title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
885
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
⌀ | tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Why Socializing Across Racial Lines Matters | My friends cross racial lines and so parties I host are often racially mixed gatherings. The tone of these parties are not radically different from same-race social activities. The usual topics come up — family, money, weight gain, politics, work, and what’s good on Netflix, all of these topics peppered with jokes — but I know the energy is different in racially mixed social settings, a bit guarded with a different flavor of expression. I’ve witnessed some Black friends become introverts in the presence of White people and act as if they’re at work rather than a party. I’ve witnessed some White friends struggle with words in the presence of Blacks trying to use all of their brain energy to overcome the social loadings of racism and bias and not be considered even remotely offensive. At times, the party reflects a high school cafeteria in a racially mixed school where students, no longer in forced classroom integration, socialize within their own racial groups at lunchtime. BIPOC guests in one room and White guests in another and me, as host, mingling among each group.
By definition, our social lives and leisure activities are not governed by equal opportunity laws as with corporations and school systems. In our leisure time, no one is mandated to make one’s social circles racially diverse. Yet, the spirit of post-reconstruction Jim Crow laws still exist in our leisure activities. In some public places of leisure — beaches, clubs, resorts, parks — there are unwritten racial boundaries employed by participants, and, as a result, these places are segregated. It is not the structure but our choosing that keeps these institutions segregated. As adults, we would rather only play with those who share our same racial identity.
In the last analysis, do we self-segregate because of free choice and because people simply enjoy doing things with folks racially and culturally similar to them? Or do our parallel leisure activities represent exclusionary practices resulting from covert racism and unconscious bias that lead people to feel excluded and that they do not belong in certain public places such as beaches, clubs, resorts, and parks?
The Town Beach in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard has been called the “Inkwell” since the late nineteenth century. The term, first used by Whites as a racial slur for the part of the beach frequently visited by Blacks, continues to be used by Blacks as a symbol of pride for the popular beach along the Atlantic seaboard.
The comedic video Funny or Die where a Black hiker, played by actor Blair Underwood, is stopped by a White couple while in one of America’s national parks, illustrates how many parks remain racially segregated. “Are you…are you lost? The White couple gently asks.
Separate but Equal Socializing
Perhaps our racially segregated leisure activities are simply a by-product of American’s hidden caste system described in Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
In the professional world, it is common and even acceptable for parallel organizations to exist. As a psychologist, I joined the American Psychological Association and the Association of Black Psychologists. Black physicians are members of American Medical Association, the largest association of physicians, and the National Medical Association, which promotes the collective interests of physicians and patients of African descent. There are race-specific organizations like these in almost every profession. Why is this so?
These organizations offer racial affinity group forums where racial identity can be fortified, where networks can be established, and where they can collectively forward an agenda of interest to their racial group. The fact that these parallel organizations continue to exist demonstrates that inclusive and representative practices are not fully present in the organizations where there is a large membership by the majority race. These organizations are still perceived to be White organizations.
Similarly, there appear to be leisure activities more associated with Whites and those associated with other racial groups. The data supports this phenomenon. Whites are more prevalent participants of hockey, downhill skiing, fly-fishing, travel, race car driving, visiting national parks, and in general, physical activities. Blacks are participants in sporting activities, like basketball and track, dancing and socializing in clubs, engaging in cooking activities like barbecuing and grilling, and attending church functions. Data shows Latinx people enjoy soccer, picnicking, cooking and large multigenerational family gatherings. The research on Asian North Americans’ leisure activities is limited with the two most studied groups being Chinese and Korean. Traditional Chinese leisure activities find involvement in a range of passive leisure activities including the tile-based strategy game mahjong, reading, walking, watching television, gardening, and sewing, to modern Chinese leisure activities that embrace physical activities. Korean North Americans generally identified with more passive activities as compared to other racial groups and prefer doing leisure in groups.
From my interviews with leisure researchers Monika Stodolska and Kimberly Shinew, I learned that there’s an overlap in the choices of leisure activity that we tend to do, but we tend to do them in parallel worlds. This made sense to me. I recall the group of Black women who remained after Sunday Mass at our Black Catholic parish to play the Chinese tile-based strategy game mahjong.
Many racially exclusive social groups exist across the United States. Not surprisingly as sociologists tell us “similarity breeds connection,” and personal networks are homogenous with regard to many sociodemographic, behavioral, and interpersonal characteristics. Race-based, invitation-only social groups have existed in the Black community for decades. As a member of two invitation-only Black women’s organizations, I know the power of these groups — personally in satisfying the basic human need of belonging, and professionally, in establishing networks for enrichment and advancement. Black social organizations have long histories dating back to 1927. All of these groups were born at a time of rigid segregation, overt racism, and racially encapsulated societies. In present day, the rationale for race-based membership for these organizations has only strengthened over the last several years. Black social groups, as with other People of Color social groups, provide psychological protection and self-defense, a sense of belonging and a sense of group identity not afforded within the larger society.
Empirically, it is hard to determine if racial groups are not engaging together in certain social activities due to free will or because they do not feel welcomed to participate. There are those who would argue that racial groups continue to self-segregate for leisure activities largely due to free will. They purport that increased efforts have been made to eradicate racism in recreational settings. If that is so, then it begs the question, if leisure is governed by free choice, should it matter if people self-segregate in parks, concerts, book groups, sporting events, clubs and other social activities?
I think it does.
I have been a chief diversity officer and diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant for practically all of my professional life. Because of this experience, I was very much convinced that our racial divide would heal through coming together in our work lives. In most organizations, we experience diverse populations and in these organizations working collectively to achieve a mission and forward business objectives reminds us of our common identity as humans.
I no longer believe that our work settings offer the best forums for achieving racial equity.
Until we change what we do outside of our work lives, we won’t move the mountains of racism. Systemic racism is deeply embedded in many organizational policies and practices, and employee bases are reflective of our racially confused, unevenly informed, and racially incompetent society. When people structures are composed of bosses, supervisors, administrators and co-workers with interdependent financial livelihoods, it is challenging to form egalitarian friendships across racial lines. Racial differences in the workplace are often treated as threats to be feared, and become a source of competition in the race for achieving the American dream. Organizational climates that are not culturally and racially competent only breed mistrust between racial groups.
The Cost for Same-Race Socializing as a Way of Life
Same-race socializing will remain the predominant way for how we spend our leisure time, providing us with a sense of belonging and an ease of expression characteristic of how one interacts in social settings. Melanie, a thirty-one year-old Black woman, states it this way: “When I want to go quick and deep, I go with my Black friends.” Going quick and deep with those friends who share our same race implies that friendships across racial lines take time and are a lot of work to establish and nurture. So true.
Even before contentious populist politics, a pandemic, and civil racial unrest, there’s been little appetite to forge friendships across racial lines and socialize in racially diverse settings. Over time, these feelings have only intensified.
Yet, if we don’t socialize across racial lines in egalitarian relationships, how will we gain the level of social trust necessary to create high-performing, inclusive organizations, and an economically stable, civil society characterized by an informed citizenry? If we socialize only with those who share our same race, how do we remove fear and develop a belief in the honesty, integrity, and reliability of others who are racially different from us? If we socialize only with those who share our same race, how do we learn empathy that pulls us out of the kind of ethnocentric and racially myopic thinking that leads to dehumanizing others?
If our socializing patterns are central to understanding culture, identity, postmodernism, and globalization, then socializing across racial lines is critical for understanding of our collective identity and what it takes to move us from separate and unequal to together and equal.
Socializing across racial lines for enjoyment and renewal holds the power to build the kind of trust necessary to advance racial equity and become better humans in this world that we share. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/why-socializing-across-racial-lines-matters-bd1a4af3e010 | ['Deborah L. Plummer'] | 2020-12-10 01:51:37.591000+00:00 | ['Racism', 'Friendship', 'Social Change', 'Leadership', 'Professional Development'] |
My Gender is a Construct | My Gender is a Construct
Image by Marcus Winkler on Unsplash
When my family found out I was trans, all they wanted me to do was explain why.
I talked about it for hours upon hours, picking apart my childhood experiences and struggling to portray my artsy, vain, long-haired, easily frightened, Barbie-loving self as a “male soul in a female body”, a “biological woman” with the intense, primal urge to be viewed as a cis man, to be respected as a cis man, to be treated like a cis man. Obviously, I failed, because that’s not what I want to be and that’s not what my childhood experience of gender was like — but it is what the dominant narrative about trans people boils down to.
I don’t believe that everybody’s gender is a construct, because I can’t experience anyone else’s gender from the inside out — I can only speak for my own. My family’s rejection of my gender was their rejection of my magnum opus, a beautiful work of art that I had poured blood, sweat, and tears into, proof that they couldn’t see any value in an artistic medium that they didn’t personally want to use. I’ve mentioned in a previous article that I don’t think I’d care about being a man if not for my religion, and I didn’t elaborate too much on the topic as that article was more about my sexual and romantic identity than my gender, but I will do so here.
The idea of “inventing new genders” is a common subject for mockery, by trans people and transphobes alike, albeit generally in a more loving way by the former. I personally take this concept completely seriously, having invented several genders throughout my life and knowing that I will invent more.
These weren’t words that I came up with and made pride flags for, nor were they purely false performances that I put on for the sake of others — rather, they were the nameless and transient character of my soul at various points in my life.
When I was a small child playing at being a dangerous pirate with my friends, themselves playing at being damsels in distress, all of us disregarding the roles our parents wanted to assign us, that was my gender. When I was a slightly older child getting lost in the woods, realizing that no one could hear me if I yelled, and having to calm myself down and make peace with the forest around me to focus on finding my way out, that was my gender. Whenever I found an article of clothing that I could both genuinely love myself in and comfortably wear to church, that experience of freedom and secrecy was my gender, if only for as long as I wore it.
I use it/its and xe/xem/xyr pronouns interchangeably, and I’ve rarely tried to explain why in a public setting like this because I never felt like I could do so without devaluing my use of said pronouns in the process by essentially saying “I’m sorry for using these pronouns that make people uncomfortable, but here’s why I should be allowed to, please hire me — I mean, gender me properly.”
The “it” I refer to (and that, hopefully, some of the people who talk about me when I’m not around will refer to) is my body. It’s the mechanisms that drive me to do things like eat, bathe, sleep, and seek comfort and alternately, to starve, avoid showering, stay awake, and punish myself — all the ways my physical brain struggles to keep me functional and alive, both useful and less so. It’s an acknowledgment of myself as a large animal in a world of other animals, as a part of the environment the same way any other living thing is, and a reminder of the responsibilities therein. My body is an “it” the same way the compost I care for in my backyard is an “it”, the same way a fish or a tree is an “it”.
The “xe/xem/xyr” is a mechanism for telling which cis people genuinely respect me and which ones don’t — I don’t announce that I want to be referred to as “it” right out of the gate in most situations, but I do usually state my pronouns as xe/xem/xyr. Someone who struggles to use those pronouns for me but makes the effort anyway is infinitely more trustworthy, from my perspective, than someone who says “oh, okay” and proceeds to just use whichever other pronouns they feel make more sense for someone like me, whether it be they/them, he/him, or she/her (and it is always one of those three — nobody ever refuses to call me “xe” in favor of “fae” or “em”.) I laugh when people talk about “the trans agenda” because I absolutely do have an agenda when it comes to my pronouns, and it’s to find out who I can be myself around.
This next segment is going to seem wildly off-topic, but it’s necessary to explain why my gender is related to my religion, and even constructed by it. I promise I’ll come back around to that point eventually.
My religion is centered around nature. I mean it. Few things cause me more grief than the performative environmentalism of eco-fascism — I’m sure you’ve heard the “we are the virus” takes, the “humans are cancer” takes, and if you’re the sort of person who wanted to click on an article titled “My Gender is a Construct”, I’m sure you’ve heard why those are wrong — they lump Indigenous communities in with their colonizers, tacitly assuming that an Inuit individual feeding their entire community with fresh game is just as harmful as a rich American white man paying to kill an endangered animal for the bragging rights. They also give white people an excuse to stop trying — we can’t help it, after all, if we’re inherently cancerous. There’s nothing we can do, and therefore nothing we should do.
White eco-fascism embraces the destruction of whatever parts of the world might contribute to that nagging, burning sense in the back of one’s mind that something is wrong, that something needs to be done, that change needs to be embraced. It might seem like an important change in itself, but it’s really a refusal to accept the depth of personal responsibility and growth that an anti-racist and pro-environment ideology demands of us.
Something I’ve discovered as I’ve tried to build a life that’s reasonably sustainable and environmentally conscious is that it’s unproductive for me to simply say “well, I benefit from privilege in a way that harms the environment, so I may as well sit on my thumbs and leave all the work to those less privileged than me.” I can no more view myself as inherently bad for the environment than I can view wild blackberries as inherently bad for the environment just because they’re invasive in my state.
There are certainly places where should I choose to insert myself, I would be invasive — closed religions, conversations between people of color about white people, spaces that were carved out specifically for those different from me to experience their identities without having to think about how I’ll react.
However, there are places where I can have a positive impact — with my compost bins in my backyard, in the learning of new skills like sewing and spinning and making and storing food — even in the interactions I have with other humans because we are part of the environment, however loudly some of us like to complain that we’re not.
I understand the impulse to “fix” one’s white guilt by saying “fine then, I won’t be white, I’ll join this closed nonwhite faith to remove myself as fully as possible from my imperialist roots.” It’s not going to work, though. No amount of care and pride put into a crop of invasive blackberries will make them stop being invasive. We have to take a step back, pull out our roots from where they don’t belong, and seriously consider where they do belong — and it is somewhere. Facilitating the health of communities where we don’t belong by removing our roots from them and striving to educate ourselves about their needs is good for the environment because it’s good for humanity.
It’s in this space of removal and introspection, of trying to figure out where I best fit into the world, that I began to think about my experience of gender and about how I’ve always felt like I was lying when I had to explain to cis people why I was meant to be their idea of a man. I was lying, but that doesn’t mean I’m not trans — it means I can be a man without being anything remotely like what modern American society considers a man to be.
When I think about being a man, I think about my relationship with Apellon (a different spelling of Apollon, but the same deity), and I think about His relationship with maleness and gay masculinity, and also His relationship with the natural world. I think about Him thinking about me as a male worshiper of His, and that feels right in a way that settles my uncertainty about whether I’m “really” a trans man.
I view myself as male in relation to Him, and as male in relation to the religious acts I undertake — and it’s a maleness characterized not by suppressing my estrogen-influenced traits but by fostering the health of my body and its ability to change and grow. If you feel similarly about your gender but don’t identify as male, that doesn’t mean you’re wrong or I’m wrong. It just means we’re not the same person.
My relationship with Apellon is one of love between men directed towards stewardship of the natural world — a fertility that has nothing to do with the conception of a small person, but rather with our desire on both sides for the identity and interests of the other to continue on with the support they need.
Asking “but why do you have to be a man?” as my parents did is akin to asking, “But why do you have to call a bird a bird? Let’s talk about why you chose the word ‘bird’ instead of something I think fits better because that’s more important than acknowledging that the bird exists and needs certain things to stay alive.” Taxonomical debates have their place, but they should never serve to halt the allocation of resources to those in need, nor should they serve as an excuse to devalue someone else’s identity.
We can learn new things about the environment we’re part of, name certain parts of it in new ways, and change the way we think about and relate to them, but those things are not at risk of ceasing to exist simply because they and we are subject to change. I am not seeking to “abolish gender” or to tell people who’ve been one gender their entire life that they’re wrong or invalid. I’m seeking a working personal philosophy of gender for my own life and the way I want to live it.
My body is male. It has not always been male, and it may not always be male. I can’t predict the future and my perception of the past is imperfect, but I am what I am in this current moment and I would gain nothing but a slightly smaller amount of contempt from those who have no desire to empathize with my perspective if I tried to empirically prove my maleness to them. My maleness is self-evident, something that’s been gradually created out of the love between two individuals and the respect we have for each other, for our selves and our shared priorities, and I am proud of it even and especially in light of its capacity for change. | https://medium.com/@karneiosapollon/my-gender-is-a-construct-70d5f0fa374b | [] | 2020-12-19 01:50:04.688000+00:00 | ['Environmentalism', 'Paganism', 'Gender Identity'] |
Who Was I? | I remember fluttering my eyelids open. Then shut. Open, then shut.
His voice, calling out my name.
I remember the terror of thinking I was going to die, but not knowing what of.
I remember not remembering what had happened.
I wasn’t too sure who I was.
Before the fall. | https://medium.com/the-friday-fix/who-was-i-be1627b480ff | ['Ioana Andrei'] | 2020-08-21 11:01:01.908000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Memories', 'Self', 'Brain'] |
Why Transparency Is Critical in Times of Crisis, Part 2: Decision vs. Discussion | As the economy declines, an increasing number of companies are pivoting from peacetime management to wartime management. Renowned entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz wrote a blog post “Peacetime CEO / Wartime CEO” in which he lists the many differences between the two types of company management. In particular, the following caught my eye:
Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture and empowers her people to make detailed decisions. Wartime CEO cares about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with the prime directive. Peacetime CEO strives for broad based buy in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus-building nor tolerates disagreements.
Most management techniques and principles are catered towards peacetime, to which most of my previous blog posts are no exception. During wartime — or when the company is fending off existential threats — rules tend to be broken. When I served in the Taiwanese Marine Corps, there was a saying: “Getting everyone marching together towards the second best option is better than sitting around and debating what the first best option is.” The same is true for companies fighting an existential threat: sometimes quick decisions are more optimal than perfect ones.
A common mistake I’ve seen leaders make (during both peacetime and wartime) is to invite a discussion around a decision that has already been made. Those who become invested in the discussion may feel betrayed when they realize the decision was already made and their ideas had no impact on the outcome. In my previous post, I noted that transparency is especially important in times of crisis. Today, I want to specifically discuss communicating an already-made decision and the importance during times when the company needs to act quickly.
Discussion or Decision?
During peacetime, organizations are usually afforded more time to make decisions, and leaders prioritize empowering employees by advising thinking things through rather than being hasty. During wartime, decisions have to be made quickly so people can start executing them, which comes at the expense of employee autonomy. This is when clear communication makes a big difference for your employees.
A few years ago, I was on the hiring committee in search of a new VP of Engineering. The committee, chaired by the CTO, defined the job requirements and interview process. Among them were two requirements highlighted by the CTO:
The candidate must be highly technical.
The candidate must have had substantial experience managing engineering teams at a tech company.
The search went on for a few weeks, but none of the candidates we interviewed were qualified. One day, we received a referral for a candidate whose demographic and career background was very similar to that of the two co-founders. The CTO instructed the committee to “go easy on the technical portions, because they may not pass it.” While it was odd, we obliged.
During the post-interview debrief, the CTO asked for the hiring committee’s recommendation. While the candidate seemed solid, two concerns emerged:
We asked the candidate easier technical questions, so we could not properly evaluate their technical abilities against those of other candidates in the pipeline. The candidate spent their entire career in finance and consulting, and their only stint at a tech company lasted merely 10 months.
The first concern was quickly dismissed, since it was the CTO’s direct orders to have us go easy on the technical portion. The second one stirred a debate: the startup had few people who came from the tech industry, and we wanted someone who had experienced high growth at a tech company.
Despite the committee’s concerns, the CTO argued that the candidate had sufficient tech company experience, citing their 10-month stint at a “tech” startup and experience as a CTO/co-founder of another startup. However, upon further inspection, the CTO/co-founder experience completely overlapped with their full-time job and was really a side project the candidate undertook alone. Surprisingly, the CTO kept repeating his original arguments and insisted that we were being too strict. As time for the meeting ran out, the CTO finally disclosed, “Actually, I already gave [them] a verbal offer, so if there are no other concerns, we’ll move forward with this candidate and wine and dine [them].”
The members of the committee were in shock. We had spent the last 30 minutes debating whether or not we should hire this candidate, yet it turned out that the CTO had already made the decision without us. In the ensuing weeks, people were visibly less vocal in hiring committee meetings. We weren’t sure if we were discussing a possibility, listening to the broadcast of a decision, or being asked to give our opinions which may or may not meaningfully influence the final decision.
These types of management-driven decisions are commonly seen across organizations of all sizes. Leaders are certainly justified in making executive decisions during critical wartime. However, not disclosing that a decision was made and inviting a discussion not only makes people feel cheated, but also causes them to lose trust in the system because they don’t know if their opinions still matter.
Decision, Not Discussion
In wartime, it is important to identify when a decision has been made and notifying the team. Being transparent that a decision has already been made allows you to maintain trust, which serves as the foundation for everyone to concentrate on steering the company away from crisis.
Recently, at Airbnb, I was notified of a strategic and urgent project. The deadline was two weeks away, but I was told that since the scope was sufficiently small and they had already found engineers to work on it, all my team had to do was consult on and review code. I told one of my team members to represent our team for this project and provide guidance when necessary. In other words, I let the project team discuss and decide on how to proceed with the project.
Two days later, when no progress was made, I reviewed the product spec and realized there was no way the pre-selected engineers could complete the project in time because they had no prior experience in our codebase. Furthermore, the product scope was actually quite large, and even if my team took it on, we couldn’t have completed the project in two weeks. I had made a mistake by allowing a discussion (between the product manager and the engineers found from other teams) instead of making a decision and implementing it down the line. This cost us two days, leaving eight working days until launch.
I immediately told the product manager (PM) that I was bringing in three of my engineers — pausing their existing work — and cutting project scope to ensure that we could deliver on time. After some back-and-forth with the original project team and the PM, we agreed to a reasonable scope, set up the engineering plan, and were able to deliver the project on time.
When I talked to my engineers, I explained that because this project was critical, I wanted them to pause their current work to ensure this project’s delivery. While I needed their buy-in, I clarified that the decision had been made and that the discussion needed was around how to build these features on time — not whether their existing work should be paused.
One of my engineers noted during a one-on-one that it was “uncharacteristic of [me] to be so heavy-handed in decisions and execution details.” While he was not happy with the decreased autonomy, he appreciated that I explained upfront the criticality of the project, understood why I intentionally “micromanaged”, and agreed that the project would not have succeeded had I let it run its natural course. | https://kenk616.medium.com/why-transparency-is-critical-in-times-of-crisis-part-2-decision-vs-discussion-38ab4a2a7771 | ['Ken Kao'] | 2020-08-04 20:42:35.424000+00:00 | ['Corporate Culture', 'Management', 'Technology', 'Leadership', 'Transparency'] |
Advantages of implementing Artificial Intelligence in trading | Artificial Intelligence can be summed up as the technology that can think and act for itself, and thus it is perfect for complex trading applications where speed and efficiency are key. Its application will change trading in many ways and this is already happening.
We can look at other industries AI has already shook up — Uber has disrupted the private transportation industry, Amazon has changed the retail landscape and AirBnb has forever changed the traveling and accommodation industry. Similar examples exist for nearly every industry. Additional evidence of the importance of AI as a disruptor of the financial services industry is a recent study by Opimas, which reports that financial companies will spend more than $1.5 billion on AI-related technologies in the near future and that number will rise up to $2.8 billion by 2021.
Simply put, the most obvious benefit of it is that it it considers parameters which are humanly impossible to guess. Artificial intelligence will run through a huge pile of data to give you the most profitable trading options when your flesh and blood adviser could take their sweet time.The future of trading is about processing information, developing and validating models in real-time.
How will AI disrupt financial trading?
AI makes a real difference in financial trading by mining important data and providing cheap and easily available tools that benefit everyone, not just corporates. The investment decisions made by AI will be calculated, accurate and unbiased unlike those made by humans, who are supposedly too emotional for the stock market.
The new generation of trading algorithms will incorporate AI which will enable them to learn from the trading logs of millions of historical orders and figure out the best way to execute new orders entered into the system. This is accomplished by using machine learning techniques that detect a pattern in the data and make predictions.
AiX’s system uses an auditable cognitive reasoning engine that makes inferences using both rules and data. This means it can provide a justification for every decision it makes and output this as a human-readable audit-trail — referred to as an Evidence Tree — containing, for example, every question we’ve asked a user, every answer provided and every data point and probabilistic reasoning path taken to reach a decision. AiX will be operating in regulated sectors where this audit-trail feature is critical. To guarantee the immutability of that audit-trail we intend to implement a distributed ledger based protocol that will guarantee that the data has not been tampered with.
AI and the financial world
Artificial Intelligence seems like the perfect tool for the financial market, using forecasts to make vital trading decisions. Financial success depends heavily on predicting where the market is heading. AI is predictive by nature, and can analyse mass data sets with incredible speed and accuracy, it’s not difficult to see why businesses in the sector have been quick to adopt AI and machine learning. AI is so valuable when it comes to maximising potential gain, especially when it can gather so much information about the financial climate and simulate risk scenarios.
Last year, it was estimated that 75% of global trade is handled by algorithms. This number is only expected to grow as startups and established businesses alike gradually implement AI as a financial tool. This is what AiX already did; it will be a powerful trading platform that operates across and within all global markets. AiX will disrupt the global Inter-Dealer Brokerage (IDB) role in traditional markets, and act as an exchange interface for cryptocurrency markets.
AI can learn from the patterns used here, and it can develop success algorithms that can change from time to time depending on the situation. While a variety of options and ideas are kept as proprietary, it’s safe to say that the return on investment can be great here, since AI can handle and manage all data in its own way.
Functions of Chatbots
Being a diligent conversational partner this AI remembers the history of the dialog and is continuously self-learning. Thus a chatbot can connect with a user on a more intimate level, it has the ability to get under a trader’s skin by adding value that improves their day-to-day lives. However, only a chatbot with a well-designed architecture and advanced functionality can enrich a company’s communications.
AiX is working on a sophisticated AI chatbot with built-in voice capabilities that traders will be able to use to get quotes and analysis, as well as execute trades.The way it operates is basically getting prices from market makers- both human and algorithmic, while also getting prices from exchange to get the best execution.
Let’s consider a scenario trading using AiX chatbot for instance.
The user or the trader in this case, messages the bot either asking for the current BTC price, for instance, beforehand or directly moving to trading offers. In either case,the bot will give you the updated price before asking what size you are looking to trade. After you give a number, the bot will work to find you potential offers while in the meantime it waits for other traders to respond. It collects offers and gives you the best one.
You will be shown several options of “bid”, “offer”, “buy” and “sell”. The “bid” is the amount you are willing to pay after you negotiate it by giving the price you are willing to buy when the bot gives you the offer, if the bot offers you a certain price and you hit “buy” then consequently you buy his offer, so you improve the amount you are willing to pay by tapping “bid”. After you decide on the buying and selling price the trade is seamlessly executed and you instantly receive a confirmation email. He in turn will improve the level he is willing to sell at “offer”. That’s how simple Artificial Intelligence makes it. | https://medium.com/ai-x/advantages-of-implementing-artificial-intelligence-in-trading-36ef2f682870 | ['Agnesa Dubovci'] | 2018-08-10 10:48:39.739000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Fintech'] |
The pandemic that might have turned Gen X tech-savvy | Photo by Ankur on Pexels
Humans are social by nature, and depriving us of human connection is harmful. During this pandemic, social distancing has become the new normal, urging primarily Generation X (born between 1965-1979) and Baby Boomers (born between 1944-1964) to be driven to the social confines of their homes. Ironically though, staying indoors gives them a chance to combat this virus, but it also leads to social isolation and anxiety.
When one thinks of digital platforms or applications, young adults scrolling on their smartphones comes to mind. But during this pandemic, there has been an increase in screen time amongst our parents and their peers. One reason older adults never adopted digital platforms as much before, might be that they never saw any relevance of it in their daily life, not because they felt too old for it. Unlike us millennials, our parents haven’t grown up interacting with technology on a daily basis. They prefer to socialize through human contact — be it a walk in the park with friends or attending a book club. Lack of exposure and technical knowledge to navigate through these unfamiliar waters were hindrances too. This unfamiliarity is because Gen X is said to be the last generation before the internet really took off.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels
Embracing online platforms during this pandemic
It seems that COVID-19 safety will continue to haunt us for some time, and we can expect greater reliance on technology to stay connected. These past few months have seen a shift in the mindset of older adults towards digital platforms and technology. They’ve come to understand that being tech-savvy means, you can stay remote but continue with the activities you would do on a normal day. What gives Gen Xers the confidence now, is the added incentive of having their children and grandchildren around them to help them explore the digital world. These platforms now have a purpose for Gen X — to stay connected, making them more accepting and willing to explore. If we look on the bright side of this lockdown, more than a trap it seems to have turned teachers for many.
Personally I feel there has been a role reversal with the younger generation experimenting in the kitchen and the older generation taking time to familiarise themselves with technical knowledge.
From a recent survey I conducted with consumers ranging between their late 40s — early 50s and some between their late 60s — early 70s, the common consensus was that online platforms have won them over, giving them the confidence to continue using them even after this pandemic passes. The personas ranged from homemakers to academicians as well as working professionals. They all seemed to feel that the convenience in attending meetings from the comfort of their home or chatting with friends via various online platforms has eased their life in many ways. They seem to realize also, that as they age, mobility poses as an obstacle for them to perform activities independently. This is where technology-enabled services like grocery delivery, e-commerce, and in-home subscription entertainment can become relevant in their daily lives.
I also came to understand their hesitation towards online applications. Privacy and unfamiliarity were two key reasons for this hesitation. Another hindrance they faced was the lack of audibility and visibility on smaller screens i.e. mobile phones. They preferred larger screens like desktops instead, but either didn’t own one or were unfamiliar with operating them.
The other question I asked was how they feel being tech-savvy has benefitted them. The responses were positive, with many of them expressing how they have learned new skills or connected with friends and family around the world through these platforms. Many of the respondents of the survey, who were small business owners or work in corporate jobs said that working from home might reduce the hassle of commuting and traffic congestion, especially in the metro cities. Although working from home seemed convenient for most of them, the transformation from working on a desktop screen at their workplace to a laptop screen at home had its challenges but were overcome gradually.
Illustration by Anjali D’Souza
1.Staying connected and keeping active
As adults get caught up keeping the work-life balance and kids turn to online platforms to get them through this lockdown, for senior citizens — most of whom are technologically challenged — it is quite a milestone. But times are changing, the older generation seems to be keeping an open mind towards online media and platforms. Some seniors in quarantine are leading more socially active lives than ever before.
Zoom, a video and web conferencing platform has risen to the top and is being preferred by most of Gen X to stay connected. It seems to have become the go-to platform for official meetings, social gatherings, and connecting larger groups.
Since walks in the park are no more feasible, older generations are turning to these online platforms to stay active. Practicing Yoga online has substituted for that walk in the park, at least during this time.
Among the social media platforms, Facebook is the most popular among Gen Xers. Older adults might use Facebook to connect with a long lost friend or follow the lives of their younger family members. What drives them to choose Facebook over Instagram or Snapchat is the familiarity of the application. Google Duo and Whatsapp are keeping parents and children connected through video chats. Curiosity seems to be a driving factor for the older generation to adopt these online applications.
Everyone needs entertainment, be it watching a TV series or an occasional movie. The older generations have come to realize that online platforms are a brilliant tool to stay entertained. During our daily video chat, one of the mandatory questions from my mother is “What movie should I watch on Netflix today?”
2.Learning new skills for mental stimulation
Gen Xers have shown us that they can do amazing things with technology, and even though they might express love as well as resentment to the digital world in the same breath, they live fine with these contradictions. Many of the older adults have chosen to learn new skills through online courses. They use platforms like Zoom, Google Duo, and Skype for music and singing lessons and then to practice with classmates.
Online gaming also seems to be drawing some of the older generation aging between 40–45 years, towards it. Games that include action and puzzles are the most favored genres. Amongst this age group, men are seen to be the more likely target audience for gaming online, as opposed to females.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels
Assisting Gen X through this transformation into tech-savvy individuals
Having lost touch from the outside world and relying completely on our smartphones has created an urgency to educate the older generations on online platforms.
Explaining the ease at which activities can be performed on these applications, just might give Gen X the push they need.
There are a few methods we could adopt to make the shift towards online platforms easy for older adults. Helping them understand how to navigate through these platforms is of key importance. Something as simple as scrolling upward or downward on a mobile screen is not something that is intuitive to older adults. My grandmother, when using her tablet for the first time asked me “How do I read the things at the bottom of the screen which is partially hidden?”. Teaching her how to scroll changed her experience completely. Explaining the use of a search bar as well can help them find things in times when we are not around to assist them. Another way to help older adults understand would be to see their peers using these platforms. This gives them the confidence that it isn’t as difficult or complicated as it looks.
For a long time what posed as an obstacle for accepting technology was the lack of relevance of it in their lives. Making them understand that it can ease their life in many ways puts things into perspective.
Initially, the need for one to assist them in times of confusion might be reassuring, but also reinforcing that they need to try and navigate through these platforms on their own is important.
Creating applications or customizing online platforms for this target audience might just have a promising future since Gen Xers are at a high risk of isolation and immobility during this pandemic and otherwise.
Illustration by Ankita D’Souza
Our world has never seemed to be more connected than it is during this time. With an increase of users plugged in to stay connected, online platforms are seeing a growth in the number of Gen X users.
During this pandemic as well as post, it is very important for us as a digitally advanced generation, to help the older generations familiarise themselves with the digital world.
Post lockdown, we can anticipate that the world will see many changes, and Generation X will seem to emerge more tech-savvy, increasing the scope of innovation for building products to cater to them.
As a visual designer, I feel we need to ensure that the online platforms place more emphasis on involving and engaging the older audience while designing services they might want to use. Here are some points to keep in mind:
Use of text in larger sizes for easier visibility
Displaying minimum content that is relevant to the screen
Limiting gesture control for older adults to navigate through online platforms
Avoiding too many fast-moving animations
Sticking to minimal design, this will prevent cognitive issues for older adults while plugged in
Privacy and security are also issues to educate older adults about while using online platforms. Making them understand that creating strong passwords and using discretion on what news to believe and what can be fake, is very important. We should also make them aware not to click on vague advertisements and pop-ups that might lead to unwanted sites. The internet can be a great world to explore, but it has its dangers, and Gen X and Boomers can fall prey to them if not well informed.
Until then, encourage your parents to stay active with online yoga and video call them once in a while to check in on them!
Stay Home, Stay Safe, Stay Tech-Savvy!
Note: The survey was done out of individual curiosity, and hence the observations are drawn from persons known to me and trends observed from a lot of peer stories they shared. The demographic was working professionals, small business owners, homemakers, and academicians in their late 40s — early 50s and some between their late 60s — early 70s. All participants were from urban areas, more specifically metro cities. | https://medium.com/moonraft-musings/the-pandemic-that-might-have-turned-gen-x-tech-savvy-452ad1dbb8 | ['Anjali Dsouza'] | 2020-06-02 04:59:45.460000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Design', 'Digital Experience', 'Gen X', 'Customer Experience'] |
Romerita | in Both Sides of the Table | https://medium.com/querre-cuentos/romerita-1ee62c1e1b31 | ['Querre Cuentos'] | 2016-10-23 20:15:19.493000+00:00 | ['Spanish', 'Español', 'Cuento', 'Podcast', 'Storytelling'] |
A Note on OpenCV Threads & Performance in Prod. | A Note on OpenCV Threads & Performance in Prod.
Disclaimer: OpenCV can be the real villain and can severely impact the performance of your computer vision application esp. in production having kubernetes environment (using dockers). Rachit Tayal May 14, 2019·5 min read
Motivation
I have been working on Computer Vision for sometime now which involves building applications involving image processing, deep learning and productising them at the same time. Recently I stumped upon an issue in my application (will abbreviate as app from here) which was degrading the performance of it in the deployment environment. The issue was caused by the default behaviour of the OpenCV library (provides functions/methods for various image processing tasks such as reading frames, resizing etc.) which is used extensively in vision based application, but not being aware of it at that time, I ended up wasting hours to debug it, only adding to my frustration and caffeine intake ;).
Nevertheless Since I was unable to find a proper blogpost on it and would not want any developer doing the same, I’ve decided to write a small post to summarise my observations that might come in handy.
Therefore, the aim of this post is to make developers aware of a small yet important issue that can hinder the performance of any vision based app significantly. Especially if dockers are used for deployment, there is a high chance that developers may stumble across the same scenario. Nevertheless, I believe developers must be aware of the behaviour discussed below, therefore it’s worth a read.
The Odd Behaviour
For any computer vision application, usually the flow involves reading frames from some source (Video file, Camera stream etc.) doing some processing on the frames, which in my case was performing object detection using deep learning and getting the desired output. OpenCV library methods are extensively used in above flow from reading frames to resizing, visualising them etc.
The observation I made was, that the time taken to process one frame in production env. was 3x times more as opposed to what it is taking when run on a local machine. To sum it up:
Summary
Weird, right?? Let’s dig deeper to understand as to why that is happening!
On the side note, in case you are wondering, how I assigned 8 cores to my app. (out of 24), for that our production env. is k8 compliant, hence we wrap app in docker image and deploy. Therefore I specify the -cpus option during the docker run command execution. If you are not familiar with dockers, you can refer to this blogpost to develop a basic understanding.
The Core Problem & its consequences
At first It seemed to be an inference engine issue (used for object detection) but as I dig deeper I observed, the threads spawned by the app in prod. are way more than the threads spawned on local machine.
Summary
Due to large number of threads being spawned, unnecessary overhead will be created since all the threads will be competing for CPU hence the cost of context switching will be significant, adding to the processing time of frame. Plus the overhead caused by the inter-thread communication will also make matters worse.
Therefore, the performance of the app takes the hit and we see the higher processing time in prod. Also the load average on the node (on which the app is running) will increase drastically, since many threads are waiting in the task queue which are not even required at the first place, therefore it will also be affecting the performance of other apps running on the same node.
Guess who is the culprit for spawning multiple threads — yes, OpenCV, but why?
If you use OpenCV library beware that it spawns multiple threads for image processing internally. For example, cv.VideoCapture() spawns multiple threads internally.
The number of threads spawned depend on several factors including the underlying hardware spec, method invoked etc, but generally speaking, by default, OpenCV reads the underlying hardware spec. and spawns that many number of threads as the cores present in the machine. If we see the math of threads spawned in above table:
Locally: Total Threads spawned = 13
13 = 8 (created by OpenCV, since 8 cores) + 5 (other module of app) In Prod: Total Threads spawned = 29
29 = 24 (created by OpenCV, since 24 cores) + 5 (other module of app)
General rule of thumb is, your app should be spawning that many threads as the cores it has available for processing. Therefore no concerns are raised when the app is run locally since number of cores available are equivalent with threads spawned by OpenCV, hence no impact on the performance. But assigning 8 cores to our docker container running the app, OpenCV will be spawning extra threads in prod. since the node on which it is running has higher number of cores available, which will start hindering the performance.
Solution
Well, you guessed it right. Explicitly informing the OpenCV on how many threads to spawn should solve the problem. You can achieve this via cv::setNumThreads(int) if you’re using the C++ library, or cv2::setNumThreads(int) , if you are using the Python wrapper.
Note: Generally setting it to the number of cores available for processing is optimal, however you may have to test it with multiple values for even optimal performance. Moreover I feel it’s not the fix but the issue which is usually not visible to the developer as everything seems to be working seamless unless deployed in prod :-)
Conclusion
If you use OpenCV library beware that it spawns multiple threads for image processing internally. Therefore always explicitly set the number of threads to be spawned by OpenCV based on how many cores your app is going to use in prod, else performance of the app can take a drastic hit. | https://medium.com/@rachittayal7/a-note-on-opencv-threads-performance-in-prod-d10180716fba | ['Rachit Tayal'] | 2020-01-03 08:56:13.045000+00:00 | ['Computer Vision', 'Prod', 'Opencv', 'Docker'] |
9 Smart Ways to Deal With Fear of Rejection as a New Freelance Writer | Isaac is a freelance writer for hire who has faced the fear of rejection, overcome it, and survived being rejected for over seven years.
Source: Pixabay
Introduction
You spend hours working on your article, pitch, or story.
And then you send it hoping for the best.
But you receive the response, “I am sorry but…”
It sucks, right…
When a prospective client rejects your pitch, or when a publisher rejects your story, right?
It makes you feel as though time has come to a halt and life has stopped.
And you don’t feel like going back to pitching?
Well, if you want to succeed as a writer, know that you will experience, and have to deal with, many rejections in your career.
In this article, I want to show you ways to overcome your fear of rejection to help you persevere so that you can become a successful writer.
Look At The Big Picture
When you are rejected, especially when the opportunity you lost was such a golden opportunity for you to make money , you may feel that you have come to the end of your life, that no new opportunities may ever open up to you again. That can make you feel despondent about the future.
Personally, I deal with this feeling with three Bible verses.
Firstly, 1 Kings 19 where God showed Elijah that there were many ways out of his problem, when Elijah felt he had come to the end.
Secondly, 1 Corinthians 10: 13 where God promises to provide a way of escape out of trouble when we are pushed to the limits of endurance.
Thirdly, 2 Chronicles 25: 7–9 where God revealed that He can give us bigger, better opportunities when we lose opportunities.
These three verses tell me that my last rejection was not the final chapter in my life story and that there are more interesting. more enjoyable chapters waiting for me if I persevere.
Do Deep Breathing Exercises Before You Pitch
When you think about rejections from the past, and you start thinking that this blog post, article or pitch too may be rejected, you start to breathe shallowly.
Consequently, your body does not get adequate amounts of oxygen and an alarm is sent to your brain that your body is under threat. That can paralyze your thoughts and make it difficult for you to think objectively and you might procrastinate or avoid sending another pitch altogether.
To stop this series of events from happening:
breathe in deeply through your nose and exhale through your mouth when the fear starts building up;
you might consider using the “5–8–10” technique-breathe in for a count of 5, hold the air in your lungs for a count of 8, and then breathe out for a count of 10.
Breathing deeply will stimulate your vagus nerve (the nerve that runs from your brain to your stomach). Stimulation of this nerve will make your body release stress-fighting enzymes. As a result, you will find it easier to calm down and you are more likely to think positively and take the risk to try again. .
Make Positive Affirmations To Yourself
Research done by UCLA psychologists in 2007 revealed that when you put your feelings into words, it produces a therapeutic effect in the brain and that can make you feel better.
Voicing out your feelings activates the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex region of the brain. This region, which is found behind the forehead and eyes, inhibits the processing of emotions.
Putting your feelings into words also decreases the response of the amygdala, a region of the brain is responsible for controlling emotions such as fear. Consequently, you will feel less fearful.
Saying something such as, “There will still be hope for me when I’m rejected. Rejection does not mean I’m a bad writer. Someone else will appreciate my work and my skills even if this client or website or publisher does not,” to yourself before you pitch will help to inspire hope in you.
Hope, knowing that most definetely the rejections will stop at some point, can help give you the filip to act.
Avoid Negative Self- Evlauation
Avoid thinking thoughts such as, “I’ll never get that job. My writing is not great.” A negative self-image can make you overly sensitive. This sensitivity will only reinforce your sense of fear, inadequacy, and insecurity.
These thoughts can generate and perpetuate other negative thoughts. And before you know it, one negative thought about yourself can lead you into a confrontation with an overwhelming host of negative thoughts.
Rather, think thoughts such as, “There is a client out there who will love my style of writing and the quality of my work. And if a magazine does not give me a job, it is their loss and not my loss. They will not benefit from my skills and talent.”
Laugh Before Pitching
Watch comedy movies in which diffident people face rejections, learn to cope with it, and overcome it.
A good laugh will help lower the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in your body. That will make you feel relaxed and you can manage nervousness and inner tension better.
On the other hand, laughing will stimulate your body to release brain chemicals called endorphins. The endorphins will boost your mood and make you feel positive about life and your writing business.
Plus, remind yourself of some of the things you feared in the past when you were pitching, but which never happened. Make jokes out of them and laugh over them. It will remind you that just as bad things you envisaged did not happen in the past, there is a possibility that your fears will not materialize today too and you may get the job.
Avoid Comparing Yourself To Experienced Writers
You are worried that you don’t have years of experience, right?
And sometimes when you read the articles of the popular, successful freelance writers, it makes you wonder if clients will be happy with the quality of your work, right? And that makes you scared to pitch, right?
Be careful of your rule of measurement. Don’t measure yourself by standards that other freelance writers, eBook writers, and authors esteem.
Yes, it’s good to research and know about what others have been through to help guide you.But you must always remember that their experiences may not necessarily be what you will also experience.
So value your uniqueness as a writer, and cherish what sets you apart from all other writers. Take justifiable pride in your past work. And believe that when you are given a chance, you will perform and meet the expectations of your client.
Do Not Let Past Rejections Dominate You
Memories of the opportunities you have lost come flooding back sometimes, right? You question yourself about whether your pitch was a quality one, right? You feel there is something wrong with you, right?
Thinking thus, “Maybe if I had done this…” or “Maybe if I had done that…” is fruitless. Thinking about things you can never change will only make you feel even more miserable.
Just reflect on valuable lessons you learned and resolve to go on pitching and sending manuscripts. It will help you to focus on the future, a future filled with more opportunities.
Balance Spending Time Alone With Socializing With Positive-Minded Writers
Some writers who are introverts, and who always want to be in control, do a lot of introspection. They analyze their rejections often and the constant analysis of themselves and what they are going through can become a pervasive activity in your life.
The strong sense of wanting to be in absolute control of your career can reinforce your desire to wander yet further the pathway of your mind. Unpleasant thoughts can stir up more unpleasant thoughts and that can bring to the surface fears and bad memories of painful rejections.
And the tendency to linger within yourself, to emphasize the lucrative contract you were not given goes on within you. And soon you feel that you may never land a high-paying client.
However, when you socialize with positive-minded experienced freelance writers often, and you learn ways they overcame their fear of rejection when they were starting their freelance writing career, some of their positivity will rub off on you and help you to see that things will change for the better.
Pray
One of the by-products of rejection is that it can make one feel valueless.That can inhibit the person who has been rejected from trying again because he may think he has nothing worthwhile to offer.
Consequently, he may suffer “pitching-inertia”- a reduction in the desire to keep pitching because he may be afraid of being “humiliated” again.
Prayer draws one close to God and makes him feel that he or she is loved no matter what he is going through. That can boost your self-worth and make you more open to trying one more time.
Furthermore, prayer induces boldness and courage. When you know that you are conversing with the God who owns every existing thing, and who created all humans and can influence hearts and minds, you can feel confident that He can influence some business or magazine to hire you.
Therefore, every day, say a prayer such as this one, “Dear LORD, I thank You for Your care, provision, protection, and guidance which have brought me this far. You are good all the time, God. Father, I fear I will be rejected when I send this pitch (manuscript). The experience of being rejected is so painful. Please help me to become bold and courageous. LORD, make ways for me. Amen.”
Points To Remember
If the fear of rejection is threatening your freelance writing business: | https://medium.com/isaac-nunoofio-online-business/9-smart-ways-to-deal-with-fear-of-rejection-as-a-new-freelance-writer-d451f88a45a7 | ['Isaac Nunoofio'] | 2019-06-26 02:04:57.233000+00:00 | ['Newbie Freelance Writer', 'Rejection', 'Writing', 'Freelance Writing', 'Fear Of Rejection'] |
* Us Versus Them | Is patriotism a must for hockey fan allegiance?
Image by Anastasia Borisova from Pixabay and Photo by Tetyana Kovyrina from Pexels
The goal of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union was to establish once and for all whose game hockey truly was. I had been too little to realize what’s happening but the tone of voice in which the beloved Soviet sports commentator Nicolai Ozerov called Canadians the “professionals” had seemed menacing even to me. I asked my parents: “What’s a professional?”. “The professionals play hockey for money”, my father said. “While the Soviets are all amateurs and compete for the love of the game”, my mother chimed in. As a school teacher, she had never missed a chance to educate.
Canada had won that first battle for hockey supremacy, but the lesson I learned was rather personal. As a good daughter and an exemplary Soviet child, I eagerly absorbed the notion that there’s no glory in doing your work just for money's sake. I’m still struggling with the influences of my upbringing, as even joining the partner’s program on Medium has left me a bit apprehensive. Hiding behind a paywall seemed incredibly capitalist. A more conscientious person would’ve given her writing for free, and to anyone in need. But that’s a whole different topic for another time.
When I came to Canada my whole world turned upside down. I wasn’t prepared for the love Canadians had for hockey. I learned that, just like the Soviets, Canadians had stuck to the TV screens during the Summit Games, feeling heartbreak or elation depending on who had won the match. We were the great enemy, the enemy you couldn’t help but respect. They were the mean, physical “Canadian Professionals” for us. We were the skillful, team-oriented “Red Machine” for them.
The coexistence of the two once opposing strategies is obvious in modern hockey. To become a professional, the player has to be not only skillful, mean, and physical but dedicated and passionate as well. The only caveat is that in Russia of today, most of the public’s attention is given to the talent when in Canada, everything is about work ethic and tenacity. And what’s interesting, the arguably best Canadian player Sidney Crosby doesn’t look like a physical specimen. In fact, his skill set and hockey IQ are more in tune with the Russian players of old. At the same time, the brilliance and physicality of the Russian superstar Alex Ovechkin would make him a perfect fit for the Canadian team circa 1972.
For a while, I kept rooting for the Russians, my national pride swelling whenever the sound of the old Soviet anthem — with rewritten modern words — would blare over the ice rinks. However, the longer I lived in Canada, the less I knew the Russian players. I discovered some new players to root for, and not all of them were Russians. For instance, one of my recent favorites is an American Auston Matthews. The thin line “Us versus Them” becomes even more blurry when anyone from my home team Toronto Maple Leafs plays in international competitions.
In the end, simple arithmetic wins every time. I tend to support those I know. I’m better with people than with faceless concepts anyway. This is why my patriotism steps aside in favor of the love for the game of hockey.
I won't know much about the youngsters participating in this year’s Ice Hockey Under 20 World Championship, so I’ll be rooting for a grand finale where Canada plays Russia. I will brace myself and concentrate on the thought that the great game of hockey will prevail whoever wins. Because in my case it will be a game of Us versus Us, the best against the best. And may the most worthy win! | https://medium.com/illumination/us-versus-them-ccd797742eba | ['Nadya Semenova'] | 2020-12-26 19:30:03.455000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Self', 'Fans', 'Sports', 'Difference'] |
How People Use Social Media Platforms Differently | How People Use Social Media Platforms Differently
Source: Unsplash Kal Visuals
Social media platforms continue to change rapidly as they evolve to include new formats, driven by how people consume content.
Ten years ago, most businesses did not think they needed to create a Social media profile. Skip to today, and one of the first things businesses want to know is what social channels they should be using. | https://medium.com/@rickgovic/shifts-across-social-media-platforms-for-2021-what-you-should-know-before-marketing-ff2cd80ee153 | ['Rick Govic'] | 2021-02-08 11:17:16.268000+00:00 | ['Snapchat', 'Content', 'Instagram', 'YouTube', 'Social Media'] |
Laravel On Shared Hosting | Before we start its worth caveating this post with the message: It’s always more desirable and recommended to serve Laravel apps from bespoke hosting environment.
There are plenty to choose, from first party tools like Forge and Vapour to more general providers like Digital Ocean, AWS and GCP.
However as i find myself in a similar situation there may be times you have to deploy on a CPanel environment.
I am going to cover the usual quite simple redirect you see across the web, but more importantly a second step thats usually left out. This second step can have a massive impact on your SEO.
The Redirect
As you may of found elsewhere theres a simple redirect you can put in the root folder of your project:
# Internally rewrite all top-level requests to the public directory <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
It’s very simple and just redirects everything from the root of your site public_html down into the public folder of your Laravel project.
From there the .htaccess provided with Laravel will take over and route incoming requests.
Job done? Maybe not…
The SEO Problem
The problem with the above redirect is that it doesn’t prevent access to ALL of your urls with a /public/ prefix. So both / and /public/ will server your applications homepage!
This is obviously bad for any SEO efforts your planning to make to the site as you now have duplicate pages and on top of that if someone stumbles upon those urls its not great for users.
I spent sometime trying out redirects to prevent this from the .htaccess file itself but came up blank. In my particular case this is a CPanel server with Litespeed installed. And i know from experience its not quite 100% like for like with Apache.
The Solution
With the .htaccess approach coming up blank i went with a Middleware solution. Again this isn't ideal as its not really the applications responsibility but we are not in an ideal situation anyway.
It’s a pretty simple middleware, it looks for the public prefix and returns a 301 redirect if found. This does mean you cannot have urls that start with public but in our case this wasn't a problem:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
use Closure;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class RedirectPublicFolderRequests
{
/**
* Handle an incoming request.
*
* @param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* @param \Closure $next
* @return mixed
*/
public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
{
if (strpos($request->getRequestUri(), '/public') === 0) {
return redirect()
->to($request->getSchemeAndHttpHost() . '/' . substr($request->getRequestUri(), 8))
->setStatusCode(301);
}
return $next($request);
}
}
Once again this isn’t ideal but works for our purposes.
Add this to your global middleware stack before anything else.
Note how we use the $request->getRequestUri () method and not simply $request->path() . As the path will be effected by the servers rewrites. | https://medium.com/@lee-mason/laravel-on-shared-hosting-c45a434b8425 | ['Lee Mason'] | 2020-12-18 15:07:30.615000+00:00 | ['PHP', 'SEO', 'Cpanel', 'Laravel'] |
Bitcoin Mining in 2020 | How to mine bitcoin fast? | But, you certainly don’t need to become a miner with his very own encryption. An example of the latter is Steemit, which is similar to the Medium type, except that consumers may reward bloggers by paying at a proprietary cryptocurrency called Steem. Cryptocurrency Mining
In addition to the liner of the miners’ pockets, mining serves a second and critical function: that is the only method to circulate the new cryptocurrency. In other words, miners are essentially printing money. Along with the coins printed by the Genesis block (the first block created by Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto himself), every one of those Bitcoins emerged because of miners. In the absence of miners, Bitcoin could continue to be available and are accessible, but no extra Bitcoin will be available. Bitcoin mining will probably come to an end; According to the Bitcoin Protocol, the number of Bitcoins will likely be closed at 21 million.
Along with the short-term Bitcoin yield, being a miner provides you with sıra voting sıra power when modifications to the Bitcoin protocol are recommended. In other words, a successful miner affects decision-making issues like a bifurcation. What is bitcoin mining free?
One of the main concerns many people have about Bitcoin is turning round the markers themselves. If it comes to concerns regarding its value, safety, and history, it’s all in one area: where do bitcoins come from?
Bitcoins are katılım mining: by Bitcoin miners, while traditional coins are being created through the central bank: community participants performing additional tasks. In particular, they integrate them into the Bitcoin cubes they find, chronologically ordering surgeries. This prevents the consumer from spending the identical bitcoin twice; Solves the problem of” double spending”.
Jumping over the technical details is much like finding a block of a lottery. For every single chance to try and locate each experiment, which can be a random quote for a lucky number, a miner must spend a small amount of energy. Most trials fail along with miners wastes that energy. Once every ten minutes per miner will triumph in a place and thus add a new block to the block series.
