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5 Items to remember during Website Creation — 3rd one the most important | 5 Items to remember during Website Creation — 3rd one the most important
Website Creation is convoluted. In any undertaking, there are a large number of viewpoints to consider, from client experience to execution. Advancement of any undertaking site is a vast scope, complicated procedure. However, an eCommerce development site presents its specific difficulties. Since clients will be going to the website to find out about and buy items, engineers will need to do all that they can to make this procedure simple and intuitive. Yet, close by the contemplation of convenience, here are a couple of different parts of an eCommerce site that engineers will need to make sure to consider during the improvement procedure:
Step#1 :Executing Responsive Design
To make a site open and usable on each gadget is significant for the achievement of an eCommerce site. The Episerver CMS is a particularly incredible asset for eCommerce locales, and Episerver eCommerce is to actualize a responsive plan consequently. Different CMS stages can use a responsive layout, yet they require additional design. Be that as it may, whatever stage you use, you’ll be sure you remember portable clients for each part of the site, from essential route to checkout and installment.
Step#2:Bolster Guest Checkouts
Organizations with eCommerce destinations will regularly need to expect clients to make a record .so as to make a buy, since this takes into consideration follow-up correspondence that energizes future deals, just as following clients’ segment data to break down agreements.
Ace tip: Since you’ll, despite everything, need to attempt to urge clients to make a record,
you may try to structure the buying procedure to permit clients to finish a visitor checkout, and upon culmination, allow them to make a record utilizing the data that they just entered.
Step#3: Site Search Is Important
Insights show that 30% of guests to eCommerce destinations use search to discover the items they are searching for, so it’s essential to ensure the pursuit of usefulness is accessible and straightforward to utilize. Furthermore, it’s a smart thought to use highlights like autocomplete to assist clients with finding popular items or things identified with their ventures.
Ace tip: In request to ensure look through return the best outcomes, ensure item data is wholly and efficient, which will take into account faceted hunt and better-indexed lists.
Step#4:Security Is Essential
All eCommerce locales should bolster SSL to scramble data that necessities to stay secure. It is particularly valid for Visa and installment data, yet additionally, any client data like location, telephone number, email, and so forth. Clients have a desire that their data will stay secure when they make a buy on the web, thus guaranteeing that SSL is isn’t only a smart thought.
Master tip: Don’t store charge card numbers in your site’s database. While it may appear to be a smart thought to keep card data on the document to make buys simpler for clients, keeping this data put away on your servers is a colossal security chance.
Step#5:Streamline Site Performance
On the off chance that your site is moderate, you’re probably going to lose clients. Measurements show that 40% of clients will surrender a place that takes over 3 seconds to stack. It is particularly valid for versatile clients, who are regularly performing various tasks as they get to sites and are bound to proceed onward to something different if a website is excessively moderate.
To shield from losing clients because of average burden times, you’ll need to ensure your site is to run as fast as could be expected under the circumstances. Here are a couple of approaches to enable your site to run all the more easily:
Joining a webpage’s JavaScript or CSS asset documents into single records will accelerate their collaboration with the website since clients will need to download one JavaScript document or template as opposed to five or ten.
Use storing to decrease the time spent sending information between the web server and the database server.
Yet, there are a lot more components to consider when building up your site. You’ll need to ensure you are making arrangements for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and keeping your item information composed, just as thinking about how to focus on your substance to various clients, and any number of different perspectives to remember.
Conclusion
Do you need assistance seeing how to begin building up your eCommerce site? If you don’t mind, get in touch with us to address a web advancement master, or don’t hesitate to leave any inquiries you may have about eCommerce in the remarks underneath.
Read More: Why Hiring a Website designer is important | https://medium.com/@bilaalshah/5-items-to-remember-during-website-creation-3rd-one-the-most-important-1f18e5a33a94 | ['Recycling Media'] | 2020-12-24 10:53:44.946000+00:00 | ['Website', 'Website Traffic', 'Website Designing', 'Website Development'] |
JavaScript.Linked Lists. What is “Linked Lists”? Create a Node Class API | Hello for new readers and welcome back who is still with me. Just want to mention that I stopped writing blogs about data structures and different algorithms for a while, but with full of energy and nice mood (I hope you have the same) I would like to share my knowledge about Linked Lists, and knowledge other people about it ,too. I wanted to collect all information in one blog and make it understandable for each not matter what level you have right now.
Linked List
A linked list is a linear data structure, in which the elements are not stored at contiguous memory locations. The elements in a linked list are linked using pointers.
In simple words:
a linked list consists of nodes where each node contains a data field and a reference(link) to the next node in the list.
Ordered collection of data
Chain of nodes
Why need to learn Linked Lists?
Linked List is Dynamic data Structure . Linked List can grow and shrink during run time. Insertion and Deletion Operations are Easier Efficient Memory Utilization ,i.e no need to pre-allocate memory Faster Access time, can be expanded in constant time without memory overhead Linear Data Structures such as Stack,Queue can be easily implemented using Linked list
Array vs Linked Lists?
Arrays can be used to store linear data of similar types, but arrays have the following limitations.
1) The size of the arrays is fixed: So we must know the upper limit on the number of elements in advance. Also, generally, the allocated memory is equal to the upper limit irrespective of the usage.
2) Inserting a new element in an array of elements is expensive because the room has to be created for the new elements and to create room existing elements have to be shifted.
And if we want to insert a new ID 1005, then to maintain the sorted order, we have to move all the elements after 1000 (excluding 1000).
Deletion is also expensive with arrays until unless some special techniques are used. For example, to delete 1010 in id[], everything after 1010 has to be moved.
For example, in a system, if we maintain a sorted list of IDs in an array id[].
id[] = [1000, 1010, 1050, 2000, 2040].
I guess it will be useful to read this nice article which is under this paragraph. They compare array and linked list.Also, they have more information about it.
Examples of simple nodes
But let’s begin with creating Node Class API
Constructor → it’s our function; Data, Node → Arguments ; Node → We have to return.
Directions
Creates a class instance to represent a node. The node should have properties: ‘data’ and ‘next’. Accept both of these as arguments to the ‘Node’ constructor, then assign them to the instance as properties ‘data’ and ‘next’. If ‘next’ is not provided to the constructor, then default its value to be ‘null’.
CODE:
class Node{
constructor(data, next = null){
this.data = data
this.next = next
}
}
It looks very simple, but it is just beginning and we will continue working on it in the next blog. Thank you for reading. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/javascript-linked-lists-what-is-linked-lists-create-a-node-class-api-9aa0fa460075 | ['Yuriy Berezskyy'] | 2020-07-02 10:04:31.178000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Algorithms', 'Software Development', 'Linked Lists', 'Data Structures'] |
Scalable & Highly Available Web & Mobile App Architecture | This is a quick overview of how to architect a web+mobile application in a way it is scalable and highly available. We will use AWS cloud technologies to implement the architecutre to achieve these targets.
What is High Availability?
A highly available application is one that can function properly when one or more of its components fail. It does not have a single point of failure, that is, when one component fails, the application can still deliver correct results.
What is scalability?
Scalability is the ability of an application to fulfill its functions properly when its execution rate becomes higher. For example, in the case of a HTTP API, it concretely means the ability of the API to respond correctly and in a reasonable time to all requests when the number of requests per second goes higher.
Typical Application Architecture
Modern applications typically consist of one or more frontend clients used by customers (one or more native mobile apps + a javascript app), talking to one back-end through HTTP API. The back-end stores data in a database and responds to requests coming from front-end clients.
Design for High Availability
Single points of failure
The first step is to identify where a failure can compromise the availability of the application. All the following are single points of failure :
The locations where the front-end clients are stored for distribution. If a location becomes unavailable, one of the clients cannot be accessed and used by customers, and thus cannot use the application. The HTTP API back-end component. If this component fails, requests sent by front-end clients will not be fullfilled. The database. If the database fails, the back-end will not be able to extract stored data or write data in response to API requests sent by clients.
HA for front-end clients distribution locations
The locations where the front-end clients are stored for distribution depend of the target platform. In case of Android and IOS clients, these locations are typically Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Or mobile app stores in general. High availability of these locations are handled by Google, Apple and app stores owners and we can’t do much about it.
For web client, we can store it in AWS S3 and distribute it with AWS Cloudfront, which makes it not only highly available but also scalable as we will see later. Using this setup is so common today. Here is a step by step tutorial about how to achieve that.
HA for Back-end
The back-end API component needs to be up and running to respond to any request sent by front-end clients. The basic setup consists in running one instance of Nodejs express server that fullfills HTTP requests. But if that instance goes down for whatever reason, the application is not available anymore. One approach is to launch multiple EC2 instances hosting your servers on multiple Availability Zones / Regions. Then use Amazon Elastic Load Balancer to distribute the incoming requests to the healthy instances. Amazon ELB does the health check automatically so that if it finds that an instance is not responding, it does not forward future requests to it. Using Amazon ELB has another advantage, it can do the SSL/HTTPS connection management for us so that our servers receive plain HTTP traffic. This is a big advantage, given the high cost of SSL connection management computing. And since usage of SSL is increasingly being enforced by web browsers and platforms, this comes really handy.
HA for Database
The typical way to ensure high availability of a database is to have replicas in different availability zones that are the mirror of the master database. When the master becomes unavailable, one of the replicas takes the role of the master. Replication can be done either the old way, setting up multiple EC2 instances each hosting a database replica, and you manage the replication and failover by yourself. Or you can use Amazon RDS which manages the database server for you and takes care of maintenance, upgrades, replications and failover. Note that Amazon RDS is for relational database servers. There are also offerings for NoSql databases.
Design for Scalability
Now we know how to make our application highly available. But what about scalability? How to make sure our application can cope with traffic peaks and still functions properly under heavy load?
Front-end clients distribution
For front-end clients distribution, mobile app stores and Amazon cloudfront are designed to be highly scalable so no need to worry about that point.
Backend API
For the back-end part, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can be leveraged to automatically scale your Nodejs servers when required. Amazon Elastic Load Balancer works well with EC2 Auto Scaling. Here is a tutorial about how to achieve it.
Another way to achieve scalability is to use Amazon API Gateway in combination with AWS Lambda. The first lets you define endpoints for your API. The second lets you execute functions without managing any server. This is called Serverless Computing. Express application servers can easily be updated to run as lambda function using serverless-http npm module. It will be triggered when front-end clients fire HTTPS requests to your defined APIs. Amazon API Gateway is highly available and scalable and you can use your own domains and subdomains to trigger it. Amazon API Gateway + AWS Lambda can be used as a replacement for Amazon Elastic Load Balancer + Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling + EC2 with less administration overhead. It should also cost less. It costs nothing when you have no or low traffic.
Database
Coming to database, it is not as easy to scale as computing since most databases can support a limited number of open connections, depending on the database server and the underlying machine available memory.
The first step scaling database layer is to use some pooling mechanism that can recycle connections and manage them in an efficient way. Amazon RDS Proxy achieves this pooling mechanism for serverless applications that use AWS lambda. But even if it improves and optimizes connection management to your RDS instance, the proxy is not sufficient in case of heavy load. Once the pool is saturated due to high number of concurrent requests, the remaining requests will be delayed and will probably time out.
The second step, is to use a memory cache like Redis or the equivalent AWS offer called Amazon ElasticCache. Memory caches are incredibly fast and have a very low latency. They also have much lighter connection management mechanisms and support a much higher number of simultanous connections. So you will need to implement your data access methods in your application in a way that they look for data in the cache first, and only if it is not available or is outdated, retrieve it from database. Obviously, this is rather applicable to the read operations. Write operations should be done on the database for consistency. One way to scale write operations is to handle them asynchronically. An example implementation would be to send write commands to an Amazon SQS queue and have them executed by another lambda function. This way, write operations and database connections are made in a predictable manner.
Please note as well that to have a highly available memory cache setup you need either use multiple instances of Redis with sentinels or use Amazon ElasticCache with replicas.
Client Side Caching
Implementing caching on front-end client side can be benefical for two aspects :
It allows to reduce the load on the back-end by serving data that does not change frequently from local cache. It provides a better overall user experience, allowing users to still use some parts of your application when your back-end is not reachable. This typically happens when a mobile user has no internet connection. Users appreciate when they can still use applications offline.
A simple cache can be implemented as a key,value,ttl array with 3 simple methods :
set(key,value[,ttl]) : store or update an object in the cache indexed by key with optional time to live
get(key) : get the object indexed by key if it exists and is not expired
getCacheEntry(key) : get the object indexed by key even if it has expired. The result could be something like {object : …, expired: true|false}
SharedPreferences could be used to store cache data in Android if it is relatively small. On Web application side, LocalStorage can be leveraged to achieve the same. One more convenient way is to use LocalForage which abstracts the underlying storage APIs and use the optimal ones when available.
Conclusion
I hope this article was a helpful overview. There is no step by step tutorial or code snippets but this is intended to be a quick overview about making your application scalable and highly available. I used most of these concepts to architect couponfog the coupons app. | https://medium.com/swlh/scalable-highly-available-web-mobile-app-architecture-d803b8ba56e | ['Ahmed Mahouachi'] | 2020-11-10 08:56:17.856000+00:00 | ['AWS Lambda', 'High Availability', 'React', 'AWS', 'Scalability'] |
Joining hands to make a difference in the world | I first met Clifford, one of BfE’s first clients, during a trip to Tanzania back in 2015. It was the summer after my first year of university, and I was part of a Cambridge Development Initiative (CDI) team running an eight-week-long programme in Tanzania, aimed at empowering social enterprise start-ups in the East African region.
I listened intently as Clifford recounted his life story. A Kenyan national, he had just completed a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Chemistry, and had dreams of running a social enterprise that would provide power to off-grid communities in Africa with clean energy, leading to economic development. He recounted stories about how he grew in a rural community in Kenya where he used kerosene lamps and candles for his night-time study. These experiences made him passionate about wanting to solve the energy problem that existed in his local society. He had just founded Chemolex, a green energy start-up aiming to provide rural Kenyan households and businesses with affordable electricity for lighting and charging.
My interactions with Clifford always left me inspired. I was moved by how he was living for a cause that was bigger than himself. He wanted to make a difference in his community, through solving the energy problems in a sustainable manner through a profitable social enterprise. I loved how he dreamed big and was determined to hold on to his passion despite the many obstacles he knew he would have to face. He talked about the difficulties that faced start-ups in rural Kenya — the lack of capital and resources — and how he wished there was more support for entrepreneurs like himself. Yet he was determined to persevere and pursue his dreams.
My experience with Clifford and other passionate social entrepreneurs left a deep mark on me. It was my first year at Cambridge, and I was honestly very conflicted — I knew I wanted to do well in a corporate career, but at the same time, I was longing for a deeper sense of meaning and social impact, things I had previously associated only with NGO work. However, as Clifford talked about his dreams and challenges, I realised that skillsets gained from a professional, corporate career can in fact be used to support and empower the dreams of Clifford and other social entrepreneurs around the world to achieve sustainable social impact. It was a paradigm shift moment for me — I resolved to do my best to learn as much as possible in the corporate world, and I was now determined to support Clifford and others in their journey.
I quickly realised that I was not the only one with this vision. Banding together with like-minded and passionate friends, we started Bridges for Enterprise (BfE) together. Clifford was one of our first clients, and we aimed to provide him with a pro-bono incubation programme that involved consulting, finance, and legal advisory services through professionals and students in the industry. We partnered with 180 Degrees Consulting Cambridge, who did a three-month-long consulting project on pricing strategy and investment opportunities for Chemolex. We then provided an in-house financial advisory service for another 3 months, and were fortunate to have Julian, who worked at Blackstone, advising the Cambridge finance team on creating an investment pitch and other capital raising strategies. We still support Clifford through our Alumni Network, which provides our beneficiaries with continued access to resources and networks.
Fast forward 3 years, Clifford’s social enterprise Chemolex has gone from ideation stage to a fully functioning company that serves 400 households and 30 businesses in rural Kenya, and he continues to pursue his dream. Additionally, thanks to the dedication and hard work of everyone in the team, BfE has grown into an international non-profit organisation with chapters in Cambridge, Singapore, New York and Sydney. Through our professional network and student team of over 250 people, we have helped empower over 46 social enterprise start-ups from 19 countries worldwide who, like Clifford, are passionate about making a change in the world. Looking towards the future, we hope we will continue to grow and help many more start-ups achieve sustainable social impact. Here at BfE, we aim to be a community of change-makers, and we warmly welcome people who believe in our vision to join us. And beyond BfE, there are so many other amazing opportunities by other charities that allow one to contribute towards helping others.
It is our hope that through social entrepreneurs, professionals and students joining hands across sectors, languages and countries, together, we can make a difference in the world. | https://medium.com/bridges-for-enterprise/joining-hands-to-make-a-difference-in-the-world-3e4afd568c2e | ['Bridges For Enterprise'] | 2020-08-07 16:07:51.776000+00:00 | ['Social Impact', 'Archive', 'International Development', 'Social Entrepreneurship', 'Bridgesforenterprise'] |
The MLB is Sexy TV. The Houston Astros might be the best… | The Houston Astros might be the best thing to happen to professional baseball in years.
Alex Bregman has been at the center of the Houston Astros’ scandal from the drop. Photo courtesy of Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle
Amidst this offseason’s MLB upheaval, featuring the Houston Astros as the league’s brand new bully, national MLB ratings could see a major spike early this season.
Nothing new here but baseball has been a regional sport for years, especially now, as viewers split more and more time cross-device. Basically, you have your team and you could give a damn about ESPN’s Wednesday Night Baseball match-up.
That may change this spring.
Historically, MLB national ratings pale in comparison to the regular seasons of the NFL or NBA. They’re more comprable to NBC’s Sunday morning English Premier League (and honestly that might be an insult to soccer). Fans might be rabid but the raw numbers just aren’t there.
The sport’s just lost some juice (hah) and, as the MLB league office scrambles for answers with pitch clocks and updated playoff formats, they were just gifted the Houston Astros. | https://medium.com/@tg-orme/keep-an-eye-on-mlb-ratings-in-2020-cae7baffc3f9 | ['Tommy Orme'] | 2020-02-20 12:43:04.217000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Houston Astros', 'Baseball', 'MLB', 'Television'] |
Lodestar Post-Interop Update | Written by Colin Schwarz, Marin Petrunić, Cayman Nava, Gregory Markou and Eric Tu
Last week the Lodestar team was privileged to participate in the Eth2 interop week up in Skeleton Lake Muskoka. The week was a huge success for Lodestar, for the other implementation teams and for the development of Eth2.0 in general. We accomplished a tremendous amount in a short period of time and are pleased with the number of implementations that could interoperate after only a week.
Pre-Interop Testing
The teams arrived at the cottage on Friday, September 6th (day 0) and stayed until the next Friday, September 13th (day 7). Going into the week, we felt a little behind some of the other teams. We had been building a bunch of modules, and we passed spec tests, but had never stood up a full node before. We had never run a full beacon node and our networking was also still unstable. As a result, one of our first priorities was to get the new networking spec working. This would enable us to connect two beacon nodes together and receive gossiped data over the network. Leading up to the retreat, we had been working hard on the validator API but still didn’t have a stable one going into the week. This is an important component because the beacon chain relies on validators to drive the chain forward. If you don’t have any validators and are not connected to any peers who do, the chain just sits there and there are no blocks to be processed. Early into interop week, we were able to get that API working which was critical for actually being able to use our validator client and try the chain. Greg nicely summed up our progress on day one: “By noon we had started the chain which we had never done. It was doing things and we were like ‘holy f**k, this works’. Then by the end of day one we started to attach validators to it and we were like ‘holy sh*t, this really works!” At this point there were a lot of errors but we knew what was causing them. It took the rest of the weekend to get to a point where we were confident that our implementation was internally stable. This is when we were able to begin interoperating with other clients
Interoperation
The first client that Lodestar interoped with was Lighthouse. The process was pretty straight forward although there were some issues with our different implementations of libp2p. After the first interop with Lighthouse we moved on to become interoperable with Nimbus and Artemis. By the end of the week Lodestar was also interoperable with Trinity, Harmony and Prysm. It was incredible to see so many teams successfully interoperating in such a short period of time. This is a feat that could only have been achieved so quickly with all the teams together in the same place, in a context that allowed them to focus exclusively on development. Having all of the other implementer teams constantly available and within steps of one another was invaluable for working through a lot of the issues that came up. For example, we found that everyone who implemented the Gossipsub spec themselves didn’t implement message signing as part of the protocol. As a result, our implementation ended up rejecting others messages because they weren’t signed! This is the kind of discovery that the interop week allowed for. There was no way we would have been able to check in with all the other teams before making every minor decision, so to get everyone in the same cottage constantly working together, testing and communicating was invaluable to being able to find a lot of issues that we otherwise might have missed.
Fulfilling the vision of libp2p.
One of the biggest challenges of the week was to get five different implementations of libp2p interoperating. A lot of translation and interpretation had to go into these various implementations which were written in Javascript, Golang, Python, Java and Rust. Over the week we put in a lot of work to get different implementations of gossipsub (subprotocol within libp2p) working in harmony and discovered a lot of minor inconsistencies through the process. For example, the Rust implementation didn’t flush the buffer when it was doing an initial identity handshake so our implementation was hanging, waiting for a response that never came. Some other implementations (Java and Python) implemented the identity protocol that week! Cayman explained how this is a good example of finding “…little things that you wouldn’t immediately think about, little nuances that you have to just work through… I don’t know rust libp2p but the guy who wrote rust-libp2p (Lighthouse’s fork) was right there.” Eric elaborated: “You might not even have found it until way later on when you actually try to connect the client, because if you’re running Lodestar to Lodestar and if your sh*t is both wrong in the right ways it’ll still work.” Libp2p was thus another area in which the value of having everyone together in one space became really apparent.
When we started to interop with other teams, Lodestar blew up every client. This led to a running joke that whenever our team walked into a room, someone would say: “who called the fuzzy testers!” This was due to the fact that not every implementation followed the spec to the last word. This is mostly because unlike some other teams, we do not maintain our own fork of libp2p. Cayman explained: “Our libp2p implementation was kind of more beholden to a slower pace, a more conservative pace of development, because we already had IPFS in production using js-libp2p. So for instance, the lighthouse guys were just like, oh there’s a bug in our Rust-libp2p and then went in a just fixed it and immediately republished, merged it pushed it up, and it’s fixed.” This is easy for lighthouse to do because they maintain their own fork of libp2p. For us it was a bit trickier because we don’t have a deep understanding of the libp2p-js codebase (we only wrote the gossipsup-js codebase). Due to only having a week for interop, we worked directly with the libp2p team in order to fix issues across implementations. This added an extra step to the process but we are grateful for all the help and support we received from the folks at libp2p. Near end of week we started a big libp2p Telegram group with all relevant people including the libp2p team to work through all the incompatibilities and this went a long way to getting every implementation working together. Cayman explained: “I think that was probably one of the biggest immediate wins of the week, beyond getting these clients all talking together… I feel like we pushed a lot of the way forward on delivering on the promise of libp2p which is what people wanted in the first place: this interoperable, pluggable network.”
Conclusion
Overall we are extremely happy with how the week went and what our team and others were able to accomplish. We would like to thank Danny Ryan and Diederik Loerakker for helping to lead to processes and giving a lot of excellent advice and of course Consensys for their generosity in funding the retreat.
We are excited to move forward with the next stages of Lodestar’s development which will include a productionized beacon chain, further optimizations, research into phase 1 and of course, research and development of a light client.
Stay tuned! | https://medium.com/chainsafe-systems/lodestar-post-interop-update-be2caebb39e6 | ['Colin Schwarz'] | 2019-09-25 18:00:56.798000+00:00 | ['Ethereum Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Ethereum', 'Blockchain', 'JavaScript'] |
The crumbling of the Californian Ideology: Technology Disruptors’ limited OS | The crumbling of the Californian Ideology: Technology Disruptors’ limited OS
We don’t need rule-breaking tech founders anymore, and yet they don’t seem able or willing to change. Where do we go from here?
‘This new faith has emerged from a bizarre fusion of the cultural bohemianism of San Francisco with the hi-tech industries of Silicon Valley. Promoted in magazines, books, TV programmes, websites, newsgroups and Net conferences, the Californian Ideology promiscuously combines the free-wheeling spirit of the hippies and the entrepreneurial zeal of the yuppies. This amalgamation of opposites has been achieved through a profound faith in the emancipatory potential of the new information technologies. In the digital utopia, everybody will be both hip and rich.’ The Californian Ideology, Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron (1995)
Twenty-three years have passed since the writing of the paper from which this passage is extracted, yet I can hardly think of a more apt description of the ideology collectively shared by most prominent Silicon Valley technology founders. Discussing its shortcomings hits close to home for me. While I am not one of them, several have nonetheless long been role models of mine, which, admittedly, is part of the broader problem I aim to describe. As we near the end of 2018, it is abundantly clear to anyone who has been following the news lately that the technology industry is in troubled water, and has for a few years now, with no signs of improvement. Technology companies are continuously clashing horns with regulatory bodies and apologising profusely to the public for what they paint as mere ‘mishaps’ that have already been long corrected. Just days before the writing of this article, a trove of internal Facebook emails were unsealed by British MPs, showcasing the predatory attitude of its executives. Yet, the problems plaguing technology companies are far more systemic and entrenched than we are being let on or willing to admit, originating in the very DNA that was passed on to them by their founders. A deep dive in these technology founders’ psychology is long overdue, and I suspect we will collectively find that the former cannot be saved.
Dr Frankenstein’s Little Monsters
Over the last decade or so, technology and startups strangely went from being dismissed as nerdy to being hyped as cool (though tables may be turning). Technology founders are being celebrated as heroes or artists, with Steve Jobs gathering a cult-like devotion. Consequently, the actual circumstances surrounding the birth of Silicon Valley have been largely obscured and replaced by an attractive romanticised narrative. Essentially, Silicon Valley would have begun with a bunch of rebels and renegades, driven creatives, who pulled themselves by their bootstraps and ended up creating new empires. This is an inaccurate or rather incomplete reflection of the reality.
The Bay Area was always technology-driven, even before the rise of the personal computer and later software. It was involved in the development of telegraph and radio in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which made the region a significant military research and technology hub. It also subsequently received significant public investment in the post-war era for the production of semi-conductors crucial to winning the Space Race against the Soviet Union. These prior events set the ground work to establish Silicon Valley as a technology powerhouse, which was later on truly launched by the establishment of strategic partnerships between local universities and private companies in the 1970s. The cooperation of all local actors around the single mission of advancing technology was extremely powerful because it led to the development of a cluster, benefiting from strong network effects, and preventing others to match its strength.
Infrastructures and cooperation are no doubt crucial, but remain only part of the story. After all, technology was, and still currently is, developed by humans, whose ideas, skills, and creativity are crucial. In the 1970s, California was also already an intellectually and culturally fertile land, where opposing ideologies clashed. On the one hand, it was home to a prominent and dynamic counterculture movement, especially in San Francisco Haight-Ashbury district. The hippies were at their zenith, advocating for a social and cultural revolution, as well as opposing the Vietnam War. More than anything they argued for an alternative approach to life and relationships, their ideals echoing a social-anarchist utopia. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan, before he became the fortieth President of the United States, was also the Governor of California at the time. Reagan is of course known for championing individualism and trickle-down economics, appropriately labelled ‘Reaganomics.’ While Reagan played a key role in popularising and putting in practice these economic theories, he was not their father as they were being actively studied and promoted by the Chicago School, and in particular Milton Friedman.
Amidst the conflict that raged on between these two opposing ideologies, culminating in 1969 with the People’s Park protest, was born a sort of a third way. Some of the people wanting change were not viscerally opposed to technology as a way to progressively establish their ecological egalitarian libertarian pipe dream. Prompted by technophile local media, like Wired (which had a sensibly different editorial line at the time), and Sci-Fi pop-culture, these people became convinced that they were embarking on some grand mission to save the world. And sure enough, give highly creative and capable individuals a pseudo-mission, unencumbered by laissez-faire policies with continuous economic growth, and you eventually get modern Silicon Valley some 50 years later, for better or worse.
Childish, Petty, and Naïve Demigods
In a recent interview, Peter Thiel, of all people, warned against the potential pervasiveness of network effects in clusters, which ultimately drove him out of Silicon Valley. While the concentration of world class entrepreneurs, universities, companies and investors in a restricted area has been a driver of technological innovation, it had also led to the formation of a real-life bubble. Technology workers tend to have rather identical opinions and believes, and may often, especially those at the top, lack an appreciation for what consequences the products they make have on society. A recent survey by the New York Times (2017), showed that a majority of technology founders advocate for redistribution and social programs, but are against regulations. They likely share the same naive optimistic and deterministic outlook on the future as their predecessors, probably repeating to themselves in front of the mirror every morning that they are ‘making the world a better place’. All too often, they see government and institutional regulations as largely inefficient and ineffective, slowing down progress.
It is not itself that a group people have strongly held, almost dogmatic, possibly wrong, opinions that is problematic. But rather that they find themselves to be some of the most influential individuals in the world today, as a result of their past and current successes. When we consider forms of influence, most of us would likely think first about money. Money matters. Jeff Bezos’s net worth topped US$134.7 billion as of the writing of this article. Over the years, it has enabled him to buy the Washington Post, donate to political campaigns and causes of his choice, and, through Amazon, invest in lobbying. This has undoubtedly, if perhaps indirectly and difficultly quantifiable, influenced the political sphere. But there are other forms of power to which we tend to pay less attention because they are more elusive and harder to regulate. Products and companies, especially successful ones, inevitably shape the society within which they exist, influencing politics, the economy, culture, and even people’s psychology. Finally, technology founders because of the popularity of their products and their effective PR campaigns have also attracted significant fan bases. Elon Musk’s 23.6 million twitter followers herald him as a modern day Jesus and bully his critics, conferring him formidable power in spreading his ideas.
Here lies the crux of the problem. Silicon Valley founders have proved themselves fundamentally unable to handle their new powers. To put things in a language they will understand, as Spiderman’s Uncle Ben once said, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. In the grand scheme of things, it did not matter what Mark Zuckerberg did with Facebook when it was used only by a couple thousand college students, now that is has over two billion users, it’s pretty much breaking democracy. For a long time, we collectively excused, and even enabled, technology founders’ childish and irresponsible behaviour, disrupting existing norms and breaking rules, because overall it led to a positive outcome, the birth of new technologies. However, because of the scale at which their products are now being used, this is no longer tolerable. They went from being considered underdogs, to main villains, yet fail to ask themselves why, which is precisely the problem.
How to REALLY kinda’ Save the World
So if you have made this far down this article, you may legitimately be asking yourselves ‘so what? Where do we go from here? Is there an alternative?’. And I want to start with a controversial and somewhat hyperbolic argument: Most of these people cannot change, partly because they do not know how but also possibly because they do not want to, or see the need for it. It is important all acknowledge that they have collectively done humanity an enormous service by advancing us in the digital age, which promises to solve many important issues. But at the same time, it is also fair to point out that perhaps we do not need these people anymore. We have passed the ‘installation phase’ of the current digital revolution and are now entering the ‘deployment’ one, as described by Carlota Perez. We no longer need driven risk-taking disruptors but rather level-headed leaders who are able to heed the broader impact of their actions on society. In some ways, this process is already ongoing, because this illicit behaviour and the repeated scandals they inevitably produce are bad for business. Each in their own ways, board members, Investors, and consumers punish founders who fall short of what is expected of them. Uber’s intention to hike its prices during a protest against the ban of refugees and immigrants from certain countries from entering the United States prompted many users to delete the app from their phone. Similarly, Travis Kalanick’s was forced to resign under pressure from the Uber board of shareholders following repeated controversies surrounding his unethical and inappropriate behaviour. This movement will likely continue in the future and gain even more traction, with people paying increasing attention to how the products and services they use are made.
However, it is not enough to wait for disruptors to show themselves unable to rise up to their responsibilities, and later be forced out of the spotlight in disgrace. While companies’ executives are largely responsible for what goes on, they may not always be able to change things, as is Dara Khosrowshahi currently finding out about Uber’s toxic culture. Indeed, even if it was possible for Mark Zuckerberg to get removed from his CEO position, it seems to me that little could be done to fix Facebook’s issues short of breaking its core business model. This brings to my second point, we need to take immediate action in implementing effective oversight and regulatory frameworks over technology companies, even if it means curbing innovation somewhat and incurring a loss of economic value in the near-future. One of most needed reforms is the abolishment of dual class stock structure, which comes with different voting rights on the board. For instance, While Mark Zuckerberg only has about 18% of Class B shares (those who do not come with voting rights), he has about 60% of class As, effectively allowing to run Facebook however he sees fit within the boundaries of the law. More generally, there needs be greater transparency on what goes on inside companies, as well as the provision of their data to government branches and independent watchdogs to better understand how mass consumer products are made and what effects they have on their users and society. Furthermore, additional policies should be enacted depending on specific companies and regions, so to avoid generalisation whitch tend to have unintended consequences, this is particularly relevant for antitrust issues. The new economy requires new mental frameworks and new methods.
Finally, we also need to prepare the next generation of leaders for the digital age, which comes down to education. Current policy makers and legislators have a long way to go to reach technological literacy, partly because of the generational gap that exists, which will eventually resorb itself, but not soon enough. Their successors should dedicate a large portion of their studies to understanding better technology, as it will surely be the cause of many of their long sleepless nights at the office. Simultaneously, future technology leaders and executives need to be given better training on social sciences and humanities. Unlike some pundits, I do not think that all developers need to be reading philosophy, just like not all philosophers need to know how to code. Do not misunderstand, both groups would benefit from studying each other’s discipline, but it is not absolutely necessary for society. On the other hand, the future leaders of companies, and even more so technological ones, need to be better than their predecessors at understanding the effects that their companies, products, and actions have on society. Humanities and Social Sciences should be helping them escaping their bubble, and benefit from the compound knowledge of the smart people who came before them. There are sometimes reasons for rules and norms, not all deserve to be broken.
I am no luddite. If you can believe it, I am technology optimist and wannabe start-up entrepreneur. But for technology to once again be a force for the good, change is needed. It is time to grow up.
This post was written as an assignment for the course History of Technology Revolution at Sciences Po Paris. The course is part of the policy stream Digital & New Technology of the Master in Public Policy and is instructed by Laurène Tran, Besiana Balla and Nicolas Colin. | https://victorcartier.medium.com/the-crumbling-of-the-californian-ideology-technology-disruptors-limited-os-f60f4d2b5831 | ['Victor Cartier'] | 2018-12-10 18:21:40.709000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Startup', 'Technology', 'Tech', 'History'] |
How to Profile Your Code in Python | How to Profile Your Code in Python
Finding bottlenecks and optimizing performance using cProfile
Photo by Anthony Maggio from Pexels
If you’ve ever written a line of code (or even tens of thousands of lines), you’ve surely wondered “Why does my code take so long to run?” Answering that question isn’t always simple, but it can be easier if you search for answers the right way.
Perhaps you trust your knowledge of the problem at hand, using your subject matter expertise to check certain snippets first. Maybe you time a few different modules/classes/functions to see where most of the execution time is spent. Better yet, you can profile your code to get more information about the relative time spent in different functions and sub-functions. Whatever your process is, this blog might teach you some ways to get to the answer more quickly.
In this post, I’ll start off by showing you a basic profiling method. I’ll add more and more features and flavor to it, ending with a good, solid profiling decorator. For those in a hurry (or who want to refer back to this material), head over to this GitHub repository where you can find the profile decorator and an example.
Time It!
To profile your code, you’re gonna need to know how to time it. To do so, you can use something as simple as this:
from time import time start = time()
# your script here
end = time()
print(f'It took {end - start} seconds!')
To easily time several functions/snippets (or if you just prefer to use a cleaner and more pythonic approach), you can convert the above into a timer decorator (discussed with an example here).
Using a timer on any function shows us the run time of that piece in isolation. For this approach to be useful in finding the bottleneck, we need more information. At least one of the following two conditions should be true in order to profile your code effectively:
We should know the total run time of the program to have a better picture of the relative run time of our desired function/section. For example, if a piece of code takes 5 minutes to execute, is that 10%, 40%, or 90% of the total run time? We should know enough about the problem at hand or the run time of other parts of the program to confidently label a given piece of code as the bottleneck. Even if a function takes 10 minutes to run (let’s assume 10 minutes is relatively high), we should only worry about its inefficiency if we’re confident that there’s no other part that takes longer. As Donald Knuth famously said:
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
A profiler package like cProfile helps us find the bottlenecks in our code by satisfying both of these conditions.
How to Use cProfile
Basic Usage
The most basic way of profiling with cProfile is using the run() function. All you need to do is to pass what you want to profile as a string statement to run() . This is an example of what the report looks like (truncated for brevity):
>>> import cProfile
>>> import pandas as pd >>> cProfile.run("pd.Series(list('ABCDEFG'))") 258 function calls (256 primitive calls) in 0.001 seconds Ordered by: standard name ncalls tottime percall cumtime percall filename:lineno(function)
4 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 <frozen importlib._bootstrap>:997(_handle_fromlist)
1 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 <string>:1(<module>)
1 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 _dtype.py:319(_name_get)
....
11/9 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 {built-in method builtins.len}
1 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 {built-in method numpy.array}
1 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 {built-in method numpy.empty}
....
The first line indicates that 258 calls were monitored, out of which 256 were primitive (a primitive call is one that was not induced via recursion). The next line, Ordered by: standard name , indicates that the report is sorted based on the standard name, which is the text in the filename:lineno(function) column. The line after that is the column headings:
ncalls : is the number of calls made. When there are two numbers (like 11/9 above), the function recurred. The first value is the total number of calls and the second value is the number of primitive or non-recursive calls.
tottime : is the total time spent in the given function (excluding time made in calls to sub-functions).
percall : is the quotient of tottime divided by ncalls .
cumtime : is the cumulative time spent in this and all subfunctions. This figure is accurate even for recursive functions.
percall : is the quotient of cumtime divided by primitive calls.
filename:lineno(function) : provides the respective data of each function.
The run() function can accept two more arguments: a filename to write the results to a file instead of the stdout, and a sort argument that specifies how the output should be sorted. You can check the documentation to learn more about valid sort values. Some of the common ones are 'cumulative' (for cumulative time), 'time' (for total time), and 'calls' (for number of calls). | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-profile-your-code-in-python-e70c834fad89 | ['Ehsan Khodabandeh'] | 2020-06-16 17:12:01.600000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Programming', 'Python'] |
Creating Interactive Crime Maps with Folium | Folium:
Folium is a powerful data visualisation library in Python that was built primarily to help people visualize geospatial data. With Folium, one can create a map of any location in the world as long as its latitude and longitude values are known.
We can make maps with different type of tiles like:-
Mapbox Bright
Mapbox Control Room
Stamen Terrain
Stamen Toner
stamenwatercolor
cartodbpositron
Using different Folium map tiles can be a great way to change or improve the look of your map. This post shows you how to access Folium map tiles and switch between them. We can change tiles using LayerControl.
Data:
You can download data from Here in .csv format.
Script:
You can install Folium library ,you can use this code:-
pip install folium #if you have Anaconda use this
conda install folium
Before starting Python coding we have to import some libraries.
import folium import csv
I have a csv file with Latitude and Longitude. You can download csv file with Latitude and Longitude Here. You can also see the code of collecting Latitude and Longitude of all cities Here. We have to make some empty list to store data.
city=[]
data_lon=[]
data_lat=[]
crime_name=[] #Reading csv file.
y=0
with open("crime_map.csv") as crime:
read=csv.reader(crime,delimiter=",")
for i in read:
if(y%2==0):
city.append(i[0])
crime_name.append(i[1])
data_lon.append(i[8])
data_lat.append(i[9])
y+=1 #for skiping columns name
city=city[1:]
data_lon=data_lon[1:]
data_lat=data_lat[1:]
After this we will start using our Folium library, at first we have to focus on our area of crime and set a zoom start.
map = folium.Map([20.5937,78.9629], zoom_start=5)
Folium can make many interactive map tiles. Some of map tiles are given below. The Stamen toner map tiles produce a black and white map that both looks striking and would be more suitable for printing than some of the other Folium map tiles.
tile = folium.TileLayer('Mapbox Bright').add_to(map) tile = folium.TileLayer('Mapbox Control Room').add_to(map) tile = folium.TileLayer('Stamen Terrain').add_to(map) tile = folium.TileLayer('Stamen Toner').add_to(map) tile = folium.TileLayer('stamenwatercolor').add_to(map) tile = folium.TileLayer('cartodbpositron').add_to(map) tile = folium.TileLayer('cartodbdark_matter').add_to(map)
Now we have to add markers on crime cities. So we are importing Marker Cluster from Folium library. To get the option of changing tiles, we can use Layer control function of Folium library and add it to map.
from folium.plugins import MarkerCluster marker_cluster = MarkerCluster().add_to(map) #adding marker and popup of city and crime-name
for i in range(0,len(city)):
folium.Marker([float(data_lon[i]) ,float(data_lat[i])],popup="city name ="+city[i]+"
crime_of_city = "+crime_name[i]).add_to(marker_cluster) #we can change tiles with help of LayerConrol
folium.LayerControl().add_to(map)
At last we can save our map to a html file and can make a iframe for our map. | https://medium.com/forsk-labs/creating-interactive-crime-maps-with-folium-18498d5866fe | ['Dushyant Khichi'] | 2019-02-12 10:10:09.334000+00:00 | ['Maps'] |
Unusual bug in experimental flash loan platform is literally giving away money | Smart contract was compiled on the mainnet by mistake and it is estimated that it will cause millions in losses for a renowned exchange that is trying to develop a product that allows the use of flash loans without having to pay fees
For months Poloniex has been experimentally developing a flash loan platform where fees are paid with the proceeds of the loan, instead of being paid by the borrowers of said loans. This tool, which is still under development, could be available to users by the second quarter of next year and thus gain ground in the market.
This platform is based on a series of Oracles that are permanently monitoring an Ethereum address of the exchange and looking for arbitrage opportunities between different DeFi and exchange platforms, so, when the wallet receives funds deposited by the user, the flash loan that best suits the moment is executed, returning to the depositor the initial sum of tokens and the profitability produced by the flash loan, discounting the network fees.
The truth is that developers made a mistake and compiled the experimental smart contracts on the mainnet when they were supposed to compile them on the rinkeby testnet.
Although they did not officially make any statements, the main Ethereum address receiving the funds for the execution of flash loans within the platform was leaked: 0xfcd907e705bd3fbfbc232f9f4df41a630e0900f0
Our sources reported that those who deposit ETH, wBTC, USDT, AAVE, DAI, YFI and CRV in that direction, would activate the smart contracts that participate in the loans by taking the funds reserved for the tests of that exchange house and return them to the users depositors with earnings between 40% and 320% based on testing by developers.
These contracts would be active until January 31, 2021 and it is estimated that the funds destined for the development of this feature could be completely lost, since they are blocked by contract and the exchange managers cannot recover them.
There is talk of around $ 100M in tokens that will be lost between now and the mentioned date or until those funds are depleted.
Unofficially, we knew that once the failure was discovered, many people have taken advantage of it and it is estimated that the funds will run out before the end of the year. | https://medium.com/@cointelegrapher/unusual-bug-in-experimental-flash-loan-platform-is-literally-giving-away-money-6a6a7b64c30e | [] | 2020-12-19 14:15:40.372000+00:00 | ['Flash Loan', 'Exchange', 'Bugs', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
AI Trading Bots Results | Probably many of you wondered: “Can AI be efficient at trading?”
In recent months, we have been constantly developing and refining AI models for trading on cryptocurrency markets.
After the initial experiments, we have gathered sufficient amounts of testing data and compiled all the trading outcomes into the dynamic table. In the table, you can see the performance for all the trading AIs that is updated automatically every hour. The trading performance can be viewed here.
Highlights:
ROI Per Trade: from +0.06% to +1.43%
ROI Per Month: from +4.48% to +42.81%
The most successful strategies were added to the beta test environment.
New and improved versions of these AI strategies are currently getting trained and tested.
To sign up for the beta test, go here. | https://medium.com/onebuttontrade/ai-trading-bots-results-f7cc4eed7721 | ['Max Yampolsky'] | 2020-12-04 12:30:50.068000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bots', 'Cryptocurrency Trading', 'Machine Learning'] |
Unscripted | When all the windows are still dark
and I am wrapped in that sweet silence
of the dawn moon,
I am free from
the disease of my own ideas.
Only a few minutes in this kingdom
is what allows me to re-enter this world,
plant my feet into the earth,
and move forward
with concentrated power
despite being blind
to the script of my life. | https://psiloveyou.xyz/unscripted-7adf0d03c598 | ['Brian Mcfadden'] | 2020-12-13 13:02:35.076000+00:00 | ['Personal Growth', 'Mindfulness', 'Poetry', 'Poetry Sunday', 'Mental Health'] |
What did we learn from the Fortnite World Cup? | Bugha raises (sort of) the World Cup trophy after romping home in the Solos.
So it’s all over: from 40,000,000 players, one emerged victorious. Bugha, a 16-year-old kid signed to Sentinels, demolished the competition to create a minor upset and take home the $3 million in the Solos event. In the Duos, the Austrian/Norwegian pairing of Aqua and Nyrox romped to a second half victory in a tight contest, but by the end of the weekend, they were sat very much in the shadow of Bugha.
Bugha is a good winner for Epic. He fits the basic profile of what they wanted from a first world champion. He comes from the NA region, which dominated the field here (for, perhaps, the first and last time), is 16 (the average age in the competition) guaranteeing press coverage, and is a known entity across competitive and streamed Fortnite. Short of Tfue or Dubs winning, he’s about the best they could’ve asked for.
As for the weekend itself, Fortnite showed itself to be the current reigning champion for stadium esports. Arthur Ashe in New York will be packed with tennis fans next month, but it managed to generate a very decent atmosphere for the FWC this weekend, and was, as ever, a superb broadcast facility. Everything went off without a hitch, and yet, at the same time, it’s hard to see exactly where the game goes now.
Not to paint myself as too much of a Cassandra, but basically all my concerns for the long-term viability of competitive Fortnite were proved prescient by the weekend’s action. Here are my main (negative) takeaways:
– Competitive competitions continue to struggle to integrate the big names of the sport. A lot of the discussion about the FWC during and after the event centred on Tfue’s 67th place finish, and even though anyone who’d been paying attention to the pro-game for the last couple of months knew he’d struggle, it was clear that Epic would’ve liked him to do a lot better. In the end, Bugha was just about the right level of winner, but it was clear that there were a lot of competitors out there doing nothing to raise the profile of epsorts.
– Fortnite is still a tricky beast to broadcast. I think the commentators at the FWC did a good job (particularly CourageJD and Goldenboy) but at times felt underproduced — you could see big elims ticking up in the kill feed and no comment on them. There is also, fundamentally, still an issue with how the broadcast travels around the map. Often it was focused in on fights that were taking several minutes to reach their conclusion and was afraid to move the transmission on before there was an elimination. So the first few minutes of every game focused in on a single challenged location (usually Westworld) and didn’t cut quickly enough between the different face-offs. This is a tricky thing to reconcile, especially in the pro-game where early kills tend to be either picked off at the snap of fingers, or incredibly fussy box fighting.
– The broadcast of the final moments of each game was a scramble. When down to the last 8 or so players, the names came up on the top of the screen, which was a huge help. But in the couple of circles before that you had 20+ people crammed into a tiny area and it was quite hard to follow. The broadcast tended to go with the POV of a major player, but then pulled up a splitscreen to show a panoptic vision of the field and then two different POVs. Sadly, this was largely unwatchable. I was following on my laptop and wasn’t getting a good enough stream to make out what was going on in the POVs. The splitscreen was simply too low quality.
– The Solos felt like a properly anticipated event, but the Duos was a bit underwhelming. It felt like the whole weekend was culminating in the Solos at the expenses of the Duos (perhaps how doubles players feel in tennis), despite the fact that the narrative of the 6-game finals was actually much more interesting in the Duos. Sandwiched between the Pro-Am (once again great fun, though a shame that Airwaks won without a VR(perhaps a question for the scoring system?)) and the Solos competition, the Duos felt a wee bit forgotten.
Nyrox (centre) and Aqua (right) after winning the Duos competition.
So what should be the next steps?
– I think Epic has to push onwards quickly with the competitive scene in order to keep this momentum and stop fatigued players switching to a different game. They need to slightly break-up the current mode of play, which is resulting in so much build battling and box fighting.
– They need to focus on a competitive version of the game that can integrate players like Bugha, Dubs, Clix and Tfue along with folk like Ninja, Courage, Lupo, Lachlan…etc. I don’t know exactly how this happens but you’ve got to allow people to stream/broadcast during competitive events, and you’ve got to incentivise teams to include players who are a tier below the competitive pros.
– 6-games just didn’t feel enough for the World Cup finals. I’d suggest a system like golf, played over two or three days, with players missing the cut for the final day of competition. Play the last day with 50 players and a faster moving storm, and suddenly you’ve got a more dynamic end to the competition that will shake up what can be quite a repetitive viewing experience.
– Fundamentally, Fortnite can’t get away with just one major competition a year. It also needs to make itself more global and stop bouncing between LA and New York. The Duos winners this time out were Europeans, and Asian players will inevitably improve in years to come and start to dominate the field. More competitions, more diverse formats, more diverse playing fields (notable that there wasn’t a single female competitor at the World Cup, outside the Pro-Am), more diverse locations; all of this will help the game grow. | https://nickfthilton.medium.com/what-did-we-learn-from-the-fortnite-world-cup-cad3c3971887 | ['Nick Hilton'] | 2019-07-29 15:15:05.371000+00:00 | ['Gaming', 'Internet', 'Sports', 'Fortnite', 'Esport'] |
ZAPI Artists 2020 Year in Review | ZAPI Artists 2020 Year in Review
Last June, ZAPI Artists was created by my colleagues (and close friends) Cindy Tsai, Sofia Khwaja and I. As young, Generation Z Asian-Americans, we were horrified by the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbury, and the overall continuing loss of Black lives in our country. Like many others, we felt an absolute responsibility to encourage dialogue and create change within ourselves and, specifically, the Asian/Pacific Islander communities we were a part of. We believed that there was a newer sense of urgency to check our blindspots as non-Black POC, and wanted to help others like us realize the areas in their lives where they could work on in order to better fight against racial injustice and white supremacy.
So, we made ZAPI Artists.
After many, many phone calls, Cindy, Sofia and I thought up a name, wrote a mission, collected some credible resources and introduced our organization to the world the best way we could, through Instagram.
Our working mission is to lift Asian/Pacific Islander voices, take accountability for our blind spots, and create safe spaces for Asian/Pacific Islander Artists to function, without limitations. Please know that this mission is fluid and changes as our world calls for a balance between empowerment and accountability.
With everything set in motion, on June 29th we released our first educational post on “whataboutism” & anti-Blackness in the Asian community. Since then, we have garnered over 3.8k followers, with posts reaching 13.7k people across and beyond our American borders. We’ve interviewed Broadway artists, up and coming rappers, created original series on topics like API Allyship & Colorism and have shared pieces of writing we’ve found pretty rad.
We also had our first (of soon to be many!) live event. THIS IS THE HOUR: Under Our Own Pen took place in December and was produced by our co-founder and EIC, Cindy Tsai. Featuring the creations and talent of over forty Asian/Pacific Islander artists, we were able to not only celebrate Asian/Pacific Islander musical theatre, but also donate the $2,204 we received to all those who collaborated in making the production happen as well as in supporting the Asian American Advocacy Fund and the Black Trans Travel Fund. (Missed the cabaret? You can relive all of the incredible performances on our IGTV and Youtube.)
As we’ve witnessed in 2020, social media has become a prominent social justice platform to share resources, knowledge, and hold space in with people almost everywhere. We began our organization with three members, and over the course of last year, we’ve been able to add another three to our team. Jay, Lianah, and Sam have been wonderfully warm and hardworking members that we are so grateful to add to the ZAPI family. We are excited to see what they continue to contribute to our organization and community.
And we want to extend a huge thank you to all of those who have continued supporting us, through all our shortcomings and shining moments. We’re not perfect, we have made mistakes and will continue to do so. However, it is our intention that our team grows more equipped as we head into the new year, and that we continue creating work that encourages important dialogue and the act of learning, un-learning, and re-learning. We hope that you’re there alongside us as we dive further into this journey that we’ve been on for the past seven months.
Thank you again, and happy new year!
Christine Heesun Hwang | https://medium.com/@zapiartists/zapi-artists-2020-year-in-review-e4678b3cd835 | ['Zapi Artists'] | 2021-01-13 21:30:22.439000+00:00 | ['Asian American', 'Pacific Islander', 'Zapi Artist', '2020', 'Year In Review'] |
Cryptomas Presents from Bybit | Today concludes the end of our cryptomas campaign, we were very happy to see the positive response we got from all of you for our 7 days crypto and winter themed posters. A big thank you for all those that participated, liked us, and retweeted us; we will not forget you.
If you followed the rules and left us your UID, you should now receive your cryptomas gift! So don’t hesitate, head to www.bybit.com and spin the wheel once more!
Where to Find Us:
Website: www.bybit.com
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Telegram: t.me/BybitTradingChat | https://medium.com/bybit/cryptomas-presents-from-bybit-1948bd5fe580 | [] | 2018-12-26 10:25:44.317000+00:00 | ['Bybit Events', 'Bybit', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptomas'] |
Internship interview experience — Red Hat | Round 1 — Online Test(Coding, Aptitude)
The first round of the selection process was a coding test of the duration of 2 hours that took place on the MyAnatomy platform and consisted of 5 aptitude questions and 3 coding questions. The aptitude section had a duration of 30mins and the coding section was given a duration of 1hour 30mins.
The aptitude questions looked easy, but that too depends upon your practice!. The coding questions were easy-moderate, I don’t exactly remember the questions but what I can say is that if you have your concepts clear and good hands-on practice in coding you will be able to do all of them.
I was able to do all of them and got 100% 😅 (Don’t Compare!!)
Round 2 — Online Test(Coding)
The second round of the selection process was again a coding test, but this time it was for only 1hour 30min and had 3 coding questions on the same platform, MyAnatomy.
The questions in this round were moderate and require you to have good logic solving ability and come with a solution. This round requires you to have a better side of your coding ability, if you practice competitive coding you will be able to do them.
