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How can we use technology to increase women’s safety? | Simple and inexpensive technologies that can be built in today’s age to help keep women safe.
In countries like India where a woman is unable to step out after dark or in isolated areas because of the fear of getting molested or raped, women’s safety is a huge issue. India is rated as one of the most unsafe countries for women in the world. Violence against women and sexual harassment is unfortunately so common in India that numerous sources state that in India, a woman is raped every 15 minutes. Even in metropolitan cities like Mumbai and New Delhi, atrocities against a woman happen on a near-daily basis. The goal of this post is to shed light on the different technologies that can be built to enable and enhance women’s safety.
In today’s age, it has become fairly easy to build a GPS enabled device. All cellphones have GPS these days. These days, even smart-watches, headphones, and other accessories like rings come with a GPS/GPRS enabled. While the GPS cannot always point to an exact location, alert signals like a cop car that shows up even at an approximately accurate location may still be enough to deter an attacker. Most of the devices listed below will assume that the device is tied to an app on the user’s phone which is GPS enabled and can send alerts to the police/loved ones with the user’s GPS location. | https://byrslf.co/how-can-we-use-technology-to-increase-womens-safety-dc803e2ae08a | ['Uttara Shekar'] | 2020-07-10 15:47:04.543000+00:00 | ['Women', 'India', 'Equality', 'Consent', 'Beyourself'] |
6 Business Technologies to Thrive in the Post-Pandemic | 6 Business Technologies to Thrive in the Post-Pandemic
With just a bit of planning, creativity, and extra work, you can keep your business running smoothly in 2021.
Image by iStock
The pandemic rages on and shows no signs of slowing down. We’re currently in the ninth month under the heavy sway of COVID-19 and businesses have had to make serious changes to the way they function. Without those modifications, many businesses would have already closed.
Some changes that have been made were rather analog approaches to the situation, while others required a decidedly high-tech approach. In most situations, it has been a combination of the two that has made it possible for businesses, both small and large, to remain afloat.
But the big question you’re probably asking yourself is, “What technology can my business employ to ensure we come out of this pandemic relatively unscathed?”
The truth of the matter is, there’s no magic 8-ball to answer those questions. Why? Because who knows how long this situation will continue on. It might be months, it could be years. And no solution is right for every company. So your best bet is to be agile and willing to try and learn quickly from any mistakes you make (because you will make them).
That being said, what types of technologies should you be looking for to keep things moving forward for your business? Let’s take a look.
#1 Hybrid Cloud
This one is tricky (which is why I kicked off with it). More than likely, your business depends on the cloud. You’re either using it for employee/company file storage and sharing or maybe you use it to deploy apps and services, via containers.
Either way, you should seriously consider adopting a hybrid cloud. First off, a hybrid cloud is one that combines both public and private clouds, using integration, management, and orchestration tools, into a system that gains the benefits of the public cloud (such as scalability and reliability) while retaining a level of privacy you would not otherwise achieve.
These types of clouds tend to fuse the likes of Google Cloud and private cloud solutions (such as Nextcloud) into a seamless whole.
With regards to the pandemic, a hybrid cloud is the way to go because it offers better support for remote workers. With a hybrid cloud, you can give those remote workers on-demand access to private, sensitive files from any location in the world — locations that are also decentralized. So you get power, flexibility, and security.
#2 VPN
This one is important because so many of your remote staff, from accountants to offshore programmers, will be working from home networks that are probably not nearly as secure as your in-house LAN.
But don’t think of this as your father’s VPN. We’re not talking about the traditional Virtual Private Network that makes it possible for your staff to connect to your internal network from the WAN side of your company. This type of VPN (such as ExpressVPN or NordVPN), makes it possible for your staff to gain an added layer of security when using their insecure networks.
These VPNs are capable of encrypting network traffic and (with some clients) even anonymizing their packets. With a strong VPN in place, it’s less likely that company secrets and client information could be stolen by a hacker listening in on those remote workers’ network traffic.
#3 Video Conferencing
At this stage in the game, you can’t succeed without some form of video conferencing. It doesn’t really matter what platform you are using (such as Zoom or Google Meet), but you must choose one. Such a tool will make it possible for you to hold pseudo-face-to-face meetings, which will go a long way to help your staff find some semblance of togetherness.
But don’t limit your video conferencing to in-house employees. You could also use such a tool to assist customers. When a customer has a problem with one of your products, a video conference call with a staff member (such as a support technician), could actually help them solve the problem at hand. Get creative and use a video platform in ways other companies might not have tried.
#4 eCommerce platforms
Due to the pandemic, your business isn’t enjoying the foot traffic it once had. That means sales are down. To bolster that, you should turn to an eCommerce platform. There are plenty of solutions out there (such as WooCommerce and PrestaShop), most of which will seamlessly integrate into your company website.
Many eCommerce solutions even offer the ability to sell regular products, digital downloads, subscriptions, and even services. If you’ve not already adopted eCommerce for your business, you’re already behind the curve. Get this in place as soon as possible.
#5 Occupancy monitoring
If you have a brick and mortar shop and you still need to have customers enter your building, you probably should have already employed some form of occupancy monitoring. You could certainly make do with someone standing at the door counting people and preventing shoppers from entering until occupancy levels allow. Or you could go with a tech-based approach.
Tools like Density and Estimote are geared specifically for the monitoring of occupancy and distance. With Density, you get anonymous, real-time occupancy monitoring that uses a combination of sensors and machine learning to keep track of the number of people in a workspace. Estimote, on the other hand, uses wearables to alert staff if they’ve exceeded the recommended safe distance necessary for a pandemic.
#6 Contactless payment
If you really want to keep your staff and your clients/customers safe, you should employ some form of contactless payment. Instead of continuing on with the exchange of currency or customers handing cards to staff, get your business set up to use Apple Pay and Google Pay. With this in place, customers only need to place their phones near the NFC terminal and the transaction will complete.
The one caveat to this is that your customers and clients must have their phones configured to work with one of the major forms of payment. If those customers can’t (or don’t want to) set up their phones, some credit and debit cards are contactless. If all else fails, get a wireless card terminal, place it at a distance from your staff, and allow the customers to use it for transactions. If you go that route, just make sure you have supplied the means for customers to sanitize their hands after using the terminal.
Conclusion
You might feel like this pandemic is destined to take down your business. With just a bit of planning, creativity, and extra work, you can keep your business running (relatively) smoothly. It’s happening all over the world. Businesses are employing new types of technology to make sure they’re not only retaining their current customers but gaining new ones. Let that be your goal. | https://medium.com/bairesdev/6-business-technologies-to-thrive-in-the-post-pandemic-71e194472a74 | ['Emma White'] | 2020-12-01 15:32:50.861000+00:00 | ['Business', 'Bairesdev', 'Pandemic', 'Technology'] |
Deadnaming A Trans Person Is Violence — So Why Does The Media Do It Anyway? | Make no mistake: This rhetoric is harmful.
Content warning: discussion of homicide and assault
Here are some facts: Mesha Caldwell lived in Canton, Mississippi. She studied at Jackson State University and worked as a hair and makeup artist, winning competitive “hair battles” and mentoring younger beauticians in the Madison County area. She was also a black transgender woman.
I know these things because Mesha was found shot to death on January 4, the first of seven trans women of color to be murdered this year. But the first thing I read about her was the one thing I never wanted to know: the deadname she was assigned at birth.
For transgender people, our relationships to our names are complicated, to say the least. What we’re called has power, and hearing a blatantly masculine or feminine name applied to you when you’re trying to realign your gender in a different direction can be a source of profound, dysphoria-inducing anxiety. Hearing or seeing one’s old name can induce a visceral sense of terror that no matter how much progress one makes in their transition, the person they used to be (or pretended to be) is still there.
Hearing or seeing one’s old name can induce a visceral sense of terror.
Hence the term “deadname”: a name that shall not be spoken, for it invokes a restless spirit. Many trans people will go to great lengths to prevent people from finding out their deadnames, destroying irreplaceable photos and documents in an effort to ensure that who they really are is the only identity most will remember. We may not be able to make our families forget what they used to call us, but we can change how we’re known to the rest of the world.
Except when we can’t.
Breaking the news of Mesha Caldwell’s murder, MS News Now reporter Waverly McCarthy chose to position Caldwell’s deadname as the first piece of information readers would learn about her (after being informed that she was trans). In doing so, McCarthy violated a deeply personal boundary that perpetuated the single most harmful misconception about trans people all over the world: that our true gender identities — who we are at our core — are the ones we were assigned at birth.
This has become a pattern in reports on transgender homicides: CNN and Slate both deadnamed Kayden Clarke when he was shot by police in a hospital last year; The Daily Mail printed Mayang Prasetyo’s deadname directly under a 2014 headline that referred to her as a “young man”; Reuters deadnamed and called Jennifer Laude “the transgender” when reporting on her murder at the hands of a Marine; and so on.
In addition to Mesha, the other trans women of color murdered in January and February didn’t escape this trend. In reporting the murder of Keke Collier, the Chicago Tribune deadnamed her twice: once in their initial report, and once in their follow-up after Collier’s true name had been established. WTOL has yet to correct their report deadnaming Jojo Striker, and in a shocking display of cognitive dissonance, LGBTQIA news site PinkNews reprinted Chyna Gibson’s deadname while noting that initial reports had misgendered her. (They have since removed that information, nearly four days after the fact.)
This represents a systematic process of denying trans people not just our identities, but our humanity — one that I wrote about in 2015, when Kathy Sal was assaulted in front of her apartment in Queens (and deadnamed on WCBS, naturally). That was my second column as an out trans girl. As I waded through the litany of abusive comments and misgendering media reports, I wondered how to fix society’s preconceived notions of what it means to be trans, and if such a thing was even possible.
But more than anything, I wondered — and still do — what the news will say about me when I’m dead.
I have a handmade clay coffee mug with my deadname on it that I still can’t bring myself to throw away. Though seeing it emblazoned on bills and checks makes me depressed, and I can’t wait to legally be Samantha, there’s a small spark of sentimentality in me that can’t let that little souvenir of my past go — maybe because it’s one thing that ties me to my father, who I lost to cancer five years ago. I was named for his favorite playwright (I’m sure some of you can guess who). Disposing of that shard of history, both cup and name, feels like a slap in the face, if a necessary one.
If trans folks’ feelings about their deadnames were easy to parse, we could hardly call this problem a trans issue — after all, nothing about transitioning is simple. It’s important to know that some of us have an amicable relationship with our deadnames; during the period of time I identified as genderfluid, I had no feelings at all about what was on my driver’s license. It was only after I reexamined my transness that I began feeling upset at how obviously male my name was, and started looking into the long process of changing my name to a more feminine version.
I’m not the only one whose feelings about their given name have changed over time; one friend of mine took a permanent marker and scissors to anything bearing her deadname immediately after coming out, and experiences some dysphoria at the mere thought of anyone knowing it.
We also have to consider the feelings of trans people who transition in the public eye, whose deadnames are plastered on books, movies, albums, and so forth. The Wachowski sisters are a prime example, as is comics creator Lilah Sturges, whose old name appears on a swath of publications (some of which have been nominated for high-profile industry awards). Though she’s ecstatic to have her name changed legally now, Lilah told me in an interview that personally, she doesn’t even use the term “deadname.” “It makes me a little dysphoric to see it and hear it, but I respect it, just like I respect the things that I did in order to make it through life,” she told me. “Some books I feel belong to that name, in a strange way that I can’t quite elucidate.”
Trans people all have different relationships to the concept and even terminology surrounding deadnaming — and that’s okay, because this is an integral part of our struggle to self-determine our identities. The problems come when cisnormative media and society at large decides to make those decisions for us.
We have to consider the feelings of trans people who transition in the public eye.
One of the best examples I can use to illustrate this is Caitlyn Jenner.
I don’t bring up Cait because I think she should be a spokewoman or icon for the broader trans community (on the contrary, one of the only things almost all trans people agree on is that we wish she’d go away), but because hers is a deadname that virtually everyone knows. While Caitlyn is reportedly still “dad” to her kids, she’s been clear that she isn’t who she used to be anymore. Whereas many trans people consider themselves to have been “born this way,” a la the prevailing gay rights narrative, others feel like their identity has actively changed over the years, and Caitlyn has often referred to her pre-transition self as though she were talking about a totally different person.
No matter where Caitlyn falls on that spectrum or how comfortable she is personally referencing her deadname, it’s no longer appropriate to refer to her as anything other than her chosen name. Even if you haven’t read GLAAD’s style guidelines on the matter, Caitlyn Jenner is a name that almost everyone invested in pop culture recognizes; she’s arguably far more famous now than she was as an Olympian. Did you notice I managed to get through that last paragraph about her deadname without using it? You still knew who I was talking about, right?
But mainstream media outlets can’t seem to get it out of their mouths. Tabloids like the New York Post are obviously the most egregious violators (our old friend the Daily Mail can’t resist deadnaming Caitlyn even in passing), but this extends to larger publications as well. Forbes, Inquisitr, the International Business Times — even Vanity Fair, the magazine via which Jenner once famously asked the world to “Call Me Caitlyn,” bizarrely referenced her deadname four times in the course of an article about David Foster.
All of these examples are from the past two months, and none of them are necessary or appropriate. Regardless of Caitlyn’s own willingness to use her deadname in certain contexts, it’s obvious that the media at large isn’t doing this because she granted them permission; these reports reference her deadname as though doing so is imperative.
Why, when Caitlyn Jenner is one of the most recognizable names in the world? Maybe because, on some level, many still think transgender people are play-acting and don’t believe us when we assert our true selves. (Did you look up my deadname when I referenced it above? What made you think you needed to?)
On some level, many still seem to think that transgender people are play-acting.
And make no mistake: This rhetoric is harmful. When mainstream news reports constantly reference deadnames like Caitlyn Jenner’s, they propagate the idea that transphobia is just a difference of opinion — that when sites like Breitbart stubbornly deadname and misgender her, it’s simply a political disagreement.
But in what universe does the idea that “trans women are really just men” not directly lead to violence? Almost one in 10 respondents to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey said they’d been physically attacked in the past year because of their identity; over half of those attacked for any reason had been assaulted multiple times. Many shared harrowing experiences, like this woman’s:
“I was found in a ditch after being brutally raped for three days. I was taken to an ER. There I met an officer who told me I deserved it for attempting to be a woman and should have died.”
Stories like hers don’t exist on the fringes of the trans community. Jennifer Laude, Gwen Araujo, and untold others have been murdered because people “found out” who they “really were” — and somehow that’s not related to the media’s reckless weaponization of deadnames?
If you’re friends with a trans person and they give you permission to use their deadname in the past tense, fine. That’s their personal choice. But in any other context — especially a journalistic one — that information should be strictly confidential. Sharing it is violence under the guise of reportage, and any writer who engages in it should feel personally ashamed.
Because until they learn, we’re going to keep losing people like Mesha Caldwell. And those of us who survive are tired of being the only ones who remember the names of the dead. | https://medium.com/the-establishment/deadnaming-a-trans-person-is-violence-so-why-does-the-media-do-it-anyway-19500eda4b4 | ['Sam Riedel'] | 2017-10-12 05:12:41.386000+00:00 | ['LGBTQ', 'Transgender', 'Deadname', 'Society Politics'] |
Blockchain, Digital Identity, and Health Records: Considerations for Vulnerable Populations in California | In the early 2000s, blockchain took the private sector by storm. In addition to gaining notoriety for its applications in cryptocurrency, the technology was touted as a solution to dozens of organizational problems, from supply chain tracking to identity management. Although commercial applications of blockchain continue to show promise and are being pursued by startups and established companies alike, applications in the public sector have attracted far less attention. A few pilot projects in the United States and abroad have used blockchain platforms for voting, paying taxes and fines, and tracking educational credentials. But in order to build on promising cases in the public interest, further research is needed to guarantee secure digital identity systems, especially for programs that serve vulnerable populations like the unhoused.
In a research project conducted over the past nine months, we asked: What opportunities might blockchain-based digital ID and health records management systems offer to improve services for housing-insecure and homeless populations in California? And what risks unique to this cohort should be considered before launching such programs?
Through a combination of expert interviews, surveys with state chief information officers, and findings from a year-long process with the State of California’s Blockchain Working Group, we find that blockchain-based identity and health records management systems may indeed offer advantages for unhoused populations in California. These technologies could streamline applications for public benefits, improve the management of medical records and facilitate sharing of medical data among healthcare organizations.
At the same time, challenges must be overcome for vulnerable populations to share in the benefits of blockchain-based identity and health records management solutions. First, reliable means of authenticating users may be problematic; the same circumstances that make it difficult for homeless individuals to retain their physical IDs will also hinder them to retain a smartcard or password, and evidence indicates that these individuals would be reluctant to use biometric data to access digital identity systems. In addition, it is unclear whether state or county governments will be willing to move to blockchain-based health records management systems given the millions of dollars that have already been spent to solve the current fragmented state of access to such records. Finally, concerns regarding long-term security of sensitive data must be addressed.
Overall, blockchain holds potential to improve public service provision for homeless residents in California and other states. However, issues with user authentication, cost, and trust must be addressed for these benefits to be realized. For more information on our project, please see Blockchain, Digital Identity, and Health Records: Considerations for Vulnerable Populations in California. | https://medium.com/citrispolicylab/blockchain-digital-identity-and-health-records-considerations-for-vulnerable-populations-in-32a998d82ece | ['Citris Policy Lab'] | 2020-10-22 05:22:34.285000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Policy', 'Government', 'Blockchain', 'Digital Identity'] |
Why I Pivoted Away From Everyone Else’s ‘Money Dream’ — A Different Way Of Living And Working. | Recently I’ve told a lot of people about my career change. Whether we like it or not, our career is tied to our money dream.
Money dream definition:
What we’d do if we had lots of money How we associate the work we do with the money we earn
Society has a pretty clear money dream for us all. That’s what many of us follow.
Here are some examples:
Get a good job that has a 6-figure salary
Buy a big house with lots of rooms (including a Theatre Room)
Once you have your first house, start saving for investment properties on interest only loans
Once you have equity in your home, buy another property
If things go well, buy a second home by the sea as a holiday house
When you can afford to, trade in your modest car (like a Toyota) for a luxury car like a Mercedes
Buy a boat, or a caravan, or a jet ski, or a motorbike
Many of these examples above form part of the majority of people’s money dream.
We’re told that this is the dream we should aim for. Somehow money will make us feel amazing. All we need is another house, another object, another job promotion. | https://medium.com/the-mission/why-i-pivoted-away-from-everyone-elses-money-dream-a-different-way-of-living-and-working-cdace9b9d031 | ['Tim Denning'] | 2018-07-18 16:26:49.018000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Money', 'Life', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Productivity'] |
How The Indian Government Failed India in The Crises | How The Indian Government Failed India in The Crises
#PMcares doesn’t mean the PM cares
Photo by Prashanth Pinha on Unsplash
‘जो जहाँ है वहीं रुक जाये, 21 दिन तक’, translating this to English it says “stop, wherever you are, just stop, for 21 days". These words were spoken by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi. It’s interesting to know the time: 8:00 PM. He requested the people of India to lock themselves inside their homes for 21 days, suddenly, with no prior notice. But what about the ones who were homeless?
Lockdowns, which were imposed in most of the countries of the world to fight the COVID crises, took place in the country with the second largest population in the world on 21 July 2020. Stating the fact that India is still a developing nation, has around 7% of its population living below the poverty line. This approximates to around 10 million people earning less than 40$ a month. Most of these people are daily wage workers, which means they get paid every day for the work they do and have no job security.
The beginning
On the night of 21st, PM of India announced that the country would witness a nation-wide lockdown for a period of three weeks. The lockdown announced at eight in the night would come to effect from twelve. It gave a shock to the Indian population as there was no prior notice for the same. People stuck in different cities for work purposes were left unconsidered.
While it was easier for the middle class and the upper classes to survive the lockdown, who had a house, money in their accounts and food to fill their bellies, it turned out to be a mess for the lower classes to survive, who had no job security and were mostly daily wage workers such as labourers.
All they were left with was absolutely nothing in their hands. Their voices were suppressed and they were left to die on the streets. Only if, they were given some time to return to their respective houses, that were present in different states and cities, miles away from where they worked, some of them would have survived.
In the crises
After the announcement of the sudden pause in the lives of the people, the whole nation lost its peace. The media glorified the Government’s decision stating “prevention is better than cure”. Indeed, the saying is true but how does it justify creating another disaster to suppress one. Then, the Government stated that they had taken a very wise decision by announcing the sudden lockdown. Ironically, India has become the 2nd worst country hit by the crises, that proves how wise the decision was.
Absolutely a lockdown was needed but not at the cost of lives of thousands of people, who died with hunger, homeless, and hopeless. It could have been issued with a prior notice to give everyone sufficient time to arrange their requirements for a period of 21 days which further extended to another 3 weeks.
The Government failed miserably, addressed unimportant problems and glorified its decisions with illogical justifications. Some of the evident disasters that took place and left unheard were as follows:
1. Frontline workers' safety left unnoticed
The nation witnessed incidents such as lighting of candles and clapping hands and utensils in respect of the people working in the pandemic such as doctors, nurses, policemen, and many others who worked when the whole world was paused. But they got nothing beyond the respect that was given on just the two above mentioned incidents.
Most hospitals were not provided with PPE kits, masks, gloves for doctors, nurses and staff members. An insufficient number of beds were present and no proper arrangements. The Government only focused on its own promotions, hiding facts and statistics from the people of India. They were told that everything was fine, in place and there was no need to worry.
The frontline workers were left unheard in their demands to keep their safety in mind. If you moved out on the streets and visited a hospital, only then you would realize what the actual situation was. Many died trying to save the lives of others due to lack of safety arrangements made by the Government.
2. Hiding facts and statistics
There are some serious issues with the statistics the Government provides to the people of India. In a recent YouTube video that I watched (shot in the crises), when a person visited the hospital to find out the situation there, he was terrified. Families receiving no further information about the patient once admitted. Doctors working without masks and kits.
Death numbers were lied about. After enquiring the watchman of the hospital he said that at least 10 deaths took place each day at the hospital. Think! 10 deaths in just one hospital of one city, imagine how many cities are there in the entire country and how many hospitals. And Government provides stats stating the death rate to be 1000 deaths per day.
Later the Government announced a package of worth 265 billion $ for the Indian people, of which no one received a single penny. Huge donations were made by people in the name of a fund( PMCares fund) organized to help people in the crises. But the money donated gained no update and there is no data where all the money was gone.
3. The Youth and citizens left unheard
PM organizes a session known as ‘Mann ki Baat', which translates to ‘a talk from the heart’ every few days. In this session, he addresses the problems of the country and presents his views on the same. But ironically it’s not well understood whether the talk is about the topic he wants to address or is it about what the people want to be addressed?
Let me explain it further, in the middle of the pandemic he talked about ‘toys’, ‘mud utensils’ and everything unrelated and insignificant as compared to the crises. While the citizens kept trending hashtags of the topics such as student exams, loss of jobs, and lack of facilities provided in the hospitals, all he could find to talk about was ‘toys’. It feels sad to know that in the world’s largest democracy, India, the people’s voice is suppressed.
In the end
Real stories don’t have a happy ending. And neither does this one. With thousands left to die on the roads, people were left with no better options. They walked thousands of miles crossing state boundaries, remained hungry for days, with no food and water and no money in their pockets. They walked endlessly in the hope to reach their home someday. Thousands lost their jobs and their loved ones.
But even today, if you search on the internet about India’s Corona crises, you will rarely find news about the dark sides. Only, what you will see is the glorification of false facts with 0 logical reasons stated. It's important to not blindly trust what is told and showed, but take a step and find it out yourself. It’s pathetic to know the real story, cause everything that glitters is not gold. | https://medium.com/politically-speaking/how-the-indian-government-failed-india-in-the-crises-c6c2a7223cb5 | ['Niyati Jain'] | 2020-11-23 13:03:29.651000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'World', 'Health', 'Politics', 'Leadership'] |
What if I tell you RDBMS can handle time-series data? | Given high ingestion rates and near-real-time aggregates, relational databases cannot deal with the above-mentioned data considerations directly. But with some padding to the relational databases we can make it very powerful so as to handle time-series data. The relational database we’ll talk about now is postgresql and the padding that is referred to is its extensions.
We’ll talk about two such extensions below.
TimeScale DB
TimeScale DB is an open-source extension to PostgreSQL. Since it is bundled as an extension to postgresql, it can support all things postgresql like relational queries, full SQL support(not SQL-like) as well as the support of real-time queries.
How timescaledb handles time series data
It has a concept of hypertables which are simple chunks of data by time and stored in standard tables. These hypertables are abstraction layers for users and one can simply query, join or do any other operations on this table as done on a normal table.
Ingestion to these hyper-tables is very fast. As per documentation, it supports an ingestion of 1.5M+ metrics per second per server.
Also, for continuous aggregations materialized views can be created over these hyper tables such that aggregations are available near real-time. Internally, timescale DB has background processes that take care of refreshing the view and this refresh interval and parameters are configurable. It also provides integration with Kafka, kinesis, etc for data ingestion.
A materialized view is a database object that contains the results of a query
How to create real-time visualizations over this time series data?
The materialized views which help in providing real-time aggregates can be used to create real-time visualization too. Since the extension is bundled with PostgreSQL, it can be integrated with any visualization tool such as Graphana and to refresh continuous aggregates.
So, now with this simple architecture, you know how to ingest time series data and even create visualizations over it so it can be demonstrated such as in those big monitors in the office(well, if we ever go to the office, fingers crossed). Pretty simple, isn’t it? With just a relational layer?
In addition to that, it also has methods for forecasting time-series data too! The documentation of timescaledb is very rich and can be followed along to do a proof of concept.
Pipeline DB
Pipeline DB is another extension that PostgreSQL supports, which also can be used for real-time reporting, and similar to timescaledb supports real-time aggregations in materialized views over time series data.
The things to note about pipeline DB are its efficiency comes from it not storing raw data, so if you need raw data to be stored(IMO, it should always be stored). But it looked promising too and serves the use case so worth mentioning here. | https://towardsdatascience.com/what-if-i-tell-you-rdbms-can-handle-time-series-data-77a5bb43da06 | ['Jyoti Dhiman'] | 2021-09-04 18:16:48.817000+00:00 | ['Data', 'Time Series Analysis', 'Timescaledb', 'Database', 'Design'] |
Story Series- Half Way Review | My original goals were to highlight the story and messages contained within each piece. To show the progress of my work, and to uncover subconscious messages.
I also originally wanted for the pieces to become more than collectibles in a wallet. I still hope they eventually get used as album art or something cool like that!
Changes — #1 in the Story Series
If I don’t show the world that, then who will? If I don’t establish its value, then I’m likely to wait a very long time, if ever, for someone to do that for me. I know my work is valuable
After releasing the first piece I realized the magnitude of the project and created as much space as possible so I could focus. I have a tendency to take on many projects at once, so it has taken a conscious effort to keep my focus narrowed in. This has turned into a body of work and I honestly feel excited to create it!
I’m telling the story of my art to make visible the true value of each piece. To show the countless hours of effort and skill that goes into everything I make. If I don’t show the world that, then who will? If I don’t establish its value, then I’m likely to wait a very long time, if ever, for someone to do that for me. I know my work is valuable and it is my mission to make that clear, with hopes that I may stand out as an artist in this space. It’s also a powerful exercise in confidence and clarity!
Analyzing each piece has given me a fuller perspective of myself and my life. We move fast from one project to the next. All life’s facets compete for our attention, so art pieces and projects don’t get a cool down phase, where one can chill and process. For me releasing this series has been a mix of both new creations & momentum… but also pause & retrospection. There is what feels like a nice balance overall in this project.
Alter Ego — #2 in the Story Series
Taking the time to self reflect through the presentation and documentation of my art has been a transformative experience.
The deeper wealth :
It’s been cathartic telling the story of my art. I’ve created over 50 pieces of physical art- paintings and vinyl in the past 2 years. I never paused to make sense of it all. I just kept creating. This project gives me a chance to reflect back on my work. Taking the time to self reflect through the presentation and documentation of my art has been a transformative experience.
I am creating proper documentation of my work.
Creating flows for content creation!During the creation of this project, processes have emerged which I hope to share with others.
Bringing my physical art into the crypto/digital art space.
I’m improving skills in : writing, blogging, video editing, photo editing, process development & overall communication.
Primal Architecture- #3 in the Story Series
New Goals & Next Steps:
Continue with current strategy & release the next 4 pieces
Speak on podcasts & livestreams
Make videos talking about each piece
Make guided meditation videos for Primal Architecture & IDGAF
Get stickers, prints & canvas prints of each
Maybe create a book or mini card deck once the series is completed
IDGAF — #4 in the Story Series
Buy the pieces on Rarible
and the Limited Reproduction Rights photo sets at the NFT Showroom.
https://www.instagram.com/polyannie01/ | https://medium.com/@polyannie01/story-series-half-way-review-3ba82a96e87f | [] | 2020-12-24 05:24:23.888000+00:00 | ['Rarible', 'Artist', 'Cryptoart', 'Crypto'] |
2020 | This is the year where my life changed, and I am not just talking about the excessive hand washing and social distancing.
This was the year, I experienced changes in all areas of my life: professional, personal, and financial…………….. and to top it all off I even learned how to cook!
Everything started when I found out I was going to be a mom.
It all happened in May of 2019, I was sitting in my office with a pregnancy test in my hand working up the courage to look and see the results. To my surprise it was positive.
This new life-changing moment opened the door to an ocean of possibilities. I have to be honest, I never imagined my life as a “mother” and I found myself on a completely different path that was both scary and exciting.
Looking back, I have always been an independent woman, I had been living alone for the last six years, and I still remember the day when I decided to move to Bogota, to start my own life hundreds of miles away from my parents.
Soon after as life has it, I got on opportunity to relocate to Mexico. This part of my life was full of new experiences and I lived in Mexico City for two years, as I am always looking for the next opportunity, I am writing this blog from my house in the US … Truthfully, my whole life has been against the ropes moving and constantly adapting.
Being a mother wasn’t in my plans especially because as I said before my lifestyle didn’t permit it, not because I was a party girl, that was never my style, but It was more about my love for traveling and never really putting down roots in one place.
I made a decision the day my beautiful Sofia was born, to give her the importance that she deserved. It was a magical day when I finally meet her for the first time, that little person that was growing inside me.
The new baby happened right after switching companies. The stars had lined up and somehow I found myself starting a new job at a new company, the whole experience blows my mind too, you see I had only been working there for a month when I found out I was pregnant. As you might imagine, this is much more impactful as a woman. But my company was very supportive which I am so grateful for.
I have a feeling that you can imagine the uncomfortable conversation I had to have with my boss and coworkers.
The months passed, and I decided to move to the USA, my baby was destined to be born in Atlanta in this little baby factory called the Northside Hospital.
Sofia born on January 25 and a new part of me was born too. I didn’t have any idea about babies, about how to feed them, change diapers, and put them to sleep.
I was really naive about everything that was involved with being a first-time mom, but in the end, I figured it out and made it happen. As I am so far away from my family I have had to go through all of this on my own., I don’t have my family here and they don’t even have Visa’s to come and visit. Even Sofia’s dad has his brother and sister here but they don’t have any idea about babies too. To top it all off soon after moving here the global pandemic started which made things even more difficult
Postpartum was another surprise, I started losing my hair, nursing the baby might look easy but it’s not. Today, Sofia just turned 8 months, she survived and she continues to be a gift that I never expected.
Sofia changed my life completely, now I see the world through her eyes, everything is a new adventure for me and I am here to go through this journey hand by hand. I am pretty sure; she will be a better version of me. I know she will probably not listen to my advice but I am sure that she will follow my example. Lead by example
Life is good, I am reading more, writing in English, trying every day to master this language and be more focused on my goals all while being more present. This has grounded me more on what is really important in life and has helped me to stop struggling with my thoughts which was quite common in the past.
Just like as if I were playing Mario Bros, I reached a new level, a month ago I was rehired by the same company I was working for in Mexico but here in the USA. It is a huge opportunity for me because it is the first time I must interact in English all day with people of different parts of the globe, and FYI, the accents don’t make it easier
Work culture is different here too, people are more focused in many ways colder. I get the feeling that it is all business and no fun. I still remember asking one of my colleagues where she was from, to my surprise I got a “Why are you asking me” response that left me shocked. I am going to keep at it and I hope to not let my caring hearth be too affected by people.
Dealing with my work and baby is like a marathon every day, at the end of the day I am grateful that “I survived another day”
We are on our way to find help at home with the chores and the baby. Every day is a new challenge and I am constantly looking for the best way to get things done.
This has allowed me to admire the women around the world, all of those mothers that are fighting for their families, dreams, companies, and jobs.
I know that there is a perfect roadmap to what is ahead that will tell me how to be a good mother and come out alive years later when the kids are all grown up.
I think that every day must be lived and make sure that every minute counts with your family and with yourself. We are capable of everything and this year I have to learn more than the year before, which tells me that I am growing.
En última instancia, vivir significa asumir la responsabilidad de encontrar la respuesta correcta a las cuestiones que la vida plantea, cumpliendo la obligación que nos asigna (Tomado del Hombre sin Sentido) | https://medium.com/finanzas-mujeres/2020-9df6b14662c7 | ['Finanzas Mujeres'] | 2020-10-16 23:31:49.458000+00:00 | ['Live', 'Babies Babies Babies', 'Moms', '2020', 'Money'] |
Data-heavy applications: How to design perfect charts | If you have ever designed a dashboard or worked on any other project that requires data-visualisation, you know it could be a particularly challenging task. Pie or donut charts could be often a designer’s first choice as they look very attractive and user-friendly but usually they are not the best way to present data. In this article I want to share some of the knowledge I gained from designing data-heavy applications. Besides explaining the easiest way to choose the right type of chart to visualise your data, I will give an overview of the most common chart types and design best practice for each of them.
How to choose the right chart type
Choosing the right chart type depends on what kind of data you want to present. Typically charts are used to convey composition, comparison, relationship or distribution. Therefore, the following four questions will help you to decide which chart type to use:
Do you want to display composition of something? Do you want to compare values or show differences over time? Do you want to better understand the relationship between two or more variables? Do you want to show the distribution of your data?
Depending on what you want to show, here is an overview of the most common chart types:
01. Pie and donut charts
A pie chart, or its most recent variation, donut chart, is one of the most overused charts. They are used to show parts of a whole and represent numbers in percentages where the total sum of all segments needs to equal 100%.
Whenever you can use a pie chart, you might as well use donut chart.
The pie chart is one example of a data visualisation where I would argue that there is almost always an alternative that displays the data in a better way. However, maybe the problem is not in the pie charts itself but that often they are used wrongly. One of the greatest defenders of pie charts is Robert Kosara (the author of a EagerEyes blog) and without doubt they could be very efficient in certain cases. An example of good usage would be plotting the outcomes of a survey where users have to provide simple “yes” or “no” answers.
Principles to follow for better pie charts design:
Never use pie charts if you have too many categories as slices will get too thin to be comparable. Use pie charts only if you have maximum 6 categories.
Do not use pie charts for values that are very similar. Bar charts would be much better choice in that case.
Do not use pie charts if values don’t add up to 100%. The total sum of all segments needs to equal 100%.
Order slices according to their size for easier comparison.
02. Bar and column charts
Bar and column charts are the simplest and most straightforward way to compare different values or show differences over time. Column chart has vertical bars while the bar chart has horizontal ones.
There are 3 types of bar charts: single bar charts, clustered bar charts and stacked bar charts.
If you want to know the quantity, ratio and frequency of each category in a chart, you should choose a single bar chart. To compare items across categories use clustered bar charts. If you want to show a part-to-whole relationship among each category use stacked bar charts. Good example of stacked column charts is SoundCloud’s overall plays chart.
Stacked column chart — SoundCloud overall plays chart
Principles to follow for better bar and column charts design:
Always start the y-axis at 0 to appropriately reflect the values in your graph.
Use a horizontal bar chart when you have long labels.
Order data series unless you are working with dates.
Use contrasting colours for greater clarity when presenting data with stacked column charts. I usually use Strark plugin for Sketch, Figma and XD Adobe as a colourblind simulator and contrast checker.
03. Line charts
Line charts show trends in data over a period of time or a particular correlation. For example, one axis of the graph might represent a variable value, while the other axis often displays a timeline. Good example of a line chart is the presentation of average temperatures for different cities.
Principles to follow for better line charts design:
Avoid comparing more than 5–7 lines.
Don’t use randomly generated colours as you risk colours not to be contrasting enough. I usually use Strark plugin for Sketch, Figma and XD Adobe as a colourblind simulator and contrast checker.
Don’t use line charts if not comparing values over time, as it might create confusion. Select a bar graph in that case.
04. Area charts
Area charts are a lot like line charts, with a few subtle differences. They can both show change over time, overall trends, and continuity across a dataset. But, while area charts may function the same way as line charts, the space between the line and axis is filled in, indicating volume.
There are 3 types of bar charts: single area charts, overlapping area charts and stacked area charts.
In the case that we want to compare the values between groups, we end up with an overlapping area chart. You will use a stacked area chart when you want to track not only the total value, but also want to understand the breakdown of that total by groups. Comparing the heights of each segment of the curve allows us to get a general idea of how each subgroup compares to the other in their contributions to the total.
Principles to follow for better area charts design:
When using overlapping area charts make colours transparent so information isn’t obscured in the background.
Avoid using area charts when there are more than 3-4 categories. In that case use line charts.
Key learnings
Choosing the wrong type of chart could cause confusion or lead to mistaken data interpretation. When deciding which type of chart to use, think about what you want to show: composition, comparison, relationship or distribution (check the chart chooser).
Use pie charts, stacked bar charts or stacked area charts to present parts of a whole.
Use single bar charts or clustered bar charts to compare different values or show differences over time.
Use line charts to show trends in data over a period of time or a particular correlation.
Use area charts instead of line charts when you want to indicate volume.
Follow design principles for better charts design.
References
Chart chooser https://extremepresentation.com/tools/
https://www.ibm.com/design/v1/language/experience/data-visualization/chart-models/
What you should know before designing dashboard https://uxplanet.org/best-practice-for-powerful-dashboard-ac4c3ddca016
https://uxplanet.org/best-practice-for-powerful-dashboard-ac4c3ddca016 https://material.io/design/communication/data-visualization.html#style | https://uxplanet.org/data-heavy-applications-how-to-design-perfect-charts-c0c893fef6de | [] | 2021-08-19 14:43:10.334000+00:00 | ['UI', 'UX', 'Charts', 'Design', 'Design Principles'] |
Zero to Dream Job in 90 Days! | Zero to Dream Job in 90 Days!
Day # 11 Whale Tales
I hope you will forgive me for going off topic from the job search in this post tonight, but I want to tell you about something rather magnificent that has happened!
Have you ever been on a whale watch? Living on Cape Cod, I am thrilled every time I go, like it is the first. The anticipation builds as the boat chugs out to sea and you start to look for the telltale signs; groups of seagulls overhead, other boats, a dark bump in water in the distance. And then you see one and the gasps come out of the crowd, even if you think you can hold yours back! The whales are often in the distance, but sometimes they come close to the boat and it is a feeling of utter joy and amazement to be so close to such a magnificent creature.
I have also had the good fortune to look a whale right in the eye. As part of the Whale Stranding Network years ago, my son and I each assisted in a whale stranding and helped to keep pilot whales wet until the tide came up and then helped get them back out into the water. While my partner and I worked to hold our whale up as the tide started to come in, I remember him saying “Here’s our chance to kiss a whale”. We each took a turn kissing his rubbery head and looking him in the eye. It was a miraculous moment I will never forget.
Yesterday, a diver near the tip of the Cape was diving for lobster down below, with his boat mate in the boat up above, when he felt a bump and everything went black. He says he realized he was somehow inside a whale and thought about his family, as you would if you found yourself inside a whales mouth! After less than a minute, the whale rose the 35 feet or so to the surface, opened his mouth, shook his head and flung him out into the sea!
The sea is all around us here and people still make their living from fishing, aquaculture, viewing whales, seals and now great white sharks from tour boats. The relationship between humans and the sea has always been full of stories and legends such as mermaids, selkies, monsters and dolphins saving people in trouble. Never have I heard a story of a human in a whales mouth, at least not since the Bible story of Jonah and the Whale or Gepetto and Pinocchio in the blue whale in the Disney movie. It’s pretty fascinating if you ask me!
I watched “Whale Rider” tonight, a movie about the indigenous Maori people in New Zealand, their legendary connection to the whales and how the animal kingdom has messages for us, if we listen. In thinking about the extraordinary event that occurred at the tip of the Cape, I can’t help but think about what the message might be to we humans from the whales. I will be listening.
#79 days to go!! | https://medium.com/@kathyblackwell-43108/zero-to-dream-job-in-90-days-24ad721242dd | ['Kathy Blackwell'] | 2021-07-17 18:18:01.285000+00:00 | ['Amazing World', 'Writers On Writing', 'Freelance Writing', 'Whales', 'Stories And Culture'] |
What Should We Do About Gun Violence? | Since 1968, guns have killed more than 1.5 million Americans — more than have been killed in every war in U.S. history. We took Romaine lettuce off the shelves after 16 people were hospitalized. We banned Jarts after one person was injured. Nearly 40,000 people died from gun violence in 2017, and we’ve done nothing but thought and prayed.
We have so many shootings because we have so many guns. Nothing else explains the epidemic of gun violence. That’s why the U.S. is exceptional when it comes to mass shootings.
The obvious answer is to ban this dangerous product, but the NRA has shifted the debate so far from the center that even incredibly common sense measures like banning only assault weapons, background checks, and waiting periods are considered controversial.
I’m told that “Democrats want to take away your guns” won’t play in purple districts. Maybe this will play: “We don’t want to take away your guns, but we’ll have to if you can’t agree to safety measures such as licensing, training, and measures to make the gun inoperable if stolen, much as your phone is inoperable if stolen.”
When opponents of gun safety legislation say of a particular proposal “but that would not have stopped shooter x because he (it’s almost always a he) [would have passed the background check] [used a different type of gun]” the answer should be “okay. Then we’ll just ban all guns unless you can come up with something that would work, and in the meantime, we’ll pass this because it will make things a bit better.”
The default should not be to do the minimum and allow as much gun ownership as possible. The default should be to ban all firearms. Let those who want to own firearms try to persuade us that narrow exceptions to the ban are justified.
But isn’t that unreasonable? No. What’s unreasonable is accepting that thousands of Americans must die every year because we are afraid to regulate guns even as strictly as we regulate cars. We won’t be able to get gun deaths to zero, but the standard of reasonableness should be gun deaths in other Western countries. I’m not against guns. I’m in favor of people remaining alive.
The U.S. suffers 29.7 homicides by firearm per million people. Among advanced countries, Switzerland is next at 7.7. So what is “reasonable” gun control? Whatever it takes to get down to at least 7.7 in the U.S.
That means talking about real solutions, not simply about what is possible today. Of course we should, in the very short-term, push for anything we can get that would save lives. Background checks would be a major step forward; too bad the GOP Senate refuses to even call it for a vote. But without diminishing the importance of background checks or other reforms, we can’t pretend that incremental reforms are nearly enough or pat ourselves on the back for a job well done and say that’s the best we could do and move on.
Bans on smoking in public, mandatory child safety seats, marriage equality, and yes, an African-American president, happened because we changed societal attitudes. We need to make gun ownership culturally unacceptable.
Members of Congress in safe districts should take on the NRA, and members of Congress in other districts should consider whether making the NRA a target (instead of our children) is a winning strategy. It worked for Abner Mikva. And if you don’t think killing animals with guns for sport is a Constitutional right, say so. Don’t be intimidated.
Thoughts and prayers are not enough. As Kirsten Powers wrote, “There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.” One approach might be to treat gun violence as a public health problem.
Far more people are killed by handguns than by assault weapons, but banning or further restricting handgun possession is not even on the table. Let’s put it on the table.
What about the Second Amendment? We need a Supreme Court that understands the Constitution the way Justice Stevens understood it:
“The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. It was a response to concerns raised during the ratification of the Constitution that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several States. Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature’s authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms. Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution.”
But Stevens was outvoted 5–4. We need to put judges on the bench who would make Stevens’s dissent the majority opinion and reverse the NRA misinterpretation of the Second Amendment. That’s one of many reasons we need a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate.
Many Jewish groups support gun control. For example, the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly called not only for a ban on assault weapons, but for longer purchase times, deeper background checks, coding ammunition for identification, and banning online sales of ammunition. That’s not enough, but it’s a good start.
The Israeli approach is worth considering. In Israel, to own a gun one must have a legitimate reason and one must re-establish that reason every six months. Israel rejects 40% of its gun applications, the highest rejection rate of any country in the world. Only 2.5% of Israel’s population is licensed to carry a gun. In Israel, it is not a right to bear arms, but a privilege. Still not convinced? Read this from Yael Shahar.
This is all about politics. The time to politicize these tragedies is always now, because this is all about politics. The only way to protect ourselves from gun violence is to elect leaders who support legislation that will protect us, and that means electing Democrats. Democrats passed H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112 in February 2019. The Republican Senate refuses to even call it for a vote. Nothing will happen until we have Democratic control of the Senate, the House, and the presidency. In the meantime, thousands of Americans will continue to pay for political cowardice with their lives.
But what about these arguments: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. Guns prevent crime. Learn the facts. Then tell your members of Congress that you want a ban on guns and until that is politically feasible you want the strongest gun control bill possible now.
Want more? Subscribe (it’s free!) to my weekly Sunday morning newsletter. It’s mainly, but not exclusively, about pro-Israel politics, but it’s always interesting and not too long. | https://medium.com/@SteveSheffey/what-should-we-do-about-gun-violence-12efabca7874 | ['Steve Sheffey'] | 2019-08-08 14:57:08.169000+00:00 | ['Democrats', 'NRA', 'Guns', 'Republicans'] |
The Nordic Paradox — Failure of a Gender-Equal Utopia? | Photo by Melanie Wasser on Unsplash
The Nordic countries are touted as world leaders when it comes to many metrics measuring the development of countries. One of these aspects is gender equality, and the Nordic countries have consistently emerged as the most gender neutral countries in numerous international surveys.
Based on the Gender Equality Index, an index developed by the European Institute for Gender Equality based on six core domains (work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health), the Nordic countries had the highest scores across all the EU Member States.
However, many find this reportedly high level of gender equality incongruent with the fact that the Nordic countries have the highest rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) amongst other countries in the EU. The UN defines IPV as sexually, psychologically, physically or economically coercive acts against women by a current or former intimate partner.
In a 2014 survey conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (EUAFR), the EU average was just 22%, but Denmark’s was 32% (the highest in the EU), Finland’s was 30% and Sweden’s was 28%. This has given rise to what researchers term as the “Nordic paradox”, which describes how despite high levels of gender inequality in the Nordic countries, the rates of domestic violence against women are higher than expected.
Although Denmark had the second highest score in the 2017 Gender Equality Index, it also had the highest rate of IPV, according to the findings of the EUAFR. In a followup report published in November 2017, Denmark had the highest rates of violence against women amongst all other member states.
A possible reason as to why there is such a high number of IPV cases reported may be intrinsically linked to the high levels of gender equality in the Nordic countries. Due to the relatively equal status both genders have in these countries, women may feel that it is more acceptable to report domestic abuse. In gender-equal societies, it is also likely that there are better gender equality education policies, which lead to higher awareness of social services to seek help from, or avenues for reporting IPV.
A social safety net that protects women may also allow them to leave their husbands more easily since they can rely on the state for help. There may also be differences in how women in different countries interpret survey questions, and wider definitions of what constitutes IPV may lead to a higher statistic. Differing cultural attitudes towards violent behaviours may also result in differences in how women recognize them.
However, despite all these reasons as to why rates of IPV may be higher than expected, it seems that in Denmark, there are other contributors that may negate the effect of factors discussed above.
In Denmark, the legal definition of what constitutes rape is still very narrowly defined. Despite recommendations from the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), the definition of rape in Danish law is still not a consent-based one. This is in contrast with many other developed countries which have adopted a broader definition of rape, that is more favourable towards the victim. Furthermore, the reporting rate for rape in Denmark is much lower than the actual number of crimes committed. It was estimated that in 2017, there were 24,000 attempted rapes and 5,100 rapes committed, but only 890 were reported to the authorities.
When faced with the reality of the situation, instead of trying to justify the Nordic paradox, it may be more helpful to focus on why there might really be higher rates of IPV in the Nordic countries.
One cause may be the “backlash effect”. The “backlash effect” refers to the phenomenon of males residing in countries with high levels of gender equality using violence as a response to women’s empowerment and progress in the public sphere. Men may feel emasculated by their partners having an increasing amount of resources, and thus respond with violence to maintain the illusion of having more power and privileges. However, it should be noted that research findings in this area have been inconsistent and is merely a hypothesis.
Another possible cause may be the high levels of alcohol consumption in the Nordic countries. The similar rates of alcohol consumption within the Nordic region in contrast to the rest of the EU nations have been suggested to be correlated with increased acts of IPV, incited by the absence of other traditional indicators of masculinity such as higher income.
However, there may exist an incongruence in the way we view the correlation between levels of gender and rates of IPV. If we were to take a closer look at other metrics, it can be seen that there may be a gap between the ideal scenario and the reality of the situation. For example, even though women may have equal participation in the workforce, they still tend to do more unpaid labor at home. Pay gaps still persist and men continue to dominate the public sphere. Hence, the ideas that we have formed about the Nordic countries being a gender utopia may turn out to be more fantasy than reality.
Considering all these, a recalibration of how gender equality is measured is needed in this situation.
If high IPV rates are seen as a paradox to high levels of gender equality, it implies that it is a metric by which gender equality of a country is being assessed. Therefore, incorporating rates of IPV into assessing gender equality would take that into account, and may provide a better indication of the overall levels of gender equality in a country. | https://medium.com/discourse/the-nordic-paradox-failure-of-a-gender-equal-utopia-7163d49be200 | ['Deborah Tan'] | 2020-12-10 16:17:08.614000+00:00 | ['Domestic Violence', 'Scandinavia', 'World', 'Gender Equality', 'Europe'] |
The mystery of Jesus, the naked hippie dancer | For decades, William Jellett danced at gigs and festivals, and told people he was the Son of God. Then, it seemed, he disappeared.
Jellett at the Reading Festival, 1974 (Source: Vin Miles, UK Rock Festivals)
It was a Saturday evening, St Valentine’s Day 1970, when William Jellett first thought he might be Jesus. He was on the London Underground, travelling back from work, and noticed the headline of the newspaper unfurled opposite him: “Cambridge riots — two policemen beaten up”. There had been student protests the night before, on Friday the 13th.
Feeling “hurt for my brothers,” he later told 19 magazine, he put his head in his hands. He had the sense that everyone was his brother or sister, and that the music and freedom he had found over the last few years were slipping away, with this rising violence. The lights flickered between stations, catching the dull livery.
He was only 21, but violence had always bothered him; back in the children’s home, back at school, back with the mods and rockers on the beaches. It seemed to be all around him now. The music press talked about Manson and Altamont and Kent State, and sometimes there were photographs of crowds at gigs too, in which he could see himself dancing, conspicuously. Music was getting heavier too, at the gigs he went to nearly every night: Black Sabbath had released their first album the day before, The Who recorded “Live at Leeds” that night.
As the train rumbled forward, Jellett looked into his hands. They were less smooth than they had been, he saw. He had not been able to hold down regular work for a while, leaving the job he had found when he first moved to London, at the tea importer, then the job in the storeroom at the BBC, where he had spent much of his time scrawling designs in biro on cardboard. He now sometimes told people he “worked in an office”, if they asked, between songs, or in queues. He did, really. Travelling around the city, he cleaned flats and houses, and offices. His hands were hardening with the work. He had never noticed the lines in his palms before.
Jellett at Bath Blues Festival, 1969 (Source: Lawrence Impey, UK Rock Festivals)
For the first time, Jellett saw that the lines crossed in the centre of each hand. The cross, he would say, in the “idle of my palm”. He was well-attuned to religious symbolism, and divine calling. His parents had been in the Salvation Army, and he had felt something of this significance over the last couple of years, in the music he listened to.
Now, the logic overcame him. He thought about reincarnation, and about universality and interconnectedness. If we are all one, he thought, he could be anyone. People had been calling him “Jesus” for a while, and he had adopted the nickname, but now it made sense. If he had been reincarnated, he thought, “there would be no permissive society, no underground, just people wanting to be themselves and live their lives the way they wanted to before”.
The crosses were stigmata, he thought. | https://medium.com/@jprobinson/the-mystery-of-jesus-the-naked-hippie-dancer-9822c0da8765 | ['J.P. Robinson'] | 2021-01-31 11:01:03.178000+00:00 | ['Festivals', 'Hippies', 'Jesus', 'Gigs', 'Glastonbury'] |
ACIM — Lesson 11. I just had a grand idea. Instead of me… | I just had a grand idea. Instead of me writing about A Course in Miracles (which I will anyway), how about I bring you along with me? Sure, come on! It will be fun! It’s early in the year yet, you haven’t missed much. Do these lessons with me. I’m only on Lesson 11. I’ve stumbled upon a channeler on You Tube, who makes really easy! (We don’t even have to read! We can just listen on our phones if we like!)
The channelers name is Tina Louise Spalding…channeling, you guessed it Jesus! I mean who else could be channeled regarding A Course in Miracles, except its author (via another channeler Helen Schucman).
Okay so just listen to today’s lesson:
My Meaningless Thoughts Are Showing Me a Meaningless World
Go ahead, it that play button, and listen to Jesus break it down!
I’ve done this meditation more than once. Now when I first began the course, way back in 2004, I was such a hot mess! I could barely stand to read any of these lessons. It all just sounded like nonsensical gobbilty gook! Like seriously! I hated these lessons! Because this course is so mind-blowing- it advises that you go at your own pace…even though the recommendation is to do one lesson per a day.
