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My Best Mentors Are My Kids!

Mentorship is a two way street! What does that mean? Means, that you learn as much as you teach. Do you know who some of my most influential mentors have been? My kids! Yes, there is a ton to learn from your own kids. After all, they belong to a whole new generation that you are still trying to understand. And, the circumstances they grow up under are so different from your own. As a result, how they are shaped is different, and you can learn from their way of thinking, their ideas, actions, and deliberations. But, more than anything, you as a parent want to set a great example for your kids. So, you end up thinking twice before you say or do something. There you go! You hold yourself accountable for them. Since kids look up to their parents, it’s up to you to ensure that whatever you say to them, you back it up with action and show them that it can be done! No empty talk, you see. Further, kids these days are so clear in their thought process. They clearly know what they want and do not. I don’t believe I had that sort of clarity when I was their age. As for influences, if you raise strong kids, they will not be easily swayed by what’s out there that you do not want them near. Adventure, risk taking, setting, and accomplishing goals; I would think that you teach these to your kids. But, you know the best part? All that ideal talk means nothing if you do not show that you are on that same path. There are things my kids love to pursue, and I am happy for them. Not that they expect me to do the same, but they do watch whether you pursue what you love or not. That helps keep me in pursuit of my passions. There are things that they do, and with such discipline that I admire them for that. I might not share the same likes but, that admiration does the part of inspiring me to keep encouraging them, and pursue what I like. Before you know, this turns into a complete cycle where you are mentoring them to do what’s right and beneficial for them, but you show it as well through your actions, for you are getting mentored in the process. Today’s kids will not bat their eyelids to tell you that you’re wrong, and not doing something when they think or see so. Not something I want to get caught with, either. So, that keeps me on my track of self improvement. Age doesn’t define a mentor, your actions do! There’s no hard rule that says that the elders need to mentor the younger ones. Effective mentoring is where you find it; in the character, discipline, openness of thinking, and action taker mentality of who you seek to learn from. Character defines a lot in a person, and you want to help build integrity in character. Mirror this for your kids and see it reflected back. You can make promises to yourself and if you break them, you know. Make it to your kids, and you cannot afford to break them. They will hold you accountable, and they will learn from it as well. Respect is to be earned and can never be demanded. When you respect your kids choices and prod them on, as the wind beneath their wings, they will return the favor. Your story and your mettle will inspire respect for you. And, when they stick it out despite how tough their choices can get, you will respect them too. All of this doesn’t mean that there won’t be times when you need to be strict with your kids since they went off track. They’re kids, and there will be such times. But, your ability to back up your actions, and their respect for you make it easier for them to understand your viewpoint. At the same time, never give them a chance where you’re on the receiving end. That’s what the relationship can do to you to keep you on track, always. Either way, both will know that you’re there for each other no matter what. Coaching and communicating with kids happens through stories, facts and anecdotes from life. Inspire them to face challenges, pursue goals, and empower them to do so. The best way you can do this is by setting an example of yourself. Nurture your relationships and let me tell you, the sky is the limit in terms of where such healthy relationships can take the family together!

https://medium.com/@rajeevmudumba/my-best-mentors-are-my-kids-3e014e7f4661

['Rajeev Mudumba']

2020-12-22 16:40:56.096000+00:00

['Mentorship', 'Kids', 'Character', 'Relationships', 'Mentoring']

The Angry Woman

Content warning: Anger, gender stereotypes Recall the last time that you felt angry. What was the reaction of the people around you? Were you asked to ‘calm down’ or ‘chill’? Personally, I have lost count of the number of times someone’s asked me to “chill” or “not take things so seriously” whenever I have expressed anger or even irritation. To this, psychologist Susan Bernstein writes how the words “calm down” rarely helps. Rather, it acts as an emotional trigger, and adds more fuel to the fire instead of actually calming the person down. [1] Now, riddle me this — As a result, did you feel the need to suppress your anger? Did you feel like you could express yourself effectively? Or did you feel ashamed and guilty? The answers to these questions are likely to differ depending on your gender. That’s what a study conducted at the University of California revealed. At the beginning of this century, researchers at University of California conducted a study to understand the differences between how men and women express anger. [2] They found that men felt less effective when forced to hold their anger in, whereas women did not feel similarly. In fact, it was found that women felt ashamed and guilty for feeling angry and as a result, tried to control it, hide it or apologize for it. But why? What’s going on inside our brains when we get angry? How does our gender make a difference? Let’s go one question at a time. Why do we get angry? Anger is generally considered as a response to a threat (either to oneself or someone else) and is often triggered by frustration. [3] For example, when someone asked you to “calm down” or “chill” your brain possibly perceived it as condescending or as a threat to your freedom to express/experience your anger. This in turn triggers the body’s fight, freeze or flight response, causing the adrenal gland to fill the body with stress hormones. [4] So when an individual gets angry, the parts of their brain responsible for making decisions and moderating social behaviour [5] are overwhelmed and they may experience a sense of loss of control. [6] As a result, they may react with feelings and actions that are ill-advised or sometimes even harmful to others around them. To put this in action, let’s say you lost control and punched the person (who asked you to “calm down”) right in the nose — this would count as one of those actions that are ill-advised and harmful to others. However, this does not mean that the way one’s brain functions during anger is the same every time they experience anger. It not only differs from individual to individual, but can differ from experience to experience within the same individual, like a unique fingerprint. [7] That means if the same person had said “calm down” in a different situation, instead of punching the person in the nose, you may have stormed off from the scene or simply heaved a heavy sigh and let it go. You still experienced the same emotion, but differently. This is because an individual’s feelings are a consequence of their brain preparing the individual to act, based on their past experiences. [8] Past experiences include one’s lifetime of experiences, what they read in books, what they watch on television and social media, what they see around them, etc. which then become the seeds of memory in their brain. [8] Thereafter the brain prepares a “script” to guide how the individual acts in anticipation of feeling angry. Picture showing a caricature of our brain preparing a “script” in anticipation of anger. Illustration by Roshni Ranganathan Going back to the example, perhaps, you heaved a heavy sigh and let it go because based on your past experiences, confronting others in such situations may not have worked in your favour. Therefore, if the way we experience anger depends on our past experiences, then can these “past experiences” provide answers to our earlier question: How does our gender make a difference in the way we experience anger? While brain biology tells us that there are differences between a woman’s brain and a man’s, they alone do not explain these differences. There is compelling evidence that tells us that the society and the gendered social/cultural rules we grow up in play a big part. [9] What’s the effect of Culture and Society on Anger? Our culture has a tendency to accept anger as a reasonable response from men but not from women. [10] In one of the studies conducted by gender-equity researchers at Harvard Kennedy school, it was found that women suffer negative consequences for displaying anger at the workplace whereas men are rewarded with benefits like higher status or higher salaries, for the same emotional displays. [11] Further, this study explained that a woman’s anger was attributed to her personality, resulting in negative backlash at the workplace. However, when a man got angry, it was attributed to external factors and thereby mitigating the negative effects of displaying anger. Picture showing attribution of anger at workplace to personal traits in case of a woman and to external factors in case of a man. Illustration by Roshni Ranganathan. Why does this happen? Earlier, we saw how the brain bases its “script” for feeling angry on past experiences which includes media consumption and societal changes. This means that our brains get their instructions from the culture that they develop in [12] and these “instructions” include strongly gendered social rules. Therefore, what the brain finds rewarding by following these “instructions” reflects the dominant values of the culture. [13] In reality, this plays out in many ways. For example, if an infant boy grows up watching the older men around him (or even movies where the male actors) use violence as a means to express their anger and dominance then the infant’s brain wires itself according to this. [8] Similarly, if a young woman grows up watching her mother, sister or other females she looks up to (like women actors), suppress their anger, scream or control their words, then the young woman’s brain also wires itself accordingly. Traditional childhood gender socialization tends to encourage boys to wield power with their bodies, words and space and this is associated with expressing anger and aggression. [14] The same gender socialization causes adults to dismiss anger and frustration in young women by terming it as “the raging hormonal stage”. [14] This is highly problematic for two main reasons: a) dismissing their anger by terming it as “hormonal stage” symptoms is counterproductive and only increases their frustration; b) their freedom of expressing this increased frustration is also curtailed. Therefore, the way our culture and society responds when a man or woman expresses anger, strongly influences how we experience anger because the society’s response becomes part of our ‘past experience’. So if society and culture influence our emotions, then what influences society and culture in the first place? You probably guessed it right! The media — a major factor that strongly shapes and reinforces this culture. What is the role of the media? Perceptions of gender roles are continually influenced by social factors, especially media representations of these roles, throughout one’s life for both males and females. [15] It’s as if our brains repeatedly try to explain our place in the world through these gendered perceptions of reality that it has gathered from past experiences. Such perceptions are reinforced by the media and the entertainment world. It is no secret that continuous exposure to specific cultural messages will influence how the audience identifies with that message in the long term. [16] In India, Bollywood’s sexist portrayal of women has been in existence since decades and unfortunately, still continues. [17] Filmmakers seem to opine that if their films have to become ‘blockbusters’ then they need to cater to the audience’s perception of an ‘ideal woman’, someone who is ‘god-fearing’, docile, and will ‘sacrifice everything for her family’. [18] Such kinds of cultural messages makes us view women as not capable of anger and if she does get angry, she is not an ‘ideal woman’ and therefore, bad. Another kind of sexist portrayal of women in movies is their objectification, [19] which strengthens the social dominance theory, that men are more socially dominant than women. [20] When we continuously consume content that reinforces these unequal social hierarchies, our brain perceives it as acceptable for men to exert anger and power over women but not vice versa (because according to these perceptions women are not considered to be on the same social hierarchy). Picture depicting the toxic cycle of filmmakers making films based on ‘reality’ and gender stereotypes that audience perceive to be reality. Illustration by Roshni Ranganathan This is a vicious and toxic cycle! Films are created based on gendered roles of men and women in order to appeal to the majority audience; the audience’s brain perceives this gendered portrayal also to be reality and continually strengthens this perception by consuming such films. “We have come a long way since.” Have we, though? This is not limited to Bollywood, of course. It’s prevalent even in South Indian films (these are the ones I can speak for as an audience). Shortly after I had penned down the first version of this article, we were watching a Tamil comedy-drama film from the 2000’s. In one of the scenes, the female protagonist gets angry and shouts at someone. This irks the male protagonist who shows his anger by slapping her. To this, the female protagonist merely stares at him angrily and then, the story moves on to another sub-plot. I was startled. My brain paused. “Wait, what just happened?” I looked around to see if anyone else in the family mirrored my shock, but I was alone. Everyone continued watching the movie as if nothing had happened. He slapped her because she got angry? To which she just stared at him angrily? Why did others not notice this? Why did I not notice this before? I have watched this movie so many times! That’s when it hit me how normalised such responses have become towards women’s anger. How we have normalised such instances. So much so that when I expressed my shock to my family I was met with “It’s an old film. Things have changed now. Don’t take it so seriously.” So I wrote a note to my brain instead. Caricature showing me sending mental notes to my brain to rewrite the scripts. Illustration by Roshni Ranganathan Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand films back then were different and it’s not fair to apply emerging societal norms to films set in a different society. But I am not judging the film. I am judging the audience. To be more specific, I am bothered by how it’s perceived by the audience. I was the only one who seemed bothered by how normalised it was to slap an angry woman (or any woman for that matter). That concerned me. And that’s when I wanted to pen down a second version of this article. When I related this to a friend, he pointed out that some films (an obvious example being Thappad!) are trying to undo this normalisation and put an end to these gendered stereotypes. “We have come a long way since that 2000s film”, he said. I thought about that for a while and replied “We have a long way to go though. Let’s hope we will get there.” Hope for Our Future Criticising films for portrayal of women is obviously not the solution for changing the status quo. In fact, some may even argue that filmmakers have the freedom of expression while making films and that would be valid. This means that the responsibility shifts onto us, the audience who consume such content. We also wield the power of social media. Whether or not a particular stereotype is carried forward into the future depends on us and on what we choose to share with our social circles. Now that we are aware that gendered social rules and their depiction in the media significantly affect how women experience anger, what can we do next? Here are some possible key takeaways one could consider: Observe — Within your house, observe and identify the differences in the way the females in the family express their anger as opposed to males. Can this difference be attributed to any of the gender roles discussed above? Understand and listen — Anger is experienced and expressed differently by every individual, a lot of which depends on their societal and cultural upbringing. Understand that dismissing one’s anger only heightens it even more. Instead you can perhaps ask them ‘whether’ they are actually feeling angry and if yes, ‘why’ they might be feeling so. Lend a listening ear, if you can, because sometimes, that’s all they need. [1] Depending on the context, you could also look at de-escalating the situation. [21] Become conscious consumers of content — In a time where our social media, entertainment and news consumption is only increasing by the day, the content we consume has a more long-lasting impact that we can imagine. Therefore, we can take tiny steps everyday to be more conscious of the content we consume. In time, these tiny steps compound. And hopefully, that makes the difference to the next angry person you encounter, irrespective of their gender.

https://medium.com/@roshniranganathan/the-angry-woman-44e0991949b5

['Roshni Ranganathan']

2021-07-26 12:25:04.079000+00:00

['Science', 'Anger', 'Gender Stereotypes', 'Gender Roles', 'Emotions']

Our Thoughts on the Hired News

It’s been a bizarre couple of weeks for talent marketplaces. Last Thursday (11/19), The Information broke a story that Hired, Underdog.io’s biggest standalone competitor and a company that had raised at least $132.7m from investors, was virtually bankrupt. The company, once considered to be the market leader, was to be sold for parts. Then Monday (11/23), Vettery announced it would be purchasing Hired’s assets. For those unaware, Vettery is a competing talent marketplace owned by staffing giant, The Adecco Group. While news of Hired’s demise and Vettery’s acquisition were not shocking to us, many in the industry have been wondering what happened. Given where we sit, as one of the only US-based talent marketplaces still operating, we think we have some idea. We Must Become Cockroaches Like most small businesses in early April, we were having several difficult conversations about our company’s outlook. It became clear that we were in for a rough go. At one point, we said to each other, “We need to be cockroaches. We just need to survive. It’s possible our competition might not make it out of this alive.” Hired’s Crash By all accounts, Hired isn’t just a victim of the COVID-19 pandemic. The business was already hurtling toward a cliff before the virus hit the United States. The coronavirus was the fatal push. As many in the industry have known for years, Hired’s marketing spend was off the charts. They outspent all of us to acquire candidates and companies for their platform and, in doing so, drove candidate acquisition prices sky-high. There is a known scarcity of supply for top engineering, product, and business candidates. It seems that, because Hired started capturing companies at a faster rate than top candidates, they were forced to lower their bar to accept more candidates. But, we don’t believe their heavy marketing spend nor the degradation of their candidate approval process are the things that broke them. We think Hired’s attempt to become a pure SaaS business did. The company decided to push all of their existing customers to make a decision: either pay a subscription fee to access the platform or leave. We believe many chose the latter. It’s clear why SaaS is desirable. In the face of competition, Hired was attempting to lock customers into the platform. They wanted to decrease the inevitable candidate attribution concerns that are exacerbated at scale. And they wanted to be able to claim a higher multiple for an exit. But high SaaS multiples require low churn and we heard that Hired’s renewal rates were not good. Not because the product was bad, but because companies weren’t locked in like true SaaS. They’d need the product when they were hiring, and then they could walk away if (a) it wasn’t successful, (b) it was too expensive compared to other products on the market (like Underdog.io), or (c) they had stopped hiring. Switching costs were too low given the elongated sales cycle. Eventually, we heard they enlisted outside consultants. Their findings: the business can’t be run strictly as SaaS. If you want every technology company to use your platform, you need to give them pricing optionality. Unfortunately, the pivot back to transactional revenue was too little, too late, especially after COVID-19 hit. Hired + Underdog.io = 👎 Ironically, two years ago, Hired attempted to buy Underdog.io. They made an all-equity proposal that we never considered in earnest. Their pitch: they were the market leader on the fast track to unseat LinkedIn. We needed to join before it was too late. Interestingly, we know Hired offered all equity deals to at least three other recruiting-related businesses in the past few years. All declined (luckily). What Does This Mean for Our Space? Since the news broke last week, people have asked us if Hired’s demise is a referendum on the space. In truth, we couldn’t be more excited about the prospects of running Underdog.io today. Hired ran their business on steroids. Everything was ratched up to 10. Their exit was the quietest thing they did. Recruiting is still a people-focused business. There is a delicate balance when building technology for job seekers and recruiters. As we’ve said before, recruiting doesn’t start with an interview and end with a hire; it’s a process that touches all facets of a company’s organization and lifecycle. Job searching is stressful, and even with the help of technology, we are empathetic to the oftentimes emotionally draining experience. Everything we build tries to take these things into consideration. If you push too hard on one side of the marketplace, it can throw the whole thing out of balance. As technology companies begin to hire, even in the face of COVID, we’ll be here as a trusted, independent partner to help supercharge existing recruiting efforts. And as more and more candidates enter the job market, we’ll be here to help empower them by giving them more options and freedom in their job search.

https://medium.com/@joshuagoldstein/our-thoughts-on-the-hired-news-b463e17930a2

['Joshua Goldstein']

2020-11-25 15:07:58.625000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Mergers And Acquisitions', 'Job Search', 'Recruiting', 'Startup']

Build a better world where every child can grow up in a violence-free environment and have hopes and dreams for the future.

Build a better world where every child can grow up in a violence-free environment and have hopes and dreams for the future. Viona aminda Follow Dec 19, 2020 · 5 min read 1 Jonathan Borba Violence is an epidemic of abuse that undermines all other investments made in children, with devastating long-term consequences. Despite the scale and impact of violence against children and the proven evidence-based solutions that exist, we still lack the political commitments and financial investments that are urgently needed to keep children safe at home, online, at school and within communities. And without the proper investment, the effects of violence against children will continue to cost up to 5% of the world’s GDP. Did you know Violence Against Children in Honduras, where two children are murdered every day, to South Africa, where in some districts, up to 99 per cent of children have experienced or witnessed abuse. That’s how many girls and boys suffer from violence every year. COVID-19 has increased children’s risk of violence in every country and community. As a result of the pandemic, 85 million more girls and boys may be exposed to physical, sexual and emotional violence. COVID-19 has also placed new pressures on both national budgets and international donors, jeopardising already-limited investments to end violence against children, along with years of progress. Without urgent, unified action, we could lose a generation of children to the lifelong effects of violence. To end violence against children, UNICEF calls for global to action, This six-point plan proposes a set of practical and concrete actions to reunite the world around a common cause the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 1. Ensure all children learn, including by closing the digital divide At their peak, nationwide school closures disrupted the learning of 91 per cent of students worldwide. Marginalized children suffer the heaviest burden: Some 463 million young people were not able to access remote learning during school shutdowns. What’s more, previous shutdowns demonstrate that children who are out of school for extended periods, especially girls, are less likely to return. 2. Guarantee access to health and nutrition services and make vaccines affordable and available to every child A child survival crisis looms, with the children at greatest risk of hunger and disease now seeing their already-fragile health and food systems buckle under the strain of COVID-19. A fragmented and inequitable response to both treating and vaccinating against COVID-19 only risks prolonging the pandemic. 3. Support and protect the mental health of children and young people and bring an end to abuse, gender-based violence, and neglect in childhood The world is waking up to the extent — and lasting impacts — of child abuse and neglect. But the COVID-19 crisis has only exacerbated violence, exploitation, and abuse as children are cut off from key support services while simultaneously suffering the additional stress placed on families in turmoil. Girls are particularly vulnerable, with child marriage and adolescent pregnancy already on the rise. 4. Increase access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene and address environmental degradation and climate change COVID-19 may not have been directly caused by climate change, but there are strong linkages pointing to environmental degradation as a common underlying risk factor. Unreliable access to safe water due to changes in climate also limits people’s ability to practise life-saving hygiene measures like handwashing. Our vulnerability to this pandemic has only underscored the risk of not taking immediate action to protect against environmental degradation and climate change. 5. Reverse the rise in child poverty and ensure an inclusive recovery for all The economic crisis caused by COVID-19 threatens to hit children the hardest, with the number of children living below their national poverty lines expected to soar by 140 million by the end of the year. Economic crises are often followed by cuts to government spending, including on programmes for children. If the world repeats this pattern in the wake of COVID-19, poverty and deprivation among children will continue to rise, even after the immediate crisis has waned. An inclusive recovery plan is imperative to prevent countless more children from reaching levels of poverty unseen for many years. 6. Redouble efforts to protect and support children and their families living through conflict, disaster and displacement Even before the pandemic, 2020 was set to see more people than ever in need of humanitarian assistance. COVID-19 has compounded the vulnerabilities of migrant, displaced, and refugee children, as well as those living in crisis-affected countries. And whether the result of active conflict or new pandemic restrictions, it is becoming harder to reach the most vulnerable children with essential and life-saving services. COVID-19 must not become an excuse to divert attention from these children. According to Unicef, and doing to support children during covid 19.

https://medium.com/illumination/build-a-better-world-where-every-child-can-grow-up-in-a-violence-free-environment-and-have-hopes-f0aacf71a3a0

['Viona Aminda']

2020-12-19 14:54:39.359000+00:00

['Academia', 'Inequality', 'Action', 'Violence', 'Violence Against Children']

OSARO Raises $16M in Series B Funding

Attracting New Venture Capital for Machine Learning Software for Industrial Automation SAN FRANCISCO (October 3, 2019) OSARO Inc, a leader in machine learning software for industrial automation, has announced $16 million in Series B funding, with participation from King River Capital (KRC), Alpha Intelligence Capital, Founders Fund, Pegasus Tech Ventures, GiTV Fund, and existing investors as well as strategics, bringing total funding to $29.3 million. According to Co-founder and CEO Derik Pridmore, the funds will be used to invest in talent acquisition, international deployments, and advancing the OSARO Pick and OSARO Vision product lines to meet customer demands. The company’s flagship product, OSARO Pick, automates stationary picking stations in “goods to robots” distribution centers. OSARO’s robotic piece-picking software has improved performance and efficiency in e-commerce order fulfillment and intralogistics for multiple customers, including top material handling companies. OSARO plans to expand into handling order fulfillment in electronics, apparel, groceries, pharmaceuticals, and many other industries. “We are very excited to be leading this funding round,” said Megan Guy, Co-founder and Partner of King River Capital, who will be joining OSARO’s Board of Directors. “It is rare and exciting to work with a team that has both world class deep learning talent and a highly commercial orientation. OSARO’s perception and control software enables full automation of some of the most difficult vision, picking, and manufacturing problems, and its ability to integrate with a wide range of robotics hardware means that it can be deployed not only in greenfield environments but also as a retrofit solution to transform industrial automation.” Investment in warehouse and logistics automation is expected to increase from $8.3 billion in 2018 to $30.8 billion by 2022 (Tractica). OSARO’s proprietary software enables industrial robots to perform diverse tasks in a wide range of environments, addressing growing labor shortages in fulfillment centers worldwide. The company is transitioning the automation industry from static robotic systems into dynamic solutions. “A key element of our competitive advantage is OSARO Vision’s deep learning algorithms,” said CEO Derik Pridmore. “These algorithms generalize picking tasks with minimal training data and no SKU registration for quick, scalable solutions. In addition, as a software company, we support a wide array of commodity hardware and robotic arms which lets our customers select options that best fit their needs.” OSARO also announced that Kevin Pope has joined as VP of Engineering. With 30 years experience in high-tech product development, he led engineering teams at Applied Digital Access, Mahi Networks, and Calix. Pope will support the company in scaling their AI based robotic picking solutions worldwide. “OSARO’s approach of developing hardware-agnostic AI software for industrial robotics allows us to work in close collaboration with our customers, integrating OSARO products for their specific use cases, with a focus on scalability and robustness, providing our customers with a long-term competitive advantage. Our focus in the next year will be to increase our deployments in North America, Australia, Korea, China, Japan, and Germany.” stated Pope. View Press Kit Managing the Future of Work: How teaching robots the way the world works changes the world of workRobots aren’t necessarily primed to take over, but advances in machine learning are readying the mechanical components of the workforce for more complex and autonomous tasks. Startup OSARO specializes in deep reinforcement learning systems, artificial intelligence for industrial robots. CEO Derik Pridmore talks about the adaptive decision-making capabilities working their way into warehouses and factories, and the prospect of machines with a wider, more human range of cognitive capabilities. OSARO is extremely optimistic about the power of AI to solve problems now; to provide real value to people’s lives. We wanted to start with markets that are huge today, rather than markets which are still developing, like drones and household robotics. OSARO partners with robotic integrators around the world to automate industrial scale robotic systems in the e-commerce, and Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) industries, while testing systems for use in food preparation and automotive manufacturing.View our open positions at www.osaro.com/careers

https://medium.com/silicon-valley-robotics/osaro-raises-16m-in-series-b-funding-98e6e1e287f6

['Andra Keay']

2019-10-04 22:38:09.152000+00:00

['Manufacturing', 'Logistics', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Automation', 'Robotics']

How to know which is my default Shell in MacOS?

Okay, during the last updates of MacOS the default settings of the shell we are using as a default has changed. This may affect your development configurations, paths, and other settings. Let’s find out in BigSur which Shell are we having as default. On the Terminal, find out with: $ echo $SHELL If the answer you get is: /bin/zsh > your default terminal is zsh and the settings file you have to modify is: ~/.zshrc Otherwise, if you get: /bin/bash > the settings you can manage in ~/.bash_profile To add for example permanent aliases on each one you can open and edit on it with: $ nano ~/.bash_profile or $ nano ~/.zshrc In this editor, write your changes, one command per line. Keep changes with Ctrl +O and confirm the file to keep it with Enter. To exit, type Ctrl + X. Or, you can also open with your default code editor ( $ code <file> and keep). Now, we have to read this setting on the launch, so close and kill processes or type: source ~/.zshrc or source ~/.bash_profile You can find all the able shells to use with the command: $ cat /etc/shells # List of acceptable shells for chpass(1). # Ftpd will not allow users to connect who are not using # one of these shells. /bin/bash /bin/csh /bin/dash /bin/ksh /bin/sh /bin/tcsh /bin/zsh You will see the list of all you have installed on your system already, to set one as default we have to set the bin file, as for example you want to go back to default to bash: $ chsh -s /bin/bash If were the case you want to install a new bash, then add it in the /bin folder and as well, write on the catalog of allowed bashes, like: $ sudo nano /etc/shells Finally set as default. That’s all the msitery around the new defualt bashes on MacOS since Catalina to BigSur. Extra tip, to check the version on your current shell version, type the shell name like bash or zsh followed of the -- version command: $ bash --version

https://medium.com/@vaniusha/how-to-find-which-is-my-default-shell-in-macos-e36131d58a80

['Vaniusha Ramírez']

2020-12-22 05:43:28.305000+00:00

['Macos Big Sur', 'Bash', 'Zsh', 'Mac']

Rhythm

Poetry Sweet autumn’s scent. Flaxen fragments waft through the woods on busy wings, and a gold haze pounds the air with nature’s pulse; an ancient rhythm that reminds we too, return to dust.

https://medium.com/the-bolt-hole/rhythm-8b58fe27216a

['Bridget Webber']

2020-09-20 14:00:06.449000+00:00

['Poetry', 'Wisdom', 'Nature', 'Autumn', 'Poem']

Decison Making — An Example from Sports

Decison Making — An Example from Sports England were chasing 359 on day 4 at Leeds against Australia. They were reduced to 286 for the loss of 9 wickets with Ben stokes and tail-ender Jack Leach on the crease. Still required 73 to register a historic win. In the end, England registered the historic win and Ben Stokes’ incredible 135* will be remembered forever. You know where Australia lost, in making the right decision at right time. Pressure was on both sides and stadium was jampacked. In over number 124, England were at 342/9. First ball of 124th over, Stokes dropped by Harris, a difficult chance but it increased the pressure on 11 Australians on the field. Next two deliveries were dispatched to boundaries. Now England required just 10 more to win. Last delivery of Cummins’ over, Jake Leach was on strike. Pitched up, skids into the pads, appeal for lbw but looked leg side. Australia review, but it’s a desperate one, pitching well outside leg. The high pressure on the field forced Australians to go for the decision review, last one they had and they lost it. Next over by Lyon was more eventful, on 5th delivery Lyon missed the simple run out chance. On last delivery Stokes goes for the slog-sweep, hit on the pads, Wilson shakes his head! Lyon can’t believe it; Australia have no reviews! That looked a pretty good shout, pitching on middle and leg. Did it straighten enough? It was hitting the wickets but it was too late. Australia had wasted their last review in the previous over. England won the match in the next over. You might have resources may be limited; it all depends on when you are going to use it. Many people end up wasting their resources to the forceful decisions which led to chaos in the end. Best manager is the one who knows the right time and right place to use the available resources by making a fruitful decision. What Australia did on the field, don’t end up doing the same in your life. “You can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.” ― Michelle Obama Abdur Rehman

https://medium.com/@subhan.abdus004/decison-making-an-example-from-sports-366aec2dad16

['Abdur Rehman']

2020-05-21 01:02:18.168000+00:00

['Decision Making', 'Cricket', 'England Vs Australia', 'Resources', 'Sports']

Climate change: Interactive Plotly Dash to discover our future prospective

Climate change: Interactive Plotly Dash to discover our future prospective Data science to find out more about what is going on in cities, countries and our world and what will happen. Francesco Tontarelli May 28·8 min read Authors: Camilla Massi (LI) Silvia Paolucci (LI) Francesco Tontarelli (LI) ***Link to the app*** Photo by Li-An Lim on Unsplash In the last years, several institutions are providing data highlighting the rising trend of our planet’s temperatures. A trend that unfortunately has nothing positive in it. For years, scientists have continued to issue warnings to make us aware of how important it is to keep this increase of temperatures as low as possible. Despite the various agreements made on this subject, things are not going exactly as we would have hoped, and the consequences are evident. A multitude of studies claims that climate change is producing significant alterations on both animals and plants. Climate conditions are decisive factors in determining which flora and fauna species can live, grow, and reproduce in a particular geographic region. Some of them are strongly related to the climatic conditions to whom they have adapted that a slight increase in temperature, a small reduction in rainfall or an imperceptible alteration in another parameter can increase their vulnerability. The glaciers at the poles keep on melting incessantly due to the too high temperatures. This causes major changes in the ecosystem, accelerating the extinction of animals that inhabit it (ex: bees, polar bears, koalas, seals and many others) and the rise of ocean levels. Of course, not only the cold places on Earth show the consequences of climate change. Also, Africa that “contains about one-fifth of all known species of plants, mammals and birds in the world, as well as one-sixth of amphibians and reptiles” (Siegfried 1989), is showing consistent variations. These include changes in the habits of migratory birds and large mammals, reduction of coral reefs with consequent loss of biodiversity, a relevant resource for the African people. Even in Italy, we have examples of the impact of climate changes. For instance, we can point out the fact that it is estimated that the Marmolada glacier, which is the largest of the Dolomites (World Heritage Site), will disappear in 15 years and the situation is getting worse and worse every year. So, we thought it was relevant to provide evidence of what is happening to our planet, which is also the one we will continue to live for the rest of our lives unless discoveries are made. To this end, we thought it would be interesting to take advantage of the new technologies of Data Science and Data Analysis to develop a dashboard in Python that would clearly and explicitly highlight the climate changes we are witnessing (and of which we are the cause). Dataset We have chosen an open-source dataset published by Berkeley Earth. It is an American no-profit organization that has made the measurements together with various agencies, among which NASA stands out. It contains information about the monthly average temperature of the Earth, the different countries and some specific cities, starting from 1750 up to over half of 2013. One of the pieces of information was the uncertainty of the measurement. It was too high in the first centuries so this led us to decide to exclude them and thus work only with the years between 1900 and 2012 regarding cities and towns, with those between 1900 and 2015 regarding the Earth. Plotly For all our charts we used Plotly, which is a free and open-source library. It implements a wide range of charts that are visually attractive and impressive. It also allows you to add different types of interactive contents such as animations, sliders, and many others. Dash Dash is a productive Python framework for building web analytics applications, with no JavaScript required, and it is tightly integrated with Plotly. Dash is ideal for building data visualization applications with highly customized user interfaces. Through a couple of simple schemes, Dash abstracts all the technologies and protocols that are required to build an interactive web-based application, which allows you to deploy applications to servers and then easily share them. In addition, because the applications are displayed in the web browser, Dash is inherently cross-platform. Heroku Heroku is a cloud programming platform designed to help to build and deploying online applications (PaaS). It has been one of the first to appear on the web and allow its users to develop, deploy and manage online apps and supports six programming languages, including Python. Being a PaaS, the purpose of Heroku is to provide users with the computing resources necessary to distribute and run web-based apps on various platforms (e.g. Facebook). App ***Link to the app*** This app is built through Dash and Plotly and consists of three tabs: Global, Country and City. Each one is an interactive dashboard that shows and reports various charts and analysis from 1900 and goes up to the first half of the last decade. The plots collected in the Global tab are the most significant ones: they immediately show the global warming phenomenon and its evolution during the last century. The linear graph on the left side shows Earth’s average temperature trend over the years and its forecast until 2050. As time passes, the growing trend is more and more evident and the prediction confirms what scientists have been repeating for a long time: if we do not fight against this trend the temperature will increase quickly, and things will only get worse. Through an animated chart is also possible to visualize how the temperature has evolved for each country of the world by making a comparison between its colour and the colour scale legend on the side. We notice that compared to 1900 the temperature of almost every country has increased, as can be seen through the warmer tones on the map. Hovering the mouse over the different countries it is possible to observe this variation in different years. The Country tab provides a more in-depth analysis of the temperature evolution by the country: you can focus your analysis on a specific country and a particular year using the dropdown menus at the top. The first chart shows the trend and the forecast of the average temperature of the selected country until 2042. To give an example, we have focused on our country, Italy: also in this case, as the rise in Earth temperature, it is easy to notice an undoubtedly increasing trend, especially since the ’80s, which has led to a non-stop temperature rise that has resulted in an increase of more than 1° C since 1900. The monthly distribution of the average temperature of the selected country over the years is visible in the top-right chart through a box plot. In this way, it is possible to know the minimum value, the first quartile, the median, the third quartile and the maximum value of the average temperature of a country for each month of the year. In addition, this representation highlights the outliers, which represent unusually hot or cold months compared to the temperatures recorded on average in the various months of other years. For example, if you select Italy, it is possible to notice outliers in June and August, both corresponding to extraordinarily high temperatures recorded in 2003. In fact, in the summer of that year, an intense heatwave hit the whole of Europe and caused at least 30,000 deaths across the continent. At the bottom of the tab, we can find a histogram that shows the average temperatures of the different cities that belong to the selected country. The horizontal segment indicates the average temperature of the country and the columns of the histogram represent the average temperature of the cities. As we might expect, selecting Italy, the highest columns correspond to the southern cities. Moving to the City tab, it is possible to investigate in detail the average temperatures of a city and its country through a linear graph. The forecast of the average temperature of the selected city up to 2042 is also shown graphically in this tab. This forecast is in line with the overall increase in global temperatures, which makes us wonder how much the climate change phenomenon may continue and worsen in the future. Conclusions In conclusion, we hope we have clearly explained the problems of climate change and global warming and stimulated your interest in the subject. We aim to provide quantitative support on understanding the mutations our planet is experiencing and the impact that climate change and global warming have on our lives. It is not “only” a question of melting glaciers at the poles or increasing desertification because it regards all of us and for this reason we have to fight against climate changes. The forecasts we have made show an unequivocal trend. It leads to unsafe and worrying perspectives that extends to 2050, that is the year which the world’s primary leaders set the goal of achieving zero emissions at the recent Leader Summit on Climate, but will these so-called climate targets be met? Will they be sufficient? Or will it be the usual “big words and little actions”?

https://towardsdatascience.com/climate-change-interactive-plotly-dash-to-discover-our-future-prospective-d3d60d62cb86

['Francesco Tontarelli']

2021-06-01 13:58:41.071000+00:00

['Data Science', 'Plotly', 'Dashboard', 'Climate Change', 'Python']

Do You Still Believe In The Magic Of Words?

Do You Still Believe In The Magic Of Words? Photo by Yeshi Kangrang on Unsplash The Christmas holidays are approaching, and the children are eager to see if Santa Claus and/or the Reyes Magos (the Three Magi) have brought them the toys they have asked for. They believe in the magic of words, of everything that parents invent to inspire them and keep alive that flame that we see in their eyes. Children believe in what we tell them because we are the people they fully trust. What about adults? Do we believe in this magic? Do you believe? More often, I see fewer people excited because Christmas Eve arrives. “And what do we prepare for dinner? We will have to prepare something special…”. We get stressed thinking about eating, that we should be happy that night, we should wear a new, special suit, red if possible. Women should be beautiful, but not too sexy and at the same time dazzle with our “look” and makeup … But does all this really matter? I recently made a purchase on Amazon, some moulds to make Christmas cookies with my toddler. He’s under 3 years old, and he’s excited about everything: lights, songs, Santa Claus, Christmas Eve and Christmas carols, Frank Sinatra and Elvis (yes, I love the Christmas album they made), a big truck that he wants to buy for Christmas to help the elves transport the toys… He really believes in the magic that surrounds us! He sees it in every little ball he notices on the ground and makes up incredible and fascinating stories with a happy ending. Returning to my purchase, I received this email from the retailer: Your order has been carefully taken from our GesundheitsWahn store shelves with sterilized, contamination-free gloves and placed on a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your order and polished it to make sure it was in top condition before it was shipped. Our packaging specialist from Japan lit a candle, and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your Keksausstecher Reihe von Backefix in the best gold lined box money can buy. We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards, and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the whole city of Cologne (Germany) waved “Have a good trip!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private jet. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate any airfields near your zip code to land the jet. However, our pilots are very smart and always come up with an idea to make the perfect delivery. To remember this amazing day, we put your photo as a “Customer of the Year” on our wall (please don’t ask where we get your photo from, it’s top secret). Please don’t take what we wrote seriously, it was a fun attempt to make your day even better than it already was. In case you didn’t like it, we want to apologize for it. But in case you liked it and we could make your smile even bigger then we would appreciate your brief comment. A simple “Thank you” would mean the world to us. Happy customers, that’s what we work for! We hope you had a lot of fun shopping at our GesundheitsWahn Amazon store. Now we are all tired and ready to go to bed, but we can’t wait to see you again!! Needless to say, this email made me smile. I got surprised, and I remembered my wild imagination and “mad” stories that I created myself as a child. How little we stop to not thinking! Not having everything thought about what we will do in the next moment or tomorrow and simply invent. Let your imagination run wild and “go crazy” creating imaginary worlds for a little while. I wish you a Christmas party from the old days. From when you were a child, and you did not think of anything else, but to come to Christmas Day and/or the Three Magi’s day. Have an enjoyable time in the company of those dearest to you! Create magic and believe in the magic of words! Let yourself be carried away for a night accompanied by your beloved ones! Happy holidays! 🙂

https://medium.com/@gneych/do-you-still-believe-in-the-magic-of-words-3ddf820b5e6

[]

2020-12-26 07:13:06.938000+00:00

['Merry Christmas Greetings', 'Imagination', 'Magical Thinking', 'Magic', 'Christmas Eve']

Patio Furniture in Canada | Patiobay

Nice Patio furniture brings comfort and performance to your outdoor spaces. A basic stone patio are often reworked into an alfresco eating destination with a spacious table and comfy chairs. Outfit a construction with a wicker lounge and classic rocking chair, each screw-topped with plush cushions, and it will quickly become a second recreation room throughout the nice and cozy weather months. once complemented with the proper terrace piece of furniture, even little areas adore balconies and pocket gardens can beckon you outside. Use the subsequent tips to settle on the most effective Patio Furniture for your room. Thoughtful coming up with will facilitate build your curtilage your new favorite spot for lounging, dining, and entertaining. Furniture is an necessary a part of our lives. It can assist create a cushty area for relaxation, socializing, and entertainment. Whether you want to supply a dwelling room, a eating room, or a whole home, our Patio Furniture manufacturer permit you to locate the proper portions to suit your area and style. As a Patio furniture manufacturer in Canada, we satisfaction ourselves on production simplest the very best excellent patio furniture. We use simplest the best substances and serve simplest the maximum discerning clients in Canada, imparting them with the great outside fixtures at the market. Source: https://patiobay.com/ https://www.google.com/ https://www.wikipedia.org/ https://pixabay.com/ https://justpaste.it/7oa8u https://diigo.com/0ml7cs

https://medium.com/@patiobay01/patio-furniture-in-canada-patiobay-6b55e9a47712

[]

2021-11-26 05:37:29.623000+00:00

['Furniture', 'Furniture Design']

Sugar, Sugar

Sugar, Sugar I used to find the phrase knowledge is power to be cliché, until I saw the world in different colors. To learn something new is to assume the opportunity to bring positive change to your life, and prevent negative change from intersecting it. With each new piece of information we absorb, our mind is constantly adapting (short-term) and evolving (long-term). Knowledge, however, is limited in its usefulness if not put to use in our own lives. That means taking action to make the right decisions when we’re presented with tough choices. When I learned of the untaught health risks of sugar, my mind had no choice but to take notice. All of a sudden almost unconsciously, I began reaching for the bottle of water rather than the can of soda. There wasn’t much of a choice to make once I learned what soda was doing to my body. That is the choice that multi-million dollar sugar corporations don’t want you to make — the educated one. Two years later I’m ninety pounds lighter with energy levels incomparably higher than any years past. What I didn’t expect to learn in the process though, was how the industry kept the truth from my eyes, because the only way I would remain a consumer is if I never learned the truth. The only way to cover up the truth is to hide it in plain sight. And the only way they can achieve that is through institutional bribery in all facets of society. There are a lot of things that go on in our country without us the citizens knowing. Although many have heard the term, not many know what it really means; lobbying is the first example of bribery in America. Lobbying plays a critical role in how the sugar industry is able to conduct itself. Without the government’s help, they couldn’t change nutrition labels or achieve many of the other legal loopholes they’ve constructed. I’m calling for a numerical cap on lobbying to limit the amount of money companies and corporations can give to members of government. Lobbying is just a political form of bribery, it doesn’t accomplish anything in terms of efficiency for this country. The best way to end institutional bribery in our country is to eliminate it from one platform at a time, beginning with the government. Institutional bribery has been happening for decades behind closed doors, and if we want to solve our problems we have to face the facts. Institutional bribery isn’t a term thrown around lightly, but the industry has left breadcrumbs for us to follow. Beginning with science, sugar corporations have combined to fund and sponsor false or skewed data about sugar to combat truthful and accurate experiments concerned of the health risks associated with it. But they never make it too obvious, because someone reading this themselves might be one of millions falsely led to believe that fat, gluten and other food ingredients are the source of weight-gain and other internal health issues. When people see other components of food as the issue, the industry’s profits continue to climb. By funding research suggesting other components of food to be the villain it keeps sugar out of the spotlight, and when it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. Because we all know sugar is bad for us, it’s just that no one ever bothered to mention how bad. So when there’s something credible published about the alarming health risks of sugar the industry might respond with two articles of it’s own downplaying them, along with a few more about why fat is making people gain weight. They do this because they can afford to. It makes the average person wonder why one article they find on the internet says sugar is bad, but two more say it only has a very minor effect on health; then continue on to find other articles about the health consequences of things like gluten or fat with nothing credible to discredit it, so they see these false answers as the problem with their diet. I would draw comparisons to this type of scientific corruption with the global warming debate. Some things are impossible to deny, but if large oil companies see their profits threatened by the truth of science they’d be better off creating confusion amongst a population and blaming other causes rather than allowing a consensus to rise, forcing them to change their ways. The sugar industry has acted no different, creating confusion amongst our society so that we may never come to learn the truth and consequences regarding sugar. In a 2015 documentary called Sugar Coated, the film approaches the debate about sugar from a consumer standpoint. It dissects the business side of what has happened, and why. More importantly, how we’ve allowed it to happen. The answer is slowly overtime. Today, 73% of items in your average grocery store have added sugar. But how could this be true? It turns out sugar now has fifty-six different names available on nutrition labels like sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin and others. If everyone knew how bad sugar was for their body in overconsumption nobody would stand for it. But since it has been around for ages, no one seems to take its negative affects seriously. Our current statistics about sugar tell exactly how we’ve regressed as a country. In a graph showing the rise of sugar in the average American’s diet, we can see a very sharp incline over the last few decades. Additionally, Type 2 Diabetes has been steadily increasing in each individual state of our country; as explained by the hyperlinked graph. It’s clear the two show a correlation, with a sharp increase in sugar consumption one can expect the same result from our nation’s Type 2 Diabetes rate. Unfortunately diabetes is only one of the many consequences known to arise in someone who eats too much sugar. Fed Up is a 2014 Netflix documentary, describing the underlying causes of childhood obesity. What is first addressed in the film is the stance taken on obesity in general in the United States, which has led millions of kids and adults to believe in the wrong solutions. It is said that with enough exercise, anyone can work their weight off. There is truth to this statement, but it’s been overblown in order to keep the truth of the epidemic in the shadows. It is quoted in the film that one order of medium french fries at McDonald’s would take the average person one hour and twelve minutes of swimming to keep the added weight off. Consumption of a 20 oz Coca-Cola would require one hour and fifteen minutes of biking to work that energy off. So although sugar’s effect on our physical appearance is appalling, its effect on other crucial parts of our body is even more concerning. Sugar’s effect on the brain is another important aspect to consider. In another section of the film, they cite a study conducted by Princeton University comparing the addictions of cocaine to sugar on lab mice. All of the mice were addicted to both, but in each case the large majority of mice chose the sugar water over the cocaine water. In MRI brain scans, it’s clear that sugar and cocaine cause a reaction in the same part of the brain; the result is an immense release of dopamine. Dopamine is the “happy” chemical released in our brains when we laugh, when we smile, and even when we’re exposed to sunlight; which is why everyone’s always in such a noticeably better mood on a nice sunny day. When dopamine is unnaturally released by taking drugs, drinking alcohol or eating too much sugar, our brain overproduces it and makes us feel happy no matter what is going on around us. Then, when sugar’s effects wear off, dopamine production is reduced for some time afterwards to essentially cool down from being overused. That is called a hangover, but it comes in many forms ranging widely. When you’ve eaten too many cookies or drink too much soda you’ll feel great in the moment, but you are bound to have a stomach ache and you’ll feel like shit an hour or two after indulging. If someone is consistently clogging their brain with sugar, the effects within can be just as concerning as the likely weight gain to follow. Today you can virtually achieve any body you want to see with enough effort. Dieting is the one of the biggest building blocks to that shapeshifting ability. If you want to gain muscle and weight to become bigger and stronger, stock up on proteins and good fats. For some of us, a diet is meant to cleanse the inside of the body rather than the outside with foods like fruits and vegetables. Processed sugar happens to be one of the ingredients in foods that can pollute us internally, if not used in moderation. When I first decided I wanted to lose weight in high school I tried everything mainstream commercial television told me would work, but none of them actually did. I might’ve lost five or six pounds throughout nearly a year of these recommended routines. It was only when I decided to do my own research that I realized what was wrong with my diet: sugar. After two years of sticking to the diet my own independent research brought me to, I lost ninety pounds. All I did was cut sugar, and lower my selection of bread, pasta and other starches from my diet. Yes, it is undeniable that exercise is healthy in many ways, but you can’t expect that to be the sole solution to an obesity crisis. Shifting the blame to other ingredients like fat and gluten only prolongs and worsens our condition. The only way to inform the people is to educate them. But there’s a well covered secret surrounding another one of our most trusted institutions that has prevented that from happening. America enjoys boasting many of its well known advantages around the globe, like our economic power, our technological advancement, and our prestigious collegiate universities. What if I told you many of our institutions have a price tag? Might you believe me if I cited the hundreds of millions of dollars sugar companies have donated to the “Harvard University School of Nutrition and Health” starting in 1952? You might not have heard, but the health consequences of sugar have been studied and documented since the 1930’s. The risks associated were clear to anyone who studied it even at the time. Unfortunately the studies that have been promoted at Harvard and many other American colleges for decades have been the ones that undermined sugar’s health impacts. The trickle effect of this has led to a largely ignorant population unaware of the threats posed to individual health by sugar including tooth decay, heart attack, hypertension, and diabetes. Our diabetes rates are on the rise as well as obesity mortality. People are quite literally killing themselves with the sugar they consume. There is never just one aspect to blame, but sugar has been held largely unaccountable for its health risks because of the influence money can buy. By essentially bribing our nation’s schools, they’ve portrayed a skewed view of science to some of our smartest up and coming students. When they control our teachers, they control our future. People paying for an education deserve a truthful one. Money should never influence the way anything is taught. The root of a lot of problems in the world today all seem to have one thing at stake in common — money. An essential part of our country that seems unable to reject money is our government. Large corporations and donors of all sorts including the sugar industry buy the ear of some of the highest positions of authority an American citizen can hold in this country. The result is direct political and legislative influence. Sugar companies particularly lobby to loosen restrictions on nutrition labels and combat attempts to regulate anything, including their false studies on sugar. Knowing this, the only way information becomes knowledge is by taking the necessary actions that adhere to it. To make the tough choice and put what we know to use. If we know it’s happening why should we let it continue? Just like I decided years ago that I didn’t need sugar anymore, I’ve decided that the best way to end bribery in our government is to eliminate lobbying. Lobbying checks should have a reasonable capped maximum, to be decided, that allows politicians to truly weigh their best options for the country not their next campaign. Right now there are no laws in place to limit money that can used to lobby any government official. It’s obvious that if we can reduce the role money plays in government, the average hard working American will have a more equal say in what goes on in Washington. Not only will this limit the sugar industry’s influence, it would hopefully bring light to some of the other issues we’ve been neglecting for too long.

https://medium.com/@lucaskehs/sugar-sugar-345222273b51

['Lucas Kehs']

2017-12-11 22:41:51.914000+00:00

['Health', 'Sugar', 'Diabetes', 'Corruption']

Can one resume get you hired? Can one platform be the complete recruitment solution?

