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All Pandas read_html() you should know for scraping data from HTML tables | 4. Parsing date columns with parse_dates
The date column gets read as an object data type. To read the date column correctly, we can use the argument parse_dates to specify a list of date columns.
>>> dfs = pd.read_html(html_string, parse_dates=['date'])
>>> dfs[0].info() RangeIndex: 3 entries, 0 to 2
Data columns (total 5 columns):
# Column Non-Null Count Dtype
--- ------ -------------- -----
0 date 3 non-null datetime64[ns]
1 name 3 non-null object
2 year 3 non-null int64
3 cost 3 non-null float64
4 region 3 non-null object
dtypes: datetime64[ns](1), float64(1), int64(1), object(2)
memory usage: 248.0+ bytes
5. Explicitly typecast with converters
By default, columns that are numerical are cast to numeric types, for example, the year and cost columns we have seen. But not all numerical text data are necessary to be numeric types, for example, an ID column that all values have leading zero.
ID = 0001
In addition, sometimes you may want to explicitly typecast to ensure dtype integrity. For these requirements, we can do explicitly typecast with the argument converters :
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string, converters={
'ID': str,
'year': int,
'cost': float,
})
explicitly typecast with Pandas read_html() (Image by Author)
6. MultiIndex, header, and index column
By default, <th> or <td> elements located within a <thead> are used to form the column index, if multiple rows are contained within <thead> then a Multiindex is created.
Below is an example of an HTML table with multiple rows in <thead> .
html_string = """
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="5">Year 2020</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>date</th>
<th>name</th>
<th>year</th>
<th>cost</th>
<th>region</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>2020-01-01</td>
<td>Jenny</td>
<td>1998</td>
<td>1.2</td>
<td>South</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2020-01-02</td>
<td>Alice</td>
<td>1992</td>
<td>-1.34</td>
<td>East</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
"""
Multi-head table (image by author)
It creates MultiIndex because there are multiple rows in <thead>
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string)
dfs[0]
multiindex with Pandas read_html() (image by author)
Specify a header row:
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string, header=1)
dfs[0]
specify header with Pandas read_html() (image by author)
Specify an index column:
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string, header=1, index_col=0)
dfs[0]
specify index column with Pandas read_html() (image by author)
7. Matching a table with match
The argument match takes a string or a regular expression. The value defaults to .+ (match any non-empty string) and will return all tables.
Let’s see how this works with the help of an example.
html_string = """
<table id="report">
<caption>2020 report</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>date</th>
<th>name</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>2020-01-01</td>
<td>Jenny</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2020-01-02</td>
<td>Alice</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table> <table>
<caption>Average income</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>name</th>
<th>income</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Tom</td>
<td>200</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>James</td>
<td>300</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
"""
To read a table that contains the specific text:
# text in caption
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string, match='2020 report') # text in table cell
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string, match='James')
8. Filtering tables with attrs
The argument attrs takes a dictionary of any valid HTML tag attributes for filtering tables. For example,
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string, attrs={'id': 'report'})
id is a valid HTML tag attribute.
9. Working with missing values
By default, all empty strings are treated as missing values and read as NaN .
Here is an example of an HTML table with some empty strings in the <td> cell.
html_string = """
<table>
<tr>
<th>date</th>
<th>name</th>
<th>year</th>
<th>cost</th>
<th>region</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2020-01-01</td>
<td>Jenny</td>
<td>1998</td>
<td>1.2</td>
<td>South</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2020-01-02</td>
<td>Alice</td>
<td>1992</td>
<td></td>
<td>East</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2020-01-03</td>
<td>Tomas</td>
<td>1982</td>
<td></td>
<td>South</td>
</tr>
</table>
"""
To read it with default settings
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string)
dfs[0]
Pandas read_html() working with missing values (image by author)
To keep these empty strings, we can set the argument keep_default_na to False
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string, keep_default_na=False)
image by author
Sometimes, you may have other character representations for missing values. If we know what kind of characters used as missing values in the table, we can handle them using na_values parameter:
dfs = pd.read_html(html_string, na_values=['?', '&'])
Pandas read_html() working with missing values (image by author)
When the DataFrame is already created, we can use pandas replace() function to handle these values:
df_clean = dfs[0].replace({ "?": np.nan, "&": np.nan })
Conclusion
Pandas read_html() function is a quick and convenient way for scraping data from HTML tables.
I hope this article will help you to save time in scrapping data from HTML tables. I recommend you to check out the documentation for the read_html() API and to know about other things you can do.
Thanks for reading. Please check out the notebook for the source code and stay tuned if you are interested in the practical aspect of machine learning.
You may be interested in some of my other Pandas articles:
More tutorials can be found on my Github | https://towardsdatascience.com/all-pandas-read-html-you-should-know-for-scraping-data-from-html-tables-a3cbb5ce8274 | ['B. Chen'] | 2020-11-26 23:05:27.907000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Web Scraping', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Pandas'] |
Startup Spotlight: Evreka | Startup Spotlight: Evreka
Reshaping the Waste Management Business with End-to-End Solutions
Evreka is aiming to reshape the waste management business by delivering the most intelligent and modular solutions. Evreka enables cross-border waste management companies, local authorities, and municipalities to be more sustainable, smarter, greener, and digital. Evreka is recognized as the winner of the 2019 Sustainability Innovation Award for its intelligent waste management solutions presented by Oracle.
Umutcan Duman, co-founder and CEO of Evreka, discovered his passion for entrepreneurship during his university years. Afterward, he closed two unsuccessful attempts, which ended with many learnings, and focused on solving the world waste problem with Evreka. Since Evreka’s foundation, he has been working with EvrekaCrew for five years and they have been actively operating in 40 countries. With the contribution of his achievements with Evreka, Umutcan has been chosen for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and Fortune 40 Under 40 list as one of the most successful young people in Turkey.
— In a single sentence, what does Evreka do?
Evreka provides the most comprehensive intelligent ERP solution designed and focused on the entire category of waste management by delivering end-to-end modular solutions and cutting-edge products, as well as guaranteeing operational excellence across the globe.
— What sets Evreka apart in the market?
With comprehensiveness at its core, Evreka creates a platform that can cross-integrate with all sorts of third-party applications, hardware, and software. Competing in the same position as its competitors in 2016, Evreka developed the foundational modular platform by 2019. It combined with the technologies of its old competitors, trucks related devices, and world leaders in the ERP and CRM sectors like Oracle. This comprehensive and enabler structure let Evreka stand out from its competitors. Evreka shifted from being a competitor into the most agile and comprehensive waste management solution leading its peers.
— How did Evreka come to be? What was the problem you found and the ‘aha’ moment?
We realized the insufficiency in waste collection processes — the lack of optimization and solutions that are far from sustainability in early 2015 — and we adhered to solving them and offering more efficient methods. We worked for it night after night and created the EvrekaCrew.
In time, we started to serve clients across the world. The deeper we went, the more we realized the similarities between waste operations around the world. They were being managed almost the same and they all needed the same change: Digitization and traceability. With this gained new knowledge, we started to offer our solutions to city cleaners to improve their operations and increase their efficiency.
And today, with the vision of “always better,” we are proud to offer the industry’s most comprehensive, intelligent, and modular waste management software to more than 40 countries.
— Have you pursued funding and if so, what steps did you take?
Like every startup, we fundraised to accelerate our growth globally. We have achieved great success with a small investment of about 2m dollars, and we continue to do so. Our pioneering role in the sector encourages us to be always better. That is why we are still open to new smart investors to solve the problem we aim at more deeply with more comprehensive technologies.
— What milestone are you most proud of so far?
We signed a success story with EvrekaCrew, a fantastic team. Since our establishment, we have been waking up to every new day with great enthusiasm, trying to implement our mission in every aspect of our business, and offering the industry’s most comprehensive solution for waste management. While doing all these, of course, we pass some milestones. Since Evreka has existed, we have witnessed precious moments together, and I would like to share the most exciting of them with you.
The first moment we hit the field! The day we carry out our first tests in the field with our first user is precious. This was a moment of pride in which we can see the result of our work for the first time.
Our first shot to the global market, our first overseas experience, our first foreign users, and partners! This turning point means a lot to us because we have added tremendous speed to our growth from now on.
The first enterprise client, which is one of the milestones that level us up. This is the most precise and concrete proof that we are a proven company and a proven solution. We are now a company that has trustable references in our users’ eyes and can adapt its services to everyone and every situation regardless of business type and size.
— What KPIs are you tracking that you think will lead to revenue generation/growth?
We are aware of the importance of standard KPIs that drive sales processes, and of course, we use them. We manage our pipeline with excellent planning. While we are creating new leads, we are trying to advance these leads’ processes on the pipeline successfully. Since our product and solution are unique, we have achieved a rapid transition to the purchasing process for all potential users who have tried the product. We are working to make this purchasing process more successful day by day and maximize our growth.
— How do you build and develop talent?
It is the most critical responsibility of the founder CEO. We call our team EvrekaCrew, and it is the most important thing that we care about most in our business.
We have a team mainly focused on solving inefficiency and old-school techniques encountered in waste management in the world. We continuously work together to improve this area and improve it to the moon and back.
On the other hand, we have determined our vision and values altogether, and have been trying to spread this to our new team members. We are very attached to each other and our culture. Who wouldn’t want to work in a job that has a tremendous contribution to the world?
— What are the biggest challenges for the team?
Unfortunately, in 2017 during the early stages, we lost our close friend and co-founder Berkay. This situation deeply affected all founders, shareholders, and the Crew. But as a team, we overcame this by engaging each other more tightly and carrying Berkay’s dream on our shoulders. Now, we have him in our hearts and his vision in our minds. Every single day, we ask ourselves what Berkay would do if he were here and we are doing our best to make him proud.
— What’s been the biggest success for the team?
There is no such thing as the biggest success because each success has its own enjoyment and separate teaching. That’s why we like to celebrate each success separately and focus on the drivers behind it. As EvrekaCrew, we have placed hard work, learning from the best practitioners, and celebrating success all together in our corporate culture.
— What’s something that’s always on your mind?
The only thing I always have in mind is how we can get better. That’s why our motto is “always better.” Personally, this motto truly embraces each member of EvrekaCrew and me, and we live every moment of our daily life in the light of this frame of mind. We strive to do not only when doing business but also in our personal lives.
— What advice would you give to other founders?
As founders, we have no luxury to complain. We have to handle every problem we face with care and find the best solution for everyone.
— Have you been or are you part of a corporate startup program or accelerator? If so, which ones and what have been the benefits?
Oracle’s global startup program supports Evreka. Since the first day we were selected for the program, we have been using Oracle’s Cloud infrastructure and have been fed with a wide range of support, such as various mentoring and marketing services. We are also in Oracle’s global catalog.
Being involved in a highly applicable, supportive, and agile program, and having the opportunity to work with Oracle is one thing that accelerates Evreka’s growth. Although we have received acceptance from several international programs, our preference has been to grow with Oracle and make the most of Oracle’s vast knowledge. With its proven success globally, Oracle is one of the proudest of our name being mentioned together.
— Who is your cloud provider?
We work with Oracle not only for the Cloud system but also for other services that they provide. We are a part of Oracle for Startups, and we offer the most comprehensive solution in the industry for a more sustainable and smart future with Oracle solutions. | https://medium.com/startup-grind/startup-spotlight-evreka-66e3ba304603 | ['The Startup Grind Team'] | 2020-08-11 15:21:00.921000+00:00 | ['Startup Lessons', 'Startup Spotlight', 'Startup', 'Technology', 'Startup Life'] |
Hire Deadpool Chant | Hello there, readers. I’ve written this little song as ASCII sheet music using this character chart, since I don’t like these lyrics alone as a poem. I’ve improvised the notation method; I’m not using any standard method. While the lines are not syllabically identical, each verse is supposed to be the same number of beats. If you need an instrument to hear the tones, Google “Virtual Piano” or “Virtual Keyboard.” (Skip to just the lyrics.)
Reading Tips
If you can’t see the note characters, click here to skip to the image version. I’m using hyphens for note ties because the tie characters are not showing up for me. For example, I use tied notes where you would normally see augmentation dots (for dotted half notes, etc.), since the dots show up too small. (𝅗𝅥 -𝅘𝅥 ) minus parentheses is three beats. Each repeat of the musical pattern is three lines long and starts with three rests 𝄽
3/4 time, all black keys, downwards arrow ↓ indicates bass
E# A# C#A#G#
𝄽 𝄽 𝄽 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅗𝅥 -𝅘𝅥
If I could affo-o-ord
↓F# G# A# C#
𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅝 -𝅘𝅥𝅮
to hire Deadpool
↓C# ↓D# ↓C# ↓D#↓F#
𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅗𝅥 -𝅘𝅥𝅮
to counter-stalk my stalkers, E# A# C# A#G#
𝄽 𝄽 𝄽 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅗𝅥 -𝅘𝅥
instead I'd hi-i-ire
Harvey Birdman
↓C#↓D# ↓C#↓D#↓F#
𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥 -𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅗𝅥 -𝅘𝅥𝅮
because he's a lawyer. 𝄽 𝄽 𝄽 He'd drag them to court,
and when they'd stop,
they'd stop stalking me for justice; 𝄽 𝄽 𝄽 they'd stop stalking everyone,
not just me 'cause
I could afford to hire Deadpool
Repeat
Code Block Damage Control
This is a great opportunity to test how the code block shows up on different computers. My code block looks like this:
Repeat
Just the Lyrics
If I could afford
to hire Deadpool
to counter-stalk my stalkers,
instead I’d hire
Harvey Birdman
because he’s a lawyer.
He’d drag them to court,
and when they’d stop,
they’d stop stalking me for justice.
They’d stop stalking everyone,
not just me ‘cause
I could afford to hire Deadpool. | https://medium.com/intended-outcomes/hire-deadpool-chant-eecbe3bdde2d | ['Vicki Nemeth'] | 2017-11-13 01:28:36.125000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Rule Of Law', 'Ascii Sheet Music', 'Chant', 'Rule1and2'] |
Tokyo International Film Festival Liveshow: in Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, Tokyo, Japan | ❂ Artist Event : Tokyo International Film Festival
❂ Venue : Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, Tokyo, Japan
❂ Live Streaming Tokyo International Film Festival 2021
Conversation Series at Asia Lounge
The Japan Foundation Asia Center & Tokyo International Film Festival
Marking its second installment since 2020, this year’s Conversation Series will again be advised by the committee members led by filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu. Directors and actors from various countries and regions including Asia will gather at the Asia Lounge to engage in discussion with their Japanese counterparts.
This year’s theme will be “Crossing Borders”. Guests will share their thoughts and sentiments about film and filmmaking in terms of efforts and attempts to transcend borders. The festival will strive to invite as many international guests as possible to Japan so that they can engage in physical conversation and interaction at the Asia Lounge.
The sessions will be broadcast live from the festival venue in Tokyo Midtown Hibiya every day for eight days from October 31st to November 7th. Stay tuned! | https://medium.com/@b.i.m.sa.la.bi.m.pro.k/tokyo-international-film-festival-liveshow-in-tokyo-midtown-hibiya-tokyo-japan-17601fbfe100 | [] | 2021-10-30 14:01:37.360000+00:00 | ['Festivals', 'Film'] |
Ordinary Tales From Average Hotels | Back in 2010, I hit the business trip jackpot.
10 days of training in Los Angeles, fully paid by the company.
And it was even interesting subject matter, I enjoyed the training quite a bit.
But more than that, I enjoyed the trip.
Having never been south of Portland in my life, Los Angeles was a mystical fantasy land. Or Anaheim, to be more specific.
A coworker met me at the airport, we rented a brand new, jet black Charger. Immediately after that I saw the ocean for the first time, at Santa Monica beach.
(Seriously, I was 26 & had never seen the ocean once.)
We went to the La Brea Tar Pits. We drove past the Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame & Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (traffic was insane, driving by was good enough for me…)
We had dinner at Downtown Disney.
The hotel was amazing too.
The grounds were incredible, palm tress & tropical flowers everywhere. Cabana bar, swimming pool, food like I had never tasted in my life.
My room backed onto a parkade. Early one morning I woke up to the sounds of an argument… From what I could tell, a man had attempted to be intimate with a prostitute, but his little man had failed to participate…. He felt that this meant he was no longer obligated to hold up his financial end of the deal.
A chorus of boisterous sounding female voices rose up, and told him exactly why his “tiny little dinky not working” was not a valid excuse. I was laughing to myself about it all day.
I’ve been trying to plan a vacation around staying there ever since that trip. | https://bachelorfridge.medium.com/ordinary-tales-average-hotels-1932233ca33a | ['Sarah Grant'] | 2018-04-28 03:55:33.960000+00:00 | ['Memories', 'Work', 'Travel', 'Photography', 'Hotel'] |
Motivational Speaker Brad Butler II on Using Adversity to Build Resilience and Empower Others | It is a universal truth that adversities and obstacles are permanent fixtures in human life. Without adversities, there would be no room for growth. In fact, it is only in the face of adversity that our strength in character is tested. So, at the end of the day, the question remains, “How do we rise above adversity?” For Brad, a renowned motivational speaker, student advocate, success coach, author, and CEO of Brad Butler II & Associates LLC, resilience is the key to overcoming adversity. Instead of blaming the circumstance he was in, he stayed in-charge of his own destiny.
Before becoming the man he is today, Brad had experienced a rough patch in his life. In his formative years, life was not easy for him. He grew up in a household where his own parents outrightly do substance abuse. By the time he was eight years old, his dream of having a complete family had gone out like a cloud of smoke when his parents had decided to separate. He had to move out from his beloved hometown and start a new chapter in the suburban area of East Windsor. This took a toll not only on his mental health but also on his academic standing. At a young age, he was put in a circumstance where he had to grow up as an adult.
It is during those darkest times that Brad realized his enthusiasm for football. As a student-athlete, he considered football as his healthy outlet to learn about teamwork, perseverance, and leadership while building muscle, strength, and stamina at the same time. Playing football served as a catalyst that jump-started his success because it developed his character from the get-go. As evidence of his capability, his friends nicknamed him B-Rad. Years after, he successfully finished his Fine Arts associate degree at Mercer County Community College and his Business Management degree at Kean University.
Despite his stark beginnings, Brad Butler II moved past his childhood trauma and diverted it into helping people like him. As a motivational speaker, Brad always gets invited to graduation ceremonies to impart invaluable lessons based on his life experience. His focus lies on empowering students and athletes to become the best versions of themselves regardless of the obstacles in their path. His charismatic aura keeps students and athletes more engaged during his keynote speeches. This also piques educators’ and coaches’ interests because he effectively communicates his life story to be relatable to many people.
As part of his passion project, Brad just recently published his book called Pain Passion Purpose. It tells the story of how he overcame life’s adversities and built a company from the ground. Moreover, in the book, he specifically narrates his journey in dealing with his parents’ drug abuse, academic struggles, and negativity from his community. He hopes his story may serve as an inspiration for all the youth who are struggling at the moment.
Lastly, he developed his own habit of overcoming obstacles by living up to his motto: “Make your next day your best day.” It makes him grounded and, at the same time, motivated to conquer anything in life. Be up to date with the latest news about Brad Butler II by checking his website, his Instagram page, Twitter, Youtube, and LinkedIn. | https://medium.com/@menachem-quintana/motivational-speaker-brad-butler-ii-on-using-adversity-to-build-resilience-and-empower-others-2ddf131d786 | ['Menachem Quintana'] | 2020-12-12 02:58:55.842000+00:00 | ['Motivational Speaker', 'Empowerment'] |
cruzbit: A simple decentralized peer-to-peer ledger | For those interested, I want to elaborate on some of the details in the README found in the project’s Github repository. Specifically, I want to highlight what makes cruzbit different from bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) and why certain design decisions were made in a bit more depth. I also want to discuss more of the philosophy behind cruzbit. This document could maybe be described as a “whitepaper.”
Newer crypto
cruzbit uses the Ed25519 signature system. This isn’t just for show or to be hip. There are substantial problems with ECDSA (the most common signature system currently used by cryptocurrencies) usage in practice. People have even written tools showing how some of the weaknesses can be exploited. The attacks are not theoretical. The upgraded signature system also protects against some classes of what are known as side-channel attacks. These may seem infeasible on the surface but they are quite real threats. They are one of the reasons why exchanges use Faraday tents and elaborate setups as part of their storage practices. The signatures are also just plain fast.
For hashing/proof-of-work I chose SHA3/Keccak. This also wasn’t because the number is higher than SHA2 or for the simple sake of newness. In general, in cryptosystems newness for the sake of newness isn’t always the best idea. If an algorithm is proven to hold up to scrutiny for many years it makes sense to continue to use it and not drop it for something new and shiny. But SHA3 is somewhat compelling. Its designers boast blazing fast hardware speeds which consume less power. In my opinion, you want a strong proof-of-work function to provide as much security as possible with the least thermodynamic cost. I see hardware mining as optimally efficient and if this is the most optimally efficient strong cryptographic hash function available, it makes sense, in my opinion, to use it. I’m not interested in designing-out the possibility of miner centralization. I’ll let free market dynamics handle that problem.
Simplified transaction format
First I’ll provide a quick overview of bitcoin transactions in order to make the comparison more clear. At a high-level, a bitcoin transaction has two critical sections. The first is a list of inputs and the second is a list of outputs. Some people refer to the outputs themselves as the “coins” in bitcoin. Working backwards, an output contains an amount and a piece of code (“script”) required to be satisfied to redeem the amount specified in the output. The vast majority of the time, this code is effectively asking for the user to “provide the correct public key and signature to spend this output.” An input is a reference to a previous output. It also includes the rest of the code required to satisfy the output’s codified constraints, which is effectively just that the correct public key and signature are presented. The sum of the amounts of all of the outputs must be equal to or less than the sum of the amounts of the inputs. Any difference is considered an implicit miner fee. This means in addition to any scheduled subsidy, the miner of the block which confirms the transaction also can claim this difference.
In my opinion, this structure is somewhat awkward in practice and is a complexity that isn’t entirely necessary. This puts a few requirements on a wallet (software which manages keys and creates and signs transactions.) It must know about all of the past transactions involved and how to properly construct these somewhat esoteric pieces of code to redeem their outputs. Already you’ve likely introduced the need for the developer to rely upon a bitcoin-specific dependency, which is sometimes difficult for a programmer to understand the fitness of. They just want to make a transaction. They don’t really care about output scripts or selecting inputs or any of these details.
This also means transaction sizes and verification complexity are not constant. Bitcoin code is littered with places that have to act on specific sizes in bytes and calculate signature operations to properly vet transactions for their validity. Not all transactions are equal in this respect which is why transaction fee calculation is transaction-context-specific. This is another fun detail a wallet developer needs to consider. As you can see, you are quickly requiring that a wallet developer be a near-expert in bitcoin protocol details. Being a good UI/UX designer and a skilled bitcoin protocol engineer is a large ask.
So back to cruzbit, to address the aforementioned complexities and awkwardness I got rid of inputs and outputs and those pieces of code/script. In a cruzbit transaction, there is a well-understood concept of a sender and a recipient. Both are basic Ed25519 public keys. Instead of code/script, there is just a simple signature. I saw little justification for the complexity of the script when most of the time people/entities transacting just want to move value from one key to another. If you have a good and easy to find SHA3 and Ed25519 implementation for your development environment (as the Go language has built-in here and here) you don’t need any other external dependencies to craft a validly signed cruzbit transaction. You don’t need any transaction history. You do need to know what the current height is of the cruzbit block chain (which number block is the most recent) but that and the balance of your public key(s) is the only context you really need to know.
In addition to these changes I also made the fee explicit. And in cruzbit a miner must claim all fees. It makes it nice for verification/sanity checking if all of the non-zero public key balances at a given block height match the scheduled issuance at the time of that block height.
There are other small changes to the transaction format mentioned in the README but the above are the basics and most substantial. I’ll discuss the most obscure field (but trivially easy to calculate), “series”, in the next section.
No UTXO set
What is a UTXO set? In bitcoin, it’s the set of all of the Unspent TranXaction Outputs. In cruzbit, there are no transaction outputs. There are only public key balances. In the previous section I discussed why I think that is more simple and safer for wallet developers to deal with. But I also think it is more conceptually simple for all users to grasp. We’re used to having an account and for it to receive credits, and unfortunately debits. In cruzbit you can think of each public key as a mini-account.
Cruzbit is not the first cryptocurrency-style ledger to abandon the UTXO-model for the account-model, however, as far as I’m aware, all of those which have moved to the account-model have done so in roughly the same way. They have introduced an abstract notion of an account. Further, this account’s transactions must all include a nonce. But this nonce isn’t pseudo-random. It is a serial nonce which must increase by 1 for each transaction the account generates. The wallet must remember this nonce (or retrieve it from a network node) and use care to craft transactions in the correct order. Any break in the sequence disrupts the processing ability of subsequent transactions. All nodes in the network must also remember the most recent nonce used by all accounts.
That sounds a little complicated. Why does this per-account serial nonce exist? While inputs and outputs are a bit unwieldy, in my opinion, that model has some nice properties. The developer of bitcoin wasn’t being weird for weirdness’ sake. It was a calculated decision. With inputs and outputs you don’t have a problem of transaction replayability. In short, replaying a transaction means resubmitting an already processed transaction to the network in order to redeem the funds twice. By chaining transactions, the input and output model has this protection built-in. No two valid transactions will ever look identical. Whereas public key P paying public key K 2 cruzbits could very well look the same as another transaction in the future which involves the same keys for the same amount. There needs to be a way to differentiate them, hence a nonce. Now that answers the question of why does an inputless/outputless transaction need a nonce but why does it need to be serial and per-account? If it weren’t serial, network nodes would have to keep track of every nonce ever used by each account and make sure any new transactions don’t contain re-used nonces. That requires much more storage than a simple serial per-account nonce. The savings should be clear.
But then why doesn’t cruzbit require a serial per-account nonce? Cruzbit differentiates transactions by including a traditional pseudo-random nonce. If nonces aren’t re-used per-sender no two transactions should look the same. But cruzbit doesn’t track these nonces. It only tracks which transactions have been processed by their hash. It avoids having to remember the hash of every historical transaction by introducing a network-wide “series.” The series is effectively a serial nonce that the whole network uses for a period of time. That period is 1008 blocks (roughly 1 week.) The calculation for the correct series to use at a given height is: current block chain height/1008 + 1
Transactions have a grace period. At any given block height the current and previous series are acceptable when submitting a transaction. This exists to mitigate potential issues arising from transaction queuing delay and other potential effects of the time frame being too rigid. Humans aren’t very good with strict deadlines. But this all means cruzbit network nodes can “forget” about transactions older than the previous series for the purpose of processing new transactions. It’s a trade-off. I think it’s a conceptually simple one which places much less burden on users but perhaps it’s debatable. The cost is network nodes have to always store the last two series’ worth of transaction hashes vs. having to store every account’s most recent nonce. I think in practical terms the storage costs are probably effectively equal but this can also be debated.
The other nice property of the UTXO model is that in order to verify new transactions, network nodes only need to know about the set of unspent transaction outputs. In cruzbit, nodes need to remember the balances of all public keys with a non-zero balance. The storage requirements of these two sets are probably roughly equal in practice. But in cruzbit, nodes also need to store the hashes of the last two series’ worth of transactions. This is a marginally larger storage requirement for the benefits of not having to deal with inputs and outputs and their aforementioned associated complexities. I think it is a clear win but it is likely debatable.
No fixed block size limit
Due to inputless/outputless transactions being roughly the same constant size, it isn’t necessary to restrict blocks by size. We do it by transaction count. But this restriction isn’t fixed. It moves with “piecewise-linear-between-doublings growth.” You can read more about it in BIP 101. That’s basically what cruzbit has adopted with some slight deviations. In my opinion, it’s unreasonable to restrict block sizes to a single size forever. It doesn’t make rational sense. Computing and storage capabilities grow as does healthy network usage. Debating the growth factor of blocks in a block chain network is a painful experience and I think it is much easier if it’s baked in to the protocol from the beginning. In that sense everyone knows what they are getting into upfront. No tricks nor surprises. With BIP 101 we know the maximum capacity of the network at any future block height and can plan for it accordingly. It is also a very simple solution. Miners can restrict the sizes of blocks they choose to create and build off of. I don’t think they also need control over the maximum acceptable size for the entire network so I am against explicit miner controls for this and I am also against complexity arising from more dynamic models. Both of these alternative approaches also negatively impact long-term predictability. I guess we’ll see how it works out in practice.
Reference implementation is in Go
In my opinion, Go is a much easier language to read and work with than C++. It is also very popular right now and has a lot of new developer interest. In some ways, I think C++ is a bit esoteric, which is an accusation I also level on the bitcoin protocol. I considered using Rust but I’m concerned about the learning curve for new developers. I want the reference implementation to be as understandable as possible for the largest number of developers. But do be on the look-out for a future Rust port of the cruzbit client.
Web-friendly peer protocol
All peer communication is with secure WebSockets. By secure here, I mean that the channel is encrypted with TLS and the wss:// protocol scheme is used. In the current default configuration there is no protection against man-in-the-middle attacks because the certificates and keys used are ephemeral and not signed by any publicly acknowledged certificate authority. I chose WebSockets because I wanted to use something standard and bi-directional. Again, I didn’t want a user to have to use an obscure library nor understand low-level TCP socket programming subtleties. I think all modern development environments have a WebSocket implementation at their disposal so that made it a natural choice. While building cruzbit, I often used Chrome’s Javascript console to connect to the client and debug the protocol.
The actual protocol and all primitives are structured in JSON. This is probably a controversial choice. But again, I didn’t want to require obscure encoding schemes or constructions not readily available to all development environments. And maybe most importantly, I wanted humans to be able to work with it easily. Block header hashes and transaction hashes are computed using their strictly-serialized JSON forms. This means no white-space and strict ordering of fields. I say this choice is controversial because JSON encoders/decoders are notorious for having finicky compatibility issues across environments. I’m hoping our formats are rigid enough that this isn’t a material concern in practice.
So how is it like bitcoin?
The consensus rules around block processing are otherwise unchanged. There is a target value of which the block header’s hash must be less than when compared as 256-bit integers. Every 2 weeks (2016 blocks) there is a re-target of this value designed for new block creation to converge on an average 10 minute interval depending on network hash-power. The new target is calculated the same way bitcoin’s is (except modified to include protection against the ”Time Warp Attack”). The most-work chain wins and each block must build off of a valid predecessor in the chain. The subsidy schedule is also identical, every 4 years (210000 blocks) the block reward halves. And no more than 21 million cruz will ever exist. One other odd shared quirk is that new mining rewards are subject to a 100 block maturation before they’re applied to a miner key’s balance. It is for the same reason, which is to avoid an unpleasant UX in the event of an honest block chain reorganization.
Philosophy
I designed cruzbit to function as a store of value and a transaction base layer. I think it makes sense for any base layer to be as simple and basic as possible. This is what I have tried to achieve. I have no political nor ideological motivations and I am only interested in trying to provide such a base layer. I believe bitcoin currently is this base layer but I believe it has its quirks and short-comings which I hope I’m addressing. It’s possible I’m not and this attempt is misguided but I think there is only one way to find out. I’ll let the market decide. | https://medium.com/@asdvxgxasjab/cruzbit-a-simple-decentralized-peer-to-peer-ledger-2944495b6129 | [] | 2019-06-29 07:10:41.209000+00:00 | ['Cryptography', 'Decentralized', 'P2p', 'Go', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
JSON extraction made simple | What you see in the above video is an example of a JSON structure being transformed into rows and columns and placed in a data pipeline. This is all done in under a minute, without writing any code. Some features worth mentioning:
Auto key-value detection
The Mammoth platform automatically detects the JSON schema and presents a point and click solution to flatten out the data.
Easy handling of nested values
If your first level of extraction results in a column with another JSON structure, we can keep applying the “Extract JSON” function. These tasks get added to the pipeline.
Automation
Mammoth provides automation by default. All your incoming JSON data automatically goes through the extraction pipeline. Extract your JSON data, perform various transformations to it and then send the prepared data out to your data warehouse.
Instant discovery and exploration
In the above video, you’ll notice we’re exploring and drilling down on the data we’ve extracted. This allows us to get an overview of the data and perform sanity checks. In the case of anomalies, we can take immediate action, as described below.
Additional transformational capabilities
There’s a good chance the extracted values aren’t in the perfect shape. Whether it is miscategorized or uncategorized data, spelling mistakes, or just simple filtering of rows, you can make the changes and add them to the data pipeline.
Automated Export
After shaping the data to your liking, send it out to a data warehouse using Mammoth’s various exporting capabilities. This export task gets added to the end of the data pipeline, so all your steps are completely automated.
The Mammoth Platform
We’re assuming JSON extraction is a small part in your data project. Mammoth provides all the tools you need for the rest of your journey, including data ingestion, warehousing, transformation and discovery. Check out all the features here.
For those who don’t know about Mammoth Analytics, it is a code-free data management platform. It provides powerful tools for the entire data journey, including data retrieval, consolidation, storage, cleanup, reshaping, analysis, insights, alerts and more. You can check it out at www.mammoth.io
We’ll be posting similar articles regularly. To stay up to date, follow us here. If you have additional questions, feel free to leave a comment here or reach out to us at hello @ mammoth.io | https://medium.com/mammoth-analytics/json-extraction-made-simple-38db00075634 | ['Analyst'] | 2019-10-15 17:00:46.554000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Data Science', 'Analytics', 'Data Preparation', 'Json'] |
Every Member of Congress Should Read “A Christmas Carol” | Every Member of Congress Should Read “A Christmas Carol”
Scrooge encounters the Ghost of Christmas Present. (John Leech illustration, Public Domain)
This article is low-hanging fruit; a soft-target; easy pickings. Nevertheless, I persist, and I’m writing it anyway.
My thesis is simple: every member of Congress must read A Christmas Carol before they are seated in either the House or Senate. Then, they have to get booster shots of the Dickens classic once a year and prove that they have learned the lessons which the spirits have taught Ebenezer Scrooge. In addition, their records of bill sponsorship and voting must show that they “honor Christmas in [their] hearts, and try to keep it all the year.”
Don’t get all bent out of shape. I know that there are non-Christian members of Congress. But you get the general point, and so would they if they read this. Caring for the general welfare of mankind is not the province of a single religion.
Simply, the lessons of A Christmas Carol apply to all:
Don’t be miserly, it’s bad for the soul.
If you have more than enough, help people who don’t.
Thinking only about money is a losing proposition; being part of the 1% won’t earn you a big funeral.
Most Christmases I read A Christmas Carol, and I always watch several film versions. My top favorites are the Muppet Christmas Carol and George C. Scott’s 1984 version. Oh, and Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. Whether traditional, like the 1938 Reginald Owen film, or modernized like Bill Murray’s 1988 Scrooged, they’re all spreading the Dickens gospel — don’t be a tightwad, self-absorbed, arrogant, ass.
If I was to make a new version of A Christmas Carol, featuring politicians, I think I would cast Mitch McConnell as Scrooge with Ronald Reagan as Marley’s Ghost — with chains “trickling down” from his bound shoulders. And let’s have the entire GOP caucus be the ghosts that flit about outside Scrooge’s window, all bound by the chains of their circumstance.
You can populate the rest of the characters as you want; there are too many possibilities. (And let me know what you come up with.)
I do think that Donald Trump probably plays the boy named “Ignorance.” As Dickens said, “most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
As I write this, Trump has torpedoed the $900 billion Covid relief package that the House and Senate finally hammered out on December 22. Having never negotiated one element of the deal, Trump suddenly said he wanted direct payments of $2,000 to Americans instead of the $600 embedded in the deal. Trump is right, the $600 is a ridiculously small amount, but his Republican cronies aren’t going to go for $2,000 payments. (I suspect they are questioning whether the “treadmills” and “workhouses” are in “full vigor.”)
Meanwhile, most of Congress, thinking it had done its job, has gone home for Christmas. After failing to pass a unanimous consent request to raise the House version of the relief package to $2,000 to match Trump’s amazing request, Representatives will probably jet back to Washington on December 28 to take a traditional vote.
Most of us realize that Trump doesn’t care whether Americans get $2,000 or $600 or nothing. He just likes to blow things up, then see if he can badger someone into reassembling them in his favor.
It really is quite obvious that much of Congress has shut out the lessons of the spirits of Christmas, otherwise nine months would not have elapsed between Covid relief bills.
Millions of Americans would not have fallen into food insecurity this year, while food banks are struggling to meet needs. Hospitals wouldn’t be maxing out ICU capacities as Covid patients swamp them.
Some 2,400 Americans would not have died of Covid symptoms today alone, on Christmas Eve.
Trump administration officials wouldn’t have undercounted the need for Covid vaccinations in a first rollout — and they would have declined opportunities last summer to lock-in the purchase of millions of doses.
The lessons of A Christmas Carol are not that hard. Really, we all learned them as kids: if you have something, share; if someone needs help, help them.
Those ideas, unfortunately, often fall prey to adulthood. And political ambition, it would seem.
And so, I say again, every member of Congress should read A Christmas Carol every year to keep their humanity in “full vigor.”
And just in case Republicans don’t want to pay for a copy, it’s free in e-book form at Project Guttenburg.
Merry Christmas, all. | https://medium.com/politically-speaking/dickens-a-christmas-carol-7ec089df0851 | ['Steve Jones'] | 2020-12-25 17:34:26.819000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Politics', 'Charles Dickens', 'Donald Trump', 'Republican Party'] |
6 Form-Related HTML Tags You Might Not Know About | 1. Progress Bar
How to quickly prototype progress bars for multiple use cases. By Steven Douglas.
When you create a form and there is a file upload input, you should show how much of the file has been uploaded. This is a big UX (user experience) improvement. Your first thought might be “I will create a div and animate the background while the progress is changing.”
And that’s OK. But we have a special HTML tag to display a progress indicator! <progress> was added with other HTML5 elements. Let's take a look at it:
As you can see, there is a simple layout with basic CSS. Also, there is some JavaScript code to fake a file upload. On <input type='file' /> change, I initialize a fake progress function in setInterval . After five seconds, our fake upload is completed and we have a “success” text. This is the ultimate simple usage of the <progress> tag.
You can read more about styling <progress> on CSS-Tricks.
Unique Attributes
This element includes two attributes: | https://medium.com/better-programming/6-form-related-html-tags-you-might-not-know-about-e477439d0c47 | ['Albert Walicki'] | 2020-12-23 18:02:27.678000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'HTML', 'Software Development', 'UX', 'Html5'] |
When God says no. | BANG!!! You have been overruled. You objected, you appealed, you asked for a review. But yet you’ve been overruled.
As Christians, we’ve been wired to only give glory to God when things go our way, that is, when we get what we’ve asked for. However, we are left in agonising despair and confusion when we don’t. We hear and watch all kinds of teachings on when God says yes. Different materials are at our fingertips to guide us to get what we want. “ How to claim”, “how to pray and get answers”, “10 ways to get blessed”. But there are very little talks to help us survive when life doesn’t give us what we want.
You see, there are times we pray and ask God for a particular thing to be done at a particular time but it seems like God isn’t listening. And other times, things fall into place, sometimes without even asking. Why is that? It’s not that what we are asking for is useless or worthless. It’s something that could potentially make our lives better or even easier. However, in these past few years I’ve come to learn that God isn’t looking for the easiest way out, he is looking for the best way out.
As humans, we only have the capacity to see what is right in front of us. Ours plans are myopic and one step guided. While we see one step at a time, God has seen the whole picture 10 steps down the line. His plans for us is enclosed in what is called the “greater purpose”.
It might come as a shock to some of you; that even Jesus ask the Father for something and got no response. In Matthew 26vs 39, we saw Jesus requesting for a way out of his impending crucifixion. But knowing that God had a greater purpose in mind he said. “Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
It is crucial in our walk with God to know that things will not always work as we expected, planned or predicted. This is because God in his infinite wisdom is putting all the puzzles together behind the scene. You might not hear him now or even notice he is doing much, but wait till the great unveiling of what he’s been doing on the background. When God seems to be at his quietest is often when he’s doing his greatest work in us. Let’s wait patiently and have faith in the process. | https://medium.com/@solomonsiwoku/when-god-says-no-7ceb26c89e08 | ['Solomon Siwoku'] | 2020-08-23 19:02:40.915000+00:00 | ['Disappointment', 'Patience', 'When God Says No', 'Christian Living', 'Waiting'] |
How does S386 impact diversity? | There are many opponents to S386. Primarily those are people who currently benefit from the discriminatory laws in one or another. And in their opposition, they make many incorrect claims. One of the claims frequently made is that S386 is bad for diversity in the United States.
The claim goes like this: because a greater percentage of applicants in the employment-based immigration backlog are from India, removing country caps will be bad for diversity in America. There are many flaws with this logic.
Employment-based (EB) immigration is not a diversity program. There already exists a diversity visa lottery that grants 50,000 visas every year without regard to skills of those who are selected. Employment-based immigration is employer sponsored immigration and it is illegal for employers to discriminate based on country of birth. Employment-based immigration is employer-sponsored immigration. That means, it is the prerogative of the employer to decide who they sponsor for a green card through employment-based process. Further, according to US employment law, employers cannot discriminate who they hire based on many immutable characteristics, one of them being country of birth. Expecting employers to not sponsor employees based on their country of birth is illegal. The number of India and China-born immigrants in EB backlog is high because they are countries with larger populations. It is not a surprise that these immigrants have to repeatedly go through H-1B visa renewals due to the discriminatory country caps. This is a double whammy — first being discriminated against for being born in a specific country and second because the same person is having to go through H-1B renewals, the percentage of people from India and China on H-1B remains high. This is again turned against the same employees to say that they are misusing the H-1B visa. They are not misusing the visa. In fact, they are being discriminated and forced to be on H-1B visa longer than any other immigrant due to their country of birth. Now, finally, let us look at hard numbers on diversity. Does the US have too many immigrants from India? Will the ending of discriminatory country caps lead to a flood of immigrants from India? The short answer is no. These are just lies that have no basis in fact because the number of EB immigration is just 14% of the overall legal immigration number of 1M. No matter what rule comes, legal immigration from one country cannot exceed 140,000 per year. In reality, it is going to be much lower than this number.
Here is the data and analysis on how diversity in the US will be impacted if #S386 becomes law — that is, discrimination by country caps is removed from employment-based immigration.
According to the US Census, the total US population was 318.7M in 2014. It is projected to be 416.8M in 2060.
Asian population was 17.1M in 2014 and projected to be 39M in 2060.
Indian population in 2015 was 2.4M, which represents just 0.7% of the population.
Assuming the same rate of growth as the overall Asian population, Indians’ population in 2060 will be 5.5M (1.7% of total).
For comparison, Hispanic population will grow from 55.4M (17.4% of total) in 2014 to 119M (28.6%) in 2060.
Now, let’s assume S386 is passed and country cap discrimination ends. This could lead to Indians getting up to 50% of total world allocation. This number will be ~50,000 per year.
Over a period of 40 years, 50K x 40 = 2M additional Indians will get a green card. As a result, Indian population in the US will be 7.5M in 2060 or 2.3% of the total.
Net impact of S386 to US population = 0.6%
Table
Source: | https://medium.com/@desiinsaan/how-does-s386-impact-diversity-2f3ba7a7a2d0 | ['Supporting Equality'] | 2020-11-05 22:50:58.007000+00:00 | ['S386', 'Legal Immigration', 'Discrimination', 'Hr1044', 'Immigration'] |
Top 20 Reasons To Include SEO In Your Digital Marketing Strategy | Top 20 Reasons To Include SEO In Your Digital Marketing Strategy Visualmodo Follow Jul 31 · 10 min read
Businesses should be proactive and innovative in marketing to be relevant and competitive. They do so by incorporating the developments and impact of the technologies of the digital age into their business processes. Specific to marketing, digital advertising is now the most convenient and accurate way to reach clients. In this article, we’ll share the top 20 reasons to include SEO in your digital marketing strategy.
Many business owners today realize that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital to a successful marketing plan. What they might don’t know is just how to use it. According to Oregon Web Solutions, implementing strategically selected keywords into valuable content will significantly increase your visibility in the online world. Even more critical is the invaluable information it provides to understand how your clients find you.
However, in comparing SEO to PPC, affiliate marketing, and any other marketing methods, your question might be: How does SEO conform, and is that essential?
To help you with that, below are some points that address the SEO role in your marketing strategy. Also, explained below are reasons why SEO should be prioritized in your business’s digital marketing campaign.
What Is SEO?
SEO involves the development of an easy-to-categorize and searchable website. This is an integral component of digital marketing efforts — an integrative model that fuels clients to a company’s website.
With SEO, the goal is for your website to rank high in search engine’s result pages. When that happens, you lead part of billions of consumers to your market. This means a large percentage of people are searching for what you are selling.
Having the highest rank and maintaining that rank on search engines or search engine result page (SERP) is essential. Only, then, can you have reliable online traffic.
What Are The Different Types Of SEO?
There are three types of SEOs to introduce and give your website the highest chance to improve its ranking on the SERPs. These types are:
In-page SEO
This involves researching keywords and using keywords in high-quality content from various web pages on your site.
Off-page SEO
Aims to improve your website’s partnership with other relevant sites. Off-page SEO is mainly focused on growing backlinks. These links can bring interconnected traffics to your website from a vast number of related websites.
Technical SEO
This includes loading speed, syncing, crawlability, smart devices friendliness, data structures, site architecture, and protection.
Reasons To Include SEO In Your Marketing Strategy
The next thing to know after having that general knowledge about SEO, is why you should include SEO in your digital marketing campaigns?
Read on below to find out why.
1 Efficient SEO Adds Legitimacy To Your Business
Consider the instances you’ve checked on Google or some other search engine for a good or service. You view the links and information provided on the very first page as being the most reliable sources accessible.
Clients rarely get beyond the first few listings as they assume that the first pages are relevant and trustworthy.
By employing Portland SEO services and engaging in your business’ SEO strategy, you are bringing value to your brand. SEO places your web pages, products, or services on those first search pages.
2 Easy Access Prevails, And Valuable Content Is Important
With exciting and easy to find information, user-friendly sites will make your website rank. With original content, web pages build around concepts of keywords for search engines to index and rate you up.
Positive experiences from visitors are the best choice for a higher rating. Thus, keep your material honest and focused. Avoid stuffing content with buzzwords and keywords to prevent people from leaving the site. Dissatisfied prospective clients will risk your rankings.
3 Inbound Marketing Is Better Than Other Forms Of Marketing
Inbound marketing strategies, such as SEO, social media posting, and blog posts, usually get many more leads than outbound and other paid practices.
Thus, as business owners, instead of relying on outbound or other paying ads, engaging in quality content creation would be a more profitable option.
Also, improving and maximizing your platform-based social media pages and integrating SEO into all facets of your business’ digital marketing techniques would be a much smarter marketing plan.
4 Search Engines Are Getting Bigger: Reasons Include SEO In Your Strategy
Will you naturally think that when someone addresses search engines, they are speaking about Google?
The tech giant does have a large market share, and they are so significant that people make ‘Googling’ a verb.
As a business owner, you need to be aware that on alternative services, like Microsoft’s Bing, a substantial percentage of the searches also take place. Make it a point to browse blogs from alternative options to see how far you’re on the list. You might be surprised that boosting user engagement and inserting meta tags could be all it takes to raise a few ranks on other search engines.
5 Increasing Your Traffic
The essential benefit of search engine pages is that it provides prominent selling setups. Higher ranks on search engine pages attract more views, which contributes to more visits and, eventually, sales.
6 Most People Use Mobile Devices To Search
You may not need statistics to prove that the web-based mobile phone market has risen in the last couple of years, surpassing desktops.
SEO makes your website mobile-friendly by utilizing mobile browser web pages. Thus, if you’d like to rate well in the search engine results pages, having a mobile-friendly site is crucial.
7 Return Of Investment: Reasons Include SEO In Your Strategy
SEO gives businesses the ability to monitor and measure results. It allows you to see where your marketing strategies are going, and if any changes are considered necessary.
An SEO organization will trace which pathways users take, based on the keywords before a transaction was finally made.
This data helps you understand your ROI throughout your SEO strategy as opposed to your expenditure.
8 Creating A Better Experience For Visitors
Another importance of SEO is that the whole time you spend producing quality content and improving your platform, it increases your site’s usability. As a result, it ensures a smooth and optimistic consumer experience.
For example, if you make improvements to ensure the site’s responsiveness, it will start making it available from all devices.
Equally, you can reduce the bounce process, increase your loading times, and encourage people to spend even more time on your web page. Bear in mind that most users expect to load a website in less than two seconds. That means the longer it takes to load, the higher would the bouncing rate would spike, resulting in lower conversions.
9 Cost-efficiency: Reasons Include SEO In Your Strategy
SEO is far more cost-effective compared to other advertising methods. That is because you can directly attract consumers when they search for your product or service.
The more established your website is, the more likely will you hit on a hot lead using a good SEO marketing strategy.
10 Efficient SEO Will Boost PPC: Reasons Include SEO In Your Strategy
When you’ve used PPC as another marketing strategy, you’ll realize that the advertisement affects quality ratings. A superior quality score for PPCs will cut the price per click and make your ads perform much better.
Boosting your site with SEO will improve the overall scoring rate of your PPC ads.
Many marketing strategies often work hand in hand with SEO. Matching SEO with search engine advertisements improves the effectiveness of the ad and increases traffic. SEO can also boost attempts to retarget and raise awareness of the brand.
11 Improve The Accessibility And Usability Of The Site
SEO makes it easier for people and browsers to explore your page. It reshapes the connections and the layout of the platform and making it easier to locate. This streamlines the task of seeking information on the website and allows search engines ease in scanning your website for relevant pages.
12 No Manipulations Of Contents At All
Texts and connections of contents on any site can’t be tricked. Traditional black-hat referencing — a process of linking to a website that is entirely irrelevant to that of the source site — is replaced by mentions or web quotes.
In using mentions and quotes, the link would lead to sites that must be meaningful to the source site once a brand is faultlessly integrated into site content.
13 Improve Awareness Of The Brand: Reasons Include SEO In Your Strategy
Having your web page in the highest rank on search results would eventually give you a lot of views or impressions. That implies that your platform is far more accessible, and the higher your company can have in brand awareness.
Moreover, to be on the upper edge of your targeted keywords, search engine pages would allow users to identify your brand to the same keywords. That, in turn, increases the brand’s trustworthiness
14 Search Engines Are Unreliable: Reasons Include SEO In Your Strategy
A notice worth a mention is that SEO is essential because browsers are not ideal. So, when you don’t take measures to overcome their inadequacies, the price will be charged on your website.
For instance, when your site does not provide a clear link structure, browsers may not adequately crawl and benchmark your site, leading to a lower ranking.
In fact, coding errors could also effectively eliminate search engines, which makes your site impossible to scale higher regardless of the time and resources you invested in your SEO efforts.
Common areas in which issues may occur with search engine results include:
Photos, audio, video, files, and other graphics included in the content
Duplicate articles
Formats
Semantics
Language
15 Links To Your Site Are Of Utmost Value
Another way to boost your ranking in search pages is when other websites create links leading to your site. When this happens, search engines would rank your page high for producing useful materials.
Way back a couple of years, all it takes to rank on search engines is to get hundreds of references from poor quality pages to improve the score.
Today, however, the importance of links on your blog or website relies on the website’s standard that links to you.
