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Book Review: Own the A.I. Revolution by Mike Ashley and Neil Sahota | This book serves as a fantastic intro to AI and the impact it has had and will continue to have on our society. Neil Sahota did a fantastic job of making a topic as complex as AI, simple and engaging for even the most novice of readers interested in this exciting industry.
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is on the verge of disrupting every domain of human existence. What does that mean for your business? Everything. Building on the power of A.I. is the factor that will determine success or failure in the very near future — and this in-depth guide from the man who designed the A.I. system that famously won Jeopardy provides everything you need to be a leader in this revolution.
Imagine if computers could do any of the following tasks they listed:
Review a patient’s medical tests and instantly produce an accurate diagnosis
Serve as “eyes” for the blind and vision-impaired
Act as a personal therapist, demonstrating all the emotional intelligence of a trained psychologist
Accurately translate meaning between multiple languages in real-time
Provide expert legal advice in seconds
Serve as a digital personal assistant, doing everything from booking theater tickets to cooking meals based on voice commands
Accurately predict stock market activity based on the sociopolitical zeitgeist
Find your perfect mate
Well, all these services are available right now thanks to A.I.
Here’s a current example feasible today. Which is noted in the book.
“Let’s assume you’re the owner of a food truck. Instead of relying on what your competitors have done in the past or on well-intentioned friends’ advice, you could gain insight from an A.I. It can suggest where to park your truck, how many tacos might sell in a given period, and how many ingredients you should order, saving you money on inventory and crucial preparation time. Cognizant of local foot traffic, the A.I. can also tell you the optimal time to intercept people coming out of a particular bar, especially if there’s an event going on. It might say, “If you set up at this location from 1:00 to 1:30, you can sell more shrimp tacos at a 10 percent premium.” Likewise, by scanning news sites and Twitter feeds, the A.I. can alert you to the fact that a convention of vegetarian aficionados will be emerging onto the street at 5 p.m. giving you ample time to prep your mouth-watering green chile and cheese tamales.”
McKinsey and Company reported that 58 percent of all jobs could be automated today if necessary. “There’s a famous study by Frey and Osborne out of Oxford listing 72 occupations ripe for automation”.
A.I. is advancing the way we create energy, for example, the capacity to deliver solar energy is doubling every 18 months in the same way Moore’s Law predicted the doubling of computer power every 2 years. At the current rate, in a few decades, we’re going to have so much energy we won’t know what to do with it. Like photos, energy will be essentially free.
Let’s look at the advancement of our educational system. Here’s the book’s prediction on how our education process will be in the next 10 years: The teaching will be much more personalized instead of a one-to-many model where a teacher broadcasts information. A.I. will personalize individualized learning in which machines can assist in curating custom-tailored learning to many students remotely.
Machines will recognize and interpret student’s emotions and apply that to support the individual’s learning experience. The process of proof of learning and assessment of the learning process will be real-time. While learning happens everywhere — in school, online, in libraries, in parks — we’re currently not capturing learning outside of the formal setting. With A.I. and other tools we should be able to capture learning where it happens, assess it, and document it.
Hangzhou’s FlyZoo Hotel in China is already fully automated. It uses robots and A.I. systems to service their guests without human contact whatsoever. At this luxury resort, visitors can check in with the help of facial recognition technology and dine on food delivered by robots. In fact, robots make up much of the “staff.” Instead of human servers, robots work in the restaurant and at the bar. Even the rooms possess their own robot butler called “Tmall Elf” capable of providing for nearly every need.
In Saudi Arabia, they are developing a city that will span 10,000 square miles along the Red Sea coastline. Bloomberg News described it as “the city of the future that was built from scratch that will be bigger than Dubai and have more robots than humans.”
You can get your copy from here. | https://medium.com/@ibnmujeer/book-review-own-the-a-i-revolution-by-mike-ashley-and-neil-sahota-7cd9aa873cdb | ['Ibn Mujeer'] | 2020-12-27 18:02:55.663000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Robotics', 'Future', 'Book Review', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
SwiftUI API Calls with URLSession | Let’s go and create our SwiftUI App
Open Xcode and create a project.
2. For this demonstration, I’m using MVVM architecture. So first we have to create the below folders in our project hierarchy.
Models
View Models
Services
Extensions
3. Next, we have to create our model. This is the most important part because if you made this one wrong, your entire data retrieving will be full of bugs.
If we consider our API output we can see some Dictionaries and arrays here and there. Our entire API output is inside a dictionary. Look at the below image 👇🏻
But some are not inside any arrays or dictionaries. So in this session, I will grab both dictionary data and data which is not inside an array or dictionary.
Here I’m planning to get the main dictionary and name property inside the API output.
👆🏻 This one is inside a dictionary.
👆🏻 This one is not inside a dictionary.
Now let’s go and create our model. I’m going to name my models as WeatherModel and it is inside my Models folder.
I have created three structs inside WeatherModel.swift file.
The first struct is named WeatherModel and it is following the Decodable protocol. Inside this struct, we have to create a variable called main which has the type of Weather.
The second struct is the Weather struct and it also following the Decodable protocol. This struct has a few variables which have the same name as our API output data. So we don’t have to use CodingKeys to map these variable names.
In the Third struct, I add all the API data which are not inside an array or any dictionary so I called this struct as OtherData. This is also following the Decodable protocol. Here also we have to provide the original names from the API request.
This is my WeatherModel 👇🏻 | https://medium.com/@bathicodes/swiftui-api-calls-with-urlsession-950bcd7803e3 | ['Bathiya Seneviratne', 'Bathicodes'] | 2020-12-17 04:02:52.604000+00:00 | ['Urlsessions', 'Swift', 'Openweathermap', 'Swiftui', 'API'] |
Text mining and Sentiment Analysis using Python | I am not a big fan of Donald Trump. Technically, I don’t like him at all. However, he has this charismatic sensation effect which occupies most newspapers and social media all the time. People’s attitude towards him is dramatic and bilateral. His descriptive words are either highly positive or negative, which are some perfect material for text mining and sentiment analysis. The goal of this workshop is to use a website scraper to read and pull tweets about Donald Trump. Then we will use a combination of text mining and visualization techniques to analyze the public voice about Donald Trump.
You should continue to read:
IF you don’t know how to scrape contents/comments on social media. OR/AND IF You know Python but don’t know how to use it for sentiment analysis.
This workshop is easy to follow. Even you don’t know anything about programming, you should feel comfortable as you read this article. Feel free to copy the code and try it yourself. If you are a beginner, I recommend trying out with your code first before comparing with that in this workshop.
Twitter Scraping:
Let’s start with web scraping, I need an effective web scraper tool to do all the boring work for me. Any web scraper tool would work. I recommend Octoparse since it is free with no limitation on the number of pages.
I downloaded it from its official websites and finished registration by following the instructions. After I logged in, I opened their built-in Twitter template.
Octoparse Scraping Templates
The scraping rule on a template is pre-set with data extraction fields including the Name, ID, Content, Comments and etc.
I entered “Donald Trump” at the perimeter filed to tell the crawler the keyword. Just as simple as it seemed, I got about 10k tweets. You can scrape as many tweets as possible. There are also some other ways to crawl the data, and probably you can get a better result than mine. Welcome to share your innovative crawling experience with me, I am always a passionate learner :)
After getting the tweets, export the data as a text file, name the file as “data.txt”.
Text Mining:
Before getting started, make sure you have Python and a text editor installed on your computer. I use Python 2.7 and Notepad++.
Then we use two opinion word lists to analyze the scraped tweets. You can download them from here. These two lists contain positive and negative words (sentiment words) that were summarized by Minqing Hu and Bing Liu from research study about presented opinions words in social media.
The idea here is to take each opinion word from the lists, return to the tweets, and count the frequency of each opinion words in the tweets. As a result, we collect corresponding opinion words in the tweets and the count.
First, I created a positive and negative list in line 5 and line 13 with two downloaded word lists. They store all the words that are parsed from the text files.
Then, I processed texts and massaged the data by taking out all the punctuations, signs and numbers with the following code。
As a result, the data only consisted of tokenized words, which makes it easier to analyze. (This is the blog I found useful about text preprocessing in data science.)
Afterward, create three dictionaries: word_count_dict, word_count_positive, and word_count_negative.
Next, I defined each dictionary. If an opinion word exists in the data, count it by increasing word_count_dict value by “1”.
Afterwords counting, we need to decide whether a word sounds positive or negative. If it is a positive word, word_count_positive increases its value by “1”, otherwise positive dictionary remains the same value. Respectively, word_count_negative increases its value or remains the same value. If the word is not present in either positive or negative list, it is a pass.
For a complete version of the code, you can download here (https://gist.github.com/octoparse/fd9e0006794754edfbdaea86de5b1a51)
Polarity: Positive vs. Negative
5352 negative words and 3894 positive words
As the graph showed. The use of positive words is unilateral. There are only 404 kinds of positive word used.
The most frequent words are, for example, “like”, “great” and “right”. Most word choices are basic and colloquial, like “wow” and “cool,” whereas the use of negative words is much more multilateral. There are 809 kinds of negative word that most of them are formal and advanced. The most frequently used are “illegal,” “lies,” and “racist.” Other advanced words such as “delinquent”, “inflammatory” and “hypocrites” are also present.
The choice of words clearly indicates the level of education of whom is supportive is lower than that disapproval. Apparently, Donald Trump is not so welcomed among Twitter users.
Summary:
In this article, we talked about how to scrape tweets on Twitter using Octoparse. We also discussed text mining and sentiment analysis using python.
There are some limitations to this research. I scrapped 15K tweets. However, among scraped data, there are 5K tweets either didn’t have text content nor show any opinion word. As a result, the sentiment analysis was argumentative. Also, the analysis in this article only focused on polarized opinions (either negative or positive). Fine-Grained sentiment analysis should be more precise to a various degree ( very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative).
Why “illegal”?
At last, I would love to share some thoughts regarding the result. The word “illegal” is at the top negative word associated with Donald Trump. It’s not surprising the word ranks number one because Donald Trump has been devoting his efforts to focus on immigration since his incumbent. However, I am amazed by how people start abusing this word. I pulled out tweets about that word and most of them are “illegal immigrants” and “illegal aliens.” That got me thinking, since when “undocumented” is equivalent to “illegal”?
In closing, I want to quote Elie Wiesel, “You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that no human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. The human being can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?”
Resource: | https://medium.com/@xyng17/scraping-twitter-and-sentiment-analysis-using-python-c5a44b9288ab | ['Ashley Ng'] | 2019-04-18 01:03:06.818000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Scrape Tweets', 'Sentiment Analysis', 'Web Scraping', 'Python'] |
It’s beautiful they don’t heal they’re always going to be there for some reason they don’t heal. ~~ If I scraped my knee or tripped and fell those scars will heal. ~~ But these Battle Scars… | It’s beautiful
they don’t heal
they’re always going to be there
for some reason they don’t heal.
~~
If I scraped my knee
or tripped and fell
those scars will heal.
~~
But these Battle Scars whether visible to you or not
they do not heal
~~
as I look in the mirror
every mark
I still see upon my body
~~
Glitching
as they’re only an image in my mind
but scarred upon my view
~~
I love the reminder
I don’t want the memory to heal
as it reminds me I am strong
.
Sincerely,
Sarah ♡ | https://medium.com/@sarhberh/its-beautiful-they-don-t-heal-they-re-always-going-to-be-there-for-some-reason-they-don-t-heal-74246e74130b | ['Sarah Fraley'] | 2020-12-27 06:07:18.162000+00:00 | ['Mental Illness', 'Loving Yourself', 'Toxic Relationships', 'Depression', 'Mental Health'] |
Newborn Essentials | I’m just over six weeks postpartum and in no way am I an expert in any of this newborn stuff, but I do know what it is I absolutely could not live without at this point. A couple mamas-to-be asked me to put this list together, so I have! Thank you for reaching out and expressing that you value what I have to say — feels so good. I really hope that this list helps you to narrow down what products will be right for you and your baby. And as an aside, I feel like it would be disingenuine not to mention that I wrote this post mostly by dictating it by voice while walking with my baby in his carrier as he doesn’t let me put him down for his daytime naps. So my apologies for any grammatical errors! And I want to be honest in sharing that the newborn phase has been tough for me. Mentally, emotionally, physically. Baby Malcolm hasn’t gifted us with much rest yet and I haven’t handled the sleep deprivation well. Just want to serve up some realness on the side of this blog post because at the end of the day, products won’t prepare you for the mental strain of being a new parent. The biggest thing you can have is a supportive partner close by and a community around you that is ready to help!
If you know me, you know that I like to keep the stuff that I own to a minimum. Babies can come with a lot of stuff and because we live in such a small space and want to contribute as little as possible to mass consumption and eventually landfills, we tried to just get the essentials. This list is basically everything that we received and I don’t think there are many things that we haven’t used at this point, so I’m really happy with how I selected things. Obviously keep in mind that these are all items that I’m using on a regular basis with a 6 week old, so things will shift as he gets older and his needs change. For those of you who are just starting out and are expecting or have a new baby, maybe this list will be just enough for you in the first month or two as well.
I haven’t really included much info about clothes in the list. I only purchased one piece of clothing second hand. The rest was handed down to us or gifted. People love to gift baby clothes, so if you can, I’d say hold off on investing in clothes and make sure that you have a bit of storage space available in your home for the things that your baby will eventually grow into.
Feeding
Bottles
I can’t really say why I chose these bottles. I think I had done a bit of research while building our registry, but I decided to go with these because they just seem well recommended and pretty basic. We just asked for one pack of the large and small bottles plus the slow flow and faster flow nipples because I knew that I wanted to try pumping and it was important to me that eventually we would introduce a bottle or two a day. This is not only so that I can get a break, but also so that Adam or anyone else in our life would have the opportunity to share that intimate moment with the baby and be able to feed him. As it stands right now, we introduced the bottles at around two weeks, after breastfeeding was well established, and thankfully Malcolm loves the bottle and took to it really well. There was no nipple confusion which I know a lot of people worry about or hear about but I’ve heard this debunked several times. If anything, it’s that babies just won’t take anything but the boob. I really like the quality of these bottles and haven’t had issues with them thus far.
Bottle Warmer
This bottle warmer has been really simple to use and doesn’t take up a whole lot of space on the counter. Because we planned to introduce bottles, we wanted this for easy prep versus heating water manually to warm the bottle. Might seem like an unnecessary item at first but when you’re holding a fussy, hungry baby, you don’t have an extra hand to heat water.
Brest Friend Pillow
This is an absolute I-cannot-live-without product. It is a breastfeeding pillow and is incredibly comfortable and easy to use. I will say that it took me about a week to use it after having Malcolm because I was feeling bloated and kind of sore around my midsection and it didn’t feel comfortable. I’m glad that I was patient with it though because now I use it for every feeding. I love it because it’s really wide and so I can actually put Malcolm down on in-between sides. There’s also a little pocket in the front and I keep a chapstick and my phone in there. Sometimes I’ll have snacks in there too because breastfeeding makes me ravenous.
Water Bottle with Straw
It’s really important to stay hydrated while you’re breastfeeding. I definitely notice my supply fluctuating based on how hydrated I am. I used a litre bottle when I was pregnant and the big bottle helps me to guarantee that I’m getting enough water since I just need to fill it a couple of times each day. I keep a stainless steel straw in it so that it’s really easy to just grab and drink from when I only have one hand while breastfeeding or holding the baby.
Haakaa
This is another must-have if you are someone who would like to introduce a bottle at some point. I never knew that when you breastfeed your opposite breast actually leaks milk. The haakaa auctions to your opposite boob and catches that leaking milk which would otherwise go to waste. Typically I will collect anywhere from 1 to 2 oz in a single feeding. Magic!
Nipple Pads
I decided to go the reusable route with these and asked for one package on our registry. Within a couple of days of having Malcolm, I ended up ordering another set on Amazon. These have been so great because it’s really important to keep your nipples dry when you’re breastfeeding in order to avoid mastitis and clogged ducts. Babies require a ton of laundry anyways, so I just throw these in once they’ve been used or rinse them by hand in the sink and lay out to dry.
Medela Freestyle Breast Pump
I didn’t start pumping until about three weeks in just because I was using the haakaa and that was working just fine. I started pumping just once a day now that Malcolm is bigger and eats like an animal. Thankfully we got the pump covered by insurance because holy cow these things are expensive. I haven’t experienced another pump, so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it seems to work quite well, is simple to take apart and clean, and doesn’t take up a ton of space. I also didn’t invest in a best pumping bra — I just cut two holes in an old sports bra and it works great, giving me a hands free option.
Breastfeeding Bras
I’ve now come to terms with the fact that I wear a bra 24 hours a day which is something I really wasn’t accustomed to. But leaky boobs will do that! These breast-feeding bras are really simple and comfortable. I got them at my baby shower and I ended up actually wearing them at the end of my pregnancy because my boobs grew so much and none of my bras fit me anymore. They’re really easy to pop open and do up again.
Coconut Oil
I know that there are many nipple creams out there, but I tried coconut oil before anything else just because it’s something I had on hand at home. My midwife approved that it was safe to put on my nipples and not have to clean off before nursing. I was lucky to find a good latch early on and not suffer too much damage, so the coconut oil worked for me but may not be strong enough for some women.
Breastfeeding Chair or Glider
Leading up to having Malcolm, I totally resisted the idea that we needed a glider or rocking chair. Because our space is small, I wanted to avoid another piece of furniture and I thought I could feed him successfully on the couch or in bed. It was about a week after having him when it became clear to us that having a chair that moved would be really helpful. We bought one like this from Facebook marketplace for $130 and it is so comfortable, easy to get in and out of, and gives Malcolm the motion he requires for falling asleep.
Snacks
Just to mention snacks again, because I take this part very seriously — when you’re breastfeeding, you need to eat often but it is nearly impossible to be preparing food with a newborn. You want something quick and accessible, so one of the things I did before I had him was made these nut balls and kept them in the freezer. Then friends of ours brought another batch of them over when we were about a week or two postpartum. Food is the greatest gift ever when you just had a baby! Here is a recipe for nut balls. Once you make them a couple times, you can experiment with ingredients, just keep the ratios the same.
Night Light
Another thing I didn’t really think of pre-baby was lighting. It takes some time to teach babies day from night, so you’ll want to keep it bright and noisy during the day, and as dark and quiet as possible at night. Beyond that learning curve, you’ll definitely want some softer lighting for nighttime feeding and changing. I would highly recommend looking into how you plan to light the room when you get up each time. We were lucky because we have the Phillips Wake Up Light and the lowest setting is a nice dim glow.
Changing
Bamboo Wipes
This is another area of the baby world that we decided to try to go the reusable route. I ordered one pack of these bamboo wipes off of Amazon before he was born and similarly to the nipple pads, I ended up ordering a second package shortly after. Babies go through tons of diapers and we were flying through the wipes. We just keep a little bowl of water on the change table and soak the wipe before changing him.We wash all of these wipes every other day. We did receive disposable wipes as gifts and they’re nice to have in the diaper bag when we’re out but I’ve noticed that when we do use any kind of disposable wipe, his bum gets a little irritated and red. The simple water and cloth is just so gentle. We are using disposable diapers for now and in about a month, we’re looking at changing over to cloth and potentially using a cloth diaper service in Toronto to help us alleviate the laundry load. Not trying to be heroes just yet while we tackle the first three months!
Wet Bag
I asked for this wet bag on our registry because I knew that I wanted to eventually use cloth diapers. The wet bag is great to have in your diaper bag to put any used cloth diapers inside so that the smell and moisture is sealed away until you get home. We’ve been using the bag for the bamboo wipes that get tossed every time we change his bum and so we just keep it strung up next to the change table. Some of you may wonder what we have for a diaper pail and right now we just have this simple pail from Ikea. It’s not too smelly while his poops are still so manageable. We will probably upgrade when he starts eating solids.
Change Table
I absolutely love the Skip Hop change table that we went with. This was a recommendation from my friend and it is so great because it doesn’t require a change pad. The surface can be easily wiped down in between changes and it isn’t rock hard, so little baby still has a comfortable place to lay.
Travel Change Pad
This has come in handy already! It has allowed us to have another changing station in the house so that one of us can sleep in the bedroom and not be disrupted if Malcolm needs changing. It’s also so convenient to just stock up with wipes and diapers and toss it in the diaper bag.
Grapeseed or Olive Oil
This was something that I read about in the Nurture book that I recommended in my pregnancy resource list. The baby’s poop in the first few days after they are born is called meconium and it is like black tar. It can be hard to wipe off their skin, so I prepped a pump bottle of grapeseed oil to have on hand that first week. We’d put some on the wipe and then put a little oil on his bum before putting on the new diaper. Olive oil works too!
Natural Non-petroleum Jelly
My mom bought us a non-petroleum jelly to prevent and soothe diaper rashes. It creates the same barrier that Vaseline does, but it’s all natural. So far it works really well!
Sleep
White Noise Machine
We received our white noise machine second hand and it has been great. Not only so that Malcolm can sleep soundly, but also so that either myself or Adam can lock ourselves in the room and blast it while we nap. Babies are used to lots of noise in the womb and we are subscribing to this fourth trimester idea in which you’re trying to emulate the womb as much as possible for the first 3 months. The white noise creates that same whooshing sound that he would have heard in my belly. I couldn’t find the one we have online because it’s pretty old, but I’m sure most will do the trick.
Copper Pearl Swaddle
This is a definite must-have and something we use all day long for Malcolm. We’ve found the most success using this blanket to swaddle as opposed to the muslin blankets. The stretchy fabric of these blankets makes the swaddle fold indestructible and try as he might, Malcolm can’t break out of it. We swaddle for some naps and all night long. Babies have a startle reflex in which they throw their hands up involuntarily and scare themselves awake. The swaddle prevents this from happening and let’s them snooze longer. We use the first technique in this video and it works like a charm. Some people opt for a velcro swaddle or a sleepsack swaddle and those seem like really great options too! We tried this method first and it worked, so we just went with it.
Boba Wrap
I decided to put this under the sleep category because for us, this has been a major tool in getting our newborn to sleep during the day. We really wanted to baby carry as much as possible in the first 3 months and we’re so glad that Malcolm loves it. He actually won’t sleep anywhere but the carrier during the day which is making for a bit of back pain but good naps are so worth it. He’ll give us 2 hour naps in the carrier which allow us to move around the house and get things done while he sleeps on us. I would recommend watching the tutorial on how to wear the wrap before your baby is born and then it’s one less thing you need to figure out postpartum.
Pacifier
We received these soothers in the Avent bottle set. Pacifiers are tricky because if you want to give one to your baby, you may have to play around with shape and brand (just like the bottles). We’ve tried a few for Malcolm and these seem to be the winner. He’ll take it during his naps in the carrier but not typically at night (the time when I’d really like him to take it haha), but we’re working on it!
Snuggle Me Organic
I’m so grateful that we have the Snuggle Me because it’s actually become the only thing that Malcolm will sleep in at night. These were originally made for co-sleeping but then the regulations changed and the brand has warned that it is not safe for unsupervised sleep. With that being said, many parents use the Snuggle Me or a Dock-a-tot for sleep. The cushion makes the newborn feel held and when you’re running on zero sleep, it’s an absolute gift. We did our research and take every precaution to make sure that he sleeps in it safely. This was the right choice for us but I would completely understand why parents wouldn’t use it for nighttime sleep. If anything, get it for your baby’s supervised naps! There was a period of time when Malcolm would sleep out of the carrier and he snoozed so peacefully in the Snuggle Me. This product is really overpriced and I probably wouldn’t have bought it for ourselves if it wasn’t gifted to us. I saw a bunch of them on Facebook marketplace when I was researching and most were unused because their babies just didn’t take to them. If it comes from a pet and smoke-free home, I’d say that this is a great second hand buy. Just wash the cover and pop the pillow in the dryer on high heat.
Baby Monitor
This monitor works really well and it’s simple to use. You can mount the camera on the wall or just leave it on a shelf and it has really great night vision so that you can see your baby clearly in the dark. The monitor component that stays with you is compact and displays the temperature of the room. It even has a microphone so that you can talk to your baby through the camera.
Baby Tracker App
I just thought I’d share that this is the app I’m using to track Malcolm’s sleeps at the moment. When he was first born, I would use it for his diaper changes and feedings as well. At the start, you’ll want to know how many dirty diapers you’re getting in a day as an indication of good health. It would be impossible to remember this on your own, so the app takes that out of the equation.
UPDATE! Recently started using Huckleberry instead and it’s amazing!
Shusher
This was given to us by our friends and it’s been a great help to us. Similar to white noise, we use shushing as a way to calm the baby and remind him of the noisy womb. The shusher is small and goes with you as you rock the baby to sleep or have them in the stroller. It’s more of a nice-to-have item but has definitely saved us from the lightheaded-ness that sets in after shushing for a long time! I had no idea that this was $45. Again, take a look at second hand options for this one.
Taking Cara Babies
This resource was a referral from friends of ours and not only provides free info/tips for newborn sleep but also offers several online courses. The course is $75 but may be worth it for you if you’re really struggling. I use the methods when I can and do see that they often work. They just help your baby learn that they can wait a bit longer between feedings in the night and gives you tools to pacify them in other ways besides offering them to breastfeed.
Miscellaneous
Stretchy Hats
We’ve been using these stretchy knotted hats on Malcolm everyday. It’s so satisfying to make sure that your baby is nice and warm. Not to mention, they are super soft and are an adorable outfit accessory.
Bottom Zip Onesies
These have officially become Malcolm’s pajamas because the two way zip is incredibly convenient for nighttime changes. Try to stay away from snaps in the newborn gear. It’ll drive you mad. I recommend zippers and if you can get the two-way option, you’re WINNING.
Boppy
We received this newborn lounger as a gift and I love it! It’s definitely more of a nice-to-have than an essential, but we use it a lot more than I expected to. It’s so handy to be able to have a comfy place to lay baby down and Malcolm loves that he can be propped up to look around or be read to.
Bouncy Chair
We also borrowed this from friends. I know so many parents find success with bouncing their little one in a chair like this. It makes wake time a little more interesting, gives your arms a well-deserved break, and may help to soothe your fussy little human.
D Drops
If you’re breastfeeding, you’re going to want to pick up a bottle of these. Vitamin D is the one thing breastfed babies don’t get through the milk. I just put a drop on my pinky finger every day and pop it in his mouth.
Probiotic
All babies will have a hard time with gas and figuring out their digestive systems. Like adults, you can offer babies a probiotic to support their gut and ease tummy troubles. This came as a recommendation from a friend and Malcolm has had an easier time passing wind and poops now that he’s taking it daily.
Dr. Bronners
We use this natural and unscented soap for Malcolm’s baths. I just use a few drops in the water and then a drop on the washcloth to scrub him down. It’s really gentle and this big bottle will last forever.
Bath Flower
We chose to go the sink bath route while he’s small. Just wanted to find a bath product that would take up as little space as possible. This Blooming Baby Bath Flower is perfect for the sink and gives baby a warm and soft surface to sit on. I’ve found that this does require two pairs of hands while the baby still can’t hold his head up, but this time will be short lived and then he’ll be able to sit up in the sink and hang out on his comfy flower. Clean up and storage for this is simple. I just let it drip dry above the sink and then we hang it up on one of the hooks in the bathroom.
I haven’t mentioned the car seat or stroller that we got just because we haven’t used them a ton yet and I don’t have a whole lot to report. But don’t forget that you’ll need those and a place for baby to sleep! I would also advise that you get a thermometer and a snot sucker of some sort as you build a bit of a baby first aid kit.
In the time that I’ve been working on this post, we bought a baby swing second hand and Malcolm has been crushing his daytime naps in it. An absolute lifesaver for my sanity and my back!
I hope this list serves you well and if you have any questions, please send me a message. Good luck mamas and papas! | https://medium.com/@brittanymasson/newborn-essentials-f77b7227d50f | ['Brittany Masson'] | 2020-04-15 14:51:09.493000+00:00 | ['Parenthood', 'Newborn', 'Motherhood'] |
About me… I live in Tasmania with my artist daughter and four rescue cats. We’re a creative household filled with painting paraphernalia, up-junked furniture, half-finished canvases, and an eclectic… | About me…
I live in Tasmania with my artist daughter and four rescue cats. We’re a creative household filled with painting paraphernalia, up-junked furniture, half-finished canvases, and an eclectic collection of vintage and unusual stuff. Urban agriculture is my jam, sustainability my song. And when I’m not doing all that, I’m writing… on social issues, feminism, fiction, and even the occasional bit of humour. I sweat the little things and I do it in the Queens English. And yes, of course I’m on Instagram. | https://medium.com/@sarahjbaker/about-moi-i-live-in-tasmania-with-my-artist-daughter-and-four-rescue-cats-4637d9aa7925 | ['Sarah J. Baker'] | 2021-01-07 13:21:18.890000+00:00 | ['Australia', 'Creative', 'Women', 'Writer', 'Tasmania'] |
The Only Black Woman at the Table | If I had to describe my educational and professional experience in one word, it’d be “lonely.” Not lonely in the sad and gloomy sense, but lonely in terms of feeling alienated. I’ve been in plenty of rooms where I’m the only black person, the only woman, or (the most common situation) the only black woman.
One of my mentors introduced me to the term “Lonely Only” a couple of weeks ago. She used it to describe how she felt about being the only woman at one of her recent board meetings. After our conversation, I thought about her experience and how the term so perfectly encompasses the physical and emotional weight of being the only minority in the room.
Looking back, my freshman year of high school was my introduction to my status as the Lonely Only. Being the only black student in my Honors World History class, I began to experience symptoms of imposter syndrome, constantly questioning whether I deserved to be in this space and if my work had any merit at all. I wanted to believe that this was merely a coincidence, thinking the methodology that administrators used to put together schedules was outdated and that it couldn’t account for demographics, but I was wrong. While this was one of my first notable experience of being the sole minority in a space, it was definitely not the last. This unfortunate trend would continue throughout my time in high school and college and eventually into my professional career.
During my senior year summer of college, I interned at a technology company in an inside sales role in Atlanta, GA. I didn’t know that inside sales mainly consisted of sitting in a dimly lit cubicle, cold-calling unsuspecting businesses, and getting voicemails 90% of the time. I was also unaware that most of the people on the inside sales team in Atlanta were people of color. The office rows were filled with people who looked like me, and since I had nothing else to compare this to, I thought that this was representative to the entire the company. It wasn’t until after I accepted my full-time offer and moved into an outside sales (aka client-facing) role, that I found out how mistaken I was.
During our first team meeting in my new role with the outside sales team, I came to terms with the fact that my days as the Lonely Only were not over. I remember being so excited and anxious for the meeting; I got there early and watched my team members come in one-by-one. 20-ish people filed into this conference room, and I couldn’t help but look out for another person that looked like me. By the time everyone had made it into the room, I counted exactly zero additional people of color, and only one other person under the age of 40.
“Why am I the only Black woman that gets to be here?”
Even though I’m used to being in these types of situations, it always surprises me how many emotions I cycle through. First, there’s the immediate “F@$!” that goes through my head knowing that I’ll have to endure hours of dad jokes and old-school pop-culture references. That frustration is typically juxtaposed with a burgeoning feeling of pride because despite all of the forces working against Black women, I’ve earned a seat at corporate America’s conference room table. Unfortunately, once that celebration is over, I’m often left asking “why am I the only black woman that gets to be here?”
Lessons Learned
While these experiences are confusing, and oftentimes discouraging, I learn something new with each one.
You can always tell when people are surprised or intimidated about the fact that a black woman is finding success in corporate America. Whether it’s the not-so-subtle stares, or the condescending “I’m impressed you picked that up so quickly” comments, non-Black women always find a way to remind me that I’m not supposed to be here.
Though the microaggressions come in all forms, I’ve learned to let them fuel me. I find great joy in delivering a solid presentation or hitting a deadline because they’re not expecting it. White men have been so conditioned to believe that they are the end-all-be-all of the corporate world, that they are frequently shocked when people of color, especially black women, start to occupy the space.
Through my time as the Lonely Only, I’ve also learned that some people will take notice. Usually, when I am the only minority, I feel like all eyes are on me. And while this doesn’t mean that everyone in the room is staring me down, it’s not all in my head.
Since majorities are not accustomed to seeing black women in these positions, they often perk up when we have something to say, trying to see if we’ll meet their low expectations. When we as Black women succeed, most in the majority group will still push us aside, chalking it up to a one-time win, although a select few will acknowledge our good work and potential.
This was the case after I delivered my presentation at my first team meeting. A VP of one of our software groups approached me afterwards and was extremely complimentary of the work I had done. Being a woman herself, she recognized how intimidating it could be to present in front of men and even gave me some tips on how to calm my nerves for the next time. Since that day, we have been in regular contact and she has become one of my most cherished mentors.
From that experience, I learned the importance of supporting other minorities, and realized that it was something that I wanted to actively engage in throughout my career. I became the lead of one of my company’s ERGs — dedicating myself to helping our black and brown recent hires navigate their new found home in corporate America, and connecting them to some executives who are supportive of diversity in the workplace. I also found that this was a nice support group for me, as we all had similar stories as minorities in this space.
I’ve learned countless lessons from my experiences as the Lonely Only, but I think that my greatest takeaway is that I’m never truly alone. Somewhere out there, even if she isn’t on my team or even at my company, there’s another black woman trying just as hard to climb the corporate ladder. While we may not know each other, we know each other’s stories. So, if that’s you, just know that I am cheering you on. We got this, sis! | https://medium.com/dyversifi/the-only-black-woman-at-the-table-560100f22dc1 | ['Dumebi Egbuna'] | 2020-11-03 16:59:26.945000+00:00 | ['A Seat At The Table', 'Aword', 'Women', 'Black Women In Tech', 'Corporate Culture'] |
10 Sustainability Movements Driving Us into the Future and the New Regenerative Economy | Image Source: Shutterstock
Despite the imminent threat of climate change and the converging environmental tribulations, there is reason to be optimistic about our future. The broad sustainability movement has gained significant traction due to the ingenuity and leadership in smaller sub-movements. While the sustainability movement, as a whole, still needs to grow and accelerate, there have been clear and noteworthy advances that can be attributed to the concentrated efforts of various sustainability factions. Here are 10 focused movements that are making a big difference in the transition to a sustainable future.
1. Cradle to Cradle Design, The Upcycle, and the Circular Economy: Architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart disrupted the way we make things with their 2002 book Cradle to Cradle that was memorably not printed on trees. And, their 2013 book The Upcycle reinforced the notion that waste does not occur in natural systems. The duo articulate a clear vision for society — “a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world with clean air, water, soil, and power, economically, equitably, ecologically, and elegantly enjoyed.” Their vision continues to spread with the creation of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute founded in 2010 and conversations around the circular economy have blossomed all over the world. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, also launched in 2010, is on a mission to accelerate the transition to a circular economy that 1) designs out waste and pollution, 2) keeps products and materials in use, and 3) regenerates natural systems. Think about the impact this will have on the next generation of designers. Imagine how beautiful and elegant our products, architecture, and systems will be as we begin to see these designs implemented.
2. Biomimicry: Janine Benyus has also inspired the next generation of designers by exploring nature’s best ideas. She has developed and led a growing segment of the broader sustainability movement that emulates nature’s designs and processes to create a healthier more harmonious relationship between humans and the environment. The Biomimicry Institute and the Global Biomimicry Network have mobilized tens of thousands of students and practitioners to solve the world’s most complex design challenges. The International Living Future Institute also hosts a Living Product Challenge encouraging manufacturers to create products that are healthy, inspirational, and give back to the environment. The solutions that have emerged from biomimicry are brilliant, elegant, and often the result of interdisciplinary teams driven by curiosity and the creative pursuit of imitating nature.
3. Green Buildings: According to the Alliance to Save Energy, “Buildings — including offices, homes, and stores — use 40% of our energy and 70% of our electricity. Buildings also emit over one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than any other sector of the economy.” So, it makes sense that so many have decided to focus on our built environment. The built environment is also ideal as there are many building owners and stakeholders that can pursue the low-hanging fruit of energy conservation projects in many ways. When it comes to the design of new buildings, the U.S. Green Building Council has lead the way with their industry-defining LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certifications. The U.S. Green Building Council was founded in 1993, and has led the transformation of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction industry over the past three decades. And now, the industry is advancing further with attempts to raise the bar on building performance. The International WELL Building Institute is “the leading global rating system and the first to be focused exclusively on the ways that buildings, and everything in them, can improve our comfort, drive better choices, and generally enhance, not compromise, our health and wellness.” This rating system, similar to LEED, is articulating a vision at the intersection of buildings and public health. Combine this with the goal of Net Zero Energy, and we get a very high performing and beautiful building stock. The next 20 years of architecture will be invigorating and high performing.
4. Plant-based Diets — The World Resources Institute (WRI) has focused significantly on the impact of animal agriculture on global emissions. The WRI website states, “the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that total annual emissions from animal agriculture (production emissions plus land-use change) were about 14.5 percent of all human emissions, of which beef contributed 41 percent.” So, there is a significant need for us to reduce the amount of meat we eat. If we were to get to 100% electricity produced by renewables and found a way to achieve a neutral carbon footprint in every sector but agriculture, we’d still be 14.5% away from having a completely greenhouse gas neutral economy. Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat, two companies that Bill Gates has invested in, are just two of what will likely be many plant-based meat alternative companies that carve into the GHG emissions of animal agriculture.
5. New Happiness and Wellness Metrics: More countries are now starting to focus on the health and happiness of their populations instead of just their economic productivity. There is a trend to prioritize human value over economic value. 2020 U.S. Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang has suggested creating an American Scorecard and deprioritizing GDP as a measure of economic success and societal wellbeing. New Zealand’s Happiness Index is another example of a national level effort to prioritize humanity over the all-mighty dollar. As more countries shift away from GDP as the singular measure of success, environmental sustainability and public health will continue to climb the ladder of societal concerns that policy makers prioritize.
6. Reforestation — In 2004, Wangari Maathai became the first African woman and the first environmentalist to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace.” Her Greenbelt movement is credited for planting millions of trees in Africa. She has undoubtedly inspired a generation of environmentalists in Africa and globally that are committed to planting trees on a massive scale. There has also been a growing body of research and experimentation around the use of drones to plant trees. The notion of trees being planted by dropping seedlings from the sky seems a little bit ridiculous at first. But, drones also have capabilities other that flying. Drones can identify ideal locations for reforestation with sensors and simply by getting to places that are not easily accessible. So, it is conceivable that we could see the largest reforestation initiative in the next decade enabled by drones and inspired by Wangari Maathai.
7. Conscious Consumerism: It has never been more important to buy local. As the online commerce giants of the world destroy local main street economies, the role of the customer becomes more significant. The Conscious Consumerism movement goes beyond buying local though, really diving into the supply chain and being critical of companies that are not intentional about how they source, maker, and sell. Certified B Corporations have a emerged as leaders in this sub-movement. These are companies that have self-identified as organizations that care about social and environmental performance. “Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. B Corps are accelerating a global culture shift to redefine success in business and build a more inclusive and sustainable economy.” We can expect that this type of credential will have the same impact in some industries as LEED has had on the architecture, engineering, and construction industries, effectively raising the bar of performance.
8. Electric Vehicles and the American Charging Network: While Elon Musk has certainly been at the forefront of the Electric Vehicle industry over the past decade; the exciting news is that most other car manufacturers are getting in the game now too. Moreover, various state governments are providing funds for building out a robust American Charging Network. In the short run, this will decrease range anxiety, and in the long run, this will accelerate the transition to an all-electric passenger vehicle fleet. This is matched with an overwhelming majority of Presidential candidates supporting eventual zero-emissions standards and additional funding for electrifying the transportation sector.
9. The Anti-Plastic Movement: While there was some initial push back to the anti-straw effort made by environmentalists, there seems to be steady progress on multiple fronts of reducing single-use plastic. There has been steady behavior change that has been slowly happening for a long time, but the introduction of new alternatives to single-use plastic has enabled more people to buy-in to changing their habits. Likewise, there are a growing number of initiatives to clean up plastic waste in the ocean. At the very least, we should expect this sub-movement to continue to gain momentum and start to see measurable results in the next decade.
10. Climate Entrepreneurship: In his book Creating Climate Wealth, Jigar Shah argues that climate change — the biggest challenge of our time — can be turned into a $10 trillion dollar wealth-creating opportunity. Jigar Shah is the Co-Founder of Generate Capital, a company that is financing large sustainable infrastructure projects. And, there are startup incubators across the country focusing on sustainability now. Boston’s Greentown Labs touts itself as “The best place in the world to build a cleantech hardware company.” Techstars now has a Sustainability Accelerator developed in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. This is a unique collaboration “seeking for-profit entrepreneurs with commercially viable technologies that can rapidly scale to help sustainably provide food and water and address global issues like climate change.” We can expect a new wave of sustainability entrepreneurs over the next decade that will disrupt the status quo and have a big impact.
All of these movements should give us reason to be hopeful about our future. Environmentalists should communicate an enduring optimism as we continue to build a new regenerative economy. | https://medium.com/environmental-intelligence/10-sustainability-movements-driving-us-into-the-future-and-the-new-regenerative-economy-c673731081d7 | ['Carbon Radio'] | 2019-12-11 07:12:52.321000+00:00 | ['Future', 'Sustainability', 'Leadership', 'Climate Change', 'Environment'] |
Observing A Happy Married Life | I can say my parents have a pretty happy and successful married life.
One of them is more emotional and other one is more practical.
One of them is more expressive and can get overwhelmed pretty easily, the other one knows how to stay calm and maintain calm.
Both of them are givers.
Both of them love to express their love and spending time with each other.
Both of them prioritise each other more than they do to any other family member.
Both of them enjoy quiet time together.
Both of them never raise their voices on each other.
None of them have bad habits like drinking too much or over spending.
Both of them are from same culture and region.
One of them loves to cook and the other one is a foodie.
Both of them almost never like to spend money on themselves.
Both of them like to go for movies together.
Both of them are more of indoor people.
One of them writes poem for the other one.
One of them sings for the other one on request.
Both of them sleep at the same time and get up at same time.
Both of them take vacations together once or twice a year.
Both of them have pretty much same idea of raising kids.
One of them is more submissive.
That’s all I can think of right now. | https://medium.com/@pallavigupta_22207/observing-a-happy-married-life-6ce92ba43805 | ['Pallavi Gupta', 'B.Sc.', 'Bio'] | 2019-04-12 05:39:24.245000+00:00 | ['Marriage', 'Companionship', 'Parents', 'Happy', 'Life'] |
What are the Features and Benefits of Amethyst Stone? | Amethyst stone has many known benefits. This stone is known as an "air" element that provides calmness and positivity to its wearers. Whenever you feel depressed, socially isolated or emotionally challenged, you can find relief by using amethyst. In addition, amethyst stone triggers the creativity and passion of the person, if you are going to do a creative job, if you are interested in art, you can place amethyst in your work area. Apart from these, the different benefits of amethyst can be listed as follows; It is a stone of spirituality and contentment. It is often used especially in meditation and energy work, as it helps in immobilizing the mind. It purifies one’s aura by protecting it from radiation and negative energy. A protective shield is thought to form around the body of the person carrying amethyst. There are also myths that amethyst was given to soldiers who went to war. Strengthens cognitive perception, intuition and psychic abilities. (Third eye, crown and etheric chakras) It is a natural sedative and motivator. It is effective against insomnia. It is recommended that people who suffer from insomnia place amethyst on their pillows or head ends. It is a comforting stone for those grieving the loss of a loved one. Amethyst is a member of the quartz mineral family, which in nature is distinguished by its magnificent purple hue. It is also called purple quartz. The color of amethyst can vary from light lilac to bright purple. This gemstone was historically reserved for royalty, but today it is also used in various fine jewelry or as an object of decoration. It represents calmness and serenity. What is the Meaning of Amethyst Stone? Amethyst has been thought to have many properties throughout history. Although there are different opinions that the stone controls evil thoughts and protects soldiers from war wounds, the origins of amethyst stone go back to Ancient Greece. It is thought to derive from the Greek word "ametistos". This Greek word means 'remedy against drunkenness' or 'sober’. In Greek mythology, there are legends that a person carrying amethyst cannot get drunk or get drunk with a drink made entirely of amethyst. How Is Amethyst Formed? From the outside, the raw amethyst mass looks just like a piece of rock. When opened, it is a bright purple colored crystal filled with beautiful and shiny crystals. Scientifically, amethyst geodes (masses) consist of two stages. These stages are first the formation of cavities and then the formation of crystals. Voids form in volcanic rocks as a result of the compression of gas spaces in lava bubbles. Later, these spaces are filled with a silica-rich liquid (SiO2) over time. This liquid forms crystals over time. Although the formation of these bright purple crystals is explained in a few sentences, we can say that they took millions of years to form, that is, they were formed in prehistoric times. | https://medium.com/@zehramevlevi55/what-are-the-features-and-benefits-of-amethyst-stone-d5748e3bd6ff | ['Ayşe Zehra Doner'] | 2021-12-14 11:05:40.189000+00:00 | ['Amethyst', 'Jewelry', 'Purple', 'Ameti̇sy'] |
Millennials’ Sobriety Isn’t What It Seems | Richard Miech, a sociologist at the University of Michigan and leader of a National Institute for Drug Abuse-funded project called Monitoring the Future, says — based purely on the numbers, gathered from more than 40,000 8th, 10th, and 12th graders annually since 1972 — that yes, illicit drug use is on the decline. “Look at cigarettes and alcohol — the substances that were traditionally most commonly used. Millennials have very little levels of use compared to other cohorts,” he says.
Even where I live, in the United Kingdom — nicknamed “Booze Britain” by its own citizens — a report from the Office for National Statistics states that people 16 to 24 years old “are less likely to drink than any other age group.”
While marijuana is being legalized or decriminalized across the US, Canada, and Europe — usage is “stabilizing,” says Silvia Martins, associate professor of epidemiology of Columbia University, who has published more than 130 academic studies on substance use.
Overall, the trend toward less dabbling in drugs and alcohol among millennials “is definitely real,” Martins says. Nonetheless, Sion Kim Harris, co-director of the Boston Children’s Hospital Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research, offers a caveat. Although teenagers appear to be getting wasted less often, Harris cautions that many of them are just making up for it in their 20s. “We are certainly seeing declines in substance use in those under 18 — but in the 18 to 25 group, those rates are not going down. If anything, they are going up,” Harris says. “The college environment is still very wet.” (Read: boozy.)
But if today’s teens really are more likely to lay off the hooch, cigs, and drugs, the ultimate question is: Why? Nobody knows yet. “I don’t know of any paper that has been published yet on the actual reason for this, because it’s just such a new phenomenon — it’s only been trending for a few years,” says Harris.
However, there are some compelling hypotheses. And each one carries troubling implications.
One: Selfie Obsession
The story goes like this: Kids raised on a steady diet of social media now live in mortal fear of looking less than stellar on Facebook or Instagram. If you grow up with the Internet from the moment you can speak, it’s probably natural to think of your online identity as being intrinsically tied to your true identity. Based on what we can see online, there are certainly far more images of youngsters looking pristine, and far fewer pics of them that resemble the sweaty ravers and wide-eyed hippies of bygone eras.
This also feels like part of a shift in political identity: San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury kids in the ’60s took pride in reclaiming the word “freak,” turning it from an ostracizing put-down to a celebratory title. Ravers in the UK in the ’80s and ’90s threw blow-out illegal parties thousands strong, gorging on ecstasy in a riotous love-fest, which they saw as a communal, defiant response to Margaret Thatcher’s cynical statement that “there’s no such thing as society.” A decade later British “ladettes” saw being able to match the boys pint-for-pint as a badge of honor. In a sense, it was a feminist statement: Whatever you can do, we can do just as well (or better), including boozing; let “lady-like” temperance become an outdated relic. Today, it’s hard to find a scene for the young so raucous — or so fun. Kids today just don’t seem to find the same rebellious joy in being altered in public.
Two: Academic Pressure
It’s fairly clear that the children of affluent families today have far greater workloads piled on them than in the ’60s or the ’80s. Now that a bachelor’s degree no longer guarantees an actual job, you’d better plan for further education. In this education arms race, where is there time to get high (and recover)? That would also explain the relative popularity of a concentration-enhancing drug like Adderall, a pharmaceutical that is utilitarian rather than euphoria-inducing.
Three: Depression and Anxiety
Even while there seems to be more pressure on youth now to excel academically, they’re also expected to appear happy and healthy. That would explain that while they may be drinking less, smoking less, and taking fewer psychedelics and stimulants. A study from Drugabuse.com (an addiction-information resource) states that “prescription painkiller abuse is more common among millennials than any generation before.” That means kids are still using drugs; they’re just using them to numb pain rather than have fun. Research from Canada and documented in the Toronto Star describes demands for mental health services for university students as “exploding,” exacerbated by a dearth of funds and awareness. “There is a perception that this age group is healthy,” the president of the Ontario University and College Health Association told the newspaper, “but they’re not.”
Four: Technology Addiction
A variety of brain-imaging studies have suggested that people addicted to self-destructive habits of a non-chemical nature — such as gambling, video games, porn, shopping, or the Internet itself — get the same “hit” of the rewarding neurotransmitter dopamine that biological treats such as drugs, sex, and sugar provide. Evidence for this “dopamine hit” remains inconclusive, but there has been a clear rise in the use of interactive technologies in teens alongside an apparent decrease in illegal drug use. Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University studies how “screenagers” and “digital natives” over the past two decades have increasingly spent time playing video games and jabbing smartphones while at the same time committing fewer crimes (such as being arrested for drug offenses). “It makes pure sense that if you spend eight hours a day in front of a screen, that detracts from your time spent out being able to buy drugs,” he says.
Five: Cocooning
Most of us — from children to adolescents to parents and grandparents — now can spend most of our time at home, doing nearly everything that once brought us into the wider world: grocery shopping, watching movies, communicating with friends, and so on. If teens don’t need to leave the house to interact with friends, surely there will be fewer opportunities to run into the neighborhood bad boys? To cap that off, parents are less keen to tell their kids to “go outside and play” after the 1990s panic over child abduction. | https://medium.com/neodotlife/millennials-and-drugs-23aa24b8fb1d | ['Zoe Cormier'] | 2019-01-31 17:36:29.108000+00:00 | ['Millennials', 'Data', 'Social Media', 'Drugs', 'Psychology'] |
The status quo of Bangbang Army in China | Wushan, located at the eastern end of Chongqing, is one of the smallest and poorest counties in Chongqing. In this town, there’s a special group of people we call the Bang Bang Army. Just walking distance away from my grandparent’s house is the major part of the Bang Bang army aggregate place. On the side of the road or around the corner, it is common to see men wearing green liberation shoes covered with mud and ash, carrying a meter-long bamboo stick with a nylon rope attached to it, and standing or sitting waiting for a new day’s work. With a face showing the vicissitudes of life, a pair of dark rough hands, a set of twinkling eyes, clothes are worn over and over again; they looked a dozen years older than they were. They are Bang Bangs. The phrase, “Bang Bang” is more commonly known as a porter.
A Bangbang
There are lots of mountains in Chongqing, and it’s hard to use modern machines to reach some places. The only way to do this is with human labor. Thus, the Bang Bang Army is the main transportation of objects of the city in the past and a part of Wushan’s tradition. Every penny they earned was through their effort, and they are symbols of the diligence of the Chongqing people. I am proud of this tradition that has been around for centuries. However, the tradition must be sacrificed by helping them to get rid of poverty. I made up my mind to help them, to get more people to see the problem, and maybe this way can help to improve their lives.
A Bangbang
I am a high school student from Shenzhen, and I decided it was time to take a journey, which investigates and shoot a short documentary for the Bangbang by foot away from the luxuries of my grandparent’s house. I crossed the bridge and met them. Some were playing cards, some were smoking, some were chatting, all waiting for new work. I spent every day with them, from early morning to late afternoon, casually chatting with them, so we built up trust at last. My camera captured the moment of their plain daily life and hard work time. During the interview, they enthusiastic and sincerely answered my questions. I took down their names, telephone numbers, and addresses. Recorded from income to expenditure, from reality to dream. The interview went off unexpectedly successful, and I picked out “Luo” to go to his home for a detailed interview.
