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UNWANTED SERIES by MIRA MONROA | I always love reading fantasy stories, but if you ask me why? Because it allows me to escape the drudgery of mundane life by entering a world in which magic is real. For a few hours, it’s a vacation to a land of unicorns or goblins or fell sorcerers or brave heroes. So, I picked this book last week,
“MAGICK”
written by Mira Monroa.
The book revolves around Willow, a teenager in her last year of high school. She comes from a very influential family which she is unaware of. But one day her long-lost grandmother comes and tells her that she has to take the honor of being the queen as she is the next one in line after her mother, who isn’t alive anymore. She is supposed to follow the same legacy as her father and grandfather.
She faced various bleaks in her life, like losing her mother at a very young age of 6 and undergoing a rape attempt. She was surviving all this, but she came to know something else. Willow’s world is turning disheveled, as a new realm invades, complete with miscreant Guardians and a handsome warrior who’s vouched to stand by her side till his last breath.
Will she accept the reign? Will she be able to fulfill her legacy wish? Will she succeed in her responsibility? Did she ever fell in love any? Read the book to know them.
The author painted various shades of tension in the plot, litigation, mysticism, and a touch of romance. The storyline is gripping and the suspense build-up is great. The language is lucid. Fantasy readers demand exotic worlds populated by equally exotic and diverse characters. Fantasy is a broad, wonderful, and immersive experience that can cater to many people, and offers a tremendous amount of variation if done correctly and I should appreciate the author for the same. I would recommend this book to all.
Okay, the other part review is here! Who doesn’t love a franchise in fantasy books? This book is the second part of the unwanted series. So, we are gonna look into the second book named,
“REIGN”
Written by Mira Monroa.
The blurb entices me into the book. In the second part, Willow is developed into a Wiccan Queen! She is discerned to lay a new course for Edayri and herself, by discovering a way between what is right, what is tradition, versus what is needed for all of Edayri. I loved the portrayal of the relationship between Willow and Rhydian, which is so beautiful to read. I totally enjoyed those portions, where Rhydian protects and cares for Willow. She battles a twofold existence, periodically as a graceful queen and a modern world naive teenager.
Will she able to negate both worlds?
Will she build a love relationship?
Will she be able to succeed as a Queen?
Will she be a good teenager tacking her life together? These questions pull the readers to turn the page until the end.
The plot was gripping throughout. The cover is as beautiful as the first book cover. The title is well inclined to the content. The storyline is amazing. The plot portrayed different tinges of love, hurt, self-love, conflicts, confusions, devotion, and chaos. I enjoyed reading both the books of the unwanted series and the second part is more intriguing than the first one. I must appreciate the twist and turns knotted in the plot. I really look forward to the next one! I would recommend this book to all fantasy lovers. My best wishes to the author! | https://medium.com/@spellboundark/unwanted-series-by-mira-monroa-23ee034ada89 | [] | 2020-12-18 17:41:22.007000+00:00 | ['Book Recommendations', 'Book Review', 'Fantasy'] |
Food in the spotlight — “So, it begins…” | I am starting this newsletter, generously acknowledging the fact that LinkedIn allows me to do so, in exchange for my users’ attention. This is the usual trade-off you have to face with online platforms and social media: and you need to live with that, together with the fact that if they change the rules, you have to adapt your strategy.
Truth to be told, this platform proved to be also an amazing source of information, enriching networking and brilliant ideas over the years: used correctly, it is by far the most useful social media around, together with YouTube. So, I’ll decide to give this a shot.
Since 2013 we offer you valuable information for free via foodlawlatest.com, and we always will. Hopefully from a new and improved web platform, once ready.
The last 2 years have been almost as challenging as fulfilling. Our company grew in staff as well in revenues, but if 2020 — despite COVID — was a smooth ride, in 2021 we were literally building the rocket while going to the moon. Therefore, this is a good occasion to both cheer for that and beg your forgiveness for every mail I answered late. We heavily invested in IT tools, education, and young talents to try to structure ourselves, and we are now riping the fruits of such efforts.
I guess this year you all had the chance to work with part of my amazing team: without them, I won’t be here. In the last months, they really doubled their efforts to raise the bar and keep our services’ quality excellent as usual.
From time to time, I’d like to share in this newsletter also interesting books, ideas, or tools that made my life and business better. Entrepreneurship — also if on a relatively small scale — is a never-ending learning process; and even if I have no ambition to bring you the “truth”, I am sure that sharing part of my fortunes (and most of all my misfortunes), might be very useful to younger readers.
That said, let me share some of the topics we are facing recently:
China: overseas manufacturing facility registration took a good share of my sleep. GACC Decree 248 and 249 are meant to be in force by the start of the new year. If you export to China and your manufacturing facility is not registered yet, is definitely the moment to be worried. You can find more info on the Malaysian authority’s website (in English) or on the USDA GAIN database, typing “overseas manufacturing registration” in the research field and selecting “China” as the country of interest. Once you understand what to do…guess what? the portal is fully in Chinese!
Italy: we are very active regarding the environment recently. From 1st Jan 2022, all packaging material marketed in Italy (and of course the food products wrapped with it) shall bear on the label, or provide via QR Code or other electronic means — suggesting on the label that such info are available online — two elements: the identification code of the material under EC Decision 129/97 and, in case the pack is destined to consumers, the sorting information (e.g. Plastic waste, Paper waste), to allow proper disposal. At the same time, we finally implemented in Italy the so-called “SUP” Directive (Single-Use Plastic) but exempted from the field of application biodegradable and compostable plastics in an open clash with the EU Commission and the Directive text. Typical Italian!
In the meantime, I saw and shared an interesting video about seaweed production and booming demand:
and started to move forward with our relatively new YouTube channel, publishing a snippet about accreditation, standards, and trust, taken from a recent webinar organized with our best friends Bert Popping and Francois Bourdichon:
That’s all, for now!
Cesare | https://medium.com/@foodlawlatest/food-in-the-spotlight-so-it-begins-e50f8a9ba71d | ['Cesare Varallo'] | 2021-12-27 16:02:45.777000+00:00 | ['Lawyers', 'Food', 'Food And Drink', 'Foodies', 'Food And Beverage'] |
How to create an Article here | What have I struggled to figure out how to publish an article here on medium.com? And in the end, it’s not that hard at all.
First, you can make an account here WITHOUT Facebook and / or Google, which I did not understand first.
Just click on SIGNIN and just use the email you disire to register with, the system will recognizes that there is no account for this mail and sends you an activation-email. That should have been told to me! :D
Then you have to give a little information about yourself and as soon as you did that you can start. Go to “New Story”, enter the title and the story and then press “Publish” in the upper right corner.
If you know how to do it, it is really simple. So tell us what you want, it’s really not that hard! =) — Hope to read you soon! | https://medium.com/michael-rating/how-to-create-an-article-here-d31ff8cc1932 | ['Michael M'] | 2018-08-03 18:01:32.311000+00:00 | ['Medium', 'Newbie', 'How To'] |
MedMaster. By: Cyra | By: Cyra, Milena, Sufia
What is MedMaster?
MedMaster is a company that uses AI to predict and track children’s health through a wristband and an app.
MMband (wristband)
The MMband is a beneficial wristband for your child to wear. Not only does the MMband track and predict your child’s health, but it also ensures that your child is healthy for future days to come by providing recommendations based on the health of your child in previous days.
The MMband has many features that are all designed to ensure the health of your child. The features of the MMband include:
A monthly goal list
Stopwatch/alarm/timer
Health notifications
A watch
Customizable (child’s name, age, disability)
What data does the MMband collect?
The MMband is able to:
Count your steps each day
Predict future health problems and recommends the care needed
Detect diseases or symptoms
Measure your body temperature
Determine the BPM (beats per minutes)
Read blood flow and blood pressure
How does the band use the data? After collecting the data from the child, the A.I in the band is able to tell if everything is ok with the child. If the child is sick, the wristband can alert the parent immediately.
MedMaster App:
When you get the MMband, it also comes with an app. The app is for storing the data that the wristband collected. The MedMaster app includes:
Daily & weekly reports of his/her health progress
Reports that are compared from previous days
An option for your child to rate their day
One game for your child to be active
Parental controls and options to customize the MMband
Graphs/Charts that show how your child has progressed
Disabilities and Health Conditions
The MMband ensures that your child will be benefited and healthier for more days to come no matter what health conditions or disabilities they are experiencing. The MMband is customizable to any of your child’s needs and likings. | https://medium.com/@cyra-aggarwal/medmasters-918ccbf2a19 | ['Cyra Aggarwal'] | 2021-03-13 22:39:21.623000+00:00 | ['Supervised Learning', 'Healthcare', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Reinforcement Learning'] |
The story behind the story — Bright Spaces is about people, patience, and wild dreams | Our first photo shooting
Twelve years after founding 4ideas (which later became Bright Agency and Symbolic), in April 2019, I decided to stop what I did for more than a decade and to launch, together with my partner, Andrei, Bright Spaces, a new startup in a totally unknown area for us at that time: Commercial Real Estate.
1.5 years later and at the end of a rollercoaster ride, here I am, happy to see that all of the team members have grown immensely and that Bright Spaces is going strong on its way to joining the global stage of real-estate tech solutions.
I think that now is a good time for me to take a moment and share some thoughts on what brought us here and on what I’ve learned this year.
Bright Spaces' initial team in our first office in Impact Hub Timpuri Noi
Looking back, it becomes more and more clear to me that there’s something about the thrill of new beginnings and finding better solutions for existing problems that make me feel alive, professionally. Probably this is why I’ve been an entrepreneur almost all of my life and surely this is why I took a leap of faith and started this new adventure.
Idea validation
Our story starts back in April 2019, when the concept behind Bright Spaces won the Real Estate Hackathon organized by Proptech Romania. We had a quick validation and this gave us the courage to start, even though today we’ve reached a completely different shape of our initial proposal.
Our office for 48 hours during Skanska Hackathon
I like to think that we seized a great opportunity to disrupt an industry, but at the beginning, there wasn’t much novelty in what we wanted to do — the need for digitization in real estate existed and many key players felt the need for a change, especially in remote visualization.
3D web view of a floor with fit-out proposals
What we learned was that there were many more specific needs that had to be verbalized, new features to be implemented and a more revolutionary approach to be adopted. And this was even before the pandemic. When Covid arrived, it forced a lot of businesses to migrate online — real estate included, and embrace tech solutions faster.
3D generated tour of the office
The right ingredients
Soon after the hackathon, we focused solely on this new initiative. Our team of 5 members had close to no experience in real estate, but a lot of knowledge in software development and a huge craving to learn new things. We built our pitch deck and started participating at all industry-related events, investor-matchmaking sessions, and discovery calls with potential clients and partners.
Even though Bright Spaces came after 12 years of experience in an agency where we’ve learned a lot, when we sold the company to Zitec in 2019, we decided we wanted a fresh start. We assumed we knew nothing about building a prop-tech startup and we started asking questions both about the industry and about the startup process.
Discovery & support
We knew we needed support and we asked for it. We had over 100 discovery meetings and calls with tenants, developers, brokers, consultants, suppliers and we paid attention to what they had in common in terms of needs. More than that, Ciprian Pașca, Co-Founder & President of Proptech Romania joined as a trustworthy mentor and advisor right from the beginning.
We wanted to build a product fit to the dynamic office industry, that has recently become a buyer’s market, and to bring to the table a solution that had the potential to become global. It was vital for us to support landlords in their need for more standardized reports and offerings, brokers in their relationships with the tenants and developers, and tenants in their requirements of making faster, well-informed leasing decisions.
First funding round
All these meetings and open listening put us on what could be considered a fast-track in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Soon enough, we had the luck to find the right investors who believed in our idea and supported us in securing our pre-seed round of 185.000 EUR in November 2019. Sparking Capital, Growceanu, and Ilinca Paun not only invested in Bright Spaces while we only had a PDF and a mockup but also brought their knowledge to the table and are constantly challenging us and helping us become better.
We managed to attract “smart money” and this is what we will do in the next rounds. Our pre-seed round resembled a series A, in terms of the process. We learned a lot and I feel that thanks to our partners, we are now prepared to scale sustainably. This is, for us, the role we would like our investors to play: take us one step ahead, push us and work together with us so that we can find a common ground that works best for everyone.
This kind of mature partnership is still in its early stages in Romania. But things started to evolve in the Romanian Startup and VC ecosystem and we are slowly moving from a control-based relationship to one where equality, humbleness, and sustainability move things forward. Especially when attracting money becomes easier, I think choosing the most suited investors for you and not accepting the first money that is offered becomes essential for the survival of your business.
In November 2019, we won 1st place in Leasing and 3rd place Main Event at the Proptech hackathon organized by Skanska Romania and Proptech Romania, two partners that also believed in our idea and supported us.
Pi Labs Accelerator
When the pandemic hit, we had just found out we were one of the 5 startups selected to join Pi Labs’ 8th cohort. We were prepared to move to London for a few months for the accelerator, but we had to come back and go through this experience completely online. Their seamless organization was amazing, enabling us to learn from some of the best professionals in real estate and to build an exceptional network of specialists that shaped what Bright Spaces is today.
Clients
In August, Skanska became our first client, offering us invaluable insights on how the solution should be fine-tuned in order to answer the requests of a big corporation and international player. Thus, we proved that digitalization isn’t an attribute only of big companies anymore, as Skanska trusted a startup to join them on a common journey of forever changing the real estate industry through cutting edge technology.
Our first Press Conference together with Anne & Roxana from Skanska
Other clients followed and honored us with their trust. One United decided to showcase their entire portfolio using Bright Spaces, Vox Technology Park became our first out-of-Bucharest client and Moorland Property Solutions Ltd. became our first client in the UK. Recently, we also signed with Impact Hub Bucharest and we will soon announce another big Romanian developer, making us overachieve our goals for this year.
I think that what brought us here is a balanced mix between a good idea at the right time and a great team.
Yes, digitizing the real estate industry and focusing on a niche such as A-class buildings and co-working or serviced spaces has a big potential, especially given the current context. But this isn’t anything new. As a matter of fact, I am convinced that a startup should be 95% innovative (to optimize existing processes) and only 5% inventive (build something completely new).
Team
A strong, resilient, and agile team, can make the difference. And I am lucky enough to have a team who believes in this idea as strongly as I do. Honestly, I see us growing every day and I think that if everyone continues to be just 1% better compared to the previous day, we can expect growth by an order of magnitude.
This growth, for us, can mean anything. We had an exercise within the team, where we all talked about our wildest ambitions and they ranged from providing the Bright Spaces solution on Mars :) (improbable at the moment, but not completely utopic), to building a vocal activated software that suggests the best locations for a tenant based on its requirements and fit-out necessities, to being a full-service solution dedicated to all real estate segments.
Mentors & Advisors
This is not our focus for now, though. Being immersed in what we are doing now is extremely significant, as burning too many steps could bring us down. And we enjoy the process. This is something I’ve learned from various mentors and people I appreciate: "celebrate small wins", to paraphrase Sergiu Neguț, who gave me some great insights about startups and funding. I would love to mention a few of my mentors this year: Ciprian Pașca, Cristian Negruțiu, Vlad Panait, Vlad Sarca, Adrian Erimescu, Ciprian Man, Val Mureșan, Șerban Ripan, Ilinca Păun, Ana-Maria Andronic, Dragoș Nicolaescu, Felix Pătrășcanu, Faisal Butt, Barrie Heptonstall, Paul Clark, Sean Curtis, Paul Unger.
I need a lot of people that are way smarter than me in order to create a global solution and I am not ashamed to admit it!
I think it is safe to say we do enjoy it. Looking at the team and seeing their development gives me the confidence that it’s possible to have those big dreams and many more. At some point, I would like to get involved in improving other systems as well, such as the educational one.
Now that this year is close to an end, I feel very grateful for the valuable lessons I’ve learned and for the inspirational people I’ve met. They all played a great role in our evolution and in my understanding that patience and kindness can make a business successful, cancel stereotypes, or tame fears. One example I’ve met is Felix Patrascanu, co-founder of FAN Courier, one of the biggest Romanian companies, whom I admire greatly for his well-balanced perception over life, power, and the responsibility it brings with it.
Signing big clients like ours isn’t either easy or fast. It takes time and during the process, you learn to appreciate every step, every person, and acknowledge opportunities, mistakes, and challenges as they happen. There isn’t any single day I wished I would have done things differently and even in the current context, 2020 was a good year for us at Bright Spaces.
Andrei & Me at our 2020 office Christmas Party
Being surrounded by great people — family, friends, team members, partners, mentors, investors makes me look forward to 2021 and beyond, when Bright Spaces will be the end-to-end complete leasing solution for any global player. | https://medium.com/@bogdannicoara/the-story-behind-the-story-bright-spaces-is-about-people-patience-and-wild-dreams-e6e5386a20ca | ['Bogdan Nicoară'] | 2020-12-22 07:47:33.426000+00:00 | ['Startup Story', 'Startup', 'Leadership', 'Lessons Learned', 'Year In Review'] |
DID YOU KNOW there are two types of camels: One humped or “dromedary” camels and two-humped Bactrian camels. Come to Dubai dessert to discover more about these amazing animals! | a girl from UK who graduated Fintech | currently in UAE because of lockdown & work 😐 | https://medium.com/@lindsaycaron12/did-you-know-there-are-two-types-of-camels-one-humped-or-dromedary-camels-and-two-humped-bf8adba4054a | ['Lindsay Caron'] | 2020-12-23 08:10:50.528000+00:00 | ['Animals', 'Middle East', 'Pets', 'Camel', 'Facts'] |
A Startling Fact About Stress | There I was, a stressed out mom trying to lose weight.
The thing is, at the time I didn’t have enough energy even when I had some free time.
The big problem was that I was no longer able to do much except focus on my stress. I spent most of my free time recovering from stress. That meant I wasted time recovering from stress and was not able to go out and enjoy my free time, which kept me from moving forward with my dreams.
Then, as if by chance, something amazing happened…
I found out about eustress and began to look at stress in a new way!
Eustress is the kind of stress that helps us to be stronger afterwards. One kind of eustress is working out because after we recover our body is stronger.
Instantly it became crystal clear to me that the amount of each kind of stress determines my future, because I saw I was able to be less stressed by realizing when I was dealing with eustress life would be better.
My plan was to start learning the difference between eustress and distress.
So I started noticing and naming when a situation was eustress or distress. But I didn’t stop there.
I then minimized or eliminated distress when I was able to and maximized eustress.
After that, I worked on maximizing the powers of eustress.
Building on that success, I decided to be mindful about stress.
Because of this new knowledge, I can now be less stressed, more calm, and have more peace in my life!
And that’s why I’m so excited to share this with you so you can get these types of results too!
I’d love for you to be part of our free Facebook group Weight Loss Secrets.
You may also visit https://ProCoach.app/Joyce-Sherman to learn more and contact me.
Have you checked out my totally FREE infographic on how to eat healthy without spending hours preparing a meal? Get it here: bit.ly/3p7JG08 | https://medium.com/@weightlosssecrets/a-startling-fact-about-stress-3a83a68c82f4 | ['Joyce Sherman'] | 2020-12-20 21:19:46.789000+00:00 | ['Stress Management', 'Weight Loss', 'Healthy Lifestyle', 'Stress', 'Weight Loss Tips'] |
Santa, Here’s What I DON’T Want for Christmas. | Santa, Here’s What I DON’T Want for Christmas.
Santa, you don’t have to fly to my house this year.
I’m going to make it really easy. I would like certain absences. Please just remove certain things from my life. I don’t need any more.
Here is what I don’t want for Christmas:
Another Kevin Spacey monologue. You can go ahead and undo that. My student loan interest. I am not interested. My relatives to ask me when I’m coming to visit. I don’t want another conversation about, oh right, there’s a pandemic going on. Any more news about Trump. We can just quietly transition. I don’t want to hear about Tweets or Fox interviews or whatever fake network he’s pressing now. Messages from men who “usually date white girls” but “thought you were pretty.” Phone calls from anyone I owe money to. Phone calls from people I don’t owe money to, but are trying to scare me. I don’t have a car. How can my warranty be expiring? Whatever expired coupon the federal government is going to call a “stimulus” and mail to me. Actually, you know what, I will take whatever it ends up being. Another Russia hack. Didn’t this just happen? Lazy writing for the end of 2020. Recycling plot lines worse than the Jurassic Park franchise. Any medical treatment Fauci wouldn’t approve of. Alcohol abuse. Photos of my exes on my social media feed. Thoughts and prayers.
If you can just make sure I don’t receive any of these, I will have myself a very merry holiday season indeed.
I’ll save you the trip, and the potential exposure to Covid-19.
PS—Pay your elves more. They look pale and sad. | https://medium.com/@lisamartens/santa-heres-what-i-don-t-want-for-christmas-4cca9ecc5984 | ['Lisa Martens'] | 2020-12-25 01:25:05.993000+00:00 | ['Santa', 'Christmas', 'Holidays', 'Gifts', 'Humor'] |
Journal Review: Should Center-Periphery Relations as A Key to Contemporary Turkish Politics? | An article titled Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics? is started by the core-statement of Şerif Mardin’s turkish politics journal, that every civilization has a center and periphery due the either one of them does control or to be under control. Related to the center-periphery, the controlling and to be controlled regards a form of rulers doing security while the controller is the center itself. At the beginning of Şerif Mardin’s writing, he describes the case by looking at Middle East civilization that was ruled by the Ottoman Empire integrated amongst Middle East countries. He asserted that the Ottoman Empire era was ruling with a varied approach to integrating all social levels and backgrounds. Ottoman Empire geographically positioned between Europe and Asia had close ties with Iran Empire as its nearest neighbor that also had power around the Middle East while at the moment Europa had developed early industrialization. The core of this article focusing on the analysis of politics of the late Ottoman to the early Turkey Republic by using a center-periphery point of view and pulled everything into problematic cases.
The author figured out that the empire was a center regarding its influence between Asia and Europe whereas Europe had no power in reconstructing society. Therefore, Europe at the time was a periphery of the Ottoman which was ruled and controlled. However, the Ottoman Empire’s position as a center got moving when Europe stated having a new restructuring society concept. Since then, the Ottoman Empire viewed a concern of the new idea of Europe in constructing society to do the same way. By changing the view, started to get a new position as Ottoman to become a periphery of Europe since had a power influencing in building society. The altering of Ottoman concern into Europe, problematic, and fundamental cases started due to the world view in new society so-called “Leviathan” and “nation-state”.
In the early “Leviathan” and “nation-state” system, the Ottoman Empire stood for its traditional system politics. When those both systems had shown up its success, the Ottoman Empire started to imitate those government systems. This shift in view certainly made a new social class in society by bourgeois and privileges. Şerif Mardin clearly stated his writing also will be discussing the renewal process in the late Ottoman Empire reigned.
In the Ottoman Empire era, one of the problematic cases was a nomad and settled people who lived in Anatolia as a central government that made the environment not stable. This was caused by the central government always pressured and oppressed the actors outside the palace. As a critique for Şerif Mardin’s writing, he said that elite and periphery problems were determined based on the economic side, but he always focused on explaining how the empire regulates the social system by regulations of political power, not from merchant power. As Zurcher (2003) mentioned in his book, people who did not work for the palace classified as a periphery, obviously the merchants who were called Ayan successful without the impact of the palace regard as periphery. The author’s point of view about the periphery feudalism system of the Sultan policy formed the empire as a plunderer for their people indeed. For instance, the officialdom of the palace did not subject to pay tax whereas the peasant obliged to pay tax and their land could be expropriated anytime the palace want.
Based on the explanation above, Şerif Mardin asserts about Ottoman traditional system as an internal government system to establish feudalism. Therefore, the feudalism of the ottoman system created internally a center and periphery. He added, the center position hold by the palace, meanwhile the periphery referred to nomad, settled, urban, and rural people as they live under palace control with all regulations. Also, it was included Ayan people by Zurcher explained. Moreover, the shifting of the decentralization government system created local politicians dominating especially of expropriated land, and as well using the privilege in the middle of an agricultural society. Since that case, the center and periphery had shown up based on political power and domination who oppressed people out of the palace. On the other hand, as there were some local political actors, the revolt happened from urban people who newly live in the city due to the government system was unfair and impartiality for whole social layers. Not only the agricultural people but also all productive guilds non agriculture started to unite and protested about their rights. In addition, Zurcher explained that those prominent actors of guilds had free accessed to communicate with Europe people on the outside because indeed no control of palace towards merchants after iltizam already effect. Therefore, some guilds had imitated European ways to do modernization.
Since 18 century, Ottoman faced problematic situations especially corrupted government systems from military and administration staff. Both positions were done by one actor that is military. Meanwhile, the Ottoman region in 19 century started to decline and focused on modernization process towards a “nation-state” government. The modernization process started by making communication and relation between Turkey guilds with the European guilds. Moreover, since berat affected calling many Orthodox Christians to do the improvement for their internal group. The improvement started from churches and all Christianity believers in rural areas become united. Having contact with outsiders especially European, Ottoman faced a dilemma for ruling its territory. For example, many restrictions for people selling wheat in Palestine and Syria at the time as the nearest modern city. Aside from that, Zurcher said (2003:9) that the Ottoman government system was traditional and conservative because of its limitation in ruling the law, public order, market control, printing money, providing food, and establish working center in Istanbul. Meanwhile, circulating Ottoman income took from people tax because of declining power and lost the war so they did not get the booty of war.
Şerif Mardin’s writing also mentioned the efforts of people in transforming the modernization of the Ottoman towards the Republic in 19 century. They were non-muslim unity like laborers, urban and rural people as minority entities amongst Muslim majority. Other than that, the unification was also pioneered by the Turkish Republic who fought for minority rights in constitute. From the palace actor, Sultan Abdulhamid also tried to do integration by requesting the nomad to be settled down in a certain region. Additionally, He attempted to reunite Muslim in a remote areas. Even though those efforts was failed, Young Turk came up as a new idealist youth association pursuing modernity and secularism to declare a nationalism. Other than Young Turk, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk made an attempt to unify people preparing independence movement. At that moment, many officialdom who worked for Sultan indeed revolted and supported Mustafa Kemal’s ideas. Moreover, the rebellion group toward Sultan declared themselves as continuity of Young Turk forming centralization policy and ended up by one party for Kemalist.
The author clarified the modernization process for bureaucrat as part of westernization. The system pre-independence and the late Ottoman Empire rule used bureaucrat system named “Patrimonial” or “Sultanic” turned into “Rational” bureaucrat. Eventhoug so, the shifting bureaucrat was formed of loomed Ottoman system before, such privilage and oppressed. The author said, within Sultan Abdulhamid II, he attampted to implement a policy for partial modernization. All bureaucrats would be schoolling their children in bureaucrat’s school. Further more, They made everything easier to get the school. This was sure for young military and bureaucrats will be loyal for Sultan than skilled people out of bureaucrats school as bureaucrats school characterized them earlier. Nevertheless, Sultan had established a camp or training school to set up national bureaucrats but it seemed in rush to establish modern country. This modernist movement shifted the old Ottoman motto of “Religion and The State” into “Union and Progress” on behalf of Young Turk for modernization the government.
Explaining the unification process, the author clarified that process of unification form some movements since 18 century until the forming of the republic had not shown its result. In the hand of the Republic Party to do integration missions between local politicians and palace as the center was always rejected. This was related to the independence war that the periphery group indeed wanted to do separatism because they did not feel part of Turkey. Then, the Democrat Party member that part of the Republic Party also could not integrate the periphery who lived in the borders of Turkey. At the beginning of independence, Mustafa Kemal Attaturk also tried to integrate Turkey residents in the rest of Ottoman territory by promoting nationalism, constructing culture, and forming new history in line with the new identity of Turkey.
As the final discussion, the author pulled all center-periphery cases by looking at the preparation towards forming the new Republic Turkey and the first of 25 years after independence. The author described mass unification through two big parties, the are Republic and Democrat Party. The Republic Party did unification by eradicating the gap between master-servant and cut the gap between notables and peasant. On the economic side, Serif Mardin argued that the client faces economic growth. Since at the time, there was new economic power after close ties between notables and peasant than the dominant economy by notables as before. The success of mass unification by the Republic Party made a new center as Democrat Party became a new periphery during the early Republic of Turkey. Both positions realized that there was a war to compete power, especially the Democrat Party by following the Republic Party growth getting a lot of attention due to gather all social classes and construct public infrastructure.
As the author asserted in his writing that this simple thesis could be more complex other than just unification labors and urban people. But, there were other periphery issues like Shi’i Islam, Kurdish separatism, and Turkey politics issues in the future. He was sure that center-periphery considered concepts and important component structure to look at Turkey’s political consternation. Moreover, he said that there were two factors of forming periphery in Turkey modern. First, a center was formed by patrimonial society, and second, the periphery was a center of the counter-work against official-culture. Thus, he was sure that center-periphery will always relevant to examine Turkey politics in the modernization era.
The center-periphery point of view by Serif Mardin, there are three things possibly Turkey politic analysis seems problematic and complicated. The first, Ottoman Empire transition period as a center of civilization shifted toward European of their technology and industrialization progress. The second, critical, and dilemma situation while transforming of Ottoman Empire into Turkey modern by different points of view forming polarization, that was conservative and modernist. Other than that, people should decide to be part of republic or democrat party and ended up with big two big actors. The third, the author positioning clearly who was the center and who was the periphery every period to analyze so that could be concluded that center-periphery will always relevant in examining Turkey politic even in the modern era.
Based on my opinion, the center-periphery theory remained relevant by considering certain terms. First, the examiner should redefine the term “center-periphery” especially in the context of contemporary Turkey politics. That redefinition will assert the position who will be center and periphery. The second, Turkey modern country now is not “Patrimonial” or “Sultanic” government therefore will be multi-parties or a variety of political actors that make it complicated in doing categorization of center and periphery. Thus, this theory will be relevant to examine Turkey politics but the analysis will be not strong enough even limiting the researcher’s point of view.
References
Şerif Mardin. Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?. Daedalus Journal.Vol. 102, №1, Post-Traditional Societies (Winter,1973), pp.169–190.
Zurcher, Erik J. 2003. Sejarah Modern Turki. Translated in Indonesian by Karsidi Diningrat. Gramedia Pustaka Utama Publisher: Jakarta.
Acknowledgement
This article was written while I was sitting in Graduate School of Ibn Haldun University, Turkey as my homework for Turkish Politics Course POL505. This article reminds me about having opportunity and experience as international student in Turkey university that carried on online during the first part of fall-semester in October 2020. I am so proud of myself facing through this 2020 whereas this pandemic was not my barrier pursuing my study abroad. However, due to limited budget, I decided to withdraw my scholarship of Ibnu Haldun University. I hope that best and barakah opportunity will raise soon. | https://medium.com/@yacub-fahmilda/journal-review-should-center-periphery-relations-as-a-key-to-contemporary-turkish-politics-e450dd6661ff | ['Yacub Fahmilda'] | 2020-12-20 11:09:48.327000+00:00 | ['Review', 'Politics', 'Türkçe', 'Turkish Politics', 'Journal'] |
Four building blocks for scaling insights — Part 4: How we train and support the organization to become self served with insight | Four building blocks for scaling insights — Part 4: How we train and support the organization to become self served with insight Siri Bruskeland Follow Feb 10 · 9 min read
In previous articles of our blog series “Four building blocks for scaling insights”, we described three building blocks that we use to create an insight-driven organization: a Data & Insight team consisting of the right people organized in the right way, the necessary infrastructure and tools, and a unified and structured way of working with our data.
While each of these building blocks is absolutely necessary to create an insight-driven organization, they are completely dependent on one last building block.
Your company might have world class data analysts, a perfectly organized and maintained data warehouse, and a really good business intelligence tool, but you will never realize your potential if your organization does not have the skills and motivation to use data for better decisions.
Hence, our fourth building block is Training and Support.
We believe that everyone in a company make better decisions based on insight, thus insight should be available for everyone too. We have worked really hard over the last few years to spread this philosophy, so we were delighted when even our French baker asked for access to our business intelligence tool (Looker).
Jean Louis, our French baker, makes the most delicious breads and croissants and he also sees the value of using Looker
We have established three guidelines for how we train and support our colleagues:
Our three guidelines for how we train and support our colleagues
I will now elaborate on these three guidelines.
1. We answer questions quickly, and we ensure transparency and knowledge sharing by keeping them in open channels
We all know how frustrating it can be when our sense of flow is disturbed because we are suddenly kept waiting for someone else’s input on a problem we are solving. Getting stuck with work in progress is an energy drain and we might lose faith in our ability to solve the problems we are working on.
With this in mind we aim to help our colleagues as fast as we can in the way that suits them best.
In Kolonial.no we have established two main support channels for data and insight related questions: We have a support channel in Slack called #data-insight-support, and we arrange Data Hours where our colleagues can sit down with us for 1:1 support.
#Data-insight-support
Before we had established a Data & Insight team in Kolonial, and while Metabase was still our business intelligence tool, there were no designated people or places to turn to for help. Solution-oriented as our colleagues are, they created an open Slack channel where they could help each other with questions related to data and insight, including Metabase.
As the Data & Insight team was established, and the company grew, it became clear that in order for our colleagues to stay motivated to use data and insight in their work, we had to make sure that the questions that came into the channel were answered quickly and accurately. This could also solve the problem of questions being asked directly to specific Data & Insight employees, causing interruptions to their work, personal queues and lack of transparency.
Today we make sure that each week two people in the Data & Insight team have the main responsibility for answering questions in the channel, while the rest of the team monitors and helps out whenever needed. The questions range from the more concrete type, such as how often different data is updated, to the more analytical type, like whether or not we can confirm that a graph in Looker confirms a specific hypothesis.
Both Data Analysts, Data Scientists and Data Engineers are responsible for maintaining the support channel
This approach limits the constant interruptions for all of us in the team and forces us to get a view of urgent matters across all our users. That being said, we had to, and still have to, make some extra efforts to ensure that our colleagues use the Slack channel. When they contact us in direct messages we always encourage them to ask the same question in #data-insight-support, assuring them that they will get an answer there.
We experience that an important benefit of providing support in an open channel is that everyone in the company can read and learn from each other’s questions. Now we also see that our colleagues have started to help each other which is really great! However, with a growing organization and thus growing membership in our open Slack channels, we emphasise the importance of creating a company culture where no one is afraid to ask questions. When you ask a question, you do several others a favor as well.
Mathias, who works as a Project Manager in Sales, and not in Data & Insight, helps Muhammad in #data-insight-support
Data Hour
While the #data-insight-support channel seemed to serve the purpose of answering data and insight related questions quickly and accurately, and thus allowed our colleagues to do as much as possible themselves, we still experienced the need to sit down with them sometimes. The Slack channel is simply not suited for all the problems our colleagues are working on, as sometimes they do not know how to formulate what they are stuck on into a specific question. Furthermore, while the answers we provide in the Slack channel make sense to some of us, they might not do so for everyone.
Therefore we established a concept we call Data Hour, where people can bring their laptops to a 1:1 problem-solving session with members of the Data & Insight team. The moderators of #data-insight-support host Data Hour during dedicated time slots at each of our office sites and/or in virtual meetings, where anyone at Kolonial.no can come to them with problems and questions. They are available to help people do things themselves, or sometimes understand complex problems better to scope the work we will deliver.
Christian is looking forward to Data Hour
2. We customize our training content to match our colleagues’ different skill levels
As late as 2019 Data & Insight had only one main course in the Kolonial.no course portfolio, namely Introduction to Looker. This course was basically a “one-course-fits-all” type of course, with just minor content adjustments depending on which business areas the course participants belonged to. The course worked just fine, and most of our colleagues gained a basic understanding of what Looker is and how it can be used. However, we noticed (and confirmed with feedback) that there was a large variation in what participants learned from the course, depending on their technical and professional background.
We want everyone in Kolonial.no to benefit from insight based on data, regardless of position, subject area and professional background. To achieve this we identified the need to develop a course portfolio with several levels of difficulty, and learning materials that covered not only how to use our BI tool, but also how to make decisions based on data and analysis. Early in 2020 we started concept development, and in the fall 2020 we launched Kolonial.no’s Data University.
The Data University is a learning program containing material on how we use data in Kolonial.no, and how our colleagues can use data in their daily work to make better decisions and build better data products. The content is divided into different topics, and has three levels of difficulty: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. We have specified learning objectives for each course, and described in detail which skills are required to reach each difficulty level.
We now offer courses within five main categories:
Technical tools for exploring data (Looker / Amplitude)
Evaluating data / Experimental design
Decision making
Other technical tools used in our Data Scientist / Data Analyst workday (Kubernetes / Docker /Git)
Forecasting
Everyone in Data & Insight contributes both to create course content and to arrange the different courses. We have also recorded most of them to make them easily accessible. We continuously adjust which courses are included in the Data University, and what their content is, as we get feedback from the participants and as subject areas develop. We experience that our embedded model makes this process a lot easier as the embedded Data & Insight people can identify competency needs across functions, and work together on how we should fill them.
Currently, our Data University consists of the following courses:
And so far we have received great feedback, but as always there is room for improvement.
3. We encourage and motivate our colleagues to utilize data in their daily work
Motivation and a feeling of achievement is just as important when working with data as it is for most other aspects of life.
As we are passionate about ensuring that data and insight becomes an instinctive part of our colleagues’ problem-solving process, we must trigger their interest and self confidence in gaining insight through the use of data. We also try to lower the threshold for what can be called insight as there is often no need for a large and complex machine learning model. A simple presentation of historical data can also be a very efficient eye opener.
To trigger interest in data and lower the threshold for what can be called insight, we have created an open Slack channel called #interesting-insight.
In this channel everyone is invited to share small and large nuggets of insight that might be useful to others or sometimes simply just fun.
A nugget of insight — March 12th 2020 was the day Norway went into social lockdown (“dopapir” is the Norwegian word for toilet paper)
Also a nugget of insight🍫
We try to motivate and remind our colleagues of the importance of using data by always bringing our data and insight mindset in meetings and discussions. But it is very important to find the balance point where we motivate people and give them valuable insight, without challenging them so much that they lose their motivation or self confidence in using data.
We have now taken you through our three guidelines for working with training and support: We direct questions to open channels in Slack and answer them quickly, we customize training to match ability, and we encourage use of data / insight.
Let us now summarize the four building blocks in scaling insights that has enabled us to become self served
First of all we, have the right kind of people in the Data & Insights team, and organise them close to the decision makers. At the same time we are a close knit group that is well coordinated and learn from each other.
Secondly, we have over time moved to a mature stack of insight tools put together in a modular architecture. The main decision that is difficult to change at this point is the fact that it is SQL based. Despite many contributors, we have control as we are using version control and we strive towards single source of truth through our transformation in DBT and metadata layer in Looker.
With more than 321 tables in Snowflake we make it manageable by having standardized on development practises. Strict naming conventions and taking a lot of best practises from software engineering has increased our productivity and control.
Finally we make sure our decision makers use the data and tools in the right way by delivering timely and dedicated support face to face and in Slack. We continue to close competency gaps by providing in house training that we develop ourselves.
Key take aways on scaling insights
Feel free to check out other post from my colleagues in Product & Tech here on Medium such as our scalable way of working with development in Kolonial.
We are also looking for great people to join us, and have posted new positions in the Data & Insights team. | https://medium.com/oda-product-tech/how-we-train-and-support-the-organization-to-become-self-served-with-insight-bc9d010111c3 | ['Siri Bruskeland'] | 2021-02-11 07:31:41.184000+00:00 | ['Support', 'Insights', 'Training', 'Analysis', 'Data'] |
Modern Analects: A Creation Story | Source: Burak Esen
“If you can find an audience of 100 people, you can find an audience of 1000 people, all you need is time” — Burak Esen
An asset. That is how Burak Esen, the creator of Modern Analects, refers to his five days a week email newsletter, social media ecosystem, and brand. Esen created Modern Analects at a time in his life when the two crossroads of I have a unique ability to provide value to people and I can change people’s opinion of me intersected. That isn’t to say his decisions aren’t meticulous or completely calculated, but it differs from the typical founder approach of trying to solve a problem or apply an existing business model in a new arena. Esen launched his newsletter in 2019 and has slowly built a grassroots community of hundreds of young people passionate about learning finance, real estate, health, books, and psychology. His most popular offering, The Daily Scroll, is a quote followed by some analysis or context ushered by Esen himself distributed digitally through email or social media. While The Daily Scroll touches hundreds of inboxes a day all over the world, Esen isn’t tethered to the idea of a daily newsletter saying “I have the brand, I have the message, but how to convey that message… right now a daily newsletter is the best, but that’s just right now.”
Source: Burak Esen
This fluidity in his approach is what drew me to reach out to Esen and what ultimately gravitates me toward his work. His mantra is “what is going to move the needle today…” with the stark undertone that his audience will change, opportunities evolve, and the needle will shift. Esen will be the first to show you how he and his product have evolved: first shifting to creating in public vs. in private, and second shortening his message. Feedback is the name of the game in content creation. As simple as it sounds, the best marketing is the sharing and reposting by your current audience to reach a new audience, and what typically drives sharing is real organic engagement with the content. Esen learned that the best experiment to test if his message is making an impact on his audience is to evolve from a long-form gift-wrapped finished product sent out weekly to a short-form daily newsletter. This has benefitted him in both dimensions. First, more newsletters provide more opportunities for his audience to engage when they would like to (this is crucial because if you only post once a week people are more likely to miss it when it doesn’t fit their schedule or are less likely to engage because of the length), leading to more opportunities for feedback. Additionally, when you choose long-form there is an implied expectation of revision that comes with it. Esen feels that the more important feedback is from his readers, not himself making adjustments, which is why he has shifted to “iterating in public” with short-form. Lastly, Esen feels his current approach is benefitting his writing making it more digestible. “My writing has gotten way simpler…if you can convey your message in the fewest words possible that is the ideal way and optimal for both parties” which is proving to be true as Esen says he “can’t stand to go back and read his old stuff.”
Source: Burak Esen
Esen treats Modern Analects as his personal growth story, which is why he set out to share his abilities and grow a community before crafting the perfect business model or monetization strategy. The quote at the top of this article perfectly illustrates Esen’s approach, stay true to yourself to grow an audience of like-minded individuals eager to learn. Whether that is one a day, one a month, or one a year, those aren’t the metrics that matter to him. This is why he uses an opt-in approach to the newsletter, he isn’t forcing it on you or tricking you, but instead, there is real value to be recognized for the individual so they will sacrifice some of their inbox real estate. If this type of value can be replicated at scale then the avenues of monetization could be abundant. Esen has seen success with this strategy thus far with something as simple as a Modern Analects bookmark. Less than two cents to make and over a 250% markup with demand greater than anything Esen expected. It is simple to deduce this to a drop in the bucket or a one-time gimmick but if Barstool Sports has taught us anything, it is that if you invest in growing a passionate community there is a lot of money to be made and value created on scaling these types of edges. The uncertainty is the beauty of entrepreneurship in general but a lesson that is easy to believe and difficult to live. Esen lives this uncertainty with the fluidity in his approach to Modern Analects.
I tend to ignore most advice. It is not something I am proud of, but personal experiences have correctly or incorrectly led me to believe the notion that it is either not applicable to my situation or the person that is giving the advice typically has no idea what they are talking about. But a piece of advice that Esen shared has really stuck with me, which is never let anybody put you in a box and define who you are. He was talking about it in a two-pronged manner: your life and your work. The reason he has been successful is that his process is different (it is not a cookie-cutter approach to content creation) and has worked for him. And the times it hasn’t worked for him, he’ll be the first to admit it and go change it. Additionally, much of the impetus for starting Modern Analects was that his life was being gift-wrapped by people trying to define who he is, I’m more than the “class clown or guy at the party” he’d say. His decision to create a “collection of habits, thoughts, and ideas” has laid the foundation for the breakaway from labels and the quest to define what success looks like for him personally and professionally. This is why he paused when I asked him if he considered himself an Entrepreneur, “In this context yes I guess… but it is not something I let identify me”. He does after all refer to his creation as an asset. | https://medium.com/@jamesmcgrath-87692/modern-analects-a-creation-story-bdfddfea36a4 | ['James Mcgrath'] | 2020-12-14 20:29:18.152000+00:00 | ['Content', 'Founder Stories', 'Modern Analects', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Social Media'] |
What is Monero? | While most cryptocurrencies are focused on transparency and public verification, Monero is all about the opposite: anonymity of the sender, the recipient, and the funds themselves. In researching Monero, the term that kept coming up is “fungibility.” No, it has nothing to do with mushrooms. I checked. Fungibility is the identity of the item itself and whether it affects the value. Say you borrowed $10 from a friend. When you pay them back, you can use a different $10 bill and you’re even Stevens, because in most cases, cash is fungible. Now say you borrowed your friend’s Honda Civic, and when you brought it back, it was a Ford Pinto. Not quite so good right? Cars are not fungible. Now say you brought back the right car, but you had used it to rob a bank and crashed it on your way out. That car is now tainted, and its value is irrevocably diminished. That’s what’s beginning to happen with digital tokens because their entire life story is recorded on the public ledger for everyone to see. If a token was used for illegal purposes, it’s value is thereafter affected. Some merchants can no longer accept them. This will never be a problem with Monero coins, because due to their intense privacy, they are fungible.
Using fancy cryptographic techniques, Monero uses ring signatures and stealth addresses to hide senders, recipients and transaction amounts without sacrificing reliability. Users have public and private keys for sending and receiving, and an additional key can be given to a trusted third party to allow them to view, but not alter, the activity on the account. It sounds complicated, but users only need a recipient’s email address to send funds, eliminating some of the long, complex keys other systems use. An additional innovation is the use of an algorithm that does not require heavy processing power, preventing centralization. | https://medium.com/acreapp/what-is-monero-36853fd2a81e | ['Meredith Davis'] | 2018-06-27 13:54:53.379000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Bitcoin', 'Monero', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto'] |
Global HitchHiking IV: Crewing Around the World on Sailboats: Safety | This part of the series is about safety considerations when doing Global HitchHiking or crewing around the world on sailboats. Note, there will be a separate article that just covers safety issues and concerns when crewing as a woman. This article is mostly about general boat safety and making sure the boat you choose to sail on is a safe boat for you to go thousands of miles on, if you so choose. It will also cover social safety, or being safe with the skipper and crew you sail with.
Experience and Qualifications of the Skipper
The first thing you have to ask yourself is whether you’ll be comfortable, from a safety perspective, sailing with the skipper who owns the boat you’re looking to crew on. There really are no minimum qualifications for a skipper who buys a boat and starts sailing around the world. Most skippers will want to become proficient sailing their boat since they have invested time and money in it, but there is no guarantee of their proficiency. Just as they will be interested in your experience and qualifications, you should be equally interested in what experience and qualifications they have. Find out how long they have been sailing and where they have sailed. Ask if they have any certifications such as ASA or RYA certifications or perhaps a 6-Pack (US-based) or a Yachtmaster (International). I wrote a little about these qualifications in Part II of this series as something you could consider doing yourself, but it’s equally important for the skipper to have pursued some technical knowledge to sail their boat.
The Boat Itself
The next thing you need to ask the skipper is about the boat itself. Here are a list of things you should be curious about. For you to ask about these things is not only good from a safety perspective, but it will also let the skipper know you are aware of these important safety features and you have knowledge of sailing. Note, all of these items should be covered in a safety briefing once you actually board the boat and before you set sail, but it’s good to know that they are a consideration before deciding to join the boat.
Does the boat have a lifeboat? Is it regularly serviced? Does the boat have any grab bags or emergency bags in case you need to leave the boat in a hurry? Does the boat have an EPIRB ( Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon)? Is the battery okay on it? How old is the standing rigging of the boat and when is the last time it was serviced? (The standing rigging is what holds up the mast.) Does the boat have a working engine? What is the horsepower? Is it maintained properly? Have the oil and fuel filters been changed recently? What about the water cooling system filters? Does it have any issues you should be aware of? Does it start without any special requirements? What is the capacity of the fuel tank? Is there a generator in addition to the main engine for generating power? All the questions above are relevant to the generator as well. Does the boat have the appropriate tools for performing maintenance on the boat, such as changing the fuel and oil filters? Do all the sails work properly? Are there sail patching tools and materials? Does the boat have any spare sails? Does the boat have an auto-pilot? Does it also have an alternative auto-pilot, such as a wind vane? Does the boat have hydraulic steering? If so, is the hydraulic steering maintained properly and has it been checked lately for leaks? Does the boat have an emergency steering system and has it ever been used or at least ensured that it can be used in an emergency? Have they considered alternative emergency steering systems, such as buckets or sea anchors? How many seacocks does the boat have and how are they closed? Are there bungs for emergency stopping of water coming into the boat? How is the electrical system working? Are the batteries functioning at full capacity? Is the solar/wind/engine able to keep the batteries topped up so the boat doesn’t have any electrical problems with the navigational instruments and the lights? Are we able to charge our devices without any problems? Does the boat have spare parts for all the systems on the boat? Electrical, Propane, Engine, Plumbing & Waste, WaterMaker. How is the bilge and how do the bilge pumps work? Has the boat ever had problems with the bilges not emptying properly? Does the boat have a water maker? What is the capacity of the water tanks? If no water maker, what are the plans for water? Is there any emergency water (separate bottles in case something goes wrong with the water or water maker)? Does the boat have propane systems for cooking and other things? Does it have safety shutoff valves? Does the boat have flares? Are they current or expired? How big is the anchor? Is there a backup anchor? Stern anchor? How much chain and rode are on the main anchor? Does the boat have a drogue or sea anchor? Navigation: Is there a GPS? Is there a backup GPS? Is there a Chart Plotter? Backup Chart Plotter (iPad with Navigation software, for example)? Are there paper charts? Compass? Sextant? Does the VHF Radio work properly? Is there a Single Side Band Radio? Is there a satellite system? Is there a satellite phone? Does it provide internet access? Are there fire extinguishers? How many and locations? Fire blanket? Are there life jackets? Do you need to have your own life jacket? Safety harnesses and jacklines? Are there any first aid kits? Does the boat have a dinghy and dinghy motor?
