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ROS¹ on Raspberry PI with docker: Running ROS as remote node in docker | This is the third story of the 3-part series: ROS on Raspberry PI. I have divided the topic in 3 parts as below:
Getting started
Custom Dockerfile and Picamera.
Running ROS as remote node in docker (This story)
Dockerfile:
Create a dockerfile using ROS image as base image.
The docker container get the hostname during boot time and it can not be changed later. Use -h option to provide the hostname. If you are planning to connect to the docker container from outside (e.g. remote ROS node) then one of the workaround is to use same hostname as host.
docker run -h raspberrypi -d -p 22:22 -p 45100:45100 -p 45101:45101 -P --name test_sshd hrushikeshd/picar:latest
Create Workspace:
mkdir -p catkin_ws/src
cd catkin_ws
catkin_make
Create your package in the src folder
source devel/setup.sh
Start ROSCORE on RPI. Add ROS_MASTER_URI environment var on docker
You are now ready to talk to ROS on rpi. | https://medium.com/@hrushi-deshmukh/ros-on-raspberry-pi-running-ros-as-remote-node-in-docker-e2ca3c14f52c | [] | 2020-11-30 20:12:47.752000+00:00 | ['Raspberry Pi', 'Docker', 'Ros2', 'Ros', 'Rosnode'] |
Shifting Dynamics 0.1: The Social Network | Red Carpet
First off, welcome. This is the first part of my mini-blog series and I am extremely excited about writing this whole series, but especially this one. I hope you are as excited to read about it as well.
Like I mentioned in my previous blog, this series will be exploring some new personal truths that I have come to believe in more and more during this time of the pandemic. Whether you agree or disagree with them, I want you to take this opportunity to examine the points I bring up and use it as a spark to ignite a newfound willingness to look at things from a different perspective.
I realized that the most important aspect I rely on in my day to day activities is social interaction. Whether it’s my personal life or work life, social interactions play a big part in both. So, normally, the first thing I started to think about during this spare time, is just that. Here were my thoughts on it.
Humans Are Social By Nature
I have always heard the statement “Humans are social animals”. It’s always been an expression that eluded me and I was never able to fully understand it. So I looked into exactly what this expression means and whether or not I think it applies to our current world.
When I looked more into it, I finally came to a conclusion for my unified definition of the term. My understanding of humans being social animals is as follows:
Human’s survival depends on other‘s lives. Not only do we live amongst humans, but we also live through them. Through their experiences, through their ups, their downs, but most importantly, through their emotions
With that definition in mind, I had no doubt that we are in fact social animals. Whatever happens around us, we always find a way to revert back to our instinctual social nature, even if it is for the mere fact of continuing to live vicariously through others. I mention all this for the sole reason of establishing solid ground for what’s to come next, the essence, and quite frankly, the reason for this entire series, the Revelations.
Revelations
The truth of the matter is, that even tho we are social animals by nature, we were kept apart. But we were kept apart by life, even before being kept apart by this pandemic. I took a second to look back at my life and realized the number of distractions it has thrown my way that has hindered me from reaching my full social potential.
I recalled times where I would miss going out to watch the sunset with friends, just to finish an inconsequential college assignment. Other times I would miss a late night by a bonfire, just because I had to wake up early for practice the next day. In a nutshell, I prioritized tangible achievements and instant gratitude, over permanent, long-lasting Kodak moments. Don’t get me wrong, aspects like sports and studying have been a defining pillar for where I am today. But to what extent should we uphold them at the cost of slowly losing human interactions?
With all of this in mind, I looked at the previous months. Even though at first I began to think that this would only mean less social interactions, I was proven completely wrong. Because we were put in a position where we felt the need to overcompensate the distance apart, so we improvised. Game nights started happening over websites, nights out were turned into late-night skype calls filled with the same shenanigans we would usually talk about when we all would meet each other, even people who have not talked for years started to re-connect for the sole purpose of making sure they are doing well and staying safe.
So if everything seems to be the same, what difference has it made? The small difference, the only difference is, we weren’t thinking about “other” stuff. We were not thinking about what train we would take back home. We were not thinking whether or not we were going to find a table at the restaurant we were going to. We were just thinking about the moments spent together. The now. But what about the moments we didn’t spend interacting with each other?
In the moments where we were not connected, minor things we used to think about were replaced with other more important things. Important things that are… human. Some people started to pick up a passion project that they have been putting aside for a while. Other people started reading more about things they have always wanted to learn about. For some, this pandemic became a pivotal moment in their life that enabled them to help others in living an equally just and comfortable life.
We grew stronger, we became more aware, and as humans, we got closer than we ever were when we used to see each other face to face.
What Does the Future Hold?
We stay the same. We have seen the amount of social potential that we can achieve. Not just that, we have also witnessed incredible moments of humans supporting humans, uplifting them, and having their back. Let’s not go back to the way things were, where we were consumed by all of life’s distractions. Imagine the possibilities of a world where we prioritize social interactions, but this time around, we can actually see each other face to face. Endless.
So, go watch that sunset with your buddies. Go to that barbeque with your colleagues. Go out with your friend that you haven’t seen in a long time. Learn to play that violin. Pick up your passion project. Whatever you do, let’s start putting people first. So, take a step back, make some memories, connect with people on a human level, because at the end of the day you can always catch the next train, but you can never re-live a moment in time.
The Final Twenty
So, the long-awaited final twenty. What is it? The final twenty is my way of wrapping everything up in exactly twenty words. It started off as a challenge I made to myself to be able to write an article that could be summarised in only twenty words. It means that I was able to revolve my entire article around one singular theme. So, without further ado, The Social Networks Final Twenty: | https://medium.com/sh-squared-productions/shifting-dynamics-0-1-the-social-network-cf30184a2b7 | ['Sherief Shahin'] | 2020-06-11 08:55:01.209000+00:00 | ['People', 'Social', 'Lifestyle'] |
Deadly Date Leaves Woman in Pieces | Dating has always been hard on the heart, but this case will show you just how deadly it sometimes ends.
Ingrid Maree Lyne | via Scallywag and Vagabond
The Victim
Ingrid Maree Lyne, 40, was a nurse who lived in Renton, Washington, with her three daughters that she shared custody with her ex-husband.
In 2016, two years after her divorce, Ingrid was looking for a relationship. Like so many others, she turned to online dating to try and find a match. Unfortunately, there is no box predators have to check to show the world who they really are.
In March, Ingrid and John Robert Charlton, 37, found each other online and seemed to hit it off. Soon after meeting in real life, they started to date. The first month of their relationship seemed promising.
Even if the rest of Charlton’s life didn’t appear to be working out for him, at that time in 2016, he was a homeless day labor that seemed not to be able to get on his feet. He had an extensive criminal history, including charges for assault, larceny, aggravated robbery, grand theft auto, and felony theft.
John Charlton and Ingrid Lyne | via New York Post
The Last Date
On Friday, April 8, 2016, Ingrid and Charlton attended a Seattle Mariners baseball game together.
The next day her ex-husband drove to Ingrid’s house to drop off their children, as they had stayed with him the night before. As he pulled up to the house, he noticed Ingrid’s car wasn’t parked outside. He called her mobile, but he got no answer.
When Ingrid didn’t answer the door, her ex-husband called Ingrid’s mother to see if she knew where her daughter was. She didn’t. But she did have keys to Ingrid’s home, so she drove over and let him and the girls inside.
They didn’t find Ingrid. Instead, they found her purse, wallet, and mobile phone. All things Ingrid would never have left behind when going out.
Knowing that Ingrid went on a date with John Charlton the night before, her mother used Ingrid’s mobile to text him. John Charlton: I thought she was with her kids today? Ingrid’s Mother: When did you see her last? Ingrid’s Mother: She’s not here, her phone is here and driver’s license and purse but she’s not, please respond, I’ve called 911. John Charlton: 911? John Charlton: What’s going on? We went to the Mariners game last night, but we didn’t stay the night together because she has her kids today . . . not sure what she had told you about me and our relationship. Ingrid’s Mother: She’s missing. What time did you see her last. A police officer needs to speak to you as you may be the last person who saw her. Ingrid’s Mother: Please John, did Ingrid say anything about someone coming to see her after you separated from her last night. Ingrid’s Mother: We can’t find her or her car. As I said her phone and ID and purse are at her house but she and her car are gone without a trace. Any help would be appreciated. We are desperate. She would never just go off and leave her family. John Charlton did not further respond to Ingrid’s mother after mentioning the police needed to speak to him.
Ingrid Lyne’s Home | via Daily Mail
Missing Persons Case Quickly Turns to Foul Play
When the police searched the house, they found blood, and human tissue in the bathroom, along with a 15-inch pruning saw. Even more unsettling was a partial roll of garbage bags.
When asked, relatives quickly were able to tell the investigators that Ingrid did not keep the saw in the bathroom.
Police and Investigators searching recycling bins for body parts | via The Seattle Times
An Unfortunate Discovery Across Town
A call to the police came in on April 9, claiming to have found human remains in a recycling bin.
“It was just three bags, in the bottom of that bin, that were incredibly heavy and weren’t supposed to be there,” Mike Novasion tells reporters.
“I grabbed the first bag and it was so almost professionally packaged that it was eerie. [I] could see, as I pulled it out, what was the outline of a face.”
Novasion had found the remains in his recycling bin that sat outside of his house in Seattle, nearly 10 miles away from Ingrid’s home.
Eventually, more dismembered body parts would be located in two other recycling areas. It appears that Charlton had packaged her pieces individually, then dropped them off around town in various recycling bins and containers.
All of the body parts were placed in identical trash bags that matched the type found in Ingrid’s house.
Mourners gathered for a memorial for Ingrid Lyne | via The Washington Post
Family Statement
“This weekend, a light went out of our lives forever,” Ingrid’s family released a statement. “Ingrid, beloved mother, daughter, sister, and friend, was taken from us for reasons we still cannot comprehend. Our hearts are broken and can never be fully mended.”
John Robert Charlton mugshot | via Idaho State Journal
Arrest
On April 13, Charlton was charged with first-degree murder. He had been arrested two days before at a former girlfriend’s house in Lake Stevens. He has also been accused of theft of a motor vehicle after Ingrid’s car was found in downtown Seattle.
Charlton told investigators that he had drank to the point of blacking out the night he and Ingrid went to the baseball game. He initially claimed that all he remembered was waking up on a sidewalk in Seattle, unsure how he ended up there.
At the time of his arrest, he had numerous wounds that looked like someone had fought him off. His chest, hand, and forehead had deep scratches as if made by fingernails. He also had bruising to his face.
John Robert Charlton in court | via The Seattle Times
Court Documents | https://medium.com/true-crime-addiction/deadly-date-leaves-woman-in-pieces-71f213a1b0e2 | ['Lisa Marie Fuqua'] | 2020-11-10 01:57:18.523000+00:00 | ['True Crime', 'Relationships Love Dating', 'Online Dating', 'Justice', 'Culture'] |
Visualize Programming Language Popularity using tiobeindexpy | Even though, most of us would be coding in one primary programming language, it is always good to keep an eye on the shift that happens in the world of programming. TIOBE is an organization that has created an index for programming languages and tracks the change of that index, every month.
In this post, We will use tiobeindexpy Python package to visualize programming language popularity so that can serve as a small tracker for us to revisit every month.
About the package:
tiobeindexpy is a Python package (available on PyPi) that gives us TIOBE Index extract from the official website.
Installation:
The stable version of tiobeindexpy can be installed using pip .
pip install tiobeindexpy
If you have got Python3, Please make sure to use pip3 install tiobeindexpy to avoid any conflicts.
Objective
There are three things we’d try to have achieved at the end of the exercise.
What are the top 20 popular programming languages (as of the month of Feb 2019)
Who are the top 5 gainers (Feb 2018 vs Feb 2019 — Out of the ones present in current Top 20)
Who are the top 5 losers (Feb 2018 vs Feb 2019 — Out of the ones present in current Top 20)
Loading Libraries
As its typical of a decent coding style, Let us start with loading the required libraries.
from tiobeindexpy import tiobeindexpy as tbpy
import seaborn as sns
It has to be noted that once the library is loaded, tiobeindexpy downloads required data from TIOBE index website. Hence all other subsequent functions would just take that data and would not make an actual server call.
Plot Size and Theme
I’d also prefer to set up the Plot size and its theme at the start — which would make it easier if anyone wants to play with this parameters without looking deep into the code.
sns.set(style = "whitegrid")
sns.set(rc={'figure.figsize':(11.7,8.27)})
The Top 20
To start with, We’ll use the function top_20() from tiobeindexpy to extract the top 20 programming languages based on TIOBE Index Ratings.
top_20 = tbpy.top_20()
Before we move on to visualize the data, Let us just try to verify if the data is actually available by printing it.
top_20
As you can see from the above output, It’s evident that the Python object top_20 is a Pandas dataframe and it is actually for the month of Mar 2019. You might also notice the % symbol next to the numeric values in Ratings and Change.1 column — which also means, these columns must be string in the extracted dataframe, hence need to be prepossessed.
Data Preprocessing
In this step, We’ll strip (remove) the % symbol from those two above mentioned columns and we’ll type cast them to floating point fields.
top_20['Ratings'] = top_20.loc[:,'Ratings'].apply(lambda x: float(x.strip("%"))) top_20['Change.1'] = top_20.loc[:,'Change.1'].apply(lambda x: float(x.strip("%")))
Beginning Data Visualization
As we’ve got our data preprocessed, we’re now ready to start visualizing the programming languages rankings.
Top 20 Programming Languages
We can start with a very simple bar plot of the Rankings of Top 20 Languages (based on their TIOBE Index Ratings)
sns.barplot('Ratings', 'Programming Language', data = top_20).set_title('Mar 2019 - Programming Popularity')
Java, C, Python — are the top 3 languages based on TIOBE Index. The Ratings difference between Java and Python seems humongous leaving me wondering to look into TIOBE Index methodology for clarity.
Between 2018 and 2019
There’s a lot has changed in the world — especially in technology between 2018 and 2019 so let’s try to see how the difference in a year looks like:
Top 5 Gainers
sns.barplot('Programming Language', 'Change.1',
data = top_20.sort_values("Change.1",ascending = False)[0:5]).set_title('Mar 2018 vs 2019 - Language Popularity - Biggest Gainers from Top 20')
Python has been the leader with taking the biggest leap forward followed by VB.NET and C++.
Top 5 Losers
sns.barplot('Change.1', 'Programming Language',
data = top_20.sort_values("Change.1",ascending = True)[0:5]).set_title('Mar 2018 vs 2019 - Language Popularity - Biggest Losers from Top 20')
C#, PHP, Ruby — have been the leaderboard toppers in terms of the percentage of change (negative).
So far, this has given us a good monthly picture and how the popularity of programming languages are changing.
Hall of Fame — last 15 years
Let’s abstract up and try to see what are the programming language that are Hall of Fame winners each year.
We can simply use tiobeindexpy ‘s function hall_of_fame() to extract the Hall of Fame data.
hof = tbpy.hall_of_fame()
A slightly formatted table of the above output.
hof.style.set_properties(**{'background-color': 'black',
'color': 'lawngreen',
'border-color': 'white'})
This data shows, how time and time again, Python picks up when a new trend comes in and this way, how it has become one of the most appearing entries in the hall of fame.
Summary
In this post, we’ve seen how to use the python packages tiobeindexpy and seaborn for visualizing programming language popularity (rankings) based on its TIOBE index.
References | https://towardsdatascience.com/visualize-programming-language-popularity-using-tiobeindexpy-f82c5a96400d | ['Abdulmajedraja Rs'] | 2019-03-06 12:52:30.706000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Coding', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
Trump’s mistake on the census citizenship question | By Paul Morse — White House photo by Paul Morsehttps://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/09/images/20050905_p090505pm-0066jpg-515h.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=589065
John Roberts points to a cynical path
The response of many Supreme Court watchers when the Court handed down two extremely political decisions was that Chief Justice John Roberts was successfully threading the needle. With his decisions in a gerrymandering case and the census citizenship question case, Roberts made nobody happy, but appeared to solidify his position regarding the Supreme Courts apolitical nature.
In the case of Rucho v. Common Cause, the Court held in an opinion authored by the Chief Justice that when states draw Congressional districts, that process is beyond the decision-making capability of the U.S. Supreme Court. Remember that under our Constitutional framework, the three branches of the Federal government are coequal and have equal responsibility for upholding the Constitution. Similarly, the states delegated certain authority to the Federal government, reserving all other authority to themselves.
In this case, Roberts pointed out that the Constitution grants the authority to draw Congressional districts to the state legislatures. As a result, oversight of that authority does not fall under the purview of the U.S. Supreme Court, a branch of the Federal government.
The plaintiffs in the case had argued that through gerrymandering, the rights of minority voters was being diluted, thus violating the equal protection clause of the Constitution. However, since Roberts also authored the decision striking down many of the anti-racism policies of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, it is probably not surprising that this argument did not hold water with him. The clear holding in Shelby County and Rucho is that the Court will not protect minorities from the power of the majority.
On the other hand, liberals celebrated Roberts’s opinion in Department of Commerce v. New York, in which he denied the administration’s request to include a citizenship question on the census.
As became clear when certain documents from a Republican political operative were leaked, the reason Republicans sought to add this question to the census was to diminish Democratic power. Remember that Congressional districts are allocated to the states based upon census results, and Democratic districts tend to have a larger number of immigrants as inhabitants who might be scared off from responding to a census questionnaire asking about their citizenship.
But Roberts’s opinion was narrow. He did not hold that such a question was illegal. His opinion simply held that the administration had not provided a truthful explanation of why the question was desired. The administration had claimed it wanted the question added to assist in administration of what remains of the Voting Rights Act. That explanation was laughable, and the Roberts Court held that it was pretextual and therefore invalid.
But when these two opinions are read together, a chilling conclusion comes to mind.
In the gerrymandering case, the Roberts Court held that it would not step in to check the political power of the majority. On the other hand, it held in the census question case that it would not allow a citizenship question since its justification was mere pretext. Reading these decisions together indicates that had the administration simply stated its real intent from the get go, the Court would not have stopped it from exercising this power. That is a scary realization.
Of late, Trump has dropped the pretext and admitted that the real reason he wanted the citizenship question was to assist the political fortunes of Republicans in redistricting. The day after the Supreme Court handed down these two decisions, the Justice Department announced it was giving up the effort to add the citizenship question to the census. Then, the Department reversed its position the very next day.
Swearing in of William Barr as Attorney General by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Oval Office. By Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour — https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/william-p-barr-confirmed-85th-attorney-general-united-states, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76585802
Since then, Attorney General William Barr has stated that he sees a legal path to adding the citizenship question to the census. My fear is that he read these two opinions from the Chief Justice in the same way that I did, and he will try to take this approach, something that will satisfy the objections Roberts raised in his Department of Commerce opinion. In so doing, the administration may well succeed in its cynical ploy.
At its best, the Supreme Court played the role of protector of minority rights. And by minorities, I’m not simply referring to racial or ethnic ones. The majority have the power at the ballot box to protect their own interests. But democracy is not simply a tyranny of the majority. There must be limits to what the majority can do. After all, without such limits, how will minority opinions gain sufficient support to eventually become the majority?
But the Roberts Court appears to take the view that the majority can do whatever it wants when it gains power. If that is the case, who will protect the rights of those outside the majority in the future?
If you liked this post, you might also like: | https://greinerou.medium.com/trumps-mistake-on-the-census-citizenship-question-1291b767e3fc | ['Michael Greiner'] | 2019-07-09 01:38:52.445000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Supreme Court', 'Politics', 'Racism', 'Civil Rights'] |
Crazy deal alert: This 50-inch 4K HDR Roku TV is less than $200 today | If you're planning a socially distanced holiday season, you're going to need a bigger TV might watch Wonder Woman 1984 and catch up on The Mandalorian. That's where today's ridiculous deal comes in: Target is selling aHisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV with Roku built-in for $180Remove non-product link, down from the $300 MSRP and one of the best prices you're going to find on a 4K set.
The biggest feature for this TV is that it's rocking HDR (high dynamic range) supporting both Dolby Vision HDR and HDR 10. HDR is a feature that creates greater variations of colors allowing for a more vivid picture. In addition to HDR, the TV also supports DTS Studio Sound for your surround sound audio set-up as well as three HDMI ports, Ethernet, and a USB 2.0 port, as well as 802.11ac Wi-Fi but no Bluetooth.
This Hisense 50R6040G comes with Roku TV onboard giving you access to all kinds of premium video services including Apple TV, Disney Plus, Netflix, Hulu, and audio services like Pandora without any extra equipment. The set also works with Google Assistant and Alexa to control your TV via voice command. It has a game mode to improve input lag coming from your console, and the TV has a thin bezel providing a larger viewable screen area.
[Today's deal: Hisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV for $180 at TargetRemove non-product link]
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@hartman47844364/crazy-deal-alert-this-50-inch-4k-hdr-roku-tv-is-less-than-200-today-748382350023 | [] | 2020-12-11 01:04:53.602000+00:00 | ['Audio', 'Cutting', 'Chargers', 'Connected Home'] |
Upgrading PostgreSQL At Scale | PostgreSQL is one of the most commonly used relational databases in the recent times, with over 30 years of active development which has earned a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance.
Thus, as the development continues, we get more and more features, and to use them, we have to upgrade. Sometimes it’s a minor upgrade, which can be performed on the fly and sometimes it’s a major upgrade, which requires attention and should be carried out carefully.
PostgreSQL 10 was released with Declarative table partitioning, which simplifies many use-cases. So, in order to take advantage of it, PostgreSQL should run on ≥ 10. But our app was already running with an older version of PostgreSQL, having hundreds of millions of live tuples and serving hundreds of thousands of live traffic. This blog talks about our experience upgrading core PostgreSQL databases.
The process
But first… Here’s a little background: PostgreSQL supports master slave replication and it’s highly recommended to use the same. It gives read/write separation out of the box and we shall leverage it in this upgrade.
Below is what the current setup looks like, where we have the app running either on VMs or Kubernetes, connecting to the database.
The preparation
Since meddling with production databases is always risky, it makes the most logical sense to have a backup. We leverage PostgreSQL replication and setup two cascading slaves which will be our new master (03) and slave (04) post upgrade. As it is a streaming replication, these two new instances should be running the same major version of PostgreSQL. To be on safer side, one can also take disk snapshots of current PostgreSQL instances. Install newer PostgreSQL on 03 and 04 in the preparation step.
Depending on your database size and network bandwidth, it will take some time to create snapshots and to catch up replicas with master. Here’s one way to setup replication using pg_basebackup.
⚠️ Make sure to tune PostgreSQL configs on new master/slave. At that instance since they don’t have any traffic, restart won’t cause any downtime.
Once the replicas are up, start the upgrade process.
👉 We will be scaling down all the application pods running on k8s (and VMs).
👉 Ensure no writes to current master (01).
👉 As a verification step compare Log Sequence Number (LSN) across 4 instances.
👉 Then, promote new master (03) to master and run pg_upgrade on it, and start upgraded PostgreSQL server on the instance (03).
The master is now ready with upgraded PostgreSQL, but slave is still on older version. pg_upgrade doesn’t work on slave.
So how do we upgrade slave?
One way to go about this is, since we have upgraded master (03), we setup another replication. But depending on your data size, it will take longer to catch up with master.
pg_upgrade provides an option of linking ( — link) old PostgreSQL cluster data with the new cluster instead of copying data to the new cluster. Thus, pg_upgrade will be quick on master. In addition, we need to somehow perform similar linking on slave as well to run newer clusters on it. Hence, we take help from rsync to achieve this.
rsync is known for its extraordinary speed of copying data.
We shall be running rsync on data directly from master (03) to slave (04). Once we have the same linking on slave as well, we can begin the new upgraded cluster on slave and it will start replicating from the upgraded master (03).
As a verification step, check for the Log Sequence Number (LSN) on new master (03) and slave (04), and it’s a good practice to verify PostgreSQL logs as well before scaling up the application.
📝 Note: At any stage, if LSN doesn’t match, don’t work check again. Keep en eye on PostgreSQL logs and look for any error.
Voila! we have upgraded PostgreSQL 🎉
Here are the five simple principles, which are crucial while working at scale. These rules helped us in carrying out the whole process effortlessly and the upgrade was achieved with minimal user impact and overall downtime of 15 mins.
Have a playbook
Best way to be confident about your plan is to jot it down and list all possible tracks migrations that could happen. We hadn’t meddled with existing master/slave, so if anything went wrong while migrating, at any step, we could just scale up the application with the existing master/slave setup. So, list all the things that might go wrong and prepare for the rollback and fallback.
Have a playground
Production environment is not made for experiments. Create a playground locally to rule out all confusions and come up with a concrete playbook.
How should I make sure that my playbook is sufficient?
The playbook needs to be self explanatory. It should contain all information on when to do what, listing all the commands step by step. Most importantly, one should be in a position to handover this playbook to anyone and they should be able to upgrade it on their own without asking any questions.
Define concrete rollback strategies
Even after multiple mock drills on the playground, there can be things which might come up while performing it in production. Like connectivity issues, VPN or with the person who is handling the task. It’s recommended to have a backup who can take over in case of such issues.
There could also be a situation where your production environment configs differ from playground. So, be prepared for all such scenarios and make note of them in your rollback section.
In our case, we were not even actually intervening with live master/slave. So in case of any issue, we could just abort the process and scale up the application.
Minimise user impact
Upgrades are not rare scenarios. Taking downtime always is not a good idea since it impacts businesses and the moment the user sees an error, the product is deemed unreliable.
Introduce one new component in between the app and the database, which will be responsible to serve while the database is being upgraded.
Depending on your use case and flow criticality, it can be a simple Redis instance which will sync back to the database once we have the upgraded database. Or it can be any queue/log like RabbitMQ/Kafka, which take requests and queue them up. Once the database is up, it can be experimented on. Both require additional component setup, like workers.
Prepare indigents, scripting
Upgrade process involves running multiple commands across instances, like scaling down application, promoting to master, checking LSN etc. It’s better to create scripts which will take care of all these steps one by one and you just need to confirm. Something like IVR, enter 1,2…
They can be simple shell scripts or Ansible or anything else you’re comfortable with.
End notes:
Leaving you with some useful PostgreSQL commands:
Promote to master
# pg_ctl promote -D /data/dir/path -t 60
Check if PostgreSQL instance is salve mode
# select pg_is_in_recovery();
Get current LSN on master
# SELECT pg_current_xlog_location(); < 10 // for PostgreSQL < 10
# SELECT pg_current_wal_lsn(); // for PostgreSQL >= 10
Get last received LSN on replica
# SELECT pg_last_xlog_receive_location(); // for PostgreSQL < 10
# SELECT pg_last_wal_receive_lsn() // for PostgreSQL >= 10
Click here for more stories about how we build our Gojek #SuperApp.
Click here if you’d like to build it with us. 💚 | https://medium.com/gojekengineering/upgrading-postgresql-at-scale-4a720e94630a | ['Vishwesh Jainkuniya'] | 2021-02-02 05:21:31.653000+00:00 | ['Database', 'Postgresql', 'Gojek', 'Data', 'Tech'] |
Find the highest moving (hidden) stocks of the day with Python | Image from unsplash.
Find the highest moving (hidden) stocks of the day with Python
There are more stocks than just the SP500! In this article we will explore Python code that will unveil fast moving small gem stocks…
The stock market is a fast moving place, especially in these volatile times. While we often hear about the most popular stocks (the so called SP500), there are many other stocks out there. Some small, some fast rising, some are new IPOs, and some are fast crashing… In this article, I will share some useful Python code that I’ve written to dive deep into the most unknown stocks and find those fast movers / high risers…
We will make use of a library called yfinance, that will provide us with historic stock data and import pandas.
# imports
!pip install yfinance
import yfinance as yf
from pandas_datareader import data as pdr
import pandas as pd
As we don’t just want to explore the most well known stock, we will load a complete list of all Nasdaq stocks:
# list all stocks
url = “ftp://ftp.nasdaqtrader.com/SymbolDirectory/nasdaqlisted.txt"
df=pd.read_csv(url, sep=”|”)
print(df.head())
print(df['Symbol'].head())
print(len(df['Symbol']))
This has provided us with a variable (df) which contains 3,549 stock symbols!
So how do we get the high movers of today? Let’s start by retrieving recent history for each stock in our list and storing it in movementlist
I first define a helper function that will allow us to quickly lookup values from our dataframe with error checking.
def lookup_fn(df, key_row, key_col):
try:
return df.iloc[key_row][key_col]
except IndexError:
return 0
I look back 5 days. You can change the time period in the command hist = thestock.history(period=”5d”)
We populate the list of movement (stock symbol, low over the time period, high over the time period).
movementlist = [] for stock in df['Symbol']:
# get history
thestock = yf.Ticker(stock)
hist = thestock.history(period="5d") # print(stock) low = float(10000)
high = float(0) # print(thestock.info) for day in hist.itertuples(index=True, name='Pandas'): if day.Low < low:
low = day.Low
if high < day.High:
high = day.High
deltapercent = 100 * (high - low)/low
Open = lookup_fn(hist, 0, "Open") # some error handling:
if len(hist >=5):
Close = lookup_fn(hist, 4, "Close")
else :
Close = Open if(Open == 0):
deltaprice = 0 else:
deltaprice = 100 * (Close - Open) / Open print(stock+" "+str(deltapercent)+ " "+ str(deltaprice))
pair = [stock, deltapercent, deltaprice]
movementlist.append(pair)
Now that we have populated our list of stock movement, we can move on to filtering out the highest movers. If you just want to get a quick list of those who moved more then 100%:
for entry in movementlist:
if entry[1]>float(100):
print(entry)
If we are interested in exploring some of these stocks a bit more in detail we’ll want some more info, like the sector they belong too. Here is how we properly clean up the list:
# High risers:
def lookup_stockinfo(thestock):
try
return thestock.info
except IndexError:
return 0 cutoff=float(80) for entry in movementlist:
if entry[2]>cutoff:
print("
"+ str(entry))
thestock = yf.Ticker(str(entry[0])) if entry[0]=='HJLIW':
print("no info")
else:
a = lookup_stockinfo(thestock) if a == 0:
print("no info")
else:
if a is None:
print("no info")
else:
if a == "":
print("no")
else:
print(a)
print('Up '+ str(entry[2]) + "%")
print(str(a['sector']))
print(str(a['longBusinessSummary']))
print("year high "+ str(a['fiftyTwoWeekHigh']))
The result is a detailied overview with some information on the highest movers of the last 5 days. Very interesting to detect some fast moving stocks for speculators or just for anyone wanting to find a hidden gem stock! | https://towardsdatascience.com/find-the-highest-moving-hidden-stocks-of-the-day-with-python-aab0d7bfe5ff | ['Dorien Herremans'] | 2020-06-13 02:09:58.945000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Python', 'Stock Market', 'Coding', 'Stocks'] |
Xavier’s first Front-End Project (HTML, CSS, Javascript) | In this article I will explain my thought process on how I decided to come up with my idea and move forward with execution. For my coding bootcamp our first front-end project main requirements were to find an API, use that API in our webpage, manipulate the DOM, and collect user input of some sort. Obviously these weren’t all of the requirements but these were key in completing this project everything else took a backseat compared to these. To begin my project I focused on functionality first with creating my entire search engine HTML through the DOM. Below is my HTML document that I used for my javascript. Not much HTML huh?
I wanted to give myself a challenge and only create my elements through the DOM. By doing this I learned so much more as far as DOM manipulation and how to create and delete elements as I pleased.
Before I started a line of code I spent a couple hours thinking and planning an idea on how I was going to utilize an API for my webpage. Honestly, I feel like that part was the hardest because I had so many to choose from, but some ideas were far more complex than the others. I decided to create my own online library where the user could either search a specific book, author, or a phrase and their results would pop up.
I started by creating a header, a main container for the search bar (input, button), and a second content container that housed the incoming results from the API. I noticed that without commenting and organizing my sections it got very easy to lose track of what was what. Writing down my thought process really helped things move very smoothly.
Above is my second container that will house incoming data.
Once I had all of my elements created on my search page it was time to create the logic and functionality. I used the GoogleBooks API that had no API key requirement.
I made sure to give my search button functionality before moving on to the function that would make everything possible.
variable for search button
function/event-listener for search button
finished and styled search bar
In order to use the API I needed to query the class of the input that I previously created. From there I created a variable for my API and interpolated my variable into my API url. To receive data I had to create an await/fetch variable “fetchBooks” and a json variable to interpret the information received “jsonBooks”. Once these variables were created I console logged the information to make sure that I had no errors.
Now that I had full functionality for my search and input through the console it was time to create a function to get my information visually on the page. I knew that I needed a for of loop to iterate through the data that I needed. Not only did the data I received provide entirely too much information. The data provided information that served my website no purpose.
In order to iterate through the information I needed a for of loop, create a variable, an element for that variable, and use dot notation along with index notation depending on where the information was located in the object or array of data.
To get the desired information on my page I appended the data to the HTML document that I created through the DOM.
Books successfully appending to my document.
Once I had complete full functionality while also crossing off major bullet points it was time to really get creative and utilize CSS, grid, and flex-box for my other pages.
For my home page I decided to keep it simple yet classy. All pages had the same navbar however each page had its own flavor or what the kids these days call… “The Sauce”.
Home page.
You cant see it here, but the “welcome to the basic library” has a very subtle slightly slow text animation greeting the user to the experience. All I really added to the page was an image, put the image in a container, added an overlay to the image, added the elements used to write over the image, and used certain flex properties to position the letters the way I wanted them to be.
Moving on to my third page (explore page) since my second page was the search engine page where the user could search for whatever title they wanted to see. This page showed a bit of my creative side. I wanted the user to feel at home or at least apart of the events the library promoted.
“Titles in the spotlight”
CSS animation on hover to really showcase the book/image in the spotlight.
I wanted the user to be drawn in to the titles being displayed. In order to position these the way I did I put all the images into a container, each image was placed into its own div once inside container, and I created a grid to my liking based on how many images were being displayed in the section. This section is the only section I used css animations on to add emphasis on the items.
“This weeks horrors”
This section of the explore page I wanted to showcase a certain genre of books that an online library would show. My last two sections, “Recommended reads” and “Children's corner” followed this same formula.
“Recommended Reads”
“Children's Corner”
Showcasing mobile responsiveness.
For my last page (About) I wanted to utilize a mix of css grid and flex-box. I used an image while putting that image into a container with flex while also inserting a text element with a slight css animation.
About page.
The top portion utilizes flex-box while the bottom portion of the layout (insight, our mission, our vision) utilize css grid with a total of six divs. I also had fun making this layout mobile responsive even though it was a requirement (lol).
About Page mobile responsive.
Media query code.
Alright, that about wraps up my front-end project. This project really allowed me to apply everything that we have learned so far during our coding bootcamp. Honestly, I feel great about this and i’m so proud at how the final product came out. I cant wait to work on more projects and continue to push myself past my limits. Until next time! | https://medium.com/@xmcgriff92/xaviers-first-front-end-project-html-css-javascript-6af7f0c6545c | ['Xavier Mcgriff'] | 2021-09-03 15:23:53.574000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Front End Development', 'Coding', 'Software Development', 'Codingbootcamp'] |
IT and the Second Law of Thermodynamics | Once in a conversation with some friends, I was asked the existential question: what do you do anyway?
Now I have a lot of cached canned responses that I use depending on the situation, time constraints and audience interest. The short answer is that I work in IT support. A longer version ponders on the concept of “Managed Services” as an evolution of the former. I also might add some sales pitch jargon like the concept of proactive support and fractional IT.
Nevertheless, I felt like going deep into my self and finding out a sincere yet witty answer. I said that — and I hope my boss doesn’t read this — I sell people the illusion of having everything under control.
So you just landed a new MS customer. You have done your homework and studied their network thoroughly. You start right away planning your on boarding steps and network enhancements you have in mind. You, and your customer of course, image — or even daydream about — a final state where the customer’s infrastructure becomes a utopia. Once you have all your tools in place, all the configuration changes done based on the best practice recommendations, and all the proposed procedures forcefully implemented, you can rightfully pat your self on the back and count on your contracts being renewed as long as your customer’s business is going.
The problem with this is that, like everything in life, we are up against the second law of thermodynamics. This law states that entropy can only increase. Entropy is loosely defined as the measure of disorderliness or chaos in the universe.
This will seem very obvious, and it is. After all, the IT people believe religiously in Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong! Murphy’s law can be seen as a simple elegant presentation of entropy. The above can be perceived as wasting readers’ time while restating the obvious, but I beg to differ.
Since humans evolved from hunter-gatherer societies, the concept of craftsmanship dominated the spectrum of human vocations. When projected into our domain, the craftsmanship conveys the idea of accomplishment accompanied with closure. Just like when a carpenter imagines joyfully the finished form of a piece they’re working on, the IT engineers, especially those in field services, crave the project closure and the sense of accomplishment it entails.
Unfortunately, when working in IT support, this cannot be the case. The typical accomplishment goal you seek is to close all your support tickets/cases, but guess what! New cases will always come along. I remember in my early years comparing myself to hamster on a wheel.
To put all this into perspective, it is good to approach the IT support role with an adequate mindset. I hate using cliches, but I have to say that we should enjoy the ride rather then concentrate on the destination. The best way to fight the second law of thermodynamics is to use it: simply spend enough energy regularly to make incremental enhancements in our work. And finally, embracing chaos and uncertainty is always a good advice. | https://medium.com/@abdallah-attie/it-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-928a09183d9b | ['Abdallah Attie'] | 2020-12-18 21:49:05.249000+00:00 | ['Managed It Services', 'Information Technology', 'Entropy', 'Chaoss'] |
Official Statement Regarding Scam Email | At approximately 12:48 CEST on May 30th, a fraudulent email was sent to many in our community. The subject line of the email was “RightMesh TGE is Live Now!”, and it appeared to be sent from RightMesh. The scam email included a wallet address for contributions to be sent to.
Thankfully, our community has been consistently warned of scam attempts and was well aware not to send funds to any address that was not listed within the Bitcoin Suisse portal. Unfortunately, we do know that some ETH has been sent to the fraudulent address contained within the email.
We are working hand-in-hand with Bitcoin Suisse, and at this time, we can confidently report there has been no breach of the Bitcoin Suisse systems.
TO CLARIFY, THERE HAS BEEN ABSOLUTELY NO BREACH OF DATA FROM THE SIDE OF BITCOIN SUISSE OR BITCOIN SUISSE’S PLATFORM.
The wallet address for contributions has not changed, and it remains available ONLY through the Bitcoin Suisse platform to approved Whitelisted contributors.
To reiterate: RightMesh will NEVER publish a wallet address nor solicit funds via email, Twitter, Telegram, direct message, or any form of social media. Any attempt to do so will be a scam, even if it “appears” to be from RightMesh. Contributions will only be made through Bitcoin Suisse and the Bitcoin Suisse platform as previously announced.
DO NOT SEND FUNDS TO ADDRESSES WHICH YOU DID NOT RECEIVE ON THE BITCOIN SUISSE PLATFORM. THIS ADDRESS WILL BE AVAILABLE TO YOU AFTER LOGGING IN ON THE PLATFORM.
As our community’s data and privacy are of utmost importance, we are thoroughly investigating the source of the email. We will release more information and respond to questions once we have verifiable information to report.
Our Crowd Contribution is progressing well, and we are very grateful to the support of our community.
The RightMesh Team | https://medium.com/rightmesh/official-statement-regarding-scam-email-c5559ed2976d | ['Dana Harvey'] | 2018-05-30 15:36:22.691000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin'] |
Good habits, mental health, getting out of a dark place, heading towards a better life. | Good habits, mental health, getting out of a dark place, heading towards a better life.
It’s been over nine months since the lockdowns, quarantine and all of the sudden changes due to COVID started happening. It surely had a big impact on our lives and I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say it has taken a toll on our mental health as well. Let’s be honest, even if you hadn’t lost your mind completely, the COVID restrictions, although needed and reasonable, could’ve been frustrating at times as we weren’t able to do many things (careerwise, socialwise etc). In this article I want to show you some daily habits that’ll hopefully help you maintain a positive mindset and help you head towards your dream life. I am not kidding; since I’ve been applying these in my life, it has become so much better. So much better. (I will write about mental health & my struggles in the future).
Let’s talk about the habits now!
Habit 1
Work out daily. I used to think it was an overrated „advice”. I thought it wasn’t going to help at all. However in November this year I created a workout routine for myself, that I enjoyed and I stuck to it everyday. I combined a few short workouts that all together took me about 30 minutes to do. It might be hard at first and it might take some courage to excercise everyday, but it’s worth it. When creating a daily workout plan for yourself, keep in mind you shouldn’t exercise intesively everyday – either workout lightly everyday, or do more intense workouts a few times in a week. For other days you can practice yoga or some other light excercises. Consistency is important. Why is is this a habit I recommend? First of all, you do something good for your body everyday, you keep it in shape, it looks better and better. Second of all, obviously excersice is very much required in a human’s life. You will not see results until some time and you will also not feel better after just a few days, but do it until it becomes a habit of yours – you will see the changes.
Habit 2
Journaling. That is something that I personally don’t do every single day. I like to journal once in a few days, but it’s obviously better if you can do it more often. Write about your day. Write about anything that makes you angry, sad, happy, excited, worried. Write about how you’ve felt during the day, how you’re feeling at the moment and why. Explore your thoughts. Explore and understand your mind. Write what you think, what you’ve been thinking for a while, don’t keep it inside. You can read it after and maybe get more clearity about whatever makes you emotional.
Habit 3
List a few wins of each day. In the evening just write down a few positive things that you achieved each day– these can be small things, nobody achieves great things every single day. It really builds up confidence to rewind your day and see how many successes you had that you’d normally forget about. Give them a moment of apprieciation.
Habit 4
Daily self love and maintaing self-confidence. Repeat good things about yourself to yourself everyday. Focus on one thing (confidence, self image, forgiveness) and repeat a sentence on that thing everyday. It could be „I am worthy and appreciated, I notice my worth and believe in myself”. It takes some time to see the results, but it does work.
Habit 5
Devote at least 30 minutes each day to do something you really love/something you aspire to get better at. I think sometimes we might overlook the importance of self development in the rush of the world. Often it seems like we’re too busy and even 30 minutes everyday is too much. After all it’s about prioritizng things in life. Scrolling on social media or watching tv for hours won’t bring you anything good in the long run. If you decide to practice something consistenly everyday, you will not only feel proud and in general good, but you’ll gain a new skill/more knowledge which is invaluable. Sometimes even just having a goal is exactly what we need. Think about what you really enjoy doing or what you’d like to start doing and… remember to do it:)
Habit 6
Meditate. Let your mind rest, get away from everything for a few minutes daily. It’s not only relaxing, but also helps you collect your thoughts and keep your sanity. It’s very helpful when you’re dealing with anxiety. (At least for me, I really recommend it!)
Habit 7
Do something to expand your knowledge/develop your mind everyday. Maybe read a book? Or learn a foreign language? There are many ideas!!
Not a habit, but a good idea
A good idea that might help you maintain a positive mindset after all. Each day, for example for two weeks, write one thing you’re grateful for. It can be the sunshine or the beautiful weather that made you feel full of live. It might be your family or a nice sandwich that you’ve had. It’s important to notice what makes us lucky. It’s very important to focus on the good things, never focus on what you think you lack!
The habits I listed are the ones that worked the best for me. They really helped me as I was struggling with my mental health. If you feel like this year got the best of you, try them out. They might be helpful.
Thank you for reading. If there’s any way to do that here, share your experiences with me!
Have a good day/night. | https://medium.com/@itsalexandra/good-habits-mental-health-getting-out-of-a-dark-place-heading-towards-a-better-life-9e5183c6d90d | [] | 2020-12-25 02:03:08.283000+00:00 | ['Goals', 'Habits', 'Mental Health', 'Advice', 'Mindset'] |
Jupiter’s Transit in Capricorn and its Effects on Zodiac Signs | Jupiter’s Transit in Capricorn and its Effects on Zodiac Signs Mypandit.Com ·Dec 11, 2020
All hail planet Jupiter! The largest and the biggest benefactor of success, knowledge, prosperity, accomplishment, fortune and spirituality, Jupiter will be making a transit in November 2020.
This November 2020, Jupiter will make transits in Capricorn and it might affect your zodiac sign.
Read about Jupiter’s transit and its effects on zodiac signs.
Jupiter will transit from Sagittarius Sign on 20th November 2020 ( 13:23) and will remain there until 6th April 2021 (00:33) in the Capricorn zodiac sign. Jupiter being a prominent planet in Vedic Astrology may put a huge impact on zodiac signs.
Let’s see Jupiter’s transit predictions for all the 12 zodiac signs. | https://medium.com/@mypandit/jupiters-transit-in-capricorn-and-its-effects-on-zodiac-signs-d37b2e537565 | [] | 2020-12-11 10:33:17.172000+00:00 | ['Jupiter Transit', 'Predictions', 'Moon Sign', 'Zodiac Signs', 'Capricorn'] |
Building machine learning intuition through play | Building machine learning intuition through play
Photo by Allen Taylor on Unsplash
Summary
While attempting to understand machine learning mathematical concepts more deeply, I’ve found that it’s pretty easy to get lost in the equations. My goal is to demonstrate how you can experiment with plots and basic math to build machine learning intuition. Specifically, I’d like to show why we minimize the sum of the squared residuals in linear regression through a simple example.
Prerequisites
This article assumes you understand the basics of maximum likelihood and will provide additional intuition around the concept as it relates to Linear Regression. If you need a primer, check out this video: StatQuest — Maximum Likelihood.
Let’s get started
In linear regression, we are using input data to estimate coefficients that have the highest likelihood of fitting a Gaussian distribution. Linear regression takes the following form with the error terms (e) independently and identically distributed (iid) following a normal distribution (N) with mean 0 and variance sigma².
Since our errors are normally distributed, the probability density function of the error term is — you guessed it, the probability density function of the normal distribution:
The likelihood function L(theta) is the joint probability of the probability density function of the error term f(e). Joint probability just means we are multiplying each observation together.
Typically we would solve for our coefficients by maximizing this function (maximum likelihood estimation) via taking the logs and partial derivatives with respect to each coefficient. Instead of doing all that math, let’s try to intuitively understand what is happening.
First, what relationship does the residual have with the e-term?
The chart below plots the e-term vs the residuals. Here is a link to the chart. I encourage you to play around with the numbers in the chart to get a feel for what is happening.
Lower residuals result in a higher e-term — when the residual is zero, the e-term is the highest at 1. Now, let’s think about the likelihood function and how we would maximize it.
Let’s assume n=3 for example. Then the likelihood function is the product of three terms:
Try multiplying three e-term numbers together such as .7*.7*.7, then try other numbers. For example:
0.7*0.7*0.7 = 0.343
0.7*0.6*0.6 = 0.252
0.4*0.6*0.4 = 0.096
What you’ll find is that the larger the e-terms, the larger the resulting product.
What we’ve found:
Lower residuals result in a larger e-term The product of higher e-terms result in a higher likelihood
We can thus conclude that we will maximize the likelihood function (the product of the e-terms) by minimizing each residual.
But what about minimizing the sum of squared residuals?
The expression “minimizing the sum of squared residuals” comes from the typical next step in calculating maximum likelihood — taking the log of the likelihood function. Taking the log converts the product into sums.
But let’s forget about all that math for a second and experiment with some values. Here are the residuals and e-terms from our chart
Let’s calculate the sum of the squared residuals for two of the previous examples.
Example 1:
e-terms: 0.7, 0.7, 0.7 | residuals: 0.61, 0.61, 0.61
product of e-terms: 0.7 * 0.7 * 0.7 = 0.343
sum of squared residuals: 0.6² + 0.6² + 0.6² = 1.1163
Example 2:
e-terms: 0.4, 0.6, 0.4 | residuals: 0.85, 0.70, 0.85
product of e-terms: 0.4 *0.6 *0.4 = 0.096
sum of squared residuals: 0.8² + 0.7² + 0.8² = 1.935
Example 1 had the largest product of e-terms (maximum likelihood) and also had the smallest sum of squared residuals. Feel free to take any set of residuals or e-terms and perform these computations. You will observe that we maximize the likelihood by minimizing the sum of squared residuals.
Conclusion
Many times we can derive and understand challenging concepts through basic plots and calculations. By experimenting, we were able to derive one of the most important foundational concepts in machine learning — maximum likelihood for linear regression is analogous to minimizing the sum of the squared residuals. I encourage you to think of how you might use the techniques demonstrated here to learn other concepts.
If you want to dive deep into the math for log likelihood, check out this article. | https://towardsdatascience.com/building-machine-learning-intuition-through-play-2065fe487d46 | ['Brian Pietracatella'] | 2021-01-10 10:30:56.298000+00:00 | ['Intuition', 'Linear Regression', 'Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Maximum Likelihood'] |
My itinerary to OSCP | //Please don’t mind typo and grammatical mistakes :P
Who really I’m
An Electronics and communication Graduate, who was totally into the world of electronics where I used to play with controllers, sensors, hardware, eventually breaking and burning them to grab my first job as an Embedded Developer before I got introduced to the world of security.
Where it all started
Back in 2017, I and my other friends were interested in enrolling for the OSCP and we created one WhatsApp group. Well, we all know for how long the group will be active :P.
Since I’m from a hardware background I’ve no idea about the network and web app security, to be precise I didn’t even know how to use Metasploit. so I made up my mind and started watching a CEH course (youtube of course) where I have learned a lot about different tools and methodologies. Later in 2019, I was able to secure funding from my current organization to pay for a 90 days lab for OSCP.
The Journey
My journey started back in Nov 2019. A month before my lab started, I asked my colleague where to and how to begin with and the reply I got was
OSCP is a journey where you learn and evolve yourself, so all you need to do is search, read, explore, and try
Still, whenever I’m stuck during my lab, instead of giving me direct hints they ask me questions that really make me think and find a way around by myself. Thanks to Nalla Muthu, Prasath and Sriram.
