title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
885
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
⌀ | tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Contains a lovelier future… | Once,
The sun and the moon,
And all the colorful nature,
were surprised on looking
at a poet’s beautiful heart,
Oh! How in that little place,
in that fist of blood,
was contained
all of the lovely nature,
and all the possibilities
of its lovelier future…
© Manan sheel. | https://medium.com/@manansheel/contains-a-lovelier-future-c0c69d6c6c7a | ['Manan Sheel'] | 2020-11-16 01:04:23.504000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'Poet', 'Colors', 'Love', 'Heart'] |
Why artificially growing your number of followers is useless? | Why artificially growing your number of followers is useless?
Because it doesn’t work, or rather, it doesn’t work anymore. It’s typically a strategy that is easily replicable, and that works if you’re the only one to use it, which means it quickly won’t be the case.
Step 1 — Only a few people use it => it works.
Step 2 — Therefore other people get interested,
Step 3 — and start using the strategy massively => it doesn’t work anymore.
The strategy consisting of producing good content, on the other hand, isn’t so easy to replicate. It’s highly effective but time-consuming. Therefore it never gets to “Step 3”.
It doesn’t work with people
Coming back to the example from Medium. If someone is following only a few people, including your profile, then the “latest from following” might catch their eye. They might read what you just published.
If they follow you and many others, on the other hand, then the “latest from following” won’t promote your articles for more than a short time. And someone following you because you followed them is very likely to follow many users.
My adventures on WordPress are another example. After a few posts, I noticed the number of followers going up and felt excited about it. Since they were my first followers, I checked them a bit. Then I realized they had names like “Keto Diet for Winning at Tinder” or “Viral Content for Cute Kittens”. And pages with nothing but ads and copied content (if any).
I also noticed someone was systematically liking my posts. I checked on their profile and, blushing with pride, realized they had several thousands of followers. Me, a newcomer, I got the recognition of such a famous blogger! Then I started browsing around and found their likes everywhere. They weren’t appreciating my work; they were fishing for profile views.
It worked (very) short-term because I was new. It didn’t work for long, because the content wasn’t interesting to me. Now I don’t check likes and followers anymore, but I do check people commenting on my post. You can go “fishing” this way as well, but in general, the profiles behind them are interesting.
Being new to a platform doesn’t mean a platform is new. It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect. If someone is new to something, this person’s going to think of optimizing strategies everyone thought of before, and google search for more.
There’s no competitive edge to be gained from an “easy-to-implement strategy.” There could be a dis-competitive edge, in the sense that if you don’t do it, then you lose something compared to the competition. But I don’t think it’s the case with followers. Algorithms made sure of that.
It doesn’t work with algorithms
Algorithms can be tricked, but not for long.
Maybe at one point, the number of followers was a very significant variable. The more followers, the more interesting the user, and the more its content was promoted in the feed or main page of others. But then, (very quickly), people started following a lot of users (artificially or not), and their feed became messy. So algorithms changed; other variables were added.
To predict how interesting a profile is going to be for others, a better variable is “number of followers” AND “following/followers ratio.” The former as high as possible and the latter as low as possible. But the follow/unfollow strategy seeks to maximize exactly this. So an even better variable is “people following the user are interested in, and interacting with the user’s content.”
Taking the example of Facebook, you would think that number of likes is the best predictor of how interesting a post is going to be. But last year, Facebook started to experiment with hiding them. It doesn’t necessarily mean algorithms don’t use the info anymore. But my bet would be that hiding the number of likes make people less likely to like.
More important than likes is the time spent by the user reading the post or watching the pictures. Does the user scroll without stopping? Or does it watch, scroll down and scroll back up to watch some more? In the latter, no matter if they liked it or not, they got interested. | https://medium.com/@smillewrahcuef/why-artificially-growing-your-number-of-followers-is-useless-c98faec31dea | ['Smillew Rahcuef'] | 2020-12-25 21:02:41.053000+00:00 | ['Social Media Marketing', 'Social Media', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Marketing', 'Followers'] |
Ranthambore camera traps find wire noose around tiger’s neck | Ranthambore camera traps find wire noose around tiger’s neck
State forest department officials said the tiger was tranquilised and the wire removed on Saturday.
A STATEWIDE alert against poaching has been issued after camera traps in and around the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve captured images of a tiger with a hunting snare-like wire noose coiled around its neck.
State forest department officials said the tiger, T-108, was tranquilised and the wire removed on Saturday. The department has ordered an inquiry into the issue.
“Two images from separate camera traps were seen yesterday — one was of Friday morning while the other was from the night before — which showed the tiger, T-108, with a wire tangled around its neck. It was a matter of concern. The field director contacted us to seek permission for tranquilising the tiger,” said Arijit Banerjee, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Forest Protection) and officiating Chief Wildlife Warden, Rajasthan.
Banerjee said permission was sought from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to tranquilise the animal.
“I asked the Ranthambore field director to follow all the standard operating procedures… After tranquilisation, the wire was safely removed this morning, and the tiger has been released in the forest. We didn’t find any physical injuries on the animal. We have ordered an inquiry into the matter and have issued a statewide red alert against poaching, directing all territorial and wildlife divisions to work in congruence, patrol inside and outside of protected forest areas. All leaves have been cancelled except for emergencies,” he said.
Tikam Chand Verma, Chief Conservator of Forest and Field Director, Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, said the noose was made of galvanised iron (GI) wire, around 2 mm thick.
“According to preliminary findings, it appears that it is a loose noose, probably set for animals like boars or nilgais outside the forest. But even if it was meant for other animals, it is still hunting, which is illegal. More details will emerge after the inquiry. We will inquire if there was any laxity in monitoring,” said Banerjee.
“A collaborative team of TigerWatch and the forest department found the image, which is from near Devpura area, Phalodi. It seems to be a hunting snare, even if it may not be meant for tigers but for smaller animals. The government should ensure proper monitoring,” said Dharmendra Khandal, conservation biologist, TigerWatch.
Credit: Indian Express | https://medium.com/@24x7newsonline/ranthambore-camera-traps-find-wire-noose-around-tigers-neck-210650fe8b0c | [] | 2020-12-06 05:48:06.806000+00:00 | ['Nature', 'News', 'Wildlife'] |
把隊友的專案clone下來，為什麼沒辦法啟動Rails Server了？-應該是因為database換成PostgreSQL了吧 | in In Bitcoin We Trust | https://medium.com/@bobanderic2000/%E6%8A%8A%E5%88%A5%E4%BA%BA%E7%9A%84%E5%B0%88%E6%A1%88clone%E4%B8%8B%E4%BE%86-%E7%82%BA%E4%BB%80%E9%BA%BC%E6%B2%92%E8%BE%A6%E6%B3%95%E5%95%9F%E5%8B%95rails-server%E4%BA%86-bb3469fd2508 | [] | 2021-01-03 09:50:32.251000+00:00 | ['Rails'] |
Snowy mountains | Image credit: Me :D
As they say —
“Snow provokes responses that reach back to childhood.”
That actually happened to me when I climbed up there and saw this mesmerizing snow covered mountain!! As soon as I reached there, it felt so amazinggg and cold. I suddenly went back to my childhood when I used to eat ice candies a lot and used to dream about a world having snow everywhere around me….so that I can eat, I can play and I can sleep on it :D
I mean c’mon it’s very natural to have this kind of dream when you’re living in that part of the world where you experience summer almost throughout the year!!!
At that time I was unsure about having such kind of world being completely unaware about the idea of having different country on another part of the world and air planes an all that. For me my world was revolving around my mum, dad, my lil sister and my books. I had imagined almost similar kind of things around me which I saw when I reached on the peak of that mountain!! My visualization was so so right…..it was the same kind of place where I wanted go!!!!
A sun was shining bright, snow covered mountains, cooool breeze and on the top of the world ( I’m a lil bit exaggerating over here…it was only the top of Europe :D) ✨
P.S. Yea I had dream of eating and sleeping on the snow but I didn’t do that because it was too cold there :D
This beautiful mountain peak is jungfraujoch — the top of the Europe.
Follow me here for more such pictures and memories!!
Love,
D. | https://medium.com/@dpl_desai/snowy-mountains-3e7f894e7890 | ['Dipal Desai'] | 2020-05-16 14:45:14.519000+00:00 | ['Switzerland', 'Mountains', 'Memories', 'Wanderlust', 'Traveling'] |
I Was Banned from Disney Films — It was for the Better : The Mythology of Righteous Revenge | Growing up, my parents kept a close eye on the media my siblings and I consumed. “There are things that you cannot un-see, once something is in your head it never leaves,” they’d say. I certainly wish that were true on some of my tests in high school, but as an adult, I think they have a point: the media you consume contributes to the mythology that shapes your view of reality. I wasn’t permitted to watch Disney films because my mother reasoned it was too violent that the villains always had to die at the end of the film.
Death, this inevitable conclusion to the struggle between good and evil, is an essential tool in our culture to rationalize violence. From a young age, many of the popular stories we consume — from Beauty and the Beast to Star Wars — resolve with the absolutely evil antagonist falling to their doom. Gravity literally and metaphorically, catches up with them and can only bring them in one final direction.
Most of the Abrahamic religions are built on this foundation of good versus evil, so this concept isn’t unknown to us. What is more important to note in this dualism is that the character who symbolizes evil must be destroyed. Gaston, Ursula, Scar, almost every antagonist is killed rather than learning the error in their ways. Sometimes the opportunity to reform arises, but they deny it, typically with deadly results moments later. We teach this concept from a very young age.
We must ask why is it necessary that the antagonist must die rather than repent? Not all great narratives end this way after all. Hayao Miyazaki, often directly compared to Walt Disney as an all-time great animation director, often concludes his stories with antagonists turning good, such as Zeniba the witch, who, upon losing her powers, becomes an ally. Miyazaki’s films are filled with wonderfully ambiguous characters, yet they retain a strong sense of right and wrong.
Zeniba the witch in Spirted Away freed from her evil spell
This idea of the righteous destroying their enemy is a unique and specific concept to our culture. To understand it, I found Daniel Quinn’s view of how a culture’s mythology shapes its destiny helpful. Quinn describes a cultural mythology as a story that explains the origins and ultimate “goal” for a culture. He stresses that this mythology becomes pervasive in everything the culture does.
Quinn notes that in the natural world, nearly every creature (humans included) practices a system of “limited competition.” Predators may hunt, but they only kill what they need. Herds may graze, but they move on before exhausting the soil. Lions and hyenas may compete for food and territory, but the hyenas don’t sneak into the lions’ den at night and kill them in their sleep, they just stalk the same prey when they have to. Without doing so consciously, these creatures live in harmony.
But our culture defies this. In practicing agriculture, we spread pesticides to kill other animals that would eat our crops. We have exterminated species such as the thylacine because they posed a threat to our livestock. Wars and genocides have eliminated whole ethnic groups of people. When our culture competes we want to do it absolutely until the “other” is wiped from existence.
Rarely we consider that our form of competition results in so much destruction but on the rare cases we do we’ve rationalized an answer — that the “other,” whoever it may be is evil, they will always be evil, and they are hell-bent on destroying us. It becomes virtuous for us to use every tactic of violence against them. Ours is a righteous revenge — the best defense is a good offense and so on.
And so even without thinking about it we write our stories to reflect this idea. Antagonists are not just wrong, they are beyond redemption. It is inevitable that they should perish so that we good people may live on in a perfect world. I’m glad that my parents recognized how flawed that logic is. Through their faith they believed that no one is beyond redemption and we are not the ones to judge. Violence — when not strictly in self-defense is always wrong.
In today’s world, we fear desperate refugees and declare wars not just on countries, but upon abstract concepts such as drugs and terror. We still argue over whether torture should be acceptable. We condemn death on others at a moment’s provocation, and afterwards rationalize it as justice.
We must learn to show restraint against those we view as antagonists because not every story needs to end with a death. | https://medium.com/applaudience/i-was-banned-from-disney-films-it-was-for-the-better-the-mythology-of-righteous-revenge-3633ccc777de | ['Andrew Simon Thomas'] | 2016-08-21 00:27:31.452000+00:00 | ['Movies', 'Star Wars', 'Disney', 'Culture', 'Social Justice'] |
Why You Need To Go To The Land Geek Bootcamp | On this week’s round table episode, the Land Geeks discuss many reasons why you should go to the Land Geek Bootcamp.
Joining Mark this week are:
Scott Bossman
Erik Peterson
Mike Zaino
Teria Harris
Tate Litchfield
Scott Todd
Listen in as they go around the table and share several reasons why the Land Geek Bootcamp is the place to be on January 22nd -24th, 2021. The Land Geeks and many other like-minded people in the business will be present sharing their stories, experiences, providing advice, and more. This up-coming Bootcamp is one you can’t afford to miss.
TIP OF THE WEEK
Teria: I have several coaching clients that I have been in communication with and they’re all asking about pictures of their properties and marketing like how do I market my properties if I don’t have pictures, and what pictures can I use, and how expensive they are. So there is a website called unsplash.com, and this website allows you to go in and search for specific pictures: land pictures. And you can utilize these pictures for free to market your properties.
Are you ready to learn more about land investing? Just click HERE to schedule a call.
Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want, and with whomever you want? | https://medium.com/@thelandgeek/why-you-need-to-go-to-the-land-geek-bootcamp-6a90b9433490 | ['Mark Podolsky'] | 2021-01-23 15:02:32.200000+00:00 | ['Roundtable', 'Bootcamp', 'Passive Income', 'Land Investing', 'The Land Geek'] |
Losing the Language of Lack | Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash
As we put 2020 into the perspective of hindsight it provides, let’s take a quick inventory of how we have chosen to create, and how we might choose differently.
The baseline of all consumerism, all materialistic acquisition, is the feeling of ‘not enough’. As humans, we are conditioned to create from a place of lack. We crave more because we feel we do not have, or are not, enough. No value judgements here, this is mental/emotional de-bugging. It needs to be done, because so much of our programming is obsolete.
Historically, {term used purposefully} when crafting a ‘spell,’ or ‘formula for manifesting,’ the lack is stated first. In simplest terms, we state what we want to change, and what we envision ‘it’ changing or releasing into, improvising towards improvement… even when have learned not to attempt to control the details.
Software coding always states a ‘condition’ first, then the desired action is set up to deal with that condition. All hard-coded if-then scenarios and case statements are so designed. So is the imprinting and conditioning of our bodies and minds. If this, then consequences.
Not all consequences are a bad thing, right? Parenting is parenting, for ourselves and our young ones.
Source is not limited to programmed scenarios. Neither are we.
For those who remember this, when was the last time your computer blue-screened? And, for those in the know, didn’t we grouse, wondering why the ‘idiot’ who programmed the defaults didn’t program for this one? A blue-screen happened when the computer’s baseline code didn’t know how to handle an unknown condition. Kablooey! Hardware reboot time. Hmmm. Kind of like… now?
Perhaps it is time we parented ourselves and our environments in a new way.
The insidious thing about the language of lack is that it gets us coming and going. If we acknowledge the lack, we are feeding it. But, if we don’t, how do we make a change?
What if we started with ‘what if’ instead of fixed positions that create limitations? Are we going to dupe ourselves into a need for artificial intelligence to teach us how to learn to handle the unknown, when we all have divine intelligence within us? Have we become that dysfunctional as beings? Are we so used to defining ourselves as less thans, and have-nots, in whatever way, that Source’s’ abundance will always be beyond our grasp?
We do know better. Maybe it’s time to lose the language of lack, so imprinted within every aspect of life, and learn HER language of plenty, balance, and harmony.
The Art of Manifesting is founded on fullness, on the truth that all things exist within the Infinite sea and can be called forth from it as desired. Our newly emerging cycle is founded on abundance. Same-same. Alignment!
So, in order to master the art of manifesting, which seems to be why most beings incarnated here, we need to roll with the change of venue. New reality, new ‘rules.’ {Just between us, they’re not new, only radically misinterpreted and under-implemented.} The doorway is the heart. What some call Christ Consciousness is the landing pad on the ‘other side,’ where we now see clearly what we have blinded ourselves to, in order to experience the old, limited reality. And, there is MORE. Not the aquisitional more we have been conditioned to pant for, but a larger perception of All. That. Is.
The hindsight perspective of 2020 need not be known as the “Time of COVID.” That gives a viral organism creating disease way too much power over the reality we are creating. Mirror, much?
The clarity provided by 2020’s hindsight is a Time of Facing Our Music. What have we created? What cacophony have we set in motion? And, are we ready to drop that ball, let it dissolve into oblivion, and learn to harmonize in a new way?
Instead of stating the lack in every possible way, {and there is much… look what we have manifested!} perhaps we can stop. We can let go. We can let the language of light, in whatever form it finds us, help us to manifest from a harmony of hearts. What a symphony that might be!
Happy Full Moon Day.
~ Namaste ~ | https://medium.com/queen-s-children/losing-the-language-of-lack-962e8790c382 | ['Nalini Macnab'] | 2020-12-30 18:08:52.558000+00:00 | ['Wisdom', 'Sacred Feminine', 'Creative Process', 'Abundance', 'Manifestation'] |
Cypress — Nov. 25/20 | Dr. Jen's Ski Report - 11/25/2020
Wow, what a different experience from only last Friday. Blue skies, lots more snow, and more runs open. Whoo hoo! Today… | https://medium.com/mind-your-madness/cypress-nov-25-20-b172c7915322 | ['Jennifer Hammersmark'] | 2020-11-27 05:58:15.264000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Outdoors', 'Skiing', 'Mountains', 'Exercise'] |
Remember The Fame and Shame of #BringBackOurGirls? | Image: Twitter
Yes, the rally cry to return the Nigerian school girls who were stolen in the dead night from their dormitories located at a secondary school in the town of Chibok, Borno State, in Northern Nigeria, was the resounding anthem that drew the attention of high-profile influencers all over the world.
Islamic militant cell, Boko Haram, began their reign of terror in 2009, and by mid-2010, it had evolved into an established group of nonstop chaos and mayhem that successfully challenged the lacking manpower of the Nigerian army.
As we bid adieu to this bloody decade, there’s the intense fear of the undefeated reality of stationed cowards, who weaponize a religion that serves the purpose of violent dominion over vulnerable communities that can’t fight back.
When #BringBackOurGirls aptly demonstrated the viability of a viral hashtag, that can summon the authority of the rich and famous, including First Lady, Michelle Obama, we truly bowed down to the power of unification for a cause, seamlessly funneled through verified masses with notable profiles.
But things took a drastic turn for the worse when good deeds turned into the self-serving quest for recognition, that evolved into the blueprint for what later became known as Instagram.
Anne Coulter added her White privilege to the messaging
Celebrities shamelessly clamored for the photo op of the moment, with the headiness of models posing topless with signs begging for the return of the #Girls who needed to be found and safely returned.
Social media platforms were providing thorough lessons on how to stylishly trivialize national and global catastrophes by centering our disingenuousness with the activism of viral hashtags, propelled by flawless selfies.
Five years later, the nightmare of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls that totaled 276, is an active emergency with at least 112 still missing, while those who barely escaped are still battling the lifelong symptoms of their harrowing ordeal.
We need to remember the stepping stones that brought us to this current climate of social engagement that is honestly doing way more harm than good.
We have to reconcile why we are too far gone when it comes to the sensibilities that once humanized our actions without the endorsement of clicks and empty hearts.
It started off with the best of intentions before detouring into shameless territory.
It’s been a long road, but not wide enough to hide our sins. | https://nilegirl.medium.com/remember-the-fame-and-shame-of-bringbackourgirls-4a00560be43a | ['Ezinne Ukoha'] | 2019-12-30 19:30:29.328000+00:00 | ['Boko Haram', 'Bring Back Our Girls', 'World', 'Celebrity', 'Social Media'] |
The lessons from India Pakistan Cricket Match | The lessons from India Pakistan Cricket Match
A match which is not just about Cricket. (photo credit: bbc.com)
On the 24th of this month, It was time to witness the much awaited clash of erstwhile arch rivals India and Pakistan on the Cricket pitch. Looking at the number of matches going to be played in the T-20 World cup, It should have been just another Cricket match but the emotions attached to over 1.7 billion people of the subcontinent made it much more than that. The match becomes even more important if you consider the fact that the Cricket teams of both countries do not play matches outside the megaevents of International Cricket Council(ICC) due to harsh realities of bilateral relations. This rare occurrence makes the already hyped up India-Pakistan Cricket matches even more intense. Also the fact prior to this match that India had clean swept Pakistan in Cricket World-cup matches added extra pressure to the players & fans of both the Cricket giants as for one to continue this legacy and for another to dent into this embarrassing fact and finally Pakistan broke it’s not so pleasant record of losing continuously from India in the world cups. But this match has some hidden messages in the out for Indians in general and cricket fans in particular.
Lessons:
1. Pakistan’s fielding:
I was shocked to watch Pakistan’s fielding. Generally we expect a poor show when it comes to fielding from Pakistan’s cricket team. But this time it was much better than what we expected from them. This lesson hidden in it is “You can turn your weakest weak point into your strength through constant practice.” This includes the importance of the element of surprise as you can shock your opponent with your newly mastered skill.
2. India’s batting collapse:
The Indian cricket team has been long known as a batting powerhouse but the recent trend shows it may collapse when it is exposed to extreme pressures. The message hidden in it is “If pressure isn’t handled carefully, it can corrode one’s strongest powers into their weakness.”
3. India demotivated bowling:
Though Indian bowling tried to put up some challenges to Pakistani batsmen but soon it was visible that they started losing faith in their ability to turn the visible outcome of the match. “This is very much against the sportsmanship, which is to keep fighting until the very end.”
4. Individual vs team:
Indian cricket team has a set of individuals that can turn the table anytime in a match. But it is important to note that being capable of something on your own and doing the same work in a group demands different approaches. It is important to note here that a team may require you to do the job which is not a feather in your cap.
5. A best performer is not always the best candidate for the leadership role:
It has been proven time and again that the greatest leaders were not the greatest performers of their time. Especially overambitious individuals can’t lead a team efficiently as their ego & unwillingness to accept difference of opinions(as they think “they are always correct”) will always cause unnecessary feuds in the team and an internally divided time is like a sinking ship where even changing captain can’t save the crew.
6. The good:
The good out of such drawbacks is that it may force some die hard fans to search for other sources of readymade thrill and joy. It can start equitable redistribution of the nation’s attention to other games too. The new trend can inspire a whole new generation of athletes to choose other games over Cricket.
7. Win or loss:
A win or loss doesn’t affect our life anyway and hence we all should enjoy the matches irrespective of outcomes and cheer for our team to perform better in the upcoming matches. | https://medium.com/@amritanshu-writes/the-lessons-from-india-pakistan-cricket-match-7b9dc1f80b1e | ['Amritanshu Raj'] | 2021-11-03 16:41:44.531000+00:00 | ['Cricket', 'India', 'Sports', 'Inspiration', 'Philosophy'] |
Why are people suckers for the Myers-Briggs, Zodiac signs, and other phony personality tests? | Scientists love to hate on the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, easily the most popular and well-known measure of personality. For good reasons. As explained in this excellent article by Laith Al-Shawaf, experts believe that the Myers-Briggs has dubious predictive ability and is grounded in debunked theory. To make matters worse, it’s unreliable. Which means that if you take the test more than once to learn more about your “true self”, it’s quite likely to give you different answers each time.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It’s a favorite among Fortune 100 companies and government agencies. It is a thriving multimillion dollar industry and it’s now being used to determine our love life — funders just gave 1 million dollars to develop an app that matches couples based on their Myers-Briggs personality types.
As Al-Shawaf notes, “any psychologist will tell you, it’s mostly bullshit.” The open joke is that it offers little more value than your astrological sign.
Despite these widely known flaws, the Myers-Briggs remains tremendously popular. More than one-and-a-half million people take it each year and a full 89 out of the Fortune 100 companies were using the measure as recently as 2014.
What is it about this scientific hot mess that people so readily buy into? We believe that one of the bugs that drives psychologists crazy is actually a feature that explains the test’s enduring popularity.
After you complete the Myers-Briggs test, you get sorted into one of 16 categories. Each group is often given an appealing name: the “logical pragmatist”, “compassionate facilitator”, or “insightful visionary” — providing a perfect new title for a professional development seminar or your online dating profile. Yes, people actually do put their Myers-Briggs category on their Tinder profiles and, as we noted above, companies are now using these to match couples.
The problem is that these categories contradict how contemporary psychologists think about personality. Most experts agree that human personality can be boiled down to five or so fundamental traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and neuroticism. Each trait is a continuous dimension, so that someone can score high, low, or anywhere in between.
Unfortunately, however, it is quite hard (even if you’re a psychologist) to conceive of yourself in five-dimensional space. It’s also awkward to tell people at a conference event or cocktail party that you have a moderate score on extraversion, moderate-to-high on agreeableness and conscientiousness, high on openness, and moderate-to-low on neuroticism. This is hardly sparkling dinner party conversation!
This is why assigning people to Myers-Briggs’ categories is compelling. Scoring low on extraversion and high on openness doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but being a “mastermind” does. People would much rather claim a group identity that includes Sun Tzu, Isaac Newton, Jane Austen and Arthur Ashe.
The use of categories is a great marketing maneuver and a big part of the reason behind the popularity of many dubious personality tests from the Myers-Briggs to the infamous TIME Harry Potter Quiz or Cosmo’s quiz to help you learn what kind of lover you are. The same logic also applies to Astrology signs! We often crave self-definition and are attracted to group memberships that balance a sense of differentiation from the many with a sense of connection to people just like us.
The ease with which people form group identities can be traced back to one of the most important studies in social psychology. In the minimal group experiments from the 1970s, people were randomly assigned to groups after completing a test of dubious merit, such as their ability to estimate the number of dots in an image or their preference for abstract art.
Within minutes, they had created a new sense of identity and were treating their new in-group members very differently from out-group members.
As Al-Shawaf describes, when we use personality tests that impose categories, we risk exaggerating the differences between groups and the similarities within them. When this occurs with other types of identities like race or gender, we typically call it “stereotyping” and we try to avoid it.
There is reason for caution when it comes to categorizing others too readily by personality as well. We might well fail to hire, promote, or even date or marry someone because they fall into a false category about which we make exaggerated assumptions.
If you want to get smarter about groups and be a part of smarter groups, join our free weekly newsletter on The Power of Us. | https://medium.com/@powerofus/why-are-people-suckers-for-the-meyers-briggs-zodiac-signs-and-other-phony-personality-tests-b6efa310a2ff | ['Power Of Us'] | 2021-06-24 15:38:25.794000+00:00 | ['Personality', 'Education', 'Science', 'Groups', 'Business'] |
further confessions on the origins of personal rein | The following narrative is but one element of a larger and perhaps more ambitious performative thought experiment, whose goal is to infer, within a reasonable range, a probable past and present of its author; in the hopes of communicating to, at the very least, his family, friends and maybe even a few co workers; not just the writer’s intention, but also a conceivable future for all those concerned.
It was almost as if he was an out of control horse about to jump off a cliff to a bottomless pit, and somebody at the last minute pulled hard on what must have been some kind dangling reins of a hyper misconception; a sudden action that caused his head to jerk back and actually see what he was about to do; finally coming to the realization, that this thing he was about to engage in with was no girl; she was his sister.
That’s where we left our young man; wrestling with a self control he neither understood or could figure out a way to not let it take over his life entirely; no girls; and as, it would turn out later in life when he seriously questioned his sexuality, no men either; no close friends; and, ironically enough, no mortal enemies as well.
No one; nothing was allowed past a certain point; at least not yet; and as all these inner commands came to the surface of his waking general self, from a place he simply could not, truly name; from time to time, his conscious awareness grew restless, turbulent even; visibly unsettled, as puberty, with its characteristic swirl of hormones and anxieties, real or imagined, issued in the natural changes therein; firmly taking a hold of both his behavior and thought.
As our young man matured; the declaration made to his parents, and eventually, also to a few concerned school administrators; who in calling him to the office of Lahser High School, a few days after the beginning of his first year at the secondary level; after carefully examining his educational transcripts; and after asking him why he hadn’t gone to a better school; our young friend responded with a; what must have sounded like, at the time, an idealistic and naive reply: I wanted to learn about life; to wit, said proclamation, apparently dwindling into a kind of archaic textual obsolescence; the older he grew and the restless and confused he became.
However, before getting too far ahead, let’s go back to the summer after St. Hugo of The Hills. It was also after his circumcision and for some reason, he didn’t know why, his spirits were remarkably light; unusual, given the changes his sister was going through; changes this writer wonders today, were not connected to her stay a year or so earlier, at Camp Stapleton.
In addition, the relationship between our young man’s parents; since not only the boy but his sister as well, had chosen not to go on with parochial schooling; a rocky marriage since Chicago; now, was worsening.
So why was the young boy feeling so, what we can safely guess from where we stand today; optimistic?
It’s difficult to pin down the exact origins of his overall good mood from our contemporary point of view. The upcoming summer was to going to be, as it turned out, unusually balmy; with temperatures stubbornly parking themselves in the ninety to one-hundred degree range for weeks at a time; staying that way throughout of most of the tropical-hazy days and all through the many passages of sauna-humid nights; for some reason, the young boy frequently enjoyed; the tastes and feelings of swelteringly sticky, hot humid weather; not all of the time, but sometimes; foregrounded by several well placed fans; or in the case of his family’s Bloomfield Hills apartment home, an air conditioning unit that rarely, if ever, broke down; summer, from his view, was just fine.
Yet, the next few months would not be uneventful. The season came on the heels of his successful circumcision; a procedure that left him with an odd kind of relief; for he, as all males of most ages and many sexual preferences probably have at one point or the other, done; had noticed other boys’ penises; many of which did not look like his own.
At the end of theirs, for example, a definite tip emerged; what the writer of this narrative might compare to a natural Clovis tip; a point which the little boy thought much more efficient; more so than the shriveled wrinkly nub at the end of his; which he would often have to pull back the sides of and clear away lint and other debris from; random detritus that sometime collected there; if left unattended for too long.
After the operation, our young man marveled at how new it felt; like he had been given a brand new penis; one that looked like the other boys’ penises; but better; because after all, it was his and to him; he considered it — unique.
Before he could figure out a way of celebrating his new founded sense of natural animal freedom, his mother received news that her father, his grandfather had died; his death coming from what many believed; his mother’s sister, Connie and her husband, Jim; to name a few; was the inevitable result of far too much drinking and very little regard for his own well-being; for far too long a time.
The young boy’s mood then changed slightly; although not exactly; to match his mother’s hazy sort of ambivalent acknowledgement of the news; her long and quiet living room stares out onto the grass covered and tall treed lawns; penetrating views into landscaped hills; the apartment complex, where they lived; her blank and empty extended glances as she wandered through their home over the next couple of days; passing the word to the rest of the family; preparing things for the long drive down; packing clothes; informing her employer; the whole time; neither crying nor sighs of regret, nor any outward indications of excessive remorse; just a matter of fact flatness and recognition of the appropriate thing to do; propriety being the give and take, back and forth, that dominated the relationship between the boy and his mother.
What we can not forget here, is that as the years would progress, there would be stirrings within the boy, increasingly becoming more frequent; rustlings of pushed down memories; buried archives that would become a source of familial tension; psychic unconscious flotsam and jetsam that in the long run, wound up driving a wedge of mutual resentment and distrust between a mother and her two young children.
What’s more; through out the turbulence of both his and his sister’s middle and late adolescence on into their early adulthood, from their new family of three, would come to assert its’ self, as a wordless covenantal ark born of mixed and frequently conflicting commands; themselves, appearing as apparently backwards and nonsensical edicts arising from the remainders of a divorced and fragmented family who happened to be black; living on the salary of a single parent provider; in a community of minor to significant opulence; a general standard that, to the newly fashioned uneasy trio of mother, daughter and son; often became a daunting hurdle; particularly in light of the ‘what to do now?’ question that all ways comes with rituals of high school graduation and the like; all of which was further complicated by underlying secrets that, to this day, still have yet to work themselves out; perhaps for his sister, but most assuredly, for our young friend; the young boy; subject of this narrative experiment.
So it was with these stirrings of inner, hidden things and unseen seems of emotional fabric, that our young boy and his family took, what would also be the last trip as a whole family, they would have together; in the form to which each member: father, mother, son and daughter, had come to know; the oldest brother having long since left; moving to strike out on his own, years before.
By the time night fall came, the little boy and his family had completed nearly two thirds of their journey; stopping to rest a few miles east of Springfield in a town called Lebanon.
In spite of the somber circumstances of his grandfather’s funeral; the reason for the trip in the first place; so far, the whole experience was almost like a vacation; that is until the boy’s father, while making food and lodging arrangements, happened upon a couple of white men; parked on the opposite side of the lot where they were; in a pick-up truck; almost singing epithets of ‘nigger this’ and ‘nigger that’; slurs flowing like a river of sewage polluting an otherwise tranquil family outing; causing a slight unease to lightly turn in the boy’s stomach; maybe a small reminder, from this writer’s retro-perspective; but to the little boy back then; a warning, no matter how uninformed or not, of the not so distant past of this place; called the South.
The dreaded South.
The boy distinctly recalls his father angrily flipping them the middle finger; a hard to miss: “Fuck you, you Honky Bastards!” erupting in response, as he adjusted the belt around his, at the time, spreading waist; opening the driver’s side door; perhaps checking for the gun he wished he always carried; a habit from either his prior law enforcement days or his then connections with the Inspector General’s Office back in Michigan; not finding it where he’d hoped it was; getting in and slamming the door; the young boy’s mother’s soft but edge-tinged voice cautioning: “Let’s just and get our rooms”; soothing him enough for the key to turn, the engine to engage and the young boy; his sister, mother and his smolderingly calm father, to get some much needed rest for the night.
Our young friend awoke to an early sunny summer morning; he and his sister’s parents, particularly their father, in a palpable hurry to get going; to gather their belongings and get on the the road; a short order plan made obvious by all the: ‘Hurry ups’ and the ‘C mons’ ushered by both mother and father; gentle, but firm prodding for two young children, just waking up from a long sleep; to get dressed and get in the car; with added assurances of getting breakfast, once on the road and far from this place; the little boy remembers, as Lebanon, Missouri.
The family then passed through, what this writer has since determined to have been, the outskirts of the Ozark Mountain Area; sheer expanses of red clay cliffs; the occasional rustic home tucked in against the rise; a smoky panorama reaching up from the highway; sprawling and sun-shadowed; mountainous hilled faces; crowned by tufts of green forest and other viridescent wood; none of which appeared to impress any else in the car; at least, not as far as the little boy could tell.
Both his sister and his mother seemed distracted; as if their minds were a million miles away; and his father’s eyes; although outwardly fixed on the road in front of them; unbeknownst to the little boy at the time or any one else, for that matter; save the boy’s wife, his mother; who ironically enough, as fate would have it, probably was thinking the same thing as her husband; one word flashing in both parent’s mind’s eye; like a lighthouse beacon; shining from the rocky shores of a hopelessly broken marriage; over and over; almost as if it were a prayer or Gregorian Chant, both repeated, under their breath in resigned unison; escape, escape, escape.
Meanwhile, our young friend’s sister could have been thinking about her two best friends back home; Noreen and Elaine; the former, a long limbed, dark haired; sensibly-postured girl who loved her glasses; the latter, an auburn-cropped-curly cut; Shirley Temple dimpled and freckled roundish girl; whose killer Little-Debbie-smile and surprisingly sharp streak of witty mischievousness, often sparkled from her frequent winks and nods; thus proving to be her noblest virtue.
Yet, ‘thinking about her friends’ more than likely, gravely understates what was probably going through the young boy’s sister’s mind. She couldn’t see what he saw, because her eyes were fixed on Elaine’s and Noreen’s Father and the home he had made for his two young daughters after the tragic death of their mother; first hand reports from both girls of his frequent verbal abuse; violations, the boy’s sister herself had witnessed; incidents of groping and other inappropriate suggestions or lewd associative Speech Acts, the girls had tearfully confessed to the boy’s sister; finding their way to his ears both by his sister’s admission and what little interaction the boy also had with the two young girls’ father.
As the coming months and years would show, the boy’s sister will grow more and more outraged over Noreen and Elaine’s father’s behavior; a burgeoning activism that inadvertently, yet inexorably will make itself quite plain; as a virtual Great-Wall-of-China practically builds itself up between a mother, whose outward appearance belied hidden scars and tissues; unhealed wounds of repeated incestuous intrusion in her own past; and a daughter, who may or may not have had her first homosexual experience during her stay at a Catholic Run summer camp for girls, a year or so before; a possible encounter, she mostly kept to herself then, and probably to this very day, still does.
The rift between both women; one young and inexperienced the other older and more cautious; put a simpler way; mother and daughter; will become clearly evident in a day to come; over a span of a moment across time; from where the boy’s family found themselves; going southbound through that Ozark Valley way; on that particular early sunny summer’s morning; to a point neither mother nor daughter, realizing then, riding in that car, both just staring at the passing sun dappled countryside; that in almost in a year of months to come, both will be at the back their apartment home in Bloomfield Hills; in the girl’s room; yelling at the top of their lungs to each other; as the mother attempts, to physically keep her daughter confined, to her room.
The mother will first be asking; then ordering; and finally demanding that her daughter stay out of Noreen’s and Elaine’s family business.
On the other hand the daughter; the young boy’s sister, at first not understanding why her mother will not call the proper authorities; will then verbally challenge her mother’s reasons for not notifying someone that Noreen and Elaine’s father was way out of line; in what she believed, warranted some kind of intervention from — someone, anyone; and if no one would be notified, and nothing was done, then she, the boy’s sister, was going to take it upon herself to do something; even if that something meant standing up to the father of her two friends; boldly challenging him to his face; practically daring him to go through her first, before he lay another finger on his children.
When the boy’s sister makes that clear to their mother, the two will grapple; the boy’s sister eventually, violently, will push past their mother; a chase through the house, from the back to the front, will rapidly ensue; the boy will be in the dinning room at the front of the house; listening to what he will come to believe; to be self evident pieces of his family dissolving; like an incoming wave that laps the shores of a lake; dissolving the sand there; with each retreat and advance.
He will see the blur; of his sister grabbing the door’s knob, running into the hallway; of his mother in close pursuit leaping upon her, grabbing a hold of whatever she could; both of whom will be moving faster than he had ever seen either move before or since. He will see how his sister; refusing to be denied, will essentially drag their mother into the exterior hall way; there; the boy’s mother will loose her grip on her determined daughter; whose forward motion, will cause their mother to loose her footing; tumbling to the ground and rolling onto her shoulder; against the grating of the metal rail there; a jarring, painful end end of her helpless lurch; as the boy’s sister will effect her escape; running down the stairs, leading outside; supposedly on her way to make her stand for her two friends; leaving their mother disheveled; red-faced angry; scrambling to her feet; slamming the apartment door as she stormed back to the master bedroom; slamming thew door there as well.
All these things will happen in, around and to the family of this young man; the object of this narrative experiment to infer a probable past of not only himself; but that of his family as well.
However, for the time being of the narrative, as we are generally examining it in this specific context of our perspective now; looking back then; at an African American family; going south bound through the red-clay-lustrous and sun- dappled-expressiveness, of those rolling Missourian Hills; on their way to the funeral of the little boy’s grandfather in Tulsa Oklahoma; one thing was certain.
Although no one riding in that car could or would say so at the time; some secrets, either of family; between friends or even neighbors for that matter; don’t make us better people.
They may make us human; but in the long run and over time; they don’t necessarily make us better human beings.
They just make life harder; that’s all; and there’s nothing at all special about that; at least, not as far as this writer can ever hope to truthfully tell; to show, that is, in the best and most thoughtful way he knows how; or, can get away with.
(to be continued next: the funeral and its initial aftermath) | https://medium.com/@tkrawftmich/further-confessions-on-the-origins-of-personal-rein-bbaec52b106b | ['Thomas Krawford'] | 2019-06-17 23:23:28.186000+00:00 | ['Autoethnography', 'Ann Arbor', 'Narrative', 'Family', 'Philosophy'] |
Zoo Crypto World: Upcoming Features + AMA Recap | Hey ZOO warriors! 8Bit here, with an exciting update :)
The ZOOCW team and community recently had a fun night in the telegram with an AMA session. ZOOCW revealed groundbreaking features that are coming soon. A full recap of the AMA has been posted in this article.
Check out Zoo Crypto World and join the metaverse👉
https://www.zoogame.app
< AMA included: Loki, Breck and 8Bit >
< 🌟Upcoming features + Announcements >
Security Plan (September)
Security is and will always be our #1 priority. We are establishing a bounty program with immunefi.com and will be funding it with 100,000 USDT. We have also engaged Certik to audit our full library of contracts.