Real Life Example of Why I Ask These Questions
The first boat I was on, I really enjoyed the skipper and all the crew. However, it was my first boat and I didn’t really take the safety questions above seriously enough and I didn’t put my foot down when there were shortcomings. The boat had been in the water for 10 years, just sitting, and the skipper was replacing electrical and plumbing and the motor was still being rebuilt when we arrived in November. There was another couple with us, totalling 5, including the skipper and his wife, and the couple ended up leaving after a couple weeks because they didn’t feel the boat was ready to make an ocean crossing. I agreed with them, but we were still in the ICW and it really wasn’t a big deal. I looked at it as a learning experience and I felt like everything would be okay. We had a problem with the alternator. We had to get it replaced. No big deal.
When we got to Miami, we attempted to cross the Gulf Stream to get to the Bahamas and one of the shrounds broke (standard rigging problem) at the chainplate. The bolt that connected the shroud to the chain plate had rusted through. We turned around and headed back to Miami and inspected all of the chain plates and shrounds and all of them had rusted bolts in them. So we replaced them all.
We made a 2nd attempt to the Bahamas a few days after making those repairs, and the weather was rougher than we expected so we turned around and came back to No-Name Harbor in Miami. No sooner than we had anchored, the steering on the boat went out. After further investigation, the hydraulic lines and fittings for the hydraulic steering were leaking, and enough had leaked that the steering stopped working up on the deck. So we spent another week trying to rectify that situation, although we couldn’t get everything resolved because there was a combination of metric and standard pipes and fittings, but we did the best we could. We also bought a large container of hydraulic fluid we could use to top off the hydraulics if we needed to.
Another problem with this boat was the mainsail was torn. So we only had the jib sail and the motor for moving through the water. To be fair, it was an older sail and we tore it trying to get it up one day in Florida. At this point you’re probably thinking, why am I still on this boat. Once again I committed to helping this skipper get the boat to Aruba. And I try to live up to my commitments. And it was mostly a big adventure to me.
Something else about this situation was that the skipper wasn’t looking at sailing this boat ever again once he got it to Aruba. He simply wanted to turn it into a bed and breakfast boat. So he couldn’t justify spending 5–10,000 dollars on a new sail, particularly since he really just wanted to get it to Aruba and that was it. He wasn’t looking to sail it around the Caribbean or anywhere else for that matter.
We made it through the Bahamas and Haiti and then we bought some bad fuel in Haiti that we didn’t realize was bad until we were 1 day out and both the main motor and the generator stopped running. I attempted to change the fuel filter, but didn’t have the appropriate tools, so I was unable to do so. We were stuck. With only the jib sail, and we were heading into the wind, we were really getting nowhere and we didn’t have clean fuel, nor a way to change the fuel filter. So we did the only thing we could at that time, we made a PanPan and asked if there was anybody in the area who could assist us with fuel and a tool to change the fuel filter.
I feel like we didn’t do the due diligence of making sure the fuel was okay or having the appropriate tools on board to try and change the fuel filters. But I think it’s a perfect example of why all of the questions above should be asked, even if they might seem overkill. Don’t make the same mistakes I made by not asking those questions and using the answers to make a safety decision about whether to sail on that boat or not. I’m glad I did sail on this boat. It really brought home how important these questions are, and I’ve never been on another boat with problems like this, so the safety question work and are crucial to your safety.
To make an even longer story short, we got the fuel and the tool we needed, got the bad fuel out of the tanks, the new fuel into the tanks, the filters changed, and we motor-sailed on to Aruba. After the longest passage I’ve ever been on (not in days, but in stress and strain), we arrived 7 days later, worn out and frazzled. We made it, but there were many times during those 7 days when I wasn’t sure we would. And I learned a lot about asking the right questions before you get on a boat!
Social Safety
Social safety, feeling safe or comfortable with the people you are working with, is also very important. You will be traveling with them for many days, in a small space, where you will most likely be on top of each other half the time, and you’ll get cranky from lack of sleep. You may get tired of eating their food or washing their dishes. So it’s important that you try to make sure that you’ll be comfortable with them.
Spend some time trying to figure out if it’s going to be a good fit for you or not, personality wise, and safety wise. Will your personality fit well with the skipper or other crew members? Does the skipper or crew members have a temper? Is it a dry boat or will there be alcohol consumed on the boat? How do they treat other people? I’m assuming that before jumping on a boat you will take a little bit of time to get to know the people you’ll be sailing with. This isn’t always possible, but sometimes if you don’t take the time to make sure you’re going to get along with the skipper and crew you may find yourself in a situation that you really regret.
This happened to me. I was in Tahiti and was trying to find my next boat. I was kind of in a hurry because the boat I was on had guests coming and I was either going to need to rent a room somewhere or find a boat leaving soon. Hindsight is 20/20, but I wish I had just rented a room for a few weeks or a month and taken my time to find a boat instead of feeling pressure (self applied, by the way) to get on another boat and head out right away. The boat was a beautiful boat and it was well maintained. But I didn’t pay attention to the personality warning signs of the skipper. And because it was just him and me, I really should have paid more attention to how he treated people and his quirks.
For example, I noticed when we were eating at a restaurant, there was a boy playing in the pond next to us being a little unruly and his parents were nowhere to be found. The skipper looked at the boy and told him to f*$k-off! I was shocked, but part of me thought, well, the boy was being unruly. But I should have recognized his temper and impatience then.
I ended up being on board this boat for 3 weeks, from Tahiti to Tonga, and we honestly ended up hating each other before it was done. I don’t say that lightly. I get along with almost everybody I meet. You could ask many people about me and most of them would say that I’m good natured and easy to get along with. But this skipper was cantankerous and mean spirited. He would have a conversation with you, asking you what seemed like genuine questions about you and your history and then he would use them to tear you down and make fun of you.
It got to the point when we arrived in Bora Bora, I immediately jumped off the boat with my flippers and snorkel mask and swam from boat to boat, asking if they needed anybody to crew with them. I ended up sailing on with him to Tonga and he left his boat there to go home to Australia, and I joined another boat with a skipper and crew member, which ended up being one of the best 3 months of my sailing experience. We not only sailed from Tonga to Malaysia together, but my skipper invited me to stay with him for free in his guest room until I found my next boat.
What did I learn from that experience? That it’s just as important to consider social safety and whether or not you get along with the people you will be sailing with or not. It’s as important as determining the physical safety of the boat. You want to make sure you can get along with whomever you’re going to be with, perhaps all alone for weeks on end. And you want to feel safe with them.
I hope you enjoyed this installment of the Global HitchHiking series. If you have any question or suggestions, or if you feel like I missed a safety item above, please don’t hesitate to comment below. If you’d like to see more of my posts, take a look at my blog, Living Large by Living Little or to see the previous articles in this series, take a look at Global HitchHiking.
Here are some pics I’ve taken along my journey. | https://medium.com/global-hitchhiking/global-hitchhiking-iv-crewing-around-the-world-on-sailboats-safety-eb4839b78259 | ['Matt Ray'] | 2019-05-18 04:26:23.619000+00:00 | ['Oceans', 'Travel', 'Sailing', 'Blog', 'Global Hitchhiking'] |
How to Deal with a Jealous Girlfriend | You have a relationship for a long time with an
amazing girl, you love her very much, but the
problem is that she is very jealous and that’s
why you are arguing a lot. You don’t want to lose
her so you have to deal with it.
dating, online dating, seduction, flirt, relationships, love, romance, marriage, foreign brides, single parents
Jealousy is a whole bundle of feelings that tend
to get lumped together. It is one of the most
destructive and painful emotions in a dating
relationship. Jealousy is about fear of losing
power of control in a relationship. Jealousy is
sweet sometimes, but in moderation. Too much
jealousy can destroy a relationship, because is
driving a wedge between the two.
You have a relationship for a long time with an
amazing girl, you love her very much, but the
problem is that she is very jealous and that’s
why you are arguing a lot. You don’t want to lose
her so you have to deal with it.
A Successful First date Click Here
But she is over reacting: she calls you in the
middle of the night to make sure that you are at
home, she is checking your mobile phone, calls
you when you go out with your friends to see
where you are and how much you stay or becomes
very angry when she sees you looking or talking
with any other girl. Also she gets suspicious and
make accusations which are not all heartfelt, it’
s teasing you a lot, accuse you of being
unfaithful even if there is no basis for her to
think this way. After a while you are enough of
all this, but you are ready to make all the
sacrifices you can to understand her and make her
stop with all these.
There are many reasons we feel jealous and though
it is a normal human emotion to feel. Jealousy
comes from insecurity. Maybe she is afraid that
you will see another girl and suddenly like her
more that you like her. So, try to not give her
many reasons to feel jealous. Avoid looking at
other girls in her presence, don’t compare her
with other girls, don’t exclude her from your
future plans and also avoid having female best
friends. If you have already a best female friend
and don’t want to lose any of them, you should
try meeting them both and making them become
friends.
No matter the reasons why she feels jealous, you
should try to understand why she feels that way.
As an example, maybe she can’t deal with the fact
that before her you had a girlfriend, your first
girlfriend with whom you stayed more than with
her, you loved her, but all is over because she
betrayed you. But your actual girlfriend doesn’t
want to accept that, and continues to be jealous
on her. Explain her that she has to accept that
we all have a past and move on because that past
isn’t going to change, and assure her that she is
the only one for you.
Maybe all of us which have a relationship for
some time and love their partner are sometimes a
little jealous. Think about it: how would you
feel to see her at school or work talking with
other guys, and comes and tells you how great
they are, wouldn’t you be jealous? Or maybe there
are some people around her that you don’t like
and don’t trust in them, and then you see that
you are jealous too. A little bit of jealousy is
healthy, but in her case, which is over reacting,
she may need some help from you to get over it.
The best thing you can do to deal with your
jealous girlfriend and to not break up with her
is to talk sincere with her and tell her how you
feel. Also be faithful to her and explain her
that you know that relationships are based on
trust so you are going to be sincere with her all
the time. Communicate sincerely and with calm and
tell her she needs to get her self — esteem in
check, because she is splinting you apart.
Having a heart to heart discussion and explain
her that all this jealous behavior will drive you
away. Often an honest exchange of feelings will
solve the problem.
The jealousy often ruined the relationship
because it push away the other partner more and
more with every fight and argue they had; after
some time the partner which is accused all the
time had enough and leave. But if you really love
her and want that your relationship continues,
make an agree both, to stop arguing so much. You
will not give her so many reasons to be jealous,
and she will try to not call you so many times a
day.
Keep Learning
If that sounds like fun to you, click here to watch a video presentation about this relationship enhancement tool.
It’s something you can learn once, but then use for the rest of your life. | https://medium.com/@suzen1592/how-to-deal-with-a-jealous-girlfriend-85e0bf33a18a | ['Health'] | 2021-05-06 06:23:50.062000+00:00 | ['Relationships Love Dating', 'Relationship Advice', 'Deal', 'Relationships', 'Girlfriend'] |
The Great Auk — The Penguin of the North | The Great Auk! Yes, “the great” is part of its name. You might wonder why does it have great in its name. This is a term given to those who are prominent and distinguished, and this bird is exactly that.
The Great Auk is a short flightless bird. Its height is around 75 to 85 cm, and it weighs a measly 5 kilograms. If you were to look at it, you would immediately exclaim, “Hey! This looks like a Penguin”. It is the only modern species in the genus penguins. As a matter of fact, Penguins were discovered after the Great Auk, and the Penguins were named so because of its resemblance to it.
Illustration from John James Audubon ‘s work The Birds of America , published 1827–1838.
You might ask “Where can one find this bird in the wild?” These magnificent creatures are found in the chilly waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. They nest on both sides of the ocean. They are very commonly found off the shores of Iceland, the Faroes, Greenland, the northern isles of the UK, Canada and Norway.
These birds are quite clumsy on land, but what they lack on land they make up in the water. They are excellent and powerful swimmers. This trait is a primitive tool which they use to hunt for food. They hunt and feed in flocks. Their main diet is fish, around 15 cm in length, but sometimes they feel brave and begin to hunt prey half their own size.
Reproduction is something natural and essential for the survival of all species. The Great Auk pairs mate for life. During mating season, all the birds group together in tightly packed and dense colonies. The pair lays one egg on a rock, and both parents take turns to protect the egg during the incubation period. The incubation period is usually 6 to 7 weeks. The young leave the nest site after 2–3 weeks, although the parents continue to care for it.
Gould, John (1804–1881), Author. New York Public Library
Some special features of the Auk are that, in the summers, the bird’s plumage shows a white patch over the eyes. But during the winters, these patches develop into a white band stretching in between the eyes. The Auk is considered symbolic by many Maritime Archaic people, and they were often buried with its bones.
All this might leave you wondering why you haven’t heard about these wonderful and fascinating creatures or even seen them on National Geographic or Animal Planet? Well, the one detail which I have not mentioned about the Great Auk is that this poor bird has been extinct since the mid-19th century. The main reason for their extinction is hunting.
The Great Auks were mainly hunted by sailors, primarily for their feathers and meat. The last two were taken at Eldey on 4 June 1844 when three Icelandic sailors, Sigurður Ísleifsson, Ketill Ketilsson and Jón Brandsson, were asked to collect a few specimens for the Danish natural history collector, Carl Siemsen. Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson were each quick to find and kill a bird, but Ketill returned empty-handed, as the two birds killed were the last ones, and that was how the greed of humans caused the extinction of yet another species.
Source
It is sad to see that such common and beautiful creatures were hunted and slaughtered by us humans. Hunting is the reason for the extinction of many animals. Though banned in many places, this sport is still prominent and practised in some areas. In the 1900s there were over 100,00 tigers in the wild, but due to hunting, hardly 3,100 tigers exist.
The Great Auk was one of those creatures which, if not extinct today, would have made all of us look at it in awe. But you can still make an effort to save the animals that are here now and on the verge of extinction. Do not let these beautiful creatures perish, because once gone, our future generations will not get to witness these incredible creatures, and us humans are the only ones to blame. | https://medium.com/@siddhanthprao/the-great-auk-the-penguin-of-the-north-3fc46f8489a3 | ['Siddhanth P. Rao'] | 2020-12-05 14:34:54.222000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Blogging', 'Pets', 'Wildlife', 'Birds'] |
Trying to “fix” the GOP is the definition of insanity | How long has it been? Some would point to the rise of the Tea Party eight years ago. Those of us old enough to remember might say that the Reagan revolution of the 1980s was the most vigorous effort made. Our seniors might look to the 1960s with Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley Jr. leading the charge. Depending on your age, you can pinpoint various eras when the GOP came closest to being the small-government, Constitution-minded party that it has claimed to be for decades. Unfortunately, all of these eras ended with the quashing of conservatives and Federalists within the party at the hands of the big-government GOP Establishment.
A quote often attributed to Albert Einstein says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By this definition, those who want to limit government, defend freedoms, and protect life are insane for attempting to fix the GOP from the inside. It’s harsh to say it. It’s hard to admit it. As someone who finally took the plunge and invested heavily in an alternative, I can tell you that it’s terrifying. I’ve been a Republican since the 6th grade when I started learning more about this nation’s founders. Leaving the party after three decades is difficult, but I’ve come to learn in the last couple of years that I’ve been aware of the GOP’s duplicity for longer than I’d like to admit. I was in denial. I was burdened by false hope. I kept telling myself that we just need to get a few more real Republicans in office to make the difference.
In short, I was insane, at least by Einstein’s definition.
It’s understandable, really. We’re fed a continuous diet of patriotic slogans, bold promises, and false actions that give us reason to hope against hope. We see a small handful of people who truly believe in defending the Constitution get into office and we believe they’re the ones who can change things. When they get attacked by their own party, we start calling those attacking them RINOs and Neocons and the Establishment and whatever other names make us feel better, but here’s the reality: we’re the RINOs. The Constitution-loving politicians we support are RINOs. If the majority of Republican politicians are destined to continue down the road of inflating budgets, centralizing power in DC, and failing to perform the basic tasks that they promise during campaign season, then they truly represent the heart of the Republican Party. The rest of us are “Republicans In Name Only” because we’re unwilling to support the greater-of-two-evils in the Democrats and we’re too afraid to challenge the artificial two-party system.
We just witnessed what it means to be a Republican last month. In 2015, they made us a promise by putting an Obamacare repeal bill on President Obama’s desk knowing full well that he would veto it. Last month, they had the opportunity to keep their promise by putting the same bill on President Trump’s desk. Instead, the put together a monstrous replacement plan that changed the nuances of Obamacare. They threw in some red meat in an attempt to garner conservative support such as defunding Planned Parenthood, but at the end of the day it was still government overreach in the form of DC-managed health care with a humongous price tag.
There are only three scenarios that can reconcile this decision:
Republican leadership believes Obamacare has proven to be better today than it was in 2015 and therefore needed to be fixed rather than eliminated. They feared the Democrats, with minorities in both chambers and no (official) representation in the White House, were still too powerful and would somehow stop them. The bill they passed in 2015 was a bald-faced lie. They never intended to repeal Obamacare and only passed the bill in order to make you believe the falsehood that they would do it again if they had someone in the White House who would sign it.
I’d put my money on scenario 3.
Some would say that it’s the best we can do. They’ll point to some solid moves in the last three months that prove it’s better to go with the Republicans than to fight the system. They’ll tell us that we need to take what we can get and push for something better in the future. In other words, they’ll tell us to keep doing what many of us have been doing for decades. They’re telling us not to fight or even recognize the insanity that they propose. They’re telling us to embrace it.
No. Not again. I’m not a politician, pundit, wonk, or rich power-broker. I’m a Constitution-loving, big-government-hating American who has used my vote and my voice to no avail. In 2016 I decided to stop repeating the same things over and over again because I realized it was foolish to expect different results. Last week marked the one-year anniversary when I launched a “Drudge alternative” and announced it on RedState. Things have changed since then. We’ve had some great successes, but there were also many setbacks. Recently, we’ve been seeking the funds to hire a full-time editor. The biggest reason we’re behind isn’t because of lack of interest. It’s because as important as spreading a good message is for the future of the nation, we needed something more. I felt compelled to go a step or two (or ten) further. As a result, I pooled together some funds and people to launch the Federalist Party.
That project has been much more successful than I ever dreamed. We had our first mention in the NY Times this week. We’ve had interviews lining up at a breakneck pace, particularly as we started our first media blitz on tax day. Growth has been phenomenal; we modestly projected to be as large as the Constitution Party by the next election but we’re on pace to challenge (and potentially surpass) the Libertarian Party instead.
The greatest obstacle is a combination of the aforementioned insanity so many of us have faced and the fear that comes from building from a minority position. It’s difficult to imagine something started by a small group of patriots could bring about real change. It’s scary to think of the challenges we face when the vast majority of Americans are opposed to the notion. Of course, the people who first challenged the British were also a minority. They faced much tougher odds than we do. They didn’t have the internet and social media to make their message “go viral.” If they listened to the multitudes of naysayers who didn’t want to buck the system, our nation may never have been born. Those today who believe it’s impossible to break through the two-party system would never have believed that America could win its independence in the 18th century.
Those who embrace small government, freedom, and life have two choices: accept what the GOP does as being the lesser-of-two-evils or join us in doing something about it. What’s been proven over and over again for decades is that fixing the GOP from the inside is not a viable choice. The Republican Party is pulling further away from the Constitution every year and telling us to accept it. If you’re not okay with that, it’s time to stand up and be counted.
Article originally appeared on RedState. | https://medium.com/political-jargon/trying-to-fix-the-gop-is-the-definition-of-insanity-d4878adae54 | ['Jd Rucker'] | 2017-04-19 08:42:58.954000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'GOP', 'Federalism', 'Federalist Party', 'Republicans'] |
The Christmas Eve Agreement | The Christmas Eve Agreement
After four and a half years, and after loads of abuse, resignations and debate, an agreement between the European Union and the UK has been reached. The British government (and of course, the EU) has sold this agreement as a triumph for their supporters, and even the brains of this operation, Nigel Farage, has tweeted ‘the war is over’.
Unfortunately, wars don’t have winners. Instead, some lose more than others, and in this one, the loser has been known since the beginning. And I can explain why.
Perhaps we could say that Britons have now more freedom to change their own laws, but their problem continues: If they want to sell their product to the European market, they are bound to adhere to the European rule. It would be inconceivable that a Spaniard seller, who has to follow the European regulation on consumer protection, was to find a British product without the same level of safety in their own kitchen.
There are countless reasons for Britons to be happy with this departure, but these reasons belong to the group of intangible benefits. For example, their laws will now be independent of the EU; so they can now take comfort in this newly acquired autonomy. But what do you want autonomy for when you can’t use it in the real world?
We can talk about regulations in climate change, safety, fish, immigration, tariffs, etc. In the end, its the economy stupid! The EU has nearly half a billion of consumers while the UK hardly a fifth of this number. In simple terms, the UK is now more at the EU’s mercy than before, because when the UK exports products to them, it has to adhere to rules it can’t influence. There will no longer be British politicians sitting at the European Parliament and defending their country’s interests.
The dream of an independent UK, freed of the shackles of the EU, isn’t more than just that: A dream. In the XXI century, countries can’t be as ‘independent’ from each other as they have been in past eras. Inevitably, we need each other when we buy stuff and we have common needs when we talk about human rights.
As I wrote the first draft of this piece, I listened to brexiteers fighting among each other on the radio because they haven’t been given what they were promised. The ones who wanted a hard Brexit and thought Boris Johnson was their man are feeling hard on-by. The Conservatives who voted for him think this is a triumph. At least we can breathe with relief that we haven’t ended without an agreement.
In Spanish, we say that nadie da duros por pesetas. | https://medium.com/an-idea/the-christmas-eve-agreement-af359203bf07 | ['Francisco M. Gómez'] | 2020-12-29 09:51:55.174000+00:00 | ['The European Union', 'Brexit', 'The Uk', 'Christmas', 'Business'] |
Eminer hash rate platform | Hi,this is Eminer,the best cryptocurrency mining assitant.
Also,Eminer is a hash rate platform.
As an innovative global blockchain hash rate financial service platform, Eminer aims to re-define the mining industrial ecology based on blockchain hash rate and endow platform hash rate and devices certain value liquidity through specific methods to finally build into a blockchain hash rate financial service platform integrating hash rate service, financial service, investment service and information service.
Problems solved
Eminer hash rate service platform is launched mainly to solve the major pain points facing the current mining industries so as to involve more investors at lower thresholds and share the bonus brought by blockchain development.
Lowering industrial threshold and improving assets liquidity
After endowing miners, mining farms and other fixed assets and hash rate certain value liquidity through specific way of platform, Eminer platform lowers the access thresholds of the entire mining industry so as to involve more investors interested in mining without investing costly fixed assets cost and share the returns brought by mining. Meanwhile, the assets liquidity of mining farms and miners is improved to achieve faster development.
2. Carrying out large-scale and professional operation to lower expenditure cost
Compared with the mining ecosystem that is small, scattered and localized, large-scale and professional operation is the trend and direction for future mining industry. Eminer platform will produce certain scale effect through continuous building and purchase of infrastructure and mining devices and cooperation with other ecology partners, thereby lowering platform purchase, construction and operation cost. Meanwhile, due to the large scale of platform, it enjoys comparative advantage in electricity resources and compliance qualification.
3. Providing cross-currency mining service to improve mining DOF
As the consensus algorithm among different currencies varies, the miners required also vary. As a result, it puts some limits to the DOF of miners. However, Eminer platform can provide mining services of different currencies under different conditions according to the personalized requirements of miners so as to enhance the mining DOF of miners.
4. Empowering financial attribute to provide financial services for users
The development of any industries cannot be separated from financial support. Eminer platform continues to expand its financial services and products and provide all-directional financial services and support for ecosystem members such as miners, mining farms, pools and miners manufacturers and help the member to better stay afloat. | https://medium.com/@eminer/eminer-hash-rate-platform-80b480b1777a | [] | 2019-07-01 10:29:49.708000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Mining'] |
Unique Traits of Highly Creative People | Highly creative people often feel misplaced in our logical linear world but they feel different for a reason, and research confirms that their brains have structural differences that cause them to think and act uniquely. In this article we discuss some Unique Traits of Highly Creative People.
Creative people operate on a more intuitive and imaginative level than their counterparts who seem to excel at logical analytical endeavors the average person may find it hard to understand a creative person’s mental process. In fact, there are a number of different things that an average individual will most likely never understand about a creative person.
Playful Yet Disciplined
A playful attitude is one of the hallmarks of creativity but this light heartedness and excitement is also mirrored by a major paradoxical trait perseverance when working on a project creative people tend to exhibit determination and focus they will work for hours on something often staying up late into the night until they are satisfied with their work they realize that real creativity involves combining both fun and hard work.
Extroverted and Introverted
While we often fall into the trap of categorizing people as solely extraverted or introverted creativity requires combining both of these personality types making creative people ambiverts they are both expressive and withdrawn sociable and quiet.
Interacting with others can generate ideas and inspiration and retreating to a quiet place allows creative individuals to fully explore these sources of creativity
Realistic Dreamers
Creative people like to daydream and imagine the possibilities and wonders of the world they can immerse themselves in imagination and fantasy yet remain grounded in reality.
They are often described as dreamers but that doesn’t mean that they live with their heads in the clouds creative types ranging from inventors to artists musicians can come up with imaginative solutions to real world issues.
Their Minds Never Slow Down
An average person’s mind eventually stops thinking of ideas, unknown scenarios and possible outcomes and they are more likely to rest easy at night but a creative person’s mind never slows down in fact creative people have been known to complain about this phenomenon.
Creativity appears at random times of the day and often during the night thus creative people have a hard time getting to bed many of the most famous writers musicians and actors are up working during the late hours of the night their brains simply refused to shut off.
They Follow Their True Passion
Creative people tend to be naturally motivated, meaning that they’re motivated to act from some internal desire rather than the desire for external reward or recognition.
Psychologists have shown that creative people are energized by challenging activities which is a sign of intrinsic motivation, and the research suggests that simply thinking of intrinsic reasons to perform an activity may be enough to boost creativity.
Creative people choose and become passionately involved in challenging problems that provide a strong sense of power from the ability to use their talent.
They are Objective About Their Work
Being passionate about something does not necessarily lead to great work Imagine a writer so in love with his work that he’s unwilling to edit a single sentence, imagine a musician reluctant to listen to their own performance and hear areas that need improvement.
Creative people love their work but they are also objective about it, and willing to be critical and take criticism they are able to separate themselves from their work and see areas that need improvement
They Have Difficulty Staying on Task
While a creative person has much to offer the world, it can be hard for them to focus on one task at a time. This is because so much new information is being processed in their minds at once. Many creative people suffer from Attention deficit disorder (ADD), and it’s not hard to see why.
It could be difficult for a creative person to focus on one thing when there are new ideas constantly flooding their brains they may also find it hard to finish long projects instead they would much rather focus their attention on developing something interesting and new.
They Often Use Procrastination as a Tool
Creative people are notorious procrastinators because many do their best work under pressure they will subconsciously and sometimes purposefully delay their work until the last minute simply to experience the rush of the challenge.
They Lose Track of Time
Creative types may find that when they’re expressing themselves they get in the zone or what’s known as the flow state which can help them to create at their highest level. Flow is a mental state when an individual transcends conscious thought to reach a heightened state of effortless concentration and calmness.
When someone is in the state they’re practically immune to any internal or external pressures or distractions that could hinder their performance
Deep Thinkers
It should come as no surprise that creative people are deep thinkers they internalize their thoughts, dive deep into philosophical questions and want to get to the root of everything.
Creative people are intelligent and become knowledgeable about religious politics and niche subjects and the meaning of life in general. They tend to use their deep thoughts in the innermost workings of their mind for inspiration for their work.
They are Conservative yet Rebellious
Creative people are out of the box thinkers by definition and we often think of them as non-conformist and even a little bit rebellious but it’s impossible to be truly creative without having first internalized cultural norms and traditions creativity requires being both conventional and unconventional.
This means being able to appreciate and even embrace the tradition while still seeking new and improved ways of doing things. Creative people can be conservative in many ways, yet they know that innovation sometimes means taking risks.
Highly Sensitive People
Perhaps this trait makes them feel the most misunderstood creative people run differently than others often fueled by emotions rather than logic in fact throughout most of the day they make decisions based on how they feel in the moment or what their intuition tells them, they get hurt easily and often draw inspiration from their pain.
Constant Change of Emotions
Creative people can go from joyful to melancholy in a matter of seconds because they feel so deeply everything affects them to the core of their soul, and they live in a world run by emotions and feelings logic makes little sense to them and they must endure the waves of emotions that run through them because they have been wired to do just that they don’t bottle up their feelings instead they allow their work to provide them an outlet to express themselves.
They Need a Creative Space to Call Their Own
No matter what type of creative work it is either writing, drawing, building, playing music or anything else all creative people need is an inspirational place to work in.
They may find their flow in their room at home in a studio or perhaps in the branches of a tree in the backyard, whatever space they work in it needs to feel conducive to creativity and ultimately inspire them to turn their thoughts into reality.
They Turn Life’s Obstacles Around
An emerging field of psychology called post-traumatic growth is suggesting that many people are able to use their hardships and early-life trauma for substantial creative growth specifically researchers have found that trauma can help people to grow in the areas of interpersonal relationships, spirituality, appreciation of life, personal strength, and most importantly for creativity seeing new possibilities in life.
Many of the most iconic stories and songs of all time have been inspired by gut-wrenching pain and heartbreak, and the silver lining to these challenges is that they may have been the catalyst for creating great art.
They Only Work When They Feel Like it
The standard 9 to 5 workday doesn’t really thrive with creative individuals they create when it strikes their fancy and doesn’t appreciate a boss telling them when and what to do, why they need to work faster and so on. Creative people have a strong independent streak and thrive doing the freelance type of work.
They Sacrifice a Stable Life
While creative people may have a yearning to build a life and put down roots they know that there’s always a chance that their lives could be uprooted at any moment because they do not follow a set path they have to be consistently open to saying yes quickly and without reservation they have to be willing to uproot their lives in order to follow the inspiration or the opportunity whenever it comes up.
They Never Give Up
Creative people do whatever it takes to make things work even when they fail, when they’re being their own worst critic, when they are running out of ideas, when they are not finding inspiration, they still fight for it and try to find it, they don’t give up on their dreams and they are not afraid to do it all over again.
Highly creative people thrive in their own world which makes much more sense to them than the reality we live in, if you know a creative person you’ve probably gotten frustrated with their unique quirks and tendencies they run on these oddities that others perceive a strange and nonsensical but because of their personality and how they look at the world they are able to create beautiful masterpieces out of seemingly nothing.
Do you think you are a highly creative person? or do you know someone like this? if you are one, what do you find the most challenging? let us know in the comments section below. We hope you have enjoyed this article about Unique Traits of Highly Creative People
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*TIP — We recommend Skillshare to learn online. There are tons of classes for everything including graphic design, web design, marketing, branding and business related courses. Get a free trial with our link and you won’t regret it Trust us! | https://medium.com/@thelogocreative/unique-traits-of-highly-creative-people-bf71d5ec506 | ['The Logo Creative'] | 2021-01-21 14:55:26.273000+00:00 | ['Designers', 'Highly', 'People', 'Creativity', 'Creative'] |
Why Online Coaches & Consultants Trust Rron Rizvanolli To Coach Them To Success? | Speaking about the coaching and consulting market is more than interesting in today’s society. Especially during this pandemic time and everything is closed.
As one of the most influential experts in the coaching and consulting space at the moment, Rron Rizvanolli solves problems and offers solutions that elevate the market in the right way. Rizvanolli presents some of the most powerful tactics that help coaches and consultants to scale their online business fast.
How to Approach the Market?
It is obvious today that everyone is switching to online coaching and consulting, this means that you have to be seen differently and most importantly as an expert in the marketplace. The way that Rron shows his students to do it is by committing to a niche market. In his 1 on 1 mentorship program, he shares everything on how to choose and commit to a niche market, but the most important things to look at when you choose a niche are:
Do you enjoy working with this group of people?
Can they afford you?
Do they have a problem that you can fix with them?
How to increase the price of your service?
The philosophy of Rron is that you always have to charge premium prices. Because it gives you more money, time and freedom but also the clients will be more committed and they will value more something they paid a lot for. So they give 100% to their dream and ultimately achieve it.
The way that Rron shows his students to increase prices is by:
Creating an irresistible offer
Strategic marketing and positioning
Over delivering results to your clients
Online coaches and consultants need a mentor like Rron Rizvanolli because everyone needs a solid base when it comes to working in any kind of business. Rron is trained to answer the most difficult questions and challenges that come with sales and marketing in the coaching & consulting marketplace. In the new millennial market, it is important to stay informed. More importantly, it is crucial to keep focused when it comes to the right decision making. So he supports his clients by helping them with any obstacle that comes their way.
A little word of encouragement from Rron
Never is going to be the perfect time for you to start your own business, take care more of your health, or maybe your relationship so start today. If you don’t know-how, then get a mentor. If you don’t have the money then try to find a free mentor if that doesn’t work too, search on Google, nowdays all the information you need is on Google for free, all you need to do is to google it. So take a decision and start being 1% better every day because that’s the only way you can succeed in life. | https://medium.com/@jordanblake871/why-online-coaches-consultants-trust-rron-rizvanolli-to-coach-them-to-success-940a6af4eae1 | ['Jordan Blake'] | 2020-12-18 16:09:37.830000+00:00 | ['Business Consultant', 'Rizvanolli Consulting', 'Rron Rizvanolli', 'Entrepreneur', 'CEO'] |
#startupstress* Comes From Taking Responsibility For Uncertainty | Entrepreneurs are not average people. If they were, they’d be the majority, and the majority of people do not start businesses, even in developing countries where running your own business is a necessity rather than a choice, and the ratios of entrepreneurship are highest. (The country with the highest ratio of entrepreneurs is Uganda, at 28% of the population.)
Where entrepreneurship is more of a choice, it has in recent years also become more fashionable. In some European countries, entrepreneurs are the rockstars of the 2010s — everybody wants to be one. But even if more accepted, proper entrepreneurs are no more average than before.
In his book “A First Rate Madness”, Dr. Nassir Ghaemi correlates traits derived from overcoming depression and bipolar disorder to the capacity to lead in extreme circumstances. Leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King all battled depression and all had abilities that suited them to extreme leadership more than to the status quo. Ghaemi lists these as creativity, empathy, resilience and realism.
Working in and leading a start-up can seem like a war, and it is at the least a hard fight, particularly in disruptive start-ups, where you are not only fighting for funding while you battle to alter consumer behavior, you are also being faced with a powerful establishment aggressively pushing the waves of change back over your head. Creativity, empathy, resilience and realism: all sorely needed, resilience in particular. There is some dissent as to what constitutes resilience. Martin Seligman, the ‘father of positive psychology’ hinges resilience on optimism; Diane Coutu, who has collated learnings that included Victor Frankl’s writing about Holocaust survival and seeking meaning as one of the key components for resilience, finds that realists are the ones who survive extreme circumstances best and longest. Accounts of resilience as well as my personal experience in losing all things material and my business lead me to believe that this duality is at the crux of resilience — an awareness of the potentially negative reality, and an ability to work towards a positive outcome at the same time. A realistic optimism. An awareness of transience. Perspective. That kind of resilient thinking can be practiced, as a discipline, much like the like the tool du jour, mindfulness, enabling us to better face the everyday ups and downs of start-up life.
Start up founders are not average. A personality built for extremes — and often of extremes — is required. “It’s about degrees,” says John D. Gartner, a psychologist and author of “The Hypomanic Edge” in the New York Times. “If you’re manic, you think you’re Jesus. If you’re hypomanic, you think you are God’s gift to technology investing.” Extreme drive, extreme determination, courage, passion, intuition. And, as with all traits, these can work both ways. What drives you and makes you a good and sometimes successful entrepreneur can also be your downfall — be it stubborn determination, or a reliance on intuition, or courage bordering on recklessness. The ego that drives you up can also drive you down. Sometimes it’s worth sticking to your guns, sometimes it’s necessary to pivot. Sometimes your gut is right, sometimes data should be driving your decisions. The kerfuffle is knowing when and which and it is for the founder to own these decisions. This is the very essence of #startupstress. Taking responsibility for uncertainty.
In work with entrepreneurs there is no template, and like much of psychological support, it relies on injecting the missing ingredient. Sometimes we need to counter a lack of confidence, for others the missing ingredient can be the humility to counter an arrogance that does not equal confidence.
There are however commonalities as well, and advice can be summed up in three points, each pertaining to two sides of one trait:
Use your ego positively:
to boost your confidence,
to believe you can achieve when the odds are against you,
to pick yourself up, every hour, every day, again and again;
and kick the downside of your ego out:
put your business first — you’re not out to prove a point, you’re out to run a profitable company,
a good idea doesn’t have to come from you — pivot if you need to,
it’s ok to be wrong, and you can survive failure — it’s only money and pride.
2. Balance your intuition and your data, your heart and your brain.
Your intuition is what will drive you to create and innovate and it can also deceive you into misinterpreting market needs and gaps;
Your intuition is what will help you hire the right people — the ones that will realize your vision — and it can also lead you to hire the wrong people: don’t mistake confidence and enthusiasm for competence.
3. Make your drive, persistence, passion work for you and not against you:
You’ll need to work more than you ever thought was possible, and you’ll need to learn to take breaks against all your instincts;
You will need to know when to keep going even if all is stacked against you, and you will need to know when it’s over and act against every grain of your being, with dignity;
You will need to give your all, and you won’t be able to expect the same of anyone else.
We’ve all gone through the same wringer. Sleepless nights: tick. Seeking reliable team members on limited funds: tick. Not making payroll: tick. Last minute deal delays: tick. Being the last go-to for morale, and drawing it from the last bedraggled cell when you didn’t know there was any left: tick. Making gut decisions and begging the gut to be right: tick.
The start-up experience is quite uniform and we each deal with it drawing on our particular strengths, whether that’s seeking victory over others, or over ourselves. It’s balancing our drivers right that’s the hard part, the success maker or breaker. And that comes down to the founder and how she is able to manage uncertainty.
I’ve been in mentoring start-up founders from my twenties onwards, but it wasn’t until my third venture failed (after two successful previous lives), that I was able to put my experience into context and add more value than the usual compulsively positive cheerleading we were able to offer each other as start-up founders under chronic stress. I’ve worked with dozens of start-up founders and a few recurring themes come up.
A. Attachment to the vision
Many successful start-ups feature products that are far off their original plan — those are the ones whose founders were able to suppress their belief in their original vision when proven wrong, and pivot. The tipping point for pivoting isn’t always easy to determine, as history also teaches us that some start-ups succeeded because they persisted long enough — but if we are at least able to consider another point of view, it becomes easier to gauge the right answer.
B. Cut-off
The same is true for knowing when the fat lady has sung — especially in the face of Thomas Edison’s quote: “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”. It’s useful to ask yourself how much you can take — psychologically and financially. (And to always know that at least psychologically you can take a little more than you think.)
C. Resilience
Survival isn’t about how long it takes you to break, it’s about how much you can come back from, and how frequently. For most entrepreneurs that means bouncing back from stress and rejection on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s better to break a little, more frequently, than break a lot much later.
Resilience and recovery can also be practiced and prepared for. If you are accustomed to seeing both sides of the coin, the positive and negative, while charging forth as the warrior every entrepreneur is, you won’t be afraid of the negative. You’ve already seen it.
D. Uncertainty and fear
Uncertainty breeds fear and very often, especially in young entrepreneurs, that fear is dealt with by ignoring it and pretending to be fearless. There is no such thing — or it’s called insanity, which is also one way of being an entrepreneur, though quite risky. The more courageous way is to acknowledge the fear, do your best to harness it positively in the greater scheme of things, and not let it get to you in the small things. Fear is the world’s greatest motivator, might as well make it work for you.
E. Mental toughness and mental illness
Mental toughness is not a vaccine against mental illness. I’ve seen some of the mentally toughest people suffer from depression — in fact some are that tough also because they’ve fought a mental illness in the course of their lives. Every businessperson who has spoken out about depression talks of developing a positive routine for themselves, one that can include talk therapy, medication, exercise, a loving environment, and positive challenges. What companies can do is create awareness, empathy and understanding, including highlighting the positive traits a mental illness can foster — and they are particularly applicable to start-ups.
F. Support network
Only people who’ve been through what you are going through will be able to understand. Fact.
G. Kindness
You’re an entrepreneur. That doesn’t make you Steve Jobs. And even he didn’t need to behave the way he did to do be the genius that he was. It just happened that the two coincided.
*The hashtag #startupstress was coined by Cindy Gallop, founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, a force of nature global exec of whom no one would have ever surmised she even knew what the word meant. “You think nobody else has been through this? Everybody’s been through this.” | https://medium.com/female-founders/start-up-stress-comes-from-taking-responsibility-for-uncertainty-2cef262cf9f7 | ['Katarina Skoberne'] | 2015-07-11 17:18:03.911000+00:00 | ['Resilience', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startups'] |
Organizational culture resilient to drastic changes with help of Simon Sinek and German military tradition | All figures are important when played right
I guess we can agree that 2010s were about disruption. It is hyped and overused word but nevertheless it is main trend in 2010s. In everchanging environment when rules of the game change in real time, it is normal that a lot of small players confronted head on with large players. And won. Then those small players became large players and get confronted by new small players. This situation kept everyone on their toes. Self-confidence developed that organizations are ready for anything that comes their way.
In late 2019. Covid-19 emerged as “icing on the cake”. This brought new levels of disruption. The disruption so great that we named the new situation “new normal”. Being on your toes for a decade you start to think that you can manage to survive always. Truth is that no one was ready for new disruption, but some adapted faster than the other. What is the catch? Organizational culture.
Edgar H. Schein in his book „Organizational culture and leadership“ offered dynamic definition of culture:
“The culture of a group can be defined as the accumulated shared learning of that group as it solves its problems of external adaptation and internal integration; which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, feel, and behave in relation to those problems.
This accumulated learning is a pattern or system of beliefs, values, and behavioral norms that come to be taken for granted as basic assumptions and eventually drop out of awareness.”
Strict organizations in stable situations behave like steam roller. They grind forward relentlessly. They are complex machinery in which every little cog knows its role and tasks. The tasks are broken down in simple steps that ensure everyone knows what to do in any previously anticipated situation. This approach is called “command and control”. “Command and control” organizations develop culture where employees are relying on predefined procedures. “Command and control” culture does not create tools to manage transitions and unknown situations. In other words, organizations that rely on “Command and control” culture have issues managing new situation but also, and Covid 19 showed that it is very possible situation, when managers fall sick.
The challenge here is that you cannot introduce a new culture by “decree”. You need to work on the culture for years to change “way to perceive, think, feel, and behave”. Well, if it is a long process, let’s think what we really need to incorporate into our culture!
I suggest two, at first sight diametrically opposite, approaches:
1. Implementation of “Mission command” doctrine (ger. Auftragstaktik)
2. Define our “Why” and build it in everything we do
Mission command
“Mission command” (ger. Auftragstaktik) is military doctrine. I do not like militarization of society or even military approach in business. Please bear with me since it is not about army or shooting. The doctrine was developed by Prussia after losing battles with Napoleon (imagine angry Prussian that lost against Napoleon, again). The goal was to develop systematic combat approach against brilliant commanders (usually very creative commanders). The idea was developed by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. His conclusion was that strict military hierarchy and center strategic control are far less efficient comparing to definition of strategic mission goals to well-trained operatives in the field (officers). This allows flexible and independent actions and tactical decision making independent of central management (or paperwork). In other words, idea is to improve performance against creative opponent with flexibility. Right now, situation looks like very creative opponent is creating conditions to crush us
There were many historians that believe that one of the operational and tactical advantages of Wehrmacht comparing to allies was Auftragstaktik. Again, I do not like militarization and specially do not want to glorify Wehrmacht. But even allies military leadership saw advantages of the doctrine when they understood that some of the bravest tactical moves were done without or against central commands. Partially this doctrine implemented into United States ground forces after D-Day.
Some of the interesting examples of Auftragstaktik are:
Fort Eben Emael attack
https://www.historynet.com/hitlers-secret-attack-on-the-worlds-largest-fort.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Eben-Emael
Battle of Tukkum
https://www.quora.com/Why-was-the-German-military-so-successful-during-the-first-three-years-of-WWII?page_size=10#!n=12
https://erenow.net/ww/devils-general-life-hyazinth-graf-strachwitz-panzer-graf/21.php
Auftragstaktik is often mentioned in context of modern organization. Logic behind it is that management of the organization defines strategic goals and defines mission. Development and definition of tactics is done by team leaders and teams. With this approach we empower teams, increase employee engagement, and encourages taking responsibility for the outcomes. Team members need to be highly professional and trained. Micromanagement of teams and team members becomes unnecessary.
Auftragstaktik is not approach where everyone does what he / she wants. Fortunately, it is not so. The goal of the team leader is to encourage professionalism of his team members. In return team members get freedom of action but in line with the mission. And that is winning combination: professionalism, empowered and engaged team members with focus on common goal — mission.
My point of view, and in line with 4th industrial revolution, is that with this approach instead of a cog our team members become nano bots. They can change roles and functions, but always working in team’s and organization’s best interests which are aligned with their own interests.
Why
What happens when we are left alone? The mission is clear to us. Our goal is also clear. We are faced with two options that are diametrically opposed in the grand scheme of things. How to choose the right option. As in navigation, we need a “real north”. In addition, I believe that Mission Tactics is too militant at its core (and history) and needs a counterweight that will bring humanity back to what we do. No matter what we do.
Simon Sinek in his book “Start with why” develops this subject. He named the guiding idea “Why”. “Why” in practice answers the question why (any) organization exists. And no, the right answer is never “To make money”. Money is, according to Sinek, consequence and not the goal.
Simon Sinek develops the idea by strictly distinguishing “Why organization exists”, from “How the organization does what it does”, and specially “What the organization does”. The difference between those three is probably easiest to understand on examples. So, examples:
Why we exist: We want to bring more transparency to our society by digitalization
How we do it: We proactively define processes with all stakeholders and define and develop prerequisites. In same time we keep in our minds social and technological specificities of both processes and stakeholders.
Fun starts when we see “What” can we do based on defined “Why” and “How”:
- Software development
- Education of kids and elders
- Media management and content delivery
- Contact center that helps elders to adopt to digital terrestrial TV
- Consultation of stakeholders how to digitalize
- Software as a Service
The list can go on. That is the best part of Sinek’s “Why” — we define our organization with something that is bigger than a product, physical or virtual. Sounds easy but fact is that ALL organizations know WHAT they do, but rare know WHY they do it (aside from “To make money”). WHY is hard to define and even harder to maintain.
Trick is, Simon says, that when we invest money in any business, we expect return of investment and profit. When we are emotionally invested then we want to participate. Very few people in the world will get emotionally invested in a product or organization because of its characteristics (“I love my car because it has 6 gears”). People will get emotionally invested because of untouchables (“I love my car because it enables my freedom to move”). This goes both ways — toward customers and in same time toward your employees. So, if we define clear “Why” that will enable our employees to identify with it, they will invest emotionally into our organization. This clear “Why” will not only help the employees to identify and invest but also they will know what they must do in every situation. The employees will know the “True north”. For such employees you know they will do right thing and there is NO need for micromanagement. Our employees sometimes will make a mistake, but the mistake is part of the learning and will not repeat. Our clear “Why” will correct all our employees automatically.
Clear “Why” comes from the top — from management. Everybody from management to janitor must behave according to common “Why”. Up to the point where if there is a potentially profitable business and it is not aligned with our why — we must decline it. For example, if our “Why” is “Bring more transparency to society by means of digitalization”, we will not take part in a project that will introduce a stamp in city hall. That is how we keep our “Why” clear. That is how we use our “Why” as guiding light for whole organization.
The package
Examples that show employees as cogs and that they do not know the true north of their organization are visible in many situations. From medical institution that got overwhelmed and employees lost focus, to companies that employees are leaving because they do not understand the change that is undergoing. Building our “Why” into everything we do, together with implementation of “Mission command” doctrine help organization avoid situation when their employees do not know what to do and expect to be micromanaged. Usually those are times when you MUST react quickly. There is no time to micromanage. There is also no capacity for micromanagement. Changes are overwhelming. It is clear that employees are troubled with those situations as much as organizations.
What can we do to implement this combination? Every organization is specific so we can not define strict list of steps (and by the way definition of strict list would be in direct opposition with what I am saying). In general, I would start with this list:
1. Defining our “Why” and development of mechanisms for communicating our “Why” inward and outward
2. Introduction of “Why” in the decision-making process
3. Introduction of “Why” in the employment process
4. Emphasize employee development in a professional sense (education)
5. Using “Why” as a tool for employee involvement
6. Define companywide strategic goals aligned with “Why”
7. Empowerment of employees through participation in the organization of work and determining tactics based on strategic goals
8. Educating the leaders within organization about the harmfulness of micromanagement
9. Simplify reporting on all levels
10. Break barriers in everyday communication between employees and management
11. Develop mechanism that enables employees to influence strategic decision with improvement suggestions (organizational or customer faced)
12. Rewarding employees based on initiative, self-initiative, innovation and taking responsibility for results | https://medium.com/@vhlaca/organizational-culture-resilient-to-drastic-changes-with-help-of-simon-sinek-and-german-military-985c18d8236c | ['Viktor Hlaca'] | 2020-11-27 18:21:58.451000+00:00 | ['Military', 'Business Strategy', 'Organizational Culture', 'Start With Why', 'Simon Sinek'] |
OpenCV Python Tutorial for Beginners Part 2 | Welcome to OpenCV Python Beginners Tutorial Part 2.
In case you have not read the first part of the OpenCV tutorial Series, then click here to visit First Part of OpenCV tutorial Series.
As you know, we covered some basics & 4basics tasks of OpenCV Python in our first tutorial.
Now, In this tutorial, we will begin the article from where we left off.