Can one resume get you hired? Can one platform be the complete recruitment solution? iRekommend Dec 27, 2021·3 min read Landing a high paying job for a graduate is now harder than ever. How can one expect to land a high paying job with their own merit when everyone out there is doing something extra to add to their resume — extra courses, extra hours or internship, extra networking — to get the right referrals. So how can an average person expect to land their dream jobs under these circumstances? On top of this, the graduate students have to deal with the social pressure to land a new job. If not they become the topic of ridicule among their friends and family. And also, in the current times, when the tuition fees are as high as mountains, you hardly find any student coming out of college debt free. Some might argue that it is easier for a graduate to land a job than it is for someone who quit their once well paying job and is now trying to enter into the workforce again. And to be honest, there is no comparison. A job hunter is a job hunter. With experience or without. The job market is always bustling with people looking to switch jobs, and anyone whose contract comes up for renewal in the next few months will be participating as well. So many people are out there, looking for jobs this very instant as you read this. But are there enough jobs out there for all these people? The truth is YES ! There are enough jobs out there for everyone. It’s just that people are looking for the wrong kinds of jobs and in all the wrong places. The job hunting process is about consistency. It’s about waking up everyday to rejection letters and still not getting demotivated and applying for jobs again. Job hunting is about attending 100’s of calls from recruiters, giving so many interviews that now you can’t even remember which companies you applied for. Job hunting is about listening to people and sending out your resume to 100’s of contacts and job boards. Job hunting is hard. OR IS IT ? We have been made to believe that the job hunting process is hard. This is because this was the way that the job hunting process was carried out in the past. But it doesn’t have to be that way now. Job hunting process does not have to be hard. How, you ask ? How have we made it easy? Check out this 5 minute video and you will know how. Check out this video — one solution for all your recruitment problems. Send us your resume today! The new way of recruitment does not involve you sending out resumes to 100s of people and job sites. The new way of recruitment does not bias against you on any basis — your job depends on you and your talent. Not your sex , race or disability. The new way of recruitment is about having the right ammunition — in this care, a strong resume. Learn to leverage your resume to land your dream job The new way of recruitment is about you, choosing your company. Not settling for whatever company hires you. Join us in this new way of recruitment. Follow us on linkedin — https://www.linkedin.com/company/irekommend/?viewAsMember=true

https://medium.com/@simplyaitalent/can-one-resume-get-you-hired-can-one-platform-be-the-complete-recruitment-solution-483de46b10b1

[]

2021-12-27 05:44:31.701000+00:00

['Jobhunt', 'Job Hunting', 'Solutions', 'Resume', 'Recruitment']

The Power of Visualization: Change Your Story, Change Your Life

Get the mp3/podcast of this episode free on iTunes. I was talking to an agent recently who at one point before the market collapse back in 2008 had created a net worth of tens of millions of dollars…and then lost it all. He didn’t just lose it. Suddenly he was tens of millions of dollars in the negative! In this video I share the story of my conversation with that real estate agent and the shocking revelation he made to me about his fears and his struggle to overcome his fears TODAY. The reality is that our mindset and the stories (i.e. “drama”) that we create about ourselves and our world are more powerful than we realize. And most of the time, our “story” does not help us build our business and achieve the success or lifestyle we want. The Power of Visualization is one of the most powerful ways to make change your internal story quickly and to give yourself a stronger mindset and to improve your results. Affirmations and declarations can be very helpful, yet visualizing yourself as if you’ve already achieved something or done something adds much more power. If you want to change your life, change your story. If you want to get better results in your life, it starts with your beliefs and expectations about what is possible for you. We all create our “story” about ourselves and then we live into that story. As an example, a “drama queen” is someone who always makes their “story” more dramatic than it really is and then they literally create that reality through their story. Simply re-write your mental “story” to the outcome you want and visualize yourself living into that story. Real estate agents, in fact almost all people, underestimate the power their inner game has over their success. Thinking better thoughts will always create better results. If this is helpful for you, please share your COMMENTS below and SHARE it with others you think it will benefit. Get the mp3/podcast of this episode free on iTunes. Yesmasters.com Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this. Leave a response below, or shoot me a message.

https://medium.com/@kevinward/the-power-of-visualization-change-your-story-change-your-life-a44d54618518

['Kevin Ward']

2015-12-23 23:07:20.177000+00:00

['Real Estate', 'Inspiration', 'Real Estate Investments']

新規アドバイザー及びパートナーシップのお知らせ

Traveler, Cryptoinvestor, Official Community Manager for APIS Platform project. To learn more about APIS, please visit apisplatform.io Follow

https://medium.com/apisplatform/%E6%96%B0%E8%A6%8F%E3%82%A2%E3%83%89%E3%83%90%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B6%E3%83%BC%E5%8F%8A%E3%81%B3%E3%83%91%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%83%8A%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B7%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E3%81%AE%E3%81%8A%E7%9F%A5%E3%82%89%E3%81%9B-74322c512bf2

['Tom Won']

2018-03-29 14:38:24.012000+00:00

['Notice', 'Blockchain', 'Jpn', 'Bitcoin', 'Investment']

Triumphant, At Last

How fragile and afraid was I dwelling there with you giving to you what I couldn’t begin to give to others nor to myself — unconditional love and total devotion and I fell for your false pretenses, your veiled lies became consumed by your gifts of comfort and avoidance You became the sole keeper of all my deepest secrets carried my pain and shame into every rooted tree diluted my guilt in every brook, lake and vast ocean and I thought if I could just remain here with you and be swept into the undercurrents, I’d be saved But you soon became a cruel and demanding mistress and for a while, I was your willing, faithful slave I thought it best to serve this familiar depravity remain chained here in the underbelly of darkness than take my chances in an uncertain, unknown world So night after night, I slept in your cold embrace breathing you in as I exhaled my own essence out And in dreams, battles raged between light and dark as light beings struck blows upon my dark mistress and I would awaken, covered in sweat and confusion Each morning I’d noticed small chinks in my chains felt tiny bolts of energy course through my being And I pondered if my mistress noticed dancing light circling about my feet and slowly travelling upwards or hear an angelic chorus singing lightly in my ears And then one night, I felt you flee from our embrace As my eyes blinked open, a bright light burst forth I was encircled by light beings with outstretched hands beckoning to me — and their voices whispering, Come So enchanted, I arose and followed them into the light Now that I’ve abandoned all the pain, guilt and shame left it all buried deep within the earth, raging in waves and taken up this armor of fearlessness and freedom I know that love cannot linger lifeless in the void but must be released in abundance to an uncaring world © 2020 Lori Carlson. All Rights Reserved.

https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/triumphant-at-last-1c68fc2698df

['Ravyne Hawke']

2020-12-13 16:52:37.419000+00:00

['Free Verse', 'Spirituality', 'Self Improvement', 'Prompt', 'Poetry']

Spy vs. Spy. Ex-CIA spooks clash over Russiagate…

Santa Fe is one of those places — like the South of France and the city of San Miguel de Allende in Central Mexico — where American spies often go to retire. Today, the city, with its art galleries and turquoise jewelry, is best known as a moneyed playground for gentleman ranchers, heiresses, and horsey trophy wives. But that reputation belies a far more controversial backstory: the city’s vital place in the history of Cold War espionage. According to ex-CIA officer Bruce Held, author of A Spy’s Guide to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, the nearby Los Alamos laboratories, where scientists developed the atom bomb, attracted the KGB’s attention early on. For decades, Americans working in the service of the Soviet Union showed up in the area, using code names like Star and Bumblebee, looking for technical information on the nuclear weapons program and delivering it to their Russian handlers. KGB agents dead-dropped papers and notes in invisible ink all over town, exchanged intel at clandestine meetings at the Paseo de Peralta bridge, and executed expert brush-passes at the Greyhound station. Plame and her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, settled here after Plame’s cover as a CIA agent was blown — not by Moscow or another foreign adversary but by senior members of the Bush administration. A week before her outing in 2003, Wilson had publicly disputed one of the Bush team’s main rationales for the invasion of Iraq. Outing Plame was an attempt to retaliate and discredit him. The so-called Plame affair led to the conviction of Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, for several felonies (he was recently pardoned by Donald Trump) and became the subject of the movie, Fair Game. Left to right: Bruce Held, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Glenn Carle, Larry Johnson, James C. Lawler, and Mary Beth Long. Photo: Dave Stabley, courtesy Spies, Lies & Nukes Now the author of a memoir and a few novels, and a regular on the lecture circuit, Plame launched the conference, Spies, Lies & Nukes, last year, inviting eight retired CIA agents to reminisce about their adventures in Russia, Chad, Libya, Switzerland, and other countries they said they were forbidden from naming. At least one, Mowatt-Larssen, bore the honor of having been PNG’ed at Moscow; as spies put it — caught out, declared “persona non grata,” and sent packing. Having been obligated to keep their work secret for years, it turns out that retired spies like to talk. Working in intelligence can be lonely and thankless. The best operatives are invisible, so bland and colorless that they are capable of hiding in plain sight. It is not a job for someone with a narcissistic bent or a need for public validation. The CIA “wanted me to exploit, manipulate, persuade, and bribe people. And I found out that not only was I good at it, but I enjoyed it.” As spy-turned-novelist John Le Carre knew, the life can be psychologically and emotionally challenging. “What the hell do you think spies are?” the jaded British spy Leamas snarls to his naive girlfriend in the 1963 adaptation of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. “They’re just a bunch of seedy squalid bastards like me: little drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?” The spies who came in from the cold for Plame’s warm Southwestern spy-hang were not seedy or squalid. They didn’t swagger or drink heavily. They wore business suits or the fleece vests preferred by west of the Rockies elites, and reminisced placidly about hiding their identities, bribing foreigners with suitcases full of cash, and sometimes, risking their lives. Even so, in his talk “Soul Catcher — How the CIA Recruits Assets,” James C. Lawler, retired member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service who spent much of his career tracking and fighting WMD proliferation, described the sort of old-fashioned tradecraft Leamas would have recognized. An elfin man with a white goatee, Lawler said he decided to join CIA in 1980 without giving the idea much thought. “I had no idea what they wanted me to do,” he said. “Then, I learned they wanted me to exploit, manipulate, persuade, and bribe people. And then, I found out that not only was I good at it, but I enjoyed it.” He added: “There’s sociopathy involved.” The first rule of recruiting an asset, he said, is identifying the target’s vulnerabilities. “You study the cracks. What are your stress points?” he explained. “And then, you let them know, ‘I can relieve your stress.’” Revenge was one motivation to commit treason. Money was another. People going through a divorce were “prime bait” — child support, health care, the cost of education. And then there were those with what he called, “a Walter Mitty fascination” — people who would betray their country because it fed their sense of self-importance. Lawler recounted his first attempt to persuade one embassy deputy in an unnamed country to share information with the CIA. The deputy, who had until then thought of Lawler as just an American acquaintance, turned him down. After worrying that the target would turn him in to local authorities (and knowing the CIA would cut him loose if it happened), he decided to call a week later to see if they were still on good terms. To his surprise, the deputy not only affirmed the friendship, but asked if the offer was still on. His wife had announced she was divorcing him, and he needed money. Lawler signed him up. “Recruitment is metaphysical,” he concluded. “It’s as if you have a mental link to the target.” In the end, he justified such manipulation by convincing himself he was improving his targets’ lives. “Maybe that’s my coping mechanism,” he told the audience.

https://gen.medium.com/heres-what-happened-at-valerie-plame-s-spy-convention-cc58aab9435d

['Nina Burleigh']

2019-09-27 18:30:30.997000+00:00

['Politics', 'CIA', 'Trump', 'Reasonable Doubt', 'Foreign Affairs']

US vs. France: Speak Different Languages in More Ways than One

US vs. France: Speak Different Languages in More Ways than One Creating engaging content in a foreign language is one thing as a content creator, especially when you are not native to that language. But, recreating content in your own language, whilst trying to engage with a market culture different to its original, is another. This can be particularly challenging when you are creating content for cultures that speak and relate to their customer base, almost like opposites. For clarity, I am speaking about creating content from French, into English, to be appealing and comprehensible to markets that reach beyond the Municipality of France and other French States’ borders, particularly to the US. The challenge has little to do with translating French into English; but to translate what would be interesting to a French audience, into what would be interesting to an American one. What I learned are some hard and fast rules that may help founders, entrepreneurs, and content creators who are either French or American create their brand content that would appeal to either, or, and both. How to Refer to Your Customers The US is very informal when referring to their customer base. There is no differentiation between the formal vs. informal way of speaking to someone; it just isn’t a part of the English language. Of course there are always prefixes one can use, but when referring to your customers, it is unlikely you will refer to them by “Mr.” or “Ms.”, especially in a startup environment. Plus, when you are speaking to your customer, you are speaking to them in a relatable way to ensure they feel comfortable with you and your brand. In the US, you want to connect with your customers, befriend them, get to know them. It is hard to do that when your brand refers to its customer base using prefixes that may create a bit of distance between your customers and your brand. You may end up sounding less friendly, and more anonymous “salesy”. Also, as an aside, prefixes are generally hard to maintain in this more inclusive world we live in, with people who neither refer to themselves as a mister or a missus. In French there is a difference between the formal “vous” vs. informal “tu”. Both refer to “you”; however, in France, you would refer to your customers more formally. This isn’t seen as being distant with your customer base, but being more polite. It’s About the Words You Use and How You Use Them In the US, the way in which you speak to your customers is pretty straight to the point and short. You do not tend to communicate your brand story and/or write your brand content like you would if you were writing a novel. You want to hook your customer base with who are, what you can do to solve your customers’ problems, and let them know how they can stay engaged with your brand. Of course, in the US, you want your customers to feel like you are positive, upbeat, excited to sell to them, and exciting to buy from. The language you use is always inviting, and generally optimistic. When communicating your brand, you can invoke an emotional connection with your customers; but your connection must go beyond that. You can tell your story; but also tell them how you are going to solve their problem. In France, if you spoke like that to a French audience, your content would: Not make much sense, given in French you would have to use more words and create longer sentences than in English; and, You will likely not connect with your customer base. Let me explain the latter…the French language is artistic and poetic in of itself. Plus the way French is written is more abstract than English. French content must invoke a feeling, emotion, and/or experience within your customer base. Your brand story can be more theatrical and emotional. Your brand story can provide more detail and can be longer; so that it leaves a true impression on your customer. What I noticed from French founders, is that their brand can speak from their heart directly to the hearts of their customers; cultivating deeper meaning and connection. There is less language around how to solve their customers’ problems; but more how their customer should feel when engaging with their brand. In addition, it is very important in France to create content that is completely without error and/or mistakes. It invokes trust and reliability in your brand. (Audrey Maffre March 2020) What is the Bottom Line? In the US, one cannot leave your customers without a call to action. Once you have your customer based hooked, there needs to be further information as to how your customers can stay engaged with your brand; and/or how they can support your brand. There is simply a stronger focus on convenience and directness when communicating with your customer base in the US. Leave them understanding how you can help them, and then reciprocally, how they can help you. In France, call to actions resonate a bit less. However, in my experience I see this changing. Particularly, with early stage startup founders who have a younger culture, and have likely been influenced by other markets. I see them including call to actions in English, whilst maintaining the rest of their content in French. As previously mentioned, there are differences in the way English and French are written. Therefore, it would be harder to write a call to action in French that would resonate in the same way an English one could; because it would be longer, more poetic, and would likely be less “punchy”.

https://medium.com/@thoughtfulthorough/us-vs-france-speak-different-languages-in-more-ways-than-one-da9a16b1b2a4

['Thoughtful Thorough']

2020-12-08 14:29:47.491000+00:00

['French Startup', 'Content Creation', 'Content Writing', 'Startups In Us', 'Startup Lessons']

Anyone have a Cyber Vaccine?

Cyber Vaccine 2020 sucks, can’t end soon enough. And if all that has happened this year wasn’t enough, we just got h$#%d up. The last two weeks have opened the eyes to millions of Americans on the nature of cyber warfare. Welcome to the party. Let’s see if we can summarize what happened over the past week shall we: A likely nation state actor who is well known to the cyber and intel community, committed our Cyber 9/11. Ever the diligent jerks, they compromised the supply chain of a “trusted” vendor and basically got Schneider’s key ring (for those young whipper snappers out there, duckduckgo One Day at a Time). Then they went stealth mode, not making a lot of noise so that a curious cyber hunter would catch them. We will not know the full impact for years. Considering what has just happened, the average American just might ask.. How much are the feds spending on cyber security? Cyber threats change daily, how long do regulations and laws take? Think most of Americans would say whatever we are doing, it ain’t working. We need a new approach. In the spirit of trying to solve a problem, could this be a vaccine for what ails us in the cyber space? · What is our Cyber Doctrine? Mutual Destruction, Equal Force, Lead from behind and take it, other? Nature abhors a vacuum. We spend billions every year on cyber and yet here we are. The feds didn’t see the hack for at least nine months and wouldn’t even know it was happening today without a private sector firm notifying them. Yikes, that’s tidak bagus. The Congress and the Executive Branch must design a policy to fill the vacuum, or this will continue ad nauseum. Would strongly recommend the Congress and feds bring in cyber pros that do not live in the beltway for your SMEs. If you bring in beltway bandit SMEs the orb will design a policy that ultimately leads to future omnibus spending bills including $$ for H1B visas to take tech jobs from out-of-work Americans. Don’t believe me read the latest Covid “relief” Porkulius. The military has great capabilities, but they need clear ROE… do they have it? Get to work Congress and get it done. No talk of “reform” which always goes no where. Just get it done. · Wake up American CEOs: The bad guys are coming for you and your company. Most of you have chosen for the past decade to ignore this risk…pushing it down to your CIO to manage. So now you scramble. You can either pay for security now or pay more later — there is no third option. Chose the latter, make sure you make a significant investment in a legal counsel on retainer. The bell tolls for thee. Cyber Security starts with you. So here are a couple suggestions: 1) Implement a cyber is everyone’s responsibility policy for your company and actively talk about it, including in the board room 2) Know your most critical assets Make smart investments and monitor results 3) Add cyber security clauses AND financial penalties into all your contracts 4) Hire a competent CISO that has a proven track record managing risk (NOT just compliance) and make them a direct report. Of course there is more to do, but this should get your started. Tick Tock… · Public/Private Partnerships — We have to improve information sharing. This was a main takeaway from 9/11. We weren’t sharing intel effectively between our international partners and within our own intel agencies. Similar problem here, but this problem requires better collaboration with industry as well. In fairness to industry, what protections has the government provided to companies, so information they share with government does not initiate liabilities in the future? If the government wants to get serious about cyber, they can’t do it without industry. I have had countless discussions with industry executives since I left Homeland Security and they all say the same thing…”I don’t trust the government to not use our information against us or to protect our data.” Houston, we have a problem. So, Congress get off your ass and add in 1) Liability and Tort protections for companies that self-report and actively share cyber information with the government 2) Require agencies to get much better at protecting data, including using classified controls on any data collected from industry, whether it is threat data, vulnerabilities, bugs, etc… Lastly, hold federal officials accountable. Try it, it works quite well in the private sector. · Is anyone thinking about all the other thousands of IT companies that sell tens of thousands of products into the government? Just thinking out loud here.. do we really think that the bad guys just did this to one company?? C’mon man..to quote a politician. Who owns that supply chain review in the federal government and what is the status of that review. Have the Feds made identifying where the bad guys went once they got into the fed networks a Secretary level priority to be reported on weekly to the Congress in public hearings? Implement zero trust across all federal networks, add cyber clauses into all federal contracts with significant financial penalties to include vendor pays all clean up costs, create a moon shot cyber training initiative based on merit, results and creativity; pay the good cyber pros commercial rates and bonus them accordingly to their results..not time in grade; use more bug bounty programs, pay for good intel, etc.. These are just a few ideas, lets get them into round 3 clinical trials. · Blockchain/Crypto & AI — Lead or get owned by the ChiComs. They are making significant investments with a capital B, have their own approved crypto currency and use their AI tech to support their R&D off our intellectual capital and fleeced data. And what are we doing… thinking about using 1940’s regulatory policies for Crypto currency. We have to do better and who in our Congress is taking this threat seriously? While Congress pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into Pakistani gender programs and building border walls in foreign countries, China is laughing all the way to the predominant world power position. The U.S. needs to get serious about this national security threat. Anyone who says the weather is higher priority, should just ask the person who sold the last president a home in Martha’s Vineyard.. a short sand wedge from the Atlantic Ocean’s water’s edge. These are just a few ideas for a cyber vaccine. What are yours?.

https://medium.com/@keithtrippie123/anyone-have-a-cyber-vaccine-fde1e894b518

['Keith Trippie']

2020-12-23 03:06:45.511000+00:00

['Congress', 'Military', 'Cybersecurity', 'Vaccination', 'Russian Hacking']

Selecting Subsets of Data in Pandas: Part 3

Part 3: Assigning subsets of data This is part three of a four-part series on how to select subsets of data from a pandas DataFrame or Series. Pandas offers a wide variety of options for subset selection which necessitates multiple articles. This series is broken down into the following topics. Become an Expert If you want to be trusted to make decisions using pandas, you must become an expert. I have completely mastered pandas and have developed courses and exercises that will massively improve your knowledge and efficiency to do data analysis. Master Data Analysis with Python — My comprehensive course with 800+ pages, 350+ exercises, multiple projects, and detailed solutions that will help you become an expert at pandas. Get a sample of the material by enrolling in the free Intro to Pandas course. Assignment When you see the word assign used during a discussion on programming, it usually means that a variable is set equal to some value. For most programming languages, this means using the equal sign. For instance, to assign the value 5 to the variable x in Python, we do the following: >>> x = 5 This is formally called an assignment statement. More generally, we can define Python assignment statements as follows: >>> variable = expression There is quite a bit more to the Python assignment statement, but for our purposes it just means using the equal sign to store the object on the right-hand side to the left-hand side. Documentation on assigning subsets of data There isn’t one particular sub-section of the documentation that covers this topic precisely. Several examples are available throughout the entire indexing section. What does this have to do with selecting subsets of data? In this article, we will use the assignment statement, but only after we select a subset of data. We will be doing our subset selection based on what we learned from part 1 and part 2 and changing just those values. The left-hand side will have our subset selection and the right-hand side will contain our new values like this: >>> subset_of_DataFrame_or_Series = new_values Small sample dataset During this tutorial, we will be working with a small sample of the employee dataset. The small dataset will help us immediately see the changes. Let’s take a look at this dataset now, which uses the index to store the names of each employee. >>> import pandas as pd >>> import numpy as np >>> df = pd.read_csv('../../data/employee_sample.csv', index_col=0) >>> df Creating a new column Before we change any of the data in this DataFrame, we will add a single column to the end. There are multiple ways of doing so, but we will begin by using just the indexing operator (the brackets). Place a string inside of the brackets and make this the left-hand side of the assignment. The right-hand side can consist of any of the following: A scalar value A list or array with the same length as the DataFrame A pandas Series with an index that matches the index of the DataFrame (a little tricky!) New column assigned to a scalar value A scalar value is simply one single value, like an integer, string, boolean or date. When using a scalar for column assignment, each value in the column will be the same. Let’s create a column SCORE and assign it the value 99. >>> df['SCORE'] = 99 Where’s the output? In the previous two notebooks, we were only making column selections (no equal signs) resulting in output displayed directly into the notebook after executing the line of code. In the above, we made an assignment, which will not yield any output. We must use an extra line to display our data. >>> df Create a new column with a list or array Instead of creating a new column with all the same values, we can use a list or NumPy array with different values for each row. The only stipulation is that the number of new values in the list/array must be the same as the number of rows in the DataFrame. Let’s create the column BONUS RATE , with a list of numbers between 0 and 1. >>> df['BONUS RATE'] = [.2, .1, 0, .15, .12, .3, .05] >>> df We could have just as easily used a one dimensional NumPy array to get the same exact results. Let’s do just that and create a random array of integers to represent the floor that the employee works on. We use the randint function from NumPy's rand module. Use the low (inclusive) and high (exclusive) parameters to bound the range of possible integers. len(df) returns the number of rows in the DataFrame ensuring that the size of the array is correct. >>> floor = np.random.randint(low=1, high=10, size=len(df)) >>> floor array([9, 4, 6, 8, 6, 8, 7]) Then assign this to the FLOOR column: >>> df['FLOOR'] = floor >>> df Master Data Analysis with Python Master Data Analysis with Python is an extremely comprehensive course that will help you learn pandas to do data analysis. I believe that it is the best possible resource available for learning how to data analysis with pandas and provide a 30-day 100% money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. Creating a new column with a Series (tricky!) Let’s create a new pandas Series and see what happens when we attempt to assign it as a new column in our DataFrame. Let’s try and add a column for the last name of each person. >>> last_name = pd.Series(['Smith', 'Jones', 'Williams', 'Green', 'Brown', 'Simpson', 'Peters']) >>> last_name 0 Smith 1 Jones 2 Williams 3 Green 4 Brown 5 Simpson 6 Peters dtype: object Make the assignment like we have done above: >>> df['LAST NAME'] = last_name >>> df All missing values! Our attempt failed because pandas uses a completely different methodology for combining two pandas objects. Automatic alignment of the Index Whenever two pandas objects are combined in some fashion the row/column index of one is aligned with the row/column index of the other. This all happens silently and implicitly behind the scenes. So if you are unaware of it, you will be completely taken by surprise. I will dedicate several notebooks in a different section to this surprising yet powerful feature. Our operation failed to add the last names because the index of our Series is the integers 0 through 6, while the index of the DataFrame are the names of the employees. There are no index values in common between the objects, so pandas defaults to NaN (Not a number). Create a Series with same Index as DataFrame To use a Series to create a new column, the index must match that of the modifying DataFrame. Let’s re-create our Series with the same index as the DataFrame. >>> last_name = pd.Series(data=['Smith', 'Jones', 'Williams', 'Green', 'Brown', 'Simpson', 'Peters'], index=['Tom', 'Niko', 'Penelope', 'Aria', 'Sofia', 'Dean', 'Zach']) >>> last_name Tom Smith Niko Jones Penelope Williams Aria Green Sofia Brown Dean Simpson Zach Peters dtype: object Let’s try that assignment again. This technically will overwrite our previous LAST NAME column >>> df['LAST NAME'] = last_name >>> df Create a new column with expressions involving other columns We can create a new column by combining any number of other columns. One primary way of doing that is through a mathematical expression. For instance, let’s create a new column BONUS by multiplying the BONUS RATE and SALARY columns together. Output before assignment Before adding this new column to your DataFrame, you might want to consider viewing the output before making the assignment. This gives you a little preview so that you can check your work before doing the more permanent assignment. Let’s multiple our two columns without assignment: >>> df['BONUS RATE'] * df['SALARY'] Tom 21592.40 Niko 3034.70 Penelope 0.00 Aria 6542.70 Sofia 3135.00 Dean 10077.60 Zach 1878.25 dtype: float64 Everything appears to be OK, so go ahead and make the assignment. Notice that the output is a Series with index the same as the DataFrame. >>> df['BONUS'] = df['BONUS RATE'] * df['SALARY'] >>> df Actual Subset Assignment So far, we have just added new columns to our DataFrame. We did not change any of the pre-existing values. Let’s begin doing this by changing each person’s SCORE to 100. The syntax is the same, whether it’s adding a new column or changing an existing column: >>> df['SCORE'] = 100 >>> df Overwriting the same column You can use the column itself you are assigning in the expression on the right-hand side of the equal sign. For instance, if we want to remove the ugly decimals from the BONUS column, we can call the astype method on it and assign it to itself. >>> df['BONUS'] = df['BONUS'].astype(int) >>> df Assigning a subset of rows within a single column Now that we can change all the values in a single column at once, let’s learn how to change just a subset of them. For instance, let’s change the FLOOR for Niko , Penelope , and Aria . Before doing so, let's remember how to make that subset selection with .loc : >>> df.loc[['Niko', 'Penelope', 'Aria'], 'FLOOR'] Niko 4 Penelope 6 Aria 8 Name: FLOOR, dtype: int64 The .loc indexer allows for row and column selection separated by a comma. It only makes selections based on row/column labels. Once we have correctly selected our subset, let's assign it a list of three new integers: >>> df.loc[['Niko', 'Penelope', 'Aria'], 'FLOOR'] = [3, 6, 4] >>> df If you are enjoying this article, consider purchasing the All Access Pass! which includes all my current and future material for one low price. Style DataFrame to show differences (advanced) It’s not important you understand this section if you are new to pandas, but you should still read through it as the style_diff function will be used in subsequent sections. Pandas provides a style attribute which allows you to apply a wide variety of CSS styles to your DataFrames. Check the style documentation for more. We are going to change the background color and the color of the text for the values that have changed. To do this, you need to create a copy of the DataFrame before you make any changes with the copy method. >>> df_orig = df.copy() Then, we make our changes to our DataFrame >>> df.loc[['Niko', 'Penelope', 'Aria'], 'FLOOR'] = [60, 42, 99] >>> df We can see that the values have changed, but it would be a bit nicer if they stood out more. The function below accepts both the new and original DataFrames. It then creates a boolean DataFrame and replaces all the False values with a semi-colon separated list of new CSS table attribute: value pairs. The True values get replaced with empty strings. Pandas uses this DataFrame to know what style to apply to each cell. >>> def style_diff(df, df_orig): style = {True: '', False: 'color: red; background-color: yellow'} df_style = (df == df_orig).replace(style) return df.style.apply(lambda x: df_style, axis=None) We can use this function with any DataFrame that we have. But, take care when using a large DataFrame as the style DataFrames output every single row. So, if you have a 10,000 row DataFrame, you are probably going to crash your notebook. >>> style_diff(df, df_orig) Master Python, Data Science and Machine Learning Immerse yourself in my comprehensive path for mastering data science and machine learning with Python. Purchase the All Access Pass to get lifetime access to all current and future courses. Some of the courses it contains: Exercise Python — A comprehensive introduction to Python (200+ pages, 100+ exercises) — A comprehensive introduction to Python (200+ pages, 100+ exercises) Master Data Analysis with Python — The most comprehensive course available to learn pandas. (800+ pages and 350+ exercises) — The most comprehensive course available to learn pandas. (800+ pages and 350+ exercises) Master Machine Learning with Python — A deep dive into doing machine learning with scikit-learn constantly updated to showcase the latest and greatest tools. (300+ pages) Get the All Access Pass now! Assigning subsets with .iloc Similarly, we can use the .iloc indexer which only makes selections via integer location . Let’s assign the 3rd — 6th rows of the SCORE column (integer location 5) with the value 99. Again, we will make a copy of the DataFrame and display the difference with our style_diff function. >>> df_orig = df.copy() >>> df.iloc[3:6, 5] = 99 >>> style_diff(df, df_orig) Assigning an entire column with .loc and .iloc Normally, just the indexing operator is used to change values of an entire column, but it’s also possible to do it with both .loc and . iloc . You have to remember that the fist selection made by both these indexers is the rows. To select all rows, use the colon : . For instance, let’s see this in action by changing all values in the FLOOR column. >>> df_orig = df.copy() >>> df.loc[:, 'FLOOR'] = 33 >>> style_diff(df, df_orig) And with .iloc : >>> df_orig = df.copy() >>> df.iloc[:, 7] = 22 >>> style_diff(df, df_orig) Assigning with boolean selection It is more common to use boolean selection to make assignments to subsets than with directly selecting subsets by label or integer location. For instance, let’s say we wanted to give everyone in the engineering department a $5,000 bonus on top of what they already have. Before making the assignment, let’s properly select the data with boolean indexing. >>> df.loc[df['DEPARTMENT'] == 'Engineering', 'BONUS'] Tom 21592 Niko 3034 Penelope 0 Aria 6542 Name: BONUS, dtype: int64 Once we have confirmed that our selection works, we can make an assignment. We can use the += operator to shorten the syntax considerably, which will assign the value back to itself. >>> df_orig = df.copy() >>> df.loc[df['DEPARTMENT'] == 'Engineering', 'BONUS'] += 5000 >>> style_diff(df, df_orig) Assigning with multiple condition boolean selection Let’s do an example with multiple boolean conditions. Let’s subtract 10 from the SCORE of all the black females and white males. # check our logic first >>> white_male = (df['GENDER'] == 'Male') & (df['RACE'] == 'White') >>> black_female = ((df['GENDER'] == 'Female') & (df['RACE'] == 'Black')) >>> criteria = white_male | black_female >>> df[criteria] >>> df_orig = df.copy() >>> df.loc[criteria, 'SCORE'] -= 10 >>> style_diff(df, df_orig) Assigning subsets of data in a Series Assigning subsets of pandas Series is a less common operation but happens analogously to a DataFrame. Let’s first select a copy of the SALARY column from our above DataFrame: >>> s = df['SALARY'].copy() >>> s Tom 107962 Niko 30347 Penelope 60258 Aria 43618 Sofia 26125 Dean 33592 Zach 37565 Name: SALARY, dtype: int64 We didn’t have to use the copy method, but we did so to avoid the SettingWithCopy warning. This is a common warning when making assignments during subset selection. We will cover what it means and how to avoid it in the next notebook. Assigning with .loc and .iloc Since Series do not have columns, I don’t use just the indexing operator with them (unless I am doing boolean selection). It can be used to select rows, but is ambiguous and confusing and therefore I avoid it. All the capability of explicitly selecting particular Series values is provided with .loc and .iloc . Let’s change the salary of Tom , Sofia , and Zach . >>> s.loc[['Tom', 'Sofia', 'Zach']] = [99999, 39999, 49999] >>> s Tom 99999 Niko 30347 Penelope 60258 Aria 43618 Sofia 39999 Dean 33592 Zach 49999 Name: SALARY, dtype: int64 No styling with Series Pandas outputs Series as plain text, so we cannot style them like we do with DataFrames. However, we can create a function to modify the index by appending ‘-changed’ to the ones that have changed. # advanced >>> def style_diff_series(s, s_orig): idx = s.index.where(s == s_orig, s.index + '-changed') return s.set_axis(idx, inplace=False) Create a copy of our original like we did before: >>> s = df['SALARY'].copy() >>> s_orig = s.copy() Apply the changes: >>> s.loc[['Tom', 'Sofia', 'Zach']] = [99999, 39999, 49999] Add ‘changed’ to the index: >>> style_diff_series(s, s_orig) Tom-changed 99999 Niko 30347 Penelope 60258 Aria 43618 Sofia-changed 39999 Dean 33592 Zach-changed 49999 Name: SALARY, dtype: int64 We can make similar changes using integer location with .iloc . Here we change every other value. >>> s_orig = s.copy() >>> s.iloc[::2] = 55555 >>> style_diff_series(s, s_orig) Tom-changed 55555 Niko 30347 Penelope-changed 55555 Aria 43618 Sofia-changed 55555 Dean 33592 Zach-changed 55555 Name: SALARY, dtype: int64 Assigning Series with boolean indexing We can use boolean indexing to make assignments as well. Using just the indexing operator is acceptable here. Let’s double all the salaries below 40,000. >>> s_orig = s.copy() >>> s[s < 40000] *= 2 >>> style_diff_series(s, s_orig) Tom 55555 Niko-changed 60694 Penelope 55555 Aria 43618 Sofia 55555 Dean-changed 67184 Zach 55555 Name: SALARY, dtype: int64 Both just the indexing operator and .loc work the same when doing boolean indexing on a Series. However, as mentioned in part 2, .iloc should almost never be used when doing boolean indexing as it's not implemented fully. Summary Assignment means using the equal sign to assign a variable on the left-hand side to an expression on the right-hand side New columns are created by passing a string to just the indexing operator and setting it equal to either a scalar, a list/array the same length as the DataFrame, or a Series with an identical index as the DataFrame There is no output when you make an assignment. You must use an extra line to display the DataFrame/Series Select a specific subset of rows/columns with .loc or .iloc and manually assign them value with a list/array. or and manually assign them value with a list/array. Use the style attribute to make particular values pop out for visual display attribute to make particular values pop out for visual display You can assign entire columns with .loc or .iloc by using the colon, : for rows or by using the colon, for rows A more common operation is to use boolean indexing to select subsets of data before making an assignment Assigning new values to a Series is similar to DataFrames except that we don’t use .iloc for boolean indexing Just the basics of assignment of subsets This tutorial covered the simplest and most frequently used assignment of subsets. The next notebook will cover some things NOT to do like chained indexing and triggering the SettingWithCopy warning. There are also many other ways to create new columns or even add multiple columns at the same time. This notebook again is just drilling the basics. Master Python, Data Science and Machine Learning Immerse yourself in my comprehensive path for mastering data science and machine learning with Python. Purchase the All Access Pass to get lifetime access to all current and future courses. Some of the courses it contains: Exercise Python — A comprehensive introduction to Python (200+ pages, 100+ exercises) — A comprehensive introduction to Python (200+ pages, 100+ exercises) Master Data Analysis with Python — The most comprehensive course available to learn pandas. (800+ pages and 350+ exercises) — The most comprehensive course available to learn pandas. (800+ pages and 350+ exercises) Master Machine Learning with Python — A deep dive into doing machine learning with scikit-learn constantly updated to showcase the latest and greatest tools. (300+ pages) Get the All Access Pass now!

https://medium.com/dunder-data/selecting-subsets-of-data-in-pandas-part-3-d5704b4b9116

['Ted Petrou']

2020-08-25 02:46:51.057000+00:00

['Python', 'Python Pandas', 'Pydata', 'Jupyter', 'Data Science']

BEING HUMAN IN AN INCREASINGLY DIGITAL AGE

Drinking Deeply of Nature’s Fragrances because Human. Image Credit: Pexels.com I have been an intensely private person. Some years back, I could be in my rented apartment for days and not come out, not even for sunshine. I either had fast-paced, adrenaline-inducing, page-turners in steady supply or I was locked in for extended periods of meditation and reflection on my existence as a spiritual entity. However, a burning desire to foster change, to be the change I wanted to see in my society soon led me to take the first tentative steps out of my shell into the “real world” where actions spoke louder than words or for that matter, thoughts and dreams and visions. It proved scary at different points and my mouth would go cottony dry as I spoke with some while at other times, I would be chasing around that perfect opening statement to catch some others’ attention. The successes that followed after the initial travail of navigating unfamiliar terrain soon got me to a point where my apartment began to serve as a melting pot for conversations, celebrations, joint reflection, prayers and communal meals. Fast forward 7 years and the above metaphor began to play out again. There I was, a Nigerian, in a closeted part of the rapidly developing Giant of Africa. Life was laid back. Fences are scarce around the buildings we have here. One could easily walk the distance to the most important places to him in the community and he wouldn’t break any sweat in the process. There I was, in Ogbomoso, content with having a basic phone that I could both make calls and receive texts with. From time to time, I surfed the net. Yes, I did that with my laptop at cybercafés. I was content basically with calls, texts, Yahoomail and Google (my passport to every single website I needed access to). But that wasn’t going to be enough for one who sought to really effect positive, systematic change in a rapidly evolving world. I soon got swamped with such questions as, “Are you on Whatsapp?” “No.” BBM? No. Facebook? No. When I said “No” at the mention of Facebook, my head would involuntarily hang itself. Was I some antediluvian or what? I got some curious looks. How could I explain to those questioning me that I opted out of Facebook for five years because I began to get so distracted? Some waited long enough to hear me out though. However, at the point where sending texts became almost impossible since the people I was discussing ideas with were sometimes half-way across the world, I found myself taking those first tentative steps out of my shell once again. It was first a Blackberry. Then, Whatsapp, Skype, Facebook, About.me, Edmodo… and the list keeps growing. But almost immediately, I wanted to retreat into my shell again. Why? There was this battleground of privacy staring me in the face from every corner. It was either this website required me to keep imputing personal information or the other preferred I signed in with my email account and a short disclaimer would just conveniently be some inches below which informed me that by signing in with my email account, I was granting access to my mails, contacts etc. Here the dilemma holds me in a vice-like grip, threatening to throttle me at times. Is access worth a flinging open of the doors to my life for some nameless, faceless entities, bots, then humans, to scour every detail with a fine-tooth comb until those personal, sacred constituents of my life were reduced to some bits and bytes stored in data barns in faraway lands? I’ve wondered at the hidden costs of being in the loop via social media. The internet definitely creates a dilemma for an intrinsically private person as I am. The cultural context of my ancestry and nation also helps to strengthen this aversion to being dissected and laid bare for perfect strangers to routinely examine and decide if I should be shared with a company claiming special powers in combating balding in men — now, I am just 30 and my hairline has already significantly receded! — or to have ads from immigration “experts” doing jigs on my email’s homepage just because recent mails coming and going from my box have such trigger or key words like visa, ticket, and trip in them. However, there is apparently a connectedness that having the internet and the technologies that give access to it, all at my fingertips, enables for me. I am capable of holding conversations with people from far-removed continents simultaneously. I am able to schedule a Skype interview that enables a greater grasp of my personality that goes beyond just my Nigerian voice. The pros outweigh the cons on a micro-level for me, possibly because I have not been the victim of hackers who hacked their way into my phone’s photo album and posted photos of me bare-chested online. Remaining with a micro-level thinking however proves inadequate because a person faced with realities of the world we live in learns to agree, through experience, that, “If it could happen to the other person, nothing stops it from happening to you.” And so, I have had to look beyond myself and think on the macro-scale, of global trends, to be able to understand how the digital age could affect me in the not-too-distant future. The cloistered life that still holds sway in Ogbomoso would soon give way to rapid digitization what with the current exploits of the Computer Science graduates of the sole Higher Education institution the town-city boasts of. Beyond even all of that which relates to personal computing devices and infrastructure, I have had to make myself put into consideration the many lives saved by digital implants, procedures and technologies. I have had to think of families that have been spared the pain of losing their loved ones earlier than they should have. Again, I must think of the number of terrorists who will be stopped in their tracks because of CCTVs and GPS triangulation and flagged searches and conversations on Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. I must think of those who are paying heavily for cryonic treatments in the hope that they could get the chance to live again. So much positivity is held out also on the macro-scale. So many benefits. However, we have a Catch-22 situation on our hands. A dilemma. In the pursuit of good, comes the discovery of evil as well. Albert Einstein knew something of this pain. His innocuous seminal thoughts opened up the portals for some other men to fashion death-dealing bombs that have killed men on scales never before known in human history. Deep reflection has made me come to the conclusion that humanity’s greatest challenge far as the digital age and the progress made so far are concerned would pivot on the answers we have to these questions: At what point do we draw the line? What should be the limit to our seeking to continue pursuing digital advance? What boundary are we to collectively decide we must never cross? These are difficult questions. However, is there a location on earth that would be large enough to contain us all in a global town hall meeting? A place where we could all have our say and cast our votes? Or is all we have to do just to hand the responsibility over to the UN or G20, knowing fully well that diplomatic organizations never get to reflect the deepest dimensions of our humanity because of all the bureaucracy that obtains. I can belch among my friends with the intent to amuse but diplomatic organizations can’t afford that. The question then is, what are some of those things that cause a sense of dread when thinking of the rapidity of digital advance? What makes me see that my privacy is just a little section of what calls for a deep look at our advances in the digital age? What makes me fear for humanity? Here is one of those things that have made me begin to think long and hard about my personal outlook and consumption of all things digital. David Passig, a futurist said it this way, In technology, a singularity is a future period [in] which the pace of technological change will be so fast and far reaching that human existence will be irreversibly altered. Brain power — knowledge, skills, and human personality quirks — will combine with computer power in order to think, reason, communicate, and create in ways we can scarcely even contemplate today. He went on to quote Ray Kurzweil, who said in a Forbes interview, that, “We will ultimately enhance our intelligence very directly by merging with non-biological intelligence, sending intelligent nanobots into our brains, which will communicate with our biological neurons — they’ll all be on a local area network, they will be on the internet. We will have direct brain-to-brain communication; we’ll be online all the time inside our brains.” But it seems these men have not thought to take permission from “we the people”. They have not taken permission from me in determining what help I want with my brain’s computational powers. Would I want to lose my identity as a human even if it means better computational powers? Faster results? Less drudgery? No, not for one minute! However, quite uncannily, everything seems to be pushing for this greater adoption of technological replacements for all those things we have always done as humans. The crave for “faster, cheaper, easier” has served as the checkmate for our emotional-rational construct as humans. What do we do then? We need to know that a negotiation must be entered into now. Technology has kidnapped humanity but it is yet to deal the death blow — perpetual enslavement. Either of three responses are ours but the ransom held out as the only other option for our independence carries a price tag that seems too steep for many to want to even contemplate. 1. Hand over our lives to technology to enslave, perpetually; 2. Wait on Governments to impose sanctions and legislations; 3. Commit technological hara-kiri by “dying” to technology. Choosing the third option is really “suicide”. It would mean deliberately becoming anachronistic. It would mean delineating boundaries we would never cross. It would mean that only over our dead bodies would some certain advances get imposed on us. We’d be “dead” men walking. But we will be humans once again. We would be the mythical phoenix arising from the ashes. And I choose to be human. Being human means laughter, tears and sniffles. It means eye contact, searching for meaning, holding hands, strolling together and waiting to have the other person share her thoughts rather than knowing it beforehand. It means a preservation of individuality and uniquenesses. It means intuition. It means forgetting where I dropped my car keys and thinking for several minutes before that ecstatic “aha!” moment that reveals where I left it! It means metaphors, hyperboles and idioms. I see I would need to start afresh to determine how I would USE technology and not have technology USE me. The costs are steep. “Faster, easier, cheaper” though gone out of the window leaves us for the first time with the unfettered joy of being human. Of cherishing our conversations. Of speaking one on one with an employee to understand the reason for his recent tardiness rather than sending him to a Bot-Counsellor, of caring enough to recommend a few days of rest… These, among others, trumps any digital advance — to be fully human! PS. This was written some years back though I modified some details last year. However, there has been no major change from what was written. If I were to write on this topic again, I will have to speak much about AI and the quantum advances it’s been experiencing till date and how that affects our humanity.

https://medium.com/@jesudamilareadesegundavid/being-human-in-an-increasingly-digital-age-7115823e6440

['Jesudamilare Adesegun-David']

2019-02-18 13:34:12.201000+00:00

['Artificial Intelligence', 'Humanity', 'Love', 'Choices', 'Digital']

Bots: Information

In this post, Caelan runs over information regarding Discord bots: what they are, why they are important and some of his recommendations. What Are Bots? Bots are human programmed AI’s made especially for discord. Bots are very unique and are a main part of what makes discord unique. Bot’s can do many things to discord and your server’s in so many good way’s. Bots are basically what make you and discord there own unique thing. Why Are They Important? Discord Bots are the top priority of making a server. Bots help you monitor, set up & make your server fun and safe. Some bot’s that make servers the best are Anti Raid Bots and Auto Moderation Bots. These two categories help protect your server and they make sure you server is safe. The best bot’s to use for a server will be stated below. Everything Stated Below Is In (#recommended) Best Place To Find Discord Bots: 1. https://discordbots.org/ 2. https://bots.discord.pw/ 3. https://botlist.co/ 4. https://ayblisting.com Recommended Bots To Use: ~ Dyno Bot (Does Not Cost Money) / Dyno Premium (Costs Money): https://www.dynobot.net/ ~ Mee6: https://mee6.xyz/ ~ Liam: https://liam.aysdiscord.com ~ Giveaway: https://giveawaybot.party/ ~ MedalBot: https://medal.tv/medalbot ~ Dank Memer: https://bots.discord.pw/bots/270904126974590976 ~ Yui: https://discordyui.net/ ~ Member Count: https://discordbots.org/bot/membercount ~ ModBot: https://discordbots.org/bot/367798880689192961 I hope this gave you a quick understanding of what bots are and why they are important.

https://medium.com/the-discord-path/bots-information-3c876efd745d

[]

2020-12-13 14:16:08.071000+00:00

['Bot', 'Ays', 'Discord', 'Discord Bots']

My 5 Most Cherished Childhood Christmas Memories Ever

Like the song says about Christmas, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” I can definitely agree with that, even though I didn’t really care for it during a period of time in my teenage years. But for the past couple decades (I know, I am elderly), I have gained a significant fondness for the roughly 40 day period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. As with most people, the most enduring Christmas memories took place during childhood, and I am no different. Here are my 5 most cherished Christmas memories from my days as a youngin:

https://medium.com/@deanteyoung/my-5-most-cherished-childhood-christmas-memories-ever-84ccd16c9ca7

['Deante L. Young']

2020-12-23 23:07:56.331000+00:00

['Life Lessons', 'Christmas', 'Childhood Memories', 'Memories', 'Self']

Learn ArcGIS

Can you tell how many trees (‘Positioned Nonconiferos tree’) are in this area? Hint. Use ‘Select By Location’. - Can you compare the number of trees at different thresholds? Try to modify the ring area transparency to for a clearer view of the data. Hint. Use the toolbox and proximity and multiple ring buffer. Use ‘Symbology’ from the Layer Properties. - At what distance is the furthest tree? Hint. First create a centroid of the UCL main building, you may use Point Distance from the toolbox Network Analysis Task3: Find the shortest path between two points on the network of road. Hint: build a network in ActCatalog and import road data, then work with Network Analyst in ArcToolbox. Network: to perform a shortest path analysis we need to build a network first. In ArcCatalog create a new feature dataset and then import or copy highways into it. Network analysis ArcGIS — Network Analysis Let’s work with some other data sources, and data formats. We can import csv files, WMS and use APIs. Let’s start creating an air pollution map of London using available data on the web. It is point observations [x,y, contc], nearly 4m points. We can load data into event layer, interpolate data [to make raster], and do some raster analysis. In order to find the shortest path (or any other network analysis) please make sure your network extension: Task 4: Create the raster map of air pollution in London using csv file of air quality data from data.london.gov.uk , https://data.london.gov.uk/air-quality/ Let’s work with some other data sources, and data formats. We can import csv files, WMS and use APIs. Let’s start creating an air pollution map of London using available data on the web. It is point observations [x,y, contc], nearly 4m points. We can load data into event layer, interpolate data [to make raster], and do some raster analysis. Air quality data for UK And create some raster outputs like and/or get some histogram and quantitative results: To do spatial analysis, please make sure the extension is enabled. And now you can use the spatial analysis tool with some functions like interpolation (you will learn more about these analyses later!) ArcGIS — Conversion tools Spatial Analyst Tools for ArcGIS So far, all interpolation raster has been stored just in memory. For further analysis we need to save it: Export data in ArcGIS Export Raster data in ArcGIS ArcGIS as a WMS client We can send a getMap request to a server with no GISoftware what so ever. Copy and paste the following GetCapabilities request in your browser address bar: http://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gebco_web_services/web_map_service/mapserv?reque st=getCapabilities&service=wms&version=1.1.1 The response includes information about the available Layers, SRS (Spatial Reference System), and Formats of the image (map), see below: OGC Web services: Web Map Services code of ARCGIS Then you can send the GetMap Request (via your browser). Please note you don’t need any GIS software to get this: http://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gebco_web_services/web_map_service/mapserv?reque st=getmap&service=wms&BBOX=- 90,30,5,65&srs=EPSG:4326&format=image/jpeg&layers=gebco_latest&width=900&height=600&ver sion=1.1.1 Try to play with the BBOX (Bounding Box), Map size (width and height), Image format and see what you can get in response. For the above request we should get below map/image: map size image for getMap request Now you can send the same request through your software (Arc, QGIS). You can do the same in your software and use the map/image as the background, or even analyse it. Here is the example in ArcCatalog. The ArcCatalog application is used to organise and manage various types of geographic information for ArcGIS for Desktop. ArcCatalog can be used for managing geodatabase schemas, search for and add content to ArcGIS applications, documentation, manage GIS servers, and manage standards-based metadata. ArcCatalog allow working with variety of sources/types of data. They include Geodatabases, Raster files, Map documents, globe documents, 3D scene documents, and layer files, Geoprocessing toolboxes, models, and Python scripts, GIS services published using ArcGIS for Server. Here we try to send the same WMS request we had sent last week (remember? http://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gebco_web_services/web_map_service/mapserv?reque st=getmap&service=wms&BBOX=- 90,30,5,65&srs=EPSG:4326&format=image/jpeg&layers=gebco_latest&width=900&height=600&ver sion=1.1.1) WMS server And now you can use the response map as the background of other layers or analyse the (georeferenced) raster file itself. (georeferenced) raster file ArcGIS difficult — The big difficulty is that ArcGIS (the standard) has a user interface out of the 90’s, constantly changes names and locations of things across editions, and is generally the most finicky piece of software with which I’ve ever worked. The ways in which it can randomly go from OK to FUBAR are amazingly varied.They will look just as they did in ArcMap with the same layouts and symbology. Actually, maps created in ArcMap may look even better after being imported because ArcGIS Pro uses anti-aliasing so lines and text are more crisp and clean. ArcGIS Uses — It is used for creating and using maps, compiling geographic data, analyzing mapped information, sharing and discovering geographic information, using maps and geographic information in a range of applications, and managing geographic information in a database. ArcGIS Cost — The license costs $100 for a 12-month period. This annual fee allows for the home use or personal use of the ArcGIS suite of GIS software along with its most popular extensions. If you’re a student attending an educational institute running a qualified Esri Campus-Wide Site Licenses, the deal is even better. GIS is a subject that can be self taught using online tools. As you have no doubt learned using search tools, a plethora of courses including several that are free. GIS in itself is not terribly difficult to learn. Open source technology means that its source code is freely available to use, modify, and redistribute. Esri encourages a hybrid model for open source technology depending on users’ needs. Esri Geoportal Server and ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap are examples of Esri’s open source projects. More to come, stay tuned!

https://medium.com/@jg2k5ster/learn-arcgis-704217873b7d

['Jyothi Gupta']

2020-09-04 01:54:54.662000+00:00

['Data Science', 'Data Visualization', 'Arcgis', 'Geospatial', 'GIS']

NYDesigns Helps Design and Hardware Companies Grow

For over 10 years now, NYDesigns has been helping entrepreneurs start and grow their companies in Queens, just a stone’s throw away from midtown Manhattan. NYDesigns is a program of LaGuardia Community College that serves companies in the design and hardware tech industries through distinctive independent studio space and a 5,000 sq ft FabLab equipped with a 4’x4’ laser cutter, 11’ CNC router, 3D printers, woodworking tools and electronic prototyping benches, all perfect for rapid prototyping and light industrial manufacturing. Companies at NYDesigns receive residency for up to 3 years and benefit from expert mentorship on topics of interest, ranging from entrepreneurship to advanced manufacturing, 3D printing, laser cutting, and Arduino. With additional support from the Kauffman Foundation and the NY State’s CFA incubation certification, NYDesigns is also pleased to offer all startups access to suite of entrepreneurs and strategists in residence who can help advise on scaling and growth strategy. At any given time, the NYDesigns community is comprised of 15 to 25 companies from the fields of interior design, urban design, fashion, wearables, kiosk-based distribution, healthcare, and music, although we also welcome software-based and service-based companies. Our mix of hardware companies focusing on the development of physical products and design-based companies focusing on user interaction and branding has proven beneficial for the growth of the overall ecosystem here at NYDesigns. Hoplite is a company led by four co-founders who are developing a network of phone charger distribution stations throughout New York City. They joined NYDesigns 4 months ago with basic “Looks Like” and “Works Like” prototypes and are now 8 weeks from launching their first set of stations and proving their business model. Vengo is changing the vending machine industry with its small-form, interactive stations and just raised $2M on Shark Tank, adding to their previous investment of $3M from a network of venture capitalists. Keyme, which enables you to take a photo of your keys with your phone and later go to a kiosk at a convenience store like 7-Eleven to get a copy made, graduated from NYDesigns 2 years ago and is continuing to grow — they just raised $20M in January 2016. Entrepreneurs come to us from NYU, Columbia, FIT, Pratt, MIT, or after years of professional experience. Now with IN2NYC, they can come from all over the world! Check out our website or come visit us if you’re in the neighborhood. We’d love to hear what you’re working on.

https://medium.com/in2nyc/nydesigns-helps-design-and-hardware-companies-grow-273543e25674

[]

2016-07-07 19:19:38.853000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'New York City', 'Education', '3D Printing', 'Startup']

Using X-Ray Images to detect COVID-19 Patients

Using X-Ray Images to detect COVID-19 Patients An quick introduction to an experiment on classifying chest x-ray images of COVID-19 using FastAI Photo by Owen Beard on Unsplash SARS-CoV-2 or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 has taken the world by storm. Nations are locked down to prevent the spread, economies are taking a nose dive, unemployment rates are going through the roof and amidst all of this healthcare system is being stress tested all around the world. We’ve all seen numerous exponential curves and how we all need to play our part to flatten the curve to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system. There are numerous things we need to do together to battle this virus including staying home, social distancing, good hygiene and following all the directives issued by WHO and your respective governments. The real heroes of this battle are our healthcare providers and their battleship is the healthcare system and infrastructure. There is immense planning and wartime execution going on at hospitals and healthcare systems. Contact tracing, isolation, testing at a large scale, intensive care and so on. This article talks about the use of technology in the field of radiology to augment testing capabilities. Before I proceed I want to be absolutely clear that the ideas presented in this article are just some experiments performed while sitting in front of a desk and by no means the idea or the result produced is remotely close to being used in the real scenario. Deploy-able machine learning systems need rigorous clinical and field testing. My intent is not to spread or aid in spreading misinformation or to suggest that deep learning is the magic wand we all need. Please read this article as purely an exercise in augmenting your own deep learning knowledge and a fun experiment to do and learn about FastAI. Lets begin! Fast AI Fast.ai is a brainchild of Rachel Thomas and Jeremy Howard. The idea behind FastAI is to democratize AI to reach people from all domains. They have created a complex but simple to use library which does all the heavy lifting for you so that you can focus on building the model and domain specific nuances and not worry too much about setting things up. Fast AI offers much more abstraction than Keras. Keras as you might know is built over Tensorflow whereas Fast AI is built over PyTorch. To illustrate the level of abstraction provided by Fast AI compared to Keras, a 31 line code in Keras to setup resnet50 model requires just 5 lines of code in Fast AI! Fast AI allows you to build learning models at a blazingly fast pace. I’ve recently started learning fast.ai and classifying x-ray images is one of the 3–4 different classifier models I was able to create in a couple of days. Source: xkcd.com X-Ray dataset The X-Ray dataset I’ve used for this experiment is taken from an open source x-ray and CT dataset. The dataset is created from images from research publications from China and other Countries in the world. We will use this dataset to build our classifier. Setting up Fast AI and data There is detailed documentation on setting up Fast AI on fast.ai. If you take up a course on their website Practical deep learning for coders it will guide you through the setup process. You will need to have a kaggle account or you can use a Colab environment or other paid options like Amazon Sagemaker Azure etc. Basically you will need a machine with an Nvidia GPU. If you have the patience (3–5 days) and enthusiasm to setup your own machine by all means do that. But the above environments help you to get going in less than couple of hours. OK once you are done setting Fast AI up lets move on to importing fast ai libraries and creating our dataset. Download the x-ray dataset from the link above and save it in a folder. There is a csv file, metadata.csv, which describes the details about the x-ray images. We will read this file and using this data we will segregate the images according to their labels. I am using only X-ray images (not CT scans) with a Posteroanterior (PA) views. covid_images and non_covid_images will give you a list of files corresponding to the positive and negative class. Put these files into two different folders named covid_positive and covid_negative. The names of these folders will serve as your class labels. The ImageDataBunch method reads the files inside the labeled folders and splits it into training and validation sets, resizes them, normalizes them all in one shot! show_batch method allows you to view your data. This is all the setup you need to to to get started with FastAI you can now jump into building your model. Training and Validating the model We will use transfer learning to train our model. If you are not familiar with transfer learning I would recommend to have a peek at this article. I am using a Resnet50 to build the classifier. We will use precision and recall as metrics for our model. cnn_learner downloads the specified cnn model. Here we are downloading resnet50. You also specify your databunch to the cnn_learner. Once you have the model downloaded we start the learning using fit_one_cycle() method. You can read about fit one cycle in detail here. fit_one_cycle outputs the training and validation loss for the number of epochs you choose to run. Since we are using transfer learning at this point we are just training the last few layers of our resnet50. To train the complete neural network we need to use learn.unfreeze(). This allows all the layers of the resnet50 to be trained. FastAI also provides very convenient methods to figure out learning rates. the lr_find() method helps you to choose a good learning rate so you can train the model quicker. The learning rate finder plots loss vs learning rates. After choosing an appropriate learning rate you can run training for a certain number of epochs to see how your model is performing. Once you are satisfied with the training metrics you can save your model again and plot confusion matrix and mis-classifications to further tune your model. interp = ClassificationInterpretation.from_learner(learn) interp.plot_confusion_matrix() All this can be done in a couple of hours using FastAI! Machine learning projects need a very fast experiment cycle and fast ai enables you to do exactly that. I am not going into details of model optimization in this article the intent here is to just introduce you to the FastAI library and give a feeler. You can create your own datasets and build image recognition models using this workflow. There is a lot of work going on in the world to tackle this pandemic and you can do your part by contributing to competitions in Kaggle, in opensource github databases and spreading the right information and arresting the spread of misinformation. And yes keep learning!

https://medium.com/x8-the-ai-community/using-x-ray-images-to-detect-covid-19-patients-9ba911716900

['Prateek Karkare']

2020-04-11 13:51:00.798000+00:00

['Technology', 'Deep Learning', 'Neural Networks', 'Data Science', 'Fastai']