So I started with OSCP-like-machine, the main goal here is not about solving them, it’s all about what we are learning by solving them. I haven’t solved the 1st machine by myself because I had no idea how to and where to start with. I read the walkthrough and solved them while reading the walkthrough I understood that enumeration is the key to exploit a machine.
So after that, I started solving machines by myself, where I made up my mind that I need to solve one machine a day. After solving I read multiple walkthroughs for the same machine because it helps you to understand different methodologies and approaches to the same machine. So in 10–12 days I had solved nearly 7–8 machines. So for the next 15 days, I spent time writing automation scripts, learning and practicing buffer overflow, preparing my kali machine, reading the walkthrough and making a note of them.
Read multiple walkthroughs for a single machine
practice buffer overflow with two different executables
prepare your kali machine for the lab, it’s not stable so it crashes sometimes. so I personally recommend using a shared folder if you are running in VM/Virtualbox
Select the tools which you are going to use, whether it’s SPARTA, Nikto, dirb,dirbuster,gobuster, etc.,
If possible write an automation code for enumeration or use any of the existing
Get familiar with msfvenom commands, supported payloads, and the output format
Enumeration
The most important when it comes to OSCP, without proper enumeration you won’t be moving ahead in any of the machines. so if you are good with Nmap commands, Nikto and dirb command it’s better to automate by writing your own script ( i wrote one for myself) else there are two wonderful which really helped me during my exam and these are nmapautomator and AutoRecon.
Lab
During lab it’s highly recommended to take notes of each and everything you do/read and organize them properly, I personally used one note for taking notes. These notes are gonna help us in the exam and for preparing the Lab Report as well. My notes have the links which I clearly understood, Nmap commands, reverse shell commands, steps involved in solving a machine and so on.
Don’t push yourself much, solve one machine per day and take time to understand what actually you did and read about all the ports/services and check if there is an exploit available for those service/ports. it won’t be helpful right now in the lab, but it’s gonna help you somewhere(bug bounty, interview.etc), or maybe in the exam as well.
You can’t connect the dot looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. -Steve Jobs
My lab expired on the 1st of Feb, and I have pwned nearly 35 machines, I was confident that I can clear the exam after learning and pwning 35 machines. I was so confident in Linux privilege escalation while compared to windows privilege escalations, Still, I booked for my exam like a dumbass.
Don’t go for SMB exploit in the lab, because by doing that we are solving machine, but we are not learning something new in that machine. If the enumeration shows the system is vulnerable to SMB it’s good to skip and try another way to exploit the machine.
DOs
Always Revert the machine before you start.
The IRC Bot is really useful, it helps you with hints for some target.
If you are using your own commands for enumeration, make sure to save the output to a file and the commands to your notes section.
Wait for 5–10 min after reverting a machine, because some service will take time to start.
Every machine will have proof.txt located in the administrator desktop (Windows) or root directory (Linux).
Join Infosec prep discord, there you’ll get some hints and guidelines.
Read the PDF and Documentation shared by offsec, because it provides you with many basic things that are really helpful.
DON’Ts
Don’t use MSFconsole in the lab, try to solve everything without Metasploit.
Don’t use a mobile hotspot during your enumeration, it won’t be efficient and most of the time you’ll be getting an error.
Don’t give up, if you start with a machine try to focus and push yourself to finish it.
Don’t skip a machine, until or unless it is a duplicate machine.
Big Day — Big Failure #attempt 1
I booked my exam on Feb 19 around 16:30, I was so nervous around 4 PM like a man who’s waiting outside an operation theatre :P.
To be OSCP certified you need to get 70 points. First 24 hours to pwn the machine and another 24 hours to deliver a professional pentest report detailing each and every step with screenshots.
The exam consists of 5 machines, where a student will be provided with points and the objective for each machine.
Since I was so confident in buffer overflow, I thought of solving it on the 1st. It’s an easy 25 mark which will obviously boost us to go ahead in the exam with positive energy.
In the first attempt, I took more than 10 hours, still I didn’t solve my buffer overflow which I thought “it’s a piece of cake”, I lost my confidence, I was fully shattered and exhausted. so I took a nap for 4 hours and then worked and started freshly and I solved the machine in an hour. While starting buffer overflow I triggered my automation script for all the given IP. Then I solved the 10 mark machine and tried other machines. As time went on I lost myself totally and I have only solved 2 machines.
So from my 1st attempt, I learned a few things, which really helped me clear my exam in the next attempt.
Take away
Manage time wisely
If you are stuck, it’s ok just move on to another machine.
Take frequent breaks to clear your head, whereas I was thinking about the same machine for 10–12 hours.
Don’t consume too much time for a single machine.
Don’t lose your temper, be patient enough to go through the enumeration outputs.
Don’t lose hope and think “I can’t even solve buffer overflow and how I’m gonna solve all this”, it brings you down.
Before taking my second attempt I prepared myself, I worked on the area which I really lagged. I focused more on the enumeration part, I found tools like nmapAutomator and Autorecon which I tried against the HTB machine to check how it’s working and watched videos from IppSec.
He has solved many machines and categorized them according to the level of hardness. Instead of solving the machine, I watched nearly 10–12 videos and learned many things from the video which really helped me in the exam for my enumeration and to approach the target machine.
Another Big Day — Hard work never fails.
I started my exam around 1:30, this time I was calm and relaxed. Whatever I learned from my last attempt and a month gap between attempts gave me confidence that I can do better than my previous.
In the second attempt, I ran Autorecon and nmapAutomator for all the machines before starting buffer overflow. I finished my buffer overflow machine in 35 min, unlike last time.
By that time most of the scans were done, so started with the 10 point machine, then moved to a 20 point Linux machine (I’m good with Linux privilege), then followed by other 20 point machines with a lot of breaks. After 6 hours of exam, I almost had 65 points in my hand. Now all I have left is a one 25 point machine, it’s one hell of a ride I would say !! The exploit which is available was not working, so tried rewriting the code, tried another way around to reproduce the exploit but nothing helped other than msfconsole. I really don’t want to use it, but I got no other options and was a little exhausted trying out multiple ways.
I had a good sleep for 7 hours, then I started with the privilege escalation for the windows machine. Few things need to be done before finishing the exam.
check your notes for steps, it’s gonna give hand during your report.
Make sure you have a screenshot for all the steps you did to pop a shell in a machine.
Make sure local.txt and proof.txt are copied to your notes, please do cross verify whether the value is the same in your screenshot as well the exam notes. There is a hell lot of chance for human errors and there is a possibility one can fail because of this small mistake.
Make sure the limited shell and privileged shell screenshots meet the offsec requirement or according to what they have mentioned in the game guide.
I took an hour to verify and make sure everything is good and I haven’t missed any screenshots. When you are confident enough with your screenshot and the steps it’s good to finish the exam.
Exam & Lab writeup
When my lab was about to be over, I took two days to write my lab report. so now I don’t need to worry about this since it has been done a couple of months back.
For the Exam report, I have spent nearly 6 hours. Once I finished writing I verified it thrice taking time to make sure each and every step is detailed with the appropriate screenshots and the modified code. I used the offsec template for writing both the exam as well as the lab report.
After 3 days of my report submission, guess what I got? The most awaited mail from offsec saying that I’ve cleared the OSCP Exam !!! | https://medium.com/@mounish_pkm/my-itinerary-to-oscp-22b40e132fbf | ['Mounish Periasamy'] | 2020-04-23 09:46:24.179000+00:00 | ['Hacking', 'Oscp', 'Information Security', 'Penetration Testing', 'Oscp Certification'] |
Shipping Rust Binaries with GoReleaser | As consumers, we like to get a binary release in one of the following ways:
OS native package format such as deb , rpm and so on.
, and so on. Language native package format such as pip , npm and so on. It's not common to supply a pure binary artifact this way but some do it, such as puppeteer which downloads a latest binary of a headless Chrome.
, and so on. It's not common to supply a pure binary artifact this way but some do it, such as puppeteer which downloads a latest binary of a headless Chrome. A curl shell combo such as curl http://acme.org/bin | sh which is fast, has no dependencies, but receives criticism because you're essentially letting your users execute remote code. This is why I avoid these, but if I must, verify the shell script by hand first.
which is fast, has no dependencies, but receives criticism because you're essentially letting your users execute remote code. This is why I avoid these, but if I must, verify the shell script by hand first. A modern binary packager such as Homebrew.
While the process may differ from one technique to another, they all require a way to host the binaries or packages, except perhaps the language-native package formats, where you can get away with pushing large binaries into the registries (but it may be frowned upon).
In principle, these are the steps required do package and release:
Cross compile your binaries (e.g. Linux, Windows, macOS), since we’re distributing binaries we have to have a ready-made version per platform and architecture. Package (e.g. tar, zip), some platforms expect a specific packaging format. Digest your packages (e.g. sha256) — while we’re all enjoying a reliable internet connection and file hosting solutions — we’re not assuming it’s always the case for all users. It’s wise to verify downloads by having it digested. Upload to <provider> using some kind of path format scheme (e.g. to S3 as `v0.0.1/project-name/tarball). Set up the distribution artifact (e.g. generate a shellfile for download and verification from S3 using the given format scheme).
For an open source project, there are many tools to use, because Github Releases and Git tags make it a breeze to construct a great release process. For other projects, Amazon S3 would be perfect for storing, and an opinionated release formatting rules helps. This is where GoReleaser shines.
Using GoReleaser with Rust
Although GoReleaser supports building just Go projects, it does so much more in the packaging and distribution department that it is extremely hard to ignore.
It can package, generate sha256 sums, upload to Github releases or Amazon S3 or custom HTTP endpoints, as well as generate a changelog, semantic versions and a lot more. The website doesn’t show everything, so I recommend looking at the repo for docs and to find out what more it can support.
So it has everything we want, but it can’t build anything other than Go. | https://medium.com/@jondot/shipping-rust-binaries-with-goreleaser-d5aa42a46be0 | ['Dotan Nahum'] | 2019-02-16 18:01:15.671000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Docker', 'Rust', 'Rustlang', 'Go'] |
Seeing | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/wolfkus/seeing-87bd80dd07ac | ['Ulf Wolf'] | 2020-12-25 14:52:49.801000+00:00 | ['Mental Obstruction', 'Thinking', 'Buddhism', 'Seeing', 'Meditation'] |
Let’s “eradicate” the water crisis in India, together | Dear friends,
This World Water Day, I thought to share my thoughts on the issues of water in India — what have I understood regarding this? Have we really reached the point of crisis in the urban water supply? What are the underlying factors or root causes for this? How can we address these? What role does FluxGen play in being part of the solution?
Understanding Water
The sources of water include seawater, and freshwater, which includes surface water — like lakes and rivers, and groundwater — like that extracted from borewells. Only freshwater, which accounts for 2% of the world’s water, is suitable for human consumption and production needs. Seawater is highly saline and needs desalination to be fit for human needs. This is a very expensive process and results in serious ecological imbalances as highly concentrated saltwater re-enters marine ecosystems. So, for all practical purposes, we are dependent on the 2% fresh water for human needs.
Agriculture in India is the largest user of water overall — over 80 percent — but we should not allow this fact to blind us to the urban water crisis. The human population is not distributed uniformly — it is concentrated in cities. Water for human use and consumption is further not identical to agricultural water, and requires several treatment processes — sedimentation, filtration, disinfection and storage to name a few. It also has a higher energy “cost” than agricultural water. Water consumption in cities must therefore be seen through this lens. We must clearly understand that available water in cities is limited despite it being a fraction of the total water used in India.
The unfolding climate crisis further exacerbates water-related issues. As a consequence of carbon-intensive industrialization, global temperatures have steadily increased at their fastest rates in millions of years, leading to a disturbance of normal water cycles of evaporation and condensation. This results, paradoxically, in both droughts and flooding, as well as other extreme events. With fewer rainy days in a year, and a greater concentration of rainfall on those days, there is less percolation of water into the ground in cities, leading to dropping groundwater levels. Further, climate change is causing glaciers to melt, leading to concerns that meltwater volume will abruptly decrease after a few decades once glacial storage is reduced.
Water is also a shared resource. Everyone, no matter their wealth or status, deserves an equitable share of available water for reasonable human consumption and needs. Water, therefore, has a very strong linkage to issues of social equity, especially so in a country like India that strives to adhere to democratic norms. Equity is also a key principle of sustainable development.
Industrial Water Use
The ‘cost’ associated with water to the economy and industries has increased drastically over the past decade. It has been estimated that water insecurities could reduce between 2–4 percent of GDP in developing countries.
In India, utility water typically costs more than Rs. 70 (US$ 1) per kilolitre. With Zero-Liquid Discharge (ZLD) regulations, the costs of water recycling can increase by a factor of 3. There is further a cost associated with pumping, purifying, and safely disposing of water in industrial processes. When water acts as an industrial process “carrier” (of chemicals, recoverable products and energy), there are further costs associated with thermal energy, electrical energy in processes, chemicals and other materials. This means that considered holistically, saving a litre of water can have an economic benefit to the industry that can reach up to dozens of times the nominal utility cost. This precisely quantified cost of water varies by industry and is currently ‘under the radar’ in corporate water governance in India.
Industries are huge guzzlers of water in Indian cities. Some industries have very good water-related practices; and some have room for improvement. To bring in transparency, the government has recently (since early 2021) made it mandatory to monitor groundwater extraction and further cost it, and mandated that audits be performed in order to measure and reduce water consumption by up to 20 percent within three years. Failure to do so will attract stiff penalties, including the possibility of revoking the license to operate.
From the perspective of water as a shared resource in Indian cities, it is great that the government has brought in these new norms. The new Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) guidelines will improve accountability for groundwater extraction. What used to be a matter of industrial responsibility has now been converted into regulation, creating a level playing field. Further, with the ‘true’ cost of water drastically increasing when various factors are considered, there is an excellent opportunity for industries to become compliant while making financial gains.
FluxGen’s Role
As an entrepreneur in the field of sustainability, I had long sensed that regulation would become inevitable to ensure the country’s water security. Further, the cost of water in water-stressed regions is becoming a prime concern for industries. With these considerations, FluxGen entered the water tracking and conservation business nearly four years ago. We were fortunate to work with industries and commercial entities who were responsible, willing to be transparent and who wanted to be socially responsible leaders in their fields. Companies — including Titan, Britannia, AFDL, Amazon and Microsoft among others — were cognizant of the “true” cost of water — and chose to track their water extraction and usage and reduce wastage, even before the current regulation was introduced. Thanks to these early adopters of our solution, FluxGen has developed a well-proven water tracking and conservation system.
One of our esteemed customers is GKNM Hospital in Coimbatore. Established in 1952, this is one of the city’s most reputed hospitals. The senior management of the hospital reached out to us after a referral to deploy a digital water management system to track their entire water infrastructure and reduce water consumption. We worked closely with the hospital water management team to deploy our IoT and data analytics based water management system, AquaGen. The hospital was consequently able to reduce water consumption by more than 50,000 liters of water per day using AquaGen. The hospital also won the CII National Water Award for Excellence in Water Management (‘within the fence’ category) after deploying our solution.
The solution we provided GKNM Hospital with (in addition to 30+ other clients across 50+ sites) is exactly what the new regulation by Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) and Jal Shakti Ministry has imposed on the nation at large today. With the introduction of this regulation, you might see new companies working in other sectors striving to enter — but it will take them time to build reliable tracking and proven water conservation technology. It took us nearly two years to perfect our own solution. The water crisis, however, cannot wait.
FluxGen as a company is ready to scale the AquaGen water management solution across the country in no time.
There are more than 70,000 hospitals in India alone. If we could deploy the GKNM Hospital solution in all of these we could save nearly 4 billion litres of water every day — equivalent to 3 times the daily water consumed by the whole of Bangalore city.
While FluxGen has a proven, reliable, solution and a strong, passionate team to solve the problem, we are looking for support. This could be through investment, adopting our solution, or partnering with us. As an Indian company, we would strive to face our water challenges by solving in India, for India. That being said, the water crisis is not a problem for India alone, and we see ourselves expanding into other water-stressed markets and geographies, including the Middle East and the US.
It is said that the word “eradicate” comes from the Latin phrase which means “to pull up by the roots”. Let us work together to “eradicate” — remove from the root causes — the water crisis in Indian cities!
~~~
Please do go through this three minute documentary as part of Evolution of Solutions series by The Better India, in association with Accenture in India, on FluxGen’s work towards Building a Water Positive World. Contact me at [email protected] to learn more about AquaGen.in and how you can support FluxGen’s mission to enable industries to measure, analyze and strategize to save water!
(Thanks to @Hari Dilip Kumar for working with me to craft this article from idea inception to research to cocreation! You can reach Hari on: [email protected])
Stay tuned for follow-on articles! | https://medium.com/@fluxgentech/lets-eradicate-the-water-crisis-in-india-together-d8d1ea6d68e4 | ['Fluxgen Technologies'] | 2021-03-22 14:48:07.994000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Sdgs', 'Sustainable Development', 'Climate Crisis', 'Water'] |
An insight into the concept of Genetic Algorithm | We hear about genetic algorithm every now and then but what exactly is this genetic algorithm? And why does it sound so much related to the subject of biology? Does it really use genes or some other biological entity while it is being implemented or the processes it involves are similar to what happens in biology? These are some of the questions even I had when I first heard about the term genetic algorithm in my graduation days. If you are like what I was back then and want to figure out within minutes what this so-called genetic algorithm or GA is then this is the right place to start your journey. This article is specially written for those who are new to the concept of algorithms and want to get a good grasp of the concept of genetic algorithm in computer science.
What is a Genetic Algorithm?
Genetic Algorithm (GA) is a search-based optimization technique that follows the principle of Genetics and Natural Selection in the field of Biology. The main purpose of this algorithm is to find optimal or near-optimal solutions to quite a few difficult of difficult problems which are probably unsolvable or would take a very long time to solve using normal procedures or algorithms. Genetic Algorithm is quite often used to solve optimization problems in machine learning and to generate high-quality solutions for optimization problems.
The concept of GA has been adopted from the natural genetic evolution and thereby again proving the point that
“Nature has always been a great source of inspiration to all mankind.” — lakhasly.com
It is a subset of a much larger branch of computation, known as the Evolutionary Computation. Genetic Algorithms were developed by John H. Holland and his students and colleagues at the University of Michigan, of which David E. Goldberg is the most notable.
In short, the genetic algorithm repeatedly modifies a population of individual solutions. At each step, the genetic algorithm selects individuals at random from the current population to be parents and uses them to produce the children for the next generation. Over successive generations, the population “evolves” toward an optimal solution.
The genetic algorithm uses three main types of rules at each step to create the next generation from the current population: • Selection rules select the individuals, called parents, that contribute to the population at the next generation. • Crossover rules combine two parents to form children for the next generation. • Mutation rules apply random changes to individual parents to form children. [1]
Image by author on actual genetic algorithm flowchart
Difference between Classical Algorithm and Genetic Algorithm
A classical algorithm generates a single point after each iteration, and a sequence of those points approaches an optimal solution. Whereas on the other hand, a GA generates a population of points after each iteration and the best point in the population approaches the optimal solution.
A classical algorithm selects the next point in the sequence by a deterministic approach but a genetic algorithm selects the next population by in a random fashion using a random number generator.
A few important terminologies
Search Space:
Search Space is basically where all the individuals or data points in a population are stored and maintained. Each of these individuals represents one solution in the search space for a given problem. Each one of these is an array or a vector of components and is analogous to a chromosome i.e., it can be thought of as a single chromosome inside a nucleus. The variable components inside a chromosome can be thought of as genes i.e., a chromosome consists of several genes.
Fitness Score:
There is always a fitness score that is given to each individual or data point. The individuals with the best or better to say ‘the optimal’ score, are taken into consideration and given a higher priority to reproduce new generations. These individuals with better fitness scores are selected for mating and they produce better offspring by combining the chromosomes of the parents. While implementing the algorithm, we can take a population size to be fixed or static. Higher population sizes give rise to better offspring in lesser iterations and it is hoped that with successive iterations or generations better solutions are achieved. It is considered that the population has converged and has reached the optimal solution if there is no more significant difference between the new offspring and the offspring produced by the previous generations. Therefore, the algorithm is said to have converged to a set of solutions for the given problem.
Operations:
Selection: This is an operation where the individuals with a better fitness score are given preference and allowed to pass their genes to the successive generations. Therefore, individuals with better fitness scores are allowed to mate and produce offspring for the next successive generation.
Crossover: This is an operation where the actual (analogous) mating takes place between individuals. The crossover sites or locations in a chromosome are chosen in this operation and the two selected chromosomes from the selection operation are taken for crossover. The actual crossover happens when the genes, which were chosen are taken and combined to produce the new offspring (which is of the same length as that of the parents.) Please note all the selection of crossover points is done at random. The following example will make it clearer.
Image by author on Crossover technique
Mutation: This is an operation where some individual genes are taken from an offspring and mutated or changed. It’s better to use the word ‘insert’ rather than ‘change’. This is primarily done to maintain diversity in the population and also to avoid any premature convergence of the algorithm which we don’t want. We want the algorithm to take its own time to give us the optimal solution. Please note here also the mutating locations are chosen at random. Here’s an example to make things clear.
Image by author on Mutation technique
Advantages and Disadvantages of Genetic Algorithm
There are many advantages of genetic algorithms over traditional optimization algorithms. Two of the most notable are, the ability to deal with complex problems and parallelism. Genetic algorithms can deal with various types of optimization, whether the objective (fitness) function is stationary or nonstationary (changes with time), linear or nonlinear, continuous or discontinuous, or with random noise. Because multiple offspring in a population act like independent agents, the population (or any subgroup) can explore the search space in many directions simultaneously. This feature makes it ideal to parallelize the algorithms for implementation. Different parameters and even different groups of encoded strings can be manipulated at the same time. [2] However, genetic algorithms also have some disadvantages. The formulation of a fitness function, the use of population size, the choice of important parameters such as the rate of mutation and crossover, and the selection criteria of the new population should be carried out carefully. Any inappropriate choice will make it difficult for the algorithm to converge or it will simply produce meaningless results. Despite these drawbacks, genetic algorithms remain one of the most widely used optimization algorithms in modern nonlinear optimization. [2]
Further advantages include:
Genetic Algorithms has the ability to optimize continuous and discrete functions and also multi-objective problems like route mapping (dependant on distance, time, traffic, etc.)
It always generates a solution and also the one that improves with time or successive iterations.
This algorithm is quite useful and produces better results when the search space or population of individuals is very large and has a large number of parameters.
It is basically faster than classical algorithms and more efficient.
Disadvantages include:
The greatest disadvantage could be that since GA is stochastic in nature, there is no guarantee on the optimality or quality of the solution. Many times it may not reach the desired solution.
If the GA is not implemented correctly, then we might fail to reach the optimal solution i.e., the algorithm may not converge.
The very fact that fitness value is calculated for every successive generation may increase computational complexity for some problems.
Pseudocode
Here’s a sketch of a typical GA in pseudocode:
GA()
begin
Create initial population;
while (Until Stopping Criteria)
for (Each Chromosome)
Calculate fitness value;
Selection (Survival of strong individuals);
Crossover (Here, new generation produced);
Mutation (Changing some genes for new and
different individuals);
end
Generate new population;
end
end
Can we now dive into the code?
The following is a simple example python program where the genetic algorithm has been implemented. The code has been taken from GeeksforGeeks and therefore in no manner do I claim the ownership of the following code. I will try my best to explain the code step by step.
This portion is mainly importing the random library in Python, setting a population size, setting the valid genes, and the target string.
This is where the class Individual definition starts and it defines, two-member variables chromosome and fitness, and initializes them.
mutated_genes() is a function where the mutation in the genes takes place. Here, a random gene is taken from the pool of the genes and is returned to the main program.
create_gnome() creates individual gnomes or chromosomes of target length and returns to the main function.
mate() is a very important function as here is exactly where the new chromosomes with better fitness are created. Two operations that occur here are crossover and mutation. This is actually a modified or custom genetic algorithm where the operations are based on random probability. If the probability is less than 0.45 then a gene from parent chromosome 1 is passed on to the child chromosome whereas if the probability is greater than or equal to 0.45 and less than 0.90 then the corresponding gene from parent chromosome 2 is passed on to the child chromosome and if the probability is more than or equal to 0.90 then mutated gene is passed on to the child chromosome and finally the new chromosome is returned.
cal_fitness() calculates the fitness score of a particular chromosome and returns it that the genetic algorithm can take decisions accordingly. This particular function checks if the target string has been achieved or not and accordingly creates the fitness score based on the number of characters that are yet to meet the target requirement.
This is the main algorithm function where all the previous functions are called to do their individual works. First, the initial population is created. Then, the population is sorted according to its fitness score putting the best-scored chromosomes at the beginning. Now it checks if the first (best fitness score) has a fitness score less than or equal to 0 then it shall return the string as that is the target string and the algorithm stops. If not, it performs elitism by adding 10% of the fittest population into the next generation population and further 50% of the old population goes into mating to produce children. Now the new generation is worked with again from the beginning passing through all the above steps. Ultimately, we see that after a considerable amount of execution time, the algorithm stops and produces the target string.
This is the output I received:
PS C:\Users\RAJARSI> & python c:/Users/RAJARSI/Desktop/GA.py
Generation: 1 String: i a2yl [TXl Xn[:rZnL Fitness: 18
Generation: 2 String: U[vW 5 mL&TgW rdLeVY Fitness: 17
Generation: 3 String: 4g9W/5 mO&["W rGLefY Fitness: 16
Generation: 4 String: 4gCa/5 G];[4Wo;G3e}Y Fitness: 15
Generation: 5 String: 4gCa/5 G];[4Wo;G3e}Y Fitness: 15
Generation: 6 String: F 1! e GeWk@/bal#tk2 Fitness: 13
Generation: 7 String: F 9! e Ge k@#OtG#e}9 Fitness: 12
Generation: 8 String: F 9! e Ge k@#OtG#e}9 Fitness: 12
Generation: 9 String: { C0Xh GeePv=orG3ePY Fitness: 11
Generation: 10 String: 5y6/;e Gee3nWorG3ekY Fitness: 10
Generation: 11 String: 5y6/;e Gee3nWorG3ekY Fitness: 10
Generation: 12 String: I 1WPe GeekD=oZG_e}Y Fitness: 9
Generation: 13 String: I 1WPe GeekD=oZG_e}Y Fitness: 9
Generation: 14 String: I 1WPe GeekD=oZG_e}Y Fitness: 9
Generation: 15 String: I ( W GeeknaorG3ekY Fitness: 8
Generation: 16 String: I ( W GeeknaorG3ekY Fitness: 8
Generation: 17 String: I }!pe Geek"QorGPekY Fitness: 7
Generation: 18 String: I }!pe Geek"QorGPekY Fitness: 7
Generation: 19 String: I }!pe Geek"QorGPekY Fitness: 7
Generation: 20 String: F Oo&e Geekn5orGeekY Fitness: 6
Generation: 21 String: F Oo&e Geekn5orGeekY Fitness: 6
Generation: 22 String: F Oo&e Geekn5orGeekY Fitness: 6
Generation: 23 String: F Oo&e Geekn5orGeekY Fitness: 6
Generation: 24 String: I loOe Geev"5orGeekY Fitness: 5
Generation: 25 String: I loOe Geev"5orGeekY Fitness: 5
Generation: 26 String: I goOe GeekJYorGeeks Fitness: 4
Generation: 27 String: I goOe GeekJYorGeeks Fitness: 4
Generation: 28 String: I goOe GeekJYorGeeks Fitness: 4
Generation: 29 String: I goOe GeekJYorGeeks Fitness: 4
Generation: 30 String: I goOe GeekJYorGeeks Fitness: 4
Generation: 31 String: I goOe GeekJYorGeeks Fitness: 4
Generation: 32 String: I goOe GeekJYorGeeks Fitness: 4
Generation: 33 String: I goOe GeekJYorGeeks Fitness: 4
Generation: 34 String: I goOe GeekJYorGeeks Fitness: 4
Generation: 35 String: I lo e GeekJQorGeeks Fitness: 3
Generation: 36 String: I lo e GeekJQorGeeks Fitness: 3
Generation: 37 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 38 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 39 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 40 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 41 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 42 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 43 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 44 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 45 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 46 String: I love Geek"farGeeks Fitness: 2
Generation: 47 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 48 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 49 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 50 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 51 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 52 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 53 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 54 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 55 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 56 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 57 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 58 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 59 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 60 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 61 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 62 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 63 String: I love GeekEforGeeks Fitness: 1
Generation: 64 String: I love GeeksforGeeks Fitness: 0
PS C:\Users\RAJARSI>
If you received a different output do not worry, no two genetic algorithm outputs are ever the same as the entire process runs on randomness. If your code takes longer to run, it’s nothing to worry about. The next run may be faster. But the ultimately the algorithm should end with the string “I love GeeksforGeeks”
Applications
• Bayesian inference links to particle methods in Bayesian statistics and hidden Markov chain models • Distributed computer network topologies • Electronic circuit design, known as evolvable hardware • Learning robot behavior using genetic algorithms • Image processing: Dense pixel matching • Learning fuzzy rule base using genetic algorithms • Game theory equilibrium resolution • And many more… [3]
Conclusion
So, in this article, what I have tried first explain what exactly Genetic Algorithms are, then I tried to explain the difference between classical algorithms and genetic algorithms. I focused a lot on the various important terminologies that are used in genetic algorithms and how they are analogous to real-life genetics and biological evolution. The three operations selection, crossover, and mutation are the basic foundation upon which the entire genetic algorithm is based. So, these are the most important operations.
Advantages and disadvantages are something that needs to be known before even thinking about applying GA into your problem. As you can see there are quite a few problems that can be solved using genetic algorithms but there many that cannot be or rather would take much more time in solving. So, therefore, I would prefer using GA where the population size of data is very large and thus the randomness would actually take effect. What about you?
References | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/an-insight-into-genetic-algorithms-93428953c098 | ['Rajarsi Saha'] | 2020-09-19 12:47:20.833000+00:00 | ['Genetics', 'Towards Data Science', 'Programming', 'Genetic Algorithm', 'Algorithms'] |
Secrets of drawing with CSS and a single DIV | Recently #divtober , a hashtag initiated by Lynn Fisher, ended — at least for 2020. On her website she presented her contribution to #divtober. An amazing collection of CSS art. It’s even more impressive once you know that these quite complex and detailed clipart-like images were drawn with only a single DIV and pure CSS, meaning no preprocessor like SASS/SCSS, no images, no SVG. Only CSS and a single DIV — the minimum amount of HTML needed to draw an image with CSS.
I also have a small collection of single DIV CSS art myself. The image of a MacBook Pro with the glossy screen and reflections of the chassis below is, for example, drawn with only one DIV and pure CSS only. There are other articles already about how to create CSS art. For example here by Ali Spittel. Or here by JavaScript Teacher. Totally worth reading! Check them out if you have time. But their articles focus on multiple DIVs. In this article, however, I’ll reveal to you in easy and simple to understands words the secrets of how you can draw an image with pure CSS and only one single DIV.
Drawn with a single DIV and pure CSS. See code here
It all starts with a <div/> . That’s the minimum amount of HTML element you’ll need in order to apply CSS on it. Drawing CSS with a single DIV usually means exploiting every means that can be used to create any shape or form in order to realize your ideas. Just like in a traditional painting, the more manifold your brushes are, the better the outcome will be. And CSS offers you more shapes and forms you initially thought possible with only one DIV.
Box shadow
Let’s start with a simple one. If you have used CSS before, you probably know about the box-shadow attribute. In the following case you create a box shadow that is, by default, black and has an offset of 10px to the left and to the top with a blur and spread radius of 10px respectively.
div {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-color: green;
box-shadow: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
}
By default the box shadow is black
With only a few modifications to the above code, i.e. by setting the blur and spread radius to 0px , you can simulate a second element, because reducing the blur and spread radius you make the border of the shadow edged and thus creates the illusion of an additional element.
div {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-color: green;
box-shadow: 10px 10px 0px 0px red;
}
The box-shadow attribute can take as many values as you want. By changing the color and the position you can create the illusion of as many additional elements as you want:
div {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-color: green;
box-shadow: 10px 10px 0px 0px red,
23px 200px 0px 0px blue,
140px 90px 0px 0px yellow,
250px 40px 0px 0px pink;
}
One DIV with multiple box-shadows
Ok, cool. But why would you want to have lots of square colorful boxes. Can you really draw with it? Technically yes. Because they are basically pixels. And computer games are drawings made by pixels. Here is an example of an CSS image made only with box-shadows, aka. pixels that is also animated.
Though possible, drawing a whole picture with only pixels that you individually have to set it’s position is too tedious and lacks the sophistication most people admire about single DIV art. However, you can combine them to create different figures other than the parent element:
div {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-color: green;
box-shadow: 150px 50px 0px 0px red,
250px 50px 0px 0px red,
350px 50px 0px 0px red,
400px 50px 0px 0px red;
}
Different objects drawn with one and the same DIV
That’s a technique I frequently use. For example in my MVG-U-Bahn (Munich’s subway) drawing, I used a single vertical stroke to basically create all vertical strokes you see in the drawing:
To exemplify, I zoomed in and marked the part as red that was used to replicate all other vertical lines:
I marked the single vertical line in red to exemplify the technique
The lines below and in parallel are just box shadows of that single line. :) As you can see a simple but powerful technique.
Pseudo elements
When people think single DIV arts they assume you only have one element to design and puzzled how you could “draw” an image just by using one element. Well, that assumption is not quite true. You always get two so called pseudo elements, before and after that you can style — just like any other DIVs. The only difference is that you have to set the content attribute with a any string and you have to set the position attribute:
div {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-color: green;
} div::before {
content: "";
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-color: yellow;
position: absolute;
top: 25px;
left: 25px;
} div::after {
content: "";
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-color: red;
position: absolute;
top: 50px;
left: 50px;
}
These three elements were created just by using one DIV and pseudo-elements
Usually you have to set an empty string unless you want to use the content string as a means to design as well. But more on how to use strings as a means for designing your single DIV CSS drawings later.
In nearly all my CSS drawings I would use pseudo-elements. They are the most essential part of single DIV CSS art. To show you where these elements are, I marked these elements in my iPhone drawing: The red bordered element is the DIV. The green bordered element is the before pseudo-element. And the blue bordered element is the after pseudo-element.
Pseudo elements highlighted in green and blue. The red one is the main DIV
You can style each pseudo-elements just like any other DIV and use all the techniques available for any other DIV.
Linear gradients
You might ask: “How can you draw that iPhone with only using pseudo-elements and box-shadows? How to achieve those metallic effects?”
Metallic effects created with CSS
You may have guess it, they are created using CSS linear gradient. Linear gradient is a value of the attribute background-image . With linear gradient alone you can create a plethora of amazing effects. As a starter:
div {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-image: linear-gradient(red, yellow);
}
Fire-like effect with linear-gradient
By changing the angle and setting how much percent a certain color should fill the DIV you can create cool effects like a metallic shining appearance:
div {
height: 100px;
width: 100px;
background-image: linear-gradient(to right, rgba(115, 107, 98, .5) 1px, rgba(253, 247, 240, .5) 4px, #fdf7f0 8px, #d2c6b9 11px, #d2c6b9 37px, #d2c6b9 80px, transparent 80px, transparent 215px, #d2c6b9 215px, #d2c6b9 264px, #d2c6b9 286px, #fdf7f0 291px, rgba(253, 247, 240, .2) 295px, rgba(115, 107, 98, .4) 299px);
}
What most people don’t know is you can add as many linear gradients as you want. Also, you can also create hard edged lines without gradients with linear gradient, too. For example I used multiple linear gradients to create the barcode shown below:
First I created two horizontal non-transparent bars. And in between one horizontal transparent bar. This can be achieved with one linear gradient:
div {
height: 200px;
width: 200px;
background: linear-gradient(#ddd 145px, transparent 145px, transparent 190px, #ddd 190px);
}
Next I would add vertical lines to achieve the illusion of barcodes. As you can see, you can create hard edged lines by end of a color to the same position as the next color. If end point of one color is the same as the start point of the next color, you create the illusion of a hard edged line:
div {
height: 200px;
width: 200px;
background: linear-gradient(#ddd 145px, transparent 145px, transparent 190px, #ddd 190px), linear-gradient(90deg, transparent 120px, black 120px, black 121px, transparent 121px, transparent 122px, black 122px, black 123px, transparent 123px, transparent 128px, black 128px, black 130px, transparent 130px, transparent 131px, black 131px, black 132px, transparent 132px, transparent 133px, black 133px, black 138px, transparent 138px, transparent 139px, black 139px, 140px, transparent 140px, transparent 145px, black 145px, black 146px, transparent 146px, transparent 147px, black 147px, black 150px, transparent 150px, transparent 155px, black 155px, black 156px, transparent 156px, transparent 157px, black 157px, black 158px, transparent 158px, transparent 159px, black 159px, black 160px, transparent 160px, transparent 161px, black 161px, black 162px, transparent 162px);
}
Hard edgled lines created using linear gradient
Radial gradients
Besides linear gradients, you can also use radial gradients as value in the background-image attribute. Similar to linear gradients, you can set the position, the color and the color spread individually:
div {
height: 200px;
width: 200px;
background: radial-gradient(circle at center, red 0, blue, green 100%);
}
For example I drew the glasses, eye, pupil, and the light reflection of this minion with radial gradients only:
Glasses, eye, pupil, and light reflection were created using radial gradient
Background size
We talked a lot about background-image . But did you know you can use the background-size as a mean to draw as well? Resizing the background-size means to increasing the number of elements that you drew in background-image . For example the following code creates one circle
div {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background: radial-gradient(circle, white 10%, transparent 0%), green;
background-size: 100% 100%;
}
By reducing the background-size from 100% to 50% you can duplicate the background-image :
div {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background: radial-gradient(circle, white 10%, transparent 0%), green;
background-size: 50% 100%;
}
I applied this technique on the following drawing of an Android:
The eyes of the Android is just one circle drawn with radial-gradient . By simply changing the background-size I could create 2 replica of the background-image .
Letters
If you inspect the code of the Android careful enough, you’ll see that it is drawn with all the techniques I explained here so far. Except for one: Letters. For this you need a little bit creativity. It’s a technique I seldom see in other drawings. I don’t know why people don’t use it but I use it quite a lot. For the antenna of the Android, I added a "\000a0V” in the content value of one of the pseudo-elements. The V stands for the two antenna. The \000a0 stands for non-breaking space. I use this to position the letters vertically. In order to position it horizontally you can use \A . This adds a line break.
Another way of using letters as a mean to design is using certain symbols. For example the steering wheel of this racing car is actually a letter — a “Right Semidirect Product” (don’t ask me what this letter is used for. If you know, then comment below. I’d be interested to know):
That letter is encoded with \22cc and looks like this:
Another example is the minion drawing. The legs are actually of the letter k and the arms are of the letter v :
By adding letters in the content attribute of a pseudo-element, I can create more complex shapes and forms in order to complement the drawings.
Reflection
You may still ask yourself how I created the reflection of the MacBook Pro’s chassis. It’s actually quite simple. CSS offers you an attribute for that: box-reflect . It mirrors the element that was applied to horizontally:
div {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background-color: green;
border-bottom-right-radius: 50px;
border: 1px solid blue;
-webkit-box-reflect:
below 0px
-webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom,
from(transparent), color-stop(5, transparent), to(white));
}
As you can see by the vendor prefix, it’s not CSS standard and should not be used in production code. It also doesn’t have full browser support as you can see here on caniuse.com: | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/secrets-of-drawing-with-css-and-a-single-div-ce9930ec9050 | [] | 2020-11-11 18:42:25.262000+00:00 | ['Art', 'Web Development', 'Css Art', 'Coding', 'CSS'] |
Sensoryx & Interhaptics partner to streamline the creation of hand tracking interactions for VRFree | Hand-tracking is on the rise in the XR market. In the last couple of years, several emerging high quality and precise hand-tracking technologies were introduced to the market.
Facebook came with the Oculus Quest 1 & 2, then Microsoft with the Hololens2 with hand tracking capabilities; but there are limitations in dealing with occlusions and in tracking outside the camera’s field of view on the headset.
Sensoryx is a Swiss technology startup that developed a wearable sensor system that not only captures every movement of its wearer with the utmost precision in real-time, it also does so without using external references (stationary cameras or laser beacons).
VRFree System by Sensoryx
Trending AR VR Articles:
One of the current challenges of hand tracking is how to translate an analogic input (the hands) into a logical one interpreted by software and to create scalable and easily implementable hand interaction content and that’s what we are bringing with Interhaptics application; the Interaction Builder.
Therefore, the two European tech start-ups, Sensoryx, and Interhaptics, are collaborating to integrate the VRfree Gloves with Interhaptics development suite. To bring the most seamless experience possible, Interhaptics will be integrating the VRfree system to enable users with a powerful hand-tracking device.
Dr. Rolf Adelsberger, Sensoryx CEO & Co-Founder
“We are excited to be working with the Interhaptics team on this exciting integration project. Creating software-based, scalable and easily implementable hand interaction content is a critical capability for the future of intuitive and natural interaction for XR users. Interhaptics are creating a tool that will enable the easy integration of hand interactions across a broad range of XR hardware devices. This will result in a standardized integration tool for developers and a much more immersive, realistic experience for XR users. As such, Sensoryx are delighted to be working with Interhaptics to ensure our VRfree system is fully interoperable with their Interaction Builder”
Interhaptics is a software company specializing in Haptics. Interhaptics provides hand interactions and Haptics feedback development and deployment tools for extended reality, mobile, and console applications.
Eric Vezzoli, Interhaptics CEO & Founder
“We are thrilled to carry on this collaboration. VRfree is a solid device including precise and scalable hand tracking data. The capability to deploy this feature across different VR headset makes them a great device for several enterprise-related use-cases. They fit in our strategy to provide cross-platform design and deployment for Hand Tracking and Haptics devices.”
The VRfree® system consists of a pair of lightweight gloves, and an HMD module that you clip onto your headset (Oculus, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, or similar). The system is composed of different, complementary sensor types that are fully integrated into the gloves and HMD mount. It allows users to fully track their hands and fingers in 3D space — without any other 3rd party tracking device. The system does not require any other external references like cameras or beacons, making it the only mobile hand and finger tracking system available today.
The Interhaptics suite gathers two powerful tools. The Interaction Builder is a low code 3D engines plugin to develop realistic hand interactions in within 3 clicks. The application increases the value of the creation while significantly decreasing the time of development. Best used for hand-tracking and UX and this will soon support SensoryX VRFree Hand tracking system.
If you have a project and would like to collaborate and integrate your devices with Interhaptics contact us here.
Don’t forget to give us your 👏 ! | https://arvrjourney.com/sensoryx-interhaptics-partner-to-streamline-the-creation-of-hand-tracking-interactions-for-vrfree-9582eb26d5bc | [] | 2020-12-11 17:41:45.691000+00:00 | ['VR', 'Virtual Reality', 'Handtracking', 'Haptics', 'Augmented Reality'] |
How Logo Design Helps You To Create The Brand Of Your Business? | Being a new start-up or old business trust of the customer is a must for every business or organization. The brand of your business can help you to gain the trust of the customer. But how to create a branded business?? Ok, Let’s see how to create the brand of the business.
Graphic Design is one of the important aspects to create the brand of the business. Logo of your business, brochure design, stationery design, product package design, etc is included in the graphic design which plays a crucial role in the branding of the business. Now let us see how logo design is very important for your business.
Logo Design: An Important Aspect Of Business
As we always say that the first impression is the last impression. Same way for any business Logo is considering to be the first impression, So if the first impression of our business will be best we can easily gain the attraction of the customer.
Therefore for any business logo design plays a very crucial role in creating a brand of the business. Eye-grabbing and unique logo design are very important for any business. If your Logo design is unique your business can be easily recognized and an attractive logo can also help you to stand out from other competitors in the market.
An Informative logo design will be important for visual communication with the customer, and can also make them understand what your business is about. There are many more benefits or importance to any business.
Let us see an overview of why logo design is important for your business.
Importance of Logo Design
It grabs the attention It makes the strong first impression It is the foundation of your brand identity It is memorable It separates you from the competition It Fosters Brand Loyalty Creates Visual Communication
Points To Keep In My Mind While Designing Logo
There are many points to keep in mind while creating the logo design.
The logo should be attractive and unique from other competitors.
A logo design should be designed in such a way that sees it customer can get an idea about your business, which means logo design should be information.
Logo Design should be designed according to the latest trends.
Proper Color selection.
Proper research and analysis for your logo.
These are some of the points to keep in mind while designing the logo.
Conclusion
So here you come to know how important is designing the logo for any company. Logo Design is one of the first impression of the business. If your logo design is stunning you can create a brand of your business that results in the trust of the customer.
And for every business trust of the customer is very important as it makes you succeed and see growth in the business. New start-up or old business logo design is very important for any business.
There are many logo design company which helps you in designing the best logo design for your business at an affordable price.
Thank You For Reading, I Hope This Information Will Be Useful For You!! | https://medium.com/@delighterp-seo/how-logo-design-helps-you-to-create-the-brand-of-your-business-762c084753ac | [] | 2020-12-14 07:59:16.996000+00:00 | ['Logo Design', 'Branding', 'Graphic Design', 'Logo Design Company', 'Logo Design Services'] |
Putting the Disco Back into Discourse | The body of work I call DISCOurse is a non-medium-specific practice combining painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, and photographic digital imaging into larger works/installations. The work formally manipulates the glitz and glam aesthetic of early queer disco, reimagining its diverse site as a rehearsal for inclusion. In that era of the color-blind disco club, the veil of repression was lifted, if only for a few hours, to make otherness or queerness attractive and dazzling — even for the straight interloper. From Andy Warhol to movie stars, Drag Queens to S&M queens to Jersey teens with good haircuts, at the Disco you came home.
Before the eventual elitism of the velvet rope, or Disco’s arguable devolvement into sex, drugs, death, and exercise videos, the Disco was, for a time, a dreamland of marginal belonging. From this utopic perspective, 70’s Disco heralded progressive change by reveling in its flamboyant, radical aesthetic of shine.
With DISCOurse, I mean to celebrate and critique our pervasive shine obsession. I look soberly at the dangers of contemporary shine through a nostalgic filter of disco toward a re-queering and re-radicalizing of shine. This work elevates the imperfect, the perforated, the broken shine, to reveal the interstices of societies’ reflection, the spaces between our fragments, androgynous spaces filled with potential.
The site of DISCOurse, like cross-border economies, is where material goods, ideas, and definitions are hybridized and repurposed, are new and possible, where culture and the imagination anticipate a future diverse, optimistic, joyous and fun — it puts the disco back into critical discourse. | https://medium.com/prismnpen/putting-the-disco-back-into-discourse-b4588f47bf24 | ['Bradley Wester'] | 2020-12-17 23:02:02.599000+00:00 | ['Artist', 'LGBTQ', 'Art', 'Creative Non Fiction', 'Contemporary Art'] |
The Process of Familiarity: An Interview with Nicholas Rougeux | JF: Can you give us an example of how a mistake or pushing a new idea has fundamentally changed how you looked at a project?
NR: The best mistake that had the most impact was what lead to creating Between the Words, a poster series based on the punctuation of literary classics. In playing around with regular expressions (patterns that help extract text from other text) for another project, I accidentally removed everything but punctuation from a string of text. I thought this looked interesting and tried it with a larger set of text like The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (the full text of which is on Project Gubenberg) and thought it was interesting enough to create a poster series around the idea. I played around with a few ways to include all the punctuation on a poster and landed on using a spiral with each chapter marked. I completed the entire project over the course of a weekend and posted it online with a tweet, not expecting the attention it was about to get.
“Between the Words”, detail of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Thanks to a couple of well-known people in the data visualization community retweeting about it, the project gained a lot of attention and really opened my eyes to the appeal that classical works of art have for many people. Not bad for a weekend project!
JF: How do you select a project or focus on a particular skill or approach you’re interested in learning? Is there anything you’re specifically not interested in? How do you know you’ve found something that sparks your curiosity?
NR: I like to keep an open mind for anything that may cross my path. In a broad sense, sciences and the arts capture my interest the most but if something doesn’t fit under those large umbrellas, I won’t dismiss it out of hand. Lots of things spark my curiosity but I tend to be drawn to items that have some underlying structure that I might be able to tease out to create something new from it.
“Illustrations of the Natural Orders of Plants” Likenesses poster (link)
“Byrne’s Euclid” detailed poster of every geometric illustration (link)
The ‘likenesses’ between the plants Twining illustrated is a good example of this. While there are plenty of diagrams of plant genealogies, to my knowledge, no one documented the specific ones Twining described. I felt this added a new unseen dimension to her work. The poster I created containing all of Byrne’s diagrams is another simpler example. To my knowledge, no one had extracted out all of his illustrations into a single view before. Considering how colorful and varied they are, I thought this would look really fun. Surprisingly, so did many other people! Another more abstract example is my Literary Constellations project where I created constellations based on the parts of speech of first sentences of chapters of classic short stories.
JF: Your “Color Palettes of The New Yorker” project has an explicit design subject matter focus that you then explore with data. What did you learn from a project like that, and can you explain how you might “learn differently” when you apply that kind of data exploration to an art/design project?
NR: That project was the result of me being really determined to do something with a large set of color data. I’ll admit the end product is not as interesting as the process leading up to it where I came up with several dozen experiments in visualizing the data. I learned from all the experiments that trying out different ideas — no matter how abstract they are — can be fascinating and can help on future projects. In devising the methods to produce the images, I learned a lot of new techniques and tools that I can use to experiment with other data to possibly gain more insights. Some of them almost made into a third poster for Twining’s illustrations too (and still might one day). | https://medium.com/nightingale/the-process-of-familiarity-an-interview-with-nicholas-rougeux-c30f1a1b2f8 | ['Jason Forrest'] | 2019-07-29 17:55:08.128000+00:00 | ['Data Humanism', 'Interviews', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Art'] |
45 Of The Biggest Lessons I’ve Learned In The Corporate World | 15 years ago, I got my first job as an IT technician because my dad knew the managing director of the company.