Just some connections from high-traffic sites to your company can do miracles for your rating!
16 Increases Loading Speeds Of The Website: Reasons Include SEO In Your Strategy
Your website’s loading speed lets users instantly experience your material. When your site loads slowly, consumers are more likely to drop without seeing contents from that link. SEO offers you page load level preference to make sure it’s faster and easier.
17 More Links Higher Ranking is Not The Strategy Of Today
A key factor to scale on the search engine is your website’s credibility. The old method of creating a link has certain improvisations, and the popular perception of ranking high throughout the search engine results is evolving. Content tactics are not always the principal means. But creating inbound quality connections remains a significant SEO factor to influence the rankings.
In this sense, the meaning of the word “link” is evolving. The core concept behind the conventional connection building is to calculate all the see-follow connections that a website will produce and disregard all the no-follow links entirely. The aim was to create as many interconnections as practicable. The method has drawbacks in which certain black-hat advertisers banked, and eventually, search engines revised its formulas, which ultimately ended the process of conventional link building. This was termed spamming.
Also, guest-blogging is burnt away with a small intention of creating ties. Guest-blogging performs very well when it comes to attracting new followers, positioning yourself as an authority, and interacting with the target crowd.
18 The Secret To SEO Is Analytics
For better performance, it is essential to track your rankings on different search engines. Begin by monitoring your website’s most critical indicators to create a benchmark for your results. Make minor improvements to your content and monitor if it affects an increase on your rank or perhaps funneled in some traffic.
Avoid concurrently implementing many improvements, and you will still process and report what was necessary for higher results.
19 Targets Markets: Reasons Include SEO In Your Strategy
Today’s SEO doesn’t only focus on attracting prospect’s attention but getting leads involved with what you’re offering. Try to evaluate your SEO marketing campaign strategies by answering the questions: Who is the customer looking for concerning demographics? How do web searches perform? Where are they from?
The more precise your responses are, the more valuable your SEO efforts become.
20 Social Media Performs A Pivotal Function
Finally, social media is now a constantly changing platform which has shifted to a massively lucrative sales channels from an underlying messaging platform. Many users start their social media searches and work their way to the site of a business. Sharing up-to-date, entertaining, and tailored content would draw more users to your page, and ultimately to your site.
How To Include SEO In Your Digital Marketing Strategies?
If you’re thrilled with all the benefits SEO offers for your business, then the next big thing to do is adapting it in your marketing strategies. Start by appointing SEO professionals to integrate search engine optimization into your digital marketing campaigns. The critical SEO-specialized digital marketing and technical responsibilities involve positions, such as a Front-end Creator, SEO Strategist, Web Manager, and some personal relations jobs.
If you don’t want to be bothered by hiring these specialists and adding up to your team, you can also resort to SEO marketing firms.
Final Thoughts About Reasons Include SEO In Your Strategy
Rome, with all its glory and grandeur, isn’t built in a day. Nor does a perfect and robust marketing plan for your business.
If you are in the market of building your own “Rome,” take the following advice. Do your data collection, start a site that will raise your search engine rankings, test what you have put in place, and then use the collected data to help sustain your marketing campaign. Also, use methodologies, and collectively work across all areas of your business to maximize your success.
In incorporating SEO on your digital marketing strategies, never forget the reasons explained above. These points will help you a lot in the long run. | https://medium.com/visualmodo/top-20-reasons-to-include-seo-in-your-digital-marketing-strategy-403dcd695523 | [] | 2020-07-31 02:37:13.785000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Digital', 'SEO', 'Marke', 'Strategy'] |
5-steps to making a free personal or eCommerce website today | Step 1: Sign up for Hosting
Hosting cost money, it cost money to store your website data. There is this wonderful thing called google, they make it practically free. Google has their very own cloud platform, GCP. So we’re gonna use that for our hosting. Let’s head over to: https://cloud.google.com/
GCP homepage
If you haven’t already, login into your google account. If you don’t have one you’re gonna need to create one. Once you clicked the blue button “Get started for free”. You will then be prompted to agree to the terms of service and select your country. Then your information name, address and credit card info. Don’t worry there is no charge and even if the trial ends it still won’t charge you.
Step 2: Set-up Hosting
If you made it this far congratulations! Let’s keep going! You should be at the homepage.
Homepage
Now let’s create a new project. The blue bar at the top where it says, “My first project”. Then click “new project” in the dialog window. From there you should get this.
Creating new project
Call it whatever you like but I’m gonna call it “ecommerceSite” then click create. Give a min to set up. Once it’s done, make sure you select your project in the blue bar to the one we just set up.
ecommerceSite project selected
Let’s head over to marketplace from your navigation menu, appearing to your left when you click those 3 bars at the top left of the homepage. In the marketplace search for “wordpress certified by bitnami”. | https://medium.com/@markromanv/5-steps-to-making-a-free-personal-or-ecommerce-website-today-cd14ec8295e5 | ['Mark Vainauskas'] | 2020-12-01 17:41:07.809000+00:00 | ['WordPress', 'Ecommerce', 'Portfolio', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business'] |
Taking Agile Back To Its Roots - AgileAus18 | SEEK colleague Glenn enjoying the conference. (Slatterys. AgileAus-Day1. 2018. Flickr.)
The Agile Australia (AgileAus18) conference, in its 10th year, gave us two days of thought provoking speakers and passionate discussion among delegates. While it’s always a valuable conference from both information and community perspectives, there was a notable difference in the mood this year.
Because of this mood, my biggest take-away wasn’t a new technique to try or a poignant quote, or a book to read, but a feeling.
That feeling has increased during the conference, and has spilled over into many conversations since, both around SEEK and in the wider product/development community.
The feeling is a mixture of excitement, a change in the wind, and nostalgia for simpler times, and it’s there because we’re establishing a discourse about taking agile back to its roots; to shift focus away from frameworks, processes and tools and back to:
People
Mindset
Values
People — Focusing on empowering people, and creating an environment for them to do their best work through servant leadership
Mindset — Cultivating a mindset characterised by openness and growth
Values — Going back to the core of the agile manifesto especially “people > process” and related values: Openness, Transparency, Adaptation, (i.e. SCRUM pillars of empiricism)
It’s a nice feeling to have, and I’d like to contribute to the discourse by drawing together some of the common threads I picked up on during the conference…
Author Stephen Denning in a “fireside chat” with Nigel Dalton introduced this theme in a subtle way. We know about the desire for meaningful work, and the value that follows when meaningful work is available (for customers and hence businesses), so many organisations failing to provide this can be puzzling.
Denning was able to offer economist Milton Friedman’s ‘singular focus on shareholder value’ as an explanation.
If business isn’t just about value to shareholders, it allows us to focus on people in the business as a community and the customers they are delivering for.
Denning suggests that this can be achieved by adopting an “Integrated Agile system”:
Focusing on the customer by delivering value continuously Small teams: De-scale complexity into small teams each focusing on parts of a problem (notably in contrast to the tendency of large businesses to establish large programs, projects and transformations to deal with complex challenges) Network: Organise businesses as an interconnected network of people instead of a hierarchical pyramid.
To this end I am proud of SEEK’s meaningful purpose (“Helping people lead more fulfilling working lives and helping organisations succeed”) and our belief of “focusing on business fundamentals and customer outcomes rather than short-term financials” with a view that shareholder value will follow.
Martin Fowler added something of a call-to-arms in response to“faux-agile” in his presentation with the idea of the “Agile industrial complex” which seems to have commercialised certain versions of agile practices in isolation from (and sometimes in conflict with) the underlying values.
Rather than buying a framework as a silver-bullet, Fowler highlighted that people are at their best when they choose how they work, and are encouraged to continue improving their way of working. This is what agile is about at its core.
Like Denning, Fowler encouraged businesses to restructure around:
Cross-functional teams supporting long-running business capabilities
Ensuring these teams are connected to the customer experience (i.e. verticals)
Perhaps most surprisingly, but refreshingly, was Shayne Elliot joining the chorus in speaking about agile at ANZ. It’s rare to hear a CEO speak about agile fundamentals so passionately and in such a well-informed way.
Rather than rolling out SAFe or another enterprise-aimed framework, ANZ is choosing to adopt agile through a mindset-based, ground-up approach, drawing heavily on Carol Dweck’s concept of “Growth Mindset”. They are referring to their organisational change program as ‘new ways of working’ rather than ‘agile transformation’. This signifies that there’s a genuine desire for meaningful change in how people think and behave, rather than inserting a set of methods and expecting several extra release trains each month.
Elliott’s definition of agile as “Growth mindset + technology (delivery) at speed” is as concise and powerful a definition as I’ve heard, and some of the themes that emerged during his talk were equally strong:
Transparency & being comfortable with saying ‘I don’t know’
Embracing openness, learning and change
Servant leadership: “Mission defines the work, the work defines how we lead”
SEEK colleagues James & Michelle enjoying the conference. (Slatterys. AgileAus-Day1. 2018. Flickr.
Several other presenters added to the feeling:
Jessie Shternshus on un-learning and embracing change which resonated in terms of “Responding to change > following a plan”.
Jeff Gothelf’s comment that companies are “bringing in agile to deliver software faster” but not providing the decision making environment required to determine what to build or when it’s done; echoing the structural imperatives highlighted by Denning and Fowler.
Alison Cameron, on changing organisational culture in terms of mindset, beliefs and behaviours to build adaptive capacity. Marina Chiovetti & James Brett - Evolving Digital Leadership on attitudes conducive to disruption.
Most overtly, the feeling was driven home by Adam Boas in his talk “People > Process” as he described the ‘seductive nature of process’ and how it can be easier to buy a framework & a certification than develop a mindset (as an individual, let alone an organisation).
Instead, businesses need to put people first by “being values driven & adapting at every phase” to achieve outcomes.
Further, Boas contends that people with an agile mindset are drawn to being able to create their own way of effective working, and that being process-heavy will actually exclude people with the kind of mindset that will help a business succeed.
Boas shared keys to creating an environment where an agile mindset can flourish:
Creating alignment to goals — Leaders saying one thing and behaving in another, often undermines this
— Leaders saying one thing and behaving in another, often undermines this Focusing on Autonomy & Context > Processes for delivery — giving people the power to make decisions!
> Processes for delivery — giving people the power to make decisions! Defining safe boundaries > ‘safe to fail’ if it isn’t really (and not everything should be)
This feeling isn’t isolated to Agile Australia. In a similar vein 10 days later, a colleague shared a blunt article, “Revenge of the PMO” by Marty Cagan. In it Cagan promotes mindset over frameworks and how a PMO (Project Management Office) in control of frameworks and process can undermine successful product development and therefore customer and business value.
Far and wide, the discourse is happening, the feeling is growing — let’s bring agile back to its’ roots by focusing on People, Mindset and Values to make work and products better for everyone!
References & resources:
Denning, Steve. “Fireside chat — Strategic agility”. Agile Australia 18 conference, 18th May 2018, Palladium at Crown, Melbourne
Fowler, Martin. “Agile in 2018”. Agile Australia 18 conference, 18th May 2018, Palladium at Crown, Melbourne
Elliott, Shayne. “Fireside chat — Agile at ANZ”. Agile Australia 18 conference, 18th May 2018, Palladium at Crown, Melbourne
Shternshus, Jessie. “Unlearning: The challenge of change”. Agile Australia 18 conference, 18th May 2018, Palladium at Crown, Melbourne
Gothelf, Jeff. “Lean vs Agile vs Design Thinking”. Agile Australia 18 conference, 18th May 2018, Palladium at Crown, Melbourne
Cameron, Alison. “Enabling cultural evolution”. Agile Australia 18 conference, 18th May 2018, Palladium at Crown, Melbourne
Boas, Adam. “People > Process”. Agile Australia 18 conference, 18th May 2018, Palladium at Crown, Melbourne
Brett, James & Chiovetti, Marina. “Creating high-performance teams using the Human Full Stack”. Agile Australia 18 conference, 18th May 2018, Palladium at Crown, Melbourne. | https://medium.com/seek-blog/taking-agile-back-to-its-roots-agileaus18-b6d6e1b9f154 | ['Jordan Lewis'] | 2020-04-03 01:13:11.142000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Workplace Culture', 'Product Management', 'Leadership', 'Agile'] |
Exception Handling in Python | Exception handling is the method of programmatically responding to unusual conditions that require special processing. In python, it is straight forward to implement exception handling for a wide variety of error types. In this post, we will discuss how to implement exception handling in python.
Let’s get started!
First, let’s consider the following list of integers:
my_list1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
We can iterate over the list and print the elements using a ‘for-loop’:
for value in my_list1:
print(value)
Within the ‘for-loop’ we can also perform operations and print the results. Let’s calculate the square of each element and print the result;
for value in my_lis1t:
square = value**2
print(value, square)
Suppose our list also contained the string value, ‘6’:
my_list2 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, '6']
Let’s try to calculate the square of each element in this new list. This will return a ‘TypeError’:
for value in my_list2:
square = value**2
print(value, square)
The error specifies the line of problematic code:
square = value**2
The ‘TypeError’ was raised because the operand ‘str’ is not supported for the ‘**’ power operator. Suppose we want our code to have a way of processing string valued integers without throwing an error. This is where exception handling comes into play. We can handle the ‘TypeError’ using the python keywords try and except. First, let’s try to square and print each value:
for value in my_list2:
try:
square = value**2
print(value, square)
When we get a ‘TypeError’, we use the except keyword to handle the ‘TypeError’. Since the string contains a numerical value, we can use the ‘int()’ method to convert the string into an integer and calculate the square within the exception:
for value in my_list2:
try:
square = value**2
print(value, square)
except(TypeError):
square = int(value)**2
print(value, square)
It’s worth noting that the way we handle errors highly depends on the error type and the type of data we are processing.
Next, suppose our list contains a word or another type like a list. We want to be able handle these errors without having our code fail to produce any output. Let’s consider the following list which contains the string ‘##’:
my_list3 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, '##']
If we try to loop over this new list and calculate the square we get a ‘ValueError’:
for value in my_list3:
try:
square = value**2
print(value, square)
except(TypeError):
square = int(value)**2
print(value, square)
This error is saying that we can’t convert the string, ‘##’, into an integer. We need to write extra processing for this error type. For example, we can replace the string with some filler value, like 0 or ‘NaN’:
import numpy as np
for value in my_list3:
try:
square = value**2
print(value, square)
except(TypeError):
square = np.nan
print(value, square)
Let’s consider another example of exception handling. Suppose we have the following list of strings containing programming languages:
my_list4 = ['python c++ java', 'SQL R scala', 'pandas keras sklearn']
We can use the ‘split()’ method to split the strings and add the text ‘is awesome’ using the ‘+’ operator:
for value in my_list4:
print([i +' is awesome' for i in value.split()])
Since the ‘split()’ method is a string object method, an ‘AttributeError’ will be raised if there are non-string values in our list. Let’s add a dictionary to our list and run our code again:
my_list4 = ['python c++ java', 'SQL R scala', 'pandas keras sklearn', {'language': ''golang'}]
for value in my_list4:
print([i +' is awesome' for i in value.split()])
The error says the ‘dict()’ object has no attribute ‘split()’. Let’s write some try/except logic to handle this error:
my_list4 = ['python c++ java', 'SQL R scala', 'pandas keras sklearn', {'language': 'golang ruby julia'}]
for value in my_list4:
try:
print([i +' is awesome' for i in value.split()])
except(AttributeError):
print([i +' is awesome' for i in value['language'].split()])
I’ll stop here but I encourage you to play around with the code yourself.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, in this post we discussed exception handling in python. We showed how to use try/except keywords and error types to handle bad values in data. We look at examples of handling the ‘TypeError’ and the ‘AttributeError’. I encourage you to look in to the additional error types and how to handle them. Additional error types include ‘SyntaxError’, ‘ZeroDivisionError’, ‘FileNotFoundError’ and much more. I hope you found this post useful/interesting. The code in this post is available on GitHub. Thank you for reading! | https://towardsdatascience.com/exception-handling-in-python-7f639ce9a3d | ['Sadrach Pierre'] | 2020-05-15 21:01:09.755000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Software Development', 'Technology', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
New South Wales Government Restricted Trip for Christmas | People in the region were asked to stay at home for five days, beginning from December 19. As per reports, the city has recorded at least 97 cases till now in the outbreak and all are linked to Sydney’s Northern Beaches region. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian while announcing ‘modest changes’ to coronavirus restrictions said.
In relation to Greater Sydney, there will be no changes but for one tweak and that is on the 24th, the 25th and the 26th you can have of course 10 people into your home, but you’ll be able to have in addition to that children under 12”.
Now, the residents in Greater Sydney will be allowed to host unlimited numbers of children aged under 12 in their homes. Apart from this, they can also allow maximum10 visitors per household for the coming three days. According to the reports by AP, about 250,000 northern beaches residents have been confined to their homes.
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However, the full lockdown will resume from December 27. The NSW authorities recently added more than 100 venues across Sydney as potential COVID-19 hotspots. With this, they also instructed people who attended these gatherings to self isolate themselves in order to stop the virus from spreading.
In the wake of the situation, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on December 21 that “2020 is not done with us yet”. Speaking from Canberra, Morrison called the recent events in the country “incredibly frustrating and disappointing” for people across the nation who were looking forward to get-togethers and inter-state travel. According to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, Australia has a total of 28,237 cases with 908 fatalities. | https://medium.com/@goneshhijra/new-south-wales-government-restricted-trip-for-christmas-d837f28ecbf6 | [] | 2020-12-23 19:07:22.810000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Australia', 'Covid 19', 'Sydney', 'Government'] |
Building a Shopping Cart with Symfony 5 | For the first time, I wrote a tutorial to learn the popular Symfony Framework by creating a simple shopping cart from scratch. I’ve been developing with Symfony for more than 8 years and I think it’s time for me to share my experience with you through this series of articles.
The tutorial describes the creation of a shopping cart with Symfony 5 step by step:
Hope you enjoy the ride. I tried to respect the best practices and use the base concepts of Symfony to allow you to reuse code and create your projects independently.
Happy Holidays 🎄 | https://medium.com/@qferrer/building-a-shopping-cart-with-symfony-5-46ea85174ab2 | ['Quentin Ferrer'] | 2020-12-23 08:18:16.640000+00:00 | ['PHP', 'Symfony', 'Tutorial', 'Beginner'] |
A Quiet Storm | Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
To my ex husband,
I do not forgive you and I do not forget what you have done.
I lived in a desiccated shell of a marriage for years and let you dress me down often for telling you I needed help or for trying to get a job and then losing it because my body couldn’t handle the strain. I slept on the couch for three years because I could not climb the stairs to our bedroom and because I no longer felt welcome in your space. I felt the anger and disappointment radiate off of you everytime I needed to be rushed to the emergency room. I folded in on myself, made myself smaller, asked for less, knew I did not deserve better.
When I became disabled and could not work, you accused me of not contributing to the marriage anymore (you meant money). When I was in the hospital after a suicide attempt, you told me you wanted a divorce (you meant you no longer wanted to support me emotionally or financially). When you got drunk one night two days later, you physically assaulted me (money again). When you got out of jail the next morning, you locked me out of the credit cards (was it always about money?). I remember these things with perfect clarity.
But I also remember leaving our home in the middle of that night and staying with a friend for a few weeks. I remember navigating the courts for a restraining order. I remember settling out of court so I could stay in our home alone for a few months while I looked for work and my own apartment. I remember going to doctor after doctor, begging for some way to manage my pain so I could work again (and I found one, finally, after six years). I remember talking to my therapist every week. I remember getting a job, getting a place, getting furniture, getting back on my feet. I remember receiving the call that my mother was dying. I remember being angry, furious, resentful about all that I had been through
I remember facing down every awful thing that had happened to me for almost a decade and realizing that I had never been stronger than I was now, after leaving you. I remember being reborn like a phoenix, the flames of strife making me a healthier, happier version of myself. I remember not crying through it all. I remember losing 95 pounds. I remember becoming a new person, better than myself pre-illness and better than I had been for years.
I remember strengthening my friendships. I remember holding my mother’s hand as she died. I remember healing my relationship with my father. I remember rediscovering my passion for writing. I remember finding new hobbies that I loved. I remember paying my own bills. I remember one day, waking up and realizing that I was not angry anymore. I remember I remember I remember.
I remember that your abuse actually, in the end, made me stronger. So I must thank you for breaking me down so that I could rebuild myself again.
I do not forgive and I do not forget, but this does not mean I am not healing.
No longer yours truly,
Deidre | https://medium.com/mostly-okay/a-quiet-storm-69d999ab85bc | ['Deidre Delpino Dykes'] | 2019-08-09 19:16:28.443000+00:00 | ['Abuse Survivors', 'Disabilitystories', 'Divorce', 'Self Love', 'Human Prompt'] |
Daily Bit #163: Bad Day to be an ETF Proposal | *Full story available at The Daily Bit.
Word On The Street
“SEC denies Bitcoin ETF” is the “China bans Bitcoin” of 2018.
-Riccardo Spagni, aka @fluffypony
Fintech Frank already secured the Tweet of the Day for keeping his reporting game A1, but we had to give Spagni a nod for the great analogy — everyone knows how this movie ends.
The SEC began fielding public opinions regarding a potential approval several weeks ago. Since then, the phrase “when Bitcoin ETF” has transformed from an investment narrative to a sensationalist meme. It’s repeatedly cycled throughout Twitter as one ETF is rejected and the next in line enters the batter’s box.
Yesterday was the same… but different.
Turning to crypto’s lawyer (but not really), Jake Chervinsky, here’s what unfolded yesterday:
Deadlines for two ProShares bitcoin ETFs were today. Most were expecting rejections — no surprises there.
bitcoin ETFs were today. Most were expecting rejections — no surprises there. GraniteShares & Direxion had 7 outstanding proposals for derivative-backed ETFs. Those deadlines were September 15th and 21st, but the SEC buried the pitches alongside ProShares.
In total, that’s nine rejections from the SEC. There’s a joke to be made here about cats having nine lives, but like an ETF approval, it’s nowhere to be found.
Other changes
Yesterday’s hopefuls were priced through the Cboe & CME futures markets. Since spot markets are still unregulated (therefore prone to manipulation), folks thought that maybe the SEC would consider products that used data from recognized organizations.
Emphasis on “maybe”. Turns out that bitcoin futures markets are still too small. And in tremendous hindsight bias, they could use a boost — Cboe’s latest daily volume of 5,804 bitcoin futures contracts was dwarfed by the VIX futures count of 222,695.
And as for abroad… Bitfinex and BitMEX are two major trading hubs for derivatives. Quoting Jake, knowing “the ‘identity of market participants’ on unregulated spot and derivative markets ‘where a substantial majority of trading’” is a must if the SEC is going to sniff new proposals without instantly thinking of trashing them.
Next up? VanEck/Solid X on September 30th. | https://medium.com/the-daily-bit/daily-bit-163-bad-day-to-be-an-etf-proposal-9cd8740219b9 | ['Daily Bit'] | 2018-08-23 14:16:48.495000+00:00 | ['Fintech', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Financial Regulation', 'Bitcoin'] |
Azure DevOps Multi-Stage Pipelines | Now we have an Environment and the Approval in place we can move onto the Pipeline.
Pipeline
I already had a multi-stage pipeline I have been using to demo a container build, so I decided to adapt that as it made sense to slot in an approval at the stage where our container image is built, tagged and pushed, there are a few stages before that though so lets take a quick look at those.
First up is the stage where the Resource Group is created;
- stage: "SetupRG"
displayName: "Resource Group"
jobs:
- job: "CreateResourceGroup"
displayName: "Resource Group - Setup"
steps:
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
az group create --name $(APP_NAME)-rg --location $(LOCATION)
displayName: "Resource Group - Use Azure CLI to setup or check"
As you can see, I am using the Azure CLI and variables which are defined in the header of the Pipeline.
Once the Resource Group has been created the next stage launches an Azure Container Registry if one doesn’t exist, if there is already one there then nothing happens;
- stage: "SetupACR"
displayName: "Azure Container Registry"
dependsOn:
- "SetupRG"
jobs:
- job: "SetupCheckAzureContainerRegistry"
displayName: "Azure Container Registry - Setup"
variables:
- name: "DECODE_PERCENTS"
value: true
steps:
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
ACR_ID=$(az acr show --resource-group $APP_NAME-rg --name $ACR_NAME --query "id" -o tsv)
if [ -z "$ACR_ID" ]; then
echo "There is no Azure Container Registry, we should sort that"
az acr create --resource-group $(APP_NAME)-rg --name $(ACR_NAME) --sku Basic --admin-enabled true
else
echo "There is already an Azure Container Registry, we don't need to do anything else here"
fi
displayName: "Azure Container Registry - Use Azure CLI check or setup"
Now that we have a container registry to push our image to we can build and the push the container, this is the stage where we will be getting approval before building;
- stage: "BuildContainer"
displayName: "Build, Tag and Push the container image"
dependsOn:
- "SetupACR"
jobs:
- deployment: BuildPushImage
displayName: "Build, tag and push the image"
environment: "production"
pool:
vmImage: "Ubuntu-20.04"
strategy:
runOnce:
deploy:
steps:
- checkout: self
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
export THETIMEANDDATE=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d-%H%M')
echo "$THETIMEANDDATE will be the point in time tag"
az acr login --name $(ACR_NAME)
docker image build -t $(IMAGE_NAME) ./
docker image tag $(IMAGE_NAME) $(ACR_NAME).azurecr.io/$(IMAGE_NAME):latest
docker image tag $(IMAGE_NAME) $(ACR_NAME).azurecr.io/$(IMAGE_NAME):$THETIMEANDDATE
docker image push $(ACR_NAME).azurecr.io/$(IMAGE_NAME):latest
docker image push $(ACR_NAME).azurecr.io/$(IMAGE_NAME):$THETIMEANDDATE
displayName: "Use Azure CLI to build and push the container image"
As you can see, rather than defining a job we are using a deployment this means we can then use the environment we created and because the environment is what our approval is attached to the deployment won’t progress until approved.
One thing to note here is that there are two steps, the first checkout step downloads a copy of the repo which our azure-pipelines.yml and Dockerfile are in, without this step the build would fail.
The second step builds, tags and then pushes the image to the Azure Container Registry launched in the previous stage.
The remaining stage, assuming the previous three stages have all completed, configures and launches an App Service Plan, App Service and then configures automatic deployment of any subsequent images which are pushed to our Azure Container Registry, as you can see the code below the steps are only executed if the App Service Plan has not been configured, if our Application is already running then these steps are skipped;
- stage: "SetupAppServices"
displayName: "Azure App Services"
dependsOn:
- "SetupRG"
- "SetupACR"
- "BuildContainer"
jobs:
- job: "CheckForAppServicePlan"
displayName: "App Service Plan - Check if App Service Plan exists"
steps:
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
APP_SERVICE_PLAN_ID=$(az appservice plan show --resource-group $APP_NAME-rg --name $APP_NAME-asp --query "id" -o tsv)
if [ -z "$APP_SERVICE_PLAN_ID" ]; then
echo "There is no App Service Plan, we should sort that"
echo "##vso[task.setvariable variable=appServiceExist;isOutput=true]No" # there is no app service plan so we should do stuff
else
echo "There is an App Service Plan, we don't need to do anything else here"
echo "##vso[task.setvariable variable=appServiceExist;isOutput=true]Yes" # nothing to do lets move on
fi
name: "DetermineResult"
displayName: "App Service Plan - Check to see if there App Service Plan exists"
- job: "CreateAppServicePlan"
displayName: "App Service Plan - Setup"
dependsOn:
- "CheckForAppServicePlan"
condition: "eq(dependencies.CheckForAppServicePlan.outputs['DetermineResult.appServiceExist'], 'No')"
steps:
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
az appservice plan create --resource-group $(APP_NAME)-rg --name $(APP_NAME)-asp --is-linux
displayName: "App Service Plan - Use Azure CLI to setup"
- job: "CreateAppService"
displayName: "Web App - Setup"
dependsOn:
- "CheckForAppServicePlan"
- "CreateAppServicePlan"
condition: "eq(dependencies.CheckForAppServicePlan.outputs['DetermineResult.appServiceExist'], 'No')"
steps:
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
az webapp create --resource-group $(APP_NAME)-rg --plan $(APP_NAME)-asp --name $(APP_NAME) --deployment-container-image-name $(ACR_NAME).azurecr.io/$(IMAGE_NAME):latest
displayName: "Web App - Use Azure CLI to setup"
- job: "CreateAppServiceSettings"
displayName: "Web App - Configure Settings"
dependsOn:
- "CheckForAppServicePlan"
- "CreateAppServicePlan"
- "CreateAppService"
condition: "eq(dependencies.CheckForAppServicePlan.outputs['DetermineResult.appServiceExist'], 'No')"
steps:
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
az webapp config appsettings set --resource-group $(APP_NAME)-rg --name $(APP_NAME) --settings $(APP_SETTINGS)
displayName: "Web App - Use Azure CLI to configure the settings"
- job: "CreateAppServiceID"
displayName: "Web App - Configure & Assign Managed Identity"
dependsOn:
- "CheckForAppServicePlan"
- "CreateAppServicePlan"
- "CreateAppService"
- "CreateAppServiceSettings"
condition: "eq(dependencies.CheckForAppServicePlan.outputs['DetermineResult.appServiceExist'], 'No')"
steps:
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
az webapp identity assign --resource-group $(APP_NAME)-rg --name $(APP_NAME)
displayName: "Web App - Use Azure CLI to assign an identity"
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
az role assignment create --assignee $(az webapp identity show --resource-group $(APP_NAME)-rg --name $(APP_NAME) --query principalId --output tsv) --scope /subscriptions/$(az account show --query id --output tsv)/resourceGroups/$(APP_NAME)-rg/providers/Microsoft.ContainerRegistry/registries/$(ACR_NAME) --role "AcrPull"
displayName: "Web App - Use Azure CLI to assign an identity"
- job: "EnableCD"
displayName: "Web App - Configure Azure Container Registry connedction and enable continuous deployment"
dependsOn:
- "CheckForAppServicePlan"
- "CreateAppServicePlan"
- "CreateAppService"
- "CreateAppServiceSettings"
- "CreateAppServiceID"
condition: "eq(dependencies.CheckForAppServicePlan.outputs['DetermineResult.appServiceExist'], 'No')"
steps:
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
az webapp config container set --resource-group $(APP_NAME)-rg --name $(APP_NAME) --docker-custom-image-name $(ACR_NAME).azurecr.io/$(IMAGE_NAME):latest --docker-registry-server-url https://$(ACR_NAME).azurecr.io
displayName: "Web App - Configure the App Serivce to use Azure Container Registry"
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
az webapp deployment container config --resource-group $(APP_NAME)-rg --name $(APP_NAME) --enable-cd true
displayName: "Web App - Enable continuous deployment whenever the image is updated on the WebApp"
- task: AzureCLI@2
inputs:
azureSubscription: "$(SUBSCRIPTION_NAME)"
addSpnToEnvironment: true
scriptType: "bash"
scriptLocation: "inlineScript"
inlineScript: |
az acr webhook create --name $(ACR_NAME)webhook --registry $(ACR_NAME) --scope $(IMAGE_NAME):latest --actions push --uri $(az webapp deployment container show-cd-url --resource-group $(APP_NAME)-rg --name $(APP_NAME) --query "CI_CD_URL" -o tsv)
displayName: "Azure Container Registry - Add the web hook created in the last task to the Azure Container Registry"
A full copy of the azure-pipelines.yml file can be found in the following repo https://github.com/russmckendrick/docker-python-web-app.
Running the Pipeline
Now that we know what the pipeline looks like this what happened when it executed for the first time, first off, you (or whoever your approver is) will get an email;
The approval email
Once you click through to approve the deployment you should see something which looks like the following; | https://medium.com/media-glasses/azure-devops-multi-stage-pipelines-bcbed581fa2d | ['Russ Mckendrick'] | 2021-04-25 15:11:33.394000+00:00 | ['Azure Devops', 'Docker', 'DevOps', 'Pipeline', 'Azure'] |
Sean Bennett, you have nailed exactly the reason why I never say “LGBTQ community.” | Sean Bennett, you have nailed exactly the reason why I never say “LGBTQ community.” That phrase is an oversimplification that obscures reality.
Instead, I say “LGBTQ people" (which emphasizes our humanity) or carefully use the word “communities,” in the plural.
But, you know, there’s a reason why we fight collectively for our interests. The general public doesn’t much distinguish between different kinds of queer people. Members of gender and sexual minorities fight many of the same fights based on many of the same prejudices.
Just because we distinguish carefully among our identities doesn’t mean the public in general do.
So, why do I as a white gay man fight the good fight for queer people in general? Why, to leverage my privilege of course, where I enjoy it.
I don’t just raise awareness about same-sex couples who are being denied parental rights, though that is an important issue I’ve just written about.
I also raise awareness about homeless queer youth, among whom lesbian and gay young people are actually more present in total numbers than trans kids, though trans kids are disproportionately present.
I write about LGBTQ youth suicide, and I’ve learned that more lesbian and gay kids than trans kids get bullied and suffer toxic consequences, though again, trans kids are disproportionately bullied compared to LGB kids.
Nobody wins in a game of Oppression Olympics.
And while it’s critical that people speak in their own voices, standing together is critical too. I’ve written an essay called “One Queer Umbrella to Bind Them” that explores the history and commonality of the LGBTQ movement, recognizing that our communities are diverse, but that common interests bind us more tightly than differences can (or should) drive us apart. | https://medium.com/@jfinn6511/sean-bennett-you-have-nailed-exactly-the-reason-why-i-never-say-lgbtq-community-880479a8cf42 | ['James Finn'] | 2020-12-05 15:30:32.982000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'Creative Non Fiction', 'Identity', 'Transgender', 'Community'] |
Rethinking grantmaking to dismantle structural racism | Dismantling structural racism requires rethinking grantmaking practices
I co-authored this article with my colleague, Kelley Buhles. Kelley is senior director of philanthropic services at RSF Social Finance.
Edgar Villanueva brought conversations about power dynamics in philanthropy into the open with his 2018 book “Decolonizing Wealth.” Now, the Black Lives Matter movement has accelerated calls to action and philanthropists are responding with commitments to give more money to organizations led by people of color and to racial justice initiatives. That’s a necessary step, but if we really want to dismantle structural racism, we also must radically rethink grantmaking processes.
This rethinking starts with donors ceding power to nonprofit and movement leaders and trusting them to make decisions based on their expertise. It also requires confronting philanthropy’s tendency to move at the pace of privilege: Donors determine where the money goes and for how long, and set the time frames needed to achieve results. They may engage in an extended decision-making process to award short-term grants — often one year, rarely as many as three — but expect recipients to deliver outcomes right away.
This asymmetry contradicts the goal of addressing — and redressing — an embedded power structure. How are communities that have been systematically disempowered supposed to figure out repair in three years, or even five? It won’t happen that fast, and it won’t happen at all under the dominant philanthropic structures. We have to build new ones to get us to a different place.
Grantmaking approaches that provide transparency about decision-making and solicit advice and concerns from the community move us in the right direction, but they won’t get us where we need to go. To reach the regenerative, non-extractive economy that many philanthropists say is their goal, and to avoid perpetuating inequitable systems, we need to put communities in the decision-maker role.
Strategies that meet the moment: flow funding, shared gifting, and community-led funds
In collaboration with donors, we are actively using three community governance approaches that are iterative, responsive, and co-creative: flow funding, shared gifting and community-led funds.
Flow funding: We often suggest flow funding as a simple way for donors to push the boundaries of participatory grantmaking while quickly moving funding out the door. Flow funding involves handing over grantmaking power to nonprofit leaders, social entrepreneurs or community leaders with lived experience in a particular field. The donor typically chooses the issue area and, directly or through a strategic partner, invites community leaders to distribute funding. Through this process, more people share the power of giving and donors gain exposure to many more organizations or projects than they could identify alone.
RSF’s Women’s Capital Collaborative, for example, practices flow funding through the Integrated Capital Institute, a fellowship program for financial activists. The process is straightforward: ICI leaders tap a group of fellows, largely women of color, to distribute grants to organizations in their networks.
Participants in a Women’s Capital Collaborative Shared Gifting Circle
Shared gifting: Using our shared gifting approach, we invite six to 10 local nonprofit leaders (selected through a community nomination process) to spend a day together and decide how to distribute financial resources among themselves based on their own criteria. They review each other’s proposals and ask questions about each other’s work. We encourage participants to be open and honest with the group about how they made their funding decisions. The group also decides how participants will report back on their use of the gift.
We’ve been facilitating shared gifting circles for more than 10 years through our integrated capital funds and for donors and private foundations. In tallying the cumulative feedback, we found that 84% of participants said the experience was worth a full day of their time, despite the relatively small amounts given away. The process encourages discussion of needs and offers, and often the nonfinancial resources that emerge — potential partners, network connections, introductions to new resources — are considered as valuable as the funding.
And while 70% said connecting with leaders in the field, learning about each other’s work, and reading each other’s proposals were the most valuable part of the process, many also cited “shifting power dynamics and turning competition into collaboration” (27%) and “being given the experience of giving and receiving” (18%) as significant benefits.
“It really hit home that this was the only time that I had ever been able to truly influence the funding of other artists and organizations that are run by and serve people of color,” said one participant in a circle of community organizing and arts organizations.
Community-led funds: These funds put community leaders fully in charge. Donors connect directly or through a strategic advisor with community leaders working in their interest area. Those leaders identify community advisors who collaborate on funding decisions, develop a funding process, and work with a fund administrator on carrying out the work. Donors provide ongoing financial support, and community leaders have sustained autonomy over how the funds are distributed.
The Arctic Indigenous Fund, for example, is supported by multiple funders with a focus on Indigenous communities. It’s structured as an international collaborative: Two representatives each from Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Northern Europe’s Sápmi region act as advisors in themed grantmaking cycles. Similarly, the Pawanka Fund has a governance committee composed of regional Indigenous leaders who play a pivotal role in selecting local partners along with project implementation and evaluation.
What it means to embrace these strategies
Implementing these approaches requires thoughtful planning at every step: bringing together a committed and collaborative set of advisors, making sure you have all the right voices in the room, and getting and acting on feedback about how the process is working. (The Kindle Project has a whole program dedicated to supporting community members stepping into the funder role for the first time.) The goal is to support community representatives in their role as decision makers without recreating the power dynamics that community governance structures are trying to overturn.
Control is probably the most difficult aspect for donors and funders to get comfortable with. People who want to pioneer this kind of power-sharing partnership with communities have strong personal motivations — they are uncomfortable with philanthropy’s traditional practices; they question their right to be the ultimate decision maker; they want to have a deeper impact on a close-to-the-heart issue. Yet they need to work through what it means to give up a decision-making role.
Donors who want to change philanthropy’s power dynamics usually have many layers of personal work to do, and they may struggle to help without exerting control. Potential failure is a common area of tension. Communities want a free hand to implement their ideas, learn from what doesn’t work and iterate; funders may be unwilling to let them fail, feeling that their money is not being used wisely.
This kind of conflict exposes philanthropy’s deep-seated paternalism. There’s an unspoken assumption that funders are better suited to control the money — an expression of the elitist thinking that must be confronted if we truly want to decolonize philanthropy. It also exposes the ingrained habit of deploying money through a capitalist framework, which assumes that all money must have a return on investment in order to be productive. Decoupling the distribution of money with production, and instead seeing its flow as a tool for healing and regeneration, is a step toward decolonizing gifts.
The path from patronage to partnership
These are real challenges, yet donors who push through them will tell you they learn and grow as much as the community leaders do. But too many people are sitting on the sidelines. Many donors say they’re interested but want proof that community governance approaches work. Nonprofit and movement leaders are increasingly turning that question around and asking for proof that traditional philanthropic practices work. Looking at the world around us, that’s a hard case to make.
Community governance grantmaking, based on the Just Transition framework, seeks to empower those leaders, shine a light on their expertise and balance the scales to achieve partnership rather than patronage.
In our years of exploring and prototyping these approaches, we’ve found that they can serve as a path toward untethering from dominant practices that perpetuate inequity, restoring trust and building thriving communities. It’s not an easy path — the experience of giving up and even of exercising power can produce complicated feelings and dilemmas — but it is essential to unpacking systemic problems and beginning to address them. | https://medium.com/reimagine-money/truly-shifting-philanthropys-power-dynamics-requires-new-structures-for-giving-4d7a28c9ab3f | ['Donna Daniels'] | 2021-01-07 23:29:46.024000+00:00 | ['Giving Circles', 'Grantmaking', 'Philanthropy', 'Racial Equity', 'Structural Racism'] |
Merry Christmas & Gifts Delivery! | 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/bithumb-global/merry-christmas-gifts-delivery-8372560512fe | ['Bithumb Global'] | 2020-12-22 07:17:29.029000+00:00 | ['Giveaway', 'Crypto', 'Airdrop', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Bithumb Global'] |
Ever Considered Selling Fire Fighting Equipment on Online Marketplaces? | In our global, digital-first era, embracing online selling has become a must for many small and large businesses as they look to keep pace with increased competition and changing consumer preferences. Online Marketplaces — one of the major channels of online selling, famously referred to as e-stores and e-malls are gaining fast momentum. Marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Alibaba are some well-known examples, but the list of online marketplaces across the globe continues to grow.
“Pneucons is one of the first dedicated marketplace for firefighting industry”
Here in this piece, We have outlined some of the many benefits of selling on a marketplace. Keeping these factors in mind will help you ensure that you are making the right decision when it comes to adding marketplaces in your sales strategy.
Get a dedicated space to manage orders and sell products online
Marketplaces are a dream come true for retailers and customers. With a dedicated space, niche and focused marketplaces enable retailers to effectively reach more customers at a scale virtually unattainable, especially for those with little to no brand recognition outside of their physical location.
Buyer Starts With Online Search
Where do customers often go to start their shopping? Online Marketplaces! Customers search, compare, and buy from online sites, marketplaces, mobile apps, physical stores, and social sites. When you sign up for an online marketplace, buyers from around the country get access to your products and an option to buy them.
Increased Visibility
With an online marketplace, your products get the promotion and reach that they can’t get offline. This proves to be beneficial especially for niche markets. Online marketplaces make it easier for sellers to serve niche markets.
Better Management with technological capabilities
When you choose to sell your product on online marketplaces, you don’t have to spend your time and money on developing and maintaining your own e-commerce website or app. The marketplace does it for you. All you need to do is focus on managing your product listing rather than getting sidetracked in non-core matters.
Low Startup Cost
Selling on an online marketplace will not only cost you less compared to having your own e-commerce website but gives the control of your stock, inventory network, and shipments in your own hands without any administrative expense. The built-in tools help you to accept payments and manage inventory, making your selling process much easier, smoother and faster.
Establish trading opportunities
Whether you’re looking to expand your brick-and-mortar business or just starting off, selling on an online marketplace has many advantages for a long-term strategy to win over customers. Along with selling your products you can also establish new trading partnerships with traders and suppliers, either within your supply chain or across supply chains, and expand your product base.
Sell to customers anywhere, anytime
We are all familiar with the saying “Go where your customers are’’. Online marketplaces make it easier for your buyers to hit that buy button, no matter where they are. Talking about you as sellers, online marketplaces allow you to remove friction points and make it as convenient for your buyers to purchase the products they want.
Are you convinced yet that you should sell online? If you are, then head over to https://pneucons.com/sell-with-us, set up your account, and start selling!
Pneucons have made it realistic and simple for business owners and buyers in the fire fighting industry to have a convenient and reliable selling experience with minimal effort. To know more about our model visit www.pneucons.com | https://medium.com/@pneuconsenterprise/ever-considered-selling-fire-fighting-equipment-on-online-marketplaces-582c6ee336c5 | ['Pneucons Enterprise'] | 2021-04-25 14:39:29.317000+00:00 | ['Fire Fighters', 'Industry', 'Ecommerce', 'Marketplaces', 'Fire Safety'] |
My First CyberBully Committed Suicide. Here’s The Second One. | Let’s start
It all began earlier this year when an ex-business acquaintance of mine contacted me with a very condescending message. It was both surprising and infuriating as I’ve considered him a friend for a long time. Screenshots are attached below.
Backstory
A few years ago, this business acquaintance was sued by the FTC for defrauding consumers out of millions of dollars. Moreover, at the expense of others, he also siphoned large amounts of cash from his business to spend on luxury cars, and expensive jewelry while owing hundreds of people, including me — an amount of $64,232.
My mistake
Unlike most, who’d run away as far as possible from this person — I did the exact opposite. I checked up on him. Despite his shoddy morals and ethical actions against the people, I still wanted to make sure he was okay. I wanted to ensure his emotional state was stable.
During this process, against my better judgement, we began exploring business opportunities. I brokered a deal for the sale of some digital assets that went horribly wrong, when around the same time, my own identity was stolen which resulted in a loss of over $150k.
Despite my losses, I’ve assured him that I’d try to collect the balance, and had taken it as my own personal responsibility. After all, I considered him a friend, who at the time, was going through troubling times.
Screenshots (From Feb 2020)
Observe the threats and the timeline of “3–4 weeks”. Suffice to say, I was beyond frustrated by the conversation, so naturally I brought up about the old debt that was owed to me. Conveniently, he claimed no recollection, to which I’ve provided email references confirming the debt.
In the following weeks, he’s gone to extreme lengths to tarnish my name — have created several social media profiles, and blogs spreading the lie.
The result
About 4–5 weeks later, one of my current developers showed me a list of defamatory material posted on my name.
This person had followed through on his threats, and managed to manipulate the information visible in Google by creating an elaborate stream of misinformation. This misinformation was then meticulously crafted around my name, and ranked on the first page of Google — and it didn’t end there.
Round 2 (Late August 2020)
Now, he’s taking it one step further. A week and a half ago, I was assured that his “efforts” will be “redoubled”, and surely he’s followed through again.
I get harassed with wide scale defamation and slander, but when I ask for my balance, I’m the one “taunting”. Calling me “weak” and then using the word “taunting” in the same sentence is extremely comical.
The result
This evening, I received a text from one of my friends informing me that the misinformation is now appearing in his Facebook Newsfeed.
Why can’t I do anything about it?
Simple. There’s no direct way to connect his threats to the results. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to calculate 1+1.
It’s fairly easy for someone to cover their tracks by hiring offshore workers to do the dirty work. A court order subpoena wouldn’t fully disclose the perpetrators behind these acts. Besides costing over $10,000, it doesn’t insulate against any new content.
My thoughts
It’s enraging. It’s infuriating. But deep down, I find it extremely sad. It all started with me wanting to check up on his mental health during his worst times, and I get repaid with defamation and slander.
Does it make me angry? Yes — but beyond that anger, I feel enormous sadness to see someone that I considered a friend at some point is going to such lengths to bring me down.
I fought my anger by accepting responsibility. Regardless of my good intentions, I brought this upon myself with a lesson to learn and a purpose to fulfill.
What am I going to do?
Am I going to harass his friends like he did mine? No.
Am I going to threaten his family like he did mine? No.
Am I going to engage in character assassination? No. He’s done that for himself when FTC pursued him for defrauding millions.
Am I going to stoop to his level and resort to petty attacks? No.
But I’m fighting back. Though I have accepted my responsibility, I have never surrendered to bullies, and never will. I have to focus on the positivity. I have always felt something empty about my life despite living in relative comforts. That emptiness is now filled with a purpose. A purpose to address and help others who have been facing similar situations in various environments — be it the school, workplace, or online.
I will be the voice for many others who are battling it alone. I wrote a blog post before about a childhood friend of mine who committed suicide due to peer-bullying, and if I can help prevent at least one person from taking such a drastic step, I will consider myself successful.
Until then, the fight continues…✊ | https://medium.com/@vishvadlamani/my-first-cyberbully-committed-suicide-heres-the-second-one-9c0ac7c2bce4 | ['Vish Vadlamani'] | 2020-09-05 06:45:09.452000+00:00 | ['Defamation', 'Vish Vadlamani', 'Bullying', 'Cyber Bullying'] |
Measuring Belonging | Part of our Joy Research from The Change Decision involves validating a Joy Assessment. That assessment has ten criteria against which we believe Joy at Work can be measured. You can hear more about that research and the specifics of the Joy Assessment in an upcoming free webinar. You can sign up for the free webinar here. In this post, we want to focus on one of the ten Joy Assessment criteria: Belonging.
In particular, we want to measure belonging. Although we believe there is much that humans can simply intuit about joy attributes, such as belonging, we have found there is power in using the analytics to gain insights that might not otherwise readily reveal themselves. Here’s what we mean by belonging.
“My unique capabilities and contributions have value here. I know that because I can see for myself how my capabilities and contributions have value in delivering the organization’s purpose and others communicate my value back to me as well.”
-The Change Decision Joy Assessment
A typical means of knowing how employees evaluate their levels of belonging is a survey. This provides a direct, qualitative measure of their sense of belonging. We also suggest using a simple tool — network analysis — to perform basic quantitative analysis to help understand the results of surveys.
Network Analysis
“If we are connected to everyone else by six degrees and we can influence them up to three degrees, then one way to think about ourselves is that each of us can reach about halfway to everyone else on the planet.”
― Nicholas A. Christakis, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
Network analysis is the study of nodes (often people and places) through their edges (the connections between the nodes). In our case, we are looking at employees in an organization and studying the connections between them. We can use just a few concepts and a free MS Excel™ add-on to gain significant insights into the social structure that underlies an employee’s sense of belonging.
The first concept is connectivity, which refers to the existence and the strength of a connection between a person and all other people in the network. Connectivity is a measure of direct impact and interaction.
The second concept is centrality, which refers to a person’s location in a network. Centrality is a measure of indirect impact and interaction. Connectivity and centrality are complementary measures that provide insights into the behavior of a network — in our case, a group of people in an organization. There are many tools to measure this, but an easy-to-operate (and free) tool is NodeXL™ which is offered by the Social Media Research Foundation.
You likely intuitively understand the concepts of connectivity and centrality The person who seems to know everyone has a high level of connectivity. The person who seems able to network their way to a large number of people has a high level of centrality. You won’t need a tool like NodeXL to know who has high levels of connectivity or centrality. What a tool like NodeXL can do is help you see the people who are left out of the group and therefore must have lower belonging. This means lower Joy at Work. This analysis can also find those who might be critical to increasing the belonging of others, not necessarily because of their connectivity and centrality, but because of their specific location in the network.
A Simple Illustration
Imagine a group of people in an organization, such as a small department in a company. People have joined the company at different times. They have different functions. They have differing levels of ability (and desire) to make connections with others. As a result of all these factors, and others, some are more connected to the network of people. Below is a representation of our imagined group. If we look at the network from the point of view of person “a” at the bottom of the diagram, we can notice a few things just by making this depiction.
The colors show how many connections between one person and every other person in the group. Orange is one connection away; blue is two connections away; then all the way to black, which is person “I” who is five connections away. We see a very isolated person like person “J” at the top of the diagram. You’ll notice there is another similarly isolated person in the diagram.
With an analytical tool like NodeXL, we can find other important aspects of this group. We may not notice without some help that the group is really split into two, with the two people shown by the arrows acting as gatekeepers between the two sections of the group. Should those two people leave the organization, the group would be split into two subgroups. If part of belonging is actually being connected to others, then increasing connections between the two subgroups would help. There are several other insights that can be discovered in minutes with network analysis, and although it is fairly easy to look across this group and glean these insights, imagine the difficulty of doing it with 50 or 100.
