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Just commenced working on my goals | I am going to start working on my goal of wining a foreign scholarship for master’s program. Since after wining a foreign scholarship for master’s program, I would be able to pursue my research in my interested area, therefore this goal is very crucial. Research that I want to continue during my master’s studies is also linked with my dream project. I have a plan to establish my career in this dream project.
However, coming back to the main agenda, before applying for a foreign scholarship in some good reputable university, you need to have or prepare some very vital documents. These documents decide either the wining side or rejected situation of your applied profile for scholarships. These include the following i.e.
i. Academic certificates/degrees including your school or college transcripts, your CV, and language proficiency certificates, Medical fitness prove etc.
ii. Motivational letter (MOL)
iii. Research proposal or Statement of purpose (SOP)
Well, while considering about first part i.e., Academic certificates, I already have made sure that everything is available and ready to go. Therefore, I have started to work on making an eye-catching Motivational letter and I hope to complete it in the present week. Figure 4 presents the first paragraph has been written for the letter but still this is not the final one and needs some alterations and additions by the end of the following week.
Started drafting MOL
After drafting the final document, I would be reviewing this from an expert and again would be making some changes in it depending upon the feedback it would receive. After completing my Motivational letter, my next aim is to establish a good research proposal or a statement of purpose. I shall do these tasks in next and right after the next week.
I was planning to start writing my MOL for about a Month. But there I felt a slight laziness and lack of interest in commencing. The last day, when I was engaged about the leadership online courses, I came to know that there needs just to take a responsibility without waiting for an opportunity. So, I planned to take responsibility and just started writing letter.
I was surprised to see that writing an opening statement for my letter hardly consumed my just 30 to 40 minutes and I was just delaying it from a long time. It was an amazing experience to just commence the work. Although I have not finished it yet, but I am already feeling close to its final.
One thing that I learnt from this experience and which I am going to really admire in future also, that you just consider a pending task like a burden upon you until you begin doing it. Once you are on the road, things go quiet softly. You just need to practice leadership in your own personal matters also. Make a habit to accept responsibility and avoid waiting for an authority to do a thing.
I am feeling a slight satisfied after doing it!! | https://medium.com/@muhammad-shayan177/just-commenced-working-on-my-goals-15625e6ccfb8 | ['Muhammad Shayan'] | 2020-12-19 05:23:23.348000+00:00 | ['Justsrart', 'Amal Fellowship', 'Amal Academy', 'Goals'] |
Five Lessons Learned From The First Wave Of The Fourth Industrial Revolution | Five Lessons Learned From The First Wave Of The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Progressive businesses are embracing a second wave built around ecosystems and multiple ‘super’ platforms.
The magnitude of this escalating disruption is difficult to grasp. Many organizations structured around vertically contained markets continue to advocate random digital projects without strategic direction or centralized control, even while competitors are executing plans for organizational transformation and redesigning core work that optimizes artificial intelligence and machine learning.
With roughly 10–12 years of digital transformation under our belts, we can’t dismiss this change as a temporary state, and there’s no returning to a prior condition of “normal business” as we’ve known it. To do so would be to ignore major trends that are shaping work for years to come, including the rise of platform-driven business ecosystems, the gig economy, customer-oriented operations, and privacy domains that are all facilitated by digitally-enabled automation.
Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash
The first wave of the 4IR taught many companies the value of anticipating disruptive change and using this disruption to create new market models and new ways of working. Even as we embrace the second wave of the 4IR, we feel it is important to reflect on some of the major lessons learned from the last decade.
LESSON 1
Digital Transformation is more than buying digital and installing agile methodologies.
During the first wave, we saw a plethora of siloed or isolated digital initiatives that lacked strategic direction or expected outcome and were bereft of effective coordination. With no means to shut down the poor performers and no clear way to move successful ones forward to an enterprise-scale, we went digital “on the edges” in a reactive, technology-driven response.
Yet even while digitally-focused companies can scale up their agile programs through unified and straightforward software and product development lifecycles, it is crucial that digital initiatives are harmonized and prioritized to the business-digital strategy and new operating model. Only then can we assess iterative progress, understand employee impacts, and build an adaptive, participatory culture into the entire company. Only then can we design customer interactions that are human at their core even if digital at the point of interaction.
LESSON 2
Long-instantiated vertical siloes conflict with the horizontal structures needed in digital-first organizations.
The 4IR is turning traditional organizational structures inside out, as vertical siloes simply cannot function efficiently in a digital-first business environment. These heavily instantiated structures — largely still in place today — result in early digital projects implemented in isolated pockets, with a localized impact that mirrors our organizational siloes.
During the second wave, these siloes will need to dissolve, as the lines between functions dissipate and an ever-smaller group of core employees cooperates with the company’s expanding gig economy workforce, who in turn will constantly turnover even while artificial intelligence and machine learning assets become trusted ecosystem workers. We see these ecosystems not only in the shifting architecture of our industries into new marketplace ecologies but also in the business operations that run uninterrupted inside and outside the organization.
LESSON 3
Engagement and cultural change without the context of new work and new ways of working have limited sustainable values.
The first wave of the 4IR has catapulted culture and engagement into the realm of everyday business. In an era of uncertainty and disruption, it has become critical that new work practices are instantiated as culture. Pervasive digital capabilities mean that every cultural nuance within a company is fair game for public consumption and discussion. Pursuing a diversity of ideas, encouraging participation through shared learnings, embedding customer-centric ideals and informal ways of working must in turn enable reliable, impromptu action and insights when these are needed most. This approach will be even more crucial during the second wave when automation will drive significant change.
Employees will remain the crucial ‘glue’ in the future of work as they assume ever more complex tasks, leaving repetitive, everyday chores to machines. In an environment that opens new avenues of intellectual challenge and productivity for core workers, along with a more flexible and agile way of conducting everyday business, it is critical that those individuals are fully engaged and recognized for their elevated level of contribution to the enterprise.
LESSON 4
Human + Machine work allocation and design need to be integral to critically needed organizational design.
Perhaps the most underdeveloped idea from the first wave of digital transformation was the focus on early or ‘low-hanging fruit’ automation but without a similar level of focus on optimizing human-machine work. This evolving human-machine relationship — where people and automation coexist — is a crucial aspect of any digital transformation strategy. For many organizations, the amount of fully automated work is small compared to the amount of work expected to be performed in a hybrid partnership. As humans increasingly take their “hands off the wheel” at work and rely on machines to do as much as routinely possible, this area will be a critical focus of the organization and work design. We are entering the second wave quite unprepared for this challenge, with issues ranging from ethical design to social and economic policies, to ready leadership and an equipped workforce.
LESSON 5
Leaders need better methodologies for managing ongoing large-scale change as learning & adaptation are constants.
One of the starkest outcomes of the first wave of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is the need for new, horizontal organizational capabilities. Installing digital initiatives in isolated pockets of the company and expecting workers to adapt and learn on timescales that involve harnessing the combined power of human capital and virtual ‘robots’ is a tall order without a methodology for managing this type of sea change. In concert with digital transformation, leaders must literally reinvent the organizational structure in order to make the most of both their human capital and machine learning capacities. Those who do not have the optimal organizational and technological support in place during the second wave will quickly be usurped by more agile competitors.
On the human side, it is critical to acquire talent who can adapt quickly, are comfortable with change, are not afraid to take risks, are highly collaborative, and are critical, systems-based thinkers. Leading enterprises during this second wave will not only adapt and shift to market demands but also facilitate learning and development on multiple timescales, whereby human workers will assume ever more complex tasks, while machines solve repetitive problems within ever shorter time frames.
CONCLUSION
As we move into this phase of the 4IR, we will see the emergence of global, interoperable mega-ecosystems with organizations and organisms (new and reconstructed) that are digital at their core. While machines will increasingly do most of the routine work as we know it today, new models of productivity and participation will enable people to add value on a broader scale. Perhaps at the end of this second wave — in the 2030s — we will begin to see the opportunities and challenges associated with the redefinition of human work itself. | https://medium.com/logical-design-solutions/five-lessons-learned-from-the-first-wave-of-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-4c46819e86bc | ['Logical Design Solutions'] | 2020-12-21 11:03:26.603000+00:00 | ['Employee Experience', 'Future Of Work', 'Company Culture', 'Organizational Culture', 'Digital Transformation'] |
Little rooms | A brightly lit small room with enough space for a tiny table and two chairs facing each other. The chilly room made me want to wrap my arms around myself but I stopped at just rubbing my palms. The warmth could take me through for a few more minutes of this anguish. I wished I had stopped to get that hot coffee. I swallowed to overcome my dry throat and mustered up the courage to stand up, squeeze myself through the narrow space between the table and the wall and stretch out to place my hand on the shoulder of the girl sobbing on the other side.
It was that time of the year. The time when the Gods bestow upon the chosen few a strange power with which you can judge another person if they have been good or bad and decide if you ought to grant him or her your good graces or toss at this suspecting subject, the rubies of unsought guidance. No, I was not playing Santa at the mall! I was in my slick corporate office and trudging through the appraisal season as the appraiser and my fellow occupant in the room, the appraisee.
Merriam Webster in its definition of the word “appraise” includes this -
‘especially: to give an expert judgment of the value or merit of ‘.
Essentially, we are endowing a person with this power of judgement and also believe it to be coming from an ‘expert’. Are all the people performing these appraisals experts? And what are they really supposed to be experts on? Is it the product, the service, technology involved or the processes governing it all or experts at being able to judge the worth of an individual’s performance, strengths and weaknesses? Or is it all of the above?
The common perspective if we were to ask a sample set would perhaps be ‘None of the above’. Even a manager who is doing these appraisals would probably have the same thing to say about his/her manager — ‘She knows nothing about what I am doing’. While this is a common perception and has provided fodder for a vast number of jokes regarding corporate life in general, it is rarely that we hear about what this friend (or not) of ours, the appraiser has to say about it all.
Having been in the technical side of things since the time I began my career in the software industry, a manager’s job was not something that I especially looked up to. I had often associated it with people who were interested to wield a sense of authority, had not much technical involvement and more importantly someone who loved to talk to people, participated in “fun events” and enjoyed it. I had none of these qualities or interests. As I traversed through my career, at some point I faced the prospect of taking up a management role. A list of qualities demonstrated in my capacity as a technical lead were stated which apparently made me a good candidate for it. Although reluctant at first, I eventually decided to take it up. Perhaps my seniors were able to convince me of these abilities that I possessed unknown to me. However, I have often wondered if all that persuasion was because I was being terrible on my technical job and they had to push me onto something else.
A few months into this job and I found myself in that cold room with one of my team members, doing the one thing which I perhaps hated the most of that job. It was the first time that I had faced the predicament of having to console an adult in my professional capacity. I tried to remember when was the last time I had to comfort someone at all. Certainly, it was not the job description that I had signed up for but apathy was not the route I desired either. This would not be the last of these occurrences too. Tears, anger, angst, envy, resentment, disappointment, self-awareness, gratification, joy, trust — some of the human emotions that I would go on to experience along with my fellow occupants of these tiny rooms spread across these smart inanimate buildings.
As someone who gets drained out by the mere thought of having a conversation with anyone who is not a regular on my interaction periphery, a job as a people manager was not an ideal choice. It is much like the experience a person who has never cooked anything ever has while making that first dish — measuring everything twice, checking the timer with every turn and stirring it incessantly, all the while anticipating a burnt dish. I was essentially this novice cook trying to find my way through these conversations, all the while monitoring and treading with extreme caution with the fear of faltering.
Having been a technical lead for some time until then, giving feedback to people was not new. What was new was the content of the feedback. As a technical lead the focus of the feedback is mostly limited to technical skill set and ways of working. There are cases of people seeking professional advice but it is largely around what are the skills that he/she need to pursue to further their career — technical and self-development. Also, the person receiving the feedback knows that you are not directly evaluating them for that grade or number at the end of the year or going to be a participant in the financial plan of their household. If you are worth your salt in your technical skills, there is a feeling that the feedback you share is honest and a level of trust in this transaction. It is a world which is governed by — ‘Trust first, test later’
As a people manager, the notion shifts since there is a level of skepticism and guard that builds up on both sides, irrespective of the actions of the other. Also, the parameters here are vastly different and far too many ranging from professional advice and discontent to personal challenges and personality development. There could be someone on your team who has not just social anxiety but also fear of speaking up about their own work. The same demons you are fighting! You know where we are heading — ‘Test first, trust later’. Trust is also a deeply personal emotion and not an easy one to develop even in your personal relationships, let alone professional. This can be particularly challenging for someone (or at least me) who has social anxiety to be able to connect at this level.
Um, how was I persuaded for this again?
In the initial days of this change, I treated it as a job that needed to be done and for which I was being paid for. It was not like a switch that you can turn on and start feeling comfortable but whether or not practice makes one perfect, it sure helped to smooth out some of the spikes. Each such conversation helped me to learn one new perspective, grasp one new emotion better and know how to reciprocate it better. It sure does benefit that each interaction brings you closer to the person and move from being a mere acquaintance to someone more regular on that social circle. The notes that I needed to remember certain elements about an individual moved from the paper to the mind and the discussions more organic, at least for me. There were a lot of instances where I actually started to enjoy the talk and it very naturally moved to being more casual, where it was more of a stress buster than inducer.
There are countless management guides and pointers which list how feedback should be given and how your 1-on-1’s should be structured. But once you start a conversation, you realize that all those feedback models help you only as much as that recipe on paper you started with. I had started with looking at seasoned cooks at work and then referred to the recipes along the way. But there were some things that I realized I needed to alter considering that I was working with different utensils and the same recipe may not yield the same results.
Hear! Hear!
We often hear the phrases — ‘Don’t hear but listen’, ‘Listen to understand and not to react’. These are great instructions and not so difficult for an introvert to practice. As I practiced this, there was one more thing I observed — the intervening pauses and silences are as important. I do not recollect if the pauses we had was because I was zoned out by the boring talk at some point (that can happen too) or because I was trying to come up with something intelligent to say. I would imagine it was both. Regardless of the cause, the result was that pause gave an impression for the other person that his part of the conversation was not done yet. And usually, it was then that some of the unprepared points were made and these often revealed a lot more.
So, I would say — ‘Listen. Listen more without speaking during those pauses and then listen some more to hear the unsaid too’.
I understand.
Charlie Harper on Two and a Half Men said in one of the earlier episodes — When I say, “I understand”, it doesn’t mean I understand. It doesn’t mean I agree. It doesn’t even mean I’m listening.
The last part of that quote removed (c’mon, I just talked about listening); this is one of the very few things that Charlie Harper said on that show that resonated with me. A lot of times in the conversation I realized that the person you are with actually knows that you do not (or could not) agree with what they were saying. Also, there were situations where you cannot solve the problem that they are talking about but they chose to still bring it up. Why? Was it a whine?
Sometimes, yes. But also, a large number of times, it was just to be able to get it off their mind and out there. What did they want? For me to listen and acknowledge. I realized empathizing does not mean that you agree with what the other person is saying. It means that you are able to acknowledge the way the person feels and are offering your time to listen and perhaps try to find a solution or a way forward for it.
A trip down memory lane…
This one time I asked a colleague of mine if she was back at her home in Mysore after her trip and she told me that her home was in Bangalore which was about 150 km apart and hoped she would continue to stay there. While she might have felt anywhere between being amused to annoyed, I was mortified.
Remembering your past conversations with the person whether they are the ones related to work or also the casual ones are imperative in general but also a savior if you find conversations hard, since it provides a conversation starter. Asking about how the kid of your colleague has adapted to his new school is as important as asking about the project deadlines. It is also important then to remember what you spoke about in your last discussions. It might not be best asking how the kid has adapted to school if it is a 1-year-old that you are talking about.
As a matter of fact
There was once that I had to share a not-so-pleasant feedback to one of my team members, received from another senior colleague. I was to realize it later that the facts which were shared as feedback were in fact impressions. This is especially difficult because a lot of times our facts and truths are based on our context and conjectures. And sadly enough, not every action is quantifiable.
However, my learning was to try and base it as much as possible on your observations and if not, let the person know what instances that you are basing your feedback on. Along with moving the conversation to a more constructive mode, it moved in the zone of being more factual than abstract.
Also, if you realize you had got it wrong all this while — Apologize.
All’s well that ends well
360-degree, 180-degree, 0-degree — The strange marriage of geometry and HR management. There are probably a lot of different modes and degrees of feedback that the kind HR folks have invented. I had both filled and received these feedback forms but a lot of times these happened to be just forms with 5 correct answers.
At the end of every one-on-one conversation, I practiced to always ask for feedback about me. The fact that you want feedback from the people you work with is a no brainer. The fringe benefit of this is that a lot of times you get to know of things that you did unintentionally but it actually helped someone or vice versa and brought out a different perspective.
Am I fully comfortable now to have these conversations? Not really. There are still the conversations where someone is tearing up about a decision you made or is bitter and has some unkind words to say. But it is important to also remember that breaking out of your introversion does not mean becoming a people pleaser. It is about being able to have difficult conversations and not fold up while doing it. It is about building that trust in yourself and for that person across the table to have that conversation in that little room.
One of the people on my earlier team reached out to me some days back. He wanted to have a chat and to know my opinion on something that was troubling him. At the end of our conversation, he said that it made him feel better.
I do not know if the conversation made him feel better but it sure did bring me joy, albeit outside the little room. | https://medium.com/@vr.vichara/little-rooms-f89f48e6dec | ['Vijetha Rao'] | 2021-09-08 12:38:44.352000+00:00 | ['Management', 'Appraisal', 'Manager', 'Introvert'] |
Face Recognition with Python, in Under 25 Lines of Code | OpenCV
OpenCV is the most popular library for computer vision. Originally written in C/C++, it now provides bindings for Python.
OpenCV uses machine learning algorithms to search for faces within a picture. Because faces are so complicated, there isn’t one simple test that will tell you if it found a face or not. Instead, there are thousands of small patterns and features that must be matched. The algorithms break the task of identifying the face into thousands of smaller, bite-sized tasks, each of which is easy to solve. These tasks are also called classifiers.
For something like a face, you might have 6,000 or more classifiers, all of which must match for a face to be detected (within error limits, of course). But therein lies the problem: for face detection, the algorithm starts at the top left of a picture and moves down across small blocks of data, looking at each block, constantly asking, “Is this a face? … Is this a face? … Is this a face?” Since there are 6,000 or more tests per block, you might have millions of calculations to do, which will grind your computer to a halt.
To get around this, OpenCV uses cascades. What’s a cascade? The best answer can be found in the dictionary: “a waterfall or series of waterfalls.”
Like a series of waterfalls, the OpenCV cascade breaks the problem of detecting faces into multiple stages. For each block, it does a very rough and quick test. If that passes, it does a slightly more detailed test, and so on. The algorithm may have 30 to 50 of these stages or cascades, and it will only detect a face if all stages pass.
The advantage is that the majority of the picture will return a negative during the first few stages, which means the algorithm won’t waste time testing all 6,000 features on it. Instead of taking hours, face detection can now be done in real time.
Cascades in Practice
Though the theory may sound complicated, in practice it is quite easy. The cascades themselves are just a bunch of XML files that contain OpenCV data used to detect objects. You initialize your code with the cascade you want, and then it does the work for you.
Since face detection is such a common case, OpenCV comes with a number of built-in cascades for detecting everything from faces to eyes to hands to legs. There are even cascades for non-human things. For example, if you run a banana shop and want to track people stealing bananas, this guy has built one for that! | https://medium.com/geeky-bawa/face-recognition-with-python-in-under-25-lines-of-code-bc830c4a7078 | ['Vaibhav Hariramani'] | 2020-11-26 07:13:59.002000+00:00 | ['Facedetection', 'Opencv Python', 'Image Processing', 'Face Recognition'] |
Our World Needs a Reset Button or Maybe a Rewrite | With a desire to connect faces to this insidious disease, people where asked to participate in a project. Everyone who participated were asked the same questions and their responses developed into poems sharing their experiences.
Follow | https://medium.com/faces-of-coronavirus/our-world-needs-a-reset-button-or-maybe-a-rewrite-fcf7cf288daa | ['Brenda Mahler'] | 2020-12-26 20:15:25.580000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Faces Of Covid', 'Covid 19', 'Reflections', 'Coronavirus'] |
Learning To Love Myself From My Husband | Fast-forward to 2017, I met my husband. I was still very insecure about myself. I couldn’t understand why he would want to be with someone like me. Since he’s dated other people who I considered to be more attractive. But he kept, and still does, complimenting me and telling me how much he loves me. He found me attractive and loves me for who I am. He accepted me as a person.
At first, I didn’t believe it, but he began showing his disapproval whenever I would call myself fat or ugly. He kept loving me and cherishing me. He was dispelling my harmful words and replacing them with words of love and encouragement. My husband’s love changed me. I was beginning to love myself more, and I was willing to take care of myself for myself. | https://medium.com/sweaters-and-blankets/learning-to-love-myself-from-my-husband-5f53a94b1dab | ['Tiffany Hsu'] | 2020-12-14 17:39:33.102000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Self Love', 'Self Acceptance', 'Self Improvement', 'Marriage'] |
¡Pásala bien con los artistas del humor en Famosos.com! | in In Bitcoin We Trust | https://medium.com/@famosos/p%C3%A1sala-bien-con-los-artistas-del-humor-en-famosos-com-5576944c9059 | [] | 2020-12-17 15:00:40.368000+00:00 | ['Buen Humor', 'Videos', 'Regalos De Navidad', 'Famosos', 'Experiencias'] |
Your hidden personality and how it guides you | Your hidden personality and how it guides you
Your theories of action: Theory in Use vs. Espoused Theory
Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash, modified by author
Your “hidden personality” is hidden only from you — others get a clear understanding of it from your actions and words because behavior conveys personality. You’ve undoubtedly noticed that some people view themselves very differently from how others see them.
For example, assholes don’t view themselves as such, though from time to time, one will, with a shock of recognition, see that they have acted exactly as an asshole would. Sometimes that results in a positive change — they are, as it were, scared straight and take a more thoughtful and careful in future interactions.
Theory in Use vs. Espoused Theory
Our theory of action consists of the ideas, values, and assumptions that guide our actions—what we do and say. Chris Argyris saw the difference between how people view themselves and how others view them as the result of having two theories of action.
One is our theory in use — what we do and how it appears to an impartial observer — and the other is our espoused theory — our view of what we are doing and how we would describe it to others. For some, these two diverge considerably. I once worked for an extremely controlling manager who thought he gave free rein to his subordinates and supported their independence when in fact he continually checked on them and required that they clear any decisions with him.
Argyris studied management and organizations and found that the more a person ascended in the hierarchy of an organization, the more frequently theory in use and espoused theory diverged, because the higher a person’s position, the less likely their subordinates will provide frank and honest feedback (one of the ways that power corrupts.)
His book Increasing Leadership Effectiveness describes his experience with a small group of young CEOs. Among other things, he helped them give each other the frank and honest feedback they no longer got from subordinates. For example, they pointed out to each other instances in which their actions contradicted their statements of values. And in Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness Argyris and Donald Schön apply those ideas directly to the practice of education.
The Adaptive Unconscious vs. the Constructed/Conscious Self
Our adaptive unconscious and our conscious self each have a personality — characteristic behavior and responses — and the two personalities are relatively independent. Our espoused theory is what our conscious self does when it is making conscious decisions; our theory in practice is what our adaptive unconscious has us doing from habit — unconsciously.
Timothy Wilson’s excellent book Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious provides a good description of the unconscious and what we have learned about it. Wilson notes
The adaptive unconscious is more likely to influence people’s uncontrolled, implicit responses, whereas the constructed [conscious] self is more likely to influence people’s deliberative, explicit responses. For example, the quick, spontaneous decision of whether to argue with a coworker is likely to be under the control of one’s nonconscious needs for power and affiliation. A more thoughtful decision about whether to invite a coworker over for dinner is more likely to be under the control of one’s conscious, self-attributed motives.
How to take conscious control
It’s a good idea to learn the personality of your adaptive unconscious since it directly affects how people view you. That is, it’s a good idea to know the theory of action you (unconsciously) express in practice and whether (and how much) that differs from your espoused (conscious) theory of action.
So how can you do that? As Argyris demonstrated, frank and honest feedback, preferably with the guidance of a skilled facilitator, is one way— and group therapy is an example of that. That’s not always available, and in any case, it’s good to know what you can do on your own. Wilson offers this observation:
Because people cannot directly observe their nonconscious dispositions, they must try to infer them indirectly, by, for example, being good observers of their own behavior (e.g., how often they argue with their coworkers). How important is this kind of insight? It doesn’t have to be perfect, because some positive illusions are beneficial. However, it is to people’s benefit to make generally accurate inferences about the nature of their adaptive unconscious.
The Moral-Mirror Journal can help you learn the personality of your adaptive unconscious. This journal, written from a bystander or onlooker’s point of view, describes your interactions with others.
Don’t include in the journal your thoughts at the time or your reasons for what you did. Record only what was said and done: an objective account. When you review it after some time has passed, you may not be able to recall your thoughts and reasons, so you will have to judge what happened just as others do: based only on your words and actions
Over time, patterns will emerge, and in those patterns, you will see the personality of your adaptive unconscious and the theory in practice that you use. You may find that these differ from what you thought, and from that, you can get guidance for real change. If you continue the journal, you can judge the effectiveness of the change. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/your-hidden-personality-and-how-it-guides-you-b10eae3ae45c | ['Michael Ham'] | 2020-12-26 01:03:43.757000+00:00 | ['Self Development', 'Life Lessons', 'Psychology', 'Journaling', 'Self Improvement'] |
How I Became a Top Writer in 3 Topics in One Month | Develop Your Routine
No one will give you the magic writing routine that will let you shit out masterpieces. You can learn from other writers and test out their methods. But ultimately, your routine will be of your creation.
I read a ton of articles about the tools and routines of other writers, trying to emulate their strategies. It increased my productivity, to an extent. However, creating my own strategy increased my output by at least 5x.
When you’re focusing on other writer’s routines, you put yourself in a do-not-have mindset. You think there’s some tip or trick out there that is waiting to take you to the next level. If you let that feeling fester, it will come back to haunt you when you’re vulnerable.
In my case, on days when I was feeling uninspired, I would read “How to Become a Better Writer on Medium” articles instead of focusing on writing. This desire to copy another writer’s routine made me look at what I don’t have.
There is a successful routine inside of you. You just need to find it.
Here’s what I do, in case you’re wondering. When I sit down for a dedicated writing period, I make sure to have all my essentials within reach. My essentials include my laptop and charger, a water bottle, a blank sheet of paper and a pen to jot down notes, a pair of socks in case my feet get cold, and a bowl of healthy snacks.
Once my essentials are covered, I turn my phone on silent and stash it in my desk. I turn on some chill music; I type ‘Chillhop study playlist’ into Youtube. I blacklist sites like YouTube or Instagram on my laptop. Then I sit my ass down and don’t get up until I’ve worked through my writing period.
I may have taken bits and pieces of other people’s processes. But I didn’t inherit my method from a Medium article or YouTube video explaining how to become a better writer. I discovered a process that worked for me, and I made it my own.
Find what works for you. | https://medium.com/mind-cafe/how-i-became-a-top-writer-in-3-topics-in-one-month-1e064c3dfd9f | ['Tenzin Ozaki'] | 2020-09-23 20:41:26.066000+00:00 | ['Writer', 'Self', 'Life Lessons', 'Productivity', 'Self Improvement'] |
Train your own object detector with Faster-RCNN & PyTorch | After working with CNNs for the purpose of 2D/3D image segmentation and writing a beginner’s guide about it, I decided to try another important field in Computer Vision (CV) — object detection. There are several popular architectures like RetinaNet, YOLO, SDD and even powerful libraries like detectron2 that make object detection incredibly easy. In this tutorial, however, I want to share with you my approach on how to create a custom dataset and use it to train an object detector with PyTorch and the Faster-RCNN architecture. I will show you how images that were downloaded from the internet can be used to generate annotations (bounding boxes) with the help of the multi-dimensional image viewer napari. The provided code is specifically written for Faster-RCNN models, but parts might work with other model architectures (e.g. YOLO) because general principles apply to all common object detection models that are based on anchor/default boxes. Due to transfer learning, you will see that training an object detector sometimes requires very few images! You can find the code and a jupyter notebook on my github repo.
For this tutorial, I am going to train a human head detector. I can imagine that this is a common task for phone camera applications: detecting human faces or heads within an image. If you want to train your own object detector, e.g. for racoon detection, car detection or whatever comes into your mind, you’re at the right place. So please go ahead. It might be useful for you.
For training and experiment management, I will use PyTorch Lightning and neptune. If you’re not familiar with these packages, do not worry, you’ll be able to implement your own training logic and choose your own experiment tracker. Here’s the table of content:
Getting images Annotating Dataset building Faster R-CNN in PyTorch Training Inference
Getting images
In order to train an object detector with a deep neural network like Faster-RCNN we require a dataset. For this, I downloaded 20 images (selfies) from the internet. You can do this manually or use web scraping techniques. All images are .jpg or .png rgb or rgba files.
Here is the full dataset:
Training, validation & test data. Image by author
Let’s assume you have downloaded your images into /heads/input . Before adding bounding boxes to our input images, we should first rename our files so that they all follow the same pattern. An example on how to rename them is shown below. This simply renames all files within a directory to something like 000.jpg, 001.png etc. You can find the function get_filenames_of_path() in the utils.py script.
Annotating
There are plenty of web tools that can be used to create bounding boxes for a custom dataset. These tools usually store the information in a or several specific files, e.g. .json or .xml files. But you could also save your annotations as python dicts if you don’t want to learn another file format. Pytorch’s Faster-RCNN implementation requires the annotations (the target in network training) to be a dict with a boxes and a labels key anyway. The boxes and labels should be torch.tensors where boxes are supposed to be in xyx2y2 format (or xyxy format as stated in their docs) and labels are integer encoded, starting at 1 (as the background is assigned 0). The easiest form to save a dict as a file is using the pickle module. Fortunately, the torch package integrates some functionality of pickle, e.g. it allows us to save a file like a dict with torch.save() and load it with torch.load() . This means that we can store the annotations that we create in a pickled file. If this annotation file happens to have the same name as the image, mapping the image to its annotation file becomes really easy and creating a dataset for neural network training as well. If you already have a labeled dataset at hand, you can skip this section.
As I recently discovered napari, a multi-dimensional image viewer for python, I decided to use it to generate the labels/annotations for my dataset. Please do not expect a full fledged, perfectly working code for creating bounding boxes. This is just me making myself familiar with napari and using for my needs. If you prefer an out-of-the-box solution, I recommend taking a look at myvision.ai.
Let’s take a look at how to generate annotation files for our heads dataset with napari. For this, I heavily made use of napari’s shapes layer and created a specific Annotator class that makes annotating much easier. You can run the code within a jupyter notebook or an IPython kernel. No need to run the magic command %gui qt , as this is automatically called before starting the qt application.
This will open the napari qt-application that shows one image at a time. You can navigate through your list of images by pressing ’n’ to get the next or ‘b’ to get the previous image (custom key-bindings).
Image by author
Now, if you would like to add a label with bounding boxes for the current shown image, just enter the following into your IPython console or jupyter notebook session.
annotator.add_class(label='head', color='red')
You just need to specify the label you want and the color. Now you can start using napari’s functionality to draw bounding boxes.
Note: Don’t worry if you accidentally click ’n’ or ‘b’ on your keyboard. The created bounding boxes are saved automatically. It also doesn’t matter if you delete the image layer, as the image is read from disk every time you display the image (e.g. by clicking ’n’ or ‘b’). However, if you delete the shape layer for a label, this information is lost for this image.
Image by author
We can create as many classes as we want. For each new class, a new shape layer is created, which means we can hide specific labels if the image is cluttered with bounding boxes. We basically can do whatever we want with the bounding boxes, e.g. changing it’s color or width etc.
annotator.add_class(label='eye', color='blue')
Image by author
If you want to export the annotations for this image, you can write the following:
annotator.export(pathlib.Path('.../some_directory')))
You could also specify a name for the annotation file. When no name is given, the image’s name is taken and the .pt extension appended. I recommend this approach as this makes resuming a labeling session with the Annotator possible. Here’s an example, where annotation_ids is a list of pathlib.Path objects, similar to image_files.
annotator = Annotator(image_ids=image_files,
annotation_ids=annotation_files)
If the annotation files are in the right format and have the same name as the image itself, these annotations will be used. You can for example start labeling a bigger dataset, export some of the annotations that you managed to create in a certain time and resume labeling at a later time.
Let’s continue to create bounding boxes for every image we have. For this tutorial, we’ll stick to our heads bounding boxes and delete the eye layer that I showed above. Once you’re satisfied with the result, you can export all annotations in one go with:
annotator.export_all(pathlib.Path('.../Heads/target'))
For this project we now have two directories, something like /heads/input and /heads/target . In /heads/input , we find all images that we downloaded and in the /heads/target directory the corresponding annotations with bounding boxes and labels that we just generated. 20 images and 20 annotation files (pickled python dicts) in total. Let’s quickly take a look at the annotation files.
This gives us the following:
keys:
dict_keys(['labels', 'boxes']) labels:
array(['head', 'head', 'head', 'head', 'head', 'head'], dtype='<U4') boxes:
[array([ 14.32894795, 217.18092301, 277.02631195, 531.98354928]),
array([199.95394483, 81.49013583, 396.43420467, 287.74013235]),
array([386.66446799, 2.24671611, 588.57235932, 247.57565934]),
array([306.33552198, 251.91776453, 510.41446591, 521.12828631]),
array([525.61183407, 266.0296064 , 741.63156727, 554.77960153]),
array([723.17762021, 116.22697735, 925.08551155, 432.11512991])]
Looks about right. The labels and boxes are both stored in numpy.ndarrays in xyxy format. Now we can build a proper dataset for network training.
Dataset building
Here’s how to build your own dataset that you can use to feed the network with batches of data. The approach is similar to my previous tutorial: 2D/3D semantic segmentation with the UNet.
Let’s take a look at the dataset class ObjectDetectionDataSet:
Builds a dataset with images and their respective targets. A target is expected to be a pickled file of a dict and should contain at least a ‘boxes’ and a ‘labels’ key. inputs and targets are expected to be a list of pathlib.Path objects. In case your labels are strings, you can use mapping (a dict) to int-encode them. Returns a dict with the following keys: ‘x’, ‘x_name’, ‘y’, ‘y_name’
To better understand the arguments, here’s some more information:
transform: transformations to be applied to the data.
use_cache: Instead of reading the data from disk every time we access them, we can iterate over the dataset once in the initialization method and store the data in memory (using multiprocessing). This is quite useful for network training, where we train in epochs.
mapping: As our labels are strings, e.g. ‘head’, we should integer encode them accordingly.
convert_to_format: If your bounding boxes happen to be in a different format, e.g. xywh, you can convert them into xyxy format with convert_to_format = ‘xyxy’.
Let’s use this class to build the dataset for our head detector.
As you can see in this example I use the class ComposeDouble. This allows to stack different transformations. Clip() is used to identify the bounding boxes that are bigger than the actual image and clips them accordingly. To augment the dataset one can use the albumentation module, for which I wrote the AlbumentationWrapper class. In order to use any numpy based function on the data, one can use the FunctionWrapper class. This wrapper takes in a function and an arbitrary number of arguments to return a functools.partial. I use Double to highlight that the data comes in input-target pairs (image + annotation) as opposed to Single. Whether the input or target should be transformed, can be specified with the boolean arguments input and target. By default, only the input is used. For more information I encourage you to take a look at transformations.py. In this example, we linearly scale our image and bring it in the right dimensional order: [C, H, W].
We can now take a look at a sample from the dataset with:
sample = dataset[1]
We can see that the sample is a dict with the keys: ‘x’, ‘x_name’, ‘y’, ‘y_name’.
sample['x'].shape
-> torch.Size([3, 710, 1024])
These transformations are, however, not the only ones. The Faster R-CNN implementation by PyTorch adds some more, which I will talk about in the next section. But first, let us again visualize our dataset. This time, we can pass the dataset as an argument with the DatasetViewer class instead of passing a list of image paths.
This will open a napari application, that we can navigate with the keyboard buttons ’n’ and ‘b’ again. There is, however, only one shape layer that contains the bounding boxes of every label. We can assign a color to different labels by passing a dict to our DatasetViewer or changing the color within the napari viewer instance. The label is shown on the top left corner of every bounding box. You probably can barely see it, as the text’s color is white by default. But you can change the size and color, either accessing the napari viewer instance directly with datasetviewer.viewer or by opening a small GUI application with
datasetviewer.gui_text_properties(datasetviewer.shape_layer)
This functions takes in the shapes layer for which we would like to change the text properties. The GUI is shown on the bottom left of the viewer and was created with magicgui. | https://medium.com/@johschmidt42/train-your-own-object-detector-with-faster-rcnn-pytorch-8d3c759cfc70 | ['Johannes Schmidt'] | 2021-02-23 14:22:06.320000+00:00 | ['Faster R Cnn', 'Object Detection', 'Pytorch', 'Python', 'Deep Learning'] |
The Five Biggest Lies About Covid-19 | Ten months into the pandemic, we can now look back and separate some truths from fiction.
Courtesy of The Los Angeles Times
As we approach the first anniversary of the global pandemic, it is time to separate fact from fiction. Although there are still few absolutes, an abundance of evidence permits us to draw a few reasonable conclusions. The politicization of the outbreak and a growing mistrust of government, scientists, and authorities provides fertile ground for conspiracy theories and outright lies. Here are the five biggest falsehoods.
China created the virus in a bioweapons lab.
The Wuhan, AKA Covid-19, virus, was rumored to have been developed in a bioweapons lab. There is no convincing evidence that this was true. Although innuendos to the contrary by both Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo in the spring, the bulk of evidence suggests natural genetic mutations of a pre-existing virus led to its emergence. Added to the near-unanimous scientific opinions in this regard is another question. Even if China seeks to dominate the world by any means and has little respect for human life, why would it unleash a virus in its own country without a vaccine or antidote? Many claim it was just an accident. There is, of course, some precedence for this. A graduate student working in a Singapore lab in 2003 was sickened by the SARS virus after the epidemic ended. But the genetic coding of the current virus suggests a more common cause, i.e., genetic mutation.
You can get the virus by touching infected surfaces.
Like millions of other people and families, my wife and I spent much of the spring wiping down groceries and leaving Amazon cardboard boxes untouched outside for at least twenty-four hours. Much information on-line detailed how long strands of the virus lasted on different surfaces. The CDC dispelled this myth of surface transmission months ago. The whole virus does not live long on any surface. It is vulnerable to air, wind, and sunlight. A neighbor has an outside wooden book lending library. It still has a cover on it that says, “Closed due to Covid-19.” Not even one documented case of this virus being transmitted by touching a surface has been reported. Despite this knowledge, we still see store workers compulsively wiping down card readers, and Clorox wipes are missing from store shelves. After restaurant outbreaks, work crews in Hazmat suits even come in to “sanitize” everything. Why?
The answer lies in something I learned in medicine a long time ago. When a situation seems untreatable with few, if any options, at least do something…anything. It would help if you showed the patient, and their families, that you are trying. People rightfully interpret inaction as the same as hopelessness. Thus, this sanitization “reductio ad absurdum” is little more than a hygiene dog and pony show. The virus needs quick transmission from one host to another. Unless an infected person sneezes or coughs on a surface, and you touch it, and then immediately touch your face, you likely won’t become infected. However, this reality should not dissuade everyone from practicing good hygiene as defined by frequent hand-washing and sanitizer. Many other pathogens, or germs, can be prevented by doing this, so the practice should not be ignored.
Herd immunity, not vaccines, will end the outbreak.
During the first few months of the pandemic, some countries tried adopting “herd immunity.” To those few still unfamiliar with this term, here is the definition. “When most of a population is immune to an infectious disease, this provides indirect protection — or herd immunity (also called herd protection) — to those who are not immune to the disease". “Most” is usually defined as at least 70–80% of the population. There are only two ways to achieve it. First, the infected produce natural antibodies after being ill and generally don’t get the disease again. Second, people get a vaccine to protect them from getting the illness. The problem with the first approach is that millions will die first before the goal is attained. The United Kingdom quickly learned this was a failing strategy and abandoned it. Unfortunately, Sweden did not understand this lesson.
Unlike most other Scandinavian countries, they did not lockdown, wear masks, or change their habits much. As a result, their morality is triple that of its neighbors. Their approach was to protect the “elderly and vulnerable,” while everyone else pretty much carried on as usual. A few medical authorities have advocated this approach too.
The highly controversial “Great Barrington Declaration”, written by respected doctors from Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford, has been signed by thousands of physicians. Alas, the declaration does not discourage the use of natural herd immunity. Instead, it states, “We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity — i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable — and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine.” This position detracts from an otherwise useful and thoughtful document. Mass vaccination is the only way to defeat this disease without further considerable deaths. Yes, most people who get Covid-19 will not die. However, we don’t know the long-lasting effects. Many so-called “long-haulers” continue to suffer symptoms. Others have inflammation of the heart or myocarditis, which may eventually lead to heart failure, disability, and death. To date, there are no long term similar side effects of the vaccines. The risk/benefit ratio favors vaccination.
Wearing masks is not effective in preventing the spread of the virus.
Courtesy of pixabay.com
It defies logic and evidence that we are still having this debate. Some of this undoubtedly stems from early CDC and Dr. Fauci’s misstatements about not needing to wear a mask. Fear of mask hoarding by the general public and thereby, shortages in hospitals led to this lie. That has not helped garner confidence in government positions and proclamations. It is a fact that most masks do a better job of preventing the spread of viruses from the wearer to the public than the other way around. Notable exceptions are devices like the N95 respirator masks that block 95% of all germs reaching the wearer’s nose and mouth. Good quality cloth and disposable masks do block some pathogens but not nearly as well as the N95. Bandanas or neck gators are the least effective. But since there is a potentially large and unknown number of asymptomatic people who could spread the disease, widespread mask-wearing indoors makes sense. The utility outdoors is less clear.
Some studies have stirred controversy by citing data and charts claiming to show no change in infection rates of mask mandates vs. non-mask mandated areas. The problem with these studies is twofold. First, it is exceedingly difficult to have people self-assess how often or well they wear a mask. And second, once the case rates of Covid-19 jumps, leading to the mandates, there is often a drop in cases. People then become less likely to comply with the directives. Other reputable sources confirm that masks do work at stemming widespread virus transmission. Finally is my non-scientific observation. Most pandemics and cases of flu start in the Far East. As soon as an epidemic arises, I see millions of their citizens wearing masks when out in public. Maybe they know something we don’t.
Getting Covid-19 is not worse than having the flu.
The short answer here is we don’t know this yet. World-wide the current death rate is 2.2%. In the US, it is 1.7%. Influenza fatality rates are around 0.1%. Even one of the best countries to handle Covid-19 spread, South Korea, still has a mortality rate of 1.4%. We can argue about the misclassification of a positive covid case and if deaths are being counted correctly. But there is such a vast difference here that to minimize the chances of dying makes no sense. And as noted above, long-term disabilities are resulting from Covid infection. Influenza is most lethal in very young and very old. Covid is more likely to kill the elderly and compromised adults than the very young. Multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a severe condition that appears to be linked to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is a rare complication of Covid infection. Judging by the lack of recent news coverage as compared to a few months ago, I suspect its incidence is still relatively low. However, useful data in this regard is sparse.
Following his one bout with Covid-19, President Trump implied that his illness was no big deal and inferred it was not worse than the flu. Never mind that at that time, he received early intervention and top-notch medical care. The latter included antibody treatments not then available to the general public. It is possible that after the next two years, the fatality rates will be much lower. But at this moment, the comparison makes no sense.
I understand and appreciate the terrible cost that lockdowns have caused here and abroad. They should only be reserved for overrun health care facilities and full ICU units. But this virus is not the same as the flu.
With time there will be more misunderstandings, exaggerations, and outright lies. The only way to survive this ordeal is with the very best and up to date reliable information available at a given moment. Politics has no place in constructing pandemic policy. Regrettably, even public health has provided no safe harbor in this regard.
If you enjoyed reading this, or found it interesting, please follow me on Medium https://medium.com/@davidmokotoff/, Facebook, Twitter @DavidMokotoff, or contact me at [email protected] | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-five-biggest-lies-about-covid-19-beea5a445f74 | ['David Mokotoff'] | 2020-12-22 18:21:27.318000+00:00 | ['Vaccines', 'Lies', 'Immunity', 'Covid 19', 'Pandemic'] |
The Republican Fracture of the Black Community is Intentional. | Recently, I had the chance to read “Why This Black Man is Voting for Trump” by Quincy Bingham.
I get why he wrote this, I really do. But I think he (and a lot of others who publish similar material) are basing a lot of these opinions off of ignorance on how things actually work.
I've worked in politics. I agree 100% with Quincy that in some cases Dems can be just as bad as Republicans. Heck, even worse.
I think the main issue I take with his central thesis, is that while he tries to make it seem like a neutral take, its very premise is pretty colored.
There's a key here with the "what has the Democratic party ever done for the Black community" speaking point that always lets me know how informed / uninformed people are when they talk about politics.
When Black people within the community usually trot out this speaking point (typically on the conservative side of the aisle), they are basically boiling down the entire conversation to the "dependent black" theory.
Basically, who's making you more dependent on them so you never actually succeed.
The conclusion almost always seems to be:
"Republicans don't want to give you anything, they want you to be self-sufficient. The Democrats just want you dependent. Look at all these terrible Dem-controlled cities."
And its this belief that while its intelligent in its structure and virality, its incredibly destructive in its ability to kill all meaningful conversation.
It was think-tanked and packaged for consumption for black people who feel out of place or left behind in society, angry about what they see, and need to validate their anger with "research" for the culprit. And if the echo-chamber was effective enough, Dems are usually the culprit.
And to that point, I get it, Dems make it supremely easy.
However, what most people don't actually know is that politics aren't about what's being done for you, its about what you can do for yourself. Political parties tend to represent the most active and vocal amongst them.
The squeaky wheel does indeed get the grease.
To that point, the most important aspect of a truly representative political party is mobility. Specifically, how mobile are you within your party's structure to succeed.
And this is where the parties differ.
The Black community has been a part of the Democratic Party since the Nixon realignment and have achieved more within the party during this period than at any other time in US history. They’ve been able to break the ultimate glass ceiling in politics, not once, but twice.
In both cases, it was the Black community’s activism and action that changed the political landscape and got their choice onto the main ticket for the Democratic Party.
No one did this for them. No one gave them anything. They did it for themselves.
They voted in the primaries and in the election for the person they felt would best represent them.
To suggest otherwise is to minimize the ability of every Black brother and sister that fights within the political system to make sure it represents them.
While I hope that one day it happens, I honestly don’t believe we will ever see the kind of mobility that would lead to a black face on the main ticket of the Republican party. The party has evolved and excelled at the art of quiet exclusion.
The people who represent the Republican party doesn’t care about you being self-sufficient. They care about resources. Anything they have to give up to you, means they can’t keep for themselves.
The result of that is the Black community being forced to figure it out for themselves — but not too much, because that too is a resource that needs to be stockpiled for more deserving purposes.
If you ever question this point, I urge you to spend some time looking at your state assembly’s lawmaking process while in session. I bet you would be surprised to find that, that “failing” majority black school in the Dem district or county often isn’t failing in a vacuum. Its due to years of intentional budget re-appropriations, onerous requirements and restrictions, and eventual takeover.
Don’t fall for the trap. If you are a part of the Republican party to fight within the system to make it more representative of everyone, more power to you. It’s an uphill battle, but I guess someone has to do it.
But the execution of a “better or safer” life within the Republican vision of America will include the intentional minimization of the Black community. Its who the Republican Party represents right now. | https://medium.com/@jayfranklin/the-republican-fracture-of-the-black-community-is-intentional-faa1b498385 | ['Jay Franklin'] | 2020-12-02 16:57:29.770000+00:00 | ['Vote', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Democratic Party', 'Republican Party', 'Election 2020'] |
Host a blog on your Raspberry Pi with Ghost ! | If you want to start a blog, but are unsure about the costs and complexity of hosting one, worry not ! Ghost is an open source CMS (Content Management System) that you can host 100% on your very own Raspberry Pi. This way you can keep hosting costs to a minimum.
In this article, I will show you how to install Ghost on your Raspberry Pi, using docker. I will also show you how to enable HTTPS traffic on your blog, using nginx and Letsencrypt certificates with certbot .
Prerequisites
To follow this tutorial, you will need:
A Raspberry Pi (of course)
Internet access
Basic understanding of Docker
Installing docker
If you have already installed Docker on your Raspberry Pi, you can skip this part.
To install Docker on the Pi, we will be using the helper script that Docker provides. Downloading and running it is as simple as:
Done, Docker is now installed ! To be able to run docker commands without sudo , you will need to add the docker group to your user:
sudo usermod -a -G docker $USER
If you close and reopen your terminal, you can run any Docker command as your non-sudo user !
Installing docker-compose
Installing docker-compose is not as straight-forward as for Docker. You first need to install a couple dependencies:
sudo apt-get install -y libffi-dev libssl-dev
sudo apt-get install -y python3 python3-pip
sudo apt-get remove python-configparser
Then, docker-compose can be installed using pip:
sudo pip3 -v install docker-compose
There you go, now we have all we need to run a Ghost instance on the Raspberry Pi. Let’s move on to setting it up.
Start up the ghost server
We will use docker-compose to launch our ghost server. To do so, we will use the ghost:3-alpine Docker image. By default, Ghost uses an SQLite database, but here we show you how to set it up with a MySQL one.
The setup is a bit trickier with MySQL, as the official Docker image has only been built for amd64 architectures. We used a different image, based on the official one, that has been re-build for arm : hypriot/rpi-mysql:5.5 (https://hub.docker.com/r/hypriot/rpi-mysql/).
Using docker-compose to set all of this up, we end up with the following docker-compose.yml file:
# docker-compose.yml
version: ‘3.1’
ghost:
image: ghost:3-alpine
restart: always
ports:
— 8080:2368
environment:
database__client: mysql
database__connection__host: db
database__connection__user: root
database__connection__password: example
database__connection__database: ghost
url:
volumes:
— ./content:/var/lib/ghost/content
db:
image: hypriot/rpi-mysql
restart: always
environment:
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: example
volumes:
— mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql services:ghost:image: ghost:3-alpinerestart: alwaysports:— 8080:2368environment:database__client: mysqldatabase__connection__host: dbdatabase__connection__user: rootdatabase__connection__password: exampledatabase__connection__database: ghosturl: https://example.com volumes:— ./content:/var/lib/ghost/contentdb:image: hypriot/rpi-mysqlrestart: alwaysenvironment:MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: examplevolumes:— mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql # Use a docker managed volume for data persistency across reboots
volumes:
mysql-data:
Don’t forget to change the default database password, as we set it to example here. Also, you will need to set the URL Ghost will be exposed on. The example value is https://example.com , in a local setup you would set it to http://localhost:8080 , but in a production environment, you should set it to the domain name you expose your server on. Here, I set it to https://pivrous.wtf for this website.
When you’re done with the config, it’s time to boot it up !
docker-compose up -d
Forwarding traffic to your Raspberry Pi
A final step before obtaining your certificate and starting the HTTPS web server is to route the traffic coming to your domain, say pivrous.wtf in this example, to your Raspberry Pi.
There are two steps to that:
Adding a DNS record that points to your public IP
Adding port forwarding from your home router to your Raspberry Pi.
To add a DNS record that points to your public IP, you will of course need to buy a domain name. There are many DNS providers out there, just choose one that chooses you and with which you can buy a domain name that suits you.
All providers will then allow you to create DNS records. Here you will need to create an A type record, that points your domain name to your own public IP (your home router’s IP on the public internet). You can find that IP either on https://www.whatismyip.com/ or by using the following command:
Now, we need to route this traffic from your home router to your Raspberry Pi, in the local network. This can be done by accessing your home router’s admin interface, usually available at 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1, depending on your internet provider.
You will then need to add a port-forwarding rule, or NAT rule, in your router’s config. You will want to route traffic from ports 80 and 443 on your router (HTTP and HTTPS traffic) to ports 80 and 443 on your Raspberry Pi.
Enabling HTTPS traffic
Now that our services are up and running, and that web traffic reaches our Raspberry Pi, all that’s left to do is to enable HTTPS traffic to reach our Ghost server.
To do this, we will use certbot to obtain a Let's Encrypt SSL certificate, and nginx to handle the HTTPS traffic. First, let's install nginx :
sudo apt-get install nginx
Then, install certbot from its own package repository:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python-certbot-nginx
You can then obtain a certificate :
sudo certbot — nginx -d pivrous.wtf
This will place your certificate in /etc/letsencrypt/live/pivrous.wtf . We will then edit the default file located in /etc/nginx/sites-available to replace it with the following content:
server {
listen 80;
server_name pivrous.wtf;
return 301
}
} location / {return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri server {
server_name pivrous.wtf;
listen 443 ssl;
proxy_pass
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
} location / {proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080 proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;proxy_set_header Host $http_host;proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/pivrous.wtf/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/pivrous.wtf/privkey.pem;
ssl on;
}
You will have to adapt the config with your domain name, this example is the one I used for pivrous.wtf . Finally, we will enable the site and restart the nginx service:
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/default /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
sudo systemctl restart nginx
And that’s it !