Till today, I feel guilty that nepotism launched by career. But I also learned the corporate world is a complicated and delicate jungle that you need to understand and adapt to.
The politics can work for you or against you.
Your ethics can work for you or against you.
This is a list of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the past 15 years, working both in the Middle East and North America.
On Getting Promoted
Promotions are not a reward for what you’ve done in the past. It’s a prediction of what you’re capable of doing in the future. So always work outside your job description. This is how I moved up the ladder (vertically and horizontally) every 2 years. Always be replaceable. Otherwise you will never get an internal promotion, because there is no one to do your old job. This is why I was denied a promotion by the best manager I ever had. Want a higher position on a different team? You need to be working with that other team on a common project now to build trust. I worked on a common project with that team, and when an opening came up, the hiring manager said to me “I like how you work.” Dress for the next job you want to get, in line with your company’s culture. Mimic your management. Appearances do matter. After I started wearing blazers I noticed a difference. It’s all about the money. Always! Understand how management view and protect their budget and let that be a guiding principle in your conversations. That’s what management essentially mean when they ask to present a “Business case” for your idea.
On Your Relationship With Your Boss
One of your main responsibilities is to make your boss look good to their boss. Without a$$-licking or compromising your integrity or dignity. Always attend to their requests first. You know you’ve reached a milestone in your relationship when your boss tells you “Can you cover for me?” It’s not your boss’ job to tell you exactly what to do. S/he will appreciate that you are figuring things out on your own. Use them as a compass, not a GPS. Before you conclude your boss is a micromanager, observe if others feel the same. It could be you. If you do have a micromanaging boss, leave. They will never let you grow and will impact your performance. I worked with a team who described their boss as a “nano manager”. It was a very difficult team to work with, until that manager was fired. Don’t wait for your performance review. If you have something important to discuss, bring it up now. When I asked my manager during my review for more money, his response was “You should have asked me earlier”.
On Your Relationship With Your Colleagues
They are not your friends. If you must make friends, make them from another department you don’t work with. When conflicts inevitable rise, I was conflicted between talking straight or protecting my friendship. Empathy goes a long way. When asking something from them, always ask yourself “What’s in it for them?” and negotiate accordingly. It’s a give-and-take relationship. Help them when you can and count your favours, so they will reciprocate for you in the future. Sound too cold? What do you care? They’re not your friends remember? If they are not pulling their weight, make sure you’ve done everything you can do directly with the colleague before escalating to management. Escalations always sour relationships. Use it as a last resort. Above all be likeable. You can get away with mistakes and asking for more favours than they owe. Buy them the occasional coffee for people in other teams. It’s a good investment. Don’t mess with HR. Don’t mess with finance. They are more powerful than you think.
On Communication
Get to the point. Some folks like to paint an elaborate picture first. Most listeners, especially senior management, don’t have the time or patience. Keep your emails short. No ones going to read anything beyond 5–7 sentences. Have more to say? Call a meeting. Emails and Skype messages can be ignored. But not a face-to-face conversation. If you have something important to say, or you’re being ignored, leave the laptop behind and talk to the person. Everyone has a different communication style. Some prefer email, some prefer personal conversations. Observe and adapt. The higher you want to go, the more important your speaking skills are. Join toastmasters if you need to.
On Meetings
Always create and agenda in the invite. Because most people don’t, and you’ll get a higher acceptance rate Oprah Winfrey starts every meeting with three questions “What is our intention for this meeting? What’s important? What matters?” If you’re calling a meeting, make sure you stick to the agenda. If a meeting is more than 20 minutes, half the people aren’t going to be listening. Keep it short. Attendees will love you for it. Don’t bring your laptop to meetings unless you are presenting something. You’ll be seen as the only one who’s paying attention. Once I started doing this, I noticed the presenter was only looking at me instead of others. Helps with your likability. Unless it’s a meeting your manager calls, your default reaction to attending meetings should be “No”. Unless you honestly see the value you will bring to that meeting. Your time is better spent working towards activities that lead to your promotion.
On Leadership
You know you’re a good leader when others say you are so. It’s my personal empathetic description. Just like you know you’re listening when the other person feels they are being heard. Don’t expect or depend on your boss to be a great leader. Good leaders are rare. Focus on being a great leader yourself. Leaders speak first and last. They trust their team to do most of the talking in the middle. Reschedule your one-on-ones if you have to. But never cancel them. Identify someone who you feel is a great leader in your organization. It’s most likely not going to be your boss. Use them as a mentor and make them feel you value their opinion. They’ll appreciate it, and you’ll learn a lot. Always always credit your team on a job well done to your management. It doesn’t mean you don’t do the work. It means you know how to delegate effectively and work in a team.
On Work Ethics
Everything is possible, until someone says “No” or “We don’t have the money”. Be persistent when trying to accomplish something. Do the responsibilities in your job description well so you can score high in your performance review. Do it efficiently so that you have time to spare to do other activities. This helps with getting promotions. If you don’t get a response, follow up! Using “I’m waiting for their response” will only go so far as an excuse to not get something done. Have the guts to say “It was my fault”. Even a half-decent manager would appreciate the honesty. Most people are quick to give a million ways why something cannot be done. Be the one that figures out how things can be done. Then go back to point #1 on work ethics. Never ever ever speak ill of anyone or any team. Reserve your office vocabulary for compliments and facts. Take your frustration out at the gym or in your pillow. If you want to work longer hours without risking being perceived as inefficient, come to work early instead of leaving late. If you want to raise an issue with another team, come to the table with facts. Not opinions. A director once told me “If you don’t have the numbers to back up your claim, this is going to be a very short conversation.”
On Job Searching | https://medium.com/@connelvalentine/45-of-the-biggest-lessons-ive-learned-in-the-corporate-world-eec8de505fe3 | ['Connel Valentine'] | 2020-04-23 14:15:58.059000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Career Advice', 'Career Development', 'Resume', 'Promotion'] |
Honey Framework UI v3.1 release | Over the last few months, the Honey Framework team has had one goal in mind: To make the UI as reliable and as stable as possible. In this release we have not only added some really cool new features but we have also fixed lots of small annoying bugs and, FINALLY, managed to support building for MacOS from our Linux build servers. So whats new?
1. Better support for MacOS!!
Although the UI has worked on previous versions of MacOS, Mojave has proved to be a real pain for us due to the changes that apple have made to their default unzipping tool. This mean that our Linux build servers were unable to package a working version of the HF UI for Mojave. But we’ve made tonnes of progress, and rather than building the application manually, users can now download a full working version from our landing page!
Download the Honey Framework UI for MacOS here!
2. We’ve built an open source charting library!
Originally the UI shipped with TradingView as the default charting library, which can still be enabled in the settings menu. But this wasn’t versatile enough for us, we needed more control over the rendered data so that we could better integrate algo orders/strategies into the terminal. So we decided to create our own charting library and since Bitfinex loves open source, the project was instantly available to the world. Come and collaborate with us over at the bfx-hf-chart repo.
3. New Algo order: Limit OCO
We’ve had tonnes of requests from our users asking for an order type, which once executed, submits and OCO conditional order. Well its now available and as of version 3.1 you can download the honey framework and instantly start making use of this order type form either the UI of from Bitfinex.com. This order type is useful in lots of different ways, one of the most popular uses, is the ability to set a limit order which already has a take-profit and stop-loss defined.
Download now
If you would like to start using the Limit-OCO, Iceberg, TWAP or any of our other brilliant algorithmic orders then head over to honey.bitfinex.com where you can download the application for Linux, Windows or MacOS!
Thanks for reading
Fancy contributing to the project? Then please just open a pull request to https://github.com/bitfinexcom/bfx-hf-ui.
For tips on how to use the bare metal version head here and finally, for tips on how to create an advanced automated trading strategy using HF head here. | https://medium.com/bitfinex/honey-framework-ui-v3-1-release-c59cf3ab060e | ['Jacob Plaster'] | 2020-04-15 12:32:27.983000+00:00 | ['Honey Framework', 'Trading Tools', 'JavaScript', 'Tutorial', 'Framework'] |
How to Close a Purchase and Take Over Ownership when Buying a Business for Sale | Closing the purchase of your new business and taking over ownership go hand in hand. You cannot take over ownership without first closing the deal. When you close, you automatically take over ownership. This stage in your life is the beginning of your life story as a new business owner. Congratulations! You’ve made it to the American Dream. A meeting is normally held in an office of the closing attorney or the escrow agent. This is where the seller and the buyer come together to buy or sell the business. The buyer is to pay the agreed upon price, and the seller then transfers ownership of the business assets to the buyer, or a corporate agency if one is designated. A lot of preparation goes into ensuring this process runs smoothly. We suggest that you have a written closing checklist of things that you need to be done and who is supposed to do them.
The first decision that needs to be made is deciding who will draft the closing documents and who will close, or manage the closing. In smaller business closings, the attorney can serve as an escrow attorney, but then they cannot represent the buyer or the seller. The attorney is hired to manage the process and close the deal. Sometimes the buyer and seller will split the fee for this. We need the seller’s goodwill after closing to transfer assets properly. This includes introducing the buyer to employees, customers, vendors and more!
Small business sales and acquisitions are all about the relationships. The relationship at the closing table is not over, it’s only just beginning. Always be sure to pick an attorney that has experience in closing business transactions. When you’re working with a business broker, be sure to ask for all suggestions for experienced business attorneys that can assist you. When you’re using an escrow attorney service, it’s wise to get the closing documents a few days before closing to have your attorney go over the documents on your behalf. Always ask about fees when first meeting with attorneys.
Once you have identified and obtained a commitment on any needed financing, you can begin to set up the closing and begin to prepare for the takeover of ownership of the business. The steps for this are as follows:
Determine who the actual owner of the assets is. The attorney will have to conduct a search with the secretary of state to verify that the corporate entity is in good standing. Upon closing, the approval of the landlord and/or new lease agreement should be executed. Determine how the buyer is planning to take the title of the assets, either personally, through a partnership or a corporation. The seller will be required to provide a list of stock, furniture etc that is to be transferred during closing. Any and all existing contracts, leases and agreements need to be brought forward from the seller. Determine if you need to apply for any local/state permits or licenses. Determine if you have to deal with any franchise agreements or first right of approval issues. Closing documents must be drafted in relation to the offer of purchase and the contingency agreement between the buyer and the seller. Copies need to be given to the seller, any involved brokers, and the buyer. The buyer and seller both need to be happy with the contingencies. Have an accountant go over all of the finances to ensure all parties are on the same page. Everyone must agree upon a closing date and time. The buyer must obtain the funds for any additional down payment needed. You can usually do this through a cashier’s check or a bank check. The seller and the buyer must make arrangements to take a physical count of inventory and to verify that all equipment included in the sale is in good working condition.
The seller wants to see you succeed. You are their solution to selling their business. If you owe the seller money, then they will absolutely want you to succeed. Try and ensure closing appointments are earlier in the day so you have some extra time to work out any last minute issues. Ensure everyone is present that is needed to sign documents. Also be sure that the balance of the down payment is in a secured check form. All of the steps can ensure you have a successful closing deal. Congratulations, you have obtained the American Dream! | https://medium.com/@buymeabusiness/how-to-close-a-purchase-and-take-over-ownership-when-buying-a-business-for-sale-17727aa806a0 | ['Buy Me A Business'] | 2020-05-06 14:39:34.997000+00:00 | ['Ownership', 'Buying A Business', 'Business', 'Business For Sale', 'Deal'] |
Not Enjoying the Current Run? Give a Miniseries a Go! | Not sure about y’all, but sometimes I find myself so fed up with current runs (Tom King, why). During these times I need a break. I stop reading what’s going on. Mentally, I unsubscribe and shelve it for a later date. When that’s happening, I find myself reaching for a miniseries and that is what this weekend review is all about. Batman Universe and The Batman’s Grave. Both series are very much opposites. If you’re looking for a break from DC’s more adult, grim-dark themes, read on about Batman Universe. If you’re in the mood for a darker, solo Batman story with some takes on the real world, skip ahead to the segment on The Batman’s Grave.
BATMAN UNIVERSE
First on the recommendation list is this short and sweet Batman miniseries from 2019. Batman Universe. At 6 issues, Batman Universe is a breeze to read and can fill a gap in your schedule, though be prepared to spend some time with it. And it’s a heavy hitter for everything I look for in Batman: Fluid art, engaging dialogue, a more social Batman (read: he works well with others), a unique story line, and brimming with hearty zingers. Even better, this series (unlike the one I will be recommending next) is already complete, so pick up the single issues or a gorgeous hardcover from your Local Comic Shop!
Batman Universe #1 cover. More than one Riddler and Deathstroke, too! What’s going on here?
Does your mind need a workout? Look no further than a detective comic kicking things off with a Riddler heist! Bendis will keep you guessing as he throws Bruce through the DC Universe, keeping a quick pace as we run alongside The Bat in his otherworldly adventures. Doesn’t look like we’re in Gotham anymore…
Just one of the many places you’ll go. And if you’re a Hal Jodan fan like me, you’ll get a kick out of this!
Don’t worry though, you’ll get your bearings as Bruce gets his. Also, what’s the deal with that Fabergé Egg from the front cover? Aren’t jewels more of Catwoman’s gig?
Nick Derington and Dave Stewart work together and present us with a series that is visually compelling. Your eyes will be carried across pages in the exact way they are meant to, no guessing as to whether or not you’ve just read that right. But don’t take my word for it, just take a look for yourself!
Movin’ and groovin’ across that page.
The engaging page flow is brought to you by balanced colors and well planned layouts. Perspective is a main feature of the opening pages, and we have a chance to see the world as Bruce does through his cowl. Talk about being sucked into something, right? Batman Universe will have you hooked.
Now isn’t this just fun?!
Plenty of panels with real-feel body movements and witty dialogue to keep your eyes and mind busy. We aren’t left without the more classic, big action Batman panels either… such as when Batman heaves his body through a window, shattering glass all over the venue and surprising diners while on his chase for The Riddler. Inside you’ll also find numerous splash pages and two page spreads. There’s a lot to take in, so give yourself a treat and go slow. Check below for my personal favorite page:
Yes! There is a team-up with Nightwing! For those of you missing Dick as much as I am, this will bring a smile to your face.
This series takes the cake on proper pacing! There is just the right amount of suspense behind every action (big or small), and dialogue maintains a smooth, natural flow throughout the series. The creative team behind Batman Universe also takes advantage of one of comics’ most powerful features: the page turn. You’ll know what I mean when you pick up a copy and see for yourself!
But it doesn’t stop at the plot and art…This Bruce plays well in the sandbox. Bendis sprinkles in a healthy dose of other characters here and there, and while he doesn’t use many folks from the beloved batfam, that’s a-OK. The DC Universe has plenty of other colorful characters to chose from, all of whom Batman can capably work with well. Oliver Queen gives Bruce a surprise visit beginning in #1, and while they didn’t mean to be working together, sometimes your targets just land you on the same case. I guess that’s just how it is in the world of vigilantism.
At least Batman’s polite about it. Listen up Green Arrow.
Hal Jordan finds himself unexpectedly dragged along with Bruce, where they are taken to Dinosaur Island and discover the true master behind the mayhem! Yet, Hal and Bruce never have the opportunity to execute a plan. One moment they’re crouching in a cave, and the next they’re hastily tossed through time, only to be promptly discovered in the Wild Wild West by none other than Jonah Hex! For anyone wondering what a vigilante bat and a brightly dressed intergalactic lawman would choose for their cowboy threads, look no further. Additionally, for those of you missing that good Dick, there is plenty to be had here. The Ric Grayson arc has left many fans wanting for more, and in Batman Universe we have ourselves some time with good ol’ Dick Grayson. He’s here, he’s fun, and he’s down to do perform sweet acrobatics for our amusement. But it doesn’t just stop with Dick. Alfred is alive and well, dishing out nonstop sass and talking to Bruce along the way. Be ready to laugh as Alfred speaks his mind on Bruce’s character.
Ouch. Oh ya, Deathstroke shows up for a bit too… Guess he got bored going after teenagers.
Overall, Batman Universe is a fast paced, lighthearted story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. While many may know DC for that grim-dark feel, Batman Universe gives us a break from all that. Interestingly, while Bruce goes all over the place and works alongside many of his friends, Bendis maintains the feeling that this is a Batman story… Not something where Batman’s a side piece (such as Justice League). Bruce remains front and center, but can still share the spotlight.
SO, SHOULD I BUY IT?
While I can’t tell you what to do, I would certainly suggest adding this series to your Batman collection. This is something I’ve already found myself going back to again and again, and each time I find myself smiling and laughing. If you don’t want to drop dollars on the hardcover, the single issues are fairly easy to get your hands on at less of an expense to your wallet. Also, if you have the DC Universe app, this series is released monthly (currently on #2)!
It’s alright Hal, I’ve often found myself in a jacket with all of three crumpled dollars.
THE BATMAN’S GRAVE
The Batman’s Grave #1 Regular Cover. Just look at all that gorgeous detail.
The Batman’s Grave draws you in with a soft opening featuring our most beloved caretaker, Alfred, as he tends to garden graves. There’s just enough panels to evoke a pause before the action heats up in the streets of Gotham. Nothing remains quiet in Bruce’s world for too long, after all. Still, Gotham’s alleyways are not the prime focus of this detective story…Alfred leads Batman elsewhere and the chase begins.
This mystery unfurls slowly, at times like molasses rolling downhill (#2 scarcely has dialogue, but if you love watching Batman punch a baddie for 10 pages then have at it). Aside from beating up villains (and trust me, Batman goes HAM), Warren Ellis gives us a peek into how his Bruce moves his way through a case. Bruce breaks down the clues and explains his thought processes quite clearly, even stepping into the lives of the victims. Which is a treat for those of us in the audience. In The Batman’s Grave, Bruce does more than sit at his Bat-computer in the Batcave before coming to a quick conclusion and solving the case with ease. This story’s villain and his motives remain unknown for some time, and Bruce struggles with putting the pieces together. Both in and out of costume, the caped crusader reviews the case and his ideas with Alfred, but Alfred isn’t only a sounding board and expert suturer. As always, Alfred has a mind of his own, helping Bruce to some interesting conclusions as the series continues. Though, none of this is without some quick quips at Bruce’s expense.
Endless suggestions from Alfred. Though, I’d pay for a reality TV style miniseries centered around Bruce & all ten of his emotional support children.
There are some nice little nuggets in Ellis’s writing when it comes to the other characters we meet as Bruce gathers more information. Bruce quiet nature acts as a perfect sounding board for the thoughts, opinions, and jokes of others. All of which he takes in stride…such as when The Bat pays a visit to Arkham…and is greeted with a question.
The man even admits he has a room reserved for Batman when Bruce decides he is ready to talk… Or Gotham decides they want their caped cryptid to get some help.
What psychologist doesn’t want the chance to psychoanalyze a grown man, dressed as a bat who “gets hit in the head 28 times every night?” (Superman’s own words, y’all.)
If you haven’t already, definitely put this series on your list. The Supersons do NOT disappoint.
The Batman’s Grave, without a doubt, is jam packed with action! Fists fly constantly, and there is no shortage of batarangs slicing through the air or their targets. But don’t expect to see any other baby bats or birds flying around Gotham at Bruce’s side… This detective story is as solo as it gets for Batman, save for a brief run through Arkham Asylum with Police Commissioner Jim Gordan. Still, unlike other mysteries Batman faces, The Batman’s Grave is a little more cut and dry, Batman doesn’t exactly need anyone else working with him too closely… At least not yet. #10, #11, and #12 are yet to be released!
Interestingly, Ellis dives a bit deeper into Bruce’s nighttime gig as The Batman, often using Alfred and Jim to talk about Gotham’s (and Bruce’s) problems. Here and there writers have mentioned the corruption within the GCPD, but Ellis goes a little further. Specifically, we have panels where Jim is asked to walk away from a scene, but Batman doesn’t throw him any shade for it. Jim always has and always will do his best for Gotham. He can’t fight everyone, we have Batman for that. Meanwhile, in the cave, we are given a closer look at Alfred’s concern for not only Gotham’s crime problem, but Bruce’s choice in just how to address it. Ellis gets a little more personal with Bruce’s motivations to be The Bat, as well as the true to life problems happening around Gotham city. Sure, we don’t have super villains running around in the real world, but corruption isn’t a new concept to us.
Bryan Hitch’s pencils and inks are always a treat, and he gives a real life feel to every character he puts on the page. Take care as you read through, there is a lot to see when it comes to background details and subtle facial expressions. Not a single detail is forgotten (unless you count the mishap from #9). Hitch also performs an incredible artistic feat… For the numerous amount of action panels we find Bruce blowing through, none of Batman’s moves have a recycled feel to them. Each fight is as fresh as the last!
Is Bruce trying his hand at a joke? He’s the last person Arkham needs as a ward.
Just how will Batman face off against this new villain now that he’s finally put the pieces together? #9 saw a big reveal and Bruce shed some light on just who we’ve been chasing after. Bruce created Batman to level the playing field… but what if that’s what this criminal feels they’re doing. Can Gotham City Police Department, Jim Gordan, and Batman handle a foe who is waging war against Gotham’s justice system (or what’s really more a lack of)? We’re all going to find out together because that’s where September’s issue will pick up!
SO, SHOULD I BUY IT?
The Batman’s Grave is a series I selected on a whim, looking to spice up my monthly dose of Gotham’s favorite cryptid creature. This series is ongoing, but by the time this story is published we will be nearing 10 out of 12 issues, with the hardcover coming out in March 2021. If you don’t want to wait that long, I’d say pick this up! Things were really heating up for Batman at the end of #9 and I’m dying to know where that leads him in #10! The Batman’s Grave features some fantastic variant covers, so if you’re on the hunt for single issues instead of waiting for the hardcover, definitely take a look around.
AND WITH THAT, THANK YOU
My Local Comic Shop has informed me that this week’s shipment of DC has been delayed due to some unfortunate weather related circumstances. Talkative Tuesday #2 will be moved to Thursday, but I will still be posting this coming Tuesday regardless of delays. Normally, I’d give y’all some sort of idea, but even I don’t know what will replace Tuesday’s issue review. Guess we’ll find out. Thanks for reading and see you Tuesday! | https://k-10.medium.com/not-enjoying-the-current-run-give-a-miniseries-a-go-d5186857691d | ['Krikri S Comic Corner'] | 2020-09-06 18:55:00.778000+00:00 | ['Comics', 'Batman', 'Comic Books', 'DC Comics'] |
6 Quick Fixes to Have the Body of Your Dreams in Seconds | Photo Credit: Pixabay
Correct me if I’m wrong, but here’s a rough recap of every millennial’s everyday routine: you wake up just in the nick of time for school or work, throw that “I’ll run for 10 minutes this morning!” promise out the window, get busy throughout the day, binge-eat, go home, catch up on your favorite series, sleep, and then repeat. It seems like there’s no time to spare for that thing called fitness because how can you even start when life basically takes over?
Do you want some solid answers?
Ready to take that first step to your dream body? Read on and let’s go!
1. Go for a Workout that You Enjoy.
It’s all about choosing a routine that you can have fun with while sweating it out. Some people hate running long-distance so the best alternative would be to do sprints. You might just enjoy that more! This is so easy because you can just go outside, run with your friends, and make it fun. So, whether it’s dancing or cycling, boxing, basketball, or whatever you look forward to doing again and again, go for it!
2. Make Time for Simple Workouts Wherever You May Be
Get creative! When you’re at home, do yoga. When you’re out traveling, go run on the beach. It doesn’t matter how long you do it, if you keep yourself moving, you’ll be on the right track. Even a 15-minute walk every day can go a long way to achieve your fitness goals.
3. Hydrate!
My number one tip is to drink lots of water! Drink whenever you can. Begin your day with a glass or two to start up your metabolism. Take a sip when you feel hot or when you’re thirsty throughout the day, and end with a big gulp before going to bed.
4. Keep a Positive Mindset
I’ve come to understand that being physically healthy keeps me mentally healthy, confident, and energetic. Always keep in mind these effects, and be in tune with how you feel when you work out. It’s a snowball effect. Stop thinking it’s not fun. You can train and discipline your mind.
5. Do It Now
It’s easy to let laziness take over, and the inevitable, “I’ll just start tomorrow,” will become a daily, repetitive excuse you’ll keep on telling yourself. But the thing is, you will never start until you start. If you want to start, start today! There’s no time to waste!
6. Be Consistent
Consistency is key. Do it every day and make it a priority. After all, your health is your wealth, so start enriching it and never stop.
If reading this offered you value, please recommend it and share it with others! Also please connect with me on my website, Facebook page, and Instagram!
On November 5, I will be running a marathon and fundraising for Team For Kids at the TCS NYC Marathon. If you would like to learn more and donate to my campaign click here. | https://medium.com/gethealthy/6-quick-fixes-to-have-the-body-of-your-dreams-in-seconds-4c66f134d3d6 | ['Jeremy Colon'] | 2017-07-20 03:39:41.147000+00:00 | ['Wellness', 'Fitness', 'Fitness Tips', 'Metabolism', 'Mindset'] |
Life Lessons From 2 Thessalonians | What valuable exhortations a tiny book can hold!
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Notes about Persecution
We might come to believe that the only kind of persecution is when a believer is physically tortured or shunned from society for either accepting Christ or for preaching the Good News and salvation through the Cross of Christ(like in some non-Christian countries). There is another kind of persecution that believers face even when they are not witnessing.
When we suffer hardships from someone, an injustice maybe or being in a situation where we are heart-broken by situations and people on account of our faith in God also amounts to us being persecuted. It may not be physical pain, but it might be heart wrenching and causing you to cry out to God.
To give a small everyday example, when somebody does something that angers you really badly, and when you choose to let it go and you choose to not have an outburst of anger, but you continue to remain in peace and happy instead, that is a hardship. It is like persecution for the heart and mind. The Holy Spirit enables us to overcome with greater and greater strength as He renews our mind. But the process is grueling and offers us tough lessons.
Even amidst persecution these Two Things Need to Happen —
1. Faith must flourish
2. Love must grow
These are important and should be remembered. There must be an endurance and faithfulness even while undergoing hardship.
Persecution does two things —
1. God shows His justice (He Himself pays back those who persecute)
2. God makes us worthy of His Kingdom through suffering
When we are suffering, God provides rest for us.
Why the “Way You Live” is Supremely Important!
The Name of Our Lord Jesus is honored by the Way We Live.
And so, we must Pray For These Two Things —
1. For God to enable us to live a life worthy of His Call
2. For God to give us the power to accomplish all the good things that our faith prompts us to do.
On the 4 ‘S’ — Salvation, Standing Firm, Strong Grip, Strengthening
Salvation:
Comes through these two things:-
1. Holy Spirit who makes us holy
2. Through our belief in the Truth
Standing Firm:
Persecution, Sin, The World, The powers of darkness and what not — are all wanting and working for you to “Fall”.
And so, if there is one thing that we need to do in our minds and our actions is to Not Fall away from, the Truth, from our first Love, from our faith in God and in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, and from Hope in a future and in attaining Christ-likeness, and from the Word of God and from Prayer.
Strong Grip:
On What God through His Holy Spirit is Teaching You!
Read, Read, Read. Meditate, Meditate, Meditate. Take notes. Analyse. Memorize. Think about it. Discuss it. Share it. Teach it.
Allow for God’s word become a part of the fabric that is you. Let it become so ingrained that it becomes inseparable and natural to your being. God will do this, because He has promised that He will put His words on our hearts and even that He will give us a desire for His word and strength to fulfill it.
Strengthening:
Pray to the Holy Spirit based on God’s word to achieve the Strength that you need to go through persecution, suffering, hardship, sickness, depression, hopelessness, falling away, lukewarmness, lack of faith, temptation, weakness of character and the likes.
The strength and comfort that God provides is going to help you to go through the difficult times which are bound to happen and are needed for our own spiritual growth.
What we really require the most today
Paul prays that the believers receive these three things. I believe they are what I and every believer needs most today —
1. Full Understanding
2. Full Expression of The Love of God
3. Patient Endurance that Comes from Christ
Dear friends, pray earnestly to receive these in your lives.
Some Final Notes | https://medium.com/@prashansa-chandekar/life-lessons-from-2-thessalonians-dec26fc7f12 | ['Prashansa Chandekar'] | 2020-12-07 21:15:10.309000+00:00 | ['Bible Study', 'Christianity', 'Christian Living', 'Faith', 'Christian'] |
Introduction to Perceptron and Visualization | Hey there. I hope you are doing well. In my last post, we had set up the required environment. Let us get started with today’s post about perceptron.
A perceptron is the fundamental unit of a neural network. It is an algorithm for supervised learning (we say what is right and wrong) for binary classification (either zero or one).
Perceptron is also a basic mathematical model of a neuron. It tries to replicate the work of a neuron. So to implement a perceptron let us study a little bit about neuron.
Neuron
We know neurons are the basic building block of the brain (A massive and complex neural network).
Image Source — Wikipedia
So this was the guy I was talking about. Let us see the functions of this guy on a very high level of abstraction.
He takes in the signal from other neurons through dendrites.
It will process the signal in the nucleus.
Passes the processed information to other cells via the Axon Termina.
So let us try to come up with a model that replicates the neuron’s activity to some extent.
Birth of the perceptron
Perceptron tries to do above-mentioned activities. Let us try to model one.
So what it should do?
It can take \(n\) number of inputs.
Does some computation on the input.
Passes it through a non-linear function (Very important).
Produces a single output.
\(x_i\) is the \(i^{th}\) input. \(W_i\) is the weight value corresponding to the \(i^{th}\) input.
\(\sigma\) is the activation function.
We multiply all \(x_i\) with \(W_i\) and sum them to produce a single output which is then fed into an activation function to produce the output. This is our model of the neuron.
Why Activation?
Activation functions are non-linear, meaning their graph is not a straight line. The usage of non-linearity is helpful in approximating any function given we have a sufficient number of units.
Let us consider one activation function called as step function.
Step function
\( S(x) = \begin{cases} 1,& \text{if } x\geq 0 \\ 0,& \text{if } x\lt 0
\end{cases} \)
As we see below. \( x \) can take values from \( {-\infty} \) to \( {\infty} \)
\( S(x) \) can take values from \( 0 \) to \( 1 \)
Here the graph is not a straight line and its slope at different points are different.
Enough of Theory, Let us start coding.
We have modelled our perceptron, now let us see what it can do.
Fire up your jupyter notebook by using this command
$ jupyter notebook
Create a new notebook named Exercise-2
Import the following modules
Let us create a perceptron
Here we model a Perceptron using a class and it has some important methods which are used to mimic the action of the real neuron to some extent. The Complete code is given below for you to try and a break down of the components is also provided.
Let us break down the code.
We have an internal State W for our perceptron, which has to be learned. The size of the state is the number of inputs plus one. It is because it gives us a way to integrate the bias inside the W matrix itself if we can pad the input with one. This would be an easy implementation of
$$ W*x + b $$
So the perceptron has been initialized. Now we can know more about the other methods in the perceptron.
step_function
This takes a single input and applies the step_function which gives us output in binary.
forward
This takes in an array of input and performs an element-wise multiplication and sums it to give a single output (dot product). Then it is passed to a non-linear activation. This would yield an output, either 1 or 0. This is where the decisions are made about the data.
loss
This function acts as a critic. This guy has both the predicted value and the original label. He compares both of them and teaches the perceptron on the correct and wrong things.
back_propagate
This takes the inputs from the loss function and adjusts the weights of \( W \).
batch_train
This function takes the input and feeds it to the network and trains the perceptron.
Analogy
Let us consider the forward function as a student who is going to a school.
Let \( W \) represent his actions in a test.
So forward is the action of taking the test.
The loss function is like a teacher who corrects his paper and tells him what is wrong and what is correct.
back_propagate are the parents of that student. They take input from the teacher and correct his actions so that he can earn more marks in the next exam.
Now our perceptron is ready. Let us use this to approximate AND function.
Here the AND gate takes two inputs and its learning rate is 0.5. You can change and see the learning rate and see what happens. The last line prints the value of AND gate’s output when both the inputs are 1. Now try with different inputs.
Do you have some burning question about this?
Because I had some questions when I first heard about this.
How do we know when the perceptron is ready?
Since we know all the inputs that this perceptron will ever get and luckily it is small, we can use all the data to train the perceptron. So in this case when the loss value goes to zero, we know that our perceptron is ready for action.
We know after the 5 th epoch the perceptron has seen all the possible inputs and correctly classified them.
What is the correct number for learning rate and epochs?
The answer is we don't know. They are called as hyperparameter. We can use the trial and error method to find the correct numbers.
We know that it works, but how does it work?
This is a classification problem, where we should separate the given data into \( 0 \) or \( 1 \). All the inputs yields either \( 0 \) or \( 1 \). So the perceptron classified them correctly. It somehow knows inputs with two one should be classified as one and all other should be zero. So how does it know this? The answer to the above question is that it tries to create a boundary line between data points(Linearly separable). In this case, it creates a plane which divides the input points which yields zero and one separately.
Here three points are separated by the plane. Those three points lie under the plane and one point lies above it. That plane is the decision plane. The inputs to the AND gate is mapped to X and Y in the graph. The XY points below the plane belong to one class and points above the plane belongs to another class.
Okay. How does the perceptron know the plane?
The perceptron starts with a random plane in 3-Dimension and moves it so that it could separate the inputs based on their class. This is where the loss function and the backpropagation come into the picture. Loss function evaluates the current plane and finds where it goes wrong and by means of backpropagation teaches the perceptron.
Where is the code for the graphs and 3D plots?
It is this git-repo. Try out the code for yourself and tinker with it. Use this link to view the executed outputs. Feel free to ask your questions in comments.
In my next blog… | https://medium.com/@saravananrajendran/introduction-to-perceptron-and-visualization-21e640a27c8e | ['Saravanan Rajendran'] | 2019-02-11 14:39:16.894000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Tutorial', 'Plotly', 'Perceptron'] |
Corona Impact on Indian Economy | Source: — Business Today
With the rising in cases of Coronavirus throughout the world, India could not prevent it from Corona. The number of cases in India also sprung up throughout the nation, many states had been reported as the epicentre. The Indian government decided to combat with corona, announce lockdown for 21 days on March 25. When the number of cases spreading up throughout the nation, the government has had no option to extend the lockdown, the central government extend the lockdown on the suggestion of the states government, to May 3.
As per the estimates of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that the COVID-19 outbreak could cost $29.9 billion loss to India. Data have also shown that the virus has wiped off Rs. 52 lakh crore worth of equity investor, Sensex and Nifty has fallen 35 per cent from their January peaks.
The lockdown will worst impact on the Daily Wage worker, who earned daily, and they lost their jobs after lockdown. They would be severely affected by the lockdown. As per 2011 census Data, India has 45 crore labourers, in this decade their number must be shown up, they are 34 per cent of the Indian population.
Almost 80 per cent of India’s INR 204 lakh crore economy has been on the halt after the lockdown began on 25th March. Data has also shown that at an average INR 55,890 crore per day, India’s gross domestic product (GDP) has been suffering. Automobiles, Defence, E-commerce, Education, MSME, Pharmaceutical, Textiles, Electronics, Agriculture, Media, Retail and Imported goods, nearly 50 per cent companies have been impacted due to halt in their operations. India has already been dealing with the economic slowdown, this pandemic has become a crisis. Banking sectors have been limited for only three-four hours cash flow among citizen has decreased, it causes massive protest among citizen.
The State Bank of India (SBI) has estimated India’s real GDP growth for the current financial year at 1.1 per cent and estimate the overall loss for the Financial year 2020–21 at about 12.1 lakh crore or 6 per cent of the nominal gross value added (GVA), taking the nominal GVA growth for an entire year to be around 4.2 per cent. An April 16, 2020 report on the COVID-19 released by SBI on the forecast of India economy, the growth rate on India economy throughout the current fiscal year.
The Federation of India Commerce and Chamber of Industry (FICCI) surveyed the impact of Indian economic due to the lockdown throughout the nation due to COVID-19 pandemic. The survey had reported a major impact on the supply chain, as more 60 per cent of respondents indicated that their supply chains were affected. It also suggested the time period to bring the normalcy post lockdown. Almost three-fourths of respondents feel that the normalcy would come under the control of after six months.
In a press conference Shashikant Das, the governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has forecasted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be 7.1 % in the fiscal year 2020–21. He emphasized on India’s position is better then G-20 nations. | https://medium.com/nukkadcorner/corona-impact-on-indian-economy-bf75e236ff9c | [] | 2020-04-22 08:08:43.215000+00:00 | ['Corona', 'Ecomomy', 'Indian Economy', 'Coronavirus'] |
GSD Participates in 16th Annual Grant Competition in Perm | This article was originally published on GSDVS.com.
On November 14, GSD had the honor of attending the 16th annual grant competition for investors in Perm. The event brought together technologists, startups, political leaders, and R&D gurus from across Russia.
“Any event that brings together so many talented and motivated people is a great event,” said GSD Venture Studios CEO and Co-founder Gary Fowler. “GSD is proud to have attended, and Derek and I were impressed with the caliber of the contestants.”
“Russia has a very promising startup scene, and most investors in the US don’t know about it,” said GSD Venture Studios COO and Co-founder Derek Distenfield. “This event proved that innovation is alive and well in Russia.”
GSD Venture Studios travels the world inviting resilient teams to establish partnerships that ensure organizations grow the right way, without games or gimmicks. Unlike traditional investors, GSD executives take senior operational (often co-founder) roles in these companies, capitalizing on their trusted reputation, experiences and network to drive explosive growth.
Derek Distenfield currently travels the world investing in resilient teams bold enough to #GoGlobal as the COO and Co-founder of GSD Venture Studios. He has blazed high impact careers in startups, corporate, and nonprofit organizations for over 15 years. Known for bringing revolutionary new ideas to organizations that deliver explosive growth and for being efficient with limited resources, Derek’s high tolerance for ambiguity and complexity makes him an invaluable source of inspiration and advice for growth-oriented startups and founders. | https://medium.com/gsd-venture-studios/gsd-participates-in-16th-annual-grant-competition-in-perm-f0824542ae4f | ['Derek Distenfield'] | 2019-11-15 05:01:30.311000+00:00 | ['Russia', 'Tech Startups', 'AI', 'Technology', 'Startup'] |
How Identity—Not Ignorance—Leads to Science Denial | How Identity—Not Ignorance—Leads to Science Denial
Changing the minds of Covid-19 deniers may require a lot more than sound reasoning
During the first months of the novel coronavirus outbreak, many rural parts of the U.S. did not experience the swell in caseloads or hospital admissions that threatened to overwhelm cities like New York, Detroit, and New Orleans. West Texas was one of these comparatively fortunate places. And considering the Lone Star State’s long-running antipathy toward government oversight, it made sense that some there would choose to ignore or downplay warnings from federal and local health officials.
But elements of the script have since flipped, and Covid-19 case numbers are now spiking in many counties across West Texas. One might assume that, in the face of rising caseloads, many there would abandon their prior insouciance and embrace masks and other common-sense measures recommended by the nation’s top public health officials. But that doesn’t seem to be happening; if anything, the resolve of many Covid-19 skeptics appears to be stiffening. Even state officials who can no longer ignore the virus continue to lash out at public health authorities. (Last week, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci, saying that Fauci “has been wrong every time on every issue” and “I don’t need his advice anymore.”)
Anyone who has ever butted heads with a friend, a family member, or a colleague about one of science’s hot button issues — be it global warming, the safety of vaccines, or the gravity of the current pandemic — has likely walked away from the experience frustrated and exasperated at the other person’s stubborn and apparently nonsensical refusal to consider the facts.
But psychologists say that the denial of facts is often rooted in identity and belonging, not in ignorance and that changing minds may require a lot more than sound reasoning.
“The people who deny science are often trying to uphold membership in something that they find meaningful,” says Nina Eliasoph, PhD, a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California. That meaningful thing could be a political or religious affiliation or some other group that prizes certain ideas or ideals. Whatever shape that group takes, the important thing is that it has other members — it’s a community.
Once a community absorbs an idea into its collective viewpoint, rejecting that idea becomes akin to rejecting the whole community, Eliasoph says. And that sort of rejection is a very, very difficult thing for any of its members to do. “This is why you talk with people who deny science and the goalposts are always changing,” she says. “What really matters is the membership in the thing that has meaning, and to keep that membership you have to ignore certain ideas and pay attention to others.”
“The people who deny science are often trying to uphold membership in something that they find meaningful.”
The causes and correlates of denial
Denial, in a nutshell, is the rejection or diminution of a phenomenon that has a large — and sometimes overwhelming — body of supporting evidence.
When it comes to science denial, global warming may be the most conspicuous example. Science’s case that the planet is warming, that people are contributing heavily to this warming, and that this warming — if not addressed — will imperil billions of lives is almost unassailable. And yet huge chunks of the American electorate evince some form of climate-change denial. Even people who are worried about global warming are often unwilling to make even small personal sacrifices that, collectively, could make a meaningful difference.
Why do people do this? Experts say that our aversion to cognitive dissonance is one explanation. “Cognitive dissonance is a negative emotional state characterized by discomfort or tension, or maybe feelings of anxiety or guilt, that’s produced from beliefs or behaviors that are inconsistent with one another,” says April McGrath, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Mount Royal University in Canada who has published work on cognitive dissonance. For example, a person who believes the planet is warming may also want to drive a gas-guzzling SUV, and these competing interests create cognitive dissonance.
Because cognitive dissonance is unpleasant, people tend to want to get rid of it. And McGrath says that there are generally two ways that people can do this: change a behavior — that is, ditch the SUV for an electric vehicle — or change a belief. Most people go with option B. “Changing a behavior is usually difficult because most behaviors are rewarding,” she says. Changing a belief is often easier, and that’s where some element of denial comes into play. “This could mean trivializing the source of the dissonance” — telling yourself that switching to an electric car won’t make any difference in the grand scheme — “or adding some new belief or idea that supports or rationalizes your choice,” she says. The latter could entail embracing conspiracy theories that argue climate-change consensus is some kind of nefarious ploy.
Before any of us gets too judgy, McGrath says that everyone engages in denial. “We are all constantly bombarded by decisions or choices that create dissonance or conflicts, so we can’t always act in accordance with our ideals,” she says.
Once a community absorbs an idea into its collective viewpoint, rejecting that idea becomes akin to rejecting the whole community.
Along with cognitive dissonance, there are many other scenarios or psychological states that tend to produce denial. “These are all related to each other — they’re not totally independent,” says Craig Anderson, PhD, a distinguished professor of psychology at Iowa State University. He terms one “belief perseverance,” which refers to people’s attachment to ideas or conceptions that they’ve held in the past. We don’t like to change our minds, Anderson explains, and we tend to ignore new information that challenges our long-held views. (Confirmation bias — seeking out and retaining only the information that supports one’s view — is a related concept.)
“Reactance” is another, he says. This refers to the negative feelings that people experience when their freedom is somehow threatened — like if state or local government officials tell them that they can’t shop, dine, travel, or congregate as usual. “Fear is also a big one,” he says. If someone finds a belief or idea to be scary — both global warming and Covid-19 are ready examples — that fear is a powerful motivator of denial.
While all of these overlapping factors can feed into denial, some who study human psychology say that group dynamics — coupled with every person’s vital need to belong — are at the root of many science deniers’ seemingly inscrutable beliefs and behaviors.
Scratching a deep psychological itch
Rebekka Darner, PhD, is director of the Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology at Illinois State University. Much of her work has focused on improving science literacy and combatting science denial among the general public.
Darner says that a key element of effective science teaching and communication involves “self-determination theory.” This theory holds that people have three basic psychological needs that undergird their motivation to engage in any behavior.
“The first is a need for autonomy, or the belief that an action came from the self,” she says. The second is the need for competence. “This doesn’t mean that a person actually is competent,” she clarifies. What’s important is that the person believes that they are competent and capable of achieving their goals. “The third one is the need for relatedness — a sense of belonging and that other people need you and value your input,” she says.
For those hoping to weaken a friend or loved one’s science denial, Darner says that it’s necessary to start from a place of respect and amity.
The social groups that people identify with tend to satisfy all three of these basic psychological needs, Darner says. And because of this, people are strongly motivated to accept their group’s ideas or to engage in behaviors that are valued within their social spheres. For example, she says that some social groups may place a high value on bucking authority (“You’re not going to control me”) and this attitude and its associated behaviors — like not wearing a mask — can supersede all others.
Self-determination theory helps explain why the widespread adoption of anti-science or anti-expert views is so dangerous. If a person’s group identity motivates them to deny one element of science — like the person who rejects the theory of evolution on religious grounds — then that can be a problem, but at least it’s somewhat contained. If huge numbers of Americans decide that a core element of their group identity is the rejection of science or of creditable expertise, then that’s a problem of a whole other magnitude.
The good news, Darner says, is that beliefs linked to group identities are not intractable. “Humans are complex, which works in our favor,” she says. “No person associates with a single identity, and we all have a variety of different communities with which we interact.” When people are regularly exposed to diverse groups and ideas that clash with their own, the resulting contradictions create uncertainty. And while people tend to find uncertainty uncomfortable, Darner says that uncertainty is often the precursor of learning and idea reassessment.
Unfortunately, she says that some elements of contemporary life may steer people away from these helpful, perspective-balancing encounters with other viewpoints. The ideological myopia — as well as the us-against-them vitriol — that characterizes much of today’s media, both traditional (newspapers, cable news) and new (social media, online message boards), tends to strengthen a person’s opinions and their feeling of being part of a large and like-minded community. Pushing back against all that can be a Sisyphean endeavor.
For those hoping to weaken a friend or loved one’s science denial, Darner says that it’s necessary to start from a place of respect and amity. “People need to feel like you value them and their opinion,” she says. “This kind of relationship has to be there first.” It may help to ask questions — rather than offer counter-arguments — and to respond with interest and noncritical feedback to articles or viewpoints the other person shares. Once you do that and you’ve established more congenial footing, your counterpart may be more willing to consider your side of things. It goes without saying that, however satisfying it may be, telling someone that they’re ignorant and brandishing facts or articles that back your case is the kind of “I’m right and you’re wrong” approach that’s almost certain to fail, and is likely to solidify the person’s opposition to your viewpoints.
But even if you say and do all the right things, your odds of success are probably slim. “Individuals very seldom fulfill basic psychological needs for other individuals,” Darner says. “That fulfillment comes from a larger community and identifying with them and being a part of them.”
The science denier in your life may eventually come around, but it’s unlikely that you’re going to reel that person back in on your own. | https://elemental.medium.com/how-identity-not-ignorance-leads-to-science-denial-533686e718fa | ['Markham Heid'] | 2020-07-09 05:31:01.391000+00:00 | ['Identity', 'Life', 'The Nuance', 'Psychology', 'Science'] |
The Movies Made Me Do It: Confessions of a Film Actor (Issue #9) | CHRISTMAS VACATION, 1989, PG-13 — Who didn’t want to sled downhill endlessly at massive warp speed, dodging just about every obstacle along the way, only to slam into a Walmart sign at the very end? Pretty much every kid with a derring-do attitude as well as a knack for performing slapstick. I always watched in delight this sequence, amazed at the length and energy of the stunt, wishing I could do what Chevy Chase did so effortlessly in his films: physical humor and funny faces. He was a hero in that sense.
He was even more of a hero in Christmas Vacation, my favorite of the series, which changed the dynamic of the Griswold family from traveling to staying at home for the holidays, hosting irascible grandparents and obnoxious relatives. Who can’t relate to a hapless but determined dad, wanting to present the best Christmas year ever? Especially when it meant life or death on that icy rooftop, stapling strand after strand after strand of Christmas lights under the full moon.
“The lights aren’t twinkling, Clark.”
“I know, Art. And thanks for noticing.”
There were other welcome additions to the Griswold family saga:
We see Clark’s job at the big company, which brilliantly sets up his bonus award gag by the film’s climax (his profanity-laden rant holds up so well because it’s so character driven and primal that it remains timeless).
The yuppie couple next door (Julia Louis-Dreyfus in an early role) who are constantly disrupted by the Griswold family and relatives.
Those quieter, poignant moments, like when Clark gets locked in the attic and resorts to watching home movies, or when he has a heart-to-heart with his niece Ruby about Santa Claus. The warmest is when his caring father confesses drinking Jack Daniels to endure past holidays.
Clark’s shameless flirting with a department store employee while shopping for his wife, only to be caught by his son is classic stuff:
“Can’t see the tan lines, can you Russ?”
“Nope.”
Maybe because everybody called me ‘Russ’ growing up, I had an instant connection to the son character. I loved how different actors portrayed him in the series, but Johnny Galecki was my favorite because I was closer to age with him, and there was a refreshing cynicism in his attitude: He knew his dad meant well, but he was more embarrassed this time around when certain accidents or mishaps threatened the family’s livelihood. Juliette Lewis was also my favorite as Audrey because her attitude was the same, yet even more acidic. Her little scene with Beverly D’Angelo as the mom/Ellen is a gem: she complains about sharing a bed with her brother, while Ellen lights up a cigarette, only to be called out offscreen by her mother.