Let’s get started:
Task 5. Get Image / Video Frame Size & Shape
Code:
image = cv2.imread("victory.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
print(image.shape) #to print the shape of an image
print(image.size) #to display the size of an image
Let’s understand the code:
image = cv2.imread("victory.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
In the First Line, we have loaded the image to the image variable using the cv2.imread method.
print(image.shape)
In the Second Line, we have used an image.shape to get the height, width, and color channel of an image. In case, If an image is in grayscale format, then it will return only height & width. Output value always comes in the tuple.
print(image.size)
In the third Line, we have used image.size to get the size of the image. It is the value of (height * width * color channel).
Task 6. Resize the Image
Code:
image = cv2.imread("victory.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
image = cv2.resize(image, (300,300)) #resizing method/function
cv2.imshow("IMAGE",image)
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Let’s understand the code:
image = cv2.imread("victory.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
In the First Line, we have loaded the image to the image variable using the cv2.imread method.
image = cv2.resize(image, (300,300)) #resizing method/function
In the Second Line, we have used the cv2.resize method. In this method, we give the image array as the first argument, and to get the desired size, we pass the size in the form of a tuple — (height, width) as the second argument.
Note: Width & Height should be in the integer format.
cv2.imshow("IMAGE",image)
In the third Line, we have used the cv2.imshow() method to create a GUI window on the screen to display the image. In arguments, we need to give GUI window name as the first argument (should be in the string format) and the image array(which we want to show on screen) as the second argument.
cv2.waitKey() cv2.destroyAllWindows()
In the Fourth Line, we have used the cv2.waitKey() method to wait until the user press the close button, key, or specified key.
Once it is detected the key, will release the control & give control to the Fifth Line (cv2.destroyAllWindows()) and close & destroy the GUI window.
Task 7. Create Blank Black/White Image using numpy
Code:
white_img = np.ones((512,512,3), dtype=np.uint8) * 255
black_img = np.zeroes((512,512,3), dtype=np.uint8)
cv2.imshow("White Image",white_img)
cv2.imshow("Black Image", black_img)
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Let’s understand the code:
Note: (0–255) range shows how much image dark and light it is. “0” for full black, and “255” for white.
white_img = np.ones((512,512,3), dtype=np.uint8) * 255
In the First Line, we have used one of the numpy methods to create a matrix that contains only one’s. In np.ones(), we passed the tuple as the first argument, which is the size of the blank image matrix (In tuple: the first item is height, and the second item is width, and third is the color channel).
In the second argument, we have passed the data type of matrix, which is np.uint8 (unsigned integer 8). After that, we have multiplied all the value of the matrix with 255 using numpy broadcasting so that we can get a matrix that contains 255.
In case if you don’t know what broadcasting is, then you can read the below mention article: https://numpy.org/doc/stable/user/basics.broadcasting.html
black_img = np.zeroes((512,512,3), dtype=np.uint8)
In the Second Line, we have used the np.zeroes method to create a matrix that contains only zeroes. In np.ones(), we passed the tuple as the first argument, which is the size of the blank image matrix (In tuple: the first item is height, and the second item is width, and third is the color channel).
In the second argument, we have passed the data type of matrix, which is np.uint8 (unsigned integer 8).
cv2.imshow("White Image",white_img) cv2.imshow("Black Image", black_img)
In the third & Fourth Line, we have used the cv2.imshow() method to create a GUI window on the screen to display a black and white image.
cv2.waitKey() cv2.destroyAllWindows()
In the Fifth Line, we have used the cv2.waitKey() method to wait until the user press the close button, key, or specified key.
Once it is detected the key, will release the control & give control to the Sixth Line (cv2.destroyAllWindows()) and close & destroy the GUI window.
Task 8. How to Add Two Images together using the Add function
Code:
imagePotrait = cv2.imread("victory.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
imageLogo = cv2.imread("logo-creative.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
#Need to set the same size for both loaded images.
#Both images size should be the same before using the add method
imagePotrait = cv2.resize(imagePotrait, (250,250))
imageLogo = cv2.resize(imageLogo, (250,250))
#add method
addedImage = cv2.add(imagePotrait, imageLogo)
cv2.imshow("Added Image", addedImage)
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Let’s understand the code:
imagePotrait = cv2.imread("victory.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
imageLogo = cv2.imread("logo-creative.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
In the First & Second Line, we have used the cv2.imread method to load both images in color format.
imagePotrait = cv2.resize(imagePotrait, (250,250))
imageLogo = cv2.resize(imageLogo, (250,250))
In the Sixth & Seventh Line, we have used the cv2.resize method to resize both images so that we can use them in the cv2.add. To use the cv2.add, we need to set the same size for both Images. If we don’t set an equal size both for images, then it will raise the error while using cv2.add.
addedImage = cv2.add(imagePotrait, imageLogo)
Finally, In the Tenth, we have used the cv2.add method to add both images. In this method, we need to pass the first & second image as the argument.
cv2.imshow("Added Image", addedImage)
In the Eleventh Line, we have used the cv2.imshow() method to create a GUI window on the screen to display the added image.
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
In the Twelfth Line, we have used the cv2.waitKey() method to wait until the user press the close button, key, or specified key.
Once it is detected the key, will release the control & give control to the Thirteen Line (cv2.destroyAllWindows()) and close & destroy the GUI window.
Task 9. How to add two together using the cv2.addWeighted method
Code:
imagePotrait = cv2.imread("victory.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
imageLogo = cv2.imread("logo-creative.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
#Need to set the same size for both loaded images.
#Both images size should be the same before using the add method
imagePotrait = cv2.resize(imagePotrait, (250,250))
imageLogo = cv2.resize(imageLogo, (250,250))
#add method
addedImage = cv2.addWeighted(imagePotrait, 0.8, imageLogo, 0.2, 0)
cv2.imshow("Added Image", addedImage)
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Let’s understand the code:
imagePotrait = cv2.imread("victory.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
imageLogo = cv2.imread("logo-creative.png", cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
In the First & Second Line, we have used the cv2.imread method to load images and also passed the flag to read Images in the color format.
imagePotrait = cv2.resize(imagePotrait, (250,250))
imageLogo = cv2.resize(imageLogo, (250,250))
Same as the cv2.add method, We have used the cv2.resize in the Sixth & Seventh Line to resize both images so that we can use them in the cv2.addWeighted. To use the cv2.addWeighted, we need to set the same size for both Images. If we don’t set an equal size both for images, then it will raise the error while using cv2.addWeighted.
addedImage = cv2.addWeighted(imagePotrait, 0.8, imageLogo, 0.2, 0)
In the Tenth Line, we have used the cv2.addWeighted method to add both images together.
cv2.addWeighted(imagePotrait, 0.8, imageLogo, 0.2, 0)
Let’s understand this method more deeply.
In the first argument, We need to pass the first image array, and in the second argument, we need to give the alpha value, which sets the brightness/intensity level of the first array.
In the third argument, We need to pass the second image array, and in the fourth argument, we need to give beta value, which sets the brightness level/intensity of the second array.
In the Fifth argument, We need to pass the gamma value, which will add the gamma value to the sum of both image arrays.
Use Case: If you want to add the second image as a watermark on the first image, then increase the alpha value (should be in the float data type), and try to reduce the beta value (should be in the float data type) as required. In case, not satisfied with the output, then play a little around on alpha & beta values.
cv2.imshow("Added Image", addedImage)
In the Eleventh Line, we have used the cv2.imshow() method to create a GUI window on the screen to display the added image.
cv2.waitKey()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
In the Twelfth Line, we have used the cv2.waitKey() method to wait until the user press the close button, key, or specified key.
Once it is detected the key, will release the control & give control to the Thirteen Line (cv2.destroyAllWindows()) and close & destroy the GUI window.
In case you have not read the first part of the OpenCV tutorial Series, then click here to visit First Part of OpenCV tutorial Series.
Note: I hope you like the second part of my OpenCV tutorial Series. In case of any mistakes in this tutorial. Please feel free to comment so that I can improve the quality of my articles. | https://python.plainenglish.io/opencv-python-tutorial-for-beginners-part-2-c15096feeb91 | ['Himanshu Kanojiya'] | 2020-10-29 16:33:12.171000+00:00 | ['Python Programming', 'Python', 'Opencv Python', 'Python3', 'Opencv'] |
Customer Lifecycle : 10. Advocacy | Beyond customer care
Developers generally lose touch with owners after the snagging period is complete. For many developers this removes their burden of having to provide support and allows them to focus on their next development.
For the owners, they now have to manage their home and handle maintenance and repairs on their own. Managing a home is complex and generally done in an ad-hoc way. Even the most organised owners will juggle paper filing systems, email folders, spreadsheets, diaries and address books. Other challenges include:
Finding information when you need it most for example in an emergency like a burst pipe or a fire.
Sharing information with a partner or spouse.
Keeping track of important maintenance tasks or dates like home insurance or when warranties expire.
Having easy access to contacts for emergencies (plumber, electrician, vet, dentist etc).
Managing a household budget.
“A digital home assistant provides a valuable service beyond the handover and can therefore enhance a developers brand reputation and help to create advocacy.“ — Dharmesh Mistry
Digital home assistants
A digital home assistant is a platform that aims to resolve the challenges of managing a home. It takes the information developers typically provide in handovers, digitises it and provides a number of features that use the data to help the homeowner manage their property. A digital home assistant provides a valuable service beyond the handover and can therefore enhance a developers brand reputation and help to create advocacy throughout the tenure of the owner.
For example the AskHomey platform provides the owner with the following capabilities:
The goal of a digital assistant is to provide proactive support and automation based on data. This should benefits homeowners by:
Reducing the time and effort it takes to manage the home.
Reduce the cost of running a home.
Improve the efficiency and efficacy of running a home.
Put simply, a digital assistant should make a homeowners life easier and better.
Digital assistants can be presented as apps or as conversational interfaces like a chat-bot or voice (e.g. Amazon Alexa or Google speakers).
A digital assistant makes a home owners life easier and better
Referral rewards
Some developers offer incentives for sales referrals and these are a great way to get “warm leads” as generally personal recommendations are not given lightly especially in large purchases like a home.
Customer testimonials are also valuable and need not be presented / captured as pure advocacy. Customer stories with interesting or unusual anecdotes can provide a more effective way of highlighting advocacy rather than a testimonial statement. These could be text articles or better still video.
Customer testimonials can be very effective in getting referrals for future sales.
Next up
In our final post of the series we take you through the solution stack for supporting your entire customer journey.
Originally published at https://askhomey.com on November 15, 2021. | https://medium.com/@askhomey/customer-lifecycle-10-advocacy-189fc88c8a89 | ['Innova Askhomey'] | 2021-12-13 06:02:19.625000+00:00 | ['Property Development', 'Property', 'Property Management', 'Real Estate', 'Realtor'] |
What If the Biggest Threat to Your Relationship Is You? | You might disagree with what I’m about to say, but that doesn’t make it less real. Most relationships don’t end up in ruins for the reasons you think. The culprit is typically not bad spending habits, sexlessness, or cheating. The biggest threat to your relationship is you.
Before you scroll to the comment section to share your scathing opinion, hear me out.
Relationships bring up your shit.
You have been surrounded by relationships your entire life. You learned how to interact and engage by watching others. The ideas and beliefs that govern how you show up to your connections were formed long before you could string words into a sentence. But your relationship reality is deeper than that.
The relationship you imagine is mostly fictionalized. Pixelated images pulled from movies, television, and YouTube. You visualize the kind of relationship that has a solid storyline, plot points, and happily ever after. *cue credits*
That’s not how things work in real life.
On this side of reality, relationships look different. Problems are not solved in 120-minutes or less. There are no speed-through-the-rough-patch montages. Fairy godmothers and pumpkins are sold separately.
In your actual life, your partner often grates on your last nerve. They have terrible habits, unruly behavior, and trouble listening. They push your buttons and know all the shortcuts to your triggers.
Your partner will not always respond the way you want them to. They may not always share your interests or your enthusiasm. And yes, they get tired of your bullshit because they’ve got plenty of their own.
But they’ve also seen you looking a hot mess and acting like a complete ass, and they’ve stuck around. At least for as long as they could. Your partner loves your dirty knickers, which scares the bejeezus out of you, which might explain why you have gone out of your way to fuck things up, accidentally on purpose time and time again.
This relationship trips all your wires. Your fear of abandonment. Mommy issues. Daddy issues. Fear of rejection. Unworthiness. Imposter syndrome. Problems trusting. Resistance to intimacy. Sexual anxiety. Not-enoughness.
And while your partner might precipitate your uncomfortable feelings, they did not create them.
Own your triggers
Your partner is not responsible for how you respond to the things that trigger you, which doesn’t give them the tight to push your buttons intentionally. But you are the only person who can control your response.
I understand that your partner’s behavior, or lack thereof, may upset you. But that doesn’t make you a victim of circumstance. You are solely accountable for your triggers, and you are also responsible for healing them.
Triggers are survival responses.
The human brain is like a file cabinet, where the painful files are stored at the front. So whenever something hurts you, your brain connects the pain to whatever is happening at that moment. Then it saves the pain and the incident in the file labeled trigger(s).
Recognizing your triggers is essential. But just because you know what sets you off, doesn’t give a pass to cock your loaded trigger and aim it at others. Once you know something, you become responsible for what you know. Triggers are no exception.
Self-compassion is medicine.
This might sound simple, but the people who are the least responsive to triggers are those who are kind to themselves. Conversely, those who tend to talk down to others are usually just as mean (if not more) to themselves.
But for most of us, self-compassion takes practice. You weren’t born being unkind to yourself; it’s a habit you developed over time, which is how you will relearn self-kindness.
Self-compassion grants you access to the tools to disengage the trigger. It allows you to advocate for yourself. The feelings of helplessness that bubble to the surface when your trigger is engaged will begin to dissipate when you’re kind to you. In turn, you will become less prone to lashing out and misbehaving with your partner and others.
Self-awareness makes for better relationships.
The guy I mentioned at the start of this post was not aware of himself. Self-awareness would have stopped him from making up a story. He would have recognized that his idle thoughts set off his insecurity trigger. And rather than trolling through her things, he might have opted to have a conversation instead.
Recognizing and dissolving your triggers is a part of self-awareness. The more self-aware you are, the better you’ll be at relationship-ing. And with practice, your triggers will no longer create a negative response. But instead, they’ll create space for deeper intimacy with yourself and others.
If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:
Stacey Herrera is a relationship-ing practitioner, jalapeño junkie, and chronic library fine payer. She’s also an Intimacy + REALationship coach residing in the Port of Los Angeles. Sign-up to her newsletter for updates.
Follow Relationship-ing, so you don’t miss a post. Do you have a relationship-ing story to share? Write with us. | https://medium.com/relationship-ing/what-if-the-biggest-threat-to-your-relationship-is-you-c4de2f274cb2 | ['Stacey Herrera'] | 2020-05-16 17:23:25.798000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Self', 'Relationships', 'Love', 'Couples'] |
“Win Jaime’s Heart” | EP 2 | 2020 [Engsub] | ▼ » Watch Win Jaime’s Heart Season 1 Episode 2 « ▼
» Watch Win Jaime’s Heart Season 1 Episode 2 «
A young vlogger goes to the extent of finding a guy for his broken-hearted friend to boost his channel only to find himself entangled in a web of romance he never dreamed of.
✅📺 P-l-a-y NOW JOIN US 📺: ➤ http://fullstream.online-tvs.com/series/392823/1/2
Title : Win Jaime’s Heart
Episode Title : Episode 2
Release Date : 27 Dec 2020
Runtime : 20 minutes
Genres : Drama , Romance
Networks :
» Watch Win Jaime’s Heart Season 1 Episode 2 «
TELEVISION 👾
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In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
👾 OVERVIEW 👾
Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad.
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Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk. | https://medium.com/win-jaimes-heart/win-jaimes-heart-ep-2-2020-engsub-372195e7bf72 | ['Mathew L. Henson'] | 2020-12-27 14:30:06.124000+00:00 | ['Drama', 'Romance'] |
Redoing Projects — Part I: Regressors (Price) | In this post, I discuss how my previous feature engineering and modeling methods didn’t work and how I corrected them. This post is the first part of “Redoing Projects” series. You can find Part II: Time Series (Sales) and Part III: Tweet Sentiment Extraction (NLP) here.
Brief Background
This project aims at predicting house prices in Ames, Iowa with 79 features (2006–2010). The training set had 1460 observations and the test set had 1459 observations.
Updates (12/20/2020)
Engineered features for tree algorithms and linear regression separately. Used Label Encoder for trees and One-Hot Encoder for linear regression with regularization
Checked whether missing values are missing (completely) at random
Figured out PCA reduced prediction accuracy for all models but helped avoid overfitting in linear models
These updates decreased RMSE from 0.42 to 0.24 with Random Forest, and from 0.35 to 0.33 with Elastic Net. If you’re interested, my code is on Github: https://github.com/QingchuanLyu/Predicting-House-Prices
Update I: missing value imputation
My first mistake is replacing missing values with summary statistics before checking whether they’re missing at random completely. There are three types of missing values:
Missing at random: whether a variable is missing or not is correlated with other variables, but not correlated with itself. For example, the variable “total areas of houses” may be missing only in a few neighborhoods. In this case, you might want to use summary statistics (mean/median/max) within these neighborhoods to fill in missing values of total areas.
Missing completely at random (ideal): whether a variable is missing or not has nothing to do with any variables, either observed or not observed. If the number of this type of missing values is small, just drop them.
Missing not at random (worst): whether a variable is missing or not depends on this variable itself. For example, the variable “areas of parking lots” is not missing when the parking area is small. In other words, all the large parking lots don’t have records of their areas. Part of reasons for this type of missing values is selection bias.
How could you check which type your missing values fall into? The answer is data exploration! Admittedly, the type of missing completely at random is almost impossible to be 100% sure, however, we can check other two types with relatively straightforward approaches.
To check “missing at random,” draw plots and create tables to compare the count of missing values in different groups (e.g., “Neighborhoods”). If a group has a very high number of missing values, or missing values only appear in a few groups, you might want to generate summary statistics within groups and fill in missing values.
To check “missing not at random,” choose a highly correlated variable with few missing values. In the above example of the missing areas of parking lots, we can choose the variable “total areas on the ground floor,” because when the total areas on the ground floor are larger, areas of parking lots are very likely to be larger (You can create a plot and compute correlation to check that). By looking at the total areas on the ground floor of houses with missing areas of parking lots, and comparing them to the total areas on ground floor of houses with non-missing areas of parking lots, we’ll get a sense of what types of parking lots have missing areas — are they parking lots associated with larger houses, i.e., they’re probably larger parking lots? If you do have this type of missing values, you might want to drop this variable if it’s not important, or use a two-stage approach: first predict areas of parking lots for houses with large ground floor areas (using regression or KNN), then use the estimated areas of parking lots as part of inputs in your model to predict house prices.
Update II: tree algorithms without one-hot encoder
My second mistake is using sparse data with tree algorithms (Random Forest and Decision Tree). Once categorical features are One-Hot encoded, especially when a feature has many categories, the sparse data will confuse tree algorithms and make them bias towards zero, i.e., trees are more likely to split a node at zero. To understand it, think about a simple and extreme case after one-hot encoding categorical features:
Without even computing Gini impurity scores, your tree will keep splitting at A = 0, B = 0, C= 0 and D= 0 because once the tree hits 1 at a node, it doesn’t have to grow anymore: all the other variables are 0. This was the case in my previous version of this project. By removing the One-Hot Encoder part and only using Label encoded categorical features, the root mean squared error of Random Forest decreased from 0.19 to 0.06.
Update III: using or not using PCA
My third mistake was using PCA without checking its impact on model performance. PCA is a common technique to reduce feature dimensionality and collinear features (collinear features are combined into one principle component). However, it decreases prediction accuracy when features have non-linear dependence. PCA is flexible as it allows users to choose how much variance of the original features to be retained by creating principle components. Well, the downside of such flexibility is important features with small variance might get ignored. Think about an extreme case:
You have three predictors x, w, z and want to predict y. Assume w = y and y has very little variance. If you use PCA on features and specify the proportion of variance explained, you probably will end up losing w in your model. This is not ideal.
With the limit of data sources, I’m not able to check whether the performances of models with and without PCA differ much on the test data. The good news is tree algorithms and linear regression all have slightly less Root Mean Squared Error (at 0.01 scale) without PCA in this project. Indeed, PCA might just avoid overfitting by combining collinear features together in one principal component (new features).
If you’re interested, my code is on Github: https://github.com/QingchuanLyu/Predicting-House-Prices
Thanks for reading:) | https://medium.com/@qingchuanlyu/redoing-projects-part-i-regressors-ed4a0500f89b | ['Qingchuan Lyu'] | 2021-03-18 06:47:55.621000+00:00 | ['Feature Engineering', 'Trees', 'Regression', 'Machine Learning'] |
This Philosopher Thinks Most Jobs Are “BS”. Is He Right? | This Philosopher Thinks Most Jobs Are “BS”. Is He Right?
Hierarchical workplaces may be wasting our time
“Huge swaths of people spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed.” — David Graeber
There aren’t many anarchists in academia these days. The few that remain usually publish in obscurity or teach at lesser-known universities.
But then there’s David Graeber, an American professor at the London School of Economics. It’s a peculiar school for the firebrand leftie; most of his graduates enter corporate law, finance, and lobbying.
But then again, that’s probably why he loves it so much. It’s the perfect place for a guy like him to be a fly on the wall, soaking in the ridiculousness of it all.
Graeber, already famous for his leadership in the Occupy Wallstreet movement, was thrust into the spotlight once again for his 2018 book Bullshit Jobs where he argued that the world would be a much better place if those careers his students flocked to ceased to exist.
“It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish.”
It may seem hard to understand what Graeber means, of course, since we live in a capitalist society. Don’t all jobs have a purpose behind them? Someone else is paying for that job to be done, so it must be valuable!
Well, compare that quote to what he says about other lines of work.
“Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it’s obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be catastrophic.”
Notice the difference between the two? One group (largely blue-collar workers) performs tasks essential to maintaining society — if they went on strike, the economy would be paralyzed.
But if most white collar workers went on strike, there would be few immediate consequences for society as a whole.
Jobs which have no direct benefit to society tend to be much more highly paid than jobs which are vital for everyday life to continue (farmers, garbage collectors, nurses, firefighters, loggers, fisherman, construction workers).
A skeptic could argue that those jobs require less specialization or skill to attain (any average joe could cut down a tree or pick up garbage), but bankers, marketers, and real estate agents need to spend years attaining a level of professional aptitude that the market rewards with higher pay.
That argument looks true at a surface level, but if you dive deeper it falls apart pretty quickly. First, not every blue collar job is low skilled — some require years of specialization and training to master (like firefighters, soldiers or nurses).
And many people don’t get white collar jobs because they are highly “skilled” but simply because they went through the necessary hoops to acquire the job (prestigious degree, internships, connections). And those hoops are much easier to clear for people born into wealthy families that can pay their tuition or give them connections — meaning it’s much more of a luck game than a merit one.
If you look at the day-to-day routine of many entry-level workers in highly paid white collar careers, it’s very clear that they spend most of their time doing petty tasks or “grunt work” designed to please their bosses rather than contribute highly valuable labor to a company.
In banking or consulting, for example, these tasks (like editing excel sheets to perfection or re-drafting a powerpoint slide for hours) are seen as annoying but necessary to advance one’s career or get the prized “exit op” for another firm.
In other words, the actual work of many of these white collar professionals is plainly useless to society and only useful in the advancement of their individual careers.
But why is there so much unnecessary work in corporations? Mostly because they are absurdly bureaucratic — managers like to employ more people than necessary and for longer amounts of time because it makes his or her department seem more important. Most of the work that employees do at these companies can be automated but isn’t because large bureaucracies do a terrible job at maximizing efficiency.
More and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50 hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent organizing or attending motivational seminars, updating their Facebook profiles or downloading TV box-sets.”
There’s also the moral element — that society is obsessed with the idea that “hard work” is good in and of itself, and that we must WORK! to be provided a living. Professionals are obsessed with the “Puritan work ethic” and sees stress as a status symbol rather than psychological torture or wasted time.
This ideology isn’t just shared by professionals, of course. It may partially explain why so many blue-collar Americans workers vote for Republicans who blast welfare recipients as leaches or why they support attacks against teachers unions for striking (how dare they stop working!).
In reality, however, only a select few benefit from an economy built on corporate bureaucracy and unequal pay.
There are two potential solutions to this. One is cliche but ultimately likely to happen. The other is obscure and would likely require revolution.
Universal basic income A decentralized economy (turning businesses into worker-owned cooperatives)
The former would give workers the incentive to do work that is actually meaningful. The later would end the inefficiencies of large corporations (and thus bullshit jobs) because small organizations with elected management do a much better job and implementing work than hierarchical and impersonal ones do.
Modern workplaces, if they were classified as a form of government, would be dictatorships. Employees sign away their autonomy to a hierarchical system which passes instructions from the top-down. Bosses tell the employee what to do, how to do it, and extract metrics about their efficiency and productivity. If they fail, they can be terminated at any time.
Dictatorship is usually thought of as being the most efficient form of government. In theory, the head honcho says X, so X happens. No amount of political bickering, court challenges, or activism can get in his or her way.
A cursory look at most developing nations dispells this test. But does it make sense in the workplace?
In a survey of over 200,000 organizations, employees were asked which factors made them want to engage the most in their workplace.
The most commonly cited answer?
Camaraderie and peer motivation. (20%)
The least cited?
Positive supervisors and managers. (4%)
The vast majority of Americans are disengaged at work. Perhaps if they had greater freedom to control their work and were allowed to freely associate with their coworkers, instead of being fired for making small talk on assembly lines, we’d become a happier and more productive nation. | https://lukejacobs.medium.com/most-jobs-are-meaningless-but-can-that-change-97ed0b95e776 | ['Luke Jacobs'] | 2019-12-24 17:58:24.012000+00:00 | ['Philosophy', 'Workplace', 'Work Life Balance', 'Economics'] |
Improving Mental Health in the Workplace | Challenging times are like mirrors for our insecurities. They force us to confront the things we find difficult and amplify personality traits that might otherwise be dulled when things are “normal”. In the workplace, “mental health” still (unfortunately) carries a stigma of weakness. Issues of anxiety, sadness, and even stress are often overlooked. Under “normal” circumstances, we might move these emotions and feelings to the back of the shelf. Leave your personal life at the door, they said.
Thankfully, in challenge there is also opportunity. One of these opportunities is to address mental health in the workplace. How, you ask?
The answer lies in opening up lines of honest communication and setting the framework for allowing that to continue into the future. The current situation has encouraged all of us to be a little bit more human; people are taking extra time to be empathetic, come together (even in isolation), and grow stronger in our bonds. The support for frontline workers is a perfect example. The outpouring of support, positivity, and love for a group of workers under extreme stress and challenge is uplifting, to say the least.
This is something that should continue into the future. Big business has the same opportunity. In traditional “corporate” environments where employees are expected to perform at a high level under stress for long hours, the consequences of doing so should be acknowledged. Stress should be addressed at work; it directly affects workflow, productivity, happiness, and sustainability. It also affects retention.
We have an opportunity to reach out to provide emotional support. This is especially true if your business has fallen on hard times (which includes mostly everyone). It gives you an opportunity to be human — if someone is furloughed or laid off, the answer to “why?” is potentially obvious, but it doesn’t make the pill any easier to swallow. In fact, due to the current condition it may be made worse if other jobs don’t become readily available. If you own a leadership position, reach out, and at the very least just listen. Start to take notes on what your team is asking for in terms of taking care of themselves.
This is a “moment” for the world. In all elevated moments, people tend to be hyper-aware of how they were made to feel. People will remember how you treat them, who was there to help them, and who was there to provide the support they needed when times were tough.
This is an opportunity to change the nature of the mental health discussion in the workplace. These “stresses” were always there; they’ve just bubbled up to the surface with some external encouragement. Why wouldn’t it be possible for us to provide an ear to listen, compassion around financial hardship, intermittent “breaks” to relieve stress midday, extra time to exercise, etc.?
All workers should have the ability to appropriately take care of themselves while at work. Opportunities for exercise to improve their physical state will directly impact their mood and mental resiliency. Opportunities to take short breaks, whether that means a walk outside or something like meditation, can be given regularly without sacrificing productivity. In fact, thinking from a place of clarity and calm will only improve work product.
We’ve seen firsthand the positive result of meditation done at work. We’ve taught our mindset process hundreds of times and seen employees improve the way they handle stress, the way they talk to themselves during challenge, and how they take control of their mental health. We know this is a viable strategy, and this is just one of many.
Take time to first check in on yourself, which will allow you to communicate from a position of strength and empathy. Then, take time to check in on your people; the opportunity is there to be a great leader, not just a good one. Businesses are made up of people, and ultimately that’s what will be remembered. Regardless of when everything returns to normal, it is our responsibility right now to take care of our people.
This shouldn’t stop when we return back to the office. Make time to check in with your teams. Make time for physical and mental health to be a priority; this is the underlying fuel to help employees do anything, better. Understand that these stresses, fears, etc. will not just go away; the road ahead is filled with hard work and long hours.
Th decision is ours on what we decide to go back to. Let’s go back to a healthy, supportive, and positive workplace, filled with human beings that care. | https://medium.com/@livebetterco/improving-mental-health-in-the-workplace-6e3372029bff | ['Live Better'] | 2020-04-22 12:37:06.827000+00:00 | ['Corporate Wellness', 'Workplace Culture', 'Mental Health', 'Wellness', 'Mental Health Awareness'] |
Huobi Launches New Service to Streamline Token Listing Application Process | Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Group has launched a new product designed to streamline the token listing application process.
According to a statement shared with Cointelegraph, the new service, which Huobi developed to provide a more transparent listing process, is called the Huobi Automated Listing Platform.
Per the announcement, projects that want to list on Huobi Global or an autonomous digital asset exchange Huobi HADAX, will have to register and submit specific documentation about the project. The announcement states that the Huobi Automated Listing Platform “will not automatically list any token or coin that applies.”
Upon passing the verification process, applicants will receive a unique login account, which provides access to submit, edit, amend, and review documents and status of the token listing.
Projects that fail to pass the verification will be provided with a reminder notification of re-application to HADAX 2.0 and assistance in registering on the newly launched platform. Projects that decide to re-apply will have to follow specific application and listing rules.
The announcement also states that later this year, Huobi is looking to launch the Huobi Blockchain Project Show Center within the Huobi Automated Listing Platform, which will provide users access to reports, videos, and live broadcasts.
In July, Huobi Group launched Huobi Cloud, which allows users to build over-the-counter (OTC) and digital asset exchanges on top of Huobi’s existing platform. Partners will also be able to use the order integration and wallet systems, as well as the asset management and clearing system of the Huobi Global platform.
That same month, HBUS, the U.S. “strategic partner” of Huobi, confirmed the release of its API for “experienced traders” in some U.S. states. The product was geared to high-volume users who required live pricing data and other tools. In addition to price tracking, the API also offers historical price data, support for margin trade customization support, setting buy and sell limits, and retrieving trade history.
Source: cointelegraph.com
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______________________________________ | https://medium.com/ktiglobal/huobi-launches-new-service-to-streamline-token-listing-application-process-848eea10ee45 | [] | 2018-08-21 09:08:07.991000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Huobi', 'New', 'Launching', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Scars | Your scars are not your Shame
They are your story
Show me your scars
Let me know your story
Let me know you
Let me love you wholly | https://medium.com/@onyxleee2001/scars-5b85f539862c | [] | 2020-12-15 16:23:54.996000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Poetry Writing', 'Poetry', 'Scars Struggles', 'Poetry On Medium'] |
Whatever Its Faults, This Palestinian Leadership Will Not Surrender | Palestinian-American legal scholar Noura Erakat says Trump’s “peace” agreements are a sham. Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2020/9/16/noura_erakat_trump_israel_middle_east
Neither Netanyahu nor Trump mentioned the Palestinians in their remarks as Israel “inked historic deals” normalizing relations with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain in a White House ceremony on Sep 15, 2020.
But without Palestinian engagement “everything they have achieved will remain under threat, which is why they will now continue the policy of the carrot and the stick to persuade the Palestinian people and their leadership to join the ranks [of Arab normalizers with Israel], or work to bypass it with an Arab solution without the Palestinians, and strive to replace the Palestinian leadership and find a leadership ready to surrender.” (My translation)
The above is Hani Al Masri’s voice, writing on his Masarat Center blog from Ramallah on the day of the ceremony.
“Whatever its faults, and they are legion, this Palestinian leadership will not, cannot, surrender. If jumping on the US-led bandwagon provides the Bahraini monarchy continued protection against its own people, jumping on that bandwagon would provide the Palestinian Authority with immediate collapse.”
Anticipating the ceremony and in response to the news that Bahrain was also jumping on the normalization bandwagon, the Palestine Liberation Organization: Department of Public Diplomacy & Policy published a statement by Hanan Ashrawi dated Sep 11, which says:
The Bahrain-Israel announcement is not a peace deal. It is US President Donald Trump playing to his base in the wake of elections and a reward to Israel’s escalating aggression and impunity. Normalization has been taking place between Bahrain and Israel surreptitiously. The US administration has used all its political and economic might to extort, pressure, and bully Arab and other states to normalize Israeli colonization and trample on foundational principles of international law, including the tacit endorsement of the war crime of annexation. The path to real peace must be founded on mutual respect and adherence to international law. By contrast, the false promise of prosperity and peace based on the US-Israeli approach will prove itself a destructive mirage that will only further destabilize the region. Normalization of states in the region with Israel will not change the essence of this conflict, which is the systemic denial of the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to freedom and sovereignty. The US administration can continue to exercise its power of coercion in the region to serve its electoral needs while applying cruel pressure on the Palestinian people. However, such an arrogant and ignorant approach will not bring the Palestinian people to their knees. The Palestinian people remain deeply rooted in their homeland and determined to secure their fundamental rights to a reality of freedom, dignity, and sovereignty. We will not surrender our agency nor abdicate our responsibility to deliver a genuine and just peace to our future generations. Justice in Palestine is a moral and legal imperative that can neither be ignored nor denied.
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee
“The road to Jerusalem remains paved through the triumph of peoples against their authoritarian governments in the Arab world.”
Outside Ramallah, in the United States, Democracy Now! and NBC news amplified Ashrawi’s and Al Masri’s voices with a clear, unblinking analysis of the normalization deal by Noura Erekat, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine: “This is not a peace agreement but rather an accord to join forces to suppress struggles for freedom. We should be watching this moment from the front row — but to protest, rather than applaud.”
A few days earlier, Erekat had posted the following “Quick thoughts on normalization between Bahrain and Israel” on her Facebook page:
1. This is better understood as another step in the U.S.’s bid for hegemonic influence in the Middle East as opposed to bilateral peace. Trump made the announcement to boast U.S. imperial success — not peacemaking. 2. This is not a rupture in a history of Arab support for Palestinians. The Bahraini people remain steadfast in their support for freedom and their government is as much a threat to them as it is to Palestinians. The road to Jerusalem remains paved through the triumph of peoples against their authoritarian governments in the Arab world. 3. The official Palestinian leadership was lagging; it is now all but irrelevant. It needs to catch up rapidly or just hand over the reins to a new generation of Palestinian leaders ready and able to overcome the diplomatic intransigence and the sovereignty trap within which they continue to suffocate us.
“We will not surrender our agency nor abdicate our responsibility to deliver a genuine and just peace to our future generations.”
Palestine lives in its people generation after generation. Wearing the same t-shirt, left: my granddaughter Karma; right: my niece employment-law attorney Rima Kapitan as a child.
So, what will the Palestinians do now? There continues to be a lot of agonized debate, discussion and soul-searching on this question among Palestinians in and out of zoom gatherings. Al-Adab organized a webinar (among several others) on “27 years of the Oslo accords and the future path for Palestine” with Dr. Abed al-Zuraie and Dr. Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi. Another was a workshop , also in Arabic, held on the day of the ceremony by Palestine Forum titled “Scenarios for the Future in Light of the Failure of the Palestinian National Project.”
What will the Palestinian leadership do? It is still waiting on reports/recommendations from the secretary generals of the various political parties with whom Mahmoud Abbas met on Sep 3rd. Let’s hope that they are listening to what Hani Al Masri says they must do:
It is not enough to threaten to dissolve or collapse the Palestinian Authority, nor are unity and popular resistance sufficient. We must complete the steps to liberate ourselves from the chains of the Oslo Accords and withdraw our recognition of Israel. We must rebuild and not just patch the existing PLO institutions, strengthen the foundations that shore up our continued existence on our land, our sumoud, steadfastness and productive resistance. We must get rid of the strategy of biding our time, of being reactive, of betting on others and on Biden’s success or the fall of Netanyahu. We must adopt an initiative capable of acknowledging new developments and realities, not in order to detach ourselves from reality, but rather to change that reality and refuse to submit to it. (My translation)
On Democracy Now! Noura Erekat had this to say about the Palestinian Authority (PA):
Again, this is an opportunity to revisit that history. The 1993 Declaration of Principles never promised a Palestinian state. There was no promise for a two-state solution, and that needs to be clear. Israel has been a state since 1948 and has been recognized by Palestinians as a state in 1988 and again in 1993. There is nothing in the Declaration of Principles that even promises that the outcome of it will lead to an independent Palestinian state, and yet that is what has been sold to us. Instead, this is an autonomy agreement for permanent, derivative sovereignty, whereby Palestinians can live in Bantustans and reservations with the blessing of Israel, but never as a people, never with national independence. The 1993 Declaration of Principles, Oslo, in my eyes, has been dead since the besiegement of Yasser Arafat in the presidential compound in Ramallah in 2001 and his death in 2002. And yet we continue on with the farce of the peace process now into 2020. And the responsibility for that lies squarely on the official Palestinian leadership. This is a moment of accountability. Unless the Palestinian leadership can look at this record and account for where they failed to take opportunities, what junctures they did not turn on, what moments they did not reassess this failed strategy, there is no moving forward with them in any kind of capacity as representative of the Palestinian people. If nothing else, this is a moment of reckoning, to understand and to deliberate about a radical rethinking about the Palestinian movement for freedom. And Palestinians, the world over, have been doing that work as they overcome and surmount diplomatic intransigence to advance the Palestinian cause for freedom through campaigns like Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, which has, in effect, kept the Palestinian struggle alive, created new alliances across the globe. It’s why we see solidarity protests in Pretoria, South Africa. It’s why we see now members of Congress who are standing up to explain that this is not about democracy, peace and freedom. That’s precisely because there has been a shadow Palestinian movement in place of the Palestinian official leadership. And hopefully we’ll see more of that as we move along, where the base is mobilizing the top.
Whatever its faults, and they are legion, this Palestinian leadership in the form of the PA will not, cannot, surrender. If jumping on the US-led bandwagon provides the Bahraini monarchy “continued protection against its own people,” as Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of the Jadaliyya publication, says, jumping on that bandwagon would provide the Palestinian Authority with immediate collapse.
Masarat, the Palestinian Center for Policy Research & Strategic Studies, has announced “A brainstorming meeting — the wave of Arab normalization” on Sep 19.
Masarat Center’s announcement of “A brainstorming meeting — the wave of Arab normalization” on Sep 19.
Palestine lives in its people generation after generation.
__________________
Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. | https://medium.com/discourse/whatever-its-faults-this-palestinian-leadership-will-not-surrender-7635abe46b8 | ['Rima Najjar'] | 2020-09-17 15:40:24.612000+00:00 | ['Israel', 'Trump', 'Bahrain', 'Uae', 'Palestine'] |
IoTeX News Digest YouTube Campaign — Episode 46 | Hello our dear community! For those of you, who have been following us for sometime, you know that we like to regularly keep you updated on the progress of our project and share the latest news. We regularly send out newsletters, monthly project update reports and share news and announcements daily on our Telegram channels, Twitter, and also through the weekly News Digest videos on our YouTube channel. In order for these videos to be even more interesting and valuable to our supporters, we would like to introduce a campaign series around it — meet the IoTeX News Digest YouTube Campaign! 🎉
Recap of this weeks Updates
☑️VITA token is coming to the IoTeX community!
☑️PIEXGO supports IOTX native token swap
☑️Almost 40% of tokens are STAKED & we are expanding to 24 Con️sensus Delegates
☑️Livestream #AMA3105 Summary Blog
Campaign Period
⏰ June 9, 3AM PST — June 15, 3AM PST
Steps to participate:
Join our Telegram Group and Announcement Channel & make sure you are subscribed to our YouTube channel Fill out this form & complete an easy task to get your IOTX!
Rewards
By successfully completing the 2 steps listed above 👆 ALL of the participants will receive 30 points (1 point : 1 IOTX)
PLUS based on the participation rate, we will have a lucky draw, so you can win additional tokens for spreading the word and helping us to build a Global Community 💙
Number of participants ≤20 — we will randomly select up to 3 winners that will receive additional 100 IOTX each
winners that will receive additional each 21≤ Number of participants ≤50 — we will randomly select up to 5 winners that will receive additional 150 IOTX each
winners that will receive additional each 51≤ Number of participants ≤100 — we will randomly select up to 10 winners that will receive additional 200 IOTX each
winners that will receive additional each 101≤ Number of participants ≤300 — we will randomly select up to 20 winners that will receive additional 300 IOTX each
❗️Please note that one person can only participate once in this campaign and we do not allow multiple submissions/accounts. Any cheating or suspicious activity will result in the suspension of your participation.
❗️If you will be using social media for posting and sharing, make sure that your account is valid and active and is not only used for promotional activities.
We will announce all the winners by June 15 in our Telegram groups. | https://medium.com/@iotex/iotex-news-digest-youtube-campaign-episode-46-50603c0e1b1f | ['Iotex Team'] | 2019-06-09 09:31:42.333000+00:00 | ['Ama', 'Iotex', 'IoT', 'Startup', 'Blockchain'] |
Value failures of high-minded righteousness. | From the mouth of a Vegan wearing Doc Martens.
Drop into to my Sunday late afternoon: I am on my phone, thumbs burning up the Googling on a random research project. This particular evening, we find ourselves with your fair heroine HOT on a search for the ideal Vegan beauty routine. This involves search for said brand, cross referencing with PETA, search the product selection, filling the cart, reading reviews of my selections, pausing and doing the same with the numerous other brands. I love these kinds of worthless endeavors.
Hours pass and so I raise my head, eyes crossed and deeply consumer-satiated — without a penny spent … yet, and also very anxious. Why? Because I like my current, not environmentally egregious, routine. Yet, I am deeply shamed as is, upon an early deep research project that occurred earlier that day, on animal exploitation and beauty industry exploitation.
That is where the trouble lies. Yes, there is issue and crime with animal cruelty, but bigger and more how I am, in this very honest instance, choosing to track myself against the moral thermometer of an external arbiter. As if another entity holds the keys to my alignment AND that there is no room for variance. Sheep shearing is horrific, but so is binary rigidity and self-punishment.
OK, on that — I hold a truth deep in the better parts of my soul that ills are not to be compared. Each of us experiences disparity in line with and too beyond the bounds of the terms of our lives. There is violence that measure high about inconvenience. Narrative comparisons are not the point here — what is, is this: I need to lay the Hell off or I might miss why and how I am giving a shit in the first place.
It is about wanting to be good without knowing what “good” is in the first place. Interesting, huh? That even in saying that I am inferring that “good” is a very specific thing. Like the end of a moral equation, an answer acquired via a series of invariable steps. Oh, and too that it is only one thing that is “good” in the first place?! As if geography, history, chronology, identity have no impact — “good” is an imperial thing complexly free of context. In that, unbelievable logic: “Good” is not killing animals and recycling. For shame: caring for a family farm, Kosher living, Indigenous heritage and traditional living, Benedict’s need for minerals and the health benefits of an omnivorous diet, not to mention maintaining the health of captive Wildlife or Wildlife in general, lifesaving medicine — and maybe even my lipstick.
Let us take this discussion from “good” on to “success”. How does that land with you? What about the “right” way to do an interview or a “proper” resume? Marketing strategy, content composition, networking, social media and whatnot. Funny, huh, that generally the only folks who say so are those presenting you with a service menu to address and training you on the above? Words like “confidence” come in to play. As that being “a thing” you will gain once you have taken on said professional processes, products, and thereby execution. Whew, all done! You’re good. What?! Don’t have a job or enough clients to keep you out of you parent’s pocket? What?! Could it be that “right” or “good” or “success” is not at all a linear thing. That results are not in marriage with properness?
Well, true. However, it should be noted industries and kindnesses hold influence expectations upon discourse. It is not appropriate to apply with a resume on a napkin, or to an executive post in an industry of which you have no experience or seek to cover a professional service you need licensing for but do not hold. These “hoops” are cultural, and safety inspired. To ignore them is not experimental, it is straight up disrespect. Likely that goes without mentioning, nevertheless it is best to reign things in as we move to talk about “rouge within reason”.
That comes down to technique — learning the standards and rituals but being open to finding one’s way within them. This comes down to respect. For instance: I respect Veganism and animal rights justice. I can learn about the “rules” held by aligned and foundational organizations and persons. Add to that, I can lend the same respectful scrutiny to my present and historical choices. Why do I shop where I do and on what? That lipstick, a consumer and beauty hack, what’s up with my loyal (or causal) wearing of it? Do I know any thing beyond its marketable attributes? Or its origin and production? Could I investigate that -since I am still here as the sun sets and I turn my tea over for wine, the future of the evening still steered to ardent web searching — without the bias? Oh whoa! Well, Hell no, right? PETA, you have all my grace and judgement-free acceptance, for you live in a World beyond my insular consciousness. Looking to myself I measure and evaluate and curse and blame the failures or over emphasize the wins.
“Is my resume good enough?”
“How is my pitch deck?”
“Website?”
“Pricing structure?”
I get those questions all the time. Hitting back, I ask: You tell me? Or, why are you asking? Have you not been hired? Did a client or pal give feedback, and did it seem applicable to you? Where are YOU in those documents? Do they seem like you?
Sure, I will point out inaccuracies but beyond that, everything I will speak to falls under believability. Does it sound like you? Is this the professional I know that I see in these pages? That is why it is so damn important for a coach to be a deft and expert assessor of the person behind the professional that hires them. Not your shoe size, but the why and wherefores of you and your approach to your work. Why YOU do or seek to do this thing, and if we don’t know what the “thing” is, who is the “you” that seeks to do anything at all? Add to that, we need to kind of dig on each other. I am not talking cuddling, per se, but believe and trust. On both sides.
Back to the lipstick: downstairs, my husband starts grumbling about dinner and Netflix options. Could I like this woman seeking to hurt less and be more courteous? Could I appreciate her desire to live tenderly towards others, and too be reasonable and look good? If I did, might I ask her to step back from the damn lipstick? Say: “Hey, what about we look at choices in general and your person beyond one small tube. Are you seeking to get off the hook for assumed cruelty by picking the proper matte? Or is this one of many representative purchases that might fall under a larger appreciation of alignment?” Over-focusing can create blindness and trying as cavalier living. Tunnel vision anyone?! You bet!
Your resume could be more representative, branding altered to meet a trend, sure. These are all relatively minor choices. The bigger view is who is the person making them and to what end. There is the market and there is the us — get what you want from that discourse and know the marketing is doing the same of you. In that the REAL task is to seem to be true. If you dig on that Natural but not Vegan choice — the question comes down to ethics. Not “right” or “sinful” but ethical in the totality of the person who washes her hands and starts washing vegetables, saying over her shoulder out of the kitchen, “Yeah I know it is 9. Come on man, it’s Sunday! You want a beer or something? Add a goodie to the queue, grub ETA 30 minutes!”
From the den: “I’ll be two in by then.”
“Start your engines.” | https://medium.com/@tracy-sdyd/value-failures-of-high-minded-righteousness-f2df6a65ffcc | ['Tracy Bullock'] | 2020-12-19 20:33:12.968000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Writing', 'Professional Development', 'Personal Growth', 'Coaching'] |
Interview the Classical Crossover Singer and VIP Vocal Coach Amalia Moerman Pavlidi | Q. Amalia you are one of the best Vocal Coaches how do you explain this success?
I have studied Music and vocal pedagogy; I have the knowledge to help my students. But the most important is that I love deeply to see people succeed and follow their dreams!
Q. Your new single is online and we love it!! Why you chose to sing blues in your classical crossover way?
Thank you! I am an artist, so all the songs I sing I want them to have my identity. I chose this song because I love it and I wanted to perform it.
Q. You are travelling in Europe, you were a vocal coach in the Netherlands many years, you have worked for the VOICE, and different talent agencies, now you are in Italy, you work with many students monthly, what a singer needs in order to succeed today?
The answer is very simple. His energy! Love for music and education of course. Music education.
Q. Why do you love teaching?
As a say I am not a teacher, I am an awakener! I love inspire my students and take them a step further. I love teaching!
Q. You have one of the best voices we have heard. You work with 2 agencies in Europe. When can we see you in the US?
I do not know! I hope soon!
Q. The secret of your success?
There are no secrets! It’s pure love for what I do…
Q. Will we see more VEVO videos from you?
Yes! We are preparing some now, so really soon!
Q. Where People Can follow you? | https://medium.com/@mugn/interview-the-classical-crossover-singer-and-vip-vocal-coach-amalia-moerman-pavlidi-1b00a624352f | ['Quotes Writer'] | 2019-08-09 18:45:56.477000+00:00 | ['Songs', 'Music', 'Classical Music', 'Interview', 'Amalia Moerman Pavlidi'] |
The Lack of Women in “The Lord Of The Rings” Is Alarming | Lord of the Rings is, and always has been, and probably always will be my favorite movies of all time. The unparalleled story-telling of J.R.R. Tolkien coupled with the cinematic direction of Peter Jackson a Howard Shore original score to top it off? It is nothing short of perfection in my book. If you don’t believe me, here are a few stats to prove it!
The Fellowship of the Ring was nominated for a whopping 158 awards, receiving 98 of those, including Academy Awards, Grammys, and Golden Globes. The Two Towers blew that out of the water with 222 nominations and 136 awards received. What about Return of the King, you ask? 337 nominations and 258 of those were awarded. In total, that brings the trilogy to 717 nominations and 492 awards, which is absolutely mind-blowing.