Auctions X Zoo Mall (September)
We know that a lot of you didn’t have a chance to participate in the Binance Series Mystery Boxes. We have decided to launch an Auction House in the Zoo Mall for a special series Zoo Mall Mystery Artifact Boxes. Here are the details:
• There will be a total amount of 2,000 Zoo Mall Mystery Artifact Boxes auctioned off.
• Every two minutes 10 boxes will be auctioned off, the total time to complete will be 48 hours.
• The artifacts pulled from these boxes will be the same rarities and qualities of the Binance Series, but the style and appearance will differ.
• The starting price of each mystery box will be 100 $ZOO.
• 100% of the $ZOO spent in this auction will be burnt to 0X00 (the only variance to this will be if we establish a partnership with a charity in the interim).
• We will be launching a new, separate Mystery Box system after the Binance Series Artifacts are transferable into the game. The cost for the mystery boxes offered in this new system will be four $KEYs.
We will continue to host weekly auctions in the Zoo Mall after the first Zoo Mall Mystery Artifact Boxes launch. We will be launching a new team weekly with 200–300 blind boxes up for grabs for the new groups.
We will also run a monthly auction that will include Blind Boxes that will contain NFTs themed after our targeted group of partners, i.e., CMC, Binance, BiSwap, etc.
Binance NFT Holder Privileges (September — October)
• We will be dropping a new NFT set for those hodling the Binance Series NFTs.
o Each account that hold 2 SSR equipment will be dropped an Epic NFT with a chance at receiving a Legendary.
o Each account that hold 10 SR equipment will be dropped an Epic NFT with a SLIGHT chance at receiving a Legendary.
o Each account that hold 30 R equipment will be dropped a universal Rare NFT.
o Each account that hold 50 N equipment will be dropped a universal Rare NFT.
• Holders will be whitelisted (reserved seats) in future auction events, including the upcoming Zoo Mall event
o 500 of the Zoo Mall Mystery Boxes will be reserved for accounts that hold a SR or SSR artifacts. Note: users will be limited to five boxes per account.
o The remaining 1500 boxes will be auctioned to everyone (with the five boxes limit in place).
• Holders of Binance Series Artifacts will be dropped $KEYs (details to be determined)
ZOOCW Pot (Lottery) (October)
We will be launching the Zoo Pot (Lottery) in October. The lottery system will reward the winners with necklaces, rings, and trinkets. Each series of these NFTs will be limited in quantity. The cost to enter the Zoo pot will be 1 $ZOO per ticket. We will be hosting several rounds per day, with the exact amount to be determined. The quality of the lottery will be epic Mondays-Saturdays and Legendary on Sundays.
ZOOCW Lock (October — November)
We will be introducing $ZOO locks in October and November. Details are:
o Increase your staking weight
o Activate the attributes of artifacts
Marketing Plan
We will be focusing on more marketing activities including, but not limited to, collaborations with other BSC MVB projects, implementing an ecological pool with DEX’s, implementing referral systems, increasing our social media presence, and establishing charity funds with other projects.
Game Plan (October)
We have established a team with developers from a well-known game studio. We are going to be revamping all the PVP and PVE games. We have also hired a new art studio to rework our digital assets for the whole project.
< 🌱Community Questions + Answers >
Do you have plan to list Zoo on any CEX this month?
We plan to list on a CEX on the 4th fiscal quarter this year.
What’s the next gameplay addition you’re looking into after fixing pvp v2?
We are looking to add further minigames, gambling elements such as lotteries which are coming soon.
When will Zoo go on Binance launchpad?
This is impossible to predict, but if we win MVB we have a high chance at getting listed.
Can you elaborate on Apeswap partnership and what it means for zoo?
An Apeswap partnership means over 600 million dollars worth of TVL being exposed to ZOO Crypto World. You do the math on that exposure :) It will allow other crypto projects and users to notice us! (Partnership not confirmed)
How far has the progress to fix some bugs that occur on the website? because there are so many complaints every day about cards, combat tickets not showing up, etc?
These bugs will be fixed 100% but we cannot provide an ETA. ZOOCW is still early, of course there will be bugs. Our devs are working 24/7 in the background though!
Wen Lambo?
Soon, we have a plethora of features coming. No one can guarantee you a lambo or a moon, but I’m sure what we have coming will take us to mars.
What do you consider to be our strongest and weakest points in the MVB run?
Our strongest points would be our infrastructure and community. The only thing we are lacking is social media support. Make sure you guys go like all our posts, retweet and spam twitter with ZOO. GET US OUT THERE!
Any plans to make leagues for PVP combat?
This has been taken into consideration, we need to polish the PVP and PVE modes first then new features will be released.
When is the zoo mall auction opening? Any plans to limit keys/ give zoo for LP?
This month, we will announce official dates soon once we get back with the devs.
There are many projects with zoo in the name how will we distinguish ourselves?
We are ZOO Crypto World, we will insist on this name rather than just “ZOO”.
Any plans to increase the user base of ZOO?
Our marketing and partnerships being run in the background will help boost our user growth immensely. Lets not forget MVB :) | https://medium.com/@zoogameofficial/zoo-crypto-world-upcoming-features-ama-recap-f83b1eb9ddc2 | ['Zoo Crypto World'] | 2021-09-08 21:47:03.209000+00:00 | ['Binance Smart Chain', 'Binance', 'Gamefi', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Defi'] |
Great Software Developers Never Look at Their Hands | Bug #2: You’re using the mouse and/or trackpad
Yes, you are! Photo by Silje Roseneng on Unsplash
Solution: Stop using the mouse and/or trackpad.
I’m an iOS developer. Some years ago I decided to try Android Studio. After about 3 seconds, I had to comment some code out.
Easy, Cmd+/ and we’re done. Uh, no, apparently not. It turns out this shortcut won’t work with a Swedish keyboard layout.
Ok, let’s reach for the trackpad, click through the menus, find the proper action and finally select it.
Next day I walked up to my Android colleagues, determined to receive an explanation. They all looked at me like I was the crazy one, then went back to shuffling their mouses around their desks like air hockey players.
It turns out, relatively few developers are interested in this particular aspect of their work. On the bright side though; there’s a lot less competition for anyone who is ready to invest a little effort.
Squashing this bug requires a constant improvement mindset. Pay attention whenever your hands move away from the keyboard. What are they doing? Is that air hockey? Are they reaching for the trackpad, to click some button or menu? If so, pay even closer attention. Is this particular button or menu item something you click fairly often? Maybe it’s THE action you most often use the trackpad to perform. Then it’s time to move that action closer to home.
Don’t wait. Look that shortcut up right away!
Editing code and navigating your IDE are the most important areas. Learn those shortcuts first, so you’re navigating and coding with the keyboard only.
Don’t be afraid of changing shortcuts around, and adding custom shortcuts. A lot of developers have this idea that you should stay with the defaults, that you wouldn’t want to get confused if you should ever use some other computer, where you can’t change the defaults. That is 99% bullshit! Yes, it happens. No, it’s not a problem. You know best how you want things configured. Optimize for the ordinary, not for contingencies. | https://medium.com/swlh/great-software-developers-never-look-at-their-hands-7ce5c8bcb9ff | ['André Gillfrost'] | 2020-08-12 07:37:48.565000+00:00 | ['Key Binding', 'Keyboard Shortcuts', 'Software Development', 'Typing', 'Productivity'] |
Variety Of Encoders In NLP | Evaluation of sentence embeddings in downstream and linguistic probing tasks
So I was reading this paper and it opened Pandora’s box for me. Ideally, we want an embedding model which gives us the smallest embedding vector and works great for the task. The smaller the embedding size, the lesser the compute required for training as well as inference.
As you can see, there is a huge variation in the size of embedding — varies from 300 to 4800. As per the basics, more the vector size, the more information it can contain! But is it actually true? Let’s see how they perform on the tasks.
Different embedding models and their vector size — https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.06259
Classification tasks
Authors tried out different classification tasks as shown below to understand the performance of these models. For the linguistic probing tasks, a MLP was used with a single hidden layer of 50 neurons, with no dropout added, using Adam optimizer with a batch size of 64.
(For the Word Content (WC) probing task in which a Logistic Regression was used since it provided consistently better results)
Classification tasks
From the results we can see that different ELMo embeddings perform really good for classification tasks. USE and InferSent also top on some of the tasks. The difference between the best and the 2nd best is around 2%. Word2Vec and GloVe do not top in any task as expected but their performance is also in the range of 3%.
The thing to note here — ELMo has a vector size of 1024, USE has 512 and InferSent has 4096. So if somebody has to actually put a system to production, his first choice will be USE and then maybe ELMo.
Results for classification tasks.
Semantic relatedness tasks
Then they try out the embeddings for semantic relatedness and textual similarity tasks. This time USE(Transformer) model is a clear winner. If we neglect InferSent, which is 8x bigger embedding than USE, USE is far ahead of others.
This makes USE a clear choice for semantic search and similar question kind of tasks.
BTW, when should we use USE(DAN) and USE(Transformer)? The performance of USE(DAN) is O(n) with length of text while its O(n²) for USE(Transformer). So if you are dealing with long texts, you might want to go with USE(DAN).
Linguistic probing tasks
Next, they show results for Linguistic probing tasks which consist of some esoteric tasks. In this case, ELMo seems to rule the world!
BShift (bi-gram shift) task — the goal is to identify whether if two consecutive tokens within the sentence have been inverted or not such as “This is my Eve Christmas”
The differences are huge between ELMo and non-ELMo models.
Information retrieval tasks
In the caption-image retrieval task, each image and language features are jointly evaluated with the objective of ranking a collection of images in respect to a given caption (image retrieval task — text2image) or ranking captions with respect to a given image (caption retrieval — image2text).
InferSent is a clear winner in this one. The 2nd in the line is ELMo. | https://medium.com/modern-nlp/on-variety-of-encoding-text-8b7623969d1e | ['Pratik Bhavsar'] | 2020-06-14 08:40:57.885000+00:00 | ['Naturallanguageprocessing', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Machine Learning'] |
Weekly update from Ubcoin: 04.07–11.07 | Product Development, Marketing, Tokensale and other Ubcoin news — a summary
Product Development
1. Ubcoin Market has developed a solution based on artificial intelligence to predict the optimal cost of goods. The system allows buyers to instantly receive objective information about the price of the goods in relation to the recommended price obtained on the basis of market analysis. Sellers are then able to confidently set an optimal price for their goods, ensuring demand.
Read more: https://medium.com/@ubcoin/how-ubcoin-market-determines-the-price-of-goods-using-artificial-intelligence-81e80602ebc0
Project Marketing
2. The BIG news is the announcement of a new large smartphone manufacturer — LG — among the partners of the projects. Contract was signed in the last days of June, and the news was officially announced last week.
Publications in 19 medias in English, Korean, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, German, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Portuguese.
3. Fresh Youtube video reviews:
Korea, Factor Hype https://youtu.be/kmEsDQSgCAQ
Poland, Nowampson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkOHaggg6yM
Turkey, Kripto Mert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbdV2AOMfoM
USA, Crypto Randy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5M-KnQWYHU
Japan, Kosuke https://youtu.be/OpXMPnSoWoQ
Tokensale updates
4. Procedural updates
Stage 5 of tokensale has ended on July, 10. The Stage 6 has started, discount is 9%.
The referral bonus payment is ongoing.
All airdrops tokens have been distributed.
5. Exchange listings:
Agreed with two exchanges on acceptable legal configuration required for listing.
Working with lawyers on obtaining legal opinions on UBC tokens under the laws of USA, Singapore.
Miscellaneous
5. Ubcoin team organizes a meetup in Seoul (South Korea) on July, 14 to showcase product development results. Ubcoin Market invites crypto enthusiasts and investors to its meetup that will take place in Novotel Ambassador Gangnam on July, 14 at 2 PM.
Please register here
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-rGNttsbEhvs7y_HCwowCfEoCdJwv6syghqbaksl7AYGBNg/viewform
More info — here: https://meetupkr.ubcoin.io
6. Last week Stan Danysh (Ubcoin COO) and Lana Mik (Ubcoin marketing manager) visited China to represent Ubcoin at Wuzhen World Blockchain Conference. Stan was interviewed by the Chinese media and attended a private exclusive VIP dinner with blockchain projects and investors. Ubcoin team had an impressive exhibition booth and was distributing flyers, key rings and special branded iPhone covers to visitors. During 2 days more than a thousand people visited Ubcoin booth — taking pictures, asking questions about Ubcoin, joining WeChat groups and taking part in the Ubcoin token sale. See pictures here: https://medium.com/@ubcoin/ubcoin-at-wuzhen-world-blockchain-conference-thank-you-china-3c1b41af1a0e
7. Preliminary exploratory partnership talks have commenced with a large Chinese blockchain platform. | https://medium.com/ubcoin-blog/weekly-update-from-ubcoin-04-07-11-07-fb4f6b1d6f45 | ['Ubcoin. Cryptocurrency Reimagined'] | 2018-09-24 16:02:23.702000+00:00 | ['Ubcoin', 'Ubcoin Product', 'Blockchain', 'Ethereum', 'Bitcoin'] |
Yami Gautam on Living with Keratosis Pilaris, an incurable skin condition: ‘It Took Years to Accept… | Yami Gautam, a Bollywood actress, has revealed that she had Keratosis pilaris, a skin ailment that she developed in her teenage years and for which there is no cure. On social media, Yami also posted a slew of unedited photos of herself enjoying her skin.
After her viral post about acceptance and self-love, Yami said in an interview with MidDay that it was “liberating” for her to talk about the skin disease she’s had for years. “It wasn’t tough to write the piece; it was liberating. It’s was a difficult trip from the time I learned of my condition to the day I put the post out.
People would comment on how it should be airbrushed or hidden when they saw me at the shoot. That would have a significant impact on me. It took me a long time to accept it and wear my self-assurance. “I was blown away by the response to the post,” Yami explained.
Keratosis pilaris is a skin ailment characterized by rough patches and tiny acne-like pimples.
“I found the strength to reveal my truth with you,” Yami had previously stated on social media. Phew! I didn’t feel like airbrushing my folliculitis, smoothing my ‘under-eye,’ or ‘shaping up’ that waist just a smidgeon more! Despite this, I think I’m gorgeous.”
Yami Gautam admitted that she has been suffering with it for a long time and that she has finally chosen to let go of all her concerns about the post
You may also like: Live Match Cricket World Cup 2021 & Best Live Scoring Cricket World Cup India 2021
“I developed this skin condition during my teenage years, and there is still no cure for it. I’ve dealt with it for many years now and today finally, I decided to let go of all my fears and insecurities and found the courage to love and accept my ‘flaws’ wholeheartedly,” she concluded.
Read the following Topcricketindia article to learn more about 1CRIC‘s playing strategy and other game-related information.
Read more: England vs Australia 3rd Test Match Prediction
Visit also: In India 6 531 new COVID-19 cases have been reported.
Let’s play and Register now!
Play Rummy Online with Dafabet | https://medium.com/@krishnasujeev25/yami-gautam-on-living-with-keratosis-pilaris-an-incurable-skin-condition-it-took-years-to-accept-eecde8a234dd | ['Krishna Sujeev'] | 2021-12-27 09:11:44.772000+00:00 | ['Latest News', 'Yami Gautam', 'Fantasy Games India', 'Cricket', '1cric'] |
Why are Cryptocurrency Prices so Volatile? | Understanding the differences between fiat currency values and cryptocurrency prices is important to better understand these asset classes.
The Basics of Fiat Money and Cryptocurrencies
Fiat Money
The value of fiat money (a legal tender issued by a country’s central bank and backed by its national government) is determined by the issuing authority and by parties that trust that currency and transact in it. The central bank controls the flow of currency and thereby indirectly controls inflation.
Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies are not legal tender: national governments and central banks neither issue nor back it (with some proposed exceptions, such as Venezuela’s Petro). The supply of a cryptocurrency is often either fixed or capped. This theoretically reduces the potential for inflation.
Cryptocurrencies are also often decentralized, in that nobody can control the mechanisms built into them. However, there are often developer groups and foundations providing support for certain cryptocurrencies and platforms. These groups sometimes serve as checks on major destabilizing events.
Both cryptocurrencies and fiat money can be used as mediums of exchange to buy products or services, or as stores of value.
Reasons for Cryptocurrency Volatility
Reason 1: A New Class of Assets
Cryptocurrencies are a relatively new asset class, and they are still evolving. By some measures there are 100,000 new users of cryptocurrency every day. This novelty means that people do not yet know how to value cryptocurrencies, which leads to volatility in cryptocurrency prices.
Reason 2: Thin Markets
Since the size of the cryptocurrency market is limited (its value is estimated to be between $260 billion and $900 billion), changes in investor sentiments can have outsized impacts on cryptocurrency prices. The foreign exchange market, on the other hand, has daily trading volumes of around $1.7 trillion. The spread (the difference between the price at which the market buys and the price at which the market sells) can be pennies or less for foreign exchange, but can be measured in dollars for many cryptocurrencies. Emotions drive market prices. Since cryptocurrency markets are relatively small, prices may be more sensitive to positive or negative media reports.
Reason 3: Technical Purpose
Blockchain technology can be used for cryptocurrencies, for other uses, or both. Therefore, while Bitcoin is used only as a cryptocurrency, Ethereum tokens are used to build other apps. The price of an Ethereum token therefore depends partly on trust in the Ethereum ecosystem’s continued dominance, and partly on the purpose for which the token was created and the real-world problem it intends to address. This can lead to more complex valuations that change rapidly.
Changes in Cryptocurrency Prices Over the past 18 Months
As the original, largest, and most prominent cryptocurrency, Bitcoin often serves a proxy for the cryptocurrency market. Prices of other cryptocurrencies have often risen and fallen in tandem with that of Bitcoin. Last year, Bitcoin became mainstream, even while major Asian economies such as Japan cracked down on cryptocurrency.
At the beginning of 2017, Bitcoin’s price was below $1000 and its market capitalization was below $15 billion.
Over the course of the year, Bitcoin’s price surged in value to $15,000, despite periodic drops on negative news (such as after the SEC blocked the introduction of a Bitcoin ETF, the forking of Bitcoin into classic Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash, and China’s ICO ban). In December 2017, the market capitalization of Bitcoin was approximately $235 billion.
The mania of 2017 gave way to a selloff in early 2018, as the price of Bitcoin plunged to $7,000 by February. The first half of the year has been characterized by massive volatility in Bitcoin’s price.
There are many potential explanations for the correction of Bitcoin prices in 2018. One is that people who bought at a low price sought to realize their gains, setting off a selloff. Another is the ironic possibility that as people learned more about cryptocurrencies, they started purchasing Bitcoin’s competitors (colloquially known as altcoins), such as Litecoin, Ripple, and Zcash, instead of Bitcoin. Ad sanctions by Google on cryptocurrency may also have played a role in the decline.
Bitcoin’s price is approximately $6000 at the moment, and its market cap is approximately $110 billion.
Accuracy of Cryptocurrency Price Predictions
Bitcoin price predictions have been all over the map. Bitcoin optimists such as John McAfee (McAfee Associates), Jim Cramer (CNBC), and Bobby Lee (CEO BTCC Exchange) have predicted that Bitcoin’s price would breach the $1 million mark in a few years.
Tom Lee (formerly JP Morgan’s chief US equity strategist) has taken a more moderate stance, predicting a Bitcoin price of $25,000 by end-2018 and $125,000 by 2025.
Bitcoin pessimists include boutique investment bank GP Bullhound, which has predicted a 90% crash by the end of 2018. At the extreme end are Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff’s prediction that Bitcoin will eventually shrink to $100 and GoldMoney CEO Roy Sebag’s projection that Bitcoin’s price will drop to $0 in the long term.
Bitcoin and altcoin prices will depend on various factors, including the availability of alternatives and the development of cryptocurrency regulation in major economies.
Bitcoin and altcoin price volatility serves as a cautionary tale: to generate sustained interest among investors and the general public, blockchains should seek to provide value (beyond the merely theoretical), solve real-world problems, and create durable value. | https://medium.com/blockstreethq/why-are-cryptocurrency-prices-so-volatile-7bf1dccb2240 | ['Shaan Ray'] | 2019-12-15 06:58:44.282000+00:00 | ['Blockchain Technology', 'Bhq Contributors', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Crypto', 'Bitcoin'] |
Lost the battle. Winning the war? | April 2003
“I joined the Marines.”
“YOU DID WHAT?!” Katherine howled.
That was not quite the reaction I’d anticipated.
“Why, would you do that?”
“What else am I doing?”
“Well, Steve, you’re not FUCK-ING DYING.”
We had talked about marriage …but 9/11 changed everything.
Katie began shaking her head: “When do you leave?”
“Two weeks.”
“Jesus, Steve.”
I had to work and hand in my notice, and when I came home from my shift, our five-year relationship had been reduced to a one-page note on the table. | https://medium.com/etc-magazine/lost-the-battle-winning-the-war-2b23c4972bd5 | ['Keith R. Higgons'] | 2020-10-29 17:51:33.312000+00:00 | ['100 Naked Words', 'Short Story', 'Fiction', '100 Words', 'Very Short Story'] |
Explain by Example: CosmosDB | Since I’m going to be giving a spiel (or two) about Data and AI at Microsoft Ignite later on this year, I decided it’s about time I stopped ignoring the Data guys and what better way to get to know them than to take them on a virtual date (I’m still in full lockdown and can’t see anyone anyway) so I decided to go on a virtual date with Cosmos (his full name is Azure CosmosDB but he likes to go by the nickname, Cosmos).
Anyway, here is a summary how the virtual date went…
Hey Cosmos, thanks for doing this virtual date with me, so what do you do for a living?
No worries, I’m glad you picked me. Some people are a little afraid of me because they think I’m trying to replace that SQL guy who used to be super popular but I’m actually a pretty cool guy once you get to know me. And, not to boost my own ego here but people kind of fall in love with me once they realize I’m not that mysterious. Anyway, I work in this field called “Databases” and I store things for a living.
Oh cool, what kind of things do you store? I might be moving houses soon. Do you do furniture storage?
Nah, not furniture storage. I store data which is why I’m in the Databases field but I don’t have strict requirements like that SQL guy. I’m a bit more chill and laid back than he is. SQL likes to plan ahead of time, he tells people that they need to call him up before hand, come up with a plan (which he calls a schema) that specifies exactly what data needs to be stored, how to arrange the data, all that kind of stuff before he lets anyone use his storage services. And if people don’t stick to his rigid schema plans, he throws a tantrum. Then everyone ends up having a big fat cry especially those Database Administrator guys who has to deal with him.
Honestly, he’s a bit of a neat freak in my opinion. Too structured and relational for my liking. I’m more of a semi-structured, non-relational type of guy. I don’t like making plans but I do have a few basic rules so I just tell people, “Hey, if you can stick to these rules then you’re welcome use my services at anytime. I don’t really care what it is you’re storing as long as you follow my rules.”
Right, and what are these rules they have to follow?
Two simple rules really, they just need to tell me the Partition Key and the Throughput.
The Partition Key gives me an idea of how they want to separate their data (logically) and then I do some magic math in my head to work out how to physically store their logical partitions into my physical storage space.
And Throughput is really about how much work I have to do for them like will I have to move their data around a lot, find things for them, get and replace things for them, or remove things? All that labour work will cost them so they need to give me an idea of how much work they are expecting me to do for them. I call this Request Units (RUs) so I tend to ask people how many RUs they need from me. You can think of an RU as a unit of work or effort.
Ok, but how would I decide what Partition Key or Throughput to give you?
So when it comes to data, you’re generally doing either one of these two things: Read or Write.
Read is essentially getting data or filtering data or aggregating data, doing some sort of manipulation with the data and then returning the results. Write is generally inserting new data or modifying existing data or removing data. So when people ask me what to choose for their Partition Key, I tell them to look at what kind of queries they will be getting. Will it be read-heavy or write-heavy? You know, what are the most frequent queries they will be getting. Like if it is going to be read-heavy, then we probably want to have lots of replicas (basically copies of the same data) to avoid “hot” partitions and make sure that reads are highly available. If it is going to be write-heavy, then we probably want to make sure we can keep the replicas as consistent as possible in the shortest amount of time and try to avoid or mitigate any write conflicts that might occur.
It also affects the Throughput or number of RUs they need from me as well. For example, if it is read-heavy, I could probably go find your data from any of the replicas but if it is write-heavy, I will need to go and make changes to all the replicas and you know, I’m definitely going to charge more RUs for doing more work.
You mentioned some stuff I didn’t understand here like Hot Partitions, Replicas, Conflicts, High Availability, and Consistency. Can you explain what they are?
Yeah, sure.
Let’s see, I’ll go through how I store data and why I do it that way. So when someone comes to me and says they need me to store their data, I tell them to create an account first because you know, I need to keep track of my customers so I don’t accidentally mistaken one person’s data for someone else’s data. Once they have set up their account, they can create a Database to start storing their data. Their data actually gets store inside Containers and these data could be Collections, Tables, or Graphs. I’ll just talk about Collections for now otherwise we could be here for a while.
Collections is just documents of data stored in JSON format and JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation and, do you have a pen and paper?
No, sorry.
That’s ok. I have a pen and this napkin here will work just fine. So JSON is just a way of storing and exchanging data and it looks kind of like this:
{ "name": "Cosmos",
"bio": {
"dateOfBirth": "May 2017",
"friends": ["MongoDb", "Gremlin", "Cassandra", "Azure
Table Storage", "Core SQL"]
}
}
You see, if I wanted to find out my own bio, I just need to ask for “bio” and then inside the value for “bio”, I can find my “dateOfBirth” or my “friends”.
Anyway, when someone comes up to me with a bunch of JSON documents to put into the container, I automatically create an index which just helps me keep track of the documents I have stored so if they want me to look up some stuff inside their documents, I can do it easily by going through my index:
Sometimes people don’t want me to keep track of everything in their documents so they can specify an Index Policy which basically tells me not to index certain stuff for them.
So, what other Azure services have you also got lined up for a virtual date?
Well, I was thinking of Azure HDInsight, Azure Databricks, and um, maybe Azure Synapse Analytics?
Ok, let’s say you are using my Document or Collection store to keep track of your virtual date’s profiles. You will probably create a document for each one of them and inside that document will be contain all their details:
Document 1: {
"name" : "HDInsight",
"type" : "data analytics",
"cloud" : "Azure",
"Apache" : ["Hadoop", "Spark", "HBase", "Storm", "Kafka",
"Hive"]
} Document 2: {
"name" : "Databricks",
"cloud" : "Azure",
"Apache" : "Spark"
} Document 3: {
"name" : "Synapse Analytics",
"cloud" : "Azure",
"type" : ["data warehouse", "data analytics"],
"SQLSupport" : true
}
Just having a quick look at this and I can already tell you that a good Partition Key to use would be “name” because then I know that each document is its own logical partition as the value is distinct, unique and will probably have a good range (as far as I know, all Azure services have different names). If we choose “cloud” as the Partition Key then I would treat all 3 documents as a single logical partition because they all have the same value. Do you know why choosing a good Partition Key is important?
Is it so you can uniquely identify and find each document in the Collection?
Nah, not quite. Remember what I told you earlier that the Partition Key helps me decide where to put stuff into my physical storage space? Yeah, so basically I take the Partition Key that you give me, put it through a hash function that does consistent hashing to get a random physical partition to put that logical partition into. So you can imagine, if these partition keys are not unique then I’m probably going to end up mapping all the logical partitions into the same physical partition.
Um, physical partition?
Oh, uh, you can think of a physical partition like a physical storage room. If I put all your stuff in the same room then when you want me to get a lot of things out, I’m going to have to keep visiting the same room but, if I have them distributed across multiple rooms, I can hire other people to go look for all your stuff at the same time (in parallel) and so you can imagine just how much more effective that is.
In the Database world, when we talk about avoiding “hot” partitions, we essentially mean we want to avoid putting all your stuff in the same place because then for any requests that comes in, we have to send them all to one place and that’s just bad.
Ah ok, got it.
Yeah, so anyway, my storage services have this reputation of being “highly available”, “resilient”, “durable”, “consistent”, and “globally connected” that I kind of need to uphold otherwise I might lose my job and go out of business so I tell people that I can make guarantees that 99.999% of the time that I can always find and return the things they’re looking for or perform some action on their data.
How are you so confident that you can make this guarantee?
Well, ok I’ll let you in on a little secret. I have this Replica strategy which means when I store people’s data, I actually make 3 more copies of it so in total I have 4 replicas stored in the same physical partition and I call this the Replica Set.
How does having 4 replicas help you?
So these replicas are actually spread across multiple fault domains. A fault domain is essentially anything that has a single point of failure. Think of your PC, if you pulled out the power plug, your PC will shut down due to a loss of power. That’s single point of failure for your PC. So if I had these replicas all live on the same fault domain, they might all get wiped if I ever experience a failure no matter how many replicas I create so that’s why they’re spread across multiple fault domains. So now, even if a replica experiences some failure, I’ve still got other replicas or copies and I can act like nothing went wrong and continue to serve my customers but really what I’m doing in the background is trying to restore that replica loss using the other replicas. But my customers won’t see this impact so in front of my customers, I am always highly available, resilient to failures and durable.
Anyway, in terms of consistency and being a globally distributed data storage service, I have 5 consistency offerings that my customers can choose from.
What do you mean by consistency offerings?
Basically I have consistency offerings that starts from Strong consistency to Bounded Staleness to Session to Consistent Prefix to Eventual consistency. I have to make these consistency offerings because of the replicas that I make for high availability, resiliency and globally distributing the data.
Why?
Because there are trade-offs. Think about it. If I made all these replicas for high availability, it’s pretty hard to guarantee consistency without some form of latency. Let’s say someone came in and said, can you go and delete this thing inside this document for me. If I was only dealing with one copy, that’ll be easy and I won’t have to worry about consistency but the thing is I’ve made all these replicas so I need to go and delete the same thing from all the replicas otherwise someone might go look at one of the replicas and get inconsistent results. But then, if I have to go and make all my replicas consistent, that’s going to take time, right?
Uh huh.
And so during this time, I can’t make any of the replicas available for use and so I’ve lost my high availability status. But then, if I want to keep my high availability status, I can’t guarantee 100% consistency at all times so typically with Databases, there is a trade-off between availability and consistency.
Ah, right, ok.
Anyway, the consistency offerings is basically a continuum from strong consistency (at the cost of lower availability or high latency) to eventual consistency (for high availability but the replicas may return inconsistent results). To give you a bit more detail:
Strong consistency means any reads and writes will always be consistent, so whatever replica it is reading from or writing to, these changes will always be propagated such that there will never be any inconsistent results. With Bounded Staleness, they get to set a “window” of how many writes can lag from one replica to another or how long this lag from one replica to another can take. So the changes will still be written in the same order but there might just be some window of lag (or latency) from one to be completely updated and identical to another. With Session, basically those connected to the same session will be able to read the latest changes, those not connected to the same session will eventually see these changes but not immediately. With Consistent Prefix, the ordering of writes is still kept (like in a log book) and then these changes are eventually made to the rest of the replicas so there is latency in getting the latest updates replicated across all the copies but you’ll never see any inconsistencies (out of order writes), you might just not be able to read the latest updates for a while. Finally Eventual Consistency is well, how do I say this? It will become consistent, eventually. So all the replicas will eventually be the same but until then, they might differ from one another. What that means is that you might see inconsistencies when reading from the replicas because there is no guarantee on the ordering. But it’s highly available because you can always read from the replicas, they might just return inconsistent results (until it eventually becomes consistent).
So remember, as we move from Strong to Eventual, we are making that trade-off of consistency (and latency) for high availability.
Oh wow, that was…quite a lot to take in. I feel like I should’ve brought a notebook or something to this virtual date.
Yeah, well, I haven’t even talked about why I’m also known as Mr Worldwide (you know, as a globally distributed, multi-model database service and all) but if you’re up for a second virtual date, you can always find me here.
😊
P.S: I know this is a slightly different approach to what I normally do but I felt like doing something different (mostly to entertain myself). Again, I would love to hear your feedback (good, bad or otherwise). Also, I should probably mention that any characters created in this are purely fictional. The technology however, is real. | https://medium.com/swlh/explain-by-example-cosmosdb-151710a6a9cc | ['Michelle Xie'] | 2020-09-04 06:44:21.580000+00:00 | ['Cosmosdb', 'NoSQL', 'Azure', 'Database', 'Data'] |
Empty Nest Syndrome in Festival Season — ChaaiCoffee | A lot of Indian Students were struck there in their Drooms, and Apartments with No Work and No Flight to Come back in this festival season and Season’s Holidays. Most of their Parent back home already missing their kids for a long and going through the condition of Empty Nest Syndrome.
The Windling Up Year 2020 of Shakeups, Lockdowns, Pandemic, and hope of Vaccination of Covid19 hits another blow recently with the outbreak of New Type of Stain in the UK. International Flights are canceled and Lockdown on places in most of Britain.
Empty Nest Syndrome Meaning
As Wikipedia says, “Empty nest syndrome is a general feeling of loneliness that or guardians may feel when one or more of their leave home. While more common in women, it can happen to both sexes.”
Children are the apple of their parent’s eyes, from the moment they are born, or rather even conceived. The parent’s world revolves around the children and they are their main focus of life. But as time passes, the little kids grow up into teenagers and adults and soon leave their parent’s care & home for greener pastures, be it a college education, job, or marriage.
Now, the phase that the parents go through is called the “Empty Nest Syndrome”.
Empty Nest Syndrome Psychology
Empty Nest Syndrome is a period of loneliness and feeling a void in one’s life and home due to the going away of the children. And if the parental or the maternal bond with the child is exceptionally strong, the Empty Nest Syndrome is a very painful experience.
The children move away to their own worlds, set up a family in some other part of the country or globe, and are busy in their own new-found entanglements, whereas, the parents stare at the empty void in their lives and home too.
Empty Nest Syndrome is a rite of passage. It cannot be wished away entirely, but of course with maturity and with the knowledge that ‘it is inevitable’ it can be dealt with in a proper manner.
Empty Nest Syndrome Quote
This quote by Anonymous aptly describes the Empty Nest Syndrome experienced by parents,
“ I sit alone a lot, but I do not mind it. I’m just waiting for something clean to fill this emptiness, but it’s been so long, I think I may never find it. You worked for a bit, I could look in the mirror and smile, I felt complete with you near me .”
New Roles with an Empty Nest Condition
How to overcome ‘Empty Nest Syndrome’ Condition
Here are some ways to deal with this crucial yet painful junction of our lives:
Prepare Yourself Mentally Beforehand, so that the blues don’t strike suddenly.
Look at everything in a positive manner. Like the Extra Space in the house can mean newer hobbies/maybe Paying Guest Accommodation in case you were a single parent or had a very big house.
Look back and see that you did the same to your parents, in your endeavor to get a good education/job or settle down in your marriage. Understand that it’s a rite of passage.
Instead of being sad for yourself, Be happy for your children that they are building their lives/careers.
Volunteer at a Social Cause to get the feel-good-factor and to have something to do with the free time that you now have on your hands.
Practice Yoga for Depression
Pick up something new and challenging that can occupy your mind, body, and soul so as to take your mind off the void left behind by your children.
Take a Break, now that you don’t have to 24X7 look after your children so you have time for yourself too. Take an exciting vacation to rejuvenate yourself completely.
Look after your grandchildren, if you have them from your older children who flew from the nest earlier
Set Goals and challenges for yourself, be it doing anything that you haven’t done earlier due to lack of time, effort or money.
Exercise. Yes, exercising releases the hormones that make us feel good about ourselves. Plus you will get in super good shape too.
Simply, Treat it as a new beginning of life, and I assure you everything will fall in place!
Studying Psychology, Just Another Poor Philosopher, Foodie, Netflix Fan, Food Reviewer on Zomato, Digital Marketer By Profession & Aspiring Entrepreneur. Went to Both for Studies ITI & IIT-D | https://medium.com/@chaaicoffee/empty-nest-syndrome-in-festival-season-chaaicoffee-da1809999e29 | ['Chaai Coffee'] | 2021-02-02 11:09:31.727000+00:00 | ['Alone', 'Empty Nest', 'Empty Nest Syndrome', 'Empty', 'Loneliness'] |
Flutter: Custom Widgets Using Existing Classes | New in Flutter and want to start making custom widgets? This article will give a simple example of making custom widgets while using the classes available from Flutter.
Before we start talking about the Flutter stuff, let’s talk about refactoring.
NOTE: For those who want to just look into the Flutter part, feel free to skip ahead.
What is Refactoring?
“Refactoring is a controlled technique for improving the design of an existing code base.” — Martin Fowler
Refactoring is done by applying small changes to the code design while preserving their behaviour. It is an iterative practice with the goal of reducing bug potentials, reduce code smells, reduce code duplications, improving reusability and maintainability.
Keep in mind that refactoring is NOT changing nor adding functionality
Most of the time, refactoring is closely related to design patterns. This is because you can refactor the code design into already well-known design patterns, which of course is a good especially when working in a larger team. However, let us talk about some of the many basic methods of refactoring your code:
Extract Method
This is when a method or function looks just too long and is most likely doing something that belongs to another method, or can be split into more than 1 method. Always keep in mind that methods should be responsible in only doing 1 thing. Extract the lines of code that don’t belong in a method’s responsibility into a new method.
// Before
method(int a, int b) {
processedA = doSomething(a);
processedB = doSomething(b);
print('result of a: ' + processedA);
print('result of b: ' + processedB);
} // After
method(a, b) {
processedA = doSomething(a);
processedB = doSomething(b);
printResults();
} printResults(a, b) {
print('result of a: ' + a);
print('result of b: ' + b);
}
Extract Variable
This is when a method is too hard to understand. This method takes logic that seem too complicated into a variable, and operates on those variable instead. Keep in mind that the variables should have meaningful names
// Before
method() {
if ((a.toUpperCase().indexOf(indexA) > -1) &&
(b.toUpperCase().indexOf(indexB) > -1) &&
c > 0 ) {
// do something
}
} // After
method() {
isSomething = a.toUpperCase().indexOf(indexA) > -1;
isSomethingElse = b.toUpperCase().indexOf(indexB) > -1;
isCValid = c > 0;
if (isSomething && isSomethingElse && isCValid) {
// do something
}
}
Extract class
This is when a class has unnecessary fields that don’t really make sense for it to be there. This method extracts those fields and creates a new class as a field of the first class.
// Before
class Person {
String name
int areaCode
int phoneNumber getFullPhoneNumber() {
return '$this.areaCode' + '$this.phoneNumber'
}
} // After
class Person {
String name
PhoneNumber phoneNumber getPhoneNumber() {
return this.phoneNumber
}
} class PhoneNumber {
int areaCode
int phoneNumber getFullPhoneNumber() {
return '$this.areaCode' + '$this.phoneNumber'
}
}
There are many more methods of refactoring, here is a pretty complete link to help you learn more refactoring methods:
Implementation in my project
Since I am working mostly in the front-end, most of the refactoring I do is reducing code duplication. In flutter, many widgets can be similar and have many duplicate codes especially when the same widget classes are used, or the same combination of widgets are used. I found a lot of these cases in my team’s code base. Another example is when functions are simply too long when processing data from user input and/or API retrieval.
An example refactoring I did was mostly extract method for refactoring those functions that are too long:
The function above looks so long and clearly has lines of code that do not belong to its responsibility. After refactoring, the code becomes:
Now the function looks much more concise after extracting and creating new functions.
Another example refactoring I did was creating custom widgets. This allows the same structuring of widgets to create, for example, a custom button design, or a custom container (with specific margin, padding, border radius, etc.) to be reused with significantly less code clutter.
Below is an example process of my implementation in creating a custom widget. | https://medium.com/swlh/flutter-custom-widgets-using-existing-classes-4f4df07970e | ['Wilson Hadi'] | 2020-12-03 18:50:24.561000+00:00 | ['Testing', 'Flutter', 'Alertdialog', 'Dart', 'Custom Widget'] |
Who could be next prime minister | SINGAPORE — Singapore’s carefully planned leadership succession has been thrown into disarray.
Political observers say it’s now not clear who would become the Asian financial hub’s next prime minister.
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat shocked the nation late Thursday, when he announced that he will step aside as the designated successor to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
He said he turns 60 this year, and cited his age as an obstacle in steering the country in a post-pandemic world.
Heng will relinquish his role as finance minister at the next cabinet reshuffle, which local media said is expected in two weeks’ time. Still, he will remain as deputy prime minister and coordinating minister for economic policies.
It does throw a spanner in the works in terms of Singapore’s very carefully laid out succession plans, but I don’t see that as a body blow to Singapore’s political renewal.