As for the rest of the film, it’s got so many memorable moments that it’s obvious why it ranks along other Christmas classics. Even if you’ve seen the film countless times, there’s always something to make you smile. And it’s also one of those movies where your favorite parts can change or evolve as you age. I still love:
• the turkey dinner scene (with Aunt Bethany singing the pledge of allegiance for grace)
• Clark and Eddie shopping together: notice how Eddie drops the enormous dog food bag over the lightbulbs
• the surprise squirrel
• Uncle Lewis torching the Christmas tree with his stogie
• the kidnapping of Clark’s boss
• the cute animated title sequence
• “Merry Christmas! Shitter was full!” (Randy Quaid still steals the show)
Christmas Vacation remains a quintessential holiday movie because it knows exactly what it is, and yet surprises us with sweeter, human moments beneath all the raunchy silliness. It doesn’t forget that heart can also elevate a comedy. Which leads to one last memory: when I first saw the movie, I’ll never forget the moment when Clark gazes out the window, dreaming about his swimming pool, then fantasizes about a woman — the department store employee — skinny dipping all alone. This was the only part I wasn’t allowed to watch. Mom said to shut my eyes. No peeking. I was like, “Come on, Mom!” But she insisted. The sex would have to wait. | https://medium.com/an-idea/the-movies-made-me-do-it-confessions-of-a-film-actor-issue-9-e732c376e2b3 | ['Russell Bradley Fenton'] | 2020-12-29 12:04:28.147000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Movie Review', 'Movies', 'Acting', 'Film Reviews'] |
For Now by Meg Kelting | Don’t let me go for now,
You are home.
I know it all ends too soon,
That all things pass,
But for the moment,
The sun is just an idea to the mountains,
Just the grey that halos their peaks.
We don’t have to think about ends.
Don’t let me go for now,
I am home.
I can’t ask you for forever
So instead I wake up before the world can realize
I can’t stay
And try to live out the life I wanted with you
In the seconds before the mountains think of the sun | https://medium.com/beautiful-losers/for-now-by-meg-kelting-9fa4d349c294 | ['Beautiful Losers'] | 2016-12-14 14:07:38.281000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Poems'] |
Emma Watson’s Distaste for Channing Tatum’s On-set Speedo Dance Doesn’t Make Her a Prude | This incident will be a blast from the past, taking us back to 2013. Specifically, back to the set of Seth Rogan’s film, This is the End.
Despite the fact that this took place in 2013, it’s interesting to note that even in 2020, this brief encounter is still being held against Emma Watson today.
I had never heard of the “On-set Speedo Incident” before, but recently I was scrolling through social media and encountered a story about why Emma Watson and Channing Tatum don’t work together professionally anymore.
I was shocked to hear about what happened, and also enraged to see that the narrative still remains that Channing Tatum was just having fun, and Emma Watson is a prude who needs to learn to take a joke.
Even 7 years later, this is still being held against her. It is beyond ridiculous. | https://medium.com/fearless-she-wrote/emma-watsons-distaste-for-channing-tatum-s-on-set-speedo-dance-doesn-t-make-her-a-prude-2b774ebde8ce | ['Gillian Sisley'] | 2020-12-18 17:24:47.380000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Feminism', 'Equality', 'Celebrity', 'Entertainment'] |
SAAF GHIZA (Where you buy Health) | Natural Food is also known as Organic Food which is grown without pesticides, fertilizers and ionizing radiations. The demand for organic products is very low in Pakistan due to which farmers use fertilizers to grow crops in a short time, and dairy is rapidly done with growth hormones injections throughout the country which is highly affecting the health of its consumers.
In urban cities like Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi etc supply of natural and organic food is null therefore consumers are bound to consume the fertilized food which is hazardous to health.
In Pakistan, diabetic patients are increasing day by day and people don’t have enough time to consider this problem a major problem in other economical problems. A healthy lifestyle and a healthy diet can give them relaxation throughout their days and it can also control their health.
Obesity and Unhealthy Diet; People in my city(Peshawar) don’t focus on their health that much. They think that “Kamao oor Khao”. By “Khao” they mean, everything that is tasty, it is edible. Although it is edible, it affects their health slowly and a stage comes when the doctors tell them to use “Glucophage”. Glucophage is medicine to control blood sugar levels.
I think we have to start an enterprise “SAAF GHIZA” where we get organic food in bulk to get it cheaper from rural areas and serve that food in working cities with minimum cost to sell it cheaper to our customers so that they get healthy food. We can also arrange events and seminars on Social Media as well as in universities & offices and also work with other organizations to campaign our idea of health and food safety to develop people’s mindset in this regard. Once we develop their understanding, then we can sell them our health food products.
People are bound to unhealthy food because they are mostly busy in routines. Most of the retailers and office workers don’t even take brunch throughout the day. They must understand that for a better outcome at their workplace they have to serve their stomach a healthy fuel. So that their muscles and mind work efficiently and effectively.
For most of the workers, we can start a social media campaign to build our online presence and take orders. Once we take an order, we can engage our moms, sisters and all ladies who want to get financially stable. They will cook and we will have to deliver the orders. We will offer items for good health.
The ordering system will work in the following sequence
(Customer > Online Order > Cook > Delivery Guy > Customer)
Looking for your suggestions on this idea and I hope you will ask questions for further clarification. Thanks! | https://medium.com/@qadeerkureshi/saaf-ghiza-where-you-buy-health-c409d9678f7d | ['Qadeer Uddin'] | 2020-12-25 06:49:57.582000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Food', 'Amal Fellowship', 'Nutrition', 'Amal Academy'] |
Global Gay Rights: The legality and illegality of homosexuality around the world | Originally published September 2018
The following is a writing sample of freelance work I have done. It is intended as an explainer about a current hot topic, not as a blog or opinion piece.
The legality and illegality of homosexuality around the world
Homosexuality is treated quite differently throughout the world. In more than one-third of countries, homosexual sex acts are criminal (and in about 4 percent of countries, they are punishable by death). Conversely, in just over one-quarter of the world’s countries, same-sex marriage or civil partnerships are legal. And in between the two extremes lies a wide array of other forms of discrimination and protection.
Legislation regarding same-sex relations has changed significantly over the centuries. In 1791, France became the first country to decriminalize same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults with the adoption of a new penal code, which also applied to many of its colonized countries.
A number of countries decriminalized same-sex sexual acts throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Some countries also formally criminalized same-sex relations in their penal codes during that period.
In the 21st century, the Netherlands became the first country to formally legalize same-sex marriage in 2000, with the legislation going into effect in 2001. The country was followed by Belgium, Canada and Spain over the next few years. The U.S. joined them in 2015 with a Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the country. Last year, Australia, Germany and the European island country of Malta all legalized same-sex partnerships or civil unions.
Same-sex marriage is legal in 22 countries, according to a 2017 International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) report. Additionally, another 28 allow for a legal civil partnership or civil union of same-sex couples — some offering the same rights as in marriages. (Of these 50 countries, 26 also allow for joint adoption of children by same-sex couples.)
Criminalization, legality and protections around the globe
Breakdown of categories
Death penalty for same-sex acts
These countries have laws allowing for capital punishment for same-sex sexual acts, and known cases of executions. In some of the countries, the death penalty for same-sex sexual acts is only applicable in certain regions.
Same-sex sexual acts are illegal
Laws in these countries criminalize same-sex sex acts, either for men or both men and women. Penalties for convictions on these offenses can include months or years in prison. A few of these countries also have the death penalty on the books, but do not enforce it.
Discriminatory laws against homosexual people or LGBT organizations
While same-sex relations are not specifically criminal in these countries, they have discriminatory laws against either homosexual people or LGBT organizations. For example, laws may prohibit public displays of affection by same-sex couples, disallow NGOs that advocate for same-sex rights, or other forms of discrimination.
Some discrimination or prohibition, some protections
There is both protection and discrimination in these countries. For example, in Botswana, same-sex sexual acts for both men and women are illegal under the 1964 Penal Code, yet there is also a 2010 law prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Neither notable legal protections nor criminalization
None of these countries have laws that criminalize same-sex sexual behavior. They also do not have laws expressly protecting rights of homosexual people.
Legal protections against discrimination
These countries have explicit laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexuality — either equal rights guarantees in their constitutions, anti-hate crime laws, anti-discrimination laws for employment, or other protections.
Same-sex marriage or civil unions legal
In addition to having other legal protections for people on the basis or sexual orientation, these countries have legalized either same sex-marriage or same-sex civil partnerships.
Criminalization of same-sex sexual acts
As of last year, there were 72 countries where same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults were criminal, either for only men (27) or both men and women (45). That’s equivalent to roughly 37 percent of the countries in the world. In 2018, India’s Supreme Court overturned the law prohibiting consensual, adult same-sex relations, reducing the number of countries to 71.
The language of the laws that prohibit sexual acts between members of the same sex vary throughout the world: some prohibit any sexual act, some sodomy (anal sex), some buggery (anal or oral sex), some prohibit acts “against nature,” or use other wording. Globally, punishment for such offenses can vary from public lashings to prison time, and in some cases include capital punishment.
Of the 72 countries where same-sex sex acts are illegal, eight also carry out capital punishment for same-sex sexual intercourse in at least some areas. The countries are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, specific provinces of Somalia and Nigeria, as well as areas of Iraq and Syria controlled by the Islamic State.
Additionally, five other countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mauritania, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) have laws that technically allow for capital punishment for same-sex sexual acts, but are not believed to have carried out official executions in relation to these laws in recent decades, the ILGA reported. In the Asian country of Brunei Darussalam, a proposed law would allow for the death penalty for same-sex sexual acts; the legislation has not been finalized.
Legal discrimination
Legal discrimination can come in different forms — from restrictions on assembly to banning public expression of homosexual acts of identity (such as pride parades or holding hands between same-sex partners) to denying organizations that advocate for LGBT rights NGO status.
In Russia, for instance, while same-sex sexual acts were decriminalized in 1993, various “promotion” or “morality” laws prohibit expression of homosexual identity or advocacy work. A law prohibiting the “Promotion of Non-Traditional Sexual Relations Among Minors” was used to prosecute members of a St. Petersburg-based LGBT youth organization. Certain expressions of homosexual activity in public are punishable by jail time. Russia also drafted a U.N. resolution to deny benefits to same-sex partners of U.N. staff members.
Legal protections
More than one-third of the countries in the world have some explicit legal protections for homosexual people, according to data from ILGA.
Nine countries explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in their constitutions. For example, Mexico’s constitution prohibits discrimination based on “sexual preferences.” In other countries, such as Canada, while the constitution’s wording does not explicitly mention sexual orientation, case law has established that equal rights and protections apply on this basis.
In September 2018, India’s Supreme Court ruled that all constitutional protections should apply to homosexual people and that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal. The decision overturned a law that banned same-sex sexual acts.
Globally, in 2017, there were laws prohibiting certain workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in 72 U.N. member states, as well as in Taiwan.
Additionally, 43 countries in 2017 had laws against “hate crimes” that target people on the basis of sexual identity, and 39 countries had laws banning actions that incite hate towards homosexual people.
Non-legal forms of violence and discrimination
Legality is one thing, but discrimination and violence can come outside of the dictates of law. In the extreme, this can include extrajudicial killings and other “hate crimes” against people who are homosexual or perceived to be homosexual.
In Russia, aside from the discriminatory laws mentioned above, extrajudicial discriminations and violence have been reported. In 2017, a Russian newspaper reported that authorities engaged in extrajudicial imprisonment and torture of at least 100 men believed to be homosexual in Chechnya, in southern Russia. One anonymous Chechen man who was allegedly detained illegally told CNN in an interview that he was beaten and electrocuted.
The Russian news report alleged that the authorities illegally executed 27 of the men one night. Apart from authorities engaging in violence, civilians in the area have engaged in hate crimes against those believes to be homosexuals. One Chechen man told CNN that he feared that his family would murder him if they found out he was homosexual.
In the U.S., according to the FBI’s 2016 “hate crime” statistics, 16.7 percent of reported hate crimes were committed due to sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation, totaling 1,255 incidents that year. Hate crimes are “crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity,” according to the definition in a U.S. law, and can include violence against people or property.
Beyond violence, other types of discrimination or unequal treatment can exist. In countries where homosexuality is legal and there are legal protections against discrimination, some people who are homosexual or perceived to be homosexual report instances of discrimination or “harassment” at school, in the workplace, in housing opportunities, while in public or while receiving medical care.
In the U.K., for example, where same-sex marriage is legal and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal, a recent national government survey found that more than a quarter of LGBT respondents experience verbal harassment for their sexuality over the past year. Additionally, 6 percent reported they were physically threatened, and 4 percent said they were physically or sexually assaulted.
Sources: 76Crimes, Amnesty International, CNN, ILGA State-sponsored homophobia report, FBI UCR, Sibalis via GLBTQ Archive, HRW Report, The New York Times, UK LGBT Survey, UN OHCHR News, World Atlas | https://medium.com/@juliaberrylopez/global-gay-rights-the-legality-and-illegality-of-homosexuality-around-the-world-c56aeb44ad38 | ['Julia Berry Lopez'] | 2020-11-18 14:39:43.790000+00:00 | ['Same Sex Marriage', 'Discrimination', 'Gay Rights', 'LGBT Rights', 'Civil Rights'] |
Trump’s Republican Club painting and what it means | ‘The Republican Club’ by Andy Thomas
You don’t need a degree in art history or even a half-decent eye to know that the painting, recently discovered to be hanging on a wall in the White House, is one hell of a piece of art.
The image shows Trump, centre-stage, at an imagined drinks table. He is surrounded on all sides by previous Republican presidents, some dead, some living, all laughing and sharing a drink. Trump’s immaculate white shirt makes him the focus of the painting, whilst others, like a good-humoured Gerald Ford or a happy-to-be-here HW Bush, recline in the background. Others look on with a hint of envy at the proceedings at the table.
The artist, Andy Thomas, is based in Carthage, Missouri, and his painting found its way into the White House courtesy of a California congressmen, Darrell Issa. Thomas’s work focuses on the American Civil War and the history of the Presidency, and the painting that now hangs in Trump’s White House — ‘The Republican Club’ — is part of a series that includes ‘The Democratic Club’, as well as twin paintings depicting the Republican and Democrat presidents playing pool, and a further pair at the poker table.
‘The Democratic Club’ by Andy Thomas
Whilst all of Thomas’s work is undeniably and intentionally kitsch, the clubhouse series represents a high watermark in terms of his use of impressionism and abstraction. The backgrounds, particularly, seem intended to evoke Belle Époque French impressionist paintings, with the high ceilings, round arches, and twinkling lights. It looks more Moulin Rouge than Mar-a-Lago.
The Moulin Rouge, as caputred by Toulouse-Lautrec, and Manet’s bar
But the clubhouse (or the idea of the clubhouse) is an American classic, as are pool and poker. There are few painting traditions that America can stake a more compelling claim to than kitsch, the basis of Americana from pop art like Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Drowning Girl’, via modernist takes like Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic’, through Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s ‘Dogs Playing Poker’ series. All are underlined by a sense of the kitsch. Thomas’s poker paintings are so entrenched in this mould that they’re hard to look at without imagining Reagan’s face swapped for a basset hound, or Clinton as a pipe-smoking St Bernard.
All of the locations that Thomas chooses are inherently private, save for the onlookers at the clubhouse. The poker game appears to be taking place after-hours at a convention hall, whilst the only spectators to the pool are matching portraits of George Washington, and miniaturised facsimiles of the poker series paintings. These are quiet places for fraternities of high powered men to gather and cut loose. Most are wearing polo shirts, or, at the very least, open necked shirts without ties. Some, like Clinton, have pulled their tie loose and rolled up their shirtsleeves as though they’ve just arrived from the office, whilst Truman is in full Hawaiian shirt. In the clubhouse paintings, it is Trump and Obama who match: both wearing white shirts but no jackets, and ties separated in style only by colour, blue for Obama, red for Trump.
But what of the figures themselves? There is a wilful idealisation here. Take, for example, the figure of Gerald Ford, lounging in the background in a blue shirt, arms crossed, laughing. Ford was 61 at the time of his inauguration, yet the figure is clearly younger. The same goes for the figure of Reagan (69 when he assumed the presidency) and even Nixon (56). Why, in this collage of presidents, are the depictions of some of the men taken before they took office? It necessarily encourages the interpretation that the vision is not simply of presidents but of men, men in their prime. There is a blurry, out of focus women in the background — but even she is wearing a shirt and suit jacket not dissimilar to Bush Snr’s or Nixon’s (what of her though? She also appears in ‘The Democratic Club’, slightly more in focus, as though she is quietly critiquing feminine exclusion from the image — Twitter speculation suggests that Thomas included her as the figure of an eventual female president, though I haven’t seen a direct quote supporting this). From the mushy milling crowd explodes a vision of masculinity, reinforced by, rather than stemming from, the most important job in the modern world.
Thomas’s focus is both political and painterly — he relegates presidents with historically low approval ratings and reputations, like Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, to the background, preferring to focus on recent presidents and those with an easy visual iconography, however controversial, like Lincoln, Nixon and Reagan. Most of the detail of the painting is solvable by easy Googling — for instance, the drinks roughly match the results for ‘what was INSERT NAME’s favourite drink?’, such as Trump’s Diet Coke, Nixon’s glass of Château Lafite, Eisenhower’s scotch and Reagan’s Orange Blossom Special (more details here). Indeed you can piece together many of the painting’s photographic sources by Google Image searching ‘INSERT NAME smiling’.
But, of course, this would all just be the imaginings of an obscure Missouri based painter, were it not for the presence of this painting in the White House. “One thing he specifically mentioned was he didn’t usually like portraits of himself,” Thomas told the New York Times. “But he said that he really liked that one.” Is this true? A 1989 portrait by Ralf Wolfe Cowan titled ‘The Visionary’ (sometimes amended to ‘The Entrepreneur’ for the sake of humility, though it makes no sense with the painting’s context) was recently discovered to still hang at Mar-a-Lago, looking not dissimilar to Thomas’s portrait of the president(s).
Thomas’s painting in the White House, and Cowan’s portrait at Mar-a-Lago
Thomas’s painting has been widely condemned as ‘tacky’ by Twitter, and further evidence of Trump’s classless, cultural degeneracy. It is undoubtedly a simple, unappealing work, painted in a lifeless vacuum and intended for little more than parish art fairs. But, as it was conceived, it speaks to the American ideal of the Presidency as a symbolic pasture of humanity — whilst this is a portrait of several figures, it feels more like a landscape, showing the undulating topography of American political history. America is singularly accomplished at transposing the portraits of its politicians into the physical landscape, with no better example than Mount Rushmore for capturing the complex artistic relationship between political leaders and the country they stand for. That’s the context of Thomas’s work as he envisaged it — an impersonal dreamscape — that has been oddly subverted by Trump’s acquisition of the painting. The piece has become a portrait of Donald Trump surrounded by past Republican presidents, which demonstrably wasn’t the artist’s intention. It has lost its bearings in history.
But, ultimately, the painting is not good enough to have a life outside of this mini news cycle. It does not hang over his desk in the Oval Office, but was simply a gift by a congressman that now hangs somewhere in the White House and was fleetingly captured on 60 Minutes. It is hung in a very simple frame, which does not have the President’s fingerprints on it at all. So, is it really an embarrassing indictment of Trump’s appreciation of art? Probably not. Is it illustrative of an arrogance that thinks himself a colleague of Lincoln? Probably not. But, in the end, is it a sign of a President insecure about his place in history? Probably.
Follow me on Twitter, if you fancy. | https://nickfthilton.medium.com/trumps-republican-club-painting-and-what-it-means-bd22134c46e | ['Nick Hilton'] | 2018-10-17 11:23:46.120000+00:00 | ['Painting', 'Donald Trump', 'Politics', 'President', 'Art'] |
How Walmart’s Supply Chain Technology Has Helped Serve Customers During the COVID-19 Crisis | (Image designed and owned by Walmart)
Within Walmart’s Supply Chain Technology organization, Technical Product Managers build, design, and enhance many software products, systems, and mobile apps that enable our customers to shop online or in our stores, and allow our frontline associates to serve our customers. Offerings like two-hour Express Delivery, Spark (Walmart’s home-grown platform that enables gig drivers to make grocery and last mile deliveries nationwide), BOPIS (Buy Online and Pick up In Store or curbside), picking and shipping from stores, and contactless deliveries are some of the products and experiences these product managers have built from the ground up. And,I am so proud and humbled to say that’s my team. We take a great deal of care to make sure these services meet and exceed our customers’ expectations. But now, during the COVID-19 crisis, it’s even more important for customers to have a safe, seamless experience. During this difficult time, a lot has changed in the way we all live our daily lives, and these changes have come rapidly and without warning. That means businesses like Walmart need to be able to make big changes quickly so we can support our customers in the way that helps them most.
Our priority has always been to help people save money and live better. Here’s how we’ve been able to do that and what we’re doing to ensure our customers can continue to get food, medicine, and anything else they need to keep themselves and their families safe and healthy.
First, we need to take care of those who are at risk within our teams and communities, as well as abide by local guidelines. For us, that includes limiting the number of shoppers in a store to ensure social distancing, regularly deep cleaning and disinfecting our facilities, making masks and gloves available to our front-line associates along with many other safety protocols, and offering senior shopping hours to limit exposure to others while shopping. Our Home Office associates, including our product and technology teams, are working from home to minimize the risk of infection per local guidelines. All of this has driven us to adapt rapidly in these unprecedented times. And if you are working in supply chain tech like me, you know how the world has changed. For those who work at Walmart, it has been incredibly humbling and gratifying to hear from so many people — my friends, family, and even my doctor — how instrumental Walmart has been throughout this pandemic. None of that would have been possible without the amazing speed, nimbleness, and agility displayed by our engineering, product, and operations teams. Prior to COVID-19, we had begun working on how to make time slots in Online Grocery more user-friendly and widely available. However, as the pandemic expanded in the U.S., we knew we had to change our processes immediately. With the massive spike in demand, we saw customers booking slots as far as 7 days out, which left no slots for immediate purchases. So, we reduced delivery sign-up options from 7 days to 2 days to help ensure we could handle the demand. As we increased our capacity, we were able to expand our time slots back to 7 days. Although for some customers this change may have appeared inconvenient, it ultimately allowed more customers to have access to Online Grocery, and more importantly, it provided an easy, contactless way to order and pick up groceries.
For customers who are part of vulnerable communities or are caring for someone who is, we enabled “At-Risk slots”. Additionally, customers also wanted the option to receive grocery orders in less than two hours. While Express Delivery (our less than two-hour delivery offering) wasn’t created in response to the pandemic, the crisis accelerated our development cycle. In typical start-up fashion, product managers and engineers scrappily built the needed technologies to launch Express Delivery in a matter of days/weeks and then continued to optimize post launch. Since our launch in April, we are now at full scale and continue to enhance the experience.
At the beginning of COVID-19’s spread into the U.S., most of our orders were shipped from Fulfillment Centers (FCs) and we only shipped online orders to our customers from a limited number of stores. However, as online orders spiked in a matter of days, our FCs were stretched. We had to act quickly to alleviate the demand, so in less than one week we made a critical decision to create and launch the new process, which required rapid changes to our technology and business processes and expanded our Ship-from-Store capability to thousands of stores across the country. All this could not have been possible without the focus, dedication, and work ethic of my amazing product and engineering team and partners across the U.S. and India. And all this while working from home and taking care of themselves and their loved ones. I am so proud of them!
During this time, there are so many things to worry about, and getting groceries to feed your family shouldn’t be one of them. Working through this difficult time has helped us all realize the importance of making quick, thoughtful decisions so we can continue to make things a little bit better for our customers. | https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/how-walmarts-supply-chain-technology-has-helped-serve-customers-during-the-covid-19-crisis-2dc0f27a188c | ['Rohit Jain'] | 2020-09-24 18:41:18.239000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Data Science', 'Leadership'] |
17 weird Unique Christmas Gifts to Pleasantly Surprise Your Family and Friends This Holiday 2020 | Shopping for Christmas gifts for your family and friends can be a weird experience for you if you want to add some fun in their lives.
Browse through this list of unique Christmas gifts to find something that’ll surprise and delight him. While some may consider these gift ideas to be unusual, we think they’re just more creative than the basic (read: boring) finds that you give (and re-gift) year after year. | https://medium.com/@whygifts/17-weird-unique-christmas-gifts-to-pleasantly-surprise-your-family-and-friends-this-holiday-2020-96e31333518 | [] | 2020-12-20 14:59:00.113000+00:00 | ['American', 'Gift', 'Christmas', 'Merry Christmas 2020', 'Christian'] |
How to Improve Your Headlines to Get More Clicks | How to Improve Your Headlines to Get More Clicks
I decided to blog more often this year. Once I started, I felt excited and curious about how readers will react to the ideas I am trying to deliver. Yet, with every newly published article, I felt down and frustrated, as actually I got no or very few readers. I thought it is because I am self-publishing, so I started to share my work more, yet again very few readers checked my work. I tried to analyze the issue to know what I can change, and with no surprise, It was mainly about the headline.
Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash
It’s all about the headline
When it comes to clicks, it is all about the headline. No one knows my article’s content, only the headline will push others to decide to give it a try. A bad headline may waste all the efforts you put on the topic itself.
Also, subconsciously a headline directs the reader to summarize and know what you want to tell in your article.
What I used to do
I used to put all my focus on the content itself, and the headline was just on the go before publishing. I wrote the headline either in the way the idea came to my head, or the keyword of the main thing in the article. As an example, I wrote a post about how changing my cover letter’s content help me to get my first freelancing job, so my title was just: “UpWork’s Cover Letter”. Is this inviting? No! I was totally wrong to think that this kind of title would push anyone to read my article on the go. | https://medium.com/@nuhakhaled/how-to-improve-your-headlines-overnight-to-get-more-clicks-d121f4d9c8fd | ['Nuha Khaled'] | 2020-12-27 07:08:18.525000+00:00 | ['Tips', 'Writing Tips', 'Advice', 'Headlines', 'Writing'] |
How an Animal Changed my Life | Growing up I had always loved animals.I had a sheltie dog who my family adored and well deserved admiration at that. She seldom barked, and was as gentle as they came even if my younger self had been pushing it. My dad absolutely loved her and I can still recall ‘Emma’ being yelled multiple times throughout the day, but as I grew she aged and crossed the rainbow bridge when I was about 5. When I was about 8 we lost my dad, which hit my family and I very hard, especially due to my young age and the fact that this year was of great importance. I was in Girl Scouts, making my communion in just a short few weeks, followed by my birthday. One year later the time came where we mourned his loss, April 25th. Then the most peculiar thing happens on April 30. My mom went into the backyard on a very rainy day (April showers..) but instead of the usual rainfall being heard outside, it was small whimpers and cries. When she located the spot of the noise something chilling was found, there were 3 baby kittens and unfortunately 2 laid with their heads in a puddle, while the third screamed as loud as it could, which was impressive because they were so young, their eyes had yet to open. My mom had only had her sweatshirt on so she put all three in and went to my neighbors house to check to see the health of the kittens (she knew they were not in the greatest health and did not want me to see if any of the kittens crossed the rainbow bridge). When she arrived at my neighbors and checked on the kittens, unfortunately one kitten had passed away but to her discovery the other kitten in the water was still taking shallow breaths, and the third was strong but shivering due to the rain. My mom rushed the two kittens home where I was, and I opened the door to the biggest suprise. These kittens were very young and there was no mother to be found. We called a friend who was a vet and while waiting for her to arrive we put the kittens on a heating pad and suddenly the kitten in poor health began to become stable and walk and cry. When the vet arrived we found out their genders, the stronger being a boy and the weaker being a girl. I was thrilled and even more excited when it was projected they would be ok with lots of TLC(and a couple sleepless nights) so my mom stayed up and fed them formula throughout the night, and I bottle fed throughout the day. When they were well enough my mom started making arrangements for their homes. My sister and I had grown attached and we were set on keeping these kittens no matter what. One day I finally decided on names I wanted for them, which may have been the best decision I’ve ever made and was a sign for my mom that they were a perfect fit. The boy I decided would be named Dannyboy, an ode to my dad since this kitten was so strong and a hero for his sister. For the girl, I chose the name Elsa since she laid in the freezing cold(yes, this was around the time Frozen came out).
Years later and here we are, we kept both kittens and it has completely changed my life. Dannyboy is my best friend in the world and my dads spirit seems to live on through him. I have never in my life met a cat as attached to a human as Danny is to me. He follows me everywhere and sleeps with no one but me, every night he cuddles as close to me as he can and purrs all night. When I am sad he lays beside me and sleeps in my arms and it never fails to make me feel better. Elsa is my moms best friend and spends every day kneading in her arms and sleeping on her legs with her sister Molly. Elsa also had 2 babies which we gave to close friends. While I write this Danny lays next to me on my bed purring when I accidentally nudge him, eager to go to sleep with me. Elsa is laying in my moms room fast asleep with her sister at her side. Safe to say these babies changed my life for which I would not change it for the world. | https://medium.com/@shanshort05/how-an-animal-changed-my-life-5fc8f7df0980 | [] | 2020-12-18 08:54:02.630000+00:00 | ['Cats', 'Love', 'Animals', 'Animal Rescue', 'Rescue'] |
Bitcoin comes to Wombat! | With Bitcoin reaching a new all-time high, we look back at its history with nothing but appreciation. Hundreds, if not thousands of amazing projects were inspired by the first crypto coin, drawing on its revolutionary foundation and improving on its limitations.
The Bitcoin phenomenon hasn’t left us untouched as well, personally and professionally. This is why we are happy to join forces with Defibox and pTokens to finally bring Bitcoin to all the Wombat users in the simplest and most rewarding way possible.
Keep in mind that this post should not be treated as financial advice and serves introductory and informational purposes only. Always do your own research before engaging in crypto projects.
How does Bitcoin on Wombat work
Bitcoin exists in Defibox, pTokens & Wombat as pBTC — an EOS-based token transparently backed up by its actual ‘root’ coin. One pBTC will always equal one Bitcoin (BTC).
You can store, transfer, buy and sell pBTC just like any other EOS-based token in your wallet. And, unlike on the Bitcoin network, these transactions go through in mere seconds. All your benefits as a Wombat user will also apply when using pBTC.
Powered by pTokens’ cross-blockchain DeFi solution and Defibox’s reliable liquidity pool, Wombat’s pBTC swap feature will effectively allow you to interact with the most valuable crypto asset at greater speed and with extra rewards!
For every swap you make, you will receive BOX tokens that you will definitely want to use on Defibox — once you accrue an equivalent of at least 1 EOS. You can stake BOX or provide some to a liquidity pool to mine even more! If you don’t feel comfortable enough to engage with DeFi just yet, check out our guide to Defibox.
How can I swap EOS & pBTC?
Open your Wombat wallet and find the Bitcoin-themed banner. You will also find this option in the DeFi section of Wombat’s Explorer.
Simply choose if you wish to exchange your EOS for Bitcoin (pBTC) or vice versa and confirm the transaction. Please note that Defibox will hold a small fee for the swap.
Swapping EOS for pBTC on Wombat
Where can I see my Bitcoin?
You can now include Bitcoin in your assets list. Navigate to the Wallet section of the app and find a + button. You will find Bitcoin pretty high on that list.
You can also add the BOX tokens to monitor the rewards you get for swaps. To add the BOX token, simply find ‘Defibox’ on the same list.
Accessing pBTC on Wombat
Is there anything else I can do with pBTC?
Certainly! You can provide liquidity to numerous pBTC pools on Defibox to receive BOX rewards or use them as collateral to lend for loans Pizza.
Are there other EOS-based pTokens?
pTokens features dozens of major tokens, such as ETH, LTC, DAI and many others. You safely operate these assets with all advantages of the EOS network right in your Wombat wallet! For more information, please visit the pNetwork’s website.
As we extend our reach into DeFi, we will add swap support for more pTokens and other assets. | https://medium.com/wombat/bitcoin-comes-to-wombat-b4e870d5bb84 | ['Olga Ivanova'] | 2020-12-22 16:53:06.812000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Eos', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Wombat'] |
Civicus Monitor alliance: Pandemic being used as guise to abuse civil rights across the world | Various governments around the world have been increasingly using Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to curb people of their basic civil rights. The finding was reported by Civicus Monitor, a civil society groups’ alliance. In its assessment of 196 countries, the alliance found that currently the global civil rights are at the cliff edge, with 87% of populations living in countries labelled as “repressed” and “closed”. This is an increase by 4% from last year’s figures. Curtailed civil rights include free speech, freedom of association and peaceful assembly.
The countries have suppressed people’s freedom to exercise civil rights by arresting protestors, use of excessive force, crackdown on journalists, and intimidating human rights activists. The report said that many governments have used the pandemic situation to “introduce or implement additional restrictions on civic freedoms.”
The group also categorized freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly under various categories based on methodology of combining several data. The categories include repressed, closed, obstructed, open and narrowed.
“The use of detention as the main tactic to restrict protests only shows the hypocrisy of governments using Covid-19 as a pretence to crack down on protests, as the virus is more likely to spread in confined spaces like prisons,” said Marianna Belalba Barreto, Civicus Monitor’s research lead.
“Our research reflects a deepening civic space crisis across the globe and highlights how governments are using the pandemic as an excuse to further curtail rights, including by passing legislation to criminalise speech.”
Out of the 196 countries examined, only Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo have improved their ratings by moving from “closed” to “repressed”. “Closed” category is the worst rating for countries. Furthermore, 11 countries degraded in the ratings. These include Costa Rica, US, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Slovenia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador and the Philippines.
Another highly noticeable trend noted by the group was specific trending and suppression of people belonging to LGBT+ community, immigrants and refugees.
The group is calling for governments to work in association with the human rights groups and defenders “to halt this downward spiral and push back against the authoritarian forces at work”.
https://www.theworkersrights.com/civicus-monitor-alliance-pandemic-being-used-as-guise-to-abuse-civil-rights-across-the-world/ | https://medium.com/@theworkersright/civicus-monitor-alliance-pandemic-being-used-as-guise-to-abuse-civil-rights-across-the-world-54564b8708d8 | ['The Workers Rights'] | 2020-12-11 13:56:12.261000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Human Rights', 'Civicus Monitor Alliance', 'Civil Rights'] |
6. květen — Den vlastizrady | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/shifthappens/6-kv%C4%9Bten-den-vlastizrady-d1459ecb302c | ['Martin Pánek'] | 2017-12-31 12:10:27.197000+00:00 | ['Eusoc', 'Topolánek', 'Politika', 'Notes'] |
Unravelling Gender Binaries in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando | Back when lockdown 2.0 was merely an idea, I visited Unfinished Business: The Fight For Women’s Rights at The British Library. There, in the ‘Body’ section, was a first edition of by Virginia Woolf. Below, it asked whether was the first English-language trans novel, and suddenly I found myself in Hatchards on the way home. This novel undertakes a rather modern perspective on gender, “In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place”, despite having been published in 1928. There’s still a lot we can take from Woolf’s musings on prejudice, with helpfully making the comparison to JK Rowling’s limiting views on gender earlier in the year.
Woolf intends to be a mock biography, where significant subjects like time and literature itself are tackled with the lightness of a writer’s holiday. It is thoughtfully termed a “blend of social critique and bold fantasy” by Vulture , who note that the novel is often overlooked and deemed whimsical despite the distinct political undertones. The story follows the long life of the novel’s namesake, who casually lived about 400 years, and their transition from Elizabethan nobleman to female poet. It is during a stint as ambassador in Constantinople that the protagonist wakes up one morning having changed sex.
“The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity. Their faces remained, as their portraits prove, practically the same.”
This incredibly modern portrait of gender fluidity serves as a comment on historical gender differences, and their often nonsensicalness. Although now a “different sex”, she is still the “same person” as before. Orlando’s continuation of character works as a device to highlight the absurd nature of discrimination. Her female life is undoubtedly harder, littered with societal distrust and prejudice. Having said that, tough topics are tackled through Woolf’s wit and humour. I particularly loved the part where the principal character talks with a prostitute in order to have a meaningful conversation, where she doesn’t face the patronisation of male writers, “Orlando had never known the hours speed faster or more merrily.”
is considered almost as a love letter to the writer Vita Sackville-West , with whom Virginia Woolf had an affair. The nods to Woolf’s lover allow her to create a narrative around the noblewoman’s story that the author can control- Sackville-West had once lived in Constantinople herself. Vita Sackville-West also grew up in the home that Orlando’s is based upon, and was unable to inherit as a woman. In , the home she’s always had rights to as a man are suddenly subject to lawsuits once she has been transformed into a woman. Although a change of sex causes this lack of entitlement, she does eventually come to own the land she’s so spiritually connected to. This inspired dissection of the inequity and pain of being a woman is one of the reasons why is so timelessly important. I had to ask myself whether women experience complete security in 2020?
Last year, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcon used as inspiration, proving further the modern relevance of Woolf’s convictions on gender. She was even commissioned to design the costumes for a Vienna opera based on the novel. Both Virginia Woolf and Rei Kawakubo force audiences to think about the role our clothing prescribes for us, with Woolf remarking that clothes “ change our view of the world and the world’s view of us.” Orlando continually experiences that some things are for men and some are for women; Woolf’s storytelling sets this up to be questioned. Ideas around gender binaries have changed drastically since the 1920s, just consider Harry Styles wearing a dress on the cover of US Vogue. I can’t help but think Virginia Woolf and Orlando played an unsung part in getting us here.
Words by Jess Whitman
Want more Books content from The Indiependent? Click here | https://medium.com/the-indiependent/unravelling-gender-binaries-in-virginia-woolfs-orlando-c8280efbea5f | ['Jessica Emma Whitham'] | 2020-12-10 09:29:44.897000+00:00 | ['Authors', 'Virginia Woolf', 'Gender', 'Culture', 'Books'] |
“Defunding the Police” Needs to Happen. | “Defunding the Police” Needs to Happen.
Because police don’t recognize when they are failures.
Empty Words from a former President
If you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal-justice system so that it’s not biased and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan, like “defund the police.” But, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done. ~ Barrack Obama, 44th President of the United States
Thank you for that unsolicited input President Obama.
Before we get started, I have to address the fact that it’s fascinating to watch former President Obama seek to share word towards what the protester should do versus what the police should do. Why are comments toward the underprivileged so swift to leave his tongue? Why does the same tongue sitting on perch does not possess word of advice to police officers? After all, it’s not like he has the political capital to lose. Obama has been president before. The only next thing possible is to sit on the Supreme Court (like William Howard Taft). It doesn’t seem like he aspires to do such. So why hold tongue? After all, it’s the police who are effectively engaging in criminal activity to the highest degree — murder — and getting away with it. Everything a protester does is a response to that part — especially the racial selectivity of the “misconduct.” Black people of America practically are second to third-class citizens due to the fact that police all over America know they can behave more aggressively towards Black people with no dire consequence.
A young Obama in his college years. There’s definitely a lack of understanding of systemic racism growing up in Hawaii, but by his college years you knew what racism is.
Before he was President Barrack Obama, he was Barry Obama. The selective anglicizing of his name — by his own choice for years, mind you — points to the fact that he tried to de-Africanize his presence in America’s white supremacist political atmosphere.
He knows what racism is; he spent much of his life hiding Barrack behind a Barry, ensuring no Karen will call police on him for minding his own business.
So, where is this tongue for police? Between Barrack and a hard place, I guess.
“Defund the Police” always existed
“Defund the police” was always known if you were ever on the ground observing these protests. To many white people, these police accountability protests started on May 31st, 2020. But to Black people, these protests began in 2012, when Trayvon Martin was murdered by an armed man presuming police authority. Defunding the police as a protest phrase is nothing new. It’s not novel. So if you’re critiquing this phrase as if it’s new, you’re already arriving late.
Demilitarize the Police
I’m not sure why this guy decided to raise is night stick, but it sure does look aggressive. | Oakland, 2010 | Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk
Should police suffer defunding? Yes. Technically if you were to ask me, my phrasing is demilitarize the police, and my words are explicit, being that I am a man of military experience. From the standpoint of serving in actual war zones, yes, our police forces need to be seriously demilitarized. They are not in war zones; they are not Soldiers or Marines.
While some police require special equipment due to possible terrorism threats (e.g., New York, D.C., Los Angeles), they genuinely do not need a constant influx of military-grade weapon systems and equipment. Police don’t need scores of mine-resistant gas-guzzler vehicles as there is no IED (improvised explosive device) threat in America. Police certainly don’t need any treaded vehicles (civilians call all treaded vehicles “tanks”) as they will tear up these already poorly maintained American streets. Police don’t need scores of shotguns, sniper rifles, and assault rifles; that’s what SWAT is for.
As a U.S. Army vet, I know the effective range of that weapon. He doesn’t need that in San Francisco. | Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk
Speaking of SWAT teams and other special weapon units, why in the hell are they used so much? SWAT units are supposed to be for special situations, not regular, low-end dealers and other low-level criminal deviants. SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. SWAT units shouldn’t even be used for low-level offenders. Ever. SWAT units are supposed to be near-elite. They are supposed to be highly trained, used sparingly, never miss, and more importantly, never shoot an innocent. Americans should be safe due to SWAT units existing, but instead of this, Breonna Taylor is murdered in her sleep. This is why we say “defund the police”; there’s a lot of money paid into their weapons and training, and they murder people while using the same tax dollars to exist immune to law.
The more I think of it, Breonna Taylor wasn’t even murdered by SWAT officers. Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove — officers who murdered Breonna Taylor in her sleep — were plainclothes officers. This means they were in regular civilian clothes. Not SWAT.
So why are these plainclothes police officers conducting no-knock SWAT activities? Looking for low-level offenders? In the wrong house, murdering harmless civilians in their sleep? Why are plainclothes officers this aggressive, shooting people in their sleep? Defund the police, please.
Follow the Money
The fact that regular police units are engaging in no-knock raids — something more fitting for highly trained near-elite police units — makes civilians wonder what is going on with their tax money being spent. One thing I know about government spending is that funding exists based on what was spent the prior fiscal year. If a government entity cannot argue for the same or higher funding, cuts are made. “Cuts,” as in, “you’re getting less money.” Defunding occurs.
If a police force is enjoying, let’s say, this exuberant amount of funding on submachine guns, close-quarters combat assault rifles, combat shotguns, and paid vacations to Israel to be trained by Israeli special forces, they might get defunded by not justifying the same spending the following year. Therefore, like all other forms of government spending, police must justify expenses. Police forces across America must justify their funding.
They justify their funding the same way that the general maintenance, public schooling, and even the military does — by using their equipment more.
How do the police use their equipment more, you may ask? They use their equipment more by authorizing no-knock raids in instances where they shouldn’t exist; using SWAT units frivolously on low-level offenders; militarizing the vehicles and police clothing; giving SWAT weapons to plainclothes police officers, who probably are not trained on those weapon systems as SWAT units are. They also boost usage of their equipment by boosting interactions with the public:
More arrests where anyone with good judgement would just give a warning. Aggressively trolling harmless civilians. Provoking encounters. Aggravating situations where de-escalation procedures would be better choices, the list goes on. Defund the police, please.
Many American Cops are Trained by Israeli Death Squads
I mentioned American police being trained by Israeli forces prior. Let’s examine this part.
In the days following George Floyd’s killing, pictures of Israeli authorities taking similar positions over the necks of Palestinians have begun appearing across social media. This is why there are so many “Palestinians for Black Lives” signs and shirts in protests in America. They know. | Photo Credit: Reuters
While I’ll agree that the term “death squads” might be a bit of hyperbole, there is a measure of truth in the description. From the Israeli point of view, they are a nation that’s surrounded by enemies, with many of them having announced wanted to erase Israel off the map.
We can argue the validity of their standpoint another time, but one thing that cannot be argued is the fact that Israeli police and military forces function as if their whole nation can be killed out of existence. Israeli professions of arms operate as if there whole existence is on the line as a people.
America does not suffer a existential threat, so by extension, neither does her police forces suffer such. Americans will never be “wiped off the map”. America will never cease existing as a people. There’s no competent argument to suggest Americans suffer an existential threat.
America doesn’t need cops to act like the whole America would die if they didn’t get their knee off the neck of George Floyd. America doesn’t need cops to act like the whole America would die if they didn’t murder Tamir Rice. America doesn’t need cops to act like the totality of America would die if cops didn’t murder Breonna Taylor in her sleep.
George Floyd isn’t a national security threat. Breonna Taylor isn’t a national security threat.
Black people, are NOT a national security threat, not even by the smallest measure possible in any competent critical threat analysis.
(But do you know what is the biggest domestic terror threat in America? It rhymes with Slight Supremacy)
So yes, those plane trips to Israel or the trips bringing Israeli death squads over to America to train American police? That can stop. Defund, the police.
David Grossman inculcates a murderous mindset in police
David Grossman wrote two books, On Killing and On Combat. I have them both. Not bad books. But I’m a Soldier, not a cop.
The problem with this guy is that his training, beyond these those two books, inculcates police to function as twitch-finger-reflex murderers. Grossman’s warrior-cop classes, right beside foreign influences like Israeli special force squads, are the worst thing happening to cops, and it’s telling being that there’s a different shared mentality cops have now that they never had prior.
The officer who killed Philando Castile had taken a Bulletproof class with Grossman just two years before the shooting. ~ Kelly McLaughlin, Insider
As the federal government is pushing military-grade equipment to police across America which exists in the physical world, what Grossman does is militarize the mind and souls of these police officers. The “Killology”, “warrior-cop” brain-washing has to stop in order to demilitarize the police.
Enclothed Cognition
One great point to bring up is the concept of enclothed cognition. Enclothed cognition describes the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer’s psychological processes and performance-related effects. This is the reason why when we wear suits, or other particular types of clothing, we feel a certain way. Perhaps, we feel more confident wearing suits. Feel professional. Feel playful. The possibilities are endless. Sometimes merely the difference of colors worn can shift psychological processes and performance related effects.
Metro PD, 1980s. What ever happened to police wearing light blue? Why are they all now wearing midnight blue? | Photo Credit: Manny Ceneta / Getty Images
If these things are true when it comes to enclothed cognition, what do you think happens when police go from wearing sky blue like they did in the 1980’s, to wearing near-black midnight blue? What about riot gear?
As a Soldier and a gentleman I’d go farther and suggest to add not just the color of clothing as a factor in their attitudes, but also other equipment to the theory of enclothed cognition, such as night sticks, pistol, multiple magazines of bullets, etc.
If a gun in the pocket of a concealed-carry permit having fellow give a man confidence and jollies, then various gear given to police officers can shift their attitudes too, correct? What happens when you give police assault rifles and submachine guns unnecessarily, just to patrol with?
Enclothed cognition is a thing, and from this understanding we have an idea why and how police have gotten more aggressive and less likely to de-escalate situations. We have a psychological reason why police choose violence over nonviolent means. Defund the police, stop spending on hyper-aggressive clothing and gear.
Force versus Service
It’s funny how police are called the police force versus “the police service.” In light of that fact, you don’t join “the military force,” you join military service. Why is it that those who literally fight wars are called a “service” while those with the civilian job dealing with fellow Americans are called a “force”? Why is there this need to serve foreign countries but force our own?
Is this force necessary?
What (and who) are we serving in the military, and what are we forcing upon our own civilian populace as cops? Do cops actually serve anyone? If so, whom do they actually serve? Defund the police until they cease being a force and finally become a service.
Life after the military, we say you served. Life after the police force says the same thing: you served as an officer of the law. Based on all evidence covered, this is categorically false and largely incongruent with police work’s conventional title. You didn’t serve as an officer of the law; you forced as an officer of the law. It’s called a police force for a reason. Let’s keep it real.
I do know how the police can become a service, though: Defund the police.
Toy Soldiers
I always found it interesting that police and those who engage in propaganda for them tend to shroud their existence and mission around a military-like appeal. Police — no matter what’s going on — are not in war zones. They are not Soldiers. They are not troops. Soldiers function with the Uniform Code of Military Justice which is the bedrock of military law. Articles 77 through 134 are punitive articles. While it seems impossible for police to go to prison for murdering unarmed civilians, it is very possible to go to a federal prison as a U.S. military professional. you can be a Private working in a mail room in the military, and end up in prison.
Police, as I stated before, do not have to worry about roadside bombs. Most police don’t even ever use their service weapon. Most people, including criminals — the designated adversaries to police — don’t want to shoot and kill police officers. For those who are a part of a criminal enterprise, shooting a cop is technically, bad for business and will effect their bottom-line. Police is a pretty safe job, considering the job is more reactionary than proactive. When you see a person who have lost their arms or legs in combat in a wheelchair making their way around in a Walmart, nine times out of ten that person probably lost their limbs in the military, not in police work. The very fact that people conflate police work into warfare is categorically profane and disrespectful to troops as a whole.
Defunding is the only way for police reform
In war, especially these unconventional wars we fight these days (which more so parallel police work than conventional wars) it is possible to lose. It is possible for the military — regardless of what branch of service — to lose objectives, lose battles, and lose wars. Because of the possibility of failure, there are things that military professionals would highlight that police professionals don’t even care about. Here’s an example of an document from Gen. (Ret.) McChrystal concerning operational awareness in Afghanistan (circa 2009):
The second threat, of a very different kind, is the crisis of popular confidence that springs from the weakness of GIRoA (gov. of Islamic Republic of Afghan.) institutions, the unpunished abuse of power by corrupt officials and power brokers, a widespread sense of political disenfranchisement, and a longstanding lack of economic opportunity. ~ General McChrystal’s Strategic Assessment Evaluating the Operating Environment in Afghanistan in the Summer of 2009
Defund the police, F*** Trump. | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud
This assessment documents the understanding a military general has of his battlespace; unpunished abuses of power by corrupt officials and power brokers and wide-spread sense of political disenfranchisement, plus a lack of economic opportunity effects the battlespace. All of those things are bad for everyone involved. how come police routinely fail to have this profound understanding of the land-space they occupy? After all, it’s all the same problems. Maybe this is the distinction between service and force? A service seeks to identify all problems to solve to permanent effect, while a force doesn’t take such efforts and only seek to make arrest quotas and kill random innocent black people and get away with it?
The second threat in Afghanistan as stated by the now retired General is the primary threat to “operations” in America. Police operating with a license-to-murder-innocents is that unpunished abuse of power. American police have military intelligence collection assets and capabilities yet still don’t care nor have the will to actually solve real socio-economic problems that fuel crime and disdain for their own police force. Defund the police.
Strategic Failure
Police don’t know loss. They do not know failure. If crime is on the decline (which it is), all they will do is hassle and lock people up over frivolous issues. There is no such thing as police going home in shame due to a lost objective, battle, or war. In actual warfare, Soldiers must also win hearts and minds. The police of America totally does not care to win hearts and minds. The irony of the COIN (counterinsurgency) fundamentals that were so unpopular in the military is that they are a better fit for the police force at home. Police do not care about earning the trust and confidence of the populace they patrol.