When I first started, I could only complete, like one mediation a month, if that.
To say that my ego wasn’t open to the material was an understatement…it was open hostile to it. My ego had such a firm grip on me, it was having none of this ACIM nonsense! My ego would throw the book against the wall sometimes! But my higher self, some how urged me to keep up with it. I was also encouraged by members in my family who told me they saw a difference in me. I was better on the days I studied ACIM, as oppossed to the days I did not. It was a difference that I hadn’t noticed myself, but if my loved ones took note, I thought there had to be something to it.
I started the course in search of inner peace. I had no idea what inner peace was, I just knew I had never had it. A state of constant anger and inner turmoil is how I would describe my inner life, from age 10, until I began the course in my mid thirties.
And so, 15 years later, these lessons no longer seem like nonsense, but very deep spiritual wisdom. Did I find my inner peace? Most certainly. I describe the attainment of inner peace in my short story The 4th Dimension .
While, up to this point, my ACIM studies, have given me glimpses into the 4th Dimension, I’m totally committed, at this point. Last year, I actually had an extended vacation into the 4th dimension; and I’ve decided the 4th dimension — or higher, is not just a place I want to visit, but where I now want to live. I want to take up permanent residence in the 4th dimension or 5th dimension. I’m so ready for the ascension — planetary and otherwise. Where’s Scotty? Let’s go dude!
I think, reaching the 4th dimension (and also the 5th) is not merely a matter of space, but of mind. What’s really critical, is as Jesus says, clarifying the mind.
I feel like I am on the precipice of a clarified mind and a new dimension. If only I could completely resolve the issue of my meaningless thoughts showing me a meaningless world. At this point in my studies, I can say…well of course they are! But how do I stop them? How do I stop all of these horrific thought viruses running though my head?
These thought viruses are like the crappy automatic programming that comes on any PC you purchase on the cheap these days…filled with adware…or malware. This junk will wreck a clean, quickly and properly functioning PC system, by mucking it up and slowing it down.
Your mind, arguably the most powerful tool you have at your disposal, is much like a computer. Your thoughts? Think of them as code. You can build whatever you like with the proper thoughts and emotion. But when you let them run random: when they are meaningless, you build a meaningless world, which you then have to live in.
This meaningless world is not peaceful. So why do we think these meaningless thoughts? I don’t know. Mainly habit. The meaningless thoughts we think, were the meaningless thoughts we were given. Sometimes we give these meaningless thoughts to ourselves.
As for me, when I really perform these exercises..and I find that when I am really diligent, I can’t help but feel peaceful, no matter what is going on in the outer world of my experience.
Take today, for example. I spent the morning studying and contemplating this lesson. Then, I went into my world of meaningless thoughts; and immediately I began to see a meaningless world.
You know the thoughts. I’m sure you’ve had them. (Or some similar.)
Oh, I’ve got to pay this bill, do I have enough money? Why don’t I ever have enough money! (Then follow the meaningless: emotions, pain, anguish, frustration.)
Oh there’s my son’s friend that I don’t like, never have! He’s such a problem. (Then I feel guilty, for feeling that way about him.) Why is he always such a problem?
Oh my God what am I going to do about this weekend visit from this in-law that I don’t like! When will I be free of this person? Haven’t I vibrated out of his frequency? (Then I feel like a spiritual failure, for not having more loving thoughts, so I can vibrate out of the frequency.)
I mean look at these thoughts? Are any of them meaningful…not in the least. And so…yet again, my meaningless thoughts showed me a meaningless world…and a meaningless world is uncomfortable. It’s not peaceful.
I’m ready to give it up. I have to change these thoughts! Recognizing them is the first step!
So I say all of that, to say this, although I’ve done all the ACIM lessons, repeatedly, I know that they haven’t taken hold completely. Also, I know that I don’t get to reside in the 4th dimension permanently, until they do. So I am challenging myself, to like, really GET these lessons this year! I really want to get it! (So I can move into the 4th dimension and beyond.)
And I am challenging YOU, who ever might have an interest, to come along for the ride and take this challenge with me! Come along and GET these lessons! The time is now. Don’t you want to feel peaceful? Don’t you want to visit the 4th Dimension, too? Come on! Let’s do it together! It will be fun!
See ya tomorrow. | https://medium.com/the-door-to-the-4th-dimension-and-other-mysterious/acim-lesson-11-6642787dbc5e | ['An Everyday Light Worker', 'Amli'] | 2019-01-12 02:50:42.564000+00:00 | ['A Course In Miracles', 'Life Lessons', 'Philosophy', 'Jesus', 'Spirituality'] |
Why I Hate Mars Bars (Trigger Warning) | Dear Friend,
I’ve never really had an opinion about Mars Bars. My favourite has always been anything with nuts really. Mars was too sweet and caramelly — there is no texture. Anyway, like I said, I was indifferent to them. If you’ve ever bought the chocolates “Celebrations” you know that there are like 1 Mars Bars in every 5 chocolates, why does this matter? It doesn’t really…except it does.
Let’s take it back to 4 years ago. I was living in Utrecht (yes I know, its a hard word to pronounce) anyway, I was a big girl in a not so big city trying to navigate college life. This consisted of going to classes, drinking every Thursday through Saturday, working out when it suited me and of course — dating. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I looove love. Not just the romantic kind, I love people, I love learning about different people and I love connecting with people. Does it get me a lot of hurt? Sure. But it’s never stopped me. I’m always out and about making new connections. I’ve made friends in airports (who I still check on once in a while), I’ve made friends in toilets, trams. Bruh anywhere. If you are a human and interesting to me — legggo.
The thing with being young and too friendly and too trusting is that people see this knowingly or unknowingly and push your boundaries — they take your optimism for naïveté. And it was naïveté at some point. So what does a college girl do? Join tinder. It doesn’t get easier than that. Swipe, swipe and just like UberEats, your date will be at the table ready for connection — or not.
Now I went on this date. It was a normal, ok date. He was a gentleman (whatever that is). He did what was expected — that’s better. He pulled my seat, asked all the right questions. We shared humour (y’all know I love to laugh), talked about our childhoods. We had about 3 or so cocktails, the more we drank, the more we shared, the more my inhibitions dropped. Now came to the critical time…do we end the night…do we go back to someones place?
Now, I KNOW we are not supposed to go home with strangers. But it’s such a weird world where it has become commonplace for a stranger to literally pick you up from your house and drop you elsewhere. Just like it’s commonplace to meet a stranger in a bar and go home with them. Everyone in your life was a stranger at some point. These things happen. I don’t know the rules. Anyway, we decided let’s go to his place. I did the “right” “adult” thing. I sent my friends my location, his phone number, his address — at least I thought I did. I really don’t remember.
Nothing changed. He still maintained his gentleman-y demeanour. We got to his place and I’ll skip the details. It was consensual — at first. I did the right thing, we used a condom. It was alright (I was 19/20) I didn’t know too much about female pleasure back then (scratch that, I knew NOTHING) so it was just fine. It was what it was supposed to feel like — I guess. At some point, I started getting uncomfortable and I voiced it. He can’t hear me, I told myself. So I speak louder and say stop. He still can’t hear me. Won’t hear me. How could this man, that could hear me so CLEARLY in a loud ass bar be so deaf right about now? So I maybe said something one more time but because I couldn’t be heard, I gave up. I tried to wait until it was over. I felt small. I felt like a body. I felt numb. I wasn’t understanding what was happening — I wouldn’t for two years. I would tell myself that I just wasn’t loud enough. After the fact, the lights come back on and I have never been so shocked in my life. Why? Because I had never seen so much blood in my life and I’m not squeamish (unless I spot a slug — yoooo I can die). So now I was just so concerned about the blood, I was embarrassed af! Why did this happen? (duh we know what happened). So I start apologising for the blood and he says no problem I’m Caribbean, nothing can phase me. And here I go thinking, damn, how nice of this guy. Y’all trauma is weird.
So, after he changed the sheets he offered me a Mars Bar — I declined. I have never touched a Mars Bar since. We went to sleep, he did — I don’t remember if I was back in my body. The next day, he cycled me back to my house. I went had a shower and went to class. I never saw him again. He tried calling and making plans again but I could not understand why I didn’t want to see him.
Flash forward two years and my friends and I are sharing awkward/weird sex encounters — as one does over wine. And I share mine and my best-friend kind of freezes and says sis…that was rape. And I’m like really? Was it? Finally all the denial I had been escaping slaps me in the face. I don’t presume to understand how the brain protects itself, but mine did until it was ready to deal with what had happened. That I had been violated, that I had been stupid, that I had put myself in this situation. This is the self-blame society has placed on victims/survivors — whatever. It’s not right. I was excusing a man who had taken away my autonomy, made me silent and gaslighted the fuck out of that situation that I was too busy apologising for my leaking body.
Anyway, it was only this year that my therapist finally got me to a place where I was safe to call it R.A.P.E. I have called it everything from the incident, to violation…I have called it everything except what it was — RAPE. Reading Roxane Gay’s Hunger and peoples stories online and in real life, I realise this is common. To say rape is to accept that it has happened. I now understand that I was never wrong, I was just doing me and someone else came and hurt me. I didn’t put myself in any position. After all, I would be lying if I said this was the last time I left home with a new stranger — but it was the last time I was violated in such a manner. I am not the problem here, I was never the problem. He was. I was told that I am still able to file a case of rape but here is the thing I cannot — do not — remember what this man even resembles. His name — nothing. I cannot even picture his face. Even if I could, I had no interest chasing that because somewhere inside me still whispers that it wasn’t rape. It wasn’t violent in some alley where I was held by the throat. It wasn’t violent. But it was one of the most violent things that has been done to me. Because of society, because of being raised to always blame women, blame myself — I didn’t feel it worth it. Because even if we did “catch” him, there is a huge chance I would never feel the justice that I deserve.
I’ve gotten my power back within me without having to confront him. I fight everyday for people who have been violated and I will never stop. But I hate Mars Bars because they are a reminder that the kindest, sweetest seeming people can be the most terrifying and slimiest. I’m over it now, it took 4 years. But I can never touch a Mars Bar. I don’t know if I ever will.
Mars Bars are ordinary chocolates. Just like Rapists are ordinary, they look ordinary, they seem ordinary. Until they aren’t. And just like they seem to be 1 in 5, in reality there are a lot more Mars Bars in every fucking Celebrations box. Ive read the statistics, 1 in 5 women have been raped or faced sexual assault of some kind. But the more I share my story and listen to others’, this number has dwindled to everyone either knowing someone or being a survivor themselves (both men and women); because men get raped too, and they have an even harder time getting their justice. It’s disgusting and apalling.
Don’t be like me, don’t assume everyone is as loving as you are. Now I send ALL the details of ALL my dates. Phone number, address, picture and I never drink like I would drink with friends. You have to protect yourself, you only have yourself. People can be both lovely to one person and predators to another. It be like that. Usually, (aside from that useless 5% who wrongfully accuse rape and deserve a special place in hellfire) if someone says they have been assaulted, believe them. Because to not do that is devastating. Just because you haven’t found too many Mars Bars in your box doesn’t mean they aren’t many. And just because this Mars Bar was sweet for you, does not mean they didn’t give someone else a cavity. It can be both, usually is both.
People can be amazing to you as a friend and still be a RAPIST to another. If you don’t know, then kindly, shut up. It is literally not your place to have an opinion on the matter. To do so, is to lack empathy and for that is to strip yourself of humanity. So just shhh and listen.
I still love people, I have just learned that not everyone is deserving of that love.
I don’t know what the purpose of this letter was, but I hope it is of some insight to you friend
Unapologetically,
Nichole | https://medium.com/@nicholewanjiru/why-i-hate-mars-bars-trigger-warning-7359c052ffbc | ['Nichole Wanjiru'] | 2020-11-23 20:07:51.848000+00:00 | ['Survival', 'Boundaries', 'Trauma', 'Growth', 'Life Lessons'] |
Getting Your Minimalist Home Ready for Baby | When you’re expecting a baby, it can be daunting thinking about all the things a baby needs. Between your more experienced mom-friends, targeted ads, baby stores, parenting magazines and the latest “magical gadget you can’t live without,” it can feel overwhelming.
But what exactly is necessary for your baby? What can’t your baby do without? Make sure to start with these must-haves. You can always add on as needed!
1. Car Seat
The number one piece of equipment nearly all babies need is a car seat. Even if you live in a city, don’t own a car and plan to walk everywhere, you’ll need one to take a cab, a last minute Uber or to leave the hospital in a friend’s car.
2. Safe sleeping area
Even if you plan on safely bedsharing, you’ll want a safe, flat and firm sleep surface for those times you’re not in bed with your little one. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, a crib and pack-n-play meet the criteria of safe sleeping areas. Find one that suits you and your family.
3. Diapers and wipes
Other must-haves are newborn size diapers and wipes. A typical newborn will go through 10 diapers a day. Careful not to stockpile too much, though. Before you know it, your little one will grow into the next size! For those who plan to use cloth diapers, determine if you will use a service or do it yourselves.
4. Clothes
Whether you’re having a winter or summer baby, you’ll need clothes suitable for the season.
One pieces, also known as “onesies” are a great option. A stack of these, as well as burp cloths, will be put to use, multiple times a day. Hats are also a must, especially in cooler weather. Remember to prewash all new and used clothing before putting them on your baby.
5. Receiving blankets
Receiving blankets have many useful purposes and generally come in cotton or muslin. They can be used for swaddling, as a clean floor space for tummy time, catching spit up, or an extra layer in a stroller.
6. Feeding paraphernalia
Other must-haves involve the feeding of your baby. Once this personal decision has been made, you’ll want the necessities associated with it.
For formula feeding, you’ll need bottles, slow flow nipples, a separate cleaning utensil, a method of sterilizing (a pot of boiling water works just fine) and formula.
For breastfeeding, you may want nursing tops or bras and a comfortable place to sit and some pillows to help get into position. A breast pump may or may not be needed right away. The circumstances around pumping would indicate which type of pump to get.
Other miscellaneous items that every postpartum new mom needs is a favorite water bottle to stay hydrated, one-handed healthy snacks and a phone charger near your bed and/or day use area.
There will always be more baby items that others swear by or that you’ll want for yourself. Whether it’s a breastfeeding pillow, hooded bath towel, pacifier, baby thermometer, nail file, white noise machine, stroller, baby-wearing carrier or diaper bag, none of these are vital for your baby’s homecoming.
If you want to keep stuff at a minimum, buy slowly, enjoy cuddling your new baby and rest easy.
Bonni Berger is a Postpartum Doula based outside of Washington, DC. To read more of her content, check out her blog at bethesdadoula.com. | https://medium.com/@bonniberger/getting-your-minimalist-home-ready-for-baby-41299f2b45f2 | ['Bonni Berger'] | 2019-10-19 20:09:07.020000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Newborn', 'Baby Products', 'Moms', 'Baby'] |
Toes Dipped. Eyes Opened. Dimensions Crossed. | Toes Dipped. Eyes Opened. Dimensions Crossed.
Note: As an experiment, this piece was written in three parts: The first part was moments after a session with DMT. The rest was written in the days proceeding and the days following.
When you’re a child and something frightens you, you can close your eyes as tightly as you can to try and shutout whatever it is you’re hiding from. Maybe a scary movie. Maybe you think there’s a monster under the bed. Whatever it may be, you feel safe there because there is nowhere else you can go and nothing else you can see––just the darkness of the insides of your own eyelids.
Imagine if, as an adult, instead of that perceived security, when you closed your eyes something else was there–another door–and once you open it, you’re pushed farther and farther into another world you don’t quite understand, but you can’t look away.
You can’t close your eyes and hide from it because you are it — it’s all taking place inside of your mind. Like riding a rollercoaster, unable to control your surroundings, but so taken by the magnificent colors, shapes, and images whirling around that the spectacle is enough to ward off the mild anxiety you may feel at first.
You can’t get off this ride, so you have no choice but to breathe and let go, because fighting it is futile.
Once you surrender, your chest gets warm, spreading a calm throughout your entire being, like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Your body itself starts to dissolve into nothingness.
For a second, you have to ask yourself if you’re still alive because your body is gone, even though your thoughts are still very much there––an understandably overwhelming feeling. But if you focus on being in the experience, instead of fearing the strange sensation of your body melting away, it’s bliss as you’re ushered through the unknown, towards the center of something you can’t ever seem to reach.
The more you try to focus on the source of all this energy, the deeper the energy pulls you into this other world––familiar yet foreign.
There is an actual force tugging at your mind. They aren’t quite hands reaching for you, but there is no other way to explain them. I suppose calling them web-like fractals is as close as one can get. They want you to come with them. I want to say they are inviting you, but that would imply that you had a choice, and you don’t. That doesn’t make it scary, however. In any other circumstance, you would be terrified, but you’re not. You’re just an observer letting it happen. Letting your mind float away, body-less, curious, unexpecting.
The most peculiar part is, you don’t feel alone. And I don’t mean that figuratively. It’s as though you have crossed the veil. Even with eyeshades on, alone your room, there is some other presence there––again, not frightening by any means, just peculiar.
… And then suddenly … it’s over. And you’re back in your body, and you’re back from wherever it was you just were — it certainly wasn’t earth as we know it. And the experience was so beautiful, so unworldly, and transformative, you find yourself weeping like a small child cradled in your mother’s arms — safe, loved, and secure.
It is, to quote a friend, “like getting a hug from God.”
…
There is nothing more cliché than the analogy of “opening your third eye” when talking about plant medicine. As a writer, I hate clichés. They are cheap, boring, and hokey. Every time some guy with a man bun in Austin tells me to “open my third eye,” I roll my eyes. But I like man buns so, I usually keep the conversation going.
Having said all that, of all the plant medicines I have used, nothing has given me more appreciation for this overused cliché as Dimethyltryptamine, DMT, or as some call it, “The Spirit Molecule.”
I should mention that I’ve never “broken through,” as they call it, or at least not in the way I’ve heard it described — though I’ve gone pretty far.
I haven’t met the “elves.” I haven’t had “alien abduction” experiences. I have felt the presence and seen vague images of other beings, but it doesn’t align with other firsthand accounts I have read about.
I think I should also mention, I’ve never actually smoked it. I’ve only used a concentrate from a vape pen.
While vaping DMT is said to be a milder experience, since you can control, to some extent, how intense you want your trip to be, you can still “launch.” I just haven’t yet mustered the courage to do so. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t crossed dimensions I didn’t plan on crossing when inhaling a bit too much. I guess some may argue that I have launched, but perception is in the eye of the beholder and I feel like I would know.
In my seven-eight sessions thus far, the most intense was the one that encouraged me to write the first chunk of this article. The only thing I can even compare it to is playing Mario Kart on Nintendo 64, racing down Rainbow Road at warp speed––except you don’t have access to the controller. I was a little caught off guard, to be honest. I didn’t actually mean to go that far, but I laid back and I let it happen, what else was I to do?
But this experience is not the one I want to focus on. I want to tell you about the first time DMT and I became acquainted.
A Lifeline
I was reborn the second time I took Molly and danced outside at a music festival I mentioned in another essay. That was easily the most beautiful moment of my entire life.
The second was my first real encounter with DMT.
I had been eager to try the substance for years, but the time was never right. I’ve learned to trust my intuition with hallucinogens. I could just feel that I wasn’t ready. Finally, in December, the tides had changed.
My brother was given a terminal cancer diagnosis. My relationship was a shit show and the Covid lockdowns had left me spending most days by myself, alone, trapped in my thoughts, and more neurotic than ever.
Thoughts of self-harm turned into a reality, as did a pressing urge to take my own life, something I had not felt in two years.
My doctors had me on a steady cocktail of Benzodiazepines, mood stabilizers, and some other anxiety medication they threw at me to stop me from hurting myself — a habit I had not outgrown from my teen years. But Klonopin numbs the pain, and I needed to feel everything and face it all. I needed something to keep me going that didn’t come from a pill bottle. I needed deeper introspection.
What Is DMT?
DMT is found in almost every living organism, including humans. It something already inside of us, so when we take it, it’s like coming home in a sense.
DMT can mimic what it feels like to die, according to clinical research and personal accounts–– I highly recommend reading, DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences.
Given my mental state, I wasn’t scared of death. Therefore, I was no longer scared of DMT. Facing my brother’s pending death, there was also a part of me that wanted to know what he would experience.
Seeing that I was in crisis, my friends drove from three different states to be by my side and guide me through this journey.
We lit holy Palo Santo wood to cleanse my apartment of bad energy first — believe me, it needed to be cleansed. But there was a ceremonious aspect about it that made the experience that much more special.
Guided by a trusted friend, I had a practice run first. “Put on the headphones. Inhale in for seven seconds. Hold in as long as you can. Exhale. Close your eyes. Lie back. Listen to the music.”
This was just to dip my toes. I saw mild visuals, felt warm. But nothing too crazy.
Then came round two. “Put on the headphones. Inhale in for 15–30 seconds. Hold in as long as you can. Exhale. Close your eyes. Lie back. Listen to the music.”
… Wow …
Here We Go!
It wasn’t until the exhale that I felt it. The first thing I noticed was a slight tightness in my head, then my jaw dropped, my mouth hung open, and I was no longer in the room. My body got warm, not Molly warm, divinely warm. Again, it felt like God was filling my blood with love (ugh that’s so cheesy, I know).
I saw fractals, if you don’t know what those are, see the bottom of this post. The whole world is made of fractals. It’s the only mathematical principle that intrigues me. When you see them, it’s like seeing infinity.
I want to be very clear in my wording here, DMT communicates with you, but that is not to say that I heard voices — I may have mental health issues but hearing voices is not part of them.
It’s much like your thoughts, where you can’t see or even hear them, but they are real.
I had loved two men with all my heart since my divorce, neither of whom loved me back. I had clung to that heartache because that is what I do, I hold on to pain.
But as my mind thrust me through pink and yellow fractals, the DMT told me to let them go. That I had to let them both go. Inside what I can only describe as DNA-shaped visuals, I saw all the art — music, writing, etc — that I had yet to create, all of which I would not be able to create if I decided to take my own life.
I don’t remember who wrapped me in a blanket. I don’t remember a lot of what was going on around me, but I knew where I was, and that I was among friends.
I realized that for my whole life I had sought the acceptance of men because I had never experienced unconditional love from my family or self-love. But I had to focus on choosing myself now. There was only me (see song above). That is all there is.
At this realization, I could feel myself begin to weep uncontrollably. I’ve never liked myself. I’ve never found myself to be worth anything. But within a few moments, I finally realized how much I meant not just to the world, but how much I meant to myself.
I wasn’t running from the broken girl I had always been anymore, the one with the reputation of having cuts on her body and crying in the bathroom during school dances. Instead, I was holding her, telling her I cared about her and her suffering, and that she was loved more than she could possibly understand.
A New Perspective
Earlier that week I had made a list of reasons to die and reasons to live, the former column vastly outweighing the latter.
The night before I had hurt myself and I had every intention of doing it again … until the trip ended.
The thought of hurting myself after that first session was unthinkable, blasphemous even. How could I do that after feeling so much love for myself?
I had let men in my life control how much I value myself since I was a teenager. But it didn’t matter anymore, because I finally loved myself.
Each time I come back from “the other world” I find myself curled up in the fetal position crying because there is just so much beauty and love to be found.
I pride myself on my writing, but nothing I articulate in words can do DMT justice. It’s not like acid or mushrooms. It’s like nothing you’ve ever encountered.
It’s like a dream, where it’s so vivid while I’m in it, and then afterward I can’t quite seem to hang on to whatever it is I just witnessed, which is why I wrote the first part immediately after. But I want to go back. Every single time, I just want to go back because there is so much divinity in it. There is so much in this universe we don’t understand. DMT shows us just the tip of the iceberg. | https://medium.com/@curtainofconsciousness/toes-dipped-eyes-opened-dimensions-crossed-ac29376db288 | ['A Peek Behind The Curtain Of Consciousness'] | 2021-02-20 21:43:27.773000+00:00 | ['Dmt', 'Psychedelics', 'Ayahuasca', 'Plant Medicine'] |
2019 is almost over, and i feel like it just started a few hours ago. | 2019 is almost over, and i feel like it just started a few hours ago. how the hell does time fly so fast? it goes 2020, then 2021, and then 2022, and i’m graduating high school. what college will i go? what friends will i have lost? will i have glowed up, have ever picked up running? the future seems so close but next week feels so far away.
funny how it works like that.
by 2022, i’d like to have graduated high school. be living with all my best friends, but keep on making new ones too.
i want to go on a road trip, the kind where you discover new flavors of the world and see sunsets that you didn’t know could look so beautiful.
i want to feel free, i want to run on a quiet beach and scream, i want to blast music so loud the world fades away- just me and the people i love, experiencing a world that we didn’t know existed.
i’d like to have my own apartment. it doesn’t have to be the best, but it’d be mine. i’d hang up my little lantern lights and put a fuzzy blanket over my bed and maybe there wasn’t heating but i was pretty used to that by now. and there would be a candle, and i’d light it, and i’d hope the flame never flickers out because then i’d have to buy another and this perfect reality would come to a halt.
and wouldn’t that be something.
i’d look over and cringe at the sudden darkness, but maybe i’d prefer it because when you turn on the normal, harsh lights it casts shadows, the ugly kind, over a dream you’ve been wishing for since you wanted freedom. but the truth is that freedom means hunger some nights, means stress about rent. means you work a grave yard shift at mcdonald’s and you write college papers on your break. it means maybe the guy you like isn’t such a good guy, but you wanted the freedom and now no one is there to check up on you when he lashes out. freedom brings independence, and with that solidarity.
in a perfect world, maybe independence is solidarity, but only from the people that you grew tired of. because with independence brings power to surround yourself with new people. with the kind of people you would live life with, and scream on the beach with, and buy candles for.
(but this isn’t a perfect world. it’s jagged, and crumbling at the corners, and there isn’t heating in the apartment. there’s mold on the edge of the window. a flickering flame. a bleak, gray world.)
is it wrong to want to live in a world that is dying?
no?
then why is it so hard?
because i feel like i’m drowning. that’s all two years away, or maybe three, or maybe longer- but i think i could reach out and touch it if my arm was long enough. i really, really think i could…
but tomorrow is a decade away, and i’m falling faster than i’m flying. maybe it will be a good day, maybe it’ll be the best day i’ve ever had. maybe my room will have heat, all four corners, and maybe all my friends will be there with smiles brighter than the sun.
but i’m sinking,
sinking,
shaking,
my hands are shaking,
and it’s just out of reach. | https://medium.com/@hannah.j.m08/2019-is-almost-over-and-i-feel-like-it-just-started-a-few-hours-ago-1081bfe03a5b | [] | 2019-11-27 04:44:43.392000+00:00 | ['Freedom', '2019', 'Poetry', 'Change', 'Sad'] |
Slicing Redux in ReactJS | How to use the slice in react-redux
Slicing Redux in ReactJS
Overview
When I started using redux in react, I felt it is a bit overkill for an ideal web app. I had to manage multiple files for each module. There was so much code that was almost the same and had to write it for every module, and I always thought that if we have to anyways write the same code repeatedly then why was it not handled by redux? When I learned about createSlice I felt my prayers were finally heard.
What is createSlice
createSlice comes with the package redux-toolkit. It is a function that accepts an initial state, an object full of reducer functions, and a “slice name”, and automatically generates action creators and action types that correspond to the reducers and state.
How createSlice works?
Create a Redux store with configureStore
a. configureStore accepts a reducer function as a named argument
b. configureStore automatically sets up the store with good default settings Provide the Redux store to the React application components
a. Put a React-Redux <Provider> component around your <App />
b. Pass the Redux store as <Provider store={store}> Create a Redux “slice” reducer with createSlice
a. Call createSlice with a string name, an initial state, and named reducer functions
b. Reducer functions may “mutate” the state using Immer
c. Export the generated slice reducer and action creators Use the React-Redux useSelector/useDispatch hooks in React components
a. Read data from the store with the useSelector hook
b. Get the dispatch function with the useDispatch hook, and dispatch actions as needed
Let's see it in action
My src folder looks like this
First, create a module slice using createSlice. In the reducers attribute of the createSlice function add functions that will hold the business/domain logic.
Creating a slice instance using createSlice function
Export the reducer that you’ll get from the instance of Slice.
Exporting reducer from a slice
Import the reducer and pass it in the global store reducer while creating the store using configureStore.
Now that you have a store ready, you can use it in your app passing it to a provider and wrapping the root component of the app by that provider.
The Provider will make the store available to each component at every level inside the App component. Now, we will use the store in the Counter component. First, you’ll need to get the value from the store using useSelector hook
We can use this count variable directly to display the count. Now, we’ll update the store and for that, we’ll need action which can be exported from the slice instance.
Import these actions in the component and dispatch the action you want using the hook function useDispatch. The useDispatch function returns an instance of the type Dispatch.
That’s it! You can see how Slice creates reducers and actions for us which takes less time and less code as compared to the traditional Redux architecture. We now know how to create a store, use the data to display and update the data. This was the most basic example so that everyone can understand the use of Slice in ReactJS.
If you wish to know more about react, redux or slice then let me know in the comments. | https://medium.com/nonstopio/slicing-redux-in-reactjs-43ee5f1d4855 | ['Arnold Parge'] | 2021-07-17 12:03:08.973000+00:00 | ['React', 'Web App Development', 'Software Development', 'Redux', 'Flux'] |
4 Easy Remedy For Overheated MacBook Air | MacBook Air has managed to satisfied a broad landscape of audience than any other laptops in this world. It is oddly pleasing in terms of design and builds. But this beautifully crafted machine is plagued with one major issue which is “overheating”. Yes! it true, the latest-gen MacBook air tends to heat up more even than its predecessor. So, what is the cure for this major issue? In this blog, we have listed down some practical solutions that can curb this issue with ease.
Run Diagnostics on Your Fans
Override Fans of your Mac
Updates the Operating System & Reset the Mac
Drop the CPU Tormenting Software
Head over to techlogicco to get descriptive information on the aforesaid solution | https://medium.com/@pankajtyagi-48412/4-easy-remedy-for-overheated-macbook-air-4fc81bd8ab0d | ['Pankaj Tyagi'] | 2020-12-20 10:34:52.072000+00:00 | ['Macbook Repair', 'Macbook Repair Delhi', 'Macbook Overheating', 'Mac', 'Macbook Air'] |
Diabetes and Pancreatic Cancer: A Bilateral Relationship | Diabetes is a condition in which your pancreas is either not able to make insulin at all or your body is not able to use insulin properly. This clearly demonstrates that diabetes and the pancreas are linked.
Cancer and diabetes have their roots in inherited genes. Both the conditions can be a consequence of certain genetic mutations (received from parents or ancestors). To be specific, there is a bidirectional association between diabetes and pancreatic cancer. Some researchers claim that diabetes is also a very common risk factor for pancreatic cancer. In this article, you will learn about the bilateral relationship between diabetes and pancreatic cancer.
#1 Pancreatic Cancer as a Cause of Diabetes
It is no lie that pancreatic cancer can cause diabetes. More than half of the patients experience a frequent elevation in blood sugar level. Some patients undergo surgery for the removal of cancer surgery. In most of those cases, blood sugar level comes back to normal.
Furthermore, cancer treatment can bridge the gap between cancer and diabetes in some individuals. Certain medications given to pancreatic cancer patients can cause diabetes. This, however, varies in different stages of the disease and areas concerned. Think of strategies for cancer treatment in Singapore and compare them with those of some other country. You will find major differences because of environmental conditions of a place and advancements in the country play a major role in the treatments offered.
#2 Diabetes as a Diagnostic Factor of Pancreatic Cancer
Recent onset of high blood sugar levels can be used to diagnose pancreatic cancer. Additionally, long-standing diabetes is often connected with a greater risk of developing pancreatic malignancy. This means that individuals who have been suffering from diabetes for more than five years are probably more prone to tumors in the pancreas. Some studies also conclude that diabetes is one of the significant symptoms of pancreatic cancer.
Both cancer and diabetes can have effects on each other’s development, diagnosis, and severity. Clinicians and researchers have been studying the two conditions thoroughly and collecting more evidence. Some studies have put forward the relationship of obesity with diabetes and cancer simultaneously. Lack of physical activity, race, genetic disorders are some of its common causes.
Note: Consult your health professional if you experience any symptoms of diabetes and cancer or want to know more about the risk of developing these conditions.
Source: http://writeus.me/diabetes-and-pancreatic-cancer-a-bilateral-relationship/ | https://medium.com/@swatilamba18986/diabetes-and-pancreatic-cancer-a-bilateral-relationship-619464c76cf5 | ['Swati Lamba'] | 2021-12-21 07:57:46.563000+00:00 | ['Singapore', 'Pancreatic Cancer', 'Diabetes', 'Cancer Treatment', 'Cancer And Diabetes'] |
Counter Arts Welcomes Your Whacky Thoughts | Counter Arts Welcomes Your Whacky Thoughts
I wonder what my stance would be on ‘writing what the algorithm wants’ if my livelihood depended on my partner payments.
I often tell my wife that no job is too small when you need to put food on the table and, as an immigrant, I have worked some weird jobs.
I once convinced my neighbor to let me use his van to deliver phone books. We loaded so many books on it that we almost broke it.
The rules of engagement were clear, if you didn't deliver all books within the timeline, you didn’t get paid. This is a business practice the people behind the gig know can only fly with undocumented immigrants. I wasn’t one but it still felt wrong to denounce it when I knew there were people depending on this money.
We barely got enough money to pay for my neighbor’s gas and he was gracious enough not to charge me for the wear and tear my misadventure caused to his car. It probably stole two years from its expected lifespan.
I don’t know if I would, in a time of need, kneel for the algorithm. Maybe I would. But what happened to ‘writing for writing’s sake’. Writing to explore and discover the outside world as well as the richness of our inner worlds.
As time goes by, readers will find their way to some of the pieces I loved writing but went unnoticed when they first came out. I still remember the people that read the articles nobody else read. Like how Trisha Traughber read my long nostalgic essay on old school cameras and how immigrants become minimalist out of force. Or how William J Spirdione read my funny rant on how wearing a mask requires very little from people and what it is like to travel for work during the pandemic. Or how C Balcombe thoughts my misfortunes around buying underwear were funny.
I am eternally grateful to them for putting eyes on thoughts that would’ve otherwise lived on a notebook somewhere in my drawers.
Similarly, I am eternally grateful for the readers and community I have found in this platform. Maybe it is my distrustful nature, or maybe something more malicious as self-sabotage, but I don’t really need to write to please the algorithm. I’m happier writing to find people I can relate to even if it means writing for cents and it seems like a lot of writers in our community feel the same way.
We are now a band of over 1,300 misfits supporting each other in this creative and introspective journey.
Four of those writers you might be familiar with.
Squeeze the Avocado, Will Hull, yesnodunno, and Christopher Robin are some of the most playful and supportive writers I have seen out there on this platform. After a few months working with Counter Arts, we are so grateful of the incredible and warm welcome we’ve received from our Medium community.
Our tagline is A Home For Your Two Cents. But the support you will get here as a writer and the content you will get as a reader will make it feel like a lot more.
On a personal note, I am beyond grateful to stand next to this group of talented and compassionate writers and editors. I always look forward to the 1,000 unread messages in our chatroom discussing editorial questions with equal fervor as the weirdness that meanders through our heads — mostly Chris’ head.
This publication is a homage to several things. We want to celebrate and give a home to those articles that might not be showered with money by the algorithm. We want to take your tired, your overlooked, your articles that might only make two cents but the ones that you know the world needs to read.
We will shower your words with love and attention from the editors at this humble publication.
You are also welcome to check out and publish under our other two sister publications: Songstories and Rainbow Salad.
Songstories welcomes all your content related to music therapy and the stories behind the music we listen to. Include a video of the specific song you are referring to. The songs we listen to change us. They shape how we feel and what we do. Let’s share stories of how songs shape our world. Let’s share the experience.
Rainbow Salad welcomes all your fiction work poetry, flash, and short stories. This is a place for misfit unicorns to publish their poetry and fiction. In the same vein as Counter Arts, it welcomes and encourages countercultural work especially work displaying high-brow-and-low-brow interactions, unreliable narrators, and all work highlighting minorities of all kind.
And if you are a writer in any of the three pubs (Counter Arts, Rainbow Salad, and Songstories) you are welcome to submit and publish to any of them.
Who Can Submit?
Whether you are an amateur or a professional, you are welcome to this publication.
We will not interfere with your work but, every now and then, we will give you respectful feedback. You can take it or leave it because we recognize that you are the final arbiter of your art.
Articles will not need original photographic work but we do like to see a featured image. Just make sure to attribute it properly.
Since the creation of the publication we have updated our guidelines and what was previously known as DarkRoom is now part of our Art tab.
Your nonfiction work with original photography is welcome here. If your work is fiction, you can request to be added as a writer in our sister pub Rainbow Salad, and submit it there.
Categories
Art
Essays and commentary on art. Thoughts, ideas, and notes on the art we consume whether is painting, literature, photography, graffiti and everything else.
Culture
Personal commentary on cultural topics encompassing topics such as love, lifestyle, family, parenting, relationships, and others.
Equality
Opinion articles discussing, supporting, and advocating for equality. Commentary on societal issues like race, class, gender, sexual orientation and others.
Growth & Hacks
Descriptive and informative articles on topics such as personal finance, psychology, communication, data, history, and marketing.
Humour
Whether you write humor or humour, this tab is for works funny, satirical, witty and/or humorous. Because laughter is the best medicine.
Tech & Design
Thoughts, ideas, and notes on videogames, design, technology, user interface, cryptocurrency, AI, blockchain, and anything else that tickles you fancy that could be considered tech or design.
Tags
Along with your work feeding into our homepage based on when it was published, we also like to display it under the appropriate tab.
Please, include which time you think most adequately represents your piece. If we do see a tag, we will add one based on where we believe it should live.
Art: art
Culture: culture
Equality: equality
Growth & Hacks: personal growth
Humour: humor
Tech & Design: design
How do I get in touch with Counter Arts?
If you want to be added as a writer, please leave a message in the comment section below. Please include your Medium username to help make life easier for us in adding you to our community.
Send submissions through the platform once you are added as a writer.
For the time being, we will promote selected posts on social media through our personal accounts until we have a better understanding of what our marketing strategy will be. We are interested in promoting your work and getting as many eyeballs on it as possible. But we are still new to the publishing game. So thank you for your patience.
In the meantime, if you need to get a hold of us while we set up a publication inbox, you can email us at:
Will — [email protected]
Avo — [email protected]
YesNoDunno — [email protected]
Christopher Robin — [email protected]
Carlos — [email protected]
What Will You Not Publish?
We won’t publish anything that is in any way misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, violent, or demeaning.
Please put the full content in your submission. We will not publish articles where the copyright is in doubt.
Who Owns My Work?
You own your work. In fact, by submitting to Counter Arts, you are representing that you own the rights to the material you have submitted and have the right to publish it at Counter Arts. You are giving Counter Arts license to publish your work for as long as you and Counter Arts mutually agree. You are solely and exclusively responsible for the content of your pieces.
Use at least one feature image on your piece and place it right after your title block. Ensure the image quality is preserved and not watermarked. Make sure to credit the source properly and if it is an original photo include a caption explaining so.
Sometimes we might change a tag to help your article with curation and with the categorization under the publication’s columns. | https://medium.com/counterarts/counter-arts-welcomes-your-whacky-thoughts-7a3d39baddbc | ['Carlos Garbiras'] | 2021-09-08 23:49:44.149000+00:00 | ['Home', 'Publication', 'Writing', 'Submission', 'Art'] |
A visual guide to Go Memory Allocator from scratch (Golang) | Go Memory Allocator
We Know Go Runtime schedules Goroutines (G) onto Logical Processors (P) for execution. Likewise, TCMalloc Go also divides Memory Pages into a block of 67 different classes Size.
If you’re not familiar with the Go scheduler you can get an overview (Go scheduler: Ms, Ps & Gs), till then I will wait for you over here.
Size Classes in Go
As Go manages pages at the granularity of 8192B if this page is divided into a block size of 1kB we get a total of 8 such blocks within that page for example.
8 KB page divided into a size class of 1KB (In Go pages are maintained at the granularity of 8KB)
These run’s of pages in Go is also managed through a structure known as mspan.
The size classes and page count(run of pages gets chopped into objects of the given size) that gets allocated to each size classes are chosen so that rounding an allocation request up to the next size class wastes at most 12.5%
mspan
Simply put, it ’s a double linked list object that contains the start address of the page, span class of the page that it has, and the number of pages it contains.
Illustrative Representation of a mspan in Go memory allocator
mcache
Like TCMalloc Go provides each Logical Processors(P) a Local Thread Cache of Memory known as mcache, so that if Goroutine needs memory it can directly get it from the mcache without any locks being involved as at any point of time only one Goroutine will be running on Logical Processors(P).
mcache contains a mspan of all class size as a cache.
Illustrative Representation of a Relationship between P, mcache, and mspan in Go.
As there is mcache Per-P, so no need to hold locks when allocating from the mcache.
For each class size, there are two types.
scan — Object that contains a pointer. noscan — Object that doesn’t contains a pointer.
One benefits of this approach being while doing Garbage Collection, noscan object doesn’t need to be traversed to find any containing live object.
What Goes to mcache ?.
Object size <=32K byte are allocated directly to mcache using the corresponding size class mspan.
What happens When mcache has no free slot?
A new mspan is obtained from the mcentral list of mspans of the required size class.
mcentral
mcentral Object collects all spans of a given size class and each mcentral is two lists of mspans.
empty mspanList — List of mspans with no free objects or mspans that has is cached in an mcache. nonempty mspanList — List of spans with a free object.
When a new Span is requested from mcentral, it’s taken (if available) from the nonempty list of mspanList. The relationship between these two lists is as follow When a new span is requested, the request is fulfilled from the non-empty list and that span is put into the empty list. When the span is freed then based on the number of free objects in the span it is put back to the non-empty list.
Illustrative Representation of a mcentral
Each mcentral structure is maintained inside the mheap structure.
mheap
mheap is the Object that manages the heap in Go, only one global. It own the virtual addresses space.
Illustrative Representation of a mheap.
As we can see from the above illustration mheap has an array of mcentral. This array contains mcentral of each span class.
central [numSpanClasses]struct {
mcentral mcentral
pad [sys.CacheLineSize unsafe.Sizeof(mcentral{})%sys.CacheLineSize]byte
}
Since We have mcentral for each span class, when a mspan is requested by mcache from mcentral, the lock is involved at individual mcentral level, so any other mcache requesting a mspan of different size at the same time can also be served.
Padding makes sure that the MCentrals are spaced CacheLineSize bytes apart so that each MCentral.lock gets its own cache line in order to avoid false sharing problems.
So what happens when this mcentral list is empty? mcentral obtains a run of pages from the mheap to use for spans of the required size class.
free[_MaxMHeapList]mSpanList : This is a spanList array. The mspan in each spanList consists of 1 ~ 127 (_MaxMHeapList — 1) pages. For example, free[3] is a linked list of mspans containing 3 pages. Free means free list, which is unallocated. Corresponding to the busy list.
: This is a spanList array. The in each spanList consists of 1 ~ 127 (_MaxMHeapList — 1) pages. For example, free[3] is a linked list of containing 3 pages. Free means free list, which is unallocated. Corresponding to the busy list. freelarge mSpanList: A list of mspans. The number of pages per element (that is, mspan) is greater than 127. It’s maintained as a mtreap Data structure. Corresponding to busylarge.
Object of Size > 32k, is a large object, allocated directly from mheap. These large request comes at an expenses of central lock, so only one P’s request can be served at any given point of time.
Object allocation Flow
• Size > 32k is a large object, allocated directly from mheap.
• Size < 16B, using mcache’s tiny allocator allocation
• Size between 16B ~ 32k, calculate the sizeClass to be used and then use the block allocation of the corresponding sizeClass in mcache
• If the sizeClass corresponding to mcache has no available blocks, apply to mcentral.
• If there are no blocks available for mcentral, apply to mheap and use BestFit to find the most suitable mspan. If the application size is exceeded, it will be divided as needed to return the number of pages the user needs. The remaining pages constitute a new mspan, and the mheap free list is returned.
• If there is no span available for mheap, apply to the operating system for a new set of pages (at least 1MB).
But Go allocates pages in even large size (called arena) at OS Level. Allocating a large run of pages amortizes the cost of talking to the operating system.
All memory requested on the heap comes from the arena. Let’s look at what this arena looks like.
Go Virtual Memory
Lets us look into the memory of simple go program.
func main() {
for {}
}
process stats for a program
So even for a simple go program virtual Space is around ~100 MB while RSS is just 696kB . Lets us try to figure out this difference first.
map and smap stats.
So there are regions of memory which are sized around ~ 2MB, 64MB and 32MB . What are these?
Arena
It turns out the virtual memory layout in go consists of a set of arenas. The initial heap mapping is one arena i.e 64MB (based on go 1.11.5).
current incremental arena size on a different system.
So currently memory is mapped in small increments as our program needs it, and it starts with one arena (~64MB).
Please take these number with a grain of salt. Subject to change. Earlier go used to reserve a continuous virtual address upfront, on a 64-bit system the arena size was 512 GB. (what happens if allocations are large enough and are rejected by mmap ?)
This set of arenas is what we call heap. In Go, each arena is managed at a granularity of 8192 B of pages.
Single arena ( 64 MB ).
Go also has two more blocks which span and bitmap. Both of them are allocated off-heap and contains metadata of each arena. It’s mostly used during Garbage Collection (so we will leave it for now). | https://medium.com/@ankur_anand/a-visual-guide-to-golang-memory-allocator-from-ground-up-e132258453ed | ['Ankur Anand'] | 2020-10-06 09:11:40.604000+00:00 | ['Memory Allocation', 'Featured', 'Computer Science', 'Golang', 'Go'] |
Young Social Impact Heroes: Why and How Olivia Zhang of Cancer Kids First Is Helping To Change Our World | Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit how you grew up?
I grew up in a close-knit community in Mclean, Virginia. I volunteered for many different organizations throughout my childhood, such as Stop Hunger Now, because helping others has always been valued in my family. My parents also prioritized education, so my little sister and I often attended out-of-school academic classes. We played many different sports as well, ranging from swim to lacrosse. Writing, art, and singing were also some extracurriculars we participated in — having a busy after school schedule was common for me!
You are currently leading an organization that aims to make a social impact. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change in our world today?
Each day, 43 children are diagnosed with cancer in the US. Each year, 15,590 children are diagnosed, making cancer the leading cause of death in disease within American children. Despite these facts, only 4% of government funding for medical research is allocated to pediatric oncology.
Cancer Kids First works towards raising more awareness about pediatric cancer and provides patients with the chance at a normal childhood. CKF supplies pediatric patients with toy and book donations, cards, coloring pages, care packages, and more. We strive to normalize the hospital environment, inspire patients to keep fighting, and spark some joy within their lives through our many programs.
Kids with cancer spend much of their lives battling a horrific disease, exuding bravery no adult could match. Our children deserve more. All warrior angels deserved more. Though we cannot take away the pain and suffering cancer has brought into so many lives, we can help ease the pain — and that’s exactly what Cancer Kids First aims to do.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
My grandfather passed away in August 2018 due to lung, bone, and brain cancer. Watching cancer slowly take over his body was the most difficult and heartbreaking experience I’ve ever had to go through. My elementary school teacher, who I visited every day for years even after I graduated from her class, also passed from cancer shortly after my grandfather. Their deaths made me realize that I want to do something to help the patients, and their families, as they fight this monster; no one should ever have to feel the pain that comes when you have to watch a loved one lose themselves slowly.
Cancer Kids First allows me to honor not only my grandfather and my teacher, but all those who have passed because of cancer, and all those lives cancer has touched.
Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest it. They don’t get up and just do it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and do it? What was that final trigger?
Right after my grandfather’s diagnosis of cancer back in 2016, when I was 10 years old, I started selling things I made to raise money for his treatments. I sold paintings, drawings, bookmarks, and jewelry — basically any craft I could think of. I even had a meeting spot on the playground to secretly sell binder covers I drew after a teacher had yelled at me for selling items to my classmates. In 7th grade, I amped up my efforts when I heard my teacher had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I continued selling crafts, but this time, I did it through multiple Instagram accounts I made.
Regardless of how many hours I spent making crafts, or how many people bought from me, I wasn’t able to save my grandfather or my teacher. I had lost too many people to cancer; not taking action wasn’t an option anymore. But, I didn’t just want to sell crafts to raise money for treatment. I wanted to do more, and make a difference in the lives of individual patients and their families on a much larger scale. I envisioned an organization that would touch lives around the country — Cancer Kids First.
Many young people don’t know the steps to take to start a new organization. But you did. What are some of the things or steps you took to get your project started?
The very first thing I did to get Cancer Kids First started was draft out an idea of what I wanted CKF to accomplish, and how to do it. I’m a huge planner, so I went into all the details including the companies we could contact, how we would grow our reach, etc. I then filed all the forms required to become a nonprofit, including the Articles of Incorporation. Afterward, I created social media accounts, a website, and reached out to people I thought would be interested in joining Cancer Kids First.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
For me, the most interesting — and exciting — story that occurred since the foundation of Cancer Kids First was when Caly Bevier replied to my DM on Instagram. I had requested to display her story on our website’s HOPE page, a page centered around sharing cancer survivors’ stories to instill hope within patients. At that time, CKF wasn’t as big, so I didn’t expect a response. When I saw her message, I immediately showed my mom and we both freaked out together. We had watched Caly on America’s Got Talent Season 11, and I remember how powerful I thought her singing was. I was so pumped we were able to share a verified singer’s story on my organization’s website!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or take away you learned from that?
Although it wasn’t funny at the time, the funniest mistake I made was trying to work on all aspects of Cancer Kids First by myself. I was extremely nitpicky with how I wanted Cancer Kids First to run, so I made the entire website on my own, as well as all social media platforms. I also came up with all the events and fundraisers, and managed each volunteer. Looking back on it now, I realize how much of a rookie move that was. Many all-nighters could’ve been avoided if I realized sooner that it is okay to ask for help! Now that Cancer Kids First has multiple directors in charge of different facets of our organization, CKF runs much more smoothly — and we get so much more done. New directors also brought in tons of new ideas to the table. We have so much planned for the next months!
None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?
One of my board members, Jo, was probably my biggest mentor when I started. Jo explained the purpose of each government form I had to file to create Cancer Kids First, and she helped me draft out the organization’s bylaws.
As cliché as this sounds, my parents were also huge mentors. My dad never failed to take time out of his busy schedule to guide me in coding a certain part of the website or filing tax-exempt forms. My mom works at a nonprofit, so she gave me tons of advice regarding how I should run Cancer Kids First board meetings, and how to accurately manage people.
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital was the very first hospital Cancer Kids First helped, and the volunteer coordinator there was the first person I ever contacted about my nonprofit. She was so sweet and gave me so much hope for my organization. We still keep in contact about future CKF projects to this day!
I also have to mention all my friends, especially Adona, Anna, Leah, and Nidhi; from sending me encouraging messages to actively helping out with Cancer Kids First, they were my biggest cheerleaders, and I couldn’t have built this organization without them.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
Elena (Ellie) Aquino, the first pediatric cancer patient we helped through the CKF Care Packages program, is a 2 year old who loves all things scary and weird — just like her big brother. In late August 2020, Ellie was admitted for brain surgery after her parents noticed her limping. Doctors were able to remove the tumor and later discovered that it was Anaplastic Ependymoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer. Currently, Ellie is continuing chemotherapy.
Ellie will always be a patient that stands out to me because of her mom’s reaction to our Care Packages Program request. We had offered to buy Ellie’s dream Christmas gift and some post-radiation graduation presents. Ellie’s mom is an immigrant in the US, so she doesn’t get support from family and friends since most are back home in the Philippines. Ellie’s mom told us she had cried when she saw our message because we saved their Christmas. Her reaction warmed my heart and reminded me once again why I started Cancer Kids First in the first place. Brave fighters like Ellie endure so much throughout their childhood, inspiring those around her. Their parents go through so much as well. Being able to spark even just a little bit of joy within their lives is an amazing reward.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
To expand our organization and impact, donations are the biggest way you can support Cancer Kids First. All donations will be used to purchase care packages for pediatric patients, toys and books, and will cover all shipping fees/extra expenses needed. You can either donate yourself or hold a fundraiser for us!
Volunteering, or referring a potential volunteer, is another way you can help. Our volunteers are the backbone of Cancer Kids First, and we could not have accomplished everything we’ve done without them.
Sharing our mission with others, whether that be our socials or our website, is one last way you can help. This will aid us in enlarging our organization’s impact around the country.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
Surround yourself with strong colleagues. Having members on your team that are hardworking and dedicated to achieving the goal you want for your organization/company is so important. Without a good team behind you, you won’t be able to succeed. There have been many instances when I chose friends to hold leadership positions in CKF simply because they were my friends, and I felt obligated to give them a higher position. Nonetheless, I should’ve realized sooner that sometimes you have to separate your professional life and your personal life. Though it can be nice having your friends work with you, at the end of the day, making sure you appoint people with the qualifications to direct your organization leads to much higher results. Not getting a response back is okay. I used to beat myself up when a company or public charity didn’t respond to one of my emails; I had always assumed that I had done something wrong. However, I’ve learned that everyone has a busy schedule, and your email just might not be a top priority — and that’s okay! A “no” is not the end of the world. In relation to #2, I was often told “no” by companies and hospitals regarding different events I had wanted Cancer Kids First to hold. Seeing that simple word used to discourage me, but I know now that it’s totally fine if someone is not interested in something you have to offer — simply reach out to someone else! No amount of research will prepare you. Getting others’ thoughts is crucial! Although it is your organization, you don’t need to do everything on your own. Asking for input from others brings in a variety of fresh ideas since everyone has different ways of thinking. Along with new ways to refine your organization, asking for others’ guidance allows you to learn what to do, and what not to do. If you know someone who is an expert in a field you don’t understand, the information they give you will prove to be 10 times more helpful than a Google search — I promise!