It was easy to see that Luo put on his best clothes and specially dressed up his hair. He lived at the back of the church. On the way to his house, we passed a little green linen shed, made of tin and cardboard, which was so black that I could hardly see anything without looking at it very carefully. I could only see a machine that was making noises and shaking, a pool of black water that was slowly spreading on the floor, and columns of black cylinders stacked orderly on a cart. I only saw those black cylinders on TV when I was a kid. They were called honeycomb briquette. And they were used for cooking and heating in the past. However, because the consumption of natural gas is so high that bangbang couldn’t spend thousands of yuan a month. My father told me that this shed was a miniature honeycomb coal factory.
Honeycomb briquet factory
We continue to go forward, passed a row of common the red brick house in the countryside, Luo suddenly turned left into a very narrow alley. I’ve only seen houses and structures like this in movies that tell stories from the last century. I could not believe that this scene was in the 21st century, and I felt like I was in a movie. Because Chongqing is located in the mountains, the road was rugged. The stairs vary in height and edge. The surface of the stone steps has several small areas rubbed smooth by the passing feet. The walls and the crevasses of the stone steps were covered with moss. The top of the walls was covered with electric wires and occasionally could see a white burning bulb completely exposed outside. The two ends of the wire were drawn from a high balcony to a low balcony, which became a clothes rack and hung with lots of clothes. There lived a lot of families. A woman was washing her hair from a basin on the balcony, and her son was standing in the doorway. An old lady was washing dishes from a rusted public tap. We kept going down the stairs, through countless doors and turns, and finally got into a small opening passageway. The corridor was narrow and dim. Although It was midday, the sun was the biggest, not even a ray of light could be seen through the bleak corridor. We were surrounded by bare concrete walls, even the bricks were exposed in some places.
the dim and narrow corridor
When Luo opened the door, a bed occupied nearly half of the room, a big flower quilt on the bed even could not see its original design and color. Beside the foot was a piece of the small tea table, ashtray inserted a few cigarettes ends. Moreover, there was an old black square color TV beside the bed. Pots, pans, and daily necessaries were all piled up on a table, and if there did not have enough space, they were hung up on a few nails from the top of the wall. He found a chair and dusted it with a rag. Then he drew out a stack of paper towels, placed them on the chair, and signaled me to sit down.
Luo was watching the old TV
He has a daughter working in Shenzhen, two granddaughters, a sick son-in-law, and the son-in-law’s father is a pensioner. Thus, Luo is one of the major sources of funds for this family. He dropped out of primary school before he graduated, so he didn’t have much education. He’s been a bangbang over 40 years. Ever since the advent of tricycles, delivery services, and moving companies, there have been fewer and fewer people in their line of work. They earn money only by luck. If you’re lucky, you can earn a little. If you’re unlucky, you can’t see a penny all day. He sighed as he spoke, the ashtray gradually filling up, tears beginning to appear in his eyes, his hand sometimes wiping them.
Luo was carrying a luggage
It was the first time for me to face and touch poverty in my whole life. Through this interview, I want to call the attention of the public to help them– want them to make more money so they can live better. The Bangbang Army is like a breakthrough point to understand the problem from many aspects about the bottom of the social people now facing. Like Economics– the gap between the rich and the poor, Psychology, Sociology, and so on. I will continue to show these subjects in my next stories.
Thanks for reading my story!!! | https://medium.com/@liruohanflora/the-status-quo-of-bangbang-army-in-china-55f823bb3bdf | [] | 2020-09-21 08:05:50.266000+00:00 | ['Introduction', 'Poverty', 'China', 'Sociology', 'Careers'] |
18 Common Python Anti-Patterns I Wish I Had Known Before | 1 — Using non-explicit variable names
Your variable names should always be descriptive to provide a minimum context: a variable name should tell you in words what the variable stands for.
This makes the code easier to understand for other developers and easier to debug for you.
TIP 👉: don’t be afraid to use long variable names to be descriptive: modern IDEs such as VSCode and Pycharm provide fast autocompletion.
2 — Ignoring comments
Undocumented code is a nightmare. These are the people who may complain about it:
you in 6 months when you’ll forget why you wrote that line of code
any colleague of yours who’ll take over the project
Code should always be clear in what it’s doing and comments should clarify why you are doing it. At the same time, be concise when you comment your code. When your code is self-explanatory, comments are not needed.
TIP 👉: if you’re using VSCode, you can speed up generating docstrings with this extension that automatically generate a comment template for your classes and functions.
image by the author
3 — Forgetting to update comments
Comments that contradict the code are worse than no comments at all.
This happens more frequently than you think: when you’re in a rush and have to fix a broken production code, you’ll do it without finding the time to update the old comments.
An outdated comment is misleading for everyone working on the code.
There’s always time to update comments.
4 — Using CamelCase in function names
This is more of a convention: PEP 8 style guide recommends that function names should always be lowercase, with words separated by underscores.
5 — Not iterating directly over the elements of an iterator
This is a quite common anti-pattern. You don’t necessarily need to iterate over the indices of the elements in an iterator if you don’t need them. You can iterate directly over the elements.
This makes your code more pythonic.
6 — Not using enumerate when you need the element and its index at the same time
When you need to access an element and its index at the same time when iterating over an iterator, use enumerate .
7 — Not using zip to iterate over pairs of lists
zip is a useful built-in function that allows you to create a list of tuples from two iterators. the first element of each tuple comes from the first iterator, whereas the second element comes from the second iterator.
zip can be helpful if you want to iterate over two or more iterators at the same time.
8 — Not using a context manager when reading or writing files
When you use open without a context manager and some exception occurs before you close the file (closing the file is something you must remember when opening a file this way) memory issues could happen and the file might be corrupted along the way.
When you use with to open a file and an exception occurs, Python guarantees that the file is closed.
9 — Using in to check if an element is contained in a (large) list
Checking if an element is contained in a list using the in statement might be slow for large lists. Consider using set or bisect instead.
Here’s a comparison of the three methods:
Image modified by the author
→ source: StackOverflow
10 — Passing mutable default arguments to functions (i.e. an empty list)
Here’s a funny thing in python that may result in silent errors and obscure bugs: default arguments are evaluated once when the function is defined, not each time the function is called.
This means that if you use a mutable default argument (such as a list) and mutate it, you will and have mutated that object for all future calls to the function as well.
To avoid this issue, you can set the default argument to to None:
if the function with called multiple times with to set to None, create a new empty list and append the element to it each time
set to None, create a new empty list and append the element to it each time when you pass a list to to , you append an element to it. Since it's not the default function argument, this works well.
11 — Returning different types in a single function
When trying to handle special user inputs that may generate errors, you can sometimes introduce None as output. This makes your code inconsistent since your function now returns at least two types: the initial type you intended and the NoneType type.
This makes it hard to test and debug later.
Instead of returning None, you can raise an error and later catch it.
12 — Using while loops when simple for loops would do the trick
You don’t need to use a while loop if you already know the number of iterations beforehand.
13 — Using stacked and nested if statements
Stacked and nested if statements make it hard to follow the code logic.
Instead of nesting conditions, you can combine them with Boolean operators.
14 — Using global variables
Avoid global variables like the plague. They’re a source of many errors. They can be simultaneously accessed from multiple sections of a program and this may result in bugs.
The typical error that arises when using global variables is when a function accesses its values before another one needs to update properly.
15 — Not using get() to return default values from a dictionary
When you use get , python checks if the specified key exists in the dictionary. If it does, then get() returns the value of that key. If the key doesn't exist, get() returns the value specified in the second argument.
16 — Using try/except blocks that don’t handle exceptions meaningfully
Using a try/except block and ignoring the exception by passing it (for instance) should be avoided.
17 — proudly typing: from module import *
Imports should always be specific. Importing * from a module is a very bad practice that pollutes the namespace.
18 —Over-engineering everything
You don’t always need a class. Simple functions can be very useful.
Classes often have methods, which are functions that are associated with a particular class, and do things associated with the thing that the class is — but if all you want is to do something, a function is all you need.
Essentially, a class is a way of grouping functions (as methods) and data (as properties) into a logical unit revolving around a certain kind of thing. If you don’t need that grouping, there’s no need to make a class.
Thanks for reading 🙏
I hope this is was useful to you. If you know other popular python anti-patterns, feel free to point them out to me in the comments.
Happy hacking, until next time 👋
Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash
Resources:
New to Medium? You can subscribe for $5 per month and unlock unlimited articles — click here. | https://towardsdatascience.com/18-common-python-anti-patterns-i-wish-i-had-known-before-44d983805f0f | ['Ahmed Besbes'] | 2021-08-18 13:10:25.897000+00:00 | ['Best Practices', 'Programming', 'Tips', 'Python', 'Software Development'] |
How to Make Simple Illustrations Using Sketch — the Beginner Guide | Illustrations can be a powerful tool. Whether it’s explaining complex concepts, making the brand more relatable to consumers, or simply making a presentation more visually appealing–good illustrations can help achieve those goals.
This article is meant for designers who does not have a graphic arts background but need to make some quick and simple illustrations. If this sounds like you, please read on. If you need illustrations because you don’t have a budget to hire a professional, or the client expects you to be a design unicorn, either way you’ll learn some tips and tricks to create your own illustrations.
Why focus on Sketch?
The short answer is the low learning curve. If you already use Sketch, you don’t have to learn a new tool. You also have control over both the illustration and screen design within one software. This can be a time saver compared to Adobe Creative Suite. Adobe’s UX/UI design tool, Adobe XD, integrates well with both Illustrator and Photoshop, but you do have to open both software at the same time. It’s not ideal when you need to keep another 50 browser tabs open at the same time. I believe we’ve all been in frustrating moments when our computers act like marathon runners at 20 miles, panting crazily but not moving too much.
Sketch might not be as powerful as Illustrator in anchor adjustment, it’s a quick and easy tool to make and adjust shapes, with a relatively low learning curve.
How does it work?
My thought process of making flat illustration is first, to start with the basics of drawing shapes . You start with analyzing the real-life object and deconstruct it down to simple shapes.
Drawing steps breakdown. Credit: easydrawingtips.com
Let’s start with an example. Say you want to make a monkey face (Why? Because they take some killer selfies!). You can start with real-life photos of monkeys and pick your favorite one.
Selfies taken by Naruto, a rare crested macaque monkey. Photo copyright: © David Slater / Wildlife Personalities Ltd
Then we can start removing the details and deconstruct this handsome fella into basic geometric shapes.
Once you have this very Picasso style monkey, you can use the radius tool and point control tool to smooth out the sharp corners, hence resembling the natural lines better while keeping the geometric nature.
You might be wondering “Why not use anchors and paths to trace the shapes?” When I first started doing illustrations with anchors, I often found myself lost in the details and try to trace every single thing. This “basic shape-then-refine details” approach pulls me away from the nitty-gritty and focus on the high-level structure.
After manipulating some radius and points, we’ll get something that resembles the monkey better.
From here we can move away from the real-life photo and just focus on the illustration itself. Adjust shapes, fill in some more elements, and change the color based on your choice or the style guide.
Depending on how many details you want to include, you can add in those extra details such as their beautiful eyes, liberal teeth, and that killer haircut, all using the same “basic shape + adjust points” method.
With the deconstructing + reconstructing method, you can create pretty decent illustrations with just basic shapes, such as such as other cute animals.
Or characters from your favorite show.
I hope this little article is helpful for those who want to broaden their skill sets and bring more exciting ideas to their work. | https://medium.com/@doraduo/how-to-make-simple-illustrations-using-sketch-the-beginner-guide-1710838f29f0 | ['Dora Duo'] | 2020-12-14 17:23:56.665000+00:00 | ['Sketch', 'Beginners Guide', 'Illustration'] |
The Magic Trick of Machine Learning — The Kernel Trick | Welcome to our machine learning magic show!
You must have heard that magicians never reveal their secrets. Machine learning has several tricks that seem like magic. In this blog, we hope to reveal one secret of machine learning called the Kernel Trick. If you have encountered the problem of datasets too big to use your models on, models too complex to use your data on, or nonlinear data, then this trick will be useful for you. When used wisely, this trick can speed up algorithms, reduce memory usage, and uncover hidden patterns.
Sounds exciting and want to know more? Focus, otherwise the magic trick might elude you.
Intuition: Why is it needed?
Let’s start with a summary of the notation used and the concepts we already know.
Summary of Notations
L2 Regularized Regression
Consider the least-squares regularized objective function where we want to learn weights that minimize the following expression:
Cost (objective) function of L2 regularized least squares
Equivalently, this can be written in matrix form as:
Recalling from calculus I, to minimize an expression f(x), we need to set its derivative to zero f´ (x) = 0 and solve for x. The equivalent multidimensional case x is to calculate the gradient of the function and set it to zero vector ∇f(x) = 0 and solve the linear system of equations. For the least-squares objective function (1), the solution in matrix form would be:
The gradient of cost function and normal equations
which is known as the “normal equations”. The solution to the normal equations is:
The solution to normal equations
Once the optimal weights (w) are obtained, to make predictions on the test data Xtest, we need to calculate y = Xtest · w.
If you are not convinced, check the dimensions of the matrix operations to see that it is a sound derivation.
Check the dimensions of the matrix operations
What is the cost of computing linear regression?
Let us analyze the cost of solving the normal equations and obtaining w. For this, let us first consider the cost of the dot product of two vectors u and v. The dot product of two vectors is defined as:
dot products
As we can see, the pattern is to multiply each element of the vector and then add them. So, a dot product of an n-dimensional vector requires n multiplications and n-1 additions. Assuming the cost of multiplication and addition are constant, the total number of operations in computing the dot product is n+n-1. In big-O notation, this is O(n).
Training (learning weights w)
To learn weights w, we need to perform matrix operations. Below is the breakdown of each matrix operation involved in computing w.
–– Multiplication: Xᵀ X
The result of the matrix multiplication Xᵀ X is a d×d matrix. There will be a total of d² elements in this matrix. Each element of the resulting matrix is a dot product of two n-dimensional vectors. So, the cost of forming Xᵀ X is O(d²·n).
–– Addition: Xᵀ X+λI = B
Matrix addition does not change the size of the matrix; thus, the result will be d×d matrix. One element of the first matrix will be added to one element of the second matrix, a total of d² summations. So, the cost of adding two matrices is O(d²).
–– Matrix inversion: (Xᵀ X +λI)⁻ ¹ = B⁻ ¹ = C
The basic matrix inversion algorithm is Gauss-Jordan elimination (row reduction). Solving a d×d system of equations via Gauss-Jordan elimination is known to be O(d³).
–– Multiplication : (Xᵀ X +λI)⁻ ¹ Xᵀ = C Xᵀ = D
Similar to multiplying Xᵀ X, calculating C Xᵀ is the result of (d×d)(d×n) matrices which yields a d×n matrix whose complexity is O(dn·d) or O(d²n).
–– Multiplication : (Xᵀ X +λI)⁻ ¹ Xᵀy = Dy = w
Similar to multiplying Xᵀ X, calculating Dy is the result of (d×n)(n×1) matrices which yields a d×1 vector whose complexity is O(d·n).
–– Adding it all up the cost of all the operation yields,
Which simplifies to,
The complexity of regularized linear regression
As can be observed, the complexity depends on n and d. Let’s analyze the two scenarios.
If n>>d, this means that our data (matrix) has lots of examples (rows). In this case, we have lots of data points but few features. The number of examples dominates; therefore, the cost of performing least-squares is linear in the number of examples.
Not bad if we have tens or hundreds of examples. But what if we have 100,000? What about millions? What about billions? It’s not bad either since the computation cost is O(n), which is about the same as if we were to read n data points.
If d>>n, this means that our data (matrix) has lots of features (columns). In this case, we have lots of features but few examples. The number of features dominates; therefore, the cost of performing least-squares is cubic in the number of features.
Even with a few features, the computation cost is high. What if we have 1000 features? What about 100,000? What about millions? It would be highly infeasible with a cost of O(d³)!
But that’s not all folks! In computing the weights w, we have to form XᵀX, which will result in a (d×d) matrix. Can we even store in memory such a large matrix if d is very, very large? | https://medium.com/sfu-cspmp/the-magic-trick-of-machine-learning-the-kernel-trick-b4b21787805a | ['Sachin Kumar'] | 2020-04-01 02:17:17.189000+00:00 | ['Kernel Trick', 'Big Data', 'Blog Post', 'Data Science', 'Linear Algebra'] |
Fucking My Best Friend’s Dad, Part 4 | Fucking My Best Friend’s Dad, Part 4
I had a serious problem. My panties were still under Amanda’s dad’s desk. There was nothing I could do about it now, though. I had to act cool, as if I deliberately left my panties off. But why? Would Amanda catch on. Sigh. I had to answer her. Why wasn’t I wearing any panties under my skirt?
“Um, to answer your question, maybe I was feeling a bit frisky,” I gave her a wink. “Actually, I was just beginning to play with myself when I saw you and your mom drive up from across the street. So there!” I stuck my tongue out and we both started to laugh.
“Well how far did you get?” Amanda asked, curiously.
“Not far. Enough to be excited and wet.” I moved closer to her on the bed, “But I didn’t cum,” I paused, “yet.”
Amanda put a hand on my thigh and moved even closer to me. She looked me in the eyes, her striking blue eyes were seductive. “Do you want to?” With that, she leaned in and pressed her lips to mine. This took me by surprise but her lips were nice. I didn’t push her away. Instead, I turned my body to face her as our lips locked. She slipped her tongue into my mouth and squeezed my breasts through my top. It felt so good and even naughtier than letting her dad fuck me. Maybe it was because I was about to have sex with two people in the same family in one day. So forbidden, so hot. I’ve never looked at Amanda as a lover, just my best friend. Lately though, we have both been curious with our sexuality. Amanda told me that not long ago she went on a date with a girl and had a super hot make out session. It didn’t go farther than that. I was surprised and intrigued all at the same time. And now, Amanda, the daughter of the man that just fucked me in his library, had seduced me. I couldn’t stop now. Especially since I teased her by having no panties on. A consequence of fucking her father, no doubt. But I embraced it. And enjoyed it.
I broke our kiss and sexily slipped out of my top. She did the same. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her boobs aren’t as big as mine and she can get away without one. Although, they are still quite nice. Nice and round and perky. I touched them for the first time. She moaned and pulled me down on top of her as she fell onto the bed, on her back. I kissed her lips and we made out some more. I stopped and straddled her, still wearing my skirt, sans panties. I reached around and unhooked my bra. I tossed it aside. My bra was now on Amanda’s floor, and my panties were in her dad’s study. So fucking hot. She sat up, with me still straddling, just far enough to take one of my breasts into her mouth. She wrapped her cherry lips around my nipple and began to play. She sucked, softly, and then harder. She bit me and it felt good and hurt all at the same time. “I want to taste something else,” she said with a smile. “Straddle my face, please.”
The way she said it made me even wetter. I spun around and spread my legs, straddling her face reverse cowgirl. I bent down, and kissed around the top edge of her low rise jeans. I unbuttoned them as she wasted no time licking me. Her tongue entered me as I was pushing down her jeans. “Kick these off,” I shouted as I pushed them as far as I could without changing positions. With a bit of effort she was able to wiggle free from the denim. I slid her panties to one side and teased her sweet lips with mine. It was the first time I had ever tasted a girl. Just thirty minutes earlier I was under her dad’s desk, giving a better blowjob than his wife ever could, and now I was 69ing with his daughter! That’s what ran through my mind and made me even wetter. That’s when I slipped a finger inside my best friend.
I sat up a little and moved my finger in and out of her. I picked up speed little by little. Amanda’s head fell back onto the pillow, she was done licking me for now. She laid back and let me finger fuck her. “Harder,” she said. I obeyed and slid a second finger inside her. “Fuck yes that feels so good Em. Don’t stop.” I fingered her faster and faster. When I put a third finger in she let out a scream and quickly caught herself. My hand moved faster still. Three fingers all the way in and nearly all the way out. Over and over I fucked her pussy with my hand. She began to shake. “Don’t fucking stop. I’m about to cum,” she said above a whisper. Her hands reached out and grabbed the sides of the bed. She held back another scream, her body sat itself up and then she slammed back down. Her spasms were sexy as fuck. Finally she stopped. “Holy fuck that felt good,” she said in between laboring breaths. “I can barely fucking breathe.”
Now was my chance. I had to get down there and get my panties. I was fine if Mr. Thompson found them, but if Amanda found them, or his wife. Fuck, if his wife found them what would she think. Would she think they were Amanda’s? That would be terrible. “Want a drink?” I asked. “I am so thirsty.” Amanda still could barely talk but she was able to nod her head yes. “I’ll be right back, don’t you move baby,” I gave her a wink. She smiled and laid back on the bed, exhausted from her orgasm.
I scampered down the stairs. I saw Mrs. Thompson exiting the study with two books as I made my way to the kitchen. “Hi,” I said, trying to be cool but somehow felt I was shaking and oozing with nervousness.
“Hey Emily, what are you two up to today?” she asked.
“Oh just catching up on cheer stuff since I missed earlier,” I lied as I opened the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water.
“I’m glad you two are such good friends. It’s nice to have a best friend that can be there. You two are lucky to have that bond. I’m going to enjoy some reading on the patio, the temperature is finally not steaming hot. January in Texas,” she laughed and walked away.
“Bye Mrs. Thompson,” I said as I shut the fridge.
“Oh, we are going out for dinner later, you are welcome to come,” she said as she turned around.
Oh shit. What does she know? Am I being paranoid? No, she’s asked me to have dinner with them countless times.
“Let me see what my mom has going on and I’ll let ya know.”
“Sure, no biggie,” she smiled and went outside.
I waited a few seconds and went into the study. I walked around the desk, and I saw nothing but the bare wood floor that matched the rest of the room. “Fuck fuck fuck,” I thought to myself. What now? Click here to see what happened next! Spoiler: I may have fooled around with my best friend!
Follow me to get the conclusion of this story! It’s free and helps me keep writing. And don’t forget to Tweet me or message me on Reddit. I love chatting with my readers! | https://medium.com/sexual-compass/fucking-my-best-friends-dad-part-4-95ad00eb1354 | ['Avery Montgomery'] | 2021-09-10 16:53:07.727000+00:00 | ['Lesbian', 'Erotica', 'Erotica Series', 'Age Gap Love', 'Sex'] |
Libellum Airdrop is Live! Claim Your Free LIB Tokens Today | We are excited to announce the Libellum Airdrop Campaign in collaboration with WeStart. If you are reading this, that means the airdrop is live! Please read the airdrop details below and visit our campaign page to participate: https://www.westart.co/project/libellum-airdrop
Airdrop Overview
As a token of our appreciation to the community, we would like to airdrop 2.5% of the total Libellum supply (2,500,000 LIB) to successful participants. To be eligible for our airdrop, participants must:
Be a member of our official Telegram Group. (existing and new members). Provide an ERC-20 compatible address on WeStart. Successfully pass KYC Verification Tier 2 on Westart.
Every verified participant will receive 100 LIB tokens as part of our airdrop and an extra 50 LIB per referral. The airdrop is open to the first 15,000 people who register and successfully pass Tier 2 Verification.
IMPORTANT: All airdrop participants must pass KYC verification to be eligible for the airdrop. Citizens of USA, China, Singapore are excluded from the Libellum airdrop program.
WeStart KYC Tier 2 Verification Guide
To be eligible for the Libellum airdrop, all users must pass KYC Tier 2 Verification on WeStart.
Step 1: Go to WeStart website (https://www.westart.co/project/libellum-airdrop) to register an account and click on “Sign up for WeStart”.
Step 2: Fill in your particulars. Email and password will be used for future signing in.
Step 3: Upon clicking Sign Up, you will receive an email confirmation. Go to your email address to activate your account or by clicking the “Login to your account” button.
Step 4: Once your account is activated, you are immediately KYC Tier 1 verified. For the airdrops, you’ll need Tier 2 verification, while for the private/public presale, Tier 3 KYC verification must be passed.
Step 5: In the WeStart dashboard, go to “My Account” and under Tier 2, click on “Upload Document”.
Step 6: Fill in the “Identity Verification For Token Events”.
Step 7: Fill out the form to complete Tier 2 KYC (Know Your Customer) information to be able to get whitelisted for the Libellum Airdrop.
Step 8: Fill in Personal information
First Name
Last Name
Birth Date
Nationality
Document Number
Document Type
Document Expiration Date
Document Front Side (JPG, JPEG, PNG)
(a) Face is clearly visible
(b) Information is legible and discernible
(c) Document is valid (not expired)
Document Back Side
Selfie with ID
(a) Face clearly visible
(b) ID clearly visible
(c) Paper with WeStart and today’s date
Step 9: Submit for verification
Once you receive confirmation that you’ve passed the KYC Tier 2 Verification, simply head to https://www.westart.co/project/libellum-airdrop and click on “Register to participate in airdrop”. | https://medium.com/libellum/libellum-airdrop-is-live-claim-your-free-lib-tokens-today-fc1bcaecf7aa | [] | 2018-08-23 13:38:53.197000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Airdrop', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto'] |
Super. | From $0 to $100,000: The Business Side of Writing Is the Hardest to Learn and the Easiest to…
3.7K 35 | https://medium.com/@annehaack/super-b4c0af15fab0 | ['Anne Haack'] | 2020-12-25 11:15:30.277000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Writing', 'Mindset'] |
Proof of Giving | For many, the term “crypto” summons visions of lambos and 6-figure cartoon cats. Crypto’s cultural mores involve going to the moon, and “number go up.” Despite these associations, a theme in 2021 has been charitable giving. With incredible gains for those who’ve held cryptocurrency for a long time, there has also been a wave of charity.
The above network illustrates giving just on Ethereum starting in 2021, and only for a dozen known addresses for charitable activities. Dots are wallets and lines are donations of crypto to these charities. Because these addresses are public, the blockchain serves as “proof of giving.” The width of the lines reflects approximate donation in USD. You can see that some wallets (or exchanges) flowed into several charities, and sometimes many times into the same charity.
All together, in May 2021 prices, this network maps almost $1,000,000,000 in giving. This large figure is mostly attributable to the famously large donation to the India Covid Crypto Relief Fund. In the network diagram above, this donation appears as the massive thick line into that charity.
The largest donation was in meme coins.
But even without this largest donation, there is over $100,000,000 in giving, just on Ethereum, and just in these few wallets. Here are some examples of charitable activities in the crypto space in 2021, challenging stereotypes and having positive impacts for many less fortunate. Below is a quick summary of just some of this giving, with links to public addresses.
Examples
Cobie’s stream. “Cobie fun” is just one wallet from a prominent twitch.tv stream. On this live video stream, the prominent member of the crypto community Cobie sometimes jumps into twitch channels and with his followers gives to various musicians, artists and others. The network shows only one such wallet, one that gained significant attention: Cobie and his community helped a family who were in medical debt because their youngster had just battled with cancer (and won).
Maximum-impact charities. GiveDirectly and GiveWell have been taking crypto donations for some time. These programs use scientific research to determine what charitable activities have the greatest per-dollar impact on human well-being, especially among underserved communities. Their programs often focus on health, such as disease prevention, surgery, and more. One recent donation to GiveDirectly included millions from the co-founder of Ethereum. Both are 501(c)(3) charities that take ether and other cryptocurrencies.
Vitalik inspired by giving much.
India Covid Crypto Relief. The co-founder of Polygon took to Twitter to summon the community to help with the unrelenting COVID-19 surge that spread around India in the spring. He and others founded the “India Covid Crypto Relief” contract on Ethereum which quickly received thousands of donations, including one from the founder of Ethereum which, in May’s prices, amounted hundreds of millions alone.
Birth of India Covid Crypto Relief
Giving through NFTs. Some of these donations came from OpenSea and Artblocks.io platforms, which allows NFT creators to send some of the proceeds of their sales automatically and directly to the charity. On OpenSea, for example, creators just have to set a royalty payout recipient to the public address of the charity. Once configured in this way, the project gives automatically and without any intermediary. This can be done on contract too. For example, Dan at OpenSea configured the payout address from the minting fee of the Colorglyphs NFT project (0.05 ETH) to go straight to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Another charitable NFT project mediated via OpenSea.
Diverse giving opportunities. An assortment of other 501(c)(3) charities have public addresses: SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) and Methuselah are both charities related to slowing the effects of aging through science and technology; EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) defends civil liberties in the digital world; Heifer works in local communities around the world to help fight hunger and poverty; Rainforest Foundation US works with indigenous communities to help them protect and oversee their land; Wild Tomorrow is a charity that works with local communities to help maintain and protect endangered animal populations. 350.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that works to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and expand research and accessibility to renewables.
Approximate estimate of giving in 2021 based on late May values.
Conclusion
A use case for crypto seems obvious here. For example, in the case with NFTs, platforms like OpenSea permit creators to directly and automatically donate to charities without any intermediary and without the need for any specialty infrastructure to accomplish this — it is direct on the public blockchain, accessible and visible to all as a “proof of giving.” Moreover, giving anonymously is much easier, and can be done directly without sharing personal details (and without the collateral damage of mailers and emails). There has been recognition of these positives among major industry players. (Important note: If you plan to declare the giving on your taxes, most of these charities permit you to share your personal information to get an official receipt for that purpose.)
This blog post is based just on Ethereum, and with only about a dozen public addresses. There are others on Ethereum not included here. For example, Cryptotrunks is a successful NFT project that works with Offsetra to offset on-chain activity and support renewable energy projects. There are also many charitable and non-profit activities among Gitcoin’s projects, such as Giveth.io, which is poised to expand this trend. When charitable giving with Bitcoin is included, this would likely be a much higher figure. And because many addresses to charities are obfuscated by charity services for reasons of privacy, this figure is likely larger again.
Crypto has way more kindness than it gets credit for. | https://medium.com/coinmonks/proof-of-giving-2e36823eb146 | ['Takens Theorem'] | 2021-06-28 04:08:35.230000+00:00 | ['Giving', 'Charity', 'Ethereum', 'Donations', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
I Was a High-Tech Expert in a Low-Tech Church. Here’s What I Did. | I Was a High-Tech Expert in a Low-Tech Church. Here’s What I Did.
My Church Was Filled with 70-Year-Olds. They Needed New Ways to Stay Connected FaithTech Follow Jun 8 · 9 min read
Photo by Denisse Leon
In the fall of 2019, my family landed at a small church in our neighbourhood that was trying to re-plant. With only 30 or so remaining members and an average age in the 70s, this little church was struggling to keep the doors open. Yet, there was a clear love for Jesus, a passion for the Gospel, and a vision to re-plant the church. Our family felt the Lord calling us to this little church for a season, so we got involved right away. I had no idea what was just around the corner.
When March 2020 hit, news of the spreading pandemic triggered a lot of rapid changes. Because our little church was made up almost entirely of people in a high risk group, we needed to transition to something remote very quickly. The next several months were a continuous process of trying to adapt, not only to the new safety requirements, but also to the limited tech-literacy of the congregation.
Before 2020, you might have encountered some form of “church online” or watched the occasional live streamed service, but over the last year, chances are you depended heavily on things like Youtube, Facebook Live, and Zoom to continue participating with your local church. Even savvy technophiles had to find new platforms for connecting online. So it’s easy to understand why the elderly in my own church struggled to make the leap. But they weren’t the only ones.
Age is only one factor limiting tech literacy. Other factors include access, ability, and vocational background. In rural areas, some communities still lack the basic internet infrastructure to make web-based solutions possible; in the US alone, 15–20 million people still lack broadband access. Meanwhile, differently-abled and intellectually disabled persons may also struggle to connect using new technologies. Consider also that many people don’t regularly use computers in their work—certain trades, including industrial, service, and natural resource jobs, for example. As churches’ moved online, it was easy to overlook these people; I certainly did. Then I found myself in a church where these factors couldn’t be ignored.
Large-Scale Spectacle, Small-Scale Churches
Most people who know me professionally associate my work with large-scale and high-tech spectacles. I’ve spent most of my career working with media and technology to create larger-than-life events, public art, and experiences, co-founding a design firm in 2011 to help organizations with a strong “why” communicate through those mediums. Despite all this, what many people don’t realize is that I have spent most of my life in small churches and church plants.
Photo by Anthony Diehl
As a designer, one of my goals is to champion empathy in the design process. It doesn’t matter how cool, effective, or scalable your idea is. How do the people you aim to serve experience it? That is really the big question. While I firmly believed in this empathetic approach to design before 2020, that year serving our little church stretched my imagination and opened my eyes to serving those who would otherwise be excluded from the life of our churches.
As 2020 rolled on, I began working with other churches, helping them solve problems, connecting people, and training teams. While I usually get the call for more high-tech related problems, I’ve come to deeply care about including those people who might be excluded (often unknowingly) from our gatherings. But is trying to connect people with low tech literacy to a church really worth the effort?
When You Come Together…
In one online discussion about connecting churchgoers who couldn’t stream videos, one person commented, “In 2021 if you cannot use a computer and can’t access a website, there’s not much else we can do to help people.” (As you might imagine, the comment triggered some “robust dialogue” in the group.) What struck me was the lack of imagination, yet the question still stands. Is it worth struggling to solve a technical problem for one or two people when the majority of the congregation logs on just fine?
I found I needed to wrestle with the apostle Paul’s pointed words to the Corinthian church.
For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. (1 Corinthians 11:21–22)
The early church practiced what is known as an “agape feast”, a sort of extended potluck with the Eucharist at the centre. Wealthy Christians would typically host the gathering in their homes, and those with the means would supply enough food for those who had none. However, not everyone was able to gather at the same time. The wealthy could leisurely feast the day away while the poor—and slaves in particular—had to work like any other day. When the poor finally arrived at the end of their work day, much of the food was already eaten. When Paul learns what the Corinthians’ feasts were becoming, he has some strong words for them.
Paul reiterates what the Lord’s Supper is truly supposed to be and then offers a simple exhortation: “So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another” (1 Cor 11:33, emphasis added).
It was not until 2020 that I saw how our use of technology might be excluding some members of the Body from the gathering. While Christians could apply this passage in many ways today, for those of us serving in media and technology, how can we wisely deploy technology to “wait for” our brothers and sisters whom we might unknowingly be leaving behind?
Low-Tech Church Solutions
Photo by Federica Galli
As I’ve worked with dozens of churches over the past year, I’ve encountered many different ways churches are developing low-tech solutions to keep their members connected to the weekly rhythms of worship and community life together. Here is a list of some of what I’ve learned.
Small “offline” groups + pre-recorded elements. Some of the most encouraging creative examples this last year have been small groups (2–10) meeting and holding a small service with some prepared materials. A song or two, some Scripture, a recorded sermon, and prayer. Most of the stories where people said things like, “You know, I actually feel like I grew closer this last year” had something like this in play. Not always doable, but worth striving for.
Some of the most encouraging creative examples this last year have been small groups (2–10) meeting and holding a small service with some prepared materials. A song or two, some Scripture, a recorded sermon, and prayer. Most of the stories where people said things like, “You know, I actually feel like I grew closer this last year” had something like this in play. Not always doable, but worth striving for. CD/DVD recording. A surprising number of churches are still recording and distributing services on CD/DVD. It is a medium that older members can use with minimal headache. This highlights the tradeoff of using better, newer technology—and the very steep learning curve for some—versus working with mostly obsolete forms that an older generation already knows.
A surprising number of churches are still recording and distributing services on CD/DVD. It is a medium that older members can use with minimal headache. This highlights the tradeoff of using better, newer technology—and the very steep learning curve for some—versus working with mostly obsolete forms that an older generation already knows. Dial-in phone solutions. For churches already using Zoom, the platform provides a phone dial-in solution. It may not always work with some of the “dial 9 to get an outside line” phone systems in care homes, etc. Some have reported good experiences with phonelivestreaming.com while many are using freeconferencecall.com as a low/no cost solution. At least one church I heard about literally has one member who calls several other members who all put their phones on speaker while the caller holds their phone next to a laptop with the live stream!
For churches already using Zoom, the platform provides a phone dial-in solution. It may not always work with some of the “dial 9 to get an outside line” phone systems in care homes, etc. Some have reported good experiences with phonelivestreaming.com while many are using freeconferencecall.com as a low/no cost solution. At least one church I heard about literally has one member who calls several other members who all put their phones on speaker while the caller holds their phone next to a laptop with the live stream! Phone Check-ins. Speaking of phones…. Talking on the phone is still a personalized and meaningful way to connect people. One church in New York organized groups of 15, each with its own leader. Those leaders called each person on their list to check in and see if they needed anything. It helped sustain connections that might otherwise fade out. With pastors already stretched thin, a small bit of planning, organizing, and communication can equip the church to care for each other.
Speaking of phones…. Talking on the phone is still a personalized and meaningful way to connect people. One church in New York organized groups of 15, each with its own leader. Those leaders called each person on their list to check in and see if they needed anything. It helped sustain connections that might otherwise fade out. With pastors already stretched thin, a small bit of planning, organizing, and communication can equip the church to care for each other. Low-power FM broadcast. It is quick and easy to set up a consumer grade FM broadcast in an outdoor space. Many churches are adapting services so that people can participate from the parking lot. In places where lockdown is still in effect, “parking lot church” has been a breath of fresh air for many. If you can get in a car and turn on the radio, you can participate!
It is quick and easy to set up a consumer grade FM broadcast in an outdoor space. Many churches are adapting services so that people can participate from the parking lot. In places where lockdown is still in effect, “parking lot church” has been a breath of fresh air for many. If you can get in a car and turn on the radio, you can participate! Local AM broadcast. One church I know of reached out to a local AM radio station and secured a Sunday morning time slot. While this solution may be a bit more expensive or not possible in some areas, it will provide an extremely reliable and accessible solution for connecting members who can’t get online.
One church I know of reached out to a local AM radio station and secured a Sunday morning time slot. While this solution may be a bit more expensive or not possible in some areas, it will provide an extremely reliable and accessible solution for connecting members who can’t get online. Internet radio. I am exploring a low cost broadcast solution where an inexpensive portable internet radio player (basically a small radio) could be set up in advance to receive a church’s live stream. The idea here is that someone could literally just turn the device on when the service is live and listen in. While traditional radio broadcast is expensive for an individual church, an internet radio stream is cheap and can reach anywhere with an internet connection. This concept is being prototyped, and I’d love to see it put into a real world test. Interested collaborators welcome!
I am exploring a low cost broadcast solution where an inexpensive portable internet radio player (basically a small radio) could be set up in advance to receive a church’s live stream. The idea here is that someone could literally just turn the device on when the service is live and listen in. While traditional radio broadcast is expensive for an individual church, an internet radio stream is cheap and can reach anywhere with an internet connection. This concept is being prototyped, and I’d love to see it put into a real world test. Interested collaborators welcome! Zoom. Perhaps nothing revolutionary here for most, but last year, I discovered that many people were not using Zoom to connect simply because even the simplest tutorials were beyond them. I also found that once someone tried Zoom or other video conferencing one time, they were much more likely to continue using it and learn by doing. Here is a very simple tutorial for onboarding members with low-tech literacy but still with access to smartphones, tablets, or laptops.
Behind the Cutting Edge and Waiting…
Photo by Ron Lach
For tech professionals in 2021, burning DVDs and setting up dial-in systems may not seem like very cutting-edge work. Using older technologies isn’t likely to scale or attract droves of new users, but this work matters more than you realize. Remember, even with older technologies, you are still engaging in a design process to serve a specific group. Your skills in solving problems are just as needed here—and can grow just as much—as in any “cutting-edge” area.
During the past year, I found the work to be vitally important for helping a small church stay connected and stay on mission. The simple tools we put in place and, most importantly, the time invested in training individuals helped the church move into a new chapter. After months of working to keep people connected, that small neighbourhood church was able to hire a new lead pastor, a major step in replanting the church.
Is trying to connect people with low tech literacy to a church really worth the effort? If a little bit of innovative tech sustained a church for future ministry, that surely seems worth the effort. What new works might God have yet to do in and through this church?
Most of all, I found my awareness of and love for unseen members in the church grew through my encounters with the tech-challenged. Serving the less visible parts of the Body is a gift and a blessing that builds up the whole church. As Christians serving in tech, let’s use our perspective, voice, and talents to help the church “wait for one another” when we gather. | https://medium.com/faithtech/i-was-a-high-tech-expert-in-a-low-tech-church-heres-what-i-did-556952dc78da | [] | 2021-06-08 17:10:41.873000+00:00 | ['Christianity', 'Faith and Life', 'Church', 'Empathy Design', 'Technology'] |
Fortune Cookies — How these Entrepreneurs Make 6 Figures Selling Cookies in the Middle of a Pandemic | 2020 was the year of the pandemic, but it was also the year when a lot of people realised the true value of working from home. Most people have realised that work can be done from a laptop and within the confines of their own homes and that most meetings can be done over Zoom. People are ready to quit their 9 to 5s in pursuit of the dreams they have not been pursuing. Quitting your job to go to online culinary school, starting an art Instagram or becoming a small business supported by TikTok marketing — we’re now experiencing the world through our smartphones. It’s like suddenly a lot of people have woken up and realised that the internet provides a reach that was previously unheard of.
In my own search for successful small businesses, time and time again I would chance upon people opening their own delivery-only bakeries at home. While I thought these were small scale establishments catering to local communities (and there is certainly truth in this), some tech-savvy entrepreneurs have truly leveraged the power of the internet and are now making a fortune selling cookies online. Let’s have a look at who is doing it, and how you can do it too!
Who’s Doing It?
Serving the neighbourhoods of Fresno and Clovis in California, Crave Cookie has hit a milestone many small businesses can only dream of. They’ve crossed the $200k mark in monthly revenue. How does a humble twenty-year-old family cookie recipe turn into a cookie-selling mini-empire?
The brother-sister founder duo had just the right and complementary skillsets to make this happen. Sam Eaton is a software engineer who paired up with his sister Shandi (the cookie maker), and together they set up a modern, online-only business model.
The website is completely designed and developed from scratch and is proprietary Crave Cookie software. However, in the day and age of online platforms like Shopify, not having the technical skills to build an online store is no longer a roadblock for budding e-commerce entrepreneurs.
Our second feature for today is a little online cookie store called “The Very Best Cookies in The Whole Wide World”. Is the e-bakery true to its name though? Let’s find out.
The Very Best Cookies in The Whole Wide World was a product of quarantine fuelled boredom and innovation. What started as a game to do nice things for friends, has turned into a full-fledged cookie empire, and at last update was making around $12k/month in revenue. The bakery is only a year old and has been selling all across the United States. What’s best is that the website and the logistics are all handled by Shopify, which means that all the owner has to worry or care about is baking and shipping!
Have a passion for baking and want to sell all over your country? Here’s how you can!
Opening an online store is now easier than ever, thanks to tools like Shopify and BigCommerce which have allowed budding entrepreneurs to open up their stores in less than a day.
However, running a bakery is not an easy business. You need to define your speciality and make sure you have the right plan for logistics and capital requirements in place. We have just the right roadmap and tips for you if you want to start your own:
Step 1: Figure out what your bakery niche is going to be
There are several different kinds of bakeries in the market, and they all serve different niches. You want to find a bakery niche that falls between what your expertise is, and where the market opportunity lies. This will depend on several factors, like the demographics of the areas you want to serve as well as the competition in your area. For example, somewhere like Los Angeles where the general population tends to be more health-conscious and vegan might have different requirements to other places.
Step 2: Create a small menu of 5/6 of your best recipes
Once you’ve figured out your niche, make a small list of what you think will be the best sellers based on the locations you wish to serve and your own expertise. Take feedback from people by sending free baked goods to your friends and family as well as to people in your community. This will not only help you refine your recipes and zero down a couple of favourites but also help you get your name out.
Step 3: Figure out logistics
There are multiple logistical requirements associated with running any business, and some of these are even more essential to take care of when you’re running a business that deals with edible goods.
Batch Size: How many goods are you aiming to sell per day? Keeping an upper limit will help you figure out your cost as a whole.
How many goods are you aiming to sell per day? Keeping an upper limit will help you figure out your cost as a whole. Sourcing Ingredients: Create a detailed list of all the inputs for your baked goods along with the price of each.
Create a detailed list of all the inputs for your baked goods along with the price of each. Equipment: Make sure you have the correct equipment requirement according to your batch size.
Make sure you have the correct equipment requirement according to your batch size. Clearance: If you run a big enough establishment, you might need clearance to run a food delivery service. Check the requirements for your area.
If you run a big enough establishment, you might need clearance to run a food delivery service. Check the requirements for your area. Packaging & Delivery: Food delivery can be a logistical nightmare so you will have to pick a courier service that specialises in delivering perishable goods and also serves your region
Step 4: Set up an online presence
Nowadays, there are plenty of tools to choose from when it comes to setting up an online e-commerce store. You can go as simple or as complicated as you would like, depending on your requirements. However, in most cases, a Shopify store should be enough to get you started.
Step 5: Define a pricing model
Based on the cost of ingredients, packaging, delivery, running your e-commerce store (and all other fixed and variable costs you might have), you will need to figure out a cost per cookie which you can then use to calculate your profit margin per cookie. Once you have your profit margin, you can use this to mark up your cookie to your desired price. You might want to research the general cost of what you decide to sell.
Vegan goods tend to be priced a bit more than average
If you are using the best quality, premium ingredients, you can target a higher-end market and this will also reflect in the price you decide to set
Step 6: Figure out a marketing plan
It is important to get word of your bakery business out there. If you have already followed our steps, you’ve probably sent your cookies around your local community to get word of your new business out there. If you haven’t already, here are some tips to get started:
Participate in a local bake sale
Get on social media and do free giveaways. Instagram and TikTok are great place these days for small businesses and can help you get tons of exposure both locally and also beyond your immediate neighbourhood
Step 7: Go live and sell, sell, sell!
Once you have all of that in place, you are ready to go live! Keep your marketing practices up and let the orders roll in. Happy selling! | https://medium.com/@theuptide/fortune-cookies-how-these-entrepreneurs-make-6-figures-selling-cookies-in-the-middle-of-a-67ee16e340b8 | ['The Uptide'] | 2021-06-19 15:33:54.553000+00:00 | ['E Commerce Business', 'Small Business', 'Entrepreneur', 'Female Founders', 'Startup'] |
Imprisoned for Christ, Advancing the Gospel | Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. (Philippians 1:12-14, NASB)
I LOVE these verses! They are filled with so much hope and encouragement for all of us who are in Christ! Let's dig in.
My Circumstances
This is as practical as it gets. We all have circumstances. And in the context of this passage we are talking about negative circumstances. Sometimes they visit us as consequences of our sin. Sometimes it is because of the sin of others. Sometimes it is just that life is not fair, relationships are hard, and the world doesn't always spin our way. Then there are the negative circumstances that encompass us because we would not shut up about Jesus. That's where Paul is, imprisoned because he wouldn't be quiet about Jesus. And it is a dire circumstance. Later we will find out that death is not outside the realm of possibility. This is a serious situation! When Paul says "my circumstances" this is what he is referring to.
What are your circumstances right now? Get that in front of you, keep it there for the rest of this post, and apply these verses personally.
The thing that separates those who finish the race and those who drop out is not the circumstances they went through, but the perspective they clung to.
...have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel...
This is AMAZING! Paul is in chains, yet he is rejoicing that his chains are advancing the gospel. We will see how this is happening in a second, but for now let's wrap our minds around this truth.
The gospel is absolutely unstoppable!
They tried to imprison Paul to silence the gospel, but it was his very imprisonment that caused the gospel to spread even more. We see a window into Paul's heart here. His concern is not for his own interests. His concern is for gospel progress. This line is spoken with the intention of bringing comfort and hope. He is not crying against the Lord, "How could You allow such circumstances to come to Your servant?" He is basically praising the Lord, "You have planned these circumstances that the gospel might go even further."
Circumstances, however joyful or painful, are awesome opportunities for the gospel to progress.
Paul viewed his imprisonment as a strategic catalyst for the gospel instead of a great defeat. What if we took Paul's view in our own lives? What if your circumstance is a station God has strategically placed you in so that the gospel can be advanced? After all, that is our mission in this life; the display and advancement of the gospel.
We are not called to comfort. We are called to the battlefield with the gospel in hand.
Paul's testimony shows us that our circumstances do not define our spiritual success. Whether good or bad, they only aid in the completion of our mission - gospel progress.
The Gospel to the Soldiers
Paul goes on to give two specific ways that his imprisonment has advanced the gospel. The first is that the "whole praetorian guard" now knows about it. The prison has become his mission field, the soldiers his target demographic, and now the good news is spreading! There is no other way the gospel could have penetrated the ranks of the Roman military quite like this. Paul was not sitting dejected in his confinement. He was preaching the gospel! Sometimes God calls us to preach the gospel in hard places. The challenge we get from Paul is to see the potential spiritual impact those hard circumstances can have.
When God places you in suffering He is not picking on you. He is giving you an opportunity. What is your circumstance right now? Who is your "praetorian guard?"
Giving Courage to the Saints
The second way Paul's imprisonment advanced the gospel is by giving courage to other Christians. Paul said many Christians were "trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment" and "have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear." When you suffer well as a Christian your brothers and sisters in Christ are encouraged in their suffering. When you embrace your suffering as an opportunity to advance the gospel, you infuse other Christians with the courage to do the same.
There is something about reading and hearing the stories of Christians throughout time who testified to the gospel in the midst of great persecution and trial. As I read their testimonies I can typically feel gospel boldness rising up within me. It reminds me of my greater purpose. We are still in the heat of the great war for souls. But sometimes we need reminded of that. This also goes back to the point from one of my previous posts. Sanctification is a community project.
Someone else needs your story. Someone else needs your testimony. And, as odd as it sounds at first, someone else needs your suffering. And you need theirs.
May it be that your circumstances will turn out for the greater progress of the gospel. And may it be that you are willing to embrace it joyfully and purposefully as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. | https://medium.com/verse-by-verse/imprisoned-for-christ-advancing-the-gospel-73a2a3f3487c | ['Brad Creech'] | 2020-12-24 18:56:07.423000+00:00 | ['Philippians', 'Gospel', 'Bible', 'Bible Study', 'Christianity'] |
Try out a Different Perspective —Just for a Change | Sometimes, trying out a different perspective is all we need, in order to transform our lives. The following is what I would like you to try out and see for yourself, just for a change.
All your life so far, you’ve kept thinking only about your own happiness. Why don’t you try thinking about other’s happiness, just for a change?
All your life so far, you’ve kept fluctuating between the past and future. Why don’t you try clinging to the present moment, just for a change?
All your life so far, you’ve kept ignoring the wise pieces of advice. Why don’t you try some out and see results for yourself, just for a change?
All your life so far, you’ve kept finding all of the happiness outside through sensory pleasures. Why don’t you try finding some of it inside through self-realization, just for a change?
All your life so far, you’ve kept finding faults in the rest of the world. Why don’t you try finding some faults in yourself, just for a change?
All of your life so far, you’ve been loving everyone based on judgements. Why don’t you try loving them unconditionally and see how it feels like, just for a change?
All of your life so far, you’ve been giving precedence to nourish your body with healthy food. Why don’t you try giving precedence to nourish your mind with uplifting knowledge, just for a change?
All of your life so far, you’ve always flown in the sky of self-praise after reaching success milestones. Why don’t you try staying on the ground of humbleness next time, just for a change?
All of your life so far, you’ve always been working either in the form of job or business only to get recognition and nothing else. Why don’t you try working for the sake of serving the world and see what happens, just for a change?
All your life so far, you’ve been labelling yourself in many ways and then getting overloaded after gaining the elevated sense of doership. Why don’t you try labelling yourself “A simple human through whom things are getting done” and feel the lightness while dissolving the sense of doership, just for a change?
All your life so far, you’ve been saying, “There is no God !” Why don’t you try saying “Maybe God is there. But I don’t have those eyes yet that can see God”, just for a change?
