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Inclusive Design For Great Customer Experience | There is a lot of saying about customer experience that affects your business thoroughly. You know what? All of them are absolutely right. Customer Experience is the foundation your companies built on. It was the reason behind a successful business. Along with the increasing contact and interaction between you and your customers, it is critically important for you to serve all kinds of people.
Inherent bias in technology can be difficult to eradicate. Our technology tends to reflect the people who make them. Their perspectives and experiences determine how products are designed. Whether we are talking about smart cities or smart speakers, the systems that support our lives are the result of designers’ decisions. Inequality and exclusion are often unintended consequences of these choices.
Inclusive design works with customers who are usually excluded from design considerations. This creates innovative solutions that are suitable for everyone. Think of a smartphone or an electric toothbrush. Research shows that inclusively designed products and services tend to be accessible and useful to up to four times the number of intended customers. Now, it’s time to find the best way to achieve inclusive design so you can create a delightful customer experience.
To build more-inclusive technology, change your design process. It is one of many ways you can focus on cxm.
Robbie Lie, a UX Researcher and Data Scientist says in his article that,
By attending to the needs of the most marginalized customers, we create a product experience that satisfies the most market demand.
Inclusive design for him, truly has the potential to drive a successful business but also, social impact. When you design for the most marginalized users and also make accessibility a central focus, your products will become better and more successful.
But as it said, a product often mirrored its owner. And therefore, did not represent parts and divisions of society. This problem will not go away on its own. As digital platforms driven by AI, mixed reality, and voice interactions increasingly influence society, technologists need to recognize that the problem will only grow more pronounced.
According to an article by Felix Chang, a Strategy Director at Artefact, in Harvard Business Review, there are several actions that can be taken to create more inclusive products and services:
1. Design not for them, but as an excluded and diverse community
Form a community task force early in product development, actively strengthen relationships with community members, and use engagement methods and group creation throughout the process. Reward community members for knowledge, skills and time. Build the ability of community members to create their own solutions. When a product is released, it is flexible and customizable for use.
2. Cultivate a sense of belonging through representation.
Product leaders and practitioners must carefully consider representations at all levels of systems and products. Think about whether your product features or marks a particular community identity, aesthetic, or culture as a starting point for balancing. Avoid system defaults that assume people’s identities or force them to classify themselves unnecessarily.
3. Strengthen culture, training and processes.
Product leaders need to build and support different teams by developing competencies, tools, and processes that improve inclusion. Practitioners must actively identify and eliminate exclusion cases. Continuing education and training can help.
4. Assign responsibilities.
Product leaders must define measurable goals and inclusion plans for their products and teams. All members of the product team must share responsibility for their progress. Performance reviews should reflect the extent to which product team members advocate and explain inclusion. Digital platforms and the general public must be accountable to product leaders. App stores should promote inclusion-based product evaluation and comparison, and encourage public pressure to demonstrate improvements.
5. Normalize inclusion at the system level.
Product leaders and practitioners must consistently share best practices when creating and implementing design systems and coordinate work with comprehensive outcomes such as dignity and accessibility. Emphasizes inclusive case studies within the organization and across industries. Also, intentionally create a design system to increase inclusion. As your team considers changes in the way products are used, extend existing design system components instead of building and coding new components from scratch.
The idea of designing for equity, argues that the design process itself and how technology is created must be redesigned. If we want to ensure that no individual or community is harmed or left behind, we must intentionally design our products to be inclusive.
By reaching an inclusive design for your products or services, your targeted customers will be wider and your impact will be broader. These actions can create a more comfortable and meaningful customer experience. | https://medium.com/@monica-tan/inclusive-design-for-great-customer-experience-f6ce8d4ffbc5 | ['Monica Tan'] | 2020-12-21 11:04:43.819000+00:00 | ['Customer Experience', 'Uiux', 'Design', 'Product Design'] |
Shelf Life: October 2019 | DOCTOR WHO: The Collection (Season 23) [Blu]
The BBC’s limited edition Blu-ray collection of Classic Doctor Who continues with a jump to Colin Baker’s final season, the 23rd overall, known as “The Trial of a Time Lord”. The 14-part season is comprised of these serials: “The Mysterious Planet”, “Mindwarp”, “Terror of the Vervoids”, and “The Ultimate Foe”.
THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS 2 [DVD | Blu | 4K]
Illumination’s animated sequel about what domesticated animals get up to when you’re not looking hits home video, after receiving mixed reviews and a $429M at the box office (half what the original made).
X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX [DVD | Blu | 4K]
20th Century Fox’s two decades of X-Men films came to an ignominious end with Dark Phoenix this summer, although Dan Owen enjoyed a fair bit of it. | https://medium.com/framerated/shelf-life-october-2019-baa3bf898bb | ['Dan Owen'] | 2019-09-30 17:23:10.025000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Film', 'Feature', 'Shelf Life', 'Movies'] |
What is the difference between a native app and a hybrid app? | Hybrid apps are based on web technologies, so the same app can run in a browser like any other website or it can run as progressive web app (PWA).
The hybrid app can deliver the same consistent user experience across all platforms, regardless of user movement between different devices or browsers. Native plugins are required to access native platform functions such as camera, microphone, etc. (native plugins are like a container on top of native libraries or components)
Graphics apps, HD games, and heavy animation apps can work well as native apps because native code is always faster than HTML and JavaScript. WebGL standards help the browser and hybrid application for gaming applications achieve performance, but the native always has the edge.
Native SDKs allow you to access device functionality without having to deal with the complexity of native plugins, and new device functionality will be available immediately with SDKs. | https://medium.com/@itechscripts/what-is-the-difference-between-a-native-app-and-a-hybrid-app-50c265c2f535 | [] | 2020-12-25 06:29:36.906000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'iOS App Development', 'Mobile App Development', 'Android App Development'] |
Unas gracias bien pensadas | 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/cosas-de-la-vida-cotidiana/unas-gracias-bien-pensadas-ee48d131b6fb | [] | 2020-12-21 22:35:53.023000+00:00 | ['Thought Leadership', 'Personalization', 'Gifts', 'Remote Working', 'Gratitude'] |
License Plate Recognition with a Jetson Nano | I live in a downtown Chicago apartment and like many living in a city, I park in a parking garage. The garage recently upgraded their radio-frequency identified device system to a license plate recognition system. I was intrigued by the announcement but, being pessimistic, I expected the system to fail and hinder me from entering or exiting the garage. I was wrong and the solution that was implemented has worked with 100% success. Even when, I don’t follow the laws by having a license plate on my front bumper or follow good car hygiene. Being a flatfooder, I decided to build my own License Plate Detector using OpenALPR and a Jetson Nano.
Later I will extend the functionality to the cloud and utilize some AWS services to really scale out any potential this POC has. One that comes to mind is a system-of-record. If I automated the entrance of a parking garage then I would want to track each and every data change with a complete and verifiable history. Especially if I owned multiple parking garages around the country. More to come…
Disclamer — Provided is not an optimal solution, it is a working solution. If you are reading this and can recommend enhancements or corrections. Please do so by leaving a comment. | https://medium.com/@alannewcomer/license-plate-recognition-with-a-jetson-nano-e94c6ff683bc | ['Alan Newcomer'] | 2021-05-22 16:27:12.260000+00:00 | ['Opencv', 'Raspberry Pi', 'Jetson Nano', 'Python', 'Openalpr'] |
Cryptoindex AI Daily Predictions and News for 04/05/2020 | Cryptoindex AI Daily Predictions and News for 04/05/2020 CryptoIndex Follow Apr 5 · 4 min read
CryptoIndex is a tool for exposure to the crypto market and serves as a smart benchmark for all cryptocurrencies. The AI-based Cryptoindex algorithm is continuously analyzing more than 2000 coins applying over 200 factors, processing more than 1 million signals per second to provide a highly sophisticated index of the top 100 coins.
Crypto broker Voyager has completed a deal to acquire an investment application from Circle startup, researchers at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) are convinced that the coronavirus pandemic will accelerate the spread of national digital currencies, crypto predictions and other news for today👇
🔷The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused a Texas couple of scummed “hundreds of people” through several fraudulent investment offers.
🔷Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) are convinced that the coronavirus pandemic will accelerate the spread of online payments and update issues related to national digital currencies.
🔷Founded by veterans Uber and E * Trade, crypto broker Voyager has completed a deal to acquire an investment application from Circle payment startup.
Now let’s take a look at the Cryptoindex AI prediction sheet👇
Of course, let’s explain how does it work for newcomers:
At the top, you can see “prediction” and “last prediction accuracy”;
Our algorithm performs as an indicator of probable price movement;
The prediction accuracy rate for the previous period;
See➡CIX100 index methodology📚
Today’s prediction stats
Total Coins
99/100(Excluding 👉Bitcoin)
Last Predictions Rate:
55%
CryptoIndex.com(CIX100) current amount:
0.4905(↓1.45%)
💵 Total cryptocurrency capitalization:
$189 001 887 796
🗓 Trading volume per day(24 hours):
$100 768 722 557
Our special Cryptoindex rubrics:
Top 5 gainers 24h (USD)
BetterBetting(BETR) is a TOP gainer for the last 24 hours.
Top 5 losers 24h (USD)
Omni(OMNI) is a TOP Losser for the last 24 hours.
Top Buy Tomorrow
QunQun(QUN) is TOP buying for tomorrow.
Top Sale Tomorrow
Status(SNT) is showing the worst result for tomorrow.
Crypto Bundles
All bundles in the red zone now📉📉📉
Prediction List
The market is waiting for new news tomorrow. The expectations of our algorithm are clear below👇
For buying📈📈📈💰 — Neo, Ontology, Maker, Qtum, Nano, THETA, DigiByte, Kyber Network, DigixDAO, Enjin Coin, BitShares, Zilliqa, Verge, Komodo, Nebulas, aelf, IoT Chain, QunQun, SunContract, TenX, Achain, Utrust, Mithril.
Neutral prospects ⚖️ — Ethereum, Basic Attention Token, MCO, All Sports, Red Pulse Phoenix.
Rest of coins — selling trend📉📉📉
Below you can see the strength of the forecast(sixth column)👇
So, here are valid predictions for today. Thank you for your attention!
Follow our news. Subscribe to our newsletter to get fresh analytics from Cryptoindex every 2 days for free!
The AI-based CryptoIndex algorithm is constantly learning by consuming huge amounts of data rapidly making decisions and choices that humans would struggle to match.
You can always check the current CIX100 composition on our website.
Stay updated on our channels:
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Follow CRYPTOINDEX on Reddit | https://medium.com/cryptoindex-io/cryptoindex-ai-daily-predictions-and-news-for-04-05-2020-bbaff51f9d0b | [] | 2020-04-05 18:07:45.530000+00:00 | ['Cix100', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Cryptoindex', 'Bitcoin'] |
Blessed & Highly Favored: A Dream Like Ode to the Clark Sisters & Gospel Music | I had an incredible dream last night…it was so deep and nuanced. I won’t get into the details of the dream for now, but I will speak on one of the characters. She was a beautiful brown skin woman of Ethiopian descent that I met at the bank. She was heavy-set with a boisterous vibe, and you could tell she knew how to fight despite her vibrant demeanor…(Don’t blame me for noting this, I went to urban public schools, and us girls had to know how to defend ourselves and quickly size people up). Anyhow, we start chit-chatting in the bank line, and I discovered she was the third generation of her family born in the DC / Maryland area — she had recently relocated to Oakland. I welcomed her to Oakland, and conveyed my appreciation for her “Chocolate City” hometown… And this is where the dream officially becomes Bay Area awkward, in a weird yet magical way.
Randomly, the Ethiopian sis begins singing “Blessed and Highly Favored” by the Clark Sisters. The young lady is literally blowing (as the OGs would say). I mean she is singing for the ANCESTORS! Belting this song at the top of her lungs while casually waiting in the bank line. Her delivery of the song was giving me chills, and all these goosebumps start forming on my arms. I was thinking to myself, “Girl, we at the bank, not Allen Temple Baptist Church”! But I was so moved by her delivery, that I chose to ignore the scene she was making and receive the blessing.
I inquired as to who taught her this epic song by the Clark Sisters, which is a popular gospel staple in the African-American community. She shared that she and her mother had the same choir teacher when they were in high school, and this was one of the songs the choir teacher always taught. Hence, the song had been a part of her family for the past two generations.
She then went on to say how this choir teacher taught her NOT to ever take life for granted, and to always push and dig deeper despite the obstacles of the world. I then shared about my favorite high school teacher, Ms. Wolfe, who instilled similar principles within me.
Then suddenly, as though hit by a spirit, the woman began singing the song again, while holograms of our teachers appeared floating around the bank. The songstress began gracefully moving through the bank, blessing every corner with the following tunes bellowing from the pit of her stomach:
He brought me through hard trials
He brought me through tribulations
Never let a day go by and not realize
Had it not been for the Lord who was on my side
Back was against the wall
He looked out for me
He heard my cry and rescued me
Never let a day go by and not realize we are blessed
Don’t take it for granted that we are here today
Just know that we’re blessed and highly favored
(Blessed & Highly Favored, 1990 Grammy Award: Written by Karen Clark Sheard, The Clark Sisters)
There is more to the dream…but I am not ready to share those pieces just yet. Needless to say, I awakened feeling thankful for teachers, thankful for gospel music, and thankful for my dreams. I have been singing this song all day. Today it is my mantra, tomorrow it might be something else. I am not sure why the dream world decided to bless me with this song, but I am so grateful it came.
God put a calling on The Clark Sisters to create and share this composition. They obeyed, and years later the song is still blessing lives. Truly, blessings don’t expire.
Bendecido y Altamente Favorecido: Una Oda de
Sueño a Las Clark Sisters y la Música Gospel
Anoche tuve un sueño increíble… fue tan profundo y lleno de matices. No entraré en los detalles del sueño por ahora, pero hablaré sobre uno de los personajes del sueño. Era una hermosa mujer de piel morena de ascendencia etíope que conocí en el banco. Ella era corpulenta con una vibra bulliciosa, pero se notaba que sabía cómo pelear a pesar de su comportamiento vibrante … (No me culpes por notar esto, fui a escuelas públicas urbanas y nosotras chicas teníamos que saber defender nosotras mismas y evaluar rápidamente a los demás). De todos modos, comenzamos a charlar en la línea bancaria y descubrí que ella era la tercera generación de su familia nacida en el área de DC / Maryland; y recientemente se había mudado a Oakland. Le di la bienvenida a Oakland y le transmití mi agradecimiento por su ciudad natal “Chocolate City” … Y aquí es donde el sueño se vuelve oficialmente Área de la Bahía rara, de una manera extraña pero mágica.
De repente, la mujer etíope comienza a cantar “Blessed and Highly Favored” por Las Clark Sisters. La señorita está literalmente soplando (como dirían los viejitos). ¡Quiero decir, que ella está cantando para los ANCESTROS! Cantando esta canción a todo pulmón, mientras espera casualmente en la fila del banco. Su interpretación de la canción me estaba dando escalofríos, y se me empezó a poner la piel de gallina en mis brazos. Estaba pensando a mí misma, “¡Nena, estamos en el banco, no en la Iglesia Bautista de Allen Temple!” Pero como estaba tan conmovida por su canto, decidí ignorar la “escena” que ella estaba haciendo y recibir la bendición.
Pregunté quién le enseñó esta canción épica por Las Clark Sisters, que es un elemento fundamental del evangelio popular en la comunidad afroamericana. Ella compartió que ella y su madre tenían la misma maestra de coro cuando estaban en la escuela secundaria, y esta era una de las canciones que la maestra de coro siempre les enseñaba. Por lo tanto, la canción había sido parte de su familia durante las últimas dos generaciones.
Luego continuó diciendo cómo esta maestra le enseñó a NO dar la vida por sentada, y a empujar y profundizar siempre, a pesar de los obstáculos del mundo. Luego le hablé de mi maestra de secundaria favorita, la Sra. Wolfe, quien me inculcó principios similares.
Repentinamente, ella comenzó a cantar la canción nuevamente, y aparecieron hologramas de nuestras dos maestras flotando alrededor del banco. Ella comenzó a moverse con gracia por el banco, bendiciendo cada rincón con las siguientes melodías que bramaban desde la boca del estómago:
Me hizo pasar por duras pruebas
Me hizo pasar por tribulaciones
Nunca dejes pasar un día y no te des cuenta
Si no hubiera sido por el Señor que estaba a mi lado
La espalda estaba contra la pared
El me cuidó
Escuchó mi llanto y me rescató
Nunca dejes pasar un día sin darte cuenta de que somos bendecidos
No des por sentado que estamos aquí hoy
Solo debes saber que somos bendecidos y muy favorecidos
(Blessed & Highly Favored, 1990 Premio Grammy: Escrito por Karen Clark Sheard, The Clark Sisters)
Hay más en el sueño… pero no estoy lista para compartir las otras piezas todavía. No hace falta decir que me desperté de este sueño sintiéndome agradecida por los maestros, agradecida por la música gospel y agradecida por mis sueños. He estado cantando esta canción todo el día… hoy esta es mi mantra, mañana podría ser otra. No estoy segura de por qué el reino de los sueños decidió a bendecirme con esta canción, pero estoy muy agradecida de que haya llegado.
Dios hizo un llamado a Las Clark Sisters para crear y compartir esta composición. Ellas obedecieron, y años después la canción sigue bendiciendo vidas. En verdad, las bendiciones no expiran. | https://medium.com/acento-africano/blessed-highly-favored-a-dream-like-ode-to-the-clark-sisters-gospel-music-97f86defc984 | ['Kulwa Apara'] | 2020-09-11 22:28:06.478000+00:00 | ['Dreams', 'Black Women', 'Music', 'Español', 'God'] |
5 Top-Rated Places to Visit in Paris! | Everyone loves worldwide tours, Right? I’m sure you’re also one of those people who enjoy exploring nature and discovering the hidden enchantments of unique places.
In 2017, around 66.89 million people visited Paris, the highest number of visitors in the last four years. Because of its architectural heritage and monuments, Paris, the city of lights, is the most appealing destination for travelers.
So, let’s visit the five top-rated places in Paris.
1- Eiffel Tower
Paris is known as the city of romance due to its highly charismatic place, the Eiffel tower. For many couples, it has become a symbol of love and romance.
If you have ever visited the Eiffel tower, I can imagine your unforgettable experience with its beauty, attraction, and hypnotic views. Along with the highest building, visitors also find it the best spot for photography, and yes, I mean you cannot deny it.
2- Louvre Museum
Situated in the capital of France, the Louvre museum is the world’s largest art museum. Louvre Museum was once the residence of France’s kings, and many paintings were owned by the kings who lived there.
One of the essential things to do in Paris is to visit the Louvre museum. The most notable feature of this Museum is its captivating paintings, sculptures, and objects of art. Mona Lisa, the world’s renowned painting, is one of the masterpieces displayed in this Museum.
3- Cruise on the Seine
The boat on the seine river is one of the highly recommended places to visit in Paris. A boat tour down the seine river adds up to the alluring beauty of Paris.
You can appreciate its beautiful views in the morning, but it becomes more sightful and breathtaking in the evening. After the sun sets, all the monuments are illuminated, adding a special effect to the magical beauty of this river ride.
Boating in this river while seeing the illuminating landmarks of the city is one of the romantic experiences you’ve ever had. The Eiffel Tower, Louvre museum, and Notre Dame Cathedral appear even more spectacular from the ship.
4- Disneyland Paris
If you know mickey mouse, you cannot miss this place. Located 32 km from central Paris, Disneyland is one of the best fun places you can find in Paris.
You’ll see two theme parks in Disneyland Paris. One is Disneyland park and the other Walt Disney studios park. Everyone is familiar with Disneyland park, but studio park is primarily a film-making location. In 2018, more than 5.29 million people visited the park. You can see the entire park in less than three days, and its entertaining places would not let you bore anytime.
5- Pantheon
Have you ever visited Paris’s pantheon? If yes, you would agree with me that it’s not a church anymore. If we look at the history of this pantheon, it was built as a church in Rome and is now a national tomb for French citizens.
It is a sacred spot for many Christians and is known as a Christian church since people like Marie Curie, Voltaire, and Emile Zola are buried there. However, its spectacular design, elegance, and interior dome appeal to the visitors inside it.
Final verdict
Overall, Paris is a city filled with eternal beauty and unique locations. You cannot ignore its charm, and that’s why over 30 million people visit it each year. | https://medium.com/where-is-humanity/5-top-rated-places-to-visit-in-paris-6b7913eb03c9 | [] | 2021-08-25 07:21:32.012000+00:00 | ['Travel Writing', 'Travel', 'Tourist Places', 'France', 'Paris'] |
The Challenges Bringing Private Markets Online | The Challenges Bringing Private Markets Online
Three insights into why access to a multi-trillion dollar market is still in its nascent stages
Photo by Alex Radelich on Unsplash
Did you know that private market AUM grew to almost 10% the size of the global public markets in 2018? That represents more than 100% growth in private markets in the past decade, a market most people don’t even know exists! That’s part of the reason we decided to form RealBlocks — a way for people across the world to gain access to private markets. One of the questions I am frequently asked is if it’s such a large market, why aren’t there more platforms online offering access to it, and why can’t things like the blockchain accelerate access? I’ve had the benefit of struggling with this question myself for almost two years now, and want to share the three big factors I’ve seen holding back significant digital presence of private markets.
Natural Transition to New
When we look back in 50 years and talk about the greatest challenges of blockchain adoption into the finance ecosystem, I think it’ll probably be summarized as ‘everyone became so obsessed with the idea of decentralized self-ownership, no one ever stopped to ask if people really wanted the risk and burden of it’. Did you know almost no one actually owns the stock they buy? This has actually been that way since the 1960s when the financial markets were crippled trying to update paper certificate to prove ownership and moved to a system that centralized stock certificates, making it easier to update records.
Could something like the blockchain change this and provide a more efficient ecosystem? Possibly, but why would anyone step away from a system that has more or less worked for the past 60 years and instead go with technology created in the past decade? And not only that, but the new proposed system is diametrically opposed to how the current system operates (self vs. custodial ownership). So does this mean anyone trying to build applications on innovative new things like blockchain for traditional, mature markets is doomed?
Not at all! But my point is to stress that radical innovation needs to be coupled with gradual steps to an end state. Even if a certain innovation radically improves someone’s life, adoption is still going to be gradual if it doesn’t fit into a person’s existing understanding of how their world works. If you give people an option between a risky new thing or an old proven thing, every risk-averse person is likely to go with the latter. Since we exist in a risk-averse industry, our focus is on how to make a gradual transition into innovation. For example, it may seem silly and even defeating for a blockchain firm to use a transfer agent ledger as the official record while still writing to the blockchain, but being able to show that new technology works the same as the old technology is an invaluable strategy to adoption. Removing fear from new technology is a must-do in mature markets to have any form of success.
Nascent Ecosystem
Usually when an entrepreneur thinks about starting a business and building a product, they try and find out what is the bare minimum you can do to launch and get feedback. The problem with the minimum viable product (MVP) approach is that it strives for ‘barely enough’, while mature regulated markets have many expectations to even be usable. So what does it take to build a system like this in the world of alternatives? Some bare minimums include:
A broker-dealer partnership to legally be able to host and sell an offering at all in the United States
Escrow services to hold money while an offering is live and ongoing
Custodial services to hold client funds after the offering closes, because no one in the traditional world holds assets in their own names (see street name)
KYC/AML/Investor Accreditation so you can legally qualify investors for an offering
The ability to buy using traditional currency, because almost no traditional firms are going to buy anything in the near future using mainstream cryptocurrency
A Transfer Agent / ledger service to account for who owns the shares
Money to pay for all the documents and legal analysis to make sure it does not violate any private market regulations in every country you plan to offer securities in
The list can go on, and shows private offerings expectations go far beyond simple KYC/AML procedures. Building an alternatives platform isn’t simply making a webpage with some commerce features; it’s enabling an entire ecosystem of events to run through your system. Many companies have started to tackle pieces of the puzzle, but without a heavily vertically integrated platform, it’s easy to see how much work is left for a potential client to figure out.
Compelling Differentiation
One of the biggest roadblocks beyond catching up to minimal acceptable products is that there are almost no compelling differentiators practically available. This includes both things not created yet, and things that are created but don’t have the necessary prerequisites for adoption. Especially in the blockchain area, there are so many things to play catch-up on that it almost predicates some level of completion before useful differentiating products are embraced. Take the Uniswap project, for example, which is building around the idea of automated market makers. The idea of liquidity pools could greatly decrease the illiquidity discount on private securities, but it is predicated on properly vetted and issued securities, vetting of parties involved, regulatory checks, etc.
This isn’t something that has to stay this way though, and most people don’t expect it to. A 2018 study from Fidelity indicated that 73% of the institutional respondents felt that significant change would occur in the financial industry by 2025, with 75% of the respondents believing non-financial services firms will be involved in the disruption.
Conclusion
As daunting as it may seem, it’s really a very exciting time to see an old industry adopt new legs to stand on. Over the next few years I expect we’ll see particular focus on more fully vertically integrated systems, faster and easier management of issuances and shareholders, and more efficient secondary markets that comply with sophisticated international regulations.
This has the potential to drive price efficiency in a historically illiquid market and access to markets all over the world, bringing a whole new generation of sophisticated investors into a digitally-compliant global market. We are still very much in the discovery phase of finding out how to best evolve the alternatives market, but disruption in the industry seems to be a matter of “when”, not “if”.
Thanks for reading, and be sure to stay up to date with the latest RealBlocks news by signing up for our newsletter! | https://medium.com/realblocks-blog/the-challenges-bringing-private-markets-online-9a84d4b88b96 | ['Matt Grierson'] | 2019-09-04 15:16:03.261000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Stock Market', 'Finance', 'Blockchain', 'Investing'] |
Carnival of Youth | Carnival of Youth
- Ladies and gentlemen, I’m inviting you to become the part of something mystical and unusual.
A young fellow wearing Mr. Top Hat outfit was standing on the main square and announcing delusional news on the megaphone. A couple of people paid attention to him but only because the guy looked confident and unbelievably handsome. His voice was strong and loud.
- Youth. Oh, I bet most of you miss the time when they felt much healthier and younger. I bet some of you wake up — this time he pointed on the bunch of wrinkled ladies in cashmere coats and tons of make-up –look at yourself in the mirror and wish you were twenty-five again.
It seemed like his voice was getting more convincing when it got louder.
- What if I told you I could make you young again. We all are in power to destroy all the laws of biology and end up becoming fit, beautiful, healthy and young again. No more wrinkles, only scoop-neck dresses, and fancy tuxedoes. No more pain in the back, legs or head. No more fears of death. Youth is possible to be back and I can prove it to you.
A flock of middle-aged and older beings sharped their ears and stood blindsided. It was just too good to be true even for those who craved the youth.
- Raise your hand if you want to soak the youth in your body again. Raise your hand if you want to open your eyes and never recognize yourself. You become faster, you become stronger, and you become wilder.
Several raised their hands shooting suspicious grins on their faces. But Mr. Top Hat controlled the whole situation. He knew how to convince the dumb skeptics. He put the megaphone on the ground and fished out a big photo of a wrinkled old man who looked more like his grandpa.
- This old sad man on the picture is me a couple of years ago. I couldn’t help thinking about the protest against nature and I finally created the magic place where paradise becomes reality.
Then he ripped off the photo and took off his hat. He did it in such a posh way that everyone started hating him but no one dared to leave.
- Look at me now. I am young, I am handsome, I am strong. Sir, how much can you pay for the youth?
He addressed a wrinkled man who stood in front. He was poor, wearing a stained shirt and torn pants. He seemed to be paying no attention but Mr. Top Hat noticed him.
- I could give my soul to the devil.
Mr. Top Hat smirked and replied:
- No need to do this anymore, my old fellow. You pay only two hundred dollars and your youth belongs to you again. But you will be the first, so it’s for free but only for you.
The old man smiled and entered the big, dark box. After a few seconds, a super handsome, playboy-like guy in the torn and frayed clothes came out. The crowd clapped in bewilderment.
- This is the example of science against nature. Everything is possible for such a small price. In the central circus, there are dozens of these dark boxes which change your life forever. The show will get started after two hours.
All the past skeptics and naïve geeks shoved their doubts and ran to the central circus area. They counted their money. Their eyes, full of sparks and hope overshadowed the fireworks. They held the money in their shaking hands, waiting in the long eternal queue. Mr. Top Hat was delighted as never before.
- “Be prepared to change your appearance forever.”
He collected all the money from everyone and opened fifteen dark boxes which could fit seven people each. And the whole crowd moved to an invisible shining path, full of stars and was closed in the dark boxes as naïve prisoners. Circus was now empty. The entire crowd was hidden in the boxes. Only the wind and smile of Mr. Top Hat were floating around the circus ménage.
Dozens of voices still could be heard. Dozens of laughs could still not be stopped. Jokes in the boxes took over the seriousness of the whole atmosphere. A lot of people decided to become a part of it just for fun.
- Now, ladies and gentlemen. You will catch a glimpse of the light in the box. It will mean the metamorphosis began.
Flash of light in the boxes looked like the flash from the photograph. In a few seconds, silence banished all the shouts and screams of pain. Mr. Top Hat opened the boxes and waited.
Clucks, moos, chirps, bleats, growls, barks, bells, brays, quacks, buzzes, grunts, snorts and many other “voices” were addressing Mr. Top Hat.
- Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen, now you are free and young again. Enjoy your life and solitude. Because the youth is as short as the existence itself. Set yourself free.
All the cows, pigs, horses, birds, foxes, dogs, flies, donkeys and many other residents of the Planet ran away from their dark cages chasing for food.
They felt strong, young and hungry.
- We are rich geniuses, Nathaniel.
He looked at his friend who recently took off the dirty old torn clothes and washed off the last make-up spots. | https://medium.com/@natalylutsiv22/carnival-of-youth-def92b26ec28 | ['Nataliia Feuchtwanger'] | 2020-12-20 20:36:55.239000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Carnival', 'Science Fiction', 'Youth'] |
Konka expands from budget-priced smart TVs to basic smart home products | Konka expands from budget-priced smart TVs to basic smart home products Chris Jan 20·3 min read
The burgeoning smart home market needs to make room for another budget player: Konka is expanding from inexpensive 4K smart TVs to a relatively full line of smart home products.
The company hasn’t announced any prices yet, but we’re guessing its video doorbell, security camera, and smart lighting products will come in at the lower end of the spectrum. “Our [price strategy] will be the same as our televisions,” Konka North America senior vice president of marketing Scott Ramirez told TechHive. “We’re in that middle range.”
[ Further reading: The best smart plugs ] Mentioned in this article Konka U5-series 4K UHD Android TV (50-inch class, model 50U55A) Read TechHive's review$279.99See iton RCWilley We were relatively impressed with the price-to-performance ratio of Konka’s U5-series smart TV, so we’re cautiously optimistic about its new product line. The smart home devices Konka announced at CES connect over Wi-Fi and support both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa support. The company is also courting smart home enthusiasts by building in compatibility with IFTTT. Buyers will use the same Konka SmartApp that works with its Android TV products.
Konka Konka announced two smart home security cameras ahead of CES, one with a built-in floodlight.
Smart camerasKonka will release four smart cameras this spring, all with 1080p video and night vision, two-way audio, noise cancellation, and 128-bit encryption. The flagship wired Video Doorbell sports a 140-degree field-of-view, along with camera-based motion and human detection. The battery-powered Anywhere Video Doorbell will have 130-degree motion detection, with passive infrared motion detection with adjustable sensitivity. The AnywhereCam sports the same functionality as the Anywhere Video Doorbell, but will include a wall-mounting bracket. The Floodlight Cam adds dual-LED floodlights and a 90dB siren.
Customers with Konka TVs will be able to view their smart camera feeds directly from their sets, while IFTTT can be used to connect to other services, according to Ramirez. Each of the cameras is outfitted with an SD card slot for local storage, with a subscription-based cloud storage service available as an option. Here again, pricing for that service has not yet been announced.
Smart lighting Konka’s smart lighting effort will be limited to A19 and BR30 smart bulbs, plus a 5-meter LED light strip at launch. These will be both tunable white (2800 to 6500K) and color, with the A19 producing 750 lumens of brightness (60-watt equivalent), the BR30 producing 1,300 lumens (90-watt equivalent), and the LED light strip producing 700 lumens.
Three smart plugs are also in the officing, including single- and dual-outlet models and a power strip. These will all model include built-in surge protection, and the multi-outlet models will have individual outlet control.
Availability Konka expects to have its products in consumer’s hands by March or April, although the smart plugs will release later in the spring. There will also be additional devices to come, Ramirez said, which the company hopes to release throughout the year.
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/@chris85616579/konka-expands-from-budget-priced-smart-tvs-to-basic-smart-home-products-b0c7945e65ba | [] | 2021-01-20 01:56:02.565000+00:00 | ['Services', 'Chargers', 'Audio', 'Home Tech'] |
A Complete Guide to the Connecticut Primary, 5 Months Out | Polling
Few polls have been conducted to discern the preferences of Connecticut residents. In early October, Sacred Heart University polled to find out who was most likely to win the Connecticut primary and how candidates would fare head to head against Donald Trump.
If the Connecticut democratic primary were held today, 36.9% of respondents believed that Vice President Joe Biden would win. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders followed with 14% and 10.8%, respectively. Only 2.1% of respondents believed that Mayor Pete Buttigieg would win the Connecticut primary, but much could have changed in the two months since the poll.
Every candidate polled would beat Donald Trump in Connecticut, an unsurprising feat considering the state’s reputation as a democratic stronghold. Joe Biden fares the best against the President, garnering 52.2% to his 33.3% support. Biden is followed by Sanders, Warren, Harris, and Buttigieg, in that order. Buttigieg, the lowest polling candidate in the head to head match-up, would still beat Donald Trump with 45.8% to his 34.2%.
Does Connecticut Really Matter?
Every presidential election year, there are grumbles among Connecticut residents about the state’s perceived lack of influence in selecting a nominee. Often, state officials even float the idea of scheduling election day much earlier in nominating process. Despite this, Connecticut actually does have a fair amount of sway in the contest.
Connecticut could become particularly influential if there isn’t a clear nominee before early spring. If two candidates are neck and neck for delegates in April, it is possible that the state’s voters (along with the other Acela primary states) can make a real difference in who becomes the nominee. If 3 or 4 candidates appear to have a credible path to the nomination, Connecticut would become even more important. The state could provide highly coveted delegates to candidates as they seek to increase their totals before the convention. Connecticut will send 64 regular delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in mid-July.
It is far too soon to predict what the primary landscape will look like on election day, but Connecticut should not be ruled out as unimportant to the process.
In Conclusion
When Connecticut voters head to the polls on April 28, 2020, they will likely do so in record numbers. Even this early in the primary, many residents are consistently engaging with campaigns through donations, volunteering, and voicing their support. This will only increase as more candidates visit the state and make inroads with voters.
{Thanks for reading! Keep up with local Connecticut and Washington, DC politics by following me on twitter here} | https://medium.com/@christianjdamiana/ctprimaryguide-7d6bd6cee70d | ['Christian Damiana'] | 2019-11-19 19:34:33.120000+00:00 | ['President', 'Connecticut', 'Politics', 'State Politics', 'Democratic Primary'] |
Dating with Vitiligo | Krissy Gillaspia 2019 Vitiligo
At my age, I never thought I’d be divorced, single and starting my life over in just about every way you can imagine. But, here I am, killing it.
I never really worried about dating when I was younger. Dating was just dating. Even after divorce, it seemed there was always an opportunity to date someone.
But — I purposely took myself off the dating market for about a year. It was for a variety of reasons. I’d been married since about a year after college and even after being divorced twice (like I said, killing it), I never took time to just be single. I was trying to get on my feet financially and didn’t want to try to date while I was too broke to leave the driveway but that’s another story.
My first foray after I declared I’d wait awhile occurred about eight months out of a three year relationship. I met a nice man on a dating site and it wasn’t a bad experience. We went out for a few months and it was much better than some horror stories my friends told.
Not quite another year later, I’m thinking I want to meet someone.
And once again, I remember I now have an additional element when it comes to dating that I didn’t have 12 years ago.
I have vitiligo.
It’s stressful enough without worrying about whether or not you’ll be accepted when you meet face to face. We now have Covid-19 added into the mix. When you have a pigment disorder, it’s an even different level of stress.
Vitiligo came on about 12 years ago. I was divorced and dating a man who wasn’t bothered by it. When he met me, I didn’t have it. A few months later, I did. That’s how fast de-pigmentation can show up. I lost pigment from my inner wrists up my arms to my armpits in a year.
I’m third generation. My mom, aunt and grandmother all have/had it. Even so, their’s came on in their 30’s or younger. I guess I just assumed that it skipped me until it showed up one day.
In the winter, it’s not as noticeable. Winter clothing does that for you. In the summer, I tan pretty easily and quickly become two toned.
I won’t say I flaunt it. But — I don’t hide it.
My motto is ROCK YOUR SPOTS and I have a t-shirt that says “Beauty doesn’t have a skin tone.”
Most of the time I don’t think about it. In the summer I wear tank tops and shorts around town and I’m used to people looking. I’ve come a long way from my attitude when it first showed up. Back then, I worried it would show up on half my face overnight or I’d never be able to wear shorts again. I had nightmares about it.
I learned how much humans value looking like other humans.
I learned how much humans value looking like other humans. I’ve evolved since then. It’s made me a better person. Because, now I don’t know if I’d take a cure if it was offered. It simply doesn’t matter.
I don’t think about it very often. The people in my life who met me after vitiligo don’t seem to see it after the first couple of times.
So, I don’t think about it’s impact on people.
Until I decide to go on a dating site.
Face it. You get on a dating site, you are getting judged by your appearance instantly. For that reason alone, it takes courage for anyone. For those of us with characteristics outside of society’s “norm,” it becomes a different kind of decision.
You see, you are supposed to put pictures on these sites. The recommendations are pictures that show you as YOU. My thoughts are — do I purposely show off my two tone skin?
Do I hide it and then wait til we meet in person so I can gauge his reaction when he first sees it?
To me, that seems a little deceptive. It’s my SKIN for heaven’s sake. And, these days, I think it’s kinda cool. People like Winnie Harlow are paving the way and making me proud.
I’m so much more than my skin tones. They aren’t my identity. They aren’t my personality. But, they are a part of me.
Truthfully, more of my male friends than female friends message me now and then and compliment me on my skin. So, I know that some people find it attractive. (If you’re ever on Instagram, enter #vitiligo in the search feature.) I know that if I were to go out with someone who gave indication it was distasteful to him — I’d consider it his loss and a waste of my valuable time.
So, I’m not insecure about it.
Mostly.
The first time I started talking with someone on a dating site — I took a deep breath and sent him a picture showing off my skin. I just said, you need to know this about me before we talk any further.
I decided the approach would be easier for him and I wouldn’t have to deal with seeing the reaction if it wasn’t positive. If it was a problem, he could just say so and take his happy ass somewhere else.
So, while I can brag about how confident I am in my skin, that I’m cool with it, the fact remains: I’m a chicken when it comes to meeting someone in a dating situation for the first time if they don’t know this about me.
My first foray in online dating, I was blessed. He was okay with my spots and after we started dating, I don’t think he ever really noticed it. My friends say similar things. Once you “know” someone, you don’t see things that stand out to strangers.
So, here I am thinking of dating. Maybe. Deep breath.
I decided to specify I was only looking for “chatting” until I’m ready. Hopefully, “chatting” doesn’t mean anything more than talking or texting online til we figure out if we want to move to a next step. I say “hopefully” because I’ve recently learned terms that show either my naivety or my age. Seriously? Netflix and chill means casual sex or a groupie invite?!
My own thoughts on vitiligo and dating made me curious about my fellow spotted friends. The reality is we are all different. Some people are fine with it. Many have had it since they were babies. Others, like me, got it later in life and learned to deal with it.
Still others go into depression. I’ve seen people in online support groups talk about how they feel like their life is over.
No two people are the same. So, while I have a humorous take on life, and rock my spots, I have empathy for my fellow vitiligo brothers and sisters. I support their choices in dealing with it in a way that works best for them.
For me? I’ll probably leave the vitiligo photos off of a dating profile and share when it feels right. It’s worked in the past. And, I think that’s the best any of us can do no matter what the situation is.
Trust your gut. Don’t chase anyone.
Be true to your truth not what you think should be your truth.
Authenticity is attractive.
Know that it’s OKAY if you are in a different place and moving at a different pace than others.
Share what you want, when it feels right. | https://medium.com/@krissyg/dating-with-vitiligo-3a2bd2e64efa | ['Krissy Gillaspia'] | 2020-12-18 16:37:05.688000+00:00 | ['Empowerment', 'Autoimmune Disease', 'Women', 'Vitiligo', 'Dating'] |
OpenLayers vs Mapbox GL JS: a performance test | I recently did a performance test on OpenLayers and Mapbox GL JS , making two pop density interactive maps of Taiwan using one library for each map. Why? Cause I have learned for a long time that Mapbox GL JS is based on WebGL, which boasts outstanding performance when rendering a large number of polygons. But just how much more performance can Mapbox GL JS provide than OpenLayers, which is powered by Canvas, yet another decent rendering tech? This test aims to find out the answer.
You can check out two versions of the same map below. Texts are in Chinese but you can still get a feel of the interactivity by clicking and scrolling around.
OpenLayers: https://imdataman.github.io/openlayers-map/
Mapbox GL JS: https://imdataman.github.io/mapbox-density-map/
Both maps provide the same functionality, displaying nearly 8,000 polygons representing villages/boroughs. The performance of Mapbox GL JS outshone OpenLayers quite a bit. On my humble 2018 MacBook Air with Chrome, I can record an average 20-plus frame rate with the Mapbox GL JS one throughout the interaction, but with the OpenLayers one I can only record an average frame rate of no more than 10.
Mapbox GL JS Performance on my 2018 MacBook Air with Chrome
OpenLayers Performance on my 2018 MacBook Air with Chrome
Also Mapbox GL JS provide more ease of development than OpenLayers, with Mapbox team maintaining a wide range of well-written tutorials and examples on their website, although I feel that OpenLayers may give more flexibility to developers with all kinds of mysterious apis hidden in the documentation?
Besides, as I am not very experienced with both libraries, there may be some parts that can be improved to boost performance in the OpenLayers map. If you feel like playing around or improve the code you can head straight to my Github. Cheers! | https://medium.com/@imandylin2_38094/openlayers-vs-mapbox-gl-js-a-performance-test-5376b9209947 | ['Andy Lin'] | 2019-12-07 09:27:13.929000+00:00 | ['Cartography', 'Mapbox', 'Openlayers', 'GIS', 'Front End Development'] |
Authors That Helped Cuddle Introversion | 1. Dushka Zapata
I feel immensely grateful for the day I found an answer written by Dushka on Quora. I have been reading her posts perpetually since then. From Quora to Instragam now, I never fail to miss her beautiful outlook on life.
Each and every article of hers has been delightful, comforting, and consoling. In many of her posts, she has elucidated what introversion is, often by recounting her own experiences. Her stories were a start for me to reflect on my life and understand myself.
In my opinion, Dushka’s books are the best enablers of self-reflection and self-love. Her books are a collection of essays from her life. She emphasizes on not giving advice and encourages us to find the answers to our ordeals ourselves. In the books, she’s only letting us know of her experiences and the insights she had afterward, how they helped her in admitting and learning about herself. One of my favourite books, written by Dushka, is described below:
In the book titled, “Love Yourself: And Other Insurgent Acts That Recast Everything”, the essays focus majorly on insecurities and how they can disrupt our view of oneself and others. How easy is it for humans to fog our brains with deprecating and hurting thoughts about oneself. How thoughts are just thoughts, and they do not represent reality. And how important it is to define and lucidly state personal boundaries. How love is not an imposition, but mutual respect for boundaries.
“Boundaries are love.”
My favourite quote would be: “Relinquishing a characteristic that makes you incompatible feels like you are compromising not just your happiness but your identity.” The author never fails to amaze with her freeing perspectives on the ongoings of life. And on embracing introversion!
I would recommend her books to anyone struggling with self-love, and the uncertain trajectories of mind and life, so that we can learn and appreciate the fine nuances of our personalities. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/authors-that-helped-cuddle-introversion-7e898a8ebcbe | ['Diksha Singh'] | 2020-12-11 15:01:15.353000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Authors', 'Introversion', 'Introvert'] |
Trick or Treating | The hours for Halloween Trick or Treating on Saturday, Oct. 31 in Medford Township are 3–8 p.m.
Residents and businesses that will be giving away treats are asked to turn on porch lights. Participants are asked not to visit homes or businesses that do not have lights on.
Children should wear light colors and/or reflective gear and carry a flashlight after dark. | https://medium.com/the-medford-sun/trick-or-treating-e995778c0d3e | [] | 2016-12-19 15:46:22.167000+00:00 | ['Medford Township', 'Trick Or Treating', 'Headlines', 'Halloween'] |
Getting started with Ethereum smart contracts-I | Getting started with Ethereum smart contracts-I
A beginner’s guide to deploying smart contracts
Right from its advent in 2015, Ethereum has been the major blockchain network and we have seen a lot of interesting dApps and protocols being built around it. The world is speaking of ‘Web 3.0’, ‘decentralised internet’, ‘the new internet’, all the crazy ‘crypto’ terms and there you are, still in search for a ‘getting started’ aid. This article aims to help you out. We will be discussing ‘smart contracts’, the most interesting thing in the Ethereum blockchain that made developing dApps, decentralised protocols…‘relatively’ easy. Once you get your heads around smart contracts you will be able to build anything on and for this World Computer.
Tell me my secret number ????
Let’s play a game and understand an end user's perspective of what smart contracts are. You, me and some of your friends are going to play this simple game called “Tell me my secret number”. The game is as described,
All players except you write down a ‘secret number’ and their name in a piece of paper, fold it and hand over the paper to you. You keep all the entries in a ‘safe box’ that only you have access. After everybody is done, we gather around. Each player gets to ask a player, “Tell me my secret number?”. Suppose Alice asks Bob. Bob takes a minute and responds claiming that ‘XXXX’ is Alice’s secret number. You as the holder of the ‘safe box’ verify his claim that the secret number ‘XXXX’ belongs to Alice by opening the box and checking the chit. If Bob’s claim is true he gets a prize from Alice.
The inherent problem of ‘Trust’
What is the problem with this game? Trust. As I am a total outsider to you guys, how can I be sure that you guys played ‘truthfully’. This won’t matter if the prize is of less value or just points. What if it is 10 Bitcoins or USD 34000? Specific interests might pop up in your mind and urge you to help a dear friend of yours in the group. You might even come to an agreement with him/her to share the prize. So on what account should I believe you guys, especially you? How can a player be sure that he/she will get the prize once he/she wins?
Here is what happened.
You being a blockchain enthusiast educated us about this wonderful technology called ‘smart contracts’ and how it can be used to solve the underlying problem here. So let’s have a look at the smart contract solution the ‘future you’ suggested.
‘Game.sol’, your first smart contract
Open up the Remix IDE, which is a tool to write, edit, deploy and test Ethereum smart contracts written in Solidity language. Click on the + button (Fig. 1) to create a new file and name it as ‘Game.sol’.
Fig.1: Adding a new file
3. Copy the code from here and paste it to the ‘editor window’.
4. Under the ‘Compile’ tab choose the compiler version as 0.5.1 if the current version is not a subversion of 0.5.0 (Fig.2).
Fig.2: Choosing the compiler version
5. Click on the ‘Start Compile’ button to compile your contract. Ignore the warnings for now.
6. Go to the ‘Run’ tab and set the environment as ‘Javascript VM’(Fig.3).
7. Make sure the compiled contract name i.e. ‘Game’ appears on this dropdown. Click ‘Deploy’ (Fig.3).
Fig.3: Choosing ‘Environment’ and deploying ‘Game’ contract
8. Two things should have happened,
A green tick with some info got logged to the terminal (Fig.4).
Under ‘Deployed Contracts’ listing, an entry for ‘Game’ appears (Fig.5).
Fig.4: Deployment status got logged in the terminal
Fig.5: Game contract appears in the ‘Deployed Contracts’ listing.
Congrats, you have successfully deployed the ‘Game’ contract.
Interacting with the ‘Game’ contract
Now we are all set to play the game by interacting with the ‘Game’ contract. Before moving on to the intricate details of the code itself, let’s try to understand it from an end user's perspective. The ‘Remix IDE’ where you compiled and deployed the ‘Game’ contract also provides the functionality to test and interact with the same.
Under the listing ‘Deployed Contracts’, click on the ‘Game’ contract. You should see a nice UI of the interface (Fig.6) that the contract provides for communicating with it (These are the only way to interact with the contract). Let’s discuss each component in detail.
Fig.6: Interface provided by Game contract
First, let’s check who is the ‘safeHolder’? Click on the ‘safeHolder’ and notice the two changes to the IDE UI.
Fig.7: Address of safe holder
Fig.8: Address from which the contract was deployed, ie, your public key.
We get to know who is the ‘ safe holder ’. A 20-byte address is displayed just below the ‘ safeHolder ’ button (Fig.7). Compare it with the address you used to deploy the contract that’s available at the ‘Account’ parameter of ‘Run’ tab (Fig.8). They are the same!
’. A 20-byte address is displayed just below the ‘ ’ button (Fig.7). Compare it with the address you used to deploy the contract that’s available at the ‘Account’ parameter of ‘Run’ tab (Fig.8). They are the same! This information got logged in the terminal (Fig.9), which means ‘a call to the contract just happened’ which implies that you have successfully interacted with your Game contract.
Fig.9: Information that got logged in the terminal
Note: As we recognise people with names, in the realm of blockchain every entity is uniquely identified by an address. Please note down the safe holder address at least first 4 digits.
Conclusion #1: Anybody can interact with the contract and get to know who is the safe holder.
Now let’s try to add a player. Since your account (Remember the address we spoke of just a few lines above ?) is the ‘safe holder’, only you should be able to add a player (This can be changed to ‘anybody can join the game’, but for this discussion let’s keep it this way).
Click on the ‘addAPlayer’ button ‘down’ arrow to pass the arguments to this function. Within the double quotes paste an address for _player parameter and a string for ‘_name’ parameter (Don’t forget the double quotes) and click on ‘transact’ and you will get this info with green tick got logged, means it was successful.
Note: You can get an address from ‘Account’ drop down (Fig.11)and use ‘Copy to clipboard’ button (Fig.12). Make sure that you switch back to the ‘safe holder’ address in Account drop down, as for this step ‘safe holder’ is adding the player. | https://medium.com/koinex-crunch/getting-started-with-ethereum-smart-contracts-i-5bf6a37be37b | ['Ajith Vijayan'] | 2019-02-05 15:17:51.362000+00:00 | ['Solidity', 'Ethereum', 'Engineering', 'Blockchain', 'Smart Contracts'] |
Basic SQL Skills for Product Managers | Data is a powerful tool for Product Managers. We all know that corporations should use data to run their business and make the decision process easier. When any type of data is involved in the process, databases are used in every single aspect of it.