You can now access your Ghost site at https://pivrous.wtf ! Amazing, right ? | https://medium.com/swlh/install-ghost-on-your-raspberry-pi-b7cdc8e7e37f | ['Pierre Averous'] | 2020-10-26 14:10:22.197000+00:00 | ['DevOps', 'Raspberry Pi', 'Tools', 'Blog'] |
Here You Go, John. | Here You Go, John.
Older to newer. Just a sampling. It helps to read the literature.
https://rloldershaw.medium.com/new-paper-11-28-17-seven-hints-that-dm-pbhs-ead5f665bda4
https://rloldershaw.medium.com/new-paper-zhu-et-al-on-primordial-black-hole-dark-matter-1c12abaeda99
https://rloldershaw.medium.com/radio-background-anomalies-and-black-holes-d6769e5613e1
https://rloldershaw.medium.com/new-hope-in-dark-matter-search-b4a88cdf4dd0
https://rloldershaw.medium.com/new-evidence-for-primordial-black-hole-dark-matter-91c5808ea00c | https://medium.com/@rloldershaw/here-you-go-john-1bfd1f49b209 | ['Robert Oldershaw'] | 2020-12-13 23:55:53.204000+00:00 | ['Astronomy', 'Physics', 'Leadership', 'Science', 'Cosmology'] |
Attack on Titan Season 4 Ep. 4 — Final Season Full 『Anime』 On NHK, MBS | ▶ Watch Attack on Titan Final Season Episode 4 English Subbed / Sub Espanol On HTB, MBS, Tokyo MX, BS11, FBS, NHK | Episode 1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10 (FREE)
▶ Full Watch Episode HERE!!! https://cutt.ly/Th8bili
From One Hand to Another | Several hundred years ago, humans were nearly exterminated by Titans. Titans are typically several stories tall, seem to have no intelligence, devour human beings and, worst of all, seem to do it for the pleasure rather than as a food source. A small percentage of humanity survived by walling themselves in a city protected by extremely high walls, even taller than the biggest Titans. Flash forward to the present and the city has not seen a Titan in over 100 years. Teenage boy Eren and his foster sister Mikasa witness something horrific as the city walls are destroyed by a Colossal Titan that appears out of thin air. As the smaller Titans flood the city, the two kids watch in horror as their mother is eaten alive. Eren vows that he will murder every single Titan and take revenge for all of mankind.
📽 Episode Info
Show: Attack on Titan
Number: Season 4, Episode 4
Airdate: Dec 27, 2020 at 00:10
Runtime: 25 minutes
📽 Attack on Titan
Known in Japan as Shingeki no Kyojin, many years ago, the last remnants of humanity were forced to retreat behind the towering walls of a fortified city to escape the massive, man-eating Titans that roamed the land outside their fortress. Only the heroic members of the Scouting Legion dared to stray beyond the safety of the walls — but even those brave warriors seldom returned alive. Those within the city clung to the illusion of a peaceful existence until the day that dream was shattered, and their slim chance at survival was reduced to one horrifying choice: kill — or be devoured!
📽 Show Info
Network: Japan NHK (2013 — now)
Schedule: Sundays at 00:10 (25 min)
Status: Running
Language: Japanese
Show Type: Animation
Genres: Action Adventure Anime Fantasy
Official site: shingeki.tv
📽 Japan NHK
NHK (official English name: Japanese Broadcasting Corporation) isJapan’s national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers’ payments of a television license fee.
NHK operates two terrestrial television services (NHK General TV and NHK Educational TV), two satellite television services (NHK BS-1 and NHK BS Premium, both now high-definition television services), and three radio networks (NHK Radio 1, NHK Radio 2, andNHK FM).
NHK also provides an international broadcasting service, known as NHK World. NHK World is composed of NHK World TV, NHK World Premium, and the shortwave radio service NHK World Radio Japan. World Radio Japan also makes some of its programs available on the internet.
♚ I do not own this song or the Image, all credit goes,
It’s so Awesome. Subscribe and Share with your friends! to my channel. See for more videos!!. I want to say ‘thank you’ for being the friend!! Atelevision show (often simply TV show) is any content produced for broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed between shows. Television shows are most often scheduled well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings. A television show might also be called a television program (British English: programme), especially if it lacks a narrative structure. A television series is usually released in episodes that follow a narrative, and are usually divided into seasons (US and Canada) or series (UK) — yearly or semiannual sets of new episodes. A show with a limited number of episodes may be called a miniseries, serial, or limited series. A one-time show may be called a “special”. A television film (“made-for-TV movie” or “television movie”) is a film that is initially broadcast on television rather than released in theaters or direct-to-video. Television shows can be viewed as they are broadcast in real time (live), be recorded on home video or a digital video recorder for later viewing, or be viewed on demand via a set-top box or streamed over the internet.
✨ CREDITS ✨
The first television shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within a very short range from the broadcast tower starting in the 202055s. Televised events such as the 202055 Summer Olympics in Germany, the 202055 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famous introduction at the 202055 New York World’s Fair in the US spurred a growth in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 202055 World Series inspired many Americans to buy their first television set and then in 202055, the popular radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a stable, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The first national live television broadcast in the US took place on September 2020, 202055 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets. The first national color broadcast (the 202055 Tournament of Roses Parade) in the US occurred on January 2020, 202055. During the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. A color transition was announced for the fall of 202055, during which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 202055, the last holdout among daytime network shows converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season.
💫 CREDITS 💫
Television shows are more varied than most other forms of media due to the wide variety of formats and genres that can be presented. A show may be fictional (as in comedies and dramas), or non-fictional (as in documentary, news, and reality television). It may be topical (as in the case of a local newscast and some made-for-television films), or historical (as in the case of many documentaries and fictional series). They could be primarily instructional or educational, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy and game shows.[citation needed] A drama program usually features a set of actors playing characters in a historical or contemporary setting. The program follows their lives and adventures. Before the 202055, shows (except for soap opera-type serials) typically remained static without story arcs, and the main characters and premise changed little.[citation needed] If some change happened to the characters’ lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. Because of this, the episodes could be broadcast in any order.[citation needed] Since the 202055, many series feature progressive change in the plot, the characters, or both. For instance, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere were two of the first American prime time drama television series to have this kind of dramatic structure,[2020][better source needed] while the later series Jujutsu Kaisenlon 2020 further exemplifies such structure in that it had a predetermined story running over its intended five-season run.[citation needed] In 202055, it was reported that television was growing into a larger component of major media companies’ revenues than film.[2020] Some also noted the increase in quality of some television programs. In 202055, Academy-Award-winning film director Steven Soderbergh, commenting on ambiguity and complexity of character and narrative, stated: “I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television. On January 20201, 2020202020202020, WHO announced an outbreak of a coronavirus new (COVID-20205) as a Concerning Public Health Emergency World. To respond to COVID-20205, preparedness and response is needed critical nature such as equipping health personnel and facility management health services with the necessary information, procedures, and tools can safely and effectively work. health workers play an important role in responding to outbreaks COVID-20205 and become the backbone of a country’s defense for limit or manage the spread of disease. At the forefront, power health care providers that suspect patients need and confirmed COVID-20205, which is often carried out in challenging circumstances. Officers are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-20205 in their efforts to protect wider society. Officers can be exposed to hazards such as psychological stress, fatigue, mental exhaustion or stigma. WHO is aware of their duties and responsibilities this big responsibility and the importance of protecting health care facility personnel.
💫 Aim
This material aims to protect health workers from infection and prevent it possible spread of COVID-20205 in health care facilities. This material contains a series of simple messages and reminders based on technical guidelines WHO is more comprehensive about infection prevention and control in facilities health services in the context of COVID-20205: “Prevention and control infection in health services when the new coronavirus (nCoV) infection is suspected “ (20205 January 2020202020202020). Further information can be found in the WHO technical manual.
✨ Readers of this material
This material is intended for health personnel and service facility management health and may be distributed to other health workers and to facilities health services. The Ministry of Health can provide this material to all hospitals and government health service facilities. Copy this material needs to be provided to private physician networks, medical associations, medical, nursing and midwifery to be shared and fitted accordingly necessity. The contents of this material can be adapted into local languages and placed in places in the service facility
💫 ALL CATEGORY WATCHTED 💫
An action story is similar to adventure, and the protagonist usually takes a risky turn, which leads to desperate scenarios (including explosions, fight scenes, daring escapes, etc.). Action and adventure usually are categorized together (sometimes even while “action-adventure”) because they have much in common, and many stories are categorized as both genres simultaneously (for instance, the James Bond series can be classified as both). Continuing their survival through an age of a Zombie-apocalypse as a makeshift family, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abagail Breslin) have found their balance as a team, settling into the now vacant White House to spend some safe quality time with one another as they figure out their Jujutsu Kaisen move. However, spend time at the Presidential residents raise some uncertainty as Columbus proposes to Wichita, which freaks out the independent, lone Jujutsu Kaisen out, while Little Rock starts to feel the need to be on her own. The women suddenly decide to escape in the middle of the night, leaving the men concerned about Little Rock, who’s quickly joined by Berkley (Avan Jogia), a hitchhiking hippie on his way to place called Babylon, a fortified commune that’s supposed to be safe haven against the zombies of the land. Hitting the road to retrieved their loved one, Tallahassee and Columbus meet Madison (Zoey Deutch), a dim-witted survivor who takes an immediate liking to Columbus, complicating his relationship with Wichita.
💫 ANALYZER GOOD / BAD 💫
To be honest, I didn’t catch Jujutsu Kaisen when it first got released (in theaters) back in 515. Of course, the movie pre-dated a lot of the pop culture phenomenon of the usage of zombies-esque as the main antagonist (i.e Game of Thrones, The Maze Runner trilogy, The Walking Dead, World War Z, The Last of Us, etc.), but I’ve never been keen on the whole “Zombie” craze as others are. So, despite the comedy talents on the project, I didn’t see Jujutsu Kaisen….until it came to TV a year or so later. Surprisingly, however, I did like it. Naturally, the zombie apocalypse thing was fine (just wasn’t my thing), but I really enjoyed the film’s humor-based comedy throughout much of the feature. With the exception of 520201’s Shaun of the Dead, majority of the past (and future) endeavors of this narrative have always been serious, so it was kind of refreshing to see comedic levity being brought into the mix. Plus, the film’s cast was great, with the four main leads being one of the film’s greatest assets. As mentioned above, Jujutsu Kaisen didn’t make much of a huge splash at the box office, but certainly gained a strong cult following, including myself, in the following years. Flash forward a decade after its release and Jujutsu Kaisen finally got a sequel with Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap, the central focus of this review post. Given how the original film ended, it was clear that a sequel to the 515 movie was indeed possible, but it seemed like it was in no rush as the years kept passing by. So, I was quite surprised to hear that Jujutsu Kaisen was getting a sequel, but also a bit not surprised as well as Hollywood’s recent endeavors have been of the “belated sequels” variety; finding mixed results on each of these projects. I did see the film’s movie trailer, which definitely was what I was looking for in this Jujutsu Kaisen 2020 movie, with Eisenberg, Harrelson, Stone, Breslin returning to reprise their respective characters again. I knew I wasn’t expecting anything drastically different from the 515 movie, so I entered Double Tap with good frame of my mind and somewhat eagerly expecting to catch up with this dysfunctional zombie killing family. Unfortunately, while I did see the movie a week after its release, my review for it fell to the wayside as my life in retail got a hold of me during the holidays as well as being sick for a good week and half after seeing the movie. So, with me still playing “catch up” I finally have the time to share my opinions on Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap. And what are they? Well, to be honest, my opinions on the film was good. Despite some problems here and there, Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap is definitely a fun sequel that’s worth the decade long wait. It doesn’t “redefine” the Zombie genre interest or outmatch its predecessor, but this Jujutsu Kaisen chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen still provides an entertaining entry….and that’s all that matters. Returning to the director’s chair is director Ruben Fleischer, who helmed the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie as well as other film projects such as 51 Minutes or Less, Gangster Squad, and Venom. Thus, given his previous knowledge of shaping the first film, it seems quite suitable (and obvious) for Fleischer to direct this movie and (to that affect), Double Tap succeeds. Of course, with the first film being a “cult classic” of sorts, Fleischer probably knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to replicate the same formula in this sequel, especially since the 5-year gap between the films. Luckily, Fleischer certainly excels in bringing the same type of comedic nuances and cinematic aspects that made the first Jujutsu Kaisen enjoyable to Double Tap; creating a second installment that has plenty of fun and entertainment throughout. A lot of the familiar / likeable aspects of the first film, including the witty banter between four main lead characters, continues to be at the forefront of this sequel; touching upon each character in a amusing way, with plenty of nods and winks to the original 515 film that’s done skillfully and not so much unnecessarily ham-fisted. Additionally, Fleischer keeps the film running at a brisk pace, with the feature having a runtime of 55 minutes in length (one hour and thirty-nine minutes), which means that the film never feels sluggish (even if it meanders through some secondary story beats / side plot threads), with Fleischer ensuring a companion sequel that leans with plenty of laughter and thrills that are presented snappy way (a sort of “thick and fast” notion). Speaking of which, the comedic aspect of the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie is well-represented in Double Tap, with Fleischer still utilizing its cast (more on that below) in a smart and hilarious by mixing comedic personalities / personas with something as serious / gravitas as fighting endless hordes of zombies every where they go. Basically, if you were a fan of the first Jujutsu Kaisen flick, you’ll definitely find Double Tap to your liking. In terms of production quality, Double Tap is a good feature. Granted, much like the last film, I knew that the overall setting and background layouts weren’t going to be something elaborate and / or expansive. Thus, my opinion of this subject of the movie’s technical presentation isn’t that critical. Taking that into account, Double Tap does (at least) does have that standard “post-apocalyptic” setting of an abandoned building, cityscapes, and roads throughout the feature; littered with unmanned vehicles and rubbish. It certainly has that “look and feel” of the post-zombie world, so Double Tap’s visual aesthetics gets a solid industry standard in my book. Thus, a lot of the other areas that I usually mentioned (i.e set decorations, costumes, cinematography, etc.) fit into that same category as meeting the standards for a 20205 movie. Thus, as a whole, the movie’s background nuances and presentation is good, but nothing grand as I didn’t expect to be “wowed” over it. So, it sort of breaks even. This also extends to the film’s score, which was done by David Sardy, which provides a good musical composition for the feature’s various scenes as well as a musical song selection thrown into the mix; interjecting the various zombie and humor bits equally well. There are some problems that are bit glaring that Double Tap, while effectively fun and entertaining, can’t overcome, which hinders the film from overtaking its predecessor. Perhaps one of the most notable criticism that the movie can’t get right is the narrative being told. Of course, the narrative in the first Jujutsu Kaisen wasn’t exactly the best, but still combined zombie-killing action with its combination of group dynamics between its lead characters. Double Tap, however, is fun, but messy at the same time; creating a frustrating narrative that sounds good on paper, but thinly written when executed. Thus, problem lies within the movie’s script, which was penned by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick, which is a bit thinly sketched in certain areas of the story, including a side-story involving Tallahassee wanting to head to Graceland, which involves some of the movie’s new supporting characters. It’s fun sequence of events that follows, but adds little to the main narrative and ultimately could’ve been cut completely. Thus, I kind of wanted see Double Tap have more a substance within its narrative. Heck, they even had a decade long gap to come up with a new yarn to spin for this sequel…and it looks like they came up a bit shorter than expected. Another point of criticism that I have about this is that there aren’t enough zombie action bits as there were in the first Jujutsu Kaisen movie. Much like the Walking Dead series as become, Double Tap seems more focused on its characters (and the dynamics that they share with each other) rather than the group facing the sparse groupings of mindless zombies. However, that was some of the fun of the first movie and Double Tap takes away that element. Yes, there are zombies in the movie and the gang is ready to take care of them (in gruesome fashion), but these mindless beings sort take a back seat for much of the film, with the script and Fleischer seemed more focused on showcasing witty banter between Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of course, the ending climatic piece in the third act gives us the best zombie action scenes of the feature, but it feels a bit “too little, too late” in my opinion. To be honest, this big sequence is a little manufactured and not as fun and unique as the final battle scene in the first film. I know that sounds a bit contrive and weird, but, while the third act big fight seems more polished and staged well, it sort of feels more restricted and doesn’t flow cohesively with the rest of the film’s flow (in matter of speaking). What’s certainly elevates these points of criticism is the film’s cast, with the main quartet lead acting talents returning to reprise their roles in Double Tap, which is absolutely the “hands down” best part of this sequel. Naturally, I’m talking about the talents of Jessie Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin in their respective roles Jujutsu Kaisen character roles of Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock. Of the four, Harrelson, known for his roles in Cheers, True Detective, and War for the Planet of the Apes, shines as the brightest in the movie, with dialogue lines of Tallahassee proving to be the most hilarious comedy stuff on the sequel. Harrelson certainly knows how to lay it on “thick and fast” with the character and the s**t he says in the movie is definitely funny (regardless if the joke is slightly or dated). Behind him, Eisenberg, known for his roles in The Art of Self-Defense, The Social Network, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is somewhere in the middle of pack, but still continues to act as the somewhat main protagonist of the feature, including being a narrator for us (the viewers) in this post-zombie apocalypse world. Of course, Eisenberg’s nervous voice and twitchy body movements certainly help the character of Columbus to be likeable and does have a few comedic timing / bits with each of co-stars. Stone, known for her roles in The Help, Superbad, and La La Land, and Breslin, known for her roles in Signs, Little Miss Sunshine, and Definitely, Maybe, round out the quartet; providing some more grown-up / mature character of the group, with Wichita and Little Rock trying to find their place in the world and how they must deal with some of the party members on a personal level. Collectively, these four are what certainly the first movie fun and hilarious and their overall camaraderie / screen-presence with each other hasn’t diminished in the decade long absence. To be it simply, these four are simply riot in the Jujutsu Kaisen and are again in Double Tap. With the movie keeping the focus on the main quartet of lead Jujutsu Kaisen characters, the one newcomer that certainly takes the spotlight is actress Zoey Deutch, who plays the character of Madison, a dim-witted blonde who joins the group and takes a liking to Columbus. Known for her roles in Before I Fall, The Politician, and Set It Up, Deutch is a somewhat “breath of fresh air” by acting as the tagalong team member to the quartet in a humorous way. Though there isn’t much insight or depth to the character of Madison, Deutch’s ditzy / air-head portrayal of her is quite hilarious and is fun when she’s making comments to Harrelson’s Tallahassee (again, he’s just a riot in the movie). The rest of the cast, including actor Avan Jogia (Now Apocalypse and Shaft) as Berkeley, a pacifist hippie that quickly befriends Little Rock on her journey, actress Rosario Dawson (Rent and Sin City) as Nevada, the owner of a Elvis-themed motel who Tallahassee quickly takes a shine to, and actors Luke Wilson (Legally Blonde and Old School) and Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie) as Albuquerque and Flagstaff, two traveling zombie-killing partners that are mimic reflections of Tallahassee and Columbus, are in minor supporting roles in Double Tap. While all of these acting talents are good and definitely bring a certain humorous quality to their characters, the characters themselves could’ve been easily expanded upon, with many just being thinly written caricatures. Of course, the movie focuses heavily on the Jujutsu Kaisen quartet (and newcomer Madison), but I wished that these characters could’ve been fleshed out a bit. Lastly, be sure to still around for the film’s ending credits, with Double Tap offering up two Easter Eggs scenes (one mid-credits and one post-credit scenes). While I won’t spoil them, I do have mention that they are pretty hilarious.
💫 FINAL THOUGHTS 💫
It’s been awhile, but the Jujutsu Kaisen gang is back and are ready to hit the road once again in the movie Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap. Director Reuben Fleischer’s latest film sees the return the dysfunctional zombie-killing makeshift family of survivors for another round of bickering, banting, and trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. While the movie’s narrative is a bit messy and could’ve been refined in the storyboarding process as well as having a bit more zombie action, the rest of the feature provides to be a fun endeavor, especially with Fleischer returning to direct the project, the snappy / witty banter amongst its characters, a breezy runtime, and the four lead returning acting talents. Personally, I liked this movie. I definitely found it to my liking as I laugh many times throughout the movie, with the main principal cast lending their screen presence in this post-apocalyptic zombie movie. Thus, my recommendation for this movie is favorable “recommended” as I’m sure it will please many fans of the first movie as well as to the uninitiated (the film is quite easy to follow for newcomers). While the movie doesn’t redefine what was previous done back in 515, Jujutsu Kaisen: Double Tap still provides a riot of laughs with this make-shift quartet of zombie survivors; giving us give us (the viewers) fun and entertaining companion sequel to the original feature. | https://medium.com/attack-on-titan-season-4-2020-ep-4/attack-on-titan-season-4-ep-4-final-season-full-anime-on-nhk-mbs-fbbc4d4fe34c | ['Attack On Titan Season'] | 2020-12-26 16:23:21.611000+00:00 | ['Animation', 'Anime', 'SciFi'] |
Give Those YouTube Tutorials Love | As I write this, I’m still wildly excited about a technical tutorial — yes, video content — I watched today. Excited like vegan triplets at a buffet on all-you-can-eat Korean taco night.
Yes, seriously. That excited.
And when I feel this grateful about new knowledge, I have an ACTION LIST aimed at strategically finding more impactful ways to pay back the YouTube content creator.
And in a world of thumbs-down-giddy, negativity-packed internet trolls, I want us to start a trend where waves of adoration sweep over those online experts who craft solid, useful, and amazing tutorial content.
Dedicated YouTubers (nope, I am not one) are an amazing breed, but I segment them into categories of usefulness.
My sliding scale for YT content sort of works like this:
Hilarious — Funny — Amusing — Entertaining — Mildly Entertaining — Educational — Informative — Helpful — Inspiring — Golden Unicorn
When you see golden unicorns — those who deliver unbelievable value that’s way beyond helpful and inspiring — I suggest you act like it and spend a solid ten to fifteen minutes paying back that human being for changing your world!
Let’s start a new tidal wave of internet civility and gratitude for the hard work of dedicated YouTubers. I’d be happy to see that. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/give-those-youtube-tutorials-love-16087bae69ed | ['Andy Mcwain'] | 2020-10-12 14:09:52.060000+00:00 | ['Online', 'Social Media', 'Tutorial', 'YouTube'] |
Lockdown: Week 5 | “Your baby is crying again, sir?” the shopkeeper said. He was sat on the wall outside, smoking.
“Yep.”
On my regular walk, Jacob cries when we pass this guy’s shop. Without fail. It’s uncanny. Still, I don’t think it is comment-worthy. I mean, I couldn’t be more aware that my baby is crying. I am more aware of this fact than anybody else in the universe. Little does the shopkeeper know, his remark cost him £6 of my money for a bottle of Echo Falls (don’t judge, he has a limited selection. It’s basically that or MD20/20) so there is no winner here. Actually, there is. Tesco Express is the winner. Bloody corporations.
In a bid to combat Jacob’s tears, I put a white noise compilation on my phone and stuck it under the mattress in his pram. Things got off to a good start; he was asleep within 10 minutes, the tension in my shoulders eased and I settled into a casual stroll. I have become immune to white noise as we have it playing all night every night and silence now seems louder. I was surprised that my Spotify artist of the year for 2019 was Kanye West as I’m neither cool nor a fan of his latest album, but there will be no such surprises for 2020. White Noise is set to be the clear winner. I prefer his earlier stuff.
I was snapped out of my blissful state by a booming American voice:
“TAKE A MOMENT TO THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED TODAY. TODAY IS A GOOD DAY. YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK…”
What have I achieved today? I forgot my password and got locked out of my work laptop this morning and I’ve just established a resentment for a perfectly amiable shopkeeper. More to the point, how the heck had this chancer got onto a white noise playlist? Totally the wrong genre, mate. I looked down at Jacob and he was in a heavy sleep. I couldn’t risk fumbling around in his pram for the phone and waking him up. So, looking like a man with deep insecurities which he is surprisingly keen to air publicly, I just rode it out and listened to 4 minutes of aggressively loud positive self-talk while avoiding eye contact with anyone we came across. Mercifully, the playlist got back on track with the sound of waves crashing.
There won’t be any similar issues with my phone for the foreseeable as I no longer have a working one. A couple of days ago, I took Joshua for a stroll in the woods, which you may remember from week 3. Enough time had passed, we were ready. Things started out great; it was a lovely day with flowers in bloom and sunlight flickering through the branches as we scrambled around searching for pine cones and, more ambitiously, dinosaurs.
After half an hour, we sat down on a rock by a stream and I gave Joshua a snack. As he was munching his raisins, I looked at him and thought, fucking hell, I am this guy’s dad! I am a father to two sons. Sometimes, not that often, this catches me completely off guard. It’s quite overwhelming. Blink 182 and drinking cider in the park doesn’t seem that long ago? As if I’m a dad? The ensuing moments indicate I still have a lot to learn.
In trying to show off to Joshua by kicking a large stick into the stream, I caught my rucksack and watched as it rolled, pathetically slowly, down the bank and into the water. I scrambled down the side and managed to extend my arm and grab it. Sadly, as I was performing this heroic action, my phone flew out of my back pocket and landed in the drink (I blame wearing jogging bottoms. I honestly think I’ve lost or broken double figures in phones due to the frankly irresponsibly designed zipless pockets on jogging bottoms.) The phone was fully submerged. I managed to hook it out but knew that a stint in a bowl of rice would be in vain. It was over.
With a sopping wet rucksack and a broken phone, I climbed back up the bank. Two women were walking their dog and hadn’t seen me. What they had seen: a 2-year-old, sat eating raisins by a stream, totally alone. Just out on a solo jaunt.
“Hi,” I said, emerging covered in mud and water. “Just, you know, dropped my rucksack, and subsequently my phone, in the stream.”
“Oh, that’s unfortunate.”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
I got the impression they didn’t give a shit about the phone. They were, though, visibly relieved that their day wasn’t going to be derailed by having to deal with an unsupervised toddler in the woods.
After they left, Joshua began laughing hysterically, saying “Daddy. Bag. Water” on repeat. He then, almost-definitely-deliberately, chucked his wooden butterfly into the stream and his laughter made way for tears, “No, Daddy! My butterfly!”
I was back in the stream. Hello, old friend. Gladly, I managed to retrieve the butterfly.
I’m no stranger to being phoneless but it is particularly galling in the current climate. What am I supposed to do with my days now? Do some work? Give the children my undivided attention? It doesn’t bear thinking about. At least Louise has a phone so we can stay in touch with friends and family. Well, this was the case for exactly 20 hours. The following morning, no lie, Joshua grabbed her phone from the windowsill and hurled it out of the front door onto the steps. Smashed screen, no good to anyone. Come on now?
In these unprecedented times, how on earth are we going to keep up-to-date with what’s going on in the world?
“You could always go and buy a newspaper, Andy?” Louise said.
Not happening. | https://medium.com/the-coffeelicious/lockdown-week-5-b60c6483692c | ['The Flagging Dad'] | 2020-04-28 16:46:47.133000+00:00 | ['Family', 'Parenting', 'iPhone', 'Humor', 'Baby'] |
The “Why” of Cloud-Native: Goals and Benefits | Kyle Brown and Kim Clark
Note: This is part 5 of five-part series. For the first article in the series, start here or jump to Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
In our past articles, we’ve established “what” cloud native refers to and even “how” cloud native works. However, there’s a bigger, more fundamental question we haven’t addressed. Why should anyone care? Given the background from the previous two articles, we can now explore the “why” and look at the benefits of cloud native, starting at a high level of what it means to the business, then dropping down to what it means on the ground.
Benefits of a cloud native approach
Business perspective on goals and benefits
Let’s face it, IT fads come and go. Many business teams try to stay above those fads and let the IT folks go their own way — after all the choice of an application server or language runtime usually doesn’t have much bearing on the way the business operates. What makes cloud native any different? Why should the business support a move to cloud native? In order to understand that, we need to start from a point of view taking into account three key things nearly all businesses must focus on to be successful: growth, risk mitigation and cost reduction. We would argue that building applications with a cloud native approach has the potential to provide benefits in all of these categories.
Market growth
Market growth is all about capturing new customers and keeping their interest. In order to win new customers and retain the interest of customers that are marginal, you have to be able to bring good, new ideas to market faster than your competition. Factors such as the adoption of lean methods and the streamlining of the path to production through pipeline automation enable teams to bring business ideas to production more quickly. This enables a reduced time to market, helping IT to move at the speed of the business in bringing out new features. However, new features will not, by themselves, ensure market growth. You have to be able to winnow out those new features that have a negative effect on customer retention and customer acquisition and allow those to die, while keeping those new features that have a positive effect on those two measures. The real key is to ensure innovation readiness; letting the business boldly and rapidly bring disruptive ideas to life in order to capture new market niches ahead of the competition, while at the same time putting in place measurements that allow you to determine empirically which ideas were good, and which ideas were not good.
Risk mitigation
New features are not everything a business needs, however. If a business could just forge ahead by constantly delighting its customers with new, awesome features, then we would have an easier job. The reality is more complex and difficult, but no less important. Customers need to trust your business. This is, of course, most visible in highly regulated industries such as financial services or healthcare, but relevant to every business. The solutions you provide need to have an appropriate degree of resilience and security to ensure that customers can be sure you’ll be there when they need you, and they can trust you with their money, their data, or their lives.
As we covered in a previous article, well written cloud native solutions make use of abstraction to decouple themselves from the underlying physical infrastructure, offering implicit resilience. Furthermore, they also follow a zero trust model for their components, since they must assume portable deployment into any cloud environment. However, the more we are concerned with risk, the more likely we are to put up barriers to making changes, which works against our need for market growth. It is here that cloud native can help in risk mitigation by providing highly automated and consistent ways to put things into production, reducing the fear of change through deployment confidence.
However, a cloud native approach doesn’t magically reduce risk on its own. Techniques like feature flags and canary testing can enable the business to do things that they might previously have rejected as being too risky, but that requires close cooperation with the business in order for those techniques to become valuable to the business. We must work with the business to update how they measure and control risk so that it is compatible with the methods and processes being introduced.
Cost reduction
No business can ignore cost. It doesn’t matter how big your market share is, or how much your customers trust you, if you can’t control costs, you can’t count on reliable profits. Businesses are run by people (at least today!) and people cost money. We need to ensure we can get the best from the smallest number of them, and this is all the more true of those with the deepest skills. The platforms on which cloud native solutions are built should aim to standardize and, wherever possible, automate the day-to-day tasks of building, deploying and managing software. This makes for optimized high value staff who can focus on directly adding value to the business rather than getting bogged down with day-to-day operations. Of course, those platforms and their underlying infrastructure need to be paid for too. Fortunately, cloud native solutions are designed to use only the resources they need, so you should take advantage of elastic cost models provided by the platform to enable you to take advantage of that cost efficiency.
IT perspective on goals and benefits
To this point, our discussion has been a bit high-level in terms of how cloud native impacts the business. In order for the business to comprehend the benefits of cloud native, we have to translate the IT benefits we have discussed into corresponding business benefits. We’ll next show how each of the key business benefit areas above map to our earlier cloud native ingredients.
Agility and productivity (Market growth)
Every business wants more features from IT — they also want them faster, and they want them to more accurately reflect what they need. How does cloud native help with that?
Faster delivery of components
Delivery acceleration is of the most commonly stated goals for a cloud native approach and pulls together three core aspects: cloud platforms, agile methods and microservices. Cloud platforms, through aspects such as elastic provisioning and component orchestration, enable us to focus on building business functionality by automating and simplifying most of the day-to-day operations work. By reducing toil, they allow teams to focus on higher-value work. Agile methods should enable us to shorten the distance between requirements and implementation and improve alignment with business goals. That means that less rework is required, and bad ideas are discovered and corrected more quickly. Design approaches such as microservices enable us to deliver functionality incrementally, with fewer dependencies, and thereby more rapidly.
Autonomous teams with freedom to innovate
An intentional consequence of fine-grained and discrete components is that it offers more autonomy to the teams creating them. As long as the key rules of decoupling we earlier described are followed, the components can be treated largely as a “black box” by the receiving platform. While cross-team collaboration and common practices should be encouraged, teams are free to, for example, use whatever language runtimes and frameworks are most productive for their needs. This freedom to innovate allows teams to “think out of the box” and deliver solutions to the business not only more quickly, but also to deliver solutions that are more innovative in terms of the business. A key aspect of this autonomy is that the business must be part of each autonomous team. The notions of a Product Owner and Sponsor Users are critical to building not only productive, but innovative teams.
Responsive to changing business conditions
Earlier, we talked about how the ability to not only innovate, but to determine if an innovation is valuable through concrete and empirical measurements were important in order to make a team ready to move at the speed of the business. A critical aspect of this is the ability of the business and IT to work together through Hypothesis driven development. Simply put, Hypothesis Driven Development is phrasing business ideas as scientific hypotheses that can be either proven or dis-proven. Cloud native development only brings benefit to the business if the business is engaged throughout the development cycle.
A primary form of engagement is through A/B testing — if you put a measurement in place, such as the percentage of abandoned carts, or the percentage of customers that click “buy” after browsing, then you can compare different ideas empirically. You can direct some of your customers to a new approach featuring a new idea, and others to the existing approach, and then compare the difference in the measurement between the two over time. The key here is that this requires the business to think in terms of measurable differences. Much as a scientific hypothesis isn’t a hypothesis if it cannot be dis-proven, the same applies to a business hypotheses. The business has to be able to help determine a quantifiable measure by which two different ideas or approaches can be compared. That means that they have to be involved throughout the process in helping determine not only what ideas should be tested, but how they should be tested, and what the definition of success means. Cloud native is well suited to enabling this responsive behavior. It is an essential part of agile methodology, and furthermore the use of fine grained, well-decoupled components makes it safer to add new functionality without disturbing what’s already there. Furthermore, generic mechanisms such as a service mesh can be used to selectively route requests across the ideas being tested, as well as simplify the collection of data for hypothesis assessment.
Resilience and scalability (Risk mitigation)
Cloud platforms, and especially containers, inherit a number of abstractions from their underlying infrastructure. This enables common and lower risk approaches to non-functional requirements such as availability, robustness, performance and security. Some key examples are:
Fine-grained elastic scalability and resilience
A well written cloud native solution is built with fine-grained, lightweight components with minimized state. This enables the cloud platform to inherently provide robustness and scalability by rapid replication and disposal of components as required. Thanks to containerization, this can be provided in a standardized way, resulting in significant operational simplification. Furthermore, the ability for container orchestration platforms to distribute container instances across multiple physical servers, over multiple regions, further increases the level of resilience possible.
Consistent environments and reversible deployments
For the agility and productivity discussed in the earlier section to become a reality, we need to be able to confidently deliver new code into environments, safely re-route traffic, and indeed reverse those deployments with minimal pain if necessary. Ideally, cloud native code should be delivered in immutable images containing all dependencies, and including complete, declarative deployment instructions. This ensures the deployment process and artifacts are identical on all environments, which eliminates the risk of environment drift. Furthermore, features of the cloud platform such as routers and service meshes enable the code to be canary tested (passing a small amount of load through the new code) before full rollout. This also simplifies rolling back a release, as we can simply revert to the images and deployment instructions of the previous release. This simplicity is important to the business, as it gives them assurance that changes can be quickly and safely reversed if the outcome is not what was expected.
Continuous adoption of software runtimes
Agile methods dictate that the path to production must be as automated as possible in terms of build, test and deployment. Often termed continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) these pipelines are typically triggered as a result of changes to the source code. However, since a declarative deployment is also code, a change to the version of an underlying runtime can also trigger a new build/test cycle — an example of “GitOps”. Assuming sufficient confidence in our automated tests, this should enable us to keep underlying runtime versions much more current than most applications do today, ensuring not only that we can capitalize on the latest features but also that we are not at risk from known security vulnerabilities. Again, this should be valuable to the business in that it reduces the fiduciary risk of the loss of customer data or assets.
Optimization and efficiency (Cost reduction)
Cloud based computing enables us to pool resources: hardware, software, and indeed people too. By sharing these resources across applications, across domains in the organization, and even across organizations. we have the opportunity to reduce operational cost. Cloud native ensures applications are written to gain the most from those optimizations.
Consistent skills on the underlying platform
Underlying the obvious characteristics of containers — lightweight scalable components — there is a much greater gem. Perhaps their greatest benefit over the long term is in operational consistency. Using exactly the same skills to build, deploy, provide high availability, scale, monitor, diagnose, and secure regardless of the runtimes within a set of orchestrated containers is a huge leap forward. At a minimum, this means transferable, common skill sets across previously siloed parts of the IT landscape. At best, the opportunities for automation of operations should result in a reduction in the number of people required to run a given infrastructure, and an increase in its reliability. However, since these technologies are new, there is a steep learning curve that individuals, and companies must go through before these benefits become a reality.
Optimized infrastructure usage and licensing
Arguably the most fundamental definition of “cloud” is abstraction from the underlying physical infrastructure. Virtual machines gave us the first level of indirection, in that we were no longer tied to specific hardware within a physical machine. Containers, if coupled with cloud native ingredients such as minimal state, immutable deployment, etc. take us much further. Cloud native enables us to invisibly distribute components across many machines in multiple data centers, providing greater opportunities for economies of scale. Software licensing of course needs to rise to this challenge with new models and potentially more sophisticated and dynamic metering.
Rapid self-provisioning of resources and capabilities
Self-provisioning is one of the key promises of cloud, enabling rapid requisition of virtual compute, memory, storage, networking and more. Container platforms further abstract this by allowing declarative requests for resources at the point of deployment, and setting policies for how these change at runtime based on load. Whole new environments can be created with a single click, and segregated from other environments through software defined networking. To make the most of all this, applications need to be written differently. Applications need to be stateless, disposable, fine grained, and indeed, all of the things we have discussed in this series.
Conclusion
Cloud native, just like most significant changes in approach, requires a level of commitment in order to achieve your goals. As we have seen, that requires many separate ingredients to be in place. For many, perhaps most, organizations it may be impossible to get all of those ingredients in place from the start, so the key to success is prioritization.
By selecting the benefits that are most important to you, we hope our series can help you to prioritize which of the cloud native ingredients you should focus on maturing first. | https://kylegenebrown.medium.com/the-why-of-cloud-native-goals-and-benefits-5c559a4e73a5 | ['Kyle Gene Brown'] | 2020-12-21 22:00:08.063000+00:00 | ['Risk Mitigation', 'Agile', 'Cloud Native', 'Market Growth', 'Business Development'] |
Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 10.26.20 | I’ve been on a reading rampage this week. According to my screen time, I spent over 48 hours reading this last week, which is more than usual. I was wondering why I hadn’t finished more books, but it’s because I’ve become interested in more and more topics. Enjoy this week’s list of 6 books, and next week, I’ll be covering some new subjects I’ve been diving into.
Also, I’ve been waiting for months for this new book from social science professor and best-selling author Nicholas Christakis titled Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live, which comes out tomorrow on the 27th. Just putting that out there in case anyone wants to read it as well.
Each of the links to the books are affiliate links, so if you use my link to purchase any of these books, some comes back to support what I do (and it also helps fund my reading habit).
Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It by Richard V. Reeves
I learned about this book from the amazing book The Cult of Smart by Fredrik deBoer, and I binged it in pretty much one sitting. This is a short read, but Reeves did a phenomenal job explaining how the Upper Middle Class is a major part of the problem with inequality in the United States. Yes, the extremely wealthy 1% are an issue, but many of us don’t want to recognize our own privilege while many people are struggling. This book covers everything from education, to the problems with meritocracy, and more. If this book makes you want to take action, I highly recommend that you not only consider the solutions Reeves offers but also read The Most Good You Can Do by Peter Singer.
Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy by Christopher Hayes
I can’t stop reading books about how flawed meritocratic systems are, and this book was a fantastic analysis of why it doesn’t work. In short, Christopher Hayes’ thesis is that we over-estimate the advantages of a meritocracy and overlook the flaws. Ideally, meritocracy works, but the problem is that we have yet to see it prove to do so. People are born on third base, and Hayes discusses how these people are then put into power only to make terrible decisions. These awful decisions are for their own self-interest and further increase inequality and the wealth gap.
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http://vidrio.org/wnc/video-all-boys-v-quilmes-v-es-ar-1kzq-14.php
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https://kleinoot.nl/vxr/Video-osasuna-v-viliarreal-v-yt2-1yst-6.php
http://vidrio.org/wnc/video-Sporting-SC-Farense-v-en-gb-1hnx-8.php
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http://vidrio.org/wnc/video-niukasl-v-fulkhem-v-yt2-1gvd-18.php
https://kleinoot.nl/vxr/video-Gaz-Metan-Medias-Viitorul-Constanța-v-en-gb-1nlj-18.php
http://actiup.com/kck/videos-nice-v-olympique-lyonnais-v-fr-fr-1qmd-13.php
http://vidrio.org/wnc/Video-niukasl-v-fulkhem-v-yt2-1zwd-16.php
https://kleinoot.nl/vxr/Video-Gaz-Metan-Medias-Viitorul-Constanța-v-en-gb-1owg-5.php
http://actiup.com/kck/videos-nice-v-olympique-lyonnais-v-fr-fr-1zxi-16.php
http://actiup.com/kck/video-nice-v-olympique-lyonnais-v-fr-fr-1tss-4.php
Similar books:
The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice by Fredrik deBoer
Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy by Robert Frank
The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael Sandel
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas
I’ve been skeptical about Anand for a while now since following him on Twitter for a few months, but I’ve restrained forming an opinion until I understood his views a bit better. After reading this book, he has me sold. This was a fantastic book discussing how our capitalist society has allowed people to rise to elite status, and then we rely on them for their philanthropy. Their hope is that we’re grateful for their donations to society and that we’ll ignore that they’re part of the reason we need philanthropy in the first place.
I really enjoyed this book because although I’m sure it’s been said before, I hadn’t thought of it like this. Recently, I’ve been torn about multi-millionaires and billionaires donating money while simultaneously spending the average American’s yearly salary on silly things. So, although I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I’m curious how Anand personally lives his life to make this world a better place.
Similar books:
The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically by Peter Singer
Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women by Kate Manne
After the events following the death of George Floyd, I made it a goal to better understand what other communities go through. As a half-black straight man who looks white, I decided to read a lot of books to educate myself about what half of my family members go through, but I wanted to learn about women too. My girlfriend is a feminist, and I’ve always done my best to understand what women go through as many of my friends are women. I kept seeing this book by Kate Mann pop up, so I got it and binged it in about a day.
It’s a phenomenal book, and I think what sold me on picking it up is that she’s a moral philosopher. She has some extremely enlightening chapters that I feel many men need to read, and her chapters about incels make me fear for women. As a father of an 11-year-old son, I feel it’s part of my responsibility to educate myself so I can educate him.
But, although this book is top-notch, chapter 9 was not well-argued at all. Even though I disagreed with 99% of what she said in this chapter, I think it’s important to realize we’re not going to agree with everyone on everything. Overall, it’s a great book that I highly recommend, and I look forward to reading her first book Down Girl about misogyny.
Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships by Brian Earp and Julian Savulescu
This book is the perfect blend of psychology, philosophy, and biology, and I don’t feel like I can do a review of it justice. The book discusses so many topics about love and relationships that I haven’t heard mentioned in any other books I’ve read. As a recovering drug addict, I’m always wary of how an author will talk about the use of psychedelic and traditional medications because some tout them as a cure-all and don’t think about the ethics, but these authors surprised me with their views. They did a great job diving into a wide range of topics from heteronormative relationships, to homosexuality, to BDSM and polyamory. They did so in a professional, well-thought-out way as well, and I think everyone should read this book.
Political Philosophy: An Introduction by Jason Brennan
I’m a Social Democrat, and I believe there are many of us progressives who don’t try and have a better understanding of other political views. In the last couple years, I’ve done my best to educate myself, and I’m still learning. I stumbled across this concise book by Jason Brennan, and it was great. I thought I had a wide view of political philosophy by better understanding conservative vs. liberal values through the books by Jonathan Haidt, but this book helped me learn even more. This is a great book to start with, and I wish I read it first. If you want to better understand various political ideologies, definitely get this book. It looks at political philosophy beyond the realm of Democrat vs Republican.
Similar books:
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein
I’ll be doing this every week, so stay tuned! You can follow me here as well as on Twitter and Instagram The Rewired Soul, and make sure you’re following me on GoodReads too.
If you need help with your mental health, I highly recommend the service I use, BetterHelp. They’re an affordable online therapy service, and by using this affiliate link, you help support The Rewired Soul. | https://medium.com/@nrealboy.shazib.9/weekly-non-fiction-reading-list-10-26-20-50abaf91fa49 | ['Nrealboy Shazib'] | 2020-12-20 00:35:15.929000+00:00 | ['Babies', 'Health', 'Humor', 'Life', 'Coronavirus'] |
8 Secret dad sleep hacks: REVEALED! | New moms often think they know all the right ways to get baby to sleep at bedtime. (Mostly, they do.) But dads do things a bit differently. We’ve put together some ingenious dad hacks that may teach us, moms, a thing or two. And when it comes to getting more sleep, most moms are open to anything — even daddying.
Dad sleep hack #1: Spotify, baby
While moms may turn to Twinkle-Twinkle at bedtime, dads suspect their babies have more sophisticated taste. As part of their bedtime routine, they create unique playlists that include everything from the Beatles to Cardi B. What tunes calm your baby? The results may surprise you.
Dad sleep hack #2: Make your ride the ultimate Dream Car
Babies tend to fall asleep in their car seat (often, the bane of parents trying to keep to a nap schedule). But dads work it, creating a little souped-up sleep sanctuary in the back seat, and calibrating some naptimes to long, soothing car rides.
Dad sleep hack #3: It’s not a changing tote, it’s a man-bag
Diapers, bottles, formula, loveys: when you’re out and about with baby, there’s a lot to carry around. Dads know the drill: its not just about having a highly efficient diaper bag, it’s about having one that fits your style. Who knew that on-the-go naps could be such a fashion statement.
Dad sleep hack #4: Be Bath-man, superhero
A warm bath and gentle massage is a surefire way to calm baby at bedtime; an essential part of every smart parent’s sleep routine. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. Dads often use bathtime as a fresh opportunity to connect with their little ones, playing for smiles, laughs, and kisses.
Dad sleep hack #5: The secret Houdini shirt trick
When your baby naps, you don’t want to be doing laundry — you want to nap, too. Some dads turn their shirts inside-out at feedings, then jut flip it to leave the house. Gross, you say? Agreed. But hey, if it saves you a laundry load….
Dad sleep hack #6: Hang the mobile higher
Often, dads can reach a little higher than moms, and that comes in handy when hanging your crib mobile. If you hang it slightly higher than baby’s sight-line — as opposed to at eye-level — it tires out little eyes, so baby gets drowsy, faster.
Dad sleep hack #7: Move that butt
What’s dad doing, wiggling baby’s butt? Actually, little wiggles down below make baby’s head wiggle, too, which soothes her to sleep. Start a little faster, then slow it down over time. It’s dad-approved magic.
Dad sleep hack #8: Keep dad’s touch going, all night long
Dads may have the touch at bedtime, but you can keep it going with Zen Sleepwear.™ Just dress your baby in a Zen Swaddle® or Zen Sack™ every time you put her down. Gently weighted to mimic a parent’s soothing touch, your baby will feel wrapped in mom and dad’s embrace all night long. She’ll fall asleep faster and sleep longer — and so will you.
Happy daddying! | https://medium.com/@nestedbean76/8-secret-dad-sleep-hacks-revealed-1ac64f555abc | ['Nested Bean'] | 2020-06-15 11:46:46.774000+00:00 | ['Baby Swaddle', 'Parenting', 'Baby Care', 'Dadding', 'Baby Sleep'] |
Motion Infographic: Ideation | Big Idea
The topic I am deciding to move forward with is “How to Succeed at Zoom University.” Based on statistics and personal experience, the fast and forced change to online college learning has been difficult for a lot of people and has even seemed impossible to some. My position on this topic is that online college education does not have to be impossible. It can be made easier with organization and a few tips that I’ve come up with. My intended audience for this infographic would be current and incoming college students. The transformation that I’d like viewers to go through is one of determination. I want my audience to gain confidence from my infographic and I want them to feel inspired to use my tips to make the most of their schooling!
Script
First Draft:
Let’s be honest… college doesn’t look the same as it used to be, and for a lot of students, it seems impossible — but it doesn’t have to be! First, invest in some organizational tools to keep track of the work or try setting reminders on your phone so you don’t miss class or a deadline! When you’re in class, try keeping your camera on — it’ll keep you accountable. Finally, to help you focus, set up a work space separate from where you relax. Try these tricks and they might just help you succeed at Zoom University!
Second Draft:
Let’s be honest… college doesn’t look the same as it used to — it’s challenging but NOT impossible! With online learning there are 2 big obstacles: timeliness and focus. If you struggle with timeliness… invest in organizational tools to keep track of your work. You can also set reminders on your phone so you don’t miss class or a deadline. If you struggle with focus… set up a work space separate from where you relax. And remember, keeping your camera on keeps you accountable! Congratulations! You’re on your way to success at Zoom University!
Style Frames | https://medium.com/@kw172718/motion-infographic-ideation-e18be787d38e | ['Katelyn Whitman'] | 2020-11-07 22:24:07.219000+00:00 | ['Motion Explainer', 'Infographics', 'Online Learning', 'Motion Design', 'Ideation'] |
Black Diamond Notion Pants Review | Black Diamond Notion Pants Review
Pros: durability, mobility
Cons: lack of breathability, small pockets
Price: $79 USD (according to REI and Black Diamond)
Rating: 7/10
The world of climbing gear can be intimidating; there seems to be a special (and more expensive) “climbing” version of every normal product. This specialization also extends to apparel, especially pants. I normally climb in regular athletic leggings that I also use for weightlifting and running. I’ve been researching distinct “climbing pants” and decided to test out a pair to see if the hype (and price) were justified. Since Black Diamond is one the of the biggest, oldest, and best climbing outfitters around, I gave their Notion Pants a shot. The pants come in sizes XS-XL, and I tested out the medium. Check out the full review below.
Black Diamond Notion Pants in Slate (PC: Black Diamond)
Fit, Fabric, & Features
The pants come in eight different colors, including light blue, plum, grey, navy, and army green. There is elastic on the cuffs of the pants and drawstrings on the waist, so these areas are fitted and secure. Between these two points, the fit as a whole is loose. If you prefer tight fitting pants, similar to leggings, these pants may not be the best choice for you. These pants are the right fit for people who prefer to climb in looser fitting, jogger type pants. I actually enjoyed the less constricting fit; on tough bouldering problems that require tight movement, I feel like I had extra mobility. At no point did the slight amount of extra fabric stemming from the looser fit interfere with my movement.
Everyone has different preferences when it comes to where they want their pants to hit on their waist. When top roping or lead climbing, aka wearing a harness, I prefer to have higher waisted pants, so the harness doesn’t rub against my bare skin. Even if I tie the waist band tightly, the Notion pants don’t stay up above my belly button. I have come to prefer these pants for bouldering, as the harness plus these pants create a pretty strong wedgie effect.
Aesthetically, I have asked myself if these pants could be considered “flattering” or not. Of course, that is not my main priority when it comes to climbing gear, but it is a factor. Let’s be honest: these baggier pants will not make your butt look as good as a tight pair of leggings would.
Regarding technical specs, these pants are made from Stretch Cotton Twill (98% Organic Cotton, 2 % Elastane). They weigh 11 oz/324 grams. This brings us to the main disadvantage of these pants: the lack of breathability. I have worn them in a variety of temperatures, from freezing cold to blazing summer. In any weather/gym temperature above 55 degrees, I find my legs getting overheated and sweaty. While they are soft and comfortable, I definitely prefer them for climbing on cooler days. These pants are not a good choice if you consistently climb outdoors in warmer weather.
The other major disadvantage is the size of the pockets; these pants have two in the front and two in the back. In both cases, they are not deep or wide enough to carry anything of much substance, without it falling out. I would not feel secure putting my phone, wallet, or keys in them. The most I would put in them is a Chapstick, tissue, or small bottle of liquid chalk.
I have been wearing these pants for two, two-hour climbing sessions a week for four months. They have held up wonderfully, without any tears, loose seams, or pilling. Black Diamond has placed reinforced seams around the knee area, one of the areas most prone to damage. I’ve spilled chalk, protein powder, and soap on them, and they come out of the washing machine like new. I have no doubt that these pants will last for ages.