This also means that when a miner has found a valid block, he should have burnt mathematically more energy for many failed attempts. This id proof of company kanı is in the center of Bitcoin’s success.
First, proof of work prevents miners from producing fine aerial bitcoins: they will need to burn off the actual power to win. Second, the proof of the company sizes the foundation of Bitcoin. If an attacker needed to attempt to replace a trade that had happened in the past, he would have to do all of the work done again since the attacker needed to capture and construct the longest string. This is nearly impossible and the miners are said to keep the Bitcoin network ağ safe Bu.
There’s a special trade-in each new block, in exchange for the” lottery price” that serves as an incentive to secure the network and burn this energy. This is the process by which the miner is rewarded with new bitcoins, that’s the first time that the bitcoins enter the circulation. In addition, miners maintain mining fees attached to transactions they add to their own blocks.
Anyone may be a Bitcoin miner to acquire these coins. But, Bitcoin mining has become increasingly specialized over the years and nowadays it is largely done by specialized professionals, cheap electricity and special professionals, largely with large data centers.
Today you need to know what you are doing to be aggressive in a competitive way, willing to spend significant resources and time, and last but not least — have access to cheap electricity. In case you’ve got all of it, you can give it a chance and be a Bitcoin miner. | https://medium.com/@BeulahLorenzo/bitcoin-mining-in-2020-how-to-mine-bitcoin-fast-7823a106c18e | ['Beulah Lorenzo'] | 2020-02-21 11:59:03.403000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin Mining Hardware', 'Bitcoin Mining', 'Bitcoin Mining Free'] |
Implementing Multi-Language Search in Gatsby v2 — Powered Projects | Hello, my name is Alex. I work at humansee labs. We create cool web-projects in shortest time using JAMstack approach, React and Gatsby. Now, I’ll show you how we implement multi-language search in our projects.
If you decided to get some search plugin from Gatsby Library then you will identify that there are not too many variants there in case you need a multi language search. Thus we have nothing to do except writing our own search plugin.
We start with finding a search engine which could help us and choose lunrjs. After a few days, npm multi-language search module is written, and it’s available on npm as gatsby-plugin-lunr — any pull requests are welcome! :-)
In this article I will show how to add the multi language search functionality to the Gatsby v2 boilerplate project using our plugin. It’s even faster than I can run 100 yards.
First of all, you need to create a gatsby project. You could do all the steps by yourself but I recommend to use gatsby starters. In this tutorial I will use gatsby-starter-default with Gatsby v2.
Install Boilerplate
Gatsby boilerplate is installed. Let’s add our search plugin. I use gatsby-plugin-lunr. List of supported languages is in the link.
Add the Search Plugin
To add the plugin, open gatsby-config.js file in the root directory and add the following code in the plugin section:
In the plugin, I use mapPagesUrls, so add this code to the top of gatsby-config.js:
The search plugin is indexing static files such as .json or .md. In my example, I will use files with .md extension.
Add .md Files Support
Let’s add support of .md files to our project. To do so, open gatsby-config.js and add the following plugins:
After adding the plugins, install these modules via npm or yarn.
Now we have support of .md files, but still no content. I recommend creating a templates folder in the root directory. Files in this folder are pure React components that will be initialized with content that we have in data folder with .md extensions.
In the templates folder, create the Page.js file and add the following code:
This React component will create a page from the content that we have in our .md file. Let’s create index.md in data directory:
Small step should be done before we finish. We still have to let gatsby know how to create pages. To do so, open gatsby-node.js and add the following code:
Add the Search React Component
Go to the components folder and create a Search.js file:
Now add our Search component to Header.js in the components folder:
Our Layout.js component should look like this:
Finish
Now, everything is done, but it’s not working.
The reason is in the principle of creating indexed files. These files are created when you build a gatsby project. Run gatsby build.
After the build is successfully ran, restart the gatsby develop server. That’s all, now our search component works as we expected. Try to input “React” in the search field.
Full code for this article is available on github, issues and any proposals are welcome :-)
Thanks for reading! | https://medium.com/humanseelabs/gatsby-v2-with-a-multi-language-search-plugin-ffc5e04f73bc | ['Alex Duda'] | 2018-07-25 06:50:35.592000+00:00 | ['Reactjs', 'JavaScript', 'Gatsbyjs', 'Multi Language Search', 'Jamstack'] |
A Christmas Carol Retrospective: Part 11 | A Christmas Carol (1994)
This is an animated version made by Jetlag Productions, which was a small animated film studio that worked on a few TV series, before releasing their own films. Most of their films are considered “mockbusters”. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s when studios release movies that are deliberately made to look like they are the same title as a big budget studio movie. Next time you look at a department store DVD bargain bin look for titles like “Karate Panda” or “Frozen Land” for good examples. Jetlag put out a number of movies like this including knock offs of Pocahontas, Hercules, and the Lion King, all released at the same time as Disney’s versions. Jetlag also put out a couple of literary adaptations, one of which is A Christmas Carol.
It starts with a MIDI-sounding adaptation of Jingle Bells. A narrator tell us that Christmas was a time of giving, but for Scrooge, it was nothing of the sort. Scrooge was a mean man, but no one feared him more than his unfortunate clerk.
Scrooge screams at Bob with an incredibly screechy voice. Fred immediately arrives and they quickly argue.
When Fred gives his little speech, Bob tries to clap, and literally hits his hands together once before falling off of his chair and knocking over his ledger and ink. It’s funny in how unfunny it is.
One charity guy shows up and is dismissed. Scrooge lets Bob leave with Christmas Day off and heads home. His door knocker transforms into Marley’s face, which kind of looks cat-like for some reason and Scrooge puts on glasses to take a closer look. As he heads in to his home he hears some ghostly wailing and yells “I won’t have this!” and “Double nonsense.” The fire in the fireplace turns into multiple Marley heads awkwardly opening and closing their mouths while they make noise and then Marley’s ghost turns into some bolts of electricity cracking in the air that had me thinking Doc Brown was going to burst into the room with the DeLorean. (Note to self: There should be a Back to the Future comic where different timeline versions of Doc visit Biff and take him to different pasts, presents and futures to get him to change his ways at Christmas. If IDW Comics is reading this, call me!)
For some reason, all of Marley’s features like his hair and waist coat are floating upwards like he’s being pulled by a magnet. His voice is exactly how a child would imitate a ghost by drawing out each word, which makes it pretty unintentionally funny. Marley gives him the standard speech and floats out the window, where we see a bunch of spirits in chains just floating around, and the same animations loop over and over, while a really weird song (which I hesitate to call a song) plays where some ghostly voices tell Scrooge to change his ways and be good to others while the ghosts keep screaming. The sound of the song is drowned out by the screaming and it is much more annoying than it is creepy.
The Ghost of Christmas Past arrives and looks kind of like the Dungeon Master from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, a little old man with white hair in a blue robe with a strange green hat. He flies Scrooge out the window with what looks like telekinesis and they arrive at Scrooge’s boyhood school. Scrooge surprisingly yells “Merry Christmas!” to his boyhood friends, and when the Ghost asks what good Christmas is to him, he says Christmas was a great time at the school, as everyone was happy and laughing. The Ghost then points out that there is one child who is lonely at this time, so why Scrooge would remember the good parts of Christmas is kind of odd.
He refuses to go inside to see, but the Spirit uses tendrils of smoke and then a wave of snow to force him in, which was a brilliant waste of the animation budget. Inside, he watches his younger self crying over a book and as time moves, Fan arrives to bring him home. Young Scrooge’s voice is clearly his adult voice actor talking in falsetto and sounding like he’s imitating a girl, which is really laughable.
The Spirit says they must move on, but Scrooge throws a tantrum saying “No, no, I want to stay here with Fan!” They move anyway onto Fezziwig’s warehouse party, which at least has about 15 party-goers in this version, but they all move back and forth repeating their animation exactly like it’s the animatronics on a Disney ride. The Spirit whisks him away again to the Belle break up, which is extremely short.
Scrooge grabs the Spirit to beg to be let go and he’s back in his bed grabbing his curtains. The Ghost of Christmas Present arrives, and a giant spectral hand appears under his bedroom door to coax him out, which looks crazy. He criticizes the whole spirit thing and a lightning bolt appears in his room to strike at him, and frightens him into apologizing to Marley. I don’t know why Marley apparently controls electricity in this version.
The Ghost of Christmas Present looks sort of traditional, but with a big purple robe and he moves Scrooge with a whirlwind of fruit to a street where he says that people keep Christmas in their hearts. They briefly walk inside a house and we see two people putting up a wreath and a Christmas tree, but no one speaks at all in the scene. It took me a little to realize that it was Fred, which was a pretty sad excuse for showing Fred’s party. Scrooge then goes to the Cratchits house where Bob arrives with Tiny Tim in tow. Interestingly this version of the Cratchits has 3 boys and 3 girls. Why they took the time to animate even more children than necessary is kind of strange. He says Tiny Tim is getting stronger and Scrooge says it doesn’t look like it. The Spirit says “Bob only says what he wishes is true”.
Scrooge pleads that Tiny Tim will not die and the Cratchits toast to Scrooge. The Spirit disappears and Scrooge awakens in his bed. Scrooge mentions that when all of this is over, he is buying new sheets and new curtains. At first I thought it was a “wet the bed” joke, but why would he need curtains? It’s just a plain weird thing to say.
He flings open the curtains and a pointy-finger grim reaper figure is standing there. “Are you the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?” he asked. When he gets no response, he says “I know. Stupid question.” and follows him out. We see two businessmen talking about the funeral that no one wants to go to. Scrooge says “I know these men, I’ve done business with them all!” But there were only two of them, so shouldn’t you say both?
They walk into Old Joe’s, where Mrs. Dilber, the laundress and the undertaker sell off his possessions. “Someone in this city must mourn this man!”, Scrooge cries and we get taken to the Cratchits. Scrooge is touched at the grieving for Tiny Tim. “What can the death of the man we saw have to do with the death of Tiny Tim?” He’s taken to the cemetery and pointed to his own tomb.
“I am the man who died!?” he cries. He makes his promises to honor Christmas and grabbing the spirit, awakens holding his curtains again. He jumps around and kind of laughs like Woody Woodpecker while he recollects what occurred.
He shouts to a boy to buy the prize turkey and heads out. We see the turkey arriving at the Cratchits and Bob suggests he only knows one man who could afford a turkey that big. Mrs. Cratchit says “You can’t mean Mr. Scrooge!” and they all laugh about it.
Scrooge finds the charity guy and gives his back payment donations. He stops at Fred’s where he asks for forgiveness for never visiting, and the party goers awkwardly golf clap for him. We then see Scrooge at his business the next day, where he pranks Bob and raises his salary. It ends with a song as Scrooge walks down the snowy street with the Cratchits and hugs Tiny Tim, all while a song about a “Very Merry Christmas” plays. A narrator reads the last few sentences of the story, but it amazingly takes out “God Bless us, everyone.” which I then realized Tiny Tim didn’t even say earlier during the toast. I guess this is an extremely secular version?
Overall, this is a pretty big stinker. Clocking in at only 48 minutes, I was still ready for it to be over with. The character designs are surprisingly kind of nice, they have a bit of an anime-like quality to the way they are drawn. But Scrooge is oddly given brown hair, rather than the traditional white or gray. With his pointed jaw and lean face, I found myself more than once thinking he looks a lot like Abe Lincoln, and the hair and top hat only added to the illusion. Scrooge’s voice is done way over the top and he sounds like someone impersonating a Decepticon from Transformers instead of a curmudgeonly old guy, but all the other voice acting is average. The actual movement of the animation is typical 90s TV cartoon quality. While the dialogue is sometimes fairly accurate to the source, it’s not particularly better than any other version, so there is practically nothing that really works for this version to make me recommend it over any other.
The Flintstones Christmas Carol (1994)
Okay, I’ll just address the age-old joke before I dive into this one. Why do the Flintstones celebrate Christmas, when it would not exist without the birth of Christ, and the Flintstones lived thousands of years before the birth would have taken place? I have no idea, other than that they live in a cartoon universe where cars and appliances exist in animal form and dinosaurs live concurrently with man, so this is clearly not our universe. Presumably this is a parallel universe where the caveman style of life survived to the equivalent of our modern-day and they had a caveman Mary, Joseph, and Jesus at some point in their past. There’s my ridiculous theory and I’m sticking to it!
Bedrock Community Theater is putting on a production of “A Christmas Carol” and Fred is playing the role of Scrooge. He’s taking it a little too seriously, practicing his lines everywhere, with the dialogue he’s trying out being book accurate for the most part. He’s so into the role that he’s ignoring the feelings of his family and friends due to the clout it’s giving him. At the construction site, his usually mean boss Mr. Slate points out that he would make a better Scrooge, which is interesting, because I expected that to be the plot of the movie, but I guess they want the main character in the Scrooge role. This comes up a few times later, so it’s clear that the writers knew that Slate would make more sense as Scrooge too!
We are also introduced to a young blonde named Maggie who talks like a ditsy floozy and she says how excited she is for the love scene she does in the play and she reads some of her lines and then tries to kiss Fred, but is blocked by a stone tablet. Fred is just as excited as her for the “romance scene”, which I think is kind of awful since he’s married.
Fred tries reading the script while running the excavating dinosaurs and one of the dinos remarks “I thought our job was to chew the scenery.” I have to admit, that’s a solid joke.
Fred buys some last minute gifts for Wilma and Pebbles and tries to get them wrapped, but the line is too long, so he leaves them with a kid and asks him to get them wrapped for him in exchange for his lower call number and he rushes to the theater. Wilma chastises him because he forgot to pick up Pebbles from daycare and it’s clear she isn’t happy with Fred as the production begins.
Once he gets on stage, the story begins and transforms from a stage production into a seemingly real tale. The narrator reads some lines that are surprisingly straight from the book, including some that I’ve never heard read in any other version’s narration. Barney is in the role of Bob Cratchit (IN this version, Bob Cragit…ugh.) Nephew Ned (I guess it would be confusing if he was also named Fred) arrives and has the usual banter.
The charity guys arrive and Scrooge says he certainly can support them, but he WON’T!
As Scrooge leaves, a kid knocks off his hat which gets trampled by a carriage (much like the 1934 version, but without Bob). He calls a constable on the kid, who is caught, and Scrooge gives him the option of shoveling the snow from his building, or going to the workhouse. Mr. Slate appears as “Marbley” on his sabertooth tiger door knocker.
Marbley’s ghost arrives and gives his speech. This play they are doing oddly wobbles back and forth from extremely accurate book dialogue to odd fluff. Scrooge returns to bed, and the audience applauds and the curtain is drawn, and they seem to take a break, as Fred now comes off stage and is talking about how great a job he did. Barney changes costumes and the production continues.
The actress who was going to play the Spirit of Christmas past has the “Bedrock Bug” and is too sick to perform, so Wilma has to swap in, much to Fred’s surprise. The Spirit shows Scrooge his past as a boy, where he quickly swaps into the role of young Scrooge and sees Fan (who he mistakes for Pebbles) and he leaves with Fan. He’s taken to Fezziwig’s (who Barney is now playing). Wilma gets called offstage and Maggie, the floozy from earlier who was going to play Belle is also sick, so Wilma has to step into another role. Fred is surprised yet again, and Wilma asks in an angry tone if he wanted to do the love scene with the other girl instead.
We move forward in time, and we see Scrooge propose to Belle after a snowball fight. But then we move forward again to the breakup scene where Belle tells him that she has been replaced by the idol of greed.
The curtain closes and Fred heads offstage, where he tells Barney he is concerned because Wilma’s tears seemed real. Barney tells him he is acting like a real Scrooge by forgetting about Pebbles and being self-centered. He realizes he forgot all about the kid at the store holding his presents and the intermission only has 10 minutes left! He runs to the store, breaks in, tripping a “silent alarm” bird in the process and gets caught by his cop friend and taken back to the theater in time, with the presents still missing.
Christmas Present shows up as a big green robed fellow. He takes Scrooge to the street and sprinkles his torch and even gives the speech about bigotry that I haven’t heard in any other version. He takes Scrooge to the Cragits (played by Betty, Pebbles, and Bam Bam as Tiny Tim, along with Dino as a family dog). He is touched by Tiny Tim’s sentiment at church and is distraught at the Spirit’s assessment that he will die.
They move on to Nephew “Ned”, where they are playing charades and acting out “selfish” and “cheap” and ultimately Uncle Scrooge. (It’s interesting that there are so many variations of what game they are playing. I think we’re up to about 5 now.) Scrooge wants to stay, but time is short. The Ghost of Christmas Future arrives, which is just a hovering white robe.
The Spirit shows him to two men discussing the funeral, then to the corpse in bed, then to Old Joe’s where two women and a man quickly sell some of Scrooge’s possessions. Finally, to the Cragits, where Scrooge is moved by Tiny Tim’s death. They quickly move to the graveyard where he is shown his own grave (which reveals he is “Eboneezer Scrooge” in this version), but he awakens in his bed and says some more oddly accurate dialogue about his reformation.
He goes to the window and sees the boy who he made shovel his sidewalk, but the boy hits him in the face with a snowball, which he says he deserved. He asks the boy to buy the biggest turkeysaurus in the window and bring it to the Cragits.
He runs into the charitable guys, but one of them is Wilma! (She explains the other charity guy is sick now too). He plays it off as though she is Belle, and invites her to Nephew Ned’s (much to the director’s dismay, who bemoans that none of this is in the script and throws his copy to the ground). They go to a surprised Ned’s house, who happily accepts them.
He then runs into Bob and offers to make him his partner. Poor Bam Bam can’t get out the final “God Bless us, everyone.”, but Pebbles helps him out. As the curtain drops, the cast drops Fred and calls him out for his bad behavior. He apologizes and reconciles with Wilma, and the boy he left at the mall drops off his presents in time. He ends up feeling sick with the Bedrock bug, but Wilma points out it only lasts 24 hours, so he’ll be able to be ready to go to her mother’s Christmas dinner, which makes Fred sick to his stomach as he runs off stage.
This one felt like what Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol should have been. It uses the framing device to actually do things with the characters and have a plot outside of the normal Christmas Carol, and even intercuts the “performance” with more character stuff and plot. It’s really bizarre how there is some narration and dialogue that I haven’t seen in any other film version, so props to them for including some of that stuff and it is certainly better than most of the animated versions I’ve watched. They hit the major notes and most of it is done well, especially since we sort of get two different redemption stories that both involve Christmas in different ways. The stuff outside of the “Christmas Carol” part is pretty watchable and while I usually found most of the “modern stuff in the stone age” jokes lame in the cartoon series as a kid, some of the ones in this special are pretty inventive and funny. At only 1 hour long, there are certainly worse versions to watch, so I give this one a passing grade!
A Christmas Carol (1997)
This is an animated version released by DIC Entertainment, a studio most well known for creating the Inspector Gadget cartoon series, along with the Super Mario Bros Super Show and some Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons. Scrooge in this version is voiced by veteran character actor Tim Curry.
The film begins with the narration “Folks say life is a song, for some that means a ditty, for others, a dirge, but at the holiday season, we all sing a carol… a CHRISTMAS CAROL.” (How forced that was got a good laugh out of me.)
People in London sing an original song, “Tell Me a Tale About Christmas”, while the street goers dance and celebrate. Bob Cratchit (voiced by Michael York, who I only know as Basil Exposition from Austin Powers) is humming the song while he works. A random boy looks inside Scrooge’s business window. Scrooge is angered by the humming and scolds Cratchit. The boy watching from the window tries peeking through the keyhole, but in this version, Scrooge has a large bulldog named Debit, who comes barking at the door to scare him away.
Fred arrives and a lot of the language here is “dumbed down”. For example instead of Fred asking why Scrooge is dismal, he asks why he is grumpy. Scrooge says numbskull, instead of idiot, etc. It just seems like a lot of the Victorian-era flavor is being dried out for the sake of kids watching. When Scrooge says someone should be buried with a stake of holly through their heart, an anthropomorphic mouse in the safe he is using faints at the prospect of such a thing. Not even 5 minutes in, and we’ve got a comedic bulldog and a mouse, we just need a cat to go full Tom and Jerry.
Fred kindly picks up the mouse and pets it while he gives his speech in defense of Christmas, while Scrooge literally covers his ears (while Debit does the same) and when the mouse awakens, it jumps on Scrooge’s desk, who grabs a book to smack it with, which scares it away into a mousehole, where Debit chases it and smacks into the wall. It’s already going full Tom and Jerry it seems.
Fred leaves and the charity guys show up. When they ask about Marley, Scrooge points to a portrait and says he has been dead for seven years. The portrait is oddly modern looking, with a man in a green suit and tie with a modern mustache. I don’t know what was going on with that character design. He scolds Cratchit for arriving with one fewer lump of coal then he ordered while they talk.
He dismisses them and when they ask him to relent, he sics Debit on them who chases them out of the business. Closing time comes and Tiny Tim arrives at the door. Scrooge grabs his cane and yells “Beat it beggar!”, but Bob stops him telling him it’s his son. Scrooge says he has no idea he had a family (C’mon, how long has Bob been working there!?) and in a moment of sentimentality says “He is rather…tiny.” Even mean-old Debit seems to like Tiny Tim.
Bob leaves and Scrooge closes up the shop and walks home, watching Tiny Tim and Bob sliding on the ice for fun, which he shakes his head at. He makes his way to a tavern and orders “Hash for me, scraps for my dog”. The barmaid and a tavern fly comment that he’s so cheap getting the same thing everyday. The barmaid than breaks into a song “Random Acts of Kindness”, which does not have a very Christmas rhythm to it, it almost has a spooky beat. Scrooge himself joins in with verses arguing against charity and helping others. As he leaves he gives his 19th century Yelp review, “Waitress, here’s the only tip you’ll be getting from me, find a new chef, your hash isn’t fit for a dog.” What a jerk. Everyone celebrates him leaving.
He walks past a mother with her infant in a cold alley who begs “Please sir”, and he just keeps on walking. He finally gets home and his lion door knocker becomes Marley’s face, still with that Teddy Roosevelt mustache. As Scrooge reads in his bedroom, a tile on his fireplace morphs into Marley’s face, who says Scrooge’s name. Debit even barks at the face, but Scrooge won’t believe it. He calls himself a “dunderhead” and says there is no such thing as spirits. His door unlocks itself and Marley arrives. His body even looks like Teddy Roosevelt!
Scrooge sics Debit on him, but he can’t bite the ghost. When he says there is more of gravy than of grave, Marley gets filled with green light like he’s going to turn into the Hulk and scares Scrooge into lighting his butt on fire in the fireplace. Marley shows him the woman and child from earlier outside his window, where two spirits try to give her ghostly bread and blankets to no avail.
“You’ll be haunted by three ghosts”. “No deal”, says Scrooge. He even says he likes chains, so he doesn’t care.
The Ghost of Christmas Past shows up and looks like a young boy in a blue suit and voiced by Kath Soucie ,whose voice you recognize from dozens of different cartoons and is played like a stereotypical street urchin (Aye guvna!). He pulls Scrooge outside, and Debit bites his robe and tags along. He’s taken to his school days (Debit sees a cat in the schoolhouse, but it’s just a shadow of the past and he can’t chase it. We were so close to going full Tom and Jerry!)
He sees himself reading alone and sees his imagination’s version of Robinson Crusoe appear out of the fire. Young Scrooge sings about how he is on his own in the song “When Shadows Fall”, and he uses shadow puppets to create various storybook tales to keep him company.
Time moves to a teen Scrooge and Fan arrives, who is clearly voiced by Kath Soucie as well. Young Scrooge leaves with her, and the Spirit points out that her goodness lives in Fred now. The Spirit says they will see another kind soul and Scrooge is taken to Fezziwigs. Young Scrooge and Dick Wilkins clean up for the party. Scrooge recalls being treated like a son and goes to pet Debit who recoils from his touch. Geez, not even his own dog trusts him.
He enjoys the party and is moved forward to his time with Belle, voiced by Jodi Benson, who played Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. He says he has a surprise for her, it’s small and round and gold and holds the future. She happily guesses a ring, but he says no, it’s the first profit from his business. Smooth…
Belle immediately begins to sing a duet with Scrooge (I’ll Cross This Bridge With You) where she talks about the future, but Scrooge sings about how they need money to live well. By the end of the song they part. Old Scrooge asks to not be shown anymore, he grabs the Spirit to beg him to stop, and the Spirit turns into his curtains.
He yells to the Spirits, “No more!” and goes to sleep. Debit tears up and eats some of his blanket, because that’s funny, I guess? The Ghost of Christmas Present arrives and for the first time is portrayed as a woman, but still tall and in green robes, voiced by Whoopi Goldberg. Scrooge begrudgingly goes along flying outside, leaving Debit behind. He asks “Why should he be accused of being selfish when Christmas is a selfish holiday?” “WHAT?!” screams the Spirit who drops him in shock.
She says she’ll take him to somewhere to prove that isn’t true. She takes him to Bob Cratchit’s house. Scrooge points out how meager they live and the Spirit chastises the salary Scrooge provides. Bob says that Tiny Tim behaved as good as gold, even better. Scrooge is confused that something is better than gold. Ugh.
Bob offers a toast to Scrooge and Mrs. Cratchit gives her usual retort, which then turns into a reprise of “Random Acts of Kindness”, which still has kind of a dramatic undertone to it instead of sounding happy. He watches Tiny Tim read by the fire, and the Spirit asks him if it looks familiar, drawing a parallel to young Scrooge earlier. Scrooge even notices he is reading Robinson Crusoe and begins to get into the story.
Scrooge openly wishes he had a family to spend time with. But the Spirit points out he had Fred and takes him to his house, where Fred is putting on an impression of Scrooge to the amusement of the party goers. He mentions his mother’s love for him and he notices how much Fred looks like her (which I believe they just stole from earlier live action versions and probably assumed was in the novella, as this isn’t an actual detail in the story).
The party goers start singing about Santa Claus in a song called “Santa’s Sooty Suit”. Scrooged is apparently amused by it, with such brilliant lyrics as “scrubba dubba dub dub dub, dub dub dub”. The Spirit reveals that it has aged and it disappears. Scrooge finds himself in a purple void, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come appears as a floating blue robe with bony hands.
It takes Scrooge to the exchange, where he hears two businessmen mocking the funeral and is then taken to his body, where a woman and a man are pilfering the belongings from his bedroom. The woman even takes his slippers off his feet. Scrooge asks for tenderness and the Spirit makes a JJ Abrams lens flare effect that takes them to the Cratchits, where they mourn Tiny Tim.
Scrooge is distressed and is quickly taken to the cemetery and is shown his place in it. As he begs for a chance to live a different life, the Spirit leaves him alone at this grave. Another lens flare and he realizes he is home in his bed. He gives Debit a hug and kiss and says Debit has another chance too! He begins to sing “I Have a New Song of Christmas”.
He goes to the window and calls to the boy that Debit scared earlier and asks him not to be afraid and to purchase the big turkey. He walks the street wishing people a merry Christmas much to their surprise. He sees the charity guys, who run away in fear, but he chases them down and asks them to come back. Debit grabs a hold of one of their pants legs, and Scrooge apologizes and tells them to come to him tomorrow. They ask why he wants to donate now and he says “It’s too late to do it when you’re dead.”
As he walks away, he remarks to Debit that he likes this new feeling but that smiling will take getting used to. Fred and his wife arrive at the Cratchits and say they received word to meet Scrooge here. Bob is worried over that news. Scrooge helps Debit look meaner and then pulls his typical Bob prank where he raises his salary. The boy arrives with the turkey and a fiddler comes as well for a party, where Scrooge promises that he and Fred will teach them “Santa’s Sooty Suit”. I prayed that he would not reprise it for my sake.
Scrooge and Tiny Tim both give a “God bless us, everyone” and a narrator closes out with the last bit of the story.
This one isn’t the worst animated version, but it also doesn’t really use animation to its advantage either. Its character designs are okay, if not a little too modernized, but the animation is stiff and not very appealing to look at, when you have versions like Mickey’s Christmas Carol that are 10 years older and 100 times better looking. The most glaring thing with this version is the very cartoony addition of Debit the dog, who serves no real purpose except for some slapstick that isn’t very funny. In fact, once we get to the Ghost of Christmas Present, he’s ditched until the end and I noticed the story was much more streamlined and the dialogue was better once he was gone.
The voice acting is just alright. I’m a big fan of Tim Curry. He’s got serious comedic and dramatic chops, which unfortunately are put to waste here. I wish we had gotten a more serious take on a Christmas Carol with him as Scrooge, as I think he would have done a fantastic job. The other voice actors don’t really get much time or chance to add anything to their roles. This isn’t the worst rendition, but it’s certainly not the best either.
Next time I’ll be looking at the Patrick Stewart version and an animated version that inexplicably has Nick Cage in it. Thanks for reading, and have a merry Christmas! | https://medium.com/@btbicksler/a-christmas-carol-retrospective-part-11-b8e0912f4870 | ['Brett B'] | 2020-12-22 02:06:13.409000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'A Christmas Carol', 'Christmas', 'Charles Dickens', 'Film Reviews'] |
Pimpin’ At the Pen | Pimpin’ At the Pen
Photo by Gantas Vaičiulėnas from Pexels
The following was written some 3 years ago before I was sentenced to and served a year at a prison with an even worse reputation than the one I describe here.
As the day draws near for me to face my fate with the judge, I’ve done a fair amount of research into the Federal Bureau of Prisons over the past 4 years. And one thing I decided was that if possible, I wouldn’t serve time at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park (yes, there’s a federal lockup in Brooklyn). Call me crazy but when I go out in the yard, I want to see trees and country…and certainly not Brooklyn or New York Harbor.
Well…that general feeling was exponentially reinforced when I read the news yesterday that three corrections officers at the facility are alleged to have been sexually abusing female inmates in a serial fashion. Reliable sources have told me stories about women at Rikers Island blowing corrections officers for Lady Bic shavers and such. And every so often, stories hit the Internet about inmates and staff “interfacing.”
But that stuff — though misguided — was consensual. In the case of this recent story, it appears that the three officers were preying on women who didn’t speak English and who were most likely going to be deported after serving their sentences. So I guess the perpetrators figured they could get away with this sort of activity.
To the point: I can’t remember reading a more repulsive story in the genre. Of all the low down and dirty predation! I’m sure these guys have their side of the story…and maybe this is a case of women crying rape when expedient. Regardless, the fact remains that when a CO beds an inmate, he’s treading on thin ice. Nothing good can come from that!
At least two of the “boys” accused in this case have some previous issues. One got involved in a road rage incident on the FDR Drive during which he exited his car and punched a woman in the face twice. Another is a defendant in a bribery case, accused of smuggling cell phones and narcotics into the prison for payment to augment his income. Additionally, two of the three men charged operate in a supervisory capacity at the prison and are actually responsible for training employees not to sexually abuse inmates.
All in all, the facts paint a bleak and ugly picture of exactly what goes on inside the federal prison in Sunset Park. And a pretty picture it is not!
The identities, charges, and nationalities of the abused women have not been divulged to the press. I sincerely hope there are no K-girls in the mix. When I hear poor English skills, no visitors, and imminent deportation (which are facts reported about the case), I think Asians or South Americans. My guess is that at least some of the six women who came forward to testify against the officers were sex workers.
But I’ve not heard anything to that effect. And I hope I don’t. Working in a foreign country as a hooker…and then being incarcerated for the “crime”…and finally, forced to have sex with corrections officers, sounds like a rough row to ho (pardon the pun).
P.S. One day while down at suicide watch during my incarceration, a friendly officer came through to check on us — as officers always did on my shift. We got to know the guards pretty well. And if you acted like a human being, they would reciprocate in kind.
When I asked this particular officer “Hey! What ever happened to those guards at MDC who were forcing girls to give them blow jobs,” he engaged me in a 20-minute conversation about the stupidity of those guys — and how risky it is for a CO to do anything even remotely against the rules.
His take was that they got what they deserved — and that those three guys were an embarrassment to his profession. The only thing that slowed him down or cut him off was a call on the radio to report to another location. Otherwise, I think he would have spent the entire shift rapping to me about his job.
MCC was a very fucked up place (with no yard — let alone one where I could see the countryside) — and a prison which virtually every inmate who was transferred from MDC felt was inferior to the Brooklyn prison. But at least, most of our guards were human. And that was a good thing — because a lot of the inmates weren’t.
The lieutenant who led the charge caught a 25-year sentence when it was all over. Alas, there is some justice in this world. | https://medium.com/doing-time/pimpin-at-the-pen-26a291007435 | ['William', 'Dollar Bill'] | 2020-12-21 13:44:01.361000+00:00 | ['Law Enforcement', 'Rape', 'Sexual Assault', 'Prison'] |
That Time I F@#%ed Up | From an actress to an astronaut: The anguishing mistakes that helped propel them to success
By Zan Dubin-Scott
I’ve always been obsessed with making mistakes, as in, I hate making them. And anguish over them. They make me want to crawl under a rock. With the other arthropods.
Actually, it’s gotten a lot better over the years. Perfectionism is for the young, perhaps? But I know I’m not alone. I also know that hearing about others’ blunders invariably brings relief. My friend Helen knows this, too, which is why she suggested I do these interviews. She is all about helping others. So we hope you enjoy.
And by way of a small thanks to those below who shared their stories with me, here are a couple of mine, briefly: The time I wrote an angry, ugly email about a supervisor and promptly sent it directly to her; the time I published incorrect hours for a museum while writing for The Los Angeles Times, sending one extremely but justifiably angry L.A. couple 200 miles north to Santa Barbara to find the museum’s doors closed; the time I, well, I’ve got a lot of much bigger ones. Maybe for another time.
BOB SIPCHEN is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and associate professor of writing and rhetoric at Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Bob Sipchen, who won a Pulitzer Prize as a Los Angeles Times reporter, has one of those stories that will give the chills to anyone who has ever fiercely wanted a job. It happened in a very public way at one of the nation’s largest and most respected newspapers.
Early in his career, Sipchen was writing as a temp of sorts for The Times while, indeed, fiercely hoping and gunning to get a full-time staff job. Even more than that? “I wanted to write good journalism, which is accurate journalism, and I made a huge error,” he says.
It happened within hours of the 1986 Challenger space shuttle explosion that killed all seven crew members aboard and transfixed the country for weeks. Though relatively new to the industry and still green, Sipchen had already distinguished himself, so editors pulled him into the biggest story of the year for an exploration of the gap between public perception of the risks of space travel (“you just jump into a space suit!”) and what experts knew (“it was terribly dangerous, especially back then”).
He wrote a long, compelling piece quoting all kinds of experts. “It was a big deal and it was my shot at the big time, so to speak.”
Well, you could say he gave away his shot. Almost.
Sipchen, then and now, has a “glitch” in his brain, he says, an “Achilles heel” that causes him to mix up names. This, by the way, links to one of the first lessons taught in journalism school: you misspell someone’s name? You get an F. So what did Sipchen do? Instead of calling it the Challenger, he called it the Columbia, another shuttle in service at the time.
“I blew up the wrong space shuttle,” he says. “And believe it or not, people noticed. It was horrifying, just horrifying.”
The greenhorn had to explain his malfunctioning neurological circuitry to the paper’s senior editors, who someone of his station would rarely even speak to. And the copy editors got reamed for missing it, too. “You make the whole process look bad,” he says.
But one copy editor’s reaction speaks to why Sipchen was hired on staff within a couple of years, going on years later to win the Pulitzer for a series of editorials he wrote with Alex Raksin about the unhoused in L.A. The copy editor “ said the story was just really well written, and he was so caught up he read right past the error” (which was eerily prescient; the Columbia also met disaster).
Of course, Sipchen learned an invaluable lesson, one he never would have succeeded without. And he doffs his hat to any journalist who doesn’t learn it the agonizing way. “It taught me that self-editing is critically important. The writing and reporting don’t mean anything if in the end you are inaccurate.”
NEAL PAYTON is an architect and a principal of Torti Gallas + Partners, an architecture, planning and urban design firm. He lives in Santa Monica, California.
About two decades ago, Payton made a mistake that unearthed a much bigger oversight, indeed one you could say the whole country is still grappling with today.
His initial blunder came at the end of a long day during which he and his team were soliciting community input on a project designed to redevelop and unify diverse commercial streets in Charlottesville, VA. A reporter approached Payton and asked why so few African Americans were in attendance, to which he said he “glibly replied, ‘well, maybe they are just not that interested.’ “
“I was tired and not thinking and didn’t realize the implications of what I was saying, and it made it look like I was uncaring and hadn’t done my homework,” he recalls.
The next morning, a city official approached the Maryland native and questioned if he had in fact told a radio reporter that African Americans in Charlottesville essentially didn’t give a whit about an issue affecting the city’s busy downtown. Then, a number of African Americans showed up for Payton’s final presentation, and, looking at him and his team, all of whom were white, “basically accused me of not caring about the African American community and not having a clue about what I was doing.”
Payton didn’t really argue. Instead, he owned up to the mistake and entered into a conversation
with attendees about what he and his firm could do differently. “We learned a lesson from that, not merely about how to deal with the press, but more importantly recognizing that no matter how good our outreach efforts might be, we’ll miss people and we have to figure out how to not miss anyone in future.”
Payton’s firm actually had and has a diverse staff, but the incident also reminded him that that’s not enough. Diverse teams are important, too, and if the firm isn’t hearing from all segments of a community, more must be done. “The experience sensitized me to issues of inclusion and made a permanent positive impact on how I practice,” he says. “It remains relevant and critical today.”
As for the general issue of making mistakes, Payton’s personal philosophy is “if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not challenging yourself much, and you’re certainly not learning. My thinking is I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes. I want to make new mistakes and keep learning.”
Torti Gallas has a similar ethos, he added.
“We tell potential clients that we have 67 years of learning from our mistakes.”
VICKIE COX EDMONDSON is a management strategist and management professor at Alabama’s Tuskegee University. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Vickie Cox Edmondson, who has often been the first or only Black woman in a variety of high-profile, high pressure positions, has a very different relationship to mistakes than many. She, like other Black friends and colleagues, hasn’t felt she’s had the luxury that whites and others in the majority have had to make mistakes that could jeopardize a career.
“The outcome would not have been the same,” says Edmondson, a management strategist and academic who has worked at two household-name, predominantly white corporations and spent the past quarter-century developing support systems, in and out of the workplace, and academic programs designed to avoid blunders and ensure professional success for herself and others.
Indeed, because of her assiduous attention to the issue, Edmondson couldn’t think of a major professional mistake she has made.
Today a management professor at Alabama’s Tuskegee University, Edmondson’s approach puts a premium on preparation, as well as “practice, practice, practice.” She is also meticulous with every word. “We know if we slip, it could be detrimental,” she says, “not just to ourselves, but to those who depend on us.”
And she and her Black colleagues and friends, in and outside of the organizations she has worked for, sustain a kind of informal but crucial support group to watch and review each other’s work for gaffs or gaps. “Don’t tell me it sounds good,” she’ll tell friends, “I need you to break this down and find the holes. It takes a village to avoid the types of mistakes that can ruin our career.”
The first black woman to receive a PhD in business at the University of Georgia,
Edmondson teaches a course at Tuskegee called Corporate Survival Skills, which includes a unit aptly named Surviving Workplace Setbacks. She recently created a YouTube series, based on her book, “The Thinking Strategist,” titled “Think Before You….” to address the issue.
“I have spent years educating students why they, too, must be intentional.”
Edmondson doesn’t blame organizations she’s worked for the burden she has felt to avoid mistakes and is grateful for all the opportunities that have come her way. She feels she has always been allowed to take risks and that her employers “went out of their way to make me feel I belonged.” The pressure she felt and has shared with many cohorts, was internal, she says. But, “a stigma of incompetence has been placed on people of color — it’s not how we feel, it is how many of the majority feel about us — so we have to overcome that stigma. I wanted to assure my employers that they knew they had made the right decision in hiring me.”
To be sure, everyone wants to do well for their family and boosters. But while imposter syndrome is common, Edmondson says, and while everyone is concerned about making mistakes, it’s not the same if you’re Black. “As a white person, you have a lot of support around the company, there’s going to be someone who can vouch for you if you make a mistake. With us, we have a limited few who know us, so it’s very hard to overcome that stigma. But eventually, the people I worked with saw how committed I was to not making mistakes.”
If the responsibility sounds crushing, it can be, she says.
“But if we don’t do it, then we don’t get to go into new areas and chart new paths for others to follow. Someone has to be the first. You just don’t want to be the last.”
ALEXANDRA PAUL is an actress, environmental activist and wellness coach who lives in Los Angeles.
Actress and environmental activist Alexandra Paul has one we can all relate to. A bit of a doozy, as far as social currency goes. And it could have been a career crasher.
Best known for her bathing-suited portrayal of Lt. Stephanie Holden in the original “Baywatch,” and for escaping a demonic Plymouth in “Christine,” Paul recalls walking into an audition in 2001 with director Joe Dante (“Gremlins,” “The Howling”). Back in those days, auditions were in person, not on video, and as Dante scanned Paul’s resume, he looked up and said, “ ‘Piranha,’ huh?” referring to the 1995 fish-themed horror flick she’d starred in. It was a remake of the 1978 original.
In response, Paul blurted out, “yeah, can you believe they remade the first one?!”
Not one for sarcasm, Paul guesses she just wanted to appear witty. But all the air suddenly left the room.
“There was this silence,” she says, “this pall, and I thought, ‘Uh oh…. did he direct that first one?”
Indeed, Dante had, which Paul confirmed after leaving the try-out feeling wholly contrite, freaked out and embarrassed.
“Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.”
The lesson? “Alexandra, don’t be a smart ass. You’re not a good smart-ass anyway,” she says. “Just be yourself and shut up. It’s always better to be positive rather than snarky or disparaging.”
Of course, being herself was the formula for Paul’s further acting success, which has included starring roles in some 40 independent films, a guest spot on “Mad Men” and getting arrested in the documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Paul also has a wellness-coaching business and will have appeared in three more movies before 2021 is out.
Clearly, her “Piranha” encounter didn’t sink her.
“I survived,” she says with a smile in her voice.
ROBERT THIRSK is an engineer, physician and retired Canadian Space Agency astronaut. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.
Astronaut Robert Thirsk, who has spent more time in space than any other Canadian, is on the record about blunders.
“Astronauts always have fear of injury or death, but our greatest fear is of making a mistake,” he said from the International Space Station (ISS), where he spent six months in 2009.
Granted, Thirsk and his cohorts thrive on extra-atmospheric stress and live to forge new frontiers. But the pressure is real. And it’s not just cabin pressure. Astronauts are working on behalf of countless others who have invested millions of dollars as well as time and effort in the mission, Thirsk reminded me by phone from his Ottawa home recently. Indeed, Thirsk has also spoken about the absolute need to make one’s mistakes during training, only, which is what he has done as an astronaut. “It isn’t enough to train until we get it right; we need to train until we can’t get it wrong,” he has said.
But he has a tale about getting it wrong, “the worst mistake I ever made,” that, in real-life, would have resulted in catastrophic damage.
Thirsk, an engineer and physician, is now retired from the Canadian Space Agency. But as a young astronaut, he was invited to participate in a training exercise at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston inside a simulator of the ISS. He was excited about the eight-hour session that would end with the re-enactment of a major emergency, such as a fire or depressurization.
“These training simulations are designed to stress the ground team and crew and to test our ability to solve problems together,” he recalled. Indeed, toward the end of the day, mission control called Thirsk on the space-to-ground radio to say they had detected a leak in the cooling loop on the port side of the station. Cooling is needed to dissipate heat generated by computers, furnaces and other systems.
“Mission control said I needed to immediately execute a procedure to shut down the port side cooling loop and reconfigure the starboard side so that the critical equipment could be transferred to the starboard loop and continue to be cooled,” he said.
To add to this stress test, just as Thirsk got down to work on the cooling system, ISS control informed him that all radio communications were about to go dead. He’d be on his own. In silence. The astronaut forged ahead, working confidently by himself on the task at hand. Until….
“I started hearing some warning tones over the speaker and got this sick feeling in my stomach I was doing something wrong.”
Indeed, 20 minutes later, with communications restored, Thirsk said, “my greatest fear was confirmed: I had shut down the good loop, the starboard loop, instead of the bad one. All the station equipment was overheating. I had caused the station to fail. It was not operable and we had to shut down the simulation.
“If this had been a real day in space, we would have lost the entire multibillion-dollar ISS and I would have become infamous,” he said. And, while this was just a simulation, “it was the low point of my astronaut career.”
Of course, during debriefing, Thirsk acknowledged his error and the team analyzed how such events could be prevented and done differently the next time. But, of course, it was an invaluable experience and he never repeated the mistake.
“I learned 100 lessons that benefited my career,” he said, “such as listen carefully to instructions, ask for help when unsure and insist on backup when performing such a critical procedure. Then of course I learned the importance of openly discussing mistakes and failures and the value of speaking candidly. It allows us to hone our skills, improve our performance and enhance our chances of success.”
Today, Thirsk is more confident than ever about the blessings of blunders.
“We really need to have more of a culture where we are encouraged to speak candidly of our failures and mistakes. I’m suspicious of individuals and organizations who only speak of their accomplishments. I have much more respect for people who have the courage to speak candidly of their failures.”
We have much to learn from those who boldly went where no one has gone before, he added. “Even if they didn’t initially succeed.”
EDA SEAVER is a retired teacher who lives in San Pedro, California.
If you ever meet anyone as honest as Eda Seaver, ring me up.
Eda is a friend. A brutally self-honest friend who did not hold back when I asked this retired teacher (33 years with the Los Angeles Unified School District) about mistakes.
Background: Anyone who knows Eda, knew John, her husband of 37 years. Where Eda went, John went, no matter the event. They were in love, great friends, and we all knew it. And we all grieved with Eda when John died at 95 in 2016. Here’s what Eda told me:
“The mistakes I regret the most involve not recognizing that my husband was closer to dying than I thought.
“I tried to get him to do things such as walk very short distances in the house instead of using a transport chair.
“I had him treated for skin cancers while he was dying of prostate cancer.
“When he started home hospice, the first question I asked the hospice doctor was how to renew services after six months. John died three weeks later.”
What happened? Eda says she missed the signs that John was dying because, for one, he had been active into his late 80s and had been in remission from his first bout of prostate cancer for some two decades when it recurred in 2008. Even as the cancer progressed over the next few years, “he did not look sick,” Eda says. “He didn’t waste away from the cancer.”
Also, crucially, John was diagnosed with severe vascular dementia in 2012. From this point forward, Eda essentially never left his side, spending a total of 50 hours away from John over a four-year period, until he died.
But the signs of his encroaching death from cancer mimicked dementia, she says. “I missed the signs completely, and he had the symptoms — more sleeping, the hallucinations, decreased appetite — except for Hershey’s Kisses. I kept those in a bowl next to his chair all the time.”
The signals got lost in the couple’s intense, repetitive routine, too, Eda noted. “Putting the dentures in his mouth, his hearing aids in, cleaning his wounds.”
Then, John was diagnosed with another cancer, melanoma, in the middle of all this. And, although it clearly “wasn’t going to kill him,” the prostate cancer was, Eda had him treated for melanoma. She also continued to take him to the dentist and such. John never complained about pain, but these visits and treatments, Eda says, “upset him tremendously.”
“I went on as if life was just going on and continued doing stuff like that, that that was not necessary, and that hurt him, it made him feel bad.”
And yes, when hospice showed up at the oncologist’s orders, Eda asked the doctor, “how do we renew in six months?”
The doctor laughed, but Eda weeps at the memory. “I would have done it differently,” she says. “If I’d known he was dying, I wouldn’t have made him walk, I wouldn’t have taken him to the dermatologist….”
Not one of us, her friends, would describe any of what Eda did as a mistake, a mis-judgement, an oversight or anything else. But she suffered from the self-condemnation until, by chance, she found a way to move beyond it.
Early on in her four-year confinement with John, Eda had begun to experience excruciating pain of her own from various spinal ailments. After 12 epidurals over a decade, she reached out for something else, and found meditation, specifically a mindful self-compassion practice.
“I found a book called ‘The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion’ by Chris Germer and it changed my life.”
Self-compassion is “maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Eda says, but she persists with a daily meditation practice (which has also kept her back pain at bay). It includes writing down bedeviling thoughts, venting the idea she hadn’t given John enough attention, for instance. Then writing down the things she did right, “the truth,” which involved her methods of making it through the confinement, for instance. “Yes, I binge-watched Downton Abbey, but I did it sitting next to John in the living room, watching it on my computer, not on TV, because he couldn’t stand to have the TV on.”
Eda also reminds herself of something a hospice nurse told her. A couple of hours before he went into the coma from which he never emerged, even though he’d long had trouble recognizing her, his eyes followed her wherever she moved in the room. “I remind myself that my husband loved me absolutely.”
Another bit of self-talk?
“Eda, you provided him with an endless supply of Hershey’s Kisses. That was the last thing he ate before he died. And he grinned from ear to ear.”
The End.
Please share if you think this might provide solace to another. | https://medium.com/@zan_50748/that-time-i-f-ed-up-a4e86c527d23 | ['Zan Dubin-Scott'] | 2021-07-25 23:34:38.461000+00:00 | ['Gratitude', 'Life Lessons', 'Learning', 'Mistakes', 'Humility'] |
Jobs for Plastic Surgeon Students | There is an interesting aspect to studying while trying to become a surgeon. Time management. I find it increasingly hard to commit to being anywhere physically as it is just too tough. Juggling travel time is the hardest aspect. The little free time I have, it’d be nice to earn some extra money. However, several of the “work from home” type jobs are nothing more than glorified scams. Well, I must say that this is what my friends tell me and from my research it seems true.
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash
There has to be a Better Way
And there is. Apparently, there are multiple real ways to earn money online. You can be a call center rep but to be honest, I am not trying to be blasted by someone pissed off to earn a measly $12.00. Perhaps it is the introverted nature that I’ve been born with that makes the very thought of doing that give me the chills.
Alternatively, there are other legitimate opportunities where I can utilize the knowledge I’ve learned to help other plastic surgeon marketing initiatives. For instance, I found plastic surgeon marketing content production vacancy here — https://advertisingforsurgeons.com/ where I can produce content about the various procedures I will eventually be performing.
There is a saying that if you can write about something and teach it, it helps you understand it better and this, in my opinion, the ideal position for me to consider. It isn’t brainless work and with my typing skills it can actually pay quite well while allowing me to only work on it while I am free. Talk about a win-win.
According to Monster, it looks like this opportunity also pays the greatest so what more could you ask for? The other jobs also have that in-person requirement which just isn’t feasible for me in my current position right now and with COVID-19, I think I am far safer working from the comforts of my home! | https://medium.com/@surgeonstudent1990/jobs-for-plastic-surgeon-students-fe96399c7b7a | ['Surgeon Student'] | 2020-12-22 14:32:10.656000+00:00 | ['Work From Home', 'Student Jobs', 'Jobs', 'Plastic Surgery Marketing', 'College Student Jobs'] |
Flow: Staking & Delegating FLOW Tokens | Questions? Critical information about staking FLOW and the Flow Network
Where can I explore the Flow network and create a Flow wallet?
Wallet: https://port.onflow.org
Explorer: https://flow.bigdipper.live
Windows 10 Wallet Users
– In Chrome or Brave, navigate to chrome://flags#new-usb-backend
– set “Enable new USB backend” to disabled
– restart your browser and head to https://port.onflow.org
When are staking rewards enabled? When are transfers enabled?
We expect staking rewards to begin on Dec 16, 2020 (with payouts one week later, Dec 23).
While transfers should currently be enabled, the only circulating tokens in the first year are expected to be those distributed as rewards to stakers, so we don’t expect to see FLOW tokens being transferred until Dec 23, 2020.
What is the name of the asset being staked?
Flow’s native token, FLOW will be staked to capture new issuance rewards and fee revenue. FLOW will also be used in these ways:
Payment for computation and validation services (i.e., transaction fees)
Medium of exchange
Deposit for data storage
Collateral for secondary tokens
Participation in governance (eventually)
Which type(s) and what rate of rewards can I expect? Can I stake locked/vesting tokens?
Locked FLOW can be staked, and stakers are expected to earn newly-issued FLOW tokens and transaction fees.
We expect stakers to earn around 4.5% in new-issuance FLOW tokens annually, depending upon the proportion of the token supply is staked.
If 50% is staked, then rewards will be 7.5%, and if 83% is staked, rewards will be 4.5%. Since all tokens will initially be locked, there’s a strong incentive for nearly all of them to be staked. If 100% are staked, rewards will be 3.75% annually.
Detailed token economics information can be found here.
Do I maintain custody of my FLOW tokens? Who or what controls my staked FLOW token?
You can self-custody your FLOW tokens, ideally using a Ledger hardware wallet. These are the instructions for using your Ledger wallet with Flow. Shorter version is here.
Figment has partnerships with a number of top-in-class custodians: [email protected]
The Flow protocol takes control of your FLOW tokens while you are staking. If you unbond your tokens, this process will take at most 14 days before the protocol returns your tokens to you, depending when you commit to unbonding.
While your FLOW are staked, you may participate in on-chain governance once it is enabled (initially governance will be off-chain).
How long does it take to unstake?
In short: between 7 and 14 days.
From the moment you initiate the unbonding process, it takes between 7 and 14 days to unstake, depending upon when the request is made. An epoch is ~7 days, so your tokens will remain staked for the remainder of the epoch and then will take one additional epoch to unlock.
During the one-week unlock period (ie. epoch) you will not earn rewards. When the process is complete, you will be able transfer/trade your FLOW tokens.
Can my staked FLOW be slashed (seized or destroyed)?
In short: no, not initially (but we expect slashing to be enabled eventually)
Initially no, but we expect that eventually the rules will change such that a portion of your staked FLOW can be destroyed if you have delegated to a malicious or insecure validator. We will update this page when those conditions are enabled.
What is the rate of new issuance (aka “annual inflation”) for FLOW? How does the token supply change?
New FLOW tokens will be minted (ie. created) and then distributed to stakers at a rate of 3.75% of the total supply yearly.
How are changes to the Flow network decided upon and executed? ie. How is Flow governed?
The Flow Service Account has special permissions to change critical aspects of the network, including minting/burning tokens and changing the core protocol. This account will be controlled by the Flow team, Dapper Labs, at network launch. Here are the key details from the Flow team’s documentation.
FLOW SERVICE ACCOUNT
The Service Account is a special account in Flow that has special permissions to manage system contracts. It is able to mint tokens, set fees, and update network-level contracts.
TOKENS & FEES
The Service Account has administrator access to the FLOW token smart contract, so it has authorization to mint and burn tokens. It also has access to the transaction fee smart contract and can adjust the fees charged for transactions execution on Flow.
NETWORK MANAGEMENT
The Service Account administrates other smart contracts that manage various aspects of the Flow network, such as epochs and (in the future) validator staking auctions.
GOVERNANCE
Besides its special permissions, the Service Account is an account like any other in Flow. During the early phases of Flow’s development, the account will controlled by keys held by Dapper Labs. As Flow matures, the service account will transition to being controlled by a smart contract governed by the Flow community.