What to do next?
Try this out on your own group and see what you can learn. You can download NodeXl and simply try it out. If you find this technique interesting and you want to learn more, consider our Change Analytics Course, which covers this and much more in a hands-on virtual course. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/measuring-belonging-51ad33500d80 | ['Edward Cook'] | 2020-08-10 19:10:56.709000+00:00 | ['Joy At Work', 'Management', 'Social Network Analysis', 'Leadership', 'Belonging'] |
5 Reasons Where You Need A VPN | In recent times, VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) have taken more interest. By the way, this increase in VPN usage is not surprising. VPN is going to be an essential need for some purposes, I am going to explain some of the reasons. Have you ever think why people are getting aware of VPN or why people actually need a VPN? Because in real life we know that good and bad both people exist everywhere. So, we secure our things by locking them in a secure place where no one can see them or theft them. Same as VPN helps to secure your data from thieves who are searching or theft of others data for their own benefits.
There are too many environments and moments where you need a VPN, but to make some understanding of VPN usage, I will explain the most common reasons where many people are using VPN daily. Let’s have a look
Security From Public Wi-Fi
Public Wi-Fi Accessing Your Network From Other Place
Network From Other Place Unblock Restricted Content,
Change Your Geographical Location
Your Helps to Protect From Hackers
Have you find trouble situation like when you are away from your home, and you need some important files or data from your desktop computer. You might want to remote access your PC to get the necessary files, you can make your remote access secure by using a VPN. | https://medium.com/@zarar5315/5-reasons-where-you-need-a-vpn-6d5265f0c4dd | [] | 2020-05-20 04:49:02.375000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Development', 'Data Security', 'Android App Development', 'Android', 'VPN'] |
Secure Management of User Location Data to Improve User Experience | This publication consists of articles related to Data science and AI written from Botnoi’s data scientists and students.
Follow | https://medium.com/botnoi-classroom/secure-management-of-user-location-data-to-improve-user-experience-6eeca9740a1e | ['Jay Khemaphiratana'] | 2020-12-12 14:26:55.407000+00:00 | ['Data Analysis', 'Data Visualization', 'Data Security', 'Data Science', 'Data'] |
Dating Coach Certification | Well educated and looking for good friends , good at marketing | https://medium.com/@sathishk1964/dating-coach-certification-e1e77de410f3 | [] | 2020-12-19 16:06:09.489000+00:00 | ['First Date', 'Marriage', 'Relationships Love Dating'] |
Best high-resolution digital audio player: Which DAP reigns supreme? | Motivation comes from working on things we care about | https://medium.com/@dana61668427/best-high-resolution-digital-audio-player-which-dap-reigns-supreme-208297bf1030 | [] | 2020-12-24 00:31:52.468000+00:00 | ['Mobile', 'Home Tech', 'Music', 'Surveillance'] |
Estimations in Agile development - Improving Estimations using Burndown, Burnup and Actual Time metrics | This is the fourth and the last post in the Estimations in Agile development series.
In the previous post we’ve discussed the different methods for the sprint planning and the benefits of using absolute units like hours for estimating small efforts in a known time frame — the sprint.
In this post we’ll see some metrics that will help us verify and improve our estimations over time and even allow us to predict whether we’ll achieve our long term goals.
Burndown
After we finish estimating all the tasks we can create a rough estimation regarding the amount of work that has to be done (according to the daily capacity) in order to finish all the tasks on time.
The green line displays that available capacity for a current day. In other words — we need to make sure that our remaining work for the sprint is below the green line. Otherwise we won’t complete all the tasks on time.
Each day developers should update the “remaining work” field for their tasks — how much time is left for finishing the task. That metric will allow us to know whether we’ll finish all the estimated tasks or not.
The burndown might go up when new tasks are added or new information is discovered during the sprint.
The remaining work should be updated daily and the team should look at the chart in the daily stand up meeting. In this event we can easily see that our estimation are not correlating with our actual performance. The impact is clear: if the team proceeds with the current phase they won’t finish all the planned tasks for the sprint on time. Hence the user won’t receive a working product.
In this very moment the team should decide on the action to make the chart to convergent.
They can decide on giving some extra work to close the gap or perhaps remove the least prioritized task from the sprint — this is of course done with the product manager who is the stakeholder of the sprint.
The burndown chart is a daily feedback tool. it is effective only when it is updated on a daily basis. it is also another reason why I think one should use hours and not story points for the sprint’s tasks. when working with story points you don’t update the remaining time — you don’t change 3 SP tasks to 1 SP task, you simply work on it until it’s done. This way the burndown will not reflect your actual progress daily and it will be hard to understand if you are on track.
Actual vs. Estimated — Improving the team’s estimations
Even in a two weeks sprint we cannot know everything. Something will always surprise us. A larger than estimated task, an external requirement, un-expected technical support and more. Sometimes there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, however sometimes we can learn from these unaccurate estimations and correct them in the future. Therefore I suggest another metric which purpose is to compare our initial estimations to our actual performance.
After finishing a task, the team member will fill another field “Actual Work” with the actual time that took him to complete the task. This way we’ll create another graph that will compare the planned estimation to the actual one, Allowing us to see which tasks were underestimated, overestimated and which were exactly as we predicted. Our purpose is to minify the gap between the actual and the estimated. ”why did the task take longer/less than we estimated? Could we do something in order to predict it?” This graph is a great topic to start the retro meeting with.
Predicting the future with Burnup chart
The burndown chart allows us to monitor only a single and the current sprint. It allows the team a clear view on their progress in the sprint. However, it doesn’t tell if the team if the whole project is on track or will they finish it on time? Every stakeholder and manager wants to know when will the project, milestone or a release be ready. It is hard to predict a date 3–6 months into the future. Any estimations for this feels like a hunch. “Well, we have 3 months left and 2 more big features, so I guess will make it on time”. How can we monitor our progress on a ~weekly basis?
Actually we can predict all this using our previous progress. Let’s say we are 4 sprints in (2 months) in a 6 months project. Will we make it on time? To answer this we need only 2 things:
Estimated backlog (Epics/ user stories with their SP values) The Team’s average velocity
Average Velocity is the amount of story points that we finish in each sprint divided by the number of sprints (those who read the previous post probably understand that this metric won’t be too accurate but it is enough for this purpose).
Team’s average velocity for the last 4 sprints = (10 +8 + 6 +11)/ 4 = ~9.
The beauty of the team’s average Velocity is that it gets more accurate with every sprint. Therefore if we know the end date (4 months from now) and the average velocity, then we can predict how many story points the team will finish by that time.
We’ll take the previous chart and we’ll turn it into a cumulative
Now, based on the average velocity we can calculate how much SP we’ll finish in the future sprints.
All the data on the right of the black line (the present sprint) is predicted based on actual data from the previous sprints. You can see that after 12 sprints the team will finish ~110 Story Points. If the total required amount is 100–110 then it seems that we have the right velocity and we’ll finish the project on time. But we all know that the above chart is too good to be true. The below one is probably more realistic:
This chart is called burnup and it allows a clear, data driven, look at the future. Based on this data the team, and everyone else, knows that the project won’t be ready on time. The velocity should be higher, the ETA should move or the project scope should change. Either way -this is not a hunch.
Summary
In this post we’ve seen 3 ways to improve our estimations and predictability. The actual vs. estimated is the best tool to verify and improve your estimations over time and the burnup will let you know you need to speed up your development, even if you finish all sprints on time. The key is to constantly check yourself and improve.
In this series we covered lots of topics regarding Agile development and estimations. It is important to remember that there is no “right” way to do Agile. There are common fundamentals but different teams should use and adopt the principles and process that suits them best. And remember that nothing is constant — something that used to be “right” for you then, may not be right anymore. So keep retroing yourself and your process, keep fine tune it all the time and I hope that you’ll find what is best for you.
Feel free to share and comment.
Estimations in Agile development — Epics, User Stories and Tasks
Estimations in Agile development — Estimating User Stories with Story Points
Estimations in Agile development — Sprint Planning Methods: Capacity vs. Velocity vs. Feature
Estimations in Agile development — Improving Estimations using Burndown, Burnup and Actual time metrics (you are here) | https://medium.com/dennis-nerush/estimations-in-agile-development-improving-estimations-using-burndown-burnup-and-c2f6fff37ff3 | ['Dennis Nerush'] | 2017-07-20 11:46:46.778000+00:00 | ['Estimations', 'Scrum', 'Project Management', 'Agile'] |
But do you have the right to dictate what Mixed Race people identify as? | But do you have the right to dictate what Mixed Race people identify as? It seems as if you’ve assumed the title of (yet another) racial identity judge, based on the assumed rights to do such because of your own ethnicity. You seem to be appealing to monoracial folks with this article and attacking mixed folks-the one safe non white group to attack and perhaps the easiest-and most laterally discriminated-group of minority amongst the Black community.
You see, you don’t get the right to tell us what we are based on how we look. Yes, I am a passing Mixed race woman. I identify as such because my dad is half black and raised by my black grandmother. People assume I’m Hispanic, but there is not one drop of Indigenous or Spanish heritage in my admixture. It’s hard to identify as white because I don’t appear fully white(black curly hair, brown eyes, tan skin, etc.) I learned a while ago I dare not say I’m Black, because noone, except my relatives or other people of my admixture suspect it. It’s easier for me and others to identify as Passing/Mixed.
You’re reference to Rachel Dolezal is just meant as a jab to passing folks. You’re essentially denying our heritage and saying you think nothing more of us than a fake Black woman. It’s apparent you take the presence of Whiteness in a person’s admixture as something shameful. Meanwhile, while this attitude prevails, us Mixed Race people and our children struggle to find a place where we belong in a society obsessed with “identity". I also notice your pic you used. If that is a photo of you and your SO/child’s mother, then I would say there is some white in that admixture. I could be wrong, but if I’m not, I don’t see you mentioning it and that says alot about the perspective you’re arguing from. Socratic argumentation is only successful when a strong, irrefutable viewpoint provides enlightenment to the other party. Instead you’re just throwing out insults with no “aha" moment to be discovered by the reader; the only revelation the reader gets is the discovery of more confusion, shame and basically you saying that as a spokesperson for the Black community, you do not accept the groups of people mentioned. That’s it. | https://medium.com/@mikeyinsane2009/but-do-you-have-the-right-to-dictate-what-mixed-race-people-identify-as-5403a934bb28 | ['The_Unknown Stuff'] | 2020-11-27 18:01:10.980000+00:00 | ['Passing', 'Mixed Race', 'White Privilege'] |
FriarNotes: 8 milestones reached by Fernando Tatis Jr. Saturday plus some Padres-Dodgers stats | FriarNotes: 8 milestones reached by Fernando Tatis Jr. Saturday plus some Padres-Dodgers stats
Fernando Tatis Jr. hit two home runs in a second straight game at Dodger Stadium Saturday night.
Among some of the feats reached with that performance:
— He is the first player in Major League history with back-to-back, multi-homer games against former Cy Young Award winners (three-time winner Clayton Kershaw on Friday and 2020 National League winner Trevor Bauer Saturday night).
— Tatis is the sixth player in Major League history with two, multi-home run games against a former Cy Young Award winner in the same season — joining Felipe Alou (1966), Gorman Thomas (1980), Robin Yount (1982), Ken Griffey Jr. (1997) and Manny Machado (2018).
— He is the first visiting player with back-to-back multi-homer games at Dodger Stadium since Barry Bonds on April 2–3, 2002.
— At 22 years and 112 days, Tatis Jr. is the third-youngest player in Major League history with back-to-back, multi-homer games.
— Saturday marked the fifth, multiple-homer game of Tatis’ career.
— His nine career, game-opening homers is one behind Will Venable for the most in Padres’ history.
— Tatis is the fifth Padre to ever have back-to-back, multiple-home run games (Brian Giles was the most recent to accomplish the feat on April 11–12, 2007).
— Fernando Tatis Jr. and Sr. both homered in back-to-back, April 23–24 games at Dodger Stadium (Sr. did it in 1999).
NOTABLE
— The Padres are 3–3 against the Dodgers going into Sunday’s seventh (of 19) meeting of the season. The Padres have a 24–23 edge in runs scored and a 45–40 edge in hits. Through the first 57 innings of the series, there have been nine ties and four lead changes. The teams have been separated by two or fewer runs in all but four innings.
— The Padres pitching staff continues to lead the Major Leagues in five key categories — earned run average (2.60), WHIP (1.053 hits and walks per inning), opponents’ batting average (.197), strikeouts (259) and innings pitched (208). That’s 11.2 strikeouts per nine innings and a 4.1-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
— RHP Aaron Northcraft made his Major League debut Saturday night for the Padres at the age of 30 years, 332 days. He allowed a hit and a walk with two strikeouts in two scoreless innings. Northcraft, a 10th-round pick in the 2009 draft, was in the Major Leagues with Atlanta for three days previously, but never appeared in a game.
— RHP Blake Snell has allowed two runs in three of his last four starts. Saturday was the first time he pitched into the six this season and his 87 pitches was his second-highest total among his five starts. | https://padres.mlblogs.com/friarnotes-8-milestones-reached-by-fernando-tatis-jr-saturday-plus-some-padres-dodgers-stats-94009bcb63a2 | [] | 2021-04-25 20:31:20.005000+00:00 | ['Major League Baseball', 'Tatis Jr', 'Padres', 'MLB', 'San Diego Padres'] |
Anger Issue and An approach to control it | Today I am going to talk about anger issues. Almost every 2 out of 3 people are facing this issue even the 1 from that 2 people have severe anger issues that they can’t handle by themselves.
The real question is How and Why people have severe anger issues? The answer is from my point of view that
They lack necessary attention. They don’t have anyone to talk and no one understand them well. That’s why they get frustrated easily and react towards things badly and can’t control it and help it.
All this starts from their homes when their families took them for granted and didn’t give the proper attention they seek as child so for attention they started reacting out on things like this and become a person having anger issues and anxiety issues too.
The ones having anger issues started to have anxiety issues too when their close one or whom they consider special to them started blaming themselves for their conditions and didn’t even try for once to understand them and try to help them.
Now, the Question is: How to cope with this?
The ones who have anger issues can’t help them by themselves. They can try but can’t. control it all by their own.
In my point of view,
They should try to make themselves. busy when they are getting angry on something like reading a book (may be their religion’s book), doing drawings and other kind of stuff.
It is the duty of their close ones to understand their condition too and help them to control it by giving them proper attention and care.
Also, If they see them trying and struggling to control their anger then stood by them and don’t taunt them about things, they have said and done.
As humans we all made mistakes, they had made mistakes too but we need to understand they were not able to control it that’s why sometimes mistakes made by them are severe.
If you saw someone having a lot mood swings and getting angry on little things you need to talk to them rather leaver them on their own.
At the end, I will say that we all had face this phase in our life but may be our reactions to it are little different from others. So if we find someone having these type of issue. We should try to help them instead of shaming and taunting them.
That’s. it for today. Your responses will be appreciated.
Thank you!
Have a great day ! | https://medium.com/@seayeshaiftikhar/anger-issue-and-an-approach-to-control-it-ed8a3c2986f9 | ['Ayesha Iftikhar'] | 2020-06-06 05:25:05.715000+00:00 | ['Issues Management', 'Anger', 'Helping Others', 'Anxiety', 'Cooperation'] |
A teenager's ultimate battle: the homies vs the parentals | The inner turmoil explained in words instead of a series of “ugh”s.
So, one of the most common teenage stereotypes is that we favour our friends over our family, and to me, this is untrue, even if my parents seem to think otherwise.
Ok, look. Yes, I love my squad and yes, I may cancel a family dinner here or there to talk to them instead, but, in no way whatsoever, that means that I “love them more” than my parents. Like where does that remark even come from? It simply just means that I’d rather do anything else than awkwardly eat in silence. Is that so wrong?
Now to the turmoil of it all, um well, to put in simple words we’re trying to find ourselves. We’re doing this by exploring new things, new ideas. Some of us are trying to fit in and some of us are trying to step out of the box. While we’re doing this, we have everchanging opinions, everchanging ideas and when someone opposes these ideas, we tend to lash out. Whether that's by yelling, storming out of the house, etcetera, etcetera. You get the idea.
Now the reason why this “battle” even begins in the first place is that the opposition of ideas normally doesn't come from our friends. They have their own ideas to defend, so they dont really have a basis for opposition to those of someone else. The parents, however, only have their child’s opinions & ideas to think about, which therefore results in them making an opinion about it, to which we react and well, revolt. So here, the parents become the bad guys and the friends, the automatic heroes. BUT, this doesn't mean that they’re forever heroes. As soon as our ideas start clashing with our friends, we instinctively conclude this as “betrayal” and suddenly the parents become the good guys. This is a horrible, selfish way of thinking. I know. But after all, there’s a reason it's called turmoil. Almost the biggest one at that.
So this fickle behaviour continues, and often there’s no end in sight. I guess eventually we learn that our family can coexist with our friends in our lives, instead of having to pick one over the other.
Another reason why I think we have this internal chaos is that our judgment really isn't the greatest right now. Of course, we dont want to admit it but it is true to an extent. So, we make errors in judgment when it comes to picking the people we hang around, and while we’re fighting for them at home, they have other motives. But that's a whole another story. The point here is that with this poor judgment, we unknowingly and unwillingly mess up both, our social lives and our familial relationships, which sucks. To say the least.
What do we fix? more importantly, how do we fix it? Can it even be fixed? What and who is our priority? These are the questions that we are forced to face and answer, and to you, the most obvious answer here would be depending on who you are. If you are a student, you’ll probably answer in regards to what you are currently facing. You’ll either prioritize your parents or your friends and once you make that choice, there's no telling that you won't change your mind because there’s too much at stake. Once you make that choice you’ll lose a part of your life. But, if you are a parent reading this then without a doubt, your answer would be “they should fix their relationships at home”.
Personally speaking, I have somehow been blessed with the most chaotic set of people in my squad. I mean that in the sweetest way possible. Yes, it took years of arguments and mistakes to figure out who actually stuck by my side and I couldn’t be happier by the results.
As for “familial relationships”, my parents are super chill. Maybe that comes with being an only child in 2021, but my parents are weirdly open to all discussions on all possible topics and a little too interested in my social life. But it's all cool. I love talking to them about stuff. They're easy to talk to and offer good advice. What more could you possibly want from your parents?
Fellow Gen Z’ers, if you’re reading this, hush, I’m not flexing. As a matter of fact, I’m trying to open your eyes to the fact that your parents are probably more chill than mine. A-hup-hup-hup, I know what you’re gonna say. “Just because your parents are nice, doesn’t mean ours’ are”. Well, I’m not gonna say that everyone on Earth is nice if you give them a chance because, in a lot of cases, that’s not true, but what I will say is that, if you haven’t already tried to talk to them, then you should. Just once. Start with something easy. Like, something on the news, for example. If you’re comfortable with voicing out your opinions, then there you go! If not, then it’s fine. Don’t sweat. You’ve got your squad ;)
Parents, if you’re reading this, then a piece of advice from someone who knows a little of what's happening in your child’s mind, dont dismiss their breakdowns and tantrums as “hormonal changes”. I know you think it means that you’re starting to understand them but it's actually quite the opposite. Whatever is going on in their mind, for now it's a mess. They're just trying to sort it out. Where do you come in? Well, I can't tell for sure because it all depends on the individual. All I can say that just try making them feel that they can talk to you, trust you and that you will accept them however they are.
The bottom line is when we act out, a lot of the time it doesn't really have to do with the current situation or argument but rather, it’s accumulated, pent up stuff that we just got the trigger for, from the current situation. We know, that w have to be more mindful of the things we do and say, but in that moment, that doesn't really work. So, my only concluding remark here is, take it slow. I mean that in every sense.
Watch this space for more! | https://medium.com/@parkjihye/a-teenagers-ultimate-battle-the-homies-vs-the-parentals-5be6bc449c09 | [] | 2021-06-12 18:38:57.872000+00:00 | ['Thoughts And Feelings', 'Teenagers', 'Friends', 'Parents And Children', 'Advice and Opinion'] |
FILM REVIEW: Robert Yapkowitz’s & Richard Peete’s Intimate Film Portrait of Karen Dalton | Been a long time since this reviewer was mesmerized by a music documentary. Eyes, ears and gut — the latter the core of my being for processing the conscious and the unconscious — locked on to IN MY OWN TIME several minutes into the film. I was swept away in a time warp of a mind-body-soul experience subliminally recalling the good, the bad, the beautiful and the excess of the 60s via a compelling cinematic portrait of an extraordinary artiste.
I think it was because of her voice. I haven’t had a music-doc bring about a mind-body-soul experience in a long time.
IN MY OWN TIME is soulfully poignant. The filmmakers fuse selections of contemporary and archival interviews, footage, stills, and audio — as well as Jordon’s poems and personal journals — into a narrative that I imagine lots of sexagenarians, septuagenarians and octogenarians may think are best vividly attainable only through favorite hallucinogens. But the filmmakers’ contemporary interviews, such as that of Jordon’s daughter, are also compelling.
Audiences should be aware of the following. When I felt look-away-moments getting ready to sure, those bitter-sweet nostalgias about a soul or souls in pain, brought on by stellar filmmaking, I couldn’t look away. There are lots of moments to sigh in this film. The film experience was that moving.
“Karen Dalton is often championed as one of the most unique and influential folk musicians to come out of the 1960’s Greenwich Village scene.” I grew up in Chicago with blues, jazz, pop and some rock, and became introduced to folk, more rock and other genres when I was a student at Cornell University, there via a basketball scholarship. For example, that’s where Gregg Morris from the South Side of Chicago was introduced to Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and others — and hooked for life. I knew nothing about Karen Dalton until DOC NYC pitched an offer that I was inadvertently lucky not to refuse.
I’m on a deadline in play, so I curated from the filmmakers production material that corresponded to notes I took and what I wanted to write if I had more time.
IN MY OWN TIME explores Dalton’s early days in Oklahoma where she experienced the harsh realities of growing up during the Great Depression and follows her through more than two decades at the margins of popular music. With two ex-husbands and two children by the time she was eighteen, she rejected the life of a housewife and set off for New York City. What I really liked about this film is that it’s intensely melodic throughout, like one marvelous, intricate, intense music video.
That’s unbelievable good fortune for someone like this writer who was unaware that Karen Dalton had ever walked this earth. One can really learned the music of an artist — or at least get an introduction — by just watching a documentary of the artist.
Dalton, say the filmmakers, is often championed as one of the most unique and influential folk musicians to come out of the 1960’s Greenwich Village scene. The following captures the spirit of the glum shadow in bold face throughout the movie: The haunting, plaintive trill of Dalton’s voice did not bring her commercial success that the filmmakers say she was due. There are many references to her starving and being dirt-poor-broke. KD was a queen of starving artists on the vine.
“While she left a trail of myth and awe in her wake, she also struggled to come to terms with the demands of recording, performing and the responsibilities of motherhood, all of which drove her deeper into an existential tail spin from which she never recovered” — the filmmakaers.
“While her audience has widened, the fragments of her life have been vanishing just as quickly. In 2018 a fire tragically destroyed all that remained in Karen’s personal archive, including her personal journals, poetry and handwritten collection of songs. Beyond the powerful story we are telling, this film seeks to document these vanishing fragments.” | https://medium.com/@theword-hc/film-review-robert-yapkowitzs-richard-peete-s-intimate-film-portrait-of-karen-dalton-94c65e314752 | ['Greggory W. Morris'] | 2020-12-12 16:34:41.665000+00:00 | ['Folk Music', 'Doc Nyc 2020', 'Karen Dalton', 'The 60s', 'Film Reviews'] |
The Writing Life is a Solitary One | If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my writing life is that writing, for the most part, is a solitary endeavor. Some might prefer to use the word lonely, but — it is not a group effort.
It reminds me of when my boyfriend and I go to a casino.
He likes to play craps or a $10 Poker table. I like either a 25-cent multi-game slot machine with BlackJack or a $5 Poker table.
He goes his way. I go mine. Then we meet in an hour or two. It seems to work well for us. Last time I ran out of money before him. I stood behind his chair at the craps table. He shooed me away with his hands,
‘Go away!! You know you jinx me when you stand behind me! You bring me bad luck. Gambling is a solo game, not a group sport!’
Yep. So is writing. Writing really is a solitary (at times lonely) sport.
G.A. Cummings | https://medium.com/writing-heals/the-writing-life-is-a-solitary-one-62af51dc44d8 | ['Michelle Monet'] | 2019-10-18 20:26:54.270000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Writing Life', 'Books', 'Writing', 'Writing Tips'] |
Anker PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule review: A fast-charging surge protector | Too many surge protectors look like they’re designed to be hidden behind your desk, and that’s all well and good, so long as you don’t intend to swap plugs too often. But if you do need easy access to your surge protector, you’ll probably want to pick one that isn’t flat-out ugly.
The Anker PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule can’t accommodate a lot of devices, but it’s attractive enough to leave out in plain sight, and its AC outlet orientation keeps wall warts out of sight while leaving its three USB charging ports easily accessible. These outlets are well spaced and arranged at angles that allow for easy cord management. I had no problem plugging three oversized DC power supplies into them.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best surge protectors, 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. Michael Brown / IDG Two fast-charging USB-A and one USB-C ports are the highlights of Anker’s PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule surge protector.
You only get two USB-A and one USB-C charging ports, but these have a combined power budget of 60 watts. The two USB-A ports are allocated 15 watts (5V-3A, 2.4A maximum per port), while the single USB-C port can accommodate laptops in addition to smartphones and tablets, delivering 5V-2.4A (12 watts), 9V-3A (27 watts), 15V-3A (45 watts), or 20V-2.25A (45 watts), depending on the client. The surge protector has a 5-foot 16 AWG power cord terminating with a low-profile plug oriented at a 45-degree angle that won’t block an adjacent outlet.
The USB-C charging port is compatible with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge, USB Power Delivery, Apple Fast Charging, and Samsung Fast Charging technologies—not bad for a device that measures just 8 x 2.75 x 3 inches (WxDxH). The price tag is a bit less exciting: $69.99 at Amazon (although Anker was offering a $20 discount coupon at press time).
[ Further reading: The best uninterruptible power supplies ]This is the type of surge protector that continues to provide power after its MOVs have burned out, so you’ll want to verify that the blue LED labeled “surge protection” remains illuminated, assuring you that your devices are protected. On the topic of MOVs, the PowerExtend has a very high clamping ceiling: 775 volts at 50 amps. It also has a low joules rating (300), and there’s no internal circuit breaker with a reset button. If you live in an area with unstable power or frequent thunderstorms, you might want something more robust.
Michael Brown / IDG I had no problem plugging three large power adapters into the back of Anker’s PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule.
A second blue LED informs you when power is flowing, and a third tells you the outlet strip is connected to a properly grounded outlet. (If the third LED doesn’t light up when you plug the surge protector in, consult a electrician, because the outlet you’re using is not properly grounded.) A round silver button to the right of the LEDs turns the outlet strip on and off. I have a bedside lamp with a thumbwheel switch on its power cord that’s not convenient to reach, so I was hoping the PowerExtend’s button would shut off only its AC outlets. Alas, that’s not the case, as the button also turns the USB charging ports on and off.
The Anker PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule won’t accommodate a lot of hardware, and it’s not the best choice for those living in areas that experience frequent lightning storms (unless you have a whole-home surge protector installed in your circuit-breaker panel). That said, its compact size, attractive industrial design, and fast-charging features make it an attractive option if you don’t need more than one USB-C charging port.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. | https://medium.com/@natasha62147596/anker-powerextend-usb-c-3-capsule-review-a-fast-charging-surge-protector-5c1403d14775 | [] | 2020-12-24 02:15:52.579000+00:00 | ['Internet', 'Surveillance', 'Music', 'Home Theater'] |
Resource Handling of Collection of Resources in Scala and challenges with Java try-with-resources | There are wonderful libraries in Scala ecosystem for resource handling. I recommend the following as a quick start.
ZManaged from ZIO (https://github.com/zio/zio) cats.effect.Resource (https://github.com/typelevel/cats)
These are superior libraries to many of those in other popular* languages, though I find the comparison is mostly with java try-with-resources. The simple story of this blog is, the resource management techniques that you can leverage with these libraries mentioned above is not just a shiny alternative to Java try-with-resources , because some (well, many) important semantics are simply missing in try-with-resources, (detailed further below). Hence, I find these libraries to be sort of a necessity when it comes to handling resource-intense usecases. That along with Fiber-based concurrency model enables us to acquire millions of resources in parallel, with well defined release strategies on interruptions and failures. These techniques are available in Scala (when it comes to JVM) 3–4 years before. It won’t be feasible to discuss all of it in this blog, hence I will be focussing on a code snippet to give a gist of what these things are.
NOTE: Talking of concurrency, Project Loom is around in JVM, however it doesn’t add anything extra and is not too much of a surprise to those who already use Fiber based concurrency model in JVM through ZIO/Cats years before.
Pre-requisites to further reading
1. Knowledge in Scala syntax
2. Knowledge in cats.effect.Resource
This blog is more of code, probably making sense for those who have already read through cats.effect.Resource .
A quick example.
Say you are downloading files from Amazon S3 directory, and you are doing a bit of processes after you downloaded these files within your local machine / within your application memory – may be encrypt the contents to a separate temporary file and then send these encrypted files (along with grabbing their metadata such as size, checksum etc) to another downstream system.
There can be multiple files, or a single file, and users may choose to send them one by one, or together, or may be concurrently. On top of this, you have to make sure that you are not sending duplicate files to downstream, that means, you got a state to manage as well.
A quick starting point is here. It’s just a minor decoration, yet useful decoration on top of cats.
Let’s create a downloadAllFiles function that can download files from S3. Not a great name, but names really don’t matter here. Discard the details in the code, and mainly what matters is the signature of downloadAllFiles . Could you guess why does it return the type Resources ?
As a summary, downloadAllFiles doesn’t do anything — Its just returns List[cats.effect.Resource[IO, TemporaryFile]] (and not Resource[IO, List[TemporaryFile]] yet) which is then wrapped in Resources data type. This is sort of restricting the user in quite a lot of ways. They have to call use (or executeAll) to do anything with Resources, forcing at compile time to think about resource acquisitions and releases.
In simple terms, a truly guaranteed resource release. Let’s see implementation of a TemporaryFile . In short, its just cats.effect.Resource of File.
That was a mouthful of code, but mostly they will become black-boxes in application code, and usage of them will be 1 liners for a variety of usecases.
I will run through a few examples, that uncovers the use-cases clearly.
Example 1 : Most obvious usage — Send files one at a time, yet keep a state
downloadAllFiles(...).use((_, a) => sendFile(a))
The above usage makes sure of the following:
All files will be downloaded individually and copy the contents to a local renamed file
Any failures during this acquisition will guarantee resilient behaviour — that it catches and tells the user what’s going on along with closing of resources if it has opened anything meanwhile.
Use each one of these files one by one by passing it to sendFile (to some destination). And guarantee cleaning up all the resources associated with i t individually.In a way this implies, resources won’t be allocated until it is time to execute corresponding sendFile.
t individually.In a way this implies, resources won’t be allocated until it is time to execute corresponding sendFile. This prohibits downloading multiple files (possibly in an s3 path, having a decent size) before they need to get transferred. This avoids memory crash to a great extent. Also a failure in one of the file transfer results in deleting the corresponding resource instantaneously.
You can also keep a state of executions, say to avoid sending multiple files, or accumulate the size of files. Since these files don’t exist together at any point, we need to keep a state. For example, below given is a code to make sure we are not sending duplicate files without collecting resources into memory, allowing instant clean ups.
downloadFiles(...)
.use(
Resources.trackDuplicate(sendFile)(_.toString)(
name => s"Duplicate file tracked. ${name}"
)
Example 2 : executeAll —Gather all resources to fetch a list of files, send them together and release resources together.
downloadAllFiles(...)
.executeAll
.use(allFiles => sendAllFiles(allFiles))
In this case, resources are accumulated (and will not initiate any further process of cleaning/usage until all of them are acquired)
Meaning, it allows you to use the collection of downloaded-renamed files together at a later point in time. sendAllFiles is an example.
at a later point in time. is an example. It guarantees release of all resources associated with the collection, after a successful or failed execution of sendAllFiles
the collection, after a successful or failed execution of A practical example: for a JDBC transfer using spark, we may need to collate all resources of files, and close them only after a collective transfer to SQL database.
Example 3: Gather resources together, but send files one by one (a version of Example 2)
You can also acquire resources together, but use each resource individually (may be some complex process) and guarantee release of all resources at all point of times.
downloadAllFiles(...)
.executeAll
.use(allFiles => allFiles.traverse(a => sendFile(a)))
The whole idea is fairly equivalent to sort of having Collection of Composable (version) of a descriptive try-with-resources in Java. But such a thing doesn’t exist.
Challenges with try-with-resource in Java
Porting the above modular solution of resource handling back to Java try-with-resource is reasonably challenging, however, it’s a good exercise to try:
try-with-resources has edge case (apparently I heard it’s being fixed) where try(var f = foo()) may do something with resources that can fail and it’s never wrapped in a try catch internally. That is your first resource acquisition can fail. In this case probably you may wrap try-with-resources with and another try-catch (I don’t Know)
The next challenge is how can we make sure try-with-resources not have this conflation of acquisition and release of resources, along with its usage. You can’t separate them because the “Use” of resources should go along with it, meaning how do we safely acquire resource in one place, yet make them close after they are being used elsewhere.
Also try to acquire resources in parallel and use them individually, yet make sure all of them are closed once all of them are used. Meanwhile if any one usage fails, make sure you release all the other resources.
If you managed to jump through all of the above hurdles, then read the code and see if we can statically prove that all the places of resource usages is bound with a resource release.
Once all of this done, post your results in comment section for everyone’s benefit :)
I hope, you got something out of my writing. I will improve it further with more context and reasoning if you think it’s too abstract.
I thank John De Goes for sharing his wonderful thoughts on Java try-with-resources which inspired me to write more about challenges of try-with-resources. I recommend going through John’s courses through: https://patreon.com/jdegoes
Cheers ! | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/resource-handling-on-collection-of-resources-in-scala-972678c6f99e | ['Afsal Thaj'] | 2020-12-04 21:20:28.767000+00:00 | ['Cats Effect', 'Scala', 'Zio', 'Functional Programming', 'Scala Programming'] |
Let it all unravel | Let it all unravel
When soldiering on doesn’t work anymore.
My grandfather was a fisherman. Never owned a car. Didn’t drink.
I think of him in winter sitting by the window watching the boats in the harbor. The open fire roaring, his pipe nearby ready to add aromatic smoke to the scene.
On his lap and all around his feet is a tangled mass of string. Over days, it will slowly transform back into something recognizable as a fishing net.
This is not a linear process. He is not starting at one end and finishing at another. Before he can start mending the net there is a period of unraveling. Loosening the tangle and knots. You cannot pull it apart, that would only tighten the knots.
You cannot focus on one area to the exclusion of others. You have to loosen the whole mass of string equally before working on any repairs. Let it all unravel.
This is where I find myself now in my grief process. My daughter took her own life 18 months ago. At first, my response was to find ways of coping. I organized the funeral. I checked in on people. I made sure they were ok.
There was some need to keep normal things going. To keep the job I had. To carry on with a musical project. There was a sense of struggling through the days.
I knew it couldn’t carry on. I started to hear stories of those who had soldiered on in their grief for decades only to succumb to mental illness themselves. One man had lost his job, was struggling in his relationship, and was returning to counseling and a grief support group after 30 years.
Let it all unravel.
Photo by Brook Anderson on Unsplash
This is where I am now. Trimming my life down only to things that allow this unraveling. No big plans, no purposeful path stretching into the future. Just paying attention to this tangled mass in front of me.
Noticing that the more I experience my sorrow, the easier it is to let in the joy. Feeling my anxiety. Then feeling the layers of commitment behind the anxiety. Noticing anger and blame when they arise, looking behind that. Noticing that any feeling directed outwards has a source from within me.
Crucially, I experience all these things together. My image of my Grandad helps me to trust that I can only heal by allowing this unraveling. Lay all my feelings in front of me. Allow them to loosen, to gradually spread out and reveal the hidden layers.
Only then when it is all visible can I begin the repairs
LET IT GO
Let it go,
Let it out,
Let it all unravel,
Let it free
And it will be
A path on which to travel.
(Michael Leunig) | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/let-it-all-unravel-7988cec0a815 | ['John Walter'] | 2019-12-29 12:23:47.382000+00:00 | ['Grief And Loss', 'Life Lessons', 'Mental Health', 'Being Present', 'Progress'] |
Naan — A tasty Tezos wallet🤤 (alpha release) | Naan — A tasty Tezos wallet🤤 (alpha release)
An easy-to-use mobile wallet, ready for all your DeFi needs on the Tezos blockchain. That is our vision. Today we are sharing an alpha version for Android. Please play around with it and let us know what you think! Bernd Oostrum Follow Jun 22 · 2 min read
What is Naan? 🤔
Naan is a unique and popular flatbread with a chewy texture that has its roots in India. Its name comes from the Persian word for bread. Over the centuries, Naan spread into Myanmar, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran, and the Chinese region of Xingjian. Thanks to the popularity of Naan, this flatbread has quickly become a must-to-serve in Indian restaurants in Europe and North America.
We hope that Naan wallet has similar success! We give you all the different Tezos flavours you crave for in the palm of your hand. With this alpha release you can send, receive, and delegate your tez. We also enable you to send and receive other Tezos tokens. Naan will evolve into a mobile wallet for all your DeFi needs in the (near) future.
How are you building Naan?👀
We are using the Flutter framework to build Naan. Flutter is developed by Google and is one of the fastest growing GitHub repositories of the last few years.
Flutter enables us to build with a single codebase for both Android & iOS, without compromising performance. We are using our own open source ‘Tezster_dart’ library for interactions with the Tezos blockchain.
Get the alpha version for Android on Google Play here!
What is next?🔮
We are not discriminating against iPhone users, not at all! It was just easier to get our Android version out there faster. We will release an iPhone version soon.
Other features that we will introduce (in no particular order):
Beacon support
Swapping from your wallet (using PlentySwap 👀)
Tezos Domains integration | https://medium.com/tezsure/naan-a-tasty-tezos-wallet-alpha-release-6307febd4b2 | ['Bernd Oostrum'] | 2021-06-22 11:41:23.257000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Wallet', 'Smart Contracts', 'Tezos', 'Defi'] |
TOP 5 — Must Read for every CEO.. IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE I GET STARTED… | IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE I GET STARTED: This is my first list of my own, I consider myself as evid reader and technologist. I hate reading books on Kindle, Google rather than at bookstore or at my study table. I work with IT Consulting firm — Cloud Certitude and works typically in SMB Market and Mid Market.
Hit Refresh — by Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft
Though I’m not a big Microsoft fan but this book is all about individual change, the transformation happened inside Microsoft and the arrival of the most exciting and disruptive wave of technology humankind has experienced — including artificial intelligence, mixed reality and quantum computing. One of the finest words I loved was “Ideas Excites Me.” Empathy ground and centres me”.
2.META HUMAN — Unleashing your infinite potential by Dr. DEEPAK CHOPRA
Well I would say this is the most controversial book in the entire list. I met with Dr. Deepak in United States, SFO for a brief discussion and I become his big fan. In this brilliant book Dr. Deepak successfully argues that consciousness is the sole creator of self, mind, brain, body and the universe we know it. METAHUMAN is a brilliant vision of human potential and how we can move beyond the limitations, concepts, and stories created by the mind.
3. THE TECH WHISPERER — ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND THE TECHNOLOGIES THAT ENABLE IT BY JASPREET BINDRA.
This book is all about Digital Transformations and the technologies which can enable it. Companies across the world are being buffeted by new technologies, disruptive business models and start up innovation. Business leaders knows that need to adopt the new technologies, like blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), using them to keep pace with rapid customer and business environment changes. My loved chapter of the book is Brahma and Business Models.
4. HOW TO CREATE A MIND — THE SECRET OF HUMAN THOUGHTS REVEALED
RAY KURZWEIL prevents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human — machine civilization: reverse — engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using the knowledge to create even more intelligent machines. Kurzweil also has explained how the brain functions, how the mind emerges, brain computer interfaces, and the implications of vastly increasing the power of our intelligence to the address the world’s complex problems. I would say every page of this is unique and inspiring.
5. Customer — Support — Focused — Driven — Obsessed — A whole company approach delivering exceptional customer experiences. GET AHEAD OF THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE CURVE
This book is for the companies who defines success through business outcomes and put customers at the center of their business realize sustainable, continuous growth. Customer experience is a key driver of technical innovation and business success — customer obsessed teaches organization how to leverage it across all the levels of the organizations to sustain competitive advantage in the digital era. | https://medium.com/doctorsalesforce/top-5-must-read-for-every-ceo-32c758784987 | ['Sumit Mattey'] | 2020-02-28 18:40:52.300000+00:00 | ['CEO', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Microsoft', 'Mindfulness'] |
Global Gay Rights: The legality and illegality of homosexuality around the world | Originally published September 2018
The following is a writing sample of freelance work I have done. It is intended as an explainer about a current hot topic, not as a blog or opinion piece.
The legality and illegality of homosexuality around the world
Homosexuality is treated quite differently throughout the world. In more than one-third of countries, homosexual sex acts are criminal (and in about 4 percent of countries, they are punishable by death). Conversely, in just over one-quarter of the world’s countries, same-sex marriage or civil partnerships are legal. And in between the two extremes lies a wide array of other forms of discrimination and protection.
Legislation regarding same-sex relations has changed significantly over the centuries. In 1791, France became the first country to decriminalize same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults with the adoption of a new penal code, which also applied to many of its colonized countries.
A number of countries decriminalized same-sex sexual acts throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Some countries also formally criminalized same-sex relations in their penal codes during that period.
In the 21st century, the Netherlands became the first country to formally legalize same-sex marriage in 2000, with the legislation going into effect in 2001. The country was followed by Belgium, Canada and Spain over the next few years. The U.S. joined them in 2015 with a Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the country. Last year, Australia, Germany and the European island country of Malta all legalized same-sex partnerships or civil unions.
Same-sex marriage is legal in 22 countries, according to a 2017 International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) report. Additionally, another 28 allow for a legal civil partnership or civil union of same-sex couples — some offering the same rights as in marriages. (Of these 50 countries, 26 also allow for joint adoption of children by same-sex couples.)
Criminalization, legality and protections around the globe
Breakdown of categories
Death penalty for same-sex acts
These countries have laws allowing for capital punishment for same-sex sexual acts, and known cases of executions. In some of the countries, the death penalty for same-sex sexual acts is only applicable in certain regions.
Same-sex sexual acts are illegal
Laws in these countries criminalize same-sex sex acts, either for men or both men and women. Penalties for convictions on these offenses can include months or years in prison. A few of these countries also have the death penalty on the books, but do not enforce it.
Discriminatory laws against homosexual people or LGBT organizations
While same-sex relations are not specifically criminal in these countries, they have discriminatory laws against either homosexual people or LGBT organizations. For example, laws may prohibit public displays of affection by same-sex couples, disallow NGOs that advocate for same-sex rights, or other forms of discrimination.
Some discrimination or prohibition, some protections
There is both protection and discrimination in these countries. For example, in Botswana, same-sex sexual acts for both men and women are illegal under the 1964 Penal Code, yet there is also a 2010 law prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Neither notable legal protections nor criminalization
None of these countries have laws that criminalize same-sex sexual behavior. They also do not have laws expressly protecting rights of homosexual people.
Legal protections against discrimination
These countries have explicit laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexuality — either equal rights guarantees in their constitutions, anti-hate crime laws, anti-discrimination laws for employment, or other protections.
Same-sex marriage or civil unions legal
In addition to having other legal protections for people on the basis or sexual orientation, these countries have legalized either same sex-marriage or same-sex civil partnerships.
Criminalization of same-sex sexual acts
As of last year, there were 72 countries where same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults were criminal, either for only men (27) or both men and women (45). That’s equivalent to roughly 37 percent of the countries in the world. In 2018, India’s Supreme Court overturned the law prohibiting consensual, adult same-sex relations, reducing the number of countries to 71.
The language of the laws that prohibit sexual acts between members of the same sex vary throughout the world: some prohibit any sexual act, some sodomy (anal sex), some buggery (anal or oral sex), some prohibit acts “against nature,” or use other wording. Globally, punishment for such offenses can vary from public lashings to prison time, and in some cases include capital punishment.
Of the 72 countries where same-sex sex acts are illegal, eight also carry out capital punishment for same-sex sexual intercourse in at least some areas. The countries are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, specific provinces of Somalia and Nigeria, as well as areas of Iraq and Syria controlled by the Islamic State.
Additionally, five other countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mauritania, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) have laws that technically allow for capital punishment for same-sex sexual acts, but are not believed to have carried out official executions in relation to these laws in recent decades, the ILGA reported. In the Asian country of Brunei Darussalam, a proposed law would allow for the death penalty for same-sex sexual acts; the legislation has not been finalized.
Legal discrimination
Legal discrimination can come in different forms — from restrictions on assembly to banning public expression of homosexual acts of identity (such as pride parades or holding hands between same-sex partners) to denying organizations that advocate for LGBT rights NGO status.
In Russia, for instance, while same-sex sexual acts were decriminalized in 1993, various “promotion” or “morality” laws prohibit expression of homosexual identity or advocacy work. A law prohibiting the “Promotion of Non-Traditional Sexual Relations Among Minors” was used to prosecute members of a St. Petersburg-based LGBT youth organization. Certain expressions of homosexual activity in public are punishable by jail time. Russia also drafted a U.N. resolution to deny benefits to same-sex partners of U.N. staff members.
Legal protections
More than one-third of the countries in the world have some explicit legal protections for homosexual people, according to data from ILGA.
Nine countries explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in their constitutions. For example, Mexico’s constitution prohibits discrimination based on “sexual preferences.” In other countries, such as Canada, while the constitution’s wording does not explicitly mention sexual orientation, case law has established that equal rights and protections apply on this basis.
In September 2018, India’s Supreme Court ruled that all constitutional protections should apply to homosexual people and that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal. The decision overturned a law that banned same-sex sexual acts.
Globally, in 2017, there were laws prohibiting certain workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in 72 U.N. member states, as well as in Taiwan.
Additionally, 43 countries in 2017 had laws against “hate crimes” that target people on the basis of sexual identity, and 39 countries had laws banning actions that incite hate towards homosexual people.
Non-legal forms of violence and discrimination
Legality is one thing, but discrimination and violence can come outside of the dictates of law. In the extreme, this can include extrajudicial killings and other “hate crimes” against people who are homosexual or perceived to be homosexual.
In Russia, aside from the discriminatory laws mentioned above, extrajudicial discriminations and violence have been reported. In 2017, a Russian newspaper reported that authorities engaged in extrajudicial imprisonment and torture of at least 100 men believed to be homosexual in Chechnya, in southern Russia. One anonymous Chechen man who was allegedly detained illegally told CNN in an interview that he was beaten and electrocuted.
The Russian news report alleged that the authorities illegally executed 27 of the men one night. Apart from authorities engaging in violence, civilians in the area have engaged in hate crimes against those believes to be homosexuals. One Chechen man told CNN that he feared that his family would murder him if they found out he was homosexual.
In the U.S., according to the FBI’s 2016 “hate crime” statistics, 16.7 percent of reported hate crimes were committed due to sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation, totaling 1,255 incidents that year. Hate crimes are “crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity,” according to the definition in a U.S. law, and can include violence against people or property.
Beyond violence, other types of discrimination or unequal treatment can exist. In countries where homosexuality is legal and there are legal protections against discrimination, some people who are homosexual or perceived to be homosexual report instances of discrimination or “harassment” at school, in the workplace, in housing opportunities, while in public or while receiving medical care.
In the U.K., for example, where same-sex marriage is legal and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal, a recent national government survey found that more than a quarter of LGBT respondents experience verbal harassment for their sexuality over the past year. Additionally, 6 percent reported they were physically threatened, and 4 percent said they were physically or sexually assaulted.
Sources: 76Crimes, Amnesty International, CNN, ILGA State-sponsored homophobia report, FBI UCR, Sibalis via GLBTQ Archive, HRW Report, The New York Times, UK LGBT Survey, UN OHCHR News, World Atlas | https://medium.com/@juliaberrylopez/global-gay-rights-the-legality-and-illegality-of-homosexuality-around-the-world-c56aeb44ad38 | ['Julia Berry Lopez'] | 2020-11-18 14:39:43.790000+00:00 | ['Same Sex Marriage', 'Discrimination', 'Gay Rights', 'LGBT Rights', 'Civil Rights'] |
Why WR/CB Matchups Don’t Matter for Fantasy Football | You see them everywhere. Anybody who has spent time researching what’s impactful for fantasy football has stumbled upon a matchup chart or two. Intrinsically, it makes sense that a Wide Receiver’s fantasy output would be impacted by the man covering him, Football is a game of inches after all.
However, in this article, I am proposing something radical. I am proposing we throw 99% of fantasy football coverage matchup advice out the window. While that may sound harsh, I will do my best to explain this stance with as much evidence as possible. I’ll go over coverage types, how coverage types interact with WR routes, the volatility of coverage, how that applies to fantasy football, why matchup charts/advice are so popular in the fantasy football community, and where actionable coverage/matchup advice can be found.
The Types of Coverage
Most casual football fans have heard the terms ‘man’ and ‘zone’ coverage, but very few understand how complex coverage is at the NFL level. Let’s start with some basics.
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Cover 0, Cover 1, and Cover 2-Man are the base versions of what, for the purposes of this article, we will call ‘Man coverage’. The number in each coverage indicates how many players will be playing a deep-safety role, with 2 deep safeties in Cover-2 and no deep defenders in Cover-0. Man coverages require most of their coverage defenders to cover their assigned receiver step for step, mano-a-mano.
Cover 1 example from BleacherReport.
Zone coverages are made up of Cover 2, Cover 3, Cover 4 (aka ‘quarters’), and Cover 6. Just like man coverage, the number at the end of the coverage reveals how many deep players there are. The key exception being Cover 6, which is one-half Cover 2 and one-half Cover 4. Zone coverages require their players to first get to a spot on the field, known as a zone, and then cover whatever receiver runs into that zone. Sounding a lot like Madden, right? How complicated can it really be?
Cover 4 example courtesy of Breakdownsports.blogspot.com
NFL offensive coordinators are actually pretty smart guys, and they developed counters to every major coverage I just mentioned. Defensive coaches were then forced to develop counters to those counters, leading to a Darwinian progression of coverage techniques and variations.
At the professional level what we are left with is, quite literally, thousands of versions of what Nick Saban coined: ‘Match Coverage’. Match coverage relies on defensive players to read offensive route combinations and react to cover receivers man-to-man based on the rules of the called match coverage. This essentially combines the head-to-head coverage element of man defenses with the eyes on the QB, read and react nature of zone coverage.
For example, the base version of Cover 4 offers four deep defenders, who split the deep parts of the field into ‘quarters’ and three underneath players, who focus on routes run within the first ten or so yards of the line of scrimmage. With so many players focused on defending deep, offenses attack underneath with quick slants, various screens, and other short route combinations.
