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AYS Daily Digest 16/12/20: With news of more militia attacks, Europe resumes deportations to… | THE MEDITERRANEAN
Sadly, on daily basis, more people have lost their lives attempting to reach Europe. Four unidentified bodies, presumably of people on the move, were found washed ashore in Libya. Reportedly, one body was recovered near Refinary Point and three in Al-Harsha area.
Photo: Migrant rescue watch
On Tuesday Tunisia’s navy said it had intercepted 93 people of African descent after their boat ran into trouble in the Mediterranean Sea during an attempt to reach Italy, media reported.
In the Spanish waters, Maritime Rescue has rescued 41 people this Wednesday from a boat located in the waters of the Alboran Sea.
A month ago Aegean Boat Report launched the ABR Hotline, to connect with ABR on Whatsapp. The Hotline can be used to send information, pictures and video to Aegean Boat Report, all senders will be kept anonymous.
In emergencies please use Emergency numbers for your area, or the international emergency number 112
GREECE
Islands — evicted with no housing plan, while others are stuck in a worsening situation
According to a government decision, at least 200 people from Kos, Leros, Rhodes and Samos will be forced to leave the apartments where they have been living until now. They have stayed in the accommodation thanks to the Hospitality program provided for vulnerable people in search for international protection. As where they will go in the middle of winter at the end of the year remains unknown, both those affected and those working to help them remain clueless and deeply worried.
On Lesvos, due to the lockdown, the vast majority of asylum seekers are not allowed to leave the makeshift tent camp. At the same time, access to NGOs is prohibited. Reportedly, in order to distribute food or provide medical aid, the aid organizations are looking for alternatives.
The horrid conditions in Kara Tepe / Moria 2 remain the same, exposing people to further dangers, as we reported yesterday. There is no real change in sight.
Photos: Moria White Helmets
Morale has never been so low, the indignity never so deliberate, and indifference never so pervasive among elected leaders. Winter is here on Lesvos, and it will just be getting worse.
Patras
NNK volunteers write on the situation in Patras:
Photo: No Name Kitchen
How’s like living in Patras’ abandoned factories? People here are involved in an everyday routine made of days which seem all the same: eating, going for the game, and, if everything goes wrong, coming back to sleep in this old, enormous and cold dismissed buildings. In their own priorities hierarchy’, trying to win “the game” occupies always the first place, often obscuring all the rest. Every basic need becomes in this way a secondary thing, as they have to spend the day waiting for the right truck, hiding from the police: the timing of this life is not the same as in a peaceful existence. And, regardless what they’ve eaten, regardless they don’t have the possibility to have a wash, regardless where they feel pain, they want to try winning this game in order not to come back in the factories, making life harder every day, especially when you get stuck in this place for long periods. Taking care becomes therefore a priority: bringing food, clothes and blankets can make the day more livable and the night warmer. For this reason, we here in Patras let this solidarity become our activity, supporting everyday more than a hundred of people, standing altogether on the same side in these hard times. And, fortunately, we are not alone in this mission, thanks to the continuous donations and the support that we receive, so we want to give thanks to the different NGOs that helped us in our work.
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Stories from Velika Kladuša…
CROATIA / ONLINE
Discussion & Iuventa film screening
AYS representative will take part in the discussion around the issue of the “protection of European values” following a screening of a film about the Iuventa SAR team.
During their 15 missions in the Mediterranean, they rescued about 14,000 people from drowning. But, in 2017 they were accused of running a “taxi service” for the smugglers. The dramatic events and political awakening of the young protagonists were documented in the film Iuventa.
The film will be available for free screening from Thursday, 5pm CET, for 24 hours on the link: https://festivaloftolerance.com/event/iuventa
This will be an introduction for our AYS team member Tajana to speak about the current state of things, which unfortunately changed only for the worse in the meantime, along with some other guests from the political side of things, the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The discussion will be available for watching online, on Friday at 6pm CET on https://festivaloftolerance.com/film-i-diskusija
Festival tolerancije — JFF Zagreb / Festival of Tolerance — JFF Zagreb
In the meantime, in Croatia, the AYS team has continued providing support and distributing aid to people in need through our Free Shop, all throughout the coronavirus lockdown, and months in between. However, we are in need of men’s clothes of smaller size and in particular — shoes. If you can help in any way, by sending a pair of sport shoes, hiking boots or similar, let us know and we’ll let you know how we can make that happen. Follow our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter accounts for more info.
FRANCE
Calais — people trying to track down the IDs of those who have died
All those who are in contact with people on the move know how difficult and important the contact is for them with their families. Tragically, more and more young lives end on the journey to a better life, whether via the so called Balkan Route, in the rivers and fields, or on one of the maritime Mediterranean routes, or somewhere in the north. Everywhere there are groups and individuals trying, one last time, to make contact with family and find the identities of the people who died. Made up of local goodwill and several associations such as Utopia56, the Catholic Relief Service or MSF, such a cell formed around Calais that engaged in “survey work” among the people on the move.
“We work for the dignity of the deceased. To notify the relatives, to be able to bury them according to the choice and rite of the family, with an identity, this is what plays out” .
Each time, “it’s a race against time”, they say, stating an important detail that they are always in support of the family, “we do not make decisions for them”.
The work of this “group for the deceased” has helped shed some light on the tragedies that are played out on the English Channel, often in the shadow of those who cross the Mediterranean. Sadly, only a few repatriations are usually organized, and most of the funerals take place in Calais.
International Migration Day: All of France mobilizes for people on the move! Join in!
BELGIUM
Réseau ADES started a campaign in support of regularization of procedures for undocumented people known as sans papiers in the French speaking countries:
GERMANY
Sant’Egidio continues with safe corridors
The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising is supporting the “Humanitarian Corridors” project of the Community of Sant’Egidio with €80,000. The initiative is dedicated, among other things, to rescuing particularly vulnerable people from the refugee camps on the Greek islands. The aim is to bring 300 people, mainly children, the elderly, the sick and people with disabilities, from the camps to mainland Italy, where they can be cared for by community volunteers. Care includes the provision of basic needs such as living space, clothing, food and medical help, but also integration offers such as language courses, legal advice and help with a search for a job.
UK
The British government is planning to house asylum seekers in several “camps” without access to electricity and water after Brexit, according to Caroline Nokes, a Conservative former immigration minister.
In the meantime, people are demonstrating they think differently than their politicians.
The Garden House on Pembroke Road, Norwich, owned by Craft Union Pub Company, is collecting festive donations to go in stockings for young people. They are asking for donations to give Christmas cheer to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and teenagers being cared for in Norfolk. They are appealing to individuals and local companies to donate items for children aged 10–17 including warm clothing, such as hats, gloves and scarfs, books, toiletries, stationary and age-related toys. | https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-16-12-20-with-news-of-more-militia-attacks-europe-resumes-deportations-to-917bd82517e4 | ['Ellen Elias-Bursac'] | 2020-12-18 02:39:18.938000+00:00 | ['Refugees', 'Europe', 'Migration', 'Digest', 'Afghanistan'] |
Are Trump supporters fleeing Fox News for even more conservative news sources? | This appeared in The Millennial Source
As Trump is on the verge of leaving office, his most ardent followers appear ready to jump ship for explicitly pro-Trump outlets.
Late on November 3, as votes were still being counted, the Fox News Decision Desk broke ranks with the other major news networks and declared President-elect Joe Biden the winner of Arizona.
The Associated Press called Arizona just a couple of hours after Fox News, but most other networks waited nearly a week before reporting that Biden had indeed turned the reliably Republican state blue. But while the end results appear to validate Fox’s early call, the damage to Fox among Republicans has already been done.
President Donald Trump’s supporters, the news network’s most reliable audience, were furious that Fox had called Arizona for Biden, even claiming that the premature call suppressed the Trump vote in other states. Conservative radio host Todd Starnes demanded to know the political affiliation of the person in charge of the decision desk.
This is hardly the first time Fox News has angered Trump’s supporters, or even the president himself. While Fox News remains the ratings champion for cable news, conservatives have grown increasingly disillusioned with the Rupert Murdoch-owned network. Now, as Trump is on the verge of leaving office, his most ardent followers appear ready to jump ship for explicitly pro-Trump outlets.
OAN is coming for Fox’s audience
No upstart network has made a bigger name for itself in the conservative news media world than One American News Network (OAN. Alternatively, OANN). In April, TMS wrote of the channel, “OAN is more right-wing than Fox News and has been called President Donald Trump’s favorite news network.”
Launched in 2013 as both a companion and competitor to Fox News, OAN built its profile during Trump’s presidency. Trump has tagged the network on Twitter dozens of times, often repeating stories the network has reported.
One of the main reasons the network has grown is the presence of Chanel Rion in the White House briefing room. Rion is a staunch supporter of Trump who has used her questions in the briefing room as a pretext for criticizing other journalists in the room. In August, Trump granted Rion a one-on-one interview in which she praised the president to his face and again attacked other news outlets.
The president has previously urged his Twitter followers to dump Fox News and switch to OAN. On August 16, referencing Fox’s one-time slogan, he tweeted, “@FoxNews is not watchable during weekend afternoons. It is worse than Fake News @CNN. I strongly suggest turning your dial to @OANN. They do a really “Fair & Balanced” job!”
Newsmax and Parler
While OAN may be the most high-profile of the new conservative news agencies, it is not alone. Newsmax is another conservative media outlet hoping to take advantage of conservative dissatisfaction with Fox. Unlike OAN, though, Newsmax isn’t new to the scene: it was launched online in 1998 as Newsmax by Chris Ruddy, a “Trump confidant” from New York City.
Previously only an online portal, Newsmax TV launched in 2014 and was one of the first cable news networks to give positive news coverage to Trump’s fledgling presidential campaign in 2015. Newsmax has consistently pushed pro-Trump narratives and ever since Election Day has been reporting the baseless claim that the Democrats stole the 2020 election.
In terms of ratings, Newsmax is no competition for Fox, but as CNN reported, the network’s election week coverage brought it a major boost. Newsmax had been averaging around 65,000 viewers at the end of October, but the first week of November found the network averaging 182,000 viewers, including a remarkable 700,000 to 800,000 viewers for its evening broadcasts.
Also experiencing growth after the election is the social media platform Parler. In recent months, conservative Twitter users, including Republican politicians and Fox News hosts, have been inviting their followers to join them on this new platform.
Parler was created as an alternative to established social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which have been accused of censoring conservatives. While Parler’s unfiltered platform is its main appeal, a rise in death threats aimed at liberals and Democrats has appeared on the platform in the wake of Biden’s defeat of Trump.
Parler claims its membership jumped from 4.5 million to 8 million in the week following the election. Those numbers are still only a fraction of Twitter’s total membership, but both Newsmax and Parler’s recent growth suggests that conservatives — specifically, Trump’s loyal supporters — are looking for media outlets with like-minded content.
It also indicates that Trump has an audience waiting for his next move.
Trump TV?
On November 12, Axios reported, “President Trump has told friends he wants to start a digital media company to clobber Fox News and undermine the conservative-friendly network.” Trump has made no secret of his disagreements with the stalwart conservative news network, frequently tweeting his annoyance with Fox when it has, on occasion, been critical of him.
Instead of attempting to create a cable news network to directly compete with Fox, though, Axios reports the president’s plan is to create a paid subscription streaming media empire. Details on what type of programming would appear on this network are unknown, but with the Trump campaign’s extensive list of phone numbers and email addresses, outreach would be easy.
Speculation that Trump has his sights set on running his own conservative media empire isn’t new. In 2016, when consensus in the mainstream media was that Trump was heading toward defeat, there was speculation that his endgame was converting his loyal political supporters into an audience for his own cable television network.
If that really had been the goal, it was at least temporarily put on the back burner when Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to win the White House. | https://medium.com/never-fear/are-trump-supporters-fleeing-fox-news-for-even-more-conservative-news-sources-c572c3c0cff6 | ['The Millennial Source'] | 2020-11-26 06:48:21.161000+00:00 | ['News', 'Fox News', 'Trump Supporters'] |
A Daily Dose of Death | Promoting True Healing
Despite the common allegation that Methadone maintenance is different for everyone and so some have to take it for years or for life…the truth remains that this theory of “treatment” is not acceptable. It is not safe and its effects are not congruent with normalcy.
If you question my observations and theories…go to a Methadone clinic in your area and sit outside anywhere from 6 am to 11 am and observe…or better yet,…go INSIDE the clinic as a passive onlooker and take in the environment as it is.
The call that has rung out since the 1950s aimed at the medical and recovery communities to accept and address the addict’s state as simply human is still far from being heard and implemented.
Understanding the need for the brain to heal completely from addiction…not just be put at bay from the effects of addiction…will facilitate the dire need to actively treat addiction as a medical condition.
The brain CAN heal. Methadone only keeps an addict’s death and healing at bay.
I am all for the longer terms of proper and fully rounded temporary treatment of Suboxone and Buprenorphine in combination with adequate and continual therapy…and the access to this type of treatment void of the ridiculous prices a recovering addict is forced to pay to just to STAY ALIVE if not covered by insurance (which is most addicts.)
I can only condone the temporary use of Methadone if the entity offering it adamantly addresses the core needs of the recovering addict in terms of lab testing, monitoring of the patient’s person (dress, attitude, demeanor, and body language) through the confirmation and implementation of appropriate counseling and the dosing regimen to include a way to night dose sooner than later in recovery.
The effect of the administered Methadone needs to be actually visualized with each dose through a set “wait” time after AM administration and then documented. Evaluating each patient at least weekly for negative symptoms as noted previously in this piece is imperative to their advance to wellness.
It MATTERS that these patients are coming and going looking like pure hell.
In addition, medically speaking, most medication (especially the ones noted), that is administered to or prescribed to any patient is to be monitored with lab testing every 3 months to evaluate kidney and liver changes. This most definitely is not being implemented in much of the medical community as a whole and not in the clinic my son attends with hundreds of other “recovering” addicts.
Some Perspectives and Experiences of Addicts
Russell Brand, a recovering heroin addict, and advocate for abstinence has something to say about Methadone use.
“We might as well let people carry on taking drugs if they’re going to be on methadone,” Brand says. “Obviously it’s painful to abstain, but at least it’s hope-based.”
Brand was put on a recovery programme after his agent, John Noel, found him taking heroin in the toilet at an office Christmas party 10 years ago. Brand checked into Focus 12, an independent charity that runs a 12-week rehabilitation programme in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, overseen by chief executive Chip Somers, who is himself a former heroin addict.
Somers says: “The beauty of the methadone programme is that it’s really easy. You just dish it out. End of story… It’s a way of shutting up a large population of drug addicts and keeping them out of the way instead of having to engage with people and do things differently.”
I know that not every Methadone patient shares this perspective, but I am presenting the idea that they are themselves being seduced into accepting that Methadone is true “treatment” and potentially is lifelong.
This position does not include the idea of their eventual healing of the need for Methadone, specifically, nor its effects. Addicts are persuaded that Methadone is a be-all-end-all to their addictive suffering which, in exchange for their addiction, has the strong potential to be lifelong. Perhaps they cannot do without it? Sound familiar?
Sounds like Heroin.
This idea of the lifelong need to medicate yourself with the closest thing to the opiate killing you is just not a rational or acceptable one.
Photo by niu niu on Unsplash
The first time my 22-year-old son took that forced double dose of 16 mg, although it was the safer alternative Buprenorphine, he was crying when he came to the car. He was used to staying sober on 8mg of Suboxone twice a day.
“I’m gonna get high, Mom. I can’t get high!”
And so he did.
I think about the founding Project Director of the MARS program, Walter Ginter, who states his expertise in the matter of Methadone “success” (and I have to say…his comments on the subject reiterate the plight of the opioid addict,) is based on his own decades-long use of high doses of Methadone.
What? Clearly, long ago, Walter accepted that he could never be free of his opioid addiction. He soothes it with Methadone to this day. I am not judgemental of that fact at all. I am devastated to think that this man himself, who runs a program that exists fundamentally to assist and save the addict, believes the addict is never free.
The addict’s struggle is commonly longstanding, but they do NOT have to LIVE like an addict.
Shut the addict up with METHADONE and no one has to treat the addiction and its sources.
Barriers and Challenges to the Pursuit of Recovery
I am writing this piece as I want to expose the sordid facets of “sobriety,” and “recovery” that addicts who want to get better must endure achieving safety, security, and a drug-free place in their lives.
The inconsistencies in care, inadequate and lack of access to treatment, and vile prejudices are serious issues that addicts experience while they are seeking sobriety. Insults to their intelligence and worth within the medical and social communities further damage their frail psyches.
The vulnerable mind frame of the addict and the accompanying low self-worth prevent addicts from standing up for themselves for better or excellent care.
One recent former employer who discovered my son was in recovery, actually called him a loser and told him he did not want “his kind” working for the company and promptly fired him. A recent visit to a new physician who knew my son was in recovery told him that a “spot” on his face was “probably HIV” and proceeded to put the fear of God in him due to his “previous lifestyle.”
The “spot” proved to be a simple skin eruption to be treated with Neosporin.
Medical providers are easily the absolute worst proprietors of the spread of prejudice. They do not understand and seemingly most are not taught, the biochemical workings of addiction and recovery medications.
Most do not respect the opinions and research of addicts who know their drugs and the effects of those drugs in and out…better than medical providers ever will.
Too many medical providers do not respect addicts as humans, much less as patients, period.
Summarizing a Need for Change in Longterm Methadone “Treatment”
Addiction is a health problem, not a personality/character problem. However, there are major differences in treating traditionally recognized diagnoses with lifelong medications and treating opioid addiction with very longstanding or lifelong doses of Methadone.
Now, medically speaking…when a diabetic begins to use and benefit from insulin, their BS comes down, their weight comes down, their kidney function improves, and their heart attack and stroke risks dramatically decrease, just to name a few of the health benefits of insulin.
Yes, they do need to take Insulin for the rest of their lives, barring a patient’s research into the documentation of the scientific work and research overseas teaching that even Type 1 Diabetes can be a reversible/correctable process. American pharmaco will not allow this information to be spread as truth here in this country.
But opioid addicts’ brains CAN completely heal from the gaping holes in opioid receptors caused by the overuse of opioids which cause the insatiable desire for the drug. Intensive, corrective counselling can and does foster and create the emotional and mental healing needed for the addict to come to terms with their reasons to medicate in the first place.
As a mother who is both an onlooking bystander and a medical professional, and in the opinion of those within my reach who are everyday addicts needing treatment, Methadone is not changing or improving the heroin addict’s demeanor, body function, healing processes nor does it improve the function of any body system or emotional malady.
It is a simple mainstay that has its purpose if used in conjunction with the other aspects that will help an addict, but that purpose does not and should not be part of a regimen that overdoses the patient each morning, starving them of a night dose, due to lack of staff or funding to offer an evening clinic or especially because stigma still calls for the addict to “toughen up” and “wait it out” for the AM dosing.
My God, does the average medical community read the obituaries? Do they follow their patients’ absences and worry? A heroin addict cannot “wait it out.”
On a positive note, Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, some of the MARS clinics, and the IntegralCare organization here in Austin, Texas do employ some very dedicated healthcare workers, degreed professionals, who have made it their life’s work to advocate tirelessly for the addict communities. I am so thankful for them.
Today Texas Harm Reduction Alliance returned my call almost instantaneously today when I called to get immediate Suboxone for my son, Landon, as his insurance coverage lapsed yesterday and he cannot go back to his maintenance clinic as of today. | https://medium.com/publishous/a-daily-dose-of-death-95542566fb73 | ['Christina Vaughn', 'Nurse', 'Freelance Writer'] | 2020-02-13 17:03:35.414000+00:00 | ['Better Living', 'Addiction Treatment', 'About', 'Addiction Recovery'] |
Neptune Dash Stock Up 5x from Winter Lows As Custodial Masternode Numbers Rise | Dash masternode company Neptune Dash has seen a five-fold price increase since its lows over the winter as other custodial Dash masternode companies have reported increased node counts.
The Canada-based company, which trades publicly on the TSX Venture exchange, has experienced a significant price recovery since its bottom at the pit of the cryptocurrency bear market. Shares traded for as low as $0.03 in December, which increased to a $0.16 valuation recently and $0.15 at time of writing, representing a stock price five times higher than previous lows. The current price represents roughly a third of its all-time high of $0.465 in February of 2018.
Meanwhile, the Dash price has over doubled over the same time period, rising from $69.66 on the 18th of December in 2018 to $165, showing similar, though less dramatic, price movement as that of Neptune Dash. However, the current price represents under a quarter of the February 17th 2018 price of $744, the same day Neptune Dash reached its all-time high stock price. The prices of the two assets do appear to track, though not in exact correlation.
Pooled and custodial masternode counts continue to rise
Custodial companies continue to add to their masternode counts as investment moves into Dash. Neptune Dash, which also operates a pooled masternode service allowing customers with fewer than 1,000 Dash to combine their funds to receive a part of the shared node’s earnings, claims to operate a total of 21 masternodes. Pooled masternode service CrowdNode, meanwhile, also claims to operate 21 masternodes on the behalf of customers, up from 17 in May when the service debuted its voting mechanism, allowing customers to vote for how their shared masternode should vote on Dash treasury proposals. These two companies combined custody 42 masternodes at time of writing, under 1% of the network.
SALT Lending’s considerable Dash collateral
In addition to the pooled masternode services, cryptocurrency lending platform SALT Lending, which allows cryptocurrency holders to take out loans in fiat currency by putting up their digital assets as collateral, has reported a significant use of Dash for loan collateral on the platform. In a recent Dash News podcast, SALT confirmed that Dash was the second-largest collateral holdings on the platform, behind only Bitcoin. This may be due in part to the new offering by the company whereby users can collateralize their masternode for obtaining a loan while still maintaining operator and voting keys, as well as control over the masternode payout address (which can also be sent back to SALT, automatically paying off the loan with recurring payments). Additionally, SALT indicated that the total Dash masternode count held in custody by the company was in the 50–100 masternode range.
Combined with CrowdNode and Neptune Dash counts, SALT puts the known number of masternodes held in custody at over 100. This constitutes about 2% of the current network. | https://medium.com/@DashNews/neptune-dash-stock-up-5x-from-winter-lows-as-custodial-masternode-numbers-rise-977441a4da7 | ['Dash News'] | 2019-05-27 18:22:45.698000+00:00 | ['Stock Market', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Fintech', 'Dash'] |
Is CBD Legal Where I Live? | The growth of CBD has been nothing short of remarkable, and you’d have to have basically been hiding under a rock to have missed it. You can see this growth both in terms of consumer sentiment and industry success. According to surveys, 1 in 7 Americans have tried CBD. This survey was taken a year ago, meaning those numbers have almost certainly increased since then. Furthermore, the CBD industry is also experiencing rapid growth, with one estimate holding that the CBD market appears likely to grow 107% annually for the next three years.
CBD’s popularity comes from its apparent health benefits. Many studies have found that CBD can be effective at helping people deal with a wide range of physical or emotional problems, including depression, sleep disorders, pain, arthritis, skin conditions, and more. There is no doubt that more research is needed, but indications thus far have been very positive.
In other words, CBD is popular, and likely here to stay. That popularity is even more remarkable when you consider that the compound had questionable legality at the state level and was completely illegal at the federal level until late December 2018. Fortunately, there’s good news: If you live in the United States, CBD is almost certainly legal where you live. However, there may be specific regulations that you have to keep in mind.
CBD at the Federal Level
CBD traces its federal legalization to the 2018 Farm Bill. Prior to that, CBD was illegal at the federal level. This is because the product contained THC, thus making it a Schedule One drug under the United States’ Food & Drug Administrative drug schedule, although it appeared as if the ban also applied to versions of the product that were THC-free. As a result, it could not be manufactured, purchased, sold, or transported.
The 2018 Farm Bill changed all that. In essence, the Farm Bill did two things. First: It removed CBD from the Schedule One drug list. This essentially legalized CBD and made it so that the product could be purchased and consumed in the United States. CBD could be made from cannabis and could even contain THC (short for tetrahydrocannabinol, the active cannabinoid in marijuana that results in intoxication). However, those levels were limited to .3% THC. Anything higher would result in the compound being illegal.
The 2018 Farm Bill also created a process by which states could allow for the growth and regulation of hemp within their states. States had to create a manufacturing and regulatory plan that would allow for the product to be grown and monitored. That plan had to be approved by the United States Department of Agriculture.
Much of the passage of this important bill can be tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell hails from Kentucky, a state that has since developed a large hemp industry. McConnell’s advocacy helped CBD become legalized, and he has since worked to get the FDA to release regulations related to CBD.
While the ability to buy and sell products from brick-and-mortar stores was somewhat fuzzy, the 2018 Farm Bill truly turned CBD into a national business. This is because legalization made it so that individuals could transport and ship CBD across state lines without violating federal law. This allowed for the proliferation of internet-based businesses that could manufacture CBD.
The Food & Drug Administration has yet to develop permanent regulations that would allow for federal testing, monitoring, and labeling of CBD. As such, many states have begun to take matters into their own hands and regulate the product on their own. They have taken some action, but most of those are related to warning retailers who make unsupported medical claims about CBD.
Indeed, as per FDA guidance, no marketer can make medical claims about CBD. It is permissible to say that studies have shown CBD’s potential benefit, but no one can say that “CBD will relieve your pain” or “CBD can cure cancer,” as those statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration. The lone exception to this is Epidolex, a CBD-based prescription drug that can be prescribed to help cure children of two rare seizure disorders.
CBD at the State Level
State regulations are different than federal ones. Thanks to the 2018 Farm Bill, CBD was legalized at the federal level. As such, unless a state had specific laws making CBD illegal, it was essentially legalized at the state level as well.
However, there are fifty states in the United States, and all fifty have the ability to regulate and legalize the sale of CBD within their jurisdictions. However, in most cases, CBD is legal to be bought and sold within a state. However, manufacturing and labeling regulations may differ.
For example, take Pennsylvania. CBD can be bought and sold within the state, provided that it adheres to all applicable federal laws and guidelines. However, that is not to say there are no issues with CBD in the state. At a February 2020 hearing, Dr. Rachel Levine, the state’s Secretary of Health, testified that there were concerns that the state needed increased regulation over the product in order to protect customers. Dr. Levine noted that some customers were buying products that did not contain the ingredients that they were labeled to contain while also expressing concern that people were purchasing CBD thinking they were purchasing medical marijuana. Many lawmakers at the hearing expressed an interest in further regulating the market in order to require regular inspections and labeling.
Another example is California. Like Pennsylvania, CBD can be purchased and manufactured in the state. The legislation written would have confirmed CBD’s legality and noted that the product could also be purchased and sold if it was inserted into food (an area of questionable legality in some places), but that bill never actually passed. As such, California’s current CBD laws are aligned with the current regulations and laws of the federal government. However, California does have specific labeling requirements, giving it an advantage from a consumer protection perspective.
All of this is not to say that CBD laws have been met without any confusion. In some states, vendors and sellers have reported being accosted by the authorities, having their stores raided, or even being arrested. CBD stores have reported being raided in Washington, D.C., Kansas, and South Carolina. Indeed, in South Carolina, an Attorney General’s decisions originally caused stores to remove CBD from their shelves, citing fears that sale of the product may be illegal. However, those issues appear to have been settled, with CBD now being sold throughout the state.
CBD is essentially legal in all fifty states, but each comes with its own restrictions. For more information, you can visit this website, or Google your state’s name and CBD.
Where to buy legal CBD
Eden’s Herbals can sell you high-quality, THC-free CBD. Eden’s Herbals can offer a variety of products, including CBD Gummies, CBD Tinctures, CBD Topicals, and CBD Isolate. It is worth noting that these products come in a range of sizes and dosages, everything from 1000 mg oil to 4000 mg oil.
Thanks to federal legalization, CBD can be legally purchased and sold anywhere in the United States. Additionally, it can be shipped across state lines, so as long as you live in the United States, you can purchase Eden’s Herbals and have it shipped right to your doorstep. | https://medium.com/@danneyh54/is-cbd-legal-where-i-live-19fede215076 | ['Dan Hunter'] | 2020-10-07 15:52:50.542000+00:00 | ['Cbd Legality', 'Cbd Products', 'Where To Buy Cbd', 'Is Cbd Legal', 'Cbd'] |
BABY SLEEPING SECRETS TIPS 2 | Drown out sound…with sound.
“Blackout shades and a white-noise machine transform a nursery into a womb-like environment — and muffle the noise and light from outside. Half of a baby’s sleep is REM, or rapid eye movement. This is the light-sleep stage in which dreams occur, so it can seem as if almost anything will wake him: Your phone rings in the living room, you laugh too loudly at your Netflix show, you pull a tissue out of the box. But that is less likely to happen with a white-noise machine running because the background noise covers it all. Some have timers, but I prefer the ones that plugin so they stay on all night. The Marpec Dohm is my favorite. I tell parents to test the volume by having one person stand outside the doors and talk. The white machine should muffle the voice but not drown it own completely.” — Brooke Nalle, a sleep consultant and founder of Sleepy on Hudson in Dobbs Ferry, New York
>>CLICK HERE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT BABY SLEEP SECRETS
>>CLICK HERE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT BABY SLEEP SECRETS | https://medium.com/@anujsharanverma/baby-sleeping-secrects-tips-2-61b21dcd06c6 | ['Anuj Sharan Verma'] | 2021-05-11 04:13:32.715000+00:00 | ['Parents And Children', 'Baby', 'Baby Care', 'Baby Products', 'Baby Sleep'] |
Vite Bi-weekly Report | Project Updates
Vite App
A major Vite App update, v3.8, is under development and will be released soon. The new release will have a significant user experience improvement close to centralized exchanges.
Vite App v3.8 will have the following new features and enhancements
Improve the layout of asset page. Replace “My Account” with “Exchange Asset”, which is sub-categorized into “Wallet Account” and “Trading Account” to facilitate users to check asset portfolio;
Move the “Account” page to the upper left corner of the app;
Separate “Wallet” and “Exchange” to avoid confusion. In the previous version, users can view “Wallet Asset” and “Exchange Asset” on the homepage, and switch through in a secondary tab opened. The new version will only display “Wallet Asset” on the homepage and “Exchange Asset” will not show up anymore;
Enhance connection performance. Improve the data loading speed on slow internet.
Desktop wallet
New Vite desktop wallet version 1.4.2 was released, with security optimizations.
Compared to the web wallet, the desktop wallet has more strict security settings and is recommended for use.
Installation link: https://github.com/vitelabs/vite-wallet/releases
ViteX Exchange
New features and enhancements
Hummingbot (https://github.com/CoinAlpha/hummingbot — Connect to preview ) integration. After the integration is complete, you can run a trading robot through Hummingbot for strategic trading or liquidity mining on ViteX.
Network Optimization
Recently, we have carried out an important network upgrade to Vite’s websites and API services under vite.net and vitex.net, to improve connection performance and prevent large-scale DDoS attacks. The optimization includes:
Optimized network routing and improved the access speed from major countries in the world;
Deployed CDN services to improve the loading speed of static resources;
Enabled caching to reduce API latency and prevent from DDoS attack;
Added firewall rules against DDoS attack.
Recent Milestones
ViteX Launching One-Year Anniversary Dual Campaign
In celebration of mining on ViteX reaching its first-year anniversary, we launched two mining-related campaigns on Sep 9. Users will receive 10X mining rewards during the event and have a chance to get a free ViteX referral code.
As of Sep 9, total amount of mining exceeds 10 million VX, and users have received proceeds of 96 BTC, or roughly 1 Million USD.
Read more: https://medium.com/vitelabs/vitex-launching-one-year-anniversary-dual-campaign-aa4956b5d77f
Vite Techie Club
To expand our global tech community, we have launched a “Call For Vite Techies” campaign. We humbly call for community developers to work with the Vite dev team and participate in all aspects of development in the Vite ecosystem, including the Vite public chain, wallets, ViteX exchange, SDKs, tools, and more.
We are absolutely delighted to welcome the 20 developers from our global community that have joined the Vite Techie Club so far.
Vite Techie Forum will be held regularly online for everyone interested in Vite tech. The Opening Forum, discussing the decentralization of ViteX gateways, will live on Sep 22. Let’s create something cool!
Read more: https://medium.com/vitelabs/call-for-vite-techies-c64201090a9c
Vite Tech Series
On Sep 9, we published another educational material of ViteX tech explorations, also the 9th article of our Tech Series, that focused on the execution process and interactions of ViteX smart contracts and the user.
Read more: https://medium.com/vitelabs/tech-series-9-five-charts-to-understand-how-vitex-works-61541a1364d7
ViteX Exchange
ViteX Launched Minable, Feeless Stablecoin Conversion
Starting Sep 3, users can trade USDC/USDT, DAI/USDT, BUSD/USDT pairs with 0 trading fees, mining eligible.
ViteX Listing Arweave (AR)
On Sep 9, ViteX Operator Vite Labs listed Arweave(AR) and opened trading pair AR/USDT, market-making as mining eligible.
Arweave is a new type of storage that backs data with sustainable and perpetual endowments, allowing users and developers to store data, preserve valuable information, apps, and history indefinitely.
Data on ViteX
As of Sep 14, 23,091,653 VITE have been burned through ViteX, accounting for 2.23% of total issuance.
119,910,727 VITE are staked on ViteX, accounting for 11.99% of total issuance.
11,183,727 VX have been mined, of which 9,405,218 VX (about 84.09%) are being staked for dividends.
To-date, 101.2 BTC worth of dividends has been distributed. The pool of undistributed dividends stands at 31.6 BTC.
Activities
On September 9, Vite CPO Blackey Hou held a live video AMA with the Chinese community, where he discussed the one-year anniversary of the launch of mining on ViteX.
You may watch the replay here: https://www.yizhibo.com/l/viJfuCApPOf4Xts2.html
COO Richard ran a new AMA for the international community. Main questions answered include: the types of coins suitable for listing on ViteX, proposals regarding VITE un-staking, how ViteX can maintain its advantages, and comparison of ViteX against other DeFi projects.
You may read the AMA summary here: https://forum.vite.net/topic/4173/vite-labs-leadership-ama-sep-10-2020-review
COO Richard’s show ”The Blockchain Debate Podcast“ has published 15 episodes since it was started at the end of 2019. Topics include digital gold attribute of cryptos, practical use cases of smart contracts, usability of enterprise blockchains, sustainability of liquidity mining, and so on. This show is a way for the Vite team to build relationships with other thought leaders in the space.
Some topics being planned include central bank digital currencies, central bank policies such as Modern Monetary Theory, and legitimacy of stablecoins. Recommendations of topics from the community are welcome. | https://medium.com/vitelabs/vite-bi-weekly-report-89fc259687c3 | ['Vite Editor'] | 2020-09-21 06:20:21.458000+00:00 | ['Vitex', 'Project Updates', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Vite'] |
Sony WH-1000XM4 review: Our favorite noise-cancelling headphones get minimal but welcome upgrades | Two years ago, when when I reviewed Sony’s WH-1000XM3 active noise-cancelling headphones, I said that Sony had finally eclipsed Bose in this category. And I wasn’t the only one to say it. Now, the company is back with the all-new Sony-WH-1000XM4-Canceling-Headphones-phone-call/dp/B0863TXGM3" rel="nofollow">WH-1000XM4. While these new cans don’t advance the ball by a lot, they nonetheless are my new top recommendation for music lovers looking for great-sounding headphones that also deliver terrific noise cancellation.
Key improvements include a proximity sensor that automatically toggles play/pause when you put the headphones on and take them off, support for Sony’s LDAC high-res audio codec (a common feature on high-end digital audio players), and multipoint connection via Bluetooth 5.0 (so you can connect to two sources at once). Sony made other very small improvements to the hardware and software, too; but for the most part, those are just tweaks to a winning foundation.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best headphones, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.Let’s dive into the specifics that make Sony’s WH-1000XM4 so great, and why the older WH-1000XM3—which are still available and can be found for about $100 less if you shop around—remain a great value.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG There are some tiny changes, but at this distance you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the new and old version.
Same great hardware, refinedThe Sony WH-1000XM4 maintains the signature look this line is known for, with subtle gold accents and minimal buttons. Most of the controls are still handled by taps and swipes on the right ear cup. I’ve grown accustomed to this but it’s never been my favorite means of navigation. The easy-to-find Power button sits on the bottom of the left ear cup, along with a Custom button that can be programmed to either select Ambient Sound Control options or activate voice assistants. It’s a minimal and classy design that still holds up years later, but the touch controls still present a learning curve.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG The side of the headphones has a nice texture when using the touch controls.
The slim headband introduced in the previous model is very comfortable along the top of the head. Sony claims the newer model features slightly upgraded ear pads, which should help during long listening sessions, but I could barely tell a difference. The new set is more comfortable compared to the old model, but that could also be attributed to the wear I’ve placed on the older pair. I’ve worn the WH-1000XM3 on plenty of long flights and encountered some pressure fatigue after many hours, so any upgrade in that area is welcome. Overall, it’s a comfortable design that sits snug on my head and melts away while I’m working. The swiveling cups and folding design are also retained, so the new model is easy to stuff in a backpack. I’m happy they didn’t mess with a winning formula.
[ Further reading: The best high-res digital audio players ] Mentioned in this article Sony WH-1000XM3 Read TechHive's reviewMSRP $349.99See it For more protection in transit, the included carrying case got a slight upgrade, too, with improved stitching and a stiffer shell that should last even longer. Other tiny upgrades to the case include cloth pockets for the zipper to recede into, and extra flap length on the divider. Apart from the stiffer case, none of these changes make a huge difference, but I appreciate the attention to detail Sony paid to things as minor as the carrying case. As before, provided accessories include a 3.5mm cable, a very short USB-C charging cable, and an airline adapter.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG The carrying case is plenty tough and has some nice touches.
Sony claims the same 30 hours of battery life with noise cancelling enabled, and with my heavy mixed usage over the course of my review, I found the battery to last almost as long as the previous pair. Here again, Sony promises its optional power adapter will deliver the same quick-charge feature that provides five hours of listening time after just 10 minutes of charging, but Sony didn’t send that component, so I wasn’t able to test that claim. The stock USB-C cable charged the cans within a couple hours.
My favorite new feature on the WH-1000XM4 is a proximity sensor that detects when you take the cans off, so as to automatically pause playback. The music resumes instantly when you put them back over your ears. This worked like a charm. I tried to trick the sensor by placing the headphones on my thigh, tightly around my neck, and even wore them like a crown and I never triggered a false positive. When I returned the headphones to my ears, the music quickly resumed with no problem. This feature alone would make me consider upgrading from the previous version, and not just because it should extend battery life.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG I could not feel the proximity sensor while I was wearing the headphones.
Top-notch noise cancellationAs I’ve already mentioned, Sony holds the active noise-cancellation crown with its WH-1000XM3. The WH-1000XM4 feature the same HD Noise Cancelling Processor QN1 as the previous generation, but with a new algorithm.This chip processes ambient noise samples captured by a pair of sensors on each ear cup at a rate of 700 times each second. Be that as it may, my ears could barely discern any difference between the noise-cancellation performance of the WH-1000XM4 compared to its predecessor.
Any noise-cancellation strategy starts passively, with large ear cups that form a tight but comfortable seal around your ears to blunt the sharp edges of loud sounds and quiet the high-pitch hum of appliances. This is an underappreciated aspect of the experience, and it’s where cheaper headphones typically falter.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG The ear pads are soft and comfortable.
Active noise cancellation filters out low and mid-range frequency noise to a great degree, but filtering low-frequency noise is where active noise-cancelling headphones really shine—even if it can be disorienting for folks experiencing it for the first time. Transient (high-amplitude, short-duration) sounds can still penetrate this system, and these headphones do their best to clamp down on the signal, but it can be jarring if the transient is very loud.
I am at least as pleased with the WH-1000XM4’s active noise cancellation as I was with the previous generation. My daily life has been very different than what it was at the beginning of the year. I work out of my home instead of going to the office, and I travel infrequently, but I still appreciate how these headphones allow me to focus when I need to get work done.
My testing included things like spinning up the fans on my gaming PC, hanging outside in a park, and using a fantastic white noise machine to name a few. The previous model served me well during many hours of air travel and on public transit, and I have no reason to believe that the new model won’t deliver the same results.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG The Sony Headphones Connect app features plenty of customization for noise cancelling.
I appreciate the Ambient Sound Control feature in Sony’s companion app that lets you tailor noise cancellation to your situation. These headphones sense where you’re wearing them and what you’re doing, and they tailor their noise cancellation accordingly. If you’re at home and relatively stationary, you’ll get full cancellation so you can concentrate on your music. If you’re walking, the headphones will pipe in some ambient sound to improve your situational awareness (so you don’t get run over by a bus, for example). It’s a great system and the app lets you fine-tune these settings to your over-blog.com/2020/09/5-4-2020-20.09.2020.html">heart’s content; nonetheless, I quickly discovered that I preferred manually triggering my ANC settings using the Custom button.
Sony also provides ways to quickly override noise cancellation, pause or lower the volume of your music, and pipe in ambient sound if you need to stop and speak to someone without removing the headphones. This is also useful when you’re at an airport and need to listen for a boarding call. This Quick Attention mode was present in the previous model and is activated when you place your hand over the right ear cup. I didn’t use this feature much, preferring instead to take the headphones off. Unfortunately, Quick Attention mode cannot be defeated, and there were a few times when I accidentally triggered it while adjusting the fit.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDGA new automatic override feature—Speak-to-Chat—can be enabled/disabled in the app. When enabled, it recognizes when you begin to speak and pauses the music while pumping in ambient sound, so you can hold a conversation without any other intervention. In theory, it provides a better way to chat with someone than holding your hand over the earcup, but I found that it was prone to being triggered by a cough or someone else speaking while close to me. It will stay in this mode for 30 seconds by default, but you can tweak its sensitivity and duration in the app. I just never found myself in a situation where I preferred Speak-to-Chat to just taking the damn headphones off.