Overall, these pants are a solid choice for bouldering; they are high-quality and durable, with a loose fit and excellent mobility. However, if you do harness-based climbing or climb in warmer temperatures, these pants are not the right choice for you. As someone with a low budget, I find it hard to justifying buying multiple pairs of these pants, which come at a relatively high price point. Ultimately, Black Diamond’s Notion Pants are a solid, reliable climbing pant that only certain people- those who like a loose fit and low rise waist- will enjoy consistently. | https://medium.com/the-dyno/black-diamond-notion-pants-review-d61d9a511ec2 | ['Mary Andino'] | 2021-03-01 18:05:33.322000+00:00 | ['Outdoors', 'Climbing', 'Rock Climbing', 'Gear'] |
Convert Chromosome Accession using mutalyzer | Bioinformatics
Convert Chromosome Accession using mutalyzer
Photo by Łukasz Rawa on Unsplash
Currently when we need to search for clinical data in Clinvar at NCBI, we have to search by format like “NC_000005.10:g.25502166_25502169dup”. To convert from chromosome name like “chr1” to “NC_000001.11”, we can use mutalyzer API.
Details for the API documentation can be found in here.
Below is the code demonstration to convert in Go:
Running this will format the chromosome value like
chr1,NC_000001.11
chr2,NC_000002.12
chr3,NC_000003.12
chr4,NC_000004.12
chr5,NC_000005.10
chr6,NC_000006.12
chr7,NC_000007.14
chr8,NC_000008.11
chr9,NC_000009.12
chr10,NC_000010.11
chr11,NC_000011.10
chr12,NC_000012.12
chr13,NC_000013.11
chr14,NC_000014.9
chr15,NC_000015.10
chr16,NC_000016.10
chr17,NC_000017.11
chr18,NC_000018.10
chr19,NC_000019.10
chr20,NC_000020.11
chr21,NC_000021.9
chr22,NC_000022.11
Hope it helps!!!
PEACE~~ | https://medium.com/@ledinhcuong99/convert-chromosome-accession-using-mutalyzer-37315811e725 | ['Donald Le'] | 2020-12-12 04:20:14.137000+00:00 | ['Csv', 'Bioinformatics', 'Go', 'Programming', 'Mutation'] |
Why did English become the ‘global language’? | More people speak Spanish than English as their first language. Nearly three three times as many speak Mandarin Chinese in their family homes. Yet few would dispute that English is the leading world language.
This is because English is the world’s lingua franca or common second language, as this table shows.
English is the most popular second language (L2)
English is the international language of business, commerce, science, medicine,and many other key areas. Even in diplomacy, where French once ruled supreme, English is now dominant in most regions of the world.
According to David Graddol’s extensive survey for the British Council, the number of non-native or second language speakers of English now outnumbers those of primary or native speakers.
international tourism is growing, but the proportion of encounters involving a native English speaker is declining (1.9). There were around 763 million international travellers in 2004, but nearly 75% of visits involved visitors from a non-English-speaking country travelling to a non-English-speaking destination. This demonstrates the … growing role for global English.
Increasingly, non native speakers use English as a
“practical tool” and also as a “working language” (Crystal 2003: 426), has emerged as a lingua franca used by millions of people to engage in a conversation with each other. (Tünde NAGY, 2016)
Why English?
English “global language because of the power of the people who speak it”
The renowned linguist, David Crystal, suggests that “a language becomes a global language because of the power of the people who speak it.” The ‘power’ of English was initially based on political and military factors, most notably the expansion of the British Empire. Later the role of English as the language of the scientific, industrial, financial and economic revolutions further increased its influence.
Crystal stresses that the increasing importance of English is not because of the structure of the language itself. English, he points out, is not particularly accessible to speakers of other languages, with its eccentric spelling and pronunciation patterns — cough, for example. It also has the largest lexicon (number of words) of any European language. There are over a million by some estimates, though 3,000 will cover most situations.
Adaptability
Other linguists feel that Crystal undervalues the special nature of the English language. Robert McCrum argues that English “does a good job” in allowing non-native speakers to adapt to it. In an interview with the Boston Globe McCrum focuses on its ‘democratic’ nature:
Q. You make a distinction in the book between the imperial roots of English internationally, but the language not being imperious. A. The French have always been very imperious. Whenever they have a cultural decision to make it’s always top down. With English, it’s always bottom up… implicitly … there’s a quality to the English language which is different from German or French or Chinese. That quality is approachability, usefulness, adaptability.
English is a Germanic language in its grammar, syntax and key vocabulary. Though only 30% of English words are Anglo Saxon, they make up around 70% of those used in common conversation. The top ten most commonly used verbs — be, have, do, say, make, go, take, come, see, get — are all irregular in that they do not follow the standard pattern of conjugation (paint, painted etc) This because they are survivors from old English.
What makes the English language flexible, however, is that it borrows heavily from other languages — particularly Latin, Greek and French. These ‘loanwords’ are either integrated through usage or disappear into obscurity.
Adopting loan words has been a useful evolutionary strategy for language survival. Just overthrown the government? Save on translation fees by writing the French coup d’etat on your application to rejoin the UN. Or perhaps something a little more soothing like from English, like regime change.
And sorry half-the-world those non alphabetic characters do not play nice with IT systems. It would be so much easier if you used our letters. We are happy to borrow your futon but are customers just can’t deal with (布団)
Bottom up
The Académie française is a committee made up of forty French writers and artists. These (men mostly, bien sûr) determine what is correct and incorrect French. A part of their mission is to resist linguistic invasion from the old foe, perfidious Albion. Stop using horrible English words like email they insist. What’s wrong with courriel? And don’t get us started on le weekend
Good luck with that, monsieur-dame. The payroll vote — sorry, les fonctionnaires — will adhere to your style book. But it’s the devil’s own work stopping the kids sur Snap.
The English language does not have august council determining what is or is not permissible. The only ‘official’ status for a specific word is inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary and the OED sees its task as
recording the entry of today’s new words into the {English} language. We use printed evidence of new words from magazines, newspapers, books, song lyrics, practical manuals — any published source. Slang and dialect words are also collected.
This is what McCrum calls the ‘bottom up’ nature of English. It leads to many quirks and inconsistencies. Why anglicize some loanwords but not others? Why pronounce the city Paris with a hard s but switch to French pronunciation when referring to the football team: Paris Saint Germain?
This glorious linguistic anarchy has been a source of frustration to some orderly minds. In the early twentieth century there was a determined effort to introduce a new world language, one without weird spellings and tricky wayward pronunciation rules.
Esperanto
A made-to-measure second language? Or nightmarish vehicle for thought control?
Polish linguist and pacifist, L.L. Zamenhof invented Esperanto (‘hope) which he believed could be an international lingua franca or second language. Because it had no irregular verbs and phonetic spelling esperanto was a ‘perfect’ language. It also had no associations with a particular nationality or country.
George Orwell’s aunt was an early proponent of Esperanto. She also supported its more militant wing, which insisted that the new language should replace the old ones. When he went to stay with her in Paris, she insisted on speaking Esperanto when he was hoping to practise his French.
It was the political element of some parts of the Esperanto movement which particularly disturbed Orwell. The attempt to control and direct language was in his view a central feature of totalitarianism. Newspeak — the language Orwell created for his dystopian novel, 1984, is clearly a variant on Esperanto, the ‘world language of peace’.
Newspeak
Was Orwell unfair to Zamenhof’s invented language? Esperanto has had some minor success. There are a significant number of fluent speakers of the language — though nobody is sure how many. Some say 100,000, others claim an improbable 2.5 million.
There are even Esperanto native or first language speakers, up to 1,000 according to some estimates. But these figures are still comparatively low. And Esperanto has never been an official secondary language of any country in the world.
As Latin lovers will know, there will always be a limited market for languages that are not widely spoken. English looks set to be the de facto official second language of the world for the foreseeable future | https://medium.com/english-language-faq/why-did-english-become-the-global-language-9bbc14b532cd | ['Kieran Mcgovern'] | 2021-07-04 16:53:31.984000+00:00 | ['Linguistics', 'Language Learning', 'Language', 'English Language', 'Psychology'] |
What would you say to a room of 500 teenagers? Here’s what I said | What would you say to a room of 500 teenagers? Here’s what I said Chris Ferrie Jul 19·9 min read
Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash
I suppose I should start with who I am and what I do, and perhaps why I am here in front of you. But I’m not going to do that, at least not yet. I don’t want to stand here and list all my accomplishments so that you may be impressed, and that would convince you to listen to me. No. I don’t want to do that because I know it wouldn’t work. I know that because it wouldn’t have worked on me when I was in your place, and someone else was up here.
Now, of course, you can tell by my accent that I wasn’t literally down there. I was in Canada. And I sure as hell wasn’t wearing a tie. But I imagine our priorities were fairly similar: friends, getting away parents, maybe sports (in my case hockey of course and yours maybe footy), but most importantly… mathematics! No. Video games.
I don’t think there is such a thing as being innately gifted in anything. Though, I am pretty good at video games. People become very good at things they practice. A little practice leads to a small advantage, leading to better practice opportunities, and things snowball. The snowball effect. Is that a term you guys use in Australia? I mean, it seems like an obvious analogy for a Canadian. It’s how you make a snowman, after all. You start with a small handful of snow, and you start to roll it on the ground. The snow on the ground sticks to the ball, and it gets bigger and bigger until you have a ball as tall as you!
Practice leads to a snowball effect. After a while, it looks like you are gifted at the thing you practiced, but it was really just the practice. Success then follows from an added sprinkling of luck and determination. That’s what I want to talk to you about today: practice.
I don’t want to use determination in the sense that I was stubbornly defiant in the face of adversity. Though, from the outside, it might look that way. You can either be determined to avoid failure or determined to achieve some objective. Being determined to win is different from being determined not to lose.
There is something psychologically different between winning and not losing. You see, losing implies a winner, which is not you. But winning does not require a loser because you can play against yourself. This was the beauty of disconnected video games of the ’80s and ’90s. You played against yourself, or maybe “the computer.” That doesn’t mean it was easy. I’ll give anyone here my Nintendo if they can beat Super Mario Bros. in one go. (I’m not joking. I gave my children the same offer, and they barely made it past the first level). It was hard and frustrating, but no one was calling you a loser on the other end. And when you finally beat the game, you could be proud. Proud of yourself and for yourself. Not for the fake internet points you get on social media, but for you.
I actually really did want to talk to you today about mathematics. I want to tell you that I treated mathematics like a video game when I was your age. I wanted to win. I wanted to prove to myself that I could solve every problem. Some nights I stayed up all night trying to solve a single problem. Do you know how they say you can’t have success without failure? This is a perfect example. The more you fail at trying to solve a maths problem, the more you understand when you finally do solve it. And what came along with failing and eventually succeeding in all those maths problems? Practice.
Well, I don’t know much about the Australian education system and culture. But I’m guessing from Hollywood you know a bit about high school in North America. I’m sure you know about prom, and of course about Prom King and Prom Queen. What you may not know is that the King and Queen’s court always has a jester. That is, along with King and Queen, each year has a Class Clown — the joker, the funny guy. I wasn’t the prom king or queen. But I did win the honor of class clown.
When I finished high school, I was really good at three things: video games, making people laugh, and mathematics. I promise you; there is no better combination. If there were a nutrition guide for the mind, it would contain these three things. Indeed, now more than ever before, you need to be three types of smart. First, you need to be quick, reactive, and adaptive — the skills needed to beat a hard video game. Second, you need emotional intelligence, and you need to know what others are thinking and feeling — how to make them laugh. And finally, you need to be able to solve problems, and all real problems require maths to solve them.
There are people in the world, lots of people — billions, perhaps — who look in awe at the ever-increasing complexity of systems business, government, schools, and technology, including video games. They look, and they feel lost. Perhaps you know someone that can’t stand new technology or change in general. Perhaps they don’t even use a piece of technology because they believe they will never understand how to use it.
You all are young. But you know about driving, voting, and paying taxes, for example. Perhaps it looks complicated, but at least you believe that you can and will be able to do it when the time comes. Imagine feeling that such things were just impossible. That would be a weird feeling. Your brain can’t handle such dissonance. So you would need to rationalize it in one way or another. Finally, you’d say it’s just not necessary, or worse, it’s something some “other” people do. At that point, for your brain to maintain a consistent story, it will start to reject new information and facts that aren’t consistent with your new story.
This is all sounds far-fetched, but I guarantee you know many people with such attitudes. To make them sound less harmful, they call them “traditional.” How do otherwise “normal” people come to hold these views? It’s actually quite simple: they fear, not what they don’t understand, but what they have convinced themselves is unnecessarily complicated. So I implore you, start today, start right now. Study maths. It is the only way to intellectually survive in a constantly changing world.
Phew, that was a bit depressing. Let me give you a fun and trivial example. Just this weekend, I flew from Sydney to Bendigo. The flight was scheduled to be exactly 2 hours. I was listening to an audiobook, and I wondered if I would finish it during the flight. Seems obvious, right? If there were less than 2 hours left in the audiobook, then I would finish. If not, then I would not finish. But here’s the thing, audiobooks are read soooo slow. So, I listen to them at 1.25x speed. There were 3 hours left in my audiobook. Did I finish the book?
Before I tell you, let me remind you that not many people would ask themselves this question. I couldn’t say exactly why, but in some cases, it’s because the person has implicitly convinced themselves that such a question is just impossible to answer. It’s too complicated. So their brain shuts that part of inquiry off. Never ask complicated questions, it says. Then this happens: an entire world — no most of the entire universe — is closed off. Don’t close yourself off from the universe. Study maths.
By the way, the answer. It’s not the exact answer, but here was my quick logic based on the calculation I could do in my head. If I had been listening at 1.5x speed, then every hour of flight time would get through 1.5 hours of audiobook. That’s 1 hour 30 minutes. So two hours of flight time would double that, 3 hours of audiobook. Great. Except I wasn’t listening at 1.5x speed. I was listening at a slower speed, and so I would definitely get through less than 3 hours. The answer was no.
In fact, by knowing what to multiply or divide by what, I could know that I would have exactly 36 minutes left of the audiobook. Luckily or unluckily, the flight was delayed, and I finished the book anyway. Was thinking about maths pointless all along? Maybe. But since mathematical algorithms schedule flights, maths saved the day in the end. Maths always wins.
How about another. Who has seen a rainbow? I feel like that should be a trick question just to see who is paying attention. But, of course, you have all seen a rainbow. As you are trying to think about the last time you saw a rainbow, you might also be thinking that they are rare — maybe even completely random things. But now you probably see the punchline — maths can tell you exactly where to find a rainbow.
Image by Saperaud~commonswiki, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=247077
Here is how a rainbow is formed. Notice that number there. That angle never changes. So you can use this geometric diagram to always find the rainbow. The most obvious aspect is that the rainbow exits the same general direction that the sunlight entered the raindrop. So to see a rainbow, the sun has to be behind you.
And there’s more. If the sun is low in the sky, the rainbow will be high in the sky. And if the sun is high, you might not be able to see a rainbow at all. But if you take out the garden hose to find it, make sure you are looking down. Let me tell you my favorite rainbow story. I was driving the family to Canberra. We were driving into the sunset at some point when I drove through a brief sun shower. Since the sun was shining and it was raining, one of my children said, “Maybe we’ll see a rainbow!”
Maybe. Ha. A mathematician knows no maybes. As they looked out their windows, I knew — yes — we would see a rainbow. I said, after passing through the shower, “Everyone looks out the back window and looks up.” Because the sun was so low, it was apparently the most wonderful rainbow ever seen. I say apparently because I couldn’t see it, on account of me driving. But no matter. I was content in knowing I could conjure such beauty with the power of mathematics.
I could have ended there since I’m sure you are all highly convinced to catch up on all your maths lessons and homework. However, since I have time, I will tell you a little bit about what maths has enabled me to get paid to do—namely, quantum physics and computation. Maybe you’ve heard about quantum physics? Maybe you’ve heard about uncertainty (the world is chaotic and random), or superposition (things can be in two places at once and cats can be dead and alive at the same time), or entanglement (what Einstein called spooky action at a distance).
The Schrodinger Equation. Image credit: own work
But I couldn’t tell you more about quantum physics than that without maths. This is not meant to make it sound difficult. On the contrary, it should make it sound beautiful. This is quantum physics. It’s called the Schrodinger Equation. That’s about all there is to it. All that stuff about uncertainty, superposition, entanglement, multiple universes, and so on—it’s all contained in this equation. Without maths, we would not have quantum physics. And without quantum physics, we would not have GPS, lasers, MRI, or computers — no computers to play video games and no computers to look at Instagram. Thank a quantum physicist for these things.
Quantum physics also helps us understand the entire cosmos. From the first instant of the Big Bang born out of a quantum fluctuation to the fusing of hydrogen into helium inside stars giving us all the energy and life on Earth to the most exotic things in our universe: black holes. These all cannot be understood without quantum physics. And that can’t be understood without mathematics.
Examples of quantum computers.
And now, I use the maths of quantum physics to help create new computing devices that may allow us to create new materials and drugs. This quantum computer has nothing mysterious or special about it. It obeys an equation just as the computers you carry around in your pockets do. But the equations are different and different maths leads to different capabilities.
I don’t want to put up those equations because if I showed them to even my 25-year-old self, I would run away screaming. But then again, I didn’t know then what I know now and what I’m telling you today. Anyone can do this. It just takes time. Every mathematician has put in the time. There is no secret recipe beyond this. Start now. | https://medium.com/@csferrie/what-would-you-say-to-a-room-of-500-teenagers-heres-what-i-said-46da75822220 | ['Chris Ferrie'] | 2021-07-19 01:28:39.290000+00:00 | ['Education', 'Videogames', 'Advice', 'Mathematics', 'High School'] |
Rusya’nın Şeytanı: Grigory Rasputin | 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/t%C3%BCrkiye/rusyan%C4%B1n-%C5%9Feytan%C4%B1-grigory-rasputin-b8fc64d6b63a | ['Enes Talha Elbüz'] | 2021-01-09 14:55:26.794000+00:00 | ['Rasputin', 'Romanov', 'Rusya', 'Türkçe'] |
3 Reasons Why You Need to Pursue What You Want In Your Life | Photo by Tanaphong Toochinda on Unsplash
What do you want to be when you grow up?
As children, we get asked this question as soon as we can comprehend a question. Often our answer depends on what interests us at the time. In this modern information age, it may be what YouTube videos suggests most often, but can also be as authentic as what we see our parents or what people around us are doing. Sometimes children do not know the intention behind what interests them, but they do know that it’s fun to do. This is the great thing about being a child. You just say what you want, who you want to be, just because you like it. But often times when we grow up, all that authenticity gets chipped away bit by bit when we realize that things don’t always go our way.
When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a police officer. I had the plastic Police Academy badge on a blue canvas wallet (also from the franchise) complete with an ID card with my photo attached. It was cool and I was so proud of it that I put it in my front pocket everywhere I go.
Sounds embarrassing to share this story right now but at that time, it was nothing but pride. I probably didn’t realize it at the time, but it was clear that I wanted to be a police officer because it is aligned with my value to be brave to help others in need. But as a child, all I wanted to do was to flash my badge and say “Freeze” so I can catch the bad guy.
But of course, growing up, catching the bad guy is more trickier than showing off the gun shaped with interlaced fingers. Moreover being brave. I realized there may be violence, possible retaliation, rigorous and selective training and long working hours. Upon realization and as I grew older, I resorted to what makes more sense, more normal, work a 9–5 in front of the computer. It was not an easy job but it makes good money and utilizes my strategic and analytical skills.
As adults, we often do not take the courageous step to reach out for the work that we desire. Or for the things we want or need. I am not judging you or myself for this. I think it’s normal and natural that as we grow up, the concept of authenticity changes. When we were children, it is authentic to say that we want to be an astronaut, and as an adult, it would be authentic to be a project manager. Or perhaps to continue pursuing to become who you want to become. What’s important is, how brave are you to say what you want or who you want to be?
Or, are you often clouded with fear when trying to share what you want? Do you sometimes think about what you want to say when someone asks you what you want to be in the next 5 years? Are you afraid you will lose a friend, or get perceived differently when you answer with something un-common? Do you feel regretful that you have not been able to do or get what you’ve always dreamed of?
Here are the 3 most common reasons why we (as adults) do not pursue our passion:
(1) We are afraid to be judged. When we were children and we tell someone that we wanted to be an astronaut, we said it because it was the truth and we didn’t think of the possibility that the person who asked would have laughed at us, or tell us that impossible. We were so pure in heart that we answered because we had only one intention, to share something that we want, something that we envisioned, a desire. But as an adult, we often are caught with the many different possible answers that someone may say, when we say the truth. “That’s impossible” or “Isn’t it really difficult?”, or the most common “Wow, that’s awesome (fill the awkward silence here)”. You just know they think you’re crazy when you say that you want to make a million dollars making DIY videos for YouTube.
What can we do about it: Focus on the present. Our fear of what others may think is anxiety caused by what may happen in the future. But anxiety does not live in the present. Focus on what you want, what you desire, why it is important for you in this particular moment and don’t let what you or others may think, impact how you feel in this moment.
(2) We are afraid to fail. Some of us have the courage to tell someone in the face that we don’t care what they think, or to have the determination fueled up by someone else telling us it’s impossible. But for most of us, our biggest enemy is ourselves. We are afraid we would fail, or we would attain it and realize that it is not what we want.
“There is no courage without fear”
This is a quote that I just recently heard from the latest release of Disney’s Mulan. We often don’t realize that it’s ok to be afraid. Only when we are afraid is when we get the opportunity to become courageous.
What can you do about it: Baby steps. I am often most courageous when I am in the flow. As Seth Godin puts in in his latest book “The Practice”, flow comes when we are in motion. When I am doing something (even the littlest thing) towards my goal, I am in the flow and in that moment, I feel courage. I am not afraid to fail because I am not making a leap of faith, just a step closer to my goal. You can do it too.
(3) We think that we have to do it alone. We think that when we want something or on the process of attaining a goal, that we have to do it all alone. We believe that we are the only one with the idea, the desire, the goal and we need to get there with our own two hands. Nobody can help us or it won’t be an achievement. This is a myth.
Together we go far and together, the journey becomes more enjoyable. If the people you are talking to are non-believers, stop converting them into believers.
But instead, look for your cheerleaders, those who would support you and push you and encourage you to reach what you want in your life.
“Perfectionism is not about being perfect”. Perfectionism is about fear of being judged and fear of failure. Do not feel that you need to be doing it alone or it won’t be perfect. Focus on excellence in your own work instead and get as many help as you can to get you there.
What can you leverage for this: Social media. If there is one thing that social media can be of great use, among all the attention and happiness grabbing that they do, connection is something that they are very good at. It is so easy with social media to connect to other people through communities. I am not a Facebook fan (I don’t even share anything anymore on my “wall”) but I acknowledge how powerful Facebook Groups is to connect with other people of similar interest and common goal. To support, to cheer and to encourage one another. Go find it.
The good news from all this is that everything that is in your way to reach your desire is within yourself. All you have to do is change your perspective. Look at things differently. Change what you believe and see if there’s a different way to look at it.
Everything you could possibly ever want… A Digital | Etsy — Quote from Kristin McGee, Peloton
Believe. Focus in the present. Take baby steps. Connect. Everything that you want, have or need is within you.
As we wrap up 2020, maybe some of us have a taste of what it would be like to have a side hustle, to explore a new hobby, but maybe some of us have also had the opportunity to experience hardship that teaches us something about ourselves and the possibility we can be. The pandemic in combination with the most anticipated year of alignment have shown us so much. It has shown us a glimpse of what it can be to have something different.
We are all given the gift of perspective this year.
Let’s use this gift to better ourselves and the people around us. What did you learn from the pandemic and the year of 2020? Tells us in the comments below.
Let’s use this new perspective to help us reach our true desire. That itch that we want to share, that we think is silly, impossible or simply … scary. Tell the world about it and take one baby step to connect with other people that can get you closer to it.
Why take the risk when I live a happy normal life now? Do it …
Because you deserve it Because you can Because it’s within you
There is only one you and your desire is unique to the one and only you.
Nobody will have the same exact desire as you. Your final goal may look the same as others, but the intention, the reasoning, the experience that started desire, and the journey that you will go through will be unique only to you.
Your desire is precious and need to be cultivated because only you can do it. Nobody else can have it the same as you do. Even if someone has the same exact goal as you and have attained it first, it is still not your desire. | https://medium.com/@brianpandji/3-reasons-why-you-need-to-pursue-what-you-want-in-your-life-be7a0beb9862 | ['Brian Pandji'] | 2020-12-11 03:47:28.814000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Passion', 'Desire', 'Inspiration', 'Motivation'] |
Questions about makeup | I liked makeup when I was 14 years old, back when beauty gurus were still part of a niche community on Youtube. I wanted to get my hands on eyeshadow palettes, mascaras, eyeliners, lipsticks and recreate every office and date night look, even though I was very, very far from finding myself in these situations.
And then as abruptly as it started, it ended. I lost interest in acquiring pigments and brushes. Maybe because it cost too much or maybe because none of the colours showed up against my skin. Or probably, the depression made fun things on Youtube seem unbearable.
Today, I have some money to spend, and if I spend a lot of it I can find foundations, blushes and eyeshadows that complement my complexion. I’m also not the depressed 20-something I was.
Oh but I simply cannot be bothered with lovely, sophisticated office and date looks anymore!
I want to paint my lips in strange colours and dash neon streaks across my eyelids! I don’t want to be a grown woman with a subtle dewy look! I want to look like the strange girls on Pinterest!
Is this normal?
Am I too old for this?
Is this what women mean when they say they find makeup liberating?
Is this what they mean when they “put on makeup for themselves”?
But how do they put on makeup for themselves when it only serves to make them conventionally attractive?
Is it just me or does bronzer make everyone look a little mean?
Can joy in makeup for oneself only be found in creating looks that are not supposed to be appealing to the general public?
Will I use up my favourite expensive lipstain too soon ?
Do I find obviously unnatural makeup tantalising because it’s less likely to invite male attention?
Can I beautify myself without worrying how men will perceive it?
Will the beauty counter salespersons ever stop selling me foundation 3 tones too light for me?
Is worrying that men will find you beautiful the same as worrying that men won’t find you beautiful?
Why is my yellow eyeshadow not showing up on my eyelids
Am I aromantic? Asexual? Traumatised?
Why can’t I do an ombre lip?
When will my friends compliment my makeup but not stop short of saying that they want to try such looks too?
Why do I care that my friends will always choose to look pretty with makeup?
Will this cheap eyeliner give me a sty?
Will they leave me behind as they conform to socially approved beauty standards?
How do I tell what’s the correct colour corrector for me?
Did you know that India’s top makeup brand came into being because the country’s first Prime Minister realised how much money was being spent on importing cosmetics?
Why does this brand still not produce base makeup for Indians of all colours?
How do people like fake lashes so much?
At the end of day, isn’t the makeup industry another way for capitalism to profit off of individual insecurities?
Why do I create my best looks when I have nowhere to be?
Did the palm oil in my lipstick come from felled rainforests?
Can I just shut my brain and enjoy drawing shapes on my face?
Should I? | https://medium.com/@jajungmyeon/questions-about-makeup-b644523a9050 | ['Jajung Myeon'] | 2021-12-14 18:22:06.520000+00:00 | ['Freedom', 'Makeup'] |
The GDP Delusion | Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, measures the total production of a country. Government agencies, the Federal Reserve, and investment firms, all employ the GDP figures to guide their actions. Considered the chief indicator of economic fitness, GDP is the sum of consumption, investment, government spending, and net exports.
Photo by Gilly on Unsplash
Reliance upon GDP in evaluating the effectiveness of policies and economic states is not merited and until the GDP metric is fixed, politicians should stop focusing on this metric. GDP fails to account for both costs and benefits that are not monetized. It overemphasizes the role the government plays in the economy and it concentrates only on quantity, without regard to production details or sustainability. These factors demonstrate that GDP is a flawed tool that leads to dangerous policies and poor thinking on the part of our officials. Politicians and people who work at places such as the Federal Reserve have an incentive to maximize this GDP number but because of its flaws, increasing this number may bring net harm to society.
Because many of the values we enjoy in our everyday lives are not monetized they never count in any GDP measurements. GDP does not account for our standard of living, arguably a very important factor that central bankers ignore in their attempts to maximize GDP. Imagine two identical countries, Country A and Country B, produce identical quantities of goods, i.e., their GDPs are equivalent. Let us pretend that Country A doubles its capital stock and is now twice as productive as Country B. What if instead of working for the same hours as before, and hence producing twice as much, the people in Country A work half the time and produce the same amount as before? Country A and Country B would still have identical GDP values, but Country A enjoys twice as much leisure as Country B. Looking at GDP, we might think that the countries were equally wealthy.
Photo by Jeff Isaak on Unsplash
Consider a virgin forest or other wildlife sanctuary not given to commercial usage. Despite the value of the sanctuary to hunters, birdwatchers and campers if it was destroyed by an oil spill, then it might count as a boost to GDP! The reason for this is that although the forest provided real utility to some people, because it was not monetized, the value does not get counted in GDP; however, the costs of putting out the wildfire or other environmental calamity will count as either government spending or private consumption as the sanctuary’s caretaker restores it. The resources used to clean up the spill now cannot go to a productive enterprise, and if the caretaker does not revitalize the forest, then a valuable commodity has been lost, so either way it results in a net loss to society. GDP, however, would suggest that society got richer from the disaster. Even if the forest is not destroyed, but rather logged or otherwise commercially harvested, this always shows up as a boost to the country’s GDP regardless of environmental degradation. The forest itself is not quantified in GDP calculation so what appears to be a gain may be a loss once environmental loss is considered. So, we see that trying to maximize GDP incentivizes environmental waste and destruction on the part of governments.
GDP’s failure to account for environmental destruction is part of a wider problem with the measurement says Eric Zencey:
This points to the larger, deeper flaw in using a measurement of national income as an indicator of economic well-being. In summing all economic activity in the economy, gross domestic product makes no distinction between items that are costs and items that are benefits. If you get into a fender-bender and have your car fixed, G.D.P. goes up.
GDP is a measure that seems designed to incorporate the broken window fallacy. The broken window fallacy is a parable by Friedrich Bastiat that shows that destruction brings no net gain to society’s wealth and only replaces what was lost. By treating loss of life and property as profitable, GDP trivializes the costs of natural disasters by making them appear to promote the economy. Perhaps the most heinous example of this is how wartime expenditures serve to vastly inflate GDP, while contributing nothing to consumer well-being and giving the mistaken conclusion that the economy is booming, when in fact people are much worse off than they otherwise would have been. This is no more apparent than in the traditional presentation of the American economy as booming during World War II.
Most people believe that World War II is what finally got America out of the Great Depression. In fact, if you look at Gross National Product (an older measure which only slightly differs from GDP) data, World War II was the most productive era in US history, and we experienced sustained double-digit growth in GNP and an amazingly low 1.2 percent unemployment rate. this is why politicians of both parties love endless wars. However, as Robert Higgs has shown, GNP data is a very misleading indicator for this era of history. The reason for this is the tautological nature of the GNP. If governments want to improve their nations’ income data, they just spend more money and voila they can say that the economy has improved. However, this high increase in the GNP does not mean that the citizens of a country are any better off and as we have already seen, GDP can increase from events which are an absolute loss for the economy. Any measure which is intended to represent the well-being of a nation must reflect its prosperity. How prosperous were Americans during World War II? Turns out, unsurprisingly, that wars are NOT good for a country. With 12 million of the most productive working men now engaged overseas, women, children and the elderly had to fill in the gap in labor, resulting in massive losses of leisure time. In addition to having vastly restricted the American labor force to the least productive groups, the war planning bureaus had most of the labor force tied up in making tanks, planes, ships and other military items which did not contribute to the prosperity of the average American citizen. Furthermore, the government rationed many consumer items such as gasoline and butter in order to supply the war effort. By considering wartime spending as relevant as to the consumers’ well-being private consumption or investment, the use of GNP data makes what must have been one of the starkest times in American, and even world history, appear glamorous. As Higgs points out: “It is difficult to understand how working harder, longer, more inconveniently and dangerously in return for a diminished flow of consumer goods comports with the description that “economically speaking, Americans had never had it so good”.
Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash
Even in the context of private production, GDP in general provides very poor data about the actual state of the country. When the NBER or other groups calculate GDP data, they find the total monetary cost of all expenditures, and then they divide this aggregate by the average price level to create the “Real” GDP necessary for making yearly comparisons. However, this approach reflects a severe methodological problem of how economists calculate the price deflator, or average price level. Prices are an exchange rate between money and goods and services. If a television set costs 100 dollars and a shirt costs 20 dollars, to calculate the average price we would have to sum these values and divide by two. Herein lies the problem, the price of a TV is 100 dollars/TV, and the price of a shirt is 20 dollars/shirt- these values have different units! In any science it is invalid to add together values with different units. It’s apples and oranges. So, we must consider the price deflator completely arbitrary and not representative of any real value. Since we use the price deflator in order to adjust the rest of the GDP aggregates, we must render the entire measure meaningless.
We have seen that the usage of Gross Domestic Product is misleading in several important ways. GDP does consider people’s standard of living, or the consumption of natural resources, which makes natural disasters appear to paradoxically as boons to the economy! GDP even makes the worst of human disasters, war, appear to be beneficial to the economy. Hence economic focus on maximizing GDP can lead to the advocacy of entirely destructive measures as ways to boost growth. In addition to the moral problems it introduces, the statistic is also meaningless by traditional mathematical standards. When government economists look at this number and proclaim that the economy is growing or in recession, they may be, and often are, completely wrong. Even Steven Kuznets, who invented the GNP metric, said that national income should never be confused for the economic well-being of a country. Because of its: numerous statistical deficits, its tendency to count destruction and disaster as positives, and its ability to allow politicians to claim that war is good, economists and politicians ought to disregard the aggregate in favor of a more humanitarian measure. | https://medium.com/@johnbrandli/the-gdp-delusion-59a1ec37f9e3 | ['John Brandli'] | 2020-11-09 02:01:38.889000+00:00 | ['Federal Reserve', 'History', 'Economics', 'Environment', 'World War II'] |
What It’s Like to Have an Eating Disorder During Lockdown | What It’s Like to Have an Eating Disorder During Lockdown
A cupboard full of canned goods triggers my deepest insecurities
Photo: Thomas Hawk/Flickr
When I was 11 years old, I watched the second Jurassic Park movie, The Lost World, and had a panic attack about a giant meteor hitting the Earth and causing the end of the world. I lay in bed and pushed my open eyes into my pillowcase, imagining the last moments I would spend with my family. Apart from the total and encompassing terror a panic attack brings, I sensed frustration — this imagined catastrophe was so utterly unfair. Why did this have to happen to me? Surely it wasn’t the actual end? What did I do wrong?
My feeling of powerlessness during these childhood attacks still angers me. Over time, I have trained myself to control these fears. I’ve learned to either ignore reality with self-medication (to my own detriment) or to play so deeply into the needs of the people closest to me that when they eventually hurt me and my fears are confirmed, I call it control.
Control has been high on my list of values for a long time. As soon as I become uncomfortable in a situation, I shrink into the safety of rituals that shape who I am when I am alone with myself. Ask anyone who has an eating disorder or is in recovery from one what goes on in their head, and most will describe a similar tendency. No matter how anxious I get, I know I can find refuge in those rituals—no matter what they cost me.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve fielded a dizzying barrage of information about Covid-19 from various corners of the internet. Apart from generally triggering my anxiety about the end of the world, I feel bullied into a corner by familiar fears and trace traumas.
Here’s what it’s like for someone suffering from ED: On a good day, I can eat three medium-ish meals and snacks and only have nine to 10 negative thoughts about my actions. On a great day, I can have ice cream or fast food and only once hear the growl of the thought that I’m going to balloon to the size of a planet. On a bad day, I can’t sit down for 10 minutes for fear of being called a lazy, fat bitch by the voice in my head — and proving it right.
As I’ve learned to care for myself again and regain some of the actual control my ED faked for so long, I’ve learned to quiet these thoughts a bit. During recovery, I loosened the grip I had on my own throat. I eventually fell into patterns that I concede are sort of relaxed “rules” that still cause me major anxiety when broken. It’s like a soft orthorexia (an obsession with healthy eating) that at once benefits and restricts me.
On a great day, I can have ice cream or fast food and only once hear the growl of the thought that I’m going to balloon to the size of a planet.
Recently, I saw a headline about a staff member at one of the gyms I attend being infected with the novel coronavirus. It felt disgusting of me, really, that my first thought was panic at the idea of not being able to go to the gym — instead of sadness for this person who was infected. When I think about removing this part of my routine from my day, images of my flabby body flash before my eyes like a Spielbergian war scene. In 2015, when I hospitalized myself for a week to try to make some progress with my recovery, I quietly did illegal sit-ups and high knees in my curtained portion of the room. I knew it was stupid, but I felt like the world would end if I didn’t perform for my disorder. Is this what I would be reduced to once Sydney is shut down and we couldn’t leave the house? I wondered.
Other habits I thought I’d conquered have become harder to avoid in isolation: checking my body in every mirror to dissect the minute differences in the size of my stomach, treating Coke Zero as a meal replacement, and trying on clothes I haven’t worn in months and squinting at my reflection like it’s a gore-filled scene in a slasher film.
Even the word “stockpiling” sends shivers down my spine. Having massive amounts of food in the apartment seconds away from the possibility of being devoured is an alarming concept, to say the least. (It’s a funny quirk people with anorexia have: believing they have no self-control when they are literally starving themselves to death.)
What would my quarantine menu consist of? The safe stuff — beans? Bread? No, too many carbs and not enough using those carbs. Those carbs will stick to you like glue. Soup might be okay, but pasta is out—not that I have a choice in that anymore.
I debate with myself, all while knowing that food is energy and my body needs energy to fight off any kind of disease. But that seems less important than staying skinny. I sit after a meal for hours and hours, confined in a hotbox of panic, unable to relieve my guilt with exercise. The fact that I can still consider these fears in times of a literal pandemic is shocking to me and reinforces how deadly my disorder is. It would have you die before defying it. This disorder tells you it’s better to die skinny and sick than survive and be any bigger than you are, which is already too big.
I know that, at heart, this is about something deeper than weight or body shape or what I look like to others, which truly doesn’t worry me that much anymore. It’s about testing the self-worth I have grown over the past five years. It’s about existing with myself at my core and not othering the healthy, beautiful body I have been given. These rules around food and exercise are coping mechanisms that have been working, for the most part, and being forced to alter them feels fucking terrifying. Here, I really have no control.
Yes, I know this all sounds very silly. I am very embarrassed to admit these things because sending them out into the world makes them real, but I am trying not to lie to myself so much anymore. I am incredibly privileged to even have access to food, medicine, and shelter. What this has taught me is that unlearning practices we all hold dear to us is going to be difficult. If I can get through this time without descending into a relapse my ED so badly wants me to return to—and without getting physically sick—I will consider myself incredibly lucky. Many will not have that opportunity.
As a last thought, I think it’s pretty ironic that one of my obsessive-compulsive disorder tics used to be repeatedly washing my hands while counting to 30 seconds. Full circle, right? | https://humanparts.medium.com/how-the-covid-19-pandemic-is-testing-my-eating-disorder-recovery-249ca881cb63 | ['Cara Roe'] | 2020-04-07 17:58:33.075000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Mental Health', 'Pandemic', 'Self', 'Body'] |
Elite Trader Execution: Trading the Pfizer Covid Vaccine Announcement | AXIA Elite Trader Demetris Mavrommatis trades the Pfizer Covid Vaccine Announcement
In the morning of Monday 9th November 2020, the world welcomed a huge milestone in the war against the pandemic as Pfizer announced that its experimental Covid vaccine was found to be 90% effective in preventing Covid infections.
This announcement on the vaccine’s efficacy surpassed even the most optimistic expectations and as a result it sparked huge Risk-On across the financial markets, with global stock markets rocketing while safe-haven government bonds and Gold tumbled.
This event created big opportunities for global macro day traders who were able to execute trades as soon as the announcement got released.
In this article we will explore how our top AXIA macro trader reacted to this event, as we go through his trading execution step-by-step and see what was going through his head as he was trading the extreme volatility sparked by the event.
We will see how he truly maximised the opportunity presented, by aggressively executing large positions across five futures markets to achieve a 7-figure P&L in the space of a few minutes after the announcement hit the wires.
Watch The Live Trading Recording:
YouTube: AXIA Elite Trader Demetris Mavrommatis executes large trades on Pfizer Vaccine Phase 3 study results
Background: The significance of a highly effective vaccine
The fight against the pandemic and the recovery of the global economy rests on vaccination of the world’s population. Only then we will go back to normal and the world’s economies will emerge from a pandemic-induced recession.
After successful and promising Phase 2 studies from the frontrunner vaccine manufacturers, the whole world and the financial markets were focusing on Phase 3 study results. These studies involve around 40,000 people and are the final hurdle before the health authorities approve and start manufacturing the vaccine.
For a couple of months now the markets were eagerly waiting for results from the companies that were near completion of the Phase 3 study and these are: Pfizer+Biontech, Moderna and Astrazeneca.
The preliminary results of these studies would show us 1) if the vaccine has been effective and 2) what was the Efficacy rate in the study (i.e. what percentage of people who took the vaccine actually achieved immunity)
Market Impact on different sectors of the economy
For traders and investors around the world, these results would have huge implications in the financial markets. The FDA had stated that a vaccine with around 50–60% efficacy rate would be good enough for approval so this was more or less the minimum threshold.
But at the same time if this efficacy rate was a lot higher then it means that we would get out of the pandemic much faster than expected. The baseline expectation based on Phase 2 studies was that the vaccine should be at least 60% effective, the higher the better.
The vaccine results would have a different impact on different sectors of the economy. Since the beginning of the crisis we have seen the cyclical and value stocks (like the big industrial names) get battered while some of the huge tech companies like Amazon, Netflix and other stay-at-home stocks managed to weather the storm and outperform significantly, as their revenues exploded.
Dow vs Nasdaq: Clear outperformance of Nasdaq since the March lows as investors fled the value stocks and the big industrial names for the the big tech and stay-at-home stocks
So we have effectively seen a big rotation from value stocks to tech stocks. This massive rotation is best reflected when we compare the Nasdaq 100 index over the last 9 months vs the Russel 2000 or the Dow 30 index. Looking at the chart above we can see how Nasdaq has massively outperformed the Dow since the March lows. The Nasdaq took out its previous all-time-high on 5th of June and kept rallying since, whereas the Dow only took its previous ATH in the futures on the Pfizer Covid Vaccine announcement day (9th November).
Trading Scenario Analysis
In terms of trading execution, it is quite obvious that a highly effective vaccine (high efficacy rate) should spark big risk-on. On the flipside, if for any reason the Vaccine does not meet its primary endpoint and its not proven effective enough, expect HUGE risk off across the board in the markets.
Trading Scenario Analysis: The higher the vaccine efficacy the stronger the Risk-On reaction
Having said that, it’s also key to select the markets that offer the best risk-reward potential when the announcement hits. Going back to previous reactions to positive Phase 2 study results as well as other therapeutics announcements, we could see that the biggest impact is on the Equities (and more specifically on the big industrial names and value stocks). So in this case we expect markets like the Dow, DAX, Russel, Spoo to react big to the upside while the Nasdaq undeperforms.
Nonetheless, if the announcement causes huge risk-on, you would also expect government bonds/gold to sell off as investors would pair their stimulus and easing bets going forward.
Pfizer announcement hits the wires
At exactly 11.45am on the day, Pfizer releases a statement saying that its Covid vaccine is found to be over 90% effective in its large Phase 3 study. This was a bombshell statement which beat even the most optimistic expectations and an enormous milestone in the fight against the pandemic.
Pfizer announcement states that its experimental vaccine found to be 90% effective in preventing Covid infections
The 90% efficacy finding for the vaccine produced by Pfizer far outstripped expectations of a 60–70% reading among analysts and compared to around a 40–60% efficacy rate for seasonal flu vaccines.
Such a high efficacy rate meant that the global economy could recover faster than previously expected and this was a very big positive development. As one would expect, huge risk-on was sparked by this announcement, and within the first few seconds, global equity markets skyrocketed.
Elite trader reaction to the news — Building the big positions
As we have seen with past streams, our Elite trader is renowned for trading these types of events, executing with maximum conviction and aggression, hitting the markets as hard and as fast as possible.
As soon as the results of the study were released, he bought 400 E-mini S&P and 90 DAX. Within the next few seconds his PnL was printing over $300,000.
Most US equity futures exploded on the Pfizer announcement. Russel 2000 (small caps) and Dow 30 (big industrials) outperformed significantly, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 eventually sold-off as the stay-at-home trade stumbled
In his head, this was a massive event and a huge opportunity to possibly achieve his best day ever, so at this stage all he is thinking is how to add to his positions and take even more risk. As he explained, in situations of extreme volatility like this event, he manages to stay focused by visualising the huge reward if the trade works out as he expects.
He knows how significant this news is and he won’t rest until he exposes himself to the maximum risk he is willing to take. So as the equity futures keep exploding higher, he also goes and buys 150 lots in the E-mini Dow. He feels the Dow offers great risk-reward as he is convinced the value and big industrial stocks will massively outperform on this announcement.
15 seconds after the announcement, and as the price action across markets confirms his thoughts and conviction, he feels he would like to take even more risk, so while he is around 650 lots long across three equity indexes, he goes and sells 540 bunds.
AXIA Elite trader buying S&P and DAX while selling Bunds
At this point, I felt I got as many limits as I wanted on the equities but I quickly glanced at the bonds and realised that they hadn’t moved much. I thought this news was a game changer for all asset classes across the board, and I felt that there was potential for the Bund to get sold big on this, given how tight and contained it had been in the last few sessions. AXIA ELITE TRADER
As he explained, he felt that there was big potential for both Bunds and Treasuries to eventually tumble on the huge risk-on sentiment, and on the assumption that central banks might end up scaling back their huge monetary stimulus faster than expected, as the highly effective vaccine would normalise the economy faster than previously forecasted.
Managing the trades — Scaling out & locking profits
After building those big positions across markets, then it was all about managing the trades as efficiently as possible in order to maximise the P&L. As per his usual execution strategy that we saw on previous streams, he is jumping from one ladder to another, scaling out the positions and locking profits.
Keeping a close eye on correlations and order flow of his main ladders he could get a feel for the overall sentiment and identify which markets were overreacting and which were lagging behind. He uses this information to keep adjusting his positions.
In just over 2 minutes after the announcement his P&L broke the 7-figure barrier and that’s when the equities started pulling back from the extremes. At this point he decided to start cutting his exposure on the equities while holding the majority of his bond positions.
I realised that the Spoo had done over 50 handles in around 2 mins. Dax did over 250 ticks! My thought process at this stage is: This is a very big move in a very short timeframe, and even if we go further eventually, there’s a strong chance that we pull back significantly before the second leg. So if I see the equities start stalling or pulling back at this stage, then I am ready to cut my risk significantly. AXIA ELITE TRADER
His rationale here is that the bonds hadn’t really moved far enough in relative terms and as compared to the huge equity moves. He felt there could be a big delayed reaction in the bonds and he was willing to stick with the trade and not scale out, as he was confident that powerful bearish flows would eventually start hitting the bond space.
It soon turned out that the pullback in risk was short-lived, and equities started making new highs. Although he was a bit upset at this stage that he had covered most of his equity positions, he felt that at the time, being short the bonds offered a better risk-reward opportunity. Over the next ten minutes, the bonds rolled over as he expected and he managed to add significantly to his PnL.
Big Risk-On across European and US fixed income markets with Bunds and US 30Y Treasuries capitulating while European equities (DAX and Euro Stoxx) rally hard
At the same time, he started feeling that the equities had over-extended to the upside at this point. As the NASDAQ started leading the way down as big tech and stay-at-home stocks started getting hit, he took a few short positions in S&P, Euro Stoxx and Nasdaq, and as those positions paid off, he managed to achieve his best day ever, netting over $1,300,000.
Key takeaways from the Elite trader execution
The YouTube video embedded in this article offers invaluable insight into the execution methodology of AXIA’s largest trader, by analysing in great detail his strategy and thought process as he is trading multiple markets simultaneously in extremely volatile conditions.
Our elite trade has cultivated his edge and skill-set in trading global macro events with such confidence and conviction over a career spanning 10+ years. This enables him to put the big size on whenever he feels there is a big risk-reward opportunity to be taken.
As he explains, he always visualises these mega days, i.e. he is using his mind to see his execution over a potential big trade on a certain event, and this makes him super prepared and focused for when the event does happen.
Key takeaways & lessons from the Elite Trader Execution Stream
As we have seen he will not hesitate to hit as hard as possible and as fast as possible, and once he is happy with the size he exposed himself to, he will focus on managing the trade actively using his peripheral vision of observing all correlated markets. This enables him to feel the overall sentiment so that he can tweak his execution and adjust his positions accordingly.
To see more examples of his trading execution on other big fundamental events, such as geopolitical events and central bank policy meetings, visit the AXIA Elite Trader playlist on our YouTube channel.
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Alex Haywood — Co-Founder Head of Strategy | https://medium.com/@axiafutures/elite-trader-execution-trading-the-pfizer-covid-vaccine-announcement-20fa4a4272a5 | ['Axia Futures'] | 2021-01-07 21:06:58.424000+00:00 | ['Forex', 'Futures Trading', 'Trading', 'Covid 19 Crisis', 'Day Trading'] |
How Big Money and Big Brother won the British Elections | The best democracy money can buy
As of the end of last year, the Electoral Commission found that the Tories received the largest amount of donations, at £8,345,687, the bulk of which came from financiers associated with banks, the hedge fund industry, and big business. Two million pounds worth of donations were associated with hedge funds, and a further £4 million with people attending private dinners hosted by senior Tories.
Next up in donations was Labour at £7,163,988, much of which came from trade unions, as well as corporate donors like PricewaterhouseCoopers, a major proponent of corporate tax avoidance; then the Liberal Democrats with £3,038,500, UKIP with £1,505,055, and the Green Party with £248,520.
That was last year. This year, donations continued to come in. In the final week of the campaign, the Tories managed to raise 10 times more donations than Labour — a total of a further £1.36 million — once again largely from hedge fund managers, property tycoons, and a telecoms firm that has avoided paying corporation tax in the UK since 2007.
Political parties appear to have achieved electoral success in direct proportion to the amount of money received to fund their political campaigns, indicating that the most important precondition for victory in Britain’s broken democracy is the party’s subservience to corporate power.
Oligarchy
The role of party donors in determining election outcomes — by determining the effectiveness and reach of national public relations campaigns — has consistently been overlooked by the main parties, despite some obligatory lipservice that has gone nowhere tangible.
Over the last five years, 41% of all individual and corporate donations to British party political-related causes have come from just 76 extremely wealthy people, including City financiers, corporate moguls, and owners of multi-million pound businesses.
Public relations spin has increasingly played a critical function in permitting corporate power to translate its wealth into political power.
In their study of the subject, A Century of Spin (2007), Prof. David Miller and Dr. William Dinan, sociologists and directors of the public interest investigations body, Spinwatch, show how the corporate co-optation of PR has been used to subordinate liberal democracies to corporate rule, and to limit the scope of populist grassroots movements to influence the political party system.
Under a climate of economic uncertainty and lack of independent sources of news and information, public opinion has become evermore vulnerable to slick partisan campaigns that mobilise wealth to create highly effective media spin by which to manipulate voters.
The Tory-UKIP money machine
While UKIP has positioned itself as an independent counterweight to the ‘establishment’ parties, standing up for swathes of under-represented working people, the truth is the opposite.
A large bulk of UKIP’s funding boost came from former Tory donors, millionaire bankers, and corporate executives, pushing the fringe party to receive the third largest percentage of the vote.
But not all these former Tory donors are former Tory donors.
‘Former’ Tory donor Robin Birley, for instance, who owns a Mayfair nightclub and who is one of UKIP’s biggest donors, had also bankrolled the campaign of Tory MP Michael Gove, government chief whip.
Another major former Tory donor, Growth Financial Services, switched to UKIP in 2014, giving the party £90,000 before switching back to fund the re-election campaigns of two prominent Tory MPs, Amber Rudd and Mark Field, who sits on the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.
Similarly, hedge fund millionaire Crispin Odey donated to UKIP in 2014, but in late March 2015 provided funds to support the re-election of Tory MP and climate denier Jacob Rees-Mogg.
In other words, a number of major Tory donors plugged into the heart of the Conservative Party establishment were funding both UKIP and Tory political opponents.
Days before the elections, Tory-UKIP funder Robin Birley told pro-Tory newspaper The Telegraph that UKIP supporters should strategically vote Conservative in seats that UKIP could not win — which was most of them. In seats that Tories were unlikely to win, he urged Tory supporters to vote UKIP.
This Tory-UKIP switch strategy, he said, would “stop Britain being left with a government being formed by a hard left rabble of parties.”