Now, something interesting and scary happened to me in this round😆. It is not related to the test, but it might help you if something similar happens to you too.
The online tests are proctored and you are not allowed to switch tabs, I didn’t do either 😔. But, my bad luck and my wonderful windows PC caused me this trouble. I was marked a RED flag by the MyAnatomy platform because I switched applications in between the tests. I had to because of the windows expiry message popping up again and again! But, as I was honest and confident enough I addressed this issue to the HR who was responsible for the selction process and she had it checked up with the backened team at MyAnatomy and I was given a clean sheet! 😉
Round 3, 4 — Technical Interview
Now for me, this was the time when I started becoming a bit nervous, anyone would be! These rounds are taken by someone from the team itself of which you are gonna be part of.
As GlusterFS is built on C, so the questions asked to me was mostly on DSA and OS. But, it can and will vary from team to team for which you are interviewing. So prepare accordingly!
I was asked questions mostly on DSA which consisted of linked lists, trees, graphs, sorting, time complexity, and all. Also, a few questions from OS regarding deadlock, job scheduling, memory management. The questions were easy to moderate and the difficulty increased gradually :p
In the first round of technical interviews, the questions asked were more theoretical and less hands-on coding (just the logic/function). But, in the second round, it was the opposite 😆. The coding questions were like implementing a linked list, queue using both array and linked list in the first round.
The second round was more of a logical one. I was first given a question to solve then asked about the complexity and then improve/reduce the time complexity for that! Woof!
Finally, I was through to the next round, though I made a few mistakes and gave one or 2 wrong answers!
Round 5— Managerial Round
This is the final round of the process and was taken by the manager under whom you are gonna work. This is mostly non-technical but can be a bit tricky. You are mostly questions about how you would handle situations, lead the team, act on a given situation. Some conceptual questions related to technical but not direct can be asked too.
In simple words, you are assessed whether or not you will be a good fit for the Red Hat CULTURE and a worthy contributor to the team!
I was informed later on the same day itself, that I was through and I am SELECTED for the internship. Yeaaaa!
Hopefully, this helps anyone and everyone who is preparing for the internship at Red Hat and will be benefitted from it in clearing your interviews and grab an internship offer at Red Hat!
Thank You! | https://medium.com/@nikhilladha1999/internship-interview-experience-red-hat-b4ffb8fa99b6 | ['Nikhil Ladha'] | 2020-12-03 08:27:15.396000+00:00 | ['Red Hat', 'Interview Questions', 'Interview Preparation', 'Interview Experience'] |
Let’s Build a Fun “Like” Animation in Swift | To understand what the animation is, let’s take a look at the animation in slow motion.
As you can see, it consists of four elements:
The heart (empty at the beginning and full at the end of the animation)
A red circle that grows.
A white circle that grows into the red circle.
Fireworks.
The animation has several steps:
Fade out the heart. Grow a red circle. Grow a white circle. Fade in the heart view. Blow up fireworks.
To create these elements and achieve this animation we’ll use Core Animation.
You need to know what CALayer , CAShapeLayer , CAReplicatorLayer , CABasicAnimation , CAKeyframeAnimation and CAAnimationGroup are. I won’t be explaining these layers and animations. If you want to know more, read some articles and documentation, and come back to this article when you’re done.
Now, let’s create our layers. First, we need to create a full and empty like (heart) icon . To create these likes, we need to add icons to our assets.
After that we can create the like layer.
As you can see, we write the changeLikeState(isFilled:) method. This either adds a filled like or not to the layer depending on the isFilled parameter. Note that we use mask property, so we can change the icon color.
Let’s move on. Now, we’ll create circles.
At first, we write the createCircleLayer(with:) method. This creates CAShapeLayer and a circle using UIBezierPath , which is added to the path property of the layer. In the end, we use this method to create the redCircleLayer and whiteCircleLayer .
We’ve done the simplest part. Now, we need to create the firework. Let’s take a look at that.
The fireworks consist of large and small circles. To create a circle, let’s write a method createDotLayer(radius:) . This method has a radius parameter that defines the size of a circle.
Next, we need to create an array of circles. This array consists of two circles: small and big. Then we’ll multiply them using CAReplicatorLayer .
So, the movableDotShapeLayers property contains two circles: small and big. Next, we need to create the CAReplicatorLayer . To do this we write the createDotsLayer method.
So, we’ve created the CAReplicatorLayer and add the small and big circles as a sub-layer. Next, we use the instanceCount property to determine how many circles there will be in the layer. We calculate the distance between them and store that in an angle variable. To stretch the circles we use the instanceTransform property of the layer. To give the circles different colors, we use the instanceBlueOffset property. There are two more properties that we can use, instanceRedOffset and instanceGreenOffset , but I only use instanceBlueOffset .
Let’s look at what we have.
Now our circles are under each other (the small circles are under the large ones). Let’s fix that. To do this we add transform for the CAReplicatorLayer . It’s pretty easy.
The result will look like this. | https://medium.com/better-programming/lets-build-a-fun-like-animation-in-swift-34fab05f6afb | ['Pavel Vaitsikhouski'] | 2020-05-20 13:58:12.932000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'iOS', 'Animation', 'Core Animation', 'Xcode'] |
A Letter to Scott, My Best Friend, Who Falls in Love Every Christmas with a City Girl | Photo by Nicole Michalou from Pexels
Scott,
I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Jessica. I guess she loved being a top executive for her vague tech company more than she seemingly loved being a small-time gal. It’s amazing her car magically started working as soon as Christmas Day was over. I guess that’s the Christmas spirit for you.
Look, it’s been six weeks since she left, and I think it’s time someone told you: you need to get it together. Learn from the last eight times.
The same thing happens every year right before Christmas. You do random stuff around town waiting to ‘bump into’ a city girl, by doing one of the following:
1) Offering to Pump Gas for Strangers at the Christmas-Themed Gas Station
2) Aimlessly Walking Around Town Hugging a Christmas Tree (And Pushing Strangers Over)
3) Pretending to Fix the Town-Square Christmas Lights for Hours (And Greeting Random Strangers Like You Know Them)
4) Chopping Logs Publicly Yelling “Ho! Ho! Ho!” as You Give as Gifts to Strangers
5) Pretending to Busk Christmas Music with a String-less Guitar and Taking Requests (Which You Play on Your Phone) From Strangers
As soon you as see the girl, who’s usually speaking loudly into her cellphone about assets, you drop everything and push your way towards her.She stumbles, dropping her phone and her Eggnog latte. You pick her up and ask if she was the nerdy girl you picked on in high school. She shakes her head since this isn’t her home town. But you brush it off, before you coolly take an ‘important’ call about your own assets and walk away.
Luckily, you’re handsome. Or she would’ve called the cops. You have been blessed with a chiseled jaw line, a six pack, and a radiant smile. But,I’m sorry, no normal-human social skills.
Anyway, the next day, the amateur actors you hired bump into her while she’s on a call with her mom or best friend about the hunk she just met. You happen to be walking by them just about when they mention you invented The Snuggie. Her jaw drops. “Oh, that?” You say.
But at that point, she’s fallen for you, and you know it. She spends the next few days walking around town, getting into the spirit of things. You even villainize a random woman for her to build some drama around her history with Christmas.
Apart from a small scuffle with the new villain and some hot cocoa, everything goes relatively all right up until Christmas. This is where you surprise her by flying her parents and “nana” in. We’re all there, including me, for you to pull out the ring you’ve used for years to ask if she wants to be your “Mrs. Claus”. The poor girl naturally runs away — after a very awkward turkey dinner.
Look, I know how much you love the holiday. But maybe it’s time to focus on building relationships during other parts of the year, like around Valentine’s or Columbus Day. I would say to move on, but you’ve moved to a different town every year to find the right Christmas city girl. I guess all the strangers make sense now.
Anyway, I’m just glad you’ve found a way to channel your grief through writing. Let’s just hope Hallmark buy the rights to the romantic scripts you’ve written. Maybe just end the stories on the 24th? Just an idea!
Your best bud,
Eric | https://medium.com/2-ho-ho-hos/a-letter-to-scott-my-best-friend-who-falls-in-love-every-christmas-with-a-city-girl-f6b55f8f110d | ['Brian Gutierrez'] | 2020-12-22 19:32:37.302000+00:00 | ['Funny', 'Christmas', 'Hallmark Movies', 'Humour', 'Holidays'] |
6 Best Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallets 2021 | Top Bitcoin Hardware Wallet | A good cryptocurrency hardware wallet is an absolute essential for many of us. Aside from helping us feel more connected to our funds, hardware wallets keep us safe and give us peace of mind when using digital currencies.
It’s been my mission for the past few years to help people understand cryptocurrencies and keep safe when using them. Having a hardware wallet is one of the most important components in keeping your cryptocurrency secure.
If you’re looking for one, you’re going to want the best hardware wallet you can find.
Read through this guide if you want to understand the difference between the different wallet providers. If you are in a hurry to find the best your money can buy, you’ve also come to the right place.
What are hardware wallets?
The short of it is that hardware wallets are portable devices that give us secure access to our crypto. They function by generating a user’s private keys in a secure, offline environment while featuring an easy to use display. They usually connect via USB or Bluetooth to internet-connected devices like your computer. A separate screen on the wallet is used to verify and approve transactions to help prevent disclosure of sensitive information to the internet-connected device. This all combines to be very handy as you don’t have to worry about a computer being compromised.
Aside from security advantages, a hardware wallet also gives users tactile control over their funds. To many, having their funds in their hands is a familiar feeling that is paramount for adoption.
The List:
Top 6 Cryptocurrency Wallets of 2021
There are just a few hardware wallets on the market, yet still, it may be difficult to choose the right one for you. I have put together these top four hardware wallets to help you save your time and money experimenting.
The six hardware wallets we chose to highlight are NGRAVE ZERO, BitBox, Ledger Nano X, Trezor Model T, and KeepKey. They all have different features and attributes that may make one more suitable for your objectives.
You might also be interested in:
Below are the best cryptocurrency hardware wallets going into 2021. | https://medium.com/coinmonks/the-best-cryptocurrency-hardware-wallets-of-2020-e28b1c124069 | ['Earnest Knot'] | 2020-12-29 18:20:46.718000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Custody', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Security'] |
How My Team of Undergrads Won a Data Science Competition for Graduate and Ph.D. Students | I think there are a few secrets to success in data science that I uncovered while doing the Texas A&M Institute of Data Science’s Competition. I’ll outline my experience and explain how these keys to success helped my team of undergrads beat out several teams of Masters and Ph.D. students.
The Competition Structure
The teams were handed out data from the Los Angeles Bike Share. It details all the trips between LA’s bike stations, giving their geolocation (start and stop), date and time, and the user’s payment plan (yearly subscriber/monthly subscriber/one trip only). We were asked to turn in a 20-page report, one month from the competition’s launch date. Seven groups would be selected from the report submissions to present to a group of academic and industry judges who would select the winners.
The Challenge Statement
“The central question is how have LA Bike commutes changed over from 2016 when the Metro Bike Share program began until today? In particular, contestants are asked to consider how revenue and trips for a typical day have changed over both location and time. Is the number of tickets and passports increasing in all three Regions? Has the mileage among one-way commuters increased, and how? Is the number of trips increasing? Team projects will be evaluated on elements of their analysis including methods used, level of depth, and correctness, as well as creativity and presentation skills.”
My Team
What the Other Teams Delivered
These statements are common to the other teams:
They gave a report and only a report.
The main focus of that report was a forecasting model for bike usage based on past bike usage.
They used no outside data.
In their presentations, they mostly talked about data cleaning, the selection of their model, and the optimization of hyper-parameters.
What My Team Delivered
We handed in a pdf (since we were required), but that pdf linked to an interactive web app that gave information and visualizations about all the models we developed. Our report focused on four things:
A forecasting model for bike usage. Unlike other groups, ours recognized that the LA Bike Share was new and would be adding lots of stations. This would greatly affect the usage and prevent past data from predicting future growth if there was a sudden increase in the number of stations. While other groups were only using auto-regressive models, our models took into account the number of stations that would be open in the future. We modeled the number of bikes that would end up at each docking station at the end of the day. From there, we discussed how payment structure could be altered to incentivize users to bike from high-density stations to low-density stations. We scraped the LA Bike Share’s website for useful suggestions on where to put new stations. From this, we created a density map of suggestions and a word cloud of what the users wrote about. This revealed locations and types of locations that were popular. We created an algorithm that would predict the success of a new station, depending on where it was located. This was built on socio-economic data, the success of near-by stations, walkability, and distance to the LA Metro.
I think data scientists frequently forget the point of data science — to create value from data — instead they get too focused on the process. We not only offered many models, but we talked about how these impact the underlying business, and what are the actions that can/should be taken because of them. This is what someone that hires a data scientist really wants to hear about.
You’ve probably seen some version of the Venn-diagram below. By no means am I saying that I am a unicorn with incredible abilities, but I do think that collectively, our team is at the intersection of all three circles? By focusing on machine learning and lacking a use case, many groups found themselves at the coding-stats intersection. For all I know, the other teams had much more sophisticated models than we did, but when it coming up with use cases and delivering results that would work in practice, we shined. I assume that there were many groups that fit well into the coding-domain and stats-domain intersection, but that they likely struggled to put a report together without knowledge of the tools used in the other circle. When you do data science work, make sure you have a component of each of these circles to maximize the influence and adoption of your work.
Finally, I’ll say that our project was much more fun to look at. It doesn’t matter whether someone is in primary school or has a Ph.D. when someone has an interactive map in front of them, they play with it. Not everyone is going to understand the math behind your model. Even if they do understand, (and care) they usually don’t have the time to really dig into the “why” of the model. Everyone thought, does care about the business use case. Producing a compelling and interactive visualization can make a world of difference in getting someone to adopt your data science work. I’ve said this many times: “In data science, you are sometimes judged not on the sophistication of your work, but by how much the person you were presenting to understood.” | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/how-my-team-of-undergrads-won-a-data-science-competition-for-graduate-and-ph-d-students-eb17f34a78dc | ['Brandon Walker'] | 2020-06-11 17:20:38.592000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Visualization', 'Presentations', 'Data Science Skills'] |
What are the best tips for woodworking? | Woodworking is great since it can be a hobby as well as a profession. You can make plenty of money on woodworking projects if you’re talented. You can build armchairs, tables, beds and many other things and if you build really nice things you will be able to sell them.
The great thing with the woodworking craft is that it can give families with low income the possibility to have some really nice furniture as well as other things in their homes since they will be able to create these items with their own hands. It takes time to become really skillful of course but everyone has to start somewhere in order to become successful. It’s never too late to start working with woodworking projects and it’s a fun hobby to practice as well.
Get some help online
You will be able to find plenty of useful tips there and you will soon be able to start practice what you’ve learned.
You need some basic woodworking tools when you want to start working on your woodworking plans. A saw is a tool that you can’t live without if you want to become a woodworking talent. You will need more than one saw, at least two saws, perhaps more. You also need to buy at least one jig and a knife is always good to have as well. These tools are the basic things you need to have to get started but you might have to buy a few other tools as well when you proceed to more advanced woodworking projects.
Get yourself a hobby that can satisfy you
The woodworking craft is a hobby that can be very satisfying. It feels great to know that you’ve built the nice things that you have in your home and your family will most likely be very happy about it as well. This is a great hobby to have and it can become your profession one day if you spend enough time on it.
It’s a great feeling to be able to build something from wood with your own hands. You can come up with new woodworking plans every month and finish them as soon as you have some time off from work.
Good measuring tools are a must, particularly squares.
Double-check power tool settings before you turn them on.
Plan your steps; don’t do the woodworking equivalent of painting yourself into a corner — I have.
Measure twice and cut once — perhaps even three times.
Gather all the wood needed for your project first. Matching color and grain gives coherence to the finished item.
Be patient, let wood acclimatize to your shop before using it.
Dry fit joints before gluing and have needed clamps ready before you apply any glue.
The physical size of a project has little relationship to the time needed to complete it.
There are almost always multiple ways to accomplish a task so you may not need a new tool. Unless it is a justification for your wife.
There are “out-takes” in TV woodworking shows in which projects are so easily done.
Woodworking is not about completing a perfect no-goof piece. Everyone makes mistakes; a craftsman fixes them.
Power distribution:
Have multiple 110VAC and, 220VAC sockets in GFI (ground fault isolated) outlets. If you add outlets install them in accordance with the local building code. Try to not use extension cords, especially on heavy equipment. If an extension cord is needed, use a 12 gauge one. It can handle 2 to 3 times more current than 16 & 18 gauge lamp cord. High current through the thin wire heats the wire, drops the voltage, and could cause a premature motor failure.
Lighting:
The bulb’s “K” number indicates the color of the light. The lower the number the more yellow the light. “Day-light” bulbs are anywhere from 4500K to 6000K. For reasonably whitish light use at least 3500K bulbs. Lumens indicate the amount of light produced. Overhead lighting is appropriate for most operations, but when applying a finish low angled lighting is a better choice. It will highlight uneven surfaces and finish flaws so they can be treated early in the build process when they are easier to fix. Most of our shops have fluorescent bulbs, however, there are now 4’ LED direct replacements bulbs that are worth considering.
Dust Control:
ALL wood dust is a health hazard and some are really bad! Most damaging are microscopic particles that float in the air for hours. They can lodge deeply in your lungs. Air filtration units mounted near the ceiling help to remove this fine dust. Wear a dust mask and, at a minimum, have a shop vacuum. One step-up from a shop vacuum is adding a cyclone separator, it will dramatically reduce sawdust getting into the vacuum and cut down on filter cleaning. If your budget can handle it, a complete dust system would be a great shop addition. Hanging clear 6-mil plastic sheeting can help keep sawdust off cars if your workshop is also your garage. Ashland Hardware sells it.
Dust masks help to prevent inhaling dust, but they are not adequate for all tasks. If your spray finishes you will need a respirator. 3M’s model 7500 that uses 3M 6001 cartridges is a good, inexpensive choice. The organic vapor cartridges should be kept sealed when not in use to make them last longer and replaced every six months.
Comfort:
When involved in a project it is all too easy to ignore minor discomfort issues that will result in aches and pains later. Rubber floor mats really help, especially if the floor is concrete. Harbor Freight sells interlocking ones.
Noise:
Wear ear protection when using power tools. It will save your hearing! A lot of us need hearing aids because we didn’t wear them — unfortunately including me. Normal conversation is about 60dB. Noise at 80dB is 100 times louder, and a circular saw is about 90dB. Good earmuffs can reduce noise by up to 30dB. Wear them! Hearing loss is permanent! To reduce my Shopvac noise it is mounted in an enclosure. A “Fine Woodworking” article in issue #195 (2007/2008) was used to make it. It works well.
First Aid and Safety:
Accidents happen and Murphy’s Law says they are more likely to happen if you are not prepared. Band-Aids, Neosporin, hydrogen peroxide, or alcohol should be in the shop and readily available. An ABC fire extinguisher is a good addition especially if you use oil finishes. Rags used to apply oil finishes should be draped flat after use, not crumpled up. A crumpled oil finish could spontaneously combust.
If you would like to get more in-depth knowledge of this brilliant work click here and you will get many lessons, ideas, and plans at more than 70 % discount. | https://medium.com/@glearn/what-are-the-best-tips-for-woodworking-77cc661f04a1 | [] | 2021-04-07 13:51:21.716000+00:00 | ['Trade', 'Woodworking', 'Carpenter', 'DIY', 'Woodwork Projects'] |
’tis the season | Hey reader,
The holiday season is upon us and we are swarmed with so many things to do! Be it lighting the Christmas tree, preparing presents for our near and dear ones or baking some delicious Christmas cookies can keep us really tied!
So among this hullabaloo, how do we make time for the language we started learning in 2020 and not lose touch? Let this article guide you to stick to your language goals and motivate you to achieve them among all the holiday making!
Tip Number 1
The language learning extension for Netflix available on MAC/iOS and Windows helps you stream anything on Netflix and display captions in the Language of your choice! It also helps you learn the meanings of new words and provides you with synonyms and ways to use the words in a sentence!
Use this tool to do a Christmas Movie run at home, in the language you are pursuing and have fun learning with a little bit of Christmas cheer!
To know more about how to download the extension, read our article here.
Tip Number 2
Listen to your favorite Christmas songs in the language of your choice! This helps to inculcate the spirit of Christmas as well as learn new words and stick to your language goals! Here are some of our favorite foreign language playlists to get you started!
French Christmas Songs Playlist
German Christmas Songs Playlist
Spanish Christmas Songs Playlist
Korean Christmas Songs Playlist
English Christmas Songs Playlist
Tip Number 3
Read up on the Christmas Traditions of the country where the language you are studying comes from! For instance if you’re studying Korean, look up the way Christmas is celebrated in Korea! Are there any traditions that are specific to Korea? Here is a super YouTube Playlist we made for you to get you started!
Christmas Playlist on YouTube
Tip Number 4
Experiment in the kitchen with cuisine from the country you are learning the language from! For instance, if you are learning German, then look for German Recipes of your choice and get-set-cooking! You can cook anything from the traditional German recipes for cookies, truffles, stollen, and lebkuchen/gingerbread to making some German Drinks which are sold in the markets — at your residence!
Tip Number 5
Preparing a schedule always helps! Get a 2021 planner and open to the calendar section and divide the calendar into 4 sections:
Quarter 1
Quarter 2
Quarter 3
Quarter 4
Thereafter, plan your days and timings and allot how much time you want to give to the language on a daily basis! This way you have everything tracked and you can also be kept accountable!
If you’re not a book person, try an app instead!
One application that we love for setting tasks and reminders is Notion!
We hope you have a Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year 2021! Let us know in the comments if this guide helped you in anyway!
By,
Neeva Phatarphekar
Neeva’s Classes (@nclpa) • Instagram photos and videos | https://medium.com/@nclpa/tis-the-season-a89b7844e818 | ["Neeva'S Classes For Languages", 'Performing Arts'] | 2020-12-24 09:16:38.316000+00:00 | ['Language Translation', 'Language Learning', 'Holiday Season', 'Goals', 'Resolutions'] |
Important Lessons to be Learned from Civic Humanism | Aerial View of Florence, Itay — Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
The birth of Civic Humanism
Florentine leaders then created a new educational system that would prepare their people for various civic roles. And they called it Civic Humanism.
This new system chose ancient Rome as an inspirational model. They began by focusing on the existing similarities between Florence and ancient Rome. Many of these were based on reading classical authors. From this, they adopted the belief that reading these classics would build a stronger Florence.
Citizens must participate in society and politics
To adequately prepare each citizen for their political role using this new approach, they also revived the ancient Roman view of politics. The Florentines concluded that human development could only be optimized by participating in public affairs and politics.
They viewed politics as an opportunity for significant public dialogue. It was during these discussions that people could debate and learn from different points of view. An education based on rhetoric and philosophy was the best way to communicate effectively.
The Ghent Altarpiece: The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb painted by van Eyck — Image by Public Domain
Florence placed a high value on ethical politics
The objective of this new revolutionary educational system in Florence was to prepare every citizen for its civic role within their society. And they viewed philosophy and rhetoric as the two main categories of education.
Moral philosophy was the basis for making sound ethical decisions. They believed that every decision, especially those of a political nature, were basically moral. The study of rhetoric gave its people the powerful communication skills needed to convey their thoughts and ideas to others.
The Florentine society believes that citizens were not complete until they cultivated the ability to make sound judgments, followed by the powerful skills to communicate them. In Latin, these two skills were referred to as sapientia et eloquentia, or ‘knowledge and eloquence.’
Embracing the classics
The leaders of Florence held tight to the belief that reading the classics was the best way to learn moral philosophy and eloquence. But a massive problem for them was that many of those classics were not readily available.
Unfortunately, many of them were destroyed when barbarians invaded the late Roman Empire. Several others were hastily stashed in monastic libraries and various locations for safekeeping, only to be forgotten and lost.
Fortunately for the Florentines, they did have a small number of classics with which to begin their quest in Civic Humanism. These few classics happened to be available because rhetoric was taught in medieval universities.
The Birth of the Virgin Mary, Painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio — Image by Public Domain
The progression of Civic Humanism
During the early Middle Ages, rhetoric was taught by memorizing long passages of Latin prose that expressed ideas and emotion. This was how a scholar learned to write good letters and make good public speeches as portions of these passages could be pasted directly into them.
The teaching of rhetoric sharply changed later in the Middle Ages. Rather than relying on memorization, students learned how to mimic the styles of the great classical authors. This meant that a thorough reading of the classics was mandatory.
It is important to stress here that these works were read primarily for how they were written, not so much for what was written. The humanists during those days understood that this practice would help them answer the most pressing questions facing their society.
The evolution and structure of Civic Humanism
The basic structure of the Civic Humanist education was, in many ways, a rehashing of the ancient Roman educational system. The system believed by the Romans to be best suited for their citizens was known as the liberal arts. There were seven subjects within these liberal arts, and those subjects were organized under a pair of subheadings.
The first subheading was called the Trivium and contained three subjects. They included Latin grammar, logic, and rhetoric, which were the arts of communication. These eventually became known as the eloquentia of Humanist education.
The second subheading consisted of four subjects and was called the Quadrivium. The topics in this group were geometry, mathematics, music, and astronomy. These subjects were considered to be the content of the knowledge to be communicated to others. They became known as the Humanist sapientia. Humanists later added a few more subjects to this group, such as poetry, history, and literature.
The Humanists referred to their educational system as the Studia Humanitatis, which means the ‘study of the humanities’ or the study of being human.
A university class, Bologna painted by Laurentius de Voltolina — Image by Public Domain
Lessons learned from Civic Humanism
The overall objective of this Humanist education was enabling people to achieve their full human potential. When people learn to be their very best, they also become the best citizens.
The leaders of Florence exhibited extraordinary wisdom in preventing future invasions. Rather than building higher city walls or investing in the military, they placed more value on the human will and intellect. Here are some valuable lessons to be learned from this remarkable society that existed over 600 years ago. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/important-lessons-to-be-learned-from-civic-humanism-b741fead1bb7 | ['Charles Stephen'] | 2020-10-21 12:30:04.306000+00:00 | ['Government', 'Society', 'Education', 'History', 'Florence'] |
Thailand’s COVID-19 Education Crisis | Published on https://thegeopolitics.com/thailands-covid-19-education-crisis/
Given its strategic location in the heart of Southeast Asia, Thailand is a popular regional transportation hub that welcomes millions of people each year. While Thailand managed to control the number of tourist-imported cases early in the year, a muay thai boxing match in early March resulted in the country’s first large-scale outbreak. On March 24, Thailand’s Prime Minister General Prayuth announced the Kingdom’s plans to combat the virus — an emergency decree accompanied by curfews, alcohol bans and recommended social distancing. Shortly after, the situation was declared a national emergency that closed down entertainment, restaurant and schools.
Besides suffering a major blow to the country’s tourism-dependent economy, the extended lockdown lead to the new school semester being delayed by six weeks. Initially planned to resume teaching in mid-May, the new term start date was moved to July. For many education institutions, particularly tertiary education institutes, responding to university closures pushed students and lectures to online distance learning. While Thailand turned to digital learning as did the rest of its Asian neighbors and around the world, Thailand’s ingrained socioeconomic inequality surfaced as an impediment to the widespread access of digital learning. As a result of decades of Bangkok-centered growth, resource availability and allocation quotas vary widely across the country, and across each of its 77 provinces.
In response to the COVID-19 education crisis, Prayuth’s government welcomed support from private organizations such as the Asia Foundation to jumpstart the nation’s online education sector in solidarity with Public-Private Partnership. The Office of Private Education Commission (OPEC) also launched an online learning platform that provides education to primary and secondary school students. However, different education institutes have implemented different approaches for online classes due to different resources available to each; government-run schools in Bangkok and other provinces faced shortages in basic resources like pencils and paper, not to mention computers and internet for online distance learning.
Recognizing the digital gap, Prayuth’s government established the Distance Learning Foundation which aids the Ministry of Education to launch distance teaching and learning courses via televised broadcasts. Effectively starting from the 18th of May, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has agreed to air educational programs across its seventeen channels for students to access education. Classes will be scheduled across twelve of NBTC’s channels to cover courses from kindergarten to ‘Maw 3’ — junior high school, three channels will cover programs for sections of high school students and the remaining two channels will screen programs intended for vocational students. Nevertheless, while the televised approach gives students in rural Thailand as well as less well-off families a chance to access education during the lockdown, students’ families are still required to have a digital cable box to receive the channels.
Hence in terms of accessibility, Thailand still has to overcome logistical requirements and resource shortages to ensure all students can continue learning. However, simply handing out devices and providing internet access will not address the root of the issue. Nor does it count as a comprehensive response to changes to the education system. For example, the government has to learn from the failures of the 3000 billion Baht ‘One Tablet Per Child’ policy pushed out in 2012 which failed within months of its launch. Apart from logistical issues like distribution and operation, the lack of technology-savvy educators to guide students how to use some devices, especially for learning, is also an area of concern.
These recurrent challenges surrounding technology and education in Thailand reflect a serious situation concerning the lack of quality programs, training, curriculum development and management in the country. For Thailand to overcome present and future challenges, there has to be comprehensive approach that addresses issues holistically by analyzing demands and challenges faced by different groups. For the COVID-19 education response, students and student families, while two important groups of actors, only constitute one side of the equation. For remote education solution to work, empowered educators are equally critical. However, up to 50 percent of Thai teachers lack fundamental technological skills that are required to operate digital devices, such as desktop computers and overhead projectors for classroom interaction. Under the current situation, this creates additional stress for educators to familiarize themselves with technology in order to use smart devices for distance teaching. Similarly, educators are faced with increased difficulties in managing remote classrooms and disinterested students while teaching online.
As Thailand embarks on its 20-year “Thailand 4.0” national development plan for an innovation-driven economy, the country faces the many pressures of a human capital gap. The COVID-19 crisis has not only exposed the inadequacies of Thai-style rote learning, but serves as a wake up call to reform the entire education landscape. From teacher’s qualifications, training programs, curriculum development to teaching pedagogy and examination methods, Thailand has to reinvent its educations approach in order to uphold its national strategy of empowering youths for the country’s future. In particular, with the rise of Industry 4.0, digital skills are at the forefront of future employment.
Thai policy-makers need to propose more channels to engage the general public and non-governmental organizations in promoting higher quality education standards across the country. A concerted effort towards improving the standard of education in Thailand has to come from the collaboration across different actors, sectors and stakeholders. Moreover, in the globalized and technologically-empowered age, citizens should be encouraged to be responsible for their own futures, working alongside policy-makers to push for tangible solutions that address real needs. Particularly for students, the COVID-19 crisis has provided an opportunist moment for youths to take ownership of their education, both in terms of content and delivery. At the same time, the Thai government also has to become more transparent, as part of its “Good Governance” reform in order for the public to hold it accountable for implementing and tracking policy results in the country. By becoming more flexible to present and future challenges as well as having a growth mindset, Thailand will be able to respond better to the ever-changing global environment.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. | https://medium.com/@suthidachang/thailands-covid-19-education-crisis-9ea242075b03 | ['Suthida C.'] | 2020-10-09 01:14:42.226000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Crisis', 'Education', 'Thailand'] |
Cryptoindex AI Daily Predictions and News for 04/12/2020 | Cryptoindex AI Daily Predictions and News for 04/12/2020 CryptoIndex Follow Apr 12 · 4 min read
CryptoIndex is a tool for exposure to the crypto market and serves as a smart benchmark for all cryptocurrencies. The AI-based Cryptoindex algorithm is continuously analyzing more than 2000 coins applying over 200 factors, processing more than 1 million signals per second to provide a highly sophisticated index of the top 100 coins.
Cryptobank Galaxy Digital, owned by billionaire Mike Novogratz, recorded a $ 33 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2019, The French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) has published explanations of its position on cryptocurrencies for the European Commission, crypto predictions and other news for today👇
🔷Four representatives of the crypto industry were included in the rating of Forbes billionaires — co-founders of mining giant from China Bitmain Mikri Jean ($ 3.2 billion) and Cihan Wu ($ 1.8 billion), one of the founders of Ripple Chris Larsen ($ 2.6 billion) and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong ($ 1 billion )
🔷Cryptobank Galaxy Digital, owned by billionaire Mike Novogratz, recorded a $ 33 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2019. The bank lost $ 16.7 million of this amount due to unsuccessful trading operations, and $ 8.4 — due to failed investments.
🔷The French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) has published explanations of its position on cryptocurrencies for the European Commission. The regulator defined cryptocurrencies as “a cryptography-based and distributed-asset digital asset” and emphasizes the need for a clear distinction between financial instruments and “electronic money”. According to AMF, more accurate classification is too early to introduce.
Now let’s take a look at the Cryptoindex AI prediction sheet👇
Of course, let’s explain how does it work for newcomers:
At the top, you can see “prediction” and “last prediction accuracy”;
Our algorithm performs as an indicator of probable price movement;
The prediction accuracy rate for the previous period;
See➡CIX100 index methodology📚
Today’s prediction stats
Total Coins
99/100(Excluding 👉Bitcoin)
Last Predictions Rate:
53%
CryptoIndex.com(CIX100) current amount:
0.5320(↑5.29%)
💵 Total cryptocurrency capitalization:
$202 550 834 291
🗓 Trading volume per day(24 hours):
$120 574 202 712
Our special Cryptoindex rubrics:
Top 5 gainers 24h (USD)
Covesting(COV) is a TOP gainer for the last 24 hours.
Top 5 losers 24h (USD)
BitcoinX(BCX) is a TOP Losser for the last 24 hours.
Top Buy Tomorrow
Matryx(MTX) is TOP buying for tomorrow.
Top Sale Tomorrow
AppCoins(APPC) is showing the worst result for tomorrow.
Crypto Bundles
All bundles in the green zone📈📈📈🔥
Prediction List
Today, the market is waiting for tomorrow’s news. But what shall we expect today?👇
For buying📈📈📈 — Bitcoin SV, Tezos, Stellar, Chainlink, Bitcoin Gold, 0x, Augur, Kyber Network, DigixDAO, Zilliqa, Cred, QunQun, Neblio, Gifto, Storm, TenX, Utrust, Mithril.
Neutral prospects ⚖️ — Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, VeChain, Nebulas, Storj, Gnosis.
Rest of coins — for selling📉📉📉
Below you can see the strength of the forecast(sixth column)👇
So, here are valid predictions for today🙌
Follow our news. Subscribe to our newsletter to get fresh analytics from Cryptoindex every 2 days for free!
The AI-based CryptoIndex algorithm is constantly learning by consuming huge amounts of data rapidly making decisions and choices that humans would struggle to match.
You can always check the current CIX100 composition on our website.
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Follow CRYPTOINDEX on Reddit | https://medium.com/cryptoindex-io/cryptoindex-ai-daily-predictions-and-news-for-04-12-2020-ed995a11815 | [] | 2020-04-12 20:28:02.525000+00:00 | ['Cix100', 'Cryptoindex', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Covid 19'] |
Validating an idea as an early-stage founder is all about rapid prototyping and testing: Learnings from Ajay Prakash | Validating an idea as an early-stage founder is all about rapid prototyping and testing: Six learnings from Ajay Prakash Bronte McHenry Follow May 4 · 10 min read
EntryLevel Founder Ajay Prakash
Ajay Prakash was at university many years ago when he spotted a problem on the horizon — one that was inching closer and closer as graduation approached.
The problem? Securing full-time employment at the end of his degree.
A mix of concerned and curious, Ajay started researching whether this was a problem other university graduates were facing too — and what he learnt gave him a purpose that saw him:
Close a pre-seed round with Blackbird in 2020;
Join Startmate’s most recent Accelerator cohort;
Brainstorm, build and test more MVPs than he can count; and
Use no code to launch a virtual work experience product in two days which attracted more than 10,000 pre-sign-ups in eight days.
Underlying all of his success (and failure) is a commitment to “rapid prototyping and testing”, so in this article, we dive into Ajay’s most successful MVP to date, and his six key learnings about testing a hypothesis as an early-stage founder.
One problem, two dozen solutions
The year is 2014. Ajay is studying theoretical physics and mechanical and manufacturing engineering at UNSW. He and his friends are worried about their employability.
“Nowadays, there’s hundreds of thousands of engineering students graduating, who can all do the same thing, who can all do 3D modelling. There’s really nothing to differentiate us,” Ajay explains.
What differentiates people is experience beyond university, and often having skills that universities don’t teach, which has led to “this weird, vicious cycle where they need a job to get experience, but they need experience to get the job”.
Fascinated, he started doing more research, concluding technology is developing at such a rapid pace that, by 2030, 42% of the skill sets required by the workforce will have drastically changed.
He “had a fairly good idea of the problem scopes”, he reflects, but “didn’t know exactly what the right solution would be”, and so edtech startup EntryLevel was born.
“The only way you can verify an idea is sales or attraction. There’s no way to verify, unfortunately, before you build something, but there are ways to shortcut that building process,” Ajay says.
“So then it just comes to rapid prototyping and testing.
“What we do for growth tactics is, we’ll do a session, and we’ll write down every single idea that could possibly work. And we run through them. So we had about 30 different growth ideas.
“Since November, we’ve probably launched and failed three or four things. We did no-resume-recruitment for a bit, we tried a coaching service, tried a bunch of different things.
“One of the tricky parts, to be honest, about joining Startmate was the fact that I didn’t have an idea that needed to be accelerated, in the sense that I knew the problem, and I had maybe 12 different experiments I wanted to run, and we were just rapidly iterating through things.”
Thus far, Ajay’s virtual work experience MVP has proven most successful, and is currently being scaled by the EntryLevel team.
For context, EntryLevel’s virtual work experiences are one-month courses that mimic the real work of a professional, put together by an expert mentor.
But, of course, that’s not where this MVP began, so let’s rewind.
“A super lean MVP”
“I had a couple of my friends who wanted to launch experiences with us,” Ajay recalls, so “I made a quick mockup of what it could look like”.
“We just did a pre-sign-up to kick it off. I didn’t even have the curriculum in place. I just said ‘these are the four things you get’, made a quick landing page, kicked that off. And then I implemented a referral loop campaign,” he says.
“The website itself probably cost like $50 for hosting … [and] took us about two days to launch. I hired a designer to clean it up a little bit. But even without the designer, I probably could have got by myself.”
Ajay also hired a community manager for about $800 a month, and spent $280 on marketing, which turned out to be “the biggest waste of time”.
“I spent $120 on Google Ads, which got us three signups. We had $120, which I spent on my friend’s email list, who had about 100,000 students on his email list. And we got about five signups from that.
“Absolutely phenomenal,” he jokes.
“We just lucked out in the sense that we launched the first campaign, which was a referral campaign, and then posted in six Facebook groups, and I made a content piece to go with it, and then it just blew up from there,” he explains.
“That was the entire launch process. So all in all, a super lean MVP.”
But while the MVP was lean, the learnings were not — and Ajay has six key suggestions for early-stage founders brainstorming, building and testing MVPs.
1. Falling head-over-heels in love
Towards the end of our conversation, I asked Ajay the question you always ask when interviewing someone: ‘What’s the one thing you would tell someone who is walking the same path as you?’
But while my question is utterly predictable, his answer is a zinger.
“You have to become obsessed with the problem, not your product,” he says.
“I think a lot of people, especially early-stage founders, fall in love with what they’re building, and they find it hard to let go, or to get feedback on it.
“Obviously, you’ve got to care about what you build. But if you’re more in love with the problem, then it’ll be really easy to pivot and to make decisions that’ll innovate and optimise things for your users and customers.”
Ajay also says early-stage founders should “stop falling in love with your customers”.
“The advice that people get is ‘you should love talking to customers’. But actually, sometimes your customers are across demographics, they’re not in a particular country, they’re not in a particular age group, they’re not a particular gender.
“Sometimes, I found myself really enjoying spending time with a particular demographic or set of customers, and I found it skews my judgement.
“Just because you like having a beer with a subset of your customers doesn’t mean you should focus all your attention there.
“We have a broad range of people looking for a job: university students, retirees, mums coming back from maternity leave. I can pick and choose the ones I want to serve, I can pick and choose the problems I want to focus on.”
But at the end of the day, it’s “about falling in love with the problem and a job to be done”, Ajay says.
2. Pumping hearts and throwing darts
If the advice is to fall deeply in love with your problem, then it goes without saying you’ll need to take it on a bunch of dates, put in the effort to really understand it, and never get complacent.
“There’s a problem scope, and we have 15 different ways we could tackle it. And we’re just going one by one and seeing what works,” he explains.
“It’s a continuous tree of … different permutations and combinations of how the business could work. Because that’s how you like maximise your odds of success.
“You can’t throw one dart, because the likelihood of that dart landing is so low. You need to throw seven darts in a row and just see which one sticks. And then, if something works, scale it.
“In fact, even though we have something that’s working, and we’re scaling it, I have like six other things in the pipeline that we could test at any point in time.
“So once we get comfortable with this, we test something else, test something else, see what kind of monetisation methods work.
“Those are all different MVPs.”
3. Everyone judges a book by its cover
While code is so 2010, design is front-of-mind in 2021.
“My personal belief now is that design is super important. I don’t think you can get away with an ugly-looking product anymore,” Ajay says.
“People are smarter. And people tend to make snap decisions on ugly products.”
Ajay suggests asking: “What are the core jobs to be done? And what are the core features that could service that? And then just make it look as clean as possible when you launch.”
“You could lose people just because it looks scammy. And in 2021 especially, people come from a perspective of no trust, and you’ve got to build that trust, and fast, which was not true a decade ago,” he says.
“If people don’t trust you from day one, then you need to do everything you can to get them to trust you, and then potentially even convert into a paying customer.”
4. Learning to align your incentives
When it comes to collecting feedback, and a lot of it, Ajay adopts a game theory perspective.
“People will always be selfish,” he says.
“I don’t expect anyone to give anything from pure philanthropy at scale.
“If you build a system with 50,000 people, you can’t expect 49,000 of them to act in a way that you want them to out of the goodness of their heart. It just doesn’t work that way. That’s not how modern day economics are built.”
So what did Ajay do to incentivise users? Well, a couple of things — one far more successful than the other.
“We tried to incentivise them initially with money, which didn’t work … If you hang 50 bucks in front of them and say ‘do this survey’, they’ll just do it as quickly as possible, because that’s not really an incentive to give honest feedback.”
Binning that idea, the team decided to award a “critical thinker” badge to those who gave valuable feedback. Already, they had gamified the MVP experience, offering soft skill badges, so it wasn’t too far of a leap.
The critical thinker badge “was just our way of saying, if you’re good at giving feedback, this will show potential employers that you’re really good at critical thinking”.
“That boosted feedback rates exponentially. It was just aligning their incentives with our incentives. And we got clean feedback from that, which was interesting,” Ajay recalls.
“I originally had my doubts about it, but we test everything, even if I have doubts.”
5. Collect data like its diamonds
The entire point of building an MVP is continually learning, and it goes without saying that some things aren’t going to work, so Ajay suggests you “collect as much data as humanly possible”.
The EntryLevel team got 10,000 pre-sign-ups with an admittedly vague landing page.
They then had about 1,000 people go through MVP 1.
“We couldn’t have tested what we wanted to test at 50 people, we actually needed 1,000 to really show that we could scale it. But we also didn’t want to let all 10,000 of them in, in case batch 1 is kind of okay, or terrible, then we could try batch 2 or batch 3, and so on,” he says.
“We had an almost endless supply of people to just keep testing with, which was helpful.”
The EntryLevel team mainly collected survey information: “What country are you from? What is the biggest problem you’re facing right now? What are you expecting out of this?”
Looking back, Ajay says the website was “so vague” that even he didn’t know what people were signing up for.
“Part of that was on purpose, because we’re just testing whether there’s a need for a solution around experience. And then the other half of it was just because we didn’t know what we wanted to make yet,” he explains.
“We also did the Sean Ellis test. So the product-market fit survey. We also did the NPS which, in hindsight, they kind of just say the same thing. So it’s probably not even worth doing both.”
But collecting as much data as physically possible doesn’t mean your learnings should be vague. You still need to collect the right kind of data.
“It was less about platform metrics and more about how people felt about certain things and what features were working,” he says.
“Heat maps and click-through rates and all that kind of stuff, they’re kind of useless without context. If you tell me your click-through rate is 3%, that’s great. But I don’t know what industry, or what the industry standard is. So it’s only useful to collect that kind of stuff if you’re trying to do something about it, or have some sort of benchmark you’re trying to work towards.”
6. Embrace failure with open arms
After speaking with Ajay for about 25 minutes, it’s clear his philosophy is to fail quickly and fail often.
“We are really good at building something in a few days, launching it, seeing what the results are, seeing what the traction is like, and seeing if people enjoy it,” he explains.
“I want to know if it’s a bad idea tomorrow, and I’m trying to do everything I humanly can to prove that it’s a bad idea. So that could be launching pre-sign-ups, that could be launching a really quick pilot… whatever I can think of to really test that hypothesis is what we go for.
But when you’re moving fast, experimenting, building, and culling what doesn’t work, there are bound to be mistakes.
“We sent the wrong email to some people. There were days when I had like 400 support emails because one of my team members screwed up and sent the wrong link,” Ajay reflects.
“A lot of carelessness happened, and carelessness at scale, which is not great.
“But I think it’s also a testament to the fact that you can fuck up, and it’s fine. I wouldn’t be worried about that too much.
“I wouldn’t change anything, because it’s kind of worked out for us.” | https://medium.com/startmate/validating-an-idea-as-an-early-stage-founder-is-all-about-rapid-prototyping-and-testing-six-30cd070d1d4f | ['Bronte Mchenry'] | 2021-05-12 06:36:27.023000+00:00 | ['Prototyping', 'Founders', 'MVP', 'Startup', 'Lean Startup'] |
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Keeping the NYC Tech Industry Informed and Connected
1. NYC’s Paxos, a blockchain infrastructure company, has raised $142 million in a Series C funding. Declaration Partners led the round and was joined by Mithril Capital, PayPal Ventures, RIT Capital Partners, Ken Moelis, Alua Capital and Senator Investment Group. Paxos powers PayPal’s cryptocurrency services. (www.paxos.com) (Coindesk)
2. NYC’s The Drivers Cooperative, a ridesharing app owned by NYC cab drivers themselves as a co-op, is set to launch. The co-op hopes to compete with Uber and Lyft by offering drivers a larger share of fares and negotiating to obtain lower prices on gas and insurance. Any remaining profits will be distributed to drivers as a dividend. (www.drivers.coop) (TheseTimes)
3. NYC’s Ramp, an Amex and Brex competitor, has raised $30 million in a Series A round. The funding as provided by D1 Capital and Coatue Management. Ramp provides companies with cost saving features by identifying things such as duplicative purchases or lower prices offered by other sellers. (www.ramp.com) (Fortune)
4. NYC’s Arthur, an A.I. monitoring platform, has raised $15 million in a Series A funding. Index Ventures led the round and was joined by Acrew, Plexo Capital. Homebrew, AME Ventures and NYC’s Work-Bench. The company’s platform monitors A.I. model accuracy. (www.arthur.ai) (TechCrunch)
5. Brooklyn’s Runway, an A.I. powered video and photo editing platform, has raised $8.5 million in a Series A funding. Amplify Partners led the round and was joined by Lux Capital and Compound Ventures. Runway operates like an app store-like hub that hosts dozens of editing tools created by independent developers, and users simply pay for cloud computing time to run them. (www.runwayml.com) (AdWeek)
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6. NYC’s Hibob, developers of the “bob” HR platform, has raised $70 million in a Series B funding. The round was co-led by SEEK and Israel Growth Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, Eight Roads Ventures, Arbor Ventures, Presidio Ventures, Entree Capital, Cerca Partners and Perpetual Partners. Bob, which has users such as Fiverr and VaynerMedia, provides basic HR functions (payroll, benefits and onboarding), as well as features related to performance and company culture. (www.hibob.com) (TechCrunch)
7. CNET has taken a look at the Battle of the New York Bikes: Soul Cycle vs. Peloton. Both bikes are around $2,500 and sell subscriptions to streamed live and recorded classes for about $40 a month. (www.soul-cycle.com/at-home) (www.onepeloton.com) (CNET)
8. NYC’s LeafLink, an online marketplace for the cannabis industry, has raised $40 million in a Series C funding. Founders Fund led the round and was joined by NYC’s Thrive Capital, Nosara Capital and NYC’s Lerer Hippeau. The company estimates that 32 percent of U.S. wholesale cannabis orders flow through its marketplace. (www.leaflink.com) (Ganjapreneur)
9. NYC’s Deduce, a platform that prevents account takeover fraud, has emerged from stealth and raised $7.3 million in seed funding. True Ventures led the round and was joined by Ridge Ventures. Deduce’s platform draws data from 150,000 partner websites to generate a user risk score based on fraud-related behaviors. (www.deduce.com) (Crunchbase News)
10. NYC’s Hydra Studios, a network of wellness studios, has raised $3.8 million in a seed round. Investors included Slow Ventures, Company Ventures, Courtside Ventures, CityRock Venture Partners, Hatzimemos/Libby and Fifth Wall. (www.hydranewyork.com) (PR Web)
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We’re passionate marketers, engineers and innovators building the technology to power the future of commerce. We’re a B2B2C SaaS platform helping the world’s most interesting retailers and direct-to-consumer brands remove friction from the customer experience to deliver recurring revenue through subscriptions programs — shifting their consumer interactions from one-and-done transactions to long-lived, highly profitable relationships.
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UpScored is the only career site that uses data science to connect you with jobs suited specifically to you while automatically learning your career interests. Its AI-powered platform decreases job search time by 90%, showing you the jobs you’re most likely to get (and want) in less than 2 minutes.
Data Engineer
Senior Frontend Developer
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Frame.io is a video review and collaboration platform designed to unify media assets and creative conversations in a user-friendly environment. Headquartered in New York City, Frame.io was developed by filmmakers, VFX artists and post production executives. Today, we support nearly 1 million media professionals at enterprises including Netflix, Buzzfeed, Turner, NASA & Vice Media.
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Attentive is a personalized text messaging platform built for innovative e-commerce and retail brands. We raised a $230M Series D in September 2020 and are backed by Sequoia, Bain Capital Ventures, Coatue, and other top investors. Attentive was named #8 on LinkedIn’s 2020 Top Startups list, and has been selected by Forbes as one of America’s Best Startup Employers.
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Customer Experience Representative
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Postlight is building an extraordinary team that loves to make great digital products — come join us!
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America Taught Dave Chappelle That Millionaires Can Sharecrop Too | America Taught Dave Chappelle That Millionaires Can Sharecrop Too
Photo courtesy of Netflix
What separates Dave Chappelle apart from his peers travels further than him being today’s #1 comedian. Yes, he writes and performs stand up better than 98% of the human race. And yes his POV beams so brilliant that at times society gets introduced to undiscovered angles of itself. But the creator of the Chappelle’s Show no longer needs jokes to captivate an audience.
Today, Dave Chappelle stands as one of our generation’s greatest storytellers. Like a 1973 Bordeaux, his skill for crocheting hilarious details into luminously poignant tales has aged exquisitely whilst refining consumers. He has the command to make us hold our breath for eight minutes and forty six seconds as he reps for George Floyd. He can stalk a stage being as entertained by his own material as us or sit hunched on a stool for 60 minutes. Regardless of his posture, our attention remains erect.
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Earlier this week, he uploaded to his website, Unforgiven, an 18-minute soliloquy that exposed the poor ethics behind his Chappelle’s Show contract. It concluded with the savant declaring war on Comedy Central and its parent company, Viacom. There were funny bits, but few jokes. He offered a couple of stories from different periods in his life. Each demanded its own space and identity yet remained loyal to the theme: violation. He took us full circle, beginning with his first year as a teen comic who was bullied out of a joke by an adult comic. He moved some years forward, when a three card monte con artist cautioned him to “never come between a man and his meal.” These two flashbacks were set up for his gripe with Comedy Central. The network, along with HBO Max, has been streaming Chappelle’s Show ever since Dave hosted SNL the night Biden was projected to secure election. According to Dave (and his agent), he has no voice in the matter. He also won’t receive a penny of the new streaming revenue.
Dave reflected on a corporate room full of Comedy Central suits encouraging a broke comedian whose wife was with-child to sign a “terrible deal.” He spoke on foreign contract vocabulary like “likeness of image” and “perpetuity” as dressed up slave holdings, and punctuated his point with the fact that although his deal with the network was predatory in nature and essentially a lifetime sentence, it was standard and legal. Then Dave held up that mirror and paralleled his multimedia enemy with that of the Me Too movement. Not to be taken literally, he was referencing a mentality that allows those with a certain power and privilege — not to exclude economic status — to disrupt, violate and possibly ruin the life of someone with less. Whether the gap is money, notoriety, physical strength or civil rights, in the United States especially, the lesser someone has the greater chance that they become prey. | https://medium.com/@fghjh-tytys/america-taught-dave-chappelle-that-millionaires-can-sharecrop-too-96e2e3c6fad | ['Fghjh Tytys'] | 2020-12-19 00:00:38.712000+00:00 | ['History', 'Corporate Culture', 'Health', 'Humor', 'Netflix Originals'] |
Quick Lane Bowl Betting Preview | A confusing Western Michigan and a depleted Nevada go head-to-head in an early kickoff in Detroit.
Quick Lane Bowl
Western Michigan (7–5) vs Nevada (8–4)
11am, Monday, ESPN
WMU -7/Total 56
Head to FanDuel Sportsbook to take advantage of your $1,000 risk-free bet
Monday’s bowl action gets off to an early start because there was supposed to be a doubleheader and the game needed to wrap up in time for NFL Monday Countdown so at 11am in Detroit we get a confusing Western Michigan team against a depleted Nevada team. Western Michigan beat Pittsburgh this year and went 4–4 in the MAC so good lunch trying to figure them out. Nevada lost their coach and star quarterback and thus they come into a de facto road game as a touchdown underdog.
Western Michigan is a good offensive team and they can beat you with the pass and the run. They’re a better passing team. Kaleb Eleby threw for over 3,000 yards with 21 touchdowns and five interceptions. His favorite target by far is Skyy (two y’s) Moore who hauled in 91 catches this year for 1,256 yards. The Broncos who have two backs who share the load in the run game. Sean Tyler ran for 1,004 yards and La’Darius Jefferson ran for 836 so this is a team that can beat you in a variety of ways offensively. Defensively they’re the fourth best team in the country on third down, but otherwise don’t do a ton else well defensively. They rank in the 90s in both defensive SP+ and defensive efficiency. They’re 94th in the country in pass efficiency defense, give up 4.47 yards per carry and have just 13 takeaways, most of which are fumble recoveries which doesn’t seem sustainable long term.