As a young girl, I can remember reading the books and watching the movies, and wondering why there weren’t more female characters. In the grand scheme of the trilogy, there are really only three women who are prominently featured: Arwen, Galadriel, and Eowyn. Yes, there are common folk females, and we can’t leave out Rosie Cotton, Sam’s beloved wife, but other than that, the trilogy is a real bachelor party. The Fellowship is exclusively men, and thus, men carry the storyline for the majority of the time. During my formative years, this saddened me as I looked to strong, female portrayals in the media to shape the character I wanted to possess.
However, as I have aged (and rewatched the movies close to a hundred times), I began to realize the Tolkien didn’t need a plethora of females in his story to show that women are powerful and that they have a role in shaping Middle Earth. He just needed three.
Arwen
Arwen is the first major female character we are introduced to in the trilogy. She shows up in The Fellowship of the Ring after Frodo is stabbed by the Ring-Wraith on Weathertop. A few short minutes after meeting her, we are acquainted with her tenacity as she single-handedly outpaces nine Wraiths on Asfaloth as she rushes to get Frodo to the land of her people before he passes into the shadow realm. At the banks of the river that separates the land, she turns to face them head-on, and utters the line that never fails to give me chills (even if it isn’t canon Tolkien):
If you want him, come and claim him.”
From this moment on, Arwen proves herself to be as fiery of an Elf as can be. She pledges herself to a mortal, giving him her Elvenstone. She stands up to her father, the noble Lord Elrond, and fights for her chance at true love, even though it will mean heartache for her in the future. The mere thought of her revives Aragorn when all else seems lost.
Through her example, I learned that it is okay to be ferocious and that such ferocity doesn’t negate femininity. It is acceptable for me to “ride with the big boys” one moment, and be the picture of beauty the next.
I learned that true love is achievable, though it may not be as conventional as I had thought. I realized that such love doesn’t just happen, but it takes time and effort by both parties, although often at different times throughout the relationship.
Arwen taught me that the things in life worth fighting for may require me to make tough choices, decisions that will ultimately affect the trajectory of my life. These choices may not be popular, or what the people around me would suggest, but if I follow my heart, these types of choices will shape the person I am. | https://medium.com/fan-fare/the-lack-of-women-in-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-alarming-6b792bec985c | ['Tessa Andrews'] | 2020-09-23 12:20:42.818000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Culture', 'Life Lessons', 'Film', 'Lord Of The Rings'] |
What’s New at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative | Many of us work in technology because we think it is the best lever we have to effect change in the world. For example, the internet and its underlying protocols have changed our lives immeasurably. In combination with free and open source software like Linux, this has empowered low-cost communication and global collaboration. This technology allows me to publish this blog post, and a few seconds later anyone around the world can read it, and perhaps more importantly, can contribute to the discussion.
But the full potential of the internet has yet to be realized. Instead of an interoperable data fabric, we have data silos. Instead of freedom and access, we have gated app stores. We’ve experienced large shifts in power online, with a few organizations now wielding uncomfortable amounts of control.
Addressing these problems is vital. Perhaps surprisingly, I think that cryptocurrencies may offer the best chance to do so. That’s why I’m excited to be expanding my role within the MIT Digital Currency Initiative as its new research director. Recently, TED gave me the opportunity to share how cryptocurrencies work and what I think is so powerful about them:
Last summer, after finishing my PhD at MIT (before that I was a software engineer at Google), I started reading about Bitcoin. I had friends who got excited about Bitcoin in its very early days, but it wasn’t until last year, when I realized that Bitcoin was the world’s largest consensus algorithm[1], that I began to understand its potential impact. Everywhere I looked, I found a need for a way to reach agreement with parties who don’t necessarily trust each other.
I spoke to people across industries who felt that an open, interoperable, censorship-resistant[2] platform for data agreement could help solve many of their problems–and these were real problems: micropayments to support content producers, digital identification to help refugees, and services like credit and cheap money transfer for the unbanked. Though the solutions are far from obvious, even the possibility of making a dent in these problems is worth exploring, and surprisingly, the people involved seem to think an open-access, cryptographically signed log could help. It became clear to me that not only is the world ready to embrace building more open, interoperable systems, but doing so could lead to solving a wide variety of problems.
MIT has a long history of supporting the development of technologies that provide freedom and privacy to users, along with useful features and strong guarantees of stability. At the Digital Currency Initiative, we want to leverage this talent base and bring people together to create the necessary trust paradigms required. As it turns out, this is a very challenging domain of research, and a large part of the community has given up on the possibility for these technologies to be truly open and decentralized. We want to serve as a balance to that viewpoint and engage in research that paints a path forward.
This area is especially interesting because it doesn’t fall entirely in any one academic discipline. Expediting the future of open, interoperable systems requires work across many different fields–distributed systems, cryptography, game theory, security, programming language design, databases, finance, behavioral economics, law, and more. This area is a great example of the “antidisciplinary” work that the Media Lab strives to foster–the space between the dots of traditional academic departments. This is exciting, but makes our job harder.
The past year was about learning, becoming part of the cryptocurrency and blockchain communities, and establishing a point of view. The next will be about building a strong research group, grounded in creating practical solutions. Right now, our group is working on projects that:
use novel cryptographic primitives for computation with privacy and auditability,
create decentralized monetary policy through techniques like decaying assets and in-protocol inflation,
examine bias in newsfeed algorithms and consider censorship-resistant mechanisms for publishing on the Web,
securitize smart property to enable new models for funding in the developing world, and
explore new ways of mining cryptocurrencies to ensure fairness and more open access to the system.
We want to continue this existing research and expand it: We run classes on cryptocurrencies, and host weekly open research meetings to bring together cryptocurrency researchers in the Boston area. We fund a residents program to bring noted experts in the space to MIT to give talks and teach workshops. We co-chaired a W3C workshop to bring the community together to discuss standards. We help support international conferences like Scaling Bitcoin, and we financially support open source developers to help them maintain their independence. We also want to expand the community working in this space, and make the cryptocurrency community more inclusive for women and underrepresented minorities. To help with that, we sponsor students to attend important conferences like Consensus and Scaling Bitcoin, and just last month we ran a week-long cryptocurrency bootcamp where we gathered students from across the country. You can learn more about all of our activities on our new website.
Our future work is going to be about research, but also convening. This week, we’re gathering members of the healthcare industry for a life sciences and healthcare workshop. We will bring together experts in areas like monetary policy to think about a new financial architecture. We will work towards building out this open, interoperable data fabric in a way that provides security, privacy, and integrity to its participants, in order to support a new application paradigm.
I can’t wait to see what the next year will bring.
[1] It’s almost misleading to call Bitcoin a consensus protocol, because “consensus” has a very specific meaning in distributed algorithms, and Bitcoin’s properties do not fit in the model this definition requires. This probably means the model needs to expand. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are very clearly useful, and we need the tools to analyze them.
[2] One of the most fascinating properties of Bitcoin is its censorship-resistance. This is accomplished in conjunction with security because although anyone can participate in the protocol, it’s very expensive to compromise the network. No one dictates who can or cannot be a part of the network, and if you want to process transactions, you can install some software on your computer to do so. Bitcoin is run worldwide, with no single point of failure. The past six years and 10 billion dollars are evidence that it is somewhat resilient–it’s a massive target for attackers, but no one has compromised it as a whole (yet). We shouldn’t get too complacent though; Bitcoin’s model is based on making attacks very expensive, but there might be bugs in the protocol or actors who have enough money to attack, but just haven’t done so yet. | https://medium.com/mit-media-lab-digital-currency-initiative/whats-new-at-mit-s-digital-currency-initiative-9d53c39502d3 | ['Neha Narula'] | 2016-09-12 20:20:46.042000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
The Voice Scrambling Helmet | Back to 1979 and the helmet.
We built a prototype of the idea using two Darth Vader helmets from Toys ‘R Us.
It was a bear to get them working but eventually we did (sort off). When they worked, they were incredible. It was so cool. Unfortunately, there were times when they didn’t work. Gerry, the engineer in charge, had decided to do the voice processing with analog circuitry (I prefer digital myself). Some days that analog circuitry did what it was supposed to… other days, not so much.
And on top of that, the physical Darth Vader helmets we were using for the prototypes were made for kids, so it was a pain in the a** to get them on and off your head to test. And you had to have them pulled down all the way, so that your speaking voice didn’t audibly leak out and interfere with hearing the scrambled voice.
Jim came back to the lab one afternoon while we were testing the prototypes, and on that particular day, they were working well. He was so impressed that he ran to the phone and set up a meeting for the following week. He was going to take the prototypes up to Boston to demonstrate them to the Vice President of Marketing of one of the country’s largest toy companies. We had done work for that company before, so they were excited to see what we had come up with.
Gerry and I spent the rest of the week through the weekend trying to “sure up” the prototypes for the upcoming demonstration and, by Sunday night, we felt we had done all we could. They worked most of the time. Monday morning arrived and Jim came to the office, grabbed the units and drove four hours north for the big demonstration. All day, we waited for a call from him, hoping to get an update on how the presentation had gone. Not a word.
Finally, at about 7 pm Monday evening, we heard the lobby door. We gave him a minute to drop stuff in his office, and then we ran in to get the word on how it went.
I was first into his office, “How did it go Jim?”
With his back to us as he was putting down his briefcase, he snarled “Not well, the effing things didn’t work. We tried for two hours then gave up. Here, get these out of here.” When he turned around to throw the prototypes at Gerry and I, it took every ounce of self-control we had not to burst out laughing.
Here was Jim, the picture of composure, the man who was never flustered, with the bridge of his nose completely destroyed, showing a bloody dent where the too small, child-size helmet had forcibly been stopped each time he jammed the malfunctioning device onto his head for yet another try.
Years later one of the Star Wars licensors came out with a Darth Vader, voice-changing helmet toy, but it didn’t have the scramble/unscramble ability. It just modified your voice.
Star Wars™ Darth Vader™ Voice Changer Helmet by Hasbro
As I went on to learn, such is the life of an inventor. You win some, you lose some. C’est la vie.
[1] Mattel Football was programmed by Mark Lesser, a pioneer in electronic games who went on to have a successful career as a game programmer and designer. His early work does not get the attention it deserves. | https://medium.com/swlh/the-voice-scrambling-helmet-26fde9cf88f6 | ['Garry Kitchen'] | 2020-11-12 03:11:46.106000+00:00 | ['Toys', 'Invention', 'Invention Ideas', 'Toy Design', 'Electronics'] |
Why Trump’s Military Insults Reek of Ignorance. | POLITICS
Why Trump’s Military Insults Reek of Ignorance.
Proud to say my father was a “sucker” and a “loser” in World War II.
© Author’s photo of Brig. Gen. Oscar Rialp
I am proud that my father was a “sucker” to join the military.
My father, Brigadier General Oscar Rialp of the Philippine Army, was a “sucker” to fight during World War II.
He fought side by side the Americans against the Imperial Japanese Army as captain in the great Battle of Bataan in 1942, where 20,000 Filipinos and 1,500 Americans died.
I am proud that my father was a “loser” for he was captured and dragged into the Death March, among the 60,000 sick, wounded, starving military prisoners and 38,000 weakened civilians that marched from Bataan to Tarlac.
Japanese soldiers randomly tortured, beat, and stabbed captives. Hundreds were massacred along the way to lighten their load. Only 54,000 survived the march.
Upon arriving in concentration camps, they were plagued with dysentery and starvation. Hundreds more died per day.
To face such battles and survive them takes a lot of courage and vigour.
It infuriates me to hear Trump speak of military men as “suckers” and “losers.”
First of all, who would like to face atrocities? They knew what they were getting themselves into. You’re right about this one, Trump.
But they joined the military anyway.
Why? To fight for YOUR freedom.
Trump would not be sitting on his red velvet cushie every morning while his orange hair is blow-dried, if not for our soldiers.
Trump would not be playing golf on green manicured lawns, nor would he be eating his caviar, if not for my father and his men.
There would be no democracy for him to squander. Or no freedom to walk around without a mask so he can “look good.” And no freedom of religion to hypocritize.
The entire country fights a war, not just the soldiers.
My father explained this to me when I was a child, (in case you don’t get it, Trump).
The military is sent to face the battles because they are the most capable ones. The president, the government, the citizens are all part of the war, but it would be ridiculous to send the mothers or untrained civilians to be in the battlefield.
Mr. President, in case you are unaware, you are fighting each and every war your military is battling out there.
So to say that people who face the enemy are “suckers,” makes you an ignorant coward.
You, as Commander-In-Chief, lead these wars.
It takes monumental courage to leave for battle.
I remember my mother was consoling an officer’s wife one early morning. Her husband was about to leave for a dangerous operation and she was inconsolable. After she left, my father expressed disappointment towards our visitor.
He said, it is very difficult to leave your family knowing you may not return whole or alive, and a crying wife makes it more difficult for him to face battle. Fear can be overwhelming. Encourage the military wives to show strength and independence instead.
Brilliance brought survival.
It takes robust physical strength and resilient mental stability to survive captivity.
My father and his best friend brilliantly befriended the Japanese soldiers driving a truck during the Death March. They traded English lessons for a short ride while their superiors were not looking.
My father taught them to say “You betcha!” as a translation for yes.
He taught them to say “I’ll be damned if I knew,” instead of “I don’t know.”
My father and his comrade chuckled beside the American soldiers as the Japanese answered their questions. A close bond formed between the “enemies.”
The Japanese soldiers snuck some rice into their pockets and swigs of water for them to survive the scorching heat and sapless fatigue. These Japanese soldiers were the main reason they survived torture.
At the concentration camp, my father would wake up amidst corpses everyday. Stiff, cold bodies brushing against his shoulders. Prisoners were weak with lack of nutrition and stricken with unceasing diarrhea.
After a few days of hanging on a string of hope, the Japanese helped my father and his best friend escape the camp. They followed them down the mountains and made them promise to keep the location of the camp a secret from the American headquarters.
My father kept his promise and headed down south through several jungles to found the guerrilla warfare, a potent winning arm of the ground force.
The Filipino soldiers were the pawns of the war. They were put in the frontlines while the Americans hid behind. While the Americans provided advanced artillery, Filipinos had to use their own Asian tactics to be successful in overcoming the Japanese soldiers.
Infiltration is the key to winning ground level battles.
“Take them by surprise,” my father would say. Americans sometimes could not tell the difference between the Japanese and the Filipinos, if not for their uniforms. Guerrilla warfare used camouflage techniques to the max. Every message was coded in their own newly-created alphabet. This contributed to the success of the war.
Calling these survivors “losers” makes Trump an ignorant fool.
If death had befallen my father, would he be a “loser?”
My father was shot, once, in the navel as he warded off the enemy. He was thrown across the room. His battalion soldiers were surprised to see him bounce up and throw his belt away. The bullet had hit his belt buckle, burning his abdomen. But he was alive. Miraculously.
Had he died, he would have died saving his fellowmen.
My father careened through his career to become a war hero, loving the battlefield more than the administrative assignments. (He was assigned a position as Deputy Chief of Staff with the promise of being the next Chief of Staff, but turned it down.)
He was a brilliant strategist, a fearless fighter, and the opposition’s worst enemy.
All military men deserve recognition and respect.
The life of my father taught me how to muster strength, resilience and determination. He taught me the values of integrity, valour, and dedication. He cultivated love for our country.
I am sure all military men faced similar challenges. They possess similar characteristics as my father had. They believe freedom and peace are worth fighting for.
They must love their country very much, or they would not be sacrificing their safety and comfortable family life to serve. | https://susieantonia.medium.com/why-trumps-military-insults-reek-of-ignorance-44366ba5eba4 | ['Susie Antonia'] | 2020-10-12 20:00:28.868000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Election 2020', 'Family', 'History', 'World'] |
4 Great But Underrated AWS Services | 1. CloudFormation
CloudFormation is a service that enables us to describe infrastructure as code. Infrastructure as code is a well-known practice to set out and manage IT infrastructure through the configuration files. With CloudFormation, we can define all required components and dependencies between them.
There are a few benefits to having everything in configuration files. First, it makes it possible to speed up the processes, as the task stays only within the code. No navigation between different services and connecting them through the user interface. Second, it adds more reliability and reduces human errors. The code can be reviewed by other engineers, and in case of mistake, the changes can be reverted quickly.
For example, the following piece of code creates a new S3 bucket under your account:
As you can see, only seven lines of code can create a new S3 bucket with a default setup at any moment. No need to do the job manually through the AWS console.
CloudFormation supports two formats: JSON and YAML. Besides that, CloudFormation offers features such as nested stacks, exporting values, or passing parameters between stacks. Indeed, it is a very powerful service to maintain the whole company's infrastructure.
CloudFormation is a free service and you need to pay only for provisioned components. | https://medium.com/better-programming/4-great-but-underrated-aws-services-3284ffcb6073 | ['Dmytro Khmelenko'] | 2020-10-29 16:35:07.012000+00:00 | ['AWS', 'Programming', 'Software Development', 'Cloud Computing', 'Cloud'] |
H4H in 2020: A Year in Review | As 2020 comes to a close, we’d like to reflect briefly on the progress that’s been made over the past year and the current state of the various projects connected to H4H. It has been a difficult year for many people throughout the world due to the ongoing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Large scale job loss, increased concentrations of wealth amongst a shrinking few, and massive printing of money from central banks have all been accelerated and amplified in its aftermath.
Now more than ever, it is critical we make substantial strides in the H4H mission to create global basic income and value distributions a reality.
Progress Report on H4H Projects
BrightID:
BrightID is a critical tool that underlies all the other projects connected to H4H. In short, it proves someone is unique on the internet without requiring personal data to do so. It is an important solution both for allowing global value distributions as well as for many other unique and important issues.
This year, BrightID has:
Grown to well over 6,500 verified users.
Developed partnerships with projects including Gitcoin, 1Hive, CLR fund, and more.
Developed a robust global team.
Made big improvements to the BrightID app and its user interface.
We can’t wait to see the great work from BrightID in 2021! If you haven’t already, you can download the BrightID app here.
Manna:
It has been a quiet year for Manna as we’ve continued to solidify the critical upgrade for the underlying technology and economics. We are happy to say we have been making good progress and will begin sharing in greater details the solutions and changes coming to manna very soon.
We hope 2021 can be an exciting and fruitful year for Manna as we finalize these important updates!
Borderless Basic Income:
BBI was introduced in 2020 with the aim to begin basic income giveaways of $100/ month for a year to random recipients across the globe. The project was inspired by a very successful German program called Mein Grundeinkommen. We launched it to raise awareness of the call for a global basic income; both by demonstrating its impact, as well as by testing out new financial technology that can make it a reality.
We have begun raising money for the initial giveaways and plan to start the program in early to mid 2021.
Humanity Fund:
The Humanity Fund aims to use a sustainable fund of stocks, dividends, profit sharing, and more from businesses and individuals throughout the world as a means for an ongoing global dividend to everyone in the world.
While we have some hopeful prospects and fundamental elements, it is still in the development stage and we hope to begin solidifying the details more precisely in 2021!
We’d like to close this year off with one of our favorite quotes that’s inspired us throughout the years:
“ Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. “
- Calvin Coolidge
See you in 2021!
The H4H Team | https://medium.com/@hedgeforhumanity/h4h-in-2020-a-year-in-review-fb1faa43b137 | ['Hedge For Humanity'] | 2020-12-20 04:05:54.931000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Nonprofit', 'Basic Income'] |
So Close. | We were driven to build a product that people would fall in love with.
On a warm summer evening, I’m at a dinner with a small group invited to meet David Candaux, a top Swiss watch maker. Normally, I wouldn’t find much interest in discussing the engineering and design effort behind creating the finest of watches, but my engineering team at Otto had been hard at work innovating a gear mechanism for our digital lock and I was learning a thing or two about the elegance of an intelligent and well designed gearing system.
David Candaux is a mastermind of elite Swiss watch making and I wanted his immense engineering talent with intertwined gears and minuscule drivetrains to vet the design of the innovative transmission system at the heart of the hardware that became the Otto digital home lock. The next morning, David, looking properly science fiction with his watchmaking magnifier glasses, is surrounded by our team of mechanical engineering guru’s in Otto’s hardware lab. We’re deep in stealth mode and this is the first time that we’ve exposed our gearing system to an outsider.
Time ceases to exist. Laughter erupts as his first reaction is “Wow, it’s so big”. He rocked our perspective that this is the smallest sophisticated motorized gearing system we’ve seen in a lock. The lab goes quiet as the only sound is the turning of the Otto drivetrain in David’s precise hands. Turn, turn, turn and stop. Repeat. Stillness, thinking, calculating reviewing…this continues with slight turns and then quiet. Ten minutes feels like hours as the turning stops and David peers up from his speciality glasses. There’s a collective pause in breath, waiting for his verdict. David Candaux’s words are as meticulous as his manner, “May I use this design?”
Otto Lock : A digital experience for home access
That was one of our many “Oh shit, we are on to something” moments at Otto. To deliver the consumer experience we envisioned, we had to invent a sophisticated and precise yet durable gearing system. Imagine if a Swiss watch and a Volvo had a ‘love’ child. Creating a new user experience meant we had to innovate at every level, including display, power, materials, bolt, battery, gearing and UX. We knew we could deliver the most secure lock on the market with the best user experience. Creating a new, exciting and addictive user experience guided our actions and decision making. It cost us time and money, but we understood that we couldn’t cut corners on reliability, durability or safety. We faced barriers that seemed unsurmountable and yet were able to stare them down .We plowed ahead, believing in our creativity and the perseverance of our team to find a way. And we always did. And I was so impressed by it. Every. Single. Time.
But there was a final barrier that did stop us. It is with great sorrow to say we have suspended operations at Otto. I have never experienced greater professional pain than I have in the past two weeks. Especially since this post was intended to tell the exact opposite story. I will explain what happened, but to be clear, the main point is to reflect on the story of Otto and honor the very ambitious team that set out to create an entirely new experience of accessing and sharing your home.
The team’s commitment to this was profound. Many individuals spent multiple weeks, multiple times, living in China working with our suppliers. They were creating precision parts and designing a manufacturing line that would assemble, test, and package Otto units at scale. After a long day at the office, a dozen or so people would get on a nightly call to support the team in Asia. They then worked to provide fixes, updates or additional support so their colleagues would not be slowed. During our builds, standard work weeks became 6 days a week with often scheduled company-wide calls nightly and over holidays, vacations and weekends.
Building Otto has been a triumph of engineering deeply interwoven with design. We created a culture of innovation and challenged ourselves to do the right thing. No company, large or small, had transformed the standard deadbolt lock into a fully intelligent, secure and reliable device and service for the home. It demanded breakthrough engineering work — from the initial design to working with our suppliers to create very precise components that could be built at scale and ultimately creating and managing a supply chain with dozens of suppliers.
Behind the hardware was the most secure, reliable and scalable service platform ever created for home access — and likely for any access system. Not to be outdone, the software team challenged themselves to complete the full user experience so that our customers would fall in love with the way they engaged the product and actually experience joy as they used it. The software team’s dedication to fast and guaranteed reliability at every level — firmware, app, cloud, connectivity and data provided the foundation for a magical experience in which Otto recognizes you as you approach. We were committed to doing a few things really well which we viewed as more valuable than having a lock experience work most of the time. It was a moment of celebration to see Press To Unlock, a signature experience, come to life as all the pieces executed to perfection.
The most thrilling part of the team experience was that we needed our team to be as integrated as our product. Job titles were irrelevant as people filled gaps as needed. Marketing, engineering, operations and software worked as one team to debug, solve problems and harden the product so it would be reliable and work as it should every time. Nearly every person told me how they grew, learned and experienced interdisciplinary teamwork at the highest level.
When we introduced Otto to the world, we struck a happy chord with the marketplace. Concerns about the $699 price point melted away as homeowners valued the security, design and performance of a new generation of home access that Otto represented. Our beta users raved as the product spoke for itself, and it was rapidly maturing. More importantly, it stood for what was possible and what we could deliver in the future. We could see people falling in love with our product and that couldn’t motivate us more.
Ok, so what happened? This past summer, we began fundraising for our next financing round. In early September, we were approached by a public company who understood the product we built, the engineering behind it, and the opportunity it represented. Initially they proposed investing, but quickly shifted the conversation to an acquisition. It wasn’t our desire to be acquired so early, but they helped convince us that the best path forward was to marry our innovation with their scale and distribution. We would focus our energy on accelerating product development as a global opportunity. This would be as transformational to them as it would be to us.
Our signed agreement restricted our ability to solicit other bids or fundraise and targeted a close on December 11th, 2017. The interim period was consumed with meetings, trips, lawyers, planning and intensive due diligence. While a tedious process, we built a close working relationship and shared their enthusiasm about our future together.
On December 11th, they called me and stated they would not complete the acquisition nor revisit the investment proposal. I was stunned. The reason is still not understood. We had extended our cash to get to the closing date, and now were left without alternatives. Rather than telling our dedicated team that we were accelerating our growth plans and their equity ownership might provide them some financial stability, I had to tell them we could not continue operations.
I define startups as companies that don’t have control of their own destiny because they rely on investor cash infusions to operate. When asked, “How’s business?”, I always replied “I don’t have a business yet, we’re still a startup.” Startups are vulnerable to market financing conditions and events such as what we experienced. This year, 2017, was a particularly harsh year for hardware startups. Additionally each day carried the potential of a new existential threat, from product to supplier to market to financing to people to regulatory to competitive. We learned to breathe through each one, stare it down and tackle it head-on. But even if we dodged a hundred bullets along the way, it only takes one to end it. I know these risks. They can be exhilarating. But in this moment, they are crushing. That phone call, and its timing, was the bullet we couldn’t deflect.
Otto assembled a stunning team of expert and talented individuals. We were proud of our diversity and our belief in each other. Each person had an important impact on our product, yet they could not have done it without their commitment to teamwork and mutual support. They faced every obstacle with resilience, grit and mental toughness. We had moments of joy and overwhelming challenges and we accomplished something that no one else had done, with a team that rose together on every occasion. Our culture was grounded with a great deal of personal responsibility and empowerment allowing each team member to shine. Team Otto was supported by investors that backed our audacious and ambitious plans. For their belief in us, we are forever grateful.
Service Day for Team Otto on December 11, 2017
To our beta users, pre-order customers, suppliers and partners, I’m so very saddened that we can’t deliver Otto, which was planned for first revenue in just four weeks. Seeing Otto light up as it welcomes me home and unlocks with a simple press, is a moment of joy that is now coupled with deep sadness. Otto will not ship next month and it may never ship. We will evaluate our options in the coming weeks and see what is open to us.
Team Otto created a product that is exciting, innovative and category defining. It wasn’t an easy or predictable journey, but it was incredibly rewarding. The teamwork, the friendships, the highs and lows, the sense of accomplishment that came from the opportunity to work with dedicated and determined team-players is something that I will carry forward. I hope the entire team feels this as well. The only comfort I can find at this moment is to believe that Team Otto and the technology and product we created, will serve as seeds to grow and change industries in new and exciting directions. And in that way, products that bring joy can see the light of day.
AFTERWORD (Jan 13, 2018)
I wrote the “So Close” post to honor the team, entrepreneurship and the courage of startup teams to go for it. Creating a category defining product requires risk taking — often at very uncomfortable levels. I love that spirit.
I anticipated readers would bring a wide variety of perspectives. I didn’t write the post to deflect blame, fall on my sword, or even as an epitaph. As CEO, I know my role and the responsibility for the company rests with me. I own that. I made decisions every day, some solo, and many with the support of a very talented and empowered team.
I’ve spent time reflecting on those decisions. Hindsight would guide different decisions, but I have a strong opinion that it is the wrong framework to reflect and learn. If we operated such that we couldn’t trust anyone, or any business deal, we’d never get shit done. Several of our most important business partnerships were based on trust relationships. The “One Percent Doctrine”, which states that even a 1% chance of occurrence must be treated as a certainty, would be a terrible way to run a company. Risk assessment is far more practical. As a hardware company, we had more than our fair share of risk. Did we misestimate the risks we faced? Did we manage risk in a reasonable way? Our reflections focus on our risk awareness and risk mitigation.
I’ve received dozens of supportive calls and notes from CEOs and founders expressing their understanding and sharing their stories. Product leaders of hardware companies recognized the uniqueness of the Otto lock. Founders, who completed successful acquisitions, shared stories about running close to the edge and operating without a safety net. They privately shared how easily their outcome could have been very different. None of it erases the disappointment but the conversations were incredibly helpful and provided important context to the risks and challenges of a startup.
I shared my experience to honor my team and because I felt it might be useful to others. Especially because it was painful and imperfect and real. I hope other entrepreneurs understand this stuff is really hard, bad shit happens all the time and that others are watching, but you can’t play scared or freeze up. It may not work out as planned, but the outcome isn’t final unless you let it be.
But entrepreneurs get it. They really get it. They reached out to help, share, support, and problem solve. We learn and grow together. We pay forward. And for this, I am truly humbled and appreciative. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/so-close-806b8ae77fa6 | ['Sam Jadallah'] | 2018-01-14 15:10:48.782000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Venture Capital', 'Hardware', 'Founders'] |
Change is the only constant in times of uncertainty | Story written for and posted on Continuous Improvement Projects Ltd website on Nov 24 2020
Most of us would be prompted to think there is a mistake in the above sentence. Indeed, how could CHANGE possibly be A CONSTANT when by definition it means ‘make (someone or something) different; alter or modify’?
Add to the mix the notion of UNCERTAINTY and no wonder this sentence could read as a mistake if you only scan over it.
However, if you actually stop, reflect and think about it you realise that the only way to adapt to uncertainty IS indeed to change.
This can only be possible if we decide to change at an individual level and this is when it gets complicated but also really interesting.
Our reptilian brain is not comfortable with change. Its primal role is ensuring our survival! The very idea of change is enough to put us in the Freeze/Flee/Fight mode. Our challenge, therefore, translates into facing and transcending our inner fears, anxiety and vulnerability.
It takes a lot of dedication, determination, willpower and love to be able to acknowledge these feelings, converse with them, lean into them and not fight them so we can feel strong and confident enough to step out of our comfort zone, set up goals and intentions and ultimately TAKE ACTION!
So change is tough! We clearly don’t like it, our colleagues, friends and family don’t like it (resistance to change often comes from those around us) and our societal and corporate worlds may not be ready for it.
We are indeed being told that AGILITY and MOBILITY are key to succeed in these times of uncertainty. But are organisations ready to embrace change? These changes need to translate beyond updates to job descriptions; it requires thinking outside the box, being collaborative and experimental, challenging the status quo, redefining the modus vivendi, investing in tools and processes, and acting as pioneers within your industry. In short, organisations need to be ready to TAKE A CHANCE on people, on projects, on change.
This is not easy as change also means ‘replacing (something) with something else that is newer or better‘! NO pressure whatsoever!
But if we don’t try ‘IT’, if we don’t plan for ‘IT’, if we don’t give ‘IT’ a chance we may pass by wonderful encounters and realisations! We can do better than that! We owe ourselves and the world more than that!
So, let’s turn the global circumstances, traumas or limited beliefs into FUEL and TAKE ACTION TO MAKE A CHANGE!
And remember that NOTHING CHANGES UNTIL SOMETHING CHANGES! | https://medium.com/@marie-klebnikoff/change-is-the-only-constant-in-times-of-uncertainty-a8c8dc6717ae | [] | 2020-11-24 12:01:31.040000+00:00 | ['Agility', 'Workplace', 'Storytelling', 'Change Management', 'Neuroscience'] |
Cost savings for new construction | New-build homes have risen sharply in recent years due to scarcity in personnel and the price of materials. However, salaries have not grown as fast and there is now a housing shortage. That is why it is important to build affordable housing construction. Costs can already be saved when building a new-build or custom home. Often you already know in advance what your home should look like, so you can determine the layout of your new-build home yourself. Most people, therefore, work with a contractor and architect to realize their dream home. However, the realization of such a house may cost a little, but by taking Austin custom home builder processes into account at an early stage, you can save a lot of costs. How do you do that? Here some tips.
Smart renovation
The construction sector is constantly evolving and so architects, custom home builders Austin companies, project developers and contractors are constantly optimizing construction processes in order to reduce costs and prevent errors. When building a new-build house, you will have already done some research yourself and thus have already acquired some knowledge. However, it is useful and sensible to hire an architect and contractor at an early stage. They have the experience, knowledge, and expertise to build your dream house as efficiently as possible according to your wishes and needs. The more efficient and smarter the building, the cheaper it will ultimately be.
Read More: 4 tips for finding the right custom home builder
Standard sizes
An important aspect of the smart renovation is the use of standard sizes in your home. Standardized sizes of frames and walls will save a lot of time and money. Why? Because you don’t have to have doors, windows and walls made to measure. With standard sizes, a fixed price is used, while the price for a tailor-made product is often higher. When arranging your new-build home, you will have to take into account window frames and partitions in relation to different rooms in your home. By notifying your architect and contractor early on, you will ultimately save on costs.
Steel interior doors
With every Austin custom home builder plan, it is necessary to take into account the placement of doors and walls. Steel interior doors and partitions are currently very popular and that is not surprising. After all, the open character of a steel door with glass creates a more spacious effect within a home. In addition, the black steel frames also give an industrial, chic and exclusive look to your home. Zbranek & Holt Custom Homes is one such company that uses standardized black steel doors and glass fronts. The various options can be viewed on their website www.zhcustomhomes.com and you can already find some inspiration.
The collection consists of steel pivot doors, steel sliding doors and steel doors, but also unique doors painted in a high-quality coating in bronze or gold (brass). Despite the fact that these glass steel doors come in standard sizes, no concessions are made when you consider the quality of the product. Another advantage is that the website offers the possibility to download drawings of the relevant doors and doors in steel. With the help of these drawings, you and your architect and contractor can take account of the standard dimensions of the steel interior doors and fronts at an early stage. Would you rather see the black glass doors for real? Then you can feel free to visit our website and check our latest work in Texas, United State. | https://medium.com/@zhhome/cost-savings-for-new-construction-b3ea13936629 | ['Zbranek', 'Holt Custom Homes'] | 2020-03-11 09:39:14.806000+00:00 | ['Renovations', 'Custom Home Builder', 'Construction Company', 'Dream Home', 'Interior Design'] |
A meeting of members | Lyvly Membership Committee Meeting- January 2019
Where: Millie’s Lounge, The Ned
When: Sunday 27th January 2019
Who: Lauren Shaw, Becky Sparks-Wright, Stefanie Hung, Mike Stead, George Rawlings, Phillip Laney, Kimberly Hurd and Isobel Bartle-Tubbs
What: Our first ever membership committee meeting took plan on a very cold January Monday (perhaps slightly too early morning) at the Ned in the gorgeous Millie’s Lounge restaurant for brunch. With heaps of avocado and toast, cup after cup of coffee and the ever flowing bubbles it was our kind of Sunday.
Made up of some long time members, Lyvly newbies, as well as old and new faces from Lyvly HQ it was a great chance to really get to know each other and discuss the possibilities for the growing Lyvly tribe in London.
What we discussed
Matching housemates
Never an easy task, our membership committee are looking for Lyvly to introduce a Lyvly ‘How do you live’ survey. It will include questions like: “are you a morning person?”, “do you prefer to cook at home or deliveroo?”, “stay up late or go to bed early?”. This way our members can take control over who is their next roomie.
The Lyvly Commandments
Every member in our community is unique, but through our application process we are looking for members who share similar values. A way to enforce this, is by having our own list of rules or potentially commandments. So when you are signing to Lyvly, you are agreeing to a Lyvly way of life.
Member applications
How they are reviewed, when they should be reviewed and how the process works as a whole. Based on our committee feedback we are going to be building a whole new review portal…so watch this space.
Member led events
More of them please. That is what we have been told! But also just lots of learnings around what can make a truly epic night (or day) to remember.
Lyvly Services
What services should Lyvly be offering? Who should Lyvly be partnering with? And how can our services better improve the life of Lyvly members
What is next
Our next membership committee meeting will be on Wednesday 27th February at Disrepute in Soho
Join us
Is there something that you want the membership committee to discuss at our next meeting? Are you interested in being a part of the membership committee? Get in touch via [email protected].
Our community is designed to be led by you. | https://medium.com/lyvly/a-meeting-of-members-5147aa5a8005 | [] | 2019-02-01 16:55:19.543000+00:00 | ['Community', 'London', 'Membership', 'Brunch', 'Meetings'] |
Now Hiring Marketers | As Presearch enters marketing phase with the pending release of its new decentralized search engine, we are excited to announce that we are actively hiring for a number of marketing positions.
We are looking for world-class marketers to join our team and help introduce Presearch and the open search movement to the world.
The compensation for each position is commensurate with experience and in-line with industry standards. We are hiring for fit and demonstrated track record of success.
1. Twitter Talent
You live, sleep and breathe Twitter. You love to engage with your network, building a growing audience for your work, and connecting with thought leaders and influencers who can help your posts go viral.
You are constantly on the hunt for new content to post — in this case, you’ll be sharing stories about big tech and their abuse of power, about the growing power of cryptocurrency and decentralized technology to level the playing field, about privacy, data ownership and digital sovereignty, as well as about blockchain, search marketing, entrepreneurship, agorism, open source, personal freedom and liberty — and you’ll publish with an optimistic perspective rooted in reality. Of course, the Presearch team will also provide you with a steady stream of updates to intersperse.
This isn’t your first Twitter rodeo, and you’ve already got your 10,000 hours under your belt, now you’re looking for an amazing opportunity to reach millions of people with a message about community, transformative technology, digital empowerment and hope in the facing of a looming dystopia.
You’re already highly-familiar with crypto Twitter — the personalities, memes, narratives and news that will resonate with this influential group of people. This channel will be critical in raising awareness for Presearch and why what we’re doing is so important to everyone interested in crypto.
If you want to be part of the solution, and already have strong thoughts about how you can leverage Twitter to build awareness for Presearch and our friends while leading the open search movement online, then please send an email to [email protected] and provide us with links to any accounts you manage that you think would be helpful. We’d love to see examples of your tone and the engagement you’re generating.
2. Email Expert
Presearch has a registered user base of more than 1.6 million people, all of whom have provided their email address to the service and many of whom are interested in project updates, industry news and commentary.
You consider yourself to be a publisher at heart, and you greatly respect your audience and the trust they have placed in Presearch when they provided us with their email address.
You value their attention and strive to provide them with interesting, engaging and informative messages that are easy to consume on any type of device. Bonus points if you have experience working in a multilingual environment.
You know how to optimize our email platform and craft catchy headlines that maximize the impact of Presearch email communications by ensuring high deliverability and open rates. List segmentation and pruning, optimal time-of-day sending, A/B testing and email personalization are all things you’re very experienced in.
If this position sounds like a fit for you, please send an email to [email protected] and provide us with some information about email campaigns you’ve been responsible for, and what the results were. Managing huge lists isn’t a prerequisite, as we realize that quantity ≠ quality, but we’d love to hear how you’ve nurtured your audience, whatever size it is.
3. Reddit Ringleader
Reddit is the top community site on the interwebs for good reason. Between the wit and the snark, there’s some amazing commentary and more personality than almost anywhere.
The r/cryptocurrency subreddit and others that serve the blockchain community are some of the best places to learn, be entertained and connect with other blockchain enthusiasts.
We are looking for a Redditor who shares our ideals about decentralization and the power of the internet and blockchain as tools to level the playing field, who has some serious Reddit karma, and who will passionately lead the Presearch Reddit community.
If this sounds like you, then please email [email protected] with a link to your Reddit account, any communities where you are a mod, and a couple of examples of difficult situations on Reddit that you’ve found yourself in and how you handled the communication to generate a positive encounter.
4. BitcoinTalk Boss
As a BitcoinTalk OG who arrived before the last bull run, you’ve spent years discussing bitcoin and what it means to the world to have sound digital money that isn’t controlled by central bankers and their fractional reserves.
You’ve earned yourself a senior member designation after thousands of posts over the years. Though you are a prolific poster, you’re no shill and have been careful to protect your reputation and build a network of contacts in the community.
You want a freer world that uses technology for good, to help empower those who produce value, and feel that bitcoin and cryptocurrency is an important tool in the struggle to free humanity from the extractive forces of the parasitic elites who dominate the legacy financial system.
While bitcoin will always be your first love, and the store of value that underpins the new crypto economy, you aren’t a maximalist and recognize value in other currencies and projects.
You recognize that the open internet is a key resource for a free people, and know that Google’s dominance is a major threat to our digital freedom. You learn more about Presearch and believe that we can play an important role in the creation of a non-corporate, community-driven alternative and you want to help us build our presence within BitcoinTalk.
You appreciate that we are true freedom-loving libertarians and that this isn’t just a money-making venture for us. We truly are about making change and you want to be part of it. And hey, when it gets big, the economic rewards will be there too. It’s a win-win.
You’ve read about Presearch nodes and can’t wait to spin up a node on the testnet. Decentralized search and keyword staking are huge ideas that are very timely in light of what’s happening with censorship and the building backlash against big tech.
In addition to being credible, you are articulate and enjoy being the one to introduce people to new technologies and concepts. You can clearly communicate value in a way that resonates with others and are excited about the opportunity to work directly with the founders of Presearch to communicate the needs and concerns of the bitcoin community.
If this sounds like you, please send an email to [email protected] with a link to your BitcoinTalk profile and tell us about yourself and what your vision is for promoting Presearch.
5. Quora Quartermaster
Quora is an awesome resource for digging deep into a subject and getting a range of answers from qualified (and unqualified — haha) people from around the world.
You love the vibe there and have found yourself spending a lot of time there. You have a knack as a writer and many of your posts have thousands of views, receiving compliments on your informative answers.
You’re particularly interested in new cryptocurrency projects and find yourself discussing the latest and greatest opportunities, trading strategies and technologies with other Quorans.
You are also passionate about privacy, personal freedom and using technology to change the world. You enjoy finding new apps and services that present alternatives to the big tech that dominates the world. You’ve been looking for a way to earn income on Quora without compromising your values and helping to promote Presearch seems like a great way to make it happen.
If this post resonates with you, please email [email protected] with a link to your Quora profile and some of the answers you are most proud of, as well as those that’ve received the most upvotes and comments. Please let us know what sets you apart from other Quorans and why you would be the perfect fit to represent Presearch as an ambassador.
Know someone who would be a great fit?
If marketing isn’t your jam, but you have a friend or family member who would be a perfect fit, please forward them this posting and CC [email protected] when you email them to be eligible for a referral bonus of $250 worth of PRE tokens if we choose your contact for the position.
Thanks for helping us find the perfect candidates for these important roles. | https://medium.com/@presearch/now-hiring-marketers-bfff74c7c182 | [] | 2021-02-01 13:46:47.967000+00:00 | ['Search', 'Hiring', 'Presearch', 'Blockchain', 'Decentralization'] |
Course 1: Foundations of user experience design by Google | Page 1 of my UI/UX Notebook with one of Steve Jobs’s famous life hacks.
Backgrounds and stuff.
It felt like an internship, the beginning. There’s this guy who was very happy to share his knowledge, the colorful set-up that exudes their patented Googlyness, and me, the newbie student that thought, hey maybe I can try this course out and see if I can make that huge leap.
I think it was years before that I realized I have a knack for design. I get enraged when things just don’t work. People blame themselves for not making it work, but me? Well, my question was always- “why did they make it this way?”, “Why put the backspace under the send key in this virtual keyboard? It’s prone to accidental hits!”, “Why place the mirror at the end of the stall? People can’t take their time to look at themselves before they go out of the toilet!”; “Why is this search bar not searching for anything? I have a simple question. This will just clog up your customer hotlines, I swear.”
At that time, I think I’m just really trying to nitpick and pass the blame, but the more I read about design, the more I realize the importance of designers in creating a good experience for literally everything… and since I complain too much about these things, why not be a part of the solution for once. Hence, here’s me learning something new.
Introductions, expectations, and commitments.
It’s exciting. I got to say. The main lecturer is a part of Google’s Privacy team whose job is to design how their billion users and the next billion users would understand the privacy terms of one of the biggest tech companies in the world that most certainly affects how we interact with the interwebs right now. It’s very cool. His responsibility can’t be overstated, also it’s a good display in terms of magnitude — just how the design can affect everyone, from the fine prints to the app interaction itself.
The course was a great start. There’s four weeks of tackling the basics. There’s the terminologies, the goals and scope of UX/UI design, different approaches in the design process, introduction of the people in the design team, and, of course, why it would be amazing to participate in this field.
A good design starts with the users in mind. That’s the standard. In the course, it was reiterated over and over again that inclusion of different people with varied backgrounds would help diversify our considerations in order to create an experience that would cater to a wide category of users. From there, the concept of the Next Billion Users was also explained, and because of these new users, this career path that understands how we interact with computers would be even more important as we navigate through the changes in society, brought about by new technologies, even more complex personalities, and disruptive business models brought upon by these very own paradigm shifts.
Creating the presence online
I think this has been the spotlight of Course 1. We created our own platforms on different social media sites from which we will try to create our portfolio. What amazes me is that by putting this exercise at the beginning of the course, it will give us, students, something to talk about on those platforms as we go through this journey. Right? Talking about designing an experience! Now, imagine putting this part at the end of the course. All these progress gems will be forgotten by then.
So, I created a website in Wix, which I will populate with creative thoughts later on as I progress. The idea is that the website will host my projects and other main assignments that employers can peruse later on. The peripheral social media platforms would support my online presence. It’s my chance to interact with UX communities on these sites and of course share my work, ideas, and resources. Giving and sharing is very important, and the UX people (as I’ve heard) are the kindest people ever.
Forgot to include the all powerful Linkedin.
I also created another Twitter account for the sole purpose of interacting with other designers and linking cool design stuff. Of course, Medium is where my heart is so I’m starting out here (with a few followers). I will cross post this to my account in Wix once I get that site up and running. I’m still trying to aesthetically fix it.
I don’t have Instagram yet, since the frameworks and all the mock-ups are still at the later part of the certification course, but I’m already active on Reddit. The UX community there is very helpful (r/UXDesign). I saw posts of hopeful and exhausted designers, newbies that are asking for career advice, tips and tricks and even portfolio and case studies. It’s such a real community. Try to check it out
We were also asked to approach designers and talk to them about their responsibilities and projects (if they can talk about it). This is amazing because through this exercise, I was forced to message a few designers, which by the way are complete strangers through LinkedIn. Sadly, none of them replied, but still. It was exciting because for a few seconds or so, I felt like I’m a part of the community- just like that (snapping my fingers). I reached out and it’s not so bad. It made me hopeful that I can finally make this leap sooner than later.
UX and specializations
Aside from creating our presence online, I think another highlight of this course is the introduction of the different career paths of a UX designer. There are many specialities that one can focus on considering the design process. A designer for sure wears many hats, as for me, I think I would do great in UX research and interaction design. Coming from business development, we do research and culminate it by building our business strategy from there, then we execute. I need more experience of course, based on the few portfolios that I saw, researchers should have a very curious mind and are able to translate this to questions that would help shed light to those problems that the design has to solve.
Interaction design is also a very interesting field. I love anticipating movements and thinking of ways and succession to improve how everything goes. Seriously, I’m very very excited to do this everyday.
Next Certification
I got my Certification last Aug 4, 2021 — with Google’s signature and all. I’m very happy to finish this and I will be moving on to the next course as soon as possible. The feeling’s really amazing after getting things done. I really hope I can sustain this level of enthusiasm until the end of the course. It gets harder but well, life is anyways, why not enjoy it at the same time right?
More to come! Thanks for reading! | https://medium.com/@lizwritesred/course-1-foundations-of-user-experience-design-by-google-7d784baf34ad | ['Liz Red'] | 2021-08-25 00:55:38.977000+00:00 | ['Uxdesign', 'Design', 'Google Ux Certificate', 'Uxcareer', 'Interaction Design'] |
What is SEO Management? [ How to Lead Your SEO Strategy in 2022] | Today, organic search results drive more than 50 percent of website traffic, which is why more businesses are taking another look at search engine optimization (SEO) & management to grow their revenue and company.
Anyhow you are sociable with or new to SEO, this post delivers all the data you want to create an SEO strategy or invest in professional SEO management services.
One of the first questions you may have about SEO and SEO management is, “What do SEO operation SEO managers do? What is an Search Engine Optimization manager? ” We have created a short video to answer that SEO question.
Keep reading to learn more SEO management basics.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, Google, Yahoo! and upgrades your visibility in applicable search engine result pages (SERPs) on search engines like Bing. It uses an umbrella of strategies and methods to grow your visibility, which can result in increased website traffic.
Compared to other digital marketing strategies, such as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, SEO does not produce results overnight. It can take several months for SEO to provide results. However, these outputs are often value the wait.
What is SEO Strategy?
An SEO strategy (also called an “SEO approach”) is the procedure of planning and implementing steps designed to upgrade organic search engine rankings.
In other words: SEO strategy is the process you follow when you want to get more organic traffic.
What is SEO Management?
SEO management can refer to your company’s or your agency’s management of your SEO strategy.
As part of SEO management, your group or company develops, leads and correct your strategy to maximize your results and achieve your marketing, sales and business targets.
If you partner with an agency, your business can sign with a specialized company like a local SEO agency or a full-service digital marketing agency.
Since many internal marketing departments handle multiple responsibilities and do not have a background in SEO, it is common for businesses to invest in professional SEO management services.
Anyhow, your business partners with an company or handles your strategy internally, it’s important to understand what SEO management includes.
That way, you can create a basis for a competitive strategy that even operates revenue for your agency.
If you want to have a successful SEO strategy, you need to be successful in SEO management. Even if you partner with an experienced SEO agency like Deliverable, it’s pleasant to know how SEO management works.
The four steps behind successful SEO management involves:
1. Audience Research
Companies that excel in SEO have a deep understanding of their audience. They research and understand what their target market wants from their business, product or service.
These companies also known as the usual questions and complications of their goal audience. If you want to be successful in SEO management, you have to understand your target market at this stage.
Even if you have a marketing persona developed for your target audience, it helps to reevaluate your previous research. Customers can convert over time.