“End Police Brutality” | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud
These lack of concerns are strategic failures. It doesn’t matter if they recognize it or not. If the local populace understands that the local police don’t prioritize their safety, that alone is a strategic failure. Police should lose sleep over this, but they do not. The problem is that cops are so used to being bullies, they can’t recognize the problem.
Due to the constant lionizing of police in America where they are infinitely held as heroes, even when they murder innocent civilians and shamelessly try to evade justice, never admitting wrong in all dishonor is very difficult for police to realize they failed somewhere.
The only thing they can feel is a loss of funding. The only thing they can understand is defunding. Because the police cannot grasp how they have failed their cities and towns, defunding is the only way to redemption.
Where to put this defund-the-police money?
The money from defunding the police — usually the most considerable portion of local city/state funding — can be reallocated to many public institutions.
First, it can go to schools. A world where public school teachers do not have to buy their own school supplies and hallway decorations would be great. Better books, the list goes on. You can probably diminish crime by providing better education venues to the public. The money can be reallocated into public transportation. As a developed super-power of a country, it’s a shame how places like Germany have better trains and buses, with trains that go 186mph, between cities. That will affect job/career opportunities, which would drop crime rates. One can also allocate this funding into public defender offices, because why are they so under-funded in the first place? At the very least, the public defender office should be just as well funded as the prosecution office. The imbalance in funding between the two legal teams tips the scales of justice in the most literal sense. So why not?
Conclusion
Defund the police. Police departments all over the nation would reform once over-time pay runs out, or the expenses for paying families for damages comes out of their retirement. Defund the police isn’t supposed to be a catchy phrase, it’s a literal policy position.
Police need to know what failure taste like. That is only done by defunding. Only then will they promise and execute meaningful reform. | https://medium.com/afrosapiophile/defund-the-police-d1b6ea59225d | ['Johnny Silvercloud'] | 2020-12-22 20:59:23.168000+00:00 | ['Defundthepolice', 'Defunding Police', 'Protest', 'Obama', 'Police'] |
Succeeding at Digital Transformation | INSIDE THE ENTERPRISE
This is the second in a series of perspectives on IT in the enterprise, informed by experiences and observations over nearly two decades working at the intersection of business and IT in a large global energy company.
Introduction
Information Technology is well recognized as a critical business enabler and has been a key component of business transformation efforts since the 1980s. What has changed in the 21st century is the relentless rise of digital enterprises with completely new digital business models, disrupting one traditional business after another. Today the typical transformations of old would be woefully inadequate, and those enterprises that were not born in the internet era are regularly forced to embark on programs of Digital Transformation. Unfortunately, a very large proportion of these programs fail. In this article I examine what are the typical causes behind these failures, and what steps can be taken at the business unit or enterprise level to improve the probability of a successful outcome.
Approach
Digital Transformations are fundamentally Business Transformations so the approach I take is to discuss two perspectives on why business transformations fail and two which are more specifically focused on digital transformation. In the first category we have ‘Leading Change — Why Transformation Efforts Fail’, by John P. Kotter in Harvard Business Review (originally published Spring 1995), and an interview with McKinsey’s Seth Goldstrom on ‘Why Transformations Fail’ (Feb 2019). On digital transformation we have from Christy Pettey in Smarter at Gartner ‘Avoid These 9 Corporate Digital Transformation Mistakes’ (Jul 2020), and ‘10 Reasons Why Digital Transformations Fail’ by Clint Boulton in CIO magazine (Jun 2020).
Next I identify pitfalls which have tended to be persistent, and others which are specific to Digital aspects. Finally I note mitigations or remedies that could reduce their occurrence and impact, and improve the odds of success.
I have liberally re-used material from the above-mentioned authors, my purpose being to give present a concise overview and synthesis of the topic and hopefully saving readers many hours of preliminary research on the internet.
Issues in Business Transformation
Kotter sees the transformation effort progressing through a series of stages, each critical in its own right and needing to be done properly and in the right sequence. He identifies these as follows-
Establish a sense of urgency
Form a powerful guiding coalition
Create a vision
Communicate the vision
Empower others to act on the vision
Plan for and create short term wins
Consolidate improvements and produce more change
Institutionalize new approaches
Pitfalls abound (see Table 1), with the majority directly a consequence of organizational inertia and gaps in leadership composition, alignment, capabilities or communication. A particularly interesting pitfall is the tendency in some quarters to declare victory at the first opportunity, effectively scuttling further transformation efforts, diluting the intended change and hastening a reversion to ‘business as usual’.
Table 1
Now coming to the weaknesses identified by Goldstrom two decades after Kotter, we see that his cautions relate to some softer aspects such as being insufficiently ambitious about outcomes, lacking a growth focus, the need for collaborative working, and needing an ‘and’ rather than an ‘or’ mindset.
Both emphasize the need to systematically proceed with the transformation effort through its various stages, getting the right people in the right jobs, and making changes wherever there is a lack of either will or skill.
Goldstrom makes important points about the need to align incentives with behaviors that will drive the desired outcomes, and the necessity of proper tracking systems.
Issues with Digital Transformation
Some of the points noted by both Pettey and Boulton (Table 2) are business and general issues that are very much in play even in Digital transformations. Though worded differently they are closely related to pitfalls earlier noted by Kotter and Goldstrom. The foremost the inability to articulate a vision that the whole organization can embrace and align with. Another big one is organizational silos.
Table 2
Both Pettey and Boulton highlight the need to focus on customer needs and competition. Pettey makes important points about seizing the opportunity provided by digital transformation to reinvent how an industry operates, rather than being satisfied by incremental changes. Both advise action rather than overplanning or ‘wait-and-see’. Bouldton highlights how disruptors typically move an order of magnitude or two faster and achieve greater scale than incumbents, especially when there are network effects involved.
Adequate talent and a learning mindset are key ingredients especially in the digital aspects of a transformation, both are in short supply. Consequently there is often a high degree of talent churn which then impacts continuity and timely achievement of Digital goals.
Improving the Odds of Success
Kotter has some key recommendations –
Convince at least 75% of managers that the status quo is more dangerous than the unknown
To achieve a coherent effort that is both sufficiently powerful and disruptive, form a cross-functional team under a senior line manager outside the normal hierarchy
Communicate the vision constantly, model desirable behaviors
Encourage risk taking
Define visible performance improvements, and reward the employees that achieve them
Articulate connections between new behaviors and corporate success, develop the next generation of leaders
Goldstrom makes some distinct points-
The change story must be compelling from a hearts-and-minds perspective … not everyone contributing to the transformation will be excited about company financials and stock price in the same way as top management who have incentives linked to them
Goals should be set at the full potential of the organization, rather than at a level that is comfortable (which will ultimately not be transformational)
Have the courage to make personnel changes, and do it early … this will get the whole organization energized and excited
Examine talent-to-value for the top 100 roles in the organization, the mix needed in the future will be different than in the past
Obsess about growth .. sales, pricing and step-out growth
Pettey emphasizes the following points-
Focus on the business model, not the operating model …prioritize the market and how it will be monetized over efficiency and effectiveness
Set goals for structural transformation, supported by adequate investment … digital business works at the level of revenue and business model change and product re-invention
Focus on learning and growth
Plan less, do more … embrace lean startup thinking, release a minimum viable product and then improve it with customer feedback
Focus on the needs of markets and customers first, then deploy technologies to address them … do not select technologies and then look for applications
Understand and then exploit the power of culture to drive change
Boulton highlights some additional steps -
Ensure strong CEO sponsorship
Business leaders should get a strong understanding of what needs doing in a digital transformation as well as how to go about it, before embarking on the transformation … what are the talents and technologies required
Begin early, do not wait …gather velocity and maintain it, digital disruption happens fast so time is of the essence
Work on attracting/accessing capable talent … they are in short supply, so learn how to retain them or continuity will suffer
Conclusion
One needs a sense of urgency, imagination and vision to begin a successful Digital Transformation, grounded in customer needs and an understanding of the competitive environment. There are quite a few pitfalls one is likely to encounter along the way, however strategies and methods exist to address those. A lot depends on getting the right people in place who have both the will as well as the skills, and being able to hold on to them.
Therafter speed, individual and collective motivation, enthusiastic collaboration and focused action is what will make the difference. And persistence will lead to success.
Thank you for reading this article! I welcome your comments below.
— Ashish Deshpande | https://medium.com/@ashish.deshpande/succeeding-at-digital-transformation-3805b0ddc50c | ['Ashish Deshpande'] | 2021-09-11 18:59:57.558000+00:00 | ['Disruption', 'Transformation', 'Enterprise', 'Digital', 'Technology'] |
Why Algorithm? | Very important to know,
In 1936 mathematician Alan Turing proved in his famous research paper “On computable numbers” that, “If an algorithm can be written to solve a mathematical problem, then a Turing machine can execute that algorithm”.
This is a very fundamental and important theory in Computer Science and Engineering(CSE).
That means in a simpler word that :
Any project may be very complex or easy, can be done if first of all, we are able to design an algorithm (description + flowchart + pseudocode).
Though it is hard to convert a design to code, possible if there is a design/blueprint first means algorithm.
The algorithm should be the first thing to learn in the case of CSE. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/why-algorithm-b675d7740cdf | ['Angshuman Bhattacharjee'] | 2020-11-27 21:20:13.428000+00:00 | ['Research', 'Short Read', 'Alan Turing', 'Idea', 'Algorithms'] |
The Trek of Kedarkantha | It was a bright sunny morning to start the day. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky. Perfect trekking conditions. With a ridiculously heavy and mysteriously lumpy rucksack, I was all set in for the climb. After having a feast of breakfast, we met our guides who accompanied us from the start till the downward descend. Each one got a pair of a crampons-a metal plate with spikes fixed to a boot for walking on ice & gaiters-a protective covering of cloth or leather for the ankle and lower leg to keep snow out of the shoes which were necessary to walk on thick and deep snow. We had to reach the Kedarkantha base camp on the same day due to the previous day’s cancelled trek due to snowfall- a whopping 7 km climb out of the total 9 km upward climb. With a walking stick and rucksack, the upward climb began. Of the total 7 km, the frozen lake of Juda Ka Talab was a 3 km climb from the starting point of Sankri.
Trek ready me
The first 20% of the upward climb to Juda Ka Talab was the worst trekking experience of my life of all the treks that I have done so far. With the sun shining bright and clear blue skies, the snow had started to melt exponentially, making the path too slippery and the trekking conditions more adverse. All the snowmelt had begun resulting in downwards streams of water with steep ridges in between. A combination of all this began to take a toll on my body. Also, having been locked in at home since previous December, the physical body stamina was at a lifetime low. Although the Kalsubai trek(as mentioned in Part 1) negated some fatigue and rustiness of the body, some leftover remains had begun to show its effects. As a result of all this, I was climbing at tortoise level speed. All of a sudden, the weight of luggage on my shoulders started to feel too bulky. I had begun to feel as if my young shoulders were carrying the entire burden of twenty-two years of my prime existence.
As a result of all this, I was left behind in my group. I was the last man walking and climbing upwards in the group. At a certain point, I could see no signs of my group. Probably, they had gone far too ahead, I thought. There were many tea points on the way. At the second tea point to Juda ka Talab, I was exhausted. The shoulders had begun to drop. A virtually drained me then had a cup of lemon tea. One sip of it and life felt better.
Resilience and tenacity were what my body had to show at that moment. Although I had strong determination in my mind to make it to the top come what may, my body wasn't on the same page as my mind. This is where issues started to arise. But this is also where I got to practically experience what I had read in some of the travel novels- real-life lessons during the climb. This where I learned, that despite the pain beneath the neck, I was far more capable of doing things that I was made to believe by my thoughts I couldn’t ever do. A look at the surreal view around the place was enough to vanish my vague worries into happiness. A chat with the local chaiwala en route the climb taught me more about life than all the textbooks combined.
After the break, there were still no signs of the group. Hope was all I could cling upon. By this time, the snow level had begun to increase, and the road had started to turn more slippery. I slipped not once but twice during this part. All of a sudden, a couple of people from my group emerged from behind. I got reminded to put on the crampons. Parth helped me put it on as I found it pretty tricky to fix it beneath the shoe grip due to the exhaustion. By this time, 70% of the journey to Juda ka Talab had been completed.
Almost 300 people were belonging to many different groups who were climbing along with us. The last 30 % to Juda ka Talab campsite I managed to climb with many other groups and different people. Any sudden voice in Marathi suddenly felt as if I was trekking in my home state. There were many voices like these, some who even spoke Gujrati with the help I successfully managed to reach Juda Ka Talab campsite.
There were many tents placed in the campsite. It was surreal to see so many tents around with many food joints. While I was sipping another glass of tea at this campsite, I found 3 of my group members- Aman, Priya and Tanvi. They too, were left behind just like me. This was where the trek was supposed to change for the better. And it did. The worst part was over. On reaching here, I got to know that everyone had hired mules and sent their luggage to the base camp as everyone was finding it difficult to climb with the bags on the back. Aman and me, the last of the remaining two who still had the bulky rucksacks on our backs, immediately hired the mule to the base camp.
All of a sudden, with the weight off my back transferred to the mule’s end, there was no shortage of stamina. We four decided to climb the rest of the journey together. And then from here on, began the most thrilling part of the climb. The Juda Ka Talab campsite was 200 m downwards to the actual lake. So another 200 m had to be climbed before reaching Juda ka Talab. At this point, we 4 had no idea where the rest of the group was. We had a lot of catch-ups to do. We decided to have a move on. We dramatically increased our climbing speeds. With the luggage gone, the trek suddenly started to feel comfortable.
These 200 metres and 20 minutes were the most thrilling 20 minutes of my life. We were all at sea with virtually no idea of the group and the route to Juda ka Talab. On inquiring with another group's local guide, he told us that rest of our trekking group had gone far too ahead. We were alarmed. He showed us a shortcut to reach Juda ka Talab. This route was steep with a thick cover of pine trees all over. There were very few people who were taking this route. The trail was full of lush green trees covered by a white blanket of thick deep snow. We four skipped a beat for some part of the journey just with the sheer audacity of the pace of our climb- exhausted yet not stopping, tired legs however not waiting, pumping chest finally breathing heavily. Only at the end moment, Aman went a little ahead at the top and shouted to us who had stopped to take a breather in delight & full excitement that we had reached. And that shout was one for the ages. “ Hum pohoch Gaye” still buzzes in my ear as I write this. We finally reached Juda Ka Talab. We had ticked off one hell of a thriller.
Juda Ka Talab-A beautiful picturesque frozen lake en route the upward climb towards the base camp with the surreal pine trees. It was too tempting not to click a pic — This site was a real treat to photography lovers' eye.
At reaching Juda Ka Talab, we got the big surprise when we caught up with some of our group's others. But we 4 decided not to stop and continue climbing upwards albeit at our slow pace with them catching up with rest of us.
Now the last leg of the upwards climb was pending from Juda ka Talab to Kedarkantha Base Camp. Before I joined these 3, they had managed to befriend the Chennai group. At Juda Ka Talab, we four also met the Chennai group- a fantastic bunch of 6 people from Chennai, some of whom also played soccer players in the local leagues in Chennai. Ashok, Perumal, Bala, and others were just the right people we found at the right time. We 4 decided to join these six and trekked together to the base camp.
At the first tea point after Juda Ka Talab, I recharged my battery entirely with two pieces of bread and butter and bun Muska along with 3 cups of tea. Fatigue just vanished altogether and more quickly than a ray of light. The rest of the upward climb got completed, and I didn't even realise it. It was the best part of the upward climb. While travelling upwards, we talked of Chennai, soccer & the similarities between the two Indian coastal megacities of Chennai and Mumbai. It was also where we realised of our similar itineraries ahead of Hrishikesh. This is where we decided on the Hrishikesh trip together. More the number of people, more fun.
It had turned dark by the time we had reached the Kedarkantha base camp. The trek that we started in the morning had finally reached its logical conclusion at 7 pm. The temperatures had dropped severely. It was surreal cold with the spine-shivering with the chills. The temperatures were a whopping low of -18 degree Celcius. We were finally allotted our tents after the rest of our group reached upward, and we just sneaked in our tents. 4 people were to sleep in one tent with four sleeping bags each.
Every second there in the dark, inside and outside the tent- the body was shivering with cold as I went into our tent, a significant issue I had anticipated before the trek arose. The sleeping bag's length was equal to my height, making it rather uncomfortable to sneak into it. Add to it the bulky weight that I had managed to put on in the past one year only further complicated this as it became impossible for me to sleep in one position and I had to keep shuffling inside the sleeping bag always. This caused problems not only for me but even for others inside the tent. I had to occupy a lot of space inside the tent due to the complicated sleeping bag size making it rather uncomfortable for others and me to fit in and sleep peacefully. However, by 8 pm so tired was my body that after some deliberations, it went into sleep mode with sudden awakenings due to the uneasiness of the bag's size. This problem could not be solved as all the sleeping bags were equal to my height. So a change in a sleeping bag wouldn't have made any difference. Having slept at 8 pm, I only woke up at 7 am the next morning.
We were supposed to wake up at 2 am the next morning to start the final climb of 2 km from Kedarkantha base camp to summit, view the sunrise and return by 7 am. But so tired was all of us that only four people out of our group of 12 managed to wake up in the daunting cold after just 4 hours of rest and managed to successfully reach the summit and return to base camp at 7 am. When I woke up at 7 am, I had a sunshine beam that signalled me that the Sun had risen. Every ray of sun and it felt better.
After waking up, I got to know that the four who had gone up had still not returned. So then, meanwhile, we had our breakfast. Radhe, Neha, and Nikhil then climbed further upwards nearby hunting for a suitable spot to click some amazing photos of the serene view and then had great fun clicking some fantastic photos, boomerangs, and videos consumed more than an hour.
From L to R -Nikhil, Neha, Radhe & Me
Neha and Nikhil were a fantastic pair of brother-sister. The ever-smiling Nikhil always had a big smile to offer every time anyone looked at him. Neha had a charming personality who could quickly turn any mood around into a jolly one just like her younger brother. Like every other brother-sister bond, these dashing duo bonded exceptionally well and always giggled over something. The first time I had seen both of them, I had felt that maybe Neha was the younger sister and Nikhil the elder brother. Later as I told them this, they joked saying that I had joined a long list of people who also felt the same as me prima facie. Radhe, our group leader, did an excellent job handling a probable cricket team(as talked about in part 2).
At the Kedarkantha base camp with India’s tricolour
With the snow-capped Healing Himalayas in the background
After clicking some photos at the base camp, we went in our respective tents for the final packing before the downward descend. At 11 am, our downward fall to Juda Ka Talab began. The descend was the easiest because of the crampons, which made the downward descend pretty easy. Also, the stamina issue was out of scope as there wasn't any climb to do. So in about a couple of hours, we reached at Juda ka Talab with relative ease. This time, there were no hiccups in the descend. More challenging the climb, more relative fun it is to descend. This proves that in the cycle of life that nothing remains constant. After more challenging times, good and fun times are bound to follow. That's where the beauty of life lies in.
Rest of the day just passed by eating snacks and relative fun. We had a stay in Juda Ka Talab for that night in the campsite tents. Again, the temperatures dropped exponentially in the night, and the extreme cold returned to give a nightmare once again. However, it was much better than the previous night with temperatures a little warmer but relatively colder at -10 degrees.
The next morning after breakfast was our final leg of the trek- the downward descend to Sankri from Juda ka Talab. It was the easiest of the entire hike. The crampons did an excellent job by providing a solid grip which made the 2.5 hours descend extremely easy. I also played soothing songs on my mobile, which made the descend more exciting. Music changes the entire mood and has a soothing effect that provides additional energy to the mind.
A fitting farewell to Juda Ka Talab
Our group with other fellow trekkers part of the same trekking company
The Healing Himalayas
After a 2.5 hour downward descend, we finally reached Sankri around 1 pm. After taking the remaining luggage from the safehouse in Sankri, we went back to our hotel. After lunch, we did our final packing as the trek had finally come to an end. It was the last day of 2020. Since it was the New Year’s Eve, celebrations to welcome the New Year of 2021 were bound to happen.
At 6 pm, I joined Aman, Radhe and Neha where we ate plates of momos and other varieties as the trek had been done and dusted. Later, another 5 of us visited three different cafes having coffee, bread Nutella, momos and other cuisines to eat to a belly full. After that, we welcomed 31st in a cafe dancing our hearts out. I'm not particularly eager to dance at all. Dance is an art I hate to do. Its great fun to watch for the eye but not great fun to do. But one thing I realised that the best way to beat the nipping cold was to dance. Our body suddenly generated heat as a result of which the cold vanished, and it felt surreal. So I danced with total energy till I was tired, sweating and I had to remove my hoodie for some time. Such was the fantastic feeling that it was the only time I had dared to remove my hoodie in the entire trek. We danced our way into 2021.
2021 had a grand welcome. The first day of the year was saying goodbye to Sankri with the return 9-hour road trip to Dehradun where it was time to bid adieus to rest of the group and depart for Hrishikesh trip where river rafting and other adventures were waiting for us. Since the majority of the journey towards Sankri went in sleeping, I was determined not to sleep in the return journey and enjoy the beauty of the trip. This road journey was the most fantastic road trip that I experienced in the past few years. With the gorgeous Yamuna river following us alongside our journey and the pine trees refusing to leave our company, it made a great trip in the mountainous terrains and Uttarakhand's Ghats. We had initially decided to see the Kemdy Falls in Mussoorie as the same fell on our way to Dehradun. But as we reached there, our legs were too tired to walk 15 min downstairs and climb double the amount of time. We saw it from outside and went straight to Dehradun.
Time Lapse of some part of the journey from Sankri- Mussoorie
Since it was the first evening of the year, Half of Dehradun was in Mussoorie to celebrate this occasion. As a result, we faced heavy traffic from Mussoorie to Dehradun. We reached a couple of hours late beyond our scheduled time. We reached Dehradun Railway Station at 8 pm when we were supposed to arrive by 6 pm. After bidding adieus to the rest of the group who had a train to board to Kota at 10 pm, we decided to carry on with the rest of our trip. Hrishikesh was waiting. Hrishikesh was calling. We were pumped up for the last leg of our successful trip before the buzz of Mumbai came close. Time was up for this to give it a shot. | https://medium.com/@adwaitabhyankar98/the-trek-of-kedarkantha-bef7be20d728 | ['Adwait Abhyankar'] | 2021-01-22 23:39:26.067000+00:00 | ['Kedarkantha', 'Kedarkantha Trek', 'Hiking', 'Snow', 'Winter'] |
The MILLIONAIRE RULE and why it FAILS. | Sometimes, letting go isn’t the right option but honestly it was never an option. When you meet multi-millionaires, you don’t ask them what you do. You just ask them how did they carry themselves this far. Technically, the most common answer you will be hearing from them will be that “they carried not their past into the future but the scar from it”. While looking through this crux, that is a very deep terminology yet in reality represents the leading cause of depression in our society.
Well, let’s just walk back a little. Not too much just before you started this article and just imagine yourself owning a small shop in some niche plaza. Suddenly one night a burglary takes place and you have lost all the cash from your shop along with some of your stock, you will surely suffer a setback as you won’t be having bread on your table any more as easily as before.
Due to the setback your near and dear ones will console you with, “It’s god’s will, do not worry just let it go”. Some will say “Don’t worry you can choose a more secure line of work now, it’s some sort of god’s signal”. So being a typical human being, you will pluck off all your wings, abandon your experience in that particular industry and just go for a fresh start like everyone else is doing; by wasting all your lifetimes’ hard work because of a small hit.
The best decision in this case would be the MILLIONAIRE DECISION. That would be accepting the reality and improving the future by not letting it go. So what, you got robbed. It doesn’t matter. You can avoid it by not just letting it go but by learning something of it. Every problem has a solution, so what you got no more money to put in business, ask your people for some funds rather than the advice. Don’t worry next time the robbery won’t be happening again because you will inherit some experience from it. You will act on it by placing a few cameras or by just investing a few more bucks on some good heavy-duty locks and a CCTV system. And I am damn sure this system would surely cost you a hell lot less than by starting a whole new shop from stage one as all typical people have been doing till date.
The MILLIONAIRE DECISION tells us the same thing, so what they stole some cash, some products. It doesn’t matter because you still have your talent of selling that product, you can do it a lot better now because you can make your service remarkable enough. It would be like being on level 1 in a game with all the possibilities of Level 50. You are already there and hence your business is worth a retry. Just this time you would be better prepared for all the burglary related situations and you would be one great step ahead. You won’t be living in the past and you would be focused on the GREEN future.
This is why it’s a MILLIONAIRE DECISION, because the millionaires don’t give a damn if they have lost the whole portion of their invested amount in a certain business, only, because they believe they made a million before and can make another million again and this time faster because they have already done it and will be following the steps that had already been taken. They are already out from their setback with the scar of the mishap on their chest visible to everyone signifying that they survived another blow of the hardships of life. The hardships have taught them the lessons for bigger upcoming achievements and hence there will be a new dawn after this dusk.
In regards to the paragraph mentioned above MOST OF THE TIMES letting go would never be an option for you and yet every theory has limitations which in this case would be the option of letting go of the feelings, memories, sentiments and people…
The choice of letting go is present in this loop hole because we don’t get to choose any choices for having any specific memories, for receiving any considerable sentiments, for occupying courteous feelings and not even for the choice of falling for a person.
Thus, there is no millionaire rule in this sad world of sentimental misbehaviors because you have already hit rock bottom and this time your trusted instincts won’t be trustworthy anymore. You will hate yourself and everything related to you and It will ultimately consume you inside out. Hence due to the fault of one bad blood you will ruin many other lives without even letting your conscious feel it.
So in this scenario to lift yourself up from this rock bottom you have to lose your heavy heart and polluted mind in order to float to the surface, just like a drowned man rises in an ocean, just like the millionaire leaves their wealth behind after his death, just on the idea that one day there will be a new dawn and you will have a real smile without any mask.
No matter how much you try but just Sometimes it’s not in your hands. Sometimes it’s just a suicide in the hand of dismay. | https://medium.com/@muhammadmaazullahkhan/the-millionaire-rule-and-why-it-fails-296562d0a9c1 | ['Muhammad Maaz Ullah Khan'] | 2020-12-26 23:43:37.422000+00:00 | ['Success', 'Emotions', 'Breakups', 'Million', 'Rich'] |
4 Things You Should Do Every Sunday If You’re Stressed About Money | Photo by Victoria Heath on Unsplash
We’re told to spend our Sundays in the kitchen, prepping a week’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.
After committing some time to a ‘meal prep’ routine, we can have healthy food ready to go for the rest of the week.
This isn’t bad advice, either- there are more than a few benefits to this practice.
By blocking out some time on Sundays for cooking, you don’t need to think about it again for the rest of the week.
You’ve also planned it out to work in your favour- you’ve probably made meals that are both healthier and cheaper than eating out.
Why not put the same concept to work for your money?
Pick a time on Sundays, just once a week, to think about your finances. How can make your money work in your favour, instead of causing you stress?
Plan out your spending for just the next seven days- break up your money goals into bite-size pieces.
Set aside a few minutes once a week for your money, and you can accomplish more than you think.
Prepare Your Meals in Advance
Surprise, surprise- meal prep is on the list.
Not only is it a good way to eat healthy, it’s a great way to cut down on food spending.
Make a list of the meals you want to make for the week, followed by a grocery list (with the ingredients that are needed).
This is also a great opportunity to see if you’re running low on other essentials, like coffee, spices, or snacks (yes, snacks are essential!).
I find that most leftovers are only good in the fridge for 3–4 days, so I will freeze some of it or plan to cook some meals a second night in the week.
Eating out is much more pricey than making the same food at home (you’re not paying for delivery fees, tips, and other added costs).By eating more meals at home, you’re cutting out a lot of unexpected spending during the week.
What’s In Your Calendar This Week?
Next, look at your schedule for the coming week.
Do you have any planned outings with friends?
Are you and your partner going out on a date?
Is a birthday or holiday coming up?
If there are any special occasions or events on the horizon, make sure to set money aside for them.
Estimate what they will cost you, and put these expenses in your budget for the week.
Often times, things like birthdays and holidays can sneak up on us, even if we know they’re approaching. Don’t panic the day before and grab the first thing you see at the mall- instead, determine how much you can afford to spend in advance.
Check In On Your Bills
It never hurts to see where you are at with your bill payments.
Are there any payments that need to be made in the next week?
Can you spot any bills that you forgot to pay before?
Keeping a list of your bills and their due dates each month is really helpful for this, and a great practice regardless of how you handle your money.
Plan for Fun
Plan to treat yourself, because you should- and also because you probably will anyways.
Don’t find yourself stuck in a pattern of just paying the bills and eating rice and beans every night. Life is meant to be enjoyed, so put some room in your budget for your favourite things (whether that’s a latte, a bottle of wine, or a sushi night).
By setting some money aside for these indulgences, you’re also avoiding the other extreme: overspending to the point of overwhelming financial stress.
Most of us will end up splurging on the things we love- the key is not to let it overcome your other financial goals. A little planning here goes a long way. | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/4-things-you-should-do-every-sunday-if-youre-stressed-about-money-dc1467c48cb4 | ['Ashley Jane'] | 2020-11-07 16:08:36.913000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Personal Finance', 'Saving Money'] |
A Trumpensian “12 Days” | SATIRE
A Trumpensian “12 Days”
Just desserts
Image by Sandy Qumbayah, Flickr.Com
On the first day of Christmas, Melania said to me,
“Oh hell no, don’t you grab my pussy!”
On the second day of Christmas, Ivanka said to me,
“Okay, Daddy, you can grab my pussy!”
On the third day of Christmas, Jared sent to me,
Three stale bagels
Two oily latkes and
a card that says “Get outta jail free!”
On the fourth day of Chrismas, the Sock Puppet sent to me,
Four monogrammed Bibles
Three MacDonald’s gift cards
Two of my own golf balls and
a card that says “Get outta jail free!”
On the fifth day of Christmas, Baron sent to me,
Five “fuck you” notes
Four Slovenian curses
Three soiled masks
Two whoopee cushions and
a card that says, “When you’re locked up, I’ll be free!”
On the sixth day of Christmas, Lyndsey sent to me,
Six “fuck me!” notes
Five cans of hair spray
Four chocolate crullers
Three whistle-blowers
Two Maga hats and
a card that says “Get outta jail free!”
On the seventh day of Christmas, Stormy sent to me,
Seven full-on bush shots
Six worn-out Trojans
Five “fuck you” Tweets
Four “Hair Club” gift cards
Three blessed virgins
Two plain-clothes vice cops and
a card that says “You’d better take a plea!”
On the eighth day of Christmas, Michael sent to me
Eight homemade butt plugs
Seven pairs of flip-flops
Six plastic combs
Five dollar bills
Four Diet Cokes
Three bags of Lays
Two tubes of toothpaste and
a card that says “Pretty soon you’ll be with me!”
On the ninth day of Christmas, Rudy sent to me
Nine doctors’ notes
Eight cases of Lysol
Seven Calzones
Six bottles of Red
Five Cuomo quotes
Four dead goldfish
Three MAGA jockstraps
Two dead voters and
a card that says “Get outta jail free!”
On the tenth day of Christmas, Tony sent to me
Ten Evil Eyes
Nine “Bah Fungoos!”
Eight finger kisses
Seven pissed-off Capos
Six lessons in “class”
Five poisoned Calzones
Four of Birx’s scarves
Three death count updates
Two blue ties and
a card that says “Lock him up and throw away the key!”
On the eleventh day of Christmas, the two dum-dums sent to me
Eleven bottles of “Man Tan”
Ten requests for pardons
Nine (dead) endangered sheep
Eight (dead) endangered tigers
Seven (dead) endangered deer
Six (dead) endangered lions
Five (dead) endangered sea ducks
Four (dead) endangered waterbucks
Three (dead) endangered leopards
Two spoiled grandkids and
a card that says “Get outta jail free!”
On the twelfth day of Christmas, “Sleepy” sent to me
Twelve eviction notices
Eleven travel bags
Ten maids a packin’
Nine Russians hackin’
Eight counts of Treason
Seven counts of Fraud
Six hungry lawyers
Five orange jump suits (XXL)
Four Weight Watchers points
Three blue masks
Two pieces of the Wall and
a card that says “You lost, piss up a tree!” | https://medium.com/rogues-gallery/a-trumpensian-12-days-1512051b9534 | ['Sherry Mcguinn'] | 2020-12-26 17:23:35.779000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Satire', 'Just Desserts', 'Trump', 'Holidays'] |
Cost-Effective Solutions for Data Protection | Data is effectively the currency of powering the digital economy. Technologies such as advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and deep learning enable organizations to unearth all kinds of insights from their data and gain a competitive edge. The threats to data are continuing to grow, but by deploying the latest data protection technologies, companies can cost-effectively safeguard their information.
Key Takeaways:
The Mistake of Undervaluing Data.
Cost-Effective Solutions of Data Protection.
Why It’s Time to Act Now.
The stakes are much too high for MSPs to undervalue their data and fail to protect their IT resources adequately. Read this article and learn about cost-effective data protection solutions to keep your business data safe.
Table of contents
Introduction
The Mistake of Undervaluing Data
Cost-Effective Solutions for Data Protection
Conclusion: It’s Time to Act
Introduction
There has been a lot of discussion about the rising value of information — that data is effectively the currency powering the digital economy. Technologies such as advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and deep learning enable organizations to unearth all kinds of insights from their data and gain a competitive edge.
In light of the strategic value of information for all types of organizations, it’s surprising that many small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), as well as some managed services providers (MSPs), still seem hesitant to do all they can to protect their data resources at all times. A lot of these businesses are failing to take into consideration the true value of their data when evaluating storage and data protection technologies.
With so much riding on the security, reliability, and availability of these data resources — perhaps even the survival of the businesses themselves — technology executives must prioritize deploying the solutions their companies need to keep data as safe and secure as possible.
The Mistake of Undervaluing Data
How valuable is data to a company? It isn’t easy to place a specific value on any given piece of information. But for intellectual property, trade secrets, personal customer information, and other competitive data, the cost of losing this resource can be enormous.
In its 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the Ponemon Institute said the global average cost of a data breach climbed to $3.92 million. Between 2014 and 2019, the average total cost of a data breach increased 12 percent based on costs associated with breaches at 507 organizations in 16 countries across 17 industry sectors.
The study also notes the challenges businesses face in the aftermath of a data breach. Ponemon found that the time it takes for organizations to identify and contain a breach — what it calls the data breach lifecycle — stretches 279 days. The longer a breach’s lifecycle extends, the greater the total cost, according to the report.
Malicious and criminal attacks are the leading root cause of data breaches, followed by technology failures and human error. Much attention in the security market is placed on malicious attacks, the Ponemon study states, but breaches caused by system glitches and employee mistakes can have consequences that are just as serious.
While the estimated costs of data breaches do not necessarily capture the value of the data itself, they do provide a good indication of the damage done to a business when data is compromised. This makes it all the more perplexing when companies, including many mid-sized and smaller businesses, do not take the time and make the investments needed to protect their data resources. Their perceived value of data protection solutions does not equal the actual value of protecting the data or the cost of data loss stemming from risky or improper use of tape storage, ransomware, and other security attacks.
The fact is, many companies think the price of solutions to protect their data is too high. But if they end up suffering a breach in their data centers, or if they experience a human error or ransomware attacks that result in the loss or theft of data, it could mean tremendous financial losses. In some cases, it could even threaten their ability to continue doing business.
When it comes down to it, the cost of data protection platforms is minimal compared with the value of what these solutions protect.
Cost-Effective Solutions for Data Protection
Solutions such as those offered by Dell EMC enable even small companies to gain the data protection capabilities that large enterprises have deployed. Dell EMC data protection offers the lowest cost per GB in the industry, on-premises or in the cloud. The data protection architecture offers the best deduplication, compression, performance, and data resiliency available.
Among the key benefits that Dell Expert Network members enjoy are centralized management and reporting across multiple instances, whether a company is managing one or hundreds of systems. For example, PowerProtect DD3300 is a cloud-enabled appliance for modern data protection, with support for Dell EMC Cloud Tier and Dell EMC Cloud Disaster Recovery. The product is specifically designed to meet the needs of SMB IT environments as well as remote or branch office IT environments: It provides enterprise-class protection storage in a compact, 2U storage appliance and can be used for data backup, archiving, disaster recovery, and long-term cloud retention.
PowerProtect DD3300 is available in four configurations based on useable capacity: 4TB, 8TB, 16TB or 32TB. By leveraging Dell EMC’s advanced deduplication and native cloud tiering, DD3300 can manage up to 4.8PB of logical capacity.
Another offering, the Integrated Data Protection Appliance (DP4400), gives Dell Expert Network members a converged, all-in-one data appliance boasting complete data backup, replication, recovery, instant access and restore, search and analytics, and VMware integration. It also offers disaster recovery and long-term retention in the cloud. The DP4400 features integrated data protection in a 2U form factor that combines protection storage, software, and cloud readiness. Because the system is easy to manage, deploy and upgrade — and can scale from 8TB to 24TB in 4TB increments and from 24TB to 96TB in 12TB increments — it’s ideal for small and growing companies.
Dell EMC also offers PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (DDVE), which provides software-defined protection storage on-premises and in the cloud. DDVE is designed to be simple to download, deploy, and configure, and can be deployed on any standard hardware (converged or hyper-converged). It runs in VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, and in the cloud with AWS, AWS GovCloud, VMware Cloud, Azure, Azure Government Cloud, and Google Cloud Platform.
DDVE is also certified with VxRail and Dell PowerEdge servers. Companies can run an assessment tool during deployment to check the underlying infrastructure to ensure that it meets the recommended requirements. A single DDVE instance can scale up to 96TB in the cloud. Capacity can be moved between virtual systems and locations and can scale in increments of 1TB, which allows companies to grow capacity as their business demands.
Another solution SMBs can leverage is Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager, a software-defined data management platform for application workloads, virtual machines, and Kubernetes containers. The platform provides trusted data protection and data management and enables the protection of workloads, including Oracle, SQL, SAP HANA, and file systems, in addition to Kubernetes containers and virtual environments. Dell Expert Network members can restore data on-premises or in the cloud. PowerProtect Data Manager extends data protection to the cloud by tiering backups to cloud storage for long-term retention; organizations can maximize retention and access to backups without impacting on-premises protection storage resources.
Finally, Dell EMC provides Cyber Recovery Services, allowing companies to keep isolated copies of their most critical data off production networks and separated from production backup systems. Dell Technologies Consulting Services accelerates the deployment of these services through advisory and implementation phases: The advisory phase focuses on providing recommendations to quickly integrate and optimize Cyber Recovery in a data protection environment. The implementation phase integrates the Cyber Recovery Services into a company’s data protection environment, using information gathered through the advisory phase further to customize the services to the company’s needs.
Organizations that have implemented the Dell EMC technology are seeing significant benefits in terms of data protection. And for companies in highly regulated industries such as healthcare, having the assurance of safe data is a high priority. For example, healthcare provider Seattle Proton Therapy deployed Dell EMC DP4400 appliances to solve an immediate capacity need for backing up patients’ medical records while at the same time complying with government regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
“Our data is very crucial; it’s patients’ records, and we’re mandated by the government to protect it,” says Eric Cole, associate director of IT at Seattle Proton Therapy. “It’s essential for us to make sure we’re protecting and backing up that data for our patients.”
Before implementing Dell appliances, data restore processes would take a week or two, Cole says. With the appliances, this process now takes a matter of minutes: Data is still backed up on-site, but it is also replicated offsite on a second DP4400.
Cole cites ease of deployment with a small learning curve, as well as support from Dell engineers, among the most appealing aspects of deploying the solution. It’s now also easier for users to access data they need when they need it, he adds.
“I can sleep at night knowing that our data is protected well by the DP4400,” Cole says.
Conclusion: It’s Time to Act
The stakes are much too high for SMBs and managed services providers to undervalue their data and fail to protect their IT resources adequately. The costs of lost or stolen data can be extremely high, doing significant damage to businesses with limited resources.
The threats to data continue to grow — whether it’s from cybersecurity attacks, physical security failures, human error, natural disaster, or some other culprit. But by deploying the latest data protection technologies, companies can safeguard their information in a cost-effective way. | https://medium.com/dataseries/cost-effective-solutions-for-data-protection-2b37530fe414 | ['Alex Lim'] | 2020-12-07 09:23:13.437000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Data', 'Cybersecurity', 'Security', 'Technology'] |
My Birth Story — Anna Carson. It is impossible for me to tell my 2nd… | Healing the Trauma through Home Birth
It is impossible for me to tell my 2nd birth story without telling my first. They go hand in hand as my first birth experience, I realise now, was essential, in order for me to experience the second.
So, to my beautiful daughter Charlotte, I thankyou, for all that your birth has taught me, given me and enabled me to achieve, you are forever my teacher. I love you.
My first birth with my daughter, was traumatic. Physically, mentally, emotionally. In every sense. I was dismissed, I wasn’t listened to. I didn’t feel safe or held. I had begged, screamed and swore but I was not heard. I was cut and stitched badly and I was lied to.
My wonderful husband did everything he could but once we were in the cogs of the great medical machine, there was little he could do.
My pregnancy had been beautiful — I had loved every minute of it, finally being in love with my body as I watched it slowly grow and blossom, relishing every kick I felt and dreaming of the day I was going to meet the bubba that so regularly could be felt hiccupping inside of me.
I wrote my birth plan; a water birth, with no pain relief, attended the NCT classes, took the tour of the hospital, impressed with all the equipment they had to facilitate a natural birth, birthing balls, beautifully lit pools, amazing Swedish designed equipment where you could birth in any position that felt right, and midwives who appeared to really support this. I was nervous, of course, as all the women were as we walked around the birthing rooms but I was confident, even when we entered the labour suite and they talked us through all the interventions and scenarios, I just vowed in my head that I wouldn’t go there.
However nothing can really prepare you for your first birth can it? You never can know how you are going to respond when you start feeling the intensity of the contractions building. I was so excited when I realised labour was starting and I decided not to wake my husband for a couple of hours, while I relished in the sensations and the thought that my baby was coming earthside but the excitement slowly turned to apprehension.
I had always had it in my head that I would have a fast birth, as my mother and grandmother had both experienced quick deliveries, and so as the time between contractions shortened, I became more anxious to get to the hospital and after projectile vomiting my fruit smoothie all over the bathroom, we decided it was time.
At hospital and we were greeted by the midwife. I had my first internal and it was discovered that I was 4cm dilated which I was really pleased about. However the first warning bell rang when, after asking to use the birthing pools, the midwife stated that she would just find out where they were! We found out later that she had not attended a birth at this hospital for many years and actually had not attended any birth for a couple of years and that day she was in for her compulsory update. I realise now that we should have turned around at that point and demanded another midwife, because already I didn’t feel safe under her care.
If we look at nature, we can see many examples of how mammals will delay birth or even re-absorb their foetus, if they do not feel safe (Gazelles in the Serengeti can actually delay their birth to up to 2 weeks if necessary and if after this time, the rains have not arrived, they will re-absorb their foetus as they know there will be a shortage of food in the coming year) but this understanding of how our physiology works, has been near forgotten in the western medical world, but can explain so many examples of labours that are classed as ‘failure to progress.’ We did not feel safe.
From the moment that our midwife said this, I had no confidence in her or her ability to support us, and although I was able to further dilate, when I reached transition the panic set in. I demanded another midwife, but this was ignored. I was told to push, but baby was stuck against an anterior lip of my cervix, causing internal and external swelling as well as nerve damage to my pelvic floor and bladder. Eventually after over 2 hours of pushing against my cervix, they called in the doctor. They realised that baby was posterior and stuck and then offered me an epidural so they could manually turn her. I begged for more time and so we tried other positions but she didn’t turn. So I had no choice but to have the epidural, At that point I just broke down in tears. Tears of exhaustion, tears of pain, of desperation, of grief of the dream that I had held of the way I was going to meet my baby, and tears from the sense of losing complete control.
As the epidural started to work and I could no longer feel the contractions, I lost connection with my body and the process. I could see when the contractions were happening on the monitor but I couldn’t feel a thing. It felt like it was no longer my birth, this was something happening to me. They tried to manually turn her and when this also failed, I was moved into theatre, given a top up of epidural, and then an episiotomy and forceps were used to pull her out. I can remember the sense of them tugging and pulling, I can remember asking them to delay chord clamping, (which they ignored) I can remember them taking her away from me to be checked and screaming at my husband to ‘stay with her’, ‘keep touching her’ and then panicking when I couldn’t hear her. At last they bought her to me and lay her on my chest. My beautiful daughter, battered and bruised but just divinely beautiful, was here.
It took months to heal physically but the wonders and pressures of new motherhood meant that I did not take the time to heal emotionally. I buried it as deep as I could so that I could be the mum I needed to be for my daughter.
Fast forward nearly 2 years and I found myself pregnant again, in another continent, walking into a hospital for my first midwife appointment, and bursting into tears. All the emotions, all the pain, the disappointment, the fears all came flooding back. I cancelled my appointment and walked straight back out again. I couldn’t do it. The hospital, the smell, the clinical environment, the anonymity of the system all felt so wrong, and agitated every cell in my body, so I drove back home and phoned my husband, who was away for work, and told him that this time was going to be different.
I didn’t know how and I didn’t know in what way, but this time I was taking control. I was never going to be made to feel like I did with my daughter.
So now started my quest for that something different.
Here I was in a completely different country, I knew hardly anyone and had absolutely no idea of how the birthing system worked here, but I had Google and Facebook. I discovered that there was such a thing as a private midwife (something I had never heard of in the UK) and so I started contacting them all. But everyone I managed to speak with, was already booked up ( I was already 15 weeks pregnant) and I started to get a bit panicked. I researched the nearby hospitals to see whether any of them offered a different service, tried to get on the MGP program, only to be told that there was a waiting list of over 10 women and so really no chance of that either.
Eventually we found a Birth Maia (un-registered midwife) who agreed to meet us. Technically she was fully booked also but she agreed that she would consider us if I also hired a Doula, so that there was some form of back up should she already be attending another birth.
The moment we sat down with her to discuss what we wanted we knew she was exactly what we were looking for. She had been a midwife for 30 years, she believed 100% in a woman's ability to birth naturally, she wasn’t afraid of a fight if required, and yet she was so incredibly gentle, nurturing and was able to set our minds at ease immediately with inappropriate jokes and wonderful laughter. We signed her up there and then. She recommended a Doula and again, the moment I spoke with her on the phone, I knew that we had our team.
As my pregnancy progressed, many emotions, fears and anxieties were brought to the surface. Not just for me but for my husband too. In fact he probably held as much fear and trauma as I did from our first birth, as he had actually witnessed it. He had seen the blood, had heard my screams, had not been allowed into theatre for 30minutes and seen the faces of the surgical team when things were not going to plan. He heard the lies and was fully aware throughout (unlike me). So we had a lot of talking, healing to do before we could both fully embrace the prospect of a homebirth. We signed up for a Hypnobirthing course, we watched beautiful empowered births, I had kinesiology sessions to clear the trauma I held physically and emotionally, and we chatted and we chatted some more and we cherished our visits with our midwife and doula.
For us, the biggest thing that made this preparation for birth so different, was the fact that we were in control. At one point I had an obstetrician (who I had never met) call me at home and basically say to me that I was risking my life by having a homebirth and my GP then sent me a letter to state that she could no longer be my GP because of the concerns the obstetrician had.
I discussed this with my midwife (who knew my whole history), I found a magnificent GP, we ensured that all scenarios were discussed and plans were made, and we carried on. It was so empowering to be involved in every decision. At no point did my midwife give me ultimatums, she taught us to always use the ?? acronym when trying to make a decision a, and talked through every eventuality, giving us the decision at every stage.
My pregnancy continued without any concerns and through my midwife we had been introduced to a number of her other clients in the area and so we had already built up incredible support network.
The morning of my due date arrived. I was feeling pretty good, well as good as you can when you are 40 weeks pregnant and have a 2 year old to run after! Baby had been 2/5 engaged for a couple of weeks and I felt that we didnt have long to wait. I was due to have an appointment with my midwife that afternoon but she contacted me at 10am to say that she was attending to another birth (my gorgeous friend Naomi) and so wouldn’t be able to make it.
I told her that I didn’t think baby was far away and so she said if she got a chance she would pop over quickly. At about 2pm I got a call to say that Naomi was resting and she had 30 minutes to pop over, so she came and was happy to report that baby was still only 2/5 engaged and seemed pretty happy in there.
I carried on with the day and later started to prepare dinner for the family, give my daughter a bath, and put her to bed. I had noticed that from 4pm I had been having Braxton Hicks and they hadn’t stopped and seemed very regular, so after Charlotte was asleep I asked Nathan to time them. They were 10 minutes apart. I could still talk through them and there was relatively little discomfort. However within another 20 minutes they were down to 7 minutes and def building in intensity. We decided to text Trish and Sheila to warn them that baby was on its way that night and to also see how Naomi was getting on with her labour. Sheila immediately texted back to inform us that Naomi had only just given birth and her placenta was also birthed and BAM that’s when my contractions really started. They went from 7 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart and then down to 1 minute apart within 30 minutes. Nathan was desperately trying to fill the pool, with a hose and buckets, Trish had jumped in the car and was on her way as was Sheila. I quietly prepared my altar and room; stop regularly for the contractions which were now incredibly intense but I felt calm and ready. There was no panic (from me) no doubt in my mind, just a certainty that my baby was going to be born tonight at home.