Everything About The Biden Administration Is Fake

A new exclusive from The Daily Beast titled “White House Reporters: Biden Team Wanted Our Questions in Advance” reports that the White House press corps is being pressured to provide briefing questions ahead of time in a way that makes even mainstream media journalists uncomfortable. “While it’s a relief to see briefings return, particularly with a commitment to factual information, the press can’t really do its job in the briefing room if the White House is picking and choosing the questions they want,” one White House correspondent told The Daily Beast. “That’s not really a free press at all.” “It pissed off enough reporters for people to flag it for the [White House Correspondents Association] for them to deal with it,” another source reportedly said. While Obama’s deputy press secretary Eric Schultz calls the move “textbook communications work” designed to ensure that Biden’s press secretary has answers ready instead of having to “repeatedly punt questions”, clearly the reporters on the job feel differently. “The requests prompted concerns among the White House press corps, whose members, like many reporters, are sensitive to the perception that they are coordinating with political communications staffers,” writes the Beast. Having questions in advance would indeed be a good way to help insulate press secretary Jen Psaki (for whom liberals are already developing an unwholesome celebrity crush) from hard questions. This would avoid sticky situations like when Psaki deflected inquiries about treasury secretary Janet Yellen’s conflict of interest with the Citadel controversy by babbling about Yellen being the first woman in her position and claiming that receiving $800,000 in speaking fees from that company is no reason for her to recuse herself. So this is just one more item on the steadily growing pile of fake things about this administration. Everything about it is phony. This is the Astroturf Administration. Biden and his cohorts point-blank lied about sending out $2000 checks. Deportations are continuing unimpeded despite all the campaign pledges to the contrary. The kids in cages that made Rachel Maddow cry on air during the Trump administration are still in their cages and will remain there for the foreseeable future. The pro-environment candidate has authorized dozens of new oil drilling permits within days of taking office. Re-entering the Iran nuclear deal seems as far off as ever, with the administration continuing Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign” even as Tehran says the US ending its cruel sanctions is a precondition to resuming the deal. Biden still hasn’t taken any solid steps to end the horrific war on Yemen, or even to end US facilitation of the slaughter as he promised on the campaign trail (he could have taken major steps toward doing this the day he took office and chose not to). While this president hides from the press due to his rapidly deteriorating ability to answer questions in complete sentences, the mass media churn out think pieces about how taking himself out of the spotlight is actually a brilliant political move. As Our Hidden History recently put it, “We got sold a sack of political oregano.” And that’s all the US empire ever is, really: a murderous, tyrannical planetary oppressor covered up by varying degrees of dishonesty. During the Trump administration the depravity was a little more honest about itself, now during the Biden administration it’s a little more dishonest. The only major change is the thickness with which the makeup is slathered over the skull. Everything about life in our current world order is dominated by phoniness. Our culture is manufactured by Hollywood. Our dominating political structure is manufactured by think tanks. Our perceptions of what’s going on in the world are manufactured in Langley and Arlington. The whole thing is so fake and stupid. We’ve got to figure out a way to snap out of these artificial boxes they are placing over our minds and these perceptual filters they are placing over our eyes, and birth something real and authentic into our world. _______________________ Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my new book Poems For Rebels (you can also download a PDF for five bucks) or my old book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/everything-about-the-biden-administration-is-fake-4ba952593dc3

['Caitlin Johnstone']

2021-02-02 05:35:25.252000+00:00

['President', 'Politics', 'Joe Biden', 'Journalism', 'News']

The Argument for Security Tokens (Part 2 of 3)

Scenario 2: Role of Utility Tokens in an Environment Where Security Tokens Do Not Exist and Blockchain Companies Have Developed Products Fast-forwarding to the point when HouseChain has developed its decentralized short-term rental service, let’s analyze how purchasers of HouseCoins will use their tokens. This analysis assumes that HouseChain matured to a developed state without security tokens ever becoming the standard for raising capital (i.e., HouseChain issued HouseCoins, instead of HouseSTs, to raise capital). The above assumption implies that a HouseCoin has two potential uses: · Means for speculation · Means of trade for goods or services Crypto investors laud the theory that the value of a network increases as the network grows in user base. However, the assumption behind this statement is that users are actually “using” the network. If users are speculating on HouseCoins — as is the case for Group A of HouseCoin Holders in Exhibit 2 — they will hodl and resell the tokens through an exchange at some point in the future in hopes of making a profit instead of using the token within the network. These type of holders hodl, just as HouseChain founders, developers, and early accredited investors have been doing since they first received their HouseCoins. This is because their net worth and/or the value of their investment is directly dependent on HouseCoin’s price appreciating. The end result is these holders are not using the network, and thus not contributing any value to it. Exhibit 2: Different Incentives for Different Types of HouseCoin Holders in a Developed Product Environment Another type of holder (Group B in Exhibit 2) buys HouseCoins because they intend to pay for a short-term rental but do not have a pressing need to do so today. These buyers are also seeing that HouseCoin keeps appreciating in value, so what incentive do they have to pay for the short-term rental now vs later? To compare this to how consumers will react in a highly deflationary environment, these HouseCoin holders do not have an incentive to use their HouseCoins “today” since waiting for “tomorrow” will let them rent the same short-term rental with less tokens. Therefore, these type of HouseCoin holders will store their HouseCoins in their wallets and wait to use them. A third type of HouseCoin holder (Group C in Exhibit 2) will buy the token from an exchange and immediately transact with the HouseChain network. This group of holders, which represents only a fraction of total HouseCoin holders, are the active network users. The fundamental value of the network ultimately depends on its active users and not on its speculators. Thinking about fundamental value of a crypto network makes me want to dive into cryptoasset valuation. I will refrain for the sake of staying on topic; however, I will leave you with this spectacular post on cryptoasset valuation by Chris Burniske and promise to discuss the topic further in a post soon. Finally, what are HouseChain’s incentives? What will HouseChain do with the tokens it receives from its active users? HouseChain can do two things with the HouseCoin it receives from users transacting on the network: burn them or resell them. If the value of the HouseCoin is due to speculation, then HouseChain is incentivized to burn the coins. Why? Assuming that the demand for a HouseCoin remains constant, then basic principals of economics state that a reduction in the supply of HouseCoins (e.g., burning HouseCoins) will lead to an increase in the price users are willing to pay for a HouseCoin. If HouseChain resells the HouseCoins, then it is temporarily increasing the supply of HouseCoins in circulation at that point in time. Following the same logic, an increase in supply, assuming demand stays constant, will lead to a decrease in price. In this state of the world, founders, developers, and other members of the HouseChain team have been compensated in HouseCoins, and their net worth stands to gain when the price of a HouseCoin increases. Therefore, they will be incentivized to burn HouseCoins. From a long-term investor perspective, this is a problem because those in charge of HouseChain have an incentive to promote short-term price appreciation over taking actions to maximize the value of the network over the long-term. All in all, if the majority of HouseCoin holders do not participate in the network, then HouseChain will have developed a “zombie network” — in other words, the network will be up-and-running but have a few to no active users. Therefore, in such a state, any HouseCoin price increase will be due to speculation and not from any increase in the network’s fundamental value. Removing speculation as a reason to buy a utility token is key in order to have a functional macro cryptoeconomy with real commerce where there is trade between blockchain companies providing goods and services and consumers of those goods and services. The third post will take a look at how such a state of the world can look like. Link to part three: The Argument for Security Tokens (Part 3 of 3)

https://medium.com/coinmonks/the-argument-for-security-tokens-part-2-of-3-2ecd73e367c

['Joel Camacho']

2019-08-29 20:34:26.730000+00:00

['Investing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Ethereum', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin']

#siLab: Gravity Group

The Gravity Group is led by Dr. Ian Vega, an Associate Professor at NIP. Gravity primarily explores problems in relativistic astrophysics, where Einstein’s famous theory of general relativity is used to investigate celestial objects like black holes — bodies which have so strong a gravitational force, they can lasso the fastest things in the universe. Recently, Gravity’s latest publication explored how different models of an expanding universe can be explained in a modified version of Einstein’s theory. Their other projects focused on ways of extracting energy from black holes, how sun-like bodies orbit objects a million times heavier, and gravitational waves (GWs) — ripples in spacetime caused by violent events such as the merger of massive stars.

https://medium.com/up-scientia/silab-gravity-group-1b39e46ad207

[]

2019-10-02 13:15:52.955000+00:00

['Silab', 'Gravitational Physics', 'Philippines', 'Physics']

Website Development: A Need to Image Your Business

The digital market is the need of today’s world. You have to be more patient and technical sound to mark your existence in this digital age. Today is the age of profession and expertise. This quote clearly says that if you are well enough equipped will skill then only you can be a successful person or a business magnet. There was a time when you have to shout your name loudly for the promotion and you have to use several illogical manners just to promote yourself and your name. But now the time has changed. Everything is on the internet and the best is people are in habit of trusting you if you have an online presence. So your online presence speaks more than you do. Everything lies around Promotion or Public Image This is the fact of today’s world that if you are promoting yourself then you are able to sell yourself and if you are able to sell yourself or your services then you can generate more revenues from your services. Better promotion techniques mean better results and growth. So digital promotion is the only way through which you get a high grade of promotion without shouting your name in the crowd or public gathering. Get introduce yourself with Experts Root for the digital world is only Google. And to transform your digital strategies into Google-friendly, then you should have exact information about how Google works. If you get introduce yourself then you could also become experts in some professional areas other you should hire some for you. Because expert advice can really help you to survive in this cutthroat competition. Get the best for you Choosing the best for you is always the requirement of the time and necessity of the era. If you do not have a good team of digital experts then you are not going to achieve your targets in the digital world. You will find many Digital Companies are available in India, but how they are worthy in their work depends on the working plan and strategies. Be on the top of search results With the best Search Engine Optimization skills and techniques, you get the option to find yourself on the top of the results. If you do not have the best SEO services available to you then you cannot mark your presence online with complete trust values. With the help of the Best SEO services, you get the best results and basic thing is that you can grab more eyes on yourself. Because best SEO service will bring your business website to the top of the search results and if you are on the top then you are able to get many visitors and more eyes on you. How Website development is important for you? Creating and nurturing a website for your business or for your startup is really important in many senses as you get your public image with the help of your website. So having a website is really important for you as your website will mark you a presence in the eyes of your investors and customers. Generally, your website suggests your ideology like what you think about your business. And what you can offer to your customers. Many options are available for you in the market, and you have the opportunity to select among them. So it's your responsibility to choose wisely for you. From the available names in the digital market companies, I hope one is most authentic and that name is All Time Data, this company is located in Noida, having its terms with Google as a vendor. Something Reliable Over the years, All Time Data as a web designing & development agency has helped and served hundreds of online businesses to boost their online visibility and to get more and more leads to the business. Although the online marketplace has been altered a lot over the years, our core ethics of delivering values and optimum client satisfaction remain the same. With our profound understanding of website promotion & online marketing, we have added hundreds of small businesses to have a vigorous online identity and we exactly know that a successful online presence is not just having a website. At All-Time Data, we have tailored our process and services to deliver everything a business needs from the very start. Also, we make sure that our esteemed clients would experience an absolutely easy, smooth, and prompt service. During the entire process, we remain close to our clients to understand their business, recognize their competitors, and make effective yet revenue-generating online marketing strategies through our SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services. We also cater modified SMO (Social Media Optimization) services that the business can get uniqueness on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more. Additionally, we enclose a team of highly talented digital marketing specialists and Google certified experts, who assist businesses with paid services like PPC (Pay Per Click) and Google AdWords to get maximum numbers of leads to the business.

https://medium.com/@nirmalyamohanty4885/website-development-a-need-to-image-your-business-ef2ebe4f30b1

['Nirmalya Mohanty']

2021-12-25 12:45:53.736000+00:00

['Web Development', 'Seo Services']

Interview with Sam Lind

Interview with Sam Lind Design Leadership Interview at DoorDash Hey Sam, How’s it going? It’s going well. We’ve been busy working on a lot of exciting things lately. Yeah, it’s definitely been exciting given current events. So what do you do at DoorDash? I’m the design manager for the core consumer team. We design the end-to-end customer experience — finding a restaurant, placing an order, tracking a delivery — for our mobile apps and website. And what was your journey to being a design manager here? I joined DoorDash a little over 2 years ago. Before that I was at an agency called Odopod for nine years, and before that I was at Yahoo for six. During my time at Odopod, the world of digital design shifted substantially. The first iPhone had just been released and it ushered in a new class of digital products along with a new industry focus on mobile. During that period, I was lucky to contribute to work for EA, Tesla, Sony, PlayStation, GoPro and more. Over time, though, the nature of our work changed. As our clients built their own in-house product design teams, we were hired to define the product vision, but the in-house team carried that vision forward. It was fun to do that visionary work, but I started to feel a little disconnected from the day-to-day execution. That’s when I started looking for an in-house role. My team at Odopod. Go, Team Blue! Funny you mention EA because you’re into video games, right? Yeah, I play my fair share of video games, mostly Destiny these days. It’s been a great way to remotely stay in touch with my brothers and friends for the past six years. It’s engaging enough to be interesting, but repetitive enough to encourage a sort of mediation. The amount of detail invested in the story and graphics is sincerely impressive as well. Bungie definitely invests a lot of time in the craft and details that make the whole experience feel complete and rewarding. Even the in-game UI — which uses a free cursor rather than a directional selector — is pretty unique for consoles. The game also has a strong community of creators who make apps and web tools that let you manage your in-game inventory, capture and reflect game play stats, and more. It’s inspiring to see what people can build with an open API and a little imagination. Speaking of craft, you’re generally known as the craft enforcer, so to speak here at DoorDash and amongst your team. Is that true? *Laughs* I hope so! Craft is often undervalued. It’s not enough just to have a good idea, you also need to bring that idea to life through careful execution. A great idea executed poorly loses a lot of value. To execute well, though, you need to both go wide to explore a range of possible solutions, and go deep to pay close attention to the details. The first iteration is rarely the best iteration; set a goal to create 5, 10, 20 different versions of whatever you’re working on and I bet the later explorations are the strongest. In a similar vein, you and your team do a great job with delightful-ness — this is especially apparent with the cuisine filters at the top of the home page. Where did the idea for these come from? One of my first projects at DoorDash was focused on improving the home page. We wanted to add tools to help indecisive customers find something to order. Through user research, we found that cuisines are really powerful: they inspire customers to try something new, they remind customers of restaurants they had forgotten about, they also help convey the breadth of selection available on DoorDash. So cuisines are important and should be prominent, but we also wanted to make them fun to use. The illustration style is inviting and friendly, and the tap animation is the icing on the cake that makes them a delight. The team, led by Ben Sorensen, put a lot of work into each animation. The work involved a lot of unique design debates too, “is this exploding pad thai fun or just a mess?” Our collection of DoorDash Cuisine icons. Never heard of someone trying to balance delightful-ness and messiness, but there’s a first for everything, I guess! What’s your favorite icon, and why? I like that the bowls are all similar, but there are subtle differences that are unique to each cuisine. My favorites are probably the pizza and the sandwich, though. They have enough detail to be interesting and unique, but not so much that they’re distracting. Back to your team, how do you think they would describe your leadership? Building on the previous point about craft, I think they would agree that I have sharp attention to detail and hold a high bar for execution. I’m careful not to be prescriptive, though. I want to provide clear feedback, but I want my team to feel empowered to own their work and be the thought leader in their product area. Empowerment is arguably one of the most important things you can instill in designers. That said, what type of culture do you try to instill amongst your team? Open and collaborative. That might sound cliche, but it’s truly important given the structure of the team. Each designer owns a product area, so each designer works very independently. To keep the team from drifting apart, I encourage the designers to reach out to one-another regularly, align on common patterns, seek advice, share their perspectives. We need to create organic connections across projects that would otherwise have no organizational connection. DoorDash design, one year ago. Agreed. So, I also hear that you’re hiring. What type of designers are you looking for? We are hiring! I want designers who are independent owners and makers. Designers who can partner with their cross-functional peers — product managers, engineers, analysts, and more — to identify opportunities in their product area and drive change. We’re always juggling near-term product improvements alongside long-term strategic thinking and planning. A designer on the consumer team should be able to move seamlessly between the two and help the team decide where to focus their effort. I also want designers who are eager to reach outside of their product area and make connections between their work and the work being conducted by the Dasher or merchant teams. Our three-sided marketplace is complex and most of our problems can’t be solved in a silo; we need designers who are looking out for opportunities to collaborate. With that said, what advice would you give designers that are looking to apply to your team? Two ideas spring to mind: First, when you present your work, demonstrate that you understand the problem you’re solving. How did you uncover the customer pain-point? How did you evaluate the size of the opportunity? Second, show your craft and process. How did you arrive at the final solution? What other solutions did you explore along the way? How did you determine and verify that the path you selected was the right one? We want to see the thinking behind your work. Great! Is there anything else you’d like to add? DoorDash is growing fast and the team isn’t resting on our laurels. Everyone, across all disciplines, is excited to radically improve every aspect of our product. We’re also eager to stretch our team culture, grow our skillset, and learn from new team members with new perspectives. — — — — — For those readers who are interested in joining Sam’s awesome design team, please check out these links: Senior Product Designer Please learn more about other design leaders at DoorDash: Christopher Payne — Chief Operating Officer Kathryn Gonzalez — Manager for Design Infrastructure Radhika Bhalla — Head of UX Research Rajat Shroff — VP of Product Tae Kim — UX Content Strategist Lead Will DiMondi — Manager for Merchant Design

https://medium.com/design-doordash/interview-with-sam-lind-7c4eba82a78

['Will Dimondi']

2020-06-10 19:28:10.263000+00:00

['Design', 'UX Design', 'UX', 'DoorDash', 'Design Leadership']

Email List Cleaning: Why you need to clean your list | ATC Media

Do you currently have a large email list, but meh open rates? Well, I have news for you, and fair warning, this is going to be a tough pill to swallow. She’s just not into you, and you’re *literally* paying for it. Whether you call it a list cleaning, pruning, win-back, or re-engagement, if you have subscribers on your email list that haven’t engaged with you recently, they are detrimental to your email marketing strategy. Before you get upset, it is not your fault! Some studies show that in just 28 days, 4.5% of your subscribers can become unresponsive. ( omnisend.com) In this blog, you will learn the importance of list cleaning, how to create a series, and best practices. Also, I threw in my own email list cleaning series as a swipe file with a bonus training. Applying this to your business can be scary, but I promise it’s necessary to maintain a healthy email list. Email List Cleaning Affects Email Deliverability Rates Engagement Metrics Dashboard on ConvertKit Engagement Metrics Dashboard on ConvertKit One of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make is chasing vanity numbers. We pursue likes and follows as a means for measuring our success instead of conversion rates. I would argue that when it comes to email marketing, the size of your list is a vanity number. The metrics that matter are your open rates and click-through rates. You can have a list of 200 email addresses with a 50% average open rate or a list of 2,000 with a 5% open rate. Both have 100 people opening emails. But, the list of 2,000 email addresses cost the owner more in fees monthly. Additionally, the entrepreneur is more likely to have spam complaints and deliverability issues. The habits of your subscribers affect your email deliverability. If your subscribers ignore your emails or mark them as spam, it will affect your sender reputation. Without intervention, your future emails will start landing in spam folders. And, since email list churn (or subscribers who bounce, report you as spam, or never even open your emails) can eat through up to 30% of your list each year, it’s important to stay on top of things. ( content.myemma.com) How to Create an Email List Cleaning Series Re-engagement email series on ConvertKit Re-engagement email series on ConverKit The best solution for you to stay on top of your email list is to create an email list cleaning series. Scrubbing your list helps you identify active subscribers who are marked cold/inactive subscribers. It also enables you to purge your list of inactive subscribers and bad email addresses. And the best perk is that you will see a boost in your engagement metrics. The email campaign should consist of 3–5 re-engagement emails. The key to this series is to create engaging emails with direct calls to action. Keep the following in mind when creating your re-engagement email campaign: Don’t hide what you are doing. Your ‘heck-yes’ humans want to stay on your list, so you can’t be cryptic. Be direct in what you need them to do. If they need to click a link to stay subscribed, tell them explicitly. Bless and release. Let them know it’s okay to unsubscribe and that you will always be rooting for them. If you are still struggling with creating a series, use mine for inspiration. (Click here to swipe my email series) Email List Cleaning Best Practices Email automation dashboard on ConvertKit Depending on your email service provider, you can create an automation that tags and sends the series. ActiveCampaign has a prebuilt engagement automation template for its members. I don’t like automating this process. I have a quarterly event scheduled in my calendar reminding me to scrub my list. Don’t get me wrong; the series is pre-built. However, I review my list of cold subscribers, add a few filters, and have those remaining tagged and sent through the automation afterward. That little bit of control has helped me, on two occasions, identify segments that were ‘stuck.’ It turned out that they weren’t receiving my broadcasts because I tagged them incorrectly. Regardless of if you choose to automate your campaign or run it manually, you should have it set so that subscribers do not go more than 90–120 days without opening or clicking through an email. Also, use multiple emails with different headlines. After the last email is sent, wait about a week before removing the inactive emails. Conclusion You need to be scrubbing your email list to save money and your sender reputation. If you don’t already have a series you are using and don’t want to be staring at “the blinking cursor of death,” then swipe my series by clicking here. Steal it or use it for inspiration. Either way, set up your list cleaning series today. #noexcuses Takeaways

https://medium.com/@alexandriataylorcox/email-list-cleaning-why-you-need-to-clean-your-list-atc-media-1d39f2096a38

['Alexandria Taylor Cox']

2020-12-13 02:08:33.762000+00:00

['Email Marketing', 'Re Engagement', 'Email Marketing Tips']

Why Positive Thinking Works

From “Thought-Forms” (1905) by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater Why Positive Thinking Works Toward a Theory of Mind Causation Why should positive thinking, “manifestation,” or the “law of attraction” work at all? Before you cry “confirmation bias!” (materialism’s equivalent of “lock her up!”) take a deep breath. In my book The Miracle Club I propose a theory of mind causation. It may be wrong, it may be grossly incomplete, but I feel that we need to at least try to theorize from the intersection of testimony, science, and mysticism. It’s necessary, I believe, for our generation of seekers to do more than tell the same stories over and over. We must experiment, we must experience, we must have results — and we must attempt to come up with reasons why mind causation just might work. I’ll start by quoting something that mystic Neville Goddard (1905–1972) said in 1948: “Scientists will one day explain why there is a serial universe. But in practice, how you use this serial universe to change the future is more important.” It was a striking observation, because it wasn’t until years later that quantum physicists began to talk about the many-worlds theory. Physicist Hugh Everett III (1930–1982) devised the concept in 1957. He was trying to make sense of some of the extraordinary findings that had been occurring for about three decades in quantum particle physics. For example, scientists are able to demonstrate, through various interference patterns, that a subatomic particle occupies a wave state or state of superposition — that is, an infinite number of places — until someone takes a measurement: it is only when the measurement is taken that the particle collapses, so to speak, from a wave state into a localized state. At that point it occupies a definite, identifiable, measurable place. Before the measurement is taken, the localized particle exists only in potential. Now I have just about squeezed all of quantum physics into roughly a sentence. I think it’s an accurate sentence, but obviously I’m taking huge complexities and reducing them into the dimensions of a marble. But I believe I’m faithfully stating what has been observed in the last eighty-plus years of particle experiments. And we’re seeing that on the subatomic scale, matter does not behave as we understand it to. Our understanding of matter in our macro world generally comes from measuring things through our five senses, and experiencing them as singularities. There is one table. It is solid and definable. It’s not occupying an infinite number of spaces. But contemporary quantum physicists have theorized that we may not normally see or experience superposition phenomena because of information leakage. This means that we gain or lose data based on the fineness of our measurement. When you’re measuring things with exquisitely well-tuned instruments, like a microscope, you’re seeing more and more of what’s going on — and that’s actual reality. But when you pan the camera back, so to speak, your measurements coarsen and you’re seeing less and less of what’s actually happening. To all ordinary appearances, a table is solid. The floor beneath your feet is solid. Where you’re sitting is solid. But measuring through atomic-scale microscopes, we realize that if you go deeper and deeper, you have space within these objects. Particles make up the atom, and still greater space appears. We don’t experience that; we experience solidity. But no one questions that there’s space between the particles that compose an atom. Furthermore, we possess decades of data demonstrating that when subatomic particles are directed at a target system, such as a double slit, they appear in infinite places at once until a measurement is made; only then does locality appear. But we fail to see this fact unless we’re measuring things with comparative exactitude. Hence what I’m describing seems unreal based on lived experience — but it’s actual. In any event, my supposition is this: if particles appear in an infinite number of places at once until a measurement is taken; and if, as we know from studying the behavior and mechanics of subatomic particles, there’s an infinitude of possibilities; and if we know, as we have for many years, that time is relative, then it is possible to reason — and it’s almost necessary to reason — that linearity itself, by which we organize our lives, is an illusion. Linearity is a useful and necessary device for five-sensory beings to get through life, but it doesn’t stand up objectively. Linearity is a device, a subjective interpretation of what’s really going on. It’s not reflected in Einstein’s theory of relativity, which posits that time slows down when it begins to approach the speed of light. Nor is it reflected in quantum mechanics, where particles appear in an infinitude of places and do not obey any orderly modality. Linearity is not replicating itself when a measurement taken of a particle serves to localize the appearance or existence of the object. If we pursue this line of thought further — and this is where the many-worlds theory comes into play — the very decision to take a measurement (or not to take a measurement) not only localizes a particle but creates a past, present, and future for that particle. The decision of an observer to take a measurement creates a multidimensional reality for the particle. This is implied in the famous thought-experiment called Schrodinger’s Cat, which I describe here (yes, pre-tattoos, but remember there is no time): So whatever that particle is doing, the very fact that a sentient observer has chosen to take a measurement at that time, place, moment, and juncture creates a whole past, present, future — an entire infinitude of outcomes. A divergent set of outcomes would exist if that measurement were never taken. A divergent set of outcomes would also exist if that measurement were taken one second later, or five minutes later, or tomorrow. And what is tomorrow? When particles exist in superposition until somebody takes a measurement, there is no such thing as tomorrow, other than subjectively. And what are our five senses but a technology by which we measure things? What are our five senses but a biological technology, not necessarily different in intake from a camera, photometer, digital recorder, or microscope? So it’s possible that within reality — within this extra-linear, super-positioned infinitude of possibilities in which we are taking measurements — we experience things based upon our perspective. Neville Goddard’s instinct was correct in this sense. He taught that you can take a measurement by employing the visualizing forces of your own imagination. You’re taking a measurement within the infinitude of possible outcomes. The measurement localizes or actualizes the thing itself. Hence his formula: an assumption, if persisted in, hardens into fact. But the assumption must be persuasive; it must be convincing. That’s why the emotions and feeling states must come into play. And Neville observed that the hypnagogic state — a state of drowsy relaxation — helps facilitate that process. You can use several different techniques in connection with Neville’s ideas, and, as he did, I challenge you to try them and see what happens. You’re entitled to results. I believe strongly in results. I believe that every therapeutic and ethical and spiritual philosophy should result in some concrete change and improvement in your life or your conduct; if it doesn’t, then such an idea should have no hold on you. I feel similarly strongly that the ability to describe a concrete outcome in your life is vitally important, and that too was always part of Neville’s teaching. Testimony is both an important source of ideas and an invitation to others. One way of using Neville’s approach to mental creativity is to enter into an inner state of theatrical or childlike make-believe. Not childish but childlike: a state of internal wonder and pretending. Children are so good at this. We get embarrassed about this quality as we age, but Neville talked about walking the streets of Manhattan imagining that he was in the tree-lined lanes of Barbados, boarding a ship to some desired destination, or in a location where he wanted to be. He would say: “Unfoldment will come. You will see.” He would always say that an assumption, although false, if persisted in, eventually hardens into fact. He would say, “Assume the state of the wish fulfilled. Live from the end. Live from the state of your wish fulfilled.” Remember, Neville would remind listeners, you’re not in a state of wanting; you’re in a state of having received. Your aim is simply to occupy the emotional and mental state that you would experience after having received. One simple way to use Neville’s method is to freely enter this state of make-believe, as you used to when you were a child. Of course, you must also continue to go about your adult life in this world of Caesar and currency and commerce, and fulfill your obligations and do the things you need to do. You cooperate with the world. You must abide by the world. You must do the things that the world needs you to do. But the secret engine behind what’s really going on is what you’re imagining. Within are the hidden currents of emotionalized thought, which are the actual engine of what’s occurring. How long will it take you to see your desired changes in outer life? How long will it take for outer life to conform to your internal focus, your living from the end of your ideal? This question of time intervals has recently become very hot for me personally, because with all the stresses that life throws at us, it is not easy to adopt a feeling state and stick with it for weeks. It’s very difficult, in part because the world we live in does everything possible to disrupt our inner quietude. Neville noted later in his life that there could be a substantial time interval between your visioning, your mental imaging, and the appearance of the wished-for thing. He would point out that the gestation period of a human life is nine months. The gestation period of a horse is eleven months. The gestation period of a lamb is five months. The gestation period of a chick is twenty-one days. There is almost always going to be some time interval. You must persist. If you want to find yourself in Paris, and you wake up every day and you’re still far away from Paris, you’re naturally going to feel disappointed or dejected. But if you really stick with it, I venture that you will see that your assumptions eventually concretize into reality, and the correspondences will be uncanny. I’ve had such experiences in my own life; but I’ve personally observed that in some cases, there have been extended time intervals. This has been true regarding my career as a writer, speaker, and narrator. The philosopher Goethe made an interesting observation. We’ve all heard the expression “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.” It actually has its roots in Goethe. Taking a leaf from Goethe’s play Faust, Ralph Waldo Emerson noted this dynamic in his 1860 essay “Fate,” which led to the popular adage. Emerson wrote: And the moral is that what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us; as Goethe said, “what we wish for in youth, comes in heaps on us in old age,” too often cursed with the granting of our prayer: and hence the high caution, that, since we are sure of having what we wish, we must beware to ask only for high things. We are being warned to act with perspective: what we wish for when we are young will come upon us in waves when we are old. Many people would object to that claim, saying that they have all kinds of unfulfilled wishes. But unlocking the truth of this observation requires peeling back the layers of your mind and probing formative images and fantasies from when you were very young. What was the earliest dream you can remember when you first came into conscious memory, maybe at age three or four? I mean a literal nighttime dream. What were your fantasies when you were very young? I do believe that children — certainly this was true of me — have very intense fantasy lives even at age four or five. What were your earliest fantasies? I believe that Goethe’s observation relates to Neville’s remarks about the perceived passage of time and the gestation period between the thought and the actualization. If you take Goethe’s counsel, you might be surprised to discover an extraordinary symmetry between the things that you’re living out in your life today and things that you harbored and thought about when you were very young. These can be positive, negative, or anywhere in between. Neville recommends that you avoid thinking in terms of, “It will happen this way or that way” or “I’ll do something to make it happen.” His attitude was that the event will unfold in its own lovely, harmonious, perfect way. Your job is not to draw the map. Your job is to live from the destination. I believe that Neville is going to be remembered, and is being looked upon today, as having created the most elegant mystical analog to quantum physics. He was thinking and talking about these ideas long before the popularization of quantum physics. He had a remarkable instinct in the 1940s, which has been tantalizingly, if indirectly, reiterated by people studying quantum theory — people who have never heard the name of Neville. Yet it wouldn’t surprise me if, within a generation or so, some physics students begin to read him as a philosophical adjunct to their work. That may sound unlikely, but remember that many of the current generation of physicists were inspired by Star Trek and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I believe there is greater openness today to questions of awareness and mind causation. *** We all live by philosophies, unspoken or not. Even if we say we don’t have an ideology, we obviously have assumptions by which we navigate life. When I look back upon people like Neville and Zen teacher Alan Watts (1915–1973), I realize that their greatness is that they lived by the inner light of their ideas. That is a rare trait in our world today. We are a world of talkers. People are sarcastic or cruel over Twitter, and they think they’re taking some great moral stand. Is it brave for someone who lives miles away and doesn’t even use his real name to call people out online? That’s no victory. It’s make-believe morality. When we look back on certain figures in the political, cultural, artistic, and spiritual spheres, those we remember are the ones who lived by the inner light of their ideas, who put themselves on the line, for success or failure, based upon an idea. My wish for every one of you reading these words is that you provide that same example. And I really must say the following, and I mean this in my heart: if you sincerely attempt what I am describing, I believe that you will find greatness, because, if nothing else, you will be making the effort to live by the inner light of an idea. (This article is adapted from Magician of the Beautiful: An Introduction to Neville Goddard.)

https://mitch-horowitz-nyc.medium.com/why-positive-thinking-works-fa1ca49e3d61

['Mitch Horowitz']

2020-08-02 22:39:39.342000+00:00

['Paranormal', 'Self Improvement', 'Mysticism', 'Science', 'Occult']

What hurricanes teach us about the consumers and the economy…

What hurricanes teach us about the consumers and the economy… Deflation is the monster in the central banker’s closet What if I told you Amazon.com was in the business of predicting hurricanes? Seeing as they are getting into just about every business, it might not be a surprise. But that’s not the point here. What matters is the technology which produces this hurricane forecast map. It is exactly the same technology which enables Amazon to pull off same-day delivery. Let me explain. Knowledge Management and Storm Path Prediction The field of “Knowledge Management” (KM) breaks things down into three basic groups. There is “data” — which in meteorology would be a reading like temperature, atmospheric pressure, dew point, etc. The data originates from an instrument at a point in time. If we are looking at consumer purchases, a product would be a point of data (let’s use hot chocolate and marshmallows — more on that in a moment). When you take various points of data and bring them into context with each other you have what KM calls “information” — or data in context with other data. For hurricane forecasting, various meteorological data points are brought into a three dimensional information set called a “cube.” The first two dimensions would be like a spreadsheet. You might have latitude/longitude/altitude positions as rows and the various readings as columns. The spreadsheet itself would represent these readings and their locations at a single point in time. Time, then, becomes the third dimension of the cube. You basically have time slice spreadsheets stacked front-to-back as if in a filing cabinet. The third element of KM is Knowledge. In order to elicit knowledge from the cube you employ a sophisticated statistical algorithm. There can be any number of such algorithms — when you hear the weather reporter refer to “the models,” they are referring to various algorithms which analyze the information in the cube. These algorithms are fine tuned over time. We can go back to previous storm seasons and the information cube from a storm at its beginning (say, when it becomes a named storm), and we can take that “time slice” from the cube and run it through our model today to see what our model will “predict.” Of course, since we are taking information from the past, we already “know” how the storm will proceed. We can compare that with our model’s calculation and use the results to fine tune the model’s math. As a result, when a storm like Dorian forms, we have numerous finely tuned models. We take today’s time slice from the information cube we are building in real time and run it through the models. The models then create future time slices for our information cube. Those future time slices (think of the spreadsheet of rows and columns) is then the underlying data which produces the map we see on the news. Meteorology and Consumer Purchasing Now let’s go from one weather extreme to another. It’s snowing outside and very cold, so you settle down to a book and a cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows. Let’s say I own a hot chocolate company and I get from Big Data a comprehensive data set of consumer purchases of products like mine. I create an information cube, each slice showing me the store locations (rows) and the volume of sales of various products (columns — let’s just limit this to the hot chocolate and the marshmallows.) I can now create a time-based “heat map” — this is a lot like the storm path map in that I can hit “play” and see sales volume (think storm intensity) increase and dissipate. On this heat map, the colors will reflect the volume of sales — dark red will show me when and where hot chocolate and marshmallows are flying off the shelves. Now imagine we get meteorological data sets from the same period in the past. We bring the weather information into context with the consumer purchase information and create an entirely new set of information. When we press play on our heat map we see red and green ebb and flow to represent sales volume as it goes up and down. We also see weather data for the same times and places. Now what I am looking for is a statistically significant correlation between weather data (as it gets colder and stormier in the winter) and sales volume of hot chocolate and marshmallows. This was originally a heat map showing where fitness centers were located. Imagine the red shows us where our hot chocolate and marshmallows are flying off the shelves. Weather models are remarkably accurate — and getting better There is some consternation today about hurricane Dorian originally being forecast to hit the Florida coast, only now to be forecast to take a sharp turn north right before making landfall. Everyone is up in arms over the alarm because it was disruptive. But when we look at this strictly as an exercise in Knowledge Management the models were remarkably accurate, especially if we just look at the predictions made a day or so into the future. (This is why the maps show us a cone surrounding the path — the cone gets wider the further out the map goes in time, reflecting the decreased certainty about the prediction.) If we step back from the “breaking news” of a dangerous storm, we note that the run-of-the-mill weather forecasts we listen to on the news are really no different. The models are spitting out time slice spreadsheets a few days into the future and the guy or gal on TV is telling us what that data means for our commute or that picnic we had planned for Labor Day. But back to my hot chocolate and marshmallow sales… If I find a statistically significant correlation between weather data and sales volume, I can see where and under what weather conditions my product is selling best. I can then go to the weather models in the winter and I will “know” about a week in advance where the weather is going to be cold and stormy. I will also “know” this is likely to mean my sales volume will spike. What I cannot have, as a business owner, is for a potential customer to come to the shelf looking for my products, and not find them because I did not supply it to the store in the volume necessary to meet the demand. This is basically how Amazon pulls off same-day delivery — but only in certain markets. These markets have enough of the right kinds of data Amazon’s models require to produce highly reliable predictions. Amazon’s “map” shows them when and where various kinds of products will be in demand in a few days. This allows them to move those products into regional warehouses so, when they are ordered, the products are in a close-enough proximity to the customer that Amazon can deliver on the same day. And now a word from our sponsors…or not You might have found my subtitle odd: “Deflation is the monster in the central banker’s closet.” Janet Yellen as former Fed Chair? If you are my hot chocolate and marshmallow customer, and you have reason to believe I will lower my price tomorrow, why would you buy today? This “deflationary” mindset, if we extrapolate it across the economy, means supply chains start to back up with an excess of supply. If my hot chocolate and marshmallow supply chain starts backing up, in the minds of central bankers I will have to lower my price. This will only confirm my customer’s suspicions and they will decide to wait a little longer, hoping to get a better price tomorrow. Writ large, at least as the conventional wisdom goes, a depression-causing spiral begins. Expectations of lower prices mean transactions are delayed. That delay prompts producers to lower their prices to move product. That confirms the expectations of lower price, so that expectation persists and transactions are further delayed — causing prices to drop… Wash, rinse, repeat. Central bankers think this is a monetary problem. If my consumer has more money, they will be able to pay today’s price and my supply chain starts moving again. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. So the central banker says we need to add money to the economy. But what if deflation is not, nor has ever been, a monetary problem? What if deflation is a supply-chain management problem? What if the deficit is not in the money supply, but in the “knowledge” of where certain products are likely to have enough demand to support today’s price. What if the real tool needed here is Knowledge Management? The central banker is worried about why people are not buying. As a businessman, I don’t care why people are not buying — I want to know where they are buying at today’s price and why they are buying at today’s price so I can supply the market at those places and times. It seems the central banking crowd has remained unaware that there is this thing in today’s economy that was not around during our grandparents’ time. This thing is the computer, and the fatal flaw of central banking (and academic economics) is they haven’t the foggiest idea of how real people in the real economy of today actually use computers to manage their supply chains. There are two kinds of people in the economy — those who do real things, and those who talk and write about those who do real things… Central banks and academic economists are clearly the latter. I actually learned to code on one of these! If they would simply stop intervening in what they clearly do not understand, the utility of today’s Knowledge Management technology would be allowed to come to the forefront of the economy. Instead, by injecting more and more money, businesses are basically excused from having to compete against each other to see who can best use today’s technology to manage their supply chains. Left alone, those who can, will. Those who can’t will go out of business (and probably end up teaching economics).

https://medium.com/swlh/what-hurricanes-teach-us-about-the-consumers-and-the-economy-541c469803d9

['John Horst', 'Cissp', 'Issap']

2019-09-04 06:11:01.186000+00:00

['Weather', 'Hurricane', 'Dorian', 'Central Banking', 'Federal Reserve']

Introduction To Apache Kafka

Apache Kafka What is Apache Kafka? Kafka is a Publish-Subscribe based messaging system that is exchanging data between processes, applications, and servers. Applications may connect to this system and transfer a message onto the Topic(we will see in a moment what topic is) and another application may connect to the system and process messages from the Topic. What is Kafka Broker? Kafka cluster consist of one or more servers also known as Kafka brokers, which are running Kafka. Each broker is identified with its ID(Broker.id property is the unique and permanent name of each node in the cluster).To connect to the entire cluster, you first need to connect to bootstrap server(also called bootstrap broker).Bootstrap Servers are nothing but list of host/port pairs to use for establishing the initial connection to the Kafka cluster. Kafka Cluster What is Kafka Topic? A Topic is a category/feed name to which messages are stored and published. Messages are byte arrays that can store any object in any format. All Kafka messages are organized into topics. If you wish to send a message you send it to a specific topic and if you wish to read a message you read it from a specific topic. Producer applications write data to topics and consumer applications read from topics. How does Kafka Topic Partition Look? Kafka topics are divided into a number of partitions, which contain messages in an unchangeable sequence. Each message in a partition is assigned and identified by its unique offset. A topic partition is a unit of parallelism in Kafka, i.e. two consumers cannot consume messages from the same partition at the same time. A consumer can consume from multiple partitions at the same time. Kafka Partitions Replica In Kafka In Kafka, replication is implemented at the partition level. The redundant unit of a topic partition is called a replica. Each partition usually has one or more replicas meaning that partitions contain messages that are replicated over a few Kafka brokers in the cluster. Example of 2 topics(3 partitions and 2 partitions) Replica In Kafka Data is distributed and broker 3 doesn’t have any topic 2 data Concept of Leader for a Partition At any time only a single broker can be a leader for a given partition and only that leader can receive and serve data for a partition The other brokers will synchronize the data There each partition has only one leader and multiple ISR(In-Sync-Replica) Concept of leader Consumers Consumers can join a group called a consumer group. Each consumer in the group is assigned a set of partitions to consume from. Kafka guarantees that a message is only read by a single consumer in the group Data/messages are never pushed out to consumers, the consumer will ask for messages when the consumer is ready to handle the message. are never pushed out to consumers, the consumer will ask for messages when the consumer is ready to handle the message. The consumers will never overload themselves with lots of data or lose any data since all messages are being queued up in Kafka. Consumers read data in consumer groups Each consumer within a group reads from exclusive partitions You cannot have more consumers than partitions(otherwise some will be inactive) Consumer groups Producers Producers can choose to receive acknowledgment of data writes: Acks=0: Producer won't wait for an acknowledgment (possible data loss) Acks=1: Producer will wait for leader acknowledgment (limited data loss) Acks=all: Leader + replicas acknowledgment(no data loss) Producer Here are important concepts that you need to remember Producer: Application that sends the messages. Application that sends the messages. Consumer: Application that receives the messages. Application that receives the messages. Message: Information that is sent from the producer to a consumer through Apache Kafka. Information that is sent from the producer to a consumer through Apache Kafka. Connection: A connection is a TCP connection between your application and the Kafka broker. A connection is a TCP connection between your application and the Kafka broker. Topic: A Topic is a category/feed name to which messages are stored and published. A Topic is a category/feed name to which messages are stored and published. Topic partition: Kafka topics are divided into a number of partitions, which allows you to split data across multiple brokers. Kafka topics are divided into a number of partitions, which allows you to split data across multiple brokers. Replicas A replica of a partition is a “backup” of a partition. Replicas never read or write data. They are used to prevent data loss. A replica of a partition is a “backup” of a partition. Replicas never read or write data. They are used to prevent data loss. Consumer Group: A consumer group includes the set of consumer processes that are subscribing to a specific topic. A consumer group includes the set of consumer processes that are subscribing to a specific topic. Offset: The offset is a unique identifier of a record within a partition. It denotes the position of the consumer in the partition. The offset is a unique identifier of a record within a partition. It denotes the position of the consumer in the partition. Node: A node is a single computer in the Apache Kafka cluster. A node is a single computer in the Apache Kafka cluster. Cluster: A cluster is a group of nodes i.e., a group of computers. Additional Note

https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/introduction-to-apache-kafka-88ebd24eb962

['Henok Micael']

2020-12-14 16:13:41.950000+00:00

['Kafka', 'Distributed Systems', 'Messaging Queue', 'DevOps', 'Big Data']

Throwing Light

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore

https://medium.com/towards-horizon/throwing-light-5ce685cf38f1

['Aqua Blaze']

2020-12-09 03:43:50.399000+00:00

['Zoom Meetings', 'Humor', 'Deadpan', 'Literally', 'Remote Work']

[Live-Stream]Catholic-B.R. vs C.E. Byrd — Louisiana High School Football 12/27/2020

Live On Northwestern State University | Click Here To watch Live: https://mediatvnews24.com/online Catholic-B.R. vs Byrd — Louisiana High School Football Live Stream 12/27/2020 Click Here To watch Live: https://mediatvnews24.com/online Bears 8–2 Yellow Jackets 10–0 The Byrd (Shreveport, LA) varsity football team has a neutral playoff game vs. Catholic-B.R. (Baton Rouge, LA) on Sunday, December 27 @ 6p. Game Details: at Northwestern State University This game is a part of the “2020 Allstate Sugar Bowl/LHSAA Non-Select Prep Classic — Division I” tournament.

https://medium.com/@finalsfree/live-stream-catholic-b-r-vs-c-e-byrd-louisiana-high-school-football-12-27-2020-e900c7d338db

['Luice Cadinal']

2020-12-27 04:05:25.176000+00:00

['Streaming']

localisation

the word more is also amore > if you read it in Italian of course but there is nothing wrong with needing it more — localisation

https://medium.com/@gabifavarini/localisation-3a237921da15

['Gabi Favarini']

2020-12-26 09:55:15.976000+00:00

['Creative Writing', 'Poetry', 'Poem', 'Ｍedium', 'Love']

New values in IoT at ThingsCon Amsterdam

Last week the third edition of ThingsCon Amsterdam took place in Volkshotel. As organiser the experience is always a bit blurred by all the last notice activities, but I was lucky to be part of a couple of sessions and see a lot of the talks. It turned out very well and I’m still chewing on the things that happened… For me thinking on the Internet of Things is thinking on new possible meanings for both things as services. A new state of the thing, that adapts, have a dialogues with us as user and is able to play a role in our life on a different level. This is what I described before here on the principles of the connectable. It is also what the research of Nazli Cila is about, where I contribute to (a bit). She is looking into how products can be agents, take different roles towards the use and user, and other products. The product as a (passive) collector, as an actor or as a creator. These three levels of product agency have a personal and a societal impact. We need to think what is the level of delegation we give to these products. As Nazli put it: The system must be adaptable to the different kind of user because each person may have different types of behaviour, characteristics, knowledge, skills and interest. Therefore, it is useful to design a system that is able to understand the type of user. There may be people with special skills and practices and they seeking assistance with their activities, someone who has a general knowledge and wants to improve his knowledge during the process or others who need a real support of help to make the activity easy and safe. In the workshop on Thursday Nazli explored the principles with the different groups on a specific topic on design for people with dementia. This forces you to explore the concept of agency and delegation in-depth. In another workshop on Friday Aduen Darriba Frederiks looked at the design for intimate interfaces, related to the new fashion tech that becomes more and more media for non screen interactions everywhere. How does this new garments influence our own feelings and behaviour. The designers from the Kimbow dress experiment with this on a conceptual level. I was not able to attend that session but it is a concrete installation of the new role of the physical-digital interaction-layer that will be present everywhere. The adaptive dialogues with the products we use will be adaptive to the context of use. Value-exchange will be a leading principle, and it was good to have an workshop on the blockexchange to dive into the new tools for sharing value in the continuous connected presence. This can lead to new products like the self-sustaining bike-sharing concept that adapts to the state of product (bike) as much as that of the user. I had to miss the presentation on this in the Internet of Bikes session. As we shift to these kind of products the influence of the design of the adaptive layer will impact our living even more. As we see that the technology not only deliver the happy flows it was very well present at this ThingsCon that we should discuss the design choice a level higher, to a more meta thinking on the role of this new technology in society. Max wrote a great piece on that already. Technology is not the start, but can play an important role to enable interactions within society and also can help to scale things. It was maybe in that sense interesting that we moved a bit away from the pure thing at this year’s ThingsCon without losing sight of the role the thing plays as anchor point. We looked to the systematic impact more. The design angle is here important. What can we make from those new things with technology embedded to come to really new values. The complete merge of the physicality and the digital is an almost blank sleet to create new things, in that the maker culture in Shenzhen can inspire us. Where the ‘globalised mom and pop shop’ create a new collaborative model in making. It can us always inspire to ask the question to what level design is playing a role, and where functions emerge from use. Where participation is the approach to develop the meaningful things.

https://medium.com/target-is-new/new-values-in-iot-at-thingscon-amsterdam-b6d5fac10dac

['Iskander Smit']

2016-12-07 01:24:37.482000+00:00

['Design', 'UX']

5 Signs on Why Inclusion Initiative Might Fail

Here are the 5 signs where inclusion initiatives are marching on towards failure: 1. When inclusion initiatives become mandatory Inclusion shall not be forced upon or enforced in any system. It takes away the chance for every individual to think through and make a conscious decision on the matter itself. In definition, inclusion means all individuals are treated fairly and respectfully, have equal access to opportunities and resources, can contribute fully, and voice out their opinion freely. If inclusion effort is being enforced, it will completely defeat the purpose of the idea at its very core. Anything forced is not worth fighting for, even inclusion and diversity. Oftentimes, it creates resistance and will eventually backfire. Biases are there in every each of us, deeply rooted, and they cannot be outlawed or out regulated. It has to be willingly understood, agreed upon by each individual. Inclusion initiatives are meant for a good cause, please do not make them some autocracy initiatives in disguise. This message is for all parties that are carrying out the efforts in which the idea is not meant to be enforced or even worse manipulated. 2. When inclusion becomes just another metric for Key Performance Index (KPI) In the workplace, especially the HR department, inclusion has become one of the meaningful metrics in the Key Performance Indicator, often comes in tandem with Employee Recruitment and Retention. Most of the time, they are just about Employee Recruitment and Retention, nothing more. D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) initiatives are viewed as a burden and costs to the organization and usually, they are carried out only by the HR Department. This is why HR is often viewed as a cost center and not a profit-driving department. As a result, inclusion initiatives are never a priority for the company and they have become just a metric for HR to be crossed off from the to-do list. How impactful do you expect them to be? We shall never drive D&I activities by just scratching the surface, but rather the awareness has to grow from the center of the organization. It has to be one of the core values that influence growth within the company and ripples out externally into the marketplace. Inclusion initiatives bring endless positives only if they are understood and implemented right. Otherwise, they are indeed a burden, and will eventually be removed. 3. When inclusion fails to address the biases What is the core meaning behind the driving of inclusion? What does inclusion actually solve? Have you heard about comments like these before? For instance, women are not good at science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). HR positions are meant for women and Engineering positions are meant for men. This guy is too old to be hired. He is not old enough to be promoted. Engineers are born nerdy. The sales guys are always cunning. He is too fat to handle the job, and etc. They are just one small tip of the iceberg about the common biases that exist in the workplace or within our society. Oftentimes, they appear to be too sensitive to be discussed openly and publicly because of the risk of being judged and labeled. Biases and prejudices can appear in many different forms. such as skin color, genders, age, body size, race, etc. you name it. Think you are not biased? Think again. People are usually not aware of their biases. They are implicit bias or unconscious bias. However, having biases does not make a person good or bad. It is the judgemental mind that identifies and differentiates good or bad, right or wrong that actually develops the bias. Biases are accumulated throughout our lifetime. They can come directly from the conversations, comments, opinions from others, our very own experiences, or indirectly from the stereotypes picked up from the media. The good news is we can take steps to address our biases from conversations with different ethnicity, or self-awareness that can be developed through practices and training. This is where inclusion shall come into play. It is never easy to face our own biases and acknowledge their existence. The fear of getting labeled and judged, the fear of confrontation are the stumbling blocks that inclusion initiatives need to address directly. Inclusion solves nothing if we fail to tackle our own biases head-on. If inclusion means avoiding biases, failure is just inevitable. 4. When inclusion becomes the responsibility of others When inclusion becomes the sole responsibility of others, it is meant to fail. Here is this conversation (may sound a little exaggerated to you, doing it here just to strike a point) that may ring a bell to you. Scenario 1: Guy A when he is invited to Christmas party and responded. “Hey, I do not wish to join the Christmas celebration because I am not Christian. Why do you even invite me on this occasion? Maybe you can show some respect.” Scenario 2: Guy A when he is not invited to Christmas party next time. “Why you never invite me to the party? Just because I am not Christian?! You must invite me at least out of courtesy.” Does this conversation sound familiar to you? Guy A is playing the victim game with inclusiveness as the perfect excuse. Inclusion can be the source of toxicity with a toxic person who never intends to own any responsibility in life. By the way, the scenarios shown above are nothing related to religion. 5. When inclusion is meant for recognition rather than respect Lots of leaders nowadays are driving inclusion initiatives for recognition rather than respect, and this has to stop. Inclusion is not food to feed the ego. It does not matter if this comes from the national government or company management. These initiatives are usually meant for compliance and reputation. Reaching out to the leaders here, please start listening to people whose respect you desire to earn and appreciate the uniqueness of people you claim to value so much. Only by earning the respect from others, inclusion can grow into influence and impact the nation or company positively. On the flip side, it is destined to fail.

https://medium.com/fellowship-writers/5-signs-inclusion-has-become-the-source-of-toxicity-68c532aafdb1

['Lee Jing Jenn']

2020-12-10 15:48:19.365000+00:00

['Unconscious Bias', 'Respect', 'Bias', 'Diversity', 'Inclusion']

Explore Sandy’s World of Eats: Surfside Laotian pop-up a hit in Half Moon Bay

Distributing love, food and culture Thongsavat-Potter was born in Thailand at a refugee camp in Nakhon Phanom. “My pops, Boun Senior, was in the Laotian army...His role was a (military) police officer. He fled the country to give Mama and I a better life due to communism and escaped a concentration camp,” Thongsavat-Potter says, referring to repressive camps that forced “re-education” with communist indoctrination and imprisoned tens of thousands of people. A sponsor family brought Thongsavat-Potter family to their first U.S. destination in Hereford, Texas, before they moved to California’s Central Valley where her family sold homemade food in Merced and beyond. Her parents converted a “Scooby Doo” style van into a mobile restaurant, taking it to different parks and neighborhoods. When they heard about food fairs happening, they’d register, pack up and travel up and down California to sell their fare for 50 cents or a dollar. “My parents back in the day were slinging food out of that,” Thongsavat-Potter says. Sometimes they’d take breaks from traveling and sell from home. “They’d take off the screens to the house, and people would pop up to the window and order papaya salads and noodle curry bowls.” Family fare: Sandy Thongsavat-Potter (right) with her mother Somchanh Thongsavat, and brother Adam Thongsavat during a pop-up event at Breakwater Barbecue in June 2021. (Image via Sandy’s World of Eats Instagram page) They shared khao poon with vermicelli, coconut milk, curry, mint, lime and cilantro, as well as nam van with coconut jelly, pandan, fresh fruits, coconut and maple date syrup. Everyone who came got fed; “It didn’t matter what culture you were from,” Thongsavat-Potter says. Thongsavat-Potter recalls learning to cook with her mother, Somchanh. She stood on a wooden stool and learned how to make her first egg, chop and pack. She watched and learned as her mom made Laotian treats like sai oua, and helped stuff the sausages using the ends of recycled plastic bottles. “We used to sit down on a Laotian saat mat because the tiles were coming off and the concrete was coming up. The woven mat made it feel like home. (My mom) laid that down, and we’d have a big pa kao dish and we’d hand stuff the sausages. “Here I am, just chasing after it now,” Thongsavat-Potter says. “Even without that much, what my mom did and poppa did, we always gave food to families. We always distributed the love and our food and our culture and shared it with other people.” Helping others, particularly those impacted by Vietnam War-era events in Laos, is something Thongsavat-Potter remains passionate about, including through the September 18 Legacies of War benefit event in Berkeley. “As a Laotian immigrant, and also first generation coming to the States, I hope to see more of the unexploded bombs cleared out of Laos and create a safer future for the next generation. I live here in the States, but Laos is my root,” she says. She’s also driven to support community through Sandy’s World of Eats, which she’s grown out of Half Moon Bay where she lives with her husband, Craig, and their two boys. She connects with other Coastside creators to source her ingredients and share her food. “I’m a community person…It’s a little rough right now for people, and human kindness is just so important. We all need to support each other,” Thongsavat-Potter says.

https://thesixfifty.com/explore-sandys-world-of-eats-surfside-laotian-pop-up-a-hit-in-half-moon-bay-9c91c74b76d1

['Sara Hayden']

2021-09-08 00:05:38.769000+00:00

['Bay Area', 'Restaurant Business', 'Silicon Valley', 'Foodies', 'Laos']

The Psychology of Being Magnetic Decoded — Is About One Thing

The Psychology of Being Magnetic Decoded — Is About One Thing A photo by mohamed_hassan from Pixbay By the time you cross the gates of adolescence — that beautiful stage of life — you are finally getting ready to join the adult world. We barely all have been in there. Although we are having a burning desire to age and become adults, our behavior and our appearance though don't correlate at all. How hard even we’re trying to participate in conversations with the older ones there is no possibility for anyone to take us seriously. And why should they anyway? We are just kids for them… And that hurts, we feel we have no value and we are rejected. Nevertheless, I'm sure that you have reexperienced this kind of rejection. That feeling of ignorance, like we suppose to not be there…It is so sad. Unfortunately, some people confront that indifference still very often— while for others that seems a totally strange situation because they always are used to draw attention. Hence I started wondering: “What is the basic difference between these two kinds of people?”

https://medium.com/@orestisspanos/the-single-thing-you-must-understand-to-magnetically-grab-their-attention-ffb8a3696a54

['Orestis Spanos']

2020-12-17 10:33:58.295000+00:00

['Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Relationships', 'Confidence', 'Self']

Why do so many people still want to be lawyers?

