accessible”.
But the Product was more complicated (or should I say “richer”) than I expected:
- Many targets: Students or apprentices who want to find their first job, employees who want to upskill or reskill, job seekers, mentors who support students, or just people who want to learn for fun.
- Whole admission experience: OpenClassrooms is a school, so it needs to collect diplomas, CV’s and check student motivations.
- Learning experience: All courses and training modules are “homemade”, using a customized pedagogic model.
- BtoB experience: HR from big companies who wants to train their employees can access analytics and reports to monitor the training plans.
I felt like being next to a giant train, going at full speed and in which I had to jump without it stopping or slowing down.
—
UNDERSTAND THE PEOPLE
Before the lockdown, I only met my team members once. So I started with a one hour interview with each of them. At that time, 5 product designers & 2 Ux Writers.
Here are the 5 questions I asked them:
1. How do you define your role today?
2. What do you like about working for OpenClassrooms?
3. What needs to be improved?
4. Is there a specific design skill you would like to learn?
5. What do you expect from me as your new manager?
I was also able to meet virtually other people, some with whom I was going to work on a daily basis but also people from other teams, thanks to Random Coffees. It’s a Slack app that randomly organizes meetings with 2 people from the company. It really helped my integration! | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/how-i-started-my-new-role-as-a-product-design-director-fully-remotely-cd8d07b30c84 | ['Audrey Hacq'] | 2021-06-08 13:03:09.388000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Process', 'Careers', 'Team Building', 'Remote Working'] |
Why It Was So Hard to Love a Man With Mental Illness | Why It Was So Hard to Love a Man With Mental Illness
As my husband’s mental state worsened, so did mine.
Photo by Gabriela Pereira from Pexels
My husband’s fist came down hard and fast on the box of juice packs sitting on the dining-room table. I’d purchased the juice earlier in the day but had yet to move the box to its proper cupboard in the kitchen.
Under the force of his fist, the cardboard crumpled and purple liquid squirted out the sides. I watched in shock as juice spilled to the beige carpet below.
I rushed for paper towels to sop up the mess. The rug didn’t wait for me. It absorbed the juice as if it were drinking it.
My husband didn’t stick around to help me to clean up his mess either. He stormed out of the room, leaving me alone to deal with it.
I didn’t call him back to help. I was tired of arguing. I didn’t know if he was capable of helping me anyway.
His mental state had been in a slow decline over the past couple of years. After we lost everything in the Great Recession of 2008, he became a conspiracy theorist. He believed 9–11 was an inside job, every mass shooting was a hoax, chemtrails were real, and the Apollo mission never landed on the moon. Aliens lived in secret underground tunnels in New Mexico.
Today’s conspiracy assertion was that he now believed the moon was a hollow structure, built by ancient aliens. Worse, our government was hiding this from the public.
I refused to believe this claim, so my husband became angry. Down came his fist on the box of juice packs. When he hit the box, I felt like he’d hit me, too. I felt like that box — crumpled and battered.
My self-esteem was the juice dripping off the table, absorbing into the carpet, disappearing. Each day my husband’s mental health worsened, so did mine.
I still loved him. But every time he said something crazy or did something like smash a box of juice packs with his fist, leaving me to clean up the mess alone, a little bit more of my love drained away.
This is the story of my husband’s mental breakdown. His breakdown not only destroyed our marriage but threatened to destroy me, too.
My husband’s close-knit family tried to help him.
As my husband’s behavior became increasingly erratic, his whole family got involved. We had many family gatherings where his parents, his siblings, and I got together to try to come up with solutions for him.
His father had been in high-level corporate management before he retired. He had plenty of actionable advice for my husband. They’d spend a day writing up a plan, and my husband would come home, feeling excited about getting his life back on track.
Reality would set in. Carrying out the plan was too difficult. For one, it entailed waking up early. The plan required my husband to get up, sit at a desk, make lists of new companies where he could apply, and make phone calls. But instead, my husband would sleep in. When he did finally get up, his mind was foggy. He felt too tired to work.
Tomorrow he’d get to it. Tomorrow would come and he’d use the same excuse.
At one of our family meetings, one of my father-in-law’s colleagues sat in. This colleague also suggested a plan of action to get a new job. Again my husband dropped the ball.
His parents then paid for him to meet with a life coach, but again he never followed through.
It was always the same old story — his conspiracy obsession won over his desire to fix his life.
To fix our life.
My husband put our children in danger.
Obviously, my husband’s mental state couldn’t help but start to affect our kids. One afternoon, I received a phone call from a teacher at our children’s preschool to notify me that when my husband went to pick them up, he’d driven off without buckling them into their car seats.
Now you might ask why I would even let him drive with our children at that point, given his struggles. When you’re living in this situation, sometimes it’s hard to realize just how bad things are until something like this happens. My husband would still have moments of lucidity that would make it seem like he was getting better. I was also in denial of just how bad his condition was.
To make matters worse, I’d started working part-time again, so I needed him to pick up the kids from preschool while I was busy at work. In fact, the teacher called me right as I was speeding down the freeway, en route to my new job. She said that our children were not only not in their car seats when their father drove off, but our three-year-old was standing in the front seat.
I realized this teacher didn’t have to call me. She could have called Social Services straight away. She told me that if it happened again, she would.
My mind filled with visions of losing custody of our children — or worse, one or both of them dying in a car accident because of my husband.
I had a presentation to give at my new job that day. It took all I had to concentrate on what I was saying.
Maybe at this point, you’d think I would have left my husband.
I didn’t. I stayed.
I didn’t feel strong enough to leave — even though I should have.
I kept telling myself we’d get through this. My husband would get better. He’d start manning up to be the great dad our kids deserved. He’d go back to being a good husband again. He’d shelve his conspiracy habit. We’d fall back in love.
None of this happened.
And still, I stayed hopeful — and practical. I wasn’t earning enough at my part-time job to support two children. My husband wasn’t working. He didn’t have money to pay child support. I had no experience with welfare. I didn’t know where to go, how to get government aid.
In retrospect, I should have researched more. I didn’t.
I had no idea how bad things would get.
He left us to go to an “alternative” space conference, and I lost all sympathy.
A month later, my husband announced that he would be gone for a few days. When I asked where he was going, he said he would be attending an alternative space conference.
At this conference, top speakers in the field of space conspiracies were lecturing about aliens and other things that NASA was hiding from the American people.
At this point, my husband no longer believed in Newtonian Physics. He believed that aliens flew around anti-gravity spaceships that could be seen in the night sky if you wore infrared glasses.
Not only was I angry that he was leaving us to attend this conference, but I was enraged because we were so low on money. He was wasting what little cash we still had in our bank account to pay for a hotel and entrance to this event.
To make matters worse, we only had one car that was drivable at the time. The second car kept overheating. Because it was too expensive to fix, we hadn’t dealt with the issue.
My husband refused to stay home even though I asked him to. He went to the conference, taking the good car. I used the car that kept overheating to drive the kids to a birthday party. Of course, on the way back, on the freeway, the car overheated. It was stupid to take the car, but I was angry and didn’t want our kids to miss out on a party because their father had decided to go to some crazy conspiracy conference.
While stopped on the side of the freeway, I waited for the car to cool down. Once it did, it wouldn’t start. I called a tow truck to tow the car to a mechanic. That’s when I also called my husband to tell him the news.
There I was, waiting on the side of the dirty L.A. freeway in the burning heat with our two children in the backseat, dozens of cars whizzing past us as we waited to be towed, and my husband related that he was relaxing in an air-conditioned hotel room, in between lectures.
This was the point of no return in my mind.
Not only was it going to cost a fortune to fix the car, but when we finally got home, I realized we had very little food in the refrigerator. It was a Friday and my husband wouldn’t be home until Monday afternoon. I couldn’t get to the store because I no longer had a car to drive. The children were too little to walk to the store with me. I couldn’t leave them alone while I walked there. My in-laws were out of town.
This was the day when I stopped loving my husband.
Does this make me a bad person? It felt like an awakening.
A marriage therapist told me I should just “accept” my husband as he was.
Still, I didn’t leave. I was too afraid. My husband started seeing a new life coach. I had high hopes for my husband’s recovery. The coach wanted me to be involved in the meetings, believing I was integral to his recovery. Of course, I went to the meeting.
During the meeting, the coach kept telling me everything was going to be okay. Anger suddenly overwhelmed me. Everything had not been okay for a very long time. I’d been living this nightmare for years. However, the coach still thought he could fix our marriage and referred us to a marriage therapist.
I’ll never forget the therapist asking me how I felt. I recited the laundry list of problems I had with my husband. The therapist told me I just had to accept my husband as he was.
That’s when I really lost it. I was ready to stop going to any more meetings when the life coach said I should at least see what happened when my husband started going to a new psychiatrist. The psychiatrist diagnosed my husband with schizophrenia. I was shocked. The doctor prescribed an antipsychotic. I hoped this would help.
The medication just made him feel spacy and more exhausted. Soon thereafter he stopped taking it.
He went to see another psychiatrist, who also diagnosed him with schizophrenia. Again I was stunned. This time my husband wouldn’t even fill the prescription. He continued to be obsessed with his conspiracy theories. And now my mental state was on the brink as well.
I left my husband — still, things got worse before they got better.
By this point, I was severely depressed. I was suffering from chronic pain and fatigue. I finally worked up the courage to leave. I’d been putting my own mental health on the back burner for years. Our children were miserable and failing in school. I had no choice. I had to take them out of this living situation.
I had to save myself.
Once I left him, my husband hit rock bottom.
Only after I left did life start to get better for my husband. But it had to get worse first. He got in seven car accidents in a year. During one of these car accidents, he hit a man who was walking across the street. He hadn’t been paying attention because he was still obsessed with his conspiracies. He shouldn’t have been driving at all.
He got a job on the floor of a hardware store but then got fired from it for falling asleep in his car during his break. I had no choice but to assume the vast majority of both the child care and the financial responsibility of parenting two kids.
But having left my husband, at least I could provide my children with a more stable living situation.
And at least I could start rebuilding my own life.
How we’re doing today.
Today my ex-husband is doing much better. He finally recovered and is much more mentally stable. He went back to school and now has a new career. He also stopped obsessing about conspiracy theories. He doesn’t believe in them anymore.
However, I don’t think he could have gotten to this point had I not left him. I had to leave and he had to hit rock bottom for his mental health to improve. As a result of separating from my husband, my own mental health bounced back as well.
The constant pain in my body has gone away. I have much more energy during the day. My kids are also happier because I’m happier.
Leaving my husband was the only answer for all of us.
Parting words.
While it’s important to try to help our loved ones when they’re suffering from mental illness —we have to remember that our mental health and happiness count, too. We can’t throw ourselves under the bus to rescue someone else. Sometimes they won’t get better until we let them hit rock bottom.
That means that sometimes we just have to stop helping them. We need to consider the health of the rest of the family.
Mental illness doesn’t just affect the person suffering from it, but everyone close to them — especially the spouse and the children.
I’m just glad my kids and I survived my husband’s mental breakdown.
As I slowly rebuild my life, I feel grateful that at least we’re all happy again, even if my marriage didn’t make it. | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/why-it-was-so-hard-to-love-a-man-with-mental-illness-cbd44547a832 | ['Elle Silver'] | 2020-12-03 20:06:39.016000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Relationships', 'Family', 'Self', 'Mental Illness'] |
Django, Gunicorn, Systemd Errors | Django, Gunicorn, Systemd Errors
Getting this error while trying to deploy a Django app? Check the logs with this command:
journalctl --unit=gunicorn | tail -n 100
With this command, you can see gunicorn trying to startup your Django app more clearly compared to sudo service gunicorn status .
If your systemd socket/service settings file ( /etc/systemd/system/* ) contains the setting EnvironmentFile , make sure to check the format of your env file. It cannot be the bash script format like this:
export MY_KEY=123
export MY_OTHER_KEY=aaa
Correct format:
MY_KEY=123
MY_OTHER_KEY=aaauld
If your gunicorn is active and running from sudo service gunicorn status , but your website still doesn’t show up. Try the following:
Make sure your ALLOWED_HOSTS in your Django project’s settings.py has the correct domain names:
# settings.py
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ["example.com", "www.example.com"]
If you are hosting with a domain of something like .dev or .page , those domains require HTTPS to even let you go to the IP address. It becomes a little circular if you are wanting to test your site on a port, as you need to enable HTTPS without testing to see if the site’s homepage works. But the homepage should be working if it works locally, and if gunicorn is throwing an access log of this sort when trying to ping your server’s IP:
"GET / HTTP/1.1" 301 0
code 400, message Bad HTTP/0.9 request type
You're accessing the development server over HTTPS, but it only supports HTTP.
All you need to do is use certbot to enable HTTPS before testing your homepage, which is pretty straightforward from their instructions. After running sudo certbot --your_webserver , or whatever the instructions gave for your specific specs. Your domain should be ready to test if no errors came up. | https://medium.com/@antisyllogism/django-gunicorn-systemd-errors-8b0cf1859d23 | ['Derrick Gee'] | 2020-12-01 07:51:38.020000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Coding', 'Web Development', 'Django', 'Python'] |
Fox News Can’t Help Itself: Zombie Lies Are Part of its DNA | A headline is worth a million words, because most people don’t read the articles.
Look at this screenshot of my news search.
internet search screenshot
Look at Fox (my emphasis in bold italics): “DOJ yet to find widespread voter fraud…”
Once again, those motherfuckers are gaslighting anyone who comes in contact with their toxic news reporting. Are you going to believe you own ears or what the president wants you to believe?
“The absence of evidence does not mean the evidence is absent” ranks up there with “the ends justify the means” when it comes to destroying our democracy.
Bush-Cheney war criminal Donald Rumsfeld told us “the absence of evidence does not mean the evidence is absen.” He used this false logic to convince all the sheep to believe Iraq had WMDs, despite having zero evidence (see below).
The presumption of innocence is the basis for our legal system, but the Bush-Cheney crime family turned that foundational principle on its head to support an illegal, immoral war against Iraq.
Rumsfeld’s statement ranks up there with “the ends justify the means” when it comes to destroying our democracy.
When will Fox News lose their broadcasting license for refusing to put a bullet in the head of all their zombie lies?
FOOTNOTE RANT:
The lies about WMDs in Iraq still makes me furious because it led to more U.S. deaths than 9/11, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, and a new generation of soldiers who came home permanently maimed either physically or mentally. All this at a cost of $2.4 trillion for the war and future care of our wounded veterans.
From 1991–1998, U.N. inspectors found no evidence of WMDs in Iraq. The CIA intelligence report during those years said that the U.S. had destroyed all weapons, manufacturing capabilities, and the resources needed.
In 2004, Bush-appointed weapons inspector David Kay testified before the Senate that there were no WMDs, and that the evidence pointed to the fact that nothing had changed since the 1991 destruction of Iraq’s WMD development program.
How was it possible for an alternative reality to be constructed by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld in the year following 9/11?
Those lies were believed by two-thirds of the American people by the time the U.S. invaded Iraq in early 2003.
And there are still millions of conservatives who hold on to those lies long after Bush admitted he was wrong and there were no WMDs in Iraq.
That is the power of the zombie lie. | https://medium.com/the-word-is-not-enough/fox-news-cant-help-itself-zombie-lies-are-part-of-its-dna-563d09709c16 | ['Lon Shapiro'] | 2020-12-02 17:58:51.323000+00:00 | ['Zombie Lies', 'Politics', 'Trump', 'News', '2020 Presidential Race'] |
Live to Give | The opportunity to serve is the most valuable opportunity worth pursuing.
The wisest thing I ever learned was to take advantage of every opportunity.
By this I mean not the opportunity to expand your own sense of mastery of the world, but the opportunity to expand your service to the world.
If you gain something external it can be taken away; all material things are transient. But the service you offer the world is eternally yours. Service gives you something long-lasting, both in the purpose and meaning it builds within you, and in the impact it has on others, which may even outlive you.
The opportunity to serve is the most valuable opportunity worth pursuing.
Live to give and give to live. | https://medium.com/the-pollination-project/live-to-give-567904576f67 | ['Ajay Dahiya'] | 2020-12-04 16:54:08.970000+00:00 | ['Giving', 'Opportunity', 'Philanthropy', 'Service'] |
How not to stab someone with a spoon? | There are moments when one has a good relationship with life and then there are times when life decides it has some lessons it wants to impart.
Sure, one could sit on the couch and eat a tin of caramel with some pancakes, regular cakes, biscuits and/or a spoon and later go on a five hour walk on a balcony that now has an infinity symbol seemingly etched into it and one could look at that spoon with the joys of processed sugar on it and think of the many people they would like to forcefully introduce it to. One could do that. One might have unhappy calves the next day but its an option.
It does however, pose the question of how not to stab someone with a spoon.
Firstly, and importantly for the moment, we are in a pandemic. So, one should realise that if one is close enough to stab someone, one is too close. Step back. And again. Now maybe take a step to the left for good measure.
Now, why was one there to begin with? Should one not be at home? is one working and can’t avoid the victim of ones desires? Tough break, so close and yet so far from ideal. But one has options. One could:
Build a fort- one doesn't have to be an architect or an engineer just put up some barriers and create some distance. Preferably in reality but reality doesn't always allow for that but maybe in ones mind. But never, never in ones heart and soul. No one should have the power to make one retreat into oneself. Find a safe space — the kitchen is normally recommended but that's where the spoons live. Outside? Yes, outside is ones friend, its where the air is. Avoid soup — soup is not ones friend. One could use a straw but not a metal one, they take on temperatures too easily. Maybe one of those bendy earth friendly rubber ones? Honestly, one does not need all that hassle, just avoid soup. Make a new friend — don't just start talking to new people and expand ones circle but make one just for oneself. One could make a cup of something leave it on ones desk. Leave for a moment and return and ask those around who made one a cup of X. Then one could remark, “Oh, it must have been hiccup! Hiccup is just so thoughtful.” People might look at one like one is peculiar but it is perfectly natural to befriend someone called hiccup. Also, people will leave one alone but even when they can’t or won’t things like team meetings are always improved by the presence of a hiccup. If one is desperate befriending an actual human is possibly an option. Acquire citrus- they are fleshy and are suitable spoon receptacles. It might quash the desire to use it on a person. It could be a gateway drug. Use with caution!
Does one still look at the victim of ones desires with eyes like saucers and a murderous aura? Well then it is time to realise that a spoon isn't going to get to one anywhere. What is one going to say, “Hiccup, made me do it”? Who is going to believe one? Think things through. Spoons are for mousse, ice cream and cereal, not people! Seriously not people! Go have some cereal, don't go serial.
How not to stab someone with a spoon? Maybe, just don't.
Ps- number of (some)one/ones= 50 because we were all wondering… | https://medium.com/@zareenagaibee/how-not-to-stab-someone-with-a-spoon-502197cb784 | [] | 2020-12-10 14:54:23.984000+00:00 | ['Hiccups', 'Sarcasm', 'Impractical', 'Spoon', 'Violence'] |
What Is Product Analytics and Why Do You Need It? | Today the term Product Analytics is not a well known word in the industry. When I talk about Rakam, a product analytics tool, I can see the confused faces in front of me. Let me enlighten you in this subject and also to save myself from seeing the confused faces. Also,I will try to give you a better insight on product analytics.
Product Analytics
In simple words, analytics that allow you to understand how your users behave while using your product is Product Analytics. This works best with the digital products as it is easier to track and analyze customer event data with digital footprints. Analyzing your customers behaviour can lead to finding why your customers are churning, converting or coming back to your product.
What Industries Benefit Most From Product Analytics?
In my previous article I mentioned the industries that benefits most from the analytics. Companies which has a mobile or web application can benefit the most from utilising product analytics. Data driven companies are dependent on consumer behaviour. For better understanding of user behaviour, conducting analysis such as funnel, retention and segmentation is a must. Insights gathered by these analysis could be used to provide better experience for your users. Having data on user level can help companies to have an advantage in today’s competitive business environment. From our customers we’ve learnt that they’ve achieved increased return on their profits by user event tracking to see these returns, one need to have an understanding of product analytics and use it efficiently.
What Can You Get From Product Analytics?
Product analytics is often confused with marketing analytics. But unlike marketing analytics, product analytics is focused on a product. It allows you to track and analyse your user events to make your product better. As the names suggests, the focus is on your product. Data gathered from using product analytics features is used by product managers, growth managers and UX designers to make improvements on their products.
Read the rest of the article from here | https://medium.com/rakam-io/what-is-product-analytics-and-why-do-you-need-it-ee03f945c2f | [] | 2018-11-12 12:40:40.886000+00:00 | ['Database', 'Big Data', 'Business Intelligence', 'Analytics', 'Data'] |
Machine Learning in Production | Let’s get started, there are a couple of steps in order to deploy our model, each of these can either be performed via the Cloud-Console or the Clouds-SDK.
Uploading your Model to a Cloud Storage Bucket
First, we need to upload our model to a cloud storage bucket, for this, you can simply head over to your GCP-project and navigate to the storage service. From there you can create a bucket and give it a meaningful name, I have called mine mnist-digit.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Now that our bucket is created we can simply upload our model to the bucket using the below command.
gsutil cp -r <path-to-tf-js-model-dir> gs://<bucket-name>/
Please note that a good convention for organizing your models is to use a sub-folder in your model's directory which highlights the model version that can be seen below.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
If you re-train your model or fine-tune the model architecture and export a different version you can create a separate folder here named 2 which will contain the updated model. The contents of this directory will be the entire saved model-directory as seen below.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Note: Your bucket must be in the same region as the AI-platform otherwise you will have to explicitly grant access to the AI-Platform.
Perfect we are done with the first step in getting our model uploaded to a cloud storage bucket, next comes
Creating an AI-Platform Model Resource
Before deploying the model first head over to your GCP project APIs & Services → Enable APIs & Services → AI Platform Training & Prediction API and enable this API.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Next head over to the AI-Platform service from the left side-bar in GCP and navigate to the Models tab.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Click on New model to create a model resource and give your model a unique name within the project, select a region this will be the region where the jobs will be running, once selected hit Create. I have called mine mnist_digit_recog
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Now if you go to the Models tab you should see your model resource. Next, we will be creating a version resource for our model resource that we just created.
Creating an AI-Platform Version Resource
Now we will be creating a version with the trained model we uploaded to the cloud-storage bucket in the first step. For this click on the model resource we just created and hit create a version.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Next, select a version for your model and set the python version and framework. I trained my model on python version 3.7.4. To check your python version you can run the below command in terminal
python --version (for python-2)
python3 --version (for python-3)
To check tensorflow version you can run
import tensorflow as tf
tf.__version__
Next, configure the path to your cloud storage bucket where you uploaded the model make sure you configure the path to the folder containing the model files which in our case was the directory named “1”.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Once you have configured it click save, this will take up some time and once it's finished you should see a green checkmark next to your deployed version as shown below
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Now we are all set to make predictions with our deployed instance. Btw if you are a fan of command-line then all these steps can be performed via the google cloud sdk. To explore the command line options please visit the official-docs.
Inference using AI-Platform
Now that we have our model deployed let's make some inferences, click on your model version and you will be taken to this page with additional details about the model and traffic.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Here we can see that our deployed model is expecting an object with an instances key containing the test data. To learn more about getting online predictions do give this link a visit which highlights how you should input your data and get predictions in response.
We will be using the google api client for python to get inference from our deployed model. If you are working in some other programming-language you can check out this page to see if the language is supported.
To get predictions we first need access to make calls to the model for which we need a credentials file. To set up the credentials in google cloud console, head over to APIs & Services and go to the credentials tab. From there click create new credentials and select service account. Give your service account a name and assign an appropriate role. I assigned my service account ML Engine Admin and Storage Object Admin. Once done click create.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
Once created, click your service account and scroll down to Add Key click the button and select create a new key and set the format as JSON, and hit create.
Download the JSON on disk and rename it for your own convenience. I have renamed it as [project-name]_credentials.json.
Next we will install the python client libraries using the below command
pip3 install google-api-python-client oauth2client
For more details you can visit the official docs for python client here
Once installed we can use the below code snippet to request our model.
prediction from AI-Platform
Note that I am specifying the api_endpoint with the specific region in which I created my model resource. You can check that out quickly by going to your model resource in AI-Platform.
Screenshot of Google Cloud Platform by the Author
And that’s it now you can deploy your machine learning models on AI-Platform whether they were trained using AI-Platform or not, and consume them from any application. In the last article of this series, we will look at how we can use cloud-functions for serving our models.
If you find this article useful do share it in your circle and leave a clap. For any queries or suggestions, you can leave a comment or you can connect with me on LinkedIn.
Happy Coding. | https://towardsdatascience.com/machine-learning-in-production-633548ad7281 | ['Asjad Anis'] | 2020-12-26 08:12:09.741000+00:00 | ['Deployment', 'TensorFlow', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Deep Learning', 'Machine Learning'] |
Use-case example: TF-IDF used for insurance feedback analysis | Bag of words
Because machine learning models cannot work with text data directly, we need to convert these responses into some numerical representation. We will start by transforming the text into tokens — individual words.
[ ‘The’, ‘online’, ‘system’, ‘for’, ‘reporting’, ‘insurance’, …] [‘I’, ‘was’, ‘surprised’, ‘by’, ‘the’, ‘speed’, …] [‘I’, ‘paid’, ‘this’, ‘expensive’, …]
Then we create a corpus — set of all the words from the responses.
[‘but’, ‘by’, ‘claim’, ‘declined’, ‘doesn’t’, ‘expensive’, … , ’the’, ‘this’, ‘Unbelievable’, ‘was’, ‘work’, ‘years’, ‘you’, ‘10’]
For each response, we mark the number of occurrences of each word.
Term frequency table of our responses
We have just created a popular text representation — bag-of-words. What’s more, we have also implemented something called TF — term frequency. Each word from the response is weighted by how many occurrences it has. Can we use this to highlight important words? Let’s try to embolden words that have high TF scores.
‘The online system for reporting insurance claim doesn’t work on the phone.’ ‘I was surprised by the speed of resolvement of my insurance claim.’ ‘I paid this expensive insurance for 10 years, but you declined my claim? Unbelievable!’
That doesn’t look very informative nor helpful, does it?
Some words in the responses are clearly more important than others, but by simply counting the term frequencies, we treat words like ‘insurance’, ‘for’, ‘expensive’ and ‘speed’ the same. Of course, the clients are mentioning insurance claims, but we want to highlight the specific problems…
So what do we do about it? We could move all the common words into „stop words“ and ignore them altogether. But this would eliminate too much information and might actually be harmful.