Click here to read the about the rest of Adam’s experience. | https://medium.com/@Tiffany78381685/sony-wh-1000xm4-review-our-favorite-noise-cancelling-headphones-get-minimal-but-welcome-upgrades-64cc126d84a8 | [] | 2020-09-22 00:15:21.397000+00:00 | ['Lighting', 'Chargers', 'Electronics', 'Services'] |
What is the best way to store your crypto in 2019? | How to choose the right wallet?
A few recent years the crypto was booming everywhere: from media to random Reddit threads, people still want to be a part of it just because so many stories of success are out there. But the stories of being scammed by random ICOs and CEO dying without sharing the private keys are told too. But that’s the price you pay for an attempt to become rich, especially with this kind of a new technology having a pretty volatile market and low overall awareness of masses about the blockchain and crypto.
Let’s differentiate wallets first by the online/offline state.
Offline or online wallet?
Offline wallets seem to be useful for long-term storage and claimed to be safe just because you put the private keys on the hardware device like the flash drive and keep it deep in your table drawer. From one point of view it is kind of ‘old school’ and could’ve been used back in the days when people hid their paper money under the mattress: it is safe, but you can’t actually use it if you need it and in crypto world the chances are quite high that you will need to get your coins/tokens just today to exchange, otherwise tomorrow it will be worth nothing.
There are much more options to choose from when it comes to online wallets. You can choose from the installable software for your PC/laptop, there are plenty of web browser-based wallet applications and the last but not least the mobile apps that have been increasing their usage in last few months. Thus, having an application installed on your smartphone gives you an option to check the coins (if you care that much) every time you pull it out and still keep them safe. The thing is developers came up with a bunch of ideas on how to protect one’s funds: 2FA (randomly-generated codes that are changing in a pre-set timeframe and you are the only one who has access to the application that generates them), all kinds of PIN-codes and confirmations of the actions taken via the SMS or Email. Probably, you have the same way to protect your Email so the wallet you’re using has multiple layers of protection so you won’t need to store your money in a paper or hardware wallet.
It’s totally up to you what kind of online wallet to choose, some people like to work with their laptops or spending time in front of the PC, others are more mobile and prefer smartphones: both variants are practically equal, the difference lies only in the service you prefer and the functionality it provides, so do your own research first, before making a decision. Some people tend to keep their coins separated between the applications for more safety or better usability.
Do you actually want to be in control of your private keys?
A holy war goes on for quite a while on this subject. There always will be those who want to keep their private keys and those who don’t feel confident enough to be in full responsibility for their funds. The ability to manage private keys is like a litmus test for the skilled users and those who are not aware of how to use the private keys or the mnemonic phrase.
Another thing, the real people’s stories. If you are a proud Reddit user and you are interested in crypto, then you might already know a lot of them. Some people say, if you do not have private keys for your online wallet, that’s the red flag and you should have never used that service just because it is a scam, which is actually not true. Any wallet relies totally on the number of active users because they are basically their income guarantor. The more coins/tokens people are moving in and out the more money the service is making and being a scam via providing a service that does not allow users to keep their private keys on the phones is nonsense. They are basically trying to keep them under higher level protection: in a scenario when you lose access to the wallet and have the private keys you cannot lose them either or make a mistake while copy-pasting or writing down otherwise you won’t see your funds ever again. But when the service is holding the private keys to your wallet all you need is some proof that you are the actual owner of the account you’re trying to restore access too, that’s all.
Talking about a possibility to import/export your wallet is basically the same thing as making a transaction, the only case it can come in handy when you lose access to the wallet you’re importing and having only a mnemonic phrase or PKs. Anyway, you can still combine both variants or choose the one that fits you better.
Wallet or exchange?
This is a minor issue, but anyway, sometimes people think about what is safer: to keep money in the wallet that you are used to or leave them in the exchange you’re currently using. Well, this depends on how often do you trade, if you are an actual trader that makes money by doing so, then you would keep your coins/tokens on the exchange just to get your hands on them as fast as possible when you see an opportunity and use wallet only in cases of long-term holding.
If you are trading casually, then I think you would prefer using a wallet as a storage for your money just because there are apps that feel more comfortable and easier to use than the exchange. Anyway, the service should be used for what it was originally aimed at: exchanges were made for trading and wallets were made to keep your money safe and sound while you are doing something else.
TIP: whatever people say or do, you will always need to do your own research and often as the time passes you are going to change your mind about the services you were used to and the needs for the future. | https://medium.com/@trevrblack391/what-is-the-best-way-to-store-your-crypto-in-2019-4b80b495886d | ['Trevor Black'] | 2019-02-25 14:00:44.621000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Wallet', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency News', 'Crypto'] |
🔭 Software you should own as a Junior Android Developer | ⚙️ IDE (Integrated development environment)
First of all, you have to choose a software where you plan to write the code. For Android development, there are a few options: Android Studio, Intellij Idea, or Eclipse.
Let’s review all of them in brief:
Android Studio — in my opinion, the AS is brilliant. Comparing it to other IDEs this is the best IDE ever. A lot of developers after seeing what AS can tell that their IDE incapable.
It really was strongly designed for Android Developers to move the development to the next level.
AS solves a lot of things for developers and makes their life better by using an amazing collection of features that nobody has.
The official description of AS is:
“The fastest developer tools for building market-leading apps and accelerating performance. With an intelligent code editor, flexible build system, realtime profilers, and emulators.’’
And it’s the absolute truth. The only bad thing I can say about AS that it uses a lot of RAM, but it’s worth it, especially if you have a powerful machine 😉
Intellij Idea — this IDE is also cool. But for me, it looks like a more general place to write code.
It might be used for JS, Java, Kotlin, Scala, and so on. It has an extensive list of features but these things are not extensively aimed for Android only.
I like it, I used it, but when I went deep into Android Development I’ve found out that AS is the best for an Android developer.
Otherwise use it because all products by Jetbrains are amazing ✨
Eclipse — is bullshit, that’s all.
Using Eclipse in 2020 is like using Paint instead of Photoshop 🤷♂️. | https://medium.com/@khyzhun/softwares-you-should-own-as-junior-android-developer-14c8b339acd | ['Alexander Khyzhun'] | 2021-01-27 08:21:01.152000+00:00 | ['Junior', 'Tips And Tricks', 'Software', 'Review', 'Android'] |
Unraveling Conscious, Subconscious & Unconscious Mind | Human mind — what a fantastic phrase! It is the most fascinating biological operating system on this planet, that cannot be simulated on any computer no matter how advanced. Unlike a computer’s operating system, each human brain constructs its own unique operating mind, that later on drives the entire mental universe of that specific brain and none others.
In this brief article we shall dive into the various levels of human mind. These levels are commonly known as Conscious, Subconscious and Unconscious Mind.
Now, do not get baffled by the superficial terms. These sophisticated terms only look complex from the outside because since Neuroscience is still in infancy, we the neuroscientists have been busy ourselves studying the neurological roots of the mind. And what we have discovered is that underneath their blinding shine of sophistication, there lies plain human biology. The biology that constructs your mental universe.
In short, your Conscious mind is responsible for all your perceptual reality. It is the part of your consciousness that enables you to be aware of your environment as well as interact with it.
Now comes the subconscious mind. This one is the part of consciousness that in usual circumstances of your daily life remains hidden right below the surface of your conscious awareness. It is the mind where all your suppressed emotions and desires are trashed.
And in the end comes the unconscious mind. This part of your mind remains asleep throughout your lifetime at the bottom of your consciousness. It is the most primitive mental construct which you share with the reptiles. It holds an innate beast that has been there since your reptilian days.
Now, let me tell you about the amazing neurology behind all these levels of the human mind.
If I ask you, are you conscious right now? You’d go right ahead and tell me — yes. That’s because your conscious mind is constructing an awareness in you about everything around you. And underneath that operation of your conscious mind, there are billions of neurons working in proper harmony. Various brain regions work together to construct your conscious awareness of your environment. In this whole construction process, there are two brain regions that require specific mention. These are the limbic system and the frontal lobes of your brain. The limbic system is responsible for all your emotional responses, that are major elements of your conscious experiences. And the frontal lobes, or more specifically the prefrontal cortex acts as a filter for those emotions as well as your behavioral responses. Emotions and behaviors that the prefrontal cortex deems inappropriate, never reach the surface of your conscious mind. Hence, they are trashed into the depth of your subconscious mind. They remain hidden in the depth of your limbic system.
Over time the pile of subconscious kinky desires and repressed emotions gets heavier. And if this junkyard of your subconscious mind is not cleansed every now and then by bringing the repressed emotions up to the surface of the conscious mind, then it would start affecting the mental and physical health of a person. All the repressed emotions and subconscious desires in time lead to some kind of psychological or physiological breakdown, if kept unchecked. It is what we call Conversion Disorder in clinical terms. Previously it was known as Hysteria.
We get to know the essentials of hysteria from the joint work of Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, known as Studies in Hysteria first published 1895. The book contains an introductory paper and five individual studies of hysteria — Breuer’s famous case of Anna O. and four more by Freud. But the condition of Conversation Disorder or Hysteria dates back to Ancient Greece.
It can happen to anybody. However women are more prone to having hysteria than men, because of their innate monthly hormonal storms. The harder you try to keep your feelings inside, which you think as inappropriate to express, the more vulnerable you become to conversion disorder symptoms.
Does this mean, you should just express every single inappropriate feeling and desire of yours in public? Off course not. I am not a psycho psychologist to suggest you that.
But here is another way to keep your subconscious mind light and with less junk. You just need to clean your subconscious sewage drain with a close friend or your romantic partner every now and then. You just need to talk your feelings out to someone close. It is that easy. Just spit all of it out, whether it is sorrow, anger or kinky sexual thoughts. It is better to express your repressed feelings to a friend for free, than to pay thousands of dollars to a psychiatrist for the same emotional outburst later in life. You can read more about the emotional domain of the human mind in my book The Art of Neuroscience in Everything.
Now comes the unconscious mind. This part of your Mind goes back millions of years to the reptilian days in our evolutionary history. Several ancient regions of the limbic system house this primitive side of your mind. It holds some of the basic instinctual behaviors such as aggression, territoriality etc.
This primitive part of your mind gives rise to those emotional and behavioral traits that never go well with the modern norms of the society. These traits assisted our hominid ancestors to survive in the wild. But today in this civilized world, that monster from our primeval past is kept strictly dormant under the watch of the frontal lobes of your brain. However, in times of utter distress, this beast wakes up and takes hold of your conscious mind and responds in the form of fight or flight. And when it comes out, it actual enables you to tackle a life and death situation in a way, that you can never do with your usual state of consciousness.
For example, we have countless reports of parents lifting vehicles to rescue their children in life and death situations. In these incidents the primeval beast inside otherwise ordinary people lashed out to save their dear ones. And that fight or flight response resulted in an incredible strength which we call hysterical strength.
Thus, though I am calling this ancient part of our consciousness a beast, I am calling so, considering its beastly features. And if such life and death situations occur, that beast is our nearest biological hope.
So, as you can see, all your conscious, subconscious and unconscious realms of the mind have their own basic biological features. They function in proper harmony with each other to give you a rich mental universe. And now that you know how they function, you can make your mental universe even richer and healthier.
(This Article was first published on Goodreads.)
Further Reading
Abhijit Naskar, 2015, The Art of Neuroscience in Everything
Abhijit Naskar, 2016, What is Mind? | https://medium.com/naskar/unraveling-conscious-subconscious-unconscious-mind-71f9c5830429 | ['Abhijit Naskar'] | 2017-10-19 13:16:15.387000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Consciousness', 'Neuroscience', 'Psychiatry'] |
Recycled Energy Saved in Singapore — A Data Analysis Project | Introduction
Singapore has a new milestone of becoming a zero-waste nation as government is worried about the rising number of waste disposal. At the current pace, the Semakau Landfill will run out of space by year 2035 which is an alarming situation for Singaporeans (towardszerowaste.gov.sg). Making matters worse, Singapore has limited land for building new incineration plants or landfills. The government would like to motivate citizens by sharing the total energy that the combined recycling efforts have saved every year.
We will be using Recycling statistics to calculate energy saved every year from 2003 to 2020 based on five waste types, plastics, paper, glass, ferrous and non-ferrous metal.
Code
Loading Datasets
we will be using Plotly for visualizations and Pandas for data analysis. Our dataset is divided between two timelines, from 2003 to 2017 and 2018 to 2020. The 2020 data was manually added using the NEA website. You can find additional energy data per material type on Greentumble .
Waste Data 2018 to 2020
After initial exploration, we found that the names of the columns were different in both datasets so we will be renaming and converting values from thousand tonnes to metric tonnes for a dataset of 2018 to 2020.
Let’s add recycling rate into our DataFrame as we will be using it for further analysis.
Energy Saved Dataset
As we can see energy saved dataset is not in proper tabular format. Let’s convert it into readable format.
Transpose Removed first two columns and first row Resetting index Renaming the columns
As we can see, we have three columns, material, energy_saved, and crude_oil_saved.
Waste Data 2003 to 2017
We will be limiting our columns to match the columns of 2018 to 2020 dataset so that they can easily be concat.
Data Analysis
We will be stacking both datasets as they have similar columns. The final dataset contains samples from the year 2003 to 2020.
Let’s visualize total waste generated and total waste recycled per year.
The garbage collection has rapidly increased till 2017 and after that, we can see the decline due to government intervention. Due to COVID-19 pandemic the amount of collected waste have seen sharp decline in past year NEA.
By analyzing categorical waste type in our dataset and we can clearly see how the same category has different names. Let’s do some text processing and try to make categories similar to the material mentioned in cleaned_energy_saved.csv.
By using simple string replace, we have normalized our categories so that we can merge our data on waste_type.
To check that we have successfully normalized the categories, let’s merge both datasets on waste_type and material.
We need to convert energy saved from string to integer by removing ‘kWh’ and ‘Kwh’.
As we can see, the energy saved is successfully converted into an integer, so that we can use it to calculate the total energy saved per year.
We need to create new feature total_energy_saved by multiplying total_waste_recycled_tonne and energy_saved .
Visualization
Let’s calculate the mean recycling per waste type. Ferrous and Non-Ferous metal has high recycling rate overall and plastic have lowest recycling rate.
We have to check our final data for outliners and patterns by using boxplots. We have found that there was an anomaly in the year 2018 and to figure it out we have to check our dataset.
After going through the total waste recycled of 2018, we discovered that the total waste generated for Ferrous Metal was 126900 tonnes but the total recycled waste was 126000. As we know the mean recycling rate for Ferrous metal is 90+percent but it was showing 10 percent, which was odd, so I went back to the original data on the site and discovered the mistake. We can see in the PDF that the entire zero was missing.
Let’s update the value and check the box plot again and as we can see it looks perfect now. The moral of the story, always go back and check the data for mistakes.
The Box Plot of total energy saved is all over the place as some of the material produce higher energy kWh per metric tonne.
We be interacting more with our data and look for patterns in a multilevel scatter plot.
As we can see total energy saved from paper and plastic have significantly reduced in past few years due to government initiative to control the waste production.
Energy saved per year
It's time to calculate energy saved every year from 2003 to 2020 based on five waste types, plastics, paper, glass, ferrous and non-ferrous metal.
Group by per year
Summarize and extract total energy saved
Converting it into Pandas dataframe
Converting total_energy_saved from float to integer
We are now going to make annual energy saving readable by:
Converting kWh to GWh
Rounding it to two decimal places.
Adding suffix of GWh
Showing past five-year data
Final Thoughts
We have cleaned our data and made sure that it’s ready for merging with other datasets. We have also learned how to detect anomalies in datasets and creating new features. This project was simple, but it taught us a lot of things about data cleaning and data visualization. Due to Covid 19 the amount of garbage collection has halted and with that recycled energy saved in 2020 was comparatively low. The government initiative has also impacted the overall garbage production as people are moving away from plastics to more nature-friendly materials. The paper and non-ferrous material produce the highest amount of energy as compared to other waste types and we have seen a reduction in both materials.
This article is beginner-friendly with detailed explanations on data cleaning and visualization. I have also shared my project code below so that you can clone and start interacting with the project files.
Code is Available at:
Deepnote
GitHub
Kaggle
Learning Resource
DataCamp Course: Data Analyst with Python | https://towardsdatascience.com/annual-recycled-energy-saved-in-singapore-2d6bad49bfb2 | ['Abid Ali Awan'] | 2021-09-05 20:30:29.664000+00:00 | ['Energy', 'Recycling', 'Data Analysis', 'Data Science', 'Data Cleaning'] |
The One Thing No Guy Will Admit to Women | The One Thing No Guy Will Admit to Women
From My Personal Experience to You
When we scan our cultural history for all of the lies that men are assumed to tell women, we’d likely come up with a slew of answers from our art, media, and popular culture. “I promise, I’ll never do it again,” would be one lie that comes to mind that might make it up toward the top of the list of lies that men tell to get what they want. You’d likely find that our culture is replete with the idea that men tell women that they love them, even when they really don’t, just to get a little bit of action for the night or to not feel lonely for a little while — not all men lie for notches on our belts, most of us lie because we feel an incessant need to belong to someone, to be loved, respected, and cared for. Childish, somewhat, yes, I know. But that’s the reality.
One of the weirdest parts of living in a patriarchal society is the fact that almost all of the women tend to assign men more power than they actually have. Most men, or, honestly, most people are afraid, fearful, uncertain, unimaginative, and in need of love in order to feel whole. The constant use of the term “narcissist” to describe men is evidence of this. Women tend to view men as having this immoveable will and treat us like we’re gods (lest the patriarchy doesn’t exist) when most guys I’ve known were anything but. Behind closed doors, they cried and wanted love and sex, but couldn’t find anyone they wanted to settle down with. Lonely, despondent, isolated, these men become increasingly frustrated because they feel like they’ll never find someone special. The truth is, regardless of your sex, great partners are very, very few and far between. People are in abundance, people I’d want to spend the rest of my life with are almost nonexistent. There are plenty of people out there who might be attractive at face value, but if we approach prospective partners with a bit of critical thinking and apply a bit of reason, we quickly realize how many people in our society are really fucked up.
Men solve this problem by promising themselves that they’ll find the perfect person someday, they’ll date her, court her, and successfully keep her. In the meantime, they tell themselves they’ll date around, have some sex, and enjoy their lives. This does more harm than good. Some of these men turn the idealized women into an object-fetish, almost, they deprive them of their autonomy before they’ve even met. They have to keep that image preserved and as pure as possible. These men are the worst types of men for women to date, they’re the ticking timebombs who have to keep everything just so in order to keep their reality congruent with their fantasy. These are the men who women are never good enough for, no matter how good their girlfriends or wives (or boyfriends or husbands) are. These men need a fantasy, a romanticized ideal, and any human element or potential conflict (read: the freedom to choose) on the behalf of their partner is unacceptable.
Weltschmerz is the German word that describes the depression and despair we feel when our romanticized ideals conflict with reality — when reality doesn’t live up to our expectations. And anger is depression turned outward toward the world. The discharge of aggression is the final step in this process.
Many men, today, have an extreme case of Weltschmerz. They’re expecting porn stars, they’re expecting tons of money, financial security, job security, and more — but none of these things are a reality for the majority of men.
Rather than admit the truth to themselves, they lie to themselves and pretend they’re temporarily hindered from finally getting what they truly deserve, usually hindered by some obstacle or another person who stands in their way. Sex and relationships (that these men feel “they’re better than”) soon become the stepping stones to bigger and better things and their frustration, anger, resentment, and sadness only grows. They keep commitment in the background as this ambiguous thing, never making concrete notions toward solidifying a long-term relationship. The ambiguity hurts them as much as it hurts the women they date. Nobody likes to live in uncertainty for very long.
We don’t want to admit this because doing so would require us admitting our ridiculous standards or explaining our constant failures in attaining them. This burden is too much for almost all men to carry. It would also require that we admit that we don’t have it all together, that we need help, that we’re inadequate. This is absolutely terrifying, to most men.
While this isn’t a universal male trait, it’s potentiality is universal and the potential for men to lie or keep ambiguous whether or not they’d be willing to commit is universal.
In Defense of Chemistry
Sometimes, there are universals and sometimes, those universals describe what we lie about — because what we lie about is what we consider important.
While this might not be what everyone wants to hear, it’s the truth, that no matter what, any man knows immediately whether or not a woman is someone he’d consider a long-term relationship with. If someone isn’t his image of “keeper material”, in his mind, he already knows that he doesn’t want to stay with them, though he might date them for a little while for a bit of fun and to not feel that cold, gnawing loneliness I spoke of earlier. No man will admit to women that he knows immediately whether a woman is someone he considers a relationship with, but that’s the reality of men. Chemistry goes a long way and you either have it or you don’t, but few want to admit this embarrassing fact, because it means that someone got rejected and it’s completely outside of their control.
We know it because attraction is not a choice. When the anti-gay-marriage advocates came out to say that marriage equality wasn’t necessary, because gay men and lesbian women had ample opportunity to marry someone of the opposite sex, every one of us with half of a brain and a bit of common decency knew that something was amiss with that argument. What was the problem, exactly? Well, it pretended that attraction was a choice, a switch we just turn on or off and decide to be sexual with other people. For the same reason, the idea that we’ll “win someone over” falls flat on its face. No matter how nice we are, no matter how interesting we become, we can’t force someone to be attracted to us. They’ll never “learn” it because attraction isn’t something that’s learned.
Now, that’s not to say that taking care of ourselves, practicing reasonable hygiene, having our lives and emotional selves relatively well-put-together doesn’t make a difference. Not doing these things can certainly turn someone who was attracted to us off from us and make them decide that we might not be worth the headache of their attraction. But improving any of these areas of your life will not suddenly make an uncertain man fall in love with you. If a man is uncertain whether he wants to keep you or settle down with you, the answer is no — there is no maybe. He either knows or he doesn’t know and he usually knows within the first few minutes of meeting the woman in question.
I can’t wholly fault these men, either, though I can suggest that they outgrow this. We can’t wholly love another person and we’re not ready for relationships if we haven’t learned to love ourselves and just be happy by ourselves. If we can’t be happy alone there’s no sense in making someone else miserable along with us, that’s beneficial to no one. But, on the other side of that coin, a lot of men come from broken homes with awful families, they have no real friends or support structure, which is actually even more incentive to learn to live alone and learn how to be happy alone. Those are the best men, the men who know how to be completely, totally happy just being left alone.
Of Good and Bad Men
Every man knows whether or not a certain woman is someone he wants to settle down with, the difference is, a happy man doesn’t need to date anyone in order to fill some existential void within himself in the meantime. We don’t want to admit this because doing so would require us admitting our ridiculous standards or explaining our constant failures. This burden is too much for almost all men to carry. Very, very few men will ever admit to who falls in which camp, the “Misses Rights” and the “Misses Right-Nows,” and the men that do are the best men.
So how can you tell the difference? Pay attention to what men value. Do they value praise? Do they value material gains beyond the basics of life, home, health, and sustenance? Are they dependent on these things? Do they need a nice car? Do they need nice clothes? Do they require affection from women constantly? All of these dependents are liabilities in relationships. Our dependents are things that most people try to force upon their partners, responsibilities they off-load onto the persons they end up with and charge them with the maintenance of such “necessities.” Right or wrong, this is the reality.
But, what about a guy who’s perfectly okay with a cheap cup of coffee and getting lost in a good book they checked out from the public library? What about the guy who’s okay with a leisurely day in the park. What about the guy who’s got a hobby sewing interesting things? Well, when push comes to shove, these are the most truly independent men out there. The men who don’t need anything but themselves and the very basics of life. Simple men are independent men and independent men are the best men. They won’t lie and tell you they want to be with you when they really don’t, they know it, they admit it, and they continue on about their lives because they don’t need to obtain anything, not love, especially, because they already love themselves.
If there’s one, solid piece of advice I could give to anyone, man, woman, or non-binary, out there, who are interested in seriously dating men, it would be this: find a man who’s happy with little, for that is the man who’s resolved his inner conflicts. If you’re a man, the same rule applies, I suggest learning how to be happy with little and resolving your inner conflicts. | https://medium.com/moments-of-passion/the-one-thing-no-guy-will-admit-to-women-a91314452284 | ['Joe Duncan'] | 2020-11-24 00:38:57.689000+00:00 | ['Sexuality', 'Relationships', 'Self', 'Love', 'Men'] |
Seaborn — Let’s make plotting fun | Seaborn
Let’s start by importing matplotlib . Note that I’ve used matplotlib version 3.0.3 and not the latest version as there is a bug which breaks the heatmap and renders it useless. Then, I imported seaborn . Lastly, to make sure the plots in Jupyter show inside the notebook, we use the command %matplotlib inline .
Let’s start exploring the plots!
Scatter Plot
The scatter plot is useful when we want to show the relation between two features or a feature and the label. It is useful as we can also describe the size of each data point, color them differently and use different markers. Let’s see what the basic command in seaborn does.
Scatter plot in seaborn
The plot above describes the relation between total_rooms and total_bedrooms . Just one command did all that but wait, there is more.
Using figsize, I increased the size to 12x8. Then, I updated the scatterplot command with size of each data point based on median_house_value , color using hue based on ocean_proximity and markers using style based on ocean_proximity . Also, a plot is incomplete without a proper title and axis labels, so I added them as well.
Updated scatter plot using seaborn
As you can see, this plot looks so much better than the previous one and also includes a nice legend so anyone can see and understand the plot — the way it is meant to be.
Count Plot
Count plots automatically count the data points based on a certain categorical column and present the data as a bar plot. This is exceptionally useful in classification problems where we want to see if the various classes are of same size. However, as this is not a classification data and there is only one categorical column, I decided to go with it.
The plots in seaborn allow us to also add text to each bar using annotate . On taking a closer look at the dataset, we see that a lot of metadata information is missing. For example, the column ocean_proximity has the value <1H OCEAN which has not been described anywhere. One should always collect metadata information as well as work with datasets which have proper information. As this is just a reference dataset for understanding plots, it’s not that big of a deal.
Count plot using seaborn
In the plot above, we can see that the data for this column is highly skewed. Having text along with bars is really useful as the last type ISLAND looks like a zero value just by looking at the plots.
Histograms
Histograms are an effective way to show continuous points of data and see how they are distributed. We could see that most values are to the lower side, or to the higher side or evenly distributed.
The dist plot in seaborn produces both a histogram as well as a density line on that plot based on the data. I defined a total number of 10 bins such that the whole median_house_value is distributed into 10 different buckets.
Histogram (with density) in seaborn
As we can see, the distribution seems quite normal with a slight spike at the higher side. The blue line in the plot above defines the distribution of density.
Violin Plot
Before working with seaborn, I always saw these weird looking plots in various articles and wondered what they were. Then, I read about them and found out that they were violin plots which are quite similar to box plots and depict the width based on the density to reflect the data distribution. Creating a violin plot is just a command away in seaborn.
Violin plot in seaborn
Before we move ahead, let’s see how to understand these plots. Consider the green plot INLAND . The black line that extends from zero to approximately 250000 is the 95% confidence interval. The thick black block inside is the interquartile range meaning approximately 50% of all data lies in this range. The width of the plot is based on the density of the data. We can understand it as the histogram of this specific dataset with the black line as the x-axis that is completely smoothed out and turned 90 degrees.
Heatmap
A correlation matrix helps us see how all features and labels are related to one another and the level of dependance. The pandas dataframe has a function called corr() which generates a correlation matrix and when we input it to the seaborn heatmap, we get a beautiful heatmap. Setting annot as True ensures that the correlations are also defined with numbers.
Heatmap in seaborn
While the whole plot is useful, we can start by taking a look at the last column and noticing how each feature may be related to the label median_house_value . median_income is the most related to the label with a value of 0.69 .
Joint Plot
A joint plot is a combination of scatter plot along with the density plots (histograms) for both features we’re trying to plot. The seaborn’s joint plot allows us to even plot a linear regression all by itself using kind as reg . I defined the square dimensions using height as 8 and color as green .
Joint plot in seaborn
The green line depicts the linear regression based on the data points.
Box Plot with Swarm Plots
The box plots present the information into separate quartiles as well as the median. When overlapped with swarm plot, the data points are spread across their location such that there is no overlapping at all.
Box plot (and swarm plot) in seaborn
From the blot above, we can see how the box plots are described for each of the five categories in ocean_proximity . The data points reveal how the data is spread across.
Pair Plot
The pair plot results in a large collection of plots between every pair of feature and label. For each combination of feature/label, this plot shows a scatter plot and for each combination with itself, it shows a histogram. The plot in itself is really useful to get a good essence of the data at hand.
Pait plot in seaborn
The plot above includes an enormous amount of information and that too with just a single command.
Conclusion
In this article, we explored a few of the infinite seaborn plots that can be made to better understand how the library works and what it is capable of. Keep practicing and experimenting as the options are almost limitless. | https://towardsdatascience.com/seaborn-lets-make-plotting-fun-4951b89a0c07 | ['Karan Bhanot'] | 2019-10-16 04:37:29.887000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Productivity', 'Data Science', 'Data Visualization'] |
Daryl Turner NJ | Daryl Turner NJ is the best business consulting service provider. With his business consulting skills and technology solutions, he is always able to create an unmatched experience by helping those who crave their business goals. | https://medium.com/@darylturner597/daryl-turner-nj-b6eed6852662 | ['Daryl Turner'] | 2020-12-17 17:30:09.948000+00:00 | ['USA', 'Consulting', 'Business', 'Profit', 'Successful Entrepreneurs'] |
I Can Confirm The Illuminati Are Real And Only Formed To Film The Music Video For Katy Perry’s ‘Swish Swish” | I Can Confirm The Illuminati Are Real And Only Formed To Film The Music Video For Katy Perry’s ‘Swish Swish” Benjamin Hayslett May 9, 2019·2 min read
A secret society known as the “Illuminati” controls the highest level of global politics, economics, and news media. I can confirm that we exist and the group only formed to produce a music video for the third single off of Katy Perry’s comeback album “Witness.”
The Illuminati is a complex organization with underground operatives in different cities across the world. Our secret society has members that are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, Prime Ministers, and Nobel-winning scientists. All of these connections came in handy when The Illuminati began to move forward with the first phase of our plan: securing enough funding to film the complex visuals for Perry’s video.
For decades we operated in the shadows towards our goal of a clandestine totalitarian world government. The Kennedy Assassination, the abduction of the Lindbergh baby, 9/11; these were all things we considered doing before ultimately deciding we needed to focus on the extensive pre-production for a music video in which Katy Perry does a 360° dunk in front of The Backpack Kid.
I can finally reveal that the Illuminati is a secret society hell-bent on infiltrating global centers of influence, working to establish a New World order. So far the majority of this work has been making sure we got a nice camera, some cool costumes, and figured out how to put in some CGI effects to the little video we made for Perry’s song.
Now that the Illuminati are no longer operating in secret, I can confirm celebrities have always played an important role in transmitting our message to millions of people. However, when we approached Madonna and Britney Spears in early 2017 about appearing in the video alongside Perry, we were not able to offer them enough money. We got Nicki Minaj, which felt pretty good. But once we got down to the extensive logistics associated with running a Union film set, we abandoned some of the grander parts of our vision and ended up just transmitting our message through Molly Shannon, Gaten Matazzaro, Terry Crews and Football Meat Man in the music video that supported Katy Perry’s fifth studio album.
After years of work we have finally secured the reigns of power we believe will establish a New World Order. Funding and producing a high-level music video took a lot of time and we are really hoping this pays off. | https://medium.com/@benjaminphayslett/i-can-confirm-the-illuminati-are-real-formed-to-film-music-video-for-katy-perrys-swish-swish-4f173ca254d3 | ['Benjamin Hayslett'] | 2019-05-09 01:51:34.692000+00:00 | ['Katy Perry', 'Music', 'Illuminati', 'Conspiracy Theories', 'Comedy'] |
Purge Politics in Communist China | Xi Jinping
Pre-Requisites
Communism has thrived and survived for so many decades on the back of violence and suppression. Be it the Gulags in Russia, the education camps in China, or the prevailing situations in North Korea and Venezuela, Communism has distinguished itself as a lurking evil that threatens the world.
China is no stranger to purges and political violence and in fact, a case may be made that it is China which every wanna-be dictator seeks to emulate. Starting with Mao, China has long had a habit of crushing dissent and purging political opposition.1 But, with the onset of liberalization, China had taken a step back from it’s most controversial policies in order to live up to Deng Xiaoping’s ideology of ‘Hide your Strength, Bide your Time’. That is no longer the case.2
It is one man and one man alone who is leading China and consequently, the world towards instability, and his name is Xi Jinping. Xi is a career Communist and has risen within the Party as ruthlessly and cunningly as is to be expected from the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. It is easier to look at the CCP as a pit of snakes, all willing to swallow the other to achieve their personal goals.
Xi has perfected the system of surveillance in China and The Great Firewall is a prime example of this.3 In ominous moves, he has declared himself the President for life by removing term limits and has further spread his stranglehold on China. He has begun indoctrination programs by means of introducing “Xi Jinping Thought” in the State curriculum and by demanding absolute loyalty to him and him alone.4
The reign of Xi has been synonymous with political retribution, espionage, and convenient “confessions” by political opponents.
Purge
The lack of elections mandates that the Chinese Communist Party must nominate its leadership on its own and this sets off a race for influence and power by any means necessary. Xi came out on top in 2013 and followed up his inauguration by consolidating the government machinery. Just how bloody the Cultural Revolution was, Xi’s purges are efficient and that is what makes him all the more dangerous.5
Since 2013, Xi has used his “Anti Corruption” agenda to get rid of all those he believes to be a threat to his hold on power. China systematically purges its government, military, and other services of any who are suspected of dissent in the name of ideological purity. Taking advantage of inequality in China, Xi used the resentment the people held towards rich officials to remove them from power and entrench himself on the throne.6
Such rivals find their assets seized, their families under surveillance, and a sabbatical from the public eye. The most daring of such moves came in 2017 when Xi disappeared senior military Generals and charged them with corruption. This move further extended his control of the military and cut off more avenues of rebellion. The Central Military Commission was short sized and populated with Xi loyalists.7
Xi fashions his rule as the second coming of Mao and is hellbent on walking on his path. In the wake of the coronavirus, Xi sees an opportunity to crown himself Emperor and he is making use of this by purging the topmost officials and personalities, thus putting out a message that no one is safe. Ren Zhiqiang and Jack Ma are the latest rendition of this purge and go on to say that in China, Xi is the Supreme Leader.8,9
What Next?
With Apple and other major corporations leading a mass exodus of industry from China, Xi is looking at a few years of instability and job losses.10 Being a tyrant, he has all the more reasons to be afraid of his people. This fear will lead him down a path that will spell death and despair. Having committed multiple atrocities to maintain power, relinquishing it is never as easy as stepping aside after an electoral loss.
The Ladakh confrontation, Taiwan Crisis, and the pushback from the Pandemic are setting the stage for confrontations and conflicts not seen in decades. For it is Mao that said “Political Power grows out of the Barrel of a Gun”.11
Sources
1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/11/the-cultural-revolution-50-years-on-all-you-need-to-know-about-chinas-political-convulsion
2. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/emperor-xis-china-done-biding-its-time
3. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown
4. https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/voa-news-china/china-pushes-xi-jinping-thought-part-college-education
5. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-41670162
6. https://in.reuters.com/article/us-china-corruption-xi-insight/chinas-xi-purging-corrupt-officials-to-put-own-men-in-place-sources-idUSBREA3F1UT20140417
7. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/world/asia/xi-jinping-military-china-purge.html
8. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/world/asia/china-ren-zhiqiang-tycoon.html
9. https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/billionaire-jack-ma-hasnt-been-seen-in-2-months-heres-what-happened-to-other-chinese-businessmen-who-mysteriously-disappeared-after-sparring-with-regulators-/articleshow/80104551.cms
10. https://www.forbes.com/sites/princeghosh/2020/09/18/the-exodus-of-chinese-manufacturing-shutting-down-the-worlds-factory/?sh=705e2b04c2f2
11. https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1751853 | https://medium.com/@kapilyadav-97/purge-politics-in-communist-china-99132ff215d7 | ['Kapil Yadav'] | 2021-01-06 11:48:45.157000+00:00 | ['Taiwan', 'China', 'Communism', 'Xi Jinping', 'Purge'] |
Anastomosis | Anastomosis
Photo by Haneen Krimly on Unsplash
Somehow
despite our improbable journey
we have synthesized our place,
among the meadowlands.
Beyond the hollow echo
of rolling dice upon a beggar’s crypt
stands the monolith of loss,
twisted bloody daggers, double-crossed.
Despite our sorrowful child’s past
fears that crept inside our serene dens
we listened to that once gentle voice
that whispered our demise
in a guise of deluded perfectionism
self-destruction, we smelled,
that deadly nightshade aromatic coffin
a place of pinewood doubt.
In our brilliance, as we toss another
scroll into the pyre
hyphae into nodes, nuclei into light
algebraic matrices, into feverish might.
Could that have been the one
with answers that drove us mad?
But the Fates now drink,
for those lost to ash.
For we are,
shadows of a dying sun
despite the essence of none
Just when we thought,
the path was lost
we brought the snake to our breasts
the jovial dagger to the soul
just when we thought,
romance had ceased,
a great cosmic winter blew in,
with the four horsemen fatigued,
we found our way
through the vast connectome
that nimble folly
of Lady Luck awakened,
naked upon our beds.
Hands upon roots,
knees upon diamond rocks,
crawling through infinities
unto the other side of tragedy
we found each other
through binary codes awry
through the entanglement
of that timeliness longing
we made our way through the dim
caves of yesterday,
bestowing nutrients and life
to our roots of spring
eternal flowing,
once more, branching
we write…
a love story,
never seen.
© Bradley J Nordell 2020
Author’s note: Anastomosis is a connection between two or more things normally diverging or branching(e.g., veins, mycelium, shearing of metamorphic regions, or river channels.) | https://medium.com/scribe/anastomosis-2b8c7134a95f | ['Bradley J Nordell'] | 2020-12-26 18:20:38.676000+00:00 | ['Evolution', 'Poetry', 'Connection', 'Love', 'Branching'] |
How to install ypbind on Centos 7 | This blog focuses on installation of NIS (Network Information Service) along with is is’ most critical elements like installing ypbind on Centos 7.
NIS Introduction :
NIS is a protocol helps systems administrators to manage the entire user database from a centralized location in an automatic and reliable way, which in turns ensures that same naming service information is shared among all the clients in an consistent manner where they could distribute admin databases also known as maps, amongst a different kinds of server.
How to install ypbind on Centos 7
Unlike DNS which is used to simplify the server IP Address into human readable forms such as names, NIS is a service used to manage all the servers in the given network administratively by giving a centralized control over all of them just from a master and slave configuration over different but very important network information. NIS is also capable of storing information about users, groups and their permissions along with machine names and their IP Addresses. Some of the crucial information be like User Credentials and Permissions.
Read Full Article… | https://medium.com/@linuxbubblein/how-to-install-ypbind-on-centos-7-57473ea2a266 | ['Linux Bubble'] | 2020-12-15 18:28:09.589000+00:00 | ['Website', 'Information Technology', 'Computer Science', 'Business', 'Linux'] |
What is Ripple? | Unlike many other coins that focus on the individual user, Ripple’s “XRP” coin brings blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to the outdated worldwide banking system. If you have ever tried to send money internationally, you know what an old-fashioned, lengthy process it is. Flashback to me stuck in France with eight Euros in my pocket and my travel credit card lodged firmly in an ATM. The night before a bank holiday. Wish I’d had Ripple then.
Here’s how it works, in a very petite nutshell: bank customers log into their accounts through their bank’s website or app. They decide how much XRP they want to send to someone in another country and designate who it’s going to. Skipping a system that takes two to four days to complete, Ripple’s network sends the information to the receiving bank and in the designated account instantly (in five to ten seconds). The technology traces the funds from starting point to destination with certainty of delivery, and because it’s bank-to-bank, not customer-to-customer, no customer information touches the network.
This is a great investment option for people who send money across international borders… or who know people who travel and might need a quick bit of cash, so they don’t end up eating cold McDonald’s fries for dinner AND breakfast while they wait for Western Union. | https://medium.com/acreapp/what-is-ripple-d9431f87b915 | ['Meredith Davis'] | 2018-06-29 13:27:05.979000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Bitcoin', 'Ripple', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Xrp'] |
Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people come out years after they have been married to… | jandruk/DepositPhoto/94683984
Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people come out years after they have been married to an opposite-sex heterosexual wife or husband.
These Mixed-Orientation Relationships (MOR) upend the lives of both members of the couple. Some have renegotiated the relationship to remain married. Others remain bound together in resentment. Some betray their vows with chronic infidelity.
These couples have three choices:
Fix it
Get out
Put up with it
Many of these people ache for just one person in their life with whom they can be genuine and authentic. But shame and guilt present a barrier to disclosing their conflicts with anyone. | https://medium.com/@lorenaolsonmd/many-lesbian-gay-bisexual-or-transgender-people-come-out-years-after-they-have-been-married-to-c6f6b3460f8b | ['Loren A Olson Md'] | 2020-12-18 16:17:58.909000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Bisexual', 'LGBTQ', 'Marriage', 'Divorce'] |
Easy Steps to Synchronize Google Drive with JS 2 File Manager | The File Manager is a component similar to Windows File Explorer that allows users to efficiently manage, browse, download, and upload files.