You might be wondering, should I become a database expert? I say, you won’t need to. The most popular language used for manipulating data from a database is SQL, and you don’t need to be an expert to manipulate the database to generate reports and analysis.
Keep in mind that around you, everyone is using SQL to drive these databases. But where? I’d say, everywhere from your phone to your computer, from the social networks you use, to softwares. They’re all using SQL when managing data.
Learning SQL will teach you how to manipulate the data to get the information you need. You will learn how to interact directly with your database. I’m sure your team will feel extremely grateful if you gather the data by yourself without bothering them. Don’t forget to ask them for the access and check your permissions.
By Programming with Mosh
What’s SQL?
SQL is an acronym for Structured Query Language, and it’s also referred to as “sequel.” They’re the same thing, and people use both terminologies. SQL is the language that allows communication with the database with the objective of managing the data it contains.
SQL is a domain-specific language used in programming and designed for managing data held in a relational database management system (RDBMS) or for stream processing in a relational data stream management system (RDSMS). It is particularly useful in handling structured data where there are relationships between different entities and variables of the data — Wikipedia.
The acronym CRUD refers to: Create, Retrieve, Update, and Delete data from a database. You will probably be mainly interested in the ability to get the information you need from the database that corresponds to the letter R of CRUD. The other letters (C, U, D) are typically the responsibility of Engineers and DBAs and not as relevant to PMs.
MySQL and PostgreSQL databases
MySQL and PostgreSQL are popular open source databases. Their database type is known as a ‘relational database’, a set of multiple data sets organized by columns, tables, and also records. Each table is known as a ‘relation’, and the data stored as tables has its own number of columns and rows and represents a set of data.
In a relational database, the tables can communicate with each other in the same way an Excel or Google spreadsheet works. In the database, the tables communicate based on specific fields known as ‘keys.’
Both MySQL and PostgreSQL are DB software, and their usage is very similar. They’re open source, which means that the original source code is freely available and publicly accessible.
The main differences between the two are how they organize the data internally and some optimization tools, but their usage of SQL is pretty much identical. One big difference is that PostgreSQL is case sensitive.
How can I use it?
You can measure results and set metrics without needing to involve your engineering team to gather the data you need. This capability can be really handy especially if you work in lean teams.
For PMs, the understanding of where the data lives can lead to a deeper knowledge of your product and its flaws. You can help the team make sure relevant fields are added to the table so you and your team can generate better reports and analyses.
The process of retrieving information from a database is called ‘querying’ a database. After querying the database, a result is known as a ‘result set.’ The result is the answer to your query.
How do queries work?
The whole point of a query is basically to describe exactly what information your application needs, potentially joining together information from several sets of documents, and then being able to generate a response that contains only the exact fields you need.
SQL queries allow you to find things like:
A list of bank customers eligible for a new credit card;
The count and the total sum of credit card transactions for each customer aggregated daily;
The top five merchants used by customers monthly;
Last month’s 10 largest credit card transactions in descending order;
Among other things.
Connecting to a database
There are various ways to connect to a SQL database. Remember that before you can connect to a database, you’ll need some information such as username, password, server address, protocol, and port. Check with your engineering team, they’ll be able to grant you access!
SQL SELECT statement
The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database. The data returned is stored in a result table, and it’s called the ‘result-set’.
The basic syntax for the SELECT statement, when used in a SELECT statement, is as follows.
SELECT column1, column2….columnN FROM table_name;
Check the examples below, they were inspired by sqlzoo.net. The example uses a WHERE clause to show the population of Brazil.
SELECT population FROM world WHERE name = ‘Brazil’
You can use WHERE name LIKE ‘B%’ to find the countries that start with “B”.
SELECT name FROM world WHERE name LIKE ‘B%’
How to use WHERE to filter records. Show the name for the countries that have a population of at least 200 million. 200 million is 200000000, there are eight zeros.
SELECT name FROM world WHERE population = 63206900
List each country name where the population is larger than that of India.
SELECT name FROM world WHERE population > (SELECT population FROM world WHERE name=’India’)
Find the largest country (by area) on each continent, show the continent, the name and the area:
SELECT continent, name, population FROM world x WHERE population >= ALL (SELECT population FROM world y WHERE y.continent=x.continent AND population>0)
SQL WHERE clause
Every programming language follows a unique set of guidelines termed syntax. Punctuation, spaces, mathematical operators, and special characters have special meaning when used inside of SQL commands and query statements. Check more information about it here.
SELECT * FROM tableName WHERE condition;
The following SQL statement selects all the customers from the country “Pakistan”, in the “Customers” table:
SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE Country=’Pakistan’;
The following SQL statement selects all the customers from the subscription “Paid”, in the “Subscription” table:
SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE Subscription=’Paid’
The following DELETE statement removes only those rows from table mytable where the column mycol is either NULL or has a value that is equal to 100.
DELETE FROM mytable WHERE mycol IS NULL OR mycol = 100
IN will find any values existing in a set of candidates.
SELECT ename WHERE ename IN (‘Paid’, ‘Free’)
BETWEEN will find any values within a range.
SELECT ename WHERE ename BETWEEN ‘Free’ AND ‘Pro’
SQL Syntax
Every programming language follows a unique set of guidelines termed syntax. Punctuation, spaces, mathematical operators, and special characters have special meaning when used inside of SQL commands and query statements.
SQL SELECT Statement
SELECT column1, column2….columnZ FROM table_name;
SQL DISTINCT Clause
SELECT DISTINCT column1, column2….columnZ FROM table_name;
SQL WHERE Clause
SELECT column1, column2….columnZ FROM table_name WHERE CONDITION;
SQL AND/OR Clause
SELECT column1, column2….columnZ FROM table_name WHERE CONDITION-1 {AND|OR} CONDITION-2;
SQL IN Clause
SELECT column1, column2….columnZ FROM table_name WHERE column_name IN (val-1, val-2,…val-N);
SQL BETWEEN Clause
SELECT column1, column2….columnZ FROM table_name WHERE column_name BETWEEN val-1 AND val-2;
SQL LIKE Clause
SELECT column1, column2….columnZ FROM table_name WHERE column_name LIKE { PATTERN };
SQL ORDER BY Clause
SELECT column1, column2….columnZ FROM table_name WHERE CONDITION ORDER BY column_name {ASC|DESC};
SQL GROUP BY Clause
SELECT SUM(column_name) FROM table_name WHERE CONDITION GROUP BY column_name;
SQL COUNT Clause
SELECT COUNT(column_name) FROM table_name WHERE CONDITION;
SQL HAVING Clause
SELECT SUM(column_name) FROM table_name WHERE CONDITION GROUP BY column_name HAVING (arithmetic function condition);
Logical operators
The Logical operators are those that are true or false. They return a true or false value to combine one or more true or false values.
AND
Logical AND compares between two Booleans as expression and returns true when both expressions are true.
OR
Logical OR compares between two Booleans as expression and returns true when one of the expression is true.
NOT
Not takes a single Boolean as an argument and changes its value from false to true or from true to false. | https://medium.com/pm101/basic-sql-skills-for-product-managers-eff2a9980c14 | ['Thaisa Fernandes'] | 2021-02-24 04:13:55.477000+00:00 | ['Postgresql', 'Sql', 'Product Management', 'MySQL', 'Coding'] |
How Mindful Parenting Can Help You Communicate Better with Your Children | How Mindful Parenting Can Help You Communicate Better with Your Children illuminations world Follow Feb 26 · 3 min read
By Jcomp
For many, the words — mindful parenting — may seem intimidating. The immediate image that comes up when you think of a mindful parent is someone who is in control of their emotions all the time and does not lose their cool. However, mindful parenting is so much more than that.
Let’s take a look at the importance of mindful parenting and how it can help you manage your relationship with your children better.
What is Mindful Parenting?
Practicing mindful parenting does not mean that you will not be critical of your child, or that you will never have any dreams or expectations for them. No, that’s very much a part of being human and a parent.
Mindful parenting is a practice where you train yourself to be a witness to what is happening, to be able to pause and ask yourself, “What is the best and kindest way to respond to this situation?”.
Mindfulness parenting pioneers Jon and Myla Kabat-Zinn, who have authored ‘ Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting ‘, say that the practice involves focusing attention on the child-parent relationship and not just on oneself.
Mindful Parenting Can Help You Communicate Better with Your Children
More often than not, we work in a reactive mode driven by our subconscious beliefs and past patterns. As a result, we keep re-creating the past as if we were on automatic pilot.
Instead, if we become mindful by committing to live in the moment and to be present, then we can completely change the way we react to any situation. It can also help the relationship between you and your child strengthen and become more open-hearted.
Therapists and researchers say that mindful parenting involves the following:
Listening to the child with attention
Accepting yourself as well as your child fully, without judgement
Being emotionally aware of yourself and your child
Self-regulating your method of parenting
Self-compassion and compassion for your child
Mindful parenting is about being present moment-to-moment so that you can see your child’s unique nature and talents, appreciate and nurture them. By being mindful, you step away from the traps of placing the burden of your own unmet needs and dreams on your children.
You may also be able to identify dysfunctional family roles that your child may be susceptible to fall into.
It is important in this day and age to master the art of managing the child-parent relationship with mindful parenting techniques. Because every thought, word, and action uttered by the parents in the early years of childhood shapes the child’s development and how they view life in the later years.
You will also get the beautiful gift of seeing that your children become mindful too in their own lives! | https://medium.com/an-idea/how-mindful-parenting-can-help-you-communicate-better-with-your-children-a786ec13c44b | ['Illuminations World'] | 2021-03-09 02:43:41.820000+00:00 | ['Parenting Tips', 'Mindful Parenting', 'Mindfulness', 'Parenting Advice', 'Parenting'] |
The concept of life is such a strange and magical idea | We as the human race cannot even comprehend what the universe around us offers day in and day out. We build ourselves up to be the most dominant creatures on earth, when in reality we are not much more than a speck of dust in the universe. What does make us unique however, is our power within. If we approach life with the egotistical view that our strength of body and being is the most important and powerful aspect of life, we will get nowhere. What we must do in order to achieve the truth and peace that the universe has to offer, is join the harmony.
We must remember our place and stay humble. We must understand that we are not put in this world to grow high in the leadership ladder of the institutionalized life, we are placed here in order to spread the love and positive energy throughout all that is and all that will ever be around us. So many have lost their ways without ever having the chance of even understanding what it is that they came here to do. We cannot blame however, those that have fallen to the ridden path. Our minds have the ability to understand so much more that our thoughts can ever show, but when they are not exercised they will not be. Evil is the term that so many fear and too many others turn to be. Evil is a bacteria. When it infects, it grows and grows and exponentially becomes that much harder to contain.
It is therefore so important to aspire towards goodness, where the light is shining bright. One who has fallen towards evil must never be forgotten. When we forget, this is when we start to hate. Hatred is worse than evil. We must realize that we are all of the same matter, filled with same but different conflicts from within. If the evil feels no love, it grows darker even faster. We must be strong. We must spread the light throughout without endangering our minds and souls. Those who properly make an impact are the ones who are capable of entering the evil and spreading the light. We must not fear the evil as we do, rather reveal the power that the light has to offer. There will be those who have dug themselves in too deep, and we must trust that they will come to understand what is clarity when they enter the next stage. We must make sure that we don’t hurt ourselves trying with the ones who have receded this low. But, we must not give up. This is the most common and worse mistake that we can make on this journey.
| https://medium.com/@mirserkez/what-is-life-really-6a54c0094b34 | ['Miriam Serkez'] | 2020-05-20 09:33:43.851000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Universe', 'Positivity', 'Light'] |
Gender Is More Trouble Than I Can Bear | Gender Is More Trouble Than I Can Bear
Photo of Author by Suba T
When I first read Gender Trouble by the feminist philosopher Judith Butler and came across the concept of “performativity”, I felt years of oppressive aloneness fall away. I felt that someone described what I have been trying to put into words for a lifetime. I felt validated.
But this is a personal story about my experience of gender and the question that begs to be asked is “Am I a woman?”
If I have to label myself, I get confused. I want to make a category called gender-confused and place myself there.
What is wrong with me is that I want to identify with the species of people called “women” even as I repeatedly fall short of the category’s ideals. If I am not wrong, a lot of the so-called cis women are struggling with the expectations placed upon them as well.
What I want is for ‘women’ to see me and embrace me into their sisterhood. Transwomen, ciswomen, any women. There IS a sisterhood, right? But the moment they see me, I am likely to get othered based upon visible difference.
I am deeply a feminist, and I want to talk about what it means to be a woman. I want to write about women’s issues. What stops me short is the question of whether the fellow women would accept me as one of them to care enough for what I have to say.
For example, I recently published a poem about decolonizing the idea of ‘woman’ and I was wondering the entire time if I even have the right to speak about women. I made an Instagram account called “writing herself” and then changed its name.
I feel a deep sense of identity as a woman but I also feel alienated at the same time.
I wondered whether people would be more likely to follow if I had an easily relatable/acceptable female face. How about long hair falling below shoulders, wearing something “pretty” with sunshine obscuring half of her face, and better yet, a white face? Who is the authority on “women”? Whose voice has implicit authority without having to earn it?
Let me tell you a bit about myself: I grew up in the beautiful paradise island of Sri Lanka which is also a highly patriarchal culture. Within it, I grew up as a girl and was on my way to womanhood.
There was no doubt about it, patriarchy offended me daily, and therefore, I was a girl. It was unsafe to walk alone in the streets; therefore, I was a girl.
Even then, I was not a “good enough” girl. Society consistently pushed against my real self. The only time I got noticed in primary school was when I beat up a boy who wanted to beat up a girl. The fact that I dared to do so got me noticed at school. It was an odd thing for a girl to do and overnight everybody knew my name.
I had short hair then but as soon as I became twelve years old people wanted me to grow my hair back so I can be a proper woman. I had to carefully watch my behavior and not act so wild. I had to make sure I sit with my legs close together. I had to stop playing with boys. Since I could no longer play with them, instead I climbed a mango tree and watched them play cricket in the afternoons. Also, I wasn’t allowed to climb trees.
Freedom of gender expression was childhood entertainment that was denied to me after puberty. People continued asking me if I don’t like to wear dresses or skirts. My best friend’s mother was so invested, she wanted to make me a dress herself.
I gave in and spent eight years actively performing femininity until the age of twenty. Then I let go.
Now I wear what I want, speak, act, and live in the ways that are natural to me. Sometimes, I shop from the men’s section for clothing because I think they are more comfortable, practical, and long-lasting. I wear makeup rarely if I feel like it. I buy and wear dresses out of my own choice sometimes (rarely too — but still). Right now I feel more feminine than I have ever been before.
Now I am as myself as I can be at the moment. Tomorrow I might bloom into something else. Who knows? I have cut my hair short again for the last few years. Why do I live in a world where I need to explain the preference I have for my hair length?
Every time I socialize with Sri Lankan people, at least one of them manages to loudly comment on my hair in a room full of people or mention that I look just like a guy. Or they say that now I look like my father. As a result, I feel completely alienated around ‘my people’ — they are not my people anymore.
I am tired of the binary and policing of people into gendered categories. I still don’t understand why a vast majority of people follow the way society has organized gender — I think partly it is the coziness of conformity. I imagine it has little to do with ‘nature’.
Sometimes I miss the long hair and wish to magically have it back for a day. Only if I had a fairy godmother.
What more, my short hair might have nothing much to do with gender. When it comes to living, I go for simplicity, ease, and minimalism. My hair has a lot more to do with those.
However, when I read the stories of transmen, I identify with some of their childhood experiences of not fitting into expected gender expectations. Then I question myself again — the middle is also a difficult space to occupy.
What makes me different is that internally I feel like a woman while externally I act like a man sometimes. That is also because society has categorized behavior as feminine and masculine — it didn’t need to do so but stereotypes are what humans rely on. In reality, I behave like myself.
It is no longer a performance — it was a performance when I took extra care to look feminine in the past just to avoid other people’s judgment.
Even having lived in the so-called first world for the last fourteen years, there is not much difference when it comes to gender expectations. We might think society has changed drastically, but it depends on which social bubble you live in. The average person still doesn’t get gender beyond the binary.
There are three key aspects of myself that I feel makes me stand outside of the sisterhood looking in:
Sexuality
I could not generate enthusiasm for the conversations of women that involved talking about men. And women mostly talk about men with other women — why is that? Do men spend most of their time with their bros talking about women? I don’t think so.
Plus I am overall strange, and I don’t care for gossip or keeping up with pop culture, so I tend to become invisible very quickly regardless of my gender or sexual orientation. This was my experience even when I was gender-conforming and in the closet.
In group conversations, I was more of a ghost than a woman.
I am both woman and other. I am also brown, queer, and polyamorous — I am the other of the other. These are not identity attributes that I put on for fun or attention. These are attributes that would make a person like me disappear into the cracks of this society. These make my existence heavy.
I’d rather have belonging.
Personality
Part of gender is the outward appearance and mannerisms. I do not think of myself as a “butch” woman or even a masculine woman.
People are less likely to call me beautiful or pretty now. I have the same face though. However, to my greatest unhappiness, people still tell me to smile.
What confuses people most at first glance are the short hair and the way I hold myself. So when people have mistakenly called me “sir” a few times, it has shaken me a bit. Only men have misgendered me so far — can you explain that? It’s usually cashiers or people who stop me to ask for directions.
The moment they see that I might be a woman, they start apologizing. I don’t mind — you can call me sir and get gender-confused anytime. I have to admit that I get a sinister sort of pleasure when someone is confused about my gender. That is because I think a whole lot about gender is socially constructed bullshit romanticizing the coming together of opposites (important for heteronormativity).
Note: I am happy to be misgendered by mistake but I am annoyed when people who know me associate me with ‘man’. For example, asking who wears the pants and immediately assuming it is me. No no no, for so many reasons. “Man" as is now, is the last thing I want to be.
Non-conformity
If I am gender-nonconforming, it is only because I am non-conforming in general. I am myself. I have an interest in belonging, but I have no interest in performing anything. I don’t even want to perform genderqueerness or non-conformity.
Every alternative label comes with a set of expectations and I find them to be as burdensome as the idea of what a “woman” should be. I find it easier to live without thinking of gender, but it is impossible — it is a privilege I don’t have.
I miss the acceptance I had prior to becoming this version of myself. If I grow my hair long and curly again, maybe wear some makeup, and never mention the presence of my wife, maybe I will be back in the in-group? At least to stay there and be a ghost?
Back then I didn’t have to be questioned by other people so much and I didn’t have to question myself. I could live without the hyper self-awareness of minute social interactions.
All these points discussed make me want to say, “Hey, look at me — I am also woman. I might not be an ideal woman, but I am a woman.” Another part of me is happy to occupy the zones of “neither man nor woman” or “both woman and man” or transgender as in between (binary) genders. | https://medium.com/the-virago/gender-is-more-trouble-than-i-can-bear-f43321dc14ae | ['Tima Loku'] | 2020-12-24 17:44:48.015000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'Transgender', 'Women', 'Gender', 'Feminism'] |
Building Streamplate | This was a pretty high-level thought but it kept re-appearing: I felt there was a need for a general navigational system that could tailor experiences for individuals.
It had to be more than a recommendation engine. It was almost a safe and secure, behavioural-predicting system that could action those choices.
It was also obvious to myself that software and hardware were a whole new world that I wanted to explore. Without hesitation, I enrolled in Electrical/Computer Engineering and Neuroscience at the University of Sydney for the start of 2017.
2017
Eventually, this idea evolved into a Facebook messenger-based, bulk-ordering system where users could join orders and receive a varying volume-discount that increased/decreased based on the number of participants for that order.
Over the next few months with two friends, we began hashing out a prototype on Facebook. | https://medium.com/streamplate/building-streamplate-81693d26d382 | ['Bryan Jordan'] | 2020-08-22 03:08:30.819000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Entrepeneurship', 'Programming', 'Filmmaking', 'Startup'] |
I have no Choice, My Dear Parents | A Typical Desi Mard (male) dilemma.
Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash
In Asia, especially in Pakistan and India, there is a deeply rooted tradition of arranged marriage. The tradition is that the family members of a boy go to see a girl in her home. The girl serves food and shows them her ‘mannerism’. Boy’s family members, most probably mother, looks at the girl from head to toe. She judges her character, way of speaking, her complexion, education, mannerisms and many ,many other things in just one sitting and then rejects on one simple thing such as ‘girl’s complexion is not fair or she is a bit healthy or she is short etc’. Once my friend told me that a family came to see her and the mother placed her hand under my chin and pulled it towards her to see my friend’s face more ‘clearly’. Pathetic!!!
Well, this was just a context; I want to say something else.
I want to talk about that man who sends his parents to another home to choose a girl for him.
Frankly speaking, I don’t like those men. (Blunt? Yes. Usually I don’t say bad about anyone, I know, but I have to be clear what I think about them).
I have certain things that I think about them. They want arrange marriage for certain reasons:
1. Well, some guys tell their parents about their ‘preferences’ regarding a girl because it seems more easy than trying. Like seriously? In this way you would only get ‘appearances’. Or maybe they only want appearances.
2. When a male wants an arrange marriage, he doesn’t have a choice of his own. So he gives all the matter to his parents. Or sometimes he thinks about his ideal girl but still gives the matter to his family. Lazy and lame!!
3. Some guys want arranged marriage because they are tired of finding a girl on their own. Well, in that case I can pity them as they don’t have any guts. They deserve ‘arranged girl’. Or may be they are simply shy.
4. Sometimes a guy wants an arrange marriage as he has done a lot of ‘girlfriend stuff’ already. Now he wants ‘shareef (pious)’ girl for him because his girlfriends are just ‘outside girls’. (like really?). There is a very crucial point here. How can a boy be sure that the girl he is getting via ‘arranged marriage’ hasn’t gone out with someone? Can’t she be the girlfriend of someone else? Don’t you see a cycle runs here? It is. And that is called “karma”, my dear.
5. Some guys are simply like a lump attached to their parents. They are so simple, pious and dedicated sons. They cannot do anything of their own. Every decision will be taken by their elders. So do I even need to talk about them? I guess you can understand my point here.
6. Often a guy is simply broken up by someone. He simply gives his strings to his parents. Rest is the history. They don’t believe in next effort.
7. Well, some parents are so strict that they do not allow their children to like someone. They think if a boy brings a girl of his own choice, she might be a bad seed for the family; hence, she cannot be trusted. Therefore, they decide to bring the girl of their ‘choice’. Seems ridiculous, isn’t it? Hence, a boy will marry the girl of his parents’ choice, not his.
8. Sometimes a guy is so young. He has tied a knot even before he is properly aware. I think they are out of our discussion.
9. Sometimes a male likes a girl and tells his parent that he has chosen a girl. At this point, parents become so stubborn and judgmental. They think their son has no guts to choose a girl. See, even your own parents think you a dumb person. Don’t you see? Sometimes they think a girl would be bad because in our society if a girl falls in love, she isn’t a good girl.
10. In most families, parents tell their kids, “this is your cousin, and you have to marry her, only. Otherwise, there would be clashes in our families”. Such men are so afraid because of family ties, they agree with their parents’ will. Simple and the most common story.
11. Now come a hypocrite male of our society. He would love a girl, date her and at the end would say, “My parents won’t accept you, so I can’t marry you”. You know what would they do? They will marry someone else’ girlfriend in the shape of ‘arranged marriage’. That’s called IRONY.
My God, there are so many points. I didn’t know there are so many types. If I think more I will write more categories. I think that’s enough.
My point is why is this culture so strong? In this society, a male is in a relatively better position but he is still sending his parents to some strange girl and then gonna marry her. I don’t like it. If he doesn’t have a choice of his own or guts to choose the girl, I cannot think high of him. Simple. | https://medium.com/illumination/i-have-no-choice-my-dear-parents-5dcc18a97a12 | ['Rabia Mustafa'] | 2021-04-03 08:55:27.609000+00:00 | ['Men', 'Love Marriage', 'Arranged Marriage', 'Choices', 'Desi'] |
Technology’s Potential to Expand Diversity and Inclusion Efforts Within L&D | There is now greater collective awareness and recognition of the need for system-wide solutions to address diversity and inclusion challenges in businesses. In this blog we cover some exciting technological innovations that are driving new behaviors and accelerating progress in the learning and development space.
The recent wave of protests has shone a light on racial injustice in the United States, the need for action to eradicate structural racism, and the importance of securing equal opportunity, freedom, and human dignity for Black Americans. In the past weeks, we’ve seen a wave of statements from business leaders expressing solidarity and a commitment to address systemic racism in their companies and communities. Yet, to move from words to action, employers must examine every program within their company through a lens of equity and justice. This includes corporate learning and development programs.
The bulk of diversity and inclusions (D&I) initiatives within learning and development have focused on anti-bias training. But, on its own, anti-bias training is not enough. Diversity trainings aimed at reducing bias in the workplace are often designed with the goal of preempting lawsuits by policing people’s behavior. Yet research shows that this kind of force-fed training can put participants on the defensive and solidify biases rather than dismantling them.
Now is the time for L&D and HR leaders to move beyond diversity training and re-imagine the work their department can do to advance an inclusive culture and ensure equitable access to employment opportunities. We see great potential in the following innovative technological solutions to diversity and inclusion challenges in the corporate learning space.
Virtual Reality Training
Praxis Labs partners with organizations to increase diversity and inclusion outcomes through research-backed immersive learning experiences. Its virtual reality learning modules are designed to help people better understand the experience of those with different backgrounds, experiences and identities. Additionally, the modules help train employees on how to best respond in the moment to specific situations, such as microaggressions and sexual harassment.
Praxis Lab’s immersive experiences are based on research from Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, which has found that participants using VR are 22% more likely to adopt an inclusive behavior than those who read content on the same topic.
Equitable Upskilling-as-a-Service
As it stands, corporate tuition assistance leaves many people behind. In the US, a common feature of employer tuition reimbursement programs is that, as the name implies, employees pay education expenses up front, and are later reimbursed by their employer, subject to eligibility requirements. Yet, a 2018 Federal Reserve report on the economic wellbeing of US households found that 40% of US adults would not be able to cover an unexpected expense of $400. In this context, programs that ask employees to lay out several thousand dollars remain inaccessible to a large number of workers.
Additionally, most corporate sponsored upskilling initiatives expect employees to dedicate personal time outside the workday to acquire needed skills. Yet, employees consistently report that time is the biggest obstacle they face to job-related upskilling. Time is an especially cumbersome obstacle for employees who are running single-parent households, who are working two jobs, or who are caring for older relatives.
Learn In is an innovative platform that helps companies solve for time and money to ensure more employees have access to opportunities to learn and advance in their career. Learn In helps companies provide a range of tuition assistance options including Income Sharing Agreements (ISAs), and its time allocation service helps managers easily allocate and manage time for learning by opportunity, role or individual.
Training Within Existing Workflows
Crescendo enables global companies to run successful diversity & inclusion programs. Their platform saves D&I and HR teams 70% of the time it takes to launch and maintain meaningful D&I education programs, and builds cultural competence and belonging into corporate cultures in ways that are measurable and scalable over time.
At the core is a microlearning platform that integrates into employees communication tools (eg: Slack, Microsoft Teams, & Email) and provides a personalized learning experience for every individual. Then on the backend, they have an analytics hub that gives D&I and HR teams insight into what is resonating with employees, how they’re progressing in their learning journey, and helps them make decisions about where to allocate their resources.
Their research on why D&I programs fail has guided the development of their platform, and their clients include multinational tech companies, ad agencies and CPGs like Indeed, Remitly, and ASICS.
Leading Change From Within
There is now greater collective awareness and recognition of the need for system-wide solutions to address D&I challenges in organizations. We see great potential in new technological capabilities that seek to drive new behaviors and accelerate progress in the learning and development space. That said, while new technologies in this space hold the potential to disrupt organizational systems that allow bias and unfair treatment to perpetuate, they also carry some risks. Technological solutions can advance the perception that people are not responsible for solving issues of discrimination and bias. And they can reduce people’s sense of empowerment to make critical decisions. Being an informed consumer of these new technologies and keeping these risks front of mind is a key step to ensuring the success of these D&I interventions in the corporate learning space. | https://medium.com/@learnin/technologys-potential-to-expand-diversity-and-inclusion-efforts-within-l-d-5da871d3d4d6 | ['Learn In'] | 2020-12-22 18:31:00.894000+00:00 | ['Diversity', 'Upskilling', 'Education', 'Edtech', 'Training'] |
BECOME A VIDEO MARKETING MASTER | Work Less And Earn More
Discover Secret WARP Video Technology, Which Makes More Sales Of Both Your Own & Affiliate Products, And Makes Businesses Crave Your Video Services Even If You Have No Clue How To Make A Video.
Work Less And Earn More
What sets video apart from text on a page is the form itself, not the content. It’s well-documented that viewers engage more intensely with video than even the most well-written text. Plus, the human brain is shown to process video 60,000 times faster than text. Because of this, video marketing has become an effective and integral part of top-performing companies marketing strategies.
Work Less And Earn More
Strengthen your marketing strategy to stay competitive and drive business growth. You don’t need the most expensive equipment or super-sophisticated storytelling skills; we’ll show you how to overcome those challenges in this guide.
Work Less And Earn More
In this guide, you’ll learn how to lead with video, convert and retain customers, maximize audience, scale your videos, and how to measure success.
Show off a product. … Explain how to do something. … Bring testimonials to life. … Upload new videos regularly. … Add a personal touch. … Incorporate music. … Share industry expertise.
Work Less And Earn More | https://medium.com/@vipul8597/become-a-video-marketing-master-11829800166 | ['Vipul Jain'] | 2021-11-16 07:41:22.618000+00:00 | ['Video In Marketing', 'Video Marketing Strategy', 'Video Marketing Agency', 'Video Marketing', 'Video For Marketing'] |
Moon Work-Waning Moon Day 9 | While doing my best to meditate and earth earlier, the question ‘What am I still holding onto?’ came to me. I don’t want the new moon to come before I’ve released the baggage from my past. I’m hearing the message that I still haven’t let it all go, and I guess I can’t move onto the next chapter until I have. I am so ready to turn the page of this long and treacherous saga. On one hand, my life has been deceptively easy. On the other it’s been a war. There’s this quote that I can’t find for the life of me, but it refers to not forgetting to honor those who have struggled with and overcome internal battles, as the world tends to only recognize those who have fought outer ones. Mine, like many, has been internal. And, internal battles generally lead to outer ones, as what we think, speak, and believe we create. The hologram mirrors our internal state. When we look at it from this perspective, there’s nothing more important than setting our inner compass straight.
I drew four animal spirit cards for myself yesterday, and one of them, ‘Cow Spirit’ had an awesome message. Here’s a snippet: ‘Pay attention to how you nourish your mind, body, and spirit, because right now you are wobbling around like a new born calf on its unsteady legs. Perhaps you’ve been spending too much time distracting yourself on the internet, or choosing to eat food that is not healthy. Whatever it is, you’re being nudged to assess how you are looking after your needs. Remember, the universe has a way of reflecting back to you events and conditions that match how you treat yourself. Cow Spirit reminds you that the universe wants to give you the very best but needs you to do your part to participate and nourish your well being. Heed her message, and everything will shift in your favor!’ Maybe you might need to hear this message now as well.
I’ve recently gone vegan after just being a vegetarian for 25 years. Instead of the usual sugary suspects, I’m finding delicious vegan cookies and chocolate at Natural Grocer, Sprouts, and Trader Joe’s. And, because I’m traveling around in my van (with my sweet Kitty, as you’ll see in the image), I don’t have a kitchen setup. It’s making it all too easy to eat out and to grab the healthiest fast food I can, like Subway & Chipotle. Ultimately, I’m still kind of eating like crap. I know this needs to change, and so for today’s Waning Moon challenge, I’m called to cut it all out for a few days. As in a water fast. This will put me fasting on the last two days of the waning moon plus the new moon. The waxing moon begins Tuesday, and I’ll be doing two weeks of new beginnings!
So, during my water fast I plan on making it as spiritual an experience as possible, with saging, meditation, more letter-writing, shadow work, and forgiveness. I’m trying to think of what else I need to release. What have been my main life issues? Waiting for permission to live my life, learning to speak up for myself and speak my truths, and waiting for what I want to come to me. Also, I’ve always put way too much emphasis on food, as it has always been my primary comfort in life. I watched a video today by Kati Morton titled ‘How to overcome childhood emotional neglect’. That’s funny, because just last night I found myself thinking that my parents’ neglect was completely unintentional. I know they loved me, and they gave me everything I needed. They did the best they could with their own internal trauma and any external drama going on. Anyway, trying to escape reality through food and spending money have been my coping mechanisms. Since I’m doing this active healing work, it’s come to the fore that my money issues are probably mostly due to subconsciously mistaking money for love since I never got the love I needed. I was showered with money and always got what I asked for. It makes complete sense.
Sometimes we think we’ve healed from an experience, but it could still be running in the background dictating our current actions and choices. I was told that the tumultuous ten year on and off relationship I had with someone is still affecting me. I thought I had forgiven him, but instead, I think I just moved on. He’s getting released this weekend. Gone for good! For whoever is reading this, I hope you’re inspired to ‘clean your closet’ of all that still haunts you. Maybe even cleaning your literal closet would make room for the new to enter your life. Have fun, and happy clearing! | https://medium.com/@leighlarue/moon-work-waning-moon-day-9-c7c1ad9c6e8e | ['Leigh Larue'] | 2020-12-31 20:11:28.605000+00:00 | ['Personal Growth', 'Healing', 'Moon', 'Personal Development', 'Magic'] |
The Programmer’s Short and Practical Guide to Graph Theory | An undirected and unweighted graph is the simplest form of a graph (besides a single node). It consists of two types of elements only: nodes, which can be thought of as points, and edges, which connect these points together. There is no idea of distance/cost or direction, which is why it is undirected and unweighted.
Image source: Author
For instance, consider the following search problem, and represent it as an undirected and unweighted graph:
You have a padlock with two digits, initialized to 00. Each move, you can move one of the four two up or down (moving 0 up is 1, moving 0 down is 9 — the wheels are circular). There are “dead combinations,” in which the padlock will permanently lock if the combination ever equals one of those values. Find the minimum number of moves it takes to reach a target combination without locking, or if it is possible at all.
Dead combinations: [10, 90, 12]. Target: 11.
First, we construct a root, or head of the graph, which is necessary in scenarios where we need to generate the graph as we go. This is 00, or the root case from which branching cases will be generated.
The four neighbors of node 00 are 01, 10, 90, and 09, corresponding to various combinations of moving wheels up and down. Our graph already has five nodes and four edges.
Image source: Author
For each newly added node, we will continue searching for its neighbors and add it to the graph, unless it is a dead node.
Image source: Author
When we have found the target combination, we can retrace our steps and count how many it takes to reach the root node again. Alternatively, we could have been keeping track of the steps each time a node is generated.
Image source: Author
If you want to implement the solution to this problem, you can use a queue and breadth-first search, which is more efficient than actually coding a graph.
This was an example of using graph-based thinking. Since graphs are very ordered and clean structures, thinking and implementing possibilities as nodes and variants as neighbors can result in a complex but clean and understandable search. Additionally, using graphs allows for many studied methods in graph theory to be implemented to speed up search.
However, in this padlock problem, graphs did not actually need to be implemented. The most common method to implement a complete graph is to use two objects (classes), a Node , the primary building block, and a Graph , which is comprised of Node s and provides an interface to access information about the graph as a whole.
Image source: Author
For example, each element in the graph below can be represented in code as their own Node . Each is connected to each other through their Neighbors . If we were to call something like NodeA.Neighbors[1].Neighbors[1].Value , we should receive 2. This is because the second index of Node A’s neighbors is Node C, and the second index of Node C’s neighbors is Node B, which has a value of 2. This kind of easy connectivity allows for easy traversal.
For notation, ‘A 1’ means ‘Node A has value 1’. (Image source: Author)
A directed graph, or a graph where edges only go in one direction, is easy to implement with this design. For example, if a one-way edge were to connect Node A to Node B, Node A’s neighbor would be Node B, but Node B would have no neighbors. Rephrased, neighbors only indicate outbound edges. Note that bidirectional edges can still exist in directed graphs.
Image source: Author
If one were to traverse the graph according to neighbors and end up at Node C or Node F, they would be stuck because those nodes have no neighbors and hence no outbound directions.
Alternatively, a graph can be represented more simply, but at the cost of being less easy to traverse, with two lists representing the edges and nodes (vertices). These are sometimes called adjacency lists since they express in list format the adjacencies between edges (adjacencies being edges and adjacent nodes being neighbors).
V = [A, B, C, D, E, F]
E = [AB, AC, BC, CF, CE, DF, EA, FB, FD]
In the example above, V declares the nodes that exist, and E declares an edge from one node to another ( AC means A → C ). Since it is compact and simple notation, graphs will often be presented this way.
Alternatively, it could be written as a dictionary (map), in which the key is a starting node and its value is a list of elements it points to.
adj_l = {A:[B,C], B:[C], C:[F,E], D:[F], E:[A], F:{B,D]}
Graphs, both directed and undirected, can contain loops. A cycle graph is a graph consisting of only one cycle, in which there are no terminating nodes and one could traverse infinitely throughout the graph. A cyclic graph is a graph that consists of several cycle graphs, where traversals can still be infinite but more complex.
Image source: Author
For example, within the complete cyclic graph, A→B→C→D→A is a four-cycle graph, and E→F→G→E is a three-cycle graph. More hidden is another four-cycle graph, B→E→F→G→B.
Certain types of cycles within cyclic graphs, or other components within graphs in which each node is connected to each other node, are known as strongly connected components. For instance, E→F→G→E is a strongly connected component because each of the nodes {E, F, G} has a path to another, regardless of direction. B→E→F→G→B is also a strongly connected component. On the other hand, A→B→C→D→A is not because there is no connection between component members B and D.
On the other hand, as the name suggests, acyclic graphs are ones where no cycle exists, and any traversal long enough will eventually terminate. In the graph below, no matter which node you start on, a traversal will always terminate.
Image source: Author
It is not always true in more complex problems that edges can naively be treated as equal to travel. For instance, if you’re planning the best route to go from a start to an end destination, you’re going to consider not only the number of segments but also the distance and the cost.
For instance, the shortest path to go from S→E is S→D→F→E, which requires only three edge traversals. However, that route takes a very small, crowded street. Alternatively, S→A→B→C→E takes four edges but travels most of the distance along a highway, and the overall cost is lessened. When the notions of distance and cost are added to a graph, it becomes weighted.
Image source: Author
To implement this into our existing framework for graph structure, we can include for each element in Neighbors another number describing the cost to reach that neighbor. For instance, it may be stored in tuples [(n, c), (n, c)] , where n represents the node and c represents the cost.
Image source: Author
Often, graphs will also be presented in the form of a matrix, known as an adjacency matrix. This is not as compact as an adjacency list but can represent weighted graphs more naturally. In the matrix, each row and column represents a node and the cell located at (x, y) represents the edge y→x (or vice versa, it’s a matter of notation). If there is no edge, the value is 0. If there is, the value is the cost of that edge.
Image source: Author
Adjacency matrices also have the advantage of easy lookup of costs, even with unweighted graphs, over adjacency lists and an object-oriented representation. Note that undirected graphs will have symmetrical adjacency matrices. Since matrices are also easier to manipulate, many graph operations and algorithms are commonly implemented on adjacency matrices.
Various algorithms have been created to find the shortest path for weighted graphs, like Dijkstra’s algorithm (pronounced dike-strah). Essentially, Dijkstra’s algorithm is very similar to the brute-force style search discussed earlier with the padlock problem but does so in a way that is most logical. The rough outline of the algorithm is as follows:
Begin at the start node and initialize a list (priority queue) to keep track of which nodes to process. At each iteration of the algorithm, find the first element of the list. Process the element by finding all its neighboring nodes (that haven’t been explored before). For each neighbor, calculate the total distance/cost to reach that node from the start node. Put these neighbor nodes into the list such that the nodes with the lowest costs are at the front. Repeat until the end node has been processed.
There are plenty more in-depth resources about Dijkstra’s algorithm, but primarily, its main difference from a brute-force search is that it processes nodes currently with the smallest costs first, which is logically correct. This can speed up redundant searching by taking into account weights.
While powerful in many instances, Dijkstra is naïve in that it only chooses to process nodes that currently hold the best costs, in the hopes that the complete path will also hold a similarly small cost, when this may not be the case at all. This can be a problem in large graphs.
For instance, consider this grid of nodes, where each connection has the same cost to traverse; Dijkstra’s algorithm (slightly varying depending on implementation) will search through all the light nodes before arriving at the end node E . It’s like pouring a bucket of water at the location of node S and hoping it eventually spreads to the target node.
Image source: Author
The A Star algorithm and many other variants take into account these weaknesses and add enhancements, like stronger memory and direction to improve traversals throughout graphs. Machine learning, particularly reinforcement learning, is central to more recent methods of highly efficient graph traversal. In reinforcement learning, probabilities and states are often represented as graphs an agent traverses.
Graphs and graph-based thinking can be used in many other computer science problems, even when it is not obvious. Any time you approach a difficult problem, attempting to represent it using vertices and edges can inspire new ideas, simplify and reduce the problem, or even be one solution to the problem.
Some applications of graph theory in computer science include: | https://medium.com/better-programming/a-short-practical-programmers-guide-to-graph-theory-bfc87bc52581 | ['Andre Ye'] | 2020-09-15 14:43:02.467000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Computer Science', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
The Sisters are Sick. | The Sisters are Sick.
Caregiving for my mom and her sister, 14 years apart.
Photo by Rex Pickar on Unsplash
I am in the car with my dad. He’s picking me up from the airport. I just spent a few weeks with my grandma. It’s summer vacation.
I am 16, and I just graduated high school. I’m going to college in a month.
I am not proud of myself. I am angry. I am bitter. I finished high school early because I wanted a gap year to travel, but my dad didn’t think it was a good idea. I was old enough to graduate early, so shouldn’t I be able to do what I want with my time?
That’s when my dad tells me my mom is sick. The doctors don’t know with what. She throws up all the time. She eats just eggs and Gatorade. The doctors insist that it’s linked to her depression, her anxiety, her eating disorder, her agoraphobia. My mom is convinced that there is another, more “physical” cause.
My dad asks if I can help take care of her while he’s at work.
I’m surprised. No one told me while I was gone. I had spoken to Mom on the phone and she sounded fine. And I had wanted to have one more fun summer before going away to college.
I come home and mom is on the couch. Even though it’s summer in Texas, she is wrapped in our Christmas blankets. She’s pale. I think of a painting of Juliet dying when I see her. | https://medium.com/are-you-okay/the-sisters-are-sick-b4ff3049e4b3 | ['Lisa Martens'] | 2019-11-06 14:10:13.634000+00:00 | ['Self', 'Health', 'Family', 'Short Story', 'Growing Up'] |
‘Happenstantial’ A Novel | “The question now was this. Had his placing the bag on the bench been a dark signal, a psychopathic sign that he’d deliberately left for her? An even more intense fear now engulfed her, making breathing difficult.
She drew her knees up to her chest, afraid and lonely, one frightened woman in a foreign country. Why hadn’t she recognized him for the stalker he was? All those coincidental happenings were more than likely, nothing to do with coincidence — the chat on the plane, the serendipitous meeting on Cockatoo Island, the kiss when she wanted to leave…and now…
Kathryn shivered in fear. She’d read about people like Max, watched movies about them, handsome, charismatic, successful, powerful, highly-intelligent figures whose bent is to attract women easily, charm them, delve into their souls, to reach and respond to their every thought and whim…..ultimately seducing them when their defenses are down.
Could this possibly be the same Max, the Max who only last night she had felt could become her soul-mate? Could he…was it just possible that he was none other than a psychopath, a snake, a lying, cheating, a potentially abusive death adder, masquerading as a writer?
Psychopaths have a dark, manipulative side, she knew that. But that darkness is always carefully secreted from their prey, until the person falls victim that is, and they are no more. Psychopaths are without conscience, intent on power, playing a game, manipulating, all with an emotional disconnect that is hidden by their staged persona. Worse still, after the event, they are always able to justify their crime.”
Chapter One: One Door Closes
The gentle, soothing sound of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, was her wake-up call. Gina opened her eyes, stretched, and gazed intently at the ceiling, taking in, for the last time, the unique pressed-metal detail and the ornate cornicing surrounding it, some of the features that had attracted her to the house in the first place. Created in an era where tradesmen took pride in craftsmanship, she had never tired of the intricacy and perfection of the design. It was something she would miss.
Reluctantly she rolled out of bed and onto the rich, perfectly-polished floor, the wood much older than the house itself. It had lost nothing of its beauty over the years, the recent resurfacing now highlight its natural russet and gold shades.
A stream of early-morning light entered the room and filled her with an excitement that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Mornings were God’s way of saying something like…look how much I do for you! Now up you get and enjoy it.’
Except she never had, not until today!
The trouble with mornings is they always seem to arrive at such inconvenient times. For Gina, those were the times when her body cried out for just another few minutes’ sleep, and even given the gift that each day was, she had never really appreciated the morning parts.
Oh the joy of being financially independent, never ever having to work again, of being able to make the simplest of choices about when and where to greet the day, and to spend her time as she saw fit.
Being financially comfortable…more than comfortable if she were to be honest, had given her incredible options and strength to do the unthinkable.
This was her day. It had finally arrived without fanfare, without ostentation, but it HAD arrived.
She hugged herself reassuringly, hardly able to control her excitement. Like a child looking forward to a birthday, Gina couldn’t wait to put her plan into action, the one she’d orchestrated, so covertly and exactingly.
Over time she had prepared mentally for it, given birth to it as she strove to bring together, ideas that were both exciting and terrifying.
How could it be otherwise? How can anyone be totally prepared for something over which there is no absolute control?
Planning is the easy part. The execution is a whole other beast. She closed her mind to the possibility of unforeseen terrors and tsunamis whose monumental impacts could potentially have devastating consequences.
Gina dismissed any negative thinking from her mind. She had already dealt with as much of that as was necessary, and negatives no longer had a place in her life. From today onward she would take her place at the forefront of the world’s risk takers, and rise above the narrow confines of the life she had, by default, accepted…up until now.
Breakfast was a deliberately leisurely one. From today onward, she would never be controlled by a clock. No better time to start than now. And so, with the last cup of coffee, made in her prized DeLonghi machine, in one hand, and a deliciously-warm, generously-buttered croissant in the other, she took a last sentimental stroll through the garden.
The classic French doors that opened directly to the verandah had been a sound afterthought when renovating. In keeping with the style of the house, they served to offset the rambling paths leading to various parts of her substantial garden, and to provide immediate access to the outdoor space that had become her sanctuary of late.
The revamp had been worth the expense, as had the weekly garden maintenance she had paid for in recent times. Spring was the optimal time to sell, according to her gardener, and now she could see why, for everywhere she looked, miraculous spills of color, a veritable symphony, bold and striking here, diminutive and teasing elsewhere, delighted her.
Every part of the makeover had turned out to be the work of art promised. In some places the garden was wide and welcoming with beautifully-manicured, weed-free lawns offset with ground-hugging, tightly-rounded shrubs on the periphery.
Other parts were more private, affording shelter and sanctity, a place to escape to, somewhere to read, and be, and think; a sanctuary that had allowed her on many occasions, to offload the cares of the day.
For those areas Gina had splashed out on some very trendy seating arrangements, a couple of elegant French provincial wrought-iron armchairs she had located online, (a wonderful find!) and a shabby chic refectory table that so far, seemed to be standing up to the vagaries of the weather.
She had been lucky enough to buy a set of six ornately detailed vintage chairs from a friend who was moving overseas. A little too fussy for her taste, they nonetheless complemented the style of the old table. Cushions that reflected much of the garden’s color had been sourced from a smart little French boutique nearby. The new owner was delighted with the furniture and couldn’t believe her luck when Gina offered the package to her as a gift.
With pots and statues strategically placed here and there, each area now had a unique personality, one that sang, not just with the myriad of birds that had made their home in it, but also with shape and form, with the contrasting shades of green, and the ongoing bursts of flowers throughout.
It was the garden that had sold her house. She knew that now. There was poetry in it, which is just as well, given what it had cost.
“A garden’s not just an addition to your home,” the gardener had explained to her. “It’s a home in itself, and in many ways it’s like a landscape painting. You have to design it so it draws you in. It should be so intriguing and irresistible that people are hooked, challenged to go beyond, to turn corners and prepare to be delighted. But, it must also be a place where you can find peace and harmony, to be by yourself, and to appreciate Nature if that is your wont. It has to be as daringly beautiful as you can imagine, but tranquil in places too. Ah yes, a garden is all of that, as yours will be. Trust me. You’ll see.”
And see she had. Gina had grown to love the makeover, the way the pathways bent and twisted and teased so that you were compelled to turn corners and look further, into yet another room whose design and usage would have purposefully changed.
She delighted in the gentle, filtered shade provided by the Japanese maples and pistachio trees, but she knew their true beauty would be revealed by their glorious red and orange tinges in autumn, a splendid farewell as they prepared to drop their leaves to rest and draw strength throughout the winter months.
Placed strategically by the French doors was a Michelia, the port wine magnolia whose flowers, though nondescript, held an evening scent that more than made up for its diminished floral beauty. Right then, its perfume was enough to have her decide that it was a perfect spot to have breakfast.
Gina sat down to take in the last of her masterpiece. It would be so hard to leave it, but then, just as easy to forget it, if all her future plans came to fruition.
She had choked back tears of emotion on the day the house sold, for the reality was that it had become so much part of her, a place that she had established and improved on, a place where she could find comfort and peace from her turbulent life. Her tearful response to the sale had hit her with a force that she could never have been prepared for, but determinedly she’d brushed aside all feelings of regret. It was part of the grand plan. There was no looking back.
One last sip of coffee, one long, final, wistful look, and she left the garden locking the French doors for the very last time. The cleaner would tend to the last-minute organization. A substantial incentive had bought both her discretion and assurance of attention to detail. The house would be cleaned perfectly for its new owner!
Back in her bedroom, she dressed with more than her usual attention to detail, the need to look her best foremost in her mind. Being remembered for her elegance and sense of fashion, as well as her cunning, was important -– black, elegant, well-cut pants that defined the long legs that Nature had kindly bestowed on her, a low-cut contrasting camisole deliberately alluring, showing just a hint of her still well-defined breasts, and a crimson wool jacket she had bought in a tiny store in Paris — far too expensive at the time, but she had known it would pay for itself in time. Now it was about to!