A recent survey by UK insurance firm Protectivity found that lawyers are the second most stressed professionals in the country — with 63% in the legal industry reporting stress daily. — Law Gazette I’m still a lawyer but I no longer work in private practice. It’s a long story but first in 2010 and then again in 2016, I decided that my soul couldn’t survive in a world denuded of humanity, less still kindness. Now of course, my journey is my journey and there’s no universal truth, still less any message to take away apropos the way I slowly fell out of harmony (never love) with the legal profession, but that doesn’t stop me wondering why anyone would be attracted to private practice, particularly where, as was my bitter and troubled experience, the name of the game was to bill the bejeesus out of any matter that could withstand the bloated and unsustainable hourly rates. Perhaps the system — whatever that means — isn’t set up to allow for or facilitate a deep, reverent questioning of what makes law firms tick but I sure wish I’d had the benefit of wiser counsel who could have laid out the road map that was very likely to leave me, if not a broken man, certainly someone very different to the person who came into the profession. You’ve got to remember that when I joined the profession in 1996 this was prior to a fully functioning Google; but even if I’d had a different trope circling in the ‘we’re-always-stressed-as-lawyers-wind’, I’m sure that my lecturers, colleagues and law firm partners would still have been sufficiently complicit to, if not throw me off the scent, quell any notion that I might not be up to the job, as was the case, of billing at least five or six times my salary. In sharing my nascent thoughts, and I’ll return to this subject in the near future, all I’m trying to provoke, amongst those people who are contemplating or just starting out on their legal (career) journey, is that they ask a better question or questions than I did before I exited stage left. More particularly, given the fact that so many lawyers are flayed out and on the cusp of wanting to do something else with their one and oh-so-precious life, to perhaps consider speaking to or sounding out someone who can give you if not an honest appraisal of what you’re up against, at least something more realistic of a life where living and dying by the billing clock is not just in vogue, it’s the sine qua non of your professional life and progression. Take care. — Julian

https://medium.com/@julian-summerhayes/why-do-so-many-people-still-want-to-be-lawyers-70506820e6

['Julian Summerhayes']

2021-07-15 13:40:12.350000+00:00

['Solicitor', 'Law', 'Legal', 'Wellbeing']

What is the best way to get a newborn baby to sleep?

What is the best way to get a newborn baby to sleep? Scientifically Proven Solution That Gets Your Baby to Sleep like Clockwork and makes you enjoy a restful sleep. Amlanjyoti Mohanta Jul 15·3 min read Sleep Issues If your baby has problems sleeping, there are things you can try to get him to sleep longer. Here you’ll learn about common sleep problems that parents encounter, and ways to fix them. We’ll even show you how to get your baby to sleep through the night. Mary-Ann Schuler is a child psychologist and parenting expert with over 20 years of experience She and her program Baby Sleep Miracle have been featured in publications such as “Parenting Magazine”, “Easy Parenting”, “Parents” and many more Baby Sleep Miracle is a scientifically proven program that helps your baby to sleep like clockwork. This program is proven to work for anyone who is struggling to parent. Sleep: what babies and toddlers need Babies and children need sleep to grow and develop well. Good sleep is also important for their health and immunity. But babies and toddlers can have trouble settling to sleep by themselves, so they cry. This can happen for many different reasons: Some babies or toddlers cry when they’re tired or overtired and can’t settle to sleep. Many babies or toddlers cry when they need help to settle back to sleep after waking in the night. Many babies or toddlers cry when they’re getting used to a new or different way of going to sleep. Sometimes happy, healthy babies or toddlers develop rapidly, which means they find it harder than usual to settle. Babies and toddlers who are crying while trying to settle also need comfort. It’s important to respond to your baby’s or toddler’s needs for: sleep — for example, by putting a baby to sleep when you see baby’s tired signs comfort — for example, by not leaving a crying baby alone for long periods. Consistently responding to your baby’s or toddler’s needs for both sleep and comfort is an important part of bonding with your baby and helping your child grow up feeling safe, secure and cared for. (from — raisingchildren) What Is Exactly Baby Sleep Miracle? Baby Sleep Miracle is a scientifically proven program that helps your baby to sleep like clockwork. This program is proven to work for anyone who is struggling to parent. It is a perfect program created by “Mary-Ann Schuler,” a child psychologist and parenting expert with over 20 years of experience. This program can literally save your sanity and even your child’s life. Baby Sleep Miracle shows you the scientifically proven way to have your child that makes you enjoy a restful sleep. It reveals you exactly on reducing your anxiety disorders and even panic attacks in your life. This proven method makes your baby sleep peacefully, where it is entirely based on ground-breaking research. program is the perfect one to finally enjoy the restful sleep that you have been craving, where thousands of mothers tried it already. Baby Sleep Miracle works for anyone for almost every child. The tips given in this program are completely life-saving in which it helps regulate your child’s sleeping patterns holistically. Baby Sleep Miracle is a completely effective program that makes you enjoy a happier, more relaxed, and easier parent-child. It makes you fall asleep in a healthy way, and all kids can easily learn it without matter their age. This proven solution makes you feel even more confident where the advice is simple, easy to follow. It shows you the exact way to restore your child’s sleep, where the response is completely overwhelming. This program is an easy to follow sleep program that works effectively for any mother facing difficulty. It offers you a sleep trick that will instantly calm down your baby without facing much more effort. (from — wboc) GET ACCESS NOW

https://medium.com/@amlanmohanta2000/what-is-the-best-way-to-get-a-newborn-baby-to-sleep-2d1b9d2e1232

['Amlanjyoti Mohanta']

2021-07-15 07:18:36.763000+00:00

['Baby Sleep Training', 'Baby Products', 'Baby', 'Baby Care', 'Baby Sleep']

WanaData wins in 2020 — and what’s next

WanaData work in 2020 The pandemic meant that WanaData meet-ups and training had to be fully online. It also presented an opportunity for us to launch ‘Outbreak’, a data-driven journalism project aimed at strengthening critical reporting around Covid-19-related issues across Africa — many of which affected women and minority groups. Other projects included MapMakoko, InfoNile’s “Sucked Dry” series, and Twaweza, which focused on partnering with in-country organisations to mentor and train women to produce data-driven journalism on issues that directly affect them. Outbreak: Africa’s Data Journalism Alliance Against Covid-19 The pandemic brought to light vulnerabilities within African countries and economies — often impacting women, children and minority groups most. The WanaData community worked extensively on Covid-19-related stories, and in cooperation with Code for Africa and the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting, community members published a selection of stories. Read some of these below: Habibat Funmi Obadofin: Lady Ejiro Umukoro: Blessing Oladunjoye: Poor, Vulnerable, PWDs Left Behind As States Adopt Online Teaching’ on BoNews and Sahara Reporters. Olatokewa Ayoade: The Economic Repercussion Of Coronavirus Pandemic On Nigerians on Kiss FM and TheFact Nigeria. Purity Mukami: The troubled suspected Covid-19 intermediary host on Piga Firimbi. Anita Igbine: Water poverty in Nigeria: Effects and impacts of COVID-19 on The Guardian Nigeria. MapMakoko: Drone mapping in Nigeria Through Code for Africa’s MapMakoko project, 17 women were trained in drone mapping and data-driven reporting skills, which has led to the mapping of Makoko, a marginalised low-income neighbourhood in Lagos State, Nigeria. The impact of this project — funded by HOTOSM and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and supported by local NGO Makoko Dream — was published in many reputable mainstream media outlets across the world including Agency France Press, Pulitzer Center, Yahoo News, CNN, BBC, Aljazeera English, Urbanet, Guardian Nigeria, Deccan Herald, Devex and Pulse Nigeria. Sucked Dry: Water security and climate change in East Africa Code for Africa’s WanaData community and InfoNile co-produced a large multimedia report on water security and climate change in the Nile Basin region in Africa. The collaborative project, named ‘Sucked Dry’, involved women journalists in East Africa and won the Best Data Visualization Award at the WAN-IFRA African Digital Media Awards 2020. The full reportage was published by New Vision in Uganda and is available online. Under the InfoNile Data Training and Mentorship Programme, facilitated by Code For Africa, journalists produced outstanding data journalism stories on water security, wildlife conservation and climate change in the Nile Basin region. A number of the stories are listed below. Sharon Atieno: Saving the population of the rothschild giraffe in Kenya, Science Africa Linah Mwamachi: Communities close to Kenya’s Tsavo National Park plant trees to save wildlife, Sifa FM Voi Lenah Bosibori: Kenyan Conservancies Unable To Pay Leased Land Amid Covid-19 Linked Drop In Tourism Revenue, Talk Africa Janet Murikira: Twaweza: Women Data Journalism Project Five WanaData members are currently working on 10 substantive media packages, with each consisting of journalistic reports, infographics and social media campaigns, that take an evidence-based look at how the pandemic impacted women and other vulnerable groups in Tanzania. Keep an eye out for these stories on Code for Africa’s social media profiles over the next month.

https://medium.com/wanadata-africa/wanadata-wins-in-2020-and-whats-next-7b46bac65fc4

[]

2020-04-02 00:00:00

['Wanadata', 'Data Journalism']

The Future of Data Scientists

The Future of Data Scientists The bifurcation of the data scientist position. In the fall of 2012, I remember my mother telling me about an article that said data scientists are the new, sexy profession. The moment stuck with me because nobody wants to hear their parents utter the word, “sexy”. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this Harvard Business Review article is claimed to be the catalyst for the huge onslaught of students entering the data science field. This wave of “data enthusiasm” would come to have a heavy influence on my own career trajectory. Over the next eight years, the terminology used to describe data-related topics had changed dramatically. In 2012, the top 3 most common search terms were “Statistics”, “Artificial Intelligence/AI”, and “Big Data”, respectively. As of July, 2020, the top 3 most common search terms changed to “Machine Learning”, “Data Science”, and “Artificial Intelligence/AI”. Excluding the recent COVID bump (e.g. “COVID statistics”), the term, “statistics” has seen a sharp decline in its usage over this time period. If you knew in 2012 that enthusiasm for data would explode over the next decade, there is no way you would think that google searches for “statistics” could decline. Published on Tableau Public After seeing those trends, you might think data science is a threat to statistics and statisticians. A quick search for data scientist job openings on Indeed yielded 8,076 results in the United States, while there were only 1,526 job postings for statisticians. With the expected growth in demand for data-related skill sets, I think the more likely outcome is a drift away from employers looking for the unicorn data scientist. For those outside of this field, the unicorn data scientist is someone who can do it all; a full stack programmer, statistician, and machine learning engineer all in one. There will be a need for specialization across the spectrum, allowing statisticians to find their place, too. This change in hiring, job responsibilities, and titles will emerge for the following reasons: Machine learning is being added to computer science undergraduate curriculums APIs will make it easier to automate machine learning and integrate it into existing applications Data-related technology continuously expands in breadth making it impossible for a data scientist to learn everything Automation will free up time for more creative thinkers I believe these trends will lead to a bifurcation of data scientists into two paths, software engineers, with a focus in machine learning, and decision scientists. Let’s take a look at the differences. Because of their varying strengths, they will be responsible for different types of problems. The software engineer will be assigned projects that have a clearly defined scope and access to large, quality data sets. They will build applications that integrate with machine learning APIs. These APIs will automate the standard process of data ingestion, learning, training, and prediction. Examples might include business intelligence applications that incorporate sales forecasts or designing a knowledge discovery system that utilizes natural language processing. Meanwhile, the decision scientist will be assigned projects that have an undefined scope. They will be responsible for framing the appropriate question to answer. These problems will typically have incomplete information, forcing the decision scientist to be more comfortable with uncertainty. They will need to come to conclusions safely beyond the data analyzed. This will require a concrete understanding of the domain. Because of the nature of their work, I think decision scientists will have a wider variety of backgrounds as compared to the software engineer. The software engineer will typically follow a standard computer science track, attend coding bootcamps, or will be former data engineers. Meanwhile, the decision scientists will likely be former statisticians, or folks with analytical backgrounds from the social or physical sciences. With competencies across multiple domains, this person could be seen as a generalist. Maybe a “data generalist”. With technology changing faster than ever, data professionals need to be cognizant of the long term trends. In their 2020 emerging jobs report, LinkedIn listed data scientists as the #3 job with an annual growth rate of 37 percent. The excessive demand for data skills will drive a need to further refine the specific positions within data science. It will be interesting to see how this field unfolds over the next decade. ~ The Data Generalist

https://towardsdatascience.com/the-future-of-data-scientists-7b075c45f7f

['Steven Finkelstein']

2020-07-27 15:34:39.594000+00:00

['Data Scientist', 'Careers', 'Software Engineer', 'Technology Trends', 'Decision Science']

Can You Start a Writing Career When You Are over 50?

Can You Start a Writing Career When You Are over 50? Chasing the dream of writing when the world says you might be too old By FG Trade on iStock (image licensed by author) “Sometimes people ask if I regret “wasting” all those decades before I learned to believe in my writing and take it seriously. No, I tell them, I was gestating, amassing experience and material I tap into when writing my poems today. Things happened as and when they were meant to.” -Rebecca Foust You are a person of life, of experience, one who has loved, lost, fought and survived the nastiest days of life. You are one who has lived and tasted the sweetness of life but also one who never gave into the bitterness of a life gone wrong. You are a person of a “certain age” and you were born to be a writer. We celebrate the young writers who achieve success and the internet overflows with lists of the “Best Writers Under 30,” but what about you, the one who might now be over fifty and who has dreamed your entire life of becoming a writer, one who creates the novel that has always been in you or write poetry that makes the rest of us weep? There has never been a better time in our culture than now to become a writer after fifty. The online world opens up opportunities that never existed for older writers even a decade or so in the past. You can create a blog, self-publish, build an email army of followers, and today’s traditional publishers are open to authors that are not twenty-one and the next big thing in writing. “It’s a myth that older writers can’t write for younger audiences. Shakespeare wasn’t fifteen when he wrote Romeo and Juliet.”-Tracy Keenan Wynn My writing career reflects what is possible for writers who start late in life. My first nonfiction book hit the market when I was forty-six years old, and I have added nine more since then. My books have been the foundation of a long career as a speaker/source expert, but now, as I move into the latter days of my working life, I have moved into a different stage of my writing career chasing the dream of poetry… and yes, there are a few more books left in me. Here are a few thoughts about becoming a writer that matters after fifty Where you will get it right Life experience Your perspective is different now compared to when you were twenty because the experiences of your life have shaped the person you now are. You can now, after so many years of being you, write from the depth of a full and rich life instead of imaging what living a life that matters might look like. The ability to apply wisdom You are not an interesting person unless the universe has had its way with you. Wisdom is the application of experience to situations in life where you now know where the darkness lies. It is hard to tell a person in their twenties that marrying that toxic person most likely will not work out well over time, but it is fairly easy when you are over fifty to just shake your head and laugh knowing where that relationship is most likely going to end. You have met thousands of people You do not have to imagine characters; you have dated them, married a few, have that special child who has become one, drink with more than a few any day of the week and lived surrounded by thousands of them in your working career. The depth of your life is now the depth of your writing, and if you are a fiction writer, you need to look no further than the last few decades of your life to find the good, bad, slightly crazy and the uglies that all make great characters for your next story. People are the story, and by now you have met enough to fill books for the rest of your life. You have had time to be well read If you are a writer, you are most likely a lifetime reader, and going into your fifties you have had time to read at a level not possible by those thirty years young than you are. You now know what you love, who you want to emulate and the genre you want to master. You know what you want, and what you don’t want from who you are now If you are after fifty, you now know what you want from the experience of being you, and more importantly, what you want to do with the rest of your life. Writers of a certain age usually have the time and focus to give writing a fair try, something a person working full time and raising kids often cannot manage well. Your family is now out and on their own, but as we all know that can change in a few hours, and they are living their own lives, which again makes great stories as they mess up everything you told them they would but never listened to you, anyway. You are as busy as you have ever been at this stage of life, but you can now focus and make the time each day it takes to write well. You are smart to know what you do not know Older writers are often smarter writers. They will sign up for writing classes, get writing coaches if that is in the budget, and objectively understand the help you need to make this writing thing come true. “It is none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.”-Ernest Hemingway. You might be a source expert with a wealth of material and success In your real life, as opposed to your next writing life, you might have been someone who was the one that gathered information or experience that now needs to be shared with others. If you were a great salesperson, then there are a series of articles, a blog or a book about the lost art of salesmanship. If you were a teacher, your success would make a great reference for younger teachers finding their own way in the system, not even including the vast array of children you have encountered through the years. Many of us are or were experts at what we did, but we are so done with that part of our life we forget that what we do every single day might be of importance. It took you years to be good at what you do, why not share that experience with the rest of us? By Bowie 15 on iStock (image licensed by author What you will get wrong You won’t spend time to master social media to support your writing This might be the biggest barrier to your future writing success. If you have an old flip phone, brag you are not into that social media thing, work off of an old PC that was kicking around when Clinton was president and use your spouse’s phone to look at your grandkids on Facebook, then you will not make it as a writer today. If you want to write, you need to pull up those high-waisted pants even further, polish those snow-white dad shoes, and master the basics of social media. You will need to blog, build and manipulate email lists, understand the nuances of Facebook and Instagram marketing and maybe move into the online self-publishing world at the very least. There are thousands of articles on this site that cover many of the basics and many local sources that get you going at least the entry level. Writing is about getting read, but if you will not spend the time to master building a base, then your writing will always remain a brilliant hobby but may never be read beyond the confines of your friends and family. You write in the past Writing to get read is learning to write tightly and professionally. Many writers entering the world as born-again writers on the far side of fifty fail to update their writing skills depending on a few writing classes from college now thirty or forty years in the past. Phrases such as, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” “you can’t judge a book from its cover,” or “you can’t please everyone,” screams “OK Boomer,” and if I have to explain what this term means then start your modernization project on yourself here. Good writing is timeless. Hemingway’s stripped-down writing, now pushing almost a hundred years old, still rings as if he wrote it yesterday. Do not let your writing reflect a person out of touch and still writing as if this was the 70s. You become intimidated by the young This is hard not to do. You read about the success stories of young bloggers generating thousands of reads on the writing sites and you can not help but experience doubt about your sanity as a writer hoping to compete in today’s writing market. Establishing yourself as a writer over fifty is finding your voice and niche as who you are now in life. Women writing about their sexual exploits when they are twenty-five is situational and workable. People of a certain age writing about their sexual adventures when they were in college is viewed as old people stuck, “back in the day,” unless those adventures are part of a character you write in a novel. You are not competing against anyone; you are finding your own place, and voice based upon your life experience or expertise. Do not think in terms of better, but think in terms as of how you can be different or bring a new perspective expressed through your writing. You write what you think you should write, not what you want to write If you want to be a poet, then be one. Live the dream, do the work, master the social media it takes to get read, but be a poet. Many people who want to write late in life want to copy someone who is successful. Rebecca Foust, cited in the first quote, found her way as a poet later in life, but when she started chasing her writing dream by enrolling in a class, she started as a short story writer. She had kept her poetry hidden until reading one of her pieces in the class, which resonated so well with the group she pursued that course as her primary writing. “Don’t you find it odd that when you are a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you’re older, somehow they act offended if you even try.”-Ethan Hawke. You won’t seek support groups Older writers are usually isolated from those already writing. You need support groups, or at least a network of like-minded people chasing the same dream. Find a writing group, take those classes and network, sign up for writing workshops that get you away from home and out of your natural element, and work with an editor or coach that can shred your work and make you better. There are sites dedicated to writers who start late, such as Bloom… “Late” according to whom?” The more you reach out the more successful you will become but writing alone and never finding people who are as terrified and unsure of the process as you are will help you stay in the game longer. Dedicating the time I have written about this several times in other pieces, but the minimum it takes to me, as a writer with forty years of experience, is you must read for thirty minutes a day and then write for at least thirty minutes a day seven days a week until you die, or forget why you are sitting at the desk with that pen in your hand. Realistic expectations Some of you might write for the sheer perfection of expressing what you feel and struggle with in life and not give a damn about the money, and that is a life well lived. Others of you will want to write and chase the money, and to me that is a better choice since writing for publication forces to learn to be a better writer.

https://medium.com/swlh/can-you-start-a-writing-career-when-you-are-over-50-45624b4641db

['Thomas Plummer']

2020-03-14 14:29:36.138000+00:00

['Writing', 'Life Lessons', 'Writer', 'Self', 'Creativity']

Introduction to Trademark in India

Introduction to Trademark and Its registration A Trademark in India is a visual representation or symbol that is used by the business to distinguish the products and services used by the business from other goods or services in the form of word, name, label, colour combination, numbers, etc. Made in different business. Find out what are the items included in the checklist for trademark registration in India. In India, trademarks are registered with the Comptroller General of Patents Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. Furthermore, trademarks are registered under the provisions of the Trademark Act, 1999 and give the trademark owner the power and autonomy to sue for damages whenever a trademark violation occurs. Introduction to Trademark — Trademark Registration in Salem is what we are going to be discussed in this article. Technically, if a particular mark is associated with a service, it is called a “service mark”, but the trademark is usually used to denote two marks associated with services and goods. The purpose behind trademarks is to allow companies and individuals to indicate the source of their goods or services and to distinguish them from others in the industry.The primary function of a trademark is to distinguish the goods or services offered by a merchant from those offered by other merchants. The trademark is therefore an important aspect of any business, because it not only identifies a merchant, it communicates to consumers that the goods or services that bear this mark are from a particular source, and can be distinguished from all other resources for those goods or services. Documents required for Trademark registration The following are the documents required to obtain a trademark registration – Details such as the name, nationality and address of the applicant concerned Certificate of Incorporation in the case of a company or LLP (Limited Liability Partnership) In the case of a company that qualifies and qualifies for a lower filing fee, Udyog Aadhar registration may be indicated. A detailed description of the goods or services that the trademark represents. The trademark class (out of a total of 45 trademark classes) must be specified for the trademark application, but one is eligible to file a multi-class (Class 99) trademark application.Power of Attorney in Form TM-48 format (form of agent’s authority) must be signed by the applicant. Online process Class Search — The first step is to find out under which class the good or service is classified. It is important to register the mark under the appropriate class to avoid problems during the pre / post-registration process. Availability– It is important to verify that there are no similar or other marks under the same class after the class has been verified. Registration will not be granted if such mark is entered. After application filing-verification, the next step is to file the application for trademark registration in e-Form TM-1. Make sure you have all the required documents and correct information attached before submitting the application. Objection — You do not need to object, but if your trademark objected, you must reply to the objection. Registration will be given to you after you reply to the objection and convince the registrar that the mark is registration. Hearing: If the examiner is not satisfied with the written answer and further clarification is required; He schedules the hearing. Application status that appears to the applicant is “show cause ready for hearing”. Accepted & Announced: This is the stage where Trademark is published in the Trademark Journal for a period of 4 months. Once it is published in the journal, a third party who believes the mark should not be registered can file an opposition against it. If the application is accepted and promoted- No objection Objections answered with a justifiable answer or They will be cleared during the hearing Opposition: Within 4 months of the trademark being published in the Journal, a third party raises the objection against the trademark registration. If there is no objection, the trademark will be further processed for trademark registration. Counter Statement: When an applicant receives a third party objection, a reply must be sent within 2 months. In case of failure it can lead to abandonment. Hearing: The final stage of opposition is hearing. Here both parties are allowed to argue and place their statements. After hearing from both sides the officer will pass the necessary orders. If the order is in favour of the applicant, then the trademark will be registered otherwise it will be abandoned. Registration– The trademark registration process takes 15–18 months. You can use the TM mark on your brand name when you submit your application and finally, you can use the mark on your brand name when it is registered. Benefits of trademark Once a trademark is granted, the owner enjoys three main benefits: Notice of claim to other businesses intending to use the same symbol or term as its trademark The legal presumption of ownership, which helps customers escape The exclusive right to use the claimed trademark Recent news on Trademark An EU court on Wednesday thwarted an attempt by US drinks giant Coca-Cola to gain trademark status for the new design of its iconic fluted bottle across the 28-nation bloc. Discovered as a tonic drink in the United States in the late 19th century, Coca-Cola is the success of modern-day marketing, with its contour bottle being one of the most widely recognized global brands. In 2011, the company introduced the Flat Surface Bottle, but EU officials rejected its trademark request because it said it did not have a “distinctive role” in the new design.The Commonwealth’s second court, which ruled on the company’s appeal, said there was no reason to change that view, adding that the new design was a variant of its predecessor. New York: Twitter has applied for a trademark for the word “subtweet”, which another person tweeted without mentioning their Twitter name, Digital Trends reported. If Twitter is successful in its bid, the term “subtweet” belongs to the company to use in the commercial context.Words like “tweet”, “subtweet” and “tweet‌storm” all refer to Twitter activity, but are usually used by users or in relation to user behaviour.For his part, Twitter tried to trademark all of them, but not always successfully.

https://medium.com/@solubilisseo/introduction-to-trademark-in-india-171c996ea2e3

[]

2020-12-07 07:21:10.122000+00:00

['Company Culture', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Small Business', 'Trademark', 'Entrepreneur']

Opposable

When December 21st came around I like many others were gifted with abilities that we had only joked about until that point. The day started with pandemonium as people began to demonstrate extraordinary abilities. I wouldn’t characterize my gifts in this way but we’ll get to that in a little bit. The world was turned on its head in a flurry of magnitudes that will be felt for centuries. Some people immediately took to caring for themselves, taking what they wanted from banks, Apple stores and whichever places sold Birkins. The retail inventory of Gucci and other luxury brands did not survive past the first few hours of the day. There was a young couple with gifts of flight and super speed who had an affinity for Louis Vuitton. They quickly became the first viral super-powered duo showing off their abilities looking like LV sponsored power rangers. Others were more targeted, using their newly acquired skills to topple oppressive systems all over the globe. Some destroyed penitentiaries, while others literally upended entire homes from wealthy white neighborhoods and tossed them into the ocean. Police departments fared the worst. Especially the stations from recent memory involved in high profile murder cases of unarmed black people. They was effectively wiped from existence. But not without a fight. There was no day clearer than on the 21st of the differing perspectives within our community. A few groups of gifted negroes stood tall ready to defend law enforcement from the forces of blackness. But humility came quick when the bayou boys showed up with an army of gators at their side along with the girls and their indestructible knees and mesmerizing choreography. It was simply too overwhelming for the black and blues. Personally I was here for it all. The destruction, the reparations, the finally giving the world something to be afraid of since they wanted to be scary around us all the time. But more importantly I was here for the shenanigans. I was part of the gifted group doing stupid shit for fun, but that’s when things went left. “Yo so where are we going bro?” Damietta asked me from the passenger seat as I continued down the 101 heading towards Pasadena. “We’re going to see my boy.” I responded, trying not to laugh from the scheme I had spawned only an hour ago. “Yeah but why?” Damietta continued, she was having so much fun around Oxnard conjuring illusions that either terrified or excited, when I asked her to join me. She was the only one of my friends who got gifts. Apparently only a few people had their DNA unlocked by the great conjunction. Somewhere in the afternoon sky there was a tiny speck of light that was Jupiter and Saturn in alignment. Once Damietta, Dami for short, discovered what she could do she went over to her ex’s and for an hour or two and made him believe he was in a spider pit and every spider had her face but that wasn’t all. For Dami’s grand finale she took a page out of the game of thrones book and emasculated him like Theon Greyjoy, repeatedly. Now Dami is my girl and that guy was trash but after I heard the story I felt a deep and immediate compassion for him but made sure I didn’t show it. “Chill, just know it’ll be hella funny.” I say, looking over at her with a grin. “Okay but look I’m not trying to be caught up in this all day.” She started, skin the color of oak never betraying an emotion until she was ready to show it. “Apparently we only have these gifts for thirty-six hours and there’s a few things I can do to get my moms straight y’know?” “Yeah nah I feel you. I promise we won’t be here long.” I reassured her. Dami was lucky. She had a gift she could use without hurting anyone to get what she wants. Well without hurting anyone physically. I had the dumbest power but the difference between fun and fatality was too close for my liking to use frivolously. Twenty minutes later we pull up to a house in Muir Heights. I rap my knuckles across the door twice, paused, and knocked once more. A few seconds later, the door opened about an inch. “OH SHIT!” The door flung open. “My boy Jaxson! What’s good??” Our hands collided in greeting. “Come in. Come in.” Emmanuel said, ushering us in. The small home was just as I remembered except there were a few things different. There was gold everywhere. Gold chairs, gold tables, gold Hennessy bottles, gold sneakers. “This is my homie, Dami.” I say, trying to make sense of the bizarre scene. “What the hell is all this?” Dami nodded slightly in Emmanuel’s direction. I knew she was trying to figure out what weirdo place did I bring her to. “Pleasure.” He said in Dami’s direction before shifting his focus to me, “Man one of the homies has the Midas touch so he hooked it up. But whats up with you?? I haven’t heard from you in a minute until you hit me up today.” “Well bro, I saw your IG before you took the post down and knew I had to come see you.” I replied, still standing, not wanting to give the appearance I was going to stay any longer than I had to. “Ahhhhh.” He said, gesturing for us to take a seat on one of the two laminated couches. “Yeah it’s some wild shit right?? I saw a guy in LA who could get big as shit like Ant Man and they put three missiles in his chest. So I immediately took down my video. I’m not impervious to military grade ordinance y’feel me?” “Yeah I got you.” I say sitting on the edge of the couch, Dami following suit. “But look man, I know you can amplify powers and I need you to help me right quick.” Emmanuel had a tray on his grandmother’s coffee table his friend had turned into solid gold. Even the papers and the bud were gold. It did not look like it would actually get anyone high but I kept the science to myself. “You know I’m down to help you out bro, but if you gonna try and do some wild destructive shit I’m not with it.” Emmanuel had a grave look on his face. I had an uneasy suspicion I wasn’t the only one to have sought him out. “Nah nothing like that man. Just tryna prank. You know how we do.” I say trying to diffuse the tension. “You remember back in 9th grade when we mixed the instant coffee in the teacher lounge with those cannabis infused coffee grounds from your cousin?? We had them teachers LIT!” “Mr. Parker was so faded he slumped in his chair and was out!!” Emmanuel laughed, loosening up. “Okay I got you bro. But look don’t bring no heat my way, aight?” I wish after I answered with ‘say less’ I was able to keep my word. Emmanuel if you read this bro…I’m honestly truly sorry bro. I really am. Emmanuel put a hand on my shoulder and the feeling that followed was incredible. I felt every nerve ending in my body flood with an electric tingle. I was bigger than life and more powerful than I could have ever imagined. Focus came easy. I pictured exactly what I wanted to do in a scope and reach unimaginable. Just as quickly as the power came it was gone. Emmanuel had removed his hand and went back to rolling. “Did it work?” Dami leaned in to ask me softly. “I think so.” I replied, still euphoric from the connection. “Y’all tryna smoke?” Emmanuel asked, his precious metal cone rolled to perfection. “Nah.” I say as I get up. “Thanks bro, I appreciate you.” Before we could make it out the door Emmanuel shared words that made me question what I had just done. “Bro, remember, this can’t come back to me. Destruction takes many forms and while I think what you did was hilarious, a lot of people will disagree on the most violent of terms, y’feel me?” I nod, and shake his hand again. His words bringing a clarity that I had suppressed for the shenanigans sake. “So what did you do?” Dami asked me as we got into the car. “Take a look at Instagram or TikTok, I’m sure people are already recording what’s happening.” I reply as we pull away from the street. Video after video made Dami cackle fiercely. “YOU TOOK AWAY THEIR THUMBS???” She screamed laughed at me. Every pale face or otherwise caucasian person within the continental United States found themselves inextricably without their opposable thumbs. Videos ranging between fits of rage to gasping for air in laughter quickly began to surface. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an influencer try to record one of those videos where they’re crying about being treated unfairly without the benefit of their thumbs but it is quite the hilarious spectacle. Especially when they lift their hands to the camera and it’s nothing but four gangly fingers staring back at you. While we laughed the more real world implications of de-evolving the opaques became alarmingly evident. Some cars were still moving along the interstate but it was impossible to ignore the number of automobiles strewn along the shoulder, some damaged, some not, some unoccupied and others with passengers who were more than distraught and freaked out of their minds. It was a sombering moment but then a video came across Dami’s twitter feed of a gun-toting confederate stating that as long as he had his trigger finger he would fight for American freedoms. He then proceeded to shoot himself in the foot, unable to hold his shot gun upright. The southern twang of his cousin Bubba’s “oh shit Charles!” Sent Dami and I laughing so hard a stitch formed in our sides. Our resumed merriment lasted two minutes before it was cut short again, this time by four individuals appearing out of no where. I slammed on the brakes only stopping a mere few feet from them. They were dressed in full blacked out tactical gear with Kente kufis or hairties as their only distinguishing feature from US Marines. Before we could respond we were no longer on the 101 interstate heading towards Oxnard. We were transported to a dank empty warehouse. “Black out their vision.” I say to Dami quickly, my pulse beating a tattoo in my ear. “Don’t do it!” Someone yelled from behind us. “Get out the car!” “Do it!” I say sternly. But even as she tried, Dami wasn’t able to do what I asked. She strained for a moment, then went limp in her seat. “What did you do to her??” I scream jumping out of the car and lunging at whoever was closest. “Jaxson calm down!” Another said. “How do you know who I am?? What did you do to Dami???” I could barely control myself, anger, fear, confusion rolling into a massive conduit of frenetic energy in my head. I immediately willed everyone’s bones out of their bodies, not knowing I could even muster such a desire. What followed was a piercing screech that almost cleaved my mind in two. I was driven to my knees, every ability to hold on to a thought was out of reach. “Mercedes over there is telepathic.” The leader said, crouching down to meet my eye line. “She put Dami to sleep and she is blocking your ability to turn us into skin bags.” “Who are you?? What do you want??” I whisper. I couldn’t even focus on my fear. The leader made a gesture and just like that it was over. I could see and think clearly as if nothing had happen. Dami was out of the car and by my side, teleported by which ever one of them had the ability. “We need you to give the people their thumbs backs.” The leader spoke, answering my previous questions. After checking on Dami to make sure she was okay, I stood up. The four of them didn’t remove their masks but they stood with attention that suggested some sort of training. “Why?” I ask, a fiery indignation despite the circumstance welling inside of me, “Y’all the hoteps tryna stop us from having a little fun?” The team turned their heads to each other, suggesting that they were sharing the same thought. “Nah man, you can have your fun. We just have plans and right now you caused a big ass problem for us.” Mercedes said, walking from the other side of the car to stand in front of me. “And what exactly are y’all trying to do?.” Dami asked this time, finally gathering to her feet. Mercedes was the first to remove her face mask. The others followed suit. “Sis we’re trying to erase your debt, his debt, your folks debt, all of our debts.” She said looking directly at Dami, clad in the same oak skin. “And we can’t do that on our own.” As soon as she said the words I groaned inwardly. I would much rather have my parent’s debt or my school loans erased than laugh at white people not be able to hold a cup or a weapon. “Okay look, maybe we can figure something out but y’all have to ease up.” I say cautiously, waiting for verbal or non-verbal confirmations before continuing. “I can’t do it on my own, but if y’all put us back where you took us from from I’ll give back the thumbs in less than twenty minutes.” “That’s going to be a no-go man.” The leader said. “We approached Emmanuel earlier but he backed out when we told him our plans. We didn’t know this at the time but we were being watched. And when you two showed up, Dami having been logged for her abilities after her ex filed a report. The authorities showed up and black bagged him.” The weight of his words made my chest compress. Air seemed to stop flowing into my body. My heart beat irregularly, fading in and out of rhythm. “Y’all can teleport!” I say, “Bring him back!” My focus shifting on how to save my friend. “We would,” Mercedes offered. “But black bagged means there is no way we can track him. Wherever he is blocks all abilities; telepathy and teleportation included.” “Well if that’s the case I don’t know how to help you.” I respond, trying to keep my emotions in line. “I can only affect maybe twenty people at most. Without Emmanuel my reach is limited.” Their body languages changed. I did not give them the answer they were looking for. “We understand.” The leader said after a minute. “We were hoping your powers could affect more people at once but we can work with that.” Before I could ask exactly ‘what’ could work, he continued. “I know you don’t trust us but believe me we’re trying to do something that at the very least helps tip the scales in our favor. But it’s your choice if you want to help us get it done.” “I’m Antoine by the way. Recon.” One of the other persons said as he put his hand forward. I took it, still apprehensive. The last of the group introduced themselves as Baps, the tactical specialist. Even Mercedes came over for a do-over impression. They were all different shades of melanated and had trained for something like this. Regardless if they were had powers or not they were going to pull off this heist one way or another. “Okay, before I even decide if I’ll help y’all, get Dami back to her moms first.” I say taking her hand into mine. There was no reason she needed to be caught up in whatever they were going to have me do. The Leader nodded and motioned that Dami should get back in the car. “You’re stupid as shit. I’m not leaving you alone with the black umbrella academy.” She said, holding my hand tighter. “So what y’all need us to do? And are one of y’all bulletproof or can y’know generate a force field if things get hot?” For the second time in as many minutes they all shared the reaction. This time though they all had smiles. They didn’t have force field abilities or were impervious to harm but Baps affirmed that wouldn’t be necessary as their targets did not have significant security. The plan seemed simple enough. Hit Sallie Mae, Navient and Great Lakes to erase student loan debt and then hit Experian and use their connection to all three credit bureaus to give every self-identified African-American a 750 credit score along with eliminating the debt reported to said bureaus. “Sooo this is beyond illegal. What happens if we get caught?” I ask, thoughts of ‘I should’ve stayed my black ass at home’ ringing off in my head. “You took away the thumbs of 72% of all elected officials in this country across all three branches of government, not to mention, a significant portion of all law enforcement and our military are handicapped. You’re way past illegal.” Mercedes said side-eyeing me. “See? Did you really need to put it like that?” I ask looking back at the building schematics pretending I understood how to read them. Mercedes wasn’t wrong though. What I did could be considered at act of domestic terrorism. But in my mind it was only going to last a few hours. Everyone would be okay. They were just looking at the glass half empty and without a reasonable sense of humor. Although I will admit, I completely misjudged just how important thumbs are. We were only able to infiltrate and hack three of our four targets. Sallie Mae evidently knew they were going to get hit and when most of their staff no longer had their thumbs everyone was told to go home and hunker down. Luckily we got to the other locations before they could carry out a similar exodus. As the Leader explained the modified plan it was clear how I threw the biggest wrench into it. Initially they were going to have multiple floors of technicians, support reps and engineers working on systems to relieve debt. But with the limitation of my gift, and having freaked out most of the staff, we only had skeleton crews to work with. It was a lot. I don’t even know how Mercedes was able to keep her telepathic focus for so much longer than she had originally expected to endure. Surprisingly Dami was a huge help casting illusions that made the buildings we were in look like business as usual, fooling employees to continue their work, cleverly hiding that a heist was afoot. By the end of it we were all exhausted. I was surprised that we made it back in one piece. “Half a trillion dollars of debt, gone.” The Leader said, helping Mercedes into a makeshift cot, pulling a simple sheet over her. After making sure Mercedes was comfortable he turned to us. “We did good. Thank you for your help.” He said. “Glad we could help. I know this would’ve gone a lot easier if I hadn’t disappeared all the white folks thumbs.” I share, participating in what felt like a heart to heart moment. “You’re good Jaxson. Now that we’re done I fully plan on getting online to see all the jokes.” The Leader smiled, one of maybe two times I saw the entire time I was with them. “But before that,” The smile was gone as quickly as it appeared, “Antoine and Baps let me know that they want to help you find Emmanuel. Thanks to other teams like ours, there has been some chatter online about a detention facility, they believe is where they’re holding the ones of us they could capture.” Even though I couldn’t think straight, Emmanuel’s name ignited a new energy in my mind. I looked to Dami who had taken to the vigilante life like she was born for it and the intensity in her eyes was unmistakable. “But don’t we lose our power in like seven hours or something like that? Can we really pull this off?” I ask aware that we had just pushed ourselves to the limit. “Yeah, in seven hours we’re back to being regular negroes and without Mercedes, we lose a huge advantage. It would be danger close, meaning there’s a likely chance that one if not all of us may not make it back.” The leader stood in front of us, fighting the fatigue that creeped like crows feet at his eyes. “Yeah nah, I can’t ask y’all to do that.” I say. The heist was one thing but the chance of actual danger then was low. This was radically different. “We put Emmanuel in the same position you did. It’s our responsibility.” Antoine said cooly, from behind us. “Man, y’all really about that honor, life and liberty, one for all and all for one shit huh?” Dami asked, with what almost looked like admiration. “Kinda.” Antoine smirked. “At least with our gifts our odds are better than they will be without.” Baps said joining the conversation, “plus I really want to see what his golden bud is as loud as he made it seem.” We laughed. Then we got ready. I want to say that I was heroic. I want to say I was about that life. But heroes don’t say stuff life that. We mounted the mission and it was danger close like the Leader said. The information about the facility was correct, but what we didn’t know was the other nefarious activities were taking place there. A guy who went by the name of Siphon took the abilities of the captured and broke them down into chemical compounds that would survive after the great conjunction was over. But that’s another story for another time. Through some grit and some sheer luck we got Emmanuel. We were out of the facility and able to teleport but something went horribly wrong. Instead of landing back at the warehouse, the instantaneous transfer stretched into what felt like eternity, every atom of my body being torn from one another and then hastily rearranged again. Somehow Dami and I ended up in Winnipeg, Canada, practically landing in the middle of a frigid and deserted downtown street. We have no way of knowing if Emmanuel, Leader, Baps and Antoine made it but I have to hope they did. Even now we’re trying to find our way back to Pasadena. We hope then we’ll be able to find our friends, new and old. The great conjunction has passed. We are without our powers heading back to a country that has had a rough and moderately comical day and a half. Once we make it home, evading the authorities won’t be our biggest issue. We know the government has some of our powers and we need to be ready for the inevitable retaliation to come. Stowed away on this long ass train ride heading to Vancouver, Dami is passed out using the last bit of her powers to get us a suite. All flights to the US have been grounded amid the crisis. The world will really never be the same and even despite the danger this new change poses, I, like before and always, am here for it all.

https://medium.com/@kaidesoyeh/opposable-849ca3dfe49f

['Kaide Soyeh']

2020-12-28 10:29:34.434000+00:00

['December 21', 'Short Story', 'Black Writers', 'Short Fiction', 'Fiction']

How Setting Personal Goals Helps You Live A Meaningful Life

How Setting Personal Goals Helps You Live A Meaningful Life Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash It’s a conversation I’ve had many times. In fact, it’s a conversation I had the other night with my sister. “I feel like I’m in a rut,” she stated, “I need a hobby or something else to do besides eat, work, and sleep. I don’t know, I just feel blah.” All I could do was nod in agreement because I understood. It’s a huge fear of mine, and one that keeps me up at night. What if I get to the end of my life and realize I only existed, and never actually lived? The sad truth is, many of us get stuck: stuck in a routine, stuck in a job, stuck in a relationship, stuck in life. While this may be comfortable, and easy, and helps you get from Monday to Friday, it’s also incredibly boring. That’s because it does nothing for you. It raises no questions, gives you no challenges, sets you up for no achievements, and requires no ambition. You are simply existing. Setting personal goals whether it be career goals, life goals, relationship goals, etc. is an ABSOLUTE MUST if you want to live a meaningful life. Why Do We Stop Setting Goals? Most people have a hard time pin-pointing the root cause of their depression, but not me. I know the exact moment it happened, and I know the exact cause. I had just finished the second week of my new “Big Girl” job, and I was already burned out. I couldn’t believe it. How could this be possible? I had done everything right. I went to a great school, studied a major I was passionate about, and landed a career straight out of college. But I found myself thinking, This is it? The problem? I thought I had “arrived” at the place you are “supposed to arrive at” as an adult. You know what I’m talking about: You go to school, you get a degree, you get a job, and BOOM that’s your life. You’ve made it. And maybe you have made it…but you’re unhappy. People stop setting goals because there is a belief that at some point, you have achieved what are you meant to do. From the moment you enter this world, you’re slapped with the idea that your sole purpose in this life is to get a career. You work towards that goal for the first 22 years of your life, and so your life has meaning. It has purpose. But what happens after that? What happens after you have “arrived?” You fall into a routine. You. Get. Stuck. Because you think you’re done. Let me make this very clear: A career is NOT your sole purpose in this life. But it is up to YOU to keep your purpose alive by setting goals. Why Do We HAVE to Set Goals? Goals pull us out of existing and push us into living. It’s how we get our priorities in line and keep our ambitions fresh. When you wake up each morning with a purpose, you have focus, and the days no longer feel like they blend into one. What are your priorities? What do you believe in? How do you want to live your life? Do you even know? If you don’t, you need to set goals. Goals guide us in every decision we make. If we don’t have goals, we are making decisions that amount to nothing. You have to be working towards something. It truly is the key to happiness. Plus, it’s fun to achieve things! It feels good. Remember when you were a kid, and you set out to do a cartwheel? Remember when you FINALLY did a cartwheel? You told everyone! You cartwheeled down the aisles of the grocery store. You pushed yourself to do more cartwheels, different cartwheels, and it was exciting! You can have that same feeling again. That wasn’t limited to childhood. Set a goal, and start working towards it. Why Are We Scared To Set Goals? Goals push us out of our comfort zone. They’re uncomfortable to think about, and even more uncomfortable to talk about. Why? Because it is out of the routine. Goals are overwhelming, and they take a lot of work. Have you ever told someone a goal you had? Watch how they react. You’ll get a lot of uncomfortable laughs, and sarcastic “Good Luck!’s” How did we get like this? How did we get to the point where we automatically discredit goals? Because we live in a world of excuses: 1) There’s not enough time 2) I’m too late in my life to start 3) It’s too much work 4) What’s the point? These excuses are shit, and it’s your job to overcome them. How To Set Goals? If you struggle with this, you’re not alone. The problem is, a lot of people don’t know where to start, and it can feel extremely overwhelming. You may have a goal to lose weight…well, that’s great…in theory. But what are you going to do to get to that goal? You can’t just say you are going to lose weight, and you lose weight — you need actionable steps. That’s where S.M.A.R.T. Goals come in. S.M.A.R.T. Goals are a way to break down big goals into a working plan. S.M.A.R.T. stands for:

https://medium.com/@ashlee-waters/how-setting-personal-goals-helps-you-live-a-meaningful-life-7fc8b482ef59

['Ashlee Waters']

2020-12-08 20:31:23.690000+00:00

['Goal Setting', 'Mental Health', 'Goals', 'Happiness', 'Life']

Samsung The Frame 4K UHD TV review: Refining the art of wall-art TV

If you’re looking for the ultimate TV that doesn’t appear to be a TV, look no farther than Samsung’s The Frame.” It’s a quantum-dot LCD styled to appear as a wall-hung picture frame that displays art when you’re not watching video of some sort, and it looks amazingly convincing in that role. Throw in custom-colored bezels, a library of 1,400 available works of art (20 are included in the purchase price), and even the most demanding home decorator should be pleased. This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best smart TVs, where you'll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.Design and specsTo better mimic a wall-hung picture, The Frame uses a rectangular replaceable bezel that juts out slightly beyond the 60Hz, 10-bit, 3840 x 2160 (4K UHD) LCD panel. The back is completely flat, with a recess where the included, shallow-profile wall mount is attached. Yup, it fits flush against the wall, just like a picture frame. If the stock bezel doesn’t appeal to your color sense or match your décor, white, pink, beige, brown, and yellow bezels that attach magnetically to the main chassis are available for $100 each. Samsung Samsung’s The Frame looks for all the world like a real wall-hung painting when in Art Mode. It also features excellent viewing angles. As normal power and connection cables would sully the aesthetics, The Frame also features Samsung’s One Connect single-cable connection. This clear (except for the wire) cable connects to a breakout box that houses most of the electronics and all the ports. Given a suitably light-colored wall, the cable is hard to spot. It will stand out more against dark surfaces. Obviously, a picture frame is useless without pictures, and Samsung supplies about 1,400 of those in its Art Store. Alas, it’s not all gratis. You get 20 free works of art, and a free three-month subscription to the store; after that, a subscription costs $5 per month. You can also purchase works you like for $20 each. The Frame is currently available in 32-inch ($600), 43-inch ($1,000), 50-inch ($1,300), 55-inch ($1,500), 65-inch ($2,000), and 75-inch ($3,000) flavors. A Black Friday sale happening as of this writing discounts those prices. Connectivity includes four HDMI ports (one of which supports ARC), two USB ports, ethernet, coaxial (for a TV antenna), digital optical (Toslink) audio output, and a 3.5mm RS232C jack for integration. 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are also provided, and the latter supports low-latency connections so you can use headphones and other speakers without undo lag. Interface and remoteThe remote is Samsung’s familiar One Remote, with its minimalist layout and controls. It’s very classy, and in this case, it’s white. Samsung Samsung’s minimalist, but highly effective and comfortable One Remote comes with the Frame, albeit colored a friendlier white. The Samsung Smart Hub user interface is one of the best in the industy, easy to use and to configure. That said, settings menus requires lots of drilling down, and you’re never returned to where you left off the last time you visited the Smart Hub. Then again, how often to you tweak settings? There’s a large collection of apps, including all the biggies (Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, and so on). It’s not as good as Android TV, but it’s very good. PerformanceThe Frame delivers a very good picture. It’s everything it needs to be for its intended role and offers excellent viewing angles and screen conformity (there’s no cloudiness from coatings). For movies and TV, however, it’s not up to what I’ve seen from Samsung’s most recent high-end entries. Yes, I’ve been spoiled. Put another way, it reminds me far more of the 2019 Q60R I reviewed this time last year than something like the Q80R or Q90R, let alone the superb 8K Q900R. Then again, those TVs will do no better displaying static art than The Frame, and wouldn’t look as good on your wall. I’m guessing part of the reason The Frame’s image is not Samsung’s best is that the company doesn’t make its best TVs in smaller sizes. When this 43-inch was delivered, one of our front desk folks volunteered that they liked the size better than the massive sets we usually get in for review. It does seem like the mammoth-sized TV market has become saturated, or perhaps viewers feel overwhelmed by them. We’re starting to see things like 49-inch OLEDs, and other smaller-sized high-end LCD drop in the market. I hope Samsung’s numbers push them in this direction as well. Samsung This picture won’t tell you much about The Frame’s color or brightness, but the first is excellent thanks to quantum dots and the second is more than adequate. Perhaps it’s not high-end in terms of brightness, or in the way it handles pans of complex images, but The Frame’s color is excellent due Samsung’s well-known quantum dot technology. Motion compensation was surprisingly good considering the TV has only a 60Hz refresh rate. There is enough peak brightness that the HDR effect will be noticeable with HDR material, it just wasn’t as spectacular as it can be with more contrast and brightness available. Note that The Frame will sense ambient light while in Art Mode and adjust accordingly to give you the proper amount of brightness. Given normal lighting at any rate—if direct sunlight hits the sensor, all bets are off. Pricey but worth it for the shape-consciousThe Frame is all about looking good on a wall displaying art, and it does that extremely well—far better than any other TV I’ve seen. For that, it’s a stellar product and very, very good overall TV. Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.

https://medium.com/@jessie73000270/samsung-the-frame-4k-uhd-tv-review-refining-the-art-of-wall-art-tv-2d3918db763c

[]

2020-12-17 01:40:16.532000+00:00

['Cutting', 'Headphones', 'Surveillance', 'Streaming']

For possible visitors. January 30, 2012.