Good luck trying to figure out what you’re going to get from Nevada. Coach Jay Norvell left for a conference rival and all-everything quarterback Carson Strong opted out and the rest of the Nevada team has 24 pass attempts this season. 6’9 Nate Cox will get the start at quarterback and he threw just 20 passes this year in garbage time. Nevada gave running backs coach Vai Taua the interim gig for this game, and considering his younger brother Toa is the team’s leading rusher, perhaps Nevada may try to establish the run in this game, but they aren’t a great running team. Their numbers are misleading because Strong got sacked a lot and sack yards count against rushing totals, but taking those numbers out they ran for 4.1 yards per carry which was tied for 75th in FBS. Nevada is pretty good against the pass ranking 30th in pass efficiency defense. They held Fresno State’s Jake Haener to his second lowest passing total this season and held Cal’s Chase Garbers under 200 yards. They struggled to stop the run, ranking second-to-last in the Mountain West in rushing defense.
Given the uncertainty with Nevada’s quarterback situation and a general distrust for the MAC, I have no interest in betting this game. A MAC team laying 7 is a lot of points and you just don’t know what you’re getting from Nevada. I think the only look I’m remotely interested in would be the Western Michigan team total. I don’t think Nevada’s defense is going to be sharp and Western Michigan is capable of putting up points. | https://blog.fantasylifeapp.com/quick-lane-bowl-betting-preview-49a29225a13e | [] | 2021-12-26 21:36:49.469000+00:00 | ['Sportsbetting', 'Collegefootball'] |
11 Creative Ways to Hire Top Talents for Your Startup | are the core and the essential element of every company, which is why recruiters generate a myriad of methods, strategies, and techniques to find the best ones.
Well-performing, inventive, and productive hires are even more significant for startups, especially in their early stages. Hence, seeking, identifying, and hiring the most compatible person is critical.
About Startup Companies
Startups are usually young companies only entering the market, and the limited finances make their position more challenging.
They have challenging competition, demanding industries, and a small number of workers. Hiring someone who doesn’t match the startup’s values, goals, and mission could hinder its future business.
If managed well, nurtured, and developed, a startup can even become a larger company or an enterprise.
According to Forbes, that often happens when they open more than one office, generate revenues bigger than 20 million USD, or have more than 80 employees. In the end, it is always about the workers, because they drive a startup’s growth, often taking him to greatness.
How to Recruit Top Talent for Startups?
Unfortunately, only two in five startups are profitable, while others will either fail or experience continuous loss of money. That challenge is even higher in a post-pandemic world where, without the right formula, plan, and people, businesses can break with ease.
The seamless hiring process and unique ways of candidate engagement are, therefore, of paramount importance. If you do it properly, most of your employees are likely to stick for around four years. So, here are the eleven creative ways to recruit top talents for your startup team.
#1. Give the candidates a reason why they will want to work for you
The times of careless, average, and detached hiring stays in the previous decade. It is time to get all on, be creative, and leverage all the features your startup has. One of the most remarkable advantages you have is your employer brand. You might be new, but there is no one else like you. Use that.
Develop a captivating, beneficial, and visible company culture that articulates who you are and what you can offer in its every action, trait, and online platform. Take your brand and prominence seriously because 84 percent of job seekers say the reputation of a company as an employer is crucial. Thus, 9 out of 10 candidates would apply for a job when it’s from an employer brand that a company actively nurtures and updates.
#2. Offer outstanding employee benefits and perks
It is not all about the wages, especially for the largest generation in the workforce, millennials, and their younger counterparts, generation Z. These professionals care deeply about their experience, development, and what they can learn in a company. So, they will highly appreciate employee benefits that encompass these concerns.
Unsurprisingly, for 60 percent of people, employee perks are on top of considerations when deciding whether to accept a job. If you think which benefits matter the most, keep in mind that we’re living in a post-pandemic era.
Hence, 45 percent of people find that health perks are the most important, with paid-time-off following right after ( 38 percent). The second one is especially significant for millennial working mothers, which have a hard time to get ahead at work.
#3. Treat candidates like future customers
Many employers fail to see job applicants as humans who, even if they don’t match the company’s requirements, could be valuable to the business in the future. Even though profit shouldn’t be the main drive of providing people with a seamless candidate experience, it is an incentive for many leaders.
That means, first of all, always be respectful with all your candidates. Keep continuous communication, update them, and don’t ghost them. Also, try not to bomb them with the unnecessarily complicated job application process.
Make the process as smooth as possible and avoid demanding from job applicants to fill countless blanks, requirements, and questions. Instead of that, add a simple Apply button on your career website or social media networks that allow them to send their resumes and cover letters.
#4. Employ your whole team as recruiters
One of the startups’ perks is that they are usually small, and everyone knows everyone. Besides, they probably don’t have big recruitment teams or envious amounts of HR resources. That’s why, as a young startup, you should leverage the close connections in your workplace and encourage every employee to participate in recruitment.
Try not to make it appear like a chore or another responsibility. Highlight the benefits of doing it, such as getting to know each other better, taking part in choosing the next coworkers, or trying different job roles. These are the people that know best what it is that your startup needs and who is an ideal profile for the vacancy.
Make it easier for them to engage by defining the tasks and roles for each of your hires. That way, you will also help them track the progress and know their activities.
#5. Use technology (But you don’t have to go for the costly ones)
Many startups make the mistake of either not using any tech to hire or investing too much in complex platforms that are better for larger companies. Startups are usually not large. Especially those in early development phases. They don’t require robust, multifunctional, and expensive recruitment systems.
For startups of small sizes, even Trello will do to help with job applicant tracking. It is an outstanding tool that allows using a shared public board where the whole team can check the latest updates. If you still have more trust in platforms designed for hiring, seek those that fit your needs, number of employees, and goals.
Whichever option you choose, make sure that you use it and that you track the progress of the hiring process. That way, you can analyze conversion rates and decide if there is a phase or step where you should add extra effort and improvement.
#6. Be where your ideal candidates are
Every hiring process starts with an ideal employee persona in mind. Have a clear-cut perception of that person, their skills, experience, and where they could be. Otherwise, you will lose your way, spread efforts in incompatible places, and waste time on the wrong candidates.
So, think. Where are your perfect developers, designers, programmers, sales managers, and copywriters? Create a list of the most relevant places where they could be looking for jobs or presenting their talents and abilities. Is it Behance, 99Design, Dribble, or Github? Ensure that you are also there, ready to make the first contact and approach your rockstar potential candidate.
Attend conferences, meetings, events, and industry-related gatherings, or even better, be a host. Search for compatible job candidates on LinkedIn, ask your employees for referrals, or pay a visit to freelance platforms.
#7. Make your projects interesting
Even though this is not always possible, try to come up with projects and vacancies that people will find engaging, fulfilling, and challenging. Seek ways to add a unique edge to every opportunity. If the work itself isn’t immersive, think about the benefits a person would have from working in that role?
Consider what skills your future workers will gain in that position? What are the connections they will make, talents they will grow, and chances they might get in the future? Most people don’t want to work on boring, mediocre, and frustrating jobs. So, invest a bit of time in considering how to present the project and make it more appealing to your ideal candidate.
#8. Get creative with your job ad
People who work at startups are usually not the average Joe and Jane. The proven, outdated, and dull formulas won’t appeal to them. When hiring top talents, you need to stretch your imagination and find ways to make your job descriptions sound anything but boring.
Go even further. Come up with clear, but different and compelling job titles. Make your job description sound that immersive that the candidates will be eager to apply and hear more about it.
#9. Think about hiring remote workers and freelancers
A startup’s culture is more dynamic, flexible, and open than in most of the big enterprises. Perhaps a regular contract isn’t what you are looking for, and an independent worker would be a better fit. The world of freelance is a source of a myriad of talents and skilled people that can meet your needs.
Besides, you might encounter remarkable candidates who want to work remotely or with a flexible schedule. Think about allowing that option because more and more people will expect the possibility of working from home.
#10. Ensure a fast decision process
A great candidate experience doesn’t end with choosing the most compatible talents and making the shortlisted candidates wait for too long can turn them in the direction of your competitors.
Use online platforms that showcase talents to help you in making the final decision. They can demonstrate who is the most skilled person. Thus, you can also add games or challenges your shortlisted candidates have to solve to get the position.
#11. Improve your interviews process
Interviews are not just a task you need to tick off from the list. They are valuable and can help you determine the best match if you have the right questions, a well-trained interviewer, and challenging case studies.
Ask the candidates how they would enhance your products or what they want to achieve with the job position. Create conditions in which shortlisted talents will get a genuine opportunity to show why they are the right person for the role and why your startup is the best workplace for them.
Conclusion: Add Authenticity to your Hiring Process
As startups, you should foster unique, innovative, and advanced solutions, approaches, and culture. The recruiting process shouldn’t be any different, and your strategies can demonstrate that. Add a creative edge to every procedure, show who you are, and how employees can grow in your startup.
If you show authenticity throughout the hiring process, you will attract compatible talents and ensure their retention.
Want to Organize your Recruitment Process? | https://medium.com/@ismartrecruit/11-creative-ways-to-hire-top-talents-for-your-startup-299801862ea2 | [] | 2021-02-17 11:50:48.110000+00:00 | ['Talent Acquisition', 'Talent Management', 'Talent Management System', 'Hiring', 'Talent'] |
Cherry Hill resident honored for raising awareness about Charcot-Marie-Tooth disorder | When Cherry Hill resident Tara Cave tells people she has Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disorder, many of them have no idea what she’s talking about.
Even some nurses and doctors have never heard of it.
“When you tell people you have Charcot-Marie-Tooth, they think you made it up,” Cave said. “They ask, ‘Is that a real disease?’”
Charcot-Marie-Tooth, or CMT, is very real and affects 2.6 million people worldwide. CMT is a disease of the nerves controlling the muscles that can cause people to lose use of their legs, feet, arms and hands.
The lack of public information about the disease has encouraged Cave to raise more awareness about it.
She was able to do this on Monday night, when Cherry Hill Council awarded Cave with a proclamation recognizing September as CMT Awareness Month.
CMT is a disease Cave has been familiar with her entire life. Cave has a mild form of the disease, while her son Jeffrey has a more advanced form. Tara’s father and sisters have also been diagnosed with CMT.
For 16-year-old Jeffrey, the disease has made routine activities such as gym class difficult. There is no cure for CMT, and Jeffrey has struggled with the use of his legs and feet. He has undergone physical therapy to try to strengthen his legs.
“Looking at my son, you’d think he’d maybe just fell and hurt his foot,” Tara said. “It’s not obvious.”
Jeffrey began his junior year at Cherry Hill High School West last week and continues to go to school despite the disease. Tara said the school district has done a great job in understanding Jeffrey’s condition, despite not knowing much about it.
To help deal with the disease and gain ideas on how to better raise awareness, Tara attends support groups in Freehold and Levittown, Pa.
“What they do is you meet other people and they talk about what they’re going through and talk about the different issues they’re having,” she said. “The Central Jersey one also has speakers there.”
It is in these support groups where she received the inspiration to reach out to Cherry Hill Township about raising awareness.
A number of states including New Jersey have signed proclamations the past few years declaring September as CMT Awareness month. Tara thought the best way to raise more awareness in her own community was to ask Cherry Hill to do the same.
The Cave family and a small group of supporters attended the Sept. 8 council meeting to accept the proclamation.
The group achieved its mission of raising awareness just among the members of council. Council Vice President Sara Lipsett and Councilwoman Susan Shin Angulo both said they had never heard of CMT before, echoing a phrase Tara has heard many times in the past.
Tara said awareness for CMT has improved thanks to the help of government and local organizations over the past few years. In addition, her support groups have done their part to raise money and awareness.
“On Sept. 20, the Pennsylvania group is doing a buffet dinner,” she said. “There was also a Riversharks event where part of the ticket proceeds went toward CMT.”
Tara said residents can donate toward the cause through the Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association. The CMTA collects donations to go toward fighting the disease. In 2008, the organization launched a Strategy to Accelerate Research campaign in hopes of fighting the disease.
To donate to the CMTA or learn more about the disease, visit www.cmtausa.org. | https://medium.com/the-cherry-hill-sun/cherry-hill-resident-honored-for-raising-awareness-about-charcot-marie-tooth-disorder-72f71e234583 | [] | 2016-07-05 14:40:57.493000+00:00 | ['Awareness', 'Cherry Hill West', 'Tara Cave', 'Fundraising'] |
Want To Read My Book? Consider This Your Warning | This is your only warning. You might not like my book, Rose’s Locket. Like life, it’s full of magic and darkness alike. I believe fiction is the best place for anyone to use lies to tell the truth, and that’s what I tried to do. But if, like me, you think that rules are for breaking and meaningful truths (even if they’re painful) are worth knowing, maybe you’d better read on.
Rose’s Locket begins on an eighteen-year-old girl’s birthday, the birthday her parents finally hand over the more gruesome details of her adoption and biological history. Drugs, serious mental illness, and the unspoken issue of questionable moral character are just some of the things that surface in regards to her birthmother’s past. These are not light topics, nor should they be. Fear is a dangerous tool to employ, especially in the already precarious territory of a young woman attempting to define her identity and future, but fear is clearly weaponized here.
And like me, the main character is no good girl. She gets angry, she does what she wants, and she has moments of recklessness. For the first few chapters, you’re not supposed to like her. She reacts to her birthday news by running away, smoking, drinking, and sulking like any brooding teenager might. She has no respect for her parents’ religion and consistently ignores their perspective in search of some kind of validation about why she is the way she is. Her views are cynical, especially when it comes to the way Christianity seemingly interferes with the story of her adoption; her challenges are not meant to be easy to read about.
She tries to pin down her birthmother’s story by driving across the state of Texas and beyond in order to find her, but what she finds only makes her situation worse.
She encounters the realities of mental illness, homelessness, violence, prostitution, and jail, but doesn’t find the one thing she set out to find: the rest of her story.
Despite her deep depression, or maybe because of it, she writes the most outlandish story she can muster about a fictional family that might have been her own. Her generational epic spans the lives of daughters and mothers and all the different pieces of family and family history. Though peppered with magical experiences like unicorns and fortune-telling, darker moments like teen pregnancy, sex, murder, witches, demons, and drama span these pages, too.
But even when she writes the last chapter, she isn’t satisfied. And more trouble comes for her afterward. She’s forced to deal with her own future, something she doesn’t know how to navigate without the context of where she came from.
Though we may dream of unicorns sharing their magic with us or finding mermaids who impart their wisdom, it’s the monsters of reality we are pitted against, and, for me, there is no way to soften that blow. If you hope for high redemption, first you must experience existential hopelessness. Rose’s Locket is a good place to start that journey. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Over the next couple of months, I’ll be sharing reflective pieces about my journey writing and publishing my book. Rose’s Locket, now available on Amazon, is a fictional novel about a girl’s exploration into her adoption and life’s meaning. If you want to connect, find me on Instagram. | https://medium.com/reflection-series-for-roses-locket/consider-this-your-warning-9fa35923f538 | ['Shannon Quist'] | 2021-01-10 00:19:27.765000+00:00 | ['Fiction', 'Truth', 'Adoption', 'Warning Letter', 'Novel'] |
Let’s get back to our roots: How Bright Box solution has been developing since 2012? Part 2 | In the previous post, you learned about how our flagship solution was developed. And as I promised to tell you about how we united the best features of DM and Remoto in a single product. Also in this part, you will find out what we develop now.
Vanilla
According to the sales model we had at that time, each new client got a separate instance, which means that each client’s data is completely isolated from other clients and that each client’s solution can be customized individually. Initially, we implied that we’d have a bunch of small clients using one single instance without customizations, and another bunch of bigger clients, using separate, individually customized instances. But the reality turned out to be different. Thus, we came to the idea of a single instance for most of our clients (served by the “core“ team) plus separate instances for those clients, who want more dramatical customizations (served by the united Project Management team).
With the chosen sales model, a fully configured separate instance was needed, which would be used for demo & sales purposes. Long story short, such an instance has been created in 2017 with the name Vanilla.
If I had to use a metaphor to describe Vanilla, I’d use this one: imagine a Lego set. Everyone who gets it can build anything he wants, being limited by the pieces given in the set. In this case, Vanilla would be the demo model built from this set, the one you could see & touch in stores. This is how we came with the idea of Vanilla, a reference instance that combined features of DM & Remoto.
The idea of the name Vanilla belongs to Vitaly Baum, Chief Product Officer at Bright Box, and leads its reference to the methodology of naming “pure“ versions of Android and Linux. What we usually called Vanilla within the company was the demo of the mobile application, which was also used for testing purposes.
I want to make it clear that Vanilla is not specifically a product, but a demo of our DM & Remoto products’ features. And the first version of Vanilla was called “Vanilla half“, or “Vanilla/2”, as initially not all features of DM & Remoto have been included in it.
Remoto Cloud Services
Remoto Cloud Services (RCS) is an evolutionary step that gathered all the best from DM & Remoto. In contrast with Vanilla, RCS has a new sales model: now we have a single instance for all clients and a subscription revenue model, which means that our clients pay us a recurring fee for access to our service. Transition to the new model has been forced by the new broker we started using for communicating with devices: Microsoft Azure IoT Hub. This model has shown itself to be more effective & cost-saving. So in 2019 the codename Vanilla has been replaced with RCS as well as the sales model has been changed. The guts (i.e. the technology) has stayed the same.
Remoto includes the following components/services:
Dealer Web Portal
Mobile application
Hardware + Firmware: our beloved devices which are installed in the cars: TCU & OBD.
Cloud magic.
This cloud-based platform is our main product at the moment and it is still referred to as the Connected Car Platform. Clients with Remoto keep being migrated to RCS, one by one. Because RCS keeps evolving according to the needs of our clients.
Thank you for reading to the end of a small excursion into the history of our products. As a dessert here are amazing explanations from our colleagues, used by them to explain what is RCS to their children:
Your car can tell you how it feels and you can ask it to make certain things.
If you left your cars (toys) at home, you could see what’s going on with them on your mobile phone.
It is a solution that you install in your car and the driver can see that everything works well within the car, how much fuel is left, where we have left the car for example. We can also book appointments with the dealership if we need to, or read the latest news from the company that made our car. The solution could also help if we have a problem with the car on the road, sending a signal for the rescue team to come and help us.
But seriously, though, RCS have the following advantages:
Full control on Bright Box side: from engineering and hardware production to publishing mobile applications.
Connectivity for the customers
Raising rate of the customer retention for the dealerships.
The Remoto Connected Car Solution is a unique combination of hardware, web portal, mobile application, and a car, and let’s see how far we will go in developing it. | https://medium.com/driving-to-the-future/lets-get-back-to-our-roots-how-bright-box-solution-has-been-developing-since-2012-part-2-3d4481f3b58a | ['Nadja Panchenko'] | 2020-12-17 19:32:56.580000+00:00 | ['Product Management', 'Cars', 'Automotive', 'Development', 'Connected Cars'] |
Submitting to On Advertising | Submitting to On Advertising
How to write as a guest…
We’re always interested in writers sharing their thoughts to the On Advertising publication, and pride ourselves on being the largest open Medium publication in the field of advertising, marketing and branding.
Some things to keep in mind when submitting work:
- First, please review some of the our prior published pieces, as this will give you an idea of the type of work that we’re interested in
- We prefer tackling issues with a skeptical lens, questioning the status-quo and supporting these claims with convincing evidence: data or anecdote
- We do not publish how-to articles or reviews of companies or products that tend to have an explicit agenda or bias from the writer
- After submitting, we will update the header image, title, subtitle or tags to ensure your piece fits consistently within our publication
- We hold the right to make any minor grammar or formatting edits
As far as the submitting process goes, please publish your piece on Medium and reach out to Matt at [email protected] for review including the link. If the piece is a fit, we’ll add you as a writer on the back-end, and you can then add your piece to the On Advertising publication via the article’s settings. (Instruction here.) After your first piece is accepted, you can then easily add future articles to the On Advertising publication, which will then be reviewed.
If you do not hear back, apologies — we try to respond to all submissions. However, if you do not, it’s mostly likely because of bullet one: the piece is not entirely aligned with our content guidelines. Ask yourself: Am I writing with a unique perspective? Am I convincingly supporting my skeptical approach? And is my piece clear, succinct and thought provoking enough for a CMO?
Please do reach out with any questions and thanks for your interest!
Warm regards,
Klein, Editor in Chief | https://medium.com/on-advertising/submitting-to-on-advertising-953e92542e0b | ['Matt Klein'] | 2020-12-21 15:38:36.855000+00:00 | ['Branding', 'Digital Marketing', 'Writing', 'Advertising', 'Marketing'] |
The Common Woe | I suppose with 7 billion of us, it rare to have a unique thought. I am certain that the thoughts I have written are not unique. Well of course, some perspectives might be specific to my time and context, but the jist is timeless.
There is a constant struggle inside questioning my own actions, the voice in one’s head that interrogates our lives. I was going to name this article “A Common Inadequacy” or “The Common Fear of Inadequacy”. As I have grown older, I have often asked myself what am I good at? What is it I want? What do I want to do with my life? What does self-mastery mean for me? What is excellence in my mind? I suppose its a meagre attempt at molding an identity for myself in this society. A way to hold on to some concept of myself that is different from others.
A few weeks ago, I was watching a video by the Derek Muller from the Youtube Channel Veritasium (Here’s the link to the video). I realised that I sometimes get too entangled with the daily tasks I plan to complete. Yet when I watch the few stars in Singapore’s light polluted nightsky or a video about space, the perspective of my issues readjust. No matter how familiar with the effect of stepping back to refocus my life is, it always seem to surprise me. The train of thought usually goes: Huh, we are so insignificant. So what’s the point of our lives? No wait, thats not the right conclusion… I should be thinking how this life is so short. I have to live as big and as good to my fellow creatures as I can. I hope I don’t have any regrets on my death bed.
The last time it really hit me.
These thoughts can be somewhat dangerous and take a downward turn. Keep in mind, I do not see these questions as inhibitors to our journey in life, rather as ways to help us realign our direction.
We will probably be forgotten, in time to come, no matter how large a legacy we leave behind. I constantly marvel at the probable similarities between how I think of people in the 1920s and the way people in 2120s would think about me and my generation. Our context and environment might be different, yet common are the desires, ambitions and emotions that we posses. | https://medium.com/@veric/the-common-woe-92423c2e44d8 | ['Veric Tan'] | 2020-12-26 08:22:16.836000+00:00 | ['Commons', 'Stoicism', 'Thoughts'] |
The half-day trip | Dac Kien shut his eyes momentarily, resting his head on the rattling glass beside him. Last night’s drinking had left him with a dull ache in his temples, which the throbbing windowpane was exacerbating. Despite the best efforts of Duong, a company driver, the grey twelve-seater Ford van had remained largely stationary for the best part of ten minutes, hemmed in by the ceaseless stream of motorcycles that were a constant at the northern end of Nguyen Hue street at this time of day.
Regardless of the fact Dac Kien was truly a born-and-raised Saigonese, and that for the last ten years had spent the larger proportion of his working life sat in traffic in this van or one similar, he still felt irritation as yet another errant rider clipped the passenger-side wing mirror with a resounding clunk, causing him to sit up with a start. Duong on the other hand was entirely reposed, chewing betel and scanning the dense blockade of bikes for an opening in which he might wedge the van. The ability to remain calm in Saigon traffic was a prerequisite for anyone dwelling in this sprawling metropolis, but especially so for anyone operating a vehicle with more than two wheels. Most taxi drivers could remain placid in even the most frightening (though more often, simply frustrating) of situations, their “road rage” expressed with a clicking of the tongue or a whistle of exhalation between their front teeth. Indeed, the convoys of lorries that raced into the city from the surrounding countryside, often spilling their loads as they bounced in and out of the rutted boulevards of District 12, were driven by men who despite their 18-hour shifts at the wheel, were impervious to the irritations that most find symptomatic of lack of sleep, remaining alert and awake as they lean on the horns of their lorries, like Duong, relentlessly chewing their betel. Nothing about the Saigon traffic phased them, they simply roared forth, awaiting the sea of bikes to part in front of them, as though they had the Pharaoh’s forces at their back.
Public bus drivers were perhaps the only ones who didn’t seem to be blessed with the essential combination of both natural fortitude and a Buddha-like tranquillity to navigate the Saigon streets, mused Dac Kien. They tended to be angry looking, small men, with faces haggard from the intense anxiety and pressure of their job as Saigon’s only public transport providers. They were quick to anger and had an unpleasant tendency, even by the standards of the Vietnamese, to spit from their open window while driving. As a small boy, Dac Kien had been fascinated by buses and lorries, any large vehicles. The way they moved through the traffic conjured images of a whale, passing alongside a shoal of tiny fish. Dac Kien had never driven anything larger than a motorcycle, the largest of which, a 1969 Honda CB750 was his 18th birthday present and his pride and joy for several years. Now seventy years old, he no longer drove at all, enduring the ignominy of taking the bus network, with its mean-faced drivers, on the orders of his doctor and the Department of Transport.
A slurping, bubbling sound pulled Dac Kien from his thoughts. Duong was greedily ensuring he didn’t leave a drop of his ca phe sua da, eyes on the road while his yellow plastic straw searched among the ice cubes for the sweet coffee nectar. Duong was the only person Dac Kien knew who would add his own additional sugar to the already sickly-sweet street-side coffee, and this habit had done little favour for his betel stained teeth. Dac Kien did not judge Duong, however. In fact, he enjoyed his largely silent company, and the fact he alone, out of all his colleagues at VinatoursXpress, judged Dac Kien neither.
They were late. It wasn’t as though the traffic had caught them unawares — they had left plenty of time. But lateness could be the difference between a three-star and four-star Tripadvisor review, as Dac Kien well knew, as did Mr Lee, his boss. His mobile rang in his pocket. Right on cue, Mr Lee.
“Dac Kien!” he yelled, “what’s going on? Why have you not picked up the family at the hotel? Is there a problem?”
“No, Mr Lee, sir. We are almost there. Only a few minutes…”
Mr Lee did not wait for him to finish. The line had gone dead. Moments later Dac Kien’s phone buzzed. “Fee deduction: 10%.”
Duong glanced across at his passenger, but Dac Kien’s face gave nothing away.
“Take a right here, Duong. Then the hotel will be on our left.”
The driver nodded, dropped into second gear and accelerated onto a side road, seemingly not noticing the elderly, non-la wearing lady, as she pushed her trolley of lottery tickets off the pavement. Of course, Duong had seen her, and vice-versa, but like most Vietnamese, they had a sixth sense when it came to crossing the road.
Ho Tung Mau street ran along the base of the Bitexco Tower, one of the two great pillars of the Saigon skyline. For much of Dac Kien’s life, the building of such a glass monolith in his city seemed not only unlikely but impossible. So much had changed with the restoration of relations with the United States in 1995. US investment dollars had begun to flow into the city like it hadn’t done for twenty years, and tourists came too, like the family awaiting Dac Kien and Duong on the steps of the Silverland Charner hotel.
Duong swung the van alongside the curb, directly in front of the hotel steps. Dac Kien took a breath, then reached for the clipboard at his feet. Before he had straightened up, the passenger side door was flung open. There stood a young man, his face pockmarked with the pollutant-caused acne that had been typical among city teens for the past two decades, with a distinct scowl on his face. He wore a traditional ao dai, a rather shiny one, thought Dac Kien, in the colour scheme of the Silverland Hotel. The man wore a name badge, “Thao” — meaning courtesy in Vietnamese — and beneath, “concierge”.
“VinatoursXpress?” Thao demanded shrilly.
“Ah, yes” replied Dac Kien, a little taken back by this young man’s, rather old boy’s, forwardness, not that he was unused to the precociousness of this generation, nor the disdain with he was so often greeted with.
“You are late, old man,” Thao spoke as though he personally was insulted by the tardiness. Dac Kien didn’t say anything and nervously looked over Thao’s shoulder at the group of Westerners further up the steps, looking at him curiously. Dac Kien opened his mouth to speak. Thao rolled his eyes dramatically, kissed his teeth with a sharp rasping sound, before breaking into a practiced, four-star concierge smile and turning swiftly on his heel to the group on the stairs.
“Clark family? Ready now? Time to go.”
The group began to proceed down the steps towards the van. Now that Thao had moved to one side, Dac Kien could finally get out of the van. He hurried towards the group.
“Ah Mr Clark, and your family, excellent. Sorry for the delay, the traffic, Saigon is very crazy at this time. Please let me take your bags for you.”
The old man’s offer was superseded by Thao, who flashed a hooded glance at Dac Kien before a simpering smile at Mrs Clark and took her backpack, which was excessively large for a half-day trip, and headed to the back of the van to put it on board.
“Pleased to meet ya,” Mr Clark said warmly, with a thick midwestern accent. “The name’s Robert. This is my wife Susan. And the kids… hey kids, come on.”
Two teenagers were still a few steps behind their parents. There was a girl, Dac Kien would have guessed about fifteen, and a boy, perhaps two years older. Both were looking closely at smartphones, and the girl had large over-ear headphones on. Robert smiled at Dac Kien.
“Kids, am I right? Do you have any? God, those infernal phones, am I right?” He laughed. “Ashley, Justin, come on, we’re going.”
The family boarded the van. Robert was what you might call a larger-than-life character, in more ways than one. He was a rotund man, with a large belly that stretched out in front of him, as though if one ran at him, you might bounce straight off. He wore a tight, golf polo shirt, and cargo shorts, with almost iridescently white flabby legs showing for a few inches before they met ‘tube’ socks, pulled high up his calves. The cap he wore featured the letters USA prominently and he wore dark aviator sunglasses. But he was cheerful and talkative, sitting a row behind Dac Kien and making plenty of excitable remarks as Duong swung the van out into a busy intersection.
Next to him sat the son, Justin and alongside each other in the row behind were Susan and Ashley. Susan seemed to Dac Kien to be quite the opposite to her husband. She was a tiny lady, with thin bony hands that grasped the seatbelt across her chest, as though bracing for impact. Unlike her husband, she was entirely quiet and gazed out of the window with little attention to Dac Kien’s introductory speech. Ashley was yet to remove her headphones.
“Ah, good morning everybody” began Dac Kien, “ah, my name is Dac Kien, but you can call me Dan if you like.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s good,” grunted Mr Clark as he fiddled with an air vent above his head.
“So today, we are going to visit the Cu Chi tunnel complex, about forty kilometres from Ho Chi Minh City centre. A very famous place in Vietnam. An important place for both the Americans, like you and for the Vietnamese.”
Dac Kien surveyed his audience. Mr Clark’s enthusiasm appeared to have already waned a little in the heat, he was pulling at his collar with one hand while rummaging in his shoulder satchel with the other. The two ladies were still oblivious to Dac Kien, but he noticed Justin looking at him closely. The boy took after his father in both build and fashion but had none of the friendliness in his face that exuded from Mr Clark.
“We gonna shoot guns right, mister?” he said, smirking, and fixing Dac Kien with a firm gaze. He turned to his Dad, “Scott shot off an AK when he was here, Pa, man I need to do that”, he drawled with a heavy emphasis on “need”.
His father grunted and nodded smiling, although it wasn’t apparent that he had actually heard his son.
“There is a shooting range, ah, Justin,” said Dac Kien politely. “I think you…”
“They got the AK?” Justin butted in. “Ah man, I beg they got that.”
“Ah, well, ah I think, yes, they should have AK-47, yes.” Dac Kien looked across at Duong, but his eyes were fixed firmly on the road ahead. They were moving through the outskirts of the city at a decent speed now.
Evidently, Robert had been listening. He smiled.
“Dan, my boy loves his guns, you see. Got a couple of rifles back in Missouri, hunting, protection, whatnot. We all shoot, even my wife” he chuckled. “You shoot much, Dan?”
Such questions always gave Dac Kien a jolt.
“Ah, no, Mr Robert.” Dac Kien sounded strained, and it was Duong’s turn to glance over at him. Dac Kien regained himself and forced a smile. “Not much shooting here in Vietnam.”
“Not anymore!” said Justin gleefully, prodding his father’s fat belly with his elbow.
“The boy is a bit of a military buff, Dan. Loves the Vietnam war. Loves it. His uncle on his Ma’s side was here you know. Marine Corps.”
“And he did plenty of shooting, alright!” yelled out Justin. There was something highly unsettling about this boy, thought Dac Kien; his rabid enthusiasm for violence was disturbing. Perhaps Mr Clark noticed this thought flash over Dac Kien’s face because he laid a calming hand on his son’s arm, who was gesticulating the firing of a rifle.
“Did you see much of the war, Dan?”
Dac Kien paused. This wasn’t an uncommon question on these tours. Indeed, one of the reasons he had managed to get the job as a tour guide was because Mr Lee knew Dac Kien had an excellent knowledge of the American War. Second to none, in fact. The issue for Dac Kien was not the depth of his knowledge, it was how it felt to delve among those depths, day after day, dredging the emotions, memories, and feelings to the surface, simply to make a living.
“I did, Robert. Yes. I was an officer in the war.”
“Oh, wow. You shoot up many Americans?” Justin was insatiable, and his father now looked more than a little uncomfortable.
“No Justin, I was a soldier for South Vietnam. ARVN. I joined in 1972. Not so many Marine Corps fighting here then.”
“Holy…”
Justin’s expletive was drowned out by the van’s horn. Duong swerved around a motorbike, laden with a fridge freezer, impossibly strapped and balanced behind a shirtless driver. The near-miss seemed to sate Justin’s appetite for excitement because he became quickly absorbed in his smartphone, while his father continued with his satchel searching.
Dac Kien exhaled quietly, made brief eye contact with Duong, who nodded imperceptibly and allowed his thoughts to run as he gazed out at the dusty highway. The land around was flat and didn’t have the same verdant greens that one might see in the nearby Delta. There was little to see along the roadsides, the odd house, a shop, a church. Dac Kien’s mind went back to 1972, to those years after the bulk of the American troops left, before the Saigon government’s inevitable collapse, a self-immolation of statehood which Thich Quang Duc had unknowingly depicted ten years earlier as he set his skinny frame ablaze on a District 1 sidewalk. Dac Kien remembered that day clearly. He remembered how his father slammed the Buddhists and left the family house in a rage. To him, the behaviour of the monks was as disruptive as that of the Viet Cong, perhaps more so, since living in central Saigon his family were largely immune to their guerrilla threat.
Dac Kien knew now that the war with the North was lost before it had even begun. He had many years to reflect on, and understand, this. Ten long years of re-education camps. The beatings, the sickness. Dac Kien had been so weak and thin when we returned to his parents’ home in 1986 had they still been there, he doubted they would have recognised him. When he went to visit their large French-style home, on a side street, adjacent to the broad Pasteur Street boulevard, he was unsurprised to find they had long since left. There was no trail to follow. He had seen his former neighbour Mr Daht, haranguing his children, as he always had done, in the lane outside the house. He asked after his parents but Daht stared at him, not recognising this sickly-looking specimen. Daht hadn’t had to leave Saigon’s foremost district, since he had been a VC informant. Despite the close eye he had always kept on Dac Kien’s government-official father, he had no idea to where his family had fled to. You better clear off now, Daht had said. People didn’t want to see puppet soldiers around here. And so began the rest of Dac Kien’s life, the youngest captain in the ARVN Rangers, once strong, handsome and proud, now shuffling away from his old home with nothing but the clothes on his back, and an ID card in his wallet, clearly stating his undesirable background for every landlord and employer to read.
Dac Kien told himself he was lucky to be in one piece. Lucky to be alive. He didn’t always believe this, though. In those early days of “freedom”, when he had a little money, he would strengthen his resolve to keep on living with rượu đế, the Mekong moonshine, that was the demise of many veterans of the American War. Twenty-five years of freedom. Fifteen years in South East Asia’s most economically booming nation. He had little to show for it. All he could call his own were his thoughts and his memories.
“Ready?” Duong was approaching the parking area close to the tunnel network.
Although Dac Kien had visited Cu Chi in this capacity numerous times, he still felt a twisting in his chest and stomach as adrenaline began to trickle into his veins. Re-education and two decades in civilian life hadn’t fully crushed the soldiering instincts of the hero of Battle of Svay Rieng. After that battle, he had been billeted at the Cu Chi garrison: the glorious commander, pride of the Southern forces. Of course, Svay Rieng is now solely regarded as a brief blip in the NVA advance on Saigon, and it was less than three months later that a wounded Dac Kien was taken prisoner, not three miles from where Duong now parked the van.
On arriving at Cu Chi, foreign visitors are required to watch an old communist propaganda film. Dac Kien led the Clark family to their seats on a wooden bench, where they promptly proceeded to start using their smartphones. Dac Kien watched on their behalf. “Cu Chi is a place of gentle and simple pleasures… of only wanting to live peacefully…” The tinny voice of the narrator had always grated on Dac Kien. He glanced at the Clarks, they still appeared uninterested. “Like a crazy batch of devils, they fired into women and children… they even fired into schools… into Buddha’s statues.” Dac Kien felt a hand grasp his shoulder. It was Justin. He had got up from the end of the row and come up behind Dac Kien.
“That like you, eh, Dan? Not a kid killer, are you?” he laughed as he spoke, but his eyes were cold and unfriendly. “Come on let’s go see the tunnels and shoot some shit!”
“Ah, no we must see the documentary film till the end, Mr Justin. It is the rule for visiting Cu Chi tunnels” Dac Kien said anxiously, but the teen was already walking out onto the terrace towards the tree line.
“Come on, Dan, it’s cool. I’ll make it worth your while” said Robert, his tiny eyes twinkling, his sunglasses balanced on his USA cap. He pulled a scrunched 30,000 Dong note from his pocket and wiggled it between his fat fingers before returning it to its moist cotton sanctuary. Dac Kien felt hot behind his eyes. This wasn’t allowed, he could get in trouble with the officials, perhaps lose his guide license. It was too late however, the family were all making for the tree line, Ashley’s headphones still firmly on her ears. Dac Kien composed himself and set off hurriedly after them. Behind him came Duong. Normally he would wait in the van, but he had a sense for when Dac Kien was in one of his “worry moods” and would on those occasions join the group, to offer moral support while chain-smoking his Truong Song cigarettes and watching on while Dac Kien explained the various gruesome traps and torture devices on display among the tunnel network.
“Tell us about the tunnel rats, Dan” Robert’s enthusiasm that had waned on the journey was fully restored.
“Ah, yes, specially trained soldiers, Robert. They only take a knife, a pistol and also a piece of string to find their way back out the tunnel.”
“They kill a lot of VC?” Justin chirped.
“Ah, well, not so many, Justin. It was a very difficult job. Very many problems. Many traps.”
Dac Kien remembered pulling the legless body of one of his men out from one such trap. The one survivor of a party of five who had entered the network, not far from where they now stood. He shuddered as he remembered those mashed stumps and the thick red stripes of blood they left on the moon-like ground as they rushed for cover in the craters left from the latest airstrike, dragging the pitiful half-man to a place to die in relative peace.
“We’re gonna see some traps, right? Apparently, there’s a whole load here you can look at and try out!” Justin’s eagerness knew no bounds. He was bouncing on his toes with excitement.
“Oh Justin”, his mother spoke up for the first time in a while, “not try out, baby!” She smiled benignly at Dac Kien, as though she recognised some might be embarrassed by their child’s enthusiasm for the historical maiming that had taken place on this very spot but could not muster any real embarrassment for herself — nor empathy for the elderly veteran stood in front of her.
Dac Kien proceeded to lead the Clark’s along the trail to a corrugated overhanging underneath which were various gruesome-looking wood and metal contraptions.
“Ah, say, how does this one work? Hey, Dan! Come over here!” Justin had rushed to the end of the row of devices and was beckoning the group to join him.
There in front of him was a trap door, covered in artificial turf. Dac Kien approached but was relieved when another guide stepped out in front, rushing a group of Chinese visitors forward who surrounded Justin and the devilish mechanism. The guide pulled out a weighted bamboo pole and prodded the trap door. It flung open with a bang, revealing a row of long bamboo spikes, jutting from the earth like spears. The Chinese group uniformly groaned appreciatively, while Justin’s voice could be heard, exclaiming “oh yeah!”
The teenager’s exclamation awoke a memory in Dac Kien that he had managed to largely suppress for the past few years. He recalled how a group of Green Berets had forced a VC prisoner to walk over a trap, just like this one, and roared with delight as he fell onto the spikes. Oh yeah.
Dac Kien was not feeling well. He was sweating heavily now, and his limbs felt heavy. To his relief, the Clark’s were not ones for detail, and they were happy to skip over most of the remaining trails and points of interest. The final stop was a café, gift shop — and shooting range.
“M-16 or AK? Dan, do they have anything heavier? Something with real calibre?” Justin could hardly contain his excitement as they entered the multipurpose clearing, the deafening small arms fire seeming not to bother the rows of tourists who sat eating corn-on-the-cob and drinking bubble tea.
“Go with him will ya, Dan? Help translate and whatnot. I need a sit-down, alright” Robert waddled off in the direction of the café area, leading his wife and daughter, while Justin headed in the opposite direction.
“You want me to do it?” Duong appeared next to Dac Kien and laid a reassuring hand on his back, then removed it quickly on feeling the sodden shirt.
“It’s okay, Duong. I’m okay. You get drinks for them, okay.” Dac Kien replied. The elderly man didn’t look alright at all, thought Duong. They had been colleagues for a long time now, and in that time become friends. He was aware Dac Kien had suffered in the war and its aftermath. He knew these trips to Cu Chi took it out of him. That was why, when Dac Kien could afford it, he drank so heavily the night before each trip to this site, he supposed.
Dac Kien followed Justin to the shooting range where he in spite of the continual crackle of small arms, his voice rang out clearly as he haggled for ammunition.
“It’s fixed price, mister” a range staff member was saying, much to Justin’s frustration.
“Fixed price my ass… hey Dan? Can we get a deal on this?”
Dac Kien came alongside him. “Ah, no, one price for rifle, one price for five rounds, one price for ten, you choose.”
“Man, ten won’t cut it. Here…” he fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a wad of cash, more than Dac Kien would earn in a month of tours. “Take this and get me locked and loaded, alright” he stuffed the cash into the bemused range operator’s hand and marched towards a counter where he collected an AK-47 rifle before heading to the firing step.
He turned. “Dan, come on, man! You gonna show me how to shoot this thing or what? You’re a real soldier right.”
The range operator intervened. “Sorry sir, range staff only to assist. Guides not beyond this point.”
“Get out of here” groaned Justin, rolling his eyes dramatically. He pulled a 500,000 Dong note from his back pocket. “Let me have the old man, alright.”
The range operator looked a Dac Kien, ashamedly, then scuttled forward and took the bill.
“All right!” exclaimed Justin.
Dac Kien’s heart was pounding. It seemed to be the only thing he could hear above the barrage of rifle fire. He followed Justin to the firing step, feeling as though at any moment his legs might give way beneath him. One step at a time, one step at a time. He stood next to Justin, who was fiddling with a pair of ear defenders.
“Ah, okay Justin, AK, err, it is a simple weapon. May I?”
Justin handed Dac Kien the rifle. The weight of it, so familiar, even after all this time. The magazine clicked into position with that satisfying clunk that took him back to his own “lock and load” moments as they skimmed the jungle canopy aboard American Hueys. He let his thumb caress the safety catch, and gently stroked the trigger with his index finger. He felt an urge to raise the rifle to his shoulder. To point. To shoot.
“Alright, alright, give it here.” Justin was eyeing Dac Kien curiously, with an angry shadow across his face. He didn’t like seeing this old Vietnamese man armed, up close and personal. He snatched the rifle. Dac Kien looked startled, as though he had awoken from a dream or some sort of trance. He stumbled back a pace. Justin shook his head. “Some guide” he muttered, “PSTD wreck more like.”
And suddenly, he was firing. The AK roared as Justin began to empty the clip at the targets that poked out of the mound of earth ahead. A grin broke out across his face. His shoulders started to shake, but it wasn’t the recoil. Justin was laughing. He was laughing with sheer joy at the feeling of unleashing lead in this place. This battlefield. This torture chamber. This mass grave. Dac Kien felt his chest tightening and began to gasp. He clutched at his throat. His skin felt damp. He tried to call out but there was no air in his lungs. He reached out at Justin and tried to tug at his shirt sleeve. The boy brushed him away without a glance. Dac Kien dropped to his knees and the sounds around him became blurry and distant, as though he was now underwater. He felt himself sinking, being absorbed into the intestinal network of death tunnels beneath his feet. The VC would have the Captain. This was it, he was sure. Finally, he would die. | https://medium.com/@charles_hatfield/the-half-day-trip-1b035ce83327 | ['Charles Hatfield'] | 2021-10-25 19:25:27.028000+00:00 | ['Vietnam', 'Short Story'] |
Josh.ai at CEDIA 2019 – Focus on Privacy, Integrations, New Features | DENVER — September 4, 2019 — Josh.ai, the fast-growing choice for voice and AI in the custom channel, has introduced new features at CEDIA 2019 designed to protect end-client user data and enhance user security. New partner integrations, including Ketra, Comcast, and Samsung, continue to extend Josh.ai’s vision of a natural and elegant control experience in the home.
“Our powerful intuitive interface and elegant experience have always been, and will continue to be, big selling points for Josh. With the rise of big tech AIs listening and gathering data, concern around data privacy has now become one of the biggest issues on clients’ minds. This has also become one of Josh’s greatest strengths, and a huge selling point for our integrators. Our continued focus on privacy, along with new exciting integrations and features, demonstrates our commitment to delivering exceptional experiences to the custom channel.” — CEO Josh.ai, Alex Capecelatro.
Josh.ai Goes All — In With Data Privacy and User Security
With its emphasis on local processing, Josh.ai has always been a company focused on a secure user experience. The company does not gather data for marketing purposes, and will never sell data to third-parties for advertising; all the data that Josh.ai gathers is used to make the user experience better. That said, users have the option to disable all data gathering and / or delete specific logs if they choose. Josh.ai has also announced new features around permissioning, allowing clients and integrators to specify more granular user roles throughout the Josh environment.
New Josh Features — iOS TV Remote, Concise Mode
Josh takes one more big step forward into AV control with the announcement of a TV remote built directly into the iPhone and iPad apps. Clients will now be able to control their TV via the Josh UI thanks to a new update with the Josh app. New TV features in the app, such as channel control and source selection, offer the client a natural and intuitive touch experience for control.
Josh is also happy to announce a new feature called concise mode. When activated, Josh will respond with shorter (one-word) confirmations when controlling certain devices in the home. For example, if you’re in the living room and ask for the lights to go on, instead of the response, “Your living room lights are now on,” Josh will simply reply “Ok.”
New AV Integrations & Features — Comcast, Samsung
In addition to existing integrations such as Sony, Dish, and LG, Josh has partnered with Comcast and Samsung on new native control. The Comcast integration offers control of live TV using both voice and the Josh app. Clients can ask for channels by name or number, which, when combined with Josh’s ability to do compound commands, offers an unparalleled experience. For example, Josh clients with Comcast can now say, “OK Josh, stop the music, close the shades halfway, dim the lights, and watch ESPN.” Functionality also includes the ability to navigate the Comcast guide and menu, play, pause, fast-forward, rewind, and select television content. Josh also now integrates with Samsung IP TVs, offering the ability to toggle power, control volume, and change sources.
New Lighting Integration — Ketra
Josh.ai is announcing native integration with Lutron’s innovative Ketra lighting system. In addition to on / off commands and adjusting brightness, clients will be able to adjust the color temperature and the hue of the lights via voice commands or the Josh app.
Enhanced Integrations & Features — Crestron SIMPL Thermostats, Sonos Favorites
Josh.ai has also released enhanced functionality with established partners. While Josh was already controlling Pyng/OS 3 thermostats, a new module now allows integrators to program Crestron thermostats into Josh via SIMPL as well. Additionally, Josh now auto-discovers and controls favorites from Sonos, making it easier than ever to voice command or tap to run your pre-defined playlists.
Learn More About Josh at CEDIA 2019 | https://medium.com/@joshdotai/josh-ai-at-cedia-2019-focus-on-privacy-integrations-new-features-d51688e4ad0d | [] | 2019-09-04 16:33:04.520000+00:00 | ['Internet of Things', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'IoT', 'Smart Home'] |
Una retrospectiva: las 10 peores cosas que hizo la administración de Donald Trump | 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/el-informal/una-retrospectiva-las-10-peores-cosas-que-hiz%C3%B3-la-administraci%C3%B3n-de-donald-trump-94291e643284 | ['Mauricio Rojsen'] | 2020-11-18 02:20:29.926000+00:00 | ['Opinion', 'Politics', 'Español', 'Trump', 'Top 10'] |
I Blew Up a Cake on The Food Network | It never rains in Southern California. Well, except the entire day of shooting for my appearance on the Food Network TV show Cake Off. I’d made a four foot tall space cactus cake and I had to ferry it from my friend’s chocolate shop to the studio downtown in pouring rain. Our Honda CRV has a rubber lining across the top of the hatch back which serves as a fifty gallon bucket for collecting rain water. Every time I opened it that morning sheets of water would crash down on the tailgate and soak everything. So there I was, standing at the back of the CRV and trying to wipe it down with a towel and shaking out my drenched supplies, panicked about how I was going to accomplish everything I had to do. I was fairly certain my cake would not fit in the CRV, I could feel something tingling on my forehead, I knew I was breaking out and I was about to be on camera for fourteen hours, so, of course, I said to myself “It’s all going to work to in the end.” Um, yeah, I was wrong.
Photo by Steven Pahel on Unsplash
This was my fifth Food Network Challenge. I had won Cake Wars and Sugar Dome and had appeared on Cake War Champs and Halloween Wars so my confidence wasn’t derived completely out of thin air. Also, us cake decorators have a pretty strong bond with the “the show must go on” philosophy. Delivery trucks hit bumps, cakes hit walls, slide off tables, get stubborn notions of their own and just move themselves ways that seem physically impossible. But the show goes on. You pick up that palate knife and a bucket of flowers and you go to work. But this one had been different from the beginning. When the judges for Cake Off presented me with the concept of creating a cake which would transform from ugly to beautiful, “The Beast to Beauty Challenge” to say I was stumped was an understatement. I searched online, I flipped through books, I even asked my husband what he thought. He thought I shouldn’t do any more of the these TV shows where they pay you in “exposure”. Exposure it turns out does not not pay the bills. But then I found it. A night blooming cactus which spends it’s days as an unimpressive, even ugly (no offense succulent fans) green blob, but one night a year it blooms with pale white flowers and traces of almost neon yellow and becomes… a swan. Well, the swan of cacti.
Photo by David Sola on Unsplash
Anyway, it didn’t matter, my inner art girl had taken hold and I was on fire. I would make a giant cactus with a motorized blooming action that pushed big, colorful flower pedals from the top of the cactus out into the world to dazzle everyone involved. Another thing cake decorators share is the constant conflict between out inner artist and our inner shopkeeper. The artist wants to go over the top, not on the nose, splashes of color which tell a story just by their composition alone. The shopkeeper knows the customer asked for a cake that looks exactly like their husband’s Miata. This cake wasn’t going to be a Miata. Everything was going to work out great.
When the week started I had everything I needed to make it work. I had a motorize lift, a box of assorted molds, a bucket of black fondant and of course, my palate knife. I got to work building the internal structure and the decorative pieces for my cactus cake. My friend Caitlin had volunteered (she might say had been coerced) to help out for the week. She was a cake decorating novice. But I had built a fence in front of her house with her and I told her it was basically the same thing except for the icing, the piping and the TV cameras. The filming for this show was new for me because they embedded a film crew with us for several hours a day for a week to get footage of the build. There are two different kinds of people in a kitchen, those who chat and those who don’t realize five hours have gone by and they haven’t said a word or eaten lunch or changed the Spotify mix. I realized very quickly that Caitlin was in my camp and neither of us were going to be chatting up the cameras. Caitlin later commented that she came off like the Sling-Blade of cake decorators by mostly grunting and occasionally commenting “Un Huh” on camera.
Photo by Joshua Hanson on Unsplash
The producers on rare visits just did a lot of head tilting and stunned observing like I was Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters building that mountain in his living room. We started calling the cake “Blobert the space cactus.” I wasn’t sure myself that I was in complete control of Blobert, but once I attached the arms and covered it in black fondant the shape emerged. The structure for my cactus flower opened and closed perfectly, the details were getting sharper and the cake recipe elements were falling into place. I started to think about winning the ten thousand dollars. All I had left to do was tie in the fire element. I tied the outer black cactus flower petals with a sparkler fuse so that once it burned out they would fall open. Simultaneously I would be remotely operating the motorized lift pushing the colorful pedals up with umbrella scaffold underneath them finishing in a dramatically fully bloomed midnight cactus. The tests with the string fuse worked so well that I thought to myself “Why not more fire?” I know, believe me, I know. I found flash paper at a local magic store and took to it like a twelve year old boy with minimal parental supervision. Caitlin and I had a blast sending fire balls up in the air from the kitchen counters. But Blobert couldn’t take more of beating than he already had during testing and I didn’t want any singe marks on the outer shell so I decided the first real flash paper test would have to be live on camera. Everything was going to work out fine. I know. I know. | https://medium.com/@buttercream.cory/i-blew-up-a-cake-on-the-food-network-cb3dbc28264e | ['Cory Pohlman'] | 2019-07-12 05:37:50.804000+00:00 | ['Food Network', 'Baking', 'Reality TV', 'Cake Decorating', 'Cooking'] |
SIDBI Swavalamban | Small Industries and Development Bank of India (SIDBI)
Small Industries and Development Bank of India (SIDBI) mainly focuses on the financing, promotion and development of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Established in 1990, SIDBI’s primary objective is to strengthen the MSME sector by facilitating cash flow. The bank assists MSMEs to get funds for the development, commercialization and marketing of their innovative technologies and products. SIDBI offers customized financial products under several loan schemes and provides services to meet the demands of various business projects.