We are smarter than that, we implement TF-IDF! | https://medium.com/datasentics/use-case-example-tf-idf-used-for-insurance-feedback-analysis-e48de824f7f2 | ['Vojtech Poriz'] | 2020-12-08 07:16:34.220000+00:00 | ['Sklearn', 'Spark', 'Tf Idf', 'Information Retrieval', 'AI'] |
Java Synchronization- part 1 | Before going to synchronization, I’ll explain about the multiple threads using a simple code.
image 1
The First-class is going to be the class “Countdown” while the class, “ThreadColor” with the color trick, will look like this.
public class ThreadColor {
public static final
public static final String ANSI_RED = "\u001B[31m";
public static final String ANSI_GREEN = "\u001B[32m";
public static final String ANSI_YELLOW = "\u001b[33m";
public static final String ANSI_BLUE = "\u001B[34m";
public static final String ANSI_PURPLE = "\u001B[35m";
public static final String ANSI_CYAN = "\u001B[36m";
public static final String ANSI_WHITE = "\u001b[37m";
}
image 2
Here… I have created the second class which extends thread.
image 3
Head to the main method, since we have created 2 classes, and then starting two threads.
From switch statement (image 1) that we have got from one thread named “Thread 1” which will print text in cyan and the 2nd thread which will print text in purple.
Here… now let's see what's happening.
image 4
Here you can see, thread 1 in CYAN while thread 2 is in PURPLE. But we can not predict how the result would be, ie. the order of the two colors. You can see that when we run the code a few times, it will give us completely different logs.
Now, we are going to add the instance variable, “Private int I;” that changes the local variable “I” to an instance variable. Let’s look at the new result.
image 5
Now we can notice, the result is different this time. Instead od=f each thread counting down to 10, the numbers seem to be sort of duplicated.
Why??
As you can see, number 10 is duplicated. Not only 10, you can see a few other numbers too have been duplicated. The only thing we did was changing the local variable to an instance variable as follows:
class Countdown {
private int i;
Heap : this the memory of the application that is shared by all the threads and each thread has a Thread Stack. That is the memory, which is unique to each thread. Simply speaking, any thread can’t access to another thread’s stack. But the threads can access the Heap. The local variable is stored in Thread stack, that is each thread has its own copy of the local variable. Whereas, the instance variables are stored in Heap. So when multiple threads are working together with the same object, they are likely to share the same object. In that case, if one thread changes the value, another thread will take the new value that was changed by the first thread. Similarly, when “i” was acting as the local variable, threads had their own version of “i”. Once we changed “i” as an instance variable, the 2 threads had to access this shared resource which is stored in the Heap. That’s why each thread seem to skip some numbers.
for statement
It decrements I and checks for the condition i>0; the idea behind the “for statement” is, it consist of several steps such as decrementing, checking etc. Therefor the thread can be suspended in between the step. It can be suspended after decrementing “i”, before checking the condition or immediately after executing all the codes and then the printing. Decrementing “i”, checking the condition & printing out the values: these 3 steps can make the current thread , to be suspended. As you can understand, in the first attempt, both the threads considered the value of “i”as 10, so the thread 1 prints 9 but the thread 2 prints 8. While thread 1 was executing the for statement, thread 2 must have been without surpassing thread 1. Therefore it takes the value of “i” as 9 and execute the for block and prints 8. I think this explanation gives you an idea about this.
When accessing the same resources, we have to go through this situation and it is called “Thread interference” . it is also referred as “Race condition”. Always keep in mind that this is a serious issue when it comes to writing or updating the same resource.
We can do this without skipping numbers or avoiding the interference, ie. pass the same Countdown object to both the threads.
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Countdown countdown1 = new Countdown();
Countdown countdown2 = new Countdown();
CountdownThread t1 = new CountdownThread(countdown1);
t1.setName("Thread 1");
CountdownThread t2 = new CountdownThread(countdown2);
t2.setName("Thread 2");
t1.start();
t2.start();
}
}
Take a look at the above instance, where there are two new objects for the threads, not sharing the Heap. Check the results, you don’t see any interference! Each thread Counts down from 10 to 1 successfully.
image 6
The real question is, will this be applicable in Real-world? Will this work for a bank account, where someone deposits money in your account while you are withdrawing some money from the ATM? Therefore it appears that we have to use the same object in order to maintain the integrity of the data. Because this is the only way that lets us know the exact bank balance after executing several threads (transactions), right? There can be several threads that are waiting to change the bank balance, simultaneously. So we need to allow multiple threads to change it while preventing the “Race condition”. | https://medium.com/swlh/java-synchronization-part-1-abcabac56cf7 | ['Sachintha Hewawasam'] | 2020-06-29 19:28:50.824000+00:00 | ['First Post', 'Multithreading', 'Java', 'Programming', 'Synchronization'] |
How Can Data Visualization Improve Local Conditions? | In Colombia, for example, Juan Pablo Marin Diaz from Datasketch described how data helped raise awareness, and funds, to combat forced disappearances among young and poor Colombians. In the map above, red shows where people went missing, and green signifies where their bodies were found, often in mass graves.
On a personal level, Bridget Cogley expressed how a data dashboard brought comfort to her friend, Kelly Martin, who was in hospice care and recently passed away. By using a dashboard, they would try out new medications to find the optimal balance between symptom management and alert time. You can read about Kelly’s experience in her blog post, “So long and thanks for all the dashboards.” Bridget, too, blogged about using data as a tool to support hospice care.
Chris Henrick of Google shared an MFA thesis project in which renters in New York City can visit a convenient, step-by-step data tool that helps them find out if their apartment is rent stabilized to prevent high rent increases. Some have used the tool to confront landlords for reimbursement of back rent and to lower future rent.
Amanda Makulec, data visualization lead at Excella, shared how data dashboards for health centers in Zimbabwe help district-level decisions-makers understand where they need to take action, such as when supplies are running low at clinics, and to see how communities are fixing issues (e.g., drilling boreholes to improve water supplies at clinics). S. Anand, who runs the data science/storytelling platform Gramener, described how visualizations helped government officials in India pinpoint where beneficiaries were having difficulties filling out necessary forms, which, when corrected, cut down on error rates and the time taken to complete forms.
And in a county in West Texas, Kate McKerlie described how data visualization helped community organizations catalog what child abuse prevention services were being offered and referred — and where there were gaps. In so doing, the project helped advance local collaboration.
Finally, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington published a data story this month titled, “Precision mapping to end child deaths.” In this visualization, they show how granular data and visualization can work in tandem to “reveal trends and patterns that can help us better understand where to focus efforts to prevent child deaths.” As IHME also says in their story, “Every region has different challenges, and by knowing what the obstacles are at a local level, decision-makers can better strategize how to overcome them.”
To help make that point crystal-clear, IHME showed how visualizing local data in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Peru can help target interventions in those countries.
The catalog of what works was indeed inspiring, but we also wanted to know what tactics data visualization experts employed to successfully help people leverage data and transform numbers into local change.
These days, there’s a digital arms race in the data visualization world, with news outlets and digital agencies building jaw-droppingly beautiful web creations with which people can interact on computers, phones, and tablets.
But when conducting targeted work at a local level, we learned that such interactives sometimes provide more firepower than is needed. In fact, it can sometimes be awkward in face-to-face meetings to haul out a tablet or a computer to help make a point with a digital display. As Tricia Aung from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health observed, “In my global health experience, data visualizations that are non-digital (printed) can have more weight than digital” tools. She noted that people have “appreciated handouts that they can take back to their office and show others.”
Unisse Chua of De La Salle University in the Philippines commented that “for places that are not fully connected to the Internet, I’d say using non digital would be the best way to get the message out. Some provinces here in the Philippines do not have Internet access.”
Elijah Meeks was advised when presenting to local elected officials to make a map that would be “suitable to be held up on a poster during the city council meeting.” I’ve also seen health departments in California successfully employ data posters at convenings to help elicit input. Attendees are encouraged to add post-it notes to large-scale data displays, in order to share their questions and insights.
Similarly, people talked about printed fact sheets, street murals, data placemat settings at convenings, and stroll-through data galleries that, unlike a linear PowerPoint presentation, allow you to walk to where your interests take you.
Overall, when marshaling data to achieve local change, Data Visualization Society members advised a design thinking approach of walking in the shoes of audiencies you need to reach and integrating their use cases in what you build. Amanda Makulec described this as understanding end-users “needs and experiences.” She said, “Ultimately, if the goal is for the local organization or audience to own the product (as in, use it in their day-to-day work), customizing and tailoring to make it personal to them is so important.”
In other words, if you don’t ask what users need, you won’t know, and you’ll be flying blind with the data product you’re building — perhaps, for example, by overbuilding with an interactive that doesn’t match local use cases. It’s no surprise then that, when marshaling data to advance local change, data visualization practitioners were strong advocates of talking to end-users, so that you build durable data tools that respond to real-life scenarios.
Finally, a number of respondents noted how it’s not a question of data or stories; the two elements needn’t be siloed from each other when imparting information to make progress on social issues. Chris Henrick advocated for adding what he termed “the human element” to data visualizations — such as photos, personal narratives, and audio. By painting data on this broader canvas, he said, we’ll make numbers “more relatable, and engage audiences who aren’t as familiar or comfortable with abstract data, charts, and fancy visualizations.”
So in the end, we learned from Data Visualization Society members that there isn’t an either/or choice to be made between data and stories. In the social sector, we need to leverage both to make compelling cases that can advance local change. | https://medium.com/nightingale/how-can-data-visualization-improve-local-conditions-5ff2abc07a43 | ['Andy Krackov'] | 2020-07-06 20:58:19.907000+00:00 | ['Social Justice', 'Data Visualization', 'World', 'Topicsindv', 'Data Humanism'] |
Time is not to blame: the real reasons I struggle to write and how I overcome them | Time is not to blame: the real reasons I struggle to write and how I overcome them Sandy Chapman Jun 6, 2019·3 min read
Image by Lukas Bieri from Pixabay
I’ve come to realise over the past two years of not writing my novel that the biggest excuse of all — lack of time — is a lazy short hand. I have plenty of time, but it often feels as though I’d rather spend it on anything other than writing, even though I’ve wanted to write from a young age. It’s as though my conscious brain (aka logic) is telling me to give up on my dreams and ambitions. Why? Here are the top three reasons my brain gives me for not writing, and how I try to overcome it.
1: Other things are more rewarding. Writing is hard. Making myself sit at my desk when I’m surrounded by chores that need doing, or the sunshine is beckoning me outside for a walk, to produce words that I’ll end up deleting tomorrow just feels pointless. If, like me, you aren’t at the point where you get some external reward for writing— an audience who appreciate what you do, some financial gain — then it feels even more pointless. Yes, I get a sense of achievement when I write something I’m pleased with, but there are lots of other things I can achieve much more easily. The trick I use to overcome this is to remind myself of what my sociology lecturer drummed into me: deferral of gratification. You have to make sacrifices in the short term to receive greater reward in the long term. It’s easier said than done when all you can see is a blank page and you have a million and one distractions that are within easy reach, but it’s entirely possible.
2: Other things are more worthy. I make some progress on my novel, and that’s great, but it’s a slow process and I can’t help thinking that I could have spent that time doing something useful. I could’ve cleaned the house, caught up with friends, done some charity work, got some exercise. Almost anything I can think of appears to have more ‘use’ attached to it than spending my time working on a novel that, deep down, I fear I might never finish, let alone publish. It feels as though the writing I produce has no impact on the outside world, and what’s worse, in the time I’ve spent producing it, neither have I. To overcome this, I write at a time when I’m not under any obligation to do anything useful, when there is nothing more worthwhile to do. I write instead of watching crappy tv shows or trying to reach the next level on Candy Crush; I write when I have a lull at work. That way, if my writing is rubbish, it doesn’t matter, I haven’t sacrificed anything to do it because I was only going to waste that time anyway. And if my writing gets better, then it will feel a more worthwhile pursuit.
3: Other things pay the bills. Earning a wage from putting pen to paper seems like a pipedream and I can’t help but think I’m wasting my time. I know that, chances are, I’m not the next J K Rowling. So I aim lower, and console myself with the fact that when you’re working creatively or freelance, success can often come down to how good your marketing and networking skills are as much as your talent. Not earning money doesn’t mean my writing isn’t good enough (although, of course, there are always things to work on improving). But whether I like it or not, I live in a capitalist society, and equating success with financial reward is my default setting. So why should I bother to write when it won’t pay the bills? Because it’s satisfying: it feels good to get my thoughts in print, it feels good to get a response (so please feel free to comment!).
In short, I try to beat my logic, conscious brain at its own game, by giving it logical reasons to shut up.
Ultimately, I remind myself that I write because I am a writer, no more, no less. | https://medium.com/@sandyjchapman/time-is-not-to-blame-the-real-reasons-i-struggle-to-write-and-how-i-overcome-them-70b78f399749 | ['Sandy Chapman'] | 2019-06-06 11:18:01.935000+00:00 | ['Writers On Writing', 'Procrastination', 'Writers Block', 'Writing'] |
Some Dogs Kill Chickens and That’s Okay | Story Spotlight
Some Dogs Kill Chickens and That’s Okay
Or why your idiosyncrasies make me feel better about mine
When I moved to Petaluma, California (former egg capital of the world), I thought I would get chickens. Instead, I got three children. And then I got a dog. Our neighbor had chickens. But they didn’t have a chicken coop or a fence. And one morning as my family was sitting down to breakfast we saw our dog, Gilbert, run past the glass doors, a cloud of white feathers in his wake. Our neighbor had one less chicken.
People are weird when they hear that our dog killed the neighbor’s chicken. But they shouldn’t be. “They are predators, after all,” Anna Venishnick Shomsky writes of dogs in her piece, “Sometimes I Like to Pretend I’m a Farmer When Really I’ve Just Collected Too Many Animals.”
What I love about Venishnick Shomsky’s story (aside from the amazing, shareable headline) is how it is both absurd and relatable. I first read this story back in August and when I was recently asked about spotlighting a story from Medium, I still remembered this line:
When we first got the dog, the cat gave me a look so scornful that she erased my personality.
And also this one:
Around nine months, my baby started saying ‘hi,’ but she said it exclusively to the cat.
Maybe you’ll read this story if you love chickens or if you love dogs who kill chickens or cats who drool on you when you try to sleep. Maybe you’ll read this if you believe in your heart that animals are better than people in all the important ways and we are lucky that they let us live with them. There are so many gems in this eight-minute read, that it’s easy to find something to relate to, even if you don’t live anywhere near the former egg capital of the world.
Too many of us are afraid to be specific in our writing, especially when referring to our own idiosyncrasies. But as a reader, that’s precisely what makes me keep reading, highlighting, and clapping like a maniac. | https://medium.com/creators-hub/some-dogs-kill-chickens-and-thats-ok-2864578a7ee1 | ['Megan Morrone'] | 2020-12-09 23:28:39.672000+00:00 | ['Cats', 'Pets', 'Dogs', 'Story Spotlight', 'Writing Tips'] |
3 Technical Skills Every Developer Must Have | 3 Technical Skills Every Developer Must Have
And none of them is a programming language
Photo by Bram Naus on Unsplash
Every developer is using one or a few programming languages every day. For somebody outside of the IT industry that might sound enough. Because what else is needed to become a developer? However, software engineers know, that it is not really true. In daily business more tools are in use. Those tools are almost as important as programming languages. Mastering them helps to progress in a career and enables doing work faster and more efficiently.
Version Control System
It is important to understand how features are being developed. Without a version control system (VCS), it is hard to imagine any company nowadays. This is a must for the company, especially when more than 1 person works with a code. With VCS is possible to see the history of all changes in code. Seeing when was a new line of code added and by whom allows us to trace back the previous changes. In situations when a critical bug was introduced, reverting those changes becomes an easy task.
At the moment the most popular system is Git. I’m not going to dig deep into details of it. There are many good tutorials available. The official one is good as well. Invest some time to understand how it works internally. Learning begins with simple commands (for example, commit and push/pull) and later advanced commands could be applied. Most probably it will be enough to use basic commands for some time. Git is indeed a very powerful tool used by many companies.
Even though Git is the most popular VCS it is not a single one. There are a few more available, but with different internals. For example, Subversion and Mercurial are other systems for version control. It is good to get familiar with either Git or any other system. Understanding common principles (such as branch and commit) of any VCS brings developers to the next level on how to operate with the source code.
Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery
The concept of continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) are actively used in the modern software engineering industry. They are not new and not complex. It is a simple concept to build reliable software. There are many available services for that. It could be a 3rd party service running in the cloud or it can run on locally provisioned servers.
The important thing is understanding of building a pipeline - the sequence of actions to be performed. It can be syntactic code analysis, unit tests, integrations tests, assembling binaries. Usually, it is enough to try to set it up a few times in order to understand how it works. The pipeline can be different depending on the technology stack. But the idea remains the same: execute a sequence of actions in order to ensure that nothing got broken.
Example of the release pipeline
The next level is to optimize the setup according to the project needs and make it efficient. Identifying the slowest job, giving priority to certain jobs, performance jobs in parallel when possible — those are a few examples of pipeline optimization. Apart from reducing costs, it leads to increasing the developer’s happiness level. Imagine that every developer has to wait 30 minutes for merging his pull request. Later fixing a typo would lead to another 30 minutes of waiting. Applying the strategy for caching results of the previous job and reusing the same cache could reduce build time from 30 minutes to 5 minutes.
The benefits of CI/CD are clear. While working in a team everybody wants to be sure that with every newly added line of code things are not falling apart. Unfortunately, that can happen very soon in big systems. Having a CI in place will act as a safety net making sure new changes do not break the existing solution.
Continuous delivery is being used mostly for delivering the solutions for end customers as fast as possible. It means that the changes developers made to the code can go live sooner without waiting for a long time to be released. The benefit of it is that the user base gets adopted slowly to every change in code rather than a big release once a month with 100 features, for example.
Automation
I know a few developers who tend to write a script for everything. They see an opportunity to automate any action where others would perform them manually. It is always exciting to hear ideas from them about what could be automated. In the end, it saves a lot of time for the rest of the team. The manual action which takes only 5 minutes a day will result in 25 minutes a week or almost 2 hours a month. That doesn’t seem like too much time. But automating it can make a significant result. It would not require to remember to perform the same task every other day.
Let’s be honest: each of us had those days when the next day we realize we forgot to perform some regular routine yesterday. Like preparing a report or uploading a log file to the server. Automation can bring some reliability and makes sure that action is performed on a specific day and at a certain time. For example, the following cron job will execute the script generate_report.sh every day at 10 AM.
0 10 * * * /bin/sh generate_report.sh
Second, humans are making mistakes. No matter how often we do some tasks, but sooner or later we make a mistake. Like trying to download a file without being logged in to the system. That would cause more time to perform the task: sign in and retry again. Having automation in place would avoid this kind of issue. Defined actions will be executed in a certain sequence. This is the beauty of when the script makes that job for us.
Having the skill to identify actions that can be automated proves the seniority of the engineer. There are many script languages available. Bash, Powershell, Python are most used nowadays. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. Try to plan around with each of them, check if it is suitable for your needs. Then master at least one of them. Knowing already the capabilities of the language it will be easier to see opportunities to automate things. | https://medium.com/illumination/3-technical-skills-every-developer-must-have-2c82445bda95 | ['Dmytro Khmelenko'] | 2020-11-07 21:23:02.054000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Personal Development', 'Careers', 'Programming', 'Software Engineering'] |
[Python][Selenium] 人生苦短，把麻煩的 Chrome Browser Driver Version Mapping 自動化 | Packages matching selenium
Chocolatey is software management automation for Windows that wraps installers, executables, zips, and scripts into… | https://medium.com/drunk-wis/python-selenium-chrome-browser-%E8%88%87-driver-%E6%83%B1%E4%BA%BA%E7%9A%84%E7%89%88%E6%9C%AC%E7%AE%A1%E7%90%86-cbaf1d1861ce | [] | 2020-07-19 14:08:49.253000+00:00 | ['Selenium', 'Windows', 'Chrome', 'Automation', 'Python'] |
What to do when freelance work dries up | In 15 years of freelancing, I’ve had more than my fair share of dry spells. They can be nerve-wracking and get you questioning yourself. But, through all that, here I am all these years later still freelancing full-time from home.
So, what do I do when works dries up?
1. Don’t Panic
Let’s be honest… this is the hardest part. No matter how confident you are in your skills or your client-getting process, when the works slows, we all begin to question ourselves. That ball in the pit of your stomach.
“Is this the end?”
“Am I headed back to a 9-to-5?”
All that.
But, panicking only leads to making bad decisions. And, bad decisions beg bad decisions. Fall down that rabbit hole will only make things worse. So, you have to breathe, engage your intellect and get analytical.
That’s the way through all this.
The firs thing to figure out is:
2. Is this real?
Ebbs and flows are a natural part of being a freelancer and business is cyclical. Hell, way back in the day when I sold shoes, I knew… every August, during back-to-school, our numbers would go way up. And, every January, they’d go way down.
That’s just how it went.
So, first make sure this isn’t just apart of the normal cycle of the year. Of course, the only way to know that is if you’re tracking your income and expenses. I use a site called Wave Accounting to track all my stuff.
It has nice charts that let me quickly see any patterns for the last few years.
So, I can see right away if this is a real dry spell or just a natural lull.
3. What changed?
If this is a real dry spell, it’s time to figure out what changed. You should have some sense of where you’ve been getting work from. Content you’re creating on your own website, a freelance site, referrals, in-person networking, social media, etc.
What dried up?
Why?
Dig into it to get some answers. Ask people at your local meetup group if suddenly you stop getting the referrals you were getting from there. Or, check your website traffic and see if there’s been a dip. Ask recent clients to give you feedback.
Maybe, your delivery lately hasn’t been as good thus the lack of referrals.
The key is identify the problem.
And, see if you can fix it.
Most of the time you can.
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4. Rally the troops
Past satisfied clients can be a great source of new work during a dry spell. Just because they’re not contacting you doesn’t meant they’re not considering hiring someone. How many times have you had an idea that you just let sit for a few months?
Clients do the same.
An email from you may be just the thing they need to get serious about a project.
Don’t be afraid to be aggressive and proactive.
5. Humble yourself
After I built Michael Hyatt’s membership site, Platform University, I had work basically thrown at me for about six months. It was some of the easiest work I ever did and the amount of money I made in that time was just stupid.
But, eventually that momentum wore off.
And, I did.
I had a month or so where I felt like the projects I was getting were “beneath me”. I was holding out for the easy gigs I’d been getting. Eventually, I had to humble myself, be grateful for the offers I was getting and get back to work.
So, is there work out there you could be doing the you’re sticking your nose up at?
If so, time to roll up the sleeves and not be too romantic about how you make your money.
6. Create a new service offering
Maybe, it’s that the services you had been offering don’t have as big of a demand anymore. This happened to me way back in the day when blogging first took off. I was offering your standard mid-2000s text-based website.
And, suddenly, everybody wanted a “database-driven website”.
(Yes, I’m that old.)
My client work dried up and I ended up going back to my 9-to-5 job, because I didn’t see it and didn’t adapt. Demand is fleeting. What people want changes. Your dry spell could be simply because nobody wants what you’re selling anymore.
Look at other service providers in your market.
Have they changed their offerings?
It’s always good to have a big company or two that you check periodically. The volume of work they do can often help them to spot trends earlier that everyone else. Use that to your advantage. If they’re changing service offerings, you might to pay attention.
7. Create a digital product
You should do this, anyway. You’re working so intimately with clients when you freelance that you get invaluable data on all their problems, fears, needs, wants, etc. That’s all the data you’d need to build a killer online course or digital product.
Website templates.
A DIY logo-creation course.
A blogging tutorial.
Digital products are a great way to stabilize your income. And, a dry spell could give you the time you need to focus on it and get it done. As a matter of fact, this is how I even got into teaching in the first place.
I was rounding out my business offerings.
Next thing I knew it took off and become the bulk of my business.
So, you never know.
Anyway, there you go. To recap, here’s the list:
Don’t panic and make things worse
Figure out if it’s actually a dry spell or just a natural lull
Figured out what’s changed and why
Contact past clients and ask if they’re needing anything done
Don’t be afraid to take “dirty” work in order to make ends meet
Change up your service offerings to meet client demands
Create a online course or digital product to stabilize your income
What questions do you have about any of these? Let me know in the comments. | https://medium.com/on-freelancing/what-to-do-when-freelance-work-dries-up-abada891d48d | ['John Morris'] | 2019-07-01 19:18:30+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Freelancing', 'Career', 'Work', 'Business'] |
How Much More are Consumers Willing to Pay for Sustainable Products? | Decisions made by businesses are often led by consumer demands.
In a recent study by Nucleus Research, findings show that consumers are willing to spend 6% more for products from companies which have sustainability commitments and programs in place.
Alongside these findings, the research showed that consumers were 64% more likely to recommend companies with sustainable practices to friends and were 63% more likely to try new products from these companies.
As more and more companies begin engaging in sustainability practices in order to gain this competitive advantage and align with changing consumer demands, the quality of these commitments as well as the marketability of these commitments is crucial.
In some industries, sustainable practices are the standard, so it then comes down to the quality of these practices, the extra lengths some companies may go to when it comes to economic, social and environmental sustainability as well as how well these commitments and practices are marketed.
For many consumers, the prioritising of sustainability above cost shows a commitment to the community. This affinity with the sense of belonging suggests to business that their marketing around sustainability should be centred around building a community of buyers.
For instance, in buying from a certain brand, the consumer will join a community of like-minded people who are passionate about creating a sustainable future.
Being able to create these kind of purchasing environments for consumers makes and increase in the dollar-value of a product seem negligible.
However, it is important to point out that a sustainably-sourced and -produced product does not necessarily mean a more expensive product. While the use of ethical resources can at times come with a higher price, especially when it comes to employing workers at a fair wage instead of a wage which is less than a living wage, there are some practices in sustainability which can actually save the cost of production. These include practices such as the use of solar energy and LED lights.
As an increasing number of consumers become not only more aware of the need to play their role in sustainable purchasing decisions but are actively paying an average of 6% more to do so, businesses need to take this journey also.
For more information about creating a sustainability commitment for your business, contact us today!
This article was originally published on the Strategic Sustainability Consultants website. | https://medium.com/@caterinasullivan/how-much-more-are-consumers-willing-to-pay-for-sustainable-products-207539d4c8fd | ['Caterina Sullivan'] | 2019-02-06 06:14:58.606000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Business Development', 'Consumers', 'Business', 'Business Strategy'] |
How to Save More Than 2/3 of Engineers’ Kubernetes Cost | How to Save More Than 2/3 of Engineers’ Kubernetes Cost
Explaining how to drive Kubernetes adoption in your organization by eliminating inefficiencies and saving cost for engineers’ access to Kubernetes.