By the time Trish and Sheila arrived at 8.50pm the contractions were almost continuous. They immediately helped me undress and got me in the pool — ahhh the relief, I had forgotten how blissful the warm water on my skin was, how it made my muscles instantly relax, and how supported I felt in the cosy, dark room. Trish stayed with me and Nathan and was incredible at guiding me in my breathing, keeping me connected and present, calming me, while Sheila grabbed a quick bowl of soup for sustenance (she had been with Naomi since early that morning).
Then I started to feel babys head bearing down, the intensity, the stretching, the feeling of being opened like never before, was beyond words. I had never experienced anything like it but I wouldn’t call it pain, it went beyond that, it was deeper than that. More soul based than pain, but wow was it intense. Each time I felt I couldn’t bear any more, we surged and reached another level, baby and body working together, separate of all conscious thought or control, I felt all I could do was hold on and try to breathe my way through it. Trish guiding me throughout while Sheila jumped into the pool to try and stop baby coming quite so fast.
And then he crowned…….
And I remember screaming at Sheila to stop moving the baby, but she wasn’t. Babies, once they crown, if left to their own devices, will start to turn to enable the shoulders to be birthed, and that was exactly what he was doing, but that was just a whole new level of intensity…..and I remember waiting and both Sheila and Trish just calming telling me to wait, wait until he is ready, until your body is ready…. And then there was one final push and he was born. My beautiful baby boy was born in the Cawl, into water, 35 minutes after Trish and Sheila arrived at 9.24pm. My daughter had been woken by my final scream and came in to the room, just as he was lifted out of the water and into my arms….
And that is where he stayed for the next hour… in my arms, as we sat in the water. He had his first breastfeed as we sat there in complete calm, the room still dark and deliciously warm and it wasn’t until I had to birth my placenta and stand up that the chord was clamped and cut and he was passed to Nathan to hold. There was no rush to weigh him or check him. We had already gently counted his fingers and toes and fallen in love but there was no rush to do anything. I was gently helped out of the pool and into the shower and then wrapped up in my pyjamas and dressing gown and slowly helped to walk down the hall into our living room where I was made tea and toast and we all just sat, looking in complete amazement at our son.
I had just had the birth of my dreams.
Anna Carson is an Intuitive Kinesiologist and Guide
Releasing the Resistance to being YOU
www.annacarson.com.au
https://www.facebook.com/AnnaCarsonHealing/ | https://medium.com/@kinesiology/homebirth-healing-the-trauma-f58a3eb3100a | ['Anna Carson'] | 2019-07-24 12:17:02.401000+00:00 | ['Birth', 'Healing', 'Kinesiology', 'Birth Trauma', 'Home Birth'] |
Customer, not a statistic | Do you treat your customer like a friend or is it purely a business transaction? the rules here differ for B2C or B2B.
When a customer walks into your office or store, you want to make sure they feel welcome, you want to treat your customer as though they are a piece of gold, and not as a statistic. Have you ever been standing in a line, and when it comes to your turn to be waited on, the sales associate yells out next? Just thinking about that scenario makes me cringe. It is hardly a way to build a relationship with your customer.
I have been working in sales for more than eighteen years, and I have literally had customers tell me that the most important thing to them is to be appreciated and not treated as a statistic. Keep this in mind the next time you wait on a customer, instead of yelling next, you can politely say, may I help you, Ms. Jones. We all have our daily, weekly, and monthly goals that we must meet. And with this pressure applied to our daily workday, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that it is the customer who is the most important thing when it comes to our company's existence. They are the backbone. Without customers, we cease to exist.
Here are a few tips to ensure that your customer is appreciated by you and your company, and not viewed as just another number in line. | https://medium.com/@mchristo839/customer-not-a-statistic-c342441120bc | ['Mario Lucas'] | 2020-12-22 13:49:21.998000+00:00 | ['Customer Engagement', 'Sales', 'Customer Service', 'How To Make Money', 'Selling'] |
2 Years of GraphQL in Production | Stitching
Being able to fetch all the data from one endpoint sounds nice, but stitching can also lead to some very nasty issues. Let’s take a look at the following example:
We have a front end that communicates with the Public API. The Public API stitches the Order API, which stitches the Product API. The Public API is the only API that can be accessed by the front end. This chaining of stitching might not seem like a very big issue, but if you have something like 20 APIs with multiple layers, releasing can become a nightmare.
Why? Because when you update the schema of the Product API, you will need to restart the Order API and the Public API (in that sequence), as the schemas need to be reloaded. Having to restart a dozen APIs every time you update the GraphQL schema will definitely not be very fun.
Another issue that we can encounter is when we want to query up instead of down — so from a product to its parent order. This won’t work because the Order API will only start when the Product API is running, as it needs to load its schema.
That means that we can fetch the products that belong to an order:
order {
identifier
products {
identifier
}
}
But we can’t fetch the order that belongs to a certain product:
products {
identifier
order {
identifier
}
}
To solve these issues, we can rearrange how we stitch our APIs. By making the Public API responsible for loading in all the schemas, we only need to restart one API when a schema is updated.
Because the Public API now fetches all schemas, we can add some code that will extend the product schema with the order property. This will make it possible to fetch the order through the product query. Check out the Apollo documentation for more information about extending schemas.
Now, not all queries and mutations should be accessible through our Public API. For example, we don’t want to give our customers the possibility to trigger a mutation that will change the payment status. One way to solve this is by filtering out certain queries and mutations. We could loop over all the queries and mutations in the schemas and compare them with a list. If the queries are on the list, they will be visible. If not, they will be removed from the schema. Another option would be to add a middleware that checks if the current user has the right access to trigger certain queries and mutations.
We chose a combination of those two options. But now we have another issue. Because not all of our mutations are accessible through the Public API anymore, we will need to call the Payment API directly when updating the payment status. This will work for mutations, but it won’t work for all of our queries, as the child and parent objects are only stitched in the Public API. To solve this, we have to rearrange our setup one more time.
We will create a Gateway API and make it responsible for stitching all the schemas. The Public API will stitch the Gateway API and remove all queries and mutations that should not be accessible through the front end. We can now use the Gateway API when we need to do queries or mutations in the back end, as our back-end services are located in the same network. | https://medium.com/better-programming/2-years-of-graphql-in-production-a1a6dbaddbda | ['Stein Janssen'] | 2020-06-25 15:42:08.175000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Learning', 'GraphQL'] |
How does a Bitcoin mining pool work? | How does a Bitcoin mining pool work?
Building passive income?
Since the start of 2017, it’s not uncommon to come across a headline or a post with the latest Bitcoin price update. With all the media coverage lately, the question on everyone’s mind seems to be whether or not investing in cryptocurrencies is profitable?
Disclaimer: This is by no means a form of financial advice. I am merely documenting my experience within the role I play in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
To put it simply, I mine Bitcoin. I have a mining machine that mines Bitcoin. Well actually, I don’t have the machine with me. More specifically, I bought a mining contract that pays me for 1000 days of mining.
I know it doesn’t make sense at first glance, but let me explain.
Buying your own miner vs joining a mining pool
Mining on your own is not as easy as just buying a mining rig and setting it up. The electricity to keep the mining machine running 24/7 will definitely have an impact on your electrical bill. Also, depending on the hardware inside the mining rig, some components may need to be upgraded in the near future in order to keep mining the same amount as when you initially started.
Without keeping your machine up to date, your monthly earnings this month, will not be as much in a few months down the line as the blockchain network is constantly growing and will continue to require more processing power to be maintained.
To overcome this problem, I joined a mining pool. With a mining pool, I own shares within a mining rig. With a mining share, I get 1000 days worth of mining. And if I wanted to, I can use some of the profits from my mining to buy new contracts for another 1000 or so days. That way, you could perpetually earn Bitcoin forever (until 21 million Bitcoins).
So I joined Bitclub Network (mining pool), who’s mining facility is in Iceland, where electricity is cheap and the temperatures keep the machines cool. | https://medium.com/jan-learns-about-bitcoin/why-i-joined-a-bitcoin-mining-pool-caab0640250f | ['Jan Johan'] | 2018-10-03 01:53:17.349000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Tech', 'Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
When Something Works, It’s Clear | When Something Works, It’s Clear
Denali towering over the 10 thousand foot foothills. (Google Images)
When I was 16, a group of friends and I took a summer road trip to Alaska. We piled into an RV and we drove from Salt Lake City, through British Columbia and the Yukon, and into the largest state in the union.
Eventually we found ourselves camping in Mt McKinley National Park (as it was called back then). We were excited to see the largest mountain in the continent, sitting at 20,300 feet. They say that it’s so foggy in the park that the mountain is only visible a few days a week, but ten teenaged boys were going to be patient. As soon as we were set up, the fog seemed to clear and we found ourselves staring at a stunning mountain range across the basin. Idiots that we were, we each were eye-balling the range and pointing out which peak we were certain was Denali, “the great one.” It was sorta hard to tell, but I had convinced myself, after looking at some pictures in a book, that I could identify it. Denali has two peaks, the south peak is slightly higher than the north peak, so there was reason to argue. Over the next days, various peaks seemed to win our affection — was it THAT one? no, it’s THAT one. This went on.
But on our third day in the park we got lucky, more clouds broke, and we realized what we had been staring at were the foothills, some mountains that line up in front of Denali. In fact, behind the range was a single, enormous white mountain. It towered behind them all, more than twice the apparent size, and we were humbled. THAT was the Great One. It was awesome, in the truest sense of that word. | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/when-something-works-its-clear-45cc6956323d | ['M. H. Rubin'] | 2020-12-28 22:35:52.631000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Netflix', 'Product Design', 'Data Analytics', 'Data'] |
My Ego Got Bruised and Killed — by Thom Singer | I will admit it, after 11 years as a professional speaker my ego had expanded. While I was never one of the top earning speakers in the business, I had a good run and supported my family by being a keynote speaker. I liked the business, made friends with other speakers and meeting planners, and my business grew year over year. I had not realized I was seduced by the industry, but I was. I was not a asshole (I do not think I was), but I was believing my own press.
My ego had begun to self-identify as a speaker. My life was about being the guy on stage. It was in my soul to the level of each cell. I clearly was seeing the world through my career success. I was a speaker. Maybe it was all I was?
Then came 2020 and it all came to a stop. The live and in-person meetings industry was knocked off the rails by the pandemic and all of my booked presentations for then next 18 months were canceled or postponed. My whole income vanished. Oh, and I had a kid who had just got into an Ivy League College. My income was zero and my family’s financial obligations were going up.
While I did do some virtual work as a speaker and/or master of ceremonies, I did not get anywhere close to my 2019 income levels for the rest of 2020. So many people talk about how great they did in the pandemic, but I would be lying to say it was my best year ever. Q2 and Q3 of 2020 were the worst in regards to sales since I began my business in 2009.
Goodbye Ego — Hello New Outlook
This post is not me complaining. I am actually not sad or feeling like I got the short end of the stick. Before the collapse of 2020 my outlook on life had begun to change. Meditation and the study of Taoism was just part of my journey. But the changes in the speaking business meant I was no longer able to self identify as my job. My ego got bruised and was maybe even killed in the process. That self view as the working speaker and one who was often onstage had to face the reality that it was over a year before I would give a keynote.
But my ego being removed from its place of prominence was a good thing. Through a year of self discovery, meditation, and new ways to earn income… I am becoming a different person. My new outlook is one that is more spiritual and based on understanding my intuition. I observe and listen more than I every have before. I no longer as judgmental of others. The inner me is at peace and I am not needing to be on stage to feel good inside.
Reinvention Without The Ego
I am doing more work in areas outside of keynote speaking, but I still love presenting. I am challenged to be great on stage, while at the same time not allowing my ego to return to the front. As I am now working with clients as a speaker again, some repeat clients said things about my being more at ease and playful. The business (and my life) have become more fun recently.
Now I am not an expert on psychology or the realities of “ego”… so I cannot say for sure if it is really gone (I don’t think people can really kill their ego, but I have retired it to a lesser role in my life). But it is now a different journey. My talk about “Uncommon Connections” has grown out of what I have seen and researched in the past year. So many are caught up on quantity of contacts, but that is “Ego Lead” metrics. When you are seeking to be a person who can make a difference in the lives of others in an uncommon way (and still get business), you begin to keep score in very different ways.
Each day I wake and attempt to ensure the reinvention is real (I do not want to go back to how I was before). The efforts I am putting in are also pegged around having conversations with people who can help me morph and grow in this new direction. I am no longer the product. The speech is the product. Because of this I am more open to critiques and ideas.
Who Out There Understands This?
Who has experienced something similar? I am seeking like minded people who can help me along this path. My rule in the COVID lockdown was about talking to smart people everyday. That allowed me to grow and change and get to where I am now. If you relate to this, please reach out to me. Help me and allow me to help you. I do not want some fake guru, I want friends who also are trying to keep the ego buried (or at least in the back seat).
About Thom Singer
Thom Singer is on a journey of the soul. While he has an eclectic career, he in no longer self-identified by his job. What does he do?
He works for Stanton Chase, a leading executive search firm that specializes in helping companies and associations place key hires. He is also a keynote speaker and professional master of ceremonies / EmCee
.
After a successful career in sales and marketing, Thom Singer became a growth leadership speaker in 2009. A decade later he has brought his high energy presentations and action-oriented content to over 900 audiences. Thom knows that as the speaker or master of ceremonies he has a responsibility to set the tone for a strong conference attendee experience. Known as “The Conference Catalyst” he creates an atmosphere of fun and interaction that lasts beyond his presentation.
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Thom earned his Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) in 2014 and is committed to the business of meetings. He is the author of 12 books and is the host of the popular “Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do” podcast. On his show he has interviewed over 400 entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, business leaders and others with a focus on discovering how the most successful people get farther across the gap between potential and results.
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At 50 years old Thom decided to reinvent his life and make age 50 to 75 the best years of his life. This meant saying yes to things that scared him, and trying new things. Since that time Thom has jumped off buildings, took up running (and lost 30 lbs) and began performing stand up comedy. | https://medium.com/@thomsinger/my-ego-got-bruised-and-killed-by-thom-singer-2e765f9af084 | ['Thom Singer'] | 2021-06-17 22:04:10.814000+00:00 | ['Killed Ego', 'Ego', 'Ego Death'] |
Anxiety Affirmations | Anxiety Affirmations
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Say These Out Loud:
1. I have the gift of peace.
2. I have the gift of serenity.
3. I am emotionally stable.
4. I am emotionally strong.
5. I am emotionally transparent.
6. I am emotionally available.
7. I am free from worry.
8. Things are working in my favor daily.
9. People and life treat me well.
10. I am grateful for my life in its entirety.
11. Peace, love, and kindness are surrounding me.
12. I have a strong mind, body, soul, and stomach.
13. I know how to relax, breathe, and be one with nature.
14. I am in charge of how I respond to life.
15. Nothing can disturb the peace I have within me.
16. Good fortune, phenomenal opportunities, and positive-kind people follow me wherever I go. | https://medium.com/@destinyharris/anxiety-affirmations-98d082167a5 | ['Destiny S. Harris'] | 2020-12-26 19:57:57.294000+00:00 | ['Emotions', 'Affirmations', 'Anxiety', 'Stress', 'Peace'] |
From model inception to deployment | From model inception to deployment
Machine Learning model training & scalable deployment with Flask, Nginx & Gunicorn wrapped in a Docker Container
We all have been in this position after we are done building a model :p
At some point, we all have struggled in deploying our trained Machine Learning model and a lot of questions start popping up into our mind. What is the best way to deploy a ML model? How do I serve the model’s predictions? Which server should I use? Should I use flask or django for creating REST API? What about shipping it inside docker? Don’t worry, I got you covered with all of it!! :)
In this tutorial, we will learn how to train and deploy a machine learning model in production with more focus on deployment because this is where we all data scientists get stuck.
Also, we will be using docker containers, one for flask app and another for Nginx web server shipped together with docker-compose. If you are new to docker or containerization, I would suggest reading this article.
High-Level Architecture
High level design of large scale Machine Learning model deployment
Setting up
Here is the GitHub link for this project
This is the folder structure that we will follow for this project
Let’s break this piece into three parts:
— Training a Machine Learning model using python & scikit-learn
— Creating a REST API using flask and gunicorn
— Deploying the Machine Learning model in production using Nginx & ship the whole package in a docker container
Model Training
To keep things simple and comprehensive, we will use iris data-set to train a SVM classifier.
iris_svm_train.py
Here, we are training a Support Vector Machine with a linear kernel which is giving a pretty decent accuracy of 97%. Feel free to play around with the training part, try Random Forest or Xgboost & perform hyper-parameter optimization to beat the accuracy.
Make sure you execute the ‘iris_svm_train.py’ because it will save the model inside the ‘model’ folder (refer to github repo).
Building a REST API
Creating a flask app is very easy. No kidding!
All you need to know is how a request from the client(user) is sent to the server and how the server sends back the response and a little bit about GET and POST methods. Below, we are loading our saved model and processing the new data (request) from the user in order to send predictions(response) back to the user.
app.py
We will use gunicorn to serve our flask API. If you are on windows, you can use waitress (pure-Python WSGI server) as an alternative to gunicorn.
Execute the command: gunicorn -w 1 -b :8000 app:app and hit http://localhost:8000’ in your browser to ensure your flask app is up and running. If you get the message ‘Hoilaaaaaaaaa!’, then you are good to go!!
If you want to test the predict(Post) method, use curl command or use Postman curl --header "Content-Type: application/json" --request POST --data'[{"sepal_length":6.3,"sepal_width":2.3,"petal_length":4.4,"petal_width":1.3}]' http://localhost:8000/predict
Deploying the ML model in production
Finally, fun part begins :)
We will use Nginx web server as a reverse proxy for Gunicorn, meaning users will hit Nginx from the browser and it will forward the request to your application. Nginx sits in front of Gunicorn which serves your flask app.
More information on why Nginx is required when we have gunicorn: link
nginx.conf
Wrapping everything inside Docker Container
Congratulations, you have made it to the last part.
Now, we will create two docker files, one for API & one for Nginx. We will also create a docker-compose file which will contain information about our two docker containers. You have to install docker and docker-compose for this to work. Let’s ship our scalable ML app and make it portable & production ready.
Docker file for API (keep it in api folder)
We have created a docker file for API which needs to be saved inside ‘api’ folder with other files including requirements.txt (containing information about python packages required for your app).
Docker file for Nginx(keep it in nginx folder with nginx.conf file)
docker-compose.yml
docker-compose.yml is the master file which binds everything together. As you can see, it contains two services, one for api & one for server(nginx). Now, all you need is just a single command to run your ML app:
cd <project/parent directory>
docker-compose up
Output of above command
Cheers! Your dockerized scalable Machine Learning app is up and running, accepting requests on port 8080 and ready to serve your model’s predictions.
Open a new terminal to run predict method using curl or use Postman
Predictions from your deployed ML model
Thank you for making it till here, comment below if you face any challenges in running the project or have any feedback. Happy Learning!! | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/from-model-inception-to-deployment-adce1f5ed9d6 | ['Akshay Arora'] | 2018-11-28 10:04:23.359000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Deep Learning', 'Docker'] |
Managing eCommerce Image SEO Effectively | People communicate with pictures today. Interestingly enough, it’s almost like a return to the hieroglyphic iconography of ancient Egypt. In light of this, for tech companies like Bing and Google, it soon became quite apparent that some means of searching images would be quite useful to the internet. Accordingly, groups like Google have developed algorithmic formulae around image searches. Right now, image SEO is a big deal, and staying on top of it is key to retaining visibility and relevance as an eCommerce business. The more prospective clients who can easily find you, the better your returns. With this in mind, we’ll explore five tips to help maximize your eCommerce image SEO.
eCommerce Image SEO
1 Naming Files Properly
If you’re going to be visible, you need to know what people are looking for and why. SEO principles line out keyword management protocols and content production best practices. Similarly, your ecommerce image SEO has to take such keyword strategies into account. Name pictures with wording that is conducive to algorithms; consultation and research are recommendable here. Also, be sure you’re relevant.
“Keyword stuffing” is a practice that used to “game” algorithms. Now, those who run such algorithms have grown wise to the practice, and have established means of delisting or “spiking” content that’s “stuffed” with keywords — even should those words be relevant. Keyword stuffing produces unreadable copy, and those searching don’t like such results.
Many techniques become irrelevant with time as those who run algorithms learn that people are “gaming” the system. This will happen with image SEO as well, staying on top of best protocols will help you keep traffic.
2 Descriptive Captions on eCommerce Image SEO
Captions should describe the picture, be properly succinct, and include SEO. Try not to make them longer than a “tweet”, as it were. You can go longer if necessary, just don’t push length artificially. Be informative and “natural” or “organic.” The captions should match the picture and include relevant data.
3 Use JPEGs For eCommerce Image SEO
There are different kinds of image types out there. The best one for SEO effectiveness, between PNGs, GIFs, PDFs, and JPEGs, is going to be the JPEG. This gives the greatest quality at the least size, and search engines tend to prefer it. Go throughout your online materials and switch all images to JPEGs. Websites, content, blogs. So, wherever you’ve got images, make them JPEGs.
4 Match Image Sizes To Site Dimensions
If your images are too big or too large for the dimensions of your site, this looks funny, and it looks unprofessional. It looks like something someone with no experience in site design would produce. Algorithms tend to favor sites that are secure and professionally designed. If your images are all over the place, this will certainly work against you.
Moreover, website design today needs to be continuous. As a result, ecommerce image SEO too. What makes sense is establishing image size thresholds for segments of your site, and sticking to them. Aesthetic appeal is key, consulting with groups who provide such options may be wise to avoid “reinventing the wheel”, as it were.
5 Work For File Sizes That Are Reduced
If you’ve got wedding pictures, for quality, you want them large. But if you’re a company that takes such photos, you want to get the most quality for the least size. This produces maximum ecommerce image SEO impact. Because search engines have to comb through a lot of data, when your files are smaller, they’re more “digestible”, meaning they’re better enabled to top SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Images That Search Engines Are Attracted To
In conclusion, something else to consider is that the “goalposts” of technology are always moving. If you don’t keep pace with them, you will lag behind. Unless you’ve got the budget to run your internal marketing department like a for-profit business, you’ll save money and get better quality image SEO through groups like Thunderhawk.
Generally, SEO-facilitators will advise image SEO protocols that reduce image sizes, match images to site dimensionality, incorporate JPEGs, name files right, and have appropriate captions. A five-fold plan like this informed by consultation will make all images you post maximally visible to search engine algorithms. Finally, in the end, this sends traffic to your site naturally. | https://medium.com/visualmodo/managing-ecommerce-image-seo-effectively-ba1af1294104 | [] | 2019-10-24 21:36:16.902000+00:00 | ['Seo Tips', 'Image', 'Ecommerce', 'Optimization', 'SEO'] |
How to Block a URL on Chrome Easily on Desktop and Mobile | How to Block a URL on Chrome Easily on Desktop and Mobile
What is a URL? This is how Google explains it.
A URL (aka “Universal Resource Locator”) is a complete web address used to find a particular web page. While the domain is the name of the website, a URL will lead to any one of the pages within the website.
Once you block a website, say, example.com, you won’t be able to access any pages on it. When you block a URL, say, https://example.com/music, you only make this particular web page inaccessible.
How to block a URL on Chrome on Mac
If you are a Mac user, you can effortlessly and effectively block URLs (and websites) with Cisdem AppCrypt, the best website blocker and app locker for Mac.
Step 1. Download Cisdem AppCrypt from its official download link and install it.
Step 2. When you open the app for the first time, it will ask you to set a password.
Step 3. Click its icon in the menu bar and choose Open Main Window.
Step 4. Click the WebBlock icon.
Step 5. In the WebBlock window, click the plus icon, enter the unwanted URL and press Return.
You can repeat the last step and add other unwanted URLs.
If you want to block a website instead, just add the domain to the Blocklist.
As you can see, the app also offers an Allowlist mode, which lets you block all URLs except the one(s) you add to the Allowlist.
Once a URL is blocked, you won’t be able to open it on your Google Chrome (and Safari), in both normal and incognito modes. And you will be shown this image. To remove the blocking, select the URL in the Blocklist and click the minus icon.
The blocking is effective. This URL blocker will ask for password when one tries to remove a web address from the Blocklist or Allowlist, access the main window, change preferences, quit or uninstall the app itself, etc.
Cisdem AppCrypt
Block any URLs and websites with password on Chrome, etc.
Provide 2 modes to block: Blacklist and Allowlist
Offer Schedule feature to block URLs and websites at certain times
Also lock apps with password
Record failed attempts to open locked apps with date, time and pictures of the intruders
Help you block unwanted web address
Help you limit time spent on websites
Can be used for parental control and productivity purposes
Easy to use
Highly customizable
Support macOS 10.10 or later
How to block a URL on Chrome on Windows PC
Windows PC users can use WinTools URL Blocker to block access to certain URLs or web pages. It addition to Chrome, it also supports all other common web browsers.
Step 1. Install this URL blocker for Windows and launch it.
Step 2. In the URL box (located next to the Add button), enter the web address you want to block.
Step 3. Click the Add button.
Step 4. Add other unwanted URLs to the list.
Step 5. Click the Apply button.
The app can also be used to block entire websites.
How to block URLs on Google Chrome with extension
Above is how to do the blocking without extension. Here’s how to do it with one. The extension I use is BlockSite.
Step 1. Go the Chrome Web Store and install BlockSite.
Step 2. Click the extension’s icon in the toolbar and then click Edit block list.
Step 3. Manually enter an URL in the Enter a web address box. Press Enter.
Now you can check if the blocking works by opening the URL in your Chrome.
You can also use the same extension and follow a similar process to block websites.
As you can see, this method is browser-based. Therefore, it works for both Windows and macOS.
How to block URLs on Chrome on Android and iOS
In addition to being available as an extension, BlockSite is also provided as an app for both iOS and Android.
Step 1. Download and install BlockSite on your phone. Open it.
Step 2. Tap the plus icon in the lower right corner of the screen.
Step 3. Under the Website tab, enter the URL that you want to block. Tap the check mark in the top right corner.
You can add web addresses one by one.
Conclusion
How do I block a URL in Chrome? If you are asking such a questions, then this article may be of some help. You can do it with or without extension. If you want the blocking to be effective, then it’s recommended to use methods allowing you to set a password. This way, one won’t be able to bypass without known the password. | https://medium.com/@jasonbnovak0/how-to-block-a-url-on-chrome-easily-on-desktop-and-mobile-d6f4e12d8b53 | ['Jason B.'] | 2020-12-07 09:14:43.794000+00:00 | ['Computers', 'Chrome', 'Tips And Tricks', 'Phone'] |
“HOW TO BUILD YOUR PORTFOLIO | AS A CONTENT WRITER”
v INTRODUCTION
A portfolio is the showcase of your skills and accomplishments for a specific topic. It is the collection of your strongest traits, qualification, and experience. It provides insight into your personality and work ethic.
WHY THERE’S NEED OF PORTFOLIO?
It gathers your relevant experiences and interests related to your topic and helps the clients for better assessment. It identifies the distinct segment in you that urges clients to hire you.
v BUILDING YOUR PORTFOLIO
An engaging portfolio invites the client to grant you for their work. To make an alluring portfolio, you must seek for following things that consumers are looking for in your portfolio.
FIGURING OUT YOUR INTEREST
To make a better portfolio you must figure out a specific interest in you that makes you fit with a particular position. Including a little bit of everything marks a negative point on your side and encourages the employers to dismiss your portfolio. Instead, think carefully about where your passion lies and what kind of work you want to do.
ADD YOUR BIO
Add your basic information, like qualification, experience, writing skills, and other required details. But keep in mind that you must add up the relevant experience according to your interest. Add your contact details. Prevent the addition of irrelevant information. Your biography shows your capability for the vacant post.
EASY TO UNDERSTAND
A portfolio must be easy to understand and the reader must be clear about your objective. Your portfolio should be easy for an employer to get a quick impression of you. Use to the point articles. The analysis of the portfolio serves to identify the risks and show the potential for your work.
ADDING THE PICTURE
To give an attractive look to your portfolio you must add some pictures that strengthen your context. One of the biggest mistakes that come to the portfolio is showing images of work without any text. It doesn’t matter how pretty a design is, the employer needs to judge how well it met the needs of the client. So make sure you include accompanying text describing what the project brief was, and how you went about fulfilling it.
ADDITION OF SAMPLES
Add your work samples to the portfolio. Add the best of your work, 2–3 samples are enough to show your work. Don’t cluster your portfolio with all your work. Mark your articles that demonstrate your skills and potential for work and add them.
SPELLING AND GRAMMAR MISTAKES
Make your portfolio free of spelling and grammar mistakes. These mistakes will make a negative impact because a client is curious about their work.
UPGRADATION
Upgrade your portfolio from time to time. Learn new skills and add them to your portfolio. Make it more prominent on your specific interest. | https://medium.com/@sawaiz-waqarch890/how-to-build-your-portfolio-a9b19d26be9f | ['Sawaiz Waqar Ch'] | 2020-12-27 19:47:43.027000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Portfolio', 'Content Writing'] |
The FOMO Club — Huge Titles Passing You By? That’s OK | By Mike Hallam
The fear of missing out is a natural trait of us social creatures (yes, including you, my fellow introverted basement-dwellers). Of course, most of us naturally manage our FOMO because we have no choice. We can’t play everything.
In gaming circles, we’re fortunate enough to have so many high-quality experiences releasing week on week. Anyone who says they don’t know what to buy or play, usually does so with the caveat that it’s because there’s so much choice. It’s a silly, wonderful first-world problem for many and as you can guess, the backlog is strong in this one.
I’m in the privileged position of having the opportunity to review many games and I would never be conceited enough to complain about it. Though it does take a huge chunk out of my gaming time, meaning there are many titles where I entirely miss out on that zeitgeist moment.
Even removing review work from the equation, I’m certainly not alone, as is apparent from talking to pretty much every gamer out there. Let me get to the point.
I generally push FOMO aside and throw stuff to the backlog. I love Nier Automata, for example, but it was long after people had stopped talking about it that I actually got to play it. The conversation had happened but I’m cool with that. What sucks is when you miss the boat on something that’s difficult to capture after the fact.
For this reason, I decided it would be fun to share my biggest regrets about missing the hype train. The following are games I really wanted to play from launch and get stuck into the online conversation but where my FOMO turned to MO.
Overwatch
This one appealed at reveal. It got me in feels. And irrespective of my zeal, there wasn’t a good enough deal. Why pay full price when I can have a takeaway meal?
I’ll stop.
I’ve never been big on the multiplayer first person miltary brown/grey shooters of yesteryear even if I can respect their appeal. I was, however, massive on Quake III Arena and many of Unreal Tournament games. Those fast OTT arena shooters were my jam. That and colour was back. Hot off the heels of Splatoon, Overwatch was something that, on paper, I would enjoy.
It didn’t take long for Overwatch to become a competitive play powerhouse and aside from being the top subject in gaming media and conversation, goddamn it looked good. I was busy though.
Splatoon 2
The joy of playing the first Splatoon at launch cannot be understated. That first couple of weeks where the internet hive mind hadn’t had time min/max the fun out of it yet. There was a level playing field and time to explore a bit and learn the maps from scratch. It was glorious. And messy.
Granted, the sequel was always going to have a hardcore following who knew the mechanics inside out before it even released mechanics, it was never going to be quite the same, but the Switch had a shiny new player base to work with and there had to have been enough players like me who hadn’t had a round on the original in the last three years or so, right? Well, I’ll never know, I missed it.
But Wait, There’s More
Now, these two examples both have active communities and there’s technically no reason why I can’t jump back in. I’ve even played a bit of them, and I know full well that, to an extent, they cater for players of various skill levels.
However, there’s something inherently annoying about trying to learn the ropes when it feels like everyone around you knows the score.
That said, missing out isn’t limited to multiplayer. This next one killed me. Well it didn’t, but that was the problem.
Demon’s Souls
From Software’s first Souls flew under the radar for many, myself included. Some years later, I jumped in and loved it.
What I didn’t love, was the fact that I knew full well the servers had only recently shut down. Never would I experience the thrill of jogging through Stonefang Tunnel’s winding paths heading straight for a fat batch of Unknown Hero’s Souls only to be jumped by an eight-foot Temple Knight who proceeds to jab his claymore up your backside.
But damn, ‘The Future of Gaming’ showcase read my mind so I’m good here. Well kind of, the FOMO is setting in because, well, what if I cant even get hold of a PS5? Oh damn, I’m sweating. No, you’re crazy.
Red Dead Redemption 2
I did this to myself. Completely. I read and read and read. And not just reviews. I don’t even know why! I didn’t buy it; I didn’t play it.
Now I know of all its supposed flaws and I will be actively looking for them without meaning to. Social media killed this one for me before I got a chance. And it’s my bloody fault. Maybe I’ll pick it up in a decade when I can’t remember any of it.
Blame Game Pain
I know missing out on these games, or even thinking about those wow moments that are hard to recapture, is on me. I could have planned, not bought some games in a Steam sale that I’ll never play, not asked to review five games at the same time, it would have been easy. But something’s got to give.
These are cases where FOMO struck, and I let it be. And sometimes it sucks, but that’s fine. You can’t have everything. | https://medium.com/techstomper/the-fomo-club-huge-titles-passing-you-by-thats-ok-5ef919c3f4 | [] | 2020-12-01 09:01:47.972000+00:00 | ['Industry', 'Fomo', 'How To', 'Gaming Industry', 'Gaming'] |
Paper → Visualizations | Data visualization and infographics give you answers (and raises questions), you did not know you had. It is very much like storytelling. As a story-teller, you want to capture the imagination of the audience and dazzle them at the right moment.
Over the past week at the Annual Tunneling Short-Course at Underground Construction and Tunneling Center at Colorado School of Mines, I led the ‘3D Visualization of Geotechnical Information’ lab. The objective of the lab is two-fold (a) to introduce the participants to 3D visualization of the geotechnical information from an actual tunneling project and; (b) to disseminate the knowledge of how developing 3D visuals can aid in communicating uncertainty, risks, make informed decisions for planning, design and construction methodology.
I would like to share a few visuals from the 3D geotechnical lab and discuss their utility in tunneling projects.
(1) A deterministic interpretation of the geological-geotechnical conditions (extracted from a geotechnical baseline report) is superimposed along the centerline of the tunnel alignment. Visual is static but with knowledge from the boreholes drilled at an offset from the alignment, are most often, not considered into developing geological-geotechnical profiles.
But why is the knowledge of sub-surface domain important at lateral extents from the tunnel alignment? — To evaluate ground-deformation induced strains in surface structures and utilities. | https://medium.com/@rajat1589/paper-visualizations-5f4319502fe9 | ['Rajat Gangrade'] | 2019-10-18 02:46:04.348000+00:00 | ['Underground', 'Tunneling', 'Dataviz', 'Engineering', 'Phd Application'] |
Meet Meesha, Meesho’s new Virtual Assistant, who wants to Make our Entrepreneurs super successful | The product team at Meesho prides themselves on always staying connected to its users and being their support throughout their reselling journey. They are always trying to find out and solve what kind of problems users are facing and what kind of solution would work best for them. They are constantly striving to launch features that would make the users’ experience on the app more meaningful and worthwhile.
For instance, they knew that Meesho entrepreneurs were forced to reach out for outside help when they found it difficult to navigate the app. New users who sign on to the app have many doubts they want to be clarified and they often turn to their family members for help. The Product team knew that our newly onboarded users needed a friend within the Meesho app to guide them through doubts and confusions while reselling, and so in July 2020, they created a virtual assistant for them — Meesha.
Tanya Batra, who was part of the crack team that helped create Meesha, tells us how Meesha has been helping the Meesho entrepreneurs, why this was the best solution for the problems faced by our new users and how Meesha is going to improve over time:
Could you walk us through the inception of Meesha?
Tanya: The team that I am part of within the Product org looks into new user activation and acquisition holistically, and when we are trying to solve any problem within this purview, we always go to our users, talk to them, and find out how we can solve their problems. One of our discoveries about new users was that when they first start using the app, they often need the help of a family member or a friend when they feel lost or stuck.
So we decided to give our users an experience that would help them navigate the Meesho app, understand the value proposition and get them acquainted with Meesho — and of course, start earning. Thanks to Meesha, they would not have to rely on anyone else to navigate the app. This feature helps them whenever they feel stuck in the app.
How and where can Meesho users find Meesha?
Tanya: One of the first things we realised once we dug a little deep is that our users are not looking for one-time help. There are two ways you can offer help on an app like ours:
You can bombard a new user with all the information as soon as they install the app. Answer all the FAQs such as how to place the order, how to return products, etc.
or
You can help the users contextually, as and when they need your help.
We went ahead with the latter because in real life our users try to understand their next step on their own at any given time before reaching out for help from the people around them or to our customer care number. We wanted Meesha to offer help whenever they needed it as well, rather than bombarding them with information without any context.
And so Meesha became a contextual virtual assistant who prompts our entreprneuers in English at every new step in the initial stages.
Why Meesha?
Tanya: The name Meesha came up during a design solution discussion and one of our designers suggested the name and since Meesha is a female-sounding name adjacent to Meesho, we all agreed on it as well.
We had to ensure that Meesha was approachable as well because, without the approachability factor, users won’t and ask questions they want to. By approachable, I mean design it in a way that it connects well with the target audience, which for Meesho are our women entrepreneurs.
When do the entrepreneurs get introduced to Meesha?
Tanya: We wanted to establish Meesha as a core part of their journey with Meesho, and not an experience randomly appearing out of the void. Meesha makes an appearance as soon as the app is installed, and says, “Hey, I am here to help you through your journey.” From that point, Meesha is present at every stage of the user’s journey every step of the way.
How is Meesha different from the other chatbots out there?
Tanya: Many platforms out there use chatbots and usually what happens is they appear on various spots of the website or app. The user goes to that chatbot and asks the queries they have and gets them answered.
What is unique about Meesha is that we have used our experiences and deep connection with our users to identify the specific screens where they would feel stuck.
So, instead of keeping the question, they would have behind a click-on-the-chat interface, we prompted the question from Meesha. For instance, on our orders screen, Meesha would put a prompt asking, “Do you want help with placing an order?” or something along those lines. This way, Meesha goes beyond regular chat interactions.
She draws user attention and pinpoints the area that the user might need help with and solves it for them, without the user even having to go searching for it.
Beyond this, we have the regular chatbot too, where the users can interact with Meesha and get any queries they have in mind, clarified.
How has the entrepreneurs’ response been to Meesha?
Tanya: Our users are responding extremely well to Meesha, we are seeing a lot of engagement and interaction. In fact, a large chunk of views for our video “How to earn on Meesho” in the recent past have come from Meesha. We are noticing other screens too, where consumption of Meesha is good.
The attitude we are seeing is, “I have an assistant and I can ask Meesha questions about any doubts I might have. She will have my queries resolved.”
How is Meesha going to evolve?
Tanya: We are still in the early stages with Meesha. Right now Meesha only helps new users who are on their 0–1 journey. Once that happens, Meesha disappears and they go about selling in through the normal flow of things.
In time, I see Meesha becoming a fulltime virtual assistant to our entire user base and solving their problems contextually. The reason we focused on 0–1 was that we knew the problems of these users very well and knew exactly how to solve it. The next stage is going to be about expanding Meesha’s presence beyond the first order, understanding the exact pain points of our users, and making Meesha available to solve those problems as well and solving them.
Ultimately, our primary goal is Making Entrepreneurs Successful and Meesha is helping us do just that.
Learn the magic mantra to take projects from 0–1 from Nikita Dresswala, Director of Strategy & Operations — International Expansion
The Emerging Narrative of Women in India
Are you following us on social media yet? You might want to head over to Life at Meesho’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages if you are a fan of fun and positivity. | https://medium.com/meesho-tech/meet-meesha-meeshos-new-virtual-assistant-who-wants-to-make-our-entrepreneurs-super-successful-50db7d002c0a | ['Mangala Dilip'] | 2020-10-21 08:32:18.225000+00:00 | ['Meesho', 'Product', 'Online Shopping', 'Culture', 'Virtual Assistant'] |
Software is hard, part II | …as already pointed out.
I know I don’t really need too much evidence, but here we have some numbers about failure rate on IT projects. They can be handy someday ;-)
It summarizes different studies, including some embarrassing bad numbers:
51 % (of the surveyed people) viewed their ERP implementation as unsuccessful
31.1% of projects will be canceled before they ever get completed. Further results indicate 52.7% of projects will cost over 189% of their original estimates
only 16.2% for software projects that are completed on-time and on-budget
Yeah, I’ve not given the details about how these numbers were obtained. See the linked article, if you are intrigued. | https://medium.com/leos-tech-blog/software-is-hard-part-ii-cd2c0e68172f | ['Leo Soto'] | 2019-01-03 19:26:00.804000+00:00 | ['Software Development'] |
How to Build a Reporting Dashboard using Dash and Plotly | A method to select either a condensed data table or the complete data table.
One of the features that I wanted for the data table was the ability to show a “condensed” version of the table as well as the complete data table. Therefore, I included a radio button in the layouts.py file to select which version of the table to present:
Code Block 17: Radio Button in layouts.py
The callback for this functionality takes input from the radio button and outputs the columns to render in the data table:
Code Block 18: Callback for Radio Button in layouts.py File
This callback is a little bit more complicated since I am adding columns for conditional formatting (which I will go into below). Essentially, just as the callback below is changing the data presented in the data table based upon the dates selected using the callback statement, Output('datatable-paid-search', 'data' , this callback is changing the columns presented in the data table based upon the radio button selection using the callback statement, Output('datatable-paid-search', 'columns' .
Conditionally Color-Code Different Data Table cells
One of the features which the stakeholders wanted for the data table was the ability to have certain numbers or cells in the data table to be highlighted based upon a metric’s value; red for negative numbers for instance. However, conditional formatting of data table cells has three main issues.
There is lack of formatting functionality in Dash Data Tables at this time.
If a number is formatted prior to inclusion in a Dash Data Table (in pandas for instance), then data table functionality such as sorting and filtering does not work properly.
There is a bug in the Dash data table code in which conditional formatting does not work properly.
I ended up formatting the numbers in the data table in pandas despite the above limitations. I discovered that conditional formatting in Dash does not work properly for formatted numbers (numbers with commas, dollar signs, percent signs, etc.). Indeed, I found out that there is a bug with the method described in the Conditional Formatting — Highlighting Cells section of the Dash Data Table User Guide:
Code Block 19: Conditional Formatting — Highlighting Cells
The cell for New York City temperature shows up as green even though the value is less than 3.9.* I’ve tested this in other scenarios and it seems like the conditional formatting for numbers only uses the integer part of the condition (“3” but not “3.9”). The filter for Temperature used for conditional formatting somehow truncates the significant digits and only considers the integer part of a number. I posted to the Dash community forum about this bug, and it has since been fixed in a recent version of Dash.
*This has since been corrected in the Dash Documentation.
Conditional Formatting of Cells using Doppelganger Columns
Due to the above limitations with conditional formatting of cells, I came up with an alternative method in which I add “doppelganger” columns to both the pandas data frame and Dash data table. These doppelganger columns had either the value of the original column, or the value of the original column multiplied by 100 (to overcome the bug when the decimal portion of a value is not considered by conditional filtering). Then, the doppelganger columns can be added to the data table but are hidden from view with the following statements:
Code Block 20: Adding Doppelganger Columns
Then, the conditional cell formatting can be implemented using the following syntax:
Code Block 21: Conditional Cell Formatting
Essentially, the filter is applied on the “doppelganger” column, Revenue_YoY_percent_conditional (filtering cells in which the value is less than 0). However, the formatting is applied on the corresponding “real” column, Revenue YoY (%) . One can imagine other usages for this method of conditional formatting; for instance, highlighting outlier values.
The complete statement for the data table is below (with conditional formatting for odd and even rows, as well highlighting cells that are above a certain threshold using the doppelganger method):
Code Block 22: Data Table with Conditional Formatting
I describe the method to update the graphs using the selected rows in the data table below. | https://medium.com/p/4f4257c18a7f#f232 | ['David Comfort'] | 2019-03-13 14:21:44.055000+00:00 | ['Dashboard', 'Towards Data Science', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Dash'] |
Augmented Reality as a Game-Changer for Insurance Sector | Augmented Reality as a Game-Changer for Insurance Sector
These days we are realizing that Augmented Reality (AR) is causing a wave of transformation for businesses operating in different industries. Given the fact that all these businesses are experiencing a lot of challenges recently, including the pandemic that has changed the world, the embracement of this technology is emerging as quite necessary. Various companies are aiming to improve the entire flow of various processes efficiently by reducing the costs and improving the return on investment through the maximum adoption and utilization of this technology.
The insurance sector has to do mainly with complex processes related to each other and that have their own difficulties. There are many critical and unexpected situations that may arise and in such cases, immediate customer support is required. The importance of Augmented Reality technology lies in the fact of enabling remote assistance by overlapping digital content and information in the physical world. This remote assistance is enriched with the peculiarity of exchanging visual materials such as photos, 3D objects, or even pdf files. Although the difficulty of processes such as inspection and documentation, they are facilitated significantly by AR remote assistance in real-time.
Trending AR VR Articles:
Let’s address some of the most important applications of AR and how the insurance sector is benefiting from its solutions:
Enhanced Customer Service
Insurance companies that usually operate and also deal with property or auto insurance often face situations that may have caused serious damage. These damages in most cases have to do with high monetary values. In these situations, an insurance agent is definitely needed to inspect and assess the damage. Usually sending the agent to the place of the occurred damage requires extra time and cost. Augmented Reality makes it possible to provide real-time assistance, and to speed up the whole process. The real-time visual connection gives the insurance agent a complete view of all the damage and the surrounding environment. In this way the inspection and assessment of damages are provided faster and more accurately, improving at the same time the customer service.
Boosted Customer Education and Engagement
Augmented Reality aims not only to educate customers but also to engage them in all processes when a problem arises. Customers through AR remote assistance interact with insurance agents by transmitting to them real-time data as well as receiving the appropriate instructions for the actions to be taken. By knowing the fact that customers are a key point for business prosperity, they have affected companies to take steps for the avoidance of confusing situations that can cause dissatisfaction with the services provided. By AR remote assistance companies manage to integrate their customers as part of real situations and make them understand the issues from within. This helps to drastically increase the customer’s satisfaction with the provided solutions in the most efficient way possible.
Risks Reduction
As insurance companies might operate and deal with various issues such as financial or business continuity, through remote assistance it is possible to increase customers’ awareness of potential risks. Customers are presented with various situations which makes them understand in more detail these risks and the steps they need to take to overcome them. While potential risks are anticipated, it becomes possible to achieve cost minimization. At the same time, the engagement of insurance agents in the performance of their duties is maximally fulfilled and successfully increased.
Improved Documentation Process
Processes related to inspection, evaluation, guidance, or even training conducted through AR-based live collaboration tools serve also for later purposes. AR remote assistance challenges the physical distance and makes it possible to document all the mentioned above processes, in order to use them at a later time for many various reasons. This documentation also serves as an important process for providing information for managers who want to evaluate the performance of employees but also even for issue proofing if any customer-agent conflict may occur in the future.
Highly efficient solutions now are coming from VSight Remote, an AR-based application that provides remote assistance and enables the maximum reduction of visits by insurance agents to places where issues might have occured. With VSight Remote insurance companies can control the damage of several equipment types, autos, or even properties and provide proper guidance. VSight Remote can also be used for customer education and awareness through the so-called training room it offers. This remote assistance allows clients to transmit images, 3D models, or document files of their claims to insurance agents and vice versa. All this is done in order to ensure a faster and more accurate process of their request as well as the improved management of the issues by finding the right and appropriate solutions.
From all the above it is easily understood that Augmented Reality technology has an important role in finding and providing efficient solutions and at the same time meeting customer requirements. As a technology that offers a wide range of benefits should continue to be taken into consideration for a possible integration as part of operational processes by businesses operating in this sector and not only.
Don’t forget to give us your 👏 ! | https://arvrjourney.com/augmented-reality-as-a-game-changer-for-insurance-sector-c49a9e6e441f | ['Linda Malecaj'] | 2020-12-22 16:18:14.590000+00:00 | ['Industry 4 0', 'AR', 'Augmented Reality', 'Technology', 'Insurance'] |
Sista chansen att söka Vinnova-stöd för ditt Civic Tech-projekt | Network 🕸️ of people working with technology 👩💻 for the common good 👍 and digital tools for community 💞 + democracy 🖐️ + transparency 🔎
Follow | https://medium.com/civictechsweden/sista-chansen-att-s%C3%B6ka-vinnova-st%C3%B6d-f%C3%B6r-ditt-civic-tech-projekt-d2e0fd9c0533 | ['Digidem Lab'] | 2020-06-02 16:45:55.530000+00:00 | ['Vinnova', 'Civictech', 'Vinnovaprojekt', 'Civic Innovation', 'Civic Technology'] |
#50 Growth Weekly News | Learn the latest news in Digital Analytics world and join us on this week’s stories in the comments.
Last blog post for 2019 and we wanted to make it a little bit Christmassy.🎅🏼 May the new year brings us health, joy and exciting new updates from Google. So, grab your cocoa, sit next to your fireplace and enjoy the last stories for this year…
Last week in summary: A quick flashback in Google Cloud’s year, along with an algorithm walk-through to save memory for count-distinct calculations. Also, BigQuery Reservations is now available in beta for US and EU regions. | https://medium.com/growth-analytics/50-growth-weekly-news-6cd5b5471eb5 | ['Alexandra Poulopoulou'] | 2019-12-19 10:47:49.757000+00:00 | ['Google Cloud Platform', 'Holiday Shopping', 'News', 'Google Analytics', 'Cloud Computing'] |
Copenhagen 2021: A Celebration of Love and Equality in Denmark’s Capital | Hundreds of thousands of people are set to descend on Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden as the two cities join forces to celebrate equality and love and host WorldPride 2021.
Running from August 12th to August 22nd, 2021, Copenhagen 2021 will proudly take over the bi-annual observance of WorldPride from New York City and raise the banner for pride, acceptance and equality as part of the “biggest and most ambitious LGBTQIA+ event ever hosted in Denmark.”