SIDBI’s Objectives
SIDBI majorly follows four major objectives which are development, promotion, coordination and financing. Some of its key functions incudes:
SIDBI extends financial support to Small Scale Industry (SSIs), and other service sectors
It provides indirect finance through banks, NBFCs, SFCs and other financial institutions
SIDBI aims to create equilibrium in the financial sector by strengthening credit flows and promoting skill development
SIDBI Swavalamban
People aspiring to become small entrepreneurs have a place to visit at the ongoing Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj. Thanks to the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).
To encourage entrepreneurship amongst the youth, SIDBI has set up a stall with “Swavalamban” as the key theme at the ongoing Kumbh in Prayagraj.
Headquartered in Lucknow, SIDBI’s focus is lending to the Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). At its Kumbh stall, the bank has used — “Aaayiye Ganga Nahaaiye Aur Udyami Banker Jaayiye” (take a dip in Ganga and become entrepreneur) — as the tagline of this stall.
Through the stall, the bank is trying to create awareness about Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) and several other schemes.
“Keeping SIDBI Vision 2.0 in mind, we are taking these initiatives to encourage people to venture into entrepreneurship. We believe in a country like India there are vast opportunities to be tapped,” said Mohammad Mustafa, Chairman and Managing Director, SIDBI. “However, directing prospective entrepreneurs to the right avenues is the key and we hope to bridge that gap.”
In the release, SIDBI also said it has reoriented its thrust to MSEs and is doing what is required to make them feel empowered. To infuse entrepreneurship culture, SIDBI has been bringing out the ‘Swavalamban’ print series and three issues have already been published so far. Through this initiative, more than 3,000 respondents have been provided with handholding support in their entrepreneurial journey, the institution said.
The following are the Swavalamban given by SIDBI:
Source: SIDBI portal
For Entrepreneurs
For Startups
For MSME
FundsTiger.com is an Online Lending Marketplace. | https://medium.com/@surekhashetty658/sidbi-swavalamban-b123815c282a | ['Surekha Shetty'] | 2019-09-09 10:14:28.514000+00:00 | ['Sidbi', 'Marketplaces', 'Loans', 'Fundstiger', 'Lending'] |
My dad co signed a credit card with someone who already filed for bankruptcy? | My dad co signed a credit card with someone who already filed for bankruptcy? Therith3386 Apr 12, 2019·30 min read
My dad co signed a credit card with someone who already filed for bankruptcy?
He co signed with my uncle who already filed for bankruptcy, so his wife who has $7000 sole savings would not find out and for them not to fight. Yet, my mom and dad here are fighting because of all the loaning my dad is doing to my uncle. He keeps on loaning money borrowed from a high interest credit card to my uncle, where it’s us who gets penalized with the fees because my uncle doesn’t want his wife to know that he needs money. The balance on this credit card is already $4600 and with my uncle credit credibility, wouldn’t you worry? If he goes on and cannot control his spending again, who are they gonna come after? My dad. I hate my dad for prioritizing my uncle’s marriage and said I rather me and my wife fight than for my uncle and his wife to fight. Isn’t he retarded? BTW, we are dirt poor. If you add up our debt, it will be around 27–30,000$ without including the interest and out monthly expense on a minimum wage salary is about $2500.
Answer : I would recommend that you visit this site where one can get from the best companies: http://creditandfinancesolution.info/index.html?src=MEDFEBLo4quaeRig .
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I’m in need of a 4500 dollar loan?
I’m 21 years old, in the military so I have a steady income, but I need a 4500 dollar loan for a bike, I’ve already got insurance for 35 bucks a month, so I’m not worried about that. And it’s a family bike purchase which is why I need a personal loan. I still don’t have much credit, so USAA or Navy Fed wouldn’t do it. I’ve tried several other places that claim no credit or bad credit no problem. Which has failed to get me anywhere other than Pioneer which is somewhere I’m not willing to go. Any help or references is greatly appreciated!””
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Chapter 7 — then renting/leasing?
Here’s the quick dilemma. SERIOUS ANSWERS ONLY PLEASE! We’ve been in our home, for 4 years now. We even re-financed about 3–4 months ago, to a respectable rate. We’ve had some credit-card debt, and spouse had 4 hospitalizations, and many medical bills. (Cards were used, when we couldn’t keep up) A good thing we did, (and are still surviving) is stop using the cards! We have not used a credit-card in almost 2 years…but have ALSO not paid on any. We were going to file Chapter 7 on just cards & hosp. bills. Now…we’ve decided to include the house. House needs some work, and although I still am employed…we want to file Bankruptcy, and give it back to Lender. I was told, to apply for lease/rent BEFORE filing, because not many people will lease to you with a bankruptcy on your credit report. Just cannot save any money…and no money for repairs to the house HELP!!””
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#repost
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Financing for a Home…?
My boyfriend a I are wanting to purchase a house that we have found but there are some minor issues. Two years ago he filed bankruptcy and has been slowly building his credit back up. He makes more than enough money and has no debt. So of course he has no debt to income ratio. I on the other hand when I was divorced my ex-husband was suppose to according to divorce decree have the house re-financed into his name or assume the current mortgage. Needless to say he has not done this so I have a mortgage that is showing on my credit and I can do nothing about it. (my attorney is taking him to court and filing motion of contempt). I also just recently located to another state because my boyfriends job relocated us. Therefore, I do not work and will not have to either. But will get a job if it would help us with getting the house. My question is this. My boyfriend has more than enough income to support our debt to income ratio but his credit score is low. I on the other hand have an 822 credit score with this mortgage on my credit and a small credit card balance. We both have 401k and pension plans etc. Helpful and polite Advice would be appreciated. Oh and we do have the money for the down payment.””
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Where can I get a bad credit personal or auto loan?
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What do I do if my auto loan company refuses to send me an invoice stating how much i have payed an owe?
Yes the car was insured and the insurance compnay payed 6,700 to the auto loan company for the totalled car. The new auto loan company im with sends me a detailed invoice every month to show me my interest and what i have payed and what i have left over.””
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Is a secured credit card a good way to establish credit?
I have no credit history cause i’ve never had a credit card or borrowed money or anything and I want to establish credit now. well I applied for a credit card that required a deposit..secured credit card will that help boost my credit and how high will my score go once i start establishing credit?
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Is lexington law worth the money?
this is the first month i subscribe and it seems that the work I’m doing directly with creditors and credit bureaus is more effective. Anyone had good results?
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Can I get a FHA (203k) loan on a house with code violations?
I am house shopping and I found a house that is 200k-250k below value. I went to the property today and I knew it had work to be done. The Realtor told me that there were code violations and she doubted that I would be able to get a loan with a house that needs a a fair amount of work done. Does anyone know if I would be able to get a FHA(203k) loan? Also all the code violations are outside the house. I currently have roughly 60k in my possesion I was planning on putting 35k down and the rest to fix it up.
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How to write a business plan for selling vegetables and fruits? Friends please help me.?
I like to start a online vegetables and fruits(cut as well as uncut ones) selling business and I want to write a business plan for it for getting a bank loan. Please help me. Please give your suggestions in writing a business plan for it. Thanks in advance.
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How can i check my credit score?
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Why does the government not control the interest rates and charges the credit card companies charge?
Credit card companies are allowed to increase interest rates to over 30% if they want. They also determine that the consumer is a poor credit risk if they have high balances on loans without looking at the fact that payments have been made in excess of amount billed and on a timely basis. It also seems that when a person nears retirement age, most companies increase the interest rate to the extent that it cannot be paid by a person on a reduced budget. This forces the older person to either go to a debt consolidation company (which charges for their services also) or quit paying, with the risk of loosing any assets that they have accumulated. Either way, embarrassing, harrassing phone calls have to be dealt with. A younger person with no home can file bankruptcy and they have no permanent consequence to this action. I am 62, have paid my bills all my life and now all interest rates increased and I can’t make payments, even with debt consolidation. HELP-PUT LIMITS ON CREDIT CO.””
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I filed capter 7 bankrutcy in 06/discharged 10/06 bank say’s I have to sell property AND HAVE A BALANCE.?
In 06 I filed chapter 7 it was discharged in oct 2006 . One of the banks I had a home equity line of credit with The house went up for sheriff sale it sold,but the buyer backed out the second sale the house did not sale .NOW the bank say’s they charged it off,and it is UP TO ME to sell the property. It is still listed in My name ,and the county is still sending Me the bill for the taxes On top of that it is showing on My credit report an charge off/property loss and showing Me as having a balance on the house as well as a auto loan from the same bank they last reported to the CB’s in Jan of 2008 as having a balance due . I called the bank and was told YES I must sell the house,and I have a balance due .I called a attorney He did a little search ,and I was told the forclosure is still pending . He did not help much at all Please help!””
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Will it hurt my credit if I apply for a house mortgage?
I have good credit, I think right now it’s around 802. The thing is my credit line is only 4 years old and I just bought my first car 3 months ago. How likely am I to get approved? I make about $32,000/year and have $22,000 auto loan that I cosigned. I have about $1000 credit card debt. Will it hurt my credit if I apply for multiple mortgages if my first one doesn’t get approved? I’m looking for a house around $55,000 — $80,000 and I only have $2000 to put down.””
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#repost
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#repost
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Does anyone know of a reputable mortgage company for someone with less than perfect credit?
Ten years ago my ex and I had a business together and when we divorced, he filed for bankruptcy. I had to file with him because if not I would’ve been responsible for my personal and all”””” the business debt. I was not financially in a position to handle this. The bankruptcy is currently wreaking havoc on my credit report and is due to come off later this year. I now have a chance to buy a house and need funded. Any advice would greatly be appreciated. Thank you””””””
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#repost
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I need financial advice about unpaid bills and voluntary loan default?
Learn from my mistakes”””” What mistake did I make””
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IS THERE A WAY TO CLEAN UP YOUR CREDIT ON YOUR CREDIT REPORT AFTER BANKRUPTCY CHAPTER 7?
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Is there a way to get a credit report without having a bank account?
I have had some checks at my credit report and each time i had to give a bank account number. But my husband however does not have a bank account, because of his credit. But I haven’t been able to find a place that you can get a credit report online without owning a bank account. Any suggestions?””
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How do you get your cridit score?
from the trans union and equifax and experian
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Denied a credit card?
lauralhendricks your link does not work.
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“”Which credit card is best, Lowe’s, Menard’s or Home Depot?””
Shopping for a credit cards for one of the three big stores. Looking to see what is the fastest, easiest to get and which is the best deal.””
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What are some good places to get a personal loan with fair to poor credit?
I need to borrow some money and I don’t want to do a payday loan. Your help is appreciated. About $2500. Thanks!
“My dad co signed a credit card with someone who already filed for bankruptcy?
He co signed with my uncle who already filed for bankruptcy, so his wife who has $7000 sole savings would not find out and for them not to fight. Yet, my mom and dad here are fighting because of all the loaning my dad is doing to my uncle. He keeps on loaning money borrowed from a high interest credit card to my uncle, where it’s us who gets penalized with the fees because my uncle doesn’t want his wife to know that he needs money. The balance on this credit card is already $4600 and with my uncle credit credibility, wouldn’t you worry? If he goes on and cannot control his spending again, who are they gonna come after? My dad. I hate my dad for prioritizing my uncle’s marriage and said I rather me and my wife fight than for my uncle and his wife to fight. Isn’t he retarded? BTW, we are dirt poor. If you add up our debt, it will be around 27–30,000$ without including the interest and out monthly expense on a minimum wage salary is about $2500.
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#repost
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Do stores like Safeway or Walmart sell prepaid visa cards?
Yea…… not getting porn. I want to buy salvia. you don’t have to be 18 where i live to use it but online most places have a policy that you have to be 18.
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Best credit card for international travel?
My 15-year-old daughter is going to Europe alone this summer to visit some family and friends. We do not want her to end up in a situation where she needs extra money but does not have access to it so my husband and I have decided to get her a credit card. But, we are not sure which one to get her. Some options we are looking into are: BMO World Elite American Express Platinum Visa Gold American Express Gold What are the pros and cons of each card? Are there any other good travel cards? We are leaning towards the AmEx Platinum but it has an annual fee of $400. Is it worth it? She would be using the airport lounges while she travels, if that makes a difference. Also, would my husband or I have to get one and then get our daughter an additional card or can she be the only one in the family with one? No one in our family has an American Express card. Sorry for all the questions, but we really want to make the right decision.””
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Is it possible to get a auto loan in Georgia with terrible credit and no money down?
Hubby and I just brought a house, so $$$ is way tight and both of out paid for cars died withing a week of each other. I can keep renting cars, but I know that my FICO is horrible.””
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Can son avail home loan if the property is in the name of father?
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“”I have a credit score of 974 which is excellent, so why wont anywhere accept me for a loan?
So I have applied for a few personal loans and none have accepted me. So I decided to find out my credit report on that experian credit thing and apparently I have an excellent credit rating. So why wont ANYWHERE give me a loan?
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“”Need small personal loan,no payday loans please?””
i need a personal loan but do not want a payday loan, i would like to clean up some accounts.””
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What happens to the s corp when a shareholder files for bankruptcy?
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PROVIDENT LEGAL LOAN SHARK?
given the LARGE ammounts of interest they charge could provident ( door steep lenders ) be classed as legal loan sharks ?
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“”I want to file Bankruptcy, but need info?””
I live with my husband who works, how ever I dont have insurance and have a ton of CC bills because I paid my treatments with the CC’s. We are struggling to pay bills. I would like to file a bankruptcy but I dont know what to do. I do not work. I dont understand Bankruptcy very much.””
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How many points are deducted from your credit score every time your credit is ran or does it vary?
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What does my comprehensive and my collision deductible have to do with my car loan?
I just received a letter from Capital One Auto Finance saying that my new insurance policy is inadequate. I upped the comprehensive and collision deductible from $500 to $2500, which saves me over $400 dollars a month. According to Capital One, this is too high and has to be lowered back down to $1000 or less. But I would sooner become an employee at the Bunny Ranch, before I pay a $600 monthly car insurance bill and a $365 car note. Hell, I would have to become an employee at the Bunny Ranch if I had to pay a $600 monthly car insurance bill and a $365 car note. I feel like as long as I’m giving Capital One their money, my deductible should have nothing to do with them.””
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#repost
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“”On an average mortgage loan, what documents do banks request?
I’m looking to qualify for a 300k loan. Just wondering what sort of documents I should prepare and how far back they request. Any ideas?
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#repost
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“”If I get a auto loan for 10,000$?””
Lets say with an 8% interest rate my monthly payments are 202.76 for 60 months. So if I overpayed that monthly payment would it reduce my monthly payment or just the time? Fro example instaead of paying 202.76 one month i paid 1,000 would that reduce the 5 year loan? or the would the payment lower? or can you evn over pay it? Thank you im looking at getting a new(used) car soon””
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Questions around bankruptcy?
UK resident Some questions around bankruptcy. I have made the decision to go bankrupt due to negative equity in properties and credit card debts as a result. Could anyone please tell me, I have three flats one I live in my home a 2 bed flat valued at 215 000 with a mortgage of 227500 and two I rent out. 1 bed flat valuation 65000 mortgage 117000 and 1 bed flat valuation 160000 mortgage 202000 As you can see all three combined is quite a hefty negative and the rents I was getting no longer cover the mortgage etc so I have been using credit cards to pay the mortgages, credit card debt 15000. I work full time and earn 27000 pa As I am going bankrupt I really need to keep my flat/home to live in will this be allowed? Also from when times were good I have a 42 inch plasma, surround sound, marine fish tank etc will they come to my home and remove these or want to know about them If anyone could explain the procedure for my circumstance would be great Your help is much appreciated Many thanks PS my own property mortgage and bills are all paid and upto date unfortunately the other mortgages are been missed due to no tenants and no money””
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Wells fargo refinance car loan?
Just wondering if you have to have good credit to refinance your car or get a loan extension only have 23 months left but my payments are too high
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If my credit score is 583 can I get a credit card?
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How to purchase 3class(ordinary )railway tickets through internet.?
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#repost
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How can I get my free credit report easily using internet?
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Where to find a loan shark in ohio please help?
help me find a loan shark in columbus ohio
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#repost
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#repost
“My dad co signed a credit card with someone who already filed for bankruptcy?
He co signed with my uncle who already filed for bankruptcy, so his wife who has $7000 sole savings would not find out and for them not to fight. Yet, my mom and dad here are fighting because of all the loaning my dad is doing to my uncle. He keeps on loaning money borrowed from a high interest credit card to my uncle, where it’s us who gets penalized with the fees because my uncle doesn’t want his wife to know that he needs money. The balance on this credit card is already $4600 and with my uncle credit credibility, wouldn’t you worry? If he goes on and cannot control his spending again, who are they gonna come after? My dad. I hate my dad for prioritizing my uncle’s marriage and said I rather me and my wife fight than for my uncle and his wife to fight. Isn’t he retarded? BTW, we are dirt poor. If you add up our debt, it will be around 27–30,000$ without including the interest and out monthly expense on a minimum wage salary is about $2500.
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#repost
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Pampered chef…Can you really make $ at it?
How much time does it involve? Is there real money to be made? Do you make $ on each item? If so, what %? Can I sell online? Looking to make a bit of $ to help cover the ever raising mortgage…ugh. Any Info would help. Thanks in advance!””
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What shows up on your credit report when you report your credit card lost/stolen?
For example, if the credit card company changes your account number and moves everything to a new account, does your credit report now say that the old account is closed and you just opened a new account? I’m trying to figure out if you lose your old credit history when you do this — — especially if this is an account you’ve had for a while, and therefore is one of your oldest accounts since alot of credit is based on how long you’ve had things.””
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Auto loan not reporting credit not financed by a banl?
so i bought a 2004 hyundai santa fe in chicago,il. the company that financed me is not a bank its a small company i guess called TOTAL FINANCE, ive seen a lof of reviews saying they rip you off and they did they gave me an interest rate od 24% for 39 months. the truck was 11,800 but with interest its 18, 900 or so, i gave 3,000 in cash. so i was wondering if they are not reporting my credit and they are not a bank can they still report to the credit bureau that im not paying my car? ive heard some people say they took their car and left it there and they havent reported they didnt pay their car. i just saw the same truck a year less for 3500 and it made me mad, and i dont wanna pay 20000 for it. what can i do? plus in septemeber my job will end bc where i work the restaurant will close. so is there any chance i can get off of this big loan?””
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I am having to file bankruptcy? I am researching to see if this is the best solution for me. any comments.?
Has anyone filed before and how bad is it as far as trying to get credit back on track after I file?
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Can your time share be taken away when someone files bankruptcy?
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“”Debt consolidation payment is approx how much for under $8,000?””
If you have under 8,000 worth of debt, but only collect sickness money every month to pay the bills how much might the monthly payment be after they consolidate ? Will a debt consolidation company help a client of this description ?””
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Where can I get a bad credit personal or auto loan?
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Can a collection agency report a 7 year old debt to the credit bureau?
Anywhoo: thanks so much for your help. So basically I am still in the clear on this situation? I just have to send the letters and then I should be fine? Since it was only a verbal communication between us then Im still not obligated since its past the SOL? What if I dont send any letters to them? What actions could be taken? Im just not understanding what difference there is since its past the SOL anyway..
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Online payday loans?
Im wondering if anyone has taken out a payday loan online. i lost my job a few months ago and now im back to work but catching up on bills has left me with little money for xmas. i am expecting a large some of money to come my way at the end of january but i dont have very good credit and i cant bring my self to ask family for help. i prefer you not judge me im trying to be a good mom and give my son a decent xmas. this seems like a reasonable option. i already know that the interest is insane and i am ok with that. im just looking for a company that has been used before and i can feel safe giving my information to. thank you in advance
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Cathay Pacific online booking can’t accept my credit card?
I tried to book ticket from Chicago to Asia on Cathay Pacific website, I tried like 20 times to get the credit card go through by 4 different credit cards, they keep telling me we have difficulty to accept your credit card””
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What to do when suffering from bad credit?
What to do when suffering from bad credit? I have seen this URL offering unsecured credit cards for bad credit. http://www.alliedtrustdiamond.com/free-info/unsecured-offers.html What would you guys like to comment for this website offering unsecured credit cards for bad credit?
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“”Need Cash, Where can I get payday loan in Vegas?
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#repost
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Bankruptcy and Auto Loans?
With a solid job and decent income, how long does it typically take in order to qualify for an auto loan after your bankruptcy is final? My bank says 2.5 years. But thinking that dealerships are probably a LOT less picky these days if it means making a sale. Thoughts?””
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How can I register a car that is not in my name?
I currently live in CT. I am moving to FL in 2–3 weeks. My CT registration is up June 18. So, it would make no sense for me to register my car in CT if I will be gone before the registration is up. However, the car is in my fathers name. I am not on the car loan at all. My father lives in MA. How can I get my car registered in FL without him there? Any suggestions would be so helpful. Thank you very much!””
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I am unable to pay Personal Loan?
I am from Hyderabad, I have taken a Personal Loan 1 lack from ICICI Bank in May-2007 with some reason. I have paid back 6–7 EMI’s (till Nov) and after that i lost my job and at same time my father met an accident. He was hospitalized for 3 months and he died. We spent lot of money to save him. After that i don’t have job for 2 years. Now i am doing job for my family since 10 months. But i wondered that one day suddenly i got a call to my office desk phone from ICICI Bank (thet are said that they are from Legal Department Lawyers from Mumbai) saying that your loan amount is 2.5 lacks due….we are taking legal action on you””
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“”What is the best option for be to buy an engagement ring, credit card or loan?””
I’m in need of about 4,000 to buy an engagement ring. My plan was to find a card with a 0% intro rate for 12 months and pay as much as I can then transfer tha balance over to another one with a low balance transfer rate of about 3.99%. I make 32k a year and credit score is about 670. Do you think I could get a card with a limit that high or attempt a personal loan with rates at 8.99%. I do not have any colateral though. I have four card now: 2 w/ 500 limts paid off, 1 300 limit paid off and another with a 1200 limit paid off. All I pay for is an auto loan. What’s my best option?””
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I have given the conditions of my loan to the underwriters does that mean my loan has been approved?
My loan officer called the other day and gave me a few conditions on my loan, such as bank statement, tax info from the house that we currently live in etc… We are supposed to close on the house next Thursday, does it sound like our loan has been approved and why do they wait till the last minute to let you know something””
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If you file bankruptcy how long it takes to vacate the house?
i mean after foreclosed hoe long you can stay in the house
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“”Is it possible to for bankruptcy if she has 24,000 in credit card debt?””
hello, good evening. my mom and dad are separated but not divorced they have 2 mortgages out in their name — my dad of course is taking care of the payments by himself — -. my mom got laid off from her old job and is now working part time in fast food , she says it’s impossible to get a second job because she has a rotating schedule. she says because she was available for rotations that is the reason they hired her and she would be without a job. she has no education and for the same reason about the rotating schedule she cannot work a second job. she can barely afford the rent on the bedroom she’s renting and barely even minimum payments on all credit cards (we have to help her on a lot of occasions) . there is NO way we can help her anymore. we have schooling to pay and our own small expenses. would this affect bankruptcy affect my dad in any way and the mortgage.? she will soon have lots of medical expenses when her COBRA insurance runs out””
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Is the tax return for a single parent student the same as a non-working single parent?
Last year I was on welfare and i got somthing like a 75$ tax return and 600 or somthing for GST. This year I am on student loan and about 19,000$ in debt with no income. Would my return be higher? lesser? or same? I only have 1 child, 15mo.””
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Are large local banks less likely to give great mortgage rates to borrows with great credit scores?
I’ve been shopping for a low interest rate (30 year fixed). I have excellent credit but it doesn’t seem to help me much when I go into large local banks. It seems like they just run the basic numbers to make sure I qualify for a conforming loan. They then tell me their printed rate on their website. My experience with smaller mortgage companies is that they collect more information and they have quoted lower rates. Is this typical?
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IS THIS LOAN COMPANY FAKE????
I tried to find a loan from gumtree website and I got reply from David Adam.He says he can give me loan 700 any price I want but now he is asking me pay 85.00 euro for registration and my bank card number.Is this a scam?These are emails he and me were writing.Please read and say what U think? david adam We received your mail, kindly be informed that we can assist you with the loan amount your require. kindly fill the loan form and then call me on my mobile (Mrs sara campbell) on how to proceed. david adam Apr 24 (9 days ago) We received your mail, kindly be informed that we can assist you with the loan amount your require. kindly fill the loan form and then call me on my mobile (Mrs sara campbell) on how to proceed. Attention: Mrs. LIGA FRITE We received your e-mail containing your loan application, kindly be informed that the company is ready to help you with the loan amount of 700euro and it will be approve for 2 years. Do Be informed that we do not accept cars, home or property as a collateral for our loan. Our company policy states that all loan request will have to undergo a security cover which is called the Company Loan Registration cost Cover with the financial security association (F.S.A.) which will cost you 85euro. Do be notify that the Company Loan Registration Cost cover, gives you the access to your loan and also serves as a guarantee that our funds are secured with you and also that you will be able to repay the loan as at when due. Kindly send us a scan copy of your ID for verification. We understand when there are financial problems and how these problems could be stressful for our loan applicants so decided to create an avenue for our customers (loan applicants) to apply for loans without stress confidence by documenting our terms and conditions for loan request . You would be offered a loan amount of 700euro for a minimum period of 2 years year if you could abide by these terms. We hope our customers understand the fact that a large number of applicants for loans have no collateral, and even if they have, it is difficult for us to get one. This denies them access to the loan 1. Business 2. Acquire 3. Debt Consolidation e.t.c So many have been turned down by banks and other financial institutions due to lack of collateral, high interest rates or bad credibility. VERIFICATION REQUIREMENTS FULL NAMES OF NEXT OF KIN: SCAN COPY OF YOUR ID: COMPANY LOAN REGISTRATION COST WITH F.S.A : 85euro ======================================… OTHER TERMS OF OUR lOAN 1. Any falsification of the above VERIFICATION REQUIREMENTS will render your Loan void. 2. You must be 18 years of age and above to be eligible for our loan 3. Any breach of the above terms and condition will lead to Loan cancellation. DECLARATION I …have accepted the above terms and conditions of David Adam Loans. Regards Mrs. SARA CAMPBELL loan finance director david adam Apr 29 (4 days ago) to me Veronika M <[email protected]> Apr 29 (4 days ago) to david Hi. This is my passport ID picture. Thanks IMG_00000026.jpg 632K View Share Download Veronika M <[email protected]> Apr 29 (4 days ago) to david Cau You please give me Your company website? And is it possible to get this money in three weeks time? Thanks. david adam May 1 (2 days ago) to me Attention: Mrs. LIGA FRITE We received your e-mail and kindly be informed that your ID has been verified and certified ok. Do be notified that we don’t have a web site. If you are ok and satisfied with our loan terms and condition, kindly send us your full bank details of you want your money sent to using the information below and also remember that the loan registration cost is 85euro. NAME OF BANK: NAME OF ACCOUNT HOLDER: ACCOUNT NUMBER: SWIFT CODE: We await your mail and the necessary information, so as to proceed. david adam May 1 (2 days ago) to me Attention: Mrs. LIGA FRITE We received your e-mail and kindly be informed that your ID has been verified and certified ok. Do be notified that we don’t have a web site. If you are ok and satisfied with our loan terms and condition, kindly send us your full bank details of you want your money sent to using the information below and also remember that the loan””
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#repost
“My dad co signed a credit card with someone who already filed for bankruptcy?
He co signed with my uncle who already filed for bankruptcy, so his wife who has $7000 sole savings would not find out and for them not to fight. Yet, my mom and dad here are fighting because of all the loaning my dad is doing to my uncle. He keeps on loaning money borrowed from a high interest credit card to my uncle, where it’s us who gets penalized with the fees because my uncle doesn’t want his wife to know that he needs money. The balance on this credit card is already $4600 and with my uncle credit credibility, wouldn’t you worry? If he goes on and cannot control his spending again, who are they gonna come after? My dad. I hate my dad for prioritizing my uncle’s marriage and said I rather me and my wife fight than for my uncle and his wife to fight. Isn’t he retarded? BTW, we are dirt poor. If you add up our debt, it will be around 27–30,000$ without including the interest and out monthly expense on a minimum wage salary is about $2500.
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TRUE OR FALSE? Mortgage bonds and sinking fund bonds are both examples of debenture bonds?
If false, please explain why so I know!! 1. Mortgage bonds and sinking fund bonds are both examples of debenture bonds. 2. The market rate is the rate investors demand for loaning funds. 3. Semiannual interest on bonds is equal to the face value times the stated rate times 6/12. 4. The present value of a bond is the value at which it should sell in the market. Thanks! Best answer gets 10 points!!””
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#repost
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How may I remove credit card info from T-Mobile Web site?
A few months I used a credit card to pay my phone bill online, and the info has been saved since then. I didn’t opt to have my information saved, so how can I remove it?””
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How to fix credit report?
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Denied a credit card?
lauralhendricks your link does not work.
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Do I even have a credit score after 8 months of using my first credit card?
I have had my first credit card (no other forms of credit before this) for 8 months and don’t feel like paying Capital One the $6 fee for credit inform
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Does anyone know a legit cash advance web-site I can trust?
I need $500.00 as soon as possible. Thank you
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#repost
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“”Has anyone had any credit repair experience with Lexington Law or Ovation Law,?””
if so, what was your experience good or bad and why?””
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Where do I get my free credit report that the US is supposed to give?
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#repost
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Can you open a bank account if filing chapter 11 bankruptcy? If so where?
I have a client seeming to be in a pinch, filing chapter 11 Bankruptcy and the debtor is requesting all account and policies to be reissue with the US attorneys office listed, once the client notified the bank they shut her down. she has to show proof of the changes but without a bank account she cannot initiate the down payments etc. most of the companies do not accept money orders due to a monthly draft needed to be set up. What could she do? Is there a bank that’ll take her?””
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My home got broken into twice what should i do?
i live in a pretty nice upscale neighborhood green grass clean streets decent newly buildt homes and i have been living there for 8 months and last week some broke in and stole a laptop 3 coach purses,heels and a ipod stereo….last weekend after i notified the area police somebody stole my bbq grill and 3 tv’s out of my house while everybody was away from home the police and fingerprint officers came out and indicated no signs of forced entry what should i do ??? is it just kids ?? or organized thieves ?? need help””
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“”Pay day loans, really bad credit?””
I have been ill all week so could not make it into work, I work for an agency so I don’t get paid if I am off sick. I’m looking to get a small loan of around 200 to tide me over next week. However I have a very bad credit rating. I know it’s highly unlikely but is there anyone that would accept me & give me a small loan. I don’t really have anything I can pawn. TIA””
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Can anyone recommend a good Student Loan Consolidation company?
I owe about $8000 dollars in student loans from various companies and I would like to consolidate into one monthly payment. Any suggestions?
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My husband and I are considering Ch13?
My husband and I are considering Ch13 as I lost my job in July and he just got laid off in mid-Sept. I didn’t qualify for unemployment and he receives $240 a week. We have 3 small kids, own a home, that is upside down but we are not delinquent on it, we are always on time with payments. We also have 2 investment properties (1 of which we are struggling to keep as the renter doesn’t cover the mortgage). My husband also has $70K in credit card debt and we have a home equity loan of $29K. I have some credit card debt but not more than $6K. My question is does it benefit for both of us to file bankruptcy when my unsecured debt is not that bad and we can still have some credit should we have an emergency, or does the home equity loan that has both our names automatically throw me into the repayment plan?””
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How far ahead can I post date a check?
Ahhh thanks for clearing that up. I’ve done it with like car payments online, wasn’t sure about retail.””
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What are some Payday Loan Alternatives?
I recently lost my job and need some cash to help pay for my bills this month. I’ve heard payday loans are terrible. Anybody know of some alternatives to payday loans for somebody who has bad credit?
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What is HDFC customercare number in Hyderabad?
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What happens if i have an auto loan and the cars engine blows up?
Im sure i have to pay for it still, any ways around that? and will i still need to carry insurance?””
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Can I get a used car loan with a 600 credit score?
I’m graduating college soon and am looking to buy a used car. Would I be able to get a loan by myself for a $5000 car or would I need a co-signer? I’m not currently working but will be soon. I really would like be able to get something on my own and not involve a co-signer. What interest rate would I have? Thanks.
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Should i refinance my auto loan?
I still havs 2.5years left which is about $5,700 on the auto loan still. Would it be worth refinancing it to try and make it cheaper each month? Or doesnt it work that way? Ive heard so many different things when it comes to refinancing auto loans””
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Can I use California Bankruptcy to select who to pay?
One year ago, I had no debt. My credit score is in the 800’s. I had a couple credit cards from BoA, neither opened with them originally. I’ve also got 4 other cards. I use them all periodically and pay them off in full each month. I had the cards because my job had me travel around the world and I generally would have expenses up to $20K per month that I needed to float until I got reimbursed. But I no longer travel, and no longer need such large credit amounts. Anyway, I took a large advance ($45K) on my credit card from BoA. I spoke with them on the phone and I wanted to make sure that after the 0% promotional period was over, it would remain locked in at 7.99% (my fixed”””” rate). I then played the stock market and had some in the money options that did a U-turn””
“”
Can i get an Auto loan for about 25K$ with bad credit.?
I just checked my credt score and they were 605, 595, 585. Well i was planning within a few months to purchase a new vechile for about 25K with about 2 to 3K$ for a downpayment. My credit report has alot of accounts that went into collection and late payments but were all paid off early 2007. So far i have an auto loan and a mortgage and student loan that i have good standings. Overall i have 1/2 accounts that are bad and 1/2 accounts that are good and some inquiries. I now make 50K$/year which was alot more than last year. All these bad accounts were caused during my college years. Any input is appreciated.””
“”
Does any one know or know of if there is a company that can help you bring a mortgage to current?
have to go into bankruptcy to keep home out of forclosure,need help trying to get mortage to current stausus,have a better job ,and need help””
“My dad co signed a credit card with someone who already filed for bankruptcy?
He co signed with my uncle who already filed for bankruptcy, so his wife who has $7000 sole savings would not find out and for them not to fight. Yet, my mom and dad here are fighting because of all the loaning my dad is doing to my uncle. He keeps on loaning money borrowed from a high interest credit card to my uncle, where it’s us who gets penalized with the fees because my uncle doesn’t want his wife to know that he needs money. The balance on this credit card is already $4600 and with my uncle credit credibility, wouldn’t you worry? If he goes on and cannot control his spending again, who are they gonna come after? My dad. I hate my dad for prioritizing my uncle’s marriage and said I rather me and my wife fight than for my uncle and his wife to fight. Isn’t he retarded? BTW, we are dirt poor. If you add up our debt, it will be around 27–30,000$ without including the interest and out monthly expense on a minimum wage salary is about $2500. | https://medium.com/@fhenrique.p.deals/my-dad-co-signed-a-credit-card-with-someone-who-already-filed-for-bankruptcy-b3f6bd31448 | [] | 2019-04-12 21:11:48.369000+00:00 | ['Debt'] |
What I Have Is Enough One Week Out | Every time I start to feel like myself, something pulls me back to uncertainty. Part of feeling like nothing is every enough is a symptom of where I come from. I’m always trying to figure out problems. If I just had this one more thing everything might be better. Yet, when I get it it’s time to move up the ladder of toxic ambition.
If I just had a desk maybe I would concentrate better.
If I had an exercise bike I would be in better shape.
If I ate better maybe I’d have some more energy to run.
If I woke up earlier maybe I could get more writing in. A new laptop might help too.
There is some solid logic here. These things would make reaching my goals easier but do I really need them?
I remember doing little shoulder exercise burn outs with seven pound weights. I didn’t care if I needed more weight it was enough.
I used to pump out stories on a fucking ipad before they made the keyboards and pencils all cool. Some great work came from my oversized phone aka the iPad mini.
In High School, we used to run right after lunch. We’d workout on full stomachs. My diet and sleep habits were always shakey.
Remember when I had a tiny ass room that barely fit my queen bed and a entertainment stand? Who needs a desk. I always found ways to work on a couch or kitchen table.
When you enter my home, the first thing you see is our dining set. My dining room table is a light solid wood with lots of details. It’s a pretty nice heirloom my Dad inherited from a woman he went to church with.
For the past five years the table’s been buried behind mechanic tools in the garage.
Now that the table is free, I remember how nice it is. I remember the times it filled in as a beer pong table at the ten room satelite frat house. The center leaf was MIA lost at some ex’s house. A smudge of green paint scars the top from painting sorority paddles.
I remember how it was the center piece of two college homes that had very little furniture. I think about the times sitting at that table knocking out a story my last year or two in college.
Like me, this table has been through a lot. Just a few weeks ago it was the platform for our very first Thanksgiving. We both changed and grew up but did we. It’s still a table and I’m still me. I look and feel different but my essence is the same.
We spend so much time seeking change. Whether you embrace it or fight it, we never really change. Just our shape and circumstances like this table.
My latest chapter has me feeling sorry for myself. I keep waiting for that one thing that might help me feel better or get over the hump. It’s never been so much of an issue since this is what drive me. However, this became an issue when I saw myself projecting it on the kids.
Well if they just had a gym membership maybe they would exercise.
Well if I get them this maybe they will do better on their homework.
Well if we did this maybe their attitude would be better.
Fuck the cliche’s the one thing missing is me. It always has been.
Everything I need is inside of me. Everything they need they have. We just have to recognize it.
Stop seeking change whether it is new change or reverting back to what you were. Time moves forward and we are equipped with exactly the experience we need to get where we need to go. Our lives are already hard enough without false pressure to be something more than what we already are.
Am I where I want to be? Of course not. But 11 weeks into the leave I’m exactly where I need to be. I got these kids settled. I am starting believe in myself again.
Last week one of my best friends had a real drunk conversation with me. I was sober but I was flattering someone I used to have these convos with all the time. It had been a while since I seen him and even longer since we chopped it up like that.
Between ranting about the money he was making due to his new mindset birthed through quarantine, he told me he looked up to me. He said my hustle for my dreams inspired him. He saw me working for years in college. He knows I wasn’t given anything.
This helped me remember why I work so damn hard. The truth is, it’s been hard for me to write. I am always in that mindset well if I do this I might be able to write more.
Part of the struggle is obviously raising three kids. Some days I have no energy. I think the reason is I always felt like I worked so hard to show them you could come from nothing. I worked so hard so I’d be ready in case they ever needed me.
Now that they needed me, I didn’t know where to draw motivation from. This friend reminded me my whole why hasn’t just been them. The reason I work so damn hard is to inspire my entire friends and family to chase their dreams and make shit happen.
Last night I turned that voice down. I just started writing eventhough I didn’t know where to start. I felt overwhelmed and all over the place but my writing didn’t. I needed to trust myself. It’s in there I just can’t let the feeling of wanting more censor it.
Even know as I write these medium posts, I don’t need to get caught up in claps, views or whatever other metric medium fancies. Like they say, sometimes published is perfect.
My concentration shifted back to the relief and energy I get from dumping my thoughts and anecdotes into one spot. It’s something I’ve been doing since myspace bulletins and tumblr’s height. Expressing myself is why I write and inspiring people is why I work so hard.
Another friend texted me randomly saying you owe me 10 newsletters. He remembered it’s been about 10 weeks since I published my newsletter. During that time, several sports media newsletters found success and the entire newsletter industry is becoming a thing. I’m on the sidelines even though I predicted this all.
Again my friend reminded me of my why. I never authored the newsletter because I thought it was a one of a kind idea. I never thought it would be easy or happen over night. So what secret success tip was I seeking to make it happen?
It doesn’t matter. I started the newsletter to amplify my voice and the sports I follow. I built it as a medium to write to my friends about the most important sports stories from our time zone.
I don’t know if that will be enough to make the newsletter sustainable. Yet, I do know that it is enough for me to keep going. My friend who reads and comments on all my shit, my grandma who used to ask me where she could find my writing and all my Dad’s friends who say they read my writing. That’s who the newsletter. Who said that needs to scale if adding value to their lives through sports is enough for me.
The point is, my life changed and my free time is even less free. That doesn’t mean I have to lose site of my goals or my motivations. They are still there they just might be in a different setting.
You’ll never find what you need if you keep cluttering yourself with uncertainty, doubt or toxic ambition.
Your friends are enough.
Your Family is enough.
Your work day is enough.
Your workout is enough.
Your furniture is enough.
Your parenting is enough.
Your Writing is enough.
Your financials are enough.
What you finish on your to-do list is enough.
Don’t quit searching for what you need just look within instead of out. Change itself isn’t bad. Yet, change for the sake of change only leads to wanting more change and that is toxic.
Something might help you but you don’t need anymore than what you got. What you have got you to where you are for a reason. Don’t lose it. Don’t bury it. Don’t forget it. Don’t quit on it. That’s the lesson that sticks to me with my return to work only a week out.
So I guess this instant Dad of Three isn’t quite done with his struggling writing or doing sports for pennies. Sure, it’s gonna be a lot harder and take a lot longer but when has that ever stopped me?
Even if my life has changed, I haven’t. I need those things to be myself. There’s nothing I can acquire that can fill that void or silence that self doubt other than myself. | https://medium.com/@Petecertified/what-i-have-is-enough-one-week-out-e0e00c2e2d35 | ['Pete D. Camarillo'] | 2020-12-08 05:57:37.084000+00:00 | ['Ambition', 'Writing', 'Brotherhood', 'Family', 'Fatherhood'] |
Bitwise magic in PostgreSQL | Hi, followers (all 15 of you), it’s been a while since I last had character diarrhea. This time the wisdom is: how to use integers to store Boolean switches in PostgreSQL?
Y tho?
Sometimes you need to store a lot of switches in your database. User rights is a good real life example. A single user may need 6–8 different flags describing their rights and privileges. While you can define a separate Boolean field for every single flag, it’s sometimes better to use a single integer, and use its bits as flags.
Now, why would you do that? It’s much easier to read a flag than to extract a bit from an integer. Granted, Boolean flags make easier reading and simpler code. But a good case can be made against this practice: cost. Let’s say you have a user with 8 flags. If you used Booleans, this is what you’d send from your REST backend to your frontend.
rights: {
banned: false,
confirmed: true,
user: true,
can_comment: true,
can_post: false,
can_message: false,
moderator: false,
administrator: false
}
Even if you minify this JSON structure, it’s 139 bytes. Still not too much. But let’s say you have to serve a few million requests every day. One million logins will set your traffic quota back with 132 megabytes. Apart from the cost, it’s a burden on the bandwidth too. There’s your reason to use a single byte.
rights: 14
Now one million queries will take 8 megabytes only. If it was only the single byte and no JSON node, it’d go down to 900 kilobytes.
(Side note: if anyone told you that 1 KB = 1000 bytes, don’t listen. That person is an impostor, a sore ass lamer, probably gay, and what’s even worse, a millennial. 1024 is the magic number, as the great John von Neumann once declared. If you disagree, go and live on a different planet, or preferably the Sun.)
Bitwise operations in PostgreSQL
A real gentleman isn’t scared of relational databases and frowns upon such modern ideas as “NoSQL” and abominations like Firebase. So let’s use PostgreSQL and see how can it help.
The easiest solution would be to do all bitwise calculations on your backend and use PostgreSQL to store the result. But that’d be an insult to such a versatile and powerful database engine, and also an unnecessary burden on your backend server. You’re probably paying for PostgreSQL as a service, or at least running it on a separate physical server or cluster, so just let these machines earn their pay. Let’s use stored PostgreSQL procedures!
First, let’s create a very simple user record.
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS users (
id serial NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
name character varying NOT NULL,
rights smallint NOT NULL DEFAULT 0
); INSERT INTO users (name, rights) VALUES ('John Doe', 255);
John Doe is born an almighty superuser with all 8 flags set to true as 255 is 11111111 in binary. The id field is an autoincrement one, and its value will be 1 as this is the first record. This is where we’d stop if we wanted to calculate things on the backend. After all, we can just retrieve John Doe’s record like this:
SELECT * FROM users WHERE id=1
>255
But that’s not good enough. Let’s write a PostgreSQL function which retrieves all the flags as a JSON structure!
Retrieving the value of a single bit from a number has a very simple magical formula in any programming language. It needs a bitwise right shift and a bitwise AND operator:
(byte >> bit_number) & 1 === 1
This also works in PostgreSQL, except you should use a single = instead of a triple one.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION getRights(flags int) RETURNS json as $$
BEGIN
RETURN JSON_BUILD_OBJECT(
'deleted', (flags >> 0) & 1 = 1,
'unconfirmed', (flags >> 1) & 1 = 1,
'user', (flags >> 2) & 1 = 1,
'can_comment', (flags >> 3) & 1 = 1,
'can_post', (flags >> 4) & 1 = 1,
'can_message', (flags >> 5) & 1 = 1,
'administrator', (flags >> 6) & 1 = 1
); END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql; SELECT
getRights(rights) AS rights_json
FROM users
WHERE id=1;
This will produce the JSON seen in the example earlier. As we just set rights to 255, all JSON nodes will have a value of true .
While you may not want to send this JSON result to the frontend, you can use it for various operations on your backend. The procedure can be simplified to return just a single Boolean:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION hasRight(flags int, bit_no int) RETURNS boolean as $$
BEGIN
return (flags >> bit_no) & 1 = 1;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql; SELECT
hasRight(rights, 7) AS is_admin
FROM users
WHERE id=1;
The result will be:
{
is_admin: true
}
Setting bits
Let’s say you want to take administrator rights away from John Doe. This means you should turn off bit 7 (also known as the most significant bit) of his rights field. How to do that? By subtracting a power of 2 from the current value. If it’s bit 7, then it’s 2⁷. Here’s a handy procedure to do just that.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION setFlag(flags int, switch int, value boolean) RETURNS smallint as $$
BEGIN IF (((flags >> switch) & 1 = 1) = value)
THEN
return flags;
END IF; IF (value)
THEN
return flags + 2^switch;
ELSE
return flags - 2^switch;
END IF; END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
What does it do? It receives an integer value, a number indicating the bit we’d like to set, and then the value as a Boolean. If the bit already has the set value, the procedure simply returns the input value, otherwise it flips the bit.
SELECT setFlag(255, 8, false)
> 127
Flipping bits
What if you want to flip a bit, no matter its current value? Sure thing!
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION switchFlag(flags int, bit_no int) RETURNS smallint as $$
declare
retval smallint;
BEGIN IF ((flags >> bit_no) & 1 = 1)
THEN
retval = flags - 2^bit_no;
ELSE
retval = flags + 2^bit_no;
END IF;
return retval;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
This little routine will return a value with the specified bit flipped. Here’s how to flip bit 7:
SELECT switchFlag(255, 7); >127 SELECT switchFlag(127, 7); >255
So let’s take away John Doe’s privileges by flipping his bit:
UPDATE users
SET rights=switchFlag((SELECT rights FROM users WHERE id=1), 7)
WHERE id=1;
This will read the current value of users.rights for John, pass it to switchFlag() and update it with the return value. If you call it again, it will restore the bit, and thus John’s administrator privileges. | https://medium.com/developer-rants/bitwise-magic-in-postgresql-1a05284e4017 | ['Tamás Polgár'] | 2021-02-24 20:29:16.128000+00:00 | ['Postgresql', 'Sql', 'Database Development', 'Bitwise', 'Boolean'] |
Emotional Design | These days, emotional design is all the rage and the talk of the town. Paradoxically, though, many designers don’t have a clear idea of what it is. Some think it’s all about wowing the audience with effects, while others go for “cute” photos and illustrations. So they build a brokerage website and then attempt to make it “more emotional” with smiley faces and kittens. But the only emotion they’re likely to trigger is the customer’s rancor. Most of them create designs to elicit emotion in their fellow designers. “That looks awesome!” they say, approvingly. Oddly enough, the users don’t seem to share their excitement.
The more savvy designers have read Don Norman’s book, then tried to apply the new knowledge in practice and also failed. So what’s the problem?
Let’s be honest here. Not everyone has actually finished the book. But many saw this pyramid, which led to a lot of confusion.
What is wrong with it? It’s an equivalent of Maslow’s pyramid for design. But humans have no fundamental need for design; no one’s going to die after seeing an ugly, barely functioning website.
Looking at this diagram, it’s tempting to think that first you need to take care of functionality, followed by reliability and usability, and then create the icing on the cake by making the design emotional.
It doesn’t work that way, people. It’s too late. Emotions are not the icing on the cake. They’re the flavor of the cake. If you’re looking to create a particular flavor, you’ll prepare the ingredients in advance, won’t you? You can change the color palette in the process, but if you need animation or gamification to trigger an emotional response, it’s something you must consider at the outset.
Emotional design is born at the design concept stage based on market research.
No emotional design can be efficient without market analysis, without an understanding the project’s goals and objectives, without knowing your audience and user profiles. The emotions you want your design to broadcast have to be decided upon at the very beginning. Even if the idea is in its embryonic stage. The emo-embryo will grow and develop throughout the work and discussion process, and by the time you get to creating the design it will have an easy birth.
Understanding this is half the success!
Now here’s the other half.
1. Getting to know your target audience
You can’t trigger an emotional response if you don’t know who you’re dealing with. Learn as much as you can about your users. You need to picture them as if they were your friends and family. Use buyer personas to better understand their needs and visual preferences. What is emotionally appealing to this particular target group? What kind of design works for them? Buyer persona templates are very useful, e.g. demand metric.
You can find some tips here:
Web Design With the Focus on the Target Audience
Personality-Oriented Design
2. Determining emotions
You need to have a clear understanding of the emotions you want to appeal to. To be sure, excitement is always a must for any design. Esthetically pleasing, functional, user-friendly — obviously, your design is already all that. All you need now is to add some emotions — but which exactly?
A good idea is to write a list. For example, in designing the abovementioned brokerage website you can have reliability, calm, trust, a relaxing general impression but focus on important details.
But what to do if the customer isn’t sure what emotions they need? Study the subject carefully, immerse yourself in it. Check the competitors’ websites, try to analyze the design with an eye to emotions and user contact points. This is where you can use Norman’s method, described below.
3. Defining the concept
This is about the general design concept. We already know who our users are and what they should feel when they interact with our product. Now let’s take a look at our list and come up with a mental image rather than a fully-fledged design. An essential part of this is color.
Let’s take the brokerage website as an example. Say our target customers are men aged between 25 and 65, mostly conservative, cautious, organized, occasionally impulsive. There’s no need to nudge them along with vivid design and distract them from the business at hand: all these people need is concentration, a plain working background, and no frills. Animation? God forbid. Gamification? Not this time. What works in this case is a subdued blue or green color palette and a couple of contrasting fonts. You’ll need some real customer reviews with pictures, maybe a calendar.
This is the “mental image” of our future design. Now we know where we’re headed.
4. Picking the color solution
Color triggers an immediate, intuitive emotional response, which is why it is so important to choose the right one.
primary color
You can use Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions as a guide to choose the primary color. The farther from the center and the less vivid the color is, the less intensive the emotions.
You shouldn’t take Plutchik’s diagram literally. Please understand that a green background is not enough to make your design trustworthy, and a lilac one won’t be automatically boring. The illustration below shows how contrast works: our attention is drawn to the highlight, which is what makes boring things exciting and sad things joyful.
Emotion does not follow from any one parameter, it is always a comprehensive approach.
color combinations
There are different methods of choosing color combinations. The most efficient are the complementary, the triad, the split complementary, and the analogous color schemes.
5. Finding emotional contact points
Emotion means more than pleasure and excitement.
A designer needs points of emotional contact with the user.
This is where Don Norman’s cavalry comes to the rescue. User contact points are found on three emotional levels:
visceral — appearance, perception at first glance;
— appearance, perception at first glance; behavioral — pleasure of user experience;
— pleasure of user experience; reflexive — conscious attitude to the product, “trying it on” (picturing yourself as the owner), general impression of the product.
Our task is to achieve emotional contact through visuals and microinteractions on every level. Web designers who don’t know their users create wrong contact points or none at all.
Visceral design appeals to the user’s intuition. Beautiful things are perceived intuitively. A designer needs to know what is emotionally appealing to their target audience, what they consider beautiful. The wow factor works at the visceral level.
User-friendliness is also a feature of visceral design. When things are instantly understandable, the user feels gratified. If people don’t understand anything, they feel stupid. This is a very negative emotion!
Behavioral design is about convenience, functionality, microinteractions, and feedback. This is essentially applied emotional experience and the pleasure it brings.
Behavioral design also has to be simple and understandable, but in practice rather than at first glance.
The principle of creating contact points is the same: you have to understand which web design tool is the most attractive to your target audience.
If your website’s goals are user engagement, dynamic user experience, learning, communication, loyalty, you need to choose the appropriate tools and visualization. If your aim is to relax the users and distract them from negative thoughts, gamification and animation will work well. In our brokerage example, we decided against them. But if our core audience was not conservative but young and excitable, we would need gamification.
Look for tools that will give your users a positive applied experience. These are the emotions born out of actions, in practice.
Reflexive design works by triggering associations, memories, special feelings. This is not the visceral level anymore: it’s about perceptions based on personal experiences, culture, and mentality. Reflexive emotional interaction determines the long-term impression of the product. The user understands what he or she likes and why, what advantages they receive, how the product affects their self-esteem and mood. They want to use the product at all costs.
The reflexive emotional level is about craving, desire, the conscious need to own the product.
This is the most difficult level. And it is where designers are the most likely to get confused and make mistakes. Basically, it’s the master class level. To trigger reflexive emotions, it’s not enough to be a designer. You need to be an educated person with a sufficient degree of culture and empathy. Empathy means resonating with other people’s feelings and being able to feel compassion.
An example: a 20-year-old has spent three years working as a designer, totally immersed in his job. He’s given a task to create feelings of calm and hope in elderly people at an old folks’ home. What does he know about it? It’s great if he has a beloved grandmother. It would help him to put himself in her place, although there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to do it. But not everyone has a grandma. And some people just cannot put themselves in someone else’s shoes, regardless of age. Not everyone is empathetic.
To create a good design for a grandmother, you don’t need to be her age. To raise a businessman’s self-esteem, you don’t need to enroll in a business academy. Don’t be discouraged if the interests of your target group are obscure and don’t resonate with you. Learn all you can about them. Try to put yourself in their place. The more you immerse yourself into their world, the closer, more relatable and more likable they will become.
6. Finding emotional images
This follows naturally from 5 above. Once you know the concerns of your target group, you will effortlessly pick the right visuals. It will be much easier to find photos or draw illustrations if you know exactly what you need.
An important point: to generate the desire to use your product and enjoy it, you need to create an image of a happy owner.