This blog explains the easy steps to synchronize your Google Drive with Essential JS 2 File Manager and download, upload, and preview images in it.
Getting started
In order to access the files from the Google Drive, we need the Google Drive file provider, which is an interface between the Google Drive and our File Manager. This helps in managing the files in the Google Drive Storage.
Clone the ej2-google-drive-aspcore-file-provider using the following command.
git clone https://github.com/SyncfusionExamples/ej2-google-drive-aspcore-file-provider ej2-google-drive-aspcore-file-provider
cd ej2-google-drive-aspcore-file-provider
To run the google drive service we need client_secrect.json file. This file should be generated from the google drive API that helps to access the files from the storage. Please follow the below steps to generate this json file.
Generate client_secrect.json
Log into https://console.cloud.google.com/. Tap on the drop-down button and select NEW PROJECT.
3. Provide a name for the project and tap CREATE.
4. The created project will show in the notifications. Select VIEW to open it.
5. On the left page, select APIs & Services -> Library,
Look for the Google Drive API and select it. Then, select Enable.
6. Select API & Services-> OAuth consent screen, provide the application name, and click Save.
7. Now, in the left pane, select Credentials, click CREATE CREDENTIALS, and select OAuth client ID.
Choose Web application as the application type, give it a name, and click CREATE.
OAuth Client will be created and the Client ID and client secret will be displayed. Click OK.
8. Now the OAuth Client IDs will be listed. Select Download and save it.
After generating the client secret data, copy the JSON data to the following specified JSON files in the cloned project location.
EJ2FileManagerService > credentials > client_secret.json
GoogleOAuth2.0Base > credentials > client_secret.json
Running the application
Once cloned, open the solution file in Visual Studio. Build the project and run it after restoring the NuGet packages.
Now the service project is ready to use. Next, create a basic JavaScript File Manager example by referring to the getting started documentation. You can also get a runnable and preconfigured example from this GitHub repository.
File Manager AjaxSettings
To perform the basic file actions of read, delete, copy, move, rename, and search, and to retrieve the details of files from the Google Drive service, start mapping the following service URLs to the ajaxSettings property of File Manager.
Here, the hostUrl will be your locally hosted port number.
ajaxSettings: {
url: hostUrl + 'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveFileOperations' } var hostUrl = http://localhost:62870/; ajaxSettings: {url: hostUrl + 'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveFileOperations' }
File download
To perform a download operation, initialize the downloadUrl property in the ajaxSettings of the File Manager component.
ajaxSettings: {
url: hostUrl + 'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveFileOperations',
downloadUrl: hostUrl +'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveDownload' } var hostUrl = http://localhost:62870/; ajaxSettings: {url: hostUrl + 'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveFileOperations',downloadUrl: hostUrl +'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveDownload' }
File upload
To perform upload operation, initialize the uploadUrl property in the ajaxSettings of the File Manager component.
ajaxSettings: {
url: hostUrl + 'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveFileOperations',
uploadUrl: hostUrl +'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveUpload'
} var hostUrl = http://localhost:62870/; ajaxSettings: {url: hostUrl + 'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveFileOperations',uploadUrl: hostUrl +'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveUpload'
File image preview
To perform image preview, initialize the getImageUrl property in the ajaxSettings of the File Manager component.
ajaxSettings: {
url: hostUrl + 'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveFileOperations',
getImageUrl: hostUrl +'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveGetImage' } var hostUrl = http://localhost:62870/; ajaxSettings: {url: hostUrl + 'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveFileOperations',getImageUrl: hostUrl +'api/GoogleDriveProvider/GoogleDriveGetImage' }
Conclusion
In this blog, we learned the steps to configure Google Drive with the File Manager component. Try it yourself and manage your files and images in Google Drive using a UI of your choice by customizing the File Manager.
If you’re already a Syncfusion user, you can download the product setup from our website. Otherwise, you can download a free, 30-day trial here.
If you wish to send us feedback, please use the comments section below. If you would like to submit any questions, please feel free to contact us through our support forum, Direct-Trac, or feedback portal. We are always happy to assist you! | https://medium.com/syncfusion/easy-steps-to-synchronize-google-drive-with-js-2-file-manager-2a2bc73fc67c | ['Rajeshwari Pandinagarajan'] | 2020-06-29 12:03:13.034000+00:00 | ['Google Drive', 'JavaScript', 'Productivity', 'Web Development', 'File Management'] |
To My Unborn Son: | As much as I want you here, there are many people in this world who don’t. See, baby boy, your skin will inevitably be brown and brown skin has never been favored in this country (or this world for that matter). I want to give you joy & love, but I don’t want to subject you to the intrinsic hate this world has for you. You’ll learn far too early and far too well what hatred is. I don’t want to have to wipe away tears and erase your confusion when someone calls you a name that should have been eradicated long, long ago. I don’t want you to grow up not knowing how to deal with the torment you’ll face once you leave mommy’s arms. I don’t want you to be labeled with nouns and adjectives that subtract from the wonder that you are. I don’t want to have to fear for your life every time you step out of the door and I damn sure don’t want your life to be taken by the hands that were supposed to protect and serve. Baby boy, I don’t want anyone ever dimming your light and I don’t want you to ever feel unwanted. God forbid you begin to think, “that’s just the way it is and that’s the way it will always be”. I want you to be born into a world that loves you; a world where people will value you for who you are rather than what you can give them. Dear Son, I want you to love and to be loved. I wish this world wanted you as much as I do. | https://medium.com/@znbrown27/to-my-unborn-son-cb095dfe28c7 | ['Zaire Brown'] | 2019-01-02 00:37:58.040000+00:00 | ['Black Men', 'Black Women', 'Parenthood', 'BlackLivesMatter'] |
Durant’s return amplified Nets to leave victorious against his former team | After missing the entire previous season, Kevin Durant has returned from an ACL injury and embraced the beginning of this season next to his close friend Kyrie Irving, his trainer for a couple of years and now his coach Steve Nash and his old teammate Stephen Curry with whom he won two championships.
It was a great night for Durant who scored 22 points in 25 minutes of his first official game since rupturing his Achilles tendon while playing for Golden State in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals.
This blowout victory was more like a test for him to see how he is feeling while on the court, to attempt shots that he used to make and realize where he is at from an offensive and defensive standpoint.
Postgame interview: Kevin Durant
“I tried not to make too big a deal out of this whole thing and realize I’ve been playing this game since I was 8 years old, so just got to revert back to what I know,” Durant said.
Irving had a robust start making most of his shots in the first quarter and putting a lot of pressure on the opposition in every opportunity he had. He led Nets with 26 points, four rebounds and four assists (10/16 FG, 4/7 3s, 2/2 FT), their third star Caris Levert who played for 25 minutes added 20 points, nine rebounds, five assists and two steals and Brooklyn made good impressions and demonstrated their depth in a 99–125 victory over Golden State.
Postgame Interview: Kyrie Irving
Stephen Curry had 20 points and 10 assists, but the rookie James Wiseman was the one who earned the spotlight after showcasing his confidence and physicality adding 19 points and six rebounds for the Warriors. Wiseman took advantage of the fact that Nets had built a 20+point lead and had the courage to attempt some difficult shots and made most of them. Definitely a great impression for the rookie who was selected as №2 in the NBA Draft.
Steve Kerr praised the seven-footer and admitted that the future will be bright for him.
“He played really well. He looked great out there. James showed exactly why we’re really excited about him. He’s got a bright future.”
Kerr was very disappointed following the Warriors’ blowout loss to open the season: “I didn’t like our level of competition. I actually thought we would compete harder and play better defense. And we didn’t do that. The lack of physicality and competition was the most disappointing thing.”
The Warriors were missing Draymond Green last night due to a foot injury. Kerr acknowledges the importance of his absence and knows that his defensive qualities would raise the competition in the game: “We need his fire. That was apparent tonight. We fell behind early and got a little discouraged.”
NEXT GAME
Warriors will visit Milwaukee on Friday, while Nets will travel to Boston where there are mixed emotions for Irving who left in bad terms a couple of years ago.
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteliosK24
This is my Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/NBA-Western-Conference-644047762388472/
And you can hit the follow button on this platform if you want. | https://medium.com/@steliosk/durants-return-amplified-nets-to-leave-victorious-against-his-former-team-afce147e5906 | ['Stelios K.'] | 2020-12-23 15:56:18.799000+00:00 | ['NBA', 'Sports', 'Brooklyn Nets', 'Basketball', 'Kevin Durant'] |
শেকল. বারো বছর বয়সে খাদিজা বউ হয়ে আসে… | A journalism student who loves to write and learn new things. You can check my other contents here: https://www.malihakhanamzeba.wordpress.com/ | https://medium.com/@malihakz94/%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%B2-a017e46924ae | ['Maliha Khanam'] | 2020-11-09 19:28:01.355000+00:00 | ['Rape', 'শেকল', 'Story', 'Maliha Khanam', 'গল্প'] |
The #1 Thing That Gets Me Through Difficult Days | The #1 Thing That Gets Me Through Difficult Days
My coping mechanism in trying times.
Photo by Ian Chen on Unsplash
I remember the first few hours after my mother took her last breath.
I also remember the first few days. Then the first few months.
Constant sadness pulsing in the back of my head. Grief somehow became a part of me I can’t really shake off.
I remember the fear.
The beautiful woman lying with her eyes closed so peacefully inside the casket had been my rock, my safe haven for years. The first person I ran to when I need advice or just someone to talk to. She was not just my mother, she was my best friend and my confidante, someone I can talk to freely about absolutely anything and everything under the sun.
And she was gone.
Oh, the fear.
And now it’s back again.
The pulsating anxiety for the uncertainty of tomorrow, sorrow for the thousands of lives lost.
Many of us are now living in fear of an enemy we cannot see with our naked eyes.
And I am being transported into my anxious days, when I didn’t know how I would go on without my mother. | https://medium.com/in-quarantine/the-1-thing-that-gets-me-through-difficult-days-4cf2f9e02f97 | ['Agnes Louis'] | 2020-03-25 02:53:20.935000+00:00 | ['Sharing', 'Humour', 'Funny', 'Writer', 'Life'] |
Piratechain – We ARRR a Community | Piratechain – We ARRR a Community
No ICO – no Premine
As some of you probably know, besides the official Pirate channel on Telegram, I also administer the German channels for Pirate and Komodo.
Recently we were asked by a user when Pirate will be listed on new Exchanges. We then made it clear to him that this is not our primary goal at the moment. I tried to explain to him that we are a community coin, had no ICO and no Premine. I also told him that the Piratechain project is self-financing. Through the KMD Notary Nodes and the community. I tried to make him understand that the Exchanges want listing fees and don’t list us for free. They charge at least 3 BTC, which is currently the equivalent of about $30,000. And that is still „cheap“, because other Top Exchanges demand even more, even up to 1.000.000 $ Binance should take for the Lsiting.
Well, he replies literally: „Then no success, so it’s clear to me that I won’t invest. Without Exchange there is no price I can live with“. His buddy saw it exactly the way he commented. Shortly afterwards, they both deleted themselves from the German Pirate Group. Fuck it, but it didn’t stop there. I was contacted privately by both of them, of which one of them said the following: „ARRR has no money and is a poor Community sow project, which doesn’t want to be listed on good Exchanges“. I didn’t want to sit on that either, so I tried again to explain to him that Pirate is a community project and that the money comes from the nodes, from the community itself and from patrons. And that he can also be part of the community himself and contribute his part to it.
In the end he said that he wants to make money and that’s why he goes into other coins now. That’s his intention, it’s ok and legitimate. We all want to earn money. But the longer I am a pirate, the more my view on the project Piratechain and on crypto currencies in general changes. Yes, I also want to be financially independent, but I am working on that. I don’t let it come to me, I go against the financial independence. In the meantime, however, I am pursuing a different ideology.
The ideology of privacy.
Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Co. specifically use our data to influence us in the future, if this is not already happening. For me, the picture of these data Kraken has changed through Piratechain. I try to transmit as little data as possible to the giants in World Wide Web. And I also want the credit balance of my assets to remain anonymous. This is exactly why I try to fill my ARRR Wallet. I don’t know what happens to ARRR, but ARRR is already accepted by the community as a means of payment. A digital and anonymous means of payment. The ARRRmada is an attempt to open up a network of stores in order to promote the adaptation of ARRR as a payment method. And all this happens with background knowledge:
„No ICO, no Premine, project finances itself“.
Community Sow Project
When the user insulted the project, I felt insulted on behalf of all pirates. I had to think of all participants. To Fishyguts, who launched the ship and donated an incredible amount of money to the community to advance the project. Or to MrLynch, who looks after the notary’s knots and provides advice and support to every participant. Or to the developers, especially JL777, who dedicated a lot of resources and work to the project. To all the others who work on this project „voluntarily“ on a daily basis, such as Satinder, who had a large share in shipbuilding. Or computergenie and Jane working on the wallets. To webworker01, who is always ready to help. To KOSIUS, who is very present on social media for Piratechain. To all developers who made Pirate possible in the first place. To Wookie25, who wants to advance the adaptation at the front. To the ARRRmada. To Draeth, who despite his work for PhysicalCryptoCoins is still close to the Pirate project. Or Acura, Mixic, Exile13, who help on all levels. To all contributors and to the whole community, of which I know so many pirates, who don’t rest, but help to make Piratechain bigger. | https://medium.com/piratechain/piratechain-we-arrr-a-community-b0d51d864155 | [] | 2019-09-12 12:14:55.298000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Community', 'Arrrmada', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Privacy'] |
Photography, the Exercise in Paying Attention | They say a writer is someone on whom nothing is lost. No wonder. Writing is paying attention. To people mostly, but also the world at large and your own inner life. I recently discovered that photography could be all those things too. Maybe more. It calms me to take photos because I get to pay attention to one thing at a time. The endless patter of information, thought, and emotion fades to the background, and for a blissful moment, the length of a breath held before releasing the shutter, I am present in the moment and at peace.
I really have to hold my breath for a bit, by the way. Otherwise, the viewfinder mists in the cold from the breath escaping from under my facemask. Eyeglass wearers will empathize, I’m sure. That small annoyance aside, though, photography brings me the much-needed peace of mind.
The contrast to writing is quite striking. Because to write, you have to sift through the contents of your head first, shovel them aside like snow, to clear the way for the argument you’re trying to make, or at least give yourself enough space to examine an avenue of thinking that interests you. Either that or you make peace with the mess inside you and capture some of it instead.
With photography, it’s different.
The fundamental rules are straightforward. The world is an unfolding painting, repainted second-to-second, and your role in it is to point your camera at something that grabs your attention and shoot. That’s it.
Each photo, in essence, is bottled attention.
My friend, Luciano, who’s a much better photographer than I, tells me to put more of myself in the pictures, to tell a story by stringing them together, to drag out the pain, suffering, and despair of my personal situation, to document how our home, that most sacred refuge of privacy, goes through my wife’s cancer. How we change. How our environment changes. It’s a powerful idea, maybe too powerful for me right now. I already have one occupation that requires me to spill my guts out, and I don’t think I am ready for another.
For the time being, I am happy enough to have discovered a hobby that gets me out of the house and out of my head.
PS. You can follow my photographic escapades on Instagram.
Enjoyed the read? Become a Patron to unlock access to more great stories, written and published regularly by yours truly, Sebastian Hetman. | https://medium.com/@sebastian-hetman/photography-the-exercise-in-paying-attention-2b75624ef7dc | ['Sebastian Hetman'] | 2020-12-25 13:50:41.667000+00:00 | ['Writing Life', 'Attention', 'Photography', 'Writing', 'Mindfulness'] |
Bitcoin surpasses $5,200 accompanied by few altcoins | After a week with a significant upturn in the cryptomarket, this Monday Bitcoin experienced a new rise. During the day, the main cryptocurrency in the market has been around USD 5,200, surpassing it at times, after closing this Sunday at USD 5,127, according to Messari data.
Some of the main altcoins follow the increase, although most of the first 20 cryptocurrencies have red numbers. Among those that are on the rise, ether (ETH) stands out, with an increase of 7.23% during the last 24 hours. Its value is USD 176.
Etherum Classic (ETC) has also presented positive numbers with a 3.7% increase in the last 24 hours. Tron (TRX) and Monero (XMR) show an increase of more than 1%, while the largest drop has been experienced by Ravencoin (RVN), with a loss close to 7%.
Among the possible reasons for the BTC rise is a significant growth in exchange in the Chinese market, where an Exchange house ban leads to the use of OTC shops (which often involve large companies or “VIP” customers).
As Chinese market operations increase, this price may have a positive effect on the BTC price, which is US$5.174 at the time of closing of this memo. | https://medium.com/predict/bitcoin-surpasses-5-200-accompanied-by-few-altcoins-b5ad75995410 | [] | 2019-04-09 14:44:06.283000+00:00 | ['Altcoins', 'Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Increase', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency News'] |
America’s miserable K-shaped Christmas | By Juliana Kaplan and Hillary Hoffower
Santa’s in a plexiglass box, there’s an ever-worsening pandemic, and just $600 is on its way.
Merry Christmas, America.
In a year like no other, even Christmas isn’t immune to the devastating effects of the pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci will be celebrating on Zoom, and he’s urging fellow Americans to do the same.
Tragically, many families will experience their first holiday season without a loved one.
But the story of Christmas will also mirror America’s long year of pandemic: the split between the rich and the poor.
The “K-shaped recovery” has been the economic story of 2020. Higher-income Americans — especially those in industries like tech and software — have seen jobs return and their incomes grow, with halls accordingly decked. The opposite is true for everyone else.
Those at the top have been able to save more money, creating increasingly larger cushions. Throughout the pandemic, higher-income people have consistently been spending less than lower-income Americans. With the experience economy shut down, they’ve been stripped of their favorite splurges like traveling and entertainment. Any of their spending has instead been directed towards solitary leisure activities, like golfing, should the weather allow.
And then there’s the bottom of the K: Nearly 8 million Americans fell below the poverty line from June to November, according to a report from researchers at the University of Chicago and University of Notre Dame.
A September study from the Pew Research Center found that 46% of lower-income adults have had trouble paying their bills since the pandemic’s onset. There’s also important nuance to that figure: Black and Hispanic adults, women, and those without a college degree were among the groups most likely to have had trouble paying their bills, mortgages, and medical costs.
The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that over 10 million Americans were still unemployed as of November. Lower-paying sectors have seen a slower recovery.
Young adults have been particularly slammed by the coronavirus recession. Gen Z has been hit hardest in terms of unemployment, while millennials were most likely to get a pandemic pay cut.
A ‘too little, too late’ stimulus package
Relief is on its way in the form of a new $900 billion coronavirus stimulus package, nearly six months after the last one expired. But the package, which reportedly contains $600 in stimulus checks and an extra $300 week in unemployment benefits, is half as generous as the last stimulus package (that one provided for $1,200 stimulus checks and $600 a week in unemployment benefits). What’s more, the new package’s enhanced unemployment benefits are shorter in duration, only set to last for 10 weeks versus 16 weeks under the CARES Act.
On top of that, the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Monday that stimulus payments might begin reaching Americans’ bank accounts next week. It’s a speedy timeline, but one that comes a little too late. Months of legislative gridlock meant the package wasn’t passed in time for Americans to receive checks by Christmas.
Even so, the $600 check wouldn’t have covered what the average American plans to spend on gifts and other holiday expenses in 2020 — about $998, per the National Retail Federation’s October estimates. That’s $50 less than what they spent last year, a dip likely due to the pandemic, but still 20% more than what Americans were spending a decade ago.
In terms of Christmas fortunes, it seems like the Grinch is no match for a pandemic. But for the rich, it might be a great holiday.
For more great stories, visit Business Insider’s homepage. | https://medium.com/business-insider/americas-miserable-k-shaped-christmas-9d9fb2769f3c | ['Business Insider'] | 2020-12-24 18:03:58.633000+00:00 | ['Poverty', 'Inequality', 'Christmas', 'Spending', 'Covid 19'] |
Elements of Functional Programming in Python | “Object-oriented programming makes code understandable by encapsulating moving parts. Functional programming makes code understandable by minimizing moving parts.” : Michael Feathers
There are multiple programming languages in the world, and so are the categories in which they can be classified. A programming paradigm is one such way which tries to classify programming languages based on their features or coding style. A programming paradigm is essentially a style or a way of programming.
Most of the times, we understand Python as an object-oriented language, where we model our data in the form of classes, objects, and methods. However, there also exist several alternatives to OOP, and functional programming is one of them.
Here are some of the conventional programming paradigms prevalent in the industry:
Conventional programming paradigms: Content Source Wikipedia
Functional Programming(FP)
The Functional Programming Paradigm
As per Wikipedia, Functional programming is a programming paradigm, a style of building the structure and elements of computer programs, that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids changing state and mutable data.
The above definition might sound confusing at first, but it essentially tries to put forward the following aspects:
FP relies on functions, and everything is done using functions. Moreover, FP focuses on defining what to do, instead of performing some action. The functions of this paradigm are treated as first-class functions. This means functions are treated like any other objects, and we can assign them to variables or pass them into other functions.
what to do, instead of performing some action. The functions of this paradigm are treated as functions. This means functions are treated like any other objects, and we can assign them to variables or pass them into other functions. The data used in functional programming must be immutable, i.e. should never change. This means if we need to modify a data in a list, we need to create a new list with updated values rather than manipulating the existing one.
i.e. should never change. This means if we need to modify a data in a list, we need to create a new list with updated values rather than manipulating the existing one. The programs written in FP should be stateless . A stateless function has no knowledge about its past. Functional programs should carry out every task as if they are performing it for the first time. Simply put, the functions are only dependent on the data passed to them as arguments and never on the outside data.
. A stateless function has no knowledge about its past. Functional programs should carry out every task as if they are performing it for the first time. Simply put, the functions are only dependent on the data passed to them as arguments and never on the outside data. Laziness is another property of FP wherein we don’t compute things that we don’t have to. Work is only done on demand.
If this makes sense now, here is a nice comparison chart between the OOP and FP which will make things even more apparent.
Python provides features like lambda, filter, map, and reduce that can easily demonstrate the concept of Functional Programming. All the codes used in this article can be accessed from the associated Github Repository or can be viewed on my_binder by clicking the image below. | https://towardsdatascience.com/elements-of-functional-programming-in-python-1b295ea5bbe0 | ['Parul Pandey'] | 2020-01-21 06:25:42.977000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Lists', 'Functional Programming', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
How Tokopedia modernized its data warehouse and analytics processes with BigQuery and Cloud Dataflow | At Tokopedia, our aim is to help individuals and business owners across Indonesia open and manage their own online stores, while providing a safer, more convenient online shopping experience for users. We’re excited that this aim has made Tokopedia the leading online marketplace in Indonesia, and it’s also generated a lot of data, in a multitude of formats!
As Data Warehouse Lead, my job is to first, lead optimization and migration of the existing data warehouse to Google Cloud Platform, and second, to enhance the analytic data architecture and governance. Our data journey began with a free edition of Relational Database Management System as our first database. After a period of significant growth, we migrated to PostgreSQL to increase both size and performance. As our growth skyrocketed, we came to yet another decision point — we found we were using a lot of resources and personnel just to clean the database in order to free up capacity for the following day.
As we thought about our next steps, system performance guided our decision-making process. In our previous system, some complex queries could run for more than five hours! Not only that, but our users were requiring an increasing number of reports — to the point where new reports were being requested on a daily basis and grown to 10x more reports than we used to 6 months ago. We’d end up with duplicate (or similar) tables and reports, which could hurt performance.
Our old architecture
Source: Pixabay
Our “traditional” data warehouse architecture was straightforward. From various sources, data was loaded into the data warehouse and then directly mapped to the visualization tool. In 2017, when we began our migration project, we identified several issues we needed to overcome:
Scalability: The size of our data warehouse had grown rapidly, as had the number of sources we were ingesting. This growth of over five time of the original size had stretched our data warehouse’s capabilities. Integration: A large amount of our data existed within Google BigQuery, but we struggled to ingest it into PostgreSQL. We had to extract data via a CSV and load it in. Performance: Not only had our data grown, but so had the need for multi tenancy. With user growth of about 10x, our data warehouse performance had slowed to an unacceptable rate. Technology: We needed several tools to load data, we ended up with non integrated data ingestions tool which is difficult to maintain. We also wanted to work with unstructured data, and couldn’t. Data silos meant we lacked an integrated data analytics platform.
With these issues in mind, we came to the conclusion that Tokopedia needed a comprehensive big data analytics platform. We wanted a solution for which there weren’t limitations in terms of data structure, storage, or performance, all alongside reasonable maintenance requirements. After a broad search, we decided to use Google BigQuery as our next-generation analytics engine.
Results of implementing BigQuery
From an architecture perspective, we use Google BigQuery, in combination with Cloud Dataflow for data processing, and Apache Airflow for scheduling. Our needs dictate that some jobs run once a day through batch processing, while others are done in real time.. The unique combination of both batch and streaming capabilities provided by Dataflow provide a simplicity we haven’t seen in solutions from other vendors. We’ve been able integrate the data in just one schema in a staging layer.
Big data architecture
Our data warehouse has two layers:
The data in staging layer will be from all data sources like, PostgreSQL, Google Analytics, Google Sheets, and MySQL. It is only one-on-one loading from all data sources, while Google Sheet will use seamless integration to Google BigQuery. Our team uses Scala with a Scio library to run the data flow, and to load data from the source to BigQuery staging. The data warehouse layer is created by transforming several source tables, join, aggregate, and do filter. We use SQL to write the transformation from BigQuery staging to the data warehouse. After the tables are ready, the business intelligence team creates the reporting on top of it. Also, in this layer, we prepare denormalized tables so our data analyst team can perform analysis through Google BigQuery.
We are using Apache Airflow to build an end-to-end scheduler, and also to manage jobs dependencies. Several jobs will be running daily, weekly, monthly, even yearly, depending on the table itself.
We encountered some challenges during the migration process, including:
Lack of a data warehouse team
Limited BigQuery and Google Cloud Platform experience
Minimal coding experience, more familiarity with SQL than data engineering
Huge dataset to be migrated
To resolve these issues, our team took the following actions:
Formed an “official” data warehouse team Leveraged the expertise of the Google Cloud team Undertook online training and internal sharing sessions Collaborated with data engineer team to leverage their programming skills Applied an agile approach during the migration process Documented all steps
Having completed our first phase of migration, we have developed what we think of as a set of migration best practices:
Research helped us define which programming languages that will be used to load the data into Google BigQuery. For our case, we have several options, Python, Scala, Java, Talend, Apache Beam with Java or Python SDK. In addition to research, we also run benchmarks, to determine which programming language supports our performance and functionality needs, for development activities, either in a development or a production environment. We benchmark not only from technology perspective, but also from a skills and experience perspective. Being agile is important, not only in terms of a project management perspective, but also for team dynamics. There were times when we needed to change our approach, because it was impacting current development. Also, data warehouse migration is a huge task. To make it achievable, we had to split the development into several phases. By assigning a dedicated team to do migration, we could manage the tasks properly, with homegrown knowledge-sharing inside the team. Defining a standard is important. We have a lot of developers, so review processes would be impossible without standardization. Documentation is key. Since we were migrating from PostgreSQL, we needed to translate PostgreSQL-specific functions to BigQuery functions, such as age(), to_hex(), ntile(), generate_series(), etc. We are documenting these mappings collaboratively so that we can minimize the time it takes other development teammates to search for answers.
By implementing these approaches, as of today we’ve reached:
Development up to 500 analytics jobs in 2 months, with typically more than 100 jobs scheduled daily. And we’ve done all of this with a team of six dedicated engineers
Experimentation with different programming languages, including Python, Java, and Scala
Overall improvement of our team’s analytical experience of using Google Cloud Platform, especially thanks to Dataflow and BigQuery
We hope this post provided some insight into how we approached our data warehouse migration challenges. In an upcoming blog post, we’ll talk about our next generation stream-processing data pipeline, which we’ll be using to power numerous real-time use cases. Stay tuned for more on that topic.
As posted in Google Blog : https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2018/03/how-tokopedia-modernized-its-data-warehouse-and-analytics-processes-with-bigquery-and-cloud-dataflow | https://medium.com/tokopedia-data/how-tokopedia-modernized-its-data-warehouse-and-analytics-processes-with-bigquery-and-cloud-afe34b31a2ea | ['Maria Tjahjadi'] | 2019-04-16 00:58:24.609000+00:00 | ['Google Cloud Platform', 'Business Intelligence', 'Tokopedia', 'Data Warehouse', 'Business Analytics'] |
Reducing your Google Pub/Sub costs over 95% by micro-batching with Google Cloud Storage | Using streams to separate components logic
Currently even the smallest applications can find themselves having to connect multiple components, either through API calls or queues. Many situations that require control flow or asynchronous communication might need streams or queues, and when working on GCP (Google Cloud Platform) you can take advantage of the managed service Google Pub/Sub as an event ingestion and delivery system.
To show a simple example, we could imagine the situation where we would want to index logs into Elasticsearch. We wouldn’t want to have the syslog servers (which would collect the logs) to also run the same logic which indexes the logs (we would need to deal then with local queues in the Syslog server if Elasticsearch was down or it’s performance impact among others). For this we will be using a different set of boxes which will run Logstash (which would write the logs to Elasticsearch) and Google Pub/Sub will allow us to decouple the logic between those and the Syslog servers.
In this case we would be considering the following load:
Amount of logs sent per second: 10000
Size of each log (after compression): 5kb
How the setup might look like to get the logs from syslog servers into Elasticsearch.
How does this affect your budget?
As with any cloud deployment, calculating the pricing cost becomes straightforward based on the information provided by the cloud vendor. In this case, since there is no cost associated for the network traffic, we would only need to calculate the cost of using Pub/Sub to send the messages.
You can find the Pub/Sub pricing here. We will be using their new pricing model that starts on June to simplify the calculation that you can find here.
In this scenario we would have about 50MiB per second sent to Pub/Sub, which ends up being 4TiB per day or 120TiB per month. This means our Pub/Sub cost would sum up to around 4800 dollars per month or 57600 per year. This cost would keep increasing linearly so if we were to send 10 times the amount of data, we would expect 10 times the cost increase.
Micro batching in GCP
While the previous example might be acceptable for medium to large companies, as the amount of data grows (either the size or amount of logs per second) the cost would grow with it. Now, if we started sending 100 thousand logs per second, we would expect the cost to grow also to half a million dollars per year. A way to dramatically reduce the cost would be to change the architecture from directly streaming the logs through Pub/Sub to working with micro batches by taking advantage of the lack of regional network transfer cost in Google Cloud Storage (GCS).
Micro batching changes the way we would work by no longer working on single logs but small batches of them. Syslog servers in this example would create files of 1000 logs and write them to GCS (about 5mb per file), while writing the GCS filenames into Pub/Sub. Logstash servers would now read from Pub/Sub new objects and request them from GCS to be processed. The added latency can vary depending on its implementation and underlying applications (in my experience adding from 2 to 5 extra seconds of delay).
Here you can find the code for an example container that runs python script which reads new filename entries from Pub/Sub, requesting the file contents from GCS and sending them to Logstash through local TCP socket.
How the setup would change if we were using micro batching. In this case there are extra calls to Google Cloud Storage to store objects and retrieve them after getting their location from Pub/Sub.
Reducing your cost with micro batching
In the micro batching architecture, we would need to consider the following costs:
Pub/Sub
In this architecture Pub/Sub would only be used to send and receive GCS filenames (with a randomised prefix to avoid hot spots), so we can estimate 10 filenames of up to 100 bytes per second, which would become around 2.5GiB per month and cost 10 cents per month.
Google Cloud Storage
In this case we would be storing in GCS regional storage the batches and keeping them for up to one day. For this we need to consider the write operations which create the files, the read operations that retrieve it and the cost of storing the files for one day.
Write operations to GCS
This would be a class A operation with a cost of 0.05 dollars every 10 thousand operations.
Write operations: 10 per second / 25920000 per month.
Cost of write operations per month: ±130 dollars
Read operations to GCS
This would be a class B operation with a cost of 0.004 dollars every 10 thousand operations.
Read operations: 10 per second / 25920000 per month.
Cost of read operations per month: ±11 dollars
Storage
Pricing: $0.020 per GB per Month, for one day it should be 0.0006 cents
Amount to store: 120TiB
Storage cost per month: ±74 dollars
In this case the micro batching strategy would cost about 215 dollars per month or 2580 per year. This would be mean more than a 95% monthly cost reduction against the streaming model described before by adding less than 5 seconds of extra latency. If the latency you are getting with this model could be increased even further, you could decrease the cost from using Pub/Sub ( decreasing the read and write operations to Google Cloud Storage) by increasing the batch size (which can also improve the compression of the logs and decrease the storage cost). The cost can also be reduced if you are willing to keep less than one day of data available at any time (reducing the GCS storage cost).
When scaling the solution we just need to take into account that if we go above 1000 write requests per second (so about 100x of the example in this article) you would need to look into the best practices from Google on scaling GCS found here. Also from the Logstash or Syslog perspective, there would be some additional processing but not enough to have a noticeable increment on the budget.
While this post focuses on Google Cloud’s Pub/Sub, the same strategy could be used with other cloud services such as SQS & S3, or even in your local DC by placing less load on a Kafka Cluster and storing files in HDFS (with a much larger impact on latency than the other counterparts) for example.
Conclusion
When architecting solutions we should always strive for simplicity and to get the best performance possible, but the tradeoffs of complexity and performance impact should be balanced with their associated cost impact. If you happen to have a solution that requires a large amount of data to be streamed and can accept a couple of extra seconds of latency, micro batching can drastically reduce your required budget.
Let me know if you are doing something similar and your experience, or any comments on this approach! | https://medium.com/@89berner/reducing-your-google-pub-sub-costs-over-95-by-micro-batching-with-google-cloud-storage-90e6e4f132d0 | ['Juan Berner'] | 2019-03-28 12:05:07.647000+00:00 | ['Scalability', 'Streaming', 'Google Pubsub', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Google Cloud Storage'] |
使用 kubeadm 佈署 Kubernetes | 本文將簡單介紹如何透過 kubeadm 手動安裝 k8s 集群，因為 k8s 本身的教學文件時在寫得太好了，所以其實也可以去官網看，這裡是順便紀錄我本身碰到的坑。
實驗環境
OS: ubuntu 18.04
k8s: 1.19
docker-engine version: 19.03.12
Outline:
Step 1: Delete SWAP (all machine)
(all machine) Step 2: Install docker (all machine)
(all machine) Step 3: Install Kubectl Kubeadm Kubelet (all machine)
(all machine) Step 3–1: Init k8s master
Step 4: Install CNI (master)
(master) Step 5: Apply cluster node (all node)
Step 1: Delete SWAP
在安裝 k8s 前，必須把所有 node 的 swap disable 。
$ sudo swapoff -a
$ sudo vim /etc/fstab
# /swapfile ... ...
Step 2: Install docker
在所有的 node 的中 install docker
Step 3: Install Kubectl Kubeadm Kubelet
首先在所有節點安裝下面指令
安裝完後，確認版本
$ kubectl version
$ kubeadm version
$ kubelet version {Major:"1", Minor:"19", GitVersion:"v1.19.1".....
控制版本
# 將 kubelet kubeadm kubectl mark 起來，不要讓 Node 自己升級。
$ sudo apt-mark hold kubelet kubeadm kubectl
$ kubeadm config images pull
Step 3–1 : 在 master 中初始化 kubeadm
kubeadm init
接著會出現 Your Kubernetes control-plane has initialized successfully! 以及可以加入其他節點的 command 。
$ mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
$ sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
$ sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config # 下面的命令是透過 kubeadm 將其他的 node 加入到 k8s 的集群中
$ kubeadm join 172.16.96.13:6443 \
— token 6bxsn0.1baqaetwjzwqbvii \
— discovery-token-ca-cert-hash \
sha256:b66de07029fb42d7a17d0cf01bbea5953445892ab5d9870afadfdab6b76f5bc5
現在下 command，Status 會顯示 NotReady ，因為還沒安裝 CNI。
$ kubectl get nodes NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
master NotReady master 14m v1.19.1
看一下目前現有的 pods 有哪些。
$ kubectl -n kube-system get pods NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
coredns-f9fd979d6-9dx84 0/1 Pending 0 2m53s
coredns-f9fd979d6-xqcg9 0/1 Pending 0 2m52s
etcd-master 1/1 Running 0 2m51s
kube-apiserver-master 1/1 Running 0 2m51s
kube-controller-manager-master 1/1 Running 0 2m51s
kube-proxy-5gsgw 1/1 Running 0 2m53s
kube-scheduler-master 1/1 Running 0 2m50s
Step 4: Install CNI
接著安裝 CNI ，我所使用的是 Calico 因為這是官方建議的
$ curl https://docs.projectcalico.org/manifests/calico.yaml -O
$ kubectl apply -f calico.yaml
$ kubectl -n kube-system get pod -w $ kubectl get nodes NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
master Ready master 15m v1.19.1
Step 5: Apply cluster node
在每一個 node 打上剛剛 kubeadm init 後出現的 command 。
$ kubeadm join 172.16.96.13:6443 \
— token 6bxsn0.1baqaetwjzwqbvii \
— discovery-token-ca-cert-hash \
sha256:b66de07029fb42d7a17d0cf01bbea5953445892ab5d9870afadfdab6b76f5bc5 # 如果 token 不見得話，可以使用
$ kubeadm token list # 另外若是 token 過期的時候，就可以使用
$ kubeadm token create --print-join-command # 使用下面指令就可以得知所有 node 已被加入到集群中。
$ kubectl get nodes
master Ready master 61m v1.19.1
node-001 Ready <none> 51m v1.19.1
node-002 Ready <none> 47m v1.19.1
node-003 Ready <none> 47m v1.19.1
node-004 Ready <none> 46m v1.19.1
node-005 Ready <none> 46m v1.19.1
node-006 Ready <none> 46m v1.19.1
node-007 Ready <none> 46m v1.19.1
node-008 Ready <none> 46m v1.19.1
node-009 Ready <none> 46m v1.19.1
node-010 Ready <none> 46m v1.19.1
node-011 Ready <none> 46m v1.19.1
最後可以使用下面 command 看一下目前有的元件服務細節。
$ kubectl -n kube-system get all
刪除 Kubenetes cluster
$ kubeadm reset
$ sudo apt-get purge kubeadm kubectl kubelet kubernetes-cni kube*
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo rm -rf ~/.kube
參考資料: | https://medium.com/jacky-life/%E4%BD%BF%E7%94%A8-kubeadm-%E5%AE%89%E8%A3%9D-k8s-abe1631aa600 | [] | 2020-09-16 06:05:02.424000+00:00 | ['K8s', 'Kubernetes', 'Kubectl', 'Kubeadm'] |
Patience | Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more | https://medium.com/the-pom/patience-62b6401c94dd | ['Rowen Veratome'] | 2020-12-13 03:42:33.116000+00:00 | ['Water', 'Night', 'Patience', 'Poetry', 'Micropoetry'] |
Flutter Future Tutorial — Asynchronous Dart Programming | Asynchronous programming is very important for mobile application development. In Flutter framework, there are 2 ways to do asynchronous programming.
Using Future Using Streams
In this tutorial we will learn how to do asynchronous programming using Future
Futures:
Dart is a single-threaded programming language Future<T> object represents result of asynchronous operation which produces a result of type T . If the result is not usable value, then the future’s type is Future<void> A Future represents a single value either a data or an error asynchronously
There are 2 ways to handle Futures:
Using the Future API Using the async and await operations
Let’s write a program and see the output:
Future delayedPrint(int seconds, String msg) {
final duration = Duration(seconds: seconds);
return Future.delayed(duration).then((value) => msg);
}
main() {
print('Life');
delayedPrint(2, "Is").then((status) {
print(status);
}).catchError((err) => print(err));
print('Good');
}
Output:
Life
Good
Is
Here we defined a delayedPrint function which is a mocked asynchronous operation and sends a value after the seconds reached. Here we also used the Future API’s then method. So when the program runs, we see 'Is' is printed after all the normal operations.
To learn Dart programming language and Flutter framework check out my new course with a discount on Udemy: Mastering Dart Programming | For Flutter Developers
But sometimes what we need, after completion of one operation and the data it returns, we want to do something else. In that case we can use asynchronous operation in synchronous fashion.
Now let’s run the following program and see the output:
Future delayedPrint(int seconds, String msg) {
final duration = Duration(seconds: seconds);
return Future.delayed(duration).then((value) => msg);
} main() async {
print('Life');
await delayedPrint(2, "Is").then((status){
print(status);
});
print('Good');
}
Output:
Life
Is
Good
In this case, we used async and await keywords. await basically holds the control flow, until the operation completes. To use await within a function, we have to mark the function by async keyword. Which means, this function is an asynchronous function.
Source: My Blog | https://medium.com/level-up-programming/flutter-future-tutorial-asynchronous-dart-programming-a0c989c0f612 | ['Mahmud Ahsan'] | 2020-10-20 06:01:40.324000+00:00 | ['Async', 'Await', 'Flutter', 'Dart', 'Future'] |
THESE SIMPLE PYSCHOLOGY TRICKS WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE… | Knowing if someone likes you or not can be confusing and stressful at times. These simple psychology tricks can change your life and cause people to like you…
MIRRORING…
First impressions are key to gain one’s trust and a positive opinion of you… One trick is mirroring. When you first meet someone, try to copy their body movements. This will cause them to automatically like you… however make sure it does not look like you are mocking them by copying them and make sure you are discreet while doing so…
FAVOURS…
To gain someone to like you more, ask them for a favour. This causes them to feel that you trust them, which makes them like you more. Asking for a pencil or so is a great example for this, as it is a small but effective example…
NODDING
When you speak to a person, nodding is a great way for them to like you. By doing this simple action, you look attentive and people feel that you are listening to them which causes them to like you. Studies show nodding in threes is effective… | https://medium.com/@abinasivakumar7/these-simple-pyschology-tricks-will-change-your-life-ea0d11ec911d | [] | 2020-12-26 01:20:01.994000+00:00 | ['Pyschology', 'Trust', 'Life'] |
Mother Teresa: You have nothing to give back to the world. | A reflection of a Catholic worker.