With her long dark hair elegantly swept into a knot at the nape of her neck, and her makeup checked with care, she knew she looked a million dollars…..maybe two, at a push! She smiled at her reflection. The elegance was in the detail. A smile of pure and utter polish was returned. She was ready! Time to go, wherever go might be! | https://medium.com/illumination/happenstantial-a-novel-e46c5f138fd9 | ['Maria Rattray'] | 2020-12-12 04:12:28.404000+00:00 | ['Life Hacking', 'Courage', 'Fiction Writing', 'Destiny', 'Determination'] |
Update — 21st August 2019. Fortnightly update from the COSS Team | ETH and ERC20 withdrawals
Many users have reported pending ETH and ERC20 withdrawals for several hours.
This happens when there is a sudden spike in gas fees owing to increased congestion on the Ethereum blockchain.
When the spike occurs, transactions that have already been broadcast with low fees remain pending and transactions which follow (even those with higher fees) remain in queue.
Some users who have tried to distribute FSA in this time have the distribution fee deducted and marked ‘success’, yet the distributed FSA has not been deposited to their wallet. This issue, too, is related to the Ethereum congestion.
We have already implemented real-time tracking and adjustment of gas fees for transactions sent out by COSS. The team is now working on a solution to bump up the gas fees on transactions that get caught in a spike, which will be a failsafe we have for the future.
Please write to [email protected] for FSA that has not been deposited or ETH/ERC20 transactions which might have been dropped but still showing as ‘processing’ in your dashboard. | https://medium.com/coss-official/update-21st-august-2019-530ae0170102 | ['Coss Team'] | 2019-08-21 08:59:59.505000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
On-Demand Handyman App Development Services in Singapore: Cost & Features 2019 | A handyman is a professional who is skilled to perform a wide array of home repair services, both interior, and exterior. Booking a handyman for small jobs is pretty tiring. A lot of times, they are quite negligent in their approach and don’t show up on the scheduled time or just don’t perform their jobs within the designated time frame.
So, if you wish to hire a handyman in Singapore for casual home repairs, you need to spare out some time from your busy schedules to ensure that these professionals work adequately. While the above claim may not be true for every occasion, yet it’s pretty much the complaint of several households around the world.
Thankfully, all this has changed for better since the arrival of digitalization and mobile applications. Today, you can come across many easily accessible on-demand handyman mobile application that offer excellent handyman services. These apps have majorly simplified the process of acquiring handymen services as well as their overall service standards.
On-demand handyman services are certainly the future. If you wish to be a part of this business, now is the time.
In this post, we will understand how a handyman app development service works along with some essential features. Let’s begin.
# How Does an On-demand Handyman Services App Works?
• Step 1- Customer asks for the service
You can request for any kind of service enlisted on the app, for instance, handyman services, electrician or plumber services, etc. Based on the request, you are offered a suitable list of service providers. You can check out the experience, pricing and customer satisfaction index of various service providers before choosing any particular one. After you have selected your preferred provider, you will have to wait for a confirmation from their side of the business.
• Step 2 — Job
After the service provider has accepted your job request, they will reach your specified location along with all the necessary tools to conduct the job. Before beginning the task, they will set a timer which will help to determine their charges for the job. It is important to note that the price charged by these service providers is calculated on an hourly basis. The cost per hour is largely determined by the service provider’s experience and ratings on the app.
• Step 3 — Completion of the job
Upon the completion of the job, the service provider will stop the timer and generate a final bill amount to be paid. All this is a very transparent process that takes place in front of the eyes of the customers. The cost of any spare parts, if used, will also be added to the bill amount.
The above discussion points out the efficiency and simplicity of using these apps to hire professionals for your home. If you are still not convinced, let us look at some significant benefits of using a handyman app service.
· To the customers, a handyman service app offers unparalleled ease. They can easily book the services of their chosen service provider with a few clicks on their mobile phone. This definitely saves them a lot of time and effort. On the other hand, the providers too can take up a job based on their availability and convenience.
· There are no unnecessary issues involving the payment procedure, all the transactions are simple and transparent. Additionally, the customers can opt for their preferred payment mode. They can either pay by means of an online transaction or through normal cash or card method.
· Leveraging the immense potential of these apps, the service providers can easily grow their business and expand their existing base of clientele without much efforts and money involved.
· Apps like handyman come with robust security features to ensure the protection of both the customers and the service providers. The app comes with an emergency button in case of any potential threat to either of the parties. Lastly, the two can be continuously monitored using location-based services to evade the chances of an accident.
# Significant Features of an On-demand Handyman App:
Moving on to the next section, let’s have a look at some of the significant features that must be included in an in-demand handyman app to offer complete ease.
• Choices: The users are offered with a list of service providers located in their area. They can evaluate and compare the ratings and prices of different providers to make an informed decision.
• Payments: If you are planning to build your own on-demand handyman services app, make sure that you integrate various payment options and gateways that are compliant with all the industry-standard safety features. Also, it is important that the payment procedure is simple so even the non-specialists can easily make a payment. Offering various payment options is no more a choice but an obligatory step to make users stick to your app.
• Booking: An on-demand handyman services app should allow the customers to quickly book the services of their chosen service provider. Apart from this, the customers should also be given the facility to pre-schedule or postpone their service timings based on their availability. This will make sure that the users enjoy a smooth booking experience. Therefore, options such as Book Now, Schedule, Check Availability and Book Later must be present.
• Real-time Tracking: This feature will allow the users to find out the location of the service provider in real-time. With the help of this feature, the exact arrival time of the provider can be ascertained by the users. This helps in improving the app’s security.
• Social Login & Signups: This feature allows the customers to quickly signup for your app using existing social media accounts.
• Panic Button (Service Provider & Customer): In an effort to enhance the app’s security, you can add the panic button feature to both — Service Provider & Customer module of the app. This button allows both the parties to quickly contact first responders in case something goes wrong during the job.
• Clear Pricing Options: The on-demand handyman service app you build should have clear pricing options. It should plainly show every small charge, estimate and withdrawal charges to the users before they proceed further with a provider.
Final Words:
It is important to note that app development is extensive as well as an expensive process. However, the final cost of your on-demand handyman app will largely depend upon the type of features and functionalities incorporated into it. The number of features will result in expensive software. Also, the cost differs across the world and each company has set its own rate that primarily depends upon two factors- the quality of work and the location.
We have done fair research and enlisted some of the most popular areas along with their labor costs per hour.
· U.S. based developers: — $50 to $250 per hour
· Eastern Europe based developers: — $30 to $150 per hour
· India based developers: — $10 to $80 per hour
Undoubtedly, India is the most feasible country for application development that offers skilled labour at the most inexpensive prices. But again, there are various other factors that control the cost of development. You can hire your preferred app development company to get an accurate analysis of the cost involved.
How much does it cost to create a Mobile App in Singapore? : Read More… | https://medium.com/hackernoon/on-demand-handyman-app-development-services-in-singapore-cost-features-2019-171058e9c31d | ['Octal Info Solution Pte. Ltd'] | 2019-07-25 06:52:50.542000+00:00 | ['Handyman', 'Handyman App Development', 'Handyman Services', 'Mobile', 'Mobile App Development'] |
Gratitude’s No Platitude | And now, James Taylor sings “Over The Rainbow,” a song (singer and version) I chose because it’s a beautiful and soothing melody, but as importantly, the lyrics describe thoughts of escaping to a place where there’s no trouble. Written for the Wizard of Oz, it’s a hopeful song, but there’s no guarantee we can get to that place without help from others — most with their own frailties: the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and even the Wizard. | https://medium.com/chalkboard/gratitudes-no-platitude-909e5b0a4e43 | ['Harper Thorpe'] | 2020-11-26 16:02:17.808000+00:00 | ['One Line', 'Music', 'Economy', 'Poetry', 'Thanksgiving'] |
Back Up The Chimney | Fiction writer. Coffee enthusiast. Writer of romance, mystery, and humor. Discover more at Patreon.com/danleicht and DanLeicht.com
Follow | https://medium.com/the-coffee-pot/back-up-the-chimney-214425592d0f | ['Dan Leicht'] | 2020-12-25 01:02:58.995000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Holidays', 'Haiku', 'Christmas', 'Santa'] |
10 Project-Based Tutorials for Learning JavaScript | 10 Project-Based Tutorials for Learning JavaScript
You don’t have to spend any money. You just have to be resourceful
Photo by Photoholgic on Unsplash
“I am still learning.” — Michelangelo
After taking these free courses, don’t forget to leave a thumbs-up and a token of gratitude for our teachers, instructors, and mentors for providing these awesome courses for free.
They gave so much time and effort just so they can share their knowledge and hoping to help fellow developers, and just a thumbs-up and a thank-you would mean a lot to them, that’s for sure.
Let’s be the best developer by simply helping each other. Always remember that in this developer world, the farthest stranger could be your greatest supporter, so learn the value of giving and you will receive abundance in unexpected ways.
Kindness is free. | https://medium.com/better-programming/10-project-based-tutorials-for-learning-javascript-b53c6bb00a47 | ['Ann Adaya'] | 2020-11-19 16:28:57.146000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Learning To Code', 'Programming'] |
Top 7 Digital Healthcare Companies Success Stories | Information Technology is all about empowering industries with whatever tools and techniques they require to in-turn elevate the life and livelihood of people. Over the years, technology has evolved to an extent that what was considered something impossible until a few years back are possible today.
Today, information technology influences every industry, sector and market segment it touches. And one industry that seems to have evolved for the better is the healthcare industry. For those of you who didn’t know, healthtech is an actual jargon in the market today that defines the application of technology in healthcare.
From understanding diseases and precise diagnostics to treatments, electronic records and fighting counterfeit medicines, healthcare is dealing with them all through tech incorporation and implementation.
Important Healthtech Statistics
Important Healthtech Statistics
The reach of technology in healthcare has been massive with companies and giants deploying the latest medical technology to overcome hurdles and deliver better services and products. The US healthtech market is all set to become a $390.7 bn industry by 2024.
Companies are consistently looking for newer ways to implement technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, data analytics, robotics and more into their healthcare software solutions to further add value to their services. This is to the extent that the spending by healthcare companies in artificial intelligence and its allied concepts will reach to about $40.2 bn by 2026.
Read More : 10 Common Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
The wearable tech market is also on the rise as it too aids in fighting, preventing and tackling several diseases at personal levels. This market is forecasted to reach $56.8 bn by the end of 2025.
Read More : How Wearable Tech Helps to Runners and Cyclists?
Apart from these, chatbots, Internet of Things, telehealth and more are making the lives of healthcare professionals and patients better with their significant contributions. With so much happening in this sector, we really felt we need to shed more light on the developments in the healthtech industry software and healthtech companies.
That’s why we have handpicked a list of some of the most prominent healthtech companies that are making the best use of technology to approach healthcare in unimaginable ways.
Top 7 Digital Healthtech Companies you should know
Top 7 Digital Healthtech Companies you should know
1. Outcome Health
Based out of Chicago, Outcome Health is a $5bn company that intends to put the screentime of people to good use. Outcome Health is all about letting patients know everything they need to understand about their healthcare depending on their stage of treatments. From consultation and diagnostics to treatment, the company provides adequate educational information about the disease or disorder to patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals via technology.
This includes presenting relevant information to patients on waiting room television/board, exam room tablets/boards, waiting room Wi-Fi and more.
2. Oscar Health
A New York-based venture, Oscar Health is a health insurance company that prioritizes user experience and offers unlimited teleconsultations and generic medicine. It offers smart insurance policies to customers and diverse healthcare facilities like virtual doctor calls, medication deliveries, and more. The company is worth $3.2bn.
3. GRAIL
One of the most plaguing concerns in the world is cancer. In the US alone, it is estimated that there would be over 1.8mn new diagnosis of cancer and over 600,000 deaths due to the deadly disease. However, healthcare approaches reveal that cancer can be cured if detected at an early stage. That’s exactly what GRAIL has set out to do. It has built a blood test that helps patients detect cancer in early stages and pave the way for proper treatment and recovery. The company functions out of California.
4. Tempus Labs
While cancer is a malignant tumor, there are also benign tumors that are non-cancerous but cause physical complications. Both require respective healthcare approaches and treatment procedures to help patients lead a normal life. And to do that extensively is the initiative Tempus Labs, a company that incorporates genome sequencing and machine learning technologies to develop custom treatment procedures and plans to fight tumors. Tempus Labs is also based out of Chicago.
5. Butterfly Network
Butterfly Network indeed redefines accessible healthcare with its Butterfly iQ. In simple words, Butterfly iQ is a portable ultrasound imaging system developed by the company that can be connected to smartphones owned by users. With this, patients can perform analysis and diagnosis of specific systems such as blood vessels measurements, musculoskeletal, abdominal and cardiac systems and more. All the assessments are done via imaging.
6. 23andMe
Diseases are not just results of our lifestyle and hygiene practices. Some diseases are inherited and hereditary as well. For those of you who have always been told that you are on the risk of developing certain diseases because they are hereditary such as diabetes, cancer, stroke and more, 23andMe arrives offering an ideal solution. The biotech company allows you to send your DNA samples to them for assessment through which you can find out about your ancestry, genetic predispositions, genes and more. It’s headquartered in California.
7. HeartFlow
Coronary artery disease is one where its treatment procedures have always been invasive. And that’s what HeartFlow intends to change. Based out of California, HeartFlow intends to find non-invasive ways to treat coronary artery disease through CT scans. These scans accurately analyze the heart flow of patients, giving physicians better ways to diagnose and treat the disease.
Wrapping Up
So, these were the top healthtech companies that are rewriting history one patient at a time. Personally, a lot of these applications were new and intriguing to us. Healthcare is one industry that should benefit the most by technology. And if you’re someone who wants to contribute to this sector, we recommend you get started today on your idea.
If you already have an idea, you should get in touch with a custom healthcare software development company like ours to turn your idea into a product. We work with the best healthcare mobile app developers who would complement your visions. So, make use of our healthcare app development services and make the world a better place for tomorrow. | https://medium.com/techtic-solutions/top-7-digital-healthcare-companies-success-stories-e60ae329ddd7 | ['Techtic Solutions'] | 2020-09-15 14:35:46.488000+00:00 | ['Healthcare', 'Startup', 'Healthtech Startup', 'Digital Health Technology', 'Healthtech'] |
Narcissism, validation, and constellations of mental illness | CW/TW not really necessary, but this is a healthy dollop of examination and insight into an aspect of the human condition. CONDITIONS DISCUSSED: BPD, bipolar, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and divergent perception. There are some folks I know who can get some real positivity from it, but I am NOT about to put a target on anyone’s back by tagging them, so: if you have a lovely constellation of emotional and behavioral issues that make being you hard to figure out, well…this might help.
I’LL PAT MYSELF ON THE BACK FOR THIS ONE DEPT:
Once in a while, you get an insight that makes an actual difference. Now, ostensibly I am telling you this because it could be helpful if you know someone who is, or are yourself, in the same position. But listen, the ironic-in-a-snerky-way thing here is that by posting this, I’m pretty well indulging in said behavior, so is it irony or is it meta? Susan?
Someone was telling me last night that they were afraid they were narcissistic because of this and that and they didn’t want to be a narcissist. I said, okay, you do have traits that seem to be narcissism, but — you also have compassion and kindness, and you often put other people before you, and you sacrifice for the benefits of others, and narcissists don’t do that. Oh, sure, degrees of behavior and all, but in general, narcissists don’t put other people first unless they get something out of it, and I told them, that’s not you. You genuinely care for other people’s well-being before your own, even when there is no significant benefit for you.
What they have is a combination of behaviors that *mimic* narcissism. In the first place, BPD, which is a primo source of obsessive behavior; add to that bipolar, which aggravates BPD and can make its drama longer-lasting while at the same time making a person terribly self-aware. On top of that, generalized anxiety, clinical depression, and PTSD, all of which make that bipolar/BPD combination more raw and more profound AND harder to make sense of. And like that sundae needed a cherry, the person I was talking to is autistic, which we know is primarily an information-processing divergence that leads a person to make assessments and come to conclusions that non-divergent people won’t even consider.
All together, because these things are never ever constant (thank you, genetics plus environment), the person with all this going on is hyper-aware at all times that they don’t fit in with *any* social group except the weird kids (hand up). The whole package mimics narcissism because the sufferer needs and seeks out almost constant validation as a way of combatting the also-almost-constant inner chaos. In essence, until a person is able to make all their inner mismatched puzzle parts somehow work together — and let’s be honest, most people with this toxic brew of issues don’t, at least not until they have years of experience — they seek validation for a coherent self that doesn’t and may never exist.
So after having this insight and describing it to the person looking for said validation, you think there was a match’s chance in Niflheim that girl didn’t see that in herself?
Yeah. That valuable insight, which I was saying in realtime as it formulated in my 4.5 pounds of jello between my ears, my dog’s breakfast, made my eyes pop and jaw drop a bit as soon as it was said because, yeah, I’ve been saying for I dunno how many years that I believe I am a narcissist, but lovely and caring people have said the same thing to me about why that isn’t true — because girl thinks of others first, puts others first, has genuine compassion and kindness, and has real empathy. (Empathy being a developed trait of hyper-awareness, NOT a psychic trait, which fits right into the profile described above.)
Yep. Girl isn’t a narcissist. I have a complex profile of mental illnesses and toxic experiences, combined with divergent perception, that in toto mimics narcissism. I seek validation often, maybe almost constantly, though I have gotten much better with work (cf. 40 years in the desert). And ya know…knowing that helps. It helps ENORMOUSLY. Because we all know narcissists are bad people, right? (No. They’re not. Like sociopaths, most narcissists are confused, lonely, hurting people who don’t understand why they hurt and why they cannot connect. The sufferers who stand out for being narcissistic, sociopathic, or more terribly both, while at the same time having close-to-zero or zero moral compass, are the outliers, the rarities, the monsters. That’s your Ted Bundy, your Donald Trump, your Jim Jones. The actual evil narcissist/sociopaths. Maybe, my guess, 1% of the sufferers? [Let’s just say, hypothetically, that I learned how to come up with stats like that from Ben Shapiro.] Which makes them some tiny decimal of the total population, which rarity is why their misdeeds stand out.)
In conclusion — a self-perception I’ve carried for, oh, ever is that underneath it all, I am a bad person. Even my dear, beautiful wife knows this: when combatting my demons, she’ll often hold me, rock me, love me, and say, “You are a GOOD WOMAN.” This insight can’t be overstated for its tonic powers. And…coming up with it and using it to help someone who is looking for answers? SOMEbody feels validated! Who’s a validated girl? Who’s a good girl? YOU are! Yes you are! You’re a VALIDATED girl!
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. | https://medium.com/@cleomcmurchadh/narcissism-validation-and-constellations-of-mental-illness-b5002157c017 | ['Cleo Mcmurchadh'] | 2020-12-21 15:13:00.024000+00:00 | ['Autism', 'PTSD', 'Bpd', 'Borderline Personality', 'Bipolar Disorder'] |
10 Safe Cleaning Tasks For Kids | Bonus Cleaning | 10 Safe Cleaning Tasks For Kids | Bonus Cleaning
Cleaning can be a fun and involving task for kids, but also offers valuable lessons.
You could probably use an extra pair of hands to help with everyday household cleaning tasks. Not involving kids in household cleaning tasks denies them the opportunity to participate in the upkeep of their environment and turn denies them valuable learning opportunities.
Put simply, getting kids in on cleaning the house will help their future development, and is a fantastic bonding opportunity for them.
Kids participating in the cleaning process has many benefits for them (and for you). Kids are treated as active, valuable members of the household and in turn of the community as a whole. They not only learn basic but necessary cleaning lessons but more importantly they develop a sense of participation. Involving children in cleaning also develops their sense of responsibility and giving them a simple task they can accomplish means they feel fulfilled.
Some may feel that the cleaning process may not be entirely safe for children, which is true for some aspects of domestic cleaning, as they tend to require the use of chemicals. However, you can involve kids in certain cleaning tasks without hesitation and worry.
We will present 10 Cleaning Tasks for kids that are safe and fun for them and are a perfect bonding opportunity.
Allowing children to pitch in with the everyday cleaning tasks allows them to feel like valuable members of the family and also builds a strong work ethic and a successful mindset. However, if you delegate inappropriate tasks to your children you can discourage them from participating and reverse the process. There are certain cleaning tasks that your kids should not be a part of because they either use chemicals not suitable for children or are too hard, you may end up having to do more work yourself and more importantly, put off your child from wanting to be part of the cleaning routine if you give them an assignment that is too hard for them it may feel like a chore, not a challenge they can successfully overcome.
Here are 10 cleaning tasks you can delegate to your children safely and responsibly.
1. Folding Laundry.
Doing the laundry and putting the clean clothes away is unavoidable. You can teach children how to do the laundry, they will see it as a fun and engaging activity. You can teach older children how to fold laundry and put it away. Doing and folding the laundry is a fun challenging game for children. Older children, between the ages of 8 and 10 are more than capable of separating laundry, loading the washer and dryer, and sorting the laundry and folding it. You can get in on the task too. See doing the laundry as an opportunity to spend valuable time with your child, time seems to be a luxury not many of us have these days.
2. Cleaning The Floors.
You can safely and easily teach your child how to mop hard floors with virtually no risk involved. All you need to prepare mop water is well water. You can teach your child how to prepare the mop, how to clean different types of hardwood floor coverings in your home and why it is important for them to be kept clean. Spend some time with your child at first, older children can quite easily and safely mop floors on their own.
3. Sweeping The Floors.
Kids as young as 2 can be involved in this task. It is entirely safe. While we definitely would not suggest introducing your child to the vacuum cleaner at that age, teaching them how to hold a broom properly is completely safe. While you may not get the same results if you were to hoover the entire house yourself, your child feels accomplished and involved with you. They are doing a task with mom and dad, they are a valuable and trusted member of the family.
4. Making the beds.
Make your bed first thing in the morning. Teach your children to make their bed as soon as they get up, not for the reasons you think. Making your bed is a simple task, however, one you have to do daily. It builds responsibility and if your child starts their day with accomplishing a simple challenge they will feel fulfilled. When you are cleaning the house tell your child it is their responsibility to make the beds because they are good at it. Encourage them positively they now possess a skill that they are good at. This will build many positive attributes in their future. Make your bed, every morning.
5. Let your children clean cupboard handles.
Fill a small spray bottle with nothing but water, give your child a cleaning cloth and allow them to go over all the cupboard handles in the kitchen. They may not be perfectly polished but this one is more of a development opportunity for your child than anything else.
6. Doing the dishes.
They can’t sit in the sink forever, right? Make doing the dishes after dinner a family activity and involve your child in it. Going back to being short on time doing the dishes is a bonding opportunity. The entire family is involved, parents and children do the same thing together. Doing the dishes is completely safe and while it may be a chore to you it will be a fun experience for your child and will give them time to spend with you.
7. Cleaning and tidying their bedroom.
Children and a tidy house do not always go hand in hand. Much like making their bed keeping their room clutter-free is an important (and safe) task you can delegate to your child. Their room is their world and their responsibility. They are responsible for keeping it tidy and the only way they can do that is to develop personal responsibility. It will not take you much time or effort to put their toys away yourself but that is not the point. You may be surprised how many adults struggle with this lesson. Every item in your room has a place to go and it is your job to put it back in its place after you have used it. This is a valuable instinct you should develop in your child from a younger age because they will carry that instinct further in life. It builds responsibility and discipline and you build that discipline in a loving and caring way. Children require positive encouragement and you can also build through leading by example. Declutter your room or the living room, keep it tidy this is how your child will know that they have to do the same.
9. Clean the skirting boards.
Slightly dampen a microfiber cloth with nothing but water and have your child go around the room and dust the skirting boards as much as possible. This is not something you do often, but doing it regularly actually is more important than you think, if left unattended the skirting boards will accumulate a lot of dust. Older and school-aged children can easily clean the skirting boards. It will be like a game to them, like a maze they have to traverse, just make it fun. There is always also the added bonus of you not having to kneel down to clean the skirting boards.
10. Cleaning the windows.
Children 10 and up can easily wash the windows. You can make an all-natural eco-friendly cleaning window cleaning solution yourself and have them use that instead of commercially available cleaning chemicals. If you are sure that the window cleaning detergent your child will use is safe window cleaning is an engaging, challenging, but not too challenging, activity for school-aged children. In fact, if you whip up your surface cleaners you can involve children in all kinds of cleaning tasks around the home. Have them wipe and polish surfaces with you, give the fridge a good wipe from the outside.
It is important to involve children in a safe and thought out way in cleaning activities around the home. It builds a strong bond between parent and child and positively encourages their development.
Parenting is the most important and difficult “job” any of us will have, it can tend to feel overwhelming at times. Creating fun and meaningful activities that also positively encourage your child’s development can be challenging. However, certain cleaning aspects are one of the tasks you can delegate to your child and help their future development.
We believe that cleaning can be a fulfilling and fun activity for parents and children, get the whole family involved, spend some time together cleaning your home.
Some cleaning tasks are too big, or not appropriate for children, or even for you. You can always schedule a reliable cleaning company to take care of those tasks and leave the really hard work to us. The rest, smaller cleaning chores around the house, you can safely get the kids involved in. Book a professional cleaning company and choose a cleaning service that will tackle the tough cleaning tasks around the home dealt with. We will send out fully supplied, professional cleaners that can handle even the biggest cleaning challenges.
Bonus Cleaning. | https://medium.com/@office_40632/10-safe-cleaning-tasks-for-kids-bonus-cleaning-e698fd1828f0 | ['Bonus Cleaning'] | 2021-11-16 19:06:43.598000+00:00 | ['Cleaning', 'Cleaning Services', 'Cleaning Tips', 'Cleaning Company', 'Clean'] |
How can Social Media and Advertising benefit small business growth in ROI. | A New Jersey Social Network Marketing, Grows Your Target market which then equals to Your Business Growth, Marketing Our City Agency, is who any small business owner can trust.
Businesses already recognize that advertising and marketing are essential for the development of a local business in New Jersey. Nevertheless, mastering the technique essential to see a companies ROI increase because social media sites can be tough. Constructing a social networks area requires time, understanding, and a unique emphasis and strategy many business owners and marketing experts miss out on the target.
"A Winging It" On Social media site Is An Unsafe Approach.
With Marketing Our City's social media advertising, your organization can construct new customer relationships and also expand your audience effortlessly. We'll produce a branded profile based on your firm's one-of-a-kind character as well as values, curate popular blog posts for your customers, as well as broaden your service's brand name acknowledgment and awareness.
Besides, our specialists can use information from social media interactions to uncover added understandings into your suitable customers' likes, disapproval, and getting habits. We'll pass these understandings on to you so you can strengthen your advertising and marketing and also growth initiatives across all channels as well as mediums.
Why Choose Marketing Our City For Your Small Businesses Social Media Advertising?
Our employees have experience with social media advertising and marketing for businesses have been giving advertising options and economical web marketing solutions all over the world for over 13 years, supplying favorable outcomes as well as assisting our customers to expand their business and bottom line month after month.
As a result of this, we have actually gotten the know-how required to recognize Instagram's internal functions, make use of Pinterest to its complete potential (it's a cash cow), as well as adjust to Facebook's constant modifications, all while attracting your target customers.
We've seen the strategies that function and the strategies that do not. As your social media marketing firm, we'll assist you to avoid dangerous risks as well as make use of effective methods to grow your customer base.
Leveraged Data: Actual Outcomes
Marketing Our CIty focuses on information analysis in its social networks project production. This indicates you'll see regular cause the development of your social network. Our digital advertising team does not just create feel-good blog posts or guess about what may or may not expand your complying with; rather, our relied on content marketing remedies gather details on the moments your clients are on-line, the topics they such as to discuss, the sorts of articles they share with their pals, as well as the photos they are likely to involve with. Then, our social networks managers utilize this information to publish high-engagement content and also deepen your connection with your followers
Right here are a few of the standout high qualities of our social networks firm:
Our neighborhood's social media marketing group has experience catching the focus and interaction of clients in the NOLA location particularly.
Your account will be tailor-made to your specs when you function with our social media advertising business. No templates or copy-paste articles on our end-- we'll make something that totally fits you.
We believe that your social account's aesthetic must match the tone as well as the branding of your site as well as a logo. Our visuals designers can custom-make headers, promotional images, as well as more to link your brand throughout all platforms.
Your opinion is valued, as well as our hands-on group will certainly collaborate with you to totally comprehend your objectives, vision, and also assumptions, seeing to it our social strategy remains in placement with your general advertising mix and also growth plan. The transparency you can trust. Our clients receive normal updates on account progression and also sincere consultations on preparation as well as execution of the best strategies for their distinct circumstances.
Our expert social media advertising group remains current, training in the most up to date technological patterns, algorithms, and also methods. In today's ever-changing world, continuous education is essential to effective social network promo.
We understand what jobs and what does not because we have actually been in the market for over a decade. By fast-tracking your campaigns with our battle-tested formula, we can assist you to accomplish outcomes quickly.
We've built plenty of accounts with numerous personalities, from comical branding to serious high-end companies; regardless of your brand's business personality, we'll incorporate it right into your accounts as well as see to it your message and delivery corresponds across all channels
Our clients obtain individual interest from experienced social media sites advertising professionals that care about your brand name as high as you do. Our team will ask detailed questions to fully comprehend the spirit of your company and the defining high qualities of your customers. We're pleased to be an advised social media sites marketing firm. With hundreds of favorable reviews available for you to review online, we urge you to figure out on your own exactly how our social media sites advertising and marketing solutions have actually grown other organizations similar to yours!
Your service needs an online and also physical existence that is strong, diversified, as well as combined, providing a constant message that reverberates with your target market.
What other services does our social media and advertisement utilize in the marketing real to help businesses grow?
Digital Advertising: Do you have an email checklist? Have you ever before run ads for your service? Our advertising and marketing experts can handle your internet marketing, from the very first call to final acquisition and beyond.
Search Engine Optimization (Search Engine Optimization): 8 out of ten purchases begin with a straightforward web search. Is your service a leading lead to your clients' web searches? Please get in touch with Marketing Our City, our SEO, well add tons more information about just how you can begin showing up on Google's first page of the search results page.
Other Services: From logo layout to on-line credibility monitoring and professional Facebook marketing service, we make every effort to serve our clients in all areas of electronic branding. If you don't see a solution you require to be provided here, simply call us-- we'll talk with you regarding constructing a personalized remedy for your company' requirements
You most likely already recognize that digital advertising and marketing is important for the development of your business in New Jersey-based service. Constructing a social media community takes time, understanding, and a special focus and also strategy lots of company proprietors as well as marketing professionals miss the target on.
This indicates you'll see constant outcomes in your social media development Our advertising and marketing group doesn't merely compose feel-good.
Digital Advertising: Does your business collect emails? Our digital advertising and marketing experts can manage your online advertising, from the very first contact to last purchase and beyond.
Our clients obtain individual interest from experienced social media sites advertising professionals that care about your brand name as high as you do. Our team will ask detailed questions to fully comprehend the spirit of your company and the defining high qualities of your customers. We're pleased to be an advised social media sites marketing firm. With hundreds of favorable reviews available for you to review online, we urge you to figure out on your own exactly how our social media sites advertising and marketing solutions have actually grown other organizations similar to yours!
Your service needs an online and also physical existence that is strong, diversified, as well as combined, providing a constant message that reverberates with your target market.
What other services does our social media and advertisement utilize in the marketing real to help businesses grow?
Digital Advertising: Do you have an email checklist? Have you ever before run ads for your service? Our advertising and marketing experts can handle your internet marketing, from the very first call to final acquisition and beyond.
Search Engine Optimization (Search Engine Optimization): 8 out of ten purchases begin with a straightforward web search. Is your service a leading lead to your clients' web searches? Please get in touch with Marketing Our City, our SEO, well add tons more information about just how you can begin showing up on Google's first page of the search results page.
Other Services: From logo layout to on-line credibility monitoring and professional Facebook marketing service, we make every effort to serve our clients in all areas of electronic branding. If you don't see a solution you require to be provided here, simply call us-- we'll talk with you regarding constructing a personalized remedy for your company' requirements
You most likely already recognize that digital advertising and marketing is important for the development of your business in New Jersey-based service. Constructing a social media community takes time, understanding, and a special focus and also strategy lots of company proprietors as well as marketing professionals miss the target on.
This indicates you'll see constant outcomes in your social media development Our advertising and marketing group doesn't merely compose feel-good.
Felipe Oliveira
Marketing Our City Agency
[email protected] | https://medium.com/@marketing-consultant908/how-can-social-media-and-advertising-benefit-small-business-growth-in-roi-25ac6b192545 | ['Felipe Oliveira'] | 2020-12-26 21:37:10.880000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Small Business', 'Local Business', 'Digital Marketing', 'Advertising'] |
Clutooth Cloud Gaming | Startup Proposal Assignment
BUSINESS IDEA
After the rise of the gaming industry in the 1950s, it has been evolving continuously and has become a major form of entertainment for everyone irrespective of age. In fact, the induction of mobile gaming in recent years has gained momentum and is becoming popular among people due to the portability and the graphics processing capabilities of inexpensive mobile phones. We also saw the release of various gaming consoles like the PlayStation and the Xbox. However, most gamers still prefer PCs over mobile phones and gaming consoles, the reason being the ultimate experience and the availability of a vast collection of games exclusively developed for operating systems like Windows. Unfortunately, a gaming PC with such capabilities can be very expensive.
With the evolution of technology, cloud computing has emerged as a popular alternative to traditional data centres and it is evident that cloud computing is the future of data storage and virtualization. Clutooth Cloud Gaming proposes to offer a low latency cloud gaming platform as a service which would eliminate the need for buying expensive graphical processing units for high-end 4K gaming.
The users will be able to play games with high graphics requirement from a variety of operating systems such as the Windows OS, Linux OS, macOS, Android, and even their browsers. This startup has extreme potential provided the low competition in the Indian market and the high profit to loss ratio.
MARKET DEMAND
The global gaming industry had a market value of $151.55 billion in the fiscal year 2019. According to a recent report by Newzoo’s senior marketing analyst Tom Wijman, this valuation is expected to top $159.3 billion in revenue by the end of 2020.
There is a lot of demand for a cloud gaming service in the market and with the current pandemic, people are transitioning towards indoor gaming, thus increasing the market demand for this product significantly.
RELEVANT PRODUCTS IN THE MARKET
The idea of cloud gaming is relatively new in the market and it is rapidly growing with a few companies offering this service. Fortune 500 companies like Google, Sony and Microsoft have developed products like Google Stadia, PlayStation Now and XCloud. Other similar products include Shadow and Vortex Gaming. This startup is an extreme game changer in India because these services are only available to the residents of the United States and there is only one competitor, The Gaming Project in the Indian cloud gaming market. This idea is novel as compared to other existing products in the market because it can generate high revenue with a low initial investment.
TARGET CUSTOMERS
“India recorded about 365 million online gamers in the financial year 2020. This number is estimated to reach 510 million by the fiscal year 2022,” according to Statista.com.
The service will be mainly targeted to Indian residents because there is only 1 existing product in this field in India, while there is a huge demand for such a product. And, since 55% of gamers are in the age group 10 and 24 years, we believe that they are potential customers which can be turned into regularly paying customers easily. It is expected that the conversion rates will be higher in urban regions because of the higher availability of basic technological equipment required to access the service.
TECHNOLOGIES AND EXPERTISE REQUIRED
An array of technologies is required for the success of this startup.
Web Development expertise is required for the development of the frontend website.
For the backend, AWS Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) reserved G4 instances in Mumbai region with up to 4 NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs, 48 vCPUs and 192 GiB of memory will be used to deploy the cloud gaming infrastructure.
The EC2 instances will be deployed with the Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Base AMI. Expertise in Python programming language and AWS Lambda service is required for EC2 automation.
AWS Elastic Block Storage (EBS) will be used for hosting virtual machines and storing the games. AWS Systems Manager and AWS SDK will be used for debugging and troubleshooting tasks. AWS CloudWatch and Cost Explorer will be used for setting alarms and managing the costs. AWS Direct Connect will be used for reducing the data transfer costs significantly.
Expertise in Microsoft Windows Server administration is required for managing the active directory and group policy objects.
Remote desktop access technology is required to allow the users to access the virtual machines deployed on the cloud from their device. | https://medium.com/@udyan2/clutooth-cloud-gaming-b4a3b507a227 | ['Udyan Sharma'] | 2020-12-26 19:32:41.977000+00:00 | ['Cloud Services', 'Business Ideas', 'Startup', 'Business Development', 'Cloud Gaming'] |
A Persistent Gap: Barriers for voters with disabilities | In the 2016 election, 35.4 million people with disabilities were eligible to vote; put another way, they represented one out of every seven potential voters that November.
The number of eligible voters with disabilities is growing as the population ages, so this figure is likely to be even higher in 2018 and the next several elections. Their voter turnout, however, has consistently been less than that of people without disabilities. In 2016, 55.9% of eligible people with disabilities reported voting, compared to 62.2% of people without disabilities, for a gap of 6.3 percentage points. This gap was very similar in the general elections of 2008 (7.2 points) and 2012 (5.7 points). The gap remains when controlling for other predictors of voting such as age, gender, race, education, and income. Turnout is especially low for people with cognitive impairments and difficulty with self-care or going outside alone (despite the availability of mail ballots), but the turnout gap also exists for people with vision and mobility impairments.
The MIT Elections Performance Index taps into this issue with its measure of how many people report not voting due to “illness or disability (own or family’s).” The percent of nonvoters who gave this answer in 2016 ranged from 3.4% in Washington State to 22% in Alabama. Overall, close to one-third (35.7%) of nonvoters with disabilities gave this response, compared to 6.6% of nonvoters without disabilities.
Why are people with disabilities less likely to vote?
Several factors contribute to the gap: greater social isolation that reduces voter recruitment, for example, as well as lower levels of education and income, and lower feelings of political efficacy — the belief that the political system is responsive to people like you. But these factors alone do not fully explain the turnout gap.
Voting among people with disabilities can also be discouraged by barriers in getting to or using polling places. There is evidence that living in an area with streets in poor condition is linked to substantially lower voter turnout among people with mobility limitations, and that difficulty finding and getting to the polling place lowers voter turnout among people in general.
In 2012, we conducted a nationally representative survey of 2000 people with disabilities and 1000 people without disabilities. We found that 30% of voters with disabilities reported some type of difficulty in voting, compared to only 8% of voters without disabilities. Such difficulties not only make voting more time-consuming, frustrating, and costly, but may also decrease feelings of efficacy by essentially sending the message that people with disabilities are not expected to participate in the political process.
Despite laws such as the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which requires polling places to be accessible, the U.S. GAO found that only 40% of polling places in 2016 had no potential impediments to access by people with disabilities. This is a modest improvement from 27% of polling places in 2008 and 16% in 2000. Some of this change has been driven by legal challenges: a 2012 U.S. District Court ruling, for example, identified a number of voting barriers and ordered New York’s Board of Elections to improve accessibility.
The most common problems identified in the 2012 voter survey were:
reading or seeing the ballot,
understanding how to vote or use the voting equipment,
waiting in line, and
finding or getting to the polling place.
Problems of polling place access, reading the ballot, and understanding the voting process were also cited by focus group participants with disabilities in research conducted in Los Angeles in 2010.
What can be done to improve the voting process for citizens with disabilities?
Citizens with disabilities may especially benefit from more flexible opportunities to vote, including before election day or by mail. In recent elections, people with disabilities have been more likely to vote by mail, but were not more likely to vote early at a polling place or election office.
One discouraging factor that seems to depress turnout among people with disabilities — even with mail-in ballots — is the requirement in twenty states to to present an excuse for a mail ballot. Research has shown that this seems to negatively affect turnout for voters with disabilities, who may be reluctant to report a disability on an official government form. No-excuse and all-vote-by-mail states, on the other hand, have smaller disability gaps in turnout.
Voting by mail can also bring its own problems, however. In 2012, 10% of mail voters with disabilities reported problems. In addition, voting by mail on its own is not a sufficient solution — majorities of people both with and without disabilities in 2012 said that they would prefer to cast their vote in a polling place rather than submitting it by mail or some other way.
There are other options to increase voter turnout among people with disabilities. Some of these lie outside the election system — for instance, long-term policies to increase employment, accessible transportation, and educational opportunities may all have positive effects. Potential solutions within the election system, however, can have a direct impact on turnout for people with disabilities. Based on available research, the best practices for increasing voting opportunities for people with disabilities include:
1. Increased accessibility of polling places and voting equipment
A number of states have worked to monitor and improve the physical accessibility of polling places. This includes a wide range of efforts to eliminate different types of obstacles, from removing barriers to entering polling places for people with mobility impairments, to making ballots easier to read and understand for people with visual and cognitive impairments. The direct involvement of disability organizations helps ensure the effective design, choice, and implementation of accessible technologies and practices.
2. Mobile voting
Mobile voting consists of bringing ballots or other voting equipment to convenient locations, such as long-term care facilities and shopping centers located on accessible bus routes. This has been found to work particularly well in long-term care facilities, where it has helped reduce concerns about voter fraud and enhanced residents’ dignity and rights.
3. Training for election officials and poll workers
States have increasingly focused on developing and expanding training for poll workers and election officials, often in partnership with disability service and advocacy organizations. These efforts have included videos on accessibility and poll worker assistance for voters with disabilities, conferences on polling place accessibility, and direct training for county election clerks and state election officials. One program found that the best results occurred when a variety of interactive training methods were used for voters with disabilities, using tools for poll workers such as checklists and visual aids to carry out election day procedures.
4. Outreach and education for people with disabilities
Difficulty in understanding how to vote can be a significant barrier. But it is also a barrier that can be addressed through education and outreach, which can be especially valuable for those with cognitive impairments. Examples of this sort of outreach include posting audio files with the full text of ballots and instructions on how to mark the ballot, booklets and videos on accessible voting features, outreach to assisted living facilities, and radio and television public service announcements produced in conjunction with disability organizations. Other direct outreach can include Voter Education Kits provided to individuals at conferences, provider locations, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes, and senior centers.
In sum, voter turnout is lower among people with disabilities, and voting difficulties appear to contribute to this problem.
Although polling place accessibility has improved over the past two decades, progress has been slow and uneven. Given the growing number of people with disabilities, it is important that progress continue to ensure that all American citizens can easily and effectively exercise their right to vote. | https://medium.com/mit-election-lab/a-persistent-gap-barriers-for-voters-with-disabilities-67de1fd3510c | ['Mit Election Lab'] | 2018-09-19 14:26:59.711000+00:00 | ['Elections', 'Disability', 'Medsl Guest', 'Voting'] |
How to Eat Candies on the Internet for Free? | I walked into a candy store as a kid and found out that there was far too much to life than I knew of. I was confounded, of course. However, after the initial bewilderment I realised all candy essentially tastes the same. It is only what it looks like that matters. Only a few actually tasted different. And,then there was chocolate.
Today, as I scramble around the internet in search of content, knowingly and unknowingly. I can’t help but think back about the candy store experience as a child.
All that I read and see is nothing but mere sugar candies.
They just look different. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for chocolates or sugar candies. They all just look different. Maybe the separation between a few topics can be a little more distinct like milk chocolate to dark chocolate. But, it still tastes basically the same. The content we consume everyday is below average, at best. The median tends towards it for sure. Considering how many varieties of candies exist in each shop, the lighting, the shopkeepers, matter more to the child than the candy itself, in today’s world.
However, we who write and create every day know that the best ingredients for the candy falling back to the basics. The traditional formulae and conventional practices. I mean, no matter what you write or create, the age old gimmicks of copywriting will always prevail.
I’ve heard about various models of argumentation, for instance, the Tolumin’s Model. I’ve read about various models of copywriting such as AIDA ACCA PPPP UPWORD but I cannot seem to wrap around the fact that although I know this, there is only so much I can do to make a living in a city with a million candy stores.
Honestly, I didn’t have to know copywriting or whatever to think of this analogy. It’s obvious with the way things are panning out. If you can’t click-bait, you’re just not in the race. | https://medium.com/@ayushbanerj33/i-walked-into-a-candy-store-as-a-kid-and-found-out-that-there-was-far-too-much-to-life-than-i-knew-98886c1d91ec | ['Ayush Banerjee'] | 2020-12-24 17:11:06.415000+00:00 | ['Content Marketing Tips', 'Content Creation', 'Content Marketing', 'Content', 'Content Strategy'] |
The Hunt for Fifteen | With a deadline of ASAP, we have set out on a mission to determine who will be among the chosen 15. This is a crucial step and one that we are giving great care. We are not just choosing individual children at this point but their families as well. Everyone involved needs to be highly motivated, committed, and persevering. This is the time to evaluate risk and determine potential problems before they arise. The last thing we want is for a student to drop out due to reasons beyond our control. We have expanded our selection pool to include another school affiliated with our volunteer program. There is so much potential here that will never be realized without our combined intervention and donations.
At only 8 years old, Rahul shows incredible maturity and a strong desire to learn
Madhu, age 10, with her parents and four siblings, whom she cares for
Although we have a few set criteria, we are taking into account a myriad of factors and learning as we go.
Gudiya, Golu, and Ajit
First, we are looking for students primarily in the 6–8 year-old range. Some are older, some are younger, but 6–8 is our target. The older the students are, especially for female students, the higher risk they face of marrying before completing 10th standard. Gudiya, for instance, is 9 years old. She will be 19 when she graduates from 10th standard and 21 when she graduates from 12th standard. If she doesn’t go to school now, she never will. We determined that her potential for greatness outweighed the risk that she will marry early. Our hope is that she, Neha, and their family will learn to understand the benefits of education and chose to put off marriage or labor until their educations are complete.
Kashak, age 6, is incredibly bright, optimistic, and well-mannered
Second, we are looking for students who are intelligent, outgoing, and industrious. I have been keeping records of each student’s reading, writing, and math capabilities as well as notes on their demeanor, attitude, leadership, participation, and eagerness to learn. We don’t just want intelligence, drive, or personality, we want the whole package.
Kashak with her mother, Gudiya, who never went to school and is illiterate
Third, we are trying to evaluate the educational risk faced by each student. In other words, what are a student’s chances of never going to school? What are his or her chances of going to a public school, low-end private school, or high-end private school? These questions are best answered in interviews with the families, especially through histories of elder siblings. Now that I think of it, the interviews we conduct are very similar to medical histories and evaluations.
Soni is 16 and never went to school. Without intervention, neither will her siblings
We begin the parental interviews by saying how proud we are of their child’s work in school, that we recognize exceptional potential, and that we want to make sure that their child receives the best education possible. We then introduce ourselves and gather names, number of children, ages of children, etc. If there are older siblings, I like to find out if they attend or have ever attended school. If they have, I like to find out where they go or went.
Next, I figure out who works in the family, where they work, approximately how much they earn per month (this is, apparently, not an offensive question), their expenses, their highest levels of education, and their educational goals for their children. My motive, through all of these questions, it to find out what will happen to these students without our intervention.
Over the past 11 days, I have comprehensively evaluated approximately 80 students and interviewed 37 families at their homes. It has been an exhausting and emotionally draining process even though I try to stay as impartial as possible. The entire process reminds me of serving as jury foreman signing verdicts before I left home. We have the power now to radically alter or essentially neglect the lives and futures of these children. Needless to say, this is an enormous amount of responsibility.
Our interviews and evaluations have taken us through narrow alleys, up ladders to rooftops, and far down the canal. Wherever we go, we command enormous attention. While interviewing Rani and Rekha’s parents in their tiny rooftop enclosure, dozens of children and adults watched from the surrounding buildings even as far away as 75 meters. Even if we aren’t directly impacting many of the children here, our presence and message about the importance of education are indirectly affecting many.
Left to right: Rani, Rekha, and Manisha
The highlight of my day was going to interview a beautiful, proper, and respectful 8-year-old girl named Manisha. Before visiting her home, I had found out that she was one of five children. She has two illiterate sisters who are married and two brothers who live with her grandparents in a different sector. Her parents, Moni and Ramesh, are also illiterate.
Manisha led us from Rani and Rekha’s rooftop, down the ladder, and around the corner to her tiny, dark, poorly-ventilated home. Although it was 6 pm, both of her parents were still in the factory. Manisha immediately went to work moving around items in her bare feet on the dirt floor of her home.
The flash from my camera was the only light source in the room. All of her family’s possessions were strung up to the walls or ceiling, leaving just enough room on the floor for the three of them to sleep or cook.
After a few moments of wondering what Manisha was doing, she began to light a small portable burner in the corner of the room. It became apparent that she was trying to make us chai tea. It was probably one of the most adorable and humbling events I have ever watched. I shook my head in sheer amazement of her maturity and generosity at only 8 years old.
As the sun began to set today, we walked out of the slum incredibly excited by the changes and opportunities we are bringing. I am receiving great feedback from readers and some donations are already starting to flow. I will acknowledge these generous contributions properly in later posts. To everyone who has donated or considered it, thank you. Please stay tuned.
Prianka, age 8 | https://medium.com/squalor-to-scholar/the-hunt-for-fifteen-de3658fab6ef | ['John Schupbach'] | 2017-06-29 00:57:29.794000+00:00 | ['Squalor To Scholar', 'Education', 'India'] |
Cognitive Trade-off | Today, I watched an episode of the Youtube series — Mind Field. It is about a researcher in Japan who studies chimpanzees, especially their short term memory and cognitive abilities.
In the episode, the researcher, Tetsuro Matsuzawa sheds light on his Cognitive Trade-off theory. His hypothesis suggests that the development of human language led to a decrease in human short-term memory. A trade-off. Humans evolved on the savannah and needed language. For language to develop, there had to be a trade-off and this occurred in terms of a decrease in our short-term memory. In the episode, you see chimpanzees performing with ease, short-term memory tasks (basically pattern recognition) that the human host can’t do at all.
It’s an intriguing idea but like all “hypothesis” it really is just that. Can’t be proven and it also has a lot of holes in it.
maybe the differences in short term memory ability between humans and chimps are environmental adaptations and no trade-off needed to occur.
maybe the differences can be accounted to practice and training
maybe humans, living in highly dynamic and hyper social environments allotted more cognitive resources to other things like facial recognition and inner thought.
We also have to wonder about cognition being described as a limited, zero-sum kind of feature with only so much processing power. The brain as a processor model is quite discredited and there are adequate brain resources (over 3 times the neurons of a chimp).
What I found fascinating is the beauty of the hypothesis. But that doesn’t mean it is true that humans de-emphasized short term memory for extraordinary language capacity, which is one mechanism for increased collaboration and altruism in humans.
The episode is very much worth watching and pondering if you are in the field of language learning and teaching. It reminded me of my own pet theory — the cognitive trade-off of a foreign language. I proposed that higher-level foreign language students have a much better short-term memory in their L2 than lower-level students and this can be accounted for by not needing to focus on form (Patten’s Input Processing Hypothesis). As I argue in my article — it also is a sound basis and way to quickly determine a student’s language level. Someone should make a quick placement test for language students based on short-term recall.