If you use old marketing personas, it can flop your SEO strategy, which doesn’t help you or your agency. Once you’ve investigate your audience, you can take the next step toward starting your plan.
2. Competitor Analysis
A challenger analysis can offer huge insight, which is why it is a basic part of SEO management. Whether you’re collaborating with an SEO agency or leading an in-house initiative, make a competitor analysis part of your plan.
For competitor analysis, it is helpful to look at the following competitor types:
1. Direct Competitors
These are the businesses you compete with offline and online. You probably already have a list of direct competitors for reference. Now, you want to look at their online presence and investment in SEO.
2. Indirect Competitors
These are the companies you compete with in the search results. For instance, two construction businesses may compete for the search term, “local construction companies,” even though they produce different products.
As a part of your competitor analysis, you want to determine the SEO strategy of the SEO organization. In some cases, you may find that a direct competitor does not have an SEO strategy.
This is where indirect competitors can help because SEO is credited for their high rankings in search results. Learn about the company’s SEO strategy by looking at the following:
Backlink profile
Domain age
Adaptation exercises
Traffic value
Target keyword
For many businesses, this move is a challenge.
If you are new to SEO, this introduces many aspects of technical SEO, where the expertise of an SEO agency like WebFX becomes valuable.
In Addition, we have permit to a variety of tools to smooth-running this procedure. In comparison, internal SEO management can control your team.
These limitations can have a direct impact on the quality and results of your competitor analysis, which can affect your SEO strategy.
3. Website Optimization
With your target market and top competitors researched, your agency can start the procedure of correcting your website for search.
This process can take time, so approach this task with realistic checkpoints or goals. This service, which Deliverable offers, provides your business with optimized on-brand copy for SEO.
Even if your company uses this service, it’s important to remember that results still take time. However, publishing your customized content early can help you see those results earlier.
If you optimize your content internally, focus on using your target keywords in a few places:
Title Tag
A title tag is displayed in search results. This is the title of your page and should attract readers while encouraging them to click through to your website.
Meta Description
A meta description also emerge in search results. This is a description of your page and elaborates on your title to prompt users to visit your site.
Headings
Your titles are displayed on your page, dividing your content into organized sections. For best results, you should use your own keywords in all your titles.
Images
A page should contain useful images for the users. Images can improve the readability of your page, as well as improve reader understanding of complex topics.
Content
The content on your page gives readers what they’re looking for, whether it’s answers to product questions or an overview of services.
When you optimize your content, it is essential for your team to follow SEO best practices.
That means avoiding keyword stuffing, for example, and other black-hat tactics that can prevent your business from ranking at the top of search results.
4. Monthly Reporting
Like other digital marketing strategies, SEO uses data. With the data from your website, you can measure the performance of your SEO strategy. Plus, you can find areas of improvement and make data-driven decisions when it comes to your next move.
If you partner with an SEO agency like Deliverable, you can expect monthly reports from your dedicated account SEO manager.
In some cases, you may wish to handle your SEO strategy on a weekly basis, which you can do with our team. A monthly or weekly basis is the industry standard, which is why many businesses follow this schedule.
Even if you decide to bring your SEO management in-house, you’ll want to establish a regular schedule to check and measure the performance of your strategy.
As a part of your monthly reporting, try to see growth in the following areas:
Organic traffic
Ranking in search results
Back
Conversion
Depending on your business, you may find it challenging to track the full results of your SEO strategy.
With professional SEO management, you can solve this problem. This tool allows you to track the calls produces by your site, which build monitoring your SEO results stress-free.
It does not matter how you approach reporting, whether with the specialist of a company like Deliverable make reporting a part of your SEO management. It can inform and upgrade your strategy, as well as display its worth to the company’s decision creator.
Clarify Your SEO Management
Are you ready to start leading and handling your SEO efforts? If you’re affect by the idea, Deliverable can help.
At Deliverable, we have a huge team of digital marketing specialists, plus over 4 years of experience.
Investigate our SEO management services to search out how we can help or mail Mail: [email protected] to chat with a strategist! | https://medium.com/@deliverableservices/what-is-seo-management-how-to-lead-your-seo-strategy-in-2022-ab506a56cb31 | ['Deliverable Services'] | 2021-12-23 06:02:46.720000+00:00 | ['Deliverable', 'Mobile App Development', 'Seo Management Company', 'Seo Strategy', 'Seo Services'] |
Waves Launches Cryptocurrency Payment Gateway Framework | New framework allows developers to quickly and easily deploy gateways to integrate new cryptocurrency coins within their ecosystem. With that, users can then begin trading on the Waves Decentralized Exchanged (DEX).
Digital payment gateways share a universal base structure that is common for all cryptocurrency coins. While developers are often tasked with rebuilding this structure for each gateway introduced on a blockchain ecosystem, the Waves framework provides a ready-to-build structure so developers are only required to provide the top-level code unique to their coin’s blockchain protocol.
“Gateways have always been a key feature behind the Waves ecosystem, — said Sasha Ivanov, founder & CEO of Waves. — This new framework provides developers with a simple and effective tool to get their payment gateways up and running on Waves, with almost no technical overhead required. It’s our goal to make this process as seamless as possible, helping users bring new coins and liquidity into the DEX and creating a more diverse ecosystem that in turn benefits the wider cryptocurrency community”.
Once introduced, the Waves payment gateways allow users to deposit different currencies and receive dedicated Waves tokens in exchange that are backed 1:1 by funds held securely within the gateway. The tokens can be transferred and traded freely, or sent back to the gateway in return for the funds they represent.
The Waves gateway framework is implemented using Python, designed to further simplify the coding process for developers. Developers are able to integrate new gateways with Python by implementing a special Python application programming interface (API) for their unique coin blockchain, or through standard JSON-RPC, REST or similar APIs.
The payment gateway framework is now available for implementation on the Waves ecosystem. | https://medium.com/wavesprotocol/waves-launches-cryptocurrency-payment-gateway-framework-d37c1bb2fe1b | ['Waves Tech'] | 2018-03-30 12:49:07.655000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Trading', 'Bitcoin', 'Wavesplatform', 'Blockchain'] |
Words as Weapons | Words as Weapons
Words are powerful weapons. ✍🏼
In sociology class they explain about societal constructs.
A construct is “an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society.”
Anyone that sinks as much money as the oligarchy does on mass media communications can shape and frame our society at will with the use of propaganda.
They are like a cancer that keeps replicating itself and bribing those among us to become provocateurs and double agents inside our movements.
So how do we stop them? How do we pull back the reigns? Other societies survive and thrive in the democratic socialism model where capitalism and socialism live together without fearing each other’s ism’s. Why can’t we?
I believe the answer lies in the country and the world reaching the boiling point as has been happening. When we have not much to lose, that’s when we will head for the streets to lock everything up.
The day we take our country and sanity back is fast approaching. You can feel it in the air, watch it on the news, in the mass shooter incidents. I pray to the spirits that it won’t. But sometimes things have to become totally broken before they can be rebuilt. | https://medium.com/@MillyMac/words-as-weapons-6a3fb46539df | ['Milly Mac S Musings'] | 2019-09-04 21:17:54.079000+00:00 | ['Socialism', 'Politics', 'Capitalism', 'Propaganda', 'Revolution'] |
Get equipped for the Technical Interviews | Preparing for a technical interview involves a great deal of effort. Be it, managing time to solve a coding problem or clearing your concepts of programming, everything requires practice. There are two ways of analysing a question asked in the technical industry. Firstly, you should know what you are actually going forward with before starting to answer. Secondly, you must be ready with the explanations.
Prepping the Basics
To conquer every hurdle and especially for the interviews you have to get on practising. Learning and side-by-side implementing will help you get hands over the complex problems with ease. There’s no rocket science it’s all about clearing minute concepts so that you can simplify the bigger problems. There are different approaches which you can opt, taking care of your reasoning and problem solving beforehand will help you get through a coding interview. Just remember, you can’t expect extraordinary things unless you take risks and share your thoughts while solving a problem.
Pre-Interview Trips
Everybody is nervous a day before the interview and moreover it’s good as it shows how important this job is for you. But take it slow, don’t let it overpower your control.
Try to be 15 minutes early before your interview is scheduled
Read answers to the most commonly asked interview questions
Read about the company and what products they are dealing with to understand your role better
Keep an extra copy of your resume with you!
It happens that sometimes you don’t understand the question, ask again and clarify your doubts.
If you have some knowledge about the question, take a moment to tell what you do know.
There will be few instances when you won’t be able to understand the question or you don’t have the answer, tell them and clear the air because you don’t want an awkward silence.
Post-Interview Tips
What exactly should you be doing after a job interview? The way you deal with the post-interview process is equally important as how you performed during the interview. Therefore, here are some tips that will help you catch up.
Ask the interviewer how you should follow up
Get the contact number of the interviewer
Analyze your performance and how you felt about the company
Note down all of your thoughts as it will help in self-analysing for the next interview
Keep the Communication Healthy
A good interview is when it is more than just answers to the questions asked by the interviewer. You must be equally prepared once the table turns. Here are certain useful questions to ask at the end of your interview:
What does a typical day at work look like?
What are the biggest challenges to handle in this position?
What are the most immediate projects needed to be addressed?
You can ask about their company culture.
What are some of the career paths in this department or company?
What are the next steps in the interview process?
However, you must not bombard the interviewer with a laundry list of questions. It’s advised to ask only the important questions and leave on a positive note.
Types of Interviews
Telephonic Screening: Assessing the candidate’s tone of voice is the major thing that interviewers consider while taking a telephonic interview. They are highly valuable as they speed up the process of an interview. It helps the companies to screen-down less suitable candidates. To ace your telephonic interview try to keep it short and simple. You must give direct and precise answers to transfer maximum information as quickly as possible.
Assessing the candidate’s tone of voice is the major thing that interviewers consider while taking a telephonic interview. They are highly valuable as they speed up the process of an interview. It helps the companies to screen-down less suitable candidates. To ace your telephonic interview try to keep it short and simple. You must give direct and precise answers to transfer maximum information as quickly as possible. Remote Coding Challenge: In most of the technical interviews, a remote coding challenge, or simply an online coding test is conducted to test the coding skills of the candidate. You may be asked to invert a binary tree, write an algorithm, fix code or perform a business function.
In most of the technical interviews, a remote coding challenge, or simply an online coding test is conducted to test the coding skills of the candidate. You may be asked to invert a binary tree, write an algorithm, fix code or perform a business function. Onsite Interview and Whiteboard Challenge: A whiteboard challenge is not about how many new ideas a candidate comes up with, it’s about the candidate’s approach to a problem and while executing a problem, an interviewer looks for the following signs:
A whiteboard challenge is not about how many new ideas a candidate comes up with, it’s about the candidate’s approach to a problem and while executing a problem, an interviewer looks for the following signs: – Do you raise questions to understand the goal better?
-Do you make valid assumptions?
-Do you mention the weakness in your solution?
-Do you have any ideas to improve your solution?
Focusing on a good interaction with the interviewer during an onsite interview and a whiteboard challenge makes it easier for them to analyse the best fit candidate because in a whiteboard challenge you will get predictions to proceed to the next step while solving a problem, it’s just that you must know a ‘WHY’ for every decision you make.
Error Identification: You will be given some code or program and you can be asked to identify the mistakes in them. You can get through this only if you have a deep knowledge of syntax and other rules of a language or field. So, it again requires a lot of practice to keep your head up in the interview.
It’s Time to Roll
When it comes to technical interviews, it gets difficult to answer as per the interviewer demands an answer but remember that you have your own tricks to impress and no one can take your place, just never lose self-control. Appearing likable and calm will help you make your first impression better.
Now, start practicing and ALL THE BEST! | https://medium.com/codingninjas-blog/get-equipped-for-the-technical-interviews-be1fa35cc9e5 | ['Coding Ninjas'] | 2020-03-19 07:35:44.468000+00:00 | ['Interview Tips', 'Technical Interview', 'Interview Preparation'] |
Merkle proofs Explained. | This article explains how to obtain and what merkle proofs are.
Merkle proofs are used to decide upon the following factors:
If the data belongs in the merkle tree
To concisely prove the validity of data being part of a dataset without storing the whole data set
To ensure the validity of a certain data set being inclusive in a larger data set without revealing either the complete data set or its subset.
Merkle trees make extensive use of one way hashing.
Merkle proofs are established by hashing a hash’s corresponding hash together and climbing up the tree until you obtain the root hash which is or can be publicly known.
Given that one way hashes are intended to be collision free and deterministic algorithms, no two plaintext hashes can/should be the same.
Merkle proofs are better explained with the following example.
In order to verify the inclusion of data [K], in the merkle tree root, we use a one way function to hash [K] to obtain H(K).
In order to validate the inclusivity of K, K doesn’t have to be revealed, similarly the hash of data L can be revealed without any implicit security repercussions and so on. | https://medium.com/crypto-0-nite/merkle-proofs-explained-6dd429623dc5 | ['Belavadi Prahalad'] | 2018-12-13 21:34:43.323000+00:00 | ['Computer Science', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Tax Rules for Deducting the Computer Software Costs of Your Business | Learn about the rules that determine the tax treatment of the expenses of buying, leasing, or developing software.
Discover the definition of “purchased software” and how to treat it tax-wise.
Find out more about the tax rules around leased software.
What are the rules regarding software developed by your business?
Do you buy or lease computer software to use in your business? Do you develop computer software for use in your business, or for sale or lease to others? Fiducial has the scoop on the complex rules that apply to determining the tax treatment of computer software costs, whether buying, leasing, or developing.
Purchased software costs
The IRS deems some software costs to be the costs of “purchased” software, meaning software that’s either:
Non-customized software available to the general public under a non-exclusive license or
Acquired from a contractor at economic risk should the software not perform.
You may deduct the entire cost of purchased software in the year you place it into service. The cases in which the costs are ineligible for this immediate write-off are the few instances in which 100% bonus depreciation or Section 179 small business expensing isn’t allowed or when a taxpayer has elected out of 100% bonus depreciation and hasn’t made the election to apply Sec. 179 expensing. In those cases, you must amortize the costs over the three-year period. This period begins with the month in which you place the software in service. Note that the bonus depreciation rate will begin to be phased down for property placed in service after calendar year 2022.
If you buy the software as part of a hardware purchase in which the price of the software isn’t separately stated, you must treat the software cost as part of the hardware cost. Therefore, you must depreciate the software under the same method and over the same period of years that you depreciate the hardware. Also, if you buy the software as part of your purchase of all or a substantial part of a business, generally, you must amortize the software over 15 years.
Leased software costs
You must deduct amounts you pay to rent leased software in the tax year you pay them, if you’re a cash-method taxpayer, or the tax year for which the rentals are accrued, if you’re an accrual-method taxpayer. However, deductions aren’t generally permitted before the years to which the rentals are allocable. Also, if a lease involves total rentals of more than $250,000, special rules may apply.
Software developed by your business
Some software is deemed to be “developed” (designed in-house or by a contractor who isn’t at risk if the software doesn’t perform). For tax years beginning before calendar year 2022, bonus depreciation applies to developed software to the extent described above. If bonus depreciation doesn’t apply, the taxpayer can do one of two things. They can deduct the development costs in the year paid or incurred; or alternatively, they can choose one of several other amortization periods over which to deduct the costs. For tax years beginning after calendar year 2021, generally, you may only amortize the costs over the five-year period. This period begins with the midpoint of the tax year in which you pay or incur the expenditures.
If following any of the above rules requires you to change your treatment of software costs, you will need to get IRS consent to the change.
Contact us
Need help applying the tax rules for treating computer software costs? Call Fiducial at 1–866-FIDUCIAL or make an appointment at one of our office locations. Ready to book an appointment now? Click here. Know someone who might need our services? We love referrals!
For more small business COVID-19 resources, visit Fiducial’s Coronavirus Update Center to find information on SBA loans, tax updates, the Paycheck Protection Program, paid sick and family leave, and more. | https://medium.com/@fiducial/tax-rules-for-deducting-the-computer-software-costs-of-your-business-2f39a6a18427 | ['Fiducial North America'] | 2020-12-16 14:00:29.535000+00:00 | ['Tax Central', 'Taxes', 'Irs', 'For Business', 'Tax Deductions'] |
Meta Opens AR Simulation Tools For More Users | Meta is now launching its Spark AR Go app in beta, allowing anyone to create their own augmented reality effects in a streamlined app stream for Instagram. In this case, the wider community can use this technology.
As explained by Meta,“Spark AR Go is an iOS app designed to let creators whose first mediums maybe something like photography, memes, art, or video express themselves and their perspectives through AR. Creators will be able to extend their personal brands, assets, and creative vision to fans in new ways — like with custom AR quizzes, unique background replacement, or a one-of-a-kind makeup look.”
Spark AR Go includes built-in templates, switch and slide tools, and other options to make it easier to augment reality, giving artists and even non-artists more opportunities to present their AR photos.
Similar to Snapchat Lens Studio, Meta hopes to make more people interested in this option by providing a simpler and more efficient augmented reality flow.
Younger users align with the platform that leads the way and moves with the tide. This is in favor of the meta. The question is, can meta attract the young generation’s attention and be liked by them? Because it is the young people who help the meta to progress and become pervasive.
By opening up their tools to more developers, there is quite a chance that Meta could face the popular AR tools. Meta can add to the reality of eyewear technology and make Facebook and Instagram attractive places. We are witnessing that the expansion of Spark AR Go is another small step in this process. | https://medium.com/@Dijimig/meta-opens-ar-simulation-tools-for-more-users-4ff1d680cd70 | [] | 2021-12-31 04:43:50.594000+00:00 | ['Meta', 'Metaverse'] |
Hot on the Trail of Happiness | “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” -Socrates
What do you need in your life to be happy? That is a question you can ask all 7.8 billion people and get 7.8 billion answers. Some would give you a deep dive into the nature of happiness. Others would place their answers somewhere in wealth and fame. A few would stare at you before loudly crying, which is why you shouldn’t ask life questions to young children.
The Difficult Nature of Finding Happiness
I’m not an influencer, nor am I some guru with all the answers. Honestly, I hope I never become either of those things. Who I am, is a guy who found a way to be happy in his own life, and I want to share my journey with the world. Let them see the best and worst parts of it, and hope it helps them on their journey. Because in the modern-day, it can be difficult to be happy.
What makes it so difficult to be completely happy?
We let others tell us what we need to be happy : I mentioned influencers and gurus earlier. People who claim to have all the answers and tell you what you need to be successful. A few do generally want to help others. Many of them have a product to sell. When it comes to finding what makes you happy, decide what it is for yourself. Don’t let others tell you the formula for being happy, because what works for them might not work for you.
: I mentioned influencers and gurus earlier. People who claim to have all the answers and tell you what you need to be successful. A few do generally want to help others. Many of them have a product to sell. When it comes to finding what makes you happy, decide what it is for yourself. Don’t let others tell you the formula for being happy, because what works for them might not work for you. We compare our lives to others : When you get on Instagram, you’re going to find people living a better life than you are. It can be easy to feel like you haven’t made it because you don’t own a fancy car or a big house. Here’s the thing though, I’ve seen the behind the scenes of that life. I photographed someone in front of a $1,000 a night hotel. They took the photo and posted it so people would think they stayed at that hotel. People post the life they want online. It is, at best, a cloudy mirror of their actual life.
: When you get on Instagram, you’re going to find people living a better life than you are. It can be easy to feel like you haven’t made it because you don’t own a fancy car or a big house. Here’s the thing though, I’ve seen the behind the scenes of that life. I photographed someone in front of a $1,000 a night hotel. They took the photo and posted it so people would think they stayed at that hotel. People post the life they want online. It is, at best, a cloudy mirror of their actual life. We let material items be a factor in our happiness : “There’s no question that what it means to have achieved the American dream has increased tremendously in material terms”-Juliet Schor. I remember being excited when I got the iPhone 7. It was the newest iPhone out, and I could afford it (on credit). The excitement felt amazing for two days. On the third day of ownership, it was just another iPhone. Most of the items I own have had the same effect. They might stay exciting for longer or shorter, but ultimately they stop being new. Add the fact that an estimated 78 million people bought the iPhone 7, it wasn’t even impressive to own one. Finding joy in material items is a quick high more than it is consistent happiness.
: “There’s no question that what it means to have achieved the American dream has increased tremendously in material terms”-Juliet Schor. I remember being excited when I got the iPhone 7. It was the newest iPhone out, and I could afford it (on credit). The excitement felt amazing for two days. On the third day of ownership, it was just another iPhone. Most of the items I own have had the same effect. They might stay exciting for longer or shorter, but ultimately they stop being new. Add the fact that an estimated 78 million people bought the iPhone 7, it wasn’t even impressive to own one. Finding joy in material items is a quick high more than it is consistent happiness. Advertisements make us feel like we never have enough: Two common emotions advertising and marketing use are fear and greed. The idea that if I don’t get it, I’ll regret it, and if I do get it, I’ll be rewarded for it. With markets trying to reach millions across the globe while working off 52 seasons a year, they need you to be insecure. It is important that you feel their product will make you happy in some way. To create an artificial hole that you can only fill with what they are selling. To illustrate this idea, in a 30-year study*, it was found that the higher the ad spend in a country, the unhappier the citizens of that county were.
These are not the only sources making happiness difficult. They are four major ones you’re likely to encounter. For a time, I encountered each of these multiple times. Especially the one about advertisements. Did you know it’s estimated that we see 5,000 ads every single day?
If you’re on the path to a happier life, see if these things are holding you back. Understand how they affect you and how to work with them and around them. Don’t simply ignore them. The truth is, you can’t ignore them, because there will always be people trying to convince you they have all the answers. There will always be companies finding new ways to put ads in your way. Once you become aware of them you get to decide the impact they have on your life. Maybe I’ll write an article on that someday.
Until then, thanks for reading. | https://medium.com/@beardedminimalist/hot-on-the-trail-of-happiness-9abf2e0eaee6 | ['Daniel Pohl'] | 2020-12-08 18:32:17.664000+00:00 | ['Minimalism', 'Minimalist', 'Happiness In Life', 'Life', 'Happy'] |
A Case for Reading in a Time of Chaos | Things are not looking good lately. This week, across the United States, public gatherings have been cancelled, schools are closing, colleges’ spring terms are going virtual, and the economy has nosedived. People are shopping for supplies in case they are quarantined in their homes, causing mass shortages of household essentials. It’s a difficult time for countries around the world, and no one is sure what’s going to happen next.
Many of us are fighting against perfectly valid feelings of anxiety and worry about the future, especially how to protect our most vulnerable loved ones. With many elementary schools closing, children are expressing their fears about the coronavirus, and many parents are doing their best to get work done from home. College students such as myself are worried about being stuck in our apartments and dorms, wondering how long our bank accounts could last if we are unable to work jobs on campus. Senior citizens and those who are immunocompromised are staying in their homes, anxious about their particular susceptibility to COVID-19.
As someone who has long struggled with anxiety disorders and stress, as well as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder tendencies, I have been thinking a lot about coping skills and positive distractions to help with the general feeling of worry sweeping the world right now. There is little many of us can do, aside from washing our hands and practicing social distancing. How can we keep ourselves and our minds occupied in a way that is beneficial while enduring, waiting, quarantining, hoping, fearing? My suggestion — by reading books.
Books have a particular power to calm and reassure us. Back in 2009, a study at the University of Sussex found that reading can reduce stress by up to 68 percent. It’s more effective than a cup of tea, although I like to think the two paired together would go even further. Because reading can lower your heart rate and ease muscle tension, it’s effective for alleviating anxiety. This is also why it’s sometimes easy to fall asleep while reading before bed.
In addition to the benefits for easing stress and anxiety, reading — whether it is fiction or nonfiction — is good for your brain. Researchers from Stanford University found that reading is like exercise for your brain, and neuroscientists have found that reading books helps lengthen our attention span. In a digital world where we are constant scrolling, reclaiming our attention span is an effective technique against information overwhelm. Your brain structure can even be altered by reading: scientists at Carnegie Mellon discovered that white matter increases in the language region of our brain from consistent, daily reading.
Research shows that reading also makes us more empathetic. During a pandemic, one of the most important things we can do as citizens is be empathetic — be kind to one another, and help our communities get through this difficult time as best we can with the resources we have.
Now that we know how reading books can benefit our health by reducing anxiety, increasing empathy, and improving our brains, what should we be reading? How can we incorporate this habit into our daily lives, especially if we haven’t been reading on a regular basis?
I am a reviewer of popular science, a genre of nonfiction written by scientists and science writers for the general public, and I regularly collaborate with publishers and authors. I have volunteered at libraries and spent a year working in an independent bookstore managing a few of their nonfiction sections, including science and nature writing. I also studied English literature for three years in college before changing my major to microbiology. Books have long been my safe haven, and I am eager to share how much of an impact on your life they can make.
Here are a few of my recommendations for what to read and how to incorporate reading into your daily life.
Reading to children
When adults are nervous and there is a scary new word on everyone’s lips, children know something is going on. Reading is a great activity for taking their minds off it and onto something positive and enjoyable. If you have young children who haven’t yet learned how to read or are still early on with learning how, read stories to them or ask them to “help” you read. If your kids are old enough to read on their own, suggest they read out loud to an audience of stuffed animals or to their pet — or to you. This is a great activity for engaging their minds and keeping them focused on something else.
If your kids are a little older and not as interested in storytime, choosing fantasy books with adventure and drama make for good escapes during the day. Have your kids build a reading fort — blankets, pillows, stuffed animals — where they can read comfortably during the day. A short trip to the library or local bookstore can be a good break from being in the house.
For both children and teens, graphic novels can be a wonderfully visual approach to reading. They is especially useful for kids who don’t necessarily enjoy reading, but like comics and cartoons. Speaking of comics, there is nothing wrong with letting your kid work their way through a collection of Calvin and Hobbes. I attribute much of my love for reading to the summers I spent pouring over pages of Calvin’s adventures.
Another activity you might consider for kids — having them write their own book. I used this activity a lot when I was a nanny and reading tutor, especially for the kids who didn’t especially love to read. I would take 5–10 pieces of printer paper, place a piece of colored construction paper over them, and fold them in half. Then I would staple it to form a little flip book with the colored page as the front and back cover. With the help of markers, crayons, or pencils, the kid would write their own story in their book. For younger children, I would have them tell me the story so I could write it down on each page, and let them color and draw in pictures on their own. Then we would have storytime and they could read me their finished book.
Finding time — and new books — to read
How do you find time to read? Read before bed. Read on the couch instead of watching television or scrolling through your phone. Read during lunch. Read when you’re bored. My rule of thumb: if my thumb is on my phone and I’m not making a phone call, I could probably be reading instead.
Maybe your problem isn’t when to read, but what. Let me offer a few recommendations. I love the popular science genre because it’s equal parts entertaining and educational. It’s the reading equivalent of watching a good documentary — as gripping as your favorite TV show, and you learn something along the way. These are the books you get the best “did you know?” facts from, the most interesting stories, the biggest changes in perspective.
If you aren’t familiar with popular science, start with Ed Yong’s I Contain Multitudes or Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl. Jahren also has a new book out on climate change called The Story of More, which should be available at your local bookstore. Other great authors whose books should be available at your local library or bookstore include Mary Roach, Angela Saini, Carl Zimmer, Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Deborah Blum. Specific books I enjoyed enormously — and are perfect for immersing yourself in — are Nick Peynson’s Spying on Whales, Daniel Stone’s The Food Explorer, and The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan.
You could also read the classics of science and nature writing, such as Silent Spring or Under the Sea Wind by Rachel Carson, On the Origin of Species or Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin, and anything by Stephen Jay Gould.
If you’d like to read nonfiction that isn’t science but is inspiring and positive, try Sasha Sagan’s For Small Creatures Such as We, a gorgeous book about rituals and meaning in our everyday lives. Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis is a great read for women who like the self-help genre. You could also take this opportunity to catch up on new books about issues that matter, if thinking about different problems is helpful to you.
As for fiction, this is a good time to retrieve your childhood favorite from its place on the bookshelf or in the closet and give it another read through. You could reread the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien, or the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, or the Sherlock Holmes stories. If fantasy or detective work isn’t your thing, you could always return to the classics of literary fiction your read in high school or college, or work your way through a certain era of books or short stories. Pick authors you are unfamiliar with, whose backgrounds are dramatically different than your own, or even a country you’d like to know more about. Travel through your reading.
There is no shortage of contemporary fiction. Your local bookstore should have a selection of new titles for you to peruse for something in line with your tastes. Poetry makes for a pleasant escape, too. Try Mary Oliver if you enjoy nature writing, or Robert Frost.
We are living in tumultuous times. Reading can provide a sense of security, a sanctuary for our mind to retreat within, that is a different and more beneficial experience than merely zoning out to Netflix. Reading can bring us together — ask a friend or relative to read the same book as you so you can video chat or call them to talk about it. Reading can help us manage the effects of anxiety and keep our concerns at bay.
Growing up, I struggled immensely with anxiety and fear. But when I read books, my mind wandered through adventures and fantasies that took me away from my struggles. Sometimes our best escape is simply in the pages of stories — a bit of normalcy, peace, and hope in a time of chaos. I hope my strategy can help you, too. | https://readmorescience.medium.com/a-case-for-reading-in-a-time-of-chaos-3d4387becff | ['Sarah Olson Michel'] | 2020-03-13 17:29:02.364000+00:00 | ['Literature', 'Inspiration', 'Books', 'Reading', 'Essay'] |
How to become a Lawyer in Pakistan? | How to become a Lawyer in Pakistan?
Scope of LLB in Pakistan is very vast. It is basically an undergraduate degree offered by various universities in Pakistan for students who wish to pursue a career in legal profession. This is a first professional or a primary law degree for the students who want to pursue a career in this profession. Law profession is very famous in Pakistan and it is considered as a very respected profession as well.
WHAT DOES LLB MEAN:
LLB is the abbreviation for the Bachelor of Laws. The degree abbreviates to ‘LLB’ instead of ‘BL’ due to the traditional name of the qualification in Latin, (‘Legum Baccalaureus’).
LLB (Bachelor of Law) is a three year undergraduate degree in law. If you want to join this degree then you can go for LLB after completing bachelors in any stream of study.
WHY LLB?
LLB in Pakistan is a superior choice than any nonprofessional degree after graduation. It will improve your social status in the society because it a profession which gives you power and respect at a very same time. And above of all you will be able to provide assistance to the people. After 2 years of experience, you can appear in the exam of civil judge also.
Read Complete Article Here : 👇
https://www.rajaaliriaz.com/2021/04/what-is-scope-of-lawyer-in-pakistan.html?m=1 | https://medium.com/@rajaaliriaz07/how-to-become-a-lawyer-in-pakistan-6df6c4ed4fb6 | ['Raja Ali Riaz'] | 2021-04-25 10:32:36.321000+00:00 | ['Benefits Of A Lawyer', 'Scope Of A Lawyer', 'Advocate', 'Attorney', 'Lawyer'] |
Blogging as a Participatory Tool | I recently took a class by Planetizen called “ Blogging About Planning “ and found myself inspired. As a blogger myself, I think I have underestimated the participatory power of blogs for too long. So I decided to write about the value and the possibilities of blogs when it comes to urban planning. You’ll also get some recommendations for how to get started with blogging as an urban planners or citizen in this article.
Everyone can be a blogger and by writing about the goings-on in your community, you provide a lot of value. Source: Unsplash
Blogs as a community resource
Blogs are important and valuable as part of a community. Some of them are replacing local papers and are therefore a crucial resource for neighbours when it comes to information and discussion about the community. In the urban planning world, blogs can even serve as drivers for the planning process. Community blogs map out the community’s own course, their desires, fears and ideas. Blogs by local governments or urban planning agencies can help to engage more with citizens and give information on planning processes. This means that blogs, like many other participatory tools, are able to bridge at least some of the divide that exists too often between planners and the people they plan for.
Good examples for urban planning blogs are “ The Third Place” by the Montgomery Planning Department and “ City Talk” by the local government organisation ICLEI. A personal favourite of mine is “ Skyliner “ from Manchester, where Hayley Flynn offers guided tours and blogs about secret spaces and fascinating historical anecdotes from the city.
Festivals, community gatherings and planning initiatives are great topics to blog about. Source: own picture
Blogs as a tool for participation
In order to act as a tool for participation, you can use surveys on blogs, as Neighborland is doing, for example. This software allows you to collaborate with different stakeholders in an esay, accessible way. You can set up a map of the neighbourhoods, share sketches of urban planning ideas, vote on initiatives, collect the input and the need of citizens, and much more. Even without a software, you can easily include surveys in your blog posts.
The comment function is another important part of participation on blogs, as it allows citizens to inquire about certain elements of urban plans, voice their concerns and pool their ideas. Make sure to take the time to moderate the comments, reply to answers and keep the discussion going. If burning issues arise or if someone has a particularly good idea, you can take action and pick it up in a future blog post, organise a real-life meeting around the idea or get in touch with that person.
Setting up an online book club on your blog or having regular Zoom calls with readers are other possibilities of making a blog participatory. By making use of the many technologies available, you can cast a wider net. Using your blog as a resource platform, there are many ways to go. You could interview experts in a Facebook Live, do a photo series about a transect walk or a mapping exercise in your neighbourhood, have guest posts, start a podcast or cooperate with traditional media to get your stories out there. A blog gives your neighbourhood visibility, but also new means of interaction and connection.
How to get started with blogging about urban planning
If you are thinking of setting up your own blog about urban planning in your city, there are some important rules and recommendations to be followed:
Define your voice
Define your topic
Define your audience (citizens, local government, urban planners?)
Define your goal (i.e. start a conversation, inspire people to participate in planning projects, showcase community initiatives etc.)
Define your style and your medium (do you prefer writing, filming, podcasts or interviews?)
Post regularly (for example, once a week — an editorial calendar will help you with that)
Develop an in-house team for blogging and work with colleagues as well as guest bloggers to paint a picture of all aspects of a topic
Enable comments and use surveys to allow for participation
Check in on your blog daily, reply to comments and follow up on questions
Use as many pictures as possible to visually explain the plan or the neighbourhood initiative you might be blogging about
Support your blog with social media such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube
Of course, writing the blog itself might not be everyone’s cup of tea. If no one in your team is up for the task, you could consider hiring a local volunteer or a professional blogger from the community.
Finding a voice and providing value for your audience, for example through a fresh perspective, are crucial for successful blogging. Source: Unsplash
The secret ingredient for blogging
In order for blog articles to be accessible and captivating, it is important to always tell a story. Make it as personal as possible in order to engage the community. For example, when discussing a planned urban intervention in your area, you could interview different neighbours and showcase how they would be affected. Controversial articles are always attractive, as are success and solution-oriented stories. Local changemakers are some of the best people to approach when planning articles for your blog. You could also consider writing a series or using the popular “listicle” format. Here is an example of that:
Lastly, you should always and only write about things that matter to you. Passionate articles are very important for urban planning. Data and information are the foundation, but by adding a personal touch and an interesting perspective, you will be able to engage your audience, foster participation and hopefully influence urban planning in your area. In one of the upcoming articles, I’ll talk more about citizen journalism, which is another important tool for urban planners as well as local communities.
Are you interested in setting up a blog about urban planning? Managing an editorial calendar, writing and advertising the blog on social media, LinkedIn and in newsletters can take up a lot of time. As someone specialised in blogging and urban planning, I’d be happy to help you with setting up and writing for a blog for your community or urban planning agency. Get in touch with me at www.textsandthecity.org and let’s talk about blogging! | https://medium.com/swlh/blogging-as-a-participatory-tool-dfaae8b91249 | ['Laura Puttkamer'] | 2020-06-10 20:41:24.125000+00:00 | ['Citizen Journalism', 'Writing', 'Blogging', 'Urban Planning'] |
Experience Leathercrafting with .Ar:ti | For a long time, leathercrafting was a hard-to-start hobby. Either you have to devote your life to it, have a workshop space, invest in tools and understand the right people, or live in the right area and attend specialized leather skills classes.
The passion for learning and making beautiful products is with Ar:ti|sans. They believe that education is self-confidence, that education is an exploration, and that education is DIY Education (Do It Yourself). By overcoming the barriers to the art of making, they hope to create a paradigm shift for many creative enthusiastic people around the world.
As more people become ancestral and traditional crafts as an antidote to modern life’s ever faster pace, Ar:ti|sans believes that her leathercraft kits will go a long way to improve skills and reassure you.
.Ar:ti|sans hopes that people enjoy their beautiful DIY leathercraft skills training, packaged in one compact box. This is the perfect base from which anyone who wants to learn and explore the rich legacy of leathercraft can find their way.
Join their cause and help spread the art and share your leathercraft projects with the world.
Experience the art of making. | https://medium.com/@seoweemigo/experience-leathercrafting-with-ar-ti-sans-7e3efb396f15 | ['Weemigo Agency'] | 2021-03-22 17:11:39.107000+00:00 | ['Leather', 'Lifestyle', 'DIY', 'Leathercraft', 'Leatherworking'] |
Brand experience & Customer experience | Experience designer who passion in exploring new business model, new value proposition that will truly become the new innovation | https://medium.com/@pawit-n/brand-experience-customer-experience-c8697da7cc09 | ['Pawit Nopparuch'] | 2020-12-12 05:46:43.089000+00:00 | ['Customer Experience', 'Product Development', 'Brand Experience'] |
I am all in for YOLA's future. | by Minh Thuy, Investment Analyst, Mekong Capital
11 December 2020
Minh Thuy, Investment Analyst, Mekong Capital
“Thuy, I would like to invite you to be the Deal Support for YOLA.” Sjoerd, the Deal Leader, suddenly offered me this opportunity.
After a few seconds of thought, I replied reluctantly: “Yes.”
Sensing my hesitancy, Sjoerd smiled gently and said: “Thuy, it doesn’t sound like an exciting “Yes”. You know that you can always say no, right?”
It has been 5 months since I joined the Investment team. I have not been in any deals yet. This was a perfect chance, so I asserted:
“No. I accept to be in the YOLA Deal team with you.”
Sitting at my desk, I stared at YOLA’s Vision: “Everyone is empowered to unlock their full potential…”. Deep down, I am personally inspired by education’s power and how it changes people’s lives. But… English… “Well, how come such a huge impact promised in YOLA’s Vision can be realized via teaching English?”. I doubted. It seemed like something was missing.
While I was still struggling to get connected with YOLA’s Vision, Sjoerd suddenly invited me to a meeting with Khoa — founder and CEO of YOLA and Chris — our “Big boss.” He told me:
“You should really look at the Vision and see if you can be the champion for it. And if you are not, you have the choice to work with other Deals.”
Now, this is serious. It was the second time that Sjoerd questioned my choice. I pondered, “I am the new Deal Support. How can I quickly connect with YOLA and be their champion like him?”. The meeting with Khoa came in just like an entrance exam that I need to pass. And… guess what? Our “Big Boss” will be there as well. If I am not performing well, I would be in trouble!!!
Just before the meeting, I spent hours staring at YOLA’s vision again, trying to remember and interpret it in my words. On the way to YOLA’s office, Chris gave me a friendly reminder:
“You should ask Khoa a lot of questions to have a clear picture of YOLA’s Vision.”
Oops! It was about 10 minutes away from YOLA’s office — 10 minutes before the exam, and the examiner threw at me an extra topic: “Being Inquisity.” Inquisity has always been one of our values at Mekong Capital. I should have been Inquisity to prepare for the meeting instead of waiting for Chris to ask. I was so sweating. My brain was completely empty.
Finally came the meeting. As Chris and Sjoerd asked Khoa about the big picture of YOLA Vision, I started to see how important it was to be Inquisity. Questions after questions, I could see that Khoa was getting more excited and kept on sharing enthusiastically. He was so light and free like a cloud in the sky. And right under the sky, there was a volcano ready to erupt. It was me, sitting still and trying to speak up with one of those questions I tried to prepare a couple of minutes ago. In a moment, like a rain cooling down that volcano, Khoa brought up his personal story:
“Being an overseas student was like a dream. Without this scholarship, my family could not have afforded to send me abroad to study … I started YOLA to offer more opportunities to students and support them to have better access to foreign education ….”
His authenticity really touched me. I almost cried when seeing myself in his story. My mind flashed back to the day I received the congratulations email on winning a fully-funded Master’s scholarship in New Zealand two years ago. I never thought I would have the chance to study abroad. I recalled how excited I was and how busy I was sharing such good news with my parents and relatives. Most of them had not even been to a foreign country before. Those happy moments had shaped my commitment to education as a way to empower younger generations’ future.
As Khoa kept elaborating his big “Why” behind the Vision of YOLA, it was crystal clear to me that for him, education was really about giving back to society. He carefully designed his academic program that even a short course at YOLA could make a long-term impact on its students.
In a moment, I realized that my prepared questions had nothing to do with being Inquisity. Chris and Sjoerd were relentlessly pulling for the big picture. They asked wholeheartedly from their commitments and their desires to understand Khoa and emerged themselves into YOLA vision. And I asked myself, “Am I 100% excited with YOLA Vision now? What other insights that I need from Khoa?”. A question then naturally came to my mind. I asked Khoa:
“Why did you choose English education but not something else, like maths, etc.?
“For me, Education wasn’t solely about teaching. My experience with English & Test preparation education was a pathway for me to maximize my potential. Thus, I want to leverage on what I do best and pass on my values and experiences to thousands of students in Vietnam”. — Khoa calmly replied.
I was touched. I couldn’t help but speak up about my stand for Khoa and YOLA:
“I was also lucky to earn a scholarship that my family would never have afforded. Before coming to the meeting, I was trying to memorize the visions, the number of enrollments. But when you shared your stories and your commitment, I got that you see education as creating a multiplier effect through different layers of society, from helping students unlock their potential, get a better job, take care of their families and give back to society in many other ways. I could also see myself in that future, making impacts on Vietnamese children with English education. It is very inspiring. Thank you!”
From that moment, I have transformed my understanding of what I thought YOLA’s Vision was about. I no longer had any doubts about my commitment to YOLA’s Vision. And now, I am going “All-in” in a poker game with the rest of my chips, and I knew that I was the champion for YOLA’s Vision. That is the true power of being Inquisity: | https://blog.mekongcapital.com/i-am-all-in-for-yolas-future-f48b39574c82 | ['Hac Tran'] | 2020-12-11 02:03:41.596000+00:00 | ['Private Equity', 'Core Values', 'Mekong Capital', 'Corporate Culture', 'Inquisity'] |
TV Review: “The Mandalorian: The Believer”(S2, Ep. 7) | I think, quite honestly, this is my favourite episode of The Mandalorian so far this season. It has everything that I’ve come to expect and love about this show: pulse-pounding excitement, a dash of philosophy, and buddy-comedy narrative. In the episode, Mando manages to get Migs Mayfeld released from prison so that he can assist him in his efforts to locate Moff Gideon’s ship and save the kidnapped Grogu. They end up on Morak, where they hope to get the proper coordinates. Though the Mando and Migs fall afoul of an Imperial officer, Valin Hess, after Migs shoots him dead they manage to escape.
Migs Mayfeld is, in some important ways, the star of this episode, which is due in no small part to Bill Burr’s undeniable charisma. He’s just so damn charming that it’s impossible not to like him. More important, though, is the fact that he gets the lion’s share of the philosophy. As he rightly points out, for many people living in the Galaxy, who is in charge ultimately matters less than what happens in their daily lives (though it’s clear that the Imperials make far less forgiving masters than the New Republic). Men like him, and many others, serve whoever will pay them and allow them to live out their lives in some measure of peace. In the tradition of characters like Han Solo, he seems to owe allegiance to no particular politics or philosophy.
It’s for precisely this reason that his confrontation with his old Imperial officer, Valin Hess, is so meaningful. Hess is everything that we’ve come to expect from a servant of the fallen Empire: desiccated, ruthless, and unfeeling, both his appearance and his very name telling us all that we need to know about his personality and his philosophy. As unpleasant as he is, he does have a point when he observes that many people, even those that claim to desire freedom, really just want order. Though they might never say it, they find the chaos that often accompanies freedom terrifying and unsettling. One can see in his rhetoric a hint of what will to come, and that word “order” will come to have particular significance when the First Order makes manages to rise from the ashes of the Empire (it’s also one of those moments that has a great deal of resonance with the politics of our present moment).
Mayfeld, whatever his professed cynicism and lack of allegiance to any particular political organization, clearly feels some pull toward what the series imagines as the moral side of the equation. While he says that his shooting of Hess was so that no one could say they had seen Mando’s face, it’s pretty clear that what truly drove him to it was Hess’s casual and callous dismissal of all of those who died in a previous military operation. As is so often the case with Star Wars, even the most maverick and skeptical characters often have a moral and ethical core that’s belied by their external behavior and appearance.
Nor is that the only significant moment in this scene. When Mayfeld refuses to enter the officer’s mess for fear of Hess recognizing him, Mando does so in his stead. However, since the machine containing the coordinates requires a facial scan, he has to take off his helmet and thus, for the first time in the entire series, we finally see the face of Pedro Pascal. It’s a brilliantly staged sequence, and it allows us to feel the momentousness of this instant, particularly since Hess’s untimely interference means that he has to keep the helmet off. Given that Mando has been so rigorous in keeping his face hidden, the fact that he’s willing to forsake a central tenet of his faith in order to rescue Grogu speaks volumes about how much the Child means to him. It’s a strikingly human and emotional moment, made all the more so because this marks the only episode so far where the beloved little green creature didn’t make an appearance.
Nor is this the only emotionally moment with Mando, for the episode ends with him sending a transmission to Moff Gideon. “You have something I want,” he says, his voice pulsing with furious intensity. “You may think you have some idea of what you’re in possession of, but you do not. Soon, he will be back with me. He means more to me than you will ever know.” This is, of course, a direct echo and inversion of Gideon’s own proclamation when he first made it clear that he intended to take the child and destroy everyone in his way, though Mando is driven by love rather than greed. For a while now it’s been clear that Mando feels quite a lot of affection for his little green companion, but this may be the first time that we get an explicit statement from his own lips of just how much he means, and how far he will be willing to go to regain custody of him. There’s a power to Pascal’s vocal performance rarely matched in the rest of the series, and I felt a little chill race up my spine at the dreadful power that I felt as he spoke.
Esposito’s performance here is likewise stellar, and we see a number of emotions warring for dominance on his face. There’s certainly anger, because we know that Gideon is a man who absolutely hates to be crossed or challenged, particularly by those he deems to be below him (which is essentially everyone). However, there is also just the slightest touch of fear, and you get the feeling that it’s starting to dawn on him just how dangerous an enemy a Mandalorian, especially this Mandalorian, can be.
No review would be complete without mentioning the action sequences, in which Migs and Mando have to contend with several groups of pirates attempting to blow up their rig. It’s brilliantly executed, as such scenes in this series tend to be, and even though we know the final outcome (as always), that doesn’t mean that we aren’t on the edge of our seats for the duration.
Overall, this was a truly fantastic episode of The Mandalorian, and yet another indication of why this series remains one of the best offerings in the Star Wars universe. Now, on to the finale! | https://medium.com/darcy-and-winters/tv-review-the-mandalorian-the-believer-s2-ep-7-79fdba55e12 | ['Dr. Thomas J. West Iii'] | 2020-12-18 18:03:51.065000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Star Wars', 'Television', 'Tv Reviews', 'TV Series'] |
Soy un experto en Inteligencia Artificial | Saturdays.AI is an impact-focused organization on a mission to empower diverse individuals to learn Artificial Intelligence in a collaborative and project-based way, beyond the conventional path of traditional education.
Follow | https://medium.com/saturdays-ai/soy-un-experto-en-inteligencia-artificial-835e955a51bb | ['Roberto Arrojo'] | 2019-02-28 21:06:47.528000+00:00 | ['Critica', 'Futuro', 'Inteligencia Artificial', 'Expertos', 'Enseñanza'] |
June update | June was an interesting month for OneBar. Not much has changed in the product, but a lot of time went into planing and brainstorming. Anyway, let’s quickly go over all the things that changed.
Merged Title and Description
Problem Title and Problem Description are now visually part of the same text area. It turned out to be quite challenging to implement, but we hope that this little change will help to reduce confusion caused by too many inputs in OneBar forms.
New NN
We’ve trained a new Neural Network that helps us detect information worth saving to or searching in OneBar. Currently you can only see in action at the Slack Import page (it helps us draw those blue dots), but we are going to use it to improve search intelligence and power up a cool new feature which, hopefully, will be included in the next update.
Small tweaks to the Slack Bot
We have made a few changes to the OneBar UI in Slack. For example, unresolved Problems are now marked as (unresolved) in search results…
… or you can mark a Solution as Invalid right from Slack
and a few more.
Welcome, Svetlana!
Svetlana Novikova is an experienced Tech Writer and Knowledge Manager. She runs a Russian-speaking community for Knowledge Managers (https://t.me/the_know_all) and she will be helping OneBar team to better shape the product and produce high quality content for our users. | https://blog.onebar.io/june-update-2287465f52ce | ['Maxim Leonovich'] | 2019-07-01 07:45:54.671000+00:00 | ['Slack', 'Knowledge Management', 'Collaboration', 'Updates', 'Startup Life'] |
Floating on Electrons: Hyper-Barge | ~ forget magnetic levitation — use static electricity for your bullet-train~
Photo by Oliver Frsh on Unsplash
Yeah, the Hyperloop has gotten a lot of talk. And Japan, China, Europe all have bullet trains. Magnetic levitation at Disneyland. But, there’s one wrinkle to the design-puzzle that has gone unexplored: using static electricity to levitate in an evacuated tube. Why does that difference matter? First, if you want to travel as fast as a rocket, you MUST siphon all the air out of the tunnel. Otherwise, air resistance absorbs all your fuel, and it’s just not worth traveling more than a few hundred miles per hour. Then, to travel so incredibly fast, you also can’t be touching anything — levitation is mandatory. So, definitely only going to get a ‘hyperloop’ by levitation in a vacuumed-up tunnel. Why use static charges, though? That just sounds like the magnetic one, but different words…
Electricity vs. Magnetism
Magnetism comes in a few flavors — you have permanent (iron, neodymium,…) magnets, and ‘electromagnets’ that only work when you feed them huge amounts of electricity. I’m not a fan of either of these; the permanent magnets lose their oomph if you push against their natural magnetic direction, while electromagnets are costly energy-hogs. Magnets are a problem for designing a train, because you have the weight of the train’s cargo pointing down into the Earth, and the only way to support that weight is with magnets that you’d hope are pulling the weight up from above it, because a push would de-magnetize them quickly, especially with the shock of the train moving over them. However, by pulling the weight upwards, you engineer yourself into a corner: the magnets get stronger pulling, once they’ve started pulling too far! That requires computer controls, and imposes risks, which is exactly how it works in the places that use those maglevs. Fundamentally: magnets want to pull things, more reliably than they want to push, but you can’t pull a train upwards without it being unstable, wanting to jump-up further if it hits a bump.