Ironically, Birley’s recommendations for UKIP supporters to vote tactically for the Tories were vehemently opposed by Nigel Farage, the very leader of the party he had funded.
But the idea of a Tory-UKIP strategic voting bloc had also been endorsed just days before Birley’s announcement by the Bow Group, the oldest conservative think-tank in Britain.
Chaired by Ben Harris-Quinney, who has worked on foreign policy issues for the Conservative Party in the UK and EU parliaments, the Bow Group includes on its board of patrons several senior Tory figures, such as Lord Norman Lamont, Lord Michael Heseltine, Lord Michael Howard, and Lord Earl Howe — who as of 2010 was appointed by David Cameron as Department of Health minister.
MI5 and The Bow Group
The Bow Group’s Conservative Party patrons had all served in senior Cabinet positions, under either Margaret Thatcher or John Major. All four of them made a point of publicly distancing themselves from their chairman’s exhortations to vote UKIP, which were published by The Telegraph.
But also on the board of patrons is renowned philosopher, Prof. Roger Scruton, who has been connected to dubious anti-left intelligence information operations. Unlike his colleagues in the Tory party, Scruton was silent throughout this affair.
In the 1980s, Scruton was a member of the neoconservative Hillgate Group, a network of British academics who coordinated various policy publications to influence government. Their focus was hyping up the threat of Marxist, leftwing or “radical” infiltration of British universities and schools. Scruton admitted to historian David Callaghan, however, that the Group’s policy reports were “quietly encouraged by 10 Downing Street to concoct an outside pressure group to influence policy.”
Scruton’s Hillgate Group was run by Baroness Caroline Cox, another senior Conservative Party figure with a history of political agitation on behalf of British intelligence. In 1977, Cox was part of a study group behind a report on how leftwing “radical minorities” were subverting “capitalist, free market civilisation.” The report was published by the Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC), a “think tank” created jointly by the British and American intelligence services, specifically the CIA, an MI5-MI6 linked intelligence unit in the Cabinet Office, and the Foreign Office.
The Bow Group’s role in promoting the Tory-UKIP voting strategy was therefore not a curious aberration. Rather, it reflected a strategy being explored by senior elements in the Tory establishment and its elite support-base in the corporate oligarchy.
Scruton’s role in the Bow Group further raises questions about the role of Downing Street and Britain’s intelligence services in the use of UKIP to ramp up pro-Tory votes.
Roger Scruton could not be reached for comment.
MI5 and UKIP
Unbeknown to many, UKIP too had early roots in Britain’s intelligence services.
In 2001, former Conservative Party chairman Norman Tebbit called for an independent inquiry into revelations that UKIP had been infiltrated by MI5. In a televised interview on BBC News, Tebbit said:
“A chap came to me and said UKIP had been infiltrated by the British intelligence services and then he gave me two names of people and from various ways I came to the conclusion that I was absolutely and completely certain that these people — although they had left the service and the Foreign Office some years earlier — in fact had been intelligence agents.”
As Tebbit explained in a Spectator article that even Douglas Murray recently endorsed, he “half-heartedly” made his “own inquiries” after a source inside UKIP raised the concerns with him, “and unexpectedly struck gold… I am perfectly sure that the individuals had been active agents, although both would claim to have retired some years ago.”
Tebbit had not suggested that UKIP’s leadership was aware of the intelligence operation. At the time, Nigel Farage admitted that he could not discount Tebbit’s allegations.
It eventually turned out that the two people identified by Tebbit — Heather Conyngham and Christopher Skeate — had indeed been former MI6 officers, who had worked together at one time in Latin America. They were also both senior figures in the now defunct Referendum Party, Skeate as a candidate in 1997.
Robin Birley, the major Tory-UKIP donor who had urged a Tory-UKIP mutual tactical voting strategy, was at that time operations director of the Referendum Party, a Eurosceptic party similar to UKIP. Both Conyngham and Skeate had transferred their allegiance to UKIP after the death of Referendum Party founder, Sir James Goldsmith (Birley’s stepfather).
Birley and his Referendum Party also had a wider relationship to Latin America, specifically Chile. In 1998, Birley had recruited Referendum’s communications director, Patrick Robertson, to work with his campaign group, ‘Chilean Supporters Abroad,’ in support of notorious dictator Chilean General Pinochet, who had been supported by Margaret Thatcher herself.
The late Pinochet had been installed in a brutal military coup in 1973, which had been planned and backed by the CIA and MI6 since the democratic elections that brought leftwing nationalist President Salvador Allende to power in 1970. Birley’s ‘Chilean Supporters Abroad’ published a pro-Pinochet pamphlet that promulgated a range of MI6 and CIA disinformation about Allende.
Senior Tory pro-Pinochet apologists Norman Lamont and Michael Howard are today senior patrons of the Bow Group.
It later transpired that Tebbit’s original informant was then UKIP press officer Chris Jones, who months earlier had written a formal letter to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Tribunal about his “allegation, based on detailed circumstantional [sic] evidence gathered over 5 months that UKIP has been penetrated and is largely controlled by British Intelligence agents.”
The letter requested that the Tribunal:
“… call upon files on UKIP: myself: Dr R AE North: G Franklyn-Ryan: Nigel Farage MEP: Heather Coyningham a former FCO official; Christopher Skeate also FCO: Tony Stone: Mark Daniel (alias): Janet Girsman and G Lance Watkins.”
The curious overlap of MI5-MI6 officers with the Referendum, UKIP and Tory parties, and the movement of donors between all three parties, raises questions about the manipulation of the popular vote by a nexus of powerful British interests encompassing a network of corporate elites and Whitehall officials.
MI5 and SNP
The Tory-UKIP nexus is not the only instance offering disturbing evidence of the interference of British intelligence in our national elections.
Last month, The Telegraph — which had also promoted the Tory-UKIP strategy put out by the Bow Group and Robin Birley — published an ‘exclusive’ about a leaked FCO memo, which purportedly recorded Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon telling the French Ambassador she would prefer a Tory government.
But as former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan and longtime Foreign Office (FCO) official, Craig Murray, remarked about the alleged memo, “both sides of the alleged conversation categorically deny it was said. Nicola Sturgeon denies she said it and the French Embassy deny she said it.”
Supposedly, the confidential contents of Sturgeon’s meeting with the French Ambassador had been passed to the Foreign Office and transcribed by a Whitehall official as a matter of FCO protocol.
“The extraordinary thing is, this is just a lie,” said Murray.
“As someone who worked in the FCO for over twenty years and was an Ambassador myself, I can assure you there is absolutely no protocol requirement on the French Ambassador to give the FCO the content of the meetings she, her Consul-General or anybody else from the French Embassy held in Edinburgh. That claim is absolute nonsense.”
Even more bizarrely, it turned out that the Foreign Office itself denied being the source of the alleged ‘leaked memo.’
Drawing on the example of the MI6-forged Zinoviev letter ‘leaked’ to the Daily Mail in 1924, which triggered the fall of the Labour government, Murray concluded: “The fake FCO memo has MI5 written all over it. This is the worst example of British security services influencing an election campaign since the Zinoviev letter.”
“I have been warning the SNP that we are going to be the target of active subversion by the UK and US security services. We are seen as a danger to the British state and thus a legitimate target,” the former Ambassador added.
“That the attempt to destabilise Nicola Sturgeon originates with the UK government and the Telegraph should give everyone pause. It is very obviously a security service effort. How otherwise is an account which the French Embassy says is completely false, contained in an official memo to be leaked? This episode raises very serious questions. But they are not questions about Nicola Sturgeon. They are questions about the subversion of democracy by the security services, and the willing complicity of the corporate media.”
There is thus alarming evidence that not just Big Money, but Big Brother, made a concerted effort to disrupt the SNP and co-opt UKIP, as a mechanism to sideline what Birnley characterised as a “hard left rabble of parties,” cementing a Tory parliamentary majority.
The next five years promises more of what we have already seen over the last five years: austerity, corporate empowerment, privatisation of public services widening inequality, continued obfuscation on climate change, subservience to Big Oil and nuclear lobbies, and a return of the snoopers’ charter — previously blocked by the Lib Dems — that would enshrine excessively intrusive surveillance powers into law.
So we should make no mistake. This is not a victory for British democracy. It is a victory for Britain’s increasingly draconian corporate-security complex. | https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-big-money-and-big-brother-won-the-british-elections-2e8da57faac4 | ['Nafeez Ahmed'] | 2015-05-08 21:51:04.915000+00:00 | ['Democracy', 'UK Politics', 'General Election'] |
The Antagonist Fuels Your Story | Stories are about change. Specifically, stories are about how characters change. We love stories so much because we are able to see ourselves in the main character, and we learn as they learn.
You’ve probably spent a lot of time working on your main character — the protagonist whose journey of change the reader experiences. You likely know your main character inside and out, and you know exactly how they’ll grow throughout the story.
However, many writers overlook the importance of the antagonist and their role in the story, spending less time and effort on creating this character. An antagonist is more than just “the bad guy.” They are the backbone of how the protagonist transforms, and they deserve just as much if not more effort than the protagonist.
Without a solid antagonistic force, your main character cannot or will not change, which means the story is left with no arc, and no connection to the reader. In this blog, we explore the antagonist as a character.
What is an antagonist?
The antagonist is the opposing force, the obstacle, to what your protagonist wants. There are two main types of antagonists: the adversary and the villain.
The Adversary (positive arc) : In a romance, or friendship story, these characters often also have positive arcs — they change alongside your protagonist, proving the story point in their own way (i.e. Mr. Darcy, unlearning his prejudices to fall in love with Lizzy).
: In a romance, or friendship story, these characters often also have positive arcs — they change alongside your protagonist, proving the story point in their own way (i.e. Mr. Darcy, unlearning his prejudices to fall in love with Lizzy). The Villain (negative arc): Whether evil or not, this describes an antagonist who fails to change. They cannot face their internal obstacle (see below), and refuse to unlearn it, and their demise proves the story point (i.e. Voldemort, failing to learn that there are things worse than death).
Your goal is to choose the type of antagonist which will present the most challenging problems to your main character, and remember that their journey (whether failure or redemption) should prove your point.
Let’s take a look at Prince Zuko, from Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA), as an excellent example of an antagonist that works.
One hundred years after the Fire Nation began their conquest to conquer the world, Avatar Aang is on a quest to restore balance. Zuko, a prince from the Fire Nation, is attempting to hunt down and capture the Avatar as a way to restore his own honor. Zuko and Aang face off multiple times throughout the story, until Zuko’s eventual redemption and recognition of the story point: love and friendship bring balance to the world.
Antagonists create opportunities for change
Because antagonists oppose the protagonist and stand in the way of achieving their goals, the antagonist is the driving force behind the protagonist’s character arc. As KM Weiland puts it, “the antagonist is the agent of change — the hammer to the protagonist’s stone.”
Why? Let’s break it down.
Strong characters have both internal and external goals, stakes, and obstacles. The protagonist wants something (goals), but something is standing in their way of getting it (obstacles). Until the protagonist overcomes their internal obstacle, and unlearns the misbelief/lie that is holding them back, they will not be able to achieve their goals.
The antagonist acts as the external obstacle — the plot problem — which the protagonist is fighting. As the antagonist and the protagonist face off against each other, the protagonist must continually change their tactics (the wrong way) until they learn the lesson they need to learn and overcome their internal obstacle. Only then will they be able to overcome the antagonist and achieve their goals.
Therefore, as the protagonist fights against the antagonist, they are forced to transform in order to eventually “beat” the antagonist. It is the antagonist who creates the opportunities for the protagonist to learn their lesson.
In ATLA, Avatar Aang, the protagonist, is on a mission to restore balance to the world. However, he must first find balance within himself. As Aang and Zuko face off throughout Book 1 (the first season) and Book 2 (the second), Zuko acts as an obstacle that Aang must overcome in order to move past feelings of revenge and hate and move toward balance and love. Through fighting and eventually befriending Zuko, Aang learns more about himself, what it means to be Avatar, and how to find peace in the face of anger.
Stay in conversation with the story point
If you haven’t yet, spend time determining your story’s point — the specific message or takeaway you want your readers to learn about how the world works. The point acts as the guidepost for the story, and should influence all decisions you make regarding plot, arcs, worldbuilding, etc.
Just as the protagonist’s journey of transformation should prove the story’s point, your antagonist’s journey should as well.
Prince Zuko’s character arc is about learning to love oneself and finding friendship with others. Once he eventually unlearns his internal obstacle (honor is the only thing that makes him lovable), he is able to finally learn and prove the story point (love and friendship bring balance to the world).
Create a three-dimensional antagonist
The key to creating a realistic antagonist is that they must believe they are their own hero. To make a believable adversary, or villain, you as the author must understand what their motivations are, and why they are doing what they’re doing.
Think about their goals: What do they want, both internally and externally? What are they trying to accomplish? Why?
Prince Zuko wants to restore his honor by capturing Avatar Aang (external), but what he really wants is to gain love and respect from his family and nation (internal). He believes capturing Aang is the way to gain love and respect. He does it because his father tells him to.
Consider what’s at stake: What do they believe will happen if they don’t get what they want, both internally and externally? Why do they care?
If Prince Zuko doesn’t capture the Avatar, his fears his father will never let him return home (external). If he fails to regain love and respect from his family, he believes he’ll remain alone (internal).
What’s holding them back: What obstacles are standing in their way, internally and externally? What external obstacle do they believe is the problem? What misbelief/lie has shaped their personal beliefs (and likely set them down their path)?
The Avatar continually evades Zuko’s capture (external). He mistakenly believes that his honor is the only thing that makes him lovable (internal), which is what sets him on his misguided quest to capture Avatar Aang.
Your antagonist, whether adversary or villain, needs to be fully human — and in order to achieve this, they need motivations just as complicated as your protagonist’s.
Notice how Zuko’s motivations are rooted in a deep longing to be loved, and he believes he is doing the right thing by hunting Aang. Even as he stands in Aang’s way of bringing peace to the world, Zuko’s actions are completely understandable. His longing to be loved stays in perfect conversation with the story point of “love and friendship bring balance to the world.”
Throughout the story, the antagonist should also be struggling against their personal beliefs and how those beliefs are shaping their motivations. This makes them not only a captivating character, but also allows you to devise an arc that foils your protagonist’s.
Spend more time on your antagonist!
If your plot events stagnate, or your main character lacks change, it is time to reevaluate your antagonist! This crucial character deserves the hard work and attention needed to tie your story together. Still need help? We got your back! Schedule a free 30 min consult with us to discuss how we can help you level up your characters! | https://medium.com/@goldenmayedit/the-antagonist-fuels-your-story-1c47184351f8 | ['Golden May', 'Book Coaching'] | 2020-12-21 16:32:01.052000+00:00 | ['Writers On Writing', 'Fiction Writing', 'Writing Tips', 'Fiction', 'Writing'] |
Running Reactive Spring Boot on GraalVM in Docker | The reactive Spring Boot RESTful web service and client
When looking at the sample, you can see how you can implement a non-blocking web service and client. Basically this means you use;
org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.ServerRequest and ServerResponse and instead of the org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController
Mono<ServerResponse> for the response of the web service
for a web service client you use org.springframework.web.reactive.function.client.ClientResponse and Mono<ClientResponse> for getting a response
since you won’t use the (classic blocking) RestController with the RequestMapping annotations, you need to create your own configuration class which defines routes using org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.RouterFunctions
Since the response is not directly a POJO, it needs to be converted into one explicitly like with res.bodyToMono(String.class). For more details look at this tutorial or browse this repository
Personally I would have liked to have something like a ReactiveRestController and keep the rest (pun intended) the same. This would make refactoring to reactive services and clients more easy.
GraalVM
GraalVM is a polyglot VM open sourced by Oracle. It has a community edition and enterprise edition which provides improved performance (a smaller footprint) and better security (sandboxing capabilities for native code) as indicated here. The community edition can be downloaded from GitHub and the enterprise edition from Oracle’s Technology Network. Support for GraalVM for Windows is currently still under development and not released yet. A challenge for Oracle with GraalVM will be to keep the polyglot systems it supports up to date version wise. This already was a challenge with for example the R support in Oracle database and Node support in Application Container Cloud Service. See here.
When you download GraalVM CE you’ll get GraalVM with a specific OpenJDK 8 version (for GraalVM 1.0.0-rc8 this is 1.8.0_172). When you download GraalVM EE from OTN, you’ll get Oracle JDK 8 of the same version.
To see which components are available, you can do:
bash-4.2# gu available
Downloading: Component catalog
ComponentId Version Component name
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
python 1.0.0-rc8 Graal.Python
R 1.0.0-rc8 FastR
ruby 1.0.0-rc8 TruffleRuby
GraalVM and LLVM
GraalVM supports LLVM. LLVM is a popular toolset to provide language agnostic compilation and optimization of code for specific platforms. LLVM is one of the reasons many programming languages have starting popping up recently. Read more about LLVM here or visit their site here. If you can compile a language into LLVM bitcode or LLVM Intermediate Representation (IR), you can run it on GraalVM (see here). The LLVM bitcode is additionally optimized by GraalVM to receive even better results.
GraalVM and R
GraalVM uses FastR which is based on GNU-R, the reference implementation of R. This is an alternative implementation of the R language for GraalVM and thus not actual R! For example: ‘support for dplyr and data.table are on the way’. Read more here. Especially if you use exotic packages in R, I expect there to be compatibility issues. It is interesting to compare the performance of FastR on GraalVM to compiling R code to LLVM instructions and run that on GraalVM (using something like RLLVMCompile). Haven’t tried that though. GraalVM seems to have momentum at the moment and I’m not so sure about RLLVMCompile.
Updating the JVM of GraalVM
You can check out the following post here for building GraalVM with a JDK 8 version. This refers to documentation on GitHub here.
Graal depends on a JDK that supports a compatible version of JVMCI (JVM Compiler Interface). There is a JVMCI port for JDK 8 and the required JVMCI version is built into the JDK as of JDK 11 (build 20 or later).
I have not tried this but it seems thus relatively easy to compile GraalVM from sources with support for a different JDK.
GraalVM in Docker
Oracle has recently provided GraalVM as Docker images and put the Dockerfile’s in their Github repository. See here. These are only available for the community edition. Since the Dockerfiles are provided on GitHub, it is easy to make your own GraalVM EE images if you want (for example want to test with GraalVM using Oracle JDK instead of OpenJDK).
To checkout GraalVM you can run the container like:
docker run -it oracle/graalvm-ce:1.0.0-rc8 bash
Spring Boot in GraalVM in Docker
How to run a Spring Boot application in Docker is relatively easy and described here. I’ve run Spring Boot applications on various VM’s also and described the process on how to achieve this here. As indicated above, I’ve used this Ubuntu Development VM.
git clone
cd gs-reactive-rest-service/complete sudo apt-get install mavengit clone https://github.com/spring-guides/gs-reactive-rest-service.git cd gs-reactive-rest-service/complete
Now create a Dockerfile:
FROM oracle/graalvm-ce:1.0.0-rc8
VOLUME /tmp
ARG JAR_FILE
COPY ${JAR_FILE} app.jar
ENTRYPOINT [“java”,”-Djava.security.egd=file:/dev/./urandom”,”-jar”,”/app.jar”]
Edit the pom.xml file
Add to the properties tag a prefix variable:
<properties>
<java.version>1.8</java.version>
<docker.image.prefix>springio</docker.image.prefix>
</properties>
Add a build plugin
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>com.spotify</groupId>
<artifactId>dockerfile-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.3.6</version>
<configuration> <repository>${docker.image.prefix}/${project.artifactId}</repository>
<buildArgs><JAR_FILE>target/${project.build.finalName}.jar</JAR_FILE></buildArgs>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
Now you can do:
mvn clean package
mvn dockerfile:build
And run it:
docker run -p 8080:8080 -t springio/gs-reactive-rest-service:latest
It’s as simple as that! | https://medium.com/oracledevs/running-reactive-spring-boot-on-graalvm-in-docker-b36744fe299c | ['Maarten Smeets'] | 2018-11-14 07:33:39.090000+00:00 | ['Docker', 'R', 'Llvm', 'Graalvm', 'Spring Boot'] |
What Is Greenwashing in Fashion? | So as more and more consumers are becoming conscious of the environmental impact of the fast fashion industry, they’re putting pressure on corporations to get their sh*t together. And, while environmental activism and sustainability practices are huge, long-term movements, they’re also incredibly trendy — and where there’s a trend, there’s a brand to capitalize on it.
Fast fashion, by definition, thrives on a model that creates a constant cycle of consumption and waste, while sustainability focuses on breaking down such systems. Seems like a bit of a contradiction, no?
So why do fashion companies use greenwashing marketing tactics, instead of making significant changes?
Youth Climate Strike Vienna, Austria (2019). Photo: Back to Zero
The simple answer is that greenwashing is cheaper, faster, and easier — while benefitting their business rather than making it more difficult. With more and more consumers making a commitment to spend their money on earth-conscious brands, greenwashing has become a way for fast-fashion companies to stake their claim in the market. With effective advertising campaigns and good marketing, any corporate or small scale company can generate a green image for their brand regardless of their actual business practices.
So, a fast fashion company — let’s use H&M as an example — rolls out a “Garment Collecting” campaign as a way for the corporation to include themselves in the eco-conscious narrative, while still maintaining their harmful business practices.
In a Marketplace segment on CBC News, Claudia Marsales explained that for companies like H&M, “it would take 12 years to recycle what they sell in 48 hours.” Creating a meaningless “recycling” campaign is an easy way to seem green, without having to make any actual changes to their production model.
Greenwashing muddies the waters of buying sustainable and ethical products by overwhelming consumers with choices that are difficult to differentiate between.
Because terms like eco-friendly, natural, or pure aren’t lawfully authorized the same way as certifications like FairTrade and Animal-Free Testing, it’s incredibly difficult to determine the authenticity of so-called green products; Unfortunately, it’s the responsibility of the consumer to sift through the overwhelming amount of green marketing to find authentic brands they can trust.
Greenwashing muddies the waters of buying sustainable and ethical products by overwhelming consumers with choices that are difficult to differentiate between. It makes it more challenging for authentically ethical and sustainable brands to build their presence in a growing tide of green campaigns.
How can people be responsible for making the right choices when companies aren’t being transparent about their overarching business practices? Green initiatives could be great, but they don’t build corporate responsibility when they start with marketing rather than a fundamental shift to business practices.
Greenpeace describes the greenwashing strategy of “using targeted advertising or public relations to exaggerate a green achievement so as to divert attention from actual environmental problems — or [in other words,] spending money to brag about green behavior without actually investing in green deeds”.
Brands like Chevron promote their dedication to the environmental through public commitments, such as the “Protecting the Environment” page on their website. These commitments are part of a larger campaign meant to help their public image after being found responsible for dumping “over 18.5 billion gallons of toxic water into the [Amazon] rainforest” over the course of two decades. This tactic can also be seen in Fiji’s “Nature’s Gift” ads, which use nature-inspired imagery and earthy language to conceal the fact that their plastic bottles take 450 years to break down.
When you shift your focus to fashion brands, you can observe many of the same misleading and inflated environmental claims. Chevron and Fiji Water may be more well-known for their environmental impact, but there is symmetry between them and fast-fashion brands like Uniqlo and Lululemon. Both brands have pages on their websites dedicated to their environmental and sustainability commitments, but neither are fulfilling these pledges to the fullest extent. To get a better understanding of these brands and their commitment to the environment, check out their ratings on Good On You — a good place to start if you’re looking to take on your own research on whether companies are fulfilling the environmental claims implied by their marketing teams.
Green, ethical, and sustainable business practices are not a trend, they’re a choice. Big corporations and small businesses alike have an obligation to implement real changes to tear down down harmful structures of inequality and environmental abuse. It’s time for us as members of society to educate ourselves and hold brands accountable to their claims and commitments. Actions will always speak louder than words, so take where you spend your money seriously. You’re never just buying a cute new top. | https://medium.com/tenderlymag/greenwashing-101-stop-applauding-every-green-initiative-you-see-in-fashion-4ace22468fd1 | ['Back To Zero'] | 2020-05-13 19:21:14.571000+00:00 | ['Greenwashing', 'Fashion', 'Business', 'Style', 'Environment'] |
[Unity] Append / Consume Buffer | Declare append buffer in C#:
// Declare append/consume buffer
var buffer = new ComputeBuffer(size, sizeof(float), ComputeBufferType.Append);
buffer.SetCounterValue(0); // Argument buffer used to indicate the count of append buffer
argBuffer = new ComputeBuffer(4, sizeof(int), ComputeBufferType.IndirectArguments);
Use buffer in compute shader:
// actually both _AppendBuffer and _ConsumeBuffer are buffer AppendStructuredBuffer<float3> _AppendBuffer;
_AppendBuffer.Append(pos); ConsumeStructuredBuffer<float3> _ConsumeBuffer;
_ConsumeBuffer.Consume();
Get the count of append/consume buffer: | https://medium.com/@question-kid/append-consume-buffer-fab7a46919b3 | ['Question Kid'] | 2021-01-22 09:39:22.032000+00:00 | ['Computer Graphics', 'Unity', 'Gpu'] |
Beginners Guide on How to Margin Trade BTC & Altcoins Derivatives & Futures Contracts, Full BitMEX Tutorial | Straightforward. Buys/sells at the nearest available price.
After clicking Buy or Sell, there will be a confirmation page, where you can adjust your desired leverage for the trade.
2. Limit Order
Next most commonly used order would be the Limit Order, which basically allows you to place a buy/sell at your desired price.
Similarly, there is a confirmation page where you adjust your desired leverage for the trade.
B) Stop Orders
Stop orders, unlike market or limit orders, do not appear on the order book immediately upon opening. These orders are associated with a trigger price, or “Stop Price” in the case of BitMEX, whereby your order is only entered into the order book after the stop price is hit. Stop orders are usually used as “Stop Losses” to get out of a bad trade, but are also extremely effective in buying into breakouts.
3. Stop Market Order
A Stop Market Order is a market order that is triggered (opens) when your stop price is hit.
For example, if today’s BTC price is $7000, and you place a stop market buy order at $7500, your position will not trigger if price trades anywhere below $7499. Once a trade occurs on the market at $7500, your stop market buy order will trigger and a market buy is made.
4. Stop Limit Order
In the same way that a market order differs from a limit order, a Stop Limit Order works in the same way as a Stop Market Order, except with an additional “Limit Price” parameter that is triggered only when your stop price is hit.
Further to the example above, if you enter $7000 as the stop price, and $6500 as the limit price, and when a trade occurs on the market at $7000, a limit order at $6500 will be placed.
Alternatively, if you enter $7000 as the stop price, and $7050 as the limit price, this will act almost like a market buy when your trade is triggered (unless there are not enough sells for your purchase quantity up to the limit price — in which case you need to increase the limit price or simply use a stop market order).
5. Trailing Stop Order
Instead of setting a stop price, a Trailing Stop Order makes use of a “Trail Value” parameter to determine when a market order gets triggered. This “Trail Value” is calculated against the market’s price at which you entered the position.
For example, if BTC price is $7050 and we have an active buy position, and we open a Trailing Stop Order by entering a “Trail Value” of $5, our active buy position will close when price goes to $7000. Whereas if BTC price is $7000, opening the same trailing stop order will close ouractive buy position when price goes to $6995.
C) Take Profit Orders
Take Profit Orders, as the name suggests, enables you to set a target price on an existing open position to close it and “take profit”. This can be done in the form of a market order or limit order.
It simply works in the same way as placing a limit order in the opposite direction of your active position (i.e. placing a limit sell order if you have an active buy position).
See below for a closer look at the Take Profit Market Order and Take Profit Limit Orde
6. Take Profit Market Order
7. Take Profit Limit Order
BitMEX Trading Dashboard — Manage Orders & Positions
Upon placing your order or if you have any open positions, you can view and manage them in the middle bottom section of the trading dashboard. You can also view your order history, fills, and closed positions in this section. | https://medium.com/ktiglobal/beginners-guide-on-how-to-margin-trade-btc-altcoins-derivatives-futures-contracts-full-bitmex-ce476f9331e9 | [] | 2018-03-26 09:03:42.282000+00:00 | ['Kti', 'Bitmex', 'Margin Trading', 'Training', 'Bitcoin'] |
AYS Daily Digest 25/6/19: The European Court has ruled against Sea-Watch 3’s emergency | Sea
The European Court has ruled against Sea-Watch 3’s emergency disembarkment, since they hold 42 people who have escaped from Libya detention prisons. BUT the court still finds it acceptable to say that they Italian Government:
“is relying on the Italian authorities to continue to provide all necessary assistance to those persons on board Sea-Watch 3 who are in a vulnerable situation on account of their age or state of health.”
The captain of Sea-Watch 3 (which has been stranded at sea for 12 days without any government's permission to come to a port) said this on Tuesday:
“I will enter Italian waters and bring them to safety on Lampedusa,” Carola Rackete said in an interview with La Repubblica daily, in reference to Italy’s southernmost island.
“‘I am responsible for the 42 people I have recovered at sea and who can’t take it anymore. How many more abuses have to endure? Their life comes before any political game or incrimination ‘. Our Commander on @ repubblica . We are with her whatever happens.” Photo by Sea-Watch Italy
The 42 people on board Sea-Watch 3 deserve a safe harbor. Find video of them here. | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-25-6-19-the-european-court-has-ruled-against-sea-watch-3s-emergency-3f93066ba816 | ['Are You Syrious'] | 2019-06-26 07:36:23.757000+00:00 | ['Syria', 'Digest', 'Greece', 'Refugees', 'Lebanon'] |
Burlington County offers Thanksgiving tips | Burlington County offers Thanksgiving tips
This Thanksgiving, the Burlington County Health Department is sharing tips that can take one worry off your plate: foodborne illness.
“Food safety is a high priority for the Burlington County Health Department,” Freeholder Director Joe Donnelly said. “A few simple steps will not only ease your holiday fears, but will ensure a delicious and a safe meal for you, your family, and your friends.”
With Thanksgiving Day coming up, here are some tips to prepare for the big event:
• Clean: Wash hands and food-contact surfaces often. Bacteria can spread throughout the kitchen, and get onto cutting boards, knives, sponges and counter tops.
• Separate: Do not cross-contaminate. Do not let bacteria spread from one food product to another. This is especially true for raw meat, poultry and seafood. Keep these foods and their juices away from ready-to-eat foods.
• Cook: Cook to proper temperatures. Foods are properly cooked when they are heated for a long enough time and at a high enough temperature to kill the harmful bacteria that cause foodborne illness.
• Chill: Refrigerate promptly. Public health officials advise consumers to refrigerate foods quickly because cold temperatures keep most harmful bacteria from growing and multiplying. Refrigerators should be set at 40 degrees F and the freezer at 0 degrees F, and the accuracy of the settings should be checked occasionally with a thermometer.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in six Americans have food-borne illness annually, leading to approximately 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths each year. Holiday turkey meals have been linked to outbreaks of bacterial diseases caused by Salmonella and E. coli.
For more information about food safety please visit the Health Department website at: www.co.burlington.nj.us/health or the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline, at 1–888–674–6854. | https://medium.com/the-marlton-sun/burlington-county-offers-thanksgiving-tips-4b9b0260d0d1 | [] | 2016-09-23 16:08:50.045000+00:00 | ['Headlines'] |
Ghostface Killah: Sensitive Genius Poet, Also Backwards-Thinking Sexist | Here is video of an interview Wu-Tang Clan MC Ghostface Killah did last week on Angela Yee’s radio show on the Shade 45 satellite station. It is a good example of how a hugely talented artist can be engaging and enjoyable to watch, even as he espouses horribly repellent views on matters of ethics or politics.
Here is a guy who can render the tenderness and intimacy of maternal love in twenty exquisitely chosen words: “But I remember this/Moms would lick her fingertips/to wipe the cold out my eye before school with her spit.” (From 1997’s “All That I Got Is You.”) And here is a guy who can say: “That’s what’s wrong with our people and shit, they put our women equal to men. We’re not equal… Don’t put me equal. I was here first!”
That’s a bummer, no way around it. It’s like my favorite rapper is a member of the Promise Keepers. Still, I love his music. I play his records all the time, I play his records for my kid. And I could listen to him talk all day. What does this mean? I don’t know for sure. Something about art being apolitical, I guess. Anyway, the clip is nothing if not interesting. (Note: it is full of curse words. Ghost is a renowned vulgarian. He once told me, at the end of an interview I did with him in the 90s, “Don’t take the curse words out and shit, those are my favorite shits.”) | https://medium.com/the-awl/ghostface-killah-sensitive-genius-poet-also-backwards-thinking-sexist-6fc30db0a64d | ['Dave Bry'] | 2016-05-12 23:50:19.955000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Rap', 'Ghostface Killah'] |
[FreE] Movies Christmas Crossfire (2020) Cinema | ===============================
WATCH HERE NOW ==> Christmas Crossfire (2020)
DOWNLOAD GET HERE => Christmas Crossfire (2020)
[Source : https://cutt.ly/th39H8p ]
===============================
Christmas Crossfire (2020)
Released: 2020–12–04
Runtime: 105 minutes
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Thriller
Stars: Kostja Ullmann, Alli Neumann, Detlev Buck, Peter Kurth, Sophia Thomalla
Director: Detlev Buck, Detlev Buck, Detlev Buck, Dirk Grau, Sonja Schmitt
Sinopsis : A man foils an attempted murder, then flees the crew of would-be killers along with their intended target as a woman he’s just met tries to find him.
Cast
Kostja Ullmann as Samuel
Alli Neumann as Edda
Sascha Alexander Gersak as Herrmann
Sophia Thomalla as Katja
Merlin Rose as Rudi
Peter Kurth as Rainer
Detlev Buck as Sigi Köhler
Anika Mauer as Antje Köhler
Frederic Linkemann as Frank
Bernd Hölscher as Wolf
Karsten Mielke as Norbert
Malte Thomsen as Ronny
Roman Schomburg as Thoralf
Jakob Schmidt as Steffen
Steffen Scheumann as Bernd
Truth be told, I could have done without the German holiday line-dancing in the finale.
But for a dizzy, violent off-the-wall comic thriller (in German with English subtitles), this isn’t half bad.
Just from looking at her, you can tell that Edda (Alli Neumann) is the sort of fetching fraulien used to getting men to do just what she wants. She’s in tears, her makeup smeared. And poor Sam (Kostja Ullmann) is putty in her presence.
“I only sleep with guys with coats like that when the police are after me,” she purrs, and before he knows it, they’re doing vodka shots, he’s picking up the tab, she’s gone back to his Mercedes camper van with him, shedding clothing as further things transpire.
She wants to go somewhere and he’s driving her. She wants to pull off the road in the woods and have another shirtless go of it. And that’s when he hears the shouting and stumbles out of the van and into a mob execution, which he interrupts the way a college professor (“ASSISTANT professor!”) might.
“I wouldn’t do that.“
It sounds no more menacing in German than it does in English.
Next thing we know, he’s on the run with Rudi (Merlin Rose), the would-be victim he just saved and a bit of a myopic ingrate, she’s left the van and lost him and hunting for help and there are all these storylines to follow, plot threads to pick up.
Hermann (Sascha Alexander Gersak) is the vaping thug running the show. He’s got a beef with Rudi over a beautiful woman (Sophia Thomalla), chasing all over BFE Germany with his gang in Dodge Ram pickups while Edda is finding the local cop (Frederic Linkemann) who is piggishly unprofessional and more interested in her than helping her and her “boyfriend” because they have “history” and this dying town is what she fled.
Rudi and Sam? They’re trapped by some older crank with an AK-47 and a date with a sauna.
There’s Christmas decor everywhere. Hermann’s family, led by wheelchair-bound brother Sigi (director Detlev Buck), is having a party and lamenting that they’re heavily invested in a planned redevelopment that’s gone south. And the locals have a reluctant tolerance of the new (African and North African) immigrants who sneak out to cut down Christmas trees on public land or sew up bad guys who get stabbed in a knife fight they have no one but themselves to blame for.
Stabbings, shootings, kidnappings and escapes ensue among the “Verdammte Schweine!” mixed up in all this.
It’s not quite up to the tempo of a screwball farce, although the script has that complexity. The jokes are droll and sly, like Sam hiding behind a tombstone that reads “Died too soon.” For some odd reason, a lot of these hicks are wearing uniforms, and not just the rapey cop.
Ullmann has a bit of Jeff Daniels in “Something Wild” about him, an academic out of his depth, but lost in lust over this libidinous blonde pixie.
“What do you WANT with me? I had nothing to do with this!”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? No one wants to STEP UP” these days.
Gersak is ferocious and menacing, and Neumann makes Edde beguiling, a bit lost and yet not to be trifled with.
There is no real “Christmas Crossfire” worthy of the title. But it holds your attention as on and on it goes, grimly violent but glibly fun. And remember, if you stay to the end, there’s line dancing.
MPA Rating: TV-MA, violence, nudity, sex, smoking and profanity
Cast: Kostja Ullmann, Alli Neumann, Sascha Alexander Gersak, Merlin Rose, Frederic Linkemann and Detlev Buck… | https://medium.com/@rliviano6/free-movies-christmas-crossfire-2020-cinema-7a3a0a705e5d | [] | 2020-12-26 07:21:12.298000+00:00 | ['Cinema', 'Mobile'] |
Terraform & Serverless framework, a match made in heaven? (Part I) | TL;DR
The general belief is that Terraform is the de facto way of deploying infrastructure across multiple platforms. On the other hand the Serverless Framework is more specific and aims to aid deployments of Serverless applications across multiple platforms.
There are clear benefits of being generic, and there are benefits of being specific. However, I am going to attempt to convince you why I believe that deployment of Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) and infrastructure resources on AWS ought to be deployed using the Serverless framework in conjunction with Terraform and they are not mutually exclusive.
First, we need to appreciate the fact that a multitude of tools exists when thinking about deploying infrastructure resources. Each of these tools seems to offer a slightly different approach to solve the same problem. Unsurprisingly, it seems to boil down to personal preference or market demands when it comes to picking the right tool. Let me clarify; the tool is right when it fits your use case, the current skills and the audience.
There are two families of tools that have emerged over the past few years (which is an eternity in the modern IT), one being the more declarative and more straightforward to understand with the second being the full-featured, programming geared.
To fully appreciate the variety in the tooling, we must understand that the origin of the userbase has driven the genesis of both families. Declarative tools aim to support professionals from the more traditional ops backgrounds by providing them with an easy-to-learn tool that provides value as quickly as possible. Some examples of that group include CloudFormation, Terraform or ARM templates. On the other hand, there are the more developer-friendly options such as Cloud Development Kit, Pulumi or the Serverless framework that are much more featureful and easier to adopt by the target userbase.
This series focuses on the comparison of tools from both families and their suitability in traditional enterprise environments.
And our candidates are CloudFormation, Terraform and the Serverless framework. My judgment will be slightly biased towards deployments of Lambda functions from the perspective of a DevOps engineer developing event-driven software to run on AWS.
Let’s see how the competitors compare:
Comparison between Terraform, CloudFormation and the Serverless Framework
I would strongly recommend checking out some of the mentions in the above matrix: checkov, terraform-compliance, cloudformation-guard, terragrunt and also the Serverless Framework Plugins and Terraform Custom Provider Development Program, these are super useful tools to help you to expand the possibilities when deploying serverless applications and infrastructure in general.
So, here comes the question: why exactly you say that terraform and the Serverless framework are the best choices when deploying serverless applications and more specifically lambdas on AWS? CloudFormation would be the way. (pun intended) it is worth noting that the Serverless framework transpiles to CloudFormation!
And the answer is two-fold:
unopinionated — Terraform allows you to deploy to any cloud
— Terraform allows you to deploy to any cloud flexible — Serverless framework is flexible aside from app definition
The approach here is to utilise as many benefits of both tools to obtain as much value as possible.
Exercising the flexibility of the Serverless framework and standardising approaches of deploying our apps on a multitude of FaaS platforms (knative, AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, kubeless) is an excellent boost to our productivity. As an added benefit, we are becoming more agnostic by reducing the number of tools required for the devs to learn. Besides single file deployments, the plugins, and the overall heavy lifting the framework does for us make it better suited than CloudFormation.
On the other hand, similar value points are being gained by Terraform when it comes to deploying infrastructure. It is the tool where we can easily choose the provider of choice and invest in a single deployment tool of choice. Also, the security, testing and the compliance being the more critical aspects within the enterprise environments make Terraform the perfect candidate.
Let’s take an example.
We have two AWS Lambda functions, and each one uses an SQS queue as its event source and forwards the events. We have three distinct choices of deploying the whole stack, including the lambda functions:
Deploy supporting resources and the functions using Terraform
Deploy supporting resources and the functions using Serverless Framework
Deploy selected supporting resources using Terraform and functions using the Serverless Framework
The issues arise, when we want to move to a different FaaS provider (kubeless, knative), the transition with the Serverless framework only option may not be possible due to inconsistent provider support, especially for the supporting infrastructure resources.
The Terraform-only option seems to be a better choice, especially when considering the variety of providers available.
I would recommend that you go with a third option: | https://medium.com/contino-engineering/terraform-serverless-framework-a-match-made-in-heaven-part-i-69af51155e00 | ['Adam Jasinski'] | 2020-12-02 09:16:35.728000+00:00 | ['Serverless', 'Nodejs', 'AWS', 'Serverless Architecture', 'Terraform'] |
How to Optimize Tiered Pricing Options for a Subscription | Netflix, one of the largest and most successful subscription companies in the world, has among the simplest of business models. There’s a one-time, short, free trial and then the only option is to subscribe.* They only offer a few subscription options, are very limited in the partnerships they utilize and generally stay away from bundling their products with those of other organizations. You don’t get a free toaster with your Netflix subscription and you don’t get a free Netflix subscription with your toaster. The clean model makes it easy to track subscriber behavior and understand how people value their offering. After all, if you only subscribed to get the toaster, you’re going to behave differently than if you intended to make Netflix content part of your new normal.
In contrast, news organizations have a huge range of offers. They bundle with other content providers — music, video and other news organizations. They have dynamic paywalls, offering more free articles to some people than others. And they have dynamic pricing, trying to optimize for revenue on every transaction and every relationship.
Tactics around dynamic pricing, while effective in the short term, don’t always make sense from a Membership Economy’s long-term perspective, and focus on lifetime customer value (LCV). For example, it is accepted wisdom that long-time subscribers are less likely to cancel or complain about pricing. So there’s a temptation to give new customers better pricing than loyal ones. To me, that logic seems like “our best customers are dumb enough to trust us, so we can charge them more than we charge new customers.” In a world of increasing transparency, where it’s easier than ever before to quickly assess what any product is worth and the best available price, this is dangerous.
Organizations moving to subscription pricing always want to launch with at least three tiers, so they can emphasize the middle option. This is what most software-as-a-service companies do as a matter of course. Many organizations go a step further and incorporate other pricing elements, such as additional fees based on usage, service levels or specific features.
However, the important thing is to keep the pricing simple, especially when just starting out.
You don’t want to confuse subscribers. The more options you put in front of a customer, the more of an expert they have to be about your pricing. After all, if they don’t take time to understand the options, they are likely to get a suboptimal solution. In other words, they can’t just trust the company and relax into the subscription. A key goal in any subscription business is to gain the trust of the subscriber. You want the subscriber to make your offering a habit and be confident that the value they’re getting exceeds the price they’re paying. More complex pricing is harder to trust.
You also want to manage your own internal systems — the more options you provide, the more SKUs you need to track. It will be harder to understand what’s working and what isn’t. And if you have a lot of different options to begin with, as you learn, you risk expanding across all of those areas, multiplying options and complexity. Pruning options will eventually follow, and whenever you take something away, there will be some group of subscribers who are disappointed. So you’ll have to deal with that.
Start with a single option that is really well-defined and optimized for a key segment of your audience that is easy for you to reach, likely to recognize and benefit from the ongoing value you provide, and willing to pay for it.
Once you have a successful subscription offering, you can start exploring tiered pricing.
Tiers can be driven by volume, features or service levels. Those are the levers you have to create different options. Each option should have a clear audience and rationale for offering. Sometimes tiers provide increasing value for the same subscriber (bronze, silver, gold). Others are optimized around different use cases (student, family, professional).
When you add a new pricing tier, you should have specific hypotheses about what’s going to happen. Are you going to attract new subscribers, or build deeper relationships with existing subscribers, or retain subscribers who want something lighter? If it’s the former, you want to make sure it’s easy for the “right” new segment to find the new tier that’s optimized for them. On the other hand, if you are adding a new tier to deepen the relationship with an existing subscriber, you’ll need to track conversion, and also make it easy and obvious that this higher tier has additional benefits.
Many organizations default to three options, with popular wisdom being that this approach “anchors” prospects to the middle one. I haven’t seen evidence that three options increases the number of new subscribers vs. a single option though — if anyone has that data, please share it with me!
The issue with launching with three options is that you have to have three options, and someone is likely to subscribe to options one and three, which means you will also need to support those two options.
However, when you’re ready to expand, hopefully because you have identified specific ongoing use cases that justify different options, moving from one to three options seems like the right next step.
Let your existing subscribers know about the new tiers, and make it easy for them to move, if it makes sense. If you really know your subscribers, you’ll probably be able to anticipate which tier is right for them. For example, if you have three people in the same household with individual subscriptions (or very high and varied usage from multiple devices on a single subscription) you might guess a family plan makes sense. Or if you have a very light user, who accesses a limited set of features, they might be happy to have a less expensive, stripped down option.
The important thing is that each option has a clear headline benefit for the target audience, as well as engagement features that are going to make your offering a habit for that group. You have to be confident that they’ll stay once they join.
And whatever you do, make sure that the best options go to your long-time subscribers.
A good subscription should reward subscribers for loyalty — because consumers will do what they’re rewarded for. We’ve seen how consumers have been “taught” to threaten to cancel their cable because it almost always leads to a better price. If you give better pricing to new subscribers or squeaky wheels, you teach them to cancel and to shop around. It might take a while for consumers to catch on, but when they do, it will erode your brand equity, so beware.
Remember, the goal of your pricing is to align price to value and create an ongoing relationship that feels custom-made for each subscriber.
For more on subscription pricing, check out my 10 Tips About Subscription Pricing.
*Netflix recently introduced some pay as you go and free options, and has experimented with making it possible to buy titles outright, but for the most part, they have kept their pricing simple and consistent. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-optimize-tiered-pricing-options-for-a-subscription-e3b06fdd1c38 | ['Robbie K Baxter'] | 2020-10-10 21:02:02.026000+00:00 | ['Business Development', 'Subscription', 'Membership', 'Pricing Strategy', 'Netflix'] |
There were no city lights to dim the stars shining in brilliant array in the darkness; we were as far from cities as the earth is from the moon. The picture of a young woman riding a donkey on a… | Photo by Chris Stenger on Unsplash
Christmas comes to a riverbank home in darkest Africa; dark because it’s a special night that comes but once a year.
There were no city lights to dim the stars shining in brilliant array in the darkness; we were as far from cities as the earth is from the moon. The picture of a young woman riding a donkey on a dusty road to Bethlehem could have taken place here. Bronc, the veterinary horse, had a stable and we were accustomed to the smell of it; he was stabled to keep him safe from lion prides passing through the area; stables were something we were familiar with.
Copyright Lynette Clements. | https://medium.com/illumination/christmas-comes-to-a-riverbank-home-in-darkest-africa-dark-because-its-a-special-night-that-45ffc6637cb4 | ['Lynette Clements'] | 2020-12-22 09:41:50.289000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Christmas', 'Family', 'Africa', 'Relationships'] |
Mayday!: The Prosecution & Criminalization of Rap Lyrics, Flawed Gang Databases and Racial Dispartities | In the United States, we are supposed to be protected by the Bill of Rights, in which are supposed to be applied in every court jurisdiction, every arrest. However, the narrative of Ice-T’s “freedom of speech…just watch what you say!” is all too familiar in the world of the double standard of hip-hop lyrics. While the First Amendment states we are to have freedom of speech, it all really comes down to what you look like, what genre of music you create, and even where you come from. While Johnny Cash openly says he shot a man in Reno, are we to take him seriously? Is this just storytelling in a musical form? So my question is why isn’t this applied to rap artists as often? In fact, in the rap world, you are actually more likely to be criminalized, and prosecuted based on that same freedom of speech doctrine supposed from the First Amendment. The country capitalizes on the sales of the genre of “gangsta rap”–and the listeners are not only the so-called violent members of society that prosecutors claim them to be — in fact sales in the Midwest peaked, so why are we ostracizing the same artists we are celebrating?
America’s justice system is already inept, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. Former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg openly enforced the whole stop-and-risk policy that racially profiles and adds to the narrative of criminalizing the young, Black and Brown body as a threat. Being pushed through a window by police has apparently become a new reality for brown-skinned kids. Yet how is such aggression and violence justified by law enforcement, and are these incidents to be imagined as mere coincidence — or explained as reflective of black pathology rather than police pathology?
The country seems to think they are revolutionary and constantly attacks others–including the Arab Spring movement–but the same actions taken in Morocco against El-Haqed for criticizing police, who launched repeated attacks on the state with his lyrics during Morocco’s February 20 movement is the same punishment happening to Drakeo the Ruler in Los Angeles or Bobby Shmurda in New York. Rap has been a soundtrack of revolution and change, too, but also one with potentially steep consequences for performers like incarceration.
Like this policy, another key role in legal harassment serves as the counterpart of this — the gang database system, that law enforcement and District Attorneys use to justify this outlandish behavior.
Simply put: CalGang is an inaccurate, highly flawed and unnecessary database that the state of California uses to track whom they classify as “gang members”, started in 2003.
It is supposed to only be accessed by law enforcement agencies and used to add people to gang injunctions, support arguments for enhanced sentencing in court and even be used to disqualify families from living in public housing and civil liberties. These proposed regulations misidentify people wholly unconnected to gang activity as gang members or associates. Some of the criteria for this database includes dress, zip code, among other things. In fact, many juveniles were added to this list.
In 2013, CalGang was audited, when juveniles were added to this list. The audit, conducted by California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle, “found 42 individuals in CalGang whose birthdates indicated that they were less than one year old at the time their information was entered, 28 of whom were entered into the system in part because they admitted to being gang members.” In 2015, a 33,000 were removed, but 15,000 were added.
A recent Los Angeles Times article showcased that a dozen Los Angeles police officers were recently suspended for falsifying records to enter innocent people into the gang database, when in reality that the administrative leave would be pointless if they repeat the same behavior and in a perfect world they would be terminated.
While many policing methodologies such as this one and the infamous Predictive Policing (“PredPol”) have been proven time and time again to be racially biased, there is no doubt that CalGang’s criteria has many poorly executed, technical flaws.
This ties in to the identity of the “gangsta” rapper–the persona that law enforcement have taken into an entire new level of criminalization and prosecution in the courtroom, whom many, like N.W.A, Drakeo the Ruler & Ralfy the Plug, and Bobby Shmurda have been classified as gang-related people because of their art.
When N.W.A dropped their controversial, iconic album “Straight Outta Compton”, it caught the eyes of many. The was the first time that a group of bold men, whom are products of the Watts Riots, during Ronald Reagan’s crack era, both moments of time when there were spikes in Black unemployment, police brutality and families torn apart by drug use and incarceration. One of the tracks in particular, “Fu*k tha Police”, which critiqued the frequent police brutality and racial profiling, caught the attention of the F.B.I, was a harsh reminder that rap artists are always put in a different standard when it comes to exercising their First Amendment.
More recently, Darrell Caldwell, also known as Drakeo the Ruler, is a rapper who is currently facing a life sentence in jail. His original charge, murder, was acquitted, but, Jackie Lacey and her minions at the District Attorney’s office are having a field day playing with his life. Caldwell is a native of South Central Los Angeles, the same area that gave us the ’92 Riots, Jim Dandy’s, and Ice Cube.
He, along with his brother, who is also incarcerated, Ralfy the Plug, members of a rap group called The Stinc Team (Stincs for short) were classified as a gang. The District Attorney’s office used Drakeo’s music videos and lyrics to attempt to justify what was a murder that was proved time and time again that he did not commit. The DA reopened the case on “gang conspiracy” and “shooting from a moving car”; the gang being Drakeo’s rap group, the Stinc Team. The notion of rap artists “normalizing violence” is minutia in comparison, to say, Johnny Cash, who admit he shot a man in Reno, who was never taken seriously. Rap artists, who are majority Black men, are deemed as threats because of the stereotypes perpetuated and the fear law enforcement tries to play on society when it comes to them.
Prosecutors using racism to do their job isn’t a shocker, it is the abuse of power and the notion they are “protecting the people, and controlling crime.” We live in a time when music videos are treated as irrefutable evidence in court, but Jackie Lacey refused to use real-life cell-phone footage of police killing an unarmed person as skepticism and suggestions that we should doubt our eyes, on over 585 people in Los Angeles County since she entered office. She refuses to prosecute these men and women using “probable cause” to kill young black and brown folks. The hypocrisy relies on racist ideas, in both cases, about who deserves their rights and humanity.