Where can I learn more about Flow? | https://medium.com/figment/flow-staking-delegating-flow-tokens-647a5134df7b | ['Clayton Menzel'] | 2020-12-15 19:46:25.543000+00:00 | ['Smart Contracts', 'Proof Of Stake', 'Flow Blockchain', 'Flow', 'Dapper Labs'] |
To be clear, I hate burpees | To be clear, I hate burpees
“Exercise LP” by kevin dooley is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Some things simply should not be
I’d like to preface this blog by stating emphatically, in no uncertain terms, that exercise (see definition: cruel and unusual punishment ) is of the devil (see definition: exercise). I mean, let’s be honest. There is no way the human body should have to tolerate such rigor in the name of the almighty beach bod. I have certainly never read in my Human Being Instruction Manual anything that mandated that I engage in any activities that make me lose bodily fluids faster than I gain them. I’ve read it, and it’s just not there, so please. Please. I beg you: let me keep my flabby gut and saggy man-breasts.
Exercise falls into the same category as Yanni music. It’s arguably unnecessary, you’re bound to be let down, and, when played at a slower tempo, it may just stop your heart. Programs like “Insanity” are named that way for good measure. I believe P90X stands for Probably 90 Minutes Left Until You Expire. And Taebo means Little Kicking Bird Who Eat Rice and Stay Thin Which Impossible Because Reason.
But there is one activity that jolted back into my memory recently, which I must address. It’s a topic of constant scorn and ridicule, because it’s an activity that transforms the average human into one of those flailing inflatable tube men.
(Hey is that a Dairy Queen behind them?!?!?!)
I’m talking about the shameful and indefatigably evil procedure known as the Burpee, and I would like to submit that it should only be for those in active-duty military because they are voluntarily trained to be abused.
My brothers and sisters, this activity simply should not exist. I was graced with an endoskeleton and a spine, which I am told are not supposed to bend like noodles. Perhaps I am different from other humans in that capacity. Mine are not capable of transforming into jelly at the whim of some barely accredited fitness instructor for the viewing pleasure of teenagers who come prepackaged with DNA that facilitates expert mockery.
Also, maybe it’s just me, but any word that contains a suffix or prefix with the word “burp” in it is very funny to me. This is because I am apparently still 13. Burps are funny as early as age 4, and I can prove this to you by injecting Coca-Cola into my 4-year-old and then loaning him to you for an hour.
But whereas a burp may be inherently funny, the word “Burpee” tends to sap all of the happiness right out of me, especially when demanded by someone who is about as thin as a wafer, which is a thinness that I fear I shall never be unless I take a nap in front of a moving steamroller. I remember one instance where my fitness instructor told me to get some Burpees in, and she was alarmed to see that I had disappeared entirely, only to reappear in a few moments with a thick slushy ice drink. It is not my fault that she said Slurpee: my hearing appointment wasn’t until the next day.
Fit as a Fat Fiddle
Why am I talking about this? Because we, as voice talents, need exercise. We are very sedentary, because Voice Talents ultimately come from the same Latin origin of Homeo Slothimus Collapsicus Dontcareicus, which is where I believe the rest of all humanity hails from.
We don’t want to do all that working out and sweating and needlessly perfecting ourselves, when our easy chair is right there, we’ve already got our triple-Eggnog-with-marshmallow-and-seventeen-Splendas-mocha, and we’re wearing our Lycra spandex that highlights everything that is supposed to stay concealed to hide our dear-God-put-that-away-my-eyes!-kill-it-before-it-spreads hideousness, spread out on the couch for Judge Judy reruns.
We’re sitting and editing audio all day, and with each keystroke or mouse movement to edit those .wav files, waves of fat are developing in our underbelly.
And to compound things, 2021 is coming: a whole new year, full of resolutions that we will swear by on January 1st and will change our lives all the way through January 2nd, at which point a national forum will be held to abolish the politically-incorrect word, “resolution.” They will in fact be resolved to remove it. (See what I did there?) But we must do our part to remove our fat, before it grows Violet-Beauregarde-style into a big round mess of near-bursting magnitude.
We’re voice talent. We need air to breathe. Air comes from healthy lungs. Healthy lungs are positioned in close proximity to the stomach. If the stomach is bulging, healthy lungs cannot expand properly, depriving us of the ability to inhale air so that we can get up and grab our remote and chocolate and beer. My friends, you see how urgent and dire our need is. We must have our remote and chocolate and beer in order to survive. This is why my wife and I deliberately bore children, who we named Servant 1 and Servant 2. They are superb at fetching remotes and chocolate and beers.
So! Let’s get physical. Thanks Olivia! Let me hear your body talk.
Trimming the Fat
First things first, before we figure out how to make ourselves thin and healthy again, I must offer a warning. Be sure and steer clear of old people, as well as the elderly, who are old people. The reason for this is because they will tell you the truth about your physical fitness or lack thereof, whether you requested any such thing of them. For example:
Josh: “don’t I look good in this outfit?”
Old person: “why, no, no you don’t. You should begin exercising at once so that you can start losing those 4,392 extra pounds of whale blubber.”
Josh: “I see. And may I ask why you just go on living and living with no end in sight?”
Or an alternate example:
Josh: “What time is it?
Old person: “Oh my! Heavens to Betsy. It looks like you’ve gained even more weight than the last time I saw you!”
Josh: “I see. Here. Drink this keg of Metamucil.”
I mentioned such exchanges in a previous blog.
But there: now that you’ve bypassed those who look like this:
…you can start to have confidence to begin the process of working your magic sorcery to look like this:
“Muscles!” by Unlisted Sightings is licensed under CC BY 2.0
We need confidence to exercise, to commit to goals, to ensure that we’re going to balance this sedentary career with lots and lots of exercise. In the pandemic world in which we’re currently embroiled, we must get out and get some fresh air. Breathe in, breathe out…
Or…at least that’s what the paramedic tells me when he finds me collapsed in a crumpled heap on the side of the road after having attempted a Burpee during my morning run, er, walk.
Now get out there and do some good collapsing! Voice Talents need air to read scripts! Go get some good air! And if you’d like to skip the exercising process altogether, they also have special supplemental oxygen tanks you can steal from old people.
Here’s to great fitness with no burpees and more Slurpees!
“Burpees!” by 316th ESC is licensed under CC BY 2.0
=============
NOTE: This blog is purely for commentary / educational / entertainment purposes. I make no money from these blogs; though I do not refuse large cash gifts if it means I can pretend I’m a church.
Check out my whole UNIVERSE of blogs right HERE!
AND HEY! WAIT JUST A S.E.C.!
S-UBSCRIBE & S-HARE!: If you enjoyed this blog, please consider subscribing and sharing with friends and family, and encouraging them to subscribe and share. Offer treats for doing so.
If you enjoyed this blog, please consider subscribing and sharing with friends and family, and encouraging them to subscribe and share. Offer treats for doing so. E-NCOURAGE: Go encourage someone else today with a single, simple sentence of affirmation. Tell them, “I like your earrings”, unless of course they are manly men, in which case you should compliment them on the size of their chainsaw.
Go encourage someone else today with a single, simple sentence of affirmation. Tell them, “I like your earrings”, unless of course they are manly men, in which case you should compliment them on the size of their chainsaw. C-OMMENT: I want to hear from you. Please feel free to comment below! Comments with lots of “You’re wonderful” or “You’re the best” will receive instant approval and acclaim.
Check out my latest and greatest Voiceover book — you’ll be glad you did!
Want some incredible online voiceover video training? Check out “The Super Voiceover Business Video Package” for over 2 hours and 12 modules of instruction and motivation to run an effective voiceover business!
Need a voiceover? Request a quote today or visit my Demo Reel. Or subscribe. Or other things.
Joshua Alexander
Seattle Voice Actor & Voiceover Talent for hire
[email protected]
206.557.6690
www.saysomethingjosh.com
www.joshyface.com
www.joshygram.com
www.joshypin.com
www.joshylinked.com
www.joshytweet.com
www.joshyvids.com | https://medium.com/@joshua-39580/i-hate-burpees-fd16a1f4f56b | ['Joshua Alexander Seattle Voice Actor'] | 2020-12-14 13:17:08.737000+00:00 | ['Resolutions', 'Exercise', 'Voiceovers', 'Burpee'] |
How to Make Money From Web Scraping Without Selling Data | How to Make Money From Web Scraping Without Selling Data
Photo by Adam Nowakowski on Unsplash
So you want to make money with the knowledge of web scraping you have, you create a bot that successfully gets the valuable data you wished for, but you can’t find anyone to sell either the data you obtained or the bot you created. I’ve been there before and it feels like precious time wasted. Fortunately, there are some ways to make money using web scraping without selling data and in this article, I’ll show one in detail.
Sports Arbitrage
It doesn’t matter what sports you like; chances are you or someone you know at least once earned some money betting on their favorite team. You might’ve won because of good luck or knowledge of the sport, but probably you’ve also lost because you can’t always guess what’s going to happen in the future. But what if you could make a profit regardless of the match outcome? This is called ‘surebet’ and isn’t new in the gambling world.
Surebet is a situation when a bettor can make a profit regardless of the outcome by placing one bet per each outcome with different bookmakers. This happens when different bookmakers have different odds for the same game due to either bookmakers’ differing opinions (statistics) on event outcomes or errors. We can find those errors by scraping different bookmakers. For example, these are the odds obtained for a soccer match in one bookmaker.
How does it work?
Before I show you the code to find and make the most of surebets, let’s see an example, so you understand better how it works:
Let’s imagine we have a soccer game. The game may have more than 2.5 goals (3, 4, etc.) or less than 2.5 goals (0, 1 or 2), so there are only two options to bet on. We can say we found a surebet if the odds between these 2 bookmakers satisfy the following formula:
(1/odds1) + (1/odds2) < 1.0
The set of odds 2 and 2.1 satisfy the formula, so this is a surebet. Now, if you have $100 in total to bet on, and you bet $51.21 on ‘over 2.5 goals’ in Bookmaker 1 and $48.78 on ‘under 2.5 goals’ in Bookmaker 2, you’ll have 2 possible scenarios:
Scenario 1: You win on Bookmaker 1 but lose on Bookmaker 2
Profit 1= 51.21*2 — 51.21 — 48.78 = 2.43
Scenario 2: You win on Bookmaker 2 but lose on Bookmaker 1
Profit 2 = 48.78*2.1 — 51.21 — 48.78= 2.44
As you can see, you’re going to make a $2.43 profit on this game regardless of the match outcome. Although $2.43 may seem little, surebets happen many times on a daily basis. Some people acquire expensive software to find surebets, while others find them manually due to their vast experience.
However, you can automate this on your own by using web scraping and I’m going to show you how to do it with Python.
How to make money using web scraping?
Scraping data from betting sites is a good way to make money because you don’t have to sell data you obtained, but only use that data in your favor. If you never scraped a betting site, I recommend you first check my step by step tutorial Scraping a Betting Site in 10 Minutes where I show the basics of scraping a bookmaker.
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-000.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-001.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-002.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-003.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-004.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-005.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-006.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-007.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-008.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-000.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-001.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-002.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-003.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-004.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-005.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-006.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-007.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-008.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-000.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-001.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-002.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-003.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-004.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-005.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-006.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-007.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-008.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-000.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-001.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-002.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-003.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-004.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-005.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-006.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-007.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-008.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-000.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-001.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-002.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-003.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-004.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-005.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-006.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-007.html
http://korbelcareers.du.edu/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-008.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-000.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-001.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-002.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-003.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-004.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-005.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-006.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-007.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-008.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-000.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-001.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-002.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-003.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-004.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-005.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-006.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-007.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Parvina-Lpool-v-LCity-Li-008.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Ledu-v-Arsen-E-v-Tv-00.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Ledu-v-Arsen-E-v-Tv-01.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Ledu-v-Arsen-E-v-Tv-02.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Ledu-v-Arsen-E-v-Tv-03.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Ledu-v-Arsen-E-v-Tv-04.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Ledu-v-Arsen-E-v-Tv-05.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Ledu-v-Arsen-E-v-Tv-06.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Ledu-v-Arsen-E-v-Tv-07.html
https://iceemabad.com/EventImages/Ledu-v-Arsen-E-v-Tv-08.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/i-2/a-v-f000.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/i-2/a-v-f001.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/i-2/a-v-f002.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/i-2/a-v-f003.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/i-2/a-v-f004.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/a-v-f000.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/a-v-f001.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/a-v-f002.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/a-v-f003.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/a-v-f004.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f000.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f001.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f002.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f003.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f004.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f000.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f001.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f002.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f003.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/i-2/a-v-f004.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk10.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk11.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk12.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk13.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk14.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk10.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk11.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk12.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk13.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk14.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk10.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk11.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk12.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk13.html
http://medpac.gov/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk14.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk10.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk11.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk12.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk13.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/s-2/en-vivo-online5-v-es-1fvk14.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/f-2/tA-v-L-fr3.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/f-2/tA-v-L-fr4.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/f-2/tA-v-L-fr5.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/f-2/tA-v-L-fr6.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/f-2/tA-v-L-fr7.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/f-2/tA-v-L-fr8.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/f-2/f-2/tA-v-L-fr3.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/f-2/f-2/tA-v-L-fr4.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/f-2/f-2/tA-v-L-fr5.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/f-2/f-2/tA-v-L-fr6.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/f-2/f-2/tA-v-L-fr7.html
https://redmeatinfo.com/bagan/f-2/f-2/tA-v-L-fr8.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-1.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-2.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-3.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-4.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-5.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-6.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-7.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-8.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it1.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it2.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it3.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it4.html
https://parisfc.fr/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it5.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it1.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it2.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it3.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it4.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/i-2/Xg-v-u-it5.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-1.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-2.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-3.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-4.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-5.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-6.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-7.html
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/bagan/e-2/Leeds-v-Ars-liv-op-tv-8.html
That being said, these 3 steps would help you find and make the most of surebets:
Step 1: Find the surebet
To find a surebet, you need to take the best odds being offered for all the possible outcomes and divide each into 1. As mentioned before, if the result is less than 1, then you found a surebet. This is a simple formula to find a surebet:
If we add the odds of our previous example to our formula find_surebet(2, 2.1) , then Python will tell us that this is a surebet. The formula works the same regardless of how many possible outcomes there are. If there are 3 outcomes, then the formula is: (1/odds1) + (1/odds2) + (1/odds3) < 1.0
If you check the tutorial where I scrape a betting site, then you already have the code to get the odds from 1 betting site. To find a surebet, you need to have at least 2 betting sites to bet on. You might create a scraper of any betting site and with this simple formula, you can compare odds and find errors between bookies.
Step 2: Calculate the stakes
In gambling, stakes are money risked on a bet for possible monetary gain. You may have $100 available to bet, but you have to know how much money goes to each bet once you found a surebet. To find the amount of money to put on each bet, I created a formula in Python that is based on the following equation:
stake1*odds1 = stake2*odds2
This means that we want to make a profit regardless of the outcome. This is the code to find the stakes:
If we add the odds of our previous example to our formula, beat_bookies(2, 2.1, 100) then we will obtain a $51.21 stake on Bookmaker 1 and a $48.78 stake on Bookmaker 2. It’ll also tell you the profit you’ll make and the benefit of your investment in percentages.
Step 3: Place the bet
This step may seem obvious, but it gets tricky based on the type of surebet. There are 2 kinds of surebets and these are some of the pros and cons:
Pre-match surebet: This happens when events begin after some period of time. This is the best option to start for newbies because odds change slowly. This kind of surebet last hours and even days. However, this is also a disadvantage because this helps bookmakers have more control over odds, which makes some surebets in prematch games not so profitable. Besides, if your starting capital is little, you‘ll have less money available to make your next bets since you have to wait for hours or days until the events are over. If your capital is big, though, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Live surebet: This happens when a sports event has already started. The odds in live events are very dynamic, so surebets only last seconds or minutes, but because of this, you find live surebets frequently on a daily basis. This is a great option when you have some experience because bookmakers have less control over odds, then surebets become more profitable than on pre-match events. On top of that, there is less chance to get limitations in your account (I explain what this means below) because bookies have no time to track them. Besides, unlike prematch surebets, you may only need minutes to get your money back, so you have capital available for your next bets.
Best practices
If you decided to make money with surebets, keep this in mind:
Avoid ‘account limitation’: Bookmakers, in general, dislike people who are good at gambling (no matter how they win); that’s why some people who earn money in betting sites get limitations. This means that you’d only bet a maximum amount of money per event set by the bookmaker — $5, $10, etc. If you start getting money with surebets, you may be seen as a ‘good bettor.’ To appear like an average person under bookmakers’ radars, experience bettors do this:
Use many bookmakers: Create accounts in different bookmakers and spread your bets around them. It’ll be harder to identify you as a smart player in this way.
Round your stake: Although in the example I gave, I used decimal numbers; you shouldn’t do this just because most people don’t bet like that. Avoid decimal numbers at any cost and do your best to round your stake to the nearest number of five. If the formula gives you $47, then bet either $45 or $50 instead.
Do not make unnecessary withdrawals from a bookmaker: After you get some money don’t try to cash out right away or withdraw big amounts at once, this may arouse suspicion.
Avoid betting on smaller markets: Not many people bet on less popular sports like table tennis or water polo, so making money here would be suspicious. Mix up small and large markets.
Remember that limited accounts can still withdraw money. Hopefully, with the tips above, you’ll avoid limitations for a good time.
Finally, these are some markets where surebets happen often:
Hand to Hand (Win or lose sports like tennis, baseball, etc.)
Double chance
Both teams to score
Asian Handicaps
Over / Under
Conclusion
There are many ways to make money with web scraping. Now you know a way where you don’t have to waste time selling the data you got but use it yourself to make some extra money. | https://medium.com/@bertsparks59789/how-to-make-money-from-web-scraping-without-selling-data-980a06f0c19c | [] | 2020-11-22 16:21:36.805000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Money', 'Web Scraping', 'Selenium', 'Data Science'] |
Тайны следствия 20 сезон 20 серия % 2020 (28 декабря 2020) | If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one (John Galsworthy) | https://medium.com/@destiny14073661/%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD%D1%8B-%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B4%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%8F-20-%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%BD-20-%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F-2020-28-%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%80%D1%8F-2020-f4e111690676 | [] | 2020-12-27 13:46:52.412000+00:00 | ['Covid 19'] |
Starting | Starting
Few things not to do when you first start your business:
- You dont need a physical office
Save that money and work from home or even a cafe and is still cheaper than paying rental monthly
- You dont need an accountant
Until some money starts coming in that can help pay yourself, transportations, and until you get that first warning letter from the authorities
- You dont need the latest gadgets
Not the latest iPhone, iPad or laptop. Have something that works first to do your excel spreadsheet and proposal. Get a simple working device and push most of the stuff up to the cloud to do your stuff
- You dont need to look expensive
Dont spend unnecessary money to impress others, just dress clean and proper with a good pair of walking shoes. You need that to walk miles and keep that back straight to push you further as your run the business
- You dont need to eat at expensive place
Let the discussion be the focus and not the taste of the food. Do meetings at cafe, a rented meeting room and focus on the content and the deliverables. You can eat better but with folks that support you when you hit that first million dollar
- You dont have to borrow money
Make sure you figure it out as much as possible on the business model and how you are going to make profit for your business. Trial and error until you start seeing some money rolling in. Take risk but not the stupid ones to borrow money to look good, to eat expensive and nothing delivered.
Go long and not just short term gain
- You dont close sales just by texting
Face to face discussion always beats texting and calling. Dont assume that your clients dont want to see you at least once a month. You can explore new opportunities just over that cup of coffee to know the direction of the business
There are many 'Don’ts' out there but start off with these and maintain it for as long as you can. Even if you hit it big, live simple, run simple, and pass these down to the next generation of successors to build a solid business empire. | https://medium.com/@paddytan/starting-f814780c6253 | ['Paddy Tan'] | 2020-12-19 01:33:59.468000+00:00 | ['Founders', 'Blackstorm', 'Startup', 'Starting'] |
How COVID-19 Has Irreparably Harmed College Freshmen | Photo by Michael Longmire on Unsplash
However, in stark contrast, examine a biology major’s experience in COVID-19 period university. Where the lectures for computer science courses are mostly taught on a computer anyway, chemistry largely relies on physical examples and demonstrations for students to understand concepts. Being behind a screen greatly restricts the ability of professors to instruct using anything more than a slideshow.
In the event that the professor is able to use a camera to broadcast physical demonstrations to students, that relies on the technology available to the professor in their own home. As most universities do not allow instructors to teach from on campus, professors are left on their own to request or otherwise obtain the equipment they need for their lectures or labs.
This need for technology also extends to the students themselves. Given the differing backgrounds of students attending universities in the 21st century, many students come from families that are not able to provide the devices or internet service needed to participate in class without constant disconnects and interruptions. With the internet speed requirements for live video lectures, it is possible a student’s family may live in a location that isn’t covered by a service provider capable of delivering fast enough speeds.
As if lectures weren’t bad enough, labs are a far departure from the typical. Professors are tasked with creating labs that will give students the same experience and knowledge that in-person experiments and observations give. This task, for many, is impossible.
The education of students in biology, as well as many other majors, has been in some cases irreparably altered due to their inability to access the same instruction and experience that is available outside of a pandemic. | https://medium.com/@nicholas.weber/how-covid-19-has-irreparably-harmed-college-freshmen-42d830f4b96d | ['Nicholas Weber'] | 2020-12-20 14:01:35.085000+00:00 | ['College', 'University', 'Covid 19', 'Education', 'Covid Diaries'] |
[原來根本搞錯問題] 從模式選擇談壞味道識別 | Kuma老師的軟體工程教室
Welcome to the Kingdom of Software Engineering | https://medium.com/kuma%E8%80%81%E5%B8%AB%E7%9A%84%E8%BB%9F%E9%AB%94%E5%B7%A5%E7%A8%8B%E6%95%99%E5%AE%A4/%E5%8E%9F%E4%BE%86%E6%A0%B9%E6%9C%AC%E6%90%9E%E9%8C%AF%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C-%E5%BE%9E%E6%A8%A1%E5%BC%8F%E9%81%B8%E6%93%87%E8%AB%87%E5%A3%9E%E5%91%B3%E9%81%93%E8%AD%98%E5%88%A5-c4a4339d279f | ['Yu-Song Syu'] | 2020-10-26 14:09:42.747000+00:00 | ['Design Patterns', 'Coding', 'Development', 'Code Smells', 'Software Engineering'] |
Realm of Nobodies | Where sun sets in the west and moon rises in the east
yet regardless of the entity
the light of spirituality illuminates every speck that deserves contentment….
Where friendship and compassion are spontaneous and self-evident
while nobody is yearning for them
but those virtues are overflowing drowning no one in the current…..
Where enlightenment is a given and knowledge is surpassed
when ego is banned and replaced with understanding
while humility is consciously crowned and throned…..
Where beings are always above and beyond the concept called moral
dwelling often in emptiness which is the source of harmony
while power they’ve obtained make them the most intact…..
Where labels have no place and disappear to nowhere
yet norms are safe and followed more than anywhere…..
In other words,
where efforts can’t be seen but the results are definite
just like with no significant influence
grass grows
flowers bloom
letting spring embrace the world by itself | https://medium.com/literally-literary/realm-of-nobodies-a79431093815 | ['Salitha Nirmana Meththasinghe'] | 2020-04-13 03:51:00.857000+00:00 | ['Emptiness', 'Poetry', 'Philosophy', 'Spirituality', 'Zen'] |
Difficult Conversations | Today I read a friend's post about her journey through human rights research. I have great admiration for people who pursue research in all fields. It is a difficult life. But I found one qualm in her post. She started off with saying how she is the kind of person who never followed the conventional career of a doctor or an engineer. I agree that her profession is not the conventional one and of course it is an extremely difficult one. But my problem lies in her not acknowledging the privilege she had to pursur such a profession. There are people who cannot wait till 30s to become financially independent. I have met a lot of people in my life, who would have pursued things that they were passionate about, instead of pursuing a professional degree if it has offered some sort of income in the early 20s. The point here is, acknowledging privilege is a big issue even for the "woke" ones among us.
Sometime back a friend mentioned about how students from poor families are applying for education loans, which they will never be able to repay. She was concerned because they didn't even have high marks in the relevant subjects. She, as someone who grew up in a well to do family, will never know that this education is the only ticket for those students to escape their poverty. What right do we have to judge someone for their choice of education especially when they are poor? We need better systems to uplift those in need. Instead we judge them and tell that they will never be able to repay the loan is the cruelest way. I have been at the receiving end of such a sermon when I applied for an education loan for my graduation because both of my parents are not educated and didn't have a steady job. So it is easier for me to empathize, but those who haven't gone through that stage will never know the pain.
Another important aspect is caste. I heard a friend dissing someone because he got the civil service selection because of the reservation and other deserving candidates with higher marks were not able to make it. Other candidates are supposed to be more "intelligent" than the lower caste one. I don't know when these people will understand equality vs equity.
One male friend recently asked me why women are still asking for equality. In his view, everything is equal now because you know women have the right to education, earning handsome salaries and even the marriages are "equal" now. How would I tell him that we got these basic rights just because somebody fought for us and when we know that we are nowhere near in eradicating the discrimination, why should we stop now?
I haven't yet found an efficient way to have such difficult conversations. Sometimes I feel how we will convince such people about the state of the world if they are not even ready to open their eyes and see everything with a fresh eye. | https://medium.com/@chembarathi/difficult-conversations-b5533362ebe2 | [] | 2020-12-04 11:00:32.166000+00:00 | ['Personal Essay', 'Reflections', 'Life Lessons', 'Personal', 'Life'] |
Exploratory Data Analysis on Google Play Store Apps | Data Preparation and Cleaning
Data preparation is the process of cleaning and transforming raw data prior to processing and analysis. It is an important step prior to processing and often involves reformatting data, making corrections to data, and the combining of data sets to enrich data. Data cleansing or data cleaning is the process of detecting and correcting (or removing) corrupt or inaccurate records from a recordset, table, or database and refers to identifying incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate, or irrelevant parts of the data and then replacing, modifying, or deleting the dirty or coarse data.
We saw that the dataset contains many Null or missing values. The column Rating , Type , Content Rating , Current Ver , and Android Ver contains 1474, 1, 1, 8, and 3 missing values respectively.
Will it not be better if we can define a function to get more useful information about the different attributes of the dataset, also there is one more valid point in defining a function which it will be reusable, and we are going to utilize our defined function several times in future.
Let’s call the function and see what it returns:
We have some useful information about the dataset. i.e., we can now see the missing number of values of any attribute, its unique count, and its respective data types.
Now we can start the process of data cleaning, lets start with the column Type :-
Since there is only one missing value in this column, So, let’s fill the missing value. After cross-checking in the play store the missing value is found to be Free, So now we can fill the missing value with free .
After filling the value we can check and see if that has been correctly placed.
Now, we can move on to the column Content Rating :
By, looking only at these rows it is not easy to say what's actually missing in this row. let us have a look at all of its near rows data. For this purpose, we have iloc and loc function.
We can clearly see that row 10472 has missing data for the Category column and all the prevailing column values are being replaced with its previous column. A better idea will be to drop this row from our data frame.
We are having some of the unwanted columns which will be of not much use in the analysis process. So let’s drop those columns.
Now, we can fix the Rating column which contains a total of 1474 of missing values. Replacing the missing values with the Mode value of that entire column.
Finally, after fixing all the missing values, we should have a look at our data frame, We defined a function as printinfo() . So, it’s time to use that function.
All the columns have the null_count as zero, which indicates that now the data frame doesn’t contain any missing values.
Now we are done with the data cleansing part and in a state to start the work for data preparation
Columns like Reviews , Size , Installs , & price should have an int or float datatype, But here we can see of object type, So let’s convert them to their respective correct type.
Starting with the column Reviews , converting its type to int .
We can see that the changes have taken its effect or not by calling our printinfo() function.
Now, the reviews column has been converted to int type, so now we can move to the Column: Size
Converting the Size Column from object to integer, but this column contains some of the special characters like , , + , M , K & also it has a some of the value as Varies with device . We need to remove all of these and then convert it to int or float .
Removing the + Symbol:
Removing the , symbol:
Replacing the M symbol by multiplying the value with 1000000:
Replacing the k by multiplying the value with 1000:
Replacing the Varies with device value with Nan :
Now, finally converting all these values to numeric type:
So, after performing all of these operations, we should have a detailed look at that column, so yes again we will call our useful function which we defined. i.e., printinfo()
Since we converted the Varies with device value to Nan , so we have to do something with those set of Nan values data. It will be a better idea to drop the Rows of the column Size having Nan values because it will be not an efficient idea to replace those values with mean or mode since the size of some apps would be too large and some of them too small.
Column: Installs :
To convert this column from object to integer type. First of all, we will need to remove the + symbol from these values.
and then let’s remove the , symbol from the numbers.
Lastly, we can now convert it from string type to numeric type, and then have a look at our dataset.
So, now we are only left with the Price column.
Column: Price :
Converting this column from object to Numeric type.
The values contain a special symbol $ which can be removed and then converted to the numeric type.
After fixing all the issues, we should have a final look at the data frame. | https://blog.jovian.ai/exploratory-data-analysis-on-google-play-store-apps-f1cab4d2f395 | ['Manish Kumar Shah'] | 2021-06-06 09:33:56.663000+00:00 | ['Visualization', 'Pandas', 'Data Science', 'Matplotlib', 'Data Analysis'] |
Deep Learning using TensorFlow — Part1 | Hi All, this is a series of blogs that I intend to write about how to use TensorFlow 2.0 for deep learning.
In this blog, I will go over how to classify Fashion Minst dataset using TensorFlow 2.0. Before we dig into this task I would like to add why TensorFlow 2.0. Before I took Laurence Moroney class on Coursera I did look at TensorFlow once before. I have to say I was scared and didn’t quite understand anything in the program, with its session scope, variables, etc this seemed extremely foreign to me and honestly turned off my zeal to learn this. Instead, I spent my time learning SciKit-Learn, Pandas, and other python libraries.
After watching a video on youtube by Laurence Moroney about TensorFlow 2.0 and having spent some time on other libraries I thought I will give this a try again. Boy, I was surprised how much user friendly this got from version 1.4 to 2.0, the change is incredible. This is such a leap forward that I now feel a lot more comfortable writing a few simple programs and wanted to share with everyone how easy it got. I honestly don’t know if this is advertised as such or not but TensorFlow 2.0 is nothing like TF 1.4 and is genuinely much more novice-friendly.
Now, let’s get into this classification to show how easy this has become. There are five steps in the process.
1. Dataset: Load the data set, do some feature engineering if needed.
2. Build Model: Build a TensorFlow model with various layers.
3. Compile Model: Here we compile the model, select the loss & Optimizer functions.
4. Fit Model: Here we finally train the model using the training data and get some metrics.
5. Evaluate Model: We check our model performance on the validation data.
Dataset:
Fashion Minst: This is a dataset of 70,000 images. These are small grayscale images with a standard size of 28x28 pixels. Here are a few examples.
First, let’s look at how to load data. This is going to use TensorFlow Datasets to do this.
#Imports
import tensorflow as tf #Load Dataset
mnist = tf.keras.datasets.fashion_mnist
(training_images, training_labels), (test_images, test_labels) = mnist.load_data() #Reshape & Scale
training_images=training_images.reshape(60000, 28, 28, 1)
training_images=training_images / 255.0
test_images = test_images.reshape(10000, 28, 28, 1)
test_images=test_images/255.0
As you can see this function loads all the 70k images and splits it into two parts 60k for training and 10k for testing. Now that we have loaded the data, let’s see how to use a simple Dense layers-based model to classify the images.
Build Model:
model = tf.keras.models.Sequential([Flatten(),
Dense(1024,activation='relu'),
Dense(activation='softmax')])
This is a very simple model that use Flatten as the first layer. As you might have guessed this takes the 28x28 matrix image and Flattens that to a 784 vector. Once this is done then we can use the Dense layers to train the model.
One last thing I would like to point out is that the last Dense layer is different from the two above. As in the last step we need to get as output one number that represents the one class out of 10 classes. Also, we use the activation ‘SoftMax’ to make sure we get the maximum probability class as the answer.
Compile Model:
After we build the model we need to compile it. Here we need to select the loss functions and the optimizers. As you can see from the below code snippet this is very easy in TensorFlow. You can either just give the name as we have done for loss function or you can specify the full function to change any of the default parameters as we did with the learning rate for Optimizer here.
model.compile(optimizer = 'Adam',
loss = 'sparse_categorical_crossentropy',
metrics=['accuracy'])
Fit Model:
Without further ado, here is the simple fit line used to train the model.
model.fit(training_images, training_labels, epochs=5)
We can specify various metrics if we want to see how our training is performing. Here is the accuracy being calculated at the end of every epoch.
We will discuss callbacks in next few blog posts as I would like to keep this simple.
Evaluate Model:
Now the final test to see how the model performs on our test dataset, do remember this is the data the model never saw before so this is a true test.
model.evaluate(test_images, test_labels)
As you can see we got a decent 87.22% accuracy from such a simple model. We can improve on this further but what I want to show in the blog is easy of use of TensorFlow 2.0. I hope this blog inspires you to give you the confidence to start fiddling around with TensorFlow 2.0.
Good luck !!!
References:
Coursera link:
https://www.coursera.org/specializations/tensorflow-in-practice
Book: Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras & TensorFlow by Aurelien Geron | https://sailajakarra.medium.com/deep-learning-using-tensorflow-part1-f6bb37313a7a | ['Sailaja Karra'] | 2020-07-28 19:01:59.651000+00:00 | ['Image Classification', 'Convolution Neural Net', 'Keras', 'TensorFlow', 'Deep Learning'] |
I Have Two Degrees and No Job | I Have Two Degrees and No Job
Qualifications mean nothing over happiness
Photo: Muhammad Rizwan/Unsplash
The year is 2017, July, a Wednesday. Graduation day. My hair is doused in stress-induced sweat brought on by the flustered hurry of whipping on a gown mere moments before heading out into the ceremony — but hey, at least it sticks the cap more firmly to my skull. Minutes later, I’m out there, accepting an enveloped certificate with the grade 2:1 printed onto it and waving into the audience at my mom. I’d finally obtained my BSc in Physics with Astrophysics.
The year is this one, December, literally a couple of days ago. Results day. My hair is doused in grease because who showers during an apocalypse? Minutes later, I’m wading through approximately 26,400 unread emails only to find one from my uni supervisor, providing me with both the results for my dissertation and, thus, my overall degree. I got a first in both. I’d finally obtained my MA in Publishing.
And yet neither have ever nor will ever contribute towards me getting a job.
Do Things for Passion, Not for Profession
I studied physics because I love physics. Not because I want a job in physics, specifically. I mean, I love children, but being a childminder sounds like a Devil’s punishment. I love cauliflower cheese — but I don’t think I want to build a business based on the niche idea of pouring cauliflower sauce onto blocks of cheese (PS I’ve copyrighted that, so back off). I love soap operas, but hot damn, I’d rather gnaw my own elbow off with only my gums before ever starring in one.
Not everything in life has to revolve around your career.
At school, we are bombarded by the notion of gaining the appropriate qualifications that will lead us towards the profession of our choice. And, of course, to some extent, that is completely practical. Doctors need to know at least where the kidney is before they can fiddle about removing one. Musicians need to learn how to hold a guitar (no, James, you don’t wield it like a sword) before they can perform Wonderwall in full on one. An astronaut needs to be at least able to locate Outer Space on a world map (trick question) before he can venture there. But that does not mean we can’t learn things simply for the sake of learning.
If we were meant to enhance our knowledge solely to enhance our careers, then we’d never learn to cook. We’d never learn to drive. We’d never learn to change our bed-sheets (coincidentally all things I cannot do very well). Every moment of our daily lives are filled with these tasks and activities and ventures that, somewhere along the way, we first had to learn how to do. Movement. Hygiene. Health. Conversation. Childcare. Security.
It’s okay if you pop open a new Chrome tab to thoroughly research lucid dreaming for a while, all while knowing you aren’t about to become the world’s leading dream doctor. It’s perfectly fine to buy books written in Latin in the hopes of learning the language, all while knowing you aren’t going to portal back in time to live in 6th Century BC Rome. It’s so completely normal to study physics and publishing and whatever the hell else, just because you love to know about these things.
Learning is done not to gain a job but to grow a passion. To become a fuller human. To become a happier person. If that all leads to a more defined, more enjoyable, more prolific career for you — then great. But if that all leads to a more defined, more fulfilled, more content you — then that’s better.
Don’t Ever Feel Guilty for Not Following The Path
Pathways exist to be followed — which explains why so many of us follow them. It’s human nature to take the most accessible route. Our survival instincts don’t want us to encounter bumps in the road, fallen oak trees and maybe some kind of Godzilla like reptile stomping about the place. We like comfort and ease, and step-by-step guides. That’s why we find ourselves so often looking to others who have been where we desire to go — those who have forged the pathways for us. We admire and respect and idolize those who are exactly where we want to be because then they can show us how to get there.
And man, how lucky are we that we get to do that?
But also: man, how annoying is it that we so often do that?
Because when we stray from those paths — when we do things that aren’t deemed The Norm™ — it makes for a tumultuous journey. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to be a professional ballet dancer. So your expected route would be to learn as a child, attend after-school classes, perform on stage and audition time and time again for ballet school until you get accepted, which explains why you’re accumulating quite the array of concerned looks because of what you actually chose to do — choreographing your own routines. Uploading them onto TikTok. Crafting your own costumes and redefining what ballet means. Your parents say you’re wasting your time. Your girlfriend says you’re unrealistic. Your boss at the supermarket says you should tear your head down from the clouds.
But you don’t listen. Because you’re doing what you love. It makes you happy — and maybe one day, it’ll make you prosperous. But either way, right here, right now, it makes you happy. And is that not good enough?
Please, never feel guilty for that. | https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/i-have-two-degrees-and-no-job-cb384eb7c9ba | ['Emily Wilcox'] | 2020-12-28 15:37:14.560000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'Personal Development', 'Self Improvement', 'Jobs', 'Education'] |
This One Skill Can Supercharge Your Software Career | This One Skill Can Supercharge Your Software Career
Photo by Dimitar Belchev on Unsplash.
In 2017, our team was going through the initial phases of the historic Dell-EMC merger. We had to present the existing Dell processes to the EMC business and vice versa. My task was to explain how Dell handles warranties internally.
The room was filled with more than 50 business people from both companies. There were many more attendees on the conference call from all over the globe. Even though I have become confident when presenting to senior leadership, this was still challenging for me.
The presentation went exceptionally well. The rapport established that day helped our team work closely with the business for the next two years to integrate the warranty management system between the two companies. The successful integration brought enormous benefits for the entire team and me.
That is the power of a good presentation. It can enhance your visibility, build credibility as a leader, and propel you to new heights in your career.
Therefore, let’s look at a five-step process that can help you excel at giving presentations. | https://betterprogramming.pub/this-one-skill-can-supercharge-your-software-career-5de04815c7a7 | ['Lokajit Tikayatray'] | 2021-06-17 14:51:32.929000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Software Engineering', 'Software Development', 'Careers', 'Advice'] |
Book Notes: The Great Mental Models Vol. 2 by Shane Parrish | Book Notes: The Great Mental Models Vol. 2 by Shane Parrish
Book Notes
Volume two of The Great Mental Models series explores the core mental models derived from the fundamentals of science: physics, chemistry, and biology. Understanding these models will help you improve your understanding of how the world works so you can learn to make better decisions.
Part 1: Physics
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” — Marie Curie
Relativity
Relativity helps us to understand that there is more than one way to see everything. An effective tool for helping us see things from different perspectives is the thought experiment.
Thought experiments help us understand why people do things that initially don’t make any sense. When you understand someone’s point-of-view, it will help you better understand their beliefs and biases that guide their worldview.
You can also solve problems by shifting your perspective in multiples ways:
Zooming in or out of the problem
Extending your timeline to weeks, months, or even years
Assuming the perspective of other stakeholders
Nobody can see it all. Filtering a problem through multiple perspectives layered together will help reduce your blind spots and offer you a version of reality that’s closer to the truth.
Reciprocity
We are more strongly driven to avoid losses than to achieve gains. It’s why we find it so difficult to put ourselves out there to engage with others. But life is an iterative and compounding game. In the words of Peter Kaufman, “It pays to go positive and go first.”
Reciprocal behavior is embedded in our DNA. You were more likely to survive if you received help from others, and you were more likely to receive help if you offered assistance.
There are two types of reciprocity that we engage in: direct and indirect.
Direct: You help me, and I help you.
You help me, and I help you. Indirect: The pay-it-forward concept. I help you, and you help someone else.
Life is easier and more enjoyable when we act on starting and maintaining win-win relationships. So, if you want to receive help, start by first offering help to others.
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics refers to a set of four laws that provide the ultimate foundation for how the world works:
The First Law: energy cannot be created nor destroyed; it can only be transferred from one form to another. The Second Law: Entropy (the measure of disorder) of an isolated system always increases. The Third Law: As temperature approaches absolute zero, the system’s entropy approaches a constant value. The Zeroth Law: If two objects are in thermal equilibrium with a third object, then those two objects are in thermal equilibrium with each other.
Thermodynamics teaches us that chaos is the default state. It requires energy to maintain structure and organization. We put in the work to maintain order because we don’t like the idea of living in a world that we cannot fully control or understand.
We tell stories to ourselves and others as a way of filling in the gaps of our understanding. Stories attempt to tame the terrifying randomness surrounding us so that we can maintain social order and cultural norms. Without our collective belief in stories (money, government, borders, etc.), our complex societies would collapse.
Inertia
Inertia is useful for understanding some elements of our behavior, including our thinking patterns and habits. We’re naturally inclined to reject the new in an attempt to resist the effort required to make a change. Keeping things as they are requires almost no effort and involves little uncertainty.
Real change requires force, and force requires effort. The longer you’ve been doing something, the more it becomes a part of your identity. Thus, the amount of effort needed to change a habit is proportional to the length of time you’ve had it. The longer a habit has been around, the more energy is required to change it.
We naturally want to conserve our energy. That’s why getting started is the hardest part. But once you get moving in a direction, it’s much easier to keep going.
Friction and Viscosity
Friction is the force that must be overcome to achieve an outcome. It’s what opposes the movement of objects that are in contact with each other. Viscosity is the measure of how hard it is for one layer of fluid to slide over another.
While often hidden, friction and viscosity work against us anytime we try to do something. We often default to using more force to overcome resistance when merely reducing the friction or viscosity will do. Sometimes all it takes to achieve your goals is to think about how you can reduce the resistance instead of just trying to apply more force.
Velocity
Speed is just movement; velocity has direction. It’s much more important to pay attention to where you’re going instead of how fast you’re going. Progress in a given area is not about how fast you’re moving now but how far you’ve moved relative to where you started.
Self-improvement is about finding a balance between speed and direction. Learn to improve your tactics and be willing to adjust and respond to new information. Sometimes you won’t move as fast as you want, but it’s better to move in the right direction at a steady pace than to go fast in the wrong one.
Leverage
Leverage is achieving results far greater than the force you put in. When it comes to leverage, you want to know three things:
How do I know when I have it? Where and when should I apply it? How do I keep it?
If you can figure out those three questions, you can have significant power over the forces acting against you. But as powerful as leverage can be, you need to be deliberate about using it. Abusing your leverage can lead to others feeling exploited and not want to work with you.
Leverage is best paired with reciprocity-building win-win relationships that will help you keep your leverage sustainable over the long-term.
Part 2: Chemistry
“Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.” — Rosalind Franklin
Activation Energy
Activation energy is the energy required in a chemical system to initiate a reaction. Without an initial input of sufficient energy, the reaction won’t occur.
When it comes to achieving lasting change in your life, you need enough activation energy to break out of old habits. Real change requires more than just enough energy to get started, but enough energy to see the entire process through. The bigger and more challenging the need for change, the more activation energy is required.
Figuring out the right amount of energy is pertinent to quitting some addictions. It’s not just the moment you decide to quit; it’s everything that had to happen, and every crisis you had to face to enact that decision.
Real change takes effort. It requires not just updating your goals but also changing your systems. Invest more energy than you think you need to, and you just might get there.
Catalysts
Catalysts accelerate change. They are a part of a reaction, but the reaction does not consume them. Their job is to create an alternate pathway for a reaction to occur that’s usually faster and easier.
Catalysts can just as easily speed up a negative reaction as they can a positive one. They just decrease the amount of energy required to cause change, and in the process, make certain reactions possible that might not have happened otherwise. For many people, unpleasant events, such as losing a job or being rejected, act as necessary catalysts for tremendous personal growth.
Alloying
Alloying is the process of combining components in specific combinations to produce a substance that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Our knowledge can be viewed as an alloy since it’s a combination of knowledge gained from direct experience and knowledge gained from theory. Theory can trigger new experiences, while experience can trigger the updating of our theory.
Our knowledge can be further broken down into what Aristotle discussed as our five components of knowledge:
Episteme: scientific knowledge
Techne: art or craft knowledge
Phronesis: prudent or practical knowledge
Nous: intellect or intuitive apprehension
Sophia: wisdom
Alloying is about increasing our strength by combining multiple skills and specific knowledge. Combining expertise in a domain with a broader understanding of the rules that govern the world is a rare combination that will make you highly valuable in society.
Part 3: Biology
“A totally blind process can by definition lead to anything; it can even lead to vision itself.” — Jacques Monod
Evolution Pt. 1: Natural Selection and Extinction
Evolution explains the relationship between us and our environment. Natural selection and extinction are powerful models because they demonstrate that we must either respond to our environment’s changing demands or risk dying off.
Natural selection is about what advantages you have in the current environment, not what advantages you might have in the distant future. It doesn’t preserve changes that might be useful in the future; it preserves changes that are useful right now. If the environment changes, then you must learn to adapt.
If you want to understand why some traits stick around, why some customs carry through multiple generations, and why some ideas take root and spread, you have to look at their usefulness in their environment.
Evolution Pt. 2: Adaptation Rate and the Red Queen Effect
Adaptation refers to both the useful trait and the process of change it undergoes as it’s passed on. Adaptations are genetic mutations that happen to occur at the right place and time. When they provide an advantage, the frequency of that mutation in the population increases.
The Red Queen Effect is an evolutionary principle that explains the pressures that all organisms face just to survive. When enough people are trying to get smarter, better, and more of the limited resources available, it puts direct pressure on everyone else to keep up.
It doesn’t matter how long a species has already survived; it must be willing to adapt or risk extinction. Real success comes from being flexible enough to change, even if it means abandoning what worked in the past, so that you can focus on what you need to do to thrive in the future. Complacency is what kills you.
Ecosystem
Nothing exists in isolation. Everything is connected. Every decision you make may have unintended consequences. Therefore, take the time to learn how your system’s components are interconnected so you can understand how your actions will impact those connections and affect the outcome you’re trying to produce.
Niches
Every species in an ecosystem has a niche. A species’ niche includes everything that affects its ability to reproduce and survive. Generalist organisms have a broad niche, which means they can survive in a variety of places. On the other hand, specialist organisms need stable environmental conditions to thrive but tend to have few competitors.
Generalists face more daily competition but are more adaptable. Specialists have less competition and day-to-day stress, but only during times of stability. As soon as their environment starts to change, their stress skyrockets as they struggle to adapt.
The fittest species are the ones most suited for their environment and more adapted than their competition. Species will typically become more specialized as competition increases or risk becoming dislocated or even extinct.
Self-Preservation
We have an innate desire to preserve ourselves, whether it’s by passing down our genes by having children or by trying to leave behind a legacy. Self-preservation helps us understand why we sometimes engage in counterintuitive actions such as sacrificing short-term guarantees for long-term possibilities.
Replication
Replication, whether through mitosis or meiosis, allows for diversity in traits that can improve our fitness and increase our chances of survival. Replication prevents the accumulation of traits that impair fitness and lets us, as a species, try out new behaviors that could give us an advantage.
Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. It’s often a good starting point to copy what others are doing. Once you get a better sense of the environment, you can adapt to suit your needs and interests. Effective replication requires enough structure and space to produce a copy but enough flexibility to adapt that copy to changes in the environment.
Cooperation
What separates humankind from other species is our willingness to work together and collaborate on projects and ideas that otherwise wouldn’t be possible if we went at it alone. Cooperation teaches us to work together by asking for help when we need it and offering it in return.
Our complex societies are built on our ability to work together, believe in the same ideas, and share the same goals. When we cooperate, we lighten our load and create new things that move society forward.
Hierarchical Organization
Hierarchies are found across the animal world, and humans are no different. The way we organize ourselves is often a default to our instincts on leadership and authority. Our hierarchical organizations are where we derive our ego, status, and reputation, and they condition us to focus on growing ourselves rather than growing others.
Even in the absence of an imposed structure, we instinctively self-organize. That explains why even anarchist movements end up with leaders. Since hierarchies are a core human instinct, we must learn to be aware of them and learn how to work with them, not go against them.
Hierarchies are also critical in survival situations and combat. In times of extreme stress and chaos, we naturally crave leadership. We are all looking for leaders, even if it means we are looking at ourselves.
Incentives
Incentives are a powerful force that can’t be underestimated. We instinctually move in the direction of rewards and do our best to take steps to avoid punishment. When we’re thoughtful about incentives, we can modify our behavior or the behavior of others.
Our behavior is continuously changing based on both the actual reward and punishment and our perceptions of it. Becoming aware of the incentives that may be directing our actions can help us recognize any unfavorable influences so that we can refocus our attention on what we value.
It always pays to consider the incentives influencing our choices. We often tell ourselves that our motivation is based on doing the right thing when actually we are incentivized by the allure of rewards. Knowing how incentives work to motivate us can help us be less easily manipulated.
Tendency to Minimize Energy Output
All living things require energy to perform their daily functions. Over time, species have developed different mechanisms to increase their energy efficiency. We’ve evolved to conserve our energy so that we have enough to draw from when we really need it, such as when being chased by a predator.
The problem is that our modern society no longer reflects the environment in which our evolutionary tendencies were developed. Our instinct to minimize energy output can lead us to be resistant to change or avoid taking non-life-threatening risks.
Understanding that we’re naturally lazy creatures can help us better understand our tendencies and why it’s difficult for us to change our minds. If we want to improve our thinking and get the most out of our environments, we have to be aware of our natural tendency to minimize energy output and correct for it where doing so creates value.
The Great Mental Models Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry, and Biology | https://medium.com/@blakereichmann/the-great-mental-models-vol-2-by-shane-parrish-e88e79138a35 | ['Blake Reichmann'] | 2021-01-15 16:44:33.291000+00:00 | ['Thinking', 'Science', 'Mental Models', 'Books', 'Book Review'] |
2021 rates take effect Jan. 1, study underway to determine next rate schedule | 2021 rates take effect Jan. 1, study underway to determine next rate schedule
The increase is about $6 per MCF (1,000 cubic feet of water used) with a $2 increase in the base rate. Customers who qualify for our reduced Homestead or Affordability rates will see an increase of about $3 per MCF.
Our regional stormwater management fee remains unchanged for 2021. The complete five-year schedule can be found on our Customer Service page.
In a year of challenges, we understand how rate changes affect customers. We continue to offer cost-saving programs including crisis assistance, plumbing assistance, and Affordability and Homestead discounts. You can see how to apply and whether you qualify at neorsd.org/save.
We are conducting a study to determine the rate schedule for the years 2022–2026. | https://medium.com/@neorsd/2021-rates-take-effect-jan-1-study-underway-to-determine-next-rate-schedule-cf6adb78fc70 | ['Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District'] | 2020-12-24 04:20:56.410000+00:00 | ['Utilities', 'Infrastructure', 'Environment', 'Cleveland'] |
Are traditional CVs not enough anymore? | “As an employer I have always tried to look at each CV, but it becomes clear very quickly which CVs catch the eye and begin to ‘sell’ a potential employee.” Karen Millen OBE
During lockdown (the first one in England) I took the opportunity to join Facebook groups filled with people working, or hoping to work, in marketing and communications. As practice and trends are constantly evolving in these areas, and as someone early on in my career, I wanted to learn from, as well as share my own knowledge with, like minded individuals. Through these groups I have been introduced to a wonderful community of people happy to provide guidance and support to each other. But, one of the things I have noticed in particular is the rise in popularity of creative CVs. This has led me to question, are traditional CVs not enough anymore?
CVs traditionally consist of two neat pages outlining previous experience, education and skills, in addition to your personal details and anything else you want to share with your potential new employer. If you search “CV template” on Google you will be inundated with examples of black and white pages, utilising Times New Roman or Arial, bullet points and bolded headers. Creative CVs on the other hand can be just about anything. Examples I have seen range from posters, scrapbook graphics, videos, songs, mock ups of social media profiles or websites, books, piñatas, toys and even a real custom doll’s house (think 13 Going on 30).
From the case studies I have seen it is clear these are a clever way to help your application stand out against the ever increasing number of applicants. For the right job and the right company this is a sure way to demonstrate your personality and how you are a cultural fit, something regular CVs are unable to provide. However, when it comes down to it, you can create the most inventive, spectacular application imaginable but that can’t always make you the best candidate. That being said, if your creative CV can demonstrate you have the skills and potential to succeed, a great employer might just see that.
Most days now a creative CV pops up on my LinkedIn feed. They usually are quite popular with other users showing support on their creativity. What I see, however, is silly flaws. It is exasperating to me, to see almost all of them contain grammatical, spelling or layout errors, obvious from a quick scan. Spending hours devising graphics unfortunately becomes worthless when you use the wrong “there” or forget to capitalise a previous workplace. Indeed, this is also true when it comes to regular CVs. With traditional and creative CVs alike, they must fulfil the same foundational criteria. Do they meet the personal specification? Are they tailored to the specific job? And, equally as important, are they clear, lacking fluffy language, and readable.
CVs have been round for, not just decades but, hundreds of years. In fact, the first professional resume recorded came from Leonardo da Vinci in 1482. However standard paper CVs, as we know them today, became the norm in the mid-20th century. In a world of Tik Tok, iPhone 12s and artificial intelligence, does this not tell us it’s time to move on to something new? People are unique and innovative and individual. Within a society where most spend the majority of their life working, shouldn’t we be putting ourselves into the hands of hiring managers from that first stage of application?
It would be wrong to suggest that by using a traditionally “boring” CV format you have no personality. And many would argue that is what the later stages of the hiring process are indeed for showing. It was Bill Gates who first said in 1996 “content is king” and this certainly still rings true today. One of the best examples on creative CVs I have seen compared them to books with interesting covers, but disappointing interiors. If your CV has nothing worth listening to, you have no business shouting about it.
Unfortunately, I think the decision on creative CVs is largely out of our hands. Hiring managers are individuals themselves and know what they are looking for prior to advertising. However you apply, you just might not be it. With creative CVs in the minority, it’s difficult to conclude a success rate but I would be interested to find out. As with any application, CVs ought to be tailored to the specific job and company. If that job and company might respond well to your creative and enthusiastic talents, I say go for it. Just understand there are so many factors contributing to the hiring process, and don’t be disheartened if putting yourself out there and spending hours on a project does not get you where you want to be.