We’ve written a bit about the impact of capitalism and individualism in Christianity. Today, we want to talk about a false sense of ownership and success in the marketplace.
Given from above
We recently talked to To God Go foundation based in Montreal, whose deceased founder was longing to accomplish workspace evangelization of some sort as well. Interestingly, the founder was a good business person who tried to enter a religious community and consulted with Mother Teresa about his intention to give back his wealth. Mother Teresa answered him back, rephrased:
You have nothing you can give back, for you have nothing in the first place. Everything you have is a loan. And you must multiply that loan so you can help more people.
Doesn’t this ring a bell? Probably you recall the parable of 3 servants, but I think there is one more that is always forgotten in our society.
“You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” — John 19
As entrepreneurs, professionals, and business leaders, we tend to forget we are called only for 3 big tasks: Love God, Love Others, Live. I am to blame if you don’t like the third one there, but we are not called to starve ourselves to death, so I think we need to stay alive by doing work as a living being.
We are never called to accumulate wealth, being famous, attain some status or recognition. It is often mandatory for the sake of love that the Lord permits some folks to be given more wealth than others. Think about if the British royals never existed in the first place, no government was formed, and murders were still around. Would you live in such a place? Or would it be okay for Prince William and Harry to enjoy some royal wealth in return for their abdication toward the society using an existing hierarchy built to love their society for a long time? Let’s not talk about the bad king, but let’s look at it today.
Our society has often shifted the call of love from Christ to a call of success and prosperity.
Ego of Ownership
One time, I had a conversation with the Pontifical Council of Culture in the Vatican. I was telling them 4 different projects I had for the Church, one of which was an electronic rosary. I gathered a couple of folks who wanted to make it, and the monsignor in the Vatican did not say much other than recommending us to target the bishop rather than collaborating with them. In 2019, I heard the very department helped publish a similar electronic rosary we talked about.
Upon hearing the large announcement on CNN, I was hurt for being left behind, not wanted, and even wondering if they stole my idea.
Then, I took a step back, reminding myself that I want good for the Church, not to show off or anything. I should be happy with what they’ve done.
In this COVID-19 year, our prayers, contemplations, and work around an entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Catholic world to support workspace evangelization has also been challenged. While we were getting ready for 2 years to make a virtual incubator, the COVID came and sprouted an immense demand for virtual entrepreneurship. This called large Catholic universities to step up and offer Catholic entrepreneurial accelerators. While we think it is already too late in the race to act right now for evangelization, reflecting what had happened actually gave us a different perspective.
Divine Agenda
We prayed for years to ask God’s providence and will to use us to be his agent of preparing the Church for a better entrepreneurial ecosystem, knowing that around 2021–2025, there would be a massive migration from professionals toward entrepreneurship. We learned a lot, and we got hurt a lot, tried different stuff, and found what we need to do.
I remember around late last year, the Lord spoke in prayer, that in about 3 months, there would be something big coming. I thought Trump would go to war with NK, or there would be a massive natural disaster or our incubator plan would be taken to the Vatican, or our other strategic move will be successful.
When we were about to start our next phase, suddenly, COVID woke everyone up to prepare all the necessary roads for those called to join our movement to get more support. From entrepreneurial prayer group, we piloted in 2017, now organization like SENT is providing the same thing. Incubation services are now provided by SCU, Notre Dame, Catholic University, and many others.
It made me wonder, what’s the point of preparing all these if the Lord was apparently impatient Himself that he would wake everyone up through market demands.
I was laughed at and looked down on by many Catholic business leaders and those in the Church as crazy and useless people. I remembered in 2018, a philanthropist from the Philippines told me, go back to regular work and forget about this.
But the difference is, as a faithpreneur, I learned that everyone is called to 3 things, love God, love others, and live. Those who try to pray for a special vocation are confused, for it is often not rooted in God’s commandment. It is rooted in changing others or self-pride.
I realized I initially did everything out of frustration with a bigger Church that has failed to love neighbors.
I now find it ridiculous to change their bishops and leader’s mind for a mere “vision” that comes from the idealism I want to reach. If I were still like last year, I would get annoyed by God, for all that I tried to do was in vain in the eyes of success.
No, no, no… It ain’t happening this time.
I feel peaceful now, knowing what we are building is taken by our Lord Himself to take action.
How better that be, if your divine vision is taken into Heaven and our King acted on it Himself?
Like what St. Paul suggested, we are simply a useless servant who is trying to do His will. We have nothing in the first place. Our ideas have been granted by Him, not ours. Would others think well of us now? No. No one cares. Only God cares. And we know for sure He cares, for otherwise, all Catholic institutions would still be in slumber until at least 2022.
We also learned a holy entrepreneurial mindset that can bring others to Christ, which is to go through new things to find ways to love God and others and earn the hurt it brings and deal with it in a holy way. That is the cross of a faithpreneur.
Our calling is not to be successful but to try to make love happen and set an example of how to live a holy life along the way rooted in divine providence and the love of God.
For you are the only one who knows how to deal with this new way before it attracts others. Without a good attitude, holiness, understanding, and loving reactions, we are just calling God’s sheep to the dark valley, where many will lose their soul.
We learned to be grateful that our lives, writings, and efforts, were used and read by fellow Catholic leaders who are now making a move. We are glad, like John the Baptist, we could help prepare the way. The market-based Catholic moves are not prepared to find the perfection of a soul from its operation. Rather, it comes from the solitude that would never attract the public. This is what we care about. We know from now on, we could get the Church support to focus on our real mission, to bring Christ to workers through Catholic founders. For this, we give glory to God, forever and ever. | https://medium.com/@catholicer/mother-teresa-you-have-nothing-to-give-back-to-the-world-2a2234b0f952 | [] | 2020-12-24 19:10:54.697000+00:00 | ['Vocation', 'Faith And Work', 'Entrepreneurship', 'New Evangelization', 'Catholic'] |
Pre-Sale Information | Since we are just a couple of days out from our pre-sale I wanted to detail all the information you will need to know about how it will work and how to purchase.
CryptoFights Pre-Sale will go LIVE on September 19th at 12pm EDT. When the timer strikes zero you will need to refresh the page and the buy buttons will be unlocked for purchase. All items listed will have a 30 second refresh showing the current inventory left. Buy fast as items are a first come first serve style. This means that while supplies last or who gets their ethereum transaction in first.
The PRE-SALE WILL ONLY BE LIVE FOR 14 DAYS. LIMITED QUANTITIES AVAILABLE.
Ways to Purchase:
Mobile: Coinbase Wallet (formerly Toshi), Cipher
Desktop: Metamask
Ethereum(ETH) will be the cryptocurrency used for buying items. Please make sure you have enough ETH ready for the pre-sale as if you wait your item might be sold out.
Prices are displayed on the right hand side.
Prices in ETH
PRESALE: https://presale.cryptofights.io
💵💵NEW REFERRAL PROGRAM — MAKE 10% OF ALL PURCHASES💰💰
We have just launched our referral program at the bottom of our pre-sale page. You need to have either the metamask wallet or mobile wallets to have your link appear. If it doesn’t appear but still want to use it you simply paste your ethereum wallet address on the end like so:
https://presale.cryptofights.io/#WALLETADDRESSHERE
Example:
How to see your items in the ENJIN Wallet
Download and install the ENJIN Wallet if you haven’t already. Once installed you can either create a new wallet or import an existing wallet. You want to IMPORT your wallet from metamask or cipher/toshi. This is the easiest way since you do not have to transfer items from one wallet to another.
Enjin Wallet Import Screen
After you import you will see your items in the collectibles menu.
Enjin Wallet CryptoFights Items
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns you can either join our Discord Server, Telegram Group, or email us.
Check out the how to play guide wiki entry.
Game Trailer: | https://medium.com/cryptofights/pre-sale-information-c27c22c40ac | ['Crypto Fights'] | 2018-09-17 21:52:10.054000+00:00 | ['Dapps', 'Gaming', 'Ethereum', 'Startup'] |
Simple Tips to Improve Your Website Traffic | “How to improve my website traffic?” — is the most common query we often get at CMS Softwares. Usually, the tips vary, based on the niche of business, traffic type and requirement, and more. However as one of the leading SEO agencies in Vadodara, we identified a few general SEO tips that can work for all the businesses, we have articulated our most proven and actionable SEO tips in this blog here. If you are a startup or a small and medium business looking for simple and actionable SEO tips to improve your website traffic, then read on:
We provide holistic digital solutions to ensure the brand gets maximum digital presence to reach out to their target audience.
Fresh Unique Content:
Publish fresh and unique content consistently — we have lost the number of times we doled out this advice to businesses that consult us and yet most businesses do not push on unique content. Unique content is the foundation for any SEO and SMO efforts which predominantly makes you stand out from your competition. But what makes it a standard and actionable advice is Google’s inclination towards fresh unique and authoritative content in your domain — unique content is the key factor in the fresh score which is a crucial search engine ranking factor. Actionable tip — Focus on creating fresh and unique content consistently — start at 1 long-form (>1000 words) content per week in your domain. But producing fresh content is a challenge unless you have expert help. As an SEO Services Company in Vadodara CMS Softwares also offers content marketing services in case you need help in this area.
Leverage Social Signals for SEO:
As a leading digital marketing company in Vadodara, we club both SEO services and SMO services together — because social signals are not crucial for SEO too. Though Google still doesn’t consider social signals as a factor for the ranking algorithm, it has been our personal experience that social signals do positively impact the website traffic and improve website ranking as well. Actionable tip — Don’t sleep on Social media optimization & marketing. Create share-worthy social media content — posts, videos, host contents, make use of influencers if you have to drive engagement. SMO can and will supplement your SEO efforts and drive more traffic.
Focus on Local SEO:
Around 65% of the users use search engines to find local businesses out of which 78% of the users visit the website and 70% of the users directly reach the store. If you are a brick-and-mortar store with a physical location to offer your services like restaurant, medical and health services, grocery or retail stores then you are missing out on a major chunk of website traffic and revenue if you are not focusing on local SEO. Moreover, it is easy to compete with large business by gaining a strong footing in local SEO and more importantly, it is affordable, easy, and gives you stupendous ROI when you hire the right online marketing company in Vadodara for Local SEO Actionable tip: Optimize your local business page and invest more in improving it. We know the above three tips are general but believe us when you perfectly implement the above 3, they give out surprising results. If you are already implementing the above three and couldn’t get any desirable results then need an expert SEO service in Vadodara at your side to help you implement them perfectly and level up your SEO with other techniques and tweaks. If you are a business looking for SEO services in Vadodara to improve your web traffic and revenue, CMS Softwares is one of the best digital marketing companies in Vadodara with more than a decade of experience in PPC, SMO, and SEO services in Vadodara. | https://medium.com/@cmssoftwares/simple-tips-to-improve-your-website-traffic-f3df661909ed | ['Cms Softwares'] | 2021-05-16 13:46:52.754000+00:00 | ['Branding', 'Digital Marketing', 'Social Media Marketing', 'Ui Ux Design', 'SEO'] |
Doubt is One of the Most Powerful Forms of Curiosity and Change | I like the direct way Hecht states each considerable and challenging idea in the above quote. All of this is easier said than done, but it is worth saying, and it is worth striving for — all of it. Don’t worry so much about what’s to come. Meantime, enjoy yourself more. You got this.
Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht is a powerful discourse on the concept of doubt. Many faith traditions speak of doubt, many in moderate forms suggesting a healthy faith depends on doubt, yet it is viewed as suspect when you have a “dark night of the soul.”
In the tradition of grand sweeping histories such as From Dawn To Decadence, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and A History of God, Hecht champions doubt and questioning as one of the great and noble, if unheralded, intellectual traditions that distinguish the Western mind, especially from Socrates to Galileo and Darwin, to Wittgenstein and Hawking.
This is an account of the world’s greatest “intellectual virtuosos,” who are also humanity’s greatest doubters and disbelievers, from the ancient Greek philosophers, Jesus, and the Eastern religions, to modern secular equivalents Marx, Freud and Darwin — and their attempts to reconcile the seeming meaninglessness of the universe with the human need for meaning. It looks at doubt both from within and external to belief. It examines the motives and believers and gives each its appropriate doubting due. | https://medium.com/big-self-society/doubt-is-one-of-the-most-powerful-forms-of-curiosity-and-change-aa14b3453dd7 | ['Chad Prevost'] | 2020-11-03 14:42:51.455000+00:00 | ['Two Minute Takeaway', 'Inspiration', 'Books', 'Psychology', 'Authors'] |
Interviewing Tips for Hiring Managers | If you’re the owner of a new tech start-up, or if you’ve recently had a promotion to CTO, congratulations! Although, you might not be anticipating that a significant part of your job is likely to become interviewing candidates. The chances are that hiring is not your main strength. But if the thought of conducting your first job interview make you more nervous than your potential interviewees, fear not. The following interview tips for hiring managers will have you feeling like a pro in no time.
Our Top Interviewing Tips for Hiring Managers
Preparation is Key
Interviewers expect candidates to prepare for interviews, so you should show them the same courtesy. Don’t let the first time you look at their CV be five minutes before meeting your potential new hire.
Study the job description and speak to those who will be working closely with your new employee beforehand. Doing so should provide the information you need to compile a list of appropriate interview questions.
Not sure where to start? Asking competency questions is an excellent way to identify candidates who are a good fit for your role.
For example, let’s say you want your potential employee to be good at time management. In that case, you might ask something like: Tell me about a time when you had to organise your schedule to meet a tight deadline.
Don’t just leave it there; probe further by asking follow-up questions such as: What did you learn from this experience? Were you pleased with the outcome? Is there anything you might do differently if you were in the same situation again?
Research Every Candidate
Good interviewers research potential candidates. They never rely solely on an applicant’s CV and cover letter. Cross-reference this information with their LinkedIn profile and other social media accounts. The aim is not to catch candidates out. Moreso, to form a 360° view of what they’re like as individuals or what they might be like to work with.
Try to enter each meeting with a good idea of why you would like to hire this person for the role. Understand why each applicant is a good match for the job description and what value their skills and experience might add to your team.
Researching candidates can give you more insights into their personality than you will get from their CV.
Be Consistent to Avoid Discrimination
Asking every candidate the same questions avoids being accused of discrimination. When interviewers are unprepared, they often find themselves asking inappropriate questions such as: ‘I see you studied Marketing at Manchester University, so did I, what year were you there?’.
While this might seem light and conversational, the answer could determine the individual’s age. Therefore, your line of questioning might be misconstrued as ageist.
Preparing an interview crib sheet can help maintain consistency. It also comes in handy if you can’t make it and someone has to take your place.
Being consistent with questioning can also help you compare the pros and cons of hiring each individual.
Treat Interviewees With Respect
If someone turned up late for their appointment, would you hire them? How about if they chewed gum or their mobile phone rang during your meeting? If you have deal-breakers that might eliminate potential hires from the process, be sure to pay them the same consideration.
As a rule, professional interviewers are on time, prepare well, dress for the occasion and always switch their phone off.
Remember the 50/50 Rule
The hiring process is as much for interviewees to get to know your company as it is for you to get to know them. So whenever you ask a question, allow them to answer fully before moving on. Pay attention to their answers and take notes throughout the meeting.
Hiring managers should always invite candidates to ask their own questions, so ensure you allow ample time for this.
Never Base a Decision On One Impression
Many lousy hiring decisions are made on impulse. Putting these mistakes right can create a headache for your HR team and hurt your bottom line. Bad hiring decisions can also upset the balance and cause resentment within your existing team.
For this reason, most large corporations insist on a three-stage recruitment process consisting of:
Telephone interview
First face to face interview
Final interview
While this might seem tedious and unnecessary, each round has its purpose. Also, you’ll likely learn something new about each applicant at every stage. The result will be more informed hiring decisions based on well-rounded opinions.
If you can’t devote the time to endless recruitment rounds, agencies can help by completing preliminary rounds for you. Video screening is particularly beneficial in this scenario and can dramatically reduce your time to hire.
A panel interview can be easier to coordinate by video than face-to-face.
Ensure Every Candidate Understands your Recruitment Process
Just like with the interview crib sheet, having a set interviewing process to follow encourages consistency. At the end of every meeting, be sure to explain:
What your interview process is
What the next steps are
When the applicant can expect to hear from you with a decision
Relax
You may be lacking interview experience, but the candidate doesn’t know that. Try to make the experience as conversational as you can and try to put your interviewees at ease. Making eye contact with interviewees can make them feel like you’re paying attention. When someone feels like you’re interested in what they have to say, it can help them relax and open up.
It will help to have someone else present who’s good at taking notes. In a large corporation, this might be someone from HR. In a smaller business, it could be the person your potential employee will work with most closely.
You could even take turns to ask questions so that as one speaks, the other takes notes. Experience will reveal what works well for you and what doesn’t.
Always Provide Candidate Feedback
Even if you decide after your meeting that an applicant is unsuitable, make sure you tell them straight away. There’s nothing worse for a candidate than being ghosted after a job interview, knowing the employer just doesn’t want to tell them, ‘it’s a no’.
When the answer is no, offering constructive feedback can soften the blow a little. It enables candidates to discover their weaknesses and the opportunity to improve their chances in future.
If giving post-interview feedback is not something you feel comfortable doing, it’s worth having a conversation with a recruitment consultant. Providing feedback to candidates and preparing them for their next interview is all part of the service they provide.
At all costs, hiring managers should avoid using ‘not a good culture fit’ as an excuse not to hire someone. So maybe they’re not a good fit for your company culture? In that case, try telling them what qualities the successful candidate had that they didn’t.
Hiring is part of my job now?
Ask for Hiring Manager Feedback
You might think this is a brave thing to do but asking candidates for their feedback allows employers to improve their hiring process. This is all part of building an employer brand, which is essential for growing a talent pipeline.
Ask For Expert Advice
Recruitment consultants regularly converse with clients in your sector about what works well in interviews and what doesn’t. Therefore the knowledge they have to impart on this subject can prove invaluable.
A Few Final Thoughts on Interviewing
It doesn’t matter which side of the table you’re on; job interviews are nerve-wracking occasions. The more prepared you are, the more relaxed you will be, and your candidate will have a more pleasant experience as a result.
We hope that after reading these interview tips for hiring managers, you’re feeling more confident. If you’re still unsure and need some advice on the most effective recruitment process to follow, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
We wish you the very best of luck in finding the next star of your team! | https://medium.com/@adria-solutions/top-interviewing-tips-for-hiring-managers-8253fea066e9 | ['Rachael. Adria Solutions'] | 2021-04-09 11:01:31.604000+00:00 | ['Job Interview', 'Startups In Uk', 'Human Resources', 'Management And Leadership', 'Recruitment Process'] |
Can Virgins Have a Fulfilling Sex Life? | So before we dive in to all the ways a virgin can cultivate a healthy sex life, let’s talk about virginity for just a moment. Yes, I’m the first one to yell “Virginity is a social construct!” because I think, in general, we make way too big a deal of this, especially when it comes to women. Dear gods, having sex for the first time was such a ridiculously big, scary deal for me all because everyone made me believe that not only would it hurt like hell (it didn’t hurt, at all) but that it was a defining moment not only in my life but as a moral decision that I would have to live with until the day I died. Je-sus.
I was so afraid to pick the wrong person (i.e. someone I didn’t end up having a long-term relationship with, because wouldn’t that just make me a slut?), so afraid that if I was careless my “number” might one day end up being “too high,” so afraid of not doing things the right (i.e. morally appropriate) way…
So yes, I think the narrative around virginity that our culture tells is largely sexist, inaccurate, and a real buzz kill.
However, it’s important to acknowledge that “losing our virginity” is a marker of experience in our lives.
And it’s even more important to acknowledge the fact that each person has different perspectives on virginity and, as it relates to their own, we must respect that. If someone chooses to remain a virgin for whatever reason, up to and including upholding their personal code of morality, then being sex-positive means that we honor that person’s right to define their sexuality and make sexual choices for themselves in whatever way they want.
So it doesn’t matter why someone is a virgin, how old they are when/if they choose to have sex with someone, or why they eventually choose to have sex.
To take that point further, I’m going to do something radical here and write this article from the perspective that virginity is not an “unfortunate circumstance” that one is trying to quickly alter. Let’s look at this from the respectful perspective of virginity as someone’s choice, and applaud anyone who is smart enough to know that they can still have a healthy, satisfying sex life even without ever having had sex with a partner, by doing things like this…
Dress in ways that express your sexuality
How do you want to feel as a sexual being? What does that look like?
When I think of expressing my sexuality through the way I dress, I often want to highlight my femininity, but also express some of the masculine energy I often feel. Since I was a teenager, I’ve always loved finding ways to feminize men’s clothing. I loved to wear ties and blazers in high school with skirts or tight pants. In my thirties and forties, I’ve found that I love pairing masculine plaid shirts with skirts and big earrings or leggings and high boots that accentuate my curves.
Maybe you want to emphasize certain masculine or feminine qualities of your body — or go more androgynous. Or perhaps you want to express your sensual side by wearing lots of bold textures like faux furs, or satiny slip dresses.
And yes, you can still wear those “come fuck me boots” even if you don’t want anyone to actually come fuck you.
Take nude self-portraits
I will forever tout this as a wonderful exercise in exploring one’s sexuality. It has been one of the most enlightening ways I have been able to understand my own sexuality.
It is just me and my camera. I don’t have to deal with the expectations or perceptions of a lover which might skew my own self-perception. Without all the extra noise, all I hear is my own voice. All I see is my own body.
You can keep these super casual — grabbing your phone and snapping photos just before you go to bed. Or you can go all out, like I do by setting up your camera on a tripod and using the timer function.
After you get over the initial discomfort of posing in front of the camera, you’ll start to realize that no one is watching or judging. You can be yourself.
Then you’ll start feeling more grounded, deeper in your own body. You’ll start posing in ways you never imagined you would be brave enough to try.
At some point, you’ll realize that you’re incredibly turned on, which feels so amazing. You’ll come to understand that your embodiment of your own sexuality brings you sexual pleasure — no one else is needed. That is such an amazing feeling.
As you explore this over the course months or even years, you will start to learn all kinds of things about yourself. You’ll learn to see your body with more compassion, to view it through the eyes of a lover (which again, feels amazing), to try new things, to question assumptions you’ve made about yourself and your sexuality…
It’s a deep exploration that takes you places you never thought you would go.
Engage with sexual content
Don’t be afraid to explore different kinds of sexual content. Porn can be a fun outlet for sexual exploration under the right circumstances. Just try to find sites that align with your sexual values and preferences.
Don’t be afraid to fall down a rabbithole if you really want to go exploring, but remember that porn is still overwhelmingly made for the male gaze, often served with a heaping spoonful of misogyny. So if you’re a woman, be prepared to block out some stuff you wish you had never seen — trust me, that’s gonna happen.
But when you stumble onto just the right video it can be an incredibly intense sexual experience, even when you are alone.
Read erotica and find the styles and language you like. Be on the lookout for sexually-oriented artistic endeavors and social statements like Hysterical Literature. Take classes on sex. Go see a burlesque show.
There are all kinds of outlets and ways to explore your sexuality without actually engaging in sex with another person.
Masturbate like a champion
This is like personal hygiene to me — it’s non-negotiable. It’s not necessarily something I do every day, but I don’t let too long go by between orgasms. I consider orgasms as important to my health as brushing my teeth or working out.
And it’s not a chore or a passive activity. I’m not lying on my back just trying to polish one off and get on with my day.
I try to approach it with the same effort and excitement that I would give to a lover. Why should I give myself anything less than that?
So yes, the sheets get mussed, as well as my hair, I get sweaty, clothes come off, and more often than not, my face ends up pressed into my pillow as I try to catch my post-orgasm breath.
I have a very, very good time with myself and consider it just as legitimate as sex with another person. | https://medium.com/sexography/can-virgins-have-a-fulfilling-sex-life-c04ff7a75e3b | ['Yael Wolfe'] | 2020-11-03 15:46:03.500000+00:00 | ['Sex', 'Sexuality', 'Women', 'Self', 'Self Love'] |
Top 10 Examples of Artificial Intelligence used in industries | Examples of Artificial intelligence Man-made reasoning (computer-based intelligence) is going to change each fragment of our economy. Bringing human knowledge into figuring and permitting machines to gain for a fact and settle on human-like choices. Simulated intelligence assists organizations with computerizing routine undertakings, better comprehend their clients. Examining their conduct, decrease operational expenses, and customize encounters Examples of Artificial intelligence. Subsequent to examining the general advantages. The difficulties of artificial intelligence today we investigate how the new savvy innovations shape and disturb various ventures.
Finance and Banking
As online Examples of Artificial intelligence exchanges develop more mainstream consistent. The account and banking industry faces progressively complex wholesale fraud and extortion misfortune cases. Simulated intelligence can carry monetary network protection to the following level. As frameworks. Utilizing profound learning advances can dissect examples and spot dubious conduct and expected misrepresentation.
For example, PayPal figured out how to decrease its misrepresentation rate to only 0.32% of income. Utilizing a refined profound learning framework that breaks down exchanges progressively.
Exchanging and speculation the executives likewise utilize computer-based intelligence, or all the more decisively AI — a subset of man-made consciousness.
An AI (ML) application is essentially a learning framework that robotizes measurable model structure. Because of the new ML innovations, falsely astute mutual funds and robot-warning stages are on the ascent. Simulated intelligence Examples of Artificial intelligence likewise helps regular assignments. The monetary administration, for example, surveying credit quality or robotizing customer collaborations.
Medical Services
In medical care, Examples of Artificial intelligence can give huge assistance in examining complex clinical information. For example, X-beams, CT filters, and various screenings and tests. Utilizing the patient’s information and outside information sources, for Example of Artificial intelligence, clinical examination. The clinical experts can manufacture a customized treatment way for everybody.
Other than on location clinical choice help, simulated intelligence can likewise be utilized to give constantly. The clinical guidance to patients Examples of Artificial intelligence.
The Babylon man-made intelligence specialist. The application utilizes discourse acknowledgment, The talk with patients, checks their side effects against an information base. And offers them sufficient medicines.
Virtual medical caretakers, for example, Molly by Sense.ly, interface patients with clinical exhortation and administrations. Utilizing an exclusive order motor that tunes in to the patient and conveys a satisfactory reaction.
At last, Microsoft’s Hanover venture utilizes Examples of Artificial intelligence. The n normal language handling to make expectations about the best malignant growth drug treatment alternative for each patient, exclusively.
For more visit our site: https://securitysurveillancesolutions.ca/2020/11/18/top-10-examples-of-artificial-intelligence-used-in-industries/ | https://medium.com/@zumartaha/top-10-examples-of-artificial-intelligence-used-in-industries-3e8b4249dd42 | [] | 2020-12-21 08:56:20.761000+00:00 | ['AI', 'Industry', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Banking Technology', 'Medical Services'] |
LinkedIn API + Python = Programmatically Publishing | It’s time to get your hands dirty with some code!
Gif via GIPHY [https://media.giphy.com/media/l2SqhXKKs7HJHFkDS/giphy.gif]
To get your Access Token, you need two REST calls:
A GET that will redirect you to a new URL. From this URL, you’ll need to extrapolate the value in the parameter code . A POST that will return your brand new Access Token.
Let’s do it step-by-step!
1. GET
Just have a look at the following URL. Wait before copy&paste!
https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/authorization?
response_type=code&
client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&
redirect_uri=https://example.com/auth/linkedin/callback& state=RandomString&
scope=w_member_social,r_liteprofile
⚠️ →I said “Wait”! ←⚠️ Gif via GIPHY [https://media.giphy.com/media/xT1XGOSpbtYvl9HlGE/giphy.gif]
Parameters
response_type=code . It’s already ok, just copy it.
cliend_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID . Insert your Client ID specified in the Auth section of your LinkedIn App.
redirect_uri=https://example.com/auth/linkedin/callback . Insert the Authorized redirect URL you specified in the Auth section of your LinkedIn App.
state=RandomString . Chose your preferred-at-random “RandomString” (i.e. ILovePointerPodcast).
scope=w_member_social,r_liteprofile . The scope is very important! It specifies the permissions you need.
Let’s make it easy: If you are planning to interact just with your own profile in “reading mode” then, the r_liteprofile permission is enough. If you are planning to exploit LinkedIn API to publish posts in your own profile, you need “write permissions” (i.e. w_member_social) .
However, you can compose permissions as in the example: scope=w_member_social,r_liteprofile .
If you are planning to use LinkedIn API to interact with your page, please keep reading until the ⚠️⚠️ ACHTUNG ⚠️⚠️ paragraph.
Permissions change according to your needs. In case you want to further investigate:
Now, you can copy&paste the following GET url.
Thanks for the patience.
https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/authorization?response_type=code&client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=https://example.com/auth/linkedin/callback&state=RandomString&scope=w_member_social,r_liteprofile
Just paste the above link (filled with your correct data) in your browser.
If you are on the right way, you’ll get redirected here:
Screenshot by Author
Once clicked on “Sign In”, you will get redirected again to an empty page!
⚠️ → Now, take a look at the new URL of the empty page! ← ⚠️
Copy it to a note. Is it something like that, right? | https://towardsdatascience.com/linkedin-api-python-programmatically-publishing-d88a03f08ff1 | ['Alessandro Berti'] | 2020-11-11 03:32:28.927000+00:00 | ['Pages', 'API', 'Organization', 'Python', 'LinkedIn'] |
What Really Is CBD and also Exactly How Does It Function? | CBD is the short form for cannabidiol. It is a crucial phytocannabinoid that is found in the hemp and is understood to support the mind as well as the body in lots of different ways. CBD items in the shape of Cachets additionally contain cannabinoids, which have actually CBD extracts.
What makes CBD work?
How does CBD get to function? The body of humans consists of a huge network of constituent receptors, the system of Vape and Cartridges, which is important to maintaining the total wellness, along with aiding the support systems for many of the physical procedures in our body. Cannabinoids and also CBD fit inside these receptors that assist the body with its initiatives in maintaining healthiness.
Experience much better wellness with the use of the CBD
You reach enjoy a sense of peace and also even more focus. CBD influences finding out positively as well as it additionally encourages understanding. It is likewise handy backwards the symptoms of the Alzheimer condition. You can get a heart that is healthier by the use of the CBD has a great deal of advantages that it offers the heart, these include the ability of lowering high levels of blood pressure. You additionally obtain remedy for the stress and anxieties that belong to your every day life. CBD has been known to offer healing remedies for signs like tension and also anxiousness, therefore helping in the decrease of emotional degrees of anxious actions. It also aids in decreasing the feeling of depression as well as anxiety.
The wonder of CBD.
CBD is simply a molecule, not any miracle. A great deal of people can reap the significant advantages if they are offered access lawfully to these wide range of treatments of cannabis, not just to no THC or low THC products. CBD by itself may not constantly be enough to get the technique to work. There is a great deal of engaging proof to confirm that CBD operates ideal when it is combined with the likes of THC and the entire spectrum including other components of cannabis.
To be able to determine how to tackle maximizing your restorative application of cannabis has actually been the motoring variable that lags among the greatest experiments in the days of democracy. The outcome of this searching for is called clinical marijuana and also it has actually been observed from one state to an additional and also one country to another in the really current years.
The showing up of the very potent oil focuses of cannabis, CBD Oils abundant non envigorating products as well as highly cutting-edge and smokeless systems of delivery have actually transformed the therapeutic location. This has actually additionally caused a huge adjustment in the public conversation around cannabis. | https://medium.com/@leisurerent.wss/what-really-is-cbd-and-also-exactly-how-does-it-function-425835e1fbd5 | ['Leisurerent Wss'] | 2019-07-10 07:23:25.817000+00:00 | ['Cannabis', 'Cbd', 'Oilsands', 'Marijuana'] |
Ta dose crypto du vendredi 30 mars — Direction la suisse pour Bitfinex | Bank of Montreal Now Blocking Cryptocurrency Transactions | Finance Magnates
The Bank of Montreal has begun blocking cryptocurrency transactions on its credit and debit cards, according to an… | https://medium.com/la-bulle-crypto/ta-dose-crypto-du-vendredi-30-mars-direction-la-suisse-pour-bitfinex-412e9cc0167e | [] | 2018-03-30 07:01:01.503000+00:00 | ['Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Bitfinex'] |
Provision Cloud Infra using Terraform | How to Provision IBM Cloud Analytics Engine instance
Terraform — Overview
Terraform is an open source software from Hashicorp that enables you to easily provision and manage resources of your cloud provider using a simple declarative json like configuration files to define your requirements.
In general, using Terraform simplifies the provisioning aspects especially when you have to deal with multi clouds and multiple environments. Almost all cloud and other infra providers have the predefined templates and plugins that makes it easy to use and navigate — so that you, as a devops engineer, don’t have to get into the details of the API or write custom script specific to that provider. The idea is to be able to provision, modify and delete infrastructure resources without having to login to the UI and change it by hand — Infrastructure as Code. Here’s a quote from the blog that explains more as to Why Terraform?
I can begin to both automate that, but also now that I’ve captured it as a codified form, I can check it into version control and I get versioning. Now I can see an incremental history of who changed what, how is my infrastructure actually defined at any given point of time, and I have this transparency of documentation that I lack in a traditional point-and-click environment. It’s really an oral tradition in terms of: What is the configuration? What are the things that you need to point and click and set up?
This article is to show what you can do with Terraform and Analytics Engine 1.2
Three simple steps to get started
Step 1: Install the Terraform plugin
(Finer details are in the link above), this step involves installing the terraform base CLI that allows you to invoke the terraform CLI to invoke the “apply” or “destroy” actions on the cloud resource to provision and delete respectively.
Every cloud provider needs to provide this plugin to Terraform so that it can invoke the respective operations on the specific provider. Install the IBM plugin as given in the link.
Step 3: Configure the IBM provider plugin
To access the IBM Cloud and to be able to provision resources — you need to provide the required credentials the IAM APIKey and if you are provisioning the IBM classic infrastructure, the relevant credentials for that as well. Here’s where you provide the files provider.tf and terraform.tfvars. You can use the exact files as given in the instructions in the link.
Start provisioning!
You can provision a host of IBM Cloud resources from the catalog — ranging from Databases, Cloud Object Storage, VSIs, VPCs, Kubernetes clusters and much more. Here’s the full list.
Analytics Engine comes under IBM Resource Instance category and requires the configuration to be defined as given here. To know the parameters and values to be used for this category — look at the github template repo.
Here’s a sample ready configuration file for provisioning an instance of Analytics Engine: ae.tf
data "ibm_resource_group" "group" {
name = "test"
} resource "ibm_resource_instance" "resource_instance" {
name = "my-demo-terraform-test"
service = "ibmanalyticsengine"
plan = "standard-hourly"
location = "us-south"
resource_group_id = data.ibm_resource_group.group.id
tags = ["test"] parameters = {
"hardware_config"= "default"
"num_compute_nodes"= "1"
"software_package"= "ae-1.2-hive-spark"
}
}
Once you have all of these files defined. It is as simple as executing the terraform CLI.
Step1 — terraform init
Initializing of the plugins here..
Step 2 — terraform plan
The plan action shows what will happen when you actually execute
Step 3 — terraform apply
This actually executes the action — provision of the cluster in this case
Step 4 — terraform show
Cluster provisioning takes time and once it is done, you can do a show to check the instance details.
And your cluster is ready to use for your analytical workloads.
Limitations
At the time of writing this, using Terraform: | https://medium.com/@mrudulamadiraju/provision-cloud-infra-using-terraform-160980c0a588 | ['Mrudula Madiraju'] | 2020-12-07 05:17:09.907000+00:00 | ['Analytics Engine', 'Ibm Cloud', 'Terraform'] |
F*** Product Owner | in Both Sides of the Table | https://medium.com/odds-team/f-product-owner-66630b58b1bf | ['Chokchai Phatharamalai'] | 2020-08-09 23:07:36.043000+00:00 | ['Fake', 'Scrum', 'Large Scale Scrum', 'Product Owner', 'Agile'] |
Face the fear with a smile. | Face the fear with a smile. The world is a nasty place. It’ll break you down into pieces, and no one will come near. Only you can mend your broken heart and show the world that you are strong.
Life is a gift given by GOD to make a difference. When you feel that the world is against you, it is the right time to be thankful towards the things that you already have.
Don’t let the world distract you from the grand goal. Understand that when you face the fear, the fear will disappear. | https://medium.com/illumination/face-the-fear-with-a-smile-f486790cbd9a | ['Yousuf Rafi'] | 2020-12-07 13:56:39.732000+00:00 | ['Fear', 'Success', 'Hope', 'Short Read', 'Life'] |
YAA (Yet Another Approach) | Solving problems is hard. Very hard. Hard enough that there are multiple solutions.
The mistake many people commit is focusing on one solution too much. Every time you solve a problem, remember to say: “Yaa…”
Who knows what else you may learn?
Cheers. | https://medium.com/@desmond-willow/yaa-yet-another-approach-d80824ac39ec | ['Desmond Willowbrook'] | 2020-12-26 13:54:44.288000+00:00 | ['Motivation', 'Programming', 'Problem Solving'] |
Introducing The Arrival Van | As consumers, we’ve come to expect that we can get any product delivered to our front door tomorrow, or even the same day. This was a growing trend even before global lockdowns happened, but being in quarantine has only increased this expectation.
Demand for last-mile delivery is expected to grow 78% by 2030, which means 36% more delivery vehicles will be needed across 100 cities around the world [World Economic Forum]. Our shopping habits are changing rapidly, and this shift has been accelerated unimaginably by the continued effects of Covid-19.
It all points to the fact that on-demand delivery is the norm for a growing number of global consumers, and the range of products for which we default to online ordering is expanding constantly. This growth is having an impact on businesses, consumers and government policy but, most critically, it’s impacting our air quality and our environment.
As long as businesses are forced to choose between using fossil fuel vehicles or paying considerable premiums to switch to electric, our increasing reliance on e-commerce will continue to play a part in the decline of our environment. Transitioning the fossil fuel miles currently driven in our cities to a sustainable form of mobility has great potential to benefit our health and our environment, while improving efficiency and enhancing driver experience.
Industry challenges
We continue to see a positive trend of cities and nations around the world defining targets banning the sale of fossil fuel vehicles. There’s still a lot of work ahead to transition these plans into laws, but a rapidly growing number of businesses are already anticipating the need to make the switch to electric as they transport goods and people.
Yet the current lack of choice and flexibility in the commercial electric vehicle market means finding a vehicle to suit unique business needs can be difficult. Commercial vehicles are needed for an incredibly diverse range of uses, so demands for features like cargo volume, vehicle dimensions, battery capacity, price and drivetrain vary.
Another major challenge is keeping operational costs low while heightening the efficiency of each commercial vehicle. This is combined with a much higher purchase price for electric vehicles, making the move to electric even more challenging.
Businesses might modify vehicles in after-market processes, or wait for new vehicles to be brought to market — but this is costly and time-consuming, and all the while they’re trying to keep up with business demands. The results of these challenges mean that businesses often end up compromising, adapting their usage to electric vehicles’ abilities, rather than using commercial vehicles that are both electric, and suit their needs.
Legislation is a strong push for businesses, but truly widespread adoption of electric commercial vehicles will only be enabled by a sufficient range of vehicles being available, at a price comparable to that of internal combustion vehicles. The move to electric needs to make business sense, so we’ve created a commercial vehicle that’s better financially while being better for the environment, a better experience for drivers, and better for business efficiency.
The Arrival Van
We had three core objectives for the Arrival Van, shaped by socio-economic factors and the environmental context:
Create best in class electric vehicles that remove the need for businesses to pay a premium as they transition away from diesel to electric fleets. Engineer the vehicle from the ground up to deliver unrivaled attributes, features, usability and upgradeability, targeted specifically at commercial vehicles. Enable scalability in everything we do to allow rapid and cost-effective introduction of a wide range of optimised vehicles to fleets and consumers around the world.
These objectives, and the urgency of making sustainable mobility a reality, have driven us to solve the challenges we all face in a new way. As a result, we designed a new vehicle architecture and assembly process simultaneously: a new method of design and production. We engineered integral vehicle components and the software that enables them, created innovative materials and ways of producing them in Arrival Microfactories, and developed an ecosystem of products and services for our vehicles and their integration with cities.
As we bring our first Van products onto public roads for the first time, we see the collective output of our revolutionary technologies and their application within fleets. Now in its next development phase, we’re working closely with businesses across grocery delivery, fleet management, leasing, healthcare, package delivery and many other industries to understand how they use vehicles and the challenges they face. All have diverse requirements in how they use their commercial vehicles, and we’ve incorporated features to enable our Van to flexibly meet their use cases.
Over the coming three years we’ll be introducing a range of commercial vehicles of different heights and lengths, and more importantly, different configurations — all optimised to address commercial applications.