[caption id=”attachment_656" align=”aligncenter” width=”545"] Photo: Todd Brown Mourning of The King Father Norodom Sihanouk[/caption] Several friends and a few acquaintances from back in the states have expressed interest in visiting my new home of Phnom Penh. The questions of what to expect, what there is to do and eat and see are endless and considering I’ve only lived here five months in a working stance with not as much sightseeing or a traveler’s point of view, it can be difficult to come up with an answer. I’ve spent short times at temples and tourist attractions, from the time I visited in April 2012 and small trips here and there. Since I am working and if visitors do ever arrive, I’d like to give my viewpoint on the travel time and the daily life. Nothing wildly different, yet no less exciting, the day to day and in and outs of my life in Phnom Penh. I have flown both Asean and Korean Airline and they’re so similar I couldn’t recommend one over the other, just go for whatever is more cost effective. Although 27 hours of flight and travel time may seem daunting, with the right mindset, a good enough book, plentiful snacks, notepad, and a couple Xanax its quite an enjoyable journey. You have time to unwind, disconnect from work and anything gripping you from home, and enjoy a menagerie of movies and snacks on the plane. The layover time I’ve been able to arrange on my way over is only about an hour in Seoul, Korea, just enough time to grab a coffee, freshen up, and scurry to the next flight. The first leg of the flight is roughly 14 hours, once you make it past that you can pop a sleeping pill and the second seven hour flight is basically non existent. When arriving in Phnom Penh, you’ll step into a tiny airport (not Long Beach tiny, but small) and a wave of mugginess will inevitably hit you. I’ve only landed at night, around 10 or 11 and haven’t experienced the Phnom Penh hustle and bustle and highly recommend it. Buying your visa into Cambodia is the easiest thing, just have a passport photo ready and $20, pay at the counter before leaving the airport and just wait to hear a very jumbled version of your name. Snag your luggage, grab a taxi or tuk tuk (I recommend arranging pickup before your arrival, just ask someone who lives in Phnom Penh for a good driver) and be on your way. Bed Time [caption id=”attachment_657" align=”aligncenter” width=”545"] The Eighty8 Pool[/caption] On your way to where? I haven’t stayed at any of the hotels or guest houses in Phnom Penh as I haven’t had need to, but there is something for everyone. If you’re in the mood for something more backpacker friendly, laid back, lots of drinking available, and a place to meet fellow travelers I recommend The Mad Monkey or Eighty8 Backpackers, better known as The Eighty8. The Mad Monkey is run by really friendly guys who have opened up another two locations in Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, employ the friendliest of staff, sell bus tickets and services right from the bar, serve great food (especially the chorizo pizza), and seem to be the most popular guesthouse in town. There are dorm rooms available along with private, a rooftop bar, and a cat named Squeaky. I recommend booking here in advance. The Eighty8 is where all the WUPP! parties are hosted, has a small but lovely pool, serve happy truffles, and offer dorm and private rooms. Prices at these two spots range from $7 to $12. [caption id=”attachment_658" align=”aligncenter” width=”545"] The Plantation. Photo doesn’t capture how lovely the pool is.[/caption] I’ve spent less time around mid price hotels in the area, but my mom always puts up guests in Villa Srey, a boutique hotel conveniently located right next to .BEYOND Interiors where she works. Located on Street 360, this little guest house offers a small pool perfect for hot afternoons and is a block away from dozens of modern coffee shops and eateries. Rates start at $50. I’ve also heard excellent things about The Plantation located behind The Royal Palace. With two bars, two pools, a gym, and voted as one of Conde Nast’s 2012 best hotels I can only assume you’ll be well taken care of. I’ve stepped inside the hotel and wandered about and can tell it would be a lovely getaway in the city. Rates start at $60. Hotel 9 is another boutique hotel located right across Psar Kabko market in Tonle Bassac, about 5 blocks from where I used to live. What seems like a noisy street gives way to this stylish spot complete with a pool and fantastic happy hour. Ideal for a quick walk to Equinox, Vego, or Independence Monument, Allison’s parents will be staying here when they visit in February and I look forward to hearing about their experience. Rates start at $55. [caption id=”attachment_659" align=”aligncenter” width=”545"] Raffles. Famous.[/caption] Even less time have I spent at the higher priced hotels Phnom Penh has to offer. The Sofitel’s all you can eat breakfast is delicious and expensive. The Raffles lunch, famous classic appeal and pool are wonderful and expensive. The Quay’s rooftop is fantastic and expensive. The White Mansion is gorgeous, refined and expensive. I won’t even go into the details of each of these places as they all boast excellence, if you’ve got a little extra money to spend (when I say expensive, this is by Cambodian standards. It’s about the same price you’d pay for a Red Lion at home) and want something with a bit more of everything, check out these venues. Snack Time [caption id=”attachment_664" align=”aligncenter” width=”545"] Taqueria Corona Madness. Photo: AsiaLife[/caption] There is never a shortage of places to eat in Phnom Penh. Eateries are abundant as New York, but with a bit more excitement. Tarantula, anyone? For a gastro involved individual like me, it’s a never ending adventure of the palate. There are, however, some spots that have stolen my stomach that I will continue to frequent. Taqueria Corona: I consider this the best Mexican spot in town. Owned and run by a San Diego (San Francisco? San something…) native, this restaurant serves up homemade tortilla chips, salted to perfection and fried to a golden crisp along with burritos thick with tender barbacoa, chicken, or carne asada and topped with an ample amount of cheese. A far cry from the bean laden burritos, sparse with toppings offered up by different Mexican restos around the city. Sovanna 1/2: This Khmer BBQ spot seems to be the best known and for good reason. The menu lists everything from grilled sweet corn to morning glory salad and frogs legs to favorites like pork fried rice and barbecued meats. Not drinking a ton of Angkor beer isn’t an option but when you can eat to your heart’s content for $6, you’ll need something to wash down everything you’re shoveling into your maw. USA Donut: I’ve tried many a burger in Phnom Penh, even the famed Mike’s Burger, but none comes close to touching the classic cheeseburger from USA Donut. Delightfully sloppy and enough grease to moisturize your entire body with cheese melty enough to evoke sighs, this ones a winner. Bangin’ donuts are available here too along with any other Costco sized American product you may want. Honorable mention: Lonestar’s Bacon Blue Cheeseburger. Simply bomb. Vego: To offset my carb heavy intake, sometimes I treat myself to Vego. The Istanbul wrap (feta, sun dried tomatos, cucumber, olives, rocket, onions, vinaigrette) from this salad and sandwich spot is perfect for a hangover or feeling fat day and delicious to boot. Their bagels are a taste from home and both their locations are clean, welcoming, and they offer free delivery. Pho 24: Strange to think my favorite pho would be from a chain restaurant, but Pho 24’s Beef Pho is simply the best I’ve had. The meat is always fatless, heavy on the broth, and all acoutrements are freely given. For $3.50, I’m a happy camper. My only qualm is that they don’t offer delivery. For the mornings I can’t make it out of bed for pho, I’ll order from Magnolia Wrap and Roll, another delectable option (although the sprouts come soggy and there isn’t much broth). Nike Pizza House: Last night Ritchie, Allison, Duncan, and I hit up our favorite pasta spot and ordered 4 Cheese Gnocchi, Spaghetti Bolognese, 2 Penne Alla Creamy, Penne Amanda, a Pepperoni Pizza, a Greek salad and 5 Coke Lites for $35. To fill these two gents up generally takes quite a land fill of food, so the fact that we always leave fat and happy says a lot. The prices are prime, the portions hearty, and the quality excellent. You can also order in free of charge from Nike, last time I did they told me I was the boss and that they knew where I lived. Success. Drink Time Bar.Sito: My top place for a classy cocktail in a small, hidden lounge on Street 240 and a half, whenever I step into Sito it feels like I’m back in Seattle or some sneaky spot on my last trip to New York. Cocktails are all $4, but are made to make you woozy and kick your tastebuds into high gear. My favorite is the Espresso Martini, dangerously good. Eclipse Sky Bar: Not generally the type of place I frequent, but enjoyed every time I do go. With an excellent view of the city lights and open breezy air, this bougie spot on top of The Phnom Penh Tower is a pleasant place to go on a weekday evening after a shopping date at Mango and dinner at Phnom Penh India. It also holds a very special place in my heart after New Years, but just make sure you don’t try to walk down the stairs…you’re bound to fall at some point about half way through at floor 12. Zeppelin Cafe: Hands down our favorite place for a drink, Zeppelin Cafe plays the most excellent classic rock and vodka Red Bulls flow extra easy for dirt cheap. Dumplings also available, again for a couple thousand riel. Ideal. Play Time [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-gV4l64QC0&w=560&h=315] La Croisette, Recovery on Friday night: Ritchie and Duncan man the table and bottle of Jim Beam (almost) every Friday at La Croisette to play our favorite music. There’s nothing like hearing Arcade Fire or The Cribs in a public place overseas with a vodka in hand, friends by your side, and a restaurant open for your terrible dance moves, which are all the more fun shared with friends and lovers The Flicks Cinemas (1,2,3): I’ve mentioned The Flicks cinemas a couple times before and with reason, this place is the perfect vacation from a long day. Showing indie and harder to find Hollywood blockbusters, classic films, and run by a gem of a man, Ramon. My favorite location is Flicks 1, with a palatial hot dog, ice cold air conditioner, and plentiful lounge space. The Flicks 3 is a fun outdoor showing at Gasolina, just remember mosquito spray or your legs will be ground meat by the end of the night. The Kanika: Floating down the Mekong River at dusk, sipping a Whiskey Sour and feeling the cool air slowly rising up is one of the most pleasant experiences I’ve had in Phnom Penh. This boat, serving cocktails and dinner, departs from the Himiwari Hotel at set times and takes you for a 2 hour or so cruise up and down the river. The last time I went was in April when visiting and we made it off the boat right in time, watching lightning run across the sky and a sheet of rain move across the river. Random Events: It seems there is always, always something to do here. My Events page on Facebook has never gotten as much activity as it has since living in Phnom Penh. Let’s take a gander at this past month: January 12: Grass Snake Union plays at Equinox for their 7 Year Anniversary January 12: Kimchi Collective presents: The Meta House Sessions 7 January 17: Feral Is Kinky @ Pontoon January 18: Bangin’ Birthday Bash, theme: When I Grow Up January 18: Friends Charity Party @ Doors, hosted by WUPP! January 18: Recovery @ La Croisette January 19: Little Kitchen presents Iranian dishes & fundraising for the Cambodian under 15 Woman football league January 24: The Flicks 3 Open Air Cinema: GREASE + INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE January 25: Le Jardin Latin After Work, Tapas and Wine January 25–27: The Village, 5 Course Menu Food Festival January 25: What’s Up Pool Party #5 @ The Eighty8 January 26: Australia Day @ Rubie’s w/ Kimchi Collective January 26: Australia Day: AFL, The Cambodian Space Project (band) at The Phnom Penh Navy base January 26: Full Moon Party @ Rahu …it goes on. Not to mention rugby and soccer games of your pals, boxing matches, and photo shoots. The Riverside is a treat to stroll in itself, dismissing pushy tuk tuk drivers and Ray Ban salesmen, smelling the different foods and peeking into different clubs and restaurants and looking out onto the Mekong. There is the genocide museum, shooting range, paint balling, inline skating, karaoke, Dream Land, four wheeling, bowling and hitting up way more tourist spots that I need to partake in. Shop Time Mango, Esquisse, ESQ, Paperdolls, First Floor, Le Temps des Cerises: Bountiful are the small boutiqes full of clothing, decor, and accessories for prices that rival home. First Floor stocks luxury brands along with local favorites such as Eric Raisina, Esquisse, and Jean Benoit Lasselin’s fantastic custom tailored suit line, colorblind. Mango is a much needed mid-range clothing option here to offset the bounty of cheap, trendy goods and worth the $50 for an excellent pair of lounge pants. VIP Market: A rad little market with a few locations, always has Power Caps available for those midnight popsicle cravings and they’ll hold onto your lease contract for two weeks when you leave it there and forget it. Best selection of snacks that I’ve encountered in a mini mart and the best baguette I’ve had in Phnom Penh. Beautiful Shoes: You can get basically anything custom made in Phnom Penh. Need a cashmere suit? You got it. A replica of your favorite leather handbag coming apart at the seams? Absolutely doable. My first custom made piece I had made were a pair of camel pony hair booties for $30 at Beautiful Shoes. Definitely worth it when shoes are made to tailor your own feetses. [caption id=”attachment_665" align=”aligncenter” width=”545"] Orussey Market[/caption] Orussey Market: The markets here never cease to amaze me. Next door to a girl getting her hair crimped and dyed a strange blondish orange are dried fish crawling with flies and eggs of a mystery pink hue. My favorite is Orussey Market, a clusterfuck of stalls, seemingly without order or reason. Although overwhelming, hot, fragrant in a number of ways, and extremely dirty, you can find anything you could imagine here, which may or may not be comforting. I’ve gone home with bags of vintage, a baby hatchet, a curling iron, a kettle, each time happy. You can polish your bartering skills while taking in some of the culture, be prepared for a sensory overload in this wonderful mess. [caption id=”attachment_582" align=”aligncenter” width=”545"] Oudong Moto Crew[/caption] None of these things touch on the excitement of getting out of town to Siem Reap (like I did 2 weeks ago) or Vietnam (like this upcoming weekend) or Odoung Mountain for a day trip (like we did 3 weeks ago) or Mondolkiri (like I did when I first arrived), but I can’t help but feel like a stranger in paradise (as Nica from back home pet-named me) each and every day that I get to experience a day here. There are so many unknowns yet to me and I am oh so grateful for it. Never again do I want to live in a city where I feel like I’ve experienced everything. Each day presents some new challenge or excitement and I have so much to learn. Once you’re here I can’t wait to show you each of these little spots when time allows, I can only urge visitors to take off to nearby (or not so nearby) spots like Kep or Koh Rong or even Laos and Bangkok to fill your plate with memories you’ll never forget. I hope to join you on one or two of those excursions, until then, dream of dragon fruit, sweltering, sticky, wonderful days, long talks into the evening with sweating drinks and sweaty calves, the welcomed chill of air conditioner, the constant hum of the city, the grins bared from the beautiful Khmer people, and the thrill of being on the back of a moto.

https://medium.com/mischke-business/for-possible-visitors-january-30-2012-351f2a8ba590

['Anna Mischke']

2018-09-10 18:49:16.440000+00:00

['Food', 'Fashion', 'Music', 'Cambodia', 'Personal']

Hackathons are for beginners

3. Hackathons are cheap Food, drink, and snacks are all free for the weekend! You don’t need to pay for accommodation. Some events even organize transport or (if you’re lucky) offer some travel reimbursements. Travel is really the only cost for hackathons. If there’s one near you, great! If you have to travel a bit, book travel well in advance and try to find out if there’s a coach to the hackathon that could pick you up. If you need to travel, it’s definitely worth the investment. Also, likelihood is you’re going to walk away with some cool free t-shirts, stickers, or prizes. You shouldn’t be scared of hackathons People ask me all sorts of things about their first hackathon. They’re often worried about whether or not they’ll fit in. Fact is you don’t have to be a coding master to take part and have a good time. Here’s my FAQ: What if I don’t know how to code? No problem! I didn’t know much about coding when I went to my first hackathon either. And I’ve seen complete beginners at every hackathon I’ve been to since. If you’ve never coded before, it’s a great opportunity to spend a weekend learning. You’ll be surrounded by experienced coders, willing to help you out. Coding can look pretty difficult, but actually it’s easy to get started. You can go here and begin right now if you’d like. If you already have some experience, you’ll fit into a team no problem. Your team will help teach you some new things and give you tasks to complete so you can build a project together. Will I annoy people if I ask them questions? You’re not going to annoy anybody! These events are wholly centred around learning and having fun. You’re meant to go and ask questions. Everybody will be willing to listen to your questions and help you learn new things. There will also be mentors from some top companies who are there to listen to questions and help you out. If you can’t find somebody to help you out, go ask the volunteers. If they can’t help you themselves, they’ll help find you somebody who can. What if I don’t know anybody there? Not to worry! You’ll meet people when you get there. Everybody’s very friendly. A lot of people go to hackathons without teams. So it’s perfectly normal to go around to people, tell them you’re looking for a team, and ask if you can help out. Hackathons will often run team-matching sessions at the start to help you meet people. And you can often join a facebook group for the event beforehand and post there to find potential teammates. Protip: Invite your friends to come to the hackathon too! That way you’re guaranteed to have at least one familiar face. What if I don’t have an idea? That’s normal. Most people don’t have an idea before they get to the event. But once you start talking to other people, you might come up with something. You can also work with somebody else on their idea if you like it. And there will be prizes at the event which might help give you some ideas. Don’t worry about it, you’ll find something to work on. Where can I sleep? Sometimes the organizers will have put aside a quiet, dark room you can get some rest. If that’s the case, there are usually two rooms separated by gender. Due to venue restrictions, sometimes you’re going to have to grab some sleep on a sofa or on the ground beside your table. Either way, you should bring a sleeping bag and maybe a pillow to the event. Sleeping at hackathons isn’t always the most comfortable arrangement, but it’s worth it for the experience. Will there be food? Yep! Your meals for the weekend will be free and there’ll be plenty of snacks and drinks. What if I don’t want to present my hack? You might think your hack isn’t impressive enough to present. or you might think it won’t win a prize so why bother? Don’t be silly. Hackathons aren’t about winning prizes. And they aren’t about showing off. They’re about learning and playing with technology. There is absolutely no reason not to share what you’ve been working on for the weekend. Even if your hack doesn’t work or you couldn’t finish it, people like hearing about what you tried to do, what challenges you faced, what technology you used, and what you learned. Great! How can I get involved? Check out the MLH website for a list of upcoming student hackathons in the US, Europe, Canada, and Mexico. Hack Club also maintains a list of high school hackathons which you can check out here. If you’re yearning for more info, check out all these articles. But most importantly, find a hackathon near you and go to it. Only starting to learn to code? Read How to learn to code. Happy hacking!

https://medium.com/tfogo/hackathons-are-for-beginners-77a9c9c0e000

['Tim Fogarty']

2018-04-28 12:07:54.325000+00:00

['Hacking', 'Software', 'Programming', 'Coding', 'Hackathons']

Small Area Rugs can be used to enhance the entryway.

Beautiful Small area rugs are ideal for creating a warm, welcome atmosphere at your entranceways. Place them in front of your console tables or full-length mirrors for the best effect. The design and color of your handmade rug are significant since they set the tone for the rest of your home’s interior decor. You can use either neutral colors that complement and improve the beauty of your space (but take in mind the heavy foot traffic and entering filth) or vivid colors that accentuate and enhance the attractiveness of your area. Wool, sisal, bamboo slat, seagrass, hemp, and polypropylene are all good, long-lasting entryway rug materials. Look for hand-knotted or flat woven constructions with low pile heights that can withstand the most abuse. Stain-resistant, water-resistant, and machine-washable, our 3x5 small area rugs are ideal for high-traffic areas such as your entryway or foyer, kitchen, or living room! We have the perfect 3x5 rug for you, no matter what color, pattern, or style you’re looking for!

https://medium.com/@ooptech123/small-area-rugs-can-be-used-to-enhance-the-entryway-208beab4ea5

[]

2021-12-13 22:17:51.198000+00:00

['Furniture', 'Rugs', 'Lighting']

SkyRocket launches IntoTheBlock Analytics for its traders

A new Pro Analytics page is now powered by IntoTheBlock SkyRocket is a crypto-trading platform integrated with popular exchanges, like Binance, Bitmex and OKEx. It offers a wide range of tools and functionalities for its traders that effectively increase transacting capabilities, such as trailing stop-loss or graphic monitoring of changes in a portfolio. It also provides a selection of algorithmic trading solutions, developed in collaboration with their partner Exeria. Today, SkyRocket has released a new section on the platform completely powered by IntoTheBlock. When traders visit this Pro Analytics page, they are presented with a dashboard that delivers a new way of analyzing a crypto asset’s behavior. This dashboard is divided in two sections: The Token Summary displays, as the name implies, a quick view of a crypto asset showing several of IntoTheBlock’s indicators, which together provide a holistic view of a crypto asset’s behavior. The Actionable Signals section contains momentum signals based on IntoTheBlock’s underlying indicators. For those traders interested in more detailed analysis, the “Dive Deeper” and “See More Signals” buttons redirect them to the IntoTheBlock Platform with access to a portfolio of over 120 intelligent signals about traditional crypto assets, specific markets such as DeFi and event price prediction models . At IntoTheBlock, we are excited about this new partnership that enables us to deliver crypto intelligence to a considerable number of traders around the world. We look forward to hearing about your experience with SkyRocket and IntoTheBlock.

https://medium.com/intotheblock/skyrocket-launches-intotheblock-analytics-for-its-traders-e40a026a3e82

['Alfredo Terrero']

2020-12-09 13:38:51.737000+00:00

['Ethereum', 'Intotheblock', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto']

Models For Scaling Trustless Computation

Each of the major smart contract platforms is making a unique set of trade-offs. These trade-offs are not simply the presence or absence of specific features, but rather represent fundamentally different views of what trustless computation means. This essay aims to provide a coherent framework through which one can understand these trade-offs and how they impact some of the predominant narratives in crypto such as digital gold, programmable money, censorship resistance, and permissionless-ness. Some definitions: Censorship resistance — complete freedom of expression. In more technical terms, the ability to commit any arbitrary record to the blockchain. Permissionless-ness — the ability to access the network and verify the integrity of the chain without asking a 3rd party for permission. I will not explore layer 2 scaling solutions such as Lightning, Raiden, and Plasma. But first, we need to establish context for the term “trustless.” Nick Szabo frames trustlessness as an inverse function of technical efficiency. Basically, the less efficient the computer, the more difficult it is to manipulate. The more difficult it is to manipulate, the more you can trust it, therefore making it trustless. In other words, to paraphrase Szabo, blockchains trade technical efficiency for social scalability. The ultimate manifestation of crypto is not just a trustless database (or blockchain) in which everyone agrees on its current state — it’s trustless general purpose computation, which is a superset of a database. This can be a little bit challenging to grasp. Blockchains enable everyone on the planet to come to consensus about the state of the world. Trustless general purpose computation is a step beyond that. It’s the ability to not just know the state of the world but to prove that a specific computation was run correctly. Although Bitcoin is technically programmable — enabling trustless general purpose computation through its Script language — in practice Bitcoin is just a trustless database. Although there are some efforts to make Bitcoin more expressive (such as MAST, taproot, scriptless scripts, and RSK) none of these are in production today. To put it bluntly, developers have left Bitcoin for greener pastures. Ethereum provided the first accessible platform on which developers could run any arbitrary computation trustlessly. Today, Ethereum owns the vast majority of the developer mindshare in crypto. Many have called Ethereum a world computer. While this is technically true, in practice it’s not because of two related factors: throughput and cost. Running a computation on Ethereum is on the order of 100,000,000x more expensive than running the same computation on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The Scalability Trilemma The challenge of scaling trustless computation can be thought of as a trilemma. The scalability trilemma posits that blockchains in which every node processes every computation and in which every node comes to consensus about the order of those computations can have two of three properties: safety, scalability, and decentralization of block production (DBP). DBP can be quantified as the number of block producers. Scalability can be quantified as the number of transactions per unit of time that the system can process. Safety can be quantified as the cost of mounting a Byzantine attack that affects liveness or transaction ordering. Note that safety does not refer to the integrity of cryptographic signatures, or the ability of a 3rd party to derive a set of private keys from public keys. What causes a system to achieve one set of trade-offs vs another? A combination of consensus scheme and system architecture. The remainder of this essay will explore these concepts, and lastly, loop in some interesting work in off-chain computation. Each of the systems below makes a different set of trade-offs in pursuit of scalable trustless computation. Throughout this essay, I’ll refer to each leg of the triangle using these numbers: A Fourth Dimension: Time To Finality (AKA Latency) Although not explicitly part of the scalability trilemma, there’s a fourth dimension to consider in scaling systems for trustless computation: time to finality (TTF), which directly impacts latency. Some systems never guarantee finality, but rather probabilistically approach finality (e.g. Bitcoin). Others offer a finality guarantee after some period of time. Finality is important not only to avoid double-spend attacks, but also because finality guarantees are necessary to enable cross-chain communications. The slower the TTF, the higher the latency in cross-chain communications. There’s not a visually clean way to represent TTF on a two-dimensional triangle. As such, I’ll use dark background colors to indicate fast TTF and light background colors to represent slower TTF. Leg 1: Permissionless Proof-of-Work (Bitcoin, Ethereum 1.0, others) Prior to Bitcoin, all digital cash systems suffered from the same fundamental flaw: users had to trust a 3rd party to administer the system. This 3rd party could censor transactions. Designing a system in which anyone could verify the integrity of the chain and in which no single 3rd party could censor transactions was the primary design goal of Bitcoin. Proof-of-work (PoW) consensus made a censorship-resistant, permissionless ledger possible. The downside of optimizing so strongly in favor of censorship resistance is that modern PoW systems don’t scale without centralizing block production. This fundamental tradeoff ultimately resulted in the Bitcoin Cash fork, which, relative to Bitcoin, will centralize block production (though there are debates about this practice). Of the consensus models presented in this essay, PoW is the most permissionless. Literally anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can begin validating transactions and mining. This theoretically enables maximal DBP. In practice, all permissionless PoW systems centralize block production. We know this empirically. Mining for all major PoW-based blockchains centralizes due to economies of scale in mining operations. Today, no more than 20 organizations/pools control the vast majority of mining power in both the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. Given our admittedly limited history, it seems likely this centralization of block production will always occur for both ASIC and GPU-based mining algorithms. PoW systems suffer from slow TTF. They do not, by design, ever guarantee finality. Instead, as new blocks are added to PoW-based chains, older transactions become exponentially more likely to be final. This is why many don’t consider Bitcoin transactions “final” until there have been six additional blocks confirming the transaction. Given 10-minute blocks, it can take an hour or even longer to finalize a Bitcoin transaction. At that point, the probability of a chain reorganization is close enough to 0 to consider the transaction final. In practice, because of the economies of scale of PoW mining, PoW chains fall in the lower right-hand corner of the triangle: Braided PoW (Kadena) Kadena is the only system I’m aware of that’s attempting to solve the scalability trilemma using a PoW scheme. Kadena accomplishes this by creating a “braid” of chains that it calls Chainweb. In Chainweb, each chain must, in addition to validating transactions in its own chain, validate block headers of some number of pre-specified chains in order to produce a new block. To relay messages and value across chains, users need to submit Merkle proofs asserting the state of one chain to other chains in the Chainweb. Because not all chains are directly connected, users may have to “hop” a few times to relay a message from one chain to another. At first glance, this looks like Ethereum’s proposal for sharding (more on that below). However, whereas Ethereum’s sharding implementation separates transaction collation and validation into spoke chains and a single hub chain respectively, Kadena doesn’t unbundle transaction verification and consensus. In Chainweb, every chain maintains its own consensus. Kadena presents a fundamentally unique approach. Kadena visualizes ChainWeb as follows: One of unique traits of ChainWeb is that scaling the system explicitly increases security. Why? Because it becomes harder to mount 51% attacks across an increasing number of chains, each of which references blocks from every other chain. In this model, undoing a transaction on one chain requires undoing transactions on every other chain in the system. Given how naturally intertwined the chains are, this becomes exponentially more difficult as the number of chains grows. This stands in contrast to blockchains on leg 3 of the triangle, in which the safety of the system in aggregate doesn’t substantially increase as the number of chains grows. This design basically solves the scalability trilemma. But there is one major trade off: TTF and cross-chain latency. Individual chains could be many hops from one another. Kadena aims to offer <1 minute TTF in a PoW scheme. Sending messages across the entire Chainweb will take a few hops, requiring a few minutes. Despite this limitation, Kadena presents a real solution to solving the scalability trilemma that’s built on a proven consensus model: PoW. Although braiding adds a new dynamics to the system as a whole, each chain is a PoW chain. PoW has undergone much more scrutiny than proof-of-stake (PoS). It takes years to demonstrate the safety of a consensus scheme in the real world. Because of this, there is real value and opportunity for Kadena in building a scalable system on PoW consensus. On the triangle, Kadena falls here: Proof-of-Stake The schemes presented above were PoW-based. The schemes below are PoS schemes. In practice, all PoS systems centralize block production relative to purely permissionless PoW schemes by design. This is due to the intrinsic trade-off between number of block producers and throughput. (This excellent essay by Vitalik Buterin details the tradeoffs.) However, this doesn’t mean that all PoS schemes centralize block production equally. As we’ll see, there’s a wide range of DBP that’s achievable using PoS schemes. PoS schemes are far less battle-tested than PoW schemes in real-world settings. For example, the first PoS implementation, Peercoin, faced nothing-at-stake attacks, among others. As such, PoS schemes should be considered fundamentally riskier. Leg 2: Centralizing Block Production (EOS, Cardano, NEO, others) Delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) schemes embrace centralization by recognizing that PoW schemes naturally centralize due to economies of scale in mining. Given this practical reality, Dan Larimerinvented DPoS, which embraces the fact that blockchains naturally centralize anyways, and uses that to achieve scalability. For example, EOS, Larimer’s most recent effort, publicly boasts that the system will only have 21 block producers at a time. It’s expected that, in time, it will only be possible to run an EOS node in a datacenter. By limiting the number of block producers, it can be assumed that each block producer has more resources. Additionally, reducing the number of block producers reduces latency in Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) algorithms, which typically require n² messages to achieve consensus. Reducing DBP explicitly increases scalability DPoS based chains not only offer scalability but fast TTF, and therefore, low latency. EOS specifically is aiming for .5-second block times, which is simply not feasible in other consensus schemes. This is a major advantage for DPoS systems. Many applications require low latency and high throughput. Take, for example, decentralized exchanges. This is becoming painfully obvious as the 0x ecosystemmatures on Ethereum. One of the largest problems in 0x today is the rapidly growing number of order collisions, which are a direct result of slow block times and high latency in Ethereum. The 0x team has proposed solutions. It’s unclear how effective these will be given the intrinsic limits of the underlying Ethereum blockchain. This wouldn’t be a problem at all given the fast blocks, high throughput, and low latency that DPoS systems offer. Overall, a bet on DPoS is a bet on a few things: There are certain applications that require high throughput and low latency on a neutral database. Not all distributed systems need to be that distributed so as to able to withstand full-frontal government. On the triangle, DPoS systems will cluster along the bottom of the triangle. Note that, relative to the prior two triangles, which illustrated systems with slow TTF, DPoS systems offer fast TTF and are therefore presented using a darker background color. Leg 3: A Universe Of Many Chains (Cosmos, AION, ICON, Ark) The Cosmos, AION, ICON, and Ark teams believe that there will be hundreds of thousands or even millions of chains. Rather than monolithic chains, such as a Ethereum or EOS, the teams building systems on leg 3 of the triangle believe that different applications should not necessarily share a single set of validators. Instead, they should have unique validator sets. In the context of the scalability trilemma, each chain on systems in leg 3 comprise less value. In both PoW and PoS schemes, safety increases with value. However, in exchange for that additional risk, each chain gains sovereignty (which may not be necessary or even valuable), scalability, and fast TTF. Why is sovereignty valuable? This is easiest way to understand is to walk through some examples. As countries adopt chains for administrative purposes, they will want their own validator sets that enforce their social values and not those of some other country or a global commune. Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, for example, should not share validators. The obvious counter to the case for sovereignty is Ethereum itself. In 2013, Vitalik set out to build Ethereum because he recognized that every app developer in crypto was dealing with the same challenges around mining and consensus. He recognized the opportunity to abstract all of that complexity so that developers can focus on the application layer. There are some interesting parallels to draw in the history of cloud computing. In the early 2000s, many web-hosts hosted multiple websites on a single server. Whenever one site received too much traffic, the server would crash, taking down other websites that were hosted on the same server. In many ways, Ethereum is like the early web-hosts. It simply bundled too many things together, creating a system that in aggregate was unstable. When one application broke the system, it broke the system for everyone. The solution to the web-hosting problem was virtual machines (VM). By isolating every application into a separate VM, a single server could run multiple applications, maximizing hardware utilization and driving down cost while still preserving integrity. In the event of an influx of traffic, a single VM would crash, rather than all the VMs on the server. In time, VMs became portable across physical servers, increasing redundancy and security even further. Combined with systems enabling massive horizontal scalability, VMs became one of the key components of cloud computing. More recently, Docker containers have come to replace VMs, but Docker containers don’t fundamentally change this analogy. If distributed apps must live on separate chains for the reasons outlined above, then there will be a great opportunity for the systems on leg 3 of the triangle. To support this future, systems on leg 3 need to make it trivially easy to spin up new chains, and for chains to interoperate with one another. Cosmos is making this vision a reality with Ethermint. Ethermint is a 100% open and free. It’s a blank-slate template chain that runs the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) on top of Tendermint, the semi-centralized, high throughput, low TTF consensus algorithm pioneered by the Cosmos team. By making it trivially easy for developers to spin up new chains, Cosmos hopes that developers will do just that. AION, ICON, and Ark share the same general vision and are working to provide template-ized ways for developers to spin up chains quickly and easily. (Note that although Wanchain is often listed as a “interoperable chain” solution, it is substantially different than everything else in this section and does not provide the same functionality.) Note that these systems offer fast TTF. That’s because each chain is relatively centralized, allowing for low latency. Despite each chain being relatively centralized, the system in aggregate is rather decentralized because there are so many chains with independent validator sets, each of which may leverage novel consensus mechanisms. On the triangle, vision of many smaller, interoperable chains can be visualized as follows: Sharding (Ethereum 2.0, Polkadot) Vitalik and Gavin Wood have openly discussed sharding Ethereum for years (see here and here). Each shard is basically a unique chain. The difference between a shard in Ethereum and an independent chain in the Cosmos ecosystem is that in Cosmos, each chain must manage its own consensus (and therefore safety), whereas Ethereum shards do not. In sharding, consensus and therefore safety are pooled across all shards and managed by a Validator Manager Contract in a master shard. In most cases, pooled safety should be better than many chains with lower safety. No one has put a sharded blockchain into production — yet (Zilliqa claims to; however, their implementation is not full state-sharding). Sharding solves the scalability trilemma, albeit at the expense of chain sovereignty. Additionally, cross-shard communications are subject to latency. Latency is primarily a function of the consensus algorithm per shard. Ethereum is going to use Casper to finalize each shard. Although the specific parameters are not yet set, it seems likely that Casper will offer TTF measured in minutes, making sharded Ethereum a high-latency system. Using a novel consensus algorithm called threshold relay, Dfinity and Algorand aim to offer DBP, safety, more scalability than Ethereum within a single shard (though far less than the scalability offered by DPoS), and fast TTF. If threshold relay works in practice as well it has in test environments, we can expect to see Dfinity and Alogrand shard their chains and leverage the fast TTF and low latency to provide for efficient cross-shard communications. Polkadot will launch as a sharded network that uses a TBA BFT consensus algorithm that offers fast finality at the expense of DBP (with a similar set of trade-offs as Tendermint). However, Polkadot is likely to launch a sharded network before Ethereum or Dfinity. Unlike Ethereum and Dfinity, Polkadot does not require shards to use a particular state machine, such as the EVM or WebAssembly (WASM). Rather, Polkadot allows each chain to define its own state machine. This would allow protocols such as Stellar, which focus on issuing arbitrary digital assets without any smart contract functionality, or Zcash, which requires a highly optimized state-machine to process SNARK proofs, to move its self-contained consensus systems onto Polkadot. To summarize the above: Full state sharding is an unsolved computer science problem. It may be that no one ever pulls it off at scale in a production environment. However, if it’s possible, it presents perhaps the best path to solving the scalability trilemma while offering fast TTF and low latency. On the triangle, sharded PoS can be visualized here: Verifiable Off-Chain Computation What if, instead of introducing inefficiency to achieve trustlessness, a user just asks a single computer to perform a computation, trustlessly? Is there a way to prove that the computation was performed correctly without asking dozens or hundreds of computers to perform the same computation? Can we achieve some guarantee of correctness without the massive technical inefficiency that’s intrinsic to blockchains? Truebit is attempting to fulfill this vision through a prover-verifier game. This will be accomplished through an interactive, prover-response protocol. In the expected case of an unchallenged result, each computation is completed locally with no overhead, a single solver and a handful of verifiers. In the unlikely event of a challenge, both the solver and verifier will need to re-run a computationally intense WASM-based virtual machine to determine the malicious actor. The interactive verification protocol combines the transparency, security, and immutability of the base chain with the efficiency of offchain compute. As Truebit takes place in interactive rounds, it is also probabilistic, so it will not be effective in environments that require low TTF. Truebit runs on the first “unanimous” consensus mechanism, which requires a minimum of one rational verifier for each task to guarantee safety. In time, we may see Truebit or a competitor use SNARKs and STARKs to verify the accuracy of any arbitrary computation using non-interactive proofs instead of interactive proofs. If this is possible, Truebit will decrease TTF, increasing the design space for trustless offchain computation. However, SNARKs and STARKs as general purpose, zero-knowledge proofs of arbitrary computation are still highly speculative, unproven, technically inefficient, and may ultimately fail to fulfill their potential. Open Source, Copying, and Politics On a long enough time scale, the dominant chains are likely to incorporate the best technologies from smaller, less dominant chains. For example, Ethereum is adopting zkSNARKs, the primary technology enabling private transactions in Zcash. Moreover, Vitalik has stated that he wants move to Ethereum to WASM, which will be adopted by EOS and Dfinity before Ethereum. Ethereum maximalists offer Plasma as a solution to all of Ethereum’s deficiencies because it allows for alternative consensus algorithms and state machines within the Ethereum ecosystem. Given this and the Smart Contract Network Effect Fallacy, how will chains differentiate? Politics. Ideologies. Beliefs. Assuming that no one ever solves the scalability trilemma without any compromises, then different people and businesses will require unique chains that are most suited for the task at hand. Eventually, the media will come to frame this as a religious debate. Blockchains will become like religions because their believers are missionaries, motivated to spread their gospel and convert others. Will users choose the chain that’s maximally decentralized and therefore maximally censorship-resistant, even at the expenses of performance and higher network fees? Or will they accept lower thresholds for censorship resistance? If so, where’s that line? Censorship-Resistant Digital Gold Through the framework presented in this essay, we can make an objective assessment on how and why digital gold and programmable money are likely to be independent for the foreseeable future. The Bitcoin core team has made it a priority to maximize DBP and transaction verification at all costs, even at the expense of scalability and other forms of utility. By making Bitcoin highly inefficient, it will be more resilient. There appears to be no limit to which the Bitcoin core team will trade technical efficiency for social scalability. You can argue that, even given their beliefs, the Bitcoin core team is misguided. For example, PoS advocates argue that PoS is more secure than PoW because if a malevolent attacker is identified, she can be immediately slashed. This stands in contrast to PoW schemes, in which a malevolent party can continue to attack the network in perpetuity. We have no idea if, in the long run, PoS schemes will be more resistant to government assault than PoW schemes. There are good arguments to be made both ways. However, we do know that PoW is battle-tested. Given that Bitcoin core’s singular priority is maximal censorship resistance, the Bitcoin core developers are making the right decision given what we know empirically. There are valid arguments that the Bitcoin core view is too extreme, that Bitcoin sacrifices real utility for superfluous censorship resistance, and that the lack of utility will ultimately cause Bitcoin to fall into irrelevance. The question at hand is, how much DBP is enough DBP? If you assume that the design constraint is not “withstand full-frontal, coordinated assault by the U.S., Chinese, and Russian governments” but some lower bar, then the design space for trustless computation broadens. In the ’90s, many thought that the Internet would be the ultimate democratizing force that would dismantle legacy media companies and oppressive governments by connecting people in ways that were never before possible. As it turns out, for the most part, big companies and governments leveraged the Internet to aggregate power and control. Since all of the systems for trustless computation are permissionless, that means governments can leverage them to their advantage. Perhaps, rather than full-frontal assault, we’ll see governments adopt crypto in novel and unforeseen ways that strengthen their grip on society rather than loosen it. Heterogenous Trustless Computation For the foreseeable future, all of the models for scaling trustless computation described above will coexist and blossom as the crypto ecosystem undergoes a Cambrian Explosion of experimentation. There will not be a clear, linear path between here and some steady future state. Rather, things are about to become more heterogeneous and intertwined before they become more homogenous. For example: Developers may build on Polkadot, only to find that an individual Polkadot relay chain reaches limits. That Polkadot relay chain may connect to other Polkadot relay chains, which may in turn connect to EOS, Ethereum, and Kadena chains through the Cosmos Hub. Each of those chains may in turn be sharded. Various Ethereum shards may contain Plasma chains secured using DPoS and proof of authority (PoA) consensus. Contracts in each of these major systems will be able to call Truebit for off-chain computation, making everything above even less clear. How much work will be able to be off-loaded to Truebit, and how will that integrate intra and inter-chains? It’s also not clear where and how value will accrue across these systems. There’s a case to be made that interoperability chains such as Cosmos will not accrue that much value (perhaps billions vs trillions) if Cosmos’s ATOM tokens don’t become Menger Goods. Polkadot’s DOT tokens face the same risk. In time, I expect to see substantial, though not complete convergence. Given the fundamental value of sovereignty for some chains (e.g. those controlled by governments), I expect systems like Cosmos will always have a place, even if another chain is the biggest winner. Nothing has been decided, and everything is up for grabs. If you enjoyed this post and think others may as well, please “clap” for it to help others discover it more easily! Thanks to Trent McConaghy (Ocean); Peter Czaban (Web3/Polkadot), Jesse Walden (a16z); Will Martino (Kadena), Matt Luongo (Keep), James Prestwich (Integral), Robbie Bent (Truebit), and Zaki Manian (Cosmos) for their input on this essay. Note: After writing a first draft of this essay, I discovered that Trent McConaghy proposed a similar framework with a different naming scheme a full 20 months before me. Special thanks to Trent for providing input on essay. Disclosure: Multicoin Capital has long positions on all 3 legs of the triangle.

https://medium.com/multicoin-capital/models-for-scaling-trustless-computation-dfef4b54809f

['Kyle Samani']

2018-02-26 13:09:38.323000+00:00

['Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'Blockchain']

Thailand: Central Bank Deploys CBDC to Large Corporations

According to reports Nation Thailand on Thursday, the Bank of Thailand CBDC project is already at the third stage of development. Vachira Arromdee, assistant governor of the BOT, made revealed plans of the CBDC, adding that the project was already being used for corporate financial transactions. CBDCs continues to gather momentum as more central banks carry out research on digital currency use. China, which continues to be ahead, has seen institutions trial its CBDC project. According to a reports Nation Thailand on Thursday, the Bank of Thailand CBDC project is already at the third stage of development. Vachira Arromdee, assistant governor of the BOT, made revealed plans of the CBDC, adding that the project was already being used for corporate financial transactions. As per reports in June, the BOT collaborated with SCG, Thailand’s oldest and largest cement manufacturer, to create a prototype CBDC payment system for businesses. The CBDC pilot project will run for one year, starting from July 2020. Speaking about the effects of a national digital currency, Vachira stated that a CBDC currency could adversely affect commercial banks by the elimination of intermediaries. However, the BOT assistant governor said a digital payment platform will lower the cost of financial transactions. Vachira added that Thailand’s central bank is working with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to deploy the CBDC for transactions later in September 2020. The two banks signed a memorandum of understanding back in May 2019 to work together on fintech innovations. While the third phase sees CBDC use in large businesses, the fourth stage will involve the use of digital currency among retailers. However, the BOT assistant chief said the bank will first conduct an extensive study. A statement from Vachira reads: “After that, we plan on moving into the fourth phase by expanding to retailers, but this phase will require a cautious study of both pros and cons. By moving into the retail market, could lead to a major disruption of the overall financial market and financial stability, while the role of financial institutions could be changed”. Vachira also expressed concern on the public use of CBDC through e-wallets, stating that the BOT will carry out research on the advantages and disadvantages, and the effect on financial stability. More Central Banks Research CBDC CBDCs continues to gather momentum as more central banks carry out research on digital currency use. China, which continues to be ahead, has seen institutions trial its CBDC project. Japan’s central bank is also studying the modalities for a digital yen, while the Japanese government also stated that was considering including CBDC in its 2020 fiscal policy. South Korea is not left out, as the Bank of Korea in June set up a committee to review possible regulatory hurdles for its CBDC project. Outside Asia, countries like the Netherlands, Canada, and England, are also looking into developing their own CBDCs projects. Read more: https://btcmanager.com/thailand-central-bank-cbdc-corporations/?q=/thailand-central-bank-cbdc-corporations/&

https://medium.com/@moonxfamily/thailand-central-bank-deploys-cbdc-to-large-corporations-b8af600d8336

[]

2020-07-17 10:22:12.015000+00:00

['Blockchain', 'Central Bank', 'Moonx', 'Thailand', 'Cbdc']

Extraordinary ways JotFormers are helping during COVID-19

In March, we wrote a blog post that highlighted how JotFormers were responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the situation has affected different parts of the world in different ways. Some areas are getting better, some are about the same, and some are taking a turn for the worse. But there’s been one constant along the way — our users’ willingness to help in whatever way they can. We’ve uncovered more stories about how JotFormers are dedicating time, energy, and resources to aid people during the global pandemic. We continue to be inspired, and we hope you are too. Protecting healthcare professionals on the front lines In mid March, nonprofit Talent Maker City shifted its priorities and directed all of its resources to prototyping and producing personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare professionals fighting COVID-19 in southern Oregon. Photo credit: Members of the Talent Maker City team “Part of our response has been using JotForm to accept PPE orders from essentials workers and connecting those in need of personal fabric masks with those who can sew. JotForm has been a critical part of our regional efforts to fight COVID-19,” said Ryan Wilcoxson. Using dog therapy to help with physical and mental health Operation H.E.E.L. (Heal & Empower Every Life) is an animal-assisted intervention practice that brings together humans and dogs for natural physical and mental health benefits. During the pandemic, the organization has taken its admin processes online to offer clients online enrollment forms and a simple way to book appointments. Photo credit: Operation H.E.E.L Cindy Brosig from Operation H.E.E.L and one of her therapy dogs “I am able to continue to provide an essential mental health service for children with the support of their dogs due to the tremendous resources of complimentary health forms available through JotForm,” said Cindy Brosig. Matching frontline workers with student volunteers A group of passionate healthcare students from McGill University created a COVID-19 Student Support Initiative (CSSI) to match busy healthcare professionals on the front lines with student volunteers. The COVID-19 Student Support Initiative (CSSI) team Volunteers must be students in a healthcare program who are willing to volunteer their time to help frontline healthcare professionals with their daily tasks (i.e., childcare, pet care, grocery runs, general errands, and more). Check out their form here. “We use JotForm as a signup tool for student volunteers and healthcare professionals who want to request help with one or more of their daily tasks,” said Adamo Donovan. Conducting online medical consultations Indonesian organization, Medikku, offers free online medical and psychological consultations, and helps deliver medications to people in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo provided by Medikku “I’m a medical doctor, and people close to me have died because of the virus. Maybe I can’t save everyone, but I have to do something. JotForm offered a free account, and it instantly became the basis of our operational system,” said Ryan Ardiansyah. Bringing essential items to seniors in need San Diego-based nonprofit, ElderHelp, provides personalized services to help seniors live independently and age with dignity in their own homes. Since the pandemic began, ElderHelp has worked around the clock to support seniors in need, especially those who are isolated, homebound, or have limited access to food, medical services, and family support. Senior blowing a kiss through the window to ElderHelp team member “With JotForm, we quickly moved volunteer applications and materials online. We were able to track and fulfill senior shopping and supply needs and coordinate check-in calls for our seniors with JotForm,” said Gretchen Veihl. Providing teletherapy to students Sally Dorpfeld, a licensed mental health counselor provides individual counseling services to students and staff at a school in south Florida. Photo provided by Sally Dorpfeld The pandemic forced Dorpfeld to switch to teletherapy to continue helping her clients. With JotForm, she was able to create forms for online consent, intake, appointment requests, client surveys, and more. “I am very thankful that JotForm offered the HIPAA service for free, so that I’m able to transition without the barrier of having to put out money first, and to be able to meet the needs of my students and families that I serve,” said Sally Dorpfeld. We’re grateful for our users who are helping out during the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://stories.jotform.com/extraordinary-ways-jotformers-are-helping-during-covid-19-bd96ffcff968

[]

2020-06-11 07:01:08.161000+00:00

['Help', 'Coronavirus', 'Hipaa', 'Covid 19', 'Jotform']

Connecting Cosmos to Polkadot through Plasm Network: The MVP of Plasm Network’s Secret Network bridge is now ready.

Previously, during our first community Crowdcast, we talked about building a bridge with Secret Network. Today, this has become a reality on our testnet. Here is the demo!! Plasm Network & Secret Network We’ve completed building our bridge with Secret Network. This build will start on our testnet before deploying to mainnet down the road. Once Kusama Network is ready, we will make this bridge on Shiden Network, a sister network of Plasm Network on Kusama. For our testnet deployment, we will use SecretBridge (on testnet level) to bring Plasm to Secret Network and use it in SecretSwap, Secret’s first AMM, against SCRT and ETH assets. Plasm developers will be able to move their assets to Secret Network. The moment Plasm Network becomes a parachain, we will deploy this bridge on our mainnet — Shiden Network first, and Plasm Network afterwards. Originally, Plasm Network was a Polkadot Parachain candidate that would act as a dApp hub on Polkadot. We are currently focusing on infrastructure developments and bridges. And, Plasm Network 2.0 will be a multi-chain and multi-virtual machine smart contract hub powered by Polkadot. We are going to connect Polkadot to Cosmos, Ethereum, and more through Plasm Network! The biggest immediate benefit for users with this bridge is that they can gain transaction privacy. Users can turn Polkadot-based assets into Secret Tokens, which combine the programmability of ERC-20s with the privacy of coins like Zcash or Monero. Interactions with Secret Token contracts are encrypted, viewable only to address owners or holders of their viewing key. The bridge will also give users access to Secret DeFi, privacy-preserving decentralized finance apps built on the Secret Network. What’s next? After some extended testing on our testnet, we will go live oncePlasm becomes a parachain on Polkadot. With the current EVM we can also use this bridge between Shiden Network and Secret Network. This is great news for dApp builders who want to use Shiden (the canary network of Plasm) for deploying their dApps. Tutorials and guides on how to use this bridge are in development. Those guides will be available in our documentation. Have a look at our demo bridge between Plasm Network and Secret Network: Bridging Cosmos to Polkadot Secret Network is a layer1 blockchain with its consensus and on-chain governance, built atop the Cosmos/Tendermint framework. With our bridge built with Secret Network, we will connect the Cosmos ecosystem to Polkadot. How does this work? More importantly, we can utilize this implementation for other L1 blockchains based on Cosmos/Tendermint! One major component of the Cosmos ecosystem is their Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol (IBC) — A system that allows different blockchains to connect and communicate with each other. As soon IBC is implemented on Secret Network, the door is opened for the Cosmos community to join Polkadot, and vice versa. “Cosmos, the framework Secret Network is built on, is billed as “the internet of blockchains” and aims to create an interconnected ecosystem of blockchains, whereas many current blockchains are like individual silos.” Bridges in Secret Network About Secret Network Secret Network is the first ever privacy-enabled Layer 1 blockchain, featuring privacy-preserving smart contracts (“secret contracts”) that utilize hardware-based and software-based privacy technologies to protect data. Secret contracts are unique in that they allow for encrypted inputs, outputs and state. Data on Secret Network is private by default, public when desired. Secret Network is also open-source and permissionless — anyone can operate a node, deploy an app, or contribute to the network and its ecosystem. Website | Forum | Twitter | Discord | Telegram About Plasm Plasm Network is a multi-chain dApps hub on Polkadot that supports Ethereum and layer 2 solutions like ZK Rollups. Plasm aims to be a multi-chain smart contract platform that will support multiple blockchains and virtual machines like EVM and WASM. Website | Twitter | Telegram | Discord | GitHub

https://medium.com/astar-network/connecting-cosmos-to-polkadot-through-plasm-network-the-mvp-of-plasm-networks-secret-network-75fb10fa3332

['Hyungsuk Kang']

2021-04-13 15:56:34.798000+00:00

['Plasm', 'Secret', 'Polkadot', 'Cosmos']

6 Tips for Taking Ownership of Your Design Career

For the greater part of my career as a product designer, I have been deeply committed to mentoring and sharing insights with those who do not have equal opportunity and access to the tech world. These days, mentoring is all virtual, obviously, but it is possible. As you might expect, my recent conversations have been less focused on long-term career management and more on burnout and isolation. Of course, everyone is feeling stressed right now in one way or another. However, for designers in particular, I have found that defining who you are as a designer unlocks your awareness, focus and authenticity, mitigating burnout in the long term. Here are six tips for designers who are ready to take ownership of their careers in order to achieve their personal and career goals. 1. Define yourself Who are you as a designer? How do you work? What should people know about you? If you have ever interviewed to work as a designer, you can recall the interview prep you did. You probably spent time on a presentation deck and defined your design process. You may even have illustrated your strengths and values as a designer. My guess is that for most of us, the things we said were learned from school, articles, former jobs and other experiences, but they were not actually our own views — and do not paint an accurate picture of who we are. Assuming safety and inclusion are possible in your workplace, and if it is your goal to have authentic and fulfilling relationships with others, you need to be able to say who you are. I recommend creating a designer profile so you can build self-awareness and self-ownership. You can share this profile with anyone you have a meaningful work relationship with. Doing so allows them — and you — to know what to expect from you. Start by describing what you do and what you are passionate about in your career. Next, talk about the things that make you happy during the work day. Try defining some things that delight you about design, your job or your life in general. Explain your personal mission and what drives you. Paint a picture of your working style, your process and your style of learning. Describe your impact on your teams and colleagues, and talk about why others enjoy working with you. Summarize the work projects and passion projects you’ve loved, those you’re working on currently and those you hope to take on in the future. Finally, specify your communication style and call out the improvements you’re working on making. I’m still evolving my own designer profile and consider it a flexible exercise. In fact, I frequently revisit it because I copy and paste certain parts when I introduce myself to new teammates. Sharing the entire thing all at once feels a little vulnerable to me, but it’s linked in my internal profile, should anyone care to read it. 2. Be open to feedback As long as we as product designers try to prove how smart, bold, witty and innovative we are, we risk losing humility and our ability to be authentic. Designers are always getting critiqued one way or another, so it’s crucial that we get used to hearing challenging feedback. At Facebook, we frequently present our work to product teams, colleagues and managers, each time opening ourselves to comments and judgments. It is easy to dismiss feedback and argue why we are right or have more background than the other person — and we may even be correct. But what does this achieve? It took me a long time and a lot of hurt feelings to get used to feedback. Critique was a competition in my mind, a way to prove how much effort I had put into a solution. The way I recognized and changed this habit was in part due to a previous manager, who pointed out a specific defensive moment of mine. They let me know that the people giving me feedback were not attacking me; they were trying to support me. After I reflected on this feedback, I came up with a strategy: I presented my work as though I was not the person who designed it. And it worked! My language was different. My body was relaxed. I was able to ask the room questions without being on the defense. I also educated myself by reading up about the concept of “feedback is a gift,” and I started to see honest feedback as a sign of care. In this imagining, passive feedback is harmful and shows a lack of care. Even in cases when I knew the feedback I was receiving was wrong, thinking of it as a gift allowed me to address it calmly and guide the conversation back in the right direction. 3. Practice self-care We designers can problem-solve our way out of hard positions. We can run a design sprint, create a new vision or plan a new app. What if we put the same energy into solving non-design problems that we put into managing our careers? Product designers spend as much time designing as we do dealing with people, which can sometimes feel heavy and burdensome. Self-care is so important. If you don’t have a trusted manager or close design friends to talk to, make sure you’re getting help elsewhere, whether that is coaching, mentoring, therapy, long bike rides or something else that fills your bucket. Personally, I’m much more likely to ask for help and lobby for everyone except myself, which has sometimes left me anxious, isolated and burned out. It’s super-important to stay mentally sharp, especially now, when the world can feel upside down. 4. Have accountability buddies In my experience, mentors are like cats. When I’ve sought out specific mentors, I had to do a lot of coaxing to get them to respond. On the other hand, some of my best mentors adopted me without my knowledge as to why. Mentors are important, but in their absence I tend to rely more on accountability buddies. Accountability buddies are people I work with or who know me professionally whom I can ask for specific feedback. I seek out different accountability buddies depending on the situation. For example, if I want feedback on how I am performing, I ask a person who is in weekly meetings with me. For more conceptual or mind-set feedback, I’ll ask someone whose viewpoints I really jibe with. It doesn’t have to be formal — it can be as simple as sending a chat message to a colleague after a meeting. I usually ask my accountability buddy questions about one subject to keep it light and focused. Sometimes I will ask engineers on my team how my communication and delivery was on a project. Sometimes I will ask fellow designers how a recent critique went. By regularly asking questions, I am able to build trust with my accountability buddies and ultimately receive more honest responses. As you open up to your accountability buddy, you might want to ask them if they have areas that they are working on. Keep it low pressure. It may take some time before they solicit your feedback on something, and don’t be offended if they never ask for it. A word of caution: Feedback requires consent, otherwise you can damage the relationship. Do not volunteer criticism on unsuspecting colleagues and expect them to thank you. 5. Uncover others’ goals and values It’s rare that a company’s values, team mission and other HR documentation are able to help with day-to-day tasks or conflicts. To prevent disagreements and address alignment issues, I focus on understanding the goals and values of my peers. How do I know their goals if they are hidden? I ask! And you can too. Start by inviting teammates, product partners, stakeholders and managers to meet one on one. Ask them what they value. Ask them what their goals are and what success looks like for them. Find out how you can support them and how they prefer to receive feedback. Essentially, reverse the process of creating your own design profile. Ask the same questions of them that you considered for yourself. When I do this, I assure them that I’m not trying to be irritating; I just want to do everything possible to make it easier for me to work with them and vice versa. By the way, it is never too late to have this talk. If you and your engineer had a rough patch on a recent project, this is a perfect opportunity to have a quick check-in. Examine where there’s a mismatch in your goals and perceptions so it will be easier to know what to look out for in the future. 6. Generate your own career goals It’s essential that you create goals that are aligned to who you are and where you want to go. There are a ton of articles on how to start your design career, creating realistic design processes, designing better career paths for designers, learning and adapting throughout your career, setting design goals and more. But how do you know which ones to focus on? Once you have your design profile, pull out goals based on what you are focused on, your mission, how you impact your teams and colleagues, your working style, your passion projects and things that you are trying to improve on. Perhaps your goal is to communicate to people what you are good at so they can stop asking you to do things you don’t enjoy. That’s a self-promotion goal that also helps with better professional relationships. Crystallize your goals and communicate them to others. Doing so will help you be the you that you are meant to be as a designer and a person. Honor your values You may be lucky enough to find great managers, mentors and colleagues to help you on your journey, but you must be the one to take the journey. Whether you want to be an all-star designer, chill in your current role, become a manager or move in a new career direction, what is important is that it be meaningful to you, valuable to you. I value integrity, honesty, authenticity, passion and creativity, and these values fuel me as I work toward the next step in my career. I hope hearing about my design journey can help you navigate yours.

https://medium.com/facebook-design-business-tools/6-tips-for-taking-ownership-of-your-design-career-284ecb1ce82a

['Isaak Hayes']

2020-11-19 17:13:00.335000+00:00

['Design Process', 'Product Design', 'Design Thinking', 'UX Design']