Think about it this way: 1 person can build a house, but having multiple people working together to build one will get the job done not only quicker, but also with better results. Connections prove to be one of the most essential ways to grow your organization. It’s not enough to have good ideas on ways you and your team can help the world. You need to utilize your connections with others to spread the word about what your organization is actually doing. This will increase the donations you receive, the number of volunteers, and just general exposure for your organization.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Our world is full of people who need help — problems that need to be solved. If you can better someone’s life, why not do it? Don’t wait for a life-changing event like I did to take action. If you’re passionate about something, channel your passion into creating something that will benefit society. Choose to make a mark on the world. Choose to change the world for the better.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
If I could have a meal with anybody in the world, I would have to choose Richard Davis, the CEO of Make-a-Wish America. I hope Cancer Kids First will one day be able to grow into an organization as big and impactful as Make-a-Wish. If I got the opportunity to sit down and have a meal with Mr. Davis, I would ask for tips to help grow CKF, as well as learn more about his journey in becoming a successful CEO.
How can our readers follow you online?
If you’re passionate about making a difference in the lives of pediatric cancer patients, be sure to follow @cancerkidsfirst, on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work! | https://medium.com/authority-magazine/young-social-impact-heroes-why-and-how-olivia-zhang-of-cancer-kids-first-is-helping-to-change-our-22821b1ec60c | ['Penny Bauder'] | 2020-12-23 13:15:05.720000+00:00 | ['Social Impact'] |
Review: Normanton Park | Situated near Kent Ridge Park and Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE), the old Normanton Park has a rich history. It was first designed and built by HDB as a Housing and Urban Development Company (HUDC) scheme in 1977, before gaining its privatized status in 1993.
The old Normanton Park was developed by the Ministry of Defence to provide affordable housing for the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) commissioned officers. This community allows a strong bond between officers as an added bonus.
General consensus was positive as 81 per cent of owners were keen on proceeding, but was unsuccessful as there were no bids at its reserve price of about $800 million in 2015.
In 2017 however, it was successfully sold for $830 million.
In recent times, you might have heard about its approval of the sale license given by the Controller of Housing (COH). This means that the real estate developer is allowed to market and sell the units before the Temporary Occupation Permit (TOP) date.
The no-sale license was previously imposed earlier in January 2019 due to a previous development from the developer called Hillview Peak. This does not necessarily reflect on the development/building quality of Normanton Park.
The future developments near Normanton Park are plenty and too exhaustive for me to go into detail. These are for example the Greater Southern Waterfront, the upcoming Circle Line extension by 2025, the Greater One-North extension (Dover Knowledge District) and much more.
This image summarises the future developments near Normanton Park and will spur on Normanton Park’s prices in the coming years.
Technical Specifications
Advantages
Estimated Launch Price
I like to start this review strong and talk about what most of you are wondering about first.
Price.
In my opinion, I believe that Normanton Park will launch at an exceptional ~$1,650 PSF. Here are my reasons.
Based on my usual calculations, I will estimate that Normanton Park will launch at approximately $1900-$2000 PSF. Cross-referencing with other new launches and resale supply, this figure is simply too high. The developers will have no choice but to reduce the asking price to remain competitive.
Turn your focus onto the Building Under Construction (BUC) supply, the orange line. You will notice that they are sold on an average of $1614 PSF. This makes it simply ridiculous should the launch price of Normanton Park be at $1900 PSF!
Some of the current BUC projects are Parc Clematis, Kent Ridge Hill Residences, and Twin View.
For now, keep in mind that Parc Clematis is one of the Top-selling BUC projects in 2020.
Next, let us look at the current resale condos prices, which are at $1,155 PSF, based on the 99.co sales transaction trend that I have provided above. You might feel that these prices are somewhat suppressed, and might show that D05 is not a good location to invest in.
Allow me to elaborate on a few points.
Bias Magnification from Large Sample Size
I could have added more segments into the line chart above, but it would have been more confusing, so trust me on this.
On average, most condos within D05 will have made an approximate $300 PSF from the TOP date. However, there are some condos that do not resonate with this statement such as Seahill and The Vision. These two condos are on average breaking even on price.
If you read my previous reviews, one reason why I do not like condominium belts or clusters is that they often cannibalize each other sales and compete heavily in terms of rental opportunities. I believe that this is the case for Seahill and The Vision.
Parc Riviera, Twin VEW, and Whistler Grand are three relatively new launches in close proximity. What do you think will happen shortly once the spark of a new launch dies down?
The initial owners of Regent Park have already profited from their investment, but I’ve just placed it in for comparison’s sake.
I have mentioned earlier that Parc Clematis is a top-selling project in 2020, but future performance will be debatable, in my opinion.
Still, it will overall depend heavily on the right location. Even in a tight condo cluster, some developments can beat the odds.
The New Launch Market
Moving on to my next point, supply within D05 is extremely limited. The following information was extracted from PropertyGuru, this is in direct reference to the resale market at present (Dec 2020). D05 is within the top 5 in Singapore for great opportunities.
This is also proven from the sales transaction trend. Notice the stagnation of resale supply from 2016 onwards and the meteoric climb of prices/transactions for new launches with TOP granted after 2020.
Home Occupiers probably had little choice, and investors spotted it as a good entrance. Therefore, both parties were willing to pay a good premium.
The recent sales launch of Clavon over the weekend saw over 70% of its unit being sold. The 1-Bedroom and 2-Bedroom units are completely sold.
Estimation of Launch Price
I have covered so far, the supply of the resale market, and launch prices of D05 condos. I will like to turn your attention to Stirling Residences (D03) and Kent Ridge Hill Residences (D05).
Stirling Residences was included in my analysis although it is in another district, as I felt that it is close to D05.
Based on my estimation of Normanton Park launch PSF of ~$1,650 PSF, it will be an absolute bargain as compared to these nearby projects. I expect the PSF range to be between $1,550 — $1,750 PSF.
This is the end of my discussion on the launch price of Normanton Park, but the list of its advantages has only just started!
Location Plan
Stirling Residences and Kent Ridge Hill Residences is in this discussion as they are the two major new launches in the vicinity. A significant advantage that Normanton Park has, it is technically without any competition in terms of residential supply! This makes for excellent demand.
The pink and brown circle represents a one-kilometer radius around the projects, and you can see that Kent Ridge Hill Residences and Stirling residences are tightly clustered with other developments.
Just right beside Normanton Park are landed properties that are around Winchester Road. These are a different residential segment, which has temporary permits for preschools/childcare centers.
Site Plan
Low Site Coverage
Based on the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) guidelines the maximum site coverage for condominium and flats are up to 40%. Those that have kept an eye on site coverage will have noticed that this was changed recently on 5th July 2019.
Normanton park was most likely not subjected to the latest guidelines as they have submitted their development applications before that date, on 09 Jan 2019.
That being said, site coverage for Normanton Park is only at 20.67%. What this means is that there will be more space contributing to the overall landscaping of the development.
The architect has creatively elevated all the blocks within Normanton Park, thereby allowing an extension of natural landscaping linked from Kent Ridge Park. This is a great point for all the residents, and not just nature lovers.
Carparks are creatively located underground, so as to not affect the landscaping.
Reduced Noise Impact
The National Environment Agency (NEA) recognizes that significant noise pollution can affect nearby residential developments. As such, tower 45 is located at least 105m away from AYE. In addition, all units are provided with acoustic ceiling and window/door restrictors, reducing the noise impact.
For the terrace houses, these come with window restrictors and slanted fins for selected units.
Setbacks
Amenities
This was a tough decision to make, seeing that Kent Ridge Park is one of the major points of marketing for this development, but I’ve decided to place it as a setback as there are not many amenities in proximity to Normanton Park. This can cause some inconvenience to its residents, as public transportation can be quite limited.
However, I feel that the developers of Normanton Park recognize this as a particular weak point, as there is a guaranteed 1 carpark lot for every sold unit. This is uncommon as most residential developments do not have a 1:1 ratio of dwelling units to carpark lots.
With private transport, Normanton Park is convenient as most amenities are within a 10 minutes’ drive.
Science Park (2 mins)
NUS (5 mins)
NUH (5 mins)
Singapore Polytechnic (10 mins)
One North Business Park (5 mins)
Vivo City (9 mins)
Maple Tree Business Park (4 mins)
Jurong Lake District (11 mins)
CBD (11 mins)
Distance to MRT Stations
With walking distance to Kent Ridge MRT is 16 minutes, I feel that this is a severe detriment to the project. However, I believe that shuttle bus services should be available, subject to management.
Plot Ratio
Normanton Park has a gross plot ratio of 2.1. I feel that this is rather low as compared to other residential developments. This however, is a minor gripe and should not play a huge role as a deciding factor.
Summary
I feel that the architects and developers of Normanton Park have done an exceptional job at addressing the setbacks that the development faced, instead of avoiding them.
This will help homeowners/investors to make a sound decision and not have buyer’s remorse.
Its highly attractive launch price, coupled with current strong demand and low supply, will no doubt draw in strong sales over its launch weekend.
The sum of all its parts make Normanton Park a well-heeled contender for D05 and interested home buyers/investors should look into it.
With Preview starting from 2nd January 2021, book your appointment with me now early to avoid disappointment!
Are you keen on finding out if Normanton Park is an ideal investment for your specific financial circumstance? Contact us at +65 96329840 or send your queries to [email protected]! Our consultations do not have a charge, so let us assist you!
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, organization, committee, or other group or individual. The author does not accept any responsibility whatsoever for any harm or loss arising from accessing or relying on information contained in this blog post. | https://medium.com/singapore-real-estate-articles/review-normanton-park-b397f3e95db6 | ['Joshua Loo'] | 2020-12-24 11:19:00.603000+00:00 | ['Property', 'Real Estate', 'Estatemagnates', 'Singapore', 'Investment'] |
FATAL: Peer authentication failed for user (postgres) | If you’re trying to create or setup your rails postgreSQL daatabase and getting this error, there may 3 possible reasons for this error. Let’s go through each of them.
1-Make sure you’re using correct credentials
Your username and password for your postgreSQL is provided in ‘database.yml’ file. Move there and make sure you’ve provided your correct username and password fields. If you’ve forgotten your password or even don’t know the password, go for solution below to change password of default user.
2- Change postgres user’s password
PostgreSQL is provided with a default user named ‘postgres’. For this, we will use this role and change its password. Run following command to jump into postgreSQL cmd.
sudo -u postgres psql postgres
Enter your root/sudo password. This will take you to the psql cmd which will be prompted like
postgres=#
Here ‘postgres’ is the username you’re currently logged in with. Now run following command to change password.
\password postgres
This will prompt you to enter your new password for user ‘postgres’ and then will ask you to confirm it by reentering it. You’re done with possible second solution. Go to database.yml file and update password for ‘postgres’ username according to your new password. Now run the command to create DB. If still it gives you the same error, jump to the solution below.
3- Update ‘pg_hba.conf’ file
If both of the above solutions fail, the problem is in your ‘pg_hba.conf’ file. You’ve to edit this file. First we should locate this file so we can edit it. Run following command to locate it.
locate pg_hba.conf
This will show the path where its residing. Copy this path and run the command like this (with complete path, as returned by the above command):
sudo nano /etc/postgresql/.../pg_hba.conf
This will open ‘pg_hba.conf’ in nano editor. Now locate this line in the file and scrolling down.
local all postgres peer
And replace it with:
local all postgres md5
Hit ctrl+o to save the change and ctrl+x to exit the editor program. I’ll suggest you to reopen the file in nano editor to make sure if the change was saved or not (peer replaced with md5 or not).
Now run the following command to reload the posgres service.
sudo service postgresql restart
Give your sudo password and hit enter. Now try creating the DB. And its DONE. | https://medium.com/@wajeeh-ahsan/fatal-peer-authentication-failed-for-user-postgres-954e061c7368 | ['Wajeeh Ahsan'] | 2020-01-29 15:46:21.709000+00:00 | ['Postgresql', 'Ruby', 'Postgres', 'Ruby On Rails Development', 'Ruby on Rails'] |
Keep Your Node Up to Date with LNsync | Keep Your Node Up to Date with LNsync Blockstream Follow Jan 22 · 4 min read
By Christian Decker
Today, we announced the launch of LNsync, a server-assisted gossip synchronization mechanism for the Lightning Network. LNsync collects changes on the network since your node was last online and makes that information available to your node in a compact format — currently allowing for a significantly accelerated synchronization process.
We’ve provided a high-level summary of the launch on the main Blockstream blog, so you may want to read that first before continuing below.
Server-Assisted Gossip Sync
As the name suggests, LNsync is a web server that allows nodes to query for changes from a specific point of time in the past. It consists of three parts:
Data collection: Using the historian plugin, we collect, deduplicate, and store all the gossip messages received by our c-lightning nodes. The information is stored in a database and indexed for fast retrieval.
Using the historian plugin, we collect, deduplicate, and store all the gossip messages received by our c-lightning nodes. The information is stored in a database and indexed for fast retrieval. Web server: The web server exposes a simple API that allows querying for changes since the last time a node was online, delivering the minimal set of gossip messages required to catch up with the rest of the network. This set of gossip messages is called a delta.
The web server exposes a simple API that allows querying for changes since the last time a node was online, delivering the minimal set of gossip messages required to catch up with the rest of the network. This set of gossip messages is called a delta. Injector: The injector “injects” the retrieved gossip messages into the node so it can process the information. This is done over a peer-to-peer connection and works with any Lightning implementation.
Augmenting the Gossip Protocol
The server-assisted gossip sync does not replace the existing gossip protocol. Rather, it augments it by providing an additional method to retrieve topology information that is optimized for the quick synchronization with the rest of the network. The web server returns only announcements and updates from nodes and channels that changed during the queried interval. In addition, it skips any updates that were later overwritten, further reducing the download size.
As an example, retrieving a delta of two hours results in about 500KB of uncompressed data, delivered in just over a second, while a delta of 24 hours results in about 5700KB of data and requires approximately 2.5 seconds. This is significantly faster than a full sync using the gossip protocol and can take place in the background while the user opens their wallet and scans an invoice.
How to Use LNsync
Blockstream operates an instance of the collection as well as the web server. As a user, you just need to download your required delta and inject the messages into your node.
If you are using c-lightning and have the historian code checked out, you can sync all changes from the previous two hours using the below commands:
# curl command is all one line curl -s https://LNsync.blockstream.com/gossip/delta/$(date +%s — date=”2 hours ago”) > /tmp/delta.gsp ./historian-cli snapshot load /tmp/delta.gsp
The commands will launch the c-lightning RPC interface and retrieve your node’s ID and listening port, then use that information to open a peer-to-peer connection and inject the messages. If you are running a different implementation, the tool still works; however, it cannot automatically detect the necessary information. In that case, you need to provide said information manually through the following commands:
# curl command is all one line curl -s https://LNsync.blockstream.com/gossip/delta/$(date +%s — date=”2 hours ago”) > /tmp/delta.gsp ./historian-cli snapshot load /tmp/delta.gsp [nodeid]@localhost:9375
That’s it! Your node should now be synchronized with the rest of the network, increasing your chances of a successful payment.
Going Forward
We hope that LNsync will help make Lightning payments more reliable, especially for mobile wallets. We’re also working on a number of additions and enhancements:
Further reduction in size: Delta currently includes both the most recent channel updates and the channel announcements, as well as the node announcements for the endpoints. If we are able to conclude that the user already has that information, we can omit it, thereby reducing the size of the delta.
Delta currently includes both the most recent channel updates and the channel announcements, as well as the node announcements for the endpoints. If we are able to conclude that the user already has that information, we can omit it, thereby reducing the size of the delta. Pruning of closed channels: Relying solely on gossip messages means that we don’t notice when channels close. The web server currently implements passive pruning of channels that haven’t seen an update within the previous two weeks. In addition, however, we can watch the blockchain for closes and omit messages referring to those closed channels, which helps to further reduce the size of the delta.
Get Started on LNsync
To get started with building on LNsync, visit our GitHub repo containing all the required tools, including the Historian plugin. For an API reference, head to the c-lightning docs. | https://medium.com/blockstream/keep-your-node-up-to-date-with-lnsync-e8d8ff7fadb8 | [] | 2021-01-22 18:09:01.880000+00:00 | ['Lightning Network', 'Payments', 'Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain'] |
5 Levels of Difficulty — Bayesian Gaussian Random Walk with PyMC3 and Theano | 5 Levels of Difficulty — Bayesian Gaussian Random Walk with PyMC3 and Theano
State-Space Models in Bayesian Time Series Analysis with PyMC3
1. Introduction
Today time series forecasting is ubiquitous, and decision-making processes in companies depend heavily on their ability to predict the future. Through a short series of articles, I will present you with a possible approach to this kind of problems, combining state-space models with Bayesian statistics.
In the initial articles, I will take some of the examples from the book An Introduction to State Space Time Series Analysis by Jacques J.F. Commandeur and Siem Jan Koopman [1]. It comprises a well-known introduction to the subject of state-space modeling applied to the time series domain.
My contributions will be:
A very humble attempt to close the gap between these two fields in terms of introductory and intermediate materials.
The presentation of concepts: on the one hand, a concise (not non-existent) mathematical basis to support our theoretical understanding and, on the other hand, an implementation from scratch of the algorithms (whenever possible, avoiding “black box” libraries). In my opinion, it is the best way to make sure that we can grasp an idea.
The proper implementation of the proposed models using PyMC3 as well as their interpretation and discussion.
This post belongs to a series. Feel free to check the previous post to acquire some more context:
Also, you can always find all the data and code in my GitHub.
The dataset that we are using comprises the monthly number (log transformed) of drivers killed or seriously injured (KSI) in the UK for the period January 1969 to December 1984.
2. Stochastic level model
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import arviz as az
from scipy import stats
import math
from statsmodels.graphics.tsaplots import plot_acf
import statsmodels.api as sm
import statsmodels.formula.api as smf
import theano
import theano.tensor as tt
import pymc3 as pm
import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns
import warnings
from pymc3.distributions import distribution
from pymc3.distributions.continuous import Flat, Normal
from decimal import Decimal
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from collections import OrderedDict
az.style.use('arviz-darkgrid')
warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')
In the last article, we defined and implemented the deterministic level model. We built it from the ground up, which introduced us to important concepts. Nonetheless, we couldn’t really capture the latent dynamic behavior in our data. This time and to change that, we will make use of stochastic parameters. The stochastic level model is a generalization of our first model, the deterministic level model. The model is straightforward, but it is an important piece that we add to our toolbox. When people refer to local level models, they refer to these models and not so much to the deterministic ones. The real change here is that we allow our level to vary; it is no longer deterministic, which means that the component is applied locally (hence the name).
2.1 Model definition
Now, we have a new equation to consider. The model can be written as
for t=1,…,n, where μ_t is the unobserved level at time t, ε_t is the observation disturbance (or sometimes referred to as irregular component) at time t, and ξ_t is the level disturbance at time t.
The first equation is called the measurement equation, and the second is our state equation. The second equation helps us model our dependencies in time, as the state at time t+1 is a function of the state at time t.
2.1.1 Random walk
Before moving on, we need a little more intuition. You’ll see the concept of random walk thrown around in almost every financial time series paper or textbook. The simplest random walk that we can think of is a one-dimensional walk, using a straight line. The person has to decide one direction or the other, moving forward or backward. Let’s imagine that the decision on its next step is taken by flipping a coin. If the coin falls heads up, the person takes a step forward; if the coin falls tails up, the person takes a step backward. This is a random walk. We can see the more formal definition:
In mathematics, a random walk is a mathematical object, known as a stochastic or random process, that describes a path that consists of a succession of random steps on some mathematical space such as the integers. [2]
In the same article, we can see that it is a ubiquitous behavior in nature as much as it is in human nature. The examples include the path traced by a molecule as it travels in a liquid or a gas, the search path of a foraging animal, the price of a fluctuating stock, and the gambler's financial status can all be approximated by random walk models.
Now that we have defined it let’s see how exactly it looks like. Let’s draw a 1-D and 2-D random walks. We need to define an origin (e.g., y=0 for 1-D and (x=0, y=0) for 2-D) and then, as we said earlier, choose a step to move with equal probability.
n_steps = 100000
random_walk = np.zeros((n_steps,2))
origin = np.zeros((1,2))
steps = np.random.choice(a=[-1,1],size=(n_steps, 2))
random_walk = np.concatenate([origin, steps]).cumsum(0)
_, ax = plt.subplots(2, 1, figsize=(12,12), constrained_layout=True)
ax[0].plot(random_walk[:,0],c='b',alpha=1,lw=0.25,ls='-')
ax[0].set_title('1D Random Walk', fontsize=20)
ax[1].plot(random_walk[:,0], random_walk[:,1],c='b',alpha=1,lw=0.25,ls='-')
ax[1].set_title('2D Random Walk', fontsize=20);
Fig. 1–1D and 2D Random Walk simulation
Let’s investigate the distribution of our steps. We are randomly taken discrete steps, so we expect an equal number of -1 and 1 drawn for all the time steps.
plt.hist(steps[:,0]);
Fig. 2–Histogram of the steps
Just as an exercise, we can describe even better this distribution. It is a discrete distribution to start, and we are just randomly choosing from a list of two possible values. So we can model it with a binomial distribution with parameters n (equal to the number of steps) and p (probability of success — in our case, could be choosing 1).
It can be written as
Let’s plot it and understand some of its properties.
fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1)
p=0.5
x = np.arange(stats.binom.ppf(0.01, n_steps/100, p),
stats.binom.ppf(0.99, n_steps/100, p))
ax.plot(x, stats.binom.pmf(x, n_steps/100, 0.5), 'bo', ms=8, label='binom pmf')
ax.legend();
Fig. 3— Binomial distribution pmf
We plot 1/100 of the number of steps that we used above to make sure that they follow a discrete distribution and not a continuous one. We should ensure that we get the expected 50% probability of getting 1 (considering 1 our success and p=0.5). Because it is a discrete distribution, we have to sum all the possible values up to the 50% point. This is called the cumulative distribution function.
It can be expressed as
np.sum([stats.binom.pmf(i, n_steps/100, 0.5) for i in range(int(n_steps/100/2))]) 0.48738749091112366 stats.binom.cdf(n_steps/100/2, n_steps/100, 0.5) 0.5126125090888417
Both lines above are doing the same thing, but we are not getting exactly 50%, as you see. When n is small, the probability of a deviation from 50% is significant. If one increases the number of trials, for instance, to n = 100000, the result will move closer to 50%. As n approaches infinity, the outcome will approach 50%.
stats.binom.cdf(n_steps/2, n_steps, 0.5) 0.5012615631976961
Just our of curiosity, a random variable that follows a binomial distribution, for a sufficiently large n (more than sufficient in our case), can be approximated by a normal distribution with the parameters:
That is why our plot for the binomial distribution above resembles so much a gaussian distribution.
print('μ = ' + str(n_steps/100*p))
print('σ = ' + str(n_steps/100*p*(1-p))) μ = 500.0
σ = 250.0 fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1)
p=0.5
x = np.arange(stats.binom.ppf(0.01, n_steps/100, p),
stats.binom.ppf(0.99, n_steps/100, p))
ax.plot(x, stats.binom.pmf(x, n_steps/100, 0.5), 'bo', ms=8, label='binom pmf')
x = np.arange(stats.norm.ppf(0.01, n_steps/100*p, np.sqrt(n_steps/100*p*(1-p))),
stats.norm.ppf(0.99, n_steps/100*p, np.sqrt(n_steps/100*p*(1-p))))
ax.plot(x, stats.norm.pdf(x, n_steps/100*p, np.sqrt(n_steps/100*p*(1-p))), color='darkorange', ms=8, label='normal pdf')
ax.plot()
ax.legend();
Fig. 4— Binomial distribution and Gaussian approximation
As we were expecting, the normal probability density function is basically superimposed.
2.1.1 Gaussian Random walk
To make our case, let’s draw our step directly from a Gaussian distribution. It is the usual way to define it and often yields the best results in real-world applications.
n_steps = 100000
random_walk = np.zeros((n_steps,2))
origin = np.zeros((1,2))
steps = np.random.normal(loc=0,scale=1,size=(n_steps, 2))
random_walk = np.concatenate([origin, steps]).cumsum(0)
_, ax = plt.subplots(2, 1, figsize=(12,12), constrained_layout=True)
ax[0].plot(random_walk[:,0],c='blue',alpha=1,lw=0.25,ls='-')
ax[0].set_title('1D Gaussian Random Walk', fontsize=20)
ax[1].plot(random_walk[:,0], random_walk[:,1],c='blue',alpha=1,lw=0.25,ls='-')
ax[1].set_title('2D Gaussian Random Walk', fontsize=20);
Fig. 5— 1D and 2D Gaussian Random Walk simulation
plt.hist(steps[:,0], bins=50, density=True, label='Histogram of step')
mu = 0
variance = 1
sigma = math.sqrt(variance)
x = np.linspace(mu - 3*sigma, mu + 3*sigma, 100)
plt.plot(x, stats.norm.pdf(x, mu, sigma), label='$\mathcal{N}$(0,1)')
plt.legend();
Fig. 6 — Histogram of the Gaussian step
The step is normally distributed with μ=0 and σ=1. In fact, you can use any distribution for the step, whichever fits your data best. As we saw in the code above, the Random Walk behavior is created by the cumulative sum of the steps. The way the steps are created is really up to you. The steps are usually referred to as innovations.
An important distinction that I want you to always bear in mind is the difference between a random process and a random walk. A random process is stationary because it consists of random variables independently and identically distributed. More than that, it implies that the process has a constant mean and variance, which is the very own definition of a stationary process. This is not the case with a random walk.
2.1.3 Stationarity
The random walk is a non-stationary process because the variance changes over time. Let’s experiment with several draws.
n_steps = 1000
random_walks = []
for i in range(1000):
origin = np.zeros((1,1))
steps = np.random.normal(loc=0,scale=1,size=(n_steps, 1))
random_walk = np.concatenate([origin, steps]).cumsum(0)
plt.plot(random_walk,alpha=1,lw=0.25,ls='-');
Fig. 7— Simulation of 1000 Random Walks
I hope it is clear that the variance grows with time. We can write it as
Another aspect that shows the non-stationarity is the autocorrelations in the correlogram. It only starts to approach 0 for a large number of lags.
plot_acf(random_walk);
Fig. 8— ACF of the Random Walks
Stationarity plays an important role in time series analysis, so we will often use this concept in future applications.
3. Classical implementation
As we usually do, let’s start with the classical implementation before continuing to the Bayesian land. We’ll be using the statsmodel library again.
ukdrivers = np.genfromtxt('./data/UKdriversKSI.txt', skip_header=True)
y = np.log(ukdrivers)
t = np.arange(1,len(y)+1)
model_ll = sm.tsa.UnobservedComponents(y,
'local level')
model_fit = model_ll.fit()
print(model_fit.summary()) Unobserved Components Results
==============================================================================
Dep. Variable: y No. Observations: 192
Model: local level Log Likelihood 123.878
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2020 AIC -243.755
Time: 12:07:07 BIC -237.251
Sample: 0 HQIC -241.121
- 192
Covariance Type: opg
====================================================================================
coef std err z P>|z| [0.025 0.975]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sigma2.irregular 0.0022 0.001 2.170 0.030 0.000 0.004
sigma2.level 0.0119 0.002 5.926 0.000 0.008 0.016
===================================================================================
Ljung-Box (Q): 273.83 Jarque-Bera (JB): 13.24
Prob(Q): 0.00 Prob(JB): 0.00
Heteroskedasticity (H): 1.06 Skew: -0.64
Prob(H) (two-sided): 0.80 Kurtosis: 3.21
===================================================================================
Warnings:
[1] Covariance matrix calculated using the outer product of gradients (complex-step).
Here we can see the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) of the variance of the irregular component and the level disturbance variance (if you want to understand better how this estimation works, check my last article of the series).
4. The Bayesian Way
Now it is time to implement our local level model with our Bayesian hats. I promised five implementations with five increasing levels of complexity. We will start with the off-the-shelf solution that PyMC3 offers since it has a built-in Gaussian Random Walk (GRW) class. Next, we will learn about some tweaks that we can use when our parameters' posterior distributions are challenging to sample, namely when they are highly correlated. The third level is our first light attempt to manipulate PyMC3 objects. In the fourth level, we will build our own GRW custom class. Finally, on the last level, we will make use of Theano to implement all the steps from scratch.
Although only the last level depends heavily on Theano , we will touch base on simple Theano functions or features across all implementations. So it makes sense to do a small introduction on the topic.
PyMC3 is actually built on top of Theano . Theano, as per their own definition, is a Python library that allows you to define, optimize, and evaluate mathematical expressions involving multi-dimensional arrays efficiently [3]. For those who follow the deep learning landscape, you are probably aware that in 2017 the Theano original development team announced that they were stopping further developments. Soon after, the PyMC3 dev team took over the maintenance of the library. More recently, the team announced that PyMC4, which was being developed using TensorFlow Probability instead, will be discontinued. Theano and JAX will be the computational backends for the future (read more here [4]).
4.1 The off-the-shelf solution
You can look at PyMC3 as a toolbox. We pick up tools to work on our data and, as a result, shape the posterior distributions of our parameters. For this solution, we are using the GaussianRandomWalk class that PyMC3 provides off-the-shelf. We are also following our equations, defined at the beginning of the article, line by line. We already know that we define priors for each of our parameters and a likelihood for the data in a Bayesian framework. In this case, we also define an adaptative prior, our Gaussian Random Walk latent process. It is called adaptative because we are not supplying parameters directly to it, but parameters distributions. This gives our model the ability to estimate its relevance based on the data.
with pm.Model() as m1:
# Priors
σ_ϵ = pm.HalfNormal('σ_ϵ', 1)
σ_ξ = pm.HalfNormal('σ_ξ', 1)
# Adaptative prior
μ = pm.GaussianRandomWalk('μ',
sigma=σ_ξ,
shape=len(y))
# Likelihood
level = pm.Normal('level',
mu=μ,
sigma=σ_ϵ ,
observed=y)
trace = pm.sample(2000,
target_accept=0.95,
init='advi+adapt_diag',
tune=3000) pm.traceplot(trace, var_names=['~μ']);
Fig. 9— Trace plot of the off-the-shelf GaussianRandomWalk class
az.summary(trace, var_names=['~μ'])
print('σ_ϵ = ' + str(np.mean(trace['σ_ϵ'])))
print('σ_ξ = ' + str(np.mean(trace['σ_ξ']))) σ_ϵ = 0.044255232922781745
σ_ξ = 0.11123900825071306
We are recovering our parameters well enough, but the sampling was not smooth, which could get us strange-looking results. The first thing to point out is the number of divergences; it immediately shows that something is off. Another important metric is the ess_mean: number of effective samples from sampling 2000 draws for each parameter. For instance, for σ_ϵ, we only got close to 100 valid samples, which shows that our posterior shape is quite hard to explore. The third thing to check is the r_hat . The metric shows the convergence between multiple chains of the same sampling process. Without defining it explicitly (you can do it in the pm.sample method), PyMC3 will always sample four chains by default. The idea is to compare the within-chain variances with the variance of all chains mixed together [5]. If you achieve convergence, the r_hat should be equal to 1. In real-world applications and with hard posterior shapes, this number should be very close to 1 (not necessarily exactly one). In our case, σ_ϵ shows light signs of non-convergence. Finally, the trace plot is another source of information when talking about convergence. A well-mixed trace plot does not show any pattern; it should resemble white noise. Again, σ_ϵ does show patterns in its trace plot; in fact, it seems to show some random walk behavior near-zero (we already know how to spot it). This is a typical indication of the posterior's hard shape on that area, making the sampler mix very slowly, i.e., it gets stuck on that area for several iterations. If we would plot an ACF, as we have been doing to analyze our time series, we would clearly see high correlations slowly decreasing across lags for that region.
What could be producing such problems, you may ask?
Let’s plot the joint distribution of our parameters to get some more insights.
x_ = pd.Series(trace['σ_ξ'], name='σ_ξ')
y_ = pd.Series(trace['σ_ϵ'], name='σ_ϵ')
sns.jointplot(x=x_, y=y_);
Fig. 10— Joint distribution of the estimated parameters showing high negative correlation
They are highly negatively correlated; that is why we are suffering. Sampling high values for one parameter results necessarily in low values for the other and vice versa. Therefore, it is hard for the sampler to decide what will be the best combination.
4.2 Using a trick to help on sampling
Another way of looking at our model is that it is unidentifiable. When we applied the Gaussian Random Walk prior, we defined a standard deviation for that adaptative prior, and, at the same time, we defined a standard deviation for the likelihood. This means that we have two sources of variance for each observation, and we are asking the sampler to decide which one matters more than the other. In a Bayesian framework, we can always supply more informative priors to try to make the life of the sampler easier, but in this case, it is probably not enough.
To solve our problem, we can add a new parameter to our model while removing one of the highly correlated ones. This new parameter controls the contribution of the two variances that we are dealing with. We are hoping that this small trick reduces the correlation of our parameters. You can see a different application of this trick here [6].
with pm.Model() as m2:
σ_ϵ = pm.HalfNormal('σ_ϵ', 1)
alpha = pm.Uniform('alpha', 0,1)
μ = pm.GaussianRandomWalk('μ',
sigma=σ_ϵ * (1.0 - alpha),
shape=len(y))
level = pm.Normal('level',
mu=μ,
sigma=σ_ϵ * alpha,
observed=y)
trace = pm.sample(2000,
target_accept=0.95,
init='advi+adapt_diag',
tune=3000) pm.traceplot(trace, var_names=['~μ']);
Fig. 11 — Trace plot after applying the trick to help the sampler
az.summary(trace, var_names=['~μ'])
print(np.mean(trace['σ_ϵ'] * trace['alpha']))
print(np.mean(trace['σ_ϵ'] * (1- trace['alpha']))) 0.04458299664413166
0.11077738429704456
While the r_hat , mixing and ess_mean improved for σ_ϵ , we can see that we are still struggling with alpha . Let's check the joint posterior.
x_ = pd.Series(trace['σ_ϵ'], name='σ_ϵ')
y_ = pd.Series(trace['alpha'], name='alpha')
sns.jointplot(x=x_, y=y_);
Fig. 12 — Joint distribution of the estimated parameters showing significant reduction in the correlation
It is much better than the one we saw previously, which indicates that the problem now is mainly our data. This is still not the best model to explain our data, and our sampler is telling us that.
4.3 The cumulative sum
In the source code of the Gaussian Random Walk class [7] of PyMC3 you can find a comment stating:
Note that this is mainly a user-friendly wrapper to enable an easier specification of GRW. You are not restricted to use only Normal innovations but can use any distribution: just use theano.tensor.cumsum() to create the random walk behavior
The comment is reinforcing what we have learned above about what a Random Walk is. For our specific case, there is no clear benefit because we are using Normal innovations. Nonetheless, it opens the door for applications where this is not the case. You can plug in any distribution that explains better the behavior of your time series. Another very commonly used is the Student-t innovations.
with pm.Model() as m3:
σ_ϵ = pm.HalfNormal('σ_ϵ', 1)
alpha = pm.Uniform('alpha', 0,1)
μ = pm.Normal('μ', sigma=σ_ϵ * (1.0 - alpha), shape=len(y))
rw = tt.cumsum(μ)
level = pm.Normal('level',
mu=rw,
sigma=σ_ϵ * alpha,
observed=y)
trace = pm.sample(2000,
target_accept=0.95,
init='advi+adapt_diag',
tune=5000)
I would not advise this implementation for our problem at hand as it is not the most efficient, nevertheless could be useful in different settings.
4.4 Defining our own distribution
Now, it is time for us to get even more flexibility. As PyMC3 has its built-in class, we can build our own and modify it as we wish. I simplified the code for the GaussianRandomWalk class and defined a new class - the GRW . We can see that we could, for instance, easily swap our Normal.dist and replace it with whatever distribution we want.
class GRW(distribution.Continuous):
def __init__(self, sigma, mu=0, init=Flat.dist(), *args, **kwargs):
super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self.sigma = tt.as_tensor_variable(sigma)
self.mu = tt.as_tensor_variable(mu)
self.init = init
self.mean = tt.as_tensor_variable(0.0)
def logp(self, x):
x_im1 = x[:-1]
x_i = x[1:]
innov_like = Normal.dist(mu=x_im1 + self.mu, sigma=self.sigma).logp(x_i)
return self.init.logp(x[0]) + tt.sum(innov_like) with pm.Model() as m4:
σ_ϵ = pm.HalfNormal('σ_ϵ', 0.5)
alpha = pm.Uniform('alpha', 0,1)
μ = GRW('μ', sigma=σ_ϵ * (1.0 - alpha), shape=len(y))
level = pm.Normal('level',
mu=μ,
sigma=σ_ϵ * alpha,
observed=y)
trace = pm.sample(2000,
target_accept=0.95,
init='advi+adapt_diag',
tune=3000) pm.traceplot(trace, var_names=['~μ']);
Fig. 13 —Trace plot using our defined distribution
print(np.mean(trace['σ_ϵ'] * trace['alpha']))
print(np.mean(trace['σ_ϵ'] * (1 - trace['alpha']))) 0.04335492368248644
0.11142060608389621
4.5 Using Theano
PyMC3 uses Theano to define functions involving array operations and linear algebra. In fact, when we define a PyMC3 model, we implicitly build up a Theano function. Why is this important? Well, sometimes, we need to take advantage of Theano features. This is the case with our current challenge.
The first one is quite simple: it is Theano shared feature. This is the way to use variables the way we use them in Python. Symbolic variables are not given an explicit value until one is assigned to the execution of a compiled Theano function. Using Theano shared variables, on the other side, assigns explicit values to the variables, and these values are persisted in memory for the lifetime of the execution.
4.5.1 Understanding Theano scan
The Theano function scan is a bit more challenging. In principle, it is nothing more than a loop in Theano . But its usage is not so trivial. See more in their API docs here [8].
Let’s see some examples to wrap our heads around it. Before that, we just need some insights on how it works:
The parameter sequences is used to specify variables that scan should iterate over as it loops
is used to specify variables that should iterate over as it loops The parameter non-sequences , as the name indicates, is used to specify variables that are not iterated by scan , being passed as input to every iteration
, as the name indicates, is used to specify variables that are not iterated by , being passed as input to every iteration The parameter fn receives a function to be called once
receives a function to be called once The parameter outputs_info is required when our function depends on the output of a previous iteration. It must be a tensor that scan will interpret it as being an initial state for a recurrent output and give it as input to the first iteration
is required when our function depends on the output of a previous iteration. It must be a tensor that will interpret it as being an initial state for a recurrent output and give it as input to the first iteration The first output after calling scan contains the outputs of fn from every timestep concatenated into a tensor
contains the outputs of from every timestep concatenated into a tensor The second output details if and how the execution of the scan updates any shared variable in the graph. It should be provided as an argument when compiling the Theano function.
We are ready to try it out. Let’s make something up that tests us. It must be something that requires the reuse of outputs from previous iterations. Consider this expression
This is, in fact, an equation for a state-space model! It is the simplest form of exponential smoothing [9]. We will not cover it, at least for now, but it is not that different from the models that we’ve been working with. It is another opportunity to touch base with important concepts that you will often see flying around in papers or textbooks. Exponential smoothing is a technique for smoothing time series data. Very briefly, it assigns exponentially decreasing weights to past observations. Our smoothing factor here is represented by alpha and is restricted by 0<\alpha<1. We don’t want to compute the model itself but just use scan to perform the calculations to fit it to toy data.
We can immediately see that alpha is a non-sequence and a scalar parameter (does not depend on t), while s and y are sequence and vectors. We need to define an output_info , because our function depends on the output of a previous iteration. Finally, we need to define the initial value, which we will denote by variable i . Time to get our hands dirty.
theano.config.compute_test_value = 'ignore'
def step(s, y, s_previous, α):
s = α*y + (1-α)*s_previous
return s
s = T.vector('s')
y = T.vector('y')
α = T.scalar('α')
i = T.scalar('i')
output, updates = theano.scan(fn=step,
sequences=[s, y],
non_sequences=[α],
outputs_info=[i])
f = theano.function(inputs=[s, y, α, i],
outputs=output,
updates=updates)
s = np.zeros(9).astype(theano.config.floatX)
y = np.arange(9).astype(theano.config.floatX)
α = 0.7
i = 0
print(f(s, y, α, i)[0:5])
# Breaking it down to be more clear what is happening
iteration_1 = α*y[0] + i*(1-α)
iteration_2 = α*y[1] + iteration_1*(1-α)
iteration_3 = α*y[2] + iteration_2*(1-α)
iteration_4 = α*y[3] + iteration_3*(1-α)
iteration_5 = α*y[4] + iteration_4*(1-α)
print([iteration_1,
iteration_2,
iteration_3,
iteration_4,
iteration_5]) [0. 0.7 1.61 2.583 3.5749]
[0.0, 0.7, 1.6099999999999999, 2.5829999999999997, 3.5749]
Just a curiosity about python or any other programming language. Floating-point numbers are represented in computer hardware as base 2 (binary) fractions. And most of the decimal fractions can’t really be represented exactly as binary fractions. You can see the impact of the strange long numbers in our manual calculations (you can read more here [10])
The best way to avoid this is to use the decimal library.
s = np.zeros(9)
y = np.arange(0, 9)
α = Decimal('0.7')
i = 0
# Breaking it down to be more clear what is happening
iteration_1 = α*y[0] + i*(1-α)
iteration_2 = α*y[1] + iteration_1*(1-α)
iteration_3 = α*y[2] + iteration_2*(1-α)
iteration_4 = α*y[3] + iteration_3*(1-α)
iteration_5 = α*y[4] + iteration_4*(1-α)
print([float(iteration_1),
float(iteration_2),
float(iteration_3),
float(iteration_4),
float(iteration_5)]) [0.0, 0.7, 1.61, 2.583, 3.5749]
Exactly what we got from our scan function. Nice!
Feel free to play around with the parameters.
4.5.2 Model implementation
Now that we know how to use scan , we just need to plug in our use case. It is easier than the function that we have set up above since we don't have a smoothing parameter. We are simply performing the cumulative sum of our level over time.
def fn_μ_t(ξ_t, μ_previous):
μ = μ_previous + ξ_t
return μ
with pm.Model() as m5:
σ_ϵ = pm.HalfNormal('σ_ϵ', 0.5)
smth_parm = pm.Uniform('alpha', 0,1)
ξ = pm.Normal('ξ', mu=0, sigma=σ_ϵ * (1- smth_parm), shape=len(y))
μ_1 = theano.shared(y[0])
μ, updates = theano.scan(fn=fn_μ_t,
sequences = [ξ],
outputs_info = [μ_1],
n_steps=len(y))
level = pm.Normal('level', mu=μ, sigma=σ_ϵ * smth_parm, observed=y)
trace = pm.sample(2000,
target_accept=0.95,
init='advi+adapt_diag',
tune=3000) pm.traceplot(trace);
Fig. 14 — Trace plot using Theano scan
While this was an interesting exercise and helpful to learn more about how PyMC3 and Theano interact, I would not advise this implementation for our particular problem. It is not scalable (try it yourself and see how much time it takes to sample).
5. Discussion
Comparing our values calculated using both classical and Bayesian approaches, we see that we get close values (not exactly the same). Bayesian computations are a bit slower than when we use statsmodels , but, as we saw, we get much more flexibility. For instance, if you do not have normally distributed innovations, we can change it very easily to any other distribution.
np.round(np.sqrt(model_fit.params),3) array([0.047, 0.109]) print(np.round(np.mean(trace['σ_ϵ'] * trace['alpha']),3))
print(np.round(np.mean(trace['σ_ϵ'] * (1 - trace['alpha'])),3)) 0.043
0.111
5.1 Classical implementation
Let’s start by print the stochastic level and the observed time series.
dates = ["1969-01-01", "1984-12-31"]
start, end = [datetime.strptime(_, "%Y-%m-%d") for _ in dates]
time = list(OrderedDict(((start + timedelta(_)).strftime(r"%b-%y"), None) for _ in range((end - start).days)).keys()) fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(15, 5))
ax.plot(time, model_fit.level['smoothed'], label='Stochastic level')
ax.plot(time, y, label='observations')
start, end = ax.get_xlim()
ax.xaxis.set_ticks(np.arange(start, end, 12*2))
plt.ylabel('log UK drivers KSI')
plt.xlabel('Time', rotation=0)
ax.legend();
Fig. 15 — Stochastic level and observed time series
The plot looks good, meaning that when the level is allowed to vary over time, we can match the observed values pattern.
It is time to look at the diagnostics. We will extend a bit the number of lags that the default correlogram uses.
model_fit.plot_diagnostics(lags=25, figsize=(12, 10))
plt.tight_layout();
Fig. 16 — Diagnostic plots
From the plots that we already know, the correlogram shows a significant correlation at lag 12 and 24 (see the bars outside of the blue shadowed region).
We need to pay closer attention to the standardized residual plot. First, let’s distinguish two concepts.
irregular_component = y - model_fit.smoothed_state[0]
_, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(15,5))
ax.plot(t, irregular_component)
plt.ylabel('Residuals')
plt.xlabel('Time')
start, end = ax.get_xlim()
ax.xaxis.set_ticks(np.arange(start, end, 12*2));
Fig. 17 — Residuals
The plot above with the difference between observations and the computed level appears to be composed of only independent random values (or white noise). This is, in fact, a plot of our irregular component, and it is a good thing that it does not show any specific patterns.
A different thing is our prediction errors — i.e., our residuals. Remember that our next unobserved level μ_{t+1} depends on our current unobserved level μ_t. If we were plotting one-step-ahead predictions, which is basically computing the forecast of the next point in our series t+1 using the information we have until that moment, we would use the level at time t.
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(15, 5))
ax.plot(time[1:], model_fit.level['smoothed'][:-1], label='One-step-ahead predictions')
ax.plot(time[1:], y[1:], label='observations')
start, end = ax.get_xlim()
ax.xaxis.set_ticks(np.arange(start, end, 12*2))
plt.ylabel('log UK drivers KSI')
plt.xlabel('Time', rotation=0)
ax.legend();
Fig. 18 —One-step-ahead predictions compared to the observations
We can see that our series of predictions are heavily influenced by the previous time step of the original series. Let’s compute the residuals having this in mind. We can compute the residuals and normalize them.
residuals = y[1:] - model_fit.smoothed_state[0][:-1]
residuals = (residuals - np.mean(residuals))/np.std(residuals)
_, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(15,5))
ax.plot(time[1:], residuals)
plt.ylabel('Residuals')
plt.xlabel('Time')
start, end = ax.get_xlim()
ax.xaxis.set_ticks(np.arange(start, end, 12*2));
Fig. 19— Standardized residuals
We can access the residuals from the model_fit . Another output that statsmodels give us is the plot on the upper right. We can easily plot it, and it helps us understand what kind of distribution our residuals follow. We can also plot the Gaussian distribution with parameters μ = 0 and σ= 1.
residuals = model_fit.standardized_forecasts_error[0,:] import seaborn as sns
ax = sns.distplot(residuals,
kde_kws={"color": "orange", "lw": 2, "label": "KDE"},
hist_kws={"label":"Hist"})
x_ = np.arange(-4, +4, 0.001)
y_ = stats.norm.pdf(x_)
ax.plot(x_, y_, 'g', lw=2, label='N(0,1)')
ax.legend();
Fig. 20— Histogram of the residuals
The distribution doesn’t exactly follow a normal distribution, but it is also not that far. There are some problems with the tails of the distribution. Let’s analyze the last graph from statsmodel . It is the quantile-quantile plot. It generates an idealized distribution, in our case, the gaussian distribution. The idealized samples are divided into groups or quantiles. Each data point in the sample is paired with a similar member from the idealized distribution at the same cumulative distribution.
sm.qqplot(residuals, line='s');
Fig. 21 — Quantile-quantile plot of the residuals
A perfect match to a Gaussian distribution would be shown by the points being always on top of the red line. This is not quite the case, especially for the tails of the distribution. Since we focus much of the analysis of our residuals in terms of normality, we can also perform a statistical test and get a value if it is true or not (not very Bayesian, I know, but I want you to know different approaches).
Let’s do our hypothesis testing with the Jarque-Bera test for normality,
resids = np.asarray(residuals)
skew = stats.skew(resids, axis=0)
kurtosis = 3 + stats.kurtosis(resids, axis=0)
n = resids.shape[0]
jb = (n / 6.) * (skew ** 2 + (1 / 4.) * (kurtosis - 3) ** 2)
jb_pv = stats.chi2.sf(jb, 2) x = np.linspace(0, 15, 1000)
plt.plot(x, stats.chi2.pdf(x, 2))
plt.axvline(stats.chi2.ppf(0.95, 2), ymax=0.5, color='black')
plt.axvline(jb, ymax=0.2, color='red');
Fig. 22 — Hypothesis testing with the Jarque-Bera test for normality
The figure above shows the χ²_(2) distribution and its critical value at 5% (black line). The red line is the value of our data. With our computed value being N > χ²_(2;0.05), the null hypothesis is rejected, i.e., the residuals are not normally distributed.
It all makes more sense now. With this small detour, we also understood better what the plot_components function of statsmodels is showing us.
fig = model_fit.plot_components(figsize=(12, 8))
plt.tight_layout()
Fig. 23 — Plot of the observations against the predictions and level
5.2 Bayesian implementation
In our Bayesian setting, we already saw that there were problems with our model. We got that information from the sampling process directly through the convergences checks that we performed. We will skip the analysis that we did above for the sake of brevity, but we should also check some residuals properties in a Bayesian context.
We will focus on the power available at our hands when we have access to posterior distributions. First, let’s sample from our model.
with m2:
ppc = pm.sample_posterior_predictive(trace, 200) _, ax = plt.subplots(1,1,figsize=(12,5))
ax.plot(time, ppc['level'].T[:,1:], alpha=0.03, color='b', label='_')
start, end = ax.get_xlim()
ax.xaxis.set_ticks(np.arange(start, end, 12*2))
ax.plot(time,ppc['level'].T[:,1],alpha=0.03, color='b', label='Samples from our posterior distribution')
ax.plot(y, color='darkorange', label='data')
ax.legend();
Fig. 24 —Plot of the observations against the posterior samples
Our samples look good, following the data close because of our stochastic level component. We can see that we are not plotting a single line but several lines, which creates an area of fitting. This area is our expression of uncertainty from our estimated parameters. We can do even better, plotting the mean, median and credible intervals.
Just a word on the difference between credible intervals and confidence intervals. The first is the Bayesian version, which results from estimating a probability distribution for our parameters instead of a single point (it comes from the fact that in a Bayesian framework, the parameters are treated as random variables). It summarizes the uncertainty, and we can interpret it as the interval that includes 95% of the probability distribution area (we will see more interesting things that we can do with it). The latter is the frequentist approach. It consists of the range of values that includes the true value of the parameter 95% of the times that we repeat the experiment. This means that 5% of the experiments could, in theory, yield complete nonsense values, for instance, negative values for our observations of UK drivers KSI (read more here [11]).
CI = np.percentile(ppc['level'], axis=0, q=[2.5, 50, 97.5])
mean = np.mean(ppc['level'], axis=0)
_, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1, figsize=(12,5))
ax.fill_between(time,CI[0], CI[2] ,alpha=0.3, color='b', label='95% CI')
start, end = ax.get_xlim()
ax.xaxis.set_ticks(np.arange(start, end, 12*2))
ax.plot(CI[1], color='b', label='median')
ax.plot(mean, color='darkblue', label='mean')
ax.plot(y, color='darkorange', label='data')
ax.legend();
Fig. 25 — Observations and posterior samples with CI interval
Finally, just a recap of the idea of reparameterization that we did above. We had two variances contributing to a single observation, which created a highly negative correlation between them. To reduce this correlation, we replaced one of the parameters with a new one that controls the effect that each variance contributes to the observations. This resulted in much less correlation between our new parameters, even though it respects our first mathematical formulation of the problem (proven by the fact that we got identical results).
pm.pairplot(trace, var_names=['~μ']);
Fig. 26— Pair plot of our estimated parameters
6. Conclusion
This article was a long one. I feel that we are starting to know more about the tools at hand and use them to our advantage. The local level model is still not enough to explain our data, but it was another step closer. Like a sampler, we explore the space and learn how it is shaped in the process. Stay tuned for the next article; we will start adding more components to our state!
References
[1] J. Commandeur, S. Koopman, An Introduction to State Space Time Series Analysis (2007), Oxford University Press
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk
[3] https://theano-pymc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
[4] https://pymc-devs.medium.com/the-future-of-pymc3-or-theano-is-dead-long-live-theano-d8005f8a0e9b
[5] http://www.mcmchandbook.net/HandbookChapter6.pdf
[6] https://docs.pymc.io/notebooks/GP-smoothing.html
[7] https://github.com/pymc-devs/pymc3/blob/4fd56fdeccf4550953b896f9af41c8b9b65b9ed8/pymc3/distributions/timeseries.py#L185
[8] https://theano-pymc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/library/scan.html?highlight=scan
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_smoothing
[10] https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/floatingpoint.html
[11] https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/2272/whats-the-difference-between-a-confidence-interval-and-a-credible-interval) | https://towardsdatascience.com/5-levels-of-difficulty-bayesian-gaussian-random-walk-with-pymc3-and-theano-34343911c7d2 | ['Luís Roque'] | 2020-12-15 22:02:25.004000+00:00 | ['Getting Started', 'Editors Pick', 'Data Science', 'Bayesian Statistics', 'Machine Learning'] |
Atenolol Info ,Dose , Indications .Drug Interactions & Side Effects | HomeHealth Atenolol Info ,Dose , Indications .Drug Interactions & Side Effects
Atenolol is a beta-selective (cardioselective) adrenoceptor antagonist that has no partial agonist or membrane stabilizing properties. Its action profile is most similar to that of metoprolol, with the exception that it has some membrane stabilizing function. Atenolol has been extensively researched and shown to be effective in the treatment of hypertension as well as the prevention of angina. Because of its limited dose response spectrum, it does not require highly individualized dose titration.