Denmark in New York caught up with Lars Henriksen, Copenhagen 2021’s event manager, to discuss the unique global event’s impact on the Danish capital, Denmark’s leading role in advocating for LGBTI+ rights, and how WorldPride in Copenhagen will differ from it’s predecessor in New York City.
Denmark in New York: Copenhagen Pride is an annual celebration of equality, inclusiveness and diversity. And, next year, in 2021, the City of Copenhagen will finally host WorldPride. What does it mean for Copenhagen (and Copenhagen Pride) to bring the global observance to Denmark?
Lars Henriksen: Bringing WorldPride and EuroGames to Copenhagen and Malmö is like bringing the two events home. Denmark is a frontrunner when it comes to LGBTI+ rights and Copenhagen City Hall was the first place in the world where legally same-sex unions took place back in 1989. In addition, Copenhagen has repeatedly been recognized as the most gay-friendly place on Earth.
In that sense, we are tying the past with the present. Remember, Copenhagen 2021 is about human rights, sportsmanship and love. I can’t find a better place to celebrate equality and love than in Copenhagen and in 2021 love will indeed be in the air.
I think we have an obligation to raise the bar for inclusion and use the platform we have in front of us to share the important message about equal rights and inclusion. In Denmark and the rest of the Nordic countries, we have easy access to politicians and decision-makers compared with many other countries. We need to use that access to make the politicians aware of the need for change and insist that LGBTI+ rights equal human rights. Copenhagen 2021, WorldPride and EuroGames offer a unique opportunity for us and Copenhagen to make the rest of the world aware that in too many places LGBTI+ persons are still living with discrimination, inequality and in fear of what might happen to them because of their sexuality, gender expression and identity. That is wrong. And we need that to change. We need to provide LGBTI+ communities around the world with the same rights as anybody else.
Denmark is a frontrunner when it comes to LGBTI+ rights and Copenhagen City Hall was the first place in the world where legally same-sex unions took place back in 1989.
I sincerely hope that what we do in Copenhagen will be seen and heard globally and that the progress that is being made in Denmark, Sweden and the rest of the Nordic Countries will influence decision makers and politicians in other parts of the world in benefit of the global LGBTI+ community. All we are really asking for is to be included and be treated the same way as anyone else.
I also want to mention the protection of Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess of Denmark. It’s the first time in history that a LGBTI+ event has a royal protector. Together with the Crown Princess, we are writing history and showing the rest of the world that the Danish Royal Family is standing up for diversity and human rights. For me, having the Crown Princess by my side means we are being supported from the highest level and that means a lot to me and I’m convinced that the royal engagement can help make the change we eagerly are working for at Copenhagen 2021.
In 2019, WorldPride was held in New York City, marking both the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion and New York City’s leading role in LGBTI+ rights. How will Copenhagen mark WorldPride differently than New York City in 2021?
Lars Henriksen: You can’t — and I won’t — compare Copenhagen 2021 with WorldPride in New York. We went to New York for WorldPride and took it all in. At the closing ceremony we officially took over as host city for the next WorldPride and, in 2021, we want to do it our way. Copenhagen is not even half the size of New York and that means that Copenhagen 2021 will be not only smaller in size but also different.
We are hosting EuroGames and WorldPride at the same time meaning that we will have a different emphasize on sports. There will be 29 different sports to compete in for Copenhagen 2021.
We want to focus on human rights and that will be the overarching theme for all we do at Copenhagen 2021. We have our Human Rights Forum that will present a large scale human rights conference, a democracy festival for the public, and an inter-parliamentarian plenary session held at the Danish Parliament, Folketinget. In addition to that, we are working on a very ambitious outreach program where we want to provide the opportunity for activists around the world — primarily the Global South and other places where resources are spare — to participate in Copenhagen 2021.
Also, we will use EuroGames and the focus on sports to further discuss human rights and the mental and physical health of LGBTI+ persons who are over-represented in the statistics when it comes to suicide, attempted suicide, mental illness and general bad health.
What role do you think Denmark should have when it comes to advocating for LGBTI+ rights? And, how has Denmark lived up to its reputation in this area as a human rights advocate?
Lars Henriksen: We can be proud as Danes that Denmark is a frontrunner when it comes to securing basic human rights for the LGBTI+ community. That said, there is still room for improvement and the battle hasn’t been won yet. That’s important to understand. Too many LGBTI+ persons in Denmark and globally are still struggling with obtaining the same human rights as people outside the rainbow community. In Denmark, specifically, we need to fight for the intersex and transgendered persons who are lacking the same rights as the rest of us in the rainbow community.
Denmark and the Danish government have an obligation to stay in front and insist that progress for LGTI+ persons are being made. I was very proud when Denmark became the first country in the world — finally — to remove transgenderism from the list of mental illnesses.
I hope that the Danish government will use their presence in the UN Human Rights Council to raise the issue of LGBTI+ rights. I know the UN might not be the most flexible of organisations but being part of the Human Rights Council is a unique opportunity for Denmark to show the rest of the world what is at stake. Raising the issue of the lack of rights for LGBTI+ persons globally in the Council would be a strong statement that would find resonance in many countries, organisations and companies. By doing so, Denmark would be considered a champion for human rights on the international level.
Apart from the two Pride marches in Copenhagen and Malmö, there will be a Human Rights Conference focusing on LGBTQIA+ issues. What will the Human Rights Forum add to WorldPride 2021? And What long-lasting impact do you hope WorldPride 2021 will have both on Copenhagen and the global community?
Lars Henriksen: Having a global impact in different fields is a key aim for the Copenhagen 2021 Human Rights Forum. The worldwide decriminalization of same-sex relationships by 2030 is one of the main goals we want to see heavily discussed and pushed for in 2021 by governments, politicians, activists and all other attendees as a minimum form of global progress. The rights of the LGBTI+ community are unalienable Human Rights that have to be fought for. There is, furthermore, the strong tendency to show the general public that Pride is not a party, it is a protest bringing hundreds of millions of people to the street every year and all over the world. These people cannot be ignored.
The Nordics4Equality march alongside Copenhagen Pride at the 2019 WorldPride event in New York City.
Copenhagen 2021 will, because of this, have a strong focus on Human Rights, and create awareness that Pride is a Human Rights manifestation and not “just a party”. Next to that, minorities and intersectionality within our community will be on the agenda. We cannot talk about inclusion, if we do not, in practice, include our community at large and give them a voice. Extra attention will be given to the intersex and the transgender community and to community members with a different background, a handicap, or for example, religious community members.
We moreover want to develop an in-depth understanding of the general public present in Copenhagen about the LGBTI+ community, to demand politicians to take action on LGBTI+ rights and challenges, to help confront and break down stereotypes and to share best practices from all over the world. In the course of the events, we will be critical towards our own governments, the European Union and the west, demanding them to do more, within our own region and outside. We have a responsibility to push governments to take action and protect the global community from hate crimes, discrimination and punishment. The diversity between the events and the aim of the different events within the Human Rights Forum create opportunities to target different groups, including politicians, activists, media and the general public, and bring them together to create awareness and understanding.
In order to make an impact and be inclusive, we are determined to organize Denmark’s most relevant International LGBTI+ Human Rights Forum including an ambitious Outreach Program, to ensure strong participation from all parts of the world, with a special focus on marginalized communities on a global, regional and national level. We want to break down barriers and prejudices in the public, in Denmark and internationally. I hope Copenhagen 2021 can help people understand the struggles of the LGBTI+ community and make them more openminded to us and our case.
I hope that will make Copenhagen an even greater city where diversity will thrive no matter who you are and how you look. I want the entire world to have a bigger focus on human rights after Copenhagen 2021 and I hope that we will take some important steps to improve the life for LGBTI+ persons all over the world.
Thinking back on Copenhagen 2021 people should be talking about us as the place where progresses were being made and where politicians and decision makers finally pledged to ensure equal rights for LGBTI+ persons. | https://medium.com/@denmarkinnewyork/copenhagen-2021-a-celebration-of-love-and-equality-in-denmarks-capital-3df05e02af14 | ['Denmark In New York'] | 2020-02-14 16:18:19.595000+00:00 | ['Pride', 'Human Rights', 'Sweden', 'LGBTQ', 'Copenhagen'] |
Time Series Modeling Using Auto Arima With Python | Modeling
We subset time series from 2012 to 2018 for modeling.
Austin, Texas Plotly Express Scatter Map
Stationarity check
To have a better understanding of how to set the auto_arima parameter limits, we inspect the time series for trends, seasonality, decomposition, residuals, autocorrelation, and partial autocorrelation.
Check for stationarity using rolling statistics and Dickey-Fuller test
Rolling statistics provide visual support while the Dickey-Fuller test calculates test statistic, p-value, critical values, number of lags, and observations used. The null hypothesis for the Dickey-Fuller test is that the time series is not stationary. If the test statistic is less than the critical value and the p-value is lower than alpha (usually 0.05), we reject the null hypothesis and say the series is stationary.
If the time series is not stationary, different kinds of methods can be applied in order to deal with this problem: log transformation, differencing, subtracting the rolling mean, taking the square root, etc.
2. Apply decomposition with seasonal_decomposition() from statsmodels.tsa.seasonal to visualize trends, seasonality, and residuals. We proceed with a stationarity check of the residuals to see if our times series is stationary after the trends and seasonality are removed.
3. Plot autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation graphs. These plots provide information on (p, d, q) which are the essential order for modeling.
Regarding a stationarity check, we confirm that our data is not stationary. We apply log transformation before we start modeling.
Austin, Texas Property Values 2012 — 2018
Train-test split
The train-test split may vary depending on the time series size. We set out the train-test size 0.8/0.2.
Auto_arima model
We fit the model to train the set using the auto_arima function.
model = auto_arima(train, start_p=0, start_q=0)
model.summary()
The summary property provides all the information regarding our model. We see that our model used (4, 1, 0) for (p, d, q) order. We see the coefficients, p-value, AIC, and BIC, which provide information on whether the model is good.
Plot diagnostics for standardized residuals using plot_diagnostics() . This will provide information on:
Standardized residuals over time
Histogram plus estimated density of standardized residuals, along with a Normal (0,1) density plotted for reference
Normal Q-Q plot, with Normal reference line
Correlogram
model.plot_diagnostics()
Model forecast
Use get_forecast() and conf_int() built-in methods to forecast our model. The forecast_to_df function will take model and steps as input and return a data frame with predictions, showing the lower confidence interval and upper confidence interval as columns.
# Returns a dataframe
pred_df = forecast_to_df(model, steps = len(test))
Model validation
For model validation, we use mean squared error (MSE is an optional selection). Depending on the MSE value, we can see how well our model is fitting.
pred = pred_df['pred'] # Calculate MSE
mse = mean_squared_error(pred, test)
Plot train-test data with predictions and confidence intervals to visualize how good our predictions are.
Auto Arima Model Validation
Future predictions
For future predictions, fit the model above to our time series.
Get summary() and plot_diagnostics() for themodel’s statistics and standardized residuals. Use the given forecast_to_df function above to make future predictions. (Determine the steps parameter depending on how many months into the future we would like to forecast.) Use plot_train_test_pred function to visualize train-test splits with 36 months future predictions with confidence intervals.
Auto Arima Forecast for 36-Month Period | https://betterprogramming.pub/using-auto-arima-with-python-e482e322f430 | ['Ulku Guneysu'] | 2020-12-30 21:27:10.454000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Real Estate', 'Python3', 'Programming', 'Data Science'] |
“You WILL have the terror spawn!” | Sign up for Taking Stock of COVID: New comics from The Nib
By The Nib
New comics from Matt Lubchansky, Keith Knight, and Niccolo Pizarro. Plus How Seniors Are Living With COVID-19. Take a look | https://medium.com/the-nib/you-will-have-the-terror-spawn-14189831d4f0 | ['Jen Sorensen'] | 2015-07-17 19:17:32.006000+00:00 | ['Eat More Comics'] |
About Zulie Rane | Tools I use
Writing
I do all my personal writing inside of Medium’s editor. If you are wondering how to get started, I created a video here that walks you through the basics.
I do most of my professional writing inside Google docs.
My email list lives on ConvertKit. If you want to start building your email list (and I highly, highly recommend you do!) ConvertKit was what got me started. It’s super easy, visual, intuitive, and helps me feel like I’m writing emails to real people, not just a list. The free plan gives you 1,000 subscribers — here’s the link to sign up.
This is an affiliate link, which means if you do go beyond 1,000 subscribers and upgrade to a paid plan, I’ll earn some money. It’s free for you.
Research
My favorite tools are Google Scholar and NCBI, which lets you search for full scientific articles. I firmly believe the best writing is research-backed, and those two tools give me access to all the information I need to write accurate, interesting, and useful articles.
Videos
For my videos, I use Canva to create the thumbnails. I edit videos using iMovie on Mac. I film using this camera, this tripod, and this microphone.
These are affiliate links. If you buy them from Amazon, I make a small amount of money at no cost to you.
When I create live streams, I use StreamYard. I can’t express how much I love StreamYard — it’s easy to use, it lets me really connect with the folks who are interested in what I do, and the version I use is 100% free and does everything I need it to.
Professional Designers
I have a lot of skills to my name — design and websites are not one of them. I hired Jada Dreyfus to create my website, my Medium banner, my YouTube banner, and my logo. If you like what you see, feel free to contact her at dreyfusjada (at) gmail dot com. | https://medium.com/zulie-writes/about-zulie-rane-ffcef8ef0ba2 | ['Zulie Rane'] | 2020-12-28 20:08:24.518000+00:00 | ['Zulie Rane', 'Medium Partner Program', 'Medium'] |
Your “Writing” Advice Makes Me Want to Gouge My Eyes Out | When it comes to writing, nothing sends me into a blind rage like reading articles entitled Why No One is Reading Your Writing, Why No One Cares About Your Writing, or How You Should Write, You Loser, The 5,606 Things You’re Doing Wrong with Your Writing. These articles — and I use that term generously — are merely a subjective collection of one person’s experience with a few Stephen King quotes thrown in for good measure because apparently, every single person in the world has read that Stephen King book and feels the need to quote from it.
PSA: Many other writers have written books on writing. Maybe read them?
My first reaction is: well, who the fuck are you to make sweeping, blanket statements about what works when it comes to writing? Who made you judge, jury, and executioner? Because you’ve made a little coin on this platform you can craft scare tactics? You’ve been writing on Medium for a hot minute, and suddenly you’re positioning yourself as an oracle of the written word? Complete with formatting your articles like they’re a fifth-grade book report?
Come now.
Isn’t the beauty of writing in its sheer diversity? The fact that experimental writers like Amy Hempel, Kelly Link, Jenny Offill, and Ben Marcus can be just as successful in their careers than deft storytellers like Marilynne Robinson, Elena Ferrante, Lauren Groff, Laura van den Berg, Colson Whitehead, and Zadie Smith is proof that there is no single standard. Half the time, I can’t even make sense of what Ben Marcus writes, but it doesn’t make him any less potent or influential to the people who revere his work.
Try convincing Faulkner to punctuate. Try telling Samuel Beckett to follow the rules when he was ridiculed when Waiting for Godot debuted on stage. Try telling Virginia Woolf (a writer who directly influenced Marquez) to not write a whole book from multiple interior points-of-view, which was just not done in the modernist fiction of her time. I can see her telling Leonard, fuck that parade before she set off to write The Waves. Try telling Zadie Smith anything.
People who blindly follow the herd are sheep. People who listen to what their voice is telling them are artists.
There are rules that writers break every day in their own way, and that is what makes literature remarkable. Not every writer formats their paragraphs, chapters, and dialogue in the same way. Some writers add dialogue tags. Other writers blend dialogue into the narrative — deliberately. Some writers completely forgo plot in favor of the rhythm and cadence of a line. Their passion is in the architecture of a story through language, instead of plot or character. Language is the story.
Whenever I read this sanctimonious “rules” nonsense here on Medium — on how one should write, format, and publish their stories lest they are met with crippling failure — I want to gouge out my eyes with an acetylene torch because these people preach a specific format for a specific platform rather than encourage exploration and experimentation. Are novels formatted this way? Are essays in Longreads formatted this way?
Have you ever published anything outside of your sphere on Medium? Have you ever worked with a book editor? If not, your articles should be titled, “The Very Specific Way I Write That Made Me $1,000 On This Very Specific Platform. Maybe, I Dunno, It’ll Work For You Too.” I tried blocking and muting all this nonsense, but it’s a contagion that is intent on sullying my feed.
A quarter million people read this essay I wrote on Medium and it wasn’t formatted in the way the gurus prescribe. People didn’t read it because I spoon-fed them their medicine, they read it because it was honest. My friend Deenie Hartzog-Mislock wrote this raw, beautiful, incisive essay, and do you see her cutting up your meat for you?
The oracles tell you not to use big, difficult words as if adults are feeble children who don’t have access to the internet. I was the kid who grew up dirt poor in Brooklyn, and I often mispronounced words I’d read in books because I hadn’t heard them spoken aloud. I learn new words every single day, and I use Google’s audio tool to make sure I’ve got the pronunciation. Why would I want the command of my primary language to ossify? Why would anyone want to stop learning?
Even when I was getting my MFA at Columbia, there were sanctimonious assholes who bemoaned styles, genres, and formats that weren’t their own. Thankfully, there were a handful of teachers who made it clear that the best way to help someone on their journey is to give them advice that helps them get better at their particular style and voice. The point isn’t to homogenize — what is this, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis? — it’s to stand out.
They tell you not to use “flowery” language or write very simply — that’s cool if that’s the way you naturally write or if you’re writing pop-culture self-help, but it’s a death sentence for line writers where manipulation of language is the objective. Instead, follow this advice from Jenny Offill, a writer who actually wrote a New York Times bestseller:
“But if you’re someone who is trying to move to a more pared-down language, or language that is trying to do things at a couple of different levels at the same time, the workshop environment can be difficult. So I try to teach my students to read at the line level, because I think that’s what’s helpful: to start thinking about what they’re writing line by line, as well as the bigger picture. I’m also always trying to make them read things in different genres: poetry or essays or non-fiction or primary sources from science or anthropology. I want them to get a sense of the strangeness of language. It reminds you that there are all these different ways in which you can create density and give a vital feeling to the words on.”
You’re not going to learn how to write if your diet is filled with Medium articles written by people telling you how to write. You’re going to learn how to write by reading across styles and genres until you find work that speaks to you. Then, you study it. Deconstruct it. Learn from it. Determine how it can inform the words you put to paper (or screen). And then you write and then you don’t stop writing. Ever.
Don’t confuse “growing your audience” [marketing] with getting better at what you live to do [studying others, practicing your craft, refining your work and honing your voice]. But hey, if you started writing five minutes ago and want to make $10,000 a month, my screed isn’t for you.
Language is a crucial weapon in my arsenal. Language gives me the freedom to interpret the world and translate it in new, inventive ways. Language gives me access to libraries of images I can use and manipulate. So, for me, a limited vocabulary is imprisonment. Why must we pander to readers instead of challenging them? Are a few new words in a story really going to alienate them? It’s not like I’m publishing scientific peer review papers on Medium.
Seriously. Are you that afraid?
The oracles tell you that you must join groups, be part of the crowd. If not, then poor you, little newbie, wading out in the dark waters without a life jacket. Read this carefully: you don’t have to join any social media groups to be a successful writer. If you want to, awesome, but it’s not a requirement and it’s certainly not a guarantee. Half the time these communities turn into catty cliques that have a certain think speak. Better to find a handful of readers who can help make you the best writer you can be.
We spend our time devoted to the periphery. As if the periphery was an altar where we’d all gather and worship. We cleave to the shiny objects that are social media, email, Facebook groups, podcasting — we’re told we have to be diversified — at the expense of the one true thing you create. The thing by which you want to be known and remembered. We give equal (if not more) weight and devotion to that which surrounds our thing instead of getting laser-focused and refining our skills, being a student — all to keep getting better at the thing.
Trust me, I want to do ALL THE THINGS. Now, I ask myself what portion of my day have I committed to being a better writer, a better storyteller, and a brand builder? Am I learning something new, regardless of how minor that something is? Or am I zeroing in on the things that are conduits and bridges to and from the work? You’ve created all these points of entry to a thing that isn’t as good as the vehicle that got them there. And I say this as a marketer of 20+ years. And someone who has published professionally for the same amount of time, and has worked at a traditional book publisher (HarperCollins).
Prioritize the writing, not the distribution of it.
The oracles warn you about formatting. You have to have big, bold headers everywhere. Your headers are the coming attractions. Beware of large blocks of text — their eyes, their eyes! Everyone’s reading on their phone, and they CAN’T HANDLE IT. Many single-line paragraphs are the rage.
And then you start to notice that all the writing looks the same. It’s well-packaged, well-spaced — formulaic in form, but not marketed! Oh, no. Marketing is such a smarmy practice. We don’t do that. No one sees the irony that their formatting rules are a form of marketing — focusing on the presentation of the work versus the work itself.
Yes, you want breathing room on the page, but if someone is really pulled into a story are they really going to quit because they’re SUFFERING THE TORTURES OF THE LONG PARAGRAPH DAMNED? You’ve pretty much excluded all literature written before the iPhone. People still remember Faulkner, and that fucker had a real rap battle with the run-on sentence.
I’m wading through a sea of same, and although I have the means to block the writers who flood my homepage, or opt to “see less of this,” etc., it pains me that people think they have to abide by some arbitrary rulebook to write out their heart.
Think about it. Do you read books? Have you read short stories in literary magazines? Essays in print and online periodicals? Do they follow your “rules” format, which is actually best served in non-fiction, pedagogical books with their frameworks, studies, and instructional steps? Do your readers need to be hand-held every step of the way? I’ve been writing the same way for decades, and my audience has only grown.
If you are telling stories that teach, inspire, motivate, and touch people, they’ll cope with a few big words and long paragraphs. Great stories bear the weight of the ephemeral. There are no rules, only the ones you make for yourself that align with your work and how you wish to communicate it. If a certain way of formatting suits you, fine, but don’t run around telling people it’s the standard.
There are so many ways to be a writer. There is an infinite number of ways to tell a story. Why pander to one? Why not experiment with multitudes? Why not play? Isn’t that what we’re here to do? Write, experiment, learn, play, and write some more.
How much freedom is there in a confined box? Quit it with the dogma. Forget the arbitrary rules. Write how you want to write, for long as you want to write it, in a style and format that suits you. Don’t be a copy. Fight to be singular, an original. | https://medium.com/mastering-the-mechanics/your-writing-advice-makes-me-want-to-gouge-my-eyes-out-a6c72d857834 | ['Felicia C. Sullivan'] | 2020-04-24 01:55:08.638000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Authors', 'Medium', 'Work', 'Books'] |
Your Phone may be spreading Coronavirus to your toddlers | Coronavirus is spreading all around us. It started in China and now it’s everywhere. How? Because it spreads from contact. That brand-new product that you imported from China or bought from the nearest store might be the cause of you having coronavirus. Some infected workers in China might have sneezed on it or touched it before it got packed and delivered to you. Anything is possible. Now all you can do is to save yourself and your family from it. The same goes for your cellphone.
How it spreads…
We tend to leave our mobile phones around the house. It can be on your bedside table, on the couch, the kitchen counter or the coffee table in your living room… If you have toddlers in your house, there is a high chance that it will be picked up by them. They may put it in their mouths to get a taste of it. We know all toddlers like to do it. The reason is still unknown, somehow. The point is if you are infected with coronavirus and have used your phone before leaving it idly on the coffee table. And it gets picked by your toddler. It might have transferred the virus to your young one. And coronavirus affects the kids and the elderly the most.
UV Sanitizer Box
So, how can you prevent that? The easiest way to go about is to clean your phone. You can take your phone to the nearest repair store and get it cleaned. If they are using RepairDesk POS, you can even have them collect the device from your home using the Appointment Calendar widget. Please don’t start washing it with soap for 20 seconds like your hands. Even water-resistant phones won’t survive that treatment. What you need is a UV sanitizer box for mobile phones. They are very easy to use. All you have to do is to place your mobile device inside and press a button. In five minutes, your mobile will be sanitized and ready to use.
Disinfecting wipes
If you can’t buy a UV Box, you can place your faith in disinfecting wipes. These wipes are effective when it comes to killing germs. But they are chemical-based. Which means that they can corrode the oleophobic coating on your cellphone’s glass screen. In all honesty, these wipes are not designed for computers or mobile device screens.
A mild solution…
Since disinfecting wipes are out of the question, and UV sanitizer boxes are expensive, you can use an antibacterial screen cleaner that comes with a microfiber cloth. Although there are many commercial solutions available at online stores, you can always make your own if you have all the right materials at hand.
DIY antibacterial screen cleaner
For your DIY antibacterial screen cleaner, you will need the following:
· A spray bottle
· Isopropyl alcohol 70%
· Bottled water
· Lint-free cloth or a microfiber
Now take that spray bottle and add a 60/40 mix of isopropyl alcohol / bottled water solution in it. Shake well and it’s ready to use. Simply spray it on your cleaning cloth and sanitize your phone in no time. Make sure that you don’t spray the mix directly on your screen. Also, remember not to overspray your cleaning cloth. After cleaning both sides let the device sit for 20–30 sec to dry. While it dries, you can take that time to clean the casing as well.
That’s all there is to it. Thank you for reading and remember to keep yourself and your family safe from coronavirus. It’s spreading alarmingly fast! | https://medium.com/@ahsenghufran/your-phone-may-be-spreading-coronavirus-to-your-toddlers-5daf52999023 | ['Ahsen Ghufran Khan'] | 2020-03-17 21:48:07.819000+00:00 | ['Baby', 'Phone', 'Coronavirus', 'Safety', 'Toddlers'] |
No one cares | You scroll through your old “impressive” repos and smile trying to neglect the thing you are working on just to go back and well, get frustrated again. It is a combination of old repos, the refrigerator, and just random thoughts that prevent you from working on the task in front of you. If you are one of these people, this is my advice to you.
No one cares
No one cares about your old repos. No one cares about what's in your fridge. No one cares about pretty much anything you do. People care more about themselves, not you. Don’t scroll through your old repos thinking you are some sort of God programmer because you’re not. If you keep doing that, you will stop yourself from learning more and you will be stuck in the same place for days, weeks, months maybe even years[very serious when I say this]. Enjoy struggling just as much as you enjoy your successes, and you will reach places you had thought you couldn’t. Good luck and this is entire post from my standpoint is more wasted time. I should not even post this but I am. | https://medium.com/@munetaalex/no-one-cares-1d47507277e3 | [] | 2020-12-15 21:07:20.987000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'University', 'MySQL'] |
First neural network for beginners explained (with code) | Creating our own simple neural network
Let’s create a neural network from scratch with Python (3.x in the example below).
import numpy, random, os
lr = 1 #learning rate
bias = 1 #value of bias
weights = [random.random(),random.random(),random.random()] #weights generated in a list (3 weights in total for 2 neurons and the bias)
The beginning of the program just defines libraries and the values of the parameters, and creates a list which contains the values of the weights that will be modified (those are generated randomly).
def Perceptron(input1, input2, output) :
outputP = input1*weights[0]+input2*weights[1]+bias*weights[2]
if outputP > 0 : #activation function (here Heaviside)
outputP = 1
else :
outputP = 0
error = output – outputP
weights[0] += error * input1 * lr
weights[1] += error * input2 * lr
weights[2] += error * bias * lr
Here we create a function which defines the work of the output neuron. It takes 3 parameters (the 2 values of the neurons and the expected output). “outputP” is the variable corresponding to the output given by the Perceptron. Then we calculate the error, used to modify the weights of every connections to the output neuron right after.
for i in range(50) :
Perceptron(1,1,1) #True or true
Perceptron(1,0,1) #True or false
Perceptron(0,1,1) #False or true
Perceptron(0,0,0) #False or false
We create a loop that makes the neural network repeat every situation several times. This part is the learning phase. The number of iteration is chosen according to the precision we want. However, be aware that too much iterations could lead the network to over-fitting, which causes it to focus too much on the treated examples, so it couldn’t get a right output on case it didn’t see during its learning phase.
However, our case here is a bit special, since there are only 4 possibilities, and we give the neural network all of them during its learning phase. A Perceptron is supposed to give a correct output without having ever seen the case it is treating.
x = int(input())
y = int(input())
outputP = x*weights[0] + y*weights[1] + bias*weights[2]
if outputP > 0 : #activation function
outputP = 1
else :
outputP = 0
print(x, "or", y, "is : ", outputP)
Finally, we can ask the user to enter himself the values to check if the Perceptron is working. This is the testing phase.
The activation function Heaviside is interesting to use in this case, since it takes back all values to exactly 0 or 1, since we are looking for a false or true result. We could try with a sigmoid function and obtain a decimal number between 0 and 1, normally very close to one of those limits.
outputP = 1/(1+numpy.exp(-outputP)) #sigmoid function
We could also save the weights that the neural network just calculated in a file, to use it later without making another learning phase. It is done for way bigger project, in which that phase can last days or weeks. | https://towardsdatascience.com/first-neural-network-for-beginners-explained-with-code-4cfd37e06eaf | ['Arthur Arnx'] | 2019-08-11 09:03:20.174000+00:00 | ['Perceptron', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Neural Networks', 'Guides And Tutorials'] |
3 Things to Consider Before Joining The Military | 1. You Need to Always be on Your Toes
Every single day in the military is different. Some days, you’ll have a normal work-pace and then others you’ll be called upon to travel to a completely different country to serve for a year.
You are serving your country and doing whatever is asked of you. When signing the dotted line, you’re giving your life to the military and uncertainties. I never let my fear of deployment stop me from joining.
In 2019, I was called upon to serve in the Middle-East. I’m lucky to have come back safely, and I’m so grateful for all of the cultural experiences and spontaneous lessons I learned away from home.
It could be three in the morning, and an emergency mission comes up. You don’t have any say in rolling over and sleeping in. When it’s time to go, you go. People rely on you for your knowledge and your commitment to the military.
It’s the most intensely bonded team in the world that utilizes everyone in order to achieve one goal —to protect our country.
Keep in Mind
If you easily get overwhelmed and don’t like spontaneous events coming up, the military could cause you a lot of anxiety. There’s a lot of “frago’s” and unexpected things that come up.
There have been times where I expected to attend family events, but I had to serve. I missed my sister’s wedding, the passing of my childhood dog, and so much more, but that’s the sacrifice that comes with serving.
If you’re extroverted and love the “adventure” and are in it for the thrill, you’ll be just fine. An enthusiastic spirit thrives in the military because there’s always something to do, so many people to meet, and a ton of once in a lifetime experiences. | https://medium.com/the-front-lines/3-things-to-consider-before-joining-the-military-ba6324ec474f | ['Jordan Mendiola'] | 2020-12-24 17:56:57.899000+00:00 | ['Military', 'Inspiration', 'United States', 'Army', 'America'] |
Blossom Like a Badass: How Do You Measure Actually Living Your Best Life? | Wishing such quantifiable evidence existed for empowerment!
I knew my partner really loved me when I was very sick and didn’t know if I sharted myself and he checked. Yes, in fact I had sharted myself. He was kind enough to clean my sweet behind. I knew God really loved me when I miraculously made it to my father’s bedside 15 minutes before he died. It’s easier to know when others love us, but how do we know when we really love ourselves? How do you measure it? What evidence will be proof you really believe? Loving yourself is the foundation upon actually living your best life.
I live in data obsessed Silicon Valley, but nothing like Google Maps yet exists for my empowerment journey. When I restart my computer after it gets an update, I get an affirming message that my computer is 50 percent updated and I see a spinning wheel telling me to wait and that more updates are being processed. I wish such data existed for my life’s transformation! You are 80 percent ready for that promotion. You are 60 percent ready to have a child. You are 25 percent prepared for a new romantic relationship. That would be awesome to know with some certainty!
For the last ten years, I have been on a deep empowerment journey of learning to love myself. I have been fiercely trying to define success and happiness on my own terms, not on what society forces down my throat on a daily basis. It’s been one hell of a ride! I have seriously wanted to give up entirely and just settle for a game over.
So how do you know when you’re actually living your best life? Living your best life is not measured by how many followers you have on social media. It’s not how rich you are. It’s not how famous or important others deem you are. This is what society tells us a million times a day, but it’s not the truth.
As 2020, the worst year ever is about to close, I am eager to create a positive vision of hope for 2021. There are so many new possibilities I would like to create for myself and the world. I know that with the grace of God and commitment on my end, new opportunities will arise for my happiness and contribution to the world.
Validation and Affirmation
External validation is the false pretense of happiness and success. But it is so easy to default and conform to societal norms. What is more challenging is to define these on your own, perhaps against what society values or tells you who you should be. This is even more difficult if you identify as a part of an underrepresented community such as women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA, or differently abled. We receive so many messages telling us daily that we are not enough in every way.
Living your best life means you love yourself fully and completely for who you are in this moment, wherever you may be. Rather than depending on external validation, you embody self-validation. You fill up your own cup. I dress up just for the joy of it, to feel cute, and to look at myself in the mirror and smile at my pretty self. I don’t need recognition from my boss or co-workers to know I am rocking it at my job. My friends may have what I want but do not yet have, and I can still be sincerely happy for them.
You embrace your greatest weaknesses. In fact, you fully own both your successes and failures. You take complete responsibility for your life and harness your ability to make choices for yourself. You actively create new possibilities for yourself. You are not a victim to circumstances and just react out of default patterns but can powerfully respond to life. You do not compare yourselves to others. Above all, it is the power to be able to authentically laugh at yourself with kindness and love.
Evidence of not loving myself
For decades of my life, I had no evidence of self-compassion. As a young politico in Washington, D.C., I was an ambition addict. All I focused on was how fast I was climbing the career ladder. I sought prestige and based my entire identity off a job title.
My head was filled with evil self-talk. Every moment, I beat myself up with the most critical judgment. I told things to myself I would never tell another person. I doubted all my actions. What did others think? Why did I do that? How could I mess up like that again? I operated in relentless perfectionist mode exacerbated by a fixed mindset. Mistakes were proof of my inadequacy. I’ve never been good at any of this. I’m not cut out to learn these kinds of things.
I only accepted compliments and praise when it came from another person. I did not say such things to myself. Or if one kind thought did occasionally pop in my head, I never believed it. My value came from my fancy job title, who I knew, how important they were, or who I dated. I depended on others to make me feel wanted, desired, pretty, smart, and funny.
I never trusted myself. My inner intuition was never listened to. I fully doubted my own judgement. I would ask twenty friends for their opinion before I made a decision. I never just went with my gut.
Before the age of 30, I had achieved my dream job as the executive director of a national nonprofit. While my friends were still aimlessly dating, I thought I had found my dream husband. But shortly, both core false foundations of my façade of happiness were suddenly taken from me. I hit rock bottom both personally and professionally. I didn’t know who I was or how to survive.
It was only after I had crashed and fully burned that I begin the journey of how to love myself. I finally started therapy to address my traumatic childhood. I took classes at Landmark Education to unlearn my flawed life framework. I expanded my views on religion to maintain my Catholicism while embracing aspects of Judaism. I worked with a coach to game plan my professional comeback. I learned how to relax and slow down with yin and restorative yoga. I leaned on my friends for support.
Even though I had done a tremendous amount of healing work, there were still some serious obstacles to overcome. I had not learned my lesson, so God made sure I would. On the eve of my thirtieth birthday, although sadly single, I would finally make six figures for the first time, while working for a famous philanthropist, a premier thought leader in my field. But it was like God was trying to tell me, “Hey girl, um I tried to tell you a job title and money isn’t the key to happiness, but I don’t think you really got it!” This too did not work out as planned.
So, to keep the brand new Prius I just bought, I became an Uber, Lyft, and Shuddle driver to make ends meet. I slowly regained my confidence by tutoring high school students for the SAT and their AP classes. I straight up hustled and learned to cherish what really mattered to me, spending cherished time with loved ones and giving back to others. Being a good friend, daughter, sister, and aunt were the titles that were most important.
So those are multiple examples of when I clearly didn’t love myself and therefore wasn’t living my best life. Those were the times when I compared myself to others, when my relationship status or job title falsely were the main factors in how I based my self-worth.
Evidence of loving myself
Thank God, after embarking on this deep empowerment journey of how to love myself, I now have multiple data points that serve as evidence that I am actually living my best life. Of course, it’s not perfect and I am always striving for new opportunities, but I am still happy in the pursuit, joyful right now in the present moment. It’s not like, “When I find the right man and get married, I will be happy.” It’s not, “When I make ___ amount of money, I will be successful.” My ambition is no longer an addiction. I do not need those future aspirations to have been achieved to be fulfilled. I accept and love my life as it is right now. I continue to be an ever- evolving version of my best self.
I began my empowerment journey by leaving a seven-year relationship with my college sweetheart. Finally having the courage to step away was my first indication I was committed to loving myself. It was the start of a long, deep, and painful journey of healing.
My strongest data point of loving myself is when I transformed my greatest weakness into my superpower and got sober from alcohol. For about 16 years of my life, alcohol was my most significant coping mechanism. I used it to numb my pain. During Greek life at college, binge drinking was glorified. As a politico in my twenties in DC, drinking everyday was just a part of the job as you went to networking events and happy hours. But when I moved to the suburbs of Silicon Valley and had to drive to and from my drinking romps, when the monthly pilgrimage to Napa wine country ended with a sprained ankle, and when my closest friends of over fifteen years started to no longer tolerate my drunken behavior, I started to realize maybe my drinking wasn’t quite so normal. After multiple attempts to get sober, I finally made it. Every drink I say no to is saying yes to loving myself. I was fortunate to have achieved a year of sobriety right before my father’s death. I have no idea how I would have gotten through his passing without this newfound strength.
Always check your junk mail. Another strong piece of evidence of loving myself is when given a sudden windfall of money, I didn’t make any major changes to my current lifestyle but was happy where I was in life. Completely unexpectedly, shortly after my father died, in what I thought was just a piece of junk mail, I received a significant amount of money. If this had happened a year earlier, I would have quit my job and traveled the world. But I really loved my current job and didn’t want to quit. I actually enjoyed what I did. It wasn’t about the money. Ironically, around this same time, my current roommates were about to move out and I was deciding where to live. Now, I could have afforded my own place, or at least chosen to move into a fancy apartment in San Francisco. I had already made plans to move in with my best friend into my old house on a beautiful lagoon. Even with this new financial freedom, I decided I still wanted to go with that original plan. So, with this life changing amount of money, I didn’t make any major changes to where I was. I kept the same job. I chose to live in my original plan for housing. I was happy where I was in life.
Lastly, I knew I loved myself when I reclaimed sovereignty of my body. I have a M.A. in Applied Gender Studies and have volunteered for years as a rape crisis counselor. During the many drunken nights in my past, I had a variety of unwanted sexual experiences. I brushed these off as not a big deal. I normalized the violation because I did not stand up for myself. But about two weeks before #MeToo went viral, I finally found the courage to call my rape a rape. Moreover, as a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) professional, I felt morally obligated to speak out. I made a Facebook Live from the emergency room explaining the process to survivors and encouraging them to utilize this resource. Yes, I felt guilt and shame, but I did not allow those feelings to overwhelm me and prevent me from speaking my truth. Similarly, a few years later, I decided to utilize the egg freezing benefits my company generously offered. Once again, when even though I felt embarrassed I was thirty-five, single, and freezing my eggs, I decided to have fun with it and publicly celebrate this reproductive choice.
Even in writing this, I am scared out of my mind of the mean comments that could come, how this could impact future employment or dating, or how others will judge me. But here it is, baring my soul on the Internet, hoping it brings you some solace to know you are not alone in your journey! I too have struggled like hell but keep trying everyday to love myself.
Questions to explore your empowerment
So, what metrics will you use for yourself to gauge when you fully love yourself? Your measurement may be different from mine. There is no absolute truth, only that which you know in your deepest core to be true to you. Trust yourself. Believe in yourself.
Below are some deep questions to ask yourself. Every year, I love taking a few hours to do a deep dive reflection into the past year to create a strong vision for the new year using the free Year Compass guide. Another great reflection tool is The Soul Communion Workbook by Monique Mitchell. Throughout the year, I use the Passion Planner daily.
To learn more about loving yourself, I highly recommend checking out the work of Audre Lorde, Kristin Neff, and Jen Sincero. Let’s stay connected on this journey through #BlossomBadass!
Cheers to creating amazing new possibilities in 2021! Happy New Year!
· What does it mean to you to blossom like a badass?
· How do you define living your best life on your own terms, not just on what society tells you what that should look like?
· How do you really know that you love yourself?
· What does happiness and success mean to you?
· Rather than default to conformity of external validation, how do you fill up your own cup each and every day?
· How can you learn to be present and not stuck in the past or too attached to the future?
· What’s in your self-care toolkit? What resources or support could help you on your journey? How can you get more comfortable with asking for help?
· What do you think is your greatest weakness? How can you transform that into your superpower?
· What new possibilities do you want to create for yourself in 2021? What are you calling in? What are you letting go off?
· What surprised you the most about yourself during quarantine in 2020? What were you most proud of accomplishing from 2020? Which of those are strengths you want to bring with you into the new year? | https://medium.com/@olearypd/blossom-like-a-badass-how-do-you-measure-actually-living-your-best-life-b14785439290 | ["Pamela O'Leary"] | 2020-12-27 21:43:57.013000+00:00 | ['Empowerment', 'New Years Resolutions', 'Womens Rights', 'New Year', 'Women'] |
Bulut Bilişim kavramlarından IaaS PaaS SaaS Nedir? Kullanım Alanları Nelerdir? | IaaS vs. PaaS vs. SaaS: Common Examples of Each
Today, the IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS debate is more relevant than ever in modern technology companies. With good reason… | https://medium.com/@beyzacanbay/bulut-bili%C5%9Fim-kavramlar%C4%B1ndan-iaas-paas-saas-nedir-kullan%C4%B1m-alanlar%C4%B1-nelerdir-af582ef9e4e4 | ['Beyza Canbay'] | 2020-12-18 21:33:40.077000+00:00 | ['Bulut Bilişim', 'Iaas', 'Paas', 'Cloud', 'SaaS'] |
Cincinnati-Alabama Betting Preview | Cincinnati broke through the glass ceiling to make the playoff, can they topple mighty Alabama?
Head to FanDuel Sportsbook to take advantage of your $1,000 risk-free bet
Cotton Bowl Classic — College Football Playoff Semifinal
4 Cincinnati vs 1 Alabama
Friday, 3:30pm, ESPN
Alabama -13.5/Total 58
The College Football Playoff kicks off with a true David vs Goliath game. Despite what star linebacker Will Anderson says, Alabama is a huge favorite. The Crimson Tide look to become the first team to repeat as national champions in the Playoff era and to claim their 19th title overall and seventh under Nick Saban. Cincinnati broke through the glass ceiling becoming the first team from the Group of Five to make it to the Playoff.
The marquee matchup in this game is the high-powered Alabama offense led by Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young going up against the Cincinnati defense led by a pair of outstanding cornerbacks, Thorpe Award winner Coby Bryant and projected first round pick Sauce Gardner. Thanks in large part to that duo, the Bearcats are first in the country in pass efficiency defense and seventh in pass EPA defense. Cincinnati’s excellent secondary still has its hands full with big play receiver Jameson Williams, but Alabama is going to have to find someone to step up next to him with John Metchie out with a knee injury suffered in the SEC Championship Game. Metchie was the possession receiver in the Alabama offense with 96 catches this season. After Metchie and Williams Alabama’s next leading receiver is Slade Bolden who had 32 catches for 333 yards. Tight End Cameron Latu is a scoring threat, six of his 20 catches were for touchdowns, but Alabama doesn’t have another established receiving threat between the 20s.
While replacing Metchie is certainly a big question, the biggest question pertaining to the Alabama offense is about the offensive line. Was the SEC Championship Game a turning point for the unit or was it the high end of the spectrum for an inconsistent unit? Alabama entered the SEC Championship Game 86th in the country in sack rate and allowed 36 sacks in 12 regular season games and they were perfect in pass protection against the then-historically good Georgia defense. Cincinnati is pretty good at getting after the quarterback, ranking 23rd in sack rate in FBS and averaging 2.85 sacks per game. Alabama has been pretty underwhelming running the ball this year, particularly compared to their own lofty standards, so I wouldn’t expect them to run with a ton of success against a defense that gives up just 3.3 yards per carry.
The matchup of Cincinnati offense against the Alabama defense isn’t nearly as ballyhooed but comes with its own level of intrigue. The Alabama defense wasn’t the wrecking ball unit most people thought they could be coming into the season, but the only real knock on Cincinnati’s offense is that they haven’t been great against Power 5 defenses. Over the past two seasons they’ve played three Power 5 teams: Georgia in the Peach Bowl, Indiana and Notre Dame this regular season (Notre Dame counts as a Power 5 team for all intents and purposes). In all three of those games Cincinnati had a negative EPA. Against Indiana, the Bearcats had just 20 yards through their first six drives until Indiana’s best defensive player got ejected for targeting. At least talent wise, Alabama is a pretty significant step up from every defense Cincinnati has played this year except for Notre Dame. Desmond Ridder has been efficient this year ranking 11th in the country in pass efficiency and Jerome Ford will have a little extra motivation going against his old team, but will they have enough firepower to move the ball on Alabama consistently?
This is a game that SCREAMS bet the under. Cincinnati has been an underdog ten times in the last four years and every single one of those games has gone under. Make of that what you will, but also know that most of those were before last year. Even so, this is a team that just hasn’t been as efficient against teams with Power 5 level talent so scoring should be hard to come by. I also think the Cincinnati defense has earned a great deal of respect and while it’s hard to imagine anyone shutting down the Alabama offense, even if it did struggle in a few games this year, the Cincinnati defense is still worth all the accolades it has gotten. The spread is a stay away. I think Cincinnati is a little bit undervalued here, but being against Alabama in a Semifinal game isn’t something I’m extremely interested in. | https://blog.fantasylifeapp.com/cincinnati-alabama-betting-preview-fde8e512d140 | [] | 2021-12-30 14:14:23.552000+00:00 | ['Sportsbetting', 'Collegefootball'] |
EazyDiner Spotlight: Get Your Favorite Cuppa Tea And Snacks Home Delivered From A Chai Point Outlet Near You | EazyDiner Spotlight: Get Your Favorite Cuppa Tea And Snacks Home Delivered From A Chai Point Outlet Near You
Your tea & snack genie for those busy WFH days EazyDiner Jul 28·4 min read
For us Indians, tea is not a mere beverage but an emotion that runs high in every household. From a common cold to indigestion, and headache to heartbreak, there is nothing in life that a good old cup of ‘chai’ can’t fix. Especially for those folks who are all about corporate life, there is nothing like a soothing cuppa of hot tea paired with just the right snacks to bring you back to life and rejuvenate you after a hectic day of love. And that’s exactly the promise that is delivered by your neighborhood Tea experts from Chai Point.
India’s largest organized Chai retailer, Chai Point is revolutionizing the way Tea is consumed in India. Beginning with the first pilot store set up in Bangalore in April 2010, Chai Point has rapidly grown to become the go-to brand for a perfectly brewed cup of Chai made with fresh, natural ingredients that have found a place of honor in the heart of urban India’s die-hard tea connoisseurs.
Present in prime locations in major metropolitan cities like Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, and Hyderabad, Chai Point doles out an extensive variety of hot Chai, Iced Chai, Shakes; and Made-For-Chai Snacks to go with your indispensable morning and evening Chai rituals.
Bringing the fine taste of the highest quality tea from tea sourced from exclusive estates and companies in Assam, Darjeeling, and the Nilgiris, straight to your home along with tasty snacks and wholesome meals, Chai Point is indeed the one-stop destinations to satiate all your Tea-time cravings. On their delivery menu, you will find everything from an enormous variety of hot Chai options (including Ginger, Kesar, Irani, Elaichi, and more) to a plethora of other beverages like shakes and Iced Teas.
Foodies are sure to enjoy their plump ‘Made for Chai’ snack menu featuring Rolls, Sandwiches, Maggi, Samosa, Vada Pao, Parathas, along with wholesome quick meals like varied kinds of Biryani and quite a few healthy snack options like Dry Fruit Upma and Apple Raisin Oats.
Coming to our recommendations, we are totally obsessed with their quintessentially ‘Desi’ Ginger and Kesar-Elaichi Teas.
Their delicious Peppy Egg Paratha and Loaded Paneer Peppy Paratha, featuring the goodness of tasty fillings sandwiched between layers of Crispy Parathas, absolutely chart our ‘must-try list’.Our other favorites from their food menu include classic options like Bun Maska, Bun Samosa, Sriracha Maggi, Stuffed Paneer Kulcha, and Egg Puffs.
When in the mood for something substantial, their yummy quick meals like Misal Pao, Biryani, and Chole Kulche are sure to impress you with their delectable melange of flavor and unparalleled taste. So the next time you crave a crisp cup of piping hot ‘Adrak Wali Chai’ and some tasty treats to go with it, just place your home delivery order from a Chai Point outlet near you via EazyDiner and get 10% OFF on your bill + an array of additional discounts and exciting bank offers.
Eat Heartily!
Visit EazyDiner to explore the best restaurants around you. | https://medium.com/@eazy-diner/eazydiner-spotlight-get-your-favorite-cuppa-tea-and-snacks-home-delivered-from-a-chai-point-outlet-f542e28e7479 | [] | 2021-07-28 07:29:06.896000+00:00 | ['Deal', 'Tea', 'Chaipoint'] |
SugarCRM as Trello Board? Here’s How | What is Trello?
Trello is a task management software based on the principles of Kanban boards. A kanban board is an agile project management tool designed to help visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize efficiency (Atlassian). Trello has helped millions of customers improve their process management with the help of Kanban boards.
The need of Kanban in SugarCRM
A better way of organizing CRM data
SugarCRM is a great tool to view your sales pipeline, but it is limited by its default views and configurations which struggle to provide helpful insights that can prompt action.