The secret to achieve a growing radio industry could be as simple as this

I wrote this in London while getting ready for Next Radio. It’s a positive radio conference with an uplifting feel; you’ll now find many of the sessions online, free, on the Next Radio website. Go to a radio conference in the US or Canada, and there won’t be very many smiling faces. There’s a general feeling in the US and Canada that radio is managing decline. But in other countries, radio is behaving differently. The UK commercial industry has grown, over the past year, by 5.2%. It’s now a US $887m market. Australian commercial radio has grown too — over the past year, metro stations growing 3.8% to a US $573m market (and there’s more from the regions, too). Commercial radio in Finland is growing, too. Their figures are harder to decipher, but July grew by 6.6% over June; and June grew by 17% over May. The market’s comparatively small at about US $93m — but it’s doing better than the UK if you bear in mind Finland’s small population. These aren’t the stories you hear from the US and Canada; and I’m often asked why. It’s not an easy answer. The UK’s seen relaxation of some regulations, and has a strongly multiplatform market (with AM/FM listening at under 50%). Brand consolidation has been an important part of the industry, as has national broadcasting. Australia’s regulation has historically been quite relaxed, too, but it isn’t particularly multiplatform. Brand consolidation has occurred here as well, with great swathes of radio stations losing their heritage callsigns in favour of more straightforward national branding. Finland has rejected digital radio, so isn’t multiplatform to any great extent. Much of radio is national, though there are a good number of local stations too. There’s no particular story of brand consolidation either. So — at first glance, there’s nothing in common particularly to these markets. Except, I think, there is. And it’s probably rather more simple than you’d think. In the UK, commercial radio has an effective industry body, Radiocentre. They promote the medium to agencies, lobby government, and sing radio’s praises. They’re really very good at it. In Australia, commercial radio, too, has an effective industry body. It’s called Commercial Radio Australia, and they, too, promote the medium to agencies, lobby government, and sing radio’s praises. They’re tenacious and efficient. And in Finland, their industry body is Radio Media. They lobby government, promote the medium to agencies, and market radio as well: to great effect. Unlike North America, these industry bodies only look after radio. They don’t represent television broadcasters as well. There’s no conflict of interest here. Their only concern is a healthy radio industry. And they do that one job very successfully. And, unlike North America, there’s one organisation doing everything from advertising promotion to lobbying and research. One, simple, straightforward organisation, made up of a membership of commercial radio broadcasters. Perhaps one of the ways for a successful, growing, industry really is as easy as copying these successful countries — and establishing an industry association that has only one focus: radio.

https://jamesrcridland.medium.com/the-secret-to-achieve-a-growing-radio-industry-could-be-as-simple-as-this-2f8aab686a79

['James Cridland']

2018-09-24 00:40:04.823000+00:00

['Marketing', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Radio', 'Industry Analysis', 'Lobbying']

Ansible Use Case

This blog tells you “How the IT world use Ansible” . So let’s start… What is Ansible ? Ansible is an open-source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool enabling infrastructure as code. It runs on many Unix-like systems, and can configure both Unix-like systems as well as Microsoft Windows. It includes its own declarative language to describe system configuration. Use Case of Ansible HOOTSUITE Hootsuite is a social media management system used by businesses and organizations. It allows the execution of social media campaigns on a variety of networks from a secure dashboard. Hootsuite is popular among Fortune 1000 companies. The main challenge facing Hootsuite was the lack of repeatability. This made automating Hootsuite’s infrastructure a challenge, and Hootsuite were also facing difficulties in application deployment. To resolve this, Hootsuite introduced Ansible core. This allowed Hootsuite to build servers from scratch and enabled repeatability. In the future, Hootsuite plans to implement an Ansible migration of its app deployment and possibly in ad hoc production server management. Since performing their Ansible migration, Hootsuite says ops and devs ‘feel safer’. Additionally, Ansible allows developers to repeatedly test server builds on a local level until the team can be sure they work. Hootsuite intends to use Ansible in many other ways, and as Beier Cai, Director of Technology, Hootsuite Media Inc., explains, “In the beginning I didn’t realize Ansible is good for orchestration as well but found it out quickly and I really loved it as it beats competitors right there.” AMELCO Amelco is a UK-based company that develops software solutions for the betting industry and financial betting markets. The business was looking for a way to deploy its applications efficiently across its hundreds of different environments, and it also sought to limit downtime. To do this, Amelco performed an Ansible migration to an agentless automation framework. This reduced the complexities it faced with the deployment, operations and the upgrade of applications over a range of contrasting locations, while also using one simplified language. In addition, by introducing Ansible and Ansible Tower, Amelco has successfully automated its application deployments. Other benefits include reduced complexity and continuous delivery, along with speed solution delivery. Further benefits include: “Faster time to deployment for its bespoke and modular client solutions, resulting in speedier time to market and higher customer satisfaction”. “A simplified and repeatable deployment process, leveraging true multi-tier, multi-step orchestration that minimized the complex dependencies of heterogeneous environments,”. Thanks !

https://medium.com/@2019pgicschirag13/ansible-use-case-8bb14a389e50

['Chirag Nagori']

2020-12-26 18:32:04.191000+00:00

['Automation', 'It', 'Ansible Use Case', 'Ansible', 'It Companies']

MachineX: Frequent Itemset generation with the FP-Growth algorithm

In our previous blog, MachineX: Understanding FP-Tree construction, we discussed the FP-Tree and its construction. In this blog, we will be discussing the FP-Growth algorithm, which uses FP-Tree to extract frequent itemsets in the given dataset. FP-growth is an algorithm that generates frequent itemsets from an FP-tree by exploring the tree in a bottom-up fashion. We will be picking up the example we used in the previous blog while constructing the FP-Tree. The final FP-Tree that was constructed in our previous blog is as shown in the below figure. The algorithm will iterate the header table in a reverse order. So, first of all, it will find all the frequent items ending in p, then m, b, a, c, and finally f. Since every transaction is mapped onto a path in the FP-tree, we can derive the frequent itemsets ending with a particular item, say p, by examining only the paths containing node p. These paths can be accessed rapidly using the pointers associated with node p. FP-growth finds all the frequent itemsets ending with a particular suffix by employing a divide-and-conquer strategy to split the problem into smaller subproblems. For example, suppose we are interested in finding all frequent itemsets ending in p. To do this, we must first check whether the itemset {p} itself is frequent. If it is frequent, we consider the subproblem of finding frequent itemsets ending in mp, followed by bp, ap, cp and fp. In turn, each of these subproblems is further decomposed into smaller subproblems. By merging the solutions obtained from the subproblems, all the frequent itemsets ending in p can be found. This divide-and-conquer approach is the key strategy employed by the FP-growth algorithm. So, let’s dive into the steps to follow to find the frequent itemsets in the FP-Tree. Step 1 — Header table would be iterated in a reverse order, so first, those frequent itemsets would be searched for which end with the item p. To do that, we will gather all the paths ending in node p. Now, the thing to remember here is that header table already consists of only frequent items, so p itself is frequent and we can expect itemsets ending with p to be frequent as well. These paths are known as the prefix paths. The below figure shows the prefix paths for node p. Step 2 — Next step would be to update the support count of the nodes to only represent those paths which contain node p. For example, {f: 4, c: 3, a: 3, m: 2, p: 2} contains many paths without node p like {f, c, a}, so we have to update the support counts. We do this by adding the support count of node p to all of its parent nodes till the root node. Once the paths are updated with new support counts, we will eliminate all those items whose support count is less than the minimum support count, in this case, 3. The support count of items will be calculated by adding all the support counts of nodes containing that item in the prefix paths. This will give us a conditional FP-Tree. Conditional FP-Tree for node p is as shown below. Support for c is 3, which is equal to the minimum support threshold provided. As we can conclude from the above conditional FP-Tree, {c, p} becomes a frequent itemset. Following this procedure, and recursively generating conditional FP-Trees and prefix paths, we get all the following patterns - {p — 3}, {c, p — 3}, {m — 3}, {f, m — 3}, {c, f, m — 3}, {c, m — 3}, {a, m — 3}, {f, a, m — 3}, {c, f, a, m — 3}, {c, a, m — 3}, {b — 3}, {a — 3}, { f, a — 3}, {c, f, a — 3}, {c, a — 3}, {f — 4}, {c, f — 3}, {c — 4} Above curly braces consists of itemset and support separated by a hyphen. FP-growth is an interesting algorithm because it illustrates how a compact representation of the transaction data set helps to efficiently generate frequent itemsets. In addition, for certain transaction data sets, FP-growth outperforms the standard Apriori algorithm by several orders of magnitude. The run-time performance of FP-growth depends on the compaction factor of the dataset. If the resulting conditional FP-trees are very bushy (in the worst case, a full prefix tree), then the performance of the algorithm degrades significantly because it has to generate a large number of subproblems and merge the results returned by each subproblem. From the next blog, we will be diving into how to extract association rules from the extracted frequent items. So, stay tuned! References -

https://medium.com/knoldus/machinex-frequent-itemset-generation-with-the-fp-growth-algorithm-bdf12015c31f

['Knoldus Inc.']

2018-08-20 09:16:23.147000+00:00

['Association Rule Learning', 'Scala', 'Algorithms', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Communication is key!

Thirteen-year-old Charles was walking through his school corridor when he came across this bulletin board which said — “COMMUNICATION IS KEY!” At this very moment, Miss Honey was walking through the same corridor when Charles caught her eye. Charles in his initial adolescent phase was always brimming a broth of questions in his head. He turned toward Miss Honey and asked her “Miss what er do you er think is umm communication?” Miss Honey pondered upon the question for a while and answered: “It is how we privileged human beings who have the gift of the vocal cords share things with each other in the form of our needs, emotions as well as our thoughts with each other.” She went on to talk about how communication takes place when the message sent by a sender is clearly received by a receiver. It is then in very clear terms talking about meaningful things in a clear, calm and composed manner and making sure that the receiver understands what has been said. Charles was content at his discovery of this new word and ran to the library to search more about this vast term he had come across. Miss Honey, on the other hand, went back to the staff room her mind clogged with a million emotions she had been feeling. She had that very morning gotten into a fight with her fiance Sir George. She was wondering how ironical it was that she was explaining a thirteen-year-old the meaning of communication but she herself wasn’t able to practice the art of it and apply it in her own life. She had suppressed emotions and was unable to convey to her fiance that she wanted to become an air hostess all this while. He had different expectations from her. He wanted her to be his songwriter. And all this while she was giving him false hopes. All this had led to a heavy black cloud formation in Miss Honey’s brain. Charles in the library now was reading about communication. These are the things he came across: Communication is being very frank about your emotions. This means that you convey your feelings to the other person who is at the receiving end as a robot i.e. “As they are felt” . An example could be Red talked about her day with Blue adding in all the emotions she was feeling at different intervals of time during the day, not thinking them through and not sieving them to protect Blue’s emotional reaction to them. . An example could be Red talked about her day with Blue adding in all the emotions she was feeling at different intervals of time during the day, not thinking them through and not sieving them to protect Blue’s emotional reaction to them. Communication is when you put aside your ego your alter ego your subconscious mind and just going with what comes to your conscious mind. An example could be that Jane and Mary were quarreling over a boy whom both of them wanted to ask out. and just going with what comes to your conscious mind. An example could be that Jane and Mary were quarreling over a boy whom both of them wanted to ask out. Communication is understanding the other person. This comes at the receiving end. When someone is telling you something they are showing their vulnerable sides to you and are expecting that you’ll raise the no judgment green flag from your side. It is very important that the receiver doesn’t humiliate the other person in any way or make them feel unwanted, rather listen to the speaker with a comforting look adding in a nod or one-word acceptances every now and then. An example could be Jughead was telling his father about his team losing the match. And his father asked him how he was feeling and offered him comforting advice. This comes at the receiving end. When someone is telling you something they are showing their vulnerable sides to you and are expecting that you’ll raise the no judgment green flag from your side. It is very important that the receiver doesn’t humiliate the other person in any way or make them feel unwanted, rather listen to the speaker with a comforting look adding in a nod or one-word acceptances every now and then. An example could be Jughead was telling his father about his team losing the match. And his father asked him how he was feeling and offered him comforting advice. Communication is confronting and not backbiting. A very important point here thought Charles. He had seen many of his fellow students doing this. It is necessary that we confront the person if something relating to them is bothering us. Talking to a friend for advice is acceptable. But do not go all out with that particular friend and begin backbiting. It takes a lot of courage to confront someone while they’ve bothered you. But that is the only true solution. No one else would be able to satiate your cluttered emotions at a point like this. An example would be telling your crush that you like them. Well, do you think if we tell someone else about it we’d know our crush’s feelings? You get it right? Charles was very delighted to learn so much about this new term he had come across. The next day at school he again came across Miss Honey who now told him that this world was full of people who are unable to follow this beautiful art of communication. She had talked to her fiance and it hadn’t been such a difficult task after all. He had helped her enroll in the course which would take her one step closer to her dream while helping him write songs based on her travel experiences. Do we understand now? There is a solution to every problem only if we try and communicate. So go ahead talk to that one person relating to what has been bothering you. Is it your parents, siblings, friends or other half? It doesn’t matter. Just stop overthinking and take the plunge. Do not expect the other person to read your mind. As I mentioned earlier. None of us are blessed with the divine powers of Edward Cullen. Free your heart! Free your spirit! Take out that negative cluttered energy and turn it into something positive by delivering it to your receiver and shifting it to positive energy. “Communication will bring understanding and understanding will cause harmonious mutual relationships which can establish peace and stability.”

https://medium.com/@pavleenbhatia/communication-is-key-7dafb4e4154b

['Pavleen Bhatia']

2019-04-26 23:00:21.323000+00:00

['Relationships', 'Human Behavior', 'Communication', 'Short Story', 'Self Improvement']

CVE-2020–25952

A Tale of SQL Injection Leads to admin panel bypass Exploit: https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/49052 CVE:https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=2020-25952 # Exploit Title: User Registration & Login and User Management System 2.1 # Date: 2020–11–14 # Exploit Author: Mayur Parmar(th3cyb3rc0p) # Vendor Homepage: https://phpgurukul.com # Software Link: https://phpgurukul.com/user-registration-login-and-user-management-system-with-admin-panel/ # Version: 2.1 # Tested on Pop OS(Linux) # CVE: CVE-2020–25952 SQL Injection: SQL injection is a web security vulnerability that allows an attacker to alter the SQL queries made to the database. This can be used to retrieve some sensitive information, like database structure, tables, columns, and their underlying data. Attack Vector: An attacker can gain admin panel access using malicious SQL injection queries than they can Update & Delete Userdata. Steps to reproduce: 1. Open admin login page using the following URL: -> http://localhost/loginsystem/admin/ 2. Now put below Payload in both the fields( User ID & Password) Payload: ‘ or ‘1’=’1 3. Server accepted our payload and we bypassed the admin panel without any credentials, Admin Panel Suggested Mitigation/Remediation Actions: Parameterized queries should be used to separate the command and data portions of the intended query to the database. These queries prevent an attacker from tampering with the query logic and extending a concatenated database query string. Code reviews should be conducted to identify any additional areas where the application or other applications in the organization are vulnerable to this attack. Additionally, input validation should be enforced on the server-side in order to ensure that only expected data is sent in queries. Where possible security-specific libraries should be used in order to provide an additional layer of protection. Author: Mayur Parmar(th3cyb3rc0p) https://twitter.com/th3cyb3rc0p?lang=en https://in.linkedin.com/in/th3cyb3rc0p https://www.instagram.com/th3cyb3rc0p/?hl=en https://twitter.com/cyberdefecers?lang=en

https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/cve-2020-25952-f60fff8ffac

['Mayur Parmar']

2020-11-17 02:05:06.518000+00:00

['Cyber Defecers', 'Tryhackme', 'Cve 2020 25952', 'Ctf', 'Sql Injection']

Encouraging proper API response handling on code level

If you ever developed any application that communicates with a REST API, you probably know that handling the responses can be a bit tricky. It is often easy to forget to handle for example error states. In this article, we’ll show an approach that we devised to make forgetting this much less probable. The solution described uses TypeScript, but the core concept should be usable in other languages as well. Previous solution Not long after we started developing React Single Page apps, we found out that there are several things to keep track of for every REST API resource: whether there is a request pending (in other words if we are currently waiting for a server response) whether there was an error last time we tried to call the API endpoint when the last change of this object happened (usually the time of the last response) the contents of the last successful response For this, we created a small library called loadable (this was before the popular react-loadable pacakge was published, so the name clashes now). Its main purpose was to facilitate and unify representations of REST resources. The core object called Loadable can be seen bellow: Old version of Loadable interface As we can see, it has four properties — one for each thing we want to track mentioned above. It uses a generic parameter for the data property to allow representation of any REST resource in a type-safe way. There was also a function for creating the instances that handled the timestamp assignment: createLoadable method There is nothing wrong with this representation itself, in fact it is used as is in the new approach (see below). The problem is, there is no standard way to consume this object that would enforce that the consumer handles all the possible states the object can be in. Most of the time, there was code like this when handling Loadable instances in React code: Old version of render method This was mostly fine, however, there are two main problems with this: forgetting to handle one of the states handling of state combinations gets really messy It is easy to forget to handle one of the states (for us it was the error most of the time). This leads to suboptimal UX, because when a REST request fails, the app seems to not work at all. Also, what if we wanted to display the previously received data as well as the loading indicator (for example when the user explicitly reloads the resource)? The logic gets really complex in those cases, and is super easy to make an error in. The new approach aims to alleviate both of these issues. Current solution Recently I finally read the brilliant Professor Frisby’s Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming. Despite its wacky title, it is a really useful explanation of various functional programming concepts. You should definitely check it out if you haven’t already. Chapter 8 discusses various containers and how they can help you with for example error handling. This inspired me to revise our loadable package and attempt to use the approaches described to fix our problems. It turns out, both of the problems mentioned above can be solved by a simple form of “pattern matching”. I put it in quotes, because it is no pattern matching per se, it shares the basic idea with it, though. Instead of the createLoadable function, there is now a loadable utility object that looks like this: loadable.of method The name of the instance creating method ( of ) is inspired by the Guide, but it does the same thing as the createLoadable function used to. The interesting bit is the merge method: loadable.merge method As we can see, the match method uses a configuration object of the LoadablePattern<T> type. This type consists of handlers of all the states that the Loadable instance can be in. The important thing to notice is that some of the handlers are marked as required (more precisely not marked as optional with the ? ). This means that every caller of the merge method has to provide handlers for the basic states: loading in progress, data retrieved, error occurred, and the default empty state (when the resource has not been requested yet for the first time). Thus, we solve the first problem, if using the merge method, all the basic states are handled. The second problem is solved by encapsulating the decision tree into one place. The caller can also specify more nuanced handlers. For example loadingWithData which represents a situation when we already had some data but are loading it again – hence we show the current data as well as the loading indicator. The matching is opinionated regarding the priority in which the cases are matched. This is necessary as TypeScript does not have proper pattern matching (yet) which would allow the consumer to define the priority themselves using the order of the clauses. For our use cases this is fine though, as it means we handle the diferent states consistently across the app. Using these methods is then as easy as: New version of render method As we can see, it allows us to extend the initial example by providing loadingWithData handler while retaining its previous functionality. Design decisions Observant reader might have two questions about this implementation: Why is the merge method curried? Why is the merge method implemented as an instance method of the Loadable type? The reason for the currying is illustrated in the usage example above. We can declare the matcher once, instead of doing it on every render. This keeps the render method as lightweight as possible. As to why the Loadable is not a class with merge as its instance method (and of as a static method) similarly to for example Either , the main reason is serializability. Most of our TypeScript applications are React apps that use Redux as the store management solution (though I really want to look into MobX soon). All of the Loadable instances we use are therefore stored in a Redux store. As you may know it is really beneficial if all the data stored in the store is serializable. This unfortunately means we cannot use the "proper" class approach easily. If we were to use loadable in some other environment, I would definitely go for the class approach, as it avoids the Loadable / loadable dichotomy. Summary In this article we’ve shown how to enforce a certain practice on code level at compile time using functional approaches. Hopefully, this will inspire you to solve some of your code problems in a similar way.

https://medium.com/vzp-engineering/encouraging-proper-api-response-handling-on-code-level-5e4c00b13d0b

['Dan Homola']

2018-07-13 14:15:05.857000+00:00

['JavaScript', 'Typescript', 'Functional Programming']

This is so wonderful. Lovely images & now we have a collection of so many colors of kisses ❤️

This is so wonderful. Lovely images & now we have a collection of so many colors of kisses ❤️

https://medium.com/@preetisingh15/this-is-so-wonderful-lovely-images-now-we-have-a-collection-of-so-many-colors-of-kisses-%EF%B8%8F-27411deef74d

['Dr. Preeti Singh']

2020-12-13 01:08:21.733000+00:00

['Colors']

Federica Fragapane on Visualizing Theatre, Children’s Books and More

MH: What made you make the jump to freelance? FF: I was receiving freelancing offers not only from Italian agencies but also from other parts of the world and that can be rare in Italy. So that was the main reason: I was very curious to see how my career would have evolved as a freelancer. MH: You’ve written about this, but can you elaborate on what happened to your eye and how that affected your work? FF: At the beginning of 2012, a few days before I started working at Accurat, I had a cornea infection in my left eye. I wasn’t able to see out of my left eye at all, I could just see a white smudge. And so, at the time the doctors weren’t able to tell me if I would be able to see out of my left eye after medications or not. I spent months under medical care. The healing process was particularly important for my design approach. “Catalogue of the Extinct Species” published in Corriere della Sera — La Lettura. MH: You talk a lot about ‘hooks’ in your work. Can you expand upon that? How did your work evolve and change after the sickness? FF: It all connects to that experience, right? Yeah, so the visual hooks are what I try to design now. I was connected to them at the time. During the healing process, I used to do these daily tests with my parents to check the state of my sight in my left eye. I’d sit in front of a magazine — always the same one because it worked by always being the same magazine and same page. I covered my right eye (the healthy one), and looked to see if there were any improvements. And (over time), luckily, there were. So, I recovered most of my sight in that eye. Day by day, I tried to look for these visual hooks and day by day they would slowly emerge from the pages. I really tried to catch my sight improving by catching such hooks. To me, it was really important to see if I was able to see more details than the day before. This changed my approach to design because when I started to see these details day by day and emerge, it really made me aware of the relationship that people can have with visual elements, details and these visual hooks. So this experience changed me. Now, of course, as the first step, I design the structure of the visualization after having analyzed the data. But then, I always tried to design these hooks in order to try to catch the viewers’ sight and start a connection with them, as I was using such details to start a connection with the pages (while recovering from the corneal infection). MH: Are hooks something that grabs your attention or just some extra details that simply add to the piece? FF: I’d say a combination. First of all, something that grabs my attention during my looking-for-inspiration process. So, I look for visual inspiration and when I find the texture, color or shape that captures my attention, I try to replicate it to start a connection with the readers. So it’s mostly something that yes, captures your attention but also is in the details. I think that visual details can have an important role in catching people’s glance (grabbing people’s attention). I think that the care that went from really focusing on the details can be understood more or less consciously by people looking at the pieces I work on and I think such care can have a role in their engagement.

https://medium.com/nightingale/federica-fragapane-on-visualizing-theatre-childrens-books-and-more-bcb9b5174b21

['Madison Hall']

2020-03-03 14:01:01.570000+00:00

['Design', 'Interview', 'Journalism', 'Data Visualization', 'Information Design']

React Native Animations Using the Animated API

React Native Animations Using the Animated API Getting up and running with React Native Animations Looking to learn React Native? Check out React Native Training. The recommended way to animate in React Native for most cases is by using the Animated API. The final github repo for this project is here. There are three main Animated methods that you can use to create animations: Animated.timing() — Maps time range to easing value. Animated.decay() — starts with an initial velocity and gradually slows to a stop. Animated.spring() — Simple single-spring physics model (Based on Rebound and Origami). Tracks velocity state to create fluid motions as the toValue updates, and can be chained together. We will be covering Animated.timing() and Animated.spring() as they are the most useful in my experience. Along with these three Animated methods, there are three ways to call these animations along with calling them individually. We will be covering all three of these as well: Animated.parallel() — Starts an array of animations all at the same time. Animated.sequence() — Starts an array of animations in order, waiting for each to complete before starting the next. If the current running animation is stopped, no following animations will be started. Animated.stagger() — Array of animations may run in parallel (overlap), but are started in sequence with successive delays. Very similar to Animated.parallel() but allows you to add delays to the animations. 1. Animated.timing() The first animation we will be creating is this spinning animation using Animated.timing(). // Example implementation: Animated.timing( someValue, { toValue: number, duration: number, easing: easingFunction, delay: number } ) This type of infinite animation can be useful to use when creating loading indicators, and is one of the more useful animations that I’ve used in many of my React Native projects. This concept can also be used to create infinite animations of other types such as scaling up and down or some other type to indicate loading. To get started, we need to either start with a new React Native project or with a blank existing React Native project. To get started with a new project, type react-native init and the name of the project in the folder in which you will be working in and then cd into that directory: react-native init animations cd animations Now that we are in this folder, open either the index.android.js or index.ios.js file. Now that we have a new project created, the first thing we will need to do is import Animated, Image, and Easing from react-native below View that is already being imported: import { AppRegistry, StyleSheet, Text, View, Animated, Image, Easing } from 'react-native' Animated is the library we will be using to create the animations, and ships with React Native. Image is needed so we can create an image in our UI. Easing is a module that also ships with React Native. It allows us to use various predefined easing methods such as linear, ease, quad, cubic, sin, elastic, bounce, back, bezier, in, out, inout, and others. We will be using linear as to have a consistent linear motion. You will have a better idea of how to implement them after this section is finished. Next, we need to set an initial animated value for our spinning value. To do this, we will set the value in our constructor: constructor () { super() this.spinValue = new Animated.Value(0) } We declare spinValue as a new Animated.Value and pass in 0 (zero). Next, we need to create a spin method and call this method on componentDidMount to get it going when the app loads: componentDidMount () { this.spin() } spin () { this.spinValue.setValue(0) Animated.timing( this.spinValue, { toValue: 1, duration: 4000, easing: Easing.linear } ).start(() => this.spin()) } spin() — This method does the following: Sets this.spinValue back to zero Calls the Animated.timing method and animates this.spinValue to a value of 1 with a duration of 4000 milliseconds and an easing of Easing.linear. Animated.timing takes two arguments, a value (this.spinValue) and a config object. This config object can take a toValue, a duration, an easing method, and a delay. We call start() on this Animated.timing method, and pass in a callback of this.spin which will be called when the animation is completed, basically creating an infinite animation. start() takes a completion callback that will be called when the animation is done. If the animation is done because it finished running normally, the completion callback will be invoked with {finished: true}, but if the animation is done because stop was called on it before it could finish (e.g. because it was interrupted by a gesture or another animation), then it will receive {finished: false}. Now that our methods are set up, we need to render the animation in our UI. To do so, we need to update our render method: const spin = this.spinValue.interpolate({ inputRange: [0, 1], outputRange: ['0deg', '360deg'] }) return ( <View style={styles.container}> <Animated.Image style={{ width: 227, height: 200, transform: [{rotate: spin}] }} source={{uri: ' /> </View> ) } render () {const spin = this.spinValue.interpolate({inputRange: [0, 1],outputRange: ['0deg', '360deg']})return ( https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/alexanderfarennikov/images/1198519/reactjs.png' }}/> We create a variable named spin. In this variable we call interpolate() on this.spinValue. interpolate() is a method that is available to be called on any Animated.Value. interpolate is a method that interpolates the value before updating the property, e.g. mapping 0–1 to 0–10. So in our example, we need to map 0 (zero) degrees to 360 degrees numerically, using the numbers zero to one, and this method easily allows us to do this. We pass in an inputRange and outputRange array, and pass in [0,1] as the inputRange and [‘0deg’, ‘360deg’] as the outputRange. We return a View with a style of container, and an Animated.Image (React logo) with a height, width, and a transform property in which we attach our spin value to the rotate property, which is where the animation takes place: transform: [{rotate: spin}] Finally, we have the container style to center everything: const styles = StyleSheet.create({ container: { flex: 1, justifyContent: 'center', alignItems: 'center' } }) That’s it, the animation should be working now! Here is the final code for this animation with a working example. More on Easing Here is a link to the source code for Easing, where you can see each of the easing methods. I have set up an example project with most of the easing animations implemented for you to take a look at and play with, to see how they are implemented here. The gist is also below. Here are the easings implemented in an example project on RNPlay. Here is the gist for the different easings. 2. Animated.timing examples Now that we know the basics of Animated.timing, let’s take a look at a few more examples of how to use Animated.timing along with interpolate and declare some other animations. In the next example, we will declare a single animation value, this.animatedValue, and use the single animated value along with interpolate to create multiple animations, animating the following style properties: marginLeft opacity fontSize rotateX To get started, either begin with a new branch or clear out our old code from the last project. The first thing we will do is create the animated value that we will be using for these animations in the constructor: constructor () { super() this.animatedValue = new Animated.Value(0) } Next, we create the animate method and call it in componentDidMount() : componentDidMount () { this.animate() } animate () { this.animatedValue.setValue(0) Animated.timing( this.animatedValue, { toValue: 1, duration: 2000, easing: Easing.linear } ).start(() => this.animate()) } In the render method, we create 5 different interpolated value variables: render () { const marginLeft = this.animatedValue.interpolate({ inputRange: [0, 1], outputRange: [0, 300] }) const opacity = this.animatedValue.interpolate({ inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1], outputRange: [0, 1, 0] }) const movingMargin = this.animatedValue.interpolate({ inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1], outputRange: [0, 300, 0] }) const textSize = this.animatedValue.interpolate({ inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1], outputRange: [18, 32, 18] }) const rotateX = this.animatedValue.interpolate({ inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1], outputRange: ['0deg', '180deg', '0deg'] }) ... } interpolate is a very powerful method, allowing us to use this.animatedValue , a single animated value, in many ways. Because the value simply changes from zero to one, we are able to interpolate this property for styling opacity, margins, text sizes, and rotation properties. We then return Animated.View and Animated.Text components implementing these new variables: return ( <View style={styles.container}> <Animated.View style={{ marginLeft, height: 30, width: 40, backgroundColor: 'red'}} /> <Animated.View style={{ opacity, marginTop: 10, height: 30, width: 40, backgroundColor: 'blue'}} /> <Animated.View style={{ marginLeft: movingMargin, marginTop: 10, height: 30, width: 40, backgroundColor: 'orange'}} /> <Animated.Text style={{ fontSize: textSize, marginTop: 10, color: 'green'}} > Animated Text! </Animated.Text> <Animated.View style={{ transform: [{rotateX}], marginTop: 50, height: 30, width: 40, backgroundColor: 'black'}}> <Text style={{color: 'white'}}>Hello from TransformX</Text> </Animated.View> </View> ) We also update our container styling: const styles = StyleSheet.create({ container: { flex: 1, paddingTop: 150 } }) The animation should be working now! Here is the final code for this animation with a working example. 3. Animated.spring() Next, we will be creating an animation using the Animated.spring() method. // Example implementation: Animated.spring( someValue, { toValue: number, friction: number } ) We can keep going from the same project, we just need to update a few things. In our constructor, let’s create a value called springValue and set it’s value to .3: constructor () { super() this.springValue = new Animated.Value(0.3) } Next, let’s delete the animate() method and componentDidMount() method and create a new method called spring(): spring () { this.springValue.setValue(0.3) Animated.spring( this.springValue, { toValue: 1, friction: 1 } ).start() } We set the springValue to .3 if it’s not already set to .3 We call Animated.spring, passing in two arguments: a value to animate and a config object. The config object can take any of the following arguments: toValue (number), overshootClamping (boolean), restDisplacementThreshold (number), restSpeedThreshold (number), velocity (number), bounciness (number), speed (number), tension (number), and friction (number). The only required value is toValue, but friction and tension can help you get more control over the spring animation. We call start() to start the animation. Now that the animation is set up, let’s attach the animation to a click event in our view, and the animation itself to the same React logo we used before: <Text style={{marginBottom: 100}} onPress={this.spring.bind(this)}>Spring</Text> <Animated.Image style={{ width: 227, height: 200, transform: [{scale: this.springValue}] }} source={{uri: ' </View> Spring https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/alexanderfarennikov/images/1198519/reactjs.png' }}/> We return a Text component attached to the spring() method to an onPress event. We return the Animated image and attach this.springValue to the scale property. The spring animation should be working now! Here is the final code for this animation with a working example. 4. Animated.parallel() Animated.parallel() starts an array of animations all at the same time. Let’s take a look at the api and see how this works: // API Animated.parallel(arrayOfAnimations) // In use: Animated.parallel([ Animated.spring( animatedValue, { //config options } ), Animated.timing( animatedValue2, { //config options } ) ]) To get started, let’s go ahead and create the three animated values we will need in our constructor: constructor () { super() this.animatedValue1 = new Animated.Value(0) this.animatedValue2 = new Animated.Value(0) this.animatedValue3 = new Animated.Value(0) } Next, we create our animate method and call it in componendDidMount() : componentDidMount () { this.animate() } animate () { this.animatedValue1.setValue(0) this.animatedValue2.setValue(0) this.animatedValue3.setValue(0) const createAnimation = function (value, duration, easing, delay = 0) { return Animated.timing( value, { toValue: 1, duration, easing, delay } ) } Animated.parallel([ createAnimation(this.animatedValue1, 2000, Easing.ease), createAnimation(this.animatedValue2, 1000, Easing.ease, 1000), createAnimation(this.animatedValue3, 1000, Easing.ease, 2000) ]).start() } In the animate method, we set the values of all three animated values back to zero. We then create a function called createAnimation() which returns a new animation , taking in the value, duration, easing, and delay as arguments. If no delay is passed in, we set it to zero. We then call Animated.parallel() passing in the three animations we want to create using createAnimation(). In our render method, we next need to set up our interpolated values: render () { const scaleText = this.animatedValue1.interpolate({ inputRange: [0, 1], outputRange: [0.5, 2] }) const spinText = this.animatedValue2.interpolate({ inputRange: [0, 1], outputRange: ['0deg', '720deg'] }) const introButton = this.animatedValue3.interpolate({ inputRange: [0, 1], outputRange: [-100, 400] }) ... } 1. scaleText — we interpolate our values to be output as a range from 0.5 to 2, we will use this value to scale our text from .5 to 2. 2. spinText — we interpolate our values to be output as a range of 0 degrees to 720 degrees, essentially spinning the item two times. 3. introButton — we interpolate out values to be output as a range of -100 to 400, and will use this as a margin property in our View. Finally, we render a main View with three Animated.Views: <View style={[styles.container]}> <Animated.View style={{ transform: [{scale: scaleText}] }}> <Text>Welcome</Text> </Animated.View> <Animated.View style={{ marginTop: 20, transform: [{rotate: spinText}] }}> <Text style={{fontSize: 20}}> to the App! </Text> </Animated.View> <Animated.View style={{top: introButton, position: 'absolute'}}> <TouchableHighlight onPress={this.animate.bind(this)} style={styles.button}> <Text style={{color: 'white', fontSize: 20}}> Click Here To Start </Text> </TouchableHighlight> </Animated.View> </View> We use scaleText to scale the first View, spinText to spin the second View, and introButton to animate the margin of the third View. When animate() is called, all three animations run in parallel. The parallel animations should be working now! Here is the final code for this animation with a working example. 5. Animated.Sequence() Let’s take a look at the api and see how this animation works: // API Animated.sequence(arrayOfAnimations) // In use Animated.sequence([ Animated.timing( animatedValue, { //config options } ), Animated.spring( animatedValue2, { //config options } ) ]) Like Animated.parallel(), Animated.sequence() takes an array of animations. Animated.sequence() runs an array of animations in order, waiting for each to complete before starting the next. Because the apis for Animated.sequence() and Animated.parallel() are so similar, taking an array of animations, I am not going to repeat the walkthrough of each method. The main thing to notice here that is different is that we are creating our Animated.Values with a loop since we are animating so many values. We are also rendering our Animated.Views with a map function returning a new Animated.View for each item in the array. The sequence of animations should be working now! Here is the final code for this animation with a working example. 6. Animated.Stagger() Let’s take a look at the api and see how this animation works: // API Animated.stagger(delay, arrayOfAnimations) // In use: Animated.stagger(1000, [ Animated.timing( animatedValue, { //config options } ), Animated.spring( animatedValue2, { //config options } ) ]) Like Animated.parallel() and Animated.sequence(), Animated.Stagger also takes an array of animations, but these animations are started in sequence with successive delays. The main difference here is the first argument, the delay that will be applied to each animation. The staggered animations should be working now! Here is the final code for this animation with a working example. To view the final repo, click here.

https://medium.com/react-native-training/react-native-animations-using-the-animated-api-ebe8e0669fae

['Nader Dabit']

2018-01-25 17:42:12.531000+00:00

['React', 'iOS App Development', 'Android App Development', 'React Native', 'JavaScript']

Get Fit from Home with Resistance Bands, Videos and App

(NewsUSA) -In the wake of the ongoing pandemic, more people are interested not only in working from home, but working out from home. Professional trainers have stepped up to meet this demand with videos and apps to build relationships with their clients while staying in place and providing personalized fitness programs. Trainer Solomon Pratt has the enthusiasm and expertise to engage fitness seekers in person and online with a series of videos demonstrating exercises to target all major muscle groups using a specialized resistance band. Exercise bands have become a go-to product for home workout enthusiasts because they take up no space, but are versatile enough to target upper body, lower body, and core muscle groups. Pratt’s trademark power-resistance bands are available in four different levels to provide a complete workout for any fitness level. The bundle is called the Champion 4 pack, retails for $95 and is excellent for both men and women, Pratt says. Specialized ankle-resistance bands come in three different levels and are available for those seeking additional challenges. The “Incredible Bundle” retails for $60 and works for both men and women The Diva Bundle, which costs $79 and equates to 75% of Pratt’s sales, includs one ankle band, three levels of the glute-resistance bands, and one power resistance band. This, Pratt says, should be in every woman’s purse to enhance their curves and tone their body anywhere. “If it don’t challenge you, it won’t change you,” Pratt emphasizes. Pratt’s videos and app include exercises using the bands for toning, sculpting, and strengthening to help burn fat and build muscle, at levels that can benefit anyone from beginners to seasoned athletes. With these tools, Pratt says you can get healthy without indulging in dangerous and expensive surgeries. “Your success depends on your cooperation,” says Pratt. Cooperation is easy with his YouTube videos, which provide detailed demonstrations of exercises using the band. Fitness seekers of any level can sign up for Pratt’s customized programs delivered through his app. The programs allow users to track their progress, receive new workouts, and choose videos aimed at different muscle groups. In addition, Pratt’s book, “The Health and Fitness Bible,” is an inspirational accompaniment to his training programs. The book offers readers “a simple and effective way to develop the mindset and discipline to achieve their health and fitness goals,” says Pratt. The dedication to physical fitness translates to toughness to handle the challenges in the rest of your life, he emphasizes. For more information and links to videos and products, visit SolomonsFitnessWorld.com. To connect on Instagram, go to TrainerDoctorFlex04, and on Facebook at Solomon Pratt and King Solomons Gem. “The Health and Fitness Bible” is also available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FZYP2MM.

https://medium.com/@solomonpratt86/get-fit-from-home-with-resistance-bands-videos-and-app-740900473288

['Master Trainer Solomon Pratt']

2021-12-29 16:43:34.177000+00:00

['New Year Resolution', 'Workout', 'Fat Burning Tips', 'Strength Training']

The Social Bot, friendliness catalyst at the bar

🇬🇧 ➡️️ 🇫🇷 Le Social Bot, activateur de convivialité au bar A Bar Bot? Messenger Bots Never heard of them? Reading “The two actual benefits of Messenger Bots” should help kickstart your knowledge on the matter. Long stories short, they are applications that find their home inside the Messenger conversation between a Facebook Page and a user. Inspired by “Le Social Bar.” Patrice, co-prototyper, has the privilege to be one of the 175 co-owners of the Social Bar, a recently crowdfunded Parisian place. A friendliness laboratories where are tested various answers to the question “How to get people to talk to each other in a bar?”. One of its attraction is the Social Phone: an old fashioned wired phone with a notebook where guests can leave their phone number. Thus they accept to get random calls from other guests, just to talk, or to fulfill a challenge. From wired phone to messaging, there is a small gap, which we cross with the Social Messenger Bot. The bot aims to be an on-site conversation and encounter catalyst, as well as a digital archive of social nights, and a tool to strengthen the link between the Social Bar and its guests. Le Social Bot An Easy to Join Group Chat for the Guests When entering the Social Bar, I’m welcomed and told that tonight’s password is “fat cat.” “Search for the Social Bar on Messenger!” I do have the Messenger app, and the network is fine. Alright, let’s do it. In Messenger, the Social Bar asks me if I know the password. I send it. The Social Bar tells me that I’m now discussing with all the other guests. And it asks me to start by telling my favorite holiday memory. I reply “hiking in Island.” Someone checks his phone and asks aloud: “Who’s Patrice Bonfy? I’m flying to Island in 2 weeks”. We start discussing and, as I didn’t know him before, I let him throw the dices that will decide the price of my first drink (another favorite attraction of the Social Bar). As the night goes on, the chat fills with holiday memories of the newcomers and the occasional answers to challenges yelled around by the MC: “Be the first to send the artist of the next song, and you get a free drink.” Too bad, I’m hopeless at blind tests. The following day, I check the chat history to retrieve the name of my soon to visit Island new friend and send him as promised a list of hiking recommendations on Messenger. Wrap Up By The Bar When the party is over, the Social Bar sends a thank note to all guests, some pictures of the night, and offers them to send their email to be alerted of future events. A One Night Prototype An Experimental Version with Chatfuel Chatfuel’s solution allows the deployment of relatively sophisticated Messenger bots without a single line of code. There even is a “chatroom” plugin which we can use directly to manage the envisioned group chat. This prototype will, therefore, also be a chance to live test Chatfuel. A Night for Testing Renaud Seligmann, co-owner but also manager-manager of the Social Bar, loves experimentations. He agreed to organize a special event to test the bot as soon as it is ready. Be sure to follow the Facebook Page of the Social Bar to be informed of the event. The test aims at answering two questions: Does the bot add to the friendliness of the night? If everyone is stuck on their phone and no one talks, it is a failure. If guests keep their phone on hand but use each new message as an opportunity to meet people and discuss, then it works. If everyone is stuck on their phone and no one talks, it is a failure. If guests keep their phone on hand but use each new message as an opportunity to meet people and discuss, then it works. Does the bot improve guest loyalty? How many emails do we collect? How many new followers on Facebook? A few months to deploy? If there are proven benefits of friendliness and loyalty, we will test the bot in more traditional places, and start designing and developing a complete experience that could be made available for every bar in the world! Prototypers explore promising technologies and exciting business opportunities to uncover new ideas and give them attention, work, and resources.

https://medium.com/prototypers/the-social-bot-friendliness-catalyst-at-the-bar-c21dd112913b

['Patrice Bonfy']

2017-03-22 15:05:59.193000+00:00

['Ideas', 'Bots', 'Startup Ideas', 'Facebook Messenger', 'Bar']

TinyBERT — Size does matter, but how you train it can be more important 🐣

While the best performing NLP models grow beyond the 10s of billions of parameters does the idea of knowledge distillation become more and more interesting. The idea is simple: let a massive, state-of-the-art model act as a teacher for a much smaller student model of similar architecture with the goal of replicating its behaviour. Implementing this in practice is what is interesting. If you want some context for the techniques and ideas presented in this article, please have a look at my article summarising DistillBERT which will be used as a baseline comparison here. (Spoilers, TinyBERT crushes DistillBERT in every metric imaginable) In TinyBERT: Distilling BERT for natural language understanding, Jiao et al. present ideas, and techniques that enable the distillation of transformer-based models in particular. Architecture-specific methods such as these ones enable even more of the knowledge captured by a teacher model to be transferred to its student. Contributions of TinyBERT The authors of TinyBERT introduce three new techniques; 1) transformer distillation, 2) a two-step distillation process and 3) data augmentation. Together, these improve the knowledge distillation process in the particular case of transformer-based models. Transformer distillation Their first contribution is what is call Transformer distillation, a set of loss functions designed to help the student learn from its teacher at a fine-grained level. These allow the student to observe how the teacher’s embedding layer, attention matrices, hidden representations, and prediction layer react given some input text. Here are the mathematical formulations of these: Superscript S indicates student and T teacher Previous work such as DistillBERT only trained the student to replicate the teacher based on its output distribution which in comparison greatly reduces the knowledge transfer. DistillBERT also used the teacher model for initializing the weight of the student, which required both to have the same internal dimensions while allowing a different number of layers. TinyBERT circumvents this issue by introducing learnable projection matrices (W) in both embedding and hidden loss functions. This allows the internal representations of student and teacher to be compared element-wise despite their difference in dimensions. Side note: In What Does BERT Look At?, Clark et al. studies of what the attention heads of a pre-trained BERT learn to attend to and find that many different linguistic relations are captured. They also find that many attention heads learned to attend the [SEP] token. A quantitative analysis of this phenomenon is presented with an interesting conclusion: attending the [SEP] token is most likely a No-Op, meaning that it does not bring any value. This observation could be an indication of the fact that large BERT models are overparameterized. It would be interesting to perform the same analysis on TinyBERT or maybe to disregard attention heads with this behavior in the distillation process. Two-step distillation In addition to the transformer, specific distillation did the authors also introduce a two-step distillation process. It follows the procedure of how the original BERT was initially pre-trained on a large, general dataset to capture language features, to then be fine-tuned on task-specific data. These steps are replicated in a distillation context. Their first distillation step is therefor to utilize a general BERT, only trained on general data, as the teacher. The student learns to mimic the teacher’s embedding and transformer layer activations to create a General TinyBERT. The data used as this step is similar to that used to train the teacher BERT in the first place, something topic agnostic such as Wikipedia. The fine-tuning step switches teacher models to a task-specific one and continues to train the student. Initially, the training is limited to embedding and transformer layers, keeping the prediction layer fixed which eventually is unfrozen and trained for a smaller number of steps. The data that was used during this distillation step is explained by their third contribution in the next section. Data augmentation Understanding the author's choice of data for the fine-tuning step requires a holistic view of knowledge distillation. The goal of this process is to transfer the response, both internal and external, to input from a teacher to a student. What exactly is used to probe the teacher’s response is of less importance. (If you want to listen to the authors of DistillBERT talk about this, then I highly recommend this podcast episode which does just that.) Any data that tells us something about the teachers decision process is useful for distilling its knowledge. The authors are able to apply a clever data augmentation technique to expand their task-specific dataset. They use a pre-trained BERT model (to replace sentence-piece tokens) and GloVe (for word-level tokens) to create alternate, highly probable versions of their input data. These are created through randomly selecting a subset of word/sentence-piece tokens from the dataset for which the helper models predict alternative tokens. For example, the sentence “how can anyone drive such a small car?” could be augmented into “how can anyone operate such a tiny vehicle”. Both these sentences would then be used in the fine-tuning distillation step! Results The authors define the student TinyBERT model equivalent in size to BERT small (4 transformer layers, hidden representation size 312, feed-forward size 1200 and 12 attention heads. 14.5M parameters in total) and use BERT base as their teacher (12 transformer layers, hidden representation size 768, feed-forward size 3072 and 12 attention heads. 109M parameters in total) Using the proposed techniques enable this TinyBERT model to achieve 96% (76.5 vs 79.5 points average) of its BERT base teacher on the BLUE benchmark while being 7.5x smaller and 9.4x faster! Its performance numbers are impressive even when comparing with BERT small, a model of exactly the same size, which TinyBERT is 9% better than (76.5 vs 70.2 points average on GLUE). TinyBERT is also able to outperform its related knowledge distillation models by a significant margin (76.5 vs 72.6 points average on GLUE), while in this case being approximately 3x smaller and faster than these. This is a testament to the importance of letting a student learn from the inner workings of its teacher, in addition to its output. The authors analyze the effect of the different contributions in their work. Their key takeaways are: Task-specific distillation (fine-tuning) proves more important than general distillation (pre-training). This enables us to without hesitation use their pre-trained General TinyBERT for our own fine-tuning experiments. Data augmentation can be as important as task-specific distillation in low resource tasks. Distilling knowledge from the transformer layers (attention and hidden representations) is by far the most important loss to minimize in order to achieve competitive results with the distilled model. Conclusion This paper introduces transformer specific distillation techniques that enable student networks of 14% the size of their teachers to achieve comparable performance results. These techniques are the logical evolution of ideas presented in related work such as DistillBERT, and prove themselves to be vital for distilling transformer knowledge. It should, for anyone interested, be exciting to follow how these ideas and methods find their way into even larger models!

https://medium.com/dair-ai/tinybert-size-does-matter-but-how-you-train-it-can-be-more-important-a5834831fa7d

['Viktor Karlsson']

2020-07-11 13:20:10.377000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Engineering', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence']

Made By Mulani Om.