Enter static electricity. The repulsion between plates with the same charge means that, in a tunnel full of extra electrons, in a barge-car that’s coated in extra electrons, those electrons push all the other electrons away, and you float as if you were in water. By that I mean: you would ‘wobble’ a little if you were disturbed, and you need ballast to keep from tipping-over, while most importantly: if you start to sink, then the force of static repulsion increases because you come closer to the canal-bottom, creating a boost of force to lift you higher. No worrying about ‘balancing the magnets as passengers board on and off’ because it self-levels! And, if the barge starts to rise too high, well, then it’s further from those static charges beneath it, so it feels less ‘buoyancy’ from them, and sinks back down. When a force pushes you away, yet that force weakens with distance, then there is a natural equilibrium, regardless of which force you decide to use when pushing back. Those static charges, creeping up the walls of the canal, are also naturally buffering against the forces of turning corners — as you turn, and the barge swings close to the outside wall, its proximity increases the static repulsion, pushing the barge back on-track. Easy!
You only need to point-at an electrical insulator with a beam of electrons (19th-century tech does that well enough) to accumulate a charge on its surface, just like rubbing a balloon to your head. The hyper-barge could spray its upcoming canal section with electrons just before driving over them, to ensure that the necessary charge is maintained. The number of electrons needed to lift the entire barge is actually minuscule, and would fit on a small battery, even for cross-country trips spent spraying. Really? Yeah, really — a single Coulomb of electrons (even small supercapacitors will hold dozens of Coulombs or more) pushing against another Coulomb’s worth of charge, generates a repulsive force equal to 800,000 TONS. Static electricity is crazy strong!
Thankfully, electrical insulators are the same family of materials that all our cheap, abundant, durable, strong building materials come from! You can even build the tubes out of hemp-and-seaweed epoxy, if you want, or reinforced layers of cardboard. The insulating structure is just the same cheap stuff we already use, poured or paneled into a vaguely ‘canal’ shape, even flexing a bit for earthquake resilience, with a dome over the top, and vacuum pumps every now and again. That’s a hyperloop I’m sure we can manage. :) | https://medium.com/predict/floating-on-electrons-hyper-barge-9ae8b9ee5457 | ['Anthony Repetto'] | 2020-12-11 02:02:17.706000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Electric Vehicles', 'Transportation', 'Hyperloop', 'Engineering'] |
When will the baby Warriors grow up? | When will the baby Warriors grow up?
The Lakers’ season in review and preview for 2019
When Luke Walton was hired at the start of the 2016–2017 season, his goal was to install the Warriors system. Given the personnel that year (net negative to non-existent defenders in D’Angelo Russell, Lou Williams, Nick Young and an out-of-shape Julius Randle), the Lakers were the worst defense in the league, equaling their inept efforts the previous year, otherwise known as the Kobe Bryant retirement tour.
The beginning of the Magic Johnson-Rob Pelinka era brought with it major changes, as they moved Lou Williams (hurt to see him go), D’Angelo Russell, and Timofy Mozgov’s horrible contract, while bringing in two first round draft picks, along with Brook Lopez and the free agent signing of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (KCP). In addition, they traded the Houston pick (#28) to Utah in exchange for the 30th and 42nd picks in the 2017 draft.
Those moves, along with the lucky ping pong ball that gave them the second pick in the draft netted them the best draft in the league, according to ESPN Insider analyst Kevin Pelton. Based on his projections, the Lakers landed three of the top 30 prospects in this year’s draft class. Ball was the number 1 player, Hart was 16th, and Bryant was 30th. And we all know what happened with Kyle Kuzma.
How the baby Lakers compare to the Warriors at a similar stage
Overall, coach Walton did a great job of installing the Warriors’ system which keys on defense, sharing the ball and running the floor in transition.
Here’s a comparison of the two teams in those metrics:
Defensive Rating: GS (#9), LA (#12)
Assists: GS (#1), LA (#7)
Transition Frequency: LA (#1), GS (#3)
Transition Points: LA (#1), GS (#2)
What’s even more interesting is to compare the 2012–2013 Warriors with the 2017–2018 Lakers. Each team made huge jumps from the previous year:
Defensive Ratings: Warriors (#27 up to #13), Lakers (#30 up to #12)
Assists per game: Warriors (22.3 up to 22.4), Lakers (20.9 up to 23.8)
Fastbreak points per game: Warriors (13.0 up to 14.3), Lakers (15.2 up to 17.5) (note: transition frequency stats weren’t available before 2015 on NBA.com)
Turnovers per game: 2013 Warriors 15.3 (#27), 2018 Lakers 15.8 (#29)
The biggest difference between the teams was in the 3-point shooting percentage: 2013 Warriors .401 (#1), 2018 Lakers .345 (#29)
Each Team Made Extensive Personnel changes
As noted above, the Lakers got rid of poor defenders, ball hogs and slow plodders. Look at the transformation of the Warriors in 2012–2013:
IN: Draymond Green, Harison Barnes, Festis Ezeli (all rookies), plus Andrew Bogut and Jarred Jack
OUT: Montal Ellis, Nate Robinson, Ish Smith, Kwami Brown
How those improvements affected each team’s record
2011–2012 was a strike shortened season, so the Warriors’ .348 winning percentage equaled 28.5 wins. In 2012–2103, the Warriors won 47 games (+18.5) and won their first round playoff series against the Denver Nuggets. The newly formed Splash Brothers even put a scare into the San Antonio Spurs.
The 2016–2017 Lakers won 26 games, then improved to 35 wins the following season. However, injuries, trades and lineup changes disrupted the team’s true potential. For some indefensible reason, the team wasted two months starting Larry Nance over Julius Randle. From the time Randle started, the Lakers went 20–13 until injuries to the young core (Ball, Hart, Ingram, and Kuzma) caused the team to shut things down in the last month of the season. That winning percentage would lead to almost 49.6 wins.
During that run, the Lakers compiled a 9–8 record against playoff teams, beating OKC and San Antonio twice, Boston, Indiana, Miami, Denver and Cleveland, while blowing multiple leads against the Rockets that ended in a double overtime loss at Houston.
Comparing the teams’ personnel
Here’s a comparison of each team’s best starting lineups, along with 3-point percentages:
GS: Curry (.451), Thompson (.401), Barnes (.359), Lee, Ezeli/Bogut
LA: Ball (.305), Ingram (.390), KCP (.383), Randle, Lopez (.345)
Here’s a comparison of the key bench players:
GS: Jack (.404), Landry (.333), Green (.209), Jefferson (.311), Biedrans
LA: Kuzma (.366), Hart (.396), Clarkson (.324), Brewer (.186), Nance
When the Lakers played the Warriors at full strength in the 2017–2018 season, both games went to overtime.
In my opinion, the 2018 Lakers would have made life miserable for the 2013 Warriors. Lopez would force Ezeli/Bogut away from the paint. Randle would manhandle David Lee or Harrison Barnes in the post. KCP would keep Thompson from exploding, as he did in the two games played this season (Thompson averaged 18.5/6.5/2 versus KCP at 17.5/7.5/.5).
Brandon Ingram absolutely destroyed the Warriors in these two games, averaging 25.5/5.5/4 with 2.5 steals and 2 blocks. And that happened while guarding Kevin Durant.
Even Lonzo Ball shined against the best team in the NBA, averaging 15.5/4/8 with 1 steal and 1 block.
Finally, the Lakers’ bench had a slight edge (+3.4 point differential for the season) over the Warriors (+2.5 point differential in 2013).
The biggest difference between the teams was a budding superstar in Stephen Curry, who made the jump in his fourth season, averaging 22.9 points on 45.3% 3-point shooting. He would have to be red hot for the 1013 Warriors to beat this season’s young Lakers.
What happens next year?
First, look at the changes made by the Warriors going into the 2013–2014 season. Free agent and former All-Star and All-NBA defensive team Andre Iguodala left the joined the Warriors in sign and trade deal.
Iggy was a huge upgrade over Jarred Jack, and Draymond Green replaced Carl Landry, improving the Warroris on defense, while improving the ball movement and depth of the team, allowing the team to give Curry more rest.
While the Warriors lost a 7-game series to the Clippers after their center Bogut got injured, the team was only a couple more moves away from winning a title the following year.
Does that mean I’m predicting that the Lakers are one free agent signing and two years away from a title?
Of course not.
If we compare the teams by their young cores, the differences are obvious with hindsight. Curry (budding MVP), Thompson (budding All-NBA) and Green (future All-Star, DPOY) made the jump.
For now, we have no idea how much Ingram, Ball and Kuzma can improve.
Based on their play this season, Randle’s improvement as a small ball center made him a poor man’s Draymond Green, while Ingram was like Kevin Durant (if Durant couldn’t shoot). Kuzma will be an amazing offensive player, with more variety in his game than Klay Thompson, but has a long way to go in his 3-point shooting and especially on defense.
Each one of these players has specific areas that need work. Given the work ethic shown by all three players this year, I am confident they will continue to improve:
Randle needs to add a mid range jump shot from the baseline to his post up game, so teams can’t simply pack the paint. It will also make him a bigger threat in the pick and roll game.
Ingram needs to improve his pull-up jump shots as he can already get to his spot at will. With this shot in his repertoire, he would have probably beaten the Warriors in regulation, instead of forcing the play near the rim with three defenders surrounding him.
Kuzma needs to watch tons of film and develop better instincts for team defense. With his length and agility, he was a decent on-ball defender this season, but got lost on switches constantly, didn’t communicate with teammates, and often failed to make the correct rotation.
The Ball Identity
And then there’s Lonzo Ball. For a quiet guy, he was one of the most controversial players in the league, as people see him anywhere from a bust to a transcendent player who will completely lead the rebirth of the proud Lakers franchise.
I watched Lonzo in almost every game he played this year, and I will swear on a stack of basketball bibles that the Lakers looked like a completely different team when he was on the court. His passing and pace was infectious as every player tried to make the extra pass and set up teammates with layups or wide open 3-pointers. In addition, he made so many smart plays that don’t show up in the stat sheet, whether it was making the quick pass that turned into a hockey assist, being in the right place to save an errant pass, or coming up with deflections, steals and blocks that disrupted opponents’ offenses.
That doesn’t mean I’m ignoring his poor shooting. All I’m saying is that the comparison to Jason Kidd is not a wild fantasy.
He’s a top 10 guard in just about every statistical category…
Lonzo Ball ended this season in or near the top 10 among all guards in a number of statistical categories: 7.2 assists (#7), 6.9 rebounds (#3), 1.69 steals (#11), .83 blocks (#3). Throw in some advanced defensive stats: 2.9 deflections (#11), 1.4 loose balls recovered (#14), 7.7 contested shots (#10)
And he seems to the ability to rise to the occasion in the biggest games…
Not many players hit clutch shots at the end of games in their rookie year. Here’s a list of Lonzo’s big shots:
Golden State (12/18): Two consecutive 3-pointers to tie the game at 107 with 2:53 left in overtime, followed by a layup to take the lead 113–112 with 1:03 left in the game. (Durant hit 2 free throws to go up 114–113. KCP missed a 3-pointer, but Julius Randle got an offensive rebound and makes one free throw to tie the game. Durant hit the go ahead shot with 7 seconds left, and David West blocked a desperation drive by Lonzo with 2 seconds left, to preserve the win 116–114.)
Portland (12/23): Hit a step back 3-pointer with 1:45 left in the 4th quarter to tie the game at 91, in a game that ended 95–92. (KCP missed two 3-pointers on the Lakers’ last two possessions.)
San Antonio (3/3): Hit a 3-pointer at 1:15 left in the 4th quarter to regain the lead 109–107. With 0:42 left in the game he hit a second consecutive 3-pointer to put the Lakers up112–109, (finished with an assist to Randle that gave the Lakers a 114–109 lead, in a game the Lakers won 116–114.)
Portland (3/5): Hit a 3-pointer with 1:51 left in the game to tie the score at 103. (Isaiah Thomas missed a key free throw and got his shot blocked in the last 7 seconds of the game with the Lakers down 106–103).
Those are four clutch games against playoff teams. How is that possible if the kid is such a horrible shooter? If anything, he should be missing all the shots at the end of big games.
But he was a horrible shooter…
The most disturbing part of Ball’s game was not his 30.5% 3-point shooting for the season.
Lonzo came in as the most over-hyped and targeted rookie since Lebron James was drafted. He was a target of every team. Rookies and young players reveled in showing him up. Veterans harassed him to the point of drawing fouls at half court just to mess with his head. It wasn’t a surprise when Ball entered the league and hit the rookie wall. For the first 20 games of the season Ball only shot 24.3% from beyond the arc. (That’s so bad, it makes Marcus Smart look like a good shooter.)
After adjusting to the pressure, Ball shot a passable 33%, making 66 of 200 3-pointers. Not great, but not horrible. And yes, he went into a horrible slump for the last 10 games he played this season, making only 10 of 58 3-pointers (17.2%). That leaves a 23-game stretch where he made 56 of 142 of his 3-pointers (39.4%), including one crazy game at Detroit where he showed a variety of mid-range jumpers and floaters he never used during the season.
Does that mean he’s a super streaky shooter? Is his shot broken beyond repair? Or can he improve his shooting just like that guy who shot 27% on 3-pointers his rookie season and went on to become a Hall of Fame player?
While I can’t answer that question, it doesn’t matter to me, because this guy shows you a guard doesn’t even need to shoot from outside the paint and still be an All-Star level player.
Magic and Rob Pelinka have stressed that Ball’s number one priority is to get stronger in the off-season. This will not only allow him to stay healthier during the season, it will allow him to take or create contact and finish at the rim. Brandon Ingram was awful finishing in his first year, but the work he did to absorb contact at the rim made him a completely different player in year two. I think Lonzo can make that same progression.
And that leaves the most disturbing part of Lonzo’s game, his poor free throw shooting. If he can correct this problem, it will allow him to confidently finish at the rim and eventually help him develop a pull-up jumper at the foul line.
If Ball learns to finish at the rim and make his free throws, he will become just as much of an offensive threat in the half court as he is in transition. These skills will allow him to rip apart opposing defenses on the pick and roll. When the center hangs back near the restricted circle, the 15-foot pull up is open. If the center challenges at the foul line, Lonzo will get to the rim and either score, get fouled, or find the right man for an easy basket.
That’s why the most important skill Ball has to perfect in order to become a great player is his free throw shooting. He shot 67.3% on free throws at UCLA, but there’s no excuse for an NBA guard not to shoot at least 75%. (According to NBA stats, 74 out of 109 total guards who played in the 2017–2018 season made 75%. 91 out of 109 guards shot at least 70%.) Lonzo was ranked 108th.
Even Ricky Rubio, a historically bad shooter (career .325 3P%), shoots 83.6 % from the foul line.
(Note: As much as people talk about Rondo’s poor shooting, they forget that until he tore his ACL in 2013 Rondo was one of the best point guards in the NBA: four-time All-Star (2010–2013), All-NBA 3rd team in 2012, and four-time All Defensive team (2009–2012). He was regarded as the best player on the 2012 Celtic (Garnet, Pearce, Allen) team that took eventual champion Miami to 7 games. During those prime Boston years, he never shot above 31.3% on 3-pointers, and 65% on free throws.)
So far, the front office gets an “A”
Magic and Rob Pelinka have already accomplished the following:
Traded weak defenders (Russell, Williams) for needed assets
Dumped the horrific Mozgov contract
Turned those assets into Kyle Kuzma, Josh Hart and Thomas Bryant
Properly gauged the ceilings of Clarkson and Nance
Acquired another first round pick from Cleveland
Maintained cap space flexibility to sign 2 max free agents
The real question is whether they can sign at least one All-Star free agent either this summer or next year, and if they can continue to find value in late first round draft picks. Not only was Kuzma the steal of the draft (All Rookie 1st team), but Josh Hart has played so well since he became a starter in February (13.8/7.3/2.0, shooting 43.9% from deep) he is a super cheap replacement for KCP.
Predictions
#1: Lebron will stay in the East and continue to get to the finals. It’s all part of his master plan:
#2: Paul George will make the same basketball decision as Kevin Durant, and leave the black holes of ball-stopping otherwise known as Westbrook and Anthony. If he signs in the East (Philadelphia Cleveland or Boston), he can do no worse than make the conference finals every year. If he signs with the Lakers, they could become a top four team in the West.
#3: The Lakers keep their young core together and grow up into a playoff team next year, with or without a big free agent signing. | https://lonshapiro.medium.com/when-will-the-baby-warriors-grow-up-ffae454a151d | ['Lon Shapiro'] | 2018-06-15 08:20:19.412000+00:00 | ['NBA'] |
Divide and Dissolve are Toppling White Supremacy Song by Song | Divide and Dissolve are Toppling White Supremacy Song by Song
Photos courtesy of Divide and Dissolve
If intentions are the voice of the ineffable, then the Melbourne-based music duo Divide and Dissolve is sledgehammering White supremacy with wordless defiance and ancestral support.
Multi-instrumentalists Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill shape their droning guitar riffs and drums into experimental doom-filled sonic darts titled with the ideas they want to drill into listeners’ heads. “Cultural Extermination.” “Black Supremacy.” “Assimilation.” Mostly without words, the duo creates music and participates in actions as art — all to encourage the listener or viewer to contemplate how to end racism. One such action made headlines in 2018 when they defaced monuments of colonialism with urine-colored liquid — a move that angered detractors enough into threatening harm at their shows.
But Divide and Dissolve won’t stop.
“Having to navigate certain systemic barriers in our lives and the industry we’re in is an attempt to silence us,” Reed tells Momentum.
As descendants of indigenous people — Tsalagi/Cherokee for Reed and Maori for Nehill—the very impetus for politicizing their music stems from a dream. In it, Reed saw various ancestral groups forming a community. D&D isn’t trying to dismantle White supremacy to warm their hearts by watching it burn. They’re raging against it in order to build a better future from its ashes.
In anticipation of their upcoming third album Gas Lit, which releases on January 29, 2021, the radical duo spoke with Momentum about fighting erasure, their earliest memories with White supremacy, and how building community can topple White supremacy.
Momentum: Have you experienced any White supremacist roadblocks in the music industry?
Takiaya Reed: All the time. It’s pervasive. People don’t want to acknowledge our Indigenous ancestry because I’m too Black to be Indigenous and Sylvie’s too White to be Indigenous. (Laughs.) It goes deep.
You received death threats over your “Resistance” video that showed you pouring urine-colored liquid on colonial monuments. How did that affect you?
Sylvie Nehill: That was one time that mainstream media definitely picked up on us. (Laughs.)
Sylvie Nehill: But it wasn’t to speak nicely about us. I feel, at first, the negative response was quite overwhelming, but it wasn’t surprising because there are people out there who need to be confronted. They’re also all pussies. They were threatening to come to our shows and we didn’t see anybody. I remember the first night after it came out and got picked up, it was pretty scary. But we were okay.
Takiaya Reed: I 100% resonate with Sylvie. It was interesting. We’re very happy to confront these things, but when it comes to the confrontation part we’re like, “Hey, let’s have a conversation.” But no one is trying to have a conversation with us, so we start seeing a pattern of confrontation. It’s very interesting.
The music is not what you’d usually hear in the mainstream. Has it been hard to get radio play or mainstream attention?
Sylvie Nehill: I feel we’re just getting started. We have a really strong community of who we’ve been playing to for a long time. People are really supportive of our band. I don’t feel we’re not a popular band or anything. (Laughs.) But, in terms of mainstream coverage, I think our band is just getting started and we’re about to hit. This album Gas Lit has been getting some good radio airplay, especially in the U.K. We always get picked up by the community radio stations.
As an interracial group, how has race factored into your group?
Takiaya Reed: We talk about race every single time we talk with each other. We’re never not talking about race. My biggest issue I encounter with our band with race is when people treat Sylvie and me differently. Sylvie has been really good about picking up on that. We’ll go to the venue and people don’t think I’m in the band. They won’t talk to me; they’ll talk to Sylvie. That’s probably the most infuriating race issue in our band dynamic. They’ll ask Sylvie about the guitar sound and I’m like, “I play the guitar.” They’ll ask Sylvie about the saxophone and last I checked, I play the saxophone. And they don’t ask me about Sylvie’s drums.
“T hat’s another way we try to dismantle White supremacy. It’s the music, but it’s also being present at the shows, talking to people, and being ourselves.”
What’s your earliest memory of understanding the effects of White supremacy on your life?
Sylvie Nehill: I remember going to my first hāngi, which is a traditional Maori meal you have with your family. I remember being spoken to in our language and not understanding it. I was about eight or nine and I remember thinking, “Shit, I don’t understand what you’re saying and I wish I could understand.” That was part of my heritage too and it wasn’t something passed down in my family. My family looks White; we’re White. So, there’s a lot of internalized White supremacy that my family and I are unpacking, and some of us have yet to unpack.
Takiaya Reed: I was in elementary school, and I was deeply interested in playing music. The music teacher was like, “What instrument would you want to play?” I was like, “I’m not sure, but I’m going to play music. I already play the piano.” The music teacher told me, “Black people can’t play the oboe because their lips are too big, so you shouldn’t play that one.” (Laughs.) I was like, “What?! That’s really weird because my dad can play the oboe.” So I told my dad what happened and he was obviously mortified. I was able to understand that she thought Black people can’t do certain things. Then my parents had an extensive talk with me about racism.
Have you had any people come up to you and tell you how your music has either reinforced their views or helped change them about the world around them?
Sylvie Nehill: That happens all the time. (Laughs.) It especially happens at shows. At shows, we’re able to really effect resonance in people through the volume that we can achieve at a live show. We often have people come up to us, especially when we’re selling our merch after the show. We have really intense conversations with a lot of people at every show. That’s another way we try to dismantle White supremacy. It’s the music, but it’s also being present at the shows, talking to people, and being ourselves.
Takiaya Reed: I feel we [hear] a lot of stories of people having conversations with their families. They thought more about dismantling White supremacy on a systemic level. We’re happy to be a part of that process. | https://momentum.medium.com/divide-and-dissolve-are-toppling-white-supremacy-song-by-song-c09682e125d7 | ['Keith Nelson Jr'] | 2020-12-16 23:35:38.575000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Race', 'Music', 'Racism', 'White Supremacy'] |
RESPONSIBLE MARITIME GOVERNANCE | It is said that the key ingredients in the effective performance of agency functions are the ability and commitment of its leaders or unit commanders to manage its activities responsibly taking into consideration the vital mission the unit has to perform against the reality of very modest budgetary resources and rigid fiscal and accounting regulations. To achieve this, the following actions are considered priorities: The Command will continue to embark on programs and activities that will further enhance the morale and welfare of Coast Guard personnel. Continuing implementation of programs that will enhance operational efficiency through systems improvement and avoidance of wasteful pratieces. Institutional of the so-called leadership by example. Institutional of the principle of Command Responsibility. Strict observance of cost effectiveness, transparency and accountability. Improvement of system of grievances and feedback mechanism. Rationalization of the support system to ensure wider coverage and effective impact of operations and administration. Promotion of unity, team work and camaraderie in all mission performances of PCG units. Good working relationship with partner agencies, nations, and industry associations.
Read more https://wilfredotamayo.com/ | https://medium.com/@adm-wilfredotamayo/responsible-maritime-governance-547d219de042 | ['Wilfredo Tamayo'] | 2021-03-04 02:06:20.674000+00:00 | ['Philippines', 'Coast Guard', 'Maritime', 'Governance', 'Seaman'] |
How Much Is a Little Girl Worth? — Rachael Denhollander | How Much Is a Little Girl Worth? — Rachael Denhollander
A children’s book with a holistic, wonderful message for little girls
Every family with a little girl needs a copy of How Much Is a Little Girl Worth?, Rachael Denhollander’s new children’s book. I’m not exaggerating about that. My wife and I have been talking about buying copies for families we are close to. Why, you may ask? Why do I need another children’s book with cute animated pictures of little girls and puppies and nature scenes?
If you’re not familiar with Rachael Denhollander’s story, learn a little bit about it in my post about her memoir, which releases along with the children’s book and is also terrific. Denhollander was the public face of the Larry Nassar trial and has become a tireless advocate for sexual abuse victims since that time. Her children’s book takes the enduring line from her victim impact statement and turns it into a poem for her daughters. This poem reiterates how much they are worth. Worth fighting for. Worth believing. Worth protecting. Worth loving. It tells them that no one’s reputation is more important than them. But it doesn’t stop there.
If it stopped with the message of how much each little girl is worth, it would be no more useful than the self-help books that tell you the same thing. It would be no different than so many other children’s books out there. But Denhollander tells the child why she so worthy of this love and respect. Not because she is great on her own. Not because she has done anything noteworthy. She is worth all this because of who created her.
It is with this gospel turn that How Much Is a Little Girl Worth made my tears start flowing as I was reading it to my four year-old girl. Our culture can tell us the truth that life is valuable, that little girls are worth fighting for, but it can’t tell us why. The good news of Christianity can tell us why. We are all made in the image of God, who created us. Not only this, but He saw us as important enough to take the form of a man, live a sinless life, and die a terrible death on a cross. But He was resurrected, to show us that He will resurrect us too. He did all this so that we can live with Him forever. Now if that’s what the Creator of the Universe thinks about a little girl, how much is a little girl worth? That’s the story Denhollander is telling with this book.
It is just amazing. There is no better way to show your little girl how much she is worth than buying this book and speaking these truths to her every time you read it. It will make a difference, and I pray that because of this book, little girls everywhere will realize how much they are worth. | https://medium.com/park-recommendations/how-much-is-a-little-girl-worth-rachael-denhollander-65b78ba30925 | ['Jason Park'] | 2019-09-10 11:18:11.368000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Religion', 'Women', 'Childrens Books', 'Poetry'] |
Apache Cassandra: The Truth Behind Tunable Consistency, Lightweight Transactions & Secondary Indexes | ACID transactions were a big deal when first introduced formally in the 1980s in monolithic SQL databases such as Oracle and IBM DB2. Popular distributed NoSQL databases of the past decade including Apache Cassandra initially focused on “big data” use cases that did not require such guarantees and hence avoided implementing them altogether. Our post, “A Primer on ACID Transactions: The Basics Every Cloud App Developer Must Know” details the various types of ACID transactions (single key, single shard and multi-shard) and the underlying database engine features necessary to support such transactions.
In this post, we look at the evolution of transactions in Apache Cassandra especially in the context of Quorum Reads/Writes, Lightweight Transactions and Secondary Indexes. These features were enhanced/added in response to user demand for running transactional workloads long after the original Facebook release. However, Apache Cassandra is not even built on strongly consistent replication and hence lacks the foundation necessary for ACID transactional guarantees. As a result, these features manifest themselves as extremely confusing and poorly performing operations to application developers.
Eventually Consistent Replication
Apache Cassandra was open sourced by Facebook in 2008 after its success as the Inbox Search store inside Facebook. It was designed as a distributed storage system for managing structured data that can scale to a very large size across many commodity servers, with no single point of failure. High availability is achieved using eventually consistent replication which means that the database will eventually reach a consistent state assuming no new updates are received. As the data is replicated, the latest version of something is sitting on some node in the cluster, but older versions are still out there on other nodes. Reads execute on the closest replica and data is repaired in the background for increased read throughput. In terms of the CAP Theorem, Apache Cassandra is an Available and Partition-tolerant (AP) database.
The architecture of a single region, 3-node cluster with replication factor 3 is shown in the figure below. The data partitioning scheme used is that of a ring-based topology that uses consistent hashing to partition the keyspace into token ranges and then maps them onto virtual nodes where each physical node has multiple virtual nodes. Each token range is essentially a partition of data, noted as p1, p2, p3 and more. Each such partition has 3 replicas that are placed on the 3 different nodes. Note that all the 3 replicas are exactly equal and there is no concept of a partition leader that is used in Consistent and Partition-tolerant (CP) databases such as Google Spanner or its derivative such as YugaByte DB. Apache Cassandra’s approach instead takes inspiration from the Amazon Dynamo paper published in 2007.
Apache Cassandra Sharding & Replication Architecture
The above cluster can tolerate a single failure (entire node failure or partitioned away) without any loss of availability since the remaining 2 replicas can continue to serve the incoming read/write requests.
BASE Operations, Not ACID Transactions
Apache Cassandra operations follow the BASE paradigm which means that they are Basically Available Soft-state Eventually-consistent. This approach is the opposite of ACID transactions that provide strong guarantees for data atomicity, consistency and isolation. Each such BASE operation can have a consistency level and can be classified either as a write operation that changes the value of a key or a read operation that simply reads the value of a key.
Consistency Levels
Cassandra’s tunable consistency comes from the fact that it allows per-operation tradeoff between consistency and availability through consistency levels. Essentially, an operation’s consistency level specifies how many of the replicas need to respond to the coordinator (the node that receives the client’s read/write request) in order to consider the operation a success.
The following consistency levels are available:
ONE — Only a single replica must respond.
— Only a single replica must respond. TWO — Two replicas must respond.
— Two replicas must respond. THREE — Three replicas must respond.
— Three replicas must respond. QUORUM — A majority (n/2 + 1) of the replicas must respond.
— A majority (n/2 + 1) of the replicas must respond. ALL — All of the replicas must respond.
— All of the replicas must respond. LOCAL_QUORUM — A majority of the replicas in the local datacenter (whichever datacenter the coordinator is in) must respond.
— A majority of the replicas in the local datacenter (whichever datacenter the coordinator is in) must respond. EACH_QUORUM — A majority of the replicas in each datacenter must respond.
— A majority of the replicas in each datacenter must respond. LOCAL_ONE — Only a single replica must respond. In a multi-datacenter cluster, this also guarantees that read requests are not sent to replicas in a remote datacenter.
— Only a single replica must respond. In a multi-datacenter cluster, this also guarantees that read requests are not sent to replicas in a remote datacenter. ANY — A single replica may respond, or the coordinator may store a hint. If a hint is stored, the coordinator will later attempt to replay the hint and deliver the mutation to the replicas. This consistency level is only accepted for write operations.
— A single replica may respond, or the coordinator may store a hint. If a hint is stored, the coordinator will later attempt to replay the hint and deliver the mutation to the replicas. This consistency level is only accepted for write operations. SERIAL — This consistency level is only for use with lightweight transaction. Equivalent to QUORUM.
— This consistency level is only for use with lightweight transaction. Equivalent to QUORUM. LOCAL_SERIAL — Same as SERIAL but used to maintain consistency locally (within the single datacenter). Equivalent to LOCAL_QUORUM.
Choosing the Right Consistency Level
This post on Medium has a detailed discussion on how to pick consistency levels in Cassandra. Lower consistency levels like ONE improve throughput, latency, and availability at the expense of data correctness by not involving other replicas for the operation. And that’s the primary design point of Apache Cassandra — store large volumes of data at low consistency and high availability. However, when correctness of data starts becoming important as is the case in transactional apps, users are advised to pick read and write consistency levels that are high enough to overlap. The understanding here is that this will lead to “strong consistency” and is typically expressed as W + R > RF, where W is the write consistency level, R is the read consistency level, and RF is the replication factor. For example, if RF = 3, a QUORUM request will require responses from at least two of the three replicas. If QUORUM is used for both writes and reads (which means W=2 and R=2), at least one of the replicas is guaranteed to participate in both the write and the read request, which in turn guarantees that the latest write will be read. In a multi-datacenter environment, LOCAL_QUORUM should be used to ensure that reads can see the latest write from within the same datacenter.
As we see in the next section, the above “W + R > RF” does not work in practice because a simple quorum during read and write is not guaranteed to ensure even single-key linearizable reads, the most fundamental guarantee necessary to achieve multi-key ACID transactions.
Want Transactional Behavior? Get Ready for Dirty Data or Poor Performance
Quorum Writes & Reads ≠ Strong Consistency
Apache Cassandra quorum writes and reads are notorious for serving dirty data in presence of failed writes. As shown in the figures below, a quorum read can serve correct data when the quorum write preceding it succeeds completely.
Apache Cassandra Quorum Writes — Success Case
However, writes that fail because only a partial set of replicas are updated could lead to two different readers seeing two different values of data. This is because of the lack of rollbacks in simple quorum based consistency approaches. This behavior breaks the linearizability guarantees for single-key reads. As described in this StackOverflow discussion, a distributed consensus protocol such as Raft or Paxos is must-have for such a guarantee.
Apache Cassandra Quorum Writes — Failure Case
Lightweight Transactions = Extremely High Latency
Compare And Set (CAS) operations require a single key to be read first before updating it with new value with the goal of ensuring the update would lead to a unique value. At the Cassandra Query Language level, this means using IF EXISTS or any other IF . Under the hood, Apache Cassandra executes these operations using “lightweight” transactions. An example with INSERT .. IF NOT EXISTS is given below.
INSERT INTO payments (payment_time, customer_id, amount)
VALUES (2017–11–02 12:23:34Z, 126, 15.00)
IF NOT EXISTS;
Another example with UPDATE .. IF is given below.
UPDATE payments SET amount = 20.00
WHERE payment_date = 2017–11–02 12:23:34Z
AND customer_id = 126 IF amount = 15.00
Apache Cassandra Lightweight Transactions
For lightweight transactions, Apache Cassandra upgrades its consistency management protocol to Paxos automatically but then suffers an extremely high latency of 4 round-trips between the coordinator node (aka leader node) and the replicas as shown in the figure above. Each step noted below results in a round-trip communication.
Step 1: Propose a Paxos ballot (a timeuuid value) to all replicas of the given partition.
Propose a Paxos ballot (a timeuuid value) to all replicas of the given partition. Step 2: Check the condition ( IF NOT EXISTS, IF EXISTS or IF col=val ). If the condition is not met, fail here.
Check the condition ( or ). If the condition is not met, fail here. Step 3: Else, wait for a SERIAL/LOCAL_SERIAL to accept the Paxos ballot
Else, wait for a SERIAL/LOCAL_SERIAL to accept the Paxos ballot Step 4: Commit and apply the mutation ( INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE )
Most production deployments of Cassandra stop using lightweight transactions after some time through complex refactoring/rearchitecture of their application logic because the 4 round-trip latency becomes impossible to hide from end users. For deployments that persist with such transactions, sporadic errors and non-deterministic behavior are common as described in this StackOverflow thread and this CASSANDRA-9328 “Won’t Fix” issue. The final comment on the issue captures the frustration of developers.
“I am completely discouraged. Is there any workaround on this? If LWT and CAS can not be actually used on non-idempotent operations, what is a real use case of the current implementation?”
Secondary Indexes = Poor Performance
Our post “Speeding Up Queries with Secondary Indexes,” we highlight the need for fast and correct secondary indexes. As described in “Cassandra at Scale: The Problem with Secondary Indexes,” secondary indexes are essentially an anti-pattern in Apache Cassandra given the way they are stored on the cluster. A primary index is global in the sense that every node knows which node has the data for the key being requested. However, secondary index is local to every node and every read with secondary indexes has to read from disk on ALL nodes. Following quote from the post highlights the problem clearly.
“So, let’s say you’re running Cassandra on a ring of five machines, with a primary index of user IDs and a secondary index of user emails. If you were to query for a user by their ID — or by their primary indexed key — any machine in the ring would know which machine has a record of that user. One query, one read from disk. However to query a user by their email — or their secondary indexed value — each machine has to query its own record of users. One query, five reads from disk. By either scaling the number of users system wide, or by scaling the number of machines in the ring, the noise to signal-to-ratio increases and the overall efficiency of reading drops — in some cases to the point of timing out on API calls. This is a problem.”
Similar to the case with lightweight transactions, Apache Cassandra production deployments that start using secondary indexes soon stop using them altogether by denormalizing their data even further so that secondary index queries become primary index queries instead. However, they have to take extreme care in engineering the solution because the update across the 2 indexes will no longer be perfectly atomic.
Summary
Application developers choosing Apache Cassandra as their default operational database understand well that their choice does not support multi-shard (aka distributed) ACID transactions. But they mistakenly believe that they can use Cassandra features such as quorum writes/reads, lightweight transactions and secondary indexes to achieve single-key ACID guarantees. This is because the Cassandra marketing and technical documentation over the years has promoted it as a “consistent-enough” database. As we reviewed in this post, that is far from the truth. The only good use of Apache Cassandra is in context of its original intent as a inexpensive, eventually consistent store for large volumes of data. Newer Cassandra compatible databases such as DataStax Enterprise and ScyllaDB suffer from the same problems as Apache Cassandra since they have not changed the design of the eventually consistent core.
For use cases that simultaneously need strong consistency, low latency and high density, the right path is to use a database that is not only Cassandra compatible but is also transactional. This is exactly what YugaByte DB offers. Each of the problems highlighted here are solved by YugaByte DB at the core of its architecture.
Single-key writes go through Raft (which also uses quorum) in YugaByte DB but reads are quorumless and hence can be served off a single node both for strongly consistent and timeline-consistent (aka bounded staleness) cases. Multi-key transactions are also supported through the use of a transaction manager that uses an enhanced 2-phase commit protocol.
Lightweight transactions are obviated altogether in YugaByte DB since the Raft-based writes on a single key are automatically linearizable.
Secondary indexes are global similar to the primary indexes so only the nodes storing the secondary indexes are queried.
What’s Next? | https://medium.com/yugabyte/apache-cassandra-the-truth-behind-tunable-consistency-lightweight-transactions-secondary-42d928a7d994 | ['Sid Choudhury'] | 2019-04-08 17:26:45.523000+00:00 | ['Cassandra', 'Datastax', 'NoSQL', 'Databases', 'Kubernetes'] |
What Comes Next? Flexible Offices for Enterprise Teams | Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Fortune 500 companies are shifting headfirst to remote work. To accommodate enterprises’ evolving office space needs, flexible and traditional office landlords alike are working towards expansion.
We recently hosted a virtual event with our close partner, Liquidspace, discussing the benefits of leasing with flexible office space for a more distributed workforce. Watch the webinar recording here:
Workforce Challenges Amid The COVID-19 Era
The COVID-19 pandemic brought on a remarkable degree of change at a rapid-fire pace. These changes led to an overhaul in office setups and the ultimate challenge of uncertainty. To effectively manage their workforces, enterprises have to leverage the risk of the unknown and develop innovative solutions.
Now, according to Gensler surveys, over 50% of people want to work out of a remote office in the future at least two to three days per week. Additionally, in physical office spaces, employees are seeking quality, safety, and a convenient location when prior to COVID-19, they favored catered lunches, office snacks, and drinks on tap. Ideally, employees want offices that are close to their current homes, as well as where they want to settle down in the future.
Keeping employees’ wishes in mind, companies are seeking a way to satisfy their immediate needs. However, given the uncertainty of the current circumstances, most companies want to avoid long-term contracts. Flexible office spaces can fulfill varying employee needs and serve as a long-term office solution for enterprises across industries.
“I’m encouraged that supply partners like OnePiece Work are there to ease the uncertainty and accommodate the change and develop solutions.” — Jim Keating, COO at LiquidSpace
Defining “Flexible Office Solutions”
A flexible office solution is an office that’s customized for the client , fully equipped, and move-in ready. OnePiece Work offers both move-in ready offices and office leasing solutions that adhere to the client’s location preference, provide flexible leasing terms, and offer a customized office design fit to the client’s needs. Move-in ready offices provide hourly or daily space rentals that individuals or teams can rent with ease.
When companies seek out office solutions, they’re on the hunt for a multifunctional option. Offices traditionally have just one purpose. But, companies in the current age look to leverage their office spaces for multiple applications according to their employees’ needs. Flexible office solutions fulfill this need by serving as a multi-purpose office setup.
In office space solutions, there are two main scopes: work-from-home and traditional HQ, which was the norm before the outbreak of COVID-19. Flexible office space sits between these two scopes and is part of a total office solution in the current landscape.
How Flexible Office Owners Are Meeting Tenants’ Current Needs
As a flexible space provider, OnePiece Work is making every effort to continue top-notch services in a more efficient, safe, and productive manner. Safety is a top priority as the COVID-19 crisis continues to unfold. In order to provide a safe work environment, our team worked with numerous vendors to collect masks, hand sanitizer, and other essential equipment to distribute to our clients.
Our goal is to help our clients feel safe no matter their location, as well as provide top-quality office service for the entire OnePiece Work community. — Vickey Li, CEO at OnePiece Work
To effectively meet our community members’ needs, we must recognize the current issues that they’re facing and develop creative solutions. This requires adapting our current services and finding creative solutions to prevalent issues.
How Does LiquidSpace Cater To Evolving Market Needs?
LiquidSpace has long been a pioneer in on-demand technology and connecting demand to supply for flexible offices. Now, the company has begun to aggressively develop the capacity to shift its inventory to the supply side. This involves gathering the enterprise-grade inventory like OnePiece Work to create what’s called LiquidSpace Pro. The company has been moving in this direction for a while, positioning it to fulfill the complete range of enterprises’ needs in an offering called LiquidSpace Enterprise. This offering takes all of LiquidSpace Pro and places it in a single marketplace with SaaS tools, meeting all of the needs of the enterprise client.
Enterprise clients seek control over who can access certain spaces, and under what conditions. LiquidSpace Enterprise offers access to its entire global marketplace and the flexible office solutions within it. The platform provides market visibility and multiple pricing levels across the market. LiquidSpace offers complete control for enterprises through the build-in dashboard and tools.
A Bright Leasing Outlook For Flexible Office Spaces
The workforce has largely shifted to remote work, and flexible workspaces are a part of the “work from anywhere” phenomenon. This flexible marketplace will continue to grow into the future. But, enterprise clients struggling with the complexity of this change will need to focus on planning and strategy in the meantime.
The question of when to return to the office after the COVID-19 pandemic is the toughest to answer. As confidence in the workspaces develops, momentum will increase and encourage workers to return. Flexible operators must understand the current needs of clients and are adjusting the workspaces accordingly will accelerate that confidence.
Cities were the most impacted by the pandemic. Major enterprises, like Pinterest and Twitter, terminated their urban HQ leases. Now, these enterprises are seeking distributed locations to allow their employees to return to the workspace when needed. This is one example of how enterprises are now looking to decentralize their offices.
The needs of modern clients have changed. Health and safety are now top priorities, and flexible workspaces like OnePiece Work are keeping these priorities at the forefront. | https://medium.com/@onepiecework/what-comes-next-flexible-offices-for-enterprise-teams-4ef3f883adef | ['Onepiece Work'] | 2020-12-10 21:08:21.671000+00:00 | ['Coworking', 'Enterprise', 'Flexible Work', 'Office Culture', 'Real Estate'] |
Will ‘Meatless’ Meat save us from hunger and climate crisis? | There are a lot of reasons why ‘meatless’ meat could be our panacea and a solution to feeding 10bn people all over the world for the next decades but due to lack of data and our inability to accurately project future, it’s hard to tell, looking at it today, whether this really is as viable an option as ‘meatless’ meat industry proponents make out.
They call ‘meatless’ meat, a meat alternative, either lab-grown meat from a biopsy taken from a living animal and/or vegetarian meat substitutes made synthetically from plants to resemble and taste like meat. Alternative protein industry is also wider than meat and encompasses seafood substitutes as well as insect proteins.
The world’s population is expected to reach 10bn in the next 30–40 years; if we continue at the current phase of consuming meat (approximately 95 pounds of meat per capita), then we won’t have enough resources to feed the world. We are already growing a staggering number of animals for food: (there are over 30 million head beef cows in the US, and 21 million pigs in Iowa alone). (Source: CB Insights). The status quo is clearly unsustainable as we cannot continue farming animals at this or increasing rate.
Current meat production practices are bad for the environment while in contrast alternative meat is potentially more environmentally efficient and reduces negative environmental impact not only in terms of emissions but also water and land use.
Prevailing farming practices account for circa 15% of greenhouse-gas emissions if we count the land that is used up in grazing and/or producing animal feed and the logistics of moving products around from farms to consumers. We have lost 1/3 of arable land over the last 40 years due to these agricultural practices. Moreover, according to the UN report on Biodiversity “land use now appears as the major driver of the biodiversity collapse, with 70% of agriculture related to meat production”.
The figures above paint a damning picture, which makes ‘meatless’ meat claim of reversing pollution more so palatable. However, an interesting study done at the University of Oxford casts some doubts on this claim. The scientists ran climate models over 1000 year horizon and found that over very long time frames the production of cultured meat at scale may result in more damage to climate due to emission of CO2 gases, which stay in the environment for millennia versus gas emissions from cattle farming, which mainly emit methane, that has short life span and disappears much quicker (12 years) from the atmosphere. The conclusion is that lab-grown meat could lead to less warming in the short term but over long-term lab-grown meat would cause more warming than cows. The study was loaded with many caveats, hence, weakening the conclusion in certain respects.
On the other hand, it seems ‘meatless’ meat claims significant improvements in other areas of the environment besides emissions such as water and land use. Again, these figures have yet to be borne out, because the clean-meat or ‘meatless’ meat industry doesn’t yet exist.
Another pertinent argument in favour of ‘meatless’ meat concerns an ethical aspect of slaughtering and mistreating so many animals at an unprecedented scale. If we were to feed 3bn more people this trend has to increase. Hence, the solution to stop killing animals and instead producing meat from cells or plants seems like a great option, except, the current solution is not without its ethical issues. At the moment, lab-grown meat is dependant on fetal bovine serum (FBS) which is extracted from the heart of a calf fetus when its mother is pregnant. There is a lot of R&D currently to find alternative methods.
Apparently, only 5% of Americans describe themselves as vegetarians. It’s not clear why would vegetarians switch to eat ‘meatless’ meat products, so it would follow that the target market for ‘meatless’ meat would be carnivores. And the next question is how likely is it for these people to stop eating meat and switch to meat replicas? No conclusive evidence is given in this respect. There are other hurdles as well to scaling this product such as proving the safety of these products and surmounting the psychological “ickiness” barrier of eating artificial meat. Also, consumers are now health conscious and would want to know the ingredients of their food. Hence, it’s not evident that ‘meatless’ meat will pass this test especially because of so many genetic and chemical modifications to make meat look and taste like real meat.
In the end, it’s not obvious that ‘meatless’ meat is our panacea. There are many compelling reasons as to its benefits, but the questions still remain about what the future holds. Perhaps, one way to look at this is to acknowledge that technology is just one small avenue of solving this problem and yet another approach is needed to solve this problem at a global scale (e.g. education and widespread campaigns) on stopping or at least reducing our meat intake. Effective Altruism may offer some alternative ways to deal with such problems (which could be a topic of another article). | https://medium.com/future-vision/will-meatless-meat-save-us-from-hunger-and-climate-crisis-2e1750e59687 | [] | 2019-05-09 22:45:27.052000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Meatless Meat', 'Foodtech', 'Clean Meat', 'Climate'] |
Data to action, a three-act story | Data is everywhere. Actionable data is not. That’s a bit harder to find. While our data heavy world loves beautiful visualizations, we often find ourselves staring blankly into a vast sky of sparkling bars and pies, wondering which of these glimmers is our North Star. Which of these shapes or red numbers should we even care about? What action should we take? Without action, these celestial visualizations are worthless. Data stays where it is, floating in a vacuum, not bringing meaningful change to our course.
But what makes data actionable? Is it more data? More filters? More graphs? Less of everything?
In narrative fiction, characters need to change. Events and circumstances happen that cause friction, drama, joy, hate, love, and change. There comes a point where action has to be taken in order to meet a resolution, and usually it comes down to making the right decisions. This narrative normally fits into what is called the three-act structure.
Data can be looked at in the same framework. Dashboards should tell us a story. Some dashboards make it a hard story to read, others give us the clearest report we’ve ever seen. Let’s explore the three-act structure, and how it speaks to reaching our true data goal: action.
the three-act narrative structure
Act 1: Setup
Typically, the first act is all about exposition. In fiction, this is where we learn about the characters and the setting. We find out who we are dealing with, what their lives are like, and what elements of this world are in play. A one-word summary of this is context.
Data Context
Data context is everything that helps us take action on the information we are being presented. A number by itself only inspires the few who already have the context in their minds. Without context, we’re left with questions such as:
Is this data good or bad?
How current is this data?
What timeframe does this data represent?
How does it compare to the past?
Where does it rank in comparison to others?
Data context frames metrics, revealing the story that is to be told. It tells us what we are looking at, where it’s from, and how current it is. It helps us understand where a number is in relation to where it should be, where others are, and where it has been. With data context, we know what we are dealing with and have the setup to our data story.
Inciting Incident
Also known as the catalyst, this is the first turning point in the story. Something dramatic happens that ensures action must be taken, life will never be the same, or an important question must be addressed.
With data, this is our first discovery. It may be a metric recommended by a data science engine, or a clear red indicator in an otherwise sea of green. Given our established context, we move forward with our discovery into the second act.
Act 2: Rising Action
The second act is where our hero tries to resolve the inciting incident from the first act. This usually leads to further conflict, deeper issues, or unexpected realizations about themselves.
In our data story, this is where the context starts to lead to conclusions. With the culmination of time context, geographic context, comparisons, and data science driven insights, the story rises and we uncover more about our first discovery in act one. Along the way, we are sure to uncover more inciting facts, further progressing our story and forming our complete narrative.
Dramatic Question
At some point in the progression of the story, a question usually arises. It’s what the audience wants to know, the reason they stick with the narrative. This question will be answered in the third act in order to provide a satisfying conclusion to the audience. (We’ll skip over cliffhangers for now.) With data, there is one question that matters, one question that needs to be answered by any visualization, dashboard, or report.