The Cost of the Cloud
Using the cloud is not cheap. If you are using a public cloud, you will get a monthly bill for computing resources, traffic, and for any additional services. But also for a private cloud, the cost is substantial, taking into account the hardware, datacenter, and maintenance cost. (For simplicity, I will assume the public cloud case in the following, but I added a paragraph about private clouds at the end.)
The widespread adoption of Kubernetes has not changed this situation fundamentally. Some say it has only increased cost because the Kubernetes clusters themselves consume resources (e.g. Master node, LoadBalancer, etcd). Others are convinced that Kubernetes could at least reduce the cost because it makes the use of the cloud resources more efficient. Overall, it probably depends on your setting and perspective, but the cost of the cloud remains an issue either way.
Cloud-Native Workflows Cause Additional Cloud Cost
For this, reducing Kubernetes cloud computing cost is always attractive, especially with more and more companies adopting Kubernetes throughout the organization and introducing cloud-native development, which includes giving engineers access to Kubernetes for development, testing, experimentation, or CI/CD (level 2 or level 3 on the cloud-native journey according to this article).
In these cases, companies are sometimes hesitant to spend a lot of money on the cloud as this, contrary to spending money on production workloads, is not directly connected to revenue and customer benefit. Still, giving developers direct Kubernetes access can make a lot of sense and can pay off in terms of higher stability and more efficient workflows, too.
Making cloud-native development cheaper and easier can thus be an important driver for Kubernetes adoption, especially in small and medium-sized organizations. I will, therefore, describe 2 “obvious” inefficiencies of the engineers’ use of the cloud and easy ways of eliminating them to significantly reduce the cost of using Kubernetes. Since developers use the cloud differently than production systems, these cost-saving opportunities are most relevant to non-production environments.
Inefficiency 1: Too Many Clusters
Problem: Many clusters are expensive
An easy option to give every engineer access to a cloud environment is to give everyone an own cluster. However, this is pretty inefficient for several reasons.
Cluster Management Fee. Big public cloud providers such as AWS and Google Cloud charge a cluster management fee for their Kubernetes offerings. If the cluster is running all the time, only the cluster fee will add more than $70 to your bill for every cluster. And this is not including any computing resources that will come on top of that.
Big public cloud providers such as AWS and Google Cloud charge a cluster management fee for their Kubernetes offerings. If the cluster is running all the time, only the cluster fee will add more than $70 to your bill for every cluster. And this is not including any computing resources that will come on top of that. Redundant Kubernetes Functionality. Since every cluster is running independently of the others, they all need to provide the whole Kubernetes functionality themselves. That means that, for example, every cluster needs its own load balancer that could actually be shared by many developers. This makes many clusters rather inefficient from a computing resource perspective.
Since every cluster is running independently of the others, they all need to provide the whole Kubernetes functionality themselves. That means that, for example, every cluster needs its own load balancer that could actually be shared by many developers. This makes many clusters rather inefficient from a computing resource perspective. No Central Oversight. Many clusters make it hard to oversee the whole system. Even with cluster management tools, it is not always clear what each cluster is used for and if it is still used at all. In many cases, clusters will be created for a specific purpose such as a test, but often, they will not be deleted afterward so they continue to run and cost you money without any benefit.
Solution: Share a cluster
The solution to the first inefficiency of many non-production clusters is to share clusters among engineers. That means that only one cluster is used and developers are working with their own namespaces that limit them and isolate them from each other. I wrote a separate article about a comparison of individual clusters and shared clusters, but regarding the described cost efficiencies, sharing a cluster has the following advantages:
Shared Cluster Management Fee. Instead of paying the management fee for every developer as there are many clusters, you only need to pay it once. So, the cost per developer is reduced from about $70 per month to $70 divided by the number of developers and is thus decreasing with the number of developers.
Instead of paying the management fee for every developer as there are many clusters, you only need to pay it once. So, the cost per developer is reduced from about $70 per month to $70 divided by the number of developers and is thus decreasing with the number of developers. Share Kubernetes Functionality. Similar to the management fee, also the Kubernetes functionality can be shared and thus does not need to run redundantly. With more developers sharing it, the load will of course also be higher, but there will definitely still be cost savings from sharing a cluster.
Similar to the management fee, also the Kubernetes functionality can be shared and thus does not need to run redundantly. With more developers sharing it, the load will of course also be higher, but there will definitely still be cost savings from sharing a cluster. Easier oversight. In a shared cluster, it is much easier to control the users, especially if they are created with specialized solutions for this use case, such as a Loft. The cluster-admin has thus less effort to control the system and can shut down unused spaces easily. This shutdown can even be triggered automatically with a “sleep mode” (for more, see below).
Maximum Savings
The Kubernetes cost savings from reducing the number of clusters by sharing a cluster are highest if there are many clusters used before if there are many clusters used before, which is typical for larger teams or if clusters are used for many purposes such as in-cluster development, testing, and staging. The saving effect relative to the total cost is also particularly high if the clusters are rather small and thus cheap. In these cases, a cluster management fee and the redundancy is a comparably expensive cost driver.
Example Calculation
Let’s take a look at a simple example to demonstrate the cost-saving opportunities of reducing the number of clusters by Kubernetes cluster sharing:
If in a small team of 5 developers, everyone gets an own Kubernetes cluster and the clusters are always running, you have to pay $360 only for the cluster management fee. If they share one cluster, you only have to pay the cluster management fee for one cluster, which is $72 per month. In such a small team, you would thus already save $288 just in cluster management fees. (For GKE, one “zonal cluster” is free, so you would pay $288 in cluster management fees for 5 clusters and $0 for one cluster. Overall, the savings remain unchanged.)
On top of that, you could save additional money by sharing the basic Kubernetes features and by a better control which prevents unused clusters. However, since these factors are hard to estimate, I do not add them to the calculation.
Of course, if you use commercial tools such as Loft, you need to pay for these tools, too. In the example of 5 developers using Loft, the cost would be $75.
Your total savings from sharing a cluster would so be at least $213 (60%) for only a small team of 5. | https://medium.com/faun/how-to-save-more-than-2-3-of-engineers-kubernetes-cost-8223cce082b | ['Daniel Thiry'] | 2020-10-15 13:56:04.238000+00:00 | ['Cloud Cost Management', 'Cloud Native', 'Multitenancy', 'Software Engineering', 'Kubernetes'] |
This Is What It’s Like to Eat Your Last Meal and Think About Never Waking Up Again | This annual trip to the hospital started in 2015 when I felt a little off. I saw my doctor and he told me it was nothing and to take vitamin pills. My girlfriend at the time told me to get a second opinion. I refused for six months until, finally, she forced me to see her family doctor.
The new doc’s advice was similar: “it’s probably nothing. But…”
Whenever you see a doctor be careful of the “but.” They always have something else to say and their goal is to keep you calm. The but in my case was that the doctor wanted to send me to hospital for a guided tour around my insides.
Most people wouldn’t care too much. For me, I’m petrified of hospitals and medical procedures. Going to hospital is like standing on the edge of a cliff face with no harness, while a tornado twirls around a few feet away. This means I have to prepare my mind.
Here is a list of things I do to face one of the scariest moments of my life:
No phones or social media
Phones and social media create stress. I can’t deal with my hospital reality and serve my phone master. So, phones go off and social media goes unanswered. At best, social media posts get scheduled.
But content creation stops before hospital out of respect to what might happen if anything goes wrong. You won’t be looking at your twitter account on the last day of your life; you’ll be thinking about those you love.
Christmas movies for joy reminders
The thought of santa and presents under a tree equals joy. It takes me back to childhood. It helps remind me of the pleasure of giving rather than receiving. It’s a pure time of year. Everything makes sense.
You sit with family, be grateful for what you have, and eat a meal. Each year the table of relatives gets smaller as people pass away. One year you have grandma, and next year you don’t. Christmas used to be for religious folks.
Now the universal language of Christmas is joy. You can be an atheist and use Christmas as an excuse to be grateful and feel joy.
It turns out gratitude and joy are excellent right before hospital, too. So, I watch Christmas movies leading up to hospital to put me in state.
Injecting calm into the mind
Hospital equals fear. The opposite of fear is calmness.
The good news is you can manufacture calmness in your life when you need it most. I manufacture calm like this:
Deep breathing
Getting sunshine
Audio in my ears that tells me everything is going to be okay. (I choose Tony Robbins’ voice.)
The superpower of overpreparation
Two days before hospital I go into lockdown. I start to overprepare so that on the day of hospital I don’t have to do anything or stress about a single thing. Overpreparation helps alleviate stress.
I pack my backpack with everything I might need while in the hospital. I take lots of water, comfortable clothes, headphones for calming audio, and tissues.
One thing I don’t take is time. Time in the hospital moves differently. When you’re fearful time either slows down or speeds up. For me, my thoughts speed up, but an hour feels like 12 hours. Looking at the time makes me more nervous.
I start mapping out in my mind what time I get dressed into my scrubs, then what time I meet the nurse to undergo a health check, then the scary moment when the anesthetist comes into the room and tries to explain to me what is going to happen, even though I’d do anything not to know.
You have a lot of time to live. But time in the hospital feels different and it should. Hospital is where you go to repair your body from all the damage you and the world throw at it.
Absolutely no 9–5 work whatsoever
9–5 work stresses me out the most. Already, my work colleagues are trying to schedule meetings right after I get out of hospital. It’s for this reason that I refuse to engage in any traditional work leading up to the hospital.
Thinking about customers while I contemplate the beauty of consciousness destroys my happiness.
The work phone gets left far, far away in a distant galaxy. The work laptop’s battery is run down to empty so that it can’t dare boot up on my hospital day. It sounds drastic. But in a world that is always switched on, it is increasingly hard to switch off — even for a hospital moment. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/this-is-what-its-like-to-eat-your-last-meal-and-think-about-never-waking-up-again-d4ef09d74c15 | ['Tim Denning'] | 2020-12-23 20:02:10.168000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Self Improvement', 'Psychology', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing'] |
Showing off the new (free) Google Data Studio, with reddit April’s gilded comments for Sanders/Trump/Clinton in BigQuery | The Google Analytics team just announced Data Studio: their free, new, Data Visualization Product. Read their post for more details, but since I just got a new load of reddit comments from /u/Stuck_in_the_Matrix loaded in BigQuery, I’m eager to show you how to connect both.
The first surprise with Data Studio: It’s really easy to connect it to BigQuery:
Add a data source, choose BigQuery. To work with open data that others have shared, choose “shared projects”. Try adding mine, to find reddit comments: ‘fh-bigquery’. Select the dataset and table you want to work with.
4. If this is your first time using BigQuery, you might need to create a new “billing project”. Don’t worry, just create a GCP account and don’t worry about billing (yet): BigQuery gives you a free terabyte for querying every month, no credit card required. Then come back to Data Studio to complete the previous steps.
5. Note that when querying and sharing, this will be the project being billed for the underlying BigQuery queries.
Data Studio now displays your chosen table columns (it could have been a query too), and allows you to choose the credentials to use when sharing the report (yes, you can share). You can choose either your credentials (will allow you to share the reports with anyone) or have the report ask for the viewer credentials (to keep the underlying data viewable only by authorized parties).
And now comes the fun part: Start dragging and dropping to create visualizations and interactive reports:
To put all of this together, I created a visualization to compare how many comments for Trump/Sanders/Clinton got gold on reddit during April 2016. As shown in the following video, it’s super easy to share the results.
The shareable report: https://datastudio.google.com/open/0ByGAKP3QmCjLWFpxU1R4WU9WR0k
For more stories like this, follow me on twitter.com/felipehoffa, or subscribe to reddit.com/r/bigquery.
PS: Now globally available! | https://medium.com/google-cloud/showing-off-the-new-free-google-analytics-data-studio-with-reddit-aprils-gilded-comments-for-ebe965dbbb15 | ['Felipe Hoffa'] | 2017-03-07 19:19:50.889000+00:00 | ['Analytics', 'Bigquery', 'Data Visualization', 'Reddit', 'Big Data'] |
The False Morality of ‘Clean Eating’ | The False Morality of ‘Clean Eating’
My journey to a fatkini begins with my first two-piece swimsuit
Despite the fact that the swimsuit bottom I wanted was already sold out in mid-May, ‘beach body’ season is just ramping up. After the reprieve of gloomy spring showers, Memorial Day signals the beginning of sprinkler, river, and beach season in the Pacific Northwest.
I had big ideas about what it was going to be like in 2019. In January, I prepared myself- I knew the deluge was coming.
Diet posts, Whole 30 posts, boot camps, exercise, eating ‘right,’ pictures of salads- so many salads- and on and on. It was just a short skip-jump to now, when the sun starts to shine and the buzzword shifts from ‘resolutions’ to ‘beach bodies.’
This was going to be the year that I pushed back.
I would banish the implication that I must have forgotten I was too fat to ever be happy, and that if I loved myself I’d join a gym and eat some lettuce. I would block liberally and un-follow often, reclaiming my social feeds and my self-confidence! It would be the year I reminded the world that loving yourself and your life is not about pounds or inches.
But halfway through January, I just felt tired. As hard as I tried to be above it all, I just wasn’t, and that energy I’d hoped to funnel into a more enlightened attitude was waning. No matter how much you prepare for something, predicting emotions and reactions isn’t an exact science. I found myself hovering somewhere between unprepared, sad, angry, and tired. Being reminded on a daily basis that you’re dirty and bad because you’re not trying to lose weight is exhausting.
Six months later, my energy has shifted.
Writing about what it’s like to be fat in 2019 has ignited sparks inside me.
With the weather growing warmer by the day, I’m ready to give up socks for the summer, dig out my tank tops and capris, and move my dresses to the front of the closet.
New Years and the beginning of summer are two of the most challenging times of year for fat folks. Facebook, Magazines, morning shows, and local papers fill up with stories about beach bodies, being summer ready, fast ways to slim down, and ‘clean eating.’
The moral implication of ‘clean eating’ is that anyone who doesn’t eat that way is UN-clean.
We’ve all experienced shaming in one way or another. Maybe it was in elementary school because your lunch was “weird,” in middle school for listening to Bob Seeger instead of Marilyn Manson, or in high school for wearing thrift-store jeans. Remember that particular brand of internalized self-loathing? Fat people feel that every day because of the shapes of our bodies.
Referring to certain ways of eating as ‘clean’ allows corporations and advertisers to tap in to that deep-down shame we all remember deep inside. It’s not hard to trigger it with talk of ‘eating better,’ and when we feel it the first thing we want to do is get rid of it. They push ‘guilt free’ desserts and ‘skinny cocktails,’ and we flock to them without even realizing that they’re taking advantage of ingrained, fallacious moral values we’ve assigned to the food we eat.
Describing foods as healthy or unhealthy is just one more faulty binary system we can’t seem to let go of.
‘Bad’ foods are described as ‘fake’ or ‘junk food,’ and good foods become ‘super foods’ or ‘miracle foods.’ We are rewarded for putting those into our bodies, patted on the head for having ‘self-control,’ implying that if you don’t eat that way, you must be out of control. When you deny yourself the simple pleasure of a dessert with a falsely modest ‘No, I’ll be good,’ you’re indirectly telling others who choose to partake that they are being bad. Points systems and exercise programs allow us to ‘earn’ extra bites, as if taking pleasure in food is unnatural and must be negated.
Media that equates dieting with treating your body ‘right’ or ‘with respect’ reminds me that by not doing those things, I am wrong and disrespectful of my body and self.
This may seem like an exaggeration to some people. I’m willing to bet that those people have not ever lived in a fat body. The feeling and emotional labor required to be content while surrounded by diet culture is immense, especially when it’s not something you buy into. Diet culture and its false assignment of moral values to food is the precise reason so many people develop eating disorders.
When I say I wanted to feel strong this year, I mean that I wanted to drown out that insidious culture of restriction. To make more of my days about the amount of love I’ve found for myself instead of this fatigue or anger or madness. Beyond that, I wanted to use my voice to advocate for shiny happy things like loving the body you live in and finding peace no matter what month it is on the diet-culture-calendar.
January came and went, and the strength eluded me. I wasn’t quite ready. But summer’s rolling around now, and my exhaustion has been overtaken by other feelings. I’m angry about the way fat people are treated in our culture. It enrages me that I have spent so much time thinking negatively about my body and seeing it as something that’s wrong with me.
This week, I bought my first ever two-piece swimsuit.
Its boy-short-bottoms and a halter top with a sweetheart neckline are dark black against my untanned skin. When I put them on together, the tiniest diamond of pale white stomach glows just below my belly button.
I feel a little silly for feeling so much pride buying a suit that barely exposes more of me than a one-piece would. The separate top and bottom make sense for my shape, the bottoms offer more coverage than a one-piece for the tricky lower part of my belly, and will make for carefree pool days with my kids. As I tried on the top, I looked at myself in the mirror, and imagined a top that might leave more skin exposed. I spoke through the dressing room door to my boyfriend, declaring my intention.
This is the first step towards buying a real two-piece one day.
It’s taken me over five years to get to this point of being okay with exposing even a sliver of my stomach. Five years of work, writing, conversations, and constantly reminding myself and the world that I am worthy, I am beautiful, I am not wrong or bad for existing in this body. It may be five more before I get to that fatkini, but I know that I will get there. Changing the narrative of body shame brings me joy, and lights a flame inside me that I can’t help but fan.
You might also enjoy… | https://medium.com/fattitude/the-false-morality-of-clean-eating-d75dac357691 | ['Rachael Hope'] | 2019-07-15 18:13:11.832000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Health', 'Equality', 'Beauty', 'Body Image'] |
Halleluia, I Made It Through Thanksgiving | What’s not to love about Thanksgiving? The early morning cooking, the Macy’s Parade, the dog show on TV, setting the table… all those past years.
I’d take a short walk outside while the food was warming and simmering and the turkey was still in the oven. And then that sensation of opening the door to all those holiday aromas! Pure delight. Candlelight over dinner, my family all at one table, a rarity, one I cherished if only for one of a handful of days in the year.
Over the years, I was the main harbinger of these traditions. I think my family felt a little sorry for my enthusiasm. No one really took as much joy in Thanksgiving as I. Katie was into it, just enough. Sometimes she’d wander through the kitchen and act interested, or help set the table.
Just last year, 2019 was the first year she arrived early to cook with me. We cranked some tunes. For the first time, I had company in the kitchen. I was overjoyed. She stirred the mushrooms and onions for the green bean casserole we took to a friend’s house. She put her hair up and wore a favorite green sweater, and mingled with my adult friends. It was a nice memory, but not one I wanted to wallow in yesterday.
No, yesterday I just wanted to get through the day without being too sad, like I will do on all the holidays from now on until my heart glues itself back together some.
My Survival Plan
I knew it was coming but averted preparations until the last minute. Then I quickly threw a plan together on Wednesday. Here’s what I did.
The day before, I bought a roasted turkey breast from the heated kiosk where they sell freshly roasted chickens. I bought sourdough bread and ready-made cranberry sauce, sushi, chips, and the makings for queso. I was determined not to cook.
On Wednesday evening, I started watching Queen’s Gambit, on the recommendation of a friend. I put the queso ingredients into a small crockpot and started it warming. I drank some wine.
On Thanksgiving Day, I had chips and queso for breakfast, a meal, and an activity totally out of tradition. I fed and played with the cats.
I lounged around in my bedroom Thursday morning and answered all the holiday group text threads. I binge-watched Drunk History episodes on my phone.
Finally, I got dressed and drove to my favorite trailhead 25 minutes away. I ran around the woods for an hour. Meanwhile, my phone dinged. My 19-yr-old son Will texted me requesting a ride home from East Austin. A neighbor wondered if I’d like to come over and get an extra pumpkin pie they’d made. I said yes to both, then found out, nvm, Will already had a ride.
When I got home, I exchanged a bottle of Malbec for said pumpkin pie from the neighbor’s son, who wore a mask when he opened the door. We thanked each other and wished each other a Happy Thanksgiving.
I took a shower. My son arrived home. His younger brother was still sleeping. I made us both turkey/cranberry sandwiches. This took all of five minutes. Will was surprised I had not cooked anything. He called his dad, then asked me for a ride over there.
Some things you can’t avoid.
He was standing in the driveway when we pull in, soberly wearing a navy blue sweater, the kind a dad wears at Thanksgiving; except never in our house when we were together, the house where we raised our kids.
The sweater bit was new, but expected, considering my ex had just got remarried and so was doing all the holidays in this new way that seems to respect others and traditions. This is odd to me…yet another first this year.
The only reason I mention it is because it fits with my wildly different Thanksgiving experience this year. The boys in my family have never been interested in this holiday. They always took their cue from their dad who played video games and drank until it was time to eat and then, I’m not sure if he really tasted anything. I find my sons mainly do what they saw their dad do on Thanksgiving — and he clearly wasn’t into it. This was always just another day off for him.
During the years we were together, he wore a tee-shirt and baseball cap to the table, breaking away from a video game in his man cave upstairs. He burped at the table. He said the same thing every year; that it was a sign of appreciation. Then I’d clean up the kitchen alone while everyone went their separate ways. Thanksgiving was all my crazy idea in that old house. Silly mom.
So the blue sweater when he met us in the driveway, yes, that was a fresh sight. He asked through the passenger side window if I wanted some turkey jerky. I shrugged and said, “If you want, send it home with Will.”
Memories Are Reasons to Be Grateful
Next, I did something that teetered dangerously close to memories of Katie that cause pain but discovered that it was a different enough experience and that it didn’t hurt much at all.
Since Katie’s death, I’ve reconnected with some of her friends and friend’s parents. One family, neighbors at our old house where the kids grew up, invited me for dinner, then pie and wine by the fire pit. I accepted the fire pit part.
This friend of Katie’s, we’ll call her E, was her favorite girlfriend to get in trouble with. They were famous for smoking weed out of an apple bong on the school bus one day, for example, and both served a 40-day detention off-site from the high school one spring.
But things change. Katie’s gone and her old friend is pregnant now. Her girlfriend's mom Sarah and I are friends now, closer than we’d ever been before Katie’s death.
This sweet family had lit a candle for Katie at dinner (which I purposely missed) and took a picture for me. I arrived at their house in time for the after-party on the deck as the sun set.
I patted the baby bump with just a few tears, and then we sat around the fire and conversed about babies, their family business, local real estate, and a few memories of Katie. All in the midst of the usual chaos that comes with three young adopted children.
The kids swung on the deck swing, and painted their finger and toenails with polish, built legos, and showed me their LOL dolls, while we adults (yes, E qualifies as an adult now — how sweetly strange is that?), we laughed about old times.
It didn’t seem that long ago that Sarah and I were so angry at our girls we couldn’t even communicate properly. Who’s daughter was influencing who? This was never spoken, but it was there. And now here we were, E showing me her old IG posts of Katie that I’d never seen. The laughter was unexpected and nice.
So that was my Thanksgiving… and it was good.
Katie’s dear friend and her mom planned their meal with Katie and me in mind. They sent me home with the floral centerpiece in honor of my daughter and their friend. On the drive home, my phone dinged again. S texted me a few pictures of the evening.
Although I hadn’t eaten much yesterday, I was plenty full. I made some tea and watched another episode of Queen’s Gambit, and went to bed with a book.
I only cried that one time when I patted E’s baby bump, but I made it through the day. She promised to invite me to the baby shower, and I can honestly say that I’m looking forward to that. It was a bountiful day. I thought I’d have to grit my way through it, but with the right amount of planning and averting old traditions, I settled into sleep with many reasons to be thankful — even hopeful — for the future.
What a relief. I have proof that I can do the holidays without my daughter. It may not have been the best Thanksgiving ever, but it was right up there.
Nest challenge, Christmas. | https://medium.com/portals-pub/halleluia-i-made-it-through-thanksgiving-39569f261e1 | ['Jen Mcgahan'] | 2020-11-27 19:42:02.632000+00:00 | ['Self Care', 'Self', 'Holidays', 'Life', 'Grief'] |
ICO — Video games agency specializing in self-publishing | State of Kickstarter and games — mid-2021 update
Following up on my round of analysis of Kickstarter and Games in 2020, it is high time to look at how games have done on the platform for the first half of 2021.
Spoiler alert: Tabletop Games keep growing, Video Games stay stable.
Tabletop Games on Kickstarter — first semester of 2021
With the yearly data, we can see the first indication that 2021 is not looking bad at all for tabletop games. The number of funded projects is ahead of the previous year if you project for a similar amount to be funded in the last 6 months, and the number of projects that were not funded is below a similar projection. That means a whopping 75% of projects launched in the first half of 2021 met their funding goal.
Looking at the data per semester, it is obvious that the ongoing trend and growth for tabletop games has not slowed in 2021.
If anything, there is a slight acceleration, with a +11% number of funded projects increase from H2 2020, which had a +10% increase from the previous semester.
Looking at the amount of money raised yearly, we can see the trend observed with the number of funded projects holds true here too.
Tabletop games projects raised more in the first half of 2021 than during the entirety of 2017. There is a good chance that by the end of the year, we can say that the amount of money raised in Kickstarter by tabletop projects has doubled in four years, especially when a hit success like the Avatar tabletop RPG is NOT appearing in the numbers shared above.
In the first half of 2021, there has been 52 tabletop projects that raised more than $500,000, and 28 of these raised more than $1m.
Looking at these million dollars projects, we noticed three interesting profiles behind the growth of the category:
Beyond the $1m+ projects though, all the other funding tiers (except the Under $10k tier)raised less money and saw fewer projects funded. The difference is small, for the tier of projects raising between $100k and $500k for instance, we went from 171 funded projects and $38m in H2–2020, to 169 funded projects and $35m in H1–2021.
Are these larger projects, combined with the new performance of tabletop RPGs, hiding the slowing of the growth of the category on Kickstarter? This is very hard to tell at this stage, especially as none of these numbers account for an important change in the landscape: Gamefound.
Gamefound numbers, or their absence thereof
On the 17th of December 2020, Gamefound launched its first native crowdfunding campaign for ISS Vanguard. The campaign was successful and concluded on the 7th of January 2021, having raised close to $5m.
Gamefound as a platform is still curating the projects that are launching on it, and while the scale of it is far from the one of Kickstarter, there is no doubt that the campaigns that launched so far on Gamefound would have found their way on Kickstarter, probably for a similar success. The relatively good numbers of Kickstarter for the first half of 2021 would have been even better if not for the new competition offered by Gamefound.