The brain remains a big mystery in so many ways. We need much more research, we even still don’t understand the basics. But still, it is stimulating to think of these beautiful theories … | https://medium.com/eltbuzz/cognitive-trade-off-ec0a7299a358 | ['David Deubelbeiss'] | 2020-12-15 20:03:57.229000+00:00 | ['Linguistics', 'Blog', 'Research', 'Brain'] |
Best and Cheapest Ayurvedic & Healthy Weight Loss Product on Amazon | Being fat in today’s time is the main reason for many major diseases. Like high blood pressure, cancer, fatty liver, which give rise to many other diseases. There can be many reasons for being obese. Such as not eating on time, excessive consumption of junk food, hypothyroidism, not being physically active
We can stop our increasing weight with some diet plan and some exercise in the beginning, but when the amount of fat in our body increases more then our body becomes more inactive. Then we have to resort to some Ayurvedic medicine or many other medicines to reduce our fat body so that we can reduce our body fat fast.
How do we choose the right products to reduce our body fat?
1 Whichever product we say we use to reduce our body fat, if possible, it should be an Ayurvedic product, which does not have any harm on our body.
2 Any product that we use is a good product, for that it has good reviews and people have used that product before.
3 The product should be cheap so that we can use it for a long time and maintain body weight.
4 The product should be easy to use and test it well
Today we will tell you about some weight loss product which has all the specialties that a good weight loss product should have.
Kapiva Chocolate Slim Shake is a meal replacement beverage of 6 Ayurvedic herbs and 12 superfoods that helps you with weight management. Let’s go into details about how it works.
This product contains 6 ayurvedic herbs to reduce weight, which is very helpful for reducing your weight. This Kapiva Chocolate Slim Shake is enriched with the goodness of 6 ayurvedic herbs. Garcinia, Green Coffee Bean and Green Tea are very beneficial for breaking down excess fat in our body. Cinnamon is also a good Ayurvedic medicine which prevents the rise of blood sugar in the body and at the same time keeps our sugar level stable, apple cider vinegar increases our digestive power and Boswellia prevents high inflammation in the body.
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Kapiva Chocolate Slim Shake is a superfood because of its nutrients and taste. Even on busy days, this slim yummy shake is very useful for you. It makes your weight loss journey even easier and more convenient. With its blend of 7 superfoods and 25 essential vitamins and minerals, it gives you the nutrients equivalent of a good meal.
The Kapiva Chocolate Slim Shake is a low-calorie meal replacement calorie meal. Any low calorie intake creates a calorie gap in the body. Whenever there is a shortage of calories in our body, our body uses the fat present in the body for energy to make up for the lack of calories, which helps us in reducing weight. Kapiva Chocolate Slim Shake is a protein-rich food as it contains 12.5 grams of protein from Peas, Soy and Whey and also contains up to 3.3 grams of fiber in the existing chicory root and flaxseed powder. We can save up to ~500 calories per meal if we reduce the amount of food we consume with it. This is one of the easiest and healthiest ways to lose weight without compromising on nutrition.
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It does not contain any refined sugar, it is just full of natural nutrients. When we say healthy, we mean healthy. When we add refined sugar and artificial flavor enhancers to our products, they take away the nutrients of any product which is harmful to health and not beneficial. That’s why we don’t use any of these ingredients in our Kapiva Chocolate Slim Shake. Who says healthy can’t be delicious? You can try our range full of delicious flavors like Coffee, Chocolate, and Mango that will leave your taste buds spellbound. Our slim shake is a 100% vegetarian drink.
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Why should we never skip a meal to achieve our weight loss goals? It is not the right way because by doing so there can be deficiency of nutrients in our body and we can also get some major disease. So, why shouldn’t we switch to healthier low-calorie drinks? With 6 herbs and 12 superfoods, Kapiva Chocolate Slim Shake provides you with nutrients equal to food.Replace it with any meal and you consume 500 fewer calories. What’s more amazing? Consume it regularly and you can easily reduce weight up to 4.1 kg in a month.
Direction:-
We take 2 scoops in 220 ml of water or 250 ml of milk or any beverage. And stir well until the consistency is like a thick shake and gets rid of lumps. We can also use a mixer or shaker for a frothy or thick consistency. | https://medium.com/@harkeshbadgujjar360/best-and-cheapest-ayurvedic-healthy-weight-loss-product-on-amazon-27d0b7993940 | ['Healthy Life Talks'] | 2021-12-28 11:11:23.718000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss Tips', 'Weight Loss', 'Weightloss Foods', 'Weightloss Recipe'] |
The Ethics Of (Mis-)Using Copyright Content | (Iconic anti-piracy campaign by Motion Picture Association)
In the year 2000 Metallica heard one of their unreleased songs, I Disappear, on the radio. The band sought out the origin of the release and found the source was coming from Napster, a peer to peer file sharing service, along with their entire discography. Metallica claimed millions in damages along with other musicians who sued the company, Napster filed for bankruptcy in 2002 and the outcome has been a major chapter in copyright issues which continue to this day.
Today US senator Thom Tillis has contributed to the anxiety of Twitch streamers, YouTubers and internet pirates with his insertion of a bill amendment. The amendment would allow imprisonment for up to three years or a fine for those who are using copyrighted content without permission from the copyright owner. The amendment describes three things content creators cannot provide, the two most pertinent to content creators include: content that is primarily designed to perform the copyrighted content, content that has no commercial use except to provide the copyrighted content. The amendment doesn’t indicate a specific boundary between fair use and using copyright content for commercial distribution which makes it harder for content creators to know when they are acting within the law.
Ethics of Copyright Laws
(Pirate Bay via Google Images)
I would like to take this ongoing event as an opportunity to discuss the ethics and practical enforcement of online copyright laws. Is the distribution and use of copyrighted material without the owner’s permission ethical? The biggest talking point comes from the side that says no which is that ‘internet piracy is stealing’. To understand where they’re coming from it’s best to understand the chain of agreements that led to the product being sold. In a usual transaction the artist or copyright owner has a deal with a company e.g Spotify to use their products in exchange for payments and someone who pays for the product also pays into the pocket of the artist. However in the case of the pirate, the product is taken without payment therefore not paying the artist. The chain of agreements is broken by the pirate and the product is ‘stolen’.
This is rebutted by the pro-piracy side by saying there is a misunderstanding. The product is not stolen, at least not like stealing something from a shop. Instead the product is copied so that the pirate has their own and the ‘original’ is still intact. After all music, for example, is stored in such a way to be read by a computer which interprets the data and plays it. So the instructions that make the audio are duplicated rather than the music being stolen. Some argue that this increases the supply of the product which could lower its price affecting the artist.
Following from that last point, people argue that the copyright owner will lose money because of sales they could’ve got. This does not support most findings on the subject where it seems most benefit from peer to peer sites such as Napster. However findings also show that growing artists may suffer less sales, this could be even worse for them because they are at a critical stage in their career where it could fail whereas established financially secure artists don’t need to worry.
A Problem of Permission
The major ethical problem not involving money is when anti-piracy proponents say it is wrong in itself to pirate or misuse copyrighted content. When this argument is brought up, I notice it’s not usually explained well. People say it’s just wrong as if the argument ends there but I think there is a line of reasoning behind it. My interpretation is that pirates act without the permission of the copyright owner which is the bad in itself. However we might wonder why permission is ethically necessary? You might say: We are all bound to the state through the law and the breaking of that chain is unethical, it may be right to use copyrighted music without the owner’s position but not if it’s against the law. In this case the problem is with breaking the law not directly misuse of copyrighted content.
Whether breaking the law specifically is unethical rather than the act of piracy is really out of the scope of my investigation. Is it unethical in itself? After all you are using content someone has made without their permission. For it to be ethical it has to be okay to use it without their permission, so the question is about permission. I can’t speak for everyone but I think the reason why permission matters is because the copyright owner put their labour into the product or at least it was in some way legally obtained by the copyright owner from someone who put labour into the product. Then we are talking about fairness, is the act fair? Or justifiable despite unfairness.
Fairness in trade is where each party gets what is owed to them. The pirate torrents an album on pirate bay and the artist gains no money, at least in the short-term, but the artist didn’t lose a sale. The distributor makes money from advertisements while providing the album so it is arguable they owe the artist. They make money through the album, something they don’t have permission to but again the artist isn’t losing money. The only way illegal distributors could make it fair is if they boost sales or profits for the artist, that way they get paid in some form. However this form isn’t guaranteed and the distributor doesn’t pay the artist directly with an agreement.
Permission may be ethically negated all together, the concept of owning a song or any copyrighted material is absurd to some people. I mean specifically owning the instructions which make the song, a song comes to life through it being read and played with sheet music by a musician or by read and played with binary data by a computer. It’s more understandable when physical media is stolen but when instructions that make the media are pirated it becomes a gray area. We would like to see someone’s innovation rewarded but the concept of owning instructions or better put an idea can’t really be argued. The same thing applies to patents which benefit the inventor rewarding their creativity but at the same time there is the gray area problem.
Dealing With Misused Content
(US Senator Thom Tillis, ThomTillis.com)
Assuming it is unethical to distribute copyrighted content without permission there is the small matter of dealing with it. We could recognize that it’s unethical and simply shun the activity or we could continue involving the law. Senator Thom Tillis wants to make it punishable with a maximum sentence of three years in prison for illegal distribution and use. Is this too harsh? Especially for a Twitch streamer or YouTuber using the content in a transformative way or in a way such that the content isn’t the main product. Should a streamer be punished for playing copyrighted music quietly in the background whilst there is in-game music and commentary detracting from it?
In closing, There aren’t many financial drawbacks to piracy other than for rising artists, with that in mind I wouldn’t say it’s a major issue, something that needs to be policed, especially if it’s costing even more money to police. The ethical problem of piracy is subjective in judging how bad it is and from that it’s hard to say if policing is necessary. And besides piracy, these laws make it harder for streamers and YouTubers to create content. The cherry on top is that Thom Tillis has received money from companies such as Comcast, Sony Pictures and Motion Picture Association which draws his motivation into question.
I am Henry Rudgate, thank you for reading and if you liked this story follow me here on Medium. | https://medium.com/@henryrudgate/the-ethics-of-mis-using-copyright-content-150400e42a15 | ['Henry Rudgate'] | 2020-12-22 17:00:14.970000+00:00 | ['Ethics', 'Law', 'Technology', 'Copyright', 'Politics'] |
Europe can no longer risk being sidelined in the quantum race | Quantum technology is the industry of tomorrow, and Europe has great potential to become it’s global leader. Maki.vc Partner Ilkka Kivimäki explains why now is as good a time as ever to start investing in European quantum companies.
Within the next 10 years we might have a machine that has a trillion times more computing power than current computers, and it’s all thanks to quantum technology. While the industry has been quietly surfacing for some time now, the full potential of the technology may be difficult to grasp as quantum mechanics still sounds like something out of a Steven Spielberg film.
It would be worth even the biggest sceptic’s while to look past the sci-fi label and realize the vast possibilities quantum technology has in solving some of our most complex problems around sustainability, energy consumption and new materials, to name a few. There is an especially strong potential in healthcare, where solutions to pressing issues such as the current Covid-19 pandemic could be found leveraging quantum technology’s massive computing power.
What is quantum computing? Tencent Chief European Representative and Maki House LP Ling Ge explains the exciting new era we’ve entered.
Why should Europe sit and watch while the US and China race for quantum leadership?
Both China and the US have long roots in quantum development and they regularly surface in industry updates — the US most recently claimed to gain quantum supremacy last year, when Google’s quantum computer performed a computation that would take the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years in just 200 seconds. Meanwhile, China has their first quantum science satellite and a quantum network between Beijing and Shanghai under its belt. These two superpowers do not aim for global collaboration — they’re engaged in a heated race to the top.
There is no reason for Europe to just sit and watch while the US and China compete in mastering quantum technology. From a purely pragmatic point of view, it’s essential that we develop the technology for ourselves — after the US’ most recent quantum milestone, their export restrictions on sensitive technologies like quantum tightened, and they aim to control over how their technology is being utilized.
However, even more importantly, Europe is perfectly positioned to become a quantum leader: the science and research needed to power quantum breakthroughs play to our strengths, and thus last year, more quantum deals were made in Europe than in the US and Asia combined. What’s more, quantum technology is a rich field of research where breakthroughs are still needed in both hardware and software development — while China and the US have chosen to develop their technologies in isolation, Europe can benefit from a more collaborative approach characteristic to our region, sharing knowledge and talent across borders.
Is Europe united enough to take on the quantum challenge?
We have a number of promising quantum technology companies, such as the Finnish IQM that builds second generation quantum processors, the UK-based Riverlane that develops software with an aim to take quantum computing to a commercial level, and German HQS Quantum Simulations, a company developing quantum algorithms to predict molecular properties for performance materials. There are great expectations for these companies, all of whom raised early-stage rounds in 2019.
This potential is also recognized on an EU level: in 2018, the European Commission launched the Quantum Technologies Flagship, “a large-scale, long-term research initiative that brings together research institutions, industry and public funders, consolidating and expanding European scientific leadership and excellence in this field.” The budget of the ten-year initiative is one billion euros, and there are currently around 20 different quantum-related projects that have been funded as part of the initiative.
Even though the major commercial breakthroughs in quantum computing are still maybe five to ten years away, it’s safe to say that there’s is fruitful ground for Europe to thrive and succeed as a future quantum giant. Now it is merely a question of whether or not post-Covid Europe is united enough to take on the challenge.
Author: Ilkka Kivimäki is Partner at Maki.vc, a serial entrepreneur, and a board member at Aalto University, Wave Ventures and Junction. | https://medium.com/maki-vc/europe-can-no-longer-risk-being-sidelined-in-the-quantum-race-df9be6b975c6 | [] | 2021-07-27 13:31:51.724000+00:00 | ['Quantum Computer', 'Quantum Computing'] |
Brand-Owned Content & SEO | Over the course of any decent search engine optimization campaign, you will undoubtedly run into the problem of creating new, relevant content that is attractive enough to be shared among your target audience and influencers. One of the most popular ways to create new quality content is by creating blog articles and guest writing. However, most of the people that should be doing the writing (company heads and decision makers) don’t have enough time to compose new content on top of their pre-existing duties. Instead, they task a team member within their organization with performing the services on their behalf and with their approval. While it may seem like a time saving measure, there are two major issues that can arise. Mainly, missing authorship and ownership of that content.
How Authorship Affects Your Rankings
Authorship is a relatively new ranking factor for search engines like Google. It’s a ranking factor that links a piece of created content to its Google Plus author profile. In Google’s eyes, when Google authorship is connected properly, brand awareness opportunities and opportunities to serve as the industry leaders are created, as well.
Authorship also has an effect on search engine rankings. While this feature is still relatively new and doesn’t weigh that heavily on your overall search rankings, it is starting to be a competition separator in competitive markets and niches, especially local search engine optimization. Authorship is currently less valued than having a great backlink profile or domain authority. If your niche faces strong competition, then authorship is certainly a great toolset for your search engine optimization arsenal.
Content Ownership is Huge
Right now, there is a big contention in the advertising industry and technology sector over the concept of intellectual property and ownership rights for content creation and guest writing. The issue usually exists when a firm has hired an outside advertising agency or company employee to do the majority of the web marketing work. Those individuals whether intentional or not, often put the content under their personal accounts.
When content is posted on various websites under personal accounts, only the person who created the account owns the content. This is true in both the website’s eyes and search engine indexing’s eyes. So the real questions is… who owns the content? According to most website terms of service, the outside agency, or company employee, owns the content if they posted it under their account. However, the brand that originally invested in the content is the actual owner. They paid for it and for the service to have it posted.
This means that all authorship and authority is attached to the agency (or company employee) instead of the brand that actually owns the content. That also means that, in the event of a problem with the outside agency of company employee, the firm is left to helplessly remedy the situation in house.
What Can Go Wrong
If you do not have the content you created under a brand account with access given to your decision makers, then you run the risks of losing work you have already paid for and completely wasting your digital marketing investment.
Many ad agencies and brand employees like to post off-site articles under their own name to protect “their” work. This is where the ownership issue arises. Without stipulating that the content be posted under a centralized brand account, the content is posted under different authors and ownership.
This severely limits the brands’s ability to handle the issue in house. The only remedy left is to consult with an attorney on the legal ramifications of this issue. An attorney will likely be required to:
force the off-site websites to change ownership
recover any lost revenue and wasted expense on the content creation
Climb Rankings and Prevent Issues
The best way to prevent abuse and fraud on this scale is to demand that any content created on your brand’s behalf be posted under a centralized account that your firm controls. This way you get the search engine optimization credit and ownership that you deserve. | https://medium.com/the-shakeout/brand-owned-content-seo-1b65e14fa3e0 | ['Aaron Henry'] | 2020-06-12 15:18:11.368000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'Brand Strategy', 'Search Engine Marketing', 'Intellectual Property', 'Advertising Agency'] |
The Idea of India Vs. CAA | On December 22, Prime Minister Modi delivered a speech at Ram Lila Maidan in Delhi, trying to subjugate the audience through his oratory skills and making them understand how the pair of CAA and NRC are not dangerous to the country and its citizens. “Lie being spread that I brought law to snatch people’s rights, it will not stand” was one of the statements that he put through in his speech. There is a hypothesis that CAA is enacted to threaten Indian Muslims and is the founding stone for turning India into a Hindu Rashtra. This fear stems from the fact that an entire community is pretermitted from the Act when literally every other community was given equal importance. The Journalists at Republic TV, AajTak, Times Now are doing their best to calm down the situation and make people understand that this has nothing to do with Muslims. Partly, they are right. This has nothing to do with only Muslims but the duvet covers the entire nation. I will come back to this point later in this article.
Our Prime Minister’s statement about snatching people’s rights is a lie indeed. According to some eminent lawyers, this Act goes against Article 14, Article 15 and Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Below are the article details.
Article 14 of the Constitution of India reads as under:
“The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.”
Article 15 talks about the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth,
“The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.”
Article 21 provides that,
“No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”
The Prime Minister even went to the extent of asking people to respect the Parliament and Lawmakers who passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. People standing for their rights, protesting against the Government is being projected as impertinence to the Parliament. Dissent is often confused with disrespect. These are times when dissent is being stomped down, termed as Anti National by people who are ostentatiously displaying their jingoism.
Indian Citizens have been granted the right to peaceful protest by the Supreme Court. That is the essence of Indian Democracy unless we are no longer a Democracy. In the case of Ramlila Maidan Incident v. Home Secretary, Union Of India & Ors., the Supreme Court had stated, “Citizens have a fundamental right to assembly and peaceful protest which cannot be taken away by an arbitrary executive or legislative action.”
It was in Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of India that Justice Bhagwati had said, “If democracy means the government of the people by the people, it is obvious that every citizen must be entitled to participate in the democratic process and in order to enable him to intelligently exercise his rights of making a choice, free & general discussion of public matters is absolutely essential.”
I go back to the point where Prime Minister termed the protests as disrespect to the lawmakers. Such sentences are only heard in countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, North Korea where Dictatorship rules the country, and any form of dissent is considered as a disrespect to the Supreme Ruler.
One line in the speech to which I somewhat agree with the Prime Minister is, “I request the youth of the country to read the Act in detail and not to fall prey to the rumors of detention-centers being spread by Urban Naxals and Congress.” Just to be clear I only agree with the first part, the second part about the detention center is a blatant lie. A simple Google search will prove it. I have also mentioned the link to various articles about detention centers at the end of this write-up.
India is witnessing such high-intensity protests probably for the first time since independence. The students, women are leading the protests, the creativity is out on the streets. Yet the Government does not seem to care.
In the BJP-ruled states, the protests even turned violent. Some shocking videos have emerged from cities like Bijnor, Kanpur, Meerut, Mangalore where Police are brutally beating up the protestors, destroying their properties all in the name of revenge as mentioned by the Chief Minister of UP, Yogi Adityanath.
The Government had even shut down internet service in various parts of the country. Some cities experienced information blackout for almost a week. According to https://internetshutdowns.in/, there have been over 350 internet shutdowns in a country which claims itself to be the world’s largest democracy.
The modern times are increasingly becoming dangerous for dissenters. The country is witnessing the callous torture of dissent and in such times when you see such voices coming together for a cause gives a buoyant view of the future.
The law of nature however is very liberal. For every positive, you have a negative. Everything is found in pairs. For every voice against CAA + NRC, you are likely to find a voice for CAA + NRC. Though I cannot for sure tell you which one is winning. One observation that I have made is how these protests have been turned as Hindu Vs. Muslims. However, this is exactly the opposite. Almost in all of the protests against CAA/NRC, you would find fairly equal participation from all the communities. So why is it being communalised? Well, one theory is (which is not hard to come across) is to polarise it as much as possible until it kills the entire purpose.
There are shortcomings on both sides of the rail. Not thoroughly reading it is one. The bill no doubt was a bigoted one in the first place. But it is always advised to read something before having an opinion. So I decided to give a good read of the act to prove the bigotry. One thing which you all have must have heard from our Home Minister, Prime Minister and other spokesperson is that the Act would be providing the citizenship to the religiously persecuted minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The minorities would include people from the following faiths: Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian. The logic behind this act is since Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are Islamic Countries and people from other faiths are facing persecution ergo they would be given citizenship if they have come to India. This is a very noble thought. It is no denying that Minorities in the countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh do face persecution and since India is sharing borders with them it is India’s duty to provide asylum and a safe place to them.
Few questions I had while I was reading this act.
Why are Rohingya Muslims excluded from this act? What about Shia Muslims and Ahmediya Muslims who are facing persecution in Pakistan? Why are religiously persecuted Tamil Hindus not included from Sri Lanka? Why did the Government only select 3 countries? What about persecuted people who came from Aksai Chin?
These questions are left unanswered by the Government. And no one seems to be asking them. There is another aspect to the bill that has surprisingly been left untouched by most of the people. The act has been viewed through the lens of religion. However, once you read the act fully, you get to realise that not only Indian Muslims would end up suffering, but the entire nation would be a victim of this diabolical act.
If NRC takes place, in fact it is not even a question of if but when, every Indian will have to prove his citizenship irrespective of his faith. The amount of trouble that people will go through will be insurmountable. The daily wage worker, the poor people even the salaried professionals will have to let go of their days work to stand in lines, holding documents, bribing Babus to get this done with. Remember Demonetisation! That is a physical pain which every Indian is going to experience, the only impetus would be, “if our Soldiers can stand in Siachen, we can at least stand in lines to prove our citizenship.” Though, ironically, in this case, even those Soldiers will have to prove their citizenship.
The Home Minister and Prime Minister in all of their speeches have mentioned the word ‘persecuted minorities,’ and all the ratiocination passed on were based on this card of religious persecution of minorities in Islamic Countries. Interestingly, no where in the Act, the word ‘persecuted’ is even mentioned. An excerpt from the act is mentioned below.
“Provided that any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into India on or before the 31st day of December, 2014 and who has been exempted by the Central Government by or under clause © of sub-section (2) of section 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or any rule or order made thereunder, shall not be treated as illegal migrant for the purposes of this Act;”
Few experts think that had BJP introduced the word persecuted in the Act, it would have been a political suicide. The NRC that happened in Assam even left out Hindus along with Muslims. Assuming the word persecuted was mentioned in the bill, all Non Muslims will have to produce evidence of persecution. Since the word is carefully omitted, it can be safely assumed that they were indeed persecuted and hence found a safe place in India.
I do, however, have a different theory altogether. People have been looking at this Act through the lens of religion, and they are outraged on the omission of Muslims, that constitutes almost 15% of the population. I believe that this Act is minacious for everyone irrespective of their faith. I have already mentioned about the physical pain that each of us will have to undergo to prove ourselves as citizens, which is probably nothing compared to other petrifying pinions of the act.
I am trying to analyse the CAA + NRC through the works of George Orwell, particularly 1984. George Orwell showed a true form of a Totalitarian State who curbs dissent by putting its citizens in Jails and torturing them, changes books and history to befit its propaganda, who is always watching, always listening. CAA + NRC can be a beginning point of a true totalitarian state. The Government will have a right to snatch the citizenship and throw them into detention centres that they are building in every state. Considering that this act is only against Muslims is naivety. Almost 80% of the entire population follow Hinduism, that is roughly 105 Crore people. Muslims are merely 15%, roughly 17 Crore. Believing that only Muslims will be unable to provide documents is a wrong assumption. Even Non Muslims might not have those documents and given the fact that Hindus constitute a larger proportion, it is highly likely they might be large in numbers who might not have the desired documents. That’s where CAA comes into the picture. Muslims who fail to prove themselves as a citizen of India will be straight away sent to the detention centres, no question asked. Non Muslims will then have to provide evidence that they have indeed come from one of the three countries viz. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
The Government might set up a new department, Citizenship Department, and Citizenship Officer to verify the documents and provide citizenship to migrants who have indeed come from the three Islamic countries. It is going to be a tough task for Non-Muslim Indians who failed to provide the documents to the Citizenship Officer or Babu. They will now have to provide evidence that they have indeed come from any of the three countries. I have no idea how they are going to do that.
CAA+NRC not only targets one specific community, it targets everyone. The Government can use it to strip citizenship of anyone and on the top of the pyramid will be those who have constantly raised their voices against them.
An excerpt from 1984, George Orwell.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
References: | https://medium.com/@leftofcentre/caa-is-not-anti-muslim-it-is-anti-indian-630f425a4e85 | [] | 2021-01-11 16:28:55.518000+00:00 | ['Caa', 'India', 'Muslim', 'RNC', 'Modi Government'] |
Saying goodbye to a watermelon | Source: Burst
When I walk into the grocery store first thing I notice are the watermelons. Even though they are such a big fruit, they are hidden in the corner behind the onions as if trying to be discreet.
Growing up in Greece, we were always taught that choosing a watermelon is an art one needs to master. You need to pick it up and knock on it to see if it sounds fresh. When I was young I always thought knocking on a watermelon was such a silly thing to do. You weren’t knocking somewhere expecting an answer and I could barely lift one.
But my father would always tell me ῾παιδί μου, μη γελάς. Πως θα μάθεις να διαλέγεις το σωστό καρπούζι῾? (“my child do not laugh. How will you learn how to choose the right watermelon?”) as if this was a life skill I needed to get ahead in the world.
Once we found the one that sounded like what I imagined the depth of the ocean sounds like, we would have to carry it all the way up the hill in my aunts village of Kymi.
Summers in Greece are too hot to be doing anything other than curling your toes in the sand and taking long naps on the beach, let alone dragging a watermelon up the hill. However at a young age we learned that watermelon means that summer is officially here and for us summer is the Mecca of seasons.
In the August evenings, I couldn’t wait to see the platter of watermelon after dinner. It was always accompanied by feta cheese which apparently a feta proponent said is the perfect match and oddly enough it is. The time we sat down and ate watermelon signified the ending to a good day.
You see, it’s not just a fruit. It symbolizes that you can finally enjoy the view of the sea from the balcony, the crisp summer breeze and the stories you will learn from your grandparents.
Sometimes, my γιαγιά (my grandma) having mastered this life skill early on, would say “ δεν διαλέξατε καλό, είναι κούφιο’, (“you did not choose a good one, it's hollow sounding”) but that never mattered to me. I would always eat it because the coldness of it on my tongue would cool me down and the seeds- though people would spit them out- were always crunchy and added to the excitement of such a simple pleasure.
As I stand at the supermarket today in a big American city, I contemplate about choosing a watermelon. Will it be the same if I pick the juiciest one? Will it matter if it’s too white around the edges? Should I knock on it and hear what it sounds like?
To me, watermelon was summer nights under the endless sky where I stargazed hours on end, a way of cooling down on the beach under the scorching sun and sweaty afternoons uphill.
As I sit there I decide to leave it. Carrying a watermelon uphill now will not bring me home to the summer dinners. It may taste good but without hearing my γιαγιά comment on it as she cuts it open- whether it’s juicy enough or there are many seeds to crunch down on, will not matter.
So I wait. Watermelon season will come again and I will be like the child on the summer balcony enjoying my cheese and fruit feeling like the fanciest person in the village. Not a care in the world. Just the thought that on that August day, life was how it was supposed to be- warm, relaxed and chill, just like the watermelon I was taught to choose. | https://medium.com/vagabond-voices/saying-goodbye-to-a-watermelon-7bb60a7c0e6d | ['Nicole Ak'] | 2020-04-23 05:49:11.275000+00:00 | ['Nostalgia', 'Summer', 'Family', 'Greece', 'Travel'] |
Eras in History that Resemble Our Own — Market Mad House | As America nears the end of a terrible year; 2020, in its history, I have to wonder what other eras in history that resemble our own.
Being a history buff, I have a few thoughts on this matter. Unfortunately, some historical parallels to our age are frightening.
Frightening parallels to our era in history include:
Late 1930s Britain
Disturbingly, modern America resembles Late 1930s Great Britain. In the late 1930s, Britain was a declining nation split by terrible economic inequality that considered itself a global superpower.
During the 1930s, Britain’s elite suffered from the delusion that the British Empire still ruled the world. Moreover, in 1930s Britain, nostalgia for past golden ages drove national thought and politics. Political leaders and ordinary people pretended the year was 1900, Queen Victoria was still on the throne, and the British Empire was all-powerful.
In the 1930s Britain’s political debates centered on maintaining the Indian Empire; rather than rebuilding the country’s industry or countering rising Nazi military power. Parliament argued about India, while the Royal Air Force begged for money for planes.
The policy of the ruling Conservative Party was preserving the British Empire at all costs and ignoring economic decline at home and rising threats abroad. For example, the Conservatives argued Nazi Germany was no threat to Britain and increased defense spending was unnecessary.
Finally, in 1937, Britons elected a leader dedicated to returning the country to normalcy; Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. To preserve the illusion of normalcy, Chamberlain clung to the fantasy that Adolph Hitler was a normal leader whom Britain could trust and work with.
History exposed Chamberlain’s policy of Peace for Our Time; like the British Empire nostalgia as a fantasy. By 1940, Britain was at war with Nazi Germany and lacked the military resources to wage that war. In the summer of 1940, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill was literally begging for American aid.
Similarly, modern Americans just elected a leader dedicated to restoring normalcy at all costs President-Elect Joe Biden (D-Delaware). Likewise, nostalgia for the 1980s or the 1950s is the obsession of American politics. The most influential modern American politician President Donald J. Trump (R-Florida) runs on the mantra “Make America Great Again.”
1930s Britain was unprepared for the modern world and the cataclysm about to engulf it. The obsession with preserving or restoring Britain’s Imperial Glory and Victorian normalcy made it impossible for the British to prepare for Hitler or World War II.
Similarly, many modern US leaders are so devoted to preserving America’s status as the world’s sole superpower they refuse to acknowledge problems. Those problems include rising income inequality, growing poverty, deindustrialization, growing social unrest, and rampant technological unemployment.
For example, President Joe Biden (D-Delaware) and his advisors discuss preserving America’s alliances in Europe while ignoring industrial decline in the Midwest. Industrial decline in the Midwest threatens America’s future while there is no security threat that requires an American presence in Europe.
However, America coming to Europe’s rescue from imaginary threats makes leaders such as Biden feel proud. Examining the growing poverty and increasing decay in Youngstown, Ohio, makes Americans feel bad.
Instead, our leaders spend their time trying to preserve America’s European alliances and special relationships while ignoring the mess at home. Much as 1930s British leaders ignored the growing menace from Germany and the industrial collapse in the Midlands while concentrating on efforts to preserve their decrypt Indian Empire.
The 1980s Soviet Union
During the 1980s the Soviet Union was a supposedly invincible superpower with a dysfunctional economy, in a similarity to 2020 America.
Moreover, in the 1980s an ideological cult the Communist Party governed the Soviet Union. In 2020, an ideological cult, the Republican Party dominates the US Senate, our State Legislatures, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
They dedicated the Soviet Communist Party to the delusion it could create utopia through Leninist terror. Fake conservatives dedicate the American Republican Party to the delusion it can create utopia through small government and an unrestrained free market.
Furthermore, the Soviet Communist Party had an obsession with military power and wasted most of the USSR’s resources building up an enormous military machine that proved useless. Similarly, the American Republican Party has an obsession with military power and spends unbelievable amounts of money on weaponry.
For instance, The Balance estimates Congress will budget $933 billion for the US military in 2020. That spending includes $636.4 billion for the Department of Defense, $228.4 billion for base support, and $69 billion for overseas operations (the wars and other missions).
Similarly to the Soviet Union, there is little justification for America’s military buildup. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation claims the US spends more on national defense than China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil combined. Hence America, like its dead Cold War rival, is wasting its resources building a pointless military machine.
Finally, the USSR was a gerontocracy, a government of the old and out of touch. The General Secretary of the Communist Party Leonid Brezhnev was 74 in 1980. His successor, Yuri Andropov, was 68 when he took power in November 1982. Tellingly, Andropov, the former KGB director, died less than two years later in February 1984.
Andropov’s successor, Konstantin Chernenko, was even older; at 72 he took power. Tellingly, Chernenko died in March 1985, a little over a year after taking office.
The result of the gerontocracy was that a leaderless Soviet Union was incapable of dealing with a radically changing world. Nobody in Russia noticed the technological revolution in the United States, growing prosperity in capitalist countries, the rise of Japan, and the shift of developing world leaders into the American camp.
A little over six years after Chernenko’s death in 1985, the Soviet Union collapsed completely in 1991. Today, Russia is a third-rate power that has minimal international influence.
American Gerontocracy
In 2020, a similar gerontocracy rules America. US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) is 80 years old. Pelosi’s chief lieutenant US Representative Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina) the majority whip is also 80 years old. US House Majority Leader US Representative Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) is 81 years old.
US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is 78 years old. President Donald J. Trump (R-Florida) is 74 years old. US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) is 69 years old. US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) the leader of the American left is 79. Finally, US President Elect Joe Biden (D-Delaware) turned 78 years old on 20 November 2020.
Thus America’s political leadership is now older than the 1980s Soviet gerontocracy. Moreover, America like the 1980s USSR could soon find itself without leadership. Google estimates the average death age in the United States was 78.54 in 2017. Thus, most of America’s political leadership could be dead in a few years.
The USA like the Soviet Union could find itself without leadership at a time of crisis. A young and vigorous leader dedicated to change; Mikhail Gorbachev arose in the Soviet Union. However, history records that Gorbachev’s efforts were too little and too late to save the USSR.
Gorbachev dismantled the Communist Party’s ideological cult. However, history did not give Gorbachev enough time to reform and rebuild Russia’s economy and political system.
I wonder if history will give America’s next generation of leaders the time they need to dismantle the political infrastructure left by the gerontocracy. Although Trump; to his credit, has partially dismantled the Republicans’ ideological cult. If those leaders cannot overcome America’s problems, the United States could follower the Soviet Union into the ash heap of history. | https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/eras-in-history-that-resemble-our-own-market-mad-house-a5def41981ef | ['Daniel G. Jennings'] | 2020-11-22 22:21:57.185000+00:00 | ['America', 'History', 'Decline', 'Empire', 'American History'] |
Burlington County looking for donations towards care packages for troops | Burlington County Freeholders announced today that they are partnering with Operation Yellow Ribbon of South Jersey and Burlington County College to sponsor a county wide collection of items for care packages for our troops stationed over seas.
“We are collecting items for our troops that will hopefully bring them a little holiday cheer and let the men and women who fight every day to protect us know that Burlington County supports and honors them,” Burlington County Freeholder Deputy Director Leah Arter said.
Items will be accepted at selected County locations during normal business hours through noon on Friday, Dec. 6. Collection boxes will be in the lobby of the engineering building at 1900 Briggs Road in Mount Laurel and all county library facilities.
Operation Yellow Ribbon of South Jersey sends over 2,300 pounds of treats and personal notes each month to our brave women and men deployed to Afghanistan.
“This is a great way for residents to get into the holiday spirit this season by showing our appreciation for our U.S. Armed Forces,” Freeholder Arter said. “We are asking residents to help us collect items and also personal, unsealed notes of thanks and encouragement.”
Adults can include an address or e-mail if they would like a possible response from our recipients. Some of the troops will respond but some do not have e-mail access, so they might not write back. Children are encouraged to create or write their own holiday cards or notes to show support to our troops, but no last names, addresses, email addresses or phone numbers can be included.
“Burlington County residents have been so supportive of our food drives and toy collections in the past and I am confident that they will whole-heartedly join us in this effort as well,” Arter said.
The following items have been requested from our troops:
• Tastykakes, cupcakes or similar snacks
• Rice Crispy treats
• Sealed packets or bagged tuna and chicken
• Gum and candy
• Breakfast bars
• Roasted peanuts, mixed nuts or dried fruit
• Potato chips in cylinder or can
• Beef jerky or Slim Jims
• Crystal Light drink mix individual packets
• Powdered drink mix
• Ground coffee or tea
• Pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds
• Baby powder and foot powder
• Baby wipes
• Visine or Saline eye drops
• Chapstick and lip balm
• Tissues
• Small hand sanitizer
• Puzzle or small crossword books
• Batteries
• Hand held electronic games
Operation Yellow Ribbon of South Jersey will also be hosting a holiday cookie and baked goods drive to send to the troops deployed in Afghanistan and supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Items will only be accepted on Saturday, Dec. 7, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the 8th Legislative District Office at 176 Route 70, Suite 13 in Medford. For more, please contact Dave Silver at [email protected].
Volunteers will pack and box all donated items to be mailed to recipients on the care package mailing list. Besides baked goods, store bought cookies and treats will also be accepted and shipped.
Please put cookies in layers in large plastic zip closed bags or in lightweight disposable containers. Containers of any type will not be returned because they will be used to ship to recipients. | https://medium.com/the-tabernacle-sun/burlington-county-looking-for-donations-towards-care-packages-for-troops-c77d130a8a5c | [] | 2017-01-10 17:01:15.756000+00:00 | ['Families', 'Headlines', 'Burlington County', 'Burlington County College'] |
Raven Drake and Sheltering the Unhoused | Raven Drake at the Street Roots office in Old Town Portland, OR. Photo courtesy: The Oregonian/OregonLive
After a day at the Street Roots office in Portland’s Old Town district, Former US Navy medic Raven Drake locks up her office and stows her keys in her bright jacket. Having an office and a peaceful walk home is a far cry from where she was a year ago, as she spent over 9 months living on the streets of Portland.
Raven is now an Ambassador Program Manager at Street Roots, where she spearheaded a coalition that established Portland’s three temporary homeless villages as a means of sheltering the city’s unhoused community during the COVID-19 pandemic. These villages called Creating Conscious Communities with People Outside, commonly known as C3P0 camps are located on both sides of the Willamette River and each house an estimated 120 residents.
Having served 3 tours in Iraq, Drake began openly identifying as a transgender woman over 5 years ago and made the decision to relocate to Portland; a city she knew would offer her resources and acceptance. In December of 2019 Drake hopped on a Greyhound bus in Indiana and arrived in Portland on Christmas Eve. Leaving behind a job and home, she arrived in the Rose City with $100 dollars in her pocket and knowing full well she would spend the foreseeable future living on the wet streets of the Pacific Northwest.
Not one month into her stay, she was exposed to some of the horrors unhoused Portlanders commonly face, when she lost all of her belongings in the middle of the night during a homeless sweep conducted by city officials. Almost a year later, the former medic still has clear memories of standing outside in the rain and watching a member of the city’s Rapid Response Biohazard team slash open her tent with a pocket knife and smile on his face, before confiscating and destroying all of her belongings.
“Here I am in the freezing cold on a rainy night in the middle of January and I don’t even have a winter jacket to use because it was in the tent,” recalls Drake in a recent interview. “Rapid Response wouldn’t even allow me to return into my tent to retrieve my belongings. I was here for just over two weeks and I lost many of my belongings.”
Raven detailing her experiencing being swept during her early weeks in Portland.
Raven may have lost many of her belongings on that cold night, but she fortunately had friends at Street Roots prior to moving to Portland. Tina Drake is a longtime friend of over 20 years to Raven, who spent the last 7 working as a Street Roots vendor.
It didn’t take long before Raven also began working as a vendor for Street Roots, where she was able to make an income selling weekly newspapers for a publication reporting on stories around the homeless community. In addition to vendor responsibilities Raven began leading outreach trips with Street Roots, which involved making visits and supply drops to unhoused neighbors.
“One of the points to outreach for me is to take care of people in the community and provide them support,” said Drake. “Another aspect for me is to go out and not just check up on folks, but to build relationships or further expand on previous relationships I’ve built.”
Between the two roles for Street Roots, Raven is keeping busy. However, the story most concerning her at the moment isn’t a story within the homeless community, it’s one that originated over 6,000 miles away in Wuhan, China. It’s February of 2020, just under one month before the World Health Organization would declare the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic.
“I started paying attention to the news out of Washington and China around early February,” said Drake referring to the COVID-19 outbreak in Kirkland, Washington. “I knew it was only a matter of time before the virus would cross the border.”
At the time Raven was living in a tent on the side of Interstate Avenue with two roommates, both of whom had weakened immune systems putting their group at high-risk for COVID-19. Tina Drake was one of these roommates, who despite being HIV-positive didn’t slow her efforts to provide support to outreach efforts. Although Tina did not physically go out for outreach trips during this time, she provided support through resource gathering and team coordination
Tina Drake (left) and Raven (right) at their Interstate campsite. Photo Courtesy: Kaia Sand Street Roots
“I may be immunocompromised, but that does not stop me in making sure that everyone was taken care of,” said Tina.
As the threat grew, Raven’s medic instincts kicked in as she was determined to do everything in her power to provide assistance to her neighbors. The risks of COVID weren’t enough to slow down Raven’s work and she would continue to participate in outreach and practicing the utmost precaution through face coverings and social distancing. 8 months into the pandemic and the outreach groups have remained relatively COVID-free with only one vendor testing positive.
“In combat you’re gambling with your life every time you go out and I treated this the exact same way.” said Raven. “I preached to my team every time we went out to use extreme caution and common sense, but at the end of the day we all understood that we were taking a gamble by going out there.”
The team at Street Roots still wanted to do more for the unhoused community. In early March Raven joined several of her colleagues at a Multnomah County Planning Meeting, and it soon became apparent that the county had no set plan for sheltering those living on the streets.
“I can’t say I was surprised but I was a little hurt,” said Raven. “At the same time, I don’t think some of them really understand exactly what unhoused individuals go through on a daily basis.”
Two days after this meeting Clackamas County saw its first COVID case and many community organizers like Raven decided it was time to take matters into their own hands in order to protect Portland’s unhoused population. Street Roots worked alongside several other non-profit organizations such as JOIN, Sisters of the Road, and Afro Village PDX in a coordinated effort to work with the city in providing a way for those living on the streets to safely shelter in place. Several days after the Multnomah County planning committee, Raven had drafted a one-page proposal for the construction of temporary sweep-free encampments on city land. An agreement was quickly reached between community organizers and city officials, and the first camp was constructed 16 days after the first draft of the proposal was written.
Three temporary campsites were built in the city, one in the Northwest neighborhood and two across the Willamette River near the Central Eastside district. Each campsite houses approximately 120 people, includes tents set up 10 feet apart, equipped with hand washing stations and showers, and are routinely staffed by volunteers. In addition the campsites are equipped with medical supplies and access to COVID testing, in an effort that was put together by Raven who acted as medical coordinator for the first four months of the campsites’ operation.
8 months into the pandemic and Raven says the establishment of the temporary camps have been a major positive for the unhoused community during the pandemic. The city has agreed to make these campsites exempt from sweeps through June of 2021, and there are plans to establish 7–8 more of these camps on city land between November 2020 and the next calendar year. Since the first three camps were built, Raven now counts over 40 organizations openly discussing the building of additional shelters compared to the handful that reached out to her in the pre-pandemic months of 2020.
“Through all the trauma of COVID, it has been a slight blessing in disguise,” said Raven. “It gave people enough of a shock to stop and think about some of the decisions made towards the unhoused community. It opened up a lot of conversations that have long been closed.”
Since that rainy January night where she lost all her possessions, Raven was able to secure an apartment in the Pearl District and moved into a home of her own in September. She’s since taken a step back as medical coordinator but still is active with the Street Roots outreach team and finds joy in improving the lives of both vendors and unhoused Portlanders.
“I think it worked,” Raven said of the camps. “The singular most incredible part of this event has been watching the spark for life come back with some of these people. It’s been great just watching them smile, laugh, and seeing the burden of survival leave them.”
To this day, Raven continues to lead outreach trips whether they be with interested members of the community or just by herself on her way back from work. Although Raven describes has since acquired housing and has been hired full-time by Street Roots in what she describes as her “dream job,” the desire to provide care for her unhoused neighbors hasn’t gone away.
“At the end of the day, the average person has more in common with someone living on the streets than they do a billionaire,” said Raven. “I think going out and striking up a conversation with one of our neighbors can really go a long way in making someone’s day.” | https://medium.com/@mattparkwrites/raven-drake-and-sheltering-the-unhoused-1468c1a4e23f | ['Matt Park'] | 2020-12-19 21:27:46.575000+00:00 | ['Housing', 'Covid 19', 'Homelessness', 'Portland'] |
Lamborghini: From Tractors to Supercars | Lamborghini: From Tractors to Supercars
Ferruccio Lamborghini between a Lamborghini Jarama(left) and a Lamborghini tractor
When you hear the name Lamborghini the image of a sleek Italian supercar immediately comes to mind. Both Lamborghini and Ferrari have defined the image of the Italian supercar throughout the 20th and the 21st century going back as far as even before the Second World War. Although iconic, many don’t know that the rivalry between the two titans of Italian supercars came about due to a feud between their two founders.
This feud would lead the Lamborghini company to switch from building tractors, something they became renowned for in post-war Italy, to building supercars instead in 1963.
A farm boy
Ferruccio Lamborghini was born on the 28 April 1916 in the small town of Renazzo di Cento in the north of Italy. Ferruccio was born to a family of grape farmers leading to him growing up closely with much farm equipment. Of all of the farm equipment he would use as he grew up Ferruccio became fascinated with tractors, something which led to him creating Lamborghini Trattori in 1948.
Italy experienced an economic boom after the Second World War. The economy was stimulated by the need to rebuild the war-ravaged country. As the whole country was focused on war production for most of the 1930s and 1940s there was a distinct lack of farming equipment across most of Italy. Ferruccio took advantage of this growing demand with the creation of his tractor making company in 1948 where they would use spare parts created during the war to create their first tractors to fill the ever-growing demand for farm equipment.
Lamborghini tractors
This company would make the once poor farmhand richer than he could have ever expected allowing him to diversify his business ventures such as through the creation of Lamborghini Bruciatori, an oil burner factory he created in 1959 which would go on to create air conditioning units. These riches also allowed him to buy perhaps one of the biggest statement pieces an Italian businessman could buy at the time, a Ferrari.
Enzo Ferrari’s mistake
Ferruccio would go on to buy a Ferrari as his wealth grew but he found one big problem with the supercars, they had a very bad clutch. Ferruccio went out of his way to report this fault going as far as talking to the founder of the company, Enzo Ferrari. The tractor tycoon argued that his tractor clutches were much better than the ones in Enzo’s cars, a claim that Enzo swept aside thinking that the ‘peasant’ had no knowhow on how supercars work.
Ferrari 250 G, the same model of Ferrari Ferruccio brought and criticised
Angered by Enzo’s ignorance, Ferruccio decided that if you wanted something done you should do it yourself. He modified his Ferrari 250 G, changing out the clutch which fixed most of the car’s faults. During this process, he realised that he could easily compete with Ferrari by using his tractor components in a supercar format leading to him potentially making triple the profits Ferrari was making.
Out of this feud came the naissance of Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. in 1963, a firm created to directly compete against Ferrari’s monopoly on Italian supercars. Lamborghini became famous for inventing the architecture of supercars by using a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout first seen in their Lamborghini Miura released in 1966. Ever since both firms have been fighting for dominance over the Italian supercar market.
An argument gone wrong
This moment in history is a shining example of a “what if” scenario. Would Ferrari meet no resistance if it wasn’t for Enzo’s incompetence and overconfidence in that one discussion in the 50s? Would other firms such as Lancia be more successful if it wasn’t for Lamborghini’s entry into the car industry?
A 1974 Lancia Stratos. Lancia was once at the forefront of car manufactury in Italy. They have now been sidelined by more dominant brands such as Ferrari and Lamborghini
It is impossible to predict what would’ve happened if Lamborghini remained solely in the tractor business as with every other significant event in history. We can only speculate about the potential outcomes of such events but we can say for certain that Ferrari would have been much more successful without the competition. | https://historyofyesterday.com/lamborghini-from-tractors-to-supercars-34c5ee9c8534 | ['Calin Aneculaesei'] | 2020-05-09 22:06:01.264000+00:00 | ['Cars', 'World War II', 'History', 'Italy', 'Lamborghini'] |
Why does healthcare require the severest cybersecurity measures? | There is a lot of novelty in medicine. Here, we can talk about the emergence of telemedicine, “smart” medical devices, and the digitization of medical cards. These innovations are designed to improve the quality of service and save time for patients and doctors. However, neither doctors nor patients realize how vulnerable medical information becomes.
Not only does digitization simplify the work of medical centre staff, but also reduces the risk of errors in the provision of emergency medical care, when patients can’t provide information on their own. The electronic medical record shows the complete patient history: information from various medical institutions, information about diagnoses and appointments, allergies, and chronic diseases.
There are also enthusiastic reviews on the development of telemedicine, which allows anyone to get advice from the best doctors in the country. And the importance of smart medical devices is obvious: they improve the quality of life and give hope for a healthy life to those who couldn’t dream of it.
However, the health sector still does not realize how critical the amount of information is which it possesses. Patient data, treatment and surgery protocols, as well as drug dosage, can become weapons in the hands of fraudsters. And the demand for this data is significant. Information is bought at a high price on the Dark Net, the amount reaches $1,000 per patient and up to $500,000 for an electronic medical database, and this data is never expired.
In 2017, the number of information leaks in healthcare seems to have broken the record compared to other sectors*. There were 228 leaks in the medical industry, which corresponds to a quarter of all information leaks. Some countries do not have laws that require you to publish information about compromised data.
There was a case in the X city when patients’ personal information was inadvertently published on the website of a medical institution. As soon as the data became publicly available, citizens began to receive scam calls offering medical services and expensive drugs.
How can a database with patient information be used?
• For resale to third parties:
- pharmaceutical companies;
- private doctors;
- funeral services bureau;
- other clinics.
• To harm the patient:
- blackmail, e.g., info featuring addiction treatment and plastic surgery clinics, seriously ill patients, etc.;
- purchase of medicine by persons who are not patients of clinics;
- making changes to drug dosages or treatment protocols;
- remote hacking of medical IoT devices.
The latter, by the way, is not a fiction. Last year information security researchers Billy Rios and Jonathan Butts told the manufacturer (Medtronic) that they found a vulnerability in the pacemaker. The researchers claim that the company ignored their letter, so they decided to demonstrate the hacking of the device at a specialized conference. They managed to introduce a malicious program that can imperceptibly control the functions of a pacemaker, for example, change the number of heartbeats.