Important information
Atenolol lowers your heart rate and helps your heart pump oxygen through your body more efficiently.
It can leave you dizzy, sick, or sleepy, and it can even cause constipation or diarrhoea. These side effects are normally minor and only last a few days.
Taking the first dose of atenolol before bedtime because it may leave you dizzy. If you don’t feel dizzy after that, you should take that in the morning.
If you have heart failure, do not abruptly stop taking atenolol. This will aggravate the disease. Antibiotics Classification & Mechanism of Action
Atenolol Usage Guidelines
Adults are able to take atenolol. It is also often recommended for infants and children.
It is not enough for everybody. Before taking atenolol, inform your doctor if you have any of the following conditions to make sure it’s healthy for you:
allergic reaction to atenolol
severe blood pressure issues in your limbs (such as Raynaud’s phenomenon), which can cause tingling, paleness, or blueness in your fingers and toes
If there is so much acid in the blood, you have metabolic acidosis, which can lead to respiratory failure or asthma.
Atenolol is normally taken once or twice a day.
Since atenolol will make you dizzy, your doctor can urge you to take your first dose before bedtime when you first start taking it.
If you do not feel dizzy after the first injection, you should take your medication in the morning.
You’ll normally take one dose in the morning and one dose in the evening if you’re taking atenolol twice a day.
It’s best to wait 10 to 12 hours between doses if possible.
If you have heart failure, do not abruptly stop taking atenolol. This will aggravate the disease. COVID-19 Vaccine Testing ,Safety, Side Effects
Chat with the doctor if you wish to consider taking your medication. They could suggest steadily lowering the dosage over a few weeks.
The amount you take is determined by the reason you require atenolol.
The standard dosage for elevated blood pressure is 25mg to 50mg once a day.
The normal dosage for angina (chest pain) is 100mg once a day, or divided into two 50mg doses.
The normal dosage for abnormal heartbeats (arrhythmia) is 50mg to 100mg once a day.
The normal dosage for migraine is 25mg to 100mg twice a day. Atenolol is often used for migraines, although it isn’t specifically approved for migraine prevention.
Your child’s doctor will determine the appropriate dosage for them based on their weight and age.
Since atenolol seldom causes stomach upset, you should take it with or without food. It’s better if you do the same thing every day.
With a glass of water, swallow the tablets together.
Some products have a score line to help you cut the tablet in half if it’s tough to chew. Check the brand’s detail leaflet to see if anything is possible.
If you’re taking atenolol as a powder, it’ll come with a plastic syringe or spoon to make sure you get the right dose.
If you don’t have one, you should get one from your pharmacist. A kitchen teaspoon would not provide you with the correct quantity of medication.
More than 1 in 100 people experience these typical side effects. They’re normally mild and only last a few days.
If these side effects affect you or last more than a few days, talk to the doctor or pharmacist:
cold fingers or toes, sleepy, sore, or dizzy
feeling unwell (nausea)
constipation diarrhoea
Breastfeeding and pregnancy
In most cases, atenolol is not prescribed during breastfeeding.
Speak to the doctor about the advantages and risks of taking atenolol whether you’re planning to get pregnant or are currently pregnant.
Some medications could be more suitable for you. Labetalol is a similar drug that is often used for elevated blood pressure during breastfeeding. | https://medium.com/@studentsgroom/atenolol-info-dose-indications-drug-interactions-side-effects-7396cff03f72 | [] | 2021-05-08 05:36:14.070000+00:00 | ['Drugs', 'Medicine', 'Medical', 'Pharmacology', 'Atenolol'] |
Dehumidifier Market Size Worth $4.3 Billion By 2025 | The global dehumidifier market size is expected to reach USD 4.3 billion by 2025, according to a new study conducted by Grand View Research, Inc., registering a 6.7% CAGR during the forecast period. Rising demand for dehumidifiers in hotels, restaurants, and cold storages to minimize food wastage caused due to humid air is expected to drive the market.
Increasing awareness among consumers toward health, along with extensive research and development activities carried out by market players, are anticipated to fuel market growth. Dehumidifiers reduce humidity by eliminating water content from the air. They are widely used for comfort or health reasons.
Recent technological developments are focused on energy-efficient dehumidifiers. In addition, introduction of cloud-based technology that allows users to control dehumidifiers through smartphones, tablets, and computers is expected to accelerate market growth. Development of advanced dehumidifiers that automatically calculate humidity level and set the functioning accordingly is also expected to boost the dehumidifier market over the forecast period.
Stringent legal and regulatory standards have compelled manufacturers to develop energy-efficient dehumidifiers. This is further estimated to benefit the global market. Rising demand for portable dehumidifiers in residential and commercial applications is expected to drive growth.
Click the link below:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/dehumidifier-market
Further key findings from the study suggest: | https://medium.com/@marketnewsreports/dehumidifier-market-c385b496bbdd | ['Gaurav Shah'] | 2020-12-07 08:09:12.705000+00:00 | ['Hvac', 'Canada', 'Germany', 'China', 'Construction'] |
Factory Farms Are Anything but ‘Traditional’ | Industrial agriculture standardizes every aspect of production. This model is far afield from any traditional form of agriculture.
North Carolina environmental justice groups have been organizing against factory hog farms ever since Smithfield moved into their backyards. Community cries for a healthy environment, with breathable air and drinkable water, often fall on deaf ears. But this time — after years of building power — the community won. A Fourth Circuit court ruled against Smithfield in a series of mass action lawsuits brought by mostly Black residents of Eastern North Carolina. It was a historic victory, for community organizers and legal advocates alike.
But after Smithfield’s loss, the corporation told the story a little differently. Smithfield wants people to think that attacks on their industrial practices are attacks on farmers. Conservative media played along — a Wall Street Journal article covering the case mischaracterized the suits in question as challenging “traditional methods of hog farming”. This misnomer for industrial animal agriculture perpetuates a dangerous myth that corporate agribusiness speaks for farmers. In reality, the industry keeps farmers from doing what they do best — growing food for their communities.
Traditionally, farmers make choices to grow food in the best way given their land, weather, and community needs. But Smithfield standardizes every aspect of the growth cycle to maximize profit. Contracted growers must follow Smithfield’s rules, even though they know how to farm best in their local context. This is not agriculture and these facilities are the furthest thing from a farm.
Corporate control of the food system caused the problem here — not hog farmers. Smithfield made their contract growers use open pits for liquid manure in a region with frequent floods and high water tables. Growers had no choice but to blast out noxious chemicals and spray untreated waste on nearby land. So hog manure particles leached into the water and fogged the air.
And neighboring communities had to pay the price. The Wall Street Journal called the lawsuits as being over the noise and smell of hog farms. But let’s be clear — a mostly Black rural community could not breathe the air outside their homes. It took these nuisance suits to hold Smithfield accountable for practices that they knew were hurting the predominantly Black fenceline communities for decades.
After the communities won, Smithfield asked for a retrial. They tried to invalidate the case because Kinlaw Farms, the contract grower, had not been tried and were a “necessary and indispensable party” to the lawsuit. But Smithfield should be held liable for its own dirty and racist practices. At Public Justice, we partner closely with farmer-led organizations to tell courts that the industry does not speak for them. That’s why we filed an amicus brief supporting the communities explaining that contract growers have no say in how these facilities operate.
The Fourth Circuit agreed and threw away Smithfield’s appeals, ruling that only the corporation was responsible for the harm. This victory is groundbreaking because it affirms that growers cannot be held liable for following their contracts. As a result, big agriculture may now loosen its control over contract growers.
The case also changes how courts see industrial agriculture. Before, courts understood factory farm pollution as part and parcel of rural life. But this decision makes it easier to prove in court that corporations cause severe harms that disproportionately burden Black people. ‘Agriculture’ is no excuse for environmental racism.
The court even explained why factory farms are far afield from traditional agriculture, distorting the relationship between humans and hogs. In his opinion on the case, U.S. Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson III writes:
“How did it come to this? What was missing from Kinlaw Farms — and from Murphy-Brown — was the recognition that treating animals better will benefit humans. What was neglected is that animal welfare and human welfare, far from advancing at purposes, are actually integrally connected. The decades-long transition to concentrated animal feeding operations (“CAFOs”) lays bare this connection, and the consequences of its breach, with startling clarity. Once, most hogs were raised on “smaller, pasture-based hog farms.” Now, the paradigm has shifted: “large numbers of hogs, often many thousands” crowd together in each of the many cramped “confinement structures” that comprise the typical hog CAFO.”
The phrase “traditional farming” paints a rosy picture of a much darker reality — corporate abuse, mandated pollution, and environmental racism. If we want to solve a problem, let’s call it what it is: corporate controlled industrial hog production. | https://medium.com/food-project/factory-farms-are-anything-but-traditional-1a735877c54b | ['Jessica Culpepper'] | 2020-12-17 22:54:08.655000+00:00 | ['Factory Farming', 'North Carolina', 'Agriculture', 'Farming', 'Environmental Justice'] |
Into the unknown | Into the unknown
Product in the time of Corona
Product managers need to handle ambiguity. We are never really sure if the product we are building is the right fit for the market. We check the competition, validate hypotheses, measure and A/B test but there is always some element that remains unknown as we are handling prediction of the future. We assume we know who will use our products and how they will use them. We think we can predict their needs and wishes and can provide the answers to them.
David Hume explained to us in 1739 that the problem of induction is that we think that the past predicts the future, though we have no guarantee of that. Bertrand Russel further visualised it when he described how the chicken that was fed each day by the farmer was surprised the day the farmer came to wring its neck. Even though we know there are unexpected events and surprises out there, we live our lives and plan our products based on past behaviour, as this is the best dataset we have.
But sometimes life happens when you’re busy making other plans. Not always as big as COVID-19 (aka Corona) crisis, but in small pieces reality is not always as we expected, and we find out that in a way, we are all chickens. It is a survival mechanism to think that the past will predict the future, but what do we do when it doesn’t?
Elsa embracing the unknown, Frozen II
Being a product manager means being in charge of the roadmap and the direction of your products. While this may be challenging in a regular time, it proves to be much more when the reality changes drastically. What can we do differently in these times?
Prioritise. Remember all these little tasks you have on your table, exploration of different directions your product can take? Now is the time to brutally prioritise them. Your resources have probably changed, and not for the good. Your team now has to work from home, to care for kids and the house in the same time and retain productivity. Clear your tasks and focus on the really important one. Communicate clearly. When you are in the office, if someone misunderstood you, they can chat with you next to the coffee machine or catch you in the elevator. But now, when we are working remotely, not necessarily in the same time, clear written communication is important. Your team and your colleagues should be able to go back to an email or a ticket that has a clear description of what will be done or what you expect them to do, even if they can’t chat with you. Emails instead of meetings. Meetings with large number of attendees don’t work all that well over VC. There is the guy that has problem connecting and the other one that forgot to mute. If the purpose of the meeting is to share information with a large audience, try emailing it. Don’t disappear. While keeping with the last point, you should not go to the extreme isolation of disappearing. Your team should still see you and you should be there for them. Schedule some smaller meetings for your team members or 1:1 synchs. Share what you are working on and be responsive to their queries. Empathise. People are accepting this change differently. Some may have sick relatives, need to care for elderly parents, or have kids that they need to occupy. Try to be patient and help where you can. We are all in this together.
We are just at the beginning and this is only temporary, this too shall pass and we will go back to working in open space offices with so many meetings to fill our days, but perhaps there is an opportunity hiding here. An opportunity for some paradigm shifts. The world is behaving completely different than it did a few weeks ago. Does that mean our users’ needs have changed, that our users have changed? Could there actually be an opportunity for a whole new line of solutions in this situation?
Remote video calls are blooming as well as the delivery services (so far) and the web is filled with creative ideas on what to do with stay-at-home kids. There are new needs arising and new solutions that can answer them. Let’s not be chickens and look the farmer in the eye when he comes, let’s face this change with the best creative minds we can gather.
As the great almighty Monty Python said: “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near fanatical devotion to the Pope!”
Stay focused, efficient and most important- stay healthy. | https://medium.com/swlh/into-the-unknown-da6d68d18f4a | ['Sivan Yaron-Enden'] | 2020-03-18 16:16:31.292000+00:00 | ['Product Management', 'Corona'] |
Breaking Bad episode review — 3.10 — Fly | Original air date: May 23, 2010
Director: Rian Johnson
Writers: Sam Catlin and Moira Walley-Beckett
Rating: 10/10
This episode is pretty damn legendary at this point. Legendary for how polarizing it is, for how well directed it is, for how well acted it is.
When I first saw this series, this was far from my favorite episode. I appreciated how well it was made, and I recognized what it was trying to do, but I just didn’t love it. Seeing it now for the second time, and…wow. It’s right up there with “Peekaboo” for me as one of the best so far.
This is what they call a “bottle episode.” It’s when a TV series runs over budget so they try and make an episode with as little new sets and as few actors as possible. In this case, it’s Gus’s lab, and it’s Jesse and Walt, with a few extras thrown in as well.
Walt finds that they’re not producing as much meth as they should, and Jesse proposes a few reasons as to why this might be, which Walt doesn’t buy. He then discovers a fly in the lab, and recognizes that this poses a serious problem.
He injures himself trying to kill it, and he eventually gets Jesse to recognize what a big deal this is.
Meanwhile, we’re also treated to some of the best acting in the history of television, as far as I’m concerned. And the drama with these two characters is so great.
For once, they’re not really at each other’s throats. They’re listening to each other. It’s mostly Jesse listening to Walt, as he says that he should have died already, and he tries to think of when the perfect moment for him to have died was. He decides it was the night he ran into Jane’s father at the bar, which was also the night Jane died.
Walt apologizes to Jesse for Jane’s death, and you can feel him trying to tell Jesse that he’s responsible, but he just can’t bring himself to do it. Probably at least partially because Jesse seems to be doing rather well, as he’s now clean.
Jesse eventually kills the fly, and everything seems good. Walt says that if Jesse’s stealing any of the product, that he won’t be able to protect him from Gus.
The episode ends with Walt, unable to sleep, noticing a fly on the smoke detector light. The fly itself is both literal and metaphorical, as a manifestation of Walt’s guilt, which is really neat to explore in this episode.
If you enjoy Breaking Bad mainly for the violence and crazy shit that goes on, this isn’t your episode. But I think most people appreciate the acting and the characters, and htis episode is among the best in the series (and in TV in general) for those. | https://medium.com/as-vast-as-space-and-as-timeless-as-infinity/breaking-bad-episode-review-3-10-fly-df7e350a7a97 | ['Patrick J Mullen'] | 2020-08-19 23:41:00.869000+00:00 | ['Breaking Bad', 'Psychological', 'Tv Reviews', 'Drama', 'TV'] |
The political week in 5 points | Government attempts to play down ‘no deal’ threat. After the Chequers summit earlier in the summer, it was agreed that the government would publish advice for businesses, homeowners, farmers, transporters and travellers on how to prepare for the possibility of the UK leaving the EU in March 2019 without a deal. Initially this was to be part of a coordinated six-week communications effort, but it has now been decided to publish the information on a single day in August to try and avoid mass panic. Meanwhile, the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has ruled out the possibility of the UK collecting tariffs on the EU’s behalf — a central plank of Theresa May’s White Paper proposal.
Ian Paisley suspended from the House of Commons and the DUP over Sri Lanka lobbying. The Standards Committee found the North Antrim MP guilty of “serious misconduct” for accepting two holidays for his family to Sri Lanka, failing to declare these gifts, and subsequently lobbying the UK government to oppose a UN investigation into Sri Lankan human rights abuses. MPs voted to suspend Mr Paisley from Parliament for 30 sitting days. He now faces a recall petition; if it is signed by 10% of registered voters in the constituency of North Antrim a by-election will be called. The SDLP has called on other parties to field an ‘anti-Brexit’ unity candidate in the event that a by-election is triggered.
Donald Trump’s former lawyer recorded meeting discussing $150,000 payoff. Around 180 tapes were seized when investigators raided Michael Cohen’s offices in April; one recording obtained by CNN appears to capture the then candidate Donald Trump talking about buying the silence of Karen McDougal, a model who says she had an affair with Trump in 2006. Such a payment may have violated campaign finance laws. The leak comes amid growing animosity between the President and his former long-time fixer. Rudy Giuliani, one of Donald Trump’s attorneys, called Cohen a “pathological liar.”
Imran Khan to be sworn in as Pakistan’s new Prime Minister. The former international cricketer positioned himself as an outsider on an anti-corruption platform, and enjoys the support of the country’s powerful military. The 65-year-old, who has never previously held public office, promises to govern a “new Pakistan.” His ideological position is somewhat vague: he is liberal in some respects but remains committed to Islamic values. He leads a nuclear-armed country of 200 million citizens straddled between India and the Middle East at one of the most difficult crossroads in geopolitics.
Peter Robinson says unionists should “prepare for a united Ireland.” Speaking at the MacGill Summer School in County Donegal, the former First Minister emphasised that he did not want or expect to see a united Ireland, but thought it prudent to prepare: “I don’t expect my own house to burn down but I still insure it.” In light of the UK’s referendum on EU membership, Mr Robinson said that the process of Brexit showed the need to plan for all eventualities. “As soon as that decision is taken every democrat will have to accept that decision,” he added. His comments were criticised by former UUP leader Lord Empey and by his former DUP colleague Sammy Wilson. “I don’t prepare to go to the moon in Richard Branson’s space shuttle because I have no intention of ending up there,” said Mr Wilson. | https://medium.com/northern-slant/the-political-week-in-5-points-f36b451a1b7e | ['Jamie Pow'] | 2018-07-29 20:01:50.553000+00:00 | ['Dup', 'Brexit', 'By Election', 'Cnn', 'Donald Trump'] |
9 React Common Terms Explained In A Few Words | 9 React Common Terms Explained In A Few Words
In case you have an interview tomorrow
The React universe can be daunting
Learning a programming language is quite similar to learning a “real” language. There are words to use, verbs, and rules. Words, in particular, are what we combine to create a dictionary of stuff we will use daily.
Whether it’s how to say “How are you”, or how to define a user interface, a dictionary is the base for everything more complicated we will do with a language.
Here is a quick guide trying to teach you the meaning of common terms when learning React. It will form your basic grammar for starting with the library today, and mastering it later.
#1 Library
You have probably seen a hundred comparing articles of the best Javascript frontend frameworks. And React is always there. But that is technically incorrect since when talking about it, we’re dealing with a library.
A library is simply a collection of class definitions, helping its user to accomplish a specific task. In the case of React, to define UIs.
#2 Components
React components are very similar to functions. They accept input, in the form of props, and then produce some output. This output defines what should appear on the screen. Components are great to build UIs, because they let you define independent pieces of it, and you can use and handle them however you want.
A component can be either a class component, meaning it is basically a class which will return something to render on screen
Or similarly, a function. Which has the same purpose of describing the UI, but with some difference when it comes to other factors such as lifecycle methods or hooks.
#2 Props
Nothing is truly fun if not customizable a little right? Well just like how you pass data to a add(val1, val2) function to add numbers, you pass them to React components.
Props are just that, meaningful input you pass to your React components.
#3 State
A component needs state when it requires some way to store local data, which can change over time. Like an isChecked info in the state for a CheckBox component. Or show inside the state of an Accordion .
And remember, the biggest difference between state and props is where they come from. Props come from a parent component, while state is managed by the component you’re defining itself. Props can’t be changed, but the state can.
#4 JSX
React components are not defined in a syntax you are probably familiar with. React uses JSX, which is a syntax extension for Javascript. Your JSX will get compiled to React.createElement() calls, which will return plain JavaScript objects called “React elements”.
#5 Javascript Compiler
A Javascript compiler takes Javascript code, transforms it, and then return it under a different format. The most common case is when you want to use the newest ES6 features, which are still not supported by older browsers. Babel is the compiler most commonly used with React.
#6 ES6
Acronym referring to one of the latest versions of the ECMAScript Language Specification standard, which the JavaScript language is an implementation of. This version included many news such as let and const, arrow functions, and template literals.
#7 Bundler
A bundler helps you taking different JS and CSS modules, and combine them into just a few files better optimized for the browsers. The most common bundler used with React is Webpack.
#8 Elements
React elements are the building blocks of React applications. One might confuse elements with components. An element describes what you want to see on the screen. And remember, elements are immutable.
#9 Lifecycle Methods
Components can be considered just like living creatures. They go through stages of their lives, and we can access these stages via lifecycle methods. For example, when a component is born, we call it mounting and use the componentDidMount() method to manage this part of its lifecycle. Or when it changes, we say it updates, and so we use the componentDidUpdate() .
Conclusion
Hopefully, this was a useful bird-eye view on the dictionary of common words used by React developers. This can give you an idea of how React works and the main concepts behind it.
— Piero
Resources
All the icons are made by the amazing icons8 website
A note from JavaScript In Plain English
We have launched three new publications! Show some love for our new publications by following them: AI in Plain English, UX in Plain English, Python in Plain English — thank you and keep learning!
We are also always interested in helping to promote quality content. If you have an article that you would like to submit to any of our publications, send us an email at [email protected] with your Medium username and we will get you added as a writer. Also let us know which publication/s you want to be added to. | https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/9-react-common-terms-explained-in-a-few-words-90f237952070 | ['Piero Borrelli'] | 2020-05-04 21:23:01.192000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Technology', 'JavaScript', 'React', 'Web Development'] |
How to Deal with a Bad Freelance Client, Pt. 2 | And so it continues. If you missed the first post in this series, you can find it, here. Let’s just dive right in, shall we? Here are three more bad freelance clients you may encounter during your freelance career and how to best deal with them.
The Client Who Needs Attention
This. This is your client. Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash
If you wanted to be a babysitter, you’d be a babysitter, not a freelancer. Some clients just need a little babysitting, though. Or maybe it’s not that they need babysitting; maybe they think they need to babysit you. Regardless, this is the client whom you just can’t seem to shake when you’re working on their project. They don’t need your work so much as they need your attention.
They send you all the details for the project. You agree on a due date and payment. Then, they email you a week before the due date, “just to see how things are going.” Then they email you a few days before the due date again, “in case you have any questions.” They ask five of their own questions, all about things you’ve already discussed and finalized. Oh, oops, two hours before the due date, they remember some important info to give you.
You turn in the work. They have a few changes. They don’t want to send them by email. A conference call with two of their colleagues is needed. You have the call (unpaid). The call is an hour long but could’ve been boiled down to two bullet points in an email. After the first call, your main client contact calls you separately to ensure you understood everything that was said on the initial call.
You make the changes. They love the product and want to work with you long-term. However, they want to have a few meetings first, so you can really get a feel for the company. The (unpaid) meetings take up a total of five of your hours.
Repeat cycle.
Now, listen, this could actually work well for you, if you charge an hourly rate. If your client is paying you $50-$100 per hour, by all means, give them all the attention they want. Sit in on that conference call. Attend that meeting. And charge them for all of it.
If they are not, though, this is not worth your time. You are losing money. Stop answering their calls. Don’t attend meetings. If they like your work, they’ll stay with you. If they can’t deal with this, fine. Losing one client is better than losing money by working with that client.
The Client Who Thinks You’re an Employee
The client who needs attention is very similar to the client who thinks you’re an employee. This client also may be the one that personally rubs me the wrong way the absolute most. I LOVE not being an employee. LOVE. IT. I love working when I want, how I want. I love picking and choosing the clients I want to work with. I love offering only the services that I want to offer. So when a client treats me like an employee, I shut that down immediately.
If a client acts like you’re an employee, it’s because that’s what they actually want — a full-time, in-office, 100-percent dedicated employee. They probably just can’t afford one. So they settled for you and you, my friend, by default, will never be good enough.
How can you tell your client wants a “real” employee, not you?
They get upset when you don’t answer your emails within a few hours
They don’t understand how you can just take a day off without asking them first
They’re appalled when they come up with some new project for you and you tell them you can’t begin immediately because you have prior obligations to other clients
They refuse to acknowledge you as a freelancer; they refer to you as a team member and, as such, you’re expected to participate in team member activities, like quarterly evaluations or weekly editorial meetings
This is another time (like with the client that’s just plain difficult) when you’ll have to explain to them that you are not an employee. At all. You work for yourself. And 20 other people. Now, do it nicely. They may not mean anything by their behavior (even if it is bad behavior).
The way I think of it is, I’m a vendor, like your favorite store in the mall. I sell a product that you want. Sometimes that product isn’t in stock or the store is closed.
Throw a tantrum because Sephora or Forever 21 is closed, and you’re “immature” and “embarrassing.” Throwing a tantrum because your freelancer is out for the day is okay, though. Photo by Marcin Kempa on Unsplash
You wouldn’t call up the president of Bath & Body Works and incredulously ask why in the world they discontinued your favorite body wash or why they’re not open until 11 p.m. or why Store #4503854 is sold out of your favorite candle. You would either find another candle or just wait until the candle is back in stock; you would go there when they’re open and suck it up when they’re closed.
And if you decide you don’t like shopping at Bath & Body Works because of these things, okay. Good for you. Plenty of other people do and will.
Make sense?
The Client Who Guilt Trips You
Now this is a special breed of client. Sometimes they’re blatant and sometimes they’re sly, but at the end of the day, they’re downright abusive. Yes, just like a bad boss, freelance clients can be emotionally abusive to their freelancers.
The blatantly guilt-tripping client is going to pull out the crocodile tears. (Yes, I’ve literally had a client cry on me before.) Maybe they didn’t pay you for months and they “just feel so bad about it, but please would you continue working for them?”
Don’t fall for it. Don’t fall into that trap. Be stern. Get paid. And then in the future, make that client pre-pay.
The more clever client is going to straight-up gaslight you. When they’ve been (and know they’ve been) an awful client for one reason or another, and you’re ready to walk out on them, they’ll start doling out the praise.
If I give you this trophy, will you stick around and put up with more of my antics? Photo by Ariel Besagar on Unsplash
You’re their favorite freelancer! If only all the rest were like you! You’ve saved them so many times! You’re incredible at your job! By the way, there’s a new project coming up and the team could really use your expertise. Will you stick around for a few more months?
And then how could you say no to the people who love you so much? That would just make you a bad person.
Ignore the praise, reader. The money of the satisfied client who gives zero praise spends the exact same way as the money of the terrible client who piles on the compliments. Find those satisfied, quiet clients and hold on to them for dear life. They’re priceless.
A Word of Caution
Now, don’t read all of this and think that all freelance clients are bad or if you’re a freelancer, it’s going to be clients vs. freelancers for life. That’s not the case at all. And these “bad” clients aren’t all that common anyway. The good far outweigh the bad. However, it’s very important that new freelancers learn to identify these bad clients so they can protect themselves. As a freelancer, you only have yourself to rely on, so you have to carefully guard your work, your time and your income, and sometimes that means guarding these things from the very clients you need.
Holly Riddle is a freelance travel and food journalist who dabbles in fiction. She can be reached at [email protected]. Her website is hollyriddle.org and her twitter handle is @TheHollyRiddle. | https://medium.com/@holly-ridd/how-to-deal-with-a-bad-freelance-client-pt-2-7b4bf8295612 | ['Holly Riddle'] | 2019-09-01 13:46:42.557000+00:00 | ['Freelancing', 'Writing Tips', 'Freelance', 'Freelance Writing', 'Small Business'] |
The worst day of the Ashes… so far. | This is a nadir, until next week. There have been more dramatic losses, more embarrassing losses, and definitely worse performances in my conscious lifetime of supporting English cricket (2005 onwards); Roston Chase taking 8fer, 58 all out, 67 all out to name but a recent few. The first two games of this series, and especially this loss at Adelaide, against an Australia team without their two best bowlers, is the apotheosis of the most disheartening omnishambles, top to bottom, that the ECB has ever constructed. On the field, at least.
4 years on from a 4–0 defeat so limp that ‘Mason Crane’ sounded like an actual Test cricketer until his ‘promising’ 1–193 at Sydney, Mark Stoneman was there, and Mitch Fucking Marsh scored 2 (two!!!!) hundreds, we’d now had time for some fascinatingly layered details from England’s groundbreaking Win Away From Home Guide. Admittedly put on hold, justifiably, to allow Trevor Bayliss to seemingly whale noise England’s generational group of white ball players to a World Cup win in 2019. A few months later, Bayliss was replaced by Chris Silverwood, & the batshit fucking mental idea to try and score first innings runs was introduced. Genuine Pace and Mystery Spin went from being whispered like forbidden spells to being mentioned at the forefront of most pre-series interviews. While you have to give some, uh, credit? for the fact we stopped picking Jason Roy (!!!) to open (!!!) against Starc, Hazlewood & Cummins (!!!) vs a red ball (!!!) it’s impossible to believe Silverwood, Giles et al actually had anything in place to achieve those mystical goals. It seems rather that they thought just saying them out loud would manifest itself.
Pundits, fans, commentators and irritating Yorkshiremen can, and have, and will continue to debate selection decisions until they’re blue in the face. It’s a fair criticism, but akin to criticising the colour scheme on the Titanic. The fact remains that no eleven players England could choose would compete in this series, and the individuals selected are a reflection of the system you’re picking from.
The openers. First of all, Rory Burns succeeded Alastair Cook in the same way that Mourinho succeeded Pochettino at Spurs. A clear downgrade in a sporting capacity, and also a respecting women capacity. Burns’ current age (31.3) is soon to overtake his Test batting average (31.4) and undercut his number of Test appearances (31). He’s got decent first class numbers that haven’t translated to any Test success, partially explained by the fact that when the first ball was bowled in Brisbane, his front foot looked as though it was on its way to Adelaide. Haseeb Hameed, who was once a virtual guarantee to gently escort Cook into his twilight and eventual retirement, averages less than 30 against *ahem* ‘pace’ in County Cricket – and plays with his hands below his knee roll – was picked from this touring party ahead of someone who has a central contract when he doesn’t. Undoubtedly talented, poorly managed and poorly coached – an utterly overwhelming theme among England’s top 6 since 2015 – perhaps up until he joined Peter Moores at Notts.
Dawid Malan himself doubted he’d play another Test, and was publicly told he couldn’t bat in England by then selector Ed Smith. By no measure is he an International standard number 3, yet he’s inarguably been England’s best selection call this winter. But again – you could probably envisage England ‘planning’ to take him on the away tour that we relentlessly, perpetually describe as the pinnacle of our game – so why would you only give him 2 matches in England to prepare for this? It’s not a stretch to say that his two 50s here could’ve been converted if he’d had sufficient practise in constructing a Test innings this year, instead having to make do by doing that in his various T20I performances in 2021 instead.
At 4, and, for the time being, as captain, Joe Root (the 2021 iteration) stands out as an individual within a team more so than any cricketer, perhaps sportsman, that I can remember. Averaging in the early 60s this year, a full 20 runs higher than Malan (7 innings) as England’s next best.
Ben Stokes is Ben Stokes. Routinely overbowled by his captain, he will likely be playing with one leg, one hand and probably 3 fingers by the 5th Test. Clearly, far and away our 2nd best batter, averaging a colossal… 36? Has anyone ever mentioned that in 2010/11 every member of our top 7 averaged *over forty*? And at least 3 of them were guaranteed to be heavily, repeatedly criticised at any given point? Don’t it always seem to go…
Ollie Pope is the most technically talented cricketer we’ve produced in 10 years, averaging an incredible 66 in FC cricket, excluding Test innings. Pope, though, not entirely without hindsight, was doomed to be ruined from his first Test; having been picked at number 4 against Bumrah, Shami, Ishant, etc. when at that point he hadn’t faced a ball for Surrey (batting at 6) before 20 overs. It is depressingly more and more believable each time a batsman spends time with England ‘coaches’ and immediately regresses. Pope, Bairstow and Ballance stand out as players with stellar County records. Labuschagne and Smith, worse players than each of those 3 when they debuted, could be reasonably labelled the two best Test batsmen around. It’s not especially hard to imagine Pope would average upwards of 50 if he played for Australia. Yet again. Coaching and management.
Jos Buttler, one million Tests in, just needs to Find A Method To Succeed In The Longest Format. A more than reliable keeper, now seemingly rattled so badly by his batting that he just can’t catch. One hopes England’s literal best white ball player ever won’t be allowed to rot in the Test side for much longer.
Chris Woakes has been picked in the last two games primarily for his ability with the bat at number 8. If for some reason you don’t back your current top 7 (say, for example, you know who they are) then it’s an understandable principle. But Woakes averages 20 abroad. It’s like asking Ringo Starr to join The Who for his ability to sing. He’s not good enough at his primary skill to be there, and even worse with his secondary skill. Absolutely nothing has changed since the last tour to justify his inclusion.
Ollie Robinson is clearly an excellent bowler, and likely will be in all conditions. Silverwood was subject to widespread mockery for his incredulous ‘it’s OK, we expected this,’ comment, but I’m not sure even the most pessimistic, creative minded England fan would have been able to come up with anything more on-the-nose-ridiculous than our decision to not pick a spinner in this Test being shown up by our best seamer on the tour so far bowling offies in his shades. Not much is beyond a conceivable script in sport, despite what pundits may incessantly attempt to have you believe, but that is pretty close.
Watching Broad and Anderson in an away Ashes series is starting to get tiring in itself, it’s hard to imagine being either of them. They’re consistent, reliable and still understandably, the captain’s go to. Particularly Anderson, whose career post 30 alone makes him one of the greatest ever to do it.
Now that XI is probably not the best England could pick for a Test at Adelaide. Hameed will probably be replaced by Zak Crawley, Broad by Leach, Woakes by Wood & Pope by Bairstow for Melbourne, or later in the series. But Crawley, despite being best mates with Rob Key, and by extension, championed by Shane Warne, averages 11 in 2021. Jack Leach is, by all parameters, England’s best spin bowler. Everyone knows it. Currently, he has a lower bowling average than Nathan Lyon. Why on earth, then, was he sat on the sidelines for an entire home summer? How did that fit into the 4-Year-Plan? He’s spent so long carrying drinks in the last two years it’s a wonder he hasn’t morphed into Quasimodo, and England expected him to Keep It Tight against aggressive batters on a flat pitch when they got 150 in the first innings? He debuted 2 years after he should have and, broken record, has been managed in the worst way he could have been since then. Mark Wood will be brilliant. Bairstow won’t be, no matter how much you adore him, and I’m saying that in part to convince myself, as the most ludicrously irrational stan. Every man and his dog who is even vaguely aware of cricket knows exactly how he’s going to get out. They’re all individually reasonable decisions. But, as I said earlier, they aren’t going to make this team competitive.
The pool should have been wider. This doesn’t account for the young players England have already got coffins lined up for. James Bracey is a top order batsman who was debuted at 7. Dom Bess was dropped after taking a 4fer in a Test win in India. Matt Parkinson averages 25 in County Cricket and hasn’t played a Test. They all made the Lions squad that, unfortunately, Times Like These justified sending home. Though the 2 spinners didn’t get picked for their first Tour game. Almost too ridiculously on-the-nose again, right?
With the money, resources and (raw) talent available, the manner of these defeats and the inevitability of a series whitewash to an Australia team that isn’t even *that* good makes this a genuine disgrace. With one win in 11 Test matches, England have 3 to go here, 3 in the West Indies, then welcome India (one Test), World Champions New Zealand, and South Africa (both 3 Test series) in the 2022 home summer. Before another 3 Test series away to Pakistan. There is no reason, with the everpresenr holy trinity of a flawed County setup, consistent mismanagement and poor coaching, to be optimistic for that run of results to improve. And the worst part of all this? For most organisations, this almost-scandalous systemic performance would be absolute priority in terms of introspection. But I haven’t even mentioned Azeem Rafiq here. The ECB should be ashamed and embarrassed. I am by distant association. | https://medium.com/@cresswellnathan98/the-worst-day-of-the-ashes-so-far-fbc6141b271d | ['Nathan Cresswell'] | 2021-12-21 08:14:11.846000+00:00 | ['Cricket'] |
Taiwan Can Be a Valuable Partner in the Global Response to Climate Change | Taiwan Can Be a Valuable Partner in the Global Response to Climate Change
Concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii hit a historic high of 415 parts per million in May 2019. The World Meteorological Organization has also released data showing that June 2019 was the hottest month in history, breaking records from New Delhi to the North Pole. As President Hilda Heine of the Marshall Islands, an ally of Taiwan, has urged the world, it is not worth arguing or debating whether climate change will come to pass, for it is happening right now.
As a member of the global village, Taiwan is striving to combat climate change and protect the Earth. Indeed, we are playing an indispensable part in the vital task of bequeathing a sustainable environment to future generations.
As a result of the current international political situation, Taiwan has been barred from participating in the Conference of the Parties held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Nevertheless, we continue to pursue means of making contributions to the international community. We have passed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act, setting long-term goals for Taiwan’s reduction of greenhouse gases, and formulated National Climate Change Action Guidelines and a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Action Plan. We also drew up a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Emission Control Action Plan covering Taiwan’s energy, manufacturing, transportation, residential and commercial development, agricultural, and environmental sectors. With a clearly outlined roadmap for national carbon emission reductions, the key points of this plan include promoting energy transformation; assisting manufacturers to become green, low-carbon enterprises; developing green transportation and expanding the use of low-carbon vehicles; upgrading energy-saving design standards for the exteriors of new buildings; helping livestock farms recycle biogas; and strengthening methane recycling from waste landfills and industrial wastewater. Moreover, the approval of a Greenhouse Gas Control Implementation Plan proposed by local governments shows how Taiwan is responding to climate change collectively, from a central level to a local level.
Our government has made significant progress in developing Taiwan’s renewable energy sector in recent years, actively pursuing policies designed to reduce coal-fired power generation, increase our use of natural gas, and promote green development. By 2025, we expect solar- and wind-power generation to produce 20 GW and 6.9 GW of electricity per year, respectively, and we are also launching numerous power-saving policies and actions under our Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program and similar initiatives. Meanwhile, our Green Finance Action Plan is focusing on such areas as finance, investment, fundraising, and talent incubation, supporting the development of the green energy sector by boosting financial incentives. In terms of technological research and development, Taiwan’s green technology policy covers energy development, energy storage, energy saving, and systems integration, drawing on forward-looking materials, sustainable technology, advanced energy-saving, smart systems, and similar areas to engage industry with the fruits of research in the academic world. And since the launch of our FormoSat-3 satellite in 2006, Taiwan has amassed over 10 million items of meteorological data, which it has provided, free of charge, to experts and scholars around the world for use in their scientific research. Furthermore, data gathered following this year’s launch of the FormoSat-7 satellite will now improve accuracy even further when it comes to predicting severe weather events, making a great contribution to global weather forecasting and climate change action.
Taiwan has brought together the relevant central government agencies to formulate a National Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan, constructing a resilient system that responds to eight aspects of climate change: disasters, basic infrastructure, water resources, homeland security, coastlines, energy and industry, agriculture, and health. In the field of health care, we are placing special emphasis on medical hygiene and epidemic prevention, disaster reduction, and emergency and disaster recovery capacity, safeguarding national health and prioritizing the protection of our most vulnerable citizens. In terms of conservation, we will sustain our agricultural production resources and biodiversity, bolster monitoring and early-warning mechanisms, strengthen natural disaster rescue and insurance systems, and integrate technologies designed to boost the resilience of the agricultural, forestry, fisheries, and animal husbandry industries. We are also operating and managing nature reserves, establishing long-term ecological monitoring systems, and strengthening the conservation and appropriate use of our nation’s species and associated genetic material. All of this is aimed at safeguarding food safety and establishing sustainable agricultural practices that are well adapted to climate risks.
According to Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, more than 10,000 extreme weather incidents occurred globally between 1997 and 2016, taking countless lives and destroying homes. As the world continues to face climate change crises, this global issue requires a global solution. That means that every person, as a member of our global community, must join in and search for a solution.
It is unfair for Taiwan to be excluded from international organizations on the basis of political prejudice. Our exclusion contradicts the spirit of related climate conventions, which urge all nations to work together to combat global climate change, and overlooks both the concept of climate justice emphasized in the Paris Agreement and the significance of calling on all nations to take climate action. This breach of the UN Charter weakens our international framework and harms the entire world.
Taiwan is a responsible and sincere friend to the international community, and is ready to contribute. We would be pleased to share our experience in good environmental governance, disaster prevention and early-warning systems, upgrading to energy efficient technologies, and high-tech innovation and its applications. We are striving to make the world a better place, and believe that Taiwan can be a valuable partner in the global response to climate change. | https://medium.com/american-citizens-for-taiwan/taiwan-can-be-a-valuable-partner-in-the-global-response-to-climate-change-45de9a854efe | ['American Citizens For Taiwan Contributor'] | 2019-11-10 03:16:10.706000+00:00 | ['Taiwan', 'Environment', 'Climate Change', 'United Nations'] |
Why is it So Hard to Get Paid? | Why is it So Hard to Get Paid?
Jerry Seinfeld has a routine where he talks about eating at restaurants and getting the check at the end of the meal. When you sit down to eat, you’re hungry, and the prices don’t matter as much. You have a sense of what you can afford and happily order your food. At the end of the meal, when you’re full, you get the check. Your brain thinks, “why should I spend money on food? I’m stuffed!”
You now have extra work that wasn’t in your proposal: chasing your client for payment.
Contracting works similarly. When you’re creating a job proposal, you decide on a price with your client, and ideally include invoicing and payment terms. Maybe you’ll invoice monthly and expect payment within 15 days. Often when you’ve completed your work and sent the invoice, 15 days pass and all you’ve received is the sweet sound of crickets chirping. You now have extra work that wasn’t in your proposal: chasing your client for payment. This problem is so widespread, there are countless resources to help you figure out how to get paid. A few recent ones with some good advice include How to get a client to pay you on time at Mic, How to Get Your Clients to Pay Invoices On Time from the Atlanta Small Business Network, and How to Handle Late Payments When You’re a Freelancer over at SHIFT News’ The Cutaway
It’s not that they don’t want to pay you, they just suffer from Seinfeld’s check at the end of the meal syndrome.
If you find work through a marketplace, the platform may offer some amount of payment protection if a client pays late, or worse, not at all. This insurance makes sense because you’re likely working for a stranger and the need for added protection is part of the reason marketplaces charge you contracting fees. What do you do when you’re working for a client you know? It’s not that they don’t want to pay you, they just suffer from Seinfeld’s “check at the end of the meal” syndrome. With the work already done, getting their finance department to pay you is low on their priority list.
AskFora simply asks clients to set aside their payment up front (while they’re still hungry, according to Seinfeld).
At AskFora we’ve come up with a better way to work with people you know and get paid on time. We help you avoid the awkward dance of multiple follow up emails and the risk of becoming a nuisance to your client. AskFora simply asks clients to set aside their payment up front (while they’re still hungry, according to Seinfeld). Payment is deposited in a neutral third party account, and your client retains control of when and how much is paid. As a contractor you don’t need to worry about chasing down payment or even creating an invoice.
It’s faster and easier than doing extra work to get paid after you already did the work.
When the work is done, you submit your job, the client confirms that the work was done and releases payment with a single button click. AskFora automatically generates an invoice for your records and you get your payment in a timely manner. It’s faster and easier than doing extra work to get paid after you already did the work. Best of all, AskFora is entirely free for contractors.
Create your profile today and get hired on AskFora.com. Better work with people you know. | https://medium.com/@otrajman/why-is-it-so-hard-to-get-paid-75636558e31f | ['Omer Trajman'] | 2020-12-07 14:59:03.933000+00:00 | ['Contracting', 'Getting Paid', 'Gig Economy', 'Networking', 'Freelance'] |
Kasie Lee brings hope to Chinese monolingual victims in San Francisco | Kasie Lee brings hope to Chinese monolingual victims in San Francisco Han Li May 17·3 min read
Kasie Lee. (Courtesy photo)
Amid the crisis of non-stop anti-Asian violence and hate incidents, an Asian American woman has been appointed to be the interim head of the Victim Services Division at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.
Kasie Lee 李蕙儀, a Chinese American attorney who is fluent in Cantonese, assumes her new position as a key figure in victims support on May 17, 2021, as the City grapples with non-stop daily attacks on Asian Americans.
Helping Asian victims
“I have very strong feelings about Asian victims having access to justice,” said Lee. She pointed out that when she was in college, she began to help victims of Asian and Pacific Islander descent, including assistance in language interpretation for monolingual victims as one of her priorities.
In the late 1990s, when she was finishing her undergraduate studies at U.C. Davis, she worked in a local resource center for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. At that time, she launched a multi-lingual program at the center to help Chinese-speaking victims. Following her ideas, the center recruited bilingual students from U.C. Davis and trained them to assist help victims with limited English proficiency.
Later, Lee went to the University of Southern California for law school and worked at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles 羅省法律援助基金會 to help low-income, Asian-Pacific immigrant families.
After spending 12 years in Los Angeles, Lee returned to the Bay Area in 2013 to work as a private attorney. There, she took on youth-related cases at a discounted fee and also helped staff San Francisco’s Asian Law Caucus with Chinese-speaking clients.
Victim services include keeping the victim informed of court proceedings and some financial assistance, which will also be Lee’s focus.
Why join the DA’s office?
When asked why she joined District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office from the private sector, Lee revealed that she didn’t know Boudin at first because she had been working in Los Angeles for many years.
During the 2019 District Attorney campaign, she noticed that Boudin often attending Chinatown rallies and believed that he knew about the crime incidents in Chinatown. There were a number of high-profile cases in Chinatown during the 2019 campaign season, including the Chinatown leader who was robbed for his Rolex watch and the case of a man at Portsmouth Square who was knocked unconscious.
After Boudin took office, the District Attorney’s Office reached out to Lee offering a job, Lee made clear said that she wanted to work in a “hybrid” mode, meaning that while serving as a prosecutor, she could also assist with Asian-related cases to assist victims. The office agreed, so she took the job.
“I didn’t take this job because I need the money,” Lee said.
Controversy and “miscommunication”
The handling of cases by Boudin and the District Attorney’s Office has sparked controversy. What has been viewed by the public as a failure to prosecute or leniency on crime has triggered an ongoing recall campaign.
Lee says that much of the controversy stems from “miscommunication.” She explained that people on social media often say that they should “charge this case,” and expect a response from the office. In general, however, they do not respond because but prosecution is “not like a show.”
She said that after the police make an arrest, the District Attorney’s Office will have 48 hours to file charges against the suspect. Generally speaking, they will not release public statements.
But she acknowledged that in the bigger picture, victims being under-informed or unaware of the process is a “larger problem.”
During the weekend of May 15th, a Chinatown merchant was attacked by a suspect and the suspect later returned and retaliated against the merchant.
The incident was publicized by the press and the victim’s photos were circulated on social media. However, during the weekend, Lee said that the case has not yet reached her desk. She said that’s a part that she wants to improve, too.
***
The Chinese language version of the story appeared on the World Journal on May 17, 2021. | https://medium.com/@lihanlh/kasie-lee-brings-hope-to-chinese-monolingual-victims-in-san-francisco-5a4a9f1cb6ca | ['Han Li'] | 2021-08-09 21:07:20.057000+00:00 | ['San Francisco', 'Asian American'] |
C# ile Karşılaştırmalı Python Rehberi Bölüm 1 | 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/kodluyoruz/c-ile-kar%C5%9F%C4%B1la%C5%9Ft%C4%B1rmal%C4%B1-python-rehberi-b%C3%B6l%C3%BCm-1-d890f5662e74 | ['Barış Can Kurt'] | 2021-01-10 16:54:35.936000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Rehber', 'Yazılımcı', 'Programming', 'C Sharp Programming'] |
LEGAL REGULATION PROBLEMS OF CRYPTOCURRENCY DERIVATIVES | In the context of the transformation of the economy, attracting investments using traditional financial instruments is becoming more and more difficult — for most companies, the opportunity to attract financing through the use of classical instruments is limited or impossible (small and medium-sized businesses now have less access to bank lending, access to the exchange infrastructure, etc.) ). The main reasons are the tight regulation of the market, a large number of intermediaries, high costs of issuing and placing financial instruments. So, for example, to work with classic stock market instruments, the status of a qualified investor is required, it is necessary to comply with the regulatory requirements for the turnover of financial instruments, take into account the peculiarities of concluding transactions in the stock markets, take into account the peculiarities of the structure of transactions with foreign elements, etc. These problems can be seen in many international markets.
The transformation and “digitalization” of business leads to the need to “release” a new type of assets, and with the development of distributed ledger technology (blockchain technologies), as a solution to these problems, a new class of assets appears — crypto assets, as well as financial instruments — “cryptocurrency derivatives”, such like futures, contracts for difference (CFD), i.e. settlement futures transactions, options.
Cryptocurrency futures are standardized contracts that are traded on crypto exchanges with the intention of selling or buying an underlying asset (cryptocurrency) in the future for a specified price. Generally, futures are based on the spot (current) price and the difference between the current and future contracted price is the buyer’s profit or loss. A futures contract can be based on any asset, and it does not matter whether it is real or does not have any material characteristics but is simply a certain quantitative indicator, such as a percentage or an index.
Another example of a cryptocurrency derivative is the ZrCoin crypto token — a derivative financial instrument based on the real industrial production of synthetic zirconium dioxide, using “green” technologies. By purchasing ZrCoin tokens, investors finance the construction of a new production facility. Synth synthetic zirconium dioxide acts as a base active. Thus, the ZrCoin derivative is an option contract for the sale of zirconium dioxide in the form of an intangible asset ZrCoin, which includes an option (put option) to repurchase the zirconium dioxide at a specified time at an agreed price.
At the moment, it is known about several exchanges that have admitted to trading settlement derivative financial instruments, the underlying asset of which is bitcoin. For example, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has allowed bitcoin-based futures to trade, the Cantor Exchange will offer bitcoin-based binary options to traders. A similar product is offered by the Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE).
Cboe Options Exchange — Chicago Board Options Exchange. The financial instrument is launched with the aim of reducing the risks associated with working on crypto-exchanges. At the same time, there are examples of exchanges that have issued derivatives since 2014, the underlying asset of which is bitcoin, — TeraExchange and North American Derivatives Exchange (NADEX) (available only to qualified investors, trading takes place on the CME Group and Cboe Options Exchange).
At the same time, in many countries of the world, the turnover of cryptocurrency derivatives is not regulated by legislation, but the market demand for this is high. Due to public law and systemic risks, buying and selling altcoins for fiat money is highly risky, so the liquidity of altcoins is mainly provided by the possibility of withdrawing funds back to bitcoins. In this regard, as the altcoin market grows, the speculative bitcoin market will be transformed into a market for rights of claims and exchange obligations. Accordingly, regulation should be aimed at the legal regulation of the rights of claims, the object of which is cryptocurrency and tokens.
Bitcoin is currently the underlying asset providing value to alternative virtual currencies and derivative products. In this regard, it is a fair point of view that bitcoin is not a means of payment and exchange, but rather a measure of value. Given the use of smart contracts in this area, we note that a smart contract is not a new type of civil law contract, but in fact, a derivative, where the underlying asset is bitcoin, and the derivative part is determined by the market value of the token. So, the turnover of tokens is the turnover of financial derivatives.
In addition, some tokens with a high degree of probability can be recognized as derivatives if the price of tokens sold as part of the ICO is tied to financial products or is determined by market indicators at a certain time interval or events that should occur in the future.
In this regard, it is necessary to pay attention to the exchange regulation of the circulation of claims for a new class of assets and to revise the legal provisions on financial derivatives, as well as on corporate governance (within the framework of such quasi-corporate procedures, tokens appear), project financing and partnerships.
The development of the derivatives market was the result of active innovation in the financial market, which was associated with the expansion of investment of fictitious (financial) capital that does not function directly in the production process and is not loan capital. The immediate reason for the emergence of derivatives was the increased mobility of the rates of traditional securities, foreign currencies, and interest rates on borrowed funds. The emergence of derivatives was due to the need for economic entities to manage risks by creating mechanisms for hedging the risk of possible changes in prices for underlying exchange-traded assets and thus reducing their own financial risks.
In April 2004, the EU adopted the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID, Directive 2004/39/EC) aimed at strengthening the legal framework for the regulation of investment services and financial markets and establishing fundamental principles for regulating the market for financial instruments, including general requirements for admission of derivatives to trading — the instrument must allow an adequate assessment of its value, and the derivatives agreement must contain an effective means of resolving disputes.
As a result of the 2008 global economic crisis, financial sector reforms were implemented, which tightened the requirements for transactions in the financial sector. In August 2012, Regulation 648/2012/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council came into force on OTC derivatives, central counterparties, and trade repositories.
In addition, the adoption of the new Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on Markets in Financial Instruments (Directive 2014/65/EU) was a key stage in the reform.
One of the significant innovations was the requirement for the mandatory conclusion of a part of transactions with derivatives on regulated platforms, as well as the establishment of control by the competent authorities of the Member States, which have the right to impose administrative or criminal sanctions for violation of the relevant provisions of the Regulation or Directive, over the fulfillment of a trading obligation. Thus, a trading obligation was provided for transactions with derivatives, i.e. norms on the conclusion of contracts on one of the types of regulated sites (among such sites, regulated markets, multilateral and organized trading sites, as well as similar platforms registered in third countries were distinguished). In addition, information on all transactions in OTC derivatives carried out in Europe must be provided to trading depositories and will be made available to regulatory authorities, including the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), in order to control derivatives turnover, and transactions in standard derivatives contracts must be made through an approved central counterparty.
In January 2018, the EU completed a major reform that brought into force two new, closely interrelated legal acts — the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) and the Markets Regulation financial instruments “(Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation — MiFIR). Western doctrine directly qualifies these legal acts as the “backbone of financial regulation”.