To stop the offense from putting up video game numbers on underneath throws, the defense develops rules based on the underneath concepts the offense runs. One rule could be that the outside corner will cover the outside receiver man-to-man unless the #2 receiver on that side runs an out route in the first five yards, in which case that corner passes off the outside WR and plays #2 man-to-man. Another rule could be that the outside corner is man-to-man with the outside WR, unless the WR runs a shallow, inside breaking route, in which case the corner gives an ‘under’ call, passes off that WR and plays his deep 1/4. Now imagine thousands of combinations of those rules intertwined with the base coverages already mentioned, constituting dozens or hundreds of play calls, all completely dependent on what the offense runs.
How Does This Relate to Fantasy Football?
I give that overarching rundown on coverage to assist you, the reader, in understanding that breaking down WR and DB play at the NFL level requires tremendous nuance and is never as simple as “this bad CB is projected to line up across from that WR so that WR has an amazing matchup.”
Calvin Ridley makes a catch over Chris Harris Jr. Courtesy Ashley Landis/AP
Great strides in fantasy football data science could be made if advanced coverage data were publically available, but unless you work for the right people, you won’t have access to that gold mine. That’s something to keep in mind when you hear fantasy football analysts discuss coverage matchups, as very few have access to data that would help them make any meaningful conclusions.
What about the teams that play man coverage?
While college, and especially high school football offer teams that run just a few schemes and keep things quite simple, the NFL is a copy-cat league. The latest trend: mixing up your coverage.
This article from SportsInfoSolutions (one of the few companies that collect advanced coverage data) and this one from PFF showcase that the most man-heavy teams in the NFL play man coverage on just over 50% of their snaps. That leaves a lot of room for variation, in both one-on-one matchups and play calls.
So organizations that analysts tout as being ‘man teams’ play zone on nearly half their snaps. See the problem?
Even if we were to give this argument the benefit of the doubt and assume an NFL team would actually play man coverage on every snap, offenses know how to beat it. Here is an excellent breakdown from 9-year NFL veteran CB Darius Butler on how NFL teams attack man coverage with bunch formations and what defenses can do to counter. It’s a 25-minute video about a single way offenses attack man coverage. When factoring in motion, stack releases, and picks/rubs you can clearly see that NFL offenses have a litany of tools to beat man coverage.
Regardless of what your favorite matchup chart says, the WR you are targeting isn’t going to line up across from the Packers’ worst corner all game, or even the majority of snaps.
What about ‘Shadow’ matchups?
Based on my tone so far, this is probably the part you expect me to say something like ‘shadow matchups aren’t real’ and move on. Don’t worry, they are real. They just don’t happen as often as most fantasy players likely believe.
David Moore makes a catch against the Jets. Courtesy Alika Jenner/NFL.
Looking at PFF’s quite useful Shadow Coverage Matrix, we see that about 15–30% of teams will utilize a shadow corner in a given week. However, while most would believe a ‘shadow’ matchup requires that a corner covers a WR on 100% of his routes, the PFF Shadow Matrix data suggests otherwise.
In fact, in the first 12 weeks of 2020, there have been just under 200 games played and just 26 instances of a corner lining up across from a WR on more than 80% of the WRs’ routes.
The chart description itself states, “ A corner is considered to be shadowing them if they lined up across from that receiver on over 50% of their routes from both the left and right. Percentage of routes includes the slot. All receiving stats are on plays the corner lined up against the receiver, regardless of who ended up being the person covering the receiver at the time of the pass.”
Even football’s most reputable stat provider doesn’t offer primary coverage defender data, just alignment data, as a fantasy football tool. This demonstrates how difficult it is to truly discern what is and is not a ‘shadow matchup’.
The Volatility of Coverage
Remember when A.J. Bouye was an All-Pro corner? If you are unaware, he still plays professional football for the Denver Broncos, so why hasn’t Bouye’s name been thrown around much in 2020 as a top corner? No, it’s not because he was recently suspended for PEDs. It’s because game-to-game, and especially year-to-year, coverage is tremendously volatile.
While not directly related to fantasy football, Estimated Points Added (EPA) has been long-used in analytic circles as a strong measure of player performance on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.
Jarvis Landry scores a TD against the Dolphins. Courtesy Ron Schwane/AP.
Right alongside PFF coverage grades, EPA is one of the best measures of how much value a coverage defender adds on a per-game basis. According to this 2018 article from PFF on the value of coverage and receiving, “it’s important to note that this comes with the results we’ve written today — that coverage from various positions (at least how we’ve measured them — through PFF grades and EPA) are not as stable season-to-season as other traits (receiving stability) we’ve explored.”
Looking at PFF coverage grades from 2018 to 2019, we see a mere 0.29 correlation coefficient for CBs, demonstrating the past successful coverage performances cannot be relied on to predict future coverage success. Coverage stats like passer rating allowed don’t help much either, with a 0.08 correlation coefficient from 2018 to 2019 for NFL corners.
Don’t get me wrong, EPA, PFF Coverage Grades, and passer rating allowed are great stats to determine how well a coverage player has played, but these statistics are not predictive of future performance, despite many fantasy analysts suggesting they are.
The Popularity of Matchup Charts and Analysis
I’m a sucker for nuanced football analysis, and I would suppose most of the people reading this are as well. While there are certainly people who know what they are talking about when it comes to coverage, I’ll mention them later. The real reason you’re here is that you saw a tweet (Buster Skrine vs. Davante Adams *fire emoji* fire emoji* *fire emoji*), read a post, or saw a matchup chart that screamed at you to put a certain player into your lineup because he was facing a bad corner and he failed.
Hopefully, with a more in-depth understanding of how complicated coverage is, you can see why that matchup chart didn’t win you that semi-final game in your friends and family league.
Why do analysts tout matchups all the time?
It sells. As a low-tier tout myself, I’m well aware of how difficult it can be to develop reasons for why you like certain players every week. CB/WR matchups inherently make sense to most fans and seem like they should significantly impact fantasy scoring.
With virtually every fantasy football content website providing subscription-based services, large amounts of content need to be published weekly to keep people coming back. Matchup charts and analysis make for the perfect weekly article.
Example matchup chart from rotoballer.com
Fantasy Football players, myself included, love conditional formatting. It makes every chart look better visually and when it’s combined with a concept that naturally makes sense to most football fans, it’s easy to see how this content became popular.
I don’t blame touts for promoting this kind of analysis. Their job is to provide consistent, weekly content. However, I do think they are taking advantage of a knowledge gap in their consumer base, and many touts do not have a high enough understanding of coverage concepts to fill this gap. This brings us to our final discussion:
Where can I find Coverage and Matchup data that will help me with Fantasy Football?
Now that we are acutely aware of the downfalls of traditional WR/CB matchup analysis, we can finally focus on what matters — winning fantasy football games.
With teams rarely shadowing and many coverage concepts requiring that defenders pass off or ‘switch’ the offensive player they are covering, we can largely throw most individual WR/CB matchup analysis out the window. However, coverage analysis at the team level can still be worthwhile.
Stats like FootballOutsiders DVOA, PFF Coverage Grades, and defensive EPA allowed on passing plays are an excellent way for fantasy players to quickly determine the overall strength of a pass defense. It’s important to remember that WRs aren’t just playing against the CB lined up across from them, they are facing an entire coverage unit that has to work together and communicate to slow down the offense.
By attacking the weakest overall pass defenses and avoiding the strongest overall pass defenses, fantasy players can realize an albeit small, but meaningful edge when it comes to pass game matchups.
What touts actually know what they are talking about when it comes to coverage?
I’ve read most of the coverage/matchup articles that are regularly published, and one in particular sticks out every week: Wes Huber’s NFL Advanced Matchups column. I’ve linked his most recent piece from Week 15 here.
Wes Huber is a former PFF coverage analyst who now works for fantasypoints.com, one of the best DFS tout sites out there. As someone who’s been through PFF’s process of learning the complexity of coverage and how to chart it, I can vouch that Wes knows his stuff when it comes to coverage. He even goes through every play of every game, every week to make sure he has the most accurate possible coverage data, something that’s extremely time-consuming but assures the quality of his work.
Fantasy players determined to exploit edges in coverage matchups should view Wes as their savior, as the length and depth of his weekly NFL Advanced Matchups column are unmatched anywhere else in the industry. He’s great at what he does and deserves more credit in the community.
Those looking to broaden their overall understanding of coverage concepts should start with The Pass Coverage Glossary by Cameron Soran. While this may not directly relate to fantasy football, it is an excellent guide as to the many variations of coverage, what certain schemes are designed to stop, and it includes helpful diagrams for the more visual learners out there. Essentially a coverage encyclopedia, you won’t find a more detailed 30,000-foot view of coverage concepts anywhere else out there.
Last but certainly not least, former NFL CB Darius Butler runs an excellent Youtube channel called Everything DB, where he breaks down advanced coverage concepts and techniques at the NFL and college levels. I know, it’s not fantasy football related, but watching just a couple of his videos demonstrates what I’ve tried to put into writing in this piece: NFL coverage is extremely complicated and is almost never a pure 1 v 1 matchup. | https://medium.com/@6mohcin/you-see-them-everywhere-e17abb64238f | [] | 2020-12-20 20:00:02.542000+00:00 | ['Fantasy Football', 'NFL', 'Sports Analytics', 'Sports Betting', 'Fantasy Sports'] |
Block Republic Founder Tom Howard joins Peer Mountain as Community Advisor | Peer Mountain is delighted to welcome prominent blockchain investor and founder of Block Republic, Tom Howard to its advisory board. His expertise and network brings significant value to Peer Mountain and its community.
In addition to helping Peer Mountain build new meaningful relationships with the crypto community, Tom has already secured initial allocations in the Priority List for the Peer Mountain token sale.
A crypto investor since 2013, Tom founded Block Republic to provide the community with the education, advice, and connections required to make smart investments and help the blockchain ecosystem grow. To date, the Block Republic community has participated in over 30 ICO investments.
“Peer Mountain has developed a truly scalable B2B2C solution with the compliance and speed that will make blockchain commerce a reality this year,” said Tom, “I’m looking forward to developing and strengthening ties between this groundbreaking service and the crypto community.”
Currently founding partner of BlockSauce Angel Group, Tom is also serving on the advisory boards of several notable blockchain tech companies that have run successful token sales. Previously, he was founder of Asian venture financing platform VentureMark and CEO of software consultancy Digital Engine. | https://medium.com/peermountain/block-republic-founder-tom-howard-joins-peer-mountain-as-community-advisor-8df631ae3640 | ['Peer Mountain'] | 2018-06-26 07:52:32.152000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Ethereum', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Technology'] |
Foundations of Web Development Series, Part I: Git Basics | This guide was developed for web developers at Levare, a volunteer initiative meant to amplify the Black community by helping Black-owned businesses create an online presence.
Hi! 👋The purpose of this guide is to lay out the foundations for what you need and where to start; as far as the actual coding, I provide a few resources, but the rest is up to you.
Definitions
As defined by its website, Git is a distributed version control system. Let’s break that down.
Distributed means that the codebase can be shared across multiple users, and the users can work on a) making changes to the code on their local repository or b) making changes to the code and sharing the changes across all the users on a remote repository. A repository is your entire project: all files, folders, images, code, etc., are needed to run or understand your project.
Your local repository contains only YOUR versions of the code, including your own branches. If you make any changes to your local repository, you will not be able to access anyone else’s code, nor will they have access to your code. When working with your local repository, you will most likely be working with the command line, a set of instructions that view, handles, and manipulates files. Depending on what operating system you are using, you can access the command line using Mac Terminal, Windows Command Prompt, or Linux Shell.
Mac Terminal Window
BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WITH YOUR COMMAND LINE! It communicates directly with the computing system, and if you run the wrong series of commands, you can definitely change (or even destroy) your system in ways that you may not like. We will be going over a few commands related to Git, but I strongly encourage you to visit the Missing Semester of CS.
The remote repository is where you can upload your code after you are done testing it on your local system. Here, other people can get your code and collaborate with you, depending on whether you set your repository to be public or private. The most common remote repository and the one that many companies use is Github.
Github Main Page
I highly recommend that you create an account. There are a ton of resources available on different repositories, and if you are new to Git, there are a ton of open source applications that walk first-time contributors through the process. You can check out a good list here.
My Personal Github Account with My Remote Repositories
Version means that a user can save the history of the code changes through commits. In my opinion, this is the best and most important part of Git.
Think about it like this: you’re working on a paper for your writing class, and you start off with a rough draft. This is your FIRST (and hopefully not last :p) version of the paper. Let’s say that you want to share this paper with two of your friends, and they make edits to your paper. This makes it the SECOND and THIRD version of the paper. While your friends are editing the paper, you decide to change the title of your paper and add another paragraph, but your friends don’t have this version to edit. Now you have the FOURTH version of your paper. You receive the paper that your friends edited, and you combine everything you have right now to submit. This is your FIFTH version But wait — you remember that there was this source you wanted to use, but you don’t remember from which version you saw it in. Now you have five different versions of the same paper on your desktop, and everything is falling apart and it’s the end of the world.
With Git, it’s much easier to keep track of all the versions you have through and who contributed to what version. You can keep track of versions with different features, multiple contributors, etc.
Control means that the user can save the codebase in different places and determine where to apply the changes. This way, you can distinguish between your “rough” and “final” copies of the code in a more distinct manner with branches and forks, and you can determine what changes should be applied.
A branch contains a version of your code. You typically start with the master branch, aka the main branch. In most cases, your final code will also reside in this branch. Some projects will rename its master branch to the production branch to indicate that this branch’s code is being actively deployed elsewhere. We will cover deployment later. Another common branch is staging, a branch to test your product on your remote repository. We have a staging branch for our website to test our features and see if everything is properly deployed.
Branch menu on a remote repository in Github
Let’s say you are building a website, and you want to integrate a search function, but you’re not sure if you want to incorporate it into the final product yet. You can create a branch from that moment in your code’s history and call it to search. While you are working on the search branch, the code on that branch will not be affected by any changes in the master branch, nor will the master branch be affected by any changes in the search branch. Once you are satisfied with this branch, you can merge it with the master branch, check out the master branch, and continue making changes to the master branch.
To further our example, let’s say you continue making changes to the master branch and want to go back to the search branch and change something on there. If you go back to that branch, you will NOT be able to see any of the new changes unless you pull the code from the master branch. Otherwise, your code will look exactly like it did since the last time you accessed that branch.
Branches are typically used to track the history of different features. Some projects will use branches to distinguish between versions from different contributors, but there is another feature that can also achieve that: forks. Users can copy the codebase across different remote repositories with forks. From whatever point in time a user forks a repo, that user will have access to all the files and versions from the original repository. Any changes that the user makes on their forked repository, however, will again not affect the original repository, and the same applies vice versa. Forks can also be merged.
Fork the Repository Here
Basic Commands
Instructions on how to install Git-based on your operating system can be found here. In most cases, it’s as simple as running one command on the command line.
If you Google “git”, you will come across many different commands and be overwhelmed by the power of Git. However, I’ve usually been able to get away with the basics down below. If a command starts with git, it’s a command specific to git. If not, it’s a command that can be used universally.
ls
Lists all the files and folders within that directory
cd <location-of-project>
Enters that directory
cd ..
Goes to the encompassing directory
mkdir
Creates a directory
git init
Initializes a Git for your project. May also reinitialize, if the project already has a Git repo
git pull <remote-repo-name> <remote-branch-name>
Pulls changes from the remote repository
git merge <branch-name>
Merges changes from a specified branch into the current branch
git add <file-name>
Adds indicated files to the staging area. Does not add the changes to history
git add .
Adds all the changed files to the staging area. Does not add the changes to history.
git commit -m “add message”
Commits the changes in the files in the staging area to the history
git push <remote-repo-name> <remote-branch-name>
Pushes the commits to the specific branch on the specific remote repo
Typically, the previous three commands are used in sequence whenever a user wants to commit a feature.
git remote add <remote-name> <remote-link>
Adds a remote repository to the local project
git branch -a
Lists all the local and remote branches available
git branch <branch-name>
Creates a new branch from the current branch
git checkout <branch-name>
Checks out the specific branch
git clone <repository-link>
Clones repository on the local repository | https://medium.com/swlh/foundations-of-web-development-series-part-i-git-basics-f35ecfffe26b | ['Anushka Saxena'] | 2020-08-14 23:13:56.937000+00:00 | ['Command Line', 'Programming', 'Web Development', 'Github', 'Git'] |
Best Pediatrician in Pune — AV Children and Multispeciality Clinic | About Us
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That’s why, at AV Children and Multispeciality Clinic, we focus on providing a full range of services to improve your child’s health and get him or her smiling again. We provide Quality Pediatric care you can trust.
For the best pediatric dentistry and Pediatrician (children specialist) in Aundh, come to AV Children and Multispeciality clinic. We specialize in children’s dentistry, Pediatric dentist, orthodontics, vaccinations, newborn baby care, skin diseases, genetic diseases, growth & development management, etc. to help guide your child through all stages of their health journey. Contact us for an appointment today to get started. We pride ourselves not only on our knowledge of children’s needs but also on our friendly, approachable staff. We have a variety of treatment options and work with you to determine the safest and most comfortable procedures for your child. Dr.Chandrashekhar Vasant Phadnis is one of the Pediatrician in Aundh, Pune with a specialization in Pediatrics. | https://medium.com/@phadnisashwini224/best-pediatrician-in-pune-av-children-and-multispeciality-clinic-3907969168c6 | [] | 2021-12-20 06:44:25.270000+00:00 | ['Dentistry', 'Pediatrics', 'Dentist', 'Teeth', 'Vaccines'] |
Why I’m not using amazon anymore | Why would anyone want to avoid Amazon?
A one-stop-shop for everything from books to clothes to pillows featuring Nicolas Cage’s face photoshopped onto Kim Jong Un’s head, it has made it possible for almost anything you want to appear on your doorstep the next day.
But worker exploitation, tax dodging and invasions of customers’ privacy are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Amazon’s unethical business practices.
And while Amazon.com is their best known venture, they have fingers in more pies than you might expect; services like AWS, Twitch and even IMDb fall under their grasp.
It might seem impossible to remove Amazon from your life if you prefer shopping online – but you can still avoid Amazon to a degree by using some more ethical Amazon alternatives instead.
Amazon: A brief history
jeff bezos
Photo by James Duncan Davidson
In 1995, Amazon began as an online bookstore operating out of Jeff Bezos’s garage. They were already making $20,000 per week within the first two months.
The company continued to snowball, and Bezos was named Person of the Year by Time magazine in 1999 after listing his company on the stock exchange. Time said that Amazon represented “a sign of the e-world yet to come, a place in which technology allows all of us to shop, communicate and live closer together.”
In the same year, Amazon reported $350 million in losses. However, Bezos was confident that they would be profitable by the year 2000 – and they finally began to make a profit in 2001.
In recent years, Amazon’s growth has continued at a startling pace. In 2018 they near-doubled their profits (from $5.6bn to $11.2bn) and left their competitors eBay, Walmart, Etsy, Target, BestBuy behind to become the eCommerce king they are today.
They’re now the second-most-valuable publicly traded corporation in the world and amongst the four big tech giants Apple, Google, and Facebook. As an eCommerce site, they’ve replaced retailer Walmart as the new villain in capitalism.
4 reasons to avoid Amazon
Despite the convenience Amazon brings, it’s easy to find reasons to remove them from your life. Here are some of the key issues with the company and their practices:
Worker exploitation
Amazon has been accused of exploiting their global, 650,000-strong workforce in many ways.
In the UK, ambulance services were called out to Amazon warehouses 600 times over a three-year period. To put this number into perspective, there were only eight call-outs in a nearby supermarket’s factory of a similar size over the same period. Why is that?
Working conditions in Amazon’s warehouses can be draconian. UK warehouse worker Aaron Callaway spoke out about how he has to spend ten-and-a-half hours a shift on his feet, moving each item to the correct location in 15 seconds or less – or face a warning from his manager.
Such an exhausting and repetitive role has taken a huge physical and mental toll – “I feel like I’ve lost who I was,” Callaway says.
The conditions in the warehouses of Amazon’s Chinese suppliers are even worse. A 2018 investigation found workers in Hengyang were expected to work a 60-hour week (five eight-hour days, with two more hours of overtime each day and another ten on Saturday) for just 14.5 yuan (£1.66) an hour.
The undercover investigator who infiltrated the factory as a worker found herself expected to clean 1,400 Echo Dot speakers a day, using a toothbrush dipped in alcohol to remove any dust. She recorded her colleagues’ complaints of numb hands and sore necks, backs and eyes from performing the same action again and again for hours on end.
Four-and-a-half hours into her shift, “I was already so tired and my movements growing slower,” she wrote. “I brushed with less and less force. There were 20 or 30 speakers building up in front of me that I had yet to brush clean.” And when she had slowed down from fatigue, her line manager told her to brush faster.
When Bezos last year collected an award for “outstanding personalities who are particularly innovative, and who generate and change markets, influence culture and at the same time face up to their responsibility to society,” he told the audience: “I’m very proud of our working conditions and very proud of the wages we pay”
Earlier this year, when Bezos “challenged other large retailers to raise their minimum wage“, Walmart execs hit back asking Amazon to pay their taxes.
2. Tax avoidance
Amazon use various loopholes to pay the lowest amount of tax possible. Many big businesses do the same, but Amazon regularly make headlines because of the tremendous amount they hoard. They paid no US federal tax on the $11.2 billion profit they made in 2018, due to unspecified “tax credits” as well as a tax break for executive stock options.
In 2017, the European Commission found that Amazon had benefited from an illegal tax deal granted by authorities in Luxembourg, which allowed the company to reduce its tax bill by €250m over 2006 to 2014.
The case centred around two subsidiaries incorporated in Luxembourg and controlled by the US parent company – Amazon Europe Holding Technologies (described by the commission as “an empty shell”, with no employees or offices) and Amazon EU group, which transferred 90% of its operating profits to the holding company, where they weren’t taxed. Therefore, Amazon paid an effective tax rate of just 7.25%, compared to Luxembourg’s national rate of 29%.
Amazon also make a lot of money from taxpayer subsidies, further rubbing salt into the wound. It’s reported that their HQ2 project – a new corporate headquarters based in Virginia – will cost US taxpayers $4.6 billion, causing politicians from both sides to question the deal.
3. Market dominance
Amazon have achieved massive growth across many sectors by prioritising size over profit, which gives them a lot of leeway in terms of pricing.
Take Amazon Prime, for example. It’s undeniably a great deal. In the UK, you pay £10 a month as an Amazon Prime customer for unlimited, one-day delivery at no extra cost. This cost the company $28 billion in 2018, but they clearly think it’s worth it in the long run.
This is something smaller businesses or even other eCommerce platforms can’t compete with. So it’s no wonder that many have decided to join the site as third-party sellers: but they’ll have to give up at least 15% of revenue to sell on the site (and this percentage can often be higher based on warehouse and fulfilment costs).
But even if your business decides to sell on Amazon, Amazon will still be competing against your products – and as it’s their platform, the game is rigged in their favour.
Third-party sellers have to communicate with their customers through Amazon’s messaging system, which Amazon monitor. If Amazon believe you’ve violated their rules – by doing something as simple as sending the customer a non-Amazon URL – you can be immediately suspended from the platform.
Amazon’s dominance of the online marketplace has knock-on effects in the real world: the giant pays far less in business rates on its UK properties than most traditional rivals, further strengthening their hand against town centres and malls which already struggle to turn a profit compared to online retailers. Sociologists have long known that in-person shopping generates social and civic benefits for a community.
Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance has been researching Amazon’s business practises for years and is troubled by the way the company seems not just to want to be the top online retailer, but to control the underlying infrastructure of commerce – and beyond.
Because aside from producing hit TV shows and publishing books, Amazon are slowly but steadily expanding their power into the physical world by building out their shipping infrastructure in a bid to supplant the United States Postal Service, as well as making inroads in healthcare and finance.
4. Privacy concerns
Through the Echo and Alexa, smart TVs and Kindles, Amazon is keen to record as much information about its users as possible. This data can be used to sell products, or sold on to advertisers and marketers.
Amazon-owned smart doorbell maker Ring made headlines early in 2019 when it faced claims that teams had “unfiltered, round-the-clock live feeds from some customer cameras” – including captures from indoors – despite having no need to do so.
Meanwhile, Amazon have patented facial recognition technology which could be used with their doorbell tech – by creating a database of “suspicious persons”, such as convicted criminals or registered sex offenders, it would be able to recognise unwanted visitors.
Although most versions currently lack a camera, the ubiquitous Alexa is also a privacy nightmare. Amazon have admitted that a team of thousands listen to selected recordings captured by the smart speaker, to improve the voice recognition software (these employees work nine-hour days, with each worker listening to as many as 1000 audio clips per shift).
Bloomberg reports that the “teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need help parsing a muddled word – or come across an amusing recording.” They also claim that “two of the workers picked up what they believe was a sexual assault.”
Other Non-Ethical Amazon Competitors
Walmart
Walmart is a go-to hypermarket for consumers, with not only physical stores worldwide, but also online marketplace Walmart.com. Additionally, Walmart owns the Asda chain in the UK, online retailers Jet.com and Shoes.com, and sells everything from home goods to groceries, clothes, and single-use items.
Although Walmart claims it is increasingly environmentally responsible, with so much ground to cover and a business model prioritising affordable prices, it’s akin to Amazon in terms of predatory pricing allegations, working conditions, and wages.
Newegg
Newegg.com is an online store offering a wide selection of computer hardware, electronics, games, and accessories. It’s known for its good deals compared to other platforms, since it’s a specialist seller. Although Newegg states that it is “dedicated to conducting business in a lawful and ethical manner”, the company hasn’t made any efforts towards sustainability.
eBay
Unlike Amazon, eBay primarily offers third-party sellers a platform to auction secondhand items. However, Amazon and eBay have both evaded taxes, as well as failing to stop sales of invasive plant species which could have a devastating effect on native ecosystems.
AliExpress
Chinese retail tech giant Alibaba’s AliExpress is an online shopping platform quickly gaining traction in the eCommerce world due to its low prices. However, like most large retail companies, AliExpress has been criticised for predatory pricing and mistreatment of employees. Earlier this year, AliBaba’s co-founder Jack Ma defended a 72-hour working week.
Closing your Amazon account
There’s much more that could be said about Amazon’s unethical business practises. But if the above is enough to convince you to avoid the company and start using some ethical Amazon alternatives instead, the first step is to close your account.
To close your account completely, you’ll have to contact Amazon directly via their website.
👉 Here’s a good guide that will take you through the many steps you’ll have to go through to get it sorted – it’s almost as though Amazon made it difficult on purpose…
When you do eventually manage to confirm your cancellation, you’ll lose access to any digital content you’ve purchased on the platform, as well as your customer profile and account history.
If you have an Amazon Web Services or Kindle Direct Publishing account, you need to contact those teams separately.
Ethical Amazon alternatives: AWS/hosting
You might not have heard of Amazon’s cloud platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS) – but, essentially, it powers much of the internet, and handles data storage for everyone from Netflix to the CIA. AWS is where the majority of Amazon’s profits come from.
The bad news is that if you spend any amount of time online at all, it’s almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with AWS.
Netflix, The Guardian, and Airbnb are just a few of the thousands of services built using AWS – if you’re dedicated to fully and completely removing Amazon from your life, you’ll have to limit your internet usage to sites you simply can’t live without.
💡 You can use this tool to check where a website is hosted, and follow these instructions to fully block your computer from accessing any site using AWS on your computer.
(Full disclosure: ethical.net is currently hosted on AWS – but we are looking into alternative options!)
However, if you’re simply looking for Amazon alternatives to host a site of your own on, there are plenty of options available to you:
Kualo
Kualo are a hosting service with a focus on sustainability: they’re 100% green powered, run an energy-efficient data centre and even provide home working for staff to minimise travel
Netcetera
Netceteraboast a zero carbon data centre – they claim to have saved 2.4M KG of CO2 to date. They offer domain names, web hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated servers and data centre colocation. Netcetera’s UK-based Zero Carbon data centre is in the Isle of Man.
GreenNet
GreenNet are a not-for-profit collective, and have been offering hosting to supporters of the environment and human rights since 1985! They worked with organizations such as British Naturalists Association, UNESCO, and End Water Poverty.
Acorn Host
Acorn Host offer green hosting for ethical businesses and organizations only, their ultimate package covers 20GB space and 500 GB bandwidth.
💡 For more recommendations, you can check out the hosting section of our resources page.
AWS might be nigh-on impossible to avoid (and bear in mind that some of the alternatives recommended below might use it!), but it’s much easier to take a stand against the other arms of Amazon’s business.
Take shopping, for example. If you’re willing to pay a little extra and wait just a bit longer for the goods to arrive, there are heaps of Amazon alternatives available to replace four of Amazon’s most popular categories.
Ethical Amazon Alternatives for buying Books
Hive
Hive give a percentage of each purchase to an independent bookstore of your choice.
Better World Books
Founded in Indiana, US, Better World Books donate a book to someone in need for every one they sell. They are a certified B corporation since 2008.
Worldcat
WorldCat connects people to the collections and services of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide, helping you find any book you search for at a nearby library.
And a special mention goes to which locates library books near you. Support your local libraries!
Ethical Amazon Alternatives for buying Baby products:
Babipur
Founded by wife and husband, the UK company Babipur sell a range of ethically-made baby items; from clothes to food to toys.
Beaming Baby
Beaming Baby are a specialist provider of biodegradable diapers that are toxic-free and environment-friendly.
Ethical Amazon Alternatives for buying Jewellery
Wearth
Wearth use only recycled silver and gold to create their pieces and they have a zero-waste, vegan and cruelty-free policy.
Made
Made’s products are handmade by Kenyan artisans, and produced using reclaimed brass from the local area.
Cred
Cred use only fairtrade-certified gold, and also sell a range of lab-grown diamond rings.
Ethical Amazon Alternatives for buying Workout wear
Adrenna
Adrenna are a workout wear brand working towards zero waste production that is aiming to tackle mass-production in the fashion industry by offering custom made products.
Bam
Bam’s exercise gear is made entirely from bamboo! The big hitters of the ethical fashion world, People Tree and Patagonia, also have their own workout wear lines.
As for “everything stores” to rival Amazon, there’s:
Ethical Shop
Ethical Shop is owned and managed by the New Internationalist magazine.
Ethical Superstore
Ethical Superstore guarantees fair prices at every stage of the supply chain.
Veo
Veo is launching in June 2019, and their aim to become “the earth-friendly Amazon”
For second hand buys, try:
Preloved: An online store for all things second-hand from furniture to clothes.
Oxfam Online Shop: Oxfam, the charity fighting poverty, also supports second-hand clothing stores as well as an online shop for ethical-minded consumers.
Ethical Amazon alternatives: Voice assistant
It’s still relatively early days, but there are a couple of voice assistants being developed to rival Alexa/Echo:
Mycroft
Mycroft is the world’s first open-source voice assistant, which promises to never sell your data or feed you ads
Gladys
Gladys is. an open-source home assistant designed for smart homeowners; you’ll. need a bit of tech knowhow to get the software up and running, but it’s. growing into a capable tool
Ethical Amazon alternatives: Prime video / music
If you don’t want to support Amazon by using Prime Video, there are various streaming options available. Scoring high in Ethical Consumer’s UK video streaming rankings are:
BBC iPlayer
British Broadcasting Corporation’s internet streaming platform BBC iPlayer (which you’ll need a UK TV licence to watch legally!) allows UK-based viewers to watch BBC programmes online.
All 4
Owned by Channel4, All4 is a video on demand service offering a variety of programmes recently shown on Channel 4, E4, More4, Film4 and 4Music.
BFI Player
BFI Player is a subscription service by the British Film Institute, to watch newly released films in the UK as well as old classics. The subscription is free for 2-weeks, then £4.99 a month.
Flix Premiere and MUBI are also recommended indie film subscription services.
Amazon Prime Music gives users access to 2 million songs and over 1000 playlists and stations. But there are Amazon alternatives to replace the behemoth. For example, Resonate is a community-owned music network that pays artists at higher rate for streams – what takes other services 200 plays takes them just nine. They operate with a pay-as-you-play model, with no monthly fees.
Ethical Amazon alternatives: Kindle
Since it was first released in 2007, the Kindle has helped to cement Amazon’s position as ‘the world’s largest bookseller.’ But the books sold through Kindle are also under a severe restriction, called DRM (Digital Rights Management). This means that Amazon can edit or remove the ebooks that you’ve bought at any time – they’re never truly your own.
Kobo
Tech hardware is, of course, currently almost impossible to produce ethically; but with regards to data ownership and privacy, your best of the Amazon alternatives is probably Kobo, which sells DRM and DRM-free eBooks as well as eReaders.
Note that there’s no option to differentiate between the two when searching on the site, but the Switching Social project have built an unofficial search page here!
Libro.fm
If you live in the US or Canada, you can also buy DRM-free audiobooks at Libro.fm. And as the audiobooks are purchased from a local indie bookstore of your choice, you’ll also be investing in your community at the same time.
Web hosting, online shopping, video and music and voice assistants are the main pillars of Amazon’s business, but this is by no means the only areas they’re active in: for a full list of Amazon-owned businesses (including Twitch, IMDb and Goodreads), see here.
Over to you
It may feel like voting with your wallet is futile – but boycotting unethical companies, and, crucially, convincing others to do the same, are the first steps in driving the cultural change that will compel politicians to take action. After all, only after public outcry in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal are regulators seriously considering the tech giants as monopolies which must be broken up.
Some organisations lobbying for Amazon to change its ways are:
Global Tax Justice: campaigning for greater transparency, democratic oversight and redistribution of wealth in national and global tax systems
Institute for Local Self Reliance: the ILSR challenges concentrated economic and political power
China Labor Watch: dedicated to workers’ fair share under globalisation
Privacy International: a charity that challenges the governments and companies that want to know everything about us
And some further reading:
Amazon’s Stranglehold: How the Company’s Tightening Grip is Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs and Threatening Communities
Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox
Amazon Profits From Secretly Oppressing its Supplier’s Workers: An Investigative Report on Hengyang Foxconn
Alexa, Stop Being Creepy!
Boycott Amazon | https://medium.com/@scottosborne13/why-im-not-using-amazon-anymore-b7a807509cd | ['Advice For You'] | 2020-05-15 03:09:59.742000+00:00 | ['Amazon', 'Anger', 'Blog', 'Writing', 'Never Again'] |
The Outpost Season 3 Episode 12 — Ep.12 (ENGSUB) on The CW | New Episode — The Outpost Season 3 Episode 12 (Full Episode) Top Show
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🦋 TELEVISION 🦋
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 191s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 1950s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[1] during the 193s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 30s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (531i, with 909093 intertwined lines of goal and 434545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 345313, 345313 and 3334. Since 13, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, HBO Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 113, 39% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[3] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 1990s. Most TV sets sold during the 30s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-13s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 13s.[1][3][8] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 3.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 13s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 30s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 30s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 13s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
🦋 OVERVIEW 🦋
A subgenre that joins the sentiment type with parody, zeroing in on at least two people since they find and endeavor to deal with their sentimental love, attractions to each other. The cliché plot line follows the “kid gets-young lady”, “kid loses-young lady”, “kid gets young lady back once more” grouping. Normally, there are multitudinous variations to this plot (and new curves, for example, switching the sex parts in the story), and far of the by and large happy parody lies in the social cooperations and sexual strain between your characters, who every now and again either won’t concede they are pulled in to each other or must deal with others’ interfering inside their issues.
Regularly carefully thought as an artistic sort or structure, however utilized it is additionally found in the realistic and performing expressions. In parody, human or individual indecencies, indiscretions, misuses, or deficiencies are composed to rebuff by methods for scorn, disparagement, vaudeville, incongruity, or different strategies, preferably with the plan to impact an aftereffect of progress. Parody is by and large intended to be interesting, yet its motivation isn’t generally humor as an assault on something the essayist objects to, utilizing mind. A typical, nearly characterizing highlight of parody is its solid vein of incongruity or mockery, yet spoof, vaudeville, distortion, juxtaposition, correlation, similarity, and risqué statement all regularly show up in ironical discourse and composing. The key point, is that “in parody, incongruity is aggressor.” This “assailant incongruity” (or mockery) frequently claims to favor (or if nothing else acknowledge as common) the very things the humorist really wishes to assault.
In the wake of calling Zed and his Blackblood confidants to spare The Outpost, Talon winds up sold out by her own sort and battles to accommodate her human companions and her Blackblood legacy. With the satanic Lu Qiri giving the muscle to uphold Zed’s ground breaking strategy, The Outpost’s human occupants are subjugated as excavators looking for a baffling substance to illuminate a dull conundrum. As Talon finds more about her lost family from Yavalla, she should sort out the certainties from the falsehoods, and explain the riddle of her legacy and an overlooked force, before the world becomes subjugated to another force that could devour each living being.
Claw is the solitary overcomer of a race called Blackbloods. A long time after her whole town is annihilated by a pack of merciless hired soldiers, Talon goes to an untamed post on the edge of the enlightened world, as she tracks the huggers of her family. On her excursion to this station, Talon finds she has a strange heavenly force that she should figure out how to control so as to spare herself, and guard the world against an over the top strict tyrant. | https://medium.com/@9achraf-mafyaf/exclusive-the-outpost-season-3-eps-12-full-series-a41378fbc88c | ['Achraf Mafyaf'] | 2020-12-26 07:13:14.948000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Action', 'Fantasy', 'TV Series'] |
How Life Can Exist Beyond Our Own | It is simply ignorant and close minded to think that life out in the universe does not exist and that we are the only living organisms in this ever expanding universe. Think of the Virgo Supercluster — or any cosmic supercluster, a group of tens and thousands to trillions of galaxies. Is it too crazy to say that there are at least a few — if not tens of thousands of civilizations in those very galaxies? The answer is no, thanks to the Drake equation which uses mathematics to theorize that there are thousands of civilizations beyond our own.
Laniakea Supercluster consisting of billions and billions of galaxies.
It’s common to think that alien life must have water, oxygen, and carbon (carbon based life forms such as our very own) to be able to exist. There are many organisms that live on this Earth that adapt to its environment. These organisms are tiny bacteria or multi-cellular organisms that reproduce without, or, an absence of oxygen. Think of tardigrades, a small microorganism that resembles that of a bear or, well… an eight-legged pig. These organisms do not need light, air, or the warmth that humans generally need. One experiment showed that tardigrades can survive exposure in the vacuum of space, which a human would normally not survive. This little specimen proves that life beyond our own does not truly need oxygen, water, or carbon to just exist. What’s to say that these so called “extra-terrestrials” thrive off of methane, drink fire, or are intelligent sea-dwelling creatures that live deep in their ocean of liquid mercury? Alien life does not have to resemble that of a bipedal humanoid; alien life could simply be micro-organisms, tiny bacteria, or they could simply be single-celled organisms made of inorganic material. Alien life could mean a multitude of things — that they can be intelligent, pre-historic, dead but have proof of their existence, micro-organisms, single-celled, exactly like us, or — bear with me — that we simply cannot see them because they exist in another dimension or because they’re not visible to the naked eye. There is no doubt in my mind that they are out there and one day, we’ll stumble upon them accidentally or on purpose. More recently, we discovered that Venus has phosphine in its atmosphere. Phosphine is mainly a compound that only life on Earth should be able to produce, or at least organic in the sense. Interestingly, we discovered not just small traces of the compound in our neighborly planet’s atmosphere, but we found a lot of it. This could be produced by something we just have no clue or explanation of, but I believe this is just basically saying we may or may NOT have found evidence of alien life, but it’s really close.
Rendering of a tardigrade, New Scientist.
Many people seem to believe that the existence of aliens, or extraterrestrials, cannot exist simply because there’s just not enough sufficient evidence to prove their existence and because extraterrestrials seem to have never visited Earth. I’m no conspiracy theorist with a big tin-foil hat and I’m not saying they have or have not visited, but the story of the tic tac UFO is probably one of the most convincing UFO story to date — in which you’ll have to listen to the 30 minute account of the story yourself. I’m not saying the UFO is of extraterrestrial origins, but we just have no proof of what it is, where it came from, and its qualities.
Many people do not realize the scope of the universe — that it is still expanding rapidly even after the theorized Big Bang and that there are tens of thousands and, maybe even millions of habitable planets beyond our solar system (discovered by the Kepler Spacecraft). It is important to acknowledge that humans simply cannot be the only living organism in this almost infinite universe. Somewhere out there, aliens — whether they’re intelligent extraterrestrials or not — exist simply because of the size of our universe, the number of habitable planets that have been discovered, and the simple mathematics behind their existence.
Life exists because mathematically, it is very likely that humans aren’t the only lifeforms. The Drake Equation is a mathematical formula — or theoretical formula — that proposes the number of intelligent extraterrestrials and civilizations beyond the solar system and in the Milky Way galaxy. In the article “Anthropology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” Steven J. Dick states that “the ‘Drake Equation’ was proposed as a way of estimating the number of communicative civilizations in our Milky Way.”
The Drake Equation is simply: N = Ns · fp · ne · fl · fi · fc · fL, which basically formulates the number of planets that are suitable for life, the number of stars that can sustain life, and the number of civilizations with technology that can emit detectable signals (such as a radio or satellite signal). The universe is big (essentially infinite) and our local galaxy — the Milky Way — is mind bogglingly gigantic with a radius of 52,000 light years — that’s a lot in freedom units. Even at that size, the Milky Way is actually one of the smaller galaxies. Galaxies are a collection of stars, solar systems, planets, asteroids, comets, black holes, neutron stars (collapsed stars) and so forth. An average galaxy is a thousand to a hundred thousand light years across; a light year means that it would take a beam of light to reach one end of the galaxy to the other in a few centuries or millenniums — depending on the size of the galaxy. Light is fast, 186,282 miles per second exactly, but imagine light crossing a galaxy and reaching the end in roughly thousands of years — this puts a perspective on the distance and size of a galaxy. The Drake Equation only formulates and proposes the number of communicative extraterrestrials in the local galaxy, the Milky Way; now that you know the true distance and size of a galaxy, you can simply say that there could be hundreds, if not thousands of extraterrestrial life in our own backyard and beyond. The equation still proves that there are thousands of habitable planets that lay within the goldilocks zone (like the Earth) that can potentially harbor alien life. Again, however; life does not need to be in the goldilocks zone, that’s just a basis for life to exist rather than harsh environments. The Earth is composed of the same elements found elsewhere in space; habitable planets are very likely to share the same elements that are composed of what is known on Earth. Carbon based alien life would fundamentally be our distant relative, considering they’re made of the same stuff we’re made of.
Our beautiful neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy
The Kepler Space Program — and the Spacecraft — has identified many potential habitable planets in our galaxy that are suitable for life (humans) and potentially for extraterrestrials. Many planets found by Kepler have been a potential candidate for life — or habitable; as said in, “Other Earths and Life in the Universe,” Geoffrey Marcy writes, “As of January 2011 more than 400 exoplanets have been discovered. But in February 2011 the NASA Kepler team announced more than 800 strong candidate planets.” Habitable planet means that it is habitable for humans — that it is suitable for humans to live, breathe, and possibly eat. However, the ‘habitable planets’ do not account for potential extraterrestrial life-forms. That is, that maybe these life-forms do not need the same elements of ‘life’ as we know it. Maybe these life-forms/extraterrestrials do not need oxygen to survive, water, or even food for energy as we’ve stated before. One could assume that the life-forms on these potential ‘habitable planets’ could breathe methane or breathe sulfur dioxide to use as energy. The possibilities are endless — depending on how these life-forms may have adapted and evolved on a potentially habitable planet. Even though Kepler may have found these potentially ‘habitable planets’ does not mean that non-habitable planets cannot support other lifeforms/extraterrestrials; non-habitable planets just means that it cannot support the life of a human, not explicitly an extraterrestrial.
Earth has its own alien-like creatures that have adapted to such extreme and bizarre environments which proves the point that extraterrestrials may not need the same conditions as humans do to exist. For example, creatures like the giant squid, fangtooth fish, and the deep-sea angler all have one thing in common — they all live in the deepest and darkest depths of the ocean that have pressures crushing humans in an instant.
These creatures are able to live in these harsh, almost alien-like environments. In fact, the depths that these creatures live in are so deep that even light can never reach it. Again, this is great proof that extraterrestrials can live on non-habitable planets. A great point is that maybe these extraterrestrials may find that Earth is not even habitable for them; maybe Earth is too harsh of an environment for these life-forms — it can go both ways, like how in War of the Worlds, the aliens all succumbed to an Earth based bacteria during their invasion of Earth.
Many people wonder: if extraterrestrials do really exist out there in the cosmos, then how come humans have not seen them and how come there’s basically no evidence of their existence? This leaves a problem that Steven J. Dick argues, “Anthropology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” where the author writes, “the idea that if the galaxy was full of intelligence, given the billion-year timescales involved, any long-lived advanced intelligence should have colonized the galaxy and should have arrived on Earth by now — yet we do not see them.” The problem with the existence of intergalactic intelligent extraterrestrials is that if their technology is so advanced, how come they haven’t visited Earth? Advanced civilizations would need many resources… which means that extraterrestrials would need to traverse across the galaxy to harvest resources off planets, asteroids, comets, moons, and the energy from many stars, like Dyson spheres/swarms. Maybe life is so rare that humans really are the only organisms that exist in the known universe. This is known as Fermi’s Paradox — a question that simply asks; where are all the alien civilizations if the Drake Equation formulates that there are hundreds, if not thousands of alien civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy? No credible person would ever say, “Yes, aliens do exist and they have obviously visited Earth because they simply can,” because there is no significant evidence of their existence. If they have visited us puny humans, then our own civilization would have known about their existence thousands of years ago and there would be no argument about the existence of extraterrestrials whatsoever. But that is simply not the case, humans will forever stay divided about the existence of alien life until an alien life contacts Earth or we discover them. Personally, I’d rather live in that timeline than this where we have no clue whether aliens exist or not.
To counteract Fermi’s Paradox, one must examine the Fermi Paradox in detail. In Fermi’s Paradox, it states that; if there are alien civilizations in our galaxy, how come they haven’t reached or contacted Earth? The simple solution to that paradox is another theory — The Great Filter. The Great Filter is a theory which proposes that if a technological civilization gets too advanced, then that civilization will get wiped out; a civilization getting wiped out means that war, natural disasters (volcanoes, tsunamis, asteroids), artificial intelligence, and so forth will prohibit an extraterrestrial civilization to be able to contact Earth. Life beyond in the unknown is inevitable; the universe should be teeming with life and, humans are the first examples of life and destruction. Another great way to solve Fermi’s Paradox is that these extraterrestrial civilizations have not reached the capacity to traverse the cosmos. What if these extraterrestrial civilizations are currently in their own ancient times — that these lifeforms are barely starting in their journey to traverse the cosmos? These civilizations must have technological limitations to travel through the Milky Way and as stated above, the Milky Way is hundreds of thousands of light years across. Traversing through the Milky Way can take thousands of years even at the speed of light. Maybe these life-forms are literally just micro-organisms, little bacteria, simple organisms, or single-celled life-forms; life can be viewed differently for many people, depending on what one defines life as — a tree, flowers, humans, cells, AI, and so forth. Another proposition that can solve Fermi’s Paradox is that extraterrestrials are simply just dead — that they’re long gone, but have existed hundreds to tens of thousands of years ago. Even looking up at the sky and seeing red-shifted celestial objects, or stars that have been long gone, it’s just simply because light travels so long against the expansive universe and time. This could be the sad reality, but it can also be said that aliens have existed, but simply died out long ago. It’s easy to imagine another civilization out in the cosmos, especially since the size of an average galaxy (thousands of light years across) multiplied to hundreds and thousands of times to form the universe which is a collection of galaxies, stars, planets, asteroids, comets, molecules, atoms, etc.
In regards to the Drake Equation, the Kepler Space Program and many other scientific papers, explanations, theories, and even paradoxes — have all helped prove that out there, in the expansive and almost infinite universe, extraterrestrials exist (humans, for example). Mathematically, at least one other civilization or one other extraterrestrial organism must exist; the building blocks of life came from space, meaning that humans are literally descendants of the cosmos and that these building blocks of life exists everywhere else in the universe. The goal is to reach for the cosmos; maybe it’s our time to contact extraterrestrials, “Mankind is headed for the stars. That is our credo. Our descendants will one day live throughout the solar system and eventually seek to colonize other star systems and possibly interstellar space itself. Immense problems — technical, economic, political and social — must be solved for human life to spread through space.” One must realize that if humanity were to contact an intelligent extraterrestrial, then our fundamental understanding of life and how life evolves/adapts will be changed forever — expanded and enlightened. Our view of the world would significantly and fundamentally change, or it might not and people will make memes about the discovery of alien life. It’s crucial to believe that alien life, whether intelligent or not, exists, because solving the argument about whether they do exist or not will most notably shift our understanding about life and how to correctly (and cautiously) approach these extraterrestrials. Once humans contact extraterrestrials, the question that many people ask — “Are we alone?” –will finally be answered. | https://medium.com/@hanselpierredoan/how-life-can-exist-beyond-our-own-by-hansel-pierre-doan-f333089f7007 | ['Hansel Pierre Doan'] | 2020-10-16 07:27:41.923000+00:00 | ['Universe', 'Aliens', 'Life', 'Science', 'Space'] |
Understanding .NET. C# From Scratch Part 1.2 | Welcome to another part of the series C# From Scratch, a course dedicated to teaching you everything you need to know to be productive with the C# programming language.
In the previous part of the series, we installed the tools which we will be using to create and run C# applications. They were .NET and Visual Studio Code. If you missed that part of the series, you can find it here.
In this part of the series, we’ll take a step back to understand what we’ve just installed on our machine — what exactly is .NET?
Understanding .NET
Throughout this course, we will be writing software using the C# programming language. This software is written in human-readable instructions in a text file.
However, a computer can’t read this software and directly execute the instructions. So how can we get our software to execute on a computer?
For C#, there are two steps involved in getting our code to execute on a machine.
First, our C# source code is compiled into instructions that are understood by a tool called the CLR (Common Language Runtime). The result of this compilation is an executable program.
Second, when we execute our program, the CLR translates the instructions in the executable file into machine code that the computer understands and the instructions are executed on the machine.
The C# compiler and the CLR are part of the .NET SDK which you have just installed on your machine.
Different .NETs
There are two different .NET Frameworks available to use for developing software with the C# programming language: .NET and the .NET Framework.
The .NET Framework is a version of .NET that can only be used to write software for Windows machines. This version of .NET has been around since 2001 and is built and maintained by Microsoft.
.NET (also known as .NET Core) is a newer .NET that can be used to create applications that run on various platforms including Mac, Linux, and Windows. This version of .NET is completely open-source and community developed.
In this course, we’ll be using .NET.
If you are starting a new project and you can use .NET, then you probably should.
In some very specific cases, you might have to use the older .NET Framework for example, if there is a feature that you need to use which is only available in the .NET Framework.
What’s Next?
In this part of the series, we learned about the different versions of .NET that are available to build our C# applications with.
In the next part of the series, we’ll take a closer look at what exactly is in .NET and how it is used to create and run C# applications. | https://medium.com/@kenbourke/understanding-net-e87c0fcc8e75 | ['Ken Bourke'] | 2020-12-07 09:07:05.107000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Dotnet', 'Csharp', 'Learning To Code', 'Software Development'] |
Basic application with Django | Finally we got to the awesome Python framework Django which allows you to use python for developing web applications.