Oh, and always get someone to proofread your work.
Images: João Ferrão via Unsplash
https://www.vertex42.com/resumes/cv-template.html
References:
Bill Gates, Content Is King. Available at: https://medium.com/@HeathEvans/content-is-king-essay-by-bill-gates-1996-df74552f80d9#:~:text=Ever%20wondered%20where%20the%20phrase,as%20it%20was%20in%20broadcasting.
Laurence Hebberd, Undercover Recruiter. Available at: https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/history-resume-info/#:~:text=Leonardo%20da%20Vinci%20wrote%20the,a%20new%20template%20for%20resumes.
Karen Millen OBE, via Jan Cole, Creative CV Guide. Available at: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/careers/documents/students/other/creativecvguide(1).pdf | https://medium.com/@cathancock/are-traditional-cvs-not-enough-anymore-95d57cdc4771 | ['Cat Hancock'] | 2020-11-25 19:40:41.266000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Personal Branding', 'Recruitment', 'Cv', 'Cv Writing'] |
How can atmospheric pollution result to excessive harm in the marine ecosystems? | How can atmospheric pollution result to excessive harm in the marine ecosystems? Ioannis Dedes Follow Dec 26 · 5 min read
Photo by NOAA on Unsplash
It is obvious that when one discusses how humans disturb and negatively affect the atmospheric system, the focus is based on the pollution and the effect of the excessive quantities of greenhouse gases. However, there’s less or no concentration on how the disturbance of the atmospheric system can negatively contribute to the harm on marine ecosystems.
Regardless of the focus on this connection, this text is a simple guide that can raise awareness and clearly show the impact that generally human intervention and more specifically carbon emissions, can have on aquatic ecosystems since they threaten the ocean and have a negative effect for entire food webs and chains. It’s more than important to understand the correlation of the two systems, the atmospheric and the aquatic, and be well aware of the fact that our harmful actions for the pollution of the air are equally and sometimes even more disruptive for the marine ecosystems and equilibria.
As stated before, the text is dedicated more on the single perspective of burning fossil fuels and generally, carbon dioxide emissions they can produce, along with other harmful activities. At first sight, one might say that oceans work as a mechanism that absorbs 25% to 40% of the carbon dioxide emitted in the air and actually slows the rate of global warming. Please don’t get me wrong; this is a great outcome for the absorption of this polluting substance. It’s considered great, however, until one understands the second part of the ‘story’. The CO2 quantities which are absorbed by the oceans do not disappear; they come together with water molecules, dissolve them, and create an acidic substance called carbonic acid.
Carbonic acid can be easily ‘broken down’ to bicarbonate and hydrogen ions, solutions in which the acidity is found in excessive levels. This is obviously a great contribution for the destruction of marine systems since the increasing acidity levels in the water can seriously harm the diversity of populations, habitats and plants of the oceans. After reading my last article on the environment, which raises awareness on the importance of the Amazon rainforest, one can easily understand how water acidity will work at the expense of marine ecosystems and in this particular case, the diversity of the river.
Another negative mechanism which is caused by atmospheric pollution and it’s attached to the acidic character of the above-mentioned case is the change of the wind patterns; cases of this outcome are particularly found in the Pacific Ocean. A change in the wind patterns can lead to a push of the waters on the surface aside and acidic water can rise up to the shore. Both the previous one and this case may have the negative effect of leading to greater water acidity; the phenomenon of ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is the increase of the acid and the decrease of pH in the oceans, caused by the substance of carbon dioxide. Lower pH means higher acidity, the inability of many organisms to adapt and the disruption of food chains, as shown below.
One example that should be evaluated and which ecompasses both effects of the mechanism mentioned above is the 2005 to 2008 Pacific Northwest extinction of millions of shellfish larvae. It was considered a mysterious extinction and it took way too long for the researchers to understand that the acidity of the waters was damaging the organisms’ population and that that low pH was causing the dissolution of shells. Furthermore, scientists discovered that a big number of marine organisms build their skeletons and shells from calcium carbonate, which is vulnerable to acid and after specifically two months, it completely dissolves and skeletons cannot be built properly in the water of low pH. Despite the fact that the vast deaths of the shellfish larvae urged scientists to research and figure out what happened, this population hasn’t fully recovered yet and as carbon continues to make water more acidic, the more vulnerable the skeletons and the shells will be.
In addition, there are other case studies that show us how the decrease in pH can lead to disturbance of food webs and ecosystems as a whole. Another example is about the organisms of crustaceans, a species being even more affected by the acidity in the water. This species cannot control the dissolution of acid in their shells and as a result they can easily die. This poses a threat for many ecosystems as crustaceans are primary consumers and are precious for many marine ecosystems. This could result in disruption of the reproductive cycle or the complete disruption and disturbance of the ecosystems, as these species pass a great amount of energy from the plants to the consumers when healthy. This comes in accordance with one of my previous articles that it’s based on the positive feedback mechanisms’ effects on biodiversity and is found below (although the focus is on different ecosystems the theory is the same).
As the writer, I would personally advise the reader to dedicate a greater extent of his time in understanding this particular correlation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, caused by human activities, which after all, can also doesn’t only affect terrestrial and atmospheric ecosystems but also poses a great threat to the marines; the examples are used to show that this is frequently the case and acidity doesn’t only harm small organisms which are irrelevant to the greater water ecosystem but it can be deadly for precious populations and parts of the greater food chains and webs. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/how-atmospheric-pollution-can-result-to-excessive-harm-in-the-marine-ecosystems-922fc295a258 | ['Ioannis Dedes'] | 2020-12-28 12:42:46.667000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Diversity', 'Future', 'Sustainability', 'Climate Change'] |
Marvel Them With Questionable Causality— The Lessons of Avengers Infinity War | Marvel Them With Questionable Causality— The Lessons of Avengers Infinity War
Sometimes you spend a few hours looking at dazzling visualizations, listening to engaging dialogue, and seeing a buzz-worthy array — only to walk away and think “why would that happen again?”. This could be your reaction after leaving a corporate boardroom or Avengers: Infinity War. In that respect, they have a lot in common. Warning — spoilers.
Entertainment Bias and Confirmation Bias also have a lot in common. Both are about telling you the story you want to hear. If you ignore the former, you will get an enjoyable evening of entertainment. If you ignore the latter — budget issues, poor investment, and other nasty things will follow.
Selling either can depend on a very reliable list of tricks and techniques. Let’s go through the ones they have in common.
Stunning Visuals
CGI and Dataviz are both very useful technologies for advancing a story. They draw you in, help you suspend disbelief, and occasionally distract the audience from some otherwise troublesome short comings.
Adjusting an angle, exaggerating some scale, and a little selective editing can go a long way to covering a story line with holes. Conversely, bad CGI and Dataviz can easily kill an otherwise amazing tale. The audience can just as easily become distracted by the poor quality of your visuals. Both technologies can be good or bad. Both can put huge dollars on the line.
Sometimes You Feel Compelled To Force The Story You Want
In finance, they call it goal seeking. In analytics, it can take the form of confirmation bias or false correlation. In this movie, it takes the form of giving only Scarlet Witch the ability to destroy the stone. Why? Because she is in love with the superhero that destroying the stone would kill! Wait… what?
In both analytics and the movies, this can cause otherwise random events to be… well, not random at all. Why was it Peter and not Tony? Because the goal was to create a more compelling story line. Or maybe it really was just the luck of the draw?
By the way, why half of the people? What was Thanos fixation with half. Why not 1/3rd or 3/4ths? Ah, the appeal of round numbers! It happens more in the movies, but only slightly. Simple makes a great story line, but sometimes simple seems very forced. Was it in Infinity War? You can decide.
Format and Context Matter
If you are an avid comic reader or just follow Greg Anderson on Quora, maybe these things seemed less arbitrary or convenient to the plot? Extra context can help a movie or an analysis. Format can affect them both as well — written formats often contain more details and pertinent information. Movies and powerpoints often edit lots of stuff out, or leave it for the footnotes.
If All Else Fails, Marvel Them With Buzz, Budget, and Charisma
This final analogy requires more of a stretch. Infinity War packed in more celebrities than even the X-men, although minus any X-men. It was one of the highest budget movies ever made. Who has time to find plot holes with all of that… well, always someone, but given the box office — no one was trying too hard. It is a recipe that works in analytics, too.
I have witnessed many an analytic presentation that was built on buzzwords, huge testing budgets, and testimonials of influential people. That stuff often has the same effect. In fact, if you can get Chris Hemsworth and Robert Downey Jr to present your findings, I bet few in the audience will raise many objections… at least until later.
At some point, when the dazzling visuals are done, when the charisma of the celebrities and buzz have faded — people start asking more questions. Perhaps, at first, it is just the contrarians or the highly critical — but if your story needed these tricks to cover too many holes, more will follow.
For the record, I enjoyed Infinity War. I suspect most of you did, too. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t capable of teaching a critical lesson in analytics. Thanks for reading!
For more Superhero Lessons: | https://creative-analytics.corsairs.network/marvel-them-with-questionable-causality-the-lessons-of-avengers-infinity-wars-c3ae39eae77 | ["Corsair'S Publishing"] | 2018-12-31 20:21:54.082000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Marvel', 'Analytics', 'Superheroes', 'Data Visualization'] |
FASCINATING WORLD OF IoT AND TESTING | Have you ever thought about how automated our daily life is now? A few decades ago, people could not even think that it could be so simplified in terms of managing everyday things. We can monitor the state of our health without leaving your home, track the necessary transport, control the vacuum cleaner remotely, and much more. Such things already familiar to us make our life incredibly comfortable, aren’t they? But to learn how to test them, we must first understand how it works.
So what is the internet of things? The Internet of Things (IoT) is a combination of vehicles, household appliances, medical equipment using embedded electronics, microchips, etc. In general, any sensors that are able to communicate with the cloud. This technology allows the user to remotely control devices over a network.
A few examples of IoT things in real implementation:
· With the help of the CitySense application, it is easy to get real-time data for outdoor lighting, and it is based on them that street lights are turned on or off.
· There are also various applications that allow you to monitor traffic signals and parking availability in the city.
· There are also many applications for monitoring patient health. Based on comparable data, services control the dosage of drugs. Applications such as UroSense can monitor the level of fluid in the patient’s body and, depending on the need, initiate fluid intake. At the same time, data can be transmitted wirelessly to a doctor’s monitor.
The following are some of the most commonly used technologies in IoT:
LoRaWAN/LoRa
RFID [RF Code] and EPC [Electronic Product Code]
NFC [Near Field Communication] is used to enable two-way communication between electronic devices and is mainly used for contactless transactions.
Bluetooth: used where short messages are enough to avoid problems.
Z-Wave: This is a low-frequency radio. First of all, it is used for home automation, lamp control, etc.
WiFi: The most used technology for the Internet of Things. On the local network, it helps to easily transfer files, data, and messages.
IoT Testing
Let’s take an example of a health-tracking system in which the device monitors a patient’s health, heart rate, fluid consumption data and sends a report to doctors. This data is recorded in the system and can be viewed as needed. It can be run remotely from any device to which medical equipment is connected.
To test this architecture, we need to consider several approaches:
messages, warnings, warnings, etc. There are no rules for a mobile phone. It can be selected carefully.
1. Ease of use:
We must make sure that we can correctly use each of these devices to us. The device must be mobile enough so that the user can easily transfer it to any place. The equipment must be smart enough to display not only notifications but also error messages, warnings, etc. The system must be able to record all events in order to provide clarity of the picture as a whole or have access to the database, also notifications should be displayed on the display and should be able to transfer data to the screens of monitors / mobile devices. Ease of use in terms of data display, data processing, input tasks from different devices should be carefully checked.
2. IoT security:
The Internet of Things focuses on the fact that all connected devices/systems operate on the basis of available data. When it comes to data flow between devices, there is always a chance that data can be accessed or read during transmission. From the point of view of testing, we need to check the security layer, whether the data is protected/encrypted when switching from one device to another. Where there is a user interface, we need to make sure that it has password protection.
3. Connectivity:
Since this is a health care device, connectivity plays a vital role. The system should be available all the time and should have a seamless connection with users. One more thing, no matter how reliable the system and the network is, it is likely that the system will shut down. We have to check the autonomous working conditions. As soon as the system is unavailable online, a warning must be given that can awaken doctors so that they can manually monitor their health, regardless of the system. Also, the system should have a mechanism that allows you to store all the data in it for a certain period. After the system enters into operation, all these data should be distributed. Data loss is not allowed.
4. Efficiency:
The healthcare system must be sufficiently stable. Testing is performed for 2–10 patients at a time and data is distributed to 10–20 devices. When 180–200 patients are connected to it, the disseminated data is much larger than they were in the test version. We need to make sure that the system works in the same way, even if such large amounts of data are distributed. We also need to check the monitoring utility to display system usage, energy, temperature, etc.
Let’s consider some types of Testing which could be used in our case: | https://medium.com/fintegro-company-inc/fascinating-world-of-iot-and-testing-32dd86aefabd | ['Arine Baghdasaryan'] | 2021-08-09 10:37:51.797000+00:00 | ['QA', 'Testing', 'Software Testing', 'Quality Assurance', 'Internet of Things'] |
What Is Local SEO? | Local SEO is the process of optimizing a website for Google search results that are specific to a geographical area. It can be used to target customers in a certain area, such as a city or town, or even a specific neighborhood.
Why Is Local SEO Important?
There are several reasons why local SEO is important. First and foremost, it brings targeted traffic to a business. If someone searches for a specific product or service in an area their potential customer is based in, they are more likely to choose the website that ranks highly for those keywords.
Secondly, local SEO helps businesses rank higher on search results pages (SERPs). Even if someone doesn’t know exactly what they’re looking for, they may choose a business that is higher up on the list because it appears to be more relevant to their needs.
Finally, local SEO can improve a website’s click-through rate (CTR). When someone sees a business ranking high for local keywords, they are more likely to click on the link to learn more. This can result in more leads and conversions for the business.
How Can Local SEO Help My Business?
In order to take advantage of local SEO, businesses need to make sure their website is properly optimized. This includes adding the correct NAP information (name, address, and phone number), as well as adding geo-targeted keywords to their website content. When someone searches for something near your business, it’s important to make sure you rank highly for those keywords.
What Is a Local SEO Audit?
What Is Local SEO Audit??
A local SEO audit looks at a website to make sure it’s optimized for local search. It also checks the site in general, and makes recommendations on how it can be improved in order to rank higher overall. This includes:
Optimizing business information (NAP).
Adding relevant geo-targeted keywords to content.
Exploring new areas to add content.
You can always follow comprehensive local SEO audit checklists to analyze your local SEO campaigns.
Top Tips on Local SEO Optimization
Here are a few tips to help you optimize your website for local SEO:
1. Claim your business listing on Google My Business. This will help you appear in local search results, and it’s free to do.
2. Add NAP information to all of your website pages. Make sure the information is consistent across all listings, and update it when required.
3. Add geo-targeted keywords to your website content. This will help you rank higher in local search results, which is good for both branding and traffic generation purposes.
4. Use Google Search Console to find more opportunities for local optimization. By using the “location” feature, you can see what specific location keywords your website is ranking for.
5. Make use of local directories and review sites. These can be great sources of backlinks and traffic, and they often rank well in local search results.
6. Track your local SEO progress using analytics tools. This will help you determine which tactics are working best for you, so you can focus on those.
7. Regularly update your website content. This is one of the most important things you can do for local SEO, as it helps to show that your business is active and relevant.
8. Get involved in your local community. This will help you build relationships with potential customers, as well as gaining links and social media followers.
9. Use social media to reach out to local customers. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can be great ways to connect with potential customers in your area.
10. Be patient! Local SEO takes time and effort to achieve good results. But if you stick with it, you’ll see a big return on investment.
Now that you know a bit more about local SEO, it’s time to start optimizing your website! The tips above will give you a good starting point, but be sure to do your own research as well. And most importantly, stay patient. Local SEO takes time and effort to achieve good results, but it’s definitely worth the effort. | https://medium.com/@designitic/what-is-local-seo-631ca8c27c88 | [] | 2021-12-23 10:06:32.919000+00:00 | ['Seo Optimization', 'Seo Services', 'Local Seo', 'Local Business'] |
Today, everyday. | First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.
Follow | https://medium.com/the-fluxus/today-everyday-a0bc9672f97b | ['Martino Pietropoli'] | 2020-03-20 09:29:30.577000+00:00 | ['Comics', 'Covid 19', 'Cartoon', 'Illustration'] |
Cirque du Soleil returns to the Northwest with “Volta” — and we have a sneak peek | I really love Cirque du Soleil shows. The combination of acrobatics and music and storytelling has gripped my imagination for as long as I can remember. Every one of the small handful of shows I’ve seen has been dazzling, so I was quite excited when I got an invite to watch the raising of the big top in Marymoor Park for the latest travelling Cirque show to hit the Pacific Northwest, “Volta.”
“Volta” runs from September 7 through November 4 at Marymoor Park in Redmond. In Cirque’s own words:
VOLTA is a captivating voyage of discovery. It’s about finding yourself, and unveiling your personal powers. Inspired in part by the adventurous spirit that fuels the culture of street sports, the show weaves acrobatics in a visually striking world driven by a stirring melodic score. VOLTA is a story of transformation. It is about being true to oneself, fulfilling one’s true potential, and recognizing one’s own power to make it possible. Ultimate freedom comes with self-acceptance, and with the liberation of the judgement of others. Waz, a gameshow contestant, that has lost touch with himself. He’s ashamed of who he is because of his difference. Follow him as he enters the show in search of fame, thinking that this will bring him love and acceptance from others. What he will find is something else. That fame is not the answer. If fame doesn’t provide freedom and acceptance, then what does? Will WAZ reconnect with his true self — and stand up for all that makes him truly unique? Will he realize that his difference is what makes him extraordinary?
While in Redmond, I had a few minutes to ask Cirque du Soleil’s publicist Steven Ross some questions about “Volta.”
Can you tell me what goes into a Cirque du Soleil production? I know you go from city to city, and now you’re gonna be in Redmond starting in another week, week and a half. Maybe about two weeks or a week and a half. I think you said that this is day two of six for the set up.
So, today we’re doing the big top raising. It takes about six days for the whole Cirque du Soleil village to come to life. The tent itself takes up to ten hours … which is the process we’re going to be witnessing today.
The whole day is dedicated to one thing. It’s raising the canvas and raising the big top. The iconic moment, obviously, is when the canvas lifts and it’s our way to say to the people of Seattle, “We’ve arrived. We’re in your backyard now.”
What have you found that’s been the impact on the local communities and economies when you go from city to city?
We always try to have a very positive impact, notably by hiring local people. “Volta” hires 126 employees, and on top of this, we hire anywhere between 150 and 200 people from the local community to do security, to do maintenance, to help us with the setup and tear down, the food and beverage, to help us cooking in the kitchen as well, so we have a very positive impact in the community by the people we hire, but also by the people that we bring to the community of Redmond for two months. So, obviously, it will help the restaurants and the hotels and the bars. We’ve been pretty impactful economically back in the cities we’ve visited before.
I wouldn’t be able to give you an amount right up, but still, we try to have a local economical impact, but also an impact in terms of entertainment. If we have an option, we will be the local artists as well, and we really try to have a positive effect to leave behind.
What can you talk about the show “Volta” in particular? I don’t think anyone around here has seen it yet, so without giving away too much, can you say what people can expect?
So, “Volta” is the newest big top creation of Cirque du Soleil. It was created last year in 2017 in March. It’s breath of fresh air. It’s something we’ve never seen before. For the first time ever, Cirque du Soleil has street sports in a show. We are creating a complete BMX park in front of the eyes of the people on stage.
We have roller skaters, we have double dutch. We have a lot of new disciplines that I’ve never seen before. Trampoline … so, that’s a very new aspect. To support that, we realized when we created we wanted to have action sports. All of these videos and all of the creators of action sports online, they were all presenting their numbers and their discipline to electronic music. So we said, “We need to have electronic music in that show.” That’s why we’re very happy to have the music of Anthony Gonzales, the composer of M83. So, the music aspect of the show is extremely different, very new … and obviously, the strong narrative as well.
We have a very defined narrative. It’s a story of self-acceptance. The character throughout the show, when he starts off he’s not happy with himself, he’s different and he doesn’t like his difference. Throughout the show, he’s gonna find out it’s okay to be yourself, because whatever difference you have makes you more unique. That’s a message that speaks to a lot of people. Whatever community you’re from, whatever sexual orientation or gender, whatever culture you’re from … everyone has something they might not be as happy with and that they would like to be accepted for. That’s the message we’re sharing.
Cirque du Soleil’s Steven Ross answering some questions for KCPQ before answering my questions.
I wanna just ask one more thing, but what would you say to someone who’s never seen a Cirque show before if they’re curious? What would you say to them why the would want to come in and see “Volta” or see something else you’re doing?
The experience we present under the big top is a very intimate, with a lot of emotions; what we try is to blow away the imagination and mesmerize people, and we’d like to think that we’re able to do it in a very intimate surrounding with a very classical circus experience under the big top. So, it’s a mix with something very classical and something very new: sports and electronic music, but in a very classical environment. So, we’re a very good marriage, and “Volta” is a definitely big crowd pleaser, so we hope the people of Seattle will come and see us. | https://medium.com/journal-of-precipitation/cirque-du-soleil-returns-to-the-northwest-with-volta-and-we-have-a-sneak-peek-bc81b639ed88 | ['Chris Burlingame'] | 2018-09-04 17:12:40.785000+00:00 | ['Theater', 'Music', 'Cirque Du Soleil', 'Interviews', 'Redmond'] |
The Truth About Periods and How They Affect a Stripper’s Job | The Truth About Periods and How They Affect a Stripper’s Job
Because most strippers still go to work when we get our periods.
Photo by Gabrielle Rocha Rios on Unsplash
A person’s menstrual cycle can’t affect their job performance, I always thought. Even if their job is stripping down to a lace thong, spinning upside down on a 10-foot chrome pole, and putting their body in the hands of multiple horny strangers, right?
Okay, so maybe my job makes “going to work on my period” a bit unique.
Full disclosure, I’ve never worked at a fully nude gentlemen’s club, so my experience only speaks to being a topless dancer while on my period. I never had to remove my panties for a lap dance. I also have a very light period and my cycles usually last 4–5 days max; every period is different.
I have friends who worked at nude clubs and they worked even when they were actively bleeding and cramping. They’d use either a tampon and cut the string for visibility, or they’d wear a menstrual cup because the show must go on. They liked to joke that the money was always more effective than an Advil for relieving their menstrual cramps; their undying optimism made me laugh.
A stripper doesn’t skip work because of their period, unless their period is severe, which is true for many individuals with underlying conditions like fibroids, PCOS or Endometriosis. Periods interfere with a person’s daily life with excruciating nausea, fatigue, dizziness, and unbearable pain. And if that’s the case for a stripper, then yes, we skip work to take care of ourselves.
Our periods are just another part of our lives that we must integrate into our schedule; we’re not special. All people who menstruate continue their jobs and responsibilities despite the bleeding, cramping, and pain.
Besides, most strippers won’t skip a day of work unless we’re so exhausted, lazy, or unavailable that the sound of adding $2,000 to our wallets in four hours can’t get us to the strip club.
But if we have our periods?
No, we work through that shit.
As for any grown person who is grossed out about talks of menstrual blood, tampons, or ovulation, just know that if you’ve ever gotten a lap dance from a stripper, it may have been while they were on their period. And you probably loved it. So there’s that. | https://medium.com/sexography/the-truth-about-strippers-and-their-periods-c7154f70f605 | ['Erin Taylor'] | 2020-12-05 21:55:36.253000+00:00 | ['Sexuality', 'Society', 'Feminism', 'Health', 'Equality'] |
Vengeance of the Dead | "Bro, what is this mess? Is this your room or some trash can? “Nilofer shouted at her as soon as she entered her room. She was here to pick Zara for the party.
"I can't decide what to wear, I am so helpless" she cried.
"No worries, when Nilofer is here tension are not here."
Nilofer was her best friend, she was with her since childhood and nobody knew her better than Nilofer.
Nilofer helped her get ready, she knew how Zara wanted to look really good because Aunn might be there and she wanted to attract him.
Party was in its full swing, there were a huge number of people enjoying themselves.
Zara and Nilofer met Alice. They had fun but Zara was constantly searching for that one face, Aunn. She didn't know where to find him and she couldn't even show that she was looking for him.
Dave was Alice's boyfriend, she always hated him, it was something in his eyes that she disliked. Then she got to know how he harassed so many girls at her college but everyone was so afraid of him that they never raised voice against him.
Dave used to cause distress to Zara and Nilofer. They always ignored him.
Zara went to the restroom to get fresh. Dave followed her and tried to touch her inappropriately, she was very anxious and perplexed.
Out of nowhere, Aunn appeared and punched him in the face. For a minute both Zara and Dave couldn't understand what just happened.
Zara felt as if the prince of her dreams came to save her from the evil.
She was standing there confused while both of the boys were about to fight.
Aunn realized that Zara is uncomfortable, so he warned Dave, held Zara from her hand and took her out.
Zara couldn't speak a word, Aunn said: " You don't need to worry next time he does something like that, instead of getting frightened speak up for yourself" and Zara, she wasn't even listening she was just looking at him with so much admiration.
Nilofer saw them together and came towards them. Aunn told her about all that happened. She thanked him and explained how Zara has been tortured by him many times.
Zara stared angrily at Nilofer but she told him everything.
Aunn seemed really furious, but asked Zara and Nilofer for a ride home. They agreed.
They dropped Zara, when Aunn started to ask Nilofer about Zara. Nilofer wanted to tell him how Zara has a crush on him but she did not want to be killed by her. She smiled and told what he asked.
Zara got a message from Aunn that night, which read: "you are so strong, don't let the demons dim your inner light".
She didn't know why he was saying that but she somewhere knew what he was talking about.
Days went by and everything was good.
It was Aunn’ s birthday and he invited Zara and Nilofer. They had a great time and that's when they started to get close to each other. They used to talk on calls. They used to meet and have fun. They were friends. Zara never told him about her feelings.
However Nilofer wanted her to confess but she just couldn't.
She was passing through the corridor of her university when Dave came in front of her. "What do you think? You'll come up with your boyfriend and I will get scared?" She was nervous. She couldn't even say Aunn was not her boyfriend.
" I will take revenge" he said angrily pointing his finger towards her.
She was terrified; she did not want to tell Aunn about this. But her pale expressions told that there was something wrong, and when Aunn asked she couldn't stop herself. She started crying. In all these months of their friendship they never talked about Dave again. But now Aunn thought it to be the right time to make Zara strong so that she stands up to that bully.
He made her sit and listen to him.
Dave told him about an incident that happened with him. He went on saying “I was a victim of a bully at my school because I was fat at that time. He teased me all the time, he made me cry. He even beat me up. I was never able to stand up to him. Then, I got a friend. I told him. He made me believe in self-confidence. He taught to me to fight bullies. I am forever indebted to him. He used to say it takes one to bully, but two to stop it. That's how I learned to make friends and after that I never let that boy bully me. You need to do that. I want to be that friend. We will make this happen. You will stand up to him. "
This felt so powerful; she decided to stand up to him. She knew Aunn has got her back.
But she did not know Aunn would leave her alone so early.
Alice was a good friend of Zara but after the day at her house she was hesitating while meeting Zara. Zara realized that maybe it is because of what happened that day between her and Dave. She wanted to tell everything to her and she did. But Alice did not believe her. And it was expected. After that day Alice totally cut it off with Zara.
Aunn was the only force that made her feel comfortable in her own. She was falling for him more and more.
She always thought if Aunn would love her. Wouldn't it be a perfect life one could ask for? But this life is not a bed of roses.
When Dave got to know what Zara had told Alice. He confronted Zara and tried to warn her again but this time it was not the old Zara. Zara did not get scared; she faced him quite calmly and made eye contact with him. When he started to get really troublesome she slapped him and went away.
Dave was furious; he knew who was behind all this.
Aunn with the help of Nilofer arranged a dinner for Zara and himself and his plan was to propose her.
He liked her from the day at Alice's house. He never told her but she was all he wanted. She was his reason of smile. She was her everything the day after they met.
Everything was perfectly arranged. Zara and Aunn reached there. Zara was surprised more than happy. It was just like a dream until the villain arrived.
Dave came out of nowhere and pointed a gun at Aunn.
Aunn was not afraid of him at all but Zara started crying and begging him not to do anything.
Dave was red with anger; he wanted the revenge of the slaps. He did not think of anything and shot him.
He was lying there in blood; his white shirt had now turned in red. Zara's red shirt was red but with blood. She was crying and shouting for help. Her dream was shattered. She was in reality living in doom. Nobody could listen to her.
Dave ran away, he was also terrified of what he did.
This was her life. Happiness and joy was never a part of her life. She lost everything when she only found it finally.
Police arrived, people gathered, everyone was there except Aunn who was there for her always.
Months passed, no one knew where Dave ran away and where he was hiding. His rich dad helped him. They were doing everything to save Dave.
Zara was changed. She did not speak, eat or do anything. She looked like a lost soul, a broken angel.
She woke up bewildered from her sleep. It was Aunn. He came into her dreams; he was asking her to come back to life. He was asking her to be the Zara he loved. She told him she'll take revenge for him. He just smiled.
And she woke up. She knew what she was going to do.
Next morning she went to meet Alice. Alice was very sorry for what had happened. She knew if she had believed everything Zara told her this wouldn't have happened. But it is useless to cry over spilt milk.
She asked for her help. Alice agreed. She made Alice go to his parents’ house and ask to patch up with him. But Dave's parents were careful enough not to tell about him to anyone. But Dave's mother by mistake told Dave about Alice who wanted to patch things up with him.
Dave called Alice, which was a good thing for Zara. She made Alice and Dave meet up secretly. Police was on call, and caught Dave red handed.
Zara wouldn't be able to do that if it was not for Aunn.
This was her life now. But Aunn was a part she cannot forget and taught her so much.
She knew "it takes one to bully, two to stop it". | https://medium.com/@afifa.hanif24/vengeance-of-the-dead-ca6ff72d7ddb | ['Afifa Hanif'] | 2020-12-25 05:42:47.766000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Crime', 'Bullying', 'Stories'] |
Docker 101: What Would Docker Do? | As a developer, DevOps is critical to the survival of your business but deployment is a tricky situation. With so many options out there, it’s hard to know where to turn to. Considering the complexity of app development today, there’s pressure for code to be factored before implementation. There are multiple languages, frameworks and different kinds of interfaces between our tools that make deployment that much more difficult. That’s where Docker comes in…
What Is Docker?
Docker is an application build, deployment tool and open source containerization platform. Docker is the current industry standard of deploying containerized applications. It is based on the idea that you package your code along with libraries and dependencies into a deployable unit called a container.
Containers are a standardized executable component that combines application source code with all the operating system (OS) libraries and dependencies required to run the code in any environment. Containers provide consistency and accessibility that developers can rely on. Thanks to the container, developers can rest assured that their applications will run on any other machine regardless of any differing, customized settings that other machines might have. The use of containers to deploy applications is called containerization.While developers can create containers without Docker, containers are now easier, simpler and safer to build, deploy and manage. Furthermore, Docker enables developers to build, deploy, run, update, and stop containers using simple commands through work-saving automation. Just as shipping containers have revolutionized the import/export industry, Docker has done the same in tech.
Images are the basic building blocks of Docker. In fact, containers are built from images. A Docker image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that includes everything needed to run an application including code, runtime, system tools, libraries and settings. They provide a convenient way to package up applications and preconfigured server environments, which you can use for your own private use or share publicly with other Docker users. Images can be configured with applications and used as a template for creating containers. It is organized in a layered fashion. Every change in an image is added as a layer on top of it.
There are two ways to create a Docker image:
Interactive Method: By running a container from an existing Docker image, manually changing that container environment through a series of live steps and saving the resulting state as a new image.
By running a container from an existing Docker image, manually changing that container environment through a series of live steps and saving the resulting state as a new image. Dockerfile Method: By constructing a plain-text file, known as a Dockerfile, which provides the specifications for creating a Docker image.
How does Docker work?
On October 16, 2014, Docker 1.0 was released to the world. Designed with the intent to make containers user-friendly, Docker brought container technology to enterprises worldwide. And from then on, Docker has continued to be the solution for companies and organizations who want to deliver functionality faster.
Similar to how virtual machines (VM) virtualize (remove the need to directly manage) server hardware, containers virtualize the operating system of a server. Docker is installed on each server and provides simple commands you can use to build, start, or stop containers. Docker uses containers, in lieu of virtual machines, to enable multiple applications to simultaneously run on the same server. Unlike virtual machines, rather than creating a whole virtual operating system, Docker allows applications to use the same Linux kernel as the system that they’re running on and only requires applications be shipped with things not already running on the host computer. This gives a significant performance boost and reduces the size of the application. Also, Docker is open source. Meaning, anyone can contribute to Docker and extend it to meet their own needs if they need additional features that aren’t readily available.
Another reason why containers are popular is they lend themselves to Continuous Integration and Continuous Development (CI/CD). These are DevOps practices designed to encourage developers to integrate their code into a shared repository early and often, and then to deploy the code quickly and efficiently.
Why should you use Docker?
Flexible : Even the most complex applications can be containerized.
: Even the most complex applications can be containerized. Lightweight : Containers leverage and share the host kernel, making them much more efficient in terms of system resources than virtual machines.
: Containers leverage and share the host kernel, making them much more efficient in terms of system resources than virtual machines. Portable : You can build locally, deploy to the cloud, and run anywhere.
: You can build locally, deploy to the cloud, and run anywhere. Loosely coupled : Containers are highly self sufficient and encapsulated, allowing you to replace or upgrade one without disrupting others.
: Containers are highly self sufficient and encapsulated, allowing you to replace or upgrade one without disrupting others. Scalable : You can increase and automatically distribute container replicas across a datacenter.
: You can increase and automatically distribute container replicas across a datacenter. Secure: Containers apply aggressive constraints and isolations to processes without any configuration required on the part of the user.
Who is Docker for?
Developers who want their applications deployed on many different systems.
System administrators who need an easy way to install applications on all their systems
Users or system administrators who need to use software not available from their Linux package manager. For example, you are able to run Ubuntu packages on Fedora.
How do you use Docker?
Distributing the OS of your app with a team as a version control system.
In development phases like “Development”, “Testing” & “QA”.
While running your code locally to replicate the server’s environment.
Docker Components:
Docker is composed of the following components
Docker Client and Daemon
Docker Registry
Docker Engine
Docker Swamp
Docker Desktop
Docker Hub
Docker Objects (Images, Containers, etc.)
Conclusion:
I hope you enjoyed this article and are now equipped with the knowledge to use Docker on your own system. Happy Dockerizing!!! | https://medium.com/swlh/docker-101-what-would-docker-do-1895a2bd75df | ['Dominic Holder'] | 2020-12-19 21:10:03.874000+00:00 | ['Linux', 'Software Development', 'Development', 'DevOps', 'Docker'] |
My UX Design Internship Experience from Home | My UX Design Internship Experience from Home
Early 2020, I joined Blibli — one of Indonesia’s leading e-commerce — as a UX Design Intern. It was an internship I was immensely looking forward to. So when the internship started, I was thrilled. Being a fast-paced technology based startup, Blibli is the perfect place for a UX newbie to learn how it is applied in the industry. Forget the ‘bring coffee and make copies’ internship. I was given responsibilities and opportunities to get involved in multiple projects, work with various people, and feel like I was really a part of the team. It was great and I love what I’m doing. Nothing could go wrong… Right?
March rolled in and I was not so right.
Credits: Giphy
The first case of COVID-19 was reported in Indonesia which subsequently led to a strict Work From Home policy by the government. Thus I was dragged back home for the remaining period of my internship. Fun.
Having an internship at home was not quite like what I expected. No scratch that, I didn’t know what to expect. But hey the pandemic is a new thing for everyone too. I crossed my fingers and hoped (and learned) for the best.
Fast forward to December 2020 and a few months remaining in my internship, many things have changed ever since day one. I have grown as a designer, and also as a person. Between learning the ins and outs of product design and adapting to working at home, here are some of the valuable things I learned:
1. Adapt to a remote design process
Since the luxury of meeting our teammates or users face-to-face is a little to none, going through the whole UX process can be a little tricky here. No making a beeline to stakeholders’ desks for quick sync ups, no brainstorming on post-it notes together with the team, no field research, no no. Everything seems like it’s going south . . . 😔
But don’t despair, my human! The human race has shown adaptability like no other and thanks to the innovations of today, we are equipped with various digital resources to help us thrive. One saying that I’ve held on really tightly to is “When there’s a will, there’s a way.” And there is always a way, even for a from-home UX process.
A little refresher but here is what the UX process looks like:
Credits: Jada Williams
I learned to adapt to being fully digital and maximizing what I have to go through the 5 processes. Processes like wireframing and prototyping might not look any different than our pre-covid days. But for other tasks, we have to do some adjusting with whatever we have.
Some tips I have for at home UX-ing are:
Research can be as simple as talking to the person next to you. If it isn’t possible to conduct a research with our exact user due to the pandemic, we can try validating our assumptions or testing our design to the person closest to us who has a similar mental model with our user. For example, say our users belong to an older demography with low technology exposure, we can ask our parents or even a household assistant (asisten rumah tangga) on what they think about a particular matter.
If it isn’t possible to conduct a research with our exact user due to the pandemic, we can try validating our assumptions or testing our design to the person closest to us who has a similar mental model with our user. For example, say our users belong to an older demography with low technology exposure, we can ask our parents or even a household assistant (asisten rumah tangga) on what they think about a particular matter. Maximize online collaboration tools. There are tons of online tools for remote collaboration and brainstorming (E.g. Miro, Google Workspace, Zoom, Trello, Slack, etc.). We can also hold virtual workshops like a design sprint when required. During my internship period, I was honoured to be able to attend ideation workshops and even facilitate a virtual design sprint of my own. Keep in mind that a tool is not a one-size-fits all kind of thing so make sure to trial and error to see what works for you and your team.
There are tons of online tools for remote collaboration and brainstorming (E.g. Miro, Google Workspace, Zoom, Trello, Slack, etc.). We can also hold virtual workshops like a design sprint when required. During my internship period, I was honoured to be able to attend ideation workshops and even facilitate a virtual design sprint of my own. Keep in mind that a tool is not a one-size-fits all kind of thing so make sure to trial and error to see what works for you and your team. Ask for help. A good UX designer is not necessarily someone who can come up with the most creative and unique design, but a good UX designer is someone who can get the right insight to craft the right solution for the users. That includes asking for, listening to, and using feedback effectively. Don’t let social distancing discourage us from being social and asking questions. Speak up during meetings, ask around for inputs on our design, and reach out for help. We don’t have to figure everything out on our own. As the wise woman (Helen Keller) once said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
2. Communicate early and often
Coming up with the design is one part of the job, another part of it is effectively communicating our designs to the stakeholders, be it PM, tech, or business users. Effective communication helps them better understand why they should get on board with the design and how it will benefit the product. That is why it is also important for us to know the reason for every design decision we make. So when someone asks us “hey, why did you design it that way?”, we won’t stop dead in our tracks. Instead, we can explain your reasonings with confidence which in turn will increase the team’s trust in the design.
Bear in mind that we might physically be in isolation, but we are not a lone ranger in the team. Communication can happen as early on as we want. When we make an effort to understand the goal, find out the limitations and constraints, and ask for input from the onset of the project, it will help reduce the amount of iterations we have to do. On top of that, it will help foster teamwork and build ownership from the whole team.
As we are working with various stakeholders online, it is also crucial to communicate more than the norm. Make sure to enquire about the details, be specific in discussions, and crosscheck on each other’s understanding to ensure a successful design handoff. Don’t assume that our conversation partner understood exactly what we meant. Things might get lost in translation online. Hence, it is important to make sure we’re on the same page with the others.
💡 Tip: Use languages and structures that are familiar to your stakeholders. Don’t dive too much in the technicalities of design or use design lingos they might not understand.
3. Keep on learning
As an intern, our main task is to learn as much as we can. So don’t let the pandemic take away our chance to explore and expand our knowledge. Be curious, don’t hesitate to learn and take on new challenges, ask around our co-workers for inputs, insights, stories, anything. The people in Blibli are also very open to teaching new things to us, for as long as we’re willing to learn.
Since everyone is at home also, the pandemic has seen an influx of webinars and online conferences, which also is a great place to learn and network. The internet is also filled with resources, readings (Nielsen Norman Group is a holy grail, Medium also has a lot of insightful articles), podcasts (I would recommend Design Details), online courses and et cetera. The possibilities of learning are endless. So always keep an eye out on learning opportunities.
Also, we should not confine ourselves solely to our job roles. The extent of our experience will help us on the long run. It’s equally important to grow as a UX designer as it is to learn about research, business, technology, psychology, and anything that might relate to the job.
4. Work From Home 101
Going through 2020 where there was a lot of uncertainty and anxiety going around definitely hit all of us differently, and makes this year extra special. I learned to not only focus on my career and academic growth, but also to take care of myself in these trying times. Now that companies have found the merits of working from home, the culture doesn’t seem like it’s going to go away any time soon. Some essential work from home points that I would like to share are:
Set up a dedicated workspace and maintain a schedule. A proper workspace will help you feel more productive and reduce the likelihood of physical pains such as a strained back. It’s also very easy to mess up your schedule when we are cooped up at home. Sticking to your regular work schedule will help you stay motivated and give you a sense of normality.
A proper workspace will help you feel more productive and reduce the likelihood of physical pains such as a strained back. It’s also very easy to mess up your schedule when we are cooped up at home. Sticking to your regular work schedule will help you stay motivated and give you a sense of normality. Set a clear line between work and personal life . Don’t let those lines blur, set boundaries and it will help us maintain the balance in our lives.
. Don’t let those lines blur, set boundaries and it will help us maintain the balance in our lives. Take a break . It might be tempting to flat out work but it will eventually wear us out. Breaks can take in many forms. Look out the window, do little stretches, grab a snack, anything to briefly recuperate our mind and body.
. It might be tempting to flat out work but it will eventually wear us out. Breaks can take in many forms. Look out the window, do little stretches, grab a snack, anything to briefly recuperate our mind and body. Pay attention to your mental health. It’s okay not to be okay and to prioritize yourself when you need to. Remember to keep everything in moderation, including moderation.
Lastly… Have fun! Don’t forget to enjoy the learning process as you go and just keep swimming 🌊🐟 | https://medium.com/blibli-product-group/my-ux-design-internship-experience-from-home-85f21db2cc0f | ['Bella Vierena'] | 2020-12-18 09:12:24.294000+00:00 | ['UX Design', 'Internships', 'Experience', 'UX', 'Internship Experience'] |
EZSolution and ZaloPay strategic partnership agreement | Today, EZSolution and ZaloPay has officially announced a broad partnership that enhances ZaloPay’s position in online payment while significantly expanding EZSolution point of sale program in retail industry.
EZSolution was established in Vietnam, with 7 years of experience in providing POS software solution for retail and online outlets. EZSolution customers are very diversified, including fashion shops, restaurants, mini marts, milk tea, bars, service providers… There were more than 10,000 merchants over 19 countries in 2017. in the next 2 years, EZSolution has targeted 100,000 merchants worldwide.
ZaloPay was introduced for the first time in 2016 by VNG Corporation — the largest Vietnamese technology company, founded in 2004, specializing in digital content and online entertainment, social networking, and e-commerce. ZaloPay is an online payment solution, developed on Zalo — the most popular social network application that dominates Vietnam with over 80 million online users.
The partnership is a strong strategic fit, leveraging the two companies’ strengths, focusing on integrating ZaloPay to EZSolution cloud-based Point-Of-Sale system. As a result, 80 million Zalo users can easily buy goods or services at over 10,000 merchants in EZSolution system through ZaloPay App.
This is a breakthrough step for EZSolution in order to introduce Point-Of-Sale system to a lot more new audiences which eventually will help to expand the number of merchant using our software. We also believe this partner relationship between EZSolution and ZaloPay will play a significant impact on the journey of conquering the retail industry globally.
Please stay informed for more good news from EZSolution. | https://medium.com/eztoken/ezsolution-and-zalopay-strategic-partnership-agreement-285756221cd3 | ['Eztoken Rewards'] | 2018-03-30 05:01:03.086000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Ethereum'] |
Volunteering in a new city | When I moved to Belfast it was a priority for me to get involved in some volunteering as soon as possible. I realise that’s not a hugely impactful statement from someone whose 10 to 6 for the last three years consisted of espousing the value of local volunteering but even if I wasn’t being paid for it I would still be a big advocate of volunteering on your doorstep.
During the last 6 months that I lived in Oxford I pretty much always saw someone I knew when I left the house. Sometimes that can be annoying when you realise you probably can’t nip to Co-op in your PJ bottoms anymore at the risk of bumping into someone but it actually plays an important role in feeling connected to where you live and the local community. Although I have family and friends in here, I don’t feel very well networked in Belfast and I knew that volunteering would be a fast-track way to building the familiarity that contributes to feeling connected to a place.
Two weeks in to Belfast life, I went to visit L’Arche Belfast’s Root Soup project, which organises a community lunch 2–3 times a week. L’Arche is an international organisation made up of 147 communities bringing together people with and without intellectual disabilities to live together and take part in different programmes. In Belfast, L’Arche offers housing as well as running arts, gardening and cooking programmes. Root Soup operates as a social enterprise, it provides an opportunity for L’Arche members to gain kitchen skills and experience by preparing food, hosting lunches and catering for events. Root Soup benefits from the produce from L’Arche’s own gardening projects, which take place in allotments around Belfast. It also strives to tackle food waste by buying produce from Fare Share. All-round a pretty impactful model!
A Root Soup session starts with a short brief on the lunch menu. What started out as simple soup and bread lunches 8 years ago has evolved into a choice of hot lunches with desserts and tea/coffee (for only £3 too!). We then partner-up volunteers or support workers with L’Arche members and divvy-up tasks. Everyone does a bit of everything to get the food ready and tables set ready to welcome customers for lunch.
As lunch is served we all take a moment to enjoy the food we’ve prepared and dot ourselves around the room, getting to know regulars and new-comers. Each lunch has a strong base of supporters and it’s lovely to get to know the familiar faces and watch relationships develop between everyone. True to expectations, it has been a fab way to get stuck in to things in Belfast again, meeting a whole range of people I wouldn’t otherwise and learning about the city from them. Plus I absolutely love working in the kitchen!
Tips for choosing and committing to a voluntary project:
The first volunteering experience I remember was litter picking with the Brownies along an A road. The gloves smelled strangely of margarine, there weren’t enough litter pickers for everyone and it didn’t feel like we would ever be able to pick up enough litter to make a difference. Amazingly, 20 years ago you could motivate kids by giving them a can of Fanta at the end. Point being, it’s important to choose a quality volunteering project that you will enjoy and feel like you are making an impact so that you can commit to it regularly. | https://medium.com/@brbelfast/volunteering-in-a-new-city-a57779a89652 | ['Lydia Hodgins'] | 2019-02-01 23:02:20.827000+00:00 | ['Belfast', 'Volunteering', 'Social Enterprise'] |
Google Tag Manager Review — Prt 2 | 1. Install Google Tag Manager to your website
In order to start creating tags and collect some data, we need to install the Google Tag Manager (GTM) tag into our site’s source code. In the menu bar of your GTM container, you will find your container ID. When you click it, a pop-up should appear, like the following image:
Example of a Google Tag Manager tag
As you can see, you have available two tags, one for your head section and one for your body. You can install these scripts on every page of your site, using the instructions given in the pop-up.
2. Create your first tag: Google Analytics Page View
Our first tag should be no-other, than our basic Google Analytics snippet. Otherwise known as: Page View script.
Step 1: Find your Google Analytics Property ID following the steps below:
Sign in, into your Google Analytics account
Go to the admin section
Click on Property Settings
Copy the Tracking Id
Step 2: Sign in, into your Google Tag Manager container:
Sign in, into your Google Tag Manager account
Select your container, in which you want to install the Analytics tag
Step 3: Create your Universal Analytics variable:
Go to the Variables’ section appeared in the menu on your left
Go to the bottom of the page and create a user defined variable. In here, we want to define the Google Analytics property, in which we are going to send our data.
Select the Google Analytics settings variable, from the variables’ menu
variable, from the variables’ menu Paste the Tracking Id, you found in your Google Analytics property settings
Rename the variable with a descriptive name like: UA — Tracking ID
Save it
Step 4: Next on the process, the tag:
Go to the Tags’ section appeared in the menu on your left
Create a new Tag
Click the area Tag Configuration to configure your tag
Select from the tags’ menu the Google Analytics: Universal Analytics tag
Leave the Track Type on Pageview
Go to the Google Analytics settings area and select the variable we created (UA — Tracking ID)
Now, go to the triggering section and click to configure when we want this tag to fire.
Select the pre-built option: All Pages
Name it properly: GA — Page View
Save it
Step 5: Test your changes
Go to the Preview button and click it
Insert your website’s URL when GTM ask for it
Visit several pages on your site and check if your Page View tag fires properly.
If the tracking settings work as they should, you are ready to proceed with the Publish.
There you have it. Your first Google Tag Manager tag is up and running.
2. Scripts and Pixels
During the process of our Page View tag, you might notice the list with the available tags in Google Tag Manager.
Please visit this list now, as we talk.
As you can see from the list’s items, there are several pre-built-in options for you to select. You obviously have the Google tools’ tags: Google Analytics, Google Analytics 4, Google Ads Remarketing & Conversion, Floodlights, Google Optimize and Google Surveys Tracking.
Except from the Google Marketing Platform tools, you can have a variety of built-in tags from third-party providers like: Hotjar, Bing, Pinterest and many, many, MANY others. But as long as you search in this list, you will not find tags like Facebook Pixel (as for this day speaking). Weird, huh?
Well, before you close your Google Tag Manager’s window with sadness and despair, please select the Custom HTML option from your list.
So, let’s discuss about that…
Google Tag Manager is a very flexible tool and it is created to make your lives easier, not force you to make exceptions on your marketing tactics. It sure has a lot of built-in options for your tags, but it doesn’t stop there. Google Tag Manager’s people created the Custom HTML tag, in which you can insert all the other options that they don’t appear on that list. So, almost everything you were going to install hard-coded in your website’s source code, like a Facebook Pixel, you can put it there. See an example in the following image, where I create a Custom HTML tag, for my Facebook Pixel:
Facebook Pixel implemented using the Custom HTML tag
!!! You may have notice in the picture that I replaced the actual pixel with “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”. In your pixel, you should have a series of numbers in these positions.
Of course, when you create the Facebook Pixel tag, you should select your triggering option, in order for the tag to know when it should fire the Facebook Pixel pageview (in this example you should use the All Pages trigger, as in the Google Analytics’ tag before). Test and verify the elements that you‘ve created and if everything works as they should, Publish your changes to go live. | https://medium.com/swlh/google-tag-manager-review-prt-2-ab226b8f24b2 | ['Alexandra Poulopoulou'] | 2020-12-29 01:44:07.212000+00:00 | ['Digital Analytics', 'Google', 'Digital', 'Digital Marketing', 'Google Tag Manager'] |
Spiral Matrix — Day 26(Python). Today, we will be looking into one of… | When we think of an array, we should imagine a data structure with contiguous memory allocation. When it comes to a 2D array, each cell is identified using row and column numbers.
To solve the given problem, we just need to learn how we can trace the path in our matrix. I have shown below, how we need to trace path, if we are given a 3x3 matrix.
Tracing the path in 2D matrix
A point to notice, once we traverse through a row or a column, we would never visit that row/column again. We need to keep track of rows/columns that we have already traversed. We can hold 4 variables that we keep track of traversed rows/columns. We need to start traversing the array from left to right, then top to bottom, later right to left and finally bottom to top.
The code will look like below.
class SpiralOrderCreater:
def spiralOrder(self, matrix):
nums = []
if(len(matrix) == 0):
return nums
else:
top = 0
bottom = len(matrix) - 1
left = 0
right = len(matrix[0]) - 1
total_nums = len(matrix) * len(matrix[0])
while(len(nums) < total_nums):
for i in range(left,right+1):
if(len(nums) < total_nums):
nums.append(matrix[top][i])
top += 1
for i in range(top, bottom+1):
if(len(nums) < total_nums):
nums.append(matrix[i][right])
right -= 1
for i in range(right, left-1, -1):
if(len(nums) < total_nums):
nums.append(matrix[bottom][i])
bottom -= 1
for i in range(bottom, top-1, -1):
if(len(nums) < total_nums):
nums.append(matrix[i][left])
left += 1
return(nums)
Complexity analysis
Time Complexity
We are looking at each element in our array once, and hence the time complexity is O(m*n).
Space Complexity
We are not using any extra space while finding the solution, except for the output array. We do not consider space used for output array, and hence space complexity is O(1). | https://medium.com/@atharayil/spiral-matrix-day-26-python-e870a6fd76c2 | ['Annamariya Tharayil'] | 2020-11-10 07:03:20.072000+00:00 | ['Coding', '365dayschallenge', 'Arrays', 'Python', 'Leetcode Medium'] |
Some Medium Formatting Hacks You Must Know | 1. Adding Emojis 😍
They definitely add life to an otherwise boring text. But, some writers feel it plays with the flow of the article.
Of course, they might not go with articles of all genre but I prefer adding some tidbits now and then if they make me feel happy!
→To get an emoji of your choice, press ‘:’ followed by emoji name.
Here’s the emoji cheat sheet in case you need a reference emoji name.
2. Using Drop Caps
Often we have seen in the novels, the starting word of a chapter written in Drop caps. It looks good, adding some seniority to your overall article.
Just select the first word and from the pop- up menu that shows up, select the second option from Right, that’s a ‘T’.
Also, did you know you can add a customized Drop cap to your text?
Just select the text and drag the custom image from your computer to the menu icon.
You are set!
3. Adding Notes
Most will be aware of this feature but I wonder if you are using it right. You can add notes privately on a writer’s article if you have a personal relatable query or want to make a private comment to the article.
Example- Use it to point out a mistake in the article. It makes your comment less offending.
4. Getting Bullets
Did you know you have options to include simple bulleted as well as a numbered list on Medium?
To get bullets, type an * (asterisk) in a new line and press space.
To get a numbered list, type 1 in a new line followed by a space.
Pressing Enter at the end of any of the above line will continue the list in the same bullet format.
Double pressing Enter will escape list formatting. | https://writingcooperative.com/some-medium-formatting-hacks-you-must-know-bbd22e95f3db | ['Nupoor Raj'] | 2019-02-26 00:21:01.215000+00:00 | ['Blogging', 'Blogging Tips', 'Writing Tips', 'Writing', 'Writers Life'] |
Do All Lives Matter? (Infographic) | Introduction
With Visual Learning, there’s no need to argue, debate, banter, or engage in what ifs or “philosophical” exercises.