In accordance with Art. 2 of the Regulation on Markets in Financial Instruments “derivative financial instruments” means financial instruments as defined by Directive 2014/65 / EU, while the Directive uses a broad concept of a financial instrument, covering not only securities but also derivatives, as well as some other assets … According to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, the attributes of a derivative are:
the corresponding type of contract (option, futures, swap, etc.);
the presence of one of the underlying assets covered by MiFID II;
settlement terms typical for financial derivatives (as a rule, financial derivatives are settlement ones, but under certain conditions, deliverable derivatives can be attributed to them).
Commodity financial derivatives can be deliverable, but they need to be traded in organized trading to qualify as financial instruments. At the same time, MiFID II and Delegated Regulation 2017/565 does not include services, currency, rights to real estate, intangible assets. Derivatives with these underlying assets are not financial and are not subject to MiFID II regulation. Accordingly, derivatives with underlying crypto-assets do not fall under the definition of financial instruments unless those crypto-assets themselves qualify as financial instruments.
Thus, products of online platforms selling digital currencies that are of interest to European regulators, such as binary options and contracts for differences (CFDs), are speculative contracts that do not have the main purpose of acquiring or disposing of cryptocurrencies, under which mutual requirements of the parties are determined by fluctuations in the exchange rate of the cryptocurrency, which is the underlying asset, where the main source is a cryptocurrency, and investors can bet on the result without owning the cryptocurrency itself, can be considered as derivative financial instruments.
Due to the fact that cryptocurrencies as an underlying asset pose a particular danger to investors, since the market is in the process of formation, and the volatility of the exchange rate is too high, the European regulator, in order to protect the rights of investors, has established special requirements for the ratio of equity and borrowed funds when making transactions with cryptocurrency derivatives.
In France, the Autorite des marches financiers (AMF) is also committed to the position that financial products based on cryptocurrencies must be regulated as derivatives and that the circulation of cryptocurrency derivatives must comply with the European Union Markets in Financial Instruments Directive. Platforms offering such products must comply with authorization rules, as well as comply with requirements to prohibit advertising through electronic media. Despite the fact that cryptocurrency derivatives are not included in the MiFID list, the French regulator adheres to the position that “a cash settlement cryptocurrency contract can qualify as derivatives, regardless of the legal qualification of the cryptocurrency.” So, online exchanges offering cryptocurrency derivatives must comply with the MiFID directive and operate within the framework of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). In addition, such cryptocurrencies also fall under the jurisdiction of the French anti-corruption law.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom considers the following cryptocurrency derivatives as falling under the definition of a financial instrument: futures, which are characterized as transactions with deferred execution, but at the price specified in the contract, and not current at the time of execution; contracts for difference (CFDs), i.e. settlement urgent transactions; options.
Crypto market participants are responsible for the lack of a license, so they must conduct an analysis of their activities for trading in derivatives. FCA points out that many trading platforms offer a special product — transactions with cryptocurrencies for difference (CFDs), which can become an object of circulation. FCA notes that transactions are structured in such a way that they can not only entail a complete loss of funds invested in cryptocurrency but also make the consumer a debtor to the company with which the CFD is concluded. In this regard, FCA indicates that trading in these instruments is subject to the requirements provided for by the legislation on the securities market, namely, entities offering CFDs must be licensed to conduct these activities. Consumers have the right to file a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service and are entitled to claim compensation under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. In the case of trading in another jurisdiction, individual complaints should be directed to the services of the respective jurisdiction. In order to protect the rights of investors, the FCA has established requirements for persons offering cryptocurrency derivatives.
The Hong Kong regulator also acknowledged the possibility of trading bitcoin-based futures, pointing out that although the cryptocurrency is not a security and its circulation is not regulated by the rules on the securities market, futures of any kind are subject to securities market legislation (Securities and Futures Ordinance ). In this regard, this activity is subject to licensing. At the same time, the relevant requirements are of an extraterritorial nature — they apply to anyone who publicly offers such services to an indefinite number of persons in Hong Kong, in particular to cryptocurrency exchanges.
Thus, derivatives, the underlying asset of which is cryptocurrencies, can be qualified as financial instruments from the point of view of the European Union Markets in Financial Instruments Directive. As such, online exchanges offering cryptocurrency derivatives must comply with the MiFID directive and operate within the framework of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). Concluding transactions with derivatives, organizing their trading, consulting and other services may be recognized as activities in the securities market, and therefore may require a license.
Regulators are drawing investors’ attention to the high-risk nature of financial products such as binary options and contracts for difference (CFDs). Despite the fact that these instruments are a way of hedging risks associated with the high volatility of cryptocurrencies, as a rule, CFDs are offered on rather unfavorable terms. In this regard, regulators are taking measures to protect the rights of investors (requirements for securing contracts, experience with such instruments, and other requirements).
In the Russian science of business law, derivatives are considered in two aspects: in the narrow sense, derivatives are fixed-term contracts with special conditions for their conclusion and execution. In a broad sense, derivatives are any market instruments based on primary income assets, such as goods, money, property, securities. They are used to obtain the highest income at a given level of risk or to obtain a given income at a minimum risk, reduce taxation, and to achieve other similar goals put forward by market participants. In the latter case, the class of derivatives includes not only forward contracts but also any other new market instruments such as secondary securities in their potentially infinite variety, combinations of securities with forwarding contracts, etc.
Taking into account the presence of such high-risk instruments on the Russian markets, regardless of the legal status of the cryptocurrency, financial instruments using bitcoin, since such instruments fully comply with the characteristics of derivatives, should be considered as derivatives with special legislation applied to them, and measures must be protecting the rights of investors, including the establishment of requirements for the availability of financial guarantees for transactions with cryptocurrency derivatives. These measures will also increase the investment attractiveness, and hence the demand for the underlying asset and its price. This means that the global demand for bitcoin and market liquidity will increase significantly. Given the limited resource and the predictable emission of digital gold, these factors should significantly increase the price and at the same time reduce its volatility.
We believe that the conclusion of transactions with cryptocurrency derivatives, the organization of their trades, consulting, and other services should be recognized as activities in the securities market, and therefore subject to licensing. Given the actual position of cryptocurrency in international markets, if the Russian regulator recognizes it as an independent underlying asset for financial instruments, this will give an impetus for the development of structured financial instruments based on bitcoin. On the other hand, it should be taken into account that the use of derivatives for speculative purposes leads to the transformation of the derivatives market into a high-risk one. Thus, historical experience has shown that an additional factor of destabilization of the urgent, and ultimately the entire financial market is the use of high-risk instruments as a basic asset, which include cryptocurrency (bitcoin).
However, derivatives are used not only for speculative purposes. It should be noted that the most important function of the derivatives market is the function of informing all participants in economic relations about prices in the market. As R. Kolb notes, the conclusion of transactions in financial derivatives leads to the establishment of prices that can be monitored and valued by the entire society, and this provides information to market observers about the real value of certain assets, as well as the direction of future economic development.
In this regard, given the emergence of new instruments, financial markets require expertise aimed at minimizing risks, which, first of all, should create incentives for the introduction and development of innovative institutions, as well as guarantee the protection of the rights of consumers and private investors. | https://medium.com/the-capital/legal-regulation-problems-of-cryptocurrency-derivatives-d5b7545c970c | [] | 2020-12-23 02:27:17.677000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Blockchain', 'Regulation', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Derivatives'] |
HelloGold Foundation Update #29–21st February 2020 | Highlights
AUM growth continues from 45.1kg to 47.3kg from November 2019 to January 2020
HelloGold Chinese New Year 2020 Campaigns
Multiple SmartSaver goals coming to completion for all HelloGold Savers
AUM and Marketing
The start of the year is looking up for HelloGold. The steady growth trend of AUM indicates that we’re on a positive track. Total AUM increased by 4.89% over November 2019 to January 2020. The growth may be slow due to new year celebrations. With various marketing campaigns currently running and numerous others in the pipeline, we are on the right path toward acquiring our target goals for the year.
Business
Golden ProspeRATy Rebate
To support the spirit of saving before the celebration of Chinese New Year, HelloGold ran a campaign from the 6th of January to the 26th of January. In efforts to drive savings and customer acquisition, HelloGold offered a 6-month rebate on buy fees for every SmartSaver purchase during that 6-month period. This promotion saw a total of over 1,900 users over the 3 week period.
Boost x HelloGold: Incredouble Savings
HelloGold ran a collaboration campaign with Boost from the 15th of January to the 14th of March. Users who save a minimum of RM200 in gold with Boost in a single transaction into their HelloGold PRO account are eligible to earn RM10 cashback. Additionally, users who hold a minimum of RM200 of gold in their HelloGold PRO account for at least 30 days after their date of purchase are eligible to receive an extra RM10 in gold.
Rakuten Trade x HelloGold Campaign
To commemorate the year of the rat, HelloGold and Rakuten Trade collaborated to bring a seamless wealth experience that combines gold and trading under one umbrella.
Rakuten Trade is Malaysia’s first online equities broker, offering innovative digital investment opportunities to investors who are keen to trade on Bursa Malaysia. This campaign offers users who own gold the opportunity to also buy shares on Bursa Malaysia — all without the expensive brokerage fees and lengthy sign-up processes. As of 31st January, Rakuten has received close to 1,000 new account registrations and is expecting more to come in the next coming weeks. Sign up with Rakuten Trade today and get up to RM 60 in gold before the promotion ends on the 31st of March 2020.
Where Savings meets Investments.
Technical
Multiple SmartSaver
HelloGold’s outstanding SmartSaver feature just got better! Introducing the new multiple SmartSaver feature — now users can save for more than just one goal. This feature will enable gold savers to set up multiple SmartSaver goals for themselves and their loved ones with one account. Multiple SmartSaver goals offer users a hassle-free option to save for all their various goals in one app.
Our tech and product teams have been working extensively in developing this feature to ensure an easy-to-use user experience. This feature will be useful for parents who are planning to start saving for their children’s future. Additionally users can also save for their elderly parents in times of need.
Multiple SmartSaver is set to launch earlier this March, driving a better future, the smart way.
Web App Integration
Exciting times for gold savers as we roll out our web app. Users will soon witness HelloGold’s visibility on numerous platforms, enabling a simpler gold purchase through our integration with various e-wallet providers. This integration will allow users to acquire gold through their e-wallet of choice without compromising the simplicity and reliance of gold purchases available on the HelloGold app.
This will solve the tedious KYC process within the app, which has resulted in numerous drop offs between the stages of “Email Entered” and “KYC Tier 1” as identified by the team over the past year. Alternatively user’s KYC will be completed from the e-wallet provider, therefore addressing the user drop off challenge, as well as enhancing user experience.
HelloGold’s web app will drive more integration with potential partners as it allows them to merge into our technology seamlessly.
GOLDX distribution
HGF distributed rewards to HGT holders on 13th February 2020. The total rewards allocation was 8.135 GOLDX. HGF also distributed rewards on 13th of January to HGT holders, for a total of 8.131 GOLDX.
Please remember to keep HGT in your wallet and not on any exchanges to receive the GOLDX.
We will continue to provide updates every month. Please do get in touch with us in between updates if you have any thoughts, suggestions or recommendations.
Sign up to our Monthly Update mailing list to get every new issue delivered straight to your email!
The HelloGold Foundation Team | https://medium.com/@shafii.amirah/hellogold-foundation-update-29-21st-february-2020-bf347d7f400f | ['Amirah Shafii'] | 2020-02-20 08:18:12.140000+00:00 | ['Malaysia', 'Fintech', 'Gold', 'Ethereum', 'Blockchain'] |
Just Get Over Me | If I fight to keep my soul,
and the ashes of war keep smoldering
under a pile of fallen friends and foes,
of dreams forsaken and lives abandoned,
of a kneeling generation
fooled into submission
by throwing unending candy onto the floor —
petty prizes to be bought
dreams refurbished and resold
cheating them away from a priceless view
of holding heads up high and see
the world is all around and not beneath their feet —
not every buyable dope’s a treat;
like an old dog’s tail,
what good would it be to stand
when all the body juice goes bland
and the eyes go blind —
can’t catch the smell of a friend no more.
If I fight to keep my soul,
fight with me
or just get over me.
If I fight to keep my soul,
when the world drowns in smithereens
of our own making —
commodities like a giant black hole
we thought we could swallow;
no reach no aim for tomorrow
just the instant joy of buying
a dream after a dream and slaying
the dream that can only be built —
the false ecstasy of bought love
dries too soon for there is no love,
and all the people say to me
I have to stop the madness
blend in and mix
and lose my color to the masses —
like a giant lollipop so bright and colorful
yet nothing’s real and not artificial;
forgive my recoiling from a world so steep
I may fall at any moment
the abyss is too deep
the temptation’s a mountain
turned all the way upside down —
forgive my being on guard at all times;
too much is at stake, I can’t lose all.
If I fight to keep my soul,
please fight with me
or just get over me. | https://medium.com/poets-unlimited/just-get-over-me-c49a0c09a138 | ['Danny Ballan'] | 2017-03-21 15:29:56.775000+00:00 | ['Freedom', 'Chains', 'Poetry'] |
Submitting a story at ‘3 Minutes of Design’ | Submitting a story at ‘3 Minutes of Design’
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
If you are interested in becoming a writer at ‘3 Minutes of Design’, fill this form https://forms.gle/V98ze82zCtJYfofZ8. Here, we ask you to add a link of writeup you wish to feature with the publication.
Currently, we have given criteria for approval
The article should have a read time of 3 minutes or less as per Medium’s standard. Based on Medium’s blog, the reading time is calculated as roughly 275 words per minute. Also, for images, read time is estimated by taking 12 seconds for the first image, 11 for the second, and so on till 3 seconds for the tenth image. Any images after the tenth image are counted at three seconds.
Do not use clickbait titles. The title of the article should reflect the content inside it. In other words, the expectations of the reader from the title should be met in the content.
Be original. If it is opinion based writeup, keep it original to you. Avoid using generic viewpoints and common knowledge in the content.
Submit complete writeup. Don’t make readers read a part and follow a link to read the complete article
Approval might take around 48hours so be patient. In case the article is not approved within that timeframe, you can simply assume it is not the right fit for this publication.
That’s all. Keep writing. | https://medium.com/3-minutes-of-design/submitting-a-story-at-3-minutes-of-design-d4d67bfc53d3 | ['Vaibhav Gupta'] | 2020-12-09 18:50:46.448000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Submit', 'Publication', 'Writer', '3 Minutes Of Design'] |
Thinking Citizen Blog — US Supreme Court VI — Samuel Alito | Thinking Citizen Blog — Saturday is Justice, Freedom, Law, and Values Day
Today’s Topic — US Supreme Court VI — Samuel Alito — “practical originalist,” Roman Catholic, Italian-American
Associate Justice Alito was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005 and confirmed by the Senate in a 52 to 48 vote with 4 Democrats voting to confirm and 1 Republican opposed. He would be the fifth Catholic on the Court. He would also be the second Italian-American (after Antonin Scalia). His majority opinions in landmark cases were in support of gun rights (McDonald v City of Chicago, 2010), religious liberty (Burwell v Hobby Lobby stores, 2014), states rights (Murphy v National Collegiate Athletic Association. 2018), and the rights of non-union workers to be exempt from union fees (Janus v AFSCME, 2018). Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
BACKGROUND
1. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Alito was the son of an Italian immigrant, valedictorian of his public high school class, and a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton in 1972. He got his law degree from Yale in 1972.
2. As an assistant Solicitor General from 1981–5, Alito argued 12 cases before the Supreme Court and lost only 2. A remarkable record.
3. He served on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1990 to 2006.
STATES RIGHTS: Murphy v National Collegiate Athletic Association (2018)
1. In a 7 to 2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal law banning sports betting nationwide was a violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. Alito wrote the majority opinion, arguing that the Federal government had “commandeered” the states and the Supremacy Clause did not apply.
2. This decision could have implications for such issues as gun ownership, immigration enforcement, and marijuana laws.
3. The Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
RIGHTS OF NON-UNION WORKERS: Janus v AFSCME (2018)
1. In a 5 to 4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that in the public sector the charging of union fees to non-union members was a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.
2. This decision overturned the 1977 ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.
3. Alito was joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Gorsuch. Dissenters: Kagan, Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor,
ABORTION RIGHTS AND SPOUSAL NOTIFICATION, GUN RIGHTS AND THE COMMERCE CLAUSE
1. Abortion: while on the Third Circuit argued in favor of a spousal notification requirement in abortion cases. (Planned Parenthood v Casey, 1991)
2. Gun rights: in his dissent in US v Rybar (1996) argued that a law banning private citizens from owning submachine guns was similar to one struck down by the Supreme Court in US v Lopez and thus outside the authority of Congress under the Commerce Clause.
COVID AND CIVIL LIBERTIES — November 2020 speech to the Federalist Society
1. “We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020,”
2. “He was particularly aggrieved that the governor in Nevada limited church attendance while allowing casinos to reopen at 50 percent capacity and called for visitors to return to the state. The 51st person in line for a church service was out of luck, Alito said: “Forget about worship, and head for the slot machine or maybe a Cirque du Soleil show.”
3. “And while he said he wasn’t being critical, he said the restrictions on public gatherings and worship services highlighted “trends that were already present before the virus struck,” which he identified as a “dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat” rather than by legislators.”
Samuel Alito
McDonald v. City of Chicago
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association
Janus v. AFSCME
Before Supreme Court, Alito Had Winning Record (Published 2005)
Justice Alito says pandemic has resulted in ‘unimaginable’ restrictions on individual liberty
Click here for the last three years of posts arranged by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to justice, freedom, the law or basic values. Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to justice, freedom, the law, or basic values. Or just some random justice-related fact that blew you away.
This is your chance to make some one’s day. Or to cement in your mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart. | https://medium.com/@john-muresianu/thinking-citizen-blog-us-supreme-court-vi-samuel-alito-2f79ab62b008 | ['John Muresianu'] | 2020-12-20 23:54:34.361000+00:00 | ['United States', 'Supreme Court', 'Justice', 'Thinking Citizen Blog'] |
How to Build a Text Gradient Effect in SwiftUI | While I was developing my most recent app I wanted to give the app name some style and decided to create a gradient effect in SwiftUI.
Here is what I did.
Screenshot captured by the author
Complete Code
Step One
I’m going to start off by creating a new View called ‘GradientText’. It’s going to take in two parameters. ‘text’ which will be a String type. And ‘gradient’ which will be of type LinearGradient.
I have defaulted LinearGradient to show that you don’t have to pass in the follows when calling this view.
Step Two
Within the body, I’m going to pass in ‘text’ into a Text object and sent any formatting/style that I want to apply to the font.
Then add an Overlay to the text. Within the overlay, I’m going to pass in ‘gradient’ and access ‘mask’. Here I will pass in the ’text’ parameter, along with any formatting/style that I assigned to the Text object above.
Step Three
Lastly within ContentView I call the GradientText view and pass in the text that I want to appear.
That’s it. | https://levelupprogramming.net/how-to-build-a-text-gradient-effect-in-swiftui-16821546d5d1 | ['David Norris'] | 2020-12-15 10:03:15.046000+00:00 | ['Swift', 'Swiftui', 'App Development', 'Apple', 'iOS App Development'] |
Very comprehensive Ms. | Very comprehensive Ms. Witt, but I cannot believe with your experience you did not mention the joys of jerking off with lube.
After edging, eventually I am so turned on that I want to cum. I lay on my back and cup my balls with my right hand. I use my thumb and forefinger to pull the skin of my cock down tight. I’m cut, but normally jerking off, the skin would roll up and down over the head.
Then lots of lube on my pleasure pole, so I won’t rub myself raw.
The orgasms are so intense and there is nothing to impede my cum, as it shoots much further using this method, often onto my face and sometime over my head onto the headboard or wall. I will sometimes use my fingers to push up under my balls towards my head to intensify the ejaculation.
With the lube I can keep stroking after my orgasm and it feels like I could cum again and I guess I have a few tiny little mini orgasms with no ejaculate.
This might go on for as long as a minute while I’m still high from the climax and is very pleasurable. But finally I come down from my peak and back to my senses and know I will not cum again that night. | https://medium.com/@sf-native/very-comprehensive-ms-d31df0975d5d | ['Norm Gilbert'] | 2020-04-26 23:12:06.792000+00:00 | ['Sex Work', 'Relationships', 'Sex', 'Men', 'Sexuality'] |
Shift Your Focus, Shift Your Life | Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash
It was Easter weekend, my senior year of college. Ready to get home, see family, friends and eat something other than my staple “Melted Cheese on a Plate,” I began my two-hour drive. About halfway, I saw a State Trooper. Phew, my cruise was set to six over the 65 MPH speed limit.
All clear.
The squad car pulled out in front of me and sped up to a non-law-abiding citizen. Thoughts raced in my mind. Oh gosh, this is going to be awesome. I’ve always wanted to see someone get pulled over. WHY, you ask? … I ask myself the same question. The next thing I knew, my foot became heavier on the pedal and I cruised past my set cruise control. Ramping up to 85 MPH in the same 65 MPH zone, the thrill of what I was about to see was getting me giddy. I was still behind the cop when things began to slow down… the cop backed off the car we were both chasing and my speedometer read, “79… 70… 63… 50… 45…” — on the Interstate.
Have you ever seen a cop pull someone over with yellow lights? I hadn’t either. Somehow it still did not process that I was the one getting pulled over until she turned her right blinker on and stuck her hand up out of her window for me to follow suit.
When she approached my Buick Skylark, she asked why I sped up when I clearly knew she was in front of me. I could not come up with an answer that made sense. Heck, it didn’t even make sense to me. She kindly educated me: squad cars have radar in the back as well. You’re welcome.
I thanked her for the new information as she asked for my license and proof of insurance. It was at that moment that I thought of all the times my dad told me to keep that silly little piece of paper in my glove compartment. Guess what I didn’t do? Yep, this joke was now completely on me.
I handed her the pile of insurance cards I did have — all expired by two years or more. She was not impressed as I laughed through the warranted embarrassment.
So, here are the lessons:
Listen to your dad when he constantly reminds you to keep your proof of insurance in your vehicle. Sorry, Dad. If you are going to try something like this, do it before a holiday weekend. This kind State Trooper let me off with a written warning since it was Easter weekend and I was an idiot. I mean, she didn’t say that last part but… that had to be what she thought as she walked to her car. Also, please just don’t try it. The real lesson. Focus on yourself, not the downfall of others. Why was I so adamant about seeing the person in front of me fail? Why wasn’t I more centered on myself doing the right thing, rather than enjoying the fault of someone else? Putting my focus on the car ahead of me caused me to misstep when I was on the right path initially.
Even when you aren’t aware that someone is watching you, do the right thing. I think we are all guilty of, at some point, concentrating on decisions others tend to make. If you focus on those decisions rather than your own, comparison can sneak its way into your life — and we’ve already established that comparison is the thief of joy (thanks, Teddy R.). Shift your focus in life to be on yourself and your purpose.
Only then can you enjoy the ride. | https://medium.com/@shelbkrom/shift-your-focus-shift-your-life-7be48933d4cd | [] | 2020-12-17 18:42:53.614000+00:00 | ['Comparison', 'Failure', 'Purpose', 'Law', 'Focus'] |
Diversity and Inclusion Is Not an Option | The How
Attracting and recruiting
As a job seeker, I came across many job descriptions which require an MBA. Access to such an elite and pricey type of degree can definitely be an advantage, but it doesn’t guarantee outstanding success in the role. Companies should widen their requirements to allow people who don’t have access to that kind of education to also be considered.
Nevertheless, if a postgraduate degree is an important requirement for the role, it’d be great to hire from HBCUs, HSIs, women’s colleges etc.. Another amazing long-term strategy could be funding scholarships for underrepresented populations, like Visa and some other companies did.
In addition, hiring diverse talent can also be a good selling point. Candidates (myself included) are more keen on joining companies that have a diverse workforce and publicly support antiracism.
Another important factor to consider during the hiring process is unconscious bias. Unconscious bias is a prejudice, generalization, or a stereotype in favor of or against a person or a group compared with another, usually in a way that’s considered to be unfair. As a result, it can hamper an organization’s attempt at achieving diversity.
The evidence of the extent to which unconscious bias impacts recruitment is overwhelming, in ways that can disadvantage people from ethnic minorities. When interviewing, a diverse selection panel will allow getting the bias out of the way and allow for fair opportunities.
Onboarding
Glassdoor found that a strong onboarding process can improve new hire retention by 82% and employee productivity by 70%.
Onboarding is more than just processes and paperwork and should go beyond the first day to about six months in the role. Onboarding is a pivotal moment for making employees feel included. This is why building an inclusive onboarding experience where employees feel like they can be their authentic selves from Day 1 is so important.
Raising awareness and educating about D&I is the most incremental step to ensure an inclusive culture. Their programs should cover key D&I elements, such as unconscious bias, addressing culturally sensitive issues, and working with diverse teams. Completing D&I training programs should be mandatory and enforced by the leadership.
Some companies, like Cisco, took this a step further to support antiracism with amazing initiatives, like offering a history-of-racism-in-America course and facilitating talks with executives about the inextricable link between capitalism and racism.
Obviously, employees must have a safe platform to speak up if they experience or come across some injustice, harassment, discrimination, racism, or offense.
Other best practices for onboarding are pairing the new hire with a mentor/ buddy from a different background and allowing easy access to an employee resource group.
Engagement
When Amy Cooper called the police on a black man bird watching in Central Park, she was immediately fired from her company. Enforcing zero tolerance on any racist behavior should obviously be the norm.
However, when it comes to talking about racism and discrimination with coworkers, it makes people feel awkward. A recent Instagram poll conducted by the networking group Black & HR found that 77% of respondents said their workplace hadn’t immediately addressed what had been happening in the Black community.
However, the only way to create a safe, comfortable, and engaging environment is if we step out of our comfort zone and address the issues the Black community (or any other minority) is facing, listening to their concerns and working together to build solutions to help thrive in the workplace.
Retention and promotion
In 2018, Google reported that Black and Latino employees left sooner and at a higher rate than their white counterparts. Other companies face the same issues. A 2017 report surveyed over 2,000 tech employees who left their jobs, and found many people of color felt they had unfairly been passed over for a promotion or faced stereotyping.
In response, the company took steps, including hiring retention case managers, to work with employees from underrepresented backgrounds.
Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula to build the right company culture. Only one thing is certain: Organizations need to take an employee-centric approach, challenging the assumptions about who’s ready to be promoted and assessing whether growth opportunities are being limited to any one dominant group.
Furthermore, companies need to set measurable targets and actively work on promoting people from underrepresented populations.
For example, when an organization seeks to grow an employee, the promotion criteria should go beyond business opportunities and quality of work. Advancing people should be based on the exceptional value the person is bringing, their diverse perspective, their ability to think differently, as well as on leadership’s willingness to engage and retain their diverse top talent.
Succession planning
A 2018 study showed that only 34% of the Fortune 500’s board seats are held by women and minorities, and from that pool, there are only four Black CEOs. What’s more is the same study also showed that boards more frequently will pull from a pool of existing minority board members instead of bringing in new directors.
To fix those numbers, firstly, companies must ask themselves what the criteria that define the leadership pipeline and high-potential employees are and whether that criteria is inclusive. Secondly, take companies must take it a step further and make efforts to tie a managerʼs performance to the advancement of underrepresented groups.
Finally, I recommend conducting a complete D&I audit of the existing organization-wide system to identify if/where/what groups are underrepresented.
Setting specific measurable objectives to advance underrepresented groups throughout the whole employee-career lifecycle and using appropriate technologies to enable this approach will help companies ensure they’re going in the right direction and will enable them to demonstrate their progress towards building an inclusive and fair environment. | https://medium.com/better-programming/diversity-and-inclusion-is-not-an-option-403682776e18 | ['Victoria Feldman'] | 2020-06-17 13:03:30.404000+00:00 | ['Justice', 'Diversity In Tech', 'BlackLivesMatter', 'Programming', 'Diversity And Inclusion'] |
Array Destructuring in JavaScript | [var1,var2,var3] = array
Let us Understand the use of array destructuring in ES6
In ES5 if the array elements were to be named with a variable instead of accessing them with their index we were supposed to initialize them with variable
Let us take an Example
var arr = [ "one" , "two" , "three" ] /* if we need to access the array elements with variables then we need to initialise them with variables */ var a = arr[0];
var b = arr[1];
var c = arr[2];
like this, we were supposed to access the array elements but with array destructuring, this can be skipped | https://medium.com/@ashwings/array-destructuring-in-javascript-7a14571a54ad | [] | 2020-12-17 06:15:32.641000+00:00 | ['Javascript Tips', 'JavaScript', 'Javascript Development', 'Programming Languages', 'Programming'] |
JPA Auto-Generated Values | @GeneratedValue annotation with @Id on any field specifies that values will be autogenerated for that field. AUTO is the default generation type and lets the persistence provider choose the generation strategy, most commonly used generation strategies are below:
IDENTITY:
Autoincrement on-demand, efficient due to database internal lightweight locking but does not work very well with hibernate due to “transactional write-behind” flushing strategy adopted by Hibernate.
SEQUENCE:
preallocate values to improve performance, supports well hibernates “transactional write-behind” flushing strategy.
TABLE (SEQUENCE):
One or multiple tables can be used to hold the identifier sequence counter. But it means trading write performance for database portability.
Lets dive into these strategies:
Identity Strategy is a very light efficient weight process and uses database internal lightweight locking.
@GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
The only drawback with this strategy is that we can know the value before insert statement which is not good for hibernate adopted transaction write-behind strategy in which transactional commit is delayed as long as possible. initially, writing is done only to the cache. The write to the backing store is postponed until the modified content is about to be replaced by another cache block.
SEQUENCE is a database object that generates incremental integers on each successive request. Sequences are more flexible because it is table free and can pre-allocate values to improve performance.
@Id
@GeneratedValue
(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE,generator = "book_generator")
@SequenceGenerator
(name="book_generator", sequenceName = "book_seq",
initialValue = 1,
allocationSize=50)
private Long id;
The above parameter will create a sequence which starts with 1 and incremented by 50. It means that it will do only one query for the next value of the sequence and it will be used for the next 50.
Table strategy uses one or multiple tables for generating values which mandate ACID, for synchronizing multiple concurrent id generation requests. This is made possible by using row-level locking which comes at a higher cost than IDENTITY or SEQUENCE generators.
@GeneratedValue(generator = "table", strategy=GenerationType.TABLE)
private Long id;
The GenerationType.TABLE gets only rarely used nowadays. It simulates a sequence by storing and updating its current value in a database table which requires the use of pessimistic locks which put all transactions into sequential order. This slows down your application | https://medium.com/@vvekpandey/jpa-auto-generated-values-be5bd7f90200 | ['Vivek Pandey'] | 2020-12-15 16:31:44.613000+00:00 | ['Hibernate', 'Jpa', 'Hibernate Jpa', 'Spring', 'Java'] |
Algorithms of Late-Capitalism Board Game: Workshop #1 | Workshop #1: Creating a play world for preferable futures
Date: 27 May 2021
In this workshop series participants came together in online sessions and helped co-design a game that promotes perspectives on technology that can serve as alternatives to the mainstream Silicon Valley model. Each workshop corresponds to a specific phase of the board game design process and will build on the knowledge generated by previous participants.
In the first workshop of the series, participants created the game’s play world, generated a fictionalized setting, and came up with player roles. Participants also reflected on specific problematic technological trends, and transformed them into critical play game mechanics and content.
Workshop Report
Summary
The workshop was conducted using Zoom and Miro. During the workshop 3 groups –of 4–5 members per each– came up with 3 elements of the fictional play world of the game. The playworld would allow us to imagine new digital future scenarios that also reflect on or respond to our current reality of algorithms of late-capitalism.
The goal of the workshop activities were to create:
The fictionalized setting The player roles And the player’s goals within the game
In other words: 1) where is the game set, 2) who ARE we as players, 3) and what we want to achieve within this play world as players. This is an important part of game development because it frames the play experience by creating a fictionalized playworld into which the players step when they start the game.
Activities
Group 1: Setting
Group 1 had to do ‘world building’ by creating a fictional setting in which the game takes place. The fictional setting had to be based on the content published on the algorithms of late-capitalism blog.
Points discussed:
Visual:
Alternative middle ages, where the first cult for sentient robots started.
Bright and developed scenery: half human, half robots makes a better world.
Context:
Alternative present, robots are part of our life.
Perfectly organized world.
Conflict:
Between religion, class, cultural groups amongst robots and cyborgs.
There is a perfectly organized world but people and other sentient machines want to be able to make their own decisions.
Values:
Creative thinking is valued since that’s the hardest task for robots.
Critical thinkers are a threat to the system so they are kept isolated.
Group 2: Player role
Group 2 had to come up with possible fictional player role(s). The player role is the character or persona through which a player can inhabit the imaginary world of the game.
Points discussed:
Back story:
Player is born as a Mediterranean human; from a small rock island at the Aegean Sea that neither Greece or Turkey claims; A UTOPIA.
Characteristics:
Then, through body enhancements; it becomes an infinite-life-cyborg. It wants to stay as a cyborg so it can be deathless. However, algorithms confuse the cyborg as an animal.
so it can be deathless. However, algorithms confuse the cyborg as an animal. Because algorithms think it is an animal; the cyborg convinces itself that it is an animal too, and does become an animal.
think it is an animal; the cyborg convinces itself that it is an animal too, and does become an animal. After becoming an animal, the evolution starts and it slooooowly evolves back into a human.
The cyborg doesn’t want to become an animal, because then it will need to evolve into a human from scratch and go through the whole process again; to be deathless. Therefore, it wants to be invisible to algorithms; so it can live forever.
Group 3: Game goal
Group 3 had to come up with possible goals within the play world. What future are players trying to reach in the game?
Points discussed:
Visibility:
Only ‘pretty’ people (as seen by the algorithm ) move up the corporate ladder. Be pretty for the algorithm and get a promotion.
) move up the corporate ladder. Be pretty for the algorithm and get a promotion. Choose the rules of the game you want to play (CuteCoin or TransBox).
You can make the black box transparent and get information on how the algorithm works.
and get information on how the algorithm works. You can keep it opaque and continue gathering CuteCoin in the hopes that your face is cute enough to be promoted.
Algorithms are opaque:
Algorithms are blackboxed, so we want transparency.
By deleting the black boxes we create transparency.
By accumulating algorithmic black boxes you gather CuteCoin which give your prettiness score.
You may gather tumor code by accident that lowers your score.
Multiple options: | https://medium.com/internet-teapot/algorithms-of-late-capitalism-board-game-workshop-1-d1966302a196 | ['Karla Zavala'] | 2021-08-08 11:48:18.592000+00:00 | ['Board Game Design', 'Workshop', 'Co Creation', 'Algorithmic Literacy', 'Board Game'] |
Boxing Day | It’s Not About Boxing
Boxing Day is a public holiday celebrated on December 26th in the UK, UK Overseas Territories, and in most countries of the Commonwealth. Most of the countries of the Commonwealth are former British colonies or territories, and celebrate Boxing Day. In some countries December 26th continues to be a public holiday but the name of the holiday was changed.
Boxing Day is celebrated in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Guyana and many other countries. A few countries changed the name of the holiday but continue to have a public holiday on December 26th. In South Africa, Boxing Day is called the Day of Goodwill.
It is believed that Boxing Day started in Europe during the Middle Ages when the wealthy gave gifts to the poor, needy, and to those in the service industries. It is interesting that the day the gifts were given was after Christmas Day.
As a child growing up in British Guiana I thought that Boxing Day was a day for the sport of boxing because every year on December 26th there were serious professional bouts. These events were very well publicized and the results splashed on the front pages of all the newspapers the next day.
Gifts to the poor are now given all through the year. Many charities have been established to help the poor and destitute. These charities are supported and survive on donations from citizens and governments.
Some charities provide traditional Christmas dinners for the poor, homeless and lonely before Christmas Day. Two charities which do this in Ottawa, Canada are the Ottawa Mission and The Shepherds of Good Hope.
Boxing Day has now become a huge shopping day. I have gone shopping on Boxing Day in the past, but no longer do so because bargains are available all year, and I really don’t like the huge crowds.
One of the bargains I got on a Boxing Day sale was an alarm clock radio. It was the only one on the shelf and there was no price on it. I asked the cashier to check the price for me and when she said it was $0.44, I bought it. That was at least fifteen years ago and it still works perfectly.
Boxing Day has become just another holiday, another day off work to do whatever we wish. The wonderful tradition of helping the poor, hungry, homeless and lonely is now carried on all year. | https://medium.com/@dem3000/boxing-day-c4a0d2a663d8 | ['Abinas Jagernauth'] | 2020-12-27 07:36:19.792000+00:00 | ['Poor', 'Poverty', 'Homeless', 'Boxing'] |
Vizio V-series 4K UHD TV review: Even entry-level TVs are good these days | Vizio V-series 4K UHD TV review: Even entry-level TVs are good these days Crystal Jan 15·5 min read
Vizio’s V-series smart TV (the $300, 50-inch model V505-H19 is reviewed here) is the second 50-inch TV I’ve evaluated recently, the other being the slightly cheaper ($280) Konka U50.
Both are infinitely superior to anything you could’ve found in this price range five years ago. That said, the Vizio provides a bit better processing, backlighting, overall image and experience. But it lacks the Konka’s handy Bluetooth connectivity.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best smart TVs, where you’ll find reviews of the competition’s offerings, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping for this type of product.Specs and designThe V505-H19 is a thin-bezel unit whose staid, but classy appearance belies its low price. The 50-inch-class panel delivers 10-bit color, a 60Hz refresh rate, and 3840 x 2160 (4K UHD) resolution. It has a full-array LED backlight, so it is not zone dimmable. That means it’s lit from behind with multiple lights, but the lights aren’t dimmed or shut off to decrease light bleed.
The V505-H19 is very light for a 50-inch TV at a mere 21.5 pounds. I had no issues slinging the TV around to put the feet on, sliding it around to reach the cable connections, and so on. That also means there will be little strain on the 200mm x 200mm VESA mount point, the mount, or your wall.
[ Further reading: Do you need a special HDMI cable for 4K and 8K TVs? ]Vizio knows that there’s lots of legacy equipment in this market segment, so the port selection includes composite video input and RCA analog audio input/output. There’s also optical digital (Toslink), coax for cable/satellite TV or an over-the-air antenna, as well as three HDMI 2.1 ports (2160p @ 60Hz, with one supporting ARC output). A USB port is on hand for playback from mass media (thumb drives, etc.).
Vizio Vizio likes to take care of customers with legacy equipment by providing composite video and RCA audio inputs
There’s no Bluetooth, but the Wi-Fi is dual-band 802.11n, which is easily fast enough for streaming most content. If it isn’t, there’s also an ethernet port.
Props to Vizio for including support for HDR10+ in addition to Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG. Not all TVs do that, and not just TVs at this price. The TV also handles DTS surround and Dolby Atmos, offers a low-latency game mode, and supports both Apple AirPlay 2 and Chromecast. The TV is also compliant with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri voice control.
Interface and remoteContent-wise, Vizio’s SmartCast Home is as complete as TV user interfaces come, with all the usual streaming providers, as well as curated free content. SmartCast is also easy to use, and can be controlled using the SmartCast app on your smartphone or tablet if you so desire. My only complaint, a distinctly minor one in this day and age, is that it’s completely reliant upon an internet connection and does not when if your broadband connection is down. You can still use the TV, but with limited functionality.
On the other hand, a repeat quick shoutout (I also noted this in the Vizio OLED review) to the company for fixing the Media Player app. It’s still a plain DOS-like file browser, but now it’s responsive, plays all the media I throw at it, and doesn’t crash.
Vizio The Vizio V505-H19’s remote is simple, if not always the easiest to use.
The remote is simple and easy to use, though I would’ve appreciated dedicated transport controls to make media playback a bit easier. Still, it fits in the hand nicely and is large enough to not disappear forever between the couch cushions. I don’t talk to TVs outside of testing, but the remote’s lack of a mic might bother some. Hey, what can I say? It’s entry-level, and you can use the SmartCast phone app for that purpose, as well as the other supported protocols (Siri, etc.).
PerformanceAs I said in the intro, the V505-H19 reminds me quite a bit of the 50-inch Konka U5-series I just reviewed. It’s a dead ringer as far as the slight blue color skew and backlighting are concerned; however, it suffers a bit less moiré, shimmer, and other artifacts when processing detailed areas in motion.
The V505-H19 offers a bit more color saturation, but because of the heavy blue content of the backlight/filter technology, reds skew slightly orange; greens, slightly lime. Very slightly, I should say. Many users might not even notice. Again, same as the Konka.
Also, forget the advertising about Dynamic Motion Rate 120. If you read the description carefully, nowhere does it say smooth action or no judder. There’s no motion compensation of any kind—same as with the Konka. That said, within its 60Hz/no compensation limits, it’s better than some I’ve seen. And scenes that produce the judder effect, fast pans and large items moving rapidly across screen, are relatively rare.
Vizio Vizio’s V505-H19 delivers a good picture for an entry-level TV. Please note that entry-level is vastly improved over the entry-level of just a few years ago.
While the V505-H19 supports the most popular HDR formats, it doesn’t really have the contrast to do a lot with them. Blacks are slightly better than with the Konka, but it’s still array backlighting with no local dimming. We’re talking charcoal gray more than black. Basically, it handles HDR, but doesn’t lend it the drama that technology can convey with higher-contrast—and more expensive—TVs.
When it comes to sound, the V505-H19 is okay for casual, occasional, listening, but I found it annoyingly muddy. If I were you, I’d hook up something more sonorous in short order. Note that after a firmware update, the sound disappeared and didn’t reappear until I switched to the free curated content. If you experience the same phenomenon, that’s the trick.
The omission of Bluetooth isn’t unexpected at this price point, as it was with the company’s far more expensive OLED, the absence of Bluetooth support does slightly aggravate the weak sound issue. If you want to listen privately on headphones, you’ll need to purchase a separate Bluetooth transmitter ($30 and up) or make other arrangements, although you can use your phone and the SmartCast app to listen using headphones. That’s not an ideal solution in my book.
ConclusionThe V505-H19 is an excellent entry-level TV with a slightly better overall image than the Konka I’ve been comparing it to. If you’re comparing it to higher-end 50-inchers, revise excellent to decent.
Still, entry-level is the not the painful, bereft-of-color viewing experience it was just a few short years ago. Indeed, the $300 V505-H19 compares favorably with $1,500 sets in our first roundup in 2015.
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/@crystal24542961/vizio-v-series-4k-uhd-tv-review-even-entry-level-tvs-are-good-these-days-f4b599cb2c29 | [] | 2021-01-15 17:43:28.422000+00:00 | ['Surveillance', 'Connected Home', 'Home Tech', 'Audio'] |
Project Update Cere Network | After a summer full of building, testing, and optimizing, we are ready for the next big phase for the Cere project! In this update, we will update you about the technology, the engineering process, the external developer program, a sneak peek into our NFT platform and the listing date!
With our mainnet launch scheduled for release in the coming weeks, we are grateful for the outpouring of support from our supporters and business partners. Our headcount at Cere has grown to over 60 employees worldwide to meet the demand for our Decentralized Data Cloud upon launch, which takes data ecosystems to a whole new level of privacy, compliance, interoperability, and agility.
Fred Jin, CEO Cere Network
Engineering
The 60 people strong Cere team has been working for over 3 years on the fundamental technology that is powering the ecosystem of Cere Network. In these years, we’ve overcome many challenges, pivoted our processes, and most importantly: kept building. Now, we are ready to release more and more pieces of our deeptech to the community and our external developers to showcase the intrinsic, real value of our ecosystem.
In the past months, our engineering team has been working on the architecture of the ecosystem and transition from our testnet to mainnet. Together with an exceptional batch of external developers (read the update in the next paragraph), we have been able to test, improve and stabilize the mainnet continuously.
Our enterprise Core & Integration team has been working on stabilizing the microservices framework, demo preparation, and use cases for the platform. In order to increase the usability of our network, a new version of Cere.io SaaS / RealTimeExperience builder was released, DDC computing resources and performances were improved and the new NFT smart contract for brands was established. All aimed at making enterprise adoption of blockchain technology right into your phone as seamless as possible. Make sure to read our last technical update to learn more about our vision.
External Developer Program
The external developer program has proven to be the perfect journey to learn more about the blockchain that is powering Cere and the Decentralized Data Cloud. Program participants experience first-hand what technical progress is being made, in what way this technology is used in real-world use cases, and how you can contribute to the growth as a participant via social bounties, technical bounties, grants, challenges, and more! The Cere team is releasing weekly incentivization campaigns to keep participants engaged to ensure they’re with the project for the long run.
The goal is to work towards creating a strong and knowledgeable group of people that will be the first to be able to work on certain needs within the Cere ecosystem. A couple of examples are building software components, running validators, external software/app integration development, and much more.
In order to test our alpha mainnet to the limit, we have been actively working on it with a small batch of trusted developers. The program is scaling at a hefty pace and the first goal is to onboard another 200 participants. We received loads of applications for the program, and we will be looking at onboarding more and more people in the long term. We have already increased the size of the new batches and will be actively working on other ways in order to scale as fast as possible.
In order to keep our participants motivated, we created a game-like tier system in which the developers can grow and earn more rewards. This way, developers get compensated for continuously contributing to our ecosystem, a win-win for everyone! We are currently working on an extensive update on the program which will be released soon. For more information about the developer program and how to join: make sure to check out the program update that was posted last week!
The NFT platform
By now, everyone is aware of the recent boom in the NFT world. Cyberpunks being sold for millions, rocks being sold for insane amounts, big artists committing to NFT’s, and the overall volume increasing viciously.
A year ago, while building the DDC ecosystem for Cere Network, it became obvious that the DDC is the most feasible solution for NFT exclusivity and collectability.
Our soon-to-be-released NFT standard will combine the strengths of 2 blockchain heavyweights, resulting in a proprietary destination platform, as well as a turnkey solution that covers the needs of every stakeholder in the NFT & entertainment industry.
We’re not spilling too much of the beans on the platform today, but we can assure you it will be an absolute gamechanger. Follow the Cere announcement channel and major news outlets for more information that’s coming out on this subject soon!
Token distribution
As excited we are about our technology and developments, we can imagine that the #1 question on top of the minds of our investors has been: Wen list? The Cere team has been working on this matter in the last couple of months and unfortunately had to delay our offering due to some external factors beyond our control. Now that we have cleared the ship and are approaching the launch of our new platform and tons of other cool stuff, the time has come to list our token!
Today, we are announcing that Cere Network will be listed on the 30th of September, 2021 over multiple exchanges.
With the listing event happening in just over 3 weeks, we are now in the perfect position to ramp up our marketing efforts. The upcoming weeks will be jam-packed with announcements in order to make our long-awaited launch as successful as possible. In order to engage with our amazing community towards the listing, we will be hosting multiple social incentive campaigns and supercharge the community sentiment to make sure all the stars are aligned for our launch. For all of our community members who have been eagerly awaiting our launch: this is your moment to step up! Spread the word about Cere, join our incentivized campaigns, and join us on this exciting journey towards our launch, with much more on the agenda!
We are very excited to start the next chapter of our journey which started back in 2018. Thanks to the help of our community, partners, investors, external developers, and of course our hard-working team, we created one of the most exciting and awaited crypto projects of 2021. We would like to take this moment to thank all the people who have been part of our journey so far, get ready to be amazed and we will see you soon!
❤,
Team Cere | https://medium.com/@cere-network/project-update-cere-network-a3744aea0458 | ['Cere Network'] | 2021-09-07 12:30:07.414000+00:00 | ['Project Updates', 'İdo', 'Listings', 'Cere Network'] |
Implement Search Feature on a Web Page in Plain JavaScript | This article describes how to search an array of JSON objects for given keywords and display the result on a web page.
We will search a list of books. Each book object contains a title, subtitle, author, category and publisher. We want to be able to search all the fields for a set of search terms and display the result on the web page.
We will start with displaying a list of books on the webpage.
The render() function takes an array of JSON objects as its parameter. It then maps over the array to create an HTML list of books and displays the list in <div id="app"></div>
List of books
Search Field
This will create a search field on the web page
Search field
Event listener
Add an event listener in the <script> block to listen to the “submit” event
<script>
...
var handleSearch = function(event) {
// to be implemented
} document.addEventListener('submit',handleSearch);
</script>
Implement the search
Let’s look at the code in detail
event.preventDefault() stops the page from reloading upon submission.
// Get the search terms from the input field
var searchTerm = event.target.elements['search'].value;
searchTerm holds the search string entered by the user in the search box.
// Tokenize the search terms and remove empty spaces
var tokens = searchTerm
.toLowerCase()
.split(' ')
.filter(function(token){
return token.trim() !== '';
});
We split the search string into individual tokens and remove any white space.
//Example
searchTerm = "Cracking the Coding Interview"
tokens = ["cracking","the","coding","interview"]
var searchTermRegex = new RegExp(tokens.join(‘|’), ‘gim’) creates a regular expression containing all the tokens
//Example
searchTermRegex = /cracking|the|coding|interview/gim
Following code creates a string of all the values in the book object and assign it to bookString variable.
// Create a string of all object values
var bookString = '';
for(var key in book) {
if(book.hasOwnProperty(key) && book[key] !== '') {
bookString += book[key].toString().toLowerCase().trim() + ' ';
}
} //Example
book = {
"title": "Cracking the coding interview",
"subtitle":"189 programming questions and solutions",
"author":"Gayle Laakmann McDowell",
"category":"Programming",
"publisher":"CareerCup, LLC"
} bookString = "cracking the coding interview 189 programming questions and solutions gayle laakmann mcdowell programming careercup, llc"
Next, we filter the books by returning objects that match searchTermRegex .
var filteredList = books.filter(function(book){ // ... Code to convert book object to a string ... // Return book objects where a match is found
return bookString.match(searchTermRegex);
}); // Render the search results
render(filteredList);
If any of the search terms are present in the bookString then we store that book object in the filteredList . We render the search result by calling the render() function and passing the filteredList to it.
Reset the list
We created a reset button with type="reset" . When this button is clicked, a “reset” event is triggered. We listen to the “reset” event and render the original list by calling the render() function and passing the original books array to it.
document.addEventListener('reset', function(event){
event.preventDefault();
render(books);
});
Summary
Following is the overall summary of steps in implementing the search feature:
Tokenize the search string Create a regular expression of the tokens Stringify the book objects Look for the search tokens in the stringified book objects and create a list of book objects for which a match was found. Render the search result
Link to the code | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/implement-search-feature-on-a-web-page-in-plain-javascript-adad27e48 | ['Amit Gupta'] | 2020-02-26 18:54:11.984000+00:00 | ['Search', 'Web Development', 'Json', 'JavaScript'] |
Everyday Battlestar | Public Domain image by Skitterphoto/Pixabay.
I am the weight
of god’s wraith
crushing down on
this random
small-person
A black dwarf star
The faux-leather
of the armrests
has cracked
and flaked
down to the
stitching; it no
longer will
adjust, it is
frozen
in a slump
like someone
who stumbled
while trying
to escape
Pompeii
and is
forever
frozen
in the
worst
moment
of
his
life
I am crushing
the struggle
out of him
The last
echoes
of memory,
scars
from
the assembly line
A never
ending
spiral
into
the
abyss
Raindrops
from the
angry clouds,
threatening from
their perch,
waiting
to storm
down on the land
like enemy
paratroopers
polluting
the skies
Caught
in the shiver
of the cold war
Capitalism’s fist
smashing up
every approaching
enemy
I crush every
last impulse
from the object
of my wraith,
then throw it
away
And I sit
here
eagerly typing,
inspired,
just going
about my day
French presses
and table wine
and herbal
remedies,
flushing out
the toxins
of living
with more,
better,
toxins
Inhaling
the nicotine
from the drag
of a mentholated
slave master, I
realize my error,
I am not using
these products,
these products
are using me | https://medium.com/literally-literary/everyday-battlestar-135276b42496 | ['Gabe Gott'] | 2017-01-03 02:33:48.441000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Office Chair', 'Literally Literary', 'Akron'] |
The Well Architected Framework | The Well Architected Framework, put together by AWS, is a model to help architects and engineers design and build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure, on any platform.
At Tigerspike, we pride ourselves on having the right people, resources and experience to design and build cutting edge technology for, and with, our customers, globally. The consultancy work that we do keeps us up to date with the latest operating, security, and architecture principles and best practices. However, without a framework, these principles and practices are always open for interpretation which makes room for flaws.
Since then, we’ve become an AWS Well Architected partner. This means: our architects always follow the Framework’s principles and understand the pros and cons of their decisions; and they’re capable of helping customers evaluate their workloads, identify areas of improvements, and prioritise remediations if any.
The Well Architected Framework describes key concepts, design principles, and architectural best practices in five pillars: Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency and Cost Optimisation. While these are explained in detail in the Framework’s documentation, we, as an AWS Well Architected partner, can add value by reviewing and evaluating workloads through a set of questions designed to address all topics in these pillars. And with the answers, we measure how well aligned is the infrastructure with the current best practices and provide guidance for improvements.
These Well Architected Reviews can cover all pillars or focus on one or two; and they can be done once or regularly throughout the workloads lifecycle - which is recommended as best practices and workloads evolve.
What are the five pillars?
Operational Excellence
Focusing on running and monitoring systems to deliver business value, and continually improving processes and procedures. Key topics include automating changes, responding to events, and defining standards to manage daily operations.
Focusing on running and monitoring systems to deliver business value, and continually improving processes and procedures. Key topics include automating changes, responding to events, and defining standards to manage daily operations. Security
Focusing on protecting information and systems. Key topics include confidentiality and integrity of data, identifying and managing who can do what with privilege management, protecting systems, and establishing controls to detect security events.