The misappropriation of hip-hop in this way, besides being questionable in a court of law, requires, on the part of the prosecutors, the judge, and the jury, an intellectually dishonest reading of what art is and of the function it serves for both creator and audience. It ignores how the telling of such stories has lifted many people out of otherwise oppressive situations (if only for the duration of a song). Every instance of a legal authority using a rapper’s creative output as proof of character or crime whispers that the power of imagination doesn’t belong to disenfranchised black and brown people.
New York rap artist, Bobby Shmurda, born Ackquille Jean Pollard, rose to commerical success in 2014 with his single “Hot Nig*a”, which featured a dance challenge that went viral on social media and gained him a large following and an instrumental from fellow NY rap artist Lloyd Banks, of 50 Cent’s G-Unit entourage. Later that year, he was arrested by New York Police on murder conspiracy charges, weapons possession, and reckless endangerment.
Police said Shmurda was “the driving force in a gang also known as GS9”, which is the name of his record label, as they “dealt crack and waged deadly battles with rival gangs for territory”. However, the only evidence ever used were the lyrics in “Hot Nig*a”, in which NYPD said is a “real life document of what they were investigating.” “I been selling crack since like the fifth grade” raps Shmurda, who is not the first rapper to speak about drug trafficking, in fact many do. Even the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled that prosecution based solely on rap lyrics is unconstitutional as it violates the First Amendment unless they have a “strong nexus.”
The proliferation of violence and “unacceptable sexual messages “in young people’s music is due in large part to the record industry’s avarice of gangsta rap music. Or so they say.
Sometimes, different federal government entities become involved over song lyrics. Rapper 21 Savage, born Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, is a rapper who grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2019, he released a single called “a lot” in which contains many political lyrics, but one in particular: “Been through some things, but I couldn’t imagine my kids stuck at the border” is believed to coercise the Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to have target 21 Savage, and shortly after, he was arrested and detained at an ICE detention center. The rapper, who came to the U.S from England at age 7, overstayed his Visa. This took the hip-hop world by storm and opened up talks on immigration reform as in my opinion, is a violation of human rights law. He was released on bond shortly after and is now an advocate for reform.
Sacramento rapper X-Raided, who served 26 years in prison over his lyrics, was recently released without any proof but his art. This was a result of then-conservative public policy of Pete Wilson, who is also the same man who was behind Prop 187–which turned California blue. His lyrics were used as state’s evidence, despite being recorded likely a year before the deadly encounter.
Since hip-hop is a very diverse art, I’m going to switch up the focus a little now, and go into another world of the rap world, first touching on the Chicano and Asian gangsta rapper. While they do exist and are underrepresented, they are rapidly influencing those who live in these heavily policed areas where LAPD corruption and gang misidentification is the norm. Many of these children are first-generation and with that comes confusion on many factors of identity, state sanctioned and gang-related violence, drug addiction and cycles of incarceration.
The Psycho Realm, a Mexican-American rap group hailing from Los Angeles’ notorious Pico-Union district in Downtown, consisting of members Sick Jacken and Big Duke.Pico-Union is home to Loyola Law School, but outside of the home of aspiring lawyers, holds socioeconomic factors stated previously. Pico-Union also has one Los Angeles’ highest homicide rates, and top rankings with biggest cuts in social service programs.
In 2011’s People v. Garcia, Garcia was convicted of murder with special gang enhancements, from word of mouth, and alleged social media posts, which included lyrics from “Stone Garden” a Psycho Realm song, in which the District Attorney used in consideration for the gang enhancements. On average, gang enhancements, which are in violation of California’s Penal Code (186.22), carry an average extra five to ten years to an individual’s sentence, including entrance into the notorious CalGang database. While nor Sick Jacken or Big Duke is the victim in this scenario, it shows what extent the DA will go.
Sad Boy Loko, born Mario Hernandez-Pacheco, is a up and coming rapper from California’s Eastside Santa Barbara neighborhood. An affiliate of Compton superstar and fellow gangsta rapper YG (notoriously affiliated with Tree Top Piru Bloods), Sadboy had commercial success and millions of views on his Youtube videos. In January 2020, he was sentenced to three years in prison for felony assault and street terrorism (which is broadly defined, yet no specific example was used in Pacheco’s case), one of the factors that played into his gang enhancements are his lyrics.
Long Beach rapper, $tupid Young, born Alex Pham, hailing from the Eastside neighborhood, is a first-generation Cambodian-American who’s parents fled to America after the Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970s. He is openly an Asian Boyz (ABZ) member, and while his crimes were all convicted by fingerprint, his latest prosecution did involve his music videos for “I Don’t Like”, a remix to Chicago rapper Chief Keef’s song of the same title. The odd thing that struck us all weird that his crimes convicted had nothing to do with his gang, but the music did add to his gang enhancement. But even though prosecutors are supposed to find material connections between rap lyrics and crimes, judges have discretion as to what is admissible, and differing levels of familiarity with genre conventions may make certain lyrics appear more unique and threatening than they are. He has been out since 2016.
So the First Amendment protection seems to be selective when it comes to music. Socioeconomic factors, racial disparities and rebellion will all be used against you at one point-even seen as a “remarkable tool” for District Attorneys, Police and other governmental entities that want to criminalize art. Freedom of speech, just watch what you say…and what you look like. | https://medium.com/@fatimaxbaqi/mayday-the-prosecution-criminalization-of-rap-lyrics-flawed-gang-databases-and-racial-fab590b9e980 | ['Fatima Baqi'] | 2020-11-12 21:15:55.984000+00:00 | ['Racial Justice', 'Public Policy', 'Drakeo The Ruler', 'Law', 'Hip Hop'] |
Python影像辨識筆記(六)：使用Open CV自定義辨識物件 | Part1
下載ImageNet圖片到neg資料夾
import urllib.request
import cv2
import os
# 創建圖片保存目錄
if not os.path.exists('neg'):
os.makedirs('neg')
neg_img_url = ['
urls = ''
for img_url in neg_img_url:
urls += urllib.request.urlopen(img_url).read().decode()
img_index = 1
for url in urls.split('
'):
try:
print(url)
urllib.request.urlretrieve(url, 'neg/'+str(img_index)+'.jpg')
# 把圖片轉為灰度圖片
gray_img = cv2.imread('neg/'+str(img_index)+'.jpg', cv2.IMREAD_GRAYSCALE)
# 更改圖像大小
image = cv2.resize(gray_img, (150, 150))
# 保存圖片
cv2.imwrite('neg/'+str(img_index)+'.jpg', image)
img_index += 1
except Exception as e:
print(e)
# 判斷兩張圖片是否完全一樣
def is_same_image(img_file1, img_file2):
img1 = cv2.imread(img_file1)
img2 = cv2.imread(img_file2)
if img1.shape == img2.shape and not (np.bitwise_xor(img1, img2).any()):
return True
else:
return False
# 去除重複圖片
"""
file_list = os.listdir('neg')
try:
for img1 in file_list:
for img2 in file_list:
if img1 != img2:
if is_same_image('neg/'+img1, 'neg/'+img2) is True:
print(img1, img2)
os.remove('neg/'+img1)
file_list.remove(img1)
except Exception as e:
print(e)
""" # (本案例下載1131張)import urllib.requestimport cv2import os# 創建圖片保存目錄if not os.path.exists('neg'):os.makedirs('neg')neg_img_url = [' http://image-net.org/api/text/imagenet.synset.geturls?wnid=n02123159' urls = ''for img_url in neg_img_url:urls += urllib.request.urlopen(img_url).read().decode()img_index = 1for url in urls.split('
'):try:print(url)urllib.request.urlretrieve(url, 'neg/'+str(img_index)+'.jpg')# 把圖片轉為灰度圖片gray_img = cv2.imread('neg/'+str(img_index)+'.jpg', cv2.IMREAD_GRAYSCALE)# 更改圖像大小image = cv2.resize(gray_img, (150, 150))# 保存圖片cv2.imwrite('neg/'+str(img_index)+'.jpg', image)img_index += 1except Exception as e:print(e)# 判斷兩張圖片是否完全一樣def is_same_image(img_file1, img_file2):img1 = cv2.imread(img_file1)img2 = cv2.imread(img_file2)if img1.shape == img2.shape and not (np.bitwise_xor(img1, img2).any()):return Trueelse:return False# 去除重複圖片"""file_list = os.listdir('neg')try:for img1 in file_list:for img2 in file_list:if img1 != img2:if is_same_image('neg/'+img1, 'neg/'+img2) is True:print(img1, img2)os.remove('neg/'+img1)file_list.remove(img1)except Exception as e:print(e)"""
建立圖片列表文件(neg.txt) | https://medium.com/@yanwei-liu/python%E5%BD%B1%E5%83%8F%E8%BE%A8%E8%AD%98%E7%AD%86%E8%A8%98-%E5%85%AD-%E4%BD%BF%E7%94%A8open-cv%E8%87%AA%E5%AE%9A%E7%BE%A9%E8%BE%A8%E8%AD%98%E7%89%A9%E4%BB%B6-%E4%BB%A5%E8%B2%93%E5%92%AA%E7%82%BA%E4%BE%8B-9cf3e0e19e35 | ['Yanwei Liu'] | 2020-02-06 03:58:58.435000+00:00 | ['Opencv', 'Image Recognition', 'Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Image Processing'] |
Do all scaling frameworks just suck? | There’s a lot of backlash about frameworks. I say that, but I think the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) probably bears the brunt of it all. Right? LeSS, Nexus and Scrum at Scale are basically extensions of Scrum. And while I know Scrum has its detractors, it’s also considered the training wheels of agile and largely accepted by our community at large. (The Annual State of Agile Report has its market share over 50% still.) Disciplined Agile isn’t really a scaling framework as much as it is a process decision framework to help with multiple aspects of an agile transformation. I bet if you were to ask your average Agile Coach for a recommendation about which framework to use to scale your agile transformation, you’re more likely to get this quote than one particular framework as their answer: “Simplicity is the only thing that scales”
The concept of simplicity is right in the Agile Manifesto 12 principles: “Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential.” And there are a plethora of quotes around simplicity. From Occam’s Razor to Mies van der Rohe’s “Less is more”, here’s 145 quotes on simplicity for you.
But what does that mean? Simple can also mean stupid if you’re not careful. Stupid is as stupid does, right?
So when the community talks about ‘capital A’ Agile being the over-commercialized and overwrought machinations of the framework-centric agility world, I think a lot of the criticism is squarely on SAFe. There is also an excellent post on critiquing the Deloitte subway map too (shown above), which helps explain the complexity of our agile universe.
And if ‘lowercase a’ agile leans more toward common sense, being nimble and simplicity, then what is the right answer? Making a whole company agile is definitely not simple either.
Tom Gilb, who was perhaps the original agilist, has written, “If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t do it on a large scale.” This quote sums up a lot of my own criticisms of frameworks like SAFe. Not because the framework is inherently bad, but because it’s so well-defined and structured that some organizations try to adopt too much of it at once, fooled into thinking there are silver bullets and mysticism hidden in its structure and complexity.
For me, the answer is clearly somewhere in the middle, which I also realize is vague and not much help. The lesson is not in adhering to anything wholesale, nor giving up on structure, but instead finding the meaningful constructs given your context and capabilities that work for you at a given time and the rigor and courage to inspect and adapt to readjust as you make progress.
And while an organization learns to make progress at the product team level and grows to many teams of teams, that type of success can only go so far. One is still stuck with “agility only scales to the level that management supports”. The challenges of scaling agile are therefore often with top-down executive support and in growing agility outside of technology. These challenges are only solved by senior executives driving agility, Finance and HR driven agility themes, and eliminating cultural boundaries between technology and the business. Which, ironically, brings us right back to SAFe. For any company-wide transformation to be successful there must be great progress in all three layers: Team, Program and Portfolio.
So, my advice is to be patient with your transformations and work hard to get comfortable scaling organically with common sense and whatever structure works for you to get to multiple products and teams of teams. And as soon as your company and its culture is able, find the strategies that allow you to also make progress on the Portfolio and Program levels. Hidden in those upper two levels, and rarely called out specifically by frameworks, is the massive amount of work to transition middle management into the servant leaders that the product teams require. Especially challenging is the awkward need to keep the old way of working alive with traditional management structures while the new servant leadership and product-centric ones emerge.
Perhaps then the answer is both. Simplicity followed by complexity, carefully navigated so that your company absorbs and changes at the pace that works. Start with lots of little-a agile so you can build on that success with just the right amount of big-a agile later. | https://medium.com/practical-agilist/do-all-scaling-frameworks-just-suck-1bdc0bff2606 | ['Brian Link'] | 2020-12-29 21:41:16.863000+00:00 | ['Transformation', 'Agile', 'Framework', 'Simplicity', 'Scaling'] |
What’s Really Going on With Islam, France and the West Right Now? | A Personal Experience That Shook Me to the Core
I myself regularly attended lectures at the London Central Mosque, in Regent’s Park, over the course of a year.
This is one of the largest mosques in the country, right in the center of London, and their “Director General” happens to be a Saudi diplomat.
This individual himself was running the weekly lectures, and still is, as far as I’m aware.
There is a picture of him shaking hands with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on a visit, inside the building. This is an authority figure who is a representative of that community in this country.
Just to make the point for what will follow, that we are not talking about some “extreme”, “radical” isolated individual preaching in some run-down mosque in a non-English speaking area of Birmingham here.
The point is, during one of the lectures (after which I stopped attending, in utter shock), at Q&A time, this benign-looking elderly man got up to ask his question.
The question was, verbatim:
“I have heard we should kill apostates. What should we do?”
The man was straight-faced, and asked the question in this naive kind of way as kids do when asking a question to an adult, drinking in their every word, ready to act on the advice given.
The response of the Saudi diplomat, “Director General” of the London Central Mosque?
Again, verbatim:
“No, No. Just talk to them. If you talk to them, surely they will never leave Islam.”
Period.
Silence.
“Just talk to them” because surely, it will be so evident that they will stay in the fold of this religion and never want to leave it.
But what if they do (want to claim their right to use their own brains and make their own choices)?
The question was left open, unanswered.
To which no one, in a room of c50 people, raised an eyebrow or even responded to.
Simply recollecting this incident sends chills down my spine.
Yes, they will not even dare to leave because that would amount to social, if not physical, death for those people.
Which is often the case even when someone (especially a woman) remains in the faith, but simply dares to choose who to marry — and to marry outside of it.
[My fiancée and I are part of a group organized by Dr Hargey, who has been on a mission to unite communities by promoting marriages across cultural and religious lines, for the past decade. Which of course has cost him many death threats and the like. In this group, stories of women being chastised by their families are a dime and dozen. One was threatened to death by her own sister and mother on multiple occasions, calling her workplace pretending she had been kidnapped by “Dutch terrorists”, demanding her husband's conversion to Islam and name change and attempting to send her off to a religious “institution” abroad — I will let you imagine what would have happened to her had she accepted the offer.]
Being sat in one of the most (if not the most) prominent, “modern” mosques in the UK, in the heart of London, speaking directly with the representative of this very mosque who shook hands with the UK PM, and hearing someone ask about whether people should be killed for choosing different believes, to hear such a lackluster, ambiguous response and the complete lack of any sense of “something is going seriously wrong here” from anyone in the audience defies reason.
Defies all reason.
Paradoxically, the above was one of numerous incidents that eventually led to me to leave the faith.
And the same people will then have the nerve to talk about, or worse yet, demand freedom of belief? Tolerance? Respect?
Whilst at the very same time, neglecting all of these things to anyone who happens to have a mind of their own?
[When by the way, many would not even give these rights to Muslims who believe in slightly different variations of the religion. During one of those lectures, I witnessed a man point-blank denying access to the mosque to anyone who happened to hold Shia believes, as opposed to dominant Sunni creed…]
Can someone make sense of this hypocrisy and utter nonsense? | https://medium.com/@clementbourcart/what-is-really-going-on-with-islam-france-and-the-west-right-now-e55d345ed56f | ['Clément Bourcart'] | 2021-01-11 15:21:52.011000+00:00 | ['Europe', 'Religion', 'Freedom', 'Society', 'Islam'] |
4 Best VPN Service Providers in 2020 | As work from home culture is growing, the need for Virtual Private Network (VPN) is also growing for small business owners and other businesses whose employees are working remotely. Here’s a guide to what is VPN and the best VPN service providers in 2020:
What is a VPN?
The word VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, it helps to protect your identity and browsing activity from hackers, government agencies, businesses, and other snoops. VPN gives you online privacy and anonymity by creating a private network from a public internet connection.
Here’s a list of top 4 VPN service providers in 2020:
1. ExpressVPN
ExpresVPN comes on no. 1 on this list because of its high speed and proven privacy.
- Number of IP addresses: 30,000
- Number of servers: 3,000-plus in 160 locations
- Number of simultaneous connections: 5
- Country/jurisdiction: British Virgin Islands
- 94-plus countries
- 3 months free with a 1-year plan
ExpressVPN is simply the best VPN available, thanks to its fantastic apps, ease of use, superb speeds, excellent 24/7 customer service support, and wide compatibility across devices. You can use the service on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, even Linux or BlackBerry, and you can also install it on your Android TV, games console, or your home router.
ExpressVPN tells us its network is powered by TrustedServer technology, which ExpressVPN built to ensure that there are never any logs of users’ online activities. In the privacy world, ExpressVPN has a strong track record, having experienced a server seizure by authorities which proved their zero-log policy true at the time. We also like the quality of the VPN’s setup guides and the detailed information in its FAQ.
While its speeds consistently compete with heavy-hitting competitors, our 2020 speed tests saw ExpressVPN produce a 52% overall loss of our normal internet speeds, representing a significant slowdown compared to its 2019 score of 2% speed loss.
2. HotspotShield
- Number of IP addresses: 50,000
- Number of servers: 3,200
- Number of server countries: 80-plus
- $2.99 a month for a 3-year plan
- Hotspot Shield in-depth review and hands-on testing
While it’s probably best-known for its free VPN, Hotspot Shield does offer a fully-featured paid-for VPN that’s surprisingly impressive. It offers incredibly fast VPN speeds available for a fair price, and it’s pretty easy to use as well.
While those maximum speeds come with a few drawbacks — namely the fact that Hotspot’s proprietary protocol Catapult Hydra can’t be manually set up on routers like OpenVPN can — the service has improved since we last tested it and has now become one of our most highly recommended VPNs.
3. IPVanish
The best VPN service for beginners.
- Number of IP addresses: 40,000-plus
- Number of server locations: 60
- Number of simultaneous connections: 10
- Number of servers: 1,300
- Country/jurisdiction: US
- $5.20 a month (57% discount) for a one-year plan
Sixth in our current rankings list comes to IPVanish — a good VPN service that boasts over 1,500 servers in more than 75 locations and 24/7 customer service, However, a brand-new selling point is that IPVanish has recently adjusted its policy to allow unlimited simultaneous connections — along with Surfshark, it’s one of the only VPNs on this list to offer that.
Those connections could come in handy, too, as IPVanish works on lots of devices, including Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS. The desktop apps offer plenty of options that will keep the pros happy, while the just-work simplicity is also there for everyone else. That it all functions with far above average speeds is a nice bonus.
At $10 a month or $62 a year, IPVanish is trying to move you towards its yearly program. We’re a little disappointed that it only allows a seven-day trial, rather than a full 30 days, but it does offer a full money-back guarantee.
4. NordVPN
Best VPN for security and reliability.
- Number of IP addresses: 5,000
- Number of servers: 5,200-plus servers
- Number of server locations: 62
- Country/jurisdiction: Panama
- 62 countries
- $3.71 a month (68% discount) for a 2-year plan
- NordVPN in-depth review and hands-on testing (ZDNet)
If you’re on this page then you probably know about NordVPN — and yes, the security giant you’ve seen on TV is one of the best VPN services around. While it can’t quite match ExpressVPN in terms of all-round excellence, Nord provides a seriously secure, privacy-focused experience.
You’ll be covered by military-grade encryption, alongside all the usual extra features we’ve come to expect like a kill switch and a choice of protocols to let you choose if you want extra speed or safety. You’ll also have a great selection of apps for pretty much any device you want covering.
The company’s two-year subscription plan costs $3.71 a month ($89 billed at once). That price is lower than most contenders but creeps up for the six-month plan ($9 a month or $64 total) and the monthly plan ($11.95 a month). But it does have a full 30-day refund policy.
How to get a VPN?
Thankfully, downloading and installing your new VPN is much easier than trying to understand the ins and outs of how they work! All of the best VPNs listed above make it quick to get started on desktop or, if you’re on mobile, then you could go to the App Store or Play Store and download them there, instead. Usually, the prices are quoted in their effective monthly cost but note that you will need to pay the full amount upfront.
Once installed, you can then get extensions added to your chosen web browser, and go about adding functionality to your various devices. That includes your computer and mobile phone of course, but also your games console, tablet, TV streaming devices — even your internet router.
Finally, there’s a list of the four best VPN services, so now it’s your turn to choose the best suitable for you. Have a great day. | https://medium.com/@mr-ph0014/4-best-vpn-service-providers-in-2020-f4a8538fdf6 | ['Prince Hudda'] | 2020-11-20 06:02:12.545000+00:00 | ['VPN', 'Content Writing', 'Blog', 'Vpn Service', 'Technology'] |
This is my first blog ever | These are my completely amateur translations of some of the oldest (anonymously written) literature that exists on Earth. This is from the Classical Chinese collection of Poetry called the Book of Odes. The emotions in these poems, which are still universal today, highlight what we (humans) share, across millennia and across cultures.
Book of Odes, poem 10
ON THE RIVERBANK
On the riverbank, /I snapped off a branch.
I didn’t see my man, /My distress was like early-morning hunger.
—
On the riverbank, /I snapped off a twig.
Here was my man, /I was not abandoned.
—
The red tail of the bream, /the burning of the chambers.
Although they are burning, /My parents, I’m afraid, are near.
—
(The next poem is an angry poem. I am not posting this because I am angry. I am posting it because I like the poem. I am not the author of this poem.)
Book of Odes, poem 25
THE RAFT
The raft floats, /It floats on the current.
Thump, thump, I can’t sleep, /Over deep concerns.
It’s not that I don’t have enough wine, /for my excursions, and travels.
—
My heart is not a mirror, /It does not reflect.
On my brothers, /I cannot rely.
Bluntly put, /I’m angry at every one.
—
My heart is not a stone, /It cannot be turned.
My heart is not a mat, /It cannot be rolled up and put away.
My righteous image, /Cannot be slandered like this!
—
My anxious heart putters, /angry that people are so petty.
I’ve suffered too much pain, /Too many insults.
Silently I brood on it. /Awake, secluded, chest-pounding.
—
Sun and moon, /Why do you not shine?
My anxious heart, /Is like soiled clothes.
Silently, I brood on it. /I cannot get up. | https://medium.com/@landzbej/this-is-my-first-blog-ever-f1b9414ecdd3 | [] | 2021-12-13 15:43:59.635000+00:00 | ['Classical Chinese', 'Translation', 'Poetry'] |
Day 9 of Self Quarantine | Intentionally didn’t venture out of the yard today, and managed to get some things cleaned, organized, or on the start of being clean and/or organized. Reached out to some folks, updated one of my distance partners on the actuality of my situation, ate some food and even had a piece of candy. Having things organized in the kitchen is going to be lovely. Not having my tea fall into dishes and the like is going to be very groovy. In the near future I’ll head to my storage unit (almost no chance of human interaction, so much work to do) and go through the rest of the kitchen boxes. Unsure how laundry is going to work post COVID-19 society, I don’t think that launderettes are going to be the same, and I don’t want to over-tax my neighbor’s good will. I’ll start tackling the non-laundry part of storage first. Having an idea of how many cans of beans I have (a dozen or so), how much rice I have (a few pounds), and now that I’ve found some salsa I have, I’m much less worried.
I’m going to have to start a list so I don’t forget to do basic things, like breakfast and morning meds. Give myself some reachable goals and an idea of what I’ve been up too when my anxiety tries to tell me nothing.
My only real-life interaction with another person today was not intentional. My neighbor to the west tried to demand that I call our other neighbor- the one I’m friends with. After being confused for a moment, I offered to message her, and did so. It ended there. I’ll plan on at least visiting my neighbor friend tomorrow to borrow the staple gun and get the screens on my door and window. | https://medium.com/@addamswolf/day-9-of-self-quarantine-1b886f8a01e0 | ['Julian Addams Wolf'] | 2020-03-23 04:19:45.272000+00:00 | ['Julian Addams Wolf', 'Jaw2020', 'Covid 19 Diaries', 'Journaling'] |
Blockchain’s Future Is Bright But Who’s Going to Build It? | New data from fintech analytics provider Autonomous NEXT shows the amount raised via initial coin offerings (ICOs) has surged above $4 billion for the first time. The fact that so much money has been directed toward blockchain-based initiatives demonstrates the investment community’s belief in the impact and potential of blockchain technology.
Beyond the investment community, corporations and startups from industries as diverse as healthcare, media, nonprofits, and education are all betting on blockchain. And blockchain’s growth is only expected to grow in the coming years.
Blockchain is booming, and according to all accounts, it’s here to stay.
But there is one huge issue getting in the way of these projects actually gaining traction:
Who’s going to be responsible for building these world-changing projects?
Somehow, amid the visions of a transparent global marketplace, starry-eyed investors and startup founders alike have overlooked one crucial fact: there is a huge projected shortfall in blockchain developers.
Steven Nerayoff, Founder and CEO of Maple Ventures, a VC firm primarily focused on emerging blockchain-based technologies and payment systems, is one of the few in the investment community to draw attention to this problem. He says the blockchain developer shortage is so severe that there are “only a few hundred people that truly understand this blockchain development at a foundational level. That’s such a small group of people for a technology niche that could significantly change how people organize and live their lives.”
One example: Lamar Wilson, chief executive of blockchain startup Fluent, said he recently tried to hire two blockchain engineers but they already had $250,000 offers on the table and Wilson wasn’t able to match the salary — 1.5 times that of the median salary for a software developer. “We just couldn’t afford them,” he says.
While this shortage can mean a slowdown, if only temporarily, for organizations looking to launch blockchain projects, it’s great news for those who have the chops and are already skilled in emerging cryptotechnology.
This sellers’ market means blockchain engineers can not only earn premium salaries; they can also pick and choose the cream of the blockchain projects to work on. “In my opinion, the best programmers always want to go to the most interesting projects, while others will continue to struggle to hire people,” Nerayoff says.
Nature abhors a vacuum, so eventually the labor market will balance itself as more and more people move to the supply side of the equation. But in the meantime, there’s no better time to throw your hat into the ring and get the training needed to cash in on the boom.
So what do you need to know to get the training you need to successfully land — and perform in — a blockchain engineer role? And where do you get that training?
You could turn to one of the “coding bootcamps” that promise to make you a blockchain expert in a weekend, or a week or two. But some of those are pretty sketchy, and quality varies. Not only are they unlikely to provide the level of mastery you’ll need to undertake a cutting-edge project; they’re also not looked on too favorably by those in the industry. When asked about coding camps, Maggie Johnson, Google’s director of education and university relations, said, “Our experience has found that most graduates from these programs are not quite prepared for software engineering roles at Google without additional training or previous programming roles in the industry.”
In other words, don’t waste your time and money.
Your best bet is to find an accredited, well-recognized program that has a great track record — one that will not only train you in what you need to know, but help you locate the job you want once you’ve got your certificate.
And right now, the only one that fits that bill is Kingsland University — School of Blockchain.
Kingsland University — School of Blockchain is the first accredited school of blockchain in the world, and is part of one of the most innovative academic institutions, Kingsland University (formerly Social Media Management University). Through Kingsland, you’ll learn the exact skills you’ll need to be successful on the job. And what’s even more awesome, after you’re trained, Kingsland will help you find a job that fits your skills and your desires. Kingsland University is committed to reaching 100% placement for all graduates — and that’s something you won’t find with a weekend coding camp.
If you are ready to take your place in the blockchain ecosystem, there’s no better place to start than at Kingsland.
Jason King is a Humanitarian Hacker, feeding the hungry as the Executive Director of Unsung.org. Known for running across the country to raise bitcoin for the homeless in 2014, King is a long-standing member of the crypto community and continues to solve to the sector’s most pressing problems as Co-Founder of Kingsland University — School of Blockchain, the world’s first university-accredited blockchain training program. Find out more about Kingsland’s leading-edge education at KingslandUniversity.com
Have questions? Ask the team on Telegram.
Join the Kingsland communities on Twitter and Facebook! | https://medium.com/kingsland/blockchains-future-is-bright-but-who-s-going-to-build-it-aba7e33fc24b | ['Kingsland - School Of Blockchain'] | 2018-09-24 17:23:50.918000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Academy', 'Shortage', 'Developer'] |
Thank you, India. Happy birthday, Ghandi. | Today is the anniversary of Ghandi’s birth, more commonly known as his “birthday”. Ghandi is the man responsible for sparking the movement that helped India gain its independence from the UK, and the country is doing something big to celebrate:
India’s Environment Minister, Anil Dave, has announced that India will officially enter into the Paris Climate Agreement some time today, Sunday October 2nd. This news is a massive step towards helping to reduce the effects of climate change, as India is responsible for between 4 and 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The Paris Climate Agreement was drafted with the goal of limiting global temperature change to under 2 degrees Celsius, and involves drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by countries. In order for the agreement to enter into law, it must be ratified by 55 or more countries. Currently, it has 60 signatories, and received a huge boost earlier this week: the world’s largest polluters, the U.S. and China, signed the agreement during a U.N. meeting. By signing the agreement, India is proposing a reduction in the intensity of their emissions by 33 percent. This would reduce their emissions intensity to just 35 percent, from a current rating of 68 percent.
The bad news
Unfortunately for the polar bears, the people of India, and planet earth, this target is to be met by the year 2030. Also, I almost forgot (silly me), that even though the agreement has enough signatories, the agreement cannot go into effect unless the countries taking part in it account for 55 percent or more of global emissions. With India’s signing, that number is only at 52 percent.
I hate to bring the cynical view into this, I really do, but if history has showed us anything, it is that governments are painfully slow when working to effect change regarding the environment. So it is very possible that if the agreement can achieve enough signatures, by the year 2030 we will still not experience the emissions reductions promised to us.
But there is so much good that can still come from this.
Don’t worry, polar bear. There may be hope yet.
The good news
The Paris climate accord is a historic agreement. By signing it, countries and their leaders are acknowledging that climate change is, at least partially, a product of human action. If the timetables are kept (you never know, it could happen; and I truly hope it does), we could all be breathing much cleaner air and experiencing lessened climate change by the year 2030.
In fact, even if every country currently signed to the agreement only reduced their emissions by five percent by the year 2030, do you know how much cleaner our air would be? Based on emissions data from 2011, the world would have 2,638,171.6623 kilo tonnes of pollutants removed from the air.
That’s 2,638,171,662.30 tonnes, or 5,816,172,927,026.97 pounds. That’s the equivalent of taking EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MILLION HUMMERS worth of pollution out of our environment.
Almost 880 million Hummers worth of pollution. Can you even imagine 880 million Hummers?
That potential improvement is astonishing, and should give you some hope for the world.
I haven’t even mentioned the financial ramifications on Indian companies as a result of India’s signing of the agreement. Well, essentially, there won’t be much financial impact on companies. India has asked that the other developed countries provide financial support for India as well as other countries to pay for the reduction efforts. Companies like Tata Steel, the Indian Oil Corporation, etc., will all be forced, by law, to improve their manufacturing and production capabilities in order to reduce emissions.
Car makers will be mandated to improve the technology of their vehicles, increase mileage, reduce pollutants from their vehicles, and maybe even introduce hybrid or electric cars. All of this seems fairly expensive, until you consider that a lot of it will most likely be funded by India, as they are seeking financial aid to make their efforts successful. Also, any short term financial losses taken by any companies will pay off in the long term as they will have safer and more efficient production facilities, better technology, and possibly some product diversification (in the case of automakers).
By signing this agreement, India is not only bringing the world even closer to drastic environmental improvement, they are also benefiting Indian companies. Even though there will be cost associated with the emissions reductions, they will pay out in the long term, both for the companies and the well-being of the human race.
Happy birthday, Ghandi. | https://medium.com/french-toast-finance/thank-you-india-happy-birthday-ghandi-3666ea499dba | ['Parker Nolan'] | 2016-12-03 20:00:44.980000+00:00 | ['India', 'Environment', 'Business', 'Climate Change', 'Paris Agreement'] |
When You Lose Your Right To Be Angry | When You Lose Your Right To Be Angry
Harvey Weinstein’s verdict will not be a deterrent for sexual predators.
@Armelion pixabay.com
Reading about the Harvey Weinstein verdict yesterday was humbling. It’s a reminder that the system will always make compromises to keep both sides happy rather than doing the right thing. When 25 people testified, clear assault and a clear history of predatory acts have been demonstrated, there are still people unwilling to convict. Do women have to film their sexual assault and every single interaction leading up to it for sexual predators to be convicted?
I’ve encountered my share of predators in life to know that this type of sexual assault is not a single event for Weinstein’s victims. Power is stripped away day by day if not year by year before and after the crime has been committed.
There’s a certain kind of woman who is prone to be preyed on. This type of woman often did not have a family who truly loved them, do not have a support system of friends to stick up for them, and who does not know her worth.
With each power struggle against the elite, this type of woman’s power is slowly stripped away. Until one day, as Jessica Mann recounted in her encounter with Weinstein, “she crawled into the fetal position on the bed and sobbed but that Weinstein raped her anyway.”
The shock of the ordeal led her to feel numb. Two weeks later, she had sex with Weinstein again. “She thought it was stupid but she did it anyway.” As a woman, I can understand why she did it. The psychological injury for her was so severe that she lost any hope she had at all. Her soul died and she was living in a shell of a body. She complied out of validation for her numbness. Because at that time, she needed more numbness to get her through. So, she actively sought out another dose of violation to make her feel numb again.
This is what happens to women who are under predatory circumstances. They comply because they feel that can’t get angry. The predators stripped them of the basic right to get angry or even to show emotions. They give up any hope of getting out of the situation. Then, they comply out of necessity, the fear of losing a job, a hard-won career, or even any class standing in society.
When you live in the vacuum of Hollywood, investment banking, or Silicon Valley, it’s easy to believe that you have no choice in the matter. Living expenses are sky-high in these places, once you lose the hard-won career that you have worked for 10 to 15 years to obtain, you believe that you don’t have another chance. If you came from disadvantaged circumstances where your family lives in poor or abused circumstances, you feel like you rather die than go back to those circumstances.
When there’s no hope, you feel like you can get through the rape by numbing yourself. You feel like being a slave to power at least gives you the right to live at all.
Once the first time happens, it’s as if the predator broke you in. Your self-esteem plunges so low that your body automatically numbs all of your senses, sometimes for years and decades to come.
Can you make the connection?
If this type of experience doesn’t remind you of the experiences of a human trafficking victim, I don’t know what will.
The truth is that slavery is alive and well if we have un-prosecuted assault and psychological injury from the abuser. This goes for both men and women.
Harvey Weinstein might feel like he was prosecuted because he was made an example of the #metoo movement.
What about all the women who felt so diminished by their experiences with him that they lost all hope for years to come, and got by day to day by numbing their senses?
The psychological impact on victims of sexual predators lasts a lifetime.
If this is all it takes to diminish a woman in the workplace by simply stripping away their power little by little every single day and then once they learned to submit to the powerful, to follow it up with a sexual assault, then women don’t truly have a place in the workplace.
Women ask for equal pay and equal opportunity. We are far away from that because we are still trying to “not get assaulted”. You can live with taking 50% of salary while doing twice the work when the alternative is being the victim of a sexual predator.
Predators are not the only ones who perpetuate the system. There are powerful people who will send these women to the hands of the predators to be assaulted.
They could be both men and women.
These are the people who will never stand in front of the court of law. They are almost more insidious.
As I’m typing this article, I’m aware that some of my male readers will not like this article. I’m aware that in my real life I may get assaulted for speaking up.
But, you know, I’m numb because I’ve been powerless, gone through the slave mentality and felt what these women have felt.
In my numbness, I laughed at all the self-help gurus because they kept telling me to snap out of my victim mentality, take a deep breath and be goddam mindful.
Do you know anything about trauma or being a true victim?
Now I know that the alternative for not speaking up is to not feeling alive or human.
A lifetime of numbing my senses just don’t appeal to me.
And we’ve got to think about all the girls who will enter the workplace for many years to come.
These girls could well be your sisters, close friends, and family. | https://medium.com/jun-wu-blog/when-you-lose-your-right-to-be-angry-4e7dcf1850e9 | ['Jun Wu'] | 2020-02-25 06:59:22.658000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Work', 'Sexual Assault', 'Trauma', 'Feminism'] |
Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers | Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Across Africa, about 13 countries, including Senegal, Botswana, Namibia, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa and Guinea, will hold general elections at some point in the coming year Tshepo Tshabalala Follow Feb 7, 2019 · 2 min read
Picture: PIXABAY
In the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, much of the focus in the subsequent months has been on Cambridge Analytica and how fake news has the power to shape and sway perceptions. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp have become an approach for politicians to manipulate the truth, spread misinformation, falsehood and fake news.
In reflecting on the past two years of trying to get to the bottom of the connection between the Russians and the Donald Trump campaign, and in an attempt to not have history repeat itself in any way similar, news organisations will make fact-checking a number one priority during the upcoming elections. In as much as it is the responsibility of the media to corroborate information and have articles go through thorough fact-checking processes before publishing, it has become a difficult and challenging task.
In 2019, numerous countries will be holding general/presidential elections. In Africa, about 13 countries, including Senegal, Botswana, Namibia, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa and Guinea, will hold general elections at some point in the coming year. News organisations will attempt to be on top of their news coverage in many respects, from verifying and accurately testing claims made by politicians throughout the campaigning period, up until the publication of results.
Most recently, at least 16 Nigerian news organisations launched an election fact-checking project called CrossCheck Nigeria in an attempt to combat misinformation before elections next year. The platform will get over 50 journalists working across print, broadcast and online media to work together to investigate, verify and disprove erroneous claims, particularly on social media.
Another more well-known fact-checking platform is Africa Check, with its largest office based in South Africa. The organisation does not necessarily partner with news organisations, but their aim is to hold public figures accountable for what they say in the public arena. Africa Check also has what they call “Promise Trackers” that gauge whether governments in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya are keeping the promises they made during the elections.
With all that said, covering elections on the African continent will be challenging but also exciting. African journalists covering elections will mean that news organizations should not show favor for any politician or political party, that journalists will work extremely hard publishing accurately tested information, and that the readers of this media can be assured that the information they are consuming is accurate and reliable. | https://medium.com/jamlab/ahead-of-african-elections-unlock-partnerships-with-fact-checkers-521a97b010a3 | ['Tshepo Tshabalala'] | 2020-12-07 08:46:21.782000+00:00 | ['Fact Checking', 'Elections', 'Features', 'Featured', 'Fake News'] |
Political Theology Livestream — 2020 12 08 | Donate: https://www.bards.fm/p/donate-1584248352/
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BardsFM Podcast explores FAITH, politics, culture, economics, war and human nature by building context through story and narrative. Stories are literally what define us. The are what limits us or what frees us.
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“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” ~Matthew 7:13–14
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we must trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.”
~Psalm 20: 7- 8. | https://medium.com/@ad360ml/political-theology-livestream-2020-12-08-d5b9d8cfa248 | [] | 2020-12-08 00:00:00 | ['Series', 'Bardsofwar', 'Update'] |
Why School Fundraising Sales Tracking is Essential | Why School Fundraising Sales Tracking is Essential
How to monitor your sale and experience success
Is fundraising a sprint or a marathon? This is actually a trick question. It’s actually a combination of both. Think about a long distance runner who’s training for a 10k race. If they want to improve their time, they do what’s called interval training. Otherwise known as speed work. The idea is to do several short sprints with slower recovery intervals. This ultimately makes you a faster runner.
But how do you know you’re getting maximum benefit? The key is how much rest you give yourself between sprints. This requires a stopwatch. In other words, you need accountability. If you rest too long, your benefit will be lower.
Long distance runners usually know what their 10k pace is. With speed work, experts say 400 meter intervals should be run 10% faster. 200 meters should be 12% faster and 100 meter sprints 15% quicker. This requires knowing your numbers and keeping track of your progress.
Tracking school fundraising progress is no different. A 2 week sale can seem like a marathon. But to make it effective, it needs to be broken down into shorter sprint intervals. For example, let’s say you need each member in your group to sell 25 items. If you tell them to just bring back the money in 2 weeks, you’ll get a mixture of reactions.
Some might say that 25 items is a lot and will feel a bit intimidated. They may not even get out of the starting gate. Others may begin at a sprint and burn out. The best approach is to give your students periodic measuring sticks. Otherwise known as sales progress markers.
How is this accomplished? Brochure fundraisers require regular follow up meetings with your students. Specific target goals should be communicated up front at your kickoff meeting. For example, if after 2 weeks your students need to sell 25 items, consider the following short term goals:
Sell 5 items after day 1
Be at 12 items after day 5
Total 18 items after day 10
Achieve your end goal of 25 items after day 14
This example provides a clearly spelled out path for your students to follow.
Overcome Brochure Fundraiser Limitations
But how can you know if your students are selling? This is the disadvantage of doing a brochure sale. Here’s a typical scenario that happens a lot. You meet with your students and feel they understand the process and seem eager to get started. You remind them to turn in their order forms and money envelopes at the end of the sale.
Then it hits. You discover that only about 15% of your students turn in their order form. And worse, most of those only had a couple of items sold. What happened? Your initial optimism quickly morphs to a feeling of frustration and disappointment. Your euphoric high is a distant memory.
Could you have prevented this from happening? If only you had known sooner that most of your students were off to a slow start. You might have been able to turn things around before it was too late. A lot can happen between the kickoff and the end of the sale.
Larger groups, like elementary schools are somewhat limited. But there are still things they can do. If you happen to sponsor a smaller group you have even more latitude.
Once students know their short term goals, arrange actual check in meetings. Explain at your kickoff meeting that sellers will need to bring their order forms. To prevent them from just writing down names, ask them to also have their money envelopes as well.
Once you’ve documented each order form, put the information in a tracking sheet. This way both you and your students know where they stand. Tracking your fundraiser in this way creates accountability while building confidence. Students receive feedback on their progress as they chip away at the end goal.
Why Track your School Fundraising Progress?
It’s a little more work for you but there are huge benefits to tracking the progress of your sale. Here are just a few:
Students are held accountable to keep up with their selling.
Early detection of a slow start allows you to make needed adjustments before it’s too late.
Students know you’re serious about helping them reach their goal.
Tracking orders can be motivational and make selling competitive.
You can use fun school fundraising incentives that coincide with your check in days.
The Advantage to Online Fundraisers
School fundraising during the pandemic has created some interesting challenges. Virtual roadblocks such as not being able to meet in person as a group has been difficult for some. But with no order forms or money to have to collect, we’ve seen a 3-fold increase in the number of virtual sales.
There are pros and cons. One advantage is the ease of use of the sales platform and increase in potential customer reach.
A disadvantage is getting students to actually use it. Virtual fundraising can be very impersonal. This makes it especially important that you stay in touch and check on your student’s progress. Even if it’s over Zoom.
And another plus to online fundraisers is everyone can see sales progress immediately. Because transactions update in real-time, both you and your students receive immediate feedback.
Time is a priceless resource. Why not put everything into making your next school fundraiser a success? After all, once it’s over there’s no turning back the clock. | https://medium.com/@bigfundideas/why-school-fundraising-sales-tracking-is-essential-9d4affd0bf1f | ['Big Fundraising Ideas'] | 2020-12-15 14:29:29.640000+00:00 | ['Tips', 'Money', 'Fundraising', 'Schools', 'Education'] |
Baby Sleeping Tips And Requirements | Sleep is very important to babies’ health and development. If your baby does not get enough sleep, he may have trouble getting through the day and especially a night. As a parent, it is good to know that napping actually helps a baby to sleep easily at night, so it is a wrong belief that keeping your baby awake during the daytime will make him sleep better at night.
Getting a baby to sleep may be a difficult time for most parents. Most parents look forward to the night they can put their baby to sleep in the crib and get some undisturbed sleep for themselves. If the baby frequently wakes during the night, the parents get easily exhausted too. So, it is very essential to overcome your baby’s sleeping problems as soon as you can to assist your baby into a healthy growth and development. Getting your baby to sleep is not an easy job and comprehensive baby sleep training is required.
Newborns
Newborns normally sleep sixteen or more hours a day. As your baby’s nervous system matures, he will develop a more consistent sleep schedule later in his life. However, at 3 months, many babies sleep at least five hours at a time. And by age 6 months, their sleeping hours are within nine to twelve hours.
3 To 6 Months
At 3 months, the baby’s sleeping habits will become more consistent. At this time, you can begin developing a regular nap schedule. Babies have their own understanding and they need the right signs to know when it is time to sleep. Even if it doesn’t work immediately, soon your baby will come to learn it. By 4 months, babies need at least three naps a day; in the morning, afternoon and early evening.
6 Months To 1 Year
During this period of your baby’s life, the average sleep is fourteen hours a day, but anything less or more can be normal for your baby. Babies’ nap time changes from 3 naps a day to 2; longer naps in the morning and in the afternoon.
Baby Sleeping Tips
Place your baby in bed when he is drowsy but awake using a comfortable, flat and soft mattress. A pacifier might also help your baby to sleep comfortably, but never use this until breastfeeding is well established. Don’t place your baby in bed with a bottle on his side. A consistent daytime and nighttime sleep pattern is helpful and maintaining a consistent bedtime routine is essential.
You can also make use of baby sleep aids to help your baby to sleep. The common thing is a soft blanket which not only keeps your baby comfortable but also gives safety and warmth. Music can also be helpful, you can play your baby’s favorite lullaby to calm him and make his sleeping time relaxing.
In addition, according to research, babies under six months should not sleep in the same bed with their parents because the study shows an increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Actually, about fifty percent of infants who die of SIDS are in bed-sharing with their parents’ situation. Statistically, one in every two thousand babies die of SIDS each year. | https://medium.com/@mehakpervaiz11/baby-sleeping-tips-and-requirements-f46179f96045 | [] | 2021-09-09 16:03:18.475000+00:00 | ['Baby Sleep Consultant', 'Babycare', 'Babysleeptraining', 'Baby Sleep', 'Babysleeptips'] |
Introduction to eCoinomic.net III | Introduction to eCoinomic.net III
Why we did not choose P2P model? The Reserve explained.
It is common knowledge that 80% of global wealth is under control of just 1% of the world’s population. This might be a controversial and exaggerating statement — but it reflects the reality. We are living in the world of high inequality, and the monthly entertainment budget for the Valley dweller can be higher than average household income in some Sub-Saharan country.
And the blockchain can change it, right?
Probably, yes. But only if we use it in a right way — and to do so, we need to stop applying trendy concepts where they don’t belong.
Decentralisation is one of such concepts. Ever since the crypto rush started, we’ve seen hundreds of projects that were trying to apply decentralization to every possible field, effectively changing its perception from a promising idea to a senseless buzzword. Needless to say, most of these projects failed.
The blockchain is not panacea, and the same stands for the decentralization. Especially when it comes to the financial field.
So why do we believe it is not exactly right to rely on a strict P2P model in crypto-lending?
There are legal restrictions and regulations that create barriers an individual who wants to become an investor (lender) in the P2P platform. In the USA and some countries, only ‘accredited investors’ can provide their funds for lending via a P2P platform — and only 8,25% of the US population meet the hefty criteria to be qualified as an ‘accredited investor’. While this regulation does not exist in most countries, there are other limitations — for instance, international investments are heavily regulated and an individual lender can provide funds for P2P lending just in their country. So, investor base for the global lending is quite limited, which means limited lending funds. And the limited lending funds, in turn, reduce the opportunities for business scalability.
And what is the point of creating a tokenized platform that can’t be neither scalable nor international?
We believe that reliance upon institutional investors as lenders is a much more reliable way to grow a sustainable business.
But how do we ensure their participation in the crypto-related business — still legally ambiguous and very volatile space?
It is time to explain the Reserve.
To involve institutional investors it is mandatory to provide them with a guarantee that they do not invest directly into cryptocurrencies and that their money is secured.
The first guarantee is provided by the fact that eCoinomic.net is an intermediate between lenders and borrowers from the cryptosphere, thus Institutional investors will not directly interact with cryptocurrencies.
The Reserve is needed for providing the second guarantee — the monetary one.
eCoinomic.net will cover all of the lending funds attracted from institutional investors with an equitable amount of funds raised during the final stage of the Pre-Sale. These funds, or the Reserve, will be held on escrow bank accounts and will not be spent in any case other than to compensate the institutional investors for any loss should there be problems with loan repayment.
This is why our Hardcap is so huge: only $25 million out of $106 million can be spent, the rest will be locked as a guarantee for the lenders and even the team will not be able to access it since it will be held in escrow.
Confidence and trust are essential in Big Finance, just as it is in crypto. And creating the Reserve is a necessary step towards it. | https://medium.com/ecoinomic/introduction-to-ecoinomic-net-iii-e1c6dfc0934f | [] | 2018-04-23 06:57:22.848000+00:00 | ['Foundation', 'Finance', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Fintech', 'Blockchain'] |
How to Build your Own Real-time Chat App like WhatsApp? | Well, that’s a tremendous idea to create an app like WhatsApp, But you have to get to know the technologies and features used to build it.
Now let us get back in the days when the first chat room came enticing users for those stirring small talks. Then, the social networking sites pierced into the mundane life to offer over the horizon connectivity. At the minute, instant messaging keep us engaged throughout by delivering a swift response. Moreover, we heightened fall for the convenience and comfort offered by the instant messaging app.
As we are very much enlightened of the chat app like Whatsapp surging into popularity. It is found that most of the people prefer to develop a chat app offering real-time interaction which adds a personal touch experience to the user.
Now, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get down to business in developing yet another stupendous chat app like WhatsApp.
Evolution of Modern Chat App
In view of, a modern chat app must possess noteworthy functionalities which can be adaptable to any type of chat solutions. In recent times, it has been found that creating chat app like WhatsApp companies experimenting with headway technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Bots. An ideal chat app has the potential of offering solutions to Enterprise-level Communication, Personal Chat, Business Development communication and e-Commerce chat solutions.
Since, due to the success of WhatsApp, and it’s no surprise that investors and developers be in pursuit of replicating WhatsApp success. Identically, Contus at its core has all-encompassing technologies to develop a chat app like WhatsApp — Contus Fly that draws new features according to your expectations on various platforms such as Android and iOS. Though WhatsApp may run the messaging market still there is space for your chat app that prospers the particular feature that WhatsApp doesn’t have.
Considering to your objective business, it’s not about developing a traditional version of WhatsApp but ending up in building a modern chat app that will be identified distinctively by your users and ideal to any chat solution.
Have You Ever Wondered What technologies Makes So Perfect to Bring a Splendid Chat App like WhatsApp?
Here is the architecture Contus Fly equipped with backend components to build a real-time chat app possible similarly like Whatsapp:
Erlang: This is the chief programming language used to develop the epic chat app Whatsapp. The Erlang programming language was most appreciated for its performance reasons, speed and scalability. Contus Fly is built on Erlang where the garbage collector allows updating the code instantly for different functional optimization. The programming language implemented in Contus Fly helps to have a high volume of short messages processing in very low latency.
Ejabberd: Contus Fly uses open source jabber resembles (WhatsApp clone) to enhance the operational efficiency which is optimized for the anticipated results. It uses XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) protocol to handle the message delivery system over on any local area network or the Internet. The Ejabberd server is developed using certain pluggable modules which enables wide features such as:
One-on-one Chat Contact actual and presence listing Store and forward (Offline messages) Personal Event Protocol (PEP) and Message typing specification Multi-User Chat (MUC) — Group Chat Privacy Setting and Account Spoofing Message Archive Management (MAM)
FreeBSD: WhatsApp, which has sent over billions of messages every day on its platform, has been built on FreeBSD. Contus Fly opted FreeBSD operating system due to its delicate network stack and extensive reliability. The FreeBSD being a single distributor have many advantages with Installation and provided easy creation of binary packages.
YAWS: (Yet Another Web Server) is written entirely in Erlang. Contus Fly uses embedded mode where YAWS runs as an embedded web server on the combination in another Erlang application. YAWS system has the ability to handle concurrent processes in an efficient way and possesses high performance.
Lighttpd: Lighttpd is an open source web server optimized for Contus Fly for a higher performance. The lightweight web server is deployed on WhatsApp to acquire a secure, flexible, fast and compliant feature.
PHP: Contus Fly using PHP open source language for its performance and reliability. In combination with AJAX, a powerful web development technology to display data from the database using Ajax to develop responsive real-time chat app.
BEAM: BEAM is a virtual machine to run the Erlang. It is a bunch of built-in functions such as if-simple network interface tool. Contus Fly uses BEAM interface to support the functions — Schedulers, Processes, Message passing, Memory Management and Multi-core etc.