The data collection on Kickstarter is not a simple task, and I haven’t gotten around to go through a similar exercice for Gamefound. The picture, for now, is thus quite incomplete. This is not new though. I haven’t provided data for Games projects from other platforms in a years now (last time was when Fig was still somewhat relevant to video games), but it is likely that the size of the projects finding success on Gamefound will mean a better picture of the crowdfunding performance of games in general, and board games in particular, will require to include this platform to the next analysis. Let’s look at this in a few months, will you?
Video Games on Kickstarter — first semester of 2021
Looking at the yearly data, 2021 so far looks slightly behind 2020 in the number of funded projects.
When considering the number of funded projects each semester though, the first half of 2021 is ahead of the first half of 2020. Early 2020 was likely most affected by the covid-19 pandemic, and projects being postponed to the second half of the year.
Looking at the amount of money raised by successful projects in the first half of 2021, the projects of the video games category performed very well. This is second best semester (after H2–2020) since 2015.
The two projects that raised more that $500,000 went on to raise a lot more than that as Friday Night Funkin’ and Coral Island respectively raised $2.2m and $1.6m. Two very different games finding an audience and success.
A slew of games managed to raise between $100,000 and $500,000 too, for a total just short of $5m, across 25 projects.
Overall, 2021 so far is following the same stability we have observed for video games projects on the platform. There is a steady flow of video games creations that find funding on Kickstarter, and there is no sign of decline in sight. | https://medium.com/icopartners/state-of-kickstarter-and-games-mid-2021-update-132964d2c523 | ['Thomas Bidaux'] | 2021-09-01 14:44:06.426000+00:00 | ['Tabletop Games', 'Video Games Industry', 'Crowdfunding', 'Kickstarter'] |
Go Context Explained | Written by Sundara Senthil and Edited by Angelica Hill
Welcome everyone to my first technical blog!
This blog has been written for beginners to Go Lang and the use of Context Packages in Go. However, I hope it will be of interest to Gophers of all levels
This blog will go through what context is, why it’s used, as well as going through a few examples of how the Context package can be used in Go. I will then give you an outline of the Rules of Use, before summarizing.
What is Context?
If your main task is to make a shirt, first you need to complete a few sub-tasks, such as buying the material, thread, buying buttons, as well as designing what you want your shirt to look like. Not until all these sub-tasks are complete can you start on the main task, to construct the shirt. … | https://medium.com/@senthil-sundara/go-context-explained-6986449a0212 | ['Sundara Senthil'] | 2020-12-11 15:22:18.022000+00:00 | ['Go', 'Context'] |
Organic Baby Clothes: what are the health benefits? | Organic Baby Clothes: what are the health benefits?
In this article we are going to cover why organic baby clothes are an important decision in enhancing your baby’s health.
Organic baby clothes are healthier for your natural baby. Organic baby clothes are the best option for sensitive skin or babies with eczema, and a bonus is that organic cotton washes really well and stays fresh for longer.
We are surrounded by many different types of chemicals, such as in in food, toys, clothes, anything covered in fabric, and cleaning products. .As parents, we can control what chemicals our baby is exposed to – such as buying organic clothing for our natural baby.
Babies have much thinner and more sensitive skin compared to an adult. Therefore, a baby’s skin more readily absorbs chemicals and toxins. Johnson and Johnsonstates on its website that “a baby’s skin is thinner, more fragile ... than an adult’s” and is “less resistant to bacteria and harmful substances in the environment.”
Clothing that is made from conventional cotton contains many chemicals that can be absorbed through the skin. A quick list of the chemicals that can be used for the production of cotton and cotton clothing includes:
The soil used to grow the cotton is treated with synthetic fertilisers.
The cotton plants are sprayed with insecticides and pesticides to control weeds and insects.
The cotton plants are sprayed with toxic chemicals to induce defoliation.
Chlorine bleaching occurs to finish the cotton yarn.
Formaldehyde is a common fabric finish.
Dyeing of cotton yarn and fabric includes heavy metals and sulphur content.
Printing onto cotton fabric and clothing can include pigments that are petroleum based and contain heavy metals.
Any chemicals that reside in conventional cotton clothing can be absorbed through a baby’s skin.
That is why organic cotton is a fabulous choice. We wrap our baby in cotton – let’s make it organic! You can clothe your baby in beautiful organic cotton, which is soft, comfortable and durable, and doesn’t have any harmful chemicals. Organic cotton is less likely to cause allergies or sensitivities, and is much better for babies with eczema.
More and more parents are choosing organic clothing for their eco baby for health reasons.
Little Sweet Peas Boutique strives to offer certified organic cotton for its range of eco baby clothing.
https://littlesweetpeasboutique.com/ | https://medium.com/@mariethomasva/organic-baby-clothes-what-are-the-health-benefits-4786c62fbc96 | [] | 2021-09-05 05:13:11.788000+00:00 | ['Organic Baby Clothes', 'Eco Friendly', 'Baby Care', 'Baby Products', 'Organic'] |
Telenor Whatsapp Packages- Free, Daily, Weekly And Monthly | Telenor has introduced, Telenor free, daily, weekly and monthly WhatsApp packages. Every network is giving different WhatsApp packages and Telenor is also in this package competition. Telenor has managed some different WhatsApp packages that help their customers to stay in touch with their loved ones.
In this article, we will briefly discuss the all Telenor WhatsApp packages that include, Telenor free WhatsApp offer, Telenor daily WhatsApp offer, and Telenor weekly WhatsApp offer and Telenor monthly WhatsApp package in detail.
Here looking into this post we will be providing for you with Z points around this most recent bundle presented eventually by perusing Telenor. As you yourself now that the need of the WhatsApp offers and packages has enormously enhanced and build in online networking due to the active usage of WhatsApp.
Here Are some free WhatsApp Packages
Telenor Free Whatsapp Package:
Now you can enjoy FREE WhatsApp with Telenor for
unlimited messaging,
photo and video sharing
with the maximum limit of 100MB/week
Offer Eligibility
All Telenor prepaid users (djuice and Telenor) are eligible for this offer.
Customers who don’t have internet settings activated can SMS ‘internet’ to 131 to get internet settings for their device.
Validity:
The Free WhatsApp bundle is valid for 7 days. Subscribers will be informed when the bundle expires at midnight.
This is all about the Telenor free, daily, weekly and monthly WhatsApp offers. | https://medium.com/@legendupdate/telenor-whatsapp-packages-free-daily-weekly-and-monthly-b4d82133e84b | [] | 2019-02-08 11:31:00.962000+00:00 | ['Weekly', 'Telenor Whatsapp Packages', 'Free', 'Daily', 'Monthly'] |
Modelling Volatile Time Series with LSTM Networks | Modelling Volatile Time Series with LSTM Networks
Yearly rainfall data can be quite volatile. Unlike temperature, which typically demonstrates a clear trend through the seasons, rainfall as a time series can be quite volatile. In Ireland, it is not uncommon for summer months to see as much rain as that of winter months.
Source: pixabay.com
Here is a graphical illustration of rainfall patterns from November 1959 for Newport, Ireland:
As a sequential neural network, LSTM models can prove superior in accounting for the volatility in a time series.
Using the Ljung-Box test, the p-value of less than 0.05 indicates that the residuals in this time series demonstrate a random pattern, indicating significant volatility:
>>> res = sm.tsa.ARMA(tseries, (1,1)).fit(disp=-1)
>>> sm.stats.acorr_ljungbox(res.resid, lags=[10])
(array([78.09028704]), array([1.18734005e-12]))
Data Manipulation and Model Configuration
The dataset in question comprises of 722 months of rainfall data. The rainfall data for Newport, Ireland was sourced from the Met Éireann website.
712 data points are selected for training and validation purposes, i.e. to build the LSTM model. Then, the last 10 months of data are used as test data to compare with the predictions from the LSTM model.
Here is a snippet of the dataset:
A dataset matrix is then formed in order to regress the time series against past values:
# Form dataset matrix
def create_dataset(df, previous=1):
dataX, dataY = [], []
for i in range(len(df)-previous-1):
a = df[i:(i+previous), 0]
dataX.append(a)
dataY.append(df[i + previous, 0])
return np.array(dataX), np.array(dataY)
The data is then normalized with MinMaxScaler:
With the previous parameter set to 120, the training and validation datasets are created. For reference, previous = 120 means that the model is using past values from t — 120 down to t — 1 to predict the rainfall value at time t.
The choice of the previous parameter is subject to trial and error, but 120 time periods were chosen to ensure capture of the volatility or extreme values demonstrated by the time series.
import tensorflow as tf
from tensorflow.keras import layers
from tensorflow.keras.layers import Dense
from tensorflow.keras.layers import LSTM # Training and Validation data partition
train_size = int(len(df) * 0.8)
val_size = len(df) - train_size
train, val = df[0:train_size,:], df[train_size:len(df),:] # Number of previous
previous = 120
X_train, Y_train = create_dataset(train, previous)
X_val, Y_val = create_dataset(val, previous)
The inputs are then reshaped to be in the format of samples, time steps, features.
# reshape input to be [samples, time steps, features]
X_train = np.reshape(X_train, (X_train.shape[0], 1, X_train.shape[1]))
X_val = np.reshape(X_val, (X_val.shape[0], 1, X_val.shape[1]))
Model Training and Prediction
The model is trained across 100 epochs, and a batch size of 712 (equal to the number of data points in the training and validation set) is specified.
# Generate LSTM network
model = tf.keras.Sequential()
model.add(LSTM(4, input_shape=(1, previous)))
model.add(Dense(1))
model.compile(loss='mean_squared_error', optimizer='adam')
history=model.fit(X_train, Y_train, validation_split=0.2, epochs=100, batch_size=448, verbose=2)
# list all data in history
print(history.history.keys())
# summarize history for accuracy
plt.plot(history.history['loss'])
plt.plot(history.history['val_loss'])
plt.title('model loss')
plt.ylabel('loss')
plt.xlabel('epoch')
plt.legend(['train', 'val'], loc='upper left')
plt.show()
Here is a plot of the training vs. validation loss:
A plot of the predicted vs. actual rainfall is also generated:
# Plot all predictions
inversetransform, =plt.plot(scaler.inverse_transform(df))
trainpred, =plt.plot(trainpredPlot)
valpred, =plt.plot(valpredPlot)
plt.xlabel('Days')
plt.ylabel('Rainfall')
plt.title("Predicted vs. Actual Rainfall")
plt.show()
The prediction results are compared against the validation set on the basis of Mean Directional Accuracy (MDA), root mean squared error (RMSE) and mean forecast error (MFE).
>>> def mda(actual: np.ndarray, predicted: np.ndarray):
>>> """ Mean Directional Accuracy """
>>> return np.mean((np.sign(actual[1:] - actual[:-1]) == np.sign(predicted[1:] - predicted[:-1])).astype(int))
>>> mda(Y_val, predictions) 0.9090909090909091 >>> from sklearn.metrics import mean_squared_error
>>> from math import sqrt
>>> mse = mean_squared_error(Y_val, predictions)
>>> rmse = sqrt(mse)
>>> print('RMSE: %f' % rmse) RMSE: 49.99 >>> forecast_error = (predictions-Y_val)
>>> forecast_error
>>> mean_forecast_error = np.mean(forecast_error)
>>> mean_forecast_error -1.267682231556286
MDA: 0.909
0.909 RMSE: 49.99
49.99 MFE: -1.26
Predicting against test data
While the demonstrated results across the validation set are quite respectable, it is only by comparing the model predictions to the test (or unseen) data that we can be reasonably confident of the LSTM model holding predictive power.
As previously explained, the last 10 months of rainfall data are used as the test set. The LSTM model is then used to predict 10 months ahead, with the predictions then being compared to the actual values.
The previous values down to t-120 are used to predict the value at time t:
# Test (unseen) predictions
Xnew = np.array([tseries.iloc[592:712],tseries.iloc[593:713],tseries.iloc[594:714],tseries.iloc[595:715],tseries.iloc[596:716],tseries.iloc[597:717],tseries.iloc[598:718],tseries.iloc[599:719],tseries.iloc[600:720],tseries.iloc[601:721]])
The obtained results are as follows:
MDA: 0.8
0.8 RMSE: 49.57
49.57 MFE: -6.94
With the mean rainfall for the last 10 months having come in at 148.93 mm, the forecast accuracy has shown similar performance to that of the validation set, and errors are low relative to the mean rainfall computed across the test set.
Conclusion
In this example, you have seen:
How to prepare data for use with an LSTM model
Construction of an LSTM model
How to test LSTM prediction accuracy
The advantages of using LSTM to model volatile time series
Many thanks for your time, and the associated repository for this example can be found here.
You can also find more of my data science content at michael-grogan.com.
Disclaimer: This article is written on an “as is” basis and without warranty. It was written with the intention of providing an overview of data science concepts, and should not be interpreted as professional advice. The findings and interpretations in this article are those of the author and are not endorsed by or affiliated with Met Éireann in any way. | https://towardsdatascience.com/modelling-volatile-time-series-with-lstm-networks-51250fb7cfa3 | ['Michael Grogan'] | 2020-10-07 14:18:39.651000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Neural Networks', 'Time Series Analysis', 'Weather', 'Data Science'] |
The thought process of debugging | Coming from a bootcamp to a company with a large application, it was very challenging to understand which behaviours were a feature and not a bug, and to actually know what was causing it, was an entirely different headache, specially because you might not be able to understand the entire scope of what is really happening.
But once a bug was discovered, to fix it is like solving a murder mystery, you have a victim and now you have to start looking for clues before thinking who the culprit is, and to be able to manage that, I created a system to be my guide and my Watson.
Write your findings down
Lay down your findings
You might have a perfect memory, but having a visual clue of what is happening will help you make connections that otherwise could have been missed or simply prevent you from checking the same thing again.
Write down any information you think it is relevant, you won’t know if something is a clue or not until the end of the investigation.
You should also build a timeline of what happened, and what triggered what, this way you can see a chain of actions and perhaps even spot where something should/shouldn’t have happened.
Replicating
If you have a QA or a tester in your team, and you are not confident in how to replicate a bug, they should be the first people you ask for help, because they know how things look when they are working and will show you how to trigger a certain action and usually even know the expected behaviour.
But not all bugs are replicable, but is the best place to start, because once you can reproduce it, you can see the scope in which it is happening, and start looking for situations where it doesn’t, and see what is the difference, and try to change it and see if the behaviour also changes.
Sometimes it can be a bit tricky to replicate something, specially if you need a third-part response or access, but even then, if you can see whatever information is being sent, you can check if this is what the other application is expecting, or if there is something missing.
Error tracking and logs
Tools like rollbar will store errors or bad requests that happened in the application, they are usually the place where you should go to check if something that should have happened, didn’t.
And that is when having a timeline will be the most valuable, as you will have a time slot of when the error happened, and it will enable you to spot it much quicker, as sometimes the error might look unrelated to the bug.
Following the breadcrumbs trail
Photo by John Thomas on Unsplash
Once you have been able to reproduce it locally, to spot exactly where the bug is being generated can be tricker than it looks, as several workers and units might be used and it can become very confusing very fast.
That’s why I like to use a method that I call breadcrumbs trail, where I will “follow” the bug often using binding.pry, as I code mainly in Ruby, I will see where that information is coming from, see how it looks, and trying to find where it changed from the correct one to the wrong one, for example.
Depending on how big the application is, or how lost you are, this can be a rather slow method, but one way around it, is to use the same methodology for binary search, you will try to find a middle point of where the information is being sent and where it is being received check the state of it, and then either go to the next middle point, or come back.
Extras
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Rubber ducking
Use an inanimate object or a living victim to talk about what is happening, and what you are thinking, as often enough by just talking out loud, you will be able to organise your thoughts and come up with new theories or things to try.
Asking for help
YOU WILL GET STUCK, if not in this bug, in the next one, and sometimes can be harder to ask for help than to solve the actual problem, don’t feel threatened about looking stupid and asking for someone to give a look at it, a new fresh pair of eyes can see things that you tired and used brain could have missed. | https://medium.com/@rmiriuk/the-thought-process-of-debugging-1b0af064b265 | ['Renata Miriuk'] | 2020-12-30 00:14:09.381000+00:00 | ['Code', 'Debugging', 'Skills Development', 'Ruby', 'Development'] |
The Rise of Network-Based, Social-Driven Apps | All of a sudden, virtual-first social platforms have taken the tech world by storm. I’m pointing to two in particular — Clubhouse and Lunchclub — but there’s many, many more under the surface.
Why?
Let’s start with the obvious, first. For over a year and a quarter, Covid has prevented people from going outside and meeting up, but it doesn’t take away from their innate desire to network and feel like they’re connected. While Houseparty was trending at the beginning of lockdown, people have moved on to more sophisticated platforms. The second, less obvious answer, is that people are in need of smarter networking platforms, even if they haven’t realized it yet.
How well do they work?
Depends what your objective is. Each of these platform has a particular purpose, which can sometimes be used in unintended ways. While the initial intent to be on Clubhouse was to have intellectual discussions with people within your micro-community, it’s grown into a platform where the initial intent is to firstly be invited to it! (and then decide what you want to do once you’re there).
Is there room for more?
Short answer is, yes. Smart networking means that you’re getting something meaningful out of your very first interaction. It means that the process is so seamless, that it doesn’t even feel like networking. It means that the objectives of both parties are clearly stated at the outset, so there’s no room for low-level, random conversation.
Is NeonVest doing anything different?
We believe the best way to describe these relationships is like that of a mentor-mentee relationship. One-on-one conversations with domain experts, who can add direct value to you based on your specific context. There is always someone who gives and someone who gets, on our platform. We make the matches using a number of inputs, because we know our users the best. Every single user gets a different experience — that’s the beauty of it.
What We Do.
For domain experts, NeonVest provides mentorship opportunities, curated dealflow, and co-investor networking opportunities. If you’re interested in becoming an Expert VC, sign up here.
For founders (or budding founders), NeonVest connects them to unique, relevant domain experts on a regular basis, to get useful advice, tangible feedback and connections to people that matter. If you’re interested, sign up here. No long-term commitments. | https://medium.com/@aakash-111/the-rise-of-network-based-social-driven-apps-90f72545f388 | [] | 2021-08-23 07:56:43.673000+00:00 | ['Venture Capital', 'Startup', 'Clubhouse', 'Networking', 'Social'] |
Working Remotely at 19 Years Old — 1st Week Experience | Photo by Goran Ivos on Unsplash
I’m Maddox.
I recently turned 19, quit my job working at Chick-Fil-A, and I began working remotely for PandaDoc, an SAS (Software As a Service) company.
Times are different and more and more people are working from home (in my case, my parents).
In this post, I’m going to be going to explain how my first week of training remotely went at PandaDoc and how I feel about it.
PandaDoc is a company with an interesting history and dynamic online culture. I only have good things to say about it and I’m really excited to be working there after working in fast food for so long. It’s a big change from what I’m used to.
The story behind how I got hired to PandaDoc is what I would consider unique. Let’s start with that.
How I Got Hired at PandaDoc
I’m apart of a college alternative program called Discover Praxis.
Praxis is known for challenging conventional educational paths (like college) by providing a direct and proven way to launch a young person’s career. I found that college wasn’t for me after graduating high school and I decided to try out Praxis, a cheaper, but more effective approach to launching one’s career.
The story of how I eventually decided to forgo college is a story for another post, but that’s the basic summary of what happened.
After I joined Discover Praxis I was introduced to a huge, flourishing community of young professionals. There were entrepreneurs, new hires, seasoned employees, and all sorts of other people. The community that Praxis provided created an environment that promoted a mindset of value creation that college couldn’t provide. After jumping headfirst into the Praxis program I began to learn faster than I ever have. To keep things short I’ll leave out the details.
Essentially after going through 3 months of intensive learning I was ready to start applying to jobs. PandaDoc was one of the first companies that I was introduced to apply to through Praxis. After applying to PandaDoc and going through the interviewing process I ended up landing a job there!
I was super excited to start a new season of my life. I started to get prepared for training.
The First Day of Training
Since everything is online, Zoom became the largest part of my browser history.
Photo by Romain Dancre on Unsplash
Training began with paperwork (taxes and such). This is expected with any new job. After the paperwork was completed I began learning about the company culture of PandaDoc.
Everything about the company of culture of PandaDoc was important to me. Here’s a list of all of the things about it:
Company Culture at PandaDoc
PandaDoc values learning, making an impact, having fun, and being empathetic
Everyone is team-orientated
Individuals are expected to be able to contribute to the success of the company
PandaDoc puts your economic success in high regard (no one gets left behind)
Everyone loves to talk and help each other even if everything is online
The company as a whole holds you as an employee in high regard. Every person who works alongside you is helpful and empathetic. I’m glad to be apart of such a positive environment in which I can work and be noticed.
These aren’t just any bogus corporate words either. Although everything is online I can still feel the vibe that PandaDoc is a good place to work. People I have interacted with so far at PandaDoc are all nice, genuine people who care about their work and others. The culture isn’t just a set of rules that were written out, it’s an attitude that every person I’ve met so far has expressed in their own unique way.
The culture of a workspace is something that I hold in high regard. PandaDoc provides a positive work environment that I can grow in. PandaDoc proved that during my first day of training.
The Rest of the Week
A lot happened over the course of 5 days. I can’t get into every detail, but I can tell you that learning everything about PandaDoc (company history and how things are run) was a lot of information to take in, in a week.
The trainers recognized this and were very empathetic in their teaching approach. They realized that we wouldn’t understand everything that was said right away and they always made sure to open the floor for any questions. The first week of “working” was mostly just completing learning assignments and consuming information on every aspect of the company.
It was intensive but well-paced. I have learned a lot about the company all within one week. The next week will dive more into the specifics of what I’ll be doing under my manager’s guidance.
Was this helpful?
If this post was helpful or interesting to anyone reading it don’t feel afraid to leave a comment anywhere on it. I’m always open to talking about my job here. But, I won’t be revealing any insider knowledge of how the company operates as that would be a breach of my NDA. | https://medium.com/@maddoxjlocher/working-remotely-at-19-years-old-1st-week-experience-60a734db317a | [] | 2020-12-21 14:17:27.439000+00:00 | ['Remote Working', 'Work Life Balance', 'Pandadoc', 'Experience', 'New Job'] |
Pollution in Washington, DC: An examination of how the media has polluted our minds for stagnant change | Pollution in Washington, DC: An examination of how the media has polluted our minds for stagnant change
Kenneth Gergen’s The Saturated Self, warned humans about the rise of technology and its ability to possibly saturate the mind of human beings. This extreme “saturation” is a result of too many influences from the mass media, creating uncertainty in the psyche of American citizens. The concept goes by the name of “multiphrenia” and is exactly what America today is experiencing.
Before I start with how multiphrenia is impacting our society, I have a couple questions for the reader. How did you find this article? Did you click on the ad I paid for on Snapchat Stories? Did the big pop-up on your laptop screen bother you until you clicked this link? Or, none of the above? You found it out of general curiosity for how multiphrenia is impacting political participation in the District of Columbia. Sure.
So, why is examining the media important to understanding the minds of the masses? The answer is quite simple: there are trillions of new sources and news companies that make a profit based off of the clicks of the average American looking to feel satisfied with their knowledge on recent events. They track our likes dislikes, they track what movie we just saw, they track who we are. They know what we want to hear and how we want to hear it. For brief clarification, by “they” I mean the FBI agent hiding behind our computer screen. There is no thrill about learning something new about somebody because all of our facts can be found on our Tinder page or Instagram handle (by the way, mine is @alennazweiback feel free to subscribe to my content).
You probably already know about this stuff. You tell yourself you will take a cleanse from social media but you say that while taking a buzzfeed quiz on what Christmas sweater you should wear to your ex-girlfriend’s Friendsgiving. It’s okay, I understand, it’s not your fault. It’s the media’s. I am not being sarcastic.
The Environmentalist movement began to pick up speed in the District in the 1970’s. After World War II, the rise of technology posed a dramatic threat to environmental stability. New highways, housing developments, and airports enhanced the use of chemical waste in the air, leading to public concern regarding the protection of our Earth. In “The Environmental Movement” by Sam Hays, credits the increase in public attention to the idea of aesthetics. Hays states that “much of the initial interest concerned aesthetics; smoke made cities unattractive, and raw sewage floating in streams, such as the Potomac River in Washington, DC, was both unsightly and offensive to human smell.” Although concerns at first were almost superficial, the idea of the once beautiful Potomac River being destroyed by sewage absorbed the public’s attention. In July of 1970, the Gladwin Hill Special for The New York Times updated the public on the District of Columbia Water Quality Administration report on the Potomac saying that “‘[Sewage] sludge deposits have blanketed fish spawning grounds and destroyed the bottom aquatic life on which fish feed. Along the margins of the estuary sludge deposits have released obnoxious odors when uncovered by ebb tide. Floating sludge masses, lifted by gases of decomposition, add to other debris on the water’s surface.’” The general public became increasingly more concerned about the current state of their environment, and the popular demands lead to legislation.
The Potomac River as of 2017.
Musician and activist, Pete Seeger, is amongst the general public who contributed to the masses concern for the environment. In the late 1960’s, Seeger and some friends built a replica of a sloop, a 106 foot long vessel that is known as the forerunner of the Environmentalist Movement. People all over the nation would listen for the group of men that traveled in this boat, who hoped to bring people closer to the issue of Pollution. The New York Times did a special interview on one of Seeger’s stops where Seeger explains his method saying “‘we’ve sailed for a year now up and down the river showing people what the river used to be, how it’s polluted now and what it can be,’ Mr. Seeger said, ‘but now we’re going to Washington because the problems of the American rivers can’t be solved by people like me who live on them. Only the Federal Government has the power to enact and enforce the laws that are needed.’”
The Clearwater Sloop celebrating in 2008.
It seems as though Peter Seeger’s request for the Federal Government to take control of the issue worked. Over the next two decades, the representatives both locally and domestically enforced new ideas to help counter pollution. The District of Columbia Water Pollution Control Act of 1984 and the Hazardous Waste Management Act of 1984 were the first big legislation of its kind to help address the issue of pollution. The Water Pollution Control Act of 1984 was created to counter the issue of water pollution in the District restore aquatic life in District waters for aesthetic enjoyment, for recreation, and for industry. The Hazardous Waste Management Act focused on the amount of hazardous waste was being released from companies operating on the riverbank, and offered fines against them if they went above a certain Hazardous levels.
Pollution Protests all over the nation pressured legislation.
This spurred great improvements regarding the wicked problem of pollution. By the 2000s, the District of Columbia passed over 10 bills of legislation to further the research and improvement of pollution in the Potomac. The District of Columbia Oil Liability Trust Fund, the District of Columbia Underground Storage Tank Fund, and the District of Columbia Water Pollution Control Contingency Plan are examples of a few that created optimism within the District. These bills sparked a major domino effect of political participation. More people began to notice the prominence of the issue and that our representatives were taking this seriously.