Focusing on protecting information and systems. Key topics include confidentiality and integrity of data, identifying and managing who can do what with privilege management, protecting systems, and establishing controls to detect security events. Reliability
Focusing on ensuring a workload performs its intended function correctly and consistently when it’s expected to. A resilient workload quickly recovers from failures to meet business and customer demand. Key topics include distributed system design, recovery planning, and how to handle change.
Focusing on ensuring a workload performs its intended function correctly and consistently when it’s expected to. A resilient workload quickly recovers from failures to meet business and customer demand. Key topics include distributed system design, recovery planning, and how to handle change. Performance Efficiency
Focusing on using IT and computing resources efficiently. Key topics include selecting the right resource types and sizes based on workload requirements, monitoring performance, and making informed decisions to maintain efficiency as business needs evolve.
Focusing on using IT and computing resources efficiently. Key topics include selecting the right resource types and sizes based on workload requirements, monitoring performance, and making informed decisions to maintain efficiency as business needs evolve. Cost Optimisation
Focusing on avoiding unnecessary costs. Key topics include understanding and controlling where money is being spent, selecting the most appropriate and right number of resource types, analysing spend over time, and scaling to meet business needs without overspending.
Examples
Here are some findings from our last few reviews:
We helped a cost-conscious customer, who has built a reliable, operationally excellent and performance efficient workload, identify and prioritise 17 high risk items in the Security and Cost Optimisation pillars, and a couple of medium risk items in the rest of the pillars.
We helped a customer designing an application, with security as top priority, identify 11 high risk items in Security to focus on and address in the early stages of development.
We helped a customer, whose main requirement is the high availability of their applications, identify 5 high risk items in Reliability, 5 in Operational Excellence and 4 in Performance Efficiency that could all contribute to improving the availability and reliability of their applications.
Summary of a Well Architected Review output — usually followed by an Improvement Plan and Focus Items
You would be surprised how common the above scenarios are. These customers were focusing on certain requirements but overlooked a few aspects that contribute back to their requirements. Having another pair of eyes, especially an experienced one, was just what they needed. So, reach out to learn more about the Well Architected Framework and how Tigerspike can help you set up for success.
This post has also been published on Tigerspike’s website. | https://medium.com/@malsouli/the-well-architected-framework-d004f7bbf7ad | ['Moha Alsouli'] | 2020-11-27 02:41:03.171000+00:00 | ['DevOps', 'Cloud', 'AWS', 'Well Architected', 'Infrastructure'] |
From loneliness to loneliness: a photo series | I don’t know about you, but 2020 has been hard on me. I’m a Brazilian girl who has recently moved to The Netherlands all by herself. My daily interactions are scarce, and it has been hard to build relationships during the lockdown. In this process, I’m slowly finding comfort in my solitude. However, it is a tough journey and I thought that maybe there are other people going through the same struggle as I am.
That said, I decided to share a photo series on loneliness that I’ve been working on since 2019. This work helped me to remember that no matter where you are or who you are, loneliness is part of human existence.
I hope this brings you some peace. After all, there’s nothing better than observing loneliness drifting in space to make you feel less alone. | https://medium.com/@juliaxavier/from-loneliness-to-loneliness-a-photo-series-dccc19a6f72b | ['Julia Xavier'] | 2020-12-21 13:34:42.509000+00:00 | ['Corona', 'Lockdown', 'Photography', 'Loneliness', 'Solitude'] |
Everyday the Taker, One Day The Giver | If there’s anything praiseworthy about my mother (& they’re many), it’s that she very early on in my life, drilled the notion into me (and my siblings) that I shouldn’t lobby over people’s resources or else they’d get tired of me. I praise her to this day for helping me inculcate such a perspective. Honestly. I learned to borrow people’s resources & show them what’s in it for them, refusing to be a liability to anybody.
It makes sense to guard your mind against poverty-laden habits. It also makes sense to invest in social refinement, so that you won’t see your friends’ resources & begin to think they have more than you do. Condition your mind to see Earth’s vast resources. Show people what they stand to gain if they lend you their resources, even if they’re your friends.
Aren’t you tired of see finish (Nigerian creole for contempt as a result of too much familiarity)? Gather yourself. Get yourself together. You’ll need help. But make it easy for people to want to help you. Respect people’s privacy & resources.
Condition your mind to return your friend’s comb. Aha! 😏
Promise yourself that you’d get your own car with time. Let your friends see that you’re making genuine efforts to grow your own resource base and that you’re a giver too. When in the company of people who have liquid cash you seem to need, make sure you’ve got something intangible to give them: an idea, suggestion, optimized process flow, food . . . Something you can give genuinely, & not just for what you can get.
My friends & buddies know that I’m always ready to evaluate their business systems and spot clogs in their business structure. I do it unconsciously, and not just for what I can get. It is who I am — a giver. Now, I have friends I’ve given things that I never got back. These people are still in my life because they’re givers. At several points in time, we’ve taken from each other without returning. We didn’t give to ourselves transactionally but by virtue of our nature — givers. And over the years, we didn’t resent each other.
Why won’t I want to keep giving to such people? | https://medium.com/@captainumoru/everyday-the-taker-one-day-the-giver-b32e81c367b1 | ['Emmanuel Umoru'] | 2019-11-21 17:42:21.053000+00:00 | ['Economy', 'Life', 'Borrowing', 'Debt', 'Money'] |
Why I’m a Radical. | America may have failed me, but I won’t fail America.
We send children to schools so that they can become better workers. We ask them to salute a flag, no matter the sacrifice. They are to be loyal to this flag, to this land, because so many people died for it.
What did they die for? Did they die because they were fleeing persecution? Did they die because they couldn’t conform? Did they die because of their selfishness?
Instead of us learning to support one another out of kindness, we force each other into a never-ending game of monopoly.
My education failed me and my peers. That’s why many in my generation are considered “radical” by our parents. So many of us are waking up to see the American Dream being just that, a dream. Instead of adjusting to the times, instead of modernizing, we CHOOSE to keep playing a 400 year old game of monopoly.
I am angry with the constant apathy towards the condition of our country. “That’s the way it is,” is an unacceptable answer when there are people freezing to death on the streets of America, when children are going hungry because there is no financial benefit to feeding them. This obsession with the economy as a way to measure our well being is a cruel way to govern.
We can do better.
Our forefathers didn’t have the technology we have today. Why do we all have to work 40 plus hours a week and still be afraid of a hospital visit bankrupting us? Something is wrong. Until I see more change I will remain “radical.” We must do something about the vast inequalities in our society. If you don’t want socialism then you need to prove that capitalism will work for all inhabitants of this land.
We need to stop saying we don’t like politics. Politics is just another name for cooperation. As Aristotle said, we are a political animal. If you don’t participate, the country fails. This means discussing topics that make us uncomfortable. This means standing up for what we believe and facing the challenge.
We have to do better for our neighbors, our children, and ourselves. The future of our country depends on it. | https://medium.com/@fliqside/why-im-a-radical-a44c376e5d8d | ['Raymond Lemay'] | 2020-12-08 21:41:57.334000+00:00 | ['Future Of America', 'Socialism', 'Inequality', 'American Dream', 'Us Education System'] |
Basic Security Configurations on JBOSS EAP 7 | Nowadays security is the most important area and that has large scope. Among them application server security is playing major role, which definitely reduces the system vulnerabilities.
JBOSS is one of major Java EE-based application server runtime platform used for building, deploying, and hosting highly-transactional Java applications.
Most of the JBOSS configs can be done via the standalone.xml file, which is locates in {JBOSS_HOME}/standalone/configuration/ file path.
Configurations should be done inside subsystem under xmlns urn:jboss:domain:undertow:10.0. | https://medium.com/@gayanrupasinghe21/basic-security-configurations-on-jboss-eap-7-15496913f7a0 | ['Kavindu Gayan'] | 2020-11-26 15:02:02.551000+00:00 | ['Jboss Administration', 'Vulnerability', 'Jboss', 'Security'] |
The Weather Forecast | The Weather Forecast
As a matter of fact, we’ll be lucky if we experience that really harsh, cold weather that used to visit the Northern Hemisphere in winter time. That’s not walking weather, it’s looking out the window weather.
If you go outside in that type of atmosphere, you’ll immediately feel the hairs on your face rise up. It feels like icicles are forming at the end of your nose. And when you try and wipe it off, you punch yourself in the face with the big fat gloves you are wearing.
Even when you wrap up in Arctic clothing that you can buy in the shops these days, quilted jackets, guaranteed to withstand anything below minus 15 degrees Celsius, you’d feel the cold getting through the gaps at the wrists. Two mittens on elastic cords won’t protect you, either. You need thick Gortex gloves with gauntlet styling around the wrists.
You stand at the traffic lights because it’s red. When you try and push the button to make the red go to green, it’s so cold and you need to move, your hand is so numb you end up pushing all the buttons. So you jay-walk into chaos.
But I don’t think we’ll be having weather like that this year — not this time.
It’ll be a little chilly, and you’ll be getting your warm clothes out and putting the summer clothes at the back of the wardrobe. A few days later it’ll be so mild and sunny outside that you’ll drag the summer clothing out again and put the winter clothes at the back again.
The weather this winter will be confusing. A long time ago, people told us this would happen if we kept on doing what we’ve been doing; being superfast about everything we do, getting into a rush and a fuss with making clothes that we want to throw away as quickly as the new weekend comes around. Then buy more.
People told us that if we don’t slow down, take a look around ourselves and do something about all the machines, then we’ll be living in a cauldron by mid-twenty-first century.
Fire
Long ago, before TV, somebody discovered fire. It made everybody really happy because they could finally warm their behinds every so often while eating dinner — a warm dinner. That was a new idea. It gave people more time to chat after work, and gather around in the semi-darkness and wonder at this new discovery. Fire.
Fire really made us feel that we could finally control the elements. People started to wave their hand at freezing temperatures because if they wanted to go for a walk, they just took a burning torch with them and stayed out after dark.
Multi-Use Tool
Then people discovered that fire was a multi-use item that could solve a lot of problems.
Heat a slice of steel on a rod and poke your livestock in the butt with it, and everybody knows the animal belongs to you. It’ll have your special mark on it.
This allows you to keep enormous amounts of livestock, let them wander around the countryside and never end up in an argument with your neighbour about whose cow it is, anyway.
Then if you keep the furnace burning day and night you can make everybody work day and night — you make tons more money this way. Fire.
The weather won’t matter much because we’ve already learned how to carry fire. Go up to the mountains in freezing temperatures and carry a stove for cooking hot food, a hand warmer for each hand with coals burning inside, or you can buy an electrically heated hat to wear as you poke around on a dark mountain top with a powerful battery torch.
Take it Easy and Relax
Or just go and sit in a bar all night long drinking hot-chocolate and beer, you can do that because there’s fire to stoke the furnace that runs the electric mill.
I bet you, like me, are glad that somebody found fire way back in the old days. It means that we can develop useful things to help us survive. But we’ve advanced way beyond survival needs, and for decades we’ve been in the Play-Zone, the age of decadence and “What-can-I-Play-with-Next?”, era.
The weather will stay mild because we want to play. There are people who are still warning us to put our toys down and get busy with saving the planet — if we still can.
The weather will get choppy, like a rough sea. The water will begin to swirl differently, freak waves will rise up out of nowhere and boats full of people who wish they hadn’t set sail in the first place.
We can look at the skies and wonder at the changes, the rhythms of strange weather patterns, chat about it around the camp fire, but we really, really, need to take action on this one, now.
The weather forecast. | https://seanpatrickdurham.medium.com/the-weather-forecast-2c7c0ab01a1b | ['Sean P. Durham'] | 2020-10-31 21:56:11.874000+00:00 | ['Environment', 'Opinion', 'Weather', 'Climate Change', 'Life'] |
Warnock’s Israel Stance Remains an Issue | With less than a month until the Jan. 5 runoffs for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats, the degree of Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock’s support for Israel remains an issue in his race against interim Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. As Warnock asserts a pro-Israel stance, Loeffler argues that statements he made before becoming a candidate prove that he is anti-Israel.
On a Dec. 8 video conference call organized by the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Warnock said, “I am a staunch ally and supporter of Israel and I echo without reservation Dr. King’s perspective that Israel’s right to exist as a state and in security is incontestable.” Warnock is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. also served.
The videoconference with Warnock and Jon Ossoff, the Democrat challenging incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue, drew an audience of 2,000 and was moderated from Israel by Daniel Shapiro, the U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017.
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The next day, the Republican Jewish Coalition issued a statement to the AJT that called the Democratic event “an attack on the truth, and an affront to all Jewish voters in Georgia.”
Note: The RJC held a video-conference Dec. 2 with Loeffler and Perdue, but would not permit on-the-record coverage and turned down an AJT request for a recording afterward.
On the Democrats’ videoconference, Warnock said, “My opponents are trying to use Israel as yet another wedge issue in this campaign and I think that’s quite unfortunate. I wish I were surprised. I’m not. They are worried and they should be.”
Polls released in December have ranged from Warnock leading Loeffler by 5 percentage points, to Loeffler leading Warnock by 7 points. The same surveys have shown Ossoff and Perdue holding 2-point leads over each other. Republicans must win one of the races to maintain control of the Senate. Democratic victories in both would create a 50–50 division, with the vice president, projected to be Democrat Kamala Harris, holding the tie-breaking vote.
Much of Warnock’s time on the Dec. 8 videoconference was spent discussing Israel.
“I am a supporter and an advocate for the two-state solution. I see that as the viable way to a democratic Jewish state and I’m committed to that work and I think it deserves attention and focus and engagement,” Warnock said. “I come out of the Kingian tradition of nonviolent resistance and so I will always affirm the right of people to protest nonviolently, but at the same time I condemn BDS [the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement], its refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, and I support President [Barack] Obama’s memorandum of understanding.” That 2016 agreement provides Israel with $38 billion in U.S. military aid over a 10-year period. “Israel is an important ally for us, the most important ally for us in that part of the world. … Our aid and support of Israel is something that I would advance as a member of the Senate,” Warnock said.
Warnock has been targeted by Loeffler and her Jewish supporters for a letter that he signed following a February 2019 trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories with a delegation of African American and South African ministers organized by the National Council of Churches. The clergy said that they observed “the heavy militarization of the West Bank, reminiscent of the military occupation of Namibia by apartheid South Africa.”
On the Dec. 8 video call, Warnock said, “I do not believe Israel is an apartheid state, as some have suggested.”
In its response, the RJC stated, “Perhaps the most insulting exchange for the Jewish community came when Rev. Warnock claimed to not believe that Israel is an apartheid state, despite the fact that he signed a letter just last year stating the complete opposite.”
Warnock also addressed the May 2018 sermon in which he discussed a week that included dedication of the U.S. Embassy location in Jerusalem and clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians. In that sermon he said, “We saw the government of Israel shoot down unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey. And I don’t care who does it, it is wrong. It is wrong to shoot down God’s children like they don’t matter at all. And it’s no more anti-Semitic for me to say that than it is anti-white for me to say that Black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter.”
Warnock told listeners on the call, “I was speaking to the issue of activists and human rights and the ability of people to be heard. At the same time, I have an increasing recognition of Hamas and the danger that they pose to the Israeli people.”
Warnock said that he would engage with the “complicated situation” as “a principled and honest broker who affirms human rights and at the same time is trying to get us to a place where Israel can exist alongside its neighbors in peace.”
Loeffler released a television ad on Oct. 10 titled “Birds of Prey.” In an accompanying statement, she said, “Raphael Warnock is the most anti-Israel candidate anywhere in the country who supports cutting all military aid to our country’s strongest ally. This unfortunately follows a pattern in which he has called Israelis ‘birds of prey,’ compared Israel to an apartheid state, and celebrated notorious anti-Semite Jeremiah Wright. Unlike my opponent, I will always fight for Israel’s sovereignty and I will always stand fully behind America’s strongest friend and ally.”
Note: In 2008 and later, Warnock defended and sought to explain the April 2003 Palm Sunday sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago during which Rev. Wright used the words, “God damn America.” When a tape of Wright’s sermon emerged during the 2008 presidential campaign, the ensuing controversy prompted Barack and Michelle Obama to resign from the church.
In his remarks, Ossoff mentioned a digital advertisement, posted and withdrawn in July by the Perdue campaign, in which Ossoff’s nose appeared to have been lengthened. “Did David Perdue run an anti-Semitic attack ad in which he lengthened my nose? Yes, he did. Was it disgusting? Yes, it was. Has he apologized for it? No, he hasn’t,” Ossoff said. [Perdue’s campaign blamed the advertisement on a subcontractor subsequently fired.]
“So, he may be an anti-Semite but, worse, he’s corrupt,” Ossoff said. He repeated allegations that Perdue profited from stock transactions while playing down the COVID-19 pandemic. A Perdue television ad restates his campaign’s position that the Republican incumbent has been “exonerated totally” of any wrongdoing.
In its statement, the RJC said, “Recently, to everyone’s amazement, no one stood up to Ossoff or Warnock for campaigning with Rep. Hank Johnson, Ossoff’s former boss, who has called Israelis termites, or for Warnock’s previous defenses of anti-Semitic sermons from Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The entire event was a huge disservice to the entire Jewish community and Georgia’s Jewish voters can see through the untruthful campaign rhetoric of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.”
Note: Ossoff left Johnson’s Capitol Hill staff in 2012. In 2016, Johnson compared West Bank housing construction to “a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself.” His office later said that Johnson “did not intend to insult or speak derogatorily of Israelis or the Jewish people.” | https://medium.com/@daveschechter/warnocks-israel-stance-remains-an-issue-e68a6d3a1e8e | ['Dave Schechter'] | 2020-12-12 17:06:04.312000+00:00 | ['Georgia', 'Election 2020', 'Politics', 'Israel', 'Jewish'] |
Reflections on the Lessons of 2020 | Delivered (usually) on Fridays, B The Change Weekly delivers the most important and most relevant stories about people using business as a force for good. The newsletter features a weekly note from the B The Change team alongside insight and context on the stories we share here on Medium. Below is our latest roundup. To receive these insights directly in your inbox, sign up for B The Change Weekly today. Now on to the good stuff:
Throughout 2020, the Certified B Corporation community demonstrated the power of collaboration and innovation — drawing strength and support from each other while physically separated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As we wrap up a year that many would like to leave behind, we take with us the lessons and connections we’ve made as well as the disappointments and missteps. Together we head into 2021 with gratitude, resilience, and a renewed commitment in our interdependent work toward an economy that works for all.
PS — We’re taking a break to pause and refresh. Look for the next B The Change Weekly in 2021!
Meeting the Moments of 2020 with Resilience and Gratitude
In honoring all that B Corp leaders have been through in 2020 — working separately to keep businesses afloat, adjusting to shifting supply and demand, protecting frontline workers, and more — the recent B in Community gathering for B Corps in the U.S. and Canada offered the community a time to reflect and regroup before the calendar turns to 2021. Feel the love with this recap article that highlights how B Corps stepped up to meet this year’s challenges.
Recognizing the Bright Examples of Leadership This Year
A year of rapid change and shifting circumstances required business leaders to adapt — pivoting business models, restructuring office policies, providing anti-racism training — while supporting their stakeholders. B Lab U.S. & Canada recently recognized this year’s recipients of its annual community awards, which honor the people and companies that have gone above and beyond to make a positive difference.
Creating an Enduring Connection with Customers
The B Local PDX and B Lab U.S. & Canada communities have served as a shining light in a year of change for Anna Madill and the rest of the team at B Corp Avenue. On B The Change, Madill explains why the more than 3,600 B Corps around the world are living the brand promise of the future: staying accountable to their values, walking the talk through their actions, and committing to purpose-driven impact every day.
Stay in the Know
Here’s your chance to catch up on recent articles: | https://bthechange.com/reflections-on-the-lessons-of-2020-2b057b142a33 | ['B The Change'] | 2020-12-23 13:32:25.678000+00:00 | ['2020', 'Stakeholder Capitalism', 'B Corp', 'Business Strategy', 'Brand Strategy'] |
Letting go | Recently I experienced a situation that brought me peace. I was having a hard time accepting that my marriage was over. I was running after my ex-husband — who already have a new girlfriend — telling him how much I loved him and how much I wanted to get back with him.
The thing is deep down I wasn’t even sure I wanted all of that. I don’t want to get into details about our separation but believe me, going back with him would be hard to explain to my family, friends and to my self-love.
Every time I sent him a message or every time he wrote me, I felt like I was being dragged in mud. Although I believed I loved him, I was romanticizing our marriage. I was always left feeling sad, tired and dirty (literally) after talking to him.
After months without seeing each other, we agreed that we would meet up to talk, to have closure — actually I only wanted to see him to confess my love and to try to get back with him. On the day before our date, he told me that he wouldn’t be able to come because he would have the day off and had decided to go out of town with his new girl (in the BMW we bought together…).
The night he told me that we couldn’t meet up, I had dinner with a friend, and I explained my situation to her. She was very supportive, that’s what friends are for, and tried to tell me to let go of him and this need of having “the talk”. I explained my motives, and she understood, but still didn’t agreed with me. When we left, I’ve accompanied her to her car and on my way back home I felt like I was carrying a cross. I felt a weight on my shoulders, it’s was really hard to walk.
Once at home, I realized what was happening: I was putting myself in the position of the victim. I was scared of the future, holding on to a past that was not even so good to begin with.
Suddenly something clicked inside of me. I literally saw all of my bullshit, all of my lack of self-esteem trying to hold on to a person who is long gone from my life. I stopped romanticizing all those years together and started seeing the truth. In the past we had good and bad times, but in the present things are awful, we grew apart and honestly it is impossible to get back with him. It would be to setlle for mediocrity.
It’s scary to be divorced at 37. No kids. Living in a foreign country (I live in Spain, but I am from Brazil). I dated these past months since my separation but nothing serious. I realized that I was fooling myself, pretending that I was still in love with a person that treated me in a wrongful way just out of fear.
I realised that if I kept scared, running after my ex, it would be impossible to grow out of this situation and become a better person.
I understood why I felt dirty, why I felt dragged in mud when I talked to him, and why I was always so drained and sad afterwards. That cycle was closed. That door was locked. Not only for him but for me too. I was going against my being, trying to retrieve something I didn’t even knew I wanted, out of fear.
We spent 14 years together — actually today it’s the anniversary of the day we’ve met — and it was great. We had good and bad times together. It was beautiful. But it’s over. And it is important to accept and to let go.
I feel very lucky to realise that I wasn’t going nowhere in that path of trying to relive the past. I was running away from an amazing future and amazing possibilities that the universe is ready to offer me.
My message for you today is let these cycles close. Don’t be afraid of the future. Don’t insist on things that don’t make you feel good. Trust your instincts. You are strong. An ending it’s not always a bad thing, it is important to close cycles to let new things happen to you since you can’t move forward if you keep looking back. Imagine that your path it’s like one of those high securities labs we see in movies, that to arrive at the main computer you must past through securities doors, but the thing is: the door in front won’t open it if you don’t close the one that’s behind you. If you don’t close it you will be stuck in this room, without knowing what the door in front holds to you, and without being able to actually go back through that door in the back.
So, close those cycles. Say goodbye. Move on. I did it and it was — it is amazing!
Don’t linger into the past. Close the door behind you. The door in front is waiting to be opened with great things for you. | https://medium.com/@angelicaoliveira18/letting-go-9cb29b92a37e | ['Angélica Oliveira'] | 2021-01-01 18:09:51.038000+00:00 | ['Separation', 'Universe', 'Law Of Attraction', 'Self Love', 'Self Help'] |
Panasonic HomeHawk Window Camera review: Watch the world through your window | Panasonic HomeHawk Window Camera review: Watch the world through your window Andrea Jan 11·5 min read
Panasonic’s HomeHawk Window Camera mounts directly to the inside of your window, with its lens looking out on the exterior of your property and promising to solve a number of problems related to setting up an exterior home security camera.
With the camera safely inside your house, thieves and vandals are much less likely to steal or damage it to hide or destroy evidence of their activities. Having the camera inside your house makes it much easier to plug into an electrical outlet. And finally, having the camera inside your house increases the chance that it will establish a strong wireless connection to your Wi-Fi router.
This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best home security cameras, 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.How is this any different from just aiming your conventional home security camera out the window? That can be done, but in my experience, it doesn’t work very well. Because the camera wouldn’t be flush against the glass, its sensor could be tripped by reflections of it from inside your home. Window glare is another problem, and the quality of the image suffers from the distance and glass between the camera and the outdoors. The HomeHawk Window Camera has been engineered to deal with all of these factors.
Panasonic The HomeHawk Window Camera adheres directly to window glass on the inside of your home.
The camera’s flat, rectangular shape is a lot different from other indoor cameras, but it includes all the features we’ve come to expect from these security tools. It has a wide 150-degree viewing angle and captures video in 1080p resolution. It detects motion and supports person detection and custom detection areas. It even has color night vision, thanks to a proprietary, high-sensitivity CMOS sensor.
Panasonic includes detailed instructions for setting up and mounting the camera. The first step is to clean the window where you want to install the it, both to improve the camera suction and enable a clearer image through the glass. Next, you’ll need to insert a microSD card, which is not included. The camera records all video locally and Panasonic says a 32GB card, the max supported, will hold about 10 days’ worth of clips.
With the window and camera prepared, you need to plug the HomeHawk into an adjacent outlet and download and register an account in the HomeHawk mobile app. After you add the camera in the app, it will prompt you through a series of steps to connect to the camera via Bluetooth, and then connect the camera to your Wi-Fi.
The last step is to mount the camera—you remove the transparent film over the front of it, then place it on the window and, while pressing it firmly against the glass, pull up a “lock” lever to secure it. The process was seamless for me and took about 20 minutes from start to finish.
Michael Ansaldo/IDG The HomeHawk app is intuitive to get around and some features, like the detection setting modes, need to be more easily discoverable.
I ran into one of the limitations of a window camera during installation—you need to have a window that overlooks the area outside that you want to monitor. I wanted to use the camera to watch the driveway to our property, but the only portal I have with a view on it is the sliding glass door in the upstairs bedroom that faces our street. That means the camera had to face the street as well, so I had to place it so that it captured the driveway within that larger frame.
It was an imperfect solution; I could only see the very entrance to the driveway, so once someone crossed it they were out of the HomeHawk’s field of view. And with the camera trained mostly on the street itself, there was a constant parade of cars passing in front of it all day that I would have to deal with when I eventually figured out the motion-detection settings.
The HomeHawk’s image quality very good, much better than I expected to get through a double pane of glass. The color night vision is impressive, too, providing enough brightness to identify people’s faces and details like the color of their hair and clothes. There is noticeable fisheye distortion of the image, though. Hopefully, this will be addressed in future versions; there are wider-angle cameras that have a much less pronounced fisheye effect.
The HomeHawk app needs some work, though. When you open to the live-feed screen, it looks much like any other home security camera’s. Live video is displayed at the top, with buttons for taking a screenshot, manually recording video, and enabling motion tracking—which places a blue box around moving objects so they’re easier to follow—on a toolbar below it. The bottom half of the screen is where event clips are displayed, along with buttons that let you filter them by a different criteria, such as event-triggered recordings and those that have been recorded manually.
But navigating the app isn’t at all intuitive, as I found when I realized the camera wasn’t recording anything or pushing me any alerts. In the notification settings in the Setting menu I found a message that says “The ‘Motion Detection’ notifications can be changed from the mode settings,” but I couldn’t find anything labeled “mode settings” anywhere in the app. I eventually stumbled upon them when I tapped something labeled “Basic,” with no explanation of what it was, on the app’s home screen. It turns out this is where you select from one of three preset modes: Basic, which only captures live video and is the camera’s default; 24/7, which enables continuous recording; and Protection, which enables event recording and notifications. There’s also a Custom option where you can set your own parameters.
Once I enabled Protection mode, the camera started sending me motion alerts and automatically recording video triggered by movements. Unfortunately, it was recording and notifying me about every car that passed down my street. I assumed there would be a way to turn person detection on, and by extension, general motion detection off; but apparently, HomeHawk’s detection doesn’t work that way. Both types of detection are active at the same time. Again, some kind of documentation in the app would’ve helped here. Ultimately, I solved the problem by lowering the detection sensitivity and creating a detection zone around the driveway entrance by blocking out the rest of the frame in the app.
Panasonic The camera attaches firmly to windows with a suction mechanism.
Detection worked well once I sorted it all out. People were consistently identified apart from other types of motion, and alerts were timely and included a screenshot of the triggering event. You can play back video clips one at a time or in Rapid Playback mode, which time-lapses you through all the video clips in your timeline.
The HomeHawk Window Camera shows plenty of promise with its easy installation, excellent image, and accurate event detection. The HomeHawk app needs improvement, though, to bring the experience up to par with other home security cameras. Fortunately, that can be done relatively quickly through app updates, so it shouldn’t deter you if you’re looking for a way to monitor the area outside your home without the hassle of potential camera theft, complicated installations, and poor wireless signal strength. This camera has a lot of potential.
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/@andrea95265962/panasonic-homehawk-window-camera-review-watch-the-world-through-your-window-764e9648220c | [] | 2021-01-11 18:19:00.210000+00:00 | ['Music', 'Tvs', 'Chargers', 'Streaming'] |
Test! Test! Test! When can I sell my product? | So far, you’ve done everything right. You’ve identified an obvious unmet need in the market, and developed an awesome product that will satisfy that need. It has unique features, unlike any other product, so there’s virtually no competition. And you’re convinced that it’s priced to sell. Now you’re ready to take your product to market, right?
Wrong.
You need to know a lot more about your customer and their problems to be able to design the best product. We have found that the optimal way to find this out is to conduct a series of one-to-one interviews with potential customers. The preliminary interview allows the customer to express what problems they have without filters. Your job is to listen and not talk much, because you don’t want to influence the customer’s own description of their biggest challenges. With a sufficient number of these introductory interviews you will have more information on what the common problems customers are having, and how to design a product that appeals to the greatest number of people. You’re probably thinking that would be enough information to start selling your product, right?
Not yet.
There’s still more interviewing to be done. In the next round of meetings with your customers
You will be attempting to discover their primary pain points. Learn about what they currently use to solve their problems, and what they don’t like about those options. This is tremendously helpful in designing the details of your product.
In the third series of one-to-one interviews you present your product as a potential solution
to your customer’s problems. Your customer learns of the features of your product, and shares their feedback on the various options, including price points. Their answers will help you learn what value your customers put on your product, and if it’s a solution that meets their needs and interests them enough to buy it. Now your product is almost ready to launch.
Almost.
As a last test, you may want to target a very limited number of people with a soft launch. Early adopters and people you interviewed who are passionate about your product are given an exclusive opportunity to buy it pre-market. These are the people who are most likely to give you honest and intelligent feedback, allowing you one more chance to fix any remaining glitches before the full market launch.
Okay, now you can launch your product … but!
In reality you should never stop testing and learning about your market and product. You will be gathering plenty of data every step of your product’s life cycle that will not only help you perfect it, but will also be critical when planning upgrades, new versions, or even your next product.
If you have a product idea you would like to explore, NxtStep can help you turn that idea into a successful product business. Learn more by booking a free product strategy call or send us an email at [email protected]. To keep up with the latest news in product marketing, subscribe to our newsletter. | https://medium.com/@sean.boyce/test-test-test-when-can-i-sell-my-product-4a8daa247dfb | ['Sean Boyce'] | 2019-09-04 14:35:14.740000+00:00 | ['Solutions', 'Testing', 'Product Marketing', 'Product Market Fit', 'Product Strategy'] |
Famous YouTube couple Evan And Katelyn offer VPN with a discount | Evan and Katelyn is a popular YouTube duo that has a channel full of different types of funny videos of literally making stuff. To be more specific, in the videos, this couple does some woodworking, 3D printing, props, welding, home DYI projects, and many other sometimes unnecessary, though funny stuff. As they say themselves, they’re not pros at any of this stuff, though if you try it, you can learn so many things, have a good time with your friends or even make something practical. They started their YouTube channel almost 3 years ago and have already gathered more than half a million subscribers. Together with the mentioned topics, from time to time, Evan and Katelyn also include such issues as online privacy and recommend getting a VPN.
Let’s take a look at the best deal
Evan and Katelyn suggest getting a premium quality VPN with a discount for your safety while surfing on the Internet. By using this deal you can get NordVPN 3-years plan with a 70% discount, for only $3.49/ month.
Follow this link to apply the discount code automatically
Why get NordVPN?
This premium VPN that is based in Panama offers a strict no-log policy, strong encryption, and a lot of other well-rounded features. Using NordVPN, you’ll be able to bypass blocks of popular streaming services like BBC, Hulu, etc. and even Netflix proxy blocks. Other than that, it also has such features as kill-switch and P2P servers that help torrent securely. Not to mention that it has more than 5000 servers in over 60 countries, offers fast speeds, and allows 6 simultaneous connections.
What is a VPN?
VPN is an online security tool, which lets users surf online securely and anonymously by encrypting their Internet traffic. Such software helps to overcome geo and other website blocks by changing the user’s virtual location, also secures when connected to a wireless network in public places like coffee shops, airports, etc. Not to mention, it is convenient when torrenting, gaming, streaming, or even traveling. | https://medium.com/@mccarthydanny705/evan-and-katelyn-offer-vpn-with-a-discount-9d83a8c645ff | ['Danny Mccarthy'] | 2020-01-31 15:12:51.459000+00:00 | ['Offers', 'Discount', 'VPN', 'Deal'] |
How to Make a Mining Farm? | While no one intends to plant for mining, you need to open a mining farm and earn on cryptocurrencies until the legality of this action is stopped. And this may well happen, given the mood of the authorities. In the meantime, the process of assembling a farm for mining coins is as follows:
The first step is to assemble a kind of frame. This is something like a server rack where you need to mount a farm. This includes the motherboard, which is a bit of the heart of our farm. The more powerful the board, the more video cards it can pull. Next, you need to do the assembly of the housing for the farm. Moreover, it is recommended to assemble it on your own, because standardized designs are not designed for many video cards and other configurations. Make sure there is enough RAM because it is responsible for the functioning of the OS. The processor is also an important component, and it must be compatible with the motherboard. The power supply must be of maximum power and meet the parameters of the system in terms of energy intensity. Choosing a hard drive is also a crucial step. It should be not only reliable but also have a large amount of free space. Well, of course, for our workhorse to ride, you need a device focused on the extraction of bitcoins, etc., for example, it can be an ASIC controller. The second step is to assemble and connect all of the listed equipment. Having made the frame, a motherboard is installed on it. It is placed on the bottom shelf of the frame. But make a special elevation to protect the motherboard from contact with various surfaces. This is one of the main laws of collecting a farm for mining. | https://medium.com/@elena-taklimakan/how-to-make-a-mining-farm-1e7ffb262293 | ['Elena Jefferson'] | 2020-03-03 08:21:11.759000+00:00 | ['Crypto', 'Mining Farm', 'Technology', 'Mining'] |
Let me be the last one | Let me be the last one
the last thought of today
let me be in this last moment
as the night gives way to another day
let me blow kisses into the wind
let them be your last red bouquet
let me whisper to the moon
let that be the last song you play
let me paint my heart in your sky
let it be your last gift on display
let me find the shiniest star
make the last wish of your day
Oh God I pray;
let me be the last one
to ever love you this way
and especially today
let me be the last one
the last one to say
Happy Birthday! | https://medium.com/poets-unlimited/let-me-be-the-last-one-1ed1d70f620f | ['Tasneem Kagalwalla'] | 2017-08-01 04:36:59.205000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Relationships', 'Life', 'Birthday', 'Love'] |
Paradox Café is Going to Change | Photo by Mario Mendez on Unsplash
Hi all,
After looking at the poetry publications that already exist on Medium, I’ve decided that from now on, Paradox Café will focus on philosophical poetry. In the next week, expect changes to the publication description, instructions for applying as a writer, and a discussion about what makes a poem philosophical (along with some examples).
Not everything I’ve posted so far would count as a philosophical poem. I’ve skipped posting a poem this week so that I can curate examples and get a better idea of what I’m looking for. A poem might be perfectly good, but not a good fit for this publication.
If you love both philosophy and poetry, I’d love to hear from you. If you know someone who loves both philosophy and poetry, I’d love to hear from them. You can email [email protected]. You can also comment on this newsletter.
As new people start to write for the publication, these newsletters will also change. So far in the Weekly Poem, I’ve sent out the context for one poem each week. This model would make no sense with more contributors, and the design of each newsletter will change accordingly; perhaps this newsletter will become The Paradox Gazette. If you have an interest in Paradox Café and have preferences about what the newsletter consists of (and how often or when it is sent out), I’d love to hear from you.
Finally, I wanted to mention that I’m interested in making the group of people who write for Paradox Café a community. We could make a Slack group for the people who post here to schedule workshops and exchange revision feedback on poems. It would be really nice to connect as a small community of people who are dedicated to continued learning and improving their craft.
Thank you for reading. Take care of yourself and be well.
Best Wishes,
Rox A. | https://medium.com/paradox-cafe/paradox-caf%C3%A9-is-going-to-change-e156dc8c0848 | ['Rowen Veratome'] | 2020-11-12 01:24:04.785000+00:00 | ['Poetry On Medium', 'Newsletter', 'Writers Life', 'Philosophy', 'Publication'] |
Fantastic article! | Fantastic article! I was taken in by a scam business coach myself (I just wrote an article me about it actually!).
I’m so glad people are starting to wake up and see these gurus for the fraudsters they are! | https://medium.com/@emilybrookes/fantastic-article-2b4b9de5214 | [] | 2020-12-23 22:41:14.973000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Business', 'Scams', 'Startup', 'Coaching'] |
Losing the Job of Your Dreams | Losing the Job of Your Dreams
All good things must come to an end…right?
Photo by Andrey Larin on Unsplash
We started dreaming about passive income from the moment we said yes on our wedding day. What logical person doesn’t long to make money in their sleep? It’s an elusive target, though. Few come upon it, and when they do, they construct a cage around it, put a black tarp over it, and hope it stays hidden from the hungry world of those looking to catch a break.
We landed our dream job after seven years of searching. My wife responded to a craigslist ad. They were looking for somebody to put up signs for a new, local housing development. The offer was $500 a month for placing two signs in the morning and taking them down at the end of the workday: roughly $8.33 per sign per day. It was hardly an amount to quit our day jobs on or book a family vacation to Disney Land, but it was the very first time we experienced the thrill of making money for the amount of effort that it takes to brush one’s teeth or put on deodorant in the morning.
Initially, we were disciplined in our duties, keen care-takers of the signs. I was responsible for the bottom one on the way to and from work, and my wife took care of the top one. We hardly skipped a beat during those first days and months and at times counted the cost of danger none as we side-stepped traffic on a mission to make sure every passing eye was fully aware of this beautiful new housing development.
After six months we got a raise of $100. We’d upped our game a bit by adding balloons on special occasions, and a couple of smaller signs at the request of our boss via discreet, concise text messages.
Our garage kept a helium tank, extra signs in case some were taken (by environmental activists- as though signs or houses played a role in damaging the ozone layer), and packets of balloons for busier seasons that kept the promise of potential buyers.
It was at about the same time of our $100 raise that we decided to add a little more “passive” to the passive part of our newly found “Passive Income.”
Instead of setting the signs out with the rising sun then collecting them at the end of the day, we thought we’d become their guardians. And that meant merely making sure they were always up. On windy days we’d stand them straight again, and when the angry environmentalists stole them, we’d visit what we called the boneyard where a multitude of signs lay waiting in storage to have their moment on the busy highway. Weeks turned into months where the only attention we gave those signs was a glance to acknowledge their existence.
We passively ensured they were playing their role in leading rich men and women to the home of their dreams and a cool six-hundred dollars into our First Hawaiian checking account.
Now and again, we’d receive texts from our boss. Before opening the message, we’d gulp, thinking they’d caught us, that our way above the system had been cut down by collectors who believed we were making this look way too easy. But almost every time it was a:
“Dear Luke and Kristy, we’re closed for the holiday weekend. Don’t put the signs up. Thanks so much for all you do.”
Now the luxury of taking a few days off from “putting the signs up” actually afforded us more work than we’d seen in months. But we didn’t mind. It was the least we could do.
“No problem. The signs are doing great. We’ll take them down.”
Two weeks ago, we received an email with the subject, “All the homes are sold.” I already knew the dreaded content to follow.
“Well. It was a good run.”
“It was. The easiest job of our lives.”
We realized the day would eventually come upon us. Like all good things they certainly must come to an end.
“What are we going to do now?” “We’re going to find another one.” “But not by scouring the internet like beggars to a coin or wallowing in lost opportunity. And certainly not by thinking our merit had anything to do with it.”
I’m convinced that good things happen to those whose eyes are wide open to the possibilities of goodness. Then and there we announced we’re going to find another one simply by our declaration and awareness towards it.
“This next one is going to be even better.”
Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash
We received an email later the next day with the subject line, “Thanks again.”
“Merry Christmas. Thanks for all your help with selling these homes. We’re sending you a bonus of $250 as a token of our appreciation. Happy Holidays.”
Out of habit, I still check to see if my sign is up on my way home from work. A little sadness settles when I see the street empty of my favorite eyesore. I’m quickly reminded by vacant tractors and cranes parked for the night that opportunities are like the wind. They blow wherever they wish. Hope comes back again and a chuckle when I stop to think of our side business, the sign business. We certainly had it good. Now we remain curious, expectant and excited. Our hands are wide open to the gale of the next one. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/losing-the-job-of-your-dreams-e87593c1a757 | ['Luke Beling'] | 2019-12-18 13:01:01.626000+00:00 | ['Hope', 'Optimism', 'Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Passive Income'] |
Iowa Is What Happens When Government Does Nothing | Warnings from doctors like Perencevich are what prompted my visit to Iowa City, a college town in eastern Iowa that serves as a sort of liberal sanctuary in a mostly red state. The city is home to the University of Iowa, and also to its public teaching hospital, which employs 7,000 people and has more adult ICU beds than most other state hospitals. I spent two days there just before Thanksgiving, interviewing doctors and nurses outside the brick walls of the hospital in the frigid November weather, standing six feet apart in the front garden or, when it rained, near a vent shooting out warm air on the building’s south side. Through the glass windows of the lobby, I watched as nurses in face shields pushed sick people around in wheelchairs. Once, I stepped inside to thaw and was startled by how quiet it was, and how the silence belied the suffering going on just a few floors above.
The first cases of the coronavirus in Iowa were recorded here in early March, when a group of infected locals returned home from an Egyptian cruise. As cases rose, Reynolds closed schools for the rest of the school year and most businesses for about two months. But by May 15, she’d allowed gyms, bars, and restaurants in all of Iowa’s 99 counties to open up again. She did not require Iowans to wear a mask in public, ignoring requests from local public-health officials and the White House Coronavirus Task Force and arguing that the state shouldn’t make that choice for its people. “The more information that we give them, then personally they can make the decision to wear a mask or not,” Reynolds said in June. She also wouldn’t require face coverings in public schools, where she ordered that students spend at least 50 percent of their instructional time in classrooms. When Iowa City and other towns began to issue their own mask requirements, Reynolds countered that they were not enforceable, undermining their authority. (The governor’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.)
The rest of the summer and early fall brought on a mix of business closings and reopenings in counties around the state. (Complicating the picture, a data glitch at the Iowa Department of Public Health deflated case numbers in late summer.) Infections exploded in meatpacking plants, where managers were allegedly taking bets on how many workers would get sick. After students returned to schools and universities in the early fall, Iowa had the highest rate of COVID-19 infections in the country. In October, when Iowa was in the thick of community spread, Reynolds showed up, maskless and smiling, at a campaign rally for Trump at the Des Moines airport. (Her let-them-get-sick attitude toward the pandemic hasn’t been unusual among Republican governors, though there have been exceptions, including Mike DeWine of Ohio and Larry Hogan of Maryland.)
By late November, the number of new COVID-19 cases in Iowa was higher than at any other point in the pandemic, and as many as 45 Iowans were dying of the disease every 24 hours in a state of just 3 million people. Outbreaks were reported in 156 nursing homes and assisted-living facilities in Iowa, and the virus ran rampant in the state’s prisons.
Doctors have been warning for weeks that the state’s health-care system is close to its breaking point. The University of Iowa hospital reached a peak of 37 COVID-19 inpatients in April, but by Thanksgiving, it had 90. That number may not seem overwhelming until you consider that COVID-19 patients require dozens of staff and that many spend weeks or months in hospital care. To meet the demand, administrators have had to reschedule hundreds of nonessential surgeries and converted multiple wards into COVID-19 units. Doctors told me that they’re already short on ICU beds, and are having to decide which critically ill patients receive one. There are not enough specialists to oversee common life-support techniques, such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, for people with severe cases of COVID-19.
And the University of Iowa hospital is actually in a better position than many others in the state. Smaller institutions, which have fewer specialized doctors and fewer staff overall, are being overwhelmed across Iowa, and many face bankruptcy, in part because they’ve been forced to cancel elective procedures.
Worst of all, health-care workers are sapped. They are used to death. But patients don’t usually die at this pace. They don’t usually die in this way, with tubes sticking out of their throats and sucking machines clearing the mucus from their lungs. They don’t usually die all alone.
Joe English, a 37-year-old respiratory therapist, spends every day traveling between hospital units, hooking up seriously ill COVID-19 patients to ventilators or ECMO machines. When there’s nothing left to be done, English is the one who turns off those machines; he’s done so at least 50 times in the past few months. “What I’m seeing [among health-care workers] is just frustration, desperation,” English told me. “People have been acting like we’ve been fighting a war for months.”
There is a name for this feeling, says Kevin Doerschug, the director of the hospital’s medical ICU: moral distress, or the sense of loss and helplessness associated with health-care workers navigating limitations in space, treatment, and personnel. Just a few weeks ago, a man in his 30s with no medical problems arrived in Doerschug’s unit with a severe case of COVID-19. After a week on a ventilator, the man’s health had greatly improved. Nurses removed his breathing tube, and his vitals were stable. But just a few hours later, the man was dead. “Our whole team just sat down on the ground and cried,” Doerschug told me outside the hospital, his voice muffled by his mask and the sound of the heating vent. Trauma like that compounds when a hospital fills up with critically ill patients. “The sheer enormity of it — it’s just endless,” Doerschug said.
What makes all of this suffering and death exponentially more painful is the simple fact that much of it was preventable. A recent New York Times analysis clearly showed that states with the tightest COVID-19 restrictions have managed to keep cases per capita lower than states with few restrictions. Reynolds is in an admittedly complicated situation. She, like other governors, is facing enormous pressure to protect people’s livelihoods as well as their health. But a mask mandate is free. And failing to control the virus is, unsurprisingly, very bad for business. “We want to take care of people … It shouldn’t be this hard, and that makes us mad,” Dana Jones, a nurse practitioner in Iowa City, told me. “There are people to blame, and it’s not the patients.”
When Reynolds finally announced a spate of new COVID-19 regulations on November 17, the rules limited indoor gatherings to 25 people, and required that Iowans wear masks inside public places only under a very specific set of conditions. Four of the doctors and nurses I interviewed laughed — actually laughed — when I asked what they thought of the new regulations. The policies will do basically nothing to prevent the spread of the virus, they told me.
State lawmakers’ response to Reynolds’s handling of the pandemic breaks down along partisan lines. “She’s done a good job balancing people’s constitutional rights with a few restrictions that have been commonsense,” Representative Dave Deyoe, a Republican from central Iowa, told me, arguing that tighter restrictions in more liberal states haven’t led to lower death rates. Although this is a common argument among Iowa Republicans, it’s an unfair one. Many Northeast and West Coast states have had more total deaths because they were badly hit by the virus early in the pandemic, before strong measures were put in place. In the past seven days, Iowa’s death rate has been at least twice as high as that of New York, New Jersey, and California.
Democrats in Iowa believe that Reynolds’s inaction has always been about politics. Early on, she’d assumed an important role making sure that Trump would win Iowa in the November election, State Senator Joe Bolkcom, who represents Iowa City, told me. “She did that by making people feel comfortable” about going out to eat, going to bars, and going back to school. “She mimicked Trump’s posture” to get him elected. Ultimately, Reynolds was successful in her efforts: Trump won Iowa by 8 points. But Iowans lost much more. | https://medium.com/the-atlantic/iowa-is-what-happens-when-government-does-nothing-bdf940803e1c | ['The Atlantic'] | 2020-12-03 19:13:56.466000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Iowa', 'Covid 19', 'Coronavirus', 'Covid 19 Crisis'] |
Fangs | 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/chalkboard/fangs-f73d4021b7fe | ['Sandhya Ganesh'] | 2020-12-03 16:31:56.260000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Werewolf', 'One Line', 'Poetry', 'Moon'] |
Education drawbacks while choosing Major Subjects in Pakistan at undergraduate level | In Pakistan most of th students don’t know what should they do after their Intermediate Studies. Most of the students have to ho with the decisions of their parents.One in majority cases the field which their friends have choosen they would go with tha area of studies.
Its killing the motion and quality of education in Pakistan.
I have seen many of the students after doing bachelor’s in Universities regretting that they should never come in this area of studies.
I want to put my energies to help students in this cause. I will create social pages, YouTube videos etc yo buildup freedom of selection of their futures irrespective of the pressure from family and social circle.
First i was thinking that we can visit numerous schools or colleges but in this pandemic situation this is not possible.
Social media platforms would be greater use in this cause. | https://medium.com/@muhammad-muaaz177/education-drawbacks-while-choosing-major-subjects-in-pakistan-at-undergraduate-level-37ec33ec33a7 | ['Muhammad Muaaz'] | 2020-12-26 05:22:44.176000+00:00 | ['Amal Academy'] |
Budgeting… | ..especially this season…
Everybody likes to spend money, plus, in December, nobody can even escape it; from the general mood of the season to the hike that comes with it. Personally, I’ve been to Brooklyn twice since the 1st. Tearrrsssss. The only thing that tastes better than spending money would have to be spending YOUR OWN money. Ignore what I just said, lmfao. Some of us spend as e dey hot while the rest of us think, rethink and even overthink our choices and options before we eventually decide. If you belong in the first group, then you have no business budgeting! That last statement is euphemism for “you have too much money, ore mi olowo”, because budgeting is the process of making a budget; and a budget is a plannnnn of how your money will be spent. A plan.
how much remain?
Side bar, all this budgeting talk reminds me of the national assembly 😒.
If your finances are not surplus, you might want to consider budgeting (not like rich people don’t budget o 🤷♂️) because you most likely don’t have enough money to do or get everything you’d like. Hence, budgeting is important to focus your money and prioritize your spending so that you knock off the things that are most important to you, first. It’s crucial to hone and cultivate this habit of budgeting because especially for persons in countries with dwindling economies, the goal should be staying out of debt and having money for the things that you need, like healthcare and food to survive January and February 😩. In addition, a budget can help you out of it if you are already in debt.
So, first things first: what duration should one plan cover? One week? One month? Six months? Consider how much you make, what your expenses look like and separate needs from wants. There’s really no rule, you’d have to test and see. You could draw up a plan for a month, get a feel of what works and what doesn’t, then make adjustments as necessary. In no time, you’d become an expert, forecasting which months will require a tighter grip and in which months you’d most likely have loose change. Practice, and in the long run, you’d have gone pro in making realistic decisions regarding investments, vacations, emergency spending, et cetera, just like your mum 🤭.
Basics of Budgeting.
Identify your needs and wants. I.D your triggers (what’s that thing that gingers you to want to overspend? Or who?🤣) How much is coming in and how much is going out each month? Subtract expenses from income so you know what you have to work with per month. For clarity, you could make a little table of two columns; income in one column, expenses in the other. Find the sum for each column and then subtract. Fixed expenses are those that stay the same from month to month, e.g. rent. Flexible expenses are those that change from month to month, e.g. the amount you spend on utilities. Total expenses are the sum of both fixed and flexible expenses. Total monthly income is the amount (money and dividends) that you pull in from your many hustles and investments, benefits, e.t.c. Disposable income is the amount you have left after you’ve subtracted income tax and expenses from your income. Track your money. If your left-over cash is consistently reducing, then you need to check the expenses column. It might just be that your hobby is pricey or you are allocating too much money to miscellaneous. Find out and slash! Reward yourself and celebrate small wins. To prevent yourself from being overwhelmed by the painnsss and pressure of this task, you’ll need to find ways to motivate yourself. If you hit a milestone successfully- say three months- spoil yourself. Go on a date, take yourself out and buy something nice (still plan for it so it stays within the budget). Know yourself. You’ve gotta be aware of all your bad habits. Avoid people and places that tempt you (dear foodies, avoid restaurants; dear shopaholics, avoid the mall and that pretty little thing site). Maybe try moving the bulk of your funds to a separate account, one that might not be easy to access. Don’t worry, many Nigerian banks will help you out here 😅 You could create an emergency fund too. Hide away a particularly large chunk of money once in a while, so that if you have to make a big expense such as an abrupt home repair, you’ll still stay within your budget (since you’ll be taking money from this emergency fund).
The Takeaway
Think of it as beneficial, not as a drag
Create a budget that works and stick to it…shebi you’re now an adult?
Rinse and repeat; revisit and rework. This is not a one-time exercise.
Don’t give up no matter how many times you fail.
Ever made a budget? Did you have a budget for this month? How is it going? 😬
Of course, the audio version of this post is here, if you’d like to carry me around in your ears as your day progresses 🥰
Merry Christmas in advance 🧑🏻🎄!!
XO!! | https://medium.com/@securingthisbag/budgeting-a7dfa43e3a4c | ['Jennifer Joseph'] | 2020-12-18 12:21:29.319000+00:00 | ['Money Mindset', 'Hustle', 'Budget', 'Budgeting', 'Income'] |
In life — everything you are going through
is preparing you for what you asked for! | courtesy: MysmsBD.Net480Â Ã — Â 360Search by image
In life — everything you are going through
is preparing you for what you asked for!