Made By Mulani Om. Young Graphic Designer. With Optimistic Mind. Studies in Higher Standard. Want to Work Now as Freelancer.

https://medium.com/@ommulani30/made-by-mulani-om-2af6d570cb2a

['Om Mulani']

2020-12-21 09:06:20.411000+00:00

['2d Art', 'Designer', 'Desgin', 'Illustration', 'Graphics']

PART 2: WEB API — Building a Scalable App Environment with Infrastructure and Deployment

PART 2: WEB API — Building a Scalable App Environment with Infrastructure and Deployment image by author This is one part of a series. So if you have not read the PART 0: OVERVIEW you can go there and read it to get an overview of what we will actually doing here … Introduction In the last PART 1.1: INFRASTRUCTURE PIPELINE we have finalized the infrastructure part with building our pipeline for it. Now we are going further and start the web api for our notification application environment. We will build the web api in .net core. The web api provides two endpoints. One for creating a message and another for getting all messages. This is sufficient for our example. Furthermore we implementing the use of azure storage table, event hubs, application insights and key vaults. Yes — I repeat myself, but all the code here is not really complete production ready (error handling, retries, tests, etc.). Maybe I will put some more features (if there is anyone interested in) to all parts of this application, when we are ready with our base version. But our base versions has already a lot of stuff in there, so lets start… Prerequisites We only need an editor or development environment for .net and the .net core 3.1 framework for creating a .net core application (But I think this is obvious!). And we need the “Common lib” for our .net projects which will be described below. Common lib We need the common lib for this part as well as for our workers (next parts!) which should handle the sent notifications. The common lib source can be downloaded/cloned from the feature/part2 branch and put it next to the infrastructure folder. I will not list all the code here, but I will give a short overview about the content and describe the folders below. Data In this folder is the notification entity located which are saving in a azure storage table. For this there is also a repository, which take the job for communicate with storage table. (Please read the code for getting more information how this work in detail and or visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/tutorial-develop-table-dotnet — and do not be confused that we are using the cosmos db api. This api is working with azure storage table.) Extensions One extension is to register to application insights and the other one for using the key vaults where we get later our secrets from. The key vault credentials will be pushed via environment variables (but this is part of the next part — :)). Protobuf/Messages The protobuf folder contains the notification message which we will be used to send/receive to/from our eventhub. I choose to send the message via this binary format. The messages folder contains the C# version of the message (which we will use in our code). If you take a look at the “Notifier.Common.csproj” fill you will find an item group which take this generation job (for this the gprc tool will be used). Settings Here are all settings defined as objects, which we will use in our needed .net projects. WebApi Again we should here create first a repository for the web api where we can push our code for creating the pipelines etc. in the next part. So let’s create an azure devops repository named “WebApi” in our “Infrastructure” project and clone this next to the “Infrastructure” and “Common” folders. The complete sourcecode can be also downloaded/cloned here. Base Setup Now create a .net core console project and name it (incl. the solution) “Notifier.WebApi”. We start by editing the “csproj” file. So replace/edit your contents with the following. One interesting thing in the first property group is the “UserSecretsId”. So yes we use for local development the user secrets feature. So no secrets has to be in the repository. (The user secret will be created when you right click for the first time the “project -> manage user secrets”. Here we will do it directly in the project file and a good thing is to add the application name to the secret. Else it is very hard find it on your computer.) The next item group is obvious. The “appsettings.json” which we will create very soon! Then we have some nuget packages we will need for our web api and last but not least including the common lib as a project reference (make sure the path is right in your environment). A better approach would be to add the common lib as a git submodule or nuget package, but for now this is ok here. It is time to create the “appsettings.json” file in the project root. Please put the content below into that file. First we configure the log level for our logging. Then we see settings for our azure resources. These are secrets, so we will define them in our user secrets file later. And at last the core settings which is for our later angular frontend to access the the web api without cors issues. Let’s go to our user secrets file. For this right click the project and select “Manage User Secrets”. If the file does not open (sometimes with older .net core versions I had the issue) you could do it by using the .net core cli or simply open the file located in “C:\Users\{YOUR_USER}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\UserSecrets otifier-webapi-6fd34aeb-1b78–4492–86dd-a5aa00ce38cd” then put the following in there and find your secrets in your azure portal. We use here the secrets from our acceptance environment. Here can you find your secrets… Application Insights — Instrumentation Key: select notifier-application-insights-acc resource -> Overview and find the key on the top right. select notifier-application-insights-acc resource -> Overview and find the key on the top right. Storage Table — Connection String: select notifierstoreacc resource -> Access keys and then copy the primary connection string. select notifierstoreacc resource -> Access keys and then copy the primary connection string. Event Hubs — Connection String: select eventhubs-acc -> Event Hubs -> notifications -> Shared access policies -> send and copy the primary connection string. Implementation We start by directly implementing the functionality of the api. Later we wire this together when we setup the “Program.cs” and “Startup.cs”. we do this in this order, because else we have to jump between files and/or have to deal with errors because the things we want to wire are not existent at this time… So let’s start by creating the model for the notification response. Please create a folder “Models” in the root project directory and create a class named “NotificationModel.cs” and put the following in to it. The model only contains a message and a timestamp. So let’s go further with the services. For this create a folder named “Services” and create the following in files in there: Above the service interface (“INotificationService”) with two simple methods in there. And now the implementation (“NotificationService”): The constructor takes arguments for the logger, eventhub settings (object come from the common lib) and the repository which is also located in the common lib. With this we have all to start here. The “CreateAndSendAsync” does exactly what it is called. First it creates the entity and save it into the table and second it sends to the event hub. The functionality is split into two private methods which makes it more cleaner and better to read. Please check the private methods and the common lib functionality for further information how the event hubs and storage table is used here. (This is a very simple implementation herem without retries etc.) Now we are ready to create the controller which defines our endpoints. So we start again with creating a folder “Controllers” and create a class named “NotificationController.as” in there and put the following code into it. We inject the notification service here to let the service do our work. The controller creates the endpoint and format the response for our two methods. So we created here the following endpoints: GET /api/notifications — returns all notifications POST /api/notifications — create, save and send the notification This is all we need for the logic! Now we need to wire this together… Wiring the Parts We start with the “Program.cs” where the entry point of the application is. Please open that file and replace the content with the following. We start creating the host when the main function is called. At first we configuring the app by calling “ConfigureAppConfiguration”. We add the appsettings.json, environment variables and commandline arguments to our configuration. The we add (or try to add) the user secrets (which is the case in local development). Then we add (or try to add) the key vault (which is the case when we pass the credentials for it via environment variables — but we will discuss this in the next chapter). All the secrets will be replaced by user secrets or key vault. Next we configure our logging. First we register our console logger and second to log in application insights (which results in traces there). And in the last step we configure our web server where we will use “Kestrel” and call our web server startup class “Startup.cs” which contains the following. Here we will do some startup stuff, but the main focus should be how configure our services. In line 45 we start configuring our app settings, so we can inject them with the IOptions<T> interface in our services, etc. Then we add the repository, and the notification service to our di context. You will find some other basic configuration here, which I will not describe here in detail. Test If we have all done here correct, you could run the application locally and test the endpoints. You could use postman or the like me the the REST Client (for visual studio code plugin), which is quiet cool, because I can code my requests here and versioning them, etc. Following the requests: So and if you have created some messages and get them you could check application insights on azure portal and view for example the logs (notifier-application-insights-acc -> Logs -> traces). Or check the application map, which should should show the connection between the components. At this time we can see that our web api sends to event hub and calls to to the azure table. Conclusion We have created a .net core web api here which cares about secrets and uses diverse azure resources like event hubs, application insights, key vaults and azure tables. We can now create, persist and read/receive notifications. Preview In the next PART 2.1, we will bring the web api to our acceptance stage running in docker and the kubernetes cluster. And this we want to integrate and automate in the azure pipelines.

https://medium.com/@markusherkommer/using-net-angular-kubernetes-azure-devops-terraform-eventhubs-and-other-azure-resources-bbeb0324a688

['Markus Herkommer']

2021-03-01 23:32:27.471000+00:00

['Azure Event Hub', 'Application Insights', 'Azure Table Storage', 'Dotnet Core', 'Webapi']

Why Low Overpass Crashes Are Fun to Watch

There is no functional reason the overpasses on the Southern State Parkway hang this low. (Doug Kerr/Flickr) Were the low overpasses racist? An infamous Long Island legend, explained Robert Moses never held a valid driver’s license, but he knew how powerful roads were to the way that people experienced a city. A key figure in the urban design of New York City and surrounding areas, he carries a complicated reputation — helping to shape key thinking on the automobile’s role in urban planning and helping to foster the post-WWII growth in the suburbs. But this power cut both ways — especially on one of the roads he was responsible for developing, Southern State Parkway. The parkway, a key connector between New York City and Long Island’s beach towns — particularly the popular Jones Beach State Park — is intentionally designed with low overpasses, in part to prevent commercial traffic from using the road. As Hofstra University historian Geri Solomon told Patch last year, this was intended to create a certain type of feel when driving on the parkway. “The roads were supposed to embody the idea of a ‘park’ way — it was supposed to be idyllic and natural, and you drove through park-like land to get where you were going,” she said. “You were going for a leisurely drive through a natural-looking environment, as driving was one part getting to where you needed to go and one part recreation.” (Long Island has serious problems with accidents caused by low overpasses, as you might guess.) The problem is that adding low overpasses to prevent trucks from getting through also prevents people without access to cars from getting through using public transportation, such as buses. And it turns out that may be intentional as well — intentionally racist. A drawing of Robert Moses. (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution) A famed biography of Moses, The Power Broker by Robert Caro, makes the case that Moses had a low opinion of many New Yorkers, and that some of the decisions that led to the design of the road were intended to keep certain types of people from visiting Jones Beach — something he encouraged his deputies, such as Sid Shapiro, to do. A key passage: He had restricted the use of state parks by poor and lower-middle-class families in the first place, by limiting access to the parks by rapid transit; he had vetoed the Long Island Rail Road’s proposed construction of a branch spur to Jones Beach for this reason. Now he began to limit access by buses; he instructed Shapiro to build the bridges across his new parkways low — too low for buses to pass. Bus trips therefore had to be made on local roads, making the trips discouragingly long and arduous. And the stuff immediately after that passage is somehow even worse, discussing his racist views of Black people, which led to buses needing additional permits and a variety of decisions, based on personal beliefs, that seemed designed to discourage Black people from enjoying the park in the same way as their white counterparts. At least one modern historian has publicly questioned the view put forth in Caro’s book … or, at least, tried to. In a 2017 piece for CityLab, city planning historian Thomas J. Campanella discussed the way that the story had become a “microbiography of Moses, a tragic hero who built for the ages, but for a narrowly construed public.” But he explained that this shorthand had always given him doubts. While not disputing Moses’ bigotry and noting many other ways he had developed the New York metropolitan area with discrimination in mind, he noted that Moses was a complex figure and that the design of the Southern State Parkway copied heavily from other parkways of the era, particularly those in Westchester County, with the goal of keeping commercial traffic off the roads — ensuring that the road was free of trucks and keeping a certain tone. So, he put the theory to the test, comparing the heights of the overpasses on the Southern State Parkway to other parkways that predated it. And what he found … well, confirmed Robert Caro’s 50-year-old reporting. “The verdict? It appears that Sid Shapiro was right,” he wrote, explaining that the overpasses, at an average of 107.6 inches (just a hair below 12 feet), were more than a foot shorter than two other major parkways from the era, and that there were four overpasses with clearance below eight feet — more than were found on the Westchester parkways that inspired the road. While access to Jones Beach is no longer limited by the Southern State Parkway, the road carries quite an impression today, and it’s one that carried over to many of the parkways along Long Island. The problem is that impression, given what we know about it today, feels exclusionary.

https://medium.com/tedium/low-overpass-crashes-history-908d12ce7d20

['Ernie Smith']

2020-11-01 22:54:49.812000+00:00

['Driving', 'Transportation', 'History', 'Cars', 'Roads']

Forgotten

Forgotten The tale of the girl between the two doors (See below article*) “Between the two doors,” she’d said to my grandmother. And for days, the words echoed in her mind as she tried to make sense of it. What’s between the two doors? Which two doors? But no answer came; all was quiet for days. And then it came to her. The attic. The attic was the only place in the house where there was a space between two doors — the door at the bottom of the stairs, and the heavy trap door we had to push up to get into the airless space. Armed with a flashlight and determination, she trekked up to the second floor once the children were off to school. It was an old house, full of cracks and nooks and crannies. She searched for nearly an hour and was about to give up when she heard the voice in her mind once more. “Between the two doors.” In desperation, she cried out loud, “There’s nothing between the two doors!”. This time an answer came. One word. “Look.” She sighed and sat on one of the worn wooden steps, and then she saw the gap — how had she not seen it before? There was a gap, wide enough to slide her slender arm in. With the beam of the flashlight, she illuminated the web and dust-filled space until the beam landed on a square piece of yellowed paper. She could barely reach, but with the tips of her fingers, she managed to grab the edge and pull it up. Her breath caught in her throat as she turned it over and saw it was an old photograph. A small black and white print of a young girl of about three or four, with white-blond ringlets, sitting with her arms around what appeared to be her baby brother — a little boy of about one, in shorts and suspenders. What broke my grandmother’s heart was that the corner of the picture was torn, removing the baby’s head. Her breath caught as she swallowed the tears, and the words were barely a whisper. “This is you.” There was no answer, but she knew it to be the truth.

https://medium.com/imperfect-words/forgotten-9614f84b9293

['Edie Tuck']

2019-09-07 12:00:46.503000+00:00

['Believe', 'Ghosts', 'Spirit', 'Paranormal', 'True Story']

The Top 5 Web3 JavaScript Functions for Ethereum DApps

The Top 5 Web3 JavaScript Functions for Ethereum DApps getAccounts, sendTransaction, estimateGas, and more Photo by Paul Esch-Laurent on Unsplash. Web3 bridges the gap between the traditional internet and the Ethereum blockchain. It enables users to interact with your DApp through a browser. When using JavaScript for your front end, knowing the ins and outs of Web3JS is essential. Here is a list of some of the most useful and commonly used functions in Web3JS.

https://medium.com/better-programming/the-top-5-web3-javascript-functions-for-ethereum-dapps-7bc108bfd37

['Alex Roan']

2020-05-12 13:58:13.231000+00:00

['JavaScript', 'Dapps', 'Blockchain', 'Programming', 'Ethereum']

I Thought I Had Coronavirus, But it Was Really a Panic Attack

My daughter and I were at the clinic first thing in the morning, getting tested for COVID-19. I felt much better than the night before, when I was afraid I was going to die, when I couldn’t speak without gasping for breath. “I know it’s hard, but you need to find ways to stay calm.” The doctor looked me straight in the eyes. “Anxiety just makes breathing difficulties worse.” I liked the doctor, was thankful she was testing us, but I also felt offended. Sure I was a little anxious right now, but who wouldn’t be? The sickness came first, then the anxiety, not the other way around. How dare she suggest my wheezing, my gasping, was just anxiety. Just anxiety. Just. The doctor didn’t say that. That was my own mind, my own shame, belittling my experience, needing a test result to tell me this was the coronavirus. Because if my difficulty breathing was not COVID-19, if it was a mental health issue, it felt shameful, embarrassing, pathetic. It felt like my fault. I’ve been medicated, gone through lots of fantastic therapy, for my depression and anxiety in the past, and yet part of me still carries the societal stigma. I worry I’m supposed to be able to heal my mental health issues through the power of positive thinking, that if I do enough yoga I’ll be fixed. That when I lapse into obsessive, negative thinking, when panic takes me over until I can’t breathe, that means I’m a failure. And that feeling of failure just piles on another layer of anxiety. Layers upon layers, smothering me. It’d been, what, maybe 4 days, since my husband and I smugly talked about the people freaking out? As if we weren’t them, as if we were somehow above the drama, the panic. The doctor took my blood pressure. 147/83, shockingly different than my usual uber-low 100/60. Anxiety can raise our blood pressure. Anxiety can make it hard to breathe. “I need you to try to stay calm,” the doctor said again.

https://medium.com/an-injustice/i-thought-i-had-coronavirus-but-i-really-had-a-panic-attack-92988e845c90

['Darcy Reeder']

2020-03-29 08:05:29.794000+00:00

['Covid Diaries', 'Covid 19', 'Mental Health', 'Anxiety', 'Coronavirus']

The energy poor need to be included in energy transition planning: here’s how

Lucie Middlemiss, Associate Professor in Sustainability at the Sustainability Research Institute, draws on insights from across Europe on how to ensure that those without access to enough energy are not left behind in the rush towards a low-carbon energy future. Photo by Alex on Unsplash A white paper on ‘Energy poverty and the energy transition’ was published in the Netherlands in early November, co-authored by myself and an international group of experts. In it we draw on insights from around Europe, to advise the Netherlands on how best to integrate the energy poor into their low-carbon energy transition planning. Other countries, including the UK, could learn from these insights. Energy poverty, when people cannot access adequate energy services, is a problem which takes different forms in different European nations, according to the climate, and to the support available for households through energy and social policy. Given that people can become energy poor due to poor housing conditions, low incomes, or constraints in accessing the energy market, a range of policy measures can have unforeseen consequences on the energy poor. While energy transition planning is well underway in the Netherlands, there is no Dutch policy on energy poverty, despite new EU regulation on energy and climate that requires member nations to report on energy poverty. Action on energy poverty in the Netherlands has so far been led by municipalities and regions to meet a diverse range of local targets on health, wellbeing, social relations, household budgeting and climate change. However, the Netherlands is currently lacking a national response to the issue: our white paper sets out to change that, offering three clear recommendations as to how national policy-makers should proceed. A multi-indicator framework is needed to measure energy poverty The first recommendation is to measure energy poverty in the Netherlands, but specifically, to take heed of the multi-faceted nature of the problem and develop a multi-indicator framework to measure energy poverty. This is needed to capture both the dynamic nature of the problem, as we transition towards a low carbon future, and the fact that people respond to, and experience, energy poverty very differently. Some people do not see themselves as having a problem, despite living in temperatures (hot or cold) that are known to have detrimental health effects. Others will never go without heat, compromising on other critical items (food, travel). A multi-indicator framework has the advantage of capturing this diversity of responses and tracking it over time. Such an approach has been used to positive effect in France: their ‘basket of indicators’ capturing different types of energy poverty in this way. Plan the energy transition with the energy poor in mind The second recommendation is to develop specific energy poverty policies which complement and intersect with existing measures to promote the energy transition. These two policy areas must be considered side by side: as an energy transition that has only negative consequences for the energy poor is likely to be ineffective and unpopular. There is currently limited attention on how the energy poor will be affected by the energy transition in the Netherlands, and it is essential that the planned costs of this transition do not fall too heavily on the poorest. But what does this mean in practical terms: what specific measures are needed? The two most commonly used policy measures for energy poverty focus on affordability and energy efficiency: lowering energy prices, and helping people to access more energy efficient appliances and buildings. This sounds simple, but when people have different forms of tenure (owning, renting privately or social housing), different levels of eligibility for help, and differing needs, it can be difficult to target policy measures. Further, linking attempts to increase people’s access to energy through increased affordability is potentially problematic for meeting carbon targets. It may be that some households will need to consume more energy to avoid energy poverty: finding ways of accommodating this within a national carbon budget is important. There are measures that address both carbon reduction and energy poverty reduction, principally efficiency measures, but these need careful planning and monitoring to ensure that both targets are reached. Social, energy and built-environment policies all impact the energy poor The third recommendation is to take into account energy poverty when planning social, energy and built environment policies. The multi-faceted nature of energy poverty means that all of these policy areas are closely linked. A change in the benefits system, for instance, can result in many more people suffering from a lack of access to energy services (in the UK and the Netherlands this will mean suffering from the cold, for instance). Built environment policy has a longer term impact on energy poverty: if energy efficiency standards are raised, for instance, it can take decades for this to trickle through to an overall increase in thermal comfort. Such coordination requires close cooperation between the various ministries involved, something that can be challenging in any nation. It is possible to monitor and track the effects of energy transition policy on the energy poor through qualitative research (or ‘the lived experience’) which allows us to see the ways in which diverse policies impact on people experiencing this problem. The Scottish government has used lived experience data to road test new policy ideas, and there is also scope to monitor the ways in which households are affected by policy using such data. The UK and others can learn from European experiences in this area As more nations begin to integrate energy poverty concerns into energy transition policy, in response to both EU regulation and concerns about ‘just’ transitions, there are important learning opportunities between nations, including for us in the UK. We were the first country to define, measure and actively address ‘fuel poverty’ (the UK term), but the problem remains stubbornly persistent here. The Netherlands, and other nations, have the advantage of being able to learn from our mistakes, and to produce innovative policy which addresses some of the challenges that we have come across. Given the growth in interest in this area internationally, and the policy innovation occurring in association with new EU energy transition goals, we must keep an eye on progress in the Netherlands and elsewhere. In particular, bringing together energy poverty and energy transition will be critical to ensure that low carbon futures are inclusive, and that the problems of energy poverty are more effectively addressed. Read the white paper: Energy poverty and the energy transition: Towards improved energy poverty monitoring, measuring and policy action. 18 November 2020

https://medium.com/policy-leeds/the-energy-poor-need-to-be-included-in-energy-transition-planning-heres-how-7c4cd2397c3b

['Policy Leeds']

2020-12-14 14:05:58.291000+00:00

['Poverty', 'Energy', 'Low Carbon Economy', 'Decarbonization', 'Decarbonisation']

When Mental Illness Becomes a Friend

I have read several articles today composed by writers who seem to be wondering why people who have mental difficulties making them miserable don’t do something about it. It doesn’t come across as intentionally judgmental or critical, but seems more like genuine confusion as to why these individuals don’t appear to want to change things so their lives improve. In one article, the writer asked about a friend. “They were so competent before, I mean like uber-competent. They have two Masters, a Ph.D. and an M.D. How is it possible that someone like that doesn’t seem able to fold the laundry or clean up? It’s almost like they don’t even realize these things need to be done or maybe like they don’t care anymore.” In another article the question was, “Do depressed people somehow lose the desire to be happy or do they just not know how to achieve this? It seems like they just aren’t interested in being happy anymore.” I wanted to try to answer these questions as many people don’t know or understand just how much mental distress affects people. Yet the question about them not wanting to be happy is also an important one to address. There are a few truths to discuss about this matter. There is a difference between transient symptoms we all have and chronic, more severe symptoms that are part of a mental health condition. When I teach abnormal psychology, I make the statement that most mental disorders are just more extreme versions of what we all experience in a more moderate way. So we all know what anxiety or depression feels like although for most people it doesn’t reach the level of being considered a disorder. While this is the case, there is a difference between what we all experience and what those with a significant problem in this area experience. This is because when these things last for a long time or become chronic, they wear people down. This affects their immune system, their beliefs about themselves and the world, the degree to which they can maintain a social support network and whether or not they can take part in activities they once enjoyed. Thoughts that are in line with the disorder also occur when it lasts a long time. For example, people with depression often have thoughts related to worthlessness, hopelessness and pessimism. The difference between passing symptoms and long term, severe symptoms also occurs because of the person’s mindset. When mental health issues can be associated with a cause such as failing a class, breaking up with a significant other or other similar life events the person usually doesn’t think that the resulting problems will be part of their life permanently. They understand their altered mental health is the result of something that other people go through and get over and expect to do the same. Those with chronic mental health problems, though, don’t necessarily associate them with any particular life even even when there is one, and while there is always the hope they’ll get better, a big part of them doesn’t really believe it. The stigma associated with mental illness also lead to difference between milder, transient symptoms and longer duration, mental health issues. The messages that people hear about mental disorders such as they indicate a person is flawed or weak can be internalized by those experiencing more chronic problems and this can lead to a worsening of symptoms. At the same time, even given how distress these problems may be, sometimes the person may feel some reluctance when considering being cured. Sometimes it can just be too much to do even the simplest of things. It struck me how much this is the case, when I read an article written by Erika Sauter, called Letters to Friends and the Motherfucking Sad. She describes what it’s like to not be able to do every day activities even when there’s not much to them. For example, she describes the difficulty she has folding laundry. “I should fold it and put it away. I don’t because I don’t have it in me today, the same as the day before and maybe not tomorrow, either. I turn around, walk back up the stairs and plop myself on the couch.” It’s not that she isn’t able to do this or doesn’t know how. While people who are depressed due to a life event that will pass may feel down in the dumps while they are doing what they need to do, or maybe leave something for the next day, those with serious depression can’t bring themselves to carry out normal daily activities. Garbage may pile up on counter tops, cleaning may not be done for weeks, packages may remain where they were first put down for months, but although the person knows these things need to be done they just can’t. They tell themselves they’ll do it after a break, tomorrow, when they are feeling better, but days run into weeks which run into months and nothing changes Often with mental health issues, passions still exist if only for brief periods. The memories of these passions and the dreams that made life exciting are still there even if the same degree of Sometimes a person with a mental problem may still feel a passion for something but be unable to engage in it. Often times with mental health problems, an individual no longer has the desire to do things they once enjoyed. Sometimes though, the person still has moments when old passions for certain activities return or at least has very strong memories of what it felt like to have those passions. When the person tries to engage in the activity they were once passionate about, even during those times when there’s a glimmer of the old desire, they just can’t quite manage it. The inability to do what they once loved, just adds to the problem. There may also be the thought that if the time they’ve wasted when their problem has prevented them from doing much of anything, had been used in pursuing their passion they could have accomplished something remarkable. Instead, they feel even worse about themselves, and may be convinced they’ll never be able to do the activity again. Is It Always All Misery Though? I think the answer to this lies in how you define misery. This is because even with everything I said above, that the problem becomes familiar and thus, on some level, safe. When you feel a certain way for a long time, even if it’s not a positive one, it starts to become normal. Even though there is a desire to give it up and have a happier life, at the same time, the thought of doing so can be scary because it is unfamiliar. The problem itself may even be seen in some ways as positive. In the article mentioned above, the author says: “My mind suffers from agoraphobia and my body from depression. There’s an unspoken beauty where the calmness meets the chest crushing pain. Sometimes people feel sad because I’m sad, but there’s strength in sadness. Depression does rob me of self worth and life experiences, and the belief that some day I’ll prevail but it also provides the ability to live in the moment. Mindfulness. Depression is the gift of mindfulness. It’s not so bad for me, you know?” I took this to mean that when those moments of calm arrive they are practically miraculous when compared to what the author calls the “chest crushing pain.” And even though the depression robs her of hope that she’ll ever be free of it, the inability to focus on the future means that she is able to live in the moment, something she perceives as positive. “It’s not so bad for me, you know?” Sometimes, because of the familiarity and talking themselves into the idea that there are positives to the problem, the person can have a part of them that doesn’t want to give it up. I can remember treating a man with schizophrenia who had an amazing response to medication and therapy. The symptoms disappeared he was able to fully get back into life. He got a good job and started started participating in social activities and making friends. He rented a nice apartment, off the street for the first time in several years. He continued to improve over the three months that I worked with him and I can remember leaving that rotation thinking he was definitely one of the success stories. I was stunned to find out only a month later from the intern who had taken my case load for that rotation, that the patient was off his medication and back on the street. There was an outreach team who tried to help the large number of mentally ill homeless people. They took me to where the patient slept and I convinced him to come in to see me for one session. Though his psychotic symptoms were back he could still explain why it was he had given up all the improvements to his life. He said that he didn’t know exactly how to navigate the “new world” he experienced off of his medication, so even though life on the streets might have been harder it felt more familiar. He added that while “normals” might think that what he referred to as his “psychotic world” might seem chaotic, unpredictable and frightening, it was what he’d known for over 20 years and he missed it when the medication caused it to disappear. Take Away It can be hard for people who have never had serious mental health issues to fully understand what it is like for those who have. Even though it may seem like we understand what chronic depression or anxiety feel like because there have been times we felt depressed or anxious, the truth is it is a very different experience for the people who suffer from these types of problems long term. It’s important to recognize that unless we have had to contend with a similar difficulty that wasn’t situational or short term we can’t assume to know what it’s like for those who have a disorder. It may not make sense to us how a mental problem that prevents someone from taking care of even the smallest of chores or from living in the real world can be viewed as having any positive parts. It may seem counter-intuitive that someone may feel ambivalent about getting better. It’s important to accept those with these types of problems on their own terms and meet them where they are, not where we expect them to be. Doing this in a supportive manner is the best way to help them not have to deal with feeling as if they are isolated from caring others in their life as well. Thanks to Erika Sauter for inspiring this article.

https://medium.com/invisible-illness/when-mental-illness-becomes-a-friend-f2a4f57289e

['Natalie Frank']

2019-05-23 09:03:59.326000+00:00

['Relationships', 'Mental Health', 'Mental Illness', 'Mindset', 'Psychology']

Ryobi CB120L repair (again) — UPDATED 5/10/20

Update TL;DR: rebalancing didn’t work at all, Bought a refurb CB121L and it’s nicer, see below. The ryobi 12v line is still soldiering on, even though it’s been mostly replaced and eclipsed by the 18v tools. This one in particular is still running because new ones cost money. I’d re-celled the batteries about two years ago with new Samsung 18650 cells, but recently when I plugged it in to charge it started giving me the “defective battery” indicator. I hadn’t beat on the thing that hard, so I decided to open it up and see what was going on (again). I neglected to take pictures of a fair amount of this, but the problem turned out to be a seriously unbalanced battery pack. Cell 3 (most positive) was at 2.65v and the other two were at 3.96v. I figured the first thing to try was just rebalancing the pack by charging cell 3. I started cautiously with the bench supply, and ramped it to 500 mA and then 1 amp once it was over 3v. Hey Mikey… With the pack rebalanced, the internal protection chip and the charger have no issues with it at all. The drill spins and the lights blink to indicate the battery is charging. So what went wrong here? Acute failure of the cell is possible, but it behaves like a healthy li-ion cell. The rebalancing process was split across two days and the cell voltage didn’t drop at all overnight, a cell damaged enough to have that low of voltage in a pack likely would. Please excuse my dear aunt I don’t have a macro lens This little guy labeled U3 is the BMS chip for this board. It’s an Ablic 8254AA, produced from 2002–2016. It’s a fairly simple protection IC for 3 or 4 cell lithium ion batteries which can detect the voltage of each cell and provides over charge and overdischarge protection. Critically the IC does NOT offer any cell balancing, but with those C1 and C2 connectors on the charge terminal surely this must be managed by the charger itself, right? There’s only the one FET on the board, between the negative terminal and the battery negative. Application notes for the 8254AA show two JFETs on the positive, so not sure what’s going on there. Apparently some fairly large inductive spikes are expected from the motor. Pretty sure the thing under the pink tape is a thermal fuse. Clearly there also isn’t any provision for passive balancing on this board either, I’d expect to see some big ole resistors if that were the case. It’s a good thing they put these security torx in here, otherwise I might have assumed that it was totally safe to open under any conditions. Interestingly there are no warning labels about no user serviceable parts inside or whatnot. Maybe those are in the manual it says to read. Well there’s your problem… The charger itself runs on a real actual ATMEL branded microcontroller, this really must have been early days for lithium tools. Anyway those two big pins to the right of the inverted T shaped isolation slot are the wires from C1 and C2 on the charging connector. Via some resistors, they go basically straight in to the microcontroller. There don’t appear to be anything other than passives nearby enough to do anything useful, and those are far too tiny to be used in any significant passive balancing. It’s certainly possible the balance charging is being driven direct from the micro at an unreasonably small current, but given the other evidence of the state of my battery pack, I think it’s safe to assume this charger performs no cell balancing whatsoever. Woops. Kinda makes you wonder how many of these ended up in the landfill with 2 or even 3 good cells in them. I guess a future project will be building an adapter board to plug this in to the hobby charger… Oh if anyone wants to poke their battery to test it without taking it apart, here’s my terrible hand drawn pinout of the connector. The unlabeled pins appear to go straight to the thermistor, which was around 18k in my 75ish F room. You’ll need some super narrow tips, my normal meter leads wouldn’t fit. UPDATE: I bought some macro tubes too Lets just get down to it. There’s been quite a few changes between the CB120 and the CB121, both in the plastic molding and the board. The bolts are up top now. And one has a warranty plug fixed Anyway lets talk about the board. From usage, I know this battery is much better at staying balanced than the older 120. Too much better to be an accident, and there’s a reason for that. remember those big ol resistors I mentioned the old board was missing? There’s a few important additions that have been made. One is this little chip here, which I can’t find on google at all. Presumably it’s some kind of battery balance IC because those big 51 ohm resistors are each connected between one of the cells and one of those transistors. There’s an oddly placed third one up near the cell 1 connector. The conformal coating on the board is very thick for too much poking around, but from the amount I have done, and due to the fact that the cells stay rock stable balanced to within 10 mV, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet one of the major revisions to the CB121 was the addition of balancing. At 4.2v, the 51 ohm resistors would dissapate about 346 mW each, which should be sufficient for relatively fast passive balancing, and within the 400 mW spec for a 1206 smd resistor. Other revisions of note: Although it’s kinda in shadow up there, hopefully you can see the flyback diode is much smaller, 1 amp instead of 3 amp by the looks of things. I couldn’t read the part number off the larger chip due to the thick coating, but due to it’s size and what appears to be some sort of serial interface nearby, I’m guessing it’s a full microcontroller, possibly with an integrated gate driver. The funky metal strip on the positive terminal is likely a makeshift fuse, possibly they had some issues with the packs being able to deliver more power than the board could cut off. They’ve also added a big ole electrolytic capacitor, they even had to add a slot in the board for it. I didn’t bother checking, but I’d guess this has to to with power supply for the large micro. The hand soldering on the larger joints is pretty ugly but I’m not concerned about it’s durability. I’m sure it will last at least the life of the cells. To sum up, if you’re interested in re-celling your CB120 batteries… Don’t! For just a little more than the fresh cells (refurbished), you can get one of the newer CB121 batteries complete with cells and ready to go, and it’s got balancing in it. Get one of those and re-cell it in a few years. Although that being said, if you’ve got the cells already and just need the drill to spin NOW, the re-cell on the CB120 did last me two years, which isn’t abjectly awful for a tool battery. I’ll be using the CB121 from now on though.

https://medium.com/@cameronmakesthings/ryobi-cb120l-repair-again-aa9b94520013

['Cameron Mcewen']

2020-05-10 20:01:17.774000+00:00

['Ryobi Cordless Tools', 'Repair', 'Battery']

New Helium App Features: Remote Assert, Search, & More 📱!

Spring has sprung and the Helium App has three great new features we’re excited to tell you about! Remote Assert Our first feature is Remote Assert! Highly requested by Hosts, Owners, and those with remote Hotspot deployments, Remote Assert removes the need to pair with the physical Hotspot. Instead, pairing can be initiated by the Hotspot Owner any time, anywhere. All you need to do is update the app to version 3.1.0, find your Hotspot, press Settings, then Update Location, and drop the pin for its new location. The cost to assert is the same as before. Bundled in with the new Remote Assert feature is the ability to add a Hotspot’s TX/ RX antenna gain (in dBi) and Height (in meters, above ground level) information to the blockchain. Why is this beneficial? By supplying these additional details, the Helium Network can better understand Hotspot placement and antenna upgrades. Note that this information won’t be used immediately by Proof-of-Coverage, but the network intends on using this in the near future. Search Ever wanted to quickly lookup which Hotspots are in a city or see the earnings of a Hotspot on the fly, without leaving the app? Now you can! With the new Search functionality in the App, not only can you search by Hotspot name on the Network, you can also search by name of the Hotspots you own! If you are a Patron with many Hotspots to your name, this will be the feature for you. Try it out yourself! Start typing any Hotspot name and it will filter down and suggest possible Hotspots. Tap on them and hit the Flag icon to Follow them (more on that later). You can also “fly to” any city on the Network to see if there are Hotspots deployed. Follow a Hotspot Our next (very exciting) feature also benefits Hosts, Owners, and curious spectators. Follow a Hotspot allows anyone to favorite, or follow, a Hotspot on the Network. We’ve often heard Hosts request the ability to view their Hotspot’s mining and activity on their own personal Helium App so they know exactly how their Hotspot is doing, be alerted when it goes offline, or simply update the Wi-Fi once they receive the Hotspot (Bluetooth Pairing required). Notice that it’ll say “Owned By…” with the Flag icon 🏳️. When you’re following a Hotspot, the flag will turn purple and will be added to the Followed Hotspots filter on the Hotspot page. As a Host, you can pair with a Followed Hotspot to update Wi-Fi and even run Diagnostics (Bluetooth pairing required). For security reasons, users won’t be able to Transfer Hotspot or Update Location if they do not own it. Feedback and Contributions Welcomed! And that’s it for our huge features update for the Helium App! We hope this improves the user experience for all types of Network users and we look forward to your feedback. For feature requests, bug reporting, or even trying your hand at contributing to code, please visit our Github page.

https://blog.helium.com/new-helium-app-features-remote-assert-search-more-ac96c584d665

['Coco Tang']

2021-04-21 17:56:59.307000+00:00

['Technology News', 'Technology', 'Crypto', 'Tech', 'Blockchain']

The importance of seeing the world as a closed chemical system

Today, I want to talk about the planet being a smorgasbord of chemical systems in constant flux without political boundaries. Seeing it as such is of paramount importance for a thriving future society. I think it is extremely important to see it this way. It will serve the environmentalist within us, sure. Having a good realistic vision of how this planetary system is interconnected should help us in our decision-making today to create a nice future to us all. In scientific terms, the Earth is a closed system. It receives energy from the Sun and dissipates just as much energy outwards but matter-wise, the number of molecules that come in and out of the atmosphere is negligible. This means that every atom of carbon, hydrogen, iron, nitrogen, phosphorus (and all the rest) on the planet remains on the planet. They just get connected with other atoms over time through chemical reactions. Molecules get broken down and reassembled in different ways. Molecules also move around by air, waterways and through contact with living creatures. Some of them move around due to natural phenomena like volcanoes, earthquakes and tornadoes. But all this matter, all these atoms stay on the Earth. There will always be exactly the same amount of each type of atom on Earth. They just get rearranged. The Earth is just a bunch of chemicals following the laws of thermodynamics. Then we have life. Organic molecules that make up living creatures also follow the laws of thermodynamics, but contrary to inorganic molecules, organic molecules in life is the great molecular organizer, opposing entropy, powered by the Sun. Plants and plankton take sunlight to create molecular energy (sugars, fats) from simpler molecules (carbon dioxide and water) to build more cells, grow and multiply. Animals and bacteria eat these photosynthesizing marvels for their molecular energy, also to build more cells, grow and multiply. Life builds up in complexity and organizes while the non-living chemistry constantly tries to erode and disintegrate. This is the nature of things. Why are these concepts important? Before human industrialization, all of life was in harmony but it wasn’t calm. There was a balance in the chemistry. There was just as much construction by the living as there was destruction by the non-living. When we industrialized, we started the process of interfering with the planet’s chemical equilibrium in a significant way, throwing much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than previously and destroying an incalculable amount of vegetation giving us space to grow and produce. We didn’t know any better for a long time out of ignorance. We were messing around with the very systems that normally reabsorbed the carbon dioxide to make more chemical energy for life and importantly, to convert some of it into oxygen the animals need. Starting early in the 20th century carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere started rising above historical highs, triggering counterbalances in this single chemical experiment we call home. NASA Carbon Dioxide Vital Signs Whether human-made deforestation and industrial pollution occurs in Asia or in Europe, the effect is felt everywhere since all those chemical systems are intimately interconnected. On the other hand, this additional carbon dioxide and additional water vapor due to a global increase in average temperature spurred additional growth of vegetation. Our ecosystem will constantly try to balance itself. Lunge, riposte. And so, it did. It is an action-reaction effect we can measure. We cannot ignore this balance. All our activities within this closed system affects all the chemistry trying to balance itself out. The trick and the main point of this article is that we must understand these balancing acts and work with the huge amount of chemical reactions out there for our benefit. The world has started to awaken to this fact in 2016 with the Paris Agreement (and most countries have agreed in unison to take actions to evaluate possible damages to our ecosystems and rolled out the start of a plan to dial things back quite a bit over the next few years. That’s a great first step. It is quite to our advantage to ensure the natural chemical balance within nature’s ecosystems are not compromised to a point of no return. There is such a thing. In addition, it raises the question of how we take decisions moving forward as we gain more and more understanding of our physical impact in the world. Knowing that everything we do has a chain reaction impact all over the planet to a degree, is humbling but predictable. Modern tools can help us predict and manage our impact on the Earth. We just can’t do it alone. Artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledgers are highly disruptive technologies that have started the 4th industrial revolution. They are software, which means more memory, more computing devices and more power needed for computing. We can choose how we are drawing power (ideally from the Sun directly), we can choose in what materials we build our devices and we can choose how we are manufacturing these components. This all means converting molecules and atoms to a different state of existence using energy. We can minimize the environmental impacts of these processes, and/or integrate the processes with natural biological processes. That’s why synthetic biology is of great interest to me: using biological systems that already exists to convert materials from one form to another but within the boundaries and chemical balances of natural systems. AI and distributed ledgers therefore can both help build a highly efficient balanced future for us and help us predict our impact on the Earth’s chemical balances without disrupting these balances along the way. Also, artificial intelligence and distributed ledgers can save huge amounts of energy by allowing citizens of a nation to solve problems on their own without the need of wasteful and expensive central systems. Transferring money from one person to another using Bitcoin has a much lower environmental impact than using a bank with its buildings and employees. Having AI manage the food supply chain through fully automated farming, self-driving transport vehicles and on-demand automated grocery delivery drones to the home is supremely efficient. We could then avoid 30% of the food we are wasting every season. It would keep everything solar-powered and electrical (versus combustion power for all the vehicles involved). We’d save space, thus costs by having no workers around taking up space in homes nearby, use break rooms, use bathrooms and taking up space in vehicles. Stay home humans, you’re in the way of an efficient supply chain! Today’s and tomorrow’s technology can be designed to work in harmony or even enhance the other chemical reactions going on all around us for our benefit. A great example of this is the idea to use the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere we’ve been cumulating for years, powered by the Sun, to create gasoline. Several research teams have shown we can make gasoline this way in a single stage reaction. If we can do that, we can also make other carbohydrates like sugar, starch or some plastics if we set our minds to it. I’m sure some labs have figured that last part out. Other teams in China have figured out an easy way, through genetic engineering, how to grow rice plants in ocean water, allowing for changes to an ecosystem that wouldn’t have changed otherwise while adding much more available farmland. We will continue to change our world, our big blue spaceship because we are creators and engineers. We want to improve our lives and do amazing things. What I’m saying is that we must find a good way to deploy our ideas so that balance of the rest of the chemical systems on the planet is not inadvertently or overly negatively affected. It will be a measure of our social maturity whether we are able to do this collaboratively, together, at a time when not every national leader seems to understand the global impact we all have.

https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/the-importance-of-seeing-the-world-as-a-chemical-system-9bca0c52587c

['Sylvain Rochon']

2018-10-18 22:42:27.370000+00:00

['Climate Change', 'Ecology', 'Biochemistry', 'Environment']

The problem with real news — and what we can do about it

Forget fake news, a poisonous term. Real news is an even bigger problem. This realization is what inspired me to found the Dutch journalism platform De Correspondent in 2013, promising to be “an antidote to the daily news grind” for its readers. So many people responded that we even set a world record in crowdfunding a news site. Today, we’re on the verge of launching The Correspondent, bringing unbreaking news to the United States and beyond. Rob Wijnberg speaking at the launch of De Correspondent | Photo: Bas Losekoot That the news in its traditional forms is the problem with journalism actually dawned on me much earlier, when in 2006 I joined the editorial department of a major Dutch newspaper. I was 24 and studying philosophy when I landed a job covering domestic affairs. As a philosophy student does, I immediately started asking: what is this thing called news that I’m supposed to make here? Scrutinizing the practices of my colleagues, I eventually distilled a definition that I think describes news pretty accurately. News is all about sensational, exceptional, negative, and current events. And those five words capture precisely the problem with news. The news is: one crazy unrelated event after another To start off with the sensational: news is generally that which is shocking, scandalous, or appalling enough to evoke comment. It often revolves around what’s most visible — one might even say explosive. That is why terrorist attacks are often news, says Guardian journalist Joris Luyendijk, but occupations of foreign lands are not. Attacks are shocking, highly visible events, occupation much less so. Put another way: it’s easy to capture a bus exploding, yet very hard to film the suppression of everyday freedoms. Extending this idea, the news also mostly revolves around the highly exceptional. Cartoonist Matt Wuerker captured this attribute of news brilliantly: while we’re surrounded with millions and millions of peace loving, law abiding, hate fighting, unity advocating fellow citizens, it only takes a few neo-Nazis, jihadis or KluKluxKlanners to fill a news cycle twentyfourseven. Cartoon: Matt Wuerker | Source: Politico Not only does this skew our view of other human beings, news also makes us blind to the influential that is not exceptional at all. That’s why we often don’t hear about major developments until something highly improbable happens (events the Lebanese-American philosopher Nassim Taleb dubbed “black swans”). The 2008 financial crisis, for example, didn’t become huge news until the Lehman Brothers investment bank filed for bankruptcy — a highly unusual event. But the lead up to this event — banks that kept piling risk on top of risk, little by little, day by day — never made it to the front page because of the fundamental mismatch between what was happening (gradual risk increase) and the way news commonly signals what is happening (event-driven sensationalism). The news is also, almost without exception, negative. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a journalism catchphrase. In other words: good news is no news. People who keep up with the news are thus quick to think the world is getting ever more dangerous — though in fact the opposite is true. What’s more, the news constantly gives us the feeling that people can’t be trusted: they commit fraud, they’re corrupt, they steal from one another, they blow themselves up. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of people are good and want to do right by others. But that’s not news, is it? The news is also obsessed by what’s recent. Almost everything that’s news must be something that has just now taken place. But the most recent thing isn’t by definition the most influential one. Everything in the world has a history. And that history determines in large part why something happens. Because the news usually keeps its eye trained on today, it blinds us to the longer term, both past and future. Informing us about power structures that have grown over time, like the historical roots of racism, or alerting us to gradual societal changes, like the financialization of our economy, is simply not natural to the forms and rhythms of daily news. And the reason for that, lastly, is that the news revolves mainly around events. News has to have a hook, to use journalism jargon: a reason to report it now instead of later. That sounds logical, but it means that trends rarely make the evening news. For trends aren’t instances; they progress over time. That’s why the nightly news always ends with the weather, but never with the climate. You can’t say: “Today the climate changed”, even though it actually did. Hook-think is also why much of the news consists of what we might call calendar journalism: recurring, often planned events that serve as an excuse to elevate something to the status of news. Consider press conferences, quarterly earnings, think tank reports, commemorative services, and anniversaries. Or the president’s tweets. That means you can pencil in much of the news in advance, making it something that isn’t “new” at all. The news is: what’s not happening When you put all this together, it means the news actually fails to deliver on its single biggest promise: to tell us what’s happening in the world. People who follow the news mostly know what doesn’t happen. It portrays the world to us as a never ending string of sensational, unusual, terrible, rapidly forgotten events. In contrast to fake news, which is misleading because it’s simply untrue, real news misleads us in a more subtle and fundamental way. It gives us a deeply skewed view of probability, history, progress, development, and relevance. That’s why we’re quick to think that most terrorists are Muslims, even though that isn’t true. Or that the world is only getting worse, even though that isn’t true. Or that terrorist attacks pose a greater threat to our well-being than sugar, even though that isn’t true. Or that the financial crisis started in 2008, even though that isn’t true. Or that crime is going up in the United States, even though that isn’t true. In short, our news obsession takes away from what journalism as a practice is supposed to be about: helping everyone who is part of the public understand the world well enough to join in public discussion about what is to be done. As the saying goes: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.” The news is: a health hazard To be clear: when I say “news” I don’t mean “all journalism.” There are countless types of journalism that are thorough and informative, and there are ten of thousands of journalists committed to public service who do invaluable work. Nor is my criticism of the news meant as a dismissal of “the media,” as that phrase is now commonly understood. Like many of my colleagues, I am worried by the wave of mistrust toward journalists that’s currently sweeping the United States and the world at large, spurred on by a political elite that hopes to exploit this suspicion of the media. But of all the forms that journalism can take, the news is by far the most influential. We consume it in unbelievable quantities: on average Americans spend almost 70 minutes a day following the news in some form — that’s more than four full years across an average lifespan. As a result it dominates our water cooler conversations, largely sets the political agenda, and heavily shapes our view of humanity and the world. And not in a good way. The ultimate effect of our excessive news consumption — more accurately, our news addiction — is to make us afraid of other people, skeptical of the future, and cynical about our own ability to affect it. Day in, day out, the news confirms our most stubborn prejudices and our greatest fears. It makes us pessimistic and suspicious. It even makes us unhappy. In short, the news is bad for us, as individuals and as a society. “News is to the mind,” the Swiss writer Rolf Dobelli once wrote, “what sugar is to the body.” Really, the news should come with a surgeon general’s warning. We need an antidote to the news To help temper the negative effects of the news, I founded the Dutch journalism platform De Correspondent five years ago with a crowdfunding campaign. The idea behind it was simple: let’s redefine the news together — from the sensational to the foundational. And the response was overwhelming: nearly 19,000 founding members joined our cause and helped us achieve a world record in journalism crowdfunding. We raised $1.7 million in a country of just 17 million people. In five years our member base grew to over 60,000 today, making us one of the fastest growing community funded news sites in Europe. These members enable De Correspondent to be a fiercely ad-free, in-depth journalism platform, making good on our slogan on a daily basis: being “an antidote to the daily news grind.” The problem isn’t liberal bias, it’s recency bias That slogan perfectly captures our mission: to serve as a remedy to the worst effects of the news. Central to that is a different definition of news. Instead of looking only at what happened today, at De Correspondent we look at what happens every day. When you do that consistently, it makes for a different view of the world. Because why is it that after nearly every major societal shock, from weapons of mass destruction to the financial crisis to Brexit to Trump’s election, people in the news media ask the same question: why didn’t we see this coming? The most common answer is ideological bias. Journalists are “too left-wing” or “too liberal” and so they don’t want to acknowledge what is really going on. I think there’s a better answer. The news media have the wrong definition of news. Lehman Brothers’ fall, Britain’s break from the EU, and Trump’s election are indeed spectacular, exceptional events, but they are also the result of slow, unobtrusive, systemic trends. Phenomena that take place not today but everyday, and therefore never develop a hook that qualifies them to be presented as news. Phenomena that are also too everyday to generate sensational headlines or clicks. Rob founded De Correspondent in Amsterdam in 2013 Going from the sensational to the foundational, with the help of readers At De Correspondent in the Netherlands, we try to tell precisely those stories that aren’t news, but news-worthy nevertheless. Or, as we often say, that reveal not the weather but the climate. Those stories are written by correspondents who don’t have a news-driven schedule to meet, and thus can take the time they need to develop an area of expertise and learn to recognize and describe the truly influential developments of our time. Our ultimate goal: to replace the sensational with the foundational and the recent with the relevant. To achieve that, we’ve had to learn new journalistic habits at De Correspondent. And even more important: we’ve had to break old ones. The key habit we had to break was the journalist’s traditional bar for relevance and timeliness. There’s a kind of unspoken agreement among journalists on what exactly constitutes the most important “issues of the day” — and that unspoken agreement is tightly linked to the fact that journalists are themselves extremely heavy news consumers. Their own excessive news consumption predisposes journalists to believe that what’s happening in the world right this instant, and what’s the most important story to tell right now, is whatever’s getting a lot of airplay in other media. That makes it easy and safe to do the same. Then no one can be blamed for over-reporting it, because everyone is responsible for that. To put an end to this self-fulfilling prophecy, the first thing we do is teach our correspondents to seriously moderate their own consumption of news. We encourage them to seek inspiration for article ideas outside of the day’s newspapers, talk shows, and tweets — by going out into the streets, by reading books, and, above all, by asking our readers the question, “What do you encounter every day at work or in your life that rarely makes the front page, but really should?” Now, it may sound easy to ignore the news, but it turns out to be quite a challenge. Journalists are quick to fear they’re missing out: there’s no sin more cardinal than letting a competing news outlet take center stage with breaking news you don’t have yourself. Even at De Correspondent, we still wrestle with this problem on occasion. Especially when events happen that rivet the world’s attention, such as terrorist attacks. But those are precisely the moments we guard against, lest we reflexively fall back into the habit of reporting on mayflies. We resist that urge not by asking ourselves “What are we going to do with this news?” but by asking “What do we have to add to this news that isn’t available anywhere else?” If the answer is “nothing,” then we won’t report on even the most major of news events. That’s why in 2016, on the day of the tragic bombings in Brussels, just 125 miles from our office in Amsterdam, we didn’t publish a word. Instead, we referred our members to the best reporting by other outlets, in full keeping with the philosophy of media professor Jeff Jarvis: “Do what you do best, link to the rest.” Our readers appreciated this so much that we welcomed more new members that day than ever before. That change of habit — that redefinition of relevant — has sparked a deeper and, we believe, profoundly positive change: it’s no longer our correspondents’ goal to be the first, get a scoop, or be picked up by other outlets. Their goal is to thoroughly ground themselves in the major developments of our time and, along the way, share their learning curve with a growing community of followers. To get there, we’ve also had to train our correspondents to stop thinking in completed stories. Most newspaper articles and television news items can’t be published or broadcast until they’re complete. But that limitation is absent online, where news can be an unfolding process instead of a static snapshot. Instead of only presenting readers with the finished product, our correspondents share their plans and ideas, and then provide interim updates by keeping a public notebook. This interactive way of doing journalism has a major advantage: our readers can traverse the same learning curve our journalists do. Instead of assuming all kinds of background, as the news often does, our reporting allows the reader to join in at his or her own level of knowledge, and grow from there. And often, that starting point is even higher than that of the journalist. By shining a public light on the journalistic process instead of hiding it behind the wizard’s curtain, we give our readers a way to share their specific knowledge and experiences with our correspondents. And so we’ve trained our journalists to no longer view their readers as passive consumers of information, but as active contributors of expertise. Breaking news: one hundred readers know more than one journalist Our members play a crucial role in discovering and exploring the everyday systems that are the focus of our journalism. At De Correspondent we believe that a hundred readers by definition know more than a single journalist. On our platform these everyday experts share their knowledge and experience with our correspondents. For example, hundreds of teachers, students, and school principals help our Education correspondent understand what’s happening in our schools, and hundreds of doctors, mail carriers, and train conductors help our Public Services correspondent understand the issues at play in our country’s public sector. We ask our members, “What do you encounter every day at work or in your life that rarely makes the news, but really ought to be on the front page?” Their answers are often the start of discoveries we could never have made alone. It is by now no exaggeration to say that the knowledge of our more than 60,000 members has become indispensable to our journalism. Not just because they share what they know, but also because they are willing to pay $80 a year to do so! Their willingness to pay lets us keep De Correspondent fully ad-free. Beyond being pleasant to the eye — no blinking banners screaming for attention — it’s also an essential condition for the kind of journalism we aspire to make. Because the sensationalism and hypersensitivity of our daily news feeds is caused in large part by the underlying business model. Since the 19th century the news has been largely funded by advertising. That means the real product isn’t so much the news itself, but the public’s attention. This attention economy is the breeding ground for today’s screaming front-page headlines and the clickbait glutting our social media. These incentives are less present at De Correspondent because the readers themselves are our clients, and not the advertisers. This is a big reason we can shift from the sensational to the foundational and publish an antidote to the daily news grind: we have members who grasp the connection between the kind of journalism we practice and the elimination of that third party in between journalists and readers, the advertisers. News that helps us make the world a better place This kind of journalism, in which journalists don’t just produce and readers don’t just consume, is ultimately rooted in an underlying conviction: that by sharing our knowledge and experience with each other, we can leave the world better than we found it. Said another way, De Correspondent is based on a belief in progress. That belief isn’t a baseless hope; it isn’t even a political stance. Believing in progress is a rational, factual conclusion. Because the history of humankind is a history of progress. Think about it. Not a single chimpanzee has ever gone to the moon. Not a single chimpanzee carries everything she knows in her pants pocket. Not a single chimpanzee has ever been to court. Yet the chimpanzee and man share a very recent common ancestor. The reason we’ve evolved from nut-cracking apes into rocket-flying humans is as simple as it is ingenious: there is no species on Earth as good at sharing knowledge as we are. No single individual human knows how to build an iPhone, a rocket, or a system of justice, because all of them are the product of shared knowledge. This simple principle of sharing what we know enabled us to keep taking the next step in specializing in what we’re best at. Together, we progressed. But crazily enough fewer and fewer people believe this progress still exists. For the first time since the nineteenth century, when belief in progress became common, a majority of the population in 25 countries believes the world is headed in the wrong direction. Also gaining ground is the idea that the lives of our children and grandchildren will be worse than our own. And one of the worst enablers of this waning belief in progress is — you guessed it — the daily news that we consume. Because the news mostly disseminates outrage and pessimism, not knowledge and confidence. As a result we’re less informed about the world we live in and more skeptical of our ability to change it. I believe there’s another way. I believe that humanity’s fate is best served by sharing knowledge and experience instead of outrage and fear. That together, we can still understand the world. And that a world we understand is a world we can change. Together, we can still make progress. Now that’s real news. Become a founding member at thecorrespondent.com today.

https://medium.com/de-correspondent/the-problem-with-real-news-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-f29aca95c2ea

['Rob Wijnberg']

2018-12-03 15:13:51.887000+00:00

['Journalism']

Skuad’s Transition to Evidence-Based Hiring with Codejudge

Skuad is a tech-enabled platform for companies to effortlessly build remote technology teams. They help companies hire deeply vetted product managers, software engineers, data scientists and digital marketers to quickly execute their product digitization roadmap. Besides this, Skuad also serves as a talent-centric platform that connects professionals to exceptional tech opportunities across the globe. Their mission is to bridge the gap between talent and opportunities that would have otherwise not connected. The Challenge: Assess developers at scale without compromising on the quality of talent and compete with regional firms to showcase the quality of their talent. Previously, like many companies, Skaud resorted to onsite interviews to assess developers. With the pandemic on the rise, remote workers saw unprecedented demand across the globe. While the world was gearing up its efforts to conduct businesses remotely, Skuad was meeting the challenge of competing with regional staffing firms and recruiting organisations. With this expansion, they now faced the unprecedented challenge of meeting their demand for talent supply, without compromising on the quality of their talent. To meet the rise in demand, Skuad had to swiftly expand their talent pool of vetted software developers. This meant that they had to test developers at scale across countries against well-defined rubrics and not abstract metrics to ensure they are able to assess developers ar scale. The Codejudge Solution: With Codejudge’s automated assessments, Skuad tested over 5000+ candidates for their talent pool to effectively match them with their right companies across countries. The data-driven assessments enabled Skaud to add credibility to its pool of talent and showcase the quality of their vetted developers with skill reports that gathered over 127 skill data points. Skuad built their talent pool after testing candidates for both technical acumen and the ability to build scalable solutions. With real word project-based assessments, they were not only able to increase candidate accuracy by 87% but were able to match the right candidates to right profiles based on their work shown through the real-world projects. With the diversity in the type of companies, Skuad built their talent pool after testing candidates for both technical acumen and the ability to build scalable solutions. With real word project-based assessments, they were not only able to increase candidate accuracy by 87% but were able to match the right candidates to right profiles based on their work shown through the real-world projects. The Final Result: Skuad witnessed an 8x decline in the cost to hire a candidate and 6x decline in the time to hire this candidate. While metrics defined success, our biggest achievement was the ability to include developers across different educational backgrounds and prove their technical acumen and real-world skills. The real-world assessments set them apart from competitor firms with similar talent pools and gave them the edge to compete with larger firms. The skill reports generated through Codejudge assessments gave diverse data points on each developer, proving the quality of their talent like never before and giving them a competitive edge over all their competitors. This resulted in Skaud almost doubling their clients in just 3 months. Want to automate your hiring with Codejudge? Start your 14-day free trial with us here.

https://medium.com/codejudge/skuads-transition-to-evidence-based-hiring-with-codejudge-a60226eb1a8

['Saman Kapur']

2020-12-02 04:57:54.791000+00:00

['Startup', 'Recruitment', 'Tech', 'Hiring', 'Hrtech']

You Say “Witch” Like It‘s a Bad Thing

Photo by Mark Tegethoff on Unsplash The answer to one question on my admission to a hospital raises eyebrows and sometimes there’s a pinched mouth (especially if the admissions intake person is an older woman). The question? What is your religion? I answer truthfully: Wiccan…and usually have to add, “I’m a witch” for clarity. That’s my religion, well, at least basically. In “I was once a member of a Coven,’ I gave a brief history of my spiritual quest. However something that important usually takes longer to explain because it took time to get to this belief system. Religion usually follows Family Lines — - My mother was Methodist and married my father whose own father was Catholic but my father wasn’t raised in the Catholic Church — his mother was Dunkard. The Dunkards (who believed in three “dunks” for Baptism — one for each of the Trinity, separated from the Anabaptist). About as far as one can get from Catholicism My Grandfather did not go to Mass; at least, I never knew him to go. I never saw my father go to Mass or if he just used Catholicism as an excuse not to go to church with my mother.. I don’t know if religion was important to him. He always said he talked to God whenever he was in the woods. My mother was the one to initiate me and my sister to Sunday school and church services. Someone gave me a doll dressed as a nun when I was very young. I loved her and then fancifully, as children do, believed I could be a nun, gliding down a cathedral aisle in my long black habit, crucifix swinging from my waist. I started to look into becoming a Catholic and discovered it too constricting, even as a child. I would try again as a young teen. My mother stopped going to church when members would ask her every Sunday to bring her husband. Weren’t her daughters enough? I was confirmed in the Methodist religion and went to church services and Sunday School. I read the Bible… er…religiously. I thought Jesus was the white, long-haired handsome man with blue eyes who could do magic. Most of my friends went to church services, some to the Methodist Church on Main Street, a few blocks from our apartment over my father’s barbershop. I was chubby and didn’t have nice clothes or toys like my friends and going to church made me feel more like them and I wanted to be more like them. They went to the Jersey Shore for vacations, I went to my aunt’s. At eight, I had a vague notion of self-esteem. I knew I didn’t have it. By the time I was in Junior High I was a voracious reader and a history nerd. I inhaled any books about English history, especially the Tudors. I loved the family intrigue and the beheadings. As I grew older and read more, I was beginning to realize that, other than greed there was one other main reason for war and the decimation of a land and its people, religion. One religion was, of course, the true religion, and no matter what any commandments might say, killing off the people of the other religions was the way to go. My first husband didn’t believe in God so there was no push to go to church. I was the family breadwinner but got little respect so I moved on to books about female empowerment. And I learned that one of the greatest female power throughout history was the Wise Woman who helped with births and illnesses; however, when one came up against the patriarchy, she was declared a “witch.” The incorrect Biblical translation of “Don’t suffer a witch to live” would be taken literally and money and lands would be seized and the Wise Woman executed on the flimsiest of charges. I took a class in witchcraft and learned that most of the spells are directed inward. I learned that nature and the wheel of the year were honored. We gathered in a group and when that was over, I became a “solitary” — practicing alone. We don’t believe in Satan. As Laurie Cabot (the witch of Salem) once said, “the Devil is a Christian god.” We don’t sacrifice animals or people; that’s the military/industrial complex. Wicca is a Nature religion. I’ve also studied Native American beliefs and sometimes I feel I have one foot on the Green Path (Wicca) and one foot on the Red Path (Native). Both belief systems have helped me through life’s downs and helped rejoice life’s ups. Hedgewitchery, the use of nature, was probably in my Welsh/Cornish heritage many years ago. So it was a well-worn path. And now it’s Samhain night. The time when the veil between the worlds has thinned. There are so many people I would like to see again (or, like John Lennon, for the first time). The coven would have each of us burn a small paper with the name of a loved one who’d passed — to send the name and our love to them in the Universe. If the sending was successful the loved one would visit us in our dreams. And now I must write “John Lennon” on a small piece of paper and find my fireplace lighter..