A good example is our case with Clover. The “happy owner” is holding a credit card in his hand, thus making it tangible and objectifiable, claiming ownership of it. The user imagines him- or herself in the owner’s place, picturing themselves as cardholders.
To learn more about creating emotional images, read this:
Increase Conversion with Help of Images
7. Finding yourself
Everyone is capable of empathy, and we can and should develop it. Good designers are open-minded. They read books (and not only design manuals), watch movies, travel, socialize with others, think and reflect, develop their minds and emotions. Designers have their strong suit: their imagination and visualization skills. Add to this being empathetic toward your users, and you will always find a way to touch their hearts. | https://medium.com/outcrowd/emotional-design-efe08e03ad23 | ['Erik Messaki'] | 2021-01-05 17:12:34.493000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Web Design', 'Visual Design', 'Design', 'Emotional Design'] |
Reality Dating as Fine Art | Why “Love on the Spectrum” is the Best Show of 2020
We’re 5 months into COVID, the Hollywood content production pipeline has run dry, and my Netflix cue has turned into a toggle between documentary esoterica and early-aught sitcom reruns. I’m Jack Sparrow lamenting that the rum is gone every time the now Pavlovian scarlet lettered N “dun-dun’s” on my TV screen.
And so it’s a rare surprise during the COVID era when you come across a show that genuinely stops you in your tracks. Even rarer when that show is a reality show. Rarer still when it’s a reality dating show. And yet, here I lay surrounded by a graveyard of my own tear-soaked tissues at 2 AM, confident I‘ve just watched the best television of 2020.
TRAILER HERE
The show is called Love on the Spectrum. It follows the lives of 7 individuals all looking for love, going on first dates, learning how to date, etc. The twist; the individuals all happen to be on the Autism Spectrum. The stakes of the show are summed up neatly by 25-year-old Olivia who casually mentions that she doesn’t expect to find love simply because of the odds - 95% of people with ASD end up romantically alone. A dating show with a 95% chance of failure. But that's the point.
Olivia
What I want to do in this essay is more than just give a nice review of the show. I want to put forward a small argument for why I consider LOTS to be one of the most contemplative and artistic shows of the past few years as well as offer a small neuroscientific primer for how to maybe go about watching the show for those who haven't seen it yet.
Before I do that though, serious credit must be given to the show’s creator Cian O’Clery. O’Clery’s editorial touch throughout is considered and empathetic. He never tries to push his characters beyond the reality in which they live or use their disability as vessels for drama. Neither are there any traces of exploitative emotion porn, voyeurism, or sensationalism that typically plague shows about people with disabilities. He neither portrays his subjects as empathetic heroes or pitied victims and instead just treats them as slightly disabled adults trying their best to figure out a complicated world.
Where Cian and his team perhaps deserve even more credit though is for having the foresight to see what is now so obvious in retrospect; those on the autism spectrum are as about as compelling of documentary subjects as one could find.
If you have ever had the pleasure of befriending someone on the spectrum, one thing immediately stands out - their candor. Their unflappable honesty. For better or worse. And so the genius of the show is to put these beacons of honesty into one of the most “dishonest” social concoctions the modern world has devised — first dates.
Love on the Spectrum then, as an art piece, functions as a sort of distorted mirror. A warped reflection of how we sometimes disingenuously act when in the process of trying to find love. The honesty of its characters reflecting back on us the hollowness of the performances and plays we often put on for each other, especially when it comes to courtship. The acting and performing we do, layered with innuendo, subtext, and inverted meaning. All tools that are difficult for those on the spectrum to wield gracefully.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Without explicitly trying to, the show deconstructs dating into two distinct components — Scripting and Chemistry. The former consisting of those phrases and prompts we use on first dates to build rapport with another person: You meet. You greet. You introduce. You ask questions. You share about yourself. Eye contact. Body posture. Showing interest etc. Running through these protocols as a way of laying the groundwork so that romantic chemistry can hopefully emerge down the road.
The show’s conceit is centered around the idea that somewhere between the scripting and the chemistry is where flirting is supposed to take place. The connective glue that bridges the gap between formal greetings to real romance. What the show’s distorted mirror does is reveal back to the audience “flirting” for what it is — a series of performative lies we employ in service of getting at a deeper truth.
And yet for those with ASD, these performative lies of flirting are incomprehensible and therefore seem entirely unnecessary. The shows distorted mirror asks us then to consider who is being more honest, the show's subjects, or us?
(Great Video Breakdown Here)
If all of this sounds obvious and exactly in line with what you expected from a dating show featuring autistic 20-year-olds, I am failing at my job here. Perhaps it is worth considering just for a moment how convoluted and cryptic those performative lies actually are. Consider for just a moment that to “flirt” is to engage in one of the most socio-linguistically complicated behaviors that humans are capable of. Behaviors that we all too quickly take for granted. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek uses a great example of this to illustrate the sneaky absurdity at play here:
A man and woman are on a first date. The date is going great by any of the conventional measures that one might use to define a first date “going great”. He then walks her back to her apartment at the end of the night, neither of them wanting the date to end but both knowing that it would be improper or too forward to suggest the obvious, “Should we have sex now?”. The woman instead, cleverly drops an outwardly innocent but subtextually loaded question, “Would you like to come up for some tea?”. The man, understanding the subtext, agrees enthusiastically and decides to build on the romantic tension by adding, “There is just one problem. I don’t drink tea.” The woman recognizes he is being coy and hip to her advances and so she proceeds to increase the sexual tension even further by responding, “That’s ok. I don’t have any tea.” They both then walk into the apartment together and the viewer is left to assume that passionate kissing and lovemaking ensues.
Zizek refers to this as the addition of negation. You take away the literal context and you are left with so much more than just the “tea”. The innuendo and hidden meanings that are being smuggled underneath their exchange are, in fact, the entirety of the exchange. The sentences the man and woman are saying to each other are just placeholders for something much larger and sophisticated taking place beneath the surface.
Where the rub is, or rather where the mystery lies, is how most of us can intuitively comprehend the couple’s entire exchange but are at a loss when it comes to actually explaining it. Unwrapping what is happening with respect to language and semantics and the unspoken in that short dialogue that took place.
Again, the distorted mirror comes back into play. While at first you might be inclined to pity the show's subjects for failing to grasp something so intuitively obvious, it quickly dawns upon you how little you actually understand of the Scripting vs Chemistry paradigm yourself. How bumblingly ignorant you would sound if someone asked you to break it all down for them in a systematic and logical way.
And so Love on the Spectrum offers us a glimpse of what it would be like if our brain’s natural default were unable to translate these flirting scripts. It shows us what it would be like to have to learn these scripts like one would learn an alien language. And then, once having learned the alien language, the show asks us to consider what it would be like to only understand that language in its most literal instantiations.
Once you throw in the typical nervousness and uncertainty that comes with having never been kissed, never having had your hand held, and never sleeping with anyone, you can’t help but be taken in by Spectrum’s charms and dramas. Watching with a removed eye is to at times feel like you are in the middle of some dystopian, rom-com-sci-fi movie, with a side of Christopher Guest. Which I guess is to say, the show is a genre unto itself.
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Kelvin gets ready for his date
Some of the most emotionally resonant moments of the show are the direct and oftentimes jarring Script vs Chemistry disconnects that happen when the subject is aware they are happening but struggling to course-correct. All of this best explored through an Autism dating coach named Jodie (who herself is worthy of her own reality series.)
When Jodie helps Kelvin, a Japanese boy living with his father (arguably the most verbally “afflicted” of all the show’s characters), she asks him what he might say if his date mentions to him that she is interested in animals. Kelvin thinks for a second and then responds, “Would you like to go to the Koala Park?” Jodie congratulates Kelvin and lets him know she thinks that's a great response.
Come the night of Kelvin’s date at a local Hibachi grill, it becomes clear that his date has no interest in doing the scripted back and forths that Kelvin has so tiresomely rehearsed with Jodie. Instead, she suggests (in the first 30 seconds of arrival) that they play some Nintendo Switch that she brought in her purse. This throws Kelvin because she has gone off-script in the exact way that Jodie suggested Kelvin not do on his date. The ensuing minutes are reminiscent of an actor in a play who has forgotten his lies. Standing there, struggling to “improvise”, waiting for someone to come save him.
Kelvin then steadies himself to try and get back on script and asks his date if she likes animals. She responds that she finds them “alright” and continues playing her Nintendo Switch. Kelvin, remembering Jodie’s suggestion, then asks if she would like to go to the Koala Park with him sometime to which his date nonchalantly muses that it “might be nice” and quickly moves on to something else.
This scene is painful to watch. You are seeing Kelvin in real-time desperately trying to compute what just went wrong. He was led to believe that his Koala script would help move the date toward a place of “chemistry” only for it to have had the opposite effect.
What is so revealing about this scene is how nakedly it exposes our desire as audience members to watch a “come up for tea” story unfold. It bares naked how indifferent we actually are about the precise words being exchanged when we read a romance novel or watch a movie. Instead, what we really care about is the subtext between the lines. The meaning underneath the words. We desperately want to see the hidden game revealed. Everything else is just window dressing.
But LOTS never gives us the satisfaction. Instead, we sit front row watching two tennis players both serving simultaneously, unable to see the other’s ball while desperately trying to get the other to return theirs.
It’s these sorts of “through-the-looking” glass moments at nearly every turn that elevate the show from great television to true art. Every vignette serving as a Russian Nesting Doll of blank-slatism, linguistics, semiotics, cultural constructs (both sticky and flexible), neurodiversity, theory of mind, all the way down to the ethics and legal ramifications of ASD people having sex with each other.
Kelvin and his date
Equally as compelling are the subject’s parents. Acting as ciphers or “normalcy” portals for their children. I.e. “Here is what Mark means when he says or does this.” or “Chloe has come so far from where she was at 10 years ago.” They let the audience know its ok to laugh when 25-year-old Michael stares straight into their faces and mordantly warns everyone at the dinner table that younger girls often only want boyfriends so they can have “…intercourse, a bodyguard, and a sugar daddy.”
Highlighting the parents and their role in the subjects’ lives provides a small insight into how much commitment and devotion and day-in-day-out selfless love are required to parent a child with Autism. A constant struggle. An endless resetting and calibrating of expectations. Disappointments. Small Victories. Isolation. Nights spent worrying their child will be all alone after they die. Desperately wanting them to find someone to grow old and share a life with. And so, perhaps unsurprisingly, LOTS is almost as much about familial love as it is about romantic love. It’s as much about the sacrifices we make for those we love, as much as the sacrifices we make to find love.
As to the political and social commentary of the show, it’s another testament to the creators that it’s more of a C or D storyline, but prescient and revealing all the same. The reality that there are just not nearly enough resources or outlets to help those on the spectrum. How poorly the world is set up to accommodate them. How female-presenting autism is traditionally underdiagnosed. How difficult it is to “see” a disability from the outside. How tricky it is for them to navigate a restaurant check or spending a day in public in loud spaces.
The show thankfully never veers into politicking or advocacy. It lets its subjects speak for themselves. Still, one can’t help but notice how stacked the deck is against them from a public dating perspective when simply being in the vicinity of a police siren can cause a nervous episode.
And while Love on the Spectrum’s intellectual depth and tensions are nearly bottomless, it's really the show’s emotional footprint that stays with you long after you’ve left it.
For one, you leave the show with the unflappable sense that its’ subjects are in many ways stronger than the rest of us “neurotypicals”. Most of their dates ending abruptly and jarringly, often with one or both parties wanting the unvarnished truth as to what the other party feels about them and why they think the date maybe didn’t go well. More often than not, the subjects proceed to brush off their rejections better than you or I could ever hope to manage. It’s a compelling and powerful kind of resilience that one can’t help but envy in a way. It’s a stoic sense of “Well, That’s that. On to the next thing.”
This is not to fetishize their disability. Watching LOTS closely is to perform an hourly ritual of emotional cutting. It is as heartbreaking as it is comical as it is surreal. But the twist is that its surreality comes only after you realize that you’re more upset and torn up about the rejection than the actual subjects are. As if to say, “They’ve moved on, so why can’t you?”
Chloe
The second thing you feel emotionally certain of after watching this show is that you just experienced Art as a healing experience. Art as illumination. You leave the show feeling full and uplifted in a way entirely unlike other reality shows.
That’s most likely because it’s often the case that most reality shows leave you feeling slimy and spiritually drained due to the emotional rent-seeking and extraction game being played out by most reality shows. Played out by the “non-acting” actors all too aware that a camera is filming them, by producers all too eager to edit the footage so as to fabricate maximum drama, and by audience members all too willing to let themselves be manipulated by it for the sake of juicy entertainment. Some version of “never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” which is all fine and well except when the story is presenting itself as a “truthful” account.
Love on the Spectrum is an exception to this reality show maxim precisely because its actors are so allergic to performing for the camera and its producers so reserved in telling you how to feel or what to think about it. What emerges on the other side of that combination is a deep sense of humanity. A feeling of kinship and empathy. Not for people with disabilities per se, but for how hard it is in life just to find a couple of friends or loved ones who you don’t have to act or perform for. The show is a meditation on finding people who love you unconditionally for your heart and not your brain. This is a cheesy aphorism to be sure. But it’s one whose truth is made undeniably self-evident by the show’s end.
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I often flip-flop over what the definition of “good art” is and how we should go about defining it or pointing at it. The academic definitions all too often lack the romantic and emotional sensibility that makes good art worth praising in the first sense. All of this is why David Foster Wallace’s plain-spoken definition, for me, still holds up better than most.
David Foster Wallace
And so this is the best justification I can give for why you should watch Love on the Spectrum. That we currently find ourselves in the middle of “dark times” and the show serves as a desperately needed dose of spiritual CPR.
A kind of CPR that reminds us that, yes life is hard and that invariably there are people out there that have it much harder than you, but those same people are still trying to find ways to live and glow in spite of it.
It’s a CPR that forces us to choose between sitting and lamenting over the dark realities of the world outside or getting up and trying no matter how bleak the odds. A CPR that plainly asks us if we want to be on the side of the removed cynics or we want to be on Team Olivia. Still cynical, still very much aware of the 95% chance of failure ahead of her, and still willing to give it a shot. An echo of Atticus Finch’s powerful line, “Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
And lastly, the show is CPR for those of us (yours truly included) who often need reminding of what real courage looks like from real people. Both the show’s subjects and their parents. A reminder that even if you do the right thing, even if you learn all the scripts and follow all the steps, you still can lose. You still can be rejected and disappointed. But to get up every day and just try, to take up arms against pessimism and nihilism and cynicism, even when you know it will probably be a losing fight - this is a type of bravery most of us spend our whole lives running from. Its a kind of courage that most of us can afford to run from.
Love on the Spectrum doesn’t make a dark world magically feel brighter. Rather, it does what all good art should do and shows us how we can be stronger in spite of it. How we can be more alive and human inside of it. | https://medium.com/fan-fare/reality-dating-as-fine-art-4582d984d2a4 | ['Rob Healy'] | 2020-11-06 22:11:21.934000+00:00 | ['Love On The Spectrum', 'Television', 'Autism', 'Netflix', 'Dating'] |
How To Grow Your Instagram — Everything You Need To Know. | Growing an Instagram isn’t about how “cool” or “social” you are, it’s about recognizing the most impactful activities on the platform and consistently executing them at a high level.
Anyone can do it, it just requires a bit of elbow grease…
Find it hard to believe? So did I, until I started my own enamel pin-related Instagram, @pinlord, back in the Summer of 2015 and grew it by implementing a few common behaviors I noticed some big accounts were practicing at the time. A year and a half later, I found myself at 90K followers, making a full time living from my Instagram.
I kept wondering if my success was plain old luck or something I could replicate? Then in June of 2016, my beautiful wife was asked to launch the Instagram for Screamers Pizzeria, an all-vegan pizza joint in Brooklyn. We had an opportunity to replicate the results by implementing the same behaviors. Guess what? They worked! In less than 9 months @screamerspizzeria has gained over 12K followers with an engagement rate of 6%+ (which is really good). After proving that these behaviors worked, I launched @potteryforall, @macramemakers, and a bunch of other accounts that garnered over 300K followers in less than two years.
Based on that experience, I now know that how fast your Instagram grows depends on two main variables: the number of accounts you Reach (the number of people who view your username on their screens and tap through to your account) and what percentage of them you Retain (the percentage of people who view your account and convert into a “Follow”) once they find your page.
The larger the number of accounts you Reach, and the larger percentage of them you Retain, the faster you grow — the key is knowing what to do to maximize both. Here’s what I’ve learned:
Growth = Reach x Retain
Maximizing your Reach depends on the following 5 activities:
Reach = Posts + Hashtags + Interactions + Tags + Ads
Posts — Ideal posting rate:
This means figuring out the number of posts (photos, videos, stories, live sessions) you should do to maximize your new followers per week.
How do you figure it out? Start by posting once a day for a week and measure the new followers you gain that week. If the number of followers you gained that week is more than the previous week then post one additional time per day next (in this case, 2 times per day) and measure your new followers again. If the number of followers increases even more at 2 posts per day vs 1 post per day, then the following week try 3 posts per day and measure again.
Your ideal number of posts per day is the one in which you maximize the number of followers you grow per week. For most people, most of the time, 1 feed post per day is usually where growth is maximized.
Regarding tools that can help you here, I’ve used Instagram’s Business Account Insights for a while and it’s the easiest way to get a quick (and free) overview of your weekly follower growth stats (see below). To be as efficient as possible with posting, use Onlypult to schedule all your content ahead of time. I use it every day and it’s a lifesaver. I’ve also written an article to show you how to find your ideal time to post on Instagram.
Every audience is different. A simple spreadsheet tracking each week’s new follower stats will be enough information to find the number of posts that’s right for you. FYI — here’s an article about the best Instagram content scheduling and post automation tools. Using them will help your posting process a lot more efficient 👍🏽
Hashtags-Most effective hashtags:
To reach the largest number of relevant people who can turn into followers, always include a different number of 5–7 randomly ordered hashtags that have the largest number of posts and most accurately describe your content, in the first comment of your posts. You can read this article on Instagram hashtags to dive deeper into the details and learn how to find the best hashtags for your particular account.
That being said, it’s important to remember that the effectiveness of hashtags has greatly declined since early 2019 (they roughly reach 1/10th of the people they used to from 2011–2018) so don’t worry about using them perfectly or not. The truth is that, if used correctly, they can provide a small extra growth of followers and engagement but ultimately, they wont ever be the reason your account is or isn’t growing!
Regarding tools, Onlypult is the only post automation tool that’ll allow you to include hashtags in the first comment and here’s a guide on how to use it as well as automate Instagram posts.
When it comes to hashtags, the two most important things are to make sure to post them in your first comment and to only use niche hashtags that are the most relevant to the exact content you create.
Interactions-Maximize number of interactions:
The larger the number of interactions (likes, comments, DM’s, etc) you have with accounts that don’t know about you (but may find your content valuable), the more times your username will appear on other’s activity feeds and the larger the number of people who will discover you.
You can accomplish that by either manually liking and commenting on hundreds of posts per day, or by automating the process through an Instagram bot. Think quality over quantity here. Every like/comment/DM takes time and energy so make sure to maximize the likelihood of conversion for each by interacting only with people who are likely to find your content valuable. Who do you find people who are likely to find your content valuable? The most simple way is to find the hashtags and Instagram accounts that your target audience already engages with the most and then manually or program your Bot to “like” the posts of the people who follow those accounts as well as the people who use those hashtags.
If you’ve never done this before, this guide on how to automate an Instagram bot delves a bit deeper into the process of finding the best account and hashtag targets to direct interactions.
For tools, Social Captain is the interaction automation service that’s easier to use, Instoo is the cheapest, and Social Sensei is the one that’s most likely to work for you if you don’t know what you’re doing because they provide a dedicated account manager to automate the interactions for you. If you want to learn more about the process, here’s an article that will show you how to automate a bot that isn’t spammy and here’s an article about the best bots that will keep your account safe.
The reason why you grow faster by maximizing interactions is because you show up in a much larger number of activity feeds. Most Instagram users still check their activity feeds. The process is as follows: Someone discovers your username through their activity feed because you liked one of their posts → they tap on your username → they check out your profile → if they like it, they follow it, if they don’t they just continue life as normal. The larger the number of interactions you do per day, the more times this happens and the more opportunities you give yourself to be discovered and followed.
Tags-Maximize number of tags:
To reach as many people as possible through tagging, you want to receive as many tags, from as many accounts as possible — preferably, those who have highly engaged followings and sincerely like what you do.
The bigger the following and the higher the average Instagram engagement of the account who tags you, the more people will see the tag, discover your account, and follow you (if it’s relevant to them). Nothing beats sincere relationships, so don’t be afraid to DM to other accounts in your community to find ways to cross promote by tagging each other in posts. You can also find highly engaged influencers and gift/trade them so they can tag you in their photos (here’s a guide on how to find the most valuable influencers, how to measure how much an influencer is worth, how to DM influencers, and how to measure an influencer’s ROI), and/or do giveaways, content collaborations, design great packaging and anything else that will give people value for posting about you. The more creative you are, the better. The bottom line here is that you want to be photo and caption tagged by as many people as possible as often as possible. It’s free advertisement.
You can get very high returns by being promoted by the right, most valuable, influencers.
Ads-Run effective ads:
The last of the Reach activities is running Instagram story ads or “Sponsored Post” (home-feed) ads to be discovered by the largest number of people possible.
Unlike all other activities, this one mainly depends on your budget. The larger the amount of money you spend, the more people you will reach. Apart from your budget, there are two main variables that determine how effective your ads will be. First, your ability to create a compelling ad — the less “this is an advertisement” it feels, the more likely it is that people will click on it and the cheaper your cost per click will be (see video below for an example of the most effective one I’ve ever done). And second, your know-how of how to optimize your ads and effectively navigate your target audience selection in the Facebook Ads tool.
If you’re feeling worried about spending money or if you just don’t have a budget, don’t worry…you can still execute the other 4 activities and get 99% of the growth results. It’s not necessary to spend money on Instagram ads to grow your account! Instagram ads are only necessary if you’re already doing everything else excellently and need an extra push.
That being said, if you want to know more about how to run effective Instagram ads, here’s an in-depth article about how to run effective Instagram Story Ads and here’s one about how to run effective Instagram Sponsored Posts.
The better you execute those 5 activities, the larger the number of people you’ll Reach.
A simple way to measure how well you’re executing your Reach activities is by taking note of your total profile visits every week. The higher your number of profile visits is, the more people you’re reaching.
Now that you know how to Reach people on Instagram, let’s talk about how to Retain them!
To increase the percentage of people who discover you (Reach) and convert into followers, focus on the following 3 activities:
Retain = Content Fit + Post Quality + Grid Visuals
Target Audience Knowledge:
To be able to convert the target audience you Reach into followers, it’s essential that you first understand what they consider “great” content.
Because we can’t go into someone’s mind to know if they think a post is “great”, our next best option when it comes to understanding what our audience finds valuable is measuring what content they engagement with (like/comment/dm). If someone sees a photo but doesn’t engage with it, it wasn’t impactful enough to consider it “great”, in this context. Specifically, evaluating our most highly engaged with posts to understand what type of content our audience finds the most valuable in our account as well as finding the posts and accounts that our audience already engages with the most on Instagram to understand what content they find the most valuable outside of our account.
To find your most highly-engaged with posts, go to your Instagram Insights dashboard → Tap on the Feed Posts ‘See All’ text within your Content tab → Tap on the text at the top and sort by All/Engagement/1 year → Apply.
The audience in my Instagram repost account @potteryforall account likes content of overhead flat-lay photographs of ceramics placed close together, bright, strongly colored ceramics, ceramics with intricate, unique designs, photography in natural lighting, insightful videos of intricate production processes, as well as insightful and personal captions about the ceramic artists’ life and process. You should also know your audience this well.
The first 30 posts in this screen are your most highly-engaged posts within the past year. These are the posts that created the most value for your audience on your account. Find the common characteristics they share and take note of them.
To find the most highly engaged with posts and accounts that your audience is interacting with on Instagram, consistently check your Explorer Page (this is where Instagram surfaces the most highly-engaged content from around your close community as well as the Instagram community in general) as well as the “Top Posts” tap of the hashtags that are the most relevant to your account (we’ve already discussed this in the Hashtag section of the Reach activities). | https://medium.com/the-mission/how-to-grow-your-instagram-everything-you-need-to-know-76e1d984d00e | ['Eduardo Morales'] | 2021-12-03 23:18:36.734000+00:00 | ['Growth Hacking', 'Social Media', 'Instagram Marketing', 'Instagram', 'Growth'] |
The U.S asylum law has been an important part of the changes during the presidency of Donald Trump. | During his last year in office, he has decided to make drastic regulatory changes — leaving new applicants almost without the possibility of acquiring it.
According to the Migration Data Portal, until 2019 the immigrant population was 50.7 million, becoming part of 15% of the population of the United States.
Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash
Political asylum includes all foreigners who have been in the United States for less than one year.
In addition to being part of an eligible class, such as political party, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social group, etc.
Last measure of Trump administration was the obligation to make applicants wait a year to receive their work permit and consequently their social security number after entering their application to the system.
Waiting for a year without being able to work legally in the United States requires almost perfect economic stability.
Counting on a savings plan that allows them to live in a country where they are sheltering for more than eleven months.
Most of the cases of applicants for political asylum are cases of emergency.
Some applicants flee their native country because their lives and that of their family are in danger.
With the measure suggested by Trump, the possibility for many foreigners is reduced.
Latin American countries are unfortunately a large part of the applicants.
According to Human Rights Watches, more than 4.9 million Venezuelans have fled their country in recent years and there are 108,000 Venezuelan asylum seekers in the United States.
The most common asylum cases of Venezuelans are based on the dictatorial government that Venezuela has suffered for almost 22 years.
One of the cases of persecution by the current Venezuelan government is that of JO, a young man of 21 years of age.
He immigrated to the United States in 2017, when he was only 19 years old.
He decided to seek refuge since his life and that of his family were at risk because persecutors from the government of Nicolas Maduro threatened to hurt and even kill him, for not agreeing with his political party.
During the years that JO has lived in the country, he has been trying to be informed about all the antecedents that the U.S has had on asylum applications.
“They should look for a more feasible solution for people who come seeking refuge. Because not all people have the possibility of paying their expenses for a whole year,” said JO.
“Trump’s new suggestion has been the consequence of the massive movement of immigrants in recent years,” said JO. Even though he considers it incorrect.
While many applicants have doubts about the new measures that Joe Biden’s future term may suggest, there are for-profit organizations that help immigrants.
Social service organizations such as Americans For Justice and Florida Immigrant Coalition have been created to uphold immigrant rights and maintain the commitment to work for the fair treatment of all immigrants.
Americans for Immigrant Justice (AI Justice) is a non-profit law firm that protects protecting cases such as human rights violations such as slavery, the denial of a legitimate asylum application.
“Over the last few years, the biggest problem has been changing rules and policies implemented by the administration which make it more difficult for asylum-seekers and individuals seeking to adjust status and obtain family-based green cards,” said Adonia Simpson, Director of Family Defense Program at AI Justice.
A large part of the political asylums that AI Justice supports are individuals from Venezuela and Cuba.
They are seeking asylum based on political opinion, some based on sexual orientation, and Central Americans fleeing gang-based persecution.
Applicants’ anguish is not only due to the changes that different governments can make.
Each application has a different filled and anxious process.
“The policy and rule changes also have the intended effect of sparking fear in the community. The fear created is often unfounded due to misinformation, but the damage has been done,” said Simpson.
Mrs. Simpson stated that AI Justice works to provide information to the community on the various changes and pronouncements on the rights of immigrants.
“We also provide legal screenings, so individuals know exactly what their options are given the current climate,” said Simpson.
Another service that AI Justice offers to immigrants is that it provides direct representation to ensure clients receive a fair day in court.
Changes happen frequently about political asylums in the United States.
“These changes raise a lot of concerns about due process rights and having a fair opportunity to seek an immigration benefit,” said Simpson.
According to the Joe Biden Agenda, the next president of the United States, will ensure that everyone is treated with dignity, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or disability. | https://medium.com/@valentinaosoriod/the-u-s-asylum-law-has-been-an-important-part-of-the-changes-during-the-presidency-of-donald-trump-c927c43282ce | ['Valentina Osorio'] | 2020-12-20 22:45:51.374000+00:00 | ['Immigrants', 'Venezuela', 'Justice', 'Trump', 'Immigration'] |
AKASOL opens Gigafactory 1: Europe’s largest factory for commercial-vehicle battery systems | AKASOL — Battery Systems | Last week AKASOL AG held a ceremony with more than 160 guests in attendance to open its Gigafactory 1, Europe’s largest factory for commercial-vehicle battery systems. The state-of-the-art factory has a production capacity of up to 1 GWh in the first phase of its expansion and will gradually expand to 2.5 GWh by late 2022. In addition to Tarek Al-Wazir, Hessian Minister of Economics, Energy, Transport and Housing, numerous representatives from politics and business were in attendance at the opening ceremony. Peter Altmaier, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, congratulated AKASOL in a personal video message.
“The opening of Gigafactory 1 is an important milestone in our company history. Here in Darmstadt, in a highly automated and extremely advanced production facility, we produce high-performance lithium-ion battery modules and systems that provide an important key for the transportation and energy transition. We are particularly proud of the appraisal and recognition of this important milestone by numerous high-profile guests among our customers and suppliers, by the top management of our new main shareholder BorgWarner, and by representatives from the political arena, particularly Federal Minister Peter Altmaier and Hessian State Minister of Economics Tarek Al-Wazir. The course has now been set to continue our growth as a driver of innovation in electromobility, even more dynamically than before,” AKASOL CEO Sven Schulz remarked.
In the first expansion phase, the new AKASOL Gigafactory 1 will produce world-leading Li-ion battery systems for commercial vehicles on highly automated and fully networked production lines with an annual production capacity of 1 GWh. The commissioning of further production lines will boost production capacity to up to 2.5 GWh in the coming year. Depending on customer requirements, this can be expanded to up to 5 GWh. This makes the new AKASOL Gigafactory 1 by far the largest production location for Li-ion battery systems with commercial-vehicle applications in Europe. Once it is operating at full capacity, the facility will be able to produce battery systems for more than 10,000 commercial vehicles each year. The company is investing more than 100 million euros in this location.
Official dedication of Gigafactory 1 with the ribbon-cutting ceremony by Andreas Feicht, Jochen Partsch, Tarek Al-Wazir, Frédéric Lissalde, Sven Schulz, Brady Ericson, Carsten Bovenschen, Klaus-Dieter Nagel (from l. to r.)
“I am delighted that AKASOL AG provides us with a German market and technology leader for traction battery systems in the commercial-vehicle sector. With the new Gigafactory in Darmstadt, AKASOL AG is making a decisive contribution to CO2 reduction in public transportation and logistics. Innovative enterprises like this one help us meet our ambitious climate goals — and they create added value and jobs in Germany,” said Peter Altmaier, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, on the opening of the new headquarter and Gigafactory 1.
The AKASOL campus spans more than 20,000 square meters (approx. 215,000 square feet) in the southwest of Darmstadt and is conveniently located near German federal motorway A5 and the hub of Frankfurt am Main. The 15,000-square-meter (approx. 161,000-square-foot) two-level production, assembly and logistics hall is also home to a test and validation center for the testing of cells, modules and systems, ensuring the highest standards of quality. A 600 kWp solar plant feeds the production facility and offices as well as the German state of Hesse’s largest charging-station park for electric vehicles, featuring more than 60 charging stations.
“Founded by a young entrepreneur from southern Germany together with researchers and developers from the Technical University (TU) of Darmstadt, AKASOL AG has always managed to hold its own at the forefront of technological development. AKASOL is one of the key players in the market today. The example of AKASOL demonstrates the quality of Hesse as a business location, the relevance of the diverse university landscape for economic development in Hesse, and the potential that sustainable technologies have for creating future-proof jobs and generate economic momentum,” says Hesse Minister of Economics Tarek Al-Wazir.
The new offices in the 7,500-square-meter (approx. 81,000-Square-foot) headquarters adjacent to the production hall offer a state-of-the-art working environment for the more than 300 employees in research and development, sales, product and project management, purchasing and administration. The open-plan concept promotes collaborative work and employee interaction.
“It is important to us to offer our employees in the new headquarters a modern and attractive working environment, one that promotes both knowledge-sharing and personal well-being. Our campus has a sustainable energy supply and a production and test environment built to the highest standards of quality. With this investment, we are laying the cornerstone for our continued growth and long-term business success in the fast-growing market of electromobility,” said Carsten Bovenschen, CFO and Management Board member in charge of human resources at AKASOL AG. | https://medium.com/frankfurtvalley/akasol-opens-gigafactory-1-europes-largest-factory-for-commercial-vehicle-battery-systems-f13442f3c6ed | ['Pedro Gonçalo Ferreira'] | 2021-08-23 06:03:08.972000+00:00 | ['Gigafactory', 'Akasol', 'Hessen', 'Battery'] |
VR Interaction Frameworks vs Interaction Builder | The market in terms of VR creation tools is constantly expanding with more and more valuable offers and it may be difficult to understand different products to find which one would suite your project the best. To illustrate this point we will compare two looking alike products that you can use to create interactions for VR content: the VR Interaction Framework, a well-reviewed Unity Plugin known to be user friendly, and the Interaction Builder from the Interhaptics Suite.
Why these two?
Because they are similar in many points such as framework complexity, coding complexity, and what values they want to provide to developers. Both are built on 3 pillars: define an interactive/grabble object, define the body part/grabber, and events related to each interaction. Whether it is with the Interaction Builder or the VR Interaction Framework, your coding knowledge will not be under pressure to understand and create interactions. However, you will always have API/framework access to go more in-depth during your development process.
Specifications
Of course, it would be lying to say that they are identical. Some features look similar but are not built the same way and for the same purpose. Some features are completely different.
Trending AR VR Articles:
Starting with the VR Interaction Framework, you will find an easy to use grabber/grabbable system. It is not optimized for precise hand interactions but will work well for any interaction based on grabbing. Also, as it is not focused on hands, there is a dissociation between “what is a hand” and “what can grab” which gives some flexibility. VR Interaction Framework is mainly using button inputs to trigger interactions and events during interactions. It is also compatible with Oculus Quest hand tracking (precisely the Pinch input to simulate the grab). Counterpart is the loss of consistency between hand tracking input and controllers’ input. The interactions are half logic-based and half physic-based. Interactions are triggered logically (with a specific input/value) but the behavior of the object is managed by the physics engine which requires a bit of extra preparation on the object itself with physics components such as joints.
On the other hand, you will find the Interaction Builder. It is focused on hand interactions on a detailed level, which means a better definition of palm and fingers to have precise interactions based on body parts. As it is working around hands themselves, the Interaction Builder is not using button inputs to trigger interactions or events, but a grab strength computed with the skeleton of the hand. It gives a realistic representation of a “grab” and makes these interactions work consistently with both hand tracking and controllers. Everything is computed in a logic engine. No complex physics component is required to create an interactive object (usually you would use physical joints and configure them).
Each interaction is triggered logically and the behavior of the object in the 3D space is also logically managed therefore you just need to apply script and the object will behave as it should.
A small detail that is actually important in terms of user experience is the differentiation between big and small objects. It was a necessity since we do not grab objects the same way depending on their size (have more details about different ways to grab here).
Comparison table
If your project does not require fully realistic interactions and has more of a gaming approach, the VR Interaction Framework will easily help you in that way, specifically if you want to fully work in a physics-based environment. However, from its concept around the hand and a logical engine for stability, the Interaction Builder would be a default choice for any serious game, business, or professional training (e.g. any VR content requiring realistic hand interactions or VR content around Hand Tracking). Also, if you do not want to learn and spend time on the physics side of interactions, the Interaction builder will handle everything for you in a logical engine.
Test right now the Interaction Builder by downloading the Interhaptics Suite. Check our last blog post here for more news.
Don’t forget to give us your 👏 ! | https://arvrjourney.com/vr-interaction-framework-vs-interaction-builder-ce939cab7d87 | [] | 2020-06-10 15:34:02.836000+00:00 | ['VR', 'Vr Development', 'Unity3d', 'Virtual Reality', 'Interaction Design'] |
Mirror Mirror | Mirror Mirror on the wall
Do you think I’m fine at all?
Or do you reply hastily
To escape such eye sore?
Do you wish hands could appear
To shield your eyes from hurting further?
Or do you reveal my flaws
So I could stay with you much longer?
Mirror Mirror in my hand
Is there beauty in this land?
Not just sparkly eyes and clear skin
But do you reflect the beauty that lies within?
Should we focus on that bit
Or are we better off without it?
Tell me what you want to see
That’s the only way they’ll accept me
Mirror Mirror through the glass
I’m in a hurry but I’ll turn to the left to steal a glance
I can see through you but do you see through me?
Very odd how the thought of that scares me
Do you see my mind and my dirty little secrets?
Do you scoff at me because you know I’m imperfect
Or do you see everything I’m going through
And understand that my scars make me beautiful | https://medium.com/@ezinneclare/mirror-mirror-80d40962b083 | ['Ezinne Clare'] | 2020-12-26 13:10:47.302000+00:00 | ['Imperfection', 'Ezinne Clare', 'Mirror', 'Beauty', 'Poetry'] |
How Autonomous Vehicles Navigate Dangerous Lighting Conditions | By Sidhart Krishnamurthi, Product Management @ Recogni
Fig 1 — Cars Navigating Amidst Foggy Conditions
Imagine this common scenario related to dangerous lighting conditions — you are driving in a residential neighborhood on a foggy morning, coming up on a busy intersection. Due to the imperfect weather, you do not notice the upcoming red light in a timely manner. By the time you react, you make an illegal left turn and a collision occurs with another driver moving in the opposite direction.
Looking at the aggregate societal impact of such situations — almost 40,000 of these types of accidents occur annually, amounting to over 15,000 injuries. In addition to a foggy environment, there are numerous other factors that can lead to dangerous lighting conditions. Sun glare poses a major threat to one’s eyesight, mandating quicker reactions, which, unfortunately, may not be feasible. As a result, almost 10,000 sun glare-related accidents occur yearly. Also, many roads, particularly in rural areas, have inadequate street lighting, limiting one’s awareness of surrounding objects. Thus, an occupant on this type of road has a 35% higher chance of being a victim of a late-night/early-morning collision.
Delving into the mechanism behind why such collisions occur — humans have a non-zero (1.5s) reaction time. Because of this delay, people often cannot make a safe maneuver in a timely manner. Check out the series of images below to visualize this problem:
Fig 2 — Collision Step 1
Fig 3 — Collision Step 2
Fig 4 — Collision Step 3
As you can see, due to the dangerous lighting brought upon by fog, by the time the driver notices the red light, it is too late, and a dangerous scenario is at hand. Clearly, there must be a solution that can eliminate the human reaction time and improve road safety for everyone.
Fortunately, autonomous vehicles (AV) present a solution to dangerous lighting conditions on the road. With humans only acting as passengers, the non-zero reaction time is eliminated. To picture the effect of this, take a look at the series of images below to see a depiction of the above scenario, only with self-driving vehicles:
Fig 5 — Collision Aversion Step 1
Fig 6 — Collision Aversion Step 2
Fig 7 — Collision Aversion Step 3
With humans as passengers, the time delay due to the non-zero reaction time is eliminated, providing a larger window of time for the vehicle to make a safe maneuver. As a result, even in dangerous lighting conditions, such as fog in the scenario above, AVs can prevent the collision.
When humans drive, our brain processes the plethora of surrounding visual data in real-time with a data-center level of compute while consuming less power than a lightbulb. To mimic these capabilities and drive without any human intervention, AVs must be equipped with a platform that can generate a minimum of 75 Tera-Operations-Per-Second (TOPS) for every watt of power. This unsolved optimization problem is known as the visual perception problem, and it is the largest barrier to society realizing full autonomy and all of its subsequent safety benefits.
Currently, platforms are based on repurposing legacy technology. Because these products are not purpose-built to enable fully autonomous vehicles, they can only enable partial autonomy. To allow vehicles to drive on their own, car OEMs must replace their incumbent, technologically constrained solutions with something that can solve the visual perception problem.
We @ Recogni are developing such a solution. Our novel, purpose-built product is based on key innovations in math, ASIC architecture, and AI. As a result, our platform can generate 100 TOPS for every watt of power consumption. These unmatched capabilities illustrate that we are the only ones in the market that can solve the visual perception problem. As our product is clearly indispensable for full autonomy, OEMs must horizontally integrate our solution into their vehicles to allow society to experience roads without collisions due to dangerous lighting conditions.
To learn more about Recogni, check out www.recogni.com | https://medium.com/@recogni/how-autonomous-vehicles-navigate-dangerous-lighting-conditions-c7c0d301595a | ['Recogni Inc.'] | 2020-10-15 08:42:16.473000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Autonomous Vehicles', 'Automotive', 'Self Driving Cars', 'Transportation'] |
Welcome to Yonder and Home | Welcome to Yonder and Home
So let’s tell those stories, of food, folks, and faith, to the people who matter most in the places where we find them.
Photo by Andrew Donaldson, All Rights Reserved
I come from a place they call Up Yonder.
I’m but one of many. My ancestors have been on our mountain since before America was America, while others were still in the old country. When the family gathers, it is at the top of that mountain that most of us are connected to, either by blood, marriage, friendship, or just habit.
“Going Up Yonder” meant fellowship, family, and food. Lots of food. Lots of family. Several hundred usually, for a large gathering. Just on my mother’s side, which is native to Up Yonder, I’m the 19th (and youngest) grandchild, born to the 9th of 10 children, and father to the 58th, 61st, 64th, and 65th great-grandchildren. You get the idea; there is a mess of us Up Yonder.
Up Yonder meant many things: Family reunions, get-togethers for various things, camping out to get away, a meeting point for a day’s adventure elsewhere. There have been weddings, memorial services, and more birthdays and anniversaries than anyone cares to count. When eminent domain turned the river below our mountain into a lake and took the homes of friends and family, they went Up Yonder to build again. Eventually a permanent shelter was built on top of the mountain at the gathering place, and later expanded. Though flung to the far corners of the world, friends and family know they always have a place to come home to Up Yonder, wherever else they might roam.
The dictionary says “yonder” is an archaic term, used to describe something off in the distance, or in a certain direction, or of an area not otherwise specified. To we who call it home while seeking new horizons, there is nothing more immediate in thoughts, in dreams, in memories. It’s an anchoring realness, no matter how far yonder from the fire and food up on the hill you go. You measure all the adventures and experiences you might have across the street and around the world against that place, making you appreciate it and leave you longing for more. More adventures, more experiences, and more time Up Yonder to tell the stories of it all to those who matter most.
Hearing of my desire to write about such things, one particular individual snarked “you must only want it to be read by friends and family.” It was meant as a putdown. I’ll take it as a deal. For us, friends and family who appreciate such things, yonder isn’t some far-off thing. It’s the starting point, and the journey, and the destination, and everything in between from hither to yon.
So let’s tell those stories, of food, folks, and faith, to the people who matter most in the places where we find them.
Welcome to Yonder & Home. | https://medium.com/yonder-and-home/welcome-to-yonder-and-home-18a74ff3e76a | ['Andrew Donaldson'] | 2020-04-27 01:14:48.408000+00:00 | ['Family History', 'Faith', 'Travel', 'Family', 'Food'] |
No, The Pope’s Stance on Gay Civil Unions Is Not “Revolutionary” | There has been a great deal of press this week regarding Pope Francis’ declaration in a documentary endorsing civil unions for gay couples.
Some are calling it an “important step,” which in one sense may be true — i.e., in the sense of gradually updating a hopelessly out of date institution. In another sense, however, this whole thing is a bit of a smokescreen.
To explain why I think so (apart from the fact that LGBT people have been struggling in the US for civil union rights at least since the 1970's — making this not “new” at all), let’s first look at what Francis is quoted as having said, via CBC:
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said in one of his sit-down interviews for the film. “What we have to have is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.”
Granted, before I pick that apart, it is important to recognize that baby 👶 steps are better than no steps. And changes that happen gradually are usually more lasting than those that are sudden… And all change has to start somewhere.
That said, despite moving the needle somewhat on public acceptance, the pope is not endorsing gay marriage. He is not welcoming LGBT people to come celebrate the sacrament of their love within the church.
He is saying it is strictly a civil matter, and therefore outside the purview of the church.
“That way they are legally covered,” is a nice sentiment, but a cop-out, especially coming from the man who literally has the authority to change ecclesiastical law and practice by declaration.
When I read the statement, coming from the head of the Catholic Church, “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family,” I also read the unstated theological assumption behind it: that they have the right to be in a family, but they do not have the right to start a family.
To back that up, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Canon Law plainly state, in Section 1601:
“The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring…”
As here defined, marriage is only between a man and a woman, and its purpose is procreation.
Sadly, this inherently denigrates infertile couples, who despite otherwise “fitting the mold” are unable to procreate, through no fault of their own. Not to mention fertile couples who choose not to procreate, or unmarried couples who do.
It also, in my opinion, side-steps and does not take literally enough the sanctity of ALL human life, no matter its origin or up-bringing, which is also encoded in the Catechism, Section 2258:
“Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end…”
If life comes from the “creative action of God,” who is its “sole end,” and the express purpose of marriage is for the procreation and education of offspring, and the good of the spouses, then what need have we any longer to restrict the nature or status of the participants in this mystery?
Further, the Catechism, Section 2378 also asserts that children have the right “to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents.” Presumably, under this supposed theological system, children born outside this narrow definition are somehow lesser?
I’m sorry, but that is fucking stupid.
If that’s not stupid enough, 2379 reads:
“The Gospel shows that physical sterility is not an absolute evil. Spouses who still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with the Lord’s Cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or performing demanding services for others.”
So infertility is not considered an “absolute evil” — wow, how magnanimous. <sarcasm>
Doesn’t this wording seem to imply, however, that its… I don’t know… still evil?
How about it’s not evil at all — full stop?
And furthermore, adoption need not be a “last resort” for the infertile. It can be a righteous charge taken up by anyone committed to the well-being of a human life.
If you think I’m reading this in a way that is non-canonical, I encourage you to poke around among so-called Catholics who promulgate this type of hateful nonsense, and do so in the name of the Church with apparent impugnity:
“So, because a child has a right to be “the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents,” reproductive interventions such as IVF, donor eggs/sperm, and surrogacy are always morally wrong. […] The answer is that there is nothing wrong with the desire. The desire of a husband and wife to have a child is holy and good. But their good intention does not justify the use of evil means.”
Now, that’s just one person’s opinion, and is not necessarily what the Church itself would say — or is it? Catholic.com’s about page explains:
“Catholic Answers works each day to ensure our content is faithful to the Magisterium. […] Catholic Answers is listed in the Official Catholic Directory and is recognized as an apostolate in good standing by the Diocese of San Diego, where our main office is located.”
So, if what they assert is true, then the Catholic Church has literally no problem telling people that fertility treatments are evil. Because what is encoded in official Church doctrine is not all that far off.
Pretty revolutionary, if you ask me! <sarcasm><sarcasm><sarcasm>
In closing, there is a famous legend of St. Francis of Assisi, after whom Pope Francis took his name. The story goes that after visiting Pope Innocent III to gain official approval to start his own order of mendicant monks, Innocent some time later had a dream about St. Francis, which is depicted in the Giotto di Bondone in the painting above:
“In his dream, he saw the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral church of the Diocese of Rome — and it was falling over. But someone was standing in the breach: there was Francis, the young leader of the strange new group, and he was holding it up.”
Perhaps Pope Francis sees his own spiritual mission as a contemporary equivalent, to fulfill the commandment to “rebuild my church,” that St. Francis of Assisi supposedly received from God.
While I can’t question anyone else’s relationship to what they think is the divine, it does beg the question: is this an edifice which is even worth re-building?
We have ample evidence, after all, for how the Church actually treats those children who it teaches are a creative expression of God. What moral authority do they have left to deign to teach us about literally anything?
It might just be that an even more radically Christian response— or even simply a more humane and just one—would be to tear down all the corruption, rot, and hypocrisy, and start anew.
Now, that would be revolutionary!
If the Pope is worried about causing a schism in the Church by allowing LGBT to fully participate in the life of the Church, I say let it happen.
Let him be the one to reverse the image of St. Francis as the humble repairman, and instead disassemble the cracked edifice brick by brick, in order to better serve the Lord of life.
And let those who cling to exclusion and malice and call it religion be caught out and swept aside. | https://medium.com/@timboucher/no-the-popes-stance-on-gay-civil-unions-is-not-revolutionary-fd2bce91de60 | ['Timothy S. Boucher'] | 2020-10-23 19:08:21.660000+00:00 | ['Christianity', 'Social Justice', 'LGBTQ', 'LGBT', 'Marriage'] |
Measuring Culture? A culture builder’s toolset | wearebridgie.io by lovekozhukhovskaya
Too many startup founders, culture isn’t worth investing in because there isn’t a clear return. With limited funding, founders typically choose to funnel their investments into topline growth or headcount, which will fuel growth or follow up funding.
Whilst the ROI isn’t as tangible and easily measurable as some of these metrics, culture should not be sidelined. As Patrick Lencioni says: “many leaders struggle to embrace organizational health [ … ] because they quietly believe they are too sophisticated, too busy, or too analytical to bother with it. In other words, they think it’s beneath them.” As argued in the Efficient Startup, there is a clear analytical case for the importance of culture as a way to increase the efficiency of your team. Not only this, but the woes of toxic culture can end up being a deterrent to growth if left unmonitored.
Culture is the real fabric of a team. Culture is about core values as it pertains to the way the team lives their lives at work. Culture is how people behave. How we interact with people. How we conduct ourselves during meetings. How we treat friends and team members. And how it influences the way we make important (business) decisions.
So do we measure all this in a business context? In this article, we’ll focus on tools that can help you track a key metric: employee engagement.
According to Forbes, employee engagement measures “is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals”. There are various tools that allow culture builders to measure this engagement using a variety of methods. Let’s take a look at the leading employee engagement tools and start exploring which one might be right for your team.
Culture Amp is a leading People & Culture platform that helps nearly 3000 companies across the globe take action to improve employee engagement, retention, and performance.
Culture Amps quick to deploy platform provides continuous listening, feedback, and development tools throughout the employee lifecycle to quickly deliver the insights needed to confidently make decisions and effectively prioritize resources to maximize individual & organizational performance.
Peakon is an employee success platform that converts feedback into insights you can put to work. Make it easy for employees to voice their perspectives without being overwhelmed by questions. Build a robust and accurate dataset that you can use to provide your people leaders with recommended actions and real-time insights about their team. Contextualised benchmarks provide a realistic view of your progress against your industry, as well as teams of a similar size and makeup.
Leapsome. CEOs & HR teams in forward-thinking companies including Spotify, Trivago, and Babbel use Leapsome to create a continuous cycle of performance management and personalized learning that powers employee engagement and the success of their business.
As a people management platform, Leapsome combines tools for Goals & OKRs Management, Performance Reviews & 360s, Employee Learning & Onboarding, Employee Engagement Surveys, Feedback & Praise, and Meetings.
Officevibe is an employee engagement survey software with key features like anonymous employee feedback, eNPS tracking, reports for every team and the whole company, and an extensive improvement section. We provide real-time insights on your employees' happiness & productivity. Our 350+ pre-build questions are based on industry standards and make sure every aspect of your company is covered. | https://medium.com/@evabaluch/measuring-culture-a-culture-builders-toolset-2112d2a02269 | ['Eva Balúchová'] | 2021-03-19 18:21:17.693000+00:00 | ['Scaleup', 'Culture', 'Startup', 'Organizational Culture', 'Remote Working'] |
How learning to negotiate can help designers | Photo by Headway on Unsplash
Designs that live on your computer, or phones are like a ball of clay. They can be molded into whatever shape we want. However, that means they are never written in stone and whatever is on the screen can always change.
In these moments, design can feel like one negotiation after another. Examples:
“Should we move this step earlier?”
“Why don’t we use [insert design pattern here]?”
“How does that idea help our [insert business goal here]?”
“How will this appeal to our users?”
Anyone of these questions (and others like it) can lead to a negotiation. Designs get challenged, constraints are discovered, tradeoffs are made, and a plan is set in motion to meet the goals / timeline. It’s during these times that if we’re not negotiating with ourselves, then anytime we present a design means we’re negotiating with other designers, or people outside of it.
So whoever said “good design sells itself” was probably not the best at working with others.
There are never times when design sells itself, let alone speak for themselves. So if good design does not sell itself, and we instead have to sell our designs, then how can we start being better at that?
Negotiation 101
Whatever image comes to mind when you hear the word “sales”, don’t let it distract from what you can learn from it. At its core, sales is about developing relationships, knowing your stuff, being a good communicator, and learning when to shut up and listen.
All that comes together when negotiating…and again, designers are always negotiating. This skill takes practice, but it can be learned. This is where you can start:
Come prepared
Practice: Detaching and identify what you want to accomplish
Do: Write down the 1–2 goals (or key points) you want to make clear. The clearer you make your position, the better the other side will understand where you’re coming from.
Don’t: Become so attached to your ideas that you’re unwilling to budge. If the idea is truly worth fighting for, best come prepared with clear and solid reasons to back it up (aka user research/data analysis).
Practice: Playing out the conversation in your head to anticipate objections
Do: Ask what others want to accomplish before the meeting begins, or even right when it starts. If you know what you want, and you know what they want, the better prepared you’ll be.
Don’t: Assume (period).
Listen, Ask, Repeat
Practice: Conducting yourself as if you were doing a user interview
Do: If you’ve ever conducted a user interview, then the techniques you use there are really no different here. Keep questions open-ended, practice active listening, and ask why.
Don’t: Dominate the conversation. There’s a fine line between driving the conversation and dominating it. “Driving” = keeping the overall goals in mind to align opinions whereas “dominating” = your goal is the only one that matters and you’re talking way too much about it.
Practice: Learning how to handle objections
Do: Read Hubspot’s “The Ultimate Guide to Objection Handling” and apply what you find relevant. This is a highly-effective technique because it trains you how to find common ground.
technique because it trains you how to find common ground. Don’t: Disregard objections. You do so at your own risk because while you’re talking, the other side is not listening. They are likely thinking about their objection and are waiting to bring it up again.