It’s not just words
Unfortunately, all these cases are not some made up “horror stories”. There are stories about the resale of data to funeral services agencies and pharmaceutical companies; the transfer of medical cards from state clinics to private ones; and even the transfer of information about drug-addicted patients to drug dealers.
It is clear that among medical institutions employees will always be those who want to earn extra money by reselling the information they have. Meantime the medical industry is facing a new threat, the scale of which is still not estimated. The paradox is that patients are the main culprit of putting themselves at risk. It is explained by their insufficient knowledge of the infosec.
Around a year ago, authorities issued a law that legalized telemedicine. Now you can get medical advice on hundreds of aggregator sites. The patient voluntarily provides personal data and medical history. There is no info on how secure the data on these sites is. So, in case of hacking or leakage due to an insider, the attacker will receive high-quality information.
We should separately talk about medical social networks, here patients receive advice from doctors or share their experience with other patients. The information is stored in the public domain. The popularity of these social networks is enormous. For example, in the American PatientsLikeMe, there are more than 600 thousand patients with 2,800 diseases. The main source of income of such social networks is the sale of user contacts to pharmaceutical companies. The creators of the social network do not even hide it.
So where do we stand now?
If the medical institution doesn’t use electronic document management, the data leak risk remains, but it is minimal. It’s funny, but this has nothing to do with careful protection of paper media, on the contrary — often the registry staff can not understand where your medical card is. I suspect each of us has faced similar situations. It is this confusion that is the main “protection mechanism” at the moment. In fact, for data to have a price, it is to be updated and digitized, and this is a very time-consuming task.
However, paper document management in medicine is dying, which means digitalization is only a matter of time.
How to recover from the current state of affairs?
Given the enormous damage caused by leaks in the healthcare segment, there is an urgent need to find a balance between efficiency of medical services assisted by modern technologies and their safety.
And if there is no security policy in your organization, then start small:
1. Implement regulations for working with information. Ensure strict compliance with the rules concerning storing and using patients’ PI and other medical documentation.
2. Distinguish access to the information within the institution. Only certain individuals should have access to private personal information. However, there also should be a restriction towards them, so they can’t download or send it anywhere.
3. Implement information security tools. For example, HIPAA, which operates in the United States, obliges medical institutions to protect personal data and critical IT infrastructure. Still, the way to ensure compliance is decided on by the heads of the organizations. The most reliable solution is the installation of information security tools, such as DLP systems.
4. Conduct training and information security activities for medical personnel on a regular basis. It could be done either by full-time specialists or outsourced experts on information security (CTI, Security Awareness Training).
5. Nevertheless, if your staff comprises more than 200 people, it is reasonable to hire an information security specialist.
*data from the Breach Level Index global database | https://medium.com/major-threats-to-your-business-human-factor/why-does-healthcare-require-the-severest-cybersecurity-measures-8f64dcce05b4 | ['Alex Parfentiev'] | 2020-12-28 07:54:26.546000+00:00 | ['Medical Records', 'Data Breach', 'Data', 'Healthcare', 'Medical'] |
What’s New in YugabyteDB Docs — December 2020 | Welcome to this latest post on what’s new and improved in YugabyteDB Docs! We’re continually adding to and updating the documentation to give you the information you need to make the most out of YugabyteDB.
As a reminder, YugabyteDB provides two distributed SQL APIs:
Yugabyte Structured Query Language (YSQL) is a fully-relational, PostgreSQL-compatible API.
Yugabyte Cloud Query Language (YCQL) is a semi-relational API with document data modeling and has its roots in the Apache Cassandra Query Language (CQL).
Below you will find all the new documentation we’ve been steadily adding into our docs for both of these APIs, as well as Yugabyte Platform, a browser-based UI for building your own private YugabyteDB-as-a-Service. If you have any questions, comments, or requests for new documentation, let us know in the YugabyteDB Community Slack.
With that, here’s what’s new and improved in YugabyteDB docs …
Multi-Region Deployments
YugabyteDB supports a comprehensive set of multi-region deployment topologies, including these popular deployment models:
Default synchronous replication across regions
Geo-partitioning to keep data pinned to different geographic locations based on policy
xCluster asynchronous replication for unidirectional and bidirectional replication
Read replicas which internally use asynchronous replication and can only serve reads
We put together an overview of multi-region deployment options, including a comparison table for easy reference. We also introduced new documentation so you can learn more about the newly released (as of YugabyteDB 2.5) row-level geo-partitioning feature in YSQL that allows fine-grained control over pinning data in a user table (at a per-row level) to geographic locations, thereby allowing the data residency to be managed at the database level. Geo-partitioning allows you to move data closer to the user and is beneficial for several use cases, including: achieving lower latency and higher performance, and meeting data residency requirements to comply with regulations such as GDPR. Within the multi-region deployment documentation, we also updated both the synchronous replication (YSQL and YCQL) and asynchronous replication documentation.
Database Security
There have also been a number of additions to the Secure section of the Docs including:
Authentication
YugabyteDB supports a variety of methods to verify that users and clients are who they say they are. We recently added new documentation specifically on these authentication methods:
LDAP Authentication: In YSQL, you can use an external LDAP service to perform client authentication. Before LDAP can be used for authentication, the user must already exist in the database (and have appropriate permissions).
SCRAM-SHA-256 Authentication: The SCRAM-SHA-256 method (scram-sh-256) performs SCRAM-SHA-256 authentication, as described in RFC 7677. This challenge-response scheme prevents password sniffing on untrusted connections and supports storing passwords on YugabyteDB clusters in the most secure cryptographically hashed form available. This is the most secure password authentication available and is supported by most of the client drivers for the YSQL API.
Host-Based Authentication: YugabyteDB fine-grained authentication for YSQL manages access control for localhost, remote hosts, and clients. Using fine-grained authentication, you can define rules for access to localhost and remote clients based on IP addresses, authentication methods, and use of TLS (aka SSL) certificates.
Trust Authentication: When trust authentication is specified, YugabyteDB assumes that any user trying to connect with the YB-TServer can access the database with the database user name they specify. Warning: trust authentication is only suitable if you trust every user on every machine allowed to connect to the server by the ysql_hba.conf lines that specify trust. It is seldom reasonable to use trust for any TCP/IP connections other than those from localhost (127.0.0.1).
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Role-based access control is a way to restrict users’ access based on their roles within the organization. The RBAC model in YugabyteDB is a collection of permissions (in YCQL) or privileges (in YSQL) on resources given to roles. In YSQL, we added new documentation on two additional ways to restrict user access.
Row-Level Security (RLS): In addition to database access permissions available through ROLE and GRANT privilege system, YugabyteDB provides a more granular level security where tables can have row security policies that restrict rows users can access.
Column-Level Security: Column level security in YugabyteDB is used to restrict the users to view a particular column or set of columns in a table.
Column-Level Encryption
YugabyteDB provides column level encryption in YSQL to restrict access to sensitive data like addresses and credit card details. Because the YSQL API is built by reusing the PostgreSQL code (version 11.2) directly, this enables YugabyteDB to use the PostgresQL pgcrypto extension to enable column level encryption, as well as the PGP_SYM_ENCRYPT and PGP_SYM_DECRYPT functions of the pgcrypto extension to encrypt and decrypt column data. Learn more about column-level encryption in YSQL here in the docs.
Audit Logging
The goal of logging is to provide YugabyteDB users with the capability to produce audit logs, which are often required to comply with government, financial, or ISO certifications. Audit logging in YugabyteDB will write the output on each node to the standard logging facility, similar to the design of PostgreSQL. These partial log files can subsequently be merged for a global audit trail. Audit logging is supported for both the YSQL and YCQL APIs, and more details can be found in the audit logging section of the docs.
And because YugabyteDB YSQL uses the PostgreSQL Audit Extension (pgAudit), it can provide detailed session and/or object audit logging via YugabyteDB’s TServer logging. We added documentation on session-level logging for YSQL here in the docs, as well as object-level logging for YSQL.
JSON Support
We introduced a new JSON Support section to help you easily explore the JSON functionality in YugabyteDB (YSQL and YCQL), including how to query and update JSON documents, and more.
Transactions
YugabyteDB is a transactional database that supports distributed transactions. A transaction is a sequence of operations performed as a single logical unit of work and has four key properties-Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability-commonly abbreviated as ACID. We introduced new documentation to explain how distributed transactions work in YugabyteDB (YSQL and YCQL), and explain how the two isolation levels supported in YSQL-serializable and snapshot-work.
The WITH Clause (Common Table Expression or CTE)
The WITH clause (sometimes known as the common table expression) can be used as part of a SELECT statement, an INSERT statement, an UPDATE statement, or a DELETE statement. You can explore the CTE functionality within Yugabyte YSQL here in the docs.
Yugabyte Platform
We have also built out a comprehensive collection of documentation for Yugabyte Platform, a browser-based UI that allows you to build your own YugabyteDB-as-a-Service on any cloud or Kubernetes infrastructure. Yugabyte Platform is best fit for mission-critical deployments, such as production or pre-production testing. The console within Yugabyte Platform is used in a highly available mode and orchestrates and manages YugabyteDB universes, or clusters, on one or more regions (across public cloud and private on-premises data centers).
Recently added to the documentation are articles on how to install, configure, deploy, back up, restore, secure, and troubleshoot Yugabyte Platform. You can navigate to all the Platform-related docs starting from the Yugabyte Platform documentation page.
What’s Next?
To help you learn and use YugabyteDB effectively and to get you the answers you need, we constantly update and add new topics to the YugabyteDB documentation. Here are a few ways you can contribute: | https://medium.com/yugabyte/whats-new-in-yugabytedb-docs-december-2020-cf71afdf66cf | ['Michelle Brinich'] | 2020-12-18 16:45:49.821000+00:00 | ['Database', 'Distributed Sql', 'Sql Database', 'Documentation', 'Yugabyte'] |
5 Social Media Myths: Busted | By Sabina Li and Samantha Wong
If content is king, then social media is the kingdom. Underestimating the power of social media creates the risk of exiling an integral portion of your potential base. In order to get ahead of the constant evolution of social media and use it to your advantage to push out your message and platform, we have set out to debunk five common myths. It’s time to start owning your social presence and ruling your virtual kingdom.
Myth #1: “Only the younger generations use social media.”
According to the Pew Research Center, 75% of Gen Xers and 57% of Baby Boomers are active users of social media. Targeting only Millennials and Gen Z’ers can lead you to ignore a population that can become your biggest brand advocates, especially on Facebook.
With our client California Wellness Foundation’s campaign Upspoken Women, we use a multigenerational content strategy to uplift women of all ages to share their empowering experiences on the topics of love, relationships, and sex. Unsurprisingly, older women make up some of the most engaged and vocal supporters of Upspoken’s Facebook community.
Join the conversation at upspokenwomen.com.
Myth #2: “Everyone is on Instagram/ Facebook/ LinkedIn/ Twitter/ Pinterest/ Snapchat, so we should be too!”
Social media without a targeted strategy is just aimless noise. Figure out who your target audience is and where they are spending the most amount of time online in order to pick the most effective platforms to build your brand presence.
To give you a few examples: Facebook typically skews older, which is great for organizations looking for donors or activists, while Instagram Stories typically skews younger, which is great for organizations looking to interact with followers. Having a presence on relevant (not every) social media channels is the key to success. This will deliver your message to the right person at the right place, generating the most return for your efforts.
Myth #3: “Never engage with negative comments.”
Negative comments are inevitable in the world of social media. Stay calm and don’t take it personally when you see one. Misguided or constructive negative comments can be worth responding to when you can use it as a way to start a dialogue and bring reasoning to the table. Replying respectfully and with facts can not only reinforce your messaging and brand values, but also show that you aren’t hiding from your critics. Platform algorithms favoring comments and elevating posts that have comments is just another plus.
A word of caution: be careful not to feed the trolls. Bringing in an experienced social media manager who can help you determine when to stay silent and when to engage is the best way to avoid them.
Myth #4: “As Facebook/Instagram focuses news feeds on friends and family, the platforms are no longer useful for my brand.”
Since Facebook announced last year that its algorithm will prioritize “meaningful interactions” from friends and family over branded content, it has become trickier to get the screen time you deserve on the biggest social media network out there. It still remains as the champion of link referrals on the Internet, growing your email lists by the thousands and raising dollars by the millions. If your digital strategy is implemented effectively, a valuable return on investment in the form of loyal supporters can be yielded over time.
RALLY client GoFundMe, along with the platform’s users, are often able to use social media to turn their community of followers into donors by highlighting the value of the support and building deep relationships through engagement. A great example of this in action is the Time’s Up legal defense fund, which has been able to raise over $24 million with the help of social referral (shared 23K+ times on Facebook).
Myth #5: “Build great content and then they will come.”
With only about 6.5% of your followers on Facebook actually seeing your organic posts, social media marketing is becoming an increasingly pay-to-play environment. To enhance your reach and grow followers, you will have to put a budget behind promoting compelling content that connects with your target audience and holds their interest.
RALLY works closely with our clients to develop comprehensive paid advertising strategies that allow us to target audiences on specific networks through demographic information. An effective paid strategy is now the cornerstone of successful social media marketing. As two thirds of the U.S. population use at least one social media site, it’s essential to adapt to the pay-to-play environment in order to raise awareness, change hearts and minds, and drive action.
Keeping up with the key facts and tackling the common myths that haunt your niche will help you master the state of today’s social media. We haven’t let these myths dictate how we run our clients’ social media kingdoms and you shouldn’t either. | https://medium.com/rallybrain/5-social-media-myths-busted-3b8c0c1511cb | [] | 2019-05-13 16:49:44.947000+00:00 | ['Facebook', 'Instagram', 'Marketing', 'Social Media', 'Digital Marketing'] |
AG Shapiro: 7 Arrests, 9 Guns, Drugs Seized by Gun Violence Task Force in Philadelphia | FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — June 17, 2019
HARRISBURG — Attorney General Josh Shapiro today announced that the Office of Attorney General’s Gun Violence Task Force (GVTF) made seven arrests, confiscated nine illegal guns, and seized hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of dangerous drugs in Philadelphia last week. The GVTF is a unique partnership between state and local law enforcement to target illegal guns and firearms used in crimes in Philadelphia by investigating gun trafficking, straw purchases and the movement of illegal guns.
“Our Gun Violence Task Force is dedicated to targeting gun traffickers and getting illegal guns off our streets to keep the people of Philadelphia safe — and action like we saw last week demonstrates why this is such a critical initiative, especially as we enter into the summer and see devastating gun violence on the rise,” said Attorney General Josh Shapiro. “Thanks to the strong collaboration with our local law enforcement partners, these criminals, guns, and drugs are out of our neighborhoods where they threatened the safety of our children and families.”
“This investigation reveals the connection between the illegal firearm and drug trafficking trades, which challenge us all to find smart solutions in Philadelphia and across the country,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said. “I’m thankful for the determination of our Gun Violence Task Force, including our partners, which today is taking another positive step to address this challenge. I also want to remind the public that failure to safely store weapons out of the reach of children is against the law in Philly, and that we can and must work together to prevent related tragedies.”
Five of the arrests resulted from an investigation into a firearms and drug trafficking organization operating out of Miracles Jamaican Restaurant & Bakery on Castor Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia. GVTF agents along with federal agents and Philadelphia Police conducted multiple controlled purchases and search warrants, resulting in confiscations of the following:
7 firearms (5 purchased, 2 seized)
1,443.93 grams of alleged heroin/fentanyl mix (street value $480,828.00)
842 Grams of alleged crystal methamphetamines (street value $168, 400)
510 Grams of Hydro marijuana (street value $10,200)
47 oxycodone 30 mg pills, 97 oxycodone 5mg pills, 149 tramadol 50 mg pills, 100 cyclobenzaprine 10 mg pills (street value of all pills $5875)
$1708 U.S. Currency
The following individuals were arrested in connection with the Miracles Restaurant organization. All defendants reside in Philadelphia:
Carmelo Armstrong, 23.
Dwight Grant, 32.
Stanley Williams, 33.
Lamar Richardson, 19.
Twana Miller, 31.
An arrest warrant was also issued for Richard Harmon, who is currently a fugitive. The defendants were charged with multiple counts of gun trafficking, conspiracy, and drug trafficking. Participating in this initiative along with the OAG was the Philadelphia Police Narcotics Unit, Philadelphia Police Major Crimes Unit, IDIS (Intensive Drug Investigation Squad), Homeland Security Investigations, and FBI Philadelphia Safe Streets Violent Gang Task Force.
In a separate investigation, two individuals were arrested for conducting straw purchases — when an individual purchases a gun on behalf of another individual who is unable to legally make the purchase. The investigation found that Malik Eason, 24, of Philadelphia, purchased two handguns for John Pernice, 28, of Philadelphia, who had been previously convicted of a gun offense. GVTF agents executed a search warrant on Pernice’s home on Thursday, where they recovered a .9MM Ruger and a .40 Cal. Smith & Wesson handgun — the same guns sold to Pernice by Eason. Both handguns were loaded and one was found on the floor under the bed, within reach of the two small children who were at the residence at the time of the search.
Eason was arrested and charged with multiple violations of the Uniform Firearms Act, Tampering with Records, Criminal Conspiracy, and related charges. Pernice was arrested and charged with multiple violations of the Uniform Firearms Act, Endangering the Welfare of Children, and related charges. This investigation remains ongoing.
### | https://medium.com/philadelphia-justice/ag-shapiro-7-arrests-9-guns-drugs-seized-by-gun-violence-task-force-in-philadelphia-ad9751468a36 | ['Philadelphia Dao'] | 2019-06-17 21:29:22.706000+00:00 | ['Criminal Justice', 'Press Release', 'Illegal Drugs', 'Guns', 'Philadelphia'] |
“The highest form of human excellence is to question yourself and others.” | I know you’re reading this right now in your head but I want you to stop and just look around where ever you are and connect with your senses while taking some deep breaths. Now come back to reading. Think about it, why am I here? What is my purpose? How did I end up here? What is life? How did we create this world, or did we? Is God real? Are there aliens on other planets? How does the solar system work? What is true nature? Are we supposed to be living like this? Why am I asking these questions to myself? If you look back at all of these thoughts that you might have asked yourself, they’re all questions! In life, “the highest form of human excellence is to question yourself and others” according to a quote by Socrates, a Greek philosopher from Athens. I wholeheartedly agree with this quote but the question is, do you? Yes, you. Now, most people believe that the highest form of human excellence, in other words, “human qualities that make a person the best of one’s kind in any field of human activities” is grit.
Now, I also agree with that because grit “is passion and perseverance for long-term and meaningful goals” which is amazing. In addition, grit “is the ability to persist in something you feel passionate about and persevere when you face obstacles.” If humans can’t overcome and deal with their failures we can’t succeed. Now, in my opinion, you first need some sort of hardship or setback to succeed. Of course, you can be successful without it but it just makes you more driven. Let’s take a step back. What is success? What makes one successful? How does hardship help us, or does it? Look at this, we’re going back to questions. Grit is awesome but we need to ask ourselves questions before fully understanding it and executing. What are my goals? What am I even passionate about? How do I persevere when I face obstacles? Do I even have any obstacles? These questions we ask ourselves proves the point that “the highest form of human excellence is to question yourself and others.”
After we answer these questions we can reach the highest form of human excellence by executing. There is one more extremely important thing humans need to do in order to reach the highest form of human excellence. Simply, questioning others as stated in the quote by Socrates. Those two words “and others” means a lot, I mean a lot! If we just do whatever someone tells us to do, we never understand why we’re doing it. If you ask questions when others make you do things, you know why you’re doing it in the first place, if it’s the right thing to do or not, and how it can make you or break you. I don’t mean to become obnoxious and go around asking people questions all the time if they ask you to do simple tasks like holding the door open for them. I mean either asking yourself to question others or to directly ask them.
Lots of students in classrooms don’t want to ask their teachers questions because they fear embarrassment and bullying for asking questions. I know that this is a true issue as I’m a 14-year-old high school freshman. I ask lots of questions but some don’t because of this reason. People need to stop thinking that asking questions makes you look less smart or dumb, in fact, the smartest people ask the most questions to themselves and others. “Great leaders constantly ask questions and are well aware that they do not have all the answers. Intelligent questions stimulate, provoke, inform, and inspire.” Asking questions is a sign of intelligence and strength. It’s not a sign of uncertainty or weakness although unfortunately lots of people believe that.
During this pandemic, let’s all take a step back and truly question ourselves and others. Enjoy the holidays with friends and family, while still keeping everything in balance. We all have things to work on and literally no one is perfect. Just make today better than yesterday. Stay safe and let’s ask more questions to become better people in society. | https://medium.com/@sachinsyal/the-highest-form-of-human-excellence-is-to-question-yourself-and-others-413af41e7b30 | ['Sachin Syal'] | 2021-01-04 21:14:35.350000+00:00 | ['Socrates', 'Society', 'Life', 'Thinking', 'Questioning'] |
The Visitor (a song) | Looking down from the northern sky
thought I, I’ve been here before
Mesmerized by the crystal night
my flight brought me down for more
Above forests in a sea of snow
I go leaving not a trace
and the lakes and the stars they hold
like gold in their dark embrace
Blue world you did entice
travelers like I
With clear and wintery skies
you
soothed my weary and
tired eyes
But, my God, that was long ago
I know not from where I came
Nor do I know for where I’m bound
or the sound of my own name
Beauty weeps as desires claw
in awe frenzied by the fake
Pistons rage as the engines war
how much more can a spirit take
Cruel world you did entice
travelers like I
But now with fiery skies
you
blind these all but
forsaken eyes
Though looking up at the clear night sky
and my memories the same
for a moment it seems that I
remember whence I came
But these visions are far between
I feel desperate, gasping for time
and as I wonder, what do they mean
I pray my songs will carry me
back to what I’ve seen
Shackles break as again I soar
once more free to play and roam
No more valley, no more shadow, nor death
my breath is a wind for home
Heavens sail in my body bright
their light is my long lost name
Planets dance in my laughing heart
as a part of this always game
Small world you did entice
travelers like I
Sweet tear in faraway sky
you
light the blue in my
knowing
loving
always
seeing
eye
Rowan Wolf
June 1985/September 2014
Copyright © 2018 by Wolfstuff | https://medium.com/@ulfwolf/the-visitor-a-song-12f2c6645c56 | ['Ulf Wolf'] | 2019-01-20 15:08:12.509000+00:00 | ['Winter', 'Truth', 'Song', 'Poetry', 'Visiting Earth'] |
Exploring the fiance’s culture | My name is Rosanne. It makes me feel remembered when people call me Rose, it's a flower that anyone knows. I’m a Filipino, born and grow up in the Philippines.
Why Russia
I’ve decided to come to Russia to visit and be with my Fiance(who happens to be a Russian). He wants me to meet his family and friends, explore the city where he grew up and lived most of his life, being able to understand the culture and beliefs of his and country.
Prejudices
Honestly, family, close friends and especially my boss were all scared for me, for my decision of going to Russia. Days before my resignation date, they all warned me of going. They said, Russian are very stern and are not compassionate as they were built to be strong. Their country is meant for war. I'm from a tropical country and they didn’t know if I could handle the freezing weather especially that I'm skinny. Some said, I might see fireworks all day, but its rockets because of war. Others said, Russian are not very friendly and look scary. Yes, all those stuff scared the hell out of me because who knows it might be true? Moreover, it was my first time to travel alone. I didn’t speak and understand the language as well. I only felt scared because of what people were feeding me. But, I just trusted my Fiancé, I believed he will not invite me to his country and harm me. I believed he was a good man. That was enough courage to go.
The first impression
High above the sky on the plane window, I was already amazed by how massive the land area is, coated with snow. I was getting ready for how cold it would be. Of course, I was very excited. The moment I step out the plane, I was already nervous, I was relieved when I passed through the Passport control and got my luggage. I was sweating when I finally exit the Customs and joyfully surprised to see my Fiancé with his long neck trying to look and wait for me. The first word I said: “Is this Russia? Because I’m sweating!” He just laughed at me. But all winter gears were ready in his back just in case I might need it. The funniest impression was when we finally exit the airport, the wind blew my face and I feel numb and really cold, this time, it is confirmed, I'm really in Russia now. I was amazed by mass transportation. The road was so wide. I was in awe of all the infrastructures and services.
The differences
When it comes to differences, we Filipinos are very warm and friendly. In facial expressions and even the tone of the voice Filipinos are softer than Russians. Russians have a strong personality, strict and direct (as I have experienced with my Fiance), people say they’re rude but for me they’re just a serious type of people. If things not funny don’t laugh (which I think it’s right). We used to smile to strangers as a greeting but Russians don’t think that way (so I’m a bit scared to smile in public) but forgive me I can’t help it all the time.
Expectation v.s. Reality
I was expecting the worst for I was fed up by it, but gratefully blessed because Russians were not that bad after all. When I was waiting for my luggage the first time I went to Russia, one Russian guy approached me and tried his best to talk to me that I could understand him. He was saying I forgot my boarding pass ticket stub at the passport control, I might need it when I finally exit the airport. I was surprised because he helped me and also concerned about someone who is a stranger to his country. That time, my perspective about the people change. He didn’t know about me but he cared. I was also expecting that my Fiance’s family will not like me or whatever (all negative thoughts) but when I entered the house, his family embraced me like I was the member of their family. Russians are more family-oriented kind of people.
Russia in Five words
-A place full of AMAZING scenery and infrastructures
-A country with a MASSIVE land area (green forests, green lands)
-ACCESSIBLE transportation services to go around the country
-People with a STRONG personality but with a kind and compassionate heart
as for me, Russia has a FRUITFUL language
Problems
The problem and the thing that drives me nuts is the language barrier. I can’t speak proper English when talking to my Fiance or to his family and friends because some words they won’t understand. I am trying to learn Russian language and it makes me crazy because I can't pronounce it properly. Cyrillic Alphabet made me crazy actually and using the words in a sentence. This is why I said that Russia has a fruitful language because only a word can be used, pronounced and spelled differently depending on your sentence or what do you want to say.
Need to adjust
Weather and temperature is one thing that I need to adjust as well. I get cold easily because my body is not used to a cold country.
Food, it's not really a problem but this is also one of my adjustments, I am not used to eating potatoes and bread before because we eat rice in the Philippines. Filipinos would say rice is life.
Need to adopt
The best thing I learned and I really want to bring to my country is the road discipline. I am so proud of how disciplined Russians are, how they respect pedestrian lanes, over speeding and the traffic lights.
The most beautiful place
The most beautiful place I’ve been to Russia is St. Petersburg. I am so in love with the place. Everything is accessible but expensive. I see many opportunities like career, education, and business there because there’s a lot of tourists.
We have different religion and beliefs but living in Russia for a while made me so grateful and thankful to God every day. | https://medium.com/@ruopen.abroad/exploring-the-fiances-culture-f0c734f45224 | [] | 2019-08-22 07:56:21.660000+00:00 | ['Philippines', 'Russia', 'Living Abroad'] |
My Weird Relationship With Gender | Hey! I started writing this a few weeks ago, but I decided to rewrite and start over because it was starting to turn into word vomit. Anyway, as the title suggests, this is going to be with gender and how I’ve viewed it throughout my life. Let’s start at the beginning.
Obviously, I was AFAB: assigned female at birth. I didn’t question this at all growing up because I really didn’t know of any other options. I was actually super girly growing up, and I genuinely enjoyed expressing myself that way. I learned about trans people when I was around 11 or 12 when watching a documentary about Jazz Jennings, a young trans woman that’s around my age. I remember telling my mom about her, with her angrily lecturing back about how trans people are confused and in sinful nature. She always referred to gay people as “confused” when I was young, too. Whatever.
Anyway, as I’ve said before on here, I didn’t really get into LGBT issues until I joined online fandoms when I was around 15. At that point, I was still totally identifying as a straight girl. When I started coming to conclusions about my sexuality, I began to play around with my appearance more. I cut my hair off and started experimenting with more androgynous fashion. Of course, the conservative adults I interacted with regularly all found this *hilarious*, especially when I was referred to as “sir” at Panera and my mom flipped out. At that moment, I realized I LOVED being called sir. Like, more than the average girl would, even another cis lesbian. I think that was my first clue that I’m not really a girl.
Through 2017, I was still pretty new to the LGBT community and I was finding my spot there. I couldn’t figure out if I was butch or “futch” or whatever. I was obsessed with seeing what qualifications I fit to decide whether or not I could really use a label. This especially applied to the term “non-binary”. I didn’t know what I needed to think, feel, and do to TRULY be non-binary. Like, what if I didn’t mind being called a daughter? Am I just one of those “transtrenders”? Am I even trans? I finally realized from a post on Tumblr that you don’t need to do anything or follow a set of rules to be non-binary. You just Are.
Strangely, it was during our Hurricane Irma evacuation up in the mountains of west North Carolina that I realized I’m non-binary. I casually dropped it in the group chat with my closest friends and threw it out there on Twitter that I wanted to try out they/them pronouns. It was SO liberating. And SO cool. The idea of just being totally genderless was so fascinating. No she or girl or miss. They. Person. Mx? It was all lots of fun until I would go out into the real world and realize that my dream of complete androgyny was nowhere near as close as I hoped. While I was they/person/mx on the inside, no one on the outside saw that shift. They only saw she/girl/miss. It was painful not having my inside match the outside, and it still is. However, I’ve learned to trust and love who I am on the inside so it doesn’t matter what the outside thinks.
Where am I now? Well, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I really love the word “agender”. It perfectly encompasses that true androgyny I’ve craved for so long. One thing that’s weird to explain is how I’m still a lesbian, even though a lesbian is a GIRL who likes girls. Well, I still feel somewhat connected to my womanhood through lesbianism, but that’s it. I’ve learned that this is a common experience for many lesbians. It is so hard for me to correct people when they use she/her pronouns for me, even if I know they’re very supportive. Because of this, it makes my heart SOAR when someone uses neutral pronouns without me having to ask or remind. I love how my outward appearance has evolved to this point. I love having that masculine look with some feminine touches, such as a suit with a full face of makeup. It makes me feel confident and secure when I can be myself in this way, regardless of what people are going to say or think.
What does my future look like? Well, I would really love to live somewhere that eventually allows the legal “X” gender marker, but I don’t know how many places will progress that far by the time I graduate college. I would also really love to get top surgery, even though I know this procedure is incredibly hard to get and would be risky with my health problems. I don’t want to change my name, even though it’s traditionally feminine. Somehow, the shortened nickname of “Soph” feels less feminine, so I’ve been using that more and more often over the past few years. I think that’s it in the adventures of Soph Figuring Out What’s Going On. Oh, and one person has misgendered me often, but I don’t care that they do it at all. They are the only person I will fully allow to call me “girl” or “miss” as they have, and that person’s name is Brandon Rogers. Peace ✌️ | https://medium.com/@pierreslion/my-weird-relationship-with-gender-2f66f8aaaacd | [] | 2019-01-13 02:45:53.436000+00:00 | ['LGBT', 'Nonbinary', 'Transgender'] |
The Earth Has a Fever — Do We Care? | We take her temperature compulsively. We track symptoms — polar caps melting, whole species dying off, oceans over-heating, hurricanes, floods, an epidemic of wildfires raging out of control.
We dutifully take a detailed medical history. We even have a prognosis-it’s terminal!
Why then won’t we give her the medicine? | https://medium.com/the-bad-influence/the-earth-has-a-fever-do-we-care-47cc2e16e30c | ['Marilyn Flower'] | 2020-12-03 22:15:41.698000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Earth', '50 Words', 'The Bad Influence', 'Climate Change'] |
WE ARE ONE | December 1st 2018
A year ago in December, our Founding Members stepped into 1880 for the first time.
Since we opened our doors, we’ve debated the issues dearest to your hearts, re-imagined the world in technicolour, traded ideas, traded bitcoins. We did it with grace, elegance, and a sense of humour. We’ve shared meals and drinks, we’ve celebrated and commiserated. We are truly one, and we thank you for being on this insane journey with us.
December 1st 2018
We are looking ahead to the next year — the terrible twos and a possible sibling for 1880 in Southeast Asia.
In 2019, we’re inviting every member of 1880 to a private conversation with His Holiness The Dalai Lama in India on March 27th. We will be making an 1880 documentary about Matthew Spacie’s Magic Bus Foundation — that will be the first project that 1880NE, our 1880 Impact Foundation, will be funding. 1880NE is all about giving back to the community, helping people, and pushing forward. We believe that one person, one conversation, and one club can change the world.
We’re expectant. | https://medium.com/1880singapore/we-are-one-1330358f983d | [] | 2018-12-10 08:35:05.358000+00:00 | ['Anniversary', 'Membersonly', 'Community', 'Conversations', 'Dalai Lama'] |
June 2020 I wrote this poem while in lockdown six months down the lane, not much has changed. | June 2020 I wrote this poem while in lockdown six months down the lane, not much has changed.
I added this last bit especially for the festive season Christmas/New year 2020
This festive season we sit back and wait
With a heavy heart and distant hugs
Yearning for 2021 to bring a better fate
Hope you like it | https://medium.com/illumination/june-2020-i-wrote-this-poem-while-in-lockdown-six-months-down-the-lane-not-much-has-changed-df7a0889b8e1 | ['Sumera Rizwan'] | 2020-12-25 13:02:38.723000+00:00 | ['You Are Not Alone', 'Lockdown', 'Loneliness', 'Pandemic', 'Covid 19 Crisis'] |
Who Needs Commercial Outdoor Security Cameras? | Commercial outdoor security cameras are needed on any property where you have a lot of area to cover, there are many ways to approach the exterior of your building, or you need to guard specific doors. Your facility in the New York/New Jersey area should be guarded 24/7 by a camera that can capture all the action. Plus, you need to get the installation done by a professional who knows how to place the cameras, wire the cameras, and ensure your system works flawlessly.
How Do You Choose Commercial Outdoor Security Cameras?
When you talk to an installer for the first time, you need to ask them about the type of camera they would use. Some camera installers will use very large cameras because they want to get the best picture. Plus, a huge camera will be obvious to anyone who is approaching your building. There is a time and place for a tiny/pinhole camera (which we will discuss in a moment,) but obvious security cameras are a great deterrent. Plus, these cameras are an even better deterrent if they have a blinking red light on them that tells anyone in the area that you are recording.
How Are Security Cameras Wired?
When you order outdoor security cameras, they need to be wired using a structured cabling installation. What is structured cabling? Cables are sunk into the wall, hidden from view, and led back to the security desk or the monitor that shows the camera feed. Plus, these cameras can be hard-wired to the building’s power system. The cameras can use a wired connection, or they can use an Internet connection to send data back to the monitor.
The wiring should be hidden from view so that the cables cannot be damaged, and the cables should be hidden so that the installation looks nice. Some people try to install their own cameras, but they do not have the expertise needed to install the cameras properly. Hanging wires are easy to damage or cut if you are breaking into a building, and these wires look terrible when clients or customers come to the building.
Should You Add Motion Sensors To Outdoor Commercial Security Cameras?
You can add motion sensors to your cameras so that they will turn on as soon as the motion sensor is tripped. This could be a jarring experience for someone who is trying to break into your building, or you could go the extra mile with a light. The light will turn on along with the camera when the motion sensor is tripped, and the camera will get a much better picture of the area.
Adding motion sensors to your outdoor commercial security cameras makes it easier for you to manage outdoor security, and it also helps you guard exterior doors. You could wire the sensor to a buzzer at the front desk, and the camera’s image will come up on the screen. This makes it much easier for you to monitor who comes in and out of the building. Plus, you can alert security if there is a problem.
One More Thing About Security Cameras
You should order security cameras for your facility as soon as possible. You need this added level of security for the building, and you can get them installed by an expert. You should order a structured cabling installation to make sure that your building can support all these cameras. You can connect the cameras to your Internet signal, or you could hard-wire the cameras to make sure that they have a permanent power supply and connection. It is very easy for you to get new cameras from a security cabling expert. | https://medium.com/@smartdigitaltech01/who-needs-commercial-outdoor-security-cameras-f0c67dc633c | ['Frank M'] | 2019-11-22 07:07:11.185000+00:00 | ['Commercial Outdoor', 'Choose Commercial Outdoor', 'Structured Cabling', 'Installation', 'Security Cameras'] |
The Python visualization Jupyter notebook tutorial you are looking for | 2. Minimum polishing
It’s good to see a line but there’s plenty to be desired in the graph. At the minimum, here is a list of things you must adjust before including chart size, axis labels, titles, and legends. Here’s an example to set these:
3. Pivots and Multi-line charts
Putting two series in the same chart is probably one of the most common request, and it is easy to do with just a few lines of code. In our example, we have two series, column A and B. We will use the values of Column A in varies scales, and values of Column B, plotting them all in one chart with different colors and labels in the Legend. The following snippet does the trick:
4. Histogram
Histogram is another very common and useful way to display your data in groups (or bins). Fortunately it’s easy to do. Specifying the bins is not a must, but I find it confusing if you don’t know exactly where the bins are. The following example shows histogram with some minimal polishing necessary.
5. Subplots
One plot is great, a bunch is better sometimes. In cases you want to visualize multiple charts side by side but not on the same graphs, subplots are what you want. The following snippets show how you can specify the number of rows and columns you need, and then use a for loop to plot the charts one by one into the grid.
6. Multiple y scales
When putting two lines into the same chart though, sometimes the values may be in very different scales like this example. One line just look flat when plotted together:
What you may need to do in this case is to use a separate y axis for this column if you want to show it on a separate axis as follows:
That’s all folks! Hope these snippets provided you a quick start. Again the source code is available here. | https://medium.com/@ronaldleung-44495/the-python-visualization-jupyter-notebook-tutorial-you-are-looking-for-a1668e173b6d | ['Ronald Leung'] | 2020-12-24 00:43:49.470000+00:00 | ['Charts', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Visualization', 'Graph'] |
Timeless Moon | Most assuredly,
none of us remember
the first time we see it
but the luminous round object
in the starry night sky
captures our imagination
straight away.
We perceive it
with brand new eyes:
a magic glowing object
floating overhead.
When first seen
with new child’s eyes,
the eyes of wonder,
this illuminated orb
gliding In a vast field of darkness
the lunar object
is a total mystery.
It is a bright portal into the unknown.
Myths, fairy tales, nursery rhymes
have been produced
to explain the celestial body:
it is said the sun chases the lovely moon round and round,
that an old man or a rabbit live on its surface,
and that bovines leap over the celestial object.
It flies silently overhead,
floats in the heavens above us.
It is there even if we cannot see it,
on new moon or cloudy nights,
throughout all of our lifetimes.
Many things do change,
we may move around the world,
stand on distant shores,
witness the moon standing beside different people,
in many different places,
but still it is the same moon.
We age, become wise,
our faces become wrinkled,
eyes become tired.
The moon still shows the same face,
year after year,
decade after decade.
It is there
from our beginning to our ending.
It is constant, changing predictably,
waxing and waning through its phases,
through all our human unpredictable changes.
The moon stays,
stays the same,
stays floating in the sky
timeless.
~~Rhonda Marrone 12/2020
Would you like to read more: | https://medium.com/illumination-curated/timeless-moon-4a138e28e67b | ['Rhonda Marrone'] | 2020-12-20 18:05:07.436000+00:00 | ['Aging', 'Poetry', 'Life Lessons', 'Moon', 'Poem'] |
Knowledge Graph App in 15min | Prototyping a simple knowledge graph application with JSONs, MongoDB and automatically generated GraphQL API
This post is a result of joint work with Anna Konieczna and Artur Haczek.
TL;DR
Simple knowledge graph applications can be easily built using JSON data managed entirely via a GraphQL layer. We describe a quick recipe for prototyping one such demo, Noble Connections, which involves:
JSON documents stored in a free-tier MongoDB Atlas instance Staple API — a GraphQL-based semantic abstraction middleware for accessing and virtualizing that data as a knowledge graph test deployment on Repl.it IDE
The code of this demo and deployment instructions are available at:
Introduction: walking on knowledge graphs, one step at a time
So you want to build a simple knowledge graph-driven application? Great! You know what it’s going to be about, you’ve drafted the core data schema that should underpin your knowledge graph, and you already have the initial data set to populate that structure — nothing very sophisticated to start with, say some people, places and some basic relationships between them. Something like this Noble Connections demo that allows one to explore different family links among the European nobility. You think it shouldn’t be too difficult to put it all together and expose via some basic UI, but suddenly you start making your way through yet another tutorial and get convinced that your next major challenge is the choice of an appropriate tech stack. What should it be? Probably some “native” graph database implementing the labelled property graph model — but then which one? The range of possibilities is broad and quickly growing. Or maybe you should go down the RDF route, using W3C standards to represent your data and manage it in an RDF triple store? Or perhaps a multi-model database might be that safest “catch-all” alternative..?
The knowledge graph space abounds in detailed comparisons and recommendations of most appropriate advanced tooling for building core graph-driven applications. In our case, however, what they ultimately seem to promise is a relatively steep learning curve in exchange for gains that might not be so clear at the point of prototyping that first knowledge graph app.
At the end it all comes down to the use-case and, arguably, simple use-cases can be effectively addressed with simple means.
It’s often stated that a knowledge graph is merely an abstract view of the application data, not directly tied to a concrete database, data architecture or implementation. Knowledge graphs are there in relational databases, document stores, data warehouses, on the Web itself, and across REST endpoints.
It’s really about recognizing that different types of entities in your domain of interest are inherently connected with each other via diverse relationships.
It does not imply that one needs to be running complex network analytics over that structure, or logical inference over its type hierarchy, or parallel path-searching algorithms. These are indeed all valid tasks, and ones in which the advanced tooling, mentioned above, fully delivers on its differentiating value proposition.
But sometimes it’s really just about taking a walk on a knowledge graph one step at a time.
In this blog post, we describe a quick recipe for prototyping one such simple knowledge graph app, Noble Connections, which makes use of:
plain JSON documents, stored in a free-tier MongoDB Atlas instance, to represent the application data;
GraphQL-based Staple API service for automatically structuring and virtualizing that data as a graph.
The app, with a vis.js-powered front-end graph visualization, is finally deployed live using the Repl.it IDE environment.
The architecture and deployment of the Noble Connections app.
I. Encoding graph data in JSONs
JSON is a simple yet extremely flexible data serialization format, which due to its immense popularity probably doesn’t need to be introduced to anyone. Formally speaking, it’s aimed for representing tree-shaped structures, i.e.: objects, their attributes and outgoing relations to other objects with their attributes, and so on. With a bit of systematic convention, however, it’s also perfectly suited for capturing graph-shaped models. Essentially, it’s all about consistent use of unique identifiers on all JSON objects and noting which properties are used to refer to such identifiers. For instance, the following two JSON objects describe the person Queen Elizabeth II and the country United Kingdom. The identifiers, which in this case are all URIs, are always associated with the key _id , (hence: http://dbpedia.org/resource/Elizabeth_II and http://dbpedia.org/resource/United_Kingdom , respectively) and further referenced from properties: birthCountry , deathCountry , parent , child and spouse .
The entity “Queen Elizabeth II” represented in JSON.
The entity “United Kingdom” represented in JSON.
Those more familiar with linked data standards, might immediately recognize that this is basically the modeling principle behind the JSON-LD format. The only missing component here is a so-called JSON-LD context, which formally enforces the very convention described above, as in:
{
"_id": "@id",
"_type": "@type",
"@vocab": "http://example.com/",
"birthCountry": {
"@type": "@id"
},
"deathCountry": {
"@type": "@id"
},
"parent": {
"@type": "@id"
},
"child": {
"@type": "@id"
},
"spouse": {
"@type": "@id"
}
}
By adopting this representation approach, individual JSON objects can naturally become pieces of arbitrarily large and complex graph puzzles, which is the whole point. The two JSONs in the example above, state together that a person called “Elizabeth II” was born in country named “United Kingdom”
Graph structures can be easily encoded in JSON format by consistent use of unique identifiers.
Another great thing about JSONs is the existing tool ecosystem around it — for instance, MongoDB Atlas — a cloud-based version of the popular MongoDB JSON store, which offers a free-tier storage of up to 512MB data with zero maintenance costs. In order to deploy the data for our Noble Connections app (originally extracted from DBpedia), we create one such free instance with a dedicated document collection, upload the data using python client, and configure a guest user with read-only access to enable application queries.
A web dashboard of MongoDB Atlas instance with Noble Connections data.
II. GraphQL — a graph abstraction middleware
A lot has been said about GraphQL, its diverse data management capabilities and the transformative impact it might have on how data-driven APIs can be built. Interestingly, GraphQL is also being increasingly considered as a convenient data abstraction and access layer over knowledge graphs, and that’s mostly because of its strictly typed schema and query languages, which help navigate semantic knowledge graphs, coupled with the flexibility of fetching data from different sources. Simply put, GraphQL is very well-suited for managing connected data from differently structured sources. In particular it’s a very natural fit for exposing graph data serialized in the form of JSON objects, as discussed above.
Staple API virtualizes data from different back-ends as a (linked data) knowledge graph and exposes it via an automatically generated GraphQL service.
To simplify the implementation of a suitable GraphQL endpoint over MongoDB we use Staple API — a lightweight GraphQL-based API for managing knowledge graphs on top of different data storage back-ends, including MongoDB. In a nutshell, Staple API takes a specified RDF ontology (in Noble Connections example this one is sufficient), a configuration of the back-end source, and automatically spins-up a ready GraphQL service, with a a corresponding schema and resolvers. The automation of this process is what in practice saves enormous amount of development time, as typically GraphQL resolvers are tied to data structures based on highly repetitive patterns, which have to be all coded against manually.
Spinning up a Staple API server from a provided ontology and a MongoDB data source configuration.
The GraphQL schema enforces a rigid structure over the data it manages, so we have to be sure that the data we inserted into MongoDB indeed matches the schema generated from the ontology. Alternatively, we could have used the corresponding mutations created by Staple API in order to insert data to MongoDB and let GraphQL validate its proper structuring.
GraphQL schema for Noble Connections app.
Once initiated, Staple API exposes a set of queries that enable connecting individual data points into larger fragments of the entire knowledge graph. Admittedly, the expressiveness of GraphQL query language allows predominantly to “walk on the graph”, i.e., to fetch objects and their selected neighbors, and the neighbors of those, etc. But if walking is what we are after, then GraphQL just gets the job done. For instance, the following prototypical query fetches a person with the identifier http://dbpedia.org/resource/Elizabeth_II along with her country of birth, and her children, with their parents and countries of birth, respectively.
Querying the Nobel Connection data with GraphQL.
Queries of exactly this type is all that is used to feed the UI of the Noble Connections demo, enabling controlled exploration of the entire graph.
III. Deployment on Repl.it
One of the quickest ways of test-deploying a simple web application online is by using Repl.it IDE environment.
Go to https://repl.it. Press + new repl to create a new Repl environment and choose Import From GitHub. Paste the URL of the demo repository (https://github.com/epistemik-co/staple-api-kg-demo) and import it. Press the Run button and wait for the app to start at the automatically generated URL of a form: https://***--five-nine.repl.co.
Importing a GitHub project into Repl.it.
The application (run from demo.js file) exposes two graphical interfaces:
the front-end UI at https://***--five-nine.repl.co
the Apollo playground of the underlying Staple API at https://***--five-nine.repl.co/graphql,
Running Noble Connections in Repl.it.
Done. The knowledge graph app is running and ready to play with, as the connections among the European nobility are about to be uncovered! :)
The core graph visualization on the front-end UI is created using a popular vis.js library, which is sufficient for rendering small- to mid-sized networks and supports easily customizable presentation, behavior and interaction patterns. The Apollo playground, which wouldn’t be normally exposed as part of the app itself, is included to enable further exploration of the data set on the GraphQL query-level.
Summary
There’s obviously no one-size-fits-all recipe for building and managing knowledge graphs in the real world. Demanding use-cases, with complex querying and analytics requirements, will often require advanced tooling such as graph/triple stores, semantic data description models, inference engines, or graph computing frameworks. There are other, however, in which simpler solutions, based on the use of plain JSONs, MongoDB and GraphQL will be perfectly valid and will support the intended usage scenario just fine, while greatly reducing the development effort and the cost of deploying and maintaining the application. | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/knowledge-graph-app-in-15min-c76b94bb53b3 | ['Szymon Klarman'] | 2020-03-12 09:41:14.709000+00:00 | ['GraphQL', 'Mongodb', 'Prototyping', 'Knowledge Graph', 'Json'] |
You decide! | How are you doing these days?
Do you feel okay?
Are you living your life?
Or are you living what the media dictates you to do?
I hope the former.
I stopped following the “news” months ago.
Yes, we have to stay informed and act responsibly, absolutely.
But that’s the thing, we have to stay INFORMED.
Information is not the same as
dramatized stories, scaring stories, making people blindly following what mass media tells them to do or not to do.
Do you still think for yourself?
Or do you believe everything that’s being said?
I hope you keep your mind clear, pure, rational.
For months and months, all we hear is
scary stories,
hypotheses,
random advice,
contradictory information,
…
Now what do you choose?
To just follow what other people think is the right way to act,
Or
To think for yourself and follow your instincts?
I choose the latter,
I firmly believe in listening to my inner voice.
That’s why I believe the best thing we can do, is
to make sure we are as healthy, as strong as possible,
to keep our immune system as optimal as possible.
I make sure my body is healthy by
sleeping enough,
eating healthy,
practicing sports.
I make sure my mind is healthy by
not polluting it with garbage ‘information’,
thinking independently,
keeping to the bare and proven facts: not hypothesizing.
I make sure my soul is healthy by
not letting others scare me,
doing what lifts my spirits,
doing what gives me energy,
meditating,
having quiet moments where the dust can settle down so that I can see clearly again.
I think no one knows the one and only truth …
Is there even a one, absolute, unchangeable truth..?
I don’t think so.
Therefor I ask you to stop following
all the mindless discussions,
the ever-repeating-itself news.
Just live your life
to the best of your knowledge, to what your intuition tells you is the best for you.
Keep yourself healthy and that is the most conscious, most empathic, most caring way to live right now.
Live!
Breathe!
Love!
Thank you all for reading me and see you next week!
Katrien | https://medium.com/@katriendegraeve/you-decide-3367f8247b02 | ['Katrien Degraeve'] | 2021-08-27 13:45:54.843000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Consciousness', 'Thinking', 'Responsibility', 'Meditation'] |
Getting Started With TigerGraph 3.0 | Getting Started With TigerGraph 3.0
What is GraphStudio?
GraphStudio is a streamlined graphical user interface built on top of TigerGraph’s database engine. It offers an easy-to-use, no-code platform that allows anyone, regardless of their experience in database technologies, to learn about graphs.
You can read more about GraphStudio on the TigerGraph site here.