Eugene Tan
Singapore Management University
“It does throw a spanner in the works in terms of Singapore’s very carefully laid out succession plans, but I don’t see that as a body blow to Singapore’s political renewal,” Eugene Tan, a law professor at Singapore Management University and a political observer, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Friday.
Financial markets were stable on Friday following Heng’s announcement, with the benchmark Straits Times Index inching 0.1% lower and the Singapore dollar flat against the U.S. dollar.
Who could be Singapore’s next prime minister?
Analysts have identified four potential candidates who could be chosen by the leadership to become Singapore’s next prime minister:
- Chan Chun Sing, 51, who’s trade and industry minister;
- Ong Ye Kung, 51, who’s transport minister;
- Lawrence Wong, 48, who’s education minister and co-chair of the country’s taskforce on Covid-19;
- Desmond Lee, 44, national development minister.
Gillion Koh, deputy director for research at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of Policy Studies, said the men have had some exposure on the international stage. That could help ease them into the top job, she said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
However, she pointed out that Wong and Lee, who are both in their 40s, would have “a much longer runway” even if they were to take over five years from now.
The ruling People’s Action Party has governed Singapore since the country’s independence in 1965. Leadership transition — Singapore has only had two so far — is usually an uneventful affair, with a successor identified many years before the sitting prime minister steps down.
But even before Heng’s decision to step aside, the country’s leadership succession plan was upended by the Covid-19 pandemic, said Tan, the law professor.
Lee, the current prime minister, had previously said he was ready to retire by the time he turns 70 but later indicated he would delay his handover to see Singapore through the Covid-19 crisis.
Lee is 69 this year and said on Thursday that he would stay on as prime minister until a new successor emerges and is ready to take over.
“The pandemic has really upended the leadership succession plans, and so … I see DPM (deputy prime minister) Heng as being an unfortunate casualty,” said Tan, who added that Heng looked “very much at peace” with his decision to step aside.
Source link | https://medium.com/@mediamarg/who-could-be-next-prime-minister-d6e83dd2288 | [] | 2021-04-09 08:33:37.842000+00:00 | ['Leehsienloong', 'Businessnews', 'Asianews', 'Markets', 'Asiaeconomy'] |
Hadoop Cluster Automation with Ansible!! | Hadoop Cluster Automation with Ansible!!
What is Ansible❓❓
Ansible is an open-source automation tool, or platform by RED HAT used for IT tasks such as configuration management, application deployment, intraservice orchestration, and provisioning.It aims to provide large productivity gains to a wide variety of automation challenges. This tool is very simple to use yet powerful enough to automate complex multi-tier IT application environments!!
What is Hadoop❓❓
Apache Hadoop is a collection of open-source software utilities that facilitates using a network of many computers to solve problems involving massive amounts of data and computation. It provides a software framework for distributed storage and processing of big data using the MapReduce programming model.It provides massive storage for any kind of data, enormous processing power and the ability to handle virtually limitless concurrent tasks or jobs.
1.NameNode❕❕
The NameNode is the centerpiece of an HDFS file system in Hadoop. It keeps the directory tree of all files in the file system, and tracks where across the cluster the file data is kept. It does not store the data of these files itself.The NameNode is a Single Point of Failure for the HDFS Cluster
2.DataNode❕❕
DataNodes store data in a Hadoop cluster and is the name of the daemon that manages the data. File data is replicated on multiple DataNodes for reliability and so that localized computation can be executed near the data. Within a cluster, DataNodes should be uniform
3.Client❕❕
Client in Hadoop refers to the Interface used to communicate with the Hadoop Filesystem. There are different type of Clients available with Hadoop to perform different tasks. The basic filesystem client hdfs dfs is used to connect to a Hadoop Filesystem and perform basic file related tasks.
How Ansible Works❓❓
Ansible works by connecting to your nodes and pushing out small programs, called “Ansible modules” to them. … Ansible then executes these modules , and removes them when finished. Library of modules can reside on any machine, and there are no servers, daemons, or databases required.Ansible has its playbook concept to carry out multiple management related tasks.An Ansible playbook contains one or multiple plays, each of which define the work to be done for a configuration on a managed server. Ansible playbooks are written in YAML.
💢Task Completion💢
⏩ Here ,at first there is no any installation of Hadoop Software on namenode ,datanode and client :
⏩ Run the NameNode Playbook by command:
ansible-playbook <name.yml>
⏩ Now,check the master service is started or not at NameNode by Command:
jps
⏩ Run the datanode playbook:
⏩ Check admin report at DataNode by Command:
hadoop dfsadmin -report
⏩ Run the Client Playbook:
⏩ Check file report at Client by command:
hadoop fs -ls /
⏩ Browse the WebUI of Hadoop Cluster :
hdfs://<masterip>:50070
Whole Hadoop Cluster Set up is done Using Ansible Automation Successfully✨✨
🔰Code Link: | https://medium.com/@priyankagavali/hadoop-cluster-automation-with-ansible-aa1fb3bbfd2e | ['Priyanka Gavali'] | 2020-12-07 13:43:49.352000+00:00 | ['Ansible', 'Hadoop', 'Hdfs'] |
Avast Driver Updater Crack 2.4.0 With Registration Key Latest 2021 | Avast Driver Updater Crack 2.4.0 With Registration Key Latest 2021 Sohaibhameed Jan 18·3 min read
Avast Driver Updater Crack 2.4.0 maybe your most excellent remedy to take care of driver problems after full activation with this computer program. It includes the capacity to scan, upgrade, and mend your drivers to produce your computer performance. Moreover, this application consists of a driver’s database comprising over 500,000 device drivers. Additionally, the complete edition of Avast Driver Updater Key allows us to minimize the device crashes and hangs. It provides you internet browsing. This application will help one to upgrade graphics drivers to secure far much better images. An elegant interface accompanies this program for ease.
Avast Driver Updater Crack 2.4.0 With Registration Key Latest 2021
Updating the drivers may solve about 80 percent of PC problems. This tool can help one to upgrade drivers for devices and mend their difficulties. You may download drivers for both scanner and printer, telephones, mouse and keyboard, and other accessories. Therefore, the Avast Driver Updater Registration Key provides you drivers from over 100 Big brands such as NVIDIA, Dell, HP, Canon, Acer, and much more.
It provides drivers using models. Before installing the drivers, it generates a backup document. Unless you enjoy the drivers afterward, you certainly can roll back the variants. You may install drivers to your Windows system that is brand new in a backup.
Main Features
Extended Database:
This application includes an elongated database comprising of device drivers.
WHQL Version Drivers:
The drivers that it provides are WHQL models from the manufacturing companies.
Drivers Backup:
It can obtain all backup your PC drivers using one click and then re-establish them.
Roll-back Drivers:
This program enables you to roll back all of the last models if you do not enjoy the most recent versions.
Scaled Setup:
The other feature for the PC is that a Scaled driver setup to steer clear of structure.
Drivers Cleanup:
This application makes it possible to uninstall the unworthy drivers.
Fix Hardware Problems:
It enables one to mend all of the hardware problems by simply providing you with the drivers.
Avast Driver Updater Crack INCL License Key 32/64 Bit
Additional Avast Driver Updater 2.5.6 License Key helps you to get accessibility for the entire life. It gives you the ability to uninstall the drivers, which will damage your PC operation. Most importantly, it provides a remedy to your driver related problems. It has several informed tools that reduce Computer crashes problems, additional insects, along with also the issues and more.
The on the busy web database provides you assistance and continuing assessing account to make sure you’ve got the latest drivers. This application has features that prepared to manage all sorts of driver-related topics in only a couple of clicks.
Avast Driver Updater Working 2021 Registration Keys
HYC86E13-CDB6–4541–80C3–0BA0B8AF3E46
DFJIS83-DFJKD3-DFJDIEJF-DFKLDOEK
DFODOE-DGLDO-GKFOEK-FGKLDOEK
What is New?
This version incorporates lots of new device drivers from the database.
It plays a faster scan compared to the other release.
Additionally, the downloading rate is significantly also enhanced in this release.
Currently, it fully supports the most recent edition of Windows 10.
Avast Driver Updater Crack Screenshot
System Needs:
It takes a Windows-10, 8.1, 8, or Windows-7.
Supported 32–64 Bit all variants
Minimum Ram requirements inch GB
Intel/AMD processor with 1.5 GHz rate or maybe even more.
Two GB of Hard Drive space
Internet Connection for Upgrades
How To Crack It? | https://medium.com/@sohaibhameed032/avast-driver-updater-crack-2-4-0-with-registration-key-latest-2021-512d1cb31e84 | [] | 2021-01-18 17:13:39.919000+00:00 | ['Information Technology', 'Influencer Marketing', 'Information Security', 'India', 'Love'] |
I HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH MY DARK SKIN | I HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH MY DARK SKIN
As a sensitive youngster trying to navigate society, I have always been embattled by its demands from me. I tried to live up to its expectations while causing damage to my body and soul so I could be rewarded with validation from the same society that seems to take from me. It’s saddening,I know,but like so many others,I became stuck in a vicious cycle of manipulation where the more society ignored me, the more I craved it’s attention. Unbeknownst to a lucky me, I was on a journey for my answer at the end of the tunnel. I have reached the tunnel’s end and I have found liberation. I’ve found the remedy to my ailment,the balm to my soul and the calm to my mornings. I have fallen in love with my Dark skin.
I don't know when or how this happened to me. I do not know if this change is sudden or gradual. All I know is that I am now awestruck by the face that stares back at me in the mirror. I become entranced when I notice the sun gleaming with glee as it caresses my skin which in turn beams it at others in the right places. I'm obsessed with the way my skin glows against any background like an artwork of oil on canvas.
I am intrigued with the way my skin glorifies whatever colour that touches it; automically transforming the seemingly ordinary into something magnificent just like magic. Magic. My skin is Magic. Every mark, crease and corner is soaked full of wonders and delightfully hidden treasures. Treasures that make me chuckle in awe anytime I make their discovery. Treasures that suprise me and pacify me. Wonders that console me and validate me.
I now notice how my skin commands obedience and nothing less with the grace reminiscent of Nefertiti. A canvas so divine that it disallows to be tainted with just any colour. A canvas that demands the right tone,hue and shade. One that demands the right amount in the right proportion under the right conditions to produce nothing less than the best results. One that refuses to emit anything other than the ultimate exhibit.
I now notice how my skin is best at its natural form. One that is free of any form of artificial decoration while it’s soaked in natural oils and drenched in melanin. Every part working together to pay homage to the deity that is Beauty. From the crooked eyebrows to the pimple spots dotted across to the rightly proportioned nose to the full juicy lips topped with a beamin Opọn Ori(forehead) that puts the sun to shame. The lean arm and long legs sitting majestically on a rotund shapely torso; one passed only through my black ancestry. All crowned with a mane of glorious wooly hair. A crown so specific for me in its colour and shape that it can’t fit anyone else.
A body worthy of admiration and adoration. A beauty akin to Mother Earth itself. Apon bepo rẹ, Eleyinju Ẹgẹ. A dazzling skin colour that would make the palmoil jealous capped by eyes that sparkle. A totally divine combination. A beautiful gift that keeps on giving. My favourite gift from God. | https://medium.com/@saeedahhussein/i-have-fallen-in-love-with-my-dark-skin-4a095926fbd4 | ['Heeda Sein'] | 2021-06-17 19:59:32.885000+00:00 | ['Self Love', 'Africa', 'African American'] |
Online order of liquor delivery in Kolkata | Beer, Whisky, wine, Vodka, champagne, Rum supplies — the new way to order liquor has been a new trend in Kolkata. LIQUESIP delivers everything you need to your Kolkata neighbourhood in minutes. Whether you’re looking to relax at home in this Kolkata winter and Christmas time, or to celebrate with friends or families, we at LIQUESIP website or LIQUESIP liquor delivery apps take online orders. The online order of liquor delivery is guaranteed for delivery in Kolkata offices, online order of liquor delivery at Kolkata homes, Online order of liquor delivery for supplies at a party, or send alcohol to a friend, LIQUESIP’s alcohol delivery app is a fast, easy, convenient way to get the drinks you want on demand. We partner with local FL shop retailers near your location in Kolkata to ensure the best selection of liquors and fastest delivery of liquors. Just think of the LIQUESIP app as your personal assistant an online one, which is in charge of the most important of tasks, take your online order of liquor delivery in Kolkata and then using technology to get your favourite alcohol delivered at doorstep ASAP. The areas that are served are #Ruby #Dhakuria #Rashbehari Avenue #Baghajatin #ChandniChowk #Chowbaga #ScienceCity #Tangra #ParkCircus #Kalighat #Tollygunge #Tagore Park #Jadavpur #SouthCity #Ajoy Nagar #Kalikapur #Kasba #Ballygunge #Moulali #Acropolis #Salimpur #Gobra #Hazra #Exide #CamacStreet #BeckBagan #Lord’sMore #BowBazar #Esplanade #Purbachal.
The LIQUESIP app is available for both iOS and Android that is new method of online order of liquor delivery in Kolkata. This is the most convenient and easiest, fastest way to get alcohol delivery in your Kolkata locality. Create an account in LIQUESIP website or LIQUESIP liquor delivery apps within minutes, choose your favourite beer, wine, alcohol, vodka, whisky, gin, rum in the product category in the home page. Mere minutes after that, the whole list of the product specific liquor brands will show up, and choose from the list, add to cart. The LIQUESIP liquor delivery apps is easy-to-use app ensures you can pay online, using netbanking, debit card or credit card. Get your favourite drinks you want delivered to your Kolkata neighbourhood right when you need it. If you’re more of an old-fashioned guy, the internet-browser type, and want to use www.liquesip.com, you can always place an order on the LIQUESIP website. The liquor delivery website offers the same great selection, no order minimums, and fast delivery. | https://medium.com/@liquesip/online-order-of-liquor-delivery-in-kolkata-d2059d85b4ef | [] | 2021-01-01 15:32:28.404000+00:00 | ['Liquor Store Online', 'Wine', 'Home Delivery', 'Alcohol', 'Kolkata'] |
How to Check the Fire Stick Remote Batteries | Hello, all of, if your amazon firestick remote not working at all, you need to check the Fire Stick remote batteries to fix it. The Amazon Fire Stick Remote is a power-hungry accessory. After using FireStick for a while and running into battery exhaust problems for more than just a few minutes, I can safely say that if the remote isn’t working, there’s a big possibility that the battery She has been out of charge. The battery deteriorates without warning. If your fire stick remote suddenly stops working I would bet my battery.
amazon firestick remote replacement
Honestly, I’m not sure yet why the remote consumes so much battery. Sometimes, the battery dries in only a few weeks. The Fire Stick Remote uses Alexa, voice recognition and voice command technology. Some people want to blame Alexa. But, it is not that the remote is always listening. To hear it you have to press and hold the Alexa button on the remote.
Regardless of the reasons, the only possible solution is to use good quality, alkaline batteries and maintain the parts. Alkaline batteries are the best by far and they work your fire stick remote the longest. However, do not buy any alkaline. Buy branded from a reputed manufacturer.
A week ago, I would also have recommended a rechargeable alkaline battery if I had not encountered a malfunction. One of the remote batteries leaked and a white remnant accumulated on the connector. Even the brand-new battery did not work until I exhausted the white material.
Therefore, forgive me if I am not sure of the rechargeable battery. This also brings me to the point that it would be a good idea to remove the batteries and check for any residual deposits from battery leaks on the connectors. Cleaning them may cause your fire stick remote to work again.
And, there is one more thing I forgot to mention. You probably already know that batteries have (+ ‘(plus) and’ — already (minus) ends. Connectors in the battery compartment also have + and — sides. The + edge of the battery with the + of the connector Must be aligned (and the minuses will be aligned automatically). I put the batteries incorrectly and have found myself struggling with the remote for a while. Just insert the new battery. | https://medium.com/@sofiaadausa/how-to-check-the-fire-stick-remote-batteries-960d2267ce05 | ['Sofia Ada'] | 2019-10-29 13:11:29.679000+00:00 | ['Battery'] |
Plan 2020 with a 1920 Family Photo | The amazing thing about the 2020s is we can find so much about the 1920s, the era when media (including radio, film and movies) exploded. That media helps us see our relatives from 100 years ago and learn from them.
Find a family photo from that time period and study it: These are your ancestors. Much of what you are (your gifts and weaknesses) you inherited from them. How do you look like them? How did they live and die? What has really changed and not changed?
If your life is a puzzle, your ancestors are puzzle pieces offering clues
“Choose things in your life that will endure, that are a pleasure to use,’’ Marney Morris, founder of Animatrix, the first interactive design company, explains. “Classic clothes never go out of style. Furniture should get better with age. Choose things because they delight you, not because they impress others. And never let things be more important than your family, friends and your own spirit.’’
How far has the world — and your family — come in 100 years?
The beautiful gift of looking at your life from a 100-year perspective is you know how the story played out long-term. For America, for example, we know the 1920s were “Roaring’’ with unprecedented prosperity.
We also know the 1920s followed the Great War (World War I) and ushered in the October 1929 stock market crash that brought in the global Great Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War of the 1940s.
A macro, global, bigger picture helps: My great-grandparents all came to America from Poland (which was literally wiped off the map and enslaved from 1795 to 1918). Poland regained its independence after World War I.
St. John Paul the Great as an infant with his parents Karol Wojtyla Sr. and Emilia Kaczorowska Wojtyla after his 1920 birth. The Polish Bishops Conference began canonization proceedings investigating sainthood for both of his parents who inspired John Paul’s faith. Public domain image available through Wikimedia Commons and Archidiecezja Krakowska.
The Poland of 1920 is now best remembered for two world-shaping events that occurred in that small, revived nation, sending sparks through the whole world for decades to come:
The Miracle on the Vistula.
Soon after World War I, Poland had to fight to live. The Soviet Union and its global plans for communism began in 1917 and by 1920, the Russian Soviets and Poland were at war.
Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin planned to run through Poland and move on to a defeated war-weary Germany, taking over Europe.
The Miracle on the Vistula occurred in August 1920. More than 5 million Russian Soviets plowed through Ukraine and Poland and were at the Polish capital of Warsaw ready for victory when the miracle happened.
The Poles turned everything around and defeated the Soviets, pushing them back into Russia for another 19 years (the Russians got their revenge on Poland with the 1939 German/Russian invasion of Poland that triggered World War II, leading to a 40 year Cold War that followed).
2. The birth of St. John Paul the Great. May 18, 1920, brought the birth of the boy who became the most famous Pole (and one of the most famous Catholics) in history.
Born in a free Poland during Poland’s glory years of the 1920s, Karol Wojtyła was starting college when the Germans invaded. His respected elders (from professors to priests) were sent to concentration camps as part of an effort to remove Poland’s “head” (the leaders who influenced others).
The evil of the war and the void of leadership transformed Wojtyła from wanting to be an actor to knowing he needed to become a priest. From 1978–2005, he would be the second longest-serving pope instrumental in the collapse of Soviet communism and numerous teachings (his combined writings are the equivalent of 20 Bibles) that continue to impact the Church today.
Back to a family photo…
The 1920 photo above shows my Grandma Helen at age 4 with her parents Victoria (then 21) and Antoni Polec (then 35) and Victoria’s mother Helena (then 49).
My grandmother (4 in the 1920 photo) married my grandfather in 1941. Again, media of the time allows us to see our ancestors the way we look at our own photos and videos of today. What were they like? Were they like us? Different? And if so, what can we learn from their lives?
A century later, I know “the big picture’’ of how life went for each of them.
My great-grandfather, a millwright (high precision craftsman) made enough at the early Ford Motor Company to return to Poland, investing in hotels. He died there in 1937, two years before World War II began.
Photo collage of my great-grandmother’s life by Joseph Serwach
My great-grandmother (who I still remember well even though she died when I was five) was a “mover and shaker’’ in our family and in Michigan Polonia throughout her life.
No one in my family says a woman or newcomer can’t do anything because we know what my great-grandmother did as a young immigrant a century ago.
She knew how to get things done and taught us things that were passed on generation after generation (see photo collage).
My great-great-grandmother Helena literally raised my dad for the first 11 years of his life, watching him daily, making him fluent in Polish and English.
My grandmother worked — and worked — for both a daily newspaper and the local school board, also a force of will who terrified anyone who went up against her.
In 500 years, your descendants won’t be asking…
One or five centuries from now, your descendants won’t know or care whether you achieved your New Year's resolutions, how much money you were paid or even what you did for a living.
They’ll want to know whether you had a good life, whether you did something that they can learn or grow from knowing.
Dr. Forest Witcraft was a national leader in the Boy Scout movement, who wrote “Within My Power’’ in 1950. In that famous essay, he focuses on boys but these words apply to all who influence future generations:
“I am not a Very Important Man, as importance is commonly rated. I do not have great wealth, control a big business, or occupy a position of great honor or authority. Yet I may someday mould destiny. For it is within my power to become the most important man in the world in the life of a boy. And every boy is a potential atom bomb in human history…They are the makers of history, the builders of tomorrow…A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different, because I was important in the life of…’’ | https://medium.com/publishous/plan-2020-with-a-1920-family-photo-d06481fdd15a | ['Joseph Serwach'] | 2020-01-05 22:20:26.457000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Better Living', 'Family History', 'Family', 'Photography'] |
Quantum Darwinism To Artificial Neural Network | In the quantum world, things are routinely in a quantum superposition state.
The famous thought experiment is Schrodinger's cat in which the cat is both alive and dead until a portion of deadly poison that is released on the radioactive decay of an atom.
Quantum mechanics tells us that the atom’s wavefunction can be in a superposition of states-simultaneously decayed and not decayed.
That means is the wavefunction of the cat is also in a state of superposition of dead and alive? The answer is yes, even though it seems crazy and impossible.
Superposition is the basis of quantum mechanics. If there are two valid states then the sum of those two states is also a valid state.
It is not that this happens in the Quantum world and we can ignore this. Because, the quantum world is nowhere in the alien universe but within ourselves, at the most basic level of matter building.
That means whatever we see, touch or feel is the product of the interaction of the quantum objects and their interactions.
The process of disappearance of this crazy behavior in the classical world or the macro world is possible due to another process called decoherence- to observe a superposition there should a knowable phase relation between two superposed states.
This is a partial answer and this doesn’t explain why only certain states are visible to the macro world(our world).
The answer is obtained by taking another property called Quantum Entanglement.
Entanglement is so powerful and important that the properties that we think of as fundamental like the arrangments of atoms that dictate the cat (or any living/nonliving object) is alive or dead aren’t the properties of the atoms!
Rather, the information that defines the classical properties originated from the complex network of entanglement between those individual quantum systems and their environments.
For people who are new to Quantum Systems, let’s start with the spin direction of an electron. This Quantum spin has axis either in a vertical direction or horizontal direction.
As mentioned above due to superposition property the axis direction is in both vertical and horizontal directions simultaneously. Now to measure the spin direction, we have to choose the measurement direction i.e. either vertically or horizontally. If we measure vertically we find that the axis is in a vertical direction (up or down) and if we measure horizontally, we find the axis in the horizontal direction( left or right).
A particle in Quantum Superposition
Weirdly if we first measure the spin vertically, we note the direction and then measure the spin in the horizontal direction we still see the spin in horizontal direction NOT in vertical as found earlier. This shows the output of the quantum states depends on the measurement-basis; every time.
Now how this state is traversed to the classical world, the answer is quantum entanglement. It was earlier proposed by Einstien, Podolsky, and Rosen and was called “Spooky action-at-a-distance”.
This “bond” or “spooky action-at-a-distance” is so fast that if two objects are entangled and places at opposite ends of the Universe, they can communicate instantly.
The appearance of the quantum object to us occurs when the wavefunction of the quantum object collapses. For decades scientists wanted to observe the “real” state of quantum objects but they failed since the sere act of measurement destroys the original quantum states.
For searching the reason for this one scientist named Wojciech Zurek theorized an idea called “Quantum Darwinism”. It is built on the idea of the ‘survival of fittest’ principle from Charles Darwin’s Theory of evolution.
When a measurement device is kept near a quantum system to measure the quantum property, the device is entangled with the quantum system and becomes part of the entanglement network. Hence if a person tries to record the measurement from the device, he/she collapses the wavefunction of the entire Quantum System which now includes the measuring device.
As more and more particles/objects join the entanglement web, information about quantum states get spread among all the entangled objects. According to Zurek’s theory, eventually, the entanglement cascade reaches the surrounding environment and is no longer bounded resulting in most of the quantum information trapped and unrecovered.
But there is certain information that is not mixed and is reflected in the surrounding measuring environment. These are called ‘Pointer States’, which are copied and spread until the measuring device.
Through EINSELECTION- Enviromnatally Induced Superselection, the basis states like the direction of measurement become the “fit” state which survives and replicates throughout the Entanglement network.
In other quantum systems, like this, the relative location of interacting particles is robustly shared and propagated through the Entanglement network. Hence, even though the individual particles do not have well-defined states(e.g. locations) but the entanglement network has a collective consensus about those locations.
This is the reason the bigger objects like cats, dogs or humans have a well-defined position since their internal Quantum Entanglement Network has well-defined knowledge about the relative positions of the inherent particles.
Learning about this propagating pointer states and Quantum Entanglement one thing came to my mind and that is working of Neural Network in Deep Learning in computers.
See, because the neural network is also a connected network of neurons, it’s logical to compare it with Quantum Entanglement Network.
The Input neurons in the Input Layer is like the initial quantum particles and the intermediate hidden layers having hidden neurons are like entangled particles. The output neurons in the output layer are like measuring device. The connection from one neuron in one layer to another neuron in another layer can be considered as Entanglement. Finally, the wights of the connections between layers are similar to pointer states as ideated by Wojciech.
Loss Function the value of which to be minimized
The Neural Network learns the ideal set of weights to represent the loss function and to minimize the loss. It isn’t exactly trivial for us to work out the weights just by inspection alone and hence the network finds its proper wight by itself. The operations done by each neuron are simple :
Apart from the input, output, biases, layers, and neurons, it needs one more important entity called Activation Function. Activation functions are important for an Artificial Neural Network to learn and make sense of complicated operations happening in the network and Non-linear complex functional mappings between the inputs and response variable. They introduce non-linear properties to our Network. Their main purpose is to convert an input signal of a node in an ANN to an output signal. That output signal now is used as an input in the next layer in the stack.
The most popular types of Activation functions are Sigmoid or Logistic, Tanh — Hyperbolic tangent and ReLu -Rectified linear units. Sigmoid function looks like:
Sigmoid Function and below is its graph
After training the neural network with test data the final output is delivered by the network with a certain degree of accuracy. The network is trained with many iterations which are called epochs.
What I tried to convey is the striking similarity between Quantum Entanglement and Artificial Neural Network and hence with the human brain. So, can in this way we prove that our brain is a Quantum Computer?
References:- | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/quantum-darwinism-to-artificial-neural-network-986200a33df | ['Siddharth Saraf'] | 2021-03-17 16:47:20.579000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Quantum Computing', 'Deep Learning', 'Quantum Mechanics', 'Human Brain'] |
Top 7 certifications in 2021 | highest paying IT certifications in 2021 | Have any of these and you will be welcomed anywhere.
This article will walk you through the top 7 certifications in 2021 that are blowing up in the current job market, giving you a brief but in- depth analysis on what they cover and their respective job salaries.
These will help you dominate in your career and give you that huge salary advantage.
By the way, I am Agbejule Kehinde Favour.
Are you Pumped👍?
Cool!!
Stay tuned for the top spot🔥🔥🔥
With that said, let’s continue!!
Here is the list
Number 7
Digital marketing
Photo by Merakist on Unsplash
Digital marketing as the name implies, deals with the utilization of the internet and other digital technologies to advertise or sell out an company’s products and services.
Considering the fact that digital marketing is growing at a geometric progression nowadays, here is one of the best certifications you can take up.
The Google analytics IQ certification
It shows off your capabilities in analytical concepts like measuring campaign metrics, analysing KBIs and much more.
In the US, a digital marketing manager can earn about $112000 per annum with the right certification at hand.
Number 6
Big data
Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash
Big data allows you to analyse, extract and deal with huge and sophisticated data sets.
Here is one of the best certifications you can pick up.
# The Associate Certified Analytics Professional Certification (aCAP)
It focuses on a lot on analytics domains like:
# Analytics problem framing
# Business problem framing and much more.
Therefore, having this certification gives you the knowlegde you need to get started with the process of analytics.
A big data engineer can earn up to $158000 annually in the US.
Number 5
Networking
Photo by Jainath Ponnala on Unsplash
It involves the process of moving and exchanging data between nodes over a shared network.
So you can pick up;
The Cisco CCNA and CCNP certifications
Your ability to work with Cisco networking solutions are showcased by these associate and professional level certifications.
A networking engineer, with the right certification, earns approximately $130000 per annum in the United States.
Number 4
Cyber security
Photo by Dan Nelson on Unsplash
This refers to the protection of electronic systems and other forms of electronic technologies to save it from malicious attacks.
Here are the best qualifications you can take up.
1. The Certified Ethical Hacker Certification.
It showcases your ethical hacking skills in its five phase like :
# Reconnaissance
# Enumeration
# Gaining or getting access
# Sustaining or maintaining access
# Hiding or covering tracks
2. The Certified Information System Security Professional Certification ( CISSP ).
Your ability to draw plans, implement and manage a cyber security program is shown off by this certification.
Getting certified also validates your expertise and gives you access to exclusive resources, tools and other opportunities
With the right certification, a cyber security engineer earns about $150000 annually in the United States.
Related searches
Next up!
Number 3
Cloud computing
Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash
It involves delivering computing services with a number of different services over the internet and most times with a pay as you go basis.
Some of the popular certifications you can take up are:
1. The AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate Certification
This qualification will showcase your ability to design, deploy and secure apps on AWS to use the suitable structure, science and lots more.
2. The Microsoft Certified Azure Administration Certification
This certification is most suitable for people who desire to manage cloud services that entails :
# cloud capabilities
# storage
# Security and
# Networking.
A cloud computing engineer, with the right certfication at hand, can earn about $163000 per annum in the United States.
Number 2
Data science
Photo by Myriam Jessier on Unsplash
Data science refers to the combination of algorithms, scientific methods and systems to extract or collect information and insights from structured and unstructured data.
The best certifications you can take up in this field are:
1. HarvardX Data Science Professional Certificate
It will consist and educate on topics like:
# Data visualization
# Inference
# R programming skills
# Machine learning algorithms
# Important data science tools
# Concepts like probability and much more
2. The IBM Data Science Professional Certification.
As the name implies, it is powered by IBM.
It can help you to kick off with the stride of mastering:
# Data science
# SQL
# the development of machine learning tools
# Python
# the analysis and visualization of data, just to mention a few.
A data scientist, by picking the right certification, can earn up to $154000 in the US.
Finally the best, hottest and highest paying certification in 2021 is 🥁🥁🥁.......
Wait for it!
Number 1
AI and machine learning
Artificial intelligence is the brilliance and cleverness displayed by machines
Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash
Machine learning, on the other hand, is the study of computer algorithms that allows systems to learn based on experience.
Photo by David Levêque on Unsplash
Here are the best certifications you can pick up.
1. Artificial Intelligence A-Z Certification By Udemy
It covers the concepts of machine learning, data science and deep learning to develop well-built real life applications
2. Machine learning, AI certification by Stanford offered by Cousera
This covers :
# The introduction to machine learning
# Data mining
# The best practices in machine learning
# Statistical pattern recognition and so on.
An AI engineer can earn approximately $150000, with the right certification in the US.
More for you
Conclusion
So that’s my package!
Those are the top 7 certifications in 2021!
What do you think of the list?
I would love to know what your list on this topic looks like!
Drop your answers in the response section.
It will be fun.
On your way there, don’t forget to leave some...👏👏👏
Thanks for your time!
Good luck!! | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/top-7-certifications-in-2021-highest-paying-it-certifications-in-2021-9c7f40f40f57 | [] | 2021-02-11 10:42:50.692000+00:00 | ['Advice', 'Certification', 'Information Technology', 'Programming', 'Jobs'] |
Something Good Will Come | Something Good Will Come
30th DECEMBER 2020
Christ for Youth International
“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. [John 1:46 NIV]
People tend to write a thing off or consider it unworthy because of its appearance. We often judge things based on the classification given by society.
However, we (believers) belong to an upside-down Kingdom. In the Kingdom of God, the value or classification of a thing or person has little to do with their outward appearance and more to do with their inner appearance and God’s intention for them.
We see this perfectly illustrated in Matthew 23:25–27, where Jesus admonishes the scribes and Pharisees for focusing solely on keeping the outside clean, rather than focusing on the inward appearance.
For us as members of God’s Kingdom, this is great news because it means that no matter how the world judges a person, event or circumstance as worthless, bleak or hopeless, we are not in despair. For we have a God who knows the inner details of our lives till the very end.
Are any widowed and left childless like Naomi? Cast into prison by your master like Joseph? Struggling with a temptation you cannot seem to overcome like David? Scorned by society because of some difficult choices you have had to make like the woman who washed the feet of Jesus?
You name it and God turned it around!
The saviour of all human souls came out of Nazareth. This year is not over yet. Even as we look with hope toward the next year. Trust and believe that the year 2020 is still your year! Even though this year, that has been fraught with various difficulties, the biggest miracle in your life can occur.
Believe it, pray it, proclaim it and own it!
Lord Jesus, thank You for every good thing that You have prepared for me. Please grant me a heart that always hopes for the good and also believes that You are more than able to do it. Amen.
Further Reading: Matthew 19:26
Prophetic Declaration: Psalm 91 | https://medium.com/christ-for-youth-international/something-good-will-come-b9397332db3b | ['Precious Moments'] | 2020-12-31 17:05:32.385000+00:00 | ['Christ', 'Good', 'Family', 'Precious Moments', 'Youth'] |
The ultimate purpose | The ultimate purpose
To leave the planet in a better place than when you arrived; to make a difference. Isn’t this our ultimate purpose? That makes the most sense. Any parent would agree. Every parent says they want a better life for their kids.
A better planet = a better life
I know that many people will say money makes the world go round, and I do understand this. We all need money. But what we also need is a healthier planet, both physically and spiritually. If you have a lot of money and you want to use your resources to help make the planet better, then great. But if you are a cash hoarder then how does this help the planet, or anyone else.
To have a sense of purpose is a blessing and a curse. To be driven by calling, to be filled with passion, can be liberating. But it can also be painful. Artists understand this well. And entrepreneurs too. A purpose in business is what inspiration is about. But if it becomes all about money then what is the point. We have a greater purpose, to society, and to the earth. If no one gave a shit then the world as we know it would decay. Some would argue that this is already the case.
Greed is the biggest disease in the world today. Way worse than the corona virus, in my view. Kindness seems to be in very short supply. Giving back, to society, to people, and to the planet, appears to be more lip service than action. I know more stingy people than kind people.
When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people. — Abraham Joshua Heschel
Chefs, writers, teachers, carpenters, tailors, film makers, doctors, magicians, mechanics, pilots, nurses, and the list goes on. These folk try and do something that makes our lives better. But what difference do hedge fund people make. Yes, I know I am naive and not a “money guy” but what the hell do all these parasites actually do besides gamble. What do all these financial engineers add to the world? They just take and take and take.
Money gives us options or choices. And there is one choice really: are you going to do something good with your resources, or are you going to hoard cash. I know many wealthy people. Some of them are in a kind of retirement mode and they are cool guys in my view. They had a lot of luck in life (like myself) and for sure, they worked hard (I still do), and some of them took risks (I need to try be more careful). Now they are all about “investing”. They often run what is referred to as a “family office”. But what about investing in society and the planet. What about a “giving back office”. I think it is most often the bare minimum. I may be wrong but I don’t think so.
I know there are so many sayings about money and happiness. Like that one classic Scottish Proverb that goes “Money can’t buy happiness but somehow, it’s more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes Benz than it is on a bicycle.”
There is more to life than increasing its speed. — Mahatma Gandhi
If our ultimate purpose is to leave the world in a better place then we appear to be messing up. All this consumerism (of which I am also guilty of) has gone too far. Stuff, stuff and more stuff. Is this what all the cash hoarding is for? Is that what you are trying to buy? The planet.
The corona has led to a lot of isolation and soul searching and it has allowed many folk to see what matters, what is essential. When the virus is at bay, hopefully in the year ahead, and we all step back into the hustle and bustle, let’s try remember this year, and what it has taught us. Please God the world becomes humbler and kinder. And let us appreciate what we have. If you are reading this, I will bet you have more than enough.
And if you don’t have every gadget and the latest phone then you are probably going to be ok. | https://medium.com/@ronnieapteker/the-ultimate-purpose-a2d6e9a932ba | ['Ronnie Apteker'] | 2020-12-10 17:51:23.221000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Earth', 'Charity', 'Purpose', 'Capitalism'] |
Violence Against Women Should Be Treated as a Hate Crime | I shouldn’t have to repeat the statistics. The World Health Organization’s 2017 report on this issue indicates that roughly 1 in 3 women have experienced intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. 38% of murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner. The latter statistic is higher in some countries than others; but even in highly-developed countries with more gender equality, this is sitting around the 24% mark.
This is a huge percentage. And yet, as a society we tend to make excuses for this behaviour: the woman must have deserved it, somehow, or the man was mentally ill/going through a rough time/shouldn’t be defined by this one action. We’ve been conditioned to see women as liars and to believe in the authority of men; that’s why many people won’t believe survivors unless they hear a confession from the man.
It makes me horribly sad to see the types of things that people say about women who have been a victim of violence. What was she wearing, why didn’t she leave him, she shouldn’t ruin his life (because her life is unimportant compared to his, right?) and the like. And there will be others, the pseudo intellectual misogynists who cry “CITATION NEEDED” every time you try and recount any instance of violence against women, because they’ve never personally witnessed it; therefore they’re convinced that it either doesn’t happen or can’t be as bad as you say. The fact that it literally happened to you/your friend/someone you know isn’t “proof” to them.
It doesn’t help that the media often skews things in favour of the men: violent men are characterized as “nice guys” who just got mad and shouldn’t be punished for this small misstep because they have such a bright future ahead of them. Women, on the other hand, are mentioned as passive participants; violence is just something that happened to them, as if violence slipped on something and bumped into them by accident. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/violence-against-women-should-be-treated-as-a-hate-crime-491147ca47e1 | ['Ashleigh Hume'] | 2020-07-28 22:34:10.321000+00:00 | ['Violence Against Women', 'Hate Crimes', 'Women', 'Violence', 'Crime'] |
Ayurveda Hand Sanitizers: Buy Hand Sanitizers Online at Best Prices | Get Discounts on Hand Sanitizer products ,Sudarshan Ayurveda Hand Sanitizer gives you 8 hours complete protection, its made from naturally derived ingredients and plant derived cleansers Honey and shea butter hydrates and energized the skin | https://medium.com/@iswadeshi0/ayurveda-hand-sanitizers-buy-hand-sanitizers-online-at-best-prices-2b706b783310 | ['I Swadeshi'] | 2020-12-24 10:18:34.623000+00:00 | ['Hand Sanitizers', 'Ayurveda', 'Best Price', 'Online Shopping'] |
My Body In Pieces | I’m 9 years old, and we’re at JC Penny shopping for school. My mom looks at the new overalls I’ve just tried on.
“Turn around, let me see the back.”
Obediently I turn and then bend to touch my toes as she instructs. Waiting for the verdict.
She sucks breath in through her teeth, and I know the answer. I gaze sadly at the embroidered pattern — colorful, whimsical, and not going to be mine.
“They’re just too tight around the back. Too short. Let’s see the next one!”
My mom doesn’t mean to be insensitive or imply that I’m a sexual object at 9 years old. But she does. Because that’s the culture we’re in.
Shopping for a swimming suit at 12 is a lot harder. My breasts have begun to develop and I’ve gained weight — in my tummy, thighs, and hips. I’ve gone through more suits than I can count. All one-pieces because tankinis and bikinis are completely off the table — too immodest.
I put another one on that I like. It’s bright and fun. Before she asks this time, I turn around as she appraises my body.
“It’s just too high on the sides honey. I’m not comfortable with that one.”
Sighing, I turn back to try on another.
As a Mom myself, I can’t blame her for her choices. And I don’t disagree with women who choose to dress conservatively. But I sure as hell disagree with the way I was taught about my body as a result of “modest-is-the-hottest” teachings — from the Mormon church.
As a teen, I loved the look of ripped jeans when they came out. But my hopes for dressing up in a new fashion were dashed when we visited Macy’s that year. I exited the dressing room, feeling particularly confident only to be met with disgust.
“Oh, those aren’t going to work.”
This time I push back, trying to gain some footing. I don’t see what’s wrong with these.