The Alpha Van design
Alpha Prototype, Walk-in Van
The Arrival Van is optimised to be the most efficient means of carrying volume and payload on the smallest vehicle footprint possible. Businesses and drivers benefit from the low ground-to-floor height, heightened visibility, best in class cargo volume, a user experience across hardware and software that redefines the standard for commercial vehicles, and the ability to continuously improve functionality for the life of the Van through over-the-air updates.
Multiple variants of the Arrival Van
Arrival Van Products
The rapid introduction of a number of variants of height and length, and different configurations of vehicle, is enabled by the technologies and components created in-house to be used across all vehicles, and by the Microfactory assembly process for which all Arrival vehicles have been designed. This relentless focus on scalability will see the introduction of Arrival vehicles around the world, locally assembled near the businesses and consumers that need them.
A new way of thinking
By designing the vehicle architecture from the ground up, alongside our Arrival Elements such as the drivetrain, battery systems and computing platforms, we’re able to maintain the fundamental essence of this vehicle — offering the largest cargo volume over the vehicle footprint compared to any other lightweight commercial vehicle available.
Making the Van | The Design Story
Beta Prototype, Walk-in Van
We’ve shaped our design principles to bring powerful technologies to reality, and created a number of technologies in vehicle structures, assembly methodology, electrical distribution, materials technologies, controls systems, energy management and others. We’re diverse in our technical and creative approaches, unified by the desire to bring sustainable mobility to cities around the world, and everything we create.
As the environmental, social, and economic impacts of e-commerce continue to rise, we need to be able to scale these technologies, and our vehicle offerings, even faster to meet the broad demands of commercial fleets and global communities.
Our Microfactory assembly process, utilising cell-based assembly technologies with universally capable robotics, removes traditional production lines built solely for specific vehicles and variants, and dramatically reduces the capital investment and commissioning timelines that would typically constrain the introduction of new programmes. Meaning we can scale rapidly, efficiently and locally.
The future of mobility
We’ve begun the next phase of public-road testing, including operational testing with customers — and it’s set to be a busy year as we bring production vehicles to our cities in Q3 2022.
We don’t believe in a ‘one size fits all’ approach to commercial vehicles — so we’re combining our New Method — including Microfactory assembly model, scalable proprietary technologies, and a flexible platform architecture — to actively and rapidly address the challenges faced by businesses in transitioning to sustainable mobility. | https://medium.com/arrival/introducing-the-arrival-van-fb36e81ad76d | [] | 2021-04-22 08:36:29.737000+00:00 | ['Electric Vehicles', 'Electric Car', 'Manufacturing', 'Arrival', 'Cars'] |
Reflection on Amal Totkay | Last week I was failing miserably in the fellowship. I couldn’t complete my Project Work. I couldn’t attend live sessions. I was just frustrated, disappointed, and stressed out. I messaged my Program Associate that I had decided to quit as I was too weak to manage my time with my online classes, job, and this fellowship. He sent me a video titled “Don’t give up”.
Little did I know that I was going to apply the very first Amal Totka.
Amal Totka 1: Self — Talk
After watching the video, I sat and talked to myself for more than 2 hours. Yes, that’s right. It might sound absurd but trust me, it works. I reminded myself of the reasons for choosing this fellowship and all the benefits of completing it. I reminded myself of my strengths, achievements, and that I’d never been a quitter.
Not a quitter? Fine. Now what?
Here comes the tip that does wonders!
Amal Totka 2: Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone
The application of this tip isn’t as easy as it sounds. I had to challenge myself. I woke up late at night to complete PW3. Though I still missed a few things, I tried my best, didn’t quit, and decided to work on my time management skills. In short, I succeeded in getting out of my comfort zone. Yayy 😇
Amal Totka 3: Create New Habits
In order to accomplish this challenge and stay out of my comfort zone, I have started adopting some new habits. It might be too early to call them habits, but it’s a good start anyway.
I, now, divide all tasks of PW into 4 days, (saving the last day as my lifeline 😉) complete them on the assigned day, and I am good to go. TADA 😊
Amal Totka 4: Ask People Help
Being an introvert, I am not used to asking for help. It gets pretty hard for me to reach out to people for any favor. Well, I used to consider it a ‘favor’ but that is, as a matter of fact, a ‘help from peers’.
During the last few days when a few of my Amal Fellows reached out to me to make sure whether I was doing fine or not, I finally realized that ‘help from peers’ is completely fine and crucial to my professional growth. So, I texted my accountability partner and asked her for help during PW3.
Amal Totka 5: Fake It Till You Make It
Okay. So, now I am going to pretend for the rest of the journey that I am competent enough to never quit no matter how much I will panic during sessions and projects.
‘Fake It Till You Really Ace It! (this is what I say 😉)
If you have made it to the end of my blog, you must be wondering,
“Does all of this practically work?”
Yes, of course. That’s how I’m right here writing this blog (assignment :p) at 4 in the morning. Isn’t it amazing?
Cheers 😊 | https://medium.com/@amna-qayyum166/reflection-on-amal-totkay-e6a66cbfaf5 | ['Amna Qayyum'] | 2020-12-26 15:22:41.181000+00:00 | ['Amal Academy'] |
British hegemony in India: pros and cons. | Pre-colonial period.
Though agriculture was major source of livelihood for Indians before the British colonized us, India’s pre-colonial trade was wide spread, to entire Europe, Middle east, China. We exported in abundance the finest quality of cotton, muslin, and silks; we exported rice, sugar, jute etc. We were largely self-sufficient in food crops, reared cattle, we had a presence of fisheries. Our handicraft industries, metal and precious stone works had a great reputation world wide. We were called a “golden bird”, some stats even say that India’s share of world economy was more than 23%, more than entire Europe put together. And India’s share of exports was 27%
However, towards the end of colonial period, as calculated by the then notable estimators, Dadabhai Naoroji, VKRV Rao, the aggregate growth of India between 1900–1950 was less than 2%, and an annual 0.5% growth in per capita output /year. Export share fell to 2%
You can imagine the level of exploitation.
So, what happened in between?
CONS:
Economic Subjugation
Agriculture: Although the majority still lived under the umbrella of agriculture for livelihood, the productivity was low. Courtesy: Land revenue system that prevailed. (Read Land Revenue System explained in simple words) There wasn’t stagnation,but the profits went to zamindars and in turn to British not to cultivators. As the money went by, there wasn’t any capital left to improve agriculture, and hence no technology adaption, further aggravated the dismal level of agriculture. There was a demand for cash crops as British wanted to export them to their country this made farmers grow cash crops, instead of food crops in the lure of making some money atleast this way. Led to the commercialization of agriculture.Thus a country which was self-sufficient in food crops and even exported them,now fell short of them.
Although the majority still lived under the umbrella of agriculture for livelihood, the productivity was low. Courtesy: Land revenue system that prevailed. (Read Land Revenue System explained in simple words) There wasn’t stagnation,but the profits went to zamindars and in turn to British not to cultivators. As the money went by, there wasn’t any capital left to improve agriculture, and hence no technology adaption, further aggravated the dismal level of agriculture. There was a demand for cash crops as British wanted to export them to their country this made farmers grow cash crops, instead of food crops in the lure of making some money atleast this way. Led to the commercialization of agriculture.Thus a country which was self-sufficient in food crops and even exported them,now fell short of them. Industrial Sector: As mentioned, India was world famous for handicraft industries, which vanished under colonial rule, there is a story that British cut off the thumbs of Bengali weavers, who weaved and exported the finest muslin cloth. The clear motive of the colonial govt was to de-industrialize India. They reduced the status of India to mere exporter of raw materials for the upcoming modern industries of England and turn India into a market for cheap finished products of those industries. Local goods lost value leading to massive unemployment in India. India’s suffering became and advantage to British.
As mentioned, India was world famous for handicraft industries, which vanished under colonial rule, there is a story that British cut off the thumbs of Bengali weavers, who weaved and exported the finest muslin cloth. The clear motive of the colonial govt was to de-industrialize India. They reduced the status of India to mere exporter of raw materials for the upcoming modern industries of England and turn India into a market for cheap finished products of those industries. Local goods lost value leading to massive unemployment in India. Trade: Though we were an export surplus country then, our trade was monopolized only to Britain. We exported raw silks, cotton, sugar, wool, indigo and in turn imported finished products like woolen clothes, cotton clothes etc. The profits made this way was used to maintain the British Govt. in India for war expenses, salaries of British employees. This led to drain of India’s wealth.
Demographics: According to 1921 census.
• Literacy rate was less than 16%
• Female literacy was less than 7%
• No public health facilities.
• High Infant mortality rate (218/1000)
• Life expectancy of 32 years
Political structure:
A few argue that they have bought the political unity in India, but we enjoyed cultural and geographical unity many a times in the history, under the Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC , Cholas covered majority of South India, Mughal rule was spread across. But what about the Partition that was because of the Britishers. Millions of people around that time and scores of millions displaced. There was no Political unity, they rather employed “Divide and rule”
Infrastructure:
Some argue that British did infrastructural development in India with the construction of the Indian Railways, ports, water transport, post offices, telegraphs etc.
But the obvious fact is that many countries have built railways without having to be colonized to do so. And the railways laid were largely for the convenience of British as they connected important trade centers to the ports so that they helped the British export and import easily, and roads were constructed to mobilize the army within India. The posts, telegraph was for the effective administration and ruling on Indians. These developments only aggravated India’s economic loss.
Massacres
Jhansi Massacre, Jallianwala bagh massacre, Killings in Cawnpore, etc kill
around 20 million people died due to starvation. The last large-scale famine to take place in India was under British rule; four million Bengalis died in the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 after which Winston Churchill yet diverted the food to serve British. When asked about the tragedy caused due to his decisions, Churchill’s infamous response was “why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?”
Language:
Some say we got to learn English language because of British, remember the Macaulay’s infamous declaration, “I want Indians in blood and color, but English in taste, opinions, culture and moral.” But the need of teaching English to Indians was that they wanted translators, so that the administration became easy.
PROS:
1. Educational reforms: Christian missionaries did some good job in encouraging women’s education. Universities were built for the education in Madras, Calcutta, Bombay. But again, it was done to hire cheap clerks for their administration and we became English obsessed countries, losing our own language and its glorious history. English is no precursor for development.
2. Social Reforms: Abolition of Sati system. Empowerment of Women. Slavery abolition, Widow Re-marriage Act, the cruel custom of offering little children as sacrifice to please God, was banned by Governor General Lord Hardinge
3. Political reforms: The Govt of India act 1935, which acts as a major source for our present day Constitution.
4. William Jones founded the Asiatic Society. He translated some ancient Indian works like the Manu Smriti. Charles Wilkins translated the Bhagavad Gita into English. Max Mueller translated the Rig Veda. James Princep deciphered the Ashokan inscriptions which were written in Brahmi. India’s rich and glorious history, as revealed by Western scholars, helped Indians to regain their lost pride and confidence and contributed to the development of nationalism.
5. The Archaeological Survey of India was set up due to the efforts of Alexander Cunningham and John Marshall.
References:
History Discussions
Pre-Colonial and Colonial Economy
Massacres in India | https://medium.com/three-much/british-hegemony-in-india-pros-and-cons-e24f08de1b08 | ['Saiprasad Bejgam'] | 2016-09-27 09:29:17.285000+00:00 | ['History Of India', 'Indian Economy', 'Colonization', 'British Rule'] |
Introducing Øivind H. Solheim https://medium.com/illumination-curated/%C3%B8ivind-h-solheim-my-fiction-bio-6d9416875c90 | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/illumination/weve-been-encouraging-our-writers-to-create-biographies-2a81df82c8b9 | ['Tree Langdon'] | 2020-12-13 16:39:52.326000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Biography', 'Fiction', 'Writing', 'Business'] |
Why you should learn web development in 2021 | why and how you can learn web development in 2021.
2020 is the year of Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Quantum Computers, and A year of Elon Musk who’s breakthrough ideas lead the world towards Mars and self-driving cars. This year Rust, Python, JavaScript become much more popular amongst developers than last year, and a lot of new technologies are introduced, for example, gpt3 etc.
Yeah! And 2020 is also a year of covid19, which brings drastic changes to our life. It changes the way we used to work, used to travel, and the way we used to study. It totally reforms our life and the way we were living. Most of you are thinking that the outbreak will end in 2021. But as per experts, it’s going to be with us for a long time. So, now we have to live with the changes it has bring.
There are two ways to look at this year, and that might be different for different people. First, one is looking at this year with a positive perspective and a year full of learning , growing and embrace the change through which we are going. And another one is taking it as the worst year of the decade and blaming it for not achieving goals set at the beginning of the year. Let’s decide and let me know what you think. Now lets talk about web and lets find the reason to learn web development.
10 Reasons to learn about web development in 2021.
The number of internet users is increasing day by day. As per Wikipedia data from 2019, 53.6% of the world’s population has internet access. Multiple websites are hosted every day. That leads to an increase in the number of visitors to websites. More users mean more data is consumed by users via browsers. And this is the reason behind the fact that Web Development is going to be in demand for the next decade as well.
Web development does not just contain the designing part, but it also enables new trends in the market. We have Web designers, User Experience Designer, and Back-end developers. Even Native Application Development requires some kind of experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. So, here are some reasons I found why Web Development is much required in today’s developing world.
The web applications are more reliable and accessible than native applications. Native applications require to have the app store on their devices wait for the downloading. After that, the users can access the content. Whereas in web app’s you have to use a URL to access the information. Browsers are getting more powerful with each passing day. Presentation of content and user experience are in exploring your services is crucial. With good design, we can present our information effectively and keep user engagement alive on the web.
(Check here what your browser can do: https://caniuse.com/) There are fewer performance and compatibility issues with the web compare with native apps in which hardware changes directly affect the user experience and performance of apps. Easy access, Easy to search, and SEO optimized web apps can target the biggest and broadest audience than native apps. Web Development has introduced some new terms such as UI/UX Designer, Front-End developer, mean stack developer, and full-stack developers, Which lead towards more opportunity in the market. The development and maintenance cost of a web application is less than native apps. Integrating payment options, third-party API integrations are much more flexible and cost-effective. This means you can easily monetize your web apps. Frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue will be more popular and powerful with time. Knowing web development will boost your resume, which means more job opportunities. And fun fact JavaScript developers are one of the highest-paid developers in the world. With Ionic and React Native, you can build cross-platform applications very easily. Furthermore, PWA apps are a hot topic in the web development industry. ML, AI, Robotics, and many other domains need a front end to connect with the user, Moreover knowing web development will always boost your overall Application Development skills. Web Development is cool. No more waiting time, no more compilation time. Just write code and see the magic of colors in your browser.
Now, I know You know why to learn web development, and Now the question is how. You have to ask two questions to yourself before you start learning anything. Why you want to learn that particular thing/ technology/tech stack and How to learn it. So, I hope now you have a good idea about why you should learn Web development in 2021.
Let’s see how you can start your career in web development with free of cost resources.
How to get start with web development ?
Learn HTML / HTML5 Learn CSS / CSS3 JavaScript Bootstrap (Start if you have a basic idea of the above 3) Learn some other front end framework such as material design by Google(Not hard to learn, Be consistent in the learning process) For server-side, you can start with Python or PHP as it’s easy to learn. The syntax of PHP is similar to C/C++ syntax. Server-side languages you must be familiar with
Node JS
Python Flask /Djang
PHP frameworks Start with building mini projects and make sure to get complete hands-on with this technology. Spend at least 7 days consistently in your project work. Build mini-projects but keep your goal higher than normal. Try your best to convert your mini project into a production-ready application. Take active participation in online web development challenges, And Hackathons give you one hundred percent to win them. Update your LinkedIn profile as a Web Developer. Build your digital portfolio, show your work to your friends, peers, seniors, etc. Build a network of people from where you will get a customer and references, Which will help you to start earning with Web Development skills.
Now we are in the last section of this blog. I’m going to share a list of YouTube channels that will help you to boost your tech skills and learning path. Here is the list of YouTube channels for learning web development for free of cost.
Nptel Adam KHOURY Coder’s Guide Brad Hussy CodeGeek Codeonce Google Web Designer. Design Course Learn web code Php academy The newBoston EDX The Net Ninja Freecodcamp
To learn and enhance your experience and capabilities you can learn from these Free Cost Resources. You can refer to courses on YouTube (from where I started my learning journey), Udemy, Edx, Coursera, Udacity NanoDegree Programmes, etc.
I hope you had enjoyed the blog. It would be great if you share it with your friends as well.
Thanks for reading this blog. Let’s share some love by sharing it with your friends and all those who need to read this blog.
If you have any question, suggestion, feedback or queries you can ask me anytime. I would be happy to help you all.
I love to make new connection and friends. Please be in loop by connecting with me via following links. | https://medium.com/@thedevankit/why-you-should-learn-web-development-in-2021-a777f01562ac | ['Ankitkumar Singh'] | 2020-12-19 13:28:20.051000+00:00 | ['Web', 'Thedevankit', 'Web Design', 'JavaScript', 'Web Development'] |
Where Do You Wanna See Yourself In Next 5 Years? | Well we are often asked about who do we wanna become few years down the lane, which might seem confusing to answer.🙄
While some of us might go into the practicality of the question and might say something like: Owning a company 🏙, a luxurious car, being CEO of a firm or may even be thinking of just quitting something which they might not like.
But this particular inquisition here, is far beyond our work and materialistic goals. Honestly, I don’t actually know what life might offer me in the long run but what I do know is that 5 year down the line, I will be a better person than who I am today in terms of moral values and personal relations. What the majority of people miss here in this long rat 🐀race is the touch of closeness from their near and dear ones 💖.
You might be baffled by my idea here, but this might come to your mind surely someday; when you will sit down owning all the wealth 💰 that you ever logged for, you will realize that you have pushed back your close ones far away from yourself in order to get this materialistic satisfaction in your life.
What one person ever wants in life be it in next five years or even further is just a 9 letter simple yet challenging to obtain word i.e. HAPPINESS 🙂. Being in the youth phase of our life we often feel like grabbing our hands on every fascinating thing we see, resulting in our temptation to conquer it, right before someone else gets their hands on it. We do so because it makes our adrenaline pump up a little bit for a while and then it drops down to below normal 📉. We then realize that it no longer gives us happiness 🤕. So are we actually bored ? OR what is that one major mistake we are doing here, that is leading us to be sad eventually?
The answer to this troubling question lies in the very fact of HAPPINESS. Being happy doesn’t mean you start liking something which someone else has forced upon you ( here by force I mean mental force like getting influenced, being in someone else’s shoes etc.) This should entirely come from within and may last for a short period of time as mentioned above. The only long term happiness comes from people who leaned into relationships, with family, with friends, and with community . This helps you share your mind’s thought process and cleans up all your thoughts be it negative or positive, leading you to a better path.
So, if someone asks me where I see myself in the next few years I will definitely say, “To the person who values happiness more than materialistic things and to the place where I evolve as a person to better handle a situation and closely knit my dear ones.”
Do keep pushing yourself towards finding happiness and you will get whatever you ever wanted in your life. Till then…. | https://medium.com/@Ayusha_Singh/where-do-you-wanna-see-yourself-in-next-5-years-3cd635b6b02c | ['Ayusha Singh'] | 2020-10-06 15:41:41.249000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Goals', 'Values', 'Happiness', 'Life'] |
This Hijab: Company, Acquaintances, and Friends | maybe the best place to start is with my earliest memories surrounding Hijab. as a young child my complete and whole knowledge of Hijab was almost non-existent. i saw my mother and women around me wearing headscarves, but did i realise this was their embodiment of Hijab?
absolutely not.
in retrospect, i didn’t think too much about it, it just was.
dad chose to wear a moustache and mum chose to wear a headscarf.
at the age of 4 or 5 i began learning to read in Arabic. myself, my siblings, and a small group of neighbouring children and family friends would spend an hour or so on weekdays with my aunt. we’d help each other pronounce the trickier words, tell funny stories about things we did at school, and sit wide-eyed, open-mouthed in response to Quraanic recitations and chronicles of how and why. in this setting i understood the headscarf was uniform; i knew it was something i wore when learning and praying Quraan. at some point, i’m not sure when, i started to believe the boys wore mosque hats and the girls wore headscarves to lessen the distractions when praying.
if my hair was covered, i was less likely to mindlessly fidget with it.
after a year or two of studying Quraan and learning to read Arabic, i was presented with a headscarf when getting ready for school in the morning. there were times i’d wear it all day, there were times i’d take it off the same way i took off my coat, and there were times i’d remove it in the playground clutch it in my hand and prove i could run faster than any of the boys.
me, aged 5 (probably)
one morning, like any morning, dad dropped us off at school. i walked to the cloakroom, unzipped my coat, and placed it on the hook. nobody else in my class wore a scarf, and that morning, i wanted to be one of them. i undid the tich-button.
unbeknownst to me, this particular morning dad wanted to spend a little longer saying bye.
“put it under your coat. don’t lose it.” he told me.
i froze.
for the first time, the space between my scarf and i had been interrupted. until now it hadn’t ever occurred to me who was in the room or who was watching us. i took back my coat, settled my scarf on the hook, and then gently tucked my coat around it. i turned to look at dad.
“if you don’t want to wear it, don’t wear it.”, he said, so casually, i was confused.
“i do want to wear it, but not today.”, i thought.
he did Salaam again and i went to class. i spent the entire morning contemplating how my dad could even think about telling me not to lose my scarf. i wouldn’t(!) he didn’t need to tell me.
later that year, a new girl joined our class. she was pretty, she had dimples, and she wore a headscarf. we quickly became friends.
this became a recurring theme throughout my time in school and education… the befriending of the new girl.
the next few years of infant and primary school consisted of multiple teachers mixing up our names and faces. at times we’d laugh about it, at times it would frustrate us, “i don’t even look like you!” we’d both say. by the final few years of primary school it was easier for teachers to differentiate between us. i was loud, and i made myself known.
i relished in the fact that i had a girl gang on and off of the playground, and that i had managed to not only make teachers remember my name and face, i had made them love me.
i made the borough’s cross-country and athletics team. after school training, competition days, and tournaments saw me without my scarf, my brown waves pulled back high and my eyes on the prize. i ran at every opportunity- around the park, to friends’ homes, anywhere…
i began to recognise i was just as fast and strong with or without my headscarf.
by the time i was nearing the end of primary school, i was 10 going on 11, and on a usual day my scarf was on my head more than it wasn’t. there had been times in school when someone would tug at it in the queue outside class, or in assembly as they walked by.
i don’t remember the first time it happened, but i remember how i felt.
othered, big and small, and hyper-aware.
i didn’t want to start a fight,
i didn’t want to get in trouble,
but more than anything i didn’t want to lose my scarf.
the handful of times i chose to use my hands were enough.
i was 10 going on 11 and my headscarf was an extension of me.
if you were my friend, you were a friend of my scarf.
if you loved me, you loved my scarf.
at 11, i began a girls’ high school.
a new school, a new town, a new group of friends.
now a headscarf was a requirement as part of the school uniform, and i began to hear the term “Hijab” more frequently. i quickly developed a sense of pride in wearing the Hijab, much of which i observe and admit was due to being part of such a powerful and inspiring sisterhood. this was the first and only time in my life i was surrounded by girls like me.
Brown girls, Muslim girls, Hijab wearing girls.
during my high school years, i was met with several opportunities to “remove” my Hijab… parties, celebrations, photos with friends, but i couldn’t imagine myself without it. i was beginning to appreciate the meaning of Hijab, within Islam, within myself. at this point it felt like a limb, a real part of me, and so i knew
if i was to ever contemplate what it meant to be without Hijab, i had to first know what it meant to truly be with.
to be in the company of, to be acquainted, to befriend.
being a Muslim of South-Asian decent sometimes means having to navigate through culture and religion. this meant having to learn not every Brown woman covering her hair was necessarily practising hijab in the same way i was trying to. slowly but surely i was able to identify the types and styles of Hijab. sometimes it is an outfit, sometimes it is an evening, sometimes it is a moment.
i have to understand this, i cannot always know the intention, but i can ask and i can listen.
with this new-found information and knowledge came the learning of inner and outer Hijab, as well as Hijab requirements for Muslim men. it was only during my teenage years that i was made directly aware “Hijab” is an Islamic practise for both men and women.
at 16, with a broader perspective and outlook on Hijab, i began sixth-form.
a new space, a mixed-gender space.
i began noticing the subtle (and not so) differences in how i was approached, mainly by males. to non-Muslim boys, i was a Muslim. to Muslim boys- i was a Hijabi.
an other within an other.
it didn’t bother me as much as it intrigued me. realising other people, Muslim or not, were projecting their personal understanding of Hijab onto my personal practise of Hijab was… bizarre.
interactions with classmates felt brief, but ambiguous.
i repeatedly left conversations feeling 2 dimensional and unfulfilled, as though i was only existing on the surface, being read and scanned and put back down for something easier to digest. my sarcasm grew stronger and i reminded myself to be patient.
“you don’t speak to me because you wear Hijab, init? you’re not meant to.”
“i don’t speak to you because you’re annoying and i don’t want to.”
my friendships were questioned, my taste in entertainment and pop-culture was questioned, my seat in class was questioned.
i was desirable, i was not desirable.
i was reserved, i was stuck-up.
i was mysterious, i was a “bitch”
“all this because i am Me, or because i am Hijabi?” i had no idea anymore.
i kept my head down and got on with things.
at 19, i moved away from home and began university.
a new town, a new direction, a new group of friends.
picking up everything and starting again was refreshing, it injected me with a passion and confidence i had lost somewhere in the few years prior.
of all the compartments within my identity, my Hijab was one of the few i was most comfortable with. my Hijab and i were friends, good friends. i knew what it meant to me.
from the very beginning, it was clear i was the only Hijabi living on campus. i’d pass other Hijabis in the canteen, down the stairs, in the toilets… “but they don’t stay, i do”
so what did this mean?
am i representing all Hijabis?
am i the first Hijabi you’ve met?
am i the first Hijabi you’ve made friends with?
am i the first Brown Muslim you’ve met?
am i the first Brown Muslim woman you’ve made friends with?
am i only representing Brown Hijabis?
me, aged 23
suddenly, i was big and small again.
i was the new girl, and so was everyone else.
it turned out, for several people i was in fact the first Hijabi they had ever genuinely engaged with. being a visible Muslim woman in a predominantly non-Muslim environment is not only a fact, it’s a feeling.
i felt it.
some days it felt like a responsibility, some days it felt like an honour, and some days i barely felt it at all. some days i would forget i was the only one wearing a Hijab, i was busy, i was doing things, i was enjoying myself… i had more and more of these days as time went on. each campus open day and fresher’s event saw a few more Muslims and consequently a few more Hijabis. i found myself going out of my way to say hi, to do Salaam, to let them know where i was if they ever needed anything. student life can be strange and isolating, i was thankful i hadn’t felt this way, but this meant i was able to be a shoulder to anyone who did.
i was 20, i was 21. i was travelling, i was making friends, i was writing, i was performing, i was laughing, i was studying, i was cooking, i was learning, i was loving, i was doing life.
i was in spaces i wasn’t supposed to be. i was talking to people i wasn’t supposed to talk to. i was saying things i wasn’t supposed to say. by who’s standards? i’m not sure.
i was existing.
day to day, in-between, and ordinary.
by my final year of university, i could count on two hands the Muslims living on campus, specifically the Muslim Hijabis. it almost became a game, an inside joke between my friends and i- had i spotted the Hijabi? had i smiled in her direction yet?
at 23, i am sat by the fire and writing my Hijab story.
“i don’t want it to be political, i don’t want it to be emotional, i just wanna write” i tell my friends.
the more i learn and unlearn, the more i grasp being visible and Muslim is beyond factual, beyond feeling- it is fascinating, provocative, inviting. in this country and in this climate, my Hijab will receive eyes, questions, and every once in a while an insult.
i am mindful of the fact that oftentimes my Hijab is the first thing some will notice about me, that or my brownness. whether i am sitting by a group of strangers on the train, walking on stage, or just being.
i cannot always control my own thoughts and feelings; i will never expect to control those of others’.
it is not my job to educate, it is not my place to speak on behalf of.
i represent only myself.
if you are to question my Hijab, i ask you to question it fairly and objectively.
question my humility, my sincerity, my listening, my speaking, my manners, my tone… is this too not Hijab? years of fixation on women, and dress, and women’s dress have simplified my Hijab to cloth, fabric, fashion.
cloth, fabric, fashion it may well be to some and that is okay.
we are all living. we are individual.
at this stage in my life my inner Hijab is just as, if not more, significant as my outer Hijab.
i wish to be soft in the right moments,
strong in the right moments,
loud in the right moments,
listening in the right moments,
compassionate always,
learning always,
kind always,
practicing always.
at 23, i have learnt the only people questioning me are the people who always did, and then i realise… i do not care. i am bored of explaining, and bored of expecting.
my Hijab is of heart and it fluctuates.
to my women:
there is an unspoken friendship, a warmness, a familiarity between us.
sisters, bound by cloth and vein.
part-time, full-time, baby-hairs, turban, Hijab, niqab.
good days, bad days, heavy days, long days, bright days,
i love you all the same. | https://medium.com/@realitycheat/this-hijab-company-acquaintances-and-friends-552b1c6bc592 | ['Thalaya Darr'] | 2019-12-02 15:25:23.535000+00:00 | ['Hijab', 'Women', 'Self', 'Muslim', 'Islam'] |
gRPC, Restful API, GraphQL, Web Socket, TCP Sockets and UDP, WebTransport — Beyond modern client server communications | Architecting a distributed system requires a good understanding of available technologies. Each technology can be used like a tool in a toolbox to solve real world problems. In this article, I will discuss modern protocols and frameworks with their pros and cons along with some tips and tricks of using them are explained. Additionally if you’re interested in finding the latest trends, I have included the future standards and technologies that will soon be available.
REST API:
Rest APIs are the simplest and most common way of communication between a server and a client. REST is acronym for REpresentational State Transfer. The technical implementation of REST APIs is not the purpose of this article. However, if you’re interested in learning more I have included some good references at the end of the article.
Using Http protocol clients can use different verbs such as GET, PUT, POST, PATCH and DELETE to access or update content on the remote machine.
HTTP GET /devices?startIndex=0&size=20
HTTP POST /configurations
HTTP DELETE /configurations/{id}
It is important to note that REST API’s are stateless due to the nature of HTTP protocol. This means every time that a client makes a request, it has to identify itself usually by carrying a token or session-Id so that the server can identify and process the request.
Advantages of Rest APIs:
RESTful APIs were designed based on HTTP Protocol. This means that developers have no need to install additional software or libraries when creating a REST API.
One of the key advantages of REST APIs is that they provide a great deal of flexibility. Data is not tied to resources or methods, so REST can handle multiple types of calls, return different data formats and even change structurally with the correct implementation of hypermedia. This flexibility allows developers to build an API that meets your needs while also meeting the needs different customers.
Most modern APIs use Json/XML format to send and receive data and unless the body is not encrypted, it is easy to read the content of the request and response for testing and debugging.
Limitations of Rest APIs:
REST APIs are great when you just to access or write data at some point of time but it is not built for streaming content or real time communications.
REST APIs are also defined based on concrete contracts. This means adding and removing parameters in the request or response needs changes in both client and the server. In large companies with a lot of different APIs, maintaining and having backward compatibility is a challenge on it’s own.
Testing RestAPIs:
One of the great free tools out there for testing Rest APIs is Postman. Postman is great to make a request or orchestrate a set of requests to simulate the behavior of the client without the client being built or present.
image from postman.com
Open API (Swagger):
Writing and maintaining contracts, developing DTOs (Data Transfer Objects) and documenting them has always been a challenge across teams. Swagger was originally introduced originally in 2010 and later renamed to Open API standard in 2015 to streamline this process. Open API is now widely used by a lot of major companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc.
Using Open API, backend teams can design an API technical specification in YAML or JSON format which can contain all the information about routes, parameters, security as well as documentations. The great part of using Open API is the code generators. After defining the API Specifications, both backend and client side teams can generate the source code for the networking layer. This reduces developers’ time for implementing, testing and debugging communication issues between both sides.
Designing API Specifications:
Swagger hub: Swagger hub is an online tool designed by swagger.io which allows you to design, test and export your API specifications online
Stoplight: Another online tool to design APIs and DTOs as well as adding documentations. Stoplight has a lot of great features when it comes to defining API securities, validations, exporting, etc. It is my preferred tool to design and export API specifications.
GraphQL:
GraphQL is query format language that was publicly introduced by Facebook in 2015 with the goal of minimizing transferable data. GraphQL offers great flexibility for the client to query the server in any acceptable variation and receive the response without containing other unnecessary data.
Since GraphQL became public, it has been widely used in production by a lot of major companies such as Facebook, Credit Karma, GitHub, Intuit, PayPal, the New York Times and many more. A number of people and companies have implemented GraphQL standard. Some popular implementations include Apollo and GraphQL.org
GraphQL has been built on top of RestAPI. This means, it comes with all the great benefits of REST API and can be debugged easily. You can find the sample GraphQL query and the response in below:
GraphQL Sample Query
GraphQL Sample Response
Limitations of GraphQL:
While GraphQL has a lot of benefits to simplify the request, it adds a performance overhead that needs to be considered.
Complex views can still trigger multiple database calls, which in turn can make for slow loading times. There are few approaches to resolve these issues such as using Data Loaders, caching and aggregating queries.
Debugging GraphQL:
Postman is has a good support for GraphQL and allows you to test your GraphQL queries similar to REST APIs. For more, check out GraphQL Queries using Postman.
Web Sockets:
WebSocket is a communication protocol which features bi-directional, full-duplex communication over a persistent TCP connection.
Web sockets is a great solution for chat applications, financial market apps and web browser games that require live data communication between a server and client over HTTP protocol. There is limited HTTP overhead (like headers, cookies, etc.) making data transfers possible at a much higher rate.
Limitations of Web Sockets:
Illusion of reliability: Unlike HTTP, Web socket connections can be unreliable due to connection issues. In real world scenarios, it’s always good to have a solution in place to recover any lost messages.
Load balancing issues: Unlike HTTP servers where horizontal scaling is possible, there is no standard way to scale web socket servers. This is because each client needs a persistent connection with one server to communicate. There are custom implementations such as N-CHAN that allows you to overcome this problem.
With the advances of HTTP protocol, web sockets are not supported in HTTP/2.0. New protocols such as WebTransport will soon become available to address this issue. WebTransport can offer standardized live communications over different versions of HTTP Protocols.
TCP Sockets:
In OSI network layers TCP socket operates in a Session layer below the Presentation Layer. This allows a great flexibility when the performance is a factor for the communication. Unlike RESTful APIs, in TCP sockets the integrity of the connection can be verified during the handshaking process without repeated verification of the identity in each message. This process can continue as long as TCP connection remains opened. Since there’s no HTTP headers available in TCP connections, TCP socket can offer a high throughput and low latency communication between server and clients.
OSI Networking Layers
It is important to note that TCP layer guarantees the delivery of network packets. TCP socket is a reliable protocol which is great for precise applications such as online gaming, monitoring systems, sensors, remote surgeries, etc.
Limitations of TCP Sockets:
Scaling: While TCP has a great performance scaling TCP sockets and load balancing can be challenging.
Debugging: In TCP sockets, messages are binary and unlike REST API, it’s not easy to view and edit the body of the requests.
gRPC:
gRPC or Google-RPC is a new CNCF standard based on HTTP/2. It has been introduced by google to enable high speed binary communication between the client and server. Using gRPC, a client application can directly call a method on a server application running on a different machine as if it were a local object. This makes it easier for you to create distributed applications and services. As in many RPC systems, gRPC is based around the idea of defining a service, specifying the methods that can be called remotely with their parameters and return types. On the server side, the server implements this interface and runs a gRPC server to handle client calls. On the client side, the client has a stub (referred to as just a client in some languages) that provides the same methods as the server.
image from https://grpc.io
gRPC has a lot of great features such as Bi-directional streaming and great scalability. Similar to Open API, after defining a specification file (aka .proto file), both the client and server can easily use a code generator to implement the network layer of the applications.
gRPC offers upto x10 faster communication comparing to REST APIs due to the nature of binary communication and benefits of HTTP2. In 2019–2020 a lot of major companies have invested in supporting gRPC and migrating the REST APIs. It is expected to be a big trend in the coming years.
As illustrated in below diagrams, the performance of gRPC is much higher in comparison with REST APIs within different scenarios.
image from https://github.com/david-cao/gRPCBenchmarks
image from https://github.com/david-cao/gRPCBenchmarks
Limitations of gRPC:
Since RPC calls are binary format, testing, debugging and editing the request can be challenging.
Designing gRPC Proto file:
Proto file is a catalog that defines the method and arguments required to initiate a gRPC call between the client and server.
Sample Book Service design
Migrating from REST API to gRPC:
If you have isolated your API DTOs and networking layer, it should be straight forward to translate the parameters and define messages in .proto file. You can then use the gRPC generator to re-create the network layer in gRPC.
If you have incorporated OpenAPI in your system, there are some open source tools that can generate .Proto file based on your OpenAPI spec file.
gnostic-grpc: Designed by Google internship students as a plugin extension for Google’s gnostic tool. Personally, I had some issues while migrating some of the API’s defined in Open API.
openapi-proto: open sourced by NY-times, I personally found it more helpful than gnostic-grpc. However, this tool is not a complete conversion tool and you might encounter some problems.
Debugging gRPC:
Bloom RPC : If you’re planning to implement gRPC, Bloom RPC is a great open source tool to test and debug RPC calls. It offers features similar to Postman to initiate and test gRPC calls.
gRPC is still a very new protocol. While there aren’t many testing tools available yet, it is expected to see a lot community contributions in the near future.
New protocols in town:
WebTransport:
Web transport is a new protocol that has been introduced to fill the gaps between HTTP/2, Websockets and UDP like connections. It also that allows web applications to establish interactive, bidirectional, multiplexed network connections. WebTransport has the compatibility with HTTP3 and it is proposed to be compatible with QUIC protocol.
WebTransport supports multiple features which some of them are highlighted in below:
Unidirectional streams are indefinitely long streams of bytes in one direction with back pressure applied to the sender. This is when either receiver can’t read quickly enough or it is constrained by network capacity or congestions.
Unidirectional streams can be useful for sending messages that do not expect a response. In-order, reliable messaging can be achieved by sending many messages in a single stream. Out-of-order messaging can be achieved by sending one message per stream.
are indefinitely long streams of bytes in one direction with back pressure applied to the sender. This is when either receiver can’t read quickly enough or it is constrained by network capacity or congestions. Unidirectional streams can be useful for sending messages that do not expect a response. In-order, reliable messaging can be achieved by sending many messages in a single stream. Out-of-order messaging can be achieved by sending one message per stream. Bidirectional streams are full-duplex streams. A bidirectional stream is effectively a pair of unidirectional streams.
are full-duplex streams. A bidirectional stream is effectively a pair of unidirectional streams. Datagrams are small, out-of-order, unreliable messages. They are useful for sending messages with less API complexity and less network overhead than streams.
Web transport is great for many applications. Some highlights are:
Sending or receiving low-latency media
File transfers
Sending game state with minimal latency to server in many small, unreliable, out-of-order messages at a regular interval
Receiving media pushed from server with minimal latency (out-of-order)
Receiving messages pushed from server (such as notifications)
Requesting over HTTP and receiving media pushed out-of-order and unreliably over the same network connection
Web Transport is still at early stages and requires implementations and support in various languages.
Quic:
QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connections, pronounced “quick”) is a general-purpose transport layer network protocol similar to UDP. Quic was initially publicly introduced by Google in 2013. While still an Internet Draft, QUIC is used by more than half of all connections from the Chrome web browser to Google’s servers. Microsoft Edge, Firefox and Safari support it, even if it’s not enabled by default. QuicTransport maps directly to QUIC streams and datagrams, which makes it easy to connect to servers that speak QUIC with minimal overhead.
Datagrams:
Datagrams are individual packets of data that are limited in size by the maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the underlying connection, and may or may not be transmitted successfully. If they are transferred, they may arrive in an arbitrary order. These characteristics make the datagram APIs ideal for low-latency, best-effort data transmission. You can think of datagrams as user datagram protocol (UDP) messages, but encrypted and congestion-controlled.
Others:
There are other protocols that was not mentioned in this article which are less common but widely used in real world applications.
UDP: A transport layer protocol that is a great fit for streaming videos and communications where partial data loss is not very important.
WebRTC: similar to gRPC allows a RPC communication over HTTP.
Summary:
Many engineers believe that the latest technologies are the greatest and they need to be use to the current projects they are working on simply because it’s ‘cool’. Whilst I think using the latest technology is great, there are always some caveats and considerations when using technologies. As a good engineer, you need to always be aware of them and assess what’s a good solution to your problem.
So which protocol is the best to use for my next application?
While there are many different solutions to implement the communication layer, the answer remains dependent on your requirements and the timelines and goals. You can have a blend of different technologies in your implementation. For example, you can have a profile sign up API implemented using RestAPI and use WebSockets for chat function in your application.
My recommendations:
Currently, as a general rule to make it simple and ship your application quickly to the market, I suggest to start by considering Open API and Restful APIs. If time is not a concern, it’s worth implementing gRPC and designing .proto file specs to achieve great performance. In some platforms such as .NET core 3.1+, gRPC is a first class citizen and natively supported in Microsoft APIs.
If performance is a concern or part of your system has extensive number of clients and payloads are relatively large, you can consider gRPC to increase the performance.
If you have a lot of APIs and you think you are constantly adding new APIs related to querying and updating same entities, you can consider using GraphQL.
If you require to have a live communication in web or between a mobile clients, you can consider WebSockets.
If your application requires exchanging data reliably at a very high speed with a low latency, you can explore Socket programming.