Here we’ll look at the start-to-finish process of creating a graph using GraphStudio.
Creating your first graph
Create an Account
The first step is to create a TigerGraph Cloud account. You can do this by heading to tgcloud.io and clicking Login. You should see something like this.
SignUp Page
Now all you have to do to create your account is enter a username and password. You can also sign up using a third party like Google or LinkedIn.
Create a Solution
Once you have logged in, you’ll arrive at a homepage that looks like this
TigerGraph Cloud Homepage
A lot is going on, but all we care about right now is the My Solutions tab.
Create Solution Button
On this page, you can select from a wide variety of Starter Kits, which are complete Graph solutions containing a full graph schema, data, and custom queries.
We’ll talk about Starter Kits at the end of this chapter. For now, just choose a blank graph and hit Next.
Graph options
On this page, you can select how much data and RAM you want for your solution. If you’re dealing with millions or billions of vertices and edges, you’ll probably need to choose a more powerful instance type. But, we’ll just stick with the basic version, which is FREE.
Graph Solution Settings
On the next page, you can choose a name for your solution and a domain name for the GraphStudio GUI. You can also set any tags or descriptions.
With that, the setup process is complete. Hit Next to view a summary of the solution.
Solution Summary
Double-check to make sure everything looks good and then hit Submit.
The solution will now be created. This takes ~5 minutes, so feel free to grab a cup of coffee in the meantime.
You’ll notice that the solution now appears under the My Solutions tab. On this page, you can view the information about any active solutions. Any solutions that you terminate will also appear here.
My Solutions Page
There is lots of information on this page, which mainly deals with solution performance and other data. For example, you can click on the row to see all of the solution details.
Solution Dropdown Information
This isn’t too useful at the moment, but we’ll need some of the information listed in the later sections of the course.
Note: The second button allows you to start and stop your solution. You will always have to start your solution after it has been inactive for a certain period of time. It’s also best practice to stop your solution when you are done, especially if you are using a paid instance.
Once your solution is loaded, you’ll see the Ready status.
Now, we can get started with GraphStudio. To do so, hit the first icon, and in the dropdown menu select GraphStudio.
Once you’ve clicked the button, you will be redirected to a page that looks like this.
GraphStudio Homepage
Yours will probably look white, as that is the default color setting. You can change it using the person icon in the top right corner if you’d like.
There are lots of different options on the screen. We’ll now walk through each one of them as we create our very own graph.
Create a Graph
The first step is to actually create your graph. This can be by clicking the Global View dropdown at the top left. You can name the graph anything you want.
Create a Graph Page
That’s all there is to it. You should now have an empty graph.
Design Graph
Make sure the graph you just created is selected in the top dropdown, and click Design Schema.
You will see a blank page like this.
Instructions for creating vertices and edges are listed on the page, but we’ll go through them here just to be thorough.
Let’s start by creating a vertex (hit the plus icon in the toolbar at the top). You’ll see a pop-up screen where you can input all of the information for your vertex.
For our demo, we’re creating a Person vertex with a name and an age. We will use the name as the primary ID for the person. Refer to the image below for guidance.
Creating a Vertex
We can similarly create an edge, using the arrow icon in the toolbar and then selecting the 2 vertex types the edge will connect. In our case, we’re creating a Friendship edge that connects a Person vertex to another Person vertex.
Creating an Edge
Note: TigerGraph is a labeled-property graph, meaning vertices AND edges can store data. So, on our edge, we put the date that the friendship started.
We now have a complete graph with a vertex and edge. That’s all there is to creating a schema! Of course, most graph schemas will be larger than a single vertex and edge type.
But, to add more to a schema just repeat the steps we’ve already done. You can also edit or delete any vertices and edges you make.
Now we can save the schema using the Publish button.
Publish Graph Schema
Map Data
Mapping Data is one of the trickiest steps in using GraphStudio. But, it is crucial to have the data stored correctly in the graph.
The first step is to import any data files, which can be done by clicking the file icon on the toolbar.
Add Data File
You can then hit the green plus sign to add files from your local computer. The recommended format is a text file (i.e. a CSV or TSV file), but you can also use a zip or tar file. You can also import files from remote storage like an Amazon S3 Bucket.
The files we are using can be found here.
There are 2 files. One for the Person vertex, and one for the Friendship edge.
Once the data is added you can click on any file to see a preview.
File Preview
Here you can add constraints to help better format the data. If your data has a header, make sure to hit the Has Header checkbox so that the header isn’t counted as actual data.
If everything looks good, hit Add. The file will now appear on the screen next to the graph schema.
Now, hit the crossed arrows icon in the toolbar, and then select the file and the vertex or edge you want to map it to. For example, select the person.csv and then select the Person vertex.
The resulting screen should look something like this:
Mapping Data
Now comes the tricky part. You need to connect the corresponding columns from the Person.csv file to the values on the Person vertex. You don’t need to map all values, but at the very least the primary ID must be filled. In our case, the vertex matches perfectly with the file. Once the mapping is done, the screen should look something like this.
Mapping Data to Person Vertex
Now, repeat for the Friendship.csv file. See if you can figure this one out on your own. If not, don’t worry. It’s a tough process, and it might take multiple attempts to get it right.
It should look like this.
Mapping Data to Friendship Edge
Finally, make sure to Publish your mapping and save your hard work.
Note: If you’re thinking “wow this is tedious”, don’t worry! GraphStudio is just a GUI on top of functionality that can be executed with pure code. We’ll cover this idea in great detail in the GSQL scripting section of this guide.
Load Data
Once your data is mapped, loading it is very straightforward. In the Load Data tab, click the play button to start loading the data into the graph.
Load Data Page
Once the loading job is complete, you will see the updated graph statistics on the right-hand side.
Data Load Complete
Explore Graph
Explore Graph is one of the coolest features of GraphStudio. In this window, you can visually explore any data in the graph. You can search for specific vertices, find vertex connections, and find paths between vertices, and run custom queries.
Before that, we should get familiar with the layout. The top toolbar has lots of helpful configuration options (refer to the image below).
Explore Graph Toolbar
The sidebar is where you can find the different exploration options.
Explore Graph Sidebar
Let’s start with Search.
On this page, you can look for a specific vertex (if you know the vertex ID) or search for vertices of a certain type (we only have one type in this case).
Once you search, the resulting vertices will pop up.
Exploration Results
You can also fine-tune your exploration further by adding a filter to the vertex types you search for.
Next is Expansion.
On this page, you can expand outwards starting from some specific vertex or vertices. You can filter the expansion edge types and the destination vertex types.
Expansion Page
An example expansion would look something like this.
Expansion Result
Note: You can also expand from a vertex by double-clicking on its icon. However, this will expand to every vertex connected to that starting vertex. There is no filtering with this method.
The third tab is Find Paths.
Here, you can find paths (if they exist) between two vertices. Like expansions, you can configure the path to only go through the listed vertex and edge types.
Find Paths Page
Here’s an example of finding the shortest path between 2 Person vertices.
Finally, there is the Connections tab.
On this tab, you can find connections between two or more vertices. The configuration is almost identical to the Paths page, but you can have more than just two vertices.
Connections Page
Here’s what a sample resulting connection path would look like.
Connections Result
The very last tab lets you run queries on the graph, using the GUI to set up any parameters or initial values. We will cover everything there is to know about queries in the next section.
Pattern Building
We’ve now seen how to explore the graph, but what if we want to grab specific data from our graph. For example, what if we only wanted to look at people over the age of 50, or friendships that started before 2008. This, and much more, is possible through the Build Graph Patterns tab.
Note: The Graph Pattern builder is still in Beta, so the results may not be accurate or exactly what you are looking for. Improvements are continuously being made to this feature.
The first step is to create a new graph pattern. Feel free to call it anything you want.
Graph Pattern Page
Once the pattern for the graph is made, you can start adding patterns for specific vertices and edges. There are lots of options in the toolbar to help you build your pattern
Graph Pattern Toolbar
For now, just find the plus icon. This is used to add a vertex pattern. GraphStudio should automatically choose the Person vertex.
Now, we can start sorting through the data.
There are 5 tabs on the right-hand side. The first one is Basic Info. This is where you set the information about the vertex or edge you are selecting.
The next tab is Filter. This is where you can select data based on some condition. For our example, we will select people who have an age of less than 50.
Filter Results
The third option is Aggregation. This is used to accumulate any information as you traverse the graph. For our example, it doesn’t make much sense, but it’s included anyway just to show you how it works.
Aggregate Value
The fourth option is Order. This is pretty straightforward. If you want the results to come out in some order, you can set that here. Let’s have the results print in ascending order of age.
Order Results
The final piece is the Limit condition. Here, you can limit the number of results you see.
Limit Number of Results
Now, our pattern is ready to go.
You can save and run the pattern using the buttons shown.
When you run the pattern, you’ll see the output in the bottom window.
You can also view the JSON output by hitting the open bracket symbol on the left-hand toolbar.
Congratulations! You’ve successfully grabbed specific data from the graph.
Write Queries
You may have noticed that there’s one tab left. The Write Queries tab allows you to write custom queries. These are a little more complicated and are the foundation for grabbing data from the graph. GSQL is TigerGraph’s custom query language. GSQL and graph databases work much like SQL and relational databases, only the graph counterpart is much much faster. If you have any SQL experience then you’re in luck. GSQL was actually modeled after SQL, and so much of the syntax is very similar.
If you don’t have any SQL experience, that’s perfectly fine. The most important thing is understanding how queries work conceptually. If you’ve made it this far, then you already have a basic understanding of queries. The pattern building exercise we just did is actually just a visual way of querying the graph. You can see an approximation of what the pattern would look like in GSQL by clicking the “Save as a GSQL query” button.
The pattern builder is great, but It’s a bit cumbersome to manually choose all of the filters and selection tools we want to use.
This is why we write in queries in GSQL.
In the next chapter, we’ll see how to write some basic GSQL queries and learn how to implement filters, ordering, aggregation, and limits to grab any data we may want from our graph.
Starter Kits
TigerGraph comes with a large number of Starter Kits. The kits each cover a specific use case of graph analysis and come prebuilt with a schema, data, and queries.
These are great if you are wondering what a full graph system looks like, want to explore a specific topic, or if you’re looking for inspiration for your own custom graph database.
You can find all of the Starter Kits in your TigerGraph Cloud Portal by clicking Create Solution.
We won’t cover any of these right now, but we’ll take an in-depth look at the Fraud and Money Laundering starter kit in the next section. Don’t be afraid to explore the different kits and use them to become more familiar with TigerGraph and GraphStudio. | https://medium.com/swlh/getting-started-with-tigergraph-3-0-4aac0ca4fb3d | ['Akash Kaul'] | 2020-12-16 23:24:19.017000+00:00 | ['Graph Database', 'Graph', 'Tigergraph'] |
FHighting Hunger, Together | In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic affected all aspects of our lives. Unfortunately for some, these impacts were far more drastic than adjusting to Zoom meetings and virtual Happy Hours. With millions of Americans out of work, one of our nation’s most hidden problems has gotten exponentially worse — food insecurity.
Food insecurity is described when a household is not able to provide enough food for every person to live an active, healthy life. And as one of the most widespread effects of the pandemic, many people are experiencing this issue for the very first time in their lives.
Prior to the pandemic, 1 in 10 U.S. households experienced food insecurity at some point in 2019, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During the pandemic, estimates show that food insecurity more than doubled, affecting as much as 23% of households.
Unfortunately, the problem is far greater in our home base of Massachusetts.
According to Feeding America’s food insecurity projections, Massachusetts has seen the greatest increase in food insecurity in the country due to the pandemic — a 59% increase. The problem is even worse for children, as estimates show that 1 in 5 children live in a home that is food insecure — a 117% increase from last year.
Knowing that this issue impacts our local community so much, our team at FHBoston wanted to get involved by volunteering at The Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB). GBFB is the largest hunger relief organization in New England and is among the largest food banks in the country. Last year, GBFB distributed 98.8 million pounds of food to people in need. This year, with food insecurity on the rise, GBFB is committed to increasing food distribution to provide three meals a day to every person in need in Eastern Massachusetts.
To help work towards this goal, members of our FHBoston team spent three hours on a Friday afternoon volunteering at the GBFB warehouse. Together, we sorted over 5,000 pounds of donated bread and packaged it to be distributed to local food pantries.
We had an awesome time — not only giving back to our local community — but seeing each other in person for the first time in over a year! It was a great afternoon filled with teamwork, positivity, and gratitude. We’re looking forward to continuing to volunteer with The Greater Boston Food Bank in the months to come.
By working together, we’re helping to end hunger. As our GM John Isaf would say — time to get this bread! | https://medium.com/fleishmanhillard-boston/fhighting-hunger-together-25b09945852f | ['Isabelle Valentine'] | 2021-05-03 20:13:41.759000+00:00 | ['Food Insecurity', 'Public Relations', 'Volunteering', 'Communications Agency', 'Boston'] |
The “How” of Cloud-Native: Technology and Infrastructure Perspective | Kyle Brown and Kim Clark
Note: This is part 4 of a multipart series. For the first article in the series start here or jump to Part 2, Part 3, Part 5.
While the people, process, architecture and design issues we covered in the last two articles are all critical enablers for cloud native, cloud native solutions ultimately sit upon technology and infrastructure, which is what we’re going to cover in this article.
Ingredients of cloud native — Technology and Infrastructure
Cloud infrastructure is all about abstracting away the underlying hardware to enable solutions to be rapidly self-provisioned and scaled. It should enable administration of different language and product runtimes using the same operational skills. Furthermore it should promote automation of operations, and provide a framework for observability. Let’s take a closer look at exactly what the key characteristics of that infrastructure are that are leveraged in a cloud native approach.
Technology and Infrastructure aspects of cloud native
Elastic, agnostic, secure platform
For cloud native to work, we have to ask a lot from the platform on which we deploy our components. The platform should help us to not worry about non functional concerns by using common mechanisms across whatever we deploy, and likewise should “burn in” security. Therefore, our top requests from the platform should be:
Elastic resource capacity
Agnostic deployment, and operations
Secure by default
If developers are to increase their productivity, they need to be able to focus purely on writing code that creates business value. That means the platform should take care of concerns such as load balancing, high availability, scalability, resilience, and even some elements of disaster recovery. At deployment, we should be able to specify high level non-functional requirements and let the platform do the rest. We will use Kubernetes container orchestration as a powerful (indeed ubiquitous) example of this kind of thinking, but cloud native is definitely not limited to the Kubernetes platform.
A Kubernetes cluster provides automated, elastic provisioning of resources such as cpu, memory, storage and networking based on the requirements of the component being deployed. The pool of resources can be spread across many physical machines, and over multiple availability zones in many separate regions. It takes on the responsibility of finding the resources you need, and deploying your components to them. You only need specify your requirements — what resources you need, how they should or should not be spread out, and how they should be scaled and upgraded. Arguably, we could also have said that about platforms based on virtual machines, but as we will see, containers bring something more to the party.
Assuming we adhere to the architectural principles from the previous section, delivering application components in containers enables Kubernetes to perform deployment and subsequent operations in a standardized way, regardless of the contents of any given containers. It the components are largely stateless, disposable, fine-grained, and well-decoupled, this makes it easy for the platform to deploy, scale, monitor, and upgrade them in a common way, without knowledge of their internals. Standards like Kubernetes are part of a trend of gradually moving away from proprietary installation and topology configuration for each software product. Now they all work the same way, and we benefit from operational consistency, reduced learning curves, and broader applicability of add-on capabilities such as monitoring and performance management.
Finally, we want to have security burnt in to the platform so we can be confident it is a safe environment for our applications from day one. We should not need to re-engineer core aspects of security every time we design a new component; we should instead be able to inherit a model from the platform. Ideally, this should cover identity management, role based access to administration, securing external access and internal communications. We will note that this is an example where Kubernetes itself is only a partial solution; added elements such as a service mesh for internal communication, and an ingress controllers for inbound traffic are also required for a complete security solution.
Lightweight runtimes
We can only achieve operational agility if the components are as straightforward and lightweight as possible. We can boil this down into three main properties.
Fast start up/shut down
File-system based install and configuration
File-system based code deployment
To manage availability and scaling, components must be able to be rapidly created and destroyed. That means the runtimes inside the containers must start up and shut down gracefully and optimally. They must also be able to cope with ungraceful shutdowns. There are many possible optimizations this implies: from removing dependencies, reducing memory population performed during initiation, through enabling a “shift left” of compilations into the image build. At a minimum, runtimes should be able to start within the order of seconds but that expectation is constantly lowering (e.g. Quarkus).
We also want builds to be as straightforward and timely as possible if we are to embrace continuous integration. Most modern runtimes have removed the need for separate installation software, instead simply allowing files to be laid down on a file system. Similarly, since an immutable image by definition shouldn’t be changed at runtime, they typically read their configuration from properties files rather than receiving them through custom runtime commands.
Equally, your actual application code can also be placed on the filesystem rather than being deployed at runtime. The combination of these features enables builds to be done rapidly through simple file copies and is well suited to the layered filesystem of container images.
Automated operations
What if we could deliver the entire blueprint for how to stand up our solution at runtime — including all aspects of infrastructure and topology — as part of the release? What if we could store that blueprint in a code repository, and trigger updates just like we do with our application code? What if we could laser-focus the role of operations staff into making the environment autonomous and self-healing? These questions lead to some key ways in which we should approach the way we work with infrastructure differently:
Infrastructure as code
Repository triggered operations (GitOps)
Site reliability engineering
Image based deployment, as discussed earlier, has already brought us a long way toward ensuring greater consistency. However, that only delivers the code and its runtime. We also need to consider how the solution is deployed, scaled and maintained. Ideally, we want to be able to provide this all as “code” alongside our component’s source to ensure that it is built consistently across environments.
The term “infrastructure as code” initially focused on scripting low level infrastructure such as virtual machines, networking, storage and more. Scripting infrastructure isn’t new, but increasingly specific tools such as Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and Terraform have advanced the art of the possible. These tools begin with the assumption that there is available hardware, and they provision and then configure virtual machines upon it. What is interesting is how this picture changes when we move to a container platform.
In a perfect world, our application should be able to assume that that there is, for example, a Kubernetes cluster already available. That cluster might itself have been built using Terraform, but that is irrelevant to our application; we just assume the cluster is available. So what infrastructure as code elements do we need to provide to fully specify our application now? Arguably, that would be the various Kubernetes deployment definition files packaged in helm charts or Kubernetes Operators and their associated Customer Resource Definition (CRD) files. The result is the same — a set of files that can be delivered with our immutable images that completely describe how it should be deployed, run, scaled and maintained.
So if our infrastructure is now code, then why not build and maintain our infrastructure the same way as we do our application? Each time we commit a significant change to the infrastructure we can trigger a “build” that deploys that change out to environments automatically. This increasingly popular approach has become known as GitOps. It’s worth noting that this strongly favors infrastructure tools that take a “declarative” rather than “imperative” approach. You effectively provide a properties file that describes a “to-be” target state, then the tooling works out how to get you there. Many of the tools mentioned above can work in this way, which is fundamental to how Kubernetes operates.
Real systems are complex, and constantly changing, so it would be unreasonable to think that they will never break. No matter how good a platform like Kubernetes is at automating dynamic scaling and availability, issues will still arise that will at least initially require human intervention to diagnose and resolve. However, in the world of automated deployments of fine-grained, elastically scaled components, it will become increasingly impossible to sustain repeated manual interventions and these need to be automated wherever possible. To enable this, operations staff are being retrained as “site reliability engineers” (SREs) to write code that performs the necessary operations work. Indeed, some organizations are explicitly hiring or moving development staff into the operations team to ensure an engineering culture. Increasingly, ensuring the solution is self-healing means that when the systems scale up, we no longer have the problematic need for a corresponding increase in operations staff.
Observability and monitoring
As organizations move towards more granular containerized workloads treating monitoring as an afterthought is untenable. This is yet another example where we need to “shift left” in order to be successful in cloud native. Addressing the problem depends upon around being able to answer three questions about our components:
Is it healthy? Does your app have easily accessible status?
What’s going on inside it? Does your app use platform neutral logging and tracing effectively?
How is it interacting with other components? Do you take advantage of cross-component correlation?
Observability is not a new term, although it is seeing renewed use in IT and particularly around cloud native solutions. Its definition comes from the very old discipline of control theory. It is a measure of how well you can understand the internal state of a system based on what you can see from the outside. If you are to be able to responsively control something, you need to be able to accurately observe it.
Some definitions create a distinction that that monitoring is for your known unknowns such as component status, whereas observability is for your unknown unknowns — finding answers to questions you hadn’t thought to ask before. In a highly distributed system, you’re going to need both.
The platform must be able to easily and instantly assess the health of the deployed components in order to make rapid lifecycle decisions. Kubernetes for example requests that components implement simple probes that report whether a container has started, is ready for work, and is healthy.
Additionally, the component should provide easily accessible logging and tracing output in a standard form based on its activity for both monitoring and diagnostics purposes. In containers typically we simply log to standard output. The platform can then generically collate and aggregate those logs and provide services to view and analyze them.
With fine-grained components, there is an increased likelihood that an interaction will involve multiple components. To be able to understand these interactions and diagnose problems we will need to be able to visualize cross component requests. An increasingly popular modern framework for distributed tracing that is well-suited to the container world is OpenTracing.
Looking back on the Perspectives
Based on what we’ve seen, these are the key ingredients across all the previously mentioned perspectives that are required to make cloud native successful:
Ingredients of Cloud Native
They are often inter-related, and typically mutually reinforcing. Do you need to do them all? That’s probably the wrong way to phrase the question, as few if any of the above are a simple binary “yes you’re doing it” or “no you’re not”. The question is more to what level of depth are you doing them. You certainly need to consider your status for each one, and assess whether you need to go further. In our next article, we’ll return to the question of “why” people are drawn to cloud native, and see if we can use that to help prioritize how, when and to what depth we embrace the above ingredients. | https://kylegenebrown.medium.com/the-how-of-cloud-native-technology-and-infrastructure-perspective-765be1606840 | ['Kyle Gene Brown'] | 2020-12-21 19:25:15.183000+00:00 | ['Cloud Native', 'Infrastructure As Code', 'Observability'] |
Predictive analytics for customer acquisition with MADE.com | As a Data Scientist at MADE.com, I am passionate about web analytics: I use Data and Machine Learning to improve customer conversion rates which in turn helps increase revenue.
If you are a marketer or just digital savvy, this article is made for you.
I want to demonstrate how we incorporated predictive revenue as the main metric to drive qualified traffic on our website and lower customer acquisition costs.
As a marketer, Return On Investment or Return On Ad Spend is probably the most important metric you use to judge the effectiveness of your digital campaigns and adjust your budget per channel accordingly.
Cumulated first transaction share for customers over 90 days since the first visit
However, in most cases you have to wait for 30–90 days to start to see which channel brings in high-value customers. Especially if you have a long sales cycle like at MADE.com (only 35% of transactions happened on the first session day of a new visitor).
That being said, predicting an accurate long term ROAS is a key challenge for marketing teams as they have to work against performance budget/target daily. Indeed, 45% of spending doesn’t lead to immediate revenue.
Of course, some proxy can be used to evaluate the quality of new visitors (eg: bounce rate or attribution modelling) but as we know “ time is precious ” and it’s already too late to make real-time accurate decisions.
This is why long term revenue needs to be predicted.
How the Analytics team tackled this challenge?
Start with your proof of concept …
Before you can test and justify to stakeholders whether your predictive revenue model is worth building, you might have to visualize or hypothesize beforehand the expected outcome of this model.
In that case, I strongly recommend starting with a proof of concept based on Google session quality metric.
This turnkey metric will allow you to predict overall revenue, but that accuracy declines as granularity level of analysis increases.
For example, session quality does not take into account important traffic features like the landing page, channel, markdown. This is why you will need to create your predictive model to predict at session-level.
When it comes to predict the SEM or Direct revenue, you need to learn in-depth patterns from the first session of the new visitors.
You will have to shift from using standard Google historical data (eg: bounce rate, time on site) to more advanced in-house visitors data (eg: cities, landing pages) and aggregate data to fill in gaps in your model.
We defined the predicted revenue as the conversion probability multiplied by the expected revenue of a new visitor ( Average Order Value) following the function below :
Proof of concept
If Google Analytics is your web analytics solution, as it is at MADE.com, you’re lucky. You already have a native KPI called ‘Session Quality’ available in Google Analytics & BigQuery.
This KPI provides you with a session quality indicator, with a score from 0 to 100.
Based on ML Google model, session quality seems built on most common web analytics metrics such as ‘hits’ or ‘time on site’ as you can observe on the correlation matrix below. It does not correlate with custom internal tracking points such as the one we developed (‘newsletter subscription’).
Correlation matrix to check session quality
This KPI which has, of course, its limits, is an ideal starting point to implement your baseline model to support your digital growth performance.
Predicted revenue for a given session will be calculated as follows :
Where
The adjustment coefficient to calibrate session quality to transactions in 90 days period is :
Session Quality is the session conversion probability KPI.
The average order value 90 days is :
Let’s now have a quick look at results from our first model!
The trend in Predicted Revenue Versus Measured Revenue Over Time
It seems promising as it catches pretty well the reality of the sales.
This model provides you with a better vision of predicted Return On Ad Spend:
But reach its limits when it comes to predict accurately revenue at session-level. | https://medium.com/made-com/how-predictive-analytics-can-support-customer-acquisition-in-digital-channels-2dd894af6fb2 | ['Nicolas Lisch'] | 2019-08-28 09:16:31.914000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Google Analytics', 'Data Science', 'Conversion Optimization', 'Digital Marketing'] |
The War on People Who Are Poor | By Jeremy Rosen
In recent months, the Trump Administration has ramped up efforts to make life harder for people in poverty. Their latest sneak attack would brazenly declare, by government fiat, that fewer people in this country are poor. By making people already receiving assistance suddenly ineligible for government programs that help them put food on the table or see a doctor, and preventing new applicants from qualifying for aid, President Trump would be sharply increasing poverty, yet shockingly be able to release data claiming that he has lowered it.
Each year, the federal government uses a complex calculation to set the income level at which an individual or a family is deemed to be poor, and therefore eligible for government aid. While eligibility varies by program, a family of four making more than roughly $25,000 per year will lose eligibility for certain benefits, while others will cut off at a hardly more generous $33,000. That is a mere $2,000 to $2,750 per month, which must pay for all family expenses.
The original poverty guidelines were developed in the early 1960’s. Since then, the guidelines have increased annually to account for inflation — ensuring that current beneficiaries do not lose assistance when their incomes grow modestly. Today, however, numerous studies have demonstrated what we instinctively know — primarily due to dramatic increases in the cost of family housing and health care expenses, the guidelines are far too low to allow Americans to meet the burdens they face, particularly in an economy where too many workers are trapped in minimum wage jobs.
Unmoved by these challenges, the Trump Administration is considering a proposal that would lower the annual inflation rate by which the poverty guidelines are raised. While this sounds technical, the impact would be enormous. In a country where fairness dictates that we provide help to more people in need, by lowering the poverty line our government would instead take away benefits from millions who currently receive them. Communities would be torn apart, not brought together.
Today’s economy does not work for most people. As a result, even when parents hold down two jobs to try and make ends meet, they are forced to make almost impossible choices between paying the rent, putting food on the table each night, or seeing a doctor. Fortunately, a number of successful government programs help ensure that adults can live in dignity, and raise their children to pursue their full potential.
Nutrition assistance programs keep millions of children and families from being hungry, allowing parents to provide healthy food and children to perform better at school. Health coverage ensures that adults and children who are sick can see a doctor and stay healthy. And the Head Start program gives kids the chance to succeed in school.These successful programs help preserve a minimum level of economic security for many families.
If these proposed changes to the poverty guidelines are implemented, millions of children and families would either lose federal help entirely, or receive reduced benefits — at a time when we need to be offering more help. This new effort is just another piece of the Administration’s ongoing war on the poor. They have opposed raising the minimum wage, fought to take health care from people who need it, and sought to tear apart immigrant families by restricting their access to housing and public benefits. The Shriver Center is fighting all of these attacks, and stands ready to oppose the newest audacious proposal to harm the lowest income people.
Join the fight by signing up for the Shriver Center’s Take Action tool which makes it easy to contact elected officials about policies that impact economic and racial justice. | https://theshriverbrief.org/the-war-on-people-who-are-poor-55638fe3e79c | ['Shriver Center On Poverty Law'] | 2019-05-28 15:51:06.502000+00:00 | ['Poverty', 'Economics', 'Trump Administration', 'Food Security'] |
How to Stop Scrolling Coronavirus News for Like 5 Minutes | How to Stop Scrolling Coronavirus News for Like 5 Minutes
The coronavirus pandemic can lead to an obsession with checking our phones. Here’s how to change your news habit.
Photo: Jose Luis Palaez/Getty Images
We try to make sense of the biggest news event of our lifetime, it feels natural, even calming, to turn to one of our most trusted habits: the flick, scroll, click. It’s been there for us in times of anxiety, of boredom, of grief — the mindless, calming power of immersing ourselves in the internet.
But right now, what feels like a self-soothing act is anything but: Each shocking link ratchets up our emotions and gives the middle finger to the prefrontal cortex of our brains, which helps regulate our emotions and make sound decisions.
And we’re wired to keep that going. Our infinite scroll creates a dopamine loop — you seek pleasure, get a reward, repeat.
Don’t forget that feeds are also engineered by algorithms that deliver images and ads created specifically for us, conjuring the sense that each photo or news morsel — whether a video of dopes continuing to enjoy mimosas al fresco or a shady ad for immune-boosting pills — is highly relevant and urgent.
It’s not.
While we practice social distancing, we can keep a bit of distance from the news, too. Because news will always find a way to reach us. It will come through email, emoji-laden group text threads, peeks at homepages, conversations overhead in the produce aisle. And just like the 36-count of Shin Cup ramen packets my boyfriend and I recently ordered on Amazon, this news should be carefully rationed. You can be an informed, intelligent, and prepared citizen without spending six hours a day with your mouth agape in front of the news fire hose.
Right now, despite the chaos, we’re largely in anticipation phase. Updates and statistics will come at us for weeks and months, if China and Italy are any indication. We can’t afford to burn out now on the news, not when staying up to date will become more important in the future, and maintaining our mental and physical health will be even more crucial. Ignorance certainly isn’t bliss, but moderation can be a salvation.
Here’s what works:
Log out of social media
I find myself navigating to Twitter without realizing: a quick Command + T and a tap of “tw” and there’s a pile of news crumbs. But actually logging out of the site creates a necessary bit of friction — the next time you visit Twitter’s homepage, you’ll see this statement: See what’s happening in the world right now. That can help you make a conscious decision: Do I truly want to see what’s happening right now?
Think of it like social distancing for your brain. Just as in your physical space, you can be mindful of what you’re doing online in a way you never have before.
Go cold turkey
Our brains are amazingly adaptable, if not always effortlessly quick. One study found that it takes 66 days for a habit to become automatic, but tweaking your behavior today, even in a small way, creeps you closer to change. If you truly want to spend way less time on social media, as Catherine Price writes in GEN, delete the apps altogether. Eventually, the urge to check them constantly will fade.
Start a news schedule
Create a set time during the day to check for any updates, and do it in specific, deliberate steps: Look for news about your city, then your state, and then national and global updates. Mentally check these off as though they’re on a to-do list. You might even feel a sense of completion, an “okay, I feel updated now” as opposed to, “I’m gonna keep scrolling until something else major happens.”
Avoid being a messenger
On a recent phone call with my mom, I began listing everything that could happen soon, stopping only when she said she couldn’t sleep after watching the news the night before. If watching a handsome newscaster somberly delivering updates was doing that to her, she didn’t doesn’t need me rattling off possibilities at 100 mph in her ears.
Since everyone’s FaceTiming and texting like crazy, it’s natural to want to share anything new and earth-shattering with folks on the other end of the line. But be mindful that other people might not want to or be able to absorb every last tick-tock of the news. Starting a conversation with, “OMG did you see that there’s a surge in cases in the city next to yours?!” isn’t a kind icebreaker.
Put your phone to bed
I’m used to working from home, and one of my best tips is to leave your phone in the other room if you want to get stuff done. But I like to go one step further: I pretend my phone is taking a nap. I slide my iPhone into a crocheted coffee cup sleeve, but if I didn’t have that little pseudo sleeping bag, I’d literally shove my phone into a clean sock. Literally putting it out of sight — and unable to respond to a flick, scroll, click — gives me peace. (G’night little guy!)
March 2020 is already one of the strangest, most unpredictable months in history — and it’s only halfway over. We can still steady ourselves in small ways by monitoring what we’re absorbing, watching, and sharing. While it seems like almost everything is out of our hands, remember this: You can always control where your attention goes. | https://forge.medium.com/how-to-stop-scrolling-coronavirus-news-for-like-5-minutes-64c5510729f | ['Kara Cutruzzula'] | 2020-03-17 14:26:02.056000+00:00 | ['Twitter', 'Coronaviruses', 'News', 'Live', 'Media'] |
How to Overcome Surge Capacity Depletion in 3 Easy Steps | It’s been an unprecedented year. We all know that. And we’re all feeling tired and exhausted and fatigued. So just about everybody I’ve spoken to in the last few weeks has said ‘I can’t wait for the holiday break.’ It seems everyone is thinking the break will sort them out and then they will feel better.
But is having a break enough to restore you so that you’re ready for 2021?
When you are faced with an emergency, a crisis, or something that you need to respond to — some kind of a pressure, high-performance situation- your body ramps up. It uses adrenaline and cortisol to help you perform at your peak, in response to the situation that you are facing.
The ability to ramp up and respond like this is called surge capacity.
Now in normal times, what happens is you face a situation that you need to respond to a crisis or emergency, something that is really important that you need to act on quickly. You ramp up your performance, you focus intently, you put your effort and our energy into it. Then it’s over.
And typically what happens is you get some downtime. That is when your energy falls away, when perhaps you don’t concentrate as well. Instead you are restoring yourself and reenergising.
Then another situation arises, and you respond accordingly, with the adrenaline and cortisol pumping through your body, and then you have some downtime to recover and replenish. This cycle ensures you always have the capacity for a surge response to those situations when they arise.
Now, 2020 has been different because we’ve had a set of challenges and situations that have effectively been continuous. At the beginning of the year, you responded to the situation created by the COVID pandemic, which impacted aspects of work and life and home. Just about everything that is part of your day-to-day experience. So the adrenaline and the cortisol have been pumping. You have been responding. Leaders and people everywhere have stepped up amazingly throughout the year.
What has happened though, is that because you keep tapping into your surge capacity almost continuously, without the opportunity for downtime, chilling out, recovering, you are now facing this unique set of fatigue and tiredness. Many of the leaders I have spoken with recently have reflected that they have never experienced fatigue and exhaustion to the same degree as they are now.
This is known as surge capacity depletion.
What it means is that you have used your capacity to surge in response, yet you haven’t had time to recover. Over time, the surge capacity tank has been drained dry. It is depleted because of the long-term challenges that you have faced throughout this year.
You can’t pour from an empty cup.
As you head into the holiday break, I want to help you create the opportunity to proactively restore yourself because this is beyond just a normal feeling of being tired at the end of the year.
(And just a quick note for those who aren’t feeling tired yet. The thing about surge capacity depletion is that even if you’re still operating and you’re performing well, at the point that you begin to slow down, to rest and relax, what you may experience is a big crash because your body has discovered that it doesn’t have to keep going anymore. It just shuts off. This can show up as extreme tiredness, emotional response that are more heightened than normal. It could be burnout. You might even get ill. Don’t be surprised if this happens to you, it’s perfectly normal.)
I’ve got three key tips to help you to deal with surge capacity depletion and set you up to be able to thrive in 2021.
3 TIPS TO OVERCOME SURGE CAPACITY DEPLETION
1. Plan for your return to work now.
Set up your calendar now ready for your return to work. Make sure that you have time set aside in your diary to catch up on what you missed while you were away.
Tidy up before you leave. Clean out your email. Clean up your workspace. Get your filing done. So you come back to a relatively clear working space.
Wherever possible, if there’s someone else who is going to be in the office or covering your work, then make sure that you delegate appropriately and share your authority with them. If you haven’t made plans to delegate, then make sure you do that before you officially go on leave. And that means that you’ll have less to come back to in terms of backlog, when you return to work.
2. The second thing is to give yourself permission to use the holiday break proactively as a recovery for your depleted tanks.
While it is a Christmas and holiday period for many people, and we have people to see and functions to attend and Christmas dinners to cook, make sure that you do actually specifically set time aside for yourself.
Do the things that you know will help you to recover and replenish your energy.
Here’s a link to a quick video I recorded about helping you to identify what those things are.
Be disciplined about supporting your own replenishment.
Let the people around you know how important this is….then encourage them to do the same for themselves.
3. Number three is to reconnect.
Reconnect with yourself, reconnect with your people. We get energy from those really important connections. And this year in particular, people are feeling a little bit more distanced from some of the people in their networks. The holiday break is an opportunity to identify who those important people are, to reach out and re-establish those connections.
The starting point in leading others is learning to lead yourself. ~Robin Sharma
FOLLOW THROUGH
Plan your replenishment for 2021.
Finally what I want to talk about is that the holiday break alone may not be enough to restore the full extent of your surge capacity. Plan 2021 so that you have more regular opportunities to restore yourself, to replenish the tanks.
When and how often and for how long are you going to deliberately restore yourself? Because let’s be clear, we’re now in the marathon. 2020 was the sprint. 2021 is the beginning of the marathon of change. You need to lead a long term transformation in the coming years. And that means as a leader, you need to be in really good shape. So you need to make sure that your tank is full.
I hope these ideas are useful to you.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. | https://medium.com/@staceyashley/how-to-overcome-surge-capacity-depletion-in-3-easy-steps-92f75587dedc | ['Stacey Ashley'] | 2020-12-18 02:39:14.714000+00:00 | ['Self Leadership', 'Leadership Development', 'Capacity Building', 'Leadership Skills', 'High Performance'] |
ML World: Learn Machine Learning! Part 2 | Woah! That is a lot to deal with at the moment. Let us get started with the simplest Machine Learning model: Simple Linear Regression.
What is Simple Linear Regression?
Simple Linear Regression/ Univariate Regression in ML is a Supervised Learning algorithm.
Simple Linear Regression allows us to summarize and observe the relationship between two continuous quantitative variables x and y, which is represented by a straight line.
In simple words, Simple Linear Regression is the manifestation of the equation of straight line having coordinates(x,y) given as:
In the above equation,
x: x is the independent variable or feature. It is the input.
y: y is a dependent variable or target variable which our model predicted/estimated.
m: m is the slope. It determines the angle at all times.
c: c is an intercept. It is constant that decides the value of x when y=0.
Similarly, The equation of Simple Linear Regression is as follows:
y is the predicted value of the dependent variable/target variable (y) for any given value of the independent variable/feature (x).
B0 is the intercept, the predicted value of y when the x=0.
B1 is the regression coefficient: the amount of change in y as x tends to increase
x is the independent variable/feature ( the variable we expect is influencing y or the controlling variable).
e is the error function or the difference in the actual and predicted values.
Simple Linear regression finds the line of the best fit line through your data by searching for the regression coefficient (B1) that minimizes the total error (e) of the model.
How does Simple Linear Regression find the best fit line?
To understand this, let us consider an example.
Suppose we have a data set of grades for some students and need to predict the grades of students based on the time they spent studying.
Now, in this case :
y = Grades of students.
x = Time spent Studying.
Let us consider a trend line which represents the possible best fit line. In the above dataset, yellow stars represent the grades of students dependent on the time they spent studying.
Now let us draw a vertical line from these data points onto the best fit line. Thus, you can see where the dataset point is and where it should be placed according to the best fit line.
The yellow star indicates the actual value whereas the green dot represents the value observed by the Simple Linear Regression model.
Now, to get this best fitting line, you take this difference between the actual and estimates (y-y’) and square it and calculate its sum. Once you have the sum, you need to find the minimum out of them.
What a simple linear regression does is it draws lots and lots and lots of these lines and counts the sum of the squares every single time and records it and then it finds the minimum sum of squares.
And that line is called the best fit line, and this method is known as the ordinary least squares method.
What are the Assumptions of Simple Linear Regression?
For a simple linear regression model in practice, the model should conform to the assumptions of linear regression.
There are four assumptions associated with a linear regression model:
Linearity: The first assumption of simple linear regression is that the two variables (target and feature) should have a Linear relationship. Homoscedasticity: The variance of residual is the same for any value of x. Independence: Observations are independent of each other. Normality: For any fixed value of x, y is normally distributed. In other words, it suggests that the linear combination of the random variables should have a normal distribution.
How to Implement a Simple Linear Regression model?
To implement the simplest ML model, first, you need to process the data. I suggest you check out our Data processing series to familiarize yourself with some concepts.
To start building a Simple Linear Regression Model, we first need a dataset and a problem statement. Let us consider a simple dataset having a dependent variable ‘Salary’ and independent variable ‘Years of experience’.
The datasets in real-world applications are endless, but to keep things simple and wrap our heads around the concept, we should start with a much smaller dataset.
Here we have a dataset of a few employees’ salaries corresponding to their years of experience.
The first thing we need to do is import all the necessary libraries. Here we need to import the LinearRegression class from sklearn.linear_model library.
Once we are through with importing libraries, we need to import our dataset.
After successfully importing the dataset and separating it into features and targets, we need to split the dataset into train and test sets.
Now, we need to create an object of the class LinearRegression() and train the model on the training set. After our model is trained, we need to test it on a test set.
We can then visualize the performance of our model on the training set and testing set to get a better intuition of its efficiency.
When to use Simple Linear Regression?
Simple Linear regression helps you in understanding and quantifying the relationship between your numerical data.
You can use simple linear regression when you want to know:
How strong the relationship is between two variables (for example the relationship between area and house prices). The value of the dependent variable at a certain value of the independent variable (For example the price of a house when the area is given).
Learning Parameter for Simple Linear Regression: Cost Function
The goal of any ML model is to learn from data. To make predictions and learn from experience. It is similar to the analogy of a toddler learning life lessons and developing himself according to his/her experience,
Similarly, the cost function helps the learner to learn and correct his mistakes and develop from it to avoid future inaccuracies.
In ML, cost functions are used to estimate how badly models are performing.
A Cost function is a measure of how inaccurately the model performs in terms of its ability to predict the relationship between X and y.
This is generally expressed as a mean squared error, which measures the difference between the actual value (from the dataset) and the estimated value (the prediction). It looks like this:
The objective of an ML model, therefore, is to find these parameters, weights, or a structure that minimizes the cost function.
Function to minimize Cost Function: Gradient Descent
Now that you know that our model functions accurately once the cost function is minimized, we need to think of some parameters to do this task. Thus Gradient Descent comes into play.
Gradient descent is an efficient optimization algorithm that attempts to find a local or global minimum of a function.
What are Local and Global Minima?
Local Minima :
Functions can have an elliptical, hill or valley like structure: a place from where they reach a minimum or maximum value.
It may not be the minimum or maximum for the whole function, but locally it is.
Global Minima :
The minimum over the entire function is called an “Absolute” or “Global” minimum.
There is only one global minimum, but there can be more than one local minimum.
Well, I hope these definitions gave you a little insight. Now we can try and understand the concept of gradient descent much more easily.
Gradient descent enables a model to learn the direction that the model should take to reduce the difference between actual and predicted values.
Gradient Descent in the simple linear regression refers to how the model parameters b0 and b1 should be adjusted or corrected to further minimize the cost function.
As the model iterates, it gradually converges towards a minimum where further adjustments made in the parameters produce little or zero changes in the loss.
This point is also known as convergence. At this point the weights of the model are optimum and the cost function is minimized.
This iteration depends on the learning rate of the model (α).
The learning rate determines how big the step would be on each iteration.
If α is very small, it would take a long time to converge and become computationally expensive.
If α is large, it may fail to converge and surpass the minimum.
What are the limitations of simple linear regression?
Some limitations of simple linear regression are as follows:
So far, we’ve only been able to examine the relationship between two variables. Simple linear regression allows us to predict a target variable only when it is controlled by one feature. It oversimplifies a real-world problem by assuming a linear relationship between variables. Simple Linear Regression is sensitive to outliers. Outliers are the data points that lie outside the scope of the regression line in this case. Thus, accuracy is harmed in the presence of outliers.
Congratulations! I hope you were able to compute your first ever ML model: Linear Regression successfully. There are many concepts to wrap your head around, but with a little dedication, you will surpass this phase.
Keep practicing peeps!
(Image Source: Internet) | https://medium.com/godatascience/ml-world-learn-machine-learning-part-2-3c91440e2e64 | [] | 2020-10-13 08:54:44.048000+00:00 | ['Linear Regression', 'Python', 'Regression', 'Machine Learning'] |
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What I’m Listening To Today, Episode #15 | What I’m Listening To Today, Episode #15
Ladder Of Success, Skeeter Davis
Two ladders lean up against my neighbour’s house, a sure sign of his industry that throws an unwelcome spotlight on my sloth. One ladder, okay, but two? I gaze up resentfully and think: what ambition!
I have not had a single moment of enthusiasm or vision in the home improvement department this year. I have instead watched over the summer as he has gone up and down the ladder. Sometimes clipping away plants, other times with a tin of paint or a heat gun, or in one case, a cup of tea, as though drinking from the top of his artificial precipice afforded him some closer relationship to god, while the beasts next door squirmed and rolled in their own dust and filth far below.
Every time I look at my house or its contents, I fall into an apathy-induced lethargy. I don’t know what to do with any of it, except throw it all away and start again. And then I being to ache with hope, because maybe I can keep some of the growing cardboard avalanche in my outbuilding, it would be such a shame to throw all of this stuff away. I love clutter and I hate clutter. I love order, but I’m a mess. I’m sorry I put you in the outbuilding. I put you there because I didn’t have anywhere else to put you. Maybe one day we’ll move and I can put you somewhere better. Let’s wait. Let’s wait until it’s later, and we’ll either have moved or I will have found a use for you. That way, I have a good reason for doing nothing.
The last great push towards modern good living began in January. Looking hard over the forty year old kitchen, I concluded with the heaviest of sighs that the job was beyond my YouTube tutorial apprenticeship, and so I went to a kitchen showroom and we picked out something we hoped would give our 500-year old cottage a modern facelift without ruining the period aesthetic.
People were milling about the showroom happily. My four year old was plotting the downfall of some complimentary cookies on the designer’s desk top, and we were trying to balance cost and style while also attempting to appear sane to the poor woman who was putting together a 3D render of it all.
On the radio, there were some reports coming in of a strange outbreak in China, but we thought nothing of that. I put down a deposit, shook her hand and we wandered out into a rainy afternoon.
Contrast this with a few weeks later, when I went in to sign the rest of the paperwork approving the work. Lockdown was not yet upon us, but it wasn’t far away. The lights were off in the showroom, and I wondered if I had gotten the appointment time wrong, until someone came to the door to open up for me. I walked in and told them who I was there to see.
By now, we had some small understanding of what was going on, and so I sat away from her, but we passed papers back and forth and shared a pen, so, as I say, a small understanding.
I handed over a large chunk of cash and then the pandemic really got going and with some naivety, I thought they might give the money back and just call the whole thing off. Instead, I got a call a few weeks later to tell me that everything was going ahead, as planned.
What?
The entire country was in lockdown. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house unless I was seeking food or medical aid.
And yet, it was somehow going to be fine for a couple of guys to deliver a kitchen to me, and then have a team of people invade my cripplingly small house for a week to install it.
By now, I felt we really did have a pretty good understanding of what was going on, so when they came, they put up a sheet of paper in the kitchen (which was also the living room and the reception room), which read:
THIS IS A SOCIAL DISTANCING WORK ZONE.
We lived upstairs for a week and a half, the three of us. I would come downstairs every now and again to stick the kettle on and make coffee for the builders (you’ve got to keep them on your side), and invariably get drawn into a conversation about how terrible people are (you’ve really, really, got to keep them on your side). I have encountered few better ways of rapport building than to make and distribute hot drinks to parched lips.
I think in the end they grew more irritated about working in the cramped, shitty little house that I haunt, rather than with me, and I can say that we parted company on good terms, because they had delivered a kitchen, as promised, and I had paid them 25% more in additional subcontractor costs.
One evening I arrived home to find my neighbour on the other side hacking away at a bush for no good reason.
That bush is there so that I don’t have to see you when I walk outside.
I felt up until that moment that I had a good handle on the complex social dynamics of living mid-terrace. Now people were breaking down barriers on one side and looking down on me from the other.
They had emerged from isolation with a desire for things to be fresh and new. I just wanted things to go back to the way they were in the relatively less sorry state that existed pre-2020.
Dropping socks while carrying out my laundry to the machine, two overalled men perched high above peer down.
“You missed one”, my neighbour says, cheerfully. He is drinking tea again on his improvised balcony.
“Thanks,” I reply.
Maybe it’s time I bought a ladder too.
As I step into the outbuilding, I trip over my son’s bicycle and my dirty laundry flies out of my hands and then the cardboard avalanche lurches menacingly above me for a second or two before crashing down on my unproductive head.
This is what happens to hoarders, you know. This is how they end. Surrounded by their own disorder. | https://medium.com/the-manic-depressives-handbook/what-im-listening-to-today-episode-15-f51bb4fbb4f4 | ['Jon Scott'] | 2020-09-15 15:50:19.381000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Ladders', 'Success', 'Music', 'Productivity'] |
How To Conduct Performance Reviews In 2020 & Boost Company Culture | How To Conduct Performance Reviews In 2020 & Boost Company Culture
Performance reviews often get a bad rap. Employees dread them, and leaders hate giving them. Even under the best circumstances, reviews can be tense and time-intensive, so the thought of conducting annual reviews in 2020, an already stressful year, can be daunting.
But the fact is, your employees want feedback, and they don’t get enough of it. As we continue to navigate the unpredictability that the COVID-19 crisis has brought on, it’s important to continue having regular conversations about performance.
What are Performance Reviews?
Performance reviews are an opportunity to share feedback and information with your employees to help them develop professionally or to let them know they’re not meeting expectations. Often, performance reviews are seen as a time to discuss poor performance, but positive feedback is just as important. Many employees are looking for feedback regularly, and 69% say they would work harder if recognized.
Although things have shifted, and goals have moved back, you shouldn’t skip performance reviews this year. These meetings are an opportunity to connect with your employees, provide feedback, and celebrate success. They’re a time to come together to support an individual’s career and professional development. More importantly, these meetings are an opportunity to help individuals feel supported, so they remain productive and moving forward through this challenging time.