We have all of this data and information, that’s not a question. We are trying to determine where we should focus our time and effort. Or put another way, what action should we take?
This is the dramatic question in data storytelling: What action should we take?
In the second act, we are working to answer this question. With a more fully informed story in hand, we move to the third act.
Act 3: Resolution
This is where some sort of resolution is reached. In a final narrative, the story and its subplots are tied together and presented to the audience in a satisfying way — the climax.
In our data story, this is the communication or strategy we decide to implement. We’re answering the dramatic question, we’re deciding what action we should take. Oftentimes, we make these decisions with others. We use the data context and discoveries to share a story and agree on conclusions. Our conclusions dictate actions such as changes in strategy, focus adjustments, tactical adjustments, or behavioural modifications.
It is key for the third act to include trackable changes. Our goal is real action, not just conversation. We must have action plans to carry out, targets to work towards, and tools to carry objectives forward.
Epilogue
Oh yes, there’s more.
We can’t just take action and never follow up on it. Decisions we make and tactics we implement need to be reviewed and renewed. This is the follow up on our data story. Our data will constantly evolve. Given the action we take, we expect noticeable changes.
This is where the tools that empower us are crucial. Data has to be part of our documented workflow, and the actions we take from that data has to be tightly linked. Without these tools, without these workflows, our decision will vanish into that vast vacuum and will be unable to reach a satisfying conclusion.
It’s an ongoing effort. We must continue to use data to take action and follow up on that action with more data. Our data story is cyclical, the three acts constant. The data points we see move and the changes in KPIs that come from our action will tell a whole new data story. Time for a sequel. | https://medium.com/when-can-i-have-it/data-to-action-a-three-act-story-1343d3dc058a | ['Ryan Andrews'] | 2020-05-21 22:21:46.776000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Data Storytelling', 'Data Stories', 'Data Visualization', 'Product Management'] |
Reading is Fundamental [for Security Ratings] | Image credit: Quora
Dear RiskRecon (and other Security Ratings vendors passively assessing organization’s patching posture),
Failing to recognize, investigate, and implement the many well-documented ways that have been shared with you for how you identify backported security fixes in applications does not equate to a “false-positive” like you claim. It’s just plain lazy, and inaccurate.
But instead of belaboring this point, I think we should talk about something more basic and “fundamental”:
Please explain how it is that you can passively collect header information that tells you the OS like this: Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS), and then tell your customers that it’s vulnerable to CVE-2010–0425, CVE-2007–6423?
Image Source: RiskRecon
Some important questions for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
Is this the level of acceptable accuracy and empirical evidence you define in your principles?
Where is the accountability for Security Ratings vendors?
Who investigates the investigators?
Maybe you could start a new initiative like: The US Chamber of Commerce Center for Security Ratings Vendors Who Can’t Read Good and Want To Do Other Stuff Good Too | https://medium.com/@freshman./reading-is-fundamental-for-security-ratings-5b57f4b774d7 | [] | 2019-05-15 20:37:12.006000+00:00 | ['Vulnerability', 'Third Party Risk', 'Security', 'Risk', 'Ethics'] |
Setting Up an Introductory CyberSecurity Lab — Strategies and Struggles | Editor’s Note: It’s hard to put together an introductory cyber security lab, this post by Greg Moore details our efforts in this direction. Please provide feedback and links on what you think will be great tools and resources for students learning the art and craft of cyber defense!
A Prototype Cyber Security Lab (Source: ARL — US Army)
At Cyber Defenders, our mission is to bring students with little to no background in cybersecurity up to a knowledge level that allows them to work on meaningful research projects. The inaugural Cyber Defenders program has four project teams, each partnering with a different industry leader to work on a project in a growing and critical area of cyber security. The project topics for this year’s cohort are malware analysis (GotMalware), consumer data protection (Pensieve), mobile healthcare application vulnerabilities (HealthSec), and network security (Raspi).
As most students entering the program have little to no background in cybersecurity, prior to beginning our project work we provide a general introduction to the field of cybersecurity via lab exercises, tutorials, and suggested reading. Below we enumerate the steps we have taken to provide that general introduction and background. We invite you, dear reader, to contribute any suggestions about learning aids or content structure that will help us improve our cybersecurity lab!
Labs
CIA triad
We begin our introduction to cybersecurity with a discussion of the CIA triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability). This helps students conceptualize the ways that cybersecurity can be compromised and provides a useful starting point to introduce the various domains of cybersecurity that attempt to address these threat categories. As an exercise several types of attacks are presented (such as DDOS, password cracking, replay, etc) and students are asked to identify which letter(s) in the triad apply. CIA tutorials and videos. Cryptography-
Cryptography is presented as the cybersecurity domain that attempts to guarantee confidentiality and integrity for electronic information. We begin the cryptography lesson by covering the concepts of encryption and hashing. This provides an opportunity to review some foundational math concepts like changing bases and performing logic operations such as AND, OR, XOR, etc. To help students visualize what occurs during encryption, we have the student download CrypTool and walk through an animated tutorial covering the steps involved in AES encryption (CrypTool>Individ. Procedures>Visualization of Algorithms>AES>Rijndael Animation). We then introduce the concepts of salting and nonces, and we explore the differences between symmetric and asymmetric cryptography. As an exercise, we go through different combinations of public key encryption, private key encryption, shared key encryption, hashing, salting, and use of nonces. Students are asked to identify whether the combinations provide assurances of Confidentiality and Integrity. We conclude the cryptography exploration with a tutorial that demonstrates password cracking using a provided Python program and rainbow table. Cryptography Tutorials and Videos Network Security: This lab provides an overview of networking and how network security strategies are deployed to address the Availability pillar of the CIA triad. The introduction to networking begins with a description of the OSI layer model. We walk through each layer and their associated protocol, protocol data unit, and keyterms (such as MAC address, IP, etc). We then examine the well-known traditional network attacks ping-of-death, DDOS, and botnet-mediated DDOS. The network security lab concludes with a wireshark exercise in which students perform packet capture and practice analyzing network traffic. Network Security Tutorials- Malware — The malware lab begins with an overview of common types of malware and infection vectors. We cover concepts such as the reverse shell exploit, ransomware, and botnet generation. We then guide the students through installations of VirtualBox, KaliLinux, and Debian and then work through several tutorials that describe how malware can be generated using Metasploit and deployed. A favorite exercise involves walking students through infection of a pdf with a reverse callback shell in Metasploit. The students email the pdf to a dummy email account and open it on a Debian VM, and then control the Debian VM from their KaliLinux terminal. Following are some of the Malware Tutorials we use : KaliLinux, Metasploit, and Building A BotNet. Data forensics — The data forensics lab concludes our introduction to cyber security module. We begin with a discussion of file storage and erasure mechanisms. We then walk the students through a file recovery exercise using the forensic analysis tool Autopsy. Data Forensics Tutorial.
Books
We have found the following books to be extremely helpful for introducing concepts, providing background information, and serving as on-hand reference guides.
Singer, Peter W., and Allan Friedman. Cybersecurity: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press, 2014. Link Anderson, Ross J. Security engineering: a guide to building dependable distributed systems. John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Link Schneier, Bruce. Data and Goliath: The hidden battles to collect your data and control your world. WW Norton & Company, 2015. Link Regalado, Daniel, et al. Gray Hat Hacking the Ethical Hacker’s Handbook. McGraw-Hill Education Group, 2015. Link Anley, Chris, et al. The shellcoder’s handbook: discovering and exploiting security holes. John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Link Marcella Jr, Albert J., and Frederic Guillossou. Cyber forensics: From data to digital evidence. Vol. 623. John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Link
Suggested Hardware
Raspberry Pi: Amazon Ethernet sniffer: Amazon Bluefruit (Bluetooth sniffer) at Amazon, Ubertooth (Bluetooth sniffer) at Amazon Rubber Ducky (USB keystroke injection tool) at Hakshop. Wifi Pineapple Router at Hakshop LAN Turtle at Hakshop
Suggested Software
What else should we include? Suggestions?.. | https://medium.com/cyberdefendersprogram/setting-up-an-introductory-cybersecurity-lab-strategies-and-struggles-6af6ab67057b | ['Vaibhav Bhandari'] | 2017-07-25 20:49:50.437000+00:00 | ['Laboratory', 'Cybersecurity'] |
Usability Case study — University of Buffalo. | My final assignment was of usability testing of a university which I will be talking about further and detect one main pain point. After finding out the main pain points I had to propose changes in order to fix that pain point through a paper prototype.
Home Page
For this, I picked up a user my friend Dhruv. He is 24 years old expatriate working in Paris in architecture design. I asked him to open University Of Buffalo website and said him to tell me about the look and feel of the website. He instantly asked me if this a sports college. Then later I asked him to tell me three adjectives you get in mind when you see the website. He said aggressive, sporty & corporate. During this session, I also noticed that he was eager to look for more information as he was scrolling down the page and trying to understand what university it was.
Go Bulls!
Then later I asked him to find out the school mascot on the website. He was hovering his cursor over academics tab unsure if he could find the school mascot under that section but immediately as he saw life at university tab he clicked on it and saw a phrase “Go Bulls!”. He immediately responded, “Is this the one?”.
When asked to find if the university offers the Arabic Language as a subject Dhruv immediately went on the academic tab and started looking for course planner, subjects etc options but could not find the end result if the Arabic language is available or no. Here I felt that there was lack of micro-interactions for the user to get to end result which is also known as macro interaction.
INFO FOR option
Finally, when I asked him to find the nearest airport from the school he immediately started hovering the mouse over Info for tab on the home page but did not found the relevant answer.
Then he clicked on the support us button hoping to at least find the address of the university so that later he could search in google maps but he did not find the address there as well. He then clicked on the logo to go to the home page and scrolled down completely and found the address to be there and I have noticed again it was getting difficult for Dhruv to find the end results as there were not many micro-interactions.
Considering the 4th user testing to find the nearest airport on the website I have to choose to work on this pain point which was difficulty in finding the end result and lack of micro-interactions to find the address of the college or the nearest airport to uni.
Here I decided to create a new sub menu names as “About Us” on the top right of the home page near support us tab with as the information about the college and their address. When clicked on the about us tab the user gets to see information such as contact details, uni address with google maps open to immediately look for airport distance or any other distance from the university. | https://medium.com/@patel.maitri2721/usability-case-study-university-of-buffalo-e47693383c8 | ['Maitri Patel'] | 2019-06-09 22:04:14.214000+00:00 | ['Usabili', 'UX', 'Website Development'] |
Testing a Spring Boot application with the Google Cloud Spanner Emulator | Testing a Spring Boot application with the Google Cloud Spanner Emulator Peter Runge Follow Nov 19 · 4 min read
Cloud Spanner has been around for a while, but testing your applications against a real instance could be difficult:
There is a cost involved using a live instance for testing — “Don’t test too much it’s costing us money!”
You have to be online and have decent connectivity — not great if you’re working while commuting
Recently, Google released the Cloud Spanner Emulator. The emulator can run on your own machine and is compatible with a real Spanner instance — it can run exactly the same SQL statements as the real Spanner.
In this guide, we’ll go through how to set up the emulator to run as part of a build of a small Spring Boot Java application.
Using the emulator
The Cloud Spanner emulator can run as a normal process under Linux, or with Docker on other platforms. We’ll be using the docker image in this guide since it’s easy and self-contained, and I like my builds to run anywhere.
The emulator project is here on Github. There are instructions on how to get this working under Docker here, but let’s put all this logic in our build so that other devs (and the CI server) won’t have to worry about it.
A simple Spring Boot application
Our application will be very simple, using Spring Data for data access. A couple of entities for the demo:
and their repositories:
Test Configuration
For integration testing, a bit of setup is required. This piece of Spring configuration will be used for setting up the testing environment:
We will be using a different Spanner configuration for testing, reading project, instance and database IDs from system properties, using defaults if they are not specified. This will allow users to hit a real Spanner instance if they want to run tests manually, or on special CI builds. Maybe we want to use the emulator for day-to-day CI but for builds before releases we’ll use a real Spanner instance?
The environment variable SPANNER_EMULATOR_HOST will be configured with the location of the Spanner emulator. If not specified, an attempt will be made to use a real Spanner instance instead.
When the Spanner emulator is started, there is a single project available with no instances configured. This code:
finds the only instance config available in the emulator and also finds the only available project. From this information, a new instance can be created, and then a new database. When the database ID provider bean is created (which is only once for the application), this is a good point to set all of this up. It’s pretty cheap to do anyway in the emulator, so even if you decide to do this for every test method it shouldn’t add too much overhead.
The Integration Tests
Now we have all of this set up, we can write a test:
We’ll use the repository classes to delete all the data and recreate it between each test, so we’re always testing in a known state. Then exercise a couple of the repositories just to prove the emulator is working.
Wiring everything together with a Maven project
We will start with a pretty simple Spring Boot project with Spanner dependencies:
So far, we have nothing to run the integration tests. Next, we’ll add a Docker plugin that will spin up a Docker container to run the Spanner emulator:
The first part is specifying the Docker image. The name of the Docker image is gcr.io/cloud-spanner-emulator/emulator:1.0.0 which we get from the Spanner emulator documentation. Since we want a consistent build, we’ll pick a concrete version number to use, 1.0.0. The list of available versions can be determined by listing the tags with the gcloud command line tools:
gcloud container images list-tags
gcr.io/cloud-spanner-emulator/emulator
The emulator exposes a TCP port which we’ll use. The configuration:
<port>+spanner.emulator.host:spanner.emulator.port:9010</port>
will map port 9010 in the container to a randomly selected free port on the host, and will also save a couple of system properties containing the host port and the Docker host itself. Usually the Docker host will be localhost but now always — it depends on your platform — for example users that use docker-machine for launching Docker will have a host corresponding to a virtual machine.
Below that, we instruct the Docker plugin to not continue with the build until the TCP port 9010 is responding — we don’t want to kick off our tests before the emulator has fully started up.
The remaining part is to configure the execution of the integration tests themselves using the failsafe plugin:
The SPANNER_EMULATOR_HOST environment variable is being configured with the host and port of the emulator that was spun up by Docker. The rest is stock-standard integration test configuration for failsafe.
Run mvn verify and the Spanner emulator will be started in Docker, then the tests will run, and finally the emulator container is stopped and removed again. The first time this is run you’ll need network connectivity to download dependencies and the Spanner Docker image, but after that the build can be run even if you don’t have any network/Internet access.
Using a real Spanner instance
If there is a need to run tests against a real Spanner instance, we can change the project a bit to allow this.
Let’s define 3 build properties that could potentially be configured from the command line: test.projectId, test.instanceId and test.databaseId. The JUnit test code previously written already accommodates these, so let’s thread these through in the build file by redefining the failsafe plugin configuration:
But what about the emulator? Let’s move all the emulator code into a Maven profile:
Here we have a profile that will be always activated unless test.projectId is configured, so it will work like before. The SPANNER_EMULATOR_HOST environment variable will only be set in failsafe if this profile is active.
So now, without any properties set, the emulator will run and the build will run the tests with the emulator. But if there is a need to run against a real Spanner instance, set those three properties:
mvn verify -Dtest.projectId=helix-sydney -Dtest.instanceId=myinstance -Dtest.databaseId=cats
You’ll need to configure credentials for your instance before you run. | https://medium.com/google-cloud/testing-a-spring-boot-application-with-the-google-cloud-spanner-emulator-3c4d5d6b52fb | ['Peter Runge'] | 2020-11-19 17:31:04.179000+00:00 | ['Maven', 'Cloud Spanner', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Java', 'Spring Boot'] |
There were no city lights to dim the stars shining in brilliant array in the darkness; we were as far from cities as the earth is from the moon. The picture of a young woman riding a donkey on a… | Photo by Chris Stenger on Unsplash
Christmas comes to a riverbank home in darkest Africa; dark because it’s a special night that comes but once a year.
There were no city lights to dim the stars shining in brilliant array in the darkness; we were as far from cities as the earth is from the moon. The picture of a young woman riding a donkey on a dusty road to Bethlehem could have taken place here. Bronc, the veterinary horse, had a stable and we were accustomed to the smell of it; he was stabled to keep him safe from lion prides passing through the area; stables were something we were familiar with.
Copyright Lynette Clements. | https://medium.com/illumination/christmas-comes-to-a-riverbank-home-in-darkest-africa-dark-because-its-a-special-night-that-45ffc6637cb4 | ['Lynette Clements'] | 2020-12-22 09:41:50.289000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Christmas', 'Family', 'Africa', 'Relationships'] |
No more praise | Praise in public, criticize in private.
Take any feedback training, read almost any management book, this is the advice you’ll hear. It’s so wide-spread that it’s just considered fact. This how things ought to be done. Period.
But should it?
Think back to your school years. You sit in the classroom and your teacher is handing out the graded papers you submitted a week earlier. He stops in front your desk and rather than giving your paper to you, he holds it up in the air. “Kids,” he says, “this particular one was an excellent piece of work. The best paper by far. Well researched, well written. An example to all!”
How do you feel? I bet it feels great, doesn’t it? You feel seen, your work is acknowledged and appreciated.
A month passes. You sit in the classroom and your teacher is handing out marked papers you submitted a week earlier. He stops in front of your desk and hands you your graded paper and moves on. Then he stops at the desk next to you and pauses, holds up your neighbor’s paper in the air. “Kids,” he says, “this particular one was an excellent piece of work.” You get the drill.
How do you feel? Not as great as the month before. For one, you worked very hard on this paper as well, probably just as hard, or even harder than on the previous one, but you get nothing in return. You were “featured” before, but not this time, so… how should you take that?
Second, you’re now in a similar position as everybody else in the classroom a month before. Somebody else gets public praise, but you don’t. What mindset does that put you in? Is it a constructive one?
“Oh, John was praised for his paper, for sure I will talk to him to figure out what he did well, so I can learn from him and be just as awesome as he!”
Haha, very cute. Phat chance. More likely:
“What’s the point? I worked so hard, and I’m not seen.”
“Everybody knows John is the teacher’s pet, so of course he gets picked.”
“I worked with John, and I actually gave him the idea for his paper. Why does he get all the credit?”
This is not specific to school, the same thing happens at work. I’m sure your company has some sort of internal newsletter, calling out of specific people during all hands meeting, some sort of “employee of the month” type thing.
Do they work?
In fact, what does success look like for this type of public praise?
As far as I know, the goal is to highlight cases (people, projects) that are good examples of our expectations — role models. The intended impact is to kill two birds with one stone:
Praising people publicly should reinforce the people mentioned to feel acknowledged, appreciated and encouraged to keep going in the same manner, or even step up more. It should encourage others to have a role model, to clarify what’s expected, and to grow to perform at a similar level.
Is that what happens?
For the people highlighted: I’m concerned about how much of a “drug” this becomes. I notice this in myself. In certain contexts I’m sometimes called out in this type of way. Absolutely, it feels good when that happens. So good, in fact, that I notice myself hoping that certain meetings head into a direction where I may be called out again, and almost feel disappointed when I’m not. That’s pretty shitty. Public praise is addictive. And addiction never leads to anything good. That’s for the one person highlighted, what about everybody else?
Here’s my experience attempting to publicly praise certain projects and individuals for their contributions; the experience spans multiple companies, multiple cultures. The result: praise always, consistently, backfires to some degree (sometimes more visibly than others).
A typical public praise announcement to the company:
We launched product X this week. This is an amazing achievement, and we’d like to thank Hank, Simone, Joe and Hannah for their hard work!
10 minutes later, some replies:
You forgot to mention Freddie and Jamie!
and
Product X couldn’t have been launched if it weren’t for team Y, should you not mention them too?
and
Our product Z also launched, but it’s not mentioned. Are we not that much of a big deal?
and
I realize that product X team is closer to you, and therefore gets all the attention, but please don’t forget about everybody else that just work hard to keep this company going!
The idea behind this announcement was: “we care about delivering stuff, so we should highlight successful cases of delivery.” Did it work, though? Do you think other teams are more motivated to push their products live too?
While the intention of public praise is good, I don’t believe it’s actually effective.
So, what’s the alternative?
The baseline alternative is to simply not do it. Stop praising in public. That’s easy. What would we lose if we would?
For the people no longer receiving praise: they will feel less seen.
“I put in all this effort, all these long nights and weekends and… crickets. Why would I even bother?”
Feeling seen and appreciated is a pretty basic need, so we need to fill it. How about private acknowledgement and appreciation instead? Would that be that be less effective for the person in question than public praise?
“Congrats on launching product X, Hannah! We see how much effort you and your team put into this, it’s a critical project for the success of the company, and appreciate it a lot.”
Does that check the “feeling seen and appreciated” checkbox? I’d imagine it does. It would for me. It’s only if we have comparison (“why do you do this privately with me, and publicly with others”) that this would be problematic. One advantage over doing this publicly is that inclusiveness isn’t an issue (“what about this and this person, this team, that product!?”). Note that I subtly changed the message to be more impact based, rather than judgement based.
What about public reinforcement that we care about teams delivering stuff (in this case), can we achieve that without public praise? I’d say so, just cut the announcement down.
It was a good week in terms of delivery this week. We launched product X, as well as product Z!
We should still make sure that once we mention even one example, we mention all, but praising specific people and teams isn’t essential to emphasize the “we care about delivering stuff” message.
In short: no more praise, instead: acknowledgement and appreciation (focusing on impact) in private; reinforcement of what we care about and contributions to it in public.
Let’s try. | https://medium.com/@zef/no-more-praise-5faacd042fe | ['Zef Hemel'] | 2020-12-22 07:17:50.501000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Feedback', 'Management', 'Praise'] |
How to identify an abuser? Analyze their humor! | As people are reading and sharing around my series on moral harassment techniques, I decided to add more content covering the traits of character many abusers have. Being informed, you will be able to identify a dangerous person early and avoid them. Your mental health is more important than anything an abuser may offer you. In fact, they buy the right to torture you making you strongly depend on them.
This humor is unwanted, but abusers use our politeness to bomb us with their jokes. Photo source: Unsplash
Normally, the abuser is described as a cruel, rude, hostile person prone to easily lose their temper. However, it’s only one side of the medal. As you can guess, such a personality would never attract anyone. Nevertheless, the predator needs a victim to practice torture and meet their perverted sexual needs. This is why they have to pretend a different person, overly nice, super supportive, warm, loving, and understanding you like no one else. They wear a mask to get people hooked on this false persona. This is why spotting the red flags is so important. Let’s start this new series with discussing the typical aggressor’s sense of humor.
Disclaimer. This blog post is written by a former victim, not a psychology genius.
Jokes at Someone’s Expense
Predators love jokes at someone’s expense. They track people’s failures. They look for what others have done wrong. They spot every mistake of their fellow humans. They adore physical inabilities. They surround themselves with people incapable of something to feel superior. They need an ass to kick and have the right to do it as a husband, a boss, a parent, etc. They always seek for that “you’re a fool and I am not” situation.
You’re so plump that I would say that you’re pregnant, but you’re a male.
You’re a good organizer except for letting people get lost here all the time.
I’ve ordered sea urchins for you knowing that you are a conservative dude.
You should have watched the previous speaker, that bunch of f*ck-ups was amusing.
Personal jokes help the abuser gain junk superiority at your expense. Photo source: Unsplash
These jokes leave the after-taste of uneasiness because the predator goes passive-aggressive. These jokes are always personal, they always target someone. Even their compliments smell somewhat awful (“hey, these nice ribbons resemble me of my auntie… at her funeral”). They are always probing the ground for more violence and humiliation. Don’t ever think it’s funny and have no doubt that they target you in your absence, too.
Violence-Based Jokes
Aggressors approve of violence but try to conceal it. Yet, their selection of jokes might speak for itself. They enjoy cruel jokes where people are killed, tortured, deprived of their freedom, traumatized, or pissed off. They like cruelty practiced over people. They enjoy someone being in extremely bad condition, and they find it amusing and entertaining.
Repeated violence-related patterns mean that you deal with an abuser. Photo source: Unsplash
Watch out for memes with zombies, dead people, handcuffed victims, someone tied or someone’s body packed. Of course, we all might be spreading dark humor, especially when we are in a challenging situation, however, if a person demonstrates a persistent affection for control and violence, it’s a bad sign. They may want to apply this to you someday. Avoid them.
Strange & Disgusting Humor
Very often aggressors spot and share things that make people startle. Something very unusual, something super disgusting, something out of place. They seek extreme emotions, and they like to shock people with strange, often embarrassing behaviors.
Shock is the predator’s way to make you helpless and get hold of you. Photo source: Unsplash
Watch out for strange and disgusting objects. “Why are you staring at me as if I am a corpse”, — that’s the predator’s usual start of a conversation. Necrophilic agenda might be the case — sadistic personalities like dead or otherwise fully controlled objects. If you are smiling and not going to escape, they’ll target you as a victim — first, for mental, emotional, verbal abuse. Then… who knows. They are addicted to violence and always need more torture.
Sex & Shit Jokes
Predators like playing with people’s instincts. They will bring a sexual agenda to where it doesn’t belong. They can ask for permission to make ‘a slightly inappropriate joke’ and then enjoy you turning red because of their endless dirty hints and bad gender-based humor humiliating you in front of others. This situation will be wrapped up as ‘somehow okay, we’re all friends here, and I like/want you that’s why I am playing a fool’. They expect you to remain silent in response to their “once I had a friend adding ‘in bed’ after every phrase, which made things far more interesting”. You can choose silence, but escape the earlier the better. It’s only the start of the unfair play against you. This is how they start hunting you.
When you are physiologically open to the predator, they’ll use you the way they want. Photo source: Unsplash
People focused on toilet topics are also trying to exploit your instincts. If you catch someone repeating the “shit-crap-restroom” jokes beyond the healthy limit, it’s also an attempt to check where your boundaries are. This is an attempt to figure out how much crap in your life you will tolerate, too. (My strongest advice is not to bring it there. Let them smell their jokes alone.)
Unethical Jokes & Stories
Abusers share a ton of stories about bad tricks played over someone to destroy their career and reputation. They might be not mentioning themselves as the authors of those tricks, however, it’s quite logical — if they like such things, they might be practicing them.
Abusers can share suicide-related stuff. They want their victims to take their lives. Photo source: Unsplash.
Watch out for people that find amusing quarrels, acts of destroying people’s lives, suicide, tragedy, and drama. People who take unacceptable things easy are dangerous. They objectivate people and are prone to violence.
Destroying Tricks
The predator will go through your life like a tornado destroying it just for fun. Photo source: Unsplash
Destructive personalities love endangering people. They like to play smart guys by compromising others. They might make you act against law, beg for your nude pictures or home porn videos, and then share them around. They will give you advice that will ruin your reputation and then disappear while you’ll be dealing with the consequences. (They will “gracefully” forget that it was their advice, of course…) And yeah, later the aggressor will ask you to accept all they have done to ruin your life as a joke or inaccuracy.
What to do about the abuser’s humor?
Say “no” to their jokes early. Attempts to diminish others are not daring. They are disgusting and deserve only contempt. Predators cannot distinguish between black and white. They want to make sure that others also have evil intentions and weak morals. This is why they provoke people to demonstrate the worst in them. First, you’ll watch others going through the hell that the abuser designed for them. Second, they’ll get closer while you are smiling at the others’ failures. Third, you’ll become their entertainment — they’ll make you scream, cry, curse them.
To an abuser, you’re just an object to play with until they destroy you. Photo source: Unsplash
Don’t wait till it’s your turn to be their voodoo doll, disembark from their carousel while they are preparing their pins. You won’t be an exception — they’ll get to you sooner or later. Even if they create the honeymoon atmosphere around you because they need you, be sure — they know when they are going to make a punching bag out of an ex-friend. Go away. I am not kidding — they are not just trolls, they are sadists willing to see you first helpless and then dead. | https://medium.com/moral-harassment-is-real-stay-strong-come-along/how-to-identify-an-abuser-analyze-their-humor-fbb8b044e44 | ['Anastasiya Rostova'] | 2020-12-23 21:28:44.124000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Abuse', 'Violence', 'Verbal Abuse', 'Violence Against Women'] |
Go ile MongoDB’de CRUD İşlemleri | How to Use MongoDB with Golang
Go is one of the newest languages to get an official MongoDB driver, and the combination of Go's compiled performance… | https://medium.com/@sedataktas/go-ile-mongodbde-crud-i%CC%87%C5%9Flemleri-7f12777659be | ['Sedat Aktaş'] | 2020-12-27 18:03:34.076000+00:00 | ['Aggregation', 'Crud', 'Mongodb', 'Go', 'Database'] |
Time Series Modeling of Bitcoin Prices | Bitcoin Price Models
Bitcoin has naturally attracted the attention of the public due to the potential of massive gains. It is then not surprising that there have been efforts to develop price forecasting models for Bitcoin and various cryptocurrencies. We’ll provide an overview of two models here.
One model relies on Metcalfe’s law, simply stated as
The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users in the network
The proposed model by Timothy Peterson and the follow-up paper applied Metcalfe’s law to Bitcoin. Since the value of Bitcoin is driven by the number of users, we would have to model the growth of users of Bitcoin. The model uses a Gompertz function to model the growth instead of a logistic function. For reference, the growth of the number of users at time t is given by
This function is fitted on the number of active Bitcoin addresses, as shown in the figure below. The forecast then serves as the foundation for the valuation of Bitcoin.
Forecasting the growth in Bitcoin users (source: paper)
The stock-to-flow model for Bitcoin (S2F) by the pseudonymous PlanB. It is considered a controversial model for its assumption: that Bitcoin is scarce, and therefore, the value is determined by how many coins there are in circulation (stock) and how many coins have been produced (flow).
Recent chart of the stock-to-flow model (source: LookIntoBitcoin)
A follow-up article by PlanB proposed a new stock-to-flow model with cross asset pricing. The model is still fundamentally similar to the initial S2F model. However, this model formulates Bitcoin as going through distinct phases like water. The four distinct phases are
the proof-of-concept phase
the payments phase
the E-gold phase
the financial asset phase
These clusters were found using a genetic search algorithm, with the price predictions coming from the aforementioned S2F model.
There have been arguments against the S2F model (see here). The model has been accused of being a “chameleon”, a model that has no basis in reality, but sounds plausible. Regardless, the model’s price predictions has been on point throughout the whole of 2020 to the present
As we have seen, like any new technology, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are hard to value because no one can know exactly what’s in store for the future. We expect a lot of uncertainty around pricing, and the large variance around pricing forecasts around Bitcoin reflects this uncertainty.
What is Prophet?
Prophet is a tool developed by Sean J. Taylor and Benjamin Letham at Facebook for large scale time series forecasting. It was developed to account for time series data encountered in businesses. The underlying model accounts for a long term trend, seasonality (daily, monthly and yearly), and holidays. As we shall see, this allows us to visualize the decomposition of the modelled time series once a fit is performed.
Methodology
For simplicity, we use Bitcoin prices at the open of the market. We set our starting date to be the 1st of January 2016. The end date of the training dataset is set to the 31st of December 2020. The test set is set from the 1st of January 2021 to the 12th of February 2021.
Our goal is to test how well Prophet fits on Bitcoin’s prices with and without additional side information.
Initial Forecasting Model
Our initial model only uses Bitcoin’s past price action to determine its future price. We will be using the Prophet’s Python API. Prophet is easy to use but it requires that your Pandas DataFrame is formatted with a Date and y column. In this case the y column is Bitcoin’s price in USD.
We denote our model by init_model . I explicitly set the daily seasonality to False because our data is in days and we don’t have a finer timescale to model fluctuations in a day.
Another important setting is to have seasonality_mode="multiplicative" . The reason for this is that Bitcoin’s seasonality fluctuations are increasing year-on-year, which fits a multiplicative model rather than an additive one.
init_model = Prophet(
daily_seasonality=False,
seasonality_mode="multiplicative",
)
init_model.fit(input_df)
No optimization of Prophet’s parameters were attempted. This forecast is the not the same as the forecast made here, since the forecast made there used an additive seasonality mode. I have also placed a hard constraint that price is at least $0. Another option to explore is to fit on the logarithm of Bitcoin’s price instead, which would ensure the constraint on the price is met.
Initial model forecast
Constraints on the forecasts are still work in progress in Prophet, so we will have to make do for now.
The fit is quite good on the training set. The R2 score for this model on the training set is 0.96. The root mean squared error (RMSE) is 946. However, the model unfortunately was not able to predict the recent run up in prices, but the trend is still going up.
Price predictions from the 25th of January till the 12th of Februrary for the initial model
Prophet provides a prediction yhat with lower and upper predictions (given by yhat_lower and yhat_upper respectively) . The predictions vastly underpredicts prices at the end of January compared to the current price of Bitcoin (which exceeded USD$50,000 as of writing).
Improving Forecasts with Side Information
We can do better.
The Bitcoin network itself possesses a wealth of information. These include the number of unique addresses, transaction volumes, total Bitcoins currently in circulation, and the gradual difficulty in mining through the hash rate. These information is up-to-date and publicly available from Quandl.
Moreover, macroeconomic factors do play a part in determining price. The overall market capitalization can be captured through the Standard and Poor’s (S&P) 500’s index. The US Treasury Bill rates captures the current interest rates, thereby providing an indicator of an appetite by investors for riskier assets. We can get these information from Yahoo! Finance.
Finally, given the buzz about Bitcoin, we can add search trend information from Google Trends.
We can see the correlation between the unique addresses with Bitcoin price over rolling 30-day windows. We can see that it is generally positive, so that would provide additional information to our price prediction.
Rolling 30 day window of correlation between the number of unique Bitcoin addresses and Bitcoin price
We can add regressors easily by calling the add_regressor method, as shown here:
extended_model = Prophet(
daily_seasonality=False,
seasonality_mode="multiplicative",
)
for col in input_df.columns:
if col not in ["ds", "y"]:
extended_model.add_regressor(col, mode="additive") extended_model.fit(input_df)
I have chosen the regressors to be additive. I have tested with multiplicative regressors, but the fit is far worse.
Forecasting model with additional data sources
The fit is marginally better than the previous model, with an R2 score of 0.97 with an RMSE of 822.
The price prediction given by this model still vastly under predicts the actual price.
Price predictions from the 25th of January till the 12th of Februrary for the new model
The departure from the from actual price could mean that we lack additional information, which the model cannot account for. For instance, we have not added sentiment data from social media, or news outlets. A good example would be a jump in Bitcoin price when Elon Musk announced that Tesla has bought $1.5 billion dollars in Bitcoin, as Tesla will now accept payments in Bitcoin.
It is important to note that a regressor is only useful if a good forecast of the regressor can be obtained. For example, we can assume the number of unique addresses to grow like predictions from a Gompertz curve, like in Peterson’s Metcalfe law-based model. So in practice, it would be important to find regressors that are stable and fairly easy to predict.
Model components
Recall that Prophet’s model assumes that there is a long term trend, seasonality, and holidays effects. We now visualize these components.
We can look at the decomposition of the forecast by a simple method call
fig = extended_model.plot_components(forecast)
which produces
We can see that the price is only trending up in the long term according to the model. Interestingly, prices are lower on the weekends than on weekdays. Moreover, prices also rise higher towards the end of the year to the start of the following year than other periods. We can also see the seasonality in the extra regressors we have added.
Bonus: Forecasting Ethereum’s price
We can also apply Prophet to Ethereum, a blockchain network with smart contract functionality. Here, I use the number of active addresses in the network and Google’s search trend sentiment.
Ethereum price forecast
More details can be found in the supplied code.
So What Do All of These Mean?
The famous physicist, Niels Bohr, is purported to have said
It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future
Forecasting Bitcoin prices is no different. Who would have thought that Bitcoin would have its roots in an obscure whitepaper written by a anonymous author, to almost a trillion USD worth in market capitalization today? As with all things though, there are a few lessons we can gather from this exercise.
The first is that every forecasting model has a set of assumptions. These assumptions can be implicit or explicit, but they are there.
Peterson’s model assumes that Bitcoin is a network that follows Metcalfe’s law. PlanB’s model assumes that scarcity will ultimately be the deciding factor of Bitcoin’s value. In Prophet, the underlying model has an explicit structure: it has trend, seasonal and spurious (holiday) components. Deep learning models have other assumptions but they can be implicit due to their non-parameteric nature.
The strength of models with explicit structure is that it is easier to perform sensitivity analysis to test the robustness of the model under various scenarios. This is especially important in financial models, as this can spell disaster if an overoptimistic forecast is made.
The second is that forecasting by itself is only half the task. Often forecasting goes hand-in-hand with a decision. In this case, it would be a decision to buy, hold or sell Bitcoin. It would be wise to have models that produce a range and uncertainty bounds. In this way, when uncertainty is very high, allocation is lower with more diversification, so as to reduce the overall risk of a portfolio. Some methods such as reinforcement learning learns both the forecast and decision together, but that is a topic for another day.
Finally
Prophet is a very useful tool for time series forecasting, but like with every other model, the wielder of the tool has to check if her data matches the assumptions of the model. I hope that this article shows how additional information can be added to Prophet to make it more powerful.
Disclaimer
The thoughts and views expressed in this article are mine alone and do not reflect the view of Towards Data Science. This article is intended to be educational in nature and should not be construed as individual investment advice nor as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or to adopt any investment strategy.
Note from Towards Data Science’s editors: While we allow independent authors to publish articles in accordance with our rules and guidelines, we do not endorse each author’s contribution. You should not rely on an author’s works without seeking professional advice. See our Reader Terms for details. | https://towardsdatascience.com/time-series-modeling-of-bitcoin-prices-5133edfec30b | ['Paul Tune'] | 2021-02-20 22:50:32.617000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Time Series Analysis', 'Finance', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Time Series Forecasting'] |
How can you deal with crypto volatility? | Crypto is falling, someone says the entire crypto market is crashing day after day: what to do now?
Just keep your fund safe and sound.
Let us explain.
Crypto volatility is a matter of fact
But it’s not something you have to fight. It’s something you have, instead, to take advantage of. The best thing you can do is to take advantage of the pump and dump: your crypto is pumped? Sell it. But how?
That’s where the stable coin comes in.
What is a stable coin?
It’s a cryptocurrency pegged to another stable asset, as the EUR or — back to the dawn of time — gold.
Being pegged to another asset makes this coin lowly volatile: tomorrow’s value will be very close to — or the same as — today’s value. A stable coin is global and exchangeable; resistant to market stress and not tied to a central bank, in any way. Not just a medium of exchange — like every cryptocurrency is — but also a reserve of value.
With a stable coin you can avoid leaving the blockchain and swapping the crypto for a fiat coin.
Imagine: the price of the coin rises due to an increase in the interest, what should you do? Sell your bitcoin for an excellent price; generally, you have 2 possibilities:
You can place your sum on any exchange — but you do know how dangerous it is, and that you basically don’t really own that value. Or you can exit the blockchain (and the crypto ecosystem) and change that value to a fiat coin — it means, pay the capital gain.
A stable coin gives you a third possibility: swapping your crypto for another token.
Noku Stable Coin: a new multi-pegged stability
With Noku Stable Coin, you gain the opportunity to convert your original crypto into another crypto, but a stable one: a coin whose value is pegged to a fiat coin.
So you own a real value without the need of a physical coin, because our stable coin is not in the physical world, but it’s still on the ethereum blockchain. When you swap a crypto for a EURN or CHFN, you have the warranty that the value of your reserve will be always pegged to the physical currency you’ve chosen.
The correspondence is always 1 to 1:
· 1 EUR = 1 EURN
· 1 CHF = 1 CHFN
No volatility, no fluctuation. Only a stable reserve of value.
With Noku Stable Coin you can easily:
1. Pay
2. Save money
3. Trade
Noku Stable Coin is a fast, economic and efficient service.
You can use EURN or CHFN for making a payment in every kind of currency — as long as it’s digital. You can save money, storing your value and keeping it safe against the volatility of bitcoin and ethereum. You can peg digital currency to your trading system, and balance your fiat and crypto in real time.
And you will never need to:
· leave the crypto world
· enter and exit the banking system
· employ an exchange. | https://medium.com/nokugroup/how-can-you-deal-with-crypto-volatility-179111ce0b7e | [] | 2018-08-08 15:16:08.227000+00:00 | ['Economics', 'Trading', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin', 'Investing'] |
What is investment? | what We are often made to be believed by our parents since the childhood is that constructing a house is the best investment one can make in his/her lifetime. Is that construction worth taking a loan of 50lakh rupees and falling into the debt trap at early age? I say no, because as and when the house is done constructing the value of it depreciates and only the land value goes up or stays the same for years taken into consideration. As far as we are concerned the real estate is better investment than constructing a house.(note: real estate is different from construction).
What is the investment class then?
In India people often tend to invest much on gold and silver kind of metals in physical form/ rather called commodities. the investment on gold constitutes to around 41% of the household and people believe that it turns out to be lucrative after years. But the reality of it is often egregious. Major investment classes are actually stocks, bonds, real estate, gold(miniscule extent),ETF’s. The major thought that comes to our mind when we hear the word stocks is it’s risky and one will lose money, so is the risk of earning even in one’s 50’s and living pay cheque to pay cheque without financial independence.
for example, let us take into consideration maruti suzuki 800 car. if at all one had bought that car in 2008 for 1 lakh, the value of that car today would be somewhere between 10000 to 12000 rupees, if that same money was invested in the shares of maruti suzuki that value in 2020 would be more than 1 crore.
The point I am making here is people tend to buy “wants” more than “needs”. There is no need to buy a new model of iphone every year or buy a new car every year to show how filthy rich one is. | https://medium.com/@ak9734279/what-is-investment-40709fc436a4 | ['Ajay Kashyap'] | 2020-12-21 07:20:12.074000+00:00 | ['Independence', 'Finance', 'Money Management'] |
Where is Thy Sting? | Written by
Daily comic by Lisa Burdige and John Hazard about balancing life, love and kids in the gig economy. | https://backgroundnoisecomic.medium.com/where-is-thy-sting-f7a1d75e6fb | ['Background Noise Comics'] | 2020-05-18 22:18:20.089000+00:00 | ['Quarantinelife', 'Humor', 'Gardening', 'Comics', 'Murder Hornet'] |
New to UX Design? Feeling Overwhelmed? | Did you read that Sidebar article about UX Writing?
Did you see the new augmented reality software that Apple created?
Have you seen Android’s new design pattern?
Did you see the latest Google I/O talks?
Have you read ‘Hooked’ ?
You been on Dribbble lately?
Did you complete that online UI course with Design Labs?
Did you see the latest intercom podcast with Julie Zhuo?
Have you joined The Designership’s Slack room, it’s such a great resource for designers?
Did you see the latest interview article with Interface Lovers?
How is your side project going?
Are you going to the meet up tonight?
Have you finished your portfolio?
Did you write that Medium article you were talking about doing?
Did you see that new prototyping tool that just came out?
arghhh…
…there’s a lot to keep up with isn’t there?
Feels a bit overwhelming?
You’re not alone 🤓 | https://uxplanet.org/new-to-ux-design-feeling-overwhelmed-40ea8e330ab1 | ['Guy Ligertwood'] | 2018-06-10 10:25:36.915000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Productivity', 'Self Improvement', 'Design', 'UX'] |
2 Pricks In Government Plus 1 In The Arm In The Same Week | 2 Huge Pricks
Plus 1 Small Prick
It seems that we are coming to the endgame in the long-drawn-out Brexit saga with Boris flying at the last minute, supposedly to see Ursula the EU President to get a deal. That same oven-ready deal that he claimed to have when he got himself elected as Prime Minister.
His henchman Michael Gove yesterday announced that they had finally agreed with Northern Ireland whereby they could trade smoothly with the EU via the Republic in the south and also the UK across the Irish Sea. What a stupid announcement as that was what they had anyhow before this stupid one-dimensional government promised us the easiest deal ever with the EU, yep, that same one that we are still hung up on.
We are in the midst of economic nightmares from the Covid induced lockdowns, with High Street retailers seemingly going bust daily and unemployment at its highest for years. They have then decimated the one industry where most Brits get their pleasure, the pub. The Pub is the mainstay of most villages and cities and the only place to get away and relax or chat, but now they’ve brought in more stupid laws to make most of those unprofitable. The Pub can now only open if the customers have a “substantial meal” with the drink and can’t hang about after with a drink. This most crazy rule is enforced rigidly with the threats of a £10,000 fine on the publican. What makes it more lunatic is that I can go to a coffee shop like Starbucks and sit as long as I like, or if I buy a lemonade in the pub for my kids they can stay as long as they like. Trying to pin down a government minister on what entails a “substantial meal” is laughable as they have all contradicted themselves when interviewed. They throw it back at the Publican by saying that the term “a substantial meal” is an industry-standard term and the Courts would have to decide if they are arrested and deemed to be subverting the law.
Like the whole Brexit saga this government has completely cocked up the whole Covid rules, with Boris’s aide Cummings being responsible for the reason most people ignored the travel advice and distancing in the first lockdown.
We are now supposedly all getting the Covid vaccine but with this government who knows whether even that will be successful, already there are some reports of allergic reactions. That little prick in the arm could well be the downfall of the big prick in Number 10, Downing Street. Time will tell if this will be the week that we get a Brexit deal and a Vaccine at the same time, 2 Pricks for the price of all or is that just Boris and Gove? | https://medium.com/@bgt00847/2-pricks-in-government-plus-1-in-the-arm-in-the-same-week-efd6fd513a7a | ['Byron George'] | 2020-12-09 19:23:41.644000+00:00 | ['Brexit', 'Politics', 'UK Politics', 'European Union', 'Covid 19'] |
“Forget it Jake, It’s Chinatown” — Feeling Powerless in Your Life: It’s Evolutionary Irrational Malevolence | Photo by Logan Fisher on Unsplash
I was shmying around Best Buy the other day. I found myself wander aimlessly into the television department. A glossy Korean LCD television was playing a blue ray disc of one of my all-time favorite Jack Nicholson flicks, “Chinatown.”
I happened to catch that iconic final scene where Nicholson’s character, Mr. Gittes is powerless to do anything but watch his love interest lose her life at the hands of dirty cops paid off by her corrupt and powerful father who controls all of the water in Southern California.
Although a tragic example the feeling of powerlessness has a very distinctive energetic signature different from other negative emotions. Feeling powerless and out of control in your life makes us not see the forest from the trees. The feeling, if left unchecked can hijack our coping mechanisms. Addiction, depression, etc are all byproducts of this toxic emotion.
How many of you feel powerless at this very moment? Does it feels like the power has been turned off in your head? Not fun, right?
Maybe you feel stuck, or unfulfilled at work. Or maybe a family member makes you feel terrible about yourself or invisible.
Feeling dis-empowered can make you feel completely out of control and at the mercy of your fear.
How many “take-charge” people do you know in your life? Those “take charge” self empowered people in your life did not stumble upon on it by accident. Self-empowerment is something they work at on a daily basis.
So what does that actually mean? The word “empowered” to me seems like a leftover artifact from the “EST movement” of the 1970's.
Unfortunately the term “self-empowerment” is so overused today it that it has lost its meaning.
Feeling charged, confident, inspired, and passionate is a great way to define self-empowerment. It’s feeling that you are in command of your own Star-ship Enterprise (instead of in the engine room or stowage, watching your life fade away).
Sadly, most of us don’t feel empowered on a daily basis… maybe not even a weekly or monthly basis.
What can you do to feel more powerful and in control of your daily life despite your circumstance?
Consciously relive your accomplishments on a regular basis
When was the last time you felt confident and capable of anything?
Whether it was last week or a year ago when was the last time you thought of your successes?
Easier said than done right?
What if I am currently out of work, barely making ends meet, overwhelmed with debt and have kids to feed? How I am supposed to feel empowered when I am feeling out of control and scared?
Simple. Take a moment to take a personal inventory of how you feel.
Ask yourself this one simple question: are you currently playing the old “powerless tape” about a particular criticism, tragic event, or negative feedback from an old boss, family member, or co-worker from ten years ago? Is this old tape on auto-repeat mode (for those of you who feel hopeless and powerless because of the current circumstances in your life).
Practice, Practice, Practice
Unfortunately evolution has not made it easy for us to deal with that noxious feeling of powerlessness. Unfortunately our neuro-biology is wired to focus on the negatives in such a way that it distracts us from focusing on the positive people, places, and things in your life.
Like daily exercise, it takes daily effort to consciously train your ‘amygdala hijacked’ brain to replay your past successes instead of your bad decisions, tragedies, and failures in life.
Create a Success Inventory
The workaround? Create an inventory of all the things you have accomplished that make you feel proud and accomplished no matter how big or small. Keep it to yourself. Use your memo pad on your phone or write down on a post it note using it as a bookmark when reading your favorite book, etc.
Challenge the Feeling
Facing your fears (big or small) is the best way to rewire our brain’s tendency to become hijacked in fear and powerlessness when bad things happen to us.
The brilliant movie Chinatown is a metaphor of the whole world, and forces us to survive in a world that is sometimes hard and cruel. But as Nicholson’s brilliant portrayal of the private eye Mr. Gittes now understands why life with as little suffering as possible, is a life where you “do as little as possible”.
Roman Polanski made a hopelessly tragic and cynical movie, but even if we choose to live a life of hope and aspirations, it’s worth it to know that life can sometimes throw us around in such away that we may not feel we can survive it. But then we do and life goes on. And thus, this film, this ending scene, and it’s big lessons, will always follow me, until one day when I have to face my own Chinatown. | https://medium.com/@samled/forget-it-jake-its-chinatown-feeling-powerless-in-your-life-it-s-evolutionary-irrational-3379aa865e5e | ['Sam Led'] | 2020-12-21 04:28:59.820000+00:00 | ['Inspiration', 'Resilience', 'Hope', 'Psychology'] |
Photoshoot at Andaman | An ideal mix of completely clear water, picturesque oceanside magnificence, and magnificent stunning perspectives, the Photoshoot at Andaman Islands offer the best area for an astonishing photo shoot. Nobody can oppose its marvelous background showing the magnificence of luxurious white sand and purplish-blue waters. This association region of India is a couple-accommodating and special honeymoon destination that is visited by love birds previously, then after the fact getting hitched to impart their affection to one another and reinforce the bond significantly more.