Custom XMPP Server: Contus Fly encoded XMPP server to its functionality by reducing the byte of the keywords. The technology is used to enable message exchange in a real-time. The XML format is a human-oriented and it’s not meant to be read by any machine learning.
HTML5 WebSockets: The WebSocket is a feature in HTML5 used to establish a solid connection between the web browser and the server. The WebSocket data are directly sent over a socket which provides faster and persistent communication between the server and web browser.
Mnesia DB: This is a real-time database management system written in the Erlang language. Contus Fly uses the Mnesia, which is a soft database that allows for store the messages, files, images, videos, documents and the rest multimedia files that running on your app. This is a kind of technology that goes beyond your expectation that has the potential to store any amount of data.
Get Updates
Successful Features of a Chat App:
Now, Let us take a good look at the inbuilt features offered by a comprehensive chat app:
#1. VOIP Phone Calls:
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is the classification of technologies to deliver the voice communication and multimedia sessions over the Internet Protocol.
#2. Video Chats:
Lets to make calls directly to communicate with a personal touch experience with voice/video without an intermediate connection.
#3. Group Calls:
The chat app allows the user further to connect with other users with the facilitation of group conversation through Video/Audio.
#4. End-to-End Chat Encryption:
User safe encryption to secure from third-party infiltration. Prioritize in user private data security through advanced premium encryption technologies.
#5. Cloud Service Sync:
Cloud Resource Platform synchronization to monitor, update, store and scale the hosting environment.
#6. Multimedia Support:
File transfer of various data formats such as video, images, Gifs, voice note, animation, documents, contact, and location.
#7. Self — Destructing Messages:
Lets to send a whisper by tapping on the recipient name in a group where the messages can’t be seen by other persons.
#8. Geolocation Integration:
Enhanced geolocation integration makes quite an effective flow of interaction on a real-time basis.
#9. Calendar Synchronization:
Calendar sync provides a thorough knowledge of the events and tasks that will appear where you are yet to plan your day.
#10. Multi-platform Chatting:
The cross-platform messaging will allow you to be engaged within your reach while at a desk or on the go.
#11. In-app Purchase:
Choose your right monetization strategy to sell your app on the digital store to increase your app’s revenue stream.
#12. Payment Integration:
UPI — Unified Payment Interface is one of the payment modules which is more secure, user-friendly and allows instant payment.
VPA — Virtual Payment Address will use the email address which is registered in the particular bank account that can be shared publicly instead of a bank account number and IFSC code.
MPIN — Mobile banking Personal Identification Number is a 4–6 digit security code used to authenticate all types of money transferred via UPI
Dynamic features that WhatsApp Doesn’t have:
Apart from these in-built features, Contus Fly has the potential to incorporate beyond the features according to your expectations and type of chat Solution.
Configure user access and manage the user accounts:
-> User Invitation-only
-> Open Access
-> Admin-verified access Engage your active users by notification through any preferred platform:
-> Push Notification
-> Email & Email Digest
-> SMS Create a Customized Chat groups based on your needs:
-> Anyone can create groups
-> Only admins can create groups
-> Users can view and ask to join a group
-> Users cannot view the groups as they aren’t in the relevant circle
Through the Monetization of Chat App Solution, Contus Fly provides a varied source of features to Minting your Money:
1. Entirely Free
2. In-app payment
3. Mobile Advertising
4. Sponsorships
5. Subscriptions
“Every new comer (Chat app) still have a room in the Future”
If you are about to build a chat app like WhatsApp enhanced with additional modern features, then you are on the right path to bring out your chat app with dynamic features. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/how-to-build-your-own-real-time-chat-app-like-whatsapp-9d1d058afd5b | [] | 2019-04-03 15:56:17.697000+00:00 | ['Create Messaging Apps', 'Build Chat Application', 'WhatsApp', 'Develop Chat App', 'Chat App'] |
LinkedIn is so pretentious | FYI, unicorns aren’t real.
Either LinkedIn is fake or you’re.
Regardless if you’ve had enough, like me, enjoy!
This is my first “story” as Medium puts it. And I’m not even going to sugar coat. Let’s go
👇
The worst is anyone can post anything about themselves. Some of the stupidest people I’ve worked with are Gods on earth.
As a privacy-focused person, I don’t see it fit for certain people to see where I’m currently working or to view my career history.
Privacy options are a joke - either it’s public or all LI members.
I understand, we can’t control what people say about themselves on the platform.
Seeing it’s a social network for professionals, it’s ought to have more integrity and accountability to the truth.
Unfortunately, due to a lack of truthful transparency nobody wants to say anything truly critical to peers even if it makes sense (it’s a bubble).
What can the platform do to provide integrity and accountability to the truth?
Now, it’s not an easy problem to solve. However, I wish there was a disagree button.
I see some people claiming to have done so and so at companies I’ve worked when they had nothing to do with it.
One way to make this fairer is by allowing only those people who’ve worked at the same place during that time.
They can downvote or disagree. It can lead to abuse but the current system is open to abuse as well.
Right now I can say that I contributed to a project when I may have not served a single minute on it.
Because there’s zero arbitration, you can’t take anything seriously.
With disagreements and downvotes (in a job interview), it can become a bone of contention. For example:
“You stated on LinkedIn that you’re the key person to deliver [project X]. However, 12 people seem to disagree with you. Care to explain?”
Won’t anonymity contribute to honesty or vice versa?
It’s a start but difficult to say. I don’t feel it can be a factor or would affect honesty.
It will certainly impact the volume.
The balance can be struck if those anonymous numbers are placed by in fact those who were there at the time when claims are made about a certain project.
About the platform itself…
It’s ugly and the worst are the spammy email notifications recommending to follow users. By what measure am I being suggested?
The job alerts are far from relevant (if any). Best unsubscribe from all email communication.
And don’t get me started on the feed. Ugh! A bunch of grown-ups tooting their horn and people inane, finding the imagined stories to be “inspiring”.
The copy-pasta of posts is something really annoying and thus, can’t be trusted.
So much for original content in the feed. Organic reach or boost is a mockery. Honestly, everyone’s part of some POD.
For those who don’t know about LI PODs.
How I do know this? I was once part of a LinkedIn Hackers Facebook Group which I thought was about helping people on LinkedIn to best leverage it.
Turns out it was a group where PODs were promoted and people begging for engagement on their posts by sharing links to them. It was a sad sight.
Oh, and PODs are anything but free (to my knowledge).
The principle of reciprocity
I got serious about posting content on LinkedIn in lockdown last year. Text-based, mind you.
The algorithm prefers it. LinkedIn was the buzzword and organic reach was synonymous with LinkedIn.
I read and saw posts by influencers that engagement is the first step.
I inboxed them asking for advice. And they all said tag people, take note of the time of the day you post, put up an interesting headline…..
God knows how many times I’ve engaged on the platform with thoughtful comments. And not a mere “nice one” or “good point”.
I’m talking about comments that can be easily fashioned into a post.
Next, it was about tagging people to garner traction. It’s no cheat but a method to get views and people to engage with you.
Since I was starting, I tagged quite a lot of people (if I’m being honest). Not everyone engaged, but some did.
I felt on top of the world. I received notifications from LinkedIn saying your post on [topic] is trending which I later found, LinkedIn’s algorithm sent to everyone (for a given hashtag).
SUCH A TRICKSTER.
My views and engagement skyrocketed! With time, however, I thought, I can’t keep tagging people like this.
I’m sure they aren’t pleased with being tagged without consent and in posts that don’t interest them.
I once tagged a few people in my How to Go Live on TikTok post. The comments were, “I haven’t tried it so I don’t know”. I learned my lesson. That I gotta stop.
So why don’t they engage or support my content out of their own accord?
That’s the principle of reciprocity, I’m talking about. Very rarely someone engaged. And on occasions, I called out the so-called influencers by directly commenting, “pls, next time when I post be sure to engage” or follow my hashtag.
See the example below.
A LinkedIn post preaching about why you don’t get the traction you deserve.
That’s where I come in telling them to bugger off (w/euphemism).
And is followed by a positive toxicity response. A comment meant to pacify you.
They know, we see through their facade.
Now you must be thinking, “his content mustn’t be any good, or else why wouldn’t anyone want to engage?”
LinkedIn 101 dictates…
Content must be informative and educational.
I must have talked about my personal accomplishments; successes and failures, quotes and philosophies I’ve believed in, trending topics, etc.
And here we are; a year later (at the time of writing this). The desired organic reach never came.
I tried adding people who were from my industry and other similar professional walks to expand my network.
They’d view your profile but won’t accept (ok, freedom of choice).
Still, enough reason to piss someone off.
Why?
Like I’m seeing [Mr. T] viewed my profile and under his name, I see “Request sent”. Why don’t you accept?
We’re all professionals here and looking to build connections.
And before you tell me, my profile must look incomplete or without a profile photo and no headline or work history.
It’s legit.
Speaking of viewing profiles, people can see if I’ve opened their profile (even accidentally) which sucks.
Point is, you can’t stalk people to get interesting facts on some new technology/startup stuff without alerting them.
If you decide this shouldn’t be happening, you won’t know about the stats about who’s viewed yours.
A double-edged sword.
The wave of scam artists
They spam your inbox and try to sell you how to “double revenue” schemes.
Once a guy assumed, I’m some hotshot from a SaaS company (when I’m anything but).
He persistently messaged me how I ought to try his newly developed sales system. Don’t you read the profile, man?
For a professional network of this magnitude, the Spam feature is stupid.
If you Mark as spam by mistake then that post or content is removed from your feed.
I once contacted their help. They’re like, we’re strict on our spam policy and once reported, it can’t be retrieved for you. I mean “WHAAA..?”
Engagement posts
There must be a separate hell for those who create engagement posts on LinkedIn.
Every one of them follows the generic formula:
Like this post Send a connection request to anyone who comments (Optional) add a message saying you found him/her through [Ms. R]’s engagement post Add lots of connections You’re only one connection away from changing your life (lol, okay)
I admit I’ve done it (senselessly added connections) too.
Imagine adding multiple people without anything remotely similar between you guys.
Influencers br like, “just fu***ing add, da** you!”.
If it’s adding for the sake of adding, sorry I’m out.
What’s worst?
As we come to a close, you must think and if you’re a LinkedIn user, “can’t be THIS bad?”
Well, you’re right. Still, this article isn’t about that. However, there’s one more.
And I bet you didn’t see this one coming.
*drum roll*
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Seeing someone post that they got a new job and it’s the one you applied for.
I haven’t abandoned LinkedIn, yet. Might deactivate, at some point.
Though it’s lost its original purpose, getting in touch with people in the same industry is the only redeeming quality.
[End rant] | https://medium.com/@writerswork/linkedin-is-pretentious-81288e1c003a | ['Usama Ansari'] | 2021-04-05 08:44:27.598000+00:00 | ['Social Networking', 'Social Network', 'LinkedIn', 'Fake'] |
The (Probable) Story Behind the Tesla / Maxwell Deal — 5 minute charging. | Maybe not to the stars, but a 5 min charge? Even better.
A week ago, Maxwell Technologies announced that they were being acquired by Tesla for $218MM. That’s a 55% premium on what the market thought the company was worth. In the most basic sense, this means that Tesla isn’t buying the business (i.e., Maxwell’s current customers or probably even products), they’re buying the technology.
The thing that surprises me, is that no one is talking about the most likely reason why.
Yes, this is speculation, but if I’m right, it’s the most exciting thing to happen in transportation since the Model T.
OK, so, some background. Tesla, as you know makes electric cars. Electric cars suck because you have to spend about an hour every 300mi charging them up. There are some people working on this (Porsche is all excited about their fast charging), but these efforts are largely meaningless. Charging a chemical storage battery will always involve a chemical reaction. These take time, and there’s a limit to how much they can be sped up. They (probably) won’t ever be as fast as filling up a tank with gas.
Maxwell technologies makes ultracapacitors. These are energy storage devices that charge quickly. They have numerous drawbacks, they don’t hold their charge for terribly long, and they have a low energy density. (Sidebar: energy is measured in kW, whereas power is energy over time measured in kWh ).
So, if you think about the implications here, this kinda sucks. Batteries will always be slower than just transporting energy, since you’re converting the energy, and ultracapacitors probably won’t ever be a workable long-term storage device.
Everyone has been saying that Tesla is going to switch to solid-state batteries. Maybe, but no time soon. I think that Tesla’s real plan here is to not try to fight the time that batteries take to charge, but instead to take the charger with you.
Imagine a car with a traditional chemical storage battery but that also has an ultracapacitor. Theoretically, you plug in for the minute or two that it would take the ultracapacitor to charge, and then you unplug. Normally, now you could access the energy in the UC to drive, but what if we use the ultracapacitor to charge the battery instead.
Now you’ve got a system where you get the long(er) storage life and higher energy density of a chemical battery, but you get the benefits of the fast charge of the capacitor.
My guess is that a system like this could result in an EV that charges as fast, or faster than a gas vehicle, and certainly much much faster than any other EV that’s anywhere near the market. This is probably why we haven’t heard much about Supercharger V3 lately, even though everyone has been crowing about how fast they charge their cars.
One major caveat — the power density of ultracapacitors currently on the market (and in academic literature) is an order of magnitude lower than what would be needed to achieve a plan like what I describe above. However, it is completely possible that a breakthrough like that has already happened within Maxwell Technologies, and that’s what they’re selling on.
Tesla doesn’t seem to be the sort of company to invest in pure research — they’re more about putting together technologies that already exist to make great products (they’re more like Apple than Google that way — and yes, Autopilot is a notable exception). Given that, I’m going to further guess that this kind of tech is a lot closer to market than anyone thinks. I wouldn’t be surprised if the 2020 Roadster (or maybe 2022 realistically) would feature not only the much vaunted 600mi range, but also a charge time of less than five minutes.
I have no inside knowledge of Tesla, and I could be completely off base, but I would place a considerable bet that Tesla is moving toward hybrid solid state / chemical battery technologies.
DISCLAIMER: I do own a Tesla, and I do hold some of their stock in my personal portfolio. | https://medium.com/@stefann/tesla-maxwell-might-mean-5min-charges-f2a0692e84d9 | ['Stefan Nagey'] | 2019-02-12 16:09:41.620000+00:00 | ['Electric Vehicles', 'Tesla', 'Transportation', 'Battery', 'Cars'] |
Forgotten | Forgotten
A poem
Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash
I behold the noise in peace
A heart on fire, traveling through seas,
A deep sorrow crosses my mind
I am forgetting whatever I find.
The hills, the mountains,
The beautiful fields
My mind keeps playing memory reels,
But some part is missing
Some part forgotten.
My head hurts but I have no thoughts
I am at peace, and yet at loss
Fulfilled with letters, out of words
Filled with joy, out of smile
I feel so high, out of height.
All the jumps, and all the climbs I made
Forgotten.
I feel thoughts, and I think feelings
I take my shot; I blow through the ceiling
A crack is made, a hole is born
Out of a part... forgotten. | https://medium.com/this-shall-be-our-story/forgotten-77fc35ebb95a | ['Binit Acharya'] | 2020-12-18 08:40:39.267000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Poetry', 'Nature', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Life'] |
Mulberry Support Blood Sugar Control & Weight Loss | The famous Dr. Oz has listed white mulberry as an effective cure for weight loss and diabetes. White mulberry has a light-sweet flavor but is low in glucose content. The health benefits of white mulberries are popular even during ancient Rome. Since then mulberries are used in many countries to combat the symptoms and complications of diabetes.
WHAT IS WHITE MULBERRY?
White mulberry is an herb. The powdered leaves are most commonly used for medicine. The fruit can be used for food, either raw or cooked.
White mulberry is often tried in order to help treat diabetes. It is also tried for treating high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, the common cold and its symptoms, muscle and joint pain such as from arthritis, constipation, dizziness, ringing in the ears, hair loss, and premature graying.
White mulberry is native to China and is the food of silkworms. It was introduced into the United States in colonial times, during an attempt to establish a silk industry. The wood is very flexible and durable and has been used to make tennis rackets, hockey sticks, furniture, and boats.
Benefits of using white mulberry:
1- Promotes cardiovascular health
White mulberry is rich in antioxidants which can protect the heart and blood vessels from diseases. It can also decrease blood cholesterol level and hypertension. Because of its potent protective mechanism, it can prevent the complications of faulty blood circulation like hypertension, stroke, cataracts, and thromboembolism.
2- Supports weight loss and blood sugar control
White mulberries are rich in fiber that helps in the digestion and elimination of cholesterol in the body. It has zero saturated fat which is beneficial for overall health and general wellbeing. White mulberries also contain 1-deosynojirimycin which alters glucose metabolism. Studies show that mulberry leaf extracts supports blood sugar levels and reduces hyperglycemia episodes after meals. White mulberries also combat diabetes because of its antioxidant properties. Antioxidants eliminate free radicals that contribute to the development of diabetes symptoms.
Supporting researches:
A study conducted in Japan discovered that white mulberry compounds counteract intestinal enzymes. Sugar and monosaccharides are prohibited to enter the circulation causing its therapeutic effects. 1-Deosynojirimycin is the active ingredient of mulberry extracts found to act primarily in the small intestines. Rats were administered with mulberry extracts 30 minutes before carbohydrate loading. After carbohydrate loading, researchers found that the rats maintained a normal glucose level. 2
People with diabetes often experience varied adverse effects from medications. Even if that is the case, many people have already experienced the therapeutic effects of white mulberry. It effectively controls blood sugar levels during and after meals without causing any adverse effects.
Where to Find It
Widely available for purchase online, supplements containing mulberry are sold in many natural-food stores and in stores specializing in dietary supplements. | https://medium.com/@thomas-smalley/mulberry-support-blood-sugar-control-weight-loss-d29c5c8e9e2e | [] | 2021-02-18 06:49:45.045000+00:00 | ['Mulberry', 'Blood Sugar', 'Weight Loss', 'Weight Lose Tips', 'Weight Loss Supplements'] |
Add Firebase to React native | We’ve been using Firebase with React native last couple of years and it’s fantastic, easy to use and you can achieve many great things in a short time.
Firebase provides many features:
Cloud Messaging — Firebase allows us to deliver and receive messages in a more reliable way across platforms.
Firebase allows us to deliver and receive messages in a more reliable way across platforms. Authentication — Firebase has little friction with acclaimed authentication.
Firebase has little friction with acclaimed authentication. Test Lab — Test in the lab instead on your users.
Test in the lab instead on your users. Hosting — Firebase delivers web content faster.
Firebase delivers web content faster. Remote Configuration — It allows us to customise our app on the go.
It allows us to customise our app on the go. Dynamic Links — Dynamic Links are smart URLs which dynamically change behaviour for providing the best experience across different platforms. These links allow app users to take directly to the content of their interest after installing the app — no matter whether they are completely new or lifetime customers.
Dynamic Links are smart URLs which dynamically change behaviour for providing the best experience across different platforms. These links allow app users to take directly to the content of their interest after installing the app — no matter whether they are completely new or lifetime customers. Crash Reporting — It keeps our app stable.
It keeps our app stable. Real-time Database — It can store and sync app data in real-time.
It can store and sync app data in real-time. Storage — We can easily store the file in the database.
What we will do today is to connect Firebase with our React native project and believe me it’s easy as riding a bike, so let’s start.
We will use well documented package https://rnfirebase.io/
Create Firebase project
Open https://firebase.google.com/ and go to Get started. You will see your recent projects if you have them already, to create a new one click on “Add project” which will lead your to first step.
Simply enter your Project name and move to the next step.
This step will ask you do you want to use Google Analytics for your project, and of course you will do. Press Continue and let’s move further.
Select your Google Analytics account and that’s it. Your new Firebase project is added.
2. Add Firebase to React Native project
We will assume that you already created a React native project and it’s ready. Next step will be to install dependencies and add Firebase configuration.
Install the React Native Firebase “app” module to the root of your React Native project with NPM or Yarn:
# Using npm
npm install --save @react-native-firebase/app # Using Yarn
yarn add @react-native-firebase/app
The @react-native-firebase/app module must be installed before using any other Firebase service.
Android setup
Go to Firebase dashboard and click on Android icon to start a setup.
Skip the third step because we are going to do that a few seconds later, don’t forget to download google-services.json.
Now take the google-services.json and place it inside of your project at the following location: /android/app/google-services.json
To allow Firebase on Android to use these credentials, we need to enable that by adding google-services plugin inside of your /android/build.gradle file:
buildscript {
dependencies {
// ... other dependencies
classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:4.3.3'
// Add me --- /\
}
}
And lastly, run the plugin by adding the code below into your /android/app/build.gradle file:
apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
apply plugin: 'com.google.gms.google-services' // <- Add this line
Voila! Run the app on android and start using the features.
npx react-native run-android
iOS setup
Same as first step for android, go to your dashboard, add app and press iOS icon.
Skip all other step, but before moving from the second step, download GoogleService-info.plist.
Using Xcode, open the projects /ios/{projectName}.xcodeproj file (or /ios/{projectName}.xcworkspace if using Pods).
Right after the project is opened, right click on the project name and “Add files” to project, as you can see on the image below:
To allow Firebase on iOS to use these credentials, we need to add two things. First, open your /ios/{projectName}/AppDelegate.m file, and add the following at the top:
#import "AppDelegate.h" // add this line
#import <Firebase.h>
Within your existing didFinishLaunchingWithOptions method, add the following to the top of the method:
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
#ifdef FB_SONARKIT_ENABLED
InitializeFlipper(application);
#endif
// add this line
if ([FIRApp defaultApp] == nil) {
[FIRApp configure];
}
}
Final step would be install pods and run the app.
# Install pods
npx pod-install # Run the app
npx react-native run-ios
That’s it guys! Everything is prepared and you are ready to build a cool app with Firebase features. | https://medium.com/@konceptive/add-firebase-to-react-native-bc6e78b8fbaf | [] | 2020-12-26 13:02:25.240000+00:00 | ['Firebase', 'React Native', 'Tutorial'] |
7 Penny Stocks To Buy According To Analysts With Targets Up To 316% | 7 Penny Stocks To Buy According To Analysts With Targets Up To 316% Joe Sirianni Jul 22·6 min read
Should you buy penny stocks today? If you like volatility, quick gains, handle high-risk situations and understand trading basics, I say, why not? But the stock market today isn’t like it was even just a year ago. The fact is, millions of new traders have flooded into the markets since the pandemic. The goal is making money without a 9 to 5, and so far, many are finding real opportunities to profit.
Over the last few days alone, we’ve seen seriously bullish action in the stock market. Today former penny stock ImmunoPrecise ( NASDAQ:IPA) was the latest to grab attention from retail traders. On Monday (7/19), IPA stock was traded around $5 with a volume of fewer than 60,000 shares. Fast-forward to today (7/22), and IPA stock reached highs of $16.47 before the afternoon session got into full swing, with more than 60 million shares traded.
[Read More] 3 Biotech Penny Stocks To Watch Seeing Explosive Gains In 2021
This wasn’t an outlier either. Other stocks this week like Chembio Diagnostics, Inc. ( NASDAQ:CEMI) and NeuroMetrix Inc. ( NASDAQ:NURO) made parabolic moves as well. CEMI stock jumped from lows of $2.20 to highs of $6.95, while NURO stock jumped from around $3 on Monday to over $40 today.
Should You Buy Penny Stocks?
Let’s get something straight; all penny stocks don’t make these types of moves. Many end up failing. But as I said earlier, if you know how to trade penny stocks, this volatility is something you seek daily. Retail traders aren’t the only ones looking for opportunities in the stock market. Today, we’ll look at a few names that Wall Street firms are actually following and giving price targets upwards of 316% right now. Will they end up on your list of penny stocks to buy right now or avoid entirely?
*Note: This is a Continuation Of Our Article “ Best Penny Stocks To Buy Now? Analysts See 85%-288% Upside In 3.”
Penny Stocks To Buy [or avoid] According To Analysts
Performant Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:PFMT) Kadmon Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:KDMN) Seelos Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SEEL) 9 Meters Biopharma Inc. (NASDAQ:NMTR)
Penny Stocks To Buy [according to Craig Hallum]: Performant Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:PFMT)
Earlier this month, analysts at Craig Hallum initiated coverage on Performant Financial Corporation. The firm started PFMT stock with a Buy rating and a $10 price target. Based on the current price, that’s an implied upside of roughly 114%. Obviously, time will tell if this comes to fruition, but what are some things to look at right now?
Performant aids clients in the government and commercial sectors, helping them find ways to expand revenue models and streamline spending. Craig Hallum analyst George Sutton pointed out that “With a conservative near-term potential revenue opportunity of $700–960M and expectations for legacy revenue to be completely out of the picture starting in FY22, we believe investors should get involved before the market picks up on the opportunity…PFMT has built a massive data set covering >200M lives and invested in developing sophisticated AI to identify inaccuracies. These investments result in higher cost savings for clients, better quality scores, and better margins for PFMT.”
Echoing this bullishness is the PFMT stock chart. Year-to-date, this penny stock has quietly climbed from $0.88 to over $4.60 this week. Financial technology — Fintech — has received its fair share of attention thanks to the pandemic and things like cryptocurrencies gaining mainstream attention. One thing to focus on is the company’s exposure to opportunities in healthcare. In its last few earnings updates, management has stood behind its 2021 target range for healthcare revenue of $83 — $90 million and positive EBITDA.
Penny Stocks To Buy [according to Oppenheimer]: Kadmon Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:KDMN)
Since we last covered Kadmon, shares have remained range-bound. KDMN stock typically trades between $4.22 and $3.50, with its 200-day moving average acting as a consistent level of resistance over the last few months. However, this week was the few times that shares broke above this upper 200-day moving average resistance level.
The initial catalyst for the recent trading action came after Kadmon announced that the FDA granted full approval of its REZUROCK treatment for Chronic graft-versus-host disease. Now we look to August as the next important time for Kadmon. This is when the company expects REZUROCK to be available in the US.
[Read More] Highest Volume Penny Stocks to Watch Today? Check These 4 Out
This wasn’t the only thing helping give KDMN stock a boost, either. Earlier this month, analysts at Oppenheimer gave an update to their current rating. The firm has an Outperform but upped its price target from $8 to $9 following the latest FDA news. That puts an implied upside of 117% based on current trading levels.
Analyst Mark Breidenbach explained, “We discussed Rezurock’s label and pricing with management, and we believe Kadmon is fully prepared to begin promoting Rezurock despite the early approval-thanks in part to a PDUFA date extension earlier this year…We expect Rezurock could take ≥three months to be added to payer formularies and will take time to gain market share relative to ruxolitinib, which is already widely used off-label in cGVHD.”
Penny Stocks To Buy [according to Guggenheim]: Seelos Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SEEL)
Seelos has long been on our lists of penny stocks to watch throughout the year. The company is part of the growing list of psychedelic stocks to watch. It’s also one of the larger holdings in the first psychedelic ETF, Horizon’s Psychedelic Stock Index ETF (PSYK). It currently has 5.71% weighting in the ETF (as of July 16th).
Thanks to its progress in its racemic ketamine trials, retail traders have taken notice. An update a few weeks ago revealed more details from its current ketamine study for acute suicidal patients. The company explained that part 2 of the study would be the basis for a registration trial for its SLS-002 racemic ketamine program. CEO Raj Mehra went as far as saying that SLS-002 has the potential for rapid onset and “aims to show a benefit as quickly as overnight.”
Wall Street analysts may also see potential in this company as well. Guggenheim was the latest firm to jump on the bullish bandwagon this month. Analyst Yatin Suneja started coverage with a Buy rating and $8 target, implying an upside of over 220% from current trading levels. Suneja explained that “The current data suggest that treatment effects with SLS-002 are rapid, robust and durable,” and if approved, “$450M in peak U.S. sales with additional upside in other indications.”
Penny Stocks To Buy [according to BMO Capital]: 9 Meters Biopharma Inc. (NASDAQ:NMTR)
Earlier this month, BMO Capital initiated coverage on 9 Meters Biopharma. Analyst Gary Nachman started NMTR stock with an Outperform rating and a price target of $5.00. Based on the current trading levels, that would imply a potential upside of 316%. 9 Meters focuses on developing treatments for gastroenterology. It recently acquired the global development rights to a humanized monoclonal antibody, LOB-0136, from Lobesity LLC. LOB-0136, now NM-136, aims to treat patients with Prader-Willi Syndrome.
“Continuing to advance NM-136 will be a very important step forward for patients currently living with PWS and suffering from this life-threatening disease,” said John Temperato, President and Chief Executive Officer of 9 Meters. “This meaningful therapeutic complements and broadens our pipeline of digestive disease assets, while providing us strategic options within our expanded portfolio.”
Aside from this, progress with its Vurolenatide short bowel syndrome candidate is grabbing interest. The company just began its Phase 2 VIBRANT Study on the treatment in June. Nachman also made mention of it in his commentary in tandem with his rating.
[Read More] 4 Best Penny Stocks To Buy As Musk Recharges Dogecoin & Ethereum?
“Vurolenatide offers unique mechanism for short bowel syndrome with promising earlydata and good visibility on Ph2/Ph3, and larazotide could be first approved treatmentfor celiac disease with Ph3 ongoing. Physicians are excited about having both productsavailable given lack of treatments. We conservatively forecast ~$700mm revenue in2030 with just modest penetration. Key catalysts over next 6–18 months should help unlock value.”
Are Analysts Right About These Penny Stocks?
It’s ok to question analysts and their recommendations. Sometimes they are outdated or don’t quite align with the current market sentiment. This list of penny stocks is made up of companies with very recent analyst ratings and, with that, could have a bit more relevance in the stock market today. But the ultimate decision to buy them or avoid them is up to you.
You can read about the rest of the 7 penny stocks to buy according to analysts: Best Penny Stocks To Buy Now? Analysts See 85%-288% Upside In 3 | https://medium.com/@joesirianni/7-penny-stocks-to-buy-according-to-analysts-with-targets-up-to-316-468e1e359ba7 | ['Joe Sirianni'] | 2021-07-22 17:48:40.055000+00:00 | ['Stocks To Buy Today', 'Technology', 'Stocks', 'Psychedelics', 'Stock Market Tips'] |
I will responsive mailchimp template campaign automation email marketing newsletter | ➤ Are you looking for an Email Marketing Expert?
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Hire Me on Fiverr :: https://www.fiverr.com/share/PwPkrP | https://medium.com/@zakariyarmamoon7056/i-will-responsive-mailchimp-template-campaign-automation-email-marketing-newsletter-bead5dec009d | [] | 2020-12-21 19:51:59.042000+00:00 | ['Newsletter', 'Email Marketing', 'MailChimp', 'Template'] |
Todos contra Olham | in Both Sides of the Table | https://medium.com/catedraalarcon/todos-contra-olham-52e896d1c31b | ['Cátedra Alarcón'] | 2016-09-09 16:32:34.865000+00:00 | ['Saavedra', '2015', 'Underworld', 'Juego De Roles'] |
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, as Robert Burns is paraphrased as having written. | The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, as Robert Burns is paraphrased as having written. This has never rung true for me more than this week, as I planned to reboot the way I write on Medium (you may have seen my previous post about my new daily topics). It coincided with the online edition of The Location Guide’s “FOCUS" — the London-based film and television production conference. As I juggled virtual meetings with webinars and struggled with tech issues (some my own making, others not) the last thing I wanted to do at the end of each day was sit in front of the laptop and start blogging. Now the conference is over, expect me to return to my most recent form! | https://medium.com/@daniel-lyddon/the-best-laid-plans-of-mice-and-men-often-go-awry-as-robert-burns-is-paraphrased-as-having-written-d8ba36bb0ffb | ['Daniel Lyddon'] | 2020-12-17 22:39:48.858000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Microblogging', 'Blogging', 'Blog', 'Blogger'] |
Recently the NowJersey Digital Magazine crew made a trek… nay.. | Our hope is that we were able to capture even a slight bit of the magic, on film. We worked hard trying to film the right shots, angels & moments, that would convey what we were experiencing. If the sunflower clips in our video ‘This Is Our Garden..’, or this article, inspires anyone to get outside and get to the middle of a sunflower field.. or even better, to plant your own, large or small; then we’ve accomplished everything we hoped for in our visit to a NJ sunflower field.
For more articles spotlighting New Jersey gems, please check out NowJersey on Medium.com
NowJersey is New Jersey, curated. Please do follow us on Facebook & Twitter for curated NJ scoop. And on Instagram for beautiful photos of the Garden State from some of NJ’s best photographers, as well as some serious foodie pics!
We are passionate about life in New Jersey. If you love New Jersey, ‘like’ us! | https://medium.com/nowjersey-digital-magazine/recently-the-nowjersey-digital-magazine-crew-made-a-trek-nay-c4fb4141050 | ['Mike Decastro'] | 2017-10-27 13:03:32.722000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Newjersey', 'Family', 'Sunflower', 'Holisitc'] |
7 Common Web Development problems which every developer from Beginners to Experts should know [with multiple solutions] | 7 Common Web Development problems which every developer from Beginners to Experts should know [with multiple solutions] Yogi Follow Feb 2, 2019 · 10 min read
Web Development can be a complex task because it involves working in many technologies and languages like HTML, JavaScript and PHP, ASP.NET, My SQL and AJAX. There can be some problem where you can get stuck from a few hours to a few days. It may be very frustrating since there happens to be no place to go, and find your solution. In my web development career I happened to stuck on many problems but fortunately I got their solutions on time.
I therefore decided to write this tutorial to point out 5 Common Web Development problems which every Beginner, intermediate or Expert developer should know to solve. So without wasting any further time let us start with them one by one.
Problem 1: Apply CSS to half of a Character
Most of us can think that CSS can be applied to any character but never to half of a character. But you are wrong as there is a way to apply CSS to half of any character.
You can use the Plugin called HalfStyle which can be downloaded from GitHub
Using this plugin you can style style each half or third of a character (and even full paragraph of text), vertically or horizontally, in a very simple manner.
Installation
Download the plugin zip file from GitHub and extract the folder to your website.
Next add the reference to HalfStyle CSS an JS, and jQuery to your webpage’s head section like:
<link href="HalfStyle-master/css/halfstyle.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="HalfStyle-master/js/jquery.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="HalfStyle-master/js/halfstyle.js"></script>
Now you are ready to use it.
For a single character
Add the classe ‘.halfStyle’ to the element containing the character you want to be half-styled. And give attribute data-content="character" to it (replace character with the character you want to style like ‘X’ or ‘Y’).
Example 1: Character X is styled horizontally half
<span class="halfStyle hs-horizontal-half" data-content="X">X</span>
Horizontal Half
Example 2: Character Y is styled horizontally third
<span class="halfStyle hs-horizontal-third" data-content="Y">Y</span>
Horizontal Third
Example 3: Character X is styled vertically third
<span class="halfStyle hs-vertical-third" data-content="X">X</span>
Vertical Third
Example 4: Character Y is styled vertically half
<span class="halfStyle hs-vertical-half" data-content="Y">Y</span>
Vertical Half
The CSS Classes — ‘ hs-horizontal-half ’, ‘ hs-horizontal-third ’, ‘ hs-vertical-half ’, ‘ hs-vertical-third ’ are custom CSS class which are defined in HalfStyle.css file.
You can change their properties like color, font, etc inside the ‘ : before ’ and ‘ :after ’ classes accordingly to your needs.
For a Text
Add .textToHalfStyle class and data attribute data-halfstyle=“[-CustomClassName-]” to the element containing the text.
Example 1: Text styled vertically half
<span class="textToHalfStyle" data-halfstyle="hs-vertical-half">Half-style, please.</span>
Text Styled Vertical Half
Example 2: Text styled vertically third
<span class="textToHalfStyle" data-halfstyle="hs-vertical-third">Half-style, please.</span>
Text Styled vertical third
Example 3: Text styled horizontally third
<span class="textToHalfStyle" data-halfstyle="hs-horizontal-half">Half-style, please.</span>
Text Styled Horizontal Third
Example 4: Text styled horizontally half
<span class="textToHalfStyle" data-halfstyle="hs-horizontal-third">Half-style, please.</span>
Text Styled Horizontal Half
Problem 2: How to modify the URL without reloading the page
As every beginner JavaScript programmer knows that ‘ window.location.href ’ reloads the page. So in order to change the URL of the page without reloading it, you should use the the ‘ pushState() ’ method.
Example: Create a button which on click will change the URL:
<button onclick="changeURL()">Click here</button> <script>
function changeURL() {
window.history.pushState('page2', 'Title', '/about.html');
}
</script>
I used the pushState() method to change the URL to about.html. This method has 3 parameters:
1. state — The state object is a JavaScript object which is associated with the new history entry created by pushState() . Whenever the user navigates to the new state, a popstate event is fired, and the state property of the event contains a copy of the history entry’s state object.
title — A short title for the state to which you’re moving.
URL — The new URL is given by this parameter. Note that the browser won’t attempt to load this URL after a call to pushState() , but it might attempt to load the URL later, for instance after the user restarts the browser.
Note that you can reload the contents of the new URL by using the jQuery Load method - load(). The .load() method is an AJAX method that is so powerful that it can not only fetch full HTML contents of another page but also contents of elements based on their CSS class and Ids .
Problem 3: Give text a transparent background
There are 2 ways to solve this problem, which are:
1. Make a transparent background image
Here you create a small 1px*1px transparent dot image in .png format. I have this image created in Photoshop and it’s size is just 95 bytes . This image is in light grey color and is shown below:
Transparent Image
Now, to use this image as a background, I have to use the URL value of background property of CSS like this:
background: url("Content/Images/translucent.png") repeat;
Let us see an example for this.
Create 2 divs like this:
<div class="containerDiv">
<div class="transparentDiv">
How is the weather in your city?
</div>
</div>
Now add the CSS for these divs to your stylesheet as shown below:
.containerDiv {
height: 200px;
width: 500px;
background-color: blue;
position: relative;
} .transparentDiv {
color: orange;
font-size: 38px;
padding: 30px;
background: url("Content/Images/translucent.png") repeat;
position: absolute;
left: -25px;
width: 100%;
top: 40px;
}
Note that the ‘transparentDiv’ is situated over the ‘containerDiv’ by providing it with position: absolute property. Also note the background property where I have set the image as the background for the ‘transparentDiv’.
When you run this code in your web page then it will look like:
Transparent background using transparent background image
2. Use CSS 3 Background Color property
Instead of using the background transparent image (explained above), you can use CSS 3 backgound-colo r property. All you have to do is add this property to the ‘.transparentDiv’ CSS and comment out the previous background property like shown below:
background-color: rgba(240, 240, 240, 0.5);
/*background: url("Content/Images/translucent.png") repeat;*/
I have specified the light grey background in rgba color format as 240, 240, 240 and also used 0.5 as opacity to bring the desired transparent look.
Transparent background using CSS3 background-color property
Problem 4: Vertically center text with CSS
There are many ways to vertically align text. You can do it using line-height property of CSS or by using absolute positioning. In my opinion you can do this very easily by using only the ‘display’ property. The 2 ways for doing this are:
1. Using the display: flex property
Here I will use the Flexbox and give the element the following CSS properties:
display: flex;
align-items: center;
Example: Add the following div in your web page
<div class="box">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh
</div>
Also add the CSS that will vertically align the text contained in the div.
.box {
height: 150px;
width: 300px;
background: #CCC;
color: #000;
font-size: 24px;
font-style: oblique;
text-align: center;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
}
Note: The last 2 properties does the vertically alignment of the texts.
Now run the code in your web page and you will see the texts aligned vertically center as shown below:
Vertically Center Alignment of text using display flex
2. Using the display: table property
In this approach, using CSS I simulate table behavior since tables support vertically center alignment. Here the parent div is provided with display: table property while the child elements are provided with 2 properties which are:
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: middle;
Example: Let me show an example that contains 3 div (aligned side by side). Each div have different lengths of text which are all aligned in vertically center manner.
Add the following code to your page:
<div class="verticallyCenter">
<div>First</div>
<div>This is the Second div</div>
<div>Third div</div>
</div>
There is one parent div having CSS class called ‘verticallyCenter’. This div contains 3 child div.
Next add the following CSS to your page:
.verticallyCenter {
background-color: red;
display: table;
height: 100px;
} .verticallyCenter div {
font-size: 25px;
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: middle;
width: 33%;
padding: 5px;
}
Notice that the ‘verticallyCenter’ div contains is display: table while the 3 children are given the following 2 important properties:
display: table-cell;
vertical-align: middle;
Now run your web page in your browser and it will look like:
Vertically Center Alignment using display table
Problem 5: How to make a div 100% height of the browser window
You can do this by using the viewport-percentage lengths which are relative to the size of the initial containing block (i.e body tag). When the height or width of the window changes, they are scaled accordingly.
These units are vh (viewport height), vw (viewport width), vmin (viewport minimum length) and vmax (viewport maximum length).
We can make use of vh: 1vh is equal to 1% of the viewport’s height. That is to say, 100vh is equal to the height of the browser window.
So the follow div (given below) is equal to the height of the browser window, regardless of where it is situated in the DOM tree:
<div style="height: 100vh">Some content</div>
How is 100vh different to 100%?
Consider the below example:
<div style="height:200px">
<p style="height:100%;">Hello, world!</p>
</div>
Here the ‘Hello world’ paragraph element gets the height of 200px because of the parent div has been provided with the height of 200px.
Now change height to 100vh for the p element, as shown below:
<div style="height:200px">
<p style="height:100vh;">Hello, world!</p>
</div>
Now the paragraph element will be 100% height of the body regardless of the div height.
Problem 6: How to know which radio button is selected
For finding out which radio button is selected you can use either jQuery or JavaScript. Suppose there are 3 radio buttons for selecting the sex of a person. All of these radio buttons have a common name called ‘sex’.
<input type="radio" name="sex" value="Male" />Male
<input type="radio" name="sex" value="Female" />Female
<input type="radio" name="sex" value="Unspecified" />Unspecified
Now in your jQuery code create the click event of these radio buttons. Then use the .val() method to find out the value of the selected radio button. This code is given below:
$("input[name='sex']").click(function () {
alert($(this).val());
});
The checkbox is a similar control like radio button except that you can select more than one checkbox for an option. The jQuery Checkbox Checked tutorial is the place where you can learn all the ways to work with checkbox’s checking or un-checking.
Problem 7: Align Text and Elements in Horizontally Middle manner
Use text-align: center to place the text in the horizontally middle in the element. For example add the following div in your web page:
<div class="container">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
</div>
Also add the below CSS to the stylesheet:
.container {
width: 500px;
background-color: brown;
color: orange;
font-size: 38px;
text-align: center;
}
Notice that I have given text-align as center in the CSS. When you run this in your browser the text will be placed in the center of the div. This is shown by the below image:
Using text-align: center
When you want to align a whole element to the center of its parent then you use the ‘margin: auto’ in the CSS. This approach is used to align whole of the websites content to the middle of the page.
Now update the above div to include a child div which will be placed in the center. The code is given below:
<div class="container">
<div class="centerDiv">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
</div>
</div>
Add the following CSS for the centerDiv:
.centerDiv {
background: #67b91e;
width: 200px;
margin: auto;
}
Notice the margin: auto given to the centerDiv.
Now run the web page in your browser and you will see the centerDiv aligned at the center of it’s parent. Check the below image:
Align Child in the middle of the parent
Conclusion
I hope you found something new to add to your web development knowledge in this tutorial. If it is so then don’t forget to clap for a few times to show your like. It will not only bring a smile to my bad face but also motivate me to write more and more good articles to web developers.
And as always, follow me to get notified whenever I publish a new article on Medium.
Also check my other article in HACKERNOON— ASP.NET Core — How to use Dependency Injection in Entity Framework Core | https://medium.com/hackernoon/7-common-web-development-problems-which-every-developer-from-beginners-to-experts-should-know-with-47a7d2e9367f | [] | 2019-02-02 17:11:01.058000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'JavaScript', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'HTML'] |
The Three Flamingos | The Three Flamingos
A Short Story (Part 4 of 6)
Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash
Adam woke up the next day, and the blizzard continued. The fire was still intense, and Levi, still sleeping by it. Adam went to check on his friend and placed his face close to his — to feel if he was breathing. He felt the air coming out of his nostrils and it made Adam comfortable enough to leave him on his own to acquire food somewhere, bundling his blanket around himself as he prepared for the cold and made sure his toes had enough blood circulation, to take on the weather once again. He made sure his sandals were dry. He left the cave to find the snow was up to his kneecaps as he walked to the bushes — trying to see if there were any fruits to pick. He searched and searched, only to find that most of the summer bushes, now ambushed by snow, carried no fruits. Adam hit the empty bushes with a stick out of frustration at times, and after he caught his breath and threw the rod, he heard a loud yelp — it sounded like a woman. Adam slid down from the hill to investigate and saw an elderly lady that looked to be her seventies, with a basket of apples. She was on the ground and had a small cut on her forehead. It was hard to tell that it was a wound since the blizzard was ongoing, and the snowflakes were hitting them so quickly. She covered her wound, using her hand against the bothering snow. Adam approached her, struggling with every problematic step.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” She spoke in German and Adam, stood there, puzzled.
The lady reached out her hand, implying that she needed help to get on her feet. Adam took her hand and pulled her up, gently and delicately. There were a few apples on the ground, and every time Adam had his eyes on them, his need became overwhelming. He took one and returned it to the lady, and held onto a pair — trying to ask the woman through gestures if he could have them, while trying to get around the language barrier.
“You cannot have them. Give them back to me,” she said.
“So you do understand English?”
“Yes, you homeless American. Give it back to me,” she demanded.
“Please — ”
“Do you have a habit of robbing elderly women?”
“I’m not robbing you.”
“I know it was you who threw that stick at my face, hoping I wouldn’t notice within the blizzard, but I am not blind.”
Adam dropped one apple and pointed his pistol at her, and she failed to get her gun out of her holster in time. Adam’s blanket fell out of his shoulder, and she saw the pink and yellow triangle on his striped jumpsuit.
“I should’ve known,” she said.
“Put the gun down,” he said, and she obeyed.
Adam took the gun and laid the blanket flat on the snow, and held it down so the wind wouldn’t blow it away.
“Give me the basket. I’m taking half of what you have.”
The lady did what he said, and Adam poured out half of the apples and gave it back to her, but not the gun. He placed the apples on the wet eroded blanket and tied the fruits together and held it.
“I want you to keep walking and not look back until I shoot in the air, then you are free to do what you please,” Adam said, and the lady grinned.
“Ha! ‘Then you are free to do what you please.’ Says the unfree who will never be. How ironic is that?”
Adam shot the gun in the air and startled her.
He pointed the gun back toward her and said, “That means you walk now.”
The senior woman spat on his side of the snowy ground as she turned around and walked away. Minutes later, Adam shot the gun again, as he went back to the cave. Adam’s toes and fingers felt numb from the cold, the blood, on the other hand, was rushed with strain, with carrying the apples. He arrived at the cave, and saw Levi was still laying there — in the same position — the fire not burning as brightly as it was when Adam left. The fire was now dim, and close to going out.
Adam went to Levi’s bedside and said, “Levi, dinners ready, get up, food is finally here,” but Levi’s eyes didn’t open.
He pressed his face on to his, and his body felt cold — corpse cold. He did not feel any breathing, and he placed his head on his chest, no heartbeat. Adam threw off the blanket and unbuttoned Levi’s shirt, attempting to do CPR. He pressed his hand on Levi’s chest and did mouth to mouth, without success. After multiple attempts it was hopeless. Adam cried and held Levi in his arms, like a babe. His tears fell on to Levi’s face and bare chest.
“Oh — no — no! Levi — Levi — please.”
His mourning possessed him even further, “Somebody! Somebody help! Please! God, please, please, please!”
He caressed his face and moved his dark brown hair around. He kissed him on his forehead and covered his face with his blanket, and restarted the fire. Adam opened the blanket holding the apples, and taking one, he started eating. As he was eating, his bites and chews were filled with sorrow, and at times it was hard to swallow. He couldn’t be crying while he was eating. There were moments when he ate too much and choked, then vomited outside the cave.
A few hours later it was sunny. It was warm as well. Adam took the whole day to dig the ground with his bare hands, then covering Levi with both blankets, he wrapped him like a mummy to preserve his body from insects.
“I will come back to get you. I won’t leave you here. I will give you what you want and cremate you somewhere more fitting of your honor, one day. I will help you soar. I’m sorry that you will be trapped again for a time, as you can see, my options are limited. I will have to take care of myself first before I can help you. I will do this as soon as I can. I promise. Like I said before, and I meant every word of it — this can’t be it for us, it won’t be forever and it sure as Hell won’t be for you,” Adam said.
He got on his knees and prayed, and afterward spilled the dirt and soil back into the hole, on Levi’s body. Adam continued onward and hid behind a bush once again.
A passenger car was driving by the road, and Adam ran to the highway and pulled his gun out in front of the man who was driving.
“Stop the car! Stop right there! Unlock the car!” Adam sat on the passenger’s seat of the car and pointed his gun.
The man was scared and had his hands up.
“Please I don’t want any trouble,” the man said.
“What’s your name?”
“Gereon,” the man said.
“Gereon, you are going to take me to the airport. You will give me all your money, passport, and any assets that will get me to America, you understand? Or else you will die.”
Gereon nodded, and his hands were still up.
“Do I have to repeat myself? Take me to the airport now!”
Gereon, did what he was told and drove away, taking Adam to the Berlin airport.
Next chapter →
← Catch up with the first chapters | https://medium.com/prismnpen/the-three-flamingos-8fc7dd6be748 | ['Enne Baker'] | 2020-10-26 13:01:29.116000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'Humanity', 'Love', 'History', 'Fiction'] |
40+ Figma tips that make you faster | Saving time in the design process triggers staying creative. When we get lost in design, creativity decreases. Therefore I always like shortcuts, tips, and tricks when designing. Especially when I want to become a master, I think it’s time to learn tips and tricks.
I previously published the first article of this series. There you can find a few more simple methods. However, Figma is constantly adding new shortcuts with the incoming updates. So I will try to keep these articles up to date. Now let’s quickly move on to the shortcuts:
Note: Cmd as Ctrl, Option as Alt in Windows
1 — Cmd on Image: You can crop the image by clicking the Cmd button. (*new)
2 — In-Page Linking/Redirecting: You can link to elements within the page, such as anchor links on websites.
3 — Control(^) + C or I Key: Selects the color palette.
4 — Cmd then “number” (Opacity): After selecting an element and clicking the cmd button, you can change the opacity by clicking a button between 1 and 9. (key 1 for 10%, key 9 for 90%). You probably knew this. But in addition to this; If you quickly press 0 twice, the opacity will be 0%. Or, if you press two keys quickly, it takes the value of those keys (for example, 8 and 9provide 89% opacity.)
5 — Control + Option + T: Tidy up. Aligns scattered elements in a specific way.
6 — Organizing Tidy Up: After tidying up the elements in batch selection, the right-left and up-down spaces can be adjusted with the cursor. In addition, it is possible to replace the elements with each other without disturbing the order/ratio.
7 — Drag + Space: If you want to change the location of the selected area, you can use the Space key after selecting an area.
8 — Cmd + “number” (Tabs): You can switch between tabs with the combination of cmd + “number” as in browsers if more than one file/tab is open. Of course, the homepage is also a tab.
9 — Cmd + Dot(.): Closes the right and left panels. So you have a minimal workspace. You can use the same key combination to open the panels.
10 — Cmd + |: This combination also hides only the left panel. You can use the same combination to open it again.
11 — Cmd + G: Group selected elements.
12 — Cmd + Option + G: Frame the selected elements as in grouping. Sometimes it is more advantageous to use frames instead of groups when resizing elements.
13 — Control+ Shift + ?: Shows all keyboard shortcuts. So you can also try simple shortcuts that are not included here.
14 — Shift + Cmd + K: Select photos from files. Thus, the photo can be selected collectively. You can also place photos by clicking frames, rectangles, etc (every element that can take an image) one by one.
15 — Color Selection: Let’s choose an element that we can fill color. With the fill option selected in the element, you can find the light and dark tones of the colors by using the up(light) and down(dark) arrow keys. For this, fill must be selected. Also, if you press the Shift key, you can catch the tonal differences faster.
16 — Text Auto Height & Auto Width: When we want to resize a text box, we do it from the right panel. Especially when we select a copy-paste text, that text is copied with its default style. At this point we can apply a small tip: We can change the text from auto height to auto width by double-clicking on any edge of the text box.
17 — Showing Element: In large files, it can be difficult to find an element on the canvas that we can find in the left panel. Therefore, if you click on the icon that appears next to the element in the left panel, that element will appear on the canvas and be centered.
18 — Cmd+Option + S: Adds version history. Probably most of us don’t. Figma already adds version history automatically. But you can add more detailed (with explanations) version history with this key combination.
19 — Alignment:
You can align elements from the right panel. But making a habit of using keyboard shortcuts will speed you up.
Option + A: Align left.
Option + D: Align right.