Remember:
A healthy negotiation feels like a two-way street. It’s about recognizing the other side while they try to do the same with you. As a result, healthy relationships form and this can help keep the product moving forward.
But as a designer, remember this:
The user is not in the room, but you are…so try to represent their goals as best you can.
If you don’t know the answer to a question, it’s okay to ask for time to look into it before making a concession, or a decision.
If it helps calm your nerves, think of a negotiation as just another discussion. You’re just talking with your coworkers about addressing a problem.
Thanks for reading! | https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/how-learning-to-negotiate-can-help-designers-485e3d4e61cb | ['Case Ronquillo'] | 2020-12-06 13:04:37.017000+00:00 | ['Careers', 'User Experience', 'Collaboration', 'Product Design', 'UX'] |
Supply Chain Management for Healthcare Sector | The healthcare industry plays an important part in a country’s GDP. It determines the export status, provides employment and opportunities for investment. The healthcare industry also supports the Insurance industry.
But, since the start of the year 2020, every country in the world is fighting a pandemic, and an at the forefront is the healthcare sector. The pandemic changed the perspective of the healthcare industry. Hospitals all over the world, for a brief period, were struggling with maintaining stocks for PPE kits, ventilators, medication and many more essentials.
The pandemic exposed many vulnerabilities of the healthcare industry, and one of them was supply chain management for the healthcare industry.
Healthcare Supply Chain is unique
Healthcare industry has many stakeholders. It’s not only about making sure if enough gloves or masks are available.
The industry is under a close watch of regulatory bodies like the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) or Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). These bodies have implemented strict controls regarding quality as well howa certain drugs or equipment needs to be handled e.g. wearing protective suits during a CT scan. One size fit all does not apply to the Healthcare sector e.g. to treat most patients a normal glove would be sufficient, but for some patients, due to their medical condition, a latex-free or medicated glove would be appropriate to be used.
There are different stages in the Supply chain. The supply chain starts with the manufacturers of medicines and medical equipment’s.Every hospital can source directly from the manufacturer or the supplier. The sourced products are then received by the healthcare organisation and stocked. For hospitals insufficient stocking can invite unwanted legal action, therefore it’s an extremely crucial operation. There needs to be a constant check on the inventory and reorder levels. In the case of Hospital chains, which have a centralised warehousing capability, transferring of medicine and equipment to the various branches in time and required quantity has to be constantly monitored. Add to this, some equipment needs to be stored in special conditions e.g. refrigerated, contamination-free packaging etc. and incidentally even the packages have to be sourced periodically.
And all this has to function seamlessly, without hitch. As there are lives at stake.
Information Technology in SCM for Healthcare
In a recent survey of healthcare leaders it was found:
98% believe Supply chain analytics can help in reducing costs
76% of healthcare organisations are performing basic SCM operations like tracking inventory.
10% reported, with an efficient SCM platform, surgical delays could have been avoided.
Healthcare organisations need to start implementing robust and intelligent SCM platforms to bring about efficiencies in their operations.
Decision-makers have a choice of two types of platforms:
Generic ERPNiche SCM platforms
Generic Enterprise Resource Planning systems. These are not necessarily the best choice for hospitals. The reasons being:
They are generic in nature and not built for a specific purpose.
Requires time to adapt the system to hospitals processes and functioning.
Niche Healthcare solutions: Solutions built specifically for the healthcare industry. Solutions which are easier to operate, understands the challenges faced by hospitals and focuses on specific areas like surgery equipment, medicine storage and usage etc.
How to choose a solution?
Some fundamental features to be considered while deciding on an SCM solution are:
IntegrationEase of useRobust ReportingCustomer-centricAbility to integrate and transfer Clinical and financial information easilyEnd users are Healthcare professionalsHas the ability to generate granular reports.Availability of superior customer service before, during and after implementation
iM3 SCM suite is the best of the class solution satisfying the above conditions. A cloud-based solution which includes app integration, scanner-based applications, work priority tracking, inventory control, real time dashboardsand many more features.
It is built by People Plus Software Inc. a company developing fully integrated cloud-based tools with a focus on supply chain, e-commerce, inventory and warehouse management. | https://medium.com/@peopleplussoftware/supply-chain-management-for-healthcare-sector-cedbd385d38c | ['Peopleplus Software'] | 2020-12-18 04:06:21.047000+00:00 | ['Supply Chain', 'Pps', 'Peopleplus Software', 'Healthcare', 'Supply Chain Management'] |
21 Free Things to do in NYC — 22 and Wandering | 21 Free Things to do in NYC — 22 and Wandering
Central park offers some of the prettiest spots in the city. You could easily spend a whole day enjoying the park and find lots of awesome things to do. You can even look up famous movie and tv shows that have filmed in Central Park and go check the location out in person!
2. Catch a movie in Bryant park
The Bryant Park Summer Film Festival has some great options for sunset movies. All you have to do is arrive early enough to get a seat on the lawn and enjoy the film.
3. Stroll through the High Line
The High Line is a really cool elevated park transformed from an old railway trail. The trail runs for 1.45 miles and is filled with awesome art, green spaces, and plenty of places to just relax.
4. Find the Grand Central whisper gallery
In Grand Central Station there’s a section of four corners where you can whisper into one corner and can be heard across the way. This is because of the design that carries the echo so the other person can hear you across the room.
5. Cross the Brooklyn Bridge
The iconic Brooklyn Bridge is a huge tourist attraction but makes for a great picture. To avoid crowds, go earlier in the morning to get a great picture.
6. Head to Moma for free Friday afternoon
The Museum of Modern Art in midtown is a popular art museum. On Friday afternoons they offer free admission.
7. Visit Belvedere Castle
Belvedere Castle is in Central Park overlooking the great lawn. You can get to it through the Shakespeare Garden. The view from the lower level is gorgeous and you can see the whole castle.
8. Visit the ‘Friends’ building
If you’re a fan of the tv show friends then you can go see the iconic building that they friends lived in. This building corner was always shown on the show and it’s easily recognizable. The address is 90 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village.
9. View the Arch in Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park and the famous arch are also popular attractions in NYC. The park is small and always filled with people. Take a seat and relax on the bench and get a picture with the famous arch.
10. Wander through Chelsea Market
Chelsea Market is right at the end of the High Line and has some really cute shops and restaurants. I always go in just to look around without buying anything because I love to see what’s new in all the shops.
11. Ride the Staten Island Ferry
The Staten Island Ferry is completely free and you can actually get great views. It drives right past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
12. Sit on the red steps in Times Square
Times Square is crazy busy and exciting and a lot of fun to check out at night when all the billboards are lit up. The red steps are in the heart of Times Square and one of the best places to sit and people watch and enjoy the sights.
13. Brooklyn Botanical Garden
The Brooklyn Botanical garden offers free admission Fridays before noon and winter weekdays from December-February.
14. Watch the model boats in Central Park
At the conservatory in Central Park, people can rent small model boats and sail them across the water. There are benches and seating all around the pond that make for a great view of the water and the boats.
15. Brooklyn Bridge Park
Another gorgeous park to take a stroll through. The views of the Brooklyn Bridge are some of the best you can get in the city. In the summer you can also catch free movies at dark.
16. Window shop on Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue midtown is known for its attraction to shoppers because of its high end shops. The windows are always put together really nicely and it’s a lot of fun to take a stroll down the street and see the different window displays.
17. Visit public beaches
There are plenty of free beaches in NYC including Coney Island Beach and Boardwalk and Manhattan Beach Park. These are great in the summer especially to soak up some sun and enjoy the water views.
18. Tour the New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is right in Bryant Park and is really a beautiful building. If you love reading definitely check out the inside of this gorgeous building.
19. Take advantage of free museum days
A lot of the major museums offer free admission days and as long as you plan in advance, you can take advantage of these offers. There are tons of options for great museums and galleries to visit.
20. Chelsea Galleries
Check out more art touring the Chelsea galleries in Chelsea. There are a bunch of them right near each other that you can check out for free.
21. Walk to the top of the Vessel
Hudson Yards is a new neighborhood at Midtown West and the biggest attraction is the Vessel, a large structure with different levels and staircases to climb. You can go to the top of the vessel for free, you just have to get a ticket when you arrive for an available time slot and arrive during that time slot. | https://medium.com/@sgaudio1/21-free-things-to-do-in-nyc-22-and-wandering-279ff292ad97 | ['Samantha Gaudio'] | 2019-10-16 20:10:51.103000+00:00 | ['Tourism', 'New York', 'Travel', 'Free Activities', 'NYC'] |
How To Survive Agadir Airport — With Kids In Tow | Did you see our post on travel tips for visiting Agadir? I didn’t talk about navigating Agadir airport in that post, as given the experience we had there, I felt it deserved an article of its own. There are definitely some tips and tricks we had wished we had of known before landing at Agadir Airport, which would have made our experience of travelling with two kids a lot easier. These travel tips will help you with arriving into any airport in Morocco, but especially Agadir airport.
If you are flying to Agadir airport for the first time then this post is a must read. Agadir airport is small, especially for the number of tourists going through it. We travelled from Manchester airport to Agadir for February half term and it was busy.
I think the summer holidays would be quite chaotic there, so I want to make sure you are ahead of the game. As well as being small, the airport also processes passengers quite slowly due to the lack of automation. If you know this in advance then you and your kids will be prepared and you will avoid frayed tempers and bored children while you are travelling.
Tips for Getting Through Agadir Airport
1. I would suggest having a few things ready in your hand luggage before you land at Agadir airport to help you get through passport control as quickly as possible. Make sure you have a pen, some water to drink and, if you are travelling with young kids, something that will keep them busy while they are waiting to get through passport control.
2. When you enter the building, collect enough landing cards for your entire travel party for entering and leaving Morocco.
3. Do not waste time completing the cards in the hall. Get yourself and your kids in the queue as quickly as possible as the queue for passport control moves very slowly. It’s also warm! We didn’t have a drink left and the kids went a bit crazy so we all felt a bit frazzled by the time we were processed. We also wasted valuable time completing the paperwork before joining the queue.
4. There are lots of exchange bureaus inside the airport competing for your business. They seemed popular with people who knew what they were doing. If you take Euros or pound sterling this could be a good place to change your money to dirhams.
5. Don’t worry about waiting for your luggage, it will probably have done 5 laps of the conveyor belt before you get through passport control.
6. If you have an airport transfer booked, and you can’t see your pick up at the arrivals gate, they are probably waiting for you outside. If you exit the building you will see lots more transfers waiting to pick people up. We got a bit confused and a porter helped us with our luggage, which was kind of unnecessary thinking about it, but we were frazzled after waiting to get through passport control so long. The tip cost me 5 euros.
7. We had learnt a few lessons from arriving at Agadir airport for our return, but not all! When our transfer dropped us off we were ready to politely say ‘no thank you’ to the porters and made our own way to the airport, which was literally across the road.
8. The luggage goes through a security scanner before you enter the building. This is another queue worth getting in as quickly as possible. You need plenty of time to get through Agadir airport, if you are late trust me when I say it will make things very stressful.
9. If you picked up extra landing cards when you arrived at Agadir airport, have them completed ready to give to passport control when you leave. This will save you a job when you arrive at Agadir airport.
10. Once you have got through the security scanner, look for your check in desk and luggage drop off straight away. It’s not particularly well organised and the queues can be a bit messy, so keep an eye on what is going on. Be prepared for a wait to drop off your bags as luggage labels are hand written and not printed and luggage backs up on the conveyor belt.
11. You will then join another queue to get through passport control. Be prepared as the kids might get a little restless by this point and everyone will be feeling hot and bothered.
12. If you are planning to stock up on drinks and snacks at the airport, you need to move quickly. You can only buy soft drinks at the two cafes inside the airport and the queues are long. Our flight was slightly delayed and to be honest, it actually came in handy.
13. You can buy snacks in the shops as well as the cafes, or you might just accept paying a fortune for some mediocre airplane food at this point to save waiting in another queue.
14. There is a small play area in the departure lounge that will keep small children entertained for a while before you take off.
15. Make sure you have access to some activities for the kids to keep them entertained while they are waiting. The departure lounge is busy and stressful and cranky kids is the last thing you need before you head home.
We all know that air travel with kids can have its challenges, and some airports make it easier than others. Agadir airport is one that could benefit from being a bit bigger and better organised to make family travel here a more positive experience. We hope that by reading our tips about using Agadir airport for visiting Morocco we will help prepare you and your kids for your trip here.
Have you used Agadir airport before? Are these helpful tips? Let me know in the comments below.
Not travelling to Agadir yet? Pin this post for later | https://medium.com/@where2nextkids/how-to-survive-agadir-airport-with-kids-in-tow-c50421765382 | ['Zena S Suitcase'] | 2019-03-09 17:41:00.644000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Agadir', 'Travel Tips', 'Morocco', 'Travelling'] |
Cara Cepat Bisa Main Gitar. | in In Bitcoin We Trust | https://medium.com/@donyputra/cara-cepat-bisa-main-gitar-68abdefba403 | ['Dony Putra'] | 2020-12-24 04:48:42.330000+00:00 | ['Gitar', 'Bahasa Indonesia', 'Cara', 'Belajar', 'Indonesia'] |
This is it. I’m doing that thing that makes me think I must be crazy… | On Aug. 29th the woman who created the summit, June Kaewsith, launched registration for a 9-month mentorship program for storytellers who identify as women. Last week I decided: I want in. I filled out an application and when it was accepted, I met with her virtually to find out more. The program starts Oct. 1st. Seeing that there is an opportunity to work with a storytelling coach now feels like the next stone in my path, lighting up on my journey. My entire heart and soul is lighting up!
I used to be a yoga truther (e.g. “I mean it’s fun but It’s not real exercise, lol!”). In the year since being laid off I began a home practice of yoga (and some Qi gong) that profoundly changed my understanding of the importance of somatic work in healing and strength building — mental AND physical. (I’m even thinking of taking a yoga teacher training next year! So I’ve basically done a 180 on this lol). It’s really in the last 6 months that I’ve become a “believer” and really an avid supporter of somatic work as a necessary part of any profound growth. Growth, learning and healing are a major part of what’s expressed in stories. Of course, June specializes in… somatic work! It’s a vital part of her storytelling method.
I’ve been reading and re-reading the curriculum for her program (called Your Story Medicine) and each part feels so immediately relevant in my life and resonates so much. It feels like kismet that the program has come at this time. Right now my resources are limited and I am happy to patiently wait until I have more money — at the same time this course feels so right on time to support me as I go into the deep work of healing my relationship with my expression and my voice, which feels so urgent to my next steps right now. I am grateful to all who would love to show confidence and support in my journey by making a contribution. I am grateful to you, either way, who provide emotional and spiritual support (and rides… and wine…). I am thankful for you. Thank you for considering this.
Yes, I’m in a period of financial distress, and at the same time, as June has taught me, now is the time I am tapping into my resourcefulness so that I can break this pattern for my past and future generations. This is deep. | https://medium.com/@inkannyo/this-is-it-im-doing-that-thing-that-makes-me-think-i-must-be-crazy-8d77f0415b90 | [] | 2019-09-28 16:17:23.775000+00:00 | ['Family', 'Women', 'Giving', 'Storytelling Traditions', 'Culture'] |
One year in at Pinterest and looking ahead as we grow | Jeremy King | SVP of Technology
A little over a year ago, I joined Pinterest as the SVP of Technology. The world looks different than I thought it would around my first “Pinniversary”, but the opportunities before us are more apparent and abundant than ever before.
For me personally, I’m now living with my college-aged children again — right as my wife and I were adjusting to life as empty nesters. It’s nothing we could have imagined, but the silver linings include reliving old traditions like family dinners and game nights, and starting new ones like trying to help with MA26600 Differential Equations and ENGN0040 Dynamics and Vibrations. The same type of silver linings are true at Pinterest. While the world has thrown us for a loop, we’re continuing to build a product that brings people the inspiration to create a life they love, and Pinners are responding with record levels of usage.
With most of the world quarantined, Pinterest seems made for this moment. More people than ever before are coming to Pinterest to search for ideas related to meal prep, homeschool, work from home setups, renovations, and beauty ideas. In the past few months, searches have increased 60% year-over-year and the number of boards created are up 60%. For advertisers, Pinterest is a source for unique insights into how people are living through quarantine and what they’re planning to do next.
In response, we’ve been expediting priority features and shipping weekly products, from a Shopify partnership to give quick catalog uploading access to businesses of all sizes, to today’s news, where we announced we’re working with influencers and publishers on our shopping platform. We also launched the Today tab with daily inspiration including expert wellness information from the CDC and WHO, and escalated our work in the fight against health misinformation. And, we’ve made some real progress using machine learning over the years including developing the ability to auto-organize boards. I’m also really excited about some breakthrough work using AutoML that’s improved engagement, ad relevance and reduced infrastructure costs, all of which help Pinners plan for current times as well as post-quarantine.
We’re hiring!
As any engineer will tell you, more usage means greater importance placed on keeping the service up, keeping it inspiring and useful, and secure — which is why we’re hiring for engineering roles in areas like growth, machine learning, data science, ads relevance and shopping. Browse roles and apply at pinterestcareers.com.
This might come as a surprise, but we’re a fairly nimble company — 2,000+ people working on a product used by 367 million every month. Each engineer is responsible for about 367,000 Pinners! Pinterest is at this sweet spot where it’s grown outside of the startup phase (in 2019 we generated more than $1B in revenue, and a strong balance sheet with >$1.5B in cash), but is still small enough where each person can have a real impact on how the product and company evolves. This mentality of building for impact and acting as an owner is the hallmark of our engineering culture.
We’ve also continued with engineering internships, with 58 interns recently joining us and 51 new college grads recently joining us full time. I’m proud that we didn’t need to slow down that process for college hires, who are already dealing with so much uncertainty.
How work is changing
It’s clear that engineers don’t necessarily need to be in one or two locations. At Pinterest, the majority of employees will likely be working from home until 2021. The plan is for a very small number of employees (those who need to be in the workplace) to tentatively start returning to the office in August.
Each day we’re learning more about thriving remotely. By nature, Pinterest has a document-writing culture, where detailed information is accessible to anyone who needs it, as well as company-wide usage of Google Docs, Slack, Jamboard, Dropbox Paper and Coderpad for interviews. This has all served us well as we shift to a remote culture. We’ve also implemented a virtual onboarding process to get new hires connected to the work and teams immediately.
We’ve learned to rethink coordination of larger projects through closer collaboration and virtual touchpoints. We’re also staying connected through weekly company-wide video chats, engineering-wide Slack AMAs and virtual happy hours. And, we supplied employees with computer screens, and reimbursement to furnish their home offices so they can work comfortably for the foreseeable future. I’m surprised every week by all the new ways our teams are cranking and having fun together.
We need to be real about how we feel
While many tech companies will be working remotely for the remainder of the year and the discussion of how we’ll work is fresh in everyone’s minds, what hasn’t been discussed is how we feel.
We’ve been working from home for months now, and we’ve gotten into a groove of collaborating remotely, and being vocal when processes need to change. We’re also reminding employees that small changes can help in not feeling “always on”, like turning video off for meetings whenever you need to, going for a walk while taking some calls, and signing off as needed. It’s crucial to be empathetic to prioritizing wellbeing and the differing circumstances among colleagues, as well as the changes day-to-day, as we continue to grow as a remote workforce for the foreseeable future.
For starters, last week we took two days off as a company to recharge, and we’re being open with each other about burnout and balance. Beyond the recharge days, we’re offering a range of mental wellness benefits including free therapy sessions for employees and their partners/dependants, 24/7 mobile coaching support, live wellness classes, manager training on how to support employees, and employee resource groups. This all only works if we put the proverbial oxygen masks on ourselves first.
We’re also giving back through initiatives like engineers volunteering their time to work on the How We Feel project, an app developed by our CEO Ben Silbermann (but that operates independently of the company) to help scientists track the spread of COVID-19.
My first Knit Con last year, which is our employee conference where we come together to teach each other new skills. We celebrated Knit Con 2020 last week by taking a few days off to recharge.
Where do we go from here?
There’s a renewed energy around mental wellness as well as time with family and finding new ways to be creative, all of which can help inform the workplace, company culture and our product. Personally I’m finding time to enjoy the longer days and hitting the trails early and late, with lots of home DIY projects and new BBQ recipes on the weekends.
Joining the team for a “WFH BBQ”
I’m constantly talking to the team about how we can be as efficient as possible while supporting new remote environments. Just as with any new initiative, we’ll be testing different options to determine the best path forward as we establish the future of our workplace. Our offices (beyond COVID-19, and when it’s safe for more and more people to return) will always be a special place for teams, collaboration, fun, and comradery, but an evolving workplace means hiring could take place anywhere in the future.
There’s a great sense of stability when you have the opportunity to work on technology people genuinely love. I’ve been proud to be part of this product, that gives people an escape from politics and news, and that serves them in the unbreakable parts of life that will be here during and after moments like COVID-19 — the need to cook dinner for our families, be creative with kids, make a house a home, and find inspiration and positivity in the everyday. With the trust Pinners have placed in us, we’ll continue innovating in areas like video, computer vision, and the future of commerce as more retailers than ever will be coming online.
Most of Pinterest hasn’t been built yet. While over the years we’ve established ourselves as the leader in visual discovery, we’ve just scratched the surface of what’s possible with the product and growth. We have a ton of work to do, whether its evolving Pinterest for new uses or adding capabilities that increase engagement, it’s critical we continue to grow a world-class team that will keep up with our evolving workplace and build a first-of-its kind discovery and inspiration platform. We’ve always grown deliberately with a focus on long-term impact. If this sounds like something that excites you too, come join us! | https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/one-year-in-at-pinterest-and-looking-ahead-as-we-grow-25bee26a999f | ['Pinterest Engineering'] | 2020-05-19 19:46:04.216000+00:00 | ['Hiring', 'Covid 19', 'Wellbeing', 'Engineering'] |
In the face of economic crisis, NGO helps more than 700 families in Fazenda Rio Grande | In the face of economic crisis, NGO helps more than 700 families in Fazenda Rio Grande Laís da Rosa Jun 17·7 min read
The Vale da Benção Beneficent Association project works against hunger and poverty
Foto: Divulgação ONG
For Laís da Rosa e Felipe da Fonte
A survey released by the Institute for the Development of Social Investment (IDIS) revealed that in 2018, 70% of Brazilians have already made some cash donations to social causes. The data showed that, despite the practice of donation not having advanced, about 42% of Brazilians donate because they care about the causes and 40% donate to help those who need it most.
As much as the donation culture in Brazil has not advanced in recent years, we must value the institutions that receive donations to distribute food, products and clothing to people in social vulnerability.
Many people don’t know how a donation can make a difference, whether it’s a package of beans, a package of wheat, a piece of clothing, or any kind of product, but it makes a difference for those who really need it.
Economist Angela Welters says that, in general, people look for institutions or NGOs when they don’t know who to donate to; they look for reputable entities that, in fact, make the help reach those who need it. She says that the importance of NGOs is precisely to serve as a bridge between individuals who want to donate and individuals who need help.
During this period of pandemic that we are facing, many NGOs and charities have stopped receiving donations and often ended their activities. But others are still developing their projects and collecting food for distribution in the community.
Welters says that Brazil was already in a very severe economic crisis before the pandemic, with high unemployment, informality and poverty growing month by month. “There was already a scenario that was not favorable for the economy this year. What the pandemic produced was a global and more intense crisis phenomenon, which we are still speculating in terms of scope. However, all experts say that we cannot imagine solutions in the short term, especially in Brazil, where the situation is more complex and will depend on the unfolding of the political crisis”, he says.
For Welters, the pandemic should generate an even bigger recession, which should impact the third sector as well. She says that the prospects are not good, as in addition to the pandemic, we have great political instability that is driving investors away from the country. “We can imagine a significant reduction in family income, an increase in unemployment and an increase in family indebtedness. Increased poverty and possible collapse of small and medium enterprises. The instability of the economy, reflected in the income of individuals and companies, should have a negative impact on the scenario of private financing of activities such as this one”, he says.
She reiterates that as poverty and the number of families in situations of social vulnerability must increase, the activities of NGOs are gaining importance at this time, but the problem is financing.
Without depending on the government, the Beneficent Association Vale da Bênção, founded by pastor Zita Ribeiro Ramos and Sebastião Ramos, offers 12 projects for children, young people, adults and the elderly. Among them are: digital inclusion project, project against hunger and poverty, anti-drugs, sewing, music classes, web design, crafts, futsal, dance and theater, Spanish classes and also receive donations for pregnant women.
With all these projects, the Vale da Bênção Beneficent Association achieved prominence in the community, which is located in Fazenda Rio Grande. Currently, the NGO is serving more than 700 families in just one project, “Projeto Pão Nosso”, which fights hunger and poverty. In addition to serving 162 people in other projects.
Anderson, son of the association’s founders, is also responsible for administering and taking care of the financial part of the institution, says that Associação Vale da Bênção has become a reference for the local population. “We believe that association is essential today. It is a reference to being a place where people already remember the name and identify it as a place where there is food. It is a place where hunger can be satiated, where thirst will be satisfied, the family will be accompanied, and so on. It is a place of blessing and peace. It’s a haven for those in need.”
He also says that before the pandemic they needed computers for the computer lab, because there are only two computers — which are not in good condition — for four students to learn. And at the moment they are in need of sewing machines, the simplest, for the production of masks. “Pastor Zita, the founder of the NGO, teaches sewing, and now the students are learning to produce masks to earn an income. Some of them are already selling and getting an income to support themselves. They are managing to buy their daily bread,” says Anderson.
The Vale da Benção Association receives all kinds of donations, hygiene products, both for cleaning and personal care, all kinds of food, furniture, electronic equipment, construction material, baby trousseau items, clothing for all ages, among other products.
Joraci Boza has been making donations to the NGO for two years. She reports that she already knows their work and that’s why she insists on making donations of fruit and vegetables. “I don’t do more than the obligation, as I have the conditions and intend to continue making donations”, he says.
The founder of the institution Zita Ribeiro Ramos says that in the midst of the pandemic, they are providing people with food. “On Wednesdays, we supply the people, because with this pandemic we make food and deliver it ready for 200 people, and every day the number of people is increasing more”, he says. She is also offering free sewing classes for people to be able to sell and earn their income.
The NGO is located at Rua Cabo Verde, 512 — Jd Santarém — Bairro Nações I — Fazenda Rio Grande-PR. The contact telephone number is (41) 99118–1762.
How it all began
Zita Ribeiro Ramos says that the main reason she created Associação Vale da Benção was because of a little girl she adopted, because, at the time, her mother had rejected her. “If one day I can help a mother, a family, I will help, and not do what other people somehow did to me”, he says.
It was at church that she realized that people were going to receive a word of comfort, but their stomachs were empty. Then she realized that it was more important to supply people’s hunger before anything else. “When I started with Associação Vale da Benção, taking children off the street, I started with a chicken, a package of rice, a package of cooking oil and a package of beans, and never again did God miss it. I’ve been with the social project for 14 years,” says Zita.
The founder says that the biggest difficulty in creating the association was the financial one. She says that, at the time, the local community was very different, a very violent neighborhood with a lot of crime. She reveals that she asked God for a strategy to reduce violence in the neighborhood. “God, give me a strategy, how I’m going to win and conquer this territory. And Jesus put in my heart a march for peace in the neighborhood. It worked and completed 11 years that we do, every 1st of May.”
Among the stories that most marked his life at the institution, there is the day when 60 people were at the NGO for lunch and there was only a kilo of ground beef. “I took that kilo of ground beef, combined it with two glasses of wheat that the neighbor lent me, kneaded it with that ground beef and started making meatballs the size of a finger’s head, made a sauce, thickened it with the wheat. Then my daughter gave food to everyone. And there’s still left over,” says Zita.
At the moment, Zita is teaching knitting and sewing classes for people who want to learn and earn an income. She says that they are making masks with fabric donations and slippers with shoe glue, shoe soles and a milk carton to make the insole. “Before, I used to buy cardboard to make an insole and, over the years, I learned that you could make an insole with a milk carton. I took the milk cartons, washed them, soaked them, threw them in the machine and it worked. Now that I’ve seen that milk cartons work to make insoles, I don’t need to buy those insoles anymore.” | https://medium.com/@laladarosa2000/in-the-face-of-economic-crisis-ngo-helps-more-than-700-families-in-fazenda-rio-grande-c67f42ba5 | ['Laís Da Rosa'] | 2021-06-17 02:24:37.840000+00:00 | ['Ngo', 'Crisis', 'Like', 'Economics'] |
Female Disruptors: Olivia Mannix of Cannabrand On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry | Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I am an award winning entrepreneur, cannabis marketing expert, plant medicine advocate, and spiritual guide and coach/mentor.
I founded the first ever cannabis marketing/PR/branding agency and consultancy Cannabrand in 2013 on the onset burgeoning cannabis industry. It disrupted both the cannabis and advertising industries.
Cannabrand specializes in creating cannabis brands and defining their identities and purpose in an ever-evolving, increasingly competitive marketplace. I have dedicated my life to removing negative stereotypes and stigmas from cannabis and “rebranding” the entire industry. This has been done by creating, educating, internationally speaking, employing, inspiring others to do the same and live their purpose.
I started working as a kid, doing any odd job I could talk my way into. Helping out in the neighbor’s garden, selling handmade jewelry or art, lemonade stands, nannying, you name it!
I got more serious when I was 13 years old, I would work for trade at a retail children’s clothing shop in Connecticut where I grew up.
As a kid, I really loved working with people and being a helper. I loved to create my own abundance in all areas of life. I was always fascinated in learning everything I could and still am.
I felt compelled to help everywhere I felt there was an opportunity.
At the University of Colorado at Boulder, I earned some important internships working for Fortune 500 companies where I was able to learn first hand, the ins and outs of corporate business. I was adamant about getting tons of experience before I entered the “workforce.”
Little did I know, I was going to be creating my own companies.
I am blessed to have come from a very hard working and successful family. Many members of whom continue to inspire me to spread my entrepreneurial wings and push the business envelope in new and exciting ways. My great-great grandfather was Elmer Ambrose Sperry who invented the first electric car in Europe and uses it for the Gyroscope, including Auto-Pilot. He was known as the “Father of Modern Navigation Technology.”
From an early age, I knew that I must absolutely be able to work for myself so no one could limit my drive or desire to grow. I did not want anything to stand in my way from manifesting my own reality.
At only 23, I created my first start-up called MARCA Strategic (Marca translates to “brand” in Spanish, Italian and Portugese), which is a marketing and branding agency and a holding company.
I was drawn to cannabis because I believe that there are so many medicinal values and uses for cannabis. I am so happy to see how much progress we have made in 7 years (since the Adult Use Legalization in Denver in 2013).
I was also in the right place at the right time — It was fate, and was able to take the risk of creating the legal industry in its infancy. I remember a ‘limiting belief’ I would tell myself that I would probably never be able to get a “real job” after I took the big leap into the cannabis industry — due to the stigma other industries placed on the cannabis space. (I’m so proud that we’ve come such a long way to legitimize this industry, but there is still a lot of work to be done!) I’m proud of the part that I have been able to play in moving the industry forward and grateful for the opportunity to help so many people with my acumen of marketing and of cannabis. It is incredibly rewarding to me and drives me to want to do more.
I have recently launched Psilocybrand, which is dedicated to the research and data surrounding the use of psychedelics as a medicine. It is also working with a handful of publicly traded Psychedelic Science and Data companies for their marketing and strategy needs. There is a TON of work that needs to be done in these spaces to further our understanding of how the plants can and are used medicinally.
I feel that plant medicine is a conduit to feeling and awakening into elevated frequencies and dimensions. I am certainly not a proponent of using plant medicine as a vice, but rather as an opportunity to give people with illness and depression hope and to learn that there is so much more to this life than what meets the eye. I also want to make it clear that you can ascend not using any substances, through thoughts and feelings, breathwork, meditation and just your vibrations of emotions (energy in motion) you are radiating and attracting at all times.
My greatest expertise is not only marketing, business strategy and creation, but also the ability to help business professionals and their companies to understand how to step into their highest empowerment by aligning their passion and vibration with their greatest purpose. | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/female-disruptors-olivia-mannix-of-cannabrand-on-the-three-things-you-need-to-shake-up-your-1eed03e6857 | ['Candice Georgiadis'] | 2020-12-28 18:56:20.152000+00:00 | ['Business'] |
Why you should use User Stories in Data Analytics | Why you should use User Stories in Data Analytics
How to get started with Agile Storytelling in the field of Data Analytics, Data Engineering and Machine Learning
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Whether you are a project manager or a product owner, a project management tool and some basic agile techniques will significantly help you manage your project or product. At the very least, these tools will give you, the management, and your team a better overview. In addition, the results can be a faster implementation, fewer queries, better time estimation and greater motivation. In the following, I want to provide you some points that can help you improve the project management and the underlying user stories.
Management Tool
Here, I would recommend Jira —the standard software for management purposes. You can easily start with the free SaaS solution[1]. With Jira you can run your project either in a Scrum or Kanban Mode. In the free version you also have a lot of great features like Backlogs, Reports, Workflows, etc.
Jira Sprint — Image by Author
Other possibilities are for example Trello (also for free [2]), which provides you a Kanban Board to manage your tasks and/or stories or the open source version Wekan (Free — but you have to set up a server[3]). There are many more tools you can use but to get you started, the tools above will do the job.
Scrum vs. Kanban vs. Waterfall
The next step after choosing your tool will probably be the decision of which project management method you want to use. When using Scrum I would recommend Jira as the preferred tool — because it provides you with everything you need. Using Scrum you will need to set up roles, ceremonies and artifacts. Furthermore, Scrum focuses on complex software development. Scrum can show its full strengths when used in an environment, where a new complex software product or service is developed.
Kanban Board — Image by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay
Kanban, on the other hand, is suitable as a method in a controllable software process due to the core principle of continuous improvement. Kanban is often used in support or maintenance teams, where the tasks to be solved are complicated but usually not complex (such as software rollouts or maintenance work). Kanban focuses on process efficiencies and productivity gains.
Discussing these principles or even traditional project management methods and deciding which one works best for you can be a rather difficult process. Here, you have to do a little research on your own. This also makes sense so you understand the theoretical background. The decision is also based on your organization and how people want to work together — so in short: You have to find it out yourself. For myself, I really can recommend the Jira documentation[4]. My opinion is if you are working in the area of data integration, analytics, reporting, etc. it really makes sense to work agile — due to often complex task and changing requirements.
User Story
After setting up the basic infrastructure and deciding on how to work, let’s start with the user story. A user story is a software requirement formulated in everyday language and is deliberately kept short. For a deeper dive I would recommend the following article: How to Write Good User Stories in Agile Software Development.
User Story Example — Image by Author
In Jira I put the user story in the description field. Often it makes sense to put other important references in there, too. If necessary, you could use tasks that are related to the story.
Backlog Refinement
Talking about stories and tasks it is important to describe them very well — especially in the field of Big Data. Mostly technical details have to be documented well so errors and questions from developers can be kept low. Here, I recommend a backlog refinement anti-cyclically to the sprint planning, where the product owner and the team can discuss stories and how to implement them technically.
Thinkable Agile Process — Image by Author
Ready and prioritized stories could then be marked and be pulled into the next sprint. When not working with Scrum team meetings and coordination in a similar way can also be useful.
Acceptance Criteria
Acceptance criteria (AC) are the conditions that a software product must meet to be accepted by a user, a customer, or other system. They are unique for each user story and define the feature behavior from the end-user’s perspective [5].
AC Example — Image by Author
In Jira you can also put it in the description field or create a new text field for it. Here, it’s really important for the product owner to invest some time so that the business requirements are met — it’s up to him to mediate between the business department and the development team.
Story Points vs. Man-days
I would really recommend one or both of the above instruments. Story points are a unit used to describe the size of a user story. They represent the development effort.
Traditional software teams create estimates in a time-based format, i.e., days, weeks, and months. However, many agile teams have moved to story points. Story Points are units of measure for estimating the total effort required to fully implement a product backlog item or other task item. Teams assign story points in relation to task complexity, work effort, and risks or uncertainties. Values are assigned to manage uncertainties better in order to more effectively break tasks into smaller pieces[1].
From my experience I like to use Man-days for tasks like ETL/ELT pipelines, setting up some databases and other related work which can be complex, too but with which the team is already familiar. For more complex tasks like developing a deep learning algorithm or building up a new cloud based Data Lake — often things you did never before — it makes sense to use Story Points.
Talk about your work
Last but not least, my advice is always to talk about what you and your team achieved and how your stories improves business and processes or makes it easier. My experience showed me that newer teams like BI, Data Science or Engineering in companies are often not so much in the focus (Colleagues might ask what are they actually doing).
GIF by giphy.com
Conclusion
I hope this article gives you some inspiration and something to start with. The first step will always be to set up a toolset and of course to get in touch with your team as product or project manager. The tools and methods provided are in my opinion one of the most important — especially when working in the field of Data. I really recommend using an agile process for a faster deployment of the developed system in order to minimize risks and undesirable developments in the development process. You can find many more inspirations and tools in the Sources and further Readings below.
Sources and Further Readings
[1] Jira, Our cloud products work even better together (2020)
[2] Trello, https://trello.com (2020)
[3] Wekan, Open-Source kanban (2020)
[4] Jira, Is the Agile Manifesto still a thing? (2020)
[5] altexsoft, Acceptance Criteria: Purposes, Formats, and Best Practices (2020)
[6] Qucikscrum, Product Backlog Refinement (2020) | https://towardsdatascience.com/why-you-should-use-user-stories-in-data-analytics-bfe693275364 | [] | 2020-12-31 21:34:38.655000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Jira', 'Data Science', 'Storytelling', 'Agile'] |
Bar-hopping, Basque style | Article first appeared in Cibus March 2014 edition
Off bar-hopping in San Sebastián, but not for drinks
Whilst researching on my planned trip to San Sebastián I came across an article from a food and travel magazine which quoted that: ‘Kids in the rest of Spain want to be footballers; here, they want to be chefs.’ I can now understand why.
Donostia, the city’s name in the Basque language, is a breathtakingly beautiful city embraced by its shimmering, golden beach, La Concha, and fenced with green mountains. This natural beauty is paired with the prodigious and evolving food culture making this city a food lover’s odyssey. It is a fact, that this Basque city has the highest concentration of Michelin star restaurants per capita in the world, but eating well is not restricted to expensive dining in starred restaurants. San Sebastián is the terra firma for pintxos, the tapas of the North, which provide a cost-effective gourmet experience.
With a meticulous list of pintxo bars in hand, we headed to the old quarter of the city looking for the so-much-mentioned streets like Calle 31 de Agosto and Calle Pescaderia. These pedestrian avenues are dotted with tiny pintxo bars clustered together making you feel unanchored. Crowds, of all kinds, are hanging at the counter, on high tables outside, or squeezing in to reach the few tables and chairs available in some of the bars. However, savouring pintxos is a stand-up-and-go way of eating. The custom for locals is to meet for a txikiteo — a bar crawling outing where friends hit a bar, gulp one or two pintxos, sip a drink and move off to the next bar.
Slightly intimidated by this unknown custom and by the jam-packed bars, I was peeping in between the congregations to get sight of the counters. All the bars’ counters are populated with many plates holding colourful, bite-sized, piles of food. Mostly, slices of round bread topped with a melange of edible ingredients and secured with a cocktail stick. In fact, pincho literally means a spike. I excitingly read that each bar has a different speciality but this posed a problem — where to start from? The trick is to look at your feet and if the floor is a carpet of toothpicks and crunched paper napkins, then go in, choose your pintxo and order a txakoli. This is a local, fuzzy, crisp white wine which is traditionally poured from an unusual height into a wide glass by your barman to enhance the spritz.
We sheepishly popped in and out of a few of the plentiful bars biting into chorizo sausage cooked in cider; jamon, goat’s cheese and caramelised onions on a slice of baguette; grilled morcilla sausage rounds, melt-in-the-mouth tortilla de bacalao; shiny skinned anchovies resting on oval pieces of bread and mayonnaise; grilled octopus; potato croquetas; and the original Gilda — threaded pickled guindilla peppers, green olives and anchovies on a toothpick, named after the popular movie Gilda starring ‘hot and spicy’ Rita Hayworth. Pintxos can be more elaborate and cooked to order like the ox cheek braised in red wine, the mushroom risotto with Idiazabal cheese, or the mini Kobe beef burger.
The bar hopping adventure in San Sebastián is a far cry from what we have, once in our lifetime or maybe regularly, experienced locally. In Basque country, it is a sociable style of eating where you can indulge in premium food and wine in modest taverns and bars as an essential part of everyday life and an affordable one too. These one or two-bite treats cost from €1 to €3 each, super innovative pintxos or specialities found on the blackboards might cost slightly more. Paying the bill before moving on to the next bar is based on trust. Customers are generally required to pay after consuming the pintxos which they choose from the display. It sounds foolhardy to me but it looks like it works absolutely fine in this country.
Good ingredients make good food and this seems to be the motto of the people in San Sebastián. The high quality of the produce animates simple dishes without the need for lots of seasoning. The pintxos are in fact a testimony of this philosophy. Pintxo bar hopping is a unique and exciting experience for anyone who loves food and who can appreciate the customs of a country where food is their pride and joy no matter at which level.
P.S. When you eat your pintxo do not forget to drop your napkin on the floor, that is perfectly acceptable! | https://medium.com/eatmania/bar-hopping-basque-style-9d8e536fe09e | ['Olivia Darmanin'] | 2017-06-23 14:32:25.462000+00:00 | ['Eating In Spain', 'Travel', 'Eating In San Sebastian', 'Food', 'Cibus'] |
Reinventing Teaching and Learning in Mathematics Education — Part 1: What You Need to Know about Interactive, Digital Technology | Let’s start with why
At their very core, we know that math educators want their students to reach their full potential — so much so that they are constantly seeking opportunities to explore the connections between promising practices in mathematics education and student identity and agency. And through it all, they are always observing how specific approaches benefit their students at particular times.
Those, like myself, who have been privileged to work in math education leadership roles know that an educator’s journey to help improve student achievement and well-being can be filled with tensions and difficult to navigate — and for many reasons — especially if they’re experiencing any one or more of the following:
Seeking to better understand their students’ needs — by creating windows and mirrors in mathematics education
Questioning the quality of their resources to engage their students — resources that model balancing inquiry with the development of procedural fluency, and in meaningful contexts
Feeling like they’re doing everything on their own; and
Knowing that having some guidance on what to look for, different approaches, and what to do when they’re unsure would be most welcomed.
As educators navigate these tensions, they come to realize that they need to learn just as much as their students if they’re to reach their full potential. Educators — just like me and you — need timely, relevant and responsive support, and not because we’re not good enough, but rather that we aspire to be and do more in service of student learning.
How can we support educator and student learning?
So much of the educational landscape has been changing — evidenced by the current, global paradigm; shifting priorities; and efforts to hybridize learning models and make online learning successful. Reinventing, now more than ever, how online technology supports math teachers and students is so important. Educators need high-quality teaching resources, pedagogical supports, and professional learning that engender and communicate respect for equity and inclusion.
Many of the tensions I mentioned can be mitigated by students’ and educators’ experiences through unpacking and leveraging several key features of some of the leading educational technologies available to educators today. The next part of this post will focus on a prominent learning platform — Desmos.
As you continue reading, keep the following question top-of-mind:
How do I see myself and my students using this platform to build more equitable and inclusive learning environments and experiences in mathematics?
Desmos — often thought of as a student’s solution to anything requiring a graphic calculator — has become one of math education’s leading technologies. The reason?
Examining its suite of resources for educators quickly reveals the following about the pedagogical principles that drive every aspect from design to launch:
Desmos resources both call on and empower educators to differentiate their approaches to teaching and learning; they foster collaboration and communication between students; and teachers can provide timely and descriptive feedback to students.
We know that differentiated approaches are driven by assessment practices — these practices making mathematics education more equitable and inclusive. In reflecting upon the pedagogical principles that drive every aspect from design to launch, I’m inspired that each of these principles respects and supports equitable and inclusive approaches to mathematics teaching and learning.
What Can We Do to Re-invent Teaching & Learning in Mathematics Education?
As educators and instructional leaders prepare themselves to use a variety of math resources, there needs to be an understanding of learning progressions — progressions that consider both subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge. Without this, it’s impossible to enact a curriculum as it’s intended — i.e., as opposed to seeing and making visible coherence, standards remain isolated and disparate.
Regarding assessment — with the goal of improving student learning — it’s key that educators have support to collaboratively explore what successful learning looks like, how to incorporate tools and tasks, and how to use data to inform their practice. Assessment practices inform instruction, and further to this, they inform our approaches to differentiation, which is absolutely critical for teaching and learning in an equitable and inclusive manner.
We also need to know, recognize and take ownership over the learning we can do together to ensure that both windows and mirrors are present and actioned through the curriculum we build and use and through the pedagogical supports available to and used by educators.
Re-inventing with Desmos?
Students and their teachers will know that they and their best interests are being supported. To this end, those who use and interact with Desmos lessons, tools, materials and community will know and understand that …
Tasks are within their grasp. Each context being relevant and meaningful. And that they will have opportunities to create, understand, and question.
Their goals and interests are of concern. They will see and know themselves as learners of mathematics. They will be able to set goals and monitor their progress towards them.
There are opportunities for mastery. Reflection is encouraged.
Programming is designed to help them continue their study of mathematics.
Some Final Thoughts
Today’s post is the first in a 5-part series (Part 2 here) related to reinventing mathematics teaching and learning through the lens of improving formative assessment practices.
No matter your role in Education or where you’re at in your professional journey, you’ll find opportunities throughout the series to see yourself and what’s possible for you, your colleagues and, most importantly, your students.
To stay up to date on these posts and future professional learning opportunities (e.g., the “Balance Series” of live-session webinars), consider any one or more of the following:
Follow Flipping the Focus on Facebook or on Twitter @FlippingFocus
or on Twitter Subscribe to receive email notifications to your inbox
In closing, I can’t help but to think of the conversations that can be inspired when we take collective action to improving student learning. As this blog is a means for readers to network and gradually change the context for how they learn, teach and lead, we all benefit by drawing nearer to the perspectives shared here and shared beyond with our professional learning networks.
I am more than happy to collaborate with you and make our learning visible at Flipping the Focus. If at any time, you have questions or comments, please feel free to comment to this post and/or reach out to me.
Professionally Yours,
Chris Stewart, OCT
Educational Consultant, Flipping the Focus © 2020
Contact | Learn More | https://medium.com/@flippingthefocus/reinventing-teaching-and-learning-in-mathematics-education-using-interactive-digital-technology-dbf1a6e2af41 | ['Christopher Stewart'] | 2021-01-05 12:45:49.099000+00:00 | ['Learning', 'Education', 'Teaching', 'Mathematics', 'Inclusion'] |
MADNESS AND ITS SPECTRUMS | As a community, there are many things we shy away from speaking about, like death, sex, insanity etc, but sometimes as a creative, it is important to think about these things and ask questions that may never be answered.
People who are insane display some set of behaviours uncharacteristic of normal human beings. We use many adjectives to describe madness globally but the most intriguing is probably the phrase “out of your mind”. There are different manifestations of insanity; ranging from the overtly quiet ones to plain erratic ones, who dance in the marketplace. But the key distinguishing characteristic between those in their right mind and those who aren’t is relative control over their person and the attention to general wellbeing. This mindfulness informs our need to be clothed, civil and clean among other things.
I have often wondered what the true markers for the insane are. Are there doors in our minds that are locked on purpose? Are we ready for the answers behind those doors?
Science says that there are sides to our brains we do not use or even have access to, which indicates a biological limitation that keeps us regulated within our society. There are however ways to access these sides of the brain, one of which is drugs. Drug usage and alcohol consumption chemically tampers with the normal function of the human brain, opening some channels while closing others. This is why people experience a heightened sense of creativity, less inhibition and the reduced need to behave like their normal self. The difference between insanity and drug-induced euphoria Is that one is chemically induced and the other is semi-permanent damage to actual brain function. This explains why excessive drug use can lead to actual insanity. That is, constantly tugging on the restricted switch may damage it together.
This limitation on our mental capability might just be the door between our perception of the natural world and the other dimension. A limitation mad people seem to have crossed. When you see a mad person talking with themselves, they are probably interacting with another realm and the people in them. It is widely believed that we cannot experience the supernatural in our human bodies, but insanity seems like a good peek.
It might also be the case that the insane have lost touch with their human side and are stuck in a place between primal animalistic behaviours and higher animals self-control. A place where shame, pain, hygiene, human interaction and comfort are non-existence. Humans are referred to as higher animals and sometimes degenerate to animalistic behaviour once in a while. Case in point Nebuchadnezzar, when “the spirit of an animal was given to him”. He just slipped into animalistic behaviour (quite effortlessly, if I may say) for a while before ‘coming back to his senses.
Furthermore, people who recover from madness never seem to have a recollection of what they did between their last ‘normal’ memory and their present. One may think that this is because they weren’t themselves, but this may just be proof that what happens in every realm stay in that realm and when you are not a member of a society, you lose the ‘rights’, ‘privileges’ and memory.
If this is the case, we do not know how wide the spectrum of sanity runs and where humans lie in it. It may be, that a group of ‘mad people’ on the same frequency can live in a ‘functional society’ of theirs and on their terms. It may also be that by studying and relating with the insane as members of another realm, we may actually get a glimpse into their reality. This means taking whatever they say as a true representation of their reality, not just ramblings of the insane. | https://medium.com/@tobbithegenius/madness-and-its-spectrums-63b07beef073 | ['Ajayi Tobbi'] | 2021-09-03 15:31:40.601000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Humanity', 'Nobel Prize', 'Critical Thinking', 'Science'] |
Renovation of Dr. James Still office set to resume | The renovation of the Dr. James Still office, located on Church Street in Medford, has resumed.
The structure, dated to 1839, was originally purchased by the state in 2006. Renovation of the property was halted due to lack of funding.
Recently, the Medford Historical Society, donations, educational grants and volunteers have stepped up to resume restoration.
“The project is very important. The property has been sitting there,” county historian Joe Laufer said. “We were all excited when it was purchased.”
Plans for renovation include herbal gardens designed by Jeanie Francis, an herbalist “passionate about Dr. James Still,” said Janet Carlson-Giardina project manager for the renovation.
According to Carlson-Giardina, many of the professional services needed to complete the project will be donated.
Additional gardens are slated to be designed by Jack Harmon for educational purposes and will be used to grow vegetables and fruit that will be donated to local food banks.
“We believe we can do this through donations,” she said. “We’ll be working off a grant and hopefully support from Burlington County College.”
The property was recently upgraded during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.
Carlson-Giardina expected 30 to 35 volunteers to come out and clean the area around the office. The organizers were pleasantly surprised when approximately 100 people showed up.
“The restoration project will take more than [the MLK Day of Service], but we’re excited about the community involvement,” said Valerie Still, the great-great granddaughter of the famed physician.
The historic site will be a destination for residents in the area and across state lines.
“It’s really very exciting to know we’re part of an activity that will have such an impact,” Laufer said.
According to Laufer, Dr. James Still is considered the first “black doctor of the pines.” He is known for practicing an unorthodox herbal method of treatment during a time when African-Americans were still fighting for their freedom.
“He was able to practice medicine and excel in a hostile environment,” Valerie said.
According to Valerie, the property is the first African-American site not directly related to the Underground Railroad the state purchased.
“To a point, it was related to the Underground Railroad with Dr. Still’s brother, William, involved in the movement, but overall the property was dedicated to Dr. Still’s practice of medicine,” Valerie said.
Dr. Still was born to former slaves in Shamong on the Saw Mill by Willow Grove Road.
His father, Levin, was a freed slave from Maryland who traveled to Shamong to create a life for himself and his wife Charity, a twice-captured slave, before her final escape to freedom and eventual arrival in Shamong, Laufer said. The couple moved to Stokes Road and had 16 children, three of whom are recognized for their accomplishments.
Currently, there are markers where the house was in Shamong.
In June, students from the Shamong school district dedicated the previously unmarked graves of Levin and Charity.
In addition to marking and honoring the Still gravesites, students from Lenape Regional High School District created a documentary on Dr. James Still and the family.
“The fact that it’s coming from young people makes me believe there is hope to continue teaching the history of the area,” Laufer said. “It’s important to show the history right in our backyard in Burlington County.”
Dr. Still was a self-taught professional, overcoming lack of education, race and going against the norms in his field.
According to Valerie, he only received a few weeks of schooling, and she often references his autobiography for inspiration and guidance.
“His autobiography is awesome. His book is really an empowerment guide,” she said. “For me, it meant that no matter what the circumstance you find yourself in, if you have a dream and the drive, you can achieve anything.”
Valerie expressed the importance of education for children on Dr. Still.
“This isn’t about some old guy from the 1800s, this is about everybody,” Valerie said. “It crosses age, race, gender and economic lines. It breaks all the socially constructed boxes people create. That’s what it’s all about.”
A symposium will be held Feb. 23 to benefit the restoration project at Medford Leas. Valerie will be a featured speaker at the event, in addition to Laufer’s presence on the panel.
Valerie’s company, Still Publications, recently released Dr. Still’s autobiography. It is available for purchase for $20 on stillpublications.com and Amazon.
The book will be sold at the symposium. For more information on the symposium and to buy tickets, visit medfordhistory.com. For questions on Dr. Still, email Valerie Still at ValerieStill1@gmail. com. | https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/renovation-of-dr-james-still-office-set-to-resume-63724ddf664f | [] | 2016-12-19 15:22:59.197000+00:00 | ['Headlines', 'Families', 'Burlington County', 'Burlington County College', 'Autobiography'] |
Crypto Chats with Eric Ly from the Human Trust Protocol: Getting to know the next-gen community focused token | Just the other day, we were thrilled to announce Hub Token’s listing on Bitcoin.com Exchange. To find out more details on the Human Trust Protocol, with its innovative features and it’s, CEO of Bitcoin.com Exchange, Danish Chaudhry asked a few questions to tech entrepreneur, LinkedIn Co-Founder and Founder of the Human Trust Protocol, Eric Ly, regarding the project’s current state, further development, and the expert vision of the crypto industry as a whole. Check it out!
How would you describe the Human Trust Protocol to someone who has never heard of Blockchain?