If you have any questions, comments, suggestion please don’t hesitate to reach out! If you also found this article helpful please don’t forget to clap 👏 and share it with your friends! more cool articles are coming up, so stay tuned!
Helpful links:
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/performance/http2-vs-http1.1/ | https://medium.com/@cloud-trends/grpc-vs-restful-api-vs-graphql-web-socket-tcp-sockets-and-udp-beyond-client-server-43338eb02e37 | ['Amir Kamali'] | 2020-11-27 06:31:33.188000+00:00 | ['GraphQL', 'Websocket', 'Grpc', 'Open Api', 'Webtransport'] |
DeFi Insurance Platform Development — A promising sector for Decentralized Ecosystem:- | What is DeFi Insurance?
In DeFi Market, Insurance may need to play a prominent role, Decentralized finance ecosystem needs a similar sense of security, that’s why DeFi Insurance comes in. DeFi Insurance helps to protect the holdings of investors and providers in the event of hacking or other fraudulent activity. DeFi Insurance is a promising sector in the DeFi market due to its transparency and security that provides to the investors.
It is designed to provide security for everything from the transactions on exchanges to the lending protocols like Dharma, Compound and more. DeFi Insurance platforms will continue to rule the DeFi market in the upcoming years.
How Does DeFi Insurance Work?
DeFi insurance was work by an accepting a loan from the traditional market and also improved security if you suffered by some incidents or some financial loss you can directly contact the insurance and get compensation. If your DeFi platform is get hacked and the funds are already compromised by getting insurance, then the certain insurance company will pay some fund to that DeFi platform to ensure their users. Since the system is decentralized there is no centralized organization is involved it may give more confidence among the users. Each transaction made in a public chain.
DeFi insurance can create tokenized crypto assets and also it can offer valuable safeguard protection. DeFi insurance is mainly involved in smart contracts it was built by blockchain, terms and conditions are drawn according to the authority people so that the information can be stored in the public database, Smart contract indicates the loan terms it connects both lenders and borrowers. DeFi insurance can allow users to take out an insurance policy on smart contracts, funds, or any other digital assets.
Best Use Cases of DeFi Insurance
Blockchain-based Insurers Enter the Market — An insurance platform built on the blockchain all the assets are under the control of a smart contract and securely stored, by storing the claims process on the blockchain network the process will be automated and visible to anyone
Healthcare Industries is seeing a huge advantage in adapting into a DeFi Insurance, insurers are partnering up with blockchain linked business, Insurance providers and Insurance users both the parties can get benefit via DeFi insurance because of its smart contract functionality
Protection for Crypto backed loans — DeFi insurance can minimize the threat of the lenders who provides a loan if the loan can be provided in terms of the collateral loan if it was theft or lost then the loan was paid back in the name of insurance policy so that crypto-backed loans are secured in a DeFi Insurance.
Smart Contract Cover — It was developed to cover the loss, if the smart contract address can be hacked by someone such as loss of funds from the investor account, by using smart contract covers the funds are transferred to another address, in simple term all the losses are covered so that it can be easily recovered.
Where To Get The DeFi Insurance Platform Development Services?
Nowadays, there is a huge demand for creating a decentralized Insurance platform development, among them, Developcoins build your own DeFi based projects with an advanced decentralized ecosystem with skilled DeFi Developers, As a leading DeFi Development Company, Developcoins helps to develop your own DeFi insurance platform which helps to secure the investments and holdings. We also offer the outstanding features and functionalities and assuring you to provide highly innovative and immutable DeFi services and solutions
Get up to 50% off for all your DeFi based services on this Christmas & New year Sale From Developcoins!
Book A Free Consultation Here! | https://medium.com/@ancyfrank273/defi-insurance-platform-development-a-promising-sector-for-decentralized-ecosystem-dc09673d76c4 | [] | 2020-12-17 10:53:11.830000+00:00 | ['Defi', 'Insurance', 'Decentralized Finance', 'Decentralized'] |
Catholic-B.R. vs Byrd | Louisiana High School Football Live Stream 12/27/2020 | Catholic-B.R. vs Byrd | Louisiana High School Football Live Stream 12/27/2020 Ciremai ·Dec 27, 2020
Catholic-B.R. vs Byrd | Louisiana High School Football Live Stream 12/27/2020
Watch Here Live: http://syehkhambali.sportfb.com/hsfootball.php
Bears
8–2
Yellow Jackets
10–0
The Byrd (Shreveport, LA) varsity football team has a neutral playoff game vs. Catholic-B.R. (Baton Rouge, LA) on Sunday, December 27 @ 6p.
Game Details: at Northwestern State University
This game is a part of the “2020 Allstate Sugar Bowl/LHSAA Non-Select Prep Classic — Division I” tournament. | https://medium.com/@ciremai585/catholic-b-r-vs-byrd-louisiana-high-school-football-live-stream-12-27-2020-c0056183b9e1 | [] | 2020-12-27 12:51:45.205000+00:00 | ['American', 'Louisiana Tech', 'American Dream', 'Louisiana', 'American History'] |
Performative Activism, It Kinda Is What It Is | A very human problem
I hate to tell you you’re kidding yourself if you thought everybody cared about your dilemmas. It’s unfortunate, but it’s also the reality. In an era where we see everyone’s issues and every groups plight when the subject gains enough attention it’s not all going to good. So, that leads to people either manipulating a specific groups emotions or a fail attempt to help out or worst just looking apathetic. Once you get passed that, you have to understand how two natural distinction of dealing with emotions work (sympathy and empathy) and they effect the work of movements.
Empathy is a term we use for the ability to understand other people’s feelings as if we were having them ourselves.
Sympathy refers to the ability to take part in someone else’s feelings, mostly by feeling sorrowful about their misfortune.
Everyone is empathetic to the people in their collective group or groups. Sympathetic to the people outside of those groups. A simple example is I’m not a woman, so their plight of men wanting to control every part of their body and them, in general, is one I understand is terrible but can’t act like my feelings of anger or sadness is close to theirs. Because of that, it would be extremely disrespectful to get on social media platforms and cry a river. To help another group of people, you can just help. It’s no need to act like you feel their pain. Want a certain injustice to gain attention, then talk about with some decency and don’t play with people's emotions. What happens is it makes the response not as urgent to the dilemma as it should be. No group of people’s plight is as modern as the media might present at times. But these days, you will receive a round of applause for finding out about a community’s injustices even though it’s been around for generations, definitely if you shed a tear. If you need to be inform about past tragdies like Matthew Sheperd or Tulsa race massacres to “understand” people’s plight then we should think you’re full of it or live in a bubble.
But they do get rewarded for the act
The reason it’s performative because it’s meant to make us feel like we are empathetic, not sympathetic to the problems. Is it right? Is it wrong? Yes, since it’s not sincere and no, because there might not be another way to get people involved or, at best, to hear what the problem is. At the same time, it gives off false feeling of others ”getting involved” when in reality, they’re just hearing your group out, if that. If a person or organization “acts” like they’re hearing a groups plight they receive the recoginzation being “woke”. Which in today climate is it own form of currency. The real problem it takes more than attention, discussion and hearing others out to solve the issues. But people have accepted those as consolation prizes for numerous reasons. All the answers to all the issues would take time, take time to even start. Realistically, mindsets as well will need to change too. Maybe, that's why so many people get star struck by these little performces of activism. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/performative-activism-it-kinda-is-what-it-is-ab4ae69a9757 | ['Tre King'] | 2020-10-15 19:46:54.355000+00:00 | ['Activism', 'Protest', 'Politics', 'Injustice', 'Community'] |
Psychological Safety: Why It Matters to Your Product Team and What You Can Do to Help | As a Product Manager, how can you ensure that your team feels able to take risks, voice opinions and put forward ideas without fear of judgement?
Illustration by http://www.ianviggars.com/
It’s been 4 years since Google published the results of Project Aristotle, their quest to define the formula for the most effective teams. And you guessed it, they found that psychological safety was the most important factor.
Since then, much has been published about psychological safety in the workplace and I have spent plenty of time trying to ensure that the teams that I work with always feel able to express themselves in a safe space.
What do we mean by psychological safety?
Project Aristotle defined psychological safety as an environment where “team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other”. In practice what this really means is that your team members feel able to ask questions, voice opinions and put forward ideas without fear of judgement.
Why it matters on a product team
Imagine trying to build an awesome product where your team only comes up with “safe” ideas (you know, the kind that don’t move the dial), nobody speaks up if they realise they’ve made a mistake (or spotted someone else’s) and nobody asks clarifying questions for fear of being labelled as someone who doesn’t know their stuff. Not ideal!
Ensuring that your team has the space to come up with the very best ideas means that you have the best chance possible to create the most impactful products and services.
Equally, risks can be more effectively managed if team members aren’t afraid to speak up when they see something that needs fixing and people’s best work can be done when they are armed with the information they need to succeed.
Nobody wants to come to work feeling like they can’t put their best foot forward.
How you can help your team to feel psychologically safe
Here are 4 simple, practical things you can do to foster a safe space for your product team:
Remind people: No question is a bad question
One thing that I always do when I’m sharing information or running a workshop is to ask if there are any questions — followed by saying “no question is too big or small” or “no question is a bad question”. It sounds very simple but the effect can be tremendous as it gives the team permission to ask anything they like — no matter how trivial they might feel it is. Following up with “that’s a great question” or “thank you for asking that question” further validates that asking it was a good idea.
Make space for less vocal team members
So often I have sat in meetings and watched as the people with the loudest voices put across their opinions while others either struggle to get a word in or sit in silence, feeling that there just isn’t room for their voice and that it’s better to keep quiet.
As a Product Manager, you can help by keeping watch for these people. Try and spot them next time you’re in a meeting and if you see you can make space for them to speak by saying “Mark, it looks like you have something to add” or by calling out the names of those who haven’t spoken and asking if they have any thoughts to add (while letting them know that it’s fine if they don’t and following up after the meeting). This can help ensure that everyone’s voice gets heard and important thoughts aren’t missed.
Always capture ideas — and try silent voting
Helping your team to feel like their ideas are valued is a great way to foster psychological safety.
During workshops I always set up a “Parking Lot” — this is a place on a whiteboard or wall where you can keep ideas that come up during the session. Every time you hear an idea, capture it on a Post-It on put it in the Parking Lot, that way the person who had the idea feels heard and you end up with a board of ideas to test out.
You can also keep discussion and opinion-giving to a minimum and use dot or other kinds of silent voting on ideas to help level the playing field for those who are less vocal.
Also, reminding people that until ideas have been validated, any opinions on them are just that.
Avoid a blame culture
Sometimes things go wrong and that’s OK — these things happen. As a Product Manager the best thing you can do when things go haywire is to accept what has happened and encourage your team to work together to find a solution and move on.
We’re only human, after all. | https://medium.com/swlh/psychological-safety-and-why-it-matters-to-your-product-team-93e6d7eba03a | ['Monica Viggars'] | 2020-10-28 12:34:38.220000+00:00 | ['Product Development', 'Psychology', 'Leadership', 'Product Management', 'Team Building'] |
Linear Regression with TensorFlow 2.0 | TensorFlow is the one of the world famous Open source numerical computation machine learning Library from Google team.TensorFlow 2.0 has been a major breakthrough in the TensorFlow family. It’s completely new and remodel and also less creepy.
Linear Regression is a supervised machine learning algorithm where the predicted output is continuous and has a constant slope. It’s used to predict values within a continuous range, (e.g. sales, price). In this article we are going to make a prediction using TensorFlow 2.0 .So, open up your code editors and let’s get started!
So start coding important necessary modules.
I have a dataset called data.csv and load the dataset into dataframe called df.After importing the dataset visualize the first 5 rows of the dataframe.
This is how exactly dataframe look like and i have a feature called X and have a target variable called Y . In this article we are going to predicted Y related to the X feature.
Now lets the plot a scatter plot the X values correspond to the Y values.
As the scatter plot we can see the when increasing the X values corresponding to the Y values are increased.As the above plot we going to build the linear regression best fit line for the X and Y.
So lets get started to build Linear Regression model using TensorFlow 2.0.As first we create the instance of the model then we add a layer with one hidden unit. We take a X as our input Y is as Output.
First of all we use TensorFlow Sequential API to build the model .Then we define the dense layer in that dense layer we have one input feature so we use one input as one as well as We use One layer for this model.Next part is compute the loss how far is may actual value from the predicted value in case of Regression we use Mean Squared Error for finding the loss.Afterwards we we need to use a optimizer there are so many Optimizer available in TensorFlow and we used the Adam Optimizer for this task.
After Running the model let us understand the summary of the model.
From above picture as you can clearly see we have a output of one dimension that is why output shape also (None , 1 ) and its specify the total parameters and total trainable parameters.
Now model structure is ready lets we train the model for X and Y using 300 epochs in order to compute the most optimum values of weights for the combination of data what we have.
After running the fit function we can see the model is compute for the 300 models.Finlay training of 300 epochs we have converge to a small loss value.The let us the loss as well.
loss
As the picture we can see the initial epochs loss are very large which has been breakdown from time and reached the optimum values from train.
Now we take the same training data values pass trough the model we will get the output value from the corresponding X value.
Now we have prediction(df[prediction])and actual value Lets plot the scatter plot and best fit line for the X and Y.
best fit line
As the picture scatters are the training data and the red line shows the actual predicted line this is how we can build Linear Regression using TensorFlow 2.0. | https://medium.com/@aadhil-imam/linear-regression-with-tensorflow-2-0-adb4661a4292 | ['Aadhil Imam'] | 2020-11-21 12:00:00.445000+00:00 | ['Python Programming', 'Regression Analysis', 'Linear Regression', 'TensorFlow', 'Machine Learning'] |
Macro Dosing | Photo by Greg Bulla on Unsplash
“Did you take all those mushrooms in your drawer?” asks a coworker, offering coffee.
“Hell yeah, the whole bunch. I’m trying out macro-dosing. It’s supposed to make you more creative and stuff.”
“Don’t you mean ‘micro-dosing?’”
“Hey, is it just me, or am I made of monkey meat?” | https://medium.com/centina-pentina/macro-dosing-29c9611a343f | ['Taylor Foreman'] | 2020-09-14 18:01:01.546000+00:00 | ['Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Pentina', 'Psychedelics', 'Startup'] |
Use Amazon’s Best-Rated Book Titles to Write Great Headlines in 5 Steps | Use Amazon’s Best-Rated Book Titles to Write Great Headlines in 5 Steps
Here are 5 examples
Illustration by Cynthia Marinakos.
When the internet is crowded with the same topics and bland headlines, your headlines can be the difference between being read or ignored. Yet it can be a struggle to elevate our headlines, can’t it?
If you’ve ever written a book: a tangible book, or even an ebook, you’ll know how excruciating it can be to come up with a headline.
You’ve put in many late nights creating draft after draft. You’ve had plenty of to and fros between others to refine your content. And your heart beats excitedly with a twinge of nerves in anticipation of the launch. Your headline has been twisted, teased, and thrown out many times before you finally settled on one.
The quest for a book title is epic. It’s why I’m fascinated by an idea I discovered recently from a fellow writer about one way he writes headlines:
Using Amazon.
How helpful would it be to piggyback off the time, energy, and intention authors have thrown into their book titles? Today I want to explore how to use this tip to spruce our headlines.
Let’s start with five article ideas and use Amazon to help us create fabulous headlines from its most highly rated book titles.
Say you want to share with readers:
Words to describe taste
Being ignored is normal for writers
Active listening tips
Foods to take hiking
An unusual way to sleep well at night
For instance, to find headlines for words to describe taste:
1. Type in a “How to” phrase into Amazon’s search. I like “How to” phrases because that’s naturally what comes to mind when we want to find more information about a topic.
Also if you look up Bestsellers or New Releases, you’ll find book titles that won’t be descriptive enough for articles. Eg. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Countdown 1945, The Vanishing Half, Fair Warning, Breath, The Buddha and the Badass.
It doesn’t mean we need to start our headlines with “How to,” the helpful part about this is we’ll get ideas about headlines based on “How to’s” without always starting with “How to.”
Search for related, and unrelated, topics so we aren’t tempted to use the same, or similar, headlines as a book of the same topic. Avoid plagiarizing headlines. I typed into Amazon: “how to be more creative.”
Perhaps we intend to share 100 words to describe taste in this article. We can also explore another direction with our search, typing in “word lists.”
Screenshot provided by author.
More than three pages of results appear.
If you can’t think of a “how to,” start typing in “how to” into the search bar and Amazon will suggest a list of “how to’s.”
Screenshot provided by author.
2. To help me filter, I want to collect up to ten headlines of books that have four to five stars from more than 50 readers.
Screenshot provided by author.
3. From there I work my way down the lists and choose headlines that meet my criteria:
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative
Art Before Breakfast: A Zillion Ways to be More Creative No Matter How Busy You Are
How To Make A Living With Your Writing: Books, Blogging and More (Books for Writers)
A Kick in the Seat of the Pants: Using Your Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior to Be More Creative
How to Be More Creative: Simple Steps To Success Through the Power of Creativity
So, You Want to Be a Writer?: How to Write, Get Published, and Maybe Even Make It Big! (Be What You Want)
1100 Words You Need to Know
The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma (Writers Helping Writers Series Book 6)
Banish Boring Words!: Dozens of Reproducible Word Lists for Helping Students Choose Just-Right Words to Strengthen Their Writing
4. I use the headlines as inspiration to create headlines for my topic. You can use the book headlines as templates. Or mix and match them.
Write Like a 5 Star Michelin Writer: 100 Scrumptious Words Nobody Will Be Able To Resist
Make Them Drool: Use These 100 Words To Serve Your Readers An Unforgettable Culinary Experience
How To Write Good Food Articles: 100 Words Your Readers Need To Get A Whiff Of
So, You Want To Write About Food: Add These 100 Words To Your Food Dictionary
Banish Boring Food Words: 100 Words for Helping Food Writers Choose Words That Hit The Spot
The Foodie Writer’s Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Droolworthy Writing
100 Food Words Every Food Writer Needs To Know
5. To help me decide, I:
Revisit my article to see which headline best captures the crux of what I want to share with my reader.
Choose one I like the most, but if I can’t decide, I like to get feedback from others: friends, other writers, family, editors, or strangers, share your top three favorite headlines on Twitter and see which ones are most popular.
So there it is: the five steps to using Amazon to write a great headline. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/use-amazons-best-rated-book-titles-to-write-great-headlines-in-5-steps-c5dc52c58b68 | ['Cynthia Marinakos'] | 2020-08-09 03:39:29.091000+00:00 | ['Headline Hacks', 'Business', 'Writing', 'Productivity', 'Creativity'] |
What makes us happy? | What makes us happy?
For much of my adult life I was a teacher, and when the major festive seasons approached, Christmas, or Easter, for example, I used to ask my excited students what exactly it was that made them feel good. Was it giving, or receiving, and almost all of them opted for giving…initially.
I would then ask them if they mostly got excited for themselves, about what they might receive from others, and the answer was unequivocally, yes. BUT, after drilling down further, that yes was often qualified by something like, but you always feel a bit let down afterwards because it’s never the excitement you thought it would be.
And isn’t that the truth!
The happiness we feel when we do something nice for someone, or give a friend a well-thought-out gift, hangs around for a lot longer than our receiving presents we don’t need.
If you’d like to read the rest of this article, please click on the link below. | https://medium.com/@mariarattray/what-makes-us-happy-786be05a7ac6 | ['Maria Rattray'] | 2020-12-17 22:08:59.738000+00:00 | ['Compassion', 'Gift Economy', 'Consumerism', 'Giving', 'Capitalism'] |
6 (more) tips to quickly improve your UIs | 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 adjustments you can quickly improve the designs you’re trying to create.
In this follow up article (You can find Parts 1 & 2 here, and here), I’ve once again put together a small, and easy to put into practice selection of tips that can, with little effort, help improve both your designs (UI), and the user experience (UX).
Let’s dive on in… | https://uxdesign.cc/6-more-tips-to-quickly-improve-your-uis-2130d3e89d59 | ['Marc Andrew'] | 2020-08-28 09:06:58.813000+00:00 | ['UI Design', 'UI', 'Visual Design', 'Design', 'Product Design'] |
Cold vs Warm Weather in an Electric Vehicle | Every electric vehicle (EV) suffers from range degradation in cold ambient conditions. Battery chemistry slows down when it gets cold resulting in less available energy for the car. If some of the battery’s energy is used to warm itself to a more efficient operating temperature, that too will reduce the state of charge and the car’s overall efficiency. The exact amount depends on how low the temperature is, and how much energy is needed to warm the batteries and the passenger cabin, which can be as much as 40% if you aren’t aware of the best practices to help deal with it.
However, EVs are not alone, gas-powered cars are also less efficient due to cold engine oil and increased idling when warming the car. This too will reduce fuel economy in freezing conditions by an average of 15–20%.
2018 Tesla Model 3 Average Efficiency by Temperature
Here is an example from my daily commute that shows the difference in efficiency from warm vs cold weather, using TeslaFi to log all of my Tesla Model 3 data. This is from June 24, 2020, and shows my morning commute to work at around 6 am. The average temp for the drive was 75 degrees (24c), the road conditions were dry and my average speed was 60 miles per hour. My efficiency over my 67-mile drive was nearly 89% and used 15.49kWh of battery. Comparing that to December 11, 2020, where the average temp for the same drive was 39 degrees (4c) with dry road conditions and the same average speed of 60 miles an hour. But, you will see the efficiency has dropped to 72% and consumed 20.44kWh of battery. This is about a 20% difference due to the temperature being 35 degrees (20c) cooler.
But, there are a few things EV drivers can do in winter to ensure you are getting the best possible efficiency:
Heating up your cabin and batteries BEFORE you unplug the car means you’ll have the best range possible because your car won’t need to use its own internal battery power to get up to temperature. Many electric vehicles have in-car settings that will ensure it reaches it set end-state charge percentage shortly before the desired departure time. This smart car technology is becoming more prevalent as EVs increase in number. This is also known as preconditioning. It is best practice to adjust nighttime scheduled charging to stop no more than 15–30 minutes before you typically leave each day is beneficial for better cold-weather efficiency.
Vehicle accessories such as heated steering wheels and seats, use less energy than heating the entire cabin. In addition, the warmth on your backside and fingers can minimize the amount of cabin heat needed to make you and your passengers feel comfortable. You can even bundle up with heavier coats and/or blankets if there are concerns when traveling to ensure you make it between charging stations.
Although it’ll make your car a little slower, driving in Eco mode will squeeze out a few extra miles. Tesla refers to this setting as “Chill” mode. Excessive acceleration and braking, and driving at high speeds all drain battery life.
By anticipating the need to brake and avoiding harsh braking, you will allow the regenerative braking system to work, recovering energy and storing it back into the battery. Keep in mind that in extreme cold, the regenerative braking system will be less effective because cold batteries can’t accept as much energy as warm batteries can.
Snow or ice on your vehicle adds extra weight and increases aerodynamic drag by changing your vehicle’s profile, and results in more energy being consumed. Since EVs don’t produce waste heat from the engine, snow on your hood may stay there if you don’t brush it off before you start your trip. There are also safety concerns while driving, as the snow and ice could fly off resulting in distraction and loss of visibility for you and the people behind you.
Keep the battery topped up by charging whenever and wherever you can just to ensure you are never too low. For the optimal health of the battery remember it is best to not charge above 90% or allow it to get below 20% regularly.
Most electric vehicle manufacturers acknowledge that the prevet use of electric resistance heating systems is less than efficient from a battery consumption perspective. These types of heating systems send electricity through a resistive heating element which helps warm up the cabin. This is similar to how heated seats or some electric space heaters operate.
To improve battery efficiency many manufacturers, like Tesla, are now equipping their cars with a heat pump. A heat pump transfers heat energy from a source of heat into a thermal reservoir. Basically, it works as an air conditioner, but in reverse. In ACs, the heat is trapped inside an area using a refrigerant and then thrown outside. In the case of a heat pump, it works the same way, but there is a reverse valve that moves the hot air back inside.
A heat pump can also produce 3kW of thermal energy for every 1kW of electric energy, thus resulting in an efficiency of 300-percent. Since the heat pump uses less energy in heating the cabin, better range is achieved.
Another challenge of the cold weather is when the roads become slick from snow or ice.
In a gas-powered car, you can select a lower gear to help reduce wheel spin in order to slow the vehicle instead of pressing on the brake pedal. In an EV there is no conventional gearbox to do this with, as you typically only have one gear, with the Porche Taycan being an exception.
The best practice to maximize traction for electric vehicle drivers is to utilize economy or low modes for regenerative braking instead of the standard-setting. This can help prevent the car from skidding because of a too aggressive brake setting that may cause traction issues.
EV’s also have a natural advantage with their low center of gravity created by battery packs located between the wheels and along the bottom of the frame of the car. This helps add to the overall driving stability in slick conditions.
Finally, the tread quality of your tires is critical for negotiating the roads in adverse weather conditions. A snow tire offers an extra deep tread that works well for driving on snow-covered roads by using a softer type of rubber to help provide better grip in slippery conditions. Most all-season tires offer a balance of tread and rubber composition and do work well for diving in dry, wet, and snow or ice conditions. However, if you live in a location that is frequently covered in snow throughout the winter, it is best to have winter tires. Also, be sure to monitor your tire inflation levels to get the best performance out of any tire and to prevent premature wear. | https://medium.com/@thunder7ga/cold-vs-warm-weather-in-an-electric-vehicle-ac881e02ec50 | ['Electric Motoring W Dave Clark'] | 2020-12-24 11:02:47.272000+00:00 | ['Tesla', 'Electric Vehicles', 'Electric Car'] |
Streaming Wars Are Fake, Netflix Hits The Big Screen | It’s more powerful than any platform, product or script.
Netflix has built a community of film talent.
There hasn’t been a company that has nurtured and built a community this strong and powerful since Red Bull.
Screen Writers, Directors, Producers, Actors and the entire crews, from the Grip to the Costume Designers who would have never had the opportunity to crack into the industry, have now cut their teeth on award-winning content.
I see a company that will be around for at least the next 100 years. I can draw similarities to the energy drink Red Bull, that now sits in almost every bar and most restaurants, not to mention in the local bodega.
Like Red Bull, Netflix has built a strong foundation by focusing on people and now has an unstoppable film professionals community.
Image by @GordonCowie @Unsplash
Both companies founded on people, supporting local communities, driving inclusion, and building grassroots cultures globally.
Netflix’s strategy to grow in local markets across the world, creating original content, builds a framework that will catapult the next generation of filmmakers to continue making the best content we all love. | https://medium.com/@rickgovic/streaming-wars-are-fake-netflix-hits-the-big-screen-in-2021-6fcc2f33da5e | ['Rick Govic'] | 2021-02-10 12:08:56.449000+00:00 | ['Netflix', 'Content', 'Streaming', 'Film', 'Platform'] |
What If You Enjoy Being Quiet In A Crowd? | My husband recently took a Myers-Briggs personality test at work. As part of a leadership course. No surprise, it labeled him as an introvert.
I have always assumed that our family of four were all introverts. We are a quiet people. We enjoy each other’s company and talk. But there are many comfortable silences over the course of a day together.
An Introvert Label Brings Me Peace
Long before I had a husband and a family, I identified as an introvert. Well, for as long as I knew what an introvert was. According to the Urban Dictionary, an introvert is defined as:
An introvert prefers to spend time alone in order to recharge their inner being.
When I first read the definition, I felt relaxed and at home. I felt a little less, well, weird. If there is a label, that means there is a group. And if there is a group, that means that I am not “wrong”, I am simply this and not that.
The introvert label also gives me permission to be who I want to be.
It’s ok not to want to go to the party, I’m an introvert.
I am allowed to love to read alone in my room. I’m an introvert.
So my husband and I discussed his Myers-Briggs results and our introverted-ness. Then it occurred to me. I should explain the ideas of introvert and extrovert to my kids. They are 10 & 7 years old. They might not realize that wanting and enjoying alone time is natural and normal. I know firsthand that being an introvert as a child can be more complicated.
In school, kids have to be around other people for large periods of the day, every day. And interact with them. And a lot of complicated social interactions happen. Those interactions can be more stressful for introverts.
But mainly, I don’t want my kids to feel like they should be anything other than who they are. I know that I spent years wishing that I had the qualities of an extrovert. Before I understood what that was.
Introducing the Introvert Label To My Children
I started the conversation with my kids by asking them if they prefer to be around people, or at home hanging out.
My younger son said without hesitation, I would prefer to be home. But then he said, and I’d like to have people over to my house. Hmmm, I thought, that is interesting.
My older son told us he’d rather be around people. And I thought about it. He is always begging us to do more social activities, to plan things for him, to bring him to parties and events.
But, I have seen him in a crowd. He loves watching the action, but always from the fringes. He is almost always quiet in a large group. But he observes with rapt attention, usually with a huge grin on his face.
When my older son told me he likes being around people, I challenged him a little bit. I said, but you are always quiet in a crowd. Are you nervous to talk to other people? He said no. I like being in the mix. (From the mouths of tweens).
Neither son seemed particularly upset or ashamed of their likes or dislikes. They knew what they liked. The whole conversation seemed a little boring to them.
Creating A Label To Define Their Social Interactions
But, I felt like I had to create a structure, a definition of their personality type. For them, I thought. So they can understand themselves.
So I did a little research. At first I thought my older son is an ambivert. And I guess that is true. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, an ambivert is defined as:
A personality trait including the qualities of both introversion and extroversion.
Well, that’s not very precise.
When you put it that way, aren’t we all ambiverts? There are very few people who fall on the extreme ends of the spectrum. Although I do know a few of them on either end.
So then I made up my own description and a definition to go with it. A more exact description of my son (and my husband, to a certain extent).
In my mind, my husband and son enjoy being Socially Adjacent.
The definition of Socially Adjacent, according to what I made up, is:
Enjoys spending time at social gatherings and gets energy from observing other people without interacting with them.
I ran this new term and definition past my husband and 10 year old.
My husband thought it was amusing. He felt it accurate.
Then I mentioned it to my 10 year old.
I could see his struggle. Do I give her the zombie death stare? Or do I roll my eyes deep into the back of my head?
He didn’t care. In the end, the conversation went no where.
Labels Empower Some But Confine Others
The more I thought about it, the more I realized. I sought to define introversion and “social adjacency” so that my kids would have a better understanding of themselves. So that they would not feel alone.
But what they taught me is that they already know who they are and what they like. The labels just box them in. Can’t they like what they like? Isn’t that enough?
And it is.
My kids already know they can be whomever they want to be. Perhaps it is because they are still young. They have not hit the teen years yet.
And another revelation:
Knowing who you are and what you like might not be an idea that we need to learn as we grow. But an idea we need not to forget as we get older.
In the end, who cares if you love to be alone and ALSO love to be quiet in a crowd? Does that have to mean something?
So, as always, my kids have taught me about what kind of person I should be. Not the other way around. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/what-if-you-enjoy-being-quiet-in-a-crowd-ba2c0197c000 | ['Deb Knobelman'] | 2018-08-11 19:13:04.338000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'This Happened To Me', 'Parenting', 'Introvert', 'Family'] |
The Fundamental Problem of Today’s Government | As the democratic debates ramp up, we’re reminded more of the current problems we face as a nation, and we’re also enlightened to about 20 different plans to fix these problems. Of course, this is only one side of solutions that are in the air right now for our nation. It seems that the fundamental differences between these plans right now are, on the left, that we need to address wealth inequality by forcing the rich to help the less fortunate. The reasoning behind this is solid and understandable: The rich are sucking up money and, along with it, opportunities. There are a lot of people who never had the opportunities to succeed on such a substantial level and are now struggling to have their needs met while others buy their fifth house and 10th car without breaking a sweat. There is obviously something wrong with this picture and the solution to the left is to force some wealth redistribution through higher taxation of the rich. This is completely fair given that the rich have a plethora of ways to get out of paying taxes on their businesses and personal assets right now. Amazon is a perfect example, having tens of billions of dollars of revenue yet not paying a single penny in taxes.
On the other side though, the view of the right is that giving money to people who haven’t earned it is unfair to those who have. While it seems this view ignores the fact of unequal opportunities, it almost doesn’t matter in a debate. Their viewpoint comes from a personal perspective. The narrative goes something like this: “I have worked hard for the money and assets that I have, why should anyone else get the money I have earned?” It’s hard to argue against that viewpoint. I think the most effective argument, however, is that when you work you are working to better society not just yourself. That’s the idea of work, not just doing something for a corporation that gets you enough money but doing something for the society to make it better for all individuals. The response to this would be “I am still providing the service to society and my wage is what society owes me for doing that so I can survive.” Again: a really good response. Unfortunately, the conversation rarely, if ever, gets this far and this is where we need to get when having this conversation because it is at the core of the disagreement between the very polarized political parties in the US. I want to talk about this problem, layout a few more responses, and explore the possible solutions. I should note, I do not know where I fall on the issue of solving these problems but I do think there needs to be one while, at times, the right doesn’t seem to care at all because they think the response of “I worked for my money” should end the conversation. I would love to hear feedback and ideas on what people think the right solution to this is. Without further ado:
I’d like to explore what a solution from the right would look like provided that they acknowledge there needs to be one. At the heart of conservative belief lies the idea that institutions should not infringe upon their rights, their money, or their property. This is why the idea of the government taxing the rich, people who, in their eyes, earned their massive wealth, is a complete non-starter. People on the left may quickly become baffled by how this problem can be solved. After all, the rich are all greedy a-holes who need to be forced to help others otherwise they won’t. While there may be some definite validity to that view as it applies to some of the rich it doesn’t apply to everyone. Look at people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet: two of the top three richest people in the world who give away a majority of their wealth to trying to make the world a better place. It could be argued, a well-aligned individual will do more good with massive amounts of wealth than an institution like the government could. I think there is no doubt that that is true with our current government I cannot say whether or not a properly set up system, provided that’s even possible at this point, would be a different story. The altruistic conservatives would definitely take this view. So what’s the difference between the rich that help and the rich that don’t? Valuing human well-being as a whole and clearly understanding what that means. A counter-example would be Jeff Bezos. The richest man in the world who hardly donates any money but thinks his space company is his contribution to humanity. An unclear understanding of what humanity needs right now, if that reasoning isn’t just a PR statement. If it is just a PR statement then the lack of valuing this is the problem. Either way, the right decisions are not being made.
If this is the difference then it seems the solution would be for the rich to be solely people who clearly understand and value human well-being as a whole. How is this solved? Values are instilled in people in a few ways but among the most effective are education and upbringing. If we were to change our education system to reflect the values of human well-being as the top priority this would, in turn, change how society as a whole, now affecting upbringing, values these same things. This increases the chances of someone rich, or anyone at all, holding these values. When a whole society holds these values even if a wealthy individual doesn’t they would feel more pressured by the other rich people around them and anyone they run into to share their wealth in productive ways. It doesn’t just have to be a straight distribution of wealth but instead could be setting up programs and charities that will help over a long period of time. Once something like this is established it doesn’t take as much money to keep it going and it can help self-perpetuate itself which will cause more good than just donating money.
As you can see there are possible solutions on both sides. However, I am not sure which one is better or if we need a mix of these. Either way, this discussion needs to be had and I think it should be brought to the forefront of the political discussions going on right now as a way to help bring both sides of the political spectrum together under one issue and help decrease polarization while addressing and, hopefully, actually getting something done about it. | https://holisticallyliving.medium.com/the-fundamental-problem-of-todays-government-d5396c4a22b3 | ['Nathaniel Allen'] | 2019-08-28 16:40:23.348000+00:00 | ['Polarization', 'Taxes', 'Inequality', 'Politics', 'Government'] |
Counting | I’ve never been great at math but I often think about numbers and
I guess this doesn’t make me credible but it still means I count and
I think about how lucky I am to at least know how to
And I think about how we all count
How we are all
Numb / ers and fract / ions and
There are many ways in which my assailants have marked me
Sometimes in the wake of a memory
Like the smell of cigarettes, sweat and deodorant
His heavy white hands drag my waist back
To 2015, where I was cold
But weighed 125 pounds of heat and
He weighed 200 pounds of heat and grip and
Hate he spelled as “want” and together
We were our own volcano
Out in the middle of the Scandinavias
Not a body within 50 km of our natural disaster
Sometimes my head slings forward to 2018
Bones as frail as 2001, 2000, 1999, 98
My body is marked by these years,
But I feel as small as a number
After 2015 I learned that
1/3 women in North America will experience
Sexual violence in their lifetime and
When I am in a room of two other women
I am reminded of how many times
I’ve been marked by a beast
I wonder if they can see it too,
Can they see me?
— — —
When I am talking to more than 2 women
I start counting how many of us are the same
I think about how we can start a cult
Or a family of prime numbers, divisible by
One and ourselves
Since I’ve learned about the use of these numbers
I’ve never once had a conversation
With a group of people without going over
How many of us are girls, and
Statistically, how many girls were once
Grabbed like me, choked, and held still in time
Held still to remember
We were once girls,
now we are just numbers
When I talk to a boy, I think
Of how I am 80% more likely to
Get raped and killed right then and there and
When I a group of them smoking cigarettes I think
About how 1 out of 6 men experience
Sexual assault in their lifetime and
I look at their hands to see which ones
Are held into fists like mine
Who slouches like me, and they all do
They all do
When I am by myself
I div / ide my body into three parts and
Tell myself that it is only a / part of me
And not a whole of my body anymore and
Those men with the hands and the cigarettes
Feel further away
— — —
Until I’m in a bar with my best friend and
We talk about deleting our
Rapists off of Facebook, finally and
I feel multiplied / e x p a n d e d, and
It’s suddenly become 2/2 or 1/1 or 1, every one
So I start counting the rest of the women in the bar
To make sense of it all, because sometimes
1/3 feels safer than 2/2, 1/1
One whole throbbing body invaded by
Hands and sweat and breath
Once I wanted to see if the numbers changed
If maybe it turned into 1/5 or 1/10 but its the same and
I come across this statistic that says
Every 73 seconds an American
Is sexually assaulted and
Now I count every 73 seconds
Sometimes when I’m in the shower,
I think of how many more have joined me,
How many 73 seconds have passed in my lifetime and
No matter how much I scrub at my skin I am never clean
But I’m not even an American but
Can’t seem to find these Canadian numbers and
What does it mean that half
Of the most significant rapes in my life
Happened outside this country
Does that make me part of that countries statistic?
Does that make me part of that country? The way
That country became
Part of me and
I think of all those who don’t even count as a number
Indigenous women missing and raped and forgotten and
I’m reminded of how much of a
Privilege it is to be looked for
To be counted
But I will count for them, multiply these fract / ions
Or ask my phone to do that for me
Say prayers every 73 seconds and bow my head
In remembrance for how we were fractioned
Fractured, cracked at our clavicle and
Made numbers out of our blood and I will count
And I will count | https://medium.com/@juma-perez/counting-99dcec3d392c | [] | 2020-12-07 23:11:03.850000+00:00 | ['Trauma', 'Mental Health', 'Sexual Assault', 'Mathematics', 'Poetry'] |
Should researchers make design recommendations? | When I was coming up, I was taught about UXR by people with an academic background in research and various levels of ‘a degree in HCI’. For those people, a researcher’s role was all about rigour and objectivity. In short, I had some excellent principles drilled into me.
But over time I’ve experienced a massive range of research attitudes, influenced by the specific company, project and individual researchers involved which have led me to reflect on the question — Should researchers make specific design recommendations as part of their findings?
I feel like I’ve been in situations at both ends of the spectrum.
One extreme…
Having worked in what some would call ‘pure’ UX agencies, I have seen researchers who refuse to commit to any specific guidance beyond “we should do more research”.
I’ve seen frustrated clients looking for answers, and not having the tools themselves to make forward leaps — they didnt know how to turn the findings into specific design iterations and prioritised sprints.
The solution?
In this kind of agency, I often saw this outcome for clients — namely a sense of dissatisfaction and confusion. Here I found myself taking on the lead strategist role, so that the researcher could remain faithful to their ideals of ‘just the findings’, while I worked with the client and stakeholder teams to plan and prioritise subsequent quick wins, additions and future design experiments as appropriate.
Some of the researchers didn’t like this — but the clients did, and they gave us more work because of it.
Some of the researchers loved this — because it didn’t force them to answer questions they felt would bias their presentation of the findings.
Photo by Marc Zimmer on Unsplash
To the other…
I’ve also worked with researchers who couldn’t stop giving design guidance. Not just suggesting new iterations or experiments — but actually creating specific ‘recommended’ wireframes themselves and putting them in the research reports.
This frustrated the team around them, because it prevented them from carrying out a proper exploratory design iteration as a next step. The research report essentially gave the client the design answer — with no space to understand the findings for themselves, and shut off any thought of future experimentation.
In short, the clients skipped reading the findings and just copied the wireframes.
Not to mention that the person who did the research (and design) is was then too biased to assist with any future design exploration.
This is why in my team I attempt to prevent any one person from testing their own designs, or designing (alone) based on their own tests. But I’m aware this is the luxury of having several people who are 360’s on my team.
The solution?
First, remove any and all specific visualised design recommendations from any research report. That makes it much easier for stakeholders to understand findings as they are, without jumping ahead and solutionising.
This doesn’t mean slowing the iteration process down or rapid projects. For example you can separate two meetings (research findings and ideation session) with a 30 minute comfort break. You just need to create a mental break for your team and stakeholder audience.
If the team is so small that the researcher will also have to iterate design, simply put on your different metaphorical hat and manage the clients focus accordingly.
This stage: discuss findings.
Next stage: iterate design.