“Please Mom, what’s wrong with these? I checked and they aren’t too tight in the back. I really like them, please.”
Her eyebrows are skyrocketing into her hair, lips pursed tightly. Thinking.
“They just aren’t modest. This isn’t what the Savior would want you wearing. This isn’t respecting your body.”
Returning to the dressing room, I take one last look in the mirror at the small nickel-sized holes near the pockets before I take them off.
Skinny jeans were another no-no. Only flairs or regular fits.
Because if your jeans are too tight, you’re attracting the wrong kind of attention. Or worse, you’re distracting righteous young men — you are becoming pornography.
You don’t want to be pornography, do you?
Modesty Check
Head? No midriff.
Shoulders? Not too tight around the bust.
Knees? The butt better not be too tight.
Toes? No cleavage.
Head, shoulders, knees, and toes.
Because it’s not about your comfort, your style, or your happiness. It’s about your boobs. Thighs. Butt. Midriff. Sex appeal.
Don’t be pornography. Because obviously righteous young Mormon men can’t control their thoughts — it’s up to you to keep them on the straight and narrow. You don’t want to be the cause of their porn addiction.
Because you can be pornography. Your bare shoulders will entice them to sin.
Now, I stand in front of the mirror. 25 years old. Cute summertime outfit for a date with my husband. Comfortable and perfectly my style.
Before I leave, I’m left wondering if it’s normal to see my body in pieces. I look in the mirror and see a little cleavage, bare thighs, naked shoulders, and shorts hugging my curves.
Because I’m not a body. I’m sex appeal. I’m a walking sin for someone else. I’m butt, boobs, and thighs.
That’s why I leave, swaying my hips, feeling the breeze on my thighs and shoulders, and choosing to leave the top button undone. Because I’ll dress for me. That’s who really matters.
In time, I’ll see my body whole — no more pieces.
Just me. | https://medium.com/@raven_writes/my-body-in-pieces-b3dcb61aea11 | [] | 2019-07-16 21:10:34.372000+00:00 | ['Mormon', 'Exmormon', 'Body Positive', 'Body Image', 'Mental Health Awareness'] |
After the Gold Rush, What Is Over the Third Horizon? | Andrew Crosby & Hugo Araujo
There is broad recognition that ecological and economic upheaval are driving humanity toward an inflection point. Depending on who you ask, we are variously on the road to destruction, the road to redemption, or the road to regenerative revolution, and points in between.
We are in a continuous transition comprised in differing measures, and progressing in parallel, of yesterday’s sustainability agenda, tomorrow’s stakeholder capitalism, and a future of synergistic human and ecological development. How these horizons of change can contribute to a future in which economy and ecology are developed in synergy is the existential question of the 21st Century.
Essential context today: there is nearly global unanimity on the dire and accelerating consequences of climate change. Natural systems on which humans fundamentally depend, and which have intrinsic and spiritual value, are degrading at a breath-taking rate. For example, 11,000 square kilometers of Brazilian Amazon rain forest were destroyed from August 2019 to July 2020.[1] Look no further than the IPBES report of 2019 to get a sobering, unanimous view of humanity cutting the branch on which it is resting.[2]
Similarly, there is a revolution in production and consumption that is disrupting labor markets and social contracts between people and governments across the world. The World Economic Forum estimates that 85 million jobs will be lost in the next five years, while the “robot revolution” will create 97 million new ones. The report notes that “communities most at risk from disruption will need support from businesses and governments.”[3] Such support, will require an unprecedented effort and changed social policies, if not wholesale changes in the logic that underlies modern economies.
For those committed to a better future in which humanity thrives in the context of synergistic social and environmental relations, understanding the paths and logic in pursuing future-fit opportunities is essential. Developing greater situational awareness can help us to understand the most impactful opportunities and actions we must take as individuals, communities, and nations to cultivate and align our efforts locally and globally.
Our greatest hopes will not be blocked by lack of means, but rather by our ability to correctly perceive our situation and its trajectory, its dangers and potential, and our resolve in marshaling the individual and collective will to rise to the occasion.
Situational awareness is essential in developing and choosing appropriate tools for the job ahead, which is both non-linear and complex. As in earlier epochs, innovators are bringing new tools, understanding, and methodologies to bear in solving challenges and pursuing opportunities. Unlike earlier times, however, the tools we now have at hand are accelerating faster than human intelligence is evolving. As such, we will have greater capacity to address the challenges before us, but we also risk intensifying existing patterns of development. Emerging tools — high tech, old tech, and no tech — will be the subject of a future article, but here it will suffice to say that our greatest hopes will not be blocked by lack of means, but rather by our ability to correctly perceive our situation and its trajectory, its dangers and potential, and our resolve in marshaling the individual and collective will to rise to the occasion.
To describe the various futures available to us, in this article we have used the Three Horizons model, which is familiar to those in business and in the emerging regenerative development movement. Introduced in the seminal 1999 book “The Alchemy of Growth: Practical Insights for Building the Enduring Enterprise,” the Three Horizons model has been widely adapted, including notably in our domain of concern, in the pioneering work of the International Futures Forum.[4][5] It is useful here for illustrating, not the virtues of growth, but as a tool to think about and pursue sometimes radically different approaches to our evolution. The First Horizon represents existing undertakings, the Second Horizon represents emergent ones in which “a concept is taking root”, and the Third Horizon “contains the seeds of tomorrow’s businesses.”
Small steps in thousands of native Third Horizon experiments are happening across the world, and these need to become a movement.
We believe that the Third Horizon (H3) as indicated in the illustration below and identified with principles of bio-mimicry, regeneration, metabolic earth, and ultimately, nature represents a radically different (and already viable) organizing principle that can outperform and out-innovate those offered in H1 and H2. A high priority for those who want to generate systemic change will be to find ways to cultivate today’s native H3 organizations by building ecosystems of practice, propagation of innovation, access to finance, and enabling regulatory and operational environments. Small steps in thousands of native Third Horizon experiments are happening across the world, and these need to become a movement.
This is not to say that we should abandon all H1 and H2 undertakings: they will form an important part of the innovation that will contribute to the emergence of H3 organizations. We argue instead, for cultivating the field for native H3 undertakings with all the intensity possible, even during its early stage of evolution. Doing so will help to accelerate the transition and leapfrog to a new equilibrium that must arrive sooner rather than later if we are to deflect the catastrophic consequences that are already clearly visible.
The H3 road best traveled is one that we can barely see today in which humans live in positive and mutually nourishing synergy with natural systems. This is not a utopian vision, but one which already exists around us in the experiments of innovators across the world dedicated to creating such systems.
Where are we, where do we want to go, and how do we get there? Terra incognita, here we come.
Figure 2: The Three Horizons of the Regenerative Journey (Interactive version here)
Today’s Terra Firma
Today we are gripped in the next generation of innovation for sustainable development. True believers are staking claims everywhere in a rush of Earth-friendly, social-good investments sold under the banner of ESG. These strategies promote good environmental, social, and governance behaviors while screening out bad ones. An ESG bubble is forming as each new claim begets a market that only seems to move up. A recent estimate cites some $30 Trillion invested under the ESG banner in five major markets.[6] There is gold to be found in this new space.
No doubt this rush is better than doing nothing, and it will continue to grow for some time, but is it future fit? Will it take us over the horizon to deliver the systemic change that is needed in the long-run to solve challenges driven by human behavior including environmental degradation, economic upheaval, and practices harmful to society and citizens? As constructed today, these outcomes are difficult to imagine since they essentially depart from the same logic and systems that caused the problems in the first place.
Promoting such a shift requires informed and intelligent investment strategies directed to the right targets that build the health of our social and environmental ecosystems and reinforced by market rules that reward such behavior.
The bigger prize of healthy, synchronous human and natural systems — and ultimately abundance — does not yet seem to have factored into the equations driving ESG. Promoting such a shift requires informed and intelligent investment strategies directed to the right targets that build the health of our social and environmental ecosystems and reinforced by market rules that reward such behavior. So far, there is a massive gap in the kind of investment that would enable us to make such a transition. How can we step outside the continuity of existing systems to promote such changes?
Managing What We Measure
Deeply embedded are the metaphors and markets with which entrepreneurs and financiers are approaching this unfolding tragi-opportunity. The gold rush metaphor is apt at first glance. But, the extractive (and destructive) metaphor of gold mining is not the best one to address the situation in which global citizens now find themselves. An alternate metaphor, suited to the times and more future-fit, may be that of cultivating the place we now inhabit — employing our knowledge of ecosystems and new tools that sustain flourishing life and greater societal well being — with a long view to staying, rather than pulling up stakes and moving on.
Some of our metaphors and ways of doing business are so deeply embedded we can barely see them. For example, we are firmly in the era of “you can’t manage what you cannot measure.” Who would argue against this logic? It is axiomatic, and yet, it risks glossing over a fundamental aspect of life on Earth today: we manifestly cannot manage ourselves and our natural systems in harmony in spite of our best measurements. The world’s great problems are accelerating and our existing institutions of collaboration are degrading just as we need them the most.
Figure 3: The Three Horizons model from 1830s. Different objectives same challenges. Achieving the extraordinary requires doing the unusual. G.S. Peters, Harrisburg, PA, USA.
The simplicity with which we have viewed our world has served us well in times of simple economies and lower human impact, but simple approaches to solving our complex systemic challenges will simply fall short of the mark. We can no more solve our challenges by redirecting investment through ESG screens than we can solve social dysfunction through minimum wages. Both are better than nothing, but ultimately they only tilt the edges of systems and solutions that are highly interdependent.
Techno-optimism pervades our public discourse. For decades we have seemingly grown out of some of our greatest challenges. Technological leaps in energy, computing, and life-sciences makes an abundance scenario a tantalizing possibility. But our technical prowess, as compelling as it is, will not achieve desired social ends and environmental equilibrium either, unless supported and managed in transformed human systems. The evidence is in the continued increasing material intensity of our economies even as our production and consumption are “de-materializing.”[7]
Today’s challenges are particularly vexing because of their existential nature. They obligate us to re-examine our most fundamental assumptions. Our economics have left us with unmanageable externalities. We have come to a much better technical understanding of our world, but in the process have let wither the spiritual and holistic aspects of our existence. This is a drawback because the navigational tools in this emerging domain must also grow out of the individual and social self-awareness that lies beyond consumption and markets without values, toward mutually flourishing social, economic, and ecological systems.
How sad if it turned out that we placed our bets on the certainty of metrics and measurements that were not grounded in the reality of the complex, emergent solutions that must arise to meet the challenges before us.
Complexity is increasingly recognized as a feature of human endeavor and we have devised new ways of understanding it, for example machine learning and computational modelling. Yet, we have barely taken on the concept of complexity in our policy making and business decisions. How sad if it turned out that we placed our bets on the certainty of metrics and measurements that were not grounded in the reality of the complex, emergent solutions that must arise to meet the challenges before us.
So far, our tools are blunt, our lack of situational awareness beguiles us, and we abide by a mindset that is generally two-dimensional and simple. This is not the tool kit that will help us navigate over the horizon.
The Next Horizon
Beyond today’s catch-up game with sustainable development, a breakout group of innovators is trying to accelerate the game with new partnerships and instruments. These Second Horizon innovators are breaking new ground in response to changed social expectations and the availability of new approaches in responding to them.
Emerging, Second Horizon firms are swimming through a sea of partial maps and methods still anchored in measuring and managing.
Many of these Second Horizon innovators are building on the practical and agreed consensus frameworks such as United Nations’ Agenda 2030. They are helping to broaden thinking and awareness while tilting the edges. At the same time, however, many are prolonging the behaviors and systems that have led to current societal and environmental challenges, resulting in the continued degradation of global ecosystems upon which humans depend. For example, it is common belief in many countries that adoption of electric vehicles is a solution to climate change when these vehicles may be just as damaging or more so than existing alternatives.[8] Our immediate objective should be to clear the barriers that are preventing us from leapfrogging over this horizon to business and societal behaviors that reflect, rather than subjugate, the rules of nature.
Emerging, Second Horizon firms are swimming through a sea of partial maps and methods still anchored in measuring and managing. A key challenge for organizations operating in this horizon is agreeing on consistent metrics. They face an array of signposts from sustainability standards and eco-labels to ESG screens. The range of outcomes are often expressed as baskets of metrics (which also are not consistent within or across industries for the most part) and that if in balance will lead positive outcomes. Rarely do these systems count the “bads” along with the “goods.”[9]
A host of privately and collaboratively managed frameworks have been developed to help society to navigate, safely operating within agreed consensus views of the terrain we are on and the way it should be traversed. As such these organizations have better access to sustained financing and investment, and developed capital and consumer markets that can sustain growth. In addition, the enabling regulatory and cultural environment in which these undertakings exist provide more stable and predictable — and hence less risky — operational conditions.
Numerous public-private partnerships have been created to advance responses to some of these challenges and opportunities. The concept of “stakeholder capitalism” launched by the Business Roundtable (a group of major corporations) in 2019 was well received and has been bolstered through a partnership with industry, financial leaders, and the World Economic Forum in 2020 for a new set of metrics to match.[10] B-Corps are another trend that shifts business footing to purpose. As major players get more serious about these issues, they promise to have impact, but also extend existing corporate approaches another decade.[11]
Initiatives such as these live largely within the constructs of our existing economic systems — with their virtues and drawbacks. There is little room to account for systemic health (both positive and negative factors) or the complexity expressed in our economies or ecologies. This matters because we are measuring and managing our economies and Earth systems as we have always done — even though we know that they work differently.
It’s Complex
Increasingly we are getting used to complexity, its implications, and its tools. The recognition of complexity in human development and Earth systems has followed a steady, if low impact, trajectory. Starting in the 1970s with works like the Limits to Growth and international events such as Stockholm Conference which brought these issues to the fore.[12] The most recent expression of this trend is the 2015 United Nations, Agenda 2030 which further illustrates the importance and recognition of systemic health, interdependence, and complexity. The countries of the world through their UN participation characterized Agenda 2030 as reflecting an “integrated approach” that takes into account the “deep interconnections and many cross-cutting elements”.
A similar shift has occurred in business, not by virtue of concern for health or the environment, but rather through a revolution in production and consumption. The emergence of distributed manufacturing, global value chains, and the servicification of goods pushed many businesses into the world of managing great complexity in coordinating inputs, suppliers, production processes, distribution, and marketing. In addition, what was originally thought of as a minor aspect of production and trade has become its most important part: a large and growing proportion of all economic value produced and consumed are attributable to intangible and knowledge-driven aspects of digitization, services, know-how, and intellectual property.
The fluidity of these factors of performance have led to a reassessment about the conditions for competitiveness, particularly among economists (but rarely among politicians). In essence, the new model posits that rather than national champions, it is overall national competitiveness (as indicated by educated work-forces, equitable distribution of incomes, ease of doing business and concentration of knowledge and technology) that contribute most to societal well-being. Most national governments have not yet recognized this shift or been able to respond to it adequately.
This more integrated view of competitiveness has also led to a shift in thinking about the nature of work and competitiveness at a more micro scale. This has been fueled by the displacement of the 20th century economy and whole classes of jobs that go with it, and on re-examination of what makes for engaging and socially productive work in modern economies.
The complexity effects of nature are also making themselves known as humans continue to pummel ecosystems without regard to their long-term consequences.
And what of our natural systems? The complexity effects of nature are also making themselves known as humans continue to pummel ecosystems without regard to their long-term consequences. The warning signs that have been buried or just leaked through our daily news cycles should give everyone on Earth renewed resolve to address the uncharted territory into which these cascading impacts are taking us. One such leakage is the 2015 UN IPBES report which sternly warns leaders that fundamental changes in our economies are needed to avert environmental and human disaster.
Managing Ourselves?
An evolving environment in which complexity plays a role has provided traction — after almost fifty years of advocacy — to a new wave of advocates who have been pushing for more holistic development. The concepts of regenerative development and circular economies are gaining currency. So too are approaches seeking to deepen the capacity of organizations to learn and adapt.
Performing
Emerging out of a “corporate performance” stream anchored in work by thinkers like Milton Friedman, and extending beyond today’s “stakeholder governance” concept, efforts such as the Regenerative Business Practices Assessment, the Seven Laws of Regenerative Business, the Twelve Intelligences, and the Eight Capitals, and more, are vying to build a bridge from today’s metrics to tomorrow’s business characteristics. Too many to review here, these frameworks of behavior and performance for modern organizations run the gamut from purpose, to essence, to right relationship, to relationship with place. There are many of them and they represent good concepts with nearly impossible-to-imagine metrics that might not be reconciled between each other, and within and across organizations. But they clearly capture the essence of systemic thinking and complex dynamics.
Sensing
Emerging out of an “organizational learning” stream, the evolution of thought that is anchored in thinkers such as Senge and Goleman, another trend toward creating organizations with more interactive and responsive forms has advanced. On the corporate side, efforts undertaken by organizations such World Economic Forum and World Business Council for Sustainable Development to promote responsive development and dialogue are gaining in prominence. Parallel and independent efforts to achieve social and corporate alignment are undertaken by innovative incubators such as the Hatch CoLab or the Founder Institute, both focusing significantly on combined business and social impacts.
Further from the mainstream, efforts that emphasize collaboration and coordination through new organizational forms and behavior are emerging as responses to creating more agile and capable organizations. This includes new governance approaches such as Holocracy and Sociocracy, for example.
A growing community of entrepreneurs are designing their businesses as native H3 undertakings
A step further in the dialogue track is elaborated in the three principles for Regenerative Brands proposed by Raphael Bemporad and Briana Quindazzi of BBMG in urging companies to focus on being aware, additive, and alive.[13] The beauty of these principles is that they adopt a complex living systems perspective that seems applicable to today’s businesses but adapted to the needs of future organizational behavior.
Figure 4: A logical map with intellectual anchors in the relational world of Peter Senge and the market world of Milton Friedman. The two streams have influenced each other and should converge.
These Second Horizon transformations, in spite of their imperfections, must be given as much space in the present as possible. Net-positive effects in reducing poverty and slowing ecological destruction are likely to emerge. But they also bear the risk of baking in patterns of the past through their inability to generate the economic and social systemic changes that will lead to the transformed economies that we need.
Terra Incognita
The seemingly utopian, and still fringe ideas, of our up-and-coming modern-day Leonardos, Gallileos, and Harrisons are more speculative and less charted. And they are different in nature. Rather than “maximizing”, Third Horizon innovation is about “optimizing.” Rather than vectors of impact, they are about evolving patterns of synergy. The different logic and skills in these modalities are at least a magnitude of difference apart from those in the Second Horizon.
A growing community of entrepreneurs are designing their businesses as native H3 undertakings (including 7Vortex.com and VirtualGaia.com, a business launched by Hugo and his partners in 2017 and 2020, respectively). Designed for a future with unfamiliar form, shifting contours, and complex relationships, the outlines of this world obligate innovators to move from measuring familiar indicators to identifying healthy synchronous patterns of adaptation in complex, interdependent systems.
As if this were not enough of a challenge, many of the organizations that are trying to design themselves as native Third Horizon undertakings is that they are seeking to incorporate and reflect a holistic, complex theory of change without recognized vocabulary or tools to do so. And, they are attempting this in an investment / impact environment that does not yet recognize their efforts. In this sense, they are navigating terra incognita.
This Third Horizon world is highly relational, and pattern focused.
With a need to understand complex interactions, it is no wonder that the concept of biomimicry has gained ground. Focused on learning from biological systems in the design and adaptation of human systems, H3 entrepreneurs seek to model their actions on patterns of life and their nested progression from smaller structures into organic, natural systems. This Third Horizon world is highly relational and pattern focused. As humans figure out the patterns and design systems to cultivate them, they will become increasingly replicable. Look at the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming initiative, for example, to get an idea of the power of such ideas.[14] Or, look at the innovative approach combining measuring, science, sensing, and cultural context conceived in the Indigenous Health Indicators Tool being undertaken by the indigenous people of the Coast Salish in what is now the US / Canada coastal northwest. It is a lot more than the simple title suggests. These and many others are generating resilience, abundance, and systemic vitality in the face of daunting odds and with the barest of financial support.[15]
The concept of biomimicry is not only attractive for human design because of the tangible connection to our physical existence, but also for its focus on component part design that can be independent and scalable into systems. This thinking is consistent with emerging ideas on social change that is local and adaptive to communities and environmental conditions.
The biomimicry approach comes with potential pitfalls. The harmony of nature, applied to human undertakings, may well run counter to human nature and behavior. Think of the impact of human needs for personal security or the more mundane concerns of having a new gadget. Just as we are not rational actors in the neoliberal world, we are not natural actors in the biomimicry world.
We know that machine learning and AI can have immense potential, but also can go terribly wrong depending on the patterning instructions that sets these tools in motion. The contrast between these human-made patterns and those observed in nature provides a stark contrast that illustrates how far we have to develop to achieve the kind of synergy we find in nature.
But in the 21st Century we have access to new tools that employ old concepts in new ways. Markets do not need to be either free or rigged according to Posner and Weyl in their ground-breaking book Radical Markets. The authors propose market variations that retain key features of existing markets in allocating priority while incorporating concepts of distributive justice. We have not even scratched the surface of market economies that are much fairer and more efficient than their predecessors.
Reason will continue to play a large part in our trajectory, but as performance demands become more complex, our ability to sense and interact will be important. Apart from politics, ethics and philosophy need to regain ground.
Designing for, and finding, patterns of complex development will be working its way into our consciousness. Navigators in this space will displace the metrics developed in the Second Horizon by finding their way with dynamic maps interpreted through new models and tools to match.
Our Brains on Third Horizon
As disruptive and challenging as it may be to our 21st Century systems and sensibilities, getting the right navigational gear that empowers us to understand our own development in relationship to Earth, its systems, and to other beings in a new way may be an essential piece of kit in crossing the sea to the Third Horizon future that we cannot yet see.
One of the challenges of this new territory is the demand that we move out of the most comfortable spaces in modern existence: that of dispassionate rational actor. Reason will continue to play a large part in our trajectory, but as performance demands become more complex, our ability to sense and interact will be important. Apart from politics, ethics and philosophy need to regain ground.
Where and how will our better spirits be able to intervene? Although it seems that our Second Horizon organizations will be able to push us along to the next horizon, their operations are mostly not predisposed to do so. Similarly, with few exceptions, government action will be a lagging indicator.
The promise of this new horizon, however, is not a new set of metrics, but rather a changed logic of human pattern. We are called to redefine our purpose, collectively and individually, not blindly, but with the knowledge of understanding and new tools we have developed. Such a choice requires us to go beyond customer relations to human relations.
In theory the barriers to this path will diminish as our historic scarcity drivers also fall to technology. Food, and even meat, synthesized and produced, may put global hunger goals within reach (these systems need greening too, by the way). Advanced medicine to enable longer, healthier lives is proving itself daily. Zero, or close to it, cost energy is radically transforming the most fundamental calculations of manufacturing and climate emissions. These revolutions are not yet realized but they are on their way and need to be managed with care so that we do not simply repeat the mistakes of the past.
In the evolution to the Third Horizon, the usual change agents on whom society regularly depends will likely remain fully invested in the First and Second Horizons until a compelling alternative becomes visible. Most businesses and governments will remain structured for incremental progress on the existing metrics until a tipping point is reached. But external events related to climate change and economic transformation are likely to hasten this transition.
A future-fit response requires a qualitative shift from power projection and meeting the thresholds of performance vectors to learning, dialogue, questioning, and sensing.
Meanwhile, those displaced in the process — a growing number of individuals — will be looking for something else in the context of communities in need and workplaces where there is less and less use for “labor.” They can create another wedge for the Third Horizon transition. This includes an upswelling of entrepreneurial regenerative activity that is gaining ground comprised of Makers, Gig Workers, Out of Workers, Redundant Workers, Unfulfilled Workers, and of course, optimistic leaders, thinkers, philosophers and some forward-looking investors and communities.
A future-fit response requires a qualitative shift from power projection and meeting the thresholds of performance vectors to learning, dialogue, questioning, and sensing. In his seminal book, Building Regenerative Cultures, Daniel Christian Wahl urges readers to ask questions rather than focus on defining the right answers to building regenerative cultures. This ethic is at the heart of breaking out of the patterns of our current economies. But this imperative must be matched with the new tools available to us. They include new understandings of what makes thriving societies, how to make markets work better, how to read and manage complexity, and how to design for it — all the while recognizing that we remain novices, or perhaps just human.
The investment in the lives, potential, and businesses of Third Horizon natives is a long shot from today’s investment perspective, but an imperative from the perspective of the future of human well-being on Earth. Many undertakings that advance this future exist today. If you set your sights higher you may join them. There you will encounter the Third Horizon.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55130304
[2] https://ipbes.net/global-assessment
[3] https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/10/recession-and-automation-changes-our-future-of-work-but-there-are-jobs-coming-report-says-52c5162fce
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Growth-Practical-Insights-Enterprise/dp/0738203092
[5] https://www.internationalfuturesforum.com/three-horizons
[6] http://www.gsi-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/GSIR_Review2018.3.28.pdf A
[7] This widely recognized trend in which intangible products and services have become the fastest growing aspect of value addition. For example, see Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise Of The Intangible Economy Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, 2018, Princeton University Press.
[8] Life cycle emissions for electric vehicles may well be higher than for diesel autos. https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-insights/conflicting-reports-carbon-footprint-evs
[9] There are some exceptions such as the accounting offered by GIST https://www.gistimpact.com/ and more are likely to move in this direction.
[10] https://www.weforum.org/reports/measuring-stakeholder-capitalism-towards-common-metrics-and-consistent-reporting-of-sustainable-value-creation
[11] https://bcorporation.net/
[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth; and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Conference_on_the_Human_Environment
[13] https://www.fastcompany.com/90547057/how-to-build-a-regenerative-brand
[14] http://apzbnf.in/ and https://www.facebook.com/APZBNF/
[15] https://toolkit.climate.gov/tool/indigenous-health-indicators-tool | https://medium.com/@andrewncrosby/after-the-gold-rush-what-is-over-the-third-horizon-1004d50d6cc3 | ['Andrew Crosby'] | 2021-01-05 14:53:38.135000+00:00 | ['Regeneration', 'Future Of Work', 'Biomimicry', 'Sustainability', 'Economics'] |
Good Morning Friends. | Good Morning Friends.
Hope everyone must have enjoyed the Christmas festivity at their homes.
The best Christmas gifts I am wishing to send thru my blog to my esteemed readers are as follows.
For my enemies & foes, I want to send a gift of blessings wrapped in a packet of forgiveness.
For my opponent & criticizers.The gift of tolerance & patience. My best blogs are yet to come.
To real & true friends. My ❤️ heart opens out for you & I am always available for your assistance at any difficult times.
To my clientele & business partners. Assuring you my best services at all times.
Message for all who are reading this blog. I want to start philanthropy & help needy, unprivileged, and elderly people by creating the companionable trust of goodwill.
To my young generation. Be a good example for your country & community.
For seniors & elders. The message I want to pass is let's give respect & appreciation to them & accept their blessings in return.
From now onwards let's become the spreader of love, joy, happiness, peace, unpretentious & compassion.
It's is said our life becomes better when we are happy, but life becomes best when other people are happy because of us.
Thru my blogs I want to convey one consecutive message to all my readers in this stressful world let's be an inspiration, motivator shares our knowledge, smiles, happiness & joy to people around who need it the most in their depressing times.
#jawaharlalla#@jbl7blogs#jbl7#blogger#writer | https://medium.com/@jawaharlalla2/good-morning-friends-8863fbcc2fc4 | ['Jawahar Lalla'] | 2020-12-26 02:43:13.902000+00:00 | ['Jbl', 'Writer', 'Jawaharlalla', 'Blogger'] |
What is a Life Coach?. Answers to this question are important… | What can a Life Coach do for me?
Answers to this question are important because it comes from different sides of the same context. The context is whether or not a Life Coach can make a difference in your life and mine. It does not mean that you are abnormal or completely off the mark, so to say. It does mean that you recognize the need to talk things out. It means you know inside that you need another set of eyes on the challenge, impartial and nonjudgmental perspective. You may even need a little intellectual or spiritual guidance.
To illustrate, let’s look at my life, the one I know the best. I was on the road to what I thought would complete my formal education. I did not acquire the degree that I had wanted as a young adult mainly because my husband and I chose to quickly move from Bible College into ministry. We both received a Bible Diploma for the three years of work we had completed. I wanted more and we agreed that eventually I would get more. We did not have a plan for that so through the years of raising children, participating in ministry, and struggling in difficult relationships, I tried to fit in some college courses and looked forward to completing my Bachelor’s Degree. With a huge amount of effort and time, I was able to finally complete that in a nine month period while we were on furlough in the U.S.
Then what?
I wasn’t at the point yet when I felt confident in my abilities to help someone else. I had done some counseling and I was good at teaching children. I homeschooled my children for a bunch of years and I was a Sunday School teacher. I spoke to the women in our church and did lots of visitation. But when others sought my advice, was I giving them what they needed? Or was I actually counseling and advising from my perspective and my philosophy of life? I wanted to know and understand more clearly how to go about encouraging others.
I looked for further education and finally applied to Liberty University’s Counseling Master’s Program. It was amazing and I was learning so much. I dreamed of being able to make a difference in the lives of those who were in need of support, encouragement and counsel. Halfway through the program I discovered that I would need to go to the school for two consecutive between-year courses. The answer to doing this or not became the decisive reason that the school made a new degree called Master’s in Human Services Counseling! I only lost credit for one course, which I don’t see as lost in the grand scheme of my life. The main difference, as I see it, between the two degrees is that one would lead toward providing state certified counseling for clients who want or need a diagnosis or direction in regard to mental challenges. Mine is more suited towards helping a client find the services he or she needs, that are not necessarily mental.
Near the end of that degree program, I discovered that the degree I attained provided me with the perfect backdrop for becoming a professional Life Coach. With all that I have learned, all that I have experienced, this was the perfect fit for continuing my life in ministering to people. Right after receiving my Master’s Degree, I began training for my first coaching certifications. My coach-trainers have shown me that I have actually been doing this type of transformational work with people most of my life. With my studies, I improved my skills to listen better and empathize more. My mind opened without judgement to those who come to me. I have compassion and patience with the process that takes time and effort which provokes the individuals to move their unconscious beliefs into a more clear understanding of how to move towards the things they truly desire. I provide the tools my clients need in order of find answers and motivation from within themselves and take control of paths they have already begun. And then they are better equipped to make the changes to move forward towards their unique purpose and goals.
This is what I do and this is why I do what I do. Basically, the person in front of me whether a client or friend, comes to me and asks me to witness to their thought-processing by way of sharing, listening and feedback. Life Coaching is all about the process. With the coach’s help, you get into your own head, your thoughts and work to find out what leads you to make the choices you make. I listen. I give feedback. I ask hard questions. I provide tools and give homework sometimes.
“Life Coaching is all about the process. With the coach’s help, you get into your own head, your thoughts and work to find out what leads you to make the choices you make.”
Do you want to be heard? Have you lost perspective and direction? Do you want to improve aligning your choices with what you really want and with what is deep down inside of you? Your life is your most valuable asset. You have unique qualities that make you the ideal person to do what you are called to do. Do you know what that is? Do you know what qualities you have that will lead you to your highest potential? Are you using your strengths to their fullest capacity? You are a part of this world that is trying so hard to de-structure you and make you fit into the plans and purpose of someone else?
You have choices to make that are not necessarily easy. You can learn from your mistakes and move forward toward a life of fulfillment and satisfaction. You have the power to start the process of knowing yourself and understanding your purpose. You can do life and make the necessary choices based on how you are doing right now and what you are feeling at the moment. That is the way for most people. However, if you want to move forward with confidence knowing you are planning and putting into action a values-based life leading to greater fulfillment and working toward your potential, you should set up sessions with a Life Coach. | https://medium.com/@vickireinercoach/what-is-a-life-coach-what-can-a-life-coach-do-for-me-82b17359a828 | ['Vicki Reiner'] | 2020-12-23 19:42:21.588000+00:00 | ['Life Coaching', 'Help', 'Life Coach', 'What Can A Coach Do', 'Coaching'] |
If condo boards are compensated, what should condo owners know? | If condo boards are compensated, what should condo owners know?
Why waiving condo assessments is shaky territory
Photo credit: Colin Watts/Unsplash
If you’ve ever been on a condo association board, then you already know that it is often a time-consuming job. You can end up dedicating more time to contractors, building maintenance and day-to-day owner concerns than you would dedicate time to a paying job. So it makes perfect sense to me for condo association board members to be paid for their services — or just pay a property management company and skip the blurred line between volunteering and a paid job. But before a condo board makes the decision to start paying board members, there are some blurry details that should be worked out ahead of time.
Do not let condo board members waive assessment fees.
There is a story in HOA Leader about a condo board president who (allegedly) didn’t pay assessments for one full year and only three months the prior year. On the surface, this makes sense. Instead of just paying the board member — especially for a similar rate of pay — just waive the assessments to make the same amount. But for record-keeping purposes, especially for a treasurer, it may be too difficult to figure out which is which. Did the president take on the role to get out of paying assessments? Did the president choose this method of payment to dodge paying late fees if he couldn’t pay on time? Why can’t the president just deduct assessments from whatever monthly payment is made, as in a check for a check?
Allow the owners to have a say to avoid complaints later.
While condo bylaws may spell out whether board members are volunteers or can receive payment, there are usually lines in the wording about whether a board can choose to pay a board member with or without the owners voting on it. Personally, I think that all the owners should vote on this decision. Why? If all of the owners are aware that the condo board is hiring a property manager, why make any other assessment-related payment a secret? Is it sneaky for a board to vote on this independently? Not really, considering the owners voted on these board members in the first place.
It is, however, unnecessary to hide considering the budget should state where all profits and losses are. So even if the owners don’t know now, they’ll eventually find out later. May as well be upfront from the beginning. If there is a two-thirds vote for that board member to be paid however the owners see fit, there will probably still be some annoyed owners who were outvoted. They want it to be voluntary no matter what (and usually contribute bare minimum other than complaints). But the paid board member decision won’t be the kind of “ah ha!” moment that was described within this HOA Leader post.
Make board payments match productivity.
There will always be volunteers (in any industry) who are relentless workers and thoroughly enjoy (or at least try) doing volunteer work. Then there will be those who lag behind, the ones who’d rather do anything but attend meetings, don’t care about building repairs, have zero interest in taking minutes, have no clue who is on the board or the building, and barely pay attention to lobby or email announcements. It happens. Some owners just want to mind their business, pay their assessments and go about their day. But attaching a monetary payment to the board could pique their interests. Now that there is money involved, these same uninterested owners want in.
But how do owners decide who is worthy of payment and who isn’t? Before voting to pay board members, all owners should also know how to effectively and legally remove paid board members who are just collecting money but not doing much the same way they would do with a slacker property management company. Prior board members and active owners will already know the amount of work involved in being a productive board member. This should not be too hard to figure out. If it comes down to the occasional financial report (on an agreed-upon schedule, not just requested because the wind blew), that may be helpful.
One major thing that should happen immediately is the paid board member loses the right to vote on potential contractors, repair work, etc. without board member approval. The paid board member becomes a neutral party that follows whatever the other board members decide. Why? Because if the board pays one member to do a job and (s)he is also (potentially) making a profit on the back end by recommending and hiring contractors to make an additional percentage, this can be a conflict of interest. Just as property managers are hired to work under the direction of the board, so should a paid condo board member. Suggestions may be welcome but not required. Even terminating an agreement with current workers (i.e. plumber, maintenance staff, painters, etc.) should require unpaid board members’ approval and votes.
Photo credit: Karolina Grabowska/Unsplash
Board members should be an example to the owners when it comes to assessment payments.
Life happens. As with any other owner, board members can fall on tough times. But by not paying assessments in exchange for compensation, this is a foggy area when it comes to scrutinizing other owners for not paying their assessments on time. There’s a reason Corporate America jobs usually have lunch outings and birthday gift requests around payday. They know when you should have money in your pocket. The same goes for assessments. If a president (or any board member) is already being paid for their services, why not just deduct some of those funds to “pay” assessments as opposed to skipping it? If the payment is $500 per month and assessments are $200, pay $200 to the condo board account and keep $300. It’s fairly simple.
Could the treasurer choose to just pay the board member $300 and deposit the other $200 each month into the board checking/savings account? Yes, sure, but it sounds like an unnecessary pain come record-keeping time — for tax purposes and for other owners who are entitled to see the annual profits and losses. One way to potentially get around this is for the treasurer to document that the $200 assessment from the board payment is clearly connected to this person, but transparency would save the board from unnecessary confusion. Not doing so would also give serial late payers the opportunity to assume the board members are never late because they don’t pay dues in the first place. If everybody’s assessment dues are due on the same day, then they’re all on a level playing field.
Would it be easier to hire property managers instead of paid condo board members?
Yes, and for a number of reasons. The first one is if your condo association is a nonprofit LLC, the whole goal is for everyone to put their money in the pot and equally pay out repairs, upgrades, monthly bills, etc. But if one person is making a profit while the others are paying for the “pot” money, this can become complicated for tax reasons. Review your bylaws to see if it is required that all board members must be unpaid volunteers, whether the board or owners can decide to pay a particular board member, whether a property management company is required or do they confirm the board can be self-managed, and any other wording regarding compensation. While a condo association can pay their property manager and still be a nonprofit, the property manager (an independent contractor or a corporation all its own) would still be held responsible for his or her own taxes.
Clearly condo owners would want to pick a board member (or property manager) who they believe will do a good job of managing funds and the building. Maybe start off by allowing someone who has potential to be a property manager become a volunteer board member first to see if this person does well. This way, you at least know what you’re getting if owners don’t opt for the traditional property management route.
There are zillions of stories online about property managers who collected funds and did nothing else, so assuming a multi-building property management company (or even a small company) must be the way to go isn’t always accurate. Some are fabulous. Others are terrible. You won’t know who is who until you work with them directly. But a property manager who actually lives on the property — just like a landlord who lives in the building — is more than likely going to be more invested than someone who collects a check from afar. | https://medium.com/homegrown/if-condo-boards-are-compensated-what-should-condo-owners-know-27860d0032cd | ['Shamontiel L. Vaughn'] | 2020-11-29 18:09:24.916000+00:00 | ['Property Management', 'Volunteering', 'Volunteer Management', 'Condo Board Association', 'Condominiums'] |
For more identity, not less | Both/and
Practically speaking, and before Brexit and Trump, the re-emergence of meaningful public sector innovation, and the related, broader ideas of the ‘entrepreneurial state’, had already begun to open up a richer set of possibilities for governance. The ability of service design, powered by digital, to streamline, reorient and turbocharge government services provides a rare opportunity to think through what government is. Europe is well-placed to lead on this, as indicated by Estonia’s approach which, being state-led, is more constructive than Silicon Valley’s, or President Trump’s, ‘move fast and break things’ end-game.
But care should be taken even here, and the rush to digitise everything is perhaps not being considered holistically enough. For example, e-Estonia’s Siret Schutting has said:
When it’s like minus 40 outside and you have a newborn baby, you probably don’t want to go to the family office to name her: you do that online. (These are) very small, pragmatic things.
Although babies are also small things, I think that registering their name is not, and we might argue that there is a certain set of transactions that have ceremony embedded in them, with a different order of meaning, and thus warrant a physical, face-to-face interaction. Naming your child is not like opening a bank account, booking a flight or ordering on Amazon Prime.
A more holistic service design approach would see the value in these physical touchpoints, and find a productive synthesis which augments them with digital experiences. Digital forces a focus on the physical, if you do it properly, raising important and compelling questions about the correct place of both—and both digital and physical are always engaged. Similarly, we should be on our guard with anyone promoting data-driven government, just as with data-driven cities: a government is not a computer, just as a city isn’t.
Still. This too could be resolved with good design (and other) leadership, capable of incorporating the value of digital services and decision-making augmented by data, yet within a more holistic view. At least the desire to positively reinvent, in line with today’s shifting contexts, is there.
While its fabric could be more refined, Estonia’s e-Residency programme is a fascinating statement about 21st century citizenship. (To the extent that it can be parodied as CountryOS in an April Fool’s joke.) Although it is predicated solely on business exchange, rather than something more meaningful, it nonetheless is highly suggestive. It asks how we might able to think more richly of ‘both/and’ in terms of identity, of being part of nations, cities and the world. This implies respect for, and understanding of, both the local and the global.
What true value, in fact, is to be gained from limiting a sense of identity? Of course being part of a nation means more than collecting stamps in a passport, as if checking in on Facebook or tallying frequent flyer points. Just as democratic decision-making should also mean more than the Brexit referendum, which was effectively a nationwide Facebook Like button on an undefined idea of Britain in Europe.