All your life so far, you’ve been only thinking to change yourself but never really did that. Why don’t you really try changing yourself and see if it brings a difference, just for a change? | https://medium.com/an-idea/try-a-different-perspective-just-for-a-change-23eea3619ab4 | ['Gurpreet Dhami'] | 2020-11-26 17:00:05.812000+00:00 | ['Positive Thinking', 'Philosophy', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Motivation'] |
How is Machine Learning used in industry? | Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) where computers independently learn to do something they were not programmed to do. They do this by learning from experience — leveraging algorithms and discovering patterns and insights from data. This means machines don’t need to be programmed to perform tasks on a repetitive basis.
As stated in the What is machine learning? article most common types of Machine Learning Algorithms are:
Supervised Learning — Supervised learning occurs when an algorithm learns from example data and associated target responses that can consist of numeric values or string labels, such as classes or tags, in order to later predict the correct response when posed with new examples.
— Supervised learning occurs when an algorithm learns from example data and associated target responses that can consist of numeric values or string labels, such as classes or tags, in order to later predict the correct response when posed with new examples. Unsupervised Learning — Unsupervised learning occurs when an algorithm learns from plain examples without any associated response, leaving the algorithm to determine the data patterns on its own.
— Unsupervised learning occurs when an algorithm learns from plain examples without any associated response, leaving the algorithm to determine the data patterns on its own. Reinforcement Learning — Using this algorithm, the machine is trained to make specific decisions. The machine is exposed to an environment where it trains itself continually using trial and error. This machine learns from past experience and tries to capture the best possible knowledge to make accurate business decisions.
Machine Learning is Widely Applicable
Most industries working with big data have recognized the value of Machine Learning technology. By collecting insights from this data, organizations and companies are able to work more efficiently or gain an advantage over competitors.
Which industries use machine learning?
Photo by veeterzy on Unsplash
1- Healthcare
Machine Learning (ML) is already lending a hand in diverse situations in healthcare. ML in healthcare helps to analyze thousands of different data points and suggest outcomes, provide timely risk scores, precise resource allocation, and has many other applications.
2- Retail
The retail field consists of supermarkets, department stores, chain stores, specialty stores, variety stores, franchise stores, mail-order houses, online merchants, and door-to-door sellers. Retail stores buy their goods from wholesalers, stock the goods, and resell them to individual consumers in small quantities.
3- Financial Services
Process automation is one of the most common applications of machine learning in finance. The technology allows to replace manual work, automate repetitive tasks, and increase productivity. As a result, machine learning enables companies to optimize costs, improve customer experiences, and scale up services.
4- Automotive
In the automotive industry, machine learning (ML) is most often associated with product innovations, such as self-driving cars, parking and lane-change assists, and smart energy systems.
5- Government Agencies
AI can be used to assist members of the public to interact with government and access government services, for example by: Answering questions using virtual assistants or chatbots (see below) Directing requests to the appropriate area within government. Filling out forms.
6- Transportation
AI has the potential to make traffic more efficient, ease traffic congestion, free driver’s time, make parking easier, and encourage car- and ridesharing. As AI helps to keep road traffic flowing, it can also reduce fuel consumption caused by vehicles idling when stationary and improve air quality and urban planning.
7- Oil & Gas
Machine Learning has become an integral part of the operations of most oil and gas companies, allowing them to gather large volumes of information in real-time and translate data sets into actionable insights. They now need to view data as an extremely valuable resource, with huge upside for companies with innovative, robust Machine Learning strategies. Saving time, reducing costs, boosting efficiencies, and improving safety are all crucial outcomes that can be realized from using Machine Learning in oil and gas operations. | https://rampco-software.medium.com/how-is-machine-learning-used-in-industry-9cb28cf08016 | ['Rampco Machine Learning Software'] | 2020-12-03 10:10:54.708000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Rampco', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Industry'] |
BLOCKCHAIN’S POTENTIAL FOR SOCIAL IMPACT WITH DR. JANE THOMASON | Dr. Jane Thomason on the Speaking of Crypto podcast
Dr. Jane Thomason Episode 026
“A lot of people think of blockchain and all they think about is Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and then they immediately, their minds go to the dark web, and money laundering and so forth, but what I wanted to do was put a message out to the world which is, yes, there’s Bitcoin. That’s an important application of blockchain. But, there are all these other ways that it could be used that will actually make the world a better place to live in, so why don’t we push hard, lean in, and try and shape this technology to see if we can’t get those future benefits that people talk about.”
Dr. Jane Thomason, Digital Transformation at ABT Associates and Blockchain Advisor
I got a chance to speak with Dr. Jane Thomason remotely while she was judging the EOS hackathon in Sydney, Australia recently. Dr. Thomason is a blockchain advisor, hackathon judge, experienced CEO and a women’s advocate who was awarded the UN DecadeOfWomen Quantum Impact Champion Award this year. https://www.decadeofwomen.org/hackquantum/
With her global experience both in business and in international development and now the world of blockchain technology, Dr. Thomason sees the world from a birds-eye view, with an ability to zoom out and look at the far-reaching potential of blockchain tech from a wider perspective.
And what she’s seeing right now is that we have a lot of “disconnected ecosystems”, a bit like the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, and that what she believes will help speed up the growth in the space would be for more collaboration, education, co-creation or to use a term she’s coined — hyper-co-collaboration.
We discuss some exciting blockchain use cases and where blockchain’s potential lies in the area of social impact.
Identity, financial transactions like remittances and voting are use cases that Dr. Thomason sees as having a huge impact on changing the status quo. In fact she gives an example of in Australia of the cost being over $200,000 per vote, whereas with blockchain tech, the cost would be around 50 cents per vote and mentions Horizon State’s token-based blockchain voting platform. https://horizonstate.com/ And speaking of voting reforms, Dr. Thomason shares that there is political party in Australia called The Flux Party, which is a Blockchain Political Party. https://voteflux.org/
Dr. Thomason would like to see more accelerator programs and more social impact funds. She talks about the incredible ideas that come out of the hackathon events, but that there’s a gap. There isn’t yet enough support or funding for these ideas to become full-fledged startups or for startups to be profitable ventures and commercialized applications out in the world once the hackathon is over.
One incredible use case she talks about it one that touches the areas of digital identity, medical records and supply chains all attached to one person’s activities.
She uses the example of a long-distance truck driver in Africa who may travel through six different countries. If he’s HIV positive, currently, he wouldn’t be able to get medication in just any country, and his antiretroviral medication helps to stop the spread of HIV. But with blockchain, his identification could be on a blockchain, as well as his medical records and the supply chain information so that wherever he goes, he has access all of these records. What if blockchain really could bring all of these areas together? Well, it can, but what will the world look like when it is put in place?
What does the future look like if all of the facets of our lives could be digital, transparent but private, and immutable?
She talks about education and empowerment and diving into blockchain to find out more and she shares her big a-ha moment with me when she recalls the time after the banda aceh tsunami hit Indonesia. Dr. Thomason was there on the ground during the reconstruction and she explained that at the time there were no records, so although 200 people lost their lives, there was no way to track who they were, what their medical records were, or whether the donor money that came in was going to the right people. She realized that if the blockchain tech were around then that everything around the rehabilitation and reconstruction would have been so much easier. And that’s what got her really thinking about what kind of impact blockchain tech could have on a global impact scale.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/04/pictures/120412-indonesia-tsunami-earthquake-science-world/
Dr. Jane Thomason
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-jane-thomason-85997276/
Digital Transformation Abt Associates
https://www.abtassociates.com/what-we-do/capabilities/digital-transformations | https://medium.com/speaking-of-crypto/026-blockchains-potential-for-social-impact-with-dr-jane-thomason-b04e39534c14 | ['Shannon Grinnell'] | 2018-11-11 21:06:29.474000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Identity', 'Blockchain For Impact', 'Blockchain Technology'] |
Racist Algorithms Still Flourish in 2020 | Racist Algorithms Still Flourish in 2020
It's more than just math
It’s understandable to think that algorithms that power Google searches or determine who gets an organ transplant can’t be racist or cause harm because they’re just math. But research has shown time and time again that algorithms pick up and echo the structural racism present in our society.
Investigative tech outlet The Markup wrote about some of 2020's most egregious examples of racist algorithms, including those used in policing.
For instance, Google’s advertising portal associated the phrase “Black girls,” “Asian girls,” and “Latina girls” with porn. But not the phrase “White girls.”
In medicine, Black patients are erroneously thought to have a higher risk for certain diseases, often derived from racist assumptions in past research. This can make it harder to get organ transplants. When this is coded into algorithms, racism is automated.
Read more at The Markup below: | https://momentum.medium.com/racist-algorithms-still-flourish-in-2020-6ab80cba5fe3 | ['Dave Gershgorn'] | 2020-12-30 06:32:40.394000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Research', 'Algorithms', 'Racism', 'AI'] |
IT Staff Augmentation Challenges You Cannot Ignore | The global pandemic that hit the planet at the end of the previous year came as a shock to humankind which suddenly realized how desperately fragile modern civilization is under the attack of the invisible enemy. COVID-19 has radically changed not only our worldview and social mores but consumer practices and working habits as well. Many businesses and indeed entire industries were brought to a hiatus since entrepreneurs had to or chose to lay low hoping to weather the storm by sitting it out.
Yet, recognition of this urgency for survival is accompanied by the incompatible (though understandable) reluctance of many organizations to invest in costly projects in precarious circumstances of the coronavirus-ridden world. Still, no matter how skeptical some entrepreneurs might have been only half a year ago, most of them have changed their attitude to doing business online, making up their minds to steer their company ship in that direction. This trend has been rapidly gathering momentum since August causing the boom of demand for remote workforce across various industries.
Our company deals with mobile and web development, and the lack of qualified personnel is one of the routine challenges that we face, which was only exacerbated in the times of the pandemic. We realize that staff or resource augmentation is a viable solution that, if used sensibly, can work for the IT-sphere remarkably well.
When starting on a project, you may suddenly own up to it that the task is maybe a little more complicated than you have bargained for. Thus, the choice you face is either to forfeit the project incurring financial loss and reputational damage for your firm, or engage an additional workforce to live up to the customer’s expectations. In the highly competitive business environment of today, you just can’t afford to adopt the first approach, so your only option is to hire qualified temporary employees ready to step into the breach, which is known as staff augmentation.
Besides just increasing your headcount to handle the work influx (like hiring more nurses when hospitals have a deluge of patients), staff augmentation is an excellent solution when you lack the requisite expertise to accomplish the task. Of course, you may resort to classical outsourcing and hire a team to do the job for you, but it is sensible only if it is going to take quite a time. But when it is a matter of a week or two, splurging on contracting an entire organization isn’t worth it.
Being at first mostly practiced in the IT realm, staff augmentation has spread across numerous industries, generating about $500 billion in 2019 alone. Yet, software development stays the core domain where staff augmentation is exceedingly efficient.
Benefits of IT Staff Augmentation
1. Geography is No Bar Anymore
Wherever your office is located, you have access to a virtually unlimited workforce pool hailing from any place on Earth. Moreover, you may eventually end up having different members of the outstaffing team for your project working in various corners of the world for the common cause.
2. No Human Factor Interfering
Having adopted this model, you may forget about such obstacles as vacations or sick leaves of the employees, since it is your partner who is responsible for the committed and uninterrupted effort of the onboarded staff. In case any member does have problems of that kind, other outstaffers step in to replace those who didn’t make it. Besides, there is no downtime to pay for, which you would do if you had your in-house developers handle a project.
3. High Onboarding Speed
You don’t have to search for a front end specialist in one place and a JavaScript developer in another. Once you find the right partner, they can offer you several experts with various skills, which will allow you to fill all the vacancies and get down to work hammer and tongs. Plus, onboarding staff tends to fall into step with your regular personnel faster and more effectively than an entire company with its corporate culture and work ethics would do.
4. Cost Reduction
Having access to the labor market from different countries, you can always select a suitable person cost-wise. Moreover, some companies (like Deventor, for instance) offer discounts, in case you hire several employees. And you don’t pay for renting an office, utilities, hardware, and software used by outstaffers, holiday bonuses, and office parties, to say nothing of investment in personnel training. All of these are the responsibility of your partner now.
5. Flexibility with Scalability
You can regulate the number of employees necessary for the completion of the project on the hoof, depending on different circumstances that may unexpectedly factor in. So you may always onboard an additional workforce in case of an overflow and scale the team down when the tide subsides. We know how important it is first hand.
One of our customers hired software developers from our team of experts, since, in spite of the considerable size of their own personnel, they couldn’t handle a project in-house. However, they had to scale down because of the spring outburst of COVID and we called off three developers. When in the late summer the company finally got back to the initial plans, all three of them joined the customer again, which considerably saved the company’s expenditures during the crisis.
6. Internal Acceptance
When your in-house team knows that the new employees will be with them as long as it takes to put out a fire, they won’t feel threatened that outstaffers could eventually oust them, so the cooperation between the two parties proceeds smoothly.
IT Staff Augmentation Challenges
Expertise and Commitment of Outstaffers
Sometimes, having opted for the staff augmentation model, a company complains of the disappointing outcome that is much worse than what they have expected.
Addressing the challenge:
A meticulous selection of developers is the only way to forestall the possible adverse consequences of this kind.
It all starts inspecting the portfolio where you can observe what projects have been implemented by them. Our advice is to pay close attention to software features developed by your prospective partners, since having general skills, devs can lack experience in some more specialized domain.
Then comes the interview where you should specify your expectations in advance. This setting frames and shaping vistas to conquer is crucial since your partner is likely to have a cooperation pattern established by their previous clients that may significantly differ from your stricter or, on the contrary, more lenient requirements. So, by being aware of what you expect from them, your IT staffing provider will feel more confident as to what they are up to.
Once you have hired an expert, your selection procedure is far from being over because staff augmentation is the approach that allows you to change your mind as to the employee you have onboard. The first couple of weeks are the period that will determine whether the new person is a good (albeit a temporary) fit. Assessing their hard and soft skills, as well as the ability to work in a team, will be vital in your ultimate decision to continue cooperation with him (her) or try to find another person that will suit you to a tee.
Read more about factors to look for in your outsourced team.
Quality Issues
Addressing the challenge:
It is not the company that you will work with, but individuals. So it makes sense to deal with each new member piecemeal and speak to them individually. What you should aim for is getting them interested and excited about the project. Moreover, they should be aware of the quality control procedure you practice. Typically, we use the three-stage approach consisting of code review, testing, and explicit technical workflow formulation.
Efficient Communication
Addressing the challenge:
The workflow must be discussed and agreed upon. In our experience, the customers who have a vague idea of how to make it work effectively often let us choose the communication manner and channels we are comfortable with at our discretion. Deventor conventionally recommends to employ Jira for project management, Slack for communication per se, and GitLab as a repository and CI/CD processes. All these tools can be seamlessly integrated to form an excellent business communication suite.
Also, it is important to establish rules of rapport where routine communication sessions should happen at least twice a week. In such a case, the customer can keep a close eye on what is going on and the developers can report problems in case they appear.
The mentioned challenges are the major concerns of companies who opt for staff augmentation, but other hitches and complications may arise as well, so let us provide expert consulting services to help you out of any predicament. Moreover, our employees are always available to augment your staff and step in at any stage of the project if you feel the need for high-quality expertise in software development.
Conclusion
Staff augmentation is a flexible model of solving the immediate problem of hand shortage. Being somewhat tricky to employ, it is still widely practiced in the IT world, since it is cost-effective and fast in implementation. | https://medium.com/dev-genius/it-staff-augmentation-challenges-you-cannot-ignore-d01be56d205f | ['Artur Shepel'] | 2020-12-30 08:38:34.374000+00:00 | ['Ci', 'Continuous Integration', 'It', 'Releases'] |
Manifestation System Code Review 2019–2020 | For the past few weeks, I have been receiving multiple emails from my subscribers, sharing with me that they have received amazing results from the new “magical” manifestation product.
One of the subscribers wrote this, “Have you heard of the new manifestation product? Everyone calls it the “magical” product. I have received so many good reviews from my friends, so I decided to give it a try. I am surprised to see some results soon after purchasing it! Can you share it with more people so that they can benefit from it too?”
Before I share this product with you all, I have to make sure that it is really as good as what everyone else is saying. I mean, it is easy to put all these claims to make people buy it, but, is it really different from the hundreds of manifestation products out there in the market?
Today, I will be doing my review on this new “magical” product and give you my honest opinion.
What is Manifestation Code?
The number one reason why we can’t manifest for anything we want, is because we are stuck in a “mind prison”. When you’re stuck in “mind prison”, you can only focus on the “reality” you see around you now, and keep attracting the things you try to avoid in life.
If you’re struggling financially, most probably because you are unable to visualise yourself becoming financially free… all you can think about is the overdue bills and debts that are piling up…
Manifestation Code consists powerful, mind-altering audio tracks to help ordinary people to attract more wealth and abundance into their lives.
It is a tried, tested, and perfected system that leverage on Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) approach, for our brains to produce mind-transforming “passcodes” to unlock your “mind prison”. By doing so, you can completely transform your financial future in the simplest and easiest way possible.
Seems promising. Let’s see what’s inside this offer.
What does Manifestation Code has to offer?
Cosmic Zero Wealth Track [Beginner Level]
Higher Power Meditation Track
Solfeggio Prosperity Track
Law of Attraction Subliminal Track
Unending Prosperity Manifestation Track
Cosmic Zero Wealth Track [Advance Level]
Pure Cosmic Waves Track
Cosmic Wealth Vibration Track
Guided Prosperity Meditation Series
5-min Morning Energy Starter
10-min Wealth & Abundance
15-min Money & Abundance
As promised by Jake, all you need to do is to listen to the tracks for 10 minutes every day to manifest anything you want. As such, we see that he has generously provided us with lots of tracks for different purposes: abundance, wealth, prosperity… everything! It’s definitely value for money, given how much you are actually receiving just by paying a small amount.
Now, here comes the real question, is Manifestation Code different from all the other products out there in the market?
How is Manifestation Code different from the rest?
1. Beginner-friendly: While the concept of Law of Attraction is no longer new to us, many of us might not be familiar with the more complicated concepts, such as chakra or visualisation techniques. This product is perfect for beginners because all you need to do is to listen to the audio tracks and allow the Universe to do the work for you.
2. Personalised Resources: Manifestation Code consists of a great variety of tracks. The resources are personalised so that members can choose what’s suitable for them depending on their level, and purpose, for wealth, abundance, blessings… It’s thoughtful to take into consideration that different individuals are at different levels, and craft resources that are suitable for everyone.
3. Easy-to-use: For many of us, we have always wanted to manifest for things we desire in life without putting extra time and effort. Manifestation Code takes away all the hassle for you, so you only have to put aside 10 minutes every day for this product to change your financial destiny effortlessly.
4. Value for Money: With a small one-time fee, you will be receiving a total of 9 Cosmic Zero Wealth tracks and Meditation tracks that can help you to effectively attract wealth from the Universe. The positive changes you are going to get in your life, is definitely worth more than what you are paying for this product.
5. 100% Proven Testimonials: The testimonials are sent in personally by members who have received good results after using the system. Member reviews are always important to determine the product quality. So far, we see that most of them are very satisfied with the purchase.
6. Instant Access: This is a digital product, so there will be no extra shipping costs or delays. You can access instantly on your laptop, tablet or mobile phone.
7. 60-Day Money Back Guarantee: Jake has kindly provided 60-day money back guarantee so that people can get their hands on it with ZERO risk. This shows that Jake is confident of his product.
Should You Buy It?
I guess the answer is clear… definitely! It allows you to break free from the “mind-prison” that is stopping you from creating your desired future. Best of all, you don’t have to perform complicated chakra, chanting or visualisation exercises, all you need is just 10-minutes every day and listen to an audio track before you sleep. That’s it! Simple and easy. To be honest, I have not seen anything like this in the market.
On top of that, I can see from the testimonials that individuals are really benefitting greatly from this product. If any case, you are not satisfied with the product, you can get every single cent of your money back with their 60-day money back guarantee.
I am happy that my subscribers have shared it with me, and I am looking forward to creating my desired future filled with abundance, prosperity and wealth with Manifestation Code.
You should too!
>> Get Instant Access to Manifestation Code Here<< | https://medium.com/@nguyenben857/manifestation-system-code-review-2019-2020-6c57c3fff820 | ['Solution Consultants For You'] | 2019-11-21 07:46:19.421000+00:00 | ['Manifestation 2019', 'Manifestation Code', 'Manifestation Code Review', 'Manifestation', 'Mindfulness'] |
BuckSwap — The New Disruption — Take Your Yields To New Heights | BuckSwap’s Governance
The BuckSwap Organization is comprised of like-minded individuals who aim to create an objective yield farming platform that is both secure and advantageous to the community. Unlike most projects, BuckSwap is being built by both experts in software development and business-minded individuals who’ll be able to bring these tools to the masses with great code, marketing, and partnerships.
The BuckSwap community is always proposing new use cases. The $BUCKS token’s supply mechanisms have been built with long-term holders in mind. It is against the nature of Buck Swap to dilute early users for the benefit of others, thus the $BUCKS token has many built-in burning mechanisms and deflationary implementations to ensure it is continuously appreciating in value for both newcomers and legacy holders. In order to increase $BUCKS’ value over time and balance the circulating supply of our token, the token was engineered with several key burning mechanisms in place.
Voting — Each $BUCKS staked in the Staking Contract will generate an equal number of votes in the BuckSwap governance contract. The votes can be used to decide further developments and changes to the BuckSwap protocol.
Proposals — Every $BUCKS holder will be able to offer a proposal. Every proposal will cost 0.1 $BUCKS which will go to the BuckSwap Trust Account to be used on further development and marketing. For a proposal to be executed, it must obtain 30% of all possible votes. More than 50% of the 30% of all possible votes must be “YES”.
Vote Vesting — Any person who votes will have 48 hours of vesting on their tokens in the Staking Contract; this is necessary in order to prevent voting manipulation. | https://medium.com/@buckswap/buckswap-the-new-disruption-take-your-yields-to-new-heights-442a6aab804 | [] | 2021-05-14 17:27:54.668000+00:00 | ['Buckswap', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Yield Farming', 'Defi'] |
This Tantric Exercise Will Make Your Dating Life More Fulfilling | This Tantric Exercise Will Make Your Dating Life More Fulfilling
An introduction to initiating and enjoying tantric eye gazing
Our first date started an hour ago. Alice and I are walking through Hyde Park, on a cold and sunny Sunday afternoon. We’ve just finished an enjoyable conversation about philosophy. The conversation engaged my mind, but emotionally I don’t feel as connected to her as I would like to. I suggest that we try something different. It will take 2 minutes.
I explain the exercise: “We will look into each other’s eyes for two minutes. I invite you to drop into your body and your heart rather than analysing the situation with your mind. It is allowed to speak, but only about things that are relevant in this moment. Sharing sensations or feelings as they arise is welcome, but it is also fine to stay silent for the complete duration. There is no goal. Maybe something interesting will happen and maybe not. Notice how it feels to be seen, notice how it feels to see me. This is not a staring competition. There are no winners or losers.” Alice is happy to try.
Depending on how comfortable you and your date are with eye contact this may sound a little daunting. I suggest you use a timer and set it to two minutes. Having a set time frame will make the exercise seem less scary. Find a place where both of you can sit comfortably.
So what happens in those two minutes? Anything could happen. What is happening in my experience is that after a while of looking into each others eyes my date and I start feeling relaxed and comfortable around each other and that opportunities to connect on a deeper level arise. Occasionally this exercise can bring up emotions or even tears. This is welcome too, and raw emotions can often be a gateway to sharing a beautiful moment together and can lead to conversations that are genuine and meaningful.
Often eye gazing also changes the dynamic of the date. It allows both of you to be open, vulnerable and intimate with each other. A few minutes of eye gazing often eliminate the need to play status games, challenge each other, try to look good, brag or engage in other forms of communication that are not going to help you to establish an authentic connection.
If both of you are trying this for the first time you may feel the need to laugh or distract each other. Laughing and talking about unrelated things are often defence mechanisms. This may be unconscious and will pass. The magic starts when the laughing stops and both of you are truly present. Sometimes this takes a while.
When you look into your partners eyes different sensations or emotions may come up. Feel free to share them. If you notice that you are feeling relaxed, share that. If you feel nervous, try what it feels like to say “I feel nervous”. You can also share your perception of your partner. For example: “I have the impression that you are sad”. When your perception is true the other person will feel seen. When it’s not, you have established that you are willing to take the risk to share your impressions and your feelings about the other person.
You can also express desires. If you feel like holding your partners hand, you may say “I would like to hold your hand, how would that be for you?”. Whatever you do in this exercise stay present, authentic and spontaneous. Having a particular agenda in mind is counterproductive.
If both of you are expressing yourself and taking risks this will usually bring you closer together than if you stay completely silent. But complete silence can also be powerful. When first meeting a stranger many people feel that silence can be awkward. This sometimes leads people to have conversations about things they don’t really care about just to fill the silence. Being comfortable sharing a moment of silence with another person can create a feeling of intimacy in itself.
The two minutes that you set initially don’t have to be a hard limit. If continuing feels good to both of you, feel free to continue. When you finish the exercise ask your eye gazing partner what the experience was like for her and share what the experience was like for you.
When I’ve told friends or family about this in the past they have sometimes looked at me incredulous. Who would do eye gazing with a stranger that they’ve just met? In my experience most people I’ve met are willing to try it. I’ve done this with complete strangers in public places, on dates, with friends and with long-term romantic partners. There are many places outside of dating where eye gazing might lead to fulfilling experiences, but I find it especially powerful in dating. It helps to create a space where both of you can be authentic and feel at ease with each other and that’s a great foundation for getting to know each other.
If you suggest eye gazing and your date isn’t up for trying it, you might need to get a bit more comfortable with each other first and you can always suggest it again later. When you notice hesitation you can also share that observation and find out what the cause is. Maybe there are too many people around and you just need to find a better place.
I’ve been doing eye gazing on almost every first date for the last year and it has brought about many authentic and intimate experiences and made dating generally a lot more enjoyable. I encourage you to try it out. If eye gazing with a stranger feels too far out of your comfort zone, you can also try it with a friend first.
If you’ve found this helpful, have any questions or want to share any personal experiences with eye gazing feel free to leave a comment. | https://sebastian-hahn.medium.com/this-tantric-exercise-will-make-your-dating-life-more-fulfilling-808ede3f6f44 | ['Sebastian Hahn'] | 2019-05-10 17:08:33.683000+00:00 | ['Communication', 'Relationships', 'Authenticity', 'Dating', 'Intimacy'] |
Accelerating Windows Virtual Desktop Deployments | Day-3 : Pooled Desktops
Windows Virtual Desktop lets you use Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, the only Windows client-based operating system that enables multiple concurrent users on a single virtual machine (VM). With multi-session(pooled) desktops you’ll get a full desktop as well as Remote Apps.
Create a new WVD Host pool for multi-session desktops.
Go to Azure Portal >> Windows Virtual Desktop
Create a host pool
Start with Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session , Version 2004 + Microsoft 365 Apps
Full Desktops
Finish the remaining steps in the host pool creation wizard.
Give it 5–10 minutes to complete the provisioning process. Add users to the Application Group.
Follow the same steps mentioned in Day-1 to connect to the Workspace and to login to the session hosts.
Based on the above settings, you can have 4 users connecting to these 2 multi-session desktops at any given time.
RemoteApps
Repeat the same process to create a new hostpool, workspace etc.
By default a “Desktop Application Group” (DAG) is created but we now add a Remote Application Group to expose remote apps.
Go to your WVD Host pool >> Manage >> Application Groups
+ Add
Now go back to your Remote Application Group (myRAG) and add the remote apps. These apps could be built-in apps or custom apps. Refer to the screenshot below
Day-4 — Configure FSLogix for roaming profiles
Create a new Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session 2004 + Microsoft 365 Apps virtual machine. We’ll use this VM to build a golden image for multi-session desktops.
RDP in to the VM
Install FSLogix — https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/fslogix/install-ht
Create a new Storage Account and File Share
Make a note of URL from Settings >> Properties section. The URL should be in the form of https://{storage-account}.file.core.windows.net/{filesharename}
Open the Windows PowerShell ISE as an administrator and add the following entries
#Add FSLogix settings New-Item -Path HKLM:\Software\FSLogix\ -Name Profiles –Force Set-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\Software\FSLogix\Profiles -Name "Enabled" -Type "Dword" -Value "1" New-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\Software\FSLogix\Profiles -Name "VHDLocations" -Value "\\wvdrg1storage.file.core.windows.net\myfslogixshare" -PropertyType MultiString -Force
Note: Pls make sure input the right storage account name and file share that’s valid in your subscription. | https://medium.com/@kumar-allamraju/accelerating-your-windows-virtual-desktop-deployments-b34ee9eeb54a | ['Kumar Allamraju'] | 2020-12-28 03:14:05.589000+00:00 | ['Azure', 'Fslogix', 'Windows Virtual Desktop', 'Remote Working'] |
What are pointers in C and how do they work? | What are pointers in C and how do they work?
A pointer is a data value that references a unit of storage.
Let’s say we want to create some pointers to some blocks of storage that contain integers and the easiest way to to do in the C language would be as follows:
First we must have the following declaration in bold at the top of the .c file:
typedef int *pointerToInteger;
Here is how the .c file should look at this point: #include <stdio.h>
typedef int *pointerToInteger; int main(void){
return 0;
}
This typedef is a keyword used in C language to assign alternative names to existing datatypes.
Notice the asterisk (*) in the typedef? The * appears before the pointerToInteger to indicate to the compiler that the type pointerToInteger consists of a pointer to an int.
Now that we have a type named “pointerToInteger” defined let’s declare some variables:
#include <stdio.h>
typedef int *pointerToInteger; int main(void){
pointerToInteger A, B;
return 0;
}
Also, I would like to point out that we can achieve the same implementation by doing the following: int *A, *B;
The latter will have the same exact effect as: pointerToInteger A, B; declaration.
At the time the C compiler compiles the code, the compiler will constrain the values assigned to the A and B variables to be pointers to integers.
A and B have to contain pointers to other storage units Other storage units to which the following pointers A and B refer must contain integers
Assuming those conditions are met and the rest of your code is error free, the compiler will successfully compile your code. In the event the constrains mentioned above are not met the compiler will throw errors.
Let’s now compile the code by running the following command:
gcc -o pointer pointer.c
At this point the compilation should be successful and no errors should be present.
Now, let us compile the following code and see what the compiler is going to do:
#include <stdio.h>
typedef int *pointerToInteger; int main(void){
pointerToInteger A, B;
A = 5; // <----- Notice that we are assigning A and not *A return 0;
}
Upon compiling the program, the compiler threw the following error:
warning: incompatible integer to pointer conversion assigning to ‘pointerToInteger’ (aka ‘int *’) from ‘int’ [-Wint-conversion]
The C compiler will not compile the program because of a “type mismatch” error. The right hand side of the assignment is a value, 5, of type integer; however, the left hand side of the assignment is a variable that is required to contain a pointer to an integer, therefore the assignment is not proper.
In C, an int and a pointer to an int are not considered the same type therefore the compiler will consider this assignment an “illegal pointer arithmetic”.
Now if you attempt to compile the program below, the compiler should complete the compilation.
int main(void){
pointerToInteger A, B;
*A = 5;
return 0;
}
To print the hexadecimal value, indirect value and also the memory address of the pointer run the following program:
#include <stdio.h>
typedef int *pointerToInteger; int main(void){
pointerToInteger A, B;
*A = 5; printf("The indirect value of A is: %d
", *A);
printf("The hexadecimal value of A is: %p
", A);
printf("The hexadecimal memory address of A is: %p
", &A); return 0;
}
The program output is as follows:
Dynamic Storage Allocation
In order to create pointers to some empty integer storage units and to make A and B point to them, we will use the dynamic storage allocation procedure provided by the C language known as malloc().
Let’s look at the following program:
#include <stdio.h>
typedef int *pointerToInteger; int main(void){
pointerToInteger A;
A = (pointerToInteger)malloc(sizeof(int)); printf("The indirect value of A is: %d
", *A);
printf("The hexadecimal value of A is: %p
", A);
printf("The hexadecimal memory address of A is: %p
", &A); return 0;
}
Program output:
This program creates a block of storage for an integer and place a pointer to it in A. (pointerToInteger) is the syntax to type casts the void pointer returned by the malloc function into a pointer to a block of storage containing an integer.
At this point, we have defined a variable A which is a pointer to an empty integer unit storage and we have seen that the value of A is 0.
To store an integer in the block of storage referenced by the pointer in variable A we will have to do the following:
*A = 1;
The * preceding variable A will be an indication that the value 1 will need to be stored in A’s referent.
Now let’s do the same thing for B by allocating the number of bytes to store in an int. Then let’s store the value of 25 in the block of storage referenced by the pointer in variable B.
B = (pointerToInteger)malloc(sizeof(int));
*B = 25;
The code should now look like this:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h> typedef int *pointerToInteger; int main(void){ pointerToInteger A, B; A = (pointerToInteger)malloc(sizeof(int));
*A = 1; printf(“The indirect value of A is: %d
”, *A);
printf(“The hexadecimal value of A is: %p
”, A);
printf(“The hexadecimal memory address of A is: %p
”, &A); B = (pointerToInteger)malloc(sizeof(int));
*B = 25; printf(“
”);
printf(“The indirect value of B is: %d
”, *B);
printf(“The hexadecimal value of B is: %p
”, B);
printf(“The hexadecimal memory address of B is: %p
”, &B); return 0;
}
Run the program and the output will be as such:
How to copy pointers?
Now, let’s take this a step further and let’s make copy of pointers. To perform such copy we need to do the following assignment: A = B;
Notice that we are not using the * when performing the assignment. (We will come back to that in the next step)
A copy of the value of B which is a pointer to the block of storage containing 25 is taken and placed in A so that A now points to the same block of storage that B points to. This is called pointer copying.
Below is a diagram of the assignment operation.
Let’s look at the program:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h> typedef int *pointerToInteger; int main(void){ pointerToInteger A, B; A = (pointerToInteger)malloc(sizeof(int));
*A = 1; printf(“The indirect value of A is: %d
”, *A);
printf(“The hexadecimal value of A is: %p
”, A);
printf(“The hexadecimal memory address of A is: %p
”, &A); B = (pointerToInteger)malloc(sizeof(int));
*B = 25; printf(“
”);
printf(“The indirect value of B is: %d
”, *B);
printf(“The hexadecimal value of B is: %p
”, B);
printf(“The hexadecimal memory address of B is: %p
”, &B); A = B; printf(“
”);
printf(“The indirect value of A is: %d
”, *A);
printf(“The hexadecimal value of A is: %p
”, A);
printf(“The hexadecimal memory address of A is: %p
”, &A); return 0;
}
Program output:
Notice that both A and B are nw pointing to the same reference and we can validate this by verifying that the hexadecimal value for both A and B are identical.
Now, let’s change the value of the block of storage that B points to from 25 to 66 by doing the following assignment:
*B = 66;
What do you think will happen? What will B value be? Will the value of A remain 25? If not, what should it be?
First, let’s look at how the program looks:
Program output:
If your answer was 66, then you have guessed correctly. The reason the integer value of A became 66 when printing it out to the terminal is because A points to B and since we changed the value in the block of storage that B points to, A will also reflect that change.
How to copy integers?
In the previous section we have seen how to properly make a copy of a pointer, in this section we will see how to make a copy of the integer value.
Let’s use the same program from the previous step except let’s make one smal change. On line 21 in the screen shot shown below, let’s use the * when performing the assignment: *A = *B;
Program output:
You will notice that the value in the block of storage that A points to remains 25 even thought the value in the block of storage that B points to has changed to 66 from 25. That is because we have made a copy of the integer rather then copying the pointer. We did that by using the *.
Inaccessible Storage
Remember the following example where we made a copy of pointer B and assigned it to A?
Well, in that example the block of storage containing the integer 1 has no pointer pointing to it any longer and in that scenario that block of storage has become inaccessible. This means that nobody can access it to either read its value or to store a new value into it.
We have to be mindful of such scenarios because it is wasteful to allocate blocks of storage and then abandon them when they become inaccessible.. The pool of storage for allocating new blocks of storage could easily become used up. If such scenario occurs this would lead to a storage allocation failure and when we call the function malloc() in our program, there would be no more storage to allocate thus causing the program to fail.
How to guard against storage allocation failure?
To safe guard against this storage allocation failure, the programming language C offers storage reclamation function free(X).
The free(X) function is designed to return the block of storage to which the pointer in X points back to pool of unallocated storage which will make it available for usage again.
Inaccessible storage is sometimes referred to as garbage in the C language. Managed languages such as C# .NET, the framework has procedure for storage reclamation called garbage collection procedure which is triggered automatically when available unallocated storage is used up. Unlike managed languages, C programming language does not have automatic garbage collection and therefore must be explicitly managed by the programmer. It is incumbent upon the programmer to perform garbage collection in the program.
To free up inaccessible blocks of storage we simply execute the free(X) function immediately prior of the reassignment. The following example is an illustration on how to properly do it:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h> typedef int *pointerToInteger; int main(void){ pointerToInteger A, B; A = (pointerToInteger)malloc(sizeof(int));
*A = 1; B = (pointerToInteger)malloc(sizeof(int));
*B = 25; /*
This will ensure that the current block of storage
that A points to will be free up and the block of storage will
be returned to the pool of blocks of storages
*/
free(A); A = B; return 0;
}
Conclusion
In conclusion, I hope that this article was beneficial to you. Before I leave, I would like to leave you with the following program. What should this program output?
Try to think about it before compiling it and running it. Try to figure it out on your own first! | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/what-are-pointers-in-c-and-how-do-they-work-1ecf297d94c5 | [] | 2020-04-30 17:16:10.156000+00:00 | ['Pointers', 'Free', 'C Programming', 'Memory Allocation', 'Programming'] |
Failing Your Way To Success | How to make the best of bad business situations
Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash
It is February 18, 2013, an independent musician, Jack Conte, began a project that would cause him to max out two credit cards with $10,000 dollars worth of debt, but also sink in about 800 hours of work over the course of 50 days.
His aim — to build a replica of the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, one of the most iconic starships in the star wars franchise, for a music video of a song he had just written titled “Pedals”. In addition to this, he borrowed two robots to feature in this video.
As an artist, Jack Conte was no stranger to failure. He describes having piles upon piles of videotapes that he had never done thing to, stop motion films that never aired, two failed debuts into the music space and a bunch of other duds until he found success by creating a band with his then-girlfriend now-wife Natalie Dawn.
The band “Pomplamoose” was able to build a sizable following of fans, who were able and willing to buy their merch. They were able to collaborate with big names in the music industry and even at one point were hired to do a Hyundai Christmas ad. This was the first time he was experiencing such levels of success, both in the level of fame and also financially.
However, at the time of this project, Pomplamoose was on a hiatus, cash flow had reduced significantly and a major source of income was through Youtube ad revenue, which didn’t even pay much.
At this point, Jack realized something, that the work a lot of creators put into their craft is vastly disparate from the benefits they derive from it financially. He knew from experience that if he were to upload the video he was working on he would not be able to recoup his investment, so he though up a plan to enable creators to get paid by their fans for creating content and that idea with the help of his Sam Yam, a serial entrepreneur and programmer they co-founded Patreon.
Patreon is now one of the biggest platforms that provide a way for content creators to earn a monthly income. In a couple of presentations and speeches, Jack Conte has attributed his success to all his previous failures. | https://medium.com/@theideacove/failing-your-way-to-success-d88e91c16b23 | ['The Idea Cove'] | 2020-12-08 15:32:20.314000+00:00 | ['Motivation', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business Intelligence'] |
Grief & Basketball | Grief & Basketball
And other delicately balanced things.
Photo by Rémi Boyer on Unsplash
An incomplete list of things
the kids I teach have experienced:
grief,
violence,
neglect,
disability and disease,
hunger and homelessness,
discrimination.
An incomplete list of things
the kids I teach believe in:
ghosts,
angels,
fate,
their future contract with the Warriors,
the aliens at Area 51,
true love.
(A small reminder that
you don’t have to be unacquainted with “the real world”
to believe it to be enchanted.) | https://medium.com/literally-literary/grief-basketball-c4b4d15d4c03 | ['Emma Jane Laplante'] | 2019-10-21 19:03:10.649000+00:00 | ['Sports', 'Love', 'Spirituality', 'Social Justice', 'Education'] |
Queer Representations In STAR WARS | More and more franchises have recently embraced non-heteronormative characters. And while queer plot elements are often blown way out of proportion by the media (Power Rangers), they are welcome steps towards a more inclusive entertainment industry.
When it comes to Science Fiction, Star Trek famously depicted Hikaru Sulu greeting his husband on the big screen in 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. This makes you wonder: what about the second massive Scifi franchise? What about Star Wars?
You probably cannot remember any queer representations in the galaxy far, far away, but there have been a few, especially in recent years. Let’s take a look at the non-heteronormative inhabitants of the Star Wars galaxy that we’ve been introduced to so far.
Queer Representations In The Star Wars Movies
The movies have always been the core of the Star Wars franchise. There have been no fewer than ten so far, counting the full-length Clone Wars movie and the illustrious Holiday Special that introduced us to Boba Fett.
If you now find yourself struggling to remember a distinctly non-heteronormative character in any of the movies, there’s a simple reason why: there haven’t been any. At least not yet.
In the case of the original trilogy, that makes sense to some extent. Episodes IV to VI were meant to be traditional fantasy stories set in space. That’s why there are princesses, emperors, knights, and sabers in the Star Wars galaxy. It’s also the reason why the plot of the original trilogy is — let’s be honest — hardly revolutionary.
However, that doesn’t explain why the prequels and sequels, as well as the Clone Wars and Rebels TV series, are heteronormative down to the core. (There are certainly numerous fan theories about Poe Dameron’s sexuality, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.)
Consequently, the only characters featured in the Star Wars movies one could describe as somewhat queer may surprise you: we’re talking about the Hutts. What is it that makes Jabba and co. so interesting, you wonder? Read on and you’ll find out.
Hutts with their slaves
Gender In Star Wars Legends
Since the 80s, official Star Wars stories have been published in the form of novels, comics and games. Then along came Disney and decided to start over again, using only the movies and TV series. That is why all other stories from before the Disney era are now called Star Wars Legends, while those texts published by Disney form the new Star Wars canon.
Let’s take a closer look at the older Star Wars Legends material first. This leads us back to the Hutts, those big and lazy slug-like creatures we all love to despise. While their gender identities have never been addressed in the movies, we learn about them in some of the Legends novels. Jeff Grubb’s Scourge in particular, which is set in the Hutt underworld, sheds light on the species.
Biologically, every Hutt has both male and female characteristics. Yet, all Hutt characters are referred to with either male or female pronouns in the Star Wars universe. This suggests that Hutts actually pick a gender to their liking. They then perform their freely chosen gender by, for instance, wearing certain accessories. Hutts are born naked and the rest is drag, right?
“The idea of calling one [Hutt] male or female was usually left to the observer. The Hutts themselves seemed to be unconcerned about whether they were male or female at any moment.” (Scourge, p. 40)
Scourge tells us that Hutts don’t even care about gender distinctions. Their language, Huttese, is mostly gender-neutral, so that gendered pronouns are only used because of our human obsession with strict gender categories. Consequently, Hutt culture is a particularly interesting example of queerness in the Star Wars galaxy.
Jabba Desilijic Tiure, a Hutt addressed with male pronouns
Sexuality In Star Wars Legends
Alright, so Hutts are gender-queer. But what about sexuality? For decades, there was no non-heterosexual character in Star Wars. Then, in 2006, Karen Traviss published Boba Fett: A Practical Man.
The e-novella introduced us to Goran Beviin, a married Mandalorian soldier working closely with Fett. Beviin’s partner was called Medrit Vasur, but their gender wasn’t specified. It was only in Traviss’s 2007 novel Legacy Of The Force: Bloodline that we learned that Vasur is a man, making him and Beviin the first openly non-heterosexual couple in Star Wars.
It’s important to note that the Mandalorian couple are a far cry from stereotypical gay characters. Beviin is a warrior. He’s also one of the most influential Mandalorians and one of the very few people the legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett truly trusts. His husband Vasur is a blacksmith and described as a mountain of a man.
The two of them have adopted a female war orphan and help her raise her kids. They’re a good example of the Mandalorian family model as invented by Traviss. For the warrior people, trust and care are more important than bloodlines, species, or, indeed, sexuality.
The lack of stereotyping and the fact that Beviin and Vasur’s sexuality doesn’t affect their plotlines at all make this a particularly laudable representation of non-heteronormativity in a successful franchise.
Boba Fett, the most well-known Mandalorian
Sexuality In The Star Wars Canon
Disney’s fairly recent restart of the Star Wars franchise has already given birth to more queer characters than Legends ever did. The man who is responsible for this feat is author Chuck Wendig — with a little help from Claudia Grey.
While Grey’s brilliant novel Bloodline (not to be confused with Traviss’s book) briefly mentions a male Rebel pilot who’s having an affair with a Corellian man, Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy actually has an openly gay main character — a first for Star Wars.
Sinjir Rath Velus is a former Imperial loyalty officer, who joins the New Republic. He’s an alcoholic, a cynic, and a skilled torturer. He also happens to have no interest whatsoever in women, as we learn in Aftermath, the first book of the trilogy. In the sequel Aftermath: Life Debt, Sinjir finds a boyfriend in New Republic slicer Conder Kyl.
“Sinjir stops and kisses him. His long-fingered hands pull the other man’s scruffy face into his own. The moment lasts forever. And it still doesn’t last long enough.” (Empire’s End, p. 249)
Conder only has a small role in Life Debt, but returns for the finale of the trilogy, Aftermath: Empire’s End. That novel details Sinjir and Conder’s relationship, openly showing their affection for each other as well as their struggles. Just like Karen Traviss’s Mandalorian couple, neither Conder nor Sinjir are stereotypical gay characters. Sinjir, for instance, says about himself that he’s “more used to causing pain than soothing it” (Empire’s End, p. 263).
Chuck Wendig’s embrace of queer notions doesn’t end with Sinijr and Conder. In Empire’s End, for instance, Imperial Grand Admiral Rae Sloane tells New Republic agent Norra Wexley, “I never had a husband or a wife to die in my hands” (p. 401), acknowledging non-heterosexual relationships.
Chuck Wendig’s ‘Aftermath’ trilogy
Gender In The Star Wars Canon
Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy not only details a gay relationship. It also features the first non-binary Star Wars character that’s addressed with gender-neutral pronouns.
That character is the pirate Eleodie Maracavanya, who debuts in Life Debt and reappers in Empire’s End. The alien is mostly addressed with the gender-neutral pronouns zhe and zher, although they as well as both she and he are also used at times. The fact that Eleodie’s non-binary gender identity is reflected in the language used to describe zhem marks a leap forward from the depictions of Hutt gender identities in Scourge.
“Soon the New Republic will have a present from his highness, her glory, his wonder, her luminous magnificence…” (Empire’s End, p. 374)
In addition to zher gender identity, Eleodie’s plotline is fascinating as well. Zhe is in command of the former Imperial Super Star Destroyer Annihilator, which zhe renamed Liberty’s Misrule. From the bridge of the Misrule, Eleodie rules over a newly set-up pirate Empire in Wild Space.
Characters like Sinjir, Conder, and Eleodie make the Aftermath trilogy the by far most inclusive addition to the Star Wars canon, catapulting the diverse Star Wars galaxy into the 21st century. Not only are queer characters included in the Aftermath trilogy (and in Claudia Grey’s Bloodline), but none of them are, in fact, a collection of stereotypes. Instead, they are complex, well-thought out protagonists that just happen to be non-heteronormative in one way or another.
Should Disney finally decide to include queer characters in the Star Wars movies, this is how it should be done. | https://medium.com/artmagazine/queer-representations-in-star-wars-ca560aab3725 | ['Christoph Büscher'] | 2017-04-01 19:56:57.931000+00:00 | ['Science Fiction', 'Queer', 'Star Wars', 'LGBTQ', 'Movies'] |
Let Me Remind You Fuckers Who I Am | by Hillary Clinton
What the fuck is your problem, America??
I’m Hillary goddamn Clinton. I’m a political prodigy, have been since I was 16. I have an insane network of powerful friends. I’m willing to spend the next eight years catching shit on all sides, all so I can fix this fucking country for you. And all you little bitches need to do is get off your asses one goddamn day in November.
“Oh but what about your eeeemaaaaillls???” Shut the fuck up. Seriously, shut the fuck up and listen for one fucking second.
Here’s all you need to know about me:
In 1992, I said I was proud to have followed my career instead of baking cookies. The GOP fucking dragged me for it. They made me bake cookies. They’re scared of me. Every time I have a job, y’all love me. Every time I run for anything, the GOP breaks out the big guns again and fucks me up good. And apparently it fucking works.
But you know what? I don’t fucking care. If I gave two shits about the haters I would’ve dropped the game decades ago.
You know why I keep fighting? Because we all want the same shit. We want economic and racial justice, we want to seriously attack climate change, we want everyone to be able to afford college and health care and housing and food, we want women to be treated like humans, yada yada yada.
And I’m the only person in this goddamn country who knows how to do it.
Because of course I do. Because I’ve been preparing my whole fucking life for this job. So stop making me dab on Ellen and just give me a fucking chance already.
If it seems like I have contempt for the American voter, it’s because I do. Frankly, most of you are fucking stupid. Most of you have no goddamn idea what it takes to run a country. I mean god damn, almost half of you think God created the Earth 10,000 years ago!
What the actual fuck????
Look, this is the big leagues. If you think any problem has a tweetable solution, you’re just wrong. If you think “border wall” or “muslims = bad” is gonna solve our problems, I don’t have time for your shit.
This is literally why we have a representative government. I know you don’t want to read long, boring things. So I do it for you, and I ask a bunch of smart people, and we come up with shit that works. Here’s my solution on energy. Here’s my solution on Wall Street. Here’s my solution on jobs. I have fucking binders full of this shit and you know it. I’m so fucking ready, America.
The GOP just spent their entire convention fantasizing about literally imprisoning me. They are terrified. They know what I can do.
I’ve spent my life clawing my way into a system that’s terrified of change. A system that just wants to let rich white dudes be rich white dudes. And holy shit, you guys, I could not have picked a better opponent for my final boss battle.
So lemme sign off with the same Nancy Scheibner poem I quoted back in 1969 (when I gave the commencement speech at my own fucking graduation, btw).
My entrance into the world of so-called “social problems”
Must be with quiet laughter, or not at all.
The hollow men of anger and bitterness
The bountiful ladies of righteous degradation
All must be left to a bygone age.
And the purpose of history is to provide a receptacle
For all those myths and oddments
Which oddly we have acquired
And from which we would become unburdened
To create a newer world
To translate the future into the past.
We have no need of false revolutions
In a world where categories tend to tyrannize our minds
And hang our wills up on narrow pegs.
It is well at every given moment to seek the limits in our lives.
And once those limits are understood
To understand that limitations no longer exist.
Earth could be fair. And you and I must be free
Not to save the world in a glorious crusade
Not to kill ourselves with a nameless gnawing pain
But to practice with all the skill of our being
The art of making possible.
(Flip flop my ass.) | https://medium.com/@shitHRCcantsay/let-me-remind-you-fuckers-who-i-am-e6e8b297fe47 | ['Hillary Clinton', 'Parody'] | 2016-07-26 16:29:30.691000+00:00 | ['Hillary Clinton', 'Bernie Sanders', '2016 Election', 'Donald Trump', 'Politics'] |
What is a Minimum Viable Model? | A Minimum Viable Model (MVM), and the process that surrounds it, aims to maximize our early understanding of an ML/AI problem domain in a real-world context while minimizing investment of time and resources.
The key points above are “understanding” and “real-world context.” When we begin a project, there’s a lot that we don’t know, so we make assumptions based on experience and intuition, but we can’t be certain if those assumptions are accurate until they’ve been tested with real-world data, under real-world conditions.
For example, we might discover that the available data is missing important features, deficient in quantity/quality, or not readily accessible.
Or we might be surprised to learn which features appear to contribute the most (or almost nothing) to the predictive power of the model.
We might even find that it’s not practical to develop a useful model given the (chaotic) nature of what we’re trying to predict.
The sooner we uncover issues (or opportunities), the sooner we can adjust our priorities, expectations, and allocation of resources appropriately.