It’s a new kind of identity system where you can store your digital ID which may have your credentials associated with your ID. You benefit from who you are, your qualifications, and your expertise. Because of this, you gain access to new opportunities and ultimately your personal financial freedom.
Where did the idea of creating the Human Trust Protocol and the Hub Token come from?
I was one of the co-founders of LinkedIn, and social platforms like the one we created made it possible to interact with more people around the world than ever before. I take the analogy of a village that has truly become global. Before technology, we could know the people in our village very well as we dealt with them and even bartered with them. Now, that village has truly turned into a global village. A simple example is if we move to a new city and we need to look for a good plumber to fix a clogged drain in our house. How do we find a reliable plumber? Now imagine the problem as it exists across a thousand kinds of situations. To effectively deal with people and especially in commerce, we have to get comfortable with the people we interact with. “Comfortable” means trust with other people. That’s what the Human Trust Protocol and the HUB token are meant to solve. The more comfortable it becomes to deal with “strangers” we want to deal with, the more everyone benefits because it is a two-way street.
How does Human Trust Protocol work?
First, it’s a database that gives you a wallet to store your digital ID with your credentials, except that it will truly be your wallet and you will be able to take it onto any platform or marketplace that supports it.
The HUB token allows you to exchange for goods and services on the Hub network. The more tokens you have, the more goods and services you can exchange obviously and actually, you have more opportunity to earn even more tokens. You also earn more tokens on interactions where you were trustworthy!
What are the most unique selling points behind your platform? And are there any similar platforms out there?
Hub is part of a larger effort of using blockchain to encode people’s identity and making it accessible to everyone. However, we have spent a significant amount of time to build incentives that motivate people to get their identity onto the blockchain and then encourage those identities to be trustworthy. We believe the faster the vision is fulfilled, the faster people will reap the benefits.
The element of ‘building trust and reputation’ is something Hub surrounds itself around, could you kindly elaborate?
We believe that for people to get access to opportunities and ultimately achieve their financial freedom, they need to be trusted and to have a good reputation in their community. That’s what Hub is trying to do in helping people achieve through the system.
What are you referring to when discussing ‘trust stake’ in tasks where the redistribution of their stake is affected by task outcomes?
It just means that you put some tokens at risk during an interaction with others. If the interaction is deemed trustworthy, then you get those tokens back at the end plus a reward. If things don’t go well, you might lose some of your tokens. In that way, the system gives people an incentive to be trustworthy in interacting with others.
Why do you think this protocol would unlock more economic opportunities to billions of people, outside of the cryptosphere?
You know there are already systems out there that have profiles and reputations, but they all have two main problems. First, they are controlled by the guardians of the platform, so you can’t take your identity with you when you want to settle in a new “village”. Second, it’s too easy for someone to game their reputation. After all, people enter their own information which can be falsified or they can hire people to upvote them. So you can’t really trust those profiles or the people behind them.
The Hub protocol is meant to address both these problems so that the information about people can be trusted and the people behind these profiles can be trusted. That applies to just about everybody.
What other products can be derived from the Hub network?
There’s so much that can be done and so much to do to deliver this much value to the world. We believe much better digital communities and marketplaces can come from Hub. Identity verification services and reputation systems of all kinds can be registered on Hub. Finally, Hub has a lot to do with the exploding DeFi space because financial services is really dependent on trust. We are looking into DeFi intensely.
What’s your long-term goal? And when do you think this would be achievable?
I hope that this digital technology can be improved for the greater good of people around the world, particularly for their financial freedom. We’re seeing some serious problems with our digital existence today around the tendency for misinformation and the inability to trust each other. I believe if we can fix these problems, the world will be more prosperous for everyone.
It might take a generation to fulfill this goal but the challenges–and the opportunity to solve them–are already upon us.
Why did you decide to list on Bitcoin.com Exchange?
First, I love the domain name! Bitcoin is the most well-known cryptocurrency of all. Seriously, I love the global reach of the exchange and also the exchange’s intentions to bring crypto to many more countries around the world. Plus, Bitcoin.com has been very supportive to Hub in the listing process. We encourage other projects to seriously take a look at Bitcoin.com for future listings.
For someone who has never used cryptocurrencies before, what would be your advice to start getting familiar with this “new world”?
First, start loading up on Bitcoin if you haven’t as part of your assets because it is Gold 2.0, and it has advantages beyond traditional assets such as gold. Secondly, you will hear about “alt coins”. These are cryptocurrencies that are different than Bitcoin. For example, the HUB token is one of them. Consider investing in these altcoins whose mission and vision you believe in and for which there will be a large user base.
Now, for a more personal question, what got you into crypto, from being one of the founders of LinkedIn?
I see crypto and other blockchain concepts as a once-in-a-generation disruptive paradigm shift. It has the potential to better align the incentives of technology platforms and the interests of users and cure current ills. Who wouldn’t want to make major contributions with this great opportunity? | https://medium.com/@bitcoincom-exchange/crypto-chats-with-eric-ly-from-the-human-trust-protocol-getting-to-know-the-next-gen-community-9db605a036cd | ['Bitcoin.Com Exchange'] | 2020-12-21 11:58:37.113000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Interview', 'Hub', 'Exchange', 'Token'] |
Bitcoin Worth Over $9,200 as Top Cryptos See Growth | Market visualization courtesy of Coin360
Bitcoin is currently up over 6% on the day, trading around $9,250 at press time, according to Coin360. Looking at its weekly chart, the coin is up over 13%.
Ether (ETH) is holding onto its position as the largest altcoin by market cap, which currently stands at just over $29 billion. The second-largest altcoin, Ripple’s XRP, has a market cap of $17.6 billion at press time.
Coin360 data shows that ETH has seen its value increase by 3% over the last 24 hours. At press time, ETH is trading at $272.91. On the week, the coin has also gained nearly 11%.
Ether 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360
Earlier this week, news broke that the Google Cloud team has integrated Chainlink’s oracle middleware with its BigQuery enterprise cloud data warehouse, allowing for an on-chain and cloud-based interaction with Ethereum decentralized applications and smart contracts.
XRP is up by about 2.6% over the last 24 hours and is currently trading at around $0.420. On the week, the coin is up about 2.6%.
Among the top 20 cryptocurrencies, litecoin (LTC) and binance coin (BNB) are reporting minimal losses, down 0.06% and 0.50% respectively.
At press time, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies is $286 billion, over 12% higher than the value it reported a week ago. | https://medium.com/@365.stream/bitcoin-worth-over-9-200-as-top-cryptos-see-growth-2517ad99c50b | [] | 2019-06-17 05:36:29.855000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency News', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain Development', 'Bitcoin News', 'Cryptocurrency Investment'] |
What’s the Tempo of Your Start-up? | What’s the Tempo of Your Start-up?
We’ve recently had a number of amazing new team members come on board which is always a good opportunity to get a fresh perspective on your company culture¹. One comment that keeps coming up is how fast we move and the sense of urgency we operate with. This is partially driven by exciting external events that demand it but it’s also our default internal state. If something non-urgent can be done next week or today, we always default to today. As our partner, Tony Robbins, often playfully says, “when would now be a good time?” This is certainly not a surprise to anyone who knows our founding GP, Dakin Sloss, as speed is one of his hallmarks.
It’s well understood that startups need to move fast². I think Reid Hoffman distills it best by explaining that speed is one of the only strengths a startup has against incumbents with orders of magnitude more resources. In the early stages, speed is critical because almost all startups start Default Dead, as Paul Graham would say.
Assuming their expenses remain constant and their revenue growth is what it has been over the last several months, do they [the startup] make it to profitability on the money they have left? Or to put it more dramatically, by default do they live or die? -Paul Graham
The way to escape death is by iterating your product or service until you reach product-market fit. As a result, the faster you can iterate, the greater your likelihood of success. In the later stages, post-product-market fit, you’re much more likely to face competitors and speed is critical to scale and capture market share.
However, it can be hard to know when you’re heads-down running a startup if you’re moving fast enough — there are no standardized benchmarks to compare yourself to. I certainly didn’t know when I was running Asseta. Now as an investor, it’s much easier to compare the relative tempos of many startups. From this perspective, it becomes quite obvious to see the correlation between speed and results.
This topic reminded me of one of the first podcasts I ever listened to, a wonderful Radiolab episode on cities³. It opens with psychology professor Bob Levine from California State University discussing his theory on how speed is a major factor in what gives cities their unique feel. He ran an experiment where he measured the average time that it took citizens in a given city to walk 60 feet at a certain time of day. It turns out that each city has its own unique pace or rhythm and Levine posits that this rhythm accounts for a large part of how a city feels.
Average time for citizens to cover 60 feet: Copenhagen: 10.1 seconds Dublin: 10.76 seconds Oslo: 12.2 seconds Mumbai: 14.4 seconds Liberia: 27 seconds
Whether the city conforms to its citizens or vice versa is an open question but I think it’s safe to assume that someone that moves from Liberia to Cophengan will get a bit of a pep in their step. The corollary is that companies also have their own rhythm but the difference is that they have control over what it is.
I believe that the strongest lever to shift the speed of a startup is the pace and urgency of the founder/CEO. Like most parts of company culture, it defaults to the DNA of the founders unless set otherwise. If you’re not happy with how fast your company is moving, I would suggest reflecting on how you can increase your own urgency in a productive way. I’ve seen first hand how that can cascade throughout an organization.
Footnotes | https://medium.com/prime-movers-lab/whats-the-tempo-of-your-start-up-35980c7f9b38 | ['Anton Brevde'] | 2020-12-18 12:40:29.562000+00:00 | ['Company Culture', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Founders', 'Startup', 'Venture Capital'] |
5 Practical Tips for Positive Code Reviews | 4. Educate Towards Small PRs
Small PRs are like pizza: They make everyone happier. Reviewers have less work and can easily reason about the code, the proposed change, its quality, and can therefore give better feedback. The author, on the other hand, gets the feedback faster — and the feedback is usually better. Moreover, with a chain of small PRs that are combined to a large feature, snippets of the code are reviewed earlier, making following PRs better and better.
My rule of thumb is that a PR should be smaller than 12 files. That’s my sweet spot.
You will rightfully argue that there are features that require larger changesets, and I would agree. Those features can still be broken up into smaller PRs.
From my experience, there are a few ways to do it effectively (in order of preferability):
Push small (possibly partial) changes into master. I usually start with pushing the building blocks I need (schemas, models), then another PR for the infrastructure code (Kafka publishers, message buffers, DB queries), and finally a pull request for wiring this code altogether. If possible, I also separate the last pull request of wiring the whole feature into the existing system.
Bite-size PRs using feature branches. Photo by the author.
2. Create a “release branch” out of it to create small changes that get you closer to a working feature. Create pull requests for “mature changes” into your “release branch.” This way, each change is small and eventually all the code in the “release branch” has been reviewed in pieces.
Bite-size PRs using release branch
3. When your branch already contains a large changeset, you can break it into smaller “reviewable” chunks and optionally create pull requests for each of those. There are some ways to do it (e.g. separated into meaningful commits using git interactive rebase to create a PR with a subset of the changes).
Breaking a big changeset to bite-size PRs
Lastly, it’s the author’s responsibility to identify in time that the future pull request will turn out to be huge and take proactive measures to make it better. | https://medium.com/better-programming/five-practical-tips-for-positive-code-review-6a41211aaab1 | ['Boris Cherkasky'] | 2020-11-26 10:53:25.858000+00:00 | ['Software Engineering', 'Startup', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Code Review'] |
kids of new generation and curiosity | Curiosity is a desire to understand different problems and a quest for knowledge is one of the main driving forces of progress. The hunger for information about the world around us is often quoted as a factor which determines our place in nature. Tip of tongue situations are the moments when curiosity drives behaviour most powerfully .We have to know some of the story to know there’s more we don’t know.
Want to read this story later? Save it in Journal.
Einstein and many other intellectual and cultural leaders have asserted that curiosity is the key trait of genius. We all experience it cognitively but also physically and socially. It stretches our senses and shapes the cerebral cortex and when we’re deprived of curiosity, brain development falls behind. What perhaps is most interesting is how this innate curiosity so powerfully drives us when we are children, but as time goes on it falls into the background. We don’t act on it we live on our habits and our current knowledge.
Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash
From the moment the new generation is born, they are exposed to the difficulties of the digital environment and it becomes a habit to solve these difficulties. I guess we can see cars flying in the air soon… | https://medium.com/@alex-d-38708/new-generation-curiosity-f32c9576d4be | ['Alex Duncan'] | 2021-01-12 20:24:25.337000+00:00 | ['Kids', 'Children', 'Future', 'Atom', 'Curiosity'] |
7 Fantastic Resources for Tech Interview Prep | 7 Fantastic Resources for Tech Interview Prep
Prepare well and nail your next interview
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
The software interview is quite honestly one of the most challenging aspects of getting a job.
Even after wading through years of college or months of boot camp, you still have to triumph over the interview process before you can start earning that sweet money.
I gathered a list of my favorite resources that have helped me immensely in the past with interviewing for jobs. I hope this helps you! | https://medium.com/better-programming/7-fantastic-resources-for-tech-interview-prep-607df806584e | ['Michael Vinh Xuan Thanh'] | 2020-07-02 20:27:24.094000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Programming', 'Interview', 'Software Development', 'Startup'] |
Soul In The Game | totes emosh, guys, totes emosh
photo by Gianluca Carenza, via Unsplash
So that was pretty wild, huh?
Did you guys sleep? I didn’t sleep much. To my eternal shame, at one point of my jet-lagged, emotionally-and-physically-drained-lying-in-bed-not-sleeping at five in the God-damned morning, we decided to have a little impromptu international diplomatic summit with the President of El Salvador. I was awake for that and I didn’t go because why would I check Twitter at five in the morning when I’m in my sixth straight hour of failing to go to sleep? To whit: what even is life? Is any of this really happening?
Speaking of which, I think we should declare June 8th, El Día Del Salvador. That’s how it works now, right? Bitcoiners declare things and the whole world listens? This literally translates as, The Day of The Saviour, but would likely be stylized in English as, Saviour Day. And if the prophetic overtones here aren’t really your thing, don’t worry, Bitcoin is nothing if not inclusive! Know instead that Dzambhala, God of Wealth in Mahāyāna Buddhism, smiles upon the good people of El Salvador this day.
It’s all Jack Mallers’ fault really. What an asshole. I was doing just fine taking years off my life expectancy by strip-mining my metabolic capital with caffeine, alcohol, adrenaline, heat acclimation, and sleep deprivation, until he had to go and throw in dragging the developing world out of poverty.
AND THEN! get this, right: then he goes and has a beautiful family who hug him and they all cry and like, I’m trying not to cry but I’m crying and I can’t cry because I have to go sing a sea shanty! It was totes emosh, I tell you.
And are they even going to make any money from doing that? I don’t know how Strike works if I’m completely honest, but surely their voracious venture backers are demanding they scalp the El Salvadoreans, right? Not as much as Western Union but … like … surely a little? Like half as much? maybe undercut by 15 bps and corner the market? I dunno, somebody DM me if they actually understand this. Payments isn’t really my thing.
woah. I don't know about you but that looks pretty deep. I bet the rest of the talk was awesome too.
So anyway, I sadly failed my covid test and I had to go home, and even though I missed Nicolás “El Jefe” Cartero’s inaugural roundtable for the Bitcoin Monetary Fund, I did eventually get back to normal day-to-day life. One might say I grew my metabolic capital above its rate of depletion and hence am verifiably “sustainable” and ESG-friendly.
I then noticed two things. The first is boring and probably happened to everybody: mainstream coverage of the conference was vapid, vacuous, and tactlessly antagonistic. But — and I’ve really thought a lot about how best to articulate this — meh. C’est la vie. Reject nocoiner orthodoxy. blah blah blah.
The second is dope as shit: I had a backlog of content kindly provided by truly amazing and inspiring people I met for the first time in Miami and who were usually shocked to learn that I am neither 50 years old, 13 years old, nor a squirrel. There’s too much to shill here lest this drift away from a confessional and into mere anthology, but I will highlight the following as perfectly making the point that follows:
This is legitimately the single best podcast episode I’ve ever heard, on any show, about anything. I’ve listened to it twice already and I plan to listen for a third time just to take some final notes to follow up on. Not only is Joel clearly brilliant, but Marty catches himself a few times nearly inadvertently insulting Joel by saying it’s weird that Joel is a farmer, and yet he may be the most insightful guest Marty has had on.
(you’re brilliant too, Marty, it’s just I’ve listened to you a lot so I sort of get you now, whereas I just met Joel and it was AWESOME. And I’ll come on TFTC soon, I promise, just as soon as my friend’s submarine resurfaces …)
What I knew he really meant, and he knew he really meant, and — I think most importantly — what Joel knew Marty really meant, is not that it’s weird that Joel is a farmer. It’s weird that Marty had that reaction to Joel being a farmer. And let’s be honest, so did we all. Not because of Joel — who is scarily smart and couldn’t possibly give that impression on his own — but because everything sucks. Or rather, I can’t remember who said this but, Bitcoin Is For Foxes, Joel is an überfox, and late fiat society has taught us all to instinctively worship hedgehogs for absolutely no good reason.
The real reason is that the hedgehogs are in charge and they make the rules. Which is actually kinda messed up wh-LOOK BUNNIES CUDDLING SO CUTE!
if this doesn’t make Noah Smith read my blog then clearly nothing will.
One might be tempted to say that the difference between the mainstream coverage and Marty’s podcast is that Marty is right and they are wrong. Or that Marty is smart and they are dumb. Or that Marty is good and they are bad.
But I think the main difference — the most important difference — is that Marty cares and they do not. It may sound trite but I wouldn’t underestimate this. Aside from anything else, it’s poor tactics: the nocoiners, and even the precoiners, are not themselves stupid. Some of them are frighteningly smart, and almost all of them are still fundamentally good people (I think? like I really do think that but I am prone to naïve optimism so discount appropriately).
The people who run Western Union are almost certainly very smart, very accomplished, and — I have no reason to disbelieve — perfectly good people. They are just working with old (fiat) tech that compromises their ability to do as much good as they might and gives them shitty incentives so it likely doesn’t even occur to them to try to figure out how to do better.
But there is no chance in hell they care as much as Jack, or Marty and Joel, or — to really make the point — Ross:
I had the honor of shaking Lyn Ulbricht’s hand when I was introduced to her as the keynote speaker soon to present. She introduced herself as if I didn’t know who she was, and the very first thing she said to me was to apologize for not knowing who I was.
I mean, come on, like that matters? Really?!? Surely it shouldn’t matter in the slightest to Lyn Ulbricht who some random kid is? Some happy, healthy, and free kid …
Except that it does matter — not because of me — not in the slightest — but because it proves that this amazing, inspiring woman cares.
Joel argued convincingly in the TFTC episode that there are seemingly uncountably many paths to Bitcoin. It doesn't take any specific academic background or professional experience to come to appreciate what is essentially just sound, programmable money and open source freedom. You don’t need to have gone to a conference and you don’t need to have run Silk Road — much as these might accelerate your journey. You need none of this because the material is frankly not that hard.
Joel’s route in was farming; mine was capital markets; we had a delightful conversation about the conceptual links between farming and capital markets. So delightful, in fact, that I later bought a book called “Dirt”. I’m not sure I knew why at the time. I think he incepted me:
proof of stake. proof of work will come when I read it and write about it intelligently.
Whatever your academic background or profession, it has likely been messed up in some or other way by the total perversion of incentives brought about by Federally-and-hence-globally mandated ultra-high time preference. If you don’t care then you don’t care. I don’t know what else to tell you. If you care, you look into it, and if you poke around for long enough or piss people off with awkward enough questions, there is a reasonable likelihood that you will eventually find your way to Bitcoin.
Joel did. I did. You probably did too. Unless you are a complete noob, in which case this is a bad place to start, FYI. Take Marty’s advice and, “turn off Wet Ass P***y and turn on a Bitcoin podcast.” Listening to the one linked to above would be a wonderful first tumble down the rabbit hole.
I sometimes wonder if my Grandpa would have taken such a tumble and become a Bitcoiner. We have a family story about how he threatened to quit his job as chief counsel and vice president of a bank because he disapproved of a new mortgage lending practice he believed to be unethical. The details are somewhat lost to legend now, unfortunately, given he passed away many years ago. But we know he got his way. They didn’t do it, and he didn’t quit.
This would have been in the early 70s, so very possibly a textbook case of wtf happened in 1971?. His employer was probably starting to feel the pressure of high-time-preference finance but he, as nothing more than a good, strong man, would not stand for it. He cared about his short-term payday a little, sure — nobody’s time preference is zero, after all. But he cared about his ethics and the effects of his actions on his community far more.
I take it back — I don’t wonder if he would have been a Bitcoiner; I know he would have. I just hope he would have been proud of me.
miss you, grandpa 😊
“now, you see, allen, to get a “yield”, you must first have a capital stock you nurture and replenish. growth is nice, but diligent maintenance and the duty of care come first. you have to understand that nothing that matters is only about you, but all who came before and all who will come after, as well” — “I want a pop tart.” — “pay attention, knucklehead! I am a lawyer at a bank, I am your elder, I am very handsome, and I am very wise! this will all make sense and will be useful in twenty years when you are writing pretentious nonsense about bitcoin!”
I recently snarkily tweeted — as I am wont to do — something to the effect that: I used to wonder why Bitcoiners knew so much, but then I realized, people who know things become Bitcoiners. But it’s more than that. It’s not just that Bitcoiners care. It’s that people who care become Bitcoiners. I really don’t believe it is all that helpful to say that Bitcoiners care. It’s probably largely true, but it gets the causation backward.
And isn’t this really just a way of making time preference less formalistic and mechanical and instead tangible and emotional? If you have a high time preference you almost by definition don’t really care about the things that really matter. If you have a low time preference you almost by definition do.
As I was mulling all of this over, Elizabeth Stark messaged me out the blue and then gave me a call. This is just the kind of thing that happens to me these days, and, given I missed El Jefe’s summit, I kinda felt like I deserved this one.
But seriously (no, actually seriously, I swear!), Elizabeth has been my personal hero for the better part of three years. This was totally surreal.
She is clearly a genius, and as cool as that is, that’s not why she’s my hero. She’s my hero because she could have spun her intellect into making a bajillion more dollars than she has by selling out to Wall Street or Silicon Valley at pretty much any point in the last seven years. But she never did, and I believe she never will, because there is no doubt in my mind that she cares.
Not to say she’s a big ol’ victimess or anything: she founded and runs an awesome sauce company that has been backed by Jack Dorsey, amongst others. She’s hardly poor or unaccomplished. But my point is that she chose the hard path, the better path, and the truer path. She has enough skin in the game to lead a perfectly comfortable life, but she also has something invaluable that nocoiners never will: soul in the game.
And this is why we are going to win.
That’s what we talked about (well, we talked a bit about DeFi too but you’ll all have to wait for the product of that to drop. I’d say maybe 1–2 months but don’t hold your breath).
We talked about what motivates us. We talked about the times we thought about giving up. We talked about the things we want to build, that we hope we can build, and that we are enormously grateful for having the opportunity to build. We talked about number of people go up. We talked about how it turns out she decided to commit her life to Lightning in Edinburgh, and that I am therefore duty-bound to go to the place in question and talk them into putting up a plaque.
And the single best thing about this piece of history is that there is a feature of this “place” that is just God-damned perfect in terms of tying in with Bitcoin memes, lore, culture, etc. — but I can’t identify the feature without doxxing the place, which I would prefer not to do. I therefore resort to the following next-generation Zero-Knowledge Proof to convince the reader beyond a shadow of a doubt (and remember, I math real good so this is powerful stuff):
Elizabeth will make an obvious confirmatory gesture in a public appearance in the near future. Keep an eye out. It’ll be totes emosh.
But more importantly than any or all of these details, we just talked.
Like, wtf?!?
If you’d told me this a year ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. If you’d told El Jefe a year ago he’d be granted this noblest of ranks by a sitting head of state, he wouldn’t have believed you. If you’d told Gladstein a year ago he’d meme volcano mining into reality, he wouldn’t have believed you.
meme by me. petition to get Gladstein to change his cover pic here.
If you’d told any of us that Bitcoin would be legal tender a year ago …
… I dunno, actually, we might have believed you. Maybe not intellectually. Maybe we wouldn’t have bet on it (“proper structuring” notwithstanding). We may not have been rationally optimistic enough to put skin in that particular game, but I’m pretty sure our souls have been in it all along.
To whit: what even is life? Is any of this really happening?
Yes. It is. Number of people go up 🧡
Totalmente emocional, chicos, totalmente emocional 😊
*
follow me on Twitter @allenf32🇸🇻⚡️ — I’ll be back soon, I promise, just gotta finish like 6 new essays … | https://medium.com/@allenfarrington/soul-in-the-game-d9320c5b6ea | ['Allen Farrington'] | 2021-06-16 21:22:10.092000+00:00 | ['Lightning Network', 'Economics', 'Bitcoin', 'Finance', 'Farming'] |
13 tips and techniques to help you get better at prototyping | 1. The smoke and mirrors technique
Prototypes are fake. It’s easy to forget this especially with advanced tools like ProtoPie or Framer. So tip number one is don’t try too hard to make things as they will be built in a real app. I like to think of prototyping like a movie set. You just need to make it feel believable. Take whatever shortcuts you can, to achieve what you need to achieve in the shortest possible time. This should be your mantra when prototyping.
The smoke and mirrors technique is all about creating something advanced or more involved in a much simpler way. Using the power of illusion to trick the eye to think that the experience is doing something which in reality, it isn’t.
Try taking a step back and thinking about how you might achieve a feature using this mindset. Like movies, your prototype has a very short shelf life.
Using Opacity and two camera layers in ProtoPie to mimic a photo being added.
2. Let your brain fill in the gaps
The human brain is designed to create sense from nonsense. What you have to remember is that what your eyes see isn’t really what your see. What you actually see is your brain’s interpretation. The optical input from your eyes is just one of many inputs that are used to create what you see and you can take advantage of this ‘fill in the gaps’ aspect to save you bags of time.
Time for an example. Does the image actually drop into the icon?
This technique relies on tried and tested animation techniques originally devised by animators at Disney.
Using some of the 12 principles of animation to trick the brain into thinking the image drops into the tab.
3. Use Graphical Furniture
In a prototype, you want to focus on making only certain things interactive. You don’t have time to make everything work but like a movie set, you want it to be believable. Think about what is likely to be interacted with and what is not. Just make sure everything looks like it could be. Graphical furniture is the name I give to these non-interactive parts of a prototype. I flatten any UI graphics into single png’s that I’m not intending on using. This reduces the overall complexity of a prototype and also helps performance when it runs.
A single image is used here for a list instead of importing 20 separate images.
4. Use variable content
There’s nothing more likely to break the fourth wall than content that looks immediately fake. While creating fake content is time-consuming and you don’t want to go overboard you also need to make sure you're prototype looks believable.
Keep content variable, avoid reusing the same images or duplicating the same content over and over. People will notice repeating patterns as our brains are hard-wired to look for them.
Avoid repeating images and text, it just makes your prototype look fake.
5. Make content readable
You probably believe that people don’t read much text on websites and apps. The percentage that people read is indeed low but in the case of prototyping, they will definitely scan and read the few words you put in. I’ve witnessed over and over in user testing sessions that people do actually read content in prototypes so make sure it makes sense. Avoid Latin or placeholder text, as the nonsensical text will just add to people’s confusion.
6. Start your prototype at the beginning
It’s not common for people to land on an app or website in the middle of the experience for the first time. When I’m prototyping a mobile app I make the first screen of the prototype the operating system (for the web you could start it at a Google search page). This immediately gives people the impression that they are using something real even though they are already in my prototype. This allows me to blur the line between fantasy and reality. This is another technique that uses illusion and trickery to help create a believable experience and trigger focus mode.
7. Performance is king
There’s nothing worse than a juddering laggy prototype to break its believability. People are used to real experiences being fast and optimised. This also has an effect on their perception of speed within the experience as well, which can lead to a changed perception of how easy it feels to use.
8. Fake user choice’s
Building choices into a prototype facilitates freedom of movement and that, in turn, creates a more believable prototype. It also makes sure that people testing your prototype stay in the ‘doing zone’ rather than the ‘talking zone’. What I mean by that is as soon as your prototype is seen as not working people disengage using your prototype and instead just start talking about it. Asking people their opinion of what they think of how something works is not as desirable as observing people using it.
Designing with multiple choices in mind also has a huge benefit when you are designing. It will help you find the cracks in your design. Things that you wouldn’t normally find will quickly become very clear to you. To read more how prototyping tools can help your design smarter check out my article How design tools are shaping the way we design.
9. Personalise your Prototype
Where possible I either get people using my prototypes to enter their name in a faux login or I’ll have a mechanism within the prototype to easily add it in. I can then use their name in the prototype to create a more personalised experience.
Another way to personalise is to create functionality which allows the person to use it to make an actual change, such as saving an item to a favourites section. Be careful how you onboard this though. Just saying “hey how about you save that item” probably isn’t going to cut it. With advanced prototyping tools that have the ability to set conditions, you can achieve this fairly easily.
10. Don’t start in the middle
When designing It’s easy to forget that people using your prototype aren’t going to be familiar with it like you are. After all, you’ve poured hours over designing and understanding it. Often I see prototypes that start quite a long way into the experience. It then becomes the moderator's job to ‘set the scene’.
No matter how good the moderator is there’s no substitute for actually starting the prototype at the beginning of the experience. Let people get that knowledge first-hand where possible and in return, you’ll get much better insights.
If you are testing something fairly deep you can be smart about how you deliver this first-hand learning. Try starting with a signup journey and initial look prototype before diving into a deeper journey prototype.
11. Make it a two-way street
I’ve seen a lot of designers make their prototypes go one way, the happy path way. This obviously isn’t reflective of a real experience. Prototypes should give as much freedom of movement as possible because that’s how you’ll find the failures. That’s why you’re testing in the first place. Prototype for the unexpected. The less free the prototype is the less believable it will be.
12. Have an offline backup
I’ve lost count the number of times that I’ve arrived at a lab or office to find that the wifi is flakey or plain doesn’t work. I always make sure that I have an offline backup. In fact, if I can use an offline prototype I will. Most prototyping tools should give you this option so don’t get caught out.
13. Build prototypes like Lego®
A lot of work goes into the prototypes your building and almost certainly you’ll want to pivot the design and try different things out. I’ve done this quite often on a test day. I’ve observed something several participants have done which has made me want to try other things out so I’ll often change a prototype on the fly.
Think about how you are building. You are probably prototyping at speed and speed is rife with a mess and a lack of structure.
Building in a more thoughtful and modular way will enable you to easily change things. This initially creates more effort but you will almost certainly get that investment back. Remember the more reusable UI you build the faster you will get and you will surpass the ‘at speed’ approach. | https://uxdesign.cc/13-tips-and-techniques-to-help-you-get-better-at-prototyping-40028a674df3 | ['Darren Bennett'] | 2020-12-11 23:23:23.353000+00:00 | ['UX Research', 'Product Design', 'UX', 'Interaction Design', 'Prototyping'] |
Let’s Talk About Gaslighting | Let’s Talk About Gaslighting
My Notes Through an Insidious Mind Game
She is crazy. Photo by Hanna Postova on Unsplash
Here are the best hits from the gaslighters records:
You’re overreacting.
You’re being emotional.
You’re not being logical.
Like touchstones, like a north star, the gaslighter will come back to these statements or some variant of them.
But feelings cannot be wrong.
If you come to a person and express your feelings, and they proceed to explain why your feelings are “wrong” or why you shouldn’t have them, then you are encountering gaslighting, my friend.
Take the two conversations. Which is gaslighting?
“This comment my cousin left on my Facebook makes me so angry.”
“It was really petty. I understand it’s upsetting. But we have a nice day planned. Let’s go have a good time, and forget all about it. You can even hide your posts from them from now on so they don’t comment again.”
Versus:
“This comment my cousin left on my Facebook makes me so angry.”
“Why would it make you angry? It’s just a comment on Facebook. If that makes you mad, I don’t even want to tell you what some of my family members say and do. You get upset too easily. You’re so sensitive sometimes. You’re overreacting.”
If the second one feels familiar, perhaps causes you to be irritated, or to feel like you’ve swallowed something metal and pointy, you’ve been gaslit, my friend.
Feelings are not wrong. Feelings do not go away just because someone else had what they think is a “worse” experience. Feelings do not respond to reason.
Feelings respond to understanding. To being heard and respected.
If someone does not make room for your feelings, they are gaslighting you.
Gaslighters fail to realize that their need to be “right” is also an emotional response.
Gaslighters like to believe that they are not emotional creatures. That they are rational, and they are right. You are emotional. You are wrong. You are…female.
But the need to constantly be right, the need to constantly feel right, to have those victories, to have that superiority…
is in itself an emotional need.
This can be hard for a gaslighter to understand. But once you see that they need you to be wrong to fuel an emotional need inside of them (and they do not wish to see their needs as emotional), then the powers of gaslighting will stop working on you, my friend.
Beware the “crazy” discussion.
Many people know by now to avoid someone who says “my ex was crazy.”
But, you may be thinking, what if their ex really was crazy?
My response: A mature person doesn’t talk about their ex that way, even if they were emotionally unstable.
I have a relative whose ex wife did very questionable things. I have another relative whose ex husband had severe anger issues. Neither of these relatives talks badly about their ex.
Instead, they say things like, “I did my best to work things out, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
Someone being emotionally unstable is still no reason to call someone crazy.
What to do?
Gaslighting is everywhere, and it’s insidious.
Here is a checklist of things that have helped me recognize gaslighting in its tracks:
Am I afraid to tell this person my feelings, or set boundaries? When I do set boundaries, does this person understand them, or do they belittle them and try to worm around them? If I tell this person that I am upset, do they try to make it better, or do they seem to relish in the idea that I am wrong for being upset? Does this person call everyone in their life “crazy” or “emotional” or “sensitive”? Does this person seem to need to be “technically” right, the same way 1 a.m. is “technically” tomorrow morning instead of late tonight? Does this tendency extend beyond fact and is inappropriately applied to feelings?
Expand, do not shrink.
Once I realize I’m being gaslit, I do not shrink my feelings. Shrinking feelings is what the gaslighter wants. They want you to back down so they “win” and can keep belittling you and disrespecting boundaries.
You get smaller and smaller.
I let my feelings grow. I’m armed with statements like, “That is what I need, and I’m asking you to respect that, even if you do not understand it. You do not need to understand my feelings or agree with them to respect them.”
This is a logical statement, and it seems to work well for people who may not even realize they are gaslighting. It frames your feelings as logical, in a strange way.
However, if a particular gaslighter wants more control than that, they will become angry. They may try to pick a fight. You’ll really see their true colors then.
They may move on and leave you alone once their tactics fail.
Gaslighting is a learned behavior.
I do not believe every person who does this truly intends to do this. They were raised in environments where discussing feelings was discouraged, where the only acceptable feeling was happiness, and everything else was considered “complaining.”
And so they squished their “negative” feelings down and logic was a useful tool to do this. They rationalized their feelings away.
If you put a lid on gaslighting, and the person straightens out how they communicate with you, you may be introducing them to a whole new way to relate to others. They may begin to understand that they can talk about their own complicated feelings. And that is beautiful.
If you put a lid on gaslighting, and the person does not straighten out, and instead decides to stop talking to you…well, you just saved yourself a lot of grief. | https://medium.com/energy-turtle-expressions/lets-talk-about-gaslighting-83bcdaf1d254 | ['Lisa Martens'] | 2019-06-29 13:00:58.763000+00:00 | ['Communication', 'Feelings', 'Relationships', 'Gaslighting', 'Emotions'] |
You Don’t Have to Be a Jerk to Attract Women | I know better than to ever beg for women’s attention and affection.
But it’s funny how life works. You never know who you truly are until the moment arrives.
A few days ago, I left a cup of fruit tea at her door attached with a smiley face sticker. Apologizing for a joke I made a couple of days prior. I told her I’d get back to her once I’m free.
Her: “You don’t need to.”
Me: “Haha, does that mean never to text you again?”
Her: “Why do you always need to talk. Do your thing and I’ll do mine.”
If my heart were ever to get squeezed by another person, it would feel like this. The worse part wasn’t rejection, but how much dignity I was willing to drop for someone that I wasn’t even dating. I thought I knew how to behave around women, but apparently, not in front of 9’s and 10’s.
Yes, I was being that ‘nice guy.’ That needy pushover who put beautiful women on a pedestal. Trying to exchange my kindness for attraction in return. A big no-no.
Still, I find the ‘nice guy’ stigma to be unfair. Women don’t actually love people who mistreat them. They want respect.
For all the fellas who are convinced that you have to be an asshole or ‘bad boy’ to attract women, you don’t. Be a nice person if that’s who you genuinely are. Just don’t forget to put yourself first.
But before we dive into the nice guy stuff, let’s take a look at the primary qualities women seek in men.
Women look at both internal value and external value
Women perceive men on two levels. Your societal value, meaning your wealth, looks, power-your status in society. Then your inner value, which is the internal belief you hold about yourself. She measures you by the total of these two scores.
Internal value tends to trump external value because women are wired to seek the most survival fit—someone who shows the potential to provide and protect. Not necessarily the one who’s already abundant with resources.
And self-confidence is the biggest sign of potential. It signals that you have the courage to go after what you need — easy or challenging.
What women truly respond to is the combination of high self-regard+respect
Do lots of women flock to jerks? Yes.
Selfish men display many masculine behaviors, such as putting themselves first. Independence. Carefreeness.
What do most men do? Read books and listen to podcasts about how to become an alpha male. Inhabiting these charismatic traits and manipulative tactics to lure women.
But if you truly understand females, or human beings, period. You’ll notice that no one prefers mistreatment. Sure, young girls who have yet to establish a strong sense of self-esteem, and women who have suffered from daddy issues favor emotionally unavailable men.
But in general, women want to be respected. They love being appreciated, validated, even chased — but only from guys who already have value.
The true ladies' men are the ones who understand how to make women feel good about themselves.
So the goal isn’t to step on women and make them feel inferior. Only con artists do that.
True men protect their self-worth. They balance giving and receiving. Suppose they take a girl out and pay for dinner. There’s no shame in having the girl pay for the movies because they understand the importance of not overbending themselves in a mutual, healthy relationship.
It’s only when a man respects himself that his respect for women means anything.
Nice guys can be attractive if that’s genuinely who you are
The problem with being a nice guy isn’t being nice in itself. But whether the niceness is genuine or a plead for affection.
Usually, they aren’t really nice at heart. And women detect it with ease. Playing nice is merely a way for an unconfident person to maneuver through the world. It happens to both men and women.
But sometimes, real kindness can be misinterpreted as people-pleasing. It’s one thing to make your girlfriend laugh when she’s having a bad day. But it’s weak to apologize with flowers at her door when she simply hasn’t responded to your texts.
Intention makes all the difference. Are you trying to impress or please with your generosity? Or are you doing it to make her happy because you enjoy seeing her smile?
If you have no value as a person, whatever you give her is valueless as well.
When you drive a party bus, women will naturally want to jump on
Self-confidence is intoxicating to women. And that’s the biggest ingredient missing in a so-called nice guy.
Instead of giving yourself away for women’s love, work on yourself.
What I learned about myself last week was that my neediness came from two places. One, I lacked confidence. Two, I didn’t have a life of my own. I was dependent on someone else to brighten up my life.
So it’s crucial to build your own life with friends and hobbies and careers. As a high-value man, your life should be occupied so much that, with or without a partner, you’ll be just fine.
You don’t need to learn strategies to combat women
There’re so many techniques on how to talk to women. They should be taken with a grain of salt. Learning more about the opposite sex is a must, but then every individual is different.
What’s more important is that, by focusing on what women are thinking, and learning how to respond to their tests and emotional swings, you're putting them in the driver’s seat. Allowing them to lead you instead of the other way around.
Draw her into your world. Direct the conversations. Women need to feel emotionally stimulated, which means you shouldn’t stick to the script. If she’s asking what you like doing in your free time, say you love farting. Instead of giving the plain dull straight answer — that nice guys tend to do.
Truly high-value men aren’t concerned about women’s opinions of them. They remain who they are and do what they do. If anything, they let women be the ones who do the wondering. While they remain mysterious. Nice guys give their power away too easily.
Mind games can only give you an edge at the most. It doesn’t change someone's perception of you. If anything, it can backfire. Faking to be confident in the beginning makes you worry about being exposed.
So you can pretend as if you don’t care all you want. The loser in the relationship isn’t the one who confessed too much or too early but the one who’s too afraid to reveal their true feelings.
There’s no need to put so much energy and time into girls. Invest in yourself first, and everything else will take care of itself.
Allow women to go and more of them will come
Falling for a woman is like stepping into the mud. The more you like them, the steeper your foot. It sometimes gets to the point of not being able to pull yourself back out.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from this experience, it’s that you have to be able to let go regardless of how much you like someone. She could be Selena Gomez, and you’re madly in love. So what?
If you’re married with children and years of deep emotional connections, that’s different. But in general, drowning in the hands of one person isn’t necessary.
What makes ‘bad boys’ so attractive is their take-of-or-leave-it mindset and the willingness to walk away from someone at any moment. It’s an abundant and confident attitude. They know they have options.
Even if they have to be alone, they’ll be just fine. Again, it goes back to one of the previous points. Develop emotional strength to tolerate loneliness.
There are too many jerks out there, stand out and be a nice guy, a confident one though
As long as you aren’t desperate and putting yourself beneath the girl you like, you can be whoever you want.
If you reverse the thinking, assholes who lack confidence in front of a girl are just as helpless. So it’s not about being nice or rude.
It all comes down to how much you value yourself as a man, as a human being. Put your life first. Women should never be your first priority in life unless she’s your wife, maybe. | https://medium.com/hello-love/you-dont-have-to-be-a-jerk-to-attract-women-2ab49d4acbd7 | ['Colin Zhang'] | 2020-12-17 04:47:34.128000+00:00 | ['Dating Advice', 'Self Confidence', 'Women', 'Relationships', 'Confidence'] |
How I [am about to build] my $1B business— DAY 1 | Okay, resources are all laid out. What do I look for first?
That’s a tougher question. But before that, what do I actually need?
Know-how/idea
I don’t have an idea. I want to make an app. Which app though? Which problem will it solve? I need to go back to my idea bank and list it out. Also, what’s super hot/trendy right now? What even category do I lean to?
I don’t have an idea. I want to make an app. Which app though? Which problem will it solve? I need to go back to my idea bank and list it out. Also, what’s super hot/trendy right now? What even category do I lean to? Capital
I don’t have enough to be self-funded. And do I even want to be self-funded? Why do I take risk and fail with my own money? 🧐
I don’t have enough to be self-funded. And do I even want to be self-funded? Why do I take risk and fail with my own money? 🧐 People
I’m not going to do the myself, right? I need a team, solid team. Thankfully, this is part I feel more confident about — I know few dope people I can potentially involve. If anything — Upwork is THE place consider for hiring/partnerships.
Whew. Let’s look at that. Not much, I have probably 2% of what’s needed. Could be worse. While thinking about things I need for my business I already discovered many questions I need to find an answer on.
And here is my first task to myself:
Put around 3 hours into app trends research tomorrow to find out what’s cool today, where app industry is moving towards to in general.
I need to have at least approximate idea about the category of my interest and then what’s the problem I can solve within it. | https://medium.com/@howwdoi/how-i-am-about-to-build-my-1b-business-day-1-b8f9b27a9a7c | [] | 2020-12-08 03:30:42.678000+00:00 | ['Startup Life', 'Enterpreneurship', 'Cvc', 'Startup', 'Startup Lessons'] |
Understanding Pinners through funnel analysis | Changshu Liu | Pinterest engineer, Data
Our number one value as a company is putting Pinners first, and putting that into practice with data requires us to deeply understand how Pinners navigate and use our product. A common analysis pattern for Pinner activity is sequentially analyzing their movement from one logged event to another, a process called funnel analysis. In addition to helping us better understand Pinners, we also use funnel analysis to inform engineering resources. Here we introduce Pinterest Funnels, a tool that enables interactive visual analysis of Pinner activity.
Our funnel analysis platform
We define funnel as a series of ordered steps within a session of Pinner activity. Each step is made up of at least one action a Pinner takes, like viewing a Pin or sending a message.
For example, one might define a funnel (conceptually) like the following to understand invitation conversion ratio:
{
‘name’: ‘invitation conversion’,
‘creator’: ‘Changshu Liu’
‘steps’: [
‘click invitation’: [‘email_invite_click’, ‘fb_invite_click’, ‘twitter_invite_click’],
‘visit landing page’: [‘langing_page_visit’],
‘registration’ [‘email_reg’, ‘gplus_reg’]
]
‘experiments’: [‘exp_name1’, ‘exp_name2’]
}
Funnel definition example
To simplify the task of creating funnels, we provide a web-based funnel composer with predefined action name auto-completion. This enables non-engineers to adopt funnel system easily and also reduces action name typos thereby improving user productivity.
After defining a funnel, we use one of the two funnel analyzers (detailed later in this post) to generate results visualized in the web portal, including:
How many Pinners reached which step defined in the funnel (for Pinners at step N, they’ve already reached step 1, step 2 … step N-1).
A segmentation feature that lets us divide the total count into different segments. (We now support six segmentations: gender, app, app version, country, browser and experiment group.)
Results from different segment combinations.
The history of the result.
Behind the scenes
There are three main subsystems powering the funnel analysis platform:
Action sessionization pipeline , which collects original data sources, annotates them with proper meta information and groups them into per-user sessions that will then be consumed by the following two analyzers.
, which collects original data sources, annotates them with proper meta information and groups them into per-user sessions that will then be consumed by the following two analyzers. Hive funnel analyzer , which consumes the session data using Hive UDF, generates a session number for each funnel step with each segmentation combination and feeds these data into our Pinalytics backend.
, which consumes the session data using Hive UDF, generates a session number for each funnel step with each segmentation combination and feeds these data into our Pinalytics backend. ElasticSearch funnel analyzer, which translates funnel definition into ElasticSearch query operator trees and queries against indexed session data to verify funnel definition correctness. It can also serve interactive ad-hoc funnel analysis requests.
Action sessionization pipeline
Pinner action data used in the funnel analysis platform comes from three sources. The first two sources are frontend event and backend events which are logs with predefined schema. The third source is freeform logs that any developer or team can add to. Each log entry may contain many fields, but here we mainly care about who (a unique_id representing a registered or unregistered Pinner) did what (a string representing Pinner action) at what time (a standard timestamp).
To make Pinner action data easier to use by the funnel platform, we did some special handling to the original action name.
A short prefix is added to each action to avoid any conflicts For example, we might use _f_ for frontend event and _b_ for backend event.
We also track where (such as view, component and element info) the action happened for a frontend event. The final action of this kind would look like _f_action@view@component@element.
The three sources are then unioned together, spam filtered, sessionized into a series of Pinner sessions and annotated with experiment/segment information. There are multiple ways to group actions into sessions. In our case, we care most about actions Pinners did within one day or one week. We group daily action and weekly action tables by unique_id. A typical row in the final raw session table looks like:
(uuid_xyz, [‘action_1’, ‘action_2’, ‘action_3’ ...], [‘exp_1’,...], ‘Android’, ‘3.3’, ‘US’, ‘Chrome’, ‘Male’)
After the raw session tables are generated, the analyzer logic is applied to it. We have two analyzers for different scenarios, one Hive-based offline analyzer and the other is an ElasticSearch-based online analyzer.
Hive funnel analyzer
In the Hive funnel analyzer, we built a Hive UDF to process the session table. For each Pinner session (a row in raw session table), the UDF matches it with all funnels defined in our funnel repository and generates the total number of sessions that match the step actions defined in each funnel.
For example, suppose we have a Pinner session that looks like this:
(‘uuid_1234’, [‘fb_invite_click’, ‘action_1’, ‘langing_page_visit’, ‘action_2’], [‘exp_1’], ‘US’, ‘iPhone’, ‘5.0’, ‘Female’, ‘Safari’ )
The UDF will generate the following records after processing this session against the funnel we defined in the beginning:
(‘invitation_conversion.step_1’, ‘exp_1’, ‘US’, ‘iPhone’, ‘5.0’, ‘Female’, ‘Safari’, 1)
(‘invitation_conversion.step_2’, ‘exp_1’, ‘US’, ‘iPhone’, ‘5.0’, ‘Female’, ‘Safari’, 1)
As you can see, there’s no record for step three since the given Pinner session didn’t reach any actions defined in step three of the invitation conversion funnel.
Next, these session counts are summed up, and we now have the total session count for each step in each funnel for each segment combination. But most likely, a user only cares about the total sum or the sum of some segmentations. For instance, a user might want to know the session count for step one and two in the invitation conversion funnel, only in the U.S. We use Pinalytics to implement on the fly “rolling up” functionality using HBase coprocessor. This eliminates the need to pre-compute rolling up numbers which would cost a huge amount of space given our segment cardinality and makes backfilling relatively easy.
As mentioned previously, we included view, component and element in frontend event actions. Sometimes users want to build a funnel based on the pattern of such actions. For example, a user might want to know how many Pinners did a ‘click’ action on an ‘invite_button’ element, no matter what the view or component is. We provide a special ‘pattern matching’ action syntax to express this semantic: _f_click@*@*@invite_button. The tow ‘*’ chars the mean view and component attribute could be any value, and the ‘@’ char is used as a field separator.
ElasticSearch funnel analyzer
If you’re familiar with how a search engine works, you might have noticed the session/funnel matching logic is very similar to how a typical search engine matches documents against a query operator tree. If we model a Pinner session as a search document, each action as a positioned term and segments as document fields in ElasticSearch, then the relationship among actions in the same step of a funnel can be expressed using OR operator and the relationship between consecutive steps can be represented using APPEAR AFTER (a NEAR operator with in_order property set to true in ElasticSearch) operator.
For instance, the funnel definition in the beginning example can be translated into the following three query operator trees:
The returned doc count for these queries will be the session count of each step in the funnel definition.
In order to support the “pattern matching” action syntax like: _f_click@*@*@invite_button in the ElasticSearch funnel analyzer, we use technologies from the search community called “query expansion.” We pre-build a trie from the concrete action dictionary and use it to expand the ‘pattern matching’ action to a list of concrete actions during query time. If there are too many expanded concrete actions, we weight them according to term frequency and choose the top K actions, where K is a configurable parameter.
As an example, _f_click@*@*@invite_button might be expanded to the following four concrete actions according to our action dictionary:
As you can see, the two analyzers have different characteristics.
Hive Analyzer is slower than the ElasticSearch Analyzer. If the funnel definition changes, we would need to rerun Hive queries to update the results. However, it covers more historical session data since there’s no need to load them into ElasticSearch cluster. The result is more accurate, because there’s no approximation logic.
ElasticSearch Analyzer is super fast (at sub-second level) but it covers less data as we need to index the session table into ElasticSearch cluster which has limited capacity. It’s less accurate in some cases since we ignore some expanded actions if there are too many candidate actions.
In practice, we use ElasticSearch for funnel preview, which helps verify whether the funnel definition is what we want before materializing the definition into funnel repo. We also use it for ad-hoc funnel analysis, an interactive and on-demand funnel analysis of those recent sessions available in ElasticSearch.
Next steps
The process above enables our team to look at navigation on a predefined path. We’re currently considering how to allow easy comparisons across multiple funnel paths. To extend the example above, we might compare data between Pinners that sign-up via different types of invite emails. Secondly, there are tradeoffs we’ve had to make as a result of the data size with respect to what’s available in the ElasticSearch index. Optimally, we would provide greater flexibility for users to navigate live funnels rather than wait for the MapReduce funnel analyzer job to populate their data.
Acknowledgements: Funnel analysis project is a collaboration between Data team and Growth team. Thanks to Ludo Antonov and Dannie Chu on the Growth team for feature suggestions and implementation discussions and for the initial efforts on funnel analysis, as well as Suman Jandhyala, Shuo Xiang and Jeff Ferris on the Data team. | https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/understanding-pinners-through-funnel-analysis-f759f4a77e2c | ['Pinterest Engineering'] | 2017-02-21 19:19:47.726000+00:00 | ['Mapreduce', 'Elasticsearch', 'Engineering', 'Hive', 'Data'] |
How to Make an Interactive Experience Meaningful | “Studies of older Americans find that one of the best predictors of happiness is whether a person considers his or her life to have a purpose.” Mark Lepper
I think this Mark Lepper quote also works for interactive design. Allow me to explain.
When you play a video game, you most likely will invest a great amount of time sitting in a chair, looking at a screen, and perhaps maybe even skipping one of Maslow’s basic needs like a bathroom break or a snack. It is important to feel like the time on a game is worthwhile. In other words, there’s a legitimate purpose behind the time sink.
How do you do it? How can an interactive experience be designed to leave people feeling like the experience was meaningful? Interactive Designers are in luck. Meet Dr. Mark Lepper.
Meet the Chef
Mark Lepper earned a B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University in 1966 and later attended Yale University where he received a Ph.D. in Social and Developmental Psychology in 1970.
Since 1982, Lepper has been a Professor of Psychology at his alma mater, Stanford, where he is currently the Chairman of the Psychology Department. He has been known for his work in Social Psychology which includes research on the Hostile Media Effect, Self-Reinforcement, and Social Interference. Lepper is also known for his research on how children are influenced by extrinsic and intrinsic rewards.
Extrinsic rewards are rewards that can be touched and are clearly visible. Think about the bi-weekly paycheck an employee will receive or the trophy a championship football team will earn. On the other hand, intrinsic rewards cannot be touched or seen. They instead, resemble the positive feelings of an individual after participating in an activity that is fulfilling. Examples include feelings of contentment after finishing an entertaining novel, or the satisfaction a runner might feel after beating their PR in a race.
The 5 C’s
Lepper’s research on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation led him to an important conclusion: Extrinsic rewards weaken the learning experience when overused. Instead, he stressed the importance of intrinsic motivation.
This raises the question, how can an interactive activity be designed to be intrinsically motivating?
The answer: Lepper identified the “5 C’s” of intrinsic motivation.
They are: challenge, curiosity, control, competence, and context.
Challenge involves the level of difficulty associated with a game or interactive media. To apply this “ingredient,” the game or activity should be neither completely easy nor completely hard. Instead, the activity should be at an intermediate difficulty where the player is able to find success without feeling like a game is impossible.