Option + V: Align vertical center
Option + H: Align horizontal centers.
Option + W: Align top
Option + S: Align bottom
Option + Control + T: Tidy up
Option + Control + V: Distribute vertical spacing
Option + Control + H: Distribute horizontal spacing
20 — Shift + A: Autolayout elements. Simple information. But I saw that most people use this feature from the right panel, so I wanted to include it in the list.
21 — Drag + Space: We may need to move the nested elements inside the frame. So that they cannot be seen in the frame (clip content issue). But in these cases, the element that we want to move out also goes outside the frame. To prevent this, we can press the space key while dragging the nested element.
Likewise, if you are, dragging an external element onto the frame and do not want to include it in the frame, you must press the space key.
22 — Alt: The alt key is used to find the distance from one element to another. After selecting the element, press the alt key and drag the cursor over the other element. So you can work pixel perfect.
23 — Shift + 2: Select an element. Then you can zoom in on the selected element with the combination of Shift and 2 (Zoom to selection).
24 — Shift + 1: Zoom to fit. Fits all elements on the canvas.
25 — Z+Rectangle Area: Select an area on the canvas by pressing the Z key. With this key combination, you zoom into the selected area. Also, Option + Z + Rectangle Area is a key combination for zoom out to the area.
26 — Cmd + Y: Converts the view of the canvas to outlines. It is effective for seeing elements in frames that we cannot see.
27 — Cmd + Scrub: You can zoom in zoom out on the canvas by moving up and down using the mouse or touchpad (With two fingers on Macs).
28 — Option + Scrub: Scrub inputs. The number, color, etc. in the input can be used as in the example above. You can change the input values by moving your fingers left and right on the mouse and touchpad (With two fingers on Macs).
29 — Border Trick: There are different designs for border samples. For example, the border can be used as a divider with the rectangle tool. But since the rectangle is a separate element, the auto layout can be troublesome.
Here’s a trick for the border: Select the element you want to add a border. Add “inner shadow” from the “effects” section on the right panel. After giving Blur: 0, Spread: 0, X:0 and Y:10 values, 10px border will appear under the element.
You can increase the border thickness by changing the Y value. Finally, you can choose color and opacity and finalize your border design (You can use this effect on other elements by creating a style with the name “border”).
30 — Frame Hierarchy: I mentioned that we can quickly select the element in the frame with the Cmd key. But if there are many nested elements in the frame, it becomes difficult to choose. Therefore, if you right-click with the Cmd key after selecting the frame, you can see the frame hierarchy. Thus, you can choose any of the elements in the frame.
31 — Union Selection Trick: We can have vector components; such as icons. If we swap the icons (swap instance), the color style we applied to the previous icon may not be applied to the new icon.
This is because the icons are not union selection. This problem will be solved if you apply for union selection.
32 — Cmd + E: Flatten selection. You can convert multiple shapes into a single vector. This shortcut is useful when designing icons and illustrations.
33 — Left Panel Tabs: The left panel has two tabs; Layers and Assets. You can use the Option + 1 (Layers), Option + 2(Assets) key combinations to switch between these tabs.
34 — Right Panel Tabs: There are also shortcuts for the right panel. You can switch between tabs with Option + 8(Design), Option + 9 (Prototype), Option + 0 (Inspect) combinations.
35 — N Key: If we press the N key on the canvas, it selects frames sequentially. If you keep pressing the N key, it continues to switch between frames. If you do this with the Shift + N key combination, it moves in the reverse.
36 — Tab: Tab key has many functions. In this example; if you press the tab key while a frame is selected, it navigates through the elements in the frame one by one.
37 — Enter (Return): Enter key is another key that has many functions like the tab key. If you press enter while a frame is selected; it selects the first nested element in the frame (child layer).
If you keep pressing enter, it will continue to move the inner elements. In the same way, you move to the upper layer in the hierarchy with the Shift + Enter key.
38 — Cmd + Resize: When you want to resize a frame, it is resized according to its constraints properties. Frames are top-left aligned by default. But if you don’t want that, try resizing by pressing the Cmd key.
39 — Copying Image: You want to use any image you browse on the internet. You can copy the image link and paste it directly into Figma without downloading the image.
40 — Shift + X: It’s a very cool feature. A shortcut to swap stroke color and fill color when you select an element.
41 — Shift + Cmd + O: Outline stroke. There must be an element in the frame to use this shortcut. Then try this key combination. So in the left panel, you will see a new element named “(Stroke)” You can also apply an outline stroke to the selected element. For example, you can use this example to focus on buttons and similar elements.
Note: To fully understand the differences between Active Hover and Focus states, I recommend you take a look at this article.
42 — Component Description: We can add keywords to the components from the right panel. In this way, we can search by keyword in the assets section of the left panel and find that component. | https://uxdesign.cc/40-figma-tips-that-make-you-faster-88a13b43fae | ['Ali Çorak'] | 2021-07-09 20:30:41.014000+00:00 | ['Prototyping', 'Figma', 'User Interface', 'User Experience', 'UI'] |
The Dream of Working From Home and Enjoying the Good Life is Here! | I am 57 years old and widowed with 2 children. I am a Digital Marketer, Blogger, and Work From Home Specialist. My website is http://mekenterprises.us | https://medium.com/@jeffreyklump/the-dream-of-working-from-home-and-enjoying-the-good-life-is-here-9aff462464c4 | ['Jeffrey L. Klump'] | 2020-12-21 08:34:58.509000+00:00 | ['Work From Home', 'Residual Income', 'Jobs', 'Make Money From Home', 'Make Money Online'] |
7 Years Left | 7 Years Left
With climate change and sustainability increasingly becoming a hot-topic for travel journalists, it was only a matter of time until I looked into it myself… Rosie Moon Dec 24, 2020·6 min read
In primary school, ‘Reduce, Re-use, Recycle’ was the tagline they had us deeply internalise about how to help reduce increasing landfill waste. Moving up to secondary school, I vaguely remember learning about the damaging effects of deforestation in Geography, as well as the limitations of fossil fuels and the varying amounts of renewable energy sources that were taught to me in GCSE Science lessons. As I got older, sustainability and eco-tourism took up a substantial part of my teachings during Travel and Tourism A-Level. So, looking back, climate change and global warming have always been issues that I’ve been aware of to some extent. But in the ignorant bliss of pre-adulthood, I’d always felt as though these were issues that would never have an effect during my lifetime.
As I’ve grown older (and hopefully somewhat wiser), it appears to me that these issues are no longer just issues we read in books or see on the TV. At the end of 2019, scientists announced that the damage that climate change is having on the Earth, will become irreversible in a limited amount of years. The Earth’s deadline is viewable from the digital clock display that’s taken centre stage in the city of Manhattan, counting down the years, days, hours, minutes and seconds until this point — from when I’m writing, the time left reads at 7 years, 8 days, 5 hours, 11 minutes and 50 seconds. From this, the realisation of the potential catastrophes that global warming will have on us, has seen sustainability become the forefront of ordinary people’s conversations, big-boy corporations’ projections and travel journalists’ focus.
It’s a common assumption that fossil fuels and their damaging effect on the atmosphere are the main contributors to global warming. Available on Spotify, Myles Allen draws attention to the process of decarbonisation, which can strip fossil fuels of their carbon emissions and place the element back underground. Whilst the re-planting of trees can slow down the process of global warming, his TED talk claims that by decarbonising fossil fuels, global warming will essentially draw to a halt. However, the issue lies with lack of adequate funding — fossil fuel companies have known this information for years but don’t have the financial resources to do anything about it. It could be argued that, with fossil fuels predicted to run out by 2060, that maybe fossil fuel companies don’t see much point in investing in something which is already declining in availability. As populations continue to grow across the globe, there’s no doubt that the fossil fuel consumption will continue to grow, potentially seeing oil and gas resources running out even earlier than what has been predicted.
The Netflix documentary released earlier this year, ‘David Attenborough: A Life on our planet,’ can be described as the natural historians’ witness statement on the damage that we’ve placed on our eco-system and the future implications of this. Most shockingly, he speaks about the fourth mass extinction that’s been predicted by scientists to take place within the next 100 years. During the latter half of the programme, he optimistically offers ways in which we can try and mend the planet — the main point being, that cutting out fossil fuels and switching towards renewable energy resources is a main contributor in doing this. In an ideal world, if we completely convert to renewable natural resources within the next 50 years, energy supplies will be cheaper, cities will be cleaner and most importantly, the energy supply will never run out. | https://medium.com/@rosiemoonn/7-years-left-1fd9afdde72e | ['Rosie Moon'] | 2020-12-24 12:50:42.345000+00:00 | ['United Arab Emirates', 'Renewable Energy', 'Sustainability', 'Travel Journalism', 'Climate Change'] |
How I Use Data To Build Better Products | If an organization isn’t using data to develop and grow its products, then its days are probably numbered.
But while everyone talks about data, rarely does anyone explain what to do with all of it. So companies wind up skipping a data-driven approach because there isn’t any time. Or they use data incorrectly and get a false sense of potential success. Or they go totally data-driven and leave the human element out.
Let’s fix that, because every new product, every new feature, every growth experiment, should be using data to make decisions.
Data Science Is Not Rocket Science
The science of data is made out to be far more intimidating than it really is. It’s also overhyped as a kind of nerd quest that will make selling tons of product as simple as punching a magic algorithm into a computer.
The truth is it’s easier than ever to collect, analyze, and react to data — from sales data to performance data to marketing data.
Get Started: It doesn’t matter where you get your data or how you track it
I’ve been building products with data since 1999 — before Google Analytics, before Hubspot, before anyone had an API. I’ve gotten it pretty much down to a science at this point, and I can get a decent data analysis out of a rock and some string like MacGyver.
Right now, as you’re reading this, I’m using data to build two completely different product lines. One uses a lot of data, the other uses just a little. I’m going to use each of these as examples in the hopes that you can find your happy data place somewhere in the middle.
In the first scenario, let’s call it the “Lite” scenario, all I’ve got is a collection of unrelated web pages that show me basic usage stats. But one of those stats is revenue, and when I have revenue, I have the one single truth. I can trace everything else back to dollars.
I’ve got no APIs, so what I have to do is check in regularly to get daily, weekly, and monthly stats, plus any reference points I want to track for any experiments I want to run. All of this goes into one massive spreadsheet with a dozen tabs.
It’s not automated. At all. But once I have the structure down, all it takes a few minutes to maintain it. Plus it’s fun. I geek on this shit.
In the second scenario, the “Heavy” scenario, I’ve got a software platform that cost millions of dollars to build and is constantly being developed, upgraded, and maintained by a team of excellent software engineers. Everything is in the cloud, it’s totally flexible, APIs everywhere, and it even has a replicated read-only database that I can hit with SQL in real time and not screw everything up.
In the Heavy scenario, all I need to do is fire up something like TablePlus or SQL Server Management Console and run stored SQL statements to generate reports.
Data Day!
In both scenarios, I have a weekly Data Day. That’s when I spend an hour or two aggregating all my data and running analysis on every bit of it — which I’ll describe over the rest of the post.
In the Lite scenario, I’m logging into various websites and copying the most recent numbers into the spreadsheet. I don’t get revenue until the end of the month, so I’m doing a lot of extrapolating as to what that dollar figure will be so I can grade performance continually in “real time.” Then I have a monthly Revenue Data Day when I get the revenue numbers.
In the Heavy scenario, I’m getting revenue in real time, so I get to spend much more time on analysis.
Once I’ve collected all my data, my analysis serves to:
Catch errors — I’m looking for spikes in the data that suggest glitches in the software, the process, or some external market factor I don’t know about yet.
— I’m looking for spikes in the data that suggest glitches in the software, the process, or some external market factor I don’t know about yet. Catch opportunities — I’m looking for patterns that suggest my customers are doing something new and different.
— I’m looking for patterns that suggest my customers are doing something new and different. Keep score — I’m comparing incoming data to my previously defined expectations for new products, new features, and any growth experiments that are currently underway.
— I’m comparing incoming data to my previously defined expectations for new products, new features, and any growth experiments that are currently underway. Make plans— I’m rewriting goals, dreaming up new ideas for the product, and considering new experiments.
Here’s what I’m doing during Data Day analysis:
Sales Data: Getting more revenue
The first set of data I look at is sales. I total the entire revenue number first to get a sense if this was a good week or a bad week or an inconclusive week. This will color the rest of my analysis, dictating if I’m looking for problems or opportunities or both. If any number is way off, I’ll skip down to the end and do Forensics, then come back.
The next thing I want to understand is where those sales came from, so I trace the revenue back as far as I can by using the data to answer these questions:
How many customers were in a position to buy, but ultimately decided not to?
How many customers were in a position to buy, but didn’t get to the offering?
How many customers came into the “store,” but never got into a position to buy?
How many customers were made aware of the store, but never entered?
Then I take all of the breakdown and use it to confirm or adjust my goals for the month, the quarter, and the year.
I get the results of all this analysis to discuss with the executive team. If we need initiatives to adjust our focus, we use this analysis as our guide.
Performance Data: Increasing revenue and margin at the same time
The next step is to compare productivity against revenue to get performance. I need to confirm where we’re strong, where we’re weak, and that we’re burning efficiently as we grow.
These are like long-term growth experiments, except I’m looking at things we’re already doing and customers we already have. I’m looking for patterns in their usage that give me hints as to which features and which customers we should be focusing on.
This analysis sets up a lot of the Growth Experiments I’ll be going over next.
For example: At Spiffy, my performance data analysis led me to discover that a good number of our customers were declining a suggested and needed upgrade during their service, but then they’d add the same upgrade the next time they booked their service. We were missing some of those upgrades, right? The ones who forgot about it. So that led to an experiment to prompt those customers to add the upgrade when they book their next service so they won’t forget.
Growth Experiments: Expanding market share by building a better product
The experiment I mentioned just now is one of the most basic I can run. The likelihood is very high that the experiment will succeed, but we’ll test it first anyway because you never know what you’ll find out.
On the other end of the spectrum, I’m also in the middle of testing a new product offering with a large corporate partner that has much broader implications and is a lot trickier. More reward, more risk, same analysis.
I can use the same set of sales and usage data for most of the growth experiments I want to run.
To run these experiments, I narrow down a customer segment, in this case by location. The size of the sample should be small enough to not be painful if we mess up, but large enough to matter. In fact, I’ve already had to add locations because the sample size wasn’t statistically significant. Then I run the experiment.
I usually check in on growth experiments daily or even a couple times a day in the beginning, to flesh out facts like my sample size is too small. Then I try to get to success or failure as quickly as possible.
Marketing Data: Creating new customers using the same value proposition
While all the previous data analysis is about increasing the size of our market, marketing data analysis is about increasing the size of our megaphone to the market.
For the Heavy scenario, we’ve got Hubspot and MailChimp and Google Analytics and all the social media accounts and everything is integrated and automated. In the Lite scenario, I’m just grabbing metrics from the ad server and from Google Analytics and throwing them in one of the spreadsheets. Google’s reports leave a lot to be desired, so I do it myself.
Marketing data analysis is actually just another review of the sales and performance data, but this time I go all the way back to first interaction, or where the customer first became aware of the product offering. I’m looking at impressions, email opens, click-throughs, and conversions, all compared to ad spend. I’m adding the cost of acquiring the customer to the cost of serving the customer.
The main difference with this analysis is that if marketing data is telling me to change something, that usually means changing either the marketing channel or the messaging or both. It’s only in rare cases that marketing data analysis leads to a product change, usually when my customers are confirming a hunch I already had from doing all the prior analysis.
With marketing data, I’m also running experiments, but these are growth hacking experiments, not growth experiments. They’re A/B testing offers, discounts, and messaging. They’re varying the channels, the audience, and the spend. But it all eventually ties back to sales and revenue.
Forensics: Chasing down problems and issues
Forensics is the special projects part of Data Day. When I start to see patterns I like or I don’t like, especially when I don’t like, I pull the corresponding data and comb through it to figure out what to do.
This usually means drilling down to and eventually combing through individual records— maybe single transactions, or customers, or product specs, or even code.
For example: In the Heavy scenario, we noticed anecdotally that chargebacks were becoming an issue. We didn’t have any idea where the spike came from, so I spent a couple hours at the end of a data day pulling transaction data that correlated to chargeback data and drilling down into the individual transactions themselves.
Turns out it was a combination of a single product, a single feature, and a couple customers exploiting a loophole. Rather than spend thousands of dollars on sophisticated software to sniff out bad actors with machine learning, we just closed the loophole. Problem solved.
Thanks, Data Day!
When I think about saving thousands of dollars with a few hours of data analysis, it almost overshadows all the additional revenue these product changes generate without the days and weeks of guesswork trying to figure out how to grow.
Data-driven product development doesn’t have to be scary and it doesn’t have to be all-in. There are a lot of ways that using data to build and grow our product is going to add to the bottom and top line, all without having to hire a data science team. | https://jproco.medium.com/how-i-use-data-to-build-better-products-f5a7bf39198 | ['Joe Procopio'] | 2019-07-08 10:42:39.728000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Productivity', 'Product Management'] |
How to Start Your Clothing Brand on a Budget? | So if you have taken a step to start your own business and are going for the clothing brand on a tight budget then this article is what you need!.
As we all love good fashionable clothes that’s what makes us unique and different from how we look and represent ourselves.
E-commerce is skyrocketing and sales are expected to reach $713 Billion by 2022.
Source: Shopify
Deciding Clothing Products That You want to SCALE!
For deciding products you must be clear about what you really want to sell. Some of them might be more interested in a unique and interesting opportunity to design a product which they like to be to be made as a personal brand, style, and personality.
It’s important to clear before what you want to consider to sell as a brand.
Short-Sleeve Shirts
Long Sleeve Shirts
Hoodies
Pants/Leggings
Dresses
Lingerie/Underwear/Socks
Each of the above product options and clothing line of business has its uniqueness and value. The opportunities, value, and available options for starting their own clothing brand at as less a price as possible and running.
Before starting out your own BRAND it’s vital to ask yourself some questions:
What should be my Identity behind my BRAND? What clothing line should I choose?
Who would like to wear my clothes? What audience should I design products for?
How saturated and hard it is to start in my niche?
What makes my clothing brand unique?
What is the important point in customer user experience?
Your answers to these core questions would be key to lay the foundation of your brand. All your branding designs expand either if it is the logo, business name, or designs.
Register an LLC Or Business company
When you are starting out make sure you register a sole proprietorship or a Business LLC with the help of a business attorney and general.
How to Choose a Clothing Business Model Line
If you are starting out your clothing business brand then now you have to make some key and important decisions.
Let’s take a look at each one:
Print On Demand Private Labelling Custom Sew
Print On Demand:
The business model involves third parties to ship already existing garments like t-shirts, hoodies, leggings, etc. With your logo, brand name, and your own custom design. Your custom designs and patterns are being fulfilled once the order is placed by the customer so there is no need for you to store inventory or manage inventory.
We recommend companies like Printful and Print on Demand which are one of the best top leading brands in the Print on demand industry with amazing high-quality products.
Pros:
No to low startup cost
High-quality prints
Wide range of color options
Many different clothing categories
Great for low quantity orders
Cons:
Not cost-friendly even with large orders
Quite limited print production selection
Few vendors for volume discounts
Private Labelling:
This business model of private labeling as a kind of middle point between print on demand and custom sewing, where as in it you buy blank or without labels clothing and then add your custom design and logo by yourself or through any company.
Pros:
Cost-Effective for buying in bulk
Volume Discounts
Increase in Profit margin
Cons:
Manage shipping by yourself
Can’t add photographs only designs and texts
Recommendations:
We recommend ThreadBird and mainly Just Like a Hero. They basically provide you with Blank Apparel for your clothing brand.
Custom Cut & Sew
The custom cut and sew business model is especially for those who want to start from scratch, which means from designing to manufacturing and shipping you do it on your own.
Pros:
100% custom designed made product
Increase profit margin value
Cons:
It is really costly and too high startup cost
Manage everything
Can take months to launch
Key Points to Note For Your Clothing Business Brand Plan
Market
Products
Uniqueness
Competitors
Fulfillment and shipping times
Brand Description
Vision
Goals
Create Your Clothing Brand from SCRATCH!
Register a domain as a brand name and make sure it is available at Name Cheap. Or you can even buy it from e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WordPress.
Then you need to choose platforms where all your backend functionalities of your online store will be there to manage your store. We recommend using Shopify as it’s really user friendly and easy to create your online clothing brand. It only costs $29 per month where the initial startup cost would be only:
Domain name — $14
Shopify Basic Plan — $29
= $44
Launch Your BRAND
Once all your stores are set up with fulfillment shipping and business plan. Here are a few tips you must go through while launching your brand.
Set clear Launch strategy
Prepare social media channels
Have your automation and email marketing is setup
Google Ad accounts and Fb Business managers are also set up.
Set up Google Analytics to track customers behavior
How to Get Traffic And Sales to Your Store?
For a new Brand, it’s really difficult to stand out among the top competitors in the clothing industry. So I am going to share some tips & tricks on how you can get traffic and sales: | https://medium.com/@moizkhan10/how-to-start-your-clothing-brand-on-a-budget-7552f7c9e32a | ['Abdul Moiz Khan'] | 2020-12-11 05:30:55.182000+00:00 | ['Ecommerce', 'Clothing', 'Online Shopping', 'Clothing Brand', 'Online Business'] |
Crazy deal alert: This 50-inch 4K HDR Roku TV is less than $200 today | If you're planning a socially distanced holiday season, you're going to need a bigger TV might watch Wonder Woman 1984 and catch up on The Mandalorian. That's where today's ridiculous deal comes in: Target is selling aHisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV with Roku built-in for $180Remove non-product link, down from the $300 MSRP and one of the best prices you're going to find on a 4K set.
The biggest feature for this TV is that it's rocking HDR (high dynamic range) supporting both Dolby Vision HDR and HDR 10. HDR is a feature that creates greater variations of colors allowing for a more vivid picture. In addition to HDR, the TV also supports DTS Studio Sound for your surround sound audio set-up as well as three HDMI ports, Ethernet, and a USB 2.0 port, as well as 802.11ac Wi-Fi but no Bluetooth.
This Hisense 50R6040G comes with Roku TV onboard giving you access to all kinds of premium video services including Apple TV, Disney Plus, Netflix, Hulu, and audio services like Pandora without any extra equipment. The set also works with Google Assistant and Alexa to control your TV via voice command. It has a game mode to improve input lag coming from your console, and the TV has a thin bezel providing a larger viewable screen area.
[Today's deal: Hisense 50-inch 4K HDR TV for $180 at TargetRemove non-product link]
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@laura49430583/crazy-deal-alert-this-50-inch-4k-hdr-roku-tv-is-less-than-200-today-cc9e651dabe0 | [] | 2020-12-24 21:32:38.414000+00:00 | ['Cutting', 'Surveillance', 'Home Tech', 'Home Theater'] |
Understanding Unit Test Android Kotlin | We all know about testing that is done by any QA but after completing a feature or application but what if Application or feature has a bug in it ?
As per our routine we go to our bugs logs refactor code manually test it and send back to QA to test it back. This process is manual and take too much time.
Photo by Ghiffary Ridhwan on Unsplash
“So we have a solution for this problem which is to test your application during the development process”
What to do ?
You need to write test code to test your application code yes it feels weird to hear this but in actual this is the simple best thing we can do to make our code flawless.
Most of the developer think that writing Unit Test is very difficult even my thoughts were same before i enlighten myself with the Unit Tests
So dear it’s not difficult or any alien’s phenomena so you have to stop avoiding them.
Photo by Jo Leonhardt on Unsplash
Let dive in ocean of Unit Testing
This read seems lengthy but stay with me
Basically we have 2 types of test in Android application
1- Functional / Unit tests
2- Instrumentation tests
Unit Test
What is unit test ? Unit Test are use to test the small portion of you application code just any function in your view model or in you repository.
Don’t worry its very easy test it you just have to write test and run it and it will run on your local JVM you don’t need any physical mobile or emulator
Whenever you create any new android application, studio make test packages and class for you automatically
Before moving further you need to keep in mind your code will be have more test coverage if you follow TDD and S.O.L.I.D principles.
By default, Unit tests are written in src/test/java/ folder
You will have to add gradle dependencies to work with Unit testing
add this test dependency in you app.gradle file
testImplementation "junit:junit:4.13.2"
you are all set to perform your local unit test
Annotations
The JUnit framework uses annotation extensively. Some of the important annotations are as follows
@BeforeClass: Run only once before running all test cases
@AfterClass: Run only once after running all test cases
@Before: Run before executing each test case
@After: Runs after executing each test case
@Test: Tells that this is test case that need to verify
@Rule: Used to add behavior of test cases
Assertion
Assertion is used to pass or fail the test case below are some assertions
fail() − To explicitly make a test case fail.
− To explicitly make a test case fail. assertTrue(boolean test_condition) − Checks that the test_condition is true
− Checks that the test_condition is true assertFalse(boolean test_condition) − Checks that the test_condition is false
− Checks that the test_condition is false assertEquals(expected, actual) − Checks that both values are equal
− Checks that both values are equal assertNull(object) − Checks that the object is null
− Checks that the object is null assertNotNull(object) − Checks that the object is not null
− Checks that the object is not null assertSame(expected, actual) − Checks that both refers same object.
− Checks that both refers same object. assertNotSame(expected, actual) − Checks that both refers different object.
Above are the default assertions provided by JUnit you can also use any other dependency to for assertion Google Truth
testImplementation "com.google.truth:truth:1.0.1"
Now you have enough knowledge to continue and perform Unit Testing 🏋🏻
Lets start testing of real Application
We have Android application which search for repositories on GitHub and display it in Recyclerview and upon clicking any item it will open repository url in chrome mobile browser.
Network call will be performed by Retrofit and Coroutines will be used for Asynchronous implementation.
Setup project
Add below test dependencies in your app.gradle file
testImplementation "junit:junit:4.13.2"
testImplementation "org.hamcrest:hamcrest-all:1.3"
testImplementation "androidx.arch.core:core-testing:2.1.0"
testImplementation "org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-test:1.4.1"
testImplementation "com.google.truth:truth:1.1.3"
testImplementation "org.mockito:mockito-core:3.10.0"
testImplementation 'com.squareup.okhttp3:mockwebserver:4.7.2'
testImplementation 'org.mockito:mockito-inline:2.13.0'
testImplementation is require for local test that will be in src/test/java/ folder
For Android related testing you need to add androidTestImplementation but for now stick to only local Unit tests.
Below is RepoApi.kt class on which we need to perform testing
In order to test network call Unit we need mock data and mock server which dependency is already added above
Now create RepoApiTest.kt class in same package path but in test folder
From here we will start using our Annotations and our process will be as follow
1- create class with RepoApiTest.kt name in same package but in test folder
2- To test service call response we need to setup mockserver and response to verify that we need to return from network call.
3- Annotate a method with @Before and initialize service class and start mock server
@Before
fun createService() {
mockWebServer = MockWebServer()
service = Retrofit.Builder()
.baseUrl(mockWebServer.url("/"))
.addConverterFactory(GsonConverterFactory.create())
.addCallAdapterFactory(LiveDataCallAdapterFactory())
.build()
.create(RepoApi::class.java)
}
4- Place a response json file to do this you need to create a directory name “resources” in root test folder and place you success.json in this directory
5- Create a method and annotate it with @After to clean up instances and shutdown mock server
@After
fun stopService() {
mockWebServer.shutdown()
}
6- Finally create a method annotate it with @Test and write your test case
@Test
fun searchSuccess() {
enqueueResponse(
"success_json.json"
)
runBlocking {
val response = service.getSearches("foo",page = "1")
assertThat(response.isSuccessful).isTrue()
assertThat(response.body() ).isNotNull()
assertThat(response.body()?.totalCount).isEqualTo(2128713)
assertThat(response.body()?.items?.size).isEqualTo(2)
}
}
enqueueResponse is method that will add our response file as mock response
private fun enqueueResponse(fileName: String, headers: Map<String, String> = emptyMap()) {
val source=TestMockResponseFileReader(fileName)
val mockResponse = MockResponse()
for ((key, value) in headers) {
mockResponse.addHeader(key, value)
}
mockWebServer.enqueue(
mockResponse
.setBody(source.content )
)
}
searchSuccess test method verify 4 things
- returned response is successful
- response body is not null
- totalCount is 2128713
- current items in response are 2
if all these test pass we will get verification
lets say we are not getting any item then this test case will be fail
7- run and Refactor
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
You can get complete project here
I know this read is lengthy but you have to make efforts to accomplish something. Do let me know in case of any confusion. | https://medium.com/@7alma9/understanding-unit-test-android-kotlin-8813bfee0ca7 | ['Salman Aziz'] | 2021-07-01 10:08:14.494000+00:00 | ['Kotlin', 'Testing', 'Android', 'Unit Testing', 'Tdd'] |
Daily Horoscope: Moon in Taurus | December 24 & 25, 2020
Moon in Taurus, Thursday and Friday, December 24 and 25, makes you aware of how very different this holiday season is compared to those of your past as the moon joins Uranus in Taurus, but also offers the chance for the establishment of new traditions as the moon and Uranus form a trine to the sun and Mercury conjunct in Capricorn. Technology enables most of us to stay separate and safe while still being together through video calls, but Venus in Sagittarius square to Neptune in Pisces emphasizes the longing we have for simpler and happier times when we could gather in groups without fear. Challenging aspects, such as Mars in Aries square to Pluto in Capricorn, and sun/Mercury square to Chiron in Aries, indicate it can be dangerous to yourself and others to disregard pandemic precautions and safety guidelines — selfishness can be deadly. While the destiny determining North Node in Gemini squares Neptune and opposes Venus, you may be missing of those who are no longer alive to enjoy this holiday. The understanding that destiny is fickle and life can change at any moment prompts you to try harder in maintaining or restoring relationships. Taurus is the Venus ruled earth sign that governs the senses and the 2nd house of money and personal values. This moon transit, combining the Uranian energy of change with the Venusian vibe of love in a sign associated with pleasure, comfort, and security, has the potential for an Ebenezer Scrooge or Grinch-like heart opening transformation in society and in your personal life. Be grateful and share.
Dunnea Rae
Aloha Astro | https://medium.com/@alohaastro/daily-horoscope-moon-in-taurus-317416a39255 | ['Dunnea Rae'] | 2020-12-24 21:12:36.596000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Spirituality', 'Culture', 'Astrology', 'Horoscopes'] |
Issei Sagawa: The Japanese Cannibal Who Went Viral | Issei’s cannibalistic desires began at a fairly young age after a dream in which he and his brother were being boiled in a pot, about to be eaten. Rather than be disturbed by this vivid and unusual dream, Issei began wondering what it would be like to taste human flesh. Issei’s desire to eat human flesh only grew when he began attending school. In the first grade, he found himself infatuated with a male classmate’s thigh. While he sat at his desk, he fantasized about what it would taste like.
Issei wasn’t attracted to women of his own race. The women who caught his eye were white, tall, and beautiful. However, it wasn’t a sexual desire Issei wanted to fulfill, it was a cannibalistic one.
Issei had been insecure about his stature ever since he was a young boy. At only 4'9" tall and with an exceptionally thin frame, Issei consistently referred to himself as a “weak, ugly and small man.” But, by age 24, he had come up with the perfect solution to his problem: he would eat the flesh of a white, tall and beautiful woman, and by doing so, he would become the same. He would become taller, he would be given the milky white skin he had always wanted, and he would become beautiful.
While walking down the street one day, Issei stumbled upon who he referred to as, ‘the perfect woman.’ Once Issei saw her, he knew he had to have her.
Issei followed the woman for some time and after learning where she lived, he returned late one summer night and broke into her home. He slowly crept into her bedroom where he found her asleep. Realizing he had no plan in place, Issei grabbed the closest item to him; an umbrella. He decided he would knock the woman unconscious with the umbrella, at which point he would retrieve a knife from the kitchen and slice off some of her flesh before fleeing. However, Issei’s ever-so-creative plan didn’t go as well as he had hoped.
He accidentally brushed the woman’s leg, she awoke terrified and began screaming. She pushed Issei to the ground and phoned the police. Issei was arrested and charged with attempted rape. Of course, he had no desire to inform the authorities of his true intention that night. Fortunately for Issei, his father had no shortage of funds. He offered a large sum of money to the victim in exchange for dropping the charges against his son, and she agreed.
A few years later, at the age of 27, Issei moved to Paris, France, to study literature at Sorbonne, one of the world’s most renowned research universities. By this time, Issei’s desire to eat human flesh had only advanced. He decided it would be easier to prey on sex workers, but surprisingly, his morals stood in the way, “Almost every night I would bring a prostitute home and then try to shoot them, but for some reason, my fingers froze up and I couldn’t pull the trigger.”
For the next four years, Issei successfully kept his cannibalistic desires hidden and buried, that was until 1981, when he met Renée Hartevelt. | https://chameleontruecrimestories.com/issei-sagawa-the-japanese-cannibal-who-went-viral-52d7cb8a936 | ['Fatim Hemraj'] | 2021-03-04 21:11:56.258000+00:00 | ['Crime', 'History', 'True Crime', 'Paris', 'Murder'] |
I’m seeing 11’s too :) | Living 17,043rd human life. I am Marcus (universal name) or you may call me Greg; a deep thinker; an explorer of ideas and the mind. [email protected] | https://medium.com/@marcus17043/im-seeing-11-s-too-a2484d822ea1 | [] | 2020-12-11 15:17:37.771000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Universe', 'Mindfulness', 'Angels', 'Numerology'] |
How to Become a Hardware Engineer? | With the development of technology, engineering began to take its place in almost every field. The biggest reason for this is that projects are started to be made in every sector and engineers are needed to prepare these projects. Hardware engineers are also one of the important engineering branches needed. Although the software is often needed in long-term projects, hardware is also needed on the other hand. At this point, hardware engineering is needed as much as software engineering.
Hardware engineers are people who follow the design process of computer components, including circuit boards, processors, and memory cards. In order to become a hardware engineer, it is required to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Computer Engineering, Electrical — Electronics Engineering, and one of the related departments, which provide four-year education at universities. It is also important that they continue their development processes uninterruptedly since their graduation.
What is a hardware engineer? What does a hardware engineer do? How much salary does a hardware engineer earn? You can find the answers you are looking for to questions:
What is a Hardware Engineer?
Hardware engineer is the person who follows the design, development, and testing processes. To the designs in this process; including the design of all computer components, including circuit boards, processors, and memory cards. The main task of the hardware engineer is to design and manufacture all the hardware of the computer. Hardware engineer is one of the engineering branches most affected by technology. Although the software is mentioned more in most projects, the need for hardware is too high to be ignored.
Candidate students who want to be hardware engineers must have a 4-year undergraduate degree from related departments at universities. After graduation, they should continue to improve themselves in this field. It is expected that they should follow the technologies closely and examine the sectoral changes well. Some important professional qualifications are also sought for candidates who want to continue their careers as hardware engineers.
These qualities can be listed as follows.
They are expected to have the creativity to design new information technologies.
They must demonstrate critical thinking skills.
Mathematical intelligence and analytical thinking skills should be strong.
Must demonstrate the ability to create prototypes.
They must demonstrate the ability to communicate verbally and in writing, able to explain technical issues clearly.
Must be able to provide teamwork and management.
What Does a Hardware Engineer Do?
The biggest responsibility of the hardware engineer is to design and manufacture all the hardware of the computer. Thanks to the education they received to be a hardware engineer, they grow up with the equipment to take all the responsibilities in their profession. Although their duties vary according to the characteristics of the institutions, their basic responsibilities are almost the same.
The general duties and responsibilities of professional professionals can be listed as follows:
They design and develop computer hardware parts, including the processor (CPU), microprocessor, microchip, printers, and disk drives.
They test completed models of designed computer hardware.
They check the operation of the equipment and make the necessary changes to ensure that the system works in accordance with the technical specifications.
They determine power supply needs.
They analyze user needs and recommend appropriate equipment to relevant persons or organizations.
They update existing computer equipment to work with new software.
They evaluate factors such as the need for cost and security constraints to determine hardware configuration.
In the product development and application process; they provide technical support to the design team, marketing and sales departments, suppliers, other engineers, and all team members.
They prepare statistical reports and present them to the management department.
They follow the innovations in the field of hardware and continue their professional development.
Hardware Engineer Salaries
The minimum education requirement to become a hardware engineer is usually a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering or a similar discipline. However, having a master’s degree can increase their success in the profession. Graduating from a Higher Education approved program can also attract the attention of a hiring manager. For hardware engineers who want to work in a leadership position, having an MBA will be the right move.
It is very important to follow the developments in this field and to continue the development in order to be aware of the technological advances. It is possible to talk about better job opportunities for graduates who improve themselves. Some institutions provide support training for personal development. In addition, companies that care about language education primarily prefer candidates with high foreign language knowledge. Let’s examine the salaries of hardware engineers.
According to the opinion of the Occupational Statistics Bureau, the average annual salary for hardware engineers is around 115,000 TL.
The lowest hardware engineer salary is seen as 66,000 TL per year in Turkey.
The highest-earning hardware engineer earns a salary of approximately 177,000 TL per year.
In 2019, approximately 74,000 Americans continued their work as hardware engineers. It is predicted that this number will increase to approximately 78,000 in 2029. The resulting increase in the number of common devices using embedded computer chips seems likely to add to the need for hardware engineers.
How to Become a Hardware Engineer
Candidates who want to be a hardware engineer first research what kind of education they should get. Apart from this, they also research what kind of career path they will have as a result of the education they receive. Information about both their education and career paths is as follows; In order to become a hardware engineer, it is necessary to graduate from the four-year education programs of universities, Computer Engineering, Electrical — Electronics Engineering, and related departments. There is a requirement to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from these pieces of training.
With its most basic definition, a hardware engineer is one of the people who design the technology of the future. These computer experts have an important role in the development of many useful products using their knowledge of computer components and how they function. For example; works for new video game consoles make improvements in mobile phones or develops smart automotive systems.
It is possible to talk about a wide range of job opportunities in private and public institutions. Hardware engineers generally work in laboratories and high-tech manufacturing companies located in large metropolitan areas. Some hardware engineers hold positions in academia or government. The career journey of a hardware engineer; may continue as a senior hardware design engineer or as a computer and information systems administrator. In addition to these, engineers working as design engineering managers are also common.
What are the Duties and Responsibilities of a Hardware Engineer?
They are responsible for testing completed models of designed computer hardware. They control the operation of the equipment and are the person responsible for making changes to ensure that the system operates in accordance with the specifications. They also determine the needs of its sources.
What are the Qualifications a Hardware Engineer Should Have?
They are expected to have the creativity and mathematical intelligence to design new information technologies. They must exhibit critical thinking skills and have strong analytical thinking skills. They are expected to demonstrate the ability to create prototypes and they need to work in harmony in teamwork.
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👉 NAXCON GmbH | https://medium.com/@naxcon-gmbh/how-to-become-a-hardware-engineer-cc8ee68cea66 | ['Naxcon Gmbh'] | 2022-01-25 10:58:33.693000+00:00 | ['Hardware', 'Engineer', 'Software', 'Hardware Engineer', 'Hardware Developer'] |
Why feedback shouldn’t be hard | Why feedback shouldn’t be hard
I don’t know if you have ever asked for feedback during your professional life. I know this wasn’t something I usually liked.
The thing about feedback is that we put all these negative expectations just thinking about it. Normally because we understand them as something bad.
But should it be bad? Should a comment about how you work and what to improve necessarily be a bad thing? Not at all.
Yes, being in the spot isn’t always a good thing. But unfamiliar situations are a good learning experience.
And also, professionals that are willing to give honest feedback are those whO believe you can get better.
This is called potencial. With that said, let’s embrace honest feedback and grow.
Recently, I had a feedback moment with someone I work with. And he is someone I respect deeply, especially because he can be super honest. But in a good, attentive, I believe in you way.
He said that in past work situations when I made mistakes, I would always justify saying something like: I am only human and mistakes happen.
That is obviously true, but it doesn’t make me smarter or safer using this as an excuse. The best way to solve errors is acknowledging them and reviewing processes.
But I always believed that I needed to quickly justify myself. Not as a honest I made a mistake move. More like I can’t handle criticism.
When both sides are open to feedback, there are wonderful opoortunities to learn, grow and especially improve yourself.
My way of seeing is that we don’t like to hear bad things about us, but isn’t one of the main points in life to actually evolve?
Honest feedback is a good way to move forward. | https://medium.com/@paulafilizola/why-feedback-shouldnt-be-hard-6951b5e7f425 | ['Paula Filizola'] | 2020-12-04 11:23:57.116000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Honesty', 'Feedback', 'Workplace', 'Journey Of Life'] |
Fault tree analysis (FTA) — Secret weapon for root cause analysis | Fault tree analysis is one of the most commonly used methods in system reliability analysis. It is a process of system design or improvement by analyzing various factors that may lead to system failure, including hardware, software, environment, human factors, etc. By drawing the fault tree, we can determine the possible combinations of modes and the probability of the cause of the system failure. The failure probability of the system is calculated and the corresponding measures are taken.
FTA is a design analysis and evaluation methods to improve system reliability. It is often used in the process of Six Sigma, especially in the analysis phase of Six Sigma business improvement process.
How to perform fault tree analysis
Suppose you have a database system failure analysis tree that starts with a database failure and analyzes the factors that can cause database and application failures.
The fault tree analysis is a process of exhausting the causes of failure. It is a top-down analysis where we start with symptoms, take a missed the bus as an example, and then list possible causes in a hierarchical way that forming a tree structure. The tree structure of names comes from the various branches that can cause symptoms.
FTA Notation
A Fault Tree Analysis uses a few basic symbols to outline various points, causes, and effects in a process. There are many symbols, but here are some of the basics to help you get started designing a fault tree diagram.
Symbols are used to represent various events and describe relationships:
Gate Symbols
And gate — represents a condition in which all the events shown below the gate (input gate) must be present for the event shown above the gate (output event) to occur. This means the output event will occur only if all of the input events exist simultaneously.
Or gate — represents a situation in which any of the events shown below the gate (input gate) will lead to the event shown above the gate (output event). The event will occur if only one or any combination of the input events exists.
Event symbols
There are five types of event symbols:
Rectangle — The rectangle is the main building block for the analytical tree. It represents the negative event and is located at the top of the tree and can be located throughout the tree to indicate other events capable of being broken down further. This is the only symbol that will have a logic gate and input events below it.
Circle — A circle represents a base event in the tree. These are found on the bottom tiers of the tree and require no further development or breakdown. There are no gates or events below the base event.
Diamond — The diamond identifies an undeveloped terminal event. Such an event is not fully developed because of a lack of information or significance. A fault tree branch can end with a diamond. For example, most projects require personnel, procedures, and hardware. The tree developer may decide to concentrate on the personnel aspect of the procedure and not the hardware or procedural aspects. In this case, the developer would use diamonds to show “procedures” and “hardware” as undeveloped terminal events.
Oval — An oval symbol represents a special situation that can only happen if certain circumstances occur. This is spelled out in the oval symbol. An example of this might be if switches must be thrown in a specific sequence before an action takes place.
Triangle — The triangle signifies a transfer of a fault tree branch to another location within the tree. Where a triangle connects to the tree with an arrow, everything shown below the connection point transfers to another area of the tree. This area is identified by a corresponding triangle that is connected to the tree with a vertical line. Letters, numbers or figures identify one set of transfer symbols from another. To maintain the simplicity of the analytical tree, the transfer symbol should be used sparingly.
Fault Tree Diagram Example — Light cannot turn on
Let’s look at an example of a basic fault tree analysis: You flip a switch to turn on a light, but the light does not turn on. The fault condition is “No light in the room,” so that’s the beginning of the diagram
Next, what are the potential reasons the light didn’t turn on?
Edit this Diagram
Fault Tree Example — System no Warning Template
Edit this Diagram
More FTA Examples
Fault Tree Missed Bus Example
System no Warning
No Light in Room
Fault Tree Diagram Illustration
Educational Fault Tree Analysis Example
Growth obstacles Fault Tree Analysis
Component Flow Fault Tree Analysis
Fault Tree Analysis Sample
Electrical Fault Tree Analysis
Gas Pipes Fault Tree Analysis
Mid Size Fault Tree Analysis Example
Fault Tree Analysis Example
Basic Fault Tree Analysis | https://medium.com/@warren2lynch/fault-tree-analysis-fta-secret-weapon-for-root-cause-analysis-5f7a1f458d02 | ['Warren Lynch'] | 2021-02-19 10:07:48.537000+00:00 | ['Systems Thinking', 'Manufacturing', 'Risk Management', 'Engineering Mangement'] |
Reparations are Owed to Africa | I used to believe that ‘globalization’ was a force for good in the world, however, after thinking through the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the global economy, my perspective has shifted in favor of ‘deglobalization’. It once seemed obvious to me that the free flow of goods, people, and services would result in greater wealth for us all, but it is now far more tempting to ask: Greater wealth for whom? Globalization requires a perpetually cheap supply of labor to keep prices low and profits high. But the workers responsible for generating this wealth are too often left out of the equation, particularly those living in middle-to-low income countries like Ghana.
Globalization has enabled Ghana to become the largest producer of cocoa anywhere in the world. The cocoa industry employs 800,000 farmers in Ghana and it supports the livelihood of millions more working in various other parts of the economy. But most Ghanaian farmers earn less than $1.00 each day. That’s because most of the economic surplus generated by the global trade of cocoa is captured and consolidated in the hands of a few multinational corporations headquartered outside of Ghana. Ghanaian farmers could raise their prices in hopes of keeping a greater share of the wealth created by cocoa each year (currently valued at $24.5B), but it’s not clear whether the Ghanaian government would allow that to happen since a notable change in price might result in fewer sales contracts for their corporate partners. It is the global market that creates the need for price controls and a minimum wage in Ghana, not the government. This cruel fact of life seems to me like strong evidence of an uneven distribution of wealth, income and personal assets in Ghana, much like the United States.
Critics of ‘deglobalization’ contend that a macroeconomic shift toward local or regional economies in Africa would portend a sharp fall in both corporate profits and stock, as well as, reverse decades of economic growth in countries just like Ghana. I don’t yet know enough about the economics of international development to say whether such claims are true, but the latter consequence seems far worse to me than the former given the record-breaking profits posted by Amazon and other large multinational corporations this year. Learning more about the Ghanaian economy has helped me realize the importance of studying topics in international business. Because of globalization, whatever happens to cocoa farmers in Ghana, is likely to have some degree of effect on chocolate consumers here in the US.
I am willing to pay $0.30 cents more for a Hershey’s chocolate bar if it means better living conditions for the Ghanaian farmer who harvested it. But narrowly defining the issue in that way is to miss the forest for the trees. I am far more concerned with the growing consolidation of Ghana’s wealth in the hands of a few elite white business owners, a situation only made plausible by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the Rape of Africa just a few generations ago. Having learned more about the plight of Ghanaian cocoa farmers this year, it’s not clear to me why the workers in any country should bear the costs of COVID-19, a global health crisis fueled by bad government policy, irresponsible politicians and corporate greed, especially when the average cocoa farmer in Ghana lives in extreme poverty through no fault of their own.
If you believe, as I do, that the purpose of economic development is to increase everyone’s quality of life on Earth, then there is a strong argument to be made that what is owed to Africans anywhere and everywhere in the world is reparations. Whether in the form of direct cash payments or immediate debt cancellation, I’ve long thought that an intentional redistribution of the wealth created by globalization could remedy its most harmful effects, like intergenerational poverty and climate change. But now I know it could also bring about a virtuous business cycle that ensures long-term peace and economic prosperity for us all. The COVID-19 crisis has only solidified my belief in the cause of reparations for people of African descent. | https://medium.com/@noelgordonjr/reparations-are-owed-to-africa-419d34b6f60c | ['Noel Gordon Jr'] | 2020-12-22 03:01:15.294000+00:00 | ['Cocoa', 'Economics', 'Africa', 'Racism', 'Ghana'] |
Braving it through (Day 37) | Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
What I was reminded of today is that babies also can have bad days. Even though they would want to tell us what is the reason behind a bad mood but can’t, sometimes, like with adults, there is just no apparent reason.
They’re just all fussy, weepy and annoyed. All they want to do is cry, feed and sleep. Oh, and be in someone’s arms the whole time. Today was one of those days for our little boy.
Even before I gave birth to Otto I kinda mentally prepared for these times. I concluded that in these kinds of moments, all I can do is tell myself that this is not how it will always be. Babies are sensitive to pretty much everything because it is all just plain new to them. So best what you can do is always try to find the reason and tend to whatever needs they have.
With my husband away for work most of the day I now see what a benefit it is to have someone who shares these moments with you. And to have a partner so invested into being a father as I do is a blessing.
We give strength to one another I think. It is so easy to be snappy when it becomes challenging (and I often do). But today, all I feel is gratitude that I don’t have to do this alone.
Motherhood in numbers: | https://medium.com/a-year-in-a-life/braving-it-through-day-37-694ee4e4e859 | ['Sara Tomsic'] | 2019-10-24 20:54:01.617000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Newborn', 'Baby', 'Motherhood', 'Parenting'] |
Books in Black | Books in Black
Photo by Adam Birkett on Unsplash
Mr. Shopkeeper,
Assalamualaekum!
I’m in a rush
Do you have these books
By such and such?
I’m sorry Mr. in-rush
It’s black in law
Black for what?
Mr. Mad becomes
Of Mr. in-rush
Don’t know as much
Couldn't care less
How about this one?
Not available yet
Yet or forever?
I am not in power,
Whatsoever!
Mr. Mad gets madder
Ugh, ugh, ugh!
How can wood shreds
Hurt so much?
I’ve got the money,
I’ve got my clutch
Buy the recommended
It’s clean, no rut
You’ve got the money
You’ve got the clutch
Not my taste
Thank you very much | https://medium.com/@duaaezainabjafri/books-in-black-135a6071d8b6 | ['Zainab Jafri'] | 2020-12-07 08:44:49.976000+00:00 | ['Power', 'Satire', 'Censorship', 'Books', 'Poetry'] |
Solving for Eigenstates: The Time-Independent Schrödinger Equation | Exploring Computational Quantum Mechanics
If you’ve ever ventured anywhere near the field of quantum mechanics, you’ve almost certainly heard of the “mystical” Schrödinger Equation.
Time-Dependent Schrodinger Equation
Much like Newton’s Second Law, which describes the propagation of particles in a classical system, where every particle has definite properties like position and momentum, the Schrödinger equation allows us to understand how a quantum system evolves, where each particle is described by a single, collective wavefunction.
What’s the difference between the Time-Dependent and Time-Independent Schrodinger Equation?
Since the Time-Dependent Schrodinger Equation (TDSE) allows for standing waves, we can solve for those specifically by simplifying the TDSE into the Time-Independent Schrodinger Equation (TISE).
Time-Independent Schrodinger Equation
If you look at the TISE, you’ll see a two main stark differences:
Firstly, there is no time-dependence (though that should have been implied by the name of the equation). Standing waves remain constant over time (except in phase), so the probability density of the particle remains constant. Thus, time at which the wavefunction is captured is irrelevant.
Secondly, instead of the partial derivative with respect to time on the left-hand side (which represents our energy operator), we have a constant energy (E), which represents the energy of the state. Therefore, the solutions to the TISE are energy eigenstates.
If you want to learn more about Quantum Mechanics before we dive in, I highly recommend checking out MIT OpenCourseWare at https://ocw.mit.edu, which has some excellent lectures on Quantum Mechanics.
HOW DO WE SOLVE IT, THOUGH?
Because of the simplified structure of the TISE, we can use a few clever (in my opinion, at least) tricks to solve for the energy levels and eigenstates.
If you’ve taken linear algebra, the word eigenstates probably reminds you of another similar term: eigenvectors. Let’s examine the (now color-coded) TISE, where we see a very familiar structure.
Color-coded TISE (Made with CodeCogs)
On the right-hand side we have the magenta operator (a.k.a. the Hamiltonian) being applied to our eigenstate and on the left-hand side, we have the blue variable E (a.k.a. the total energy) scaling the eigenstate.
We can pull close parallels between this equation and the TISE (Made with CodeCogs)
Here we have the equation describing the relationship between a transformation matrix, an eigenvector, and its corresponding eigenvalue. Just like the TISE, this is color-coded, with magenta being our transformation matrix and the blue being our eigenvalues.
THAT ALL SEEMS GREAT, BUT HOW DO WE TURN THE OPERATOR INTO A MATRIX?
Unfortunately, we can’t perfectly convert the operator into the matrix. However, we can closely approximate the operator using massive matrices.
Think back to your introductory calculus class when you had to differentiate with the difference quotient. Surprise, surprise! We’re doing that again (but in a slightly different manner.
In this instance, we will use a finite number of points to sample the wavefunction. We can approximate the second derivative with the difference quotient like so:
Expression for the second-order difference quotient (Made with CodeCogs)
If we take a look at the difference quotient here, we notice that it is symmetrical, which is to say, the samples used to calculate the second derivative lie symmetrically around the point at which we seek to calculate the derivative. This means we can create a Hermitian matrix describing the second derivative of the vector describing the wavefunction.