With that in mind, our first pass at developing a model (and the accompanying exploratory analysis) should serve to answer at least the following questions:
What data is readily available? Where is it and how do we access it? What’s the quantity and quality of it? What are the performance characteristics of a very basic model using this data? Which features appear to be most important to our model? What additional data (internal or external) might improve performance significantly? Do we believe that we can develop a model that will fulfill the business objective we are trying to achieve?
In most cases, the questions above can be answered fairly quickly and many of the steps can be automated, but the interpretation of results into something useful for the business requires both experience in AI model development and a strong understanding of the problem domain. This is best achieved through close collaboration between in-house business experts and the (internal or external) AI team.
As soon as the client feels confident enough to proceed, we can begin to incorporate our model into the larger context of a deployed and fully-operational solution.
At Synapsta, we work closely with IT, Marketing, and other stakeholders to make sure that what we deliver is part of a complete business solution that is both operational and sustainable.
And finally, with all that foundational work behind us, we can continue to iteratively improve our model until we hit a point of diminishing returns on investment (ROI) no longer supported by the business case at hand.
Here’s the basic process we follow at Synapsta:
Now you could argue that this is just the latest in a long line of “Minimum Viable X” buzzwords (see Minimum Viable Product) but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a useful concept to keep in mind when it comes to planning, developing, and deploying your next machine model for your client or internal business stakeholders. | https://medium.com/synapsta-blog/what-is-a-minimum-viable-model-5d8166ec2e77 | ['Jeff Bienkowski'] | 2019-09-17 15:56:49.410000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'AI', 'Lean Startup', 'Agile'] |
Joy Reid is a Tool for Democrats, and Nicki Minaj was Not Wrong…#IStandWithNicki | While I’ve never been a fan of any rap music and could not tell you one song that Nicki sings, I do know for a fact that she did not say or do anything wrong. Joy Reid deserved every negative word hurled against her. She and her fanbase have taken great pride over the last few years in attacking any Black person who has not bent over backwards for the Democrat Party.
Joy Reid and the entire Liberal media and Democrat politicians were all anti-vaccine when Trump was in office. The same vaccine that they’re pushing now is the exact same ones that were initiated under Trump, nothing changed since then other than the occupant in the White House. Joy tweeted less than a year ago that “who on God’s earth would trust a vaccine approved by the FDA?, and who would ever fully trust the CDC?”. Yet her attack on Nicki was that she should be ashamed in sowing doubt to the Black community. Joy did a cover story to cover her a$$ on her past tweets and everyone bought it…when in actuality all of this is political and the Democrats were the architects.
All Hail the Queen for rightfully dragging Joy’s hypocrisy
Watching so many Black people boldly and blatantly attacking Nicki has been interesting if not pathetic. So many claimed that she’s had time to do her research on COVID and its vaccines. However, the reality is that none of these people have done their research because if they had, Fauci would be the last person they would be listening to. The left wing media had an all out brigade against Trump and the vaccine when he was in office, but now feign ignorance and arrogance towards those who are somehow still skeptical of it.
The above clown, Brooklyn Dad_Defiant is a paid shill for democrats propaganda. They pay him a fortune to tweet all day in favor of democrats and to attack the GOP. After he was recently exposed for being a fraud, twitter honored him with a blue check. A quick review of someone who goes by @DefiantLs twitter page, and you will find a plethora of interesting tweets from democrats who all were adamantly against the vaccine when Trump was in office.
The Black community and the Black LGBTQ communities are dealing with high impacts of HIV/AIDS, yet they seem oblivious to the criminality of Fauci’s roll when it came to that study and AIDS vaccine. It didn’t take long for all of the “paid” slave catchers to all gather to attack Nicki, because it’s their jobs to ensure that Black people stay loyal and dumb to all that Democrat Party says or does that has adversely affected the Black community at large.
The loudest noise has came from those looking to mock Nicki for her retelling of a story about a friend of her cousin who reportedly had taken the vaccine and became impotent because of it. The reality is that there is NO drug or vaccine that does not come with side affects and for any health official to claim that they somehow know for a fact that any of the COVID vaccines could not possibly cause swollen testicles and erectile disfunction is a lie. Pfizer’s own revelation about viagra, came about after pushing it as a hypertension drug. It wasn’t until men who were experiencing erectile dysfunction but were prescribed viagra for their high blood pressure, did they realize that viagra was better used for erectile disfunction…and has sense made Pfizer billions for the mistake.
Then there’s those who rant about Nicki’s husbands supposed issues with sexual assault and/or rape (neither of which I have the desire or knowledge to opine on), but these same people just voted for Biden the architect of Mass Incarceration, who’s also been accused multiple times of sexual assault and/or rape. These same people also ignored the Ed Buck story where the wealthy White and gay Democrat donor, was just convicted of the drugging and murdering of several gay black men. Their lives didn’t matter because they were black and poor, and more importantly because people like Congressman Ted Lieu, Congressman Adam Shiff and even Hillary Clinton, all lauded Buck for decades as he showered them with money to look the other way.
To not be undone with this moment to attack and malign those who are unvaccinated, Don Lemon is trending because he was not going to allow Joy to have all of the spotlight alone, especially since both of their trash platforms are failing.
Don Lemon who’s openly gay and married to a White man, says that people who are unvaccinated should be shamed and ostracized, should that shaming also apply to the LGBTQ community that he’s a part of when it comes to AIDS/HIV? These people know the risks, yet they continue their risky behavior…should they not be allowed medical treatment as well? Are these people taking up needed beds and medical attention that could go to the hallowed COVID patients who have already taken the vaccine but shockingly have COVID anyway, or to someone who’s health issues were not predicated on their risky sexual behavior?
If that weren’t enough of the hypocrisy when attacking Nicki about her husband, none of these people have said a word when California just passed a law that allowed convicted sexual predators to not be labeled sex offenders if their victims ages were within 10yrs of the predator…this outrageous law, was supposedly put in place so that LGBTQ offenders could get a pass because they somehow are not predators but people who are attracted to children….but let’s keep this story going about Nicki and her husband.
The California State Assembly this week voted to revise the state’s penal code that regulates the registration of sex offenders by passing SB-145. The revision of the bill would allow pedophiles to not be registered on the sex offender list as long as they are not 10 years older than the minor they were convicted of molesting. A new movement to normalize pedophilia, MAPs “minor-attracted persons” or NOMAPs or “Non-Offending Minor Attracted Persons” has emerged, which has caused concern among the gay community. According to Gay Star News, “Many on social media are warning LGBTI people and allies to be wary of the MAPs flag during Pride season. Additionally, many also called out the problematic nature of using a term like ‘minor attracted persons’ to normalize pedophilia.”
These same people attacking Nicki and her husband, chose to ignore the accusations of rape against Charmalagne the God. Charmalagne has been rewarded for his bowing to Democrats, even after the disturbing comments on his show by Joe Biden…”if you don’t vote for me, you ain’t Black”. I also found Toure’s attacks against Nicki to be laughable when he’s been accused of sexual harassment but because he’s such a good lapdog, they allowed him a pass. I’m sure part of his penance is to stay loyal and repeat whatever bogus propaganda that democrats/liberals demand from him.
Toure has been on a nonstop rant to attack Nicki but he did the very same thing when he jumped in on the Surviving R. Kelly bandwagon (and NO, I am not defending R. Kelly) in order to garner clicks and attention to his pathetic platform. Toure used some of the same defense that Cuomo used, when trying to deny the claims of sexual assault. Nicki was right, these clowns are paid operatives for the Democrat Party.
Then we have this last joke, where people are mocking and attacking Nicki because she dared retweet right winger, Tucker Carlson’s tweet/video that defended her. Yet these same people have retweeted racist Liz Cheney (welcomed her on their shows) , the FBI and anyone else on the right that pretended to hate Trump for a check. Malcolm Nance whose own career has been discredited, is lauded for being a former spy/CIA.
Joy Reid and her ilk all got in bed with the Lincoln Project the racist neocons that formed to rally against Trump, who’s founder was later accused of sexually harassing over 21 young men looking to get into politics. The Lincoln Project like all of the neocons who went against Trump, only did so because he didn’t represent their neocon agendas and most like Liz Cheney voted for or supported anything that was related to war that Trump pedaled.
A quick google search will show you the many times that Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow have praised racist warmonger Liz Cheney. Cheney who’s father should be in prison for war crimes. Then there’s the lefts love for both neocon racists, Ana Navarro and Nicole Wallace. Navarro, who’s father was the head of the Nicaraguan Guerrilla Contras that robbed, raped and pillaged that country under then CIA head George Bush Sr…and Nicole Wallace who elevated Sarah Palin and supported mass wars for the GOP’s war machine.
The entire hypocrisy of Democrats, and the ignorance and pathetic blindness of Black people when it comes to their undying loyalty to these people is dumbfounding. Joy Reid and all of her blue check followers and Black loyalists, chose Nicki’s conversation to her fans to be outraged about. Joy ranted that Nicki was hurting “our” community by not telling Black people by not telling them to take the vaccine, yet the real threat that’s killing “our” community is obesity (which is a main factor in COVID related deaths per “the science”, and the lack of quality healthcare. It’s shocking to me that anyone would believe that the US Government actually cares about your health when they refuse to provide basic healthcare for those in need. The same Black people who protested all last year about systemic racism and how it affected quality healthcare for Black people, now want you to believe that they now care about the collective of our needs when it comes to COVID. The same government who turns its back on the plethora of homeless citizens across this country, now cares about getting you a vaccine.
Love this brothers twitter page…
Joy Reid and her sycophant followers were loud and proud attacking Nicki Minaj while ignoring the real threats of rap culture to Black people like that of Lil Nas X, Cardi B, Meghan the Stallion and others like them. Cardi B., a woman who can barely string two words together to make a coherent sentence, but was allowed to interview Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden during their presidential bids. A woman who wrote a song called WAP (Wet A$$ P*ssy), who also bragged about drugging, robbing and rapping straight black men…while using transgenders to do so.
None of these issues are something that Joy Reid would shout about from her liberal tower of propaganda, because anything that aides in the degradation of Black people is exactly what keeps her pockets lined…and the entire agenda of the Democrat Party and their globalist agendas.
Democrats have used the constant banana in the tailpipe of “racism” anytime they need to distract and enrage Black people. This lie they’re pedaling now to claim that those who are vaccine hesitant are all right wingers is insulting and mind-boggling, when their own “believe the scientists” have said that it is the Black community that is least vaccinated. Yet we all know that they can’t attack their most loyal minions, so they feed them distractions and lies about racism to keep them enraged and blinded to the truth.
courtesy of @Kgadiiey2
There is something wrong when the entire world stops to attack a rapper because she made a comment about not being vaccinated, even though she made it clear that she would be getting vaccinated either way. I guess Believe Black Women is no different than BLM, neither of those matter unless they’re parroting the Democrats agendas, lies and propaganda.
From Russia With Love,
Charlie Peach🍑
Uncle Hotep, Maurice Carlisle, Cynthia McKinney PhD, Antonio Moore, Black Intellect, Barrington D. Martin II | https://medium.com/@politicspeach/joy-reid-is-tool-for-democrats-and-nicki-minaj-was-not-wrong-istandwithnicki-5553a0d82ce9 | ['Charliepeach'] | 2021-09-16 21:20:02.169000+00:00 | ['Blm', 'Nicki Minaj', 'Covid 19', 'Joy Reid', 'Vaccines'] |
US — Taliban Peace Talks Bring Hope and Consequences for Afghan Refugees | A recycle collector digs through trash bin in Kadikoy, Istanbul Photo by Mohammed Harun Arsalai / Documenting Afghanistan
Written by Mohammed Harun Arsalai
Mohamad Afghan, 26, says it took 12 days to get from his native Afghanistan’s Helmand province to the Turkish city of Istanbul, where he now lives making a meager living as one of the city’s thousands of recycling collectors in bustling Kadikoy district.
“We left Afghanistan into Pakistan, then Iran and made our way through Turkey to Istanbul because the fighting back home left us no option” the undergraduate in Islamic studies told Documenting Afghanistan.
“You either join the Taliban or the Afghan army — there are no other jobs.”
The long hours in the sun, rain or cold and lack of rest are written all over Afghan’s face, but it is the bruises and remnants of a black eye that stand out.
“I was attacked last week by a group of Kurds. Several of them ganged up on me while they held my friend Abdul Aziz down on the ground.They were shouting at me to “go home” and that I’m taking their work because they were here before Afghans. It has become more difficult and dangerous to get to Europe, so many Afghans and other migrants are staying in Turkey.
“I tried to help Mohamad when they attacked him, but a couple of them held me down. I was kicked and punched too, but I was able to cover by face” says 17 year old Abdul Aziz, who tagged along with Afghan for the journey.
“My mother heard from our neighbor that Mohamad was leaving for Europe. My family gathered what money they could and pleaded with Mohamad to take me with him” says Abdul Aziz. “He’s a generous man, so he took pity and brought me along”
“He’s been a big brother to me. We try to look after each other. We live and work together.”
On almost every street in Istanbul, a migrant worker carrying a cart wrapped in a giant plastic tarp can be seen collecting recyclables.
“We pick up cardboard mainly, so we stick around the shops and commercial areas that use a lot of packaging” says Abdul Aziz.
“Its hard work … We almost get hit by cars and sometimes do! Someone hit me with their side mirror and bruised up my elbow and just kept driving.
“We carry hundreds of kilos a day in these carts across the city to warehouses or yards where they weigh the cardboards and give us money.”
“We work anywhere from 12 to 16 or more hours a day. On a good month I make 1000 Turkish Liras (Approximately 200 USD). We send about half home, maybe more sometimes” says Aziz
Although recycling collecting jobs are held by poor Turks, Kurds and Syrians mainly, Pakistanis, Afghans and others all compete for the jobs, often times leading to violent encounters.
“Now we’re all trying to work the same jobs which leads to conflict between the different nationalities. There have been massive fights with people using knives and people getting seriously hurt. Sometimes Afghans and Pakistanis fight together against Kurds because our numbers are low, but sometimes we end up fighting against each other. Its just madness sometimes” says Aziz.
The risks of violence and constant harassment that Afghan and Aziz face is not limited to other migrants, but comes from all directions.
“We hear this a lot; “Go back home!”. From the police, from other migrants who were here before us, and even the regular Turks. We can’t stop anywhere for too long during our work hours in Kadikoy because a shopkeeper or someone will come and threatened us” says Afghan.
“Going home” is not as easy as it sounds for the majority of refugees seeking a new life or asylum in the EU or Turkey.
Mohamad and Abdul Aziz are from one of Afghanistan’s most violent and heavily disputed territories on the frontline of fighting between Afghan forces backed up by the US and NATO against the Taliban. Reports of botched night raids and airstrikes that cause civilian casualties in Helmand province are routine.
When they left home for Turkey last year, Afghanistan was seeing a spike in violence. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) annual report said that 10,993 civilians were killed or wounded in 2018, an 11 percent increase of civilian deaths from the year before.
It was the highest number of civilian casualties recorded by (UNAMA) since the international organization started collecting figures in 2009.
UNAMA blamed airstrikes and drone attacks by US-led coalition forces as well as increased suicide bombings by militant groups for the upswing in civilian deaths.
This past year hasn’t been much better. According to Pajhwok Afghan News report over 1,500 people suffered casualties in March while in April nearly 1,900 people killed or wounded.
“Based on different sources, Pajhwok reports that “1,072 people were killed and 792 others injured in attacks in 29 out of 34 provinces last month.The casualties inflicted as a result of 153 different attacks, 20 percent higher than in March.”
“Despite the constant danger and fighting back home, I was happy being with my family and studying. I’ve done my schooling. My father didn’t want me to get involved in the fighting and sent me to various schools, even in Pakistan where I studied Islamiat as far as I could.” says Afghan.
“We lived off what my father was making as a small shop owner. He had a sudden heart attack and died about five years ago so I had to stop my studies and takeover affairs as the oldest male in the house”.
Shortly after his father’s funeral, Afghan started being visited by men asking for money.
“Either out of shame or not wanting to bother my mother, my father did not tell us he had been borrowing money to pay bills at the shop and to pay for my studies. He was in a lot of debt. So we sold off the shop to pay for most of it, and thanks to Allah’s help, the people of the village put money together to help us pay off the remainder of the debts. They (the people of the village) spoke among themselves after hearing about our debts. They all knew my father well and he was a well-liked man so they felt obligated to help us”.
With no debts, but now without a shop to make an income, Mohamad Afghan began looking for work in schools and religious institutions.
“I even went all over Kabul submitting applications and talking to secretaries and head masters. They all gave me the runaround. Some just said “no, we are not looking for anyone”, but others would tell me “yes, just come back next week to speak with so and so”. This went on a month before I concluded it was a game they were playing with me. They had no interest in hiring me, they just didn’t want one of their rivals to hire me in case I was good at my job. I think they were also worried Id take their job!”
Having no luck and rapidly losing money he could not spare, Afghan starting thinking about a life outside Afghanistan.
“Every week another person leaves. I have friends who went to Saudi and Dubai to work. A few made it to Europe. Others were deported back.”
“I was hoping to make it to Europe, but once I got to Istanbul I started hearing too many horrible stories; smugglers robbing or killing you and dumping you in the forest. Wrongdoings against women. There’s the danger of getting in the water to Greece — people are drowning daily. There’s also risks from the Turkish or Greek coastguard catching you and deporting you.”
In a recent report from Turkey`s Anadolu Agency, over 3,000 “irregular migrants” have been detain in recent weeks including 979 migrants who flocked to Edirne on the Turkey-Greece border after false social media claims that the border had been opened.
“I decided that even though things are difficult here in Istanbul, I can still make a little money for me and my family and stay with some Afghans I trust. There are no guarantees that life would be easier in Europe.”
“We just want the fighting back home to stop so we can be with our families. Our only hope for stability in Afghanistan is the peace process” says Afghan
Although the recent peace talks between the Taliban and United States have been moving at a snail’s pace and sometimes not at all, the current negotiations in Doha are the closest Afghanistan has come to a lasting peace in four decades.
Among the many debates happening around peace prospects and the return of the Taliban into mainstream Afghan society, the effect a supposed peace would have on those who have fled the violence in recent years has been left out of discussion.
The situation for Afghanistan’s Hazara community regarding the peace process is a bit more complex compared to that of Mohamad Afghan and Abdul Aziz who fully support the peace process and are ethnically Pashtun.
Although the vast majority of the violence and casualties are coming from the frontline in places like Helmand, Afghanistan’s Pashtun population is not being singled out for sectarian attacks the way the Afghan Hazara community is.
Practically any gathering of Hazaras is under threat of violence. In recent years Hazara protests, religious gatherings and political events have all been attacked inside supposedly “safe” Kabul, usually by an Islamic State (ISKP) suicide bomber. One of the most devastating attacks took place on July 23, 2016 where an ISKP suicide bomber targeted a Hazara demonstration and march in the De Mazang district of Kabul. 97 people were killed and well over 200 were injured.
Mourners light candles after ISKP attack on Hazara protest July 23, 2016 — De Mazang, Kabul Photo by Mohammed Harun Arsalai / Documenting Afghanistan
Although it is ISKP who are hell bent on fomenting sectarian violence, Afghanistan’s Hazara community still remembers and fears the violence and repression they faced under Taliban rule.
“The deportees fear there will more instability if the Taliban return back, specially those from the minorities such as the Hazaras. Hazaras have seen a lot of atrocities during the Taliban regime, and therefore most of those deported believe the situation for the community will deteriorate if the Taliban come into power” says Abdul Ghafoor who faced anti-Hazara and anti-Shia violence directly while growing up as a refugee in Quetta, Pakistan.
Abdul Ghafoor was also one of the many Hazara`s to flee extremist violence and make their way to Europe. He was deported back from Norway. “I started helping returnees on a voluntary basis by writing their stories in a blog and providing them advice as soon as I was deported to Afghanistan myself back in 2013. I then established AMASO (Afghanistan Migrants Advice & Support Org,) in 2014 due to the large number of returnees knowing about my work and contacting me. The reason I got involved in activism for refugees was because people hardly knew what happens to those who are deported to Afghanistan.”
With the European Union eager to deport Afghans and other refugees with any rationale whatsoever, the appearance of “peace” in Afghanistan raises a dilemma for hundreds of thousands of Afghans who are seeking asylum and refuge outside their homeland as well as those who have already been deported back.
“European states are waiting for a reason to deport thousands of Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan. In case there is a green light about the peace process, the number will increase. Though they don’t care about the agreement a lot, because today where Taliban and ISIS control major parts of Afghanistan, we still have regular deportations from Europe,“ says Abdul Ghafoor.
The agreement Abdul Ghafoor is referring to is the “Joint Way Forward” agreement signed between the EU and Afghanistan in October 2016 which was condemned by Human Rights organizations as a “strong arming” of a poor country by rich and powerful Europe by attaching millions of Euros in aid monies to the deportation of 80,000 Afghan asylum seekers back to Afghanistan.
The agreement also demoted Afghans from refugee status to “economic migrants” and labelled Afghanistan “safe” in order to circumvent international laws regarding the rights of refugees.
A similar agreement was made between the EU and Turkey to stop refugees like Mohamad Afghan and Abdul Aziz from reaching European shores.
On 18th of March 2016, EU and Turkey came to an agreement in exchange for 3 billion Euros to stop the flow of refugees entering Greece. Since then, thousands of Afghan asylum seekers have been deported from Turkey back to Afghanistan.
“I am not too optimistic about the peace talks between the US and Taliban. Im doubting Taliban’s real intentions behind the talks” says Abdul Ghafoor.
“Taliban came in to being to impose sharia law. I can’t convince myself why they would take a step back in what they believe in. I doubt women will have the freedom they have today. I doubt youth will have the freedom to do what they are doing today.“
“The better idea to me is inclusion of all groups in the peace talks, either they are the political parties, youth, women or those who have a proposal that can help with the process. There is no outcome to something when you don’t have all involved, like the ongoing consultative peace Jirga. Afghans as a Nation should have a united voice to put on the table to be able to convince the Taliban and other groups” says Abdul Ghafoor.
Abdul Ghafoor’s position is the general consensus among the Afghan Hazara population who remain skeptical of the Taliban reforming itself from an armed militant group to joining mainstream society and governing institutions. However, for the majority of rural Pashtuns like Mohamad Afghan and Abdul Aziz, there is no other feasible solution than a cease-fire through the current peace process.
“Our lives have been turned upside down by the violence. We pray to Allah that these negotiations are successful so all Afghan whether Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara or Pashtun or whoever can finally go back home and live a meaningful and peaceful life” says Afghan.
“So if you want to know if I would go back home if the fighting stopped and a true peace came..? I say 100 for 100, I would go back the same way I came! I don’t care about Europe! I never wanted to leave Afghanistan in the first place”. | https://documentingafghanistan.medium.com/us-taliban-peace-talks-bring-hope-and-consequences-for-afghan-refugees-4e0c0583d22a | ['Documenting Afghanistan'] | 2019-06-01 08:52:01.607000+00:00 | ['Istanbul', 'Turkey', 'Taliban', 'Afghanistan', 'Refugees'] |
An Eclipse of Melancholy | An Eclipse of Melancholy
A Free verse on a melancholic mind.
Photo by Jongsun Lee on Unsplash
It’s one of those days when
Melancholy came on a visit
and cast her shadow;
an eclipse,
of a pensive mood
with scattered rays of brood,
in Twilight’s skies of solitude;
and a rendezvous with nostalgia
even though infinitesimal;
leaving behind
a pang of loneliness,
grayish clouds of mixed emotions
and a glint of a penumbra,
of somber musings,
and pondering;
a reflection of
a melancholic mind,
now in words. | https://medium.com/loose-words/an-eclipse-of-melancholy-5a134b266816 | ['Saloni Joshi'] | 2020-06-27 13:54:26.478000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Poetry', 'Free Verse', 'Musings', 'Writing'] |
Medicating your Emotions | Why is it that people feel a need to hide their “bad” emotions — sadness, anger, pain? There is nothing wrong with feeling those emotions, yet our friends and other people we know are constantly medicating those emotions away, hoping that life will get better. Those emotions are there for a reason, and wishing them away with instant drugs won’t solve your problems. Instead of taking the pain away, feel the pain, and feel it strongly because it is there for a reason. We all have control over our lives to an extent, and these bad feelings are there to help us back on the right path. In fact, there have been many times where I have felt sad and hopeless, and pushed past the pain, and reached out to a few people who I had not talked to in years, because for some reason in my mind I could only talk to them when I was vulnerable; by reconnecting with those people, I was able to start building back the relationship we once had. You can always find a silver lining in every bad situation, but first you have to allow that bad situation to linger long enough for you to take action and do something about it. If we just medicate it away, we will never make those changes which are actually necessary to improving the quality of our lives.
P.S. Writer’s block + Stream of consciousness writing = Unstructured rambling :)
P.P.S. I’m not saying medication is not necessary; I’m saying it’s not necessary when it is used to hide or run away from something. | https://medium.com/@rohanmutalik/medicating-your-emotions-48d3926815e2 | ['Rohan Mutalik'] | 2019-06-04 18:00:06.396000+00:00 | ['Mask', 'Medication'] |
Image Steganography. What is Staganography? | 1. By using LSB Insertion(Least Significant Bit Insertion)
Inorder to understand the algorithm we are go to take up a small task of hiding a image inside a original image using LSB algorithm. As images are nothing but pixels with rgb values, these rgb values can be converted into 8 bit binary numbers.
Each pixel has three value bits that are less significant. So, if we change the rightmost bits it will have a small visual impact on the final image. This is the steganography key to hide an image inside another. Change the less significant bits from an image and include the most significant bits from the other image.
An algorithm for hiding the image:
To hide an image inside another, the image which will be hidden needs to have at most the same size of the image which will hide it.
# Check the images dimensions
if img2.size[0] > img1.size[0] or img2.size[1] > img1.size[1]:
raise ValueError('Image 1 size is lower than image 2 size!')
2. We must create two loops to go through all rows and columns (actually each pixel) from the images.
# Get the pixel map of the two images
pixel_map1 = img1.load()
pixel_map2 = img2.load()
# Create a new image that will be outputted
new_image = Image.new(img1.mode, img1.size)
pixels_new = new_image.load()
for i in range(img1.size[0]):
for j in range(img1.size[1]):
3. Now we just have rgb tuple value in int, convert the int tuple to binary String tuple, write a function for it.
rgb1 = Steganography.__int_to_bin(pixel_map1[i, j])
# Use a black pixel as default
rgb2 = Steganography.__int_to_bin((0, 0, 0))
# Check if the pixel map position is valid for the second image
if i < img2.size[0] and j < img2.size[1]:
rgb2 = Steganography.__int_to_bin(pixel_map2[i, j]) @staticmethod
def __int_to_bin(rgb):
"""
Convert an integer tuple to a binary (string) tuple.
:param rgb: An integer tuple (e.g. (220, 110, 96))
:return: A string tuple (e.g. ("00101010", "11101011", "00010110"))
"""
r, g, b = rgb
return ('{0:08b}'.format(r),
'{0:08b}'.format(g),
'{0:08b}'.format(b))
4. Merge the highest significant bits of both the images as shown in the image above, we already have the binary strings from above stage so this would be easy.
# Merge the two pixels and convert it to a integer tuple
rgb = Steganography.__merge_rgb(rgb1, rgb2) @staticmethod
def __merge_rgb(rgb1, rgb2):
"""
Merge two RGB tuples.
:param rgb1: A string tuple (e.g. ("00101010", "11101011", "00010110"))
:param rgb2: Another string tuple (e.g. ("00101010", "11101011", "00010110"))
:return: An integer tuple with the two RGB values merged.
"""
r1, g1, b1 = rgb1
r2, g2, b2 = rgb2
rgb = (r1[:4] + r2[:4],
g1[:4] + g2[:4],
b1[:4] + b2[:4])
return rgb
5. Convert the binary string tuple back to int and here we have our encoded image.
pixels_new[i, j] = Steganography.__bin_to_int(rgb)
2. Masking and Filtering
It is well known that encryption provides secure channels for communicating entities.
However, due to lack of covertness on these channels, an eavesdropper can identify encrypted streams through statistical tests and capture them for further cryptanalysis.
Hence, the communicating entities can use steganography to achieve covertness
Masking and filtering techniques hide information by marking an image and is usually restricted to 24-bit and gray-scale images.
Digital watermarks include information such as copyright, ownership, or license.
While traditional steganography conceals information, watermarks extend information since it becomes an attribute of the cover image.
Instead of embedding a secret message into a multimedia object, as in traditional multimedia steganography, we process the entire secret message to make it appear statistically similar to a multimedia object itself.
Thereby we foil an eavesdropper who is primarily applying statistical tests to detect encrypted communication channels.
We show that our approach can potentially give a covert channel capacity which is an order of magnitude higher than traditional steganography
Masking techniques hide information in such a way that the hidden message is more integral to the cover image than simply hiding data in the “noise” level.
Masking adds redundancy to the hidden information.
This makes the masking technique more suitable than LSB with lossy JPEG images.
It may also help protect against some image processing such as cropping and rotating.
Advantages of Masking and filtering Techniques:
This method is much more robust than LSB replacement with respect to compression.
Disadvantages of Masking and filtering Techniques:
Techniques can be applied only to gray scale images and restricted to 24 bits.
3. Algorithms and Transformation
Algorithm and code for for merging ( hiding ) and unmerging the images .
Check the dimensions of the 2 images ( python .size function for matrix ) if they don’t match raise error Create a pixel map of the 2 images .the .load() function in python imaging library gets the pixel map which an be traversed as an array Create a third pixel map for the o/p image We can use the __int_to_bin method to convert a decimal value to a binary value for the pixel map Then, we create a new RGB value by concatenating only the 4 rightmost bits from the current pixel with zero values (to create a new 8-bit value) Finally, we convert the binary value to a decimal value and set it to the current pixel in the new image ( o/p image) If the hidden image is smaller than the image that was hiding it we can remove the black borders or crop the image .
Python function for merging 2 images — https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/kqPnYQnDvK/
Unmerging the images algorithm —
Load the pixel map of the image and load a empty pixel map which will represent the hidden image Get the RGB (as a string tuple) from the input image . Extract the last 4 bits (corresponding to the hidden image) Concatenate 4 zero bits because we are working with 8 bit Copy this array to the empty pixel map . Convert the pixel map to an integer tuple . Crop the image based on the ‘valid’ pixels . Valid pixels can be calculated using the extraction for loop to get the actual size of the image and remove unbounded pixels .
Function for unmerging the images i.e removing the hidden image . | https://medium.com/@vaibhav-jagtap17/image-staganography-29f1d0ebc057 | ['Vaibhav Jagtap'] | 2020-12-20 15:41:49.997000+00:00 | ['Image Staganography', 'Image Processing', 'Staganography'] |
JANY DO YAR!! | Okay so here we go with my first story out here on medium!
I am a huge fan of John Keats and his idea of Negative Capability but I had to cast his theory aside for my first story out here. Everything you are going to read from now on will be nothing but my actual emotions!
I've always been against body shaming or fat shaming to be precise. I know there are a lot of people out there who aren't fat but still they get body shamed because not fitting in that Ideal Standard Of Physique that the society has set for us.
I have all the sympathies in the world with you guys as well but believe me you, You only suffer about 10% of what a Big Guy is going to go through.
So yeah! I was born on 14th of August 1996 ( 9 months ki qaid sy azaadi mili thi mujhe) In a Kashmiri Butt Family. ( I hope you know why I told you that ). 😅
I was just like a normal kid who was actually neither too fat nor too skinny. I was at the Ideal weight till around 11 years.
So, It was the marriage of one of my sisters. I don't really remember it properly but from what my mum tells me I ate way too much those days lol.
Cutting a long story short, I fell ill. Had to undergo a proper treatment and a lot of drips had to be injected to get me back to life.
Well, Life was never the same for me again!!
There was a lot of inflammation in my body and as the medical students might be aware that IV fluids may sometimes cause water retention in the body and that may cause some weight gain!!
Although, this doesn't has to happen always but It happened to me.
So, I bulked up a bit, got into my puberty age and boy oh boy, I can't tell you how much I used to eat!!
Taking you back to the reference of Kashmiri Family, Our normal meals are feasts believe me you!!
I used to have 2 to 3 parathas at breakfast leading to quite a few plates of Rice at Lunch!
Dinner? I don't even remember how much I used to eat at dinner before I jumped into my bed to sleep with my snickers bar!
Time went on and so did my weight!
In 2016, I weighed in at 133 Kilograms!
Yup you read that right.
I was a human being of One Hundred And Thirty Three Kilograms!
Whatever were the reasons for my weight gain or whatever its effect was on my health and normal day life, No one had the right to shame me right?
But that would only happen in an Utopian World to be honest!
Let me tell you some of the names I was called back then.
Sumo Pehalwan
Mota ( The most common one )
ALLAH di Majj 🤷♂️ ( Lol that brought a smile on my face )
These were just of the very few names that I can remember! But those one liner taunts? OMG!! They were killer wallahi!
Thora turya phirya kr yarr..
Bowling krda a ty pura jism hilda a aida.
Yaar ye teri chest larkiun wali hai na.
Hath lgwa na aik dfa chest py yar.
Kapray Kahan sy lete ho yar? Puray a jaty?
While writing these lines, I got goosebumps again as I remember how these words went in like a dagger into my heart.
I was a bright student all my life, was a debate champion of Sialkot city, Was the captain of My college cricket team and still my Identity was
" Yar Wohi Khurram Butt Jo Mota Sa hai"
This killed me! Believe me you It killed me!!
I couldn't wear the clothes that I loved.
I used to be the first guy to enter college and last to leave ( So I didn't have to Face any human being )
I used to wear jackets and uppers till mid of April or may even just to avoid being body shamed.
I never wore white clothes.
I never went to marriage ceremonies.
Would you believe it? I missed the marriage ceremony of my own brother!! I literally ran away from the ceremony because I couldn’t take the trolls anymore!
It wasn't that I didn't love myself even back then. I loved myself the same as I love myself today but these people always had to tell me that I look terrible.
I was never a loser! I was never a guy who would give up in life but these lines even caused me to ponder about suiciding because I could not take it anymore!
I literally went into depression and had to undergo a proper treatment to come out of it.
Moving on with life, 6th June 2016 marked a change in my life.
I decided to change my complete lifestyle and adopt a rather healthy one.
I ate healthy. Worked my ass off at the gym and in 2017, Your Boy was standing at his ideal weight with even a few abs to show for my hard work and Persistence.
I was the talk of the town again! Now they came up with " He has taken steroids"
The ones who knew that I didn't said " He is on drugs"
Haha! I heard a lot of it and threw it away in the dustbin because I knew they do not matter anymore!!
So, do you think that body shaming stopped there?
Haha! I wish it did actually!
Everyone who has lost a drastic amount of weight or is into fitness must know what comes after a weight loss!
Loose skin
Stretch Marks
Now, when I finally got myself fit, they were worried about the loose skin I had and stretch marks on my body :)
The shaming never stopped and even to this day, even the best of my friends, pass a comment about it without even caring because everyone thinks that it's okay to body shame right?
WELL, IT’S NOT!!!!
Not everyone gets proper treatment after depression.
Not everyone's family supports like mine.
Not everyone tries as hard as I did.
Not everyone Is going to survive the torture that you make them go through!!
YOU CAN LITERALLY KILL SOMEONE WITH YOUR WORDS.
I'd request all of my readers to make a promise at the end of this story.
Do not make a promise to me, Make a promise to your very own selves!!
WE WILL NEVER BODY SHAME ANY HUMAN BEING EVER AGAIN IN LIFE!!!
If you actually care about them, just guide them and be with them on their journey towards a healthy lifestyle but passing comments on their body is only going to make it harder for them I tell you!!
I planned to write this story at around 500 words but couldn't control my emotions as I said I am gonna ignore Keats for this one At Least.
I hope you leave as a better person after reading this.
Have a good one everyone!! See you soon with the next one.
Ciao Adios ❤️ | https://medium.com/@khurramshahzadbutt_22387/okay-so-here-we-go-with-my-first-story-out-here-on-medium-d307e8276d3e | ['Khurram Shahzad'] | 2021-09-06 20:51:59.025000+00:00 | ['First Post', 'My Story', 'Fitness', 'Body Shaming'] |
On Average, You’re Using the Wrong Average: Geometric & Harmonic Means in Data Analysis | In this case, our geometric mean very much resembles the middle value of our dataset. In fact, it is equivalent to the median.
Note: the geometric mean will not always equal the median, only in cases where there is an exact consistent multiplicative relationship between all numbers (e.g. multiplying each previous number by 3, as we did). Real world datasets rarely contain such exact relationships, but for those that approximate this sort of multiplicative relationship, the geometric mean will give a closer ‘middle number’ than the arithmetic mean.
Real World Applications of the Geometric Mean
It turns out that there are many practical uses for the geometric mean, as multiplicative-ish relationships abound in the real world.
One canonical example is:
Compound Interest
Assume we have $100,000 that accrues a varying rate of interest each year for 5 years :
annual interest rates: 1%, 9%, 6%, 2%, 15%
We’d like to take a shortcut to find our average annual interest rate, & thus our total amount of money after 5 years, so we try to “average” these rates:
(.01 + .09 + .06 + .02 + .15) ÷ 5 = .066 = 6.6%
Then we insert this average % into a compound interest formula:
Total interest earned = $100,000 * (1.066⁵ - 1) = $37,653.11
Interest + principal = $37,653.11 + 100,000 = $137,653.11
Final total = $137,653.11
Just to be sure we’re not fooling ourselves, let’s do this the long way & compare results:
Year 1: 100,000 + (100,000 * .01) = 100,000 * 1.01 = $101,000
Year 2: 101,000 * 1.09 = $110,090
Year 3: 110,090 * 1.06 = $116,695.40
Year 4: 116,695.40 * 1.02 = $119,029.31
Year 5: 119,029.31 * 1.15 = $136,883.70
Actual final total = $136,883.70
What happened? Our shortcut overestimated our actual earnings by nearly $1,000.
We made a common error: We applied an additive operation to a multiplicative process, & got an inaccurate result.
Now let’s try again with the geometric mean:
1.01 * 1.09 * 1.06 * 1.02 * 1.15 = 1.368837042
5th root of 1.368837042 = 1.064805657
Geometric mean = 1.064805657
(Technical Note: we have to use 1 + interest rate as inputs in the geometric mean calculation because those are the actual factors that are multiplied with the principal values to produce the amount of interest accrued at each period, and we need to find the average of these factors. This has the added benefit of avoiding negative numbers even when there is a negative rate, which the geometric mean equation can’t handle [it also can’t handle 0s ]. The arithmetic mean doesn’t have this issue. It’s the same whether we use the interest rates themselves or 1 + interest rate as input [then subtract 1 from the result], because it is additive rather than multiplicative. But the geometric mean will be different, and wrong, if we don’t add 1 .)
Plugging the geometric mean of the interest rates into our compound interest formula:
Total interest earned = $100,000 * (1.0648⁵ - 1) = $36,883.70
Interest + principal = $36,883.70 + 100,000 = $136,883.70
Final total = $136,883.70 exactly the same as the long method above
That’s more like it.
We used the right mean for the right job & got the right result.
What else is the geometric mean good for?
Different Scales or Units
A fancy feature of the geometric mean is that you can actually average across numbers on completely different scales.
For instance, we want to compare online ratings for two coffeeshops using two different sources. The problem is that source 1 uses a 5-star scale & source 2 uses a 100-point scale:
Coffeeshop A
source 1 rating: 4.5
source 2 rating: 68 Coffeeshop B
source 1 rating: 3
source 2 rating: 75
If we naively take the arithmetic mean of raw ratings for each coffeeshop:
Coffeeshop A = (4.5 + 68) ÷ 2 = 36.25
Coffeeshop B = (3 + 75) ÷ 2 = 39
We’d conclude that Coffeeshop B was the winner.
If we were a bit more number-savvy, we’d know that we have to normalize our values onto the same scale before averaging them with the arithmetic mean, to get an accurate result. So we multiply the source 1 ratings by 20 to bring them from a 5-star scale to the 100-point scale of source 2 :
Coffeeshop A
4.5 * 20 = 90
(90 + 68) ÷ 2 = 79 Coffeeshop B
3 * 20 = 60
(60 + 75) ÷ 2 = 67.5
So we find that Coffeeshop A is the true winner, contrary to the naive application of arithmetic mean above.
The geometric mean, however, allows us to reach the same conclusion without having to fuss over the scale or units of measure:
Coffeeshop A = square root of (4.5 * 68) = 17.5
Coffeeshop B = square root of (3 * 75) = 15
Et voilà!
The arithmetic mean is dominated by numbers on the larger scale, which makes us think Coffeeshop B is the higher rated shop. This is because the arithmetic mean expects an additive relationship between numbers & doesn’t account for scales & proportions. Hence the need to bring numbers onto the same scale before applying the arithmetic mean.
The geometric mean, on the other hand, can handle varying proportions with ease, due to it’s multiplicative nature. This is a tremendously useful property, but notice what we lose: We no longer have any interpretable scale at all. The geometric mean is effectively unitless in such situations.
I.e. the geometric means above are not 17.5 'out of' 100 points nor 15 'out of' 5 stars . They are just unitless numbers, in relative proportion to each other. (Technically, their scale is the geometric mean of the original scales, 5 & 100 , which is 22.361 ). This can be a problem if we actually want to interpret the results relative to some scale that is meaningful to us, such as the original 5 or 100-point systems. But if we just want to know the relationship between ratings of the two coffeeshops, we’re good to go.
UPDATE 7/14/18: As pointed out by Mladen Fernežir, there is no guarantee that the geometric mean will always preserve the ordering of the arithmetic mean on scaled or normalized values, much less be proportionate to it, as I originally indicated. Rather, it is simply a different way to summarize the relationship between different sets of numbers (albeit one that will often produce more ‘credible’ summaries of values on different scales). So again, care & critical thought are necessary to its application.
Geometric Mean Recap
To tl;dr:
The geometric mean multiplies rather than sums values, then takes the nth root rather than dividing by n
multiplies rather than sums values, then takes the rather than dividing by It essentially says: if every number in our dataset was the same number , what would that number have to be in order to have the same multiplicative product as our actual dataset?
, what would that number have to be as our actual dataset? This makes it well-suited for describing multiplicative relationships, such as rates & ratios , even if those ratios are on different scales (i.e. do not have the same denominator ). (For this reason, it is often used to compute financial & other indexes / indices. )
relationships, such as & , even if those ratios are on (i.e. do not have the same ). (For this reason, it is often used to compute financial & other indexes / indices. ) There are downsides: meaningful scales & units can be lost when applying the geometric mean, and its insensitivity to outliers can obscure large values that may be consequential. Further, it can produce results at odds with the arithmetic mean on values transformed to a single scale.
As with most things in life, there are few ironclad rules for applying the geometric mean (outside of compound interest & such things). There are some heuristics & rules of thumb, but ultimately judgement & scientific skepticism are required, as ever, for sound empiricism.
More on this in the conclusion below, but for now let’s introduce our final Pythagorean mean…
The Harmonic Mean
The 3rd & final Pythagorean mean.
This section will be shorter than the last as the harmonic mean is yet more esoteric than the geometric mean, but still worth understanding.
Whereas the arithmetic mean requires addition & the geometric mean employs multiplication, the harmonic mean utilizes reciprocals.
As you may remember, the reciprocal of a number n is simply 1 / n . (e.g. the reciprocal of 5 is 1/5 ). For numbers that are already fractions, this means that you can simply “flip” the numerator & denominator: reciprocal of 4/5 = 5/4 . This is true because 1 divided by a fraction yields that fraction’s reciprocal , e.g. 1 ÷ (4/5) = 5/4 .
Another way to think about reciprocals is: two numbers that equal 1 when multiplied together. So when finding the reciprocal of a number n , we are simply asking: what number must we multiply with n in order to get 1 . (This is why the reciprocal is also sometimes called the multiplicative inverse.)
So then, the harmonic mean can be described in words as: the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocals of the dataset.
Thats a lot of reciprocal flips there, but it’s actually just a few simple steps:
1. Take the reciprocal of all numbers in the dataset
2. Find the arithmetic mean of those reciprocals
3. Take the reciprocal of that number
In math notation, this looks like:
A simple example from wikipedia: the harmonic mean of 1 , 4 , and 4 is 2 :
note: the notation “n-¹” is one way of symbolizing “the reciprocal of n”
Notice, what we are saying here is: if the reciprocal of every number in our dataset was the same number, what number would it have to be in order to have the same reciprocal sum as our actual dataset?
(Note: due to the fact that 0 has no reciprocal (nothing can be multiplied by 0 to = 1 ), the harmonic mean also cannot handle datasets containing 0 ’s, similar to the geometric mean.)
So that’s how the plumbing works. But what is it good for?
Real World Applications of the Harmonic Mean
To answer this, we have to answer: what are reciprocals good for?
Since reciprocals, like all division, are just multiplication in disguise (which is just addition in disguise), we realize: reciprocals help us more easily divide by fractions.
For instance, what is 5 ÷ 3/7 ? If you remember elementary school maths, you’ll probably just multiply 5 by 7/3 (the reciprocal of 3/7 ) to solve this:
5 ÷ 3/7 = 5/1 * 7/3 = 35/3 = 11 2/3 = 11.66667
But an equivalent method would be to scale the numbers 5 & 3/7 to a common denominator, then divide in the normal way:
5/1 ÷ 3/7 = 35/7 ÷ 3/7 = 35 ÷ 3 = 11 2/3 = 11.66667
So again, similar to using the geometric mean as a shortcut to finding the relationship between additive arithmetic means of scores on different scales without normalizing to a common denominator (see above) , the harmonic mean helps us find multiplicative / divisory relationships between fractions without worrying over common denominators.
As such, the harmonic mean naturally accommodates another layer of multiplication / division over the geometric mean. Thus it is helpful when dealing with datasets of rates or ratios (i.e. fractions) over different lengths or periods.
SIDEBAR: (You might be thinking: “wait, I thought the geometric mean was used for averaging interest rates & ratios on different scales!” And you would be correct. You also wouldn’t be the first to be confused by this. I myself set out to write this piece to clarify my own thinking & understanding here. So bear with me, I hope to make this clearer with the following example & recap all these differences in the conclusion of this article below.)
Average Rate of Travel
The canonical example of using harmonic means in the real world involves traveling over physical space at different rates, i.e. speeds:
Consider a trip to the grocery store & back:
On the way there you drove 30 mph the entire way
you drove the entire way On the way back traffic was crawling, & you drove 10 mph the entire way
traffic was crawling, & you drove the entire way You took the same route, & covered the same amount of ground ( 5 miles ) each way.
What was your average speed across this entire trip’s duration?
Again, we might naively apply the arithmetic mean to 30 mph & 10 mph , and proudly declare “ 20 mph !”
But consider again: because you travelled faster in one direction, you covered those 5 miles quicker & spent less time overall traveling at that speed, so your average rate of travel across your entire trip’s duration is not the middle point between 30 mph & 10 mph , it should be closer to 10 mph because you spent longer traveling at that speed.
In order to apply the arithmetic mean correctly here, we’d have to determine the amount of time spent traveling at each rate, then weight our arithmetic mean calculation appropriately:
Trip There: (at 30 mph)
30 miles per 60 mins = 1 mile every 2 minutes = 1/2 mile every minute
5 miles at 1/2 mile per minute = 5 ÷ 1/2 = 10 minutes
"Trip There" time = 10 minutes
Trip Back: (at 10 mph)
10 miles per 60 mins = 1 mile every 6 minutes = 1/6 miles every minute
5 miles at 1/6 mile per minute = 5 ÷ 1/6 = 30 minutes
"Trip Back" time = 30 minutes
Total trip time = 10 + 30 = 40 minutes
“Trip There” % of total trip = 10 / 40 minutes = .25 = 25%
“Trip Back” % of total trip = 30 / 40 minutes = .75 = 75%
Weighted Arithmetic Mean = (30mph * .25)+(10mph * .75) = 7.5 + 7.5 = 15
Average rate of travel = 15 mph
So we see that our true average rate of travel was 15 mph , which is 5 mph (or 25% ) lower than our naive declaration of 20 mph using an unweighted arithmetic mean.
You can probably guess where this is headed…
Let’s try it again using the harmonic mean.
Harmonic mean of 30 and 10 = ...
Arithmetic mean of reciprocals = 1/30 + 1/10 = 4/30 ÷ 2 = 4/60 = 1/15
Reciprocal of arithmetic mean = 1 ÷ 1/15 = 15/1 = 15
Et voilà!²
Our true average rate of travel, automagically adjusted for time spent traveling in each direction = 15 mph! | https://towardsdatascience.com/on-average-youre-using-the-wrong-average-geometric-harmonic-means-in-data-analysis-2a703e21ea0 | ['Daniel Mcnichol'] | 2018-09-24 01:59:05.685000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Data Analysis', 'Towards Data Science', 'Mathematics', 'Statistics'] |
30 Life Lessons Learned in a Startup | 30 Life Lessons Learned in a Startup
How founding a company made me a better person — and how it may do the same for you
Photo by Annie on Unsplash
On the rollercoaster journey I have embarked on — starting a startup — one thing is for sure. No, it’s not that I’m broke. Well, that too, but…come on!
What I mean is: I have learned more than I could ever have imagined.
What’s more, the things I have learned have made me a better person. Because the lessons I learned in my business have transferred to my life.
I always thought I would get better at business, sure, but I never considered how the process would change me. How much it would push me to grow as an individual, to gain confidence, to believe in myself, to meet new people, share my story, and develop new skills.
The life lessons learned from this experience have changed me for the better forever. Here they are. I hope they will change you for the better too. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/26-of-the-most-valuable-life-lessons-i-learned-in-a-startup-52d9eeb7a03c | ['Stephen Moore'] | 2020-01-31 11:33:51.811000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Self Improvement', 'Life'] |
by Martino Pietropoli | First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.
Follow | https://medium.com/the-fluxus/wednesday-krazo-8eee6b2819b4 | ['Martino Pietropoli'] | 2018-09-18 23:48:34.802000+00:00 | ['Drawing', 'Wednesday', 'Illustration', 'Art'] |
Who Still Thinks Sending Kids Back to School Isn’t a Risky Decision? | Who Still Thinks Sending Kids Back to School Isn’t a Risky Decision?
It’s time to face reality and stop pretending everything will be okay
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash
Here it is. The first Monday of August.
I’m not sure how March, April and May lasted sixteen years and June and July were gone in sixty seconds.
But here we are. Back to school season is upon us.
Some school districts have already started the new academic year. The rest aren’t far behind.
Every day more schools are releasing their plans to get students back to learning safely. Astoundingly, some of those plans still include traditional in-person learning.
Which makes me wonder if we are all on the same page . . .
Just The Facts
July was a brutal month for the coronavirus in the U.S.
There were over 1.9 million new cases of coronavirus recorded in the U.S. This accounts for a whopping 42% of all recorded cases in our country.
The average death toll from the virus has been 1000 people per day, for the last week.
The virus is racing through the midwest, taking hold in rural communities. And, it’s returning to hotspots that thought they had it under control.
Yet, somehow, despite all this, many people still believe it’s “safe” to send kids back to school.
Governments which had eased restrictions are beginning to tighten things up again.
In Pennsylvania, my home state, restaurants are limited to 25% capacity. Bars and restaurants can’t serve alcohol without food. Employees are urged to work from home.
My husband has placed his eight office staffers back on remote assignment. Even though they all have private workspaces in a 2800 square foot facility.
Movie theaters are not open. Nor are McDonalds’ dining rooms.
I can’t drink a cup of coffee in Starbucks.
Yet, somehow, despite all this, many people still believe it’s “safe” to send kids back to school.
It is way past time for us to retire this fantasy.
Have We Learned Nothing?
Every time large groups of people gather together the virus spreads.
We need look no further than the debacle that is Major League Baseball’s abbreviated season to see how quickly and easily this happens.
At little more than a week into the season, 18 Marlins players and two staff members have tested positive for COVID-19. And so have at least six St. Louis Cardinals.