It did not last. Since 2010, only two solutions have been proposed about the issue that really should not be an issue anymore. One of which isn’t exactly a “solution” but more of an awareness factor. The DC Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant was a machine that would help the filtering of polluted water. The Potomac Riverkeeper Network hosts multiple events to aware awareness for pollution in the Potomac. Essentially, the Potomac Riverkeeper does what the Clearwater did.
Annual river cleanup hosted by the Potomac Riverkeeper Network.
Recently, a Potomac River coal plant was cited for illegal storage of toxic coal by the Department of Water and Power in Maryland. If you look it up, only one article will cover the news of it. No fine was cited against the company, despite its violations against the law. The sound of active citizens on social media is dead silent.
Within the last decade, there have been no solutions proposed and pollution in the Potomac has increased. Why is that happening? Why is the media not covering it? Why are people not getting involved? The answer is simple: if A equals B, and B equals C, then A equals C. If people get their knowledge from the news, and the news does not cover issues like this, then the people will have no knowledge about this and not enforce push back on their politicians.
So what do we do moving forward? How do we fix this problem of the media affecting how we advocate change? I think I know the answer: we pollute the Potomac by throwing away our phones. Maybe then, people will start to notice the overflow of sewage and dead aquatic life that floats on the Potomac while they scream for the mercy of their iphone 10. | https://medium.com/hope-in-the-dark/pollution-in-washington-dc-an-examination-of-how-the-media-has-polluted-our-minds-for-stagnant-fba7a9c13319 | ['Alenna Zweiback'] | 2019-11-14 16:35:49.822000+00:00 | ['Environmentalism', 'Washington DC', 'Pollution', 'Environment', 'Potomac River'] |
Buyer personas in retail | Back in the days, before the Internet, customer-retailer relationship was different. When a customer bought something, they had to bear significant risk if a product did not meet their expectations. Nowadays, the buying process has completely changed. Retailers have to invest in customer satisfaction. Customers have a lot of information and choice at their fingertips. They can browse through different suppliers, and can easily return products. It is important that retailers differentiate themselves from their competition and focus on their own strengths and unique selling points. Most importantly, they need to find smart ways to stay relevant and fulfil their customers’ needs.
Buyer Personas in retail
As retailer, you have to offer the right product to the right person, both online and offline, to create and maintain traction. For every marketing strategy, it is crucial to know what your target group is, as well as what drives and motivates them. It is important to understand how they make a decision to purchase. To better understand this, you can create Buyer Personas. Buyer personas can help you understand customers according to their emotions and behaviour.
What is a buyer persona?
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your target group, which allows you to put a face to data. A buyer persona does not represent your ideal customer, it represents the corresponding purchase behaviour of your customers. Every company has their own unique persona or multiple personas. A company usually creates around 2 or 3 primary buyer personas, based on their target groups, with each persona representing one target group.
The strongest personas are based on data, market research and your own insights. You should conduct desk research, research statistics of the communication channels, hold surveys, and interview your target group. You can also create secondary personas, which are focused on the characteristics of a particular branch or market segment. The behavior and the goals of those secondary personas are the same as of the primary personas.
How to create a Buyer Persona for your retail
To set up a good profile for your buyer persona, you should research the following components:
Characteristics: to understand your customer throughout
Scenarios: to understand the how and why of their buying decision
Gaps: to understand where they are now and where they want to go
Bridge: to understand what they need to bridge this gab
Goal: to understand what the customer wants to achieve
The right marketing content
Buyer personas should inspire you to produce relevant marketing content that appeals to your target group. Communication between you and your customers will be enriched by using the information of a buyer persona, because it allows you to accurately align your message with your target group. It is key to develop different buyer persona- specific content to approach your target group in an effective way.
Allocate marketing budget efficiently
Buyer personas can help you to optimize your online marketing budget. When you understand your customers’ behavior, which tells you how your customers obtain information and which goals and motives they have, you can target your customers at the right time, with the right product. This results in an increase of online traffic and repeated purchases. Besides, a buyer persona help you make better decisions when it comes to promoting content and choosing appropriate marketing channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc).
In conclusion, buyer personas can help you understand your customers better. Buyer personas enable you to match your marketing content to your target group, which makes your marketing content more relevant to your (potential) customers. In addition, it can help you approach your customers through the right channels with the right content.
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14 most beautiful Brand Books/Style Guides → | https://medium.com/marketing-and-branding/buyer-personas-in-retail-619e8affa782 | ['Raul Tiru'] | 2020-12-21 12:10:00.398000+00:00 | ['Retail Marketing', 'Retail Technology', 'Buyer Personas', 'Retail', 'Retail Industry'] |
Power BI Challenge 10 — Supplier Insights | We’ve launched the 10th Power BI Challenge and this time, we’re covering supplier insights.
Once again, we’ve come up with a unique scenario that everyone can work on to make sure we’re maximizing what Power BI can do. A complimentary membership to Enterprise DNA Online is also more than worth it, knowing that this membership can give you access to amazing resources that could deepen your knowledge of Power BI and its capabilities.
Enterprise DNA Membership
Challenge #10
Challenge #9 was about currency conversion. With challenge #10, we’re going to focus on supplier insights.
The project brief gives a clear picture of the scenario at hand:
It’s going to be interesting to see all participants take the role of the experts and answer these critical questions that this challenge aims to answer:
Deadline for submission is on December 13, 2020.
The Power BI Challenge
The Power BI Challenge continues to evolve after every round. We started out with challenges that were exclusive to members of Enterprise DNA Online. Then, we realized that this was a great opportunity for everyone to collaborate. So we opened up the challenges to non-members as well.
Eventually, we also added a separate prize for first-timers. All you need to do is tell us that it’s your 1st time to participate, and you become eligible to win a prize.
What makes the experience more exciting for us is the fact that we’re seeing so much improvement in everybody’s work as well. This only proves that the challenges have become an amazing opportunity for learning, too. Those who started out in the first few challenges are now submitting reports that are leaps and bounds ahead than their first submissions.
The Enterprise DNA Team judges the submissions based on the 4 pillars of a great Power BI report — data loading and transformation, data modeling, reports and visualizations, and DAX calculations.
Aside from getting the chance to win great prizes, winning submissions also get featured on Power BI Challenge Showcase. This means that members of Enterprise DNA Online get to practice using your reports and dashboards to get some hands-on experience. Again, this makes these challenges a great learning opportunity.
How To Join
Here’s how you can join the challenge.
For Enterprise DNA members, check the forum thread inside the Enterprise DNA Forum.
Download the data set from this link: Challenge #10 Post your report on the thread. Submit your PBIX files to [email protected]
When you submit your report, just use the subject line Power BI Challenge 10 — Name (Member). If you’re not a member yet, use the subject line Power BI Challenge 10 — Name (Non-member) instead.
If you’re not yet an Enterprise DNA member, you can still join by going here:
Enterprise DNA Power BI Challenge 10
Submit your PBIX file, images of the report, link and description to [email protected] Post this caption on your social media accounts along with the image below: I accepted Enterprise DNA’s Power BI Challenge Make sure to hyperlink this post Use these hashtags on your social media post — #EnterpriseDNA #EnterpriseDNAPowerBIChallenge #PowerBIChallenge #PowerBIChallengeAccepted
Join Challenge #10 now and show us what kind of insights you can deliver using Power BI!
All the best,
Enterprise DNA Team | https://medium.com/@sam.mckay/power-bi-challenge-10-supplier-insights-7dadafd3523a | ['Enterprise Dna'] | 2020-12-08 08:20:52.711000+00:00 | ['Data Analytics', 'Data Science', 'Business Intelligence', 'Power Bi', 'Power Bi Challenge'] |
Text File Uploads with Multer — The Complete Guide | Multer is a Node.js middleware for handling multipart/form-data , which is primarily used for uploading files.
In this article, I will be covering how to read the contents of a text file with multer file upload.
The article is divided into three parts -
1. Setting up the Frontend (HTML) 2. Setting up the Backend (ExpressJS) 3. Reference links for image upload with Multer.
The following cases are being covered in this article -
Form accepting only a single file (.txt) Form accepting only a single file (.txt) along with other input fields. Form accepting multiple files (Different input fields) Form accepting multiple files along with other input fields.
Basics of Multer -
Multer is a Node.js middleware. Middleware is a piece of software that connects different applications or software components. In Express, middleware processes and transforms incoming requests to the server. In our case, Multer acts as a helper when uploading files.
So let’s get started with the implementation!
Project Setup
1) Setting up the frontend -
Let’s create a basic HTML form that accepts a single text file upload with a Submit button.
HTML form with one input field of type file and a submit button.
IMPORTANT — Do not forget to put enctype=“multipart/form-data” in your form.
The /uploadFile is the backend route which we will write while setting up the backend.
Our index.html will look something like this on opening in the browser.
Our HTML form having a single button to select file.
2) Setting up the backend -
In your project directory, create a new file named server.js followed by an npm init
It’s finally time to install our dependencies — Express and of course Multer!
Install the dependencies using the following command:
npm i express multer --save
In our server.js we will now setup a basic server up on port 3000 with the following code—
Basic Express.js server setup on port 3000
Next, let’s configure the server for accepting files from the client.
We will import the multer library (line #2) and initialize its storage (line # 8 and line #9)
Imported multer and initialized its storage.
Now, we will be adding a route for file upload —
Note — This is the same /uploadFile route which we added to our HTML form while setting up the frontend
Adding the /uploadFile route to server.js
Line #23 in the above code is the line which reads the content from the text file and stores it in variable multerText
That’s it! You can use this variable which stores the actual contents of the text file and use it for further processing or store it in the database.
Next, let’s add validation for file MIME-type text- For this, we update the multer configuration with the following fileFilter code block that checks for a file’s MIME type (in our case — text)
const fileFilter = (req, file, cb) => {
if (file.mimetype == 'text/*') {
cb(null, true);
} else {
cb(null, false);
}
}
const upload = multer({
fileFilter,
storage
});
This is how our final code including backend validation for text file looks like —
server.js including backend validation for text file type.
To run this — we simply do a node server.js in our project directory and our app will be live on http://localhost:3000
Demo accepting a file and displaying result on UI
Coming to the next part of our tutorial, we will now modify the form and the backend route to accept a single file (.txt) along with other input fields.
So we modify our HTML form and add an input field name with type text.
HTML Form with an input field of type text along with the input type file
Form with both input field and a file upload option.
The backend change will just involve adding the req.body parameter to the result (line # 39) in the below snippet.
server.js passing the input field text as well.
Coming to the next part of our tutorial, we will now modify the form and the backend route to accept multiple text files in different input fields. (Something like the below screenshot)
Single form accepting two text files
We will modify the HTML form to include two input fields with different names myFile1 and myFile2.
Single HTML form with two input type of file.
Now at the backend, instead of accepting a single file in upload.single , we change it to upload.fields (line #29) and pass in an array with the same name attributes used in our HTML form.
Modification of server.js to include multiple files.
The last and the final part of our tutorial — we will now modify the form and the backend route to accept multiple text files along with an input field as well.
A form accepting two text files along with an input field.
Along with our two file buttons, we accept an input as well on line #13
HTML code accepting two text files along with an input field.
And at the backend, we pass the req.body.name also in the result.
server.js including two input files along with a text field.
3) Reference link for image upload with Multer
https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/file-upload-with-multer-in-node--cms-32088
That’s it!
Hope you find this article helpful and gained some knowledge about file uploads using Multer in Node.js.
Thank You! :) | https://medium.com/lucideus-engineering/file-uploads-with-multer-the-complete-guide-aefe5d2f6026 | ['Anant Patni'] | 2020-11-11 18:26:53.282000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Expressjs', 'Multer'] |
Introducing CloudCity Family’s! | CloudCity is a Cloud instance manager, currently building up a family of Apps (Applications) and Dapps (Decentralized Applications) securing the Web3 and removing barriers, simplifying your digital presence anywhere in the world, giving you an instant access to your assets.
CloudOne is a Natural Language Processing NLP Voice activation on the first protection layer
CloudID is a digital Fingerprint ID physically activated on the second protection layer
Both combined -> CloudOneID
From there, we have build a unique and secured digital ID to make it easier for everyone to connect to the Web3 and many applications or Software.
AURA
Your AURA of Protection
…To be continued
CloudCity (@CloudOneID) / Twitter | https://medium.com/@sirlupinwatson/introducing-cloudcity-familys-fc925757dfd3 | ['Armand Jr Brunelle'] | 2020-12-24 06:50:34.808000+00:00 | ['Web3', 'Security', 'Apps', 'Dapps', 'IoT'] |
When an Extrovert is Almost an Introvert (and Vice-Versa) | When an Extrovert is Almost an Introvert (and Vice-Versa)
There’s a name for that and an explanation for those confusing feelings you have
Photo by Allef Vinicius — Unsplash
You would think that taking a test, like Myers-Briggs, would give you all the answers you need about how you deal with the world. And while I’ve found that personality tests give you a fairly accurate insight into your modus operandi in day-to-day life, I’ve noticed that there is still a lot of wiggle room.
Whenever I take a personality test, my results normally show that I’m an extrovert. Anyone who knows me would agree with this. I even agree with it, most of the time.
My scoring shows that I make the grade to extrovert, but just barely. I’m always just one or two points across that magical line. I’ve also taken a personality test that had me just barely in the introvert category. I suspect I was feeling very “unpeopley” the day I took that test.
I love people. I have a lot of friends. I talk freely and easily with others. So, when I mention to someone that I’m shy, they usually laugh and give me that look. But I am actually shy most of the time. I just hide it well.
And I’m not alone. Many people score just slightly across the line from introvert to extrovert. We can be either/or depending on the situation.
Welcome to the ambivert club
According to Merriam-Webster, an ambivert is “a person having characteristics of both extrovert and introvert”.
Ambiverts fall in the middle of the spectrum between introvert and extrovert. It’s kind of the best of both worlds. We like our alone time but can shine in social situations just as easily. We can confidently step into a leadership role at work, or we can sit back and follow. We are happy being good team players or tackling a solo project. We can’t wait to get together with friends, or we are content to spend the weekend at home, binge-watching Breaking Bad.
Either/or. This or that. Ambiverts are the yin and yang of the social spectrum, and while that sounds ideal, being an ambivert isn’t always as sweet a deal as it sounds.
It’s a blessing and curse
Before I learned I was an ambivert, I felt confused about my reactions in certain situations. I am an extrovert. That should mean that I am “on” all the time. I should love talking to anyone who walks within earshot. I should be happy to strike up a conversation at a moment’s notice, right? Nope. Not one bit.
When I’m with friends, or in a situation I’m comfortable with, I’m on fire. I can converse like it’s my job. But take me even slightly out of my comfort zone, and I’m secretly looking for the exit. And I’ll smile while making a run for it.
I think a big part of the problem is that I smile all the time. If anyone looks at me, a big, cheesy grin breaks out across my face, and for most people, that’s an invitation to talk to me. And I don’t always know how to handle it.
There are the introvert moments
When I’m out in public, I don’t always want to talk to everyone I meet. The grocery store checkout line, for example. There’s always that chance you’ll end up with someone who really wants to chat. I scan the magazines or peruse the chocolate bars. So many choices. I look up. Crap. I have made the dreaded eye contact with the lady in front of me. My face defaults to smile mode.
Damn it, face. Stop that.
Too late. I’m soon listening to a stranger tell me things or asking me questions. I smile and respond, never betraying the fact that I really don’t want to have this conversation. I just want to squirrel my groceries out of the store like a ninja and go home.
Then there are the extrovert moments
I’m in a checkout line at the grocery store and someone (perhaps an introvert) is behind me checking out the magazine covers and chocolate bars. She seems nice. She looks up and we make eye contact. She smiles and I notice it’s a tad strained. I comment on the ice cream in her cart and let her know that, I too, like salted caramel. We chat a bit. I leave the store and happily trot off to my car, my current need for human contact fulfilled.
Are you feeling somewhere in the middle?
Did you take a personality test and not quite feel like the test results rang true for you? If so, you are actually in the majority.
According to Ronald E Riggio Ph.D. in Psychology Today, “about two-thirds of people are in the middle, and can be classified as ambiverts.”
So, the next time you find your introverted self happily striking up a conversation with a stranger in a waiting room, or your extroverted self bailing on a party long before it’s over in favor of reading a book in bed, know that you’re not alone.
You’re just doing what ambiverts do best. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/when-an-extrovert-is-almost-an-introvert-and-vice-versa-63d7bed304a8 | ['Sandy Bishop'] | 2019-11-05 17:07:05.565000+00:00 | ['Extrovert', 'Psychology', 'Introvert', 'Ambivert', 'Self'] |
“Learning about mental health in Community” | Learning about mental health in Community
What does a classroom full of mental health professionals and clergy have in common?They gathered on the upper west side of Manhattan to study religious passages that reference mental health. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five adults in the U.S. experiences a mental illness and 99% of adults have a love one affected by mental illness.
The classroom is not only clinical or educational in nature. It is unique because it integrates human interests, clinical ideas, and theology. The learning, sponsored by Drisha Institute, took place in a communal setting which is rare since most mental health conversations occur in a therapist’s private office, if at all. Learning about mental health in group settings combined with religious ideals helps to defy stigma. This type of communal conversation affirms that a whole person consists of mind, body, and spirit. We cannot refer to a person only by an illness when people are much more. Even so, the brain controls much of the body and spirit, so why not discuss the mind more openly?
The class consisted of approximately 20 students ages 30-70 gathered around wooden tables, nibbling on fruit and cookies, with lots of handouts in Hebrew Aramaic, and English spread across the table. Topics focused on illness, despair, and disabilities. For six weeks, we considered what the texts meant then and now? The texts were relevant thousands of years ago as well as today.
The main points of the class were: (1) even clergy and civic leaders experience depression. (2) When people visit those who are sick, it can lift one’s spirits. (3) A variety of objects can be used in healing ceremonies such as prayer, candles, and water rituals. Many ancient trends parallel today.
We learned about transforming despair to joy and exercising caution in the process. There was distinction between family dysfunction and mental illness. For example, Joseph’s brothers threw him into a pit and Joseph had to cultivate a new identity. He coped by capitalizing on his dream interpretation skills. Dysfunctional families may carry on for generations where as brain chemistry can be treated and stabilized with medication and therapy. It may take work but it is possible. However when greed and manipulation dominate family relations, havoc breeds unececcary suffering takes place.
A genetic inheritance of mental illness does not mean doom. With proper medication, therapy, compassionate communities and support systems, people with mental illness live regular lives. The Torah or Old Testament outlines +600 guidelines for how to live — from business ethics, to martial relations, to food, and more. Religious guidelines do not save all but they do provide a robust infrastructure for life.
Support systems ideally consist of many factors: family, friends, community, clergy, clinical professionals, prayer, exposure to nature, art, and a higher purpose. Life is not a one size fits all. For example, once there was a joyful wedding and the guests danced with glee. One individual remained outside the dance circle. The question arose: should we pull them in? It seemed like a nice thing to do, to encourage them to be happy. But what if the person is feeling too depressed to join in? We do not know what others are feeling. Life is complex and nuanced so we exercise caution (Lekutei Moharan).
If a life is in danger, we take action to save lives. American trends and Judaism both say, in an emergency, call a hotline, a doctor, 911, inquire about weapons and medication. Call a trained clinician/social worker. Family and police may not be trained as clinicians are to de-escalate, secure shelter, food, avoid toxic substances and assess. Some of these factors may go unnoticed to the untrained eye. Love propels us to keep trying even when the path is full of resistance.
Scripture suggests that everyone has equal access to healing, to clergy, and to receiving uplifting visitors. But disparities abound. Money or community status make it easier to secure quality care.
The texts reveal that each person can be afflicted and a healer. Each person who lies in a “dark room” benefits from a trusted visitor. Help may include visiting the sick at their home, asking about their despair, and listening deeply (Berakhot 5b: 10–16). The human condition is constantly evolving. Healers become ill, and the ill become healers. Human suffering is vast. The best we can do is shape our communities so that the practice of aiding one another in times of darkness is acceptable and common place.
Thank you to Dr. Devora Steinmetz who started this mental health study group in 2013. I am grateful for this class and for the opportunity to teach classes at schools, shuls, women’s gatherings, Chullent gatherings, and more.
Whether you are a hospital chaplain assisting patients, a loved one who is tirelessly helping your family, or a concerned community member; understanding mental health propels us to a richer society. | https://medium.com/@aviva-26067/learning-about-mental-health-in-community-1669354b3cbe | ['Aviva Perlo', 'Creative Coping'] | 2021-03-05 02:53:03.754000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Jewish', 'Mental Illness', 'Learning', 'Medicine'] |
Rearchitecting Following an Acquisition Doesn’t Start Where You Think | Merging separate software products into one is a challenging task. Each product comes with its own functionality, terminology and technology stack. So why do it? The reasons can vary of course. Your company’s business might need a shift in direction, the technology domain of your business might have gone through a disruption, or it could result from your company acquiring another.
With one product I work on, we recently reached the realization that we wanted to change our architecture and further simplify it for our users. The way we wanted to achieve this is by merging its independent platform into the company’s main suite of products, thereby creating a much tighter and seamless integration.
In this blog, I will share this process and my role in it, as lead architect.
Defining Our Goals
The main motivation for our new architecture is wanting to create a simpler more holistic user experience across our company’s products. Our product was capable of running as a standalone, without being part of the full suite ecosystem, but that capability wasn’t preferred by most of our customers. Through this paradigm change, we wanted to simplify the user experience, by simplifying our product and making it easier and more productive to use.
Let’s take a look at how we started approaching this.
Collecting Knowledge and Defining Our Assumptions
First of all, we got excited! It’s an interesting part of a product’s lifecycle.
We knew why we wanted to make this change, we knew what we wanted to achieve, so then it came down to the hard part of deciding how we were going to execute it.
To my surprise, understanding the “how” required me to do much more than building an architecture, designing the components, and writing code. I needed to work closely with my product managers, product owners, the product R&D managers, and the teams software architects.
First we reevaluated our product and tried to answer these questions:
What is the added value we provide to our users? How do we think our users use our product?
The first question helped us to identify the functional capabilities that are most important to our users. For example, a strong authentication of applications in Kubernetes is an important functional capability of our product. On the other hand, auto failover, while being an important feature, is just an implementation detail. The user has a non-functional requirement of high availability but doesn’t really care how it’s achieved.
The second question helped us to organize and prepare our assumptions about how the product is being used. We wanted to validate which features are most important to the majority of our users, so we would be able to focus on them at the start, and bring maximum value immediately. In addition, we reevaluated the different personas that use our product, and analyzed their workflows.
In our case, our main personas are developers, DevOps engineers/site reliability engineers (SREs), and security administrators. Each persona has different expectations in terms of functionality and user experience. This approach made us think about all the aspects of the product, from installation to configuration, ongoing management, using the product in development, test, and production.
Validating Our Assumptions
Lead by the product manager and product owner, we defined the main use cases that the product must support. Once we had this, we were able to move to the next step of validation.
To validate our assumptions, we talked with our sales engineers, professional services, and of course, our customers. Each gave a very different angle: sales engineers focused on features that would help sell the product. Professional services focused on simplicity, availability and maintainability of the product. Most importantly, the customers are the ones the product is for, so any information we got from them was priceless.
Reducing Risk, Creating Clarity
In parallel to this validation process, I was working on developing an initial prototype of the new product. The goal of this prototype was to create, as fast as possible, a piece of software that implemented an end to end flow. This is done in order to flush out any technical concerns and to reduce risks. The code doesn’t have to be polished. Actually, if it helps for a faster delivery, it’s legitimate to throw this code away later and not use any of it in the actual product.
In my case, our new product would use the company’s main suite as its backend. To save time, I used the existing APIs and reused existing entities that the backend suite already supported, even though I knew that for our actual future product, we’d develop new, dedicated APIs and entities. This allowed me to focus more on the business logic of my product (instead of the backend suite that is owned by a different group) and reach a working end-to-end faster.
This task really proved itself useful. In about two weeks of work, this prototype surfaced about 14 insights. For example, I realized that our current product relies on a few manual steps, when bootstrapping it for the first time. While this approach works well for our existing workflow, the new workflow will need to have this process automated and simplified. The fact that I had to reach a working end-to-end, “forced” me to encounter this limitation, be aware of it, and consider it when building a plan and designing the future solution.
Defining a Scope and Creating a Plan
After we analyzed the technical gaps and collected all the information we could, we sat down to create a scoped plan. When creating a plan, it’s very important to keep it lean. We want to build a lean end-to-end and constantly expand the functionality of our product. As soon as an end-to-end exists, we can share it either internally with our field, or externally with select customers, to get feedback. This feedback helps us to refocus, adjust and align towards a better outcome. This way we create a constant feedback loop: plan, build, ship, collect feedback, adjust and start again from the top.
Merging products is not easy and requires a lot of planning to get right. For us, this included: 1. defining our goals 2. collecting and organizing our knowledge and assumptions 3. validating our assumptions with other roles 4. allowing us to reduce uncertainty and risks 5. creating an actionable plan that involved validation points throughout the process.
Now the next step on my to do list is the most fun part of all: building the architecture and starting to code. I will share more about that part of the process in my next post. | https://medium.com/cyberark-engineering/rearchitecting-following-an-acquisition-doesnt-start-where-you-think-f2bfe7fd625f | ['Rafi Schwarz'] | 2020-04-16 15:26:59.132000+00:00 | ['Redesign', 'Aquisition', 'Software Architecture', 'Business Analysis'] |
“Do not go gentle into that good night…” | And maybe don’t go alone…
I’ve been thinking hard about how people can cope during this time of overlapping crises, because even though I’m not that old, and my country’s not that old, I have Dylan Thomas’s poem constantly in mind:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night. … Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
It just doesn’t feel like “morning in America” these days, my friends. The government has gotten small and backward and secretive; the people don’t know what truth is anymore; systems of justice are suspect and economies are revealed to be crumbling; progress we thought was real is an illusion-
You know what?— I think they’re trying to cancel the Enlightenment!
Remember how the Enlightenment brought us science? Well, some people want to give it right back.
We now have an elected president who does not believe in science or know what it is, really. Medical scientists, climate scientists, nuclear scientists are all trying to help us… but our president rejects and resists…people die.
Remember the Enlightenment appreciation of freedom of thought and knowledge? Those are being canceled, too. For example, the 1619 Project is an body of research and discourse that seeks to lift up date the first Africans were brought to this continent by slave traders and count US history from that date, rather than the schoolchild 1776 date. The Project places “the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”
You can argue the premise all you want. But the Trump administration wants to dictate curriculum by withholding federal funds to places that teach the 1619 Project.