Yet truly respecting national identity, and urban identity, and shared landscapes, as well as the global cultures of my children is entirely possible. Indeed, I’d argue this is the way the world works, and has done for centuries. An ongoing denial of that will thus prove to be counterproductive at best, and hurry along the horrors depicted by Curtis in Hypernormalisation at worst.
It escapes the limited imagination of British ministers, prime or otherwise, that we might approach this as a design challenge. This would mean asking the right questions, 90% of the challenge right there, before articulating how multi-layered identity systems might work. In doing so, that would also mean articulating decision-making systems that might actually reflect today’s and tomorrow’s realities, rather than yesterday’s.
Any such endeavour would need to be multiple perspectives, beyond design. Yet design has a role to play, due to its facility with integrative and participative practices, synthesis as well as analysis, balancing objective and subjective meaning. Design can bind analysis to symbolism, and thus emotion. In fact, it is one of the few professional disciples to deal directly in emotion and identity, something else that Jessica Helfand’s book makes clear.
Ian Warren, an election data advisor to political campaigns, writes a compelling piece noting that these recent elections — and no doubt our forthcoming ones in Netherlands, France and Germany — were “much less about what people are (demographics, data) and more about what they feel (anger, disillusion etc.) The latter are at least, if not more, important influencers in determining how people vote in my opinion.” He describes how the Leave campaign’s theme of ‘Take Back Control’, and their now infamous, and entirely misleading, poster of a long line of migrants queuing to get into Britain — and how the Remain campaign had little in response:
What the Remain campaign missed, and what data and polling often misses, is how people think and feel … they still regale the audience with facts (apparently clear facts!) whilst Farage waves a passport. (Ian Warren)
Will Wiles has handily catalogued the way that much of the populist discussion around the referendum played out via the “material pressure points of identity.” In other words, a spluttering Nigel Farage angrily waving that passport at us. We might later add Donald Trump’s wall — racism made manifest in infrastructure. Though predictable misdirections, they are highly potent nonetheless.
Wiles described how the Leave campaign’s case was “strongly emotional, brandishing these totems of identity that they believe have either been defiled or threatened by the European ‘superstate’.” He also reveals how little of that was true, pointing at the EU’s handy list of Euromyths. Either way, Remain had nothing in response.
Yet Estonia’s little blue plastic card, USB reader, slightly clunky web services and humble little embassy gives us something, actually, no matter how small it may seem in the context of such shattering decisions. As Wiles says, “the look of the world, the way it feels and performs, is important … the way this part of the debate has played out stresses the vital importance of thoughtful, distinctive design.” Wiles notes that the ephemera of the EU is indeed rendered in what we might call Neuter Bland, betraying its committee-led design process and the sheer lack of engagement with design — as compared to OMA’s flag proposal, a brilliant, jittering barcode of multiple adjacent identities. | https://medium.com/dark-matter-and-trojan-horses/for-more-identity-not-less-e5e85422e4e9 | ['Dan Hill'] | 2018-02-07 08:33:23.814000+00:00 | ['Brexit', 'Politics', 'Identity', 'Service Design', 'Strategic Design'] |
Tips For Helping Families Cope With a Lower or Disappearing Income | Tips For Helping Families Cope With a Lower or Disappearing Income
Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay
Losing your job is like having your identity stolen, like having what defined you run through a paper shredder. After a while the despair gets you, and it gets you good.~Author: Eric Jerome Dickey~
The odds are very good that if you haven’t yet been affected by an economic downhill spiral, you’re getting closer by the day…
No one in the globally connected economy we live in is isolated from the prospects of losing a job or business. Many are finding new employment but at much lower salaries. And some are having difficulty finding any type of employment while dealing with inflated prices on daily necessities.
What can we expect in 2021
Following a steep decline in early 2020, the world economy rode a rebound that began in May and remains on track to surpass prepandemic GDP levels by the end of this year — setting the stage for strong post-recovery growth in 2021. ~Morgan Stanley Projects The Conference Board has generated three potential recovery scenarios based on specific sets of assumptions. The Conference Board Economic Forecast for the US Economy
If you’ve lived more than three decades, you’ve seen some of these kinds of projections fall extremely short of expectations. We can all hope for a strong economic recovery but the course of wisdom is to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.
When for so long you can’t get a job for reasons that seem specious, you you finally do have it, you are constantly afraid of losing it.
~Author: Jessica Savitch~
Personal economic crisis strategy
As individuals, we need an economic plan firmly in place for possible downtrends that can affect our families. And some strategies can be implemented early to make coping with the fluctuating economy easier to deal with. Practical wisdom or good old common sense can produce small miracles if applied at the right time and in the right way.
Adjust your mindset first
It’s time to take the blinders off and view the unstable condition of the main systems we live under — political, economic, religious, and societal. Which of these do you consider 100% safe and stable?
A crisis in just one can rock an individual’s world. In 2020, we witnessed what can happen when several serious issues arose in the same period of time. Health crisis, societal injustice, food shortages, political upheaval, and the list goes on. Could the situation have been worse? YES. All it takes is the right catalyst and our world as we know it can turn inside out.
It’s a sad fact that a large part of society lives with their head in the sand. They live in denial of any issue that inconveniences them or changes their accepted normal.
My own country, the USA, is a good example of that. So many people ignore the Covid-19 threat. They don’t want to be told to wear masks. They don’t want to be told not to gather in large groups. They don’t want to be told to practice social distancing. They don’t want to restrict travel and unnecessary activities. In complete arrogance and disregard for the welfare of themselves and others, many demand the right to live their life any way they choose at the expense of society-at-large.
With eyes wide open, one can read the ‘handwriting-on-the-wall’!
Said to mean that there are clear signs that something will fail or no longer exist ~Cambridge Dictionary
Seeing the possibility of critical times ahead, isn’t it wise to adjust our attitudes to give us the best chance to stay afloat.
Add up the numbers
When was the last time you added up the numbers? If you lost your income or had it reduced 30–50% overnight, how long could you pay your existing bills, utility, and food costs? The numbers are sometimes shocking but necessary for us to see the reality of what could happen in the future.
In our household, we always strived to have 3–6 months' worth of living expenses in our savings account. Twice, my husband was laid off from his job and we were able to maintain our home and cars when others were forced to sell those items to exist. We paid extra on our utilities each month until we accumulated credit with those companies that would get us by for several months. And we kept our credit card buying to a bare minimum, not throwing away money on interest.
Simplify now instead of losing everything later
This is a personal choice that isn’t easy to do but pays big in the long run. Adjusting one's lifestyle makes practical sense in today’s economy. A smaller home with modest payments may be easier to keep when things get bad financially. The same goes for a modest vehicle, etc.
Forced downsizing is emotionally devastating and can be damaging to family relationships. Accomplishing the downsizing because it’s the smart thing to do before a crisis will make that transition much easier. It also allows time for adjusting to a lower lifestyle level. Learning to be content and happy without a materialistic way of living has way more benefits than drawbacks!
Conclusion
No matter how you decide to cope with a financial downturn, being informed and prepared are two essential things everyone needs to acquire and do NOW! | https://medium.com/the-she/tips-for-helping-families-better-cope-with-a-lower-or-disappearing-income-8d998c32d79c | ['Lynda Coker'] | 2020-12-20 00:35:04.243000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Budget', 'Money Management', 'Preparation', 'Lifestyle'] |
Florida Police Raid Home of Fired State COVID-19 Data Scientist | Brittany Bernstein
Tue, December 8, 2020, 8:00 PM GMT+6
Florida police on Monday raided the home of Rebekah Jones, the former coronavirus data scientist who built the state’s COVID-19 dashboard before being fired in May over what she has said was her refusal to “manipulate data.”
“They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids,” Jones wrote in a tweet regarding the raid on Monday evening.
About ten officers with guns drawn raided her home in Tallahassee at around 8:30 a.m., Jones told CNN, as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement worked to execute a search warrant as part of an investigation into whether the data scientist accessed a state government messaging system without authorization to encourage employees to speak out about coronavirus deaths, according to an affidavit obtained by the network
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc01.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc01.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.1.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.1.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.2.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.2.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.3.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.3.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.4.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.4.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.5.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.5.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.6.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.6.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.7.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-ghtvc0.7.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Liverpool-V-Midtjylland-ghtvc0.8.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Liverpool-V-Midtjylland-ghtvc0.8.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Liverpool-V-Midtjylland-ghtvc0.9.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Liverpool-V-Midtjylland-ghtvc0.9.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Liverpool-V-Midtjylland-ghtvc0.10.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Liverpool-V-Midtjylland-ghtvc0.10.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid.html
https://www.facebook.com/LiVre-Extrema-Outdoor-Belgium-103152678333233/
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On1.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On1.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On2.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On2.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On3.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On3.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On4.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On4.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On5.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On5.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On6.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On6.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On7.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On7.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On8.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On8.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On9.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On9.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On10.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On10.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On11.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On11.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On12.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On12.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On13.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On13.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On14.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On14.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On15.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On15.html
http://briseis.xolomon.com/scxc/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On16.html
https://permits.cityofvacaville.com/eTRAKiT3/gute/Salzburg-Atletico-Madrid-On16.html
http://www.rio-arriba.org/news/a-v-b-01.html
http://www.rio-arriba.org/news/a-v-b-04.html
http://www.rio-arriba.org/news/a-v-b-02.html
http://www.rio-arriba.org/news/aj-v-at-01.html
http://www.rio-arriba.org/news/aj-v-at-02.html
http://www.rio-arriba.org/news/aj-v-at-03.html
http://www.rio-arriba.org/news/lv-v-mj-01.html
http://www.rio-arriba.org/news/lv-v-mj-02.html
http://www.rio-arriba.org/news/lv-v-mj-03.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liver-24.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liver-23.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-22.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-21.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-20.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-19.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-18.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-17.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-16.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-15.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-14.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-13.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-12.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-11.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-10.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-9.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-8.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-7.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tbc-6.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tbc-5.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tbc-4.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tbc-3.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tv-2.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tv-1.html
https://www.topline.ie/fox/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tv.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liver-24.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liver-23.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-22.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-21.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-20.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-19.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-18.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-17.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-16.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-15.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-14.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-13.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-12.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-10.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-9.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-8.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjyll-v-Liverpool-tbc-7.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tbc-6.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tbc-5.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tbc-4.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tbc-3.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tv-2.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tv-1.html
http://www.tasheed.org/rta/Midtjylland-v-Liverpool-tv.html
It’s time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead,” the November 10 message said, according to the affidavit. “You know this is wrong. You don’t have to be part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it’s too late.”
While officials traced the message to an IP address connected to Jones’ house, she maintains she has not improperly accessed the state messaging system and that she no longer had access to her government computer accounts after her firing.
Jones posted a video on social media of the raid, taken from a camera in her house, showing an officer pointing a gun up a set of stairs as the data scientist warned her two children were upstairs. She said the officer pointed his gun at her 2-year-old daughter, 11-year-old son, and her husband. | https://medium.com/@beingwell-600/florida-police-raid-home-of-fired-state-covid-19-data-scientist-3da9712f3767 | [] | 2020-12-09 16:51:49.387000+00:00 | ['Uefa Champions League', 'Sesoneon', 'Šport', '2020 Presidential Race'] |
Welcome Clint Walker to the IOTA Foundation | Clint Walker is joining the Supervisory Board of the IOTA Foundation. In this role, along with Richard Soley, Clint will be responsible for the general oversight and guidance of the IOTA Foundation.
Clint lives in Wilmington, Delaware in the United States. He is an attorney and banker by trade. Clint recently retired from Barclays Bank Delaware, a bank that he helped form in 2000, which grew to be the seventh-largest issuer of Visa and Mastercard in the US, with 6,000 employees. Prior to that, Clint was General Counsel of First USA Bank, which at that time was the largest Visa issuer in the world. Prior to that, he also served as regulatory counsel in Washington DC for Citibank. Clint started his career as a litigator for Cravath Swaine and Moore in NYC. In addition, Clint serves on numerous government commissions and charitable boards.
His expertise lies in governance, consumer banking, regulatory affairs, compliance, and controls.
On joining IOTA:
“I believe that IOTA has the very real potential for radically transforming how machines and people interact with each other in a way that will create a new paradigm for conducting business. Whether it is the enablement of novel business models through microtransactions, the cooperation between new and traditional legal frameworks, or the creation of solutions to some of society’s thorniest issues,(e.g., environmental, medical) and everything in between, such as smart contracts and smart cities, IOTA can make this interconnected world a better place. I am excited to join the team and play my role in helping make this happen.”
We are proud to announce Clint Walker as our newest Supervisory Board member of the IOTA Foundation. His combined legal, financial and regulatory experience will be a valuable asset to the foundation as we accelerate our North American expansion efforts. Please give him a warm welcome! | https://medium.com/iotatangle/welcome-clint-walker-to-the-iota-foundation-d8dc3d240890 | ['Iota Foundation'] | 2019-09-11 15:38:00.525000+00:00 | ['Distributed Ledgers', 'Iota', 'Clint Walker', 'Supervisory Board', 'Welcome'] |
TFZBA LED Light Strip Review | MacSources | Add a little flare to your world.
This past Christmas, my eleven and nine-year-old boys asked for a television in their room. My father and I mounted the device to their wall, and they have enjoyed it over the past nine months. As an added gift, I wanted to enhance their setup by adding some color to their room. One way that I thought that this could be done was with an LED light strip behind their television. I have seen several amazing entertainment setups and have been intimidated by what I thought was a complicated installation process. Once I started looking into the available options, I found many of the kits installed with tape. Surprised, I decided to pick up the TFZBA light strip for their room. Combined with their dual side by side bunk beds with “man caves” underneath, the new upgrade helped create a fun-filled room. Hopefully, one day soon, COVID-19 will subside and their friends can hang out again.
The TFZBA Smart LED Strip Lights arrived in a 6 3/4 inches wide by 6 5/16 inches tall by 2 1/2 inches tall black retail box. The cover had the colorful TFZBA logo along the top left, and the Android and Apple logo just beneath the name. Along the top right, you will find five icons detailing the properties of the Strip Lights: 1. 16 Million Colors. 2. Light Dancing with Music. 3. Microphone Mode. 4. Timer Control. 5. 50 Feet 3 Pack. Along the middle of the panel, you will find three reels of multi-colored LED strands. The cover did a good job of displaying the product, especially with the stark contrast between the black background and colorful strip lights. The top panel showed three colorful home scenes displaying a blue living room, a yellow bedroom, and a red television. The white-colored right-side panel displayed the lighting facts and Product Specifications: 3600 Lumens, $4.8 annual cost (11cent Wh cost), 5-year life, RGB/Warm/Cool light Appearance, 5050 RBG, 150 LEDs x 3, DC12V output voltage, 36W output power, 5.0 AM max current, 5M remote distance, -20C+45C working temperature, 120-degree beam angle, and the model number TFZBA-001. The opposite side panel had a QR code and instructions to link to the Android and Apple Apps: 1. Connect the LED color strip and controller/power. 2. Scan the QR code to download the App. 3. Start the App and control the lights. The black-colored back panel provided a thanking greeting along the top left and provided similar product specifications to the right-side panel as well as warnings to keep the LED dry and the Shenzhen Address.
I lifted the front panel and removed the contents of the packaging. I found a large charging block measuring 4 7/8 inches long by 2 1/8 inches wide by 1 1/4 inches thick. The charger had an 18-inches long Type B wall outlet prong with cable on one end and a 36 1/2 inches long cable with an AC power plug on the other. Attached to the AC plug, you will find an LED controller box. On one end, the controller had a 4 1/4 inches long AC power input port. On the other end, you will find two ports, a 5 1/4 inches long IR signal receiver and a 10 1/4 inches long trio of light interface cables. Attached to each of the light interface cables, you will find a reel of LED string lights. Lastly, within the box, you will find a 12-panel instruction manual, a 4 7/8 inches long by 1 9/16 inches wide remote, and cable ties with wall stickers. Turning to the instruction manual, the first page showed the product/contents, the second panel showed how to connect the lights, and the third panel showed how to mount the lights to the wall. The fourth panel showed the product specifications/control method (Steady color, brightness dimming, white light brightness percentage, simulation of sunrise sunset, timing off mode, music activation mode, multiple color changing mode). The fifth panel showed how to connect the reels to the LED controller by aligning the arrows, and discussed several safety considerations (indoor use of the setup only, a detailed risk for electricity, etc.). As an added consideration, you can link the light strips together for increased distance. Just make sure that you align the arrows and colors properly.
The opposite side of the instruction manual showcased the included music remote. From top to bottom, the remote had the following buttons: Off, Auto, On, Music activation modes 1, 2, 3, Timing Off Modes (1hr, 2hr, 3hr), Speed increase/decrease buttons, Mode activation increase/decrease buttons, Brightness increase/decrease buttons, and 9-key static mode for R/G/B/W colors. The remainder of the manual showed the duoCo strip app and some of the features of the App. To start, I scanned the QR code and downloaded the 2.5* duoCo Strip App. The App asked to access Bluetooth communication and directly connected to the “BLEDOM” device. Along the top of the App, you will find a small color wheel and on/off toggle. Below this, you will find a large color wheel. If you touch the smaller color wheel along the top left, you can change how you interact with the main color wheel. Beneath the color wheel, you will find a brightness slider and twelve color presets. Along the bottom, you will find “Adjust, Style, Music, Mic, Schedule.” Each of these options provided actions similar to those on the remote.
I removed the light strip from the power supply, then aligned and measured where I wanted the strip to go behind the television. The red backing strip was easily separated from the clear LED tape, which then stuck snugly to the wall. When I got to a corner, I folded the tape at a 90-degree angle and then continued to stick it to the wall. I found that I was able to wrap the LED strip roughly 1.5 times around the wall behind the TV. I reattached the power to the LED strip and then plugged the Type A wall plug into the power strip. The lights immediately illuminated, and the strip responded to the remote. My children loved the ability to control the ambient light and specifically liked the motion/sound sensing Mode 1. Sitting in their bean bags, a movie on their television, and background lighting, they were quite pleased with their new setup. What more could you want/need, than a fair price, easy setup, and happy kids? | https://medium.com/@macsources/tfzba-led-light-strip-review-macsources-a5c42e9048b6 | [] | 2020-09-16 16:53:04.026000+00:00 | ['TV', 'Led', 'Color Leds', 'Lighting'] |
User Experience Design Process | What is User Experience Design?
User Experience is the value that you provide to your user when he is using your product.
“User Experience Design (UXD or UED) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a product by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction with the product.” — Wikipedia
Developing a user experience to the level of customer satisfaction is not a single person or team’s responsibility, instead it is a company’s vision.
Why User Experience Matters?
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs.
Great user experience design not only highlights and promotes your product, it has become a key part of building and growing customer confidence.
A great product or compelling content without an appealing user experience may affect the ability of an organization to achieve its business goals.
Best Approach to User Experience Design
Good user experience design is always part of product development process.
You interact with your users to build the unique combination of structure, content and user experience that will accomplish required goals in efficient ways.
“The primary factor of your success lies in the fact that you keep your user in center of your design process.”
This approach allows you to create designs that are clean, simple, intuitive, flexible and engaging, and provide a WOW experience to your users and thus differentiate you from your competitors.
User Experience Design Process
User experience design process is an iterative method that helps you continuously improve and polish your designs.
In the process, you go through different stages repeatedly while evaluating your designs on each stage.
Each stage involves relevant stakeholders in your organization that take part in the process to make your products highly efficient and usable.
The design process involves following six stages.
Stages of UX Design Process
Below is the detail that highlights stakeholders involved, activities being done and outcomes produced during each stage of the process.
1. Understand
Design solves a problem. In order to provide a solution, you first need to understand the problem.
“Before beginning the design work, let your Design team understand the requirements clearly.”
To analyze requirements, follow industry standard user research methods including contextual and individual interviews, while observing the users in real environment.
Conduct brainstorming sessions with clients and show them your existing products (if any) to get their feedback.
Business Manager is the role in an organization that works directly with clients and gets requirements from them. Design team can work closely with Business Manager to understand users and their needs.
This knowledge about user and his environment helps you to provide a clear direction to your design.
“To be a great designer, you need to look a little deeper into how people think and act.” — Paul Boag
Stakeholders
Design Team
Business Manager
Product Manager
Activities
Meet, talk, observe and understand users in their environment
Analyze requirements to understand and clarify them
Define user personas and use-cases
Outcomes
User Personas
User Stories
Use Cases, User Flows
Create User Personas
Define Use-cases and User Flow
2. Research
Research is the basic key step to design user experience.
“It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few seconds” — Paula Scher
Design team does their research work to explore how the outer world is working on such features.
Sherif Amin, Product Designer called it as UX Competitive Analysis. He listed three purposes of this analysis:
“(i) Understand market competition (ii) Learn about your domain (iii) Get inspirations and ideas from your competitors”
Keep an eye on the latest UI trends, design principles and your existing user experience guidelines.
While doing research, start thinking about possible layouts and options to provide the desired experience.
Stakeholders
Design Team
Activities
Study of competitors’ approaches
Research on similar features in the world
Analysis of latest UI/UX trends, design principles and rules
Keep an eye on your own UX guidelines
Outcomes
A bunch of ideas and material on which you can build your actual design work
Collect Ideas Related to Required Feature
3. Sketch
This stage involves UI definition of required feature. Design team drives this activity which is based on the last two stages of the process.
Draw paper sketches, white board flows and wireframes to share your ideas with stakeholders.
This stage itself is an iterative process.
“Designing is not something that you just create and start using it. Draw and draft and redraw and redraft, thus creating an unmatched experience.”
Testing and evaluation of wireframes is part of this stage. Design team builds initial mockups and share with stakeholders to get their input.
Throughout the process, it is important to keep your goal in mind — make a usable design to achieve end user satisfaction.
Stakeholders
Design Team
Product Managers
Technical Experts
Activities
Generate ideas and work on basic sketches
Brainstorming sessions with stakeholders to get their feedback from technical perspective
Re-draw sketches and re-test them with stakeholders
Outcomes
Sketches
Wireframes, Mockups
User flows
Create Wireframes
4. Design
Now you have finalized layout and flow of the required interface with you, the next step is to work on final graphics.
Turn the initial mockups and wireframes to great-looking images with theme and styles applied to them.
Preparing and sharing of design specifications (principles, guidelines, colors, typography, iconography) to Development team is also part of this stage.
Stakeholders
Design Team
Product Managers
Business Manager
Technical Experts
Activities
Design UI images
Define final theme, specs, and guidelines required for implementation
Design icons to display on screens
Sessions with stakeholders to get their feedback from business and technical perspective
Outcomes
Design images
Detailed design specs like colors, theme, styles, guidelines
Icons
Design Images Followed by Theme and Style — Windows 8 Box app
5. Implement
Since technical people participate in early stages of the process, they can start implementation while Design phase is in progress.
Development team builds back end functionality first and connects it with UI when they get design artifacts.
It is better that Design team involves in this step to help development phase. While implementing, it is possible to raise the need of minor changes in design.
Stakeholders
Development team
Design Team
Activities
Implement back-end functionality and front interface
Outcomes
Developed UI with complete functionality and experience following the designed theme and style
Code and Implement Functionality
6. Evaluate
When product features are implemented, the end product is evaluated based on few factors:
Whether the system is usable?
Is it easy to use for end user?
Is it flexible and easy to change?
Does it provide the desired solution to user’s problems?
Does the product have the credibility that makes someone want to use it because of the experience it provides?
“Design team validates the product in terms of user flow and experience and identify areas where improvements are needed.”
Stakeholders
Design Team
Product Manager
Activities
Go through the flow and feel the experience
Perform a comparison of implementation and defined interface
Outcomes
User feedback
UI audit reports
Areas marked where improvement is required
Perform User Testing
After this last stage, the process will iterate itself and depending on the required changes, you may go to stage 2, 3 or 4.
The process goes on until the desired experience and customer satisfaction is achieved.
Get more understanding of UX design process and other related topics:
Conclusion
An amazing user experience can only be provided by following an iterative Design process.
All major stakeholders in your company contribute in the process by performing their tasks and duties. This is the only way you can retain your existing users and attract the new ones in this competitive world.
Thanks for reading. You can also read other related essays at uxdworld.com. | https://uxplanet.org/user-experience-design-process-d91df1a45916 | ['Saadia Minhas'] | 2020-08-07 04:59:51.147000+00:00 | ['UX', 'Design', 'UX Design', 'User Experience', 'Design Process'] |
ByteDex: A new page in crypto exchange | ByteDex: A new page in crypto exchange
The Problem of CEX’s & DEX’s
CEX or centralized exchanges operated with the help of CEA’s. They enable companies or entrepreneurs to carry out all transactions on their own servers. It is publicly known to everyone that CEX’s internally interfere with the value of crypto assets and CEX’s are very vulnerable to attacks and all the control for the crypto assets are all in the hands of CEX’s.
On the other hand, DEX’s or decentralized exchanges don't allow you to purchase crypto assets via fiat money. DEX’s are not reachable via calls or emails. Lack of liquidity for certain pairs is also an issue with DEX’s
Hybrid exchanges are designed in such a way to tackle all these issues of CEX’s & DEX’s. One such CDEX is the ByteDex exchange.
Some of the features of ByteDex I would like to highlight here
ByeteDex Liquidity Solution ByteDex Dapps ByteDex token launcher ByteDex coin OTC Platform ByteDex brokers ByteDex wallet Payments & Fiat money
The Byte exchange is fast, easy & robust with an average trade execution time of 1–3 seconds and trade volume at the NASDAQ exchange level. Users can trade with non-custodial wallets without worrying about interruptions in their transactions.
ByteDex token is the official trading unit of the ByteDex exchange. The token has been produced in cooperation with the Tron network in a total of 1 billion units in TRC-10 format only for Presale & ICO stage. At the opening of the exchange, ByteDex tokens will be exchanged. Bytedex owners can share the revenues of the Bytex Exchange by staking their Tokens on the Bytedex Exchange or benefit from large discounts on trading commission fees.
Contact ByteDex
Website : https://bytedex.io/
Medium : https://bytedex.medium.com/
Twitter : https://twitter.com/ByteExchange
Telegram : https://t.me/ByteDexGlobal
Youtube : https://youtube.com/channel/UCw8wl0SXHhLI0xn0JPWFMtw
Reddit : https://www.reddit.com/user/ByteDex | https://medium.com/@deveshdutta92/bytedex-a-new-page-in-crypto-exchange-a50a0e65542d | ['To The Moon Crypto'] | 2021-07-24 09:43:37.308000+00:00 | ['Bytedex', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Hybridexchange', 'Staking', 'Decentralized Exchange'] |
The Ultimate Guide to Acing Coding Interviews for Data Scientists | The Ultimate Guide to Acing Coding Interviews for Data Scientists
Written by Emma Ding and Rob Wang
Photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash
Introduction
Data science (DS) is a relatively new profession compared to other types of roles in the tech industry, such as software engineering and product management. Initially, DS interviews had a limited coding component, including only SQL or applied data manipulation sessions using Python or R. In recent years, however, DS interviews have shown an increased emphasis on computer science (CS) fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, and programming best practices).
For someone looking to enter the data science profession, this trend towards more CS in interviews can be daunting. In this post, we hope to increase your understanding of the coding interview and teach you how to prepare for it. We will categorize different coding questions and provide tips to crack them so that you can have a stellar interview. You can reach out to us here if you think we might be able to make your journey easier in any way!
Before you start reading, if you are a video person, feel free to check out this YouTube video for an abbreviated version of this post.
Table of Contents
Why are Coding Questions Asked in DS Interviews?
What exactly is a coding interview? We use the phrase “coding interview” to refer to any technical session that involves coding in any programming language other than a query language like SQL. In today’s market, you can expect a coding interview with just about any data science job.
Why? Coding is an essential part of your DS careers. Here are three reasons:
DS is a technical subject. The bulk of a data science job involves collecting, cleaning, and processing data into usable formats. Therefore, to get work done, basic programming proficiency is a must.
Lots of real-world data science projects are highly collaborative, involving multiple stakeholders. Data scientists who are equipped with stronger fundamental CS skills will find it easier to work closely with engineers and other partners.
In many companies, data scientists are responsible for shipping production code, such as data pipelines and machine learning models. Strong programming skills are essential for projects of this type.
To sum up, strong coding skills are necessary to perform well in many data science positions. If you cannot show that you possess those skills in the coding interview, you will not get the job.
Roles That are Likely to Have Coding Interviews
Of course, the level of coding required does differ depending on the position. Check this YouTube video if you’re interested in learning the differences between various DS roles. If you are looking for a data scientist role that falls into any of the categories below, the chances of encountering a coding interview are very high:
Data scientist roles with a heavy machine learning (ML) or modeling emphasis : For these kinds of roles, candidates are expected to work independently or closely with engineers to productionize machine learning, statistical, or optimization models. Such roles, though titled “data scientist”, are more similar to “machine learning engineer” or “research scientist” roles. A few examples of such jobs are Core Data Science at Facebook, Data Scientist — Algorithms at Airbnb and Lyft, etc.
: For these kinds of roles, candidates are expected to work independently or closely with engineers to productionize machine learning, statistical, or optimization models. Such roles, though titled “data scientist”, are more similar to “machine learning engineer” or “research scientist” roles. A few examples of such jobs are Core Data Science at Facebook, Data Scientist — Algorithms at Airbnb and Lyft, etc. Companies in which data scientists are part of an engineering org : For such positions, there is a general expectation that every data scientist possesses sufficient programming proficiency. Robinhood’s data scientist position is an example of this kind of role.
: For such positions, there is a general expectation that every data scientist possesses sufficient programming proficiency. Robinhood’s data scientist position is an example of this kind of role. Data scientist roles at small to medium-sized tech companies: The environment in such companies tends to be fast-paced, and data scientists may wear multiple hats. In particular, they are required to demonstrate full-stack skills to get things done quickly and efficiently.
In contrast, if you are interviewing for a DS role with a Product Analytics emphasis, there is a lower likelihood of encountering coding questions. Interviews for these roles do not often go beyond evaluating SQL proficiency, but general programming may still be tested from time to time. Candidates who do not possess a basic level of coding knowledge can be easily caught off guard during the interview and may fail to move forward in the process. Do not let that be you! Make sure you are prepared. You can start your preparation by learning what to expect with a coding interview.
When to Expect a Coding Interview?
Photo by Maranda Vandergriff on Unsplash
A coding interview can appear during the technical phone screen (TPS), onsite, or both. There could even be multiple rounds of coding interviews during the onsite portion, depending on the coding proficiency expected. In general, you should expect coding interviews in at least one stage of an overall DS interview loop.
During the TPS, the delivery of the coding interview will typically be through online integrated development environments (IDEs) such as CoderPad, HackerRank, and CodeSignal. During onsite sessions, either an online IDE or a whiteboard can be used. In the current remote interview environment, the former is used by default.
The length of a coding session ranges from 45 minutes to 1 hour and it usually involves one or more questions. The choice of language is typically flexible, but most candidates will choose Python for its simplicity.
Different Categories of Coding Interviews
Based on our experiences interviewing with dozens of large and medium-sized companies, such as Airbnb, Amazon, Facebook, Intuit, Lyft, Robinhood, Slack, Snapchat, Square, Stitch Fix, Twitter, Upstart, and more, we have categorized coding questions into the following four types.
Basic Data Structures
This type of question aims at evaluating candidates’ proficiency in introductory CS fundamentals. These fundamental topics can include, but are not limited to:
Data Structures: Arrays, Hashmaps/Dictionary, Heaps, Sets, Stack/Queues, Strings, and Tree/Binary Tree.
Algorithms: Binary Search, Recursion, Sorting, and Dynamic Programming.
Some additional topics such as Linked Lists and Graphs (Depth First Search or Breadth-First Search) are less likely to occur during this type of interview.
Typically, multiple questions will be asked about a single scenario, ranging from simple to hard. Each question may cover a unique data structure or algorithm. Here is an example of a classic problem that revolves around finding the median of a list of numbers:
Part 1: Find the median using any method. Candidates can use a built-in sorting function and simply return the median after sorting.
Part 2: The interviewer now asks for a more optimized version of finding the median. In this setting, knowledge of common algorithms, such as quickselect, will come in handy.
Part 3: Finally, the question is changed to a “streaming” version of computing medians, meaning that the data comes in an online fashion rather than as a fixed list of numbers. In this case, the candidate would likely resort to the use of heaps (slightly more challenging).
This type of question may also appear as an applied business problem. For such questions, the candidate is expected to code up a solution to a hypothetical applied problem, which is usually related to the company’s business model. These questions are easy to medium in the level of difficulty (based on the categorization of Leetcode). The key here is to understand the business scenario and exact requirements before coding.
Mathematics and Statistics
These questions will require undergraduate-level mathematics and statistics knowledge in addition to coding capability. A few most commonly asked concepts include:
Simulation: Monte Carlo simulations, weighted sampling, simulating Markov chains, etc.
Prime Numbers / Divisibility: Calculations involving divisibility of natural numbers, Euclidean algorithm for computing the greatest common divisor of two natural numbers, etc.
Some common questions include:
Estimating the value of Pi using simulation.
Enumerating all prime numbers up to a given natural number N.
Simulating a multinomial distribution using uniform random numbers.
Machine Learning Algorithms
Photo by Hitesh Choudhary on Unsplash
This type of question involves coding up a basic ML algorithm from scratch. Besides general coding ability, the interviewer will also be able to evaluate candidates’ applied machine learning knowledge. You will need to be familiar with common families of machine learning models to answer these questions.
Here is a list of the most common model families that appear frequently during coding interviews:
Other model families, such as Support Vector Machines, Gradient Boosting Trees, and Naive Bayes are less likely to occur. You also are not likely to be required to code up a deep learning algorithm from scratch.
Data Manipulation
This type of question is not as common as the other types. They ask candidates to carry out data processing and transformations without using SQL or any data analysis library such as pandas. Instead, candidates are only allowed to use a programming language of choice to solve the problems. Some common examples include:
Representing two datasets as dictionaries, and joining them together on some given key values.
Given a dictionary of dictionaries representing a JSON blob, doing some basic parsing to extract particular entries.
Writing a function that is similar to the “spread” or “gather” functions in R’s tidyr package, and testing it using a dataset.
Calculating a 30-day rolling profit.
Parsing event logs and returning the count of unique strings by day/month/year.
Knowing that you can expect these four types of questions will help you to prepare systematically. In the next section, we will share some tips on how exactly to do that.
How to Prepare?
Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash
This list of types of questions may appear daunting at the first glance, but don’t be discouraged or overwhelmed! If you have a good grasp of basic CS knowledge and machine learning algorithms, and you take the time to prepare (which we will show you how to do in this section), then you will be able to ace the coding interview.
To prepare for different categories of coding questions, we recommend the following strategies:
Brush up on the Basics:
For each of the four major question themes outlined above, begin by reviewing the fundamentals. These descriptions can be found in various online sources as well as books. Specifically:
Categorize Questions:
Once you feel relatively at home with the basics, expand the scope of your review to include a larger set of commonly encountered problems. You can find these on Leetcode, GeeksForGeeks, and GlassDoor. You can save the problem statements in an organized manner, ideally grouped by theme using tools such as Notion or Jupyter notebooks. For each of the topics, practice a lot of easy questions and a few medium ones. Taking the time to create a categorized collection of coding problems will not only benefit your current job search, but it will also prove helpful for future job searches.
Compare Multiple Solutions:
Relying on rote memorization will not be sufficient for acing the interview. To achieve a more comprehensive understanding, we recommend coming up with multiple solutions to the same problem and comparing the strengths and weaknesses (e.g. run-time/storage complexities) of the different approaches.
Explain to Others:
To reinforce understanding, explain your solutions/approaches to a non-technical person using plain English. A higher-level understanding of the common problem approaches often has greater value than detailed implementation and can be especially helpful for adapting existing knowledge to new and unfamiliar settings.
Mock Interviews:
Work with a peer to do a mock interview, or conduct it by yourself. You can use an online coding platform, such as Leetcode, to solve real interview questions in a limited time window.
Employ these preparation techniques, and you will go into your interview not only with more knowledge but also with more confidence!
How You Are Evaluated?
There are 4 major qualities you want to convey during your interview.
Logical Reasoning:
The interviewer wishes to see candidates make logical connections between the information provided and the ultimate answer. You should therefore describe clearly what is needed for the computation and how you would write the code to solve the problem, before diving into the actual coding.
Communication:
The effectiveness of your communication matters significantly. Before coding, clearly communicate your thought process. If the interviewer asks questions at any point during the interview, you need to be able to explain the reasoning of your assumptions and choices.
Code Quality and Best Practices:
The interviewer will also evaluate your overall code quality. While the standard expectations in a DS interview would not be as high as those in a software engineering interview, candidates should still focus on several aspects:
Whether the code is executable without any syntax error.
Cleanliness and conciseness.
Whether the solution is optimized in terms of run-time/storage efficiency.
General coding best practice, e.g. modularity, handling of edge cases, naming conventions, etc.
Proficiency:
Just as with software engineering coding interviews, for DS coding interviews, it is reasonable to expect multi-part questions and sometimes multiple questions. In other words, speed is also important. Being able to solve more questions within a limited amount of time is a signal of overall proficiency.
Tips to Ace Coding Interviews
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
Before the interview, it is worth clarifying with recruiters what kinds of coding questions will be asked, as well as the approximate difficulty level. Lots of data science interviews do not require heavy programming, but that does not mean interviewers will not expect basic coding proficiency at your fingertips. Always ask your recruiter what to expect. If you make incorrect assumptions on the types of questions that can appear during interviews, you may end up preparing inadequately.
During the interview, use these tips to answer coding questions effectively.
Before diving into coding : Clarify the question and its underlying assumptions. Communication is key. A candidate who needed some help along the way but communicated clearly can be even better than a candidate who breezed through the question. Also, explain the overall approach to the interviewer before you begin the actual implementation.
: Clarify the question and its underlying assumptions. Communication is key. A candidate who needed some help along the way but communicated clearly can be even better than a candidate who breezed through the question. Also, explain the overall approach to the interviewer before you begin the actual implementation. When writing code : Start with a naive brute force solution, and optimize it later. Think out loud. Say what you think might (or might not) work. You may soon realize something does work, or a modified version of it does. When stuck for more than several minutes on a particular part, it is okay to ask the interviewer for a moderate hint.
: Start with a naive brute force solution, and optimize it later. Think out loud. Say what you think might (or might not) work. You may soon realize something does work, or a modified version of it does. When stuck for more than several minutes on a particular part, it is okay to ask the interviewer for a moderate hint. After the coding is done: If test cases are not provided, you should propose several normal cases and edge cases. Walk through your solution out loud with an example input. This will help you find bugs and clear up any confusion that your interviewer might have about what you are doing.
Final Thoughts
Coding interviews, like other technical interviews, require systematic and effective preparation. Hopefully, our article has given you some insights into both what to expect in a coding interview for DS related positions and how to prepare for them. Remember: Enhancing your coding skills will be extremely rewarding not only for landing your dream job, but also for excelling in the job! | https://towardsdatascience.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-acing-coding-interviews-for-data-scientists-d45c99d6bddc | ['Emma Ding'] | 2021-09-07 21:14:09.326000+00:00 | ['Editors Pick', 'Cracking Coding Interview', 'Data Science Interview', 'Data Science Job', 'Coding Interviews'] |
How to visualize hyperlocal COVID data | This ggplot2 chart uses the y-axis with a logarithmic (base 10) transformation. This is different from most of the things you will see around. First, the logarithmic scales are (in theory) more suited for cumulative data. Yet, they have huge advantages in this context. They allow us to zoom on the lower numbers and to avoid enthusiasm when the situation changes. In fact, as the numbers grow higher, the curves (visually) move less, the same happening when numbers decline.
The smoother I have chosen is the loess, which is ggplot2's default. Given its statistical properties, this smoother (with this particular kind of data) is perfect, showing us the overall trends, reducing the noise from changes in the time series. The alternative would have been the following chart: | https://medium.com/lead-and-paper/how-to-visualize-hyperlocal-covid-data-8a7227bf1c14 | ['Francesco Piccinelli'] | 2020-12-27 14:21:10.129000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Data Science', 'Covid 19 Crisis', 'Covid 19'] |
CBD and Marijuana Industry Moving at a Rapid Rate and Need Marketers | The cbd and marijuana industry are booth booming industries. Many states have legalized marijuana now. As a result, the stigma has changed. No longer are marijuana users considered the laze potheads of the past. Marijuana and CBD users are all people that contribute to our society whether they be moms, lawyers, doctors or clerks. It’s hard to believe marijuana was considered a gateway drug.