Sixteen games have been rescheduled or postponed.
Some of the Phillies may or may not have the virus. Their season went on hiatus on July 27 after hosting the Marlins. But after receiving false positives, they have since begun team workouts and will play the N.Y. Yankees on tonight, August 4th.
Assuming, of course, there are no new positive cases.
Perhaps the speed with which the virus took over the MLB was a surprise. But the fact that it’s running rampant through a close-knit population is not.
People are acting shocked at this turn of events. Including the commissioner himself, who threatened to shut down the whole season. He has since retreated from that statement.
But I call B.S.
Who among us didn’t see this coming?
Perhaps the speed with which the virus took over the MLB was a surprise. But the fact that it’s running rampant through a close-knit population is not.
I can hear the arguments now . . . . Surely we can distinguish professional baseball players from students.
Baseball players are adults. Adults spread the disease much more easily. Or so they say.
And those players are spending a lot of time together in close quarters.
That’s true.
But consider this . . .
Summer Camp Infections
In late June, the virus quickly spread through a summer camp in Georgia after a teenage counselor got sick. The camp began sending campers home the next day.
It was too late. Over 260 campers and staff tested positive for the virus. In one week the virus infected 44% of counselors and campers.
COVID-19 can and does spread efficiently through youth populations. And it does so even when many mitigation strategies are implemented.
I know, you’re probably still not convinced. I mean, that’s anecdotal evidence. Just one example.
But this was not an isolated incident.
The Kanakuk K-2 camp in Missouri was also forced to close after 41 people became infected with the coronavirus. By the following week, infections had doubled to 82. The camp served kids between 13–18.
The same age as middle and high school students.
According to its website, the camp took extraordinary precautions to keep campers safe. These included “documented health screenings; daily temperature checks; highly qualified doctors and nurses; hand sanitizer in all buildings; limited access to camp grounds for outsiders; elaborate quarantine protocols; rigorous cleaning; and stringent limits on touching.” But these precautions were not enough to curb the spread of COVID-19.
But, Kids Need to Be in School
President Trump, the CDC and several state governors have all declared that schools must reopen this fall.
President Trump threatened to cut funding to schools that don’t reopen for in-person instruction. (He doesn’t have authority to do so.) And he demanded the CDC revise their guidelines for school reopening because the original guidelines were too strict.
After first refusing to do so, the CDC complied.
In a document titled The Importance of Reopening America’s Schools This Fall the CDC concludes that in-person schooling is in the best interests of America’s children.
To convince parents of this, the CDC states, “[t]he best available evidence indicates that COVID-19 poses relatively low risks to school-aged children.”
I’m curious what this “best available evidence” is. Where did it come from? Who collected it? When was it collected?
And, perhaps most importantly, since kids have not been in school since the virus took hold in America, how do we know this evidence is reliable when we change the variables?
I’d also like a definition of “school-aged children”. My son is a high school senior. He is 6'2". He will be 18 in December. I tend not to think of him as a “school-aged” child.
When a public health agency repeatedly uses qualifiers in their conclusions it raises a red flag.
The CDC document also reassures parents that children are not likely to spread the disease. “Scientific studies suggest that COVID-19 transmission among children in schools may be low.”
Wow! Way to go out on a limb there CDC! The studies “suggest” that transmission “may be” low? Great.
Do you find this language persuasive?
Because, I don’t.
When a public health agency repeatedly uses qualifiers in their conclusions it raises a red flag.
Well, at least it should. Especially when other studies contradict those conclusions.
Conflicting Evidence
On July 18, 2020, the New York Times reported that a study out of South Korea demonstrates that children can spread the virus. This study concluded that children “between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do.”
Say what? “At least as well as adults do”? You mean, for lack of a better scientific term, “really easily”?
This is an alarming finding. More than half of all school students fall into this age range. Why aren’t people worried about this?
In light of this evidence we should definitely think twice about opening middle and high schools.
Before we rush to open schools, and send kids into petri-dishes, maybe we should actually look at the new scientific data.
Additionally, on July 30, 2020, the New York Times reported that children have at least as much of the coronavirus in their noses and throats as infected adults. While this does not mean that children are as contagious as adults, it should cause pause.
Previously, scientists believed that children carried lower viral loads. It appears that is not the case.
Before we rush to open schools, and send kids into petri-dishes, maybe we should actually look at the new scientific data.
This is not a popular opinion among the Trump administration. Press Secretary Kaleigh McEnany is by now notorious for proclaiming “science should not stand in the way of schools reopening.”
At least she’s honest.
The administrations hasn’t let science or facts stand in the way of their inane approach to managing COVID-19 yet. Why start now?
I mean other than the lives of our nation’s children. And teachers. And families.
Judging by the number of parents still rooting for in-person learning, it seems the American public isn’t too bothered by science either.
Back to School Options
Luckily, many school districts are making their own decisions. Throughout the nation schools appear to be taking a measured approach to the new school year.
Several districts have decided to begin the year virtually (Los Angeles, San Diego, Milwaukee, Gary, Indiana, and Boston, to name a few). Others have adopted carefully created hybrid models. This is an example from my alma mater in New Jersey.
I’ll admit, at first glance, it’s confusing. I wasn’t sure who would be doing what, where or when. But the complexity is what makes it admirable. A lot of thought and planning went into preparing this document.
I woud feel good about sending my child to a school where health and safety are clearly the priority.
Some schools, however, are following the government edict and proceeding with business as usual.
You might have guessed by now that my district is one of those.
Our Reopening “Plan”
We received our back to school “plan” on Friday, July 31. Although “plan” is too kind a word.
What we actually got was a letter from the superintendent informing us that school will begin as scheduled on August 25. This letter included a list of 11 new safety protocols.
The entire document was just over one page long.
Our local school board and administrators think it’s a good idea to send our kids back into crowded classrooms. Via overcrowded buses. In the midst of a pandemic.
They are also arrogant enough to think that a one page letter is sufficient to garner parent trust.
The letter included provisions for temperature screenings, mask wearing (sometimes), forward-facing desks, hand sanitizer and education on mitigation.
It also provided the option to choose virtual schooling if we desire.
Although, according to the letter, doing so will be damning our kids to an inferior educational experience and will probably lead to an eternity of learning loss and unrealized academic potential.
I’m paraphrasing.
But the letter clearly tries to discourage parents from choosing the virtual option. In fact, the paragraph about why we should select in-person instruction is the longest paragraph in the document.
Parent Concerns
At least I am not alone when it comes to thinking we should not sending kids back to school during a pandemic.
A recent poll conducted by the Associated Press — NORC Center for Public Affairs surveyed parents about the upcoming school year. A full 31% of parents surveyed said they did not believe that schools should open at all for in-person learning this year. At least not right now.
Where can I find those parents? They are my people.
Forty-six percent of parents believe that schools need to make major modifications to reopen safely. This includes things like mandatory mask wearing, disinfection procedures, and strict social distancing. They also cited hybrid schedules and class cohorts as essential to limit the number of people on campus at any one time.
Unfortunately our plan falls short on these criteria. It makes no assurances for social distancing. In fact, the letter uses qualifiers, like “to the extent possible”, when it describes mitigation measures. And all of our students will be on campus all day every day.
No Guinea Pigs Here
Well, all of our students except mine.
Reopening schools now is risky and foolish. It is a dangerous social experiment. That uses kids as guinea pigs.
We know how fast this virus spreads through institutional settings. It ravaged nursing homes, ran through prisons and spread through summer camps.
It hasn’t happened in schools, yet, because schools were not open.
If we continue to ignore reality and proceed with this half-baked reopening plan, there is one thing we can be sure of: COVID-19 will come to school.
There is no scientific reason to believe that assembling hundreds of people in confined spaces for eight hours a day will not lead to infections. In fact, all of the evidence points to the contrary conclusion.
If we continue to ignore reality and proceed with this half-baked reopening plan, there is one thing we can be sure of: COVID-19 will come to school.
People will get sick. And people will die.
It really is time to stop pretending everything is going to be okay and start making other plans. | https://medium.com/lets-talk-about-that/who-still-thinks-sending-kids-back-to-school-isnt-a-risky-decision-1c9bfa05bb2d | ['Lisa Walton'] | 2020-08-03 19:16:23.702000+00:00 | ['Children', 'Politics', 'Education', 'Covid 19', 'Parenting'] |
Positive Numbers: Data, Journalism, Science, and Research, with Beyond Words | Positive Numbers: Data, Journalism, Science, and Research, with Beyond Words
Rebecca Conroy from Beyond Words speaking at Encode 2019, London.
This article is an excerpt from the Encode 2019 Festival Guide, and it’s part of our ‘Encode Hacks’ series that celebrates some of the stunning speakers and contributors who were part of our latest event.
The team at Beyond Words firmly believes in the power of truthful data and its capacity to change the world. At Encode 2019, Rebecca Conroy, founding partner of Beyond Words, illustrated how data can be used to help tackle some of the major issues facing the world today, including climate crisis, global health, pollution, human rights.
We interviewed Rebecca about how Beyond Words uses data to address these issues.
We’re at a crossroads in time, where some people are choosing to ignore the data that tells us about the state of the planet and our society.
Can you provide a practice-hack that you’ve gleaned from your personal experience working in dataviz design?
You can’t design what you don’t understand. You have to invest time in reading, exploring, and really getting under the skin of the data and the subject you’re being asked to visualise. This is how we work: we start by writing a creative vision that sets out what this data-driven story needs to reveal. Our researchers and analysts then examine, explore, curate, and edit the data. This helps us to refine and shape the narrative, followed by sketches to inform the designs.
‘Cascade’: created for the Neglected Tropical Diseases Summit in 2017 (image courtesy of Beyond Words).
How are you currently using data in your design practice and how would you like to use it in the future?
We’re using it for good — we decided when we started the studio this would be one of our primary goals. We don’t shy away from telling the truth, especially now, while we’re at a critical stage that is seeing journalism, science, and data being attacked from different directions. We have an opportunity and an obligation to make sure the real story behind the data we are representing is being told.
We’re firm believers in the power of truthful data to change the world.
What can we do as practitioners to ensure that lessons and experiences within our field are shared and embedded within education frameworks?
We should give our time freely to educational institutions to make sure students are learning crucial best practices as early as possible in their education. Our practice already has an official position with the University of the Arts London (UAL) and the London College of Communication, (our Creative Partner is UAL’s Visiting Fellow for Data Visualisation), and we have worked internationally with other institutions to share our process.
We also tend to share our learnings by writing extensive case studies on our most significant projects, such as ‘Cascade’ and ‘This is Ella’.
‘This is Ella’: a project showing the harm air pollution has on children (image courtesy of Beyond Words).
Who is Beyond Words?
Rebecca is co-founder and managing partner at data visualization studio Beyond Words. A journalist by background, Rebecca started her career in BBC Radio and went on to launch and run a range of the BBC’s websites before starting the studio. | https://medium.com/nightingale/positive-numbers-data-journalism-science-and-research-with-beyond-words-20d1237b1444 | ['Encode Team'] | 2020-12-15 14:03:26.681000+00:00 | ['Design For Good', 'Data Journalism', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Literacy', 'Data'] |
What does freedom of choice mean to you? | Photo by Annabelle Agnew
My deepest fear is of being trapped. I am more afraid of being stuck in an existence I don’t love, that doesn’t stimulate and excite me, than I am of the great unknown, of risk or possible challenges beyond the horizon.
For me, the idea of settling feels like a slow death. The thought that there isn’t something shinier and more exciting to do, new opportunities, new knowledge to gain, seems like it’s all worthless. What’s it all for if there’s no new experience?
And yet…I recognize that when I get into that mode of seeking and hungering and hankering after the next new thing, I lose the freedom I so deeply desire. The need to keep searching is itself a cage — it’s a trap to always want more, to never feel satisfied, to never feel accomplished.
I spent much of my young life searching for the next thrill, the new feeling, the shiny thing. Impulsive choices, world travel, questionable partners… I leapt from excitement to excitement, challenging myself to be better and always choosing more, seeking newness with every leap.
Yet, despite all of the living I packed in, I still didn’t feel satisfied. I didn’t feel accomplished or worthy of the story of myself I was chasing. I still had my eyes on more.
There are many parables and stories about people who just want a little more. I vividly remember, during my first Vipassana meditation retreat, hearing one such story. There is a man who advances from a one-room shanty to a fleet of Rolls Royces and still that hunger, that need for something else, can’t be sated. He wants everything and in that desire, despite all he has accomplished, he feels he has nothing.
It took a while for me to embody that teaching — to feel it deep inside me, to shift into the abundance that simply is but you can only notice when you stop craving.
And so now, when I find myself thinking “what’s next?”, I remind myself that being right here, right now is true freedom.
That excitement I’m looking for? It’s already here if I stop looking to the future.
Freedom is knowing that now is perfect as it is and that there are no “shoulds” — there is no other way that this or I ought to be.
And so, I take a deep breath and I sit and revel in that knowledge. I feel it in my body — in every cell. This moment is perfect. As long as I take care of now, as long as I bring myself back here to feel its expansive, pulsing, brilliant aliveness, then I am free. | https://medium.com/@laurenjaneheller/what-does-freedom-of-choice-mean-to-you-9a9acf4c8453 | ['Lauren Jane Heller'] | 2020-12-07 14:37:04.416000+00:00 | ['Power', 'Mindset', 'Freedom', 'Presence', 'Mindfulness'] |
90s Birthday Party Culture: The Un-Instagrammable Purity | The most visually unappealing and deeply satisfying decade of our lives.
Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash
We live in a time of visuals. Optics. What it’s like doesn’t matter half as much as what it looks like, and if you find that upsetting, you were probably a kid in the 90s. You know, the 90s, when photos were printed on paper and stored in albums and were, by all realistic estimates, only ever seen by about 14 people, max. The point of birthday parties wasn’t style or showmanship, they weren’t even that centered around celebrating someone’s birth. They were about letting kids loose, wearing them out, and artificial flavors. The birthday parties of the 90s were not pretty, but they were perfect.
When life changed, when social media put us all on a global stage for critique, the way we experience life changed, too. Events became less about how much fun we were having, and more about how much fun it looked like we were having. Otherwise, manufactured photos wouldn’t exist. Follow-me moments wouldn’t be captured. We’d just grab the shot as-is, in the moment, and be done with it. But we don’t. We style. And nobody styled in the 90s, because the only moments that mattered were the ones we were living, not the ones other people would see us living on the internet, a thing wouldn’t really matter for another ten years. In any area of human history, the most fun we genuinely have isn’t captured in photos, but rather in sight, scent, taste, touch, and memory. Which is why we probably look so fondly on the 90s, an era that was aesthetically revolting, but experientially divine.
I was born in 1982, so we’re talking very late 80s and early 90s-era birthdays, people. A June birth meant that all the kids from school had scattered to the wind and my parties were just as likely to be attended by actual friends as any random stranger children who could scam my mom for a piece of cake. There’s a girl sitting at the table in my seventh birthday party Kodak photos that I have never met in my life. Modern day birthday parties require “venues” and “planners.” Our 90s mothers and fathers were dealing with some bowling alley manager named Brian who was half-high of shoe disinfectant and did little more to contribute to the party’s success than retrieve stuck balls.
Party invitations came in a box and had to be hand filled-in like Mad-Libs. Often the theme of the invitation had no relevance whatsoever to the party itself, though if you were lucky there’d be a little graphic of a cake or a party hat somewhere in the margin. The birthday boy or girl wore clothing from Target as opposed to a custom design via Etsy that matches both the floral arrangements and table linens, because 90s moms knew that Hawaiian punch wouldn’t wash out. If you left a birthday party without your fingers and upper lip dyed food coloring blue, you didn’t do it right.
My parties were a special marriage of both 90s birthday party culture and 90s single mom culture, so they were always at McDonalds. Affordable, convenient, minimal parental involvement required, and the entire event could be shoved into a black trash bag in seconds. My main memories of these events are climbing on filthy playground equipment (this was the era before the fancy remodels, I was still riding around on a little carousel made of hamburger horses), and eating fantastic grocery store birthday cake with white and pink buttercream icing that had developed a delectably delicate crust. I remember being squished into the backseat on the way home among presents.
The best parties, incidentally, were not my own, but those I attended. My friends’ parties, my brother’s friends’ parties, siblings of either of our friends who had parties, when you live in a Fort Worth, Texas Jewish community, nobody leaves anybody out. Most weekends involved a birthday party of some kind, which when I think about it is probably why we all sometimes feel like such sad FOMO failures when our weekends are void of plans. We rage on the weekends because we were raised to.
The birthday parties of the 90s were real ones. They were about gathering children together so that we could act like absolute chaosmongers for two or three hours while our parents gossiped in the smoking section. They were about kids having fun and eating garbage and getting Barbies and Hot Wheels as presents. Somehow we always came home covered in stickers.
You remember, you were there. Putt-Putt, Chuck-E-Cheese, roller skating rinks, Pizza Hut, Discovery Zone, Laser Tag. They were spaces built to suck the energy out of kids and the money out of parents, designed to look like a franken-venue of what might happen if a casino and a toy box had a baby. You looked forward to going, because being there meant that it was time to have fun. These spaces served no other purpose, and to a kid, a place you could go to do nothing but run around and have fun without rules and confinements was solid gold.
No matter the primary intent of the establishment, every single one of these places had an arcade room where your parents cash and quarters went to die, and kids went to earn 500 paper tickets that would buy them a Ring Pop. If I close my eyes I can hear the sounds of digital laser beams and mechanical voices congratulating someone who just earned a high score. Racing games where you couldn’t reach the pedals. Whack-a-Mole mallets too heavy for all but the prepubescent kids. Skee Ball projectiles that were miraculously never used for destructive purposes. Game buttons indestructible no matter what kind of pounding they took. Filthy, grubby little joysticks, not a disinfectant in sight. Honestly I think Pac-Man was responsible for developing our immune systems, I really do.
Remember the carpets? Low-pile, primitive graphic design rarely straying from a blue, yellow, red, and green color scheme, and vacuumed only tangentially, with a steam cleaner on hand for biohazards. Paper napkin dispensers so useless your mom always brought paper towels from home. Waxy little water cups that made leaking and disintegrating an art form. Two-liters of soda lined up at the end of the table like soldiers poised to charge.
There’s a reason why mentally reverting back to these spaces is both fun and a little bit sad. And I don’t think that’s just because it’s a time that’s passed. I think it’s because it’s a time that’s lost. Our birthday parties were about pure, carefree joy that centered around playtime, and all it’s ugly, unmanicured glory. That’s not something we see much of anymore now that the world has gone beautiful. Nineties birthday parties were a visual crime, but an experiential gift.
We all have a few sticky old photos of our faces in front of cakes aflame, our forehead hair dangerously close to peril. We have posed photos with our parents that are now the stuff of #mothersday content. But that’s really it, a handful of classic moments captured on film and printed at Walgreens. You don’t have selfies from inside a giant plastic playscape or boomerangs of the ball pit. And I’m sorry, but I think that’s for the best.
I worry about present-day parties. Everything is so polished now, so stylish. There’s so much theme, coordination, it all fits within a carefully manicured frame, a purposeful moment intended to be branded and preserved for all time in our feeds. And that’s all fine, if some energy is reserved for letting go, letting kids experience the effervescence of pure fun, the kind no one ever thinks to capture. I might be wrong, but I’m seeing a generation of kids who have to stick their fingers in slime or eat fruit into a microphone to feel something, so…yeah.
I’m not saying that modern day birthday parties aren’t fun for kids. I’m sure they are, I’m just going out entirely on my 90s kid limb and saying that ours were more fun, because they were less Pinterest-perfect. The most fun moments of our lives really can’t—and probably shouldn’t—be captured. I don’t remember every moment of the birthday parties I had or attended, and I can’t even remember all the parties themselves. But I do have a very deep and lasting memory of the feeling of being a kid, the feeling of freeform fun that wasn’t structured, planned, or hashtagged. If it sounds arrogant to assume that one childhood era was better than another I really don’t care. I’m a 90s kid, I care about slap bracelets and pogs, the important stuff.
Our birthday parties didn’t have step-and-repeats. There were no photo booths, photo props, or coordinated family outfits. Decor rarely went beyond a handful of balloons used as markers to indicate which bowling lanes were ours. Because we didn’t care what it looked like, and we didn’t have to. No one would ever see it, but everyone who was there would experience it, fully. Except your dad with the video camera permanently affixed to his shoulder. He doesn’t count.
I come from a time when minimal effort could result in maximum fun, and I’m worried we’re losing it. Maybe my birthday parties weren’t as worth the visual memories as they are the emotional and tactile ones. Maybe modern birthday parties are more pretty, but 90s birthday parties were more pure. Maybe I’m an asshole for valuing one iteration of childhood more than another. But I’m the last generation that grew up without the ‘gram, and there’s beauty in that, to me.
____________________________________________________________
Shani Silver is a humor essayist and podcaster based in Brooklyn who writes on Medium, a lot. | https://medium.com/atta-girl/90s-birthday-party-culture-the-un-instagrammable-purity-aa4c7abd398d | ['Shani Silver'] | 2020-08-21 11:11:06.427000+00:00 | ['Nostalgia', 'Culture', '90s', 'Social Media', 'Life'] |
Leetcode #98 (validate binary search tree) | Thoughts / Questions
Some things to keep in mind if you were asked this during an interview.
Questions
1. What would the output need to be (this case leetcode gives it to use and it is a boolean. )
2. I would if possible draw out a BST and a tree to confirm the question.
3. What are we given in the function. ( head, value, left, right?)
Thought process
* For this Problem I want to first traverse the tree inOrder and add the values to an array. By doing this we will have all the values in order.
* Next I want to run a loop to check if the value at our current index is bigger or equal to the next value. if it is we return false because we know this is not a valid BST.
With InOrder Our output will be in order. Meaning we are grabbing the lowest value first and working our way up.
* Looking at the picture above you can see if a value before hand is bigger there is no way this is a valid BST. | https://medium.com/@anthonymendoza9922/leetcode-98-validate-binary-search-tree-da8f1130997b | ['Anthony Mendoza'] | 2020-12-23 21:10:44.927000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Binary Search Tree', 'Leetcode', 'Data Structures', 'Algorithms'] |
Exempted | Exempted
A Poem
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash
Internal alienations
the run-around for the lexically
impaired
and then taken to a building
to look over the town
count footsteps in snow
the tracks of snowblowers
casually leaving my driveway
exempt from their
ministrations
The close quiet of nights
in a house alone
reading
or something
counting down the days to
what —
it doesn’t take the time you
want it to
or
it just isn’t moving that quick
and you feel
belayed
and the roped tied to something
you weren’t even
prepared to admit existed
but clearly
you’re stopped
A portrait of more hands
a field that sings
in starlight with the dark
whipping
past the crack in the window
and the odd
narrow
minute that races by to
remind you it can
but by now
all you sense is an
exclusion | https://medium.com/artrock-sexual-manifestations-queer-madness/exempted-9afd04428c4e | ['J.D. Harms'] | 2020-12-28 15:50:05.209000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Isolation', 'Loneliness', 'Image'] |
Top drinks that help you to lose weight and boost your immunity. | Certain beverages are more successful than others at aiding weight loss when combined with healthy lifestyle modifications.
Green tea, coffee, and high-protein drinks have all been demonstrated to increase metabolism, induce fullness, and reduce hunger, all of which can help you lose weight.
Here are ten drinks to include in your diet if you’re seeking to reduce weight and improve your health and boost your immunity.
1.Vegetable juice
Although fruit juice is high in sugar, fresh vegetable juice is an excellent low-carb beverage. Many people are aware that vegetable juice is high in vitamins and nutrients that are essential for good health. However, researchers have discovered that people who consume a lot of vegetable juice also consume more vegetables. This could help a person lose weight, especially since vegetables are high in fibre, which can help stave off hunger pains.
Click here to learn more about weight loss.
2.Coconut water
Almost nothing tastes better after a good workout than a tall bottle of anything cold and refreshing. Many sports beverages are designed to replenish persons who engage in an hour or more of high-intensity activity. This generally implies they have an excessive amount of sugar, which is unnecessary for the average active adult trying to reduce weight. So, if you’re not training for the NYC marathon or anything else that necessitates strenuous exercise, coconut water is a good option. Pure coconut water is lower in sugar and contains five important electrolytes: sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous.
3.Apple cider vinegar
Acetic acid is the main weight-loss component in apple cider vinegar. Acetic acid can also help you lose weight by improving your metabolism, lowering your insulin levels, and reducing your cravings. Apple cider vinegar reduces the rate at which food empties from your stomach, according to a research conducted on persons with type 1 diabetes. Adding a few spoons to your drinks can help you feel satiated for longer. However, consuming acidic beverages might damage your teeth and cause heartburn.
4.Green tea
Caffeine and antioxidants are two important elements in green tea that help you lose weight. Caffeine is a stimulant that has been shown to boost calorie expenditure and improve exercise performance. Green tea has 24-40 mg of caffeine per cup. Green tea also includes epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a potent antioxidant and metabolism stimulant that can aid in the breakdown of excess fat in the body.
Click here to learn more about weight loss.
5.Black tea
Caffeine (approximately 47 mg), a stimulant that speeds up metabolism, is present in black tea, just as it is in green tea. Black tea, on the other hand, is distinct in that it includes a high concentration of polyphenols. These substances have the ability to lower calorie intake, enhance fat breakdown, and raise good bacteria in the gut.
6.water
You may believe that drinking water is a no-brainer because, well, it doesn’t have any calories! But H2O has even more properties that make it an excellent weight-loss aid. Researchers discovered that drinking water can improve your resting energy expenditure (the number of calories burned while you are motionless) by up to 24-30% in just 10 minutes. It also aids the kidneys and liver in their functions, and being hydrated aids in appetite suppression. In fact, many people mistake thirst for hunger. Try drinking a glass of water first the next time you feel like you need a snack and see how you feel.
7.Lemon water
It has not been established that lemon water improves metabolism or detoxification. Dropping some lemon juice in your water, on the other hand, is a terrific low-calorie way to spice up what many people consider to be a dull beverage. Try squeezing this fruit into your drink if you’re having difficulties drinking enough water during the day. Lemon juice is also high in vitamin C, which can help boost your immunity, promote iron absorption, and lower your cancer risk.
Click here to learn more about weight loss.
8.cherry juice
Wake up and smell the roses, y’all. Although this sour drink contains 25 grammes of sugar per 8 ounce dose, a shot of it after exercise can aid to reduce inflammation and muscular discomfort. This is useful if you’re increasing your workouts to meet your weight-loss objectives, as the body sometimes becomes sore as it adjusts to a new schedule. If it works for you, you might be able to say goodbye to your Bengay. Let’s hope we don’t end up smelling like a human peppermint
9.Ginger tea
The role of this potent root in weight loss is mainly about correcting symptoms that prevent people from losing weight. Ginger, for example, contains antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds that can aid in the prevention of cardiovascular disease and other stresses. Ginger has the ability to lower "bad" cholesterol and enhance blood sugar levels thanks to a component called gingerol. According to several studies, drinking ginger water before meals can make your stomach feel full.
10.Coffee
Coffee has the greatest caffeine, with roughly 95 mg per cup, when compared to black and green teas. Caffeine, as previously stated, is a stimulant that can increase the number of calories burned. Theobromine, theophylline, and chlorogenic acid, three chemicals known to alter metabolism, are also found in coffee. Unfortunately, coffee’s calorie-burning properties do not continue indefinitely. Over time, coffee consumers acquire tolerant of these side effects. As a result, coffee should not be counted upon when it comes to long-term weight loss.
Click here to learn more about weight loss. | https://medium.com/@harshalkore65/top-drinks-that-help-you-to-lose-weight-and-boost-your-immunity-7bc87d0a14f6 | ['Harshal Kore'] | 2021-12-21 16:30:50.963000+00:00 | ['Weight Loss', 'Health', 'Lifehacks', 'Juices For Weight Loss', 'Fitness Tips'] |
BROKEN ART OF CLASS | For the life of me I could not memorize these lyrics. I was not surprised, as I have always had a hard time memorizing unfamiliar lyrics. I stress unfamiliar, because if they were lyrics that I had some attachment to, or could grasp on to in some way, I memorized them, and everything about the show they were from, who wrote that show, the history behind that show, and how to play that song in 10 different styles. That’s how my mind works. That is how a brain with ADHD Combined works. Growing up, I didn’t know that this is why I talked a lot and didn’t like math. As an adult, I know now that this is why I must have set routines and must re-learn that I was not a bad child, I just thought differently. I know now, as an adult, that I have a disability. An ADA recognized disability.
Some other things happened in my adult life, involving that ex-husband, and that Judge, that brought on another disability. PTSD. Put PTSD on top of ADHD and you have a fantastic explosion waiting to happen, and for me, it did, and Tommy, led me to that wall that I had to hit. When I hit it, I hit it hard. Harder than I should have. Harder than anyone should ever hit in the future.
When I sat in that car desperately trying to memorize those lyrics, I was filled with guilt, with fear, with the very message of the lyrics. I was told by a Judge that I was lying about being abused and in my court order, it is also written, that “she will tell anyone and everyone that she was abused.” Well, of course I would. I was screaming for help. In every way. My mind would not allow me to memorize those lyrics because my mind was on overdrive. At the time, I was taking a break from ADHD medications, because it seemed that the medications on the market were not working for me. So, I was stuck with just my mind that focused on what it could, how it could, and what it could — that focus was fear. Fear that the Judge would find out that I was performing and I would lose custody forever. Fear that I would mess up on stage. Fear that I didn’t belong on that stage to begin with because the Judge in her ruling referred to jobs in the arts as being “extra — curricular”
The biggest fear was that my daughter would think that I was a failure. To this very day, though I have traveled miles in my journey of healing, that last one, fear of my daughter thinking I am a failure, still haunts me, because I have not been able to help her after all this time.
By the end of the run of Tommy, I was done with theater. I haven’t really been on stage since that show. I’ve developed a fear of the stage, and of myself. Neither of these fears ever should have developed. They did. Why? Because we fail to acknowledge that mental health is part of our health, and not something that people choose to be because they want to be evil or wicked. Sometimes, I think people associate mental health conditions with people wanting to seek revenge on others. This must stop, as it is completely wrong.
The messaging about what mental health is, and how we view it, must come from doctors. We must stop airing commercials about mental health pharmaceuticals that allow us as consumers to diagnose each other. We must stop making shows like Ratched that glamorize mental institutions and those who find pleasure in harming mental health patients. The mind is a beautiful and delicate part of the human body. We must respect the brain, and see it as an organ, like any other, and realize that mental health is nothing more than malfunctioning of an organ. The brain.
How do we as human beings contribute to that malfunction by allowing ourselves to continue to malfunction as a society ? You be the Judge. If you don’t see it, and you don’t hear it, maybe you need to look around and see how we treat others, especially those with disabilities and mental health conditions. When you see it, if you do not say something, if you do not speak up and make the situation better, then you are at fault. Yes, you have a moral obligation to do better. We all do. | https://medium.com/@cristinaaloe_79780/sitting-in-my-car-before-rehearsal-my-old-car-the-hyundai-i-went-over-and-over-and-over-the-20fcf758fd7b | ['Cristina Aloe'] | 2020-12-23 21:29:49.281000+00:00 | ['Tommy', 'Mental Health', 'Ada', 'Disability', 'Violence Against Women'] |
Staying Strong after Boston Bombings | As we find out more about the Islamic connection that the suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing had, Muslims across the nation are going through an array of emotions.
The news pundits keep bringing up Islam and how that might have been the motivating factor for the two brothers actions. The American Muslim community is beginning to brace for the backlash. Already we’re hearing stories of kids in schools being taunted, mosques with armed guards and harassment of women wearing the hijab.
Muslims are feeling vulnerable, tired and frustrated. We are asking “Why do we have to constantly explain our religion, be unfairly targeted and treated in a way that that other Americans are not?”
But we often forget that we are not the first generation of Muslims to feel this way. Neither is it a new phenomenon that Islam or Muslims have been attacked. From the first time the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) preached till present day and till Allah wills, there will continue to be challenges for the Muslim Ummah. However what has changed is the way Muslims respond to these challenges.
The Prophet (SAW) and the Sahaba’s were physically, emotionally and financially tortured and yet were patient. They were so steadfast in their beliefs and trusted that Allah (SWT) would guide them through their hardship. One example is of Sommaya RA who was tortured to death (the first female martyr of Islam) for simply believing in Allah SWT. The Prophet(SAW) was powerless and the only thing he could say to her was to be patient and that her reward was waiting for her in Jannah.
Our tests are like cake compared to theirs. We’re bugging out because some dude is staring at us in a grocery store or the media is bashing Islam. Muslims living in America find it difficult to deal with issues such as profiling, defending our beliefs and dealing with the ludicrous comments thrown by the media.
When we feel angry about the way the media is portraying Muslims we should read about the challenges that the Prophet (SAW) and his companions went through. The Prophet’s (SAW) own family threw sticks and stones on him till he would bleed. His own neighbors and friends drove him and his followers out of the city of Mecca.They were physically attacked, their properties were seized and they were economically marginalized. But these hardships did not wear them down, their faith in Allah was only strengthened by the challenges. Their faith also helped them in remaining optimistic about their future.
We must remember we are all ambassadors to our deen, the only way to change anyone’s perception of Islam is through our own actions. So lets practice the patience and optimism that the Prophet (SAW) and the sahabas practiced. Put on that smile and lend a helping hand to your neighbor, be the first in community service, give a compliment to the cashier and don’t forget that extra cheerful thank you to the waiter, sales clerk or whoever. Our best akhlaq (virtues) and adab (manners) is most needed right now.
Changing one person’s outlook may lead to changing an entire household. In addition to educate the masses, exemplify what you speak. Justifying the violence or comparing other countries does nothing but harm. Lives are lost and our empathy and mercy should be in the forefront.
These are days of trials and tribulations. We must hold on to our ideals and principles. May Allah (SWT) preserve our community and bless our Nation.
-The Biscuits and Banarsi Staff- | https://medium.com/biscuits-and-banarsi/staying-strong-after-boston-bombings-e29a6559834e | ['Islamic History Notes'] | 2018-09-10 02:05:11.714000+00:00 | ['History', 'Community', 'Islam', 'Boston Bombings', 'Life'] |
How to Use CBD Hemp Oil — Simple Guide | Our in depth review of how the different cannabinoids found in CBD hemp oil can help benefit your health and wellbeing through the integrated and comprehensive interaction of the endocannabinoid system with the body can be viewed here. As we’ve already gone in depth on these benefits and how the ECS works, we’ll leave that out of this piece. What’s becoming more and more clear over time is the endocannabinoid system is able to assist the body in numerous ways from improving sleep quality to enhancing immunity and mood, what we want to dive into more is how to get the best results from the ECS — in other words, how to best take CBD Hemp Oil.
If you’re reading here you’re likely asking yourself what the best CBD Hemp oil or cannabidiol intake method are, well the good news is — we’ve got you covered. We’ll look at what the different forms of cannabis are, how it gets processed into CBD Hemp oil, and what the different ways to take this health supplement look like — from capsules, edibles, oils and more.
What are the different ways CBD Hemp Oil is made?
All hemp oils and hemp products fundamentally come from hemp — that is obvious. They’re all a by-product of extraction and production processes, whether manual or industrial that leave you with end products like hemp fibre, hemp protein, hemp oil, hemp tinctures, hemp creams and topicals. Each of these can be used for the body in a different way and each has different advantages and disadvantages. While less common today, even more innovative and new methods of taking CBD are cropping up around the world as technology improves, from sublingual strips, gummies, sprays and more. It’s becoming increasingly simple and effective to get the benefits of CBD Hemp Oil without difficulty. These products can also be easy to transport, store and keep for a long period, having a strong perishable life.
But how do these CBD end products get produced?
Firstly, let’s take a look at processing of the cannabis plant. Before being extracted and transformed into the products you know and use, cannabis is grown in industrial hemp plantations, which specialise in breeding cannabis strains that contain no THC to avoid the psychoactive and health risks associated with marijuana. Industrial hemp only contains cannabidiol and is used in a broad range of applications from rope to clothes to shoes. The plants are grown over time to their full mature adult forms which can take around 6 months, before they’re harvested and processed by drying and storing in cooling spaces. Depending on soil, moisture and environmental conditions this process can take longer or shorter periods of time, particularly if the plants are fertilised and fed well which can enhance their vitality and growth significantly.
Typically plants that are grown and cultivated indoors or within greenhouses and controlled environments are able to be much more methodically grown with greater efficiency, yielding more CBD and enhancing their fibres for industrial use. This type of agriculture is also usually better for the land as it will reduce the impact of phosphates and insecticides on soil and waterways. There are two categories of cannabis — sativa and indica, each having differing effects, physiology and botanical profiles. Sativa takes around 3–4 months to become fully mature and ready for harvest, compared to indica taking around 2–3 months. The plants are typically farmed in industrial hemp plantations in Australia which are heavily regulated and controlled to ensure no THC content enters the plants due to the law. Each farm and business owner can have differing agricultural and harvest practices, which vary from highly mechanised and automated operations to mum and dad organic farms. They also differ heavily in usage of GMO and pesticide techniques, which can greatly affect how the final product turns out — we prefer non GMO and pesticide sources to prevent any potential carcinogens or nasties from contaminating the product.
After the plants have matured they’re harvested and pesticide or herbicide spray might be washed from the plants in some cases, depending on the farmer. Increasingly herbicides like RoundUp are being found to be carcinogenic, with many other widespread industrial herbicides likely having negative effects which aren’t yet widely known or acknowledged by the agricultural industry. What’s common across all the harvest processes is they all must remove the long branches and stems of the plants which have little value commercially and contain very hard and strong fibres that are hard to use. These can be separated by hand or using machinery and automated processes.
How is this done? There are three key steps in removing the valuable buds, flowers and leaves that are used to reap the CBD rich hemp oils and extracts that can be used in products as well as hemp proteins. First, larger leaves from the outside of the plant (which have sharp triangular edges you may know) are taken off, these can be used for end products like hemp protein as they have minimal fibre content but contain much of the plant’s flesh and weight. Next, the plants are trimmed of their smaller inner leaves and stems which contain much of the buds as well as flowers used in cannabis oil and similar products. Extract oils can also be transformed into items like topical hemp cream for arthritis or moisturising oils for the face. The final stage involves the flower buds and inner stems which contain lower concentration of oil and cannabidiol but can be used as concentrates in certain products.
After the three stages of harvesting are completed, the plant produce that has been taken from the mature plants is dried and allowed to develop in cool air where it concentrates into the final plant extract that is then pressed for oil. This can take up to a couple of weeks. In this process the flowers and buds are removed in a manual trimming and sorting action, which are then further dried in containers that are vacuum sealed to prevent oxygen contaminating and decaying the plants (which can catch mould, fungi and other contaminants that can spoil the crop — much like other vegetables and plants). Storing the plant matter is known as the curing process, which can take weeks to months to complete in order to age the plant and let its chemical compounds develop. Again the curing length and method — whether vacuum sealed or open air, using jars, using vats or other means varies depending on the farmer and their particular method of operating. It can vary from lengthier cures that are done by more reputable and high end growers to very rapid and short (or even skipping the cure) for black market operators.
Curing helps to both develop the plant matter and extend its shelf life, allowing it to be stored and kept for longer without degrading significantly. How do you choose the right grower or reputable product? It’s difficult in Australia where the market is still nascent and developing and many operators are not yet fully operating at a mature, efficient and quality focused cadence but this is changing over time. One of the best methods is to find third party, non biased reviews from reputable CBD Hemp Oil testers and sites in order to validate and assess whether the product is reliable and delivers true benefits.
What are the types of CBD Hemp oil products and dietary supplements?
There are a few different varieties of plant matter and processed forms of cannabis after its been harvested, based on the different sections of the plant in its biology. Each can have differing cannabinoid compound content, differing fibre and nutrient levels and has differing uses for industrial purposes as well as dietary. Let’s examine the top types of hemp products after the harvesting and extracting processes have been completed, to understand more about what your options are for supplementation and dietary delivery.
Firstly — concentrates. As the name suggests, concentrates are concentrated forms of cannabis or hemp which result from extracting the plant resin or oil from the plant. Most of the time these are produced from trim and buds which are higher in resin and cannabinoid content than the stems and body of the plant. Compounds like CBA, CBG and CBD are especially abundant in these areas of the plant which are the focus of the extraction. There are two concentrate types — full spectrum and isolate concentrates. The difference between these is that full spectrum extraction results in much more of the non cannabinoid compounds in hemp such as terpenes, flavonoids and chlorophyll to be present in the final oil product. Isolates instead almost exclusively contain cannabinoids and filter out most other byproducts which leaves a more pure (albeit with likely lower nutritional profile) essence of hemp extract that is very high in CBD content — or THC if this is the extract focus. Depending on the process used the final product can contain CBD only or a combination of CBD and THC.
Extraction processes can vary significantly in chemicals used and methods performed to reach the final extracted hemp oil products. From propane, ethanol and Co2, there are a number of differing ways the cannabinoid and resins can be extracted from the buds and trim of the plant, but Co2 is typically considered the best process and most clean for the end user by minimising chemical by-products and potential contamination of the end product. Solvents can be completely avoided in certain extraction methods that use gas only to completely remove any chance of solvents ending up in the final extract. Where possible opt for solvent-less methods.
CBD Hemp Oil Tinctures
What is a tincture? You might’ve seen or heard of CBD tinctures online. Their history is actually quite long due to being a more general format of storing oils and plant essences in oil. Tinctures are a method of extracting and storing cannabis oil and cannabinoids into a fat soluble liquid like MCT or glycerol, that can then be mixed into the substrate oil and suspended into it in order to create an even and effective dosage. Tinctures have been in use for at least a hundred years amongst botanists and pharmaceutical businesses, enabling the storage and use of plant botanicals and essences in oil and liquid form for dosage control and delivery. Carrier oils are used with tinctures to suspend the rich cannabinoid containing oil, typically these are MCT (medium chain triglyceride), olive or grapeseed oil. For tinctures to work and be bioactive (usable by the body), the cannabis matter inserted into the oil must be decarboxylated before producing the end product. This activates the CBD and THC within the plant matter, allowing the body to absorb it. Tinctures are a great way to control dose and ensure you get the most from the cbd hemp oil, we recommend using an MCT carrier for best results.
When someone refers to CBD Hemp Oil or CBD Oil they’re really referring to a tincture — they’re terms that can be used in place of one another. Tinctures can be taken sublingually or ingested, sublingual application means absorption is more rapid to the bloodstream. Adding into foods that have high fat content like coffee or peanut butter helps with absorption, increasing bioavailability.
The great thing — and why this method is so popular — about tinctures is they’re extremely easy, convenient and effective to consume. You can carry tincture vials easily, dose on a very accurate and progressive basis and ensure that you’re getting the right amount of CBD for your condition and needs. Squeeze directly into coffee or apply under the tongue or cheek. Another great aspect of tinctures is their discreteness and ease of transport — you can take them just about anywhere in your pocket or bag with ease and mix into food or use sublingually. Usually the only negative aspect of tinctures is the potential for strange or poor taste, but this can of course be overcome by combining with foods or purchasing flavoured varieties.
Edible Products for CBD Hemp
What is an edible? This refers to any ingestible format of product that can carry or contain cannabinoids which release the compounds when they are digested in the gut. You have probably heard of some of the more obvious and popular edibles like brownies or CBD gummies. But the fact is, almost any food or drink product can be turned into an edible by infusing with cannabis oils and the cannabinoids. All that is needed as a prerequisite is for the cannabis to be decarboxylated. You can find a huge range of these edible types online, from gummies and candy to sprays, capsules and sublingual CBD strips. Capsules are becoming increasingly popular vehicles for delivery, enabling the user to digest and absorb the CBD hemp oil rapidly and being convenient and consistent dosages. Each of the different edible types has their place and use, with each offering different flavours, textures and advantages. New forms and methods of edible creation and use are being developed continually, and we recommend experimenting
Conclusions on How to Use CBD Hemp Oil
How you use CBD and the method selected depends entirely on your goals and preferences. We’ve taken a look today at how cannabinoids like CBD, CBG, CBD and THC are extracted from the cannabis or hemp plant in various extraction methods end to end. From growth and harvesting, trimming and sorting, processing and curing the plant. We then looked at how resin and extracts are removed from the plant matter through industrial methods either with solvents or through solvent-less methods (such as Co2 gas) that help to reduce potential industrial by-product contamination with solvents. Finally we did a deep dive into the types of CBD hemp oil end products including tinctures, creams and edibles, the benefits, drawbacks and some important notes on each. Our last comment would be we recommend tinctures or CBD oil as the optimal method due to ability for dosage control and its flexibility yet effectiveness. | https://medium.com/@bondihempoil/how-to-use-cbd-hemp-oil-simple-guide-bondi-hemp-oil-16f5aec14ea2 | ['Bondi Hemp Oil'] | 2020-12-27 00:26:28.245000+00:00 | ['Marijuana', 'Health', 'Cannabis', 'Hemp Oil', 'Cbd Oil For Sale'] |
Why Outsourcing MVP Development is the Best Option for New Products? | If you are launching a new technology or software product in the market, you have to understand your target audience first before you can start developing the product.
This stage primarily applies to the MVP development and process. It helps the firm in reducing the risks of the firm while increasing its ROIs.
Many start-ups and business firms often outsource their MVP (Minimum Viable Product) development process to tech experts, who are already experts in such things.
MVP refers to the basic version of the product with limited features and utility. It helps the company understand the final product and how the same can be used later.
In other words, MVP helps you test your product before the end users use them. If the testing process doesn’t go well, you can modify the product to meet your requirement.
The success of the MVP stage requires a well-experienced team of technical experts, in-house infrastructure, and also the supervision of experts. Outsourcing MVP development to an expert team is crucial in this regard.
Why Outsourcing MVP Development is the Best Option for New Products? — Alphaklick Solution
Benefits of Outsourcing MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Understand Core Functions: Through MVP, you can focus on the key features of your product and go on to consolidate the same.
Scrutinize All Aspects: MVP helps you connect with your target audience and understand their grievances and concerns at the development stage itself. Using the initial feedback from your targeted customers, you can improve the quality of your product.
Validation: Validate all your idea of the product using market research and proper data analysis. While addressing the product, focus on key concerns and problems of the software.
Get Access to Product Specialists: Outsourcing your MVP means you are getting your product accessible to specialists. There are lots of companies that are specialists in helping start-ups and new firms complete their MVP process. You should opt for them.
Low Cost: By outsourcing MVP development, you are letting experts handle this crucial issue while you can concentrate on other aspects of your business.
Technical Help: Through outsourcing MVP, You can listen to experts’ advice at the crucial stage of your product development. Since the entire MVP development will go under the supervision of an experienced team, you can improve the quality of your product even more.
The Conclusion
Hiring the appropriate MVP outsourcing service provider can help you develop your technical product in the least possible time. When an outsourcing company manages the MVP stage, the concerned company will scrutinize its test version, beta stage, to final launch.
Through MVP, you can understand the product’s drawbacks and can rectify the same easily even before launching it. In other words, MPV provides you with all the necessary ideas that you must know before launching its final version. Get in touch with Alphaklick today to know more about it. | https://medium.com/@klickalpha/why-outsourcing-mvp-development-is-the-best-option-for-new-products-41d2569992ce | ['Alpha Klick'] | 2021-12-16 04:59:44.554000+00:00 | ['Outsourcing', 'MVP', 'Outsourcing Services', 'Mvp Development'] |
A lesson in Style | What is personal style? Of how much importance do the clothes we wear have on how we want to be perceived by the world?
In an age of fast-fashion perhaps the key to a more meaningful way to live and consume is figuring out what makes you feel the best. A feat such as that, however, is easier said than done.
How can we embrace the age of slow fashion, with sustainable clothes while still conjuring a style that caters to who we are? Today we discuss how we can consciously build a wardrobe that suits our lifestyle and encourages our personal style.
We all want to leave a mark in this world, to be remembered one way or another, and how we showcase ourselves brings others to observe an extension of ourselves. A personal style is a form of creativity, not only as an extension of the soul but also something that should be nurtured. From the way you work to the way you communicate, your style expands from the clothes you wear.
“Why change? Everyone has his own style. When you have found it, you should stick to it.”
― Audrey Hepburn
There are trends and there is style, what’s the difference? Well, style is eternal whereas trends last only for the season, it’s important to find a style that spans over all seasons, So, how does one get started?
Explore
With the rise of clothing rental, clothes swapping and thrift shops, experimentation to find your style has become increasingly accessible. Style is something that is formed, moulded and built over time. Start small with a new clothing item that you have always been curious about. Try it and see how you feel, the important factor of trial and error is picking what feels the easiest, feels the most like “you”, enhancing your persona rather than masking or creating a new one.
Start small
You don’t have to go on a 360 fashion cleanout or haul. Simple changes in your everyday attire can have big impact — throwing on jewellery, or accessorising with belts playing with the shape of your natural body can also be effective in switching up your style and enhancing the overall look of your clothes. Just because you’ve had a clothing item for a long time doesn’t make it lifeless, small changes can extend the lifespan of your item in a big way!
Know Thyself
Finding your personal style is like finding that illusionary life partner. First, we have to know ourselves, be honest with what works the best and what doesn’t is important in developing a wardrobe that is both functional and effective as an extension of who we are.
How does your daily schedule look? Are you an active person? You can ask yourself questions such as these to help develop a clearer idea of how a functional stylish wardrobe should look.
Owning it
Our style ultimately helps us to gain confidence and take pride in the decisions we choose to make in everyday life. Constant change, the wonder and excitement of the unknown is needed for growth to occur if we do not want to stay stagnant. We can take control of our own narratives from not just our choices but also how we choose to communicate with the clothes we wear. In summary, what matters is the intention.
It might seem like style is something that only fashion-holics, addicts and icons have. But like art and all things beautiful and that exist for the purpose of aesthetic, style is sacred to each individual and can be expressed in all forms. Find one that you can keep, and feels the most you as it might be the answer to knowing yourself. | https://medium.com/@capsulecommon/a-lesson-in-style-9564da0c6fb1 | ['Common Capsule'] | 2020-12-11 01:33:15.845000+00:00 | ['Style', 'Self Improvement', 'Change', 'Personal Development', 'Lessons Learned'] |
The Recent History of uOttawa Undergraduate Tuition | Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash
This article was originally created with the intention of being posted in the Summer of 2020. After multiple delays, it is ready to be posted in December, corresponding with the end of the Fall 2020 university term. It is worth noting that university policies are constantly changing, both within schools and governments. This means that even though this article is accurate upon its time of posting, some details may not be up to date if this article is read months or years later.
Undergraduate tuition has been one of the most prominent issues at the forefront of University of Ottawa students’ minds. This has been particularly true over the past decade as the past three Ontario governments and the University of Ottawa itself have changed policies in ways that have impacted how much undergraduate students have to pay for their education year after year. Each major Ontario government policy which was theoretically aimed to ease the financial burden on students has sparked controversy. All the while, the university campus has continued to physically expand and update its infrastructure and services.
The following graphs are meant to visually put in perspective how tuition has risen for uOttawa’s undergraduate students over the past thirteen years, while also visually representing possible reasons why tuition has risen. Reasons displayed include population growth, budget growth, construction of new buildings on campus and key events such as policy changes.
Figure 1 and Figure 2 are the most important graphs because they cover the topic of undergraduate tuition itself. The other graphs are intended to be helpful at putting in perspective other external factors that may have contributed to the trends of tuition costs or may be related to tuition in some other way.
On Figure 1 and Figure 2, the tuition costs from the arts and common law programs were sampled because they are offered to all undergraduate student groups including Canadian citizens, permanent residents, exempt international students and non-exempt international students, while also having a significant price gap between them. This price gap allows both of the first two graphs to display a sample view of the broad range of uOttawa’s undergraduate tuition costs.