Please lock up the library if you’re the last one out…
Women’s rights to full autonomy over their persons have never been fully secured and threats are being redoubled; people of color and immigrants and refugees and poor folk and the differently abled or non-binary of gender will likewise find recent, tentative signs of recognition of their personhood slowly or quickly evaporating in the public realm…
Ah, we’ve been in the dark before, haven’t we?
And this is all taking place against the looming backdrop of the war machine that we keep building larger and larger, year in and year out —
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2020/militarized-budget-2020/
to the tune of about $800 billion dollars in 2019, or about two-thirds or all our discretionary spending — without even having to declare there is a “war” going on. (But THAT’S not in the news, is it?)
(Somebody in the back is asking: “Ah, now, Sparky, are you going to bring us all the way down?” No. But this is why we can’t have nice things!)
And it makes me angry when I realize we might just be in for a dark, dangerous time ahead. And–
Death is not the only darkness to be afraid of.
Dylan Thomas may have been talking about death and dying, but he could also have been talking about any of the places where we lose ourselves; our freedom; our car keys — yes, I mean that — our autonomy and our sense of agency (even though soon enough we’ll all be wishing we had stayed on foot…).
But I’m a wannabe Jesus follower, so I when Dylan Thomas was getting me too riled up, I turned to the Sermon on the Mountain in Matthew’s Gospel, sometimes piously known as the “Beatitudes” because it’s traditionally translated as beatifications–blessings. And I impatiently read all this calming talk from Jesus, starting at about Matthew 5:5: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.“
The “meek” — more recently better translated as “gentle.” Well, I’m not feeling too awfully gentle these days. And for all my bravado, now I’m worried about getting demerits from my chosen spiritual role models.
(PSST… Am I going to get in trouble with Jesus?)
Photo by Henrikke Due on Unsplash
So I have to ask: What would Jesus say? And the answer is that I don’t know. Actually, no one really knows what Jesus would say, because, apart from their faith convictions, no one really knows exactly what Jesus did say.
I went back to some experts on Jesus: namely, the fellows of the Jesus Seminar and their controversial, highly readable volume, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. And I look up what the fellows decided about that passage, “blessed are the gentle.”
Here’s the scholars’ translation of part of that Sermon the Mount:
Congratulations to the poor in spirit:
Heaven’s domain belongs to them.
Congratulations to those who grieve!
They will be consoled.
Congratulations to the gentle!
They will inherit the earth.
Congratulations to those who hunger and thirst for justice! They will have a feast.
And there it is, darn it. “Congratulations” if I’m gentle.
But then I discovered — hah! According to the Fellows, Jesus probably never said that. He might have said the other, more unexpected sayings — “Congratulations to the poor in spirit,” for example — what does that even mean? Jesus was sometimes rude; let’s admit it. And when you trace the likely authentic sayings, you find a Jesus who came, not just to sit back, but to make what John Lewis would later call “good trouble”
So I’m not going to go gentle. They think they can cancel the whole Enlightenment?
Oh, no. Not while there are still a few of us out there who heed the poet:
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
I’m no man, but Thomas was a twentieth-century barbarian child, so I’ll pretend he includes me in his dumb generic (nobody knew any better then).
Or maybe, knowing that none of us did enough to prevent these current crises, we will all cry out this way:
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
So I’ll not go gentle
But how to proceed? Violence won’t work; I’m unarmed, unless you count a pretty good vocabulary of swear words (I am trying to rein that in). But I looked again to the east: this time, 1900 years after Jesus started his liberation movement, Gandhi led the people of India to throw off British rule using the power of satyagraha, holding onto truth; a particular form of nonviolent resistance.
So if I want to fight this premature nightfall, I will have to accept the discipline to resist injustice — sign me up! — but also to resist my own anger. That’s more difficult, to be candid. But at least I don’t have to be gentle about it. I can just be myself.
I just about have this figured out, and it is not as complicated as people might think, once you get off Fakebook and turn off the television. But then I must also be willing to risk loss and suffering.
Here are the rules of satyagraha, written for a neurotic, slightly selfish, unsubtle, hasty and anxious person who’d like to meet this darkening sky with a sense of agency:
Satyagraha is not violent resistance. I am not allowed to punch people in the neck when they try to take away my rights. (Rats.) I am also not allowed to vilify them and fuel my own anger against them. But I AM allowed — required, actually — to resist the lies and stand for truth, even if it means giving up my prestigious corporate sponsor and alienating my family.*
*(I’m just kidding of course. There is no corporate sponsor, and my family doesn’t pay any attention to my shenanigans any more.
But if I follow those rules, I can help keep the lights of civilization burning by my loud and frequent insistence on truth:
Jesus said, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” I think we need to get started on that, before he gets back.
So that’s going to be me, not going gentle into that good night.
Because I don’t wanna be a wanna be–
and I’d rather be a has-been than a never-was.
So I will not go gentle if they try take away the light.
And I don’t think I’ll get in trouble with Jesus, either. | https://medium.com/notes-on-the-way-up/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night-99dc5c58b6e1 | ['Rev Dr Sparky'] | 2020-10-09 01:45:38.014000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Spirituality', 'Racism', 'Jesus', 'Peace'] |
Top Angular Developers in India | Angular is a structural framework used to craft dynamic web apps. Being developed and maintained by Google, Angular addresses the issues faced during the development and testing of single-page applications.
Though it is easy to use and simple to apply, the result is a fully-functional, reliable, and secure application. Businesses ranging from startups to large enterprises sought after the top Angular Development Companies in India to meet their needs.
So, here I have compiled a list of companies that stand exceptionally well on customer satisfaction and other industry standards.
List of Top Angular Development Companies in India
Rank#1 Datamatics is a renowned digital agency that delivers near-to-real experiences using the most advanced technologies.
Rank#2 Get limitless business opportunities with angular app development services from Contus. They have a complete digital transformation package.
Rank#3 Begin your digital journey with the help of Wildnet technologies. Because all that matters is that you begin.
Rank#4 By combining futuristic technologies and digital transformation, eTatvasoft delivers the latest digital services for your business.
Rank#5 Be a part of the digital revolution of this era by collaborating with SoftProdigy. They have a proficient team that provides angular development services.
Rank#6 Toxsl is on a mission to empower their clients with state-of-the-art technologies and intelligent solutions.
Rank#7 Now grow your business by triggering your imagination with the help from IT experts at Trigma.
Rank#8 Robosoft Technologies wants to create a positive impact in people’s lives by delivering a delightful digital experience.
Rank#9 Emorphis offers world-class AngularJS development solutions that can automate the business processes and resolve the technical challenges. And you can get all of these within your budget.
Rank#10 Now write your business success with digital products crafted by Depex Technologies.
Rank#11 Appsierra has top-notch talent in the world. All of them are rigorously evaluated and handpicked to serve you with high-end Angular development services.
Rank#12 Delaplex helps you supercharge your digital transformation using Angular development services.
Rank#13 Dew Solutions provides you with modern digital solutions to scale-up your business.
Rank#14 Tejora empowers the world’s top financial institutions and companies with digital transformation.
Rank#15 Centizen has a reputation for solving complex IT challenges for both project and staffing purposes.
Rank#16 Web Guru is a premier full-service web development agency that can fulfil your digital requirements by offering website development, mobile app development and digital marketing services.
Rank#17 If you want the world’s ace service providers in Angular brand technology then Techversant Infotech will be the perfect pick for you.
Rank#18 The Nine Hertz is an award-winning app development company that offers best-in-class web and mobile solutions.
Rank#19 Now you can get amazing custom-built digital products that yield great results just at Enterpi.
Rank#20 If you want to re-engineer your business then the custom enterprise solutions provided by Dean Infotech can help you with it.
If you are interested to know more about these companies then let us dive into their details.
Top Angular Developers in India
Datamatics is an Angular development company that builds intelligent solutions. Being helpful for data-driven businesses, they help by enhancing customer experience and increasing work productivity.
With their offices in 6 countries, Datamatics serves more than 200 clients from all across the world. The company generates 170 million dollars as annual revenue. It is an organisation well known around the world as a consistent supplier of business value to its clients.
The smart solutions offered by Datamatics are powered with the latest technologies such as Robotics, Artificial intelligence, Cloud, Mobility, Advanced analytics, etc. These solutions help businesses with digital transformation.
The Angular development services are provided to deliver solutions for:
Technology
Business process management
Engineering services
Consulting and advisory
Big data and analytics
Some of the most successful solutions of them are as discussed below:
TruBot: It is a Robotic Process Automation tool. It was built to enhance the productivity and efficiency of large enterprises. TruBot is an enterprise-grade and multiskilled bot which is programmed to operate repetitive business processes.
TruCap+: It is an intelligent data processing unit powered by fuzzy logic and artificial intelligence. This solution helps businesses to capture data from various unstructured documents with over 90% accuracy.
TruFare: Datamatics is one of the leading companies that provides Automated fare collection solution. Cutting-edge technologies are used to offer seamless micro and contactless payment operations.
Other successful products from Datamatics are TruTest, TruBI, TruAI, iPM, and TradeFinance. They also offer smart digital solutions for Cloud, enterprise content management and digital experiences. This enables their clients to scale-up their businesses.
The Angular developers here have rich experience in serving businesses from several industry domains like banking and financial services, healthcare, insurance, travel and hospitality, market research, retail and e-commerce, transportation, manufacturing and logistics, education technology, and international organisations.
Development Services:
Application Management
Cloud
Digital Experience
AI & Cognitive Sciences
Digital Testing
Enterprise Portals
Enterprise Content Management
Hyper Automation Services
Professional Services
Business Process Management
Engineering Services
Consulting & Advisory
Big Data & Analytics
Minimum Project Size: $25,000+
Hourly Rates: $50 — $99 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, Python, Java, PHP, .NET, C#, Android, iOS, React Native, Ionic, Flutter, Xamarin
Major Clientele: Jda, Honeywell, Petrofac, Envestnet Yodlee, Schneider Electric, FXtrade, Avista Corp, US Healthworks, E4S, Novatel Wireless, Auchan, Winged keel Group, nOCD. Brands: Payback, Flipkart, Hike, Erosnow, Lacoste, Redbox, Ola, Tanishq, Carzonrent. Startups: Assembla, Helpchat, Pipeline deals, Phonepe, Ather Energy, Dailyhunt, Troo, Sapphire Automation, Hike ezee, Helix Opportunities.
Number of Employees: 10,001+ Employees
The Establishment: 2000
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/datamatics/
Location: Kalyani Neptune, Krishnaraju Layout, Amalodbhavi Nagar, Panduranga Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560076
Clutch Review: 4.7/5 from 12 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.2/5 from 218 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Contus started its journey in 2008 as a web development company. There were only two people in the team when they signed their first customer. After surviving a global slowdown, Contus launched a standalone video that hit 1 million downloads.
In 2010 the company obtained its break-even point and started gaining profitability. By that time, there were more than 80 professionals in the business team. In the same year, the company expanded in terms of space and strengths. They also notified their global presence by opening offices in the USA and the Middle East.
In 2011, Contus launched apptha.com and started an IoT smart city project. Between 2012 to 2017, the company increased its clients base to 100000. They also ventured into the fields like cloud, AI and ML.
At the same time, it became an Angular web development company. They also launched many successful products like Contalog- the first enterprise-level SaaP product and an IoT based industrial application.
The company has also won many recognitions and awards like:
Top 10 SME Heroes awards (Google and FICCI)
e-Sparks Top e-commerce in India
100 Finalist red herring in Asia
The core culture that is lived by the people at Contus is based on the following values:
Bring your passion for every day.
Learn together.
Open culture, no politics.
Commit risks.
Make it 20x times.
Internet of things, unified enterprise communication, multi-device OTT media distribution, Omni device connectivity management, CI/CD HA and agile delivery, robotic process automation, full-stack digital product engineering, cloud strategy and migration, enterprise DevOps engineering, telehealth, and many more are offered as end-to-end digital engineering services by Contus.
Development Services:
Front End
Back End
Database
UI/UX
Automation
Connected Vehicles
TeleHealth
DevOps, CICD & Cloud
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Hourly Rates: $25 — $49 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, React, Bootstrap, Ember.js, jQurey, Laravel, Django, PHP, Python, Java, Lumen, Spring
Major Clientele: VALRT, Dr Reddy, Sportscorner, Learning Space, Landsdowne Pub, Health Sensei, BookingLettings, KNPL, Hazrati, Cbazaar, Shoemuch, Sparespace, Thangamayil, Togo, Trobone, Romafar, Wow Homemade, Zaamor, Mahindra
Number of Employees: 201–500 Employees
The Establishment: 2008
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/contus/
Location: Kamak Towers, №12 A, SP) 6th floor, South Phase, SIDCO Industrial Estate, Guindy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600032
Clutch Review: 4.9/5 from 12 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.0/5 from 235 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Established in 2006, Wildnet Technologies started by offering digital marketing services. But now it has become an award-winning IT software solution engineering company. Its world-class software solutions are served to businesses all across the globe.
The company has 300+ experts from various fields such as web development, cloud services, mobility, ERP/CRM, content management, etc. Additionally, they have 100+ digital marketing and PPC experts. All of these combined serve businesses with refined processes of digital transformation.
Wildnet Technologies wants to be an example of radical honesty to their clients before, during and after the entire project duration. Following the best industry practices and leveraging the latest technologies, this angular js development company ensures the success of your project at the global level.
The company empowers huge enterprises and scales up startups. Their team of professionals has successfully handled more than 660 projects of the clients from various industrial sectors like health and fitness, financial services, e-commerce, manufacturing, education and media.
Being one of the top angular js app development companies in India, Wildnet Technologies offers expert services for:
Mobility
App development
UI/UX
Enterprise solutions
Cloud
Digital marketing
In the past decade, by serving hundreds of clients across the globe, Wildnet Technologies have made some breakthroughs. These are also claimed as the reason to choose this company over other firms as your technology partner. The claims are as follow:
Assisting more than 400 clients with strategizing and implementing the solutions.
Expert team for web app development, mobile app development, software engineering, cloud, PPC, digital marketing, Salesforce and CMS.
Specialization in existing as well as futuristic technologies.
Crafting out-of-the-box applications and solutions.
Development Services:
UI/UX
Testing
Software Consulting
Emerging Technologies
Mobile Application Development
Digital Marketing
Web App Development
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Hourly Rates: < $25 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, React, Bootstrap, Ember.js, jQuery, Laravel, Django, PHP, Python, Java, Lumen, Spring
Major Clientele: HCL, Discovery, Apollo Hospital, Virgin Mobiles, Eureka Forbes, Buniyaad Real Estate, Itau Bank
Number of Employees: 201–500 Employees
The Establishment: 2006
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wildnet-technologies/
Location: A-30, Lohia Rd, A Block, Sector 63, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301
Clutch Review: 4.8/5 from 16 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 3.8/5 from 165 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
The role of application is widening as their utility is pervading multiple aspects of our day to day lives. And it’s not just the latest fad, it’s the future of how we are going to guide and grow a business.
As a result, our next AngularJS development company in India by default keeps on chasing the new trends to stay ahead of the curve. Now being a recognized web, eCommerce, and mobile app development company, eTatvaSoft offers a comprehensive suite of value-added IT services that sets them apart in terms of quality, performance, and value.
Here they have a team of experts who are going all guns to make a mark especially when it comes to working on various technical and open source projects like development of modern web applications using technologies like AngularJS, Node, PHP, React js, Laravel, WordPress front-end design, mobile apps, CMS, eCommerce, CRM and enterprise web applications.
The team of skilled AngularJS developers completely understand how the latest technology has revolutionized the way companies conduct their business ventures. Henceforth, they offer solutions that help brands understand themselves, establish leadership nationally as well as internationally.
After all, when a company makes its foray into the market, its success is pivoted on how remarkably it stands out among its competitors.
They offer these AngularJS development services in India but are not limited to:
React Web Development
React UI Development
Migration
Enterprise Web Development
React Front-end development
React Custom Web Development
Overall, the company has gone to a great deal of effort to make its services as convenient as possible. With state-of-the-art facilities and high-tech IT infrastructure, we endeavour hard to offer an impressive level of success. Though they are based in India, they do cater clients across the globe, i.e. USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Europe and the Middle East.
Development Services:
Web Development
Mobile App Development
Mobile App Design
eCommerce Development
Website Design & UI/UX
Dedicated Staffing
Minimum project size: Undisclosed
Hourly Rates: $18 — $25 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, Vuejs, Nodejs, Reactjs, React Native, PHP, Drupal, Laravel, Django, .NET, iOS, Android, iOS, Flutter, React Native, Xamarian, PWA, Magento, WooCommerce, Symfony, Express, Flask, WordPress, Joomla, Ionic, Zend, CodeIgniter, Yii
Major Clientele: Adirondack Chair, Rockchik, Strebeluhren, Sneakmart, Ground Booking, Abroadly, Palladium, Capture the Crawl, WaWan Pro, Willsgroup, Hubdin, Contra o Cancer, Almazroui Medical Center
Number of Employees: 100–200 Employees
The Establishment: 2001
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/etatvasoftindia/
Location: 2nd Floor, TatvaSoft House, Rajpath Club Road, Near Shivalik Business Center, Ahmedabad — 380054, Gujarat, India
Clutch Review: Not Available
Google Review: 4.3/5 from 16 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
If you are new to digital business and still grabbing the idea of it, then SoftProdigy can help you make the most out of the digital market. They have a large bench of experts and talented developers that are experienced in various technology frameworks.
So, no matter your problem, SoftProdigy is always there to serve you with best-in-class digital solutions. The awards and recognitions received by the company are as follows:
Top 1000 companies Clutch global 2020
Top mobile apps development companies by IT firms
Top social media marketing agencies in India by The Manifest
Top mobile apps development companies by Appfutura
Top mobile apps development companies Clutch India 2020
For you to stay competitive in this fast-growing market, SoftProdigy delivers the product and solution with the quickest time-to-market. Their significantly less turnaround time is responsible for this. From launching to branding, every aspect of your online business is taken care of.
SoftProdigy claims that their services result in enhanced end-user experience and increased revenues for your business. The core values incorporated into the company culture are as given below:
Trust
Integrity
Customer delight
Timely delivery
Quality consciousness
Apart from Angular app development services, the professionals at the company also specialise and offer solutions using other technology frameworks such as NodeJS, Magento, Microsoft.Net, Laravel, React, Xamarin, Shopify, Webpack, .NET Core, Blockchain, blazer, Express, Kotlin, CoffeeScript, Django, Python, Flutter, and Swift.
Some of the popular products developed by SoftProdigy are:
GAC Beauty: Gift management system developed with the help of Shopify. It helps you send thoughtful gifts to friends, family and loved ones.
Xrenty: An unconventional app that allows you to rent vehicles ranging from bicycle to aircraft.
Solidcore: It’s an app that offers fitness classes and workshops.
DC school hub: It allows you to search nearby schools. It has features like messaging, blogs and online lessons.
Notequest: Now you can take your piano lesson on your mobile with the help of this app.
Development Services:
Web Development
Mobile App Development
Digital Marketing
eCommerce Development
Blockchain Development
Custom App Development
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Hourly Rates: < $25 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, Node.js, React, Express, Magento, .NET, Laravel, Xamarin, Shopify, Kotlin, CoffeeScript, Django, Python, Flutter, Swift
Major Clientele: Deloitte, Everard Findlay, HUL, Tech Mahindra, Persistent, Advanta, Country Wide Process, Luxury VIP Suites
Number of Employees: 201–500 Employees
The Establishment: 2006
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/softprodigy/
Location: IT C2, 3rd Floor, Dibon Building, Sector 67, Mohali IT Park, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, Punjab 160062
Clutch Review: 4.8/5 from 27 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.3/5 from 140 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Another interesting ISO: 9001:2015 certified angularjs company India that primarily focuses on mobile and web development.
Right from Angular Web Application Development to Multimedia Applications, Creative Web Development, Industrial Trainings, iPhone Application Development, Graphics UI Design, IoT Applications, Android Applications, AOSP ROM Development, Automation, ERP, AI Applications, and Python they offer it all!
Creating an AngularJS App is no easy task, it requires a team of skilled and well-experienced AngularJS developers who are ready to deliver nothing less than an astonishing client-side experience. Also, the technology serves as a new age framework assisting professionals while confronting their pain points especially in the data management and content maintenance aspects of the website development. Toxsl Technologies is one of the top Angular development companies in India that offers such services:
Lightweight Code Based
Code Reusability
Interactive Interface Design
Easy Learning Curve
Excellent Component Support
Over these years, they have succeeded in becoming a trusted choice for their end clients when it comes to developing advanced Angular JS based applications. Get in touch and you are guaranteed to find a broad spectrum of AngularJS web and mobile app development services that are best suited for startups as well as established enterprises. Also, they do excel in delivering world-class Angular development services which have eventually made them globally renowned for offering best-fit technology solutions to our clients.
Do you think they are limited to angular js technology?
Probably not!
ToXSL offers a great atmosphere where you can grow and work with a skilled team of professionals. The company enables individual growth and ensures that employees can continue to expand professionally. In the end, you are bound to get :
Customized solutions
Save time and money
Skilled Developers
24/7 support
This is not it! Now let us know more about their services, establishments, clientele, locations, employee strength, etc.
Development Services:
Automation Testing
IoT Application Services
Mobile App Development Services
Web Design Services
Web Development Services
Web Development Frameworks
Digital Marketing Services
ERP Software Development
Minimum Project Size: $10,000+
Hourly Rates: $25 — $49 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular.js, Node.js, React.js, Magento, WordPress, ECommerce, Python, Django, Drupal, Java, Spring Boot, Ruby On Rails, PHP, Laravel, CakePHP, Yii/Yii2, Swift, Objective-C, Kotlin, Flutter, React Native
Major Clientele: HDFC Bank, Unilever, Punjab Police, Samsung, Packet video, HCL, Ecosys, Share4fun, YumCrust, Kaya Health, RideGo, Motion Grafic, Frisco-County, Ekirana
Number of employees: 201–500 Employees
The Establishment: 2012
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/toxsltech/
Location: 2nd Floor, C-127, Phase 8, Industrial Area, Sector 73, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, Punjab 160071
Clutch Review: 4.8/5 from 10 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.7/5 from 995 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Trigma is one of the leading digital technology services and consulting companies. They have clients across 16 countries of the world. The company creates and executes the digital transformation strategy to accelerate its client’s business growth.
The company officials consistently deliver value to their customers. Still, they keep pushing themselves to set the benchmark of quality for their competitors. With 5 global locations and a team of more than 250 professionals, Trigma offers end-to-end angular js web development services.
Trigma believes that imagination is triggered through happy minds. They deliver the simplest possible solution for complex problems and challenges. The company has also adopted the approach of expanding the possibilities of a better tomorrow.
Being a part of the passionate and technology enthusiast community, the sole purpose of Trigma is to revolutionize design, development and delivery of digital products. Experts here think disruptively to help their clients succeed.
People at Trigma believe that cross-sector thinking can inspire true discovery. They also know that the smartest people can fuel innovation. So, they connect talented people with smart businesses to help them thrive in the face of hurdles.
The angular developers here understand the challenges of the clients. Because they work alongside their customers in every phase of product development. This has given them a first-hand experience. Using their unique perspective and industry knowledge, experts at Trigma deliver innovative and effective software solutions.
The process that helps the people at Trigma trigger the innovation and convert it into business success is as stated below:
Idea management Highly fidelity wireframes Technology stacks Competition analysis Execution plan
The company has adopted a motto that keeps its professionals striving hard in the industry. And that motto is:
“ALWAYS INVENTING, ALWAYS DELIVERING”.
Development Services:
Backend Engineering
Front End Engineering
Mobility
DevOps
Testing
CMS
Digital-marketing
Branding
Cloud
Design
Custom-software
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Hourly Rates: $25 — $49 / hr
Tech Stack: Java, Grails, Spring, MongoDB, MySQL, Node JS, MEAN, SQL Server 2008, Casandra, HTML 5, CSS 3, Bootstrap, Polymer, Angular JS, React JS, ReactNative, Python, ROR, TypeScript, Scala, iOS, Android
Major Clientele: Samsung, Abott, Whirlpool, Shell, Disney, British Council, Hero Moto Corp, Panasonic, Expert Rating, Government of India, Micromax
Number of Employees: 201–500 Employees
The Establishment: 2008
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trigma/
Location: Plot no 228, Sector 82, JLPL Industrial Area, Manali, Punjab 140308
Clutch Review: 5.0/5 from 36 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.1/5 from 73 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Robosoft Technology is another interesting name to keep in mind while looking for top angular development companies in India. Other than this, it is a full-service digital experience agency offering digital advisory, design strategy, UX/UI services, application development & maintenance and expertise in emerging technologies such as AR, Blockchain, chatbots and so more.
It may quite interest you to know that the company was established in 1996 with Apple as their first client, working with them on the MAC platform. And since 2008, they have designed and developed over 1,800 mobile apps and digital products across platforms and devices including mobile, web and wearables.
After providing extraordinary services for clients like McDonald’s India, NDTV, athenahealth, Disney, Viacom18, ESPN, HP, AKQA, Paytm, YES Bank and more. Robosoft Technology has been voted as ‘Mobile App Development Company of the Year’ at the Amazon Mobility Awards, our other prestigious awards include Top Wearable App Developers, Best UX Design Agency 2019, ‘Products, Upgrades, and Innovation of the Year’ at CEO World Awards, Best of App Store, Apple Design Award, BAFTA, Stevie Gold Winner at American Business Awards to name a few.
With an ultimate objective to make a difference among the end-users to simplify the way they live, work and play, professionals here craft the right digital strategy, transforming that into an intuitive user experience and bringing it all alive through robust engineering and cutting-edge technology. Their service range includes Digital Advisory, UX/UI, Design Strategy, Wearables, Emerging Technologies, Design Thinking, Blockchain, and Application Development & Maintenance.
What core values do they have?
Passion — Professionals whether they are designers or AngularJS developers, testers, always keep on looking for new, better solutions to challenging problems. Instead of putting hours to get work done, they do take meaningful risks to deliver results.
— Professionals whether they are designers or AngularJS developers, testers, always keep on looking for new, better solutions to challenging problems. Instead of putting hours to get work done, they do take meaningful risks to deliver results. Empathy — Being designers, they tend to be empathetic to end-users needs.
— Being designers, they tend to be empathetic to end-users needs. Innovation — Inventing the next big thing is not the only definition of ‘innovation’. At Robosoft, they encourage the inquisitive mind to seek solutions to every little problem life has to offer.