Prerequisites
First ensure that you have python and pip installed. Then let’s install Django:
python -m pip install Django
And check if it’s installed and ready to use:
python -m django — version
If you can see a version of the Django library then you are ready to go.
Project Setup
Now, let’s create new Django project:
django-admin startproject myCoolProject
This command will create a myCoolProject directory in the directory you recently located. And inside it will create this files:
Next we can cd into myCoolProject directory and start the server:
python manage.py runserver
If everything is correct you should see something like this in your console:
And if you open http://127.0.0.1:8000 in web browser you should see this:
New app
Now we know that Django and the project environment is ready and working, we can work on our own application. First, let’s create one:
python manage.py startapp newApp
This is how the file structure of the new app looks like:
Serve the content
Now let’s create views to render some content on the DOM. View it’s description of what will be served to the user when they hit a specific route in our app. Views can be found in, surprise, views.py file which is located in the app directory.
This is very simple view, but we need to start with simple things and then build complexity and functionality up:
We import the HttpResponse method from the Django libraries. It will create a <body> html element and put the string inside which we provide as an argument.
Next we need to open urls.py in the project (not the app) directory, import freshly created view and specify on which route this view should be rendered:
Now you can refresh index page of our app and we can see this:
If you would like to modify the rout you could specify which view you would like to render for which route:
Conclusion
Hooray, our first app is up and running with Django! Is in it cool to use python for web-development? I know you agree with me!
Next time we will create a RESTful API and will learn how Django works with models and databases.
Keep learning, keep growing!
Let’s connect on LinkedIn!
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/basic-application-with-django-3afab115bb9a | ['Pavel Ilin'] | 2020-11-08 15:36:55.772000+00:00 | ['Software', 'Python', 'Web Development', 'Django', 'Learning To Code'] |
I Have Nothing More to Say About Rape | I Have Nothing More to Say About Rape
I’m sick of trotting out the details of my assault to try and enlighten other people.
Image by author.
TW: Sexual Assault, Victim Blaming
I wrote about assault when Kesha’s song “Praying” came out. I wrote about assault when Terry Crews reported his groping. I wrote about assault when I got in touch with my abuser’s most recent victim, and traded war stories with them and was shaken and disturbed by how much his violence had escalated. I wrote about assault when the Aziz Ansari accusations came to light and countless people wanted to tear “Grace” apart. I wrote about assault when Al Franken was accused.
I wrote about assault whenever a woman told me that I needed to toughen up. I wrote about assault when people wrung their hands over rapists facing consequences. I wrote about assault when a prominent University in my area attempted to discourage the use of trigger warnings in classrooms. I wrote about assault while a student of mine was in the midst of pressing charges against their rapist. I wrote about assault when I realized a man who raped me had died.
I wrote about assault when I received hate mail for writing about assault. I wrote about assault when people demanded that I recount my own experiences in greater detail, demanding that I “prove” I had been assaulted. I wrote about assault when I remembered an encounter with a much older friend, who had made me feel terrified without ever realizing it. I wrote about assault when the Weinstein accusations reached a fever pitch. I wrote about assault when I realized one of my favorite directors looked the other way every time Weinstein’s attacks happened.
I wrote about assault in my fiction and nonfiction and in blog posts and in Facebook posts and in Twitter threads. I talked about assault with friends and annoying, bloviating guys who thought they were my friends. I wrote about assault every single time a new high-profile accusation came to light, and every time a backlash inevitably followed. I wrote about assault each time someone told me they were so stunned to hear just how bad my abuser had been, with a tone that sometimes implied they didn’t believe all of it, because they couldn’t see it.
I wrote about assault in the comments. In the threads. In private messages. In DMs. I talked about assault over vodka cranberry juice. I listened to a guy ponder whether or not he had ever assaulted somebody while we ate tater tots and drank Shocktop. I wrote about assault on my Tumblr. I told my family about my assault. I told two therapists about my assault. When one of my therapists was dismissive and told me that I should stop ruminating and should just try to wash the dishes more fucking mindfully, I wrote about assault and kept writing about it.
I have written so much about assault. I have unpacked so many traumas, trotted out so many gruesome details. People have called me all kinds of encouraging and discouraging and dismissive and condescending and genuinely loving things. Hundreds of thousands of people have read my writing. Hundreds upon hundreds have commented, asked questions, sent emails.
I am not sure any of it did a lick of good. I’m not sure I can keep doing it. I’m not sure I have another fucking thing to say to an audience that will not learn and will not stop demanding that I share more while also attacking me for anything that I do share.
…
Mitch McConnell, Brett Kavanaugh, Mike Pence, and John Kyl.
I wanted to write something about assault in light of the Kavanaugh accusation, but I can’t seem to do it. It’s not for want of a new angle — I can always find some way to make meaning. I am good at unspooling words. The problem is my will, and my faith.
Every attempt at discussing assault that I have made has resulted in me receiving insults, probing questions, invasive remarks, misgendering comments, and condescension. I engage, sometimes, with the people who seem genuinely confused, but often they rapidly reveal themselves to have been playing dumb as a rhetorical device. I push back when someone says hateful, ignorant things, but it never seems to make an impact on the person’s future willingness to be hateful. When someone challenges me or other survivors, I marshal evidence and reason to the front lines of the battlefield, only to find that my opponent has turned tail and run off to their own camp, to revel in a victory that they seem to actually believe occurred.
I’m weary. I am filled with contempt.
And it’s not just the ill-intentioned ones who leave me broken down. Sometimes it is the people who think they are on my side, too. The feminist women, usually white ones, who refuse to honor my gender identity, and refuse to acknowledge the ways in which they might be complicit in the abuse of other people. The men who want to provide helpful advice for how I could have avoided rape nine years ago. The distraught fathers desperate for suggestions as to how I can prevent their children from ever being harmed. The survivors who are stronger than me, or perhaps just more brittle, who are insistent that it would be for the best if I would just grow a fucking spine. The despondent victims who want me to read long, disturbingly detailed accounts of their assaults, who need a therapist and a support group but would prefer to turn my inbox into one.
I keep trying to give what I can. But I’m running out of things to give.
…
Is there some detail of my assault that I could share that would make Christine Blasey Ford’s doubters pause for one fucking second and consider that they are not the central fount of human knowledge about what consent and violation are like? Is there a way that I could explain sexual coercion that would convince the blessedly ignorant that it is a process that actually occurs? Can I write about my rape(s) convincingly enough that someone, anyone, just one guy out there somewhere in the comments section, will be brought to fucking heel?
I have tried, I really have tried. I’ve explained what it’s like to dissociate during trauma, I’ve illustrated how a coercive person can wear your reserves down, I’ve explained that an assault begins as soon as someone makes it plain that your consent does not matter to them, I’ve mentioned the specific acts that have been done to me or which have been coerced out of me, and I’ve talked about what it’s like to be shattered and triggered in the wake of such experiences. I’ve tried to make the connections to current day events as clearly and explicitly as I possibly could. And so have thousands of other writers who have survived similar events.
And we are still here. Louis CK and Aziz Ansari are back on tour, Charlie Rose is getting a new show, another rapist may end up on the Supreme Court, and every legacy publication of note has run at least one article about the extravagant prejudice of the #MeToo movement.
The good times were so brief. I thought people wanted to listen. I was willing to lay myself bare to make listening easier. All I got out of it was a lot of annoying, entitled emails and a ton of secondary trauma and the ache of trying to carry a responsibility too heavy for my hollow shoulders.
I cannot fix this. I can’t make anybody listen. It was naive and grandiose to think I could.
But I still wish I had more details to unpack. I wish I had more to say. Maybe if I did, it would somehow be the magic thing to make somebody out there grow a fucking spine or a heart.
But I’m out of things to say about rape. And nobody out there is entitled to a single additional fucking syllable from me. | https://devonprice.medium.com/i-have-nothing-more-to-say-about-rape-de870cabf8e6 | ['Devon Price'] | 2019-12-14 04:02:49.152000+00:00 | ['Rape', 'Feminism', 'Gender Equality', 'Sex', 'Metoo'] |
超過 30 個優質線上學習網站，課程平台資源大全，持續成長靠自學課程 | Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.
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Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription. | https://medium.com/y-pointer/30-%E5%80%8B%E5%84%AA%E8%B3%AA%E7%B7%9A%E4%B8%8A%E5%AD%B8%E7%BF%92%E7%B6%B2%E7%AB%99%E5%B9%B3%E5%8F%B0%E8%B3%87%E6%BA%90%E5%A4%A7%E5%85%A8-37a4f4a8888f | ['侯智薰 Raymond Ch Hou'] | 2020-11-11 13:04:52.802000+00:00 | ['Learning', '線上課程', '優勢', 'Careers', '學習'] |
Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen has been killed near Tehran | https://theinstantnews.com
Fakhrizadeh died at the hospital after being attacked in Dambhand County.
Western intelligence agencies see him as the mastermind behind Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.
Diplomats have described him as the “father of the Iranian bomb.”
The news comes amid concerns over Iran’s growing uranium enrichment. Enriched uranium is an important component for both civilian nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons.
Iran has insisted that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.
Four Iranian nuclear scientists were killed between 2010 and 2012, and Iran has accused Israel of involvement in the killings.
Fakhrizadeh’s name was specifically mentioned in a May 2018 presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran’s nuclear programme.
There was no word on whether the attackers had fled.
The bomber struck shortly afternoon in the small town of Absarde, just east of the capital, Tehran. Iran’s Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both close to security sources, said “terrorists carried out a car bombing before firing on Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s car.” The injured, including Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguard, were taken to a local hospital, Fars said.
State television later posted a picture of security forces blocking a road on its website. Photos and videos shared online showed a Nissan sedan with a windshield and bullet holes with blood holes in the street.
Hussein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, appeared in Fakhrizadeh to acknowledge the attack.
Salami tweeted, “Killing nuclear scientists to prevent us from reaching modern science is the most violent fight conf
Hussein Dehgan, Iran’s supreme leader and adviser to Iran’s 2021 presidential candidate, issued a warning on Twitter.
Referring to President Donald Trump, Dehghan wrote, “In the last days of the political life of the gamblers, the Zionists wanted to intensify and put pressure on Iran to wage a full-fledged war.” “We will descend like lightning on these oppressed martyr killers and we will regret them for their actions!”
The area around Absard is full of leisure villas for Iranian elites, including a visit to Mount Dambhand, the country’s highest peak. Roads in Iran during the weekend were closed less than usual due to the coronavirus epidemic and its attackers allowed fewer people in the vicinity to attack.
Fakhrizadeh was named by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2011 as the director of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.
Netanyahu then revealed that Israel had removed Iran’s own huge archives from a warehouse in Tehran with details of its nuclear weapons program, saying: “Fakhrizadeh will remember that name.”
Nearly a decade ago, Iranian nuclear scientists were suspected of carrying out a number of targeted killings in a bid to reduce Iran’s long-running nuclear program. Friday did not comment on the matter.
In a video uploaded to Twitter on Friday alleging murder, Netanyahu counted the various achievements of the week, saying it was “a partial list because I can’t tell you everything.” He is thought to have survived an earlier attempt to oust him following Mr. Jiang’s intervention in Saudi Arabia.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. However, the Iranian media all mentioned the interest shown by Netanyahu in Fakhrizadeh.
Fakhrizadeh led Iran’s so-called “Amad” or “Hope” program. Israel and the West have accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons in a military operation.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says the “Amad” program ended in the early 2000s. Its inspectors have now observed the Iranian nuclear site.
However, Netanyahu said in his 2013 remarks that Fakhrizadeh was secretly pursuing such efforts under the SPND, “an internal body of Iran’s defense ministry.”
He was often compared to Robert Oppenheimer, director of the American Atomic Development Program in the 1940s.
A report from Axios on Wednesday claimed that US President Donald Trump was preparing for the possibility of ordering a strike on Iran before the Israeli army leaves office in January.
Citing senior Israeli officials, Axios said there was no specific information on whether such an attack was imminent, but Israeli leaders believed the last week of the US president’s term would be a “very sensitive time”.
Officials say Washington will probably update Israel before taking military action against the Islamic Republic.
In January, the United States killed Qasim Solaimani, the powerful head of Iran’s Quds Force, in an airstrike at Baghdad International Airport, sparking an almost larger conflict between the two countries.
As Fakhrizadeh is still alive, Bergman said at the time, “Anyone can say that the assassination was planned.” And, obviously, the issue was rejected when Ehud Olmert was prime minister, Bergman added, adding that he chose his word considering the limitations of military censorship when it comes to national security.
“Obviously, Olmert came there and said, listen, this campaign is in danger of failing; There are fears that troops could be found on the ground. “
Clearly, Olmert addressed these concerns and said that Bergman, a well-connected journalist on Israeli intelligence and security, would not approve of such a campaign. “
Until 2009, Netanyahu was Prime Minister under Olmert. | https://medium.com/@theinstantnews013/irans-top-nuclear-scientist-mohsen-has-been-killed-near-tehran-d1810f07737 | [] | 2020-11-27 17:14:14.870000+00:00 | ['News', 'Iran', 'BBC', 'Blog', 'War'] |
【創育機構】台北市各區域創育大蒐羅｜新創團隊進駐辦公室｜創業資源｜ | 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/actuaviz/%E5%89%B5%E8%82%B2%E6%A9%9F%E6%A7%8B-%E5%8F%B0%E5%8C%97%E5%B8%82%E5%90%84%E5%8D%80%E5%9F%9F%E5%89%B5%E8%82%B2%E5%A4%A7%E8%92%90%E7%BE%85-%E6%96%B0%E5%89%B5%E5%9C%98%E9%9A%8A%E9%80%B2%E9%A7%90%E8%BE%A6%E5%85%AC%E5%AE%A4-%E5%89%B5%E6%A5%AD%E8%B3%87%E6%BA%90-1b592b8a3d3d | ['Coco Lu'] | 2021-03-02 05:16:32.408000+00:00 | ['Startup Office Space', 'Startup Office', 'Startup Life', 'Startup', 'Startup Trends'] |
SPECTRUM | Start up plan…
It’s intrinsic for us humans to seek answers. It’s our evolutionary heritage, moving us forward by motivating us to find out more and use our imagination. Mystery is the ultimate trail of breadcrumbs. It piques our interest, invites us to solve or make sense of something and use our imagination to fill in the gaps.
Humans have always looked at the heavens and wondered about the nature of the objects seen in the night sky. Space exploration helps to address fundamental questions about our place in the Universe and the history of our solar system. Through addressing the challenges related to human space exploration we expand technology, create new industries, and help to foster a peaceful connection with other nations. Curiosity and exploration are vital to the human spirit and accepting the challenge of going deeper into space.
NGC 6302
Helix nebula
ABOUT AND FEATURES
Spectrum is a place where you can explore as much as you want about the space you live in, the app is not only about the solar system but also contains data about the universe, nebula, supernova, andromeda, black holes, stars, planets discovered, time in space, and things you would like to know about.
Not only you’ll get theories but also videos that you can watch on the app, there is a library for the book lovers written by famous writers and researchers. It also consists of a group chat area, where anyone can create a chat room and invite people in your friend list on the app and talk together with people having common interest as you. You can also write your own blogs on the app and post it on the app for public to read and comment on it.
One can have a blast studying, exploring and chatting with friends. All this shows how this app is better than websites. It’ll give you the ease to explore most of the things and comparatively more. People spend time browsing and most probably don’t get everything they were looking for but here you can look up to it and even discuss about it in the group chats, this app will basically bring your interest more closer to you and will add even more fun when you’ll meet pals of same interest and will also learn many new things from them, amazing, right?
MARKET DEMAND
Customers always want something worth time spending in. Parents want their wards to always learn something new and I think this app will surely be approved by them. Market always demands something interesting and updated version of everything users like, this app is a new idea and will most probably satisfy users with its wide range. Now, when many of the people especially students stay home most of the time, they will use this app for educational purpose as well as a hobby of exploring the space. This app will be beneficial for learning purpose.
RELEVANT PRODUCTS IN MARKET
Yes, there are already many sites available to people and they also give information about the space that people look for. But if I talk about me, I sometimes don’t get what I am looking for or sometimes get something different from what I was looking for. This app will help people to get the thing of their interest in one go. Rather visiting different and hundreds of sites, you can explore as much as you want on your phone on only one app easy and not time consuming, right? You can use the browsing option in the app so if you want you can look for that topic on the google too. Not to get bored by only reading and searching there are many cool features in the app and people can stay engaged in their learning without getting distracted by looking for different locations.
For example, if you are looking for telescopes, be it Hubble, Kepler, gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, microwaves excreta and wish to see its range the discoveries made by the telescopes you can see it all together here rather than browsing it online.
TARGET COSTOMERS
As the world is growing with time, we all know how people are trying to find about new possibilities and same about the universe, like about planets where life is possible, so that we can full fill our recourses since we are guessing we might run out of some in the coming future. It’s not like only common citizens can use this app many researchers or people in production industries would want to utilise recourses from some other planet.
Well, our main target is teens and young adults, people curious about the world beyond sky and the one who like exploring. Students studying astronomy must also be keen to keep themselves updated about the new discoveries and know as much as they can. There are some people who might gave up on their interest because of different reasons but still can’t stop thinking about the things they were so into; they can always and anytime use this app to satisfy their curiosity.
Give a boost to your imagination and learning
REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE
This will be a demanding app; it’ll require good amount of time and expertise.
· Product management skills — keeping the customers happy with our services by forming a transparent screen between the developer and the users.
· Design skills — the design of the app should be appealing to the users and they should be comfortable while using the features.
· Writing skills — app should incorporate high quality writing; the texts shouldn’t be a minus point
· Coding skills — we need programming languages to build the app
· Data — the data will be the already existing data taken legally from the authorised sections.
Hardware will be our computer systems mostly and internet connections. For completing the app we will require resources and people to build and run it in the desired way and ideas to fit in every puzzle piece.
SOLUTION
Spectrum isn’t a complicated idea and it’ll be user friendly.
When a user will make an account on the app, they will get some reward every day like credits, and these will be in form of coins. User can use these coins to unlock books and videos or use to build their profiles any which way they want to.
BUILD IN YOUR PROFILE- make your account and build your profile page, you’ll get different fonts and background colors or you can import yours from your gallery and make it attractive and reflecting your personality.
LOOKING UP FOR VIDEOS AND BOOKS- there will be an option for you to use the application and it will be available on your profile page. in the videos you can either watch the local ones by paying up with your coins or either it’ll open the preferred link for you the app page itself, and same will be for the books
GROUP CHATS- you can make your own group and invite people in or you can either join already made chat groups and exchange your thoughts about your interests.
WRITING BLOGS- these blogs will be displayed on your profile and you can post it publicly or only for the friends in your friend list.
BUDGET AND PRICING
The budget is really important. When installing this app, you’ll be requested to pay a small amount of rupees 115 and it’ll be asked to pay only once at the time of installing. After this you can use it for free, rather all the unlocking in the app will be done by the coins you’ll earn every day, or you can either pay small additional amounts to unlock books. We will try our best to earn trust of the users regarding their payment and privacy.
Advertisement of app will be done and it’ll cost us too, it’ll be on televisions and newspapers adds, so we expect good profit on its launching to compensate the efforts. After selling it till we feel its stabilized and people are happy with it will plan on sponsorship.
RISK ANALYSIS
Though the app is really good we know it’ll take some time to grow. I am still concerned about the working of the app, as in if it’ll slow down the performance of some certain smartphones. Since it’ll be a new idea in the market many will be excited about it and want to try and give reviews about it, so I want to make sure the software doesn’t crash or something like that when there is huge number of users, since there will a load on the software when multiple users from different location will install it and use it. If the performance on the first day drops it’ll be hard to relaunch it and get reviews again.
MILESTONE AND TIMELINE
The estimated time for this app will be around a year and a half since we’ll start from the scratch with a brand-new idea. With all good and expertise resources in our hands it’ll be over in this much time. The main task according to me will be collecting the data and designing it in a user-friendly way so that people can access everything with ease. There will a lot of data that we would need to save ourselves that we don’t need our users to look up for on different websites.
After building up the app we will do several tests to check the performance and on different smartphones. This testing will check all the features and entries we made. the privacy will also be tested if the software is able to secure everything and no loop holes are there. It’ll be seen if the app consumes too much battery life and internet data. After several other testing that would be necessary to test, we will launch the app in a month of time.
The first launch will of curse be in India, on google play, and after its success here it’ll be launched in different countries.
When a web page like of NASA is available, I wish to have data compatible to it. With videos and additional features planned its expected to attract people, where one can only read the theories and long paragraphs, I want the user to be relaxed while chatting with others in the group chats. This will make users satisfied with the application for which they paid. The best and the happiest moment will be when the space scientists of India will appreciate the efforts. | https://medium.com/@kalpanaspectrum/spectrum-fb1340ca2242 | ['Kalpana Sharma'] | 2020-12-20 13:58:02.591000+00:00 | ['App Development', 'Space Exploration', 'Startup'] |
Der Trumpischer-Republikaner Anschluss | Nothing lost in translation here. The German title fits perfectly with Trump’s repeated trumpeting of pride in his German blood. His bloodless hostile takeover of the the Republican Party is exactly what Germany did to Austria in 1938. Anschluss fits with Trump’s pride in his German “blood”, not heritage, in which he hierarchically ranks racial groups (Nordic vs “shithole countries”, “you people in Minnesota have the best genes”), not genetic differences between individuals. When Fuhrer says it was nothing but a “lovefest” with “hugs and kisses” and his followers tell you “it was a normal tourist visit”, they’re telling you who they are. Listen:
https://d270q3x44w3dx0.cloudfront.net/images2/a/7/1/a/1/a71a1b6e-1174-3777-9865-0e42623811cb-620x465.jpg Target, “traitor” Mike Pence
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/christian-nationalism-capitol-riot_n_60131286c5b63b0fb27f28e9 White Christian nationalists love their Rambo Trump who’ll make America godly again
QAnon Christian nationalist enrolls Jesus in QAnon with WWG1WGA https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol_DSC09170_%2850826699171%29.jpg
https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2021/01/08/heres-what-the-costumes-and-flags-on-display-at-the-pro-trump-insurrection-mean/ Caesar Trump dipped his toe in the water, found it too cold and stayed onshore.
Where Gleichschaltung leads. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-camp-auschwitz-shirt-photographed-u-s-capitol-riot-arrested-n1254070
Der Trumpishcer Gleichschaltung
This Nazi term for imposing uniformity describes today’s Republican Party, with Liz Cheney now bound for the frozen wastes of Republican primary Trumpistan. There’s no more daylight between the inside and outside the Capitol Big Liars. With sympathy for the would-be Capitol bomber, Mo Brooks again shows nothing separates the January 6 Stop the Steal neo-confederate flag wavers and gallows builders outside from the election decertifying Republican congressmen inside.
Der Trumpisch Anschluss und Gleichschaltung of the Republican Party that swept away Cheney, Romney and Kinzinger and neutered McCarthy, McConnell and Graham, is the Big Lie feedback loop between white Christian nationalist outsider insurrectionists and their insider instigators and enablers.
Trump’s ring-kissers signal the Stop the Steal base to sit tight while they pass the voter suppression laws that will legalize what the seditionist tip of the Trumpublican spear could not obtain by force on January 6. This is how to understand the Republican congressmen’s denials that any insurrection took place.
The legal problem this poses for Trumpian congressmen who’d like to send the insurrection down a memory hole is that they’re simultaneously signalling the national security state to pay more attention to possible links between them and the insurrectionary “tourists” of January 6. It is also the doom loop in which Foxified alternative fact unreality has entrapped Republican leaders whose sole ideology is staying in power. Ted “Cancun Cruiser” Cruz’s mafioso threat to corporations taking a stand against voter suppression laws said the quiet part out loud.
Fist Pumpin’ Josh “Heartland” Hawley: “does not regret giving a clinched fist salute to a group of Trump supporters in the run-up to the Capitol riot because, as he explained Tuesday, there’s no proof members of that group participated in violent acts. ‘No, because I don’t know which of those protesters — if any of them — those demonstrators, participated in the criminal riot,’” (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/josh-hawley-defends-his-fist-pump-before-the-capitol-riot/ar-BB1gmgG3)
Memory hole Hawley must believe it was Antifa or an FBI setup.
Ring-kisser Kevin McCarthy in January: “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.” The California congressman also floated the possibility of a censure resolution, which would’ve formally condemned Trump for his actions.”
Ring-kisser Kevin McCarthy now: ”I was the first person to contact him when the riots were going on,” McCarthy said [on Fox News Sunday]. “He didn’t see it. What he ended the call with saying was telling me he’ll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that’s what he did. He put a video out later.” (https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/mccarthy-contradicts-mccarthy-trump-jan-6-attack-n1265397)
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson: “By and large, it was peaceful protest, except for there were a number of people, basically agitators that whipped the crowd and breached the Capitol.” (https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/554548-ron-johnson-jan-6-capitol-riot-was-largely-peaceful-not-an-insurrection)
“Little Marco” Rubio in January: “agreed that the former president “bears responsibility for some of what happened.”
Memory hole Marco now: “slams the proposed January 6 commission as ‘a partisan joke’ that’s ‘about damaging Republicans’ (https://www.businessinsider.com/rubio-january-6-commission-partisan-joke-republicans-capitol-riot-2021-5?op=1)
A simple thought experiment can explain why these Anschlussed Trumpublicans tie themselves into such knots. It should be as much fun for the populist white nationalist Trumpster base as aiming a Rothschild space laser at Nancy Pelosi’s house in San Francisco, since it would make elected Republican conservatives squirm in agony:
Trump is still president and signs executive orders that:
Nationalize Facebook, Twitter, CNN, Google, Amazon, Apple because they’re instruments of totalitarian liberal censorship and cancel culture. Withdraw the US from NATO. Authorize the open carry of guns in all fifty states, including by employees on the private premises of their employers. The order bans searches of employee cars for firearms and bans employers from asking employees if they have firearms in their cars (hint: this is a property rights question). The order also grants employers a full exemption from liability for firearms injuries or death that occur on their premises. Order a revote in Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse union election to get back at space cowboy Bezos. Ban mask mandates and vaccine passports by airlines, sports and concert venues and cruise ships. Give retroactive qualified immunity to anyone who hits a BLM protester with a car. Order all imports from China banned and delist all Chinese companies from American securities markets within 120 days Apply stand your ground laws to the protection of confederate statues as well as personal self-defense. Order Hillary Clinton interned in the basement of the Comet Rocket pizzeria in Washington, DC. Order Hunter Biden interned in the same place as Hillary.
The post-Anschluss Trumpublican Party primaries into Gleichschaltung any elected Republican who doesn’t support all of the above. What do you think McCarthy, McConnell, Graham & Co. will do? The squirming and twisting above is proof the question has already answered itself. | https://extranewsfeed.com/der-trumpischer-republikaner-anschluss-f9c8f0fc2995 | ['Lester Golden'] | 2021-09-02 14:53:06.786000+00:00 | ['Insurrection', 'Capitol Riot', 'Trumpism', 'German', 'Republican Party'] |
Uh Oh Moschino: The latest brand hit with allegations of discrimination | Here we are, a mere few weeks into 2019, and fashion brands STILL don’t know how to act right.
This time, the offender is the Italian brand, Moschino, who is best known for their bold and satire laden pieces. Literally short months after Moschino dropped heavily hip-hop-influenced collection with H&M (barely recovering from their own racist marketing misstep), the Italian luxury label is being sued for racial profiling and discrimination by a former employee.
Shamael Lataillade, a Haitian-American and former employee of Moschino, makes several claims against her store managers at a Moschino store in West Hollywood, including saying that the supervisor discriminated against her and mocked her as someone who “practices voodoo”.
However, the most incendiary of Shamael’s claims is the use of codename “Serena” for Black customers who they felt couldn’t afford anything in the store. Serena, like Serena Williams, the greatest athlete alive right now, who could easily buy the entirety of that particular Moschino boutique if she so chose.
In her lawsuit, Shamael alleges that the store supervisor instructed store employees to watch black shoppers in particular, and to watch them particularly closely “if they didn’t have diamonds or carry name brands.” Store associates were also instructed to tell so-called “Serenas” certain items were out of stock in order to get them out of the store. The suit also alleges that the supervisor in question would record license plate numbers of black clients, and in one instance, called the police on a “suspicious” customer, Shamael says. That customer “turned out to be a high-profile rapper.”
Moschino has denied the allegations saying “complies with applicable equal employment laws and values and respects all customers and clients regardless of their race or background.” Interestingly enough, Shamael was terminated for speaking out against the codeword and other racist practices occurring at the store to Moschino corporate according to the suit.
To be honest, Moschino is a surprising brand to see this behavior from. This label is best associated with rappers like Offset and Cardi B among many others. The label’s creator, Jeremy Scott, has spoken out about gun violence and gun control as well as many other issues.
That all being said, a brand can be easily taken down by the individuals within it. After all, a brand is not a person but is comprised of many people. People with their own biases. People with their own ideas and ideals. People with their own hatred. While Moschino the brand may easily align itself with hip hop culture and people of color, individuals who work within that brand can just as easily not align themselves with those same ideals.
This post was originally shared on The Reclaimed Blog. | https://thereclaimed.medium.com/uh-oh-moschino-the-latest-brand-hit-with-allegations-of-discrimination-9b285064df99 | ['Whitney Alese'] | 2019-01-09 20:22:06.062000+00:00 | ['Fashion', 'Bias', 'Racism'] |
A Better Bezier Curve — A Polynomial in SwiftUI | A Better Bezier Curve — A Polynomial in SwiftUI
A Bernstein polynomial curve.
I published two articles earlier this month on Bezier curves in iOS — the first on using the paradigms within iOS and the second on the math/code behind said curves.
During my research for the second article, I found myself talking to a chap in the U.S. called Alan Wolfe. A man who it seems has done a lot of work in this area. Not only did Alan help me understand De Casteljau’s formula and fix a bug in my code, but he also suggested I try Bernstein’s power basis polynomials as an alternative formula to build Bezier curves.
Polynomials sometimes make more sense. First, what’s wrong with the De Casteljau method anyway? The problem is that, well, it has a complexity of O(n2). This basically means it quickly starts to get computationally expensive as the number of control points you add increases.
Let’s revisit it briefly. Now the leading GIF of the second piece I wrote had three control points and six start/endpoints, which makes sense… only it doesn’t. You see, you’re not looking at a single Bezier curve on that GIF. You’re looking at three individual Bezier curves that I tagged together. I modified the placement of the endpoints and created another GIF to illustrate the point. The control points here are the purple, red, and yellow crosses. The start/endpoints are the red, green, blue, and yellow circles:
Three Bezier curves
If I draw a single Bezier curve with two control points, I end up with something with far less movement. You can see a single Bezier curve in this GIF:
Four Bezier curves — one long, three short
The single Bezier curve is far more stable, at least in part because of the opposing pink control point. You can also see with more points on the grey curve some incongruity with the grey line as it warps. A classic case of less is more since you don’t notice it will have fewer points (in the earlier GIF).
Hey, you still may not see the problem. The clue is in fact in the code. Ironically, to calculate the black line here (single Bezier curve with multiple control points), I needed a dozen more lines of code and temporary storage for the combined sets. Had I used Bernstein’s method, it would have been far simpler.
So how do you use Bernstein’s power base polynomials? They work like this. The variable t is time and the variable s = 1 -t. You have a distinct formula linked to the number of control points you need. There are three equations below. Obviously, you can build bigger ones using the same pattern:
Linear Bezier (aka linear interpolation): y = A*s + B*t
Quadratic Bezier: y = A*s² + 2*B*st + C*t²
Cubic Bezier: y = A*s³ + 3*B*s²t + 3*C*st² + D*t³
The magic numbers in the formulae correspond to Pascal’s triangle, which looks like this:
Pascal’s triangle
What does this look like in code and, perhaps more importantly, on paper (some electronic grid paper, that is)? Here you go:
I call this method with a single line in my code:
altPoints = bPolyCubicBezier(fp:redPoint,sp:purplePoint,tp:yellowPoint,lp:orangePoint)
This will build a cubic Bezier curve that is drawn here with triangles. There is more movement in the black line because it doesn’t take the red control point into account. If the red point swung that the same way as the purple and yellow crosses, the lines would track each other.
A Bernstein polynomial and a Bezier curve
Which method do you use in which situation? Well, if you have a very specific case where you know the number of control points isn’t going to change, then Bernstein’s solution looks better. It takes less CPU and less code. But if your requirement is more generic and may change, then the De Casteljau method makes more sense — even it takes more CPU and more code.
This brings me to the end of the article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it and learned something new in the process.
Here is the code to generate and animate a polynomial. As you can see, 95% of it is simply setting up the initial values and then changing the values within them. The poly function is itself is just over a dozen lines:
Keep calm, keep coding… | https://betterprogramming.pub/a-better-bezier-curve-a-polynomial-in-swiftui-e0807e9cc214 | ['Mark Lucking'] | 2020-11-27 16:43:25.398000+00:00 | ['Swift', 'Mobile', 'Swiftui', 'iOS', 'Programming'] |
Virtual Shipment Dedicated Executive plan for B2B tie-ups. | 16-Dec-2020
Virtual Shipment helps various companies to save over 50% of their logistics cost using various Virtual Shipment’s tools and services. Providing Dedicated executives is one of the major services provided by Virtual Shipment that can help the industry to save a lot of time, money, and efforts so that the company can concentrate on other business aspects.
Virtual Shipment can take care of all the operation and documentation work for the company like arranging fleets, managing fleets, managing transit operations, monitor payments (credit and advance), manage ERP, TSP’s Document submission and verification, Fleet document submission and verification, manage loading and unloading, material documentation, verify e-way bill, manage credit & debit note and many more.
Virtual Shipment also helps to save the amount that the company is paying to its employee in means of incentive, commission, munsiyana, or whatever you call it.
When you have a lot of other things to look at they why to spend your valuable time on something that our experts can do for you?
When our Dedicated Executive Service combines with our RAOB (Reverse Auction & Open Bid) tool, it will help you to reduce the shipment/transportation cost by a huge margin. our motive is not only to arrange fleets or transporters for you, instead, but we also work on your requirements whether it is cost efficiency, service-based or lesser turn around time.
For more detail, you can contact us.
Dedicated Executive 1
Transport Manager, He/she can work from client location
(Responsible to manage requirements and track everything before the arrival of the fleet to the company’s gate and after leaving the company’s premises).
· Load Post · Manage Bids and quotations · Online Document Management · Manage Operations (transit-related) · Work as a team lead to manage Human Resources (Lead Executive 2 & 3). · Monitor payments between Client and TSP. · Manage Rating & Review · Transport Security Access management · Manage ERP
Dedicated Executive 2
Onsite Transport Supervisor, He/she can only work from client location (Responsible to manage requirements and track everything after the entrance of fleet in a company and before leaving the company’s premises).
· Physically verify driver’s, Fleet’s, and transporter’s documents · Manage Loading and Unloading · Payment confirmation for TSP (Advance) · Material Documents Verification · Verify Bilty. · Verify E-Way Bill · Credit & Debit message to TSP · No commission/munsiyana will be charged. · Lead Executive 3 to tackle TSP & Fleet behaviour.
Dedicated Executive 3
Jr. Demand Fulfilment & Field Executive (Responsible to fulfil and manage TSP end requirements).
· To arrange fleets (For Advance Payment) · To arrange Transporter (For Credit Payments) · Price/Cost Bargain · Issues resolution (Client with TSP) · Lose/Damage Verification · Police enquiry · Other fields work.
Dedicated Executive 4
Key Relationship Officer (Bridge between Client & Virtual Shipment). | https://medium.com/@dahiyasny/virtual-shipment-dedicated-executive-plan-for-b2b-tie-ups-87016446255c | ['Dahiya Sny'] | 2020-12-16 11:47:59.390000+00:00 | ['Transport Management', 'Transportmanagementsystem', 'Supply Chain', 'Virtual Shipment', 'Virtual Shipment B2b'] |
Growing an insight | Discussion
Growing an insight
Once upon a time, I was sitting with my boss in a Job. I had been setting a design according to the boss, many times he had left me free to design it. Having completed a design, the boss was seeing it very seriously and given a compliment and comments also. During these designing job, knowing in myself, once I had left some points to set in a design but boss caught that and said to me why have you left that, I replied — No need sir, we can manage this design without these things. He asked me, it’s an important thing, to do set in design. I argue, why sir, only a short point to set in design is important in your eyes. Then, he told me about an experience in his life. He told me that when he was sitting in Bollywood in a director or film editing studio, he was seeing the film editor. A scene was of a song for editing with candlelight dinner, the film editor on & off one or two candles again and again. Boss asked him, let it be, why are you engage in one or two candles, go ahead. Now the film editor said to my boss — No, we cannot remain it, because the impression of the scene would be light according to song voice. You cannot catch that, but the impression will not be able to give an impact on the audience. You are right we can leave it, but every candle is important to a strong impression. If you want to 100% outcome of a song, it is important.
So, no one point can be left. Every single point to be set in design. We cannot understand the impression of our eyesight, but the result would be light in comparison of 100%.
After that, I understand this point in my life and my perspective had been changed to seeing all things. Every one minute has importance, every small step is as important as a big step. Every percentage of percentage whether it would have in its role in minus or points (minute to minute), has a big role. So, every unit of anything is important. Now, my success is stand on all small steps. I am happy, it’s a big result of small things. In my view this is the principle of “The God of Small Things” and it can make a big success. | https://medium.com/@pranprakashsharma/growing-an-insight-eda58b04f217 | ['Pranprakash Sharma'] | 2020-12-14 14:34:40.871000+00:00 | ['Perspective', 'Insights', 'Discuss'] |
Lifecycle Methods in SwiftUI | Lifecycle Methods in SwiftUI
The missing manual
UIKit developers may have heard of the term View Life Cycle methods. Okay, if you are a UIKit developer, let me ask a few questions before we dig into the topic.
Can you please list all the view cycle methods in ViewController without touching Xcode now?
Also, can you please list the view cycle method when navigating between two ViewControllers, with the correct order? 😅
Okay, if you got the above questions correct, this will be easy for you. Can you please list the same thing when presenting a ViewController as PageSheet or FormSheet on iPad?
Little complicated, right! Maybe at least for me 🤯
We are having the number of view life cycle methods in ViewControllers, which will be called in different sequences based on our design. This might be even more complicated when we have custom UI using ContainerView on a single screen.
It’s simple in SwiftUI. | https://medium.com/better-programming/view-life-cycle-methods-in-swiftui-b7fa9f0e8dfb | ['Karthick Selvaraj'] | 2020-05-18 10:46:11.476000+00:00 | ['iOS', 'Swiftui', 'Swift', 'Programming', 'Mobile'] |
The war against fake news | Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash
It’s like the old saying goes, “Don’t always believe what you hear”. It stands true in the 21st century, with entities intentionally trying to far fetch and deter you from the truth for monetary or social gain.
News — either in the form of national broadcast channels (CBS, CNN, FOX), Apple News, Facebook News, Status Updates and other social Activities is the most consumed form of media, EVEN more than the weather! With that much attention to something, it becomes harder to predict what’s genuine and what’s not. The easier is to see if it’s been published onto other publications, but it still lingers the question-how can we legitimize news?
As the years pass we are seeing newer numbers of fake news arise. Some that try to intentionally sabotage elections, sway unsuspecting people to purchase goods and services, scammers targeting older vulnerable people or those that give false medical advice. With Covid in the ring, this dynamic is increased as we are hearing false claims about the symptoms and problems arising from the vaccines. A scare like this can really set a society back.
Our friends and colleagues come to us about something they’ve “heard” on Facebook or Instagram Ad. Fake news can spread like wild fire and it’s even harder to put it out. The Giant Facebook even struggles stopping it from growing. With new features constantly coming out that make it so easy to share the fake topics to your network at a press of a button. | https://blog.wsctechconsulting.com/the-war-against-fake-news-b63b547e17c9 | ['William Smith'] | 2020-12-22 14:04:10.686000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Apple News', 'Fake News'] |
Introduction to Java programming essentials Written by: Ibidunni Ridwan | Java was first released in 1995 by Sun Microsystem Inc. High-level
languages were first translated into instructions for a specific type of
computer but Java was given some enhancement over some of the
foremost Object-Oriented Programming languages like C.
Java
compiler instead turns code into Bytecode which will be interpreted by a
software called Java runtime environment(JRE) or the Java virtual
machine(JVM).
The virtual computer that helps in the translation of the Bytecode to the
host computer makes the Java code platform-independent.
Java can be
written once and run anywhere (WORA) that is, it can be written the same
way for many platforms (operating system). According to Oracle, Java has
one ofthe biggest global communities. Over 2 billion devices are
implemented with Java.
To be a Java programmer one needs to understand its basics which are the essentials needed to dive into Java as a programming language, core Java
is the needed basic to get the general-purpose programming concepts that
give a solid back ground in your programming career. Core Java refers to a
collection of libraries used in implementing the programming language
itself.
Some of the major concepts that one needs to understand in core Java are;
Concept of classes: this is the ‘house’ of every code you write in Java.
Methods: these are the services render by every ‘house’ (class) in Java.
Data types: are the kinds of variables you intend to store in computer
memory.
Object: is the instance of a class, that is a representation of a class from
another class that is used to access the services rendered by that class.
Programming structure: this is divided into the sequential structure, which
executes an action on a linear path, the repetitive or iterative structure,
which are used to go over some series of actions for a particular condition,
and the selection structure which deals with choices to be made while
executing an event.
Array and ArrayList: are used in storing multiple data of the same data type.
It is used in creating tables of values for complex computation like Matrix.
Object-oriented programming concepts(OOP): this is a major concept that
makes our Java code flexible and reusable. It involves topics like
inheritance, which deals with classes absorbing or inheriting (extending)
the public features of its superclass. Another concept is polymorphism
which helps in processing our subclasses generally.
Java is a very versatile language that has a crucial role in preparing you as
a programmer. It goes in-depth to show you what is happening behind the
scene. Java should be considered as a language to learn because of its
uniqueness like;
Speed: A well-optimized Java code is almost as fast as a low-level
language like C or C++and faster than other object-oriented languages
like Python and PHP.
Platform independent: Java is not dependent on its platform to perform
optimally. Java code written on Windows OS can be run on MacOS without
any modifications.
Popularity:Java has one of the largest communities out there and these
made Oracle create different versions of Java.
By:
Ibidunni Ridwan (aljebra school of thought)
[email protected] | https://medium.com/@ibidunniridwanaljebrah/introduction-to-java-programming-essentials-written-by-ibidunni-ridwan-45ceb978687a | ['Ibidunni Ridwan Aljebrah'] | 2020-12-26 17:32:18.052000+00:00 | ['Developer', 'Programming Languages', 'Java', 'Programming', 'Communication'] |
The Dark Side Of Body Positivity Movement. | With the risk of getting involved in something way bigger than me, I am going to share my thoughts about body positivity. Not by challenging its beliefs. But by expressing my concerns regarding the health dangers of it.
Let’s start first by talking about body positivity.
It started back in the 1850s, with the first wave of feminism. A movement called Victorian Dress Reform Movement aimed to put an end to women having to wear tight corsets, in order to modify their waist, so it fits the social standards. The main goal was acceptance of all body types, regardless of waist measurements. Great start and admiration. Women are not a tool that has to fit the male beauty standards, especially when there is a health risk.
Later, the movement evolved to the creation of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance in 1966. Aiming to change the discrimination, based on body weight. Its goal was also to raise the awareness of distinguishing the fat body and the unhealthy obese, claiming that health is better determined by clinical measurements, rather than physical appearance. Very true. How many unhealthy fit looking people do we know?
The movement has later on evolved to the second wave, aiming to make places for people of all sizes, where they can comfortably gather and exercise. Home workouts and specialized programs called “Yoga for rounded bodies” were made for those who were not comfortable, joining wellness classes. Yes and no if you ask me. Yes, because people should be able to exercise and we should aim to provide them with any sort of knowledge and comfort, so they can do so. And No, because I believe that getting comfortable to train in front of other people is the first step to body positivity and accepting body appearance.
The final stage of the movement we know today happened with the launch of social media. The movement then challenged the unrealistic. Fashion agencies and Instagram models started advertising oversize clothes. In 2016 a company released a barbie doll with three different body shapes, seven skin colors, twenty-two eye colors, and twenty-four hairstyles.
It is all great. If body positivity aims to connect people with different skin colors, body shapes, and so on. We are all humans after all, and no matter how we look on the outside, we are all the same. Why? Well, think about it this way. No matter the differences, we all need air to breathe, water to drink, a place to live, and sun. if we all depend on the same 4 requirements, we are all the same. Period.
I am a huge advocate of body positivity, as the healthy and capable body has way more value than the good-looking one. And on top of that everyone has a different perception of a good-looking body.
Recently the fitness industry is kind of setting the standards of fit and sexy body, stating the no pain no gain approach, where the body appearance is more valued than the health. which is alarming, first because, health is more important, at least in my mind, and second, because it still focuses on the body appearance.
However, like any other global movement, body positivity has its dark sides, and this is what I want to stress in this blog.
In order for you to get my point, I want to start a bit further, by talking a bit about motivation.
What motivates you to change, to exercise, to eat healthily? In my experience, there are three types of motivation.
The first one is motivation by health.
You want to feel better, to move pain-free, to have better sleep, more energy, no digestion issues. You decide to change your lifestyle, by adjusting your diet and introducing exercises. Soon you feel better and that change becomes your new lifestyle. Health is the driver for your changes.
The second one is the performance.
People that want to lift heavy weights, run, jump, swim fast. People that care about performing at their max. What motivates them to go out there and train. To push and evolve their body, (hopefully to healthy limits) and to change their diet accordingly. Being able to perform a certain way is a pretty good motivator for changing a lot of aspects of your life.
The third one is body image.
People that have hated the look of their bodies. Those people change their diet, start to exercise, and move, just because there is no other way to look better. No matter if they are fat or skinny, the goal is to change their appearance. That is not too bad, and it is still a start, as their goals can change later to performance. Or health for that matter.
Now, people that have any kind of sports background are easily motivated, and for them having six-pack abs, or a bit more muscles, does not matter, as they feel and perform well. It is often that those people often look way better, just because they prioritize the active lifestyle more than the sedentary one.
But, what about the people that are 30 years old and are sedentary? They do not care about performing with their body. They also feel healthy, or at least are not aware of the problems they might have. Those people are more likely to be motivated by looking at their body image and starting the changes from there.
This is where I see a potential problem with body positivity.
Imagine the scenario, where the person who does not care about health and performance, decides to change his lifestyle, in order to change his body appearance. He starts to look for information on the internet, and sooner or later that person finds out about the body positivity movement. But not the one that says: Hey, do not be dogmatic, love your body, and make sure it is healthy, regardless of its look. No, that person sees the message of an obese and unhealthy-looking person that is saying: Hey being very fat is very OK. You should love your body. What is associated with a person that is very obese? Usually not exercising, and not healthy eating. So, our subject that wants to change his look, now thinks that it does not really matter how he looks, because he is positive about his body appearance. Now, we did not only eliminate the only option we had to change. But we advocate even more the same unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle.
The problem for me is not the movement itself or the message of it. The problem is that the message can be misunderstood.
I am not saying that having fats is bad. I am saying that having extremely large amounts of fat is bad. I am not saying that being 10 kilograms heavier is bad. I am saying that being 50 kilograms heavier is. I am saying that body positivity is good, and we should push it. But with the right messages.
Let’s show people that not having a perfect-looking body is OK. It can be healthy and can perform well. Let’s switch the focus from body perfection to health. Let’s switch to performance. But let’s not forget the motivation factors too.
Instead of demonizing the body image and turning a movement into a more unhealthy approach, let’s use it as a tool to educate people to do it correctly.
We cannot eliminate body image issues. However, by teaching body positivity, the right way, we can build a better relationship with ourselves. Better training and eating relationships are going to work for us.
Initially, the body positivity movement was created to fight discrimination, unhealthy stereotypes, and equality issues. Recently we have witnessed that, just like any other global movement, there is a dark side, and it can be pretty dangerous.
Dangerous in the long term, because, by regulating what is normal and what is not, we risk normalizing the unhealthy lifestyle.
Be positive. | https://byrslf.co/the-dark-side-of-body-positivity-movement-e89016968f27 | ['Petyo Kozhuharov'] | 2021-08-12 14:09:21.656000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Body Image', 'Love', 'Health', 'Beyourself'] |
Basics: Gradient*Input as Explanation | Basics: Gradient*Input as Explanation
In this post, I want to get to the basics of gradient-based explanations, how you can use them, and what they can or can’t do.
Gradient*Input is a great way to explain differentiable machine learning models, such as neural networks, because it is conceptually simple and easy to implement. Computing gradients is also very fast, especially if you make use of modern ML libraries, like pytorch, TensorFlow, or JAX, that include automatic differentiation.
Gradient*Input is only suitable for explaining relatively simple models, but it is an essential concept, necessary to understand a host of other gradient-based techniques that are more robust.
What are gradients?
Chances are you have come across gradients in high-school or university classes. This will not be a rigorous introduction, but just a quick reminder.
First, we need to remember what derivatives are. In essence, the derivative of a differentiable function, f(x): ℝ → ℝ, tells us for any input x how much f(x) will change if we increase x a little bit.
Blue: The function f(x). Red arrows: Derivative of f(x) at two different x. The derivative itself (one number) is just the incline of the arrow. Image by author.
This is useful for example for convex optimization problems: To find a minimum we just start at any point and go into the direction in which f(x) decreases the most and repeat calculating the gradient and taking steps until we arrived at the minimum, i.e. gradient descent.
The gradient of a differentiable function f(x): ℝ^d → ℝ is just a vector of (partial) derivatives of f(x) w.r.t. to every of the d dimensions of x.
Blue: The function f(x1, x2). Red arrows: Gradient of f(x1, x2) at two different points. Image by author.
The gradient tells us for any point (x1,x2) how much f(x1, x2) will change when taking a small step in any direction in the d-dimensional input space. Thus, it also tells us in what direction f(x1, x1) will increase the most.
Formally, we write the gradient of f(x) w.r.t. x as ∇f(x).
What does an attribution look like?
A large class of explanation methods meant to explain machine learning models is called attribution methods, producing explanations called attributions. The purpose of an attribution is to attribute a share of the responsibility for a particular output to every dimension of the respective input.
For example, consider a DNN trained to recognize crocodiles from an image. An attribution method would assign a score to every pixel of the input, indicating how much this pixel contributed to the final output (crocodile or not-crocodile). If we put these individual attributions back together into a matrix, we typically call them an attribution map. We can visualize an attribution map as an image, indicating which regions of the image are important.
Left: Crocodile from ImageNet2012 dataset. Right: One possible attribution map, overlayed over the original image. Image by author.
There are different ways of creating attribution maps and generally, there is no ground-truth to tell us which pixel contributed how much to the output. That is why no attribution method can claim it is “the right one”. Generally, they all have different properties that may be useful in different application scenarios.
What is Gradient*Input?