As the need for marijuana and cbd products have increase many companies and entrepreneurs see an opportunity. All these new companies need to get off the ground and need digital marketing to do this. If not their company will go out of business as there is steep competition among marijuana and cbd businesses.
Marijuana and CBD marketing has challenges. The main one being that the 2 top advertising platforms Facebook and Google do not allow advertisements. So as a CBD or marijuana company what are you supposed to do. You have bills and employees to pay.
This is why you need to work with a competent marijuana and cbd marketing agency. They can help strategize with your organization to help you reach your goals. Not all marketing agencies are the same. If you were to google digital marketing agency many of the major players and top listings would not have the capability or experience to market your cbd or marijuana company. Additionally, they may choose not to even work with your industry as whole.
How to market your marijuana dispensary or CBD company
1. First get yourself a professional website designed and developed. Don’t use those cheap templates or free website builders as they are not as professional and nice as having one done by a pro.
2. Brand yourself. You can do this by getting a professional logo created. A website that does this cheaply and effectively if fiverr.com. You can literally get yourself a professional looking logo for $5. Make sure you match your logo colors with your website colors. You want everything to remain consistent.
3. Claim your social media profiles. You want to do this for a number of reasons. One it is called brand locking and lets you remain in control of your brands appearance online. Because when someone searches these social media profiles are the first to come up. The reason is that they are some of the most authoritative websites with the most traffic.
Visit our industry pages:
lorenzogutierrez.net/website-design-development/cbd/
lorenzogutierrez.net/seo/cbd/
lorenzogutierrez.net/how-to-market-your-marijuana-dispensary/
lorenzogutierrez.net/industries/marijuana-digital-marketing-agency/
lorenzogutierrez.net/industries/dispensary-marketing-agency/ | https://medium.com/@lorenzogutierre/cbd-and-marijuana-industry-moving-at-a-rapid-rate-and-need-marketers-8f2aea64e4f3 | ['Lorenzo Gutierrez'] | 2019-12-01 23:07:23.448000+00:00 | ['Marijuana'] |
Dynamic Programming with OpenCV : Implementing Kadane’s Algorithm to find brightest area on Astronomical images and videos. | Basic Astronomical Image
We all have come across various OpenCV libraries and have been using them to get the brightest area’s or spot’s on images. Apparently, we have our cv2.minMaxLoc(…) in OpenCV to do this and get our location. But have you ever wondered could we employ an dynamic programming method for this approach.
This is a problem that's called the maximum contiguous subarray sum in Algorithms. We usually have a 1d array and are asked to find the maximum sum that's possible out of all subarrays of that array. We can employ brute force method to solve it in O(n²) times or a divide and conquer to get it in O(log n) times. We will use dynamic programming for our approach to get it in O(n) times.
Coming to our problem, we have an image which we can read using an OpenCV method and we process the image to get a 2D array out of it.
We cant directly input the array into Kadane’s Algorithm as after we read the image we wont get a 2d array and it will be of higher pixel rate which could run very slow on Kadane's Algorithm. Hence we first reshape it to a smaller matrix of say (150,150) shape. Please note that the more we reduce the faster we get the process done. It was noted that with 150 on an average it took 2 seconds. if we go for 100 we could get it in 0.7 seconds, but the accuracy gets reduced. So higher the better and hence we have to balance both time as well as pixel dimensions. 150 seems to work fine and get results pretty fast. Next we grayscale the array which makes our array into a 2d shape. It is important to note that we have the matrix of int8 type and hence the values will never go negative , but in Kadane’s we need negative too to get properly maximum sum area, else we may end up detecting full array as the sum. So we convert them to int16. We just smooth the array using a gaussian blur and then we subtract all values of array with its max value and add 1 to it. This solution help a lot when it want to get the exact area of brightest spot. Next we pass this array to a function for our Kadane’s Algorithm processing.
Next we pass the matrix to a function called findMaxSum which will basically give us the highest sum as well as co-ordinates corresponding the. This function will work by passing matrix columns into Kadane’s function and comparing and getting the maximum sum. The code is given below:
For deep understanding of working of the function, I have generated and example on 3 * 3 matrix. This link should guide you in live how each of the code works :
Now, once we have passed it using Kadane’s Algorithm we would have obtained our highest sum with co-ordinates corresponding to them. Since we want to indicate the brightest area on our image we need to circle it. So to find that coordinate we have to take average of finalbottom and finaltop with finalleft and finalright. This gives us the center.
The idea is to resize the image, but we know that once we resize the quality of image is reduced by huge margin. So the trick here is to use concepts of ratio and get the coordinates when the image is transformed into a particular larger pixels. So here we basically call the original image once again and find the coordinate with respect to the one generated on the resized image.
Once this is completed, we use cv2.circle function to get the circle on the brightest area of our image.
Thus in this way we end up getting the image like this:
We can also use the same concept and run it to get the brightest area on a video. The code for both image and video are given below, so feel free to star the repo and help me in case you can find better optimizations or doubts: | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/dynamic-programming-with-opencv-implementing-kadanes-algorithm-to-find-brightest-area-on-9fe6e9af38d4 | ['Siddharth M'] | 2020-12-30 10:18:08.426000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Dynamic Programming', 'Kadanes Algorithm', 'Data Structures', 'Opencv'] |
Building a Secure DeFi Crypto wallet | Want to create a crypto wallet where your users have complete control over their funds? Look no further! Start developing your own DeFi wallet today!
What is a DeFi Wallet?
A DeFi wallet is a secure crypto wallet that allows users to store their digital assets with no reliance on a third-party to hold their assets. Defi wallet development includes creating powerful digital wallets to help improve the entire Decentralized Finance ecosystem both in terms of transactional safety and efficiency. The real fact is that a DeFi ecosystem will never get stabilized without the wallets as they stand out to be the most crucial means of making payments in the system.
DeFi Wallet Types and Business Use Cases
Mobile Wallet: This type of wallet works on mobile devices. These wallet apps can be easily be downloaded from the authorized service providers’ access destination.
This type of wallet works on mobile devices. These wallet apps can be easily be downloaded from the authorized service providers’ access destination. Web Wallet: No sharing of private keys happens in this kind of wallet; the keys here are stored on the browsers online.
No sharing of private keys happens in this kind of wallet; the keys here are stored on the browsers online. Hardware Wallet: Out of the various wallet types available, hardware wallets have emerged as one of the secure wallets. They are available in the crypto sphere in the form of a physical device like a pen drive. Because of the top-notch security, they are impossible to hack.
Out of the various wallet types available, hardware wallets have emerged as one of the secure wallets. They are available in the crypto sphere in the form of a physical device like a pen drive. Because of the top-notch security, they are impossible to hack. System Wallet: These types of wallets are installed on desktop computer systems connected to the internet. These wallets need to be taken care of with proper attention and protection since any damage caused to the desktop system will have a negative impact directly on the wallets.
Security of a DeFi wallet
Defi wallets are not prone to any miscellaneous attack or hack since they provide top-notch security.
The public and private keys responsible for cryptocurrency storage are kept within the wallets and will never be stored anywhere else.
Even the wallet holders are permitted to withdraw a huge amount of money in a single transaction as some limits are set by default in the decentralized wallet types; this further improves the transactional safety of the DeFi ecosystem.
To Sum Up
If you want to harness the power of DeFi and provide your users with a robust and secure wallet or application platform, partnering with a reliable DeFi wallet development company is the best bet for you.
At Antier Solutions, we offer end-to-end DeFi wallet development services including, DeFi crypto banking wallet development, DeFi keyless wallet development, DeFi mobile wallet development, and more.
Schedule a free demo of our white label DeFi wallet development solution or connect with our subject matter experts to share your needs for a custom wallet built from the ground up. | https://medium.com/@antiersolutions/building-a-secure-defi-crypto-wallet-70c78d018ab5 | ['Antier Solutions'] | 2021-02-16 12:28:34.692000+00:00 | ['Ethereum Blockchain', 'Defi Wallet', 'Defi', 'Crypto Wallet', 'Blockchain Wallet'] |
Stubborn Mountains | Hi! I’m Terry Mansfield and I Specialize in Eclecticism
Here are some things about me you probably don’t know (and maybe don’t even care to know; sorry about that). | https://medium.com/flicker-and-flight/stubborn-mountains-8160a4ab5696 | ['Terry Mansfield'] | 2020-12-01 11:34:52.355000+00:00 | ['Mountains', 'Life Lessons', 'Poetry', 'Poetry On Medium', 'Poem'] |
‘These People Are Evil’: Drivers Speak Out Against Uber’s New Coronavirus Sick Leave Fund | “I think I’m going to fall through the cracks,” said Kimberly James, a 46-year-old driver for Uber Eats in Atlanta, Georgia. After a series of devastating hardships, including losing her house in a fire, James has come to rely on food delivery platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash to survive. In 2012, James was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, and her weekly income of $400 means she cannot afford to get sick. Health officials have warned that the coronavirus is especially dangerous for immunocompromised people, so today James has no choice but to isolate indoors.
“[Uber thinks] that drivers are college students, but what they don’t understand is that most are elderly, poor, and people like me.”
Uber’s Covid-19 sick leave program allows drivers to apply for up to 14 days of compensation through a new portal on its Driver app. One-time payouts are based on a person’s average daily earnings for the past six months. Someone making $28.57 per day is eligible for a payment of $400, the equivalent of 14 days of average pay, while someone earning $121.42 per day can receive $1,700, Uber says on its website. To qualify, drivers must have completed one trip in the 30 days before March 6, 2020, when the global program was first announced.
Only four types of people are covered by the program, according to Uber’s guidelines: those diagnosed with Covid-19, someone placed in individual quarantine by a public health authority, anyone “asked by a public health authority or licensed medical provider to self-isolate,” and drivers whose accounts have been “restricted by Uber as a result of information provided by a public health authority” that they have been exposed to Covid-19.
While these criteria seem broad, OneZero spoke to several Uber drivers who said they exclude many workers without access to medical care.
“[Uber thinks] that drivers are college students, but what they don’t understand is that most are elderly, poor, and people like me,” James said. “It’s the only job we can do.”
Last week, James submitted an application for financial assistance through Uber’s Covid-19 portal. After explaining why she had self-quarantined, her request for compensation was acknowledged by a customer service operator, who wrote, “We understand that health is an important subject, and we are sorry to hear about your experience,” while listing recommendations such as, “If you feel sick, stay at home.”
As James puts it, the Uber operator told her “to either basically get the virus or find a way to get a doctor’s note, and I can’t afford to go to a doctor.” Before Congress passed legislation making coronavirus testing free, some patients treated for the coronavirus saw hospital bills of more than $30,000. For many Americans, the cost of treatment is simply unaffordable.
At one point in the conversation, which OneZero reviewed, Uber directed James to a portal where law enforcement and public health officials can submit information requests — effectively a dead end. She has since stopped trying to convince Uber to provide financial assistance while she cannot work.
When asked why it was sending drivers to a law enforcement portal, a spokesperson for Uber told OneZero that it is “changing that process to better the increased volume and ensure it’s easier for drivers and delivery people to access.”
The company has not revealed how many drivers have applied for or received financial compensation.
“I need the company that I helped make a lot of money to be there for me,” James wrote in the conversation thread. | https://onezero.medium.com/drivers-say-the-uber-coronavirus-fund-is-failing-them-8c36aceace78 | ['Sarah Emerson'] | 2020-03-26 15:35:15.345000+00:00 | ['Gig Economy', 'Health', 'Uber', 'Business', 'Coronavirus'] |
Password cracking | I will be explaining to you how passwords are cracked using various different methods. However, firstly we must understand how login forms use passwords.
When a user logs into a website or application, the password they enter is converted into a one-way hash and this is compared to the one matching the username that is stored in the database. This is instead of storing plain text passwords in databases. However, not all companies do this as we saw from facebooks 2019 leak, where it was found that hundreds of millions of passwords had been stored in plain text for years.
Data leaks:
When there are data leaks, millions of users sensitive information can be stolen, including their passwords. If they use the same password for various of their accounts, using their email and password combination, an attacker or cyber criminal can gain access to various accounts which may end up being sold.
It’s not all bad news, most big companies nowerdays use up-to-date hashing algorithms in case of one of these senarios. Users passwords should be stored as hashes so if an attacker does manage to get their password, they cannot use it as it is not in plain text.
However, there are ways that these password hashes can be cracked. One way in which these hashes are cracked is brute force. We could use a tool like John the Ripper to continously try different passwords from a wordlist to see if we get a match. This is not very efficient however, because if the plain text password is not in the wordlist then you have just wasted a lot of time and if the passwords are strong enough, this can take months and even years.
Another option we have are rainbow tables. These are huge sets of precomputed tables with hash values that are prematched to possible plain text passwords. This allows for the password to be cracked in a very short amount of time. However, this can use a lot of storage (sometimes terabytes in size).
How to protect yourself:
Advice for users of websites which use login forms, use extremely strong passwords and use different passwords for each account. I know it is very hard to remeber these passwords but there is an option to make this easier. Use a password manager, lastpass is a personal favorite. Password managers are a great way to save login information securely, you must however remember a “master password”. This will be used so you can verify your identity and view or add passwords to your password manager.
Advice for the creators of these websites. Don’t use MD5 or SHA1 in your password hashing functions. MD5 and SHA1 are outdated and most rainbow tables will be able to crack these hashed passwords. Consider more modern algorithms like SHA2. You can also use a cryptographic “salt” in your hashing function. This will help defend agains rainbow tables.
If you are worried about data leaks, there is a great website where you can enter your email and it will tell you of any known data leaks you may have been involved in. The website is here: https://haveibeenpwned.com/. | https://medium.com/@spencerroffey/password-cracking-1f71ba83427e | ['Spencer Roffey'] | 2020-12-24 01:57:45.791000+00:00 | ['It', 'Ethical Hacking', 'Hacking', 'Passwords', 'Safety'] |
DAILY WORD 1/21/21 | 12. Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
13. But evil people and impostors will flourish. They will deceive others and will themselves be deceived.
2 Timothy 3:11–12 NLT
Today’s Passage covers two subjects that Paul has rehashed over and over throughout the Books of 1st and 2nd Timothy; Christians who live a Godly life will Suffer Persecution, and False Teachers will arise in the Last Days.
This has been mentioned so many times that it becomes obvious that Paul is trying to hammer these points into our heads so that we can in no way be caught by surprise when we are confronted by them.
Because of this, I’ve covered these topics in my DAILY WORD posts quite a bit. However, if Paul is concerned with our uptake of this information, it behooves me to ensure that as many times as he mentions it, that I rehash the subjects as well.
So, here we go. Paul knows what kind of Suffering we will face if we Answer the Call from God and become Leaders of other Christians. He has faced such Suffering throughout his tenure as a Leader but there is more to his intimate knowledge than just that.
We cannot forget that the man we know as Paul, one of the most revered and prolific Leaders and writers of the New Testament, began his life as Saul of Tarsus, one of the most feared and zealous persecutors of Christians that had ever terrorized God’s Believers.
So, to say that he knew what it was that these Christians were going to face as far as Suffering and Persecution goes, is a stark understatement, because he was one of the ones that had put them through a lot of that terror.
However, God Transformed his life on the road to Damascus (Acts 9) when He Showed him His Glory in the Form of a literally Blinding Light. God Spoke to Saul through that Light and asked why he was persecuting His people?
Saul asked Who was Speaking and God Told him that He was Jesus. He asked what God wanted him to do and he followed His Directions from there, eventually becoming the man that we know today; Paul who is giving us these warnings. But between his beginning and his death, Paul went through not only a Great Transformation but quite a bit of Persecution as well.
This is why he was so adamant about ensuring that those that took on the mantel of Christian Leadership were prepared for what he knew was coming. He had been on both sides of that particular coin. As persecutor and persecuted, he was in a position unlike any other, to speak on the subject.
Paul needed his Leaders to be ready for what he knew was on its way. For him not to give them warning, was for him to ignore his own experience and hard-won knowledge, and to fail in his mission. He needed them to carry a Strength within themselves through Preparation, that would take them through the trials he knew were coming.
Today, in this country, we are not yet facing the kind of Persecution and Suffering that Paul is warning us about here but you can be assured that it is indeed coming. The Word warns us of this and the climate in this country shows us just how swiftly things can shift from normalcy to chaos.
That chaos will sweep over the Church in the Last Days, driving many Christians who are not prepared for it to recant their Faith. This is unacceptable, especially for those that have been Called to Lead God’s people to the Truth. If the Leaders of the Church falter and fail, how are their followers supposed to display the Strength to endure?
The other situation Paul mentions over and over in these Letters to his Leaders is the rise of False Teachers. Those Christian Leaders that fall from the Truth and deceive “the very elect” with the lies and False Doctrines that they preach,
This is as dangerous a circumstance as Persecution and maybe more so, because it is coming from within the very Church that is supposed to be Guiding God’s people to the Truth. But those that fall into the category will do the exact opposite, they will steer the Church toward their destruction.
These False Teachers and Deceivers have been duped by the enemy and will, in turn, fool those that are seeking Truth in Guidance away from the exact thing they are looking for. If you are not versed in the Word for yourself, you can easily fall into this trap, because you will not know the Truth from the lies.
Paul, as the Leader of the Early Church, and as the writer of these Letters that we use even today, has to be sure that his followers have all the tools they will need in his absence to combat all of the weapons of the enemy, especially his most devious ones.
These two circumstances are just two of the examples of the kind of things that the enemy will try and utilize to lead us off the Proper Path and onto the Path of Destruction, where we will suffer his fate along with him.
But if we are aware of them, and we “Study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.”, we can be confident in our Ability and Preparation to fight back against the wiles of the enemy.
But if we are not Prepared, if do not heed Paul’s warnings, we will fall into the traps and pitfalls that have been set for us. This will mean our destruction and if we are Christian Leaders; it may mean the destruction of God’s people as well. We have a responsibility to be ready for this war, and Paul is helping us, through these repeated warnings, to do just that!
Have a Thought-Provoking Thursday and Get Right, So You Don’t Get Left!
#dailyword | https://medium.com/@flexskillz/daily-word-1-21-21-6a287c7dbe58 | ['Christopher Louis Reid'] | 2021-01-21 13:48:27.092000+00:00 | ['Bible Commentary', 'Leadership Skills', '2 Timothy 3', 'Persecution', 'Daily Word'] |
Medium vs. WordPress | Reader Question:
Should I use Medium to publish my blog or should I create a self hosted blog through a platform, such as WordPress?
Answer:
Whether a blogger is just starting out, or is at the stage where they are finally starting to gain some traction among readers, virtually all will consider the age old question — Should I use Medium to publish my blog or should I create a self hosted blog through a platform, such as WordPress?
I’ll start by saying that there is no definitive answer for everyone, so if you are looking for me to pick one of the two options, and discredit the other, this article is not for you.
If you want to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of each platform, learn more about what each really entail, and read a detailed comparison, this is the article for you.
Background on Blogging for Beginners
I would generally recommend to anyone that is considering starting a blog that they begin on a self-hosted setup.
Self-hosting means that a user has full access to all the site files and code and can deploy them in any way they like. A self-hosted site has its own domain name and is hosted by one of a number of web hosting providers who make server space available for self-hosted sites of all kinds. Owners of self-hosted sites are free to make changes to the site files in order to customize the website and add any needed functions.
The reason I would suggest a self-hosted blog over a site-hosted blog is pretty straightforward— if you want to build a blog that is taken seriously by search engines and readers alike you’ll want to avoid free hosts.
Free hosts just aren’t strong enough once you get beyond a certain point. And if you already are using Medium, there is no real reason to look at other free hosting options.
Free hosts include blog sites like Blogger, Tumblr or WordPress.com (WordPress.org is also free but you can only use it on a paid, self-hosted server) which don’t cost anything but also limit you in various ways.
Paid hosting accounts include companies like BlueHost, which host your blog and domain name for yourself. This is a more professional option and really gives you control of your servers and how you design, build and optimize your blog or website.
So the real question is — do you need a more customizable self-hosted blog or is a free but limited blog on a platform like Medium sufficient for your needs?
What is Medium?
If you are a Medium member, you obviously already know what Medium is. But for those that may not have set up a Medium account, below is a quick explanation of Medium:
Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams (Twitter Co-Founder) and launched in August 2012. It contains writing from a mix of amateur and professional writers. The initial goal behind the platform was to make it as easy as possible for people who have thoughtful things to say.
Medium has gained popularity among writers for it Partner Program. The Medium Partner Program allows anyone to quickly create sleek posts and to instantly monetize these posts.
Partner Program writers are paid based on how deeply Medium members read their work. As members read longer, writers earn more. In addition, we distribute a portion of each member’s subscription fee to the writers they read most each month.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is by far the most popular blogging platform in the world. WordPress powers over 30 percent of the Internet.
Pros:
Very flexible — WordPress gives you full control over every aspect of your site
— WordPress gives you full control over every aspect of your site Highly extendable — you can add almost any functionality through plugins (The WordPress directory has over 54,000).
— you can add almost any functionality through plugins (The WordPress directory has over 54,000). Thousands of mobile-friendly themes allow you to switch the design of your blog at the touch of a button.
allow you to switch the design of your blog at the touch of a button. The platform can be relatively easily search engine optimized and works well with social media.
You will have full ownership of your content.
Cons:
Beginner friendly, although running your WordPress website does involve some technical know-how. For that reason, there is a learning curve
You are responsible for site maintenance including backups, security, and performance.
WordPress is Perfect for:
Business blogs
Online businesses
Professional bloggers
Bloggers who want full control over their site
What Are the Features of WordPress That Have Made It so Popular in the Blogging World?
Plugins
The real power of WordPress comes from plugins, which allows you to do almost anything you want with your website. There are currently more than 30,000 free plugins available on WordPress.org repository alone. Thousands of paid plugins are available from various other sources as well.
Plugins allow you to do anything you want such as build email list, create an eCommerce store, and more. If you can think of some cool feature to add to your WordPress.org site, then there is a good chance that someone has already created a plugin to do just that.
Themes
WordPress.org offers thousands of themes available for self hosted WordPress sites. This makes it easy to make your blog or website look professional, while still maintaining a flair of originality.
Running Advertisements on Your Site
On a self hosted WordPress site, you decide whether to run ads or not. You control what kind of ads would display on your website. You can add affiliate links to your blogs or join any advertising program you want and display ads on your website.
You may even manage your own ads using some of the best advertising plugins. Most importantly, you will be the one making money from those ads.
Your Own Brand
With a self hosted WordPress.org site, you get your own domain name. This domain name is your brand identity.
You don’t want to share your brand with a web address like yourname.wordpress.com when you can get a domain name of your own.
With most WordPress hosting providers, you get your branded email address like [email protected] which looks more professional on your business cards or any other promotional material.
Monetization Options
One great advantage of a self hosted WordPress.org site is that you can easily add a full fledged eComemrce solution like WooCommerce to your website.
This allows you to sell things from your website, offer premium content, and grow your business. Even if you are just starting out as a small blog, you would still want to keep this option open.
Pricing
WordPress is an open-source solution which means it’s free to use. Keep in mind that self-hosted sites requires you to find a hosting provider and a domain name (which do cost money).
These do not all need to be provided by the same company, but this is typically simpler, especially if you are new to self hosted blogs. That is why I typically recommend Bluehost.
Bluehost simplifies the process of creating a blog or website by providing:
Free Domain Name for 1st Year
Free SSL Certificate Included
1-Click WordPress Install
24/7 Support
They are even running a special where they cover all of these services for as low as $3.95 per month (which is hard to beat).
If you are looking for additional cheap domains (maybe you want to buy and hold a domain name while you figure out your hosting needs), I would recommend NameCheap. There are lost of domain registrars, but NameCheap is that perfect sweet spot of cheap (without buying domains in larger bulk quantities) and user friendly.
Whatever you do, I would not recommend using GoDaddy for any of the above services!
Godaddy is completely overpriced for virtually every feature. It is user friendly, but it is not worth the markup when sites like NameCheap are essentially 99% clones, at lower prices.
Although you can always switch your hosting provider, domain registrar, (while still keeping WordPress and your underlying website architecture) it can be a really annoying process. I actually started with GoDaddy as one of my first providers and I shudder to think how much money I wasted applying for overpriced products and how much time it took to transfer most services to other providers.
What Is the Difference Between Free/Shared Hosting and Self Hosted Blogs?
Free Hosted Blogging Platform
A free blogging platform is one that you can simply sign up for a free account, get a free subdomain via the platform (i.e. bloggingguide.blogspot.com or bloggingguide.wordpress.com) and quickly set up your site.
Your files are stored (hosted) on the platforms servers, which you don’t have access to but you have the option to purchase a custom domain name. Some examples of free hosted blogging platforms are Blogger, WordPress.com, Joomla.com, Tumblr and Medium.
Self-Hosted Blogging Platform
Self-hosted is slightly more work to set up and comes with some added cost. You need a custom domain name and hosting in order to set up your site. A self-hosted blog is one that “lives” on your own server. You pay for hosting to rent digital storage space.
Self hosting means you have full control over your blog and have more options when it comes to layout, search engine optimization, advertising revenue, additional functions and more. You can install custom themes to brand your blog. You have complete access to your backend files, which allows you to make any necessary code changes. Some examples of self-hosted blogging platforms are WordPress.org, Joomla.org, Drupal.org and Ghost.org.
What Are the Main Differences Between Publishing on Medium and Creating My Own Self-Hosted Blog?
So hopefully you know a little more about what Medium and WordPress are, as well as what makes a self hosted blog different than a free hosted blog.
Now you are trying to decide which option is right for you.
Below are some of the Pros and Cons, when comparing Medium against a self hosted blog.
Note: While there are many self hosted blog providers, I will be focusing primarily on WordPress, when referring to self hosted blogs, below.
Factor — Cost
Differences: When it comes to cost, Medium is the clear winner. Posting on Medium is 100% free. Even if you choose a simple design on WordPress, acquire a cheap domain, and find affordable hosting, you will be spending at least $100 per year. Likely several hundred dollars if you want to really make your blog amazing.
Winner:
Medium
Factor — Control/Customization of Design
Differences: WordPress is the clear winner when comparing the ability of an author to customize their design. Not that Medium's uniform design is bad — it is actually one of the site’s overall strengths. Clean, organized, sleek aesthetic is what has helped Medium gain traction among readers and writers. But if you want to be able to change the layout, color scheme, font, text size, embed specific plugins, or create an e-commerce store related to your content, WordPress is the clear choice.
Winner:
WordPress
Factor — Control/Freedom of Speech/Platform Risk
Differences: While authors still own their content when publishing on Medium, it’s worth noting that Medium reserves the right to cancel your account or remove your content at any time. Although, in my experience, Medium is much better than platforms such as Quora, which ban members automatically and without explanation. There is also the greater risk that Medium will run into some sort of trouble and will shutdown. While I do not see this happening anytime soon, this is the risk when hosting your content on any third party company’s platform. This is why at a minimum, I recommend backing up your Medium articles periodically:
Even if Medium does not fail as many publishers, tech companies, and social media companies do, a more reasonable scenario might be that Medium is hacked or someone makes some sort of error and deletes massive amounts of content.
WordPress faces few of these risks. The platform almost never restricts or even get involved with individual blogs/websites (unless it is being used for something illegal). At a minimum, your freedom of speech is better upheld by WordPress.
Once you understand WordPress, you can easily export not only your articles, but entire site architecture for backup. So even if there were an issue with WordPress, you could keep operating your website, just on a different platform.
On WordPress, the monetization strategies are left up to you, and there is little risk of that changing. Medium could change the terms of the Partner Program overnight, and writers would have no recourse.
On Medium, you do have a built in audience. But curation and other factors that are out of your control, still determine much of one’s success on Medium. WordPress may not have the same built in audience, but you never need to wait for a publication or curator to distribute your articles. You have total control and the final say.
Winner:
Factor — Scalability/Growth Potential
Differences: Medium allows writers to scale their writing profile very quickly. You can quickly create a wide array of content by posting stories, a series, publications, responses, and letters. WordPress allows writers to create an ecosystem in which your content is a central component, but it is one of many verticals designed to build your brand and make money. Beside having your blog posts, you may also have other content related to your personal brand or business, such as detailed bio/company information, landing pages, eCommerce stores, forums, or private member access content. You can create all these verticals and promote them through Medium but Medium is not designed to do that making it somewhat challenging, and in many cases they actively try to prevent this (No advertisements allowed, no prominent CTAs if you want your content curated, etc.). WordPress allows users to truly build their own brand and choose how they grow.
Winner:
WordPress
Factor — Built in Audience/Ease of Finding New Readers
Differences: One of the greatest benefits of using Medium over a self hosted blog is that Medium offers a built in audience. Medium has somewhere between 85 and 100 million monthly active users, which demonstrates its massive audience and potential reach of content. While millions of people may use WordPress for their blogs, each blog has the disadvantage of needing to figure out how to gain readers.
In addition to having a built in audience, Medium has extremely high domain authority, boosting your article’s rankings in any search engine. Most self hosted blogs, especially new ones take years to establish significant domain authority.
Domain authority of a website describes its relevance for a specific subject area or industry. This relevance has a direct impact on its ranking by search engines, trying to assess domain authority through automated analytic algorithms.
For example, Medium has an extremely high score of 95/100, whereas most newly created blogs will struggle to exceed 10.
Winner:
Medium
Factor — Technological Simplicity/Ease of Use
Differences: Medium is easier to use than WordPress. This is one of the main draws of Medium — its WYSIWYG design allows anybody to create an account, write articles with little or no technical experience required, and automatically enable monetization through the Medium Partner Program. That said, WordPress has made creating a self hosted site simple enough, that virtually anyone can create one. While WordPress sites can be complex and highly customized, there are countless user friendly features that allow anyone to create a sleek, personalized blog.
Winner:
Medium
Factor — Monetization of Content
Differences: Most free hosted blogs would not even begin to compare to WordPress. But this is where Medium shows its strength. Despite being a free platform, it allows authors to monetize their writing with literally just a few clicks. For most writers this is the biggest value of publishing on Medium. However, if you are interested in building your own brand, generating leads, selling products, or running ads on your own website, WordPress easily trumps Medium. Ultimately, this factor is a tossup because it really depends on how you want to monetize your content. Medium offers a simple but rigid program. WordPress offers more opportunities for monetization and customization but requires more effort and skill.
Winner:
Tie Between Medium and WordPress
Factor — Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Differences: If you know what you are doing WordPress has an amazing array of plugins and features that can boost your SEO. That said, this does take some experience and knowledge. Medium on the other hand allows writers to customize most elements of their post, with relative ease.
Also, Medium has extremely high domain authority, boosting your article’s rankings in any search engine. Most self hosted blogs, even ones with all the proper SEO optimization, take years to establish significant domain authority.
Domain authority of a website describes its relevance for a specific subject area or industry. This relevance has a direct impact on its ranking by search engines, trying to assess domain authority through automated analytic algorithms.
For example, Medium has an extremely high score of 95/100, whereas most newly created blogs will struggle to exceed 10.
So by simply posting on Medium your content instantly gains more credibility with search engines. That said, Medium could have made it easier/clearer as to how writers can make these changes. Evaluating this factor depends upon your needs and level of technical experience, as WordPress does offer amazing and relatively easy to use SEO plugins.
Winner:
Tie Between Medium and WordPress
It’s also worth noting that all of the advantages in this list favoring Medium, are subject to change. Medium could make publishing less simple, they could charge writers, they could change the terms of the partner program to require content to be exclusively published on their site, or they could simply stop the Partner Program and change business models.
Will these detrimental changes happen? It’s not likely. But it is possible.
These are the larger risks worth considering before investing hundreds or thousands of hours of your time and/or money into a single endeavor.
That said, having used both WordPress and Medium, I think that Medium is an amazing product, and for most new bloggers/writers, it is probably a good way to start. If your content takes off, you always reserve the right to move to a new WordPress site.
And while this article is meant to be a comparison of Medium and WordPress (assuming a writer is trying to pick between the two), there is an obvious third choice for those not constrained by the cost or time— publish on both platforms! The two platforms are not mutually exclusive. | https://medium.com/blogging-guide/medium-vs-wordpress-97f9974005d0 | ['Casey Botticello'] | 2020-10-21 16:54:17.486000+00:00 | ['Medium', 'Blogging', 'Writing', 'Writing Tips', 'WordPress'] |
3 Video Marketing Technologies from Explain Ninja | There are 3 basic video marketing technologies you may choose for effective engagement through your business explainer videos. They include video advertising via Google AdWords, advertising with YouTube bloggers or influencers, and promotion of your YouTube channel. Find which video marketing technologies are the best for your tasks.
What are videos marketing?
Video marketing is a generalized concept. Behind it, there may be hidden various technologies for attracting new customers with the help of videos. If we talk about digital business, video ads shown through Google AdWords, placing ads on YouTube bloggers’ channels, and creating and promoting your own YouTube channel with unique content will be the best examples.
Each technology is suitable in some cases, has its own advantages and disadvantages. And it’s up to you to pick when and what to apply either of them, be it a video of marketing mix or either of them used separately.
How to choose video marketing technology
So, before you pick technologies you like or need to apply for your video campaign, you’d better familiarize yourself with all the nuances of each. Also, it will help you understand which way is the best in your particular case.
1. Content on your YouTube Channel
Explainer videos or other commercials are usually self-created. But if you advertise your product or brand, then you may shift this work to professionals. Therefore, you will need some production budget to cover costs for a professional promo video.
Using self-made branded content will help you develop your business faster and engage the audience in various ways. The technology allows regularly filling in your channel with helpful content and attracting the target audience.
Create brand awareness;
loyal community around the brand;
communication with subscribers through videos;
train potential customers to use the product;
inform about new updates;
attract potential customers to the channel from YouTube, Google, and other search engines;
attract to your website and blog.
How to launch:
Define video format; make a content plan; purchase equipment for filming, or hire a reliable vendor for shoots, create videos, edit, optimize for search and placement on the channel; promote video using your own website, social networks, thematic channels on YouTube or advertise through AdWords; work with video comments (answers, tips, thanks); analyze the audience’s reaction to different videos, adjusting the style and format of the video. prepare new material.
forming an expert image and gaining trust;
a full-fledged communication channel with the audience;
keeping the audience’s attention with the help of subscription forms;
videos engage much better than social media posts.
serious resources are needed to shoot high-quality videos;
regularity in video posting is required;
promotion of channel and attracting first customers is a long-playing process;
It is not easy to assess the contribution of a channel to conversion, especially if it is launched simultaneously with the site, groups in social networks, and other advertising tools.
2. Working with YouTube bloggers
There are dozens of bloggers on YouTube with a loyal audience and high rates. Placing ads in their videos attracts potential customers because they are loyal to bloggers and tend to trust them in everything.
There are several types of advertising with bloggers:
direct advertising (your videos 30–60 seconds long are inserted at the beginning, middle, or end of the video);
promo (blogger’s video is completely dedicated to your product);
mentions (in this case, the blogger organically integrates information about your brand or product into their video, and viewers do not think it an advertisement);
links in the description (a link to your page with a short explanatory text is added to the description for the video).
Expand the audience coverage through new channels;
Attract new target audience to the site;
Increase brand awareness and build trust;
Increase the number of targeted actions (subscriptions, sales, etc.).
How to launch:
First of all for this type of marketing with videos, you
Search for channels on YouTube according to your specific criteria (coverage, topic, number of subscribers, placement price, channel age, etc.).
Clarify on available ad formats (link in the description, promo video, mentions).
Agree on the placement of advertisements in detail (who makes the video, what data is needed, the budget, etc.).
Do the execution control and traffic flow tracking.
attracting a loyal audience and expanding coverage;
fixed price of advertising;
when ordering promo videos and mentions in the form of integration, you do not need to spend money on content creation;
the cost of one click is lower than when placing ads through AdWords;
there is no need to negotiate directly with bloggers and attract agencies with high commissions;
there are not many TOP bloggers and they usually work with agencies;
you need to find and pitch them on your own and order placements;
it may be expensive if you blog with a real influencer.
Influencers from Dribbble
3. Video advertising via Google AdWords
Google AdWords is one of the video marketing technologies used to advertise on YouTube.
There are 3 types of advertising there:
TrueView In-Stream (video advertising at the beginning, middle or end of the video, which the user may skip after 5 seconds of showing. The fee is charged if the user has watched 30 seconds of the video or watched it to the end if the video is less than 30 seconds long).
(video advertising at the beginning, middle or end of the video, which the user may skip after 5 seconds of showing. The fee is charged if the user has watched 30 seconds of the video or watched it to the end if the video is less than 30 seconds long). TrueView Video Discovery (advertising is displayed in the list of related videos. Clicking starts watching the video. Money is debited after the user clicks on the advertising icon).
(advertising is displayed in the list of related videos. Clicking starts watching the video. Money is debited after the user clicks on the advertising icon). Splash ads (this is a 6-second video at the beginning of YouTube videos. You cannot miss them. You will be charged for 1000 impressions).
(this is a 6-second video at the beginning of YouTube videos. You cannot miss them. You will be charged for 1000 impressions). Increase brand awareness;
warm-up the audience;
get fast traffic to the site or attract YouTube subscribers;
attract traffic and boost sales, etc.
How to launch:
Create advertising videos;
register in Google AdWords and launch a new campaign (type — “Video”);
select the campaign goal (“Brand and product awareness, etc.”);
do the campaign setup (daily budget, start and end dates, networks, languages, display locations, bid strategy, targeting demographics, interests, etc.);
specify the key phrases and create ads in the selected format;
launch ads moderated by Google AdWords;
monitor display parameters and adjust settings.
Measure success and analyze results.
the quick attraction of traffic and increase in coverage;
accuracy of performance assessment thanks to the built-in analytics system;
the ability to make adjustments or stop the campaign at any time;
payment for specific actions — views or clicks from links;
the ability to accurately target your audience thanks to the wide targeting options;
the ability to bring back the audience thanks to retargeting.
high cost of click-through advertising, especially in expensive niches with high competition (development and promotion of websites, Fintech, insurance, etc.);
direct dependence of the flow of clients on the advertising budget costs (you stop the ad — there will be no new clients);
restrictions on advertising in certain niches.
the need to involve an AdWords specialist to properly set up a campaign if you are a no-skilled one.
Video designing art from Explain Ninja
Basically, to measure the success of your campaign, in either case, you will need to pay attention to the following performance indicators:
the number of clicks on the link under the video;
time spent on the website;
bounce rate and viewing depth;
the cost of one conversion;
the number of subscriptions received (registrations, purchases);
the cost of a new subscription or other targeted action;
the average check of the user who clicked from the video and made a purchase.
Also, do not forget to read out the AdWords instructions carefully and bloggers’ agreements and other materials at hand. They will allow you to get better at what you’re doing and open up some more potential as a professional video content marketer.
Animation design
Conclusion
Of course, the best marketing video game technology or video business technology or whatever the video you use to promote your business will be a mix. To get the most out of your video marketing, it’s worth using all three tools for sure.
To begin with, you may start creating and promoting your own channel, which is a minimum budget case. Next, enable the placement of advertisements for YouTube bloggers or partner one to place something there. And to back up this network, launch a video ads campaign via Google AdWords for good.
Such a tremendous balanced approach will allow you to reach a broad audience, optimize costs and take full advantage of video marketing opportunities with incredible explainer videos. Have a try!
Have anything to add? — Welcome! | https://medium.com/@explain.ninja/3-video-marketing-technologies-from-explain-ninja-534473a6c15c | ['Explain Ninja'] | 2021-11-29 10:51:24.017000+00:00 | ['Video Technology', 'Animation', 'Explainer Videos', 'Design', 'Video Marketing'] |
Growing Up Japanese-American In A Time Of Islamophobia | Growing Up Japanese-American In A Time Of Islamophobia
How President Trump’s Muslim ban — Executive Order 13769 — echoes WWII’s infamous Executive Order 9066.
Recently, my mother sent a picture of our traditional Hinamatsuri dolls.
In the past, my sister and I helped her unpack each doll — about 16 in total — and arrange them on a precarious platform in our living room.
This time, it was just the emperor and empress sitting on top of the family piano.
The picture was gorgeous, but something felt wrong. I quickly realized that it embodied how it felt growing up Japanese American: beautiful but abbreviated.
Emperor and empress Hinamatsuri dolls in Sophia’s childhood home. Photo courtesy of Sophia Stephens.
We are allowed to be here, but the way I’m treated sometimes keeps me in a state of doubt. The slights are big and small — from the smirk of disgust from the cashier at Safeway as I buy daikon, miso paste, and other Japanese foods, to men leering at me as they guess “what” I am because of my “exotic” appearance. Sometimes racism feels like death by a million paper cuts, other times like being hacked by a machete.
How close can we get to being American? How close can we get to being Japanese?