Photo by Jailam Rashad on Unsplash
The contemporary UX researcher
It’s clear that researchers today need to be much more strategic than the traditional HCI training of old. As I’ve said several times before, research has to add clear value to stakeholders — otherwise research gets cut completely.
However, there still needs to be a faint line of separation between the research findings from one study and the specific iteration of design for the next.
there needs to be a line between the research findings from one study and the design iteration for the next
To be super clear before anyone gets upset, because of course the answer is always “it depends”…
I’m NOT saying
Researchers shouldn’t collaborate closely with designers
Researchers shouldn’t have informed opinions or make contributions to wider product strategy or future design iterations
Researchers should hand over a study and walk away
Researchers should avoid stakeholders questions about design next steps
That research and design should be separate at all times
I AM saying
Researchers have the power to influence stakeholders and should abstain from biasing others by leaping to specific design conclusions and recommendations
Researchers need to remain objective in order to retain research authority — a research presentation is not a design workshop
Researchers should be clear on their role in the project and team and allow others the same
If it has to be the same person that does research and design iteration, at least keep it as separate meetings, and absolutely keep specific design recommendations out of a research report.
Photo by Amanda Phung on Unsplash
How to do this
It is relatively easy to keep a slight separation between research and design iteration as part of Research Ops, which can also communicate roles and responsibilities to the team and any stakeholders.
Have a clear project methodology with discrete phases
Give research findings time to settle in stakeholders’ minds by having even small breaks between meetings and holding off ideation and solutionising — you will ultimately get more open-minded design ideation as a result
Have clear roles and responsibilities, so that even if it’s a small team, depending on the stage you call the practitioner “the Researcher” or “the Designer:
If research and design documentation are stored on a similar server (Sharepoint, Confluence), have separate folders, show clear phases of work
Although over time accumulated research findings and design discussions naturally merge, ensure that at least for early stage and standalone research findings documentation, “future work” is removed.
To be absolutely clear, there are no black-and-white solutions here. It goes without saying that the role of the researcher changes based on environment, research ops, project, company and individual. However there is rarely a good outcome for stakeholders or final design of product if a researcher refuses to discuss design iteration, or decides to start making design work on their own based on findings. Or if current findings and future ideation merge at all times.
A researcher is neither an island, nor a psychic. | https://blog.prototypr.io/should-researchers-make-design-recommendations-e465eb91eae | ['H Locke'] | 2021-08-28 08:44:55.205000+00:00 | ['Research', 'UX Research', 'Design', 'UX'] |
A Story of Product Development | Timing
That which has been labeled as “the homeless problem” is at an all time high with expected increases in growth as more millennials become disenfranchised.
“According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Annual Homeless Assessment Report, as of 2018 there were around 553,000 homeless people in the United States on a given night, or 0.17% of the population.” -Wikipedia
Immigration and population growth have both slowed. The job market is starved for qualified candidates in more than one field. These factors appear to indicate that the time is ripe for new solutions.
Thanks to incentives to get phones and even smart phones to low income populations, more people are connected than ever, including those who are homeless. Timing could be ideal if new ideas could be combined with emerging tech and if that tech is mass produced efficiently enough that it can quickly be made easily accessible.
One of the current factors that might be cross currents or obstacles to the achievement of the goal are that many homeless people do not have phones, or if they did, those phones get stolen.
Competitive Landscape
Within the issue of homelessness, from my current knowledge base, many approaches have already been tried that have produced only limited success. Failing to approach these issues holistically has potential for massive amounts of wasted resources. Directing efforts and energy to only one part of the problem will not result in a whole solution. There are often multiple factors at play to be discovered.
I’ve been trying to formulate an idea of what this ghost product/app is going to be, but it has not yet materialized. In the meantime, I decided to research what apps are already available that might be accessible. I found what at first looked like a number of apps, most of which are locally focused, but upon closer examination discovered that almost half of the links led, not to apps but to webpages where it’s not necessarily clear how to get help. The few viable apps, with functionality available within the United States, I was able to find are:
Our Calling: Christian religion based. May not be a comfortable option for non-Christians in need.
Concrn: Limitted reach. Focus is on intervening in the stead of law enforcement.
WeShelter: Donation app that doesn’t address most of the issues homeless people face. Gamed approach. Possible funding source for homeless related projects.
Samaritan: My favorite of the potential competitors. They have a motto that says “You’re not Invisible” and have a springboard type platform that allows stories to be told and those who need help to be found.
There’s even a SF based app called “Shelter Space” that came out of AngelHacks “Tech4Good” hackathon in March of 2017. (May still be in development)
In my evaluation, overall, Samaritan is the strongest competitive factor.
According to lifehacker, “A running theme in the news coverage of these apps is that they’re underused, and the lack of reviews and ratings in the app store confirms it. (Many apps never even get past the institutional resistance and regulation.)”
Softonics.com also reiterates, saying “A quick look through the App Store or Google Play reveals a lack of reviews, and it seems that people are still reporting homeless activity to the police or trying to get in touch with over-extended city service departments.”
Social Factors
Some of the people who are on the front lines of these issues are law enforcement officers and social workers. Having apps that connect them to resources to help others is a vital work tool.
The social factors that work against solving the issue are of looming proportions, but not insurmountable One of those factors is that many hold opinions that people who are in a homeless situation want to be that way and are choosing to stay in that lifestyle. There is a concept that any effort to help these people is a waste of time. Many homeless people are struggling with issues of addiction and/or mental illness, in addition to not having a secure place to sleep.
Often, even if there is success in bettering their circumstances, there remain strong influences that draw them back. Part of the workload of addressing the issue is persuading a different perspective among society and the general populace. A skilled marketing professional with an adequate budget has no problem spinning things to suit the interests of the project.
What Do People Say?
The User Interview
To gather more information, and also to prove or disprove personal evaluations of social attitude, we went out onto the streets to survey random people who might be willing to answer a few questions. These reasons are why we do user interviews. It’s not possible to give the market a product it actually wants, without knowing what is wanted.
The key to effective interviewing is the abilty to formulate and ask questions without bias. That means that the questions asked cannot influence the interviewee to answer one way or another. The question set used was minimal by design. It contained one basic demographic question, two elimination questions, and three open ended questions that allowed the interviewees the opportunity to contribute ideas to the project if they so desired. It’s debatable whether or not one of my questions, about who should help, was leading. It did in a way assume an ideology that when in human being is in a miserable situation, and in need of help, that someone is responsible to help.… even if that only means that they are responsible for helping themselves. Speaking to strangers was challengingly in opposition to my childhood behavioral training, but I managed to find 4 out of 6 people who were willing to talk and be interviewed.
An interviewee selection strategy was employed to get as wide a cross-section as possible of opinions and ideas. I looked for people who appeared to be of different economic and age groups and ended up interviewing two black men, one born in the 80s, one in the 90s, and two white women, one born in the 70s and one in the 80s. My demographic question was about the decade they were born in. Two of the interviewees asked what I meant by decade, which I explained was like the 60’s, 80’s, etc. Both of the interviewees who were born in the 80s were homeless.
Another Tool of Product Development:
Mind Map
This diagram shows the different aspects of the issue that were shared during the user interviews. This experience of user interviewing led me to find deeper insights into the depth of the issue and to develop a more realistic idea of the types of help that are needed.
The Product Idea
By now I should have no issue with saying, this product/app-to-be will help the homeless by giving them better access to information about resources they need to help them change their situations. However, I still don’t know exactly what it will be.
One of the things students of software product development learn is the concept of MVP which is minimal viable product, which uses a metaphor of a skateboard, a bike, and a car. This comparison shows how an MVP aka skateboard can be built out to eventually become something with more power and functionality, such as a car. It also shows how there can be viable stages on the way to reaching its full potential, represented by the bicycle.
While I might not be able to see exactly what this application I’m developing will evolve into, I think I can say that I have my skateboard.
User Journey
Another tool of product development we were taught as students is the user journey. This is a way of putting ourselves momentarily into another person’s perspective in order to make an attempted prediction of what they may want from the app.
We ask ourselves, what will they see when they open the app? What are they most likely to be looking for? What types of functionality do they expect and/or need? These are the types of questions that a user journey can help answer.
Wireframes
The most recent tool of software product development I was introduced to is the wireframe. In CAD (Computer Aided Drafting/Design) a wireframe is a collection of interconnected vertices that define the shape of a 3D object. It is a communication tool, in many cases that allows information to be passed from designers to manufacturers.
In SPD, just as in 3D design, they are drawings that act as a type of blueprint for the design of a user interface. They show the basic placement of various components as the designer would like to see them represented on the screen. It should also show how subsequent pages connect with and are interacted with through the various elements. They define the basic “shape” that the designer of an app would like it to take.
example wireframe drawing
In Conclusion
There are many steps and tools used in SPD. They address the many aspects of not only doing the job, but doing it in a researched and well thought out manner.
#foodworkspirithealth | https://medium.com/@elaine-mcroe/a-story-of-product-development-1b70ebdbd355 | ['Laine G'] | 2019-10-02 17:03:31.846000+00:00 | ['Domestic Violence', 'Homelessness', 'Startup', 'Product Development'] |
Rookie CEO Leadership Styles Drive Company Culture | Rookie CEO Leadership Styles Drive Company Culture
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
When you schedule a last-minute meeting with your team today, do they shake in their boots or are they enthusiastic? Consider asking your team 3 words that would describe you. Do it anonymously if they do not want to be identified. Think about what the answers to these would mean.
What type of CEO will you be, Visionary, Authoritative or Collaborative? What leadership superpowers will you bring to the CEO table? Will you be a combination of styles?
My main purpose for writing The Rookie CEO book, writing these blog posts, and developing the “PPLC” framework is to help aspiring CEOs and leaders learn how they will lead and creating an action plan to become the best and most successful CEO and leader one can be! Now that your mind is wandering and thinking about what your team would honestly say about you, let’s dive into the next level.
In a previous post, I described more specifics on the PPLC framework, which I introduced in the Rookie CEO book. The acronym represents:
P=Path to CEO
P=Philosophies the new CEO brings to the position and the company
L=Leadership Styles of the new CEO
C= Culture that the new CEO will create or emerge, and is built on the foundation of their “PPL”
This post will focus on the “L”, Leadership Styles and how they impact the culture of the company!
Leadership Styles — Make or Break the Culture!
Many of us have led teams, managed people and have a track record of proven results. This means we already have leadership styles cemented in our brains and because we know ourselves better than anyone, we have chosen our methods to lead. As a new rookie CEO, you will now move from leading a smaller business function or team to leading a complete company consisting of all business functions. Many of the most successful CEOs in history accumulated many failures on the way to success. All CEOs are rookie CEOs once! As we kick off the discussions, let’s look at a few of the basic leadership styles then we will evaluate how to determine your style and what action steps to take to grow and enhance your personal style to become more agile for today’s world!
Basic Types of Leadership Styles
There is an abundance of books and articles about leadership styles and many experts out there today. Readers of business books and web sites will have a snapshot of this complex topic in their minds and perhaps may have even mapped their existing styles into their personal leadership style elevator pitch in preparation for interviewing and networking. In “The Rookie CEO, You Can’t Make This Stuff Up!”, each of the 9 features rookie CEOs that I worked directly for have had to develop their personal styles to take on their 1st CEO role. By way of real-life stories, I share the results and impact of their styles and offer advice and takeaways for future CEOs to learn from in order to fuel their new CEO career.
Elements of Leadership Styles:
Humanity — is the rookie a visionary wanting to change the world as fast as possible influencing the world today?
Inspiration and motivation — is the rookie dynamic and energetic?
Initiative and aggressiveness– what is the rookie’s career and experience foundation for taking on the new role? Will there be a new mission to change or disrupt the market? Will there be a new team built or an inheritance of an existing team needing to be vetted by the rookie?
Is the rookie a manager or leader? This will determine if they are good listeners, do they gather input from all team players and stakeholders and make decisions based on these discovery platforms or will they just make decisions and drive forward in an autocratic way?
Will the rookie micromanage or delegate assignments and let the team execute?
Will there be goals and objectives set, measured and reported?
Does the rookie bring their own strategy, or does he/she meet with the team, ask questions to get team input, then set the strategy?
Will each team member be held accountable?
How much fun does the rookie like to build into day-to-day operation and execution?
Once the roadmap is set, will there be what look like daily changes as new articles appear, the rookie has chats with his or her friends, or they read a new book?
What type of tenacity and “get it done” type of attitude does the rookie bring?
The above will help the rookie understand the types of disruptions they will tolerate and the structure of the operation vs. seat of the pants methods they will employ, and from there, how the company will operate. Can you see how these have a huge impact on the company culture? Remember, the rookie has philosophies that they bring and coupled with their leadership styles will define the culture.
The experts and books I mentioned earlier define leadership styles as coach, visionary, servant, autocratic, authoritative, laissez-fire, democratic, pacesetter, and bureaucratic. Sometimes the classifications are less in number, but the bullets all fall into these categories. One of the largest challenges for the aspiring CEO and leader, is to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, create a learning and growth plan and roadmap and go! One of my favorite things to do as well as a major personal strength is to coach and educate aspiring CEO and leadership talent and guide them along their path to success! There is only one thing I can think of that I can’t coach: true grit!
Summary
If you are on your way to becoming a CEO or senior leader, now that you have insight into how your philosophies and leadership styles can drive the company north or south, you can take inventory of your personal views and arsenal of skills. How do you want your company to be led? How do you want to build out your team?
Learn, understand, and journal everything you can. As in sports, a good foundation of basics and knowledge of rules pays off with success!
Now that you have a basic understanding of my PPLC framework and how you can utilize it for your career enhancement, you can begin your action plan to achieve greatness! Coming in the next post will be the final PPLC chapter: Culture!
If you would like to read more about Rookie CEOs and their sometimes bazaar stories with many key take-aways, grab a copy of my book “The Rookie CEO, You Can’t Make This Stuff Up!” in eBook, paperback or hardcover formats from Amazon.
Connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Stop by my web site to learn more. | https://medium.com/@beelinebill/rookie-ceo-leadership-styles-drive-company-culture-1cff53a5c6dc | ['Bill Miller'] | 2020-12-17 19:33:44.670000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Planning', 'Motivation', 'Strategy', 'Business'] |
Smart Homes: To be or Not to be? That is the question. | Smart homes: to be or not be?
That is the multi-million dollar question that drives us every day.
Over the last six to eight years, we have seen the evolution of smart home technology, as well as increasing levels of consumer adoption. But what are investors, builders, developers, and municipalities doing? Will this trend hasten adoption of smarter living, or will regulation and fear hold us back, once again?
In 2021, we are already on the second and third generation of smart technologies. With the recent announcement from smart device manufacturers coming together to cooperate under one protocol, “Matter,” it will hopefully become even easier to buy, install, and manage your smart home from start to finish.
Because, at the end of the day, it truly does Matter…
It matters that your home feels safe.
It matters that your home feels secure.
It matters that your home feels comfortable.
At the end of the day, what Matters is that your home feels like Home.
When did smarthomes really become accessible to consumers?
Smart devices slowly made their way into American homes just like computers, TV, and radio before them. Slowly, but surely, as technology improved with each generation and prices decreased, more people were able to purchase them, one home at a time. In the summer of 2015, Amazon released the Alexa assistant and the pod shaped speakers that would make Alexa a household name around the world. Next came the Google Assistant and Google Home speakers, with devices from Apple and Microsoft not far behind. With the spread of these assistant enabled speakers, the smart home revolution was on its way.
These assistant-based devices also served as hubs, enabling less powerful devices, such as motion sensors and door locks, to connect to the Internet. Other companies soon started making their own devices and hubs. This has been both exciting and confusing for a lot of people. Too many options, too many hubs, too many protocols and technologies… what’s a person to do? Watch what happens next.
In 2021, everything from your locks, lights, kitchen, bathroom and just about about anything else (including the kitchen sink) can be made available with a “smart” or Internet-connected option! Companies like Amazon have taken note of the increased customer interest and partnered with Lennar homes (one of the biggest US developers) to collaborate on the development of Alexa integrated residential smart homes that are practically move-in ready.
Following suit, several other large scale residential developers have started working on their own smart home/community projects. So, what has changed since then?
More connection methods, protocols, and manufacturers.
We’re all familiar with Wi-Fi. After that came Bluetooth, when mobile devices and their accessories became popular. Since then, many other connectivity technologies have joined the party, such as ZigBee and ZWave (LoRa may be less recognizable than the heavyweights). Then came on the onslaught of off-brand manufacturers on Amazon, eBay, and the like. All of this has left consumers sometimes overwhelmed with choice, and other times looking for help in getting things to seamlessly work together.
2. Smart devices, in more aspects of our lives, accessing and gathering more data.
Where do we initially put our smart speakers and assistant devices? In common areas, such as bedrooms, kitchens and offices, to name a few. Today, smart devices may be in every room of our home, doing more and getting better at helping you over time. You may have a smart TV in the living room with connected speakers, a smart fridge and dishwasher in the kitchen, smart shower and mirror in the bathroom, and more. The opportunities for connecting your home are limited only by your imagination.
3. Where do things seem to be headed with smart homes after the recent announcements by Google, Matter, etc.?
One thing is for sure: smart homes, cities, and living environments are a part of our future! Smart technologies, like their predecessors, have the opportunity to improve and enrich the quality of our lives. One of the ways we can do this is through automations (for example, Alexa routines and Google actions). With rapidly-evolving routines and actions, it’s also becoming easier to integrate digital assistants into your day. One example would be setting up basic automations for some of our more daily routines. Saying, “Good Morning Google!” can begin a sequence of events that starts with your bedroom curtains opening to let in the morning sun and finishes with a freshly-brewed, hot cup of coffee in your hand.
That’s where Punjj comes in!
How do we at Punjj help you set up your smart home and stay ahead of change? We design and build out the smart home of your dreams. Are you a rental, property, or a community manager looking to secure and simplify your portfolio?
Are you a new homeowner looking for peace of mind?
No matter your circumstances, we’re here to help!
Maybe you’re a retired professional living independently in your home, or parents with school age children. We’ll help you stay in the know with family and loved ones. We’ll also help you figure out what you equipment you’ll need to make your vision a reality, as well as troubleshoot and maintain your system when it steps out of line.
We work with you to plan and implement updates and upgrades, as your needs change and grow.
Most importantly, we’ll take away the confusion and figure out what’s best for you!
Ready to get started? Contact us at [email protected] | https://medium.com/@punjabitaz/smarthomes-to-be-or-not-to-be-35eaca27eb4c | ['Taz Abbas'] | 2021-05-25 21:40:26.023000+00:00 | ['Real Estate', 'Smart Home', 'Alexa', 'Google Home', 'Airbnb'] |
Stop persisting pandas data frames in CSVs | Excel and to_excel()
Sometimes it’s handy to export your data into an excel. It adds the benefit of easy manipulation, at a cost of the slowest reads and writes. It also ignores many datatypes. Timezones cannot be written into excel at all.
# exporting a dataframe to excel
df.to_excel(excel_writer, sheet_name, many_other_parameters)
Useful Parameters:
excel_writer — pandas excel writer object or file path
— pandas excel writer object or file path sheet_name — name of the sheet where the data will be output
— name of the sheet where the data will be output float_format — excel’s native number formatting
— excel’s native number formatting columns — option to alias data frames’ columns
— option to alias data frames’ columns startrow — option to shift the starting cell downward
— option to shift the starting cell downward engine — openpyxl or xlsxwriter
— or freeze_panes — option to freeze rows and columns
Advantages of excel:
allow custom formating and cell freezing
human-readable and editable format
Disadvantages of excel:
very slow reads/writes (20 times/40 times slower)
limit to 1048576 rows
serialization of the datetimes with timezones fails
More information on Pandas IO page.
Performance tests results for excel. Only 54% of columns kept the original datatype, it took 90% size of the CSV, but it took 20 times more time to write and 42 times more time to read
HDF5 and to_hdf()
Compressed format using an internal file-like structure suitable for huge heterogeneous data. It’s also ideal if we need to randomly access various parts of the dataset. If the data are stored as table (PyTable) you can directly query the hdf store using store.select(key,where="A>0 or B<5")
# exporting a dataframe to hdf
df.to_hdf(path_or_buf, key, mode, complevel, complib, append ...)
Useful Parameters:
path_or_buf — file path or HDFStore object
— file path or HDFStore object key —Identified or the group in the store
—Identified or the group in the store mode — write, append or read-append
— write, append or read-append format — fixed for fast writing and reading while table allow selecting just subset of the data
Advantages of HDF5:
for some data structures, the size and access speed can be awesome
Disadvantages of HDF5:
dataframes can be very big in size (even 300 times bigger than csv)
HDFStore is not thread-safe for writing
fixed format cannot handle categorical values
SQL and to_sql()
Quite often it’s useful to persist your data into the database. Libraries like sqlalchemy are dedicated to this task.
# Set up sqlalchemy engine
engine = create_engine(
'mssql+pyodbc://user:pass@localhost/DB?driver=ODBC+Driver+13+for+SQL+server',
isolation_level="REPEATABLE READ"
) # connect to the DB
connection = engine.connect() # exporting dataframe to SQL
df.to_sql(name="test", con=connection)
Useful Parameters:
name — name of the SQL table
— name of the SQL table con — connection engine usually by sqlalchemy.engine
— connection engine usually by chunksize — optionally load data in batches of the chunksize
Advantages of SQL:
Slower than persisting on disk (read 10 times/write 5 times, but this can be optimized)
Databases are understandable by all programmers
Disadvantages of SQL:
Some data format are not kept — category, int, floats and timedeltas
depending on the database performance can be slow
you may struggle to set up a DB connection in some cases
If you would like to increase the write time of .to_sql() try Kiran Kumar Chilla’s method described in Speed up Bulk inserts article.
Feather and to_feather()
Feather is a lightweight format for storing data frames and Arrow tables. It’s another option how to store the data, which is relatively fast and results in a small file size. It did not include it in the measurement because the engine locks the files for quite a long time and it’s hard to do several repetitions of the performance test. If you plan to persist a data frame once, feather can be an ideal option.
Other methods
Pandas offer even more persistence and reading methods. I’ve omitted json and fix-width-file because they have similar characteristics like csv. You can try to write directly to Google Big Query with .to_gbq() or stata format. New formats will definitely appear to address the need to communicate with a variety of cloud providers.
Thanks to this article, I started to like .to_clipboard() when I copy one-liners to emails, excel, or google doc.
Performance Test
Many of the methods have benefits over the CSV, but is it worth using these unusual approaches when CSV is so readily understandable around the world. Let’s have a look at the performance.
During the performance test I focus on 4 key measures:
data type preservation — how many % of columns remained original type after reading
— how many % of columns remained original type after reading compression/size — how big is the file in % of csv
— how big is the file in % of csv write_time — how long does it take to write this format as % of csv writing time
— how long does it take to write this format as % of csv writing time read_time — how long does it take to read this format as % of csv reading time
For this reason, I have prepared a dataset with 50K random numbers, strings, categories, datetimes and bools. The ranges of the numerical values come from numpy data types overview.
data = []
for i in range(1000000):
data.append(
[random.randint(-127,127), # int8
random.randint(-32768,32767), # int16
...
Generating random samples is a skill used almost in every test.
You can check the support function generating random strings and dates in the GitHub notebook, I’ll only mention one here:
def get_random_string(length: int) -> str:
"""Generated random string up to the specific lenght"""
letters = string.ascii_letters
result_str = ''.join([random.choice(letters) for i in range(random.randint(3,length))])
return result_str
Full code to generate the data frame is described in this gist:
Generate random data and measure the read/write speed in 7 iterations
Once we have some data we want to process them over and over again by different algorithms. You can write each of the tests separately, but let’s squeeze the test into one line:
# performance test
performance_df = performance_test(exporting_types) # results
performance_df.style.format("{:.2%}")
The performance_test function accepts a dictionary with the test definition, which looks like:
d = { ... "parquet_fastparquet": {
"type": "Parquet via fastparquet",
"extension": ".parquet.gzip",
"write_function": pd.DataFrame.to_parquet,
"write_params": {"engine":"fastparquet","compression":"GZIP"},
"read_function": pd.read_parquet,
"read_params": {"engine":"fastparquet"}
}
... }
The dictionary contains the functions which should be run, e.g. pd.DataFrame.to_parquet and the parameters. We iterate the dict and run one function after another:
path = "output_file"
# df is our performance test sample dataframe # persist the df
d["write_function"](df, path, **d["write_params"]) # load the df
df_loaded = d["read_function"](path, **d["read_params"]
I store the result into a dataframe to leverage Plotly.Express power to display the results with few lines of code:
# display the graph with the results
fig = pe.bar(performance_df.T, barmode='group', text="value") # format the labels
fig.update_traces(texttemplate='%{text:.2%}', textposition='auto') # add a title
fig.update_layout(title=f"Statistics for {dataset_size} records")
fig.show()
Performance test results. Data Format Perservation measure % success and size and speed are compared to the csv.
Sanity Check
Testing things on random samples is useful to get the first impression how good your application or tool is, but once it will have to meet the reality. To avoid any surprise, you should try your code on the real data. I’ve picked my favorite dataset — US Securities and Exchange Commission quarterly data dump — and run it through the performance test. I have achieved very similar results which persuaded me that my assumption was not completely wrong. | https://towardsdatascience.com/stop-persisting-pandas-data-frames-in-csvs-f369a6440af5 | ['Vaclav Dekanovsky'] | 2020-11-03 11:09:40.803000+00:00 | ['Pandas', 'Python', 'Dataframes', 'Plotly Express', 'Code Performance'] |
The First Signs of Alcoholic Liver Damage Are Not in the Liver | The First Signs of Alcoholic Liver Damage Are Not in the Liver
Myfather died of alcoholic liver cirrhosis four years ago. It came as a surprise to all of us, even though it was clear he had a severe drinking problem for decades. It was especially surprising to me, as a former nurse and a recovering alcoholic. You would think I’d know more about liver problems and alcohol use than the average person. But the truth is, in the months before his death, I had no idea my father’s liver was struggling at all. Most people know about cirrhosis, but few people know how a liver goes from early damage to end-stage liver cirrhosis.
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The combination of my father’s death and my personal background lit a fire in me to know more. He was admitted to the hospital on June 24, 2016, and he died on July 18. Only 24 days passed between the first sign there was a problem and his subsequent death.
Now, hearing that he was in end-stage cirrhosis didn’t surprise me, given his heavy drinking. What did surprise me was that he’d visited several doctors and specialists in the months before his death, and no one knew his liver was struggling either.
So what happened? Does end-stage liver cirrhosis really sneak up that fast? Were there other signs that would have alerted someone to his failing liver?
As for why the doctors and specialists didn’t know what was happening, that mystery resolved reasonably quickly. The plain truth is that alcoholics rarely divulge the amount and frequency of their drinking to their doctors. This was the case for my dad. He had many health issues that he was trying to solve, but he protected his drinking habit fiercely. So he refused to spill the beans, even when it mattered.
The problem is that liver damage has numerous multifaceted symptoms that are confusing and associated with many other illnesses. Unless a doctor knows that the patient is an alcoholic, they may not know how to interpret what’s happening until it’s too late.
As he was dying, my father told me that he didn’t think to tell the doctors how much he was drinking. He said it was as if he blanked out and “forgot” to mention it. As crazy as that sounds, this strange “forgetting” is a common part of the alcoholic mindset. It may also be due to the metabolic and physical changes of cirrhosis itself.
There are many signs of liver problems, but oddly, none seem to point to the liver at first. And in fact, many of the first signs of liver damage occur in other parts of the body. Knowing these signs may help educate alcoholics and their families if they want to understand their risk of developing liver cirrhosis.
Liver damage has numerous multifaceted symptoms that are confusing and associated with many other illnesses. Unless a doctor knows that the patient is an alcoholic, they may not know how to interpret what’s happening until it’s too late.
Digestive signs
The liver plays a huge part in our digestive process. It filters out all toxins from food as well as helping to break down fats and glucose.
When a liver starts to slow down due to significant damage, it will reduce its digestive work. Instead, it will divert its energy toward vital functions like metabolizing medications and filtering toxins.
This means that symptoms like bloating, nausea, vomiting, gas, and diarrhea will start to increase. Over time, eating becomes more challenging. In the later stages of liver cirrhosis, toxins that can’t be filtered out begin to build in the bloodstream, which causes more nausea.
Cognitive signs
Although confusion and brain fog happen in end-stage liver cirrhosis, they can also be early signs.
The liver is responsible for filtering dangerous substances in the blood. It also helps regulate hormones, blood glucose, and vitamin absorption. In the early stages of liver damage, these processes can be interrupted. Inevitably, this affects our brain and nervous system.
This means that early liver problems can make you feel tired, confused, slow, and foggy. You may have some memory issues as well.
Neuromuscular signs
The liver stores vitamins required for the functioning of many organs and systems in the body — one of them is vitamin B1 or thiamine. A deficiency in this particular vitamin has been documented in many alcoholics with or without liver damage.
Unfortunately, alcohol inhibits the absorption of thiamine in the intestine. Over time, as the liver becomes damaged, it can no longer store thiamine in enough quantities. Thiamine deficiency is responsible for many neurological issues in people with alcoholism.
Symptoms of thiamine deficiency range from mild to severe and include things like: confusion, mental fog, lack of balance, pain and numbness in hands and feet, muscle weakness, rapid heart rate, digestive problems, flushing, and involuntary eye movements.
Thiamine deficiency happens in almost every alcoholic who consumes frequent and large amounts of alcohol. And if thiamine deficiency due to alcoholism is discovered, you can be sure the liver is suffering damage at the same time.
Many of the first signs of liver damage occur in other parts of the body.
Vascular signs
All alcohol consumption can lead to blood vessel dilation, causing flushing in the face and hands. Over time, this can cause damage leading to permanent redness in the face. Although many alcoholics have rosacea or spider-like veins on their faces, this is often benign.
However, spider angiomas are different from rosacea or spiderlike veins. They’re circular and have a central point called a spider nevus that is darker than the rest of the lesion. Spider angiomas are a sign of liver disease and can be present in the early stages. They often progress to more extensive and more numerous lesions.
Spider angiomas are caused by increased estrogen levels in the blood. When the liver becomes damaged, it can’t properly metabolize estrogens, which causes them to build up in the body.
Many women who are pregnant or taking birth control pills may have a few spider angiomas. However, in alcoholic liver disease, these lesions are often more frequent and accompanied by red palms and varicose veins in the esophagus.
These are a few of the main signs of alcoholic liver damage that happen outside of the liver. It’s important to know this because most of us have no idea how the liver functions and how it communicates distress.
The liver itself doesn’t show signs like pain or swelling in the early stages of liver damage. This contrasts with other organs like the heart or stomach, where any damage will emit pain or symptoms directly from these organs.
What happens with liver damage is that its many diverse functions become interrupted, causing symptoms in other parts of the body. This may explain why most people never think they have a problem with their liver.
Unfortunately, patients with alcoholism are rarely educated about these issues. This is because they often don’t reveal their drinking, to begin with. And even if they do, the symptoms are widespread and complex, which makes patient education challenging.
My goal in writing articles like this is to help educate regular people about alcoholic liver disease to understand their health and make better decisions.
It’s hard to say if my father would have changed his drinking habits if he knew more about his vague and complicated symptoms. But I think having proper education would have certainly helped him understand his risks and health problems better. | https://medium.com/@joedenly57868/the-first-signs-of-alcoholic-liver-damage-are-not-in-the-liver-4a0c5af9271 | [] | 2020-12-14 22:30:24.910000+00:00 | ['Addiction', 'Body', 'Alcohol', 'Mental Health', 'Health'] |
Dealing with anaemia in pregnancy. | If you have ever watched those old Nigerian movies, you would definitely have seen one that illustrates the so-called classic signs of pregnancy. First of all, the naïve teenager starts to throw up. An experienced woman then pulls the girl’s lower eyelid down, checks her palms and if it is pale, then pregnancy is confirmed … immediately! While their methods are by no means accurate, paleness during pregnancy is indeed common and it is mainly as a result of reduced iron levels.
Causes of iron deficiency anemia
The growing baby created an increased demand for iron, which the mother is taxed to supply. Therefore, women who are anemic or prone to anemia before getting pregnant due to excessive bleeding during periods, poor diet, and so on, are more likely to be anemic in pregnancy. Apart from this, women who are expecting more than one child also have a higher risk.
Signs and symptoms
When mild, anemia may not present with any symptoms. In moderate to severe, however, symptoms like extreme fatigue, palpitations, headaches, and fainting may occur. A few women start to crave absolutely strange things that are not ordinarily edible like clay and chalk. This condition is known as pica, which is also common in children.
Diagnosis of anemia
Your doctor would request a basic blood test, PCV during your visits to the hospital. If your red cell count is found to be low, then you may be given supplements, dietary adjustments and sometimes, a blood transfusion may be required.
Preventing anemia
Taking iron supplements and iron-rich foods like vegetables, meats (the darker the better), offals, nuts, pulses, legumes, and so on would help to keep the iron levels up. You should also take vitamin C supplements or fruits that contain it like citruses because Vitamin C helps your body to absorb iron well. Care must be taken with iron supplements though as they can cause stomach discomfort, constipation, and dark stools. You can always contact a nutrition specialist, a gynecologist, or a general practitioner for more advice.
Final word
Anemia in pregnancy is common but measures need to be taken to ensure that the red blood cell levels are adequate enough to support the growing baby. This is one of the reasons why antenatal care should be started on time and visits kept.
Do you have any questions about this or a related topic? You can get answers right from where you are by consulting a doctor on www.doctordial.ng. | https://medium.com/@doctordial/dealing-with-anaemia-in-pregnancy-1d75846ab270 | [] | 2020-12-16 10:32:46.508000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Feminism', 'Blood', 'Anemia', 'Pregnancy'] |
The Making of Quantum Chess | The Making of Quantum Chess
Demo of Quantum Chess in Real Time
Just when you thought regular video games couldn’t get any more complex, scientists and software devs had to prove us wrong and show technology will always advance. Although quantum game development is still in its early stages much like any other field of quantum computing, it’s still very possible for any interested party — developer or otherwise — to get involved. In fact, as a (recently graduated!) computer science student, I just finished a quantum computing 2D platform game as my senior project. While the details and a demo of this game are to be saved for another time, my point is that it doesn’t take years of graduate study and/or programming expertise to get started.
This also applies for playing quantum games, like the world-renowned Quantum Chess. This game gained internet stardom in 2016 following its debut in the viral video “Anyone Can Quantum”. Featuring the late Dr. Stephen Hawking and famous actors like Paul Rudd and Keanu Reeves, this video (created by CalTech’s IQIM group) was to humorously show the public that anyone can learn quantum computing — a field growing in popularity and importance.
Earlier this year, I actually had the pleasure of attending a virtual colloquium hosted by Western Illinois University, with Chris Cantwell as its guest speaker. Cantwell is a quantum physicist, quantum game developer, and more notably, the creator of Quantum Chess. During this colloquium, he explained his creation process, his goals as a quantum game developer, and general tips for those interested in following in his footsteps.
What is Quantum Chess?
As its name would imply, Quantum Chess is a variation of chess which involves both the standard moves of the game and moves involving quantum concepts like superposition and entanglement. Technologically speaking, chess was one of the first games available on a classical computer, dating as far back as 1950 when the great Claude Shannon published “Programming a Computer for Playing Chess”, one of the first papers on the subjects.
Likewise, in 1951, Alan Turing published the first program (developed on paper) that was capable of playing a full game of chess. Fast forward a few decades to 1997, and we have history being made when IBM’s “Deep Blue” chess program beat Garry Kasparov (considered to be the best chess player in the world at the time). These events illustrate the long-standing relationship chess has with computers, and the introduction of quantum computers only magnifies the possibilities for the game.
Cantwell began developing his version of the game for a class project when he was a physics student at USC. He’d dabbled in quantum games before but always knew he wanted to make more. In 2019 he collaborated with Google to run Quantum Chess on their quantum computer, eventually leading to a successful live demonstration for Google’s 2020 Quantum Summer Symposium. This was followed by the Q2B 2020 Quantum Chess tournament (featuring Doug Strain vs. Aleksander Kubica in the final match) which had over 45,000 views on Twitch during its stream.
So, although it took several years of hard work and collaboration with CalTech and Google, he finally produced the game anyone can now play.
And how exactly does one play?
The rules are as follows:
All standard chess moves apply
Players may choose to perform a quantum move instead of a standard chess move
Pawns may not perform a quantum move, but they can exist in superposition
Capturing is not allowed during a quantum move
There is no check or checkmate since the King can exist in superposition
If you’ve ever played standard chess, you know it is a game of strategy and there are endless possibilities for moves to be made. So adding in quantum options only increases the complexity of the game, allowing for even more choices for a move and more outcomes from that move.
Developing a Quantum Game
When creating the game which he hoped to educate people about quantum concepts, Cantwell kept the following design goals in mind:
The movement in the game could be considered a “swapping” of empty positions with occupied ones, so the concept of superposition could be illustrated with a partial swap. In other words, a chess piece on the board could be in a superposition of states where each state is a different classical chess piece.
Moreover, touching a Quantum Chess piece to make a move is the act of making an observation/measurement which, according to the laws of quantum physics, causes a piece in superposition to lose its coherence and collapse into one of its states. This also ties into the concept of interference, which relates to wave functions.
(Side note: if you’re wondering what wave functions have to do with Quantum Chess, it’s because one of the most popular interpretations of quantum mechanics is the Copenhagen interpretation which expresses the idea that everything known about a particle can be summarized with a wave functions, and wave functions can be used to calculate the probabilities of all possible observations. But I digress)
Entanglement is shown in how the state of a chess piece is “bound” to the state of another piece, regardless of how far apart on the board they are. If one piece is affected, so is the other. The two entangled pieces can belong to the same player or one to each player, and multiple entanglements are allowed.
An interesting tidbit of note is that the quantum computer (or quantum simulator) only has to use as many qubits as there are pieces in superposition, as well as a few extra ancilla qubits, which improves efficiency and runtime.
Also, notice #5, which states that the game does not strictly teach quantum mechanics but instead gives the player an opportunity to interact with the concepts and develop an intuitive understanding. Although this does not necessarily have to be your goal when making a quantum game (it certainly wasn’t for me; my goal was to explicitly teach quantum mechanics), it’s an important idea to consider. And this brings us to our next subject…
Teaching Quantum Mechanics
As the great physicist Richard Feynman said: “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” It’s a well-used quote in the field because of how blatantly it expresses that even the experts who dedicate their lives to the study of this field still find themselves stumped upon occasion.
Unlike other branches of physics like kinematics or magnetism, we don’t experience quantum mechanics in a tangible way on a daily basis. Consequently, we have no intuitive understanding of it. Quantum games thereby allow people to interact with quantum phenomena to then develop an intuitive feel for QM.
Additionally, games are a promising tool for quantum education and inclusion because they have a lower barrier to entry than, say, a quantum mechanics course. There is a multitude of resources available both online and in libraries if you want to learn the subject, but in my opinion, it won’t be as entertaining and fun as a video game.
Opinions aside, you can read more about Cantwell’s development experience here, in a blog post written by Cantwell himself. In the colloquium, Cantwell mentioned that he is currently working on an AI which plays quantum chess against a player. This is exciting because it relates to Quantum Machine Learning, which as I covered, has a promising future in both research and industry.
And if you want more details about Quantum Chess itself before playing the game, you’re welcome to read more details in Selim G. Akl’s paper found here, published in 2016. The author goes much more in depth and explains the relevant quantum concepts more thoroughly. | https://medium.com/qubitco/the-making-of-quantum-chess-f9e81c275c1 | ['Madeline Farina'] | 2021-05-07 15:39:45.700000+00:00 | ['Chess', 'Quantum Game', 'Game Development', 'Quantum Computing', 'Quantum Mechanics'] |
Exploratory Data Analysis(EDA) with PySpark on Databricks | EDA for continuous variables
The built-in function describe() is extremely helpful. It computes count, mean, stddev, min and max for the selected variables. For example:
df.select('var_0').describe().show()
However, when you calculate statistic values for multiple variables, this data frame showed will not be neat to check, like below:
Remember we talked about not using Pandas to do calculations before. However, we can still use it to display the result. Here, the describe() function which is built in the spark data frame has done the statistic values calculation. The computed summary table is not large in size. So we can use pandas to display it.
df.select('var_0','var_1','var_2','var_3','var_4','var_5','var_6','var_7','var_8','var_9','var_10','var_11','var_12','var_13','var_14').describe().toPandas()
Get the quantiles:
quantile = df.approxQuantile(['var_0'], [0.25, 0.5, 0.75], 0)
quantile_25 = quantile[0][0]
quantile_50 = quantile[0][1]
quantile_75 = quantile[0][2]
print('quantile_25: '+str(quantile_25))
print('quantile_50: '+str(quantile_50))
print('quantile_75: '+str(quantile_75)) '''
quantile_25: 8.4537
quantile_50: 10.5247
quantile_75: 12.7582
'''
Check the missings:
Introduce two functions to do the filter
# where
df.where(col("var_0").isNull()).count()
# filter
df.filter(col("var_0").isNull()).count()
These two are the same. According to spark documentation, “where” is an alias of “filter”.
Binning:
For continuous variables, sometimes we want to bin them and check those bins distribution. For example, in financial related data, we can bin FICO scores(normally range 650 to 850) into buckets. Each bucket has an interval of 25. like 650–675, 675–700, 700–725,…And check how many people in each bucket.
Now let’s use “var_0” to give an example for binning. From previous statistic values, we know “var_0” range from 0.41 to 20.31. So we create a list of 0 to 21, with an interval of 0.5.