When these circumstances arrive, you simply use one of the Four VL (Visual Learning) Tools:
Quantum View
The Board
The Moral Premise
POV (Point of View)
In this blog, I’ll discuss the Quantum View (Visual Learning).
A Modern Example
This is my term for the essential power of Visual Learning.
Let’s tackle an easy subject.
Is All Lives Matter Disrespectful?
Trust me, this subject is going to bring heat from all sides and heightened emotions only found at MMA Competitions.
However, since we are Visual Learners, we’ll use the simple step method to seek the truth.
We have two ways to do this — we can go up/down or we can go left/right.
I think the easiest way to do this would be left/right, so as I access another industry, I remember a term we had in the early days of Hip Hop.
It was slang and it was simply called “DISS,” and it was short for many things, but in this instance, we’ll focus on disrespect.
In this case, we know the “DISS” comes from WITHOUT and the disrespect is felt WITHIN.
Let’s start here.
Now my friends, let’s go QUANTUM!
Quantum View
Is the Phrase, All Lives Matter, disrespectful against Blacks?
You can quote issues, incidents, and even try a timeline, but guess what, there’s going to be SILENCE.
But that’s okay, that’s how they operate.
Since we are in Quantum View, let’s take a look at the history of Black Lives Matter.
Below, we can see Blacks have been chanting Black Lives Matter since 525 BC, but as you are aware, this has been a Global Situation going back to the Beginning of this Planet.
In Quantum View, we no longer argue or debate, we present the timeline and the information for the Viewer.
Browse the Infographic below and I’ll ask you, is the phrase ALL LIVES MATTER Disrespectful?
Conclusion
If you look closely, notice that Blacks have been TALKING for a long time.
In Conjunction, since there has been talking, there has been SILENCE.
Now that there is ACTION in 2020, there is finally a RESPONSE from the SILENCE and rather than apologizing, attempting to help, attempting to seek solutions, or just attempting to BEGIN TO ADDRESS what’s happening, they have one response.
ALL LIVES MATTER!
As a result, we will invoke SILENCE to such foolishness. | https://medium.com/@miquielbanks/do-all-lives-matter-infographic-9089f21ea1d3 | ['Miquiel Banks'] | 2020-11-25 12:50:34.107000+00:00 | ['Black History', 'Infographics', 'Black Lives Matter', 'Miquiel Banks', 'Visual Learning'] |
What is Moon in your life ? | What is Moon in your life ?
Moon is a planet which takes care of your internal happiness and keep your charged with the positive thoughts !
Remedy for Moon is – take care of your mother and use light colored clothes in daily-life.
Thanks
Astro Subhash | https://medium.com/@astrosubhash/what-is-moon-in-your-life-1202e3d92577 | [] | 2020-12-15 13:50:30.703000+00:00 | ['Moon', 'Astrology', 'Mood'] |
Why Gratitude is More Important Than Ever | “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” — Melody Beattie
I’ve been been thinking about gratitude a lot lately. 2020 has been a rocky ride for most of us, and it seems there’s little to be thankful about.
After all, why should we feel grateful for a year that started with widespread bushfires (here in Australia), followed by a global pandemic, lockdowns, racial injustice, and civil unrest?
However, it’s when we feel least grateful that we are most in need of gratitude. Why? It gives us perspective. It’s easy to get lost in our pain, believing that we are the only one suffering, or that nothing good at all came out of our experiences.
However, by shifting our perspective — even just a little — we can start to feel better about what we went through or are still going through. Our circumstances may remain the same, but we are transformed to a more positive place mentally, emotionally, and energetically.
Perspective, Perspective, Perspective
Just in case I didn’t make myself clear before, perspective is the key word here.
However, being grateful isn’t about being a hopeless optimist or a Pollyanna. It’s about being a realist. While optimists pay more attention to the positive than the negative and pessimists focus more on the negative than the positive, realists take into account both. They have the most balanced perspective.
Negativity Bias
As human beings, we are biased towards the negative. It’s known as the “negativity bias”. Our brains are hardwired to pay more attention and react more strongly to negative than to positive news.
Good evolutionary reasons exist for this negativity bias, as negative events — pain, illness, injury, or even death — are much more costly in survival terms than positive events.
Therefore, when we’re going through a rough patch — individually or collectively — we need to work on shifting our perspective intentionally to take in the good, rather than focusing exclusively on the bad.
And gratitude is one of the quickest, easiest, and most powerful tools to help us do that. It allows us to see that something good that came out of our negative experiences.
Seeing Our Common Humanity
Another reason that we need gratitude more than ever is that being thankful promotes many other pro-social qualities — such as compassion, kindness, and generosity — towards ourselves and others.
And that’s exactly what we need in difficult and uncertain times like these. Rather of racing to the bottom, we rise to the top.
According to Dr Kristin Neff, a world-leading researcher on self-compassion, there are three key elements to self-compassion: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.
What’s most relevant here is the element of common humanity. As human beings, we are imperfect and prone to making mistakes. By focusing on the common humanity that connects us all rather than the differences that divide us, we feel we are not alone and our struggles are universal struggles.
In other words, everyone suffers, not just us. It then becomes easier to let go and accept ourselves and our situation as it is.
Pro-Social, Rather than Anti-Social
It gives us not only a broader perspective — yes, there’s the word again! — but also allows us to feel normal. It gives us permission to be ourselves, warts and all. We become more compassionate towards ourselves and other perfectly imperfect beings.
In addition to promoting compassion and kindness by focusing on our common humanity, gratitude also promotes generosity towards others.
Think about it, when we feel that we have enough and that our cup is full (or even overflows), then it becomes a lot easier to share what we have with others, no matter how little we have.
Try This Fun Gratitude Exercise
It’s a creative take on the regular gratitude exercise of writing down three things that we’re grateful for every day. I started out doing the regular exercise and it definitely helped, but I also got bored with it after a few months. So I came up with this exercise instead.
It’s basically going through the alphabet (A-Z), and think of a word that starts with each letter and what you’re grateful for about it. It can be anything or anyone.
For example, maybe A is for Apple and you’re thankful for the apple that you ate today, or the wonderful fact that you’re Alive. Or maybe it’s a person in your life whose name starts with A and you’re grateful for that person.
Getting Creative
Often I find I get into a theme without meaning to do it. For example, I went out for a walk when it was raining yesterday. And, surprise, surprise I came up with all the words that had to do with the rain. Apart from the obvious — R was for rain — G was for green (everything looked so green and lush), N was for nature (well, I was walking in nature), U was for umbrella (I was carrying one), and so on.
You can do this any time you want, and it only take a couple of minutes when you get familiar with it. I usually do it when I go for my daily walks, or when I’m in a funk and need something uplifting quickly.
One important note I would add is to stop for at least a few seconds after each word and really feel the feeling of gratitude and appreciation, rather than just rattling off a list of words quickly. The longer you stay with the feeling, the more you’ll get out of this exercise. Try it today!
Turning What We Have into Enough
“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” — Oprah Winfrey
Being grateful in times like these isn’t easy. But it’s when we least feel thankful that we are most in need of what gratitude can give us: perspective. It transforms our lives by turning what we have into enough, and more.
And by focusing on our common humanity instead of what divides us, we can rise above our circumstances and become someone we’re proud of — more compassionate, kinder, and more generous. | https://medium.com/change-your-mind/why-gratitude-is-more-important-than-ever-77974be1e96d | ['Annie Huang'] | 2020-12-20 22:51:07.093000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Personal Development', 'Compassion', 'Mindset', 'Gratitude'] |
5 easy tips for wearing rings. | Let's talk about Balance.
Be ambidextrous
Too many accessories on one hand make none stand out. Balance it out with both hands helps each piece to get all the attention they deserve. If you wear a watch in one hand, try not to wear all your rings on the same hand.
Don’t get out of hand
Generally, people with bigger hands should go for bigger rings and vice versa. This creates a visually proportionate look that works well.
Skin Tone
Generally speaking, there are 2 types of skin tones; Cool or Warm. To quickly determine this, simply look at your veins. If it is blue, you are likely to be of a cooler skin tone. If it's green, warm.
The rule of thumb is that warm color goes well with warm skin tone and vice versa. Chances are if you have a Warm skin tone, pieces made of gold-tone steel like Yellow Gold or Rose Gold tend to look great on you. If you have a Cool skin tone, light-tone steel like platinum or silver will look good on you.
Color Coding
Rings and bracelets with the same element or shade of color bring out a sense of synergy. For example, try pairing a stainless steel bracelet with a silver ring or a gold ring with a yellow-toned watch. It’s not carved in stone but it helps to make an easy decision for ring pairing.
Confidence is key
Whichever style you choose, if you’re feeling confident with it, go ahead and show it off. It does not matter if you follow all the tips and guides and still feel uncomfortable with what you are wearing. Being confident with your choice is the most important. People will feel that confidence radiating from you and be amazed at anything you wear. That is why people tend to obsess over what celebrities wear. Remember, you decide your own style.
Start to explore and experiment with some rings now with La Sempre’s ring collections. | https://medium.com/@jeremylim224/5-easy-tips-for-wearing-rings-426e49a35a24 | ['Jeremy Lim'] | 2021-03-19 06:57:26.025000+00:00 | ['Rings', 'Style', 'Tips', 'How To Wear Rings', 'Fashion'] |
It Isn’t About YOU At All | LGBT | TRANSGENDER | ALLYSHIP
It Isn’t About YOU At All
Photo by Caroline on Unsplash
We’ve been talking about how you can become an ally to the LGBTQ person in your life, how you can be an ally to ALL LGBTQ people. We started with the acronym ALLY and talked about coming Alongside someone, about Loving someone, about Learning their language. Today we will wrap it up talking about YOU.
I saw your eyes light up a little when I said this would be about you. Even though you read the title, you still got a little excited thinking I was finally ready to talk about what a struggle your loved one’s coming out has been for you. I hear you, I do. But no, that’s not what we’re going to talk about here.
When someone decides to come out and tell anyone or everyone they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, it’s easy to get caught up in how it feels to hear that news. Especially if you carry religious beliefs that condemn gay and lesbian lives, it can be beyond unnerving to realize that you now have two options. 1. Discard the person you love. 2. Discard the belief that it's your decision how someone else should live.
It’s quite that simple, although it most certainly doesn’t feel simple. It can be complex, wrong, appalling, or scary. And the truth is, you’re gonna feel the way you think. And no one, especially me, can tell you that’s wrong. I want to offer a word of advice, though.
If your feelings are negative, please try to express them outside the presence of your LGBTIQ loved one. For them, this revelation has nothing to do with right or wrong, normal or abnormal. It has to do with their very identity, their existence, their personhood.
Try to stop just for a minute and imagine how it would feel for someone to tell you your very existence is wrong, or immoral, or a sin. Your very existence is wrong.
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash
Many cultures consider any sexual behavior or thought outside of a male/female marriage wrong. Others aren’t as concerned with marriage, but they are still quite sure that the only acceptable type of romantic or sexual love proper is heterosexual, male and female. There are places in this world where the government, your family, or your neighbor will kill you if your sexual orientation is outside their view.
I understand that every culture needs its norms. We do need to define what is acceptable and what is not. However, when we decide to label an entire population as unacceptable merely because it is not OUR NORM, aren’t we then deciding that we are somehow better than others? That somewhere we have the authority to determine which people have value and which ones do not?
I don’t want that kind of responsibility. I cannot bear the burden of deciding which lives are disposable. If I did, what would prevent you from choosing my life discarded as unworthy. My parents raised me with a Christian worldview. While my worldview is more humanitarian these days, there is a teaching referred to as the two greatest commands of them all-the first is to love God.
The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. This is the one I want to guide my life.
Your big takeaway here is this really isn’t about you at all. It’s about that person you’ve loved for so long. It’s about a profound truth they need you to know. It’s about how the fear of rejection has kept them hidden away, even from you, for all these years. | https://medium.com/passive-asset/it-isnt-about-you-at-all-d9cac8f12615 | ['Teresa Kuhl'] | 2020-11-21 06:19:29.481000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'Allyship', 'LGBT', 'Relationships', 'Love'] |
Here’s what 2020 taught us about fighting the climate emergency in 2021 | By Chris Gusen, Digital Organizer with 350 Canada
Photo Credit: Nhattan Nguyen
2020 was tough. But, as we look back on the past year, it also brings us a tremendous amount of hope.
Seeing how the world mobilized to fight COVID-19 gave us a glimpse of what might be possible if our elected officials treated the climate emergency just as seriously. As we rest up and prepare to continue our fight for a made-in-Canada Green New Deal in 2021, here are the biggest lessons we’re taking from 2020.
1. Bold government action has always been possible
We’re organizing to win a Green New Deal for Canada because it’s the only plan that meets the climate emergency at the scale and speed that science and justice demand. Some critics have called this vision for a rapid, just transition off fossil fuels unrealistic, but the COVID-19 crisis has proved them wrong. As we saw this year, our governments are more than capable of moving quickly and boldly when faced with a crisis.
The climate emergency requires the same decisiveness. Climate-driven disasters like extreme wildfires and floods are already taking lives and devastating communities around the world. 2020 is on track to have been the hottest year on record. And, just like with the pandemic’s exponential curve, climate chaos will accelerate beyond our capacity to manage it if we don’t aggressively flatten the carbon emissions curve.
In the past, politicians have gotten away with delaying climate action because global warming didn’t feel like an immediate threat to their personal wellbeing in the same way a global pandemic does. That’s changing fast thanks to the tireless work of social movement organizers, who have spent years building people power and holding politicians’ feet to the fire. A majority of Canadians now support a Green New Deal and, as 2020 has shown everyone, the level of government action the plan calls for has always been possible.
2. Listen to scientists
Photo Credit: Vjosana Shkurti
Donald Trump called COVID a hoax, but that didn’t stop COVID coming all the way to the White House. Along the way, over 300,000 Americans died and millions were infected. The pandemic made it clear that science denial is deadly.
In Alberta, Jason Kenney’s government preached personal responsibility instead of putting real prevention measures in place, consistently ignored the advice of their Chief Medical Officer, and fired thousands of public healthcare workers in the middle of the pandemic. The result? Alberta is suffering through a crushing second wave.
Many Canadians are looking jealousy to Australia where, after the government enforced strict lockdown measures in response to a second wave, life has returned to pre-pandemic normal.
While announcing his updated climate plan earlier this month, Prime Minister Trudeau took a jab at Conservatives with the line, “Science is not a pick-and-choose buffet.” We agree but, when it comes to the climate emergency, listening to the science means acting much more boldly than Trudeau is right now. Pipelines are off the menu. A Green New Deal is the main course. | https://medium.com/@350canada/heres-what-2020-taught-us-about-fighting-the-climate-emergency-in-2021-6b3786fb6621 | [] | 2020-12-17 18:25:17.689000+00:00 | ['Climate Action', 'Climate Change', 'Activism', 'Green New Deal', 'Social Movements'] |
The Democratic Party | Note:
The modern Democratic Party is the oldest existing political party in the United States. However, the liberal-leaning big government supporting political party we know today evolved from a very different origin.
The presidential election controversy of 1824 served as the catalyst for the creation of the Democratic Party. In the 1824 presidential election, four Democratic-Republicans ran against each other. The four candidates were John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. In this election, none of the candidates secured a majority of the electoral votes, causing the U.S. House of Representatives to hold a contingent election. The House elected John Quincy Adams as the 6th President of the United States, even though Andrew Jackson had handily won the popular vote.
Andrew Jackson was furious with the result and decided to break away from the Democratic-Republican party altogether. Jackson, along with the New York Senator Martin Van Buren, created their own runoff political faction from the Democratic-Republicans following the result of the 1824 election. Jackson and Van Buren simply called their political faction the Democratic Party. The party was officially formed on January 8, 1828.
The Jacksonian Democrats would dominate the executive branch for the next thirty years. Democrats would win six of the next eight presidential elections from 1828 until 1856. The early Democrats ran on the platform of small government, with power being held in the states. The early Democratic party pushed the conservative values of the era and would continue to be a right-leaning political party until the late 1890s.
In the presidential election of 1896, the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, drew in votes from the left-wing Populist Party that he had previously been affiliated with. Bryan lost the election to William McKinley. Despite the loss, Bryan’s presidential bid with the Democratic Party served as the catalyst to a more liberal-leaning Democratic Party. The Democratic Party would move further to the left during the Great Depression under the leadership of the Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal reform measures. | https://medium.com/a-few-lines-of-history/the-democratic-party-d04bc5393b74 | ['Danielle Gibson'] | 2020-11-23 04:56:13.097000+00:00 | ['Government', 'History', 'Poetry', 'President', 'American History'] |
Pandemic Forecasting: Between Astrology and Science | Global data states that victims exposed to COVID19 are those from high-income groups. To this pandemic, several predictions related to COVID19 were made by various institutions, for example, University of Indonesia (March 24, 2020) with the Center for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Disease model, stating that there are about 70,000 undetected cases and as many as 250,000 potential cases in Indonesia.
Then research from Eijkman / Oxford Clinical Research Unit (March 20, 2020) stated COVID19 cases in Indonesia could reach 71,000 cases by the end of April. Bandung Institute of Technology (March 15, 2020) stated an increase of 600 cases per day until April, and the State Intelligence Agency (March 2020 13,) stated that the peak of COVID19 in Indonesia would be in May 2020 with the number of positive cases of 95,451.
Forecast in the economy is something that is commonly done especially to predict economic growth. In forecasting, the form of revision/reprojection is commonplace. Forecasting is guessing what will happen in the future, but that doesn’t mean everyone is a forecaster. For events that have a broad impact, the “forecast” must be left to the experts or what is called a “super forecaster”.
In literature, prediction and forecasting are often considered to have the same meaning. However, the term projection tends to be more “dreamy” or less realistic and is long term. According to Massad et al. (2005) in his paper entitled Forecasting Versus Projection Model in Epidemiology, forecasting is an attempt to predict what will happen, while projection is an attempt to describe what will happen based on assumptions, so that projection is considered weaker than prediction.
Then, the paper by De La Barrera, CA & Reyes Teran (2005) entitled Influenza: forecast for a Pandemic, the author states that a new pandemic appears with three prerequisites:
A new virus, Can enter the human body and cause extreme pain. The virus can transmit from one body to another.
So actually from 2005, we have known that there will be a possibility of a pandemic. But uniquely, Bill Gates at the TED Talk in 2015 stated that we never prepared anticipation for this possibility. And this has been proven recently by the condition of western countries like Italy, which are actually overwhelmed and tend to give the impression of giving up due to this pandemic. Moreover, countries in the world tend to budget for preventive action in the form of protection against visible attacks (weaponry systems), rather than improving health systems.
Prediction of a pandemic needs to be done because the handling of a pandemic is extremely dependent on prevention and intervention. Predictions about the impact and duration are needed. Therefore, to be able to answer these needs, accurate predictions are very dependent on a solid scientific basis. So far, mathematical models provide a pretty good template in which theory or model can be tested, refuted, and proven. Mathematical models in health issues aim to scientifically understand the issues faced in the context of current theory, properly identify the types of epidemiological data that need to be collected, formulate a testable hypothesis, and make predictions.
In economics and business, forecasting with a statistical approach consists of several types of techniques:
Qualitative. Example: Delphi, Market Research, Panel Consensus, Visionary Forecast, Historical Analogy Time series. Example: Moving Average, Exponential Smoothing, Box Jenkins, X-11, Trend Projections Causal Method. Example: Regression Model, Econometric Model, Intention To Buy And Anticipations To Survey, and Input-Output Models
In health science, several approaches are taken—for example, deterministic vs probabilistic, comparative methods vs generative methods. However, in general, forecasters rely on two sources of information and data from experts opinion (medical expert researchers) and time-series data (series of pandemic events, outbreaks). Data processing can be done with mathematical or statistical modelling. For example, “flatten the curve”, which uses the term statistics.
Pandemic forecasting analysis: case study H1N1- 2009, in Michele Tizzoni’s paper “Real-time Numerical Forecast of Global Epidemic Spreading: Case Study of 2009 A / H1N1pdm.”
Begin with an explanation of the basic theory of the spread of the flu virus starting from the time of infection (susceptible), latency period (latent), infectious period (symptomatic, infectious (no travel and travel), asymptomatic infectious), and recovered.
Then an explanation of the global epidemic and mobility model, using demographic data, mobilization and epidemic models. Furthermore, the data were processed using 2 main research questions, namely intra-population transmission dynamic and inter-population mobility. And the research output is a forecast.
In the forecasting process, parameters are the keywords (the model’s mainstay). In the case of this paper, several parameters were chosen, among others: Reference reproduction number in the topic (R0), Generation Time (GT), and so on. The more precise the parameters, the better (accurate), the resulting forecasting is. It is also necessary to pay attention to the error rate to support forecasting accuracy.
Judging from the facts that occurred in Indonesia, the shortage in Indonesia in the delivery of communication-related to the pandemic is the absence of coherence information so that overlaps appear between the messages conveyed. Also, the information conveyed regarding the pandemic is more of an astrological nature than forecast with a scientific model whose impact actually degrades the level of people’s consciousness so that they tend to make their own decisions and to be inattentive.
(Summarized from Tamanni, 2020) | https://medium.com/@Asfeeya/pandemic-forecasting-between-astrology-and-science-526f9a35ac35 | ['Asfa Asfeeya'] | 2020-10-14 10:00:59.954000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Pandemic', 'Science', 'Forecasting', 'Indonesia'] |
American Horror Story: The Cecil Hotel | Judging by her blog, her Tumblrs, and her Instagram, Elisa Lam was smart and funny, often sarcastic, and interested in many of the things that attract other intelligent, curious women her age — literature, architecture, photography, and especially fashion. Like so many of us, Elisa’s problems seemed to mostly lie within, and she wasn’t afraid to say as much online, for whoever happened to find her there. Her Tumblr, which she called Nouvelle/Nouveau, alternates between light and dark, between anger and optimism, between heavy quotes about loneliness and identity and things chosen (I assume) because she found them funny.
It is pointless to draw any assumptions about a person from the images she grabbed from other websites and collaged on a page, but it felt good to be laughing at things that Elisa selected precisely because they were funny.
This person, viewed through a very tiny virtual window that features only a few lines of her own writing, and no pictures of her own, was somehow more alive and three-dimensional than any version of Elisa Lam I’d found so far.
Until the fall of 2012, when she noted that she was “much more active on tumblr,” Elisa kept another blog which, though infrequently updated, seems like an honest and raw account of her feelings: Frustration, disappointment, confusion, and a fair amount of self-loathing. Elisa felt that she ate poorly and didn’t exercise enough. She considered herself lazy and was worried about what she’d do with her life. In other words, she felt the kinds of things we all feel at 21. But Elisa had bigger, realer issues, too.
Depression haunted her, and it seemed to flare up in 2012, causing her to miss classes again. In three years, Elisa writes, she completed only three courses and was officially still a first-year student. Meanwhile, her peers were moving on, and that reality cast her further adrift. She slept during the day and was up at night, online, reading about fashion and posting to social media, where there’s always someone to talk to.
Her penultimate post, written on April 4, 2012, is titled “Worries of a twenty something” and is particularly painful to read in retrospect.
I spent about two days in bed hating myself. Why don’t I simply do the things that I know will make me feel better? It isn’t rocket science. It isn’t that difficult. Get out of bed. Eat. See people. Talk to people. Exercise. Write. Read.
The post from there is no less self-excoriating, a public airing of the qualities Elisa most hates in herself that finishes with these lines: “The only thing that does make you different is that you’re a complete utter failure and have depression so la dee da that makes you special. Why aren’t so proud of that? Oh it’s special because people can pity you and you can manipulate them with their pity and use them to just weedle (sic) out more time. But you don’t do anything. God I hate you so much.”
That last line stopped me.
It was the point at which my exploration into Elisa’s online persona in search of her actual person ceased to feel like journalism and started to feel like voyeurism. Without access to any humans who’d known her, I was fishing around in collections of her thoughts, many of them dashed off in her most vulnerable moments. I felt a little sick.
That was when I noticed that the post had 48 comments. It seemed like a lot for a student’s blog. I clicked.
The first was left by a concerned reader, offering help, written 10 weeks after the post itself. But the next 47 were all written after her death, and the first one — posted March 1, 2013 at 2:52am—restored my belief that chasing Elisa’s Internet ghost was a worthy exercise, after all.
Here’s that post, in full: | https://medium.com/matter/haunted-947d642a6d59 | ['Josh Dean'] | 2015-11-06 22:13:53.894000+00:00 | ['Conspiracy Theory', 'Big Stories Matter', 'Internet'] |
JET8 Social introduces an interview with Marc Torrent, one of the most relevant thinkers and promoters of Data Culture in Spain. | JET8 Social introduces an interview with Marc Torrent, one of the most relevant thinkers and promoters of Data Culture in Spain. JET8 Follow Sep 30, 2019 · 1 min read
JET8 Social is proud to present an interview with one of the most relevant thinkers and promoters of Data Culture in Spain, Marc Torrent.
Torrent is the Director at Big Data Center of Excellence in Barcelona. Along with his team, they implement innovation projects to help companies and organizations extract valuable information from the data they acquire.
According to Torrent, with the continual development and advancement of technology, he believes it can help us become a better society. With the use of technology in the workplace, his vision is that humans can become more productive and be able to concentrate on tasks they enjoy. However, to achieve this there has to be an ethical debate and an agreement on the future we all want.
On the JET8 technology, he highlights JET8’s User Data Exchange Programme which protects a user’s personal information. Users are given the choice to opt-in if they want third parties to purchase their personal data directly from them.
A JET8 Social interview not to be missed!
For media inquiries, please contact:
[email protected], PR and Social Media Manager | https://medium.com/jet8-token/jet8-social-intoduces-an-interview-with-marc-torrent-one-of-the-most-relevant-thinkers-and-2da97a5071db | [] | 2019-10-01 19:06:05.463000+00:00 | ['Press Release', 'Weekly Update', 'Data Culture', 'Technology'] |
An 81-Hour Break From Civilization At Sasquatch Music Festival 2010 | The port-a-potty situation is universally humbling. The brand is Honey Bucket, which is so gross and psychosexually radioactive a name that the excreta deposited and vacuumed out of them gains a strange and terrible power over our imaginations. Retching sounds and maniacal laughter alike drift from the banks of plastic shitboxes scattered throughout the camping area. A mysterious chalk homage to the waste receptacles appears at the venue gate. Legends spread of Honey Buckets where the filth rises above the level of the toilet seat. Pissing in the thick heat of one, I’m suddenly able to hear, from some far-off stage, the distinct and chipper chorus of Avi Buffalo’s big hit, “What’s In It For?” A song that begins: “I walked in on a plan to dissolve all of your wishes / But I couldn’t help your mouth, which I missed by two inches.”
* * *
On the second night, during Pavement’s co-headliner set, I came to the knowledge that I am a bad photographer. An epiphanic accelerant is the iPhone’s dingy camera, which is unfit to document so much as a Scrabble endgame, let alone the Dinotopia-resembling geography of the Columbia River Gorge. But really: I choose the wrong moments to take pictures and cannot summon the social confidence to stand there framing subjects (especially because I’ve always caught the subjects at the wrong moment), and so I abandon the effort even as the shutter sounds. The blurred shots I’m left with really document me turning away, ashamed.
* * *
Our parking/tent-pitching spot, Camp Bingo, is marked by a flag that reads “Bingo” and a dodgy apparatus assembled from PVC pipes and a tarp (in the end, just by a flag that reads “Bingo”).
A couple of cars down from Camp Bingo is a cardboard sign advertising “Cookies,” with a subtle marijuana leaf drawn beneath it. The business is run by a pair of brothers aiming to recoup their expenses. They come from a family of medicinal pot experts in Hawaii, but these aren’t pot cookies. They are hash, and one is more than enough. I buy four.
A friend and I are to share what he refers to as a “one-and-a-half-person tent.” It looks tiny. It is tiny. On the inside, each asks the other if he has enough room, and oddly enough, we always do.
The campground parties carry on into the wee hours. In the distance is a CanaDream RV blasting rave beats and neon lights; many recall with a shudder how close Camp Bingo was to this Canuckian landmark last year. At one point, when several self-appointed DJs are competing for their share of real estate, we hear the biggest bluff possible. “Turn off the music,” a man yells, “or I will rape you!”
* * *
“Hey. Gonna fall asleep so fast.”
“I’m still involuntarily dancing. If you’re wondering what that is.”
* * *
A friend was constantly receiving updates on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill via cellphone, updates he relayed without mercy to the rest of us. When we asked him to stop searching for updates, he told us that he couldn’t help it, his phone automatically beamed him the news. When he informed us that the top kill procedure had failed, we laughed, because how awful was that?
“They’ve lost all hope,” he said, some hours later.
Who?
“I don’t know. That’s just the headline verbatim.”
* * *
Camp Bingo has ties to a few less-famous bands on the bill and as such is able to procure four backstage access wristbands to share. The first groups to go backstage come back with beer and Vitamin Waters and ice cream. They say it’s a raging party back there, and that somebody initiated double dutch jump rope, and that Chuck D from Public Enemy tried to jump in and got tangled immediately.
* * *
“This is going to sound corny,” says Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, sounding nothing like the acid narrator of his bleak acoustic songs. “But I goddamn love playing music!” He’s not the only one in a good mood. A shirtless bro in front of us is overjoyed to realize that a shirt-wearing bro has found his backpack. They clutch each other and spin to the gorgeous climax of “This Year” in a way that trumps choreography, nearly falling on those around them, before the shirtless bro retrieves the all-important contents of his once-missing backpack: a Sprite bottle half-full of brown liquor. Toward the end of his time, Darnielle is still beaming; “I hope I never get sober,” he sings.
* * *
Broken Social Scene is my generation’s U2, and that’s not even a bad thing. They end their tour here, in a blooming and limitless warmth, saturating us with clean, pure, anthemic love.
* * *
Pity the tourist in Manhattan. Whether you live here or not, it’s tough to get a big suitcase through a subway turnstile.
* * *
From the wet asphalt of Seattle and the evergreen mountains, through the rain shadow into an arid sweep of brush and irrigated land and elegant wind turbines. Along the edge of the Gorge and its sharp series of ridges, which make up the audience slope of the main amphitheater. The bands playing with geologic narrative at their backs.
* * *
* * *
“This your first time?”
“Yeah.”
“They clean them early in the morning, and then everyone sneaks out here.”
“To christen them.”
“Just wait. On Monday you’ll be like, ‘Who had a baby in here?’”
“And then you’ll feel responsible for it.”
“Like you need to be its godfather.”
* * *
Camp Bingo is stocked with cans of an ultracheap lager called Simpler Times and, inspired by this phony nostalgia, we end up singing an improvised jingle every time we pop a new one. Back then, we burned outspoken women: Simpler Times. Certain people couldn’t vote: Simpler Times. If we wanted a savage’s land, we’d just take it: Simpler Times.
* * *
Quasi has an all-lady rhythm section that can cut you in half. Drummer Janet Weiss, who provided thunder for Sleater-Kinney, is stormier than ever. Somewhere in the scalding breakdowns of “Bye Bye Blackbird,” a friend wearing a ludicrous sun hat pulls out a small baggie-the kind you’d put drugs in-full of store-bought chocolate wafers. According to a previously established bet, if he can sell these cookies to a stranger for $5, without acknowledging the bet, he will win $50. Instead, the song takes over. He does some weird moves with the baggie, pretends to lick it, then makes strong eye contact with an already alarmed guy dancing nearby with his girlfriend. With that, the baggie is tossed. The alarmed guy, in a spasm of confusion, twists, and the baggie strikes him in the shin. He and his girlfriend look down at it, then take a step back, and their faces say that the weekend is ruined.
* * *
It’s staggering how quickly you adapt to living out of cars and tents, to stiff unshowered hair and sunburned lips, to the daily trek from camp to venue. I guess this is my life now. This shift in brain chemistry is most apparent when you re-enter normal society and find yourself unable to read a restaurant menu.
* * *
“Is that guy peeing into a bottle?”
“Kinda.”
* * *
As we drive away on Monday night, we listen to “Crystalised,” a song by The xx, a band whose set we had reluctantly skipped in order to get front and center for LCD Soundsystem. Its seductive, smoky timbre is a perfect complement to the hypnotic onrush of road and, one can’t help sourly speculating, impossible to recreate outside the studio.
* * *
The frontman for Cymbals Eat Guitars is named Joseph D’Agostino, which makes me hope he is heir to the family grocery business and decided to rebel by playing riffy/screamy/dreamy indie rock with a guitar-shredding face of pure Staten Island brohood, a face that stretches to accommodate an unhinged snakelike jaw and long vertical slit of a mouth, a face that you are so happy to see outside of the context of weight lifting and forced alcohol consumption.
* * *
Any attempt to exit a tent hungover looks like childbirth with complications.
* * *
I’ve seen The National twice before, but here, in front of some 20,000 fans, Matt Berniger is like the tongue-speaking minister of a megachurch, a figure of entrancing physical energy. I doubt they’ll play “Mistaken For Strangers”; they open with it. I figure “Mr. November” will be their closer; they follow it with an oceanic rendition of “Terrible Love,” a song from High Violet that hadn’t clicked until that moment. Berniger ventures further into the pit than anyone else dares that weekend, and hands seek him like they would a messiah. The most I get is a grip on his mic cord.
* * *
My tentmate tells Camp Bingo that he woke up at one point with my naked ass in his face, which, given the strictures of the tent and sleeping bags, is impossible, and must have been a dream. But try telling him that.
* * *
On the drive from Seattle to George, Washington, we see a decorated van. “Sasquatch 2010” is painted on its passenger windows, along with a select list of artists who would play there: MGMT, Neon Indian, Kid Cudi, Miike Snow. In the miasma of loathing and Pacific Northwest mist, I was comforted to know: With enough options, everyone curates their own festival.
* * *
Actually, MGMT’s and Neon Indian’s set times conflicted, and I like to imagine the people in that van wept and raged and pulled their headbands apart when they found out.
* * *
Late one afternoon, I’m lying down and watching the sky, passively hearing whoever is playing. I’m thinking that you didn’t need drugs to appreciate the way the clouds go slow quickly, racing yet drifting, and not moving together in one direction but pulling apart from one another. I’m high on this, I decide. Then I eat a hash cookie.
* * *
“You’re getting a good sense of Seattle.”
“You mean?”
“The passive aggression.”
* * *
* * *
Acts I was sad to have to miss for whatever stupid reason: Phantogram, Why?, Caribou, tUnE-yArDs, They Might Be Giants, The xx, Girls, Dirty Projectors, Public Enemy (although apparently it was a technical disaster), No Age, Camera Obscura. All of you, please know you have a special place in my ears.
* * *
Early-morning visitors to Camp Bingo: folks on a photo scavenger hunt who were hunting for same-sex kisses and acid trips.
Late-night visitor to Camp Bingo: man who sings a song about his cat (named DooDoo) in exchange for a few belts of warm Old Crow whiskey from a Diet Coke bottle.
* * *
Todd Barry, following an afternoon stint at the comedy tent, informs those gathered at the Bigfoot Stage that the New Pornographers have canceled. He will be filling in with two hours of jokes. The New Pornographers then burst onto the scene and play with muscle and verve, every now and then taking potshots at MGMT, who they maybe feel do not deserve the concurrent slot at the much-higher-capacity amphitheater.
* * *
As a rule I don’t aid crowd surfers, but I never forget to step aside and hope that they break their neck in the void I’ve opened.
* * *
“My new thing, when I want to talk to a girl, is I say, “I met you before.’”
“Every guy does that.”
* * *
Japandroids spit some snark-which is galling if you consider they’ve canceled the past two years-before getting the job done on the Yeti Stage, a tiny afterthought designed for unknown local bands. By the end they’ve drawn the biggest crowd the little nook has seen all weekend.
* * *
Just before I leave my Hell’s Kitchen apartment to catch the E train to the Air Train to my jetBlue flight to Seattle, I become annoyed at a bar code sticker stuck to the bottom of my left sneaker. When I walk into my friend’s house in Seattle and take my sneakers off, not only is the bar code still there, also the right shoe’s tread bears a damp pink flower petal.
* * *
“Is he retarded?”
“No, he’s suicidally depressed.”
* * *
Pavement are like Greek gods: monumental and bitchy. They’ve flown directly in from the Primavera festival in Spain and are obviously a bit run-down; a pedal malfunction brings “Rattled By The Rush” to a halt early on. “It’s fucking pathetic,” Stephen Malkmus confides, in the awkward silence. The crowd had sung him “Happy Birthday” not ten minutes before. A spectacular meltdown in the offing, they launch into “Kennel District” and then “Grounded,” matching the splendor of the briefly golden canyon as the rain picks up on their fuck-it attitude. They’ve humanized themselves right before exposing inhuman skill. It almost could have been planned; it brings me close to tears. They stay sassy and sardonic in the cracks of their majestic slacker-rock, more truly themselves than most of us are allowed to be. “I think we’re done,” Malkmus mutters at the end, over cries for an encore. “No, we’ve been in this band twenty years and we’ve never gone over our time.”
* * *
Arcade Fire are so universally beloved that the Seattle Rock Orchestra doing Arcade Fire covers at 2:40 p.m. on the Bigfoot Stage is a well-attended affair.
* * *
Why did no one tell me that Canadians are big, meaty, blotchy rednecks? A group asks me to take their picture, and when I’m done I tell them that I managed to get a nearby American flag in the background. At this, a female member of the group pulls up her shirt and reveals a horrifying series of red maple leaves tattooed up her ribcage, with little black lines inked to look like stiff arctic wind. Again and again, the Canadians prove the drunkest, and most physically intimidating, and most mindlessly patriotic of ticketholders.
They are, without question, south of the border.
* * *
At one point I hear that one of the guys from Midlake may have the same sunglasses as me (classic BluBlockers).
* * *
Tegan and Sara are about as comfortable with interstitial banter as I am with the Honey Buckets, yet they cannot get enough of it. I can’t decide who should receive the bulk of my doubled adoration.
* * *
* * *
“He was British I thought.”
“That was an Australian.”
“He had a British accent. He said “cheers.’”
“Professors say “cheers.’”
“Australians say “cheers,’ too.”
“Is he gone? We could have asked him.”
“Is he… no, he’s gone.”
* * *
Local Natives are too boring to even talk about. The band, I mean, obviously.
* * *
On the flight from New York to Seattle, I try to read a used copy of Donald Antrim’s The Verificationist but am slowed down considerably by several hundred Post-Its™ applied by the book’s previous owner, diligent notes written in a feminine hand about sex, sex and sex, all of which I feel compelled to read in full.
* * *
“I have maybe three years before I start having kids.”
* * *
My Morning Jacket close out the first night with fog effects and psychedelic jams less memorable than the weird things Jim James does with a cape.
* * *
“I’ve gotta go, but I actually can’t stick around here, so I’m gonna throw my backstage bracelet to someone. But you have to be cool back there. Don’t go up to someone and say “I named my goldfish after you.’ Don’t say “I have a chess set of you made from my toenails.’”
* * *
The pit action is fierce for LCD Soundsystem. “We’re a band of mostly long songs,” James Murphy explains. “We’re going to try to play as many as we can.” From there on out it’s nothing but groove. “Drunk Girls.” I snap up my shirt several times just so I can rip it open in ecstasy again. “Us V Them.” We enter a Newtonian realm; everyone surges in one direction and is blown back by reactive force. “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House.” You can lie nearly horizontal and not fall, we are jammed that tight. “One Touch.” We sweat as one nasty, throbbing organism. “Pow Pow.” Two guys, one dressed in an arm cast and a top hat made from a cardboard Bud Light case, try to start honest-to-Warped-Tour moshing, and two other guys yank them apart. “All My Friends.” We feel the first drops of rain and twinges of cardiac arrest. They have another song ready, we’re sure, but there is no time, no space, no relief.
* * *
Complete list of black people spotted: Public Enemy, Kid Cudi, Massive Attack’s guest vocalists, Craig Robinson and the guy who gets Craig Robinson another beer when he spills the first one on stage during a wacky keyboard-reliant set at the comedy tent where he makes all the men in attendance sing “I appreciate you” to all the ladies in a Barry White voice.
* * *
As techies arrange the laboratory necessary for Massive Attack’s liquid-cool nighttime set, we discuss who should use the VIP bracelets to get backstage. Almost everyone insists they are too fucked up to go down there, and I am too, but I go anyway. The trio I walk down with are hyping up the free beer situation and kickass party that await. When we get there a security guard tells us there’s no free beer, the party is over and we can’t get stage access. We wander around the deserted private area, seeing scraps of vanished debauchery. I use one of the Honey Buckets. It proves to be just as foul as the ones normals have to use.
* * *
“Oh there you are.”
“Hey.”
“Did you see me step right in that big mud puddle after carefully avoiding the others?”
“Yep. Your face was like [careful, waspy enunciation]: “Godammit.’”
“Godammit Cheryl, I told you these shorts had shrimp cocktail sauce on them.”
“Godammit, I’m not mad, I’m just hostile toward you.”
“Godammit.”
“Door slam.”
* * *
Though I frown upon crowd-surfing, I greatly respect the impulse crowds have to carry these selfish prats to the front, where security can haul them off to points unknown but surely not as fun as the pit. It’s as though we’re saying, here, here’s somebody to get rid of. One girl, realizing that she is being borne toward the outstretched arms of authority, tries to resist, but the riptide will not comply.
Likewise, icings are rampant and cruel. I’m blindsided by a mango ice when I stumble back into camp on the second night. There is a brutal icing just outside the venue entrance, in front of a sign saying “No Alcohol Beyond This Point.” A friend entering his tent finds a warm pomegranate ice on his air mattress. In the backstage area, most people have an ice block ready. When Smirnoff supplies run low, phrases like “You just got Cheez-It’d” and “You just got Rockstar Guava Energy Juiced” and “You just got Smucker’s Jelly Squeezed” are thrown around, though rarely with any conviction.
* * *
“I’m just stoned enough that Stephen Malkmus makes sense right now.”
* * *
The Tallest Man On Earth, a fairly short Swede who sings like Bob Dylan over pretty finger-picked guitar, is the subject of several hundred insta-infatuations. “I’m nervous in front of so many people,” he would say, or, “Here’s a song about flowers.” I feel unafraid of and liberated by the idea of death when he sings the line “And I plan to be forgotten when I’m gone,” because you could look out over the ancient land we stood on, its exposed volcanic rock and shapes carved by the Missoula Floods more than a dozen millennia ago, and let yourself fade into the air.
* * *
“Your lantern is really bright.”
“It’s a beacon.”
“I guess you could say that. It’s kinda blinding. Fuck.”
* * *
The Dirty Projectors were pretty good, people said.
* * *
“NEED DRADES,” read a sign held up by some guy at a midday performance by a band I refuse to name because the name’s punctuation annoys me. We assumed this was a plea for drugs, but after some Internet research I now believe he wanted dreadlocks.
* * *
Who in Little Richard’s name would want to watch, listen to or tolerate OK Go? I’m told they brought up the subject of viral music videos as soon as they got on stage-and in the past have recreated their videos in a live setting-because, as ever, they’d like you to look past their songs.
* * *
People who run at top speed down a hill packed with sitting, prone and dozing bodies are headed for a life of unplanned pregnancies.
* * *
Phone connection is miserable at best. I get two e-mails about short stories I sent to publications I admire, one acceptance and one gentle rejection. I want to write back to both editors immediately but can’t get anything out. When I finally have enough bars to make a call, I get in touch with the significant other, and we excitedly talk about nothing but Pavement, a Band She Got Me Into that we’ll be seeing together in Central Park this fall. She wants to know what they played, and how well, what they said and how they acted, and every detail I can conjure delights her more, even though the set was Wowee Zowee-heavy and her favorite album is Brighten The Corners, because “favorite” is a meaningless term when you like a band like she likes Pavement, and we go on naming their best songs until the call is dropped.
* * *
The weekend’s best weather is wasted on Band of Horses, who lean into their mini-epics but so utterly lack personality that even the frontman’s beard seems fake. The silver lining: the bros who embraced at Mountain Goats turn up once again, still amiably grabbing each other and sharing their smuggled booze.
* * *
Canadian Rednecks would be a good band name.
* * *
“What’s the deal with these Cliff Bars.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like are they any good for you?”
“Not really, they just package them that way.”
“They seem like PowerSauce bars from that episode of The Simpsons.”
“[Vigorous nodding while mouth is full of Cliff Bar]”
* * *
On the way to the Honey Buckets late at night, my foot sinks into a cold slush. Panic. It is too dark to know what it is, but it doesn’t smell. I pray that someone has dumped ice out of a cooler. The next morning, when I get a good look at the area, it’s just an average dirty puddle, and I laugh about how much it had freaked me out. Then a guy brushing his teeth trips and falls face-first into it, toothbrush and everything. Many people see it; none laugh.
* * *
The crowd at the Bigfoot Stage for Nada Surf is the pasty, inbred sort-as opposed to the crowd still at the amphitheater for Vampire Weekend, which is presumably the pasty, overbred sort. Nada Surf’s fans clamor for hits from 2001, wanting none of the accomplished covers of Kate Bush and Depeche Mode featured on the new album, If I Had A Hi-Fi. Their sugary-cereal-pop-punk-yet-lullabyish guitar sound is especially well-suited to a giddy take on The Go-Betweens’ “Love Goes On.” The bassist has blonde dreadlocks, could be a cousin of Mickey Rourke and smokes at least six cigarettes.
* * *
“Tegan And Sara played the best show ever erased from my memory by LCD Soundsystem immediately afterward. Pavement was the best show erased from my memory by hash.”
* * *
Patton Oswalt, before a bit about obsolescence of the circus and its stench, ridicules the hippie strains of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros seeping into the comedy tent. It transpires that he has no idea who is playing this music, and his evisceration is all the more satisfying for it.
* * *
“My eyes aren’t big enough.”
* * *
In Seattle, while riding a bus to the train to the airport, the bus driver keeps me from getting off at the wrong stop. The Link Right Rail’s announcement system anthropomorphizes the machinery: “Doors to my right,” it says.
* * *
With respect to that thing about not needing drugs: you really don’t. It’s the freedom of doing them in the open, I think, the not needing to impress or deceive anyone, which goes along with not showering, facepaint, unselfconscious dancing, costumes, advanced stages of nudity, etc. You are your body odor and bloodshot eyes. You are just an atom in a stew of atoms spiraling toward entropy, and nothing is so miraculous as recognizing an atom you bumped up against the day before.
* * *
Early-morning visitor to Camp Bingo: dude “giving away” books on Eastern philosophy who leaves $15 richer.
Late-night visitors to Camp Bingo: A few people who interrupt our conversation with an aggressive beatbox/a cappella performance of the rap from Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.”
* * *
It is sadly funny that we got backstage when nothing is happening, but then the bracelets get us somewhere better: the pit. It’s been slowly filling in the hour leading up to Massive Attack’s show, and we slip in at the last minute, about seven rows back. Already I’m weak in the knees from hash. At last the very British trip-hop legends emerge and begin to tickle the base of my spine. Massive Attack make filthy, filthy songs for fucking, and as such have two basic modes: the pre-coital buzz/tease/tingle and the straight-up penetration. The former is equal parts sexy and slimy. The latter is full-body euphoria, and the pit, so violent earlier that day, is transformed into a painless zone of drugged-out absorption. I wouldn’t be shocked to find my torso aglow. Mesmerizing guest vocalists are brought out, incoherent political statements and snippets of data flash on screens, the light show dazzles in otherwise total darkness, recreations of “Angel,” “Risingson,” and, unbelievably, “Teardrop” stun and fill us. The bliss of hyperentertainment consumes our eyes, spends them-and my breath is stolen by the decadence of it all, by the certainty that if someone from the middle ages could stand where I am now, his heart would explode at the spectacle.
* * *
“We just spent a lot of hours in that place.”
* * *
Not long after returning to New York, I was walking to my apartment with my giant impractical headphones on, listening to a playlist of all the stuff I wanted to relive from the weekend. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see a smiling young woman I didn’t recognize. I took my headphones off.
“Hey,” she said, “my friend and I were talking and we decided you’re the love of my life.”
“Wow,” I said, flabbergasted that this was happening, and that it was happening back here, not out there. “I’m flattered.”
She asked what I was listening to. I fumbled for an explanation.
Miles Klee is back now. | https://medium.com/the-awl/an-81-hour-break-from-civilization-at-sasquatch-music-festival-2010-f54181d5601 | ['Miles Klee'] | 2016-05-13 05:07:54.817000+00:00 | ['Columnists', 'Miles Klee', 'Music'] |
3 Things to Help You Conquer Fear | 3 Things to Help You Conquer Fear
In Sports, Business, and Life
Fear is something I’ve experienced in pro sports, business, and life.
Days and games when I danced without fear, I played college and pro basketball wonderfully. Or now, I write magic like “Gandolf the White” (says no one). When I erase doubt, I speak succinctly, I breathe, and I execute the rules of winning and stick to them.
But the process of going pro in basketball taught me different approaches to conquering my fears. I wasn’t special, wasn’t immune to fear and nervousness. In front of people, I constantly felt (feel) sick to my stomach. I’d have panic attacks night before big games. I built a wall around my mind and lived there.
But my love for basketball forced me to confront my demons. And so, I conditioned myself to “dance” with a ball in my hands, day in and day out. In front of crowds. Alone in gyms unseen to any spectators. The practice of dancing and simulating real games was a key to learning how to turn the “fear” switch off and go into a flow state.
I’ll tell you more on how I beat the fear thing later (especially memorize thing #2). Right now, I want to talk about what fear is.
Merriam-Webster defines fear as “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.”
Fight or flight — the innate response or anticipation our bodies are wired to make when we feel threatened, or scared, or under pressure. We anticipate fear and therefore, it becomes real. In our big moments, fear is just the anticipation of caring too much about what others think. This is why fear is usually just an illusion. An abstraction. We believe it to be true because we believe it in our minds. There is really no fear when you are alone giving the speech, shooting the game winning shot, or making the pitch alone.
We anticipate fear rather than just play. We get stuck inside the walls of our minds in front of people that won’t remember what we did next week.
Anticipating fear is a bad habit we must learn to beat. The “next play” mentality is how you beat fear.
The best basketball players in the world always forget their mistakes and focus on the next play. Believe me when I say your failure will not be remembered unless you choose to be the one to remember it — you aren’t that special.
To expect perfection in an imperfect life is silly (so stop being silly, silly).
Fear thrives in social media comparisons while perfectionism is slitting your best effort’s throat and letting you bleed out.
Stop caring what others think about your effort. Go all out and let your chips fall like Rocky fighting Drago. Just make sure you wear head protection.
The truth is, five years from now, the only thing you’ll remember is your regrets. Not taking the chance. The tepid plays. The shrinking.
Eric the Preacher said, when success matters to you as much as breathing does, you will have no choice but to succeed.
I still get the panic tingles, feel the anxiousness and pressure, my nerves taut like piano wire. Know this tension is part of being human. Fear is and will always be hard to deal with, but the love of the game (enter your craft or passion) and the competition always push us over the precipice of fear through action.
Let’s get to some strategies for beating fear.
Write down three things that create fear in you (that won’t physically hurt you).
Here are mine:
1.__________Hand Holding in Public______
2.________Sketch Improv________
3._______Being on Facebook Live_________
Then go move through them and make the habit of doing them every day. Slowly at first. Maybe invite someone to watch your standup. Or read your piece. Or watch you shoot. Or listen to you talk or sing or play at open-mic night. Your biggest fears are typically your biggest hurdles to growth, happiness, and purpose.
I used to be scared shitless to go ask older, better players to play me in one on one. My dad would make me go. After years and years of practice, I learned how to move through the fear and just do it.
“You wanna play one on one?”
That question used to cause me nightmares, now I laugh at the notion of fear holding me back from practicing something I love.
Here are there three formulas I’ve created to help you conquer fear on and off the basketball court.
1. Breath + Intentional action = Fear Busting Practice 2. High standards of habits (hard to do) + Consistently high intensity effort (hard to do)= Makes the Flow State (easy to do) 3. Whenever you are about to shit the bed, just remind yourself: “Just play. This is just a game.”
Fear cannot co-exist in action, all-out effort, and breath.
Fear is something we all feel. But when we want to develop something, our future success, our crafts, our passion, our purpose, or practice, then expressing yourself will matter just as much as breathing will.
This is when you will go in the dark scary cave and do the deed day after day. The treasure won’t come right at first, but you’ll move through fear and beat it and that is a treasure in itself. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/3-things-to-help-you-conquer-fear-d2454334f48b | ['Trevor Huffman'] | 2019-02-20 02:29:21.986000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Fear Of Failure', 'Confidence', 'Leadership', 'Fear'] |
Understanding Android Adaptive Icons | Android O introduces a new format for app icons called adaptive icons. To better understand the motivation and potential of this feature it’s useful to take a look at what it’s replacing.
While Android’s icon guidelines have evolved over time, they have always promoted using unique shapes. I was a huge fan of this! I held that it really helped users to locate the app they wanted to launch. If you want to get nostalgic you can listen to Roman Nurik and I talk about this to 6 whole minutes in an old video we made.
Here’s the ‘traditional’ icon (created by Roman) from Plaid, an app I work on. I believed that the distinct shape helped it to stand out, making it easier to find:
Plaid’s icon. How I used to think distinct shapes helped stand out.
But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows in distinct-shape-icon-land. The flipside of this near-complete creative freedom is lack of consistency. When each individual app is responsible for shape, size and drop-shadow (which is baked into the icon) then the inevitable consequence is that they vary widely. Here’s an example of icons just from Google showing how they at one time varied:
Now admittedly the above image is from 2012 and things have improved a lot in the meantime; especially with the extra guidance in the material guidelines. Nonetheless, I’ve come to believe that the current system places too much responsibility on app developers; giving us too much scope to detract from the overall experience..
When we’re working on an app, we can become laser-focused on it. We rightly spend huge amounts of time pouring over the details that make it unique. We think about it in isolation. But that’s not how users see it; no app is an island and we need to recognize that it exists alongside many other apps on a device. As such it needs to get along. This is true for your entire app but it’s all the more important with elements like app icons which appear side by side. With this framing we can see how instead of our idealized situation, the reality often ends up being more like this:
Idea vs reality: when everything is unique, nothing is unique
In response to this problem, a whole cottage industry has sprung up: custom launchers offering icon packs to replace app’s icons or normalize their size. Devices also started shipping with launchers adding backgrounds to app icons to enforce consistency & brand their platform.
Samsung’s launcher which places icons on a squircle background. Image source
Indeed Google’s launcher will start placing icons of apps which target Android-O but do not supply an adaptive icon onto a background (scaling down their non-adaptive icon).
Icons & pinned shortcuts of apps targeting Android-O but not supplying adaptive icons.
While normalizing icon shapes or sizes is understandable, altering an icon without input from the app developer can’t lead to the best outcome.