Getting too close to one end or the other of the spectrum threatened our affiliations.
I discovered the story of Japanese internment during World War II by myself since I never learned about it in grade school, and my parents didn’t talk about it. I studied alone for years until my Asian American Studies class in college.
Now this painful reality of targeting ethnic communities is no longer confined to the sterile safety of a university classroom. It is happening now, again…with President Trump’s immigration policies.
Sure, my family is not at the epicenter of this, but we ride our own waves from the shock and despair of this latest betrayal.
I’m only one or two generations away from the immigrant experience. My mother is a green card holder from Japan who met my father in the 80’s while studying in the States. My father is a first-generation American — he’s the son of a World War II refugee who fled to America from Greece at the age of five to escape the Nazis. So the topic of travel bans and discrimination isn’t too far away to talk about with either parent.
When my mom talks about Trump’s executive order on immigration, she says “Now it is seven countries, but what is next? Japan? China?”
She sighs.
“ If I can’t go back to see my mother in Japan, and I cannot come back to the United States, I cannot imagine… I am always optimistic, though. I hope that Japan will stay okay.”
This worry permeates my mind, but I know that there are others whose lives are not okay right now and affected much more deeply than I am. Although I’m not Muslim, I’ve been spending time at the Islamic Center of North Seattle since the travel ban to feel a sense of connection to the community.
The last time I went, I was taught how to worship — alternating from having our feet or shoulders touching as we listen to prayer to prostrating ourselves on soft carpet.
Each time I bend forward at prayer, I can see the whiteboard in the back says, “Muslims — do not be afraid. We fight for each other” out of my peripheral vision.
I wonder about Buddhist temples and Japanese spaces of community during World War II America. What was that atmosphere like? Was it like this?
The grief of marginalized people is universal.
And that is a horrifying comfort, if we can even call it that. To be honest, I don’t know what to call it.
After prayer, I turn and ask the woman next to me what the community will do for now.
“We keep living,” she says. “Life is hard, that is the way it is for us. But we do not give up.”
She asks my ethnicity and I tell her that I am Japanese. She nods her head.
“So you know this, too.”
Sophia Stephens grew up in Wenatchee, Washington and lives in Seattle. | https://medium.com/generation-youthradio/growing-up-japanese-american-in-a-time-of-islamophobia-8762b4b959cd | [] | 2017-02-15 00:23:05.207000+00:00 | ['Islamophobia', 'Japanese', 'Refugees', 'Asian American'] |
The New Man: How A Swiss Army Knife Can Solve Toxic Masculinity | The New Man: How A Swiss Army Knife Can Solve Toxic Masculinity
CyberTool M by Victorinox
Is anyone else tired of hearing about so-called toxic masculinity? I know I am. I’m also tired of hearing people use words without knowing what they mean.
Here’s the definition of masculinity: qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men. And now for a few of those qualities that fit the above definition: strength, courage, independence, leadership, and assertiveness. If you look at these qualities, there is nothing here that could be considered “very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.” (I grabbed this definition of “toxic” from a quick Google search).
Like barnacles attaching themselves to the hull of a boat, though, certain beliefs have become associated with what makes a man manly, including the belief that men must be hypersexual, emotionless, hard-driven animals.
For such men, being strong means having big “guns” (although they might need to use a hook to reach back and get the toilet paper). Courage is confused with being angry almost all of the time. Independence is taken to mean that they cannot accept any help from others; otherwise, they are weak. Assertiveness is confused with being a jerk. And leadership? These men have none.
The image above is a stereotype. Like all stereotypes, it arose because there are men who behave like this. These men should not be taken as role models; instead, they should be viewed as what they are: examples of what happens when masculine qualities are distorted and amplified negatively.
I want to scrape these barnacles off the ship of Masculinity, and I’m going to use a Swiss Army Knife to do it. Since there aren’t any helpful male role models (the ones who try are often too feminine to be called masculine role models), this inanimate object will demonstrate what healthy masculinity looks like.
Since I don’t want you to have to jump all the way to the top of this article to refer back to the picture of my personal Swiss Army Knife, I’ll repeat it here.
With this picture in mind, I will now break down how the tools present in this humble knife can be a powerful metaphor for healthy masculinity. Along the way, I will provide links to resources I have found helpful; please note that none of these are affiliate links. Ready to begin? Let’s go!
The Bottle Opener and Can Opener
Opening. It can be so hard to open, can’t it? I have found that there are two types of openings that I need to accomplish: taking action that opens me up to the possibility of failure and being emotionally open (and therefore vulnerable) to others around me.
I was very emotionally open as a child, very willing to trust those around me. At the same time, I had a side of me that was also very closed off. Sometimes I was even pretty mean.
My parents got divorced when I was about five, and I missed my father terribly. Every time I would see him, I would run up to him, give him a big hug, and tell him how much I loved him. That was my open side.
A day later in school, though, I’d be the kid telling my color-blind classmate to color his drawing of Santa purple instead of red. Or if someone wanted to play with me, I might hit them on the head with a plastic shovel and play by myself. Those were manifestations of my mean side.
When I was six, I started watching Star Trek. The character that fascinated me the most was Mr. Spock. No matter what happened, Spock was always able to lean on logic to get through it. I was in awe.
Being able to be so emotionally controlled became my goal. I worked on it throughout my childhood and into my teen years. I thought being in control at all times was the height of accomplishment, and I practiced stuffing my emotions for many years.
Inside, though, I was far from controlled. If you could see inside my mind and soul at that point, you would have seen a storm of rage punctuated by images of extreme violence. I was angry at everyone and everything. Mainly I was just angry at having been born.
Sometimes I would drop my control, and the anger would seep out around the edges. I remember telling a classmate one time that he’d better shut his mouth before I decided to slit his throat. He shut up, but his face was red with anger.
By the time I was in my thirties, I was angry all the time. I had had some psychological counseling in my teens, so I knew it was dangerous to stuff my emotions. I figured I was smart enough to avoid the problem.
I began drinking heavily. I’d go out with friends and have a few drinks. Then I might have more with them or, more often, at a bar by myself. Then I’d go home and have some more. Maybe I’d throw in a few pills, just for good measure.
I remember having a realization one time that I was stone-cold sober after having twelve glasses of wine. It was the first time that alcohol had been unable to make me feel different.
Then I began to get arrested. I was eventually arrested twice for drunk driving. While I was lying on the floor of a jail cell for another time, I realized I had to change something.
The first thing that came to mind was that I should buy a gun and put a bullet in my head, just as my father had done a few years earlier. I also briefly considered grabbing a gun from a police officer and pointing it at another police officer. I figured that my luck had been bad for years, though, and I didn’t want to chance ending up a mental vegetable or handicapped in some other way.
Finally, the thought came that maybe Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) could help. I got out of jail, went to a bookstore and bought the Big Book of AA, and gave it a read. From that reading, I knew I had to have what AA offered. I decided to drop all of my preconceived notions about AA and its people. I also decided to drop my notions of what I thought worked and didn’t work; after all, my own knowledge had availed me nothing.
From that tiny bit of willingness to change, my life began to open.
In my first year in AA, I began to be open to new perspectives, new activities, a lot of things that were new to me. I began to realize that the ideas I had held my entire life were holding me back. I was willing to do things differently.
One big realization I had was that I was a slave to my emotions and the opinions other people held of me. I realized that I was selling myself short by giving in to my anger or trying to please other people. Instead of being the independent person I thought I was, I was truly dominated by others.
Another realization was that the image of maleness being sold by the culture was useless to me. I had embraced its notions, and all I had become was more and more psychotic. I realized that to live the life that I wanted, I would have to find my own notion of masculinity.
These notions led me to the conclusion that I had to get free. First up: loosening up the bondage of anger. Abandoning my previous technique of stuffing my emotions, I tried something new: observing them. This meant that when I was angry, I would stop myself from taking the first action that popped into my mind (screaming at or punching someone) and instead say, “Why do I feel this way?”
By doing that, I realized that what was occurring was that I had expected something from someone. I had expected that the person who cut in front of me would not do that. Or that the girl I fancied would fancy me back. Or that the person I engaged to clean my apartment would do so exactly as I wanted without needing a lot of instruction.
Two things emerged out of this realization: I began to see that my expectations were pretty unrealistic and that most people were not trying to do anything to me; they were trying to live their own lives as best they could.
I also realized that by observing my emotional reactions, I could decide to change them. Instead of being angry, I could choose to accept that the person in front of me who stimulated my reaction was not trying to do that — they were operating out of their own expectations.
This was the spot where I could choose to extend a little grace to them instead of offering them something else. When I started actively making that choice, my life and relationships improved. By experiencing success in one area of my life, I became open to trying new approaches in other areas.
And that emotional control I thought I needed? It turns out all I had to do was stop trying to control them, and they stopped controlling me.
I want to briefly touch on one point before moving on to other topics. As I was trying new approaches to dealing with my emotions, I failed many, many times. It’s not easy to rewire your brain when so much time has been spent laying the wiring in the first place. Each failure, though, gave me new insights. By being aware of why I failed, I became less likely to do so again. In short, my failures paved the way for my eventual success.
By trying and failing and mining those insights, I had become open to trying other new things. I realized that failure might represent a step back on my journey to attain something, but that step back would give me the energy to pursue success. Instead of failure become final, it had become a new tool.
So, openings. They’re hard, yes. But so worth it.
The Screwdriver and Bits
Why does my knife have a screwdriver with bits when the heads of the can and bottle openers can be used as screwdrivers? Because those tools aren’t appropriate for every situation, they don’t give the right leverage. And without the right leverage, it’s easy to screw something up (pun intended).
It was Archimedes who is reported to have said, “Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I will move the world.” Whether Archimedes actually said that or not, the saying makes a good point: anything can be moved with the right leverage.
Let me give you an example: when my father committed suicide, I was left with a feeling of guilt that would not go away. To get some relief, I talked to a psychiatrist about my guilt right after the event. He told me that there was nothing to be guilty about; I could not have done anything to change the situation.
Nevertheless, I still harbored the idea that I could have changed the outcome if I had done something differently. A few years later, I talked about this situation over the course of many sessions with another counselor. Even though the guilt had lessened, and I had gained a clearer perspective about my father’s possible motivations, the guilt persisted.
Several years later, another bout of guilt over my father’s death hit me; it was also accompanied by extreme anxiety. My counselor suggested I try EMDR on this issue to see if I could change the result. I was skeptical but agreed to do it.
Over the course of an hour and a half session, my counselor walked me through the situation and my emotional reaction to it. As we proceeded, I could feel a distance opening up between me and the emotions of guilt I had around my father’s death. By the end, I was at peace with the situation.
Even though I occasionally think about my father’s death, I do not have the same emotional reaction, and my guilt over it is gone.
I tell you this story to point out that I had tried everything recommended to help deal with my guilt and found no relief. When the right technique was applied, though, a better result emerged — a result I was not really expecting.
That’s the power of leverage.
We can apply leverage in every area of our lives to create the kinds of life we want. Take the example of Colonel Harlan Sanders. Sanders bounced from job to job (and wife to wife) during his lifetime; he had a hard time finding anything that interested him long enough to stay with it for long, it seems. He finally settled on cooking and spent a good portion of the latter part of his life building what would become Kentucky Fried Chicken while sleeping in his car. Finally, he was able to sell KFC for $2 million (a princely sum at the time).
What does the story of Colonel Sanders have to do with leverage? Easy. Harlan Sanders took a simple recipe for fried chicken and leveraged it into millions of dollars through his dedication and hard work. It’s a reminder that no matter how humble our resources, leverage can multiply those resources into something we could not dream of.
Have a cause you believe in? If you can get others interested in that cause and turn it into a movement, you can have an impact that you never imagined. Leverage at work again.
So, where in your life can you apply a little leverage to create something better?
The Pliers
Ever had to turn a knob and couldn’t quite budge it? I bet you used a pair of pliers to get it started and then found it was easy to continue to turn it without the pliers, right?
I have all kinds of “knobs” in my life; I call them “projects” and “goals”. No matter how much I may want to start pursuing some of these, I sometimes find it difficult to get started. When I remember I have a set of pliers in my toolkit, I can apply leverage to get myself started.
Two tendencies within me often hold me back: I feel that I have to know everything about something before I start, and once I get started, I feel I must do everything perfectly. When these tendencies drive the bus, I procrastinate because I feel that if I can’t do it the way it should be done, why even bother starting?
So how do I use the pliers to apply leverage in my daily life? I sit down and do one thing each day for each project and goal I have. It may not be a big step, it may not be a perfect step, but it is a step. And each step gets me closer to my goal of finishing my project. As I work, I often have to remind myself that even an imperfect step is better than no step at all.
When working through my tendency to procrastinate, it doesn’t matter if I am doing something the “correct” way or am doing it perfectly: every action taken to fulfill my goal will produce a result. I may like that result or not. If I don’t, I’ve learned something that will help me in the future. I may even (gasp!) have to do something over again if I really don’t like it. It makes no difference; by engaging with the process instead of the result, I will gain valuable knowledge that will help me. Maybe not on this project, but the next one.
Now let’s talk about the idea of doing something the correct way. If I were a surgeon, there would be a minimal number of ways to do something; correctness would definitely matter. In my everyday life, though, I have found no absolutely correct way to do most things I want to do, yet there is a way to proceed that makes sense for me as an individual. It may not be the way the experts suggest. For me, though, it works and works well. I’ve learned to embrace this idea of correctness, and it has produced a feeling of freedom and inspired my creativity to flow more easily.
Then there’s the idea of being able to do something perfectly. As a man, I often have trouble with not being the best right out of the gate. This is partially because I have very high standards for myself and because I have been exposed to the narrative of masculinity in my culture and have ingrained within me the belief that I should know everything.
That belief doesn’t serve me, or anyone else, well. What’s more useful is to begin. When I need a little help remembering that, the pliers remind me that if I just apply a little leverage to get started, I’ll have an easier time of it later.
If, as men, we give up that we have to be experts in everything and concentrate on getting one thing done on each of our goals, we will be better off in the long run and less likely to be frustrated. And without that frustration, our relationships and our lives will improve vastly.
The Large Knife Blade
Every day we are bombarded on every side by information. This volume of information makes it hard to make decisions. What diet should I follow: keto, paleo, vegan, pescetarian, vegetarian? Should I be taking fish-based or algae-based Omega 3s (or do I need to be taking these supplements at all)?
I admit that I’m occasionally overwhelmed by the information coming at me. I have found that if I rely on the Internet, social media, or the mainstream news to help answer questions such as the ones above, I will be more confused when I end than before I started. When I think I have my decision narrowed down, I’ll find a bunch of information that contradicts the information I found to base my decision on. It’s easy to fall down information rabbit holes that it’s impossible to dig out of.
When these situations occur, I have found that it’s great to have a tool to cut through the noise. This is the large knife blade’s role: it helps me slash a path out of confusion to freedom. What faculty of mine corresponds to the large knife blade? My intellect, of course.
Over time I have developed the skill to read objectively and use my intellect to tear apart arguments. Often I have found that the “arguments” presented to us today are classic Aristotelian logical fallacies. So the “information” I was using to make my decisions was really disinformation: someone was trying to sell me something. It didn’t matter if they were actually selling something; news outlets are constantly selling their point of view to all who will listen.
If you haven’t developed your own powers of discrimination, there’s no time like the present to start. Buy Aristotle For Everybody by Mortimer J. Adler, along with the collected works of Aristotle, and start reading. Then start reading about symbolic logic, how propaganda works, and the various forms of manipulation you are exposed to every day. Armed with intellect, go out and start taking apart what you see. You’ll probably be appalled at what you find.
Oh, and that question about diet? The diet I decided to follow is the one that works for my body. How did I find what worked? By trying various approaches and seeing how my body handled it. I have found that it’s quite a useful exercise to treat my life as a series of experiments and record the data for each experiment and then act on what the data says. Try it. It truly can be that simple.
And the Omega 3s? I could tell you what I did, but then what would then happen to man’s quest for knowledge? Do your own research and find out. To make a good decision, learn about supplements, delivery methods (capsule v. tablet v. liquid, etc.), the bioavailability of nutrients when a certain delivery system is used (will my body actually use that nutrient or nutrients when it is delivered in the manner it is delivered?), and what form of a supplement (for example, what’s the difference between niacin and niacinamide or magnesium oxide versus magnesium carbonate? Does taking a calcium pill help you or hurt you?) is best. Start with Mark Hyman’s The Ultramind Solution and go from there.
Through the process of using your intellect and learning to discriminate, you’ll find that you will save a lot of time and money because clickbait will be unable to lure you in, and you’ll be able to choose quality products.
You’ll also be happier, and that’s part of what we all want in life, right?
The Small Knife Blade
When I look back upon my life, the best times of my life had one thing in common: I had many advisers whom I could trust to give me wisdom. Developing our intellect is necessary, yes, but it has its limits. One of those limits is that we cannot know everything (something I find especially galling). In fact, it is often hard for us to know what we do not know (alas, I am not Socrates).
So, we need trusted advisors. That’s what the small knife blade represents: the wise advisors that we all need in our lives. Their wisdom is like the small knife blade: instead of the large blade’s slashing, the small knife blade dissects our ideas and lets us see inside to see if our thinking is sound.
The idea of having wise advisors is totally contrary to the accepted idea that men should somehow know a priori what is right and should not rely on anyone to help them; if they admit they don’t know, they just admitted they are weak.
If you can’t tell what a load of crap that attitude is, then I suggest you look back into history. Every king (and every man seems to want to be a king these days) had a circle of advisors. King Arthur had Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table. Henry VIII had Thomas Cromwell. The heads of Europe in the 18th century had Tallyrand. Kaiser Wilhelm I had Otto Von Bismarck.
All of these kings and heads of state knew that they needed more than their own wisdom to help them make their decisions, even if they sometimes resented it. Why then have we lost this idea?
Part of the reason is that the American ideal of “rugged individualism”, which was part of the American rejection of European tradition, has spread beyond America and into the world. Consequently, the idea of needing more than what our own intellect supplies has fallen out of favor.
The small knife blade exists to remind us that despite what culture may tell us, we need to be able to look at the fine details of a situation before rushing to judgment.
Okay, you say. Great. I’m not a king with a court full of advisers. Where do I find my Tallyrand? Look no farther than those friends of yours who are living lives that you respect (you do have friends, right? If not, start making some now.) Lay your concerns before them and ask them for their honest opinions. Tell them that you won’t take their advice as an attack but rather as input for creating a better life for yourself. Listen to what they say, honor it, and consider it deeply. When you have collected all of your friends’ advice, see if you can turn their good advice into a plan for your life.
Don’t just settle for a few advisers, though, have at least one for every area of your life. Are you an entrepreneur? Develop some mentors in this arena. Want to be healthier? Find someone to advise you. Want to be wealthier? Find a financial adviser. Your sex life not what it once was? Find someone who can help you with that. Emotional issues or addictions eating your lunch? Find a counselor. Don’t know good advisers? Again, ask your friends.
Above all, choose wise advisors. When doing so, it’s important to realize that wisdom does not always equate to intelligence. Some of the wisest advisors I have had in my life may not have been my match intellectually, but they had a perspective that was beyond mine at that time. So don’t hesitate to learn from every available source — you never know where you’ll find a diamond. Did Prince Hal disdain to learn from Falstaff? No, and neither should you.
I’ve also found that gender means nothing when choosing wise advisers. Women often provide me with better perspectives than men, probably because they mature faster than their male counterparts. I’ve never hesitated to hear the wisdom of women and, in fact, often seek women’s wisdom more than men’s wisdom; women have more often provided me valuable perspectives. You may find the same, or you may not. Try and see.
It’s important to have a variety of perspectives in our lives. Don’t let your life be based on unilateral decisions. Open up your decision making to new points of view. Then integrate the points of view into action steps.
Seeking input for every aspect of your life won’t be the easiest thing to do at first, but it will be worthwhile when you start to see how a more holistic view of your life allows you to sidestep traps that are snaring others.
The Scissors
There are times in life that we need to cut things out of our lives. Whether we have habits that are holding us back or relationships that drain us through their toxicity, chances are there’s at least something in your life that you need to cut out of it.
What I want to tell you is this: that’s okay. It’s normal. We often feel guilty or selfish when we feel that we might need to cut something out of our lives; our intuition says yes, but our hearts say no. We don’t listen to ourselves because we think we ought to gut it out and endure.
Why should that be the case? If you drank poison, you wouldn’t hesitate to use ipecac syrup to get it out of your system. So why should we endure other things that are just as poisonous? It’s because we can’t see them as poison as clearly as we see a bottle of arsenic as poison.
That smoking habit? We can rationalize it away as a coping mechanism, as much a part of our identities as our name. That relationship that drains us more than uplifts us? We tell ourselves it’s our fault for not trying harder.
Or, to hit closer to home for men, take that 12+ hour workday you work 5–7 times per week. Do you think it makes you more of a man to lose sleep, increase your stress hormones, and thereby increase your chance of premature death? If so, you’re not alone. It is, however, a bad and unsustainable habit. If you don’t break out of it voluntarily, your body will do it for you. Wouldn’t it be better to do it now instead of having to pay the hospital bills when you have a heart attack? Just saying.
If we’ve developed the habit of introspection, we can look at these bad habits of ours from a more detached perspective and admit they are harming us more than they are helping. As much as we think they help us cope, the cigarettes are destroying our lungs. The toxic relationships are costing us more in terms of our peace of mind than they give us in return for all of our efforts. The work schedule may be giving us more money to buy more things, but do we need all those things, or would our lives be better if we lived on simpler terms?
If you have not developed a habit of introspection, then maybe you have friends or other counselors who have been telling you about these things for a while. Listen to them. Then, when you’ve decided to make a change, ruthlessly cut the toxic elements out of your life with this pair of scissors. It probably won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.
Just in case it’s not obvious from what I’ve said above, I don’t like giving advice I haven’t used myself. That’s like claiming to be a black belt when you haven’t ever attended martial arts class. So, here’s a few examples of how I have used my pair of scissors in my own life:
Ten years ago, I stopped drinking after realizing I had a problem with it;
Nine years ago, I quit smoking when I realized I enjoyed riding my bicycle more than I enjoyed smoking;
More recently, I have adopted a healthier diet to help combat my cholesterol issues (some of which are genetic);
I have shown people who were dragging me down in various ways the door — and I’m not leaving it open for them to waltz back through.
It would be a lie to say that I accomplished all of the above by myself. On the contrary, I needed a lot of help from many different people to accomplish what I have listed. I didn’t just need the help of people, either. I needed plenty of spiritual help as well.
If I had taken the conventional wisdom of how men should behave to heart, I’d be dead right now. There are other times before I could get free of some of these habits that I should have died as well. The point is, no one should think they have to make major changes in their lives alone.
Also, that last item on the list (showing people the door) may be harder than it at first appears. If it feels tough to break away from someone you know is no good for you, you may be trauma bonded to that person. Discuss this with a qualified counselor to see if this is the case and develop tools to deal with it. Personally, I have had lots of counseling over these types of relationships.
Right now, I’m working on simplifying my life, and I’m sure I’ll use my scissors more and more as time goes on. I love the freedom that comes from not being weighed down by negative forces and the more positive path my life has taken without those forces dragging me down.
Give your scissors a try today, and let me know what you find.
The Tweezers
So far, we have used the tools above to provide leverage to get started, slash through the confusion in our lives, to dissect our own thinking, and cut out negative influences in our life. What possible use could tweezers be to us when we’ve already done so much?
Sometimes I don’t need to make the sweeping changes that we’ve discussed with some of the previous tools; I need to make a small change in how I approach living out my days. This is the tweezers’ role: to remind me to make the little changes that can make a huge difference. Like Aesop’s lion with a thorn in my paw, if I remove the tiny splinter that’s causing me so much pain, I find my life is so much better for it.
Let’s consider gratitude. For many years, I have been blessed to live a life where not only are all of my needs met, but I also have plenty of resources left over for things I merely want. What I have not had a lot of, strangely, is gratitude for my life.
When I started focusing on what I was grateful for, I began to see more of what was positive in my life and less of what I perceived as negative. I began to see how many resources I truly had: people who cared for me, a nice place to live, the ability to do what I want to every day instead of what I merely have to, and many other positive things that I had formerly taken for granted.
I also found that when I concentrated on gratitude, I was naturally more willing to give some of my time and resources to others to help them. Why? Because I was able to see how much I really had, I realized that sharing with others did not diminish what I had. When I gave, I also received. The more I gave, the more I received. It was like having a bank account where I received (at least) twice as much in return with every withdrawal, which made me want to give even more.
When I say I gave, sometimes I gave money, at other times I gave the gift of listening to others, and sometimes it was just giving a kind word to someone who needed to hear it. At other times, I gave some the gift of a reality check. And what did I receive? When I was able to give money to someone who needed it, I felt gratitude for being able to be in a position to share without expectation of repayment. When I truly listened to others, I was able to empathize with them and, in some cases, internalize some lessons about myself. When I gave someone a reality check, it was because I could see how they were hurting themselves with destructive behavior; I was reminded of times when I had been self-destructive and realized how much better my life was since I was able to put that behavior behind me.
Never be afraid to share. If you can exchange resources with another without attaching a string to that sharing, you will never be poor in any way.
I’m sure you can find many other good uses for your tweezers; let me know about it when you do.
The Multipurpose Hook
The multipurpose hook. Possibly the most misunderstood tool in the bunch. The Victorinox people say that it can be used to carry packages of up to 200 pounds. Other people have used it as a phone stand and a way to carry fish (Seriously! Look it up.)
Personally, I see the multipurpose hook and think, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” That’s not an insult, by the way. Let me explain why.
I was a multipassionate person before the word multipassionate came into the common vernacular. Whether I was translating Ancient Greek, working on and programming computers, studying martial arts, learning photography, or learning how to run longer distances — I wanted to be a master of all of it. Preferably tomorrow. I’d devour everything I could find on the subjects that interested me. At one point, I was practicing martial arts for most of my day in addition to going to school and being on the wrestling team.
Having a variety of interests and wishing to master them all put a lot of pressure on me. In some instances, I did become a master of what I was doing — and achieving that mastery wasn’t as great as it seemed it would be when I first started.
What I found, though, was that because I pursued knowledge in many different fields, I had perspectives that people who concentrated solely on learning one field did not. I used tools and understandings from one field to inform what I was studying in a completely unrelated field.
Being a “jack of all trades” has given me a broader perspective that has served me well. If I had listened to the conventional wisdom that I needed to focus on mastering one thing instead of dipping my toe in many, I would have missed picking up information and techniques that are very useful today.
Let me give you one example. When I was learning how to program, I came across the idea of decision trees and flowcharting as tools for algorithm development. While I have used both tools as a programmer, I also use the same tools to make decisions and forecast outcomes in my own life. When I use those tools, I am forced to think more concretely about all possible outcomes. If I had never picked up programming, I might never have found those tools and, as a result, have had unexpected problems arise more often than they, in fact, have done.
Here’s another one. When I picked up martial arts, I was young (about nine). I hadn’t had a lot of instruction in how to live a good life from my father before he and my mother divorced, and while my stepfather was a very strict disciplinarian, he never really encouraged me to strive for goals when I was younger. My martial arts instructor did. He let me know that I was welcome to study martial arts with him as long as I kept up my grades, was respectful to my parents, and strove to be a good person. Learning this encouraging discipline has helpful to me throughout my life. Had I not studied under that particular martial arts instructor, I probably would have had more discipline issues than I did.
The examples above illustrate why I’ve never believed in narrowing my world to just one pursuit. The pursuit of knowledge always seemed like an all-you-could-eat buffet, not a single, sad hamburger on a plate. This was contrary to the advice I received, which was that I had to focus on that thing exclusively to get better at something. Bull. Focusing too narrowly has only ever done one thing: put blinders on me so that I could not see other approaches that would help me.
Now don’t get me wrong: if you want to master something, go right ahead. Just don’t get so laser-focused on mastery that you miss tools in other fields that might help in yours. You won’t know what these tools are until you explore other domains of knowledge.
The Corkscrew
So since you know that I no longer drink, what use can I possibly find for a corkscrew, you ask? I have found that a corkscrew is a great way to untangle the knots of my life; I can insert the corkscrew into the knot, and it comes loose.
What are the “knots” of my life? When I am intolerant of another’s point of view, struggling in my vocation, and unwilling to change things that I know I need to change — like letting go of a grudge — each of these are examples of knots in my life. Although my life is still quite good, these knots represent places where I need to do some work on myself.
So, how do I use a corkscrew on these knots? The first step is acknowledging that I have work to do; that sets the corkscrew in the knot’s body. I’ll be the first to admit that I often resist making these changes. Usually, I have to come to a place where I have seen the effects of these knots in my life, and I can truthfully say, “Okay, I’m tired of this. It’s time to change.” Often, I feel a ponderous heaviness on my shoulders when I come to the point of being tired of a knot like I’ve been carrying the weight of the world around.
I open myself up to change instead of trying to gut my way through it because I have found that I do myself more harm than good when trying to push through one of my knots. Preferring to avoid unnecessary pain, I instead become willing to engage in the necessary pain of change.
Once I have opened myself up to the possibility of change, then it’s time to get down to the hard work of it. This usually requires me to talk to my advisors, listen to them, find resources to support me, and begin doing the work. I also have to remind myself that I’m not going to achieve success at changing overnight, but that change is a process with ups and downs along the way.
Then I take small steps every time the situation I am working on comes up in my life. If I’m working on tolerance, then when something comes up that triggers my intolerance, I take a step back and say, “Okay, why does this trigger me, and how can I look at this differently?” By attempting to understand and reframe the things that trigger me, I often find new insights that deepen my understanding of what I’m working on. To get even more information about these insights, I will often discuss them with my friends and family.
Every time I take a small step such as the one above, I turn the corkscrew in that knot. As I take more and more steps, that knot begins to loosen up.
It’s not like I’m perfectly willing to work on my character defects at all times; sometimes, I want to take a nap or fall back into old habits. I’ve come over time to realize that resistance and falling back are as much a part of the process as taking steps are. In some ways, my resistance and “failures” push me forward by reminding me of why I’m trying to better myself in the first place. My “failures” also provide valuable lessons during the process.
For some time now, I’ve had a devotion to Mary, Undoer of Knots. Having a spiritual practice of some sort while working on my “knots” has been extremely beneficial. Instead of feeling like all of the responsibility is on my shoulders to untie my knot, I feel like I have a spiritual helper to carry some of the load. And that has made all the difference for me.
You don’t need to adopt my particular devotion to be successful at untying your own knots. However, I believe that it is necessary to have some spiritual resources to help with navigating change. So experiment and find out what works for you (remember when we discussed living life as an experiment? Here’s a chance to practice!).
The Precision Screwdriver
Tucked up inside my corkscrew is a precision screwdriver, the kind used to make adjustments to the screws in eyeglasses.
We’ve already talked about cultivating many perspectives from advisers, but the precision screwdriver reminds me that I don’t always need to make big perspective shifts. Sometimes I need a slight adjustment to how I see things.
For instance: I tend to think a great deal before acting (you might have noticed that tendency as you have read this far). I generally consider my process of thinking to be excessive, a kind of weakness of my character. I was recently reminded, though, that thinking something through carefully can be a strength. When I looked at my tendency that way, I could see how it benefited me.
There is a downside, though, to thinking something through thoroughly. Thinking can easily turn into overthinking, a form of procrastination. I have to keep a close eye on how much thought I put into something. If it takes more than a day, I generally take one constructive action connected to my thinking.
By taking action, I break the pattern of thinking. That action might stimulate further thought, but it will be a more productive thought because I have acted instead of being paralyzed by a habit of thinking.
So, by adjusting my view of one habit, I was able to see how to make it a strength rather than a weakness. That’s the power of a precision adjustment and something that I hope you will join me in.
The Awl
What’s an awl? It’s that pointy thing with a hole in it pictured above next to the precision screwdriver. An awl is a tool that is used for punching through leather hide. And the hole? It’s for pulling a thread through that hole so that you can sew the leather.
I have found that there are times when I have been unable to make progress in life. Usually, that was because I didn’t have the right people around me. At times I’ve also been in the wrong environment.
Just like being in a bathtub of warm piss, though, it was easy to be comfortable enough in my life that making a change seemed like a tough choice. The time came, though, when I realized that I would have to make a choice.
When I am confronted with these situations, I remember the punching power of the awl. I summon up my courage and start to make the changes I need to make.
The most salient example of this occurred when I was in high school. When I started high school in my hometown, I didn’t really feel like I fit in, and I found it hard to make friends. My social life was pretty much nonexistent except for having friends over from time to time. Mostly I did my homework, played some games, watched TV, and did some extracurricular activities.
After following this somewhat comfortable routine (there’s that warm bathtub…), I realized that I could not go on with it any longer. I really wanted to be at a school where there were people like me and who would like me. I wanted more than just a comfortable routine.
I brought my concerns to my parents and needless to say they weren’t very pleased. Over time, though, they began to realize how unhappy I was (I had hidden it pretty well for those three years). I think part of what catalyzed their understanding of how unhappy I was was when they told me to military school, and I told them that was a great idea. Since they didn’t expect that response, it caused them to think.
In the end, we found a boarding school in Austin where I could complete high school. Since the school wanted me to be there for more than just a year, though, I voluntarily repeated my junior year of high school to be in an environment that was more conducive to my growth than the one I had come from. I really enjoyed that school and succeeded far more in my two years there than I did in my previous three years. My parents were blown away by how happy I was.
To get from desperately unhappy to happy, though, I had to punch through the resistance I felt to giving up a fairly comfortable life to try to build a better one. I have had to challenge my comfort many times since that first time to build the happy life I have today. If I had just stayed where I was, I would have been comfortable but unfulfilled.
I bet many men feel the same urge to change their lives for the better, but they also feel hamstrung because they don’t know exactly what will happen if they try; all they know is that they would be giving up their comfortable present.
If you recognize yourself in what I’ve shared, my advice to you is simple: pull the awl out of your toolkit and find a way to punch through what holds you back so you can sew together a better life.
The Pen (not pictured)
Ah, the pen. It can be used to create the vilest vitriol or the most sublime poetry. How are you using your powers of expression? Are you using them to heal or to harm?
As men, we are not taught to write our thoughts down or harness our creative abilities. I know what I’m talking about here because I used to think the same thing — it smacked too much of a girl keeping a diary. The minute I began writing down what was in my head, though, two realizations came to me: 1.) the emotional pressure of the thoughts was reduced or gone and, 2.) My concerns sounded downright trite and childish. Basically, I was a whiny, bitchy little girl. That realization stung, but it inspired me to do better.
I also thought creativity was nice, but that work had to come first. When I began making creativity part of my work, though, I discovered that the work came easier, and I had more thoughts about how to approach my work than I did when I attempted to put a separation between the two.
When it came time to decide, pulling my pen out was a great help because it helped me see exactly what I thought the pros and cons of each decision were. I could then take my thinking to my advisers (remember them?) and find out if I was thinking correctly or not. Just by pulling out my pen, I could short-circuit weeks of should I? or shouldn’t I? and get on with my life.
And if I wanted to express how I felt about people in my life, my pen helped me there, too. I could sit with my feelings, write them down, and then edit that writing until I felt it reflected my true feelings.
All this flies in the face of the masculine dogma that we shouldn’t get in touch with what is going on with us. While that dogma has produced men who snap into domestic violence, my pen has produced more peace within me.
Use it and see. | https://medium.com/@untidybits/the-new-man-how-a-swiss-army-knife-can-solve-toxic-masculinity-455d5ade42ea | ['Untidy Bits'] | 2020-12-03 22:18:14.349000+00:00 | ['Toxic Masculinity', 'Masculinity', 'Life Lessons', 'Men', 'Mental Health'] |
Why Babies Are More Resilient Against Covid-19 | Why Babies Are More Resilient Against Covid-19
Understanding infants’ peculiar response to the virus may be a key to finding new treatments Karonpollad Dec 1, 2020·9 min read
Photo: Sirapat Saeyang/EyeEm/Getty Images
Babies make up a tiny percentage of all diagnosed cases of Covid-19. In the United States, where 1.2% of the population are children under one year of age, they account for only 0.27% of the positive tests, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report. It’s not clear if babies are getting infected at a lower rate compared with other age groups or if they are just not being tested as much. But what is evident is that the ones who are diagnosed have, in general, significantly milder illness compared with adults.
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/b-v-a00/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/b-v-a01/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/b-v-a02/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/b-v-a03/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/b-v-a04/
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/b-v-a00.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/b-v-a01.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/b-v-a02.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/b-v-a03.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/b-v-a04.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/b-v-a00.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/b-v-a01.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/b-v-a02.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/b-v-a03.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/b-v-a04.html
https://www.ppi.ph/sites/default/files/webform/I-v-T-s.html
https://www.ppi.ph/sites/default/files/webform/I-v-T-s1.html
https://www.ppi.ph/sites/default/files/webform/I-v-T-s2.html
https://www.ppi.ph/sites/default/files/webform/I-v-T-s3.html
https://www.ppi.ph/sites/default/files/webform/I-v-T-s4.html
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f1/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f2/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f3/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f4/
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/RB-v-Lo-f.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/RB-v-Lo-f1.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/RB-v-Lo-f2.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/RB-v-Lo-f3.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/RB-v-Lo-f4.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f1.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f2.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f3.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/RB-v-Lo-f4.html
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/a-v-de2/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/a-v-de3/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/a-v-de4/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/a-v-de5/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/a-v-de6/
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/a-v-de2.html.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/a-v-de3.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/a-v-de4.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/a-v-de5.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/a-v-de6.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/a-v-de2.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/a-v-de3.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/a-v-de4.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/a-v-de5.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/a-v-de6.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-01.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-02.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-03.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-04.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-05.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-06.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-07.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-08.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-09.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-10.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-11.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-01.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-02.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-03.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-04.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-05.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-06.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-07.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-08.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-09.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-10.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-11.html
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-01/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-02/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-03/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-04/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-05/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-06/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-07/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-08/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-09/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-10/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/sha-v-mad-liv-tv-11/
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k01.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k02.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k03.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k04.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k05.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k06.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k07.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k08.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k09.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k010.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k01.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k02.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k03.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k04.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k05.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k06.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k07.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k08.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k09.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real-k010.html
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k01
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k02
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k03
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k04
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k05
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k06
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k07
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k08
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k09
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real-k010
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-101/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-102/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-103/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-104/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-105/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-106/
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Video-zel-lok-100.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Video-zel-lok-101.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Video-zel-lok-102.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Video-zel-lok-103.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Video-zel-lok-104.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Video-zel-lok-105.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Video-zel-lok-106.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-100.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-101.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-102.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-103.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-104.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-105.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Video-zel-lok-106.html
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real00/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real01/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real02/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real03/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real04/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real05/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real06/
https://www.jneuropsychiatry.org/peer-review/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real07/
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real01.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real02.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real03.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real04.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real05.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real06.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/peer-review-pdfs/decem/oxu/Shak-v-Real012.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real00.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real01.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real02.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real03.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real04.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real05.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real06.html
https://www.alliedacademies.org/supplementary-files/oux/alex/Shak-v-Real012.html
The reason behind babies’ apparent resilience to Covid-19 is being intensely investigated by scientists. Getting to the bottom of that mystery could inspire the development of new treatments, potentially benefiting people of all ages.
What’s known so far about the outcomes of babies infected with SARS-CoV-2 comes from reports such as the one published in this month’s edition of The Journal of Pediatrics by physicians at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The study, which included 18 previously healthy children under 90 days old who tested positive for Covid-19, showed that none had severe symptoms. Nasal congestion was seen in 28%, cough in 44%, and vomiting or diarrhea in 22%. The study sample is very small (again, the number of infants who test positive is a low figure overall), but the researchers say the early findings provide some potentially important insights.
“It’s notable that a large percentage of them had fever as maybe even the only symptom,” says lead author Leena B. Mithal, MD, a pediatric infectious diseases expert from Lurie Children’s and assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “None of the babies required any oxygen or any respiratory support at all,” she adds. “This is a small series, but what we saw during that period has remained true moving forward in the cases of previously healthy infants.”
Scientists have a few theories that could help explain why the novel coronavirus is mostly harmless to healthy babies. One of them has to do with the receptor that SARS-CoV-2 uses to enter human cells. The expression of this receptor, called ACE2, varies with age and is less present in babies and children compared with adults. The hypothesis is that, in the youngest people, the virus finds fewer keyholes it can unlock to get inside the cells and replicate.