Correlation: | https://towardsdatascience.com/exploratory-data-analysis-eda-with-pyspark-on-databricks-e8d6529626b1 | ['Cao Yi'] | 2020-03-27 03:27:39.438000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Databricks', 'Visualization', 'Exploratory Data Analysis', 'Pyspark'] |
Black Codher Bootcamp: My Journey So Far | No one said coding was going to be easy.
The Bootcamp is going great. I feel as though I am flying through the modules. HTML and CSS were relatively straightforward, which I now consider lifelong skills I wont be forgetting anytime soon. If anyone else is looking to start coding, I too would suggest starting with HTML and CCS, it was a great way to ease me in.
Then along came JavaScript….
I don’t hate JS, I like it, but it’s proven difficult for this coding newbie. Loops, functions, arrays, .map, .length, and so many other little words and methods, its taking me a while to get my head around them, but I am getting there, slowly but surely. Whilst JS may take me a lot more practice to fully het my head around, I should stress that I am enjoying the Bootcamp, a lot, and the more I learn the more grateful I am for the opportunity. Diversity in tech is important.
There’s a real sense of community throughout the Bootcamp, 50 black women, all coding newbies, going through this TOGETHER. Heart-warming right? We also have some lovely volunteers already established in the coding sector to guide us along the way. I really couldn’t ask for a better learning environment.
Now we have moved on to React, a JavaScript library and….I LOVE IT. Not entirely sure how I managed to struggle with bits of JS and yet I’ve fallen head over heels for React. It’s a great library, its quick, its innovative. All the projects I have with it so far have been a great learning curve. I think React may be the one for me, but who knows? There’s still more languages left to learn in the course.
Sometimes (a lot of the times) I do feel a sense of self-doubt, coding is hard at times and I wonder if I really have the ability and the smarts to do it. I have these thoughts often and they’re always gone by the next day. It’s important I try stay positive and believe I can “crack the code” with much more practice and a lot more googling.
My mentor has been a great help with this. All coding newbies should have a mentor, as my progress so far is a credit to her. I really appreciate her help and insight into a lot of coding matters, and when I am feeling coding-doubt, she always has something practical and truthful to say.
Coding really is all about practice…and googling…since I started the Bootcamp the amount of googling I have done is unreal. I’ve come across great blogs, webinars, conferences, podcasts and so much more. Learning to code has been enlightening despite the difficult days.
If I can concourse JavaScript, surely I can do anything.
side note: I brought a lovely little notebook from Amazon where the cover says “I NEED A <BR / >”. A notebook has never been more relatable after hours of figuring out for loops.
Coding Newbie,
Olivia | https://medium.com/@oliviacodes/black-codher-bootcamp-my-journey-so-far-3d28c7685f62 | ['Olivia Walker'] | 2020-10-28 14:11:48.745000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'Coding', 'Codingbootcamp', 'Code Newbie', 'React'] |
DPoPS Mainnet: Release and schedule | Dear community,
Today, and after a year-long (but needed) testing period, we are glad to announce that the X-Cash public blockchain is ready to move from Proof of Work consensus algorithm to our new and customized: Delegated Proof of Private Stake consensus algorithm.
What is DPoPS?
The DPOPS (standing for Delegated-Proof-of-Private Stake) is a brand new and unique Delegate-Proof-of-Stake consensus integrated into X-Cash, an open-source fork of Monero which has since the beginning of the project brought new innovation to the privacy coin space (notably FlexPrivacy, public & private transactions on the same blockchain, from the same wallet).
Characteristics
The top 50 delegates are elected as block verifiers.
Using a variation of Delegated Byzantine Fault tolerance consensus where 55% consensus must be reached for a new block to be added to the network.
DBFT allows for up to 45% of the elected block verifiers to be faulty. The system will still be able to produce a new block.
Using Verifiable Random Functions (VRF) to select the next block producer in the system. This allows for a random, but a verifiable way of selecting the next block producer.
Staking
The block reward is given to the block verifier responsible of forging the block, and shared with their voters.
Reserve proof-based voting/staking system: the XCASH’s stake always stays in your wallet.
There is no lockup period. The staked XCASH always remain in your wallet and you can use them at any time. However, moving them from your wallet will cancel your entire staking
No need to keep your wallet/computer online if you are staking towards a shared delegate
Voting
The minimum stake to vote for a delegate is 2 million XCASH.
The election process occurs in every block.
New votes will be taken into account at the top of the next hour.
Your current vote will automatically get cancelled if you change your vote to a different delegate.
There are no voting fees. You can cast a new vote or switch your vote as many time as you like.
Blocks
Blocks can be verified from the delegates explorer with a detailed explanation of the block content.
The voting and reserve bytes data is held in a decentralized database system.
The block format is designed to store a hash of the reserve bytes data, pointing to the decentralized database, to reduce size increase of the blockchain.
Schedule
With everything being ready, we have decided to make the switch from the PoW algorithm to DPoPS consensus algorithm at block 800,000, or around February 4th, 2021 at current block time.
There are several things to take into consideration before the release of the mainnet. The switch to mainnet will be organized as followed.
Registration Period
Strart: January 4th, 2021
The registration will enable the delegates to start registering their nodes and open the community voting for them. The registration will start on January 4th and will last until the block 800,000. This period is 1-month long, to enable everyone to prepare their nodes, start communicating around and accepting votes.
Delegates — You have a consequent amount of XCASH, and are looking at getting a delegate position and securing the X-Cash public network? Delegates elected in the top 50 get a block verifier position and get rewarded with the block reward.
If you are planning on running a delegate node, you will be able to register as a delegate on the 4th of January. You can start preparing your node in advance by following the extensive guide to becoming a block verifier on the X-Cash public network.
You will have the time to decide if you want to run a shared delegate (people vote for you and help you get elected, but in return, you share the reward with them), solo delegate (running with you own XCASH without the help of voters, but keep the whole reward for yourself), and the new private group delegate (an agreed-upon list of voters managed by a delegate to control the voting dilution).
Voters — You plan to vote to elect a delegate, and get a share of the block reward in return? We will release everything you need to know to vote securely at the start of the registration period.
The 2.0.0 wallet binaries to start voting will be released on the 4th of January, and we will provide a full comprehensive guide to use the CLI interface and vote for your preferred delegate.
Here are a few considerations to have in mind to be ready at the start of the registration period:
The minimum amount of XCASH to stake/vote is 2,000,000 (Two millions) XCASH. Meaning that if you are trying to vote from a wallet with less than 2M XCASH in it, your vote will be refused.
At the beginning, you will only be able to vote from a CLI wallet and the Android wallet. We will provide an easy guide to help you vote if you have never used the CLI interface.
You won’t be able to vote from the X-Bank directly. It means that you will have to withdraw your XCASH into an X-Cash wallet to be able to vote and stake your XCASH. We will provide a guide for that as well.
Please be minded that you won’t get a share of the block reward from your vote before the block 800,001. But it is a good idea to be ready and have your vote prepared to your delegate so you can stake right away.
Switch to mainnet
Date: February 4th, 2021 (time will be adjusted depending on when we reach block 800,000)
When we arrive at block 800,000 (eight hundred thousand), the network will pause for a couple of hours, and the blockchain will resume by forging the 800,001st block under the new DPoPS consensus algorithm.
What should I do now?
There is still some time before the start of the registration period (January 4th, 2021), and we are taking the time to produce the necessary guide and tutorials for you to make an educated decision for your votes or your decision to run a delegate.
Please don’t hesitate to come and discuss with any of the delegates on our Discord Server.
🙏 Thanks
This wouldn’t have been possible without the help of all the participants in the beta & alpha, that took their time, knowledge, and implications into testing and improving the consensus. So many feedback has been taken into account and used to improve the onboarding and user experience of delegates and the stability of the network.
From all the team and the community of the X-Cash Foundation, we would like to thank and acknowledge the participants of the beta. 👏👏
+------------------------------------+------------------+
| Delegate Node Name | Delegate Name |
+------------------------------------+------------------+
| xcash-ju.fr | Ju |
| swan-x | Cygnus |
| XCAjoca | cajoca |
| x-staking | N3me5is |
| xcash.one | Executor |
| xcash.it | CryptoDuke |
| snakeway | Snakeway | | xcashusa | minerjed |
| x-delegate | Element56 |
| xcashcolombia | Fidentis |
| xcash_lt | Mantas |
| *.xcash.rocks | Miaumiau |
| xcash-dpops.com | Neppers |
| grizzly & aurora | UrsaMajor |
| Atlantis-X | Thomas The Cat |
| xcashdelegate.com | Miraculu |
| Redstar-1 & Redstar-2 | Alibaba |
| xcashdelegate.ph | Mryoso1994 |
| *inkie | Twinkie |
| CryptoWorld | aquila-audax |
| 8bit.services | SHA |
| DELEGATE_DON'T_HATE | IdzaMeMario |
+------------------------------------+------------------+
This list is based on the work of Ju, and might be missing some members. Please contact me (paulxcash#2676 on Discord) if you are missing of the list so I can add you.
These people have tested the consensus and additionally, have thoroughly tested their setup to run a stable node. You can be sure that the X-Cash network will be secured with them running a node.
Also, more than a year ago, people have participated in the first alpha test and brought a lot feedback and improvements, and we want to thank them.
Picatax, Galapagos, akhenaten, Bowcat, Bry Guy, Cygnus, Demo2004, element56, herominers.com, Klendhaar, MadMason, qf3l3k, Quetio, snakeway passer, tjs, Twinkie, UrsaMajor, Zaffy, 𝓕𝓻𝓸𝓰. | https://medium.com/x-cash/dpops-mainnet-release-and-schedule-30d8c627a205 | ['Paul Bugnot'] | 2021-01-03 16:30:12.957000+00:00 | ['Announcements', 'Dpos', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
Why I am using Batchbook for CRM | I try out a lot of different Customer Management systems. I used the 37 Signals offering for quite some time. I tried some others of lesser popularity. I even used Goldmine back in the day.
My thing, is I need a clean, easy to use CRM that stays out of my way. I also want one that does not have a lot of extraneous garbage that I don’t need. I’m not a professional salesman spending my waking hours chasing leads for some large conglomerate. I’m a self employed professional who needs to keep tract of contacts in a way that Outlook can’t do it. I want a system that is expandable on my terms.
I’m really liking Batchbook, though. It does the job really well, and the tag system is very nice.
One thing that I really like is the customer service. Twice I sent off an email to feedback and had a response back within an hour. Not only that, but it was a real response, not a copy/paste response from some bored flunky. That’s what I call service.
One of the features that I really need to start exploiting is the SuperTags. With SuperTags, you take a normal tag, for example “prospect” and when it’s “Super Sized” you can add field values to it.
Taking the example “prospect” we could add fields such as: “Where We Met” “Needs” and anything else that might be relevant for a prospect that your chasing. It has preset field types such as Yes/No, Number, Date, Recurring Date, etc.
The concept of SuperTags is just amazing. It really expands the power and flexibility of the service. Any tag can be come a supertag. At first I was reluctant to create supertags, but once I “broke the ice” then I got excited about just what I could do with them.
The service itself is really good, and it’s getting steadily better. There’s still some bugs and tweaks. The iCal feed gives Outlook fits when I do a send and receive, and the tasks interface needs some tweaking. The tasks interface, I already sent a suggestion about and quickly got a response back stating that they agreed with the suggestion and it’ll be updated soon. The iCal feed I need to send them still.
The interface is very clean and it makes good use of AJAX without over doing it. I also like that I can email someone and BCC my special mailbox and it’ll be attached to the appropriate contact.
In conclusion, Batchbook may be just what your looking for if you need something robust, easy to use, and expandable. I highly recommend it. It’s free for up to 200 contacts and only $10 a month for unlimited contacts.
Update 07/28/08: Just another example of how fast they can respond to problems. As I mentioned earlier in this post I had a problem with Outlook reading the iCal feed from my tasks. I shot off an email to support at 11:32am and by 12:36pm I had an email back letting me know the issue was fixed. Now that is SERVICE! And in the web 2.0 era of the Internet, service is a superior feature.
Batchbook | https://medium.com/chaos-elevators/why-i-am-using-batchbook-for-crm-f106d08b2ccd | ['Jason Shultz'] | 2017-04-07 13:40:33.094000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Personal', 'CRM'] |
Hue-man Thoughts | I married a man that loved me and my deep ebony hue. His family was mortified that he married “someone soooooo dark” as they put it. They told him that his children would be dark-skinned like me.
His family acted like I was the carrier of some kind of plague. My husband stood firm and let them know that they did not have to love me because he did. Their obsession with colorism was unacceptable.
When I was pregnant with our child I prayed that he would be so black he could sit in a hot tub and make tea! That did not happen because our son was born with the light complexion of my parents. My husband’s family surveyed our son after birth and determined he would not be the same hue as me. His fingertips were not brown. They were ecstatic to know that he would not “turn” dark.
It is important for us to love our whole selves. People will interject their biases into our world if we let them. My husband stood up and politely gave his family the fickle finger. I am thankful that he loved me for me! | https://medium.com/house-of-haiku/hue-man-thoughts-ad51e7fc9787 | ['Cocoa Griot'] | 2020-11-28 23:38:56.211000+00:00 | ['Haiku', 'Life Lessons', 'Poetry', 'Colorism', 'Self Love'] |
Chucky | Chucky
Vignettes of Growing up in Oakland
When my parents moved the family from the eastern suburbs to Oakland when I was 8 I lost contact with the boy who everyone said was “my other half.” We were like one person in two bodies. We got into the same misadventures together, at the same time. This was an easy undertaking.
I was sitting in the kitchen when the phone rang. It was one of those black wall phones by Western Electric. It was mounted at a central spot of the first floor where most family activity was probable: outside the kitchen on a set of back stairs to the second floor or cellar.
I answered to a voice, “Bob, do you know who this is?” I immediately did.
“Chucky,” I said and a year or so of absence melted into obscurity. We caught up. We made plans. We conspired to get together. His father’s Auto Parts Warehouse turned out to be only a mile away along the 82 Lincoln line. In actuality if one stood in the middle of Centre Avenue by that warehouse you could see the steps up to my street in the farthest distance. Who knew? We didn’t until after that phone call. Then we did.
We were both fascinated with radio and started to learn Morse Code in preparation for getting our Novice armature radio licenses. We got plans for shortwave transmitters and receivers. The TV repair shop a neighbor of his owned in Oakland provided ample spare parts. It was not long before we were dotting and dashing our important intrigue in the nighttime air. We did not need our parents’ phones or their bills in order to foment our next misadventure.
In a parallel existence a good school friend at Frick lived on McKee Place and his parents did not have a phone. If I wanted to call him he could go to his grandmother’s apartment on the floor below. There was a tap on the heating pipes to signal an incoming call and he could run down the stairs to get the call. Needless to say we did not talk on the phone all that much. Too bad he was not Ham operator. | https://medium.com/vignettes-of-growing-up-in-oakland/chucky-37675db3116d | ['Robert Carlson'] | 2019-11-11 18:40:03.092000+00:00 | ['Friendship', 'Oakland', 'Neighborhoods', 'Short Story', 'Pittsburgh'] |
On Planning | The great things in life take time, so plan. Sad is the shopper at Target looking for a Valentine’s Day card on February 14. Disappointing is the car in the Best Buy parking lot on December 24. Waiting until the last minute to make the best decision is just waiting until the last minute. No one wants that. People deserve more, including you. | https://medium.com/@john-gonzalez/on-planning-c8e2e48f6deb | ['John Gonzalez'] | 2020-12-25 02:34:29.616000+00:00 | ['Planning', 'Thinking Ahead', 'Procrastination', 'On Planning', 'Last Minute'] |
The Finnish Line | Traveling through remote areas of Finland, Nancy relied on mime to communicate. Because no Finnish word resembled English, Nancy was delighted to find an illustrated lunch menu.
She eagerly pointed to an entree under a cartoon chicken.
The waiter kept shaking his head.
Nancy grew adamant. She jammed her finger down on her selection, making clucking noises while imitating laying an egg.
Concerned, the waiter left her table without taking her order. He huddled with other servers who periodically pointed at Nancy. They called over a patron.
The patron approached Nancy and said in a heavy accent, “This children menu.” | https://medium.com/centina-pentina/the-finnish-line-ebb824c96344 | ['Mary Keating'] | 2020-12-07 14:32:50.772000+00:00 | ['Microfiction', 'Finland', 'Humor', 'Centina', 'Language Barrier'] |
Bridge Mutual IDO Whitelist (Round 2) | What an incredible ride it has been.
Our first round of whitelisting saw 18,800 entries by the cut-off time. The team spent more than 20 making sure that every randomly chosen winner qualified (following us on Twitter, a member in our chat, retweeted our IDO post, etc.). We also made sure that each winner did not have any of the characteristics of a bot account (Telegram bots have recognizable naming patterns and are easy to distinguish).
All winners that did not qualify were removed from the list and replaced with another random entry. We take the integrity of this process very seriously, and we congratulate all those that have won.
Timing
This round of whitelisting will close on January 27th at 7:00 PM (EST).
Here are the rules for Round 2.
All entrants must do the following to qualify:
Follow Bridge Mutual on Twitter.
Follow our announcement channel on Telegram.
Join our chat channel on Telegram.
Follow Polkastarter on Twitter.
Quote Retweet this post on Twitter and tag 2 people.
Fill out this form.
Additionally:
Duplicate entries will not be disqualified, but all duplicate entries will be merged and batched into 1 entry.
We will still be manually checking all winners to make sure they qualify.
200 new entrants will be whitelisted; round 1 winners cannot win again.
IDO Metrics
Total IDO raise: $150,000
Token price: $0.125
Token unlock: 100%
Total participants: 700
Minimum Purchase: $0
Maximum Purchase: $300 (price will be converted to ETH on IDO day)
All purchases will be in ETH.
Form Password: BridgeMutual2021
Thank you all for choosing to be part of our growing community. We look forward to doing amazing things together; best of luck. | https://medium.com/@bridgemutual/bridge-mutual-ido-whitelist-round-2-2aa08627d9e5 | ['Bridge Mutual'] | 2021-01-26 03:42:15.703000+00:00 | ['Bridge Mutual', 'Dex', 'Polkastarter', 'Defi', 'Insurtech'] |
Reflection On Amal Totkay | The following five Amal Totkay I have found very splendid and mind-blowing,
SELF-TALK
self talk
Self-talk is an amazing Totka of Amal where I have found that I am the Judge and Advocate of myself and only I am responsible for my career. Self-talk show us our weaknesses and strengths through which we can improve ourself
2. GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE
Comfort zone
From AMAL TOTKAY this is my favorite one because when we kick out ourselves from our comfort zone then success automatically follows us. So guys come on, leave your bubble, and make history.
3. CREATE NEW HABITS
new habits
I will suggest to all my readers if they want to live and updated with the modern world then try to create new habits and turn their minds into a growth- set mind it will help them a lot
4. ASK PEOPLE FOR HELP
Ask for help from those people only, who really want to do your help, never ask for help from everyone.
5. FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT
fake it till you make it
Fake it till you make it means doing acting of a role that you want to be in real, it will impact a lot on your personality and gives you confidence.
So my dear fellows if you will adopt these five Amal Totkay then you will never fail in life and success will kiss your feet on every step of life. | https://medium.com/@asad-ali175/reflection-on-amal-totkay-f3a6e3ce2cd6 | ['Asad Ali'] | 2020-12-24 15:49:54.777000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Amal Totkay', 'Life', 'Life Hacking'] |
Modular Office Workstation Desk — Customisable Option 50+ Color Choices | Workstation Cubicle — Customisable Options
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Appreciate what you have. | Hello Everyone, Good Morning
Life is all about the tough and easy time or good and bad time. It's human nature that when we live in good times, we enjoy, celebrate, and feel delighted in every single moment. During these magic moments, Time flies and we all always try to make it memorable so we capture all memories to our minds, to our cameras, record videos, etc and frankly saying that this is all we should do because the wonderful times have the powers to give us strength when we find ourselves being weak. The power of the good times memory always brings smiles to our sad faces whenever we use to remember them. we always like to talk about those moments as if they are cheering us on. People say that the best thing about time is that “Time Changes” and nobody can feel happy by knowing this thing if he/she is enjoying their best moments now ;). In my entire journey of life so far, I have never met any person who used to say that I am fed up now for being so much happy for the last few years or months or whatever. Nobody can’t be like, Never…
Apart from this, Let's see the second side of the Time. The peoples who are facing a lot of challenges, problems in their lives, Here I want to mention the same thing again which they all must remember “Time changes”. Yeah, The best thing about time. I know that knowing only this fact does not mean that things become easy but you will feel positivity or eternal stamina to face the challenges and will surely stand strong to face whatever situations come against you. We all need the surroundings of our loved ones to celebrate happiness or when we need sympathy, support, help. Always do remember that God always gives you that which you can sustain only. He knows your strength when it comes to the tough time. He knows that you can endure and can come out of this by becoming a better version of yourself. Trust me, You can't be a single person happier or the single person who got unfortunate much than others. There are, I mean there must be the peoples who are enjoying their life more than you do in your good times and must be the peoples who are surviving the lives somehow. Here I can highlight my Title which I wanted to say that appreciate what you have, as it was never the most of any time and not going to be the lowest ever.
Good Day :) | https://medium.com/@akshtwr1/appreciate-what-you-have-c6cd2f60e63b | [] | 2021-04-27 05:14:35.101000+00:00 | ['Good Vibes', 'Positivity'] |
Can She Welcome Them Back? | Can She Welcome Them Back?
photo by William J Spirdione
Can she welcome them back into her heart?
Crying so long she’s not cared for her soul.
Has it been too long? Much too late to start?
Only time, but still taking quite a toll.
She asked, “what did I do, what could I say?”
“Not even talk to me ever again?”
“I won’t get to feed the baby today.”
“Or read him a book, or ride on the train.”
Sometimes an answer is nowhere in sight.
It doesn’t much matter, how hard she tried.
But try still she will, with all of her might.
Long past the time she finds reason to cry.
Will she ever even let them back in?
“Of course”, she whispered, “what was I saying?” | https://medium.com/@wjspirdione/can-she-welcome-them-back-df17a68b2039 | ['William J Spirdione'] | 2020-12-16 11:34:29.741000+00:00 | ['Sonnet', 'Poetry', 'Family', 'Forgiveness', 'Anger'] |
React Native with Expo Client. On this short tutorial I’ll go ahead… | On this short tutorial I’ll go ahead and show you how to get you React Native application displayed on your phone with Expo Client in a couple easy steps. Let’s begin!
First you’re going to need to install expo client on your terminal and you can do this by typing this. This might take a few minutes so don’t panic if it takes a long time.
npm i -g expo-cli
2. Now that you have installed Expo Client you can install it on your phone as-well. You’ll need to do this so you can see your application on your device.
3. You’re doing great and we’re almost there! Now that we have installed all the necessary items will start by creating a new expo project. You can do this by writing this on your terminal.
expo init name-app
You can name your app anything you like so please feel free to change name-app to anything you like.
You’ll see a couple options for the sake of this tutorial we are going to do a Managed workflow blank app so please click on the first one. If you would like to know more about managed or bare workflow I’ll post a link below with more details.
This might take a while so don’t worry.
4. Now that you created your new app you need to cd in to that file and start your project. You can do this by typing this in your terminal.
cd name-app expo start
5. After you run expo start you should see a new tab open up on your browser which will look like this.
You can then grab your phone and scan the QR code and then your expo client on your phone should display your new app.
If you see this screen you have completed this tutorial, great job!
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and I’ll leave you with some links if you wish to continue to learn more about React Native and Expo Client. Happy coding Hackers. | https://medium.com/@reynaldo-ayala/see-your-react-native-app-on-your-phone-with-expo-client-2d706b981fbe | ['Reynaldo Ayala'] | 2021-01-06 17:19:59.725000+00:00 | ['JavaScript', 'React Native', 'Mobile App Development', 'Expo Cli', 'React'] |
4 Intersecting Domains That You Can Easily Confuse with Artificial Intelligence | ← PART 1 | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ESSENTIALS
4 Intersecting Domains That You Can Easily Confuse with Artificial Intelligence
Learn the Differences Between Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Data Science, and Big Data | AI Essentials
Figure 1. Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
Once you start consuming machine learning content such as books, articles, video courses, and blog posts, you will often see the terms like artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, big data, and data science being used interchangeably. These terms represent several closely related areas within the field of artificial intelligence. They are usually used interchangeably without adequate attention is paid to their scopes. It’s not entirely the authors' fault since there is a slight ambiguity about these terms' differences. With this post, we will put an end to this ambiguity and clarify their scopes.
We will cover five different adjacent fields:
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Deep Learning
Data Science
Big Data
and bonus part, I will share a visual in the end to clarify them even further.
Let’s start!
Artificial Intelligence
Figure 2. Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a broad umbrella term, and its definition varies across different textbooks. The term AI is often used to describe computers that simulate human intelligence and mimic “cognitive” abilities humans associate with the human mind. Problem-solving and learning are examples of these cognitive abilities. The field of AI contains machine learning (and, therefore, deep learning) studies since capability learning from experiences is a sign of intelligence. Generally speaking, machines with artificial intelligence is capable of:
Understanding and interpreting data;
Learning from data; and
Making ‘intelligent’ decisions based on insights and patterns extracted from data.
These terms are highly associated with machine learning. Thanks to machine learning, AI systems can learn and excel at their level of consciousness. Machine learning is used to train AI systems and make them smarter. I do not want to get into how the field of AI has developed over the years. But, to have a quick understanding, here is a summary timeline of the development of artificial intelligence:
Figure 3. A Brief Timeline of the Field of Artificial Intelligence (Figure by Author)
This timeline shows the fundamental studies that were done in artificial intelligence. While researchers tried to mimic the neurons between the 50s-70s, they focused on machine learning with expert systems. Beginning from the 2000s, the focus is currently on deep learning studies. As I mentioned, all of these domains are part of artificial intelligence.
Let’s talk more about these relevant domains…
Machine Learning
Figure 4. Photo by Pietro Jeng on Unsplash
Machine learning is considered as a sub-discipline under the field of artificial intelligence. Machine Learning (ML) studies aim to automatically improve the computer algorithms' performance designed for particular tasks with experience. In a machine learning study, the experience is derived from the training data, which may be defined as the sample data collected on previously recorded observations. Through this experience, machine learning algorithms can learn and build mathematical models to make predictions and decisions. The learning process starts with feeding training data (e.g., examples, direct experience, basic instructions), which contains implicit patterns, into the model. Since computers have more processing power than humans, they can find these valuable patterns in the data within a short amount of time. These patterns are -then- used to make predictions and decisions on relevant events. The learning may continue even after deployment if the developer builds a suitable machine learning system that allows continuous training.
Previously, we were able to use machine learning in a few sub-components of a system only. Now we actually use machine learning to replace entire sets of systems, rather than trying to make a better machine learning model for each of the pieces.
“There is an ever-increasing use of machine learning applications in different fields. These real-life applications vary to a great extent.” — Jeff Dean
Some machine learning use cases may be listed as follows:
Healthcare : Medical diagnosis, given the patient’s symptoms;
: Medical diagnosis, given the patient’s symptoms; E-commerce : Predicting the expected demand;
: Predicting the expected demand; Law : Reviewing legal documents and alerting lawyers about problematic provisions;
: Reviewing legal documents and alerting lawyers about problematic provisions; Social Network : Finding a good match given the user’s preferences on a dating app;
: Finding a good match given the user’s preferences on a dating app; Finance: Predicting the future price of a stock given the historical data.
This is obviously a non-exhaustive list, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of potential machine learning use cases. Depending on what your goal is, there are many different methods to create a machine learning model. These methods are usually grouped under four main approaches: (i) Supervised Learning, (ii) Semi-supervised Learning, (iii) Unsupervised Learning, and (iv) Reinforcement Learning. Each method contains distinct differences in its design, but they all follow the same underlying principles and conforms to the same theoretical background:
Figure 5. Basic Comparison of Four Different ML Approaches (Figure by Author)
After training a machine learning model, you can embed it in an artificial intelligence system. Now, let’s talk about deep learning.
Deep Learning
Figure 6. Photo by Josh Riemer on Unsplash
Deep learning (DL) is a sub-field of machine learning that exclusively uses multiple layers of neurons to extract patterns and features from raw data. These multiple layers of interconnected neurons create artificial neural networks (ANNs). An ANN is a special machine learning algorithm designed to simulate the working mechanism of the human brain. There are many different types of artificial neural networks intended for several purposes. In summary, deep learning algorithms are a subset of machine learning algorithms.
Figure 7. An Example of an Artificial Neural Network (Figure by Author)
Just as in machine learning, all four approaches (supervised, semi-supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning) can be utilized in deep learning. When data and computing power are abundant, deep learning almost always outperforms the other machine learning algorithms. Deep learning algorithms are instrumental in image processing, voice recognition, and machine translation. Convolutional Neural Networks, Recurrent Neural Networks, Autoencoders, Generative Adversarial Networks, Transformer Networks are some of the artificial neural network examples which makes deep learning possible.
Data Science
Figure 8. Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash
Data science is an interdisciplinary field that sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, a particular domain knowledge, information science, and statistics. Data scientists use various scientific methods, processes, and algorithms to obtain knowledge and draw insights from observed data.
In contrast with machine learning, a data science study's goal does not have to be model training. Data science studies often aim to extract knowledge and insight to support the human decision-making process without creating an AI system. Therefore, although there is an intersection between data science and the other adjacent fields, data science differs from them since it does not have to deliver an intelligent system or a trained model.
Big Data
Figure 9. Photo by imgix on Unsplash
Big data is a field that aims to efficiently analyze a large amount of data that cannot be processed with traditional data-processing methods and applications. Data with more observation usually brings more accuracy, while high complexity may increase false discovery rates. The field of big data studies how to efficiently capture, store, analyze, search, share, visualize, and update data when the size of a dataset is very large. Big data methods can be used in artificial intelligence (and its sub-domains) and data science. Big data sits at the intersection of all the other fields mentioned above since its methods are crucial for all of them.
The Taxonomy Diagram
Now that we briefly covered all these fields, let’s see the relationship between these domains in a taxonomy diagram.
Figure 10. The Taxonomy of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (Figure by Author)
This taxonomy is almost clear evidence for the reasons behind the ambiguity. Whenever we are talking about deep learning, we are also talking about machine learning and artificial intelligence. Some might call it a data science project or a big data project when working on a deep learning project. These naming practices are not necessarily incorrect, but they are confusing. Therefore, it is vital to know the intersections and subtractions of these fields.
Final Notes
Now, you know their similarities and differences of these adjacent domains as well as their intersections. In this post, I tried to clarify the differences and I hope you can easily differentiate them
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If you are interested in deep learning, also check out the guide to my content on artificial intelligence: | https://towardsdatascience.com/4-intersecting-domains-that-you-can-easily-confuse-with-artificial-intelligence-2233cb6ad7d1 | ['Orhan G. Yalçın'] | 2020-12-19 15:52:33.213000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Deep Learning', 'Technology', 'Data Science'] |
NYC Housing Authority Failed to Close More Than Half of Mold Complaints | New York City Housing Authority federal monitor Bart M. Schwartz released his first report on the NYCHA and the conditions of its residential properties on July 22, 2019. One of the main concerns in the 267-page report was the prevalence of mold in NYCHA developments.
The position of federal monitor was created in agreement between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, NYCHA, and New York City, on Jan. 31, 2019 . Per the agreement, one of the duties of the federal monitor is to analyze and improve “environmental health and safety at NYCHA,” including issues related to mold.
Chronic mold problems are a hazard to residents of NYCHA developments, according to rulings from the Baez v. New York City Housing Authority case. Beyond risking the health of its residents, NYCHA is in danger of failing to comply with guidelines set by this case.
In an open letter to New Yorkers in the introduction of the first report, Schwartz wrote that “residents of NYCHA who have lived too long in unacceptable conditions.” He also acknowledged mismanagement in the NYCHA, describing the organization as “ fraught with serious problems in structure, culture, and direction, and perhaps even worse.”
The guidelines established by Baez v, New York City Housing Authority include mandating the NYCHA to respond to 95 percent of mold complaints within five days and most take steps to prevent a second mold incident within twelve months. Schwartz’s team noted in the report that many NYCHA staffers said that they were not able to follow these guidelines and meet deadlines “because of lack of resources.”
Graphic/ Julia Metraux
From Nov. 1, 2018 to Jan. 31, 2019, NYCHA reported that there were nearly 1,986 mold complaints in its properties. Of those 1,986 complaints, NYCHA managed to follow up with residents living in 1,613 of those properties, or 81 percent of mold complaints. Only 846 mold complaints cases were successfully completed, according to NYCHA, which is 43 percent of the total number of mold complaints during this period.
Graphic/ Julia Métraux
From Nov. 1, 2018 to Jan. 31, 2019, of 1,613 “successful contacts,” new work ordered were needed for 742 of these cases, or 47 percent of the total cases where there were successful contacts. | https://juliamtraux.medium.com/nyc-housing-authority-failed-to-close-more-than-half-of-mold-complaints-5a08a861abeb | ['Julia Métraux'] | 2019-12-12 02:21:57.400000+00:00 | ['Cities', 'New York City', 'Housing', 'Public Health', 'Mold'] |
The False Correlation Between Bitcoin And Libra | The False Correlation Between Bitcoin And Libra
By Geoffrey Fouvry on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
When Libra was announced, a big bump in the price of Bitcoin happened. As a specialist in monetary questions and investment, I wondered why really.
In fact, Libra is a redeemable currency with a variable composition basket. However, this variable composition basket makes it subject to leakage, or cross-financing between different governments. Let me explain: Holding a fiat currency is like holding a government debt instrument with a zero-coupon, and if there is inflation, you are actually expropriated by the government day by day for as long as you hold the currency. This is well explained by Milton Friedman.
A few months ago, I exposed Libra’s flaws (variable composition, cross country gov financing, and Gresham’s law) as part of our C-Level presentations series in our Company’s proprietary augmented media format. Here it is for your appreciation. http://bit.ly/2OmSFeT. I will keep on posting C-Level presentations / augmented media teasers here. Next time I will expose the issues that Calibra has on its own. Also if Libra finally fails, it should present buying opportunities in the price of Bitcoin. But it will be discussed in another post.
In fact, Bitcoin has nothing to do with Libra. It is a form of money, not a redeemable currency, and all the cross-funding & Gresham’s law problems are evidently absent in Bitcoin. Libra and Bitcoin only share technology: blockchain. You probably see this article from a computer or mobile, so you and I use the same technology. Does it mean we have many things in common? Probably not yet! | https://medium.com/the-capital/the-wrong-correlation-between-bitcoin-and-libra-d5f18aae5e06 | ['Geoffrey Fouvry'] | 2019-10-09 03:46:35.330000+00:00 | ['Libra', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
Inside a Microsoft Design Experiment | Inside a Microsoft Design Experiment
Bringing dimensionality to everyday applications across devices
Dimensionality. It’s a design concept that’s near and dear to the Microsoft Design team’s heart, especially as we continue to evolve our Fluent Design System. It used to be that dimensionality — that immersive, interactive feeling — was expected in gaming, end of story. But now we’re asking: how do you embrace that experience in everyday applications, engaging people on any device? A small team of our designers, technical artists, and app developers used the Universal Windows Platform and the humble weather app to answer that question.
Spoiler alert: it was a challenge. It continues to be a living experiment in the realms of scalability and transcendence: we’re learning, tailoring, fine-tuning, failing, triumphing, and learning again. Here’s a glimpse into what it means to build across dimensions.
Building holographic
We chose HoloLens as our starting line, building a 3D experience in mixed reality that would be easy for newcomers to grasp and enjoy. From there we’d figure out how to bring that experience into a 2D application. The whole idea being: let’s invite people in; use the same components across experiences to build familiarity and responsiveness and a sense of place.
Why a weather app? Turns out you can have a lot of fun with it and build something super engaging in a short timeframe. Plus it’s based in reality, knowable to everyone, and gave us the chance to research some cool places. We focused our attention on phone, PC/tablet, and HoloLens, and flew from there, completing work in a few weeks that explores different ways to bring dimensionality and delight into a universal experience.
The project kicked off in May, a damp and chilly time here in the Seattle area (shocking), so we had sunny, coastal locations on the brain. We experimented a bit to find the right scale and level of detail to build four atmospheric dioramas in HoloLens: Tuscany, Mykonos, Cape Cod, and Monument Valley. The experience opens on the edges of each scene: a slice of a miniature world dropped into your everyday environment. From there, you’re invited to interact with the objects — becoming true scenes that adapt as you move closer and walk around them. Our operative theme here is engagement. You start at the level of information architecture: what is the temperature in Tuscany? Then, we invite you in. Come get closer to the terrain. Now you see the light and the atmosphere. Next, the detailed motion and spatial sounds. Now, narrative details. Someone waving at you, trees swaying.
A helicopter hovers in Monument Valley
Because you’re in a mixed reality HoloLens, it’s possible someone in your real world will walk through your hologram. And you will absolutely scream no! as it happens because now, you’re living this environment. It happens fast: you’re feeling something, you’re in it, and you’re emotionally connected. It’s sort of like getting lost in a snow globe. A dynamic, mesmerizing place within a place.
To get the right size, scale and placement of objects, we relied on our 3D artist to work closely with the designers in Maya (3D animation software). This is where we did the blocking to determine the right size, scale, and placement of the objects within a larger scene, just like directing a movie. Each element needed to be sized just so to maintain realistic proportions regardless of viewing distance or angle.
Concept sketch for Cape Cod
Early blocking of Cape Cod scene to determine scale of elements
We got the best results — and moved quickly — when we baked shadows into the textures. The realism of each scene came from careful attention to detail and an artful eye. For example, the distinct size, direction, and movement of the waves helped differentiate the Atlantic coast from an island in the Aegean Sea (details matter!). The transition between dioramas is relatively fast and simple, keeping your focus on the scene and the feeling it brings, not the motion itself.
Final art ready for lighting and animations
Cape Cod diorama integrated into the experience
What else makes an appearance? Sunbathers. A sailor. Seagulls, cows, a tractor. We had a lot of fun telling the story and inviting people in. We added subtle animations and learned that polygon count, texture size, and the number of controlling joints all impacted the animation’s smoothness. Ambient sounds (crashing waves) and distinct sounds (moo!) were the final touches to bring everything to life.
Simple, minimally animated seagull and sunbathers in the Mykonos scene.
Scaling it to 2D
So we created a pretty, fun, interactive thing for HoloLens. Now, how to scale that back to phone and tablet, and make 2D and 3D content that co-exists naturally? Could we reuse the hologram within a flat UI and still make it feel engaging? We’re fortunate that the Universal Windows Platform makes this easy — check out this detailed how-to in another sample weather app, Atmosphere.
One-step conversion is still a dream, and we had to do some manual tailoring to make the diorama look great on 2D devices. We adjusted the shaders for the lighthouse beam to retain a realistic look, and turned off the MIP map compression for the diorama textures. We also experimented with colors that matched the diorama before landing on a grayscale background.
Cape Cod diorama optimized for the 2D app
Adaptive input
The Fluent Design System is all about translation and cohesion. Our goal in this experiment was to make each element translate in a way that’s appropriate for the type of device and primary input (touch, mouse, gaze) being used. We designed to maintain the continuity of the experience from both visual and interactive perspectives, while making sure things worked naturally and familiarly on each device. We wanted the HoloLens experience to stay true to holographic and 3D form, but still be approachable and easy for new users — making gesture, gaze, and voice as familiar as using a PC. The 2D experience needed to optimize for the available screen real estate and feel natural with touch and mouse interactions, while still feeling as immersive as mixed reality. Designing outside the box, within a box, as it were.
Here’s a glimpse into some of the work! Take note of the button to switch between scenes — a common design element for all three form factors to help with wayfinding. | https://medium.com/microsoft-design/from-3d-to-2d-and-back-again-479906df6b47 | ['Cara Tyler'] | 2019-08-27 15:57:33.834000+00:00 | ['Hololens', 'Fluent Design System', 'Fluent Design', 'Mixed Reality', 'Virtual Reality'] |
How To Integrate KeyCloak With Angular For SSO Authentication | How To Integrate KeyCloak With Angular For SSO Authentication
A step by step guide with an example project
Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash
Keycloak is an open-source Identity and Access Management solution for modern applications and services. It makes it easier to secure your applications with little to no code. It provides a lot of features such as Single sign-on, single sign out, Kerberos bridge, Identity Brokering, and Social Login, User Federation, etc.
In this post. we will see how to integrate keycloak with the angular app for the SSO.
Introduction
Example Project
Running keyCloak server on Local
Creating Realms, Users, Roles, and clients
How To Integrate Angular With KeyCloak
Running Multiple Apps With SSO
Summary
Conclusion
Introduction
Security is one of the central components of developing web applications. Single sign-on is the authentication mechanism that permits users to access different or multiple applications with one set of credentials or by logging in once. Basically, It minimizes the management of various users and passwords.
This is how SSO works with keycloak. Users authenticate with Keycloak rather than individual applications. This means that your applications don’t have to deal with login forms, authenticating users, and storing users. Once logged-in to Keycloak, users don’t have to login again to access a different application.
This also applied to logout. Keycloak provides single-sign out, which means users only have to logout once to be logged out of all applications that use Keycloak. | https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/how-to-integrate-keycloak-with-angular-for-sso-authentication-f68cf584555a | ['Bhargav Bachina'] | 2020-01-16 20:14:58.865000+00:00 | ['Angular', 'JavaScript', 'Software Development', 'Programming', 'Web Development'] |
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