On Figure 4, Approved Operating Fund Total Revenue per Student refers to the revenue anticipated to be allocated to the operating fund of uOttawa’s approved budget divided by the total student population for each given year. The operating fund, by uOttawa’s definition, encompasses the money that is “dedicated to the University’s teaching and research mission,” which means most day to day operations, as opposed to other parts of the university budget, which are dedicated to issues such as infrastructure and major research efforts. The operating fund is the largest portion of the overall budget and is currently primarily funded by tuition.
On all graphs, the green building names on the x-axis represent the opening of newly constructed buildings on uOttawa’s main downtown campus. The blue letters connecting to the x-axis represent key events that may have had an impact on tuition costs or other trends connected to tuition costs. These events are listed by their corresponding letters below the graphs.
Key Events:
A. (2007) The Ontario government allowed post-secondary students with permanent disabilities who are taking a reduced course load to be eligible to pay $20 per each course taken in years after the program would usually be completed by most people.
B. (2010) The Ontario government introduced a policy making the six-month grace period before OSAP loans must begin to be repaid interest-free.
C. (2011) uOttawa limited its student population to roughly 43,000 at most.
D. (2012) The Ontario government developed the Ontario Tuition Grant, meant to cover roughly 30% of tuition for undergraduate students from families making $160,000 or less.
E. (2012) Since 2012, the financial aid given from the Ontario government to universities via operating grants has remained stagnant, as opposed to years before where government aid would substantially increase year after year.
F. (2013) The Ontario government introduced a new tuition framework that lowered the maximum allowed average tuition increase per year for undergraduate programs, (often called the tuition cap,) from 5% to 3%. This new framework lowered the maximum annual increase from 4.5% to 3% for regular fee programs and from 8% to 5% for high demand programs.
G. (2013) After a period of conflict, uOttawa and the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa reached a tentative agreement which included salary increases and the hiring of 60 more full-time professors.
H. (2013) uOttawa adopted a policy which reduced tuition costs for French international programs in order to attract more Francophone international students. The policy was implemented in the following year.
I. (2014) After being urged by the Ontario government to differentiate from one another, many Ontario universities released Strategic Mandate Agreements detailing the respective schools’ unique strengths and the areas of study in which they each plan to specialize. These agreements were partly meant to inform Ontario Government decisions on their allocation of resources to universities. Differentiation became integrated into uOttawa’s long term goals for the rest of the 2010’s decade.
J. (2015) The Ontario government allowed OSAP qualifiers to withdraw custom amounts of aid less than the full amount offered to them. This policy was gradually implemented over two school years.
K. (2015) The Ontario government no longer considered vehicle ownership to be an asset when assessing students for financial aid. The first $3,000 in students’ accounts and investments were also exempted from the financial aid assessment process.
L. (2016) The Ontario government overhauled its student aid programs, consolidating them into one program. This program allowed students from families making $50,000 or less to avoid tuition payments, while also continuing to provide aid to other students. Other aspects of Ontario’s 2016 budget included increasing the amount of money given in grants and centralizing the grant-delivery process. Mature students became eligible to benefit from these changes. These plans were finally fully implemented by the start of the 2017–2018 school year.
M. (2016) After having realized that their student population was bound to decrease and having considered the financial consequences of a possible decrease in revenue, uOttawa began to once again pursue expanding its population, thereby no longer holding itself to its 43,000 student population limit. The linked excerpt also sees the university further declare its intention to increase its international student population.
N. (2017) uOttawa’s Board of Governors passed a resolution which allows most international students to accurately foresee how their tuition fees will increase throughout the time of their program.
O. (2018–2019) Financial fraud scandals led to the collapse of the SFUO and the establishment of the UOSU in its place.
P. (2019) With the Progressive Conservatives in power, having taken the place of the Liberals who were in power throughout the timeline until 2018, the Ontario government reduced post-secondary tuition fees for domestic students by 10% and froze costs for the following year. OSAP funding was reduced. The previous free tuition plan (see Event L) was ended. In its place, more loan and grant funding has been allocated to low-income students. However, the ratio of grants to loans provided to OSAP qualifiers decreased. The six-month grace period (see Event B) was changed to allow interest to accumulate. The Ontario government allowed students to opt out of some ancillary fees.
Q. (2019) The Ontario government adopted a policy that ties a gradually increasing portion of each university’s funding to its performance. Originally designed to take effect in 2020 with 25% of funding tied to performance, the funding aspect of the policy was later pushed back to 2022 in response to COVID-19 while the evaluation of schools continued as planned.
R. (2019) The Ontario Divisional Court struck down the Ontario government’s policy to allow students to opt out of ancillary fees (see Event P).
S. (2020) Safety restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 forced many students to complete part of the Winter 2020 term online and away from campus. The Spring/Summer 2020, Fall 2020 and Winter 2021 terms were also offered online.
T. (2020) The Federal government provided small amounts of financial aid to students in the wake of COVID-19.
U. (2020) The Ontario government decided to defer OSAP payments and freeze the accrual of interest until the end of September 2020.
V. (2020) Fewer students attending uOttawa as a result of the economic downturn caused by COVID-19 is set to financially damage the University of Ottawa.
W. (2020) Ancillary fees collected by the UOSU in the Winter and Spring/Summer 2020 terms were used to create a hardship fund, providing small amounts of financial aid to uOttawa students in need of financial support due to COVID-19.
X. (2020) For the 2020–2021 year, uOttawa decided to make non-exempt international tuition fees the same as the previous year’s corresponding fees for many programs.
From the graphs, certain trends can be summarized. Please note that all of the following statements about tuition are in reference to first year full-time undergraduate University of Ottawa students unless otherwise stated. Statements about population are in reference to both part-time and full-time uOttawa students together. The following percentages are rounded to the nearest percent.
For Canadian, permanent resident and exempt international undergraduate students, who make up the majority of uOttawa students, the tuition costs of the common law program increased by approximately 77% over the thirteen-year period, or a 5% increase on average per year. Adjusted for inflation, the overall increase was 45%, or an average 3% increase per year.
Meanwhile the arts program costs for the majority of students increased by 34% over thirteen years, or a 2% increase on average per year. Adjusted for inflation, the overall increase was 10%, or an average 1% increase per year.
Of course, these overall increases and per year averages are skewed by the mandatory 10% tuition cost decrease in the 2019–2020 school year (see Event P).
These tuition increases are consistent with the rules imposed by the Ontario government which cap the amount by which universities can increase the tuition costs of domestic programs each year. The average maximum increase per year (not adjusted for inflation) has been regulated to be 5% throughout the timeline until 2013 (see Event F) and 3% from then until 2019. Regarding the tuition caps on individual programs, the costs of domestic undergraduate programs classified as “regular fee” programs (for example arts) could increase by at most 4.5% each year until 2013 and by 3% each year until 2019. Domestic undergraduate programs classified as “high demand” programs (for example common law) could increase by at most 8% each year until 2013 and by 5% each year until 2019. Throughout the thirteen-year timeline, the University of Ottawa always increased the tuition costs of their domestic programs to exactly the maximum allowed amount each year.
For non-exempt international undergraduate students, the overall tuition cost increase over the thirteen-year period for the common law program was 180% or a 9% increase on average per year. Adjusted for inflation, the overall increase was 130%, or an average 7% increase per year.
Meanwhile, for arts, tuition increased by 161% overall or by 8% on average per year. Adjusted for inflation, the overall increase was 114% or an average 7% increase per year.
This is reflective of the fact that there has not been a tuition cap for first year non-exempt international students in Ontario throughout the time period captured in the graph.
Over the thirteen-year period, the ratio of non-exempt international undergraduate student tuition costs to the tuition costs for other undergraduate students increased from 2.32:1 in 2007 to 3.66:1 last year for common law. For arts this ratio increased from 3.05:1 to 5.94:1. This too is reflective of the fact that the tuition costs for the majority of students have increased at a controlled rate while first year non-exempt international student tuition has not been subjected to these regulations.
While the Ontario government’s 2019 tuition reduction strategy (see Event P) made the trend in tuition costs negative for most undergraduate students, the costs for non-exempt international students continued to rise at the highest rate visible throughout the thirteen-year period. This was done at least partly to offset the University of Ottawa’s loss of revenue from domestic students.
It is also important to note that while Event P reduced tuition, it was not widely seen as the ideal method for making university education more affordable. This is because the cuts to OSAP, the greater emphasis on providing loans rather than grants and the elimination of free tuition for low-income students (see Event L) caused some domestic students to be worse off in their ability to afford university tuition fees. These externalities, of course, are not captured in the graphs.
Throughout the thirteen-year period, the University of Ottawa’s undergraduate population (including part-time and full-time students) gained less than 6,000 new members, increasing by only 17%. The total population experienced a bit more noticeable growth, gaining around 8,000 students since 2007, increasing the population by 22%. Both the undergraduate and total student populations gradually rose until they peaked in 2014. Both populations then generally declined (with slight fluctuations) until 2017, (a year with the lowest population since 2011,) and have grown since then. Last year uOttawa saw its highest student population numbers ever. A series of events that could explain these fluctuations is discussed later in this article.
The Approved Operating Fund Total Revenue per Student increased by 41% overall or an average increase of 3% per year over the thirteen-year period (although the actual annual increase was often quite different each year). Adjusted for inflation, this amount of money per student increased by 16% overall or an average increase of 1% each year, demonstrating that the operating fund increases were notable but moderate. These numbers, too, are skewed by the effects of the 2019 10% tuition cost reduction because it lessened uOttawa’s revenue during that year.
The addition of new buildings to the University of Ottawa campus do not each cause a subsequent noticeable change in slope of the tuition cost lines or operating fund lines. This suggests that new buildings are not the most significant drivers of tuition cost increases.
In order to gain a greater understanding of these and other trends present in the data, many people involved (and formerly involved) in the University of Ottawa, the Government of Ontario and various advocacy groups were interviewed. The interviews were meant to provide insight that could help explain the trends.
The people who were interviewed for their thoughts on these trends were:
Nicole Brayiannis, National Deputy Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students
Babacar Faye, President of the University of Ottawa Students’ Union
Jamie Ghossein, Undergraduate Student Representative on the University of Ottawa Board of Governors
Saada Hussen, Undergraduate Student Representative on the University of Ottawa Board of Governors
John Milloy, the former Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities from 2007 to 2011 and 2012 to 2013 under Premier McGuinty
Reza Moridi, the former Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities from 2014 to 2016 under Premier Wynne
Erika Shaker, Director of the Education Project at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
The Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities also provided an official statement in lieu of an interview.
Tuition Caps
When asked about factors that have contributed to the general trends of tuition cost increases, Ghossein said that two of the most important “stressors for the university” are “provincial funding and provincial regulations.”
Provincial regulations, specifically the aforementioned cap on tuition increases for the majority of students, are important because “universities will increase tuition fees, generally, to the maximum allowable [amount each year],” according to Ghossein. This is because universities want to “achieve excellence and increase ranking, and they want to grow as fast as possible. So they’re going to be looking to achieve a revenue that [imposes a] financially feasible [price upon] the students attending university, but one that would allow for exponential growth.” Some of the most highly-regarded sources for ranking universities include the QS World University Rankings (which ranked uOttawa 279th best in the world), Times Higher Education World University Rankings (which ranked uOttawa 145th), Academic Ranking of World Universities (which ranked uOttawa in the 151–200 range in 2020) and Maclean’s University Rankings (through which uOttawa tied for the position of 8th best Medical Doctoral school in Canada).
The Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities stated that “The primary factors driving tuition levels in Ontario are the Tuition Fee Framework, as well as student demand and market competition.”
The importance of the market for Canadian post-secondary education as well as the importance of provincial funding will be covered later in this article.
Ultimately, for the majority of students, the most important factor deciding their tuition each year is the cap imposed by the Ontario government. The fact that these students’ tuition has been allowed to increase is reflective of Ontario’s general approach to tuition policy throughout most of the thirteen-year timeline, particularly during the Liberal Party’s reign.
Milloy said that rather than focusing on lowering university tuition, Ontario’s overarching strategy throughout most of the timeline has been providing aid to domestic students on the basis of need.
“Under my watch and under [the watch of most other Liberal Ministers after me,] tuition fees were allowed to increase […] at a controlled rate. […] However, the argument might be made, ‘Why didn’t you cap [the rate of increase] at zero [percent]? Why didn’t you provide universities with more money so that they didn’t have to charge as much for tuition? The answer to that is that we focused on those students who needed it the most.”
Milloy referenced the 2016 policy which provided free tuition for the lowest-income students (see Event L) as a clear example of the Liberals’ strategy to allocate resources in such a way that it reduces the financial burden of tuition for students rather than reducing tuition itself.
“So you talk about increasing tuition costs, but you also have to measure that against student aid that was there,” said Milloy.
Milloy, along with Moridi and the Ontario Liberal Party as a whole, were proponents of the need-based aid approach which was a main theme throughout the thirteen-year timeline. This helps to explain the abundance of financial aid policy changes in the pre-2018 part of the timeline. “[The children from the richest families] should go to university,” said Milloy, “but I didn’t worry so much about their kids’ ability to pay the tuition. I worried about the struggling single mom who wants to send [her] kids.”
It is worth noting that the Ontario Liberal Party did not invent this approach and annual tuition caps were used in Ontario before the Liberals came into power in 2003.
Faye criticized the province’s overall approach, saying that “student aid and student grants have been used as a way to circumvent the root issue which is the price and cost of tuition. I think that governments have been too concentrated on student grants, student aid and student loans, rather than making post-secondary education more affordable.”
Hussen and Shaker also criticized the province’s approach based on how aid programs can be easily reversed (see Event P), making these aid programs not as enforceable as tuition policy.
When the Progressive Conservatives took the place of the Liberals in 2018, their approach to easing the financial burden on students was evidently less aid-based and more based on targeting tuition itself, hence the mandatory tuition decrease and the aid reductions (see Event P). These policy changes are examples of the kind of program reversals that Hussen and Shaker were talking about.
The Progressive Conservatives’ cuts to OSAP also make sense in the context of their overall political platform, which generally sought to cut government spending, at least in the pre-COVID-19 period.
Regarding how domestic tuition rose consistently in accordance with the province-imposed cap and then directly reduced by 10 percent upon the imposition of Event P, Shaker said that this “shows [that] the reason that there are these big changes in tuition policies is definitely a provincial matter.”
Full Professor Salaries
Both members of the Board of Governors who were interviewed claimed that the salaries of full professors, which typically increase every year, are largely funded by tuition, giving these salaries a significant impact on tuition costs. Ghossein went as far as saying it plays “the biggest role in terms of expenses going up.” In the past few years, academic salaries, which includes the salaries of all types of professors, have typically made up between roughly a quarter to a third of the University of Ottawa’s operating fund expenditures.
Before COVID-19 forced the University of Ottawa to reevaluate their financial situation, their two year outlook planned for academic salaries to increase by millions of dollars each year under the assumption that revenue from “tuitions and other fees” would increase by tens of millions of dollars each year. It is also worth noting that in this pre-COVID-19 outlook, tuition was the only revenue source that was expected to significantly increase.
Operating Grants
Both Ghossein and Hussen explained that another key cause of tuition increases has been the fact that financial support via operating grants from the Ontario government has plateaued since 2012 (see Event E). Hussen said that this aid “has not [significantly] increased whatsoever, whereas the salaries for researchers, professors, [costs of] maintenance in general [and] everything else has increased. And what that tends to bring is an increase in the operational budget. [In response, one way for the university to increase] that budget is by increasing tuition.”
Faye’s comments on the subject were similar. He discussed the stagnation of funding by operating grants in the context of the operating costs of running universities increasing. “The rise of the costs haven’t been reflected in the amount of government investment and education hasn’t been as much of a priority for the government,” said Faye.
The University of Ottawa’s need to increase their operational budget due to rising operating costs for the aforementioned reasons helps to explain the upward trend of the operating fund revenue per student displayed on Figure 4.
Ghossein pointed out how the fact that provincial aid has held steady while operating costs, professor salaries and inflation have grown over time has helped to ensure that provincial aid gradually became a lower percentage of uOttawa’s budget each year. He said “you can even think about that as an effective decreasing in contribution because they’re not adjusting for inflation. As professor salaries and expenses go up, provincial contribution is the same.”
Shaker claimed that the approach to governance that normalized expense cutting can be traced back to the 1990s when the Federal government passed budgets meant to help Canada financially recover from the high amount of debt the country had at the time. While these budgets made cuts that successfully reduced the national debt, they controversially downloaded significant costs to the provinces, prompting many provincial governments to make drastic budget cuts as well. These budgets “basically slashed federal funding and changed the funding mechanisms by which public funding for post secondary education and training was allocated. So as a result, provinces were in a position where they could actually start reducing their funding, and many of them did. […] Tuition fees rose as a direct result of this shift. So this really started to accelerate in the mid 90s.”
Non-Exempt International Student Tuition
As was mentioned before, the gradual reduction of the Ontario government’s focus on providing financial aid for universities, which Brayiannis called “an ongoing erosion of public funding within post secondary institutions,” has forced the University of Ottawa to become more financially reliant on students’ tuition. This is true for most students, but it is particularly true with regards to non-exempt international students, whose tuition is not regulated by a province-imposed cap, unlike the majority of students (at least in the first year). Hussen said it is these provincial “regulations set in place [or lack thereof] that allows the university to have this fluidity and this freedom when it comes to [deciding] international students’ [tuition] increases.” An important result of this, as is shown in the graphs, is that not only do non-exempt international students each pay significantly more than their majority counterparts, but their tuition costs have also been increasing at a higher rate than those of their peers.
“They have no protection,” said Ghossein.
It is worth noting, however, that the previously unpredictable nature of non-exempt international student tuition fees at the University of Ottawa has been lessened by a Board of Governors resolution that allows non-exempt international students to accurately foresee what their fee increases will be throughout their time in their program (see Event N). This means that while first year non-exempt international student tuition remains unregulated, the tuition fees of returning international undergraduates are capped by university policy. Returning international students’ tuition fee increases are capped at 5.5% per year for those who were initially admitted for the Spring/Summer 2020 term or earlier. In the absence of this resolution, returning non-exempt international students could have their tuition increased by up to 20% each year.
On the subject of non-exempt international students paying much more than domestic students, Moridi said “the reason is understandable” because domestic students and their families have been paying taxes which fund Ontario’s universities throughout their whole lives while international students have not. “So they have to pay more than other students. But again, when you compare our universities with comparable universities in the United States, our fees are much much lower than [those of] US universities.”
Many people interviewed for this article touched on the idea that non-exempt international students are being used by the university as sources of large amounts of money.
“Universities […] have been increasingly reliant on just tuition to fund [its] programming and government measures haven’t been conducive to finding out a solution or encouraging funding from alternative sources” said Faye, calling the idea “valid.”
Milloy expressed his agreement with the idea bluntly. “International students have more and more been seen as a very important revenue source,” he said on the grounds that the number of international college and university students in Ontario and the amount of money they bring into the province have both grown. These trends of international student population and revenue growth have been reflected at the University of Ottawa.
Brayiannis credited this approach to Ontario universities’ need to make up for being unable to financially rely on government funding to the same extent that they previously could. She said that universities take advantage of the lack of regulation surrounding international student tuition “as they strive to use international students as measures to pick up the costs that the governments no longer invest into post-secondary institutions.” As evidence, she cited the fact that operating grants from the Ontario government used to make up more than 50% of university operating funds, but no longer do.
Moridi expressed his disagreement with the idea that non-exempt international students are deliberately being used as a major revenue source.
“[Non-exempt international students] are paying much, much less in tuition fees than in countries such as the United States. Now, the university’s income or revenue comes from government grants, [it] comes from tuition fees, which again, tuition fees are partly supported by the government, and of course, [it] comes from international students as well. [Additionally,] members of the public and certain people are giving donations to universities and colleges. So that is where they get the revenue. It’s not only because international students are supporting […] our university system.”
Moridi pointed to demand to explain the exponential increases in non-exempt international tuition.
“People are coming to Western countries to get educated. [Non-exempt international students] are prepared to pay for the expenses to go to other countries to study. And in some cases, [non-Western governments] also give grants and scholarships for their nationals, to send them to Canada, [the] US [and the] UK to get the best education possible to return back […] to serve their country. In the business sense, you can say ‘I have this commodity I’m offering you to take it and if you don’t you can go somewhere else.’ […] People compare and they say ‘Well, let me send my daughter and my son to Canada for their education rather than country X or Y or Z.’ It’s an open market, if you’re looking at it from a marketing point of view. If you look at it from a quality point of view we have one of the best post secondary education systems in the world. In terms of living conditions, we have a safe country [and a] nice environment. So all these positive aspects make [families in] overseas countries comfortable sending their children here. […] The trends show that they want to pay, and even the numbers [of international students in Canada] are increasing on a yearly basis.”
Again, these comments are important to understand in the context of stagnant provincial aid and international student tuition becoming an increasing portion of the University of Ottawa’s budget. The amount of money that the University has received via donations has also been stagnant over the past few years, often making up about 10 to 13 million dollars of the annual budget.
As a side note, it is true that the Canadian free market for university education does influence broad tuition trends across Canadian universities, particularly regarding the tuition fees imposed upon first year non-exempt international students, which, again, are not regulated by the province. According to Ghossein, these international tuition “fees are set as competitive rates with competing programs from nearby universities [and] other universities our size […] If you look at entrance student tuition fees at other universities, they’ve taken up an increase of a similar magnitude.” As is shown in the graphs, first year non-exempt international student tuition has a tendency to increase dramatically each year.
Regarding the increased amount of international students studying in Canada, this too can be partly explained by demand and competition.
“There has been an effort by Canadian institutions to attract them.” said Milloy. His statement is particularly true in the case of the University of Ottawa. This school has invested a significant amount of focus on international engagement through various means such as increasing its presence and reputation internationally and creating international programs with partner universities. These efforts have been able to succeed in attracting international students because “on the other end, […] the supply side, [in] countries like China and India, [the past decade has seen] a burgeoning middle class in both those countries. There is a lot more interest and capacity to travel and study elsewhere and these folks are able to pay [the tuition fees].”
Shaker stated that disproportionately high international student fees and the accompanying arguments which assume that all international students who attend Canadian post-secondary institutions can comfortably afford to do so are “problematic.” This is because, she claimed, it ensures that “university and college education is the domain of the wealthy” and maintains “the same old argument that education is a privilege that should be provided to the wealthy and those who can pay for it as opposed to recognizing [education] as an opportunity to help overcome [income] inequality.”
Hussen’s view on the idea claiming finance-driven use of international students takes a more middle-ground approach.
“I can’t negate that [idea claiming international students are being used as a large revenue source]. But when we look at it, it comes down to understanding the market and seeing what other universities are doing. So I wouldn’t simply pin this on the University of Ottawa. In fact, I [think it is more appropriately viewed] much more broadly. And it’s something that all universities and post secondary institutions are doing. […] From what I’ve seen, the University of Ottawa does pride itself in having this diversity and having this variation of demographics. And they do want not only to have the [international] students admitted, but also [to] retain them. And I think it’s [very] much reflected in the equalization of the fees especially for Francophone students.” (See Event H)
Faye also added to the conversation by saying that advocacy efforts to lower tuition fees have been more “concentrated” on lowering domestic tuition fees. Less focus, he said, has been given to pushing for lower international student fees. Faye claimed that this is due to some domestic advocates’ lack of “awareness” about the situation of international students until more recently.
Infrastructure
Regarding how campus expansion and infrastructure updates influence tuition, Ghossein framed the school’s motivation to improve their infrastructure as an attempt to increase the university’s ranking, particularly by improving student satisfaction. He does think that the recent infrastructure updates play a role in tuition costs, but recognizes that this role is mitigated by many important factors.
“The university seeks to increase in ranking and achieve excellence and wants to become the best university in Canada. That’s every top university’s goal. And to do that they have to increase the infrastructure. [The University of Ottawa has seen] above normal growth in terms of capital investment. […] And obviously, with that comes large expenses that you can only address through increased revenue. So I think that’s been playing a role, but […] a large [amount] of this infrastructure has been financed by [the provincial] government. For example the STEM building. […] Certainly it plays a role in tuition fees but a lot of these projects are being financed longitudinally, over [decades]. Like, we’ve taken out a debenture recently of $300 million over the next 50 years to fund capital expenditures. So the per-year impact of those is, surprisingly, not as high as you would expect, because they’re being financed over a long period of time at historically low interest rates.”
Ghossein also points out that funding the creation of an entirely new building can sometimes be less expensive than maintaining whatever building is already there. In such cases the option to begin a new construction project is chosen. So, the University of Ottawa’s motivation to construct new buildings cannot always just be explained as an attempt to have the nicest campus.
Hussen frames infrastructure updates as being not particularly impactful toward tuition costs, with the impact being indirect.
“When it comes to deferred maintenance, [it] would simply impact the budget itself. And then that might have slight impacts on tuition. But if I were to [consider its direct impact on] tuition fees, as far as I’m concerned, the majority of the tuition we pay comes down to paying for the profs’ salaries, and it wouldn’t have much of an impact when it comes to infrastructure.”
Ultimately, infrastructure updates are not really a key cause of tuition increases, but rather a product of the university’s efforts to improve rankings, student satisfaction and space available to the growing student population.
Population Limits
Throughout the interview with Ghossein, he explained one more series of events that has not necessarily contributed to tuition increases, but nonetheless helps to explain the fluctuations in uOttawa’s student population and the opening of many buildings throughout the timeline.
Starting in 2011, the University of Ottawa made the choice to freeze population growth, keeping the university’s total student population under an upper limit of around 43,000 (see Event C). This decision, alongside efforts to hire more professors (see Event G) and physically expand the available teaching space, was meant to improve student satisfaction, freeing up more resources for each individual.
According to Ghossein, this strategy had an undesirable consequence for the university. He explained that “When they limited the amount of students, that also limited the amount of revenue that the university receives.”
The restriction on the amount of students admitted put the university at risk of facing detrimental financial effects. According to Hussen, “student enrollment is actually the largest and single most impactful [source of] budget revenue. And it poses the largest challenge when it comes to balancing the budget every year.”
In 2016, after the University of Ottawa examined the financial consequences of their population numbers and also after a new university president came to power, the choice to limit the student population at roughly 43,000 was undone and the university began to accept more students (see Event M). This helps to explain why, starting in 2018 and continuing into last year, the student population has been growing after a period of general decline.
Ghossein stated that he prefers this strategy over the one that was dismantled because, he says, it lowers the per capita financial burden. (This claim is difficult to verify using the graphs because tuition and operating fund revenue per student have both gradually increased throughout the timeline except in 2019 in spite of population fluctuations. It also has not been long enough since the strategy change to see significant changes in trends.) Nonetheless, he also said the 2016 decision had downsides that the university was not fully prepared to address, particularly in its delayed effects that resonate more recently.
An important consequence of the population-growing approach has been the university’s services not expanding in anticipation of a growing population, which has contributed to some services being stretched too thin in order to meet demand; a reality that has been “neglected.” This has ultimately become one of the most defining topics regarding the University of Ottawa in the past year. Ghossein pointed to the low number of councillors on campus as an example of this.
Ghossein said that there has been a greater push within the Board of Governors in recent years to invest more in student services and a greater focus on student satisfaction, citing the establishment of uoSatisfACTION as evidence. However, “those were issues even when the number of students were stagnant. Adjusting them now is obviously […] too late.”
Conclusion
To summarize all that has been learned from the interviews, these are the factors that have been most influential upon tuition fees over the past thirteen years:
For the majority of students, the most important factor deciding tuition costs has been the provincial tuition cap. This cap has partly been a product of the Liberal government’s preference to let tuition rise and ease the financial burden via student aid.
For non-exempt international students, their tuition has largely been priced in such a way to help the University of Ottawa make up for increasing costs that cannot be covered by regulated sources of revenue (such as domestic tuition and government aid) while still having a competitive price in the free market for Canadian university education; a market which has seen significant growth in demand.
Provincial funding for universities has not increased significantly since 2012.
The salaries of full professors have risen.
The operating costs of the University of Ottawa have increased.
The University of Ottawa constantly tries to increase their ranking, and attempts to do so through improving and expanding services and infrastructure, which are partly funded by tuition.
Despite three Premiers, nine Ministers and three uOttawa presidents all bringing different approaches to university policy, the ideal approach to tuition has not been found. The controversy continues as each new major policy change brings both support and criticism.
To any activists who seek to mobilize the public toward a solution, the advice of Minister Milloy may be useful. He recommends that advocates have a set of preferred policies in mind which they would like to push for, ultimately recommending that people should know what they want.
“I think you’ve got to figure out what the problem is you’re trying to solve. As Minister for many years I heard lots about high tuition costs, but I used to always say ‘What is it that you want?’ I said, ‘Do you want [everybody] to have their tuition cut [or eliminate tuition entirely] or should we be focusing on those students who are struggling?’ […] You have to ask yourself, are high tuition fees the problem or is it a lack of student aid and student assistance and the whole culture around it? Is the problem access? Well, if the problem is access, should additional revenues be going into trying to lower those tuition fees for everyone including [students from families who can easily afford it]?”
The current economic downturn and the coming aftermath of COVID-19 leaves the next decade of tuition, university affairs and provincial policy uncertain. For many, this may bring a sense of hopelessness for the future. However, the enthusiastic willingness of this article’s interviewees to participate in this important discussion, along with the public activism surrounding tuition policy and its extensive coverage by student media, all suggests that a solution lies out there, and that there is enough will among decision makers and the public to reach it.
Ryan Banfield is an undergraduate Public Administration student at the University of Ottawa and the host of CivNews. He can be reached via LinkedIn and his work can be found at ryanbanfield.com
Notes about the graphs: | https://medium.com/@ryanbanfield/the-recent-history-of-uottawa-undergraduate-tuition-7f3475276fa5 | ['Ryan Banfield'] | 2020-12-24 09:23:31.633000+00:00 | ['Ontario', 'Tuition', 'University', 'Ottawa', 'University Of Ottawa'] |
The Why of Becoming a Freelancer | Many of us have heard about freelancing, but what benefits does it have? If you feel frustrated with your office life, here are some benefits about freelancing that a regular desk jobs don’t have.
· Almost everyone can become a freelancer because nearly every type of service needed by businesses could be provided by a freelancer. It can go from accounting to teaching and graphic design.
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· Be your own boss: you are in control of any decision-making.
· Time flexibility: you operate on your own terms, no more being attached to the 9 to 5 schedule, unless you want to. You decide when to start working and for how long. As long as you meet the deadlines, everything is ok!
· Location independent: become a digital nomad. It doesn’t matter where you work, as long as you get the job done.
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· Get paid what you’re worth: you control your earnings and adjust your rates according to your services, your experience and the quality of your service.
· It is easy and affordable to get started: besides the tools you need to provide the service, you don’t have to deal with costs like a startup.
· Pay less tax: depending on where you are, freelancers are considered independent contractors and these might be treated differently as the employees.
· Freedom: you can choose the projects you want to work on and for whom you are doing the project. It is hard to constantly work on the perfect job, but it is always going to be your choice. This also helps you to get creative and show your talents.
· Live your life the way you want: this doesn’t mean to neglect your responsibilities, but freelancing gives you the freedom to spend time with the people you love or to travel to any place you want to go.
· It’s a learning process: everyday you are going to face new challenges and you can learn from each and every one of them. You will learn how to manage your business and your money. You will learn which projects fit you best, where your strengths and weaknesses are. Freelancing can also open up new career options. Freelancers are more willing to learn a new skill to broaden their services. Not only you can do what you love, but also adapt to your surroundings.
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· Become a better version of yourself: dealing with different clients and with every day challenges is going to boost your confidence and help you become a better person. | https://medium.com/@iworku2018/the-why-of-becoming-a-freelancer-6c11a1dd5521 | [] | 2019-12-09 01:38:11.344000+00:00 | ['Freelancing', 'Work', 'Work Life Balance', 'Freelancers', 'Benefits'] |
Have you ever cold emailed the CEO of a big company? | Yes, several times, and successfully by thinking of my email as an ad:
1. The subject line is your first headline/ hook and is positive. I wrote this to the CEO of a major airline:
Thanks for my wonderful experience with your company
And this to the CEO of a nationwide consulting firm:
Please advise this budding author
2. The opening lines of your text are another headline/hook, are complimentary, and cater to the CEO’s needs, career, and ego.
Mike Jones of your Tampa operations deserves a raise and your applause for his exemplary service to me and other passengers. His behavior is proof positive that your strategy for superior customer service is working. On June 3, my family was stranded …
3. The body is short, no more than four lines, and relevant to the CEO’s needs for affirmation:
Mike quickly found another flight and we arrived home only a few hours late. He could have easily asked us to wait six hours while our scheduled plane was serviced …
A related tip:. Mention a mutual friend or well-known person in the same company or industry in your opener: I sent this to the CEO of another consulting firm:
Bill Smith suggested that your focus on technology is the primary reason for your firm’s stellar earnings during 2015. Would you agree? BTW, Bill and I are collaborating on …
A general guideline: Stroke their egos — CEOs have big ones or they wouldn’t be CEOs — by complimenting their real successes and by asking for advice. Note that I did that in the examples above.
BTW, the airline CEO US mailed me a personal note thanking me for my compliments, and the CEO of the consulting firm called me to confirm that I was on track with his strategy and ask about my collaboration with Bill.
I discuss these and other techniques for influencing in my book, The Power of Writing Well. In it, I posit:” In essence, the influence
of any message relies heavily on that old standby: Know your receiver(s) — his or her needs, wants, values, and interests — and address them with the content, structure, and tone of your message.” | https://medium.com/@expressivepress/have-you-ever-cold-emailed-the-ceo-of-a-big-company-ddd63cebeb73 | ['Pete Geissler'] | 2020-12-04 14:53:39.310000+00:00 | ['Email', 'Corporate Culture', 'Cold Emails', 'CEO', 'Corporations'] |
Life Update: My Biggest Aha Moment Yet! | Last November, I had an aha moment that changed my life.
I had been fighting against feelings of restlessness and boredom as VP of Marketing Operations at a global software company. I was resistant to making a big change and working elsewhere. I felt like I had really grown up there over the last four years; I faced some major challenges but I also had some big wins. It would be hard to leave (plus the income wasn’t too bad, either).
I thought about my coaching practice (I’m going on eight years as a coach, now!). I love coaching in addition to my “main thing,” where I can deeply focus on only a few key special people at a time. Coaching will forever be a passion of mine, but for me, not my full-time career. Plus, I was never into becoming a trendy millennial coach for the sake of being the cool entrepreneur, waving fake freedom and fun into everyone’s faces, anyway. (Let’s face it: if you know me, you I know how to have fun doing anything, anywhere, no matter where I work.)
But what would be my next move???
(White Point Beach, where I like to think)
As I went through past passions and successes with my (amazing) coach, we identified patterns and themes that combined my coaching, business strategy and marketing skills.
My first job out of college was doing vision-casting sessions with church leaders. These sessions led to building facilities costing millions of dollars. I helped to organize teams of architects, engineers, and contractors to make it happen. Then, I worked for a friend who had a foodie website (TasteFresno) and we turned it into a thriving on and offline community. And over the next decade, the projects and visions I produced only got bigger. I was more than a marketer, more than a coach; I was also a thought partner, a vision producer.
“That’s it! I’m a Vision Producer!”
As I drove home from LA on Highway 99 to Fresno for Thanksgiving, I felt a tug in my heart saying, “This is it. This is your next move. Not for later. For now. The future is now.”
Driving down the dark roads, past the endless rows of agriculture, I was inspired and exhilarated. “Yes! The future is now!”
Two weeks later, I got the shocking news that I was being laid off from my corporate job and my last day would be December 31. “What!? Um…wait…I didn’t mean *now* now!”
After reviewing various job opportunities, experiencing tears, numbness, and mixed emotions, I took a couple of weeks of much needed, uninterrupted rest. I started accepting my newly defined identity as a Vision Producer. Now, I’m owning it, and I’m envisioning myself partnering with people from the dreaming stage to full execution on bigger than life projects.
It’s been almost three (busy) weeks of being on my own as an entrepreneur. I have no paying Vision Production clients yet, but I have a world of opportunity ahead of me. I’m dreaming big, just like my future clients. This is it, guys. The future is now. | https://medium.com/@alisamanjarrez/life-update-my-biggest-aha-moment-yet-37c343f44f25 | ['Alisa Manjarrez'] | 2020-02-20 21:33:45.702000+00:00 | ['Transitions', 'Entrepreneur', 'Career Change', 'Women In Business', 'Vision'] |
The Dark Lord on Day Off | The Dark Lord on Day Off
Because even antagonists need some rest
Photo by Alessio Zaccaria on Unsplash
Blight, the Dark Lord, was staring at the ceiling. It was past nine AM but somehow getting up didn’t seem like a good idea. He had almost fallen asleep when his portable crystal ball started ringing.
‘Hallo! Hallo! Dark Lord, are you there?’ A wrinkle-covered, white-bearded wizard’s face sharpened on the surface.
‘What do you want, Babouche?’
‘You missed the meeting at eight with the killer clowns.’
‘And what?’
‘They weren’t too happy. They threw a cake in my face, splashed me with water, and left. They said you don’t take them seriously.’
‘Leave me alone, Babouche. I’m not in the mood to work today.’
‘Dark Lord, that’s not a question of mood… That’s your Fate.’
‘I don’t give a damn. I’m having a day off.’
‘Say what now?’
‘You heard me. I’m not going in today. It’s time for a little rest.’
‘You… You can’t do that. You’re the Dark Lord. The evil ones have no days off.’
‘Where on earth did you get that from?’
‘I read it in some kind of rulebook.’
‘Then it’s sorted: I, the Dark Lord, obey no rules at all. It’s my day off, so piss off.’
‘And what am I supposed to do if someone will be looking for you?’
‘Tell them I’m working on my dark manifesto and I don’t want to be disturbed.’
‘And what if some hero appears to behead you?’
‘Then you’ll improvise, and he will take your head instead of mine.’
‘That would be unfortunate… for me.’
‘You chose the dark side, Babouche. There’s no happy end here.’
‘But then… what are you gonna do today, my Lord?’
‘Enjoying the sunshine, the chirping of birds, something like that. A little café opened at the corner, and I’ve been meaning to try it for a while. Guess what! They are also selling doughnuts, the kind filled with custard and covered with chocolate. I can’t even remember the last time I had a proper meal.’
On the surface of the crystal ball the wrinkle-covered face was just gasping. Blight took the magic device in his black-gauntleted hand and gave it a good shake.
‘Hallo! Hallo! Babouche, do you hear me?’
‘Excuse me, my Lord, I just couldn’t find the words for a second.’
‘And I thought this thing broke…’
‘But, my Lord, I am begging you. Don’t do this to me. You can’t leave me by myself for a whole day. The end of the world is approaching — we can destroy everything.’
‘Eh… I’m not seeing the point today.’
‘But this is our… well, your dream.’
‘At the moment I am only dreaming about a good coffee and a doughnut. Imagine, if we destroy everything today, then tomorrow I won’t be able to pop into this charming little café. Let’s face it, Babouche. Being the Dark Lord sucks.’ | https://medium.com/tempest-in-under-1000/the-dark-lord-on-day-off-38cd759d88d2 | ['Kalman Balla'] | 2020-08-21 18:01:01.297000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Flash Fiction', 'Humor', 'Fantasy'] |
December 21 Commentary | Commentary:
Perhaps we were all expecting a different end of the year, with some fitting fireworks. The market, however, after the welcomed Christmas rally, has delivered the harsh truth with a correction on the 27th that brought us back to the lowest prices since the September lows. Low liquidity seems to blame, however looking closely at the price performance of Bitcoin over the year, and comparing it with the S&P500, as displayed in Figure 2, we observe that twice this year we had periods of inverse correlation in the performance trend. After the Summer correction, the two time-series began to diverge again around mid-November, when crypto markets initiated their downward trajectory, while the equity market, despite some short-lived correction, has kept pushing to new highs. Whether this continued behaviour hides more significance than just end of the year lack of liquidity shall be seen over the coming weeks when institutional players are expected to deploy more capital in the crypto markets.
Figure 2: Comparison of the yearly price performance of Bitcoin and S&P500. It can be noticed without the aid of correlation measures, how we had two instances of diametrically opposite behaviour. First in the Summer, with the May crash, then the current period, after the December crash. Historically such a difference in behaviour has been resolved in a few months. Source: Trading View
Looking closely at the chart in Figure 2, it can be noticed that most of the divergence in performance is due to the market crash on December 3rd, ultimately a reaction to the FED tapering plans and the spreading of the Omicron variant. Both caused continued downward pressure throughout the month and should be expected to produce headwinds into the new year.
In the meantime, Derivative markets paid the price with an Open Interest (OI) wash-out in the region of 20%-30% triggered by the liquidations on the 3rd of December, as well as the unwinding of directional longs and cash-and-carry shorts, set to profit from the demand for leverage products that characterises neutral and in particular bullish market regimes. As displayed in Figure 3, the OI of Bitcoin products crashed for both linear and inverse contracts, however, while the former has found new footing and recovered the interest of buyers and sellers, the latter, crypto-native products, struggled to recover. A theme that has characterised the last couple of years, with every crash providing an opportunity for linear derivatives to gain market share. Lower OI and a lack of demand in the past few weeks has not only characterised Future products but also Option Markets, with a monster expiry on December 31st that has halved the size of the market overnight. As displayed in Figure 4, the uncertainty has caused traders to be cautious with only a small percentage of the OI being rolled into farther maturities. The low demand, as well as the increasing influence of DeFi on the markets, has pushed Implied Volatility (IV) below the levels to be historically considered normal. With the increasing popularity of yield generation via passive option-selling strategies by decentralised protocols, we can expect the IV to remain compressed on the shorter maturities, as well as pinning the whole curve down.
Figure 3: Open interest time series for Bitcoin contracts, both linear (BTC denominated — green) and inverse (USD denominated — purple) since late November. It can be easily identified the drop due to the liquidations and position unwinding on December 3rd. Since then, linear instruments Open Interest has recovered the pre-crash levels (partially thanks to the price appreciation), while inverse instruments struggle to recover their popularity Source: Coinalyze
Figure 4: Monster Option expiry on December 31st has halved the size of the market overnight, with only a timid recovery due to rolling into the next available maturity. Market participants seem to be taking an approach of wait and see, as liquidity slowly comes back from the Winter Holidays. Source: Deribit
Rates across the curve for Futures products have also been compressed, as discussed earlier, with Perpetual contracts (Figure 5) and Fix Maturity contracts (Figure 6) demonstrating a lack of demand with low rates and a flat behaviour during the second half of the month, after the initial volatility post-crash dissipated. After a few weeks of discounts on the Perpetual contracts, following the crash at the beginning of December, funding rates seems to have stabilised, with all contracts exhibiting neutral premia, the first sign that traders’ confidence in the market is increasing and sentiment improving.
Figure 5: Average Funding Rates for linear and inverse BTC contracts, grouped by collateralisation currency (USD — green, USDT — blue, BTC — red). It can be noticed how the rates have remained subdued during the second half of November and the majority of December, with a slow and painful recovery from the depths caused by the crash on December 3rd. Source: Trading View
Figure 6: Annualised premia of March Future contracts over the last two months. Notice how the volatile trend, albeit downward, has died down in December, with rates barely moving from their baseline return of 8%-10%. Source: Trading View
Looking away from the short-term price performance of the majors, a thriving ecosystem can be found in microcap coins and projects oriented towards the creator economy, gamified DeFi, p2e games (play to earn) and similar. In Figure 1 we show an assortment of “Flippenings” that happened in the few prior weeks and, albeit their scope is limited, they offer some insight into the transformational trends that we are experiencing. NFTs are more popular than Ethereum itself, Metaverse is more clicked than Cryptocurrency, the most expensive art piece from a living artist is now a digital image minted as NFT, Bored Apes are more expensive than CryptoPunks (read as “a vibrant community takes over the establishment”).
The old guard should watch its back, the incumbents are being displaced and a new reality is taking shape. Despite this warning, in Figure 7 we show the ranking over time in the app store of a number of retail crypto platforms. It can be observed how the sentiment has actually cooled down during December, with Coinbase and Crypto.com apps tumbling down the rankings below the 100th and the 50th place respectively.
The headwind for most crypto assets is partially due to the tightening in financial conditions that are expected over the coming months, as the FED slows down its bond purchase program and increases the rates, on the back of rising inflation and normalisation of economic conditions. As Crypto was born from the ashes of the 2008 Financial Crisis it has historically been focused on payments and financial disintermediation, tying the fortunes of the market with the ebbs and flows of the overarching financial system, a system from which the crypto community wants to break apart. Enters Web3, NFTs and social tokens that offer a compelling use case beyond finance, onboarding millions of people to the Blockchain ecosystem, and reaching a crowd that had no interest in trading and speculative investments.
Figure 7: Popularity of retail-oriented Crypto apps in the US Google play store. Representative of the sentiment over the last few weeks, we observe the popularity of those that used to be top-ranking apps at the beginning of November crashing down to sub 50th and sub 100th ranking (Coinbase and Crypto.com respectively). Source: The Block
Despite the increasing institutionalisation of DeFi and the growing interests of the traditional financial industry towards decentralised investments products (loans, swaps and derivatives) as well as improved settlement channels, the sector has lagged the market over the last few months, with infrastructure plays, Web3 and games decisively outperforming as they enter the spotlight for the first time (the latter two in particular). With major fashion brands (Dolce and Gabbana, Burberry, Hermes), sports brands (Adidas, Nike), tech companies (Facebook), artists (Kings of Leon, Eminem, Jay-Z, Snoop Dog, Ice Cube) and many other businesses and celebrities betting on the space, the industry can thrive during times of adverse macroeconomic conditions.
In Figure 8 we show the historic active developer count over the last 8 years, highlighting the positive trend and the increasing participation resulting from the newly found interest in the Metaverse and, more generally, non-financial applications of decentralised protocols. Expect network effects to transform the landscape in the years to come, with the most talented software engineers, researchers and designers joining the space and fuelling exponential growth in user adoption with improved interfaces and compelling use-cases. | https://medium.com/@fasanaradigital/december-21-commentary-d2f8eeeb4bfb | ['Fasanara Digital'] | 2022-01-06 15:03:54.471000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Investing', 'Trading', 'Market Research Reports'] |
Secret Email System | What is the Secret Email System?
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The Secret Email System
is a shortcut
Before I created the BMG10 Method — I was struggling with my online business for years and was on the verge of giving up.
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I built myself a job I never signed up for.
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Clik Here To Best Offer>> | https://medium.com/@chetan-talele123/secret-email-system-b1a6deba18d8 | ['Chetan Talele'] | 2020-11-24 23:05:09.051000+00:00 | ['Email Productivity', 'Email Marketing Lists', 'Email Marketing', 'Email Marketing Tips', 'Email'] |
Refleksi 10 Tahun Barkarir Sebagai Penulis Skenario | in Go Into The Story | https://medium.com/@stickgetar/refleksi-10-tahun-barkarir-sebagai-penulis-skenario-f80a9230853f | ['Getar Jagatraya'] | 2020-12-07 02:16:35.789000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Screenplay', 'Screenwriting', 'Filmmaking', 'Writing'] |
Game Of Thrones Figures — 1/6 Scale Cersei | Game Of Thrones Figures — 1/6 Scale Cersei Lannister Regular Edition
Cersei is the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. She is the widow of King Robert Baratheon. The daughter of Lord Tywin Lannister. She has a twin named Jaime, and a brother named Tyrion. The queen is cruel and vain perhaps only saved through a genuine love of her children. She endured an empty marriage with Robert Baratheon while being in a secret relationship with his twin brother. The true father of her children was Jaime. Moreover, her storyline in the television series is unchanged from the books. Keep watch until the last episode.
Three Zero’s officially licensed Game of Thrones series. Characters are now in the figure line. The figure is stunningly realistic similarly in the HBO television series. Standing approximately 11" tall with features full articulation. Her gown is finely tailored with details. Patterns and textures are accurate. In addition, the package includes her pauldrons and crown, plus 2 pairs of interchangeable hands.
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Dims: Approx 2.5 x 1 x 11 inches
Weight: Approx 1.84 pounds | https://medium.com/@gamesworldcenter/game-of-thrones-figures-1-6-scale-cersei-df4e3ff40e8d | ['Games World Center'] | 2021-04-09 14:52:37.091000+00:00 | ['Gameofthrones', 'GoT', 'Lannister', 'Cersei'] |
Restify — Content Negotiation and Errors | Photo by Will Francis on Unsplash
Restify is a simple Node back end framework.
In this article, we’ll look at how to handle content negotiation and errors with Restify.
Content Negotiation And Formatting
Restify will determine the content-type to respond with by from highest to lowest priority.
It’ll use the res.contentType if it’s present.
The Content-Type response header if it’s set.
application/json will be returned if the body is an object and not a Buffer instance.
Otherwise, it negotiates the content-type by matching the available formatters with the requests’s accept header.
If a content-type can’t be determined then Restify will respond with an error.
If a content-type can be negotiated, then it determines what formatter to use to format the response’s content.
If there’s no formatter matching the content-type can be found, then Restify will override the response’s content-type to 'application/octet-stream' and then error out if no formnatter if found for that content-type .
The default behavior can be changed by passing the strictFormatters: false property when creating the Restify server instance.
If no formatter is found for the content-type , then the response is flushed without applying any formatter.
Restify ships with application/json , text/plain , and application/octet-stream formatters.
We can add additional formatters to Restify by passing a hash of content type and parser when we create the server.
For example, we can write:
var restify = require('restify');
const util = require('util'); function respond(req, res, next) {
res.send('hello');
next();
} var server = restify.createServer({
formatters: {
['application/foo'](req, res, body) {
if (body instanceof Error)
return body.stack; if (Buffer.isBuffer(body))
return body.toString('base64'); return util.inspect(body);
}
}
}); server.get('/hello', respond);
server.head('/hello', respond); server.listen(8080);
We have the formatters object for the application/foo content type.
Then we return a base64 string if the body is a buffer.
We can also add a q-value to our formatter definition to change the priority of the formatter:
var restify = require('restify');
const util = require('util');
function respond(req, res, next) {
res.send('hello');
next();
}
var server = restify.createServer({
formatters: {
['application/foo q=0.9'](req, res, body) {
if (body instanceof Error)
return body.stack;
if (Buffer.isBuffer(body))
return body.toString('base64');
return util.inspect(body);
}
}
});
server.get('/hello', respond);
server.head('/hello', respond);
server.listen(8080);
Restify ships with default formatters.
It can be overridden when passing formatter options with createServer :
var restify = require('restify');
function respond(req, res, next) {
const body = 'hello world';
res.writeHead(200, {
'Content-Length': Buffer.byteLength(body),
'Content-Type': 'text/plain'
});
res.write(body);
res.end();
}
var server = restify.createServer();
server.get('/hello', respond);
server.head('/hello', respond);
server.listen(8080);
We called the writeHead method with an object with the content-type options we want to return in the header.
Error Handling
We can handle error conditions by passing an error object with the next function.
For example, we can write:
var restify = require('restify');
var errors = require('restify-errors'); var server = restify.createServer(); server.get('/hello/:foo', function(req, res, next) {
var err = new errors.NotFoundError('not found');
return next(err);
}); server.on('NotFound', function (req, res, err, cb) {
return cb();
}); server.listen(8080);
We have the NotFound handler to do logging or collect data.
The NotFoundError constructor is in the restify-errors module.
We shouldn’t call res.send in the NotFound handler since it’s in a different error context.
Conclusion
We can format the our data and do content negotiating the same way.
Also, we create error objects with the restify-errors module.
Enjoyed this article? If so, get more similar content by subscribing to Decoded, our YouTube channel! | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/restify-content-negotiation-and-errors-250d41585709 | ['John Au-Yeung'] | 2020-11-30 18:27:24.494000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Technology', 'Web Development'] |
Análisis Técnico de Bitcoin del 17 de septiembre. Terminando de tomar impulso. | in In Fitness And In Health | https://medium.com/buenbit/an%C3%A1lisis-t%C3%A9cnico-de-bitcoin-del-17-de-septiembre-terminando-de-tomar-impulso-74b10dddd4d9 | ['Cristóbal García'] | 2018-09-17 17:59:02.205000+00:00 | ['Altcoin', 'Analisis', 'Trading', 'Cripto', 'Bitcoin'] |
A complete guide to call-to-action design | Von Restorff effect
Von Restorff effect, aka isolation effect. The effect predicts that when multiple homogeneous stimuli are presented, the stimulus that differs from the rest is more likely to be remembered. In order to catch attention in the first glace, the button color should have a stark contrast to the background color. I would suggest using the button color to be an unused color among the interface.