https://mitzi-flyte.medium.com/you-say-witch-like-it-s-a-bad-thing-a0424a9bdb3f

[]

2019-10-31 23:26:36.405000+00:00

['Life Lessons', 'Christianity', 'Witch', 'Witchcraft', 'Wicca']

OTT Is Crucial in the 2020 Election Cycle

If your campaign isn’t already using OTT, chances are you’re behind the competition. OTT platforms offer a wealth of opportunity to reach consumers in an impactful, cost-effective way. The current shelter-in-place orders have caused OTT usage to trend even further upward. Here’s what you need to know to get up to speed. The Way We Advertise is Changing Consumers are abandoning their cable providers in favor of streaming services like Roku, Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video. It’s predicted 82% of all American households will use these platforms in the next three years. As we saw in the primaries, political advertisers are migrating their ad budgets to OTT. It’s the smartest move they could make, especially during the general election. OTT advertising wasn’t the norm even two years ago. Now, OTT surpasses linear TV and other traditional advertising methods in reach alone. Plain and simple, OTT is growing quickly in popularity and doesn’t show signs of slowing down. There are more than 200 million active users using OTT platforms. According to a recent study by Roku, shelter-in-place orders have caused a massive spike in OTT use. OTT hours have increased 43% since January 2020, with the largest jump happening the week of March 15th. Comparatively, linear TV saw only a 15% spike over that same period. This is indicative of a larger trend. More households are moving from cable or satellite TV altogether, in favor of OTT platforms. These “cord cutters” continue to grow in number. In the past eight years, the number of US households abandoning their cable has grown 48%. It’s projected that by 2023, 44% of households will have cut the cord. What’s more impressive than OTT’s reach is how effectively it reaches these audiences. OTT Outranks Linear TV in Performance Controls have been put in place to make OTT more powerful and dynamic than any linear TV campaign. The ability to reach granular audience segments and tailor the messages served is a game-changer, particularly in this election year. OTT ads have a proven engagement rate of three times more and a retention rate that is nearly four times that of linear TV ads. Advertisers can be more strategic and budget-efficient with OTT. Ongoing developments also allow for OTT’s integration into an omnichannel approach that reaches audiences with precision across all platforms. Precision Targeting. Linear TV casts a wide net that (hopefully) lands on the advertiser’s key audience based on age, location, and gender. But OTT allows advertisers to hyper-target key audiences. They can serve strategic ads to viewers by income, ethnicity, zip code and level of education. Recent developments are creating opportunities for advertisers to target viewers using first and third-party data, like voter files, coalition lists or proprietary models like our Atlas influencer targeting lists. Linear TV casts a wide net that (hopefully) lands on the advertiser’s key audience based on age, location, and gender. But OTT allows advertisers to hyper-target key audiences. They can serve strategic ads to viewers by income, ethnicity, zip code and level of education. Recent developments are creating opportunities for advertisers to target viewers using first and third-party data, like voter files, coalition lists or proprietary models like our Atlas influencer targeting lists. Frequency Caps. Advertisers can cap the frequency of the OTT advertisements served to key audiences and on what platforms. This ensures no under- or over-exposure. Advertisers can cap the frequency of the OTT advertisements served to key audiences and on what platforms. This ensures no under- or over-exposure. Versioning. OTT can show different messages to different audience segments. Politicians can serve issue-based ads to audiences who will be most receptive to them. OTT isn’t one size fits all. But it’s the one tactic political campaigns must consider heading into November elections. Reach out to review your campaign’s performance and learn how to take advantage of the possibilities OTT offers. Controls have been put in place to make OTT more powerful and dynamic than any linear TV campaign. The ability to reach granular audience segments and tailor the messages served is a game-changer, particularly in this election year. OTT ads have a proven engagement rate of three times more and a retention rate that is nearly four times that of linear TV ads. Advertisers can be more strategic and budget-efficient with OTT. Ongoing developments also allow for OTT’s integration into an omnichannel approach that reaches audiences with precision across all platforms. Precision Targeting. Linear TV casts a wide net that (hopefully) lands on the advertiser’s key audience based on age, location, and gender. But OTT allows advertisers to hyper-target key audiences. They can serve strategic ads to viewers by income, ethnicity, zip code and level of education. Recent developments are creating opportunities for advertisers to target viewers using first and third-party data, like voter files, coalition lists or proprietary models like our Atlas influencer targeting lists. Linear TV casts a wide net that (hopefully) lands on the advertiser’s key audience based on age, location, and gender. But OTT allows advertisers to hyper-target key audiences. They can serve strategic ads to viewers by income, ethnicity, zip code and level of education. Recent developments are creating opportunities for advertisers to target viewers using first and third-party data, like voter files, coalition lists or proprietary models like our Atlas influencer targeting lists. Frequency Caps. Advertisers can cap the frequency of the OTT advertisements served to key audiences and on what platforms. This ensures no under- or over-exposure. Advertisers can cap the frequency of the OTT advertisements served to key audiences and on what platforms. This ensures no under- or over-exposure. Versioning. OTT can show different messages to different audience segments. Politicians can serve issue-based ads to audiences who will be most receptive to them. OTT isn’t one size fits all. But it’s the one tactic political campaigns must consider heading into November elections. Reach out to review your campaign’s performance and learn how to take advantage of the possibilities OTT offers.

https://medium.com/unearth/ott-is-crucial-in-the-2020-election-cycle-eb078d539c85

[]

2020-05-06 18:04:23.106000+00:00

['Digital Campaigns', 'Digital Advocacy', 'Political Advertising', 'Public Affairs Technology', 'Public Affairs']

Powerful Conversion Techniques: Unlock Recurring Donations with your Facebook Donor Data

You can target audiences on Facebook with many different ad formats and ad targeting parameters. Mastering your Facebook targeting strategy gets you in front of very specific segments of your audience who are motivated to donate. After all, who is more likely to give than those who have already given? Donor data is one of the most valuable tools in your fundraising arsenal. Your data tells you when your donors are more likely to give (time, day, week) and how frequently they are likely to give (so you know exactly when to target them). It also tells you the type of content that inspires generosity. Through your data you will uncover critical insights to help convert donors time and time again. Here is your guide to getting folks who have donated on social media to give again, and again. 1. Download Your Donor Data You can download your donor data from your nonprofit donor page from your Goodworld account and clicking “Export CSV” in the bottom right corner. You can sort the data prior to downloading it and the exported document will show what you’ve chosen to see. Similarly, you can download your donation data from your Goodworld account by clicking “Export CSV” in the bottom right corner of your donations page. Your donor data not only allows you to differentiate between regular contributors and one-time donors, but also allows you to sort donations by touch points such as amount given, source of donation, and amount of donations. As a nonprofit, you can use this information to segment your donor base, so that you’re asking: the right audience the right ask in the right place 2. Create a Facebook Custom Audience of Existing Donors Facebook Custom Audiences is an advanced feature that enables you to connect with your existing donors on Facebook. Getting in front of your existing donors on their favorite social network not only reinforces your brand, but also gives you the opportunity to increase lifetime customer value, donation frequency, and loyalty. By creating a multi-channel, direct relationship with your donors, you can rapidly create a community of regular givers. This works the other way, too — you can increase the efficacy of your campaigns and avoid wasted clicks by excluding your existing customer list. If you’re introducing a new donor drive, for example, there’s no reason to show it to your loyal donors. Custom Audiences are created by uploading your Goodworld donor data in CSV or TXT format, to Facebook. Custom Audience on Facebook 3. Promote Fundraising Post to Custom Audience Then simply target your lapsed donors in your custom audience with a promoted post on Facebook or Instagram. 4. Creating a Lookalike Audience With Lookalike Audiences, not only can you harness the power of your donor data to strengthen your relationship with existing donors, but you can scale your donor base by reaching new people who are similar to your existing audience. Creating a Lookalike Audience is simple — FB finds new, similar people using the data points of your source audience of the population you select. Lookalike Audience on Facebook When it comes to donor data, knowledge equals power. Knowing your donors equips you to build a better, deeper relationship with them — benefiting both your nonprofit and your donors. If you’d like to learn more about how Goodworld’s technology can activate your donors with social media, visit our website here.

https://medium.com/@goodworld_me/ridiculously-powerful-conversion-techniques-10x-your-donations-from-existing-donors-on-fb-be346ed00778

[]

2019-06-27 19:04:37.686000+00:00

['Fintech', 'Charity', 'Facebook', 'Donor Retention', 'Donations']

Religious Freedom 101

Teach your kids the basics during the holidays. Let’s be honest. Religious freedom isn’t top of mind for any kid right now (or adult, for that matter). But if you can subtly weave the subject into daily conversations, you’ll be doing your kids an enormous favor. Once the 2020 nightmare is over, equality, human rights, and decency will (hopefully) become a priority again. Randomly offer nuggets of information about religious equality by discussing your own family’s religion (if you have one), all religions’ common denominator (hope), and the importance of respecting others. Keep it simple. ​ Discuss your family’s religious traditions Before talking about other religions, your child must understand their own family’s religious background. Share your family’s religious history as part of the fabric of your family. When you broach the subject, make your child feel like you’re sharing special information with them. The goal is to help them feel pride in their own faith, first, so they can connect that feeling to friends and family who worship a different religion. Does your family have any religious rituals? Traditional ones? New ones? Kids love to talk about things their family does together. ​After you have helped your child feel a sense of pride about your own family’s religious traditions, be sure to mention that other families most likely have their own religious traditions that give them the same kind of warm feeling. ​ ​ Offer a ‘religious equality’ simple definition ​Here’s a definition of religious equality you can offer that’s easy to understand: ‘Religious equality means treating all people who have different religious beliefs with kindness and respect.’ By providing a simple explanation, you’re not only giving your child an easy-to-process definition, but you’re also giving them confidence in their ability to understand a complicated subject. Confidence is key here. You want to get them interested in the subject. This is a good time to offer a personal scenario. Kids seem to absorb information most efficiently when related to a personal story told by their parent(s). Maybe you talked with a friend and misspoke about a certain religion without knowing it was their faith? Describe how you felt. Anything else? ​ Sharing your own feelings is a good way to emphasize that just because someone follows a different religious faith with unique traditions does not make them bad. Just different.​ Explain the common threads of worldwide religions Now that you’ve offered a simple definition of religious equality provide a way to connect all religions. The goal is to teach children that all religions are equally worthy of kindness and respect, not just the one that’s most popular. Even though the way that individual religions celebrate their faith (e.g., holidays, food, clothing, music, etc.) might be different, all religions share the same basic principles. ​The common threads of all worldwide religions are ‘hope’ and ‘love.’ ​Connect this concept to how your family feels when they do their own rituals together. Is there anything your family does to express hope and love for each other after a ritual? Hugs? Gift-giving? Food? Talking about life’s blessings? The future? It can be anything. Hopefully, the idea of a ‘common thread’ will make it easier for your child to fully digest the importance of religious freedom. ​ However, while discussing common religious principles, keep in mind that if you try to convince your child that all religions are the same without acknowledging individual differences, you’re giving them a reason to distrust anything else you say about the subject. Your child is likely quite aware that religions can be very unique, so trying to convince them they’re not different is a losing battle. ​Finally, the truth is that every family has their own way of celebrating holidays and parenting styles vary among households. Whether your family is strongly religious or decidedly not religious, when your kids exit your front door, they’ll be growing up in a diverse world with people who have a variety of religious beliefs. Take time to teach them the basics now. Please note: This article offers talking points to consider only. Of course you know your child best.​​

https://medium.com/modern-parent/religious-freedom-101-12a9f0dfa82a

['Trish Allison']

2020-12-19 16:14:26.803000+00:00

['Equality', 'Kids', 'Religious Freedom', 'Holidays', 'Parenting']

World’s major Culinary location — Peru

There is a reason Peru was crowned as” World’s major Culinary location” from the World Travel Awards over five decades at arow. This flourish commenced about 10 decades back. Nowadays popular chefs from all around the entire planet will be looking at Peru and are all opening restaurants due to the distinctive traits of those ingredients and spices which are only able to be expanded into the area. Our fifth-largest day together begins with an early flight to Cusco. In the day as soon as settled, we’ll take an easy walk together along the cobblestone roads of the old money of the Inca empire to begin acclimating to the altitude. After enjoying breakfast with bird photo tours in the resort we will travel to the airport to take a trip to Arequipa. Arequipa could be your colonial-era capital of this Arequipa Region made by 3 volcanoes. This very city is well known for its chalky white baroque buildings assembled from volcanic rock. You are going to have some time to settle at our hotel before we head outside to lunch in the oldest portion of Arequipa. Following lunch, you will have leisure time roam the square foot. In the afternoon we will push Yanahuara to get a sunset to take from a magnificent viewpoint overlooking the town. We’ll start daily with a dawn take at Complejo de la Compañía de Jesús together with models. Down the road we will enjoy the snow leapord photo tours . We will shell out the day tour inside our very first visit to the Monastery of Santa Catalina. In the day we will shoot at the blue and sunset hour from the patio overlooking the superb cathedral and central plaza. Picture this! 1 day you’re compiling ancient folks along with spectacular ruins among the towering Andes Mountains.

https://medium.com/@tropicalphototours197/worlds-major-culinary-location-peru-1136f3bffa13

[]

2021-03-08 11:59:51.965000+00:00

['Travel Tips', 'Traveling']

On Single Dadding…

Generic stock photo showing genetically good hair and teeth. This man is a psychopath tho… Being a single dad is a complicated, wonderful thing. Let me explain… Like most single dads, my marriage ended in divorce. Despite our differences, we agreed to both put a ton of effort into keeping our two children informed, and gently taking them lovingly through this extremely difficult process, so as to minimise the potential damage done to their mental health. Divorce can ruin a child in many ways (a 2017 study found that children living in intact, nuclear families are about half as likely as children in step, blended, or one-parent families to have a mental disorder or need psychological help) Am not sure I entirely agree with that study, but there are tons like it, it’s a hard truth that divorce ain’t great for your children’s development or their future ability to be good humans and stay out of trouble, BUT there are so many ways to mitigate these issues. Anyway onto the subject in hand, being a single dad. Well it’s tough, really REALLY tough, lets go over a few myths: MYTH 1 — “You only have them every other weekend — it’s a doddle” Erm, come visit me on the Monday after I give them back, I spend the morning in tears. I am an emotional wreck all day. It’s like having your heart broken twice a month. MYTH 2 — “It’s like a little holiday, you go and do some cool stuff, spoil them with treats and generally get to be the good guy” Erm… I have no idea what their ‘daily’ routine is, I cant spoil them, it’s like having a foreign exchange student to stay, you have to find out what they want to do and get them to understand what you ACTUALLY do. You have to give them a great time, but also respect and perpetuate the life and environment created by their primary carer. You cant go buying them a £250 bit of Lego. It’s simply not fair on them, your ex partner, their expectations or their understanding of entitlement. Spoiling kids because their parents are divorced ain’t cool at all. Being a ‘cool’ dad is hard, buying them cool stuff is just a fucking cop out. It’s like buying flowers for your partner after a row. It’s a gesture, not a fix. MYTH 3 — “You get to be the good guy, their mother has to do all the discipline and the hard stuff” Erm… Well with maximum respect to all single mums, as your job is one of the hardest jobs in the world™, but I have to maintain an equilibrium that changes monthly. I am not there to see their ‘real’ lives so I make a bunch of stuff up. I do, however, do the discipline, but I have the respect to call their mother, for ‘alignment’ and discuss appropriate punishment as they need a consistent message. Good cop/bad cop is not an option here. Have you any idea how humiliating it is to ring up your ex-wife to ask for parenting tips? But if you are a good single dad you will do that, as you put your kids before ANYTHING. And their mum knows best. Suck it up and when they go home, have a cry and a drink and know that you are doing this for the greater good. Ok well here are a few tips for being a decent single dad: They have a lovely life with their mum. Your job is ‘literally’ not to fuck that up. Be cool, just be kind and take an interest in their life. See them as often as you can WITHOUT disrupting their daily routines. Speak to your ex wife/partner — no matter what your relationship is like, you maintain a friendship and a positive front, you do this for your children’s positive mental health, it’s bad enough their parents divorced, but the least you can do is to be parents with a united front, and maintain a shared commitment to love, honor and develop them into good humans. Try to use your weekends as an opportunity to teach them stuff. I take mine to galleries and museums, and for long interesting walks Dont buy them a bunch of ‘things’. It’s counterproductive and they wont like you more for it. Children are smart and need attention and love, not huge expensive gifts (cool trainers are the exception, cos all kids deserve good creps) KIDS LOVE CREPS. (Clearly google images has not caught up with the cool kids vernacular) Try to learn what their ‘routine’ is, and ask them what mummy does, food, tv time, video games etc, just try to slot yourself in nicely. This is not a holiday, it’s daddy time and should be enjoyed with the same structure and methods that they find familiar. Don’t get them junk food takeaways, or let them sit in front of the TV. Remember, you are damaging their mothers valid efforts to bring them up properly. You are not cool, you are a divorced middle aged dad, literally a walking midlife crisis. Just rock your cargo shorts and crocs and deal with it. Give them as much love as you possibly can!. There is no such thing as ‘too much’ love. There is such a thing as too much attention, and that leads to possible narcissistic behaviour. It’s important to learn this critical distinction. If you have boys, teach them how to be a better man, how to be a good man, how to look for signs of toxic masculinity and address them. Your children will forever look up to you as you are, and will always be, the most important man in their lives, and the biggest influence on their perception of maleness and understanding men. Thats a huge responsibility, that you took on when you inpregnated a woman. Dont like it? Then pay your child support and fuck off. Be kind. It’s the most important thing you can teach them. Don’t shout, don’t hit, just love them and remember, their parents split up and that broke their little hearts a bit. You can fix them, or you can let that wound fester Good luck xxx

https://medium.com/@matvenn/on-single-dadding-8e393496a06a

['Mat Venn']

2021-08-09 14:25:59.772000+00:00

['Parenting', 'Dads', 'Divorce']

How to Improve Your Social Media Engagement

Whether you’re looking to grow your personal social media pages or build a brand, you are definitely going to need to improve on how you use these platforms. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat etc., are great sites to maximize on. The trick is to ensure that they are linked and that your posts on each page are synonymous with your brand. So, how easy is it for your brand to have a thriving and engaging presence on social media? Check out these tips and resources you can use to grow your online profile. Identify Your Niche Begin by thinking out your social media strategy. This may be more difficult than it sounds. One great place to start from is by setting your SMART goals. Suppose your goal is to showcase your fashionable lifestyle, meaning you will be taking photos, videos and even making opinionated blog posts once in a while. Set goals on how you will go about this: let them be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and within certain timelines. Once you’re ready to post, you’ll find out that perhaps the photos do better on Instagram, videos on YouTube and perhaps the blog posts are better on your website. How do you link all these up, for example, when your profile can have only one Instagram bio link? Try Joy.link, which is an alternative that allows you to create a link that has all the other links in one spot. 2. Identify Your Audience Who is the consumer of your content? Which platform offers you the most engagement from your consumers? Check out the back end of your Instagram page in order to get the true analytics. As you go through them, it is important that this particular audience online that relishes in your photos are also aware of your videos on YouTube and articles on your website. This is where you need tools to link your different sites. You may be familiar with Linktree, Linkfire and perhaps Tap. Bio, but there’s a more effective alternative that is 100% free, has no paid features and is also available in Asia! At least your Asian audience will have access to your collection of links. 3. Be Real As much as you may be trying to be professional and formal, try to have a human touch. A mistake that some brands make is posting as faceless corporations with no personalities at all. It is better to get people to know and interact with your company at a one-on-one level. This much-needed connection is crucial since your audience is more likely to engage, knowing that they will get some sort of response. While your LinkedIn page may be posting research findings, you can link your photos of your office staff members doing a Christmas routine dance. 4. Seek Relationships, not Followers Remember that it is more important to have 1000 followers who interact with each post you make instead of 10,000 followers who ignore your every post. Remember, your brand is on social media, where you are expected to be social, not just make announcements. Answer questions promptly, consider replying when people comment on your content and start conversations with other pages too. On most sites, you can turn your personal page into a business page to unlock more capabilities, such as preset responses. 5. Make an Editorial Calendar This is simply a schedule to guide which posts you post on which social media platform. Consistency is key, so you do need to plan in advance in order to maintain the momentum. Since you have already gotten your audience to click your Instagram bio link, it is important to make sure that each link is updated with your latest content so that it is not redundant. As a result, don’t forget to include each site in the calendar and keep them synonymous. 6. Automate This comes in handy, especially when running several social media pages at the same time. Instagram allows you to post to Facebook automatically whenever you make a post. This is not the case with other social media pages. Whenever you post a tweet that your other social media followers may not be privy to, having our premier product Joy Link will lead them to your Twitter profile. This saves you the time you will spend editing the link in your bio whenever you tweet or make a blog post. 7. Optimize Your Account Information This can be done by the photo you choose as your profile picture, your captions, headers, keywords and of course, the links to your other platforms. As mentioned earlier, link collection tools come in very handy here. Utilize posts, stories and IG TV on Instagram when posting content in order to maximize the app. The same goes for Facebook statuses, posts, groups, pages and communities. 8. Make Your Presence Known While you may have put in a lot of work in curating your content, the larger part of your target audience will still not come across it unless you market it. Apart from using Joy Link and other alternatives on your bio description to market your other pages, add your links to your email footer and even website homepage. This type of cross-promotion is likely to grow your social media pages before you even place an ad. However, where there is a need to, don’t be afraid to pay for advertising. Consider paid partnerships with micro and macro-influencers or promoting your own posts via the site’s available advertising options. 9. Stay Active As mentioned before, consistency is key. Keep creating fresh content that will keep your followers engaged daily. This may be quite a task, but there are tools to help you. Stick to your schedule and automate posts to save time and the energy needed to post. Find ways to be more creative so as to not be redundant in your posts. At the same time, try to keep up with trending topics and fun challenges that align with your brand to keep your page relevant. Lastly, allocate some time daily just to respond to comments and queries to your posts.

https://medium.com/@socialtips/how-to-improve-your-social-media-engagement-6a5fc18c8dde

[]

2020-12-28 10:29:32.197000+00:00

['Social Media Marketing', 'Bio Link', 'Marketing Strategies']

Basics of Big O Notation

I have written about algorithms in the past, and I have mentioned that algorithms are to improve code efficiency. There is however, a specific term to describe the efficiency of a function that I didn’t touch upon. That term is Big O. Wait a minute… Not that one. There we go! Big O notation describes the complexity of a function/algorithm, either its run-time (the amount of time an algorithm takes to complete its task) or space-complexity (the amount of space an algorithm uses). It is used for seeing how much more work has to be done by an algorithm when the input increases. The notation is simplified to focus on the input size (n) since the growth based on n will eclipse static values, so things like 2n are simplified to just n. It takes the form of O(the amount of steps needed relative to the input). The chart above shows some of the general notations, as well as w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶c̶o̶l̶o̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶a̶i̶n̶b̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶l̶o̶s̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶s̶o̶c̶i̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ whether they scale well (low increase in time/space taken) or poorly (large increase in time/space taken) with increased input size. Below I will give an example of some functions that have the complexities listed in the chart above, and why they have that complexity. O(1) “constant time” is the simplest algorithm and does everything in one step, regardless of how the input increases. function printArray(array) { console.log(array) } This function will print the entire array once. 2. O(log n) “logarithmic time” isn’t quite as good as constant time, but still pretty good. For logarithmic time, the function starts off with more steps but the amount of steps quickly decreases as it gets closer to the goal. This means that if you increase the input, the initial steps will increase, but the function will quickly lower in steps again as it moves forward. An example of a function with logarithmic time is a binary search. function binarySearch(array, value) { let desiredValue = value let newArray = array let currentValue = null while (currentValue !== desiredValue) { if(newArray.length > 1) { currentValue = newArray[Math.floor(newArray.length/2)] if (currentValue > desiredValue) { newArray = newArray.slice(0, Math.floor(newArray.length/2)) } else { newArray.slice(Math.floor(newArray.length/2) + 1, newArray.length) } } else { currentValue = newArray[0] } } return currentValue } A binary search cuts away half of the array each time, so even if the initial size of the array increases it quickly cuts it back down. If you started with 5 items [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] the slowest possible search (4) will take two steps, first step cuts the array to [4, 5], the next finds the 4. If the size were increased to 10 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] and you were to search for 4, it still only takes three steps [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] > [4, 5] > 4. If the size were increased to 20, it is still only plus one more step [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] > [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] > [4, 5] > 4. You can see that even increasing the size of the input drastically, the increase in steps needed increases very slightly. 3. O(n) “linear time” takes one extra step for each increase in the size of the input. If the input is increased by two items, two extra steps are taken, if it is increased by 7 items, 7 extra steps are taken. function printArray(array) { array.forEach((element) => { console.log(element) }) } For the function above, for each item added to the array, the function will perform one extra step of console logging that element. 4. O(n log n) “linearithmic”, “loglinear”, “quasilinear” (this one has a lot of names huh?) One example is the merge sort. function mergeSort(array) { if (array.length === 1) { return array } let middleNum = Math.floor(array.length / 2) let leftHalf = array.slice(0, middleNum) let rightHalf = array.slice(middleNum) return cmrge(mergeSort(leftHalf), mergeSort(rightHalf)) } function merge(leftArray, rightArray) { let newArray = [] let leftIndex = 0 let rightIndex = 0 while (leftIndex < leftArray.length && rightIndex < rightArray.length) { if (leftArray[leftIndex] < rightArray[rightIndex]) { newArray.push(leftArray[leftIndex]) leftIndex + 1 } else { newArray.push(rightArray[rightIndex]) rightIndex + 1 } } if (leftIndex < leftArray.length) { return newArray.concat(leftArray) } else { return newArray.concat(rightArray) } } Merge sort takes an array and breaks it down into single elements, then combines them up again slowly by comparing the each element to the smallest remaining element of the adjacent array. The first function “mergeSort” will take an array; if the received array length is 1 it will return the array, otherwise it will break the array into halves and call the merge function which takes in two array. But here it will pass in the result of itself with both halves of the array, leading it to recursively call itself and break down until each array only contains 1 item. Once the arrays have one item, the merge function will finally start kicking in, and will compare each value starting from the first of each array and placing the smaller one in a new array, then after one array runs out of items it will add the remaining values of the other array into the new array and return it, giving you a sorted array. This process will repeat until it combines back into a sorted version of the original array. If you started with [6, 5, 3, 1, 8, 7, 2, 4], it would be broken up until the elements are [6, 5, 3, 1] [8, 7, 2, 4] > [6, 5] [3, 1] [8, 7] [2, 4] > [6] [5] [3] [1] [8] [7] [2] [4]. Starting from here elements will be recombined by comparing the values with the one next to them and placing the smaller one in first in the next combined array. [5, 6] [1, 3] [7, 8] [2, 4]. Here the leftmost elements will be compared since they are already positioned to be smaller and placed last in the next array, this step will be repeated until an array is empty, after which the rest of the array will be added to the end of the next array. 1 is greater than 5 so the next array is [1], 3 is greater than 5 so [1, 3], the remaining array is then added to the back so [1, 3, 5, 6], same for other side so [1, 3, 5, 6] [2, 4, 7, 8]. Now 1 < 2 so [1], so 2 < 3 so [1, 2], 3 < 4 so [1, 2, 3] and so forth until they combine to [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. 5. O(n²) is the “quadratic sort”. For each increase in size, the amount of steps needed increase by n². So if the array size were increase by 2, 4 extra steps would be needed. One example is the bubble sort in its worst case scenario. function bubbleSort(array) { let newArray = array let swapped = true while(swapped === true) { swapped = false for (let i = 0; i < newArray.length - 1, i++){ if (newArray[i] > newArray[i+1]) { let var2 = newArray[i+1] array[i+1] = array[i] array[i] = var2 swapped = true } i++ } } return array } A bubble sort goes through and compares each item with the one next to it, swapping it with the next item if it is bigger and leaving it if it is smaller, so that by the end of one round the last item will be in its proper position. It then does this for the second item, and so on and so forth until it has done it with everything. A bubble sort should have a mechanism to stop it if it goes through once and there are no swaps, but in the worst case scenario in which every item has to be swapped for every loop, it will be a quadratic sort. If an item is added to the array here, it add one more item which every other item has to compare itself to during their loop and one extra loop added for the new item where it must compare itself to every other item, thus giving it n² bonus steps. 6.O(n!) “factorial sort”, also commonly known as the brute force method. This would be like trying to make a function to crack an 8 letter password containing only letters of the alphabet by going through and generating every possible combination. Hope this article helped to give you a better understanding of Big O and some examples of it in use with some common algorithms!

https://medium.com/swlh/basics-of-big-o-notation-7d5d905d058d

['Nicky Liu']

2019-05-24 04:34:17.580000+00:00

['Big O Notation', 'JavaScript', 'Algorithms']

EPC Contract Risk & Project Management Conference 2021 Amsterdam

The meeting offer strategic opportunity for Operators, contractors and subcontractors to have round table discussion to develop effective contractual form for successful scope of work and aligning expectation between all the parties The conference will address practical case study for: Effective Contract & Commercial Management for Successful Project Delivery The role of effective relationship management in successful large oil and gas projects Monitoring Negotiations to Mitigate Risk in Multiple Party Contracts Aligning expectations between owners and EPC contractors Increase the quality of your project delivery by understanding how each department is involved in the concept of completion phases of an EPC project. Evaluate future market trends, future opportunities by participating in the business dinner Exploring Challenges of Managing Highly Innovative Projects ( Renewable Industry ) Develop critical decisions impacting cost and schedule throughout the project cycle Develop Cross-linking management planning phases with stakeholders’ engagement activities WHO YOU WILL MEET? CEOs — CTOs — COOs — Presidents — Senior Vice Presidents — Vice Presidents — Directors — Heads & Managers of: Projects Projects — Portfolio — Planning Project Management Office — Project Execution — Project Control Mega/Major — projects Contract — Procurement — Engineering — Construction — Operations — Business Development — Cost Estimation — Capital Investment — Risk Management , https://www.epc-shutdown-turnaround-maintenance.com/epc-project-management-2020

https://medium.com/@primo-eventi/epc-contract-risk-project-management-conference-2021-amsterdam-e7207d1afab

['Adrian Vanhands']

2020-12-26 09:57:46.941000+00:00

['London', 'Energy', 'Oil And Gas', 'Project Management', 'Conference']

How to Make Your Development Department More Productive

Start Prioritizing in Terms of Value Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash. In the development world, things change fast. Priorities change, technologies change. The one who adapts fast comes out ahead. As a manager or lead, you understand this. You know that something can’t wait a month to get fixed, so you tell the development team to drop everything they are currently working on. They need to get that important bugfix or feature out there. There are two possible outcomes. Outcome #1 The development team understands and makes some time to do this in between other tasks. It negatively affects the amount of other work they get done, but they don’t want to be slowing anyone down. They care about the client as much as you do. These interruptions can become a problem very fast — especially if you or somebody else asks them to drop everything multiple times a week. In my experience, that is often the case. In the past, one of my superiors had an important meeting coming up. I’d just started to work on something new when the first issue arrived. I dropped my work to get that issue resolved as soon as possible. But before I got to finish that issue, three other issues came my way. I’d finish fixing issue after issue, feeling like a hero. It felt important, so we’d do our best for our client. After a week of fixing issues, the demo day finally arrived. Guess what? The demo got postponed. After something like that happens, it’s hard to believe that the issue you set aside for more than a week is now the most important one. Both the development team and the manager sometimes end up with the feeling that nothing gets done. Outcome #2 The team refuses to do the task in the upcoming time period. They are doing something they call agile. The development team says they will do it in their next sprint. Developers don’t like to change their focus. They try to make a short-term goal of two or three weeks and try to get as much done as they can. This allows them to focus. Well, that sounds really frustrating for you as a manager. The team has become partially self-managing, but if you don’t intervene, the business will suffer. Don’t give up. Things are not set in stone, so if it’s really urgent, you’ll probably get it done from them either way. You may end up looking like someone who understands nothing about scrum or agile, but that’s not always true. I believe a manager can still provide value in this situation. And actually, your way of working will not change.

https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-make-your-development-department-more-productive-adc4613ff12a

['Dieter Jordens']

2020-11-06 17:46:16.811000+00:00

['Agile', 'Management', 'Leadership', 'Programming', 'Software Development']

How we are going to get everyone flying

Atlas: Watfly’s single-seat VTOL aircraft Flight is the most effective means of transportation. That is why the President flies around in a helicopter, celebrities in private jets, and why critical patients are flown in air ambulances. Still, personal flight remains a luxury, and for the rest of us, transportation means roads and soul-crushing traffic. To democratize flight, we need flying cars. That is, an aircraft that is similar to a car: affordable to most, as easy to pilot as cars are to drive, as safe as commercial air travel, and with convenient, practical use. Said aircraft would eliminate aviation’s existing barriers to entry, and would do to aviation, what the automobile did for personal transportation. Today, only a tiny group of people enjoy access to cheap and small recreational aircraft, ranging from power gliders and ultralights, to experimental airplanes. The thrill of flying these aircraft is huge, but they are statistically less safe than commercial aircraft, require substantial aeronautical ability, and hundreds of hours of flight training to pilot. Why is flying the future? Fixed-wing flight requires little infrastructure other than runways, but vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) further reduces this to near zero. Using this technology allows you to take off wherever you are and land where you need to be, without the need for a last mile solution. In the air, there are no traffic lights, and no bottlenecks, meaning we can achieve higher sustained travel speeds and efficiency, leading to shorter travel times and allowing us to cover longer distances. How are you making flight affordable? Making air transportation affordable requires both affordable vehicles and affordable operational costs. The first is achieved by: Reducing development timelines and certification costs. A commercial airliner takes over 5 years and >$500m to certify. However, a small aircraft can be certified in under a year, leading to shorter development cycles which allows us to bring cutting edge performance to market, faster. Reduced complexity: this goes hand in hand with aircraft price. Replacing internal combustion engines and jets with electric powertrains will reduce part count by 2 orders of magnitude. Economies of scale: There is currently no flying vehicle being produced at automotive volumes. This has kept the prices high and limited the manufacturing techniques available. A small, electric VTOL aircraft such as Watfly’s would be the first aircraft to be produced at automotive volumes, drastically reducing the manufacturing cost. Operational affordability: by replacing the cost of carbon fuels with electricity, the flight operating cost (FOC) is fractionated. The much simpler drivetrain — with fewer parts to fail/maintain — further reduces ground operating costs. The other high cost of operating an aircraft today comes from pilot certification and training costs. Bringing flight to people at an automotive scale would increase the need for pilots beyond the current number of pilots in existence. In order to avoid this bottleneck and reduce the cost of flying our vehicles, Watfly will develop Autonomous Flight (AF) which will substitute human pilots and fly the aircraft from take off to landing. State of the VTOL Industry There are 100s of VTOL prototypes in development, with new projects emerging every week. Most of these are not designed to be flying cars, but rather more efficient helicopters. Truth is, no one looks at these 3 ton, 5 passenger, multi-rotor aircraft and thinks “I would like to buy one,” or “I could see myself flying that” and much less “I wonder if that fits on my driveway.” They are creating flying busses, not flying cars. Our Master Plan Our initial product will be a single-seat recreational aircraft under 254 lbs, priced as a luxury vehicle. It will fall within the most open aircraft category in the United States: ultralights. This means our vehicle will be pilotable without the need for a license or airworthiness certificate — although our aircraft will be built to meet or exceed those requirements. We will bring VTOL, an electric power-train, and computer assisted controls to the ultralight market for the first time, eliminating the need for runways, making flying as easy as flying a drone, and providing improved safety features. This first luxury single seater — while revolutionary in its category — will not be a full fledged flying car. Ultralight aircraft can only fly in Class G airspace (~80% of the USA), ruling out flying in urban environments, thus reducing practicality. At the same time, a single seat, a high price tag, and a limited travel range all fall short of the flying car promise of an aircraft for the masses. In automotive terms, this will be our Model N, the model Ford produced prior to the first mass-produced car: the Model T. All revenue generated will be directed towards the R&D of subsequent products, therefore, sales of our first luxury recreational aircraft will pay for the development of the ultimate flying car. The second product will be a two-seat aircraft — and without giving away too much — it will be certified to fly above regulated air spaces. Each iteration will lead to enhanced AF, longer range, and make the vehicles more affordable. Get ready to fly. Learn more at www.watfly.ca or drop me a line gonzalo@watfly.ca

https://medium.com/@getmeflyingcars/how-we-are-going-to-get-everyone-flying-ea96fc959f38

['Gonzalo Espinoza Graham']

2020-02-21 16:51:45.375000+00:00

['Future', 'Technology', 'Flying Cars', 'Aviation', 'Watly']

What to Pack for a Hiking Trip: Your Ultimate Guide

Spring break is just around the corner and you are all set to hit the trails but don’t know how to pack? Well,smart and easy does the trick.Packing perceptively is one of the key to bagging the summit successfully.But you have to consider where you are headed to,how cut-off the place is and what the weather forecast is telling.Here is our list of things to pack: Backpack: A lightweight and comfortable backpack is necessary for carrying the gear you’ll need.You should pick a backpack that has user-oriented storage compartments and is just the right size for your need. Navigation Tools: A topo map and a compass are your go-to guardian whenever you are about to get lost or setting foot in a new territory so they are must haves.You could also use a GPS device but unlike former devices it needs a battery so you must keep a USB power bank in case it needs a recharge.Map should be kept in a water-proof map-sack to keep it dry and protected. For navigating in the dark,headlamps and flashlights (or mobile built-in) are the necessary devices you must have even if you are planning a day-hike. Photo by Banff and Lake Louise Tourism Hydration: No-one wants to come back from a trip dehydrated which was meant to be a wonderful experience.You should browse about water resources on your route and have a water purifier so you can replenish whenever the opportunity comes and don’t have to carry extra weight by loading on water bottles.Statistically two-litre per person is minimum you could start your hike with. Nutrition: It is recommended to pack food which is nourishing to have a safe food experience.Opt for dry and canned goods which do not require refrigeration and have a longer shelf life like energy bars,fruits like bananas ,apple,oranges,nuts,seeds etc. Clothing: Wear clothes which have simple layering,insulation against the sun and have quick dry property as a caution for unexpected climate changes. Foot Wear: Footwear depends on where you are hiking, whether it is a rocky trail or a smooth trail.Hiking boots are sufficient for both cases while running trail shoes are ideal for the latter one. First-Aid Kit: For unprecedented events on a hiking trip , a first-aid kit is necessary.Most hikers or backpackers carry a ready-made first-aid kit which provides basic equipment to treat minor injuries and illnesses.You could customise the kit according to your personal preferences as you become a seasoned hiker. Personal Items: It is rational to keep your personal identity on yourself all the time.It is recommended that you keep your personal ID,credit cards and cell phone with you so that they can be availed in case of emergency. Miscellaneous Essentials:In addition to the things mentioned above ,here is a small list of tools that are also necessary: an emergency shelter if you are on a multi-day backpacking trip. a knife or a multi-tool,a whistle,tenacious tape,climbing rope,insect repellent.These things come handy in time of need. fire starters,lighters to build fire in nasty weather conditions. That’s it.This list provides a pretty much basic guide but you can modify it according to the requirement of the hiking trip.I hope this guide helps you pack aptly and make your trip an unforgettable one.

https://medium.com/@mariahareem/what-to-pack-for-a-hiking-trip-your-ultimate-guide-f094808c3c99

['Maria Hareem']

2021-03-31 11:17:18.123000+00:00

['Hiking Gear', 'Hiking']

I Reached Out To My School Bully But I Didn’t Get An Apology

By Sahaba Ali Hussein PHOTOGRAPHED BY POPPY THORPE The year was 2010, Rihanna was the “Only Girl (In The World)” and at the age of 16, I was just starting a brand-new chapter in my life. I spent the majority of my childhood at an underperforming London state comprehensive school but after my GCSEs I was awarded a place at a better-performing sixth form in what BBC News once described as “leafy, affluent Ealing”. All through secondary school I was mocked mercilessly for what the other kids deemed my unnecessary use of “long words”. Looking back, I realise it was bullying. I was bookish but only because I was seeking escapism in the pages of my favourite novels. One summer before I started sixth form, I set myself the gruelling (and nigh on impossible) task of reading all the classics. That’s the kind of kid I was. It was also that summer that I was invited to a summer school for “gifted and talented children from underprivileged backgrounds”. To me, at that time, this was a huge privilege. The summer school was at the University of Cambridge, where it had been my dream to study since the age of 10. Both of my parents were refugees from Somalia; they didn’t get the chance to go to university. I really can’t express the pride I felt just setting foot inside a Cambridge college. To commemorate our four-day stay at the university, everyone at the summer school was given a navy blue hoodie emblazoned with “University of Cambridge” branding in huge white letters across the front. I loved mine, cherished it. I seized every opportunity to wear it over the remaining long summer days once I got home. It was a reminder that one day I might be able to study there myself. Then September rolled around and I started my new, shiny sixth form. I wasn’t at all nervous but rather excited by the prospect of meeting new friends and getting one step closer to my goal: the University of Cambridge. On the first day, all of the students — around 100 of us — were taken into the middle of a forest where we were forced — sorry, I mean encouraged — to bond with our new classmates. It was a rainy, overcast autumn day and I pulled my hoodie over my head to protect me from the drizzly sort of British wind that manages to get you soaked as you try to go about your business. At around midday, when we were busy learning how to scale a makeshift wall, a boy who I had not properly met — let’s call him James — took one look at me and turned away in disgust. “You should take that off,” snarled James in a tweaked accent, the sort you only get from living in a house where you’re taught to “talk properly” from day dot. “Why?” I asked, not understanding what he could possibly be on about. He mansplained to me that because his mother had gone to Oxford and his father had gone to Cambridge, he had a much better chance of securing a place at Oxbridge and that I should “just give up”. It’s important to note that this individual was white, male and middle class, and so yes — he was right — it was statistically more likely that he would study at Oxbridge. It has long been the birthright of men like him. Seeking apologies or opening up dialogues with childhood bullies can be a sign that you are looking for closure. Just as his taunts and jibes did not subside over the next two years, the words he spoke that day stayed with me. They made me want to fight harder for my achievements. Thankfully we parted ways when I went off to study history at…the University of Cambridge. Fast-forward a few years to my early 20s. I am on a date with a guy at a trendy bar in Oxford (spoiler alert: it doesn’t work out) and, finding out where I went to school, he asks me: “Oh! Do you know James?” The man who was courting me, it turned out, was living with none other than my school bully. I felt the same sense of shame that I had felt on that rainy day when James made me feel exposed and mortified in front of our classmates before I even knew them. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and reliving it over the course of the next few days and so I messaged James on Facebook. I wrote that he had underestimated me and I had indeed made it to Cambridge and graduated with a history degree. You hear stories of people’s bullies apologising to them, of redemption and emotional resolution. That wasn’t what I got. On reflection, I don’t know what I was looking for from this man who had deliberately made me feel small but I was met with no remorse. All I got was a sarcastic “oh well done”. I was looking for an explanation so I spoke to Dr Victoria Khromova, a child and adolescent psychiatrist. She explains that a person’s ability to feel remorse for their past actions depends on where that person is in their life. And, she adds, for me to have received the apology I was perhaps seeking (even if I didn’t realise it), my school bully would have had to think that his actions were unacceptable. This would have required him to reflect on his behaviour. Dr Khromova says: “Seeking apologies or opening up dialogues with childhood bullies can be a sign that you are looking for closure.” In stark contrast to myself, 32-year-old Claudia Colvin encountered her childhood bully later in life purely by chance. Claudia is English/Italian and completed part of her education in Italy. At that time, and in her own words, “Italy was not very diverse”. With her paler skin and ginger hair, she attracted a lot of unwanted attention. One particular boy constantly undermined her and her school achievements to the point where she internalised his comments and would downplay herself. One day, he stole her lunch money — a €5 banknote. Because of these experiences, Claudia says she spent a lot of her teenage years feeling like the “odd one out” and that she was too “different”. This all changed in her adult years as she grew in confidence and learned to embrace the things that make her unique. Claudia says: “I’m really proud of how far I’ve come. Being bullied was awful but it gave me the inspiration and motivation to start my own silent disco company that inspires people to unapologetically, unashamedly be themselves through dance and I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world.” In 2017 she had just started this company alongside her job and was in a café with her mother, having coffee. She looked up at their waiter and realised it was the same boy — now man — who had bullied her in middle school. He recognised her and Claudia greeted him cordially but did not bring up the fraught relationship they shared in their early teens. Claudia says that she had moved on at this point; she was happy with the direction her life had taken and she didn’t feel the need for any sort of apology. Instead, as she was leaving, she tipped the waiter €5 as a way of saying: “You stole from me when I didn’t have much money and now I am in a position to tip you the same amount back.” Our memories only hold as much power over us as we allow. Seeking apologies and retribution can be a cosmetic solution to the deeper healing we need to do ourselves. Dr Khromova says: “One way of moving on is giving yourself the closure instead of seeking it from others.” Claudia has given herself closure — this is one way of dealing with the unresolved trauma we carry from childhood bullies. Through the processing that Claudia had done, she didn’t need to seek anything at all from her former bully. Dr Khromova also points out that the comments from our childhood bullies which hurt us the most are the ones that we secretly believe ourselves. I had been constantly undermined and underestimated throughout my childhood. As an immigrant, working class woman of colour, many people didn’t think I would get very far. To an extent, I think I internalised that. Throughout the majority of life I had been consumed with a sense of proving myself to everyone; as I got older, I realised the only person left who I had to prove anything to was myself. To move on and truly heal, though, Dr Khromova says that you have to “update your belief system and change the way you see yourself. Which can be scary, because you may feel like you are losing a part of yourself in the process.” I didn’t get an apology from the guy who bullied me at school. Hell, I barely got an acknowledgment. But what I have learned is that our memories only hold as much power over us as we allow. Seeking apologies and retribution can be a cosmetic solution to the deeper healing we need to do ourselves.

https://medium.com/refinery29/i-reached-out-to-my-school-bully-but-i-didnt-get-an-apology-faa6f0b6d1ef

[]

2020-12-01 12:47:01.288000+00:00

['Schools', 'Closure', 'Apology', 'Mental Health', 'Bullying']

Importing Kaggle Training Data into Google Cloud Storage

Importing Kaggle Training Data into Google Cloud Storage Image licensed to author So, you have picked your Kaggle competition, and you want to start training your model and make yourself known on the Kaggle leaderboard. If like us, you use Google Cloud AI Platform for your data science workloads, one of the first steps in a Kaggle competition is to upload the Kaggle training data into Google Cloud Storage. We will be using this recently announced (late Nov 2020) Kaggle competition as an example. This particular competition is an image classification problem with circa 20k training images (jpeg files) in Kaggle. Here’s a simple way to upload these into a Google Cloud Storage bucket. Before you start We assume you already have a Google Cloud Project. If not, you can easily create one (for free) using the link below. 2. Make sure you have permissions on your Google Cloud Project to create new storage buckets in Google Cloud Storage (GCS) and upload files. You can read the GSC documentation here if you are unsure. 3. We assume you have registered with Kaggle, and have signed up for a competition. Copying Data from Kaggle to GCS In a browser, navigate to kaggle.com Create a new Kaggle Notebook. To do this, click <> Notebooks on the left sidebar and click + New Notebook Give your notebook a name so you can easily find it again. I called mine “Cassava — Copy Kaggle Data to GCS” Tip: I prefix my notebooks in Kaggle with the competition name to make them easy to find later on 4. Add the following imports in a new Notebook cell (click the +Code button to add a new cell: import os from google.cloud import storage Run the cell by clicking into the cell, and then clicking the play button that appears on the left. 3. Add a reference in your Notebook to the Casava Kaggle training images. To do this, click Add data. In the window that appears, select the Competition Data tab, find the Casava competition, and click the Add button. You should now see the Casava data listed under Input in the sidebar: 4. Grant Kaggle access to your Google Cloud Storage service. To do this, select Google Cloud Services from the Add-ons menu: In the window that appears, tick Cloud Storage and then click the Link Account button. 5. Add a new code cell and declare the following two functions; the first will create a storage bucket, and the second will upload all files to a bucket that are found in the source folder path. Replace the GCP_PROJECT_ID with your Google Cloud project id. Once added, run the cell and confirm no errors. storage_client = storage.Client(project=’GCP_PROJECT_ID') def create_bucket(bucket_name): bucket = storage_client.create_bucket(bucket_name) def upload_files(bucket_name, source_folder): bucket = storage_client.get_bucket(bucket_name) for filename in os.listdir(source_folder): blob = bucket.blob(filename) blob.upload_from_filename(source_folder + filename) 6. Add a new cell to create your new GCS bucket. Replace BUCKET_NAME with a suitable, unique name. Run the cell. bucket_name = ‘BUCKET_NAME’ create_bucket(bucket_name) Tip: GCS bucket names must be globally unique. An easy way to ensure this, is to add a suffix of your GCP project id (which is also unique). 7. In a browser, open the Google Cloud Console. Type “storage” in the search bar and click on Storage. Confirm you see your new bucket above in the list. My new bucket in Google Cloud Storage 8. Finally, upload the training resources from Kaggle into your new bucket. To do this, add a new cell with the following code: local_data = ‘../input/cassava-leaf-disease-classification/train_images/’ upload_blob(bucket_name, local_data) Replace the string in bold, with the location of your training data. To get this, click on the Copy file path button (shown below). And then add the folder that contains the data you want to copy (mine was in train_images). Run that cell and your data will be copied! It can take a little while, depending on your file volumes and size. The Cassava data took about 15 minutes. Conclusion Hopefully, you found this walkthrough useful. Since Google acquired Kaggle in 2019 we are seeing tighter integration with Google Cloud, for example, you can now submit models trained in AutoML. Keep an eye out for a follow-up article to this, where I will do just that using Google Cloud AI Platform Unified and AutoML. Next steps 1. In Part 2, we will show how to train a model for this competition using Google Cloud AI Platform Unified and AutoML. 2. View the Cassava Kaggle competition used in this walkthrough. 3. Learn more about Ancoris Data, Analytics & AI

https://towardsdatascience.com/importing-kaggle-training-data-into-google-cloud-storage-70830a439048

['James Green']

2020-11-26 14:21:41.530000+00:00

['Kaggle', 'Image Classification', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning']

8 Must Vist Places In Multan, Pakistan

Multan is one of the most ancient cities of the world with a history of 3000years or more. Multan is thought to have been the Malli capital when Alexander the Great took it in 326 BCE as part of the Malian Campaign. During the siege of the city’s citadel, Alexander jumped into the fortress’s inner sanctum, where he slew the Mallians’ chief. Alexander was gravely hurt by an arrow that entered his lung during this attack. During Alexander’s era, Multan was located on an island in the Ravi river, which has since shifted course numerous times throughout the centuries. Later on, Multan was the center of Hinduism till 712 when Muhammad Bin Qasim conquered the city and Islam entered the subcontinent. After Islam entered the subcontinent, Multan became the center of Islamic studies and spirituality as many scholars and saints resided in the city, Nowadays, the city is called “The City Of Saints”. Ghanta Ghar (Clock Tower), Multan Here are eight must-visit places in Multan. 1. Cathedral Of Holy Redeemer Cathedral of the holy redeemer is the roman catholic church in Multan. It is almost 80 years old, one of the oldest in the country. It is affiliated with the catholic church under the pope in Rome. This church is one of the most important catholic churches for Catholics in the whole country. This church is maintained by the council of Catholics in Pakistan. Cathedral Of Holy Redeemer 2. Valmiki (Balmiki) Temple The city of Multan was the center of Hinduism and Buddhism till before the arrival of Islam in 997CE. There are several Hindu temples in this city, Valmiki Temple is one of them. Local Hindus or the Valmiki Janta visit the temple for their religious activities. This temple is maintained by the Pakistan Hindu Council and the Balmiki Janta of Multan. Valmiki Temple 3. Memorial van alexander Agnew Alexander Vans Agnew is commemorated by this monument. Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew was a British East India Company civil servant whose assassination by Dewan Mulraj’s retainers at the Siege of Multan triggered the Second Sikh War and the British takeover of Punjab. This monument is housed within Qasim Bagh, which is housed within Kohna Fort Multan. When the Sikh Raj was in power in Multan, the Lt described above arrived from Bombay to Multan. After a fierce struggle, the British seized Multan and Lt was buried in Fort Kohna Multan, where a memorial was erected in his honor. Memorial van Alexander Agnew 4. Saint Marry Cathedral Church This church is one of the oldest churches in Pakistan. The church building is almost 165 years old. It was built during British rule in India. Recently this church building has been renovated by Pakistan Army in collaboration with the Civil Society of Multan. If you are visiting Multan, you should pay a visit to this church. Saint Marry Cathedral Church by Wikimedia Commons 5. Yadgar-e-Shuhada Yadgar-e-shuhda is a well-organized park in Multan Cantt. This park was built in memory of soldiers who embraced martyrdom in the Indo-Pak Wars of 1965 and 1971. This park is open for the general public and is a recreational place for families. Yadgar-e-Shuhada 6. Institute Of Blue Pottery Development Multan is known for its craftsmanship and artwork. Blue Pottery is the city’s specialty, which has earned it worldwide renown. Blue pottery is an art form in which experienced artists paint blue ceramic motifs on mud pots of various shapes and sizes. Visit the modest but intriguing Institute Of Blue Pottery Development to experience the many stages of blue pottery creation. The wonderful goods created here are marketed throughout Pakistan and abroad, as well as at the institute’s store. If you are visiting Multan from another city of Pakistan or another country and you want to discover more about the culture of the city then visiting this place is a must. Blue Pottery Utensils 7. Darbar Makhdoom Abdul Rasheed Haqqani Makhdoom Abdul-Rasheed Haqqani, often known as Mkhdoom Rasheed, was a Qadiriyya Sufi saint and one of the most well-known Sufis in the Indian Subcontinent. His paternal and maternal lineages make him Hashmi Al-Hasani Sadaat. He was the elder first cousin and brother-in-law of Baha-ud-din Zakariya. This mausoleum is 20 kilometers from the city center. The tomb and adjacent rare five-dome mosque, said to be one of only two mosques of its kind in the world, showcase the greatest Multani art “Blue Pottery.” Darbar Makhdoom Abdul Rasheed Haqqani 8. Shrine Of Hazrat Bahauddin Zakariya The Bahauddin Zakariya Shrine (Urdu: ) is a 13th-century shrine in the city of Multan, Pakistan’s Punjab province. The mausoleum is dedicated to Bahauddin Zakariya, the founder of the Sufi order Suhrawardiyya, a Muslim mystic. It is one of the most prominent shrines in Punjab’s southern province, and it serves as the model for Multan’s peculiar architectural style. Baha-ud-Din Zakariya (R.A) died in 1268 A.D., and his tomb (Darbar) is at Multan. Internally, the tomb measures 51 ft 9 inches (15.77 m) square. Above this is an octagon that is roughly half the height of the square and is topped by a hemispherical dome. This tomb is the most visited public place for locals as well as the ones coming from other cities or countries.

https://medium.com/@taahawork/8-must-vist-places-in-multan-pakistan-3e9fe68bff75

['Taaha Ahmad']

2021-12-30 11:36:20.543000+00:00

['Asia', 'Beauty', 'Culture', 'History', 'Tourism']