So, my friend if you will get what you wish to have
then, be careful what you wish for!
After all,
you are what your deepest desire is
as is your desire so is your intention
as is your intention so is your will
as is your will so is your deed
And as is your deed, so is your destiny. | https://medium.com/indian-thoughts/in-life-everything-you-are-going-through-is-preparing-you-for-what-you-asked-for-8d57501dae5a | ['Ashutosh Jain'] | 2017-09-11 20:48:36.296000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Life', 'Spirituality', 'Faith', 'Philosophy'] |
Christ With Us In The Pandemic | Isenheim Altarpiece — The Crucifixion by Grunewald
This piece of art hangs on my office wall, John the Baptist’s long finger ever reminding me of my job as a pastor: to point to Christ and him crucified. Recently, in the light of the worldwide pandemic, this piece of art has taken on a new meaning for me. It stands as a reminder of Christ being amongst his people in the midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic.
This magnificent altarpiece was sculpted and painted by Mattias Grunewald for the Monastery of St. Anthony in Isenheim. During the Middle Ages, the monastery became a hospital for those suffering from the plague, as well as ergotism, also known as “St. Anthony’s Fire.” This disease caused epidemics that would rage through the Medieval world, especially among the poor. The symptoms include seizures, excruciating pain, gastrointestinal symptoms, mania, psychosis, and gangrene. The convulsive symptoms of ergotism would cause the hands and feet of the inflicted to look twisted.
If you look closely at the painting, you will see that the crucified Christ’s feet and hands are twisted like that of an ergotism patient. And like a person afflicted by the plague, Christ is emaciated and covered in sores. The artwork is a gruesome depiction of Christ’s sufferings but brought solace and comfort to the patients of the medieval hospital, reminding them that Christ understood and shared in their suffering.
Today, we look out at a world that is descending into chaos, life as we know it has drastically changed. But, take heart, because no matter what today brings, Christ understands and shares in it with us, sores and all. He takes our pain, anxiety, and fear, unto himself. He is with us through these trying times, reminding us that because he lives, we will live also. In faith, may we stand like St. Anthony on the right side of the Isenheim Altarpiece, serene though there be a monster just outside the window. | https://medium.com/@rjcoburn/christ-with-us-in-the-pandemic-2f120e02a3c7 | ['Rj Coburn'] | 2020-03-23 15:07:08.881000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Pandemic', 'Christian Living'] |
HBO Max and the Lose-Lose Situation of the Film Industry | HBO Max and the Lose-Lose Situation of the Film Industry
WB movies will now premiere on HBO Max day-in-date with theaters in 2021.
Source: Warner Bros.
The Warner Bros. run streaming service HBO Max, has just changed the game on theatrical releases. They have announced, and are the first studio to double down on streaming their new releases. Meaning every theatrical release from WB in 2021, from Tom and Jerry to The Suicide Squad, will be on HBO Max for the first month of their theatrical release.
It also appears that unlike Disney’s Mulan, these films won’t be charged an extra premium fee beyond the subscriptions service fee in order to watch these.
Most audiences and film goers praise this decision. It’s easy to see why, practically no one feels safe going to theaters and even after a vaccine is made readily available for the Covid-19 virus, there’s no telling when people will feel safe to go again. This is an amazingly pro consumer move and there really isn’t any downsides to it for us fans. The only thing missing is the fun of seeing these movies in a crowd setting.
But business wise this was a sticky situation. Big movies employ so many people the only way to realistically break even is by doing a big worldwide release. That’s why even big movies now cater to rating and content restrictions of other country’s laws. It’s just part of the business.
Not to mention contract stipulations and licensing deals dependent on theatrical releases. Cast and crew who would get bonuses and percentages of the theatrical gross, brand deals timed for a theatrical window, and plenty other hurdles in the way.
But the issue with this is, that even if movies go theatrical they won’t make the same amount they would before the pandemic.
And if companies aren’t releasing movies, that just means more time with something sitting on a shelf with no actual income.
It’s a real rock and a hard place situation. The studios, employees, and the theater industry all just want to stay afloat like any business. And it seems like no solution will make everyone happy.
No matter how the movies release, a lot of people will be left in the dust. Theatrical releases will keep all the percentages in the contracts well and good but most audiences still don’t feel safe in theaters.
Straight to streaming will cut out theatrical release deals with theaters and also potentially mess with plans made with online stores that sell digital copies of the films.
Also if it goes straight to streaming but costs a premium, like Mulan did, then you could potentially alienate your viewers if you price it to high. | https://medium.com/fan-fare/hbo-max-and-the-lose-lose-situation-of-the-film-industry-15b86d7a741e | ['Kevin Tash'] | 2020-12-12 20:31:33.066000+00:00 | ['Film', 'Warner Bros', 'Covid 19', 'Streaming', 'Movies'] |
Strengthening Drought Monitoring Across the Middle East and North Africa | Putting the U.S. Global Water Strategy into Action
Since the release of the U.S. Government’s first-ever Global Water Strategy (GWS) in 2017, USAID has prioritized strengthening water security around the world in partnership with other federal agencies. Together, they have embraced and operationalized a whole-of-government approach structured around four key strategic objectives, including “encourage the sound management and protection of freshwater resources.” USAID and NASA collaboration in support of this objective lies at the heart of MENAdrought programming.
Launched within a year of the GWS, MENAdrought highlights the U.S. Government’s commitment to improving drought risk management, a key aspect of the overall vision to create a more water-secure world. To turn this vision into reality, MENAdrought is built on three “pillars” to institutionalize integrated drought management and strengthen countries’ self-reliance in the face of future droughts. Those pillars include developing drought monitoring and early warning systems; conducting impact and vulnerability assessments; and elevating the importance of drought mitigation, response, and preparedness.
MENAdrought participants are trained on a drought monitoring tool known as the Composite Drought Index (CDI) during a recent workshop held in Cairo, Egypt. Photo credit: Louise Sarant
Each project partner contributes to the greater whole. IWMI has worked with the National Drought Mitigation Center to adapt their drought monitoring system to the local environmental conditions of the MENA region, and co-designed it so that national partners are now able to operate it locally. The drought monitoring uses satellite data, and modeling from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, to generate the monthly drought maps. Meanwhile the National Drought Mitigation Center used their expertise to support IWMI’s in-country convening of various “writeshops” to develop drought action plans that are co-designed across multiple ministries. This has been supported by extensive technical and policy training of participants from Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco for in-person and virtual capacity-building workshops. With an eye toward sustainability, one of MENAdrought’s central aims has been to create national-level drought management capabilities that can guide decision-makers’ water management responses and choices during future events.
A Historically Dry Region Poised to Become Drier Still
“Climate change is having profound impacts on water availability across the MENA region,” says Strategic Program Director of Water, Climate Change, and Resilience at IWMI Rachael McDonnell. “Changes in key climatic variables already being experienced include declines in annual precipitation, delays to the start of the growing season with the onset of rains delayed by five to six weeks in many countries, increased frequency and intensity of droughts, and increased temperatures.”
For that reason, strengthening drought monitoring and management is urgently needed. “Droughts are a normal part of the climate cycle, and climate change is only going to ramp up this cycle and the extreme events that will follow,” says Dr. Mark Svoboda, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who also serves as a MENAdrought project lead.
Drought impacts every aspect of economic activity and daily life, without exception. Even in periods of relative water abundance, many MENA countries struggle with balancing competing water demands from various sectors. “One of drought’s best-recognized impacts is on agriculture, which clearly impacts food security,” explains Dr. Christa D. Peters-Lidard, Deputy Director for Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics and the Acting Chief Scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Beyond agriculture, drought-related water scarcity affects other sectors such as energy, transportation, and health. When drought causes food and energy prices to increase, the overall economy is impacted, which has downstream effects on household livelihoods.”
“The shocks of recent droughts, particularly since the turn of the century, have left all three countries grappling with these events,” says McDonnell. “Each of the countries has water stress from some common but also locally distinct conditions that make them prone to the impacts of drought.” | https://medium.com/usaid-global-waters/strengthening-drought-monitoring-across-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-6a1d0033204b | ['Usaid Water Team'] | 2020-11-18 15:40:18.291000+00:00 | ['Resilience', 'North Africa', 'Water', 'Drought', 'Middle East'] |
The United Kingdom and European Union Reached an Agreement | It took a lot of time to reach an agreement. Hopefully, the United Kingdom and the European Union agreed to a free trade deal. It happened just several days before the Brexit transition period ends. As a reminder, more than four years Britons voted to leave the EU.
It is worth noting that, the two sides were able to reach an agreement by resolving a difficult dispute over the EU’s continued access to British fishing waters. Accordion to Boris Johnson, the U.K. share of fish would increase from half of the catch today to two-thirds after more than five years. Interestingly, fish accounts for less than 1% of the British economy but played an outsize role in negotiations.
People should take into account that, the deal averts a worst-case divorce that would have hurt the EU economy, but the British economy even more. Importantly, without a deal, the country could have lost more than 8% of growth in per capita income over the next decade. Moreover, a no-deal Brexit also threatened to disrupt British ports as well as custom chaos at the turn of the year.
European Union and a new reality
It is worth noting that, the trade deal is what is known as a hard Brexit. As a result, British, as well as EU economies, will no longer enjoy the close regulatory alignment they’ve enjoyed for decades.
Nevertheless, the British Prime Minister insists that leaving the European Union will benefit the U.K. in the long run. According to Boris Johnson, it will allow Britain to negotiate independent free trade deals with other major economies.
As a reminder, the U.K. has spent most of this year in a transition period. The period ends in several days on December 31. Importantly, disruptions and backups at ports could follow as customs controls and new processes come into force at EU borders. Notably, to minimize delays, the government told U.K. truckers that they will have to obtain a permit to enter the country of Kent.
People should take into account that, the deal still requires approval by the British Parliament next week. Moreover, the European parliament is expected to approve the deal retroactively next month. Notably, it took a lot of time and effort to reach an agreement.
Moreover, it will take for companies and individuals to adapt to the new reality. Also, Brexit affected the country’s economy as well as its standing in the world. Hopefully, both sides realized the importance of a free trade deal. | https://medium.com/@wibestbroker/the-united-kingdom-and-european-union-reached-an-agreement-7e6a27f75e4c | [] | 2020-12-25 13:39:33.611000+00:00 | ['United Kingdom', 'Brexit Britain', 'Brexit', 'European Union', 'Brexit Negotiations'] |
My Husband Crushes on Those Closest To Me | Firstly, there is my best friend Carol. We’ve been friends since we met on the first day of grammar school when we were 11 years old. At school, she was a bit of an ugly duckling, she had very short curly ginger hair but she turned into a swan in her mid-teens when she grew her hair longer.
Suddenly, the guys' jaws would drop at her pure Irish beauty. So when I took my new boyfriend Dan back to Northern Ireland to meet my family, it was a given that I’d be taking him to meet my best friend Carol. We met up in the famous Crown Bar in Belfast. Dan and Carol got on really well, like really well and he made it known to me he thought she was hot.
Then there is my cousin Helen who I’m very close to, we’re more like sisters, and also look very alike, we look so alike that when we were children, people thought we were twins, (our mothers are actually identical twins). Dan and Helen have so much in common, their love of travel, boozy nights out, competitive running, and of course their love of taking the piss out of me.
Along came Tanya who I met at work when I relocated to move in with Dan. Tanya the stunning Turkish delight who oozed both physical beauty and inner beauty. Such a lovely sweet young woman who had guys falling over themselves to date her. I guess it was inevitable that Dan would crush on her too, it would probably be odd if he didn’t, even I thought she was hot.
Another best friend who I’ve known almost as long as I’ve known Dan and who lives around the corner from us, Elizabeth. Although they have little in common, she’s really beautiful and he often reminds me of that!
For crying out loud, there’s even my mother. Now, he isn’t physically attracted to my mother at least so I probably shouldn’t even include her in this BUT they are like the same person, they get on SO WELL with each other and share so many personality traits.
They also share a great passion for football, about the only thing my husband actually is passionate about. Dan is basically a younger, male version of my mother.
It then makes me even wonder how I ended up with Dan as my mother and I can often have some friction between us due to our personality differences although that’s probably a story for another time. | https://medium.com/heart-affairs/my-husband-crushes-on-those-closest-to-me-1cbf3620d85e | ['Alex Andra'] | 2020-12-26 23:50:47.613000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Infidelity', 'Friendship', 'Love', 'Marriage'] |
Software Testing | Good Testing Practice
Define the expected result clearly in each test
You should well understand the logic and define what’s the result of the test case in normal case.
Avoid unreproducible testing
It’s hard to investigate the defect when the test case failed if the test is unreproducible.
Write test cases for both valid and invalid input conditions
Testing with invalid input can help you to exam your error handling logic. Users always act unexpected.
Thoroughly inspect the results
The test result may return multiple values, make sure the whole result is same as your expectation.
Choose right people to do the test
Different test has different purpose, find the best people to do the test.
Consider testability when you develop the system
If you system is hard to test, it will cost you more time to find the defects. Then, it’s hard to grantee the system quality. | https://medium.com/@jeffrey-chen/testing-ee0f0349f2e8 | ['Jeffrey Chen'] | 2020-12-27 06:56:52.661000+00:00 | ['Unit Testing', 'Continuous Integration', 'Testing', 'Test Automation', 'Integration Testing'] |
Transcript: Women Who Code — Silicon Valley Full Interview with Dr. Chantal D. Larose | I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Chantal Larose to learn about her passion for statistics and how it shaped her career, took a deep-dive into incomplete data and multiple imputation, and discussed her unique perspective in her field and how to be successful in it. The main content of our interview is below. On behalf of Women Who Code — Silicon Valley, I thank Dr. Chantal Larose and appreciate her time being apart of our #ShoutoutSaturday series.
Passion for Statistics
What was the turning point for you in finding your passion for statistics, especially finding your love for statistics as an Undergrad?
Yes. Well, looking back, hindsight, 2020, I always was a little statistically inclined, for example, I’d be a kid and open up my M&Ms. And I would end up making little bar charts of the M&M colors, like here, all the red ones, and here, all the brown ones, and all the different colors, and then proceed to devour all of them. But that kind of behavior, looking back from where I ended up here, it kind of makes a little bit of sense.
And then when I was getting older, my dad was a statistics professor. And on occasion, in the course of conversation, he would bring up and explain, a concept or two of interest, very casually, you know, no pressure, it’s not like you’re going to learn about standard deviation today, it was very accessible. Actually ended up learning about standard deviation over lunch using tater tots. It was great. If they’re all bunched together on the plate, then you know, if they’re all very close together it’s a low standard deviation and if they’re all spread out all over the place it’s a high standard deviation; a lot of food going on in my early academic career.
So when it came time for college, I knew I wanted some kind of STEM career. And I knew I wanted to be a professor. But I didn’t know what subject I wanted to specialize in yet. I had taken physics classes, I had taken up to CP Calculus in high school. And I wasn’t ready to be like, “Okay, this is the particular field, I’m going to spend the next, you know, X number of years in school for.” So I went for my Undergrad in statistics, specifically thinking, I’m not sure what field I want to end up in. It could be stats, it could be math, it could be physics, it could be engineering, but I like STEM. And since statistics is used in a lot of different places, I can pivot. I knew once I made up my mind and finish the Undergrad degree, I could pivot to a particular field, once I figured out what I really liked. And then I just grew into statistics. As as I was going through the Undergrad degree, if I have to point to one particular class that I can remember really enjoying, it would be my regression course, it was called Analysis of Experiments. And it was all the different regression models and multicollinearity and data transformations. And the exam booklets were enormous because there were just pages of regression output, sums of squares, residual plots, and during the exam, you had to figure out what output to use.
“Since statistics is used in a lot of different places…I knew once I made up my mind and finish the undergrad degree, I could pivot to a particular field…and then I just grew into statistics.”
So you were given more than you needed. And you were given some questions, and you had to figure out okay, where is the stuff that I need to answer the question? What do these numbers mean? And then how can I use that to answer whatever I’m asked in the exam? And it felt really rewarding. You got to glean these stories from all these different data sets, and you got to pull these interpretations out of a mess of data and output, and it was all very practical and very story-driven. And it turns out, that in particular, is what I love doing. I love what I love to teach. What I love to do in my research, what I love to put in my textbooks is like the how and why. And what does it mean of statistics and data science? So this was my favorite thing about my latest book, called Data Science using Python and R, which is being able to explain the code line by line, step by step, and then walk the reader through why are we using this code? Here are the results and what do the results mean?
Incomplete Data with Video Games
It sounds like you have a very methodical approach to data. Can you go deeper about incomplete data? What’s interesting about analyzing it? And does that align with how your methodology is when when you “attack” data?
Ah, and I do alright. Short answer. Yes, it aligns. And just before I talk about incomplete data, you mentioned that it’s a very methodical approach to data analysis. And it’s definitely an important part, it’s I feel a lot of people say that their subject is like a mix of art and science, which is true for a lot of people in STEM. And it’s also true for data science because you need the methodology, you need the step by step to go, okay, you need to understand the problem, you need to pre-process the data, you need to establish the baseline. But there’s so much room for creativity and exploration, and balancing those two is a lot of fun.
“I feel a lot of people say that their subject is like a mix of art and science, which is true for a lot of people in STEM.”
But to your original question, I love incomplete data. It excites me; it’s really interesting. So let’s start with a motivating example, very, methodical, here, very step by step. I love video games. So that’s going to be part of our context. Say you give out a survey to people on how many hours do you spend playing video games per day? On average? That’s question one. Question two, how old are you? You get all the answers back and say 10% of people have skipped over the video game question. So 10% of the people that you gave your survey to, have only filled in their age, and not the video game question.
So what do you do? Well, if you want to model video game hours by age, you’re in a little bit of a bind. Because if you go to do that regression, most statistical programs, by default, will exclude the incomplete records from the analysis. So we have 10% of our video game variables missing. If we go do the regression anyway, without addressing it, not only are those incomplete values for video games going to be gone but their associated age values, which we still have, will also be gone. So removing the incomplete records is inefficient, but it can also be dangerous for your final result. How dangerous depends on what kind of missing data you’re dealing with. Maybe that random 10% just forgot about the question, there’s no system to it. It’s just 10% of the time people forgot to do the question. There’s no pattern. And in that case, throwing out the incomplete records is not going to introduce any bias to results, but it’s still inefficient. It’s going to shrink the sample size, and it’s going to be a waste of time and money.
“Removing the incomplete records is inefficient. But it can also be dangerous for your final result. How dangerous depends on what kind of missing data you’re dealing with.”
But what about some more complex cases? For example, what if older people tended not to answer that question? Now all of a sudden, you’re missing that this isn’t random. You’re missing this data that is based on an observed variable. The older you are, the more likely you are to skip the question in this simple example. So that’s one kind of pattern to the missingness.
Another kind of possible pattern is that people with a very high daily average of playing video games skipped that question because they didn’t want to admit how much they play video games. You still have missing data, but it’s not based on any other observed value. It’s based on what the missing value itself would be. So people who spend tons of time playing video games per day do not answer the video game question.
Now we have three kinds of missing patterns in the data. And if there’s any kind of pattern in the missingness, if it’s based on an observed variable, like age, or if it’s based on the variable itself that is missing, like if you feel you play video games too much, you’re not going to answer the video game question. If you have that kind of missingness and then you go to take your data and create a regression model on video games and age, you’re going to get bias in your results. For example, if older people tended not to answer the video game question, you’re going to lose those older records so your complete data is going to look much younger than your data would if you had kept all of the records.
The Multiple Imputation Approach
So missing data is a problem. It’s a problem in survey data. But it’s also a problem when you’re using sensors or machines to collect data if they happen to malfunction or some other application like that. And there are many smart people who have developed ways to address missing data. There’s a whole bunch of them. I’m going to go skip right to my favorite, which is called multiple imputation. Multiple imputation uses statistical models to generate a bunch of different potential values for each missing value. So you’ve got one hole in your data, you can generate five potential data points, all of which are different to fill in that one hole in your data.
“Missing data is a problem…And there are many smart people who have developed ways to address missing data. There’s a whole bunch of them.”
And so what you can do is, once you’ve generated these five potential values, you put them into your data, Okay, first, we’re going to put the first potential value in the data set, this is going to give us a complete dataset. Okay, great. Do that, again, with the second imputed data and you’re going to get another complete data set, but it’s going to be different from the first one, and so on. With multiple imputation, you’re going to end up with multiple, complete datasets, which have all of your original data, including, for example, the older people in your data set and they’re going to differ from each other based on what simulated value you used to plug the hole in your data. You end up with, say, five different data sets. And now you can do your regression model. In fact, you can do your regression model five different times with five different data sets and you’re going to get five different models. They may be very different, they may be not so different, but they will be different because you’re regressing on different data sets.
And what multiple imputation does in its last stage, is it lets you combine those regression estimates and standard errors in such a way that it enables you to get what you really wanted in the first place, which was a single regression solution. We just want to get our regression equation and missing data is kind of something we have to solve along the way. But multiple imputation also lets us talk about how variable the original data was and how variable your imputed data is. For example, in those five data sets or five data points that you used to fill in the holes in your data, there’s variability there. We’ve got variability in the original data. We’ve got variability in the imputations. And thus we can talk about how variable your ultimate answer is. A lot of the time if you use other methods to fix missing data, you can’t talk about how variable your imputed values were but with multiple imputation it says, you know, yes, we give you this nice answer, and yes, the data has some variability. And yes, we’re acknowledging that our solution to it also has some variability. So it’s this kind of really elegant solution to address the missing data problem, while still accounting for the variability in the way you solve the problem.
How do you decide on the approach for multiple imputation? And what does it involve?
There are so many different ways that you can impute your data. And yeah, there is mean imputation, median imputation, there’s single imputation, where you know, you can fit, say, a normal curve, if your data is normally distributed and generate a value from there, but only once. I work primarily in R, the statistical programming language, and there’s a bunch of packages that offer different approaches to multiple imputation.
The thing about multiple imputation is that you have to make sure that your imputations match the distribution of your original variables. For example, with mean imputation, if you’re just taking the mean of a variable, and you’re using the mean, to fill in all the gaps, if you have what used to be a normal curve, and you use the mean, to fill in all the missing values, what you end up with is a normal curve with a spike in the middle. So there’s less variability in the imputations that you’re making and you’re reducing the variability in the variable and one of the things that multiple imputation and single imputation do is they let you preserve the variability that you had originally.
And there’s no one black box way to do the best imputation. The way that you impute the data is going to depend on a bunch of different things, including the pattern of your data. So there are packages that are specifically designed to impute normal distributed variables or say a bivariate normal variable, you can impute values from that. But if you have different distributions, you need to take extra care and it’s not just plug in your data get imputations out process. If you’re building a model, you want to do enough exploratory data analysis that you kind of anticipate some expected results so you’re not surprised by your model. You want to make sure that what comes out of the multiple imputation packages; your imputations match what you expected it to be. You need to definitely have that awareness of what I’m doing is going to impact the data, is going to impact the model down the road.
“There’s no one black box way to do the best imputation. The way that you impute the data is going to depend on a bunch of different things, including the pattern of your data.”
Dr. Larose’s Perspective in her Field
When you transform data, there’s a certain voice or perspective that you have; how do you find your unique voice as an Analyst and as a Professor?
Well, in my student evaluations, for my first semester as a teaching assistant and brand new graduate student, I was called quirky, by two different students in their evaluations. So finding my voice has apparently never really been the major problem. The thing was, I was a little reluctant to use it at first. I know that I like to be really enthusiastic about things like graphs and normalization, love normalized histograms; and putting in video game references or things like that, but as I’ve gotten more comfortable using that voice, and really just more comfortable in my skin as a data analyst and a data scientist, I find a lot more fun in what I’m doing because I can be a little bit more relaxed about it, more genuine about getting excited over things like standard error of regression statistics and all of this.
And it applies to teaching too, in a big way. I’m finding that the more I get into it in my courses, I find that there seems to be a positive effect. So when I started introducing, again, video game examples, and some more fun datasets into my courses; and I teach the core Data Science courses here at Eastern Connecticut State University so courses such as Introduction to Data Science, going up through regression, one-sample inference, classification and model evaluation, and then estimation, and misclassification cost and clustering. So through those courses, I started using, say pictures of favorite movies or video games, or what have you. In my course notes, I found that the students responded much more positively and seemed to get more comfortable with the material more quickly than when I was just kind of doing my non-video game movie-related approach to the lecture. And so I’m teaching data science this semester and I’ve noticed that some students have even started replicating that style when completing their assignments.
“As I’ve gotten more comfortable using that voice, and really just more comfortable in my skin as a data analyst and a data scientist, I find a lot more fun in what I’m doing.”
This was a surprise to me but I just created the second report for my Intro to Data Science course for CART models and C5.0 models, to be specific, we were looking at data on classifying hazardous asteroids based on a bunch of different factors. And multiple students used pictures or video game or movie references to give some flavor to the subject matter of their report. And so I saw a lot of pictures of asteroids on their title pages, I saw one report with some pictures from the Toy Story franchise because of the Buzz Lightyear connection to space, and even saw in a different report a reference to the video game Among Us, because of the connection with trying to suss out hazardous events from a data set. And since I find that statistics and data science can be an intimidating field to get into, for some people, I’m just delighted that I can make my students more comfortable with learning. And if that means using pictures of Animal Crossing, when I talk about cross-validation, then that’s what it’s going to be. It’s really nice to see what they’re interested in and have them connected to the course material. I feel that it motivates them more, especially since I’m teaching online this semester, because of COVID-19. Motivation has been a major topic, this semester and last semester, and to get them really interested to just dig into a data set and have some fun with it, I love to see that.
Being Successful in your Field
Okay, so now for our last question, what are your words of wisdom? For analysts or professors? And do you have any tips for success for women in this field?
For data analysts and professors, I find it’s easy when you’re talking about your work, to be obtuse, to throw formulas around. But what I enjoy when I’m presenting is to see people get it, as I’m talking, as I’m presenting at a conference, for example. So I like to go the extra step to make sure that I bring the ideas in my presentations back to something accessible. So my advice to others would be to present your work in an accessible way. It’s not a bad thing and it doesn’t mean that you’re not smart just because people who have never heard about your work before can follow the main points of what you’re saying. In fact, it can help get people excited about what you’re excited about, which my whole thing is to get people motivated so we can share in the excitement that is data science.
“Presenting your work in an accessible way. It’s not a bad thing… In fact, it can help get people excited about what you’re excited about, which is my whole thing is to get people motivated.”
And tips for women? Well, everyone’s experience is going to be different especially in tech, and especially in STEM, everyone is coming from different experiences. But I would say, don’t feel that you have to do everything. If you want to get involved in a million different things, and that’s what inspires you, and it motivates you and excites you to get to work, that’s amazing. And you know, follow that energy. But if, on the other hand, you’re happiest on a smaller set of things that you can really focus and pour yourself into, and that’s what gives you the energy to work, do that instead. It’s okay to set boundaries and say, I’m working on these things.
“Don’t feel that you have to do everything…It’s okay to set boundaries and say, I’m working on these things.”
And make sure you are or try to, cultivate interests outside of your work. Because you are a complete person; you are defined by more than what your job is, or what you got your degree in, or what your professional interests are. So, you know, try to keep that balance of what really motivates you and work on what speaks to you outside of work. I find that it’s more fun when you find what you’re passionate about. | https://medium.com/women-who-code-silicon-valley/transcript-women-who-code-silicon-valley-full-interview-with-dr-chantal-d-larose-57bc416acb96 | ['Dianne Jardinez'] | 2020-11-25 15:03:14.787000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Shoutoutsaturday', 'Statistics', 'Women in STEM', 'Women Who Code'] |
A very Welsh Lockdown in Cardiff: Community is strength | Everyday people, including myself, have been “locked down” looking at the statistical figure changes of the COVID-19. Many, like myself, have been enthralled with the growing numbers, we forget that the people around us are affected by this isolating situation every day. Cardiff showcased city dweller’s resilience and kindness with the inspirational responses amidst the on-going social distancing policy. A wave of self-help sharing culture has been cultivated against this pandemic, and it can be said that the power of the community now is stronger than ever before.
Empty street in the City Centre of Cardiff. (Taken by the author)
Rise to a self-help sharing culture
The official lockdown started on March 23, and since then the government’s advice has been to “Stay at Home”. By May 11th, the advice has changed to “Stay local”, which means Welsh people are allowed to commute within 5 miles to limit the potential spread of the virus between communities[1]. The community decided to take extra steps, apart from limiting unnecessary travel, they shop locally and grow locally, and take care of the local people. While street activities were scarce, the online community has become more active where people started to discuss what they could do. This included reaching out to the vulnerable groups, sending out newsletters, sparing out marks, and helping to deliver groceries. People make use of Facebook pages and WhatsApp groups to communicate ideas, recruit volunteers, and cast votes on self-initiated actions. It’s such a refreshing sight to see a tight-knit community working together to look out for one another.
I learned about lockdown libraries from one of the Cardiff Facebook pages. As public libraries were closed due to the pandemic, residents across neighbourhoods transformed the old telephone boxes into colourful little libraries. Someone set it up, others chipped in books and toys, families and kids borrowed and returned. The residents love the idea and the tiny libraries quickly spread from one neighbourhood to another.
An old telephone box has turned into a lockdown library in Gabalfa, Cardiff. (Taken by author)
Books and toys donated by anonymous residents. (Taken by author)
Meanwhile, food security is threatened due to the disrupted global food supply chains. To secure food supply in the long run, local organisations encouraged residents to grow their own food at home by giving away free seeds and plants. It is not an immediate remedy but more of an inspirational experiment for building a more resilient food supply system locally. It also keeps people busy during the lockdown. Nearly 14,000 plants, seeds and growing kits were distributed to families in Cardiff during the lockdown as part of the Sustainable Food City project[2]. There are also online classes to teach people how to grow plants. The small creation has brought little joy to the repeated ordinary days and envisioned a more sustainable way of living.
A volunteer was giving away free plants at her front door to encourage neighbourhoods to grow their own food. Source: WalesOnline (Image by Matthew Horwood)
Local businesses come up with creative solutions
While countries across Europe have been lifting their lockdown ruling, Wales seems to fall behind. Non-essential retail remains closed and restaurants are only allowed to do delivery or takeaway. We can imagine local businesses are hugely affected even with financial aids from the government. Nonetheless, they are showing their resilience to adapt to the new normal. While some businesses have shifted to online, some small grocery shops were closed and donated their stock like food and toiletries to charity for food preparation for the needy. After three months of struggling, local businesses are slowly preparing for their re-opening. Shops are now highlighting social distancing reminders or offer “order and collect” services all in the hopes of crowd control. Even arcades with narrow corridors introduced a one-way system to better facilitate social distancing, and some coffee shops were thinking of installing traffic lights for narrow staircases[3]. Creativity helps people quickly adapt to the “new normal”. Local businesses work creatively and accordingly with the government’s advice. As important as cooperation with customers. To win the fight against COVID-19, it will require the combined effort of all the members of the community.
Implication on bottom-up urban planning
The lockdown has proven that we can safeguard our own neighbourhood. The above-mentioned urban interventions that are locally specific and truly participatory. This sheds some light on the community-led planning in Wales.
In England. the Localism Act 2011 allows local communities to draw their own neighbourhood plans. About 700 plans have been adopted since then. While there is no equivalent system in Wales, the Welsh government is moving towards a place-making approach. It emphasises the delivery of a sustainable place to support the well-being of people. Moving beyond conventional public participation events, it encourages stakeholders to impart into the design process at an early stage and work in a collaborative manner. One of the successes of community-led planning approach lies in the motivation and willingness of residents because local people have the best knowledge of their problems and needs. Cardiff has demonstrated its potentials in the response of the pandemic in the form of tactical urban interventions. It refers to a citizen-led approach to neighbourhood building using short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions to catalyse long-term changes. Building lockdown libraries and creating the one-way walking system are a few of the examples.
On the other hand, online platforms facilitate efficient communication among the community. Online engagement could be applied in the planning process in the post-quarantine world. One of the advantages is a lot more audiences can be reached through social media or online surveys. Also, anonymity allows people to express themselves freely, to lead the discussion and create dialogues between experts or officials.
These all started when people put down self-interest and look out for each other. The more we trust one another, the more we can maximise utility. Charles Montgomery[4] reminded us that “the city is ultimately a shared project, a place where we can fashion a common good that we simply cannot build alone.” The pandemic is a valuable chance to rethink our way of living, rebuild our relationships with other residents and ultimately re-make our cities in a more sustainable and resilient way.
A poster reminds people community is strength during the lockdown. (Taken by author)
[1] Welsh Government. 2020. Coronavirus regulations: frequently asked questions. Available at https://gov.wales/staying-local-social-distancing [Accessed on 10 June 2020]
[2] Howard, B. 2020. Thousands of families in Cardiff grow food at home during lockdown. WalesOnline. 7 June. Available at https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/gallery/cardiff-lockdown-sustainable-food-city-18375326 [Accessed on 12 June 2020]
[3] Arkless, J. 2020. Coronavirus: Cardiff shopping arcades plan social distancing measures. BBC News. 11 June. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52941575 [Accessed on 12 June 2020]
[4] Montgomery, C. 2013. Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. | https://medium.com/post-quarantine-urbanism/a-very-welsh-lockdown-in-cardiff-community-is-strength-4cb9da5ee41c | ['Daisy Yeung Lok To'] | 2020-09-08 05:50:24.109000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Urbanism', 'Community', 'Lockdown', 'Community Engagement'] |
Why Every Writer Needs an Editor | Professional writers and authors don’t work alone.
They almost always rely on early readers, editors and proofreaders who turn their manuscripts into polished products.
But what if you’re a new writer or you haven’t worked with an editor before? When I was starting out writing online, I thought I could skip working with an editor.
It’s true, you can publish articles, stories and even books without one, but it’s not always a good idea.
Consider the last article or story you wrote.
You probably spent hours getting the messaging right, but how many more did it take to check for typos and grammar mistakes?
For most writers, diminishing returns sets in when they spend hours pouring over the result, searching for errors and typos.
Having an editor means you can work on another project or book while he or she reviews your manuscript or early draft. Their feedback can also teach you valuable lessons about the craft of writing.
What to expect from your editor
Typically, a developmental editor fixes the structure of a document, report or book.
A copy editor revises sentences and paragraphs for tone and clarity.
A proofreader addresses spelling mistakes and grammar errors such as misplaced apostrophes. Depending on your writing skills, you could employ the services of all three or just one.
I found my editor through my email list, but many services, including Reedsy, Kibin, and Papertrue can help. I’ve used all three for different projects.
Reedsy is useful if you’re writing a book, Kibin for academic works and Papertrue for articles.
Papertrue CEO Neha Vaidya told me up to 10% of PaperTrue’s clients “need their marketing material, their annual reports, their business proposals, their websites proofread, corrected for tone, for clarity.”
A professional editor should return your marketing collateral or web copy marked up with amends that don’t change the intention of the piece. In other words, research shouldn’t go to waste.
“One of our commandments for our editors is ‘Thou shall not change the meaning of a sentence,’” says Vaidya.
“We return a clean file where we have implemented all the changes, and it has some comments in it. And that is a tracked file, which shows you all the changes that we have made. And we leave it up to you to either accept or reject some changes.”
While writing a book this past year, I spent hours poring over The Chicago Manual of Style.
Looking back, this wasn’t a great use of time.
Even if you’re not writing a book, perhaps you have facts requiring citations or graphics that must be formatted correctly. Although not fun, consistency demonstrates professionalism.
Again, you can shave hours off the workday by hiring someone who understands how to cite and reference sources correctly.
“Even if you’re great at English, you know how to write well, you know how to format…you will always need a second pair of eyes,” says Vaidya. “You could have missed out on something. We’re human beings, after all.”
Believe me, I’ve made more than my fair share of writing mistakes over the years.
It’s easy to fix a grammar mistake or typo, but it’s much harder to fix a developmental issue that a professional editor will quickly spot.
Every writer needs advice from time to time, and an editor is the best place to get it. | https://medium.com/@bryanjcollins/why-every-writer-needs-an-editor-3560a1ea109d | ['Bryan Collins'] | 2020-12-09 16:25:53.309000+00:00 | ['Creativity', 'Writing', 'Editing', 'Writing Tips', 'Productivity'] |
The Dog I Took a Beating For | I’m outside a dog meat slaughterhouse in Yulin, China, surrounded by an angry mob of more than 100. They’re screaming and shoving me. The ones who have smart phones are shooting the scene. The ones that don’t are shooting with their mouths — profanities, insults, and an occasional wad of spit.
“Get out of here!” one man shouts.
“You’re going to be locked up!” says another.
The cops holding me cuffed seem somewhere between indifferent and amused, and when they finally pull me away towards the squad car, one of the men approaches with a vicious look and kicks me in the side.
That’s when I realize I may not get out of Yulin alive.
Ten years ago, I was a young faculty member at Northwestern School of Law, one of the fancy new breed of law and economics scholars. The dean of the law school asked me then where I expected myself to be 10 years down the line.
Neither of us could have possibly guessed the answer: fighting for my life against a mob of dog meat traders in China.
—
I am a co-founder of the grassroots animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE). Rescuing animals is our mission. We go to the darkest, most dangerous, and most secretive places on earth to stop violence against animals. We don’t ask for permission. We simply go in, defying the law where necessary, and take injured animals out. Animal rights activists call this “open rescue” because we publicize our actions — and our faces — openly to the world.
As an open rescue activist, I have witnessed some of the most disturbing sights imaginable. Chickens so deprived they are eating each other alive. Piglets so crowded they are trampling one another to death. And farms that resemble evil fortresses from a sci-fi movie, with their massive assembly lines of death and cases and cases of pharmaceuticals. But even I was not emotionally prepared for what I saw in Yulin: people killing and eating dogs.
In recent years, the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, a week-long celebration of the summer solstice where over 10,000 dogs and cats are killed for meat, has triggered international scorn, from Ricky Gervais to the US Congress. In mid-May one hundred thousand Chinese marched in the streets to end the trade.
Yulin officials have resisted pressure by outsiders to change. Indeed, they have redoubled their efforts to insulate dog meat from criticism. Photography is now effectively banned, as traders will violently descend on anyone with a camera. The slaughter itself happens only in secured locations under the cover of night. And from the moment foreigners step into Yulin, they are followed by undercover police.
This is where I step in. I am a son of China. My ancestral homeland is Yulin’s neighboring province of Guangdong. My brown skin and fluent Mandarin allow me to slip into an area like Yulin almost completely unnoticed. I am also one of the most experienced investigators of animal-abusing facilities in the world, having infiltrated dozens of farms, breeders, and slaughterhouses in my 15 years as an animal rights activist. If anyone is going to take the public into the dog meat farms of Yulin, I tell myself, it will have to be me.
But it’s not going to be easy.
—
The dog meat traders eye me with suspicion.
I’m entering an outdoor market with the other members of my investigatory team, Julianne Perry, a whip-smart Dartmouth student, and Chris Van Breen, a deeply compassionate activist from San Jose whose day job is working as a plumber. They are tailing me by about 200 feet for security and support. This is the day where I’ll meet the victims of the dog meat trade face to face.
It’s late afternoon by now, so the market is nearing its close. Dead animals are everywhere — fish, goats, and pigs. Live animals are rare. I wonder if I’ve followed the wrong lead. And then I hear it — the unmistakable barking of a dog.
I follow the barking to the back of the market where I find two small white puppies chained to a pole. I don’t dare take any pictures, as there is a band of seven men chatting and smoking right next to them. The dog meat trade is run by gangs who aren’t afraid to use force. Companion dogs and strays are stolen off the streets. Some of the dogs are still wearing their collars at the time of slaughter. This past February, a blind man’s guide dog was stolen by men who leaped out of a van and grabbed the dog before anyone realized what was happening.
Most of the men at the rear of the market wear disheveled, dirty clothes. They sit in a circle on the stone steps of a small building, laughing, shouting, slapping backs. They have an air of confidence, arrogance even — as if they are saying, “This is our territory.” And I can’t help but think back to the stories I have heard of violent gangs marauding the streets in search of dogs. Could these be such men? I take a breath, remind myself to be confident and loose. I walk into the circle.
“I want to buy a dog from a dog meat farmer.”
“Where are you from, boy?” the oldest of them, the clear ringleader, says. He is perhaps 50, with a sullen expression and dead eyes.
“Taiwan, but I travel to China often. My family is from Guangxi. My girlfriend in Taiwan told me to bring her home a dog, and I think it would tickle her to have a dog from the dog meat trade.”
The men look skeptical. The ringleader’s eyebrows furrow.
“There are no dogs here now. You missed them by 20 minutes.”
“What about those two dogs?”
“They’re not ready for slaughter,” another man says.
“Would I be able to buy them?”
“Yes, but it would cost you,” the ringleader says.
“I want a meat dog, though. These dogs don’t look like dog meat dogs.”
“All dogs are meat dogs! It just depends on their personality. If they are friendly or the right breed, we can sell them as pets. But if they are fearful, they are sold for meat.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard. I want to see a meat dog, straight from the farm.”
The men seem perplexed and suspicious. But I slap some backs, pump up their egos, and laugh loudly. Eventually, one of the younger men warms up.
“I can take you to my farm,” he says.
The ringleader intervenes, “But don’t think you can get the dogs cheap.”
The younger fellow, with dirty hair and splotches on his face, hops on a rusty bicycle and tells me to follow. He is, at most, 30, but he is already missing multiple teeth. The ringleader walks to his motorcycle and tells me to get on the back. He says it’s too long a distance to walk. I have no idea where they plan to take me, or what they intend to do. I don’t want to abandon Julianne and Chris, who are dependent on me to get back to our apartment, but this could be my only chance to find a dog farm.
I look the ringleader in the eye.
“Let’s go.”
—
The dog farm I am entering is not actually a dog farm. It’s a pig farm that has been refitted to raise dogs. The farmer had been driven out of the pork business by competition with Western giants like Smithfield. To him, I learn as we talk, all animals are the same. Dogs, pigs, he tells me, there’s no difference. At least on that, we agree.
The farm is dilapidated — trash everywhere, boards piled up. A large rusty gate serves as an entrance. The smell of dog shit permeates the air. The brick walls form a rectangle, with residential areas on one side and animal pens on the other. There are holes in the walls and the roof that allow rain to leak in. Barking is constant.
The first dog I see is a little black pup who, with his puffy hair, looks like a chow. He is attached by a short chain to a tree, and the only cover he has, in this rainy season, is a hole in the ground. The second dog I see is a tiny white dog, losing fur across his body, with two others, his brothers, cowering in the same concrete pen. They have the round distended bellies of starving children. They bark incessantly, seemingly begging for help, but the moment I approach, they all flee to the furthest corner of the pen.
I walk around the farm, trying to secretly record video with my iPhone. But I quickly realize the farmer doesn’t mind; indeed, he’s proud of his work.
“These are well-kept dogs, all very healthy,” he says.
“Why is their skin red, and why are they losing all their fur?”
“Just something that happens in the summer.”
I see hundreds of fleas crawling over the dogs’ skin, and the feces matted into their sparse fur. Could this man really believe what he is saying? But he looks at me with the earnest, proud look of a farmer showing off his prized livestock. This, to him, is humane.
Three hours later, I’ve made my way back to the market — much to the relief of the team, who worried I might be dead. We head back to our temporary base of operations, a rundown apartment in central Yulin. At the apartment, we huddle together and view my photos of the dog farm. We are deciding who we will try to save. It’s a dark conversation, focused on which of the dogs is most likely to survive — and least likely to compromise our mission by creating too much noise. We decide on two of the three brothers, including the little white dog I saw in my first few moments on the farm. It breaks our hearts, but we decide the third brother is too fearful to make it out. He will bark or bite or scramble away. We will leave him behind in the dark concrete pen to live out the rest of his short life, alone.
We decided we would have to leave this dog behind.
—
Conventional animal advocates operate under what political scientist Timothy Pachirat calls the “politics of sight,” i.e. the assumption that exposure to the horrors of animal agriculture will create change. “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian,” Paul McCartney famously said.
But this is a myth. Exposure, on its own, is neutral. It can just as easily lead to desensitization as liberation. In China, for example, the slaughter of most animals is right out on the street for all to see, yet concern for animal rights is virtually nonexistent. Pachirat argues that advocates must discard the politics of sight for what he calls a “politics of relation.” It’s not enough to know of the violence against animals. We must know the animals — pigs, chickens, cows, turkeys, goats. We must understand them, meet them, and create relationships with them — like the relationships Americans have with dogs and cats — if we are to create change.
Consider gay rights. It was only when masses of LGBT folks started coming out — talking, laughing, and hugging people, face to face — that the movement was able to achieve transformation. (“My uncle is gay, and I would not want anyone to mistreat him!”) To create change, we must do the same for animals. Think of Cecil or Harambe or even Nemo. When people know animals, truly relate to them, they are moved to protect them from violence.
Open rescue, with its stories of animals taken from the brink of death, is perhaps our most powerful tool to build such a politics of relation. Each of DxE’s open rescues has garnered media attention, inspired thousands of activists, and introduced the public to charismatic individuals of another species. When our audience watches the animals recover, they root for them. They feel for them. They form a relation.
But there is a personal reason for this rescue mission as well. When I was 9, I visited China for the first time. I was a young boy who loved dogs more than anything in the world.
A few days into our trip, we walked towards a strange restaurant. Cages lined the store outside. There were monkeys and snakes and raccoons. Patrons could point to an animal to have them killed and prepared as food. Then I saw a dog shivering in one of the cages. I shrieked. But my parents said there was nothing we could do to help, that dogs were no different than the pigs we ate back home. So we left the dog to die.
Twenty five years later, I wanted to change that story. I wanted a happy ending.
—
Sweat is coursing down my spine, partly due to heat and partly due to stress, and I’m picking the little white dog up from his filthy concrete pen. He’s the most friendly of the three, but he’s still frightened out of his mind. He pees on my shirt out of sheer terror. The pup’s ears are pressed tight against his head.
The dogs cowered in fear when we first entered the pen.
Julianne and I place him into a crate and quickly move on to the next dog. He nips at me, as I’m picking him up, but it’s the weak bite of a dog who has lived his life in fear. The bite doesn’t even leave a mark, much less break skin. He squeals for just a moment, but once I set him down in the crate with his brother, he is calm.
Then the hardest part comes. The third brother. We look at him, in his miserable and filthy state. For one year, he has known nothing but the four walls of this disgusting pen. He is terrified of anything that moves other than his two brothers. We decide we can’t leave him here to die, scared and alone. When we approach, he scampers away. He tries to climb up the concrete walls to escape. Julianne and I corner him. As he tries to dart between us, Julianne grabs him by his backside. He’s surprisingly calm once in her arms, but we still wonder — will he make too much noise?
—
It’s five days later. The three dogs are safe, and our investigation has moved from farm to slaughterhouse. I am hiding on the floor of a bathroom — which, in Yulin, is little more than a hole in the ground. Dogs are being beaten and killed 10 feet away, on the other side of the wall. I have seen or heard it happen dozens of times before. A worker grabs a dog with huge tong-like calipers. The jaws close around the dog’s neck. Then the dog is dragged across the slaughterhouse floor, often while shrieking in terror, to the other side where a heavy metal club and blade await. The club comes down on the dog’s head in a rain of blows. (Some dogs go down with one blow, but many take a dozen or more.) The worker brings the knife to his throat. And the dog makes one last delirious cry, as his body shakes uncontrollably and his blood stains the slaughterhouse floor.
As I lie there, silently, waiting for my opportunity to leap onto a six foot fence nearby and place a hidden camera on the window, I keep forcing myself to think of the three dogs we saved — the first white dog I saw, Xiao, the other one that we had planned to take, Lao, and the third brother, the most fearful, Pao. Pao, Lao and Xiao. I keep repeating their names in my head, visualizing their now happy faces, as I sit there listening to the screams of dogs being brutalized.
This is the most dangerous site I have ever investigated. The market where the slaughterhouse sits is massive, with perhaps a hundred stands and warehouses, many of which have beds for workers or owners to sleep in at night. The slaughterhouse itself is next to a shipping area that receives animals — goats, cats, cows, even raccoons — throughout the night. Worse yet, the slaughterhouse is nearly pitch black at night, making my effort to position a hidden camera insanely difficult.
I climbed up to a window to shoot video of the slaughterhouse.
I spend nearly two hours getting the cameras positioned properly in hopes of a passable vantage of the slaughterhouse’s inner workings. Still, I am confident. I’ve never been caught before, and I can’t imagine I’ll be caught here. The people of Yulin are unsophisticated, I tell myself, arrogantly. They’ve never had to deal with open rescue activists before, and they won’t be looking for cameras.
For four nights, this method serves me well. Then, suddenly, it fails.
On the fifth night I am standing on the outside of the slaughterhouse, balancing delicately on a fence with 3-inch rails. I look down, and there is a woman standing 10 feet away, staring at me as I stand above her head flashing a light into the dog slaughterhouse.
She runs off immediately, and I jump down and call out after her.
“I was looking for the bathroom, ma’am. Do you know where it is?”
But she ignores me. I curse out loud, “What the fuck is anyone doing here at 2 am?”
I run back to the slaughterhouse. I need maybe 10 more minutes to position and test a final camera. This is the first time I have a good understanding of where the slaughter actually happens within the processing facility. I figure it might be my last chance to film. So I take a risk and finish the job. Then, I’m on my way out. It’s a half mile walk to the market exit.
The first sign that something is wrong is three lights in the distance. They are motorcycles, and as they approach me they begin to slow. Two men are on each bike. I ignore them and keep walking, but I hear the men chattering in the local Yulin dialect.
One of the men follows me, and another shouts, “Where are you going? Who are you?”
With my modern-looking dress and Dell backpack, which they can now see quite clearly with their motorcycle lights, I don’t have a good explanation.
“I was using the bathroom,” I say. “Thanks!”
I give the men my friendliest smile. It’s an approach that has worked well with security guards and police in the US. Kill them with kindness.
But not tonight. Someone grabs at my backpack from behind and pulls me back.
“What’s in here?” he yells. I turn around. The six men have swelled to 12. Another 15–20 people mill around in the market, watching the interaction from afar, and a number of the market stands now have their doors open. I curse myself for not noticing earlier that so many shopkeeps live in the market.
I go from friendly to ferocious, in an effort to scare some of the men off. I’ve been told that the dog meat traders, while violent, are easily frightened by a show of confidence.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I shout. “Take your hands off me!”
My confidence is not all puffery. I have been in more fights than I care to admit, played football and wrestled in high school, and am, perhaps, 30 pounds heavier than any of these men.
It’s the wrong move. One of the men sucker punches me on the side of the head. Two others grab me and start pummeling my face and side. Another attempts to take my bag, which has over $5000 in camera equipment, and even more important, an SD card with the prior night’s footage of the slaughterhouse.
I hear my glasses crack with one of the punches and curse myself for failing to bring contacts. I fall to the ground, my head pounding in pain. These men have been torturing and killing dogs, I say to myself, and now is my chance to get revenge. My 20-year-old self would have relished the fight. But my 34-year-old-self has had the benefit of a decade of meditation and nonviolence. I know this is not a fight I can win. I push one of the men aside, twist myself out of the grip of the one holding my bag, and turn towards the men.
“Brothers, let’s stop,” I say. “I mean you no harm.”
But the men approach me again, and I prepare myself for the next barrage. Remarkably, a woman steps up. It’s the same woman who caught me outside of the slaughterhouse. She pushes the man in front away, and yells, “Stop hitting him!”
And that gives me enough room to make my escape. I hear them arguing with one another behind me, but I don’t waste a second in my dash for the exit. I make my way out of the market and into the Yulin night.
—
I am looking at the footage our cameras have captured. Dog after dog screams in terror as they are beaten to death. Other dogs scurry and run the moment someone walks into the room, and I begin to understand what drives Pao’s fear.
Every night, when I place the cameras, I meet the victims. There are labradors and beagles. German shepherds and little terriers. They whimper at me as I work, and I see their faces when I flash my light into the slaughterhouse to test the cameras.
There is the little tan dog with the blackish face. He is huddling with another, much larger dog, who can barely keep his eyes open, probably due to sickness or injury. I see him there on two of the nights I visit the slaughterhouse. He is always with his sick friend, and always pressed against the slaughterhouse fence. Then he disappears one night, and I know he and his friend are dead.
Then there is the white dog with brown spots and a broken leg. So many of the dogs are grievously injured in transport. He was one of them, and was in so much pain that he could hardly stand. And yet, in the crowded environment of the stockyard, he was constantly forced to run, and push, and fight — on three legs. After two days of desperate struggle, I watch as a man beats him to death. He shrieks and begs, but there will be no rescue. His lifeless body is tossed onto the pile.
The dogs of the meat trade tend to run on the small side, and all are young, usually just a year old, and gentle. The aggressive dogs won’t make it to slaughter. The dogs must be meek enough that they will take a beating and not fight back. Every dog I saw had the same look of innocence. Every dog I saw seemed to be begging me to set them free. And every dog I saw was let down by me when I packed up my cameras and left them in the pens to die. Weeks later, I still see their eyes.
I barely sleep for days, darting back and forth between the apartment and the slaughterhouse to position cameras and change batteries and SD cards. When I come home there are always new problems with the three dogs we have saved. Their skin condition is worsening. One of them begins to limp. Another makes a strange sound while eating.
Still, being with these dogs keeps me going. Xiao, the smallest of the three, warms up to me first. By day three, he is no longer scared of me. By day five, he approaches and allows me to kiss him on the head. Watching them grow from being afraid of anything other than the corner of the room, to romping around the small apartment, to finally sleeping on my bed for the few hours I sleep each night, keeps me going back to the slaughterhouse. Every one of the slaughterhouse dogs is as wonderful as the three we have at the apartment, I say to myself. And, while I cannot help them all, I can share their stories with the world.