Curiosity can be implemented in a game by making sure that there is no shortage of activities to do and areas to explore. Procedural-Generated games like Terraria and Minecraft strive in evoking the curiosity of most players by providing a seemingly infinite amount of content.
An overview of how Procedural Generation is applied to video games, Source: Extra Credits
Control relates to the tendency of players to feel like they are controlling the game, not the other way around. Wii Sports is a good example of a game that perfectly incorporates the “control” aspect. By incorporating motion-sensors, movements of the remote are similar to the movements of playing a particular sport in the real world.
Demonstration of how to use the Wii remote to play Wii Table Tennis, Source: ContraNetwork
Competence can be attributed to the feelings of success or contentment with one’s progress. In interactive games, to foster competence in a player, the pacing should be relevant to the player’s acquired skills and abilities. Ultimately, players should feel like they are improving as the game progresses. More importantly, the player should be able to find success relatively quickly in order to reinforce confidence.
Context simply refers to an imaginary or fictitious environment that the player can engage with in a game or any form of interactive media. RPG(Role-Playing Games) like The Pokemon Series and Undertale have been successful in applying this ingredient by setting up interesting narratives.
A brief explanation of the plot of Undertale, Source: JakeTheGreat
Why Lepper Might Like Mario Kart
To put all five of Lepper’s “5 C’s” into the perspective of one game, I selected a classic game from my own childhood: Mario Kart (Nintendo Wii).
Challenge in Mario Kart is multidimensional. Part of the challenge in the game is racing against others who will throw hazardous projectiles at you such as the red shells, banana peels, and thunderclouds. Beyond simply competing with others, players have to avoid obstacles and enemies on the race tracks. I recall being petrified by Chain Chomps while racing in Mario Circuit but there are many others such as Shy Guys, Goombas, and the infamous Piranha Plants. Each map that the player races on also offers its own unique hazards. For example, on the map: “N64 Wario’s Gold Mine,” players have to contend with bats and gold carts as they race on a railway. On the map: Bowser’s Castle, racers have to deal with a multitude of different hazards, including explosive fireballs, lava-flowing geysers, and a moving floor that distorts the player’s view.
A player races in Bowser’s Castle in Mario Kart Wii, Source: GamerJGB
Curiosity in Mario Kart is attributed to many different components of the game. A notable example is the fact that there are more than 30 different race tracks to choose from, so there is no shortage of places to explore. Additionally, music in Mario Kart is not generic. Each map that the players race has its own unique song or theme. There is also the incentive to play the game often as certain vehicles and characters can only be unlocked after the player reaches certain milestones.
The controls in Mario Kart Wii are straightforward. Players control the movements of their karts simply by moving the Wii remote left and right. Nintendo even released the Wii Wheel in an attempt to make the controls look more like a steering wheel in a typical car instead of a remote. This was a smart move by Nintendo because it incorporated an aspect of reality into an otherwise fictional game, and provided players with a sense that they really are in control of a vehicle instead of an imaginary virtual car.
Demonstration of how to use the Wii Wheel, Source: Gadgets and Gears
Mario Kart Wii does a good job in promoting feelings of competence in players with its use of Item Boxes. In the game, Item Boxes are multi-colored floating boxes with question marks on them. When an Item Box is picked up by the player, the player is given an item that can be used advantageously. Item Boxes can change the dynamics of a race fairly quickly when used. A player in last place for example, can immediately move ahead of other racers if they receive the “Bullet Bill” item. This item, when activated, gives the player a rocket boost that allows them to move down the race track significantly faster than the other players. Another example is the “Blue Shell” item, which can be used to stop the racer in first place from moving for a short period of time. Ultimately, Item Boxes can help to reinforce the confidence of players by allowing them to redeem themselves and change the outcome of a race almost instantly.
Item Boxes in Mario Kart Wii, Source: https://www.supercheats.com/guides/mario-kart-wii/items
Last but certainly not least, context is also clearly recognizable in Mario Kart. The game introduces characters from other games in the Super Mario franchise that many of the players have likely already seen including Bowser, Luigi, and Daisy among others. In many of these other Mario games, it might not be possible to play as one of these characters, so allowing players in Mario Kart Wii to select one of them can be powerful in allowing players to identify with the characters that they know and love.
Depiction of all 24 characters in Mario Kart Wii, Source: https://www.keengamer.com/articles/features/quizzes/mario-kart-wii-quiz-characters-and-vehicles/
A Game That Falls Short? Ride to Hell Retribution
After doing some research and attempting to find consensus on one of the most poorly made video games, I seemed to come across multiple different game review websites that gave the action-adventure game “Ride to Hell: Retribution” terrible ratings. GameSpot gave the strongly criticized video game an “Abysmal” 1/10, while Metacritic PC Version gave it a 16/100 indicating “overwhelming dislike.”
Review of Ride to Hell: Retribution, Source: GameSpot
One of the major areas of dysfunction in Ride to Hell: Retribution is its controls. In an in-depth review of the game, GameSpot criticized the key controls for not being remappable. Essentially, the controls in the game cannot be reconfigured whatsoever.
The game has also been criticized for its terrible movement mechanics. For example, movements of the character’s bike often register with delay and aren’t smooth. This is similar to the fighting/hand-to-hand combat mechanics of the main character where hits are delayed and oftentimes unresponsive.
Lastly, load scenes in the game are extremely long and unnecessary, causing the player’s time to be wasted. Instead of “getting to the point” and progressing through the story quickly, the player is often forced to press “enter” to advance past a loading scene, which may not come intuitively to a player that is playing this game.
Mark Lepper would prefer a game where the controls can easily be identified and where the player’s actions make an impact. He wouldn’t want the controls of a game to interfere with the player’s ability to explore and find success. Plagued by glitches and bugs, Ride to Hell: Retribution unfortunately falls short in satisfying Lepper’s ingredients to an intrinsically motivating interactive experience.
In the End, the Experience Matters
Mark Lepper’s “5 C’s” provide the groundwork for any game designer to develop a game that is intrinsically motivating. It’s important to understand however, that while these “ingredients” can serve as the building blocks to designing a successful game, game designers should also think about the kind of experience they want their players to have. The impact the game has on the mind of the player is just as important as the intricacies and inner-workings that go into its development.
Sources | https://medium.com/interactive-designers-cookbook/how-to-make-an-interactive-experience-meaningful-e5150fd5c86b | ['Matthew Adelman'] | 2020-12-14 04:56:10.442000+00:00 | ['Humanism', 'Intrinsic Motivation', 'Game Design', 'Psychology'] |
If You Want to Become a Better Programmer… Stop Programming | If You Want to Become a Better Programmer… Stop Programming
Counterintuitive advice that will help you think better
Photo by Alexander Popov on Unsplash.
Diluted to its simplest principle and practice, programming consists of problem-solving and critical thinking.
If you think about what makes someone a good critical thinker and problem-solver, it’s their ability to imagine and apply creative solutions to a particular problem to reach that milestone solution.
In other words, what really weeds out a great developer from a not-so-great one is this one simple thing: the ability to think.
I’m not here to lecture you about the obvious things that you probably already know leading up to development, such as the planning phase or the architectural phase. I’m also not going to be telling you how important it is to take breaks so that you can allow your unconscious mind to work out the ideas in the background.
You already know these things.
Instead, what I’m going to unveil to you is what is too regularly ignored among budding programmers in this industry. That which isn’t too obvious. The one thing that contributed the most to accelerating my programming career. | https://medium.com/better-programming/if-you-want-to-become-a-better-programmer-stop-programming-5be7e7cd2db0 | ['Zachary Minott'] | 2020-10-15 17:16:34.460000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Advice', 'Strategy', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming'] |
Object Value vs Object Type vs Object Id in Python | Object Identity
An object’s identity never changes once it has been created. You may think of it as the object’s address in memory.
id() function
Syntax: id(object)
Returns the identity of an object.
of an object. It is an integer that is unique and constant for this object during its lifetime.
Two objects with non-overlapping lifetimes may have the same id() value.
value. CPython implementation detail: This is the address of the object in memory.
Example: Let’s find the id of python data types strings, list, tuple, dictionary.
a=5
print (id(a))#Output:1441654768
l=[1,2,3]
print (id(l))#Output:12597256
t=(1,2,3)
print (id(t))#Output:44739208
d={'a':1,'b':2}
print (id(d))#Output:12532704
s="python"
print (id(s))#Output:45025152
How to do identity comparisons:
is operator
The is operator is used to compare the identity of two objects.
x is y is True if and only if x and y are the same objects.
id(x)==id(y) is True if and only x and y are the same object.
Example:
x=5
y=5
print (x is y)#Output:True
print (id(x)==id(y))#Output:True
print (id(x))#Output:1441654768
print (id(y))#Output:1441654768
Pictorial Representation
Immutable data types:
For immutable datatype, operations that compute new values may actually return a reference to any existing object with the same type and value.
Ex. a = 1; b = 1 , a and b may or may not refer to the same object with the value one, depending on the implementation
Mutable data types:
For mutable data types, this is not allowed.
c = []; d = [] , c and d are guaranteed to refer to two different, unique, newly created empty lists.
Example:
c=[1,2]
d=[1,2]
print (c is d)#Output:False
print (id(c))#Output:16857096
print (id(d))#Output:47485256
print (id(c[0]))#Output:1441654704
print (id(c[1]))#Output:1441654720
print (id(d[0]))#Output:1441654704
print (id(d[1]))#Output:1441654720
Pictorial Representation
Photo by Author
Containers are some objects which contain references to other objects. Examples of containers are tuples, lists, and dictionaries. The references are part of a container’s value. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/object-value-vs-object-type-vs-object-id-in-python-aafd0444d23c | ['Indhumathy Chelliah'] | 2020-09-03 21:28:19.483000+00:00 | ['Python3', 'Data Science', 'Python Programming', 'Python', 'DevOps'] |
10 Tips to Stay Organized During Event Planning | Event planning and management is by far one of the most stressful jobs out there. One of the key factors to which this stress can be attributed is the plethora of tasks that the job encompasses. It’s a job that begins even before the contract is signed.
From initial pitch, concept, incubation to the actual event plan, it is difficult for event planners to keep their eye on the ball and maintain a steady work-flow, overwhelmed by the accountability and magnitude of each event planning task.
So, here’s a little something to help you out. Check out these 10 tips to help you stay organized while planning your next event:
1. Define and decide
Before beginning to plan an event and getting started with set tasks, it is imperative that you have a vision in your mind and a set timeline to finish it. Define a direction and decide upon a strategy for the same.
You need to be clear in terms of the direction you want to go, the kind of event you need to plan and the things you need to do to accomplish the task. Hence, the first step to getting organized is to define a goal and decide a plan of action to accomplish the same.
2. Create a checklist of tasks
The only way to remain organized is to follow a set direction. How do you know the direction you need to remain focused on? It’s only by clearly defined set of tasks that you shall know what work is to be done and in what timeframe.
This is where a checklist of tasks to be done comes in. Get a present made template or an event planning checklist of sorts to get you going. This can either be on paper or in a digital format. I personally would like to suggest a digital format as it is quick and easy to maintain and you can always back it up in no time.
3. Set a deadline
The events industry is currently a booming one. From conferences to summits, the number of events across the world is growing year by year. This has lead to shorter lead times for planners.
Due to this, event planners are often forced to work under a time constraint.
In order to remain on track, it is essential that you set a deadline and work accordingly. Prepare a timeline for each task on your checklist and work according to the same.
4. Define tasks of the day
The goal you set in terms of planning and executing an event is relevant to a bigger picture, the final e-day. In order to achieve that final goal, you need to decide upon smaller milestones that you need to achieve.
Decide a tasks you want to accomplish within the week, decide upon the work that needs to do during the day in order to complete the set goal of the week. Divide and delegate these tasks to your members. You can go old school with rosters or you can use digital formats like google sheets or group messaging tools for the same.
5. Get a little help from tech
Technology can be a trusted helper when used the correct way. It is imperative that you use the right tools for the right tasks and this I cannot emphasize enough, for the tasks you require. Too much of a good thing can actually turn out to be bad.
Having multiple tech tools each with its own set of features, some of which may overlap the other is definitely confusing and most of all, time consuming. Tools like an all in one event management software or a single team management app like Asana or Slack can be the helping hand you need to remain organized.
Read the entire article on the Hubilo blog.
Have some more tips to share? Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Wish to know how Hubilo’s all-in-one event-tech solution can help you plan the perfect event? Know more about us here. | https://medium.com/hubilo-officil-blog/10-tips-to-stay-organized-during-event-planning-bebc09585ff5 | ['Himani Sheth'] | 2019-04-25 10:09:59.946000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Event Planning', 'Events', 'Event Planner'] |
Why I Love This, By The Little Monsters Community | Little Monsters by Lady Gaga is a unique place filled with passionate fans that love to connect with not only Lady Gaga, but with others who share the same love and passion. It’s a home built by Little Monsters, For Little Monsters.
Born This Way Is A Staple Of Lady Gaga’s Community
The Challenges Of Large, Flat Social Platforms
Specialized content, unique experience, and exclusive access can be a driving force behind the power of a social network. There’s much to be said on delivering loads of great content and information to your audience, but the power of a connected network must go deeper than simply the platform itself.
The unifying component in large platforms is often times the diversity of the content and network-effect of content potentially going viral and reaching the masses. In focused networks, the central component or, “Why Am I Here” question has to be a bold vision that unites the community and brings people together for reasons other than simply the appeal of going viral.
Communities need leaders; not owners. Little Monsters is a place where Gaga fans want to be because the leaders in the community consistently reinforce the mission and vision that Lady Gaga has set forth. Monsters are accepted for who they are, regardless of religion, sex, skin tone or beliefs. All users and members of the community have a unique place and are welcome in this community.
Little Monsters Is Special
We asked the Little Monsters community why they love being apart of the community and how this unique space is something near and dear to their heart. | https://medium.com/honeycommb/why-i-love-this-f563c4938653 | ['Jeremy Ross'] | 2019-02-06 14:56:07.587000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Community Engagement', 'Audience Engagement', 'Lady Gaga', 'Little Monsters'] |
Upcoming Staking Contract Upgrades to Enhance User Experience with New Functionalities | Upcoming Staking Contract Upgrades to Enhance User Experience with New Functionalities
Week-long migration scheduled to begin on May 11, 04:45 UTC
Migration will automatically disable all staking activities
NO ACTIONS REQUIRED FROM DELEGATORS, REWARDS TO BE DISBURSED RETROACTIVELY
Phase 1.1 to offer exciting new features such as swapping of delegators’ wallets, & functional enhancements
On May 11, Zilliqa will undergo a mainnet upgrade to v. 8.0.0 . Following the upgrade, our staking contract will transition to phase 1.1 [as proposed in Zilliqa Improvement Proposal #19]. As per the planned changes:
Transferring stakes from one account to another account, without penalty will be possible. This feature can open up new possibilities such as smart contract wallets supporting staking Staking parameters will be adjusted following the block time reduction and reward adjustment in mainnet v. 8.0. . This adjustment is to calibrate the staking rewards to around the same level as phase 1 staking Functional fixes will address the contract state bloating issue Interface changes for reward transition will ensure compatibility with Scilla v. 0.10.0
PLEASE NOTE:
All staking activities will be on halt during the migration period which will last for 1 week. Delegate stakes, withdrawing staking rewards, withdrawing stakes, etc. will not be possible. Delegators don’t need to take any actions ahead of the migration. Rewards will be retroactively awarded post-migration. Zillion staking portal will support Staking phase 1.1. We are coordinating with other wallet providers to support phase 1.1 There will be no change to the final minting block number for $gZIL.
The following parameters will change:
Note: We may further calibrate the above parameters upon observation of Mainnet v. 8.0.0
*************
For further information, please visit or join: | https://blog.zilliqa.com/upcoming-staking-contract-upgrades-to-enhance-user-experience-with-new-functionalities-c7548aab4823 | ['Aparna Narayanan'] | 2021-05-08 04:21:24.363000+00:00 | ['Staking', 'Crypto', 'Blockchain'] |
How are decision trees built? | 2. Build a classification tree 🔨
If you enjoy math, I encourage you to manually calculate alongside this guide to make most of this blog. In this section, those characters who are parents are abbreviated as pa and the non-parents are abbreviated as np for brevity.
2.1. Using gini impurity (a.k.a gini index or gini coefficient) ☝️
Decision trees are built by recursively splitting into binary nodes from top-down. We can find the best split for a node with the following steps:
STEP 1: Calculate gini impurity (here onwards gini) for the node to split from
STEP 2: Find all possible splits
STEP 3: Calculate gini for both nodes for each split
STEP 4: Calculate the weighted average gini for each split
STEP 5: Determine the best split: the one with lowest weighted average gini
STEP 6: Calculate information gain: split if information gain is positive
The very top node that includes everyone from the training data is known as root node. Let’s determine the best split for the root node with the steps.
🚪 STEP 1: Calculate the gini at a root node
➗ Formula:
two variations of the formula will give exact same result
We can simplify this generic formula to the following and calculate the gini:
this simplfied formula will be used here onwards
We know that there were 2 non-parents and 4 parents among the 6 characters. Using this information, we found the gini to be 0.444 at the root node. Root node can therefore be summarised as below:
🚪 STEP 2: Find all possible splits from the root node
There are three ways to split using any of the three features. For instance, we could split the 6 characters into 2 groups: one group for those with pets and another group for those without. Same goes for the other two features.
🚪 STEP 3: Calculate gini for both nodes for each split
Let’s calculate the gini for each node for the three splits.
📌Exercise: See if you can calculate gini for all 6 nodes before proceeding.
🔑 Answer: Using the same logic from step 1, we find the gini for each node as follows:
Hope these tiny figures are legible 👀 (if too small, try zooming in)
🚪 STEP 4: Calculate the weighted average gini for each split
Now, we need to find the weighted average gini, denoted as w_gini, for each split. Taking was_on_a_break as an example, we compute the w_gini as follows:
➗ Formula: left: node of the left, right: node on the right
📌Exercise: See if you can calculate the weighted gini for the other two.
🔑 Answer: Do your answers match to these?
🚪 STEP 5: Determine the best split (lowest weighted average gini)
By inspecting the results from the previous step, using is_married for splitting gives us the lowest weighted average gini. We can intuitively make sense of this decision if we look at the table from step 3 as well. When splitting on is_married, the tree is able to split half of the data into a pure node on the left. This node is pure because it only contains parents. Gini is 0 for the purest node and 0.5 for the impurest node (e.g. right nodes for the other splits).
🚪 STEP 6: Calculate information gain: if positive, 👉 split
We learnt that it’s best to use is_married if we were to split. Now let’s see if we gain any information from splitting. Information gain is defined as the difference between the gini at the top node to split from and the weighted average gini from the bottom nodes.
Information gain is positive. In other words, we gain information by splitting. Therefore, the correct decision is to split using is_married from the root node.
We have just learned how a split is determined. ⭐️ Let’s repeat the same steps to build the rest of the tree. Time to assess the split for the mustard nodes!
Perhaps we could start from the easier one: the left node containing married ones. We see that all married characters are parents and therefore gini=0. If we split from this node, we won’t gain any information even if the weighted gini is 0 from the split. Therefore, the correct decision is not to split. In this case, this node is considered as a terminal node, the one that doesn’t split further. On the other hand, we have some work to do for the non-married characters in the other node on the right. The best way to make this knowledge stick is to practice yourself, why not try applying what we just learned with the exercise below:
📌Exercise: Complete all the steps to find the correct split for the right node
🔑 Answer:
STEP 1: We already know the answer from previous split: 0.444
STEP 2: We could split either using was_on_a_break or has_pet
STEP 3 & STEP 4: See the image below
STEP 5: The best split is to use was_on_a_break with w_gini of 0
STEP 6: Information gain is 0.444 - 0=0.444, so the correct decision is to split.
Combining the outputs, the final decision tree looks like this:
Root node: A starting node that includes everyone
Internal nodes: All other nodes in between root and terminal nodes.
Terminal nodes: Nodes where decisions are reached
Yay❕ We have built a simple decision tree.
2.2. Using entropy ✌️
Let’s understand what would change if we used entropy instead of gini. The steps remain the same, except we calculate entropy each time.
➗ Formula:
We can simplify this generic formula to:
If we complete all the steps using entropy starting from the root node again, the outputs for steps 1, 3 and 4 change to those below:
With this output, it appears that is_married is yet again the best split from the root node. Information gain is assessed in a similar way:
It makes sense to split given that we gain information. Let’s continue the same steps for the bottom nodes like before.
Because the left node for married characters are pure, we don’t need to split from that anymore. But we will try to improve the right node by following the steps. Outputs to steps 1, 3 and 4 would look like below:
This is the final tree 🌴:
Did you notice that gini is 0.5 and entropy is 1 for the impurest case where the node is split evenly between the two classes whereas they are both 0 for the purest node that consists of only one class?
If you are keen to practice more to consolidate your learning, feel free to use your own small dataset to build a simple decision tree. You can check your tree against sklearn output using the sample script below:
Don’t forget to replace the data with the one you are going to use
3. Final remarks 💭
In practice, more robust algorithms that use decision tree as a building block are perhaps more commonly used as a predictive model than decision trees themselves.
Decision trees tend to overfit easily if you are not careful. We could argue that was_on_a_break was not a good feature to use because it happened to be a very specific feature that only applies to the records in the training data. Therefore, using this feature to build a model can lead the model overfit to the noise in the training data.
Regardless, I think it is still valuable to understand the underlying principles used in building decision trees. ✨ | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-are-decision-trees-built-a8e5af57ce8 | ['Zolzaya Luvsandorj'] | 2020-11-27 01:47:48.437000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Supervised Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Decision Tree', 'Classification'] |
Improving readability with typealias in Swift | Swift’s type-safety is one of the language’s main features, and it is extremely powerful to harness the compiler type-check to your code. Meaning that making good use of protocols, protocol composition, default values, type-constraints, inheritance and, type aliasing, is important to guide a developer to use your classes, modules, or frameworks in the intended way, as the types constraints the data and its flow. In this short article, I’ll give some tips to improve readability and clearness of intent using some typing resources available.
This article is in a way, an iteration on the last one about naming in software. You can read this one independently, but if you are interested in the subject, you can read it here. The article explains why naming is so important and gives some general advice on how to choose good names in software.
Typealias
In Swift, typaliases declarations introduce a new name to an existent type. The typealias access scope might be modified by the access modifiers public , private , and so on. You can read the official documentation here.
Observe the example below. It shows how to use typealias in its simplest form, and is a nice and simple use case on how typealias can make code easy to understand.
// Typealias declaration
typealias OrderUUID = String
// Typealias used on a function header
func appendOrder(with: OrderUUID)
// Function being used
appendOrder(with: “08129d15–2246–4157-ace9–5ad896d04764”)
Typealiasing String as OrderUUID in this context makes the use of this function unambiguous, and we could even drop the label with . Keep in mind that making code as obvious as we can is our main goal here.
Although one could argue that this function is obvious even without the typealiasing, which is reasonable, most projects have some complex functions that receive many arguments, and in some cases, the complexity resides in the model. An Order object could have multiple identifier parameters like uuid , number , analyticsID and so on, so depending on the function context, you might be unsure on what is the identifier you should provide, so having the type OrderUUID regularly used on the project whenever this identifier is needed, could be the difference-maker.
Another useful use case of typealias is typing closures. The example below shows two functions that fetch and returns a page of items.
typealias ItemPageCompletion = (Result<ItemPage, Error>) -> Void
func fetchItemList(pageNumber: Int, completion: func fetchHighlightedItems(completion: @escaping ItemPageCompletion)func fetchItemList(pageNumber: Int, completion: @escaping ItemPageCompletion)
Using the typealias ItemPageCompletion to substitute Result<ItemPage, Error> -> Void makes function declaration compact without losing meaning. It also makes it easier to glance over the two functions and perceive that both deal with the same type of data.
Last but not least, TimeInterval from Foundation is a very good example of how type aliases can be effective.
// From Foundation.NSDate
public typealias TimeInterval = Double
// An example of foundation that uses TimeInterval
extension NSDate {
open func addingTimeInterval(_ ti: TimeInterval) -> Self
}
Since Double is a really broad type that can be used for an infinity of contexts and can mean roughly anything, when dealing with time intervals, Apple’s APIs uses only TimeInterval . This way the developers that are interacting with the API are not in doubt if the number that they have to provide is the timestamp of some date or an interval. Think of how ambiguous it would be if the function from the example above were written like the following:
extension NSDate {
open func adding(_ ti: Double) -> Self
}
And the coolest thing about the TimeInterval example is how it is possible to add documentation to the type if more information is needed.
TimeInterval documentation on XCode
You could create documentation for your own type aliases the same way you would create for a class or function. If you are new to documentation on XCode, this guide has everything you have to know (plus some cool formatting tips for playgrounds).
/// The UUID of an Order, found in the parameter UUID from Order
typealias OrderUUID = String
Thanks for reading!
Liked this content? I always announce new articles on my Twitter Account, or you can also read more at my blog. Suggestions, feedback, and corrections are always welcome. | https://medium.com/@lucas1295santos/improving-readability-with-typealias-in-swift-14b1e6c3fbd2 | ['Lucas Oliveira'] | 2020-12-14 23:37:26.305000+00:00 | ['Clean Code', 'iOS App Development', 'Swift', 'iOS', 'Typealias'] |
GO-vatar series: Common code with Golang part 1 | Print
As usual newbie’s do, all starting from Hello World as a very common code we all know.
Open the URL above then click Run to see the result. fmt is to print the string. We can see the full syntax in https://golang.org/pkg/fmt/. Please note that Golang always start with package main & func main() .
Conditional Statement
If you see := symbol, that’s to define a short version of local variable. We don’t have to define the data type alphabet using := .
In Golang, there is no ternary operator but we can use this as an other option.
Looping
Please note that there is no while looping in Golang.
Looping without a break is bad, isn’t it? | https://medium.com/@mpermperpisang/go-vatar-series-common-code-in-golang-ee96dfe1cd0b | ['Ferawati Hartanti Pratiwi'] | 2020-11-06 02:56:48.143000+00:00 | ['Gopher', 'Code', 'Golang', 'Hello World', 'Series'] |
I’m Calling it Black. | On Friday September 16th, unarmed #TerrenceCrutcher was shot and killed by police. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/us/video-released-in-terence-crutchers-killing-by-tulsa-police.html?_r=0
As a child I was taught how to respond when approached by law enforcement. Be respectful, follow instructions, don’t make any sudden movements. How is that applicable today. The evidence indicates that no matter what, I am at the whim of poorly trained officers who believe they are under siege. Which is perplexing because we are at a 40 year low on crime.
Some of you have heard the term DWB, ‘Driving While Black” Today it stands for Dying While Black. This is my reality and it sucks!
Depending on the source, 697–782 people have been killed by the police in 2016. Over 40% of those deaths are people of color.
Tweets don’t begin to comfort the families robbed of loved ones. They do not bring the police, (represented by their unions) to account for the killing of unarmed people. This is why I urge all of you in your mourning, outrage, and disgust to act. Act by voting. Act by protesting. Act by contributing to Campaign Zero. Change has to happen at the Police Department, and one of the most effective ways to do that is to change the very contracts that protect them and implicitly encourage the false narratives we read after each shooting.
Do something, donate something, and please tell those close to you that you love them. Because sadly, if you are black, it may be the last time you see them alive. | https://medium.com/shaft/im-calling-it-black-e3d6617b8a33 | [] | 2016-09-21 15:06:40.210000+00:00 | ['BlackLivesMatter', 'Police Brutality'] |
The Case for: Creative Coding | What is Creative Coding?
“Creative Coding” might sound foreign to you but it is a concept that has been around before most of us were born. Back in the 60s, a group of artists by the name of Compos 68, was one of the first pioneers that ventured into the realm of programming for expressive and/or artistic purposes. What started out as an art installation enjoyed by a group of art connoisseur, made it into the mainstream through audio visualisations (Winamp, anyone?). Since then, it has been the creation tool of choice for many coders, artists or those in-between alike.
What Might It Look Like?
Textual
A string of words might be the last thing one would associate with “artistic” or “expressive”. Although it may take 1000 words to conjure up a picture (baddums!), simplistic textual means have been proven effective in conveying said expression or artfulness.
One of my favourite textual coding pieces is “Own, Be Owned or Remain Invisible” by Heath Bunting. A strong commentary on who gets to own a domain, and thus a place on the interwebs. Bunting resorted to long-essay format to get his point across. Every word in the piece is clickable, but as we soon will see, not available to own.
Another great thing about this piece, or the fact that it is so simplistic-looking is that it is easy to recreate and/or create a personal take on. I did something similar for my daily journal, where additions of “.com” is done dynamically using Javascript as opposed to being hardcoded. Such an opportunity does not usually come with pieces that seem intimidating, or hard to create. That being said, if you would like to craft a creative coding that seems accessible to most people, textual pieces might be the way to go.
Fine Arts
Who knew lines of code could give birth to such beautiful pieces of work? While aesthetically pleasing websites are possible within the realm of coding, not many expect the same field to produce fine arts, especially one of similar nature to paintings and other traditional “fine artworks”. However, if you scroll through zach lieberman’s Instagram account, you would just as quickly see how fine arts and coding are in fact not at odds with each other. They, instead, make for an eclectic duo of what is traditionally considered two ends of a spectrum.
Internet of Things
Now that Lieberman and Bunting’s works have shown us what’s possible on screen, creative coding within the Internet of Things (IoT) will show us what is possible off-screen.
Candy Dispenser Bookmark
Back in college, I took a class on IoT and this is where I could take what I usually creatively code on-screen to off-screen (and into the tummy). I created a two-piece, copper foil coated bookmark that will dispense candy when both parts meet with each other. The idea was that you are to put one part on your final/goal page and another on your progress/reading page, which will move closer to the final/goal page over time. Once they meet, the microcomputer (Arduino) will nudge the cloud to dispense candy out of an Arduino-powered candy dispenser, into your tummy.
This way of implementing creative coding allows for tactile interaction that browser pieces cannot always provide. In my example, one interacts with the physicality of a book and eventually, gets rewarded with the sweetness of a piece of MnM’s. If you are looking to give your audience a different or more sensory experience of creative coding, IoT might be your best bet.
…And more
IKEA Place App
There are more examples of works and media that embody the artfulness and expression of creative coding. There are also more and more industries and fields that look into creative coding to elevate their website/apps’ UI/UX. An example of this would be IKEA’s Place App that lets you place a true-to-size IKEA furniture in any corner of your house using AR technology. Such creative take on “will it fit or will it not” problem that comes with furniture-shopping helps expand the definition of creative coding whilst still staying true to the artfulness and creative way of expression that the early creative coding definition entails.
All that being said,
Your imagination (and stack-overflow search results) is your limit.
Why Are We Looking Into This?
It’s cool, full stop.
Yes, but technically I cannot just say this so let’s move on to the next pointer…
Help us empathize with coworkers, especially developers and designers
If you are a designer coming into creative coding, you will be “forced” to put on a developer’s hat. The same goes to developers coming into the creative coding realm.
When both sides are put in a place where they have to understand how the other side’s brain works, what often happens is that — whether we like it or not — we empathize, or at least gain a better peek into why the other side does A and not B.
In a working place where designers and developers work closely together like Aleph, empathy between the two sides are more important than ever. We cannot read each other’s minds, but we can communicate and learn how each of us would perform the same task of expressing ourselves using codes–and that, what I think, is creative coding great at teaching.
…And eventually, foster better communication between devs and designers.
Whilst we would not magically be a master at communications over one creative coding project, a continual process of learning each side’s perspective, design and development, is what is going to give us a better chance at honing in on said communication skill. Do not give up just yet if you do not understand all of your developer friend’s work jargons or lingo! Give it a few more creative coding projects and you might surprise yourself!
How to Take the First Step(s)
Resource: Coding Train
Coding Train is the brainchild of Dan Shiffman, a faculty at NYU ITP and just a great tech communicator, in my very humble opinion. Shiffman has been educating the Youtubeverse for years and the variety of topics and programming languages he taught on his channel have only grown since day one. What started with Processing tutorials, have now grown into other frameworks/languages and topics, such as p5.js and machine learning.
Packed in a friendly and casual fashion, Dan Shiffman’s bite-sized coding tutorials are perfect for everyone, from novices to unicorn coders who just need a little help remembering the difference between ‘let’ and ‘const’. If you are not sure yet who to turn to for creative coding tutorials, Coding Train might just be up your alley.
Inspiration: Zach Lieberman and Giorgia Lupi
Now that you know where to start learning the lingos, you might need help in the inspiration department. Both Zach Lieberman and Giorgia Lupi are great inspirations in their own right. Whilst we are already familiar with what Lieberman’s are best-known for, Lupi’s work can be equalled to the analogue equivalent of Lieberman’s works. They are not exactly similar (mind you!), but Lupi’s works are a great inspiration for those who would love to delve into data processing but are not yet ready to do it digitally as Lieberman does. Lupi’s book, “Observe, Collect, Draw!” should be a part of starter packs of anyone who’s looking to dip their toes into creative coding. It encourages its readers to do exactly what the title says without being judgmental about themselves in the process. A great read for beginners, I would recommend it!
An audio visualisation I made using p5.js as a tool
Tools: p5.js, Processing, and more!
And now, you wonder, what should you wield to create a piece that is artfully and expressively communicating your emotions, feelings, and opinions? There are a number of tools out there which I am going to namedrop here for you to explore.
Processing
p5.js
Unity
Unreal Engine
Kinect
Arduino and Raspberry PI
However, one tool that stands out for me the most is p5.js. It is a javascript framework that lets you create creative coding artworks without having to install anything at editor.p5js.org. p5.js is also powered with multitudes of tutorials and examples on its website, https://p5js.org/, that you can go through for inspirational or tutorial purposes.
Your imagination (and stack-overflow search results) is your limit.
I said it again and I will stand by it. I hope I have made a convincing case for you to try out the limit of your imagination through creative coding. I shall now rest my case. | https://medium.com/aleph-universe/the-case-for-creative-coding-c73b527f3e75 | ['Tirza Alberta'] | 2020-12-30 03:23:52.390000+00:00 | ['Ui Ux Design Company', 'Creative', 'Creative Coding', 'Aleph', 'Engineering'] |
Reconstruct Google Trends Daily Data for Extended Period | We can have search trends data at daily resolution for any duration.
Scaling daily data by weekly trends could generated some artifacts.
Scaling using overlapped period is better as long as there are enough search activities during the overlaping period.
Code can be find here.
As google gained monopoly over the internet search, whatever we googled become another kind of measure of public interest over time. It has already been well explained by the Google News Lab and several articles have demonstrated data analytics based on the Google Trends, such as the cyclic pattern of ending a relationship with someone, predicting U.S. presidential race, etc.
The Limitations
To get most out of the search trends database, one can use the python module pytrends or R package gtrendsR. However, google currently limit the time resolution based on the query’s time frame. For example, query for the last 7 days will have hourly search trends (the so-called real time data), daily data is only provided for query period shorter than 9 months and up to 36 hours before your search (as explained by Google Trends FAQ), weekly data is provided for query between 9 month and 5 years, and any query longer than 5 years will only return monthly data.
My motivation into this subject was first inspired by the Rossmann competition in Kaggle where google search trends were used to predict sales number. I found it not so obvious to obtain the daily search trends and people used the weekly trends as surrogate. However, it is not ideal for any predictive model which necessitate precision at daily scale and real-time applications (as weekly data will only be available until the current week ends).
Comparing Methods for Reconstructing Daily Trends
Although people have already purposed methods to circumvent it (for example: here, and here). I was curious about how those methods compared to each other and matched best with the original daily trends data. Therefore, I used ‘iPhone’ as the keyword and reconstruct daily trends data over 35 months by the following three methods: | https://towardsdatascience.com/reconstruct-google-trends-daily-data-for-extended-period-75b6ca1d3420 | ['Qingzong Tseng'] | 2019-11-29 00:13:10.415000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Google Trends', 'Time Series Analysis'] |
Thought | Written by
Writer and copyeditor. “What doesn’t kill us gives us something new to write about” ~ J. Wright | https://medium.com/lit-up/thought-e396d7284782 | ['Danna Reich Colman'] | 2018-07-05 22:05:39.845000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poem', 'Mindfulness'] |
[Reading Review] Guns, Germs, and Steel: Ch. Zebras and Unhappy Marriages | This chapter in the book draws out the story behind why we ended up with the domesticated animals that we have today. It’s important to understand domestication as these creatures have contributed to human society in terms of food, transportation, clothing, etc. Identifying factors of value (ethics is a separate discussion) will help focus our energies to find solutions for future production of resources.
The book states that there are 14 ancient species of domesticated livestock whose wild ancestors are spread unevenly across the globe. The Major Five being: (a) Sheep; (b) Goat; (c) Cow/Ox/Cattle; (d) Pig; and (e) Horse. We find they are mostly big (over 100 pounds) terrestrial herbivores as we haven’t had a chance to domesticate aquatic animals until recent times. While there are various differences between domesticated animals versus their wilder peers resulting from human selection (of the best contributing animal among other individuals) and evolutionary response to human maintained environments (same as plant domestication) but we will not go into them in detail focusing instead on reviewing the original thesis of the book: why do some nations/regions develop more quickly than others?
In this angle, it’s because the sources of 13 of the 14 ancient species were concentrated in Eurasia. It is the continent with the most big terrestrial wild animal species to start out with (whether ancestral or domesticated) as an effect of having the largest landmass and more diverse ecology than other continents. Now, why did the Eurasian animals become domesticated rather than their peer species in America and Africa, or other continents? It seems that humans have done a lot of filtering throughout the centuries and it really boils down to those 14. Some observations mentioned in the book are: (1) rapid acceptance of Eurasian domesticates by non-Eurasians [upon interacting with Eurasian domesticates], (2) universal penchant for keeping wild animals as pets where only a few got domesticated, (3) rapid focused domestication of the 14 early in history [no new identified domesticate species after 2500 B.C], (4) repeated independent domestication of sub-species in non-Eurasian geographies (I’m not sure if I articulated this right), (5) limited successes of modern efforts at further domesticates apart from the 14.
Pushing the argument: we know there are 148 big wild terrestrial herbivores — why did only 14 pass the domestication test. The book suggests the following reasons: (1) Diet needed to coincide with availability and our agricultural efforts; (2) Growth rate [can’t wait for 15 years for an animal to grow for food]; (3) Some animals in captivity don’t breed well [cheetahs are a peculiar bunch]; (4) Disposition [some of them tend to “kill” humans — imagine domesticating grizzly bears at scale]; (5) tendency to escape; and (6) social structure [herd imprinting on humans as they grow].
In all this, we see Eurasia inherited more species of domesticates than other continents due to geography, biology, and surprisingly — the timing of history.*
*Australia and the Americas lost most of their candidates when their candidates for domesticates (seemingly) encountered humans when our hunting kills were highly developed.
Also published in https://redbermejo.wordpress.com/2019/06/16/readings-guns-germs-and-steel-ch-zebras-and-unhappy-marriages/ | https://medium.com/@raymundbermejo_50850/reading-review-guns-germs-and-steel-ch-zebras-and-unhappy-marriages-4f5bd6b675f5 | ['Raymund Ed Dominic Bermejo'] | 2019-07-10 07:42:37.682000+00:00 | ['History', 'Biology', 'Evolution', 'Books', 'Sociology'] |
What I learned while losing my mind when my laptop broke down | Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash
You know how sometimes you get sick after an intense period of Adulting, and someone inevitably says “it’s just your body telling you to slow down"?
After 7 years of startup hustle, on Saturday my 2-year old laptop told me to slow down.
It happened out of nowhere — my trusty machine which had been happily crunching code just a few hours before presented me with what folks here in Brussels (presumably) call l’ecran noir.
Hm.
Turned it off, then on again. Nope. Tried again.
Panic. Please, not this, not now.
Over the next few hours, no web-searched solution or secret-key-combo-into-safe-mode helped. The computer seemed to start up just fine, but the screen stayed black.
And then the kicker — at the Apple Store on Monday I learned that my computer needed to be sent away for repairs which would take…at least a week!
Despair.
Lesson #1: Be prepared, dummy
I couldn’t afford to miss a full week of work — definitely not this next week! — although in truth I would probably say that any given week.
Immediately it was clear that I really, really should have had a second laptop ready in the case of (rather probable) tech problems with my primary machine. This is especially (now) obvious in the working-from-home COVID era.
Pro tip — consider securing a backup computer for yourself right now.
So I ordered a new one, fortunate that I can use the company credit card—the one getting repaired will soon become my backup — but the new one won’t arrive for a few weeks.
Back to my immediate problem — so much to do, so little time !— I remembered I had a 7-year-old, somewhat broken laptop stashed away in a box. Please, I wished, perhaps that rickety claptrap might save my work week and keep me in control of my life…
Lesson #2: Sometimes you just need to chill
I located the 7-year-old laptop and was immediately reminded why I don’t use it anymore — it shuts off whenever the CPU gets too hot. Basically it will intermittently crash while doing anything other than web browsing, emails, Slack and web meetings.
Those are things my phone can do…that’s not good enough.
I mistakenly assumed I could forcibly overcome the glitchy old computer problems and continue to perform my regular work tasks. I found that putting the old laptop into the fridge allowed it to run code without overheating…sometimes.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it rebooted, sometimes it ran out of battery power — but as long as it worked sometimes I could get stuff done, right?
No, this was madness. I had to stop.
I couldn’t fight or work my way through this one. Having a computer that shuts itself off all the time is like having a bicycle with no brakes — which I also have right now, but that’s another story — seems fine once you get going, but the stress gets compounded with each hard stop.
I resigned myself to literally “phone it in" for the rest of the week. I’d survive! And my startup was going to be just fine…right?
Deep breath. I’ll fix bugs and add all those new features next week.
A quick aside…does anyone know how to access the command prompt of an EC2 instance from an Android phone? Just kidding. ☺
Lesson #3 — Ask for help, it’s ok
It took me about 96 hours before I thought to ask a colleague for help. This was around the time of the 50th crash of my old laptop in the fridge. I desperately needed to reach a milestone on my project so we could be ready by Thursday’s presentation.
My coworker said “sure, no problem", and got it done in a day.
Sweet Jeebus, that was easy and refreshing.
I need to allow myself to ask for help more often.
Everything is going to be ok.
Epilogue
At this moment — as I stand here typing into my open refrigerator — I feel exhausted, and incredibly fortunate. Things are a lot better for my startup than they were a few years ago. These acute hardware problems are trivial compared to the chronic startup stress which clearly still affects my emotional response to problems.
It’s an amazing thing to have happy customers, VC funding, and a dedicated team. I’m deeply grateful for everything we have earned up to this point.
And I note that I’m all out of beer. | https://medium.com/@jessepaquette/what-i-learned-while-losing-my-mind-when-my-laptop-broke-down-6b426bab5647 | ['Jesse Paquette'] | 2020-12-17 13:04:47.441000+00:00 | ['Remote Working', 'Startup', 'Founders', 'Work', 'Human Resources'] |
Tezos - The Path Forward | We’re going to start off with that which gets the least amount of criticism — the average, vocal, Tezos community member; there is some strange tendency for the Tezos community to self-sabotage and engage in entirely unproductive actions. I’d reason that those who are most critical of Tezos are those within the Tezos community itself.
This is especially the case on Reddit, which may also hint towards the need to reevaluate the current structure of r/Tezos.
Presumably, people are critical of Tezos because they want Tezos to thrive — but at some point it becomes too much. Why is it that the Tezos subreddit is filled with posts and comments about how marketing needs to take advantage of influencers? Merely two months ago, the Tezos Foundation brought Huge, a highly experienced marketing firm that has worked with massive companies, on board as Agency of Record for the foundation. Only about a week before the Huge announcement, there was the announcement that a new Marketing and Communications organization named Blokhaus was coming to the Tezos ecosystem. Do we really think that neither of these organizations have considered using influencers? In merely a few months, we have already seen Tezos-related marketing appear with huge partnerships and a full video ad campaign. Maybe we can stop spamming the subreddit with “where are the influencers?” posts and comments. Maybe we can shift to actually being productive with our time.
Oh, but this is far from a recent phenomenon. The Tezos community has a history of negativity regarding marketing — and the progress of marketing initiatives does nothing to halt it. All you need to do is search the keyword “marketing” on the Tezos subreddit to see the large amount of posts complaining about marketing.
And it’s not just marketing. The Tezos community will jump at anything remotely imperfect.
Let’s look at the curious case of reddit user u/No-Metal-6762 who joined Reddit in February 2021. Despite claiming to be an “ICO participant,” 80% of the content he’s posted on Reddit is just trashing on the Tezos Foundation and Arthur Breitman. Instead of taking responsibility as a community member and attempting to assist with spreading the word of Tezos, we get posts complaining that Tezos isn’t increasing in price during the bull run, spamming the subreddit with negative comments, and spamming posts asking “who can the community point to and blame?” (post deleted, but the comments are still available) across Tezos-related subreddits.
My favorite post of all-time was definitely this one that practically begged Arthur to respond while also including this golden line addressed to him, “You are a more technical and intellectual personality, marketing is not your primary strength. However great leaders know their strengths as well as weaknesses and address them.”
Imagine being a random, anonymous person on the internet and lecturing someone, who was instrumental in building a revolutionary blockchain, about his “strengths and weaknesses” while, most likely, contributing nothing of value to Tezos yourself. Sure, no person is perfect — but comments like these are insulting and unproductive.
There’s also a somewhat common trend in all these threads — there’s a lot of negativity that is a simply a result of the community’s own ignorance. For example, look at this exchange under a post asking about Tezos marketing efforts:
User 1: “this was a pretty good one”
User 2: “But that was a decision by a 3rd party. Tezos didn’t pay them to do it to get more visibility”
User 1: “it was two parts. the VC firm wants more Tezos action, and the TF is investing in the VC firm.”
User 2: “Thank you for the insight!”
Now, this was one of the more simple and civil exchanges but it captures the overall point —far more goes into marketing behind the scenes than the community cares to realize.
Let’s compare this to the mentality of other communities.
Algorand had the same concerns about marketing but the community handled it completely differently. Many posts have actually called out the community’s criticisms of marketing and they have pointed out that the marketing is fine.
I’ve been critical of the Tezos Foundation’s marketing initiatives in the past. However, things have changed. Is it possible that we can let the professionals work for a bit as we shift our focus to things that are actually productive? There are plenty of better uses for our time.
Look at things this way:
There are currently over 51,000 members of the Tezos subreddit. If every member of the subreddit made a single comment a year on r/cryptocurrency, then, distributed evenly, that would be over 140 Tezos-related comments a day. If only half the subreddit members made 1 comment a year about Tezos on r/cryptocurrency then that would still be 70 comments a day.
In order to have 1 medium article a day for an entire year we merely need 365 Tezos community members to write a single article over the course of 365 days. That’s less than 1% of the Tezos community writing a single article a year. Actually, people don’t even need to write medium articles — just post on r/cryptocurrency itself and hype up Tezos as much as possible. Look at this post written by someone who openly admits, “I’m new to all stuff about crypto” getting over 671 upvotes and over 426 comments.
Is someone going to tell me that all these people concerned about marketing can’t find the time to make a few comments in r/cryptocurrency? Or make a single medium article, or a single r/cryptocurrency post, hyping up Tezos? Is someone going to tell me that a post instructing a professional marketing agency to use influencers (while they’re already, most likely, aware of such things) is more important than getting hundreds, if not thousands, of people aware of Tezos on social media with relatively low effort? Please, do the logical analysis on that and consider re-configuring your priorities here. | https://medium.com/@mutsuraboshi/tezos-the-path-forward-d262b8d07664 | [] | 2021-08-20 15:49:02.039000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Tezos', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Community', 'Technology'] |
Chiune Sugihara: The Japanese Schindler Who Saved Over 6,000 Jews | Chiune Sugihara: The Japanese Schindler Who Saved Over 6,000 Jews
Another forgotten hero from World War II
Chiune Sugihara
Most people know about Oskar Schindler and how he saved 1,200 Jews from being murdered. But not many people are aware of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese businessman who, just like Schindler, used his power and status to save Jewish lives. According to the Times of Israel, in 1940, Chiune Sugihara was vice-consul in Kaunas, the then capital of Lithuania. The city had a large and prosperous Jewish community of about 30,000 people. Kaunas’ population was supplemented between 1939 and 1940 by thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in German-occupied Poland.
After the Soviet Union annexed Lithuania in 1940, the population of Kaunas remained trapped, unable to leave the country, even as the Germans advanced on the Soviet line. Chiune Sugihara became aware of the dire situation of the Jews, trying to find a way to help them. Jewish refugees could not leave Lithuania to travel east through Soviet territory without visas. Many wanted to get to the Dutch Caribbean, Curacao, and Guyana, but to get there safely needed a visa for an East Asian country.
Japan was used as a transit country
Sugihara immediately saw a way to help them, using his homeland, Japan, as a transit point. Visas issued by Sugihara allowed them to pass through the Soviet Union, then into Japanese territory, then into the Caribbean. When all foreign diplomats were ordered to leave the city, he asked to stay another 20 days, writing to his superiors in the Japanese Foreign Ministry to approve his plan. According to historian Yutaka Taniuchi, the Japanese authorities flatly refused to issue visas for Jewish refugees unless they guaranteed that they would not stay in Japan.
This was impossible for Jews to do, which removed the possibility of obtaining visas. Chiune Sugihara wrote to his superiors three times, begging them to help him. When he was refused, he was left with a big dilemma: to follow orders or follow his conscience?
Going against his own Culture
Japanese culture clearly prioritized hierarchy and discipline, and for Sugihara to break the orders of his superiors was an extremely serious matter. He risked severe punishment if he abused his position and acted contrary to orders.
An original Visa approved by Sugihara from 1940
Every day, hundreds of Jewish families appeared in front of the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, begging Sugihara to help them. With the help of his wife, Sugihara began issuing visas. During August, Sugihara and his wife created and distributed transit visas for these families. Even though visas normally take months to process, they issued about 300 visas per day, an extraordinary amount. Sugihara worked almost non-stop, determined to help every person that came to him.
On September 1, 1940, Chiune Sugihara was forced to leave Lithuania by train to Berlin. Even at the station, he continued to write visas for the crowd that had gathered near the train.
At the last moment before leaving, he gave his stamp to one of the Jews waiting at the station, which allowed him to issue visas for the remaining families. The last words for the crowd were: “Please forgive me, I can no longer write. I wish you all the best.”
It is not known for sure how many people Chiune Sugihara rescued, but it is estimated that he issued about 6,000 transit visas. Many of these were for families, thus the number of people he saved was most likely considerably higher.
One year after his departure, the Germans conquered Lithuania. Jews in Kaunas who failed to obtain visas from Sugihara were deported to concentration camps, where many of them died.
Chiune Sugihara, his wife Yukiko (right), his sister-in-law Setsuko Kikuchi (left) with their two eldest sons, Hiroki and Chiaki
After leaving Germany, Sugihara was consul general in Prague (Czechoslovakia) from March 1941 until the end of 1942. From 1942 to 1944, Chiune Sugihara was in Bucharest, Romania. After Soviet troops entered Romania, Sugihara and his wife were then deported to a prison camp.
In 1946 they were released by the Japanese government, which left Sugihara without a position or title. He was transformed from a government official to an ordinary man with a precarious financial situation. However, he never regretted his decision to help the Jews of Lithuania. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/chiune-sugihara-the-japanese-schindler-who-saved-over-6-000-jews-d570727df63d | ['Andrei Tapalaga'] | 2020-08-16 20:01:00.996000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Culture', 'Holocaust', 'History', 'World War II'] |
12 Reasons CAMELOT’S END makes a great Christmas gift | The new paperback cover, out January 2020
Click on each title to read more. CAMELOT’S END is available here.
Remember books? You might have thought Ronald Reagan was the only thing worth knowing about 1980. Wow were you wrong. Politics got you down? Reading history can help. You can’t watch “Succession” and “The Masked Singer” all winter break. I wrote from a place of love — not spite, or indifference, or timidity. Jimmy Carter is more appreciated now than when he left office. This book, in telling his incredible personal story, explains why. Ted Kennedy is less respected now in some ways than when he passed away a decade ago, especially following the release of the movie Chappaquiddick (2018). This book explains why he may have acted the way he did that night in 1969, without letting him off the hook in any way. Only people who want to see the world in black and white will dislike this book. You’re not like that. You are an open-minded, thoughtful, curious person. This is a book for you. The story is not an info dump or an academic book. I wrote it in such a way that the story has momentum and suspense. Books make great Christmas gifts. But only if they’re good books. Bad books, not so much. You won’t regret giving this book to someone. They will thank you, probably for years. This book has more balance than Jimmy Carter. Seriously, he keeps falling down. Read about him and then go see him teach Sunday school. You thought Thanksgiving with your family was awkward? Wait until you see what happens when Ted and Jimmy find themselves on the convention stage together.
** If you buy this book from an indie bookstore near you, you’ll be supporting your local economy and proving once and for all that good, old-fashioned bookstores are alive and well.
*** If you’re based in Washington, DC, I might even be able to sign your copy! | https://medium.com/camelots-end/12-reasons-camelots-end-makes-a-great-christmas-gift-7e9cfc247905 | ['Jon Ward'] | 2019-12-16 17:35:43.365000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Christmas Gifts', 'Books'] |
15 Jobs That Will Be Gone in 10 Years | Text above was generated by AI © inite.io | https://medium.com/@aivanouski/15-jobs-that-will-be-gone-in-10-years-7f101e4dc514 | ['Andrei Ivanouski'] | 2020-12-19 17:31:37.267000+00:00 | ['Blogging', 'Jobs', 'AI', 'Future', 'Copywriting'] |
“You must be bold, brave, and courageous and find a way… to get in the way.” | More from Momentum Follow
Momentum is a blog that captures and reflects the moment we find ourselves in, one where rampant anti-Black racism is leading to violence, trauma, protest, reflection, sorrow, and more. Momentum doesn’t look away when the news cycle shifts. | https://momentum.medium.com/you-must-be-bold-brave-and-courageous-and-find-a-way-to-get-in-the-way-rep-john-lewis-6d9d079dd26b | ['Jada Gomez'] | 2020-11-20 06:32:30.563000+00:00 | ['Racism', 'Quotes', 'John Lewis', 'Civil Rights Movement'] |
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