Android 7.1 introduced roundIcon as an attempt to bring some consistency here but this was pretty restrictive to OEMs looking to differentiate their devices (i.e. only supporting circular icons) and lacked any kind of validation (developers could supply any shaped icon and pinky-swear that it was round!).
I’d characterize the situation as lacking a well defined contract between the app icons and launchers which will display them. Balancing the complete freedom of icon design against a desire for consistent display currently places responsibilities in the wrong camps. Launchers try to resize icons but don’t understand the content, like which elements are critical and shouldn’t be touched. App icons need to keep up with any guideline changes to ensure they bake in correct sizing/padding or shadow information. I see adaptive icons as making this contract clearer; becoming more explicit about what an app must supply and how a launcher will consume and display it.
For icon makers, it’s easy to see this as losing some freedom. I think this is actually more of a shift rather than a reduction. Adaptive icons introduce new and interesting constraints that open up new creative possibilities. Join me in part 2: designing adaptive icons to explore these. | https://medium.com/google-design/understanding-android-adaptive-icons-cee8a9de93e2 | ['Nick Butcher'] | 2017-07-25 10:38:46.365000+00:00 | ['Android', 'Iconography', 'Design'] |
Cedar Hill vs Tyler Legacy | Texas High School Football Live | Cedar Hill vs Tyler Legacy | Texas High School Football Live Ciremai ·Dec 19, 2020
Cedar Hill vs Tyler Legacy | Texas High School Football Live
Watch Here Live: http://syehkhambali.sportfb.com/hsfootball.php
Longhorns
8–1
Raiders
6–5
The Tyler Legacy (Tyler, TX) varsity football team has a neutral playoff game vs. Cedar Hill (TX) on Saturday, December 19 @ 2p.
Game Details: West Mesquite | https://medium.com/@ciremai585/cedar-hill-vs-tyler-legacy-texas-high-school-football-live-933ce8a1ebb5 | [] | 2020-12-19 14:14:25.693000+00:00 | ['Texas', 'American History'] |
Why I (Still) Clap | I have never clapped to bring attention to great writing.
Before the change to read time rewards, I saw several writers write that they clapped to bring attention to great writing. This sounds like a worthy cause. Some say they will continue to do this. I applaud them (pun not intended.)
However, I am not convinced clapping brings attention to writers or writing. For some, it might. But I have never read a story because it got thousands of claps. Most of the writers (with a few exceptions) whose stories get huge numbers of claps write stories I am not interested in. The number of claps a story receives has never influenced what I read. | https://medium.com/mark-starlin-writes/why-i-still-clap-a6a10c92a604 | ['Mark Starlin'] | 2019-10-30 22:59:44.496000+00:00 | ['Clapping', 'Medium', 'Money', 'Writing', 'Partner Program'] |
On-demand machine learning predictions for mapping tools | Over a year ago, we published ML Enabler — a machine learning integration tool in partnership with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. ML Enabler is a registry for machine learning models in OpenStreetMap and aims to provide an API for tools like Tasking Manager to directly query predictions. Today, we want to share some of the new and most exciting features of ML Enabler, including on-demand machine learning predictions and a user interface.
Managing models, predictions and infrastructure
ML Enabler makes it incredibly easy to spin up infrastructure to run your model along with all necessary resources. Through the new user interface, you can upload new models, spin up AWS resources, generate and preview predictions. Previously, there was a minimal CLI tool to upload models and fetch predictions.
ML Enabler Project Overview
ML Enabler Project Page
Behind the scenes, ML Enabler uses AWS Cloudformation and will work with any AWS account. A few key infrastructure choices like instance count, and concurrency can be made directly from the ML Enabler interface. ML Enabler uses lambda functions for downloading base64 images for inference from the specified Tiled Map Service (TMS) endpoint and writing inference outputs into the database.
BBOX Inference Submission
Running Inference Stack
You can monitor the tile prediction queues right from the UI. When the processing is complete, predictions are automatically displayed in the map tab. It’s easy to toggle between different classes in your model, and filter predictions based on confidence threshold. Over each tile, the model’s raw output and the confidence score is displayed. This makes it really convenient to explore spatial patterns within the inferences.
Inference Results Page
On-demand predictions
ML Enabler generates and visualizes predictions from models that are compatible with Tensorflow’s TF Serving, on-demand. All you need is to drag and drop a zip with trained classification or object-detection model, provide a TMS end point, and an AOI for the inference. ML Enabler will spin up the required AWS resources and runs inference to generate predictions. Running a classification model inference over a medium sized city, which is divided into approximately 4,000 zoom 18 tiles takes approximately 2 minutes.
The prediction tiles are indexed using quadkeys for easy spatial search. To help facilitate these on-demand predictions ML Enabler has integrated in many of the components of Development Seed’s Chip-n-Scale project.
Support for classification and object detection models
Currently, ML Enabler supports two common machine learning model formats — classification, and object detection. ML Enabler works with binary as well as multi-label classification models. The infrastructure setup and prediction visualization adapts automatically based on the model format. For object detection models, ML Enabler converts coordinates in the pixel space to geographic space for every prediction along with bounding box and confidence score.
New Prediction Page
Additionally, for classification models, ML Enabler supports a custom lambda function to create supertiles. Supertiles are incredibly useful to overcome objects that may lie across tile edges. For example, zoom 18 tiles offers a higher resolution than zoom 17, but one draw-back is that sometimes buildings get split between multiple tiles. Supertiles allows for the aggregation of the four zoom 18 tiles within the zoom 17 footprint to create a (512, 512, 3) training chip, instead of the typical (256, 265, 3) training image chip.
Inference Validation
Inference Validation
Inference Validation
Collecting feedback about predictions and retraining
Another exciting feature we added to ML Enabler is the ability to collect feedback about predictions from within the interface. Users can tag a tile as valid or invalid. Predictions tagged as valid switch to green, predictions tagged as invalid switch to white, and predictions that haven’t been manually validated stay red.
Inference Validation
ML Enabler can then convert these validated predictions back into labeled training data matched up with imagery to allow users to easily re-train a new model with the validated model predictions.
Future
We think that it can make the integration between mapping tools and model infrastructure easy and less intimidating. There are an increasing number of internal and partner projects that rely on ML Enabler and we will continue developing and maintaining.
Some of our immediate plans include ability to run inference over imagery sources other TMS, automate re-training workflows, and the ability to add more detailed model metadata to the registry. We hope you get the chance to experiment ML Enabler for yourself. Please reach out with any questions or comments on Github or Twitter! | https://medium.com/devseed/on-demand-machine-learning-predictions-for-mapping-tools-700035affc86 | [] | 2020-08-05 18:35:42.860000+00:00 | ['Infrastructure', 'Development Seed', 'Mapping', 'Machine Learning', 'Infrastructure Management'] |
How to make UserDefaults property wrapper | 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/fantageek/how-to-make-userdefaults-property-wrapper-da0a76ab4309 | ['Khoa Pham'] | 2020-12-26 21:58:35.934000+00:00 | ['Userdefaults', 'Swiftui', 'Swift', 'Property Wrapper'] |
Mystic Britain: Barghest and Black Shuck | Found in folklore throughout the British Isles, a black dog, usually demonic, is variously considered a ghost, a hellhound or even a shapeshifter. Sighting one of these apparitions is believed to be a deadly portent, with the death of the witness or a relative said to follow. These sightings are often linked to electrical storms alongside ancient roads, crossroads and places of execution. Often believed to serve as the familiar of witchs and warlocks, black dogs have long been associated with witchcraft and were mentioned in the alleged pagan killing of Charles Walton, a case highlighted by this author last week.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) Film Poster | Wikipedia, Hunter Kahn
While the legends of black dogs cross the breadth of the British Isles, inspiring such popular culture as The Hound of the Baskervilles, two legends stand out amongst all others, those of the Barghest and the Black Shuck, the most deadly of all Britain’s Demon Dogs.
With its origins in the north of the country, Barghest appears only at night and is described as goblin-like, featuring huge teeth and claws. Those who fully saw the Barghest would have seconds to live, while those who only caught a glimpse would be a little more fortunate and live for several months afterwards. Equally, some said that upon the death of a notable local person, the Barghest would appear at the head of a procession of normal dogs in the area, leading the animals in a chorus of howls to lament the death. At this time, anyone who got in the way would be struck by one of Barghest’s razor-sharp paws. They would suffer a wound that would never heal.
One such demon in Darlington, a town in County Durham, is said to be of the shapeshifter variety. This Barghest was able to take the form of a headless man or woman, a white cat, a rabbit and, of course, a black dog. There are tales of the beast in the folklore rich Whitby and well as entering York. In Lancashire the creature went by the name of Trash, Skriker, or Striker, featuring wide feet that were sometimes backward in association with the devil. There is, however, a Barghest of Burnley and the Manchester Barghest is said to be headless. Other names include the Demon of Tidworth and the Black Dog of Winchester.
The fiendish black dog from British folklore. Created by Vasilios Markousis to accompany an article by Carolyn Emerick appearing in Celtic Guide magazine. | Wikimedia Commons, Vmarkousis (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Some other tellings of the Barghest legend tell of it becoming invisible, only the sound of its dragging chain to be heard. Others say it represents a clear portent of doom, laying at the threshold of a house where death is about to take place.
The Barghest has appeared throughout British culture, with the Victorian ballad of The Legend of the Troller’s Gill being an early example. It tells the dark tale of a man at Toter’s Gill in North Yorkshire who sets out to find the Barghest as part of an arcane ritual. The man is soon discovered with inhuman wounds to the chest, his folly being fatal. More recently, Barghests have featured in Roald Dahl’s The Witches, Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands, The Witcher video game, The Lord Of The Rings Online and the Neil Gaiman short story Black Dog.
While the Barghest may dominate the north, the south around East Anglia is the territory of the Black Shuck, forming a crucial part of local folklore in the likes of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. The word shuck is derived from the old English for the devil or fiend, and such is the association of the creature with the area that the Black Shuck is rife throughout local legend, culture and iconography.
As with all myths and legends surrounding black dogs, the descriptions of the Black Shuck are many and varied. Most versions, however, state the demon to be much larger than an average dog, being between the size of a calf and a full-sized horse. The creature is silent of foot and has a chilling howl, prowling the footpaths and dark lanes. In the Highways & Byways in East Anglia by W.A. Dutt, Black Shuck is described as having a single fiery red eye and is linked to the black hound of Odin.
Artists Rendition of The Black Shuck of East Anglia based on the description by W.A. Dutt. | Wikimedia Commons, MattiasThatch (CC BY-SA 4.0)
However, this is a misnomer. Odin is not described as having a dog of any kind anywhere in the authentic Norse legends. Geri and Freki which are said to accompany Odin in the Poetic Edda are wolves and not dogs. Other wolves are associated with the myths and known as “the Dogs of Odin”, with a wolf pack often introduced to battlefields seeking to feast on the slain. Again, these are not dogs. While others have tried to link to the legend to Garm, the dog who guards the gates to hell, there are in fact few legitimate links between British demon dogs and the Viking legends.
“Some people believe that dog-phantoms derive from [Viking] myth…This theory is, however, untenable — at least from a historical and geographical point of view — for dog-ghosts appear prolifically in parts of England uncontaminated by Nordic beliefs.” Patricia Dale-Green, Dog
One of the earliest descriptions of the Black Shuck features in the Peterborough Chronicle which is one of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Recorded c. 1127, the book contains unique information on the history of England and tells of a Wild Hunt. These hunts feature the appearance of a named figure in folklore, often Odin in the Germanic legends, leading a soul-raving chase in the company of ghostly apparitions. Like with the black dogs, witnessing this hunt was a portent of death or even war and plague. Some equally believed that bearing witness to this unique phenomenon would lose the watcher his or her soul, either being pulled into the underworld or into being one of the spectral hunters.
“Many men both saw and heard a great number of huntsmen hunting. The huntsmen were black, huge and hideous, and rode on black horses and on black he-goats and the hounds were jet black with eyes like saucers and horrible. This was seen in the very deer park of the town of Peterborough and in all the woods that stretch from that same town to Stamford, and in the night the monks heard them sounding and winding their horns. Reliable witnesses who kept watch in the night declared that there might well have been as many as twenty or thirty of them winding their horns as near they could tell. This was seen and heard from the time of his arrival all through Lent and right up to Easter.” Peterborough Chronicle
In 1450, meanwhile, the rebel Jack Cade stood accused of having “rered upp the Divell in the semblaunce of a black dogge” at Dartford in Kent. However, this is seemingly an accusation of witchcraft rather than being explicitly linked to the legends surrounding the Black Shuck.
Perhaps the most famous account of the beast, however, came in 1577 when the Black Shuck was said to have entered two churches, being portrayed as the devil himself in dog form by Abraham Fleming, the clergyman, writer, translator and poet. Fleming told of how on August 4, the Black Shuck “wrung the necks” of two of the faithful inside St Mary’s Church, Bungay.
“This black dog, or the divel in such a linenesse (God hee knoweth al who worketh all,) running all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a mome[n]t where they kneeled, they stra[n]gely dyed.” Abraham Fleming, A Straunge and Terrible Wunder
Meanwhile, at the Holy Trinity Church in the village of Blythburgh, the Black Shuck is said to have burst through the doors with a clap of thunder and ran past the congregation, killing a man and child before the steeple collapsed through the entire roof, ruining the church. As the demon dog left, flaming footprints were burned into the stone.
Black Shuck- mechanical pencil with watercolors and gouache on tan paper, by Kurt Komoda 2003. Some of the forms of this giant spectral dog that roams the moors. | Kurt Komoda, Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
There is some debate as to whether these two incidents derive from the same tale. Many believe Fleming was recording the details from passed along oral accounts, the details becoming changed in the process. Of note is the fact that a massive electrical storm hit the area that same day, lightening being known to have hit Holy Trinity Church during morning service. It “cleft the door, and returning to the steeple rent the timber, [and] brake the chimes”. The falling spire damaged both the font and roof and wasn’t repaired until the 18th century. While there are scorch marks by the door, these are caused by candles.
These sightings don’t end in the age of superstition, however, with a reported case in 1905 at the village of Laburnham Villa, located halfway between London and Bristol. Written in 1908 by Clarissa Miles, the story the dog in this instance was believed to be the spirit of a deceased farmer who had committed suicide the previous century.
“At the beginning of January 1905, about half-past seven in the evening, I was walking up from the Halfway [a local inn]. I suddenly saw an animal that seemed to be like a large, black dog appears quite suddenly out of the hedge and run across the road quite close in front of me; I thought it was the dog belonging to the curate. I was just going to call it to send it home when it suddenly changed its shape and turned into a black donkey standing on its hind legs. This creature had two glowing eyes, which appeared to me to be almost as big as saucers. I looked at it in astonishment for a minute or so, when it suddenly vanished. After that, I hurried home, for the sight of this creature with the large shining eyes gave me a shock. The evening was a light one for the time of year.” Clarissa Miles , Experiments in thought transference. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research
In May of 2014, a large dog was found during excavations at Leiston Abbey in Suffolk. The East Anglian Daily Times ran a tongue-in-cheek article on the find, speculating that the remains were that of Black Shuck. Soon after, the absurdist Daily Mail was reporting the creature had “stood 7ft tall on its hind legs” (it was 2.36 ft) and the likes of International Business Times and Yahoo! News were reporting the news as verified fact.
The poet and songwriter, Martin Newell wrote on the subject, saying that he was “surprised at how seriously the story was taken” and that even today he had been warned to “be careful”.
“One local woman told me that she’d seen Black Shuck early one summer morning in the 1950s, near Cromer, when returning from a dance. A Suffolk man said he’d seen the dog one evening on the marshes near Felixstowe. I later read an old newspaper story of an encounter in Essex. The account was given of a midwife who had been cycling home after a delivery during the 1930s. One winter’s night, she claimed, she was followed by the creature through the lanes near Tolleshunt Darcy. She added that the dog was huge and no matter how fast she pedalled, it seemed to effortlessly keep up with her. The apparition, which remained silent throughout, then suddenly vanished.” Martin Newell, East Anglian Daily Times
Further reports of demon dogs have been reported right up until the present day. Like with Barghest, the Black Shuck is notable for crossing into poplar culture. The Suffolk band The Darkness feature the creature in a song from their debut 2003 album Permission to Land, while JK Rowling featured a description of the animal in the third Harry Potter novel Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In the coming months, the Black Shuck will also feature as a mini-boss in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, the latest game in their bestselling series.
With their origins lost to time, the tales of Barghest, Black Shuck and Britain’s other demon dogs are quintessential to British folklore. They have crossed from the superstitions of old into modern mediums such as novels, movies and video games. Acting as portents of death and doom, they have become a frightening warning of devilry, witchcraft and the dangers that lurk in every shadow of sleepy country lanes across the land. | https://medium.com/the-mystery-box/mystic-britain-barghest-and-black-shuck-507f13ec055d | ['Michael East'] | 2020-11-03 07:46:52.039000+00:00 | ['Britain', 'British History', 'History', 'Supernatural', 'Folklore'] |
2020年11月9日 アメリカの現実⑪「21世紀の風ー女性を取り巻くダブルスタンダードが徐々に消えてゆく」 | Co-Founder and Managing Member, JaM Japan Marketing, A US-Japan marketing & business consultancy based in the San Francisco Bay Area | https://medium.com/@hisamiohshiba/2020%E5%B9%B411%E6%9C%889%E6%97%A5-%E3%82%A2%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AB%E3%81%AE%E7%8F%BE%E5%AE%9F%E2%91%AA-21%E4%B8%96%E7%B4%80%E3%81%AE%E9%A2%A8%E3%83%BC%E5%A5%B3%E6%80%A7%E3%82%92%E5%8F%96%E3%82%8A%E5%B7%BB%E3%81%8F%E3%83%80%E3%83%96%E3%83%AB%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%81%8C%E5%BE%90%E3%80%85%E3%81%AB%E6%B6%88%E3%81%88%E3%81%A6%E3%82%86%E3%81%8F-a6a1d176839b | ['Hisami Ohshiba'] | 2021-01-09 23:39:12.631000+00:00 | ['Kamala Harris', 'コロナ禍', 'Sexism', 'パンデミック', 'Double Standard'] |
American Hungers | “Since the influenza broke out here there has been quite an epidemic and lots of people are dying,” the letter reads:
There is not so much difference between the death rate in France and right here in this camp. Every few minutes an orderly comes in here with a death report and a couple more go down the street with a soldier who has cashed in and probably his feet will be sticking out. If his case is interesting he is put away with those for post mortem and the next day, we get a number of slides of specimens all over his body.
The author of the letter is my great-grandfather, who was writing his grandfather in October 1918, by some estimates the deadliest month in US history. (My dad, the family archivist, still has that letter — a yellowed page of flowing and faded script.) At the time, my great-grandfather was a soldier in Camp Taylor in Louisville, where he worked at a lab collecting sputum samples from flu-infected soldiers that doctors would analyze. Those grim rounds, as the letter indicates, put him on the front lines of a pandemic that was deadlier than the trench warfare still raging in northern France: the “Spanish flu,” so-called because Spain remained neutral in World War I and, unlike Great Britain or the US, didn’t censor reports of the outbreak.
Coronavirus is devouring the US right now, but the Spanish flu was even more lethal. Close to 500 million people, or about one-third of the world’s population at the time, were infected with the flu, and 20–40 million people may have died from it. (By comparison, COVID-19 deaths worldwide have recently topped one million, with a far larger global population.) The contagion even caused life expectancy in the US in 1918 to drop 12 years, from 51 to 39. All told, deaths from that flu outnumbered all the military and civilian casualties of World War I combined.
In many ways, the medical breakthroughs of the last hundred years have insulated us from the scythes of pain and illness, so it’s jarring to realize that a 21st-century plague is ripping through the US practically uncontained. So much has changed in our national life this year that I felt like I was in a dream-state and also somewhat unsurprised to stand in a CVS store this summer and hear this ad come over the speaker: “Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been estimated that 54 million Americans, including 1 in 4 children, will go hungry this year.”
If “hunger” in the US today seems anachronistic, that’s because it essentially has been: That spot I heard was an awareness ad by Feeding America, and their own language on this topic is not about hunger so much as “food insecurity.” Hunger is a complex subject, in part because it’s largely subjective. To measure it, you’d have to take blood and analyze nutrient levels. Plus, life-threatening conditions of malnutrition no longer occur in the US, at least not on par with what people in the Sahel countries of West Africa might still suffer from. Instead, our dietary diseases tend to be overconsumption mixed with underconsumption. Consequently, food insecurity is a more applicable metric in the US, since it calibrates a person’s ability to access food on a reliable basis.
Food insecurity often leads to yo-yo eating, in which someone may skip meals until a paycheck arrives and then binge on cheap, calorie-dense foods in lieu of more nutritious fare. Which leads to the paradox of a country with high rates of obesity where, during 2009, in the pit of the Great Recession, more than 50 million US Americans were food insecure. That level of food insecurity, pre-pandemic, should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention to the drop in our living standards over the past decade — an odd trend, considering that those standards have risen almost everywhere else across the globe.
Only the US, Brazil, and Hungary are worse off today than when the Social Progress Index was launched nearly ten years ago. Slipping from 19th place (out of 163 countries) in 2011 to 28th in 2020, the US currently ranks in the company of Cyprus, Singapore, and Malta. Our health services are comparable to what people receive in Jordan and Albania. We’re number 100 in the world in discrimination against minorities.
The coronavirus has exacerbated these ills: Around 10 million people in the US reported losing their jobs in the second half of March. By early June, unemployment claims spiked to 40 million. Layoffs soared. Food prices shot up. Two months into the pandemic, one in six adults was food insecure. Perhaps the saddest stories to surface, though, might be the 14 million children who don’t have enough to eat.
In May, photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally set out across the US to chronicle people on the edge of hunger. The photos she took are of families at prayer, neighbors taking meals to their friends, volunteers delivering food to the homeless. But they’re also images of want: Kids cradling bags of donated bread. Kids sitting on crates reaching into bags of Cheetos. Kids eating spaghetti on the floor of a homeless shelter. Among households with children, one in three has reported having insufficient food. According to Lauren Bauer at the Brookings Institution, that is “the highest level in nearly two decades the government has tracked hunger in America.”
Studying the faces of these kids, it’s hard not to feel that our policies have failed them. Back in March, Congress passed legislation that expanded food stamps benefits and broadened nutrition assistance for kids and made cash payments to most households. Since then, though, talks for a new stimulus relief stalled in August, and the chance of a bipartisan deal before the election looks “dim.” Which is just too bad for people waiting in cars lined up bumper-to-bumper en route to food banks. Or workers earning under $14 an hour. Or anyone who has suffered an eviction or a vehicle repossession or the loss of healthcare since March.
From Justinian’s Plague to the Black Death to the Spanish flu, poxes and pestilences have been recurrent features of human existence. But what seems appalling about COVID-19 in the US today is that our response to it has been cavalier and scattershot. A nation that can freeze debt and print money without restraint and produce a relief bill if our lawmakers simply hustle has instead bungled this recovery. Our president admits he downplayed the coronavirus. A Cornell study found that Trump is the single largest driver of misinformation about the pandemic. Trump, along with many others, also rushed to reopen the economy. The result? With just 4% of the world’s population, we have 25% of the world’s coronavirus cases.
One consequence is food insecurity — one of the starkest examples of our lack of investment in our own people.
Now it seems that the liabilities we’ve ignored for generations have come due. For years we saw month-on-month gains in the stock market and assumed everyone must be doing better. We believed there was no need to underwrite affordable housing or healthcare or a higher minimum wage. And now time has found us out.
These days, in the middle of another dark October, I’m inclined to think we have had such a high standard of living that we’ve lost any frame of reference for the great catastrophes of our history, such as the Spanish flu or the Great Depression. And yet the nation feels as if it’s quivering on the edge of mass unrest. So many ingredients for violence are simmering: the pandemic, an election that already feels compromised, the anger of a nation polarized along party lines. These are hallmarks of social decay. Physical and social hungers, persisting too long, lead to chaos, nationalism, democracy dying in daylight.
Witness the circuslike squabbling of the first presidential debate. Trump’s attack style approximates (or shapes) our public discourse. The way he yelled over Biden and Wallace alike gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though the maw of his contempt could swallow everything before him — all the crowds, all the air, all the country itself.
But the pandemic cannot be yelled away. The pandemic serves no agenda. The pandemic simply eats us. We are all its prey, even Trump, and the metrics and forecasts we’ve set for how long it’ll run its course or how many people it’ll kill all turn out to be Pollyannish. Seeing the death toll climb month-on-month, marching upward just like the stock market, it’s also hard not to wonder: Are we even trying to live up to our aspirations for democracy?
Consider just a few of the darker anomalies about the US: We’re the only country to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. We have, by far, the highest prison population rate in the world. And — along with Cuba, Comoros, and Palau — we have signed but never ratified the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which the UN adopted a half-century ago in the dream of guaranteeing people across the world the rights to housing, clothing, water, and food.
Every administration for the past 50-some years, Democrat and Republican alike, has refused to honor this treaty. Instead, in roughly the same timeframe, we made the decision to set out in the opposite direction: suctioning $2.5 trillion each year from the bottom 90% of workers into the hands of the ultrarich. What else can we conclude, except that our legislators — and the vested interests that often dictate their decisions — regard workaday people as sores on the body politic?
In an earlier post this year, I argued that the coronavirus has laid bare how the US only values people who can already afford to ignore disaster. Now it seems the situation is even worse than that. A plague, one of the nightmares of history, has returned, and we are looking upon ourselves for what we are: A country ravenous for profit, feeding on its own people.
Special thanks to Alisha Wheatley and Nick Otten for insights and concepting and Matthew Zoeller for art direction. | https://wolfordcharles.medium.com/american-hungers-84b84a23dba5 | ['Charles Wolford'] | 2020-10-28 14:45:44.746000+00:00 | ['Food Insecurity', 'Elections', 'United States', 'Coronavirus', 'Hunger'] |
Building Git in Elixir — Part 5 (Build Index) | In the previous article, I focused on storing nested trees as Merkle trees so that egit can store nested directories. In this article, I will focus on writing building index so that in subsequent articles we can store changes incrementally in repository.
A Bit of Theory
Git Index is used to provide cache of all the blobs representing current state of the project. Git add command uses this information to incrementally save changes in repository. Index file caches a lot of information from filesystem, such as size of file, last modified time, file mode, etc that Git add command can use to speed up operations.
At this stage it’s a good idea to inspect index file that resides under .git folder. We have the directory structure as below —
If we do a git add and inspect index with hexdump command we can see —
For understanding this data format you can look at [5]. But in short it has —
— 12 byte header that contains —
4-byte signature (‘D’, ‘I’, ‘R’, ‘C’)
4-byte version number — in this case version is 2
32 bit number of entries in index — in this case 4
For each entry, it stores ten 4-byte numbers that’s obtained via call to stat() function, 20-byte SHA-1 of the blob that appears, 2-byte set of flags (that includes length of filename), filename padded with zeros such that total length is multiple of 8.
Stat() information stored in ten 4-byte numbers are —
32-bit ctime seconds
32-bit ctime nanoseconds
32-bit mtime seconds
32-bit mtime nanosecond
32-bit dev
32-bit ino
32 bit mode
32-bit uid
32-bit gid
32-bit file size
The index is ended by another 20-byte SHA-1 hash — which is hash of the entire index content itself so that Git can check integrity of index itself.
With git ls-files we can see all the files that are part of index —
For a single entry as below —
It’s easy to see first 12-byte header (underlined yellow), and last 20-byte SHA-1 (underlined red). Rest belong to the entry for hello.txt.
Focus of This Article
In this article, focus is to replicate this behaviour —
add new egit add command
command this command will build the index
Elixir Code Walkthrough
The finished code for this article is available here — https://github.com/imeraj/elixir_git
The README file in the repository contains instructions to build egit and how to use egit add command.
Build Index & egit add Implementation
cli.ex now include a new clause to handle egit add command —
Since we need the ability to store files and nested directories, all the paths are sent to the processing logic as a list —
To process new egit add command, there is a new module that looks like —
Here —
line 11–26 — processes the paths and for each path it calls Workspace.list_files() to list the files, reduces them into index. So once this block of code executes, we have a list of indices for all the paths given
— processes the paths and for each path it calls to list the files, reduces them into index. So once this block of code executes, we have a list of indices for all the paths given line 28–32 — combines those indices and get a flat list of all entries that goes inside index
— combines those indices and get a flat list of all entries that goes inside index line 34–35 — does the final writing of this single final index to file
Newly, added type Index does most of the heavy lifting —
Here —
line 10–13 — creates an entry for index (which is of new type Egit.Types.Index.Entry and updates the index by adding new entry
— creates an entry for index (which is of new type and updates the index by adding new entry line 107–123 — defines the to_s() function that builds the entry as described above in theory section
— defines the function that builds the entry as described above in theory section line 15–45 — defines write_updates() function that takes the final index and writes to file by first creating an index.lock file. The writes process is broken into three functions so that after writing each entry the SHA-1 value can be updated —
finish_write() writes the final hash for the entire index.
Once these writes are done, it renames index.lock to index so that we get our final index.
Take egit For a Spin
Finally, it’s time to take egit for a spin. I ran our newly added egit add command on the same directory structure mentioned in theory section above which gives the same results—
Conclusion
In part 5 of this article series, I have added egit add command to build index so that in subsequent articles I can build on that and support incremental update to files instead of storing entires contents using egit commit every time.
For more elaborate and in depth future technical posts please follow me here or on twitter.
References | https://itnext.io/building-git-in-elixir-part-5-build-index-e10098836a83 | ['Meraj Molla'] | 2021-04-01 12:48:01.173000+00:00 | ['Ruby', 'Git', 'Elixir', 'Software Development', 'Version Control'] |
How OneCoin Exchange Workforce Management Software | Workforce Management Software for Smart Call Center Although of size, all call centers have the same basic aims of examining expenses, optimizing call center staffing, and connection co-operation levels. common religion is that only larger centers demand and can manage call center Smart software. But Smart Call Centers do have some unique provocations when conflicted with larger centers that make the case for Workforce Management Software
Smart Call for : Since Smart calling patterns serve to be notably more sever al and characterized by peaks and valleys in Smart centers, Smart call centers can be trouble for many administrators. They have to respond to brads in volume on-the-fly, frequently externally any traditional data to back-up their verdicts.
Whereas nobler centers can frequently maintain schedule departures and defection without as much exertion, Smart center achievement aches when a few agents are not available. For the situation, in a Smart call center of fifty agencies, ownership is significant. If five agencies take breaks or go to lunch at the same time, possession decreases by 10%, and assistance levels go with it.
Retention is one of the key factors of any capacity Smart call center, but it’s especially significant when the call center orbits around a bound group. of the many reasons factors leave is because seems erratic and does not think of their special demands. Operator spirit expands when everyone experiences and receives schedules in advancement, which diminishes turnover and lets everyone know what’s expected of them.
While certain are only a few of the many concerns faced by Smart call centers, they show that you don’t have to be a large center to demand call center workforce management software. When you think about the cost to benefit ratio, most call center managers choose call center staffing software. Presently, you can be small and act big.
workforce management you are always having to walk a fine course according to the needs of the business with the needs of the employee. You’ve got to make those intricate decisions around if popular prominences mean you need to dispute that time of the question that quite came through as well as are you able to establish that new shift that is inquired so the agent can improve their work-life balance?
But the knowledge of the smart call center is normally very different. Agents track down workforce management and exhibit a necessity to declare their case immediately by yielding their whole pharmaceutical archives from their most advanced bout. Everything enhances special. Any disallowed application is taken subjectively and gets ranked closely facing any other request that had ever been previously approved for the extra agent. It is a difficult and important action to be able to arrive across as unbiased.
Whether your favorite call center system acronym is ACD, CRM, IVR, QM, or WFM, you just don’t have the accounts of a large call center. It is extremely more arduous to confirm the large costs divided up over a Smart group of factors. You often have to make do with what you have. Many centers can afford a system and are then forced to do all of their content.
Because of this, has improved Excel-based software solutions, that take the protection of Excel’s confidence and adaptability while performing low-cost forecasting also solutions with a familiar look and feel. All of our clarifications many of them signify even Open!, appear with a particular education video of whence to use that particular merchandise and explain the Workforce Management beliefs throughout it. So, despite boots can rise presenting OneCoin Exchange WFM for their Smart call centers.
We know that when you flip a coin, you should have “heads” of the time, but that only really happens if you are flipping it a million times. But if you it just 10 times, you are unlikely to get 5 “heads”. This is due to the law of large numbers. In monotonous terms, it means that the average of the results obtained from numerous trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed. In other accounts, the more times you the coin, the closer you get to have 50% “heads” during your group of the coin. If you do a bunch of times, you can then see that you get “heads” 50% of the time and thus project a 50% chance of “heads” for your future group.
This is all excellent and well for a large call center where you get a large individual volume on a given day and even on a period level, but it is much more complex for Smart call centers. Due to the Smart sizes in all viewpoints of WFM, you just get a bunch more variability which makes it much harder to divine proposed influences and issues. OneCoin
you do a ton of examination and come up with results that point to you having a 50% chance of “heads”. So, when you calculate how many “heads” you will get when you flip the coin 20 times, you feel confident that it should be about 10, give or take a few. But then when you end up with 14 “heads” and end up missing service level for the day, operations comes to you and asks what happened OneCoin.
OneCoin Exchange master of, well, all trades as well
The main areas within WFM tend to potentially include capacity planning, short-term forecasting, scheduling, real-time management, and reporting. is typically a strong correlation between the number of agents a call center has, and how large of a WFM team is needed. As such, analysts are typically assigned to one or a few of these areas to focus on and perfect. Smart call centers require the ability to multitask, as well as understand and handle all aspects of WFM. In some cases, the person responsible for workforce management is having to split their time with other roles within the call center as well.
The same basic workforce management principles apply whether you are a large call center or a small one. However, certainly is some unique challenges that are associated with Smart call centers. Be sure to check out some of our resources here at SpreadsheetScheduler.com to help you with your Smart call center:
Steps and Processes for doing Workforce Management
Smart Call Center WFM Starter Pack
Free Return on Investment Calculator Tool
Free WFM products page
Get The Most From Your WFM Software
The most important thing that most call centers can do to improve their WFM processes is to invest in WFM software.
estimates that about half of all call center organizations worldwide have deployed dedicated WFM software, though there is a wide discrepancy among firms of different sizes. Its data shows that in North America more than 70% of organizations with more than 75 agents use WFM software, whereas only 30% of organizations with fewer than 75 seats do so. The administrative costs of scheduling, and the benefits from optimizing the process, grow exponentially with the size of your operations. Unless you have a very Smart call center operation say, 20 agents or fewer if you don’t use WFM software, you need to start.
Although the sophistication, feature sets, and costs differ from vendor to vendor, almost all WFM packages do the following:
OneCoin Exchange Collect data
This data comes from automatic call directors, multimedia skills-based routing packages, and other relevant systems.
Forecast contact demand
Most packages start with historical call volumes usually several weeks of recent data, plus several years of data to project seasonal changes. then let OneCoin analysts project overall growth trends, incorporate assumptions that address the uncertainty in the number and length of calls a center will receive, and allow adjustments for special events such as holidays and upcoming sales promotions.
Forecasting algorithms vary in sophistication but in virtually all cases, a well-tuned WFM forecasting module will produce more accurate results than will the intuition of a call center manager or scheduler.
Although call volume simulation is not yet common in call center WFM, we’ll probably see more of it in WFM packages as computing power increases.
An interesting entry that uses both formula-based and simulation-based forecasting is AgentTime Scheduler from Portage Communications North Bend. Portage Communications sells WFM software primarily to Smart and medium-sized call centers.
Create work schedules that balance the forecasted workload against agent availability and shift flexibility, costs, and service level requirements. The schedules can include vacations and time for lunch and other breaks, meetings, and coaching or training sessions.
Assign agents optimally to schedules. We don’t mean to suggest that assigning schedules should be a purely top-down process. Given the difficulty in retaining good agents, the process has to consider their needs and desires, too.
A recent trend is to give points to agents based on seniority, performance levels, and skill sets, then have the WFM system assign agents by bid order preference to the available schedules, subject to constraints that the center’s WFM analyst specifies.
Provides information that lets supervisors, managers, and analysts engage in intraday management.
Monitor each agent’s adherence to schedules. This takes place in both real times and over relevant intervals, to help supervisors decide when to investigate or intervene.
If you’re looking at the new OneCoin Exchange Another recent trend in WFM software is providing individualized Web-based portals that present selected information to each agent, supervisor, manager, or analyst. individuals OneCoin Exchange software, you should examine whether it lets you specify permissions for both groups and e.g., allowing each supervisor to approve schedule changes only for the agents that he or she supervises.
One trend which we’re keeping an eye on is the growing integration of WFM software with other WFO products such as quality monitoring applications. We‘ll likely see several vendor consolidations this year and beyond. We’ve already seen the first fruits of this trend:
WFM software developer OneCoin Exchange;
Performance management software acquired WFM developer OneCoin Exchange and was, in turn, acquired by Smart center suite developer Concerto Software;
Smart call centers will likely look to broad suites with pre-integrated modules. The largest organizations, however, will want to select “best of breed” components and will expect those packages to share data effectively. We think that Leamon has it right when he says, “sharing an interface isn’t critical. The more compelling thing is providing prepackaged integrations and working with companies that know how to work with each other.” In addition to integration, we’ll no doubt also see increasing feature sets in WFM software over time.
Thank You Visit My WebSite | https://medium.com/@nasirabbs77625/how-onecoin-exchange-workforce-management-software-de15e08358c1 | [] | 2020-12-27 04:58:09.791000+00:00 | ['Onecoinexchange', 'Digital Marketing', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Software', 'Onecoin'] |
When Strangers become Friends | Trading stories while passing the time
Venice Beach 2010 - Playing guitar for homeless friends
The best moments I ever experienced throughout my 29 years of life are free things. Main being sharing stories, my best friend is 65 and we sit and talk about our lives for hours. I’ve always been blessed with the presence of older folks who love to pass down humble knowledge. I suppose due to lack of parental figures, I believe they’re always divinely guided. It so happens that any time I’ve been in doubt and in need of mentoring or wise words. The universe always brings me the right words in the perfect way, it never fails actually. Am I always ready to hear the right words? No, but the universe will always send a messenger of truth for who seeks it. Not just having the ears to listen is enough, having the wisdom to transmute the knowledge is key here.
The art of listening and putting it into conscious action is far from an easy task. Countless times I’ve heard the right words but didn’t approve of the self-reflecting it creates. Many of us like to believe most things that happen to us, are a product of external forces beyond our control. We seek things to help control the external elements in our lives, avoiding what makes us look within. Self-reflecting tends to be in my opinion the greatest source of empathy, when you understand yourself understanding others isn’t a hard task. I have had more meaningful conversations with homeless folks in the park than I ever did with a family member. When you put yourself in a position to think less of yourself and more of others. You learn to look at yourself from different perspectives.
You can sit back in a healthy manner and introspectively view yourself or life, to target the imbalance creating your dis-ease! Liberating ourselves from defeatism and self-sabotage is never an easy task. It’s not about overthinking and judging yourself in harsh manners. It’s knowing what is and isn’t you in times of change or the need for change. Growth is essential for all and an inevitable thing, but it’s how we grow that counts. Most of the elements of nature like how the Taoist philosophy expresses are self-motivated. Animals like other species and organisms don’t sit and wonder if they grew less today than yesterday. They work together in coexistence with each other with many forms of communication. One of the keys to growth and healing is knowing you’re not alone, hearing the stories of others growing alongside you like a forest of great trees! Connect to your network of the seen and unseen, so that you may grow. Reach out! Share your opinion, knowledge, advice, etc. It may just be what someone else is seeking! I believe in YOU! | https://medium.com/curious/when-strangers-become-friends-deaf050a81f6 | ['Kurt Anderson'] | 2021-01-07 02:52:27.494000+00:00 | ['Clarity', 'Awareness', 'Strength', 'Friendship'] |
靈魂急轉彎▷線上看完整版(2020)电影在线 — 观看和下载HD. 靈魂急轉彎的剧情简介 · · · · · ·… | 靈魂急轉彎的剧情简介 · · · · · ·
主角Gardner是一个生活很容易看穿的中学音乐老师，而他真正的梦想是弹钢琴 — — 不是像他现在做的一样只教孩子们弹钢琴，而是以做音乐、做爵士乐来谋生。当他终于拿到人生第一份音乐人的工作，却不小心掉进了下水道“死”了，并在一个黑洞中醒来，成为了一个孤独的灵魂。
不久，它发现自己不是独自一魂，而是到了YOU研讨会，另一个外号叫22的灵魂已经参加了研讨会数百年，它极度憎恨人类，一直未去附体。很快的，Gardner和22一起回到现实世界，在那里，Gardner将学会“有了灵魂”真正的含义。
➥➥ [現在觀看]»➫️ https://t.co/Bh17NO6zzx?Soul.123Movies
➥➥ Link Akses»➫️ https://t.co/lX4Z8G5EO2?hd.123Soul.com
导演: 彼特·道格特 / 坎普·鲍尔斯
编剧: 彼特·道格特 / 麦克·琼斯 / 坎普·鲍尔斯
主演: 杰米·福克斯 / 蒂娜·菲 / 格拉汉姆·诺顿 / 瑞切尔·豪斯 / 戴维德·迪格斯 / 更多…
类型: 动画 / 音乐 / 奇幻
官方网站: https://movies.disney.com/soul
制片国家/地区: 美国
语言: 英语
上映日期: 2020–12–25(中国大陆/美国网络) / 2020–10–11(伦敦电影节)
片长: 101分钟
又名: 灵魂奇遇记(港) / 灵魂急转弯(台) / 灵魂 / 心灵
IMDb链接: tt2948372
靈魂急轉彎 澳門上映
靈魂急轉彎 2020上映
靈魂急轉彎 电影完整版
靈魂急轉彎 線上看下載
靈魂急轉彎 2020 下載
靈魂急轉彎 線上看完整版
靈魂急轉彎 線上看完整版小鴨
靈魂急轉彎 (2020)完整版本
靈魂急轉彎 |1080P|完整版本
靈魂急轉彎 线上看(2020)完整版
線上看(2020)完整版
靈魂急轉彎 線上看電影(2020)
靈魂急轉彎 2020年再次觀看電影
靈魂急轉彎 線上看|2020上映|完整版小鴨|線上看小鴨|
靈魂急轉彎 上看
靈魂急轉彎 主題曲
靈魂急轉彎 小鴨影音
靈魂急轉彎 線上小鴨
靈魂急轉彎 完整版本
靈魂急轉彎 香港上映
靈魂急轉彎 線上看小鴨影音
靈魂急轉彎 2020 線上看
靈魂急轉彎 1080P 下載
靈魂急轉彎 免費線上看電影
靈魂急轉彎 电影在线2020年
靈魂急轉彎 (2020)在线观看
靈魂急轉彎 [2020]观看和下载
靈魂急轉彎 [2020,HD]观看和下载
靈魂急轉彎 singapora(2020) 完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020上映
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) HD線上看
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看小鴨
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看下載
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020 下載
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看完整版小鴨
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) (2020)完整版本
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) |1080P|完整版本
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 线上看(2020)完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看(2020)完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul)(2020)
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul)2020年再次觀看電影
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看|2020上映|完整版小鴨|線上看小鴨|
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 澳門上映
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020上映
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) HD線上看
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看小鴨
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 电影完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看下載
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020 下載
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul)上看完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看完整版小鴨
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) (2020)完整版本
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) |1080P|完整版本
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 线上看(2020)完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看(2020)完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看電影(2020)
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020年再次觀看電影
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看|2020上映|完整版小鴨|線上看小鴨|
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 上看
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 主題曲
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 小鴨影音
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上小鴨
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 完整版本
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 香港上映
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看小鴨影音
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020 線上看
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020在线
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 1080P 下載
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 免費線上看電影
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 电影在线2020年
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) (2020)在线观看
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) [2020]观看和下载
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) [2020,HD]观看和下载
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) singapora(2020) 完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看| 2020最新電影| 小鴨影音|
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 免費下載
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 下載 百度
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020上看
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 免費線上看電影
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) -完整版小鴨 HD
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul)上看(2020)
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 台灣上映 2020
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) (2020) 線上看
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul)上(2020 HD)
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020 電影完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020 線上 完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) -完整版 小鴨 2020
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 免費在線觀看(2020)
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) [2020] 線上完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 线上看(2020)完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul)上 [2020] 完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) (2020)免費線上看電影
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 線上看線上(2020)完整版
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) -HD 完整版 小鴨 [2020]
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 上看2020 HD.BD.1080p
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) HD|1080p|4K| 香港流媒體
靈魂急轉彎 (Soul) 2020完整版 小鴨 (HD.BLURAY)
In 1889, on November 1 in Gotha, Germany Anna Therese Johanne Hoch, who later would be known as Hannah Hoch was born. Being the eldest of five children, the girl was brought up in a comfortable and quiet environment of the small town. Her parents, a supervisor in an insurance company and an amateur painter sent her to Girl’s High school. However, at the age of 15 Hannah had to quit studying for the long six years to take care of her newborn sister. Only in 1912 she continued her education with Harold Bengen in School of Applied Arts, mastering glass design. As the World War I broke up Hannah returned to the native town to work in the Red Cross.
The first years after war the young woman recommenced her studying, getting to know graphic arts. 1915 was highlighted by an acquaintance with an Austrian artist Raoul Hausmann, which grew into the long-lasting romantic relationship and involvement in Berlin Dada movement. For ten years till 1926 Hoch worked in Berlin’s major publisher of newspapers and magazines. Her task was to design embroidering, knitting and crocheting patterns for the booklets.
Being on vacation with her beloved in 1918, Hannah discovered ‘the principle of photomontage in cut-and-paste images that soldiers sent to their families’ (National gallery of Art). This find affected greatly on her artistic production, and she created mass-media photographs comprising the elements of photomontage and handwork patterns, thus combining traditional and modern culture. Her prior preoccupation was to represent the ‘new woman’ of the Weimar Republic with new social role and given freedoms.
Hoch was the only woman in Berlin Dada, who took part in all kinds of events and exhibitions showcasing her socially critical works of art. Till 1931 she participated in exhibitions but with the rise of National Social regime was forbidden to present her creative work. Till her last breath in 1978 Hannah Hoch lived and worked in the outskirts of Berlin-Heiligensee.
The piece of art which is going to be analyzed in this research is ‘The beautiful girl’ designed in 1919–1920. It combines the elements of technology and females. In the middle of the picture one can clearly see a woman dressed in a modern bathing suit with a light bulb on her head which probably serves as a sun umbrella. In the background a large advertisement with a woman’s hair-do on top is presented. Maud Lavin describes strange human as ‘she is part human, part machine, part commodity’ (Lavin). The woman is surrounded by the images of industrialization as tires, gears, signals and BMW logos. A woman’s profile with the cat eyes, untrusting and skeptical, in the upper right corner is eye-catching as well. This unusually large eye symbolizes DADA movement — a monocle, which is present in almost every Hoch’s work. The colour scheme does not offer rich palette of tints, including mostly black, white, orange and red pieces. The photo is surrounded by the BMW circles which add the spots of blue.
An apt description of the piece is given in the book ‘Cut with the Kitchen Knife’ and states that it is ‘a portrait of a modern woman defined by signs of femininity, technology, media and advertising’ (Lavin). In other words Hannah Hoch focused on the woman of the new age, free and keeping up with the fast-moving world. The artist promoted feministic ideas and from her point of view urbanization and modern technologies were meant to give hope to woman to gain equality of genders. With this photomontage she commented on how the woman was expected to combine the role of a wife and mother with the role of a worker in the industrialized world. The light bulb instead of a face shows that women were perceived as unthinking machines which do not question their position and can be turned on or off at any time at man’s will. But at the same time they were to remain attractive to satisfy men’s needs. The watch is viewed as the representation of how quickly women are to adapt to the changes.
In a nutshell, Hoch concentrated on two opposite visions of the modern woman: the one from the television screens — smoking, working, wearing sexy clothes, voting and the real one who remained being a housewife.
The beautiful girl’ is an example of the art within the DADA movement. An artistic and literal current began in 1916 as the reaction to World War I and spread throughout Northern America and Europe. Every single convention was challenged and bourgeois society was scandalized. The Dadaists stated that over-valuing conformity, classism and nationalism among modern cultures led to horrors of the World War I. In other words, they rejected logic and reason and turned to irrationality, chaos and nonsense. The first DADA international Fair was organized in Berlin in 1920 exposing a shocking discontentment with military and German nationalism (Dada. A five minute history).
Hannah Hoch was introduced to the world of DADA by Raoul Hausman who together with Kurt Schwitters, Piet Mondrian and Hans Richter was one of the influential artists in the movement. Hoch became the only German woman who referred to DADA. She managed to follow the general Dadaist aesthetic, but at the same time she surely and steadily incorporated a feminist philosophy. Her aim was to submit female equality within the canvass of other DADA’s conceptions.
Though Hannah Hoch officially was a member of the movement, she never became the true one, because men saw her only as ‘a charming and gifted amateur artist’ (Lavin). Hans Richter, an unofficial spokesperson shared his opinion about the only woman in their community in the following words: ‘the girl who produced sandwiches, beer and coffee on a limited budget’ forgetting that she was among the few members with stable income.
In spite of the gender oppressions, Hannah’s desire to convey her idea was never weakened. Difficulties only strengthened her and made her an outstanding artist. A note with these return words was found among her possessions: ‘None of these men were satisfied with just an ordinary woman. But neither were they included to abandon the (conventional) male/masculine morality toward the woman. Enlightened by Freud, in protest against the older generation. . . they all desired this ‘New Woman’ and her groundbreaking will to freedom. But — they more or less brutally rejected the notion that they, too, had to adopt new attitudes. . . This led to these truly Strinbergian dramas that typified the private lives of these men’ (Maloney).
Hoch’s technique was characterized by fusing male and female parts of the body or bodies of females from different epochs — a ‘traditional’ woman and ‘modern’, liberated and free of sexual stereotypes one. What’s more, combining male and female parts, the female ones were always more distinctive and vibrant, while the male ones took their place in the background. Hannah created unique works of art experimenting with paintings, collages, graphic and photography. Her women were made from bits and pieces from dolls, mannequins of brides or children as these members of the society were not considered as valuable.
Today Hannah Hoch is most associated with her famous photomontage ‘Cut with the kitchen knife DADA through the last Weimer Beer-Belly Cultural epoch of Germany’ (1919–1920). This piece of art highlights social confusion during the era of Weimar Republic, oppositionists and government radicals (Grabner). In spite of never being truly accepted by the rest of her society, this woman with a quiet voice managed to speak out loud her feministic message.
Looking at Hannah Hoch’s art for the first time I found it confusing, because couldn’t comprehend the meaning. It was quite obvious that every single piece and structure is a symbol of the era, its ideas and beliefs. However, after having learned about her life and constant endeavors to declare about female’s right, little by little I started to realize what’s what. As an object for research I chose ‘The beautiful girl’ as, to my mind, its theme and message intersects with the modern tendency: a successful, clever, beautiful and free woman has to become one in no time, cause the world is moving faster and faster. I enjoyed working with this artist as her example is inspiring and is worth following. | https://medium.com/@irpanbudeg/%E9%9D%88%E9%AD%82%E6%80%A5%E8%BD%89%E5%BD%8E-%E7%B7%9A%E4%B8%8A%E7%9C%8B%E5%AE%8C%E6%95%B4%E7%89%88-2020-%E7%94%B5%E5%BD%B1%E5%9C%A8%E7%BA%BF-%E8%A7%82%E7%9C%8B%E5%92%8C%E4%B8%8B%E8%BD%BDhd-f90e33b0927f | [] | 2020-12-26 17:20:04.750000+00:00 | ['Taiwan', '2020', 'Soul', 'Covid 19', 'Full Version'] |
Build An Android App To Monitor and Convert “bitcoin and etherum” in 20 Local Currencies | In the era of the digital world, the monetary system is constantly changing, and things that has been popular are recently being replaced by improved technologies.
The payment industry is particularly affected by this digital era of cryptocurrencies given the public acceptance it has received by many countries and payment platforms. Countries like Japan has already made it a legal means of payment alongside many others.
A friend once wrote “ Our ecosystem is no longer just about the code but about people who build and use products.
Recently, I’ve realized that 50% of my time (including weekends) is distributed to VS code, the terminal, and Slack. This whole thing is becoming a lifestyle and of course, I’m embracing it — it’s what I love”.
I believe he’s not alone. A lot of us spend up to 50hrs a week on productivity tools. Why should we limit it to just code? Why not extend it to cover daily life utility tasks for us.
With that in mind, I’ve put up a developer tool to show the possibilities of monitoring these cryptocurrencies in realtime on your android devices. Not just that, you will be able to convert them across 20 different local currencies.
So in this tutorial, we’ll walk through how you can build this application for yourself leveraging on the api we’ll be providing for this purpose.
DEMO
It’s always good practice to have a visual and practical idea of what you’re building and how it works, so you can take a look at this short clip to see how this app works, you can also access the source code on github. Without further ado, let’s head on over to Android Studio and start building..
Side Knowledge
By virtue of this article, you will learn a few other Android Development skills like:
Making API calls
Processing nested Json objects with iterators
Making network requests with volley
Working with recyclerviews and cardviews
Mathematical conversions with formats
etc
Technologies
Before we go ahead and start building, it is wise to talk about the technologies we’ll be using so it won’t look confusing when you come across them as we progress.
Volley — a third party library that allows us make network requests seamlessly
— a third party library that allows us make network requests seamlessly Recyclerview/CardView — Android special layouts for better organizing contents on screen
Now create a new Android Studio project called “CryptoCompare”by now this should be a fairly basic step however if you’re just starting off, refer to any of my previous posts on how to set up a new AS project.
Once you’re done creating a new project, install the dependencies for the technologies we talked about. Open your app level build.gradle file and add:
click sync to install dependencies
MainActivity Layout
Then open Activity_main.xml and set up the layout like so:
This is quite a simple layout with a toolbar and three TextView objects for local currency, BTC and ETH respectively, this is primarily just serving as headers for the values to be loaded remotely into the recyclerview we defined below the TextView objects. This layout should look like this in your xml visualizer:
Hey, yours might not look exactly like this but then it shouldn’t, because i used a custom background image which you probably don’t have. The important thing to look out for is the three TextView objects showing up as expected and the blue lines denoting the area covered by your recyclerview and probably the toolbar.
When we make an api call that will return the values of these TextView objects, we’ll simply pass the data into our CardView layout and then use the layout to populate the recyclerview accordingly, make sense ? okay lets continue.