Gradient*Input is one attribution method, and among the most simple ones that make sense. The idea is to use the information of the gradient of a function (e.g. our model), which tells us for each input dimension whether the function will increase if we take a tiny step in this direction. If our function output is, say, the probability of the image containing a crocodile, then the gradient basically tells us how much each dimension increases the model’s prediction of crocodileness.
Now, if we know for each dimension how much one step in this direction increases the output, we just need to multiply it with the input itself to get a complete attribution.
The idea is that the gradient tells us the importance of a dimension, and the input tells us how strongly this dimension is expressed in the image. Putting this together, the attribution for a dimension is only high if 1) the dimension seems to be important for the output and 2) the value for the dimension is high.
So far, it seems all very reasonable. There is only one problem: the gradient only tells us the importance of a dimension if we just take a tiny step. This is very local information, and when explaining complex functions, the gradient can change quickly even after a few tiny steps in the input space. This means that the function might go up if we take a step in the gradient direction, but it might also go down if we take a larger step in the same direction — effectively invalidating the explanation provided by gradients.
Now that sounds pretty disappointing and there are certainly datasets and models for which Gradient*Input does better than for others. If you are trying to explain a shallow neural network, it is still worth a try.
There are remedies to this problem though, which rely on the same principle as Gradient*Input but make it more robust. Perhaps the simplest are SmoothGrad and Integrated Gradients but there are countless other methods out there that are more sophisticated and may build on different principles.
Closing Words & Alternatives
Gradient*Input’s strength that it is so simple and fast. It is also a solid conceptual basis for more involved explanation methods.
The downside of vanilla gradients as an explanation method is that they are only suitable to explain a function locally. This means, that you should only use them to explain rather simple functions because simplicity implies that they behave similarly globally as they do locally.
In one of my previous posts, I made a comparison of gradient-based explanation methods. All of them are based on Gradient*Input, and adapt it to be more suitable for explaining complex functions.
Of course, there are many more explanation methods out there. The most popular ones include Occlusion Analysis, SmoothGrad, Integrated Gradients, Expected Gradients, LRP, DeepLIFT, and Shapley Values. I would suggest turning to them if you want to explain deep neural networks.
I hope you learned something useful. | https://towardsdatascience.com/basics-gradient-input-as-explanation-bca79bb80de0 | ['Eugen Lindwurm'] | 2021-03-03 21:01:02.889000+00:00 | ['Editors Pick', 'Getting Started', 'Interpretable Ai', 'Model Interpretability', 'Machine Learning'] |
Haoli Studies the Usage of mpMRI on Prostate Cancer Lesion Detection | How did you first become interested in science or research, and when did you first get involved with computer science?
Ever since I was little, I’ve always been interested in how life works, from how cancer forms to how the stomach digests food. As I grew older, I began investigating these topics. I became interested in interdisciplinary sciences and have found the cross-over between biology and computer science especially interesting.
In my freshman year of high school, I started computer science and took my first computer science class on Java and object-oriented programming. From there, I was able to take at least one computer science pretty much every year in high school, from Java to Python. I also competed in the USA Computing Olympiad (USACO), where my interest in computer science sparked.
Are there any particular biological, scientific, or technological innovations that you’re excited about?
For the past few years, I have learned about CRISPR systems through Science Olympiad. Recently, I read an article about a new technology called retrons, which is very similar to CRISPR and is part of the bacterial immune system. They can be used for gene-editing, which I think has a lot of potential in the future. I also recently became interested in the research being done at the Stanford Prakash lab. I love their idea of “frugal science” where you take advanced medical topics and turn them into accessible health resources, like toys, to people all over the world. I think this is a really important area we should concentrate on, especially during the pandemic.
What extracurricular activities are you involved in?
For the past four years, I’ve been involved in the Science Olympiad where I was able to pursue my interests in biology, computer science, and engineering. For the past two years, I have been the captain of my team and have led and motivated my team to succeed at numerous national tournaments.
Outside of Science Olympiad, I tutor students. I found that quarantine really restricted the amount of learning that could happen within my school and community. During quarantine, I was able to learn front end development languages, and I competed in various global hackathons with a few friends. We developed Modulus, an edtech startup that allows for intuitive course delivery to continue education during this time. Modulus is a peer-to-peer course delivery platform where students and teachers can learn, teach, and deliver content. So far, we’ve partnered with around 25 education nonprofits and have hosted over 2,000 users on five continents. That’s something I’m really excited about, and you can learn more about the platform here.
What are your hobbies outside of school?
For the past seven years, I’ve played the viola. I really enjoy making music and listening to music, all the way from classical genres to lo-fi. I also have worked on engineering projects, such as building model planes. In Science Olympiad, I participate in an event called Wright Stuff, where you essentially build a model plane. I really enjoy tinkering, designing, and just experimenting. I’ve learned a lot from the experimental process.
Have you ever conducted research before?
I’ve always wanted to, but I’ve never found the opportunity. SSI opened up this whole new world of research for me. I had such a great first experience and I look forward to my next research opportunity.
Can you explain your SSI research project in layman’s-terms?
Over the summer, I conducted medical imaging research and used machine learning to detect prostate cancer from MRI scans. MRIs have played an increasingly important role in the detection of prostate cancer lesions, but radiologists have a wide range of experiences and training, which can lead to inaccurate results and human error. I implemented 5 different machine learning classifiers to study three zones of the prostate. I trained a deep learning classifier to help validate a radiologist’s predictions, increased the interpretability of these models through saliency models, and paved the way for future investigation to better understand hidden features and biomarkers for prostate cancer detection using MRIs.
What was your inspiration for your SSI research project?
As I mentioned before, I’m very interested in biology and computer science, so I wanted to do a project that involved both. That’s why I was interested in medical imaging; it incorporates biology, data science, and cancer research. My mentor introduced me to computer vision and I just jumped straight in. I found a prostate cancer dataset, did more background research into gaps in the field, and came up with my project from there.
What was the most challenging part of conducting your research? How did you overcome it?
That’s a funny story. Two weeks into my project, I found out that I had data leakage. I was testing my machine learning classifiers on the same set of data that I used to train it on, which was fundamentally wrong. I had to brainstorm potential solutions with my mentor, and we came up with a data augmentation method to generate more negative samples so that different images could be used between the training and test sets, thus preventing leakage.
What was your favorite part of the research process?
I think it was embracing uncertainty as a problem solver. The most exciting part for me was finding out the results. Seeing all your work compiled in the end, especially the performance graphs, is very rewarding. I saw that over time, I had higher AUCs, meaning my classifiers got better at the task I was trying to complete. I had an AUC of 0.73 in the beginning, but after augmenting the data and training the model, it came up to 0.98, which was absolutely amazing.
What was the most valuable lesson or skill you learned from SSI?
Learning programming and data science was really valuable for me. Even though I took several computer science courses before, I usually learned about algorithmic development, like how to reduce Big O and how to make sure everything is as efficient as possible. From SSI, I was able to learn data science and how to utilize different Python libraries, which is something that you don’t really learn in school. Learning about all these libraries and how to apply them to my project was very valuable.
I also learned how to be resilient in the face of challenges, especially when I stayed up until 2 AM trying to finish different aspects of my project and kept running into more and more bugs. I learned that Stack Overflow is your best friend, and I learned how to debug. Also, I learned how to write a scientific paper. Writing the abstract was especially challenging because I had to condense my entire paper into one little paragraph, so I worked with an SSI mentor to plan out my abstract.
What was your favorite memory from SSI over the summer?
It was definitely meeting lots of people throughout the nation. That’s something that I don’t really get to do very often since my only other opportunity of meeting people is through Science Olympiad national tournaments. I really enjoyed being able to relate to other students while bonding over a similar passion for scientific research and development. This is a memory I’ll carry throughout my life, and I’m still in contact with some of these students. Obviously, you learn so much from SSI, but people are kind of what make SSI.
What have you been working on more recently? Are there any upcoming projects or research you’re excited about?
I’m really looking forward to the spring. I have an internship at a heart clinic, where I will shadow doctors and learn how to apply EKGs and all sorts of other things. I also have an interview with a Stanford bioengineering startup coming up. Over the summer, I’m hoping to conduct research again and further the research that I’ve already been doing.
What are your long term career goals?
During SSI, learning about data science and its applications in the medical field was really important for me, and it really inspired me to be open-minded to different tasks and to remain curious. In college, I hope to major in biomedical engineering and explore everything this diverse field has to offer, from tissue engineering to biocomputation to medical imaging. As of now, I envision two potential paths after that. Hopefully, I’ll either go into research and development at a medical device company or practice medicine as a radiologist or cardiologist. | https://medium.com/summer-stem-institute/haoli-studies-the-usage-of-mpmri-on-prostate-cancer-lesion-detection-6242e5040eee | ['Summer Stem Institute', 'Ssi'] | 2021-01-15 22:43:47.260000+00:00 | ['Summer Program', 'Education', 'High School Education', 'High School'] |
What You Need to Know About COVID Vaccines: Fact vs. Fiction | You may have heard a lot of different things about the new COVID-19 vaccines — some good, some questionable. For many, the vaccines a brilliant medical breakthrough that will help pull us out of the pandemic, but there’s also a bunch of misinformation about them. With so much information being shared online, it can be tough to figure out what’s true and what isn’t. We’ve put together a list of some common myths floating around out there about the vaccines so you can separate fact from fiction.
Fact: Years of prior research helped speed up the process. The remarkable speed of the COVID-19 vaccine development isn’t magic or a miracle. It’s the result of years and years of hard work and previous research on other viruses, including coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS. Using the prior research, scientists were able to quickly come up with effective and safe vaccines.
Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines use the same mRNA technology, but they have minor differences. For instance, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is approved for people aged 16 and older, is 95% effective at preventing COVID-19 infection, and requires 2 shots delivered 21 days apart. The Moderna vaccine is approved for people aged 18 and older, is 94.1% effective, and requires 2 shots delivered 28 days apart.
Fact: All vaccines have to adhere to strict safety standards. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) sets rigorous safety and efficacy guidelines for all vaccines, including the ones for COVID-19. A new vaccine has to go through phases of testing and trials where it’s given to a group of people who are then studied to make sure it’s effective and safe.
The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) sets rigorous safety and efficacy guidelines for all vaccines, including the ones for COVID-19. A new vaccine has to go through phases of testing and trials where it’s given to a group of people who are then studied to make sure it’s effective and safe. Every COVID vaccine that has been approved has met these standards and are considered safe and effective.
During the trials, negative side effects are also studied. The FDA won’t approve a vaccine that isn’t safe for the general public.
Fact: The approved vaccines do not contain any live virus in them. Every approved COVID-19 vaccine is an mRNA vaccine. These types of vaccines work by teaching your body to recognize specific proteins on the surface of COVID-19 so your immune system is able to fight off the virus. They don’t actually have the coronavirus in them, so there isn’t a chance the vaccine could ever give you the virus.
Some vaccines for other diseases, such as measles, mumps, and rubella, do use a weakened or dead strain of the live virus. But all of the current COVID-19 vaccines do not.
Fact: The COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t affect fertility at all. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines essentially teach your body’s immune system how to fight off the virus. But it doesn’t affect the fertility of women.
In fact, during the Pfizer vaccine trials, 23 women volunteers became pregnant. Only 1 woman suffered a pregnancy loss, but she was actually given the placebo, which means she hadn’t received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Fact: You can get re-infected with COVID-19. The truth is that people who have gotten sick with the virus can really still benefit from getting the vaccine. It can help prevent potential reinfection, and while you may be protected from getting the virus again for a time, there isn’t enough available evidence to know how long that will be.
The truth is that people who have gotten sick with the virus can really still benefit from getting the vaccine. It can help prevent potential reinfection, and while you may be protected from getting the virus again for a time, there isn’t enough available evidence to know how long that will be. Scientists won’t know exactly how immunity produced by the vaccine lasts until we have more data and info about it.
Fact: mRNA never interacts with your DNA. Messenger ribonucleic acid, a.k.a. mRNA, is basically a set of instructions that tells your immune system to recognize “spike proteins” that exist on the surface of COVID-19 so your body can fight any that it finds. The mRNA never enters the nucleus of your body’s cells, which is where DNA is stored. Because they never actually interact with one another, there’s no way the mRNA could change your DNA.
Fact: Most side effects are very mild. Some people can have side effects that are similar to other vaccines such as muscle pain, chills, and a headache. These are actually normal signs that your body is building up protection, and they should go away within a few days.
Although it’s extremely rare, some people can have allergic reactions to ingredients used in a vaccine. If you have a history of severe allergic reactions, such as anaphylaxis, talk to your doctor. They may recommend that you not get the vaccine.
Though scientists aren’t exactly sure, an allergic reaction may be caused by the vaccine antigen, residual animal protein, antimicrobial agents, preservatives, stabilizers, or other vaccine components.
Fact: There is no evidence that any vaccines cause autism. This myth has been associated with other vaccines as well, such as the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. It stems from a discredited study that incorrectly linked vaccines to autism in children. There is zero evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines cause autism in children or adults.
Fact: There’s no evidence that available vaccines won’t work. While it’s true that there are new strains of coronavirus that are spreading quickly and may be more contagious, there isn’t any convincing data that suggests that currently available vaccines will be ineffective. Viruses mutate often and the current vaccines appear to be effective against the new strains. | https://medium.com/@wikihowcourses/what-you-need-to-know-about-covid-vaccines-fact-vs-fiction-45882016fe17 | [] | 2021-03-25 02:51:29.679000+00:00 | ['Wikihow', 'Safety', 'Vaccines', 'Wikihow Partnership', 'Covid'] |
How to select an Integration Platform for your Business — Part III | How to select an Integration Platform for your Business — Part III Chanaka Fernando Follow Jan 15 · 8 min read
Let’s select the right integration platform for your business
This article is part III of a series of articles written on the topic. You can find the first 2 articles in the below links.
How to make your Integration platform cloud-native?
The integration platform that you choose should be future-proof and cloud-native or cloud-ready. The layman’s definition of the word cloud-native is “to reap the benefits of the cloud”. At a high-level, cloud computing offers you the capabilities like
High availability — available across the globe
Elasticity — can scale up and down as and when necessary
Scalability — expand to global scales
Cost savings — pay as you go
There are many other aspects, but we can consider these as the basic advantages of the cloud. Let’s see how we can align our integration platform to reap the benefits of the cloud. There is an entirely different set of advantages offered by container platforms and microservices architecture which is not mentioned here. Once you have the platform designed for the cloud, you can consider gaining those advantages also through the same.
One of the fundamental aspects of scalability and maintainability is modular architecture. If you have all the functionality baked into a single monolithic application, scaling becomes much harder. The concepts like microservices architecture have come up to address the problems which are surfaced with this monolithic architecture. Once the functional components are divided into compatible yet independent modules, the deployment becomes much more flexible. Let’s discuss how to define a cloud-native architecture for your integration platform.
Figure: Cloud-native, brown-field integration solution architecture
The above architecture is an extension of the API-led architecture that we discussed in earlier sections. We have introduced a couple of new components to this platform so that we cover the modern requirements like event-driven architecture and analytics. Let’s discuss the components in this diagram in detail below.
Messaging System — This component is required when there is a need to process a huge amount of asynchronous data points (events) coming into the system using an event-driven architecture. Apache Kafka and NATS are 2 of the best technologies available to fulfill this requirement. Depending on the levels of guarantees and the performance required for event handling, you can choose either Kafka or NATS.
— This component is required when there is a need to process a huge amount of asynchronous data points (events) coming into the system using an event-driven architecture. Apache Kafka and NATS are 2 of the best technologies available to fulfill this requirement. Depending on the levels of guarantees and the performance required for event handling, you can choose either Kafka or NATS. On-premise systems — These are the existing systems that are used in the enterprise which may have built with various protocols, standards, messaging formats. It is impossible to replace the capabilities of these systems with modern architectures like microservices or containers. Instead, these systems need to be integrated with the newly built architecture.
— These are the existing systems that are used in the enterprise which may have built with various protocols, standards, messaging formats. It is impossible to replace the capabilities of these systems with modern architectures like microservices or containers. Instead, these systems need to be integrated with the newly built architecture. Event processing system — This component is used to process the events received by the messaging system in real-time or in batch mode. This component can be used to transform, correlate, summarize, and store these events so that these results can be used for business operations as well as to improve customer experience. The processed results can be sent back to the messaging system so that other applications can receive these results.
— This component is used to process the events received by the messaging system in real-time or in batch mode. This component can be used to transform, correlate, summarize, and store these events so that these results can be used for business operations as well as to improve customer experience. The processed results can be sent back to the messaging system so that other applications can receive these results. System APIs (Microservices) — There can be many situations where existing applications and systems cannot fulfill the ever-increasing consumer demands and business requirements. The microservices style of development is better suited for this sort of service development.
— There can be many situations where existing applications and systems cannot fulfill the ever-increasing consumer demands and business requirements. The microservices style of development is better suited for this sort of service development. Process APIs (Integration platform) — When there is a plethora of applications and systems that need to work together, the integration platform is the glue that connects various systems. Instead of using a traditional, monolithic integration layer, using a microservices style of a lightweight integration platform is recommended. The above figure depicts the usage of “micro integration” runtimes that are designed to support container-based deployments.
— When there is a plethora of applications and systems that need to work together, the integration platform is the glue that connects various systems. Instead of using a traditional, monolithic integration layer, using a microservices style of a lightweight integration platform is recommended. The above figure depicts the usage of “micro integration” runtimes that are designed to support container-based deployments. Experience APIs (API platform) — Once the services are built as microservices or integration services, these services need to be exposed to various consumer channels. The API gateway acts as an intelligent gatekeeper that allows only the authorized requests while listening to all the requests. As depicted in the above figure, using a “Micro gateway” is beneficial in a container or cloud-native deployment.
— Once the services are built as microservices or integration services, these services need to be exposed to various consumer channels. The API gateway acts as an intelligent gatekeeper that allows only the authorized requests while listening to all the requests. As depicted in the above figure, using a “Micro gateway” is beneficial in a container or cloud-native deployment. Developer portal — Providing a developer portal where external parties can build their own applications and products on top of the business APIs exposed through the system is critical in expanding the business to new heights.
— Providing a developer portal where external parties can build their own applications and products on top of the business APIs exposed through the system is critical in expanding the business to new heights. Analytics platform — Business Intelligence or Business Analytics is becoming ever so important with the amount of data collected in enterprise systems as well as the type of competition in the market. An analytics platform with proper tools and minds can really take you to the next level of your business and keep your competition at bay.
— Business Intelligence or Business Analytics is becoming ever so important with the amount of data collected in enterprise systems as well as the type of competition in the market. An analytics platform with proper tools and minds can really take you to the next level of your business and keep your competition at bay. Identity and Access Management platform — This is where the centralized management of authentication, authorization, provisioning, SSO, MFA happens. There are distributed alternatives like Open Policy Agent (OPA) that exists for microservices and API security. But not all the applications and systems support those alternative approaches.
The selection of the underlying infrastructure layer is totally up to the respective organization. But it is the role of the architect to design the solution so that it can be deployed in any infrastructure without much issue. The above architecture supports well with any of the below-mentioned infrastructure choices.
On-premise (physical/VM)
IaaS (VM based, AWS EC2, Azure, GCP)
Containerized (AWS ECS, GCP, Azure)
Kubernetes (EKS, GKE, AKS)
Deployment model
Now we have a better understanding of what functional and non-functional aspects need to be considered when selecting an integration platform at a higher level. The next thing that we should consider is the deployment model of the platform. This is as critical as any other point we mentioned so far. There are 3 main deployment models available for integration platforms.
Self-managed deployment (on-premise, on-IaaS)
Vendor-managed deployment (SaaS, private-IaaS)
Hybrid deployment (vendor managed + self-managed)
Let’s discuss in detail what these deployment models offer to the users.
Self-managed deployment
This is the traditional on-premise deployment model supported by most of the integration (ESB) vendors from the past. This means that the user needs to manage the deployment of the integration platform by themselves with support from the vendor. The vendors provide support through ticketing systems like JIRA with different SLAs for different types of issues (incident, queries, development, etc.). With the popularity of IaaS providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP, more and more people started deploying these products on those platforms. Even in that sort of deployment on a cloud platform is considered self-managed if the user is managing the deployment-related activities like patching, updating, upgrading, and monitoring. This option is suitable for organizations having dedicated IT teams with enough resources to manage these deployments. With the usage of proper automation and monitoring tools, most of these management activities can be offloaded to systems. But that requires a significant effort to build such an infrastructure. One advantage of this approach is that the system has the highest level of flexibility in terms of customizations that are required for the specific customer.
Vendor-managed deployment
This is the option with the least management overhead. In this option, the vendor who offers the product takes care of the management of the deployment. In most cases, these solutions are provided as SaaS (Software as a Service) or PaaS (Platform as a Service) on the cloud. The users have to work with the solution architects from the vendor to identify the components and their respective sizes required for the integration project. Then the vendor will provision the required services on their cloud platform and give the users with access to those services. In most of the vendors, these services are running as multi-tenant, shared infrastructure with each user getting logically separated deployment. These solutions are commonly known as integration platform as a service or iPaaS.
One drawback with this approach is that the flexibility in terms of customization is very since this is a shared infrastructure. As a solution to that problem, some vendors offer the option of providing a fully-managed, private cloud deployment for users who are willing to pay some extra bucks. The deployment will be a dedicated one for the user on a given cloud platform (IaaS) and the vendor will take care of the maintenance and management aspects.
Hybrid deployment
This deployment model is designed to provide the best of both worlds in terms of flexibility and the management of the infrastructure. In this model, the vendor is managing the “control plane” or “management plane” related components that do not need to stay close to the user's systems. As an example, the API gateway is a component that needs to sit close to the process APIs and system APIs but the developer portal does not need to do the same. In such a case, the API gateway will be deployed in a customer-managed infrastructure (on-premise, IaaS) while the developer portal is deployed in a vendor-managed cloud environment. This model comes with a certain set of challenges as well. Integration from vendor deployment to user deployment needs to be set up in a proper manner and given the platform resides in 2 places, debugging issues can be difficult at certain times. But those challenges come with the price of flexibility and performance (latency) gains that users could achieve with this approach.
Each organization has its preferred ways of managing the IT systems and based on that preference, users can select a platform that supports that particular deployment model. One thing to consider here is that, if the platform is designed in a modular manner where functional components can be deployed independently, any of the mentioned deployment models is possible and future changes of directions can be accommodated.
Developer Experience
The next big thing that we should consider when selecting an integration platform is the developer experience with the platform. Depending on the level of exposure to the technology, the users (who build integrations) of an integration platform can be divided into 3 categories.
Developers (programmers) — This is the category of users who are most comfortable with writing code and building integrations with programming languages. They will be comfortable with platforms that provide enough flexibility to extend the functionality in case they cannot find an OOTB feature to support a certain use case.
Citizen integrators — This is the type of user who comes with a better understanding of the specific business domain (e.g. financial, retail, healthcare) but not always has the same level of expertise in writing code as the developers. They would prefer tools that provide higher-level abstractions like UI based flow designers.
Integration specialists — These are the users with experience in implementing integration projects using various tools and technologies and comfortable with both writing code as well as DSL or UI based approaches. Some of them come with specific domain knowledge as well based on their previous experiences but not as much as citizen integrators.
It is critical to select a platform that aligns with the level of experience and the skill set that is available in the organization or has plans to hire. In most cases, we could find engineers who can wear different hats based on the need of the company. But it is good to select a platform that most of your engineers are comfortable with than asking them to adapt to the new platform.
Summary
In this article, we covered the fundamental requirements of an integration platform and then moved to more modern requirements that have appeared with the advancements in the enterprise technology domain. We used solution architecture diagrams to explain the overall architecture of an enterprise IT platform that has many other components in addition to the integration platform that we are going to choose. We identified various functional requirements at each component level. If you are in the process of selecting an integration platform for your enterprise, you should look at the most related functional requirements and architecture considerations mentioned in the article.
Given below is a list of leading vendors in the enterprise integration technology market.
This concludes the series of articles written on the topic of “how to select an integration platform for your business”. | https://medium.com/solutions-architecture-patterns/how-to-select-an-integration-platform-for-your-business-part-iii-2e5d1d7d220 | ['Chanaka Fernando'] | 2021-05-17 05:14:00.096000+00:00 | ['Integration Platform', 'Enterprise Architecture', 'Api Management', 'Integration', 'Enterprise Technology'] |
React Native file storage in AWS S3 Bucket. | Hi Friends, In this article, I will explain about using React Native storing files in the AWS S3 bucket.
Before we move to write code we have to create an S3 bucket. The link helps you to create a bucket. Click here.
Once you create a bucket then move to write coding.
In AWS account, you have the following things
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID,
2. AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
3. Bucket name
4. Region
Create a React Native Project
$ react-native init <ProjectName> $ cd <ProjectName>
Install Plugins
Install the following plugins.
Before we move to further step, install the above plugins. For more details about the above plugins click each the link in the plugin and follow the installation steps.
aws-sdk
aws-sdk for storing files in s3 bucket we need this plugin.
react-native-file-selector
We need this plugin for getting documents from our mobile. Using this plugin we can access the mobile’s files.
react-native-fs
We need this plugin to create base64 from the file path.
react-native-mime-types
Using this plugin we can type of the documents from the path.
After completed all the installations then we can move to the code.
Set your ‘AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID’ and ‘AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY’, bucket name in your configuration.
S3Bucket setup with credentials
The above code is a sample setup of S3Bucket.
We need to pass fileName, arrayBuffer, contentDeposition, contentType.
arrayBuffer — The value of the file we need to store in S3Bucket.
contentDeposition — One of these headers is known as Content-Disposition , and it describes what the recipient should do with the content: should it be displayed inline in the browser, or downloaded as an attachment and saved as a file.
contentType — This is the document type.
Pick a document from your mobile.
Using react-native-file-selector we can get files from the mobile.
Generate base64 format from the file path.
Using react-native-fs we can generate base64 format from the file path. We need to pass the file path as a parameter.
Get the file type from the file path.
For S3 Bucket we need to pass file type for storing files then only we can open the file.
Generate array-buffer from base64
Above code from base64 to generate array-buffer.
I give the full code of S3 bucket here.
I Completed the code S3 configuration. Then we can run our application.
Fix AccessDenied Error
Stack over flow
After file saved successfully then opened it. But it showed the above error as AccessDenied.
I configured the bucket policy as given below.
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Sid": "AddPerm",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": "*",
"Action": [
"s3:PutObject",
"s3:PutObjectAcl",
"s3:GetObject"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::bucketname.com/*"
}
]
}
It fixed the error. Then I could saw the file in the browser. | https://medium.com/codingtown/react-native-file-storage-in-aws-s3-bucket-66a8063ffd9e | ['Edison Devadoss'] | 2020-09-01 05:21:45.902000+00:00 | ['React Native', 'React Native S3 Bucket', 'S3 Bucket', 'Image Storage S3 Bucket', 'Aws S3'] |
How Views on Family Diversity May Impact Whether Someone Has Kids | How Views on Family Diversity May Impact Whether Someone Has Kids Katie Burkhardt Jul 2·5 min read
The “ideal” nuclear family. Source: H. Armstrong Roberts via Getty
This is the seventh and final week I will be writing a blog post about why people may choose to have children, and it has definitely been an informative journey for me. While reflecting on the things I’ve explored throughout the semester, as well as on the last chapter we read in my sociology class on the family, I find myself very intrigued by how people’s stances on diverse families may be correlated with whether they have kids. This isn’t to say there is a causational relationship between political views and whether you have kids, but rather I think they are related in a correlational way.
Cohen (2020, pp. 496–503) talks about how there are three main categories that people fall into when it comes to their opinion of growing family diversity. The three available responses when asked about peoples’ attitudes towards family diversity each correspond to one of the categories. People who think that family diversity is a bad thing are categorized as conservatives who promote the “singular ideal” of families being one man and one woman who are married and have biological children together. People who think that growing family diversity makes no difference are categorized as liberal for their hands-off approach to family structure, being neither for nor against the “traditional” American family. Finally, people who think growing family diversity is a good thing are categorized as critical because they see change and moving away from the “traditional” family as a good thing, and many may see getting rid of the traditional family structure as imperative to achieving equality.
Although the definition of the diverse family may not necessarily include a family with no kids, I think that if someone is open to diverse families, they would probably be more open to not having kids themselves and thus not meeting one of the requirements of a traditional family. I see this even in my family and the distribution of who has more kids. My dad and stepmom are quite conservative both in their general politics and in their view on family diversity. In fact, earlier today I told my younger half-brother (who’s six years old) that today I’m working on a blog post about why people may decide to have kids or not. In response to this, he said, “I know why! Because some people are smart (referring to people who have kids), and some people are dumb (people who don’t have kids).” My dad and stepmom thought this was hilarious and told me to knock it off when I tried to correct him. I know he’s only six, but I think this is still quite telling of the environment he grew up in. My dad’s sister never wanted kids and still doesn’t (coincidentally she is also liberal in her politics and view of family diversity), and my dad would always tell me how unhappy and unfulfilled my aunt likely is.
However, peoples’ views on family diversity don’t exist in a vacuum and doing so would ignore a lot of the nuance involved in why people choose to have kids. We can see in the graph provided by Cohen (2020) that peoples’ ages, religiosity, and political views affect their stances on increasing family diversity. Particularly in more republican-dominated and religious spaces, having kids and abiding by the nuclear family model is very important and can essentially determine whether someone’s life is fulfilling. On the other hand, people who aren’t in those spaces may feel less pressure on them to conform and may come to find that they would be happier if they didn’t have kids. Once again, this is something that I see in my own family, as my less religious family members find fulfillment in part through things besides the family (although everyone still values family, just not necessarily to the point where they think life is terrible without being a parent), and my more religious family has more kids because of their emphasis on the family as well as their belief that by not using birth control and completing every pregnancy, they are following God’s plan for them. One of my cousins actually had nine kids even though her doctor told her she should stop after her third kid for medical reasons, but she kept having kids because she believed that God wanted her to have more.
Overall, I think that someone’s stance on the importance of the nuclear family would have an effect on whether or not they want to have kids themselves, perhaps because they feel like if they don’t have kids then they can’t live up to the standard set for them by the nuclear family. And of course, this stance on the importance of the nuclear family is influenced by things such as their religious beliefs.
To end this series of blog posts on why people choose whether or not to have kids, I think it would be only fitting to include where I currently stand for whether I want kids in the future. Granted, I wouldn’t likely be ready to have kids until I had a stable job and a spouse, neither of which I have, but still I think it’s good to think about one’s future.
I value connection with others very highly and one of my top priorities in life is to form and maintain meaningful relationships with others. I think I would be happy whether or not I had kids as long as I were part of a strong community. However, I do also want to adopt when I’m older, and would likely choose to adopt older kids, both because older kids have less of a chance of being adopted so I would like to give them a loving family, and because I was a teenager when my little siblings were born, so I’ve seen how much work little kids are and I don’t think I could handle it. Maybe if I had a spouse who wanted kids and was willing to do an equal amount of childrearing with me then I would consider adopting little kids or having our own, but at least for now, I mainly don’t expect to have kids just because I don’t think I could handle the stress. | https://medium.com/@burkha95/how-views-on-family-diversity-may-impact-whether-someone-hkids-72512109442f | ['Katie Burkhardt'] | 2021-07-02 23:04:26.926000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Sociology'] |
Namaste. | Namaste.
Thank you, Beth, for this very enlightening and timely article. I am feeling very broken, and more dysfunctional and depressed by the day as I try to cope with my beloved husband and soulmate’s unexpected death, and the overwhelming amount of work I have to do to thoughtfully and ethically close down his medical and legal practices, clean up his/our affairs, and the life-changing decisions I must make (all while battling Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis and other health issues, complications of which killed my husband).
Somehow I thought that this would get easier, but it has been nearly six months and I am heading rapidly towards that “darkness visible,” which William Styron so brilliantly described. I think that the reality, and enormity, of my life being completely turned upside down is hitting me very hard now.
I have been thinking a lot about Buddhist practices and study. I am a very spiritual person, and I draw from the teachings of all major religions (Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc.), incorporating what works for me and letting go of the rest. I’m not keen on organized, or institutional religion, as that has historically been the cause of so much violence and killing.
I really appreciated coming across your article when I did (I’m kind of new to Medium, and an aspiring writer). It is was very insightful and inspirational. Thank you.
With gratitude,
Deidre A. Kellogg Ketroser | https://medium.com/@Existential_Dilemmas/namaste-31b51ac1ad1b | ['Deidre Kellogg Ketroser'] | 2020-05-02 08:02:16.047000+00:00 | ['Invisible Illness', 'Grief And Loss', 'Life', 'Emotional Pain'] |
This is great, and equally impressive that the artwork is your original. | This is great, and equally impressive that the artwork is your original. For obvious reasons your poem is a perfect fit for NCiR' - after all our mascot is the court jester. Usually we ask for drafts, but if you’d like to submit this to us, Brigitte, I’ll gladly accept. | https://medium.com/@joevaradi/this-is-great-and-equally-impressive-that-the-artwork-is-your-original-6f780f0ab828 | ['Joe Váradi'] | 2020-12-26 03:30:42.147000+00:00 | ['Painting', 'Poetry'] |
Here is Why Vitamin C is So Crucial to the Human Body | Here is Why Vitamin C is So Crucial to the Human Body
C for crucial & collagen
Photo from amoon ra on Unsplash
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin that is found in various foods. Water-soluble vitamins are not stored in the body and because of this, they must be consumed daily either through food or a supplement.
Its main benefits are:
Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that helps support the immune system and can reduce the risk of many diseases. Vitamin C helps lower the risk of heart disease. Vitamin C boosts collagen production which helps support skin health.
Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that helps support the immune system and can reduce the risk of many diseases.
As we naturally age, we become more susceptible to infections and diseases as our immune system weakens. The immune system has a harder time fighting off pathogens and this can lead to many problems. Antioxidants assist the immune system and thus getting enough antioxidants from food helps in keeping the immune system strong.
Vitamin C acts as an antioxidant which helps protect your cells against free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that have unpaired electrons and because of this, they steal electrons from other cells which causes widespread damage and can lead to disease.
Consuming enough vitamin C helps supply the body with ample amounts of antioxidants which over the long run can help prevent many diseases. Antioxidants have been shown to prevent diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, etc.
It is commonly believed that intaking a vitamin C supplement every day can help treat or even prevent a cold. However many studies have shown that taking daily vitamin C doesn’t reduce the risk of getting a cold. On the other hand, research has shown that vitamin C shortens the length of a cold and decreases the severity of the illness.
A 2013 review from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews showed that people who took at least 200 mg of vitamin C regularly over the course of the trial recovered from the cold faster than participants who took a placebo. Adults and children who took vitamin C saw an 8% and 14% reduction respectively in the duration of their cold compared to the placebo group.
This illustrates that while vitamin C can’t prevent a cold, it helps support the immune system by providing extra support which helps get over a cold faster.
Vitamin C helps lower the risk of heart disease.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. As we age, heart disease becomes more prevalent with heart attacks and coronary blockages occurring mostly in the elderly.
Atherosclerosis is the buildup of fats and cholesterol along the arterial wall. When this blockage becomes large enough to the point where it starts blocking a majority of the blood flow to the heart, a heart attack ensues. A major predisposing factor to atherosclerosis is LDL oxidation. Since vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant, it can help prevent this LDL oxidation which helps reduce the occurrence of atherosclerosis.
An analysis of 13 studies found that taking at least 500 mg of vitamin C daily reduced LDL cholesterol by 7.9 mg/dL and triglycerides by 20.1 mg/dL.
Additionally, high blood pressure is another predisposing factor for cardiovascular disease. High blood pressure puts too much strain and stress on the blood vessels which by making arteries less elastic can lead to a decrease in blood flow and heart disease.
Vitamin C helps relax blood vessels which in turn lowers blood pressure and reduces the stress on the cardiovascular system.
A research study showed that vitamin C supplements on average reduced systolic blood pressure by 4.9 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure by 1.7 mmHg.
Vitamin C boosts collagen production which helps support skin health.
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body making up around 75–80% of human skin. As we age, collagen production starts to decline which can cause premature aging, wrinkles, etc.
This is where vitamin C can help.
Vitamin C is the co-factor for prolyl hydroxylase & lysyl hydroxylase. Both of these hydroxylase enzymes catalyze the hydroxylation of proline & lysine residues of procollagen which helps the collagen molecule properly fold into its triple-helix structure.
Thus, vitamin C is directly involved in collagen production which overall helps improve the skin. Since vitamin C is also an antioxidant, it helps fight off skin damage caused by UV rays and helps diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Vitamin C helps in the growth and repair of tissue which helps keep the skin healthy and firm. It helps heal wounds primarily through the formation of collagen which helps build connective tissue. | https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/here-is-why-vitamin-c-is-so-crucial-to-the-human-body-6e76abf88160 | ['Samir Saeed'] | 2020-12-24 15:26:50.668000+00:00 | ['Health', 'Science', 'Healthcare', 'Fitness', 'Fitness Tips'] |
Make Me Remember | I have to meet my co-host, Carlye, on First Street in an hour, but I’m sitting here in my pajamas writing this review that I believe I can finish in the next fifteen minutes. Let’s not dwell on a vision of Carlye sitting at the Flour Bakery rolling her eyes and writing me a text to go fuck myself because she’s by herself and I haven’t gotten there.
The OA caught me off guard. After Ray Donovan, I dabbled in other shows and films, but nothing really caught my interest. Brit Marling is an actress that has impressed me over the last decade. She’s beautiful and intelligent and you could see her playing Ivanka Trump-esque characters in political thrillers where you underestimate her and then she turns out to be the star of the film. She’s not that girl — she’s the OA.
Did you watch Another Earth and the movie she made with Alexander Skarsgard? Her writing and direction are so good that Alexander Skarsgard getting out of a bathtub outside a cabin in the woods isn’t even the most interesting part of the movie. IMdB her summary, I have a lunch date not to be late to.
The OA caught me off guard. I had watched The Sinner so I thought it would be a story about someone recovering from the trauma of a kidnapping. I also believed that there would be an element of sci-fi in it because of Marling, but I wasn’t prepared for what it was. I binged the two seasons in a single week.
I really want you all to watch this show so I don’t want to give too much away. I’m going to explain this the way that you would explain a story that happened to a friend.
Prairie was adopted by a family in the Midwest after being orphaned when her Russian father dies. When she was a kid she was in an accident that robbed her of her eyesight. Her parents coddle her because she’s blind, but she has the will to see the world and explore. She is also is a virtuoso violinist.
This picks up on the radar of an evil doctor that collects people like Prairie — people that have experienced near-death experiences. He believes that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t just the end of the road, it’s a tunnel in the next world and he believes there’s a way to hitch on to that train and head on into the next.
The first season plays out in two different times — when Prarie is returned to her family after missing for seven years with her sight restored and what happened to her during the years that she was missing. The second season concentrates on what happens to all of the players involved in season 1.
What Marling does well that you need to understand to comprehend how great her work is to understand people that don’t live in the details. If someone sits you down to tell you about how they spent seven years in captivity — there are two types of people; those that would be concentrated on the horrific experience and those that would go along with Marling and understand that the important part of the story is what she cares about. Sure, there was multi-dimensional travel, physical abuse, starvation, and murder, but I need you to focus on how in all of this I met a really great guy and I’m trying to find my way back — all of Marling’s stories characters that get lost in extraordinary stories as they search for the most basic quests, being reunited with their loved one and normalcy
The set-up for season three is so meta that I pray Netflix doesn’t give up on it because there isn’t another show like it on television. I have to get back to Carlye and get this Podcast going, but please tune into The OA. I’ve been gone for seven weeks, but time is of the illusion, and if we were to look at it deeply, you would understand that I have always been here, talking to you, filling you in on my daily activities and was never gone. Were you paying attention? | https://medium.com/sabrina-monet-writes-here/make-me-remember-bf9a66a19c1d | ['Sabrina Monet'] | 2019-05-27 07:32:17.192000+00:00 | ['Television', 'The Oa', 'Brit Marling', 'Netflix', 'Sabrina Monet'] |
A dream that crossed the whole planet | Connections between people are no longer based on geographical coincidences but on shared interests that defy everything, even the most absurd distances.
The search for organizations that share our vision on the future economy and facilitating access to financial services brought us to relate with talent all over the world, from Brazil to China.
Asia is a region where blockchain technology and the development of the new crypto-economy is taking huge leaps forward every day. The bond between Inbest Network and the ecosystems of cities like Hong Kong goes way beyond software development or business partnerships. It is the shared dream of bringing down the walls that keep people apart and empowering each one to have the best tools at their disposal to pursue their goals what brings together the outermost cities of the planet.
To express this vision and materialize it, we have asked Flor de Pampi, an Argentine artist, to create a unique piece of art that synthesizes the link between both cities. On the one hand, Hong Kong, a massive metropolis with a deep history that made it remain autonomous even under the Chinese government and now the financial center of Asia. On the other hand, Buenos Aires, the epitome of Latin American innovation, full of colors and known for its culture that fosters affection over every other form of communication.
The artist drew the piece in her iPad, using digital illustration software. But once it was finished, she used a traditional transfer technique to bring the design to the board. Once the layout was in place, she painted it with acrylic and markers.
The board that Pampi intervened belonged to professional wakeboarder Rapun, and it traveled more than 18.000 kilometers to get to Hong Kong. To carry a small piece of painted wood all over the world represents a considerable effort. Nowadays material objects, and especially those that carry symbolic meaning, have a particular value. In an era where thousands of developers are trying to shift the way finances work by creating completely digital and abstract platforms for value transfer, this piece of nature is the best way we find to demonstrate a genuine interest in another organization, project or individual.
Inbest Network is not only about developing new technology. Innovating means changing the way people live — no matter where they are. | https://medium.com/inbest-network/a-dream-that-crossed-the-whole-planet-1201dd5fd189 | ['Inbest Helper'] | 2019-04-09 19:44:11.368000+00:00 | ['Buenos Aires', 'Inbest', 'Gift', 'Hong Kong', 'Inbest Network'] |
The Biggest Chain Restaurant Tier List Of All Time: Part I | The pandemic has forced me to branch out with my distractions. Sports, my longtime biggest time suck, went away for a while back in March and have not come back in a way that fully herbs my chicken. The election is over (!!!), so I am not refreshing all those blogs every ten minutes. I have become a veteran of Vine/TikTok comps, the former being clearly superior. The Needle Drop, CGP Grey, and Oversimplified have made me more cultured in a fun way and not in a boring way like books.
My biggest kick, though? Fast food reviews.
We have been doing a lot of take-out. Grocery shopping is too close to a real-life Resident Evil. As much as we want to support local businesses and as often as we do, we are not wealthy. Fast food or corporate food is often the best budgetary choice when we do not want to cook or arm ourselves with Lysol and cattle prods for the mouth breathing non-maskers.
There are a lot of new fast-food products every day but only so few calories we can allot. We want to know what our best choices are without using precious resources to find out.
Bill Oakley, Doughboys, and TheReviewOfTheWeek, aka Review Brah, are the kings of this arena. I am not entirely sure where Review Brah is based out of, but Oakley and the Doughboys are west coast based.
Even though the hilarious and insightful Doughboy Mike “Spoonman” Mitchell is a Quincy native, the northeast does not get to experience all our nation’s great chains. On the other side of this plate, those pillars of internet food criticism don’t typically get to try what the other side of the Mississippi has to offer. This is where I come in.
I love fast food; I love chain restaurants and I’ve been to a lot of them despite being a New Englander. I often seek them out when traveling. I have not done a ton of traveling this year, but somehow, my neck of the woods in Maine has added some national chains so I have been able to cast my net just a bit further. I feel ready to share my chain restaurant tier list.
While I tried, this is not an exhaustive list. I did not include Papa Ginos or D’Angelos because they’re on the way out and aren’t special anyway. Regina Pizzeria (Pizzeria Regina if you know, you know) is a step above a chain restaurant and is only in the Boston metro area even though it would surely dominate the pizza world if I included it. Moe’s Italian Subs and Amato’s (both quite good and would probably be in the A or B tier) are also probably too small and act as more of a Mom-and-Pop shop than any of these corporate behemoths. If a restaurant has a few locations but used to have hundreds, I did my best to include them as they once had a national profile.
I didn’t even include Red Lobster because I have no reason to go as a resident of Maine and I am offended by its existence. I can walk to Pine Point Beach, stick my paw in the water, and catch a four-pound lobster first try. I think I would be deported and/or set on fire if I ever ordered from Red Lobster. I don’t want to risk talking about it too much and alert the Agents of Augusta. People freak out over the biscuits, but again, there are so many biscuits in the world. They sell Cheddar Bay Biscuit kits at most grocery stores and I can put cheese and Old Bay seasoning in a homemade one if I chose to be a certain kind of self-loathing.
I will also talk about a few restaurants I have not been to as they have a giant national profile and to leave them off would be a disservice. Thankfully, I do know a fair amount about these chains despite not having been there.
The tier bracket I used is an amalgamation of several on the Tiermaker website. The tiers are as follows: S is the best tier (meaning superb), A is the second-best, followed by B, then the C, then D, and finally F. Basically, the American grading system with an S on top. There is one final tier of restaurants creatively labeled “Never Been, But Have Insight.” A big shout out to my buddy Mike Sullivan for pointing out a few missing places. My Tiermaker template is available here if you want to make your own version to debate with me.
A big point to end this rambling preamble. There are no equitable ethics within the American brand of capitalism. Most, if not all these restaurants use factory farming to some degree. We all know about Chick-Fil-A’s awful past with LGBTQ rights and the wage slavery several of these restaurants (especially the biggest ones) impose on their employees in a total display of greed and disrespect. Subway long employed someone who is a pedophile as the face of their company. Our country is rife with problems and corporations are at the very center of it. All these things are awful and need desperate reform and I do not endorse the views of the charlatans that perpetuate these societal maladies. I yearn to live in a world without greed or hate. However, I want to emphasize that this is largely not a political post or a social issues piece. This is about food. If you’re someone who cannot separate a restaurant from its controversies, I respect that and I implore you to write your own piece. I will likely applaud it and agree with you.
Lastly, despite all these qualifiers, I am a junk-food scholar, and these food opinions should be taken as gospel.
Let’s kick this off with the major chains I’ve never been to but do know a little about.
NEVER BEEN, BUT HAVE INSIGHT
Never Been Tier.
The two biggest exclusions here are clearly In-N-Out Burger and Waffle House. Both restaurants are the subject of major regional obsessions. In-N-Out is the Tsar of California and has branched out to Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, and Texas. Waffle House now finally outnumbers confederate statues in the South due to recent legislation. Okay, one political joke.
New York has a small chain of restaurants called Petey’s Burger. I have it on good authority that Petey’s is a reasonable facsimile of In-N-Out. I have been to Petey’s dozens of times. It is phenomenal. If In-N-Out is the same or better than Petey’s, it is S tier all the way.
Not having been to Waffle House is less excusable as I have been to the South countless times. My family growing up was never much of a “go out to breakfast” bunch and my schedule has never really allowed for me to go to a Waffle House in my adult life. Next time I am down there, I will go. I have looked at the menu several times and I am blown away by how cheap it is and who doesn’t like waffles? It apparently never closes either, so you know it’s reliable. I expect this will also be an A or S tier eventually.
My friends from the Midwest and the Virginia/Carolinas area all say that Culver’s and Cookout are excellent restaurants. Culver’s and Cookout are in the platinum and gold plate club on Doughboys, respectively. My Virginia based cousin says Cookout is better than Five Guys and has way (WAY) more to offer. My buddy Bob thinks Nebraska chain Runza (a little too small for what we are doing here) is the pinnacle of humanity but says Culver’s comes in second to them. By that logic, knowing how much Bob loves Runza, Culver’s should have several Michelin Stars. Possibly four. Both chains seem like probable A or S tiers.
Hardees and Carl’s Jr. are huge chains with no presence whatsoever north and east of Philadelphia. When I have been near both, there were more popular options or more known entities at the time nearby. They are not super high on my priority list as some of their food looks like edible monster trucks. Likely a C tier, possibly a D.
Dave and Busters never really appealed to me. I don’t like spending a ton of money on arcade games when I have my own video games. I imagine gaming is a necessary part of the experience. COVID must be especially ravaging D&B. Is the food worth it on its own? I looked at a few reviews and they’re strong! The dishes seem creative in as far as American chain restaurants go, with Chicken and waffle sliders, and a Pepperoni Pretzel Pull-Apart leaping out to me. I’ll give it a shot, and go in with high expectations, which is usually a bad frame of mind to be in when trying something new because most things suck. I would cap this at an A-tier, but I would wager it ends up in the B/C range.
Church’s Chicken does fried chicken, which is the best-fried meat. It seems likely to be better than KFC, but so is getting punched in the face. B seems like a good ceiling.
Del Taco has tacos which are almost always great, and they serve crinkle-cut fries. Crinkle cut fries are the best cut of fries. Don’t believe me? Some people in Portland, ME have been trying to physically fight these restaurant owners that stopped making crinkle cuts because they were too labor-intensive. Ain’t nobody fighting over some stupid steak fries. Del Taco might end up a B someday.
Cici’s advertises around my neck of the woods, but I’ve never seen one in the wild. They do a cheap pizza buffet with two solid-looking dessert pizza options, so at best, it could be something reminiscent of the ancient relic of times better, the classic Pizza Hut buffet. At worst, Cici’s could be like the current Pizza Hut but for cheaper. Likely C tier, possibly B.
Jack In The Box has those fried tacos that developed a cult following that Burger King miserably failed to copy AND they have the traditional fast food fare too. I appreciate variety, especially whilst inebriated, and since the pandemic is high time to be high, it would be great to have one near me. I think a B seems probable, but I would imagine there are a ton of consistency issues from restaurant to restaurant.
We have a small Moe’s Southwest Grill presence around here. It appears to be quite like Qdoba. Not going to drive in a blizzard to get it, and would you look at that, it is snowing as I type this. I can’t see it going higher than a B.
Potbelly’s seems like what would happen if Panera made the sub rolls for Subway in some weird collaboration no one wanted. The C seems the highest level it could reach, but my fiancée said it’s “fine airport food.”
My new favorite politician John Fetterman constantly tweets that Sheetz is better than Wawa. My DNA is from South Jersey, so that is A BOLD CLAIM for me to get behind, but Fetterman rules and he is usually right. Possibly an A, but I doubt I’ll rank it over Wawa as I still want an inheritance.
Sonic is an interesting omission. There is one I drive by often in Peabody, Massachusetts but it’s on a particular stretch of Route 1 that is the worst place to drive in America. I would rather listen to Jar Jar Binks read the lyrics of the thirty worst Rush songs for a month than try and make one right turn out of that parking lot. I’ve heard Sonic is just okay. The absolute ceiling for Sonic is a B, but I am guessing C.
Steak ‘n Shake has an unfortunate name and has been bought and sold roughly a billion times. That sort of corporate instability does not instill confidence. Is it any better than vintage Friendly’s or Johnny Rockets? Probably in the middle. I’m thinking C at best? I could really see this as a D.
Whataburger is puzzling to me. Adored in Texas, not loved by anyone else. I expect to make my first trip to the state in the coming years, but they have In-N-Out and actual BBQ too. I’ll feel weird asking my friends or cousins to go there, so perhaps I’ll go if I am sober enough to repel from their window in the dead of night. Might have A potential, but I bet it ends up with the Bs.