Accessibility
According to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 level AA requires a contrast ratio of 4.5 for normal text and 3 for large text. This is the tool that I like most, a quick test of color accessibility.
Placement
Here comes an old topic, is above the fold a myth? To me, yes and no. The CTA placement should depend on what is next. A decade before, best practices suggested the CTA is putting on the top, above the fold.
However, many times moving the CTA below the fold has shown to have higher conversion rate. Especially, for some complicated offers, users tend to learn more about the offer before taking actions. In this case, if the placement of CTA is above the fold, the user may lose the chance to convert. Out of sight is out of mind. What’s more, it is all about how you motivate your user to take that action.
Whitespaces
A great way to make your CTA stand out is to place nothing around them. See below.
Alignment
Also, Atlassian design system defined what alignment should be.
Right align the primary button to visually support navigation when using buttons to prompt a user to move through a sequence of screens (e.g. getting started guides).
Center align buttons for benefits modals and other models, with the primary button on the right.
Left align buttons for single-page forms and focused tasks, and sort by importance from left to right.
Button size
Button size is a goldilock, and we should find the sweet spot between “not too big” and “not too small.” A good rule of thumb is as below, and to set container width to the size of the text label with 16 dp padding on the left and right.
In iOS design guideline, it recommends a minimum of 44×44 pixels for any clickable design features on mobile device.
Button shape
Let’s talk a little about human brains. Our brains are programmed to avoid pointy things. Therefore, to trigger the action, CTA button shape is suggested to be a rounded edge.
Here is a study showed that,
Rounded edges are used the most : roughly 54% of the time.
: roughly 54% of the time. Completely square is used second most : 28% of the time.*
: 28% of the time.* Pill-shaped comes in last: 18% of the time. However, in the past few months, this shape is being used more (26% more compared to the beginning of the year). It looks like a button that’s begging to be pushed**.
* The statistics was done by 2016
** Apple Human Interface Guidelines defined push buttons as the rounded-edged buttons.
Something interested, there was a debate on the dropdown button, should it be a rounded corner shape or pill shape? The answer is, for a better user experience, it is suggested to use a rounded corner shape.
Takeaway
Button color
Use a contrast color for primary CTA, which should also be adjustable when on light and dark background.
A/B test for correct use of colors in the right context
Placement
Should be at a prominent position on the web page
Button Size
Desktop — 48 px height
Mobile — minimum of 44 px height
Button Shape
CTA button — pill shape
Dropdown button — rounded corner shape
Before working on the CTA design or design system, I would definitely recommend you to review more as possible. Design system Repo has its gallery for design system reference. Check this out!
Reference
Button color
Placement
Button size
Button shape | https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/a-complete-guide-to-call-to-action-design-f51d96c7408c | ['Hsin-Jou Lin'] | 2020-12-21 02:16:11.866000+00:00 | ['UI', 'Resources', 'UX', 'UX Design', 'Design Systems'] |
My Meeting with k.d.lang | Photo by Tai’s Captures on Unsplash
My Meeting with k.d.lang
I knew she needed someone like me…
My girlfriend Erika and I were out for a night on the town, and decided to start our adventure at Marix Tex-Mex in West Hollywood, famous for their kick-ass margaritas and their gay clientele. We frequented this place regularly, because it had the best buzz for the buck.
We were on our third margarita with my partner said to me, “Look down there, isn’t that k.d. lang?” I squinted and realized that it was indeed one of my favorite singers.
“You should go talk to her,” Erika suggested.
“What would I say to her?”
“You should ask her if she needs a back up singer!”
I was just drunk enough to realize that this seemed like a great idea. I fortified myself with another large gulp of my margarita and I lumbered down the stairs.
As I sauntered over to her table, I saw her give me a quick look hoping I wasn’t another annoying fan. But I ignored the nuance and headed to her table.
Obviously she and her girlfriend were having an intimate conversation, but I barged in anyway, stooping down to be at eye level with her.
“Oh k.d., you are one of my favorite singers…” I gushed.”If you ever need a back up singer, I hope you’ll keep me in mind.”
I handed her my business card. She took it quickly, and returned the gaze of her date. I ignored their body language.
“I have all your CDs…My email and phone number are on the card…” I added enthusiastically.
She looked down at my card, and nodded at me, rolling her eyes at her girlfriend. I meandered back up to the stairs to Erika who greeted me with approval.
For some reason though, I never heard from k.d. lang.
It was her loss. | https://medium.com/music-voices/my-meeting-with-k-d-lang-3ea82c8a271f | ['Mary Mcgrath'] | 2020-07-18 21:56:49.295000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Artist', 'This Happened To Me', 'Music Voices', 'Short Story'] |
ZB Market Daily: BTC & XRP daily technical analysis | BTC
BTC Price retested record all time high of $24149 on Monday from Sunday’s slight dip.
Yesterday, it was a consolidation opened of the trading session of BTC price. BTC price opened on Monday trading session with $23394.61. Crypto bull defended $23202.05 support in the early hours of the Asian trading session. This support level was created on the 20th of December after BTC extended its rally to a new record high.
Due to financial institution and portfolio managers taking financial decision to accumulate the underlying asset from a demand zone of $23202.05, BTC Price retested the all-time high $24149.64 yesterday.
On the 19th and 20th of December from a 4-hour time perspective, BTC Price experience multiple rejection at $24126.22 in the course of the recent rally, which created a hurdle for BTC Price to hedge higher.
From technical volume indicator, BTC Price dropped in volume. More so, BTC price printed a horizontal resistance in previous session at $24126.22. This gave a bearish signal. Based on this trading setup, traders took bearish bias to short their position.
BTC Price broke out of the consolidation zone of $23394.61 and $24325.12 at 16:00 UTC. BTC plunged to a low of $22465.04. Traders loaded more short position, which caused BTC price to plummet to an intraday low of $22019.47.
BTC Price got retracement back to $22568.83 support at 20:00 UTC. BTC Price closed bullish at the support.
As of the time of writing BTC price got rejected at the broken support of $23394.61 from the chart below.
BTC 4-Hour Chart
From a technical perspective, BTC price is making an attempt to create a market structure of head and shoulder pattern. More so, based on price action, the crypto bear prevented BTC price to break above the $23342.44 support.
The Bollinger band converges as the bulls lack steam to push BTC price higher. The bulls could not break the 20 period simple moving average and also the 30 EMA acteds a dynamic resistance to the upside.
RSI creeps from the over-bought territory to neutral territory of 50 mark.
For the day ahead, BTC price will be faced with a support of $23342.44 to wrestle with it, if the bears break below this level, BTC will undergo a major correction to the downside.
Also the bulls will be faced with $23342.44 resistance, if the bulls succeed to close its Tuesday gains above the resistance and EMA, BTC Price will extend it rally to new record high.
XRP
XRP price opened Monday trading session with a high of $0.5544. XRP price created a fuel wick and went higher to retest a broken support of $0.5698. This price level became a resistance as the bulls fail to break above it.
From price action holistic view on the 4- hour chart below, we could see XRP price printed a market structure of lower lows and low highs. At every lower high, the bears took control of XRP price to dump the price to a new lower low.
Yesterday at 12:00 UTC, the bulls were indecisive to hedge XRP price higher above the broken support of 0.5698.
At 16:00 UTC, the bears took advantage of the scenario and lower price, which caused XRP price to plunge to an intraday low of $0.4993 during the New York session.
Although XRP price got pulled back and closed the 4-hour candle as a Doji.
More short positions were loaded at the closed on Monday trading session, which caused XRP price to print a recent lower low of $0.5131.
XRP 4-Hour Chart
From a technical perspective, XRP price is making an attempt to create an inverted cup and handle market structure at press time.
As of time of writing. The momentum of the bear got weak. The bull making an attempt to push XRP price up to retested a broken support of $0.5478. This could be a probable handle, if XRP price got rejected in the day ahead at this price level.
More so the 20- period simple moving and 30 EMA acted as a dynamic resistance due to the bear pressure.
RSI is 36.42mark and riding lower to the oversold territory.
If the bull ride on the wave of bullish momentum in the day ahead, a probable break of $0.5478 resistance could be printed out.
This will be give room for resumption of the uptrend but if the bull fails a lower low could be printed at $0.4451.
About ZB Group
ZB Group was founded in 2012 with the goal of providing leadership to the blockchain development space and today manages a network that includes digital assets exchanges, wallets, capital ventures, research institutes, and media. The Group’s flagship platform is ZB.com, the industry leading digital asset exchange. The platform launched in early 2013 and boasts one of the world’s largest trading communities.
ZB Group also includes ZBG the innovative crypto trading platform, and BW.com, the world’s first mining-pool based exchange. Other holdings include wallet leader BitBank.
Industry intelligence and standards are headed by the recently launched ZB Nexus who embody the core values of ZB Group and open-source their reports and analysis for the public.
Learn more about ZB Exchange by visiting www.zb.com. | https://medium.com/@zbmarketreport/zb-market-daily-btc-xrp-daily-technical-analysis-b7964562bee8 | ['Zb Market Research'] | 2020-12-22 07:39:10.276000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Bitcoin', 'Crypto', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Analysis'] |
Maintaining Emotional Sanity | What is sanity? That’s easy; the ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner; sound mental health. At least that’s what the book says. Pinning it down to something measurable is a little harder — we’re not on an even keel here.
“To some, compromise may mean not going out on the weekend. To others, it may mean ending a marriage.”
All individuals start at different points mentally. Each and every one of us has had to compromise at some point or another. To some, that may mean not going out on the weekend. To others, it may mean ending a marriage. Does that mean one compromise feels harder than another? Although some decisions have a lot more weight to them, the reality is that to many of us, a compromise just feels like what it is — a decision we’ve had to take for a greater good. We don’t necessarily notice the consequences (positive or negative) of our decisions until they're done and dusted, which in some cases can be a few years down the line.
“if we know that sanity is an elusive, hard to maintain concept, why do we even bother trying to achieve it?”
Putting the above into context, we can safely assume that the concept of long-lasting sanity is either unreachable or elusive. A bold statement no doubt, but let's think about this for a minute. As humans, we have accepted that we are; emotionally vulnerable to devastating losses, that concepts like love tend to leave us wanting, and that afflictions or infatuations don’t last (see Emotional Perfection?).
“Running around in circles trying to attain something that is unattainable is a form of insanity in itself.”
All of the above have the potential to destabilize us emotionally to the point of insanity. Therefore, if we know that sanity is such an elusive, hard to maintain concept, why do we even bother trying to achieve it? Running around in circles trying to attain something that is unattainable is a form of insanity in itself.
“A sane insanity, or organized chaos where things are out of our control, but that’s okay.”
Before you stop reading what is probably the most fatalistic article in this series (so far), let’s focus on what’s attainable here. Just because we can’t attain a perfect state of whatever we’re striving for doesn’t mean we should quit altogether. Perfect, everlasting sanity may not be attainable (at least not during our lifetime), yet we can easily achieve a wise, knowledgable, and self-controlled relationship with our desires, or in some cases, our compulsions. A sort of sane insanity, or organized chaos where things are out of our control, but that’s okay.
“Panic attacks, anxiety strikes, envious or jealous streaks — all are forms of insanity that suddenly lose their power once acknowledged and exposed to the world.”
What separates the ‘sane insane’ from the crowd is that they are honest and accurate in what is within their control and if it is entirely right with them. They may not be perfectly balanced and do not pretend to be, yet they have accepted this as part of themselves. They are not bothered with seeking out what they should do to appear ‘normal’ in an environment where normality is an illusion and rarely ever exists.
They feel no particular loss of dignity in acknowledging their differences, and do not go to lengths to hide what they get up to in the proverbial dark. Panic attacks, anxiety strikes, envious or jealous streaks — all are forms of insanity that suddenly lose their power once acknowledged and exposed to the world. They might not be glamorous, but they are emotions we can all relate to.
“What separates the ‘sane insane’ from the crowd is that they are honest and accurate in what is within their control”
The more we learn to lay bare our fears, doubts, longings, cravings, and ‘irregular’ habits, the easier they become to overcome. Strangely enough, they may also make us more relatable to those around us. The sane individuals we may look up to are as human as we are; they simply represent a more emotionally open and honest evolution of ourselves. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/maintaining-emotional-sanity-8e9c46cd083b | ['Daniel Caruana Smith'] | 2020-12-31 04:17:37.727000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Life Lessons', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Self Improvement'] |
The European Union and Russia: Past, Present, and Future of a Difficult Relationship | As the time passes, political map of Europe has changed. It is caused by several events such as the fall of the USSR, the dissolution of the Eastern block, as well as the enlargement of the European Union. Aside from the map change, Russia has become a place surrounded by EU member states and it has issues of concern with all of those countries. European construction process having some difficulty because of the Soviet political rulers neither like the changes nor the European confederation since the beginning.
After the World War II has ended and the European Economic Community (EEC) has been established, the Soviets continue to reject the European integration process. It was proven when Moscow submitted a proposal stating that the EEC could be a threat for the world’s peace and stability. Not only that, the Soviet also made propaganda through articles that criticize the process of European integration. Over time, Mikhail Gorbachev brought change to the Soviets when the “New Thinking”, a new approach to international relations which is made by him appeared in the 1980s. Three practical ideas emerged from this new approach: peaceful coexistence had to be cooperative, true security had to be mutual, and the USSR and the United States had to promote the concept of “reasonable sufficiency” in their strategic thinking (Rey “From Fulton to Malta”, 2008). Gorbachev also has an idea, it’s called “Common European Home”. He thought that his idea could ensure the security of the continent and help to reform the USSR and its satellites. However, the Soviet leadership hated Gorbachev’s concept of a “Common European Home”.
In 1991, the Soviet Union has collapsed. Relations between Russia and the West had slowly improved since then. The West became a friend and role model for Russia. In 1994, Russia signed the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) and this marks the EU and Russia as strategic partners. The EU and Russia strengthen their relationship and conduct economic cooperation through the PCA. Although this agreement can improve relations between the EU and Russia but unfortunately the PCA couldn’t give assurances that their relationship wouldn’t have problems. By the late 1990s, the relationship between Russia and the West has been getting progressively worse. The Washington Declaration is one of the factors that has worsened their relationship. The Declaration makes Russia into a dilemma. Russia considers that the EU enlargement is better than NATO enlargement that threatens the security of Russia.
The situation raises the debate thus appeared two theses. First, the establishment of a stronger EU will give economic and political benefits for Russia. Economically, the border with the EU will reduce transaction costs and expanding Russian market. Secondly, the integration of European countries into the EU could be a danger for Russia because it would cause borders and geographical problems. In addition, the EU will be ruled by members who have anti-Russian feelings and sentiment, which should concern Russia. Moreover, the problem of Kaliningrad also raises tensions between Russia and the EU. Solutions have been given but Russia seems not fully satisfied and wished for more advantages. Russia does not consider the West as an ally but as their enemy and competitor which makes Russia reluctant for extension of the PCA.
Many of the EU member states want the EU to approach Russia consistently so that Russia understands that he is not only related to some EU member states such as Germany and France, but with all the member states. There are a lot of situation that makes it difficult for Russia and other European countries to cooperate, causing tension between the two. Lots of actions have been done to boost cooperation between Russia and the EU. For example, the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, and top EU officials began to talk about a new strategic partnership agreement in 2008. However, the relationship between the two wasn’t getting any better.
Two important events took place. The first is when the G-8 Summit. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, declared that Russia would be forced to respond militarily if the United States went forward with constructing the system in the Czech Republic (Bindi, 2012). The second was when Russia invaded Georgia and several Russian peacekeepers were killed. The Georgian conflict make the EU divided. To overcome this, the EU governments are trying to accelerate the integration of the countries between the EU and Russia into the European Union. The situation became uncertain when several countries avoid Russia because they think that Russia wants to control its neighbors. Russia is not a rogue state; it wants to be an accepted member of the international community, and it wants the EU and NATO to treat it as a privileged partner (pp. 128). The EU has been trying to influence Russia and improve their relations ever since.
Reference :
Bindi, F. (2012). The Foreign Policy of the European Union: Assessing Europe’s Role in the World, The Brookings Institution: Washington, D.C., Ch. 7. | https://medium.com/@dealls/the-european-union-and-russia-past-present-and-future-of-a-difficult-relationship-28f334998119 | ['Dea Lubis'] | 2020-12-28 08:15:45.573000+00:00 | ['International Relations', 'European Union', 'Russia', 'Nato', 'Gorbachev'] |
Chicago’s ‘Midget Bandit’ Fernekes | With the dichotomies of the age, Media Darling, accused mastermind; thief and murderer (23)
“Ungodly Errand, Knightly Purpose”
‘The boy soured on humanity when he realized that he could not support his 16 year old wife on a salary of $9 a week. He then Started his career of crime (6)’.
The ‘kit’ found in Henry’s Bookbag (5)
In 1914, short statured Henry J. Fernekes first made the news robbing people at gun point, with the excuse that he did it because couldn’t afford to care for his new wife. This entranced the media as he was portrayed as a child criminal with the right intentions. The 18 year old charmed the public in his excuse for a string of robberies and after he was nabbed for his crimes, he joked with his captors and seemed unusually smug. He only made $9 a week at his clerical job, and had married a girl that the family did not approve of. He kept his ‘robbery kit’ in his book bag once used for school and with his full confession (6). The year 1914 was also the year of the first use of the word Sociopath, which epitomized a cultural obsession with trying to understand the criminal mind (11). The man who coined the term sociopath, Dr. William J. Hickson, examined Henry saying: “Fernekes is a high-grade sociopath. This class does not have intelligence enough to maintain itself independently in its environment” (8). It was noted in an editorial piece on Henry’s age for such crimes that his father disowned him, and that he was inspired by his crimes for reading picture books (5).
Before he left for his crimes, Henry wrote to his new bride (2):
A few words before I go on this ungodly errand, although a knightly purpose. If I am caught which will only be at my death, as that is much preferable, learn to forgive and forget, as my sincere love for you prompted this action. I wanted to give you comfort and happiness but alas the best laid plans of mice and men…
Among his friends, Henry was nicknamed “midget” as he was shorter in height, and soon the media picked up the moniker “midget bandit”. Henry had started to hang out with the wrong crowd and they all started to rob banks (51). The City of Chicago, and frankly the entire nation, was gripped in crime phobia, and with psychology standing as a new field of science, many doctors offered to cure crime when ignoring poverty and social causes. Henry was classified as a ‘Sociopath’, which at that time meant mentality above 12 years of age, but defective and unintelligent. He proved to be anything but regarding the complexity of his plans.
The Setup
After 7 years of not speaking, Henry and his father reunited in Indiana, but the police had picked him up for a murder robbery of Michael Swiontkowsi that he claimed he did not commit, theorizing the police had set him up (29, 42, 48). He was also accused of robberies in New York that resulted in the murder of two persons, but the state agreed to drop the case in leiu of being tried in Chicago (21, 49). When police picked Henry up, he was reading about noxious gasses at the library, and soon it was discovered he had been hoarding explosives for use in his robberies (19, 21, 22).
unsourced photo, Henry J. Fernekes
While he was in prison, a tenant found a cache of weapons and plans under the floor of his closet in his old apartment including enough explosive material to level several city blocks, building plans for banks and neighboring buildings, lists/schedules of money wagons and payroll trucks, guns, ammunition, keys to safe deposit boxes and protective gear to guard against explosions (35, 36). Later, at his a friend’s home another cache had been found and news sources of they day point out it was the home of a little girl, who was a tap dancer, and practiced near the stash.
While the evidence indicated he definitely had plans to mastermind robbery, there was no evidence that he committed murder. He was charged with nearly 20 bank robberies (25).
20
Pray that your conscious may be void of offense
Furious that he was arrested for murder which he said he was framed for, Henry started writing letters to those associated with his trial. Upon the death of an associate, Henry wrote the the Atty General his sympathies for the loss (21) and even exchanged holiday cards with the judge who sentenced him to death: “Cordial Greetings and all Good Wishes for Christmas. Your conscious lies dormant!” The judge, William N. Gemmill replied:
“Greetings of the season, with hearty good wishes for your happiness.
Pray that your conscious may be void of offense towards all men” (34).
Within prison, Henry and his Gang were accused of orchestrating the attempted kidnapping of John and Jean Schwepe, siblings for the ransom of nearly 1 million dollars, but nothing conclusive was found and was likely fueled by rumor (33, 37). Soon, he and his pals would attempt escape with explosives. Somehow he smuggled in bomb making materials two different times, causing damange to the walls of the Cook County prison but not enough to escape. Bomb making materials were found in cell (38, 40, 46). Thick as thieves, Henry and his pals would be caught trying to escape several more times, always with Henry being put in isolation (37, 38). A long investigation took place regarding how Fernekes was able to smuggle such weapons into the prison (41).
Escape Bulletin, 18
From 1925–1927, Henry served on death row until he was able to prove that he was in Indiana during the murder of Michael Swiontkowsi and he was acquitted of murder but had tried to escape again alone(29). In those days, the prison visitor room was a single door for both prisons and visitors and donning civilian clothes, Henry J. Fernekes quite literally walked out of prison his own accord (23, 30). Though the term sociopath meant intellectually challenged in the era he he lived, Henry was known for being especially quick witted and for planning his heists out to remarkable detail (28, 51). He had taught himself explosives, electric drilling and welding to aid in his craft (47).
Henry was later quoted as denying his involvement of the murders vehemently:
“No, I’d never stoop to a stick up [because …] when you do that you are taking money away from some poor fellow who hasn’t much. Probably his pay check, but a bank or syndicate, that’s different. They’re insured. Its just a profit and loss business deal with them. It requires finesses to outsmart such a corporation, […] its just like most businesses […]”. (51).
“I am no more dangerous than a rabbit. Everybody has been given a wrong impression about me” (43).
“There will be no show up for me. This is my last day”
Though passionate and almost genius at times, Henry J. Fernekes was most definitely misunderstood. He went through several marriages and lost one of his wives to suicide due to his imprisonment. The press had likely encountered few personalities with such cunning and charm, but their portrayal of his character likely contributes to the lasting legacy of the sociopath definition.
Henry likely left his mark on history in three societal ways:
1) Contribution to the term sociopath, as Dr Hickson coined the term from juvenile offenders.
2) The public’s fascination with Henry’s intelligence and sociopath classification likely influenced pop culture stereotypes of invincible super villian.
3) The media’s love for him changed the light in which the depression era gangster was seen, lovable/honorable.
In 1935 at age 39 years old, Henry was found frothing at the mouth in his cell. He was taken to the hospital, and as he lay dying in ambulance, he said, “There will be no show up for me. This is my last day”. He died leaving a great sum of money to his two boys (53). Later, police found a vial of green and white crystals in his pocket and no one could figure out how he had smuggled them in (51).
At his death he was considered one of the most beloved and dangerous gunmen in the country (44). His sons took the last name of one his aliases, and his mother’s maiden name at his death. One could argue that even though those that knew him were enamored with his supposed intelligence/charm, he was not smart enough if he left his life in ruin and at his own hands.
53
Like this story? Check out similar at Internet Archaeology.
Reference/Resource/Bibliography
Because my references and resources are about 100 sources and very long, often times, this tanks my stats. I’ve opted to record them on a different page as to not ax my required reading time. You can find them recorded accurately here. | https://medium.com/internet-archaeology/the-criminal-ethos-of-chicagos-midget-bandit-henry-j-fernekes-7952377b1aaf | [] | 2020-12-20 19:23:49.520000+00:00 | ['Mystery', 'True Crime', 'History', 'Crime', 'Time'] |
UAE is most popular tourist destination for Indians, Parliament told | According to figures forwarded to Parliament by Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan, the UAE is the most highly regarded destination in the world for Indian tourists Many indian Buy apartment in dubai for residence.
314,495 Indians left on tourist visas for the UAE in the first quarter of this year, the most recent period for which figures were made available to members of Parliament (MPs).
This resulted to an increase of possibly a bit more than 50% over the same period last year. Despite the economic outbreak of COVID-19, India suspended all international passenger traffic into and out of the country on March 23, 2020.
The figures only serve to highlight the UAE’s fame among Indian tourists, who flew back and forth on flights in the first three months of this year, although on a smaller scale due to bilateral “bubble” agreements.
Air bubble provisions are temporary measures for global passenger movement until scheduled flights resume. India currently has air bubble agreements with 31 countries, including the UAE and four other Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
The UAE’s appeal to Indian tourists is highlighted in the Parliament figures because, during the periods under consideration, the total number of Indian tourists travelling abroad decreased while the UAE’s share of the tourist traffic increased.
Thailand and Bangladesh were the second and third greatest prominent tourist destinations for Indians, but their numbers were far lower than those of the UAE.
Now Checkout list off Villas & Townhouses For sale in Dubai New Offer 2022 2023 at use-offplan.com. | https://medium.com/@jhonisteve21/uae-is-most-popular-tourist-destination-for-indians-parliament-told-c71e36f9ae8e | ['Uae Offplan'] | 2021-12-23 10:25:25.868000+00:00 | ['Indian Politics', 'Dubai', 'Real Estate', 'Indian', 'Villas'] |
台灣報紙還有未來嗎？數據與觀察 | [1]: 商業週刊、爽報、壹週刊、蘋果日報、自由時報、智富月刊、米娜時尚等紙媒都曾委託 ABC 稽核發行量。據 ABC 的稽核報告顯示，自由時報 2007 年到 2017 年之間都曾經請 ABC 稽核，橫跨超過十年，蘋果日報則僅有 2006 年到 2008 年的稽核報告。
[2]: 市場整體的近七天報紙閱讀率為 21.55%，最高者為自由時報的 9.45%，聯合報的 8.13%次之。
[3]: 徐榮華. (2006). 台灣報業經營困境與因應策略.政治大學傳播學院碩士在職專班學位論文, 1–264.
[4]: 原始資料中更生日報、國語日報、台灣時報、人間福報的廣告價格為空值，台灣新生報的閱讀率為空值，都不計入；經濟日報的周間廣告價格為二十萬元、假日廣告價格為十萬元，取其平均十五萬元。另外，資料也包含聯合晚報，因聯合晚報現已停刊，也不計入。
[5]: 陳有全（2004）。未來報紙的發展－台灣報業應用電子紙之研究。國立中山大學高階經營碩士班碩士論文，高雄市。 取自https://hdl.handle.net/11296/2q9q64
[6]: 台大〈工作社會學〉 2005 年修課學生的田野觀察，http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~pclan/documents/report_samples/05_sociology_work/paperdiver.pdf↩︎
[7]: 林麗雲. (2008). 變遷與挑戰: 解禁後的台灣報業. 新聞學研究, (95), 183–212.
[8]: 向志强, & 陈鸥鸥. (2006). 报纸需求弹性与报纸定价研究. 當代傳播, 2006(3), 40–43.
[9]: 蔡卓芳, 鍾珮琦, & 齊湘. (2003). 台灣新聞網站市場範圍與市場競爭初探 — 以《聯合新聞網》,《中時電子報》,《東森新聞報》 三大新聞網站為例分析 (Doctoral dissertation).
[10]: Deleersnyder, B., Geyskens, I., Gielens, K., & Dekimpe, M. G. (2002). How cannibalistic is the Internet channel? A study of the newspaper industry in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 19(4), 337–348.
[11]: Sridhar, S., & Sriram, S. (2015). Is online newspaper advertising cannibalizing print advertising?. Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 13(4), 283–318. | https://medium.com/dd-story-hub/%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3%E5%A0%B1%E7%B4%99%E7%9A%84%E6%95%B8%E6%93%9A%E8%88%87%E8%A7%80%E5%AF%9F-96131ac4b0e2 | ['Dennis Tseng'] | 2021-05-15 05:48:47.483000+00:00 | ['Taiwan', 'Newspapers', 'Data Visualization', 'Data', 'Data Journalism'] |
Q&A 015 | 💰🌳 Big Business
One of the few upsides to Brexit might be the fact that the United Kingdom will be able to define their own agricultural policies. The Economist writes about its future as the UK wil be leaving the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) this January 1st, after 47 years.
They explain how the policy has been subsidizing intensive farming methods, at considerable cost to the taxpayers, causing a lot of ecological damage. The originally intended goals behind the CAP, boosting food production, has not been making sense for decades.
Switching existing subsidies to behaviour that is beneficial for ecology and the beauty of the countryside (Britain is quite unique in considering the beauty of its farmed land as evidenced in tons of British poetry) can now be designed without EU interference. Smaller subsidies on these types of desired behaviour have shown to work beautifully with the farming community so far.
The same issue of the Economist reports on the rapid deforestation in Brazil, which makes the discussion on subsidizing Brazil for conserving rain forest all the more interesting. I must admit that originally, I felt some reluctance towards this idea (“They should do the right thing because it’s the right thing” and “Why should they get free money just for having the rainforest”). An analogy with oil helped me see things more gently. The Middle East has been paid handsomely for supplying us with energy for decades. Now that cleaning Carbon Dioxide is key to our survival, why shouldn’t we pay Brazil handsomely to do part of it for us?
⚖️ Top 10%
Mr Market is always right. At least, that’s what’s commonly said. But what if Mr Market is essentially only a limited number of people?
According to economic data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis we could argue this is the case. For the past 30 years, more than 80% of the US equity market has been in the hands of only 10% of the market players. The top 1% now even owns over 50% of the US market.
This chart has several implications. Any movement in the price of US equities is mostly appropriated by a few investors. Another implication is that relatively few players can exert influence over the price. Perhaps they’re even able to influence market policies set by authorities given their buying and selling power.
There’s another side as well. Some of the very large investors are mutual funds, which are often investing the money of insurance and pension funds. Indirectly, a lot more people could therefore have an influence.
It is worth pondering whether we believe this is a sustainable market system. I do not readily have an alternative. At a minimum, I remain cautious whenever someone refers to the market as the main guide. It represents an important opinion, but this doesn’t discharge us from conducting our own due diligence.
◼️🦢Predictions
By the end of November, my inbox fills up with memos and reports on what the next year will bring. The reports are always upbeat and full of potential chances and new key trends. Hardly ever do the writers of these reports reflect on their previous year’s predictions. Obviously, when looking back to 2020, most (if not all) predictions were wrong.
This time, things may be (slightly) better. Certainly when you believe in old wisdom and superstition. Indeed, 21 is the number of luck. It comes back in regulations, gambling and taking chances. In many countries, 21 is the minimum age at which you’re allowed to do many ‘adult’ things such as ordering alcohol or entering a casino. Once in the casino, you can play a number of card games in which the number plays a vital role like blackjack. When rolling the dice, you’ll notice that the sum of all the spots on a standard die adds up to 21.
We’ll see what ’21 brings. Socially and healthwise, it almost cannot get worse than this year. Economically and financially, it seems to really depend on the speed at which we’re able to make Covid a thing of the past. All ‘experts’ seem to agree that solid economic growth will return to all countries. Whether you benefit from this, seems to depend on which industry sector you’re active or invest in. Maybe you’re lucky!
🔍🎄Reflection
I’ve been enjoying the latest guests to Tim Ferriss’ podcast a lot these past weeks, and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek was no exception. They talk extensively on the mental models Daniel uses to run his company. One thing I found particularly interesting is Daniel’s view on the qualities he looks for and encourages in his hires. It reflects his belief of an ever changing world:
“I value agility and learning way more than I value the fact that you’re really good at your job and really good at doing a few things.”
On Tim’s famous question “If you could have a billboard anywhere, saying anything, what would it say and where would you put it?”, Daniel responded:
“Be kind; everyone is on their own journey.”
He goes on to explain why talking about his own growth and mistakes helps in demonstrating that to be true of himself as well.
“I’ve encountered so many faiths and life situations, certainly over the last nine months ago where I’ve learned so much. I learned about issues I didn’t even know existed. I learned about situations and the hardships, but also successes and happiness as well, so all of those different things. But what it kind of reminded me of is that we’re all on our own journey.”
I think that is a lens for viewing the world around you that’s worthy of some extra use this holiday season. | https://medium.com/qanda-newsletter/q-a-015-62fbd6f9f25e | ['Quinten Lockefeer'] | 2020-12-16 10:39:44.459000+00:00 | ['Compassion', 'Change', 'Subsidies', 'Nature', 'Inequality'] |
Museum Week 2019: Play at the Museum | For Museum Week 2019, each day we are showcasing different elements of the Cardinals Hall of Fame & Museum.
“Play ball!” Baseball is a game that many children have enjoyed. Kids have spent their summers finding ways to watch or listen to the pros play the game. Young members of the community ran out to the sandlots and participated in their own games. Or they played in their backyard, pretending to be some of their favorite baseball legends.
In Sportsman’s Park, during the early years of Cardinals baseball, children were offered season passes through a program called the “Knot Hole Gang.” Many youth attended games free of charge through this program, as long as they obeyed the Knot Hole Gang Code of Conduct. Today, our youngest Cardinals fans are welcome at games and can even join the Cardinals Kids Club. Our team mascot, Fredbird offers fun and entertainment for fans of all ages.
Another way that current young fans can make baseball a part of their “play” is by visiting the Cardinals Museum. We have many activities that allow kids and adults of all ages to interact with the history of Cardinals baseball. Hold a bat in our Holding History exhibit. Make your own call in our Broadcast Booth. Inspect three large stadium models and imagine what it was like to sit in each. With videos, artifacts, augmented reality and even more opportunities for fun throughout the space, the Cardinals Museum is sure to please. Our current special exhibit, Pain, Protection and Performance: The Evolution of Baseball Equipment, has baseball gloves to try on and other interactive elements that you won’t want to miss.
Be sure to ask one of our staff members for our kid friendly scavenger hunt, especially if you are visiting with a youngster!
Come visit the Cardinals Museum. There are many ways for fans of all ages to play. | https://cardinals.mlblogs.com/museum-week-2019-play-6253ee784720 | ['Cardinals Insider'] | 2019-05-15 20:05:58.629000+00:00 | ['Baseball', 'Museumweek', 'St Louis Cardinals', 'MLB', 'Museums'] |
2021: The learnings from Pandemic | Hi Folks!
Hope you all are doing great and a safe and healthy :-)
“Time changes everything..but the way things change depends on you!”
-Mann
The last two years have been real tough for the entire world. This blog is to share some of the key learnings I have had in the past two years. So lets get to it:
Loved ones and Support System
Last two years could have not been dealt with without a strong support system: family, friends, mentors and well wishers! Build a strong bond with your loved ones and you will have a cushion to fall back. Be a part other’s support system and you will have a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. Health: Mental and Physical
This has been most discussed point in the pandemic: health! The saying is so true: “Health is wealth”. We all know that we should strive to be healthy, but how many of us actually work towards it? The mad rat race culture we are a part of leaves us with little room to execute our plans in this regard. And majority of us just cater to physical aspect of health and neglect the equally important (if not more!): the mental health. With the pandemic scenario, almost everyone out there has been impacted : physically and/or mentally. It is high time to get our priorities sorted. Make that morning routine that is on your diary a reality, take that hobby that you have been longing for, spend time doing what you love doing! Meditate: Meditation may be different for each of us. For me, a swing of my cricket bat doing shadow practice helps me calm down, solidify my thoughts and gets my creative juices going: for me that is meditation. Make that fitness regime a reality! Find yours and do it! You will thank yourself later! Career aspirations
Now that the remote is the new normal, the opportunities are endless and ever growing! There seems to be upcoming wave in the digital era that is never seen before: cross country working may soon be a reality and with the increase in digital human interaction, the learning opportunities are endless. This seems to be right time to pick that long pending skill that you were waiting for! This looks to me an era where a lot of career switches would be made and technology would be at the heart of this innovative trend. Be a part of it! Personal goals
With the world going remote, the work life harmony is the new idea to be dealt with. Work life balance seems to be a thing of the past and a harmony of work and life is the way to go. If you are happy in your personal life, that reflects in your work life as well and vice versa. Now with extra time in your hand(thanks to lesser commute times), life has extra space to fit in! I would suggest to align your work priorities with you personal life goals instead of juggling between the two! Self belief
This is one of the essential tools we humans have! We can conquer our greatest fears with this! By believing in oneself, we rise above the problem at hand and instead of cribbing, we start looking for possible solves! Always, Always have faith in your abilities and trust the almighty. Stop overthinking! When the darkness takes over, keep moving forward, for there is light down the end of tunnel! Also, as a wise wizard once said- “Happiness can be found in even the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light” :-)
To sum it up, we have witnessed one of the most craziest times in human history and we have stood strong. I wish everyone a safe and happy new year with the hope that everything will fall in place for each of us.
“Jo maangna hi hai us khuda se, to jee khol ke maango,
Kya pata aaj har dua kabool hone ka din ho!”
-Mann
Signing off
Mann | https://medium.com/@mgulati02/2021-the-learnings-from-pandemic-e0afd1799409 | ['Manpreet Gulati'] | 2021-12-31 10:00:55.707000+00:00 | ['Motivational', 'Life Lessons', '2021', 'Tech'] |
I Started Waking Up Earlier and You Should Too | Waking up early. I want to talk about the benefits that I’ve been experiencing ever since I went on the “millionaire routine”. Until now, I’ve been living by that idea, and it has “supercharged”, if you will, my life. I believe it may be beneficial to you as well.
The Cold Months May be Tough
It is just the right time for this article. It’s winter, warm and cozy inside a thick and fluffy blanket of yours, nights are longer, and for myself, it’s still relatively dark when I wake up for work.
It’s too darn early… Cold… and dark. I just want to hibernate. — Me
Even on a regular schedule, I understand it’s tough to muster up some courage to remove the blanket and get up from the bed. Once you do manage to wake up, though, you probably find yourself flustered, in a hurry, so you scramble around getting ready, and you still have to go through with the commute.
The transition hasn’t been easy, spoken from someone who enjoys sleeping a little too much, and the warmth of the bed during a winter’s day makes it that much tougher to drag me out of bed. Why am I waking up earlier than usual? Why am I doing this to myself?
Before I dive into the positive effects, I want to go over my recent transition into doing so.
No Clear Plan
Attempting to wake up earlier has been in my mind for quite a while. I have come across the idea here and there through videos and blogs, most notably from where “millionaires” acquire their success. However, knowing I wasn’t experiencing any significant issues in life, I told myself I didn’t need to sacrifice any sleep time to get out of bed earlier, despite the alleged benefits I heard from back then.
A few years have rolled by, and I’d still come across that type of content online, but because of my increased curiosity and I’ve already entered the workforce, it seemed like a good idea to get started.
I didn’t flick the switch immediately. I began reading further on the benefits people experienced to lighten my spark before taking the deep dive. It sounded evident to anyone who would’ve read about the benefits right? I mean, people were feeling more productive, healthier, improved mental capacity throughout the day, so it didn’t seem like there were any adverse effects at all! Heck, why didn’t I get started earlier?
So I decided to take my first step.
It wasn’t easy at first, but without contradicting the idea behind this article, try and hear me out — I want to have you prepared accordingly through my story, so you can make an easier transition moving forward.
Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash
I started to set my alarm an hour earlier, and I was getting up without any issues. I was excited to get started, and I wanted to see results as soon as possible. For the first week, I didn’t exactly plan for what to do with this extra time. I just thought to myself to go ahead with the usuals — and that is browsing online and going through the endless scrolling on social media. I wasn’t prepared for the self-development routines that most practice during this time of day. I simply thought the extra time would help.
Long story short, this didn’t last too long as I began feeling the fatigue of waking up an hour earlier. The reason?
I wasn’t utilizing my time correctly, and there weren’t any incentives to keep me going long-term. It may sound like an excuse, but browsing social media was hardly productive and not necessarily something I look forward to all the time. In fact, I’m not too fond of it at times, but it’s the addiction and the need to keep myself updated that has kept me going for a while.
The Transformation
Anyway, I started to incorporate other routines that most have widely talked about, such as light stretching, cold showers, and planning my days. I must admit, cold showers are tough until this day. Eventually, I found my “reason,” and I began to see improvements in approaching my day. Here is the breakdown of my routine.
Light movement & stretching — The last thing you want is to fatigue yourself for the rest of your day. By getting my heart pumping and relaxing the tension with stretching gives me the energy to tack the day ahead. I know I’m not too scientific, but you know how exercise makes you feel “good,” especially after the shower that comes with it? Yep, that’s how it feels.
— The last thing you want is to fatigue yourself for the rest of your day. By getting my heart pumping and relaxing the tension with stretching gives me the energy to tack the day ahead. I know I’m not too scientific, but you know how exercise makes you feel “good,” especially after the shower that comes with it? Yep, that’s how it feels. Taking 10 minutes to think — It means to stay off your phone or whatever social media you have that continually gives you distractions. Reset your brain and allow the important thoughts to wash over you. I suppose you can call this meditation, but it essentially allows you to compartmentalize, putting you back on track with what’s important.
— It means to stay off your phone or whatever social media you have that continually gives you distractions. Reset your brain and allow the important thoughts to wash over you. I suppose you can call this meditation, but it essentially allows you to compartmentalize, putting you back on track with what’s important. Cold showers — I haven’t been able to do this all the time, maybe three days out of seven during the week. However, what I’ve been experiencing so far is similar to light movements & stretching. The blast of cold water works as a wake-up call, and believe me, as it absolutely puts me on high alert. Some days I don’t sleep as well, which helps me prepare for the day ahead.
— I haven’t been able to do this all the time, maybe three days out of seven during the week. However, what I’ve been experiencing so far is similar to light movements & stretching. The blast of cold water works as a wake-up call, and believe me, as it absolutely puts me on high alert. Some days I don’t sleep as well, which helps me prepare for the day ahead. Planning your day — I like to be in control. And while issues may arise throughout the day, I want to know what tasks should be achieved by the end to control my focus and priorities at work. Planning can be done the night before, but I prefer doing so in the morning.
It’s Not Hard. It’s the Incentives.
Once I began experiencing improvements in life, naturally, I felt inclined to carry on with my routine. I no longer feel like I need to put in additional effort to wake up earlier, despite it being dark and cold during the winter months. This, in my opinion, makes it easier to do so during the rest of the year if you can push through the winter months!
Is my routine concrete? No. Adjustments will be made according to any life changes, and I’ll continually find ways to improve my habits. But at least for now, I know the idea exists and it has helped with my life tremendously.
That is all for today. I appreciate you all for sticking by to the end. I hope some of these reminders can facilitate your transition, and help your journey to get out of bed earlier to increase your productivity. Take care.
Calvin | https://medium.com/@heyitscalvin/i-started-waking-up-earlier-and-you-should-too-f5476d42ddb1 | ['Calvin Cheung'] | 2020-12-15 16:02:41.692000+00:00 | ['Life Hacking', 'Life', 'Inspiration', 'Life Lessons', 'Motivation'] |
Solving CISOs’ Greatest Challenge: Our Investment In JupiterOne | CISOs face a myriad of challenges keeping their organizations’ networks secure, but when we ask our CISO friends to name their biggest daily headache, they almost always answer the same thing: asset management. With every company today relying on a complex technology stack of hardware, on- and off-premise software, cloud infrastructure, and mobile devices, it has become increasingly complex to understand what actually makes up the enterprise estate. What assets does my organization have? Who has access? What information and data is where? Are there any weak points in our security protocols?
CISOs have made tremendous progress towards understanding their companies’ devices and infrastructure. Deploying endpoint agents, instrumenting networks, and implementing firewalls, gateways, and proxies have all helped CISOs understand what is within each of their enterprise’s overall estate. Thus, the modern security organization now has lots of visibility from all of this tooling, but it is also faced with duplicative data and no single source of truth for what hard and soft assets exist under the enterprise’s umbrella. Through a combination of spreadsheets, configuration management database (CMDB) products, and proprietary tools, CISOs have worked to address the challenge of understanding and managing their IT asset inventory.
We believe that given the broad instrumentation of enterprise endpoints and the shift to cloud native (API-enabled) infrastructure, asset management must become a fully-automated and high-accuracy practice. With automated asset management, CISOs gain access to a centralized platform for automating security alert and compliance workflows, solving many of the manual processes that frustrate them today.
We are pleased to announce a $19 million Series A investment into JupiterOne, a fully-automated asset management and configuration monitoring platform.
JupiterOne aims to transform how organizations manage their cloud-based infrastructure. The company leverages an organization’s existing API-enabled infrastructure to build an accurate and deep graph of all hard and soft enterprise assets. Erkang Zheng, CEO and founder of JupiterOne, saw the asset management problem up close as a security operator at several F500 companies, so he built JupiterOne from the ground up to be a comprehensive solution that solves CISOs’ biggest challenge.
JupiterOne has developed a compelling product that integrates quickly, is applicable across enterprise segments, and is highly reviewed by current customers. We couldn’t be more pleased to partner with the JupiterOne team and lead its Series A financing. | https://medium.com/ideas-from-bain-capital-ventures/solving-cisos-greatest-challenge-our-investment-in-jupiterone-eec39b57ae64 | ['Enrique Salem'] | 2020-09-17 20:55:02.282000+00:00 | ['Asset Management', 'Cybersecurity', 'Venture Capital', 'Network Security', 'Funding News'] |
9 tips to quickly improve your UI designs | Originally published at marcandrew.me
Creating beautiful, usable, and efficient UIs takes time, with many design revisions along the way. Making those constant tweaks to produce something that your clients, users, and yourself are truly happy with. I know. I’ve been there many times before myself.
But what I’ve discovered over the years is that by making some simple visual tweaks you can quickly improve the visuals you’re trying to create.
In this article I’ve put together a small, and easy to put into practice, selection of tips that can, with little effort, not only help improve your designs today, but hopefully give you some handy pointers for when you’re starting your next project. | https://uxdesign.cc/9-simple-tips-to-improve-your-ui-designs-fast-377c5113ac82 | ['Marc Andrew'] | 2020-08-28 09:10:35.292000+00:00 | ['Design', 'UI', 'UI Design', 'Web Development', 'Visual Design'] |
MITH Weekly | 秘銀週報 8/3/2018 | Crypto Slang Glossary
“Stop talking like a nocoiner, DYOR and HODL”
Wait… What…?? Crypto slang could be indecipherable sometimes.. Are you caught in a bind not understanding what others are talking about in the middle of a crypto discussion?
Here are some slang you have to know if you want to sound like an expert：
DYOR — Do Your Own Research
Are you annoyed by the people that just won’t stop asking questions when all the answers are clearly easy to find?
When this happens.. Say “DYOR” !
HODL — Crypto slang for hold your coins.
“HODL HODL HODL and wait for the moon! “ Yup, that’s right. Probably the most frequently used word in the crypto world when it’s at the wake of a price fall.
Nocoiner — A person has no Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies)
Symptom 1: A person who likes to talk proudly about how he/she will neeeeever buy and own any coins
Symptom 2: A person just simply doesn’t own any coins
If a person meets any of the symptoms above, then it’s known as a nocoiner, as he/she does not own any coins. | https://medium.com/mithriltoken/mithril-weekly-%E7%A7%98%E9%8A%80%E9%80%B1%E5%A0%B1-8-3-2018-5e7ff95b2113 | [] | 2020-04-09 04:45:43.848000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Weekly News', 'Mithril', 'Bitcoin'] |
Legal Issues And How Not To Become The Victim Of Property Fraud | Property Fraud
The thriving industry of real estate comes with several issues in Pakistan. It would be best if you remain vigilant to prevent yourself from scams and frauds. Also, you must be aware of property laws for effective handling. Let’s move in-depth of the topic:
Some Legal Issues In Property Management
People might face several issues while buying, selling, or registration of properties. Here is some discussion in this regard.
1. Property Registration
The property registration of real estate refers to the type of properties needing to be registered. It falls under the Registration Act 1908, comprising of 15 sections. The law explains the time, area, and a guide to registering the property.
2. Agreements
Agreements are usually made while buying and selling property and the user is required to pay a certain amount to the government. The amount is charged in stamp papers for legal validation and falls under the Stamp Act 1899.
3. Property Transfers
For transferring any property, people need to follow a specific set of rules falling under the Transfer Of Property Act 1882. It ensures that the property is entitled to a person efficiently.
That was about some issues people might face while property management. Make sure to be aware of all the rules to overcome these hassles.
Common Property Frauds In Pakistan
With the excel of the field, frauds are becoming more common. Here is a glimpse of some scams people might face.
1. Fake Documents
The scammers may hand over the false documents to people taking away their money. Therefore, the documents should be adequately verified when buying or selling from the property lawyers or any other expert.
2. Dealing With Unseen Property
It’s not appreciated to make a deal on a property you haven’t seen. Make sure to give a visit to the area, analyze the localities and then finalize the deal. The other case may lead to fraud.
3. Un-checked Market Value
Some agents may deliver you the wrong information about the market value of any property. Don’t rely on a single agent until the person is trusted. Cross-check the market value properly, and don’t allow anyone to deceive you.
4. Fake Agents
You may come across people or agents trying to deceive, having no information of the property. To prevent the issue of fake-agents, make sure to visit their office or check the testimonials. Also, deal with the agent in case of buying; rather, deal with the real owner to prevent fraud. The same goes for selling.
There are many other issues you may face while property handling. Make sure to take the precautions mentioned below.
How To Avoid The Property Scams And Frauds?
Always deal with trusted buyers, sellers, or agents to prevent any scam. Ensure there is no dispute over the land you’re buying to avoid any future hassles. Don’t pay directly to the agent. Instead, contact the real owner. Don’t believe in low-authority newly made online form-filling websites. Make sure to visit the area and analyze it appropriately before making any deal.
Summing Up
With the advent of real estate in Pakistan, the chances of fraud are also increased. You might get looted in the name of online investments or selling your property. Make sure to research properly before making a deal. | https://medium.com/@kamranhaiderjanjua/legal-issues-and-how-not-to-become-the-victim-of-property-fraud-962a51b9b2f5 | ['Kamran Haider Janjua Digital Marketing Specialist'] | 2021-12-17 04:43:35.903000+00:00 | ['Property', 'Property Management', 'Legal Issues', 'Property Fraud', 'Victim Of Property Fraud'] |
An Introduction to WebSockets. By and large, every developer is… | By and large, every developer is familiar with the HTTP protocol and that is because it is foundational to every website and application. When a user visits an URL or resource endpoint, they trigger a request to a server, asking for specific data only accessible at that endpoint. And so, once the server receives this request it sends back a response, which can be anything from a webpage to some data. This relationship where a client initiates communication via a request, and only then does the server engage in communication via a response is considered unidirectional. Again, communication is only initiated one way, via the client. This type of communication works fine when data is unchanging or at least, not changing frequently. If this is not the case, as in real-time data flows, then the HTTP protocol is not the best approach for communicating with the server and accessing data. Luckily, this is where the WebSocket protocol shines and offers a better solution.
The WebSocket protocol is another form of communication between the client and server, entirely separate from the HTTP protocol and differing in many ways. It works in what is known as a full-duplex or bidirectional communication meaning that communication is initiated not only via the client but also the server. Unlike the HTTP protocol, the server can reach out to the client and provide it data without the client needing to make a request. With HTTP requests, once the server sends its response to the client, the line of communication is closed, hence the client needing to make additional requests for data. With the WebSocket protocol, the initial connection made between the client and server, for example when a user visits an URL, is maintained open or persisted. And this persisted connection, known as a websocket connection, allows the server to initiate communication.
Connection persistence enables communication between multiple clients through the server. Just like in the HTTP protocol, where many clients can reach out to a server for data, with the WebSocket protocol clients can do the same. The key distinction is that the connections are kept open creating an environment where multiple clients are connected to each other through their open connections to the server. The open connections promote a constant flow of data between the server and client and between client and client. At the point of receiving an event (known as a response in the HTTP protocol) from the server, the client can then send a counter-response, or emit an event back to the server continuining the flow of data. Or in the case of client to client communication, an output from a client is relayed to other clients via the server. Another way to imagine this is with chat rooms, which serve as a connection point to the server, and each user who enters the room essentially is creating a websocket connection, or a persisted connection to the server. Once users join the room, they are all connected to each other, and when one user enters a message, the server receives that data and relays it to every other open connection, or user, creating that real-time data flow between clients.