How to Tackle Performance Meetings in 2020
Entrepreneur prepping for 2020 performance review
During a year when most of our annual plans changed, it can be hard to know what “success” looks like. Unlike years past, when you had specific goals and metrics to evaluate, 2020 will be a little unusual. So before you plan your meetings this year, there are three things you must consider:
1) Reflect on the purpose
Think about why you’re conducting these reviews. This year has been a year of adaptation. For some, that meant working extra hours as an essential worker; for others, it meant learning to work from home while managing childcare and homeschooling, and for others, it could be just learning to navigate the day-to-day stress of an unpredictable year. With so much left unknown, think of your performance reviews not as an opportunity to weed out poor performers; instead, think of them as an opportunity to strengthen your company culture. Providing clear feedback will help your top performers thrive and can help get poor performers back on track.
2) Identify what you are choosing to evaluate
As previously mentioned, many of the metrics and goals set at the beginning of the year went out the window. So before you meet with your employees, you should be clear on how you plan to measure performance. Perhaps consider evaluating your employee’s performance on their individual growth and learning.
3) Reevaluate the structure and cadence of your reviews
Since many employees will continue working from home well into the foreseeable future, it’s important to consider how you want to structure performance reviews moving forward. Working from home has many benefits; however, some disadvantages include not always feeling the same support an office environment provides. For this reason, you might want to consider more frequent evaluations. If you think of performance in terms of trajectory, it makes sense to have multiple meetings during a year. By allowing yourself time to have an open conversation semi-annually, or even quarterly, you’ll ensure small performance problems don’t manifest into larger problems, requiring much larger course corrections.
As much as performance reviews are about past performance, they are just as important for impacting future performance. These evaluations provide recognition, set a benchmark, and open a feedback loop to drive future performance. If employees are unaware of how they are doing, they won’t know if they have areas to continue or improve. Having a comprehensive review program allows for more transparency, so your employees know where they stand and helps your company thrive long-term.
Performance Meetings Help Companies Thrive
Successful team working together in office
Performance meetings aren’t just for employees; these meetings help ensure you’re keeping the company on track. Done correctly, performance meetings can drive stronger culture by highlighting good performance and providing opportunities for idea-sharing.
The key to a performance meeting is preparation. If you’re conducting an annual review, you should be reflecting on what the individual did in the last year, not in the past few weeks. You will want to focus on highs or lows in performance, contributions, skills, challenges. Below is an easy 4-step process you can follow to conduct a performance review with your employee.
Performance Review Process for 2020
1) Employee Prep
Performance reviews shouldn’t be one-sided. Before you meet with your employee, ask them to conduct a self-evaluation. Ahead of your meeting, identify and share the 2 to 3 areas your employee should continue practicing and 2 to 3 areas where they should improve and ask them to rate their performance. Ask that they rate themselves both numerically (1–5) and ask them to explain why they gave themselves that rating. In addition to having them rate themselves, there should also be a section for them to evaluate you, their leader. Allowing them to share their experience on your working relationship will give you insight into their feelings and buy-in and identify areas where you can provide more support in the future.
2) Supervisor Prep
Before your meeting, you should review your employee’s self-appraisal and conduct your evaluation. With your assessment, you will want to rate your employees on their performance numerically (1–5) and bring in data and results to explain your review. The key here is to focus your feedback on the same 2–3 topics shared with your employee so that you can keep your meeting structured and focused on the most important items.
3) Meeting
Performance review meetings should have three primary outcomes: accountability, feedback, and goal alignment.
1) Accountability
When evaluating your employees, it’s important to hold them accountable to the performance metrics agreed upon by both you and your employee at the beginning of the cycle. (Since goals for the year have likely shifted, this would be where you bring in the new metrics you’ve identified.) During this phase, you want to address both good and poor performance. In addition to their quantitative goals, key areas of performance can include skill development, employee behavior, and overall attitude. If the employee is a manager, they may also have a performance focus around others’ development.
2) Feedback
Once you have benchmarked performance, you can identify the employee’s strengths and weaknesses.
Phrased as areas to continue performance and areas to improve performance, this is a key element of the meeting. It bridges the past performance to future goals and overall development. Here you will discuss the 2 or 3 items for both categories and share the feedback you gathered from your preparation. You will also discuss the evaluation of your working relationship.
3) Future Goal Alignment
As the meeting looks toward future performance, the meeting shifts focus on aligning both the organization’s future needs with the employee’s needs. By aligning future direction, you help the organization achieve its goals while positioning your employee to succeed personally and professionally.
4) Next Steps
Working together, you and your employee will develop an action plan to improve performance and work towards new goals. At the end of your meeting, identify steps to reach the new objectives. Ask your employee to validate what they heard and how they plan to proceed into the next cycle. If there is time, you can break down future goals and assign responsibility for each phase with targeted completion dates for each step. You can also set up meetings to hold each other accountable to those goals throughout the year.
Performance reviews play an important role in both employee development and organizational growth. Despite the rollercoaster of a year we have had, performance reviews shouldn’t be skipped this year; they should be approached differently. Taking this approach can help you highlight your employee’s achievements from the past year, and more importantly, get them realigned and excited for next year.
Whether you’re just starting to grow, or you’ve had a large team for years, it is never too late to start working on your culture. This post provides actionable tips on how small businesses can begin implementing this framework.
If you need more help with your leadership and don’t know where to start, you don’t have to go alone. Schedule a free two-hour session to dig into your business and develop a plan.
Have any more tips for conducting performance reviews in 2020? Let us know down in the comments.
This article originally published on GREY Journal.
This article originally published on GREY Journal: https://discovergrey.com/hustle/grow/how-to-conduct-performance-reviews-in-2020-boost-company-culture/ | https://medium.com/@GREYJournal/how-to-conduct-performance-reviews-in-2020-boost-company-culture-cf0f5cba9ba7 | ['Grey Journal Staff'] | 2020-11-25 16:09:31.519000+00:00 | ['Casey Clark', 'Corporate Culture', 'Cap Casey Clark', 'Cultivate Advisors', 'Grow'] |
Real-World homeless shelters face big challenges against coronavirus Advice | “Right now in the country, there’s not one city that has enough shelter space for all the homeless people in their community,” one advocate said.
As the country heads into winter and it becomes more difficult for people experiencing homelessness to safely remain outdoors, shelters face a major challenge preparing for the increased demand the drop in temperatures will bring while observing restrictions to prevent coronavirus outbreaks.
Homeless shelters have had to adapt this year, with most reducing the number of people allowed inside to limit virus exposure for guests and staff members, said Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.
The coming winter and the expiration of the federal eviction moratorium at the end of the year have advocates concerned that a big wave of people will need shelter in a system that is already strained.
“That influx of people is something we haven’t seen in my lifetime. Both will cause an influx of people into a system that does not have the ability to absorb a really huge increase in the number of individuals,” Whitehead said. “Right now in the country, there’s not one city that has enough shelter space for all the homeless people in their community.”
About 568,000 people experienced homelessness on a single night in the U.S. in 2019, according to findings from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Homelessness has increased in many communities because of the economic downturn created by the pandemic, Whitehead said. A study by a Columbia University professor projected that the number of people without permanent housing could climb by 45 percent this year because of the mass unemployment.
As the numbers climb, shelters have transformed their spaces to meet Covid-19 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reducing capacity, providing personal protective equipment, increasing places for people to wash their hands or use sanitizer and frequently checking temperatures, Whitehead said.
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Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
“It could be an absolute disaster if there wasn’t that rigid adherence to CDC guidelines,” he said.
Some facilities have random or scheduled coronavirus testing, as well, he said.
Some states have turned to hotels, renting rooms for the homeless as a way to separate people in part with funding from the CARES Act, he said.
Los Angeles, Denver and the state Minnesota have even started buying hotels to use for the homeless, he said.
Even so, sporadic outbreaks have been unavoidable.
“Our world has really been turned upside down the last several months,” said Richard Ducatenzeiler, executive director of Franciscan Outreach, the second-largest provider of emergency shelter in Chicago.
This year has been “easily the most challenging” in the 20 years he has worked in homelessness services for himself and his staff, he said.
“You’re fighting an invisible war,” he said.
Early on in the pandemic, Franciscan Outreach reduced capacity at its shelters by 25 percent, giving it the ability to put more space between beds and add partitions to keep people separate, Ducatenzeiler said. It also has been using personal protective equipment, providing incentive pay for staff members and screening shelter guests with temperature checks and medical questionnaires. Rapid coronavirus testing is available on site for any guests who exhibit symptoms, he said.
Recently, the shelter restricted its guests’ activity and travel to only essential work, doctors’ appointments or treatment, he said.
Even so, Franciscan Outreach has had two outbreaks, one of about 20 people in the spring and another of about 55 people in November, he said. In the latest outbreak, the majority were asymptomatic, he said.
While previously it was able to refer cases to a medical respite isolation center, this time it did not initially have capacity to treat the patients from the shelter, so it was forced to figure out how to isolate people within the facility for the first time, he said.
The organization converted one of its three dormitories in the shelter where the outbreak occurred into an isolation space, temporarily moving guests into a school sports complex while it repurposed the space and brought in a deep-cleaning company, he said. In addition, the city gave the organization a separate shower and restroom trailer for people who had the virus, he said.
Beds eventually opened up in the medical isolation wing, and some patients were sent there while about 20 remained in the southern dormitory, Ducatenzeiler said.
Ducatenzeiler said the organization has also lost good, dedicated staff members over the last few months because of concerns about their age or about pre-existing conditions and exposure to the virus.
The strength of his remaining staff members, whom he called “front-line heroes,” gives him the drive to “continue to do our work and work towards our mission, but yes it’s been a tremendous challenge.”
Whitehead said such staffing issues have become a common concern for shelters, as many people who volunteer or work for them may be older or have pre-existing conditions, putting them more at risk.
Bill Russell, executive director of Union Gospel Mission of Portland in Oregon, said the organization had a recent outbreak of about 20 people at a transitional housing and services center where people live together. The group also runs a separate shelter.
It believes the outbreak probably began when a part-time staff worker who was asymptomatic and wearing a mask came in to work a shift in preparation for Thanksgiving, he said.
About 30 men were still living at the facility, 18 of whom tested positive for the virus and were being isolated on a separate floor with its own showers and bathrooms, he said.
Russell said the organization reduced capacity. While the transitional housing center could normally house about 50, its capacity is now down to 30, and the temporary shelter for homeless people has a capacity of 40 with social distancing, down from 80 to 100.
He said people need to take the virus seriously with the colder months coming.
Russell noted a push to convert the Los Angeles Convention Center into a shelter for the homeless as an example for cities seeking to deal with surges in homelessness this winter while trying to house people in a socially distanced way.
“It has high ceilings, it’s a massive space, and they can adequately space people apart,” he said.
He said that as the pandemic continues, shelter providers have a significant role in providing a critical service to a very vulnerable population.
“The first priority is safety, keeping everyone safe and healthy. The next priority is help people who are marginalized with the basic life essentials,” he said. | https://medium.com/@stevenrisson/real-world-homeless-shelters-face-big-challenges-against-coronavirus-advice-b58e355b9f44 | ['Steven Risson'] | 2020-12-05 21:22:18.283000+00:00 | ['Crisis', 'Coronavirus', 'Homeless'] |
Royal tern found with treble hook in its mouth | By Joanna Fitzgerald | Director of the von Arx Wildlife Hospital
A royal tern was among the 61 animals admitted to the von Arx Wildlife Hospital at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida this past week.
A City of Naples Beach Patrol Officer brought the royal tern to the von Arx Wildlife Hospital after it was reported to have been sitting in the same location on the beach for several hours. Staff performed a physical exam that includes checking the entire body for signs of illness or injury.
The tern was significantly underweight, its mentation was noticeably dull and the bird had an obvious increased respiratory effort while resting. The wings and legs showed no apparent signs of injury. Staff checked the tern’s mouth and saw a large treble hook impaled in the tern’s oral cavity just past the trachea. A radiograph revealed the tern had not ingested any other fish hooks and showed the exact placement of the fish hook in the tern’s mouth.
Staff placed the tern in a warm intensive care unit on supplemental oxygen and administered pain medication. Once the medication had taken effect, an in-depth assessment was performed. The hook had caused significant damage and the tern’s weakened condition left euthanasia as the only appropriate treatment option.
This case reinforced the fact that not all injuries are obvious or outwardly apparent. If you suspect an animal is sick or its behavior is abnormal, don’t ignore the situation, offer assistance. If unsure of what to do, call the wildlife hospital staff for guidance.
Royal terns are just one species of shorebird congregating in flocks on the beaches this time of year. Black skimmers, gulls, sandpipers and many other shorebirds make their winter homes on Southwest Florida’s beaches. The increase in the number of birds, along with the increase in people as our seasonal human visitors return to Naples means shorebirds face more human-related challenges, including injuries from angling activities and increased foot traffic along the beaches.
If you or someone you know is an angler, be responsible. Never cast your line if birds are flying nearby. If you accidentally hook a bird, do not cut the line. Reel the bird in carefully but quickly. A bird struggling against a taut line may cause the line to break and allow the bird to fly off entangled in hooks and line.
Covering the bird’s head with a towel once it is reeled in will help calm the bird. If the hook is not deeply embedded, gently push the hook through the skin until the barb is exposed. Clip the barb off using a wire cutter and back the hook out. Step away and allow the bird time to gain its bearings and fly off. If the hook is deeply embedded, or if the hook has been ingested, contain the bird and bring it to the wildlife hospital for immediate medical attention.
Promote coexisting with wildlife in everything you do. Coastal development has resulted in the loss of natural habitat forcing flocks of shorebirds to share beaches heavily visited by people. Oftentimes these birds have migrated hundreds of miles and need to rest and gain strength so be mindful if you are walking the beach; avoid disturbing flocks of resting birds by walking around the flock. Walking through flocks of resting birds forces them to fly and expend energy. A bird that is already in a weakened condition does not have any extra energy to waste.
Most importantly, please, please, please don’t let kids harass birds when visiting the beach. Teach children to respect wildlife and educate them about the harm they are causing when they chase birds.
Recent Releases
Four eastern cottontails, a royal tern, two marsh rabbits, three big brown bats, two red-shouldered hawks, two laughing gulls, an eastern screech owl and a grey squirrel were released this past week.
Opportunities to Help
There are many ways to support the Conservancy. The holidays are right around the corner. If you are shopping online, use the AmazonSmile website operated by Amazon.com.
AmazonSmile has the same shopping features, products and prices as Amazon.com. When you choose the Conservancy of Southwest Florida as your charitable organization, 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible products is donated to the Conservancy.
Every donation supports the Conservancy’s work to protect Southwest Florida’s water, land, wildlife and future. To learn more about the mission of the Conservancy visit our website at www.conservancy.org. | https://medium.com/a-week-inside-the-von-arx-wildlife-hospital/royal-tern-found-with-treble-hook-in-its-mouth-572434aee0dd | ['Conservancy Of Swfl'] | 2020-12-11 18:03:48.285000+00:00 | ['Animals', 'Florida', 'Wildlife', 'Birds', 'Fishing'] |
Use Visual Studio Code on Any Device, Anywhere | Steps to Get It to Work
1. Create (or Login Into) an Account on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Currently, there is a promotion for a 12 month free trial with $300 USD credit to pay for your virtual machines.
How to navigate to virtual machine compute
2. Create a Virtual Machine(VM) on GCP by going to Compute Engine>VM instances>Create, this will create a computer virtually on the cloud.
Virtual Machine configuration
3. Configure your Virtual machine. Your configuration needs to have at least two CPU’s, 7.5GB of memory, and running the latest version of Ubuntu (for me it’s 16.04 LTS).
SSH navigation
4. Connect to the Virtual Machine by clicking the SSH button to the right of your External IP.
5. Download Visual Studio Code 3.3.1-Linux from Coders Github. Coder is a company that helps people save time configuring, securing developer environments. This is what we will be doing to setup Visual Studio Code. Copy this link and paste it in your terminal to start downloading Coder (this link is not the newest version of Visual Studio Code but it should still work perfectly for what we will need it for).
wget https://github.com/cdr/codeserver/releases/download/v3.3.1/code-server-3.3.1-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
6. Extract the files with this tar command:
– tar -vzfx code-server-3.3.1-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
7. To access Coder remember to change the directory by typing in the following:
cd code-server-3.3.1-linux-x86_64
8. Start Visual Studio Code by typing in the following.
sudo ./code-server
Once you’ve entered this command it should output a port and a password
Tip: you can disable the password by adding: – – auth none .
To change the port you could add: – – port {any port number} .
9. Access Visual Studio Code. To access Visual Studio Code you need to first find your external IP. To find it, go to the GCP website and navigate to the Compute Engine>VM instances, there you will find your external IP address. After that go to any locally hosted browsers and type this command in the browser:
http://{external IP}:{port number}
Tip: If you want to rerun Visual Studio Code (if you’ve closed the application) and you’ve already finished the installation of Coder, just open your terminal and skip to step seven.
Now you can program in Visual Studio Code at a beach, a park, or even a plane, you can program anywhere with access to the internet. | https://medium.com/better-programming/use-visual-studio-code-on-any-device-anywhere-79387de95296 | [] | 2020-08-05 22:15:11.268000+00:00 | ['Vscode', 'Remote Work', 'Software Development', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Programming'] |
A Struggle to Find a Work-Life balance | A story with no happy ending.
Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash
Working 10–12 hours straight, every day, for months. Commercial work at the business days, side hustles on the weekends. Working on things that are redundant; that don’t imply any positive change. Frustration. Tears. Conceptual work in the meantime; in your mind. Constant agitation. Anger outbursts. Losing all hope. Depression. Burnout.
I don’t reach much people on Medium. I’m still new to this. Whoever reads this, I want you to know that I’m with you. That I know — and care. That you’re not alone. I’d wish I could give you hope that something can be done. Perhaps. I don’t know it yet. I can only share my limited insight. A perspective of a person who suffers.
If you are one of the lucky ones who don’t experience this all this, keep going! You have probably figured out something that I battle with every day, for years. Something that I can’t really grasp, but I desperately want to change. I wish you all the best, too. May your well-being prosper, and simply be happy. Always be happy. | https://medium.com/@izdwuut/a-struggle-to-find-a-work-life-balance-6a9764cc8a3c | ['Bartosz Konikiewicz'] | 2020-12-21 13:21:59.040000+00:00 | ['Personal Development', 'Emotions', 'Burnout', 'Journal', 'Suffering'] |
Tips for handling filters and facets in ecommerce sites | E-commerce websites or very large websites are facing issues that classic blogs or websites don’t know. Actually, organizing their internal structure is more complicated than just organizing your content in categories, funnels, articles, internal linking and avoiding duplicate content issues for instance. If you own millions of pages with some of them where the only difference is the colour, you cannot indexed and ranked them all well.
It is clearly impossible to make all these pages unique to avoid duplicate content if for example your have:
http://www.mywebsite.com/trousers/brand-blue-legging
http://www.mywebsite.com/trousers/brand-black-legging
http://www.mywebsite.com/trousers/brand-white-legging
http://www.mywebsite.com/trousers/brand-red-legging
Let’s face it. You are not going to make all of these pages unique in their content and ranked well, that is insane and quite impossible. So how to get as many pages as possible index and rank well without getting penalized by Google? Facets and filters are one of the solutions.
What is the difference between facets and filters?
Facets are followable by search engines, which means they are indexed, and are sidebar links. They reach other categories that contain content in relation with specific rankable keywords. They help the visitor to narrow, sort and find products more easily. As they are indexed, you must focus on creating unique content for each page.
Filters, on the other hand, are not indexable because they use AJAX or other tricks to hide from the spiders to avoid duplicate content penalties.
For instance, on a e-commerce site, you may want to index two different kind of bags but not the different features such as brands, colours or size. That is where you can implement facets that filter the different products but do not index them.
The website JohnDoherty gives the following example to illustrate facets and filters:
Are there alternative solutions?
It exists different options to not index your filters. | https://medium.com/oncrawl-seo-tips-tricks/tips-for-handling-filters-and-facets-in-ecommerce-sites-4f1c2f39a786 | [] | 2016-05-06 14:42:58.788000+00:00 | ['Seo Tips', 'SEO'] |
Dynamic Programming. This is part 4 of the RL tutorial… | Chapter 4 — Dynamic Programming
The key concepts of this chapter:
- Generalized Policy Iteration (GPI)
- In place dynamic programming (DP)
- Asynchronous dynamic programming
Starting in this chapter, the assumption is that the environment is a finite Markov Decision Process (finite MDP).
As mentioned in the previous chapter, we can find the optimal policy once we found the optimal value functions, v∗ or q∗
Optimal value functions [ref]
In this chapter we’ll see how we can use DP algorithms to compute the value functions in a slightly different, less intractable way.
The general idea is to take these 2 equations, and turn them into update rules for for improving the approximations of our value functions.
It will make more sense later on.
Policy Evaluation
Policy evaluation means computing the state-value function Vπ for an arbitrary policy π.
The book refers to it as the “prediction problem”.
Bellman equation for Vπ [ref]
where π(a|s) is the probability of taking action “a” in state “s” under policy π.
This is similar to what we saw in the previous chapter.
Consider a sequence of approximate value functions v0, v1, v2, . . .
The initial approximation, v0, is chosen randomly.
Each following approximation is obtained by using the Bellman equation as an update rule:
This algorithm is called iterative policy evaluation.
It basically takes the old value of a state, and replace it with a new value obtained as shown in the equation.
The book refers to this kind of operation a full backup. Since in each iteration, we back up the value of every state once to produce the new approximate value function V(k+1).
Iterative policy evaluation algorithm [ref]
Policy Improvement
Consider some policy π. Would it be better or worse to change it to new policy?
One way to answer this is by taking some action “A” in some state “S”, and then to continue following our policy π.
The idea behind policy improvement is that if it’s better to take action “A” in state “S” once than to follow π all the time — then it is better to select action “A” every time, and that the new policy would in fact be a better overall.
From here it’s natural to consider changes in all states and to all possible actions rather than just a single state to a particular action.
For example, consider the new greedy policy π’:
greedy policy π’ [ref]
This greedy policy π’ takes the action that looks the best (argmax) after one step of lookahead (only the following states), according to Vπ.
This process of taking an old policy, and making a new & improved one by selecting greedy actions with respect to the value function of the original policy, is called policy improvement.
So far in this chapter we only considered deterministic policies — where given a state, the policy gives us an action. But in a stochastic policy π, instead of just getting a single action per state, we are given probabilities, π(a|s), for taking each action, a, in each state, s.
Not to worry though, policy improvement works with in the stochastic case as well.
Policy Iteration
Once a policy π to yield a better policy π’, we can then follow the same steps and improve it again to yield an even better π’’.
This looks like this:
Policy iteration [ref]
Where “E” denotes a policy evaluation, and “I” denotes a policy improvement.
Policy iteration [ref]
This technique of obtaining an optimal policy is called policy iteration
Value Iteration
One disadvantage of policy iteration is that in each iteration we have to go through a policy evaluation. Which in itself is an iterative computation going through the states.
Nevertheless, we can truncate the policy evaluation step in several ways.
As an example, we can stop the evaluation part after just one sweep (one backup of each state).
That algorithm is called value iteration
Note that this is similar to the policy evaluation backup, except for the fact that it requires the max to be taken over all actions.
Value iteration [ref]
Asynchronous Dynamic Programming
A disadvantage of the DP methods is that they require operating over the all the state. If our environment has lots of states, this can be computational expensive.
Asynchronous DP algorithms refers to the idea of updating the value estimates of only a subset of states rather than the entire set of states at every policy evaluation iteration. They simply update the values of states in any order, using the values of other states that are available.
Generalized Policy Iteration
As we’ve seen, policy iteration consists of policy evaluation (in which we make the value function consistent with the current policy) and policy improvement (in which we select greedy actions in our policy).
Generalized policy iteration (GPI) refers to the idea of letting these two processes — policy evaluation and policy improvement, to interact.
GPI works as follows:
We randomly initialize our value function estimates of every state, and start with a random policy.
We then evaluate the values of every state using this policy.
And we update the policy by making greedy action choices, with respect to the value functions (i.e. taking the action that moves you to the state with the highest value).
This can be seen in the following image:
GPI [ref]
GPI loops around until it converges to the optimal policy:
GPI convergence [ref]
Example:
Consider the following environment:
Example Env. [ref]
Here, we receive -1 reward on every state except for the gray boxes.
Starting GPI, we initialize the policy to have random actions (up, left, right, down):
Random Init. [ref]
And then we initialize the value estimates by putting -1 everywhere but the gray boxes:
Then, we simply take the greedy action from each state:
Moving towards state with higher values [ref]
Now we can use the Bellman equations to reestimate the value of each state:
And we repeat this until we reach the optimal policy:
GPI example [ref]
Until next time,
Cheers. | https://towardsdatascience.com/introduction-to-reinforcement-learning-rl-part-4-dynamic-programming-6af57e575b3d | ['Sagi Shaier'] | 2020-11-21 15:57:02.250000+00:00 | ['Rl Tutorial Series', 'Data Science', 'Reinforcement Learning Tutorial Series', 'Machine Learning', 'Reinforcement Learning'] |
Privacy … NOW!. Your pragmatic field manual to privacy… | Privacy … NOW!
The Problem
I had a conversation recently with a very intelligent person whom I respect greatly and has deep knowledge of encryption and privacy-enhancing technology (PETs). We were discussing the idea of digital privacy in the modern age during a dinner meeting and she stated sardonically, “Privacy’s dead.” I tended to agree.
Over the past few weeks as I have socialized in my industry, continued to study and research the various topics I am interested in, and walked around conferences throughout the country, I gave deeper thought to this topic. Perhaps it was inspired by conversations with industry friends about the notion, or perhaps it was inspired by my listening to Bitcoin Privacy & OpSec, or perhaps it was inspired by the small army of large-font-imprinted-on-plain-black-hat clad evangelists wandering around at crypto conferences, or perhaps a combination of the above.
Regardless, I came to the firm realization that Privacy is NOT dead …
It’s just unreasonably difficult to ensure internet privacy for the average person.
And now, I realize, that my very intelligent and knowledgeable colleague is more ‘complacent’ than ‘right’ when it comes to this assertion. Though I don’t blame her. Maintaining any substantial degree of privacy whether it be digital or not, is a difficult, inconvenient, time consuming and often expensive task.
“Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world” — A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto
The Good News:
The notion of data self-sovereignty and digital privacy have become mainstream discourse in many circles due to the increasing awareness for encryption-based technologies over the past several decades. Most notably, this ethos was brought to mainstream awareness over time by the Cypherpunk community and memorialized by Eric Hughes’ A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto. So much so, that there are now broad communities, mature projects, dedicated teams and noble companies committed to helping individuals (re)claim some degree of privacy (this is a good thing!). | https://medium.com/the-capital/privacy-now-1f27bf7b3afe | ['Alex Rabke'] | 2020-02-23 00:44:19.466000+00:00 | ['Privacy', 'Encryption', 'Security', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Technology'] |
It’s Time for Evangelicals to Exit the Cult of Trump | Photo by Tyler B on Unsplash
Here is the good news: God is moving in people’s hearts. I have personally witnessed and heard of many people who’ve repented of their involvement in our national sin of racism. These weren’t folks who climbed on a stage to make some big public pronouncement, just everyday Christians who humbled their hearts and were moved by the Holy Spirit to confess their sins one to another.
I hope this is an encouragement to the African-American Christians who’ve cried out to the Lord for justice for many years and have seen so little fruit. I pray it is also a salve to my Black friends who are hanging on by a thread in diverse churches, discouraged by their leaders’ refusal to advance the cause of racial justice and racial unity in any way that costs them.
God is showing himself strong. He has heard the cries of African-American Christians. This is his season of justice. And he has begun in the hearts of his little ones — those ordinary believers who surrendered all to Jesus, allowed him to open their eyes, and were quick to repent.
I saw it with my own eyes this week at a Kairos seminar of Gateway Church, the hugely influential, neo-charismatic megachurch in Southlake, Texas, led by Pastor Robert Morris.
But, as you might have guessed, there is bad news to counter my good news. The bad news is the many evangelical leaders, including Morris, who won’t let go of the cult of Donald Trump. They drank the Kool-Aid, and now they’re choking on the dregs, grasping onto conspiracy theories and far-fetched schemes to manipulate the electoral process to get their guy in office, democracy be damned.
I forgive these men and women for sipping the Kool-Aid in the first place. I don’t fault them for being disgusted with the Democrats’ pro-choice agenda, along with other matters repugnant to evangelicals. Along comes a tough-talking candidate willing to wave their banner, and not only does he seek the counsel of evangelical leaders, but, for the first time, he opens the door wide to Pentecostal-charismatic folks — who’ve always been treated as second-class evangelicals.
So you’ve got a Paula White, a Robert Morris, and a Bishop Harry Jackson who are granted unprecedented access to power when Trump shocks the world and gets elected in 2016. Not only that, but some of their own charismatic brethren prophesied in advance that it would happen just like this. Now that’s heady stuff. I, too, would have thought I’d stepped right into the will of God.
Then that president begins to implement parts of the evangelical agenda with fearless zeal. He yanks that funding for Planned Parenthood! He stands up for religious freedom in Turkey, China, Iran! All good things, celebrated by evangelicals everywhere.
But somewhere along the way, you start hearing from your Black brothers and sisters that this president’s frequent statements about people of color, immigrants, and folks with disabilities are deeply offensive. These criticisms grow louder as the president establishes a track record in public, private, and on his infamous Twitter account for making these ugly, sometimes racist comments.
Yet here you are, inside the halls of power for the very first time. You see the president as a man, flawed like all of us, but possessing great strengths. Plus, he’s waving your flag as an evangelical!
You brush off the concerns of African-American Christians — it’s not as bad as you think. He’s really not racist. I know him personally. He loves America so much. And you have good company in brushing off their concerns, because that is what white evangelicals have done for decades. They have minimized the concerns of African-Americans, so you do too.
Then an atrocity takes place in broad daylight, on camera, in the eyes of many witnesses, and for a moment you acknowledge what your Black brothers and sisters have been trying to tell you for so long — that this beautiful nation still nurtures, enables, and perpetuates the hideous sin of racism.
You see George Floyd crying out for his mother, and you are moved. You even put on sackcloth for a day and lament that there are a still few bad apples out there, but you turn a blind eye when your president pours fuel on the flames of public protests, and more people die. And more hearts are crushed by his reckless words, which you are quick to excuse.
Then your prominent prophets, few of whom are Black, affirm your every hope and dream, ensuring you that this president will be re-elected in 2020 by the sovereign hand of God.
At this point, a few lonely voices are questioning whether this president has become an idol to white evangelicals. But you deflect them, because they are not the established voices. Plus, having access to power feels so right, so good — surely you must be walking in the favor of God!
Then an amazing thing happens, such as this nation has never seen before. Those same African-Americans you ignored rise up in the midst of a deadly pandemic and vote against Donald Trump. They can’t stand one more day under his oppressive leadership. From coast to coast, they cast millions of ballots, in many cases by mail, since they as a people are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 crisis. It really is that bad, they say, with virtually one voice.
Then another incredible thing happens: Those mail-in ballots turn the tide of an extremely close election in places like Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta. Before your eyes, those ballots, counted last, change the entire presidential race. Let me interpret this for you prophetically: God hears the cries of his African-American children, as well as the sick, the oppressed, and the vulnerable. The first will be last, and the last will be first. It’s a divine principle woven through Scripture, and it happens right here!
Now God knows that you honored our president, even loved him. You were right to respect President Trump and pray for him, and it was wrong for some of my brothers and sisters to mock him. But God never asked you to make him your idol.
Your presence in the halls of power was for one purpose: to be a witness of Jesus Christ. That’s what the great court prophets of the Bible did, men and women like Nathan, Jeremiah, Micaiah, and Huldah. These prophets knew their real king, and their allegiance was solely to him. They never let themselves get impressed with political power, because they knew at any moment they could be called upon to speak God’s truth at the cost of their lives. They took great care to walk in humility of heart, knowing any word of prophecy to the kings of this world could be their last.
Let me walk this back to the present day. My fellow Spirit-filled believers, these blind white prophets have led us astray. Please forgive them. Their fathers were blind too. They were never willing to face the stain of racism right here in our precious churches, and in our wayward human hearts.
I have a word for evangelical leaders: It is time to exit the cult of Trump. Stop the Trump-signaling from the pulpit. You know what I mean: those little comments about election conspiracies, mask-wearing, and COVID-minimizing that you insert in your messages, even at sacred moments, letting your fellow cult members know you’re still keeping the faith. Those comments are offensive. They are from your flesh. And we see it.
Donald Trump lost the election fair and square. It won’t be overturned. Mark my words — this is God’s season of justice. We have just a few weeks of grace to pivot and embrace his agenda for the vulnerable, the hurting, the sick, the marginalized, and the dispossessed in this nation and the world. The people our Bible speaks of continually.
This isn’t the time to do one last dance around the idol.
Lives are at stake.
Our racially divided Church is at stake.
Repent and turn to your true King while there is still time.
Julie Lyons is a professional journalist with more than 30 years of experience. She has also served in Christian ministry and is passionate about racial unity in the Church. Read more of Julie Lyons’ writing at julielyons.com. | https://medium.com/@julieblyons/its-time-for-evangelicals-to-exit-the-cult-of-trump-edb9c9f15a9f | ['Julie Lyons'] | 2020-11-20 19:33:44.828000+00:00 | ['Prophecy', 'White Evangelicals', 'Racial Justice', 'Donald Trump', 'Evangelicals And Trump'] |
E-Commerce Testing: Functional Test Cases for Online Stores | How to start an online store that drives sales?
There are 5 major functional requirements for e-commerce websites that define the winner of the market competition. The list involves speed, ease of use, accessibility, mobile-friendliness, and personalization.
Software testing allows assessing whether the product meets the quality criteria with each of these requirements — exactly what is required to maintain a seamless online shopping experience and win over conversion.
In this article, we’ll focus on functional testing of online stores and how to write functional test cases. It is a must-read for everyone who wants to verify that their software actually works.
What is functional testing?
Functional testing is a group of testing types whereby the product gets tested against the functional requirements. Its primary goal is to simulate the way customers will use the system and identify problems — such as missing functionality, UI errors, or integration issues — that could ruin the user experience. Non-functional testing, on the other hand, focuses on different software attributes like usability, performance, and security.
Generally, functional testing may involve particular challenges. First of all, it needs careful planning that would cover all the possible user journeys — even unusual or non-obvious ones. Next, there is always a large number of detailed tests to perform as they should cover a specific user flow in its entirety. Finally, test analysis. It is sometimes required to verify that actions on the frontend have triggered the correct result on the backend — like making sure that new orders reach the backend system when we test an online store.
Functional testing can be done manually or with automated test scripts. Test automation brings lots of benefits, including tests can be run 24/7 without human intervention and they don’t make errors — this means the whole process will be completed in a much shorter time. The QATestLab team of experienced testers and QA automation engineers help business with both approaches and guarantees the maximum quality for their software.
How to write functional test cases for e-commerce software
A test case is a set of preconditions, procedures (inputs or actions), and expected results used to determine whether a system works correctly. Test cases should have the following structure: a brief statement of purpose, description of precondition, actual test case inputs, expected outputs, description of expected postconditions, and execution history (date/person in charge/product version/pass or fail result).
Use our e-commerce software functional testing checklist to ensure the full coverage for the product:
Registration and User Profile Management Add-to-Cart/Add-to-Wishlist Functionality Checkout Functionality Order Management System User Permissions Front-End/Back-End Integration Promotions
E-commerce Software Testing: Functional Test Case Example #1
E-commerce Software Testing: Functional Test Case Example #2 | https://medium.com/@qatestlab/e-commerce-testing-functional-test-cases-for-online-stores-6adb2cd12010 | [] | 2020-12-28 14:55:54.154000+00:00 | ['Test Case', 'Ecommerce', 'Website Testing', 'Software Testing'] |
Diabetes and Exercise — Why the Connection is Vitally Important | Almost twenty-one million people in the US are living with diabetes and an estimated 6.2 million of these people don’t know that they have diabetes because they are undiagnosed. People with diabetes, on average, have medical expenditures that are 2.3 times higher than non-diabetics, according to the American Diabetes Association. Another study in Population Health Management estimates that diabetes is costing our nation $218 billion dollars in health care every year. Yet, most diabetes cases are preventable or reversible through exercise, weight loss, and healthy living.
I find myself wondering. What if the 6.2 million people who were undiagnosed knew they had diabetes? Or the estimated 57 million Americans with Pre-Diabetes were educated on how they could mange their health and avoid becoming a Type 2 Diabetic?
Being diagnosed as Pre-Diabetic does not mean that Type 2 diabetes is inevitable. If you lose weight and increase your physical activity, you can prevent or delay diabetes and even return your blood glucose levels to normal (ACSM 2006). (See sidebar for diabetes terms defined)
This is a very important point that many people do not understand — if you exercise and lose weight you can prevent or delay diabetes.
Do you know the signs of diabetes? Take a look around you. Do you see any signs of diabetes in your friends and family right now? (See sidebar for common signs of diabetes) It is very possible that there are people that are diabetic (or will become diabetic) around you every day. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in three Americans may develop diabetes in their lifetime. Those statistics are staggering and PREVENTABLE for most.
What about Type 2 diabetics that have been diagnosed? What if we educated them that through diet and exercise they could reduce their medication or eliminate it? What would this do for our health care crisis? I know that we’d first have to break through many myths, magic solutions, and limiting beliefs. The pharmaceutical companies won’t be happy with me letting this secret out either. But, what the heck, our health care system is in a crisis! Our Nation is sick! There, I said it. So let’s get down to the business of taking some personal responsibility for our health.
Many of you who are trying to understand diabetes and take responsibility for your health immediately have several questions:
o Should you cut out sugar?
o Is your weight putting you at risk?
o If you are skinny, you don’t have to worry, right?
o Can exercise and diet really help YOU?
o How do I control blood sugar levels?
And then there are the issues that you might not even know to ask about:
o Having diabetes for more than five years can increase your likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease
o Regular exercise can make you more sensitive to insulin, which can reduce medication dosages
First, let’s talk about insulin, the prime medication that keeps diabetics functioning and then you can see the answers clearly to your questions.
How does insulin work? Insulin is the main hormone that controls the entry of blood sugar from the blood stream into the cells of the body to be used as energy. How does exercise influence the insulin hormone? Exercise has an insulin-like effect on the body. When exercising, your muscles require a steady flow of sugar to keep contracting and keep you moving. Exercise increases the rate at which your muscles take up the sugar from your blood stream; so exercise acts the same as insulin by emptying the excess sugar in your blood stream into your muscles. This action, therefore, lowers your blood sugar. One twenty minute walk a day can lower glucose levels by twenty points.
Here is a great example to explain insulin’s function in your body. Think of insulin as a bus for a moment. Glucose (sugar) is the passenger. There are two types of diabetics. Type 1 diabetics manufacture no insulin (or have no bus), which, according to the Center for Disease Control, is 5% — 10% of all diagnosed cases. The second type (Type 2), have insulin resistance, which means the bus is there, but it is not picking up passengers and, there are less buses running the route. According to the Center for Disease Control, Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90%-95% of all diagnosed cases.
When you exercise, your muscles work harder than usual and require more fuel than usual; so your muscles send out their own buses to pick up the sugar in the bloodstream and carry it back to the muscles. Working muscles take over for insulin and (for Type 2 diabetics) they can even show the buses (insulin) how to work again (pick up passengers).
Exercising has many benefits for a diabetic. It increases glucose uptake by the cells, improves insulin sensitivity by improving glucose metabolism and reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. Reduction of blood glucose levels improves insulin sensitivity by making it more effective. Exercise may reduce dosage requirements or need for medication and improve the ability to lose and/ or maintain body weight if combined with an intuitive diet. (See sidebar for Safe Exercise Check List)
There are many popular myths about diabetes. Here are a few that I hear often.
Myth #1 — Diabetics can’t eat sugar or sweets and the only reason they have diabetes is because they ate too much sugar. Yes, simple carbohydrates or sweets do raise your blood glucose levels but if you eat them in moderation and make them part of your meal plan, you can safely eat an occasional sweet
Myth #2 — If I’m skinny I’m fine. Diabetes is only a disease that obese people get.
Not completely true, 20% of people with Type 2 Diabetes are slim. Yes, being obese does put you at risk for Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The key thing to remember is that there is not an atypical “diabetes” body type, genetic trait, race, age or gender. Type 2 diabetes is caused by lifestyle choices and diabetes is a disease to take seriously.
Myth #3 — There is no natural remedy for Diabetes. If I take insulin or insulin sensitivity drugs I can continue with my same lifestyle choices and be alright. Well there is a natural remedy, it is called exercise and balanced eating. You can keep a tight control on diabetes by monitoring your glucose levels, combining exercise with balanced eating, or use medication.
Myth #4 — Well I’m only borderline and 170 mg/dl blood sugar reading is normal for me. You may feel normal being a diabetic but high glucose levels are not safe. There is no such thing as borderline. You either are a diabetic or you are not a diabetic. This is a serious disease that requires you to take personal responsibility for your body. There is serious health complications associated with diabetes, especially when you are stressing your body with high blood sugar levels. You have to start to make lifestyle changes so that you can live a quality life over the long term.
Myth #5 — Exercise! What can that do for me? Blah! Blah! Healthy Lifestyle Blah! Yeah, Yeah, I know. The American Diabetic Association recommends 150 minutes of exercise a week. This is exercise of 20–60 minutes, in continuous sessions, 3–5 times a week. The Diabetes Prevention Study revealed that exercising for a total of two hours a week can reduce the risk of developing diabetes by 50%, that can be as little as 20 minutes, 6 days a week. Take a short, ten minute walk before and after work and you can prevent diabetes or lower your glucose levels.
The fact is, over 90% of diabetes cases are preventable and can be maintained with some natural remedies such as exercising, healthy eating, and/or combined with low doses of medication without tapping into our health care system to the tune of $218 billion. Start gradually and exercise a little everyday until you build up to the recommended guidelines. Eat a balanced, healthy diet and lose the all or nothing approach. Get educated about your disease, determine what your beliefs are about diabetes and make lifestyle changes starting today. (See sidebar Want to Learn More)
Diabetes is serious but you can do something about it!
Side Bars:
Diabetes Terms Defined
o Type 1 = Auto immune disease that destroys insulin producing cells in the pancreas. The body cannot manufacture its own insulin because the beta cells of the pancreas that are responsible for insulin production are destroyed. About 5–10% of all diagnosed cases (CDC 2005)
o Type 2 = body loses its sensitivity to insulin so the body’s cells are unable to utilize insulin properly (also knows as insulin resistance or adult onset diabetes). About 90% — 95% of all diagnosed cases (CDC 2005)
o Pre-Diabetes = If you have a fasting plasma glucose test (FPG) and your levels are 100 mg/dl to 125 mg/dl you are diagnosed as showing signs of becoming a diabetic unless you make some lifestyle changes
o Gestational Diabetes = When pregnancy hormones interfere with the mothers insulin, causing glucose levels to rise. This is a form of insulin resistance that in most cases ends with the birth of the child.
o Metabolic Syndrome = A combination of medical disorders that increases the risk factors of developing cardiovascular disease, obesity, hypertension, low high-density lipoprotein (HDL), high cholesterol levels and elevated plasma triglyceride levels.
o Hypoglycemic = abnormally low blood sugar levels which could be caused by excessive insulin, or your diet. Signs would be: trembling or shakiness, nervousness, rapid heart beat, increased sweating, headache, impaired concentration or attentiveness, unconsciousness and coma
o Hyperglycemic = abnormally high blood sugar levels. Signs would be: frequent urination, great thirst, nausea, abdominal pain, dry skin, disorientation, labored breathing, and drowsiness.
Do you know the signs of diabetes? Some very telltale signs include:
o frequent thirst, hunger and urination
o weight loss
o fatigue
o crankiness
o frequent infections
o blurred vision
o cuts/ bruises that are slow to heal
o tingling and numbness in hands and feet
o recurring skin, gum and bladder infections
Safe Exercise Check List
o Get physician clearance before starting any exercise program
o Test your blood glucose level before exercise, immediately after exercise, and again two hours after exercise
o Follow general guidelines for a safe exercise session; warm-up, cool-down, stretch, adhere to an intensity of Type 1 (3 to 5 RPE) and Type 2 (3 to 6/7 RPE), drink plenty of water
o Wear well-fitting, well cushioned, supportive shoes
o Wear polyester or cotton polyester socks so that your feet stay dry and minimize trauma to the foot
o Avoid strenuous, high-impact or static activity unless specifically approved by your doctor
o Carry a carbohydrate snack with you of 10–15 grams of carbohydrate
o Wear identification that tells others you have diabetes in case of a hypoglycemic response http://www.n-styleid.com
o Know and monitor signs of exercise induced hypoglycemia
o Do not exercise if 250 mg/ dl blood glucose levels or if you have ketones in your urine
o If you have autonomic neuropathy, peripheral neuropathy, neuropathy, retinopathy or any other related conditions to diabetes, you must get a doctors approval before starting an exercise program. These conditions require specific and strict guidelines.
o Exercise with a partner until you know your response to exercise
o Always check your feet before and after exercise for lesions
o Drink plenty of water. A good rule is to take a mouthful or two at least every fifteen minutes
Want to Learn More? Additional Resources,CLICK HERE | https://medium.com/@ajay4jeez/diabetes-and-exercise-why-the-connection-is-vitally-important-41ccc3f6ea89 | [] | 2020-09-14 15:44:01.533000+00:00 | ['Diabetes', 'Diet', 'Weight Loss', 'Keto', 'Health'] |
Traditional learning ? | The ways that how we learn to write when someone is studying for a basic education tends to be very inconsistent, the majority of teachers at this stage tend to only focus on the grammar, and the time to reach a higher education, the way in which we write has no sense, or at least the first few times, but, what leads us to improve this tool so important? Practice? Corrections? Strategies? Any kind of learning? There is not any strategy because everybody learns in a different way. Some people say that reading and writing are linked hand-in-hand, since they are closely related, however, what about those people that don’t like to read? Starting from a premise that causes concern, tends to be an unresolved question.
Considering that each person has a different way of learning is fundamental to the learning of a teacher, but then, why are we all forced to read? It is understood that it must comply with demands and standards at the global level with the compression reading and the writing, but, what about those people who are good at writing without the need of picking up a book? As a teacher, believing in the evolution of the education is possible, recently they published a piece of news that was quite interesting, which was about human libraries, or this place that the students instead of consulting a book, they consult a person who could give a response about the topic that is being queried or gives the information that they want to know, however, still existing the problem of the writing in the people who does not write.
To believe that you “have” a standard of writing in the university is extremely naive. Teachers have the task to recover and improve the writing, but I do not consider creativity because many do not possess, others are too afraid of showing it or simply do not like to use it, however to do that the students have interest in writing tends to be one of the biggest challenges.
Today, writing as a habit has decreased and it is increasingly difficult for young people to acquire a taste for it. For this writing habit to occur again, you have to leave certain distractors, the bewilderment of the fast-paced world and be able to take a moment to visualize everything in the environment, reflect a little on the small world in which you live. After this, it is possible start with a few notations of daily life, it could be the form of transportation, the way in which daily activities are carried out, etc.
Starting with small annotations until you can write paragraphs, you will see that it is possible can produce more texts. Stay calm, take the necessary time is essential, start with 5 minutes a day and increase every time you have free time, in the same way, read various topics and you can expand the lexicon, this will help to understand different texts, you will be able to see which of them attract attention, will open a perspective on the world and can be continued with one of the most comforting and intimate habits.
Picking up strategies, teach them and implement them should be only one tool to help students learn to write, because writing is not only implemented from a methodological part, writing should be practiced again and again, we should be conscious about that. The challenge of the teachers to recognize the shortcoming that students can have and find the way that they can improve the writing in a significant way. | https://medium.com/the-matl-upb-chronicles/traditional-learning-a6dc451c5dea | ['Carolina Gomezn'] | 2020-03-24 17:41:20.442000+00:00 | ['First Post', 'Matlupb'] |
The Breeze | Photo by Dane Deaner on Unsplash
I call to the breeze
I ask that she take me
Down to the river
Or
Up the east side of the mountains
She whispers back inaudibly
I wander both near and far
Trying to catch her words
I plead with her and still
I cannot hear a reply | https://medium.com/the-pom/the-breeze-b08f80598ed1 | ['Luisito Gavara'] | 2020-08-11 11:33:38.378000+00:00 | ['Poem', 'Pom', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poetry'] |
Efficiency of the Shotput Packing Algorithm | Abstract: The Shotput packing algorithm is used at present for determining the best box size for an order we receive into our system. Through a series of testing the accuracy of the Shotput box packing algorithm against the pyShipping packing algorithm, it was determined Shotput packs significantly and consistently more efficiently than pyShipping.
Note: The links in this article no longer work. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.
Context:
Though the algorithms being tested are specifically looking at their box packing algorithm efficiency, the problem lies in the greater context of selecting the correct box for shipment. After originally implementing pyShipping into the Shotput codebase and discovering inaccuracies, I was tasked with writing a new packing algorithm. I wrote the box packing algorithm in the context of needing to achieve the following goals:
Determine the smallest box and with fewest number of parcels required to pack and ship a predetermined set of products/items.
Reduce the number of items needing to be packed into the last parcel, thereby allowing it to be repacked into a smaller box.
Maintain and improve upon the speed and efficiency of a generating details for a shipment
We use the algorithm for every order that goes into the system. We take boxes available to a team — some teams we work with have specific boxes, they use, where as others use boxes available to everyone — from there we send each box accompanied by all of the products for an order through a weeding out process.
To cut down on runtime and the number of boxes we need to look for, we check in a speed optimal way that all the items with their given dimensions will fit into a box. For each of the acceptable boxes we send the products through the packing algorithm, which returns for each box, an arrangement of how the products will be organized into different boxes. Once we have determined which box can be used which both requires the fewest number of parcels to pack and is the smallest in volume relative to others that require the same number of parcels to be packed, this box is selected as the box for the order. Because there can be a variety of sizes of products shipped, and the products have been packed, selecting for the largest products in the first parcels, often the last parcel may contain fewer or smaller products, so we resend the contents of the last box through the algorithm to select the smallest box which will fit all the products.
By reducing the number of parcels, or the size of the box required, we can reduce shipping cost and our environmental impact of each order we ship out, while upholding and improving customer and client experiences.
Methods:
In comparison to pyShipping, an open source python library for 3D bin packing:
What was tested:
Number of bins of a certain dimension that were required to pack a set of items
When the number of bins is equal, the number of items packed in the last bin
Runtime
How it was tested:
I tested using three types of datasets:
Large — a large range of box and item size, and a large number of items packed
Medium — a medium range of box and item sizes — close in dimensions, and a moderate number of items packed
Small — a small range of box and item sizes — closest in dimensions, small number of items packed
Through use of the python random library I generated boxes with random dimensions and a random number of items with random dimensions. I then sent the data through both the packing algorithms (pyShipping and Shotput). The number of parcels required and the number of items in the last box (with a qualifier for when all items fit into a single box) were recorded.