There used to be an On The Border down the street from me next to a Mattress Firm. There were always more cars at the Mattress Firm, and no one in human history has ever been to a Mattress Firm even though there are three of them on the same fucking street. The restaurant is closed now. I’ll go ahead and guess a C is the mean, median, and mode.
New England finally got a Wingstop. I make a damn good wing and live near a solid wing joint AND there’s a wing chain coming out of New England at such a rapid pace that it’ll likely cannibalize every other corporate wing spot in the area because they are far superior. More on them later. I don’t need to go to Wingspot and soon you won’t either. Maybe a touch better than B-Dubs? The B to C range, a popular range as you’ll see, is the probable home.
Lastly is Zaxby’s, another fried chicken spot. There is an appreciable amount of “Zaxby’s is better than Chick-Fil-A posts” on the ol’ Googler. Chick-Fil-A lives on the highest floor of the fast-food skyscraper in the minds of many, so such praise cannot be taken lightly. I can’t wait to try Zaxby’s. Maybe I won’t have to donate to The Trevor Project every time I eat a sandwich there. Sorry, one Chick-Fil-A joke. That’s it. A strong feeling of an A on this one.
(Also, you don’t need an excuse to donate to The Trevor Project. Do it now if you can.)
THE F TIER: WOULD ONLY GO AGAIN IF YOU FORGAVE ALL MY DEBTS AND VANQUISH ALL OF MY KNOWN ENEMIES
SMOKEY BONES
Within the F tier are two restaurants that are tied for giving me the worst dining experience of my life. Smokey Bones is up first.
There used to be a Smokey Bones in my hometown. It was always packed, had a cool-looking cabin vibe. My best friend at the time was dating this woman who landed a serving job there. The stars were aligning. I was sure it was going to be good. Never have high expectations for anything, kids.
We get there and are told it will be an hour's wait. With the requisite blinking hockey puck in hand, my best friend, my other best friend, and I aimlessly wandered the plaza parking lot famished.
After meandering for what felt like an interminable amount of time, the dark disk of promise finally started emitting light and generally freaking out. We were graciously permitted entrance into Smokey Bones. My buddy’s girlfriend was our server, and she was F L U S T E R E D.
Apparently, the kitchen was perpetually screwing up tickets and we were told this was commonplace. Next came a warning that our food would take up to another hour. If my buddy weren’t dating this person, I bet we would have left and walked the two-hundred feet to Taco Bell. We decided (he decided) that we would stick around. We aren’t friends anymore.
I ordered a burger. If you’re an American chain restaurant serving American food, you should have a decent burger. I often get a burger the first time I go to a new place. It’s safe, always at least decent. This burger made me an atheist. It was well-done on one half and rare on the other as if the burger were teetering on the edge of the grill and no one noticed. The bun was a bulbous crouton. I think it was left out on the counter all day and was buried under a pile of misplaced tickets and then served to me as punishment for sins unknown.
I sent my meal back. I have never done that before and I haven’t done it since. It was removed from the bill. My buddy’s gal pal was super apologetic and gave me a free dessert as a consolation. It was a bag of “freshly made” cinnamon sugar donuts. Growing up in New Hampshire, I am quite familiar with warm, apple cider donuts. I’ve developed a strong affinity for them.
There was a lengthy piece on Deadspin years ago (when it was cool) that ranked all the most prominent food items of each state from 1 to 52. They claimed that the cultural food of New Hampshire is something called “Boiled Dinner.” Boiled dinner is horrendous, no one eats it, and it didn’t deserve any national press. Apple cider donuts are from Northern Mass/Southern New Hampshire. Since Mass already has clam chowder, The Shire gets the donuts. My case for NH claiming the apple cider donut is that the two best purveyors of apple cider donuts in the world are in Chichester and Loudon, New Hampshire. This is not debatable. I will reject your rebuttal. Hard.
Speaking of hard, how about these circular disgraces that were brought to me as an apology from The Smokey Bone corporation?! Between the burger and these donuts, it’s clear Smokey Bones doesn’t know what consistency dough should be served at. The donuts were crunchy all the way through and served with a caramel sauce in a little cup. The caramel was basically a giant Werther’s Original that I couldn’t pierce with my pumice stone of a baked good. I would have preferred 1999 Pedro Martinez chuck a bag of stale Hostess Donettes at my head from three feet away than eat this again.
The Smokey Bones closed probably a month later. I did not mourn. The lovely couple didn’t make it. I did end up getting Taco Bell after all.
BLIMPIE
Blimpie had some decent ads in the 90s and early 2000 that were funny and showcased this beautiful, braided bread they had called a Blimpie Blast. It was a six-foot sub that looked soft and pillowy and worthy of slapping a stockyard’s worth of meat in-between. The commercials then faded away and I forgot about Blimpies because I was too busy studying for various grade school standardized tests that would dictate my life. Around the time I got my results (“underappreciated blogger”), a Blimpie came to my hometown. It was in Wal-Mart.
I was wrapping up high school when Blimpie arrived. My friend happened to land a job there. He listened to Mindless Self Indulgence on the kitchen radio and had sex with his girlfriend in the freezer. He must have had good circulation.
One fateful afternoon, I came by to purchase a video game but also to say hi to my pal and maybe get some lunch, ideally a smaller version of the sandwich I remembered from my youth. I asked about the braided bread Blimpie Blast. My friend was perplexed. They did not carry a braided bread of any size. It was a good introduction to adulthood: Crushing disappointment.
Instead, I had a grilled chicken sub with a jalapeno sauce on some regular bread. It tasted like my friend had sex right next to it.
DENNY’S
The alleged appeal of Denny’s is that it’s good when you’re drunk. Denny’s is the culinary equivalent of driving your kids to school after chugging a fifth of Mad Dog.
Why do their pancakes always taste freezer-burned? I’ve gone twice, got pancakes both times, and both times, I ended up sitting in the booth dissecting them with my fork. They can’t possibly freeze pancakes ahead of time, right? Pancakes are designed to be pumped out in diners, not flash-frozen and reheated. I have a hard time believing that’s their business model. Whatever, man. They tasted like it.
The food looks so much better in commercials, more so than any other chain. Maybe they are assuming their target demographic has beer goggles on, or maybe I drink too much.
THE HARD ROCK CAFÉ
My Word document automatically added an accent to the E. I am upset with this touch of class awarded to a franchise completely lacking any.
I went to the Hard Rock Café in Washington DC back in my junior year of high school as part of a field trip. I was excited to go! This restaurant appealed to me in a carnal way. A teenage boy who was into heavy music might see this as a mecca since teenage boys are dumb.
This class trip was kind of a disaster. We had a creepy tour guide for Arlington National Cemetery who made sure to tell us all repeatedly that JFK was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and there were no other accomplices. “NO! OTHER! ACCOMPLICES!” I also had a laser pointer I bought before the trip (I don’t know why…testosterone raging through my body?) confiscated because other teens who ALSO had laser pointers for some reason were aiming them out of the windows of our bus in Washington DC, so a bunch of counter-terrorism officers and a giant German Shepherd came on board and searched all of us. They didn’t find drugs or weapons, but they did find that two kids had freshly soiled trousers.
I had two bad restaurant experiences on this trip as well. Hard Rock Café was one of them.
Hard Rock Café’s waitstaff felt compelled to line us all up to yell at us before allowing us entrance. There was some head server who I think was named Jay. He was jacked and loud. This is what he said. I will never forget it:
“ALL EYES ON ME. I AM THE CAPTAIN TONIGHT. HERE’S HOW THE NIGHT IS GONNA GO, KAY? WE HAVE A LIMITED MENU! WE HAVE A HAMBURGER. WE HAVE A CHEESEBURGER. WE HAVE GRILLED CHEESE. WE HAVE CHICKEN TENDERS. ALL COME WITH FRIES. YOU GET ONE SOFT DRINK REFILL. WE DON’T HAVE ANY OTHER ITEMS AVAILABLE TO YOU. KAY? BE NICE TO YOUR SERVER. THEY HAVE BEEN TIPPED IN ADVANCE BY YOUR SCHOOL. EXTRA TIPS ARE APPRECIATED. IF ANYONE IS BEING RUDE OR UNRULY, YOU WILL BE KICKED OUT AND NOT PERMITTED TO RETURN. Everyone, have fun.”
After I wiped all the spittle off my face, I ordered the cheeseburger. The thing was thicker than Jay’s neck, overcooked, and served with six fries.
The Washington Capitals play right down the street from this place. If they ever run out of pucks, no worries, they can get a few burgers.
I just learned after a quick Google that the Seminole Tribe of Florida owns Hard Rock Café. I wish them success with their business venture, namely, convincing rich Republicans to spend money on overpriced t-shirts and the worst burgers money can buy this side of Smokey Bones.
SBARRO
Sbarro’s whole approach is to set up shop in a major thoroughfare and sell you a single triangle covered in enough grease to stop your next of kin’s heart by-proxy.
I am all for heart-stopping meals, but it seems doubly dangerous to eat a Sbarro’s XL NY slice while walking through a mall or bus depot. You’re guaranteed to leave behind a red lipid trail that could cause enough slip and fall injuries to make a television lawyer salivate. Incidentally, that’s the only way any human could be induced to drool over Sbarro's.
The scene where Michael Scott excitedly runs to a Sbarro to get himself “some New York pizza” is my Dad’s favorite from The Office, so Sbarro is a soft F.
GOLDEN CORRAL
Here’s the other bad meal experience from my DC adventure.
Yet again, I was doomed by my own high expectations. I was a sucker for buffets in my youth. Especially Chinese buffets. Yes, the quality of mass-produced food for cheap is expected to be low, but that’s the magic of a fryolator, my friends.
Golden Corral has tons of fryers, to be sure, but they emphasize other things like their steaks or carving stations. I am not the biggest fan of carving stations in the world, but I think going to Golden Corral for a carving station is sort of like going to Chernobyl for the fresh air.
I didn’t go for the carving station, I ended up going with the shrimp, the fried chicken, the fries, the mac and cheese, the pizza, and a little bit of salad to not die of scurvy. Not featured items? Perhaps. However, this is simple shit. Shrimp isn’t supposed to taste like vinyl siding. Fried chicken should be moist and not sandy. Also, steak fries? I hate steak fries. Objectively the worst fries. If they’re undercooked, you’re eating a raw potato. If they’re overcooked, it’s Burnt Oil City. If you’re a restaurant that has insane bulk food turnover, you should opt for standard cut fries, crinkle cuts, or tater tots. Steak fries are an error in this setting.
I will say Golden Corral had one thing going for it: A hot fudge pump for ice cream. Nothing like controlling your own hot fudge destiny.
Any points that Golden Corral would have gained for the hot fudge pump was immediately lost. The bathroom in the Golden Corral I went to was abominable. There was a turd on the seat. Not like a little dog turd either. This turd was as if a full-grown man (possibly Hard Rock Jay?) missed the bowl and hit the seat and neglected to address it. I needed to use this toilet and it was the only one. How does a buffet have one toilet?! A latrine would have been more acceptable. I would have appreciated the WWI history lesson and it would have paired well with the shellshock I was feeling.
To make matters worse, a little kid walked into the bathroom while I was assessing my options. Much to my horror, he decided to climb under the door of the stall I was occupying, look up, and ask me, “Have you ever seen the Alien vs. Predator movies”
No. But what I just went through was arguably more frightening.
Lastly, I want to share this article with you all. A Golden Corral recently opened near where I grew up. The horde descended upon it mid-pandemic. America, you beautiful diabetic bastard, please change your ways. It starts with you not going to Golden Corral anymore.
Long John Silvers
My aunt used to be married to this guy who would only eat Long John Silver’s. Seriously. We had to go to Long John Silver’s the day before Thanksgiving and re-heat the food to be served on Thanksgiving Day. Fish planks, hush puppies, whatever those little fried bits of batter are, fries and coleslaw. When we went to grab his food in what might be the weirdest placation of a man-child in modern history, I decided to order some of their food. I got a battered shrimp platter. Save yourself some time and consider whether you would like to drink a bottle of spent canola oil straight, no chaser. If the answer is yes, order some shrimp, sailor.
SUBWAY
This one hurts me on some level. I’ve gone to Subway so many times. I went constantly in my younger days because they’re everywhere, including the small town I am from. Subway was a cheap lunch option when I was broke as all get out living in New York. The sweet onion chicken teriyaki on honey oat with Sun Chips was a go-to for several years.
Then a phenomenon happened. Things got more expensive AND quality slipped tremendously. At peak, Subway was a B. The food was never at the top of the charts, but the flavor profile was good enough to carry the meat and veggies along. But the meat got worse and worse and worse. The cookies got harder and harder and harder. The bread got staler and staler and staler. That wet cardboard smell that permeates from every storefront got stronger and stronger and stronger.
I last went to Subway in 2019. I couldn’t finish what used to be my regular because the chicken was removed and replaced with pencil erasers with little grill marks on them. I literally SAW them microwave the chicken and they’re trying to act all like it was grilled? That’s bold, Subway. So was removing the nearly menu-wide $5 Footlong. That was your niche and then you made it day specific. I can’t keep track of who’s coming to my own wedding let alone what day my favorite sub is $5. If you had kept the promotion you were most famous for, you probably wouldn’t need to close so many stores.
Subway. It’s over. Tie the giant jeans that are kicking around your warehouse somewhere to the main-mast and sail away.
ROY ROGERS
There’s a truck stop in Sturbridge, MA that used to have a Roy Rogers. After being stuck in New York traffic for three hours and pledging not to stop for food in Connecticut, I pulled over at the first opportunity in Massachusetts. I wanted anything. ANYTHING.
Then I saw the pictures of the food on the menu.
What?
Is that ham?!
I can’t believe I ended up choosing this.
Not exactly ideal.
I had to choose between some depressing looking burgers or a “Gold Rush Chicken Sandwich,” which is a creative way to say, “Someone in the back blew their nose on your sandwich and then added some bacon.” I opted for the chicken because it looked more substantive. I ordered a combo meal, which rang up around $8. I handed them a debit card, and this supposed national chain said, “Ten dollar minimum on cards.” I’ll admit, I was madder than the situation should have allowed for, but I wasn’t enthused about my meal anyway, so adding that pathetic looking burger to the mix was not a preferred choice. I was also too broke to be going to Roy Rogers in the first place.
I put all the food down as fast as I could just for the calories. Everything was dry and flavorless. The toll booth operator on I-84 was horrified by the grease and gold sauce on my face. I assume my puffy, goopy mug was why Massachusetts moved to remove all toll booths two years later.
I will leave out the rest of the harrowing details of my night driving back to my parents’ place with those time bombs digesting in my stomach.
That restaurant I visited is closed now. All Roy Rogers locations should be.
Señor Frogs
Full disclosure: I didn’t eat here, but I tried. I had an experience, though. Quite recently, in fact.
Before COVID hit the states like an apocalyptic Beatlemania, I had the privilege to go on a cruise with some of my closest friends for a wedding. Part of the trip had us stop in Nassau. After exploring the city and the beach, my now fiancée and I suggested to our group to get some lunch at Señor Frogs. We had heard good things from family and wanted to pay that good advice forward. I am so sorry, friends.
We walked in and they had a table for the ten or so of us. That’s cool! The place was popping. It was popping at an alarming rate. It was a great sign to get a table too easily. I remember thinking, “Yes, they must handle big groups all the time. It’s festive, but a well-oiled machine This was a good choice. I’m smart and sexy.”
After waiting for roughly twenty minutes, someone finally came over for a drink order. Señor Frogs, as you might expect being in a tropical environment, does lots of blended drinks. I ordered the titular cocktail, The Señor Frog. My friends ordered a cavalcade of other sugary adult beverages.
Honestly, I liked the Señor Frog. I was buzzed already, and it was sweet. My friends seemed to have a range of reactions and weren’t overly impressed by and large. We also ordered nachos. They never came.
Therefore, Sir Frog is getting an F. When you’re a restaurant in a touristy area, focused on a party atmosphere, you need to be up to the challenge of being a restaurant. We waited forty minutes after being seated and only got one drink. At the very least, we should have gotten the opportunity to order two, maybe even three drinks. The pacing needs to be at an appreciable level and appetizers need to be flying out of the kitchen. I am not asking every restaurant to be Le Bernardin, but people should have appetizers within the first hour they’re there at least. I may be an entitled white prick from the suburbs, but I dOn’T tHiNk ThAt’S tOo MuCh tO aSk.
Whistles. So many whistles. Some servers have whistles. The DJ has a whistle. It’s piercingly loud in there. In the middle of us waiting for our nachos, someone came over offering three-dollar tequila shots and blared a whistle at us between each sentence. We were all seasick and hungover from the night before so we weren’t really interested in attending this apparent seminar for drunk referees too long.
It’s quite possible that all of us young professionals aren’t Señor Frogs target demographic. Not long after we canceled our nachos order but before we received our bill, the DJ very joyously exclaimed that someone in attendance was just released from prison and they were drinking in celebration. Specifically, they said, “YO, this guy JUST GOT OUT OF JAIIIIILLLL, buy him a drink!”
Hell yeah. Good on you. No idea what you were in for, the prison and justice system in America is plagued with issues. Having said that, we’re going to leave now.
SKYLINE CHILI
My Grandpop was the man. He, unfortunately, died in 2019 and I miss him. We had a goal to travel to every single baseball stadium in America. Sadly, we didn’t accomplish our goal, but we had a lot of fun trying. My favorite place to catch a Major League game is Pittsburgh’s PNC Park. Clear views of the Pittsburgh skyline, incredible food, great sightlines. I would encourage anyone and everyone to catch a game as soon as you can in Pittsburgh.
Also, you get to spend time in Pittsburgh! Underrated city. I am a big Patriots and Bruins fan, hate the Steelers and Penguins with a passion, but I love it there. It reminds me of home, somehow.
Nearby is Ohio. I like Ohio too. I’ve been lucky enough to go to Columbus for two weddings in the last three years. I’ve really enjoyed it. Tons to do, cheap drinks and good food.
Have I said enough things nice about Ohio? Cool.
Also nearby are several Skyline Chili locations. Skyline Chili serves a food item called Cincinnati Chili, or “’ Natti Chili.” My Grandfather liked it. He was right about lots of stuff. He was wrong about this one.
I can’t remember what town this Skyline Chili was in. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the slop they serve. Its grody meat sauce served over spaghetti.
As a personal preference, I don’t like meat sauce. Give me real marinara sauce with meatballs or get out. However, I will stomach it if the sauce is a legit red sauce. That gravy. MAMA MIA!
Cincinnati Chili is meat folded into a slightly spiced pulpy ketchup. It’s weird and I don’t like it. Over spaghetti? That’s a texture arrangement akin to eating a softened Brillo pad that was used to scrape the contents of a Ragu delivery truck off the highway.
This is awful. Absolutely terrible. My Grandpop was the best, but his food preferences weren’t exactly in line with the gourmands.
Do you have a family member or friend who keeps bringing the same dish to every family gathering you have? A fruit salad with a weird topping, perhaps. You don’t want to be rude to your Aunt Becca, so you grin and bear it. It’s a catch-22 because once you start eating the fruit salad, your Aunt Becca assumes you like it, so she keeps bringing it.
Cincinnati Chili is the same idea that somehow impacted an entire state. Governor Becca brought a Crock-Pot of her thin meat slop and wet noodles to the capital building and no one told her it’s bad and now they can’t get rid of it. LIBERATE OHIO!
Part II: Tiers D and C coming soon. | https://medium.com/@theluckytypist/the-biggest-chain-restaurant-tier-list-of-all-time-part-i-6740232afc3a | ['Corey Nachman'] | 2020-12-20 20:57:53.926000+00:00 | ['Fast Food', 'Fun', 'Humor', 'America', 'Food'] |
Why I Love Maps | When I was five years old, I used to sit on the floor with my parents’ atlas and trace the map of the world onto my sketch pad. I was in Kindergarten: I barely registered the existence of a world beyond my own backyard. And yet these illustrations of faraway lands transported me. My imagination took flight. I dutifully copied, and I fell in love with maps.
I don’t know exactly what it is that drew me to maps in my childhood and continues to today. Maybe I was just a weird kid. But even back then, I strived to gain knowledge of the world around me. The globe I owned as a child taught me about the world I had yet to see. Almost twenty years later, an old, weathered road atlas took me across the country. A good map, well studied, can become an old friend.
People think of maps as objective, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. A map is a political and cultural document. It is a snapshot of the global imagination, an arbitrary projection of lines and names onto a planet that, truthfully, has neither. Some maps choose not to recognize certain countries; some claim that Greenland is bigger than Africa.
At various times throughout history, a map created in one part of the world might look quite different from one created elsewhere. Today, thankfully, some standards have been set. We can all agree on the general shape and position of the dry and wet parts of the Earth. The question of map-making in 2019, therefore, is a horse of a different color.
Part of this is because the modern traveler does not depend on the globe in their study, but the screen in their pocket. There are different options, to be sure. I myself rely on Google Maps. Others swear by Waze. Some poor saps, presumably, are still using Apple Maps. Whichever you prefer, maps are perhaps more accessible now than they ever have been.
And yet this is not even the most revolutionary fact about maps in 2019. Because, while our phones allow us to navigate like never before, they also allow us to map ourselves. We constantly share our location via apps like Snapchat and Find My Friend, as well as a host of other third-party collectors. Our data is being used every day to draw the maps of the future. And I, for one, can’t wait to see them.
We already can see this in some forms. Think of the real-time traffic maps that you use to determine the best time to leave for work. Or the map that tells you how crowded the hip new restaurant is going to be, and predicts how much time you will probably spend there. Powered by enough data, a map becomes a living thing.
And that’s just the beginning. I imagine digital maps, integrated with historical location data, that can answer questions about the effect people have on their place. How do hiking trails change over time, based on erosion caused by footfall? Which parts of a city see the most travel by car, bike, and bus? The possibilities are endless.
I am never going to abandon my road atlas and my globe. I will always get particular satisfaction from cracking open a physical map and finding my way. But companies like X-Mode Social are changing the way we map the world and our place within it. And I am happy to know that the next generation of weird kids, sitting on the floor with their own sketch pads, will not run out of maps to inspire their imagination. | https://medium.com/blogmode/why-i-love-maps-124b48a1c2e1 | [] | 2019-02-26 16:19:20.883000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Science', 'Tech', 'Maps', 'Data'] |
SOLID Principles — explained with examples | S — Single Responsibility Principle (known as SRP)
The name itself suggest that the “class should be having one and only one responsibility”. What does it mean? Well let’s take the class A which does the following operations.
Open a database connection
Fetch data from database
Write the data in an external file
The issue with this class is that it handles lot of operations. Suppose any of the following change happens in future.
New database
Adopt ORM to manage queries on database
Change in the output structure
So in all the cases the above class would be changed. Which might affect the implementation of the other two operations as well. So ideally according to SRP there should be three classes each having the single responsibility.
O — Open/Closed Principle
This principle suggests that “classes should be open for extension but closed for modification”. What is means is that if the class A is written by the developer AA, and if the developer BB wants some modification on that then developer BB should be easily do that by extending class A, but not by modifying class A.
The easy example would be the RecyclerView.Adapter class. Developers can easily extend this class and create their own custom adapter with custom behaviour without modifying the existing RecyclerView.Adapter class.
L — Liskov’s Substitution Principle
This principle suggests that “parent classes should be easily substituted with their child classes without blowing up the application”. Let’s take following example to understand this.
Let’s consider an Animal parent class.
public class Animal {
public void makeNoise() {
System.out.println("I am making noise");
}
}
Now let’s consider the Cat and Dog classes which extends Animal.
public class Dog extends Animal {
@Override
public void makeNoise() {
System.out.println("bow wow");
}
}
public class Cat extends Animal {
@Override
public void makeNoise() {
System.out.println("meow meow");
}
}
Now, wherever in our code we were using Animal class object we must be able to replace it with the Dog or Cat without exploding our code. What do we mean here is the child class should not implement code such that if it is replaced by the parent class then the application will stop running. For ex. if the following class is replace by Animal then our app will crash.
class DumbDog extends Animal {
@Override
public void makeNoise() {
throw new RuntimeException("I can't make noise");
}
}
If we take Android example then we should write the custom RecyclerView adapter class in such a way that it still works with RecyclerView. We should not write something which will lead the RecyclerView to misbehave.
I — Interface Segregation Principle
This principle suggests that “many client specific interfaces are better than one general interface”. This is the first principle which is applied on interface, all the above three principles applies on classes. Let’s take following example to understand this principle.
In android we have multiple click listeners like OnClickListener as well as OnLongClickListener.
/**
* Interface definition for a callback to be invoked when a view is clicked.
*/
public interface OnClickListener {
/**
* Called when a view has been clicked.
*
* @param v The view that was clicked.
*/
void onClick(View v);
} /**
* Interface definition for a callback to be invoked when a view has been clicked and held.
*/
public interface OnLongClickListener {
/**
* Called when a view has been clicked and held.
*
* @param v The view that was clicked and held.
*
* @return true if the callback consumed the long click, false otherwise.
*/
boolean onLongClick(View v);
}
Why do we need two interfaces just for same action with one single tap and another with long press. Why can’t we have following interface.
public interface MyOnClickListener {
void onClick(View v);
boolean onLongClick(View v);
}
If we have this interface then it will force clients to implement onLongClick even if they don’t even care about long press. Which will lead to overhead of unused methods. So having two separate interfaces helps in removing the unused methods. If any client want both behaviours then they can implement both interfaces.
D — Dependency Inversion Principle
This principle suggest that “classes should depend on abstraction but not on concretion”. What does it mean that we should be having object of interface which helps us to communicate with the concrete classes. What do we gain from this is, we hide the actual implementation of class A from the class B. So if class A changes the class B doesn’t need to care or know about the changes.
In android if we are following MVP pattern then we need to keep reference of Presenter in our View. Now if we keep the Presenter concrete class object in View then it leads to tight coupling. So what we do is we create a interface which abstracts the implementation of presenter and our view class keeps the reference of the PresenterInterface. | https://medium.com/mindorks/solid-principles-explained-with-examples-79d1ce114ace | ['Raj Suvariya'] | 2019-11-17 16:24:02.105000+00:00 | ['Android', 'Solid', 'AndroidDev', 'Design Patterns', 'Software Development'] |
Human Cell Atlas: An innovative initiative & vision to change the course of Biomedicine with Data Science & more precisely using Deep Learning | Human Cell Atlas: An innovative initiative & vision to change the course of Biomedicine with Data Science & more precisely using Deep Learning Vivek Das Follow Jun 23, 2019 · 6 min read
This week’s post, I will shed some information based on my understanding of the future of DeepLearning in an era of single-cell omics. This is in reference to the Human Cell Atlas project, that recently obtained Seed Network funding from Chan Zuckerberg Science Initiative and the way I see it will change the course of understanding human biology. To begin with:
What is Human Cell Atlas initiative?
To my knowledge, this is one of the most comprehensive initiatives that has been taken by various leading labs, institutes to envision the dream to build a reference map of human cells. This will help us understand the fundamentals of human life systems, starting from a big map that can be broken down to the granular single unit of a cell. Thus it aims at addressing the complexity of the human system or tissues via building a multi-reference map from one-cell at a time. This will enable us to get a comprehensive understanding of human health via the basic understanding of both development and disease biology. The promise of such understanding can already help us to connect the dots of how various cells in higher dimensional space cross-communicate with each other to build the human tissue system thus providing deeper insights into health, disease onset, and progression. More of its information can be found here and in this paper Human Cell Atlas.
How do I see this vision through my lens?
The vision that HCA wants to reach is built on addressing some of the biggest challenges that we have in age single cell omics. It is not only one of the most promising revolution of our time but it also opens up a lot of complexities like that of “Pandora's box”. The challenge is not only solving human biological complexity but a broad spectrum that addresses aspects of technology, the computational infrastructure needed not only for making the complex data analysis but also in handling the massive amount of data. Such data handling needs efficient means of storage, privacy, security & sharing. This also means there has to be massive quality control(QC) and quality assurance(QA) in terms of delivering such advancements with precision. One of the advancements that we will witness through HCA will be the development of amazing computational methods or algorithms to handle, interrogate, analyze and visualize the big data that single cell will generate. This will also bring in the incremental usage of Machine Learning and Deep Learning. One of my favorite read in this space is a Medium post titled: Deep Learning for Single Cell Biology published in Towards Data Science by Nikolay Oskolkov. It is an amazing read to check out if you haven't done it yet.
Here are some of my thoughts that I echo with this post:
This post provides a projection of how the field will move ahead with more data generation& acquisition: HCA is already trying to build a map of billions or trillions of cells that characterizes the human development & disease biology. This will use massive amounts of single cell technologies to build those cell maps that will span addressing complexities of DNA, RNA, Protein, layered with Epigenomics data, Digital Pathology via Imaging, Phenotypic measures. In short, it will lead to the generation of multi-omics and multi-modal data to connect genotype to phenotype understanding. The post also provides a thorough analogy of upcoming need for usage of dimension reduction algorithms to better delineate complexity/heterogeneity of cells or cellular morphology: In biological data, one of the many ways of understanding data is via visualizing them in 2D. Now with such enormous volumes, we need to get better with our algorithms to capture the dimensional space for better elucidating the biological problem we want to address or at least provides first-hand testing of our initial hypothesis. To get some more understanding I would redirect to one of my previous posts that sheds some information of dimension reduction. Current dimension reduction in forms of t-SNE, UMAP will be soon complemented with deep learning Autoencoder based projections for complexity breakdowns to tackle non-linearity of dimensions. One of the most important aspects of dimension reduction is to capture the non-linearity of gene expression via single-cell RNA-Seq data. This non-linearity is in a way addressing the complex stochastic events that happen during the transcriptional process. This also represents cell space that is constituted of the cell states in multi-dimension to capture intricacies of human development and disease biology. More detailed information of this representation of cell space through HCA can be found in the Chris P. Ponting review.
Image from Chris P. Ponting “The Human Cell Atlas: making ‘cell space’ for disease” https://dmm.biologists.org/content/12/2/dmm037622 Disease Models & Mechanisms 2019 12: dmm037622 doi: 10.1242/dmm.037622 Published 1 February 2019
4. This post already gives us some information about data-sets already in order of ~1.3 or 2 Million cells that have been generated via 10x genomics platform. These are mostly done in mice but the projection of HCA aims at establishing such enormous amounts of data. With such enormous amounts of data, one also needs to address these massive sparse datasets we see in single-cell data. One of the fine reads of addressing such sparsity in single cell space is by using denoising of single cell data via Deep Autoencoder model can be found here. Autoencoder has earlier been used in the prediction of gene expression dynamics in yeast a using MultiLayer Perceptron and Stacked Denoising Auto-encoder (MLP-SAE) that relies on the regression-based prediction model. More on the work can be found here. Currently, the scope of it will be more realized in predicting the cell states & cell fates in the context of single-cell.
5. The post also addresses the growing needs for computational infrastructure & expertise to help resolve the ever-growing atlas of single-cell data & putting an architectural framework. Having said that, such can be done when we can bring in more computational, mathematical, statistical, data science, epidemiologists to join the league of extraordinary physicians, geneticists, molecular and developmental biologists. This will help us realize the potential of interdisciplinary biology or biomedicine. Chan Zuckerberg Science Initiative is putting in massive efforts in this space. Some of its new efforts and initiatives to accelerate the space can be found here.
6. The Medium post of Deep Learning for Single Cell also touches upon innovations that will be in place with usage of machine learning applications in training & testing sets. To my understanding, this will also assist in the understanding of cellular diversity both in cell type identification space & in mapping cell lineage or trajectory in developmental &/or disease biology. Two powerful & comprehensive state of art workflows in single-cell space are Seurat (currently version 3 including new integrative models & label transfers via anchoring) & Monocle (currently Monocle3 owing to its latest upgraded version).
A representative image of various functionalities that can be obtained from newly upgraded Monocle3. Image sourced from https://cole-trapnell-lab.github.io/monocle3/
7. Finally, something it touches upon for interoperability & scalability to implement Deep Autoencoders for massive 10X Genomics e.g. ~1.3M mouse brain cells single cell RNAseq data set using Keras and Tensor Flow. Earlier works of single-cell using R, Keras & TensorFlow have already been shown by Jean Fen & Kieran R Campbell.
I thank & acknowledge all the authors whose work I have cited in this story as they provided me enough food for thought to start with & pen down my understanding. This is how I envision the evergrowing field of single-cell and HCA based on my learning and understanding. I would be happy to add more information for clarity if needed. I also thank Nikolay Oskolkov for the wonderful post that gave me the foundation for this write-up to dig deeper and put my readings in a collective manner.
Edit 1: I have added images sourced from various articles and websites & linked them to their origin. | https://medium.com/musings-of-scientist/human-cell-atlas-an-innovative-initiative-vision-to-change-the-course-of-biomedicine-with-data-d7facd6ae97c | ['Vivek Das'] | 2019-06-23 14:56:17.676000+00:00 | ['Rna Seq', 'Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Genomics', 'Deep Learning'] |
The Deacon Meets Blockchain: Wake Fintech | Greetings, BEN community!
Though COVID-19 may have put some of our Spring plans on pause, it’s still been a busy year for Wake Fintech. We wanted to take a moment to update the community on what we’ve been up to, as well as some of our plans for the future.
Last April, Wake Fintech hosted an event with Kevin Leffew (WFU ’17 and Fintech Club Founder) and John Quinn (WFU ’95) of Storj Labs. The public talk included a live demo of Storj Labs’ decentralized Cloud Storage platform, Tardigrade.io, which gave students an in-depth look at how blockchain is revolutionizing the way we develop applications and store data.
This past Fall, we held meetings throughout the semester which featured engaging presentations and demos by our very own Fintech club members. We kicked off the semester with an overview of blockchain technology, as well as a presentation teaching students about the history of Bitcoin and how it helped promote the development of future cryptocurrencies. This was followed up with a round-table discussion of how we currently use blockchain in our daily lives, as well as areas where blockchain and cryptocurrencies could be implemented to create value and make life easier. We also discussed some of the issues that cryptocurrencies could face on the path to widespread adoption.
In October, Rob Michele (WFU ’20 and Outgoing Club President), taught members about Bittrex’s REST API through a presentation and live demo. Michele has used the service for various projects and trading algorithms in the past, and his extensive knowledge made for a very eye-opening experience for all — especially members who didn’t have as much development experience and were excited to get started with their first projects.
Our semester was capped-off in November with a presentation by Zach Skubic (WFU ’23), who taught members about the ways Fintech can help fix underbanking in developing economies by promoting financial inclusion. Skubic spoke about cryptocurrencies and blockchain implementation, emphasizing increasing mobile accessibility worldwide and the need for digital security, as well as the need for online banking solutions that cater directly to developing markets. He also discussed the potential for the securitization of microloans to increase institutional access to developing markets while providing social enterprises with additional funding.
Zach Skubic presents “How Fintech Can Fix Underbanking in Developing Economies” — November 2019
Even though we might not be able to meet in-person for events at the moment, we’re still very excited about the future of Wake Fintech. We look forward to continuing our meetings and student-led presentations to provide our community with a look at the developments occurring within the Fintech realm, and we are also excited to expand our educational offerings to students through our partnership with BEN. When the time comes (hopefully next Fall), we hope to extend more invitations to leaders in the blockchain and crypto communities so students can continue learning from experts about cutting-edge projects that are having a real-world impact. | https://medium.com/blockchainedu/the-deacon-meets-blockchain-wake-fintech-bfed9d1833ce | ['Zach Skubic'] | 2020-07-09 18:28:37.086000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Fintech', 'Blockchain Technology', 'Education'] |
Christmas inspiration from the dog | Christmas inspiration from the dog
‘Raise the Woof’ and other pup entertainment
Photo credit: Adriana Puente/Unsplash
Never have I ever been less interested in decorating for the holidays. But I have yet to miss a year for holiday decorations at home — and I’ve had 10 different mailing addresses. Where I go, the decorations follow. Even in a dreadful 2020 year, I dragged out my Halloween decorations so clearly I was going to fight with Christmas lights. If you’re still in a Grinch-like mood (and not the Jim Carrey fun version), dogs may be just what you need to get you into the spirit. You want to test out my theory? Here’s your chance.
Dogs get a Christmas song: “Raise the Woof!”
I won’t even bother lying to you. The first-ever dog Christmas song is mildly annoying, but it’s somehow catchy. The lady saying “Would you like to go on …?” makes me want to listen to an Ace of Base “The Sign” cassette tape for the millionth time since my childhood. The squeaky toy sound will undoubtedly become irritating — not as much as the lady constantly saying “sit” or the guy yelling “squirrel” though. And it’s too cold to eat watermelon, but these dogs could possibly send you to the nearest grocery store anyway. You deserve “treats” too.
Christmas card inspiration — in your robe
I never paid much attention to Tyler, the Creator until the 2018 “Grinch” film came out, and my WERQ dance fitness instructor kept showing the class dance choreography to it. But it’s this spot in the music video at 00:36 of Max sliding around on the back of the Grench’s robe that is so very, very 2020. If you’re looking for Christmas card photo ideas, what could possibly be better than getting your dog to do that long enough to snap the photo and mail?
Snoopy, music lessons be damned
Every time I watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” I wonder why I bothered trying to master the piano in elementary school or lugging an alto saxophone for months when I could’ve just picked up an instrument and spun it around in a circle. Don’t tell me it doesn’t work. That’s what Snoopy did with the guitar.
Two dogs are better than one
Danny DeVito saying, “Your mom knew your cousin a little too well” will never not be funny to me. Savagery at its finest. Rocks in “Look Who’s Talking Now” was something else, but Diane Keaton as the poodle Daphne didn’t short-stop either. If you’re an ’80s baby, chances are this 1993 film was part of your childhood. If you weren’t in the Baby Boomer, Generation X or Millennial crowd who enjoyed this film in theaters, find it on a streaming site (or DVD bin) near you. All three films are good, but this one may be the best yet.
And if these four fail you, just browse through your photo albums looking at years’ past. A dog owner hasn’t lived until (s)he has had to yell at a pup to not knock down the Christmas tree, stop ripping at the gift wrapping paper, yank away a Christmas ball that he decided was a chew toy, excessively hide any perfectly wrapped dog toys or treats underneath that your hound dog has sniffed out or stayed glued to your side in case any amount of Christmas dinner fell on the floor. Happy (upcoming) Howl-o-days! | https://medium.com/doggone-world/christmas-inspiration-from-the-dog-d2c825bcbf50 | ['Shamontiel L. Vaughn'] | 2020-12-11 19:27:48.932000+00:00 | ['Dogs', 'Happy Holidays', 'Grinch', 'Christmas', 'Pets'] |
Learning Data Science Online Without an Instructor: Tips and Tricks | For learning data science, one option is to order and go through an on-demand Data Science course without an instructor. These courses are far easier on your budget than a conventional instructor-led coding boot camp, let alone an accredited computer science degree. Like other technical career preparation courses, you’ll get plenty of opportunities to practice. Without intensively practicing, there is no way to gain the experience to become a professional.
In a more expensive course, you might have an instructor or a teaching assistant whose office hours you can visit when you’re stuck. Your instructor might also give you a professional reference for your first technical job. However, after a certain point, there is only so much hand-holding you will have. At some point, you are the one expected to lead your teammates on the job, and no one is there for you. You’ll need to learn how to rely on other resources, so why not save the money and be more independent from the start?
From the first, get the extra preparation
The first thing you need to do, probably before you write a line of code, is to learn to read the programming language documentation and the textbooks. You are probably in the best position if you learn Python, which is an especially popular and versatile programming language. Familiarity with the documentation can give you a feel for how to write Python and what the language will and will not do. The core Python language has extensive official documentation and tutorials. So do the specialized Data Science and other Python libraries taught in most Python-based Data Science courses, such as NumPy and pandas.
A programming library is a reusable set of programming commands, with a defined interface to enable this set of commands to be used in a program. The core Python language is available in all Python programs, and other libraries can be specially added.
Image from www.python.org on Wikipedia
Utilize search engines
Now here’s a mini-exercise. Can you find the documentation of the latest stable versions of the core Python language and of the two libraries mentioned here, NumPy and pandas? Hint: Search engines are your friend. The answer to this exercise is given at the end of this blog post.
When your code does not work, another tip is to read the error messages you receive. Part of your error message should be common to a variety of other error messages, and part should be a distinct phrase. Take the part that is distinct and copy/paste it into a search engine. You might want to put it in quotes, to search for the consecutive phrase rather than the non-consecutive words. This will hone your search down to web pages where your specific error, and its fix, is discussed. Sometimes these web pages do not have a fix but have clues you can also search for. Tracing the clues is part of learning how to code.
Pinpoint the cause of any problems
The program may also not give an explicit error, but may still not be behaving how you want. You need to think about the problem line of code by line of code, to pinpoint the specific commands you will need to change. One of the first programming commands you will learn is how to print out lines of text onto your screen. Add these commands to the program, after each line or so, to verify the lines of code in your program are running the correct number of times.
Photo by Kevin Canlas on Unsplash
In Python, you may also be creating something called a variable. A variable is a value stored in a specific location in memory and given a name. When you refer to the name of the variable, you can access its value. Variables are very important in most programs for storing and sharing information. And as you run the program, you can specify how the variable’s value changes. When you test your program by printing out the line of code, you can include the value of the variable to double-check that this value has changed to what you want.
Python also offers standard tools, such as pdb, to debug — which means fix — your code using a similar approach. Another exercise, with the answer given at the end of this post, is to find the documentation of pdb. Using these types of print and debug commands will give you a fine-scale view of how your program is working. Once you have fixed your program’s issues, removing the lines of code used for debugging is one step in cleaning up your code.
Don’t give up
If you want to overcome most programming obstacles, you need practice. Even so, you can be stuck for hours or days at times, unable to figure out how to fix an issue with your program. This struggle is normal. It is part of learning to code. Just make sure you set aside a good bloc of coding time at least a few days a week, ideally in a routine, and eliminate distractions. Even with a designated course instructor, you will probably face this type of struggle and you should first extensively try the methods described above. It is important to get efficient at searching for the issue yourself, even if this feels painful and cumbersome at first.
Taking a self-paced online course definitely requires an extra dose of personal discipline. From time to time, you may well need someone else to give you that extra pair of eyes or even that extra bit of accountability. And sometimes, coding is actually lonely. If you need more human interaction than this post describes, there are still many ways to get it.
This article was originally published in the blog of INE, a technical training provider, here:
Answers to exercises | https://towardsdatascience.com/learning-data-science-online-without-an-instructor-tips-and-tricks-5e15fb886333 | ['Rebecca Sealfon'] | 2020-12-02 03:14:22.030000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Data Science', 'Beginners Guide', 'Debugging', 'Programming'] |
Beauty Takes Flight: Real and Fantastical Birds in Persian Art | Bird lovers will delight in the many glorious winged creatures to be found in the High’s Bestowing Beauty exhibition.
By Eva Berlin, Digital Content Specialist, High Museum of Art
In the rich literary, mythological, and visual traditions of Persia, birds are central figures. For example, legend has it that the mythical bird Simurgh helped birth Rustam, the key hero in the Iranian national epic the Shahnama (Book of Kings). Birds were common pets in ancient Persia, and there’s a long history of falconry in the region. Persians were also some of the earliest peoples to cultivate gardens, ideal settings for picnicking, writing poetry, and watching birds fluttering amongst the trees.
Birds came to represent a range of different ideas, including freedom, love, fertility, ordained kingship, and healing. If you look closely at Persian artworks, you’ll likely spot real birds such as nightingales, doves, peacocks, hawks, and falcons, and fantastical birds such as Simurgh, Huma, and Chamrosh.
Below are some of the exquisite objects that feature birds in Bestowing Beauty: Masterpieces from Persian Lands. See these objects and other Persian works from the private collection of Hossein Afshar in the exhibition, on view at the High through April 18, 2021.
Birds in Bestowing Beauty
Pendant, Iran, nineteenth century, gold; decorated with polychrome enamel, gemstones, and pearls
This brightly colored enameled piece takes the form of a raptor with outstretched wings. The bold style of the piece, combining techniques imported from Europe and India, was popular in the Qajar period (1785–1924). The vibrant, glossy colors are achieved through enameling, the application of crushed colored glass mixed with water and then fired to create a smooth finish. Enameling was introduced to the Islamic world by Byzantine craftsmen as early as the thirteenth century. Gemstones and pearls complete this stunning bejeweled bird, which likely adorned a headdress or clothing. | https://medium.com/high-museum-of-art/beauty-takes-flight-real-and-fantastical-birds-in-persian-art-5bb56f405eec | ['High Museum Of Art'] | 2020-12-11 21:32:42.078000+00:00 | ['Animals', 'Iran', 'Culture', 'Art', 'Birds'] |
What I Learned About Black Wealth By Studying Black Millionaires | What I Learned About Black Wealth By Studying Black Millionaires
Photo by Blake Barlow on Unsplash
This past October, I did something that I’ve never done before. Here in the UK, we celebrate Black History Month in October and I typically observe the month with some activity at work or a one-off post about some black luminary, either living or dead. It usually feels perfunctory and not as much of a celebration as I’d like it to be, but I do it anyway.
Then this year, an idea swelled up inside me and came forth like this undeniable thing that I just had to do: what if I used every day of October to highlight examples of black wealth and financial excellence throughout history?
This idea came as an answer to a burning question that I’ve had for many years — have black people always struggled with attaining wealth?
I mean I know my fair share of successful black people, both personally and from a distance, but there seems to be some conventional wisdom that the experience of black people is one of scarcity, making ends meet, being disenfranchised and excluded from the power of the economic system.
Almost everything you hear or read suggests that black people, especially those minority populations living in western countries like the US and the UK, or even within those black majority countries in Africa and the Caribbean, are characterised by some inability to achieve and transfer wealth consistently over the generations. This article isn’t about whether that is true or not, but I’m interested in the prevailing perception of black wealth and achievement.
So I set out to find them: 31 men and women over the course of human civilization who achieved epic levels of wealth and prosperity. I wanted validation, I wanted to read those compelling stories, I wanted to see myself in those melanated kings and queens, who found their paths to financial abundance. I mean, it couldn’t be that hard to find 31 wealthy black people, right? Let me tell you what I discovered.
Surely, we can’t all aspire to being the next Oprah or Jay Z….so, I wanted to find other examples of black wealth, people whose stories were unfamiliar and who found success in areas that are unexpected.
But before I get started, let me explain my thought process and criteria for this search. If I were to look around today, I know that it would be pretty easy to find many, many, many examples of black millionaires. With the proliferation of black people (ie of African heritage) at the top levels of film, music, sports and entertainment around the world, it would be easy to fill my 31 slots with names that are pretty familiar to most.
In fact, according to Business Insider, there are (only) 7 black billionaires in the United States, but when you look at the names, these are people we’re already familiar with: Oprah, Jordan, Jay Z, Kanye (really?). The point is, this list tends to be dominated by those who made their wealth in the high-profile fields of entertainment and sports — which is already an incredible feat and not to be diminished — but, I was curious about other examples of where black excellence has led to massive financial prosperity. Surely, we can’t all aspire to be the next Oprah or Jay Z.
I wanted to find other examples of black wealth, people whose stories were unfamiliar and who found success in areas that are unexpected.
I also wanted to go as far back into recorded history as I could, to show that while there has been a long history of struggle and oppression, there are people who were able to overcome adversity and excel at whatever they put their efforts behind.
Here’s what I discovered:
1. It’s hard.
Look, I probably set myself up to fail with this criteria. Trying to find a diverse population of black millionaires and billionaires to fill 31 days of social media content is not an easy task. Why do I think that is? Well, first of all, it probably reflects the reality that black people have been subjected to such oppression and exclusion that it has been difficult to achieve economic equality and to then aspire to the heights of exceptional wealth.
The fact of the matter is that black people, especially in the wealthiest countries of the world, have been systematically excluded from the wealth creation engines of the last 2 centuries.
Whether through slavery, segregation, institutional racism, employment and housing discrimination or financial exclusion. It might also have something to do with the lack of representation and bias. If stories of black wealth haven’t been researched, highlighted and shared broadly, then it’s hard to find that evidence through a typical Google search. No, this might require some real digging and years of journalistic/academic investigation.
2. It’s skewed towards the USA.
Needless to say, the US has been the world’s economic superpower for at least a century if not longer, and despite its challenges with racial inequality that has disproportionately affected black people, most of my featured millionaires and billionaires created their wealth in America.
This is not to say that black wealth cannot be found in other countries, and there are certainly numerous examples in Africa, the Caribbean and Canada, but it was a lot easier to identify individuals meeting my criteria in the US. Again, this could be due to the fact that there haven’t been sufficient profiles of wealthy black people globally.
3. It is usually characterised by adversity that includes racism or discrimination.
The sad fact is that many of the people on my list faced huge challenges due to racism. For example, the founders of “Black Wall Street”, a community of black-owned enterprises in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, saw their years of community-building go up in flames due to race riots in the 1920s. Or Janice Bryant-Howroyd, who overcame living in segregated North Carolina to build a billion-dollar employment agency, the largest in the world.
I was also inspired by Chris Gardner, who wrote the book that would go on to become a film “The Pursuit of Happyness” — a gripping story about how he battled homelessness to become a stockbroker and multi-millionaire owner of a brokerage firm. These stories and many more all sound like fairytales, but instead of a prince riding in on a white horse, the real heroes are the main subjects, the people who radically altered the direction of their lives by taking decisive action and betting on themselves.
4. It is filled with uplifting, awe-inspiring stories.
Mansa Musa’s incredible wealth never ceases to amaze me. This King of the Malian Empire is consistently referenced as the wealthiest person to have ever lived (although this is disputed by some, given the difficulty in having accurate records of wealth dating from that time). But, it’s still incredible to see the depictions of a strong, savvy, wildly ambitious and powerful person of African heritage in the discussion of exceptional wealth.
5. There aren’t enough women.
Growing up surrounded by entrepreneurial women in my family, I have always known that women are capable of achieving massive financial success and so I wasn’t surprised by the women who appeared in my list. However, I wanted there to be more.
Of the 19 people I was ultimately able to profile, only 5 of them were women.
For some reason, when we think of millionaire status or monetary success, the image is typically male and clearly that is no reflection of any inherent, gender-based ability to create wealth. I’m sure there are many reasons for this, likely steeped in archaic ideas about familial wealth, transfer of assets, misogyny in the workplace and the well-known ‘glass ceiling’. So while I was thrilled at the incredible stories of achievement by women, it was hard to miss the fact that there were so few.
Nonetheless, the heights scaled by Madam C.J. Walker, Mary Ellen Pleasant, Janice Bryant-Howroyd, Sheila Crump Johnson and Oprah Winfrey are not to be under-appreciated. These women achieved exceptional success and paved the way for many more women of our generation to shatter their respective glass ceilings.
6. The areas of success are wide and varied.
If you look at the most successful black people in the world today, they tend to populate the expected fields of entertainment and sports, which might lead some to believe that these are the limits to our abilities. What my unscientific research uncovered is the variety of fields where black people have been successful, going back centuries. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but in some ways I was surprised to learn about the feats of entrepreneurial excellence achieved by black people over the years. Whether it was The Potato King, Junius Groves, who pioneered the cultivation of potato crops in the early 1900s; Don Barden, who became the first African American owner of casinos and hotels on the Las Vegas strip; Robert Reed Church, who owned steamboats, investment properties and even shares of a commercial bank in 1906; Daymond John, who build a billion-dollar clothing empire from his mother’s living room; Mary Ellen Pleasant, who became an investor in gold mines, real estate and banking in the late 1800s. In fact, there were few, if any duplications of the fields chosen by the profiled individuals, further showing that we have been and can be successful at any endeavour.