CardView Layout
Talking about CardView, let’s create a new layout resource file called “card_items.xml”. This will be the CardView layout where we will define the contents we’d like to display on the recyclerview i.e Currency, BTC and ETH. So create the new resource file and set it up like so:
This is a simple CardView layout with three TextView objects that we predefined with dummy values to serve as place holders for the actual data we’ll be getting from our api. Just for the sake of clarity, your xml visualizer for this layout should look like this:
Now let’s head over to our MainActivity.java file and get interactive. Open MainActivity.java and initialize the recyclerview object. Then we start making the api call. First we store the api inside a variable we defined as “private static final String URL_DATA” and then use it to build our JSONObject request like so:
What we have done in the onCreate() method here is quite simple, we defined our api in a string variable, initialized our toolbar, texts and recyclerview. We also created an ArrayList from a CardItems class that we are yet to create but will do so soon. Notice we also called a method loadURLData(). This is the method where we make the request to the api to return the values of the bitcoin, etherum and their respective values in 20 currencies. If you copied this snippet into your studio and got errors then don’t fret, you’re not lost, actually we called a method and even two classes we are yet to create:
loadURLData()
MyAdapter class
class CardItems class.
So go back inside the MainActivity class and create the loadURLData() method and set it up like so:
loadURData()
Here we are simply making an api call with volley passing in the variable that stores the Api. The method returns a response from where we then extract our btc and eth values into a JSONObject. Then we use the iterator<?> to iterate through the nested object and match the individual btc and eth values to their respective currencies keysBTC and keysETH . Next we create the MyAdapter class. So create a new java class called MyAdapter and set it up like so:
MyAdapeter class
The MyAdapter class is associated with our recyclerview view object. We use it to organize the contents of the recyclerview. In this context, we simply inflated the card_items.xml layout and then used the implemented methods to create viewHolders and bind it’s contents to the inflated layout.
Okay let’s step through this for a bit, by the way if you see any red lines at this point, don’t worry you are not alone, i’ll explain why you got the red lines and how to overcome it. From the top, when we created the MyAdapter class, we extended RcyclerView.Adapter<MyAdapter.ViewHolder> and passed into it the the cardItemsList and the Context, which prompted us to implement it’s associating methods ( viewHolder() and onBindViewHolder() ). Inside the viewHolder() method we simply inflated the card_items.xml layout file and returned a new viewHolder(v) method.
Then in the onBindViewHolder() method, we created an instance of the CardItems class and then stored the values of the cardItem objects into it’s respective variables (curr, btcVal and ethVal). Then to finally bind these variables to their respective positions on the viewHolder, we set them on the viewHolder holder with the help of our CardItems instance where we defined the setters and getters.
Finally, notice that when we extended the MyAdapter class, we passed in <MyAdapter.ViewHolder> hence, we created the ViewHolder class inside the MyAdapter class where we simply initialized all the view objects in the card_item.xml file, including the LinearLayout.
CardItems class
Finally, to finish setting up our MainActivity, we create the CardItems class. The CardItems class will simply help us generate setters and getters for the contents of our card_items.xml file which we have earlier initialized in the onCreat() method of the MainActivity class . So create a new java class called CardItems and set it up like so:
At this point everything is correctly set up. If you run the app, you should now see that the contents we passed from the JSON response into our card_items layout file will show up on the layout which in turn gets laid out on the recyclerview like so: | https://medium.com/quick-code/build-an-android-app-to-monitor-and-convert-bitcoin-and-etherum-in-20-local-currencies-6628a9058a29 | ['Ekene Eze'] | 2018-02-01 17:05:03.845000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Development', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Android', 'Android App Development', 'Bitcoin'] |
022: My Journey to Understand Types in TypeScript, Day 2 | 022: My Journey to Understand Types in TypeScript, Day 2
I’m totally cherry-picking the content I’m looking up on TypeScript. It’s neat that TypeScript is code analysis for JavaScript. It’s neat that types are layered over JS to help catch errors and bugs. What I want is to understand types well, and because my primary (and only) coding language is JS, I want to learn to layer types over my code to write cleaner and make better decisions.
However, I don’t want to write code that needs an extra step (or many) in compiling to run. Let types help me in development. As far as my applications are concerned, I’ll only be writing JS. And query languages. For now.
Lean is what I’m working towards.
It was for this purpose that I originally began looking into TypeScript. And also one of the reasons I ended up dropping off learning TypeScript further: I don’t actually want to write TypeScript. However, the whole type system may work to my benefit in writing GraphQL APIs. We shall see.
022/100 | https://medium.com/nonsensecodes/022-my-journey-to-understand-types-in-typescript-day-2-89a3e861b42 | ['Joshua Alexander'] | 2020-12-01 07:55:38.409000+00:00 | ['Typescript', 'GraphQL', '100daysofcode'] |
My Month in an Organic Frozen Food Factory | This is not a piece of journalism. I got a job at Amy’s Kitchen because I needed to pay rent, and to buy wine. Well, I don’t need to buy wine, but usually while I’m working at a job that I need to pay rent, I need wine. This job was no exception.
I think what I mean to say by this is that there are thoughts in here that have more to do with the feeling of being trapped than would be traditional to a piece of journalism, wherein the journalist knows they are simply a tourist and observing.
The fact that I went in just like everyone else, deaf dumb, humbled enough to do mindless repetitive tasks all day… I didn’t go into the job with the idea it’d become a piece of writing. I read an article years ago that was about how terrible it was to work in an Amazon warehouse, I assumed that the writer of that piece chose Amazon specifically, and I always assumed that any of us who read that piece already knew the work was going to be terrible. We read the story to have our assumptions confirmed. I can’t say that I ever really put much thought into the process of frozen food manufacturing. You assume it wouldn’t be a great job, but food is different than Amazon. Food is necessary. Though, of course, most of the ways we consume it aren’t.
I’ve spent most of my adult life supporting myself in the restaurant industry. Some jobs have been better than others. They’ve had better fringe benefits. The after shift beers flowed more freely, or the waitresses were more cute. In one restaurant I actually learned a lot, and the head chef was a gentle contemplative man who ran a good and curious kitchen. Though his English was not perfect, and he was embarrassed by this, so he didn’t say that much. This often made for a strangely charged atmosphere in the afternoons, where people hardly spoke, and the air had an electric ripple of expectation for nothing.
Nothing crazy has ever happened to me in a kitchen, though it seems like it should have. People basically did their jobs without too much hassle (honestly, given the virtual slavery of the business, this continues to surprise me). It may also have something to do with me since I’ve never been a good trash talker. Never had my Down and Out in Paris and London spat with a cook colleague where we curse at each other for the whole shift.
I might even say that this is the worst part of working in a corporatized food plant; there’s no way you’d get in an argument. No way to exchange feeling. You are, ultimately, infantilized. There are lots of rules, which to the adult rational mind, seem often arbitrary. Perhaps good guidelines, but the nice thing about guidelines is they leave sway for common sense. Play, a little levity with the rules that guide us. Our society the rich and the poor. Whom is cooking for whom.
Driving into the plant’s parking lot is the first indicator that we, the employees, are the in-glorious class. Beat up coupes, sedans from the ‘90s sit in untidy rows. More claustrophobic than your average grocery store parking lot, it is distinct in the uniformity of cracked windshields and old pickups. Though here and there you’ll see a Mercedes, older 2008 maybe, or you’ll see a Mustang. A brand new pickup. But this isn’t that much different from the cars parked in the average trailer park; U.S. citizens still have money tucked away somewhere.
To clock in for work they have an electric scanner with a camera which shoots a quick photo. These are placed at the relative height of what must be the average stature of Amy’s workers (35–45% hispanic women? don’t quote me on that). Often the photos would end up being of my chest or shoulder. Sometimes I notice people specifically trying to get their face in the camera’s window. If someone had made it clear to me that this was an absolute requirement of my job, to get a face shot eight times a day as I clocked in and out for breaks and lunch, I think I’d begin sending anonymous postcards to big brother watchgroups.
So here we are, already we’re at the first function of corporate policy which makes me scratch my head. Is the point of the photo taking to protect them, if, say: some family member took a workers card, and went into work for them? Does that seem excessively paranoid to you? Or no, I’m the weirdo for thinking there’s a metaphysical cost to the human soul for the presentation of faux efficiency. Well, maybe, but I’m going down that rabbit hole anyway baby.
I mean, yeah, probably most of their operating procedure is making the system idiot proof because of the amount of inevitable turnover, due to the monotonous and sometimes heavy work.
But I say, if you made the work a little more interesting you’d have less turnover, which means you could slack some rules making the work slightly more bearable (or just less infantilizing).
I’m an idealist. Though for a vegetarian pioneer, in the realm of ready-to-eat meals, you’d think they’d carry some of that too.
Most of their employees don’t eat Amy’s food. I’ve heard it called gross. Though primarily it’s the fact that the food’s not made for them. The work is taxing, no one is counting calories on their lunch break. It’s somewhat analogous to Chinese workers making iPhones. They are not the market for their own labor.
Personally, I had a few of Amy’s meals before I worked there, and thought they were basically good. Decent ingredients, better than your average Hungry Man or whatever. Though after working there, I’m not sure I’d buy their food again. And it’s not because the food is bad… it’s that they aren’t any different. Working there, it’s probably the same as working at any factory job. If you think you have made a righteous moral choice, here, I want to roughly quote the comedian Chelsea Peretti, her joke is about vegans and how they decide not to participate in animal labor; it’s childish logic to care about the moral quality of your food, because at the end of it, poor people are picking your vegetables and plating your dinner. That 20 minutes you saved not cooking for yourself is the totality of some other person’s life.
I’m a stupid radical.
Once, after being fired from a particularly bad restaurant where the head chef was a pompous dick, I had been living in a tent, and Down and Out was really speaking to me. I conceived of an idea for how the modern restaurant critic might begin to operate.
Yes you can talk about the quality of the food and its significance for the diners, yet ultimately, this means nothing, it’s a fine evening that you will forget. But for the people that have to work in the restaurants, this is their life.
I thought it would be interesting if the critic took a tour through the back, asked each employee personally what they thought of the management. What did they think about their head chef? Could the employees afford to eat the food they made? The dishwasher would automatically get a voucher to a bookstore, and the restaurant would get a rating based on the culture it cultivated.
Does this sound like the ramblings of a deranged idealist? I’m not so sure. Not much has changed since Orwell’s days. The hours have gotten less severe, but I’m not sure this isn’t corporate efficiency. Bookkeeping. If you keep your worker healthier, they can make you more money, ultimately.
Our culture is obsessed with the minutiae of food, it might be time to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. | https://jandrist.medium.com/my-month-in-an-organic-frozen-food-factory-c0e57184d09f | ['Jonah Andrist'] | 2018-01-17 23:02:44.665000+00:00 | ['Capitalism', 'Food', 'Work'] |
Why Google BigQuery is the perfect data lake for marketing | Why Google BigQuery is the perfect data lake for marketing
It is better than standard data storage
To run advanced analytics, you need data to work with. However, once you’ve decided to collect data, you need to decide how to store it. Should you choose a standard data warehouse or a data lake? In this article, we discuss why Google BigQuery as a data lake is the best choice.
What is a data lake?
A data lake is the next level in the evolution of data storage. According to TechTarget, “A data lake is a storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw data in its native format until it is needed.” Data lakes appeared because new technologies and business requirements necessitated new approaches to storing and processing information.
But what exactly can you do with a data lake?
With a data lake, you can collect and store any raw, unstructured data from any source. You don’t need to first define the structure and schema of the data; you can process the data as required and build your business intelligence solutions on it.
Today’s customer journeys are more fragmented than ever. And all data on these journeys needs to be stored somewhere without the risk of data loss. You never know what kind of data you’ll need in a year. A data lake copes with this task.
To better understand how a data lake works, let’s compare a traditional data warehouse to a data lake.
Data warehouse and data lake differences
Imagine you want to build a castle with towers. For this task, you can choose between two sets of tools: cubes identical in size but in various colors or a 250-piece LEGO set with bricks of all shapes, sizes, and colors.
As you’ve likely guessed, the basic cubes of the same size represent standard data storage. To store data in a data warehouse, you must first bring it into the same format and structure. In other words, you need to:
spend time preprocessing the data
build your castle exclusively from uniform cubes
If your business is just taking its first steps, then cubes (ordinary data storage) are useful.
But if you want to build a Disney castle with turrets, windows, weather vanes, and trebuchets, you need a LEGO set (i. e. a data lake). The undeniable advantage of a data lake lies in its ability to take in raw, unstructured data from everywhere. You can put all the information you have in your data lake: data from advertising services, mobile applications, call tracking and CRM systems, websites, vending machines. Then you can take the data you need and build reports in the way your business needs. Tempting, isn’t it?
Additionally, with a data lake, you don’t need to spend time preprocessing data. You just need to set up connectors between data sources and the data lake once. Then you can create any reports. The most exciting thing is that a data lake allows you to create dashboards with real-time updates — precisely what you need to instantly respond to critical changes in your metrics and KPIs!
Useful tips
If you’re looking for a convenient connector for transferring data to Google BigQuery, we recommend OWOX BI Pipeline. It combines data from Google Analytics, advertising services, websites, offline stores, call tracking systems, and CRM systems into Google BigQuery.
Image courtesy of the author
2. If you want to build reports based on Google BigQuery data in your favorite Google Sheets or you want to transfer data from Google Sheets to Google BigQuery, we recommend using the free and convenient OWOX BI BigQuery Reports add-on.
Image courtesy of the author
The BigQuery Reports add-on is popular for many reasons:
It’s free, safe, and secure
It doesn’t require you to upload data as CSV files or use paid third-party services
It uses only Google’s official APIs
Why is Google BigQuery the perfect data lake for marketing?
Now that we’ve figured out the difference between data storage and a data lake, we need to choose the best variant. There are many data lake solutions on the market, but for marketing, there’s only one best option — Google BigQuery. Let’s briefly describe what Google BigQuery is and why it’s the best solution for storing marketing data.
It’s difficult to imagine a marketer who doesn’t work with Google Ads, Google Analytics, YouTube, and other Google services. Google is a real monster of marketing and advertising. And Google BigQuery is part of Google’s infrastructure. In simple words, this means native integrations.
Google is continuously developing its cloud services platform, including BigQuery. So you don’t need to worry that this service will be abandoned and cease to be supported and updated. Among its other advantages, Google BigQuery is simple and fast, and a vast number of specialists can work with it. It also comes with ready-made sets of SQL queries so you can get useful insights from your collected data.
And let’s not forget about the current problems of marketers: how to quickly respond to changes in the market and how to manage bids and segment automation in real time. Also, let’s not forget that your success significantly depends on how you can automate and personalize your marketing. Google BigQuery works with machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), which help you analyze and automate your marketing by segmenting audiences, searching for useful insights, and doing many more things to make your life easier.
The bottom line is that Google BigQuery is a fully managed serverless data warehouse that enables safe and scalable analysis of petabytes of data. For more than a decade, Google BigQuery has been developing, improving, and providing marketers and analysts with a convenient interface and extensive capabilities.
Image courtesy of the author
If you’re already sold on BigQuery, you can immediately jump to the conclusions of this article or go read other articles about setting up and working with BigQuery. If you’re still on the fence, here are some reasons why you should give BigQuery a try.
Features of Google BigQuery
Let’s take a closer look at why Google BigQuery is the best choice for today’s marketers.
Integrations. BigQuery is part of the Google Cloud Platform (the leader in Data Management for Analytics according to Forrester Research), which means native integrations with other Google products including Google Analytics and Google Ads. Data processing speed. BigQuery was designed to enable real-time analysis of any type of data. You can use SQL queries with ease and at any scale. No servers. Using the BigQuery cloud service doesn’t require any attachments from you. In addition, no matter where your employees work, they’ll always have secure access to data. Data security. All data in BigQuery is protected according to Google’s standards. Cost. All users receive 10 GB for storage and up to 1 TB of requests per month for free. In addition, new users receive $300 for 90 days to pay for services on the Google platform. For more information, see Google’s guide to BigQuery pricing and cost controls. BigQuery ML. With this service, experts can build prediction models on both structured and semi-structured data directly inside a data lake.
To summarize, Google BigQuery is part of a large ecosystem that’s continuously growing and developing. You can use it to apply machine learning and discover emerging data patterns and test new hypotheses. This will lead to timely insights into how your business is performing, which will enable you to modify your processes for better results.
Image courtesy of the author
Conclusions
Marketing analytics, with its data-based conclusions and forecasting, is a necessity for any modern business. It’s no longer a toy for the rich but a necessary and useful tool for business development and progress. However, to fully use and benefit from advanced analytics, it’s essential to create a basis for it.
To implement new tools, machine learning, and various methods for optimizing advertising campaigns, a business needs to make decisions based on the data it has collected. For marketing departments, the best solution for storing data is a data lake — specifically, the popular and convenient Google BigQuery. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/why-google-bigquery-is-the-perfect-data-lake-for-marketing-fc50bd9e90aa | ['Maryna Sharapa'] | 2020-11-29 02:42:58.616000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Marketing Analytics', 'Data Lake', 'Google Big Query'] |
Mindful Reading: At the Intersection of Mindfulness and Reading | Mindful Reading: At the Intersection of Mindfulness and Reading Author_Didi_Cooper Follow Sep 26 · 3 min read
Written By Didi Cooper
Image by Thought Catalog from Pixabay
Has the state of the world, the chaos in your home, and the overall dark cloud hanging over 2020 got you down? We talk a lot about self-care and how important it is. So, this is a good time to talk about Mindful Reading as another self-care tool in the toolbox. And yep, it’s a thing. At the intersection of mindfulness and reading, you will find ‘mindful reading’. An actual concept I always believed in as an avid reader simply because mindfulness and reading, separately, were ways I dealt with being stressed, overworked, or anxious. And let’s face it, aren’t we all to some extent stressed, overworked, and anxious?
What Mindful Reading is NOT…
Mindful reading is different from just reading. Many of us read as part of our jobs, to race through news, or even to speed read your monthly book club book, just to get to the main points so you can participate over a glass of wine at book club.
Another thing mindful reading is not, is mindfulness. The value of practicing mindfulness is to clear your mind of all thoughts, while focusing only on your breath. If you have tried it or practice mindfulness you know how challenging it is and how incredible the benefits are.
What Mindful Reading IS…
Now that we know what mindful reading is NOT, let’s look at what mindful reading is, according to Mindful.org, Reading in a mindful way, “Slows down the reader and the reading — that alone changes the experience. It is a process of quiet reflection that requires mindful attentiveness, letting go of distracting thoughts and opinions to be fully in the moment with the text. It moves the reader into a calm awareness, allowing for a more profound experience and understanding.” I highly recommend you check out this article that contains Three Simple Mindfulness Practices You Can Use Every Day.
Why You Should Try It
By reading mindfully, slowly, and with intention, we make space in our otherwise busy mind for feelings, ideas, and interpretations of the text. And by doing so, we end up miles away from our own distractions and anxieties. “Reading can take our mind off a well-trodden path of worry, stress, anxiety. It doesn’t have to be a self-help book, it can be anything that takes us away, puts us in the moment” (Source: Mindfulness Through Reading )
How to Read Mindfully
According to the New York Times article, How To Be Mindful When Reading, start with setting aside a quiet, uninterrupted time and space to read. Next, consider reading traditional books, as the act of turning the pages will intentionally slow you down. When your mind wanders, gently prompt yourself to return to the text, re-reading if you need to.
A Few Tips
Choose a book you want to get lost in. That could be a self-help book, a classic you have been dying to re-read, or the latest best-seller. It matters less, what you read, and more how you read.
Setting is everything. Choose your spot carefully. Is it the hammock, the comfiest chair with a blanket, or the bathtub? Light a candle, turn off all electronics and slip away into the world of your book.
Schedule your mindful reading time. You deserve it, so make time for yourself and get lost in a book!
https://www.instagram.com/didi_cooper_writer/ | https://medium.com/illumination/mindful-reading-at-the-intersection-of-mindfulness-and-reading-d74d08010ef3 | [] | 2020-12-17 23:36:43.050000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Self Care', 'Reading', 'Blog', 'Working Moms'] |
5 Myths About George W. Bush As We Celebrate The 100th Annual George W. Bush Day | Today in the year 2127 we celebrate the 100th annual George W. Bush Day, a day commemorating a man widely remembered as the greatest statesman and adventurer of the 21st century. But with the benefit of hindsight, historians say that we have an inaccurate view of his legacy. It turns out that not everything that Bush accomplished was quite as great as we tend to believe, but the man was a product of his time, and he still had some pretty good qualities. To learn more, let’s go through the top 5 myths about the man behind the holiday, President George W. Bush.
Myth #1: George Bush uncovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
You may have heard that Bush, ever the intrepid explorer, scoured every inch of Iraq until he found a treasure trove of nuclear weapons. This is a common misconception, because Bush never had his sights on anything like that. In fact, when Bush originally proposed his voyage to the United Nations, he won them over with an artful description of a land teeming with milk, honey, and crude oil. Sure, a barrel of crude oil is no atomic bomb, but it’s still worth celebrating.
Myth #2: George Bush won the 2000 election legitimately.
We all remember hearing those incredible tales from our youth about how Bush captivated the country and won the 2000 election. However, political scientists now believe Bush got fewer votes than his opponent. Before we pass judgment, we must keep in mind that “winning” meant something very different back then. Experts have shown that cheating was always an integral part of the American electoral process. Some of us might look down upon this behavior, but it’s important to be understanding. The 2000s were a different time, a time before Florida had sunk into the ocean.
Myth #3: George Bush saved countless lives by pioneering the practice of waterboarding.
Although Bush definitely used waterboarding, there is sadly no evidence that he saved any lives, leading some biographers to wonder why he believed in it. But contemporary researchers have concluded that, back then, waterboarding was simply a national pastime. Some Bush fans have gone as far as to say that Bush discovered waterboarding, but this is sheer hyperbole; he merely popularized the practice. You could only say that Bush “discovered” waterboarding in the sense that Usher discovered Bieber. While some might like to think that Bush came up with the idea himself, the historical record shows that earlier pioneers beat him to it, specifically the 11th-century Vikings.
Myth #4: George Bush was known for his soaring oratory abilities.
It is common to imagine George Bush as a Pericles-like figure of the early 2000s. However, scholars claim that this image is not quite right―Bush was more of an Oscar Wilde-type character. Even though Bush was never the best public speaker, we can’t forget about the ways Bush contributed to our vernacular. His famous aphorisms, which linguists call “Bushisms,” are still in use today. For example, just as actors ironically say “break a leg” to encourage their peers, we now say “Mission Accomplished” whenever someone makes an irreparable, asinine mistake. Why? Because George W. Bush was a comic genius.
Myth #5: Bush did 9/11.
This myth is perpetuated by extremists bent on ruining the reputation of a man who lived a nearly perfect life. Fortunately, historians have cleared his name of this accusation, and we now know for a fact what we always assumed: this heinous atrocity was committed by Hillary Clinton.
We hope our breakdown of 5 myths about George W. Bush doesn’t spoil your George W. Bush Day weekend. In light of these revelations, some argue that we should rename the holiday for someone who accomplished more. The debate will go on, but this author feels that there is certainly no need to change the name of George W. Bush Day. Besides, even if we needed to rename the holiday, there are not many options available, since Rumsfeld Day is next week and Cheney Day is, of course, every Friday of the year. | https://medium.com/slackjaw/5-myths-about-george-w-bush-as-we-celebrate-the-100th-annual-george-w-bush-day-a86abda7c80d | ['Michael Lodato'] | 2020-08-17 14:06:01.296000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'America', 'Politics', 'George W Bush', 'Satire'] |
Adding Nuxt to an existing Express service | Well, usually you do completely the opposite. But maybe there is another developer that is looking for this tutorial, as I was.
Why?
Before moving further, I would like to explain why I needed it. If you already have your own reasons then just skip this part.
At my company we have a PaaS team that maintains a service for creating internal services (yeah tautology…). Why so? It reduces a significant amount of time when creating a new service. You get a fully configured Express template on GitHub with already enabled CI/CD and all the internal dependency packages within a few minutes. So it was more natural to add Nuxt to an already existing Express service, rather than using create-nuxt-app and configuring serverMiddleware from scratch.
How?
Let’s start by creating our app. Open terminal and choose a folder to work in.
mkdir nuxt-as-express-middleware; cd nuxt-as-express-middleware
Initializing the app.
npm init
Installing dependencies.
npm i express nuxt
Creating the heart of the app.
touch app.js
Open app.js in your favorite editor and copy-paste this code.
Well, that’s it. But if you’re interested in what is going on here let’s dig a bit deeper.
loadNuxt first searches for nuxt.config.js if it doesn’t exist Nuxt uses default configurations. After loading the configurations it creates and returns an instance of Nuxt.
nuxt.render is a classical middleware function which maps Express requests to Nuxt routes. Because this function will handle the rendering of your web application and won’t call next() you should call it at the end of your middlewares. | https://medium.com/@vkraykin/adding-nuxt-to-an-existing-express-service-e1be644f720f | ['Vladimir Kraykin'] | 2021-01-21 02:33:51.888000+00:00 | ['Nuxtjs', 'Expressjs', 'Server Side Rendering'] |
Interpretation of HuggingFace’s model decision | Transformer-based models have taken a leading role in NLP today. In most cases using pre-trained encoder architectures in solving downstream tasks achieves super high scores. The main idea of this approach is to train the large model on a big amount of unlabeled data and then add few layers to the top of it for text classification, coreference resolution, question answering, and so on. However, although such models give cool results, those models are still black boxes, whereas the interpretability of a model is very important for debugging and understanding how the model makes a decision.
A couple of weeks ago I faced a demo from Allen NLP. I found a cool feature there that highlighted the words that impacted on the model’s decision. Then I wanted to do this for my models, but after spending some time looking for a tutorial on how to put a PyTorch model into the Allen NLP Predictor, I haven’t found anything useful. Then I decided to rewrite the interpreter to PyTorch and it was not difficult because Allen NLP is built on it, so some parts of the code were taken from here.
I will consider mostly on pieces of code that will help you integrate your own model. Also, I will omit the explanation of some common and clear parts to not make this article too long. The full code you can find on my GitHub repository.
Some updates:
Have been added batching support.
There is no need to make dataset instance that will return tokens (just usual dataset, that returns token_ids and so on)
The repository was modified for simplification the integrating of your model not depending on the task it was made for (classification, token classification etc.)
To avoid redundant computations I decided to exclude making predictions separately. It impacts on the accuracy of predictions (just on few points) as Smooth Grad adds the Gaussian noise and Integrated Gradients doesn’t include the upper limit of the integral (see the repo)
Also, empirically I found that the Integrated Gradients algorithm highlights more “expected” words that are more relevant to class the model chose.
There are 3 gradient-based algorithms that are covered by Allen NLP Interpret. I will choose Smooth Grad and a classification task as an example. The idea of this algorithm is simple: we first make a prediction, take argmax (as we usually do in classification), and assuming it as ground truth — make backpropagation. Then we sum the gradients for each embedding but as was shown in the paper the values can have outliers so we calculate gradients few times adding Gaussian noise and then take the average. Let’s start from the first step — making a prediction:
def saliency_interpret(self, test_dataset):
# Convert inputs to labeled instances
predictions = self._get_prediction(test_dataset) ...
In my case, test_dataset is the instance of the class that I inherited from PyTorch’s Dataset class. I use it to build the dataloader to make predictions. If you are feed examples to the model in another way, you can rewrite this method:
def _get_prediction(self, test_dataset, batch_size=1): test_dataloader = DataLoader(test_dataset,
batch_size=batch_size,
shuffle=False,
num_workers=0)
model_inputs = []
input_tokens = []
predictions = torch.tensor([], dtype=torch.float)
model = self.model.to(self.device)
model.eval() for inputs, tokens in test_dataloader:
# collecting inputs, as they will be used in _get_gradients
# and tokens to correspond them method output
model_inputs.append(inputs)
input_tokens.append(tokens)
input_ids = inputs.get('input_ids')
attention_mask = inputs.get("attention_mask") input_ids = input_ids.to(self.device)
attention_mask = attention_mask.to(self.device) with torch.no_grad():
outputs = model(
input_ids=input_ids,
attention_mask=attention_mask
) predictions = torch.cat((
predictions,
softmax(outputs, dim=-1)
)) return predictions, model_inputs, input_tokens
The model’s outputs are logits, so we are applying the softmax to get probabilities from it. I also collect model_inputs (tokens ids) that will be used in the next steps as well as input_tokens (tokenized text) that are returned by the dataloader. The reason why I save tokens is that the transformer models use special algorithms (such as bpe) to reduce the vocabulary size and the tokenizers split some words to word pieces, so not always one word is equal to one token. For example:
>>> tokenizer.tokenize('transformer model')
['transform', '##er', 'model']
Then we apply the Smooth Grad for each example (didn’t investigate how to do it by batches):
... predictions = self._get_prediction(test_dataset) instances_with_grads = dict()
for idx, (prob, inp, tokens) in enumerate(zip(*predictions)):
# Run smoothgrad
label = torch.argmax(prob, axis=0)
grads = self._smooth_grads(label, inp) ...
Where _smoth_grads method implements the described algorithm above:
def _smooth_grads(self, label, inp):
total_gradients = {}
for _ in range(self.num_samples):
handle = self._register_forward_hook(self.stdev)
grads = self._get_gradients(label, inp)
handle.remove() # Sum gradients
if total_gradients == {}:
total_gradients = grads
else:
for key in grads.keys():
total_gradients[key] += grads[key] # Average the gradients
for key in total_gradients.keys():
total_gradients[key] /= self.num_samples return total_gradients
There are some important points in _register_forward_hook and _get_gradients . In the first one, we have to define the embedding layer. Allen NLP has a specific method for it (it covers GPT and Bert models), but I decided to define the layer directly via keyword arguments or bert attribute by default:
... encoder = self.kwargs.get("encoder")
if encoder:
embedding_layer = self.model.__getattr__(encoder).embeddings
else:
embedding_layer = self.model.bert.embeddings ...
While my model’s class looks:
class DistilBertForSequenceClassification(nn.Module): def __init__(self, config, num_labels=2):
super(DistilBertForSequenceClassification, self).__init__()
self.num_labels = num_labels
self.config = config
self.bert = DistilBertModel.from_pretrained(
'distilbert-base-uncased',
output_hidden_states=False
)
self.dropout = nn.Dropout(config.dropout)
self.classifier = nn.Linear(config.hidden_size, num_labels)
nn.init.xavier_normal_(self.classifier.weight) def forward(
self,
input_ids,
token_type_ids=None,
attention_mask=None
):
last_hidden = self.bert(
input_ids=input_ids,
attention_mask=attention_mask
)
pooled_output = torch.mean(last_hidden[0], dim=1)
pooled_output = self.dropout(pooled_output)
logits = self.classifier(pooled_output)
return logits
In the second one, we need to do the same as we do during the training. In my case, I feed to the model input_ids and attention_mask to mask the paddings:
... embedding_gradients = []
hooks = self._register_embedding_gradient_hooks(embedding_gradients) input_ids = inp.get('input_ids')
attention_mask = inp.get("attention_mask") outputs = self.model(input_ids=input_ids, attention_mask=attention_mask)
batch_losses = self.criterion(outputs, label.unsqueeze(0))
loss = torch.mean(batch_losses) self.model.zero_grad()
loss.backward() ...
In _register_embedding_gradient_hooks we also need to define the embedding as we did before.
After normalizing the gradients (to make the sum = 1) we are saving gradients, tokens, predicted label and the probability of it to the dictionary:
... instances_with_grads["instance_" + str(idx + 1)] = grads
instances_with_grads["instance_" + str(idx + 1)]['tokens_input_1'] = [t[0] for t in tokens]
instances_with_grads["instance_" + str(idx + 1)]['label_input_1'] = label.item()
instances_with_grads["instance_" + str(idx + 1)]['prob_input_1'] = prob.max().item() ...
As a result, we get the dictionary with tokens and their weights in the sentence. I add a util method to make a visualization. Let’s have a look at the example of the output.
I trained DistilBert on the subset of Medium Post Titles Dataset with 93 classes which correspond to categories of the articles. The dataset consists of titles and subtitles, so let’s try to test the model on the title of this article plus the first sentence as the subtitle (the example of usage you can find in this notebook):
As we can see, the most impact on the model’s decision makes [CLS] token, which is used for Next Sentence Prediction Objective during pre-training. The embedding of this token is fed to the linear layer with softmax activation to train the model to predict if the sentences separated by [SEP] token are from the same document or not. And the interesting point is that I didn’t use common practice when this token is used for classification (I used mean of the output embeddings). Also, we can emphasize the model gives the right prediction.
To sum up, I think that these methods a great tool for analyzing your NLP models and can help you to find their weaknesses. There is one more amazing tool — BertViz that gives the ability to look inside the model, so I suggest to investigate it if you are interested in exploring your models. | https://korenv20.medium.com/interpretation-of-huggingfases-model-decision-9a4100b2fed7 | ['Vitaliy Koren'] | 2020-08-14 10:29:57.035000+00:00 | ['NLP', 'Transformers', 'Deep Learning', 'Hugging Face', 'Visualization'] |
Design Pattern “Strategy” applied with TypeScript | Before we start coding, we need to understand why and when we use this design pattern.
Imagine that you want to watch the famous tv series “Friends” on your TV.
The problem is that Friends can be watched in different platforms as Netflix, tv channel Warner, etc. So, how do we create an algorithm to apply different ways to watch the same thing?
Strategy pattern help us do exactly that in the best way possible.
In resume,
Design Pattern “Strategy” helps us implement different solutions to the same problem.
In this pattern, different strategies are applied to the same context.
Strategy:
Responsible for implementing a singular solution for the problem. In our example, “Netflix” would be a strategy, due to implement “Friends” in a different way that other streamings or tv channels.
Context:
Is responsible for applying the interface that the strategies would use. It doesn’t know what the strategies are doing, it just knows that they need to apply it.
Here’s a diagram showing the flow of the pattern:
In this case, Friends applies the function “Watch()” in the context and the strategies “Netflix” and “Warner Channel” implement the function Watch() to their singular procedures
Let’s code!
The first thing to do is to create an interface with the function watch().
Interface
export default interface IWatch { watch() }
Context
The next step is to create the context.
First thing context will do is receive the strategy that will apply the function watch().
After that it will create the function that connects that strategy with the function inside the interface.
import IWatch from ‘./interface’ export default class Context { private _strategy: IWatch constructor(strategy: IWatch) { this._strategy = strategy } public watch = () => { this._strategy.watch() } }
Now that we have our interface and our context, we’ll create the strategies and their singular implementations of the interface IWatch.
Strategy 1 — Netflix
import IWatch from ‘./interface’ export default class Netflix implements IWatch { watch = () => { console.log(‘You are watching Friends on Netflix!’) } }
Strategy 2 — Warner Channel
import IWatch from ‘./interface’ export default class Warner implements IWatch { watch = () => { console.log(‘You are watching Friends on Warner!’) } }
As we can see, both of them just console.log() a text saying that you’re watching Friends in their channel.
index.ts
Now, that all our relations are applied, we just need to create the objects and use them as we want. We’ll do that in a file called index.ts.
import Context from ‘./context’ import Netflix from ‘./strategyNetflix’ import Warner from ‘./strategyWarner’ const friendsOnNetflix = new Context(new Netflix()) const friendsOnWarner = new Context(new Warner()) friendsOnNetflix.watch() friendsOnWarner.watch()
As you can see, we instantiate the Context and inside it we instantiate the strategy we want.
That way we can always implement the channel we want.
Conclusion
This design pattern is perfect for those who wish to apply different solutions to the same kind of problem. It is very easy to maintain, has a great performance and is very readable.
If you have any doubts or suggestions feel free to contact me.
Thanks! :) | https://medium.com/dev-environment/design-pattern-strategy-applied-with-typescript-6c487c05a8ad | ['Ruben Acevedo'] | 2020-12-08 00:10:58.026000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Strategy', 'Nodejs', 'Typescript', 'Design Patterns'] |
How to Forecast Adoption of New Information Technologies within the Enterprise | In testing of the model, Perceived Usefulness proved especially significant with correlation of .85 with usage intention. Test results also suggested that Perceived Ease of Use may precede Perceived Usefulness. In other words, prospective users may consider a technology useful because they think it would be easy to use. And they may consider it useless because they think it would be difficult.
TAM has been often tested, has served as the foundation for much subsequent research, and continues in use today.
What Creates Perception that a New Technology Will Be Useful and Easy to Use?
In 2000, Davis and Venkatesh published “A Theoretical Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model: Four Longitudinal Field Studies,” The model developed in this study is referred to as TAM2. It extended the original TAM by establishing a set of forces or determinants that drive perceptions of the usefulness of a new technology:
— Perceived Ease of Use: The degree to which a person believes that using the technology will be free of effort
— Subjective Norm: User perception or belief that people who are important to them think they should or should not use the technology
— Job Relevance: User perception or belief that the technology is applicable to their job
— Output Quality: User perception or belief that the technology performs their job tasks well
— Result Demonstrability: User perception or belief that the results of using the technology are tangible, observable, and communicable
— Image: User perception or belief that use of the technology will enhance their status within a social system
In testing of four unique information technologies within different organizations TAM2 explained up to 60% of the variance in Perceived Usefulness — the most powerful predictor of usage intention and actual use.
As TAM2 identified what causes prospective users to view a technology as useful or useless, Venkatesh sought to identify what causes them to view it as easy or difficult to use.
He accomplished this in a study: “Determinants of Perceived Ease of Use: Integrating Control, Intrinsic Motivation, and Emotion into the Technology Acceptance Model.” The model developed in the study further extended TAM by establishing determinants of Perceived Ease of Use.
Venkatesh’s research leveraged the “anchoring and adjustment” decision making heuristic most often associated with the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. He showed that people initially rely on general preexisting beliefs or “anchors” to assess whether an IT will be easy or difficult, but then adjust their assessment based upon actual usage experience.
Anchors:
— Computer Self-Efficacy: User perception or belief that they possess the ability to perform a specific task/job using a computer
— Perception of External Control: User perception or belief that organizational and technical resources exist to support users
— Computer Anxiety: User feeling of apprehension or fear when faced with the possibility of using a computer
— Computer Playfulness: User sense of cognitive spontaneity when using a computer
Adjustments:
— Perceived Enjoyment: User perception that use of the technology is enjoyable in its own right, apart from any performance consequences resulting from its use
— Objective Usability: The actual level (rather than perception) of effort required to complete tasks using the technology
In testing, using these determinants, the extended TAM model explained the majority of the variance in Ease of Use. Testing also produced a surprising result: While actual experience with a technology influenced Perceived Ease of Use, preexisting general anchors retained a stronger influence upon perceptions of ease or difficulty even after the actual usage experience.
What Organizations Can Do to Improve Technology Adoption Rates
TAM, TAM2 and the Ease of Use research by Venkatesh are useful in predicting technology adoption, but stopped short of prescribing actions organizations could take to facilitate adoption.
To fill this gap, Venkatesh and Bala published “Technology Acceptance Model 3 and a Research Agenda on Interventions.” In what became known as TAM3, they identified sets of pre and post “implementation interventions.”
Pre-implementation interventions are activities aimed at accelerating adoption that take place during IT development and deployment:
— Design Characteristics: Elements of the technology such as modules and components, including user interfaces
— User Participation: Enlistment of user participation
— Management Support: Actions that support user perception or belief that management has committed to the successful implementation and use of the technology
— Incentive Alignment: Actions that support user perception or belief that the technology yields benefit
Post Implementation interventions support adoption after system deployment:
— Training: Provision of learning opportunities for how to operate or interact with the technology
— Organizational Support: Activities or functions performed by the organization to assist users in operating or interacting with the technology
— Peer Support: Activities or functions performed by coworkers to assist users in operating or interacting with the technology
User Adoption Will Make or Break Enterprise IT Deployments
The extensive body of research highlighted above offers tremendous insight and guidance for predicting technology adoption.
TAM and its extensions —
1. Identify and validate two predictors of intention to use a technology
2. Identify and validate sets of determinants or forces driving each of the predictors
3. Prescribe practical measures that can be employed to influence the determinants or forces so as to ultimately increase the likelihood of adoption
To apply this to actual use cases, first consider the characteristics of both the technology being deployed and the people using it. With this understanding as a platform, assess and ultimately rank — based on likely impact — the determinants of Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use. It is then possible to prioritize and allocate resources to pre and post implementation interventions that would assert the desired influence against the highest ranked determinants. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-forecast-adoption-of-new-information-technologies-within-the-enterprise-695b67b5925e | ['Cary Tengel'] | 2019-05-28 06:41:16.146000+00:00 | ['Design'] |
A New Angle (Literally) on Public Speaking | A New Point of View
The first two tactics are straightforward and simple — further explanation is not necessary. It is this third technique, the new vantage point, that is interesting. Is it a Jedi mind trick on myself? Am I psychologically deluding myself? I do not know.
But I do know that extreme self-consciousness is unpleasant. And it is even more unpleasant when there are 30 or 40 pairs of eyes looking at you. I found envisioning the scene from a different angle was beneficial in terms of relaxation and self-consciousness. Instead of being at the lectern in the front of the class, I tried to see the action, i.e., my speech, from a completely different place in the room: It could have been 20 feet above me. It could have been 15 feet to my left. It could have been the back of the room.
Wherever it was, however, from this different angle, it was, to a degree, like watching someone else talk. It changed things. I took my center of consciousness out of my body and put it somewhere else in the room. This may sound weird and hokey-pokey. It may seem like a crazy, out-of-body experience. However, it worked. The focus went from extremely internal to less internal; in a way, it went from internal to external. Imagining that I was watching myself from another spot in the room lessened my self-consciousness. It was similar to seeing not myself, but someone else, give the speech.
That alters the framing; the paradigm is shifted. Instead of seeing from the normal place, the eyes and brain inside my skull, I was “seeing” the action as another person in the room. I thought of it as watching a short film. And I was just a character in the film, a character who was giving a speech or presentation at the time, but just a character nonetheless. The paralyzing self-consciousness decreased when I did this. | https://betterhumans.pub/a-new-angle-literally-on-public-speaking-de6b1a41f045 | ['Bart Squires'] | 2021-04-09 01:13:06.332000+00:00 | ['Buddhism', 'Confidence', 'Mindfulness', 'Public Speaking', 'Meditation'] |
The case of the missing deno_modules | When running code in Deno with external dependencies for the first time you might have noticed some downloading of packages taking place. Also if the file was a Typescript file you might have seen some indication of Typescript to Javascript compilation taking place. However the second time you ran the file none of that took place and the code just ran immediately.
You start to look around for any created folders or files that might be responsible for the immediate execution of the code. But you find nothing.
Where are my deno_modules?
Let’s shed some light on the mystery. Enter DENO_DIR .
By default, DENO_DIR is located in $HOME/.deno . However, since it is an ENV variable one could customise this. I also found cached Deno files in: $HOME/Library/Caches/deno
DENO_DIR is structured in the following way:
️ The case of the missing deno_modules is solved.🕵️
Hope you learned something new about Deno reading this.
Happy Hacking! | https://medium.com/dev-genius/the-case-of-the-missing-deno-modules-8484ac6d529 | ['Daniel Bark'] | 2020-06-19 13:38:44.537000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Typescript', 'Deno'] |
Mass Death By Public Policy | Last week, Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves actually went where the US media refuses to tread, tweeting, “How many people will die this summer, before Election Day? What proportion of the deaths will be among African-Americans, Latinos, other people of color? This is getting awfully close to genocide by default. What else do you call mass death by public policy? And I am being serious here: what is happening in the US is purposeful, considered negligence, omission, failure to act by our leaders. Can they be held responsible under international law? So, what does it mean to let thousands die by negligence, omission, failure to act, in a legal sense under international law?”
The chances of Trump ever appearing before the International Criminal Court to answer such charges are negligible. But he clearly has no plan to stop or even minimize the waves of death from this pandemic. As David Graham writes, “the Trump administration still has no plan for dealing with the global pandemic or its fallout. The president has cast doubt on the need for a vaccine or expanded testing. He has no evident plan for contact tracing. He has no treatment ideas beyond the drug remdesivir, since Trump’s marketing campaign for hydroxychloroquine ended in disaster. And, facing the worst economy since the Great Depression, the White House has no plan for that, either, beyond a quixotic hope that consumer demand will snap back as soon as businesses reopen”.
There is no doubt that the current administration plan of having no plan for dealing with the pandemic will lead to mass deaths. All the data shows that a disproportionate share of those deaths will be ethnic or racial minorities and poorer Americans. In Wisconsin, African Americans make up less than 7% of the population while accounting for nearly one third of the deaths. In Michigan and Missouri, African Americans make up around 40% of the deaths while comprising under 15% of the population in each state. According to a Washington Post report, “Disproportionately black counties account for 22 percent of all U.S. counties but have been home to 52 percent of coronavirus cases and 58 percent of deaths from covid-19”.
The Trump administration plan, such as it is, is a destined-to-fail attempt to keep the economy afloat by sacrificing poor and minority workers. As Richard Yeselson writes, “the US is doing the disaggregated, federalist version of de facto herd immunity now, weighted toward ‘disposables’ in nursing homes/prisons/meat packing/grocery procurement”. Nursing home residents may account for half of all COVID-19 related deaths so far. The Navajo nation has been so decimated by the virus and our response so weak that Doctors Without Borders is actually sending a team there. In Ohio, one correctional facility found that over 80% of prisoners had been infected with the virus. Almost 60% of workers in one Tyson meatpacking plant are infected. Basically, prisons and the meatpacking industry have essentially become a forced experiment in herd immunity. As Erik Loomis summarizes, what is happening in prisons and meatpacking facilities “is an immoral experiment in an unknown disease upon vulnerable populations. And the sad thing is, scientists are actually going to learn a lot about issues of herd immunity from these workers subjected to this without choice. Any comparisons to the Tuskegee Experiments are strictly appropriate”.
The meatpacking industry, whose plants only remain open because of Trump’s only official use of the Defense Production Act, exposes just how disposable these supposedly “essential” workers really are. Workers at Tyson and JBS, another leg of the meat-packing oligarchy, are reporting that the companies are simply hiring new workers to replace those who have left because they are sick or even dead. Rather than finding better ways to protect these workers, the companies are looking for and apparently receiving liability protection from the government. In fact, the head of Smithfield, another member of the meatpacking oligarchy, celebrated the availability of cheap labor that the pandemic was creating. And the supply of sacrificial workers may be unlimited as more and more unemployed workers become desperate for any kind of income.
The disposable nature of these “essential” workers is also evidenced by the racist attacks upon them. HHS Secretary Alex Azar blamed the outbreak in meatpacking plants on the “home and social” conditions of the workers. South Dakota Governor Christie Noem was more explicit in blaming the victims by saying, “We believe that 99 percent of what’s going on today wasn’t happening inside the facility. It was more at home, where these employees were going home and spreading some of the virus. Because a lot of these folks that work at this plant live in the same community, same building, sometimes in the same apartment”. A Smithfield spokesperson added their own racist twist, saying, “Living circumstances in certain cultures are different than they are with your traditional American family”. A Wisconsin Supreme Court judge opined on a spike in infections in one county by stating, “These were due to the meatpacking, though…It wasn’t just the regular folks in Brown County”.
Like all genocides, the perpetrators try to ensure the extent of their crimes remain hidden. It is no different today. Trump has continually fought against expanded testing because it will show the true number of infections. Already, prominent Republican figures are floating the bogus theory that the COVID-19 death toll is vastly overstated and a large segment of the Republican party believes that to be so. In Florida, the state is not reporting deaths or infections in nursing homes and prisons. It tried to prevent the release of medical examiners’ reports but botched the redaction process. The state’s Department of Health does not include the deaths of seasonal residents, tourists, and nonresidents in its pandemic reports. In Arizona, the state told the group of epidemiologists working on modeling the crisis to shut down as part of the governor’s plan to reopen. Those models not only showed that infections were increasing but would lay down future markers that could be used to gauge the governor’s actions. Only after an outcry from the public were the modelers allowed to continue. In Nebraska, the governor has simply and arbitrarily decide to suspend reporting COVID-19 data from meatpacking plants, citing privacy concerns.
Historically, pandemics usually end long before a treatment or vaccine is found. Of course, this one may be different simply because of our more advanced medical knowledge and resources than in the past. Or maybe not. Usually, though, the pandemic “ends” when society simply decides that the number of deaths associated with returning to normal reaches some ill-defined “acceptable” level. As Gina Kolata notes, “One possibility, historians say, is that the coronavirus pandemic could end socially before it ends medically. People may grow so tired of the restrictions that they declare the pandemic over, even as the virus continues to smolder in the population and before a vaccine or effective treatment is found”. Usually that “acceptable” level of deaths falls disproportionately on the poor and powerless. And American’s tolerance for gun violence at levels unseen in any other developed country only illustrates just how high our tolerance already is for unnecessary deaths.
Racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and xenophobia have been a hallmark of not only Trump’s campaign in 2016 but his entire administration. The pandemic has only heightened those features, in Trump, his policies, and his supporters. In the wake of Trump’s storming out of his own press conference after throwing out a racist retort to one female reporter’s question, the President’s personal attorney tweeted, “This is coronavirus press conference number, what, probably somewhere in the 50s? POC liberal women have been present at every one of them and asked stupid questions. Sometimes for HOURS. This is the first time he’s just walked off. Finally”. Data shows that there has been a remarkable upsurge in anti-Chinese and anti-Semitic hate speech and incitement to violence since the pandemic began. That is on top of the just-released ADL report that showed anti-Semitic attacks in 2019 reaching the highest level in 40 years.
The story of America is also the story of racism and nativism. But the backlash to the Civil Rights era and now the Obama presidency has produced one of the more virulent strains of both. There is a through line from the eugenics proposed by the racist and nativist John Tanton to Stephen Miller and Trump’s immigration policies. There is a through line from Trump’s rhetoric to the attack on an Asian-American woman in Minnesota and the stalking and murder of Ahmaud Arbery. There is a through line from Trump’s pandemic response to the paramilitary groups invading state capitols and issuing death threats against governors. Robert Mercer, the man who made Trump President, has been described as believing that “human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make…[I]f someone is on welfare, they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he is a thousand times more valuable”. Those values are not only embedded in Trump but in the Republican party that abets him and the business class that stands solidly behind him or sits silently as he condemns thousands of low-wage workers and the weakest among us to die in order to sustain their quality of life. What we see in Trump’s pandemic response and his plan going forward is nothing less than governmental manslaughter on a national scale.
Better men and women than I have pondered how a society could collapse to the point where Jews are hauled off to concentration camps or Tutsis could be massacred by the hundreds of thousands with little or no resistance from the general populace. While not on the same scale as those genocides, I do know we are living in a dangerous time. The Supreme Court is seriously considering the argument that Trump has “temporary presidential immunity” and “is not to be treated as an ordinary citizen”. The President himself is calling a journalist a murderer and accusing his predecessor of some unspecified but apparently heinous crime. His lickspittle Attorney General has become the President’s personal Thomas Cromwell, protecting the President and pursuing his enemies. The President’s most trusted adviser “can’t commit one way or another” as to whether there will be an election in November. And the pandemic “plan” involves hoping the daily death toll of a couple of thousand people somehow becomes normalized. As Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez write, “The problem with normalizing deaths” is that “it allows more deaths”. And yet we seem powerless to stop it. | https://tidalsoundings.medium.com/mass-death-by-public-policy-8225a3812acc | [] | 2020-05-13 14:06:21.428000+00:00 | ['Genocide', 'Pandemic', 'Labor', 'Covid 19', 'Trump'] |
Clueless about creating a successful personal brand? | Clueless about creating a successful personal brand?
You are not the only one!
Illustration by Emmy Syrjälä
Two of my friends moved to Mumbai to make a career in Bollywood right after we finished university. Mumbai being the hub of the entertainment industry in India is the place where everyone heads to work in this field. But it is not easy to shine there. The competition is huge and only a few find the road to success. Luckily my friends found their foothold after much struggle. 10 years later, they are doing great work. They both are extremely talented, creative, and hard working people. But only one of them is living the dream and is as famous as they wanted to be. This friend is travelling the world giving workshops, attending film festivals and teaching at universities while earning additional money and fame. One can argue that perhaps the other person doesn’t really want fame and money. But it is only a matter of how they marketed themselves.
Then what worked so well for this famous guy? Yes, you guessed it right- his personal branding is outstanding. He has an active digital presence and whatever awesome work he is doing is right out there for people to see. He fully leveraged the story of his personal struggles and made a brand out of it (which is not a bad thing). It is incredible that this has inspired many to follow his footsteps.
I am sure, you all keep hearing such stories and how important personal branding is for your career. I once read a very funny comparison that said- Personal branding is like brushing your teeth. It is a preventive measure that is good for your teeth and when neglected can also impact your long-term health. So no need to further explain its importance! In theory, personal branding is all about marketing yourself and taking charge of the way people perceive you so that your prospects in job or life increase.
So does it mean that you have to fake it to make it work? Absolutely not. Some people do so and succeed but what really matters is how you identify your true (I am sure you have many) skills and talent and present them.
But jumping into it without planning can also break your career. I am not the best one to share tips on this as my personal branding has never worked well for me but I am going to discuss this anyway as sharing thoughts we all relate to can actually give us great insights.
The most common question first- Why is it more important than your CV? Well, personal branding is your whole image; an amalgamation of your professional and personal lives. Also, it actually ‘shows’ what you are capable of whereas your CV can only ‘tell’. A CV is just a part of your professional identity these days as a large chunk of your image is defined by your online presence. Having a website or a social media presence that screams your story is definitely an advantage.
The internet is full of funny stories of personal branding fails including the story of two women getting arrested for selling cocaine on a cruise, thanks to their very popular Instagram marketing. Not a good move for business, for sure! Like I said, this can make or break your prospects. This also means being careful with your online activities. Needless to say that your digital footprints are everywhere. You don’t want to regret going passive-aggressive on your boss, for example.
It has now become easier to quickly build a digital persona that exudes confidence and success but behind this could exist an entirely different story of insecurities and dishonesty. Let’s just remember, a popular online persona is not same as having a successful personal brand!
Then what happens when there is a huge gap between your personal brand and your reality? It affects the way employers measure qualifications and skills. This either increases the level of expectations they have from you or severely underrates you!
Ideally, a credible story that speaks of your personal values should define your personal brand. However, harping on a story not matter how honest it is won’t get you there. You can be an accomplished professional and everyone is aware of your achievements but if they don’t see it in your actions then it is definitely a failure.
During a discussion at work, a colleague was much surprised to know that I had majored in TV and Film Production in my Masters as they only know me as a content writer and digital marketing professional. Somehow, my personal branding fails me because it doesn’t fully reflect my background and skills. So when despite being part of a highly creative environment you are not showcasing your skills then it is not ‘smart’ personal branding.
So I have been advised to make a website showcasing my work and being the procrastination queen, I have been putting it off. True that your work should speak for you but it is actually your job to drive attention to it. In this age of deafening digital noise, your work doesn’t get to the right spot without some serious marketing.