I repeated those steps 10,000 times and retrieved the packing and efficiency data. Though 10,000 trials with 3 different data sets may seem excessive, as bin-pack is an NP-Hard problem, I wanted my results to be unconditionally evident, significant, and repeatable.
To test the processing time, I used the dimension ratios from test case 2, and incrementally increased the number of items packed with 1000 trials at each item set size. Rather than using a random range of the number of parcels, like I do for trials 1, 2, and 3, I use a set, hard coded number of items.
According to their readme, pyShipping has been optimized to have overall similar speed as David Pisinger’s 3D bin packing solution in C. PyShipping was discovered to be a little slower and a little more accurate than Pisinger’s algorithm, from which we can deduce that the speed and accuracy of our algorithm relative to a third algorithm. Through pyShipping’s research they determined that they on average use fewer parcels to pack 500 items. Because I use randomly selected numbers of items to be packed, with a wide range, I cannot use the same metric. However, I gathered statistical data on the number of parcels saved through use of our algorithm vs pyShipping, as well as the percent fewer of the overall number of parcels needed. From that we can deduce relative to pyShipping’s success against Pisinger’s, the success of Shotput’s.
Results:
For the sake of using only data which can be interpreted, we can exclude in our statistical analysis the cases where all items for both algorithms were packed into a single box, though it will remain reported.
Test Case 1 (Large):
Inputs:
Box size: 50–400 units for each dimension
Item size: 1–50 units for each dimension
Items packed: 100–1000 items
The Shotput algorithm improved upon pyShipping in the number of parcels require to pack the same randomly sized items 77.93% of the time. All instances of a tie in the number of parcels required, resulted in either all items fitting into one box for both algorithms, or Shotput packing fewer items in the last box — and therefore is more efficient. If we exclude the ties where all items fit into a single parcel, we are left with 8416 times that we performed better, and 18 where pyShipping outperformed Shotput, or in other words 99.78% of the time, the Shotput algorithm packed more efficiently.
In the cases where pyshipping performed better, all were instances where the pyShipping required 1 box, where the Shotput algorithm fit all but one item into the first box. (Example 138 items to be packed, pyShipping fits all in one bin, Shotput fits 137 in one bin, and the last item in a second bin.
Test Case 2 (Medium):
Inputs:
Box size: 100–200 units for each dimension
Item size: 20–100 units for each dimension
Items packed: 20–100 items
This test case tests boxes that were closer in size to the items being packed with less variability and fewer number of items. Shotput packed using fewer parcels 97.8% of the time, and packed more efficiently — including fewest parcels in the last bin, and excluding instances where they were all in one bin 99.55% of the time. .21% of the time there was a tie, and .45% of the time pyShipping performed better.
The large mean and median are an indicator of the large average number of parcels needed to pack an average of 60 items.
Test Case 3 (Small):
Inputs:
Box size: 100–200 units for each dimension
Item size: 40–100 units for each dimension
Items packed: 10–30 items
This test case is closest to how Shotput’s algorithm is currently used. For this case I used smaller boxes and smaller items. As a result, there were more ties, and more variation. 85.88% of the time, Shotput used fewer number of parcels to pack the same items, where .58% of the time, pyShipping required fewer parcels. 92.24% of the time the Shotput algorithm packed more efficiently, while pyShipping packed more efficiently 3.2% of the time.
Time Component:
The importance of the time component was placed lowest on the evaluation of the two algorithms as for our immediate needs at Shotput — which is to say our immediate needs require precision over scalability — however I think it is important to mention that pyShipping’s time component is faster across the board. For packing of fewer parcels — which is closest to our real world application, the difference is calculable but negligible from a user stand point, however as complexity increases, as does the disparity between pyShipping and Shotput time components.
From from an exponential best fit of both algorithms, we see that Shotput increases at a slightly higher exponential rate than pyShipping, but also if we were to say `y = cx^p` where p is 1.8 and 1.7 respectively, the linear component, c, is nearly 4x greater in Shotput’s algorithm. As we also know Pisinger’s algorithm runs slightly faster than pyShipping, these results leave Shotput something to shoot for as we continue to build and adapt the algorithm and put greater emphasis on scalability.
Of note: When I tested the medium box and item size ranges with 500 items to be packed, the mean percent parcels saved was 53.2% with a standard deviation of 5.4% while the average number of parcels saved was 56, with a standard deviation of 25. Over all 1000 trials, Shotput packed fewer parcels 100% of the time.
Conclusions:
The results were very clear. After compiling the data from 28,230 trials over test cases 1, 2, and 3, (30,000 trials minus ties where all items were packed in one bin for both algorithms), Shotput’s box packing algorithm successfully required fewer parcels for the same items 92.5% of the time, and packed more efficiently 97.0% of the time. The z-score on these results on a binary distribution is 156 with a standard deviation of 86.6. In other words, we can say with off the chart certainty that the Shotput shipping algorithm is more precise and more accurate that pyShipping.
In our current phase of development, and the current use cases (represented by test cases 2 and 3) of the Shotput box packing algorithm, the algorithm is fast, and from a user stand point does not preform badly relative to pyShipping. Both algorithms have a Big O better than O(n)^2, which is far better than a brute force approach at O(n)^6. Because Shotput scales at a slightly higher exponential rate and a noticeably greater linear rate, as complexity increases, as does the difference in runtimes. This data can be used to entice the next stage in optimization and development, while maintaining accuracy.
From the statistical analysis, we see the most striking success from test case 2, at 41% fewer parcels on average used with the Shotput algorithm vs the pyShipping algorithm. Test cases 1 and 3 show the largest standard deviations, however from further analysis of results we can see that the data is skewed. In test case one, the mean (3.68) number of parcels saved is significantly higher than the median (2) while the median percent parcels saved is 50%, vs the mean of 45%. This is an indicator that a large portion of the test cases resulted in 1 or 2 parcels being packed by both Shotput and pyShipping, resulting in a greater percentage difference for fewer parcels different. The mean being so high is an indicator that in the dataset there is a wide range of how many parcels are required for different trials. In general the large standard deviations are an indicator of wide ranges of results, but as we seen by the low number of successes of pyShipping in outperforming Shotput, where the median parcels saved is always lower than the mean, that wide range is in favor of the Shotput algorithm.
Note: additional tests were run with 1,000 trials for num parcels averages at 10, 100, 200, and 300 with small item and box dimensions
One thing that isn’t tested in the remaining volume in the final parcel, which when implemented into the larger context of the our use case, will affect the overall success. As in the test cases, all the products are of random dimensions, depending on which items are placed in the final parcel could be significant. The Shotput algorithm iterates through the items to pack from largest to smallest, resulting in the smallest items which won’t fit in the other parcels in the final parcel, but without additional testing, we do not know the volumes left available in the final parcel by the pyShipping algorithm, and it is possible that in cases of ties where one algorithm packs more items into the last parcel, the other has an overall better efficiency in a tie.
Because there are checks ahead of time for boxes that will not be useable, we are able to limit the number of times the algorithm needs to be hit per use case. With improvements in packing efficiency this significant, the increased runtime for a more accurate result is favorable to a quicker but less efficient option. In summary, the Shotput algorithm performs significantly better at efficient packing than pyShipping’s algorithm, from which we can deduce it’s performance is also more efficient than Pisinger’s algorithm.
Documentation for using the Shotput Box Packing API can be found at https://warehousing.shotput.com/developers/box-docs. | https://medium.com/the-chain/efficiency-of-the-shotput-packing-algorithm-a690e914d49c | ['Stephanie Hutson'] | 2018-02-25 17:26:08.662000+00:00 | ['Algorithms', 'Software', 'Logistics', 'Startup', 'Data Science'] |
How #EndSARS Became The Protest Nigerians Unite To Defend | Image by AFP
How #EndSARS Became The Protest Nigerians Unite To Defend
To the very end
As a Nigerian-American, I’ve had long stretches of uncertainty about where I comfortably belong. It really is the sob story about how white invaders from God’s country, willfully violated the human right’s clause, and massacred cultural landscapes, rendering Black victims powerless for an eternity.
There’s also the tribal unrest, that erupted some years after Nigeria was granted what’s commonly described as “Independence,” when in truth, the crippling shackles of colonialism were never removed.
The stronghold of British imperialism left the deep-rooted scarring of self-hate.
That self-mutilation through the incurable disease of skin bleaching, ignited the damaged psyche that pollutes what it means to be Nigerian, since those former attributes were redefined by the traitorousness of Christianity and the greed of so-called missionaries.
It was always customary for young Nigerian students to seek higher education abroad, for the purpose of gaining “superior” knowledge from the white man, who taught them it was mandatory to learn from their captors to reassure further captivity.
My parents were no different, and promptly followed the trends of the sixties and seventies with the itinerary that deposited them in the United States for university studies, and during those academic years, they married and had kids.
We eventually left America and relocated to Lagos when I was about eight, which looking back, wasn’t the best age for that semi-traumatic uprooting, that introduced me to vastly surroundings that constantly challenged my ability to adjust.
My childhood was defined by the gangster era of the eighties in the thriving, former capital city of Lagos.
The polarizing experience featured back-to-back military coups, and the potency of a fractured government, that operated on the blueprint of bribery and corruption, funded by foreign powers with heavy interest in the business of oil, and zero concern for the environmental hazards that still pollute areas like the Niger Delta.
The strangling themes of a former British colony matches other territories with similar history, and it usually includes strong evidence of systemic oppression, and the societal abuse that’s fostered by a brutish dictatorships, enhanced by the normalized lack of law and order.
Nigeria has never had anything that resembles law enforcement because that would mean the presence of accountability across the board — from top to bottom.
And since freedom of speech was never a thing, considering how notable voices like journalist Dele Giwa and writer/activist Ken Saro-Wiwa paid the high price for those privileges, it’s always been a deadly risk to function as a justice seeker in Nigeria.
But things are starting to shift in a direction that I never expected, but may have fantasized about.
The disconnect with my homeland wasn’t inspired by seasoned contemptuousness. Although I can’t deny that I resent how nothing evolved for the betterment of trapped citizens, who would rather drown in the Mediterranean Sea or be sold into modern day slavery in Libya, in order to escape the living hell that colonialism designed and invaders abandoned.
The newly-minted #EndSARS isn’t the first of its kind to originate from the activism of Nigerians both at home and abroad, who are sick and tired of the bullshit stemming from all branches of the police force, and are committed to raise their voices — come what may.
This time, it’s highlighting the familiar, systemic failure that police brutality manifests with unlawful killings of innocent Nigerians, who are at the mercy of the ruthless antics of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
SARS is notorious for apprehending, torturing, and murdering their captives without issue.
Protests have been initiated in my home city of Lagos, and other parts of the world, with urgent pleas and non-negotiable requests for a more humane approach to governing, that acknowledges basic human rights, and vows to establish a society where everyone is treated equally.
In scenes that are ironically reminiscent of what we witness in the States, those who’ve taken to the clogged streets are being physically assaulted by police, and even tear gassed before getting arrested, and carted away to God’s knows where.
The police in Nigeria have always been horrendous, and resistant to the notion of honorably performing job duties, without the bribes that empower the belief system that you can’t be found guilty, if you shell out the cash guaranteeing freedom.
The police in Nigeria have always been street thugs and out-of-control scoundrels, who will assist in kidnapping plots, especially the incidents that occur at international airports, hosting arrivals of the offspring of evidently wealthy Nigerian parents.
The issue of police brutality in Nigeria is not new, but what is hopeful is the resounding push back orchestrated by those who dare because they care, and will loudly let everyone know about it.
#EndSARS quickly became the hashtag that won’t quit, until the global massive movement gets closer to the approved outcome, and prominent figures of Nigerian descent are using platforms to speak truth to power.
Amnesty International confirmed that even though SARS was temporarily disabled, the uncooperativeness and inaction of the Nigerian government when it comes abolishing the criminalized unit will prevent the rightful end to this human rights violation.
Thanks to the amplified mechanics of social media, along with the unyielding activists on the ground and in heralded spaces, Nigeria’s controversial president, Muhammadu Buhari recently confirmed the disbanding of SARS, along with the declaration that this is the beginning of much-needed police reform.
However, it’s hard not to be reminded of the deceptiveness of a former military head of state, who not long ago, installed another dictatorship after one of many military coups that erupted in Nigeria during the exhaustive decade of the eighties.
The era of Buharism (1983–1985) was fueled by the introduction of his regime’s poor attempt to reduce lawlessness and boost public morale, through War Against Indiscipline, (WAI), a polarizing initiative that swiftly turned into the illustration of an authoritarian’s graphic handbook.
The youth of those days suffered the heaviest blows with inhumane punishments that didn’t fit accusations of habitual truancy or cheating on exams, which easily garnered more than 20 years in the prisons that most would rather die to avoid.
Essayist and playwright, Wole Soyinka, one of Nigeria’s most prized and prolific thinkers documented the damning effects of Buhari’s two-year iron fist on a scorned nation, that was also combatting never-ending tribal warfare, in his esteemed essay, “The Crimes of Buhari.”
There’s no doubt that Buhari’s reemergence through his campaign for a second presidency, which was advanced by the full support and counsel of Barack Obama’s former campaign manager, David Axelrod’s political consulting firm AKPD was a strategic move for foreign interests.
Buhari won the 2015 election, and pledged to defeat Boko Haram, the jihadist terrorist group based in Northern Nigeria, that kidnapped the Chibok Girls back in 2014, but that, and many other outstanding items crippling the survivability of vulnerable citizens have yet to be resolved.
But with the world watching, and taking notes with accessibility to real-time developments, Buhari’s response to this latest atrocity that has resulted in senseless deaths, and increased the threats of a national emergency that has been heightened for decades, may miraculously produce lifesaving measures that turn the tide.
And while my reservations about whether or not Nigeria can triumphantly rise from the ashes of doom remain intact, I can’t dismiss how the revolutionary facets of 2020 are slowly reuniting my Americanness with the heart beat of my homeland in the security of Black power — undiluted and re-manifested.
It’s the epic fight against white supremacy, and the biblical resultants that have kept former colonies painfully chained to the war ships of those invasions.
The right to live without the channelled oppression from known sources — from continent to continent is the stolen privilege that must be restored — by any means necessary.
The fight rages on, as selfless protesters who represent faces of tomorrow are in the line of fire — standing their ground.
I’m not there in physical form, but my spirit soars in awe and gratitude for what can be possible.
And now more than ever, the verses of our national anthem resonate with profound eloquence:
Arise, O compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey
To serve our fatherland
With love and strength and faith
The labour of our heroes past
Shall never be in vain
To serve with heart and might
One nation bound in freedom, peace and unity.
Oh God of creation, direct our noble cause
Guide our leaders right
Help our youth the truth to know
In love and honesty to grow
And living just and true
Great lofty heights attain
To build a nation where peace and justice shall reign. | https://nilegirl.medium.com/how-endsars-became-the-protest-nigerians-unite-to-defend-e5b44271204a | ['Ezinne Ukoha'] | 2020-10-12 19:00:24.060000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Colonialism', 'World', 'Nigeria', 'Police Brutality'] |
What is Digital Marketing? | Digital Marketing is a very large platform where marketing of products or services takes place via, digital technologies like the Internet. Now the question is why digital marketing is gaining so much importance?
The answer is because it consumes time. Nowadays people use digital devices instead of visiting shops directly. Digital Marketing Campaigns are becoming more widespread and resourceful.
Scope of Digital Marketing?
_. Digital Marketing helps to achieve business goals and become successful through a strong digital marketing strategy. Better cost efficiency, more data to inform better decisions and building customer trust are a few advantages to be gained from digital marketing.
Some Courses under Digital Marketing are listed below:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This is the method of optimizing your web site to “rank” higher in program results pages, thereby increasing the quantity of organic (or free) traffic your web site receives. The channels that enjoy SEO embody websites, blogs, and infographics.
There area unit variety of how to approach SEO so as to come up with qualified traffic to your web site. These include:
On-page SEO: this sort of SEO focuses on all of the content that exists “on the page” once observing a web site. By researching keywords for his or her search volume and intent (or meaning), you’ll answer queries for readers and rank higher on the program results pages (SERPs) those queries turn out.
Off-page SEO: this sort of SEO focuses on all of the activity that takes place “off the page” once trying to optimize your web site. “What activity not on my very own web site may have an effect on my ranking?” you would possibly raise. the solution is inward links, conjointly referred to as backlinks. the number of publishers that link to you, and therefore the relative “authority” of these publishers, have an effect on however extremely you rank for the keywords you care regarding. By networking with different publishers, writing guest posts on these websites (and linking back to your website), and generating external attention, you’ll earn the backlinks you wish to maneuver your web site au courant all the correct SERPs.
Technical SEO: this sort of SEO focuses on the backend of your web site, and the way the area of your page unit coded. compression, structured information, and CSS file optimization area unit all types of technical SEO which will increase your website’s loading speed — a crucial ranking think about the eyes of search engines like Google.
Content promoting
This term denotes the creation and promotion of content assets for the aim of generating whole awareness, traffic growth, lead generation, and customers. The channels which will play a section in your content promoting strategy include:
Blog posts: Writing and commercial enterprise articles on an organization journal helps you demonstrate your business experience and generates organic search traffic for your business. This ultimately provides you additional opportunities to convert web site guests into leads for your sales team.
Ebooks and whitepapers: Ebooks, whitepapers, and similar long-form content help any educate web site guests. It conjointly permits you to exchange content for a reader’s contact data, generating leads for your company and moving folks through the buyer’s journey.
Infographics: generally, readers wish you to point out, not tell. Infographics area unit a type of visual content that helps web site guests visualize and inspiration you would like to assist them to learn.
Want to find out and apply content promoting your business? cross-check HubSpot Academy’s free content promoting coaching resource page.
Social Media promoting
This apply promotes your whole and your content on social media channels to extend whole awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business. The channels you’ll use in social media promoting include:
Facebook.
Twitter.
LinkedIn.
Instagram.
Snapchat.
Pinterest.
If you are new social platforms, you’ll use tools like HubSpot to attach channels like LinkedIn and Facebook in one place. This way, you’ll simply schedule content for multiple channels quickly, and monitor analytics from the platform still.
On high of connecting social accounts for posting functions, you’ll conjointly integrate your social media inboxes into HubSpot, therefore you’ll get your direct messages in one place.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC could be a technique of driving traffic to your web site by paying a publisher on every occasion your ad is clicked. one in every of the foremost common varieties of PPC is Google Ads, which permits you to obtain high slots on Google’s program results pages at a worth “per click” of the links you place. different channels wherever you’ll use PPC include:
Paid ads on Facebook: Here, users pay to customize a video, image post, or slideshow, that Facebook can publish to the newsfeeds of individuals UN agency match your business’s audience.
Twitter Ads campaigns: Here, users pay to position a series of posts or profile badges to the news feeds of a selected audience, all dedicated to accomplishing a selected goal for your business. This goal will be web site traffic, additional Twitter followers, tweet engagement, or maybe app downloads.
Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn: Here, users pay to send messages on to specific LinkedIn users who supported their business and background.
Affiliate promoting
This is a sort of performance-based advertising wherever you receive a commission for promoting somebody else’s product or services on your web site. Affiliate promoting channels include:
Hosting video ads through the YouTube Partner Program.
Posting affiliate links from your social media accounts.
Native Advertising
Native advertising refers to advertisements that area unit is primarily content-led and featured on a platform aboard different, non-paid content. BuzzFeed-sponsored posts area unit a decent example, however many of us conjointly take into account social media advertising to be “native” — Facebook advertising and Instagram advertising, for instance.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation refers to the software system that serves to alter your basic promoting operations. several promoting departments will alter repetitive tasks they might otherwise do manually, such as:
Email newsletters: Email automation does not simply enable you to mechanically send emails to your subscribers. It can even assist you to shrink and expand your contact list PRN, therefore, your newsletters area unit solely about to those who wish to envision them in their inboxes.
Social media post scheduling: If you would like to grow your organization’s presence on a social network, you wish to post ofttimes. This makes manual posting a small amount of AN unruly method. Social media programming tools push your content to your social media channels for you, therefore you’ll pay longer that specialize in content strategy.
Lead-nurturing workflows: Generating leads, and changing those leads into customers, will be a protracted method. you’ll alter that method by causing leads specific emails and content once they match bound criteria, like after they transfer ANd open an ebook.
Campaign following and reporting: promoting campaigns will embody a large number of various folks, emails, content, webpages, phone calls, and more. promoting automation will assist you to type everything you’re employed on by the campaign it’s serving, and so track the performance of that campaign supported the progress all of those parts create over time.
Email promoting
Companies use email promoting as to how communication with their audiences. Email is usually wont to promote content, discounts, and events, still on direct folks toward the business’s web site. the categories of emails you would possibly send out AN email promoting campaign include:
Blog subscription newsletters.
Follow-up emails to web site guests UN agency downloaded one thing.
Customer welcome emails.
Holiday promotions to loyalty program members.
Tips or similar series of emails for client nurturing.
For More information Check our Website — https://www.whitpixel360.com
For any queries feel free to contact on — [email protected]
Call on — +0731 –4994222, +91 9399140646.
Address — 2nd Floor, Pearl Business Park, 3 Main Vishnupuri, AB Road, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, 452001. | https://medium.com/@whitepixelstudents/what-is-digital-marketing-b996672d4f4c | [] | 2019-11-13 09:06:25.043000+00:00 | ['SEO', 'Digital Marketing', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Affiliate Marketing', 'PPC Marketing'] |
Be Strong, Bold And Fearless: What I Learnt From Trans Activist Kalki Subramaniam | By Karthik Shankar:
At the height of the sweltering heat that is a common fixture during May, a friend and I biked furiously from Chennai to Auroville in a quest to meet Kalki Subramaniam. We go around Auroville and hesitantly asking people where Sahodari Foundation is. Unfortunately for us, no one seems to know. Then we enquire where Kalki lives. This time a group of people gather around us, each bellowing at a different decibel, and point us towards a house near a turning.
Kalki is one of the most recognisable faces of the transgender movement in India, and has been instrumental in revamping laws related to trans Indians. Armed with two masters’ degrees in journalism and international relations, she established Sahodari Foundation, which aims to uplift the transgender community. She also played the protagonist in a movie and ran for assembly in her home town of Pollachi. Her book of poems, ‘Kuri Aruthean’ (“I cut my phallus”), was published in January last year.
Kalki’s love affair with Auroville began a few years after her sex reassignment surgery. At the world famous Koovagam festival, which mixes religious pomp and carnival celebrations, she met a group of musicians. The multinational group of young men were interested in Kalki and offered her a job at a company called Sarang in Auroville. Tempted by the offer, she packed her bags. Auroville, a tiny experimental township of only 2500, was founded by Mira Alfassa in 1968 near Pondicherry, to promote a renaissance of ‘Indian’ values. Largely populated by foreign nationals, it possesses the close-knit community ties of a small town and the cosmopolitan charm of a big city.
Kalki’s home in a village situated at the outskirts of Auroville is a hub of activism for transgender rights. She is quick to emphasise that her foundation is a community centre and not an NGO; for her the perceived difference lies in bureaucracy and approachability. On most days, her house is filled with the bustling sounds of children. They adore Kalki, who spends her free time teaching them art and English. For women, she conducts programmes that advocate leadership and entrepreneurial activities.
The day we meet her, Kalki is in the company of two British women. One of them is a student from London, who runs an NGO called sexpression.uk and has spent two days with Kalki just to hear her views on sex and gender. We wait an hour to speak with her. Kalki is warm and honest to a fault. She doesn’t shy away from the harder topics like her teenage years of alienation from family, her suicide attempts or sexual desires.
I shoot straight from the horse’s mouth. “How did your journey towards becoming a woman start?” She laughs nervously but delves right into her painful childhood experiences.
Like most transgender people, Kalki’s journey began in her early teens. Born into a typical middle class Brahmin family in the small town of Pollachi, she displayed ‘feminine’ tendencies as a young boy. She loved putting on makeup and frequently stole her older sister’s lipstick and earrings. Kalki never thought about it as a problem but when she was ten she started realising something was amiss. Gender dysphoria forced her to grapple with the fact that her biological sex was constraining her.
Never feeling comfortable in her own skin, Kalki would often steal into her sister’s wardrobe. She describes those times when she wore her sister’s inner-wear and clothes as “liberating and scintillating.” Her phrasing is poetic. “Only in the moments of loneliness was I myself.”
Her school years were “horrible and nightmarish”; marked by increasing alienation from everyone around her as well as several suicide attempts. During eighth grade, Kalki, who was in an all-boys school, had to change into a vest and shorts for the Physical Education class. While societal expectations forced her into playing the part of a boy in school, she was mortified at the prospect of changing in front of the other boys. The second hour on Fridays became a nightmare for her. After waiting for all the boys to leave the class, she would hide under the bench. Unfortunately she was caught after sixteen successful attempts and reported to her parents by the headmaster. That day Kalki broke down. “I didn’t know how to express what I was feeling. I didn’t know the term transgender. I just felt abnormal,” she says.
Her conservative extended family had already taken note of how she always sat with her mother, aunts and sisters, and teased her about it. All these moments were a constant humiliation for the gender confused teenager.
In a quest to find a community, Kalki turned to the internet and found that there were many people like her which fortified her resolve to transition. At the age of twelve, she started speaking about these experiences to her parents but was dismissed by them. However at fifteen, she gave an ultimatum to her mother. “I told her I’m going to change or I’m going to die.” Shattered by this admission, her parents took her to a doctor who administered her female hormones. She started going to therapy but in a small town there was little understanding even from psychiatrists.
Faced with an absence of supportive doctors who could give her counselling or hormone therapy, Kalki took things into her own hands. She contacted Thai doctors online who prescribed a cocktail of medicines. She acquired them from transgender persons who had successfully transitioned. From the age of sixteen Kalki endangered her health by self-administering hormone therapy which increased her depressive tendencies. In one attempt she swallowed pills in to take her life.
After her twelfth board exams, her parents sent her to a mental health centre in Vellore. Understandably, they were unable to find a cure.
After she was let out, Kalki miraculously came to an agreement with her parents. “My parents were frightened because all the people they saw on the streets who had changed their gender identity were begging and being a public nuisance. I promised them that I would always bring dignity to the family rather than shame.” From that day, her parents let Kalki be herself.
Family support wasn’t enough however. Kalki faced constant harassment in college. After she finished her master’s degree in journalism and mass communication, she joined an MNC called 365 Media. The plum job gave her financial independence for the first time. Kalki decided it was the right time to transition. “I sent an email to the CEO that I was going to undergo surgery to change my gender. I even made it clear that I would use the ladies’ toilet when I was back,” she laughs. The CEO agreed and Kalki was granted a 45 day leave of absence for her sex reassignment surgery.
When she came back, she was promoted to the head of team research. However the five men in her team were not ready to take orders from a transgender woman. Moreover, all the men in the office had a problem with her using the ladies’ toilet, even though the women themselves didn’t share these qualms. She laughs girlishly while describing the entire experience. “In retrospect, it was very funny but it ticked me off at the time. I couldn’t work in the company for a long time because people were constantly watching my every move.”
There are several unique cultural traditions that accompany the transgender community in India. One of the most distinct is their form of clapping. Clapping is both an announcement of their presence and a security alarm. If someone teases them or attacks them violently, the clapping brings fellow members of their community from all around to help them and scare off attackers or molesters. It’s literally an act of survival. For Kalki, the clapping is an integral part of the transgender community’s cultural quirks. She learned how to clap at the age of thirteen.
The community also has a unique system of guru-chelas that matches up a young transgender person to a mentor. While the term literally translates to teacher-student, the relationship is more akin to a mother-daughter relationship. The community is made up only of matriarchal relationships. While most transgender familial ties consist of mothers and daughters, several others such as aunts and nieces, grandmothers and granddaughters exist. Kalki also mentions that gurus’ husbands or boyfriends are referred to as papa. “Papas can change but mothers don’t!”
Each guru can have multiple chelas. In turn each chela can have chelas under them as well. Gurus can be the same age as their chelas, although they are usually senior with regards to their experiences. Kalki says that a chela chooses a guru based on qualities they want to emulate. At the age of twelve, Kalki was initiated to these customs when she got her first guru, a Muslim woman called Apsara. Years later, she requested trans actor and activist Lakshmi Tripathi to be her guru as well. Lakshmi has forty-five chelas and Kalki is her first from South India.
The trans community in India exists on the fringes of society. The most recent government calculations put their numbers at an absurdly low 490,000 but that’s because very few choose to identify as such. A majority don’t enjoy supportive home environments and are kicked out of their homes. A lack of education and job prospects force most to beg on the streets. Many turn to sex work as a means of making money too. Harassment from police is relentless and many are charged under Section 377, an antiquated colonial-era law that criminalises unnatural sex. There have been some notable steps in recent years to improve conditions. In April 2014, the Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling, declared that trans people should be recognised as a third gender. The state of Tamil Nadu was the first to institute a Transgender Welfare Board. In November last year the state got the country’s first transgender woman police officer.
These and other changes have been a rousing victory for a community that is often rendered invisible in the political arena. But for Kalki and others to have a safe and fulfilling place in society, it will take more than just progressive legislation.
Interested in reading more about Kalki Subramaniam? Watch this space for Part 2 of this story!
Featured Image Source: Kalki Subramaniam/Facebook. | https://medium.com/the-cake/be-strong-bold-and-fearless-what-i-learnt-from-trans-activist-kalki-subramaniam-51ae6ccbb7a5 | [] | 2016-07-02 17:49:44.937000+00:00 | ['Transgender', 'Kalki Subramaniam', 'LGBTQ', 'Interview'] |
Launching a Food Forest Farm School for a Regenerative Food System | Farms Not Arms is a collective of designers, farmers, strategists, & agriculturalists working to build an integrated, multi-agricultural educational farm model that heals our lands, our health, and our communities. Through a human-centered and systems-focused design process, we built a highly-efficient and productive farm model that brings refugees and the local population together to target nutrition, regeneration, and social cohesion. Our first farm will be located in Beqaa, Lebanon.
This article is part 2 of a 3-part series on the food and agricultural project we have been building.
In our first article, we discussed the complex systemic environment in Lebanon and explained how refugee food security became the starting point to building a solution towards a regenerative and nourishing food system. This article goes into the social impact and systemic ramifications of our farm, which is both a food forest and an experiential school, and how it can be a starting point for a more nourishing, regenerative, and self-sufficient local food system.
Our vision
Our farm is designed to intentionally bring refugees and local Lebanese people together to cultivate nutritious food, replenish the land that they both currently find themselves on, and engage socially through educational courses, social gatherings, dinners, and the informal exchanges that are facilitated by our farm design. Our vision has the potential to use only 3% of Lebanon’s land to feed every single Lebanese and refugee present in the country.
We designed this holistic solution by placing food at the center of our 3 interconnecting main goals of nutrition, regeneration, and social cohesion to create security, opportunity, and solidarity.
We have already discussed nutrition and social cohesion by looking at the scale of food insecurity in Lebanon as well as the xenophobia and social tensions that refugees face. Before moving into the components of our solution, it’s worth having a quick primer on regeneration.
Regeneration Primer
Regeneration, by definition, is a process of renewing and restoring. In the context of agriculture, regeneration is going a step beyond sustainability (which can be seen as a zero-sum game of inputs and outputs that produce food without harming the planet) to one where you are creating a positive impact — not just ensuring you create no harm but rather restoring what has been damaged. Regenerative agriculture is rooted in improving soil health, increasing biodiversity, capturing carbon in the soil, and increasing biomass while adopting a systems-wide approach to farming. Regenerative agriculture might seem new and complex, but it is in fact rooted in ancestral, indigenous wisdom and about reincorporating that local knowledge into our relationship with the land. This requires unlearning certain long-held beliefs about agriculture that are market-driven and destructive to soil and climate, and going back to a holistic, nature-based way of farming.
Regenerative agriculture is crucial to what we are doing because it is not simply a short-sighted solution that creates a wider systemic problem. With conventional agriculture responsible for over 25% of total global greenhouse emissions, any solution that targets food security but worsens the climate crisis and destroys our planet simply exacerbates existing problems. Instead, our goal is to implement agriculture that is beneficial all around: for humans, for the land, and for the planet.
Solution Components
We seek to restore the lush, food secure past of Lebanon by combining 3 main components that are in line with the 3 pillars of nutrition, regeneration, and social cohesion:
EFFICIENT FARM PRODUCTION: building an innovative, multi-agricultural system that incorporates regenerative practices with low-tech hydroponics. Our farm design is highly efficient and produces 3.5 times the amount of food in any given area. Using regenerative agriculture, we are also enhancing the soil’s ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, making the soil more nutrient rich and resistant to extreme weather. Our farm design creates a food forest that maximizes yield, crop diversity, and biodiversity while minimizing waste and carbon in the air. This efficiency represents the most viable long-term solution to food insecurity. The farm will start reaping results only a few months after being set up while reaching its full potential in 4–6 years. (More technical details about our design in our third article.)
Image rendering by Bau Land
EDUCATION: Through our farm school, we will work on equipping communities both with integrated and regenerative farming skills. As an educational institution by design our farm would be running cohorts of participants that are a mix of refugees and locals who experientially learn the skills needed to build, maintain, and replicate such a hybrid and productive model. Our intention with the farm school is to turn it into a living laboratory to experiment with nature and continuously learn from the land what is needed to restore the local living ecosystems, all while documenting and sharing the findings.
Upon completion, we would link the graduates to abandoned and abundant arable lands, starting with those owned by more impoverished locals who see no value in them and are a lost asset. We present the Lebanese land owners a choice: if they are interested in keeping the food grown on their land, we offer a few cost-sharing options, like using the land in exchange for free food or labor for food. If they aren’t, we rent or buy it from them and sell the produce to market. The graduated skilled farmers that are working on the new ‘spoke’ farms also have the option of keeping produce and are paid a far wage accordingly. In the case of refugees, their new wage would be at least 5 times higher than what they get paid now. Education and skill-building are some of the most important things you can provide a refugee that will transcend borders and that can help him easily integrate and adapt anywhere.
COMMUNITY: We are using agriculture as a way to heal social divides and combat xenophobia between refugees and host communities.
Image rendering by Bau Land
Our aim is to change the narrative from one where refugees are seen as taking away resources to one where refugees are regenerating and replenishing the land. Community is key to building a strong and resilient food system in Lebanon and to achieving refugee food security. We intend to focus on how refugees can work with the host communities to improve the place they are both sharing — the land the refugees fled to as a safe haven — while ensuring that whatever we accomplish will be carried on to their home country or next destination.
Impact
Farmed Land: With conservative assumptions of 40 participants (with equal parts locals and refugees) in each yearly cohort, where half of whom build new spoke 5000m2 (1 acre) farms with our support, and if every year ½ of the participants leave and we replace them with new cohort grads, we would be establishing 10 new spoke farms every year. We project that a new central farm will sprout from each existing one every 4 years to accommodate new participants.
Given those assumptions, in a 30-year period, we will have scaled to a network of 5426 total farms: 128 are central farms of 15,000 m2 and 10,000 m2 planted and 5298 are local smallholder spoke farms of 5000 m2, all planted. Given these numbers, we would have created 27.3 km2 of regenerated food forests only through our direct action. This is on the low end as plot sizes and number of participants each year could be much higher.
Our goal, though, is not to work alone but to build a networked solution. We seek to connect with whoever is working on agriculture and food security, and collaborate with municipalities and other organizations to quickly scale this way of farming. These partners will spread our model on their lands to create tangible ripple effects that can be felt on a national level, thereby contributing to self-sufficiency. Towards that end, we have approached some of the NGOs alleviating hunger, and ones working with refugees in order to collaborate and train some of their beneficiaries.
Food Security: To further illustrate the impact we can create, our farm design is 3.5x more efficient at producing food on any given area. 10,000 m2 feeds 250 people their total diet. If Lebanon’s population is around 8 million with refugees, using our model would require 329 km2 to feed the entire Lebanese population, including refugees living on it. If we round it up to 330 km2, then just by using 3.15% of Lebanon’s area (which is 10,452 km²), we can feed every single person in Lebanon (including the refugees) their entire yearly diet.
Illustrating some of our impact in terms of food security, the typical Lebanese diet, and land use.
Climate Change: By spreading regenerative farms through both education and intentionally linking the participants to abandoned land, we would be expediting the goal of drawdown (getting to the point of reversing carbon emissions) by restoring the soil’s capacity to sequester carbon and store it instead of releasing it in the environment.
Carbon is the basis of all life on earth, yet we’ve been releasing it in the atmosphere instead of putting back into the natural system the way it’s meant to be. Revamping our food systems allows us to set the carbon cycle back on track and reverse the climate effects on the planet. Such an investment in building food forests would restore biodiversity across the country and increase trees, contributing to cleaner air, water, and better health. When these changes become tangible, it will unleash a stronger commitment to preservation as people will be able to see the changes in their quality of life.
Lebanon right now is at a crucial crossroads, making it the best time for it to embark on a total regeneration, starting with its food system. By starting in one area you can affect the microclimate, and by creating connections across the country, macro-climates can be affected to result in a considerable reversal of climate emissions. In order to achieve that, community, collaboration, and connection are key.
Social Cohesion: Developing a food system that would feed the host community and refugees their full diets by using just over 3% of the land area is key to building social cohesion and changing the xenophobic tendencies towards refugees. Regenerative agriculture is rooted in abundance and can help with the shift away from scarcity. By rooting the project in inclusion from the start, we are paving the way for an abundance mindset where there is enough — and excess — for everyone.
In our farm design, we intentionally created a variety of informal spaces of gathering and exchange. Bringing local organizations targeting food insecurity together with refugees will help people realize the commonalities of the problems they face, and reduce the ‘othering’ that is prevalent. 500,000 Syrians were already seasonal agricultural workers in Lebanon before the war; we are not wildly changing the existing system, but enhancing it to make it more inclusive, equitable, and efficient. These kinds of social tensions faced by refugees in Lebanon, though not as extreme, are faced by most migrants and refugees when they settle in a new country. We aim to create a model where refugees can bring benefits to any community they settle in while building healthy relationships with the host.
CONCLUSION
Our project bridges divides — between refugees and host communities & between ancestral wisdom and technological innovation — to build an optimal agricultural model that provides long-term solutions towards food insecurity, climate change, and social cohesion. The heart of this vision is centered on experiential education that can quickly scale impact for both participants and the community at large.
We started building out this model in Lebanon because it is rife with deep systemic problems and has the highest percentage of refugees in the world. Our ultimate goal, though, is to reach underserved communities around the world with an efficient and scalable food model that can be tailored to different localities using a mix of human-centric design and local, community-driven knowledge. We need to begin locally to ensure that each area on Earth is nourished, full of life, and thriving in order to restore abundance and our shared humanity through agriculture.
We see fertile ground for Farms Not Arms to accelerate change by drawing on integrated and efficient farm design, a local ecosystem of partnerships, and the inherent strengths of refugee and local communities. Combining the above would build the foundation for a new food system to emerge — one that works for everyone, and for the planet — by healing the country starting with the soil and the food that grows in it.
Our vision is reaffirmed by the emerging popularity of sustainable agriculture. Locals have already started informally planting (what we call guerrilla agriculture) and launched campaigns to promote sustainable agriculture at scale. More and more politicians are championing agriculture, though many are using wrong techniques, and the message feels loud and clear that the Lebanese crisis is not going away without targeting food self-sufficiency. We wish to take it a step further and turn it into a regenerative revolution, starting with the food insecurity problem to instigate the rebirth of a green nation.
Note: Farms Not Arms received special mention as a semi-finalist in the Food System Vision Prize and was awarded $25,000 by The Rockefeller Foundation for designing an inspiring vision for a nourishing and regenerative food system by 2050. | https://medium.com/farms-not-arms/launching-a-food-forest-farm-school-for-a-regenerative-food-system-f2f985a8564f | ['Jehane Akiki'] | 2020-12-02 13:38:52.782000+00:00 | ['Regeneration', 'Social Change', 'Refugees', 'Agriculture', 'Climate Change'] |
How Uber and Lyft pass on extra costs to consumers | Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash
Uber and Lyft just announced that the increased gig worker rights and benefits offered under the passed Prop 22 bill will come out of the pockets of the consumers. Consumers in California will begin having to pay a “California Drivers Benefits Fee” as an extra fee on top of their ride fare. That means that both companies who now have to provide drivers with limited benefits and rights have essentially passed on these costs to the consumer. This behavior is indicative of a worrying trend we are seeing from tech startups with deep pockets.
For some context, Uber and Lyft just recently ensured that gig workers in California would never gain employment status with access to full-time benefits such as paid time off, health care, pension plans, and other taxes employers should pay. Instead, they packaged Prop 22 as this amazing deal for gig workers that would ensure they have increased gig worker rights moving forward. And these extra benefits do exist, although they are strictly based on the time spent engaged, which is anytime you spend after accepting a ride to just after dropping of the customer. Furthermore, other benefits only activate once you drive a certain number of hours. While this sounds good for gig workers, it will likely ensure that only a small segment of drivers actually receive the benefits, considering how competitive the landscape is.
Uber and Lyft have perfected a model where hundreds of drivers fight over neighborhoods that can likely only support a dozen drivers full-time. So both companies do employ many contractors, they are all just fighting for scraps. This ultimately has led to 30% of drivers not even earning any money after expenses and taxes and will ensure that most drivers will never earn these additional Prop 22 promised gig worker benefits.
Now I’m sure most of us don’t mind paying a little extra for a ride that is already very cheap. But this isn’t what Uber and Lyft sold to consumers from the start. Rides have been gradually becoming more and more expensive and the money made by drivers has been routinely decreasing over the years as well, partly due to the competitive business model mentioned before. Both companies are clearly showing that they cannot be touched. Being untouchable only stands to benefit one group of people. The shareholders.
It is just so disappointing to see that companies who promise to bring communities together are actually tearing them apart from within. Both Uber and Lyft are perpetuating the capitalist hellish nightmare where rich venture capitalists pay for cool tech companies to create products and services for unrealistic prices based on unrealistic business models. Rock bottom prices are offered to consumers, which seem great at first but gradually are increased while the money to be made for drivers continues to decrease. In addition, these companies use the gig worker model to offset most operating costs and pass them onto their contract workforce. This gig worker model disproportionally preys on those without a college degree and focuses largely on workers from immigrant backgrounds and marginalized communities. We need the government to step in and help the people who are in desperate need of being treated with a shred of dignity and respect.
Interested in the details of Prop 22 and what it could mean for your job? Check out the video below. | https://medium.com/@nielslouwes/how-uber-and-lyft-pass-on-extra-costs-to-consumers-362b31bee0e | ['Niels Louwes'] | 2020-12-15 17:17:20.084000+00:00 | ['Exploitation', 'Lyft', 'Workers Rights', 'Uber', 'Capitalism'] |
Artysta: A Blend of Heritage and Style | Our home is the most important place for providing us belonging, security, identity, and many other things. So, no one can underestimate the value of home decoration because it is an ideal way to create a healthy living environment that helps in relaxation from stress and anxieties of daily life and give happiness and meaning to our lives.
For brighten up your home with unique and traditional home décor can be a better idea, especially when you buying home decorative items at the Artyata store. Artysta gallery is a right destination for home décor items that upgrade traditional art forms and brought high classic masterpieces in your home which are truly blend of heritage and style. Artysta have an exclusive range of handcrafted luxury decorative items includes wooden wall clock, vases, tealight holder, hanging lights, table lamps, wooden trays, gift accessories and authentic furniture sets, etc. These antique home décor items are highly appreciated for their elegant beauty, designs and creativity. The main famous feature of the Artysta store that it promotes most well-known art forms; Warli art, Dhokra art with Madhubani paintings that give high appealing and traditional appearances. Here is a synopsis of these art forms-:
Warli Art-:
Warli art is a style of rural Indian tribal art that originates from the Maharashtra state and presents scenes from their daily life such as harvest, weddings, festivals, cultures etc. It is centered around the concept of nature, so components of nature are central points in these Warli paintings.
Dhokra Art-:
Dhokra art is grown up from the tribes of West Bengal. In this art, metal figurines of human and animals are the main feature points that give traditional touch.
Madhubani Art-:
This art is a colorful characterization of culture, heritage, beliefs, and rituals of the Mithila region of Bihar. The most common themes like God and Goddess, Sun and Moon and geometric shapes are used in Madhubani art.
With the perfect finish of these art forms, we offer the outstanding collection of handicraft decorative items created by Indian craftsmen. Here, take a look for our best selling home decorative items, you can buy these home décor online with Artysta-:
Decorative Vases-:
If you want to enhance your home in an artistic way, you must buy decorative vases that are available with eye-catching designs, look and shapes at Artysta. These vases are made from natural Terracotta mud and embellished with Warli art and Madhubani paintings that add perfect addition and give a spectacular look to your living room or office.
Wooden and Terracotta Lamps-:
Table lamps are a requisite part for adding perfect lighting in your home décor. At Artysta, table lamps are available in a wide range from classic to modern style with their high-quality material and stunning artwork.
Wall-Mounted Decorative Shelves-:
At Artysta, you’ll find the best collection of wall-mounted decorative shelves made from high-quality Sheesham wood and Mango wood. It is a better way to organize and add an element of brightness to your living room wall décor.
Wooden Wall Clocks-:
At Artysta, you’ll be amazed to see the huge collection of decorative wooden wall clocks that are handmade from high-quality wood, glass and Dhokra brass with Warli art. These wooden wall clock online brighten up your living room, bedroom with their perfect designs, patterns and colors.
Wooden Serving Trays-:
At Artysta, we offer a stunning collection of wooden serving trays that are too handy and hand-painted Warli and Dhokra art in Teakwood material.
Start shopping for luxury and stylish home décor with legacy. Visit the Artysta gallery now!! | https://medium.com/@artystahomedecor/artysta-a-blend-of-heritage-and-style-8e25be73b327 | ['Saurabh Pandey'] | 2019-11-15 12:35:08.605000+00:00 | ['Home Decor', 'Home Improvement', 'Style', 'Art', 'Decoration'] |
It’s The Most Powerful Word In Marketing… | It’s The Most Powerful Word In Marketing…
And You Can’t Buy It
Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash
Back when I lived in New York City, I lived near a diner that served the most amazing fries I’ve ever eaten. I have no idea if the restaurant is still there. I can’t recall the name, but the fries were so good, they earned the most remarkable distinction a brand can earn. They did not buy this distinction — that is not possible. They did not ask for this distinction. That is possible, as you will discover later.
My friends and I referred to this diner’s french fries as “The Fries.” Yes, just “The Fries.” We did not attach any other qualifier or name to it. If someone said, “let’s get The Fries later,” we knew what it meant. There was no need to say “the fries on 76th and 1st” or the fries at [insert restaurant]. Think about the significance of that. Thousands of restaurants in NYC served french fries. If someone said “The Fries,” it could only mean one place out of thousands.
There is perhaps no greater marketing and brand coup than the word “The.”
If you become The [anything], you have earned a distinction that nobody can match.
You cannot buy this distinction. You can claim it but your body of work must justify it. If you lack the justification, you will sound like a buffoon.
Last year I took Seth Godin’s marketing course. He calls it The Marketing Seminar. It was a gutsy move that worked. Marketing is a wide-ranging discipline with a seemingly infinite number of practitioners.
Why Is It So Powerful?
To call your course “The Marketing Seminar” implies that you have the knowledge, experience, and body of work to back up the claim — he does. If anyone else had tried such a scheme, it would have backfired.
The word “The” implies top level. It implies you’re the patriarch or matriarch of your niche. It declares your product or service sets the standard by which we judge all others.
There is “The Design Queen” and there are all others.
There is “The Marketing Seminar” and there are all others.
Claim Your “The”
There are two ways to be become “The” person or brand of your nice or industry. Someone can dub you that person. My friends and I dubbed the diner on 76th and 1st as the place that serves “The Fries.”
If they had made that claim, it wouldn’t have worked. “Who are these guys to claim they have the best fries?” They’re one of a thousand diners in New York City. It would have been tough to make that claim and make it stick.
It happened organically. We started referencing it as the place for fries and it stuck. It’s one of those magical quirks of group culture that you cannot reverse engineer. Yes, you need to do or produce something otherworldly. But that’s not enough. I have never dubbed a bakery as the place to get “The Cookies,” or a bar as “The Place For Beer.”
The owners of this diner did nothing other than creating insanely delicious french fries. Chance took care of the rest. You can help the process along by creating labels around your best work. This diner could have called their fries “The Fries” on their menu. With enough repetition, it might encourage organic growth. It’s possible to make this work, but it requires a bit of luck.
Be Bold
Your second option is to dub yourself the “The” of your industry or niche. Let’s face it. Only a few people in the world have the body of work to claim that title in any industry. If you brand yourself as “The Design Guy,” or “The Marketing Gal,” you risk hurting your credibility. It sounds arrogant and delusional unless you have the resume to back it up. You need to earn the right to use that title. You cannot buy it. If you don’t have the history to back up your claim, it will backfire.
So where does that leave you? How do you become The guy, gal or brand of your industry?
Think Small
Forget industry and niche down. You may not have the chops to claim “The Design Guy or create “The Application Development Course,” but you might be able to claim a notch or two below. Consider these titles.
“The Marketing Guy For Dentists” instead of “The Marketing Guy.” “The Queen Of Marketing For Dentists In Northern New Jersey” instead of “The Queen Of Marketing.” “The Blogger Course For Techies” instead of “The Blogging Course.” “The Biblical Era Vampire Novelist” instead of “The Vampire Novelist.”
By niching down, you can claim that title as the go-to person in your niche. There’s an endless number of people who have accumulated an impressive body of work in marketing. How many of those folks specialized in marketing for dentists? How many specialize in marketing for dentists in northern New Jersey? How many authors of vampire novels focus on the biblical era? How many blogging courses appeal only to techies?
The further you drill down into a niche, the faster you can accumulate a body of work that positions you as an expert in that niche.
Where Do You Start?
There’s one thing both of these approaches have in common. You need to produce work that stands out above your competition. That’s how you claim “The” without sounding like an idiot. The diner made outstanding french fries. Seth Godin produced an in-depth course on marketing, sharing his unique expertise.
Look at where you are today. Examine your body of work. Think about the trajectory you’d like your career to take. Answer these two questions.
What “The” can you claim today?
What “The” do you aspire to become?”
Everyone can claim this title. If you’re just starting out, you have one advantage you can always assert. You have your unique voice, insight and experience. Nobody else can match it. Start with that and work your way forward.
Need an example? Let’s suppose I created a course called “The Davret Writing Method.” It would appeal to a tiny sliver of the market, but it would be unique to my experience and voice. If it were to gain traction, others would talk about it, generating more credibility and word of mouth. | https://medium.com/writtenpersuasion/its-the-most-powerful-word-in-marketing-c6e9ac4406fe | ['Barry Davret'] | 2019-02-06 16:31:00.672000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Leadership'] |
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