Consider the typical flow for a SugarCRM user:
Open a module. See a list of records. Open a particular record in detail view.
The detail view gives us the option to make changes in the fields which can move an item along the sales pipeline, or which can change the qualification status for a lead, but the process is cumbersome, and doesn’t give us the bigger picture of where we are relative to other records in the same module.
The list view isn’t as helpful as you’d expect either. Let’s take an example of just one module.
In the Opportunities list view:
Can we categorize Opportunities by their assigned user?
Can we change the assigned user to another salesperson?
Can we evaluate which salesperson is prospecting for higher value opportunities than others?
Is there a way to distribute opportunities by their sales stage?
We need to call or write emails to records of a specific category. Can you interact with a record without going to the detail view of each?
The answer is an unequivocal no. The traditional view showing items in a list is not very helpful in either getting overall insights about a record relative to the others, or in interacting with them without going through individual fields in the detail view.
SugarBoards not only works with Opportunities and Leads but with almost all modules
Now, imagine a Kanban board of the same Opportunities module, with each salesperson assigned a column and opportunities distributed among them. The total number of opportunities assigned to each user is mentioned against their name at the top. You have an organized, clear view of all the records, and which one is being worked on by whom. You can even see the major details of each opportunity displayed on each card.
That’s what Trello does. It organizes the records into groups and gives a bird’s eye view of the whole pipeline to the viewer. The tool is used by more than 1 million teams including at companies such as Google, Ebay, and SquareSpace.
Our Solution
In order to make use of the power of Trello boards within SugarCRM, Rolustech has introduced a tool. It works on all sidecar modules, even the custom built ones. It can handle all the scenarios mentioned above and much more. Look for RT SugarBoards on SugarOutfitters for details.
RT SugarBoards can offer Trellio board view of your CRM modules, including Leads
What can RT SugarBoards do for me?
Considering only the Leads and Opportunities for a start, following are a few of the things you can accomplish with the help of RT SugarBoards:
See SugarCRM data drawn on a Trello-style board with the details you need (Name, Likely value, Assigned to and more). See leads by their source, and group them by different criteria of your choosing. Simply drag and drop an opportunity from one column to another to change its status, or drop it in a special box to mark it closed won or closed lost. All the necessary information will be updated for you. Take notes against a record. Associate a calendar event with a record.
The best part is, it not only works with Opportunities and Leads but with almost all modules and can create groups by their respective fields so that you can make informed decisions, plan out strategy and understand what is cooking organization-wide.
How do I get RT SugarBoards for my CRM?
If you use a SugarCRM instance in your business, and would like to reap the benefits that RT SugarBoards offers over the default views of different modules, look for RT SugarBoards on SugarOutfitters, or click here. For any queries, please contact [email protected]. | https://medium.com/@pt_rolustech/sugarcrm-as-trello-board-heres-how-55fa58e49d09 | ['Plugin Team'] | 2021-12-29 10:09:08.882000+00:00 | ['CRM', 'Crm Tool', 'Technology', 'Sugarboards', 'Trello'] |
Unforgettable night in Monaco | One of the smallest cities in the world with it’s two square kilometers is in the top 10 of the most famous cities. And if I have to be honest — it’s spectacular.
Traveling through the French Riviera while enjoying the road — rocky cliffs, sunlight and beautiful turquoise sea — you can feel the relaxation in the air. Our romance started in Nice and continued in Monaco where we stayed for just one night.
This little city is the center for casino games, high-profile events, yacht clubs and the most important for some of us — tax haven. So much so that you can in fact smell the luxury — it’s everywhere — latest fashion trends, sparkling champagne and top restaurants.
Our time was limited so we did the best we can to see the top destinations. As usual we made the plan at the last moment. Here is a quick list:
CASINO DE MONTE-CARLO
I am sure that you know that casino very well from the movies with James Bond and Iron Man.
Traveling almost all day we had no time to change so we did that in one gas station. You can see results here:
The atmosphere around the Casino is phenomenal. It’s easy to feel like you are in a movie with Merilyn Monroe. Everything was shiny and glamorous, full of energy and happiness.
Monte Carlo was built in 1863 and its style influenced Monaco’s architecture. Old school architecture with curved lines, structures and flowers. Combine this with sliding golden lights and light breeze.
Make sure that you charged your phone — the photos will be amazing!
Casino Gardens and Terraces
In front of the Casino you will find a garden full of grand palms and small waterfalls which terminates at its lowest point in a large pond. The garden is full of exotic plants… perhaps that’s why they call it “Little Africa”.
If you are with your girl now it’s time to take her heart — invite her to dance with you on your favorite song. She will definitely enjoy the moment and feel special!
Port Hercule
After the Casino and the Garden you can stroll around Port Hercule. The view is amazing — many yachts, sparkling lights, people having fun.
There is a little garden on the left side where you can take some unforgettable shots with your camera.
This was my visit to Monaco. It was short but unforgettable. The town is one of my favorite places in Europe and if you have a chance to visit it — don’t miss it! | https://medium.com/@milie-lillie/unforgettable-night-in-monaco-2a62491a3b98 | ['Milie Dimitrova'] | 2021-01-27 07:57:29.526000+00:00 | ['Travel Writing', 'Travel With Crypto', 'Traveling Tips', 'Monaco', 'Tips For Students'] |
One More for the Road | One More for the Road
Image credit: Ira Nesbitt on Pixabay
We’re drinkin’, my friend
To the end of a brief episode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road …(Frank Sinatra)*
My mother used to tell the story that, when I was about 3, she was late picking me up from my aunt. Auntie B was late for her own job — the 3–11 shift bartending at the local American legion — so she scooped me up and took me along. I spent a lovely afternoon sitting on the bar, drinking Shirley Temples, and learning to flutter my lashes. When my mother finally arrived, she said, I was tossing my braids and singing Come Fly With Me along with Frank Sinatra on the jukebox.
It was the last time Auntie B was allowed to babysit.
But … I’ve carried that bar with me, ever since. That feeling of belonging and camaraderie, with great music in the background, and people lifting each other’s spirits. That magical sensation in the air … that promise of something exciting about to happen, any minute now.
And when I stumble onto that feeling in other places — at a crazy job, or in a new city, or on top of a mountain — I pull up a bar stool, baby, and I stick around.
For over two years, PS I Love You has been that bar, that music, those friends. It’s been the place where I could write about hard stuff like racism, and aging, and burying a parent. And where I could write about fun stuff, like silly travel adventures, and talking dogs. Plus, I could read, read, read! Stories by writers I love and admire.
And the other folks behind the bar, pouring me whiskey and singing off-key … well, they’re just the greatest, most generous peeps I’ll ever know. Dan and Tre and Scott— the next round’s on me.
I’m very proud of what we’ve done in these years — that we’ve lifted up Black women, and writers of color; that we’ve amplified LGBTQ voices and feminist voices; that we’ve published wild-eyed poets and literary fiction; that we have writers of every generation and every faith; that we’ve talked about mental health and kids and death and love and drugs and sex and friends and all the things that go wrong … and all the things that go right.
So many things go right, doncha know.
Thank you, friends, from the bottom of my whiskey glass. Thank you to all of the readers and writers who dropped a few nickels in the jukebox, and sang a few songs with us here at PS I Love You.
I’ll carry this place with me, too, wherever I go. | https://psiloveyou.xyz/one-more-for-the-road-c5c1cbc06d2c | ['Kay Bolden'] | 2021-05-30 12:19:56.453000+00:00 | ['Kay Bolden', 'Goodbyepsily', 'Relationships', 'Writing', 'Self'] |
Learning Golang “Create simple API using Fiber” | Project structure
our app project structure will be like here
Because it is just a simple API in fiber so I didn’t make it as a complex folder structure. so what is that
Handlers
Handlers is a folder that will be a http handler, if you’re familiar with MVC pattern the handlers is just a controller in MVC pattern
localdata
because the app that we want to build still doesn’t use any database so we will declare static data. and all of the data will be placed at localdata. localdata has 2 file, data.go and user.model.go. data.go is a manipulation function, like a function for initialize data, and CRUD function. then user.model.go is a model
routes
routes is a folder for storing routes handler
Create Function that will serve all code
first we need to create server.go in our project directory, and the code will be like here
first we must create new instance from fiber, then we must pass it as a parameter in a routes function then we must listen the connection
Create Routes Function
here is a Routes function, in routes function we will define the parameter, and it is a pointer. why we must use pointer in the param? because when we define parameter as a pointer we can change data without returning it. because we just fill the variable memory with a new data, not change the value, but change the value of the memory address
Create Statics Datastorage
because our simple project didn’t use any database, so we must use statics data in our app. first we must create a struct for our data structure
then we mustcreate a new file called as data.go
then we must create a interface and struct
type Data interface {
GetData() []UserModel
GetDataById(id int) UserModel
DeleteData(id int) []UserModel
InsertData(UserModel) []UserModel
UpdateDataById(id int, user UserModel) []UserModel
} type data struct {
userList []UserModel
}
then we must create function for initialize the data
func InitData() Data {
return &data{
userList: []UserModel{
UserModel{
ID: 1,
Name: "A",
Age: 18,
Gender: "Male",
},
UserModel{
ID: 2,
Name: "Chi",
Age: 17,
Gender: "Female",
},
UserModel{
ID: 3,
Name: "Shintaro",
Age: 18,
Gender: "Male",
},
UserModel{
ID: 4,
Name: "Ayano",
Age: 18,
Gender: "Female",
},
},
}
}
then we must describe all of our abstract function in our interface.
first create GetData function
GetData function is a function that will returning all of userList data.
func (d *data) GetData() []UserModel {
return d.userList
}
GetDataById
this function will return one of data based on their id
func (d *data) GetDataById(id int) UserModel {
var foundIn int
var isFound bool
isFound = false
for idx, val := range d.userList {
if val.ID == id {
foundIn = idx
isFound = true
}
}
if isFound {
return d.userList[foundIn]
}
return UserModel{}
}
DeleteData
this function will return a list of data without data that had deleted before
func (d *data) DeleteData(id int) []UserModel {
var foundIn int
var isFound bool
isFound = false
for idx, val := range d.userList {
if val.ID == id {
foundIn = idx
isFound = true
}
}
if isFound {
d.userList[foundIn] = d.userList[len(d.userList)-1]
d.userList[len(d.userList)-1] = UserModel{}
d.userList = d.userList[:len(d.userList)-1]
return d.userList
}
return []UserModel{}
}
InsertData
This function will returning a List data with new data that had inserted before
func (d *data) InsertData(user UserModel) []UserModel {
user.ID = len(d.userList)
return append(d.userList, user)
}
UpdateData
This function will return a userList data with a updated data by their id
func (d *data) UpdateDataById(id int, user UserModel) []UserModel {
var foundIn int
var isFound bool
isFound = false
for idx, val := range d.userList {
if val.ID == id {
foundIn = idx isFound = true
}
}
if isFound {
d.userList[foundIn].Name = user.Name
d.userList[foundIn].Age = user.Age
d.userList[foundIn].Gender = user.Gender
}
return d.userList
}
And here is the full code | https://medium.com/@nurcahyaari/learning-golang-create-simple-api-using-fiber-76a2d586ee0 | ['Ari Nurcahya'] | 2020-12-26 16:33:13.169000+00:00 | ['Rest Api', 'Golang', 'Golang Tutorial', 'Fiber', 'API'] |
Will the Federal Execution Spree Resume on International Human Rights Day? | It’s International Human Rights Day. Will the White House be a crime scene? Or the Department of inJustice? By 6pm today, we’ll know.
With tonight being the first night of Chanukah, what’s the juxtaposition between the Jewish festival of lights, International Human Rights Day, and the resumption of the Federal Execution Spree? Death Penalty Action got the answer published in Tikkun Magazine. Check it out!
I’ve arrived in DC with Death Penalty Action Advisory Board Member Doug Pagitt and Advisory Board Chairman Shane Claiborne. Together with Marilyn Stark, Gary Witte, Patrick Carolan, Lauren Bailey, Art Laffin and others… If the executions are not called off by noon today, with masks on and keeping our distance we’ll be cordoning off the Department of inJustice with crime scene tape in a symbolic, nonviolent direct action to draw attention to the fact of this execution on International Human Rights Day. Join us if you are in the DC area. Details are at bit.ly/protestDC.
Chip In To Help Spread The Message.
Yesterday we urged you to call the White House to politely ask President Trump to stop the execution of Brandon Bernard. So many of you responded that for a brief while, they closed the White House switchboard! Nancy shared her experience:
“I have called the White House. The switch board there immediately says to either write a letter or send an email. They hung up. I called back, begging the switchboard operator to deliver a message to Trump. I was interrupted and directed to the Department of Justice. No luck there either. I called the White House again. No luck. I am a 68 year old grandmother with a life long opposition to the death penalty. I said some things that I shouldn’t have. These people make me sick. Thanks for listening.”
It’s not too late. Please respectfully and politely continue to call the White House to urge that President Trump grant clemency to Brandon Bernard and the other four prisoners scheduled to be executed soon. Here is the number for the Switchboard, which is the only way for us regular folks to speak with a live human being at the White House: 202–456–1414. Politely give your comment to the operator.
ALSO…
The Human Rights in Crisis: U.S. Federal Execution Spree Virtual Conference continues with panels today at 11am, 1pm, 3pm and a live Virtual Vigil for Brandon Bernard from 5pm to 7pm. Click here for all of the details, to join the growing list of sponsors, and/or to register to receive the ZOOM link.
11am EST : Hear the international perspective on the US Federal Execution Spree from representatives of The World Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, The International Commission Against the Death Penalty, the Council of Europe, and the Death Penalty Information Center. DPA Advisory Board Member Ari Kohen moderates!
: Hear the international perspective on the US Federal Execution Spree from representatives of The World Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, The International Commission Against the Death Penalty, the Council of Europe, and the Death Penalty Information Center. DPA Advisory Board Member Ari Kohen moderates! 1pm EST : Hear from an amazing panel of friends who provide spiritual support to prisoners on death row. Indiana Abolition Coalition President Stephanie Quiring moderates!
: Hear from an amazing panel of friends who provide spiritual support to prisoners on death row. Indiana Abolition Coalition President Stephanie Quiring moderates! 3pm EST : Our friends from EJUSA take the main stage to unveil their new Spanish language web site and an invigorated effort for our movement to impact fully engage with the LatinX Community. Featuring DPA Advisory Board Member Magdaleno M. Rose-Avila and the incredible Mona Cadena, am one other special guests!
: Our friends from EJUSA take the main stage to unveil their new Spanish language web site and an invigorated effort for our movement to impact fully engage with the LatinX Community. Featuring DPA Advisory Board Member Magdaleno M. Rose-Avila and the incredible Mona Cadena, am one other special guests! 5pm to 7pm: Join the Virtual Vigil for Brandon Bernard, with LIVE presentations from Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, DC and the protest outside the prison at Terre Haute, Indiana: Virtual Panelists include Human Rights Professor Rick Halperin, Journey of Hope members SueZann Bosler and Rev. Dr. Jack Sullivan Jr., and more… Hosted by our own Allison Cohen!
Register (FREE) to get the zoom link or watch the livestream on the Terre Haute Death Penalty Resistence Facebook page.
Click Here to Help Us Do This Work.
Many thanks!
— abe
Abraham J. Bonowitz
Director, Death Penalty Action
PS: Five federal executions remain scheduled in the coming weeks, and Death Penalty Action is leading the grassroots opposition. Sign and share our new petition urging president-elect Biden to speak out against the executions.
PPS: Please share our posts on Twitter, Facebook, and now on Instagram too! | https://medium.com/@deathpenaltyaction/will-the-federal-execution-spree-resume-on-international-human-rights-day-b3195fe9655 | ['Death Penalty Action'] | 2020-12-10 10:42:50.249000+00:00 | ['Criminal Justice Reform', 'Social Justice', 'Protest', 'Trump', 'Death Penalty'] |
The Federal Reserve & the Great Myth of Stability | The Federal Reserve burst onto the scene in the year 1913, parading under the novel promise of “stability”. Its creation came on the heels of several banking failures which had rattled the nation, prompting a group of highly wealthy American businessmen to smell opportunity and collaborate on a solution. Their proposal? A centralized banking system.
Now, this was not the first time such an experiment had been attempted. American history at this point had already laid claim to two failed chapters of central banking, if the abandoned marble palaces lining the streets of Philadelphia were any indication.
And “stability” was an interesting thing to campaign on. Given that many Americans were suspicious of centralized control (perhaps haunted by the memory of controlling Great Britain), it was necessary for a newly proposed governmentally-entwined bank to be given a prettier face.
And thus, the case was trotted out that the nation was necessarily entitled to this seductive notion of financial stability and later persuaded that it could not be achieved by any means other than a central bank.
Conveniently, public opinion had softened around this matter following the Panic of 1907 which had triggered steep stock market declines and given way to daunting waves of bank runs and bankruptcies, gripping the nation with a a new anxiety which proved to be the perfect breeding environment for a new-and-improved central bank experiment.
Bestowed with a purposely bland title and advertised as cleverly decentralized (thanks to the largely cosmetic feature of a network of twelve, geographically-dispersed banks), the newly-created Federal Reserve lent a new sense of comfort to some citizens optimistic about its supposed stability-producing potential.
Before we go any further, allow me to let you in on a little secret: the great irony of the Federal Reserve is that it is anything but stability-producing! Keep in mind, it has had more than a century to prove otherwise. Unnervingly, greater time only results in the greater production of instability.
The general public does not notice this, naturally. They are understandably placated by the language that Fed officials use: if the Fed ceremoniously states that their actions will “stabilize the economy” then such an utterance is generally sufficient to produce confidence.
After all, the consequences of the Fed’s actions are not straightforward to parse. Instability only really rears its head when a large, system-wide failure occurs (like the ’07-’08 debacle, for example, which the Fed had a significant role in producing!) but it can remain under wraps rather well until such an event implodes on the national stage.
Instability builds in the dark, you see, until something surprising and unfortunate punctures its cover. Another way to put it: the overall product is different from the advertising, but the “product” is not readily visible to the ordinary individual and is necessarily large-scale and thus, tricky to grasp. | https://medium.com/discourse/the-federal-reserve-the-great-myth-of-stability-626a56873a71 | ['Lauren Reiff'] | 2020-11-09 19:02:19.491000+00:00 | ['Federal Reserve', 'Economy', 'Philosophy', 'World', 'Finance'] |
Save Our Sports: Do It In Style | Electric school bus, photo by Charles Benoit on electrek.co
With schools back in session for the 2020–21 year, many students, athletes especially, are missing many of the aspects of senior high that made it fun. In a year absent of the glory of the homecoming game, the cheers after a walk-off home run, or the routine of daily practices, high school athletes have a lot to miss.
There is one thing, however, that many athletes would be happy to leave behind when the age of masks and social distancing is over: crappy commuting. Take it from me: when I wrestled for Patrick Henry High School between 2016 and 2020, we never enjoyed the simple luxury of a bus taking us from place to place. Instead, we were forced to endure the chaos of carpooling. I remember every Friday night after a long practice, we would be exhausted, sweaty, and smell like the inside of a shoe, but would still have to scramble to find out whose mom would drive us to the tournament the next day.
Once we were stuffed like sardines into some freshman mom’s Honda Civic, we would limp down the highway desperately trying to keep up with the caravan of equally packed cars. And of course, somebody always got lost!
If you have been crammed into a backseat as the largest people on your team crush you from both sides, then you would agree with me that this “system” is chaotic, stressful, and uncool. Nobody wants to be the team scrambling out of a clown car in front of the opposition!
“You can’t get comfy, there’s just not enough space for everyone… It’s not a great way to start the morning.” -Logan “LogiBear” Kalica, PHHS Wrestling Team
Have you ever felt like this? Photo from dailymail.co.uk
There has to be another way.
Fortunately for all of us, the age of pinched arms and scrunched knees may be coming to an end: electric busses are being used more and more across the country. In California, the state government has allocated $94 million to replace old school busses with new electric ones, and Virginia is not far behind, implementing a new electric bus model earlier this year.
With electric batteries becoming cheaper and more efficient, these busses will become more and more commonplace, especially in California. Imagine having one of these bad boys for your sports team. Imagine the security of knowing how you will get a ride to your next game, imagine the freedom of all the elbow room, imagine the freedom of not wearing a seatbelt! Dare I say that the drive to the big game might be fun?
But that’s not all, these electric busses are special because they also produce no carbon emissions, which is great for the environment.
Why does it always come back to the environment?
I know, I know, between school, homework, and our sports, we hardly have time to worry about our carbon footprint or how somehow if we stop eating meat then the world will heal. So I will keep this brief, here is what you need to know:
Carbon emissions are on a dramatic rise according to the leading scientist on the issue 13% of those emissions are caused by cars and vehicles These emissions are trapping a lot of heat This heat is causing fires at record levels More fires mean more teams can’t compete even after COVID goes away
Massive fires and choking smoke rage in Orange County. Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register
So in short, it’s about the environment because these fires have been shutting down sporting events and threatening communities throughout California. Just this summer, my neighborhood had an evacuation scare because of a large fire that went uncontained for several days, and Orange County had to close all athletic activities when blankets of smoke coated the area. If this continues, a time where it may be too dangerous to do anything outside may be nigh.
“I got up and looked around… the smoke was so thick I thought my house might be on fire” -Jeff Bailey, Yobra Linda Football Coach the night before practices were canceled
So what can we do?
I think we can kill two birds with one stone. Patrick Henry High School can not only spearhead an effort to cut back emissions, but we could also end crappy commuting! We, as a team, can collectively demand our principal to provide an electric bus to the athletic program, citing both the environmental and comfort based concerns. We can reach out to other teams at the school who also have crappy commutes to amplify our call. Once we achieve this, we can demonstrate to other schools that electric busses are a more clean, manageable, and comfortable alternative to the nightmares of carpooling. Once San Diego Unified School District and beyond catch on, we will have created a change that makes our communities safer, and we’ll get a sweet new ride for our troubles. | https://medium.com/@ksfoster/save-our-sports-do-it-in-style-2ad89c52e943 | ['Kellen Foster'] | 2020-12-15 03:00:27.310000+00:00 | ['Climate Change', 'Electric Vehicles', 'High School Sports'] |
Meet a Husker: Nick Harp | For Pride Month, we’re featuring students who are making an impact on campus and beyond. This week, meet Nick Harp, a PhD student in the Department of Psychology from Knoxville, Tennessee. Through his involvements, Nick works to advance representation and support for LGBTQA+ folks at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and in the community.
What prompted you to found UNL’s chapter of the National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals? Is there anything particular you’re proud of from your time as president?
Thanks for the great question. There were several factors motivating my decision. First, I came from an institution where the state legislature voted to defund the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, including the LGBTQA+ Center, which regularly lands it on a list of the most unwelcoming campuses for LGBTQA+ folks. Having had that experience, I wanted to become more active in LGBTQA+ advocacy but was not sure how to do so. Shortly after starting graduate school, I learned of the so-called “leaky pipeline” of LGBTQA+ folks with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) interests. In short, sexual minority folks don’t stay in STEM at the same rate as their heterosexual counterparts (Freeman, 2018). There are numerous reasons for this, but I think a powerful way to combat this kind of thing is having visible LGBTQA+ members in the STEM community. Achieving better LGBTQA+ representation in STEM and contributing to a more welcoming campus community thus became influential motivating factors for founding UNL’s chapter. Additionally, founding the chapter offered me an opportunity to merge my academic career with advocacy work.
Further, I felt like the needs of LGBTQA+ graduate students weren’t necessarily being met by other groups on campus. I do want to be clear that there are lots of LGBTQA+ advocacy and support groups on campus that are doing awesome work, but I think that graduate and professional students sometimes have a different set of needs than other campus community members. Although the group is open to anyone on campus, we do focus our programming on topics that better cater to these needs. For instance, professional development opportunities (e.g., diversity statement workshops; Q&A with “out” faculty about the academic job market) are at the core of our programming.
I think I am most proud of the growing collaborative nature of the organization, both in terms of campus relationships but also more broadly. We’ve made connections with other student groups on campus that are involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion work, which I think helps build a supportive community for the broad range of identities on our campus. We’ve also made community connections — we’ve attended LGTBQA+ events (e.g., Pride in the Park) and are currently working to develop partnerships with community businesses to help connect organization members with jobs and other opportunities.
I also should mention that we, and the national organization, have recently undergone some rebranding. Our UNL chapter is now known as Out to Innovate at University of Nebraska-Lincoln (OTI-UNL). Rolls off the tongue just a little easier! And more importantly, I think the rebranding is more inclusive, considering the previous name only explicitly stated “gay” and “lesbian” despite our intentions to support the full LGBTQA+ community and allies. I’d also encourage interested folks to reach out to us via our Facebook page to learn more about connecting with the organization.
Talk about working on a program to provide anonymous support to LGBTQA+ international students and its importance.
This is an undertaking that we just began last semester, but I hope to see it come to fruition over the next academic year. I also certainly can’t take credit for the idea, as it was another member who mentioned this crucial gap in support for LGBTQA+ students.
The goal of the program, ultimately, will be to provide an anonymous online chat forum that international students can use to reach out for support. Studying abroad comes with a lot of cultural navigation, and that includes expressions of gender and sexuality. One obstacle that many LGBTQA+ folks navigate at some point in their life is “coming out” and openly expressing their identity, and to be honest, this is sometimes navigated repeatedly (i.e., among different groups of people like friends, family, coworkers, etc.). Among the many considerations that folks have to consider is the possibility of negative ramifications after coming out. For instance, although there was a recent U.S. Supreme Court case that set a precedent of protecting LGBTQA+ workers from being fired for their gender or sexual identity, there were previously no federal protections. In other words, you might lose your job for coming out. Some nations even have laws that criminalize LGBTQA+ folks, and if someone is coming from that background then this process can really be distressful. Protecting anonymity is crucial because it helps overcome a barrier that some might be facing in terms of seeking social support.
You also asked about why this is so important. LGBTQA+ folks that are lacking social support are at risk for a lot of negative outcomes (e.g., physical, mental, financial), so it is important to provide options for support to folks in need to help reduce risks of these kinds of outcomes. I think the anonymous support option is kind of a blind spot, and I hope that we can make this valuable option a reality soon.
Talk about your community impact through the free legal name change clinic.
This is another effort that I hope to see continuing. I was fortunate to be involved with this effort as a representative of the Chancellor’s Commission on the Status of Gender and Sexual Identity (CCSGSI). The effort was highly collaborative and included folks from OutNebraska, the Legal Aid of Nebraska, the LGBTQA+ Center, and more. Unfortunately, I feel that this effort would have had an even larger impact had the COVID-19 pandemic not occurred. The event was shifted to an online format, which restricted attendance to those from Douglas County, after the implementation of lockdowns across the country, but the online event did provide valuable services to folks in the LGBTQA+ community.
One of the reasons that these kinds of events and efforts are so impactful is that it provides support for folks navigating things that many of us are not taught about. In other words, seeking out legal aid or navigating the name change process yourself can feel like a lot to handle, and it is more difficult to find someone to ask for help navigating this because cis-gender folks rarely seek this. Offering resources like this from time to time is a great way to help support gender-diverse communities. It’s also a really important step for achieving identity recognition. There are lots of systems that require a legal (rather than chosen) name, and providing people with the tools to make that change legally helps their identity be recognized. While I’m on this topic, I feel like I should mention how important it is to apologize and correct yourself if you mistake someone’s identity or use an incorrect name — it just takes a second and is really important to acknowledge.
Is there anything else you’d like to talk about related to the Chancellor’s Commission on the Status of Gender and Sexual Identity?
Sure! The Chancellor’s Commission on the Status of Gender and Sexual Identity (CCSGSI) is a relatively new resource for the community, although there was previously a Committee on GLBT Concerns. One of my biggest concerns from chats with other student members of CCSGSI, which I hope to help address this year, is that not enough folks are aware of this resource, especially students. We have a student subcommittee that plans to start hosting office hours or listening sessions this year where folks can drop in and chat with us, so be on the lookout for that!
I’d also encourage anyone that is interested in becoming more involved in LGBTQA+ activism to consider applying when there are available spots. It is a great opportunity to engage in activism, but there are also lots of chances to learn about how the university and campus function as a whole.
Is there anything you hope to accomplish in your lifetime?
Great question… I suppose there is a lot that I’d like to accomplish! On this front, in particular, I’d like to maintain my advocacy throughout my career. That’s a little nondescript for a goal, but it leaves room for growth. I didn’t expect advocacy and service to be a large portion of my experience as a graduate student, but I’m thankful that it has been. I’ve found that I quite enjoy the work, and I hope to take that with me as I continue to do post-doctoral research and hopefully move into a faculty position later in my career.
What or who inspires/motivates you?
I feel incredibly lucky to have so many sources of inspiration. I would have to say that my colleagues in CCSGSI and NOGLSTP-UNL/OTI-UNL are very inspiring. Seeing colleagues that are also passionate about this topic and willing to volunteer their time to advocate for the community is pretty impactful and helps keep me motivated. We also get to celebrate victories together; if you’re trying to do advocacy in a void, then you’ll burnout quickly. Establishing and maintaining supportive networks is crucial for motivation.
I’m also inspired by my parents. They raised me to care for people in need, to stand up for causes that I’m passionate about, and to give it my all. I really can’t thank them enough for their impact on my life’s trajectory.
What is your advice to other Huskers looking to make an impact?
If you have an idea, then get out there, get involved, and give it your all. I really didn’t expect that NOGLSTP-UNL/OTI-UNL would take off as much as it has over the past few years, which has been really rewarding to see and has helped motivate me to continue the work. I think that, if there’s an area that you think is in need of impactful work, then you’re probably right, and there are probably others who share your feelings. Sometimes it just takes one person to push for something, whether that’s forming a student group or volunteering to serve in a campus or community role, to really make an impact. | https://medium.com/university-of-nebraska-lincoln/meet-a-husker-nick-harp-48cd24a3d7ae | ['University Of Nebraska-Lincoln'] | 2021-06-09 15:48:44.566000+00:00 | ['Pride', 'College', 'Pride Month', 'Impact', 'Meet A Husker'] |
Growing up in post-Blackout London | It was very pretty and very green. Grass went all the way from the wall right up to the edges of the big, glass building in the middle. It must have been seventy stories high and it sat on top of an old red-brick building, a little bit like the ones near the market, but far bigger. The houses near the market were long and tall, squatting next to each other in rows. This one was much wider, almost as wide as our entire block, but it wouldn’t have been tall without the skyscraper. Grandma once tried to explain to me the difference between a high-rise and a skyscraper, but I hadn’t fully understood what she was saying until that moment. It looked like it could really cut the sky open with its pointed tip. I bet you could see the whole world from the top.
I wondered if perhaps this was the world outside of the city that grandma had told me about. It was difficult to say. The grass did stretch pretty far, but the wall and the city were still on all sides. Maybe this was a bit of the outside but inside the city. I made a mental note to ask her when I got back.
Steps climbed up towards the red-brick house. Steps not stairs, I decided. Each single stair would be much higher than these steps. These steps seemed more decorative than functional. I wondered why the builders even bothered to put them in. It’s not like the families who lived in this house needed to be a little bit higher, they had a skyscraper; and it didn’t look like this road was likely to overflow with toilet water like ours did sometimes. My nose wrinkled instinctively at the memory.
Staring up at the house and the skyscraper on top of it, I felt suddenly uncertain. There didn’t seem to be any papers flying around here. I got the feeling that I shouldn’t just walk into someone’s house without knowing anyone inside. What if they thought I was trying to steal something?
And so, like this, I froze, staring up at the house, one foot stretched out ready to climb the steps into it.
While I had been busy wrestling with my own conscience and the morality of entering a house unannounced, an old lady emerged from between the open doors. She must have been my grandmother’s age, perhaps a little bit older — her hair was whiter but thicker, arranged nicely in a ropey coil around her head, her skin was more wrinkled but also a little lighter, a pale woody beige — as she got closer, her eyes glinted from beneath heavy lids, just like my grandma’s. She smiled and I smiled back.
“Hello,” She said. Her English sounded a little bit like mine, but softer, like someone had rubbed the edges from her words. I pondered this for a moment before hurriedly returning her greeting.
“Hello.”
“What are you doing out here, all alone?” She asked, looking around as though trying to locate someone who might claim me.
“I’m looking for words.” I said, letting my eyes slip away from hers to look at the house once more.
“Words? What kind of words?”
“Hmm, I like long ones best, but it doesn’t really matter.” I admitted, “My grandma can’t write anymore, so I have to find words that we can use to tell stories, otherwise — ” I choked a little, surprised by my own emotion. I swallowed it, annoyed. “Otherwise there will be no stories and that would be sad.” I concluded with a little nod of my head.
“I see…” The old lady looked thoughtful. “Would you mind waiting here one moment? Perhaps I can help you.”
I nodded several times in quick succession to show her I meant it and planted my feet firmly at the base of the steps. I would not be going anywhere.
By the time the old lady returned, I had sat down. The walk had tired me more than I’d thought, my stomach ached with emptiness. I almost hoped that she’d conveniently forgotten my quest for words and had come back instead with something for me to eat. She hadn’t.
“Oh, good.” She said. “You’re still here.”
I stood up hastily, brushing the back of my trousers with one hand.
“Now, I don’t know exactly which kind of words you like, but this — ” My heart almost stopped as she spoke. “Has lots of stories.”
It was a book.
A whole book.
Thick, but not heavy, I held it in my hands as though to judge how many stories might be inside. The outside was shiny black with a blue moon peeking out from behind three big mountains — one tall and two small, just like the big door. Its name was emblazoned in thick silver letters across the top. I sounded them out: S-I-L-M-A-R-I-L-L-I-O-N.
My mouth had fallen open as my finger traced the letters.
The woman gazed down at me with a strange look on her face.
“Is it…” I started, but swallowed the words before they made it out. I tried again. “Is it for… Me?”
“Of course. I read it more than a hundred times, I don’t really need the book anymore.” She smiled, clasping her hands in front of her. “Words are powerful.”
I glanced up sharply.
“The words in this book saved me from many things.”
I looked down again in awe. This book, a real book, was mine.
I opened the first page. Someone had written a message on the inside cover.
Anna… A little piece of home to carry with you wherever you go.
The old lady had already turned and was making her way back up the steps.
“Missus… Are you Anna?” I called up after her.
She turned, smiling. “Yes, that’s me.”
I didn’t want her to go, but I didn’t know how to make her stay. “My name’s Wren, I’m Wren. That’s me.” | https://medium.com/the-open-bookshelf/growing-up-in-post-blackout-london-4b1b07db7d54 | ['Abbey Heffer'] | 2020-05-30 21:37:01.613000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'London', 'World', 'Fiction', 'Books'] |
The Three Types Of Designer: Carpenter, Artist, and Entrepreneur | Design is a squishy term that means different things to different people and has meant different things throughout time. Therefore, the field of design has attracted many people with very different skillsets who are all grouped under the same umbrella of “design”.
I’ve noticed three broad groups of designers throughout my career: Carpenter, Artist, and Entrepreneur.
The Design-Carpenter: The classical designer
These are the classical designers — people who are extremely focused on Form following Function. They sweat the details and are dedicated to creating a great product. However, they don’t always show great aptitude for the business side of things.
Job fields
Industrial Design, Interaction Design, Architecture
Recreational Activities
Crafty things: Working on cars or motorcycles, maintaining bonsai trees, building custom PCs, etc
Examples
Jony Ive, Dieter Rams, Mark Newsson, Robert Hoekman Jr, Frank Gehry
The Design-Artist: The “Shadow career”
These are the types that are actually artists, but they are moonlighting as UI designers during the day. I saw a lot of these when I was at Google. They were unbelievably good at creating work that’s visually striking and evokes powerful emotions, but not the best at thinking about product functionality and interaction design. Also not at all interested in business.
Job fields
Graphic, UI Design, Visual Design, Brand Design, Fashion Design
Recreational Activities
Artsy things: Painting, drawing, sculpting, sewing, etc
Examples
Michael Bierut, Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher
The Design-Entrepreneur: Natural-born Service Designer
These are the designers that besides thinking about Form and Function, also think about Business, Marketing, and Brand, because they see everything as a design problem. These designers have the potential to contribute the most to a business, but they are also the most difficult to integrate into an existing structure because they don’t fit neatly into one box. They also usually aren’t the very best at visual design but can be quite good at it if they decide to put their minds to it. Their lives tend to be extremely optimized and structured because remember, they see everything as a design problem.
Job fields
They often have their own business, run the design department at medium-sized companies, or go to early-stage startups to help build the design culture there. You might also see them in Service Design. I’ve seen a few of them transition into Product Management since they feel like they can’t have enough of an impact in design with how most companies these days are structured. They tend to be extremely unhappy in design roles where they just have to work on one feature of one app for months (like, for example, working just on the notifications section of Facebook)
Recreational Activities
Brainy things: Reading, writing, creating products they then sell.
Examples
Raymond Loewy, Brad Frost, Joe Natoli, Luke Wroblewski, Andy Warhol
What they have in common
They all care about craft and take pride in their work
Intellectually curious
They care about other people
What about UX researchers?
Researchers aren’t designers. They’re researchers. It’s arguably the hardest part of the job, but it is its own field.
What about hybrids? Can someone be an Artist-Carpenter-Entrepreneur?
I’ve met a number of carpenter-entrepreneurs and artist-carpenters. However, being equally good at all three is very rare, due to people having certain predispositions in their natural gifts and demeanor, as well as each field being so deep that it takes years to master all of them and become a truly great hybrid.
Can’t carpentry be a form of art?
In my personal view, anyone who brings creativity, passion, and craft to their line of work can be considered an artist. But for the purposes of this model, I’m defining art as creating visually striking work that evokes strong emotions.
Share your thoughts
I’m still working out this model. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. | https://medium.com/truthaboutdesign/the-three-types-of-designer-carpenter-artist-and-entrepreneur-93555cd6d5f6 | ['Jamal Nichols'] | 2019-02-27 04:34:05.226000+00:00 | ['Design Thinking', 'Design', 'User Experience', 'Product Design', 'UX'] |
There’s something about being a Ketto Avenger! | “I still believe in heroes,” Why? You may ask.
In this dynamic world, all we have are the changes we make by raising awareness and funds or revolutionising crowdfunding. Team Ketto has made sure that we use the internet for good.
Even during this pandemic, our leaders have consistently worked on boosting performance and bringing a change, “Whatever it takes.”
Take a moment to get acquainted with Ketto’s Avengers and learn about their journeys.
“Avengers, assemble!”
Akshay Bharadwaj, AVP- Business Development
Akshay Bharadwaj,
I think being a Ketto Avenger is not just a responsibility but also a privilege. Every day I wake up, I’m inspired by a sense of power to make a difference in the world, no matter how small my contribution may be in it.
You see, when I kicked off my career as an Engineering Counsellor, I never imagined myself in a position where I could both grow and evolve personally while also helping others. When I joined Ketto as an intern 5.5 years ago, you could see the determination on my face to do something good for society. Years have passed, and I’m still the same determined guy I was back then, even as the AVP and leader of a 50-person team. When you know you’re helping make someone’s day a little brighter, it’s the biggest motivation of all. That, and of course, my team!
I enjoy my job and its responsibilities, but my team gives me the morale to keep doing what I do. They always have my back, and I admire them for it. I recall an ex-employee on my team writing me a long, heartfelt note on her last day at work, and it indeed left a significant impact on my life.
Working with thousands of NGOs and other people trying to make a difference in their communities has taught me a lot. Ketto has also taught me how to listen and empathise. You can’t do what we do every day unless you truly understand what the people you’re helping are going through.
Being a Ketto Avenger has played a significant role in my professional and personal growth. In a nutshell, I’d use the word “rewarding” to describe my time at Ketto, and I wouldn’t change it for the world!
Neha Chauhan, VP- Finance
Neha Chauhan,
If years ago you asked me where I see myself in the future, I doubt I would have said working at a crowdfunding platform! This was a foreign concept to me at the time, but I’m now a proud member of the Ketto family, and I know this is my second home. Ketto Avenger might sound like a fancy term to you, but for us, it really only means to keep doing what we do and strive to make the world a better place. It gives me great joy to say out loud that yes, my work is making a difference in the world, and I think that, for me, is the epitome of a good workplace.
When I first started, I was just a learner. Today, I’m a learner and a leader. Being the VP of Finance is definitely an example of how far I have come, but it is also a reminder for me to never stop learning and growing. Thankfully, I have my team by my side, who have become my most significant source of knowledge because everyone is highly talented and possess excellent skills and experience.
At work, I am constantly confronted with new challenges, which keeps me motivated and alert. I’m always being encouraged to learn something new and find something innovative at Ketto. That has greatly helped me grow and become what I am today. I love being a part of the Ketto family because I know that my work will continue to fascinate and excite me with all the new opportunities it keeps presenting, no matter how many years go by.
Sudeesh Rajeevan, AVP- Technology
Sudeesh Rajeevan,
When I finished my B.Sc. in Computer Science, I started my career as a Customer service representative. I didn’t know if that was the path I wanted. However, when I joined Ketto, I knew I’d found my calling. Back when I started, I was a PHP developer and worked with only three other people. Today, we are a big team in which all of us are divided into multiple agile pods for better work results.
Looking back, I didn’t realise my full potential until I joined Ketto and was revealed to all the great things the world has to offer. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to lead multiple pods here at Ketto and learn and implement Agile. I’ve also learned and worked on different technologies and worked with and led a team of talented individuals. I’ve definitely come a long way, not just in terms of my career growth but even as a person.
Ketto has been such a great workplace; it really is rewarding to be a part of it. I have seen a culture of rewards and appreciation here. Everyone loves a little boost here and there, and that’s precisely what Ketto does. It appreciates its members for their achievements, no matter how small.
Rohit Chinchanikar, AVP- Healthcare
Rohit Chinchanikar,
My journey with Ketto has been like no other. These 5 years have been life-changing for me. I started as a young Executive. Today, I’m a proud AVP, managing the PAN India Team of Medical Social Workers and maintaining client relationships of more than 150 hospitals spread across 25 cities while continuing to grow.
All my years at Ketto have taught me an important life lesson- communication is everything. The work culture here is so nurturing where everyone is continuously encouraged to work as a team. It’s not just a workplace but a second home. My team and I have excellent communication, which I believe is one of the reasons we can work together so well and produce good results. My team put in long hours and did fieldwork even during the pandemic because they were determined to help the underprivileged by raising funds for their medical treatment. Now that speaks volumes! My team makes my heart burst with pride because this is what Ketto is all about. Regardless of the time or circumstance, everyone here strives to make the world a better place.
I’d never considered a career in social work before joining Ketto, but it’s opened up a whole new world of opportunities for me to help others. The greatest joy I experience is when patients recover from their illnesses and send us messages and videos thanking Team Ketto for keeping them or their children alive today.
Ketto has been a constant source of growth for me. I had the chance to meet and interact with people in high places. I added to my team size and expanded the scale of operations, increased the size of my team and increased the scope of my operations. I’ve had the opportunity to represent Ketto at seminars held at IITs, IIMs, and other prestigious institutions. All of this has brought out the best in me, and I’m excited to see what the future holds.
Shivam Porwal, AVP — Digital Marketing
Shivam Porwal,
My career began as a Digital Marketing intern at a firm, eager to learn and grasp anything that came my way. Fast forward 6 years, when I see the young employees in my team beaming with determination, it makes me nostalgic. I think learning is a massive part of any person’s success, and ever since I joined Ketto, I’ve been a learner. Even today, when I’m managing a team of 30+ people, I’m learning. My fantastic team is my greatest source of knowledge. Their unwavering commitment to achieving excellent results inspires me to be the best version of myself.
I see Ketto as more than just a workplace. It’s a place where people who want to make a difference in the world get together and work hard to achieve that objective. Ketto’s culture is so nurturing that it will embrace you into its family and promote your progress no matter what. As for me, I started as a manager, and today I’m the AVP! It’s been a long road to come where I am today, but it’s never been uninteresting because I get to work with such talented people.
If I were to tell you what I think is the highlight of working at Ketto, it’d be that you can be yourself. You are free to express your full potential here, and everyone will cheer you on with love and patience. One of the many things we celebrate as an organisation is diversity. You’ll find engineers in our marketing & sales team, finance majors in our operations team, and even medical professionals and sociologists in the content team. In short, who you are matters way more than where you’re from. You just need to have a fire raging in your belly, ready to perform any task you might come across!
Saksham Kalra, AVP- Product & Growth
Saksham Kalra,
As the Assistant VP, I am intimately familiar with Ketto. I can divulge all of the reasons why everyone who works here enjoys it. Don’t worry, it’s not a cult! But a breeding ground of the most amazing people who come together and somehow get even better at what they do.
Everyone played a pivotal role in helping me settle and for the team to find the right synergies to work. When someone externally joins an already stable team, they bring along their own ideas to enhance team performance. However, those ideas are only as good as the team who would like to buy into another person’s thoughts and execute them. So in that regard, I felt I got lucky to get the right resources to work with. Personally, I have learnt a lot from my peers here at Ketto. The fun part is that a lot of them are either young or young at heart and so full of life and ideas. It is always fun to spark a new conversation and just observe other people’s outlook towards those.
While people management and typical product management were something that I have been doing for a while, Ketto provided me with an opportunity to wear multiple hats simultaneously. I have found myself engaging, sometimes leading a lot of business & marketing activities. With a good chunk of healthcare experience under my belt, I was already a specialist. Working with Ketto & having great mentors like Zaheer & Varun, I felt confident to step in other areas, thereby finding my generalist spirit.
Kumar Vishal, Sr. Manager- Social Media
Kumar Vishal,
Ever since my career started, I’ve always wanted to explore my love for creativity. I was a Website Developer previously, I then transitioned into Social Media. However, it wasn’t until I joined Ketto that I was finally able to expand my knowledge in this field. Ketto helped me recognise and broaden my interests, such as reading, researching, and trying new things. And now, I don my ‘creative cap’ with pride!
When we talk about expanding my knowledge at Ketto, a lot of credit goes to my team. Working with them has been particularly valuable to me, not only professionally but also personally. We have such a strong bond and communicate so well that we can consistently achieve positive results together.
In addition to managing Ketto’s social media content, I’ve learned a lot about the business side of things. I have become quite adept at video production. I’ve always wanted to do my part to help those in need and add value to the world, so I’m thrilled to be a part of an organisation that is passionate about healthcare affordability! What’s more, the entire Team Ketto shares virtues similar to mine, motivating us all to collaborate and strive to achieve our unanimous goal of making the world a better place. I have found a second home here at Ketto, and I cannot imagine it any other way around.
As Captain America once said, “I can do this all day,” our Ketto Avengers have toiled to make the world a better place besides being the organisation’s backbone. It wouldn’t be wrong to say “These guys come from legend, Captain.” | https://medium.com/hr-central-ketto/theres-something-about-being-a-ketto-avenger-3575b867684e | ['Team Hr'] | 2021-07-18 19:25:36.365000+00:00 | ['Revolution', 'Fundraising', 'Crowdfunding', 'Avengers', 'HR'] |
Why questioning yourself can be beneficial | Cash Coach | We’ve all been eager to purchase and spend money on items that are ‘just perfect’, but are they really?
Questioning yourself: listening to others
From my father’s reaction to me asking to adopt the cat in the picture above, you would’ve thought I’d asked him to give up his life’s savings for me to fly me to the moon. Being a father, he was completely opposed to the idea of adding yet another dependent to our household.
“But Dad! Owning a cat only costs an extra $500 per year. That’s less than you spend on coffee all year,” I complained.
“What do you mean only $500? That $500 would be amortized in my 401K for decades. Don’t be wasteful!” he hammered back ready to start another much-needed lecture on how much money I frivolously wasted.
What is confirmation bias and its effects?
Though I didn’t understand when I was younger, this was a clear example of Confirmation Bias, a bias that commonly causes poor spending decisions. This cognitive bias occurs because we seek information that supports conclusions we wish or believe to be true and ignore information that doesn’t fit our views. We subconsciously seek approval for our own beliefs and tend to be bad at being objective, even if we try not to be.
As shown in the graph above, Confirmation Bias translates into how we interpret objective information. When me and my father heard that it took around $500 per year to take care of a cat, we interpreted the same piece of information differently to prove our polar opposite points.
How can this affect your financial decisions?
When it comes to choosing investments, Confirmation Bias can lead you to jump to conclusions and be either overly optimistic or pessimistic. If you’ve always wanted to invest in the tech industry, you’re likely to remember and read articles predicting promising growth and stating the benefits of investing in tech. However, wearing Confirmation Bias’ rose-tinted glasses won’t dismiss the potential for a decline in the tech industry. If you’re not aware of the effects that Confirmation Bias you can be a victim of distorted thinking and you could jump into the risky investment without being prepared for any of the downfalls that were predicted in sources that lacked your recognition.
Let’s look at another example of how Confirmation Bias can cause poor decision behaviour. If you’re considering renting a flat in London, you might be researching “living in London” rather than “Should I move to London?”. In the first question, the assumption is made that you will be moving to London and the search will return articles by those who feel strongly towards living in London. The difference lies in the second question, which allows the exploration of not only advantages but also disadvantages of living in London that may include the cost of living, weather, demographics, etc. This balance of information is necessary to make an informed decision on whether to move to London or not.
In both of these examples, it is important to notice that being aware of arguments that go against your desired outcome or perspective allows you to make the right decision and be prepared no matter what the outcome is. To look at information objectively, don’t just use your memory to recall information. See how the facts can support your argument and counterargument and find out how much your truth and opinion overlap.
If you wanna learn more about psychological effects which affect your judgement and your spending we invite you to read about The Dunning Kruger effect | https://medium.com/novamoney/why-questioning-yourself-can-be-beneficial-cash-coach-ee8978a2a469 | ['Sam Abrika'] | 2020-12-22 12:02:28.240000+00:00 | ['Money Mindset', 'Money Management', 'Cognitive Bias', 'Confirmation Bias', 'Psychology'] |
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