I also figured that physical networking works better than skillful Online Reputation Management. Dedicating my work hours entirely to my computer screen hasn’t been a help because it doesn’t leave me any room for networking. Likewise, I am aware of the importance of having a good elevator speech and how the first two lines you blurt out can leave a lasting impression on someone useful. But your elevator speech will fail if you haven’t worked on your personal branding. For example, if you are extremely conscious (like me) of invading other people’s space both at work and social events, you will never get the chance to pitch yourself.
But does that imply that you need to ambush people with small talk or your elevator speech every time you see them? I would say no but then my personal branding hasn’t been successful. Remember?
Thus this brings us to the eternal question- to be or not to be (an aggressive emissary of your skills, talents, and overall charm)? Evidently, this has become mandatory for career growth. So we may benefit from it as well. Hopefully, we will get it right someday but don’t ask me how. I just told you my story and you at least know the ‘things that don’t work’. | https://medium.com/the-shortcut/clueless-about-creating-a-successful-personal-brand-56363697ead7 | ['Jutismita Hazarika'] | 2019-06-13 13:25:47.578000+00:00 | ['Job Hunting', 'Careers', 'Personal Branding', 'Branding'] |
Lessons From a Precious Metals Veteran | David Smith learned the hard way that things are not always what they appear. As a child in the playground, he reached out to shake hands with a companion, surprised to be dealt a sucker punch instead.
“It was very disconcerting, especially if you’ve never had it happen to you before,” he told AGX Media in a recent interview. He recognized soon after that he would need to learn to deal with situations like that with tact. Upon intently training his strength and endurance, he concluded that responding consciously was indeed possible even under pressure.
Now, years later, as a veteran precious metals analyst, Smith says the lesson has helped him gain a better understanding of markets and how they function, teaching him to never take any market move at face value and to always have an action plan. By preparing for the worst, he learned to navigate any hurdle strategically.
How to Deal with Sucker Punches in the Metals Market
Applying the analogy to the metals market, Smith said that being prepared entails never carrying a position too large for a peaceful nights’ sleep, not being on the margin, and buying tactically when the market experiences downtrends.
“People in the metals space and mining space can respond as effectively to the metaphorical sucker punch by the market makers, as I was able to do in training, in real life,” he said.
On the price action recently seen in the cryptocurrency markets, Smith noted that he does not see any direct correlation between the digital currency market run ups and recent selloffs in the precious metals market. Rather, these markets complement each other, he continued.
“I look at Bitcoin and alternative currencies, not as competitors, but as partners in the movement to honest money, affording some privacy in trading and more,” he said. “They don’t have to replace each other, and they shouldn’t.”
Instead, Smith stated that the most well-rounded investors should remain flexible, allocating portions of their portfolio to both physical gold and silver, digital gold and silver, as well as, some in alternative currencies.
“They both satisfy some very important aspects of what real money is in terms of fungibility, usability, and safety, but they also have a little different application,” he said. “It is different to buy several thousand AGX Coins that are backed by silver versus pulling out a 100-ounce bar and taking it to the store to sell.”
The senior analyst at The Morgan Report had more to say about the precious metals market, touching on where he sees prices heading in 2021 and beyond. Make sure you check out the recent interview on AGX Media’s YouTube channel to get the full story, and follow us on all social media platforms to stay in the loop about market moves and all LODE Project updates! | https://medium.com/lodepaymedia/lessons-from-a-precious-metals-veteran-a77b88d7ecd7 | ['Lode Project'] | 2021-01-21 22:02:03.268000+00:00 | ['Silver', 'Gold', 'Silver Price', 'Precious Metals', 'Gold Price'] |
How To Get Out Of Your Music Comfort Zone in 2021 | How To Get Out Of Your Music Comfort Zone in 2021
Suggestions for exploring new genres
Canva
Music continues to evolve at an almost untrackable rate.
From the thrash and crash sounds of death metal to the dynamic beats of hip-hop to the progressive sounds of pop. Music is alive and well, but perhaps more stranger than it’s ever been before.
Despite an infinite amount of interesting music, it’s become easier than ever to fall victim to your music comfort zone.
In 2015, the Skynet & Ebert blog looked at data from US Spotify users and Echo Nest. By age 33, it was more likely that users would never listen to new music again.
The Number One Reason to Try New Music
Opening yourself up to new music is a very rewarding experience. You develop new neurons as you have that moment where a song clicks. All this takes is an open mind and willingness to understand something that you simply don’t.
In 2015 Spotify found that more people were listening to heavy metal over pop music, and according to insider radio, over 115 million people enjoy country music.
So why don’t you like these genres?
I guarantee there’ a song in these genres for everyone. So, if you’re interested in getting out of your music comfort zone, here’s an excellent place to start:
Genre Starter Packs (3–5 Songs Each)
Classic Rock And Roll:
— Three songs to turn up to full volume in your stereo and make your neighbors call the police.
Modern Hip-Hop/R&B:
— Whether you’re trying to set the mood or need some smooth jams for a 2 am night drive; these songs always kill.
Progressive Pop:
— Pop is genius when these artists make it
Dua Lipa — Future Nostalgia
Lady Gaga — Babylon
Charli XCX — Forever
Gorillaz — Desole
Jessie Ware — Spotlight
Modern Rock And Roll:
— “Rock and Roll is dead!!” is a lie.
Country Music:
— For when you're driving with the windows down and feeling free
Experimental: | https://medium.com/music-voices/how-to-get-out-of-your-music-comfort-zone-in-2021-33c4f645c3a0 | ['Isaiah Mccall'] | 2020-12-30 02:11:09.436000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Music', 'Music Voices', 'Entertainment', 'Spotify'] |
How to keep your docker installation clean? | Docker is a powerful tool that significantly simplifies deployment, testing and prototyping of various applications and/or services. When heavily used it may turn out that considerable amount of the machine’s storage memory is occupied with docker files — sometimes up to tens of gigabytes or even more! How to save disk space? What can be safely removed, what cannot? This is what this post is about!
Photo by James Pond on Unsplash
Should I really care?
Well.. It depends, as usual ;) Actually, if you’re rich enough and whenever your machines are short of resources you can afford to buy additional disk space, CPU, etc. you don’t to have to worry at all. But keeping your system running clean, tidy and up-to-date is about being a good professional — so when you look at it from this perspective, then — yes, you should look after the system to make it running smoothly. Good news is that docker doesn’t use system resources besides disk space for non-running containers, images or unmounted volumes.
What is the resources usage?
Before any cleanup is started you need to know if it is even necessary — how can you actually know how much disk space is currently used by docker?
First of all you need to know where to check the disk occupancy. The following command:
docker info
will give you comprehensive information about the current docker installation. In particular there’s one key Docker Root Dir which typically points to /var/lib/docker and is a place where docker files are kept. To verify how much space is used by this path you can run: du -h --max-depth=1 /var/lib/docker which gives output similar too:
372K /var/lib/docker/containers
4.0K /var/lib/docker/tmp
20M /var/lib/docker/image
72K /var/lib/docker/buildkit
20K /var/lib/docker/builder
96K /var/lib/docker/network
4.0K /var/lib/docker/trust
20K /var/lib/docker/plugins
199M /var/lib/docker/volumes
312K /var/lib/docker/containerd
4.0K /var/lib/docker/swarm
4.0K /var/lib/docker/runtimes
2.0G /var/lib/docker/aufs
2.2G /var/lib/docker/
and clearly shows how much space is used by a given component.
Another useful command in docker monitoring is:
docker system df
Which gives the following output:
TYPE TOTAL ACTIVE SIZE RECLAIMABLE
Images 9 2 1.48GB 700.1MB (47%) Containers 2 1 54.48kB 21.64kB (39%)
Local Volumes 1 1 206.8MB 0B (0%)
Build Cache 0 0 0B 0B
and shows the current storage usage — what’s interesting is the value in RECLAIMABLE column. It represents the storage that will be freed when all non-running, but existing containers (images) have been removed.
Now, when you know how much space is used by all the components in general, it might be useful to know what is the occupancy of a particular element e.g. container, image or volume.
Containers
To know how much space is taken by a particular container you can run:
docker container ls -s
which shows all running containers, along with the SIZE column (which was added with -s or --size option)
CONTAINER ID IMAGE (...) SIZE
c55ec9a85ddd sonatype/nexus3 (...) 32.8kB (virtual 539MB)
where 32.8kB represents the writable layer of the container while virtual 539MB is the size of a read-only image on top of which the given container is run. Mind that it’s a bit misleading. SIZE value does not contain the size of the volumes used by containers and other metadata — for more info, please have a look at this post — so this is not the whole space that is taken by a given container.
Images
When it comes to the images it’s straightforward. Size is included into the output by default, so running:
docker image ls
gives:
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE sonatype/nexus3 latest 5d3600fd5cf2 5 weeks ago 539MB
where SIZE represents the whole space taken by the image and all its parent images.
Volumes
Finally, the volumes. There’s no command that shows the size of a given volume by default so you need to combine docker volume and du . Firstly, run:
docker volume ls
to get the list of the volumes:
DRIVER VOLUME NAME
local 69915af8ddf99
then, run:
docker volume inspect 69915af8ddf99
to get the volume’s metadata ( Mountpoint is what interests you):
[{
"CreatedAt": "2019-03-21T14:56:27Z",
"Driver": "local",
"Labels": null,
"Mountpoint": "/var/lib/docker/volumes/69915af8ddf99/_data",
"Name": "69915af8ddf99",
"Options": null,
"Scope": "local"
}]
and finally use du -h /var/lib/docker/volumes/69915af8ddf99/_data to know the space being used by given volume.
Now when you know how to monitor the disk space used by docker, it’s time to learn how to free the reclaimable memory.
For all types of docker components described here:
containers
images
volumes
networks
you need to remember that a component that is being used by docker cannot be removed. Such “used” components are for instance:
a running container
an image or volume that is tied to a running container
a network that is used by a running container
On attempt to remove a e.g. running container you will get the following error:
docker container rm c55ec9a85ddd Error response from daemon: You cannot remove a running container c55ec9a85dddd8e62100369ab2624d2463aa7ce22e3f2e732d88a4d7dcf79b46. Stop the container before attempting removal or force remove
How to cleanup docker containers?
To list the IDs of stopped containers you can use (see here for more filtering options which enable you to filter by e.g. exit code):
docker container ls --filter "status=exited" -aq
and then combine this command with docker container rm in the following way:
docker container rm $(docker container ls --filter "status=exited" -aq)
(Please mind that well implemented linux commands have an upper limit for the number of arguments passed — in this case it works as expected but you can consider using xargs )
docker container rm has two useful options:
-v or --volumes which will remove volumes associated with the container being removed
or which will remove volumes associated with the container being removed -f or --force which will force the removal of the container with SIGKILL
There’s also an useful option for docker container run command, namely --rm . It will remove the container automatically when it exits.
How to cleanup docker images?
To remove docker images run:
docker rmi $(docker image ls -aq)
In case of an image that is still used by docker an error will occur and such image will not be removed. Typically you remove dangling (untagged) images — which are useless, they just occupy the free space — and it can be done in the following way:
docker rmi $(docker image ls -aq --filter "dangling=true")
As with containers, there’s also -f or --force option available. What’s important here is that it’s quite safe to use, since images that are tied to running containers will not be removed even when -f option is present.
There’s also a similar option to docker container run --rm , namely docker image build --rm (which is used to remove intermediate containers after successful build) but the latter defaults to true, so it’s not needed to be passed explicitly.
How to cleanup docker volumes?
To remove docker volumes run:
docker volume rm $(docker volume ls -q)
Similarly to images there’s an -f (force) option available for docker volume rm and an -f (filter) option for docker volume ls . The latter can be used to filter only dangling (not tied to any running container volumes).
How to cleanup docker networks?
Docker networks are the least memory consuming components (these are just configuration files) so there’s not much gain from removing the docker networks. It also happens very rarely that you need to remove an existing docker network. However, as I wrote at the beginning, it’s not about space only, but about having it all clean and tidy.
To remove docker networks run:
docker network rm <NETWORK_ID>
Contrary to the previous components, there’s no -f (force) option provided. Similarly to them you can use docker network ls to filter the networks you’d like to remove.
Docker prune
The commands described in the previous sections are used to remove components of a particular type. But there’s a command that allows you to remove all redundant objects at once, namely docker system prune (available since version 1.13). It will remove all unused containers, networks and images (dangling). Optionally — if --volumes options is passed — volumes and (with -a option) also dangling images. Volumes are not removed by default, since it may contain some relevant/sensitive data. That’s why you need to state explicitly that you want the volumes to be removed too. After running the command you will see a warning:
WARNING! This will remove: - all stopped containers
- all networks not used by at least one container
- all volumes not used by at least one container
- all dangling images
- all dangling build cache Are you sure you want to continue? [y/N]
and will be prompted for a confirmation unless -f (force) option is present.
What’s more prune command is available for the components described in this post: containers, images, volumes and networks.
Remember to use it with caution!
Periodical cleanup
An idea to keep your docker ecosystem running clean and not overwhelmed by needless data is to run a periodical cleanup. But instead of setting it up on your own you can use a dedicated docker image that was already checked by other users. Here it goes! | https://blog.softwaremill.com/how-to-keep-your-docker-installation-clean-98a74eb7e7b3 | ['Maciek Opała'] | 2019-06-05 11:28:27.818000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Docker', 'DevOps', 'Monitoring'] |
Being International in Finland — a story of father and daughter. | Being International in Finland — a story of father and daughter.
The Lee-Teatini family has a multicultural background. Sebastiao Teatini has lived in many parts of the world before coming to Finland. He is originally from Brazil, but he has lived in the USA, Japan and Korea for many years. His parents are from Europe; his father is from Italy, and his mother comes from a German-Swiss background. His wife, Seunghee Lee, is Korean. Their daughters Mei and Soyoung were born in Japan. Their son Johan was born in Finland.
Sebastiao moved to Finland in 2012 to do his master’s degree. He and his family arrived in Oulu in summer, and little did they know that their impression of Finland weather was going to startle them in a few months!
One of the main reasons for Sebastiao to choose the University of Oulu was the infrastructure facilities the country provides for students in Finland even when they move to Finland with their families.
“The main thing for us was, of course, the access to education for my daughters and housing for our family. PSOAS was a great plus for us because we wanted to make sure that we had proper accommodation for our family when we arrived there.”
Soon after finishing his master’s studies, Sebastiao enrolled in a PhD programme in the same university. He also joined the Integration programme designed for immigrants in Finland to help them to learn the Finnish language and find a job in Finland. Sebastiao says that it is an intensive programme, and in addition to learning Finnish, the participants get to know more about the Finnish culture, its politics and geography etc. The integration programme offers internships, so the immigrants get used to the Finnish working environment before they get a real job. But soon, Sebastiao realized that it was difficult to manage both programmes simultaneously and decided to prioritize his studies at the university. To date, he regrets that he did not continue learning Finnish.
Photo by Sebastiao Teatini
“I should have dedicated more to learning Finnish and because it is very valuable, it’s almost indispensable.”
When it was time for Sebastiao and his family to leave Oulu, his daughters hesitated a lot. Since it was difficult for Sebastiao and his wife to find good careers in Finland even with a master’s degree, they had no option but to leave to South Korea, where they found jobs that match their level of expertise. After one year in Korea, Mei and Soyoung came back to Oulu to continue their studies. Sebastiao hopes to come to Finland in future and reunite with his daughters if they can find suitable jobs in Finland.
Next, we talked to his daughter, Mei, who is currently continuing her studies in Oulu.
Mei was born and spent her first six years of life in Japan. She went to kindergarten and elementary school in Japan. Her family moved to South Korea when she was in grade 2, and then when she was in grade 3, her family moved to Finland. Together with her sister Soyoung, they went to Oulu International School. This learning experience had a tremendous impact on Mei’s life. She got to know different cultures and different kinds of people. It is obvious that her parents’ multiculturalism has a positive impact on her life!
Photo by Arina Lykova
“It was really nice. Of course, at a young age, it’s hard to understand it in that way. But I’m very glad that I got to understand that people are different and we share different cultures… Some of the students were born and raised here, but some of them lived abroad and we got to just share about our experiences from learning Finnish language and then another language and getting to know different cultures as well. ”
Then from grade 7, she went to Normaalikoulu for two years, where everything was taught in Finnish. According to Mei, it was challenging, but she managed and eventually learnt the Finnish language fluently. In Normaalikoulu, Mei was afraid that everyone would be very traditional and don’t share different cultures.
“But I realized that there were many students who were foreigners and who also felt like they just couldn’t fit in somehow because of their looks or their personalities. And I also could relate to that. But I was just very glad to have international friends as well as Finnish friends.”
Mei had to go back to South Korea after completing her 8th grade in Finland. For 9th grade, she went to a school in South Korea and there, she struggled with the feeling of belongingness. The Korean education system was quite strict and conservative. It didn’t fit Mei’s liberal mindset. It made her come back to Oulu to continue her studies. She spent 5 months studying in OSYK (Arts and Theater High School). Currently, Mei is studying in the International Baccalaureate School.
Photo by Arina Lykova
“The main reason why I wanted to come back was education. I was very used to the Finnish culture, more than the Korean culture even though I respect both of them very much.”
Mei hopes to continue her studies in Finland, if not somewhere in Europe. Her interests in human behaviour and neuroscience had already made her take some classes related to these subjects, so she will be well prepared to do her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and/or Biology.
Given Sebastiao’s and Mei’s diversified family background, anybody would be curious to know how many languages they speak and what specific languages they use to communicate in the family! For example, Sebastiao knows seven languages: Portuguese (his mother tongue), English, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Japanese, and Finnish. For Mei, the mother tongues are English & Korean, but she fluently speaks Finnish, Japanese and learning Swedish. By now, for Mei, switching between languages to talk to people has become effortless. Sebastiao takes pride in that his children are multilingual.
Photo by Arina Lykova
“They would be able to speak Japanese with their friends, and they can immediately switch to English and talk to me, and then they can just immediately switch to Korean, talk to my wife, for example. It’s really amazing how children’s brains work. I was concerned, but after I saw all that happening, we did a little bit of research and realized that it’s very valuable… In fact, children who were raised bilingual or multilingual have less possibility to have Alzheimer’s disease as they get older by a significant percentage.”
To conclude our interview with this amazing multicultural family, we asked what their take on Finland being the happiest country in the world is. Sebastiao has a fascinating take on why Finland ranks as the happiest country in the world consecutively, and it cannot be any truer!
Photo by Arina Lykova
“I lived in many different places, different countries, and you always find things that are happy and not so happy about different countries. I think what I find about Finland is that it’s not so much that it is a happy country. It’s that the people are content. It’s the level of contentment with social welfare. For example; housing and that KELA provides help to the population. There is no homelessness. There’s no poverty, and it is very safe. It’s clean. I think that the Finnish people know that there are many other countries in the world that are not like that. So because of that, people feel content.”
After living in Finland, yet alone getting exposed to the education system, infrastructure facilities and how the government caters to the civilians’ needs and wants, it becomes everyone’s dream to live in a country like Finland. But one thing that Finland needs to look into (as an immigrant-friendly country) is how to stop skilled international talents from leaving the country due to unemployment. Once they achieve that, Finland would become a country with utopian qualities that any country dreams of becoming!
Author: Hansika Piyumali Ambahelagedara.
Editor: Arina Lykova. | https://medium.com/@entrecommunity/being-international-in-finland-a-story-of-father-and-daughter-903e02e98734 | ['Entrecom Enterprise Community'] | 2021-05-13 10:05:37.153000+00:00 | ['Finland', 'Immigration', 'International', 'Education', 'Multilingualism'] |
Top ten metrics for digitally native brands | Image courtesy of Bloom & Wild: Redefining the flower delivery experience
Digitally native brands, also referred to as Direct to consumer brands (D2C) and digitally native vertical brands (DNVB). This business model has flourished over the past 5 years — disrupting nearly every consumer category and shows no signs of slowing down.
Having been fortunate enough to have reviewed 1,000+ brands and have invested and been involved with some of the leading brands across categories globally in this space (Bloom & Wild, Gousto, Heist Studios, Mgemi, Rockets of awesome, Fenton & Co, Urban Jungle, Wool & The Gang) Jon and myself often get asked what metrics we look for when evaluating digitally native brands. Below we have outlined the KPI’s (key performance indicators) that we review when evaluating whether to make an investment in a direct to consumer brand/digitally native brand.
When evaluating a brand we are trying to answer four main questions — the answers to these questions are partially informed by the metrics that we look at :
What scale can this business get to? How profitable is the business going to be at scale? How defensible is the business going to be at scale? How capital efficient is the business going to be on the journey to scale?
Top Ten Metrics for digitally native brands
What scale can the business get to?
Gross sales: Gross sales looks at the overall throughput of your business. It is sometimes referred to as turnover or revenue. Gross sales is the full priced value of items * the number of items sold. Net sales: Most businesses receive returns. Net sales is the gross sales minus the value of the returned sales. In certain business models, for example fashion e-commerce where return rates can be 80% of an order value, monitoring the return rate and the associated costs of returns is key.
How profitable is the business going to be at scale?
3. Gross Margin: Gross margin, also commonly referred to as product margin is the Net sales minus all variable costs. The easiest way to think about variable costs is any cost that is directly associated with an individual sale. Typically variable costs will include: Raw materials/product costs, payments and other transaction costs, packaging costs and delivery costs
The variable costs should include the costs associated with items that have been returned.
Gross margin is typically looked at both as a £ number and as a % of net sales. As a rule of thumb product businesses typically have 50%+ gross margins.
4. Contribution Margin: In addition to variable costs there are typically costs that can be referred to as ‘semi-variable’. These costs are costs that scale in a linear way but are not directly related to an individual transaction. These costs typically include costs that can be allocated on a ‘per transaction basis’, but will vary over time and hopefully will decline on a per transaction basis as a company scales These costs include customer service costs and factory overhead
It is important to monitor the semi-variable costs as these costs if not managed carefully can spiral out of control especially during periods of high growth.
5. Cost of acquiring a customer (CPA): The average cost to acquire a customer is your new customer sales and marketing spend divided by the number of new customers that you acquire. This metric is an important metric to track. It is also sensible to track your cost of acquisition by different marketing channels as the cost by channel is typically very different and some marketing channels scale better than others.
One thing to pull out is discount codes. Discount codes can either be viewed as reducing the sales value or as a marketing spend. For example a £5 discount on a £20 item can either be shown as an item sold at £15 or as an item sold at £20 with £5 of marketing spend associated with the sale. We believe this should be seen as part of marketing spend, and hence cost of acquisition but there are advantages and disadvantages to both methods. When you come to doing your statutory accounts the correct way is to take the discount off the revenue. It is important to track the ‘fully loaded cost of acquisition’ being the actual cost to acquire a customer plus any cost associated with the discount. For example, if it costs you £20 to acquire a customer on Facebook and you give that customer a £5 discount code then the cost of acquiring the customer will be £25
How defensible is the business going to be?
6. Customer Advocacy: Measuring customer advocacy and the health of your customer base is critical and is a good leading indicator of whether your offering is truly differentiated vs competitors. It can be measured in a number of ways and is intended to reflect the health of your long term business. Customer advocacy metrics to track include:
a. Net Promoter Score: A net promoter score gives you an indication of the health of the overall customer base.
b. Customer review scores: Independently verified review scores such as Trustpilot, Feefo or Reevo can be useful to understand what your customers think of your product
c. Customer referral rate: The rate at which your customers refer your product or service to other customers. This can be measured using the Viral co-efficient formula. This metric is particularly valuable because it enables you to understand the multiplier effect that you can achieve by investing in new customer acquisition. If a new customer brings 5 other new customers then you can spend more on acquiring that one new customer than if the customer only brings themselves.
7. Cost of retaining a customer (RC): Whilst CPA is discussed a lot as a business scales the retention or reactivation cost becomes incredibly important and in some cases can be a similar level of cost to the cost of acquiring a new customer. It is important to track which channel your returning customers are coming to you from and whether this is a ‘paid’ channel (For example, google adwords) or a ‘free channel’ (For example, e-mail with no discount code)
8. Lifetime value of a customer: The lifetime-value of a customer is the gross margin a customer makes you over a period of time (No of purchases*Gross margin per purchase) minus the cost of acquiring that customer and cost of retaining that customer. For example: If a customer has a net average order value (net sales) of £20 and they order 5 times in a year their 1-year net sales value is £100. If the gross margin is 50% then their 1-year value is £50. If it costs you £10 to acquire that customer and £5 for each subsequent ‘reactivation’ then your 1 year lifetime value is £20. The lifetime value is often expressed as a multiple of the cost of acquiring a customer, this number is calculated in a range of different ways so if presenting it to other people then it makes sense to be clear on how you have calculated it. Our preferred method of calculation is to look at it on a 1 and 3-year basis. We take the gross margin value (minus the re-activation costs) and then divide it by the CAC. In this case the 1-year LTV/CAC ratio would be 1-year value of £100 (£20 net AOV*5 orders) at a gross margin of 50% = £50 minus the re-activation costs of £20 (£5 per order*4 orders) to get to a net 1-year LTV of £30. This £30 is then divided by the initial CAC of £10 to give you a 3x ratio. As a rule of thumb a 3x LTV-CAC is the minimum target ratio you should be aiming for.
How capital efficient is the business going to be on the route to scale?
9. Inventory Management: Capital efficiency which partly comes from effective inventory management is critical to be monitoring. Digitally native brands have the advantage of having a lot of data, this data can be used to aggressively manage inventory and cash in a way that gives you a competitive advantage over traditional brands. For example, data can be used to predict what demand you are going to have in a given week, if you get very good at this prediction you can order inventory close to ‘on demand’ and reduce inventory write off to close to 0%. Inventory needs to be considered both as the investment needed in inventory to drive sales and the holding cost associated with the inventory. Key metrics include:
a. Inventory turnover: This measures how quickly you can sell inventory in a given time period. Calculated by dividing sales by inventory.
b. Inventory write off: This is stock that no longer has a value to a business. For example, in a fresh food business the cost of food that has gone off and can no longer be sold.
c. Holding costs: These are similar to factory overhead above. These are costs such as warehouse space, insurance and other storage related costs that go up as you hold more inventory. It is important to understand what the holding cost per item of inventory is. This is true both in a content business (where you have the computing cost) as well as in a more traditional product business (where you have the cost of storing physical goods)
d. Average days to sell inventory: Knowing how long it typically takes to sell inventory improves your ability to forecast future inventory demands and adjust your customer demand levers if you need to speed up the throughput.
10. Cash Management: Cash is king, knowing what your net cash position is critical. If you are a loss making business tracking months until you cash out or months until you break even is important. Generally an investment process takes no less than 6 months from when you start planning, it is helpful to kick off a fund raise when you have at least 6 months of cash in the bank.
Good luck! If you are building a digitally native brand, in particular a full stack consumer brand with a positive societal impact (social or environmental) please get in touch with as at [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected] | https://medium.com/eka-ventures-writes/top-ten-metrics-for-digitally-native-brands-9b301361f915 | ['Camilla Dolan'] | 2019-03-18 15:29:07.717000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Consumer', 'Startup', 'Brands', 'Metrics'] |
Quantum Computing Explained | Quantum physics
Before understanding quantum computing we have to learn some basic quantum physics. It’s a bit complicated, but trust me you can do it!
Superposition
Superposition gives qubits (quantum bits- don’t worry we’ll talk about these later), their amazing exponential growth ability by allowing electrons to be in multiple states at once. If you’ve taken a physics class, you’ve probably heard that the electron is in a cloud around an atom somewhere. If not, then you’ve heard it here and if you don’t know what an electron is you can learn about that here.
The electrons are actually everywhere in the cloud, and in multiple states until they are measured. I know… confusing but stick with me. When being measured, electrons either have an up spin or a down spin; but, when electrons are not being measured, they can be in multiple states. They can be up and down at the same time. Think of it this way, you have a magic coin that when every you look away the coin is spinning but when are you look the coin is either head or tails. You can tell the coin is spinning when you’re not looking, because you can hear the coin spinning when you’re not looking at it. Electrons work the same way. When you are not measuring the electron, it can have an up spin a down spin, or any percentage of both. When you measure it, it has a down spin or an up spin. Also, we know that electrons can be in multiple states when we aren’t looking because we can observe the effects of this quantum mechanic. This was proven in 1927 when Clinton Davisson and Lester Germer did the double-slit experiment with electrons. The double-slit experiment is an experiment first performed in 1801 by Thomas Young to show the wave properties of light. The double-slit works like this: you have a screen with two slits and a surface behind it. Light is then shining through the screen and the waves of light pass through the slits, where a crest of the waves of light hits a trough, the light cancels out, and where a crest hits and amplifies, resulting in a pattern that looks like this:
If you do this with particles like sand, you get something that looks like this:
We already know this light is a wave and thus it makes a resulting pattern of a wave. Sand is a particle thus makes a particle pattern; but what about electrons? Electrons, as previously mentioned, can be in multiple states when we’re not measuring them, but when we measure them they collapse into a state. So when we do the double-slit experiment and we’re not measuring, the electron makes this pattern:
I know!! Confusing right? This is because electrons, although usually represented by a sphere or circle, are actually waves… but only when not being measured. What if we measured the electrons? What pattern would they make?
So if the electrons are being measured it collapses and it acts like particles.
Entanglement
Entanglement is weird! In fact, it is so weird that Einstein called it:
Spooky action at a distance — Albert Einstein
Entanglement is a principle that lets electrons communicate faster than the speed of light… theoretically. Entanglement happens when a parent electron with no spin decays into two electrons one with an up spin and the other with a down spin. (Note: it doesn’t have to be an electron it could be a photon, neutrino or almost any molecules). These electrons are now entangled, but what does that mean? When two electrons are entangled, they must be in opposite states at all times. For example, let’s imagine we had two of those magic coins from the start that are entangled. If I measure one of those coins and its heads, the other one will become tails instantly, even if they are on other sides of the world! That means quantum information can travel faster than the speed of light! As well, even when the coins are in a superposition, they must have an opposite spin. So does this mean classical physics is invalid now if quantum information can travel faster than the speed of light? While no, at least not yet, because we can prove the electron information is travelling faster than the speed of light. Our information only travels at the speed of light. For example, if lab 1 is talking to lab 2, and lab 1 tells lab 2 to “measure the electron now”, lab 2 will only get that information at the speed of light. The electron could have theoretically already transmitted the information by the time lab 2 measures the electrons. Even if we had two labs, and a computer in the middle of both labs that transmits a signal and at the same time causing the electrons to be measured, we can’t prove it was instant only faster than the speed of light. We can prove that the electron sends information faster than we can measure them. (which is at the speed of light)
Coherence & Decoherence
Coherence and decoherence are what make the electrons in superposition, entangled, or collapsed and untangle. If an electron is coherent, it is to say the wave of the election is consistent in-phase (the distance between a constant point) and waveform (shape of wave). If an electron is decoherent, the electron’s waveform and phase are not consistent.
Decoherence is caused due to noise in the environment. Noise can be anything in the environment that the electrons interact with, for example, other electrons, atoms, measurement systems, etc. The only known way to get rid of all noise in an environment for the electrons is to perfectly isolate the electron. If that can be done, the electron will be coherent forever. Unfortunately, we cannot do that. Decoherence is useful in quantum computing because during the decoherence time is when the quantum computer does its magic. | https://medium.com/@thomaslawrence642/quantum-computing-explained-de3a18e84947 | ['Thomas Lawrence'] | 2021-05-07 00:59:12.417000+00:00 | ['Computer Science', 'Quantum Computing', 'Quantum Physics', 'Quantum', 'Computers'] |
Why You Should Invest In Dubai Before 2020? | Expo is a global destination for millions of people to share ideas, showcase innovation, encourage collaboration and celebrate human ingenuity. It is organized every five years and lasts for six months. The first World Expo was held in 1851 at London’s Crystal Palace and was known as The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. It displayed about 10,000 objects showcasing the inventions from the industrial revolution.
Expo 2020 is a World Expo to be hosted by Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, opening on October 20, 2020. The first Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia with many reasons to be counted as one of the most important in exposition history. Dubai was selected to host the World Expo by The Bureau International des Expositions general assembly in Paris on November 27, 2013. “Ladies and gentlemen, Dubai wins.” Those were the words in 2013 which brought about scenes of jubilation both in Paris at the general assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE). In UAE there were residents who were waiting for the outcome of the voting of the 164 nation members entitled to vote. Dubai won by a resounding majority with 116 votes, leaving Yekaterinburg, Russia, with only 47. Fireworks filled the sky in Dubai as they exploded out of the Burj Khalifa in front of thousands of smiling faces below when the victory was announced.
UAE selected the theme “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”, with the sub-themes Sustainability, Mobility, and Opportunity for the Expo 2020. A ring found at a 4,000-years-old archaeological site in the desert in the Al Marmum area of Dubai was the inspiration behind the logo of Dubai expo 2020. The logo was revealed by Sheikh Mohammed and was displayed on the Burj Khalifa. The logo represents the nation’s message to the world that their civilization has deep roots. They were and will always be a pot that gathers civilizations and a Centre for innovation.
Dubai South, close to Al Maktoum International Airport is the Expo site’s area. In total, two square kilometers of the site will form the Expo event area while the remaining land will be dedicated to support facilities such as the Expo 2020 Village, warehousing, logistics, transport, hotels, and a public park. Al Wasl Plaza will be the heart of Expo 2020. There will be a pavilion for each of the main themes — sustainability, mobility, and opportunity. Each participating country will have its own pavilion. The UAE pavilion is being designed by Santiago Calatrava and it features the outline of a falcon. The goal is to complete all construction work a full year before the event is due to take place.
Expo 2020 Dubai will transform the UAE, especially Dubai, into a huge showcase containing the best examples of global products. An event of such magnitude will also bring countless advantages for Dubai, especially for its real estate sector. Five key industries that would greatly benefit from the event are hospitality, retail, transportation, banking, and finance. Expo 2020 will create many business opportunities in Dubai and at least a million indirect jobs throughout the UAE. Most of the jobs will be created in the travel and tourism sector. The event will act as a powerful economic and cultural catalyst for the host country.
The Legacy plans of the Expo 2020 are “wide-ranging and ambitious”. The key aim is to stimulate the development of a knowledge economy in Dubai, anchored to the Expo site itself, which need to be continued to be a destination that attracts visitors, students and companies and is home to a combination of organizations including strategic industries, specialized technology companies, social entities and education facilities even after the event. A conference and exhibition center will be a key building in the Expo master plan, which will become a major event venue to be operated by the Dubai World Trade Centre. Once the site is fully developed, it is expected to be home to about 1 million residents and 500,000 jobs.
Expo’s efforts to minimize water use also directly contribute to one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN. Expo 2020’s overarching sustainability strategy aims for the event to be a catalyst for change across the nation, the region and around the world. Entire World is looking forward to the most awaiting 2020 Expo UAE. The wait will be worth to watch the interesting developments and progress Expo 2020 UAE is going to bring. | https://medium.com/@impressiveuaeseo/why-you-should-invest-in-dubai-before-2020-ae1942aecb2f | ['Impressive Uae'] | 2019-05-11 05:25:08.608000+00:00 | ['Company Formation', 'Dubai', 'Company', 'Business', 'Uae'] |
Corona virus deaths worldwide exceed 1.541 million | The number of corona cases worldwide has risen to 67,393,283, bringing the death toll from the epidemic to 1,541,747, while 46,584,229 patients have recovered from the disease, according to media reports.
For further details please visit us on:https://sidraansar.blogspot.com/2020/12/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-exceed.html | https://medium.com/@sidra-ansar5/corona-virus-deaths-worldwide-exceed-1-541-million-cdf6d039eae9 | ['Sidra Ansar'] | 2020-12-07 09:35:17.322000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'America', 'Corona', 'Germany', 'India'] |
Interview with the Immortal | Many people have attended funerals. That’s life — we’re all going to die one day. Some people have been to their own funerals: faking your own death is not something new to anyone. Every ambitious top corruptionist has faced this hard challenge. However, one character has been to his own funeral more than 300 times!
For three hundred times he has watched himself being buried, people discussing this sorrowful event, dishing how he lived, what he did, what would the world be without him. Don’t you believe? You should!
Today he is our guest. We are glad to welcome His Serene Highness! The King of Digital Transactions and Crypto World — Bitcoin!
- Hello! How did you feel at your own funerals?
- Greetings to all of my supporters! As usual, I am glad to see you being rich and motivated. Oh, competitors are also here. Good evening, young man. How are things going for your papa Vitalik? Hasn’t he had enough of playing with Ethereum? (laughs — author’s note).
I had ambivalent feelings at my funerals. On one side, it was real fun: Holy Christ! Bitcoin died! Not to mention those headlines: “…died suddenly yesterday”, or “After the lingering illness, doctors took decision to turn off Bitcoin’s life support machine…” cannot help laughing here (laughs — author’s note). On the other side, it’s very sad. Sad to see how dim-witted people can be.
- Explain then, why was everything happening like that? Why did so many well-known experts kick you into the long grass? What was the reason?
- Let’s get back to the history. How much did I cost at birth? Two cheap pizzas. Without meat… Now people are ready to give $7500 for one token. So why are we talking about death?
- Undoubtedly, you are an unbelievably valuable figure, but let’s recollect that in December one token, as you are calling it (smiles — author’s note), was worth $19,500 and then just in several months there was such a slump. What happened? How could you sink so low?
- Please, don’t rush me, I will continue what I started. Let’s get back to the history, as I’ve already said. From my record-high mark of $19,500 in December to my recent minimum of $6,200 my value reduced by just 68.2%. Of course, that’s a big amount, but I experienced even worse situations in my life, and successfully overcame them, as you already know.
Do you remember how I lost almost 95% of my value after the first cryptocurrency exchange MtGox was hacked in 2011? It was a real shock for me, but I pulled myself together and stood the test of time.
And the cold summer of 2013? Due to the trading halt, I grew 79% poorer, and in late autumn of that year, while I was still carrying the status of the leading cryptocurrency, I started to experience the longest unpleasant bear dominance in my life that lasted until January 2015.
Over that time, my value dropped by more than 86%, but I survived anyway. Right?
- Sure, you are very strong and sustainable, but all those past stresses and failures you faced, plus the pressure of young rivals… Could it be the beginning of the end for Bitcoin era?
- All of my hard times were followed by rapid surges up to 30–35%. Owing to such surges, new investors were coming to the market believing that I was duly apprised at last.
I have brought them more than 650% over the last 12 months! Not bad for a dead man, right?
Concerning the youth: “Any toy is O.K. that keeps the baby at play”.
Can you remember any other asset that has shown such an impressive profitability over a year? (laughs — author’s note).
Apparently, you cannot. Therefore, all those pessimistic analysts that have considered me dead for three-hundred-and-something times are creating additional hype around me without even knowing it.
Want to bet? I will have some rest (sea, sun, sand, you know), and then will renew the growth. Thousands, no, tens of millions of investors will rush to buy me. Then my yearly profitability will be 6500% rather than 650%!
The history shows that after every decline I reach new price peaks that exceed previous records by 3.5 times. Remember, my friends: I am immortal! The future belongs to me! Now I beg your pardon, it’s high time to take medicine, as bloody DDoS attacks are wearing me down (coughs and goes away — author’s note). | https://medium.com/smile-expo/interview-with-the-immortal-390e55f79985 | [] | 2018-08-03 08:50:52.119000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Interview', 'Digital', 'Token Sale', 'Blockchain'] |
Keeping Detained Kids Alive | Terry H. Schwadron
Dec. 28, 2018
It turns out that 2,100 migrants have been arriving daily at the southwest border, most funneled through the 25 ports of entry. About 60% are families and minors traveling alone. Last month, federal agents arrested 25,172 families, most of whom were fleeing violence and poverty.
We are not set up to see these numbers, even in detention camps and tent cities. So, in retrospect, it seems inevitable that we would see deaths, in particular juvenile deaths.
Yet, in the staredown that is the government shutdown, the central issue is money for the Wall itself, not for treatment of those individuals, particularly children, who are caught up in the process.
The 8-year-old Guatemalan boy who died on Christmas Eve in U.S. custody had been moved among at least four crowded facilities at the border over the six days from his apprehension until his death, evidence that the surge of Central American families reaching the southwest border has overwhelmed the border authorities. He was the second migrant child under 10 to die this month.
In explanation of the death to Congress on Wednesday, Kirstjen M. Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, said the “dramatic increase” had pushed the system to “a breaking point.” She said she had ordered her agency to bolster medical screenings of children at the southwest border and had enlisted the medical corps of Coast Guard to assist. The secretary also said that she would travel to the border this week to personally observe the screenings.
Most of the circumstances surrounding the boy’s death remain unknown. It is not clear whether his health deteriorated because of neglect by personnel in the facilities, the perilous journey, or a combination of these factors.Nevertheless, the secretary underscored that the brunt of blame for the deaths should be on the migrant parents who undertook a dangerous journey with children, knowing that they would face all sorts of issues about their well-being. Of course, critics of this column point out that there are occasional deaths of Americans as a result of illegal immigration, but somehow that doesn’t square our responsibilities for those we keep in detention.
Even if the Wall were built, the same number of people would come through the ports of entry as do now — if not more — raising the effectiveness of our detention system.
Some of the questions being asked by Congress are expected: Why did we start in on a policy of separating children from families if we were not ready to handle the numbers? Why are these deaths a good reflection of American values? Why is the president talking about a Wall, and not also about protecting children in American custody?
Clearly, Nielsen has a difficult assignment to carry out — stopping all illegal immigration across a long border that is probed regularly by unsavory coyote guides who know the system’s soft spots, with more and more migrants who find their home country so dangerous to remain that they risk the hazards of the walk north.
But the deaths also made me wonder how many deaths are occurring on the Mexican side of the border, where our asylum procedures now are forcing families to stay for weeks without adequate food, shelter or safety. How many child deaths are occurring back the neighborhoods in Honduras and Guatemala that prompt the trek north?
The New York Times published an interesting set of graphics this week that show exactly where we already have walls or fencing or some other security in place. As this federal government shutdown continues over the future of funds for the Wall, it is a very useful and informative approach.
We lack an equivalent set of graphics that show exactly what happens to families. Instead, procedurally, the numbers alone are making this a chaotic process.
“This crisis is exacerbated by the increase in persons who are entering our custody suffering from severe respiratory illnesses or exhibit some other illness upon apprehension,” Nielsen said. “Given the remote locations of their illegal crossing and the lack of resources, it is even more difficult for our personnel to be first responders.”
The Guatemalan boy dies after being diagnosed with a cold and a high feverin New Mexico. Earlier, a 7-year-old girl also from Guatemala died of dehydration and septic shock two days after she was taken into custody with her father. The recent fatalities are the first child deaths in more than a decade, according to Nielsen. As of Tuesday, Border Patrol agents have started conducting secondary medical checks on all children in CBP custody, including unaccompanied minors and those part of family units traveling with other family members or legal guardians.
Under current law, non-Mexican unaccompanied children cannot be released or removed from the U.S. — they are turned over to Health and Human Services for placement. While family units are typically released into the interior while they await asylum proceedings.
One can only hope that the approach to settling the outstanding issues over the Wall will include a wider look at those hurt in the process.
##
www.terryschwadron.wordpress.com | https://terryschwadron.medium.com/keeping-detained-kids-alive-a10be036688d | ['Terry Schwadron'] | 2018-12-28 11:53:12.917000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Health', 'Immigration', 'Kids', 'Trump'] |
Can You Tell Someone’s Gay Just By Looking At Them? | Can You Tell Someone’s Gay Just By Looking At Them?
Research suggests ‘gay face’ is real; life suggests you still might be an a*shole.
Dwight uses ‘gaydar’ on Oscar | ‘The Office’
An Atlantic article published in April reminds us that science still hasn’t pinned down the exact cause(s) of homosexuality. It seems based in biology (but not necessarily heredity), and it’s this biological component that has some folks thinking that there’s a surefire external way to identify a gay person.
Their reasoning? The purported existence of “Gay Face,” a term that the LGBTQ community has accepted (or at least not yet decried) to describe the “look” of a homosexual face. So, is Gay Face real? Or is it just ugly stereotyping dressed up as something… less harmful than stereotyping?
Turns out there might be some validity to the Gay Face theory. In their 2008 study, psychologists Nicholas Rule and Nalini Ambady took photos of 80 straight men and 80 gay men, cropped out jewelry and hair (to account for style choices that might separate the groups) and superimposed each face on a white background. Then, the study’s participants had to guess the sexual orientation of each person in the photos. All 90 participants guessed better than chance (in other words, better than the statistical 50/50 shot). The researchers cut down viewing time to 50 milliseconds per face — ensuring that none of the participants would be able to consciously process the photo — and yet they still guessed better than chance.
In a second experiment by the same scientists, they cropped the faces down to just the eye region or just the mouth — and got the same results. People were somehow able to identify a gay pair of eyes, even in 50-millisecond flashes.
Then in 2014, a study by a team of psychologists at Charles University in Prague proved that there were indeed “morphological differences” between the faces of homosexual and heterosexual men. The researchers discovered that:
Homosexual men showed relatively wider and shorter faces, smaller and shorter noses, and rather massive and more rounded jaws, resulting in a mosaic of both feminine and masculine features.
So, if we’re buying the theory that discrete physical differences (however small) exist between gay and straight faces, the question becomes: Why? In his Scientific American article “There’s Something Queer About That Face,” Jesse Bering discounts Rule and Ambady’s “lackluster evolutionary reasons” for Gay Face. Even if the phenomenon did develop out of an evolutionary need for women to bypass men who “aren’t worth the trouble” or for men to figure out who is and is not a sexual competitor, the Rule-Ambady study can’t point to what it is, exactly, about the features that register as gay.
Instead, Bering supports what he calls the “muscular activation hypothesis” — the idea that effeminate gay men use facial expressions that are more traditionally “female” than their straight male counterparts. Over time, the repeated use of “feminine muscle configurations” produces a morphology that contributes to that mosaic of feminine and masculine mentioned earlier.
But even with that evidence, eyeballing someone’s sexual orientation is a dangerous game. William Cox’s paper in the Journal of Sex Research uses a good example to discourage labeling somebody based on looks alone:
“Imagine that 100 percent of gay men wear pink shirts all the time, and 10 percent of straight men wear pink shirts all the time. Even though all gay men wear pink shirts, there would still be twice as many straight men wearing pink shirts.” So even in the most extreme example, it’s clear that if you’re trying to guess who’s gay and who’s not just by looking, you’re going to be wrong most of the time.
Whatever conclusions we can draw about the scientific validity of Gay Face, it’s important to remember that sexuality is a spectrum and the only way to correctly identify somebody’s orientation is to — surprise, surprise — ask them. | https://medium.com/omgfacts/can-you-tell-someones-gay-just-by-looking-at-them-df85045317ee | ['Duke Harten'] | 2017-01-05 18:23:23.232000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Gay', 'Science', 'LGBTQ', 'Life'] |
Web Cookies Crash Course | Web Cookies Crash Course
Photo by Erika Osberg on Unsplash
Imagine yourself adding a product on your Amazon cart just to find out it didn’t get added or when you log in into your Facebook account just to find out it logged you out after each new page change. These problems are resolved by using cookies. Before cookies, the internet was like a person with short term memory loss. After a click or page change, it might log you out or forget what you were doing.
Web cookies are also known as HTTP cookies. Basically, cookies are small files that store text-based user data. The data can be anything from the user’s location, the language used, the device used, time of visit, likes-dislike pattern, etc. These files are stored in the user’s local machine while the user browses a website. Cookies detect browsing activities and information for many purposes like showing ads, deals, and relevant goods and services.
For example, when you Google search protein shakes benefits, Google’s cookies store this information and it use that to show you protein shake ads on Instagram or YouTube.
Each cookie has its own unique ID. This allows website owners to know it’s you who visited their website multiple times. Cookies detect and monitor our activities on websites like what you searched for, what services/buttons you clicked, or added to the shopping cart. On the next visit, these cookies are used to display the deals, services, and products based on our previous activities. It can also be used to remember login details. Due to their nature, cookies are perfect for advertisement. Cookies are good if websites use them properly or it could mean a breach of privacy.
How Cookies Work
Before we start blaming websites for stealing your information, let’s understand how cookies exactly work.
1. When we visit a website for the first time, the website creates a unique cookie for the user and sends it to the browser along with your response.
Figure 1: A first-time visit to the website
2. This cookie is stored on the local machine’s hard drive and is specific for this website.
3. On all the next visits to the same website, the browser sends this cookie to the servers on every call.
4. The server edits this cookie according to user actions on the website.
5. The new cookie is then sent to the browser and replaces the old version cookie.
Figure 2: All consecutive visits to the same website
6. This cycle repeats every time when you visit/perform some activity on this website.
7. By reading this changed cookie, the browser loads new products, posts, blogs, or services that are specifically targeted based on your previous interest.
Types of Cookies
Different cookies are used to perform different operations.
Persistent Cookies
These cookies are stored on the computer’s hard drive and store user preferences. These cookies remain on the local machine as long as the user allows it (or manually deletes them). These cookies are updated constantly whenever a user triggers some activity on the website. For example, when you click on the “Remember Me” button during login, it creates a persistent cookie that stores login information on your browser.
Session/Transient Cookies
These cookies are stored in the computer’s memory and contain the session ID of the user login. This cookie is deleted as soon as the browser is shut down which makes them less of a security risk. For example, when we change different pages of amazon, session cookies allow us to stay logged-in in the same session rather than logging you out repeatedly for every new page.
Third-party Cookies
These are cookies that are created by the sites which you are not visiting. Third-party cookies are based on third-party APIs/plugins used on a website you are on. For example, let’s say you are reading something on BuzzFeed (main website) and they have a Facebook (third-party website) share button on that blog post. If you click on it, a third-party cookie will be generated that is associated with Facebook and not BuzzFeed.
Real-World Applications
Get a count of unique customers who visits a website.
Location details that can be used to focus on area wise targeted ads.
Show relevant products, deals, etc., personalizing the website experience based on customer activity.
To improve the user experience of the website
To store the login details etc.
Risk Associated with Cookies
Every coin has two sides. Cookies can be used for good as well as bad purposes. They might risk your privacy or personal data. We will discuss some of the well-known security issues with Cookies.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
A malicious cookie is sent to legitimate websites on a user’s visit disguised as it belongs to the legitimate website.
Session Fixation
Users will be given an attacker’s cookie that contains the attacker’s session ID. Attackers can disguise users to act as attackers on various application levels.
Cross-Site Request Forgery Attack (CSRF)
An attacker sends a malicious cookie to a user’s browser to attack a legitimate website. The next time when the user visits the website and sends the cookie to the servers, the website would believe the malicious actions are initiated by the user.
Cookie Tossing Attack
A malicious site provides a cookie to the user which acts as it belongs to the targeted website’s subdomain. When a user visits a targeted website, all cookies are sent to the website along with malicious cookies. This cookie affects the contents of other cookies and performs malicious actions.
For more information on risks associated with Cookies, refer to these blogs on Cookie Attack and Cookie Guide.
How to manage Cookies for better security
Completely relying on the developers to do the right thing with cookies can be risky. A good thing is, we can control cookies in our browsers to some extent. We can decide which cookies to allow or block. We will discuss two easy options on how to control cookies. See the link to get more In-Depth Guild.
Option 1: Create a Cookie Control Policy for Your Browser
Every browser provides options that can be used to manage the cookies. The below description is for Chrome. However, all the browsers have similar functionality with minor changes.
1. Open Settings from the main menu in your browser.
2. Navigate to the “Privacy and Security” section and click on “Site Settings”. Click on the “Cookies and Site Data” tab.
3. You can also directly open it by searching “Cookies” in the search bar at the top and open the tab.
Figure 3: Chrome’s Cookie settings
4. As the name suggests, we can allow or block cookies for all websites, clear cookies on every restart or block third-party cookies.
5. We can manually block, allow, or clear cookies for specific sites as shown in the above figure.
Option 2: Use a Cookies Management Extension
Browser Extensions/Add-ons provide additional functionality to the browser beyond the built-in features. There are many extensions that can be used to edit and manage cookies. To install extensions in Chrome,
1. Open Chrome Web Store or extension store for your browser
2. Search “cookies”
3. This will give a list of cookie-related extensions. Install the current highest rated extension.
A good extension to get started is “EditThisCookie”. This allows you to see the cookies stored in the browser and block, delete or edit them on the fly. It can also be used to read the cookies and their structure.
Figure 4: EditThisCookie extension in Brave browser showcasing facebook cache
There are no limitations on what the size of a cookie should be. However, according to the Request for Comment (RFC) 2019 standards, if the cookie size is less than 4093 bytes, it will be supported by all the browsers. Some browsers can support a bigger size of cookies, but to make it safe 4093 bytes is the recommended size. Similar to the size limitation, there is no specific limitation on how many cookies a browser or a website can have. However, a safe estimate is 30 to 50 maximum cookies per website domain that can be used.
If you found this article helpful, make sure you like, subscribe, and share it with people who might be interested. If you think anything is confusing or incorrect please let me know by commenting down below and I will try my best to answer it.
Thank you for reading the article. | https://medium.com/@devavratvk/web-cookies-crash-course-12c0b1b3180a | ['Devavrat Kalam'] | 2020-12-16 14:12:19.422000+00:00 | ['Security', 'Web Design', 'Beginners Guide', 'Web Development', 'Web Cookies'] |
What exactly is Data Analytics? | Data Analytics has been the trendy expression for a long time now. Either the information being created from enormous enterprises or the information produced from an individual, every single part of information should be taken advantage of. In any case, how would we do it? That is the where the term ‘Data Analytics’ comes in.
For what reason is Data Analytics significant?
As a gigantic measure of information gets created, the need to understand valuable insights is an absolute necessity for a business venture. Data Analytics has a key job in improving your business. Here are 4 principle factors which enforce the requirement for Data Analytics:
Assemble Hidden Insights — Hidden bits of knowledge from data is accumulated and afterward investigated for business analysis.
2. Produce Reports — Reports are created from the information and are given to the employees for further analysis.
3. Perform Market Analysis — Market Analysis can be performed to comprehend the qualities and the shortcomings of the competition.
4. Improve Business Requirement — Analysis of Data enables improving customer relations.
Data Analyst- Can you be one?
Data examiners interpret numbers into plain English. They take data and use it for deciphering, investigating, and showing discoveries in far reaching reports. In the event that you have the ability to gather information from different sources, dissect the information, accumulate concealed bits of knowledge and create reports, at that point you can turn into a Data Analyst.
On the off chance that you are somebody hoping to get into this fascinating vocation, now would be the perfect time to upskill and exploit the Data Analysis profession openings that come your direction. If you are a software engineer who is looking to up his game, head on over to www.lrned.io . Being India’s fastest career accelerator, it not only makes you one of the elite, it also helps you get decorated positions in decorated companies. So, head on over to www.LrnEd.io and apply now! | https://medium.com/lrned/what-exactly-is-data-analytics-953f241e11d2 | ['Sanjay Verma'] | 2020-01-21 17:04:38.950000+00:00 | ['Data Analyst', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Science', 'Data', 'Data Visualization'] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.