To be honest, a part of me hesitated about writing this article, as if it somehow would validate the idea that it’s difficult to highlight black financial excellence over the years. And to be fair, it hasn’t been the easiest task. In the end, I struggled to identify 31 individuals to profile, but that could be because I chose criteria that eliminated many modern-day wealthy black people. Or I didn’t research diligently enough.
However, I am glad that I took the opportunity to dive into this history, to really explore some examples of where black people have defied the odds to create exceptional wealth. It says to me that we have a proud history that gives us inspiration to strive for excellence and financial freedom.
It’s not about becoming a millionaire, as much as it is about building a legacy of abundance and achievement that enables future generations to reach their full potential, without the struggles of economic hardship and scarcity.
Clearly, difficult conditions have served as a catalyst and motivator for the people who I profiled and perhaps can explain the drive that they all had to succeed no matter what. But I certainly believe that ours doesn’t have to be a legacy of struggle; instead, we can use these examples of black financial and entrepreneurial excellence as role models for creating something great with the skills and opportunities that we are given.
So, here is the full list that I compiled. Let me know if you have any more examples to share: | https://medium.com/the-ascent/what-i-learned-about-black-wealth-by-studying-black-millionaires-804d86dfcb3 | ['Kayus Fernander'] | 2020-12-17 16:02:50.955000+00:00 | ['Financial Freedom', 'Black Excellence', 'Wealth', 'Black History Month', 'Black Wealth'] |
3 Easy Ways to Make Working From Home Even More Awesome | It’s already pretty great, but here are a few simple ways to improve it even more!
1. Find a fun way to incorporate short bursts of physical activity
I recently decided to pick up a mini-trampoline (Thanks Amazon Warehouse deals) and throw it in my living room, directly outside of the tiny bedroom I use as my office and an occasional guest room. It’s honestly probably the best $30 I’ve spent this year. No matter what kind work you do from home, sometimes you just need to look away from your screen for 5 minutes to clear your head. Spending those 5 minutes doing something active really forces you to turn your brain off and take a rest. I challenge you to not enjoy bouncing around like a child to some high energy music for 3–5 minutes. If you want a free option, just take a dance break!
2. Have quick snacks ready to go
I’m a foodie. I bake bread from scratch on the regular. I’ve co-hosted holiday dinners that involve starting prep work days in advance. Working 20 feet away from my kitchen can be a challenge when I need to get things done, but I also need to eat lunch. The best way to handle this is to treat my office like it does not exist in my house, but a magical external space free from distractions. Lately, my snack of choice has been mint chocolate chip protein shakes, because they’re super filling and take almost no time to put together. I’m also a big fan of making a giant batch of roasted chickpeas so I can grab a little bowl and graze on them while I work. Maybe for you, this means investing in a milk frother so you can have lattes without that trip to the coffee shop. Whatever it is, have it ready to go so you don’t end up starring into your fridge and procrastinating.
3. Find the right background sound for you
Some people will tell you Netflix is the enemy of productivity. That can be an absolutely accurate statement if it means you’re on your couch or stuck in your bed binging. We’ve all been there. That being said, I actually find re-marathoning certain things on my iPad while I work on my laptop to put me in the zone just as well as music (Harry Potter marathon…yes please!). Some people need complete silence to hit their peak productivity and that’s cool too. The key here is to experiment and figure out exactly what works for YOU as an individual. That might even be different on different days.
Let me know in the comments what you incorporate into your remote work routine to keep yourself on task while still enjoying your day in the comments! | https://medium.com/swlh/3-easy-ways-to-make-working-from-home-even-more-awesome-756d4cc39c08 | ['Cassy Kissack'] | 2019-09-13 15:01:16.305000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Remote Working', 'Business', 'Working From Home', 'Productivity'] |
I Don’t Understand Straight People, Even Though I’m Married to One | I’m pansexual: I’m sexually attracted to people of all sexes and genders. Sometimes I use the word bisexual instead because “pan” makes me cringe with visions of a cartoon Peter Pan. But bisexual implies — duh — a binary. And my sexuality does not feel binary at all.
It’s not that I’m attracted to men and I’m attracted to women. It’s that I’m attracted to people.
When I say I’m pan, I’m not saying I’m attracted to all people. In fact, I’m not attracted to most people. But when I am attracted to someone, that someone can be of any sex and any gender.
My worldview is colored by my sexuality. “I only date women,” sounds to me like “I only date redheads.” Like, really, you can’t even imagine being attracted to a brunette?
My first impulse is to assume society tricked all the 100% heterosexual and 100% homosexual people into thinking they had to live in the binary.
As Elle Beau recently wrote about herself and her husband:
“We considered ourselves straight at that point, largely because we’d never had very much opportunity to be anything else and we knew we weren’t gay — and for most of our lives, those seemed like the only choices.”
We don’t choose who we fall for. Sometimes you just feel chemistry with someone — when I met my husband, the chemistry was immediate and intoxicating — and you can’t choose who that person is or what’s under their clothes. Attraction isn’t a decision.
So it’s hard for me to understand the total surety some people feel that they’ll never, ever be attracted to someone who doesn’t present/identify as a certain gender or doesn’t have specific parts.
I was nine years old when The Crying Game came out. One of my schoolmates had seen it (or, more likely, had heard his parents talking about it). At recess, we huddled under the rope ladder, wide-eyed, and listened:
“Then he finds out that she isn’t a she! She’s got… a thing!”
All my friends screamed, “Gross!”
I took note of their reactions, and learned something about the cruelty of the world. But in my little pansexual head, already, I was thinking, “Does it really matter? If you love someone, who cares?”
My first crush was Veda from the movie My Girl. My second crush was a boy in my Hebrew school class who held the door open for me. I wrote about them both in my first diary and hid it under my bookshelf, convinced my family would pick the heart-shaped lock with a bobby pin.
I’ve always been suspicious of people who say they’re 100% straight or gay.
My husband is one of those people.
He says he’s 100% hetero and it’s not because he’s afraid to be honest with himself. It’s not because he’s never considered it. He says, after total openness and soul-searching, it’s always been clear to him: he loves the combo of a female body and a female gender identity. And when it comes to attraction he has no interest in anything else.
He made out with guys once, at a punk rock kissing skillshare. He didn’t like their beards. Can’t blame him; I don’t usually like kissing beards either. The experience confirmed for him what he already knew: he’s straight.
It doesn’t make sense to me. But I believe him. I have to.
Each person knows their own gender and their own sexuality better than anyone else does. It’s as important to believe the straight people as it is to believe the rest of us.
Some cisgender people struggle to understand trans people. Trans, I get. But being hetero? That’s where I have a hard time understanding.
I wish transphobes would believe people and not be jerks, so that’s what I try to do with hetero people, starting with my own husband. I don’t understand how he feels he’s 100% straight, but I believe him and I try not to be a jerk about it.
I don’t understand his sexuality. He doesn’t understand mine either. | https://humanparts.medium.com/i-dont-understand-straight-people-even-though-i-m-married-to-one-f63a762fc66c | ['Darcy Reeder'] | 2019-06-04 18:17:23.119000+00:00 | ['Sexuality', 'Identity', 'Relationships', 'LGBTQ', 'Love And Sex'] |
PassSonar: Visualizing Player Interactions in Soccer Analytics | Democratized thanks to Michael Lewis’ Moneyball (both the book and then the movie adaptation), baseball and basketball have already gone quite far in the realm of sports analytics. Soccer is now also clearly in the place to take the next step, with a lot of work being done by companies like Opta and Statsbomb to explain and create analyses and statistical models.
Moreover, a small but growing community is advancing the boundaries and publishing influential work, coming forth with great ideas that have even been sometimes followed by professional clubs.
Wagon wheels in cricket show where batters are hitting
In this piece, we will take a look at one of the aspects of soccer analytics, PassSonar, a concept already known as “wagon wheels” in cricket analytics. One of the first to popularize this idea in the soccer field was Eliot McKinley, who developed and used them on Major League Soccer (USA) game data. Thanks to his tips, I was able to create ones for the European leagues. Nowadays, the PassSonar concept is going viral and other great enterprises like Football Whispers or now StatsBomb are also following the trend (see the recent piece from StatsBomb CEO Ted Knutson).
So with that said, here is a brief primer on PassSonar, with some design considerations and how the soccer analytics community uses them in their analysis.
Starting with PassNetworks: the less flashy sister of PassSonar
Some of the first graphics built on top of soccer data were pass networks, or pass maps. They highlight connections between players in terms of pass frequencies and ball touches. It helps to show how a team is structured when playing with the ball and so can become very useful towards understanding the general team tactic. In the below network graphic, we can easily visualize the influence of Barcelona’s elite midfielders like Sergio Busquets and Lionel Messi. There’s also a dispersion and interconnected quality about the passing network that over the years has come to define Barcelona’s style.
Barcelona ones are the most symmetrical amongst European teams
PassSonars came afterward to bring a sense of pass direction and to help detail a bit more individual players’ pass trends. Analyzed next to pass maps, they can indicate a player’s influence on ball movements and the directionality of those passes. Whereas the pass networks helped to visualize interactions between players (the to whom), the PassSonars help to visualize the diversity and effectiveness those passes, help to show the where.
An Example of PassSonar for AC Milan vs. Atalanta
They said, “Just follow the legend”
In the first publications on Twitter, there were a lot of questions about reading such a map. It is true that for a first-time public, it can be difficult to understand these. However, if we let ourselves be guided by the legend, it is actually quite straight forward.
The most important trait in these pass sonars is the radial bar. As it would be in simple bar charts, they represent the pass angle frequency. Make a 360-degree transformation, and we can place them on a football pitch. The first goal of this visualization is to organize information on pass direction. Therefore, highlighting average pass distance is an important second feature, and can be accomplished through the use of color.
Arsenal PassSonar and PassNetwork against Newcastle for the first matchday of 2019/2020 Premier League season.
Comparing with the PassNetwork is essential, especially for players’ positions. PassSonar brings better insights on pass frequency: on the above example, we can see how the Arsenal midfield tended to pass on the left side, especially with Reiss Nelson. The map also underlines how the two center backs didn’t pass directly to their midfielders and preferred to go through the sides, with both Nacho Monreal and Ainsley Maitland-Niles playing high on the pitch.
Additionally, it is interesting to see the goalkeepers’ pass directions given the increased stylistic emphasis on a keeper’s ability to initiate the attack from the back, even more this beginning season with new rules being for goal kicks.
Folks have also tried and developed other ideas for PassSonars such as:
Adding pass accuracy within each bar. It allows us to see if how effective players are at favoring passes towards certain sides.
Inverting how color and bar length is encoded, so that color then represents density and size of the bar is pass length. This is a very good alternative, but it may not necessarily fit with “classic” statistics density bar charts where the proportion is represented by the size of the bars.
Using average player position instead of the basic lineup for where players are placed on the graphic: unfortunately, it’s too much information on the same graphic and the placements can appear too confusing.
Tips on designing the PassSonar maps
Firstly a word on the tech — I build my maps thanks to Opta data with R under a custom Docker image. This helps a lot to produce reproducible work. I even build a small frontend web app, being able to create whatever map in a minute.
While I have heard some folks succeed with making similar maps with Tableau or even Excel, I believe a programming language like R (which has one of the best plotting libraries, ggplot2) or Python is suited best to this kind of work. But anyway, depending on your background, it’s not that hard to produce this kind of visualization with whatever software you prefer.
It also takes some time to find a good color mix, essential to a graphic such as this one. While a black background works like a charm, I find me inspired by blueprints — showing underneath construction — and so came that blue in my maps. So I don’t finish with too flashy a graphic — the blue being a bit sharp — the green shade is a perfect complement.
For the end of 2018/2019 Premier League season, I tried to build a more “design”-intensive plot for the Manchester City champions (there’s Ederson, the champions’ passing wunderkind at the goalkeeper spot). You will notice that the color range is not perfect for data interpretation, but it feels quite good for the overall design, and even helps to more starkly highlight the binning of the pass distances. I also added other rotation players on a side panel, ordered by minute played during the season. The font used here is Object Sans Typeface.
Manchester City’s PassSonar for 2018–19 Season
With a pass network map as a sanity base, pass sonars help to understand both how players interact with each other and the directionality and effectiveness of those interactions. The overall design idea presented here is still fairly young in the football analytics community, so we can only wonder how it can continue to evolve and inspire other ideas. | https://medium.com/nightingale/passsonar-visualizing-player-interactions-in-soccer-analytics-7708e1d94afc | ['Benoit Pimpaud'] | 2019-08-16 16:40:31.664000+00:00 | ['Soccer', 'Data Visualization', 'Sports', 'Sportsviz', 'Football'] |
Technical Update — May-June Dev Sprint | Technical Update — May-June Dev Sprint
The Ocean Protocol developer team does sprints lasting two to three weeks. The latest sprint ran from about May 21 to June 11. Below are some of the highlights. Keep in mind that a project can span multiple sprints. Some began during previous sprints and some will end during future sprints.
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
Worked on governance of the upcoming Ocean Production Network, and the governance of the keeper contracts in that network. See ocean#311 (definition, finished) and ocean#312 (implementation, started).
Worked on the deployment of the keeper contracts to various networks. See ocean#320.
Worked on keeper contracts whitelisting conditions. See ocean#295 and ocean#314.
Updated OEP-8 (the metadata spec), updated Plecos (which does metadata validation), and modified Aquarius to use Plecos. See OEPs#169, plecos#17, plecos#20, and aquarius#191.
Worked on updating Tuna, a toolkit for testing and comparing squid-js, squid-py and squid-java, and used it to check that they all agree. (They were all modified to implement version 0.3 of the Squid spec). See ocean#302.
To avoid problems with inconsistent units or big numbers, we went through all the code to ensure that 1) Ocean Token quantities (e.g. prices) are always represented using the smallest atomic unit of Ocean Tokens (akin to Wei or Satoshis; internally we call them vodkas), and 2) Ocean Token quantities are always stored as strings, except in the keeper contracts (where they are stored as 256-bit unsigned integers). See ocean#301.
Updated the Ocean Token Faucet Server (used by testnets). See faucet#27 and faucet#28.
Fixed various issues and improved the user experience in the Commons Marketplace. For example, see commons#86, commons#125, commons#141 and commons#151.
Tested various alternative wallets with Commons Marketplace. See commons#139.
Reduced the number of required MetaMask interactions by creating a re-usable auth token. See ocean#307.
Transactions were being sent to a keeper node to be signed using a private key stored there. (The private key was stored encrypted and squid sent a password to decrypt it briefly so it could be used for signing.) To improve security, squid now signs transactions locally, i.e. using a private key on the same machine as the squid instance (or on a machine where squid delegated signing). See ocean#336.
You can get an up-to-date sense of what the dev team is doing by looking at the Business Board and the top-level milestones. Currently, the next milestone is called “Production Network RC1” (Release Candidate 1). | https://blog.oceanprotocol.com/technical-update-may-june-update-2dffbeea861b | ['Troy Mcconaghy'] | 2019-06-18 08:44:49.159000+00:00 | ['Sprint', 'Product', 'Homepage', 'Blockchain', 'Report'] |
Here Are The Most Controversial AI Moments of 2020 | Here Are The Most Controversial AI Moments of 2020
List of Artificial Intelligence Controversies
Artificial intelligence has been the buzzword in 2020 and with the benefits of this technology evident around us; AI has had its own share of controversies. From algorithms¹ unfairly discriminating women in hiring and students complaining about unrealistic grades, there is no doubt that AI has evolved in 2020 and as 2021 beckons, it is time to take stock of what the year has been. With GPT3, deepfakes, and facial recognition making headlines in 2020, there are many arguments surrounding privacy and regulations.
Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash
In this article, I will explore the following controversial AI incidents in 2020 and explore the future prospects of artificial intelligence² and how 2021 is shaping up:
-Facial recognition
-Deepfakes
- AI-based grading system
- NeurIPS Reviews
- GPT 3
Facial Recognition
Clearview AI provides organizations, predominantly law enforcement agencies, with a database that is able to match images of faces with over three billion other facial pictures scraped from social media sites.
The company has recently been hit with a series of reprisals from social media platforms, who have taken a hostile stance in response to Clearview AI’s operations. In January, Twitter sent a cease letter and requested the deletion of all collected data Clearview AI³ had harvested from its platform. YouTube and Facebook followed up with similar actions in February.
Clearview AI claims that they have a First Amendment right to public information, and defends its practice on the basis of assisting law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime. Law enforcement agencies themselves are exempt from the EU’s #GDPR.
Clearview has received multiple cease-and-desist orders from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other companies over its practices, but it is not clear if the company has deleted any of the photos it’s used to build its database as directed by those cease-and-desist orders. In addition to the lawsuit in Illinois, Clearview is also facing legal action from California, New York, and Vermont.
Deepfakes
Deepfakes supplant people’s faces onto existing bodies. While many look near-genuine, the technology still hasn’t reached its potential. Still, experts have noted its misuse in pornography and politics.
The start of 2020 came with a clear shift in response to deepfake technology⁴, when Facebook announced a ban on manipulated videos and images on their platforms. Facebook said it would remove AI-edited content likely to mislead people, but added the ban does not include parody. Lawmakers, however, are skeptical as to whether the ban goes far enough to address the root problem: the ongoing spread of disinformation.
The speed and ease with which #deepfakes can be made and deployed, have many worried about misuse in the near future, especially with an election on the horizon for the U.S. Many in America, including military leaders, have also weighed in with worries about the speed and ease with which the tech can be used. These concerns are heightened by the knowledge that deepfake technology is improving and becoming more accessible.
Microsoft announced the release of technologies to combat online disinformation on their official blog. One of these technologies was the Microsoft Video Authenticator, which analyzes photo or video to provide a confidence score as to whether the media is fake. It has performed well on deepfake examples from the above mentioned Deepfake Detection Challenge dataset.
AI-Based Grading System
The UK exam regulation department chose to start using an AI grading system in place of the A-level examination for university entrance, which was canceled. The U.K. has since dropped it after parents and students complained that it was unethical and biased against disadvantaged students.
Thousands of A-level students were given a grade that was lower than their teacher predicted, though, sparking a nation-wide backlash and protests on the streets of London. Now, the government has buckled and announced that it’s abandoning the formula and giving everyone their predicted grades instead.
Photo by Philippe Bout on Unsplash
The backlash to Ofqual’s algorithm⁵ was only matched by its complexity. The non-ministerial government department started with a historical grade distribution. Then, Ofqual looked at how results shift between the qualification in question and students’ previous achievements.
The number of downgrades wasn’t the only problem, though. The reliance on historical data meant that students were partly shackled by the grades awarded to previous year groups. They were also at a disadvantage if they went to a larger school, because their teacher’s predicted grade carried less weight.
At a time when society is examining how technology is reinforcing its race and class issues, many realized that the system, regardless of Ofqual’s intentions, had a systemic bias that would reward learners who went to private institutions and penalize poorer students who attended larger schools and colleges across the UK.
NeurIPS Reviews
This year, the thirty-fourth annual conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, NeurIPS 2020⁶ is going to be held virtually from 6th to 12th December. The paper submissions for this year is 38% more than last year. Additionally, 1,903 papers were accepted, compared to 1,428 in 2019.
The review period of the papers began in July, and in August, the popular #artificialintelligence conference, NeurIPS has sent out the paper reviews for this year’s conference. This has brought the popular machine-learning event once again amid the controversies as it has been claimed that the reviews of the papers are terrible such as either they are not clear, or the sentences were incomplete by the reviewers, among others.
This is not the first time that controversies have scarred the reputation of the conference. In other words, it can be said that controversies are not a new thing for this popular #machinelearning conference. In 2018, the organizers of the Neural Information Systems Processing conference had changed the event’s name from NIPS to NeurIPS after heading into a controversy about whether “NIPS” is an offensive name or not.
GPT 3
OpenAI released its latest language model in June, surpassing its predecessor GPT-2 with 175 billion parameters. It has raised many concerns about poor generalization, unrealistic expectations, and the ability to write human-like texts for nefarious purposes. Elon Musk, an OpenAI founder, also criticized OpenAI’s decision to give exclusive access to Microsoft.
Many advanced Transformer-based models have evolved to achieve human-level performance on a number of natural language tasks. Authors say the Transformer architecture-based approach behind many language model advances in recent years is limited by a need for task-specific data sets and fine-tuning. Instead, GPT-3⁷ is an autoregressive model trained with unsupervised machine learning and focuses on few-shot learning, which supplies a demonstration of a task at inference runtime.
Scaling up language models greatly improves task-agnostic, few-shot performance, sometimes even reaching competitiveness with prior state-of-the-art fine-tuning approaches. For all tasks, GPT-3 is applied without any gradient updates or fine-tuning, with tasks and few-shot demonstrations specified purely via text interaction with the model
On NLP tasks, #GPT3 achieves promising results in the zero-shot and one-shot settings, and in the few-shot setting is sometimes competitive with or even occasionally surpasses state-of-the-art.
Future Prospects
The important question is what will happen if the quest for strong AI succeeds and an AI system becomes better than humans at all cognitive tasks. Designing smarter AI systems⁸ is itself a cognitive task. Such a system could potentially undergo recursive self-improvement, triggering an intelligence explosion leaving human intellect far behind.
By inventing revolutionary new technologies, such a #superintelligence might help us eradicate war, disease, and poverty, and so the creation of strong AI might be the biggest event in human history. Some experts have expressed concern, though, that it might also be the last, unless we learn to align the goals of the AI with ours before it becomes super intelligent.
Works Cited
¹Algorithms, ²Artificial Intelligence, ³Clearview AI, ⁴Deepfake Technology, ⁵Ofqual’s Algorithm, ⁶NeurIPS 2020, ⁷GPT-3, ⁸Smarter AI Systems
More from David Yakobovitch:
Listen to the HumAIn Podcast | Subscribe to my newsletter | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/here-are-the-most-controversial-ai-moments-of-2020-df795d1e6248 | ['David Yakobovitch'] | 2020-11-30 19:01:05.559000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'News', 'Artificial Intelligence'] |
Five Reasons I Love Unsolicited Advice | I’ve been thinking about unsolicited advice lately. People talk about it like it’s a bad thing, but I think they’ve got it all wrong. Unsolicited advice is one of the untapped resources that you should grab onto it like a lifeboat in the middle of a stormy ocean. Here are five reasons why.
It’s free. I have a therapist already, but I could always use more therapy. My insurance won’t pay for two therapists unless I’m actually crazy, which is not my current diagnosis. Just the other day, this therapist I know, who no longer practices, said to me “God, people are so crazy right now. I should cash in!” Clearly, I won’t take her unsolicited advice, because she’d probably bill me later. However, there are kinder, less greedy people who offer me unsolicited advice daily with no consideration of their own wallets. I don’t have to reciprocate. People who offer unsolicited advice never want any advice from me, so who’s getting the better end of the deal, right? I just hope they never realize this and start telling me their problems. No thank you. People know what I think better than I do. I didn’t know what I thought until someone else told me. Before they advised me, I was walking around with all these ideas in my head about the way things are supposed to be, and I was standing tall in my ignorance. Then, someone says, “Ya’know? Have you thought about such and such?” And I’m like, “No! Oh my god. How do people know so much?” #blindbutnowIsee Unsolicited advisers don’t even know how smart they are. They give way better advice to other people than to themselves. I swear some of the unsolicited advice people give me, they’d never follow it for themselves. #TakeMyAdviseI’mNotUsingIt It’s like having a personal assistant. Usually, you have to be Nicole Kidman to get people to hang onto your every word. Or at least, you need to be pretty powerful and wealthy. I’m nobody important like that, but these folks spend hours telling me how I should live my life. I’m humbled. You know who you are, you flippin’ saints. I hear you and I’m following your instructions to the tee.
My advice to you naysayers, who turn your nose up at unsolicited advice is to consider what you’re turning away from. Nobody has time to solve all their own problems. If someone is volunteering for the job, try saying “Yes, please” instead of “No, thank you.” That’s money in the bank. | https://medium.com/the-bad-influence/five-reasons-i-love-unsolicited-advice-c8cadb679eb4 | ['Amy Culberg'] | 2020-12-27 13:34:54.178000+00:00 | ['Satire', 'The Bad Influence', 'Self Improvement', 'How To', 'Humor'] |
Roxe Expands to Africa and India, Partners with N2Xpress to Launch Remittance Pilot Program | Roxe Expands to Africa and India, Partners with N2Xpress to Launch Remittance Pilot Program
Partnership is Designed to Enable Beneficiaries in Nigeria and India to Receive Remittances from Senders Using the Roxe Payment Network
Today we’re thrilled to announce N2Xpress will begin a pilot program as a Roxe payment node to provide remittance services to beneficiaries in Nigeria and India. Roxe, our next-generation, open global payment network, is designed to save financial institutions significant time and costs by using blockchain technology to provide fast, inexpensive, and highly reliable clearing and cross-border settlement of payments and remittances.
On the heels of our recent partner signings with ECS Fin and Onchain Custodian, the news continues Roxe’s momentum by expanding into Africa and India, and is another step forward in the integration of traditional finance with decentralized technologies. Roxe connects centralized financial institutions with decentralized networks to provide simple, fast, and flexible global settlement solutions for payment providers, asset exchanges, banks and remittance companies.
“The US to Nigeria and US to India are large, important remittance growth markets for us as Roxe leads the payments industry shift from a traditional account model to a new blockchain-enabled paradigm,” said Haohan Xu, CEO of Roxe. “Today’s international payment and remittance systems are too slow, too expensive, and too unreliable. Our partnership with N2Xpress can enable Roxe customers to send remittances much faster, cheaper, and more reliably to these new markets.”
In addition, N2Xpress will test the requirements to potentially become one of the supernodes on Roxe Chain, the blockchain technology powering the Roxe network that’s owned and administered by the Roxe Chain Foundation. A complete overview of the role and value of Roxe Chain supernodes can be accessed here.
“Our partnership with Roxe reflects our ongoing commitment to providing the easiest, fastest, and most cost-effective remittance services to all of our customers,” said Kunbi Oguneye, Founder of N2Xpress. “Our mission is to make money transfers more meaningful for families and individuals living between countries, so they can save more and do more. Our partnership with Roxe will allow us to advance our mission even further.”
Roxe’s technology allows member nodes to access a permission blockchain network so they can settle in seconds instead of days. Unlike previous approaches that attempted to enable clearing and settlement via the use of one digital asset, Roxe member nodes can transfer and settle many different assets and asset classes, including USD, several major fiat currencies, and fiat from select countries with large remittance markets such as Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, India, Philippines, Mexico, and Brazil.
About Roxe Inc
Roxe is a next-generation, open global payment network. Roxe uses blockchain technology to unify fragmented global payment systems so that payment providers, asset exchanges, banks, remittance companies and consumers can make the fastest, least expensive, and most reliable payments anywhere in the world. Roxe removes barriers of time, geography, and currency so that financial value moves with unprecedented speed across the globe. The company’s smart payment technology automatically uses the best route for the lowest-cost payments. Powered by Roxe Chain, a hybrid blockchain purpose-built for payments and other value transfer applications, Roxe also empowers its partners to offer their end customers ultra-fast remittance and payments products. Roxe is designed to be the fundamental component of the global payments industry and is compatible with any traditional and digital financial system. For more information, click here.
About N2Xpress
N2Xpress is changing the way money transfers work, creating a better experience for everyone around the world. The company specialises in sending money across borders and paying overseas bills directly, serving popular markets including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, West Africa, India and the Philippines with more to come. As a high-technology player with strategic partnerships, N2Xpress gives people living between countries the means to do more with money transfers and stay connected in a meaningful way. For more information, visit https://www.n2xpress.com/. | https://medium.com/roxepaymentnetwork/roxe-expands-to-africa-and-india-partners-with-n2xpress-to-launch-remittance-pilot-program-8cfe64184d51 | ['Crypto Doyle'] | 2020-12-17 13:33:50.826000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Nigeria', 'Remittances', 'India', 'Cross Border Payments'] |
REST CLIENT : Portable API Collection | REST Client is a free extensions for common editor such as VSCODE and Jetbrains IDE (Intellij, Rider, Webstorm,..) that allow us to write requests in a file and manage it within the project.
Features:
Store/Send requests in an editor with syntax highlighting
Support multiple request types : cURL, GraphQL
Authentication support : SSL Client Cert, Azure, AWS
Environment support : custom variables and system environment
Auto completion : variables, HTTP Method, Header …
Generate Snippet : generate snippets in various language ( C, JS, Java, Go, PHP, Python, ...)
I will walk you through on how to setup practical working environment with REST Client within few minutes to get all the core functionality on Postman or Insomnia + All TIPS 🏂.
How to get it ?
VSCODE : Go to Extensions ( Ctrl+Shift+X ) : search REST Client
Jetbrains (Intellij,Rider,..): Go to Plugin : search REST Client
Build First Request
First let’s create new file with .http or .rest at the end to indicate that this is our HTTP collection file.
In .http/.rest file you can define basic request with 3 parts : method, headers, body as below format:
// 1.method
<POST/GET/DELETE> <URL>
// 2.headers
content-type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer 123asd
// 3.body (separate by new line) {
"name": "sample",
"time": "Wed, 21 Oct 2015 18:27:50 GMT"
}
Body should be separated by newline from the header
Try this first POST request Hit Ctrl+Alt+R ( Cmd+Alt+R) to send request.
You can also send request using cURL command
This two requests are equivalent
Variables
Variables can be defined and come from different source which made REST Client very flexible and manageable.
1. Local: only available per file scope
only available per file scope 2. External : .env file, process env
: file, env 3. Global : shared across all file or per defined environment
: shared across all file or per defined environment 4. Special : built in variables
1 ~ Local
Use @varName = VALUE
@name = REST CLIENT @baseUrl = https://postman-echo.com @name = REST CLIENT GET {{baseUrl}}/get HTTP/1.1
Use previous response as variable
Use response from as in the request
Use JSONPath / XPath to retrieve JSON/XML response value
First to do this we have to mark the incoming response inside some named variable using # @name
# @name getContent
GET {{baseUrl}}/get?name=babara // Example response
// { "args": { "name": "babara" } .... }
2. Run the above request (Ctrl Shift R)
3. After run POST request should get the response with json object like the picture : See the name and userAgent from first GET Request
Returned Response : name and userAgent from first GET Request
You can also use the full response body using .*
POST {{baseUrl}}/post HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json {{getContent.response.body.*}}
2 ~ External
System Variables
.env file — in same dir
.env file
rest file in same dir/folder
Process environment
(exports in .bashrc)
{{$processEnv MY_ENV}}
3 ~ Global
You can create multiple environments and use in all files/folders
You can either defined inside current project folder or go to User settings (personal)
Project Folder : create or edit /.vscode/settings.json
Personal settings : (Ctrl Shift P — Open Settings JSON) and append this section to existing file.
Example : two environments local and production
$shared will be a base environment for all environments (default global variables)
You can picked the environment between defined here : local & production
& Switch the environment using Ctrl+Alt+E (Cmd+Alt+E)
Select the environment
Now you can use in any .rest/.http file without defining it again in every places
GET URL/admin
Authorization: {{token}}
4 ~ Special
These are built in variables that can be useful
{{$randomInt min max}}
{{$timestamp [offset option]}}
{{$datetime "DD-MM-YYYY" 1 y}}
{{$guid}}
Example request in variables.http file
Autocomplete
HTTP Methods
Variables
Headers
Base Template: GET/POST/DELETE/PUT/SOAP/GRAPHQL
Auto complete demo
Manage Collections
Make use of variables and comments to indicate request groups
@baseUrl =
###
// GET Request
// @names getFirst
GET {{baseURL}}/1
###
// @names getSecond
GET {{baseURL}}/2 // Variables@baseUrl = https://google.com ###// GET Request// @names getFirstGET {{baseURL}}/1###// @names getSecondGET {{baseURL}}/2
You can also FOLD each request block
each request block In VSCODE navigate through symbols helps a lot when we have well define name of each requests using : // @name getAllNames
Comments | https://medium.com/bright-days/rest-client-portable-api-collection-a35c8a3f2037 | ['Teepob Harutaipree'] | 2020-12-10 15:07:27.951000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Tools', 'API'] |
Strategic Communications Firm AnyContext Expands to LA & PNW | Introducing a bigger and better AnyContext — a full-service marketing and communications firm for technology organizations. With a focus on strategic growth and meeting business objectives, AnyContext brings deep tech ecosystem expertise to startups and growth-stage organizations seeking to raise their profile and make meaningful connections with end users, customers, partners, and stakeholders.
We have brought on a team of kickass senior talent to help brands own their stories and share them with the audiences that matter. The group we have assembled has worked together for the past decade defining, living, and breathing cloud computing and enterprise infrastructure, developer tools and platforms, gaming, AR/VR, mobile, security, and more.
Collectively, the AnyContext team has represented companies such as Cloudability, Creator, Esri, Intel, Mapbox, Nokia, Samsung, SecondLife, SendGrid, SmartThings, TechStars Cloud, and many others. Chances are one of us has worked on something that you use every single day and don’t even know it. We are stealthy, agile, and we enable companies to evolve.
Today marks the revival of AnyContext. We are thrilled to share that Jennifer Lankford has stepped in as Partner and Principal. She is based in Portland, OR. James Au continues his journey with us as Senior Vice President of Media and Content from Los Angeles, and Shay Nowick returns as Vice President of Technology and Data in Silicon Valley. Vanessa Camones will continue as CEO and Partner and divides her time between Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.
So, we are bringing it back! Our mission as a team and as community leaders is to enable greatness for anyone who works with us at any capacity. Because of that, we are also honored and proud to tell you about our MindMeld Collective, a group of diverse, incredibly seasoned, and kind individuals that collaborate with us in many creative ways — from mentorship to ideation to insight on trends. They keep us on our toes. If you are interested in being part of the collective please drop us a line — it’s an entire program in and of itself.
So, what does AnyContext offer? It comes down to your business goals. We are problem solvers, first and foremost. A lot of people confuse what we do as “PR.” While there is absolutely nothing wrong with that—it’s often the first need that brings clients to our doorstep and we do it well—we prefer to set the record straight once and for all. What we provide is strategic communications counsel and marketing programs tailored to fit your objectives.
Here are a few examples of what we can do:
Launch a “burger bot” restaurant like Creator in SF.
Define industry growth and trends with feature story development.
Orchestrate impactful developer and content-driven events. Take Samsung Developer Conference 2018, where we partnered with SiliconAngle to create a live TV studio at the conference.
Create high impact developer advocacy and community engagement programs for open source projects… and those often elusive customer reference programs for proprietary technologies.
Manage strategic partner relationships and co-marketing programs to expand your reach and attract new users across the ecosystem.
Develop and publish white papers and industry research surveys for lead generation and content campaigns.
We do a lot of different things. We are creative, we are calculated risk takers, and we know how to create meaningful content and programmatic strategies that speak to the audiences that matter most to your business in a very tangible way.
With that said, we are taking new clients for 2019, so please get in touch if you have a project or story that needs to come to life.
We’ll make it relevant.
Let’s drop some knowledge about our executive team:
Vanessa Camones
CEO & Partner
Vanessa has been a strategic marketing and communication consultant in Silicon Valley for over 20 years, first working with Pixar Animation Studios and later managing content in-house at Cisco Systems, she’s also held management roles with several global communication firms including Niehaus Ryan Wong, Schwartz Communications and The Hoffman Agency.
In 2007 Vanessa founded theMIX agency, a Silicon Valley-based firm specializing in integrated communications, digital and content strategy, developer relations, and event production, with satellite offices based in Los Angeles, Manhattan, and Shanghai. She folded tMa in 2017 and spent time advising companies and venture capital. Now she’s revived the AnyContext brand to rebuild the communications and marketing services model.
She’s an advisor to South by Southwest Interactive, The Design Museum Foundation, and a frequent guest essay contributor to Latina Geeks, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web, and Digiday, on the board of directors for Board Seat Meet and advisor to Voltn. In her free time you can usually find her in the kitchen cooking for a crew of misfits or planning her next interior design project.
Jennifer Lankford
Partner & Principal
A results-driven communication and marketing leader, Jennifer brings more than 12 years of experience helping disruptive and emerging technology organizations bring products to market. She and Vanessa first started working together way back in 2006. From 2009 to 2013, she served as Vice President of theMIX agency. She’s most recently been neck deep in the cloud and cloud-native, DevOps, open source, and security industries, where she’s led community engagement, media relations, and partnership programs for members of the Linux and Cloud Native Computing Foundations such as Buoyant and Twistlock. Before that she worked in-house as marketing manager for Intel’s Software Defined Infrastructure group — the business unit responsible for Intel's’ Kubernetes strategy. She has deep digital ecosystem expertise that she translates into highly effective messaging, content, media and analyst campaigns, developer advocacy, strategic partner and channel programs, product marketing, GTM, and brand development. In her spare time, Jennifer loves rockhounding the creeks and beaches of Oregon and DJing techno and house music.
Wagner James Au
SVP of Content & Editorial Strategy
James is an 18 year veteran of the tech industry, as a freelance journalist for outlets including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Wired, and Kotaku, as a marketing/content strategist and writer for Linden Lab, MMO startup ohai (acquired by EA), and Yodo1 (Beijing-based publisher of Crossy Road and other mobile hits), and as an analyst for GigaOM Pro and Web Media Brands. As content director for AnyContext, Au has placed client-driven editorial in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, FastCompany, TechCrunch, and Gamasutra, among many other outlets. An advisor for South by Southwest Interactive since 2006, Au is the author of The Making of Second Life (HarperCollins) and Game Design Secrets (Wiley).
Shay Nowick
Vice President of Technology and Data
Shay Nowick is our in-house data analyst and product manager who speaks backend tech with our client-side engineers and decision makers. She brings 14+ years of industry experience working to help companies iterate, adapt and build leading-edge games, apps, and tools. Passionate about data-driven development, her career has been devoted to working on the execution of big, bold ideas with the stats to back them up. Her skills and experience include a deep understanding of user retention and growth strategies, automated data visualization, and building tools for managing KPIs and aligning goals across teams that achieve results. Shay originally worked with theMIX team as our technology analyst, she’s been a consultant and lead data analyst at Munkyfun, Playfirst, DeNa and other hitmakers. In her free time, when she’s not automating the boring stuff, Shay makes beats. | https://medium.com/@goanycontext/strategic-communications-firm-anycontext-expands-to-la-pnw-26834670630a | [] | 2019-02-07 19:01:35.650000+00:00 | ['Communications Strategy', 'Developer Relations', 'Public Relations', 'Tech Startups', 'Startup Marketing'] |
Fight Club for Divorced Parents | In my opinion when couples lawyer up it takes away something important. The ability to talk things out with your soon to be ex. It is like once we lawyer up we stop talking.
We never get to resolve the issues that started the downward spiral.
We never get to get things off our chest.
We never get to say out loud the things we need to!
Now there is a good chance it could be like a clip from Fight Club but at least the aggression and resentment would be let out!
Anyone wish they could have talked shit out first before jumping to lawyers, I am not saying to keep the marriage going but to end things with aired out! | https://medium.com/@samanthaboss/fight-club-for-divorced-parents-e87933fefcc9 | ['Samantha Boss'] | 2020-12-22 16:49:44.993000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Divorce', 'Kids', 'Fight Club', 'Coparenting'] |
How a History Teacher Taught Me the Most Important Thing About Writing | How a History Teacher Taught Me the Most Important Thing About Writing Jodi Compton Follow Dec 4 · 7 min read
Aka, ‘How I Wrote My First Novel, Part 1’
Photo by Pixabay via Pexels.com
“How I Wrote My First Novel” is a short series about, as you’d expect, the process of writing my first crime novel and getting it published. This series is meant to help aspiring novelists, especially those who work in genre, and who have publication as a goal. This is why the subtitles take the form of questions published writers are often asked. (Note: I’ve flipped the title/subtitle protocol for this piece, because the title deserved it) The series will progress in chronological order — but you can find the “prologue,” or my story in brief, here.
In my third year of high school, I had my first class with the history teacher whom I’ll just call ‘Mr. J’ (because I haven’t been able to reach him about this piece). The high school I attended was a small Christian school with an equally small faculty, so it bemuses me now that I completed half my education there without taking a course from Mr. J. But because of this, I had to wait two years to learn the thing that would change my writing life forever.
That thing was structure.
For my first two years, when faced with an essay assignment, I simply wrote down everything I knew, or thought, about the question at hand. When I was done, I stopped. My fellow students, I’m pretty sure, were all doing the same thing. Oh, we had a vague sense that your opening sentence needed to make a broad introductory statement, and at the end, you had to wrap up semi-gracefully. But there was no sense of putting together the essay as an architect might a building.
In our first week with Mr. J, though, he told us that before he could teach us history, he had to teach us how to write a five-paragraph essay. The format went like this:
Introductory/thesis paragraph. Introduce the topic/problem and end on a thesis statement (what you’ll prove).
Antithesis paragraph: Raise the common objections/counterarguments to your thesis and, in brief, neutralize them. Or, if that takes longer than a paragraph should reasonably be, explain that you’ll refute them in the paragraphs/text to come. (Sidebar: Though we were encouraged to use the ‘antithesis’ form, Mr. J did note that if there’s no powerful idea you need to neutralize, you could scrap it — simply state your thesis, then add an extra support paragraph).
Support paragraph 1: Unpack one reason your thesis is valid, with concrete evidence.
Support paragraph 2: Unpack a second reason, again with examples or quotes.
Synthesis/conclusion paragraph: Summarize what you’ve said and sign off.
The angels sing … or not
You can immediately see that this is a lot to ask of just five paragraphs. But this was high school; we needed something we could write in a single class period, as an exam. It was understood that our first essays would skim the surface of our topics. The important thing was, we were learning to write in a measured, well-thought-out way. It was a form that would serve, in particular, students who might want a career in law or politics.
To me, a novelist to be, that wasn’t the beautiful part.
The beautiful part was, the five-paragraph essays didn’t have to be five paragraphs. They could be six, or seven, or eight. You could write as many paragraphs as you had facets to examine. When I learned this, it didn’t seem earth-shaking. I didn’t jump up and yell, Oh my god, I get it now! It wasn’t until college, and its greater demands in length and complexity of writing, that I began to appreciate it.
Okay, the angels do sing
The five-paragraphs essay’s initial simplicity was like the “Do Re Mi” scene in The Sound of Music: once you understood the scales, you were on your way on to whole songs, even an opera. Likewise, you could build out a simple essay into something bigger. In a term paper, maybe you’d need a page of introduction, and then your antithesis and support material would be in segments of roughly equal length, probably with a line break and a bold subheading each. Then you’d wrap up with a page of conclusion. Point was, balance was an essential part of the form: you counter-weighted length with length. Your paper was like a ship. You couldn’t have 200 pounds in the bow and 40 tons in the stern. It wouldn’t float.
It was magic. Because once you understood that basic do-re-mi formula, you could build on it in ever-more elaborate ways. You could write anything — a senior thesis, an honors thesis, and maybe someday, a nonfiction book.
Wait … aren’t you a novelist?
Yes, I did. The frameworks in novels are admittedly harder to see. That’s by design. Story is meant to be subtler, to direct your attention delicately.
Fortunately, thanks to Mr. J, I went to college primed to see structure, even in the English department and its readings. I’d clearly seen the difference between the “spill it all onto the page” model and the beauty of a framework that held up and showed off your work. It was patently clear that there had to be similar structures holding up fiction.
And there are.
One of the classic, and easiest to spot, structures is the “frame tale.” An example of this is when someone meets a stranger on an airplane, and this seatmate tells a great story, which is the main story. Suddenly, we’re immersed in you-are-there action and dialogue which a person couldn’t possibly remember in such detail, or relate in the course of a four- to five-hour flight. It’s understood that this is a dramatic effect. Films use frame tales, too, making most of the movie a flashback (hopefully, in 2020, without a swimmy ‘dissolve’ effect).
Equally recognizable is the epistolary novel — a story told in diary entries and letters. That is, letters of the intensely detailed, very eloquent type that few people can write. The epistolary novel was popular in the 19th Century, but fell out of fashion in the 20th, until new forms of communication made it fresh again: email, texts, DMs, and so on.
Many novels, however, don’t use such explicit types of structure. Even so, nearly every writer makes some sort of choice about form. Should there be a prologue and epilogue to bracket the story, like a milder version of a frame tale? Or should the prologue that plunges the reader into the action, near the climax, with Chapter One jumping back in time to start the reader on the path that got us there?
Or, if two characters are equally important, should they trade off as first-person narrators? This can be a great tool for telling the story of a marriage (or, for that matter, a divorce). But it comes into play in diverse genres: Sydney van Scyoc’s sci-fi classic Sunwaifs had alternating first-person narrators, to show two vastly differing views of the same situation: human colonists’ attempts to survive on a planet which seems determine to shake them off like parasites.
The Holy Grail (sort of)
Finally, and least explicit, we have the classic “three-act structure.” Let me write that differently: the Three-Act Structure. I capitalize and italicize here because some writers swear by this, saying that any good novel will naturally fall into this format as you write. If it doesn’t, this implication is, something’s wrong with your work.
I’m not quite sold, but I have to admit, many things I’ve written do naturally fall into the three-act form. Maybe it’s because of humans’ natural affinity for the number three. Certainly, after I’d written my first novel, I could see that the story divided into a Minnesota-Utah-Minnesota structure. Sarah, my protagonist, realizes that her husband is missing and begins the search for him in Minneapolis, where they live. She realizes that she has to go to Utah, where Shiloh grew up, to talk to his family, whom she’s never met. She learns some important things there about Shiloh’s past, but doesn’t actually find him. So she goes back to Minnesota, where Sarah learns the truth and the story comes to its climax.
I didn’t plan this three-act arc, but I did outline the story before I started writing. In doing so, I could see that the story divided into large chunks, with geography being important to where the divisions fell. The Utah material wasn’t just a change of scene: It’s more reflective and slower-paced. The reader feels certain that Sarah isn’t going to drop in on Shiloh’s brother or sister and find Shiloh in the living room. Instead, the Utah material is about Sarah realizing she doesn’t know everything about her almost-newlywed husband, and some of what she doesn’t know really isn’t good. It’s a part of the novel where theme and tone is key, like a pianissimo interlude in a musical piece. Then, it’s back to Minnesota, where the action picks up again.
One caveat: I know some writers don’t outline or synopsize; they just sit down and write. Some of them are very successful, too; somehow, it works for them. I understand this phenomenon nearly as poorly as I understand quantum entanglement. It seems impossible, but it undeniably happens. I don’t think these writers’ work is necessarily unstructured. I just think they have a kind of talent in which the structure forms on the page as they invent the story day-by-day. Lucky them.
The concept of a rare natural talent — a writer who doesn’t think about structure in advance at all — is an idea that Mr. J would have told me to raise and discredit at the top of this essay, in classic antithesis-paragraph style. With due respect, I chose not to do that. “Rare” does not equal “impossible.” I’d simply warn you not to assume you’re one of the rare few. I’ve found it invaluable — as you plan, as you write, and as you revise — to think about giving your story the good bones that’ll make it stand tall and catch the world’s eye. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-a-history-teacher-taught-me-the-most-important-thing-about-writing-54c45273bae | ['Jodi Compton'] | 2020-12-05 00:24:04.525000+00:00 | ['Writing Tips', 'Creativity', 'Writing Life', 'Writing'] |
MVP Blockchain using a Serverless infrastructure | 1. Firebase Project Setup
Visit console.firebase.google.com and create your first project. After creating it you should see some page just like that.
https://console.firebase.google.com/project/mvp-blockchain-serverless/overview
At this point you should also be able to see your project in Google Cloud Console, that is more advanced.
https://console.cloud.google.com/home/dashboard?project=mvp-blockchain-serverless&folder=&organizationId=
There are a lot of reasons for using Google Firebase. I’ll dig into this questions latter. For now just assume Firebase is one of the best serverless platforms without asking too much.
1.2 Notes about Pricing
Visit pricing and try to understand the business model for serverless projects on Google Firebase. If you’re familiarized with AWS, Azure or some other cloud provider it should be easy to understand how cheap is to use Firebase
1.5 Firebase via CLI
Once you created your project you’re able to start managing it via terminal.
#https://firebase.google.com/docs/functions/get-started
After this point you’re ready to create and deploy your first functions
It is important to focus here in what is happening when you login. When you sign in with your Google Account and accept the permissions for manage your projects the browser returns a token to the CLI.
You could see this token by using:
firebase login:ci
<- Firebase CLI refereces at https://firebase.google.com/docs/cli/ | https://medium.com/@thiagosouza87/mvp-blockchain-using-a-serverless-infrastructure-db074e675616 | [] | 2019-07-22 11:59:16.513000+00:00 | ['Blockchain', 'Firebase', 'Smart Contracts', 'Serverless', 'Ethereum'] |
Youth problems are not their own… | We Are All In This Together, So: Unite, Care, and, Yes, Resist and Transform.
Well, how about this, from David Brook’s The Second Mountain:
“The average American has seven jobs over the course of their twenties. A third of recent college graduates are unemployed, underemployed, or making less than $30,000 a year at any given moment. Half feel they have no plan for their life, and nearly half of people in their twenties have had no sexual partner in the last year. These are peak years for alcoholism and drug addiction. People in this life stage move every three years. Forty percent move back in with their parents at least once. They are much less likely to attend religious services or join a political party.”
As a recent member of the Club of the 4th Decade of Life (a.k.a, the 30s), I can now happily look back on those troubled 20s and smile, knowing I can now begin a normal and stable phase of life. Ha. Ha. Ha. Just kidding.
Seeing the larger picture Brooks presents is important for us in understanding how our personal experiences are dependent on our context.
Dear young person of today, you are not a failure for experiencing the agony of your struggles. You are living in one of the most dysfunctional social states our species has ever experienced.
Foolish stories blaming young people abound in web articles and books, but those views suffer from a blindness of hyper-individualism. It’s YOUR fault, right? YOU are too LAZY, too ENTITLED! If you got your NARCISSISTIC head out your rear end, you could get a job, find a spouse, buy a house, save for retirement, etc.
Nope! This is not the case.
The root conditions are many, and they are complex to parcel. But if I had a message for young people, it would be to UNITE. Help each other. We gotta recognize our shared plight. We are MANY. We are suffering the same plight, though varied based on race, gender, sexuality, class, etc., but there must be a shift in how we relate with each other. COMRADE is the appropriate shift. SURVIVOR is also appropriate.
We are in this together. May we act like it, may we extend ourselves to each other, may we become informed and empowered, and may we act.
Peace,
Dan
https://peacepoetrypilgrim.com/2019/06/06/youth-problems-are-not-their-own-we-are-all-in-this-together-so-unite-care-and-yes-resist-and-transform/ | https://medium.com/@daniel.k.white89/youth-problems-are-not-their-own-817960791017 | ['Daniel K White'] | 2019-06-06 06:43:16.014000+00:00 | ['Unity', 'Empowerment', 'Resistance', 'Millennials', 'Revolution'] |
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