Development Services:
Application Development & Maintenance
Emerging Technologies
Digital Advisory
UX/UI
Design Strategy
Design Thinking
Wearables
Blockchain
Minimum Project Size: $50,000+
Hourly Rates: $50 — $99 / hr
Tech Stack: NodeJS, Angular, ReactJS, Android, iOS, Swift, React Native, Ionic, Java, Laravel, PHP, .Net, Python,
Major Clientele: Walmart, Target, JCPenney, Victoria’s Secret, Lowe’s, McDonald’s India, Daimler Benz, Snapdeal, Paytm, Discovery, ESPN, Disney, Viacom, Sony, National Geographic, Warner Bros, LEGO, Nestle, HP, Logitech, WWF, AARP, Athenahealth, YES Bank, BSI group
Number of employees: 501–1,000 Employees
The Establishment: 1996
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/robosoft-technologies/
Location: 217, NH 66, Santhekatte, Edapally — Panvel Highway, Kallianpur, Udupi, Karnataka 576105
Clutch Review: 4.7/5 from 19 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.1/5 from 282 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Emorphis label themselves neither as a service provider nor as a technology partner. They like to call themselves as your trusted friend. Because at Emorphis, the team of professionals isn’t there just to build software, they build software that is good for clients.
The professionals here serve as their client’s solution provider. And this builds trust. Emorphis was started with a vision to add value to the lives of their clients and their employees.
The company claims to have 70% repeat clients. All because of two reasons:
Rapid development and quality output.
These two traits are rarely seen together at any angular js web development company. But Emorphis is a trusted friend of their clients. Their claims are backed by their customers. Their reviews are displayed on the company’s website.
The values incorporated into the culture at the IT firm are:
Fun@work
Work-life balance
Win-win
The values say it all. These are the reasons that businesses from various industry verticals like healthcare, fintech, retail, startups, industry 4.0, and the publishing industry are willing to get development services from Emorphis.
Apart from angular app development services, this development agency offers product development, consulting services, RPA consulting, Dell Boomi consulting and testing services too.
The professionals at Emorphis also have the expertise in enterprise mobility, cloud computing, internet of things, backend development, big data and analytics, and salesforce. And the name of some of the high-end products developed by the company are as follow:
iStatements
iThings
Samvaad
Development Services:
Enterprise Mobility
Cloud Computing
Internet of Things
Backend Development
Big Data & Analytics
Salesforce
Product Development
Consulting Services
RPA Consulting
Dell Boomi Consulting
Testing
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Hourly Rates: $25 — $49 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, PHP, Node.js, Mongo, MySQL, JQuery, Bootstrap, TypeScript, React JS, Redux, Java, HTML, CSS
Major Clientele: AXIS Bank, IDFC First Bank, Khaleej Times, Crompton Greaves, Bajaj Finserv
Number of Employees: 51–200 Employees
The Establishment: 2010
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/emorphis-technology-solutions/
Location: 304, 2nd Floor, 142 A, Electronic Complex,, Pardeshipura,, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452010
Clutch Review: 4.9/5 from 8 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.1/5 from 73 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
“Best product is not luck, it is a result of dedication.”
This is being said at the Depex Technologies. The company believes that only a combination of passion, dedication and expertise can offer true value to the business. After seeing an era of digital product development, Depex Technologies has set a benchmark in converting the ideas into reality.
Experts here specialize in various fields such as mobile app development, internet of things, artificial intelligence, blockchain and custom product development. This angular web development company has served businesses from various industry verticals like education, travel, retail, medical, and so on.
The services provided by Depex technologies are categorized into three parts:
Agency solutions: Digital transformation strategy and a full-time mobile app development partner.
Digital transformation strategy and a full-time mobile app development partner. Event solutions : Leveraging modern technologies to scale up the existing business. This is made possible by amplifying visibility and accelerating event success.
: Leveraging modern technologies to scale up the existing business. This is made possible by amplifying visibility and accelerating event success. Custom solutions: Custom built digital products are developed to fulfil the specific business needs of the clients.
All these solutions are delivered using the process mentioned below:
Requirements gathering research and analysis Planning and wireframe design UI/UX formation and testing reports Implement and develop
Build app parallelly
Testing and bug fixing
Final release
5. Website and app development
Website release
Marketing plans and implementation
Keep earning
The values that differentiate Depex Technologies from other top AngularJS development companies in India are:
Security and confidentiality
Honesty
Transparency
Stability
Fit for any budget
Global understanding
Depex Technologies is on a mission to help businesses with fulfilling their missions. They aim to offer excellent development services in the global marketplace. The professional, flexible and integrated procedure at the company reflects that they guide their client’s businesses to success.
Development Services:
Website Design
Web Development
E-Commerce Web Solution
Testing
Mobile UI/UX Design
Blockchain Applications
Augmented Reality Apps
Software Development
CRM Development
ERP Development
Dashboard Software
Custom Software Development
Digital Marketing
Minimum Project Size: $10,000+
Hourly Rates: $25 — $49 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, PHP, Node.js, Mongo, MySQL, JQuery, Bootstrap, TypeScript, React JS, Redux, Java, HTML, CSS
Major Clientele: Rimmel London, Broadway Dental, Northern Stainless, Lusoja Beauty Lab, Thomas Sabo, Laundryheap, Destination Missoula, Round About Travel, Barqo
Number of Employees: 51–200 Employees
The Establishment: 2014
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/depex-technologies/
Location: Sector 4, Noida , New Delhi, 201301, India
Clutch Review: 5.0/5 from 6 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.1/5 from 73 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Appsierra has served more than 120 businesses with premium and customized software development services. This company strives to build digital products that help businesses grow and fulfil their needs. Appsierra is built on the foundation of transparency and honesty.
As they make you aware of their opinions, the professionals here listen and value your opinions too. And the only thing they would try to sell you will be the one useful to grow your business and nothing else.
The experts at the company have worked with a global clientele. That enables them to understand your business requirements and customize the solutions accordingly. They do take your needs seriously. The team works relentlessly to overcome the challenges and deliver a fully-functional product.
This digital agency also offers growth opportunities that are crucial to the success of your business.
The reasons claimed by the company behind opting them as your technology partner can be stated below:
Efficient management
Wide network access
Vast scalability
Flawless security
Appsierra serves its customers on two fronts:
Dedicated team: The company has a panel of talented angular developers. Appsierra helps you assemble your team to build the custom solution that will fulfil your business needs. The assembled team will work around the clock to deliver the product within a predetermined timeline. Premium product development: Designing and developing a software product keeping your target customer in the mind. Appsierra guides you through every stage of the process to craft a fully functional and completely reliable software.
The benefits of collaborating with Appsierra for your next angular js development project are as mentioned below:
Talents assigned under 24 hours
Overlap with your timezone
Cancel anytime
7 days risk-free guaranteed
Appsierra claims that collaboration and creativity are the two pillars of Innovation and awesome results.
Development Services:
Quality Assurance
UI/UX Design
Web App Development
Mobile App Development
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Hourly Rates: < $25 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, React.js, Node.js, Vue.js, Python, HTML, CSS, Android, iOS, Flutter, Swift, React Native
Major Clientele: Brandalley Avora Lionheart Fitness Kids
Number of Employees: 51–200 Employees
The Establishment: 2015
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/appsierra/
Location: C- 277, Rajdhani Corporate Suites, C Block, Sector 63, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201307
Clutch Review: 4.9/5 from 14 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.7/5 from 255 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Delaplex has a reputation of offering world-class client services. It is at the core of their business. The company’s agile framework provides you with a talented team of Angular developers that become an extension of your team and not just any other contractor.
The professionals at the company want you to know that they got your back at every stage of the product development or digital transformation process. Signing up with Delaplex does not only give you access to the industry knowledge but also provide you with business scalability and flexibility.
The experts at the company listen to your needs carefully. They define your objectives clearly which helps them to create a custom team to help you achieve them. Personnel at the company are entirely dedicated to delivering innovative and high-quality products.
From the very first meeting, they try to help you with creating the right team and standards to achieve your business goals. Delaplex claims to have more than 90% repetitive clients ratio and a 98% customer satisfaction ratio.
Delaplex is empowered by the foundation of honest collaboration, trusted relationship and a passion to go the extra mile. They believe that this is the foundation that can deliver great products and solutions.
Build better, smarter and faster software in Delaplex way:
Delaplex core team: The client’s knowledge is preserved by retaining a small dedicated team around the clock for them. Whenever the need arises, the team will already be on the standby to help them resolve their issues or meet the needs as soon as possible.
Delaplex Tech Bench: It is a bench of top-notch talent and highly required skills. It is larger than most benches and is always ready to pivot. You can immediately have access to the expert consultants of the field. Delaplex provides this service to offer a unique value proposition.
Delaplex Resource Alliance: it is a global network of talented teams that spans cultural and regional boundaries. With the latest communication and collaboration tools, their people work together across the boundaries to deliver quality results for their customers.
These three components form a methodology that gives Delaplex a highly competitive advantage in the market.
Development Services:
Product Development
Custom Development
Quality Assurance
DevOps
Code Rescue
Dedicated Team
Technology Consulting
Mobile Development
eCommerce
Business Intelligence
Cloud Solutions
Open Source Solutions
Minimum Project Size: $25,000+
Hourly Rates: $25 — $49 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, React.js, Node.js, Vue.js, Python, HTML, CSS, Android, iOS, Flutter, Swift, React Native
Major Clientele: HNTRISM, Cendyn, GET Valet, PlanTools, DNA Behavior, Apto Solutions, Glookast, TETRA Technologies, Inc, Hero Eyez, LearnLoft, Imagine Air, Epividian
Number of Employees: 51–200 Employees
The Establishment: 2008
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delaplex-software/
Location: Near, 554/31, Utkarsh Nagar, Katol Rd, KT Nagar, Nagpur, Maharashtra 440013
Clutch Review: 5.0/5 from 5 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.5/5 from 52 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Dew Solutions is a leading provider of strategic IT services mainly designed for large enterprise and mid-tier organizations as well as startups.
Now you must be wondering why I have incorporated a company that comprises highest rated mobile app developers in the list of top angular development companies in India?
Well, whether its web or mobile, all solutions are highly based on mature internal competencies in technology provisioning, enterprise software licensing, managed operations, IT infrastructure, network solutions, web application development, and project management.
Some crucial facts & figure to consider include:
Global service provider
The core team of 350+ employees with strong expertise in the technical domain
Leverage latest tools, techniques, methodologies and strategies to deliver robust solutions that generate revenue for our clients.
Experts in Mobile Apps Development, UI/UX, Front End Architecture Design & Development, Java-based development, Quality Assurance, Cloud Infrastructure Management, Machine Learning, RPA
ISO Certified company
We sign the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with our clients before initiating discussions
Agile approach and result-driven methodology
Their key offerings include — Mobile App Development (Android, IOS, Hybrid Apps), Custom Software Development, Web Application Development, eCommerce Development, Product Consultancy, UI/UX, Quality Assurance & Software Testing, Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Internet Of Things (IoT) Development, DevOps, Artificial Intelligence, Web Design, Blockchain Technology, AWS Consulting, Cloud Consulting
To develop continuously and grow as a major IT service provider and a trusted partner to become a leading performer, in providing quality Software Development solutions in the competitive global marketplace.
And since we are talking about top angular development companies in India, they offer end-to-end app development services that are tailored to meet your business needs and tackle the associated complex challenges. Web development, mobile app development, cross-platform app development, cloud app development, and application maintenance and management.
Development Services:
Full Cycle Product Development
Design & Product Consultancy
Mobile & Web App Development
DevOps & Cloud Infra Support
Data Science & Machine Learning
Open Source Product Customisations
Minimum project size: $10,000+
Hourly Rates: < $25 / hr
Tech Stack: Java, Nodejs, Python, .Net, Firebase, Angular, React, Vuejs, Kotlin, Swift, Objective C, React Native, Mysql, MongoDB
Major Clientele: Fiserv, MakeMyTrip, Tata Unistore, Mahindra First Choice, Apollo Munich Health Insurance, Times Internet, Economic Times, Speedlabs, Budbeed Inc, Centrl Inc, iTradeNetwork Inc, Tata IQ, LogicLadder, Tata IQ, TataCliQ, Tata Digital, Tata Class Edge, Sploot Tech, Sensegrow Inc, Exante Data, Avida Labs LLC, Abu Dhabi Financial Group, Divitae Technologies Pvt Ltd
Number of Employees: 201–500 Employees
The Establishment: 2010
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dew-solutions-pvt-ltd/
Location: JMD Megapolis P301, 3rd Floor, Sector 48, Gurugram, Haryana 122018
Clutch Review: 4.9/5 from 8 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.1/5 from 80 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Tejora is one such custom angular development company in India that provides Enterprise Applications, Mobile Development, Software Products, Staffing, Chatbot, AI, RPA, Banking & Financial Services, Cloud & Managed Services, CRM, CMS, and CX.
Headquartered in Mumbai, the global technology company delivers four cornerstones of offering:
Custom mobile & enterprise application development
Products — Saffron Square, Saffron Pay, Saffron Cred, Chatbot, Trading Portal, and many more
On-demand Staffing arrangement (onsite/offshore)
Innovation and cutting edge technologies — RPA, Bot-o-mate, AI, DB migrations, Cloud Services
Their full-fledged range of services include:
Product Engineering — Here professionals help global enterprises envision, innovate & develop world-class products & solutions. Right from ideation to deployment, everything is planned and worked according to the pre-created roadmap. With a keen eye to deliver the right custom business solution, their team of software architects and engineers have the ability to ideate, design, build, and deploy quickly with minimal downtime.
— Here professionals help global enterprises envision, innovate & develop world-class products & solutions. Right from ideation to deployment, everything is planned and worked according to the pre-created roadmap. With a keen eye to deliver the right custom business solution, their team of software architects and engineers have the ability to ideate, design, build, and deploy quickly with minimal downtime. Robotic Process Automation — With their RPA services, businesses can free themselves from repetitive tasks, reduce human error, save time & money by leveraging the power of automation. All you require is to seek assistance from some of the best RPA tools such as Automation Anywhere, BluePrism, UI Path & Workfusion. High scalable process, higher accuracies, improved customer experience, intelligent insights are benefits gained by their clients.
— With their RPA services, businesses can free themselves from repetitive tasks, reduce human error, save time & money by leveraging the power of automation. All you require is to seek assistance from some of the best RPA tools such as Automation Anywhere, BluePrism, UI Path & Workfusion. High scalable process, higher accuracies, improved customer experience, intelligent insights are benefits gained by their clients. Cloud — From the initial consultation to serverless application development, Distributed Application Implementation, Application & Data Migration, DevOps planning and CI/CO automation, cloud solution architecture, cloud-native development, security audit & planning, integration with 3rd party applications, they cover it all! So if you are transitioning to the cloud and become future-ready, look no further than a cloud!
— From the initial consultation to serverless application development, Distributed Application Implementation, Application & Data Migration, DevOps planning and CI/CO automation, cloud solution architecture, cloud-native development, security audit & planning, integration with 3rd party applications, they cover it all! So if you are transitioning to the cloud and become future-ready, look no further than a cloud! Mobility — With the ever-changing business strategies, it’s time to engage with your customers, partners, and employees in the most cost-effective way with Accelerate Mobility-led Transition, Enterprise Mobile Architecture Assessment, Integrating Legacy Apps, App Security Testing, Mobile Automation Testing, Integration Across Social, Analytics, & Cloud, Integration With IoT & Connected Devices.
— With the ever-changing business strategies, it’s time to engage with your customers, partners, and employees in the most cost-effective way with Accelerate Mobility-led Transition, Enterprise Mobile Architecture Assessment, Integrating Legacy Apps, App Security Testing, Mobile Automation Testing, Integration Across Social, Analytics, & Cloud, Integration With IoT & Connected Devices. API Management — Getting full managed API services is not easy. Tejora offers API-first Approach featuring API-driven Integration models, API gateway policies, Utilization and progress KPIs, well-defined user roles, grants and policies, deployment flexibility, low operational cost, etc.
Development Services:
Enterprise Applications
Mobile Development
Software Products
Staffing
Chatbot
AI
RPA
Banking & Financial Services
Cloud & Managed Services
CRM, CMS, and CX
Minimum project size: $50,000+
Hourly Rates: $25 — $49 / hr
Tech Stack: Java, Nodejs, Vuejs, Angular, React.js, ASP.Net, HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, PHP, Yii, CodeIgniter, Magento,
Major Clientele: Experian, ICICI Lombard, Kotak Securities, IndusInd Bank, Motilal Oswal Securities, Pelitas, Connectix Health, Axis Bank & Securities, Yes Bank, Tata Capital, India Infoline, ISG, Aditya Birla, IDFC First Bank, UAE Exchange, Covance
Number of Employees: 201–500 Employees
The Establishment: 2003
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tejora-private-limited/
Location: 402, A Wing, Eureka Towers, Mindspace, Link Road, Malad West, Mumbai — 400064, India.
Clutch Review: 4.5/5 from 4 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.4/5 from 66 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
15 Centizen
Centizen provides end-to-end AngularJS development services. That includes all, from strategy to deployment of the product or solutions. From its inception in 2003 to now, the experts at Centizen have earned their credentials by serving more than 200 clients from all over the world.
But why should you choose Centizen over other top Angular development companies in India?
Well, the answer is flexibility. Centizen offers three delivery models to choose from. You can easily opt for the one that suits your needs. The models are as discussed below:
Onsite delivery model: Centizen can provide the IT solution and consultants to work on the client’s sites. It doesn’t matter where in the world, the client’s site is located. They can render services anywhere in the world. Offshore delivery model: Centizen has a state-of-the-art development centre in India. That helps them to offer offshore development services. This can reduce the customer’s cost while giving them access to the top-notch talent to fulfil their needs. Oh! And Centizen is already free of all the hassles of an offshore development company. Hybrid delivery model: This model offers both the services provided in the previous two models. The adjustments are made as per the customer’s needs.
It doesn’t matter what delivery model the customer chooses. The final objective of the company is to cater to them with the highest business value they can offer to the client. To match that vision, Centizen has a team of over 350 professionals consisting of angular developers, designers, analysts and recruiters.
Before hiring any employee, they are screened for matching the right set of skills and qualities required in the company. Apart from Angular development services, the experts at Centizen also specialise in DevOps, Automation, staff augmentation, custom software development, cloud computing, IoT, AI, BlockChain, and many more.
Development Services:
Staff Augmentation
Custom Software Development
Web/Mobile Development
UI/UX Design
QA Automation
API Integration
Product Development
DevOps Services
Managed Cloud Services
Cloud Computing
Analytics & Visualizations
Internet of Things
AI & Machine Learning
Digital Transformation
BlockChain
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Hourly Rates: < $25 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, Node.js, React, Express.js, jQurey, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, C#, .NET, Java, Python, TypeScript, PHP, MySQL, Ionic, Cordova, Swift, Objective-C
Major Clientele: Nike, Costco, Fiserv, Columbia, Sportswear, State, of, Oregon, Apex, Clearing, Tripwire, Command, Credit, Chimcare, Roku, Pacific, Source, NWEA, Invoicepay
Number of Employees: 201–500 Employees
The Establishment: 2003
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/centizen/
Location: 25, Vinayagar Nagar, Near Jeba Garden, NGO Colony, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu 627007
Clutch Review: 5.0/5 from 1 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.4/5 from 20 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Web Guru Infosystems is one of the top custom angularjs Development Companies in India that uses the latest technologies to deliver futuristic digital solutions to their global clientele.
They have a team of more than 150 professionals consisting of graphic designers, AngularJS developers, business analysts, project managers and many more.
Web Guru holds expertise in their offering of services for website design and development, mobile app development, enterprise solutions and digital marketing.
The company has a valuable reputation as they serve their clients from various industries such as eCommerce, real estate, hospitality, education, manufacturing, travel and tourism.
The solutions and consultancy services provided by the Web Guru Infosystems help their clients in scaling up their business and increasing their revenues.
The services rendered by the company are described as following:
Website design service: The company offers this service for website design, web application development, CMS development, small business website development, corporate website development, and shopping cart development.
Mobile app development: Apps are developed for various platforms like Android, IOS and Hybrid.
Digital marketing services: This service includes SEO, Social media marketing, PPC, Local SEO, and content marketing services.
Ecommerce website design: eCommerce platforms built using a wide range of technologies like Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and OpenCart.
Brand identity design: Logo design, brochure design, corporate identity design and making explainer videos are part of this service.
Hire web and mobile developers: Web Guru offers its developers to the businesses to work on any web or application development project.
The company states four factors that make people choose them over other companies, they are:
Best technologies
Skilled team
Reasonable costs
Extensive experience
Development Services:
Website Design
Web Application Development
CMS Web Development
Shopping Cart Development
Mobile App Development
Android App Development
iOS App Development
Hybrid App Development
Digital Marketing
Logo Design
Minimum project size: $1,000+
Hourly Rates: < $25 / hr
Tech Stack: NodeJS, Angular, ReactJS, VueJS, PHP, Bootstrap, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, OpenCart, Swift, jQuery, Ionic, MongoDB
Major Clientele: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd., Hindalco Industries Ltd. (Aditya Birla Group), Usha Communications Technology Ltd. (Usha Martin Technologies), The Times Group, HDFC Bank Ltd., State Bank of India, Jadavpur University, Calcutta University, MDI (WB), Cigniti, Marwood Construction (Houston), and Saraswat Hospital
Number of Employees: 51–200 Employees
The Establishment: 2005
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/webguru-infosystems-pvt--ltd-/
Location: Y8, EP Block, Sector V, Bidhannagar, Kolkata, West Bengal 700091
Clutch Review: 4.9/5 from 11 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.5/5 from 199 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Techversant has a record of serving businesses from small start-ups to high-level enterprises from across the world. The officials here aim to leverage the cutting-edge technologies to develop, support and provide solutions to their clients.
Strategic Planning, Configuration, Design, Build, Testing and Deployment, Upgrades and Optimizations of Software Services and product are the hallmark services provided by this angular brand development agency.
Such services, when offered to more than 500 clients, makes Techversant exert in their niche. The company has been awarded for some of their outstanding work which is added as the feathers on their cap. The company officials follow a certain set of principles that helps them to gain perfection in work of serving their clients every day.
This doesn’t only help their client’s business grow, but the number of clients at Techversant also grows simultaneously. After achieving several milestones and a decade of experience, this angular js web development company in India has become a global enterprise.
They help their clients by providing business value and ultimately boost the ROI of their business. The professionals here are committed to long-term business relationships. Being realistic and reasonable have enabled them to transform the client’s client’s idea into reality.
Apart from Angular, the developers here are also skilled at ColdFusion, PHP, NodeJS, Python and UI/UX. They like to come up with a perfect solution only after they have complete intensive research in the technologies. Techversant has its focus at the three P’s:
Personal integrity Professional development Perfection
The values that are integrated into the work culture of the company are as follows:
Teamwork and collaboration
Timeliness
Work-life balance
Integrity
Honesty
And finally, let us talk about the development process that is followed at Techversant to craft a perfect product or solution is as stated below:
Discover Plan Design Develop User acceptance testing Launch
Techversant claims that by signing up your next custom angular development project with them, you can get guaranteed business value in return.
Development Services:
Web Applications
Mobile Applications
Strategic Outsourcing
E-commerce
UI / UX
Software Testing
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Hourly Rates: $25 — $49 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, NodeJS, PHP, Python, Django, Moodle, Coldfusion, Ruby on Rails
Major Clientele: Business Improvement Solutions Inc., Biscuit and Cracker Manufacturers Association, Big Main Street, ED Admin, Ed Laboratory, Harley Reed, KeanFire, Kvaser, Resource CPR, Indorso, Realtor Daddy,
Number of Employees: 201–500 Employees
The Establishment: 2008
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techversant-infotech-pvt-ltd/
Location: Module No:2306, Third Floor, Yamuna, Tower II, Technopark Phase III SEZ Campus, Kulathoor, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 695583
Clutch Review: 5.0/5 from 1 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.5/5 from 97 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
The Nine Hertz provides solutions that attract the attention of the target audience and increase the number of visitors on the website. It is an AngularJS development company in India. The developers here design and develop trendy websites and applications that keep your business in demand and ahead of the competition.
The company claims that the hard work and commitment of their team are the reason that they are not only one of the leading angular brands in India but also the best mobile and web application development firm globally.
The NineHertz helps their clients to rebuild their businesses according to the new digital era. To offer the high-end quality product, Angular developers here use the international coding standards. After deep research and analysis, the plan is devised to undertake the development process which yields the product as per the requirements.
For almost a decade, this AngularJS website development company shrinks the gap between people and technology. This has been done by offering the enhanced digital experience to the users. The primary objective of the company is to make the world a better place for everyone.
The successful digital product is developed based on successful business collaboration. And that collaboration is done at The Nine Hertz using the following key aspects:
Ideapreneurship
Relationship beyond contract
Modern strategy
Apart from being a renowned name in the Angular website development sector, the Nine Hertz has delivered over 1000 applications for iOS, Android, and Web successfully.
They specialize in Mobile App Development, Android App Development, iPhone & iPad App Development, Enterprise Mobile Design & Development, Cross-platform mobile app development, UI/UX Design, and Responsive Web Design & Development, PHP, Java, Magento, WordPress.
Development Services:
Mobile App Development
Web Development
Game Development
Digital Marketing
CMS & Ecommerce
Salesforce
Industry Solutions
Emerging Technologies
On-Demand App Solutions
Minimum project size: $5,000+
Hourly Rates: < $25 / hr
Tech Stack: iOS, Android, IoT, Flutter, PHP, Nodejs, Angular, Python, Codeigniter, CakePHP, Laravel, WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Opencart, Drupal
Major Clientele: JMRC (Jaipur Metro Rail Corporation), Casio, Samsung, Reliance Jio, Air Asia
Number of Employees: 51–200 Employees
The Establishment: 2008
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nine-hertz-india-pvt-ltd-/
Location: P. №31, Shree Krishna Tower, Nirman Nagar- E, Ajmer Road, Opposite Asopa Hospital, Jaipur (Raj.) India-302019
Clutch Review: 4.8/5 from 67 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.5/5 from 323 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Enterpi builds digital products for both startups and large level enterprises as well. They can deliver the products that yield great results and accelerate the growth of their client’s business.
Collaborating with the Enterpi at the initial stage of the start-up can be very helpful for the client’s business. The professionals here can help them bring their ideas to life, understand their customers, and scale-up the business.
The services offered for the startups are as discussed below:
Discovery: This includes Understanding the target audience or Understanding your targeted core users better, Defining the design goals, Definition and rapid development of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Validation.