We used treats and loving words to help the dogs heal.
—
I am making one last trip to the slaughterhouse. It’s early in the morning, just 12 hours after I was spotted, and we’ve decided that this will be the last visit. Just grab the cameras and go. It’s a tough call, given the assault I endured, but we figure the darkness will have made it difficult for them to identify us. One more trip, I reason, is safe.
That is a catastrophic mistake.
I enter the market and position myself to remove the cameras. Suddenly, the lookout, Julianne, messages me to get out immediately. She says the cameras, which we thought had been concealed, are gone. Confused, I walk back towards the exit, and I’m shocked to see six men pushing and grabbing at her. One person has already taken her phone. I have to decide: reveal myself as an ally of hers, or try to document what is happening? Her safety is my first concern. So I put my hand on one of the men and ask him to leave her alone.
“Please take your hands off her,” I say. “We’ll be leaving now.”
The men immediately switch their attention to me.
“It’s him! He’s the one I saw,” a man says. It’s one of the men who assaulted me a few nights before. “Grab him now before he gets away.”
A group of five men begin pounding on me. When I struggle to approach Julianne to free her, they slam me to the ground and twist my arm behind my back. I hear my glasses — my backup pair — crunch again as my face hits the ground.
As I lie on the ground with face planted into the dirt, I hear celebratory shouting. The dog meat traders are smarter than I realized. We’ve just been victims of a sting.
—
Over the next two days, I am interrogated in a Chinese jail for 15 hours, and held in solitary confinement the rest of the time. The room I’m held in is a garish blue cell. It has no windows, no sink, and no toilet. The lights are never turned off.
I do not sleep or eat, and the longest single interrogation is a relentless six hours. Six hours where I literally give the same response over and over to six different interrogators. “Thank you sir, but I would prefer to speak to the embassy before answering that question.”
The officers threaten me with espionage charges. They threaten me with burglary. They even threaten to let the dog meat traders “get” me. (“You know, we are the only ones protecting you from them,” one officer says.) But I refuse to give the officers the information they want — the address of our apartment, where they would find our equipment, our footage, and most importantly, Pao, Lao and Xiao. The officers bring me on a tour through downtown Yulin and ask if I live at half a dozen different apartment complexes. But I do not give them an answer, and I hope that they will eventually tire of this and let us go.
Ultimately, it is our keys that give us away. The markings and numbers on the keys lead them to our landlord and room. And on approximately the seventh trip out into the city, surrounded by 12 police officers, I realize that the game is over. The police have found the right building, and they will soon be taking the three dogs.
When the police knock on the door, I hear barking on the other side. Chris opens the door, and my heart drops, knowing he, too, will be arrested and the dogs taken from us. The officers barge in. They confiscate all our equipment — our laptops and cameras — as they search the place upside down. Miraculously, however, they ignore the dogs, who they allow us to put in the bathroom while they search. A few hours later, the officers say we are all going back to jail.
“What about the dogs?” I ask. “They can’t stay in the apartment by themselves, with no food or water.”
“They’ll have to,” an officer responds. I beg them to allow me to ask the landlord to take care of them. That is a large ask, given that she does not allow dogs in the apartment. Indeed, we’ve been sneaking them in and out. But much to my surprise, she agrees. (I later learn that she felt bad because she had informed on us to the police.)
—
Back at the jail I’m sitting in the office of the highest officer in the city of Yulin. He’s offering me Taiwanese tea and has me uncuffed sitting next to his desk.
“We’re all friends here,” he says. “So let’s be friendly!”
He asks me to unlock our phones and laptops. I won’t agree to this, which makes him exasperated. He explains that I don’t have the right to say no to him, and that the consequences of refusing will be severe. He says we won’t get out, or get our equipment out, until we unlock the devices.
We finally settle on my showing his forensic team the files on the computer from a distance. They sit on the other side of the table, as I show them every file on the computer over the course of 3 hours. But the boss breaks our agreement and demands that we delete the files — even innocent footage of our three dogs playing. What he doesn’t know is that I’ve already sent a considerable amount of footage to the States. I pretend to pause and ponder his demand, as if it’s a hard choice. Then I agree. One of his tech staff installs an app that supposedly shreds files on my computer, and they delete all the footage we’ve shot.
For the first time, the officers are good to their word. They release us, and even give us back our computers, minus a few $3000 cameras, but they also say that we will be deported from China. I ask them, “For what offense?” They never give me an answer. We grab a cab home, and when we get back to the apartment, it’s a relief to find that the dogs are happy and healthy. They jump up and down to see us, and moan so longingly it’s almost as if they are in physical pain.
I don’t even mind that there’s a motion sensor installed, and a strange group of angry-looking young men stationed — undercover police officers, we later learn — outside of our apartment. Another group is stationed on the first floor. We won’t take another step in China without the police knowing where we are.
—
It’s two weeks later. I’m home in Berkeley, playing with one of the dogs in our living room. We’ve now named him Oliver, after the orphan from Dickens’ novel, and he is dancing and twirling in joy. He’s one of those goofy dogs who always manages to amuse himself, and in the most flamboyant ways. Every few minutes, I have to remind myself that we really got him out; that he was going to be brutally beaten and eaten, but that now he is safe.
I’ve never loved anyone as quickly as I love Oliver. This is why.
A few weeks later, I’m watching ABC’s Nightline. They’re featuring our investigation of the dog meat trade. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s remarkably positive coverage. They’ve made us out to be heroes when we’re really just ordinary people who love dogs. On the other hand, they’ve ignored what was, to me, the most important message of our rescue: that, to truly save dogs and other animals, we have to look first and foremost at ourselves. It’s not just the millions of dogs who die in shelters or labs in the United States, horribly sad though their stories are. It’s that what drives dog meat in China is what drives bacon or hamburger in the West: the false belief that we can exploit animals because they are different from us. Until we upend that belief system — which animal rights activists call “speciesism” — animals, including dogs, will always be in danger.
I look at Oliver playing in the backyard and think back to the dozens of other animals I’ve rescued from farms. A sick piglet we named Miley. A tiny crippled hen, who became Emma. And a dying chicken, Mei, we pulled from an egg farm’s manure pile. While the species is different, the story is the same. A human being, motivated as much by ignorance as malice, concluded that Oliver’s life didn’t matter. It’s a story as old as human prejudice.
But when I look into Oliver’s eyes — when the world looks into his eyes — I see a different story unfolding. I see more and more ordinary people, just like me, deciding to take an extraordinary risk. To walk behind the closed doors, past the lines that we normally draw, and beyond the moral frontiers that we have always kept. I see more open rescues happening just like ours, spreading across the globe and daring the government to try us in the court of law or the court of public opinion. I see an industry and ideology crumbling under the weight of hypocrisy. And I see a world where all the slaughterhouses have been replaced with sanctuaries — spaces where the animals of this earth can live in peace rather than violence.
I smile and get up to look at a map. It’s time to plan our next rescue.
—
Wayne Hsiung is lead investigator in the DxE Open Rescue Network and co-founder of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), the international grassroots animal liberation network. He formerly practiced law at two national law firms and served on the faculty of Northwestern School of Law. His work with DxE has been covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Nightline. | https://medium.com/direct-action-everywhere-dxe/the-dog-i-took-a-beating-for-e24fdbb3ed7f | ['Wayne Hsiung'] | 2020-10-12 06:05:01.349000+00:00 | ['Dogs', 'Vegan', 'Animal Rights', 'Animals', 'Social Justice'] |
Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF vs the Meta Raster Format | If you are working with geospatial data visualizations you have probably heard of Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs and may also have heard of the Meta Raster Format. These formats both provide efficient access to visualization data and have similar goals. The popular GDAL library supports both. So what are the differences, and when would you choose one over the other?
The Impetus
Why do we need either of these formats? Because images derived from geospatial data (and satellite images in particular), tend to be HUGE. And often a user is only interested in a small portion of an image, say, some small region of an image of the entire Earth. Downloading an entire image just to view a small portion of it is a waste of time and resources. Therefore, there is a need for image formats that support partial downloads. This is where Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs and the Meta Raster Format come in.
Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF
The Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) introduced Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs (COGs) . They are not a new format; they are simply GeoTIFFs that have an internal organization that supports efficient access via HTTP. This internal organization, combined with an HTTP feature called GET range requests, allows a client to retrieve only the portion of the file that it needs.
Organization of Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs
There are two components to the internal organization of COGs, tiling and overviews.
Tiling
Typical raster images store data row by row, as shown in Figure 1. So the client must read the whole file to get a piece of the image.
COGs store image data in tiles as shown in Figure 2. With tiling, only the tiles covering the area of interest need to be read.
Overviews
Overviews are downsampled versions of the original image as shown in Figure 3. They represent “zoomed out” versions of the image.
Multiple overviews can be stored in a COG to match multiple zoom levels. Overviews are stored tiled just like the original image. So an application that supports zooming only needs to retrieve the tiles for the overview associated with the given zoom level.
HTTP GET range requests
HTTP 1.1 introduced support for range requests. Range requests allow a client to request only a portion of an HTTP message from a server. This is useful for applications serving large media files such as videos in which the client may only want a portion of a file, for instance to resume play after pausing.
HTTP servers are not required to support range requests. A server indicates support for range requests by returning the header Accept-Ranges: bytes . Then the client is able to make requests for specific byte ranges within the file. In the case of COGs, this allows the client to request individual tiles or tile ranges without downloading the entire file. Even if a server does not support range requests, a client can still work with the GeoTIFFs, albeit by downloading entire files.
The Meta Raster Format (MRF) was introduced by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Like COGs, MRF files store imagery in a tiled format that allows for quick access to individual tiles. Also like COGs, MRFs store multiple resolutions of the image to facilitate zooming.
Meta Raster Format “files” actually consist of three sub-files, the MRF file, the data file, and the index file.
The MRF File
The MRF file, with the suffix “.mrf”, is an XML file that provides metadata about the image and the tiles, such as compression type, projection, etc. An example is given below:
PJGs and PPGs
The data file is a single file that stores the actual tile images. Tiles in an MRF are self-contained images, either JPEGs or PNGs. If the tiles are stored as JPEGs, the suffix for the data file is “.pjg”, short for “pile of JPEGs”. If the tiles are stored as PNGs, then it is a “pile of PNGs”, with suffix “.ppg”.
Index Files
The index file (suffix “.idx”) stores the byte ranges of each tile in the data file. These are stored as a list of 64 bit offset and length pairs as shown in Figure 4.
The format supports sparse data (empty tiles) efficiently by storing a single “empty tile” as the first tile. Any missing parts of the image reference the “empty tile”. This allows index files to be stored as sparse files since many of the tiles in an MRF may be empty. An example is an image from a single satellite orbital pass.
Since the index file keeps track of tile positions the tiles in a data file need not be stored sequentially . This allows updates to data files to append the data to the end of the file. Then the index file is updated to point to the new version of a tile. This makes updates to MRFs very efficient and is very useful for incremental updates, say for near-realtime data.
In general there is less performance overhead for reading and writing MRFs as compared to COG. There is also increased flexibility for the way an MRF is generated. The cost is a more complicated format and the need for the server to understand and support index files. Also, index files can become huge if they are stored on a file system that does not support sparse files. Notably, S3 does not support sparse files.
When to use MRFs vs. COGs
So when should we use MRFs and when should we use COGs?
The primary difference between the two comes down to this: MRFs put the burden on the server, whereas COGs put the burden on the client. A tile server using MRFs needs to use the index file to efficiently retrieve tile data from an MRF, which increases the complexity of the server. On the other hand, because the server has to know more about MRFs, it can use this information to provide further optimizations like tile caching.
A simple HTTP server that supports HTTP GET range requests can serve COGs, but the client needs to keep track of the byte ranges it wants to retrieve from the image. With MRFs, the client can simply request tiles by number, or even by specifying a geographic bounding box / zoom level that the server can use to determine which tiles to return.
The simpler nature of serving COGs probably makes it more “cloud friendly” in that S3, Google Cloud, etc. support GET range requests and scale really well. And there is no need for support for sparse files. So applications that are run on the client side that need to access large data sets with little server support are a good fit for COGs. On the other hand, applications that require many file updates and additional server functionality (such as the Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS)) are better suited to MRFs.
So in conclusion, if you want to make a large inventory of big images that support efficient partial downloads with minimum effort, and you are willing to leave the work up to the client, use COGs. If you want to build a sophisticated service that provides tiled imagery search services, MRFs are a better choice. | https://medium.com/element84/cloud-optimized-geotiff-vs-the-meta-raster-format-d24c1a77dc2e | [] | 2019-05-07 12:02:04.081000+00:00 | ['Data Analysis', 'Satellite Technology', 'Remote Sensing', 'Geospatial', 'Data Visualization'] |
A Win For Biden A Loss For Democrats | As the election results for 2020 come pouring in it’s becoming increasingly clear Biden will probably become president-elect Biden and very soon after. President Biden. But there is a question that remains. After all is said and done and the dust settles…will this be a win for the Democrat party?
If Biden wins this it will be the slimmest of margins. With some states like Wisconsin coming down to less than 40,000 votes, along with Biden losing several swing states in the process of his race to 270. Denying Democrats of a landslide they assumed they’d have.
Furthermore, according to exit polls, Trump increased his share of minority and LGBT votes this year, meaning large voting blocs the Democrat party has always relied on had a shift to the right this year, which should be worrying to them.
Allow me now to direct your attention to the house elections, where Republicans have so far been sweeping seats. So flipping seats back to red they lost in the midterms, and that’s with several races uncalled. They’re poised to take more seats in states as deep blue as New York and California, and they are also expected to keep their Senate majority. More bad news for the blue as well, of the 11 governor elections that took place on November 3rd, Republicans not only held all of their seats but flipped Montana. It’s being realized that the 2020 election may be a rejection of Trump but it is not an embracement of the Democrat party, quite the opposite. This can only be seen as one thing. A rejection of the Democrats and their current party platform. With the Republican party strong, and here to stay is it still a win for Biden? Yes. A win for the Democrat party? A resounding no. | https://medium.com/@emmanuelpacings/a-win-for-biden-a-loss-for-democrats-ab8159c30415 | ['Emmanuel Pacings'] | 2020-11-10 05:10:31.640000+00:00 | ['Democratic Party', 'Polític', 'Biden', '2020 Presidential Race', 'Democracy'] |
Energy, Productivity & Debt — Inescapable Realities of Prosperity | “The determinants of economic health are timeless and universal” — Ray Dalio, How the Economic Machine Works, 2017
Summary
Over the long-term productivity is what matters most for economic growth (and development)[1].
Traditionally, we tended to look at production as a function of how efficient (productive) labour and capital are employed — this relationship has been the bedrock of our understanding of economic development and growth for centuries. However, by seeing production as the output of only labour and capital, we risk ignoring a fundamental component of development and growth: energy; more specifically, energy efficiency.
Prior to the industrial revolution, economies around the world functioned on ‘above land energy’ — solar (photosynthesis that helped grow food and trees for wood supplies), wind (which enabled maritime transport) and water (e.g. through irrigation systems and water mills). Things have changed with the adaptations made to the steam engine by Thomas Savery, Thomas Newcomen and James Watt throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
Their combined breakthroughs eventually enabled countries to tap into fossil fuels (such as coal, oil and natural gas) on unprecedented scales. This led to incredible technological innovations and advancements that finally freed a large proportion of people, on a global level, from the life’s necessities.
Fossil fuels represent energy from ancient photosynthesis stored over millions of years, sometimes exceeding 650 million years[2]. Therefore, once consumed, it is impossible to be regenerated during a human lifetime.
By looking at changes in GDP over timeframes that do not account for this massive change in production and prosperity, capital allocators concerned with the long-term destiny of the world risk building an incomplete picture of the main drivers of past, current and future economic development and growth.
That is not to say that we should account for thousands of years of economic change — but only for a period that goes back long enough into the past to capture the pre-industrial revolution world (for example 100–150 years before), while also capturing the period since then. In this way, we account for the transition between what we can call ‘energy cycles’, enabling us to appreciate the importance of energy in driving economic development and growth.
Just as there are debt cycles, which result from debt levels growing to a point that overburdens the economy, there are also energy cycles. The chart below illustrates this.
During each of these energy cycles, people make use of certain energy sources in the most efficient way possible. This energy harvesting happens up to the point at which using that energy source is no longer productive — at this point economic development stagnates and consequently, economic growth also comes to a halt. Indeed, if we look at history, we see that there can be prolonged periods of very little-to-no economic development and therefore, mute economic growth[3].
Seen in this context, the period of economic prosperity achieved over the past 200 years or so, especially since the end of WWII is truly unique in human history and we should not take it for granted — rather, we should look to understand what has made it possible. A key ingredient has been our capacity to put to work dense, cheap and finite forms of energy — fossil fuels.
Not accounting for this factor, while also supporting with more and more debt an economic system that seems to value consumption over long-term investment can have negative consequences for the future prosperity of the world and consequently, for investment returns.
Before we get into it, please note that I do not claim to be an expert on this topic — it is however something that I find quite interesting. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how I see things coming together, which may be different than how things are in reality; so feel free to comment and question whatever you think is not convincing or doesn’t make sense. Also, this paper was published first on LinkedIn.
What determines economic growth?
Before we try and answer this…
…we need to make the difference between economic development and economic growth. These two processes, in my mind, are different in what they are but overlap in how they manifest. I will discuss this in more detail in a future paper. For now, suffice to say that economic development requires innovation.
Meanwhile, innovation requires a certain mix of cultural values, legal / regulatory system flexibility and access to resources which enables creative people to a) imagine new products / services, b) put their imagination to work (i.e. execute their ideas), c) bring their final work to market (should they be successful in executing their ideas) and d) be remunerated for the risks taken in creating something new. Where economic growth and development overlap is in the final two parts (c ) and (d).
Growth means to consume something that was produced — the more consumption there is, the more demand there is and therefore, the more production there is. However, growth, in the absence of innovation which is a key driver of improving productivity, reaches a point where it becomes an unproductive endeavour. In other words, consumption, which is the remuneration of producers, no longer is enough to justify itself and the processes of production need to be improved or new ones developed — this is done through innovation, i.e. economic development.
Now, back to economic growth…
There are several factors that determine economic growth but, at a big picture level, economic growth, or GDP, is a function of an economy’s workforce and the productivity of its workers. As such, GDP equals the number of workers times the output per worker. Transformed into growth rates this equation becomes: ∆GDP = ∆Workforce + ∆Productivity.
Over the long-term productivity is what matters most[4] for economic growth. Productivity is a measure of how cost-effective one can produce something — a key way to quantitatively look at productivity is as output per hour. Some (random) examples below. All data is from OECD.
An individual (or a company, a sector, a country) can increase their productivity by either working more or working smarter (i.e. more efficient). Working more simply means spending more of your time doing your job (or jobs). Working smarter however entails investment into researching and developing new technologies, methods and production processes, i.e. it requires innovation[5].
Ray Dalio, in his Economic Principles, breaks down productivity into three main and interconnected factors: a) the country’s cost-effectiveness of labour, b) the country’s investment level and c) cultural values. To this list, I would add a fourth ingredient — exergy; this can be viewed as the capacity of energy to do physical work.
Energy and economic productivity
I was first introduced to the field of exergy economics while working at Woodford Investment Management, where I had the opportunity to read the interesting research work from the MacroStrategy Partnership.
As it can be seen below, the exergy economic model puts the economy into this wider context of energy flows. Chart source can be found here.
The key idea is that all interactions of matter involve energy flows. “This is true whether they have to do with earthquakes, the movement of the planets, or the various biological and industrial processes at work anywhere in the world.”[6]
Instead of looking at economic growth as a function of how productive the capital and labour employed are, the exergy economic model explains GDP as a function of labour, capital and exergy. In other words, productivity is equivalent with the energy’s capacity to be converted into physical work. As Niels Jensen writes in his book — “Think of exergy as productivity.”[7]
The reason you can think of exergy as productivity is because they are both measures of the same concept: cost-effective work; albeit from slightly different angles. Building on Ray Dalio’s definition of productivity, take the following example.
Suppose that the workers from country A are equally as educated and produce the same amount of output per hour as the workers from country B. If the workers from country A cost less than the workers from country B, then the country A is more competitive (i.e. it is more productive relative to country B). This is the same thing as saying that if workers of country A use less resources, both financial (money or credit) and physical (energy) than workers from country B, given that the output is equal in both cases, employing workers from country A will provide you with more value above the cost of employing them.
From an exergy economics perspective this can be stated as: the capacity of energy to produce physical work through the thoughts and actions of workers from country A is more cost-efficient because that work uses a lower quantity of energy to produce the same output as the greater quantity of energy utilised in the case of workers from country B. Therefore, between two workers, with the same level of education that produce the same amount of output per hour, more productive (and thus, more competitive) will be the one that costs the economy less resources (not just financial ones but energy too).
This productivity-exergy equivalence also holds true for the process of “producing” energy[8], particularly from fossil fuels — oil, coal and natural gas remain by far the most important sources of energy worldwide, with 85% of energy supplies coming from fossil fuels in 2017[9]. Therefore, when producing energy is not a productive endeavour (i.e. it is cost inefficient), the production of energy declines, threatening to drag down with it economic development and growth.
Energy production can decline either if demand falls (i.e. consumers find energy prices unaffordable), leading to lower levels of production to meet a lower level of demand, or if supply is cut (i.e. energy producers find it unaffordable to provide the economy with energy or there are political reasons to reduce supply). Finding the equilibrium between these two price levels is what we can call the ‘economic affordability’ of energy.
The role of affordable energy in economic growth
The role of energy has been largely neglected from economic growth models primarily because the models that we are using today have been developed during a time when the world didn’t need to worry about the role of energy too much — until the 1970s oil shocks.
During the Arab-Israeli conflict in the early 1970s, OPEC’s Arab members, led by Saudi Arabia, imposed an oil embargo as retaliation for the support showed to Israel by the US. The embargo involved production cuts and the suspension of exports to the US, as well as other nations that backed Israel. As a result, the price of oil, measured by the spot price of WTI, increased by about 260% above the long-run average in 1974. From 1946 to the end of 1973, the average spot crude oil price was $2.8 per barrel. In 1974 it jumped to $10.1 per barrel, crippling the economy.
This sudden and extreme price increase was a major contributor to the US economic recession during 1973–1975 (the final grey line in the chart below).
We can easily underestimate the important role that affordable energy, tapped into on a massive scale, has played and continues to play in fuelling technological development (i.e. innovation) as well as economic growth (i.e. consumption).
If we look at history, and we do not have to go too far back, we can see that prior to the improvements to the steam engine, which enabled the extraction and transport of oil[10], the world was advancing much slower than we are today[11].
An important factor that was holding progress back was the [natural] limit on growth imposed by the sources of energy used: mostly wind (throughout windmills and boats), hydro (through waterwheels and maritime transport) and solar (through food, wood and animal muscle power). These sources of energy were more or less contained by ‘land’ — hence, it is understandable why the classic economists (such as Adam Smith) thought about factors of production as land, capital and labour.
Things changed during the industrial revolution. It was 1859, when the first oil well was drilled in Western Pennsylvania, which was producing 15–25 barrels of oil per day — that was the entire oil production worldwide[12]. In 2017, the world extracted 92.6 million barrels per day[13]. The cost-efficiency of this massive production is paramount for economic development to happen and for economic growth to accelerate (or even to be sustained).
From the perspective of the oil producer, affordability means that it can sell the oil barrel at a price high enough not only to compensate for the cost of discovering the well, extracting, refining and transporting the oil but which also enables future investment in this process as well as in other life endeavours, i.e. the producer must sell oil at a price above the breakeven point, which makes a profit. For example, the average cost of producing one barrel of shale oil in the US is about $60[14] — if the shale oil price drops below this for a sustained period of time, all things being equal, the producers will have to cut production so the price can reach a new equilibrium at which they make a profit[15].
From the perspective of the consumer, affordability means that the price of oil is low enough that it doesn’t absorb too much of their income, so that they can pay for their mortgage / rent, other utilities, food etc. If the price is too high for the consumer, then demand for oil will go down, lowering the price of the commodity which, in turn, can make oil production uneconomical. This then can result in more cuts to production, meaning that industries won’t have enough energy to sustain the past level of production of goods and/or services. As a result, economic growth comes under pressure.
In my view, unaffordable oil prices, or energy prices in general act as a tightening of resources in the economy — akin to how tighter monetary policy acts for the financial markets. Not high enough prices to justify the cost of energy production means that more resources (labour, finance, technology) are tied up in producing the same (or an increasingly lower) quantity of energy[16]. Not low enough prices to enable consumption to pick up (and this includes deferred consumption, i.e. savings) or be maintained means that more income (and / or credit borrowed against future income streams that can also diminish if energy prices remain too high) go towards paying for energy instead of going into savings (pensions and other investments)[17] or other goods / services. Either way, the economy needs affordable energy to develop and grow.
Energy’s cost-efficiency can also be eroded if the energy itself does not do the amount of physical work needed to pay for itself. In other words, as exergy decreases, energy production becomes an unproductive endeavour, eventually rendering it unaffordable. Exergy deteriorates in the process of transforming energy from its raw (or primary) form (e.g. fossil fuel, solar, wind, water) into useful form (e.g. motion, heat, light).
Data on exergy and economic growth and / or development is difficult to come by because this is an area of economics that is not studied enough. However, we can create a rough proxy for energy efficiency by looking at how much GDP we get per energy consumed.
At the first glance it would appear that the world is highly productive in allocating energy resources — for 1 Btoe of energy consumed in 2017 the global GDP produced was c.40% higher than that produced for the same amount of energy consumed in 1980. However, my intuition tells me that there is more to this than meets the eye.
For example, from 1980 to 2017, US total debt (public + private business debt) increased by 20x while US GDP increased only by 7x. In fact, the US GDP per US total debt continued to decrease since 1966. In the chart below, the LH shows the fed funds rate and the RH shows the GDP per Debt.
If the world (overall) would have been allocating energy resources efficiently then would the economy be so dependent on monetary policy remaining accommodative?
The alchemy of credit, productivity and energy
When faced with an unproductive economic process, we have three choices:
a) we invest in R&D and new technology to try and improve the cost-efficiency of that process (i.e. make it better)
b) we do nothing and continue with the unproductive process as it is (in this case resource consumption will eventually deliver a net negative benefit to the economy)
c) we do nothing but pretend that we do (which is to keep the process alive through debt — an unproductive process is uneconomic by definition and will eventually stop delivering cash flows; these cash flows can be artificially sustained through debt).
Debt in itself is not a bad thing for the economy. In fact, the economy wouldn’t function without debt. As such, we cannot separate the importance of credit cycles from our analysis of productivity and, as we will see shortly, debt has direct consequences on the physical resources that power the economy, not just on the flow of financial capital — this relationship between credit and physical resources is what links debt growth with productivity and thus with exergy.
In A Template for Understanding Big Debt Crises, Ray Dalio outlined the pattern of the archetypical debt cycle — to keep things short, I will not make the difference between an inflationary and a deflationary deleveraging (which happens in the second half of the debt cycle).
Debt cycles start in benign economic times when there is enough slack in the economy and productivity and growth pick up; in this part of the cycle debt doesn’t grow faster than income as it finances productive endeavours that more than pay for themselves (i.e. generate cash flows that can support the credit interest payments and also provide further investment to other parts of the economy).
As the economy continues to do well, incomes grow, the stock market rises and people and businesses become more creditworthy — as such, more credit is extended to them by willing lenders. At some point in the cycle productive allocation of debt starts to turn into an unproductive endeavour — the hallmark of this shift is when credit payments start to grow faster than incomes.
This process can continue for some time as it is kept alive by easy monetary policy (such as low interest rates which makes debt servicing cheap enough). This was also observed by Austrian economist, Knut Wicksell who argued that the danger with credit is that, as the cycle progresses, it will fund more and more enterprises that can only stay alive while credit expands (i.e. zombie businesses).
Eventually however, the unproductive allocation of debt capital stops, usually because monetary policy is tightened in an attempt to fight off inflation; monetary policy tightening increases the cost of debt and adds more and more strain on the cash flows of businesses and households until the economy goes into the deleveraging phase. During this part of the debt cycle, the economy should be cleared of unproductively allocated capital and, if done right, meaning that the policymakers find the appropriate balance between the debt write offs, debt monetisation and redistribution of wealth, the transition towards the recovery phase will be smooth.
However, if the misallocated capital that has been building up during the debt cycle is not cleaned up enough to enable productivity to pick up, the recovery will be a mere mirage. This can happen towards the end of a long-term debt cycle, which usually lasts several decades. Part of the reason is that each time we go through a short-term debt cycle (i.e. a business cycle) we end up with a little bit more debt at the start of the recovery (i.e. at the start of the next business cycle). Eventually, these ‘leftover’ amounts of debt add up to the point that when the ‘final’ deleveraging comes (the end of the long-term debt cycle), orthodox monetary policy is rendered useless[18].
It is with this part of the long-term debt cycle that we are concerned today, as we find ourselves close towards its reversal. Interest rates remain very low compared to history across many developed nations and quantitative easing has had a more pronounced impact on boosting financial assets rather than productive economic activity. At this point, credit creation is highly likely to be misallocated.
As I wrote in The Wealth Illusion, there are at least two ways to assess whether or not credit has been allocated productively — the growth of debt relative to GDP and the Wicksell spread. Both measures continue to suggest that debt is being misallocated.
The link between debt creation, productivity and exergy has been illustrated by the excellent work done by the MacroStrategy Partnership. Succinctly, once credit starts to be misallocated, if this process is kept alive by easy monetary policy long enough, then, eventually, the economy will reach a point at which any credit creation depletes physical resources — in essence borrowing output from the future.
What this does is lowering productivity, both from the perspective explained by Ray Dalio (see above) and from the point of view of the exergy model. From the perspective of the creditor, debt is a claim on future cash flows[19]. If the debt is used productively, i.e. in a way in which the value of what you get (goods/services) is higher than the cost of producing it (cost of capital and of transforming energy from its primary form to its useful form), then future cash flows are safe.
If that value drops below the cost of production, then, all else being equal, future cash flows will diminish. However, they can be artificially sustained through more borrowing (remember, we are talking about an environment where momentary policy is accommodative, i.e. borrowing is cheap). These artificially sustained cash flows mean that credit creation enables physical resources (such as land, machinery, labour etc.) to be tied in unproductive processes of production.
Viewed from the angle of the exergy model, this is equivalent with saying that the energy used by these processes sees a diminished return on its ability to do physical work (i.e. its exergy declines). Human capital, machinery and natural resources employed in these processes, in reality, produce a diminished (and eventually negative) return, which is masked by the credit subsidised cash flows[20]. The ultimate result of this process, if it is not reversed by somehow reducing the debt burden (which when it grows too big it doesn’t happen without a lot of economic pain and potentially social unrest) is negative growth in the future.
We are now at a point in which we need to consider both the credit cycle and the energy conversion cycle — there are arguments which suggest that the world has already reached peak oil. The challenge with these types of analysis is that the data is subjected to the uncertainty of undiscovered oil resources. However, what is certain is the finite nature of fossil fuels.
The natural limit to growth
Unproductive allocation of resources cannot be sustained. Eventually, either the burden of debt or the depletion of fossil fuels will put the brakes on economic development and growth.
There is analysis that suggests that this is already happening[21].
The chart above shows that the world’s economic growth is returning to its historic trend. Since 1970 both debt and energy consumption have been increasing across the world, while economic output per capita has been declining. There are other factors at play here, which are beyond the scope of this paper. One of them are the values that underpin our society (e.g. how much we value getting a new pair of Gucci shoes for £600 over saving that money).
Renewables could play a more prominent role in our economy but, for now, they are not as efficient as fossil fuels to support the level of production that we have become accustomed to. So we either invest more in R&D to look for alternative sources of energy, or at least to improve the technologies that capture, transform and transmit renewable energy or we cut our consumption.
What prompted me to write this paper?
Two factors contributed to my decision to write this paper. The first one was Ray Dalio’s incredible work on the debt cycle and productivity. Ray’s detailed analysis of what drives economic growth convinced me that the world works in a cause-effect like fashion, akin to a machine — this means that if we understand how the building blocks of this machine interact and what brings these building blocks about, we can form a much more complete picture of how this machine is likely to perform in the future, what may be in need of repairing and what may need upgrading.
The second factor was the work of Gail Tverberg, who put the concept of exergy into the broader context for me and made me realise the importance of finding alternative sources of energy that can enable the world to become less dependent on fossil fuels (due to both their finite nature and their polluting nature).
References and Comments
[1] The difference between these two concepts, as well as the need to make such difference, is discussed in a future paper that I aim to publish soon
[2] Giant Oil and Gas Fields of the Decade, 1990–1999
[3] For a short but sweet account of economic growth and development in human history, see here: https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth
[4] See Ray Dalio’s Economic Principles
[5] In a future paper I will discuss why not all innovation is ‘true’ innovation (i.e. not all that is new brings about an improvement, be it social or economic; in other words, new things and processes must create a return above their cost or production)
[6] Linking Energy Efficiency to Economic Productivity: Recommendations for Improving the Robustness of the U.S. Economy, 2013 — https://aceee.org/sites/default/files/publications/researchreports/e13f.pdf
[7] The End of Indexing, page 123
[8] It is more accurate to say the process of energy transformation
[9] BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2018 (elaborated here https://ourfiniteworld.com/2018/06/22/eight-insights-based-on-december-2017-energy-data/)
[10] Peak Oil, Energy Descent, and the Fate of Consumerism, Dr. Samuel Alexander, 2011
[11] The Industrial Revolution, Gregory Clark, University of California, 2007
[12] Peak Oil, Energy Descent, and the Fate of Consumerism, Dr. Samuel Alexander, 2011
[13] BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2018
[14] Absolute Return Partners, Addicted to Oil?, May 2019
[15] In reality, all is never equal — as Niels Jensen shows in “Addicted to Oil?”, the US legal system (Chapter 11) enabled US shale oil producers to restructure and continue production even when the oil price was $30 per barrel between 2014–2015. But not all oil producers around the world benefit from the flexible American legal system.
[16] The quality of this energy (i.e. its exergy, or capacity to perform physical work) is also an important factor in determining the productivity of the process of producing that energy.
[17] Even if money and credit are not limited resources, unlike fossil fuels which are finite, they are limited by trust — when the laws of this world do not have a source in an Absolute (such as God’s Ten Commandments) and are therefore the product of men, the most important element that upholds these laws is not the coercive power of the state for this can shatter under political events, such as the revolution. Rather, it is the conscious agreement between each one of us that we shall respect and abide by these rules. Such agreement is backed by trust. Consequently, money and credit, although they can be created ad infinitum by the central bank, the risk of breaking the trust in the rules that hold not just the institution of central banking but the whole economy together tends to prevent such an action, although not always.
[18] Dalio pointed out that there are three types of monetary policy through which the economy goes when trying to deleverage — the first is the lowering of interest rates; once interest rates hit zero, policymakers move to the second type of monetary policy which is the monetisation of debt (quantitative easing); and finally, once the impact of quantitative easing on stimulating economic activity diminishes, policymakers move to what it is known as ‘helicopter money’, which is essentially quantitative easing for Main Street.
[19] Here is another interesting way to view debt, from the perspective of the debtor: “A debt is a short cash position — i.e., a commitment to deliver cash that one doesn’t have. Because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, and because of the dollar surplus recycling that has taken place over the past few years…lots of dollar denominated debt has been built up around the world. So, as dollar liquidity has become tight, there has been a dollar squeeze. This squeeze…is hitting dollar-indebted emerging markets (particularly those of commodity exporters) and is supporting the dollar. When this short squeeze ends, which will happen when either the debtors default or get the liquidity to prevent their default, the US dollar will decline. Until then, we expect to remain long the USD against the euro and emerging market currencies.” Source: A Template for Understanding Big Debt Crises, Ray Dalio, 2018
[20] All of this is made possible by monetary policy kept accommodative for too long — too long means that interests rates are low and central banks keep buying assets (or keep reinvesting the proceeds from these assets, i.e. maintain their inflated balance sheet) after economic activity has recovered as demonstrated by various indicators such as bank lending revival, healthy employment indicators and business confidence levels.
[21] http://peak-oil.org/peak-oil-review-22-apr-2019/ | https://balintanton92.medium.com/energy-productivity-debt-inescapable-realities-of-prosperity-5deeee00c48e | ['A Balint'] | 2019-05-11 12:23:57.931000+00:00 | ['Debt', 'Economics', 'Energy', 'Investing', 'Productivity'] |
How hard is to become a US Citizen? | How hard is to become a US Citizen
Many people ask this question, that how hard is it to become a US citizen? Though people from all continents are interested in becoming US citizens, the current administration has made the processing very difficult. The main problems while migrating to the US involve the high budget that causes financial problems. Some people find it hard to adjust without the support of any US relative.
The process of applying for US migration is very complex due to the USCIS requirements. Therefore, it is very hard for other nationalists to understand the procedure. A helpful option, in this case, is to hire a lawyer who can explain all the details to you. Some people change their homeland because they don’t get enough opportunities in the country they live in. Though, the reason for migration can be different for different people. But as a whole, becoming a lawful permanent US resident is a hard thing to do because of the changes in the immigration system.
How to know if you are eligible or not?
If you want to unravel the question of how hard is it to become a US citizen, then the first step is crucial. You must check whether you can apply for immigration to U.S. or not. You are a US citizen already if you are born there or your parents live there. But if you are not a US citizen prior, then you need to apply for it. In case, you want to become a green card holder, you need to follow a long procedure instead of just filling out the form. There are several other requirements set by the current administration that you need to speak English fluently, an understanding of the history of America, and few more things. Then you should pay the application fees. The process can be time-consuming which makes it a bit difficult.
How to become a permanent U.S. resident?
You can become a U.S. resident through the following procedure:
Confirm whether you are eligible for the process or not.
Next, you need to go through the naturalization process. You will send an application to USCIS to proceed with the interview and test. Make sure to clear the test and pass the interview because it will be the key gate for you to become a US citizen.
Then you decide whether you want to become a green card holder or a permanent resident of the United States.
In case, you’re well-educated, you will get US citizenship within the next 5 years. But if you have married a US citizen, then it will take 3 years for you to become a green card owner. In all of the cases, only lawful permanent residents of the US can apply for citizenship. | https://medium.com/@universaltranslation4/how-hard-is-to-become-a-us-citizen-82d217c82dcc | [] | 2021-06-08 10:39:31.107000+00:00 | ['Translation Companies', 'Translation Services', 'Certified Translation', 'Translation Agency', 'Translation'] |
Maker unites with Biohacker — guide to live streaming of microscopic images of DIY cell culture | Maker unites with Biohacker — guide to live streaming of microscopic images of DIY cell culture Shojinmeat Project Follow Jun 17 · 4 min read
If you are on a DIY cell culture project, you may get an irresistible urge to share your project with fellow biohackers. Sharing is also important from a reproducibility and serendipity point of view. The latter — serendipity — more eyes to observe means higher chance of us noticing something interesting.
If something goes wrong during the experiment, streaming it online may allow for a quicker response.
This is part of a series to do that. In this first piece describes our attempt to set up a server that makes and shares time-lapse videos of slow-moving phenomenon like cell proliferation and seeds germinating.
This piece is translated from two articles in biohacker.jp with the permission of the author “fetuin”, a long-time blogger.
Original articles in Japanese:
https://biohacker.jp/c/BH296.html
https://biohacker.jp/c/BH297.html
from the series
https://biohacker.jp/incube.html
======================================
2020.11.17
Live-streaming of DIY cell culture by a webcam controlled by a Raspberry Pi
If you are on a DIY cell culture experiment, there are a million things that could go wrong while you are away for school, work, and such. It would help if you could see the cells real time online, despite the potential side effect of intermittent distractions from work or class to watch how your cells are doing….
Live-streaming of germinating radish seeds by a Raspberry Pi enabled webcam — which ultimately failed because my room was too cold.
Step1: Take photo by a webcam controlled by a Raspberry Pi
#Installs the webcam driver
sudo apt-get install fswebcam #Saves the images taken
fswebcam -r 1280x720 capture.jpg
Step2: Install a module called “requests” to send and stack images on a web server
#Installs pip required for installation
sudo apt-get install python-dev
sudo apt-get install python-pip #Installs requests by this pip
pip install requests
Step 3: Python script to stack captured images
import requests
import subprocess subprocess.call([‘fswebcam’,’-r’,’1280x720',’capture.jpg’]) url=’http://xxxxx.com/upload.cgi'
file = {‘upload_file’: open(‘capture.jpg’,’rb’)}
data = {‘temp1’: ‘dummydata’} #if sending parameters together
r = requests.post(url, files=file, data=data)
print r.text
If you run the script over crontab, the webcam captures images at a certain time interval. The whole budget would be around $40 including Raspberry Pi and webcam.
Step 4: Perl script on the server that receives images
#! /usr/bin/perl
use CGI;
my $q = new CGI;
my $fh = $q->param(‘upload_file’);
@FORMname= $q->param();
foreach my $dammy (@FORMname){
$FORM{$dammy}=$q->param($dammy);
} print “Content-Type:text/html
”;
print “OK”; $tt=time; #Transmitted files are saved by timestamp-based names. if ($fh ne “”) {
open(F,”>”.$tt.’.jpg’) or die;
flock(F, 2);
binmode F;
if (defined $fh) {while (<$fh>) {print F $_;}}
close F;
}
exit;
I wanted to assemble .jpg files into a timelapse video, but my cloud server is not letting me install video encoders like mencoder or ffmpeg….
2020.11.26
Live-streaming of DIY cell culture ~ encoding captured and uploaded images into a time-lapse video
I have described how to stack images captured at a certain time interval using a Raspberry Pi and webcam. The next step encodes the images into a public time-lapse video.
Here is how it came about:
(video available at the source page https://biohacker.jp/c/BH297.html )
This time-lapse video covers one week. The video is updated 4 times a day. The water is topped up every night as it evaporates. A USB flashlight illuminates the setup during the night hours.
Just a disclaimer — there was a day when my Raspberry Pi was dead :-( Set up a watch dog, maybe? My room was cold and the seeds are taking a week to germinate. Bring it on, my radish! The quality of the $20 webcam was fair. It doesn’t quite focus, especially when the target is close by.
The original intention was to encode time lapse images on a server, but it didn’t let me install video encoders. Even if I could, video encoders would put a heavy load on the server, ending up with me getting an angry email from the server administrator.
So, that put me to download images from the server, encode on my edge, and re-upload the time-lapse video file. There was an unused Raspberry Pi lying around in my room.
The uploaded images and video are saved at https://kamotown.net/upload/
from ftplib import FTP
import subprocess
import os #FTP server configuration
ftp= FTP(“xxxxx.xxxx.xxx”, “yyyyyy”, passwd=”zzzzzzz”)
items=ftp.nlst(“www/kamotown/upload/”) #Downloads images not on my end from a certain directory in the server
for file in items:
if os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(file))[1] == ‘.jpg’:
if os.path.isfile(os.path.basename(file))==False:
with open(os.path.basename(file),”wb”) as f:
ftp.retrbinary(“RETR “+str(file),f.write)
print str(file)
f.close() #Saves the list of images as list.txt
subprocess.call(‘ls *.jpg>list.txt’,shell=True)
#Re-formats images to a ffmpeg compatible names and saves at list2.txt
f2=open(‘list.txt’)
f3=open(‘list2.txt’,’w’)
data=f2.readline()
while data:
f3.write(‘file ‘+data)
data=f2.readline()
f2.close()
f3.close() #Converts images by a ffmpeg subprocess
subprocess.call(‘ffmpeg -f image2 -r 15 -f concat -i list2.txt -r 15 -an -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p timelapse.mp4’, shell=True)
#Returns video to the server
with open(“timelapse.mp4”, “rb”) as f:
ftp.storbinary(“STOR www/kamotown/upload/timelapse.mp4”, f)
f.close()
This simple script installs ffmpeg to a Raspberry Pi :
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
Periodic execution of this Python script by crontab or such keeps the time-lapse video on the server up to date. I’ve used (the cheapest) Raspberry Pi zero for encoding. It took like an hour to encode a 10MB video from 400 images….
To set up a public timelapse video sharing service, I need to think about the encoder. Oh, perhaps, setting “-vcodec h264_omx” for ffmpeg encoder activates hardware encoding? | https://medium.com/shojin-meat/maker-unites-with-biohacker-guide-to-live-streaming-of-microscopic-images-of-diy-cell-culture-b920c4aaa715 | ['Shojinmeat Project'] | 2021-06-17 05:59:55.632000+00:00 | ['Biohacking', 'Makers', 'Raspberry Pi'] |
How to Utilise Technology to Strengthen Culture and Deliver an Impactful, Holistic Employee Wellbeing Strategy | Registration is now open
2020 has brought physical, mental and financial wellbeing into the spotlight and employers are looking for more effective and efficient ways to support and connect employees. At a time of year when our people normally look forward to celebrations and end-of-year awards, opportunities to come together are few and far between.
However, companies that are leveraging technology to provide holistic support have been able to improve motivation, productivity and connection, whilst making employees’ money go further and enhancing their employer brand. A panel of renowned experts will discuss the lessons learnt through the crisis and its impact on the year ahead.
Webinar Agenda includes:
Strengthening company culture and developing an Employee Value Proposition that attracts and retains best-in-class employees
Providing scalable, flexible and practical support to meet employees’ immediate and long-term needs, wherever and whenever they are working
Creating impactful, company-wide communications so leaders can keep employees informed and connected wherever they might be, with an integrated, centralised, mobile-accessible platform
Speakers: | https://medium.com/marcus-evans-online-events/how-to-utilise-technology-to-strengthen-culture-and-deliver-an-impactful-holistic-employee-7b4bffc0513 | ['Marcus Evans Online Events'] | 2020-11-27 04:27:17.224000+00:00 | ['HR', 'Recruitment', 'Webinar'] |
Python HOW: Connect to, and Manage a Database | Photo by panumas nikhomkhai from Pexels
I’ve put my best effort to provide you with a clear, concise, and detailed description on how to connect to, and manage a SQL/SQLite database using Python
TL;DR: full code
Introduction
A database model determines the logical structure of a database. This in turn determines how data can be stored, organized and manipulated. The Relational Model (RM) is the most popular database model since the 1980s. RM uses a table-based format, where tables are related by common columns
Database management system (DBMS)
DBMS is the software that you -or applications- use to interact with the database to create, read, update and manage data. The Relational DBMS (RDBMS) is the DBMS based on RM. According to DB-Engines, the most widely used RDBMS are: Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, IBM DB2, Microsoft Access, and SQLite
A database is often referred to by the DBMS used to manipulate it. For example, a database that is manipulated using Microsoft SQL Server is referred to as: Microsoft SQL Server-Database
Although not required, all RDBMS use SQL as a standard data access language
Database connectivity interface
A database connectivity interface allows an application to access data from a variety of DBMSs, using a specific driver for a specific DBMS and operating system. This means that the application can be written without depending on a specific DBMS or the operating system
Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard Microsoft Windows interface that enables applications (typically written in C or C++) to connect to DBMSs. While, Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBC) is a standard Oracle interface that enables applications written in Java to connect to DBMSs
PyODBC: Open DataBase Connectivity for Python
PyODBC is the Python package for ODBC. Through pyodbc, you can easily connect Python applications to a DBMS-database, using the required ODBC driver
Install pyodbc using your preferred package manager:
You might want to create a virtual environment first
Then, install the required driver for the DBMS-database you want to connect to. For example, if you want to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server-Database, you need to download and install the driver from Microsoft, after choosing your operating system
To make a connection to a database, we need to pass a connection string to the connect method of pyodbc. The most important thing to remember is that: pyodbc passes the connection string directly to the DBMS-database driver unmodified. Therefore, connection strings are driver-specific
For example, to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server-Database, we provide the following connection string:
You can find information about general connection string for most databases here. Make sure to follow the connection string formatting rules found here
The connection string can also be passed as arguments, which are then concatenated into a connection string:
In the connection string above, we assume that the SQL Server Authentication mode is set to Windows Authentication Mode, so we did not have to provide credentials to get access permissions to the server.
However, if it was a Mixed Authentication Mode (i.e. SQL Server Authentication + Windows Authentication), we can still use the above connection string, or the following one where we provide our User ID and Password to get access permissions to the server:
Pyodbc also supports Data Source Name connections. A DSN contains information about a specific database that an ODBC driver needs in order to connect to it (information such as the database driver, the server and database names, etc):
Lastly, depending on the database you are trying to access, and the version of Python you are using, you might need to set the connection encoding/decoding settings, which you can find here
For Microsoft SQL Server-Database and Python 3.x, using pyodbc default encoding/decoding settings is recommended (i.e. no need to do anything)
SQLite3: SQLite for Python
SQLite3 is the Python package for SQLite, which is the most widely deployed RDBMS in the world (arguably). The main features of SQLite are:
An embedded database. SQLite does not have a separate server process (i.e. server-less). It reads and writes directly to ordinary disk files
Free for use for any purpose, commercial or private
SQLite3 is included with Python by default. To create a connection to a disk-based database, we just need to pass the name of the database to the connect method of sqlite3:
If the database does not exist, an empty one will be created for us
Executing SQL statements
Once we have a connection to the database, either from pyodbc or sqlite3, we can then create a Cursor object which represents a database cursor. We can do this using the cursor method:
Docs for cursor
Now we have a Cursor object, we can execute any valid SQL query string using the Cursor execute method:
Let’s assume that the database we are connected to ( database.db ), has 2 tables T_CUSTOMERS and T_ADDRESSES as such:
SELECT statement
To select the id , fname , and lname columns from T_CUSTOMERS , we use SQL SELECT :
The executed SELECT statement returns rows, which we can retrieve using one of the Cursor fetch functions:
fetchone : retrieves one row only, and move the Cursor to the next row
: retrieves one row only, and move the Cursor to the next row fetchall : retrieves all rows, and move the Cursor to the end
: retrieves all rows, and move the Cursor to the end fetchmany(size) : retrieves a number of rows, and move the Cursor to the next row
Note: if there are no rows left, fetchone will return None, whereas fetchall and fetchmany will both return empty lists
For example, to retrieve one row only:
row will be a Tuple of values, one for each of the columns in the SELECT statement:
To get each column’s description, the Cursor description attribute can be used:
This description will be a list of Tuples, one for each column. Each Tuple has 7 items to describe the column, the one that matters to us is the first item, which is the column’s name (or alias, if specified in the SQL SELECT ):
To retrieve all the remaining rows as a list, we can use fetchall :
UPDATE statement
To update an existing record in T_CUSTOMERS , we use SQL UPDATE with a WHERE clause
Note: if you do not use a WHERE clause in the UPDATE statement to specify which record(s) should be updated, all records will be updated!
Let’s update lname='Trujillo' to 'Taqueria' :
If we want to know how many records were modified by the last SQL statement, we can use the Cursor rowcount attribute. This will return -1 if no SQL has been executed or if the number of rows is unknown:
Let’s check if that record has been updated successfully:
DELETE statement
To delete a customer’s record from T_CUSTOMERS , we use SQL DELETE with a WHERE clause
Note: if you do not use a WHERE clause in the DELETE statement to specify which record(s) should be deleted, all records will be deleted!
Let’s delete the record with id=4 :
Let’s check how many records were modified:
Let’s check if that record has been deleted successfully:
INSERT INTO statement
To insert a new record into T_CUSTOMERS , we use SQL INSERT INTO
Let’s insert the same record we have deleted:
Let’s check how many records were modified:
Let’s check if that record has been inserted successfully:
Long SQL statement
Let’s say that we want to select the full name, and city and postal code of a customer with the last name 'Trujillo' . We (or someone else) has written the following SQL statement to do this:
The easiest way to pass this long SQL statement to excute is to use the triple-quote string format to encapsulate the statement. White-spaces (including tabs and newlines) should be ignored by the SQL database engine, but if we want to remove them from the left, we can use the dedent function from the built-in textwrap module:
Finally, we must call commit on the connection that created this cursor, otherwise our changes will be lost if we close the Script, and close the connection:
What is next?
Start using SqlAlchemy and Pandas for a high-level connecting and execution of queries and parameterized queries 👉
Happy coding! | https://drgabrielharris.medium.com/python-how-connect-to-and-manage-a-database-68b113a5ca62 | ['Gabriel Harris Ph.D.'] | 2020-09-24 12:03:16.172000+00:00 | ['Sql Server', 'Sql', 'Python', 'Database', 'Sqlite'] |
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Having testers made my team worse | Full disclaimer — I don’t dislike testers! In fact, I love them! But in this story, I am going to share an experience where we had no functional testers left in my team and the net result of that was that we got better at automation, continuous delivery, DevOps and closer as a team.
A couple of months ago, the last remaining functional tester in my team decided to resign. Initially, the team responded with the expected shock and horror. Visions of impending doom ensued as we had no foreseeable way to test and release our software — right in the middle of a major refactor and feature release! The timing couldn’t have been worse!
And yet, as I write this article today, we are now in a better state than we ever were before when we had testers. We are where we are not because the testers were bad, but because having testers meant that as developers, we could get away with being lazy and not truly putting in the effort to write meaningful tests that run both in our CI and CD pipelines.
As eluded to above, with the loss of all functional testers in my team, we had to find ways as developers to reliably test and deliver our software without impeding our commitments — commitments which all developers had already made. As such, we needed to find an ingenious way to test our software changes that didn’t reduce development capacity for each sprint. The only solution here is automation.
Ian Cooper did a wonderful presentation at DevTernity in 2017 on where TDD went wrong and we took this to heart. We began by adding behavioural tests to our acceptance criteria for any user stories that would run in our CI pipeline to give us quick feedback but also allow us to take a test-first approach to development. We created a suite of tests using Gherkin syntax that were derived based off the business requirements for the tasks at hand and wrote code to meet those specifications. Where logic was complex we continued to add isolated unit tests to help us along the way.
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