There are three types of communications that can be carried with websocket connections. The first is the more traditional type between a server and client, the server emits an event to the connecting client, and the client listens for that event and can emit an event back to the server. Going back to the example of the chat room, when a new user joins a chat room, the serve can send the user a welcome message, and only the new user. The second type of communication is known as a broadcast, and differs in that the server can emit an event to all the other connected clients. When a new client connects to the server, establishing a websocket connection, every other previously connected client receives some communication from the server. The server can emit an event that is reserved for new connections, but also broadcast an event that is reservered for notifying other previously created and currently active connections. If a new user connects, the server emits a welcome even to that new user and also broadcasts to all other connected users that a new user has connected, or join the chat room. Lastly, the server can communicate with all connections, by emitting an event to each client regardless of when the connections were made. When a user inputs a message, that message is captured by the server and transmitted to all the open connections, resulting in each user being able to see the new message.
Understanding these differences and capabilities allow for rich real-time applications. The constant incoming of new information can be received by the server and emitted to all connected clients, without the clients having to guess on when to make requests to obtain the new data, or make multiple requests to keep up to date. There are many great articles on websockets, including implementation of them. Below you can check out the article which highlights the history communication via the internet. | https://medium.com/@codenameuriel28/an-introduction-to-websockets-with-node-js-74fa9aaee3b1 | ['Uriel Rodriguez'] | 2020-12-07 19:48:20.618000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Web Development', 'Backend', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development'] |
Stochastic Gradient Descent | Cost Function?
To begin, we formulate a “Cost Function”(or called loss function) to evaluate how bad the parameter set of the neural network is, represented as C(𝛳). We have to find out the 𝛳* which minimizes the cost C(𝛳*).
𝛳* = arg min C(𝛳)
For example, we use the defined function in the handwritten digit classificatoin. The number of the given training data x is R(1,…, r,…, R) and y is the correspondent ground truth. Our goal is to minimize the C(𝛳*).
How to find the minimum?
Imagine that dropping a ball somewhere, we can then get the local minimun where the ball stop moving just as the picture show.
So, we repeat the calculation of the gradient at different places, until the gradient approach to zero. Suppose that 𝛳 has two variables {𝛳1, 𝛳2}.
Learning Rate
𝜂 represents the learning rate, meaning that “how far” the distance between the before point and the next one calculated. If we pick a small learning rate, it might takes longer time to reach the local minimum while if we set a larger one, we will miss the minimum.
Stochastic Gradient Descent
To calculus the cost, we have to sum all the examples in our training data because of the algorithm of gradient descend, but if there are millions of training data, it takes much time. To simplify, we use stochastic gradient descent.
Pick an example x, we assume that all example have equal probabilities to be picked.
http://cs231n.github.io/optimization-1/ while True:
data_batch = sample_training_data(data, batch_size=1)
weights_grad = evaluate_gradient(loss_func, data_batch, weights)
weights += step_size * weight_grad
If you like this article and consider it useful for you, please support it with 👏. | https://medium.com/deep-learning-g/stochastic-gradient-descent-63a155ba3975 | ['Gary Chang', 'Chih-Chun'] | 2018-05-28 13:11:08.897000+00:00 | ['Gradient Descent', 'Optimization', 'Machine Learning'] |
A new era in the fight against antimicrobial resistance — can we revert the silent tsunami? | By Neda Milevska. Published 19 November 2020 on GS News.
This week is the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) when we turn the world’s attention to the growing problem of drug resistant diseases — caused by bacteria, viruses and other pathogens that have developed resistance to the lifesaving drugs that we use every day.
Why is this important? Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a natural process of pathogens’ adaptation to the drugs we use to kill them, which should normally have a slow evolution-like pace. Our inappropriate use of common antibiotics, antiviral agents and other drugs on all fronts of human and animal health speedwarps this process.
The often imperceptible tidal wave of AMR already kills some 700,000 people each year. But it threatens to become a “tsunami”, as World Health Organization Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom recently said. A report last year by a special ad hoc UN group, “No Time To Wait” projected that the world could see up to 10 million deaths annually by 2050. This looming crisis thus has the potential to be as large or even larger than Covid-19 in terms of the death toll and economic costs.
The problem is not new. Alarm bells started ringing as early as 2008, when the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control issued warnings about the trends. In 2015, the World Health Organization adopted its first Global Action plan on AMR — and the world observed the first Antimicrobial Awareness Week.
However, so far the warnings have failed to turn around embedded practices and habits. Although awareness in some health systems is growing, there is widespread overuse of antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents in countries with weak regulatory systems — where people can buy antibiotics and other drugs over the counter without a prescription.
In addition, drugs that need to be reserved for human use are still wantonly used in industrial livestock production as growth promoters or disease prevention — further increasing risks that drug-resistant bacteria will emerge. In many countries it is difficult or impossible to even assess how much antibiotics and other antimicrobials are used, where, and on what populations.
Covid-19 has, moreover, spurred increased use of antibiotics — ostensibly to suppress or prevent secondary bacterial infections that people sick with the virus could also get. And this, according to WHO, is exacerbating AMR trends. In the United States, some 70 to 80 per cent of hospitalised Covid-19 patients received antibiotic treatment, according to one report, even though less than 10 per cent actually had secondary bacterial infections.
Pandemic as an opportunity? Against this grim reality, however, the current pandemic may also be serving as something of a wakeup call fostering more action on AMR, among both health care providers — as well as the patients that my organization, the International Alliance of Patients’ Organizations (IAPO), represents. Having confronted the harsh reality of a deadly virus for which there is no vaccine, medicine or treatment — can we act more assertively to stave off future threats like this that could emerge if more bacteria and viruses become resistant to the existing drugs that we do have?
We have begun to see the world wake up now.
This July, an AMR Action Fund of nearly $1bn was established by more than 20 leading biopharmaceutical companies, with a mission to bring 2–4 new antibiotics to patients by 2030, and replenish the collapsing antibiotic R&D pipeline. This fund complements other initiatives, like the WHO’s Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership, and its added value is in creating market conditions that enable sustainable investment in the antibiotic pipeline.
In August, the Tripartite Coalition of the WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) initiated a “One Health” Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, to advocate for urgent action among heads of state, government ministers, private sector and civil society. The Group, co-chaired by the prime ministers of Bangladesh and of Barbados, will be formally launched at a WHO press conference on Friday.
On Wednesday, Wellcome Trust launched their report “The Global response to AMR: Momentum, successes and critical gaps”, underlining that AMR is not only reversing recent progress in controlling infectious diseases, but is also undermining improvements in healthcare provision in general, threatening to disproportionately more affect the low- and middle-income countries.
This AMR week will also see a flurry of activities across WHO regions, under the theme “Unite to prevent antimicrobial resistance”. And in the spirit of “One Health, stakeholders across diverse sectors are linking together on this common interest.
This is reflected in a joint call for more action issued Wednesday by IAPO along with the International Hospital Federation, the International Society for Quality in Health Care, and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations.
The statement calls for the development of more innovative partnerships of healthcare providers, patients and the business sector to tackle the growing AMR threat while improving healthcare safety and quality worldwide. It aims to raise awareness of AMR, promote antibiotic stewardship and call upon policymakers to create the appropriate conditions to attract investments in R&D to ensure that a sufficient pipeline of antibiotics will remain available to treat both common and rare infections.
Empowering patients to Fight AMR in A Global AMR Patient Alliance. Paternalistic approaches to healthcare have largely left patients on the sidelines in the battle against AMR. This, despite the abundant evidence showing that patients bear a big part of the responsibility for what is happening right now.
Driven by Einstein’s postulate that we cannot do the same thing, and expect a different result, IAPO along with patient organisations from different regions and countries has developed A Global Patient Consensus Statement and a Call to Action, that aims to convene civil society groups representing patients, carers and advocates in a global AMR Patient Alliance, to be launched in the first week of December. The AMR Patient Alliance will be a place where patients can exchange views, be educated, and acquire knowledge and resources that we need to raise awareness about the importance of sustaining the efficacy of antibiotics — for as long as possible, for as many patients as possible.
Among patients today, there are widespread practices of self-treatment with antibiotics. Patients also put pressures on providers to prescribe such medications — even when their health care provider may not think they are needed. And, there remains a widespread public perception of antibiotics as ‘a wonder drug’; evidence shows that if patients can get access to antibiotics without a prescription, they will do so. Oftentimes, patients may only follow a partial antibiotic course or use antibiotic leftovers inappropriately — if no direct harm is perceived. But these behaviours also stimulate drug resistance. All of this needs to change.
It is always politically sensitive to mention that patients have some responsibility. But, no amounts of funding to develop new drugs or curb AMR now will work, if people at the grassroots continue to abuse their life-saving potential. The magnitude of people’s power is so great…and it can be destructive or productive.
That is why, at IAPO we have joined the AMR fight in order to convert this challenge into an opportunity, by building awareness and empowering patients to take responsibility — so as to preserve their right to use antibiotics and antimicrobials over the long term.
We all have a role to play. The problem of antibiotic overuse or misuse is not restricted to certain countries or regions, although the drivers may vary by country. According to Professor Hanan Balkhy, assistant director general for antimicrobial resistance at the WHO, categories of antibiotics that are only used very selectively when all else has failed, on hospitalized patients in intensive care — can often be obtained by outpatients or over-the-counter in low- and middle-income countries.
And even when drugs to people are being rationed more carefully, an out-sized footprint for antibiotic use in livestock exists in countries ranging from the USA to Spain, Italy and Chile. This exacerbates risks that these drugs may one day soon, become ineffective in human populations.
Finally, only about one third of all countries are actually tracking their antibiotic use systematically, according to WHO, with significant discrepancy across regions — from 85% of European countries to none in South East Asia. In some countries, notably the USA, animal use is systematically reported at the national level — but not so for human use.
The problem is not a simple one — solutions are complex and interrelated. We knew that progress would be slow and the current pandemic has set up new challenges. The ‘infodemic” of fake news and unconfirmed facts has also seen conflicting messages about the effectiveness of antibiotics on viruses — undermining one of the key principles of rational and appropriate antibiotic use.
Appropriate antibiotic use is everybody’s business — not only of governments and healthcare providers, but of patients and industry as well. The old ones we have to preserve, as the new antibiotics discovery pipeline has run dry in the past decade. Our generations have enjoyed the 20th century discovery of antibiotics; yet, we need to treat them not as an inheritance from the past, but as borrowed from the future generations. If we want to live in and leave a better, safer world.
Neda Milevska has been working in the healthcare sector for over 20 years in the field of health research, policy and patient advocacy. She is vice chair of the International Alliance of Patients’ Organizations (IAPO), and also serves as executive director of the Centre for Regional Policy Research and Cooperation “Studiorum”. Milevska is also vice-president of the Health First Europe, an umbrella organization based in Brussels, Belgium working on improving access to innovative health technologies in Europe. | https://medium.com/geneva-solutions/a-new-era-in-the-fight-against-antimicrobial-resistance-can-we-revert-the-silent-tsunami-c9e6a63c9f22 | ['Gs News'] | 2020-12-02 12:41:58.626000+00:00 | ['International Relations', 'Antimicrobial Resistance', 'International Geneva', 'Global Health', 'World Health Organization'] |
Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro goes on sale in the US priced at $500 | Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro went official back in January, but so far, the device had yet to hit the shelves. Well, the wait ends now. Samsung has announced that the Galaxy XCover Pro is now available in the US via online channels, and will soon be up for grabs from retail outlets as well.
The Galaxy XCover Pro costs $500 and is now available from Verizon. Unlocked units can be purchased from Samsung.com, Microsoft.com, and other authorized distribution channels. It will also be available from Microsoft, Samsung, and Verizon retail stores soon, but a date has not been specified yet.
The rugged Galaxy XCover Pro is targeted at enterprise and front line workers who work in situations where mechanical hazards are aplenty. The phone comes with IP68 and MIL-STD 810G certification for protection against dust, water, and accidental drops among other factors.
Here’s what the phone offers in terms of internal hardware:
Display6.3” FHD+, Wet Touch, Glove ModeProcessorExynos 9611 (2GHz Octa-core)RAM4GBStorage64GB, microSD up to 512GBCameraSingle Front Camera: 13MP, FF, F2.0
Dual Rear Camera: 25MP, AF, F1.7 + 8MP, FF, F2.2Battery4,050 mAh, user replaceable, Fast Charging (15W)OSAndroid 10.0SIMDual SIM (EUR), Single SIM (NA)2NFCNFC (EMV L1)Augmented RealityGoogle AR CoreDesignFull ScreenRuggedIP68, 1.5m drop (MIL-STD 810G certified)SensorAccelerometer, Proximity, Compass, GyroscopePogo PinCharging onlyBiometric SecurityFingerprint (side)mPOSmPOS Ready | https://medium.com/foneman/samsung-galaxy-xcover-pro-goes-on-sale-in-the-us-priced-at-500-a3b68cf1196b | ['Yashdeep Raj'] | 2020-04-23 12:47:19.100000+00:00 | ['Samsung', 'Android', 'Galaxy Xcover Pro', 'Smartphones'] |
I rebuilt my website in Node.js, and it died in Google. Here’s what I learned | I rebuilt my website in Node.js, and it died in Google. Here’s what I learned Stuart Costen Follow Oct 27 · 11 min read
Photo by Nathana Rebouças on Unsplash
There is always a slight trepidation about putting a new website live, and for a good reason, it’s usually untested by anyone (or anything).
Now, I think I’m fairly OK with UX and UI. I understand a website should be easy to use, look good, and most of all, be interesting and engaging for the user.
I was fairly happy with the way my new site looked and worked.
So I pressed the Go Live button, and for a week or so everything was going great, then suddenly my website fell off a cliff.
Oh oh
Google’s Search Console performance graph began to head downwards, my website visits plummeted, and the contemplation to turn my old site back on was playing in the back of my mind.
But not one to take the easy route I decided to turn it into a challenge.
Google’s Search Console became a window to a world I’d seen on many an occasion but never stopped long enough to have a proper look round.
I also started investigating what techniques other websites, who were top of the rankings for keywords I used to rank for myself, were using.
After a month of tweaks, harsh lessons and hours spent checking Google for my chosen keywords, the performance graph is starting to rise, but I am by no means out of the woods...yet.
I’ve decided to share my findings and lessons I have learned along the way with you all, mainly so you don’t make the same mistakes I did, but also to give you a good indication that a small oversight can have long-lasting damaging effects.
But first, let's start at the beginning…
My WordPress website was clunky. It was loading slowly and failing miserably on Google’s page speed metrics.
Although still doing fairly well in Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Pages), I was hungry for a faster website and one that was simpler to theme, so I settled on the technology I was going to use and started work. Having plenty of time during lockdown certainly helped.
Now, as a web developer by trade, I have the power to mould a website any way I choose. I find the usual issue with a CMS driven website is that the various plugins you install, and the general mechanics of way CMS’s are built, mean that some elements are out of your control, mainly how many stylesheets/scripts are referenced, the code under the hood being miswritten from a speed point of view, or lots of unnecessary stuff there to handle a plethora of situations that won’t happen with your setup.
This means that when you run the Lighthouse report in Chrome, it hates you.
My main pages were getting below 40 on the performance score out of 100.
Booooo
I’d read somewhere that Google was going to start using site speed as a ranking factor. So to give me a little edge over the competition, which most are sitting at below 40 for performance themselves, I decided to rebuild the site in NodeJs completely and set out employing all the page speed tactics I could find.
I yearned for a performance score over 90, and I wasn’t going to get that from my old WordPress site.
And so I did it. Built it, tested it and pushed it live.
Winner winner
And about 3 weeks in…that’s when the problems started.
I noticed a slight rise at first, as Google was probably noticing I’d made a change and showing its appreciation for updated content, but then I noticed my usually top 4 keywords were now falling on to page 2, and as you are probably aware page 2 might as well be page 100 for the amount of traffic you are going to get.
Panic set in, what have I done? I’ve taken my well-ranking website and shot it to pieces. And for what? Failure.
My first port of call, and quite rightly if you want to rank higher in Google, was Google Search Console.
Secondly, I had an old version of my website. I could cross-reference for data differences.
And thirdly, just doing searches in Google itself for keywords you want to rank for can reveal a lot more than Search Console can itself sometimes.
So, to the lessons.
I’m no SEO guru; I’ve no SEO qualifications; I have no cold-hard Google algorithm facts.
What I do have is anecdotal findings and musings of the past month of my life.
My site is starting to rise again in Google Search Console performance charts so I must be doing something right.
Phew
But as with any kind of SEO ‘tips and tricks’, what works for me, may not work for you and I have a few things on my side already that certainly help which I will explain later.
If you are building a fresh website with a brand new domain, you may not find anything I am writing about makes much of a difference. | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/i-redesigned-and-rebuilt-my-website-in-a-new-technology-and-it-died-in-google-f403bf9e4a85 | ['Stuart Costen'] | 2020-12-03 21:54:14.446000+00:00 | ['Web Development', 'Software Development', 'Google Search', 'Nodejs', 'SEO'] |
goverHow Do We Vote at a Meeting? | There are a number of ways that a group can vote.
The most common is for the chair to ask, “All in favour please signify by saying Aye.” After the group has said Aye then the chair will say “Contrary minded, if any please signify by saying Nay.” And if no one says “Nay” then the motion is carried unanimously. Some groups have a more casual approach they might just say “All in favour” rather than adding the “signify” part.
If the vote is not clear after this approach, likely because there were Ayes and Nays, then the board chair can repeat the process by asking for a show of hands. Hands are easy to count and the group will likely have no trouble agreeing on who has their hands in the air and who does not. You count the ayes first and then the nays and hopefully a decision is reached. If there is a tie, check your rules, but in general that means that the chair must cast the deciding vote.
You can also vote by secret ballot, which is the method used for parliamentary elections in Canada. No one has to know how you voted. The secret ballot is a method that can be appropriate for contentious matters. It is possible that a strong willed board member is attempting to intimidate some of the other board members into voting in according with his or her wishes. A timid board member will be more comfortable voting in secret, than raising their hand with others watching them. Obviously this works better in a larger group. If there are only 5 people voting then it is not as difficult to figure out how people cast their votes.
Another method is by polling. The board chair asks each member, in turn, for their answer on how they are going to vote. This can be very intimidating for some board members. I would not generally recommend this approach. You see it used in criminal trials where the lawyer asks each juror to say whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. The intent is that some juror will crack under the stress and vote in a different way than they agreed to vote in the juries’ room. Hopefully nothing like that is going on at your meetings and you do not need to use polling.
Polling on Zoom means a different thing. You can set up a poll on Zoom and get a vote in a way that no one knows who voted in favour and who voted against. So, understand that polling on Zoom is not intimidating but in person it can be very scary.
I have talked about these methods pretty much in the order that you would use them. The Aye or Nay approach works nearly all of the time and you would only move to the show of hands if the Aye or Nay was unclear. The secret ballot is most appropriate for contentious or divisive issues and the polling in person would be used only rarely. | https://medium.com/governance-guru/how-do-we-vote-at-a-meeting-de6ddd720c6c | ['Debi Peverill'] | 2020-12-24 14:07:48.853000+00:00 | ['Voting Methods', 'Voting', 'Governance', 'Meetings', 'Productivity'] |
Micro Services with Sinatra -Part 1 | Why to choose Sinatra?
If you are very good in ruby than other language like nodejs or GO. You can easily find a ruby developer and so this is maintainable as compare to other language like elixir, GO It doesn’t come with heavy package like rails and so its perfect choice for micro service. You can add activerecord-sinatra gem and can reuse code if you have existing rails app. Performance over other ruby framework is much better. Sinatra is 3 times faster than Rails API 5 and 7 times faster than Rails 5.
1. Create a new app with Bundler
Create a folder with your project name and add Gemfile .
source 'https://rubygems.org'
git_source(:github) { |repo| "https://github.com/#{repo}.git" }
ruby '2.4.2'
gem 'sinatra', require: 'sinatra'
gem "puma" # to start our server
Create config.ru so that it load bundler before it loads Sinatra app.
require 'rubygems'
require 'bundler'
Bundler.require
require './microservice_with_sinatra_app'
run MicroserviceWithSinatraApp
Now add a new file described in config.r u` i.e. microservice_with_sinatra_app.rb
require_relative 'env'
class MicroserviceWithSinatraApp < Sinatra::Base
get '/' do
'hello world'
end
end
Yes we are missing environments! :). Add a file `env.rb`
require 'bundler/setup'
APP_ENV = ENV["RACK_ENV"] || "development"
Bundler.require :default, APP_ENV.to_sym
start server with following command
bundle exec rackup
Open http://localhost:9292/ and see you hello world app.
2. Configuration with PostgreSQL
This step is totally optional. If you need to do some database storage you may need this step.
Add following gems ..
gem "pg" # for Postgres
gem "rake" # so we can run Rake tasks
gem "sinatra-activerecord", require: 'sinatra/activerecord' # for Active Record models
Modify config.ru as follow:
...
Bundler.require
require 'sinatra/activerecord'
require 'sinatra/activerecord/rake'
...
Create config/database.yml
development:
adapter: postgresql
encoding: unicode
database: database_name
pool: 2
username: your_username
password: your_password
production:
adapter: postgresql
encoding: unicode
pool: 5
host: <%= ENV['DATABASE_HOST'] %>
database: <%= ENV['DATABASE_NAME'] %>
username: <%= ENV['DATABASE_USER'] %>
password: <%= ENV['DATABASE_PASSWORD'] %>
Generate a new migration.
rake db:create_migration NAME=create_table_name
and edit your migration according to your need just like rails migration.
Now you can add desired models and can work just like small rails app. Next will be integrating RabbitMQ and other stuff required to create a micro service. KEEP READING … | https://medium.com/@suratpyari_blazar/micro-services-with-sinatra-part-1-462174739b8f | ['Surat Pyari'] | 2019-07-29 17:03:03.787000+00:00 | ['Postgresql', 'Ruby', 'Microservices', 'Ruby on Rails', 'Sinatra'] |
The Forest in the City | At Seward Park, a diverse ecosystem of old growth forest, wetland and prairie on the west shore of Lake Washington in Seattle, researchers and nature lovers have teamed up to solve the mystery of the dying sword ferns.
Sword ferns, a dominant understory species of Pacific Northwest forest ecosystems, have 75 to 100 fronds that grow, pointed and blade-like, up to one meter long. Each frond arches outwards in a crown, creating a lush, round and delicately feathered fern. In the Magnificent Forest, the old growth forest of Seward Park, what was once a waist-high sea of sword ferns is now barren earth.
Paul Shannon has lived in the area for 25 years and frequently volunteers at the park. He spends much of his time there greeting others out on the trails, maintaining stewardship projects and collecting data about the forest.
“To me, it’s a bit like finding out that there’s an intact, vibrant, medieval, walled city down the hill, that is complex and stable,” Shannon said. “It’s a beautiful thing to study, and we do a lot to try to protect it. I’m not sure how we’re doing on that score.”
Shannon’s doubt stems from a threat plaguing the forest: an unknown pathogen killing off sword ferns in waves. The die-off has been spreading north from ‘ground zero,’ an area off the Sqebeqsed (skuh-BUHK-suhd) Trail near the old fish hatchery at the eastern end of the park, since 2013.
A similar decline in sword fern populations has been seen in Jefferson, Snohomish and Kitsap Counties. However, the cause remains unidentified.
In 2018, researchers, environmentalists, volunteers and government officials came together to create a plan which lays out goals for further research and collects scientific literature about the die-off.
Lisa Ciecko, a plant ecologist with the Green Seattle Partnership, contributed to the plan. According to Ciecko, many possibilities — from drought to past applications of herbicides — have been explored. The Green Seattle Partnership and Seattle Parks and Recreation have funded mapping projects and experiments at Seward Park.
“We’re thinking about a next step of looking more at what patterns exist across the landscape, what ecological conditions might be influencing sword fern decline,” Ciecko said. “So we’re just at the really beginning steps of working with the forest ecologist to develop a research plan.”
Volunteers at Seward Park are also continuing to test their own hypotheses. Last year, Seward Park received almost $8,000 to fund research on the sword ferns from a group called 100 Women Who Care — a philanthropic giving circle.
Paul Shannon stands near the north entrance to Seward Park’s old growth forest. Shannon has volunteered at Seward Park for 25 years, doing stewardship work, mapping old growth trees and researching the sword fern die-off.
Paula Rothkopf, the leader of the Seattle branch of 100 Women Who Care said the group meets three times a year to elect a deserving non-profit to receive a donation. Shannon convinced the group that the sword fern decline deserved their support.
“What [Shannon] was saying to us was all parts of our communities are important, and nature is one of them. We have to value our environment, take care of our environment,” said Rothkopf. “That was the way he presented it to us, and it was not even a close vote … it was a big win.”
Many changes could come as a result of such a large-scale sword fern decline, including soil erosion, wildlife habitat loss and even the aesthetic impact, according to Ciecko.
“Sword ferns are a really critical component of Seattle’s forests, and at Seward Park in particular they are a really dominant understory species and provide that lush, green understory that we’re all familiar with,” Ciecko said.
However, the sword ferns are just one piece of the puzzle that is the 300-acre forest.
Other species in the park, including Western red cedar, big leaf maple, Western hemlock and an understory species called salal, are also in decline.
“At Seward Park, that’s one of the story lines that we need to come back to in the coming years and with the next round of research: what more broadly is happening,” Ciecko said. “There’s definitely other decline at play.”
One of the most characteristic assets of Seward Park is the Magnificent Forest: old growth trees, mostly Douglas firs, ranging from 200 to almost 500 years old.
As defined by the state Department of Natural Resources, old growth is forest originating prior to 1850 that has reached certain late stages of development. Disturbances, such as wildfires, windstorms, insect infestations and logging, have the ability to destroy old growth populations, said Daniel Donato, a natural research scientist who runs the agency’s old growth conservation program. These disturbances, along with the time it takes for old growth to regenerate, account for the widespread loss of old growth forests statewide. The environmental impacts are significant.
When old growth trees die, the carbon stored inside their trunks from centuries of providing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide is released back into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.
“The other big piece of what’s happening in Seattle parks is that we are very actively experiencing climate change,” said Ciecko.
Old growth forests deserve respect for their complexity and resiliency, said James Freund, a forest ecology researcher with University of Washington.
“The old trees, the large trees, provide the ecological anchor for those systems. If you were thinking about animal biology, they’re a keystone species,” Freund said. “They have controls on what those ecosystems are and how they can function. They do it in a way that many other elements simply cannot do.”
This barren stretch of forest is called ‘ground zero’, a southern area of the park off the Sqebeqsed Trail. The sword fern die-off was first observed here and has since been spreading north.
Each piece works together at Seward Park. From the ferns on the forest floor to the trees reaching into the sky, the park’s biology can enchant visitors — a forest that has lived a human’s lifespan many times over is indicative of its resiliency.
“One thing that feels really clear, especially in an urban context, is that humans are part of the ecosystem at the park,” Ciecko said. “There’s a story, especially in traditional environmentalism, around separating people from wilderness, and I think that parks like Seward remind us that, even if it’s a space that’s preserved and not to be developed, the structure of the forest and the stewardship of the forest is all related to how people engage with it.”
That engagement may come in many different forms. For some, the park might represent relaxation, or time spent away from work in nature. But for others, the ecosystem at Seward holds a deeper significance.
Ken Workman, a retired Boeing systems and data analyst and the great-great-great-great-grandson of Chief Si’ahl (commonly known by the Anglicized name Chief Seattle) of the Duwamish and Suquamish Tribes, spoke of the human DNA preserved in each living tree.
Referencing a speech given by Chief Si’ahl in 1855, Workman said the lives of his ancestors are still present in the modern world.
“When our material — all that biologic material that was grandma and grandpa and aunties and uncles — goes down into the ground and the spring rains come, they get sucked back up into the trees,” Workman said. “Therefore, Chief Seattle has recognized that the people aren’t really dead, they just changed. Now, at a molecular level, they’re in the trees. And the trees continue to grow, and the trees give us our oxygen, they give us the wood for our houses, for our canoes, for our clothes, for all of that.”
Standing on the trails of Seward Park, looking around at all of the species that live together in the Magnificent Forest, it is clear how interdependent the ecosystem truly is. From the sword ferns that once covered the ground to the highest branches that stretch toward the sun, each part of the whole is important. Humans are a part of the environment, and by interacting with it — whether it be a walk through the forest or the biological absorption of our lost loved ones through the roots of the trees beneath our feet — we become part of the extensive history of the old growth forest.
“When you’re walking around in Seward Park, you might want to hug a tree,” Workman said. “That’s who we are; that’s where we are.” | https://theplanetmagazine.net/the-forest-in-the-city-c16fe8795833 | ['The Planet Magazine'] | 2020-12-12 21:01:14.250000+00:00 | ['Old Growth', 'Conservation', 'Seward Park'] |
Sentiment Analysis of a Youtube Video | Selenium
Step 1: Install Necessary Libraries
For selenium we need to install it first in Google Colab. Below are the codes for installation.
It would take some time to install based on your internet speed.
Step 2: Import Necessary Libraries
After installing selenium we need to import all the libraries for scrapping the websites.
Step 3: Setup ChromeDriver and Scrap the Comments
We have taken an authors list to store all the comments made by youtube users.
Then, we configure the ChromeDriver for scrapping.
If you go on comment section of youtube you will find that the youtube comment section dynamically loads when you scroll down. For gathering at least 100 comments I have iterated for loop 6 times. Also, I have taken timer to stop for 5 sec to load the page. If you have slow internet connection make sure to increase the time so that page loads successfully and you don’t ran into exceptions.
Now comes the best part. We start scrapping all the comments and their author details.
We got uncleaned data and we have to clean it as it contains some of the extra details like when did the user commented and how many reply it got at the end.
In first comment, “
11 hours ago
” after username (Aspen Gaming) and “
26
REPLY” at the end of the comment.
We want our data to be like this,
where we have a user and his comment.
For removal of those extra details we need to clean it and then put it into data frame.
Step 4: Clean and Put data into DataFrame
In line 7, we are removing time of the comments after username like
11 hours ago
.
In line 8, we are removing
REPLY at the end of the comment.
In line 9, we are removing
followed by number of replies to that comment.
When a user edit their comments, youtube shows the username followed by (edited). This we have to remove from our username. This is what line 10- 12 is doing!
Lastly, we put author name as row name and their comment in column inside a Data frame.
Our final data after scrapping the website through selenium looks like:
Final DataFrame after scrapping
What are the problems we found here?
We had to do some cleansing before storing it into Data Frame.
These might not work if youtube changes its webpage design.
This is why I switched to Google API. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/sentiment-analysis-of-a-youtube-video-63ced6b7b1c4 | ['Amit Ranjan'] | 2020-12-13 16:18:57.134000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Naturallanguageprocessing', 'Sentiment Analysis'] |
Fatehpur Sikiri | Fatehpur Sikiri
Agra District, Uttar Pradesh, India
After getting up early and fighting enormous crowds to see the Taj, we were already tired by one o’clock. I also thought that nothing would seem impressive after visiting a wonder of the world. However, we rallied with the help of some pizza hut, hired a car, and took the hour drive west to Fatehpur Sikiri and were very pleased that we did. Fatehpur Sikiri is a hilltop walled city that was built by Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1571 and served as the capital of the Mughal Empire for 14 years.
In case you are wondering, most of the major monuments, including the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort in Agra as well as the Red Fort and Jami Masjid in Old Delhi were all constructed by the Mughal Emperors (usually called Mogul Emperors in America), who ruled most of the Indian Subcontinent from 1526 until their decline from power in the early 1700’s, although they were officially ousted in 1858 by the British Raj.
List of the reigns of the prominent Mughal Emperors and the projects created under their control:
1526–1530 Babur 1530–1539, 1555–1556 Humayun (Humayun’s Tomb) 1556–1605 Akbar (Fatehpur Sikiri, Agra Fort) 1605–1627 Jahangir 1628–1658 Shah Jahan (Red Fort, Jami Masjid, Taj Mahal) 1658–1707 Aurangzeb
Emperor Akbar reigned here before moving control to Agra Fort. If you ever go to Agra, try to go to Fatehpur Sikiri as well. Here are some glimpses of palatial quarters in the 1570’s.
Intricate carvings adorning one of the many sandstone buildings | https://medium.com/squalor-to-scholar/fatehpur-sikiri-2e2c3d34c6d1 | ['John Schupbach'] | 2017-06-27 15:39:34.525000+00:00 | ['India', 'Travel'] |
Sleeping with dogs and bed hogs | Sleeping with dogs and bed hogs
When you finally give up on sleeping alone
Photo credit: Nappy Stock
Dogs should stay on the floor — not on my couch or on my bed. That is how I was raised. My parents had no idea that I’d scooped my Labrador Retriever mutt up and rolled him into my comforter to take photographs. Obviously by the time they got home, I’d unrolled him and we sat on the floor. And I hadn’t let a dog on my bed again for 22 years of dog ownership — until I decided to house sit for the first time. That is when I came to the conclusion that dogs are quite comfortable to sleep with, including the bed hogs.
First there was the Louisiana Catahoula Leopard dog who would leap off the couch and run in front of me every single time I went into the guestroom. She was ready at all times to sleep sideways. No matter how you climbed into that bed, she was going to make sure you were next to her in some form or fashion. I tried outsmarting her by laying parallel. She leaned her entire body over, belly up, so she was still leaning on me.
Then came the Ridgeback Pit mix, who’d attacked a skunk two days before I got to her home. She stank to high heaven when you got close to her, and my first thought was, “There is no way in hell I’m going to let that dog sleep next to me.” She had better ideas. She squeezed her 50–60 pound body underneath my bed each night and stayed planted there. So if I snuck out of the bed, she could see my feet. And if I climbed on the bed, she knew where I was. When the maid came while I was sleep, she knew it. When the gardeners were outside, she knew it. And eventually, I got so used to the smell underneath me for eight days that I stopped thinking skunks have a smell. Should I be concerned?
I lucked out with the French Bulldog and Great Pyrenees/Poodle Mix, who slept behind baby gates and crates. But that certainly didn’t stop the French Bulldog from making sure to only poop as close to the baby gate as possible. Some people wake up to the smell of bacon and coffee. Not me. I woke up on a couch next to the smell of puppy poop.
I was beyond relieved when the incontinent Shetland Sheepdog enjoyed sleeping in her dog bed, the same one her owner said she didn’t like. It wasn’t that the Shetland Sheepdog didn’t like her dog bed. It was only that the bed was on the other side of the room. I’d already learned from the Louisiana Catahoula Leopard dog that if a dog cannot lean her body weight against you, she’s not happy.
Photo credit: Daria Rem/Pexels
But then came the two Cairn Terriers. One of them always wanted to sleep on the bathroom rug as soon as I finished showering. And he stayed there the whole night. The other ran in circles, barking all over the house until I scooped him up to sleep beside me. I learned their sleeping habits quickly. The Chihuahua Pomeranian mix was another bedside fellow, although I always ended up waking up with hair close to my mouth. That is one heavy-shedding, lovable dog.
Then came the Brittany Spaniel, who I wasn’t quite sure about. Her owner, who’d had her for a year, would let her sleep with him. But then he got married and decided he wanted the bed to be for his spouse only. And the Brittany Spaniel did something quite bitchy. She leaped onto his bed and peed on it. I tried so hard not to burst out laughing when he told me, but hey, you can’t just let a dog sleep with you for that long and then expect her to react well to the floor. I wasn’t quite sure what she’d do in my own home. She stared at me for a second, paced the bed, huffed off and I found her on one of my couches each night. It turns out her owner had trained her so well that she wouldn’t attempt to sleep in other people’s beds either. I would not have minded — as long as she didn’t pee on my bed, too.
I thought that I would have to pick up the itty bitty Shih Tzu should he want a sleeping companion. That is, until I found out Shih Tzus may as well be kangaroos. I squatted down to pick up the Shih Tzu the first night I boarded him, only for him to leap over my back and onto the bed, turn in one circle and close his eyes. Those little bitty legs are undefeated.
I’m not saying everyone should sleep with dogs. Do whatever makes you comfortable. What I am saying is it’s all kinds of entertaining to watch what your dog will do when you call it a night. | https://medium.com/doggone-world/sleeping-with-dogs-and-bed-hogs-ec43aa7fe2aa | ['Shamontiel L. Vaughn'] | 2020-05-04 22:31:45.812000+00:00 | ['Pets', 'Dog Owners', 'Sleep', 'Nighttime', 'Dogs'] |
Goodbye, 2020 | I know 2020 didn’t turn out the way you expected.
I know it’s been a tough year.
I know you canceled trips, parties, and celebrations.
I know you didn’t get to say goodbye.
I know you’re facing loss and mourning everything this year was supposed to be.
I’m sorry.
I wish I could tell you 2021 will be better. But no one knows.
What I do know is that the world needs more compassion, empathy, and kindness.
Start with yourself. It’s okay to feel the way you think and be the way you are.
Next, be kind to those close to you and then extend your empathy to strangers.
Some days I step out into the world, and it feels so angry. There’s a sense of collective frustration everywhere I go. People are quick to react angrily on the street or at a shop, or on public transport.
I get it.
Take a deep breath. And now take another.
We need each other right now, more than ever before.
Be kind. Be safe.
We can’t control others, but we can control our behavior.
We can control how we treat our loved ones as well as how we treat strangers. | https://medium.com/@andreahuls/i-know-2020-didnt-turn-out-the-way-you-expected-aadb2a528dc | ['Andrea Huls'] | 2021-01-11 14:38:41.527000+00:00 | ['Kindness', 'Empathy', 'Writing', '2020', 'Self Improvement'] |
Kubernetes Deployments | Prerequisites
I recommend you know the basic knowledge of Kubernetes Pods before reading this blog. You can check this blog for details about Kubernetes Pods.
What Is A Deployment
Normally, when working with Kubernetes, rather than directly managing a group of replicated Pods, you would like to leverage higher-level Kubernetes objects & workloads to manage those Pods for you. Kubernetes Deployments is one of the most common workloads in Kubernetes that provides flexible life cycle management for a group of replicated Pods.
A Deployment is a Kubernetes object that provides declarative updates, such as scaling up/down, rolling updates, and rolling back, for a group of identical Pods. In other words, A Deployment ensures a group of identical Pods to achieve the desired state.
ReplicaSets v.s. Deployments
Rather than directly managing Pods, Deployment utilizes ReplicaSets to perform declarative updates for a group of replicated Pods. The following picture demonstrates the relationship between ReplicaSets and Deployment:
ReplicaSet ensures that a specific number of pod replicas are running at a given time, based on replica number defined in a ReplicaSet manifest. Although it provides an easy way to replicates Pods, it lacks the ability to do rolling updates on pods.
Deployments are built on the top of ReplicaSets. A Deployment essentially is a set of ReplicaSets. It rolls out a new ReplicaSet with the desired number of Pods and smoothly terminates Pods in the old ReplicaSet when a rolling update occurs. In other words, a Deployment performs the rolling update by replacing the current ReplicaSet with a new one. You can check this doc for more details about rolling update or rolling back Deployments.
A Deployment Example
The following is an example of a Deployment configuration for creating an Nginx server with three replicated Pods.
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: nginx-deployment-demo
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: nginx
env: demo
replicas: 3
strategy:
rollingUpdate:
maxUnavailable: 0
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: nginx
env: demo
spec:
affinity:
nodeAffinity:
requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
nodeSelectorTerms:
- matchExpressions:
- key: failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/zone
operator: In
values:
- us-central1-a
- us-central1-b
- us-central1-c
podAntiAffinity:
preferredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
- weight: 100
podAffinityTerm:
labelSelector:
matchExpressions:
- key: app
operator: In
values:
- nginx
topologyKey: kubernetes.io/hostname
containers:
- name: nginx
image: nginx:1.15.3
ports:
- containerPort: 80
Metadata
The field metadata contains metadata of this Deployment, which includes the name of the Deployment and the Namespace it belongs to. You can also put labels and annotations in the field metadata .
Deployment Spec and Pod Template
The field spec defines the specification of this Deployment and the field spec.template defines a template for creating the Pods this Deployment manages.
Pod Selector
The field spec.selector is used for the Deployment to find which pods to manage. In this example, the Deployment uses app: nginx && env: demo defined in the field sepc.selector.matchLabels to find the pods that have labels {app: nginx, env: demo} (defined in the field spec.template.metadata.labels ). The field sepc.selector.matchLabels defines a map of key-value pairs and match requirements are ANDed.
Instead of using the field sepc.selector.matchLabels , you can use the field sepc.selector.matchExpressions to define more sophisticated match roles. You can check this doc for more details about the usage of the field sepc.selector.matchExpressions .
As you can see, a Deployment relies on pod labels and pod selector to find its pods. Therefore, it is recommended to put some unique pod labels for a Deployment. Otherwise, Deployment A may end up managing the pods that belong to Deployment B.
Replica
The field spec.replica specifies the desired number of Pods for the Deployment. Kubernetes guarantees that there are always spec.replica number of Pods that are up and running.
It is highly recommended to run at least two replicas for any Deployment in Production. This is because having at least two replicas at the beginning can help you keep your Deployments stateless, as the problem can be easily detected when you are trying to introduce “stateful stuff” to a Deployment with at least two replicas. For example, you will quickly realize the problem when you are trying to add a cron job to a two-replicas Deployment to process some data on a daily base: the data will be processed twice a day as all replicas will execute this cron job every day, which may cause some unexpected behavior. In addition, a singleton pod may cause some downtime in some cases. For example, a single-replica deployment will not be available for a moment when the single Pod is triggered to restart for whatever reason.
Rolling Update Strategies
The field spec.strategy defines the strategy for replacing old pods with new ones when a rolling update occurs. The field spec.strategy.type can be Recreate or RollingUpdate . The default value is RollingUpdate .
In general, it is not recommended use Recreate in Production based on the consideration of availability. This is because Recreate will introduce downtime when a rolling update occurs: All the existing pods need to be terminated before new ones are created when spec.strategy.type is Recreate .
You can use maxUnavailable and maxSurge to control the update process when you set spec.strategy.type == RollingUpdate . The field maxUnavailable sets the maximum number of Pods that can be unavailable during an update process, while the field maxSurge specifies the maximum number of Pods that can be created over the desired number of Pods. The default value is 25% for these two fields. Moreover, they cannot be set 0 at the same time, as this stops the Deployment from performing the rolling update. you can set the field maxUnavailable 0 as this is the most effective way to prevent your old pods from being terminated while there are some problems spinning up new pods.
Pod Affinity
The field affinity inside the field spec.template.spec allows you to specify on which zones/nodes you want to run your Deployment's Pods. As shown in the following picture, the ideal scenario of running a Deployment is running multiple replicas in different nodes in different zones, and avoid running multiple replicas in the same node. You can check this doc for more details about how to assign your Pods to proper nodes.
What Is Next
I recommend you read this blog if you are curious about how to utilize Kubernetes StatefulSets to run stateful applications in Kubernetes.
I recommend you read this blog if you are curious about how to utilize Kubernetes Services to load balance traffic to your applications in Kubernetes.
Reference | https://azhuox.medium.com/kubernetes-deployments-d04263c67b24 | ['Aaron Zhuo'] | 2020-11-30 16:59:10.920000+00:00 | ['Entry Level', 'Kubernetes'] |
Does the Moon Move with You? No, That’s a Parallax. | SCIENCE
Does the Moon Move with You? No, That’s a Parallax.
Parallax or motion parallax is the phenomenon that an object’s apparent position varies concerning another object or the background when viewed from different positions.
Photo by Benjamin Voros on Unsplash
For example, if one moves to the right about the viewing direction (for example, while sitting in a vehicle looking to the left about the direction of travel), the direction in which one sees an object in the foreground will turn to the left faster than the direction in which an object in the foreground is seen. Background.
Distant objects thus seem to move partially with the observer’s movement relative to nearby objects. The brain translates the relative depth from this. This is known as depth perception.
Photography.
An object to be photographed appears to be slightly different from the viewfinder of a simple viewfinder camera than from the recording lens. The lens and viewfinder are not in the same position or directly behind each other are a few centimeters apart.
With a photo of an object that is a few meters away from the lens, the parallax does not cause any major problems because the lens and viewfinder then ‘see’ almost the same. However, the closer an object is to the camera, the greater the difference between the viewfinder image and the actual picture being taken, the parallax.
With a two-eyed SLR camera, such as those made by Rollei, Yashica, and Mamiya, the parallax can be canceled by the parallax converter, which is located between the camera and the tripod.
After focusing through the top lens, the camera is lifted with the converter, and the recording lens is level with the viewfinder lens previously.
The recording is then the same as the observation.
However, this only works with stationary objects. There are also cameras such as the Mamiya C 330 that show a parallax correction in the viewfinder so that the above is not an issue.
A one-eyed SLR camera fundamentally solves the parallax problem. Because the viewfinder shows exactly what the lens sees, there are no differences between the viewfinder crop and the actual image.
What will occur is that there is more image on the image than previously seen. This is because most SLR cameras have a focusing screen of about 90%. Only (semi) pro cameras have a limit of 100%.
With this type of camera, the image is transferred by the recording lens via a mirror and a prism directly into the viewfinder.
The mirror will pop up momentarily during the actual recording. This creates a different kind of parallax, time parallax. You lose your subject for a while, which does not happen with a rangefinder camera.
There are also digital cameras where the viewfinder image is electronically transferred from the image sensor to a monitor (LCD). These cameras are also parallax-free.
Another parallax problem occurs when creating a panorama by stitching individual photos together: there are often areas where it cannot be properly fitted.
Measuring instruments.
When reading analog measuring instruments, errors may occur due to parallax.
Two types of parallax can be distinguished here, the parallax between the measuring instrument and object and the parallax in the measuring instrument itself. Digital readouts are parallax-free because the result does not depend on the observation.
Parallax between measuring instrument and object.
Parallax can occur between the scale of the measuring instrument and the object being measured.
A well-known example is a ruler that is placed on an object. If the scale is on top of the ruler, there is a distance between the scale and the object measured.
The observer who moves his head slightly to the left or right sees the parallax’s effect: the scale appears to move relative to the object.
Even with a transparent ruler with the scale on the bottom, parallax can occur due to light refraction. If the observer cannot read straight from above, the scale is perceived slightly shifted.
The same amount shifts the part of the object below the ruler, but the part outside is not. Reading through the ruler gives the best result: the marking line and the point to be measured have the same deviation so that the parallax is, in fact, compensated.
The photo shows that the parallax compensation is best too close to the edge; further from the edge, parallax increases because the ruler’s top is slightly inclined.
Parallax in the measuring instrument itself.
Parallax can also occur in the measuring instrument itself when reading a pointer against a scale’s background. The simplest example is reading the time on an analog clock that is observed obliquely.
A commonly used method to combat this measurement error is the so-called mirror reading: just below or above the scale, there is a groove of approximately 5 mm wide in the dial, with a mirror behind it. By looking perpendicular to the dial, the mirror image and pointer coincide, and the observation is correct.
Another method, especially used in cheaper instruments, is the knife pointer, where the pointer’s tip lies in a vertical plane. When the tip of the pointer appears as thin as possible, the field of view is perpendicular from above. This method is much less accurate than that with the mirror scale.
The essence of these corrections is to improve the reproducibility of the reading angle. Even if the mirror or pointer is misaligned, the result is the same as when calibrating the instrument.
Artillery.
When using artillery in a combat situation, the fire control system must consider the position differences of the individual guns.
Although this is not directly related to observation (usually geographic coordinates are the focus), this problem’s geometric explanation is the same as for parallax.
Parallax is the basis for measurement methods.
The relative displacement or fall is photographically recorded in photogrammetry when taking aerial photographs from two different positions. In a stereoscope, the overlapping sets of photos can be viewed in three dimensions.
With a parallax meter equipped with a micrometer, the parallax difference of each point can be determined. The parallax shift is a measure of the height difference.
For example, height differences of buildings and objects can be determined, or terrain height maps can be made. In terrestrial photogrammetry, differences in distances are determined in photographs taken from the ground.
In astronomy, parallax is used to measure distances. The extent to which a star apparently shifts when observed from two opposite points of the Earth’s orbit (i.e., taking two measurements at the same place on Earth, but with a six-month difference in time) is used as a measure to determine the distance.
The parsec (a contraction of parallax seconds) is a unit of distance used in astronomy, defined as the distance an object must lie to be seen from Earth with a parallax of 1 arc second. | https://medium.com/carre4/does-the-moon-move-with-you-no-thats-a-parallax-c1368123146c | ['Bryan Dijkhuizen'] | 2020-11-22 11:08:48.874000+00:00 | ['World', 'Science', 'Parallax', 'Math'] |
3 Tips on Winning in Fantasy Basketball | Scoring is important in the early rounds, but multi-category players become more valuable in the later rounds.
Back in 2017, the NBA embraced fantasy basketball by adopting an official fantasy scoring system. The scoring system includes six categories: a point is worth one point, rebounds worth 1.2 points, assists worth 1.5 points, steals and blocks are both worth 3 points, and turnovers are -1 points. While this is common knowledge for the seasoned fantasy player, it still begs to question what stats should a fantasy player focus on? And do punt strategies win?
In our analysis of the 2018–2019 NBA season, we used a Random Forest, which is a tree-based, machine learning algorithm that uses a collection of decision trees to perform classification or regression tasks. Decision trees consist of multiple nodes testing an attribute on some feature, and the advantage of pooling multiple decision trees significantly increases the robustness of the modeling process. Furthermore, the feature importance method for Random Forests is extremely valuable as it shows what features contributed to, and to what scale, the drivers behind the model. So what does this mean?
When predicting fantasy score, the feature importance shows that points are, by far, the most important feature. The next important features, to a lesser degree, are total rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. So does that mean one should focus solely on players that score? Not necessarily. The competitive fantasy player should also consider specific positions that offer multi-category stats.
In the late rounds, there are scorers still available but when you compare their fantasy output to other players, a trend emerges. Take for example players such as Tim Hardaway Jr. or Bojan Bogdanovic compared to players such as Josh Richardson and Malcolm Brogdon (see above). Because Josh Richardson and Malcolm Brogdon also have point guard responsibilities, their overall fantasy scores see a slight uptick despite scoring less. More on that below.
2. It’s a star-driven league but centers and point guards offer the most ROI.
In our analysis of top fantasy scores, it is obvious that drafting superstar players in the early rounds are key to building a top-notch fantasy team. In the 2018–2019 NBA season, there were 6 players that averaged 50+ fantasy points, and 19 players that averaged scores in the 40–49 range. If you are in an H2H 12-team league, you need to draft 2 of these players in the first two rounds in order to be competitive.
But what about in the middle and late rounds? In our analysis, it seems that, on average, centers and point guards offered higher fantasy points than shooting guards and small forwards. This would support our earlier feature importance assessment as centers are more likely to collect rebounds and blocks while point guards more likely to get assists and steals.
So what does this say about shooting guards and small forwards? While there are definitely quality players in those positions that offer great value, late-round shooting guards and small forwards may score but lack in other categories such as rebounds, assists, steals, or blocks.
This makes sense in today’s NBA. Shooting guards and small forwards playing the 3-and-D role help space the floor with wing shooting, and as such, maybe in a more limited ball-handling role. In comparison, centers are often tasked with rebounding the ball and defending the rim and point guards with distributing the ball and defending the opponent’s primary ball-handler. While shooting guards and small forwards may be collecting defensive stats, one could argue that drafting another point guard could not only help with steals and another power forward/center with blocks but also still help your team with assists and rebounds, respectively.
3. Slow starts are part of the game but centers, point guards, and shooting guards see improvement toward the playoffs. | https://medium.com/fastbreak-data/3-tips-on-winning-in-fantasy-basketball-c5243d32605c | ['Alex Cheng'] | 2020-05-26 17:59:23.950000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Fantasybasketball', 'Machinelearning', 'NBA', 'Datavisualization'] |
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