Matrix approximation of second derivative (Made with CodeCogs)
Unfortunately, we cannot wholly describe a derivative with this matrix representation (or with any finite-size matrix).
However, with this revelation of using matrices to approximate derivatives, we are one step closer to solving this problem.
The Hamiltonian consists of two parts, the kinetic and potential energy.
Matrix approximation of kinetic and potential energy (Made with CodeCogs)
Our matrix representation for the second derivative can be scaled by the Planck constant and the mass of our system to give us our kinetic energy.
As for the matrix representation of the potential energy, we simply create a diagonal matrix with our sampled potential energy function.
The total energy (represented by our Hamiltonian) is the sum of the kinetic and potential energies, giving us our final matrix:
For simplicity, we will assume that the Planck Constant is 1 and the mass is 0.5, so that our coefficients can be removed.
Matrix approximation of the Hamiltonian (Made with CodeCogs)
Now that we have our matrix representation, we can rewrite our TISE into a form we can approximate the solution for.
Bolded variables represent our matrix approximations and arrow-ed variables are vectors.
Matrix equation for the TISE (Made with CodeCogs)
Finally, we have an eigenvalue problem we can solve! Let’s dive in!
AT LAST, THE GOOD STUFF: CODE
LANDING LIBRARIES & PREPARING PARAMETERS
We’re now at the final stretch where we can make all our lives easier just using code.
For this section, I’m assuming you have Python 3 and the NumPy, SciPy, and Matplotlib libraries ready to go.
First off, let’s import the necessary methods and modules!
import numpy as np
from scipy.sparse import diags #Allows us to construct our matrices
from scipy.sparse.linalg import eigsh #Solves the Eigenvalue problem
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
Matrix approximation for Second Derivative (Made with CodeCogs)
Because our matrices are mostly just filled with zeros, we can use sparse matrices to hold our approximation for the Hamiltonian to conserve storage and optimize our calculations.
The scipy.sparse module provides a vast array of methods that we can use to make sure our program is efficient.
Now that we’ve imported the necessary information, let’s set the parameters that allow us to keep our program as flexible as possible.
First off, let’s decide how accurate we want our program to be.
Our variable N will determine the size of our matrices, where a bigger matrix typically tends to be more accurate. This comes with the heavy price of computational expense. The bigger our matrices, the longer the eigenstates will take to compute.
I find that N = 1000 is a suitable value for my device, but depending on your computational constraints, another value might be better suited for you. Play around!
Next, we’ll set the physical parameters. Remember the Planck Constant and the mass of the system? We’ll set those here. For simplicity, however, we’ll just leave them as hbar = 1 and m = 0.5 .
Of course, we can’t do much in the way of calculations without setting a coordinate system. Since we’re working in one dimension right now, we’ll use the variable x to keep track of our x-axis and the variables xmin and xmax to record to limits of our axis.
Let’s set xmin = -1 and xmax = 1 to keep a reasonable area. To get our x , we’ll use the np.linspace method to create our axis: x = np.linspace(xmin, xmax, N) .
Of course, we also need to remember dx so we can scale our kinetic energy matrix appropriately. This gives us dx = (xmax - xmin)/(N + 1) .
Finally, we need the potential function for which we are solving our TISE for. Let’s start off with the finite well.
If you’ve taken a QM course before, you’ve probably come across this potential before. It’s a fairly standard potential with easily recognizable solutions.
Finite potential well (Annafitzgerald, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
We’ll store the potential function in the variable U . But to create our well, we need to decide the length of the well ( L ) and the depth of the well ( W ). Since our axis spans from -1 to 1, we can set L = 1.5 , so our well spans from -0.75 to 0.75. We’ll also set W = 100 , because it’s nice and large, and gives us some room for adjustment (I also might have tested for some nice peaceful-looking numbers.
To create our potential functions, we can use the np.where method, which allows us to conditionally set the values of the array depending on the x-values:
U = np.where((x < L/2) & (x > -L/2), 0, W)
Let’s sum it all up!
### IMPORTS ###
import numpy as np
from scipy.sparse import diags #Allows us to construct our matrices
from scipy.sparse.linalg import eigsh #Solves the Eigenvalue problem
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
### CONSTANTS ###
N = 1000
hbar = 1
m = 0.5
xmin = -1
xmax = 1
x = np.linspace(xmin, xmax, N)
dx = (xmax - xmin)/(N + 1) L = 1.5
W = 1
U = np.where((x < L/2) & (x > -L/2), 0, W)
Tada! We have all of our constants set up!
MANUFACTURING MATRICES & EVALUATING EIGENSTATES
Next, we have to produce the matrices to actually calculate our eigenstates. Thankfully, all the hard work of figuring out how these matrices work has already been done.
Let’s start off with the matrix for the second-derivative.
Matrix approximation of kinetic and potential energy (Made with CodeCogs)
To create this matrix, we’ll use the scipy.sparse.diags method. This method allows us to feed in a float or ndarray list containing the values for the diagonals along with an int list describing the offsets (which diagonal our values will live on).
We see that the -2 values are on the main diagonal (offset = 0). The 1’s are on the closest upper and lower diagonals (offsets = ∓1).
We also can’t forget our scaling factor 1 / (dx**2) !
Plugging that all in to the function, we get our variable d2dx2 :
d2dx2 = diags([1, -2, 1], offsets=[-1, 0, 1], shape=(N, N))/(dx**2)
From here, we can create our kinetic energy operator ( T ), which is just d2dx2 scaled by -(hbar**2)/(2 * m) , to give us:
T = -(hbar**2)/(2 * m) * d2dx2
We’re nearly halfway done!
To create our potential energy operator ( V ), all we have to do is stick it on a diagonal, which is easier done than said.
V = diags([U], offsets=[0], shape=(N, N))
And with that, our potential energy operator is complete.
Finally, to get our Hamiltonian we just sum the potential energy and kinetic energy.
H = T + V
With the Hamiltonian, all we have to do now is actually calculate the eigenvalues and eigenvectors.
Buuut, before we do that, let’s discuss our eigenvalue and eigenvector method eigsh .
In our problem, the eigenvalues represent the energies of our wavefunctions, so we aim to find the smallest eigenvalue and eigenvector pairs.
Unfortunately, eigsh , by default, returns the largest eigenvalues. However, it does have a handy keyword parameter to return the smallest eigenvalues first.
eigvals, eigvecs = eigsh(H, which="SM")
eigvals and eigvecs are our two variables containing the eigenvalues and eigenvectors, respectively.
To tie it all together:
### PREPARE MATRICES ###
d2dx2 = diags([1, -2, 1], offsets=[-1, 0, 1], shape=(N, N))/(dx**2)
T = -(hbar**2)/(2 * m) * d2dx2
V = diags(U)
H = T + V
### CALCULATE EIGENSTATES ###
eigvals, eigvecs = eigsh(H, which="SM", k=k)
You’ll notice there is an extra parameter k , that’s just the number of solutions you want to return. The default is 6.
VISUALIZING VECTORS & PLOTTING PROBABILITIES
Of course, as they say, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” I’d like this code to reflect that, so we’ll just create some nice old visualization code.
First, let’s analyze what our two variables ( eigvals and eigvecs ) are like.
eigvals : An np.ndarray of floats with shape (k,) listing the eigenvalues.
eigvecs : An np.ndarray of floats with shape (N, k) listing the eigenvectors.
To get the pairs of eigenvalues and eigenvectors, essentially eigvals[i] pairs with eigvecs[:, i] .
Now that we have that, let’s start plotting! (Yay, we can finally bring in the Matplotlib!)
First, let’s plot our potential:
plt.plot(x, U)
To visualize the i-th eigenvalue and eigenvector, we will plot a dotted line at the energy level along with the eigenvector itself. Of course, these eigenvectors aren’t already located near the energy level and for our visualization, we’ll just add the energy level to the eigenvector (read as wavefunction) to translate it to the appropriate location.
We’re also going to display our probability distribution, so if you remember, the probability distribution is the product of the wavefunction with its conjugate. Thankfully, the .conj() method of np.ndarray comes to our rescue!
plt.plot(x, np.full_like(x, eigvals[i]), "k--")
plt.plot(x, eigvals[i] + eigvecs[:, i] * scale, 'k')
plt.plot(x, eigvals[i] + eigvecs[:, i] * eigvecs[:, i].conj() * scale ** 2, 'b')
Sorry, sorry, once again, I threw in an extra parameter scale (I prefer scale = 60 ). All for good reason, though. Depending on the scale of the system, it might be helpful to scale the wavefunctions to a more visible scale.
Throwing in the loop we get:
for i in range(k):
plt.plot(x, np.full_like(x, eigvals[i]), "k--")
plt.plot(x, eigvals[i] + eigvecs[:, i] * scale, 'k')
plt.plot(x, eigvals[i] + eigvecs[:, i] * eigvecs[:, i].conj() * scale ** 2, 'b')
Of course, we can’t have a proper display without showing our plot, so:
plt.show()
Wrapping it all up, our plotting demands can be satisfied in just six very simple lines:
### PLOTTING ###
plt.plot(x, U)
for i in range(k):
plt.plot(x, np.full_like(x, eigvals[i]), "k--")
plt.plot(x, eigvals[i] + eigvecs[:, i] * scale, 'k')
plt.plot(x, eigvals[i] + eigvecs[:, i] * eigvecs[:, i].conj() * scale * scale, 'b') plt.show()
CONCATENATING CODE
We’re almost the end of our thrilling journey of actually programming the “solver,” but we’re not entirely done yet. Let’s combine all the code together to create our final program. | https://medium.com/@arvin-singhk/solving-for-eigenstates-the-time-independent-schr%C3%B6dinger-equation-b09278c4f1f1 | ['Arvin Singh Kushwaha'] | 2020-12-26 15:18:00.326000+00:00 | ['Math', 'Python', 'Computational Science', 'Physics', 'Quantum'] |
Time to celebrate: 0% fee! | ZERO NIL 零 НУЛЬ صفر נול
0% fee to show how much we love our delegates. Yes, you read that right: now it’s the best time to become a TezoSteam delegate (if you aren’t already).
It’s been a while since our last update, many things happened behind the curtains. We as TezoSteam and all our beloved delegates have been into this project since the very beginning, back in June 2017. Now, with our star finally rising, it’s time to celebrate; and we’d like to do that with a lot of style and a bit of extra flavor. A lot is cooking so, there we go with the first batch of news:
0% fee
Did I mention the 0% fee? TezoSteam has always kept the highest possible standard for its services. That’s why our fee was 14%. We created and sustained some of the best practices of the whole baking industry, that now all respectable operators have inherited, but we did that since ever.
With XTZ price rising, we’d like to give something back. Starting from the first snapshot happening in March, our fees will go straight to 0%. It’s our way to say “thank you” to all our delegators and to Tezos project. So, spread out the word — plenty of room for new delegations without any costs attached.
Join our Telegram group and learn how to delegate us!
More 0% fee
TezoSteam will evolve into something new and different. As many of our beloved delegators know, we are part of a much bigger project named Staking Team. For a bunch of reasons, we’ll switch to a new bakery. We’re finalizing details, but the good news is the new bakery will have 0% fee as well.
As soon as we’ll announce new project inception, we’ll kindly ask all our old and new delegators to move to Staking Team brand new bakery. The 0% fee will be active for a promotional phase — more info will come shortly, but be sure we’ll do our best to provide the same high-quality service you are used to.
What will happen later
TezoSteam bakery will turn into a private service. More info will come with the next blog post. Staking Team will be our new flagship bakery. Many improvements will follow, including a lower fee, a VIP loyalty system and other major news (including new projects in Staking Team galaxy).
But for the next weeks, it’s just time to celebrate. So enjoy the 0% fee, and if you want to thank us... Just spread the word! It’s going to be an unforgettable moment of your life as a Tezos holder.
Thanks a lot! :)
Staking Team
https://stakingteam.com/
https://twitter.com/StakingTeam | https://medium.com/@stakingteam/time-to-celebrate-0-fee-b5ab701a1ce3 | [] | 2020-02-20 15:54:45.249000+00:00 | ['Proof Of Stake', 'Staking Rewards', 'Blockchain', 'Tezos', 'Promotion'] |
Introducing the New ARK Docs — Guides, Tutorials, and More | Since its inception, ARK Docs has always been a valuable resource for our community. Everyone from developers to our partners have utilized ARK Docs to work on their own projects, tools and services. Today, we are happy to showcase the new ARK Docs which will become your main hub for documentation, tutorials, guides and more!
The New ARK Docs
A clean new design is immediately apparent. Just as with all of our products, we have standardized and streamlined our design across multiple areas (all our upcoming projects will follow this new design style). In terms of ARK Docs, we have incorporated this simple layout with major documentation split among our eight main products.
New ARK Docs are accessible at https://ark.dev
A quick glance reveals exactly what you need. Click a product and go straight to that products main documentation. Selecting Core will take you to the Core introductory page and from there you can navigate to other specific areas.
The content is organized simply and clearly. Different categories include architecture, services, transactions, how-to guides and update guides.
Additional Guides and Tutorials
In addition to our main product guides, users will find other ARK related guides. There are guides for exchange integration, API guides and guides for our ARK Grants and Security/Development Bounty Programs. Additionally, our Software Development Kits are available in six popular programming languages!
This new documentation will be an important resource for developers and partners. Additionally, our multi-part tutorials clearly illustrate how to apply ARK’s Blockchain Framework to specific applications.
Each tutorial series will be broken down in easy to digest parts where developers can tackle a project all at once or break it down into manageable sections over time. We already have two great tutorial series available at launch within ARK Docs and more on the way!
If you would like to see a specific tutorial or have a request, you can reach out to us by using the ARK Docs contact form: https://ark.dev/contact
As our products evolve and our community continues to expand, so will ARK Docs. The information within ARK Docs will be a valuable resource to the entire community that will constantly evolve to reflect the needs of developers, partners and community members. | https://medium.com/ark-io/introducing-the-new-ark-docs-guides-tutorials-and-more-36ad1397701a | [] | 2020-10-06 14:53:30.922000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Blockchain', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Blockchain Development', 'Open Source'] |
Get a Free Brand new Smartwatch | Attractive smartwatch for everyone | Get a Free Brand new Smartwatch | Attractive smartwatch for everyone Soniaparvin Jun 17·2 min read
Get a Free Brand new Smart watch | Attractive smartwatch for everyone
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My Bank Accounts’ Scheme: Passively Build Up Assets And Automatically Save Money | 1. Consume bank accounts
a) Fixed costs account
This is my main checking account, and my salary and all of my money incomes are paid to this account. The second my paycheck arrives, it is split and transferred automatically to all of my other accounts. I keep my fixed and reoccurring costs in this account, such as housing, subscriptions, utilities, and insurances.
I keep track of all my fixed and reoccurring costs in the previously mentioned Excel table. Therefore, I’m never surprised by a payment that I did not account for. I know exactly the amount of money I have to keep in this bank account each month.
I account for €200 a month for cash withdrawals if necessary. In my experience, I end up using €100–€150 a month. By the end of the month, the remaining money is transferred to my luxury saving account automatically.
b) Household account
My wife and I each put €500 for household and outings in this account. We pay for groceries, restaurants, bars, movies, etc., from this account.
If this account runs out of money near the end of the month, We will pass on dining out or going out with our friends. I never overspend on outings or groceries. We strictly control our budget, and we seek to optimize our spendings every month.
Each Sunday, we plan our groceries for the upcoming week, and we plan where we want to buy them from. Grocery prices tend to vary where we live; every week, every grocery store has special low prices on certain items, and we plan our purchases accordingly. We don’t travel 10–20 km extra for groceries. We live within walking distance from seven major grocery stores.
However, we do not pay primarily with this account. This account is only for safekeeping the money. We pay with our credit card to take advantage of its rewards program. We might use this account’s credit card for instances in which our American Express is not accepted.
The remaining in this account by the end of the month, if any, is transferred to our luxury and brokerage accounts (20% and 80%, respectively).
c) American Express card
As I mentioned before, we use Amex to pay for almost everything. This card is linked to our household account. Our household and outings purchases are already covered with the amount of money we keep in the household account. Any other purchase (plane tickets, hotel reservations, clothes, etc.) is taken from the luxury savings account. We keep a list of our credit card spendings to ensure that we pay our spendings from the right cash reserve.
We use this card to pay for almost everything because we take advantage of its rewards program and cashback (for certain stores). The points we collect yearly are enough to upgrade hotel reservations and upgrade long-distance plane tickets to business class, contributing to our chosen lifestyle.
The card costs us €12 monthly, but these fees are already covered by the cash backs and special offers we utilize. Currently, we own the golden Amex card, and we thought about upgrading to the platinum card early this year. However, we stopped our plans after the pandemic. I think we will upgrade when life returns to normal.
d) Emergency fund
This is my emergency fund account. I try to keep three months’ spendings in this account for unexpected expenses. It is not meant for buying new smartphones, laptops, or the newest gaming console. This account is reserved for emergencies only, such as when a car or a household appliance breaks down.
Earlier this year, we decided to allocate six months’ spendings to this account to prepare for the pandemic and the uncertainties in 2020. This saving account grants us a small interest rate, but we can access the money immediately if necessary. | https://medium.com/the-money-plot/my-bank-accounts-scheme-passively-build-up-assets-and-automatically-save-money-95d90ce98234 | ['Walid Ao'] | 2020-12-20 16:11:14.015000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Wealth', 'Finance', 'Crypto', 'Investing'] |
I’ve been focusing on pleasing existing users for 3.5 years on my indie app | I’ve been focusing on pleasing existing users for 3.5 years on my indie app
Dancing dog and cat putting on mask. Just be happy, even if we have a lot of sad news.
Hi, folks. It’s Takuya. Hope you are staying safe at home.
As I wrote previously in the blog post, I’ve stopped caring about numbers in order for me to keep it going. So, it’s been a while since I last reported about the Inkdrop’s revenue, and I found that its growth is still fine, fortunately. This is going to be the last time I will report unless I get a big reason to do so. Inkdrop is a cross-platform Markdown note-taking app whose pricing is at the cost of a coffee per month: $4.99/month or $49.9/year with 60-day free trial.
Number of long-time users is increasing
Take a look at the following diagram. The last MRR marked the highest revenue:
806.4k JPY ≒ 7,296 USD
The key is that the lifetime value(LTV) keeps increasing:
3,048 JPY ≒ 28 USD
It means that number of long-time users is increasing. People are seemingly using my app for about 7.6 months in average (28 / 5 = 5.6, plus 60-day free trial). Although it’s not accurate as Inkdrop provides yearly plan (17% off), educational discount and plugin developer license, that’s amazing. Some people are still actively using it since its first beta release in Jun 2016 (almost 4 years!). I remember each user’s name as they even have been and is giving me a lot of feedback. Thank you so much 🙏✨
So, I can say my strategy focusing on pleasing the existing users instead of new/leaving users is valid. The growth is slow as you can see. It does not look sky-rocketing like a VC-backed startup but that’s the result I wanted — Stability. The subscriber churn rate of Inkdrop was 60-90% at the beginning, which was terrible, but it has been decreasing and now it’s at around 16%:
In general, churn rate in subscription B2B is at 5%. You may think the base churn rate is indicating so high. That’s because it includes canceled trial users. Well, let’s take a look at the trial conversion rate. As the app became mature, the rate got increased:
The worst rate was 1.75% in Jan 2017 but I got 14.29% last month. From those rates and my observation on the account deletions, the current actual churn rate would be 2–5%. It has been significantly improved after launching Inkdrop v4. So, I can see that people are happy with how the app got improved :)
By the way, to be honest, this is the first time I checked those diagrams carefully. I am basically not interested in checking frequently those numbers because it makes me anxious and distracted, and rush to short-term bad tactics to gain better but fragile numbers. Who will be happy with it? I would stay focusing on long-term strategies instead, which are for the existing users. So, I don’t care about them and fully enjoy developing it. I’d like to make it better rather than bigger.
Thinking of how to survive this pandemic
Foster customer loyalty
While I was a digital nomad in Okinawa lately, I saw a lot of restaurants were almost empty. A diving instructor told me that he got 300 cancellations. Terrible. On the other hand, I found that some restaurants were full of customers. For example:
At a Sushi restaurant (so-called “Izakaya”)
I guess they are local regular customers because they seemingly know each other and live in the same area. I became friends with two people at the restaurant:
The empty restaurants I saw were targeting inbound tourists who basically visit only once. So, I think it’s important to have loyal customers to make your business robust.
For example, I am always trying to provide quick & friendly user support since it launched. As a result, the stats of the most active user on the support forum is as following:
I replied to all of his posts. His bug reports helped me a lot. When I decline his suggestion, I explain a reason as much as possible. I appreciate so much his effort.
And also, I sent some people stickers. It was time-consuming but they were so pleased with it.
Be yourself. Stop hiding your personality behind your product.
I’m lucky enough to be in an industry to be able to avoid the coronavirus shock. But tech industry changes so fast. It could happen to me or any one of us just now it isn’t, like EU’s GDPR, changing of Apple’s review guidelines, etc. Attracting fans would be a viable way for indie developers to survive such environmental changes. That’s because a reason why people like you is loosely tied with your app. They like what ‘you’ created. They will likely support what you create next as well.
It’s important to be yourself, instead of hiding your personality behind your product. For example, a girl said why she is using Inkdrop despite of the fact that she is not a programmer, is that she likes how I build it:
It was a symbolic event. If I was not writing my personal journey on the app, she would never have used my app. Similarly, there should be a lot of people who keep using my app for the same reason. I would like to keep working for people like them. | https://blog.inkdrop.app/foster-customer-loyalty-3c38e2a1401e | ['Takuya Matsuyama'] | 2020-04-01 12:57:48.273000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Side Hustle', 'Developer Tools', 'Inkdrop', 'Markdown'] |
Wow! Backtest RSI Crossover Strategy in Elasticsearch | Sometimes, you may have some crazy ideas and want to test your trading strategy. By using historical market data for backtesting, you can assess risk, profit, and measure performance to gain confidence to use the trading strategy in the future. Of course, you have no problem if you are a skilled programmer. However, you need to write a complex and heavy-loaded program to handle data analysis after the data is retrieved. Due to the powerful capabilities of Elasticsearch in search, data analysis, and machine learning, it is worth writing a series of articles about Elasticsearch backtesting different trading strategies for your reference.
In my previous article, RSI BB or RSI & BB? Easy, let’s test it with Elasticsearch, we have introduced how to use Elasticsearch to implement Relative Strength Index (RSI) indicator. This article will continue to make a simple tool to backtest the RSI trading Strategy in Elasticsearch. Since most of the work is done in the Elasticsearch cluster, the client will not have a heavy workload. Elasticsearch will provide buy or sell signals and then integrated them with a simple Python program to further analyze the signals and generate a report. Readers are advised to take a quick look at my previous article to understand RSI and the implementation details of using Elasticsearch.
RSI is a momentum indicator that provides information about price changes to support opportunities for buying and selling assets. The price changes are converted into two types of data, the recent total gains, and the recent total losses, usually with a period of 14. The RSI equation can be written as follows, where SMAgain,n,1 and SMAloss,n,1 are the total recent moving average of gains and the total recent moving average of losses. Corresponding to Elasticsearch SMA function with window n, it needs to shift 1 data to the right to include the current data.
The RSI crossover strategy defines the crossover of RSI at a specified value to indicate overbought (>= 70) and oversold (<= 30) signals. For other RSI values, be patient and wait for the buy or sell signal. It is much easier to use graphs to observe changes in values. In this article, we try to apply backtesting to commission-free exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and focus on Elasticsearch as an analysis tool. The following example randomly selects “Fidelity International Multifactor ETF”. Its ticker symbol is FDEV. 10 more ETFs randomly selected will be run, and the final results will be shown later. The data is selected from the time range between 2021–01–15 and 2021–05–31 provided by IEX, Investors Exchange. In the chart below, the RSI is plotted together with the daily closing price. In the daily price curve, the RSI values over 70 are marked in red, and the RSI values less than 30 are marked in blue.
Here, we present a simple RSI crossover strategy and use Elasticsearch to show the implementation details.
◆ Assuming that it is restricted to buy and hold 1 share at a time, no transaction will occur until the held share is sold.
◆ Buy 1 share when RSI value <= 30.
◆ Sell 1 share when RSI value >= 70.
◆ At the end of the testing period, a hold share is cashed with the current price.
There are 4 blue dots and 10 red dots, but only two buy and two sell transactions are allowed based on the strategy. Let’s describe the implementation using Elasticsearch. Suppose there is an Elasticsearch index populated with data, and its data mapping used is the same as described in the previous paper. The following steps demonstrate the code of the REST API request body.
Collect all relevant documents through the search operation
Use a “bool” query with a “must” clause to collect documents with the symbol FDEV and the date between 2021–01–15 and 2021–05–31. Due to the computation of 14-trading days moving average, additional data is adjusted for 1 month (from 2020–12–15 to 2021–01–14).
{
"query": {
"bool": {
"must": [
{"range": {"date": {"gte": "2020-12-15", "lte": "2021-05-31"}}},
{"term": {"symbol": "FDEV"}}
]
}
},
Extract the close value of the fund
Use a “date_histogram” aggregation, named Backtest_RSI, with the parameter “field” as “date” and the parameter “interval” as “1d” to extract the prices of the fund each day. Then followed by an “average” aggregation, named Daily, to retrieve the closing price since the subsequent pipeline aggregation cannot directly use the document fields.
"aggs": {
"Backtest_RSI": {
"date_histogram": {
"field": "date",
"interval": "1d",
"format": "yyyy-MM-dd"
},
"aggs": {
"Daily": {
"avg": {"field": "close"}
},
Extract the date of the bucket
Because of the additional data, subsequent operations need to filter out the out-of-range portion later. A “min” aggregation named “DateStr” is to get the date of the bucket. In the Elasticsearch server, the date field is stored in Epoch time. The time unit is milliseconds, and the time zone is UTC.
"DateStr": {
"min": {"field": "date"}
},
Select the buckets with more than 1 document
To filter out the empty buckets (non-trading days), a “bucket_selector” aggregation, named SDaily, is used to select buckets with its document count greater than 0.
"SDaily": {
"bucket_selector": {
"buckets_path": {"count":"_count"},
"script": "params.count > 0"
}
},
Calculate Daily difference
Use a “derivative” aggregation, named Price_Diff, and use the parameter “buckets_path” to specify the daily closing value to calculate the difference from the previous value.
"Price_Diff": {
"derivative": {
"buckets_path": "Daily"
}
},
Determine the daily value is a gain or a loss relative to the previous data
Use two “bucket_script” aggregations, named Gain and Loss, and use the parameter “buckets_path” to specify the result of Diff aggregation to determine value. Both values are positive.
"Gain": {
"bucket_script": {
"buckets_path": {"Price_Diff": "Price_Diff"},
"script": "(params.Price_Diff > 0) ? params.Price_Diff : 0"
}
},
"Loss": {
"bucket_script": {
"buckets_path": {"Price_Diff": "Price_Diff"},
"script": "(params.Price_Diff < 0) ? -params.Price_Diff : 0"
}
},
Calculate the daily simple moving average of the total Gain and the total Loss
Use two “moving_fn” aggregations, named GainSMA and LossSMA, with the parameter window as 14 and the parameter “buckets_path” as Gain and Loss respectively. The parameter “shift” is set to 1 to include data for the current day and the past 13 trading days. SMA is calculated by using the unweighted average function (MovingFunctions.unweightedAvg).
"GainSMA": {
"moving_fn": {
"script": "MovingFunctions.unweightedAvg(values)", "window": 14, "buckets_path": "Gain", "shift":1
}
},
"LossSMA": {
"moving_fn": {
"script": "MovingFunctions.unweightedAvg(values)", "window": 14, "buckets_path": "Loss", "shift":1
}
},
Calculate RSI
Use a “bucket_script” aggregation, named RSI, with the parameter “buckets_path” to specify the results from GainSMA and LossSMA. Then the RSI indicator is calculated according to the equation in the script.
"RSI": {
"bucket_script": {
"buckets_path": {"GainSMA": "GainSMA", "LossSMA": "LossSMA"},
"script": "100 - 100/(1+params.GainSMA/params.LossSMA)"
}
},
Identify the type of the RSI value
Use a “bucket_script” aggregation named, RSI_Type, with the parameter “buckets_path” to specify the RSI value to determine the type. Set the type to 2 if RSI value >= 70. Set the type to 1 if RSI value <= 30. Set the type to 0 for other RSI values.
"RSI_Type": {
"bucket_script": {
"buckets_path": {"RSI": "RSI"}, "script": "params.RSI >= 70 ? 2 : params.RSI <= 30 ? 1 : 0"
}
},
Filter out the additional documents for output
Use a “bucket_selector” aggregation, named Buy_Sell_Signal, with the parameter “buckets_path” to specify “DateStr” and “RSI_Type” to select the correct buckets. The selection criteria are those buckets having the date on or after 2021–01–15 (the epoch time 1612137600000 in milliseconds) and RSI_Type = 1 (RSI >= 70) or RSI_Type = 2 (RSI <= 30).
"Buy_Sell_Signal": {
"bucket_selector": {
"buckets_path": {"DateStr": "DateStr", "RSI_Type": "RSI_Type"},
"script": "params.DateStr >= 1610697600000L && (params.RSI_Type == 1 || params.RSI_Type == 2)"
}
} | https://medium.com/geekculture/wow-backtest-rsi-crossover-strategy-in-elasticsearch-1cdf837a72a1 | ['Wai Tak Wong'] | 2021-07-21 07:38:01.942000+00:00 | ['Dataanalys', 'Python Programming', 'Data Science', 'Finance', 'Elasticsearch'] |
Top and Free Machine Learning Open-Source Frameworks | 1. Tensorflow
Github:150, 000 stars and 83, 200 forks
Tensorflow is an end-to-end open-source platform for machine learning and it has a comprehensive, flexible ecosystem of tools, libraries, and community resources that lets researchers push the state-of-the-art in ML and developers easily build and deploy ML-powered applications.
TensorFlow provides stable Python and C++ APIs, as well as non-guaranteed backward compatible API for other languages.
TensorFlow was originally developed by researchers and engineers working on the Google Brain team within Google’s Machine Intelligence Research organization to conduct machine learning and deep neural networks research.
2. Keras
Github:50, 200 stars and 18, 700 forks
Keras is a deep learning API written in Python, running on top of the machine learning platform TensorFlow. It is designed for human beings, not machines.
Keras follows best practices for reducing cognitive load: it offers consistent & simple APIs, it minimizes the number of user actions required for common use cases, and it provides clear & actionable error messages. It also has extensive documentation and developer guides.
Multi-backend Keras has been discontinued. At this time, we recommend that Keras users who use multi-backend Keras with the TensorFlow backend switch to tf.keras in TensorFlow 2.0
The current release is Keras 2.4.0, which simply redirects to tf.keras .
3. OpenCV
Github:50, 200 stars and 40, 700 forks
OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision Library) is an open-source computer vision and machine learning software library, built to provide a common infrastructure for computer vision applications and to accelerate the use of machine perception in commercial products.
The library has more than 2500 optimized algorithms, which includes a comprehensive set of both classic and state-of-the-art computer vision and machine learning algorithms. It has C++, Python, Java and MATLAB interfaces and supports Windows, Linux, Android and Mac OS.
These algorithms can be used to detect and recognize faces, identify objects, classify human actions in videos, track camera movements, track moving objects, extract 3D models of objects, produce 3D point clouds from stereo cameras, stitch images together to produce a high-resolution image of an entire scene, find similar images from an image database, remove red eyes from images taken using flash, follow eye movements, recognize scenery and establish markers to overlay it with augmented reality, etc.
4. Pytorch
Github: 43, 800 stars and 11, 500 forks
PyTorch is a Python package that provides two high-level features:
Tensor computation (like NumPy) with strong GPU acceleration
Deep neural networks built on a tape-based autograd system
PyTorch provides Tensors that can live either on the CPU or the GPU and accelerates the computation by a huge amount.
It provides a wide variety of tensor routines to accelerate and fit your scientific computation needs such as slicing, indexing, math operations, linear algebra, reductions. And they are fast!
PyTorch has minimal framework overhead and is designed to be intuitive, linear in thought, and easy to use. When you execute a line of code, it gets executed.
5. Scikit Learn
Github: 42, 900 stars and 20, 600 forks
Scikit-learn is a Python module for machine learning built on top of SciPy and is distributed under the 3-Clause BSD license. It provides various features such as:
Simple and efficient tools for predictive data analysis
Accessible to everybody, and reusable in various contexts
Built on NumPy, SciPy, and matplotlib
Open source, commercially usable — BSD license
It includes modules and libraries for tasks such as:
Classification : Identifying which category an object belongs to.
: Identifying which category an object belongs to. Regression : Predicting a continuous-valued attribute associated with an object.
: Predicting a continuous-valued attribute associated with an object. Clustering : Automatic grouping of similar objects into sets.
: Automatic grouping of similar objects into sets. Dimensionality Reduction : Reducing the number of random variables to consider.
: Reducing the number of random variables to consider. Model Selection : Comparing, validating and choosing parameters and models.
: Comparing, validating and choosing parameters and models. Preprocessing: Feature extraction and normalization.
6. Transformers
Github:36, 500 stars and 8, 900 forks
Transformers is State-of-the-art Natural Language Processing for Pytorch and TensorFlow 2.0. Transformers provide thousands of pre-trained models to perform tasks on texts such as classification, information extraction, question answering, summarization, translation, text generation, etc in 100+ languages.
Its aim is to make cutting-edge NLP easier to use for everyone. Transformers provide APIs to quickly download and use those pre-trained models on a given text, fine-tune them on your own datasets . At the same time, each python module defining an architecture can be used as a standalone and modified to enable quick research experiments.
Transformers are backed by the two most popular deep learning libraries, PyTorch and TensorFlow, with seamless integration between them, allowing you to train your models with one then load it for inference with the other. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/top-and-free-machine-learning-open-source-frameworks-3ef4a0788233 | ['Mrinal Walia'] | 2020-11-12 14:30:00.430000+00:00 | ['Framework', 'TensorFlow', 'Keras', 'Machine Learning', 'Open Source'] |
A Practical Look at Vectors and Your Data | A vector in the night sky
I remember a feeling of utter confusion when I first learned vector spaces in my first course of Linear Algebra. What’s a space? And what are these vectors, really? Lists? Functions? Kittens? And how the hell does that relate to all this data that I analyze for some scientific endeavor? In this article, I attempt to explain the topic of vectors, vector spaces, and how they relate to data in a way that my former self would have appreciated.
The Utility of the Vector
Imagine a two-by-two graph as you might have seen in school. A vector is an object that’s typically seen in the form of an ordered list of elements, like (4, 3), that lives in a vector space and is commonly represented as an arrow whose tail starts at the origin, (0, 0), and ends at some other point, like (4, 3).
The vector (4, 3) represented as an arrow
This arrow has a couple properties that are interesting to note: it has a direction and a length. A vector can represent many real-world objects like the wind, the throwing of a football, and the velocity of your car. It can even represent features of an animal, the quantities of your grocery list, or a row in your spreadsheet of data.
A Space for Your Vectors
But how do you know if your object or ordered list is a vector? Well, it must belong to a set called a vector space. A vector space can be any set of elements (this could be lists, functions, or other objects) but these elements must follow some rules:
Adding any two elements in the set results in another element that’s already in the set
Multiplying any elements in the set by some number (called a scalar) results in another element that’s already in the set
All the elements are associative, commutative, and scalars are distributive with respect to element addition
There’s an element in the set such that adding it to any other element doesn’t change its value
There’s some number (called a scalar) such that multiplying it by any other element doesn’t change the element’s value
Any element in the set has some element that can be added to it which results in an element of 0s (called the zero vector)
If all the elements in your set follow the rules above, then congratulations! Your elements are called vectors and the set they belong to is called a vector space. But break any one of these rules, and you’re set is not a vector space and the elements inside your set aren’t vectors.
In mathematical jargon, these rules translate to the following:
All elements are closed under addition
All elements are closed under scalar multiplication
All elements are associative, commutative, and scalars are distributive with respect to element addition
An additive identity exists for every element
A multiplicative identity exists for every element
An additive inverse exists for every element
A Tangible Vector Space
Consider the set you already know and love, R². R² is just R × R which is the set of all possible two-dimensional lists represented by the following set notation {(a, b) : a, b in R}. You can visualize R² below (obviously the x and y axes limits do not stop at ten but instead approach infinity):
R² visualized as the Cartesian Plane
Is the set R² a vector space? Well if it were, it would need to follow all the rules of a vector space that were mentioned above. Consider the first rule: adding any two elements in the set results in another element that’s already in the set. Does R² follow this rule? Well, for example, take any two elements in R², like (2, 3) and (-1, -4). When you add them together, do you get an element that’s also in R²? Yes! In fact, you get (1, -1) which does indeed live in the set R². This is true for any two elements you add in R² — you’ll always get something back that also belongs to R².
So you’ve verified the first rule! But in order for R² to be called a vector space, you must verify that it follows all the rules; which it does.
In short, there are many sets that follow the rules above so naturally you give it a name. And now when someone talks about some arbitrary set, you know that if the elements of the set follow the rules of a vector space, then the set must be a vector space.
Fields
Another note to make is about these scalars with which you can multiply vectors. Scalars are elements that belong to a set called a field which has the same rules as a vector space, but with the bonus of having a multiplicative inverse as well.
Since a field is a set that has all the rules a vector space has, then a field is also a vector space. You’ve actually been using fields all along, like the set of real numbers or the set of complex numbers. Any time you draw a plot on a two-dimensional grid, you’re actually drawing on a two-dimensional field.
Subspaces
In practice, you might think that it’s tedious to check every rule against a set to see if the set is a vector space. Well, you’re right. So that’s why it’s far easier to identify a set as a subset of a vector space you already know (like the set of real numbers) and prove that this subset is nonempty and that it’s closed under the same operations as the vector space (i.e. under addition and scalar multiplication).
If you’re able to do this, then your subset is called a subspace which also happens to be a vector space in and of itself (again, to see for yourself, take a subspace and verify that it has all the properties of a vector space).
So if you want to prove that a set is a vector space, try to prove that it’s a subspace instead. Since subspaces are vector spaces in their own right, you’ll have successfully shown that a set is a vector space.
Real-World Data
Now all this theory is not very helpful if you can’t apply it. So consider the first few rows of the classic Iris dataset, which is a dataset containing samples of three different species of the Iris flower.
Some rows of the Iris dataset
As you can see from the header, the features of each sample are:
sepal length
sepal width
petal length
petal width
Each row of features can be viewed as an ordered list. The first list would be (5.1, 3.5, 1.4, 0.2), the second (4.9 , 3, 1.4, 0.2), and so on. But are these ordered lists vectors? Well, each entry in the lists is a real number and thus belongs to the set of real numbers, R. And since each of these ordered lists are four-dimensional, then they live in R⁴. Since R⁴ is a vector space, then these ordered lists can be called vectors.
Notice that each entry in these vectors represents a dimension in R⁴ where each dimension corresponds to a feature in the dataset (like sepal length, sepal width, etc…). That is, each feature in your data can be considered a random variable. And since they’re random variables, we can do some descriptive statistics like find their means and standard deviations.
As you’ve already represented each row in the table as a vector, you can calculate the means and standard deviations of each random variable in one fell swoop. This is the power of vectors.
Pretend that the rows/vectors (5.1, 3.5, 1.4, 0.2) and (4.9 , 3, 1.4, 0.2) were all the data you had in the table above. Using two of the vector space rules, scalar multiplication and addition, we can easily calculate the means of every random variable we have.
Scaling and adding vectors to find the mean
So the mean of sepal length is 5, the mean of sepal width is 3.25, and so on. Representing your data as a set of vectors is not just aesthetically pleasing to look at, but also more performant in calculations since computers are optimized for computations involving vectors (turns out you can replace a lot of for loops with vector and matrix operations instead).
Conclusion
In the end, because you can represent your data as vectors which belong to a set with special rules called a vector space, many of the awesome things you do with your data like: linear feature transformations, standardizations, and dimensionality-reduction techniques can be justified by the rules of vector spaces.
And not only are vector spaces foundational to any work involving data, it constitutes the bedrock of linear algebra which is central to almost all areas of mathematics. Even if the phenomenon you’re studying is nonlinear, linear algebra is the go-to tool to use as a first-order approximation.
In short, vectors are tightly intertwined with your data and are very useful! So next time you’re importing data into a dataframe and performing a bunch of operations, remember that your computer is treating your data as a set of vectors and is happily applying transformations in a performant way. And all thanks to these little guys called vectors.
If you like what I’ve written here, make sure to check out my personal blog where I have articles that aren’t available on Medium. | https://towardsdatascience.com/a-practical-look-at-vectors-and-your-data-95bde21b37d1 | [] | 2020-11-15 21:57:29.692000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Towards Data Science', 'Mathematics'] |
A Simpler Way to Test Your React Application | “The more your tests resemble the way your software is used, the more confidence they can give you” — Kent C. Dodds, creator of the react-testing-library.
Writing tests is like eating your veggies: it is something everyone knows that they should do, but not everyone does. Spearmint provides a simple way to write tests that give you confidence your React application will work in the way your users interact with it.
Using spearmint, developers can easily generate React tests by using our user-friendly GUI. It dynamically converts user inputs into executable Jest test code by using DOM query selectors provided by the react-testing-library. We chose react-testing-library over Enzyme because it guides developers to focus on testing user behavior rather than testing implementation details. By leveraging react-testing-library, our application provides our users with more stable tests that do not break when refactoring or gives false positives due to shallow-rendering.
Fun fact: The origin of the word “debugging” comes from Grace Hopper removing a moth that was causing the Mark II Aiken Relay computer to malfunction. Did you know that moths are repelled by spearmint?
How it works
On the initial screen, enter the URL of your project and load your React application to start creating tests.
2. Utilize our auto-complete, drop-down options, and tooltips features to easily create arrangement, action, and assertion test statements.
3. Refer to the browser view of your app that is displayed on the right to quickly identify values for your selectors and use the file directory to open up a code editor view to easily refer to your codebase for props information.
4. Spearmint will then convert user input to dynamically generate a test file that will be saved inside a __tests__ folder, which you can use to run ‘npm test’ on.
Thanks for Reading!
Our team pledges 5 hours of development for every 100 Github stars we get on spearmint! Star us to speed up development for an easy way to test your React applications. We would greatly appreciate any feedback — bug reports, feature requests, positive support, constructive criticism etc! Please email [email protected] if you are interested in contributing. | https://medium.com/@jylglim/a-simpler-way-to-test-your-react-application-61fd2e02e8ab | ['Johnny Lim'] | 2019-06-17 21:16:16.219000+00:00 | ['Bdd', 'JavaScript', 'Testing', 'React', 'Tdd'] |
Latent Variables & Expectation Maximization Algorithm | Variational Lower Bound and EM Algorithm:
It was just mentioned, until convergence repeat the steps of EM algorithm. You might think how to guarantee that the algorithm will converge? Let’s dig deeper! We started the GMM saying that for every data-point x_n there’s a latent variable z_n. The log likelihood of the complete data-set takes the form as below —
Exp 9: The complete likelihood including latent variables
As mentioned before, the problem with this expression is Log is acting on the sum of the mixtures of the Gaussian. We will play little trick to do away with this issue. Let’s introduce arbitrary probability distribution (without any special property) over latent variable — q(z) and now we can modify the expression above —
Exp 10: Little modification in the data likelihood
Using the definition of Expectation value this expression can be further simplified as —
Exp 11: Use the definition of expectation
The expectation term can be read as expected value of z_i drawn from a distribution q_i. We can compare this expression with Exp. 8 above to understand how summing over the latent variables gives us the expectation. In Exp. 11, Log is operating on the expectation value. Given that Log is a concave function, let’s apply Jensen’s inequality to further simplify the expression —
Exp 12: Use Jensen’s inequality to modify Exp 11.
The expression above says that log likelihood of the complete data-set is greater than or equal to the above expectation. The expectation term is known as Evidence Lower Bound (ELBO) and, expanding the logarithm and applying Bayes’ theorem we can reach more meaningful conclusion —
Exp 13: Evidence Lower Bound
Using the definition of KL divergence the above expression becomes —
Exp 14: ELBO and KL Divergence
As KL divergence ≥ 0, this means ELBO ≤ log p(x). Now we know why it is called a lower bound. Our objective is to maximize our data likelihood log p(X), and instead we maximize the ELBO. Based on this expression (Exp. 14) let’s review the steps of EM algorithm one more time —
Start the algorithm by randomly initializing the parameters. E step: Maximize the ELBO w.r.t q(z) and keep the parameters (π, μ, Σ) fixed. Since log p(X) is independent of q(z), this step is essentially just calculating the KL divergence and in case of GMM the q(z) is set equal to the posterior. This is possible since the calculation of posterior for every data-point is possible in GMM. M-step: ELBO is maximized w.r.t to the parameters while q(z) is kept fixed and this is very similar like MLE estimation. In this step the parameters are updated.
Why Convergence:
We started this section with a question- why EM algorithm ensures convergence? EM algorithm is an iterative process and thus E and M step goes on in cycle. It is important to remember that in each steps of EM algorithm, first the distribution q(z) is set equal to the posterior p(z|x) (E-step), and the parameters are updated in the M step from maximization. With the updated parameters the lower bound increases (unless the algorithm already reached a local maxima). This, in turn, increases the log likelihood but, logp(x) increases more than the lower bound because, while q(z) was obtained for old parameters but, now in E step when we calculate the posterior p(z|x) again and this time using the new parameters from M-step, gives rise to a non-zero KL divergence term. Thus the lower bound, as well as the data likelihood, increases monotonically. To ensure that the algorithm does not get stuck in a local maxima, we run the algorithm for different initial values of the parameters. This monotonic increasing nature of the data-likelihood is what we wanted to show as a proxy for convergence. This sometimes is very helpful to debug the code if we see the likelihood is not increasing in each step. To run the algorithm we will give the number of iteration as a parameter and also set a tolerance for the fractional increase in loss function. Now, it is time to put all the theory into action and let’s code!! Please check the notebook for detailed code along with other references in the reference section. | https://towardsdatascience.com/latent-variables-expectation-maximization-algorithm-fb15c4e0f32c | ['Saptashwa Bhattacharyya'] | 2020-09-28 12:57:48.882000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Towards Data Science', 'Bayesian Machine Learning', 'Clustering', 'Machine Learning'] |
Analysis of the Hiking Discourse | by Lian Harrington
Hiking is described as long walks on trails in more rural areas. Hiking comes with its own sign systems, values, beliefs, and ways of dressing. James Paul Gee, in his article “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction” in the Journal of Education, defines this kind of combination as a Discourse. He writes
“Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes”.
For one to be a part of the hiking discourse they must dress, act, and have the same values as those who are fluent in the discourse.
Identifying the Discourse
Hiking is a secondary, nondominant Discourse. Darcy Fiano paraphrases what Gee writes about secondary Discourses in her article “Primary Discourse and Expressive Oral Language in a Kindergarten Student”, saying “ secondary Discourses are those acquired through the various social institutions that we participate in beyond our home environment”. Thru-hiking is picked up or learned when one is older and many times through interactions with others. It does not bring with it any wealth or status outside of the hiking community and therefor I would categorize it under a nondominant Discourse. Gee describes a nondominant Discourse as one that “ brings solidarity with a particular social network, but not wider status and social goods in the society at large”. Thru-hiking fits into the nondominant Discourse description because it doesn’t bring any wider status or social goods outside of the Discourse.
How to enter the Thru-Hiking Discourse
One can enter the thru-hiking discourse in a few ways. The first is through apprenticeship. Gee writes that discourses are learned “by enculturation (“apprenticeship”) into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse”. People who thru-hike spend time before the hike to research and prepare for the trail. Most of the information about the trail comes from those who have already hiked it and could be called the mentor. This gives thru-hikers an advantage because unlike what Gee says that “failing to fully display an identity is tantamount to announcing you don’t have that identity” those who have never been on the trail won’t know everything there is about it until they have hiked it all. A hiker is in the apprenticeship stage I believe one doesn’t have to know everything about hiking to be apart of the hiking discourse. Hiking is a secondary discourse that has sub-discourses within it. For example one can be apart of the hiking discourse but may not be apart of the thru-hiking discourse. I believe that one can also mushfake being in the hiking discourse. Gee describes mushfake discourse as “ partial acquisition coupled with meta-knowledge and the strategies to ‘make do’”. If one had the right clothes and gear they could pass as being in the Discourse as long as their knowledge of the discourse wasn’t tested.
Sign Systems/Knowledge
A major part of the hiking Discourse is the knowledge needed to fit in. There are many things one must know before going out on the trail like trail signs and hiking etiquette. For longer hikes knowledge about the trail, wildlife, plants, and climate are crucial to keep safe. Respect is one of the most valued traits of a hiker. Respect of other hikers, of the trail, and of the landscape around you is crucial while hiking. “Leave no trace” is the motto for hikers. We are only there to experience nature not to alter it, so whatever we carry in we, we are supposed to carry out. This connects to the politics of hiking. While one does not have to be a conservationist to fit in most hikers follow that mindset when on the trail. Although this knowledge is important it is only one part of the Discourse. The other part is physical and mental preparedness.
Preparing for a Thru-Hike
When preparing for a multiple day or month hike being mentally and physically ready are critical to being able to complete the hike. Physical fitness determines the miles one is able to complete in a day. This is important because some of the campsites are ten or more miles apart. For thru-hikers it is important to get to a campsite because they have shelters. The less a thru-hiker has to carry usually means better mileage. When thru-hiking, keeping to a schedule is also important. There are certain months that are prime for hiking different trails. These times are when most hikers will attempt to hike because you will encounter the most mild weather. For the AT the best months are between march and may to start. Having the right state of mind starting the hike is key to being able to complete the hike. It will determine how you react to the unexpected on the trail. Many times the weather will change without notice on the trail especially at higher altitudes. Part of being mentally prepared is researching and knowing as much as you can about the trail before going for a hike. This is more important with longer hikes. Although all of these things are important one can be a hiker without having done any research or being that fit.
Transfer between Discourses
The thru-hiking Discourse is more challenging to enter into than the hiking discourse. Although one can transfer almost all aspects of the hiking discourse into the thru-hiking discourse, the thru-hiking discourse is a much more selective. One of the reasons the thru-hiking discourse is difficult to enter is because to be apart of the discourse one must have completed a long-distance trail from end to end. This is difficult to do because of the time commitment that is required. Members within the thru-hiking discourse have different statuses based on the trail(s) hiked, the time it took to complete, and sometimes age.
The three big trails in the U.S. that are known for thru-hiking are the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail.
These trails are all over 2,000 miles long and take between 3–6 months to complete. All together they are known as the triple crown of hiking. There are few who complete one of these trails, so those who have completed all three are highly respected within the hiking community.
Hiking vs. Thru-Hiking
One can enter the thru-hiking discourse thru different avenues than the widely accepted way. Much of the knowledge about thru-hiking cannot be picked up until one has experienced it. These shared experiences creates a bond among the members of the discourse. People who may know everything about thru-hiking from being told still lacks the firsthand experience and therefore is not apart of the discourse. Some people are able to mushfake their way into the thru-hiking discourse by section hiking. Section hikers as the title suggests hike different sections of a trail usually until they complete the whole trail. Many section hikers set aside a couple of weeks every year to hike. Although they don’t complete the whole trail in one trip they do walk the whole trail and therefore are generally grouped into the thru-hiking discourse. There are also those who will hike the whole trail in one trip but will start somewhere in the middle of the trail. These people are called alternative hikers.
Sign Systems
The Hiking discourse has several sign systems that are widely known within the hiking community. These differ between trails and locations. In the Northeast the AT is marked by white blazes and cairns. The white blaze is only used for the Appalachian trail in the eastern part of the U.S. The amount of blazes and how they are oriented directs hikers to where they need to go next. For example one blaze means to continue straight while two offset blazes can mean turn right or left depending to which side the top blaze is placed.
Conclusion
Hiking is a non-dominant secondary discourse that gives its members the tools to enter into the thru-hiking discourse. Thru-hiking is also a non-dominant secondary discourse that is apart of the hiking discourse. Unlike the hiking discourse, to be apart of the thru-hiking discourse one must have completed a long distance trail. To enter the thru-hiking discourse one must first enter into the hiking discourse. As one becomes fluent in the hiking discourse the more prepared they will be to hike long distance trails, allowing them to more easily acquire the thru-hiking discourse.
Tapon, Francis. “ Backpacking Versus Thru-Hiking.” BackpackingLight.com. | https://medium.com/literacy-discourse/analysis-of-the-hiking-discourse-707b39385eb9 | ['Lian Harrington'] | 2015-12-07 13:57:45.841000+00:00 | ['Hiking', 'Mydiscourse'] |
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