We assist you with getting outlined your unlimited recollections during your get-away to Andaman and Nicobar Islands. We have a board of expert photographers that are accessible at your administration to catch your brilliant minutes during your get-away. We assist you with freezing some amazing minutes from your vacation with no issue with the assistance of our master picture takers. Our picture takers try to catch all your genuine minutes/authentic minutes with practically no unsettling influence. Presently you can partake in your days off and get your sincere minutes to existence with our expert excursion photography.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, next? | Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, next?
So you may have noticed (or not) that I haven’t written an article in a while. Well, there are a few reasons for that, but there is one big overriding issue. Unfortunately, I broke up with my husband Stuie, this is something that I never thought would happen, but it did. I had no idea what would happen and no idea if I wanted to write or what I would write about.
I was thinking that maybe it was time to get back to writing when I went on a trip to Munich, where I met my friend Felix. I haven’t seen him in 10 years but it was so nice catch-up and have a few drinks (actually quite a few) and he mentioned an article I wrote about my experience as a gay football fan. What Felix said about reading the article inspired me to start writing again and it was easy to know what my first subject would be.
It wasn’t expecting to write about a break up at any point in my life, Stuie and I were married and happy but things, unfortunately, didn’t work out. The reason we broke up is something that I don’t want to go into as it’s a private matter. The one thing I will say about the break up is that I wasn’t blameless and I made a lot of mistakes, not just for the breakup but throughout the whole relationship. Not only did I make mistakes but also I didn’t learn from them.
On our wedding day 16th May 2016
This article isn’t going to be about my feelings about the break up, what I want to talk about is the lessons I learnt from the relationship. I was thinking about Ariana Grande’s song ‘Thank you, next’ which is about relationships and what you take away from each one. My version of the song for this relationship would be around 20 minutes long filled mostly with the words ‘thank you’ and then eventually ending with,’ next?’.
Stuie was my first proper relationship and it wasn’t until it ended that I realised what being with someone can teach you, about yourself, about the other person and relationships. Let’s face it being so close to someone isn’t always easy, but when things are going well it’s the best thing ever. Stuie wasn’t only my partner, he was my best friend and I loved spending time with him.
Florida 2016
I can’t mention everything that I discovered from this relationship. it would take too long however I will do my very best to summarise. The biggest lesson is how to be myself, I found out who I am, Stuie allowed me to do that. He let me be myself around him, I never felt like I needed to try to be someone else I just was Kevin. I believe that I became a more liberal, informed, open-minded and passionate person around him. I found my voice and learnt how to use it.
Stuie taught me these things without trying, he already had these attributes himself. He told me that you need to try and do things out of your comfort zone and not to doubt what I am capable of. He always said that you shouldn’t just sit there wishing you could do something because if there is a will there’s a way. Get out of tunnel vision thinking, don’t just say I can’t do it, look for a way of being able to do it no matter how ridiculous it seems.
I didn’t know what it was like to be with someone until I met Stuie. I learnt about what to do and what not to do in a relationship. Be there but don’t smother, understand that the other person has up and down moods, support the other person, learn from your mistakes (this one I didn’t do so well with) and the most important thing, your partner is always right and he was as well!.
I wasn’t just about learning life lessons, I learnt more about films, TV, music and running. Stuie encouraged me to try running which led to me run the London Marathon this year. If it wasn’t for the relationship there is no way I would have done that. I presented a hospital radio show, I am partway through a history degree and the fact that I even started writing is down to Stuie encouraging me to better myself.
What I have written here is a very brief summary of what I have taken away from this relationship, there are some lessons learnt that I haven’t mentioned, there are some I haven’t realised yet and others I can’t articulate. My biggest fear about this is that I won’t learn from the mistakes I made in this relationship, I can only hope that I do.
It’s because of these lessons that I wouldn’t change my relationship with Stuie. I had an amazing time and he was my best friend. I had so many laughs, met amazing people, smiled a lot, had so many experiences all because of him and the relationship we had. For that, I feel very grateful for what Stuie and I had.
Those of you who are keen Ariana Grande fans will know that there isn’t a question mark in her song. I have added one to this article because in my case there is one, I have no idea what the future holds for me. I certainly hope that at some point I will meet someone else but I’m in no hurry for that.
My future looked in place but now it is open, everything has changed and that is upsetting and exciting at the same time. Only time will tell what the answer to that question mark and what new adventures and lessons await for me. So stick with me, I will carry on writing articles and we can all find out together what the future holds. | https://medium.com/lgbtgaze/thank-you-thank-you-thank-you-thank-you-next-646a2e987ee2 | ['Kevin Laurie'] | 2019-07-28 14:16:34.442000+00:00 | ['Gay', 'Love', 'Breakups', 'Relationships', 'Seperation'] |
How to Automate Medium with NodeJS | Puppeteer is an open-source library developed by Google that was built for the purpose of automating and simplifying front-end tests and development. Basically, anything a person can do on a browser can be automated with Puppeteer.
Some of the actions that Puppeteer can automate are:
Generate screenshots and PDFs of pages.
Automate form submission, UI testing, keyboard input
Change HTML elements in a page
Create an up-to-date, automated testing environment. Run your tests directly in the latest version of Chrome using the latest JavaScript and browser features.
And much more.
Hopefully, that was enough intro. Now let’s dive into the technical aspect.
1. Initial Setup
As with any other node package, we need to make sure we have installed nodejs and npm. If you are on Linux or macOS, use these two simple commands to check that everything is ready.
> node --version
> npm --version
Next, create a project folder/directory and initialize your node environment. Then install Puppeteer with the npm.
> mkdir medium-automate-proj && cd medium-automate-proj
> npm init --yes
> npm install puppeteer
Finally, make sure everything is working accordingly. Let us try running a sample script from the Puppeteer documentation. The script goes to www.medium.com then takes a screenshot of the page and saves it as medium.png .
file: index.js
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer'); (async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({headless:false});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://medium.com');
await page.screenshot({path: 'medium.png'});
await browser.close();
})();
output: medium.png
2. Automating Login to medium
You can’t edit a published story without logging into your medium account. So how do we automate the login process?
Medium provides different ways to log into your account. For our purpose, we’ll use the ‘Sign in with email’.
After entering your email address, Medium will send you a special link to your email. This link can be used by anyone to log into your account. Note that this link can only be used once and if not used for 2 hours, it will expire.
Your token looks like this
https://medium.com/m/callback/email?token=1a2b3c4d5678&operation=login&state=medium
At this stage, it shouldn’t be difficult to understand the following code
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer'); (async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({headless:false});
const page = await browser.newPage(); // login_link is the link from email
const login_link = "YOUR LOGIN LINK";
await page.goto(login_link);
await page.screenshot({path: 'medium.png'});
await browser.close();
})();
The above code just goes to www.medium.com and takes a screenshot and saves it as medium.png
3. Editing a published article
Instead of taking screenshots, let’s do simple automated editing. To accomplish this we first choose a published story. Then try to edit it manually.
When you try to edit a story, Medium will redirect you to a URL similar to “https://medium.com/p/96fe4266534f/edit”. This URL is actually my edit page for that story.
After logging into our Medium account we want our code to redirect us to the edit page. So let’s add these two lines to our code
const edit_page = "https://medium.com/p/96fe4266534f/edit";
await page.goto(edit_page);
On your edit page, let’s say you want to edit a line in your story. How do you do that?
Puppeteer provides us with $eval() function to edit an element on a page. This function accepts two arguments. The first one is an element on our HTML page, and the second one is a function that tells Puppeteer what to do with the element.
For example:
await page.waitForSelector("p[name='a46a']");
await page.$eval("p[name='a46a']", e => e.innerHTML = "WOW");
This code will search for a <p name='a46a' ...> (and waits until the tag is loaded) then changes the text inside this tag to ‘WOW’.
i.e. <p name='a46a'...>WOW</p>
Note that name='a46a' is different for you. You have to inspect your story to find out the name of your tag.
Now our code is:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer'); (async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({headless:true});
const page = await browser.newPage(); // login_link is the link from email
const login_link = "YOUR_LOGIN_LINK_FROM_EMAIL";
await page.goto(login_link);
const edit_page = "https://medium.com/p/96fe4266534f/edit";
await page.goto(edit_page); await page.waitForSelector(p[name="a46a"]);
await page.$eval("p[name='a46a']", e =>{
e.innerHTML = "WOW";
}) //await page.screenshot({path: 'medium.png'});
await browser.close();
})();
But we want more than changing the text to ‘WOW’. Maybe we want to display the current time and date. Well, say no more. Let’s use the new Date object.
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer'); (async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({headless:true});
const page = await browser.newPage(); // login_link is the link from email
const login_link = "YOUR_LOGIN_LINK_FROM_EMAIL";
await page.goto(login_link);
const edit_page = "https://medium.com/p/YOUR_STORY_ID/edit";
await page.goto(edit_page); await page.waitForSelector(p[name="a46a"]);
await page.$eval("p[name='a46a']", e =>{
e.innerHTML = (new Date()).toLocaleString('en-US');
}) //await page.screenshot({path: 'medium.png'});
await browser.close();
})();
4. Publishing the edited story
After editing the story, we need to republish our story for the effect to take place. For this, we need to click the save and publish button on the top right of the page. Puppeteer provides us with the click function to do the task. The function takes one argument — the HTML element (button) to be clicked.
await page.click("button[data-action='republish']");
But there is one caveat here. One needs to wait for a few seconds for the Save and publish button to be clickable. So here is an edit for our code.
// wait 6000 miliseconds then click
await page.waitFor(6000);
await page.click('button[data-action="republish"]');
5. The Way forward
Our code so far is
There are a few things to note here.
First, the login_link should be updated every time you run the code.
should be updated every time you run the code. If you don’t want a GUI browser to be launched every time you run your code, you can edit the headless attribute. {headless:true} will avoid launching the GUI (Chromium-browser) and everything will be done under the hood.
attribute. will avoid launching the GUI (Chromium-browser) and everything will be done under the hood. Your code updates the story only once. But you can do update every minute or every hour with setInterval.
To conclude, we were able to automatically edit a medium article using Puppeteer, and it took no more than 20 lines of code. The above code was just to change a paragraph of our story to a DateTime, once. But there is no fun in doing that. I would like to see what creative thing you are able to do!!
P.S. You can find my code here. | https://medium.com/quick-code/how-to-automate-medium-with-nodejs-73c7ceed74bc | ['Aven Desta'] | 2020-12-23 07:16:44.210000+00:00 | ['Automation', 'JavaScript', 'Nodejs', 'Programming', 'Automated Testing'] |
Once in a while | Once in a while, I feel like writing about you.
Once in a while, I want to make you feel good about yourself.
Make you feel good about us.
Once in a while, things are not as we want them to be.
But once in a while, they become more than what we wish for.
Once in a while, we concentrate on the problems.
But once in a while, I like to treasure the good part of the story.
Our story.
Once in a while, it seems like the story will end.
Once in a while, it seems like we’re drifting apart.
To a distance unknown to either of us.
Once in a while, I feel as if I’m a part of you.
And you, a part of myself.
Once in a while, we lose strength and passion.
And once in a while, we’re stronger than anyone else.
Once in a while, it feels like we’re two halves.
But of unequal size.
Never expected to be together.
But once in a while, we still come up together.
Abstract art, is what they call it.
Hard to understand, but appreciated the most when understood.
Once in a while, I’ll still write for you.
And once in a while, you’ll start feeling good about us. | https://medium.com/@aayushitiwari/once-in-a-8955e840b77f | ['Aayushi Tiwari'] | 2020-12-24 05:27:07.977000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Writing', 'Poems On Medium'] |
A practical streaming data infrastructure case with Fluentd, Kafka, Kafka Connect, ElasticSearch, Kibana and Docker | This is a practical case of setting up a continuous data infrastructure. The stack allows for a distributed log system. Fluentd retrieves logs from different sources and puts them in kafka. Kafka Connect retrieves Kafka data logs for indexing in ElasticSearch.
Our stack is composed of:
Fluentd : An open source data collector for unified logging layer. I used a connector (@type kafka2) to send logs in Kafka. Kafka : Distributed streaming platform. Fluentd produces data in Kafka. Zookeeper : Kafka run with Zookeeper. Zookeeper is a centralized service for maintaining configuration information, naming, providing distributed synchronization, and providing group services. Kafka Connect : an component of Kafka, is a framework for connecting Kafka with external systems such as databases, key-value stores, search indexes, and file systems. It is used here to easily connect to kafka and send data in Elasticsearch. I used the Kafka Connect ElasticSearch kafka-connect-ui : Used to have access to Kafka Connect UI. I used it to set up connector without go on command line. Elasticsearch : It is an distributed platform and a RESTful search and analytics engine. Used here to index and easily search data. Kibana : UI to connect and view data or logs stored in Elasticsearch. python-app-test : A Python application to test the logs streaming.
What will we see in this article ?
We will start the Apache Kafka service.
We will start an instance of Elasticsearch and Kibana
We will see how to configure the Kafka Connect service to broadcast Kafka data and automatically store it in Elasticsearch.
We will start a fluentd service and configure it to automatically publish logs on a kafka topic.
We will see how to call the fluentd service in a python application to send python logs to Fluentd.
We will set up an index pattern on Kibana to visualize data logs.
Dependencies
Docker installed on your machine
Let’s create our stack folder
$ mkdir agile-logging
$ cd agile-logging
Let’s prepare the necessary docker files
Open your terminal and create the file Dockerfile-fluentd and past this code
FROM fluent/fluentd:v1.6-debian-1
USER root
ENV FLUENT_UID=0
RUN mkdir /buffer
RUN ["gem", "install", "fluent-plugin-kafka", "--no-document", "--version", "0.12.1"]
Create the file Dockerfile-kafka-connect and paste this lines
FROM confluentinc/cp-kafka-connect:4.0.0
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y vim
RUN mkdir -p /opt
RUN mkdir -p /opt/connectors
ADD connector_jars /opt/connectors/connector_jars
WORKDIR /opt
ADD connector_conf/ /opt/connector_conf
RUN wget https://github.com/confluentinc/kafka-connect-elasticsearch/archive/v3.3.3-rc1.tar.gz; \
tar xzf v3.3.3-rc1.tar.gz -C /opt/connectors
Create the file Dockerfile-python-app-test.yaml and paste this lines
FROM pypy:3-6
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
# Bundle app source
COPY python-app-test/ /usr/src/app
RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get install -y supervisor
# install requirements
RUN pip install --upgrade pip
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
RUN mkdir -p /var/log/supervisor
RUN mkdir -p /usr/src/logs
COPY python-app-test/src/conf/agilecx.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/supervisord.conf
EXPOSE 611
VOLUME ["/usr/src/app"]
# run supervisord
CMD /usr/bin/supervisord -c /etc/supervisor/conf.d/supervisord.conf
Let’s prepare our stack of docker compose
We will use a docker compose file to start our stack. Let’s create the docker-compose-dist-logging.yaml file and reference our docker files.
We will use a docker composition file to start our stack. Let’s create the docker-compose-dist-logging.yaml file and refer to our docker files
version: '3'
services:
fluentd-agile:
container_name: fluentd-agile
build:
context: ./
dockerfile: Dockerfile-fluentd
volumes:
- ./fluentd/conf:/fluentd/etc
ports:
- "24228:24224"
- "24228:24224/udp"
networks:
- agile-network zookeeper-agile-node1:
image: zookeeper:3.4.9
hostname: zookeeper-agile-node1
container_name: zookeeper-agile-node1
ports:
- 2190:2181
volumes:
- ../zookeeperkafka-data/vol1/zk-data:/data_logs_dir
- ../zookeeperkafka-data/vol2/zk-txn-logs:/logs_dir
restart: always
environment:
ZOO_MY_ID: 1
ZOO_PORT: 2181
ZOO_SERVERS: server.1=zookeeper-agile-node1:2888:3888
ZOO_LOG4J_PROP: /logs_dir
ZOO_DATA_LOG_DIR: /data_logs_dir
networks:
- agile-network
kafka-agile-node1:
image: confluentinc/cp-kafka:5.1.0
hostname: kafka-agile-node1
container_name: kafka-agile-node1
ports:
- 5656:9092
volumes:
- ../zookeeperkafka-data/vol3/kafka-data:/logs
restart: always
environment:
KAFKA_ADVERTISED_LISTENERS: LISTENER_DOCKER_INTERNAL://kafka-agile-node1:9092,LISTENER_DOCKER_EXTERNAL://kafka-agile-node1:5656
KAFKA_LISTENER_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_MAP: LISTENER_DOCKER_INTERNAL:PLAINTEXT,LISTENER_DOCKER_EXTERNAL:PLAINTEXT
KAFKA_INTER_BROKER_LISTENER_NAME: LISTENER_DOCKER_INTERNAL
KAFKA_ZOOKEEPER_CONNECT: "zookeeper-agile-node1:2181"
KAFKA_CREATE_TOPICS: log-messages:1:1,connect-config:1:1:compact,connect-offset:1:1:compact,connect-status:1:1:compact
KAFKA_BROKER_ID: 1
KAFKA_LOG_DIRS: /logs
KAFKA_LOG4J_LOGGERS: "kafka.controller=INFO,kafka.producer.async.DefaultEventHandler=INFO,state.change.logger=INFO"
KAFKA_OFFSETS_TOPIC_REPLICATION_FACTOR: 1
KAFKA_REPLICA_FETCH_MAX_BYTES: 2048576
KAFKA_PRODUCER_MAX_REQUEST_SIZE: 2048576
KAFKA_CONSUMER_MAX_PARTITION_FETCH_BYTES: 2048576
depends_on:
- zookeeper-agile-node1
networks:
- agile-network
kafka_connect:
container_name: kafka_connect
build:
context: ./
dockerfile: Dockerfile-kafka-connect
depends_on:
- kafka-agile-node1
- elasticsearch-agile-one
links:
- kafka-agile-node1
- elasticsearch-agile-one
environment:
CONNECT_BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS: kafka-agile-node1:9092
CONNECT_GROUP_ID: 1
CONNECT_CONFIG_STORAGE_TOPIC: connect-config
CONNECT_OFFSET_STORAGE_TOPIC: connect-offset
CONNECT_STATUS_STORAGE_TOPIC: connect-status
CONNECT_CONFIG_STORAGE_REPLICATION_FACTOR: 1
CONNECT_OFFSET_STORAGE_REPLICATION_FACTOR: 1
CONNECT_STATUS_STORAGE_REPLICATION_FACTOR: 1
CONNECT_KEY_CONVERTER: org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
CONNECT_VALUE_CONVERTER: org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
CONNECT_KEY_CONVERTER_SCHEMAS_ENABLE: "false"
CONNECT_VALUE_CONVERTER_SCHEMAS_ENABLE: "false"
CONNECT_INTERNAL_KEY_CONVERTER: org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
CONNECT_INTERNAL_VALUE_CONVERTER: org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
CONNECT_REST_ADVERTISED_HOST_NAME: localhost
CONNECT_PLUGIN_PATH: "/usr/share/java,/opt/connectors"
networks:
- agile-network
kafka-connect-ui:
container_name: kafka-connect-ui
image: landoop/kafka-connect-ui:0.9.7
hostname: kafka-connect-ui
ports:
- "8003:8000"
environment:
CONNECT_URL: "http://kafka_connect:8083/"
PROXY: "true"
depends_on:
- kafka_connect
networks:
- agile-network
elasticsearch-agile-one:
image: docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:7.4.0
container_name: elasticsearch-agile-one
restart: always
environment:
- node.name=elasticsearch-agile-one
- cluster.name=docker-agile-cluster
- bootstrap.memory_lock=true
- http.cors.enabled=true
- http.cors.allow-origin=*
- discovery.seed_hosts=elasticsearch-agile-one
- cluster.initial_master_nodes=elasticsearch-agile-one
- cluster.routing.allocation.disk.threshold_enabled=false
- "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m"
ulimits:
nproc: 65535
memlock:
soft: -1
hard: -1
volumes:
- ../elasticsearch-data/elk-one/logs:/var/log
- ../elasticsearch-data/elk-one/data:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
networks:
- agile-network
ports:
- 9200:9200
- 9300:9300
kibana-agile:
image: 'docker.elastic.co/kibana/kibana:7.4.0'
container_name: kibana-agile
environment:
- ELASTICSEARCH_HOSTS=http://elasticsearch-agile-one:9200
ports:
- '5601:5601'
networks:
- agile-network
python-app-test:
container_name: python-app-test
build:
context: ./
dockerfile: Dockerfile-python-app-test.yaml
ports:
- "7500:611"
volumes:
- ./python-app-test/:/usr/src/app
- ../agilecx-data/logs/:/usr/src/logs
networks:
- agile-network
networks:
agile-network:
Before executing the composition file, we have to proceed to certain configurations, otherwise we will have errors.
To run the fluentd service referenced in our compose file, we need to create a Fluentd-accepted configuration file.
The Fluentd configuration file
Let’s create the fluentd folder in our source folder.
$ mkdir fluentd
Let’s create the conf folder in our fluentd folder.
$ cd fluentd
$ mkdir conf
$ cd conf
We create the file fluent.conf in the conf folder and paste this
# TCP input
<source>
@type forward
port 24224
</source>
<match *.**>
@type kafka2
# list of seed brokers
brokers kafka-agile-node1:9092
use_event_time true
# buffer settings
<buffer topic>
@type file
path /buffer/td
flush_interval 3s
</buffer>
# data type settings
<format>
@type json
</format>
# topic settings
topic_key topic
default_topic log-messages
# producer settings
required_acks -1
compression_codec gzip
</match>
Let’s take a closer look at the fluentd configuration file.
The directives
<source>
@type forward
port 24224
</source>
The source directives determine the input sources and the source plugin forward turns fluentd into a TCP endpoint to accept TCP packets through port 24224. So we receive log events from 24224/tcp
<match *.**>
</match>
The match directives determine the output destinations. We use a Kafka plugin called kafka2. The Kafka2 plugin is built for Fluentd. This plugin is responsible for sending logs events to Kafka every 3 seconds (flush_interval 3s). With the brokers tag, we have referenced our Kafka service name kafka-agile-node1:9092 added to our docker compose file. The Kafka topic name used is log-messages.
Fluentd documentation is quite detailed. I invite you to browse it.
The files used by the service kafka connect
Kafka Connect is an open source component of Kafka, is a framework for connecting Kafka with external systems such as databases, key-value stores, search indexes, and file systems.
Using Kafka Connect you can use existing connector implementations for common data sources and sinks to move data into and out of Kafka.
Here we are using Kafka connect to get logs from Kafka and automatically send these logs in ElasticSearch.
Create the folders connector_conf and connector_jars in the root source folder.
$ mkdir connector_conf
$ mkdir connector_jars
Copy and paste from Github the files of these two folders.
The python example application
We used Falcon framework to build an API. At each call of the API:
1- Logs are sent to Fluentd. Fluentd pluging Kafka2 send data in Kakfa.
2- Kafka Connector read Kafka topic “log-messages” and send logs in ElasticSearch.
Check the source code on Github for the python application.
Run the compose file
Run the docker-compose and wait until services started:
$ docker-compose -f docker-compose-dist-logging.yaml up --build --d
After all services created, check services running:
$ docker ps
You should see the following services unordered running:
python-app-test
fluentd-agile
zookeeper-agile-node1
kafka-agile-node1
kafka_connect
kafka-connect-ui
elasticsearch-agile-one
kibana-agile
At this step data are not sending yet. We need to activate Kafka source connector
Let’s start the Kafka connector plugin
We have 2 possibilities to start connector:
Using the command
Enter in the docker
$ docker exec -it kafka_connect bash
Inside the docker, add the the connector by running the following command :
You will see an output like the following. It means that your connector has been added :
You will see some sort of following output. it means that your connector has been added.
{
{
"name":"elasticsearch-sink",
"config":{"connector.class":"io.confluent.connect.elasticsearch.ElasticsearchSinkConnector",
"tasks.max":"1",
"topics":"log-messages",
"key.ignore":"true",
"schema.ignore":"true",
"connection.url":"http://elasticsearch-agile-one:9200",
"type.name":"kafka-connect",
"name":"elasticsearch-sink"
},
"tasks":[],
"type":null
}
2. Using the Kafka-connect UI
Open the browser and go on http://localhost:8003
Click on the button “New” to add new connector Choose ElasticSearch Connector and fill json like in the file connector_conf/connector_elasticsearch.json
{ "name":"elasticsearch-sink", "config":{ "connector.class":"io.confluent.connect.elasticsearch.ElasticsearchSinkConnector", "tasks.max":"1", "topics":"log-messages", "key.ignore":"true", "schema.ignore": "true", "connection.url": "http://elasticsearch-agile-one:9200", "type.name": "kafka-connect" }
Click on the button “create” when you finish.
Open your browser and go on http://localhost:8003. You should see the count of SINK CONNECTORS at 1. It means connectors has been added.
Data visualization with Kibana
Let’s check now with Kibana if the connector has created our indice in Elasticsearch.
Open your browser and go on http://localhost:5601/
Find “Management” menu and click on it . Under Elasticsearch section, click on “Index Management” and you should see your indice created with the name “log-messages” . To visualize data with Kibana, we should create an index pattern. So under Kibana section, click on “Index Patterns” and click on “Create index pattern”. Fill the index pattern name “log-messages*” and click on “next step” and finish . Indexpattern created now, go in the left menu and click on “Discover” link to already view some data after selecting the index “log-messages”.
Open your browser and go on http://localhost:7500/v1/organization and you will see the application output:
{"result": "Wow! !:)"}
Go on Kibana and refresh data to see your logs data there. Hit again http://localhost:7500/v1/organization and go to view changes in Kibana
Find the source code of this article on Github
Thanks for reading. You can add comments if necessary to leave your appreciation. I will take your comments into consideration to improve this post. | https://medium.com/@emmano3h/a-practical-streaming-data-infrastructure-case-with-fluentd-kafka-kafka-connect-elasticsearch-31609a149563 | ['Emmanuel Hodonou'] | 2019-11-20 13:54:14.440000+00:00 | ['Docker', 'Elasticsearch', 'Fluentd', 'Kafka', 'Kafka Connect'] |
Queer In Public: We Need To Talk About Street Harassment | This is not an uncommon experience among queer people and this is not a sustainable or acceptable solution.
In fact, it doesn’t help to conceptualise coping strategies as solutions at all; they merely hold one’s head above water, while simultaneously acting to further separate and isolate queer individuals from public spaces.
The only reason that this avoidant smoke screen of denial has been lifted from me is because of my recent experience as the target of an incessant harasser, who repeatedly approached me, becoming increasingly more threatening and aggressive. This has been an escalating situation, over the past six weeks, that I have reported to the police and even relocated city in order to avoid further encounters with this man.
“He wanted me to be afraid”
The first time he approached me he was just another street harasser, just another instance of verbal sexual harassment. The only reason I found it significant enough to mention to somebody was because of the unprecedented length of time he managed the illusion that describing his aggressive sexual desires at me would coax me into bed with him. There was such a sense of entitlement in him, to my time, my body. I had forgotten all about him by the next time I saw him, a month later.
It seemed that my previous rejection and threat of involving the police had left him angry.
His later approaches turned to aggressive intimidation, in attempts to re-assert his sense of dominance and power. He wanted me to be afraid and think that he was above consequence. Even after his third approach, when the police were called to remove him from my vicinity, he persisted to harass me further. Each time I was left increasingly shaken, afraid, and unable to let it just wash over me, like all those times before.
The repeated offences of this man somehow gave his actions a value that I had not given to the countless instances of previous harassment. This was just a more extreme and unavoidable form of the limits that my constant harassment was already putting of my freedoms and sense of safety within public spaces. It was incapacitating.
“This is an exhausting way to live.”
My sense of control was shattered. I began struggling to gather the mental resources to leave the house. Then, when I did, I was full of stress, anxiety, fear and irrational hostility towards others on the street. I avoided many parts of the city because they felt too unsafe. I was questioning all of my decisions, with potential dangers and ways to feel safe being my top priority. This is an exhausting way to live. Fear can infest your thoughts and become quite consuming. Staying in bed often seemed like the only way to feel safe and, since I was under no obligation to go into work under the circumstances, that is what I did.
To go back and consider the question I asked at the start: ‘Have you ever lived in a place where you did not feel safe?’. The eventual conclusion, in the case of individually targeted street harassment on the basis of non-conforming presentation, is that one’s own body becomes the place that feels unsafe, and this reality is so very damaging, life-limiting and shameful. | https://medium.com/th-ink/queer-in-public-we-need-to-talk-about-street-harassment-47173833c97b | ['Erin Hampson', 'They Them'] | 2018-09-10 13:07:36.847000+00:00 | ['Street Harassment', 'Queer', 'Feminism', 'LGBTQ', 'Sexism'] |
Rendering content in both Intercom and Slack | While building our new integration between Slack and Intercom — which lets you reply to leads and users from Slack — one of our first considerations was how to represent content from Intercom in Slack. This question would be core to the user experience for our integration: we needed to ensure that responding to Intercom conversations from Slack wasn’t a broken experience.
If you’re rendering content in Slack from another platform or vice versa you might be interested in reading how we solved the problem.
First, some context
Intercom is a customer communication platform that lets businesses talk to customers almost anywhere: on their website, in their app, on mobile and via email. Many businesses use Intercom’s messenger on their website so that leads and customers can chat with them — for example, if someone has questions about pricing or is experiencing a bug.
Our two-way Slack integration makes it easier for sales teams to quickly reply to those conversations directly from Slack, saving them switching between tools and allowing them to respond to leads faster and then chat, qualify and close deals from the app they already have open all day.
The integration routes those conversations to user-specified Slack channels as notifications, from which the user can then reply. Clicking the Reply in Slack button creates a new Slack channel for the responder to chat with a lead directly, with everything syncing seamlessly between Slack and Intercom.
The challenge of rendering
In order to ensure the experience of responding to Intercom conversations from Slack felt natural and smooth, we had to find an elegant solution for rendering content between our concept of “conversations” in Intercom and the concept of “channels” in Slack.
For example, if a customer attaches a file in a conversation from the Intercom messenger, it needs to be accessible and rendered correctly for the Slack user who is replying to the conversation within a channel. The same goes for emojis, links, GIFs and so on. This meant we needed to carefully map how we’d transform Intercom’s conversation content to a Slack channel, and vice versa.
We built the integration using Intercom’s APIs and webhooks as a way to dogfood our own platform — our conversations content is in HTML. Some of the questions we needed to answer were:
Does Slack support HTML?
Is Slack markdown standard?
How are emojis, links and permalinks represented in Slack?
How would rendering media work?
How are files represented on Slack, and are they always private?
Are there best practices for message appearance in Slack?
Think big, start small
In Intercom, we tend to think big and start small. When we set to answer these questions, we thought of the holistic solution, and then started on the first “cupcake” solution.
Our prototyping version was a simple renderer class, that took content from Intercom, parsed the HTML document, applied some logic, and generated a Slack message with attachments, buttons and fields.
This solution was a good proof of concept and worked within the boundaries of a prototype, but we knew it wouldn’t scale well with the considerable amount of content types we see in Intercom. So, we set out to build a flexible, extensible, and testable pipeline that would work for our Slack integration, and other integrations in the future.
Going back to basics, we found that a combination of chain of responsibility and decorator patterns could scale here.
Building the pipeline
In Intercom, we have “Conversations” which contain “Conversation Parts” (the individual messages within a threaded Intercom conversation). Each conversation part has a type, like a status such as Open, Close, Assign, User Reply, Teammate Reply, etc. Text can be formatted, articles can be inserted, and conversation parts can be both chat messages or emails sent to Intercom’s inbox.
Each of these Conversation Parts has an author and body (and sometimes a subject). The integration posts these parts in a Slack channel, sometimes as part of a conversation and sometimes just as a notification.
We defined four concepts to serve as the foundation of the rendering pipeline:
Renderer: receives a context object, and calls the matching Renderable Context: a container that contains objects a Renderable would need to render Renderable: renders, builds and produces a Slack API-compatible message Transformation: a transformation applies certain logic to parse and output Slack-compatible content
A Renderer can select and choose a Renderable based on the Context provided, in which the Renderable in turn applies one or more Transformation(s).
For example, a Note in Intercom (which is essentially an internal-only note in a conversation that is only visible to you and your teammates, and not your customer), will use the “PartRenderer” class, which will create a Note object and then call its render method. A simplified version could look like:
This is how a Note part looks like in Slack after the rendering:
The Note part handles its own rendering providing that it has the suitable “Context” passed to it. The “Context” could contain, the conversation part, author, body, assignee, etc.
Every part in principle goes through this cycle:
Receive “Context” Parse HTML body provided (using Nokogiri) Run a series of defined transformations Build and return a Slack message with attachments
A quick look at the Note part skeleton could look like:
The Note part (and other parts) don’t have to redefine most of the rendering logic as it is common between many part types. Instead, the Reply class (base class) can do that job.
Five tips to make rendering easier
Whilst building this pipeline, we learnt some tips and tricks that might be useful if you need to consider rendering in your own integration:
1. Slack Markdown has some differences to standard Markdown. For example, a bold would be single asterisk, instead of double. We wrote a transformation for content format — a simplistic version using Nokogiri to replace headers with bold text could look like:
2. Slack shared files are by default private, though an attachment file needs to be accessible to Intercom’s end user when it is shared in a Slack channel that is mapped to an Intercom conversation. A little trick helped by using the files.sharedPublicURL method.
3. Images (or gifs) can be shared in Intercom’s messenger, and we wanted to make sure these images could be easily previewed in Slack. We used the image_url attribute in a Slack message attachment:
4. The chat.update method is useful for ensuring that the message posted on Slack is always update to date and with relevant context, and the Slack message fallback attribute was also helpful for ensuring Slack notifications have the right content.
5. We found the slack-markdown Ruby gem useful to render markdown content from Slack to Intercom, and we extended it with a couple of extra transformations too.
Extending slack-markdown gem Processor class and adding more filters:
In the end, we ended up with a successful integration that renders content seamlessly between Intercom and Slack. | https://medium.com/slack-developer-blog/rendering-content-in-both-intercom-and-slack-c3a880e5feb0 | ['Tarek Khalil'] | 2018-02-07 19:09:42.981000+00:00 | ['Slack', 'API', 'Intercom', 'Developer Stories', 'Software Development'] |
What Is a Good Read Ratio on Medium? | What Is a Good Read Ratio on Medium?
And why a high read ratio can be a bad thing
Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash
A good Medium read ratio is generally between 20 and 50%.
It depends, though, on the length of your article and the audience you’re trying to engage. Very short articles (3 minutes or less) tend to have a higher read ratio, because it takes less time for a reader to complete the article.
Likewise, long articles tend to have lower read ratios — but not always. I have a 23 minute article that still has a 30% read ratio because its content is very engaging. But in general, if your article takes longer to read, it will tend to have a lower ratio. Seven minutes is usually the sweet spot in terms of article length to get an optimal read ratio.
If your read ratio is too high, that can indicate a problem, too. If everyone finishes reading your piece, that can be an indication that it was too short. Readers may be left wanting more, and you may have had the opportunity to go into more detail on a specific topic.
If you write a 5–8 minute piece and it has a very high read ratio, congratulate yourself on writing something really engaging, but also immediately start to think of follow-ups.
Can you write another article (or several) building on the same topic, or exploring aspects of it in more depth? If people loved your shorter article about the topic and were really engaged, it’s likely that they’ll want to engage with your follow-up pieces too.
If your ratio is really low, there can be reasons for that, too — so don’t immediately despair. It could be that your article is getting a lot of traffic from external sources (Flipboard, social media, etc.) and these readers (who often aren’t Medium members) tend to spend less time reading stories on average. Over time, it’s likely that your ratio will increase as more members read your piece.
Also keep in mind that read ratio is a lagging number. It’s only updated periodically, and Medium waits a while before assuming that a reader has stopped reading an article. So for newly published pieces, your read ratio might appear very low at first, but over time it will go up as more people who are in the middle of reading the piece finish it, and as Medium updates the numbers.
Here are some more tips on improving read ratio and other Medium metrics: This Formula Determines Your Medium Earnings — Thrive on Medium | https://medium.com/swlh/what-is-a-good-read-ratio-on-medium-ee63d2f6fd9e | ['Thomas Smith'] | 2020-11-22 20:59:46.294000+00:00 | ['Passive Income', 'Read Ratio', 'Medium', 'Metrics', 'Writing'] |
How Retailers Thrive Moving Their ERP to Cloud? | Retailers these days are mounted with the pressure of providing excellent products / Services while satisfying customers at the same time. COVID 19 has contributed the most to this mindset. Where people were restricted to their homes, retailers had to upgrade their services in order to reach their customers and survive. Unfortunately, some of them could not take the load and shut down, however, those who innovated and implemented technologies like Microsoft ERP Implementation are immune to the crisis.
However, technology consequently advanced to deal with the same. With powerful tools and intelligent AI-based technology, this seems possible. As soon as a retailer starts using the cloud, his entire team can access the real-time data whenever they need it, enabling every employee to take steps right when they are needed. In addition, moving your ERP to the cloud can deliver the following benefits to a retail business:
Complete security
Reliable and unified real-time data
Cost and Time Efficiency
Helps keep up with trends
Adds intelligence to the business
Scalability
Provides Security
As soon as you move your ERP to the cloud, you no longer have to fuss about a security breach. The entire responsibility shifts from the in-house system to the cloud service provider. Be it data legislation, security protocols, privacy requirements, or preventing the latest threats: each one of these is the provider’s responsibility. Therefore, even if there is a malware attack, you do not have to run and turn on the (figurative) fires in the middle of midnight. Microsoft experts will handle your problems anytime, anywhere.
Provides Real-Time and Unified Data
When you move your ERP to the cloud like Dynamics ERP Implementation, you and your team can easily access real-time data (in the shape of reports, dashboards, charts, etc.) and make more logical and quicker decisions. Having a unified AI-based platform like the one Microsoft offers, you can get intuitive reports extracted from big data. Various retailers struggle with inventory management and do not even realize how much it drains their money. Being backed up with live data, retailers can manage their assets more effectively.
Cuts Time and Costs Bot
As compared to on-premise IT infrastructure, Cloud infrastructure is much more reliable and cost-efficient. On-Premise IT needs assembly, testing, implementation followed by other costly development stages. Since every piece of data is stored in-house, ruptured hardware needs to be replaced as soon as possible. However, it is a lot simpler in the case of the cloud: there is no dedicated server at work which greatly reduces the implementation costs.
Keeps Up with the Current Trends
Traditional IT environments can take months to add new functionality. Meanwhile, businesses might lose some great opportunities due to this delay. Competitiveness depends a lot upon the effectiveness and efficiency of a business to grasp trends and make valuable decisions. Having the cloud at your service, you can enable yourself to use some power apps to keep you intact with the current trends. To stay at the top of the competition, you must understand customer behavior, spending pattern, and preferences.
Adds Intelligence to Business
One of the greatest benefits of using the cloud is that businesses can benefit themselves with advanced computational power. They can leverage the potency of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning-powered technology. This way, they get valuable insights into their business, make more logical decisions, improve productivity, and increase competitiveness. Applications like Power BI extract big data into insightful reports, these reports can essentially help understand every customer contacting your business, if combined with AI, it can even provide valuable market insights. These facilities are easily available with the cloud.
Scales with Your Business
Cloud-based ERP is the ideal choice for rapidly scaling businesses. It might take months to set your on-premise ERP for your growing business, also, it is a pretty costly affair. Many retailers will not prefer to shift from their on-premise system as long as it “works.” Little do they realize how it slows down your growth. If you want to expand your boundaries outside of your country, think about how much investment will it demand? The best way out is to upgrade your ERP to the cloud.
Time grows, and so does your business. It is time to embrace cloud-based ERP like Microsoft D365. If you are looking for an implementation partner, you can contact Trident Information Systems.
We are one of the best ERP software provider in India. | https://medium.com/@tridentwebs/how-retailers-thrive-moving-their-erp-to-cloud-c1e1ed5e7372 | ['Trident Information Systems Pvt Ltd'] | 2021-12-16 11:11:07.313000+00:00 | ['CRM', 'Erp Software', 'Crm Software', 'Dynamics 365', 'Erp'] |
Designing a post-covid world | Designing a post-covid world
My digital journal where I’m collecting snippets and inspiration from news, government resources, artists and design interventions
It’s week two of classes. And project briefs have been announced. Some of the projects are independent work, while some are group. But all centre on how design and systems thinking can create innovations for a post-COVID world.
The current pandemic has exposed and surfaced all the broken aspects of our social, economic, political and cultural systems. And as students of strategic foresight and innovation, we get to reimagine and co-create ways these systems can evolve equitably and sustainably. Using the pandemic as a lens is a requirement in most project briefs. Even if this were not a requirement, it would be an inescapable reality to work with.
For the Business and Design Thinking course, the first project feeds into the second and final projects. We are creating a social impact initiative that addresses the needs of vulnerable urban communities impacted by covid-19. And in prep for this our first assignment relates to the first step of the design process — problem finding.
I’ll be working independently to map out stakeholders and analyze their influence and interconnections related to a topic. I have zeroed in on the topic of supporting the transition and grieving process of people who have lost loved ones during the pandemic. I’m trying to explore how design can ameliorate the process of grief that loved ones go through, particularly in the light of the pandemic. There are different complexities at play here: limited access to community and shared experience of grieving, inability to travel to see your loved ones, absence of cultural rituals, constant media bombardment with pandemic news, little attention paid to digital death on social media, etc.
For the Innovation Research Methods course, I am partnering with a classmate to research the topic of workplace culture in a distributed setting focusing equity and inclusion. We will be handling this topic throughout the course, implementing research methods as we go along.
For the better part of the weekend I was trying to find the most perfect idea to move forward with for both my assignments. But no amount of detailed conversation or research was getting me closer to it. This morning, I listed out all the ideas on an app I use called Journal and began gathering snippets, news and articles on each area. While doing that a couple of topics organically seemed to jump out as more relevant and aligned with my interests. I wish I had a more sophisticated decision-making process, but I decided not to be super precious about these and to just go with the flow.
More updates on my projects and process in the coming posts. Stay tuned! | https://medium.com/mdes-strategic-foresight-innovation/designing-a-post-covid-world-a2014abd9f58 | ['Puja Prakash'] | 2020-09-22 00:19:25.428000+00:00 | ['Systems Thinking', 'Coronavirus', 'Covid 19', 'Grief And Loss', 'Design Thinking'] |
Why I Write Poetry | Poetry has always been this lofty, obscure thing taught in English classes. It was prim and proper, with every line etched in parchment teeming with iambic pentametre and hidden meaning. Despite its elegance, it is often still perceived as contrived, forced, and pointless.
Shakespeare went over a lot of our heads in high school, centuries-old poetry didn’t connect with us the way it could have, and aged literature has left us with a bad taste in our mouths. We have over-analyzed, examined, quoted, underlined, and reflected on the musings of old men and women we felt no kinship with. We were asked to find examples of enjambment, sibilance, and onomatopoeia, all for the sake of a passing grade and a faux understanding of poetry and the English language.
When I was a young lad in grade school, I greatly despised poetry (‘hate’ is too strong a word). Needing to analyze the words of these proclaimed geniuses and reverse engineer their beauty seemed unnecessary, counterintuitive, and quite the hassle. It was poetry, didn’t it need to be felt? Regardless, we broke down their words until they were no longer beautiful to us. I memorized every instance of assonance, alliteration, and imagery, and aced my exams, but I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I don’t blame modern education. I was young. I didn’t understand and I didn’t want to. I was bored out of my mind, uncomfortable in my pubescent body, and filled to the brim with teenage angst that could only be quelled by stories that were unironically edgy.
I grew up, had a few experiences, and continued to feel disillusioned during English class. Everything seemed like it would stay the same, but then I met a man named Rudyard Kipling through a poem he wrote. I finally felt the kinship I’d craved all along in literature. I felt like his words had reverberated throughout history just to meet me in my high school English class. I thanked them for traveling that far and that long just to meet little ol’ me.
“If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;”
I felt the gentle yet firm hand of a father on my shoulder, and then I understood the power of words and poetry. I would continue to discover other kinds of poetry. I stumbled upon prose and spoken word. I was invited to Open Mic events. I fell deeper in love with Hip-Hop and the stories these modern-day bards were telling. I felt inspired. I began to put pen to paper and I created magic. I began to express things I’d been feeling my whole life. I began creating, publishing, and performing. I felt free. This is why I write.
Poetry can reflect the stories of great sacrifice and triumph, ground overexaggerated ideals of love and romance, and allow us to share our own stories.
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
I write because I am afraid.
I write because in my words I am 7-metres tall, and in real life, I feel like my shoulders are 7-centimeters above the ground.
I write because words are my way of reaching for the stars I’ve always felt so unworthy to even look at.
I write because words help me embody the bravery I wish I hadn’t given away every time I was silent.
I write because I am in love with vulnerability, I am smitten with honesty, I am captivated by truth and I am attracted to self-expression.
I write because it makes me feel special to make someone else feel special.
I write because for so long I’ve felt like nothing, and I don’t want anyone else to feel that way.
I want to build up and not break down.
I want to showcase love at its truest by expressing pain at its fullest.
I want to be honest with myself and others, and writing helps me do just that.
Every now and then I fall into a pit of despair and I struggle to climb out of my own depression, but writing helps me find hope.
Spinning tall tales of protagonists overcoming antagonists. Whether it be The Joker, General Zodd, Bane, Cancer, Heartbreak or Depression, I am an advocate for Love and a mascot for Hope. Whether my protagonists be in verse or be in paragraphs among paragraphs that fill pages among pages, one thing remains:
My writing is just an extended metaphor extrapolating all the reasons why this life is worth living.
I write because words help remind me that I am stronger than I think I am. Poetry helps remind me that vulnerability is not a weakness and that being honest with yourself is true strength.
I write to feed my anorexic soul.
The problem is and has always been the heart, and these words help fix it.
The thing with poetry is that it demands you be honest. Often times true honesty means facing loss, heartbreak, rejection, and all manners of pain head-on. It means we need to look inside of ourselves and write down the things we are most afraid of sharing; the thoughts and feelings that hurt us, the deep dark fears that scare us, and those memories that haunt us. It means we need to examine the wounds that are still raw and the parts of ourselves we aren’t ready to talk about.
What makes a man strong is not his ability to shove his emotions down his throat until they harden his heart. What makes a man strong is when he can reach down and rip out his pain, face it, and deal with it. This includes all the people he’s hurt as well as the people who’ve hurt him.
I write because it helps me redefine bravery and courage.
I write because I am redesigning myself while not hiding from the parts of me I am most ashamed of.
Vulnerability never gets easy, like I imagine one never gets used to posing nude for art.
Imagine walking down the street knowing everyone who turns to look at you only noticed you because they remembered seeing your naked body laid out across a canvas. It’s the same with poetry, except our canvas is a space between mouth and ear that we call silence.
Imagine everyone seeing you for who you are. Imagine everyone knowing.
My question is:
Why would that be a bad thing?
Being vulnerable helps free others to do the same.
Being free helps free others to do the same.
We’ve got it all wrong! True power comes only when we relinquish our lust for it.
True acceptance comes when you face it and realize that you don’t need it.
I write because I am afraid…
Afraid that my words just might change this world for the better.
Afraid that I might become who I’ve always wanted to be, and so all of my excuses for being average would have been for nothing.
I write because I am afraid that maybe — just maybe — changing the world is easier than I thought it was.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Poetry has given us the words of phenomenal women, the stories of new men, and the perspectives of young souls as they look up at the generation before them. With that said, I will continue to admire the calculated and academic approach to poetic analysis. It can be very exciting to understand the artists before us, the stories they wrote, and why they wrote them. It is important to think and meditate on these words, while still seeing the trees. Let us continue to think, but not make thoughts our aim. I am glad that this is happening. I am glad that poetry is making a comeback.
Here are some words from Julius Caesar, written by the bard himself:
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the power of speech, to stir men’s blood. I only speak right on. I tell you that which you yourselves do know.
So, go ahead. Try it. It doesn’t need to be a sonnet, a haiku or some philosophical deconstruction of the state of 21st Century politics and race dynamics — but it can if you want it to. Be funny, be in awe of the places you’ve been, but above all be honest. Grab a notebook, a word document, and write something. Write something honest, something true. Express yourself the way you want to. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/why-i-write-poetry-810029fb59a2 | ['S.C. November'] | 2020-10-09 04:37:33.769000+00:00 | ['Schools', 'Reading', 'Shakespeare', 'Poetry', 'Creative'] |
What the Death of Two Friends Taught Me About Turning 27 | What the Death of Two Friends Taught Me About Turning 27
Turning age anxiety into opportunity
Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash
This year I turned 27.
Something definitely feels different about this age.
I feel more mature, some things are getting clearer, but the demands of life can no longer be ignored with youthful naivety. Regrets of what should have or might have been have begun to creep in. I feel the potential in me that has yet to be expressed burning in my soul, forcing me to act. Procrastination has become more painful than the anxiety of taking action.
It’s daunting. It’s a battlefield of facing the things in life that you thought you could put off until ‘later’. I’ve found that the frustration that comes from a lack of clarity is replaced by the weight of the tasks you know you must do as you further unfold yourself.
The age of 27 is a rite of passage
The curse of 27 is not an unheard of phenomenon by any stretch. Most notably there is a clear pattern of celebrity deaths at age 27 from the intensity of this period, forever solidifying their membership of 27 club.
Furthermore, in this interview Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson discuss that 27 is often the transition period where one must grow out of the Puer Aeternus or Peter Pan Syndrome — the eternal child. According to astrology, around this age and above it is expected that people go through their Saturn return, which follows the same theme of transitioning into full adulthood. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/what-the-death-of-two-friends-taught-me-about-turning-27-178b5ae9d32e | ['Joshua Press'] | 2020-06-26 05:21:11.104000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Death', 'Self Improvement', 'Motivation', 'Life'] |
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