This includes Understanding the target audience or Understanding your targeted core users better, Defining the design goals, Definition and rapid development of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Validation. Refining the product: This consists of Establishing the metrics, Build surveys, A/B testing of interfaces, choice of Pivot or not, etc.
This consists of Establishing the metrics, Build surveys, A/B testing of interfaces, choice of Pivot or not, etc. Efficiency: This involves Refining the customer experience, Optimizing the customer acquisition process, and Achieving viral growth
This involves Refining the customer experience, Optimizing the customer acquisition process, and Achieving viral growth Scale: This includes Back-end scalability improvements, Implementing CRM and other internal systems to improve operational efficiencies, support for more devices and Internationalization.
Startups can opt for the design, development, QA and staff augmentation services for their business from Enterpi.
Similarly, Enterpi creates advanced, secure and reliable digital products for large enterprises. Cutting-edge technologies are leveraged to position the client’s organization in the marketplace in the right way. Enterpi helps enterprises by offering services such as:
Social: This consists of services like Making your employees collaborate better, Understanding your customers better and Picking your vendors wisely.
This consists of services like Making your employees collaborate better, Understanding your customers better and Picking your vendors wisely. Mobile: This involves services like Expedite your approvals, Faster field services, Capturing the customer orders on the go, and Making your warehouse stock-taking painless.
This involves services like Expedite your approvals, Faster field services, Capturing the customer orders on the go, and Making your warehouse stock-taking painless. Analytics: This includes sales forecasts, Prediction of market trends, Predicting customer behaviour and making the informed decision.
This includes sales forecasts, Prediction of market trends, Predicting customer behaviour and making the informed decision. Cloud: It consists of Quick and economically Automated processes, Extending your apps to leverage SMAC, Rebuilding or moving your legacy systems to the cloud.
Expert at the Enterpi knows its various business domains. That enables them to deliver the results that exceed the client’s expectation more often.
Development Services:
Web Applications
Mobile Applications
Strategic Outsourcing
E-commerce
UI / UX
Software Testing
Minimum Project Size: $10,000+
Hourly Rates: < $25 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, NodeJS, HTML5, CSS3, PHP, Ember, WordPress, MySQL, OpenCart, CodeIgniter, Laravel, Drupal, Magento, .NET, Ruby on Rails, Objective-C, Swift, Android, Shopify, Zend, jQuery
Major Clientele: Harsco, Stella & Dot, Deem Intercoil, Mintmesh, Craze, RapidReplay, SafeDecisions
Number of Employees: 51–200 Employees
The Establishment: 2008
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterpi/
Location: 9th Floor, White House Block 3, Greenlands Road, Hyderabad, Telangana 500016
Clutch Review: 4.8/5 from 7 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.2/5 from 69 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Since its inception in 1996, Dean Infotech Pvt Ltd. has completely transformed from a computer training institute to a full-time IT service provider company. Leveraging the advanced technologies, this firm offers its clients with unique products and solutions.
Their clients like to refer to them as the “Dean of Information Technology”. Various services provided by the company are as follows:
Mobile application development service is availed for mobile platforms like Android, iOS, and Hybrid. eCommerce development services are offered using technology frameworks such as Laravel, WordPress, NOPcommerce. Javascript services include technologies like React, React Native and Node. Salesforce cloud services consist of Implementation, customization and lighting migration. Enterprise software development services include custom software development, consulting and CRM/ERP services. Codeigniter, Umbraco and ASP.NET MVC technologies are used for Web development services.
But why should you choose this angular js development service over others?
Dean Infotech gives the following bullet points as your answer:
Team of technical experts focused on delivering custom solutions.
Standardized superlative solutions for different industrial sectors.
All core business functions delivered under one roof.
Technology service providers with excellent customer service management.
Integration and providing customer compatible projects
Running the company with unquestionable ethics.
Living the expectations of clients with on-time project delivery.
Full-fledged ERP solutions.
And the flow of the project delivery at Dean Infotech is as stated below:
Sketching your idea
Analysis and prototyping
Development and implementation
Deployment and final launch
Dealing with various businesses on various continents have enabled their experts and consultants to understand their client’s requirements clearly. This helps them in delivering the best and efficient solutions to fulfil their client’s business objectives within the predetermined timeline.
Development Services:
Salesforce Implementation and Enhancements
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Implementation and Enhancements
Remote Mobile Application Development
Enterprise Level App Development on Cloud
Web Development
Minimum Project Size: $10,000+
Hourly Rates: < $25 / hr
Tech Stack: Angular, Node.js, React.js, Express.js, React Native, Bootstrap, PHP, Laravel, Codeigniter, WordPress, ASP.Net, Umbraco, Nopcommerce, Android, iOS
Major Clientele: Arch & Bow, Phoolwala.com, RoboVent, Airforce School Panchwati, Baskin-Robbins (San Diego), FlowerAura, Sahil Graphics, Lacoste
Number of Employees: 51–200 Employees
The Establishment: 1996
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deaninfotech/
Location: SCO-12, near Canara Bank, Sector 16, Faridabad, Haryana 121002
Clutch Review: 5.0/5 from 1 Clutch Reviews
Google Review: 4.6/5 from 82 Google Reviews
Google Maps Location
Conclusion
A business is fueled with technologies and there’s no room for slip-ups. If used right, technology can become leveraged to gain a competitive advantage in the global marketplace. Angular is one such technology framework.
I hope this article has shed some light on top Angular development companies in India. The list was provided so that you find a suitable company that can help you achieve your business objectives.
However, if you have any suggestion or query, please share it with us in the comments section below. | https://medium.com/top-software-companies/top-angular-developers-in-india-1a13bff7ced9 | ['Albert Mcquiston'] | 2020-12-24 11:44:58.566000+00:00 | ['Angular', 'Hire Angularjs Developer', 'Angulardevelopmentcompany', 'Hire Angular Developer', 'Angular Development'] |
A Guide for Your Very First Machine Learning Project | A Guide for Your Very First Machine Learning Project
If you have read my previous article on how to get started in Machine Learning here, this is the perfect next article because in this article, we will dive deeper in the practical way of all the things that was mentioned in that article, for instance, drawing various graphs for data visualisation, using libraries (if you still remember, these are all the functions in Machine Learning that you can use without actually code from scratch, such as for importing data, drawing graph, even applying basic ML algorithms directly), and the steps to successfully executing ML algorithm from the given dataset step by step.
Your Very First Machine Learning Project
If you do not know which project you should pick first in Machine Learning, it is very common among Machine Learning Engineers to recommend the Iris dataset as your very first project in Machine Learning, and in fact, it is dubbed as the ‘Hello World’ project of Machine Learning. Before we discuss further about what is the Iris dataset, first we have to understand two types of Machine Learning, which are supervised and unsupervised learning.
Supervised Learning
As we understood, Machine Learning is an algorithm which relies on data to mimic human intelligent to give a highly accurate decision. The term supervised learning means the algorithm make a decision based on data that has been labelled accordingly. This way, we will be able to assess on how accurate the algorithm in performing its task.
2. Unsupervised Learning
However, not every given data is labelled and it is even considered expensive to label every data. The tasks can be grouping the picture of birds compared to the picture of airplanes based on their features or understanding customer purchasing behaviour. Hence, a Machine learning algorithm that performs its task without any label on its data is called unsupervised learning.
Supervised learning is tend to be preferred as the first Machine Learning project compared to unsupervised learning as it is more manageable and we can assess our performance based on the evaluation metrics. To dive deeper into supervised learning, it can be differentiate into two types, which are classification and regression. Regression is a supervised machine learning to predict the future data based on its historical data. For instance, this can be predicting the stock market price or forecasting future sales in a business.
On the other hand, classification, as it is called, is to classified a given data into two or more categories, for instance, it can be to classify whether an email is spam or or not spam / ham, breast cancer detection, and of course the classification of iris flowers that we will be doing in this project.
Iris Flower Dataset
Iris dataset can be traced back in 1936 when Ronald Fisher, a British statistician, eugenicist, and biologist introduce it in his paper of “The use of multiple measurements in taxonomic problems” as an example of linear discriminant analysis. This dataset is trying to classify 3 types of Iris flowers, which are Iris Sentosa, Iris Virginica, and Iris Versicolor where it contains 50 samples for each type of them. Furthermore, this data contains 4 features (usually represented as number of columns in the dataset) of the flowers, which are the length and width of the sepals and the petals, plus label of each data. This data can be downloaded in the Kaggle website here.
Getting Started
As mentioned in the previous article, almost every Machine Learning project runs on Python, which can be done on either Jupyter Notebook or Google Colab, which has been discussed on the installation as well there. After Jupyter Notebook or Google Colab has been installed and opened, create your first notebook by clicking new and Python 3 for Jupyter Notebook as shown in the picture below or click file and then new notebook for Google Colab.
which will show your notebook here as shown in the picture below:
In the first cell, you need to import the following libraries:
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
This means the next time you want to use their libraries, you can simply use their acronym. For instance, to use pandas, you can simply type pd and those acronyms can be set as whatever you want. Numpy is useful to construct matrices, while pandas is for data cleansing or exploration, seaborn and matplotlib.pyplot have similarfunction which is to plot graphs, however, seaborn allows us to create more complex graphs, which will be shown later.
After importing those libraries, you will need to import the Iris dataset to your notebook by using following pandas function:
data = pd.read_csv('../First Project/Iris.csv')
As we can see above, we are creating a new variable called data and we are also using pandas library in the form of pd to read the iris dataset, which is in csv form. Make sure the “First Project” is changed into the name of the folder in which your Iris data is being stored. So, next time we want to interact with our Iris dataset, we can always use the data variable.
Next, if we want to make sure that our data has been loaded into our notebook, we can check it by using another pandas function, which is:
data.head()
This will show us the first 5 data in our Iris dataset and if you would like to see more data, simply specify the number inside the round brackets as shown below:
There are also many other data exploratory methods in pandas, such as:
data.info()
To show the types of data, number of filled cells, number of columns, and memory used as shown below:
To calculate all of the descriptive statistics such as count, max, min, mean, median, and standard deviation, can be done instantly by following command:
data.describe()
Which will show an output of:
To count the number of duplicated data of an attribute, we can specify it using square bracket as follows:
data['Species'].value_counts()
Which will show an output of:
And finally, we can delete the entire column by using the following drop function below:
data = data.drop('Id', axis=1)
In here, we are dropping Id column, which will shows the new dataset as:
Data Visualisation
Next, we will enter the interesting part of data exploration, which is data visualisation. First, we need to create a new variable for our graph which is shown below:
plotting = sns.pairplot(data, hue='Species')
In this command, again, we are only using sns acronym from seaborn and from that, we are assigning a new variable called plotting to create a pairplot, which is a plot to show the relationship between each attribute based on Species attribute as mentioned in hue. Which will give us the following plot:
From these graphs, we can see the difference in the length and width of the petal and sepal of the three types of Iris flowers easily.
Another seaborn plot feature is Violin plot, which is similar to box plot but with extra density visualisation where the thicker part shows the more frequent than the thinner part. We can plot each attribute individually for Violin plot. Further note, in order to plot several graphs in a single cell, it is necessary to insert matplotlib command, plt.show() at the end of each graph variable, otherwise, the cell will only plot the last graph assigned from it.
g = sns.violinplot(y='Species', x='SepalLengthCm', data=data)
plt.show()
g = sns.violinplot(y='Species', x='SepalWidthCm', data=data)
plt.show()
g = sns.violinplot(y='Species', x='PetalLengthCm', data=data)
plt.show()
g = sns.violinplot(y='Species', x='PetalWidthCm', data=data)
Which will plot:
Label and Feature
Now, we need to create our label and feature data for the Machine Learning process. As we understood before, the features of the Iris dataset are the length and width of the petal and sepal, while the labels are the name of the flower’s species. This way we need to create two new variables for them, lets say X as the feature, which only contains the feature data and Y as the label, which only contains the label data.
As we learned earlier to delete the entire column, we can use drop function, hence, we can create our feature data X by dropping the species column as shown below:
X = data.drop(['Species'], axis=1)
On the other hand, because label only consists of species column, it is more efficient to assign Y with only species column instead of dropping all the feature columns as shown below:
y = data['Species']
Data Splitting
In this stage, we are learning about data splitting. Data splitting is a very common method that need to be done in supervised learning project as it will allow us to train and test our Machine Learning algorithm with two different datasets and evaluate better than running train and test in both dataset. For example, if we want to evaluate a student, we have to train him with a set of questions and then give him a test with a different kind of questions instead of giving him the training and test questions exactly the same.
Therefore, we need to use a library called Scikit-learn to split the data:
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
and make sure you have installed Scikit-learn by using:
pip install scikit-learn
And then, split both label and feature data into train and test data by using the following function:
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size=0.4, random_state=5)
test size indicates the percentage of the whole data that we will use as the test data. For instance, since we chose 0.4 in this project, therefore, from 150 data, 40% of them or 60 of them will be assigned as label test data and feature test data. While the rest of the 90 data are treated as train data.
For extra note, train and test split function from sklearn always assign random data as test and train, which means each time you execute the train and test split function, the data that will be assigned to the train label, train feature, test label, and test feature are always different. In order to make sure the same data is always treated to the same train or test, label or feature data, we need to assign random state. This random state make sure each execution will give the same output as train and test data.
Classifying by Using Machine Learning Algorithm
Now we have reached the climax of this project, which is assigning the data into one of many Machine Learning algorithms available. Specifically in classification algorithm, there are many options, however, these are the most well-known so far:
K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) Naive Bayes classifier Logistic Regression Random Forest Support Vector Machine (SVM)
Most of Machine Learning Engineers do not know which algorithm best suit for the given dataset as different dataset will perform better in different algorithm, therefore, we need to test at least two algorithms to make sure we have chosen the better performing algorithm for the given dataset.
Let’s say in this project we are going to use two algorithms, KNN and logistics regression to classify the Iris dataset. First question, what is KNN? Well all I can say is its name tells itself. It is a classification algorithm by using the number of nearest neighbour (value of k)to choose which classification it belongs to. Let’s observe the picture below:
We are choosing whether the circled wine is a red wine or a white wine based on the chloride level and sulphur dioxide level. By assigning the value of k as 5, we are assessing 5 nearest wines to it that take the highest number from those wine and classify it as itself. For this case, we can see that there are more red wine in the circle than white wine, therefore, we are assuming that it is a red wine.
However, the challenge in KNN is to choose the value of K that is suitable for our dataset as we do not want overfitting and underfitting happens in our algorithm and we want it to be balanced as shown in the picture below:
We can try each k value by using for function from 1 to 26 and plot each accuracy by using simple matplotlib line graph. Furthermore, to use KNN algorithm, we do not need to code the formula from scratch as we can import KNN algorithm and accuracy calculation from sklearn library here:
from sklearn import metrics
from sklearn.neighbors import KNeighborsClassifier
Therefore, we can execute KNN algorithm and calculate the accuracy from metrics function as follows:
k_range = list(range(1,26))
scores = []
for k in k_range:
knn = KNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors=k)
knn.fit(X_train, y_train)
y_pred = knn.predict(X_test)
scores.append(metrics.accuracy_score(y_test, y_pred))
As we can see above, to command the KNN algorithm to train the data, we execute the fit function, while to test the data, we use predict function. Subsequently, from the for function output, we can evaluate which k value is the best by plotting each result by using matplotlib as shown below:
plt.plot(k_range, scores)
plt.xlabel('Value of k for KNN')
plt.ylabel('Accuracy Score')
plt.title('Accuracy Scores for Values of k of k-Nearest-Neighbors')
plt.show()
This will give an accuracy output of:
Which is around 0.983 or 98.3% correct accuracy for k = 2, 3, and 5 up to 26. To avoid overfitting, let’s choose not too small k value and take 12 instead.
Let’s try out logistics regression algorithm by using the same fit and predict function for train and test as shown in the code below:
logreg = LogisticRegression()
logreg.fit(X_train, y_train)
y_pred = logreg.predict(X_test)
print(metrics.accuracy_score(y_test, y_pred))
That gives an output of 0.966 or 96.6%, which does not show much difference compared to KNN, however, to make sure we are using the better algorithm, it is wiser to pick KNN as our algorithm to classify the dataset.
Since we are pretty confident with our 98.3% accuracy from KNN, we should try out our algorithm by assigning random length and width of the petal and sepal to see which type of flower will come up by using following code:
knn = KNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors=12)
knn.fit(X, y)
knn.predict([[6, 3, 4, 2]])
In this code, we are experimenting with assigning 6cm sepal length, 3cm sepal width, 4cm petal length, and 2cm petal width, which our algorithm tells us the flower might be:
Iris Versicolor
However, if we are assigning 10cm sepal length, 9cm sepal width, 5cm petal length, and 4cm petal width, the algorithm will predict that it might be:
Iris Virginica
Wrap It Up
If you have followed my guide up to this point, I am quite impressed and it shows that you have the passion for Machine Learning and have the capacity to learn deeper than this point. My suggestion next for you is to try out on larger dataset which might challenge your data pre-processing technique, which I might write on about in the future. If you are looking for a next project in regression, I have written an in depth guide for the follow up project, which you can find here.
Let me know in the comment about what you think about think project. Overall, thank you so much so stick with me in this tutorial until the very end and good luck with your next projects. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-start-your-very-first-machine-learning-project-c53fc542f0c | [] | 2021-01-17 18:26:46.806000+00:00 | ['Logistic Regression', 'Supervised Learning', 'AI', 'Knn', 'Machine Learning'] |
Ethereum vs Bitcoin | Bitcoin is the most popular and valuable cryptocurrency available in the market. Since its inception in 2009 there has been over 1500 cryptocurrencies launched in the market but nothing came close to it. Bitcoin has been ruling the market ever since it was introduced. However with growing popularity of Bitcoin there are few complications coming up with the cryptocurrency. Two of the major issues are its high transaction fees and time. Booming price of Bitcoin in the last year created a huge buzz in the market and it goes far beyond free market libertarians and technology enthusiasts. Many new onion trading platforms are available where users can buy or Sell Bitcoin in few simple clicks.
Alongside Bitcoin popularity, Ethereum is also making its way in the traditional market. Recently it has drawn the attention for its growing price increase and enhanced features over Bitcoin. Ethereum was created in 2013 by a Russian programmer and it was launched in 2015. For initial two years its price was below $10 but later in 2017 it exploded. In the last 12 months its price increased by a huge margin and reached somewhere around $1,400 in January 2018. Off late its price has fallen back to $700 but still proving to be the most promising cryptocurrency in the market. Experts believe this new digital currency has the potential to hold most future price gains; some are of the belief that in days to come it may surpass Bitcoin.
How can it overtake Bitcoin?
Top business figures from around the world seem to be excited about Ethereum and its prospects. Ethereum has all the features and possibilities to overtake Bitcoin Capitalization in few years time, its early signs point it clearly. The first quarter of 2018 saw a massive crash, Ethereum too suffered loss but somehow investors are finding it more promising compared to Bitcoin. With some of the popular trading sites where you buy or Sell Bitcoin there are options to trade Ethereum too.
Bitcoin was introduced in the market in 2009 and it became the first decentralized digital currency as the world was stumbling from worst financial crisis. Then, crypto- anarchists and market experts who were completely disillusioned by the recession hailed Bitcoin. It was Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and ability to facilitate payments without involving banks or financial institutes that made this cryptocurrency so popular. Bitcoin had all that it takes to revolutionize the global financial system.
How is Ethereum more effective?
Over the years as Bitcoin popularity increased its issues of high transaction fees and time is creating complicacies everywhere. Ethereum which was introduced latter is believed to address all fundamental flaws of Bitcoin making it far more effective. Digital currencies such as Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin have increased truncation times and cost by a huge margin. However Ethereum aim is more ambitious than improving Bitcoin’s credentials as a store of value and payment system.
Some of the early investors point out that Bitcoin is a virtual currency which stores value similar to gold. Bitcoin is limited to its function but Ethereum is completely different. Apart from a virtual currency this digital currency is designed as a platform which enables applications such as smart contracts to run easily without involving third parties.
Ethereum is designed not just to decentralize all traditional banks or financial institutes but also to decentralize the entire internet. This is done by expanding Bitcoin’s core technology named the Blockchain which permanently records all transactions made across the network. The best thing about Ethereum is that its more advanced Blockchain technology and versatile, anyone can use it to create decentralized applications. It opens up more prospects with Ethereum, as we move towards an autonomous future. Ethereum has all the potential to proliferate to a different level of business interaction.
This disclaimer informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text/sponsored content belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to Bitcoin of America, organization, committee or other group or individual. All investments are at your own risk and should be done after careful research. | https://medium.com/@sales_88506/ethereum-vs-bitcoin-764d7af280b | ['Bitcoin Of America'] | 2019-01-23 03:00:45.427000+00:00 | ['Ethereum Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Ethereum', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
UNIT 1 FARO — A Sleek Visibility First Smart Helmet | 🔻👇🔻👇🔻👇🔻👇🔻👇🔻👇🔻
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With traffic getting worse every year and environmental awareness going up, people everywhere are flocking away from cars & public transportation in search of fresh air, adopting bikes, e-bikes & scooters as they choice of transport.
Add bikes getting faster, traffic getting heavier and biking infrastructure falling behind — the result? The perfect storm.
FARO, a smart helmet designed for the rider of tomorrow today. It tackles two main issues: Style & Visibility.
Style: its was designed to be sleek & stylish, a helmet you’ll actually want to wear. Its clean lines and urban color ways make it part of your outfit. To keep the look clean, U1 developed a unique ventilation system that combines hidden intakes and extensive cooling without having to punch too many holes into their helmet.
Visibility: two integrated front & rear lights that make the rider visible from every angle and even during daytime. These discreet but powerful lights are beautifully integrated into the helmet. FARO has a fabric liner in the back that covers up an extra 46 LEDs. This provides a much larger light footprint in a variety of animated patterns & colors, all highly customizable through their Companion App. The fabric liner is a tear-proof, weather proof fabric that looks & feels refined.
FARO has an Navigation Remote. This little device is mounted on the handlebar and allows the rider to activate & display large turn signals to drivers and other riders. A myriad of sensors also activates an automatic brake light when the rider slows down or stops.
FARO can detect a strong impact and (if the rider is unresponsive) will send out an SOS message to a predetermined emergency contact with the rider’s location.
A 1850 mAh rechargeable battery allows FARO to run for up to 10 hours of continuous riding, depending on the rider’s settings.
The electronics in FARO are fully sealed and the helmet is completely waterproof, making it good for any weather.
► UNIT 1 FARO — A Sleek Visibility First Smart Helmet
★ 🎁 Up to 37% OFF | https://medium.com/@bestinnovations/unit-1-faro-a-sleek-visibility-first-smart-helmet-14e7b79b5064 | ['Best Innovations'] | 2021-04-25 15:07:41.951000+00:00 | ['Safety', 'Cycling', 'Helmet', 'Gadgets', 'Urban Mobility'] |
Where Are The Asian American Public Figures Now? | Where Are The Asian American Public Figures Now?
The cast of Crazy Rich Asians (Photo: Getty)
Coupled along with the spread of coronavirus, xenophobia is spreading from shore to shore, causing Chinatown to become deserted as fearful patrons avoid the entire area. Asian businesses have seen a loss as much as 80% of customers, and Asians have become targets of racially charged abuse. Asian students have been bullied, and in some cases, violently attacked. Authorities have spoken out and have been investigating some of the major cases of racism, but when will it stop? How can we prevent more abuse against Asian Americans in schools, workplaces, and public transit? Is there any preventive action against xenophobia during crises such as covid-2019? What are authorities doing to help protect Asian communities across America?
According to , there are 5 ways to fight racism and xenophobia. The White House is unwilling to set aside its partisan differences to fight not only the virus but also the xenophobia that accompanies it. And the White House is doing next to nothing in combating either. President Trump’s last few years of antagonizing China has done nothing for the millions of Chinese Americans besides encouraging an irrational fear of China, which has spurred a green light to racism. His continuous tirade against Chinese businesses and government has done little to help either country’s economy, and the continuing trade war has soured US-China relations. And with the spread of the novel coronavirus, Chinese Americans and other Asian communities have been caught in the crossfire.
Xenophobia in the US, unfortunately, has been normalized as a constant for many people of color. An infographic released by the University Health Services by University of California, Berkeley, was heavily criticized for advising that “xenophobia: fears about interacting with those who might be from Asia and guilt about these feelings,” as normal. The school later apologized for their actions and took the infographic down. Is this how authorities fight racism on its campuses? By normalizing it? Several students at the university have recalled experiences such as being called “coronavirus,” or told to “go back to China.” Many of those who face harassment in public transit or other public places have expressed frustration at the lack of empathy by the public. “Each person I turned to looked away. The room was silent.” Tien wrote when she was harassed at a Vietnamese nail salon.
There is little reprieve for the Asian community amidst the crisis. While local officials have promised to investigate cases of racism, the general public have failed to call out hate speech and prejudice. Using humor to justify hate speech and other forms of racism is hateful; and speaking out against racist news or occurrences is a step in the right direction. Western media has painted the Asian community as cover art of non-Asian coronavirus patients, blaming them for poor hygiene and different eating practices. American media has always been a victim to constant fear-mongering; President Trump’s entire campaign was run on populist, inexorable fears of the “other,” thus alienating minority groups. America’s love of fear and American media have spearheaded racism against Asian communities, at the expense of decimating local Chinese economies.
So who are the ones who are leading the fight against anti-Asian sentiment in America? Who were the ones who called for Asian representation in film and other media? Where are they now? In 2018, we were treated to “Crazy Rich Asians,” and in 2020, coronavirus? There has been a lack in Asian public figures who have called out against the xenophobic experiences of Asian Americans. While some have condemned hate speech on social media, most of them have remained largely silent. Is it too much to ask for Asian-American influencers in 2020 to engage in political activism? Many of them have endorsed political candidates. When will they begin to endorse their own communities that they have vowed to vouch for? There have been some occurrences of Asians coming together to protest against the discrimination they have faced, such as trending hashtags of #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus (I’m not a virus) from French Asians, and We zijn geen virussen! (We are not viruses!) by Dutch Asians. There is a lack of a rallying cry of Asian Americans; Tien’s experience at a Vietnamese nail salon illustrates how fragmented Asian American community is.
If nobody stands for Asian Americans, who will? | https://medium.com/@leslielee1216/where-are-the-asian-american-public-figures-now-67ba82f06592 | ['Leslie Lee'] | 2020-08-24 09:36:06.834000+00:00 | ['Racism', 'Race Relations', 'Covid 19', 'Asian American', 'Coronavirus'] |
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