“An additional hypothesis proposed for the mild infection in young children is their strong ability to mount primary immune responses mediated by T-cells,” says pediatrician Petter Brodin, MD, PhD, a researcher at the department of women’s and children’s health at Karolinska Institute in Sweden. T-cells, along with antibodies, are part of our adaptive immune system, whose function is to target pathogens like SARS-CoV-2. The fact that babies have a large repertoire of naive T-cells, which are able to recognize new invaders and develop into mature killer cells, is probably important to explain their effective response to the virus, Brodin says.
Brodin also notes that, at least until puberty, children’s immune systems are calibrated differently from those of adults, and this could protect them from the sequence of events that usually leads to severe disease, including a poor initial response by interferons (proteins that act as “first responders” against viruses), a poor response of the adaptive immune system with T-cell exhaustion, and hyperinflammation driven by massive tissue damage.
Another theory is that young children, including infants, might have more recent exposure to common cold coronaviruses, which could potentially modulate their immune response to SAR-CoV-2 infection. “Although adults have likely been exposed to those coronaviruses as well, it’s common to get many colds in the first decade of life and there may be some cross-protection,” says Mithal. It’s not clear, though, if babies are currently as exposed to these other coronaviruses as they normally would, given the social isolation measures in place.
Although these theories are yet to be proven, at this stage of the pandemic there is enough epidemiological data to confidently state that infants are in general protected from severe illness. So much so that the American Academy of Pediatrics has updated its recommendations regarding newborns and mothers with symptomatic Covid-19 at the time of delivery. AAP now does not recommend universally separating babies from Covid-19-positive mothers, as long as they are well enough to take care of the baby and take the necessary precautions to decrease transmission.
“Over time, it seems that babies who went home with moms infected with SARS-CoV-2 at the time of delivery did not do significantly differently or have worse outcomes than babies who were separated from their mothers in the initial postpartum period,” says Mithal. “This speaks to the fact that, of these babies at risk of exposure and infection in the household, only a small subset may have symptomatic infection and further problems.”
Observing how children and infants respond to the virus may lead to new therapies for Covid-19.
This doesn’t mean that babies cannot get severe symptoms. Alvaro Coronado Munoz, MD, a doctor specialized in pediatric critical care and an assistant professor at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston, learned that lesson when he and his colleagues treated a three-week-old boy who was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit in with low blood pressure, tachycardia, rapid breathing, and hypothermia. He had presented nasal congestion for two days and had an X-ray consistent with Covid-19 infection. A nasal swab confirmed the diagnosis.
“It was one of the first cases reported in the U.S. of critical care admission of a pediatric patient with Covid-19. It was very early in the pandemic and there was all this information regarding the fact that pediatric patients were less affected, so it was a little bit of a surprise,” says Munoz. The boy had to receive mechanical ventilation for five days and survived after intensive care. “This case was very important to recognize that an infant can become as sick as adult patients. So, don’t just assume that it’s something else.”
Observing how children and infants respond to the virus may lead to new therapies for Covid-19. One of the treatment strategies that is being explored is how to combat a harmful type of inflammation sometimes seen in the acute phase of the infection. “We hope to learn from ongoing studies that certain inflammatory pathways are differentially activated in children with mild infection compared to adults with severe disease. Maybe then we can develop more targeted immunomodulating therapy that we can apply to those with more severe illness, including adults,” says Mithal.
Another avenue of research is looking at the strong initial interferon response, which is probably critical for early antiviral defense and is a system that the SARS-CoV-2 directly interferes with, according to Brodin. This is most likely a mechanism that protects babies and children and it is possible that triggering the same response in adults could help protect them as well. | https://medium.com/@karonpollad837382/why-babies-are-more-resilient-against-covid-19-48097c12b63b | [] | 2020-12-01 17:27:35.235000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Babies', 'Health', 'Coronavirus', 'Covid 19'] |
WSL2 for Data Science: Seamless Integration of Ubuntu and Windows 10 | Ubuntu 20.04 LTS available on the Microsoft store (that’s right).
If you are the type of person that buys a PC and the first thing they do is partition the hard drive to install the latest Ubuntu, then this article is for you. In the latest version of Windows 10, Microsoft has integrated WSL2 (Windows subsystem for Linux 2) which enables you to have a full installation of Ubuntu running on Windows using Hyper-V virtual machine technology. Note that your computer must support Hyper-V for WSL2 but not for WSL.
For installation of WSL2 follow this steps. And a more detailed guide including some tricks.
After installing WSL2, installing Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is as simple as opening the Microsoft store (yes, Ubuntu is now available on a store as an app) and downloading the latest version. Once installed, you can open the Ubuntu terminal by typing “ubuntu” on the Windows search bar. From the terminal, you are in Linux world: you have git, sudo, ls, cat, apt-get, make, and all those beautiful things that come with Linux. According to Windows:
WSL 2 uses the latest and greatest in virtualization technology to run a Linux kernel inside of a lightweight utility virtual machine (VM). However, WSL 2 is not a traditional VM experience.
Accessing files
From the Windows file explorer you can type
\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\youUbuntuUserName\
which will take you to your Ubuntu installation. From Ubuntu, type:
cd /mnt/c/Users/yourWindowsUserName/
and you will be able to access all your Windows files! It is so easy to access and copy files that you can run GIT on Ubuntu and create repositories from you Windows files without having to install GIT on Windows. You could also create a GIT project on Ubuntu, edit your code on Atom (installed in Windows) and running it on your Windows web browser using RStudio server.
Running RStudio server on Ubuntu and Edge
I know the words R, Ubuntu and Edge usually don’t come together in a sentence but let me explain. One of the downsides of WSL2 is that it does not have native support for graphics (you can enable graphics using X-server but that’s different story). On the other hand, RStudio server and Jupyter Notebook run on a web browser so what if we run R and python on Ubuntu, but stream the output on Windows using Edge or Chrome? Sounds great.
First thing would be to install RStudio server in Ubuntu. You want the server version, not the desktop version otherwise you won’t be able to send the output to the web browser. The RStudio team put together a great guide on installation.
Once installed, you can start the server on the Ubuntu terminal:
sudo rstudio-server start
Open your browser and go to http://localhost:8787/ Here you can log in using your Ubuntu credentials. RStudio server runs pretty smooth on Edge and Chrome. Here you can see a 3D scatterplot made with Plotly, which works out-of-the-box on Ubuntu, and now on Windows too!
RStudio server is running on the Ubuntu terminal but we can see the RStudio GUI using any web browser on Windows.
Something cool about RStudio server is that it automatically saves your session such that whenever you open RStudio you will start from where you left even if you close Ubuntu or turn off your laptop!
Jupyter Notebooks and TensorFlow
In principle, we can do exactly the same thing as we did with RStudio Server and run Jupyter from Ubuntu on Edge (or Chrome).
# Run from Ubuntu WSL2
jupyter lab --no-browser # then access the notebook with the address printed in the terminal
# usually: [<http://localhost:888>](<http://localhost:8889/lab>)8/
However, since Anaconda works pretty well on Windows 10, we can run Python directly on Windows 10. Moreover, we can set up our GPU to work with TensorFlow by leveraging the fact that Nvidia drivers work pretty well on Windows already. Check out my article on how to setup TensorFlow with CUDA on Windows 10 .
Python is running directly on Windows 10 from the anaconda terminal. Jupyter notebook is running on Edge.
Python 3.8 runs pretty well with TensorFlow 2.4 and CUDA 11.0. So far I haven’t got any problems (usually installing python libraries could be a nightmare because of compatibility issues).
Conclusion
This is a very brief description of the setup I am currently using. Being a long-time Ubuntu user, I can’t help but thinking that I should just go ahead and install Linux on a drive partition. However, the Windows 10 is overall good: window management is pretty smooth, the search bar is fast and find what you are looking for most of the times, you can install software such as Adobe, PowerPoint, Ableton Live, Think or Swim, Xbox games etc. And most importantly your laptop simply won’t work as well on Linux because not all of the drivers will be available or optimized. This last part is really important is you have a GPU, HD audio, or some nice — and completely unnecessary — lighting in your keyboard (Razer 15 user here). So while I am still thinking of making a partition for Ubuntu, it seems that you can have your Data Science startup kit (GIT, R, Python, TensorFlow) running on the WSL2 while having the benefits of your laptop running on Windows 10. | https://medium.com/swlh/data-science-using-wsl2-seamless-integration-of-ubuntu-and-windows-10-dbe94cbac2b6 | ['Alejandro Granados C'] | 2021-01-22 12:22:04.583000+00:00 | ['Tutorial', 'Data Science', 'Programming', 'Ubuntu', 'Windows 10'] |
Red and Blue Brains. What Biology Can (and Cannot) Tell Us About Political Polarization | November 15, 2020
If the 2020 historic and contested election has shown anything, it is that the wound that has ripped the nation apart has not healed at all — in fact, it has painfully deepened. For many of us, it was hardly a surprise, and not just because of the harsh political climate of the last four years: newspaper headlines regularly describe increasing dislike and animosity between liberals and conservatives, while researchers unceasingly rattle off numbers in an attempt to gauge the effects of increased polarization.
The 2020 election was the umpteenth telltale sign of how difficult it will be to bridge that gap, a feat that President-elect Joe Biden will have to take on. It is no coincidence that, in a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October, eight-in-ten voters claimed that their differences with the other side were not just about politics but especially about “core American values.”
But what if this national divide actually begins at a brain level? What can liberals’ and conservatives’ brains tell us about what we have been witnessing in this election and in several other aspects of our lives?
A group of neuroscientists and psychologists from the University of California, John Hopkins University, and Stanford University have recently tried to answer that question. In a study published in October, they found evidence of what they have called “neural polarization,” which they described as “activity in the brain that diverges between people who hold liberal versus conservative political attitudes.” The researchers asked 38 participants to watch 24 videos on six different immigration policies and scanned their brains to explore the neural processing underlying their political beliefs. Prior to the experiment, participants indicated their support for each policy on a 7-point scale. To assess the existence of neural polarization, the authors used a specific measure referred to as “inter-subject correlation,” which evaluates how similarly two brains react to the same content.
The authors were surprised to see that liberals and conservatives shared similar responses in their primary auditory and visual cortices. This finding suggested that political attitudes didn’t bias their sensory attention — something that would have confirmed the idea that people tend to pay closer attention to information supporting their own beliefs.
However, something radically different happened in their dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for the interpretation of narratives. Put simply, their brain activity showed that “conservative and liberal participants were interpreting the content of those videos differently,” Yuan Chang Leong, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California and the lead author of the study, said in a phone interview. “They weren’t literally seeing something different. What was happening is that neural responses diverged in a part of the brain which cares about making sense of information.” And among the other findings of their study, Leong and his colleagues discovered that specific terms, such as “risk,” “security,” “violation,” “harm,” and “compassion,” were more likely to be associated with “greater divergence in neural responses.” In other words, neural polarization increased when participants were exposed to moral-emotional and threat-related language.
What does this study tell us about political polarization? Certainly, it provides new, intriguing evidence on something we have known for a long time — as Leong put it, that “political beliefs have a powerful influence over how people perceive, interpret, and respond to information.”
For years, psychologists and social scientists have been trying to fathom the reasons why facts do not change the opinions we hold, highlighting how our minds tend to embrace information confirming our beliefs and reject what contradicts them — a phenomenon referred to as “confirmation bias.”
Take the pandemic. The numbers are unequivocal — according to John Hopkins University’s data, more than 242,000 Americans have died from the virus. Still, 76 percent of Republicans believe that the U.S. has done a good job handling the pandemic, a view shared by only 29 percent of those who do not identify with the Republican Party. Against this background, this new study pinpoints “a neural basis for partisan biases,” outlining how, on a brain level, those biases come into play when people with different political beliefs process and interpret identical information. That is why, according to Leong, “trying to persuade participants with more information might not be the most effective strategy.” “We actually have to make an effort to think about how to frame information so that they do not create greater polarization,” the neuroscientist explained.
However, it is equally important to recognize what this study, along with other works that explore the nuanced interplay between political ideologies and the functioning of the brain, might fall short of explaining about polarization. First and foremost, why is this happening? Why has the percentage of Americans who “would be somewhat or very unhappy if their child married someone of the opposite party” increased by about 35 percentage points over the last 50 years? How did things get so far? Is this really all about how our brains work?
Does It All Come Down to the Brain?
While Leong’s study does not go beyond the description of different neural responses between liberals and conservatives in processing information, other works in political neuroscience have even suggested that leftists and rightists, as well as thinking and interpreting information differently, also show a divergent brain structure. According to John Jost, a professor of Psychology and Politics and the co-director of the Center for Social and Political Behavior at New York University, two major studies are directly relevant to that particular question.
One was run in 2011 by a group of researchers at University College London and counts among its authors the Oscar-winning British actor Colin Firth, who had commissioned the experiment for his guest-editing slot on BBC Radio 4’s Today. Firth was curious to see if a deeper, more scientific explanation could be found for the growing political polarization that he was witnessing in the U.K.
The authors scanned the brains of a group of University College London students who had identified themselves as either liberals or conservatives and found a few notable differences. “People who identified themselves as more politically conservative had more gray matter volume in the amygdala,” a structure in the brain related to the processing of “potential threats in the environment, but also social hierarchies, socially significant information, and emotionally highly arousing information,” Professor Jost explained in a Zoom interview. On the other hand, people who identified as more liberal had more gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, which “is involved in the identification of potentially conflicting pieces of information” and determines “how you resolve inconsistencies and respond when things in the environment are not what you expected them to be,” he said.
Those findings were consistent with a study that Professor Jost, along with colleagues from New York University and the University of California, had run in 2007. Left-leaning and right-leaning participants were asked to perform a computer task that required them to learn a habitual response pattern. Every now and then, they were presented with an unexpected stimulus “to see how quickly they were able to switch from the dominant habitual response to a response that was more unexpected and surprising,” Jost said.
Liberals turned out to be better at the task — they were able to handle contradictory information and consequently adapt their behavior more easily and quickly than conservatives. “They made fewer mistakes, they were in that sense more cognitively flexible, whereas conservatives were more cognitively persistent and focused on the dominant response,” the NYU professor explained. And because the authors observed a spike in liberals’ brainwaves precisely localized in the anterior cingulate cortex, the same brain region where Firth’s study found more gray matter volume, they concluded that “even at the neurological level liberals were more attentive to the potential conflict.”
Beyond the Brain
To some extent, those works seem to confirm the “perfect conservative” and “perfect liberal” sketches accurately drawn by a massive body of literature in social psychology over the last 70 years. Right-leaning people have been described as more cognitively “rigid,” more close-minded and dogmatic, more intolerant of ambiguity, more likely to experience socio-economic fear, and, as a result, less prone to social change than left-leaning people. Moreover, conservatives have been widely characterized as much more focused on the preservation of the status quo and of “what had been acquired” — something that the German social psychologist and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm called, as early as 1947, “hoarding orientation.”
However, it is also apparent that those differences underpinning political ideologies can hardly be reduced to the size of a particular brain area. For instance, a 2015 study carried out by a group of researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam contradicted the “rigidity of the right” theory, maintaining that political extremes in general, and not only right-wing voters, are likely to experience socio-economic fear and derogate out-groups. If we assumed that leftists’ and rightists’ brains are biologically different, that finding would be simply inexplicable.
That’s where more nuanced approaches to political difference come into play. In the early 1970s, the British psychologist Glenn Wilson argued that both genetic and environmental factors — such as intelligence and anxiety on one hand, and parental treatment, social class, and self-esteem on the other — could influence political orientation. A number of studies built on that theory, finding, for example, that fearful children were more likely to become conservative adults. The American cognitive linguist George Lakoff has recently linked liberals’ and conservatives’ views of the nation to their divergent approaches to childrearing. According to Lakoff, while conservatives prefer “the strict father model,” based on good manners, discipline, and respect for authorities, liberals place a greater value on a “nurturant parent model,” founded on creativity and curiosity. Other works have explained polarization in terms of moral principles, with a 2012 cross-cultural study that found progressives more likely to value benevolence and universalism, as opposed to rightists’ greater attachment to conformity, security, tradition, and power.
According to Professor Jost, each of these approaches captures “part of the puzzle.” To understand the divide, “it’s useful to think in terms of personality differences, but it’s also useful to think in terms of the contents of values, attitudes, or beliefs that differ between people on the left and people on the right,” he said. As the NYU professor put it, this interweaving of factors might be explained in terms of “reciprocal causality”: “We couldn’t say that the psychology causes the polarization or the polarization causes the psychology, but maybe it’s some of both.” And because “all those things are instantiated, in some way, in our brains, there’s going to be physiological differences presumably as well.”
In other words, not only is there no scientific basis for maintaining that an inborn, neurological difference determines people’s political attitudes but adopting a single approach to interpret polarization might end up being misleading.
After all, if biology were everything, how could we explain the geographic distribution of political polarization? It is no secret that urban voters tend to adopt liberal views, while rural voters are more likely to be conservative — a trend that the 2020 election confirmed. Does this mean that people living in rural areas have more grey matter volume in their amygdala than people living in cities? Of course, it is way more complicated than that. While some studies have pointed to the clashing viewpoints ingrained in different communities — shaped by divergent socio-economic conditions and life experiences — other works, including a 2018 Pew Research Center’s survey, have highlighted the differences in the “partisan composition of urban, suburban and rural areas.” In 2019, University of North Carolina professor Rahsaan Maxwell suggested that driven by macro-economic trends, “different types of people decide to live in different geographic areas in the first place.”
Similarly, the physiological approach doesn’t tell anything about the socio-economic and generational dimensions of polarization, with highly educated adults and millennials more likely to adopt liberal positions. Neither can it explain why political attitudes are not always constant over time — even though some studies suggest that partisanship is usually acquired at a young age and rarely changes over the life cycle. Still, if different elections might have different outcomes, that means that people’s political attitudes — regardless of their brain structure — can change.
Affective Polarization and Political Dynamics: What Biology Can’t Explain
Even more important, what biology can’t really explain is the origin of affective polarization — namely the mutual dislike between liberals and conservatives — as well as the reasons for its growth. In other words, what accounts for the fact that about 64 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Republicans claim they have “just a few” or “no” close friends who identify themselves with the opposite party — and why has this trend become more salient over time? While there are no simple answers to that question, there must be something else beyond differences in people’s brain structure.
A 2018 paper by Stanford professor Shanto Iyengar and other researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth College framed the issue in terms of social identity. When people identify themselves with a political party, they tend to divide up the world into an “in-group” (their own party) and an “out-group” (the opposing party), a distinction that psychologically triggers negative feelings for the latter. But some external factors may have contributed to exacerbating the divide.
One is the high-choice and fragmented media environment and the proliferation of partisan news, which “makes those with extreme attitudes even more extreme.” But also the mainstream media coverage on polarization could very well have played a part. In 2016, it was estimated that the number of stories describing how much America is divided had increased by 20 percent compared to 2000.
This almost obsessive focus on polarization may have ended up exacerbating the animosity between liberals and conservatives. “The exposure to media coverage on polarization leads people to perceive more polarization,” Yanna Krupnikov, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University, said in a phone interview. “So the more you hear about people being divided, the more you perceive that people are divided. It becomes like a circle,” she explained.
On top of that, harsh political campaigns, particularly prone to portray the competitors as “an existential threat,” may work as exacerbating factors as well. It is no surprise that, as Iyengar’s study highlighted, “across recent election cycles, people were 50–150 percent more affectively polarized by Election Day than they were a year earlier.”
Also, the fact that people are becoming more and more embedded into their own ideological online and offline communities might have played a part. Plunged into their own “bubble,” partisans are isolated from each other and more likely to encounter only “like-minded voices,” something that ends up reinforcing dislike for the other side. To be clear, there is no agreement on the fact that on social media, users are not actually “seeing” the other part. According to the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci, the real issue is that they see a caricatural and inflammatory version of it.
Whatever the case, seen through these lenses, it is no surprise that, as a 2018 study found, after the 2016 election Thanksgiving dinners where family members and guests supported opposing political parties lasted 30 to 50 minutes less than in same-party reunions. In other words, many Americans chose to cut short their Thanksgiving family parties rather than find themselves caught up in endless debates with their most politically problematic relatives. As a result, up to 34 million hours of lively Thanksgiving discussions about U.S. politics were lost in the whole country.
On the political and ideological side of the issue, Iyengar and his colleagues argue that, over the last 50 years, partisan and ideological identities have grown more and more aligned, gradually including different salient social identities, such as religion and race. Put simply, that is why White evangelicals tend to be overwhelmingly Republican, while African Americans usually identify themselves as Democrats. We could describe it as a vicious cycle where all these social identities are reinforcing themselves. As a result, people increasingly perceive members of the out-group as irreparably distant from themselves.
According to Robert Shapiro, an International and Public Affairs professor at Columbia University, polarization emerged distinctively in the 1970s after the civil rights movement, which represented the culmination of a process that made the political parties more and more distinctive on a large number of issues. Clearly, those political dynamics fall well outside the scope of the “biological” approach to political difference. “I’m not sure what the point of that is and how far that gets you,” Professor Shapiro said in this regard in a Zoom interview. “The things that are more concerning are the kinds of things that happen in real politics and that can lead to changes in people’s attitudes and behavior,” he explained. In other words, those changes would be very hard to explain if the reasons for polarization were only confined to our brains.
That is why, to analyze the current divide, Shapiro adopts a historical approach. With the civil rights movement transforming the U.S. political landscape, he argued, polarization along ideological lines began at the level of political leaders, and then slowly penetrated public opinion. But if in the past it was the public who followed the leaders, now “the leaders are constrained by the public that they have created,” he explained. In other words, “if political leaders want to moderate their views, they might have to worry about being challenged in a primary election by someone who is more extreme,” someone who “the voters in a particular district or state support.”
But what about the “Trump factor”? Shapiro believes that the current polarization would exist even without Donald Trump. “What Trump has added to this is just a heightened degree of incivility and bullying in politics,” he said. In his view, the COVID-19 crisis turned out to be an opportunity that America missed. “Some of us thought that a national crisis would pull the country together, like after World War II. We had situations like these in the past: there was the Gulf War, which in the early 1990s unified the nation briefly. There was 9/11. There was the Iraq war,” he said.
The question, now, is whether Biden, who has already presented himself as a unifier, will rise to the challenge. But according to the Columbia University professor, the hopes are slim: “The widening of the division that is occurring and the emotional level of the current division seem to be such that, at this point,” bridging that gap “might be very difficult.”
What is certain is that, if biology were everything — if it all came down to immutable differences embedded in our brain — the mission of reconciling the nation would not be just difficult: it would simply be impossible. | https://medium.com/@giuliaalicepozzi/red-and-blue-brains-what-biology-can-and-cannot-tell-us-about-political-polarization-8524a76838b5 | ['Giulia Alice Pozzi'] | 2021-06-12 07:02:18.747000+00:00 | ['Democrats', 'Republicans', 'USA', 'Political Polarization', '2020 Election'] |
A Generation with Substance | Photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash
There is a generation more in touch with what they see
Than the One who makes the seeing eyes
One that values godfathers and bloodlines
Yet does not know the God of the fathers
There’s a tale-bearing generation
That tells tales of the fathers’ exploits
Yet barely has a handful of its own testimonies
Rarely knows what an experience with The Father is
The Lord our God is one and same
Revealing Himself anew to every generation
Jehovah to one, El to another
Yet, He is unchanging in nature and purpose
Revealing Himself to all generation
What has he revealed himself as to us?
What heritage do we have to hand down our children?
What God do you know?
Yours or the father's tale?
Awake you complacent
Contend earnestly for the precious faith handed you
Don’t stop at the Wells the fathers dug
Remove the debris, then dig even deeper
Dig deep and reach the everlasting springs
So our children may not lack water to drink
So our children do not drink with broken cisterns
So our children aren’t brought into a faith without substance
So, our children can have our tales, and know our God | https://medium.com/merizo/a-generation-with-substance-f3c757a03e12 | [] | 2019-06-05 14:29:01.285000+00:00 | ['Spirituality', 'Awakening', 'Christianity', 'Revival', 'Revolution'] |
Decarbonising shipping: From theory to technology deployment | I regularly run into innovators and inventors who are interested in deploying their zero-carbon or energy optimisation/saving technologies in the shipping industry. These conversations usually end up being pitches for the alternative fuel in question, or the ‘macro’ merits of shipping’s decarbonisation. But what I, or any potential user of the technology (who ultimately needs to foot the bill), really want to understand are the technology’s capabilities, the inherent risks and challenges to implementation, and barriers (or not) to scale.
Over the last few years, I’ve analysed several technologies for their potential to decarbonise the shipping industry and made decisions on whether or not they are worth investing — money and effort — into. This blog is a summary of insights gained over that time, which I hope will help teams working on new technologies understand some of the nuances of building for this all-pervasive but under-the-radar industry.
Systematically de-risk implementation
The key to ensuring uptake of your technology and/or accelerating its progress, is to de-risk implementation and make it easy for a vessel owner or port to start using the technology. This could be done by preparing the groundwork in advance and where possible, securing permits and regulatory approvals which can take up a significant amount of time. Leverage the certification process to identify technical loopholes and operational and safety risks and mitigate them. Having individual technologies certified can make integrating them on board a vessel, and bringing them into commercial operations much easier and faster.
Deploy the lowest possible configuration of your technology into real operations (‘sea-test’ it) at the earliest possible
The ‘lean’ approach works in shipping too, and no amount of lab testing is a substitute for actually putting your technology to work in the industry. Something that works perfectly on land still needs to be adapted to function seamlessly on a ship. The technology will have to perform through different conditions of temperature, humidity, withstand greater vibrations, etc. The sooner you implement, the faster you’ll learn about all these aspects and can factor them into your technology development process.
Your technology needs to come up trumps in a simple, full-picture, cost benefit analysis
What are the increased costs of using your technology on multiple levels — CAPEX, OPEX, maintenance, extra time for performing some necessary tasks, different operational needs, infrastructure, upskilling/training crew and staff?
What advantages does your technology offer in addition to reducing emissions? And would those advantages compel someone to pay more or expend additional effort?
Set yourself up for scale
A single ship can have installed power requirements and energy needs that are significantly larger than smaller vehicles like cars, buses and trucks. ‘Scale’ in the multi-MW level can come from just one ship. Start building your product and sourcing your materials — from core components to peripheral equipment — for scale, right from the beginning.
Deliver long-term solutions
Sea-going vessels stay in service for 20–25 years and inland vessels for over 40 years. Think about how your technology can cater to this asset longevity. What is maintenance or refurbishment going to look like? Can you embed your technology in a powerful business model that can convince a vessel owner to make an investment decision in your favour in the face of regulatory and fuel-type uncertainty? Think leasing, pay-per-use and buy back options. Also provide end-of-life recycling/refurbishment options; customers interested in sustainable solutions are also conscious of the entire lifecycle of the technology.
All opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer. Feel free to drop me a line here, or on LinkedIn. | https://medium.com/@prasannacolluru/deploying-decarbonisation-technology-in-the-maritime-industry-47efecab92ed | ['Prasanna Colluru'] | 2021-04-28 08:06:20.269000+00:00 | ['Shipping', 'Maritime', 'Decarbonisation', 'Cleantech', 'Zero Carbon'] |
feeling my emotions | Yesterday when I woke up to get ready for therapy and the day ahead I knew it was going to be a really hard day — I just knew it and felt something really big inside tugging at me!
Emotions were really close to the surface from the moment I woke! Emotions scare me — — emotions make me want to run — — I hate feeling, and being with emotions; especially letting them be seen!
Yes even in therapy, even after 8 1/2 years of working thru my feelings and it still is a huge struggle for me!
When I showed up to therapy I knew from the moment I sat in the waiting room that this was going to be a hard struggle — sitting there waiting I even struggled with and debated on walking out and going home before he came out to get me — which I have never once done in 8 1/2 years of being in therapy.
But I stayed with it, I worked with the struggle in the waiting room and knew in that moment that “connection is found in working through the struggle, not running from the struggle”.
I knew from the moment I sat next to my therapist that the silence I felt wasn’t going to work, swallowing my emotions and feelings was not going to work like it once did, and so I gave in and let them just show up no matter how bad they felt!
My therapist took and held my hand and said “just breathe and let it be here” and when the emotions got big, he hugged me in those tears and told me I am supported, loved and cared for — even in the days I have tears, not just in the days I am strong with all the wisdom I bring and how strong I am.
My therapist knows my struggle with emotions, he has been a witness to this fear for over 8 years now, and he knows no matter how many tears I have shed, it still scares me to the core every time they show up.
The story behind the fear of emotions is so big that its something I still have such a hard time with no matter how many times I reminded that “your tears are SO OK!” — “however you feel is SO welcomed” “you are not alone”.
There is also a part of me that struggles with emotions on a level that “if I am expressing my emotions, if I am having emotions, it’s too much, or I am not being strong enough, or this is a step back instead of seeing it as a step forward.
I feel guilty and ashamed for having emotions, because I was abused into thinking that.
BUT — For the first ever, I just let go of my inner fear and just let the emotions be there, because it was too much work to sit in the silence!
I realized how bad it felt to be silent and disconnected vs letting the emotions be there and let go of that inner fear that holds them. I felt what the sadness felt like, I felt what the tears felt like, for the first time I was able to feel fully and not disconnect from my self or the young part.
I showed up yesterday regardless of how bad it felt inside, because I know deep inside God is along side of me taking those steps with me, and I know I am supported by a wonderful therapist who helps me to see that I am not alone in these big feelings, and my support is there in the connection if I allow the connection to be there.
Never have I FELT my emotions … I have cried many many tears, but never have I felt them or even felt what they meant and why there were there … never have I accepted them to be here.
and another step is made . . . .
** WORDPRESS.COM READERS ** if your reading this in the READER, you wont be able to respond with a comment unless you go to the link of my blog, I run a SELF HOSTED so you have to go to my blog to leave a comment .. go here to the link to read and leave a comment | https://medium.com/finding-the-grace-within/feeling-my-emotions-6bd38a72bf6d | ['Karen Beth Courcy'] | 2016-11-06 19:04:28.694000+00:00 | ['Therapy', 'Healing', 'Emotions', 'Therapist', 'Crying'] |
HOW TO MAINTAIN MOTIVATION AND PRODUCTIVITY (AND NOT GET DISTRACTED) ACCORDING TO SKOOT’S HEAD OF PRODUCT. | HOW TO MAINTAIN MOTIVATION AND PRODUCTIVITY (AND NOT GET DISTRACTED) ACCORDING TO SKOOT’S HEAD OF PRODUCT. Amelia Gormley Follow Mar 19 · 3 min read
Mila Suankulova, SKOOT’s Head Of Product, chatted with us about what motivates her in the workplace and in a personal capacity. We asked Mila a number of questions on motivation and how to keep productive when you’re working from home. Here is what she had to say…
During the week Mila is most motivated around Tuesday or Wednesday as she has gotten past the Monday blues, and is into the work headspace. Once the routine of the week has kicked in, she finds herself more energetic and at the peak of her mental activity.
Mila feels that the better your routine is the more prepared you will be and hence are likely to have a more productive day. Before Mila starts work, she has to make herself a large cup of coffee to make sure she is wide awake for a normally busy day. Next on the agenda is a hot brew and some reading to get inspired. Mila reads the latest tech and product design news to see if anything new could benefit SKOOT. We see you, Mila, keeping our App innovative and interesting. 🙌
Working at home can be a challenge when there are lots of things around to distract you. We’re looking at you, snacks in the fridge. Mila likes to keep a balance between uninterrupted work and team interaction. She says it’s the life hack to get through a jammed day, with the help of some physical activity. Mila will block out deep work slots in the morning and afternoon to dedicate to tasks that move the needle, making sure all notifications are off so she doesn’t get sidetracked by other tasks. Mila still loves her social time so will purposely have meetings grouped in the late afternoon, with a lunchtime run to break the day up and restart her brain. It is key not to get trapped with loads of work and feeling like you can’t move from your desk till it is finished. We need breaks or our brains will get overloaded with information.
We all sometimes need extra motivation and Mila finds she needs it most when doing repetitive tasks. It becomes boring doing the same thing over again. When Mila finds herself in a position where she knows a task can become very repetitive she tries to come up with new processes to test doing things in a different way and perhaps improve her processes. Smart, right? This is why she’s our Head of Product!
Mila told us that she is heavily driven by incremental success. For example, in the Product Team, their success is measured by putting daily small changes into the app to improve the way it works and makes decisions.
On a more personal level, Mila loves to reflect and feels like success is a feeling you have at the end of the day when understanding you have grown as a person. You reflect on being wiser/more knowledgeable/patient/ attentive/wiser than you were at the start of the day. People underestimate the power of reflection to help you realise how much you can grow as a person in just 24 hours!
Next week we are talking to Sammy who is our Brand Promotional Manager. She has a lot to say about motivation because a large part of her job requires keeping whole teams of brand ambassadors motivated on a daily basis. She may just be the motivation expert of SKOOT.
Now stop reading this article and go and do some work. 😉 | https://medium.com/skoot-ride/how-to-maintain-motivation-and-productivity-and-not-get-distracted-according-to-skoots-head-of-b97b94f37474 | ['Amelia Gormley'] | 2021-03-19 15:01:32.330000+00:00 | ['Skoot', 'Startup', 'Motivation', 'Head Of Product', 'Motivational'] |
End To End Python Implementation Of Finding Optimised Efficient Investment Portfolios | End To End Python Implementation Of Finding Optimised Efficient Investment Portfolios
Explaining How To Build The Efficient Investment Portfolios From Start To End
One of the milestones of the investment management application was to implement an end to end solution that starts by fetching company stock prices and builds a set of efficient and optimum portfolios using optimisation routines.
This article will demonstrate how to achieve it.
Please read FinTechExplained disclaimer. This application is based on my opinions and they could be wrong. Always seek advice from a professional financial advisor before investing your money. This article aims to explain portfolio optimisation concept at an abstract level and it should not be considered as an investment advice.
1. Article Aim
This article will document the following key points:
The Theory Of Efficient Frontier The Process Flow Of The End To End Solution Implementation in Python Path Of The Complete Code Next Steps
2. The Theory Of Efficient Frontier
We hear the term “efficient frontier” quite a lot but what does it mean exactly? And what is the Modern Portfolio Theory all about?
Burton G Malkiel expressed it in a perfect manner:
“The theory provides a firm foundation for the intuition that you should not put all your eggs in one basket and shows investors how to combine securities to minimize risk” (Burton G. Malkiel).
Key Note: Never put all of your eggs in one basket. Make sure you diversify!
Photo by Diggity Marketing on Unsplash
Let’s consider you have $10'000 of cash available and you are interested in investing it.
Your aim is to invest the money for a year.
Like any rational investor, you expect the final amount in a years time to be higher than the $10'000 amount you want to invest.
The last thing you want is to lose the $10'000 you started your investment with.
So far, so good!
Key Note: I am a strong believer in maintaining focus when we are attempting to reach a goal. And the key to meet that goal is to adapt swiftly to the changing environment.
Read this article if you want to gain an understanding of investment management:
Photo by Samuele Errico Piccarini on Unsplash
2.1 Understanding Risk-Return Relationship
There are many investment options available, such as buying a T-bill or company shares, etc. Some of the investment options are riskier than the others because they attract us to gain higher returns.
Hence, the point to note is that there exists a risk-return trade-off. As an investor, our sole aim might be to invest in the least risky investment option that yields the highest return.
If we buy a number of assets such as shares of different companies then the total risk of the portfolio can be reduced due to diversification. This means that an investor can reduce the total risk and increase the return by mixing assets with different proportions. This is due to the fact that the assets can be correlated with each other and combining them together can reduce the risk. Hence it lets us produce a good portfolio.
This brings the question: What Is A Good Portfolio?
A good portfolio is more than a long list of good stocks and bonds. It is a balanced whole, providing the investor with protections and opportunities with respect to a wide range of contingencies. — Harry Markowitz
The Modern Portfolio Theory of Nobel prize winner, Harry Markowitz can be implemented by using optimisation routines.
Photo by Will Tribe on Unsplash
3. The 7 Steps Of Efficient Frontier Process
Before I present the end-to-end implementation of the solution, I wanted to highlight a key technical note here. The core of the architecture of this application revolves around just one concept:
When the application runs, it produces a large amount of data such as stock prices, their returns, covariance matrix, portfolios and their allocations along with their risk, return and Sharpe ratio. The Python code saves all of the required data in an Excel spreadsheet. It’s located is specified in the settings file.
We need to perform the following 7 steps:
The three stages of seven steps
The first stage (steps 1–3) is to calculate the daily returns of our stocks. The second stage is step 4 whereby we need to optimise the allocations to retrieve the best portfolio for each of our target returns. The last stage is about using the allocations to calculate the risk and return and plot the portfolios.
Photo by Ion Şipilov on Unsplash
4. Starting The Implementation In 3 Stages
This section will document the Python code with an explanation of how I have implemented the solution.
The following packages are required to support the application:
Pandas: for data manipulation
Numpy: for calculations
Matplotlib: for charting
SciPy: for optimisation
4.1 First Step Is To Fetch The Stock Prices
We built a component that fetched the historical stock prices:
end_date = settings.get_end_date()
start_date = settings.get_start_date(end_date)
closing_prices = price_extractor.get_prices(settings.PriceEvent, start_date, end_date) #plot stock prices & save data to a file
cp.plot_prices(closing_prices)
fr.save_to_file(closing_prices, 'StockPrices')
The stock prices are time-series data.
This is the snapshot of the data. The code stored the data in the StockPrices sheet of the excel spreadsheet as shown below.
As you can see, we are unable to compare ZM with SYMC because the stock prices are of different magnitude. Hence, we need to compute the returns to standardise the stock prices.
4.2 We Need To Generate The Returns From The Prices
We need to compute their geometric returns by calculating the following equation:
The returns are generated so that we can standardise the stock prices and compare them.
returns = settings.DailyAssetsReturnsFunction(closing_prices, settings.ReturnType) #plot stock prices & save data to a file
cp.plot_returns(returns)
fr.save_to_file(returns, 'Returns')
The returns are time-series data. This is the snapshot of the data which is stored in the Returns sheet of the excel spreadsheet as shown below.
4.3 Asset Expected Mean Returns And Covariance Matrix
There are essentially two steps involved:
expected_returns = settings.AssetsExpectedReturnsFunction(returns)
covariance = settings.AssetsCovarianceFunction(returns)
#Plot & Save covariance to file
cp.plot_correlation_matrix(returns)
fr.save_to_file(covariance, 'Covariances')
The first step is to compute a single number to represent the returns of the assets.
One of the most common ways to represent the returns as a singl number is to compute the mean of the returns which is known as the expected mean returns.
To compute the asset expected mean return, we need the mean of the returns of each stock calculated as:
From the asset returns, we can compute the portfolio returns. The assets within the portfolio have been allocated a proportion of the total investment amount. As an instance, the portfolio might hold 40% of asset ABC and 60% of asset DEF.
Note: Are historical returns the right choice? Should we instead generate different measures? I will implement a superior application in the future that demonstrates how we can implement time-weighted returns instead.
2. The second step is about generating the Covariance Matrix from the asset returns
The code then prepares the covariance matrix:
The covariance matrix is stored in the Covariances sheet of the Excel spreadsheet as shown below:
The volatility of the portfolio is the risk of the portfolio. The volatility is computed by calculating the standard deviation of the returns of each stock along with the covariance between each pair of the stocks by using this formula:
Volatility in this instance is the standard deviation i.e. the total risk of the portfolio.
Standard deviation measures the dispersion of the values around the mean.
4.4 Now Important Point: The Monte-Carlo Simulation & The Efficient Portfolios Line
Let’s first generate 100’000+ portfolios via Monte Carlo simulation first. The allocations will be generated randomly.
This technique relies upon the theory that as we generate a portfolio a large number of times, we will eventually reach the formation of the true optimum portfolio. Remember, here the generation of a portfolio implies randomly generating the allocations (weights).
This article demonstrates the Monte-Carlo simulation in detail:
If we plot the risk and return for each of the portfolios on a chart then we will see an arch line at the top of the portfolios.
This yellow line is essentially pointing at the portfolios that are the most efficient. This line is known as the efficient frontier.
The efficient frontier is a set of portfolios that give us the highest return for the lowest possible risk.
Every other portfolio that does not reside on the efficient frontier is not as efficient because it offers the same return as a portfolio on the efficient frontier but by taking a higher risk.
Any other portfolio is therefore inferior to the portfolios on the efficient frontier. As a result, we can literally ignore the portfolios that are not on the efficient frontier line.
Executing Monte-Carlo Simulator:
portfolios_allocations_df = mcs.generate_portfolios(expected_returns, covariance, settings.RiskFreeRate) portfolio_risk_return_ratio_df = portfolios_allocation_mapper.map_to_risk_return_ratios(portfolios_allocations_df)
The portfolios are stored in the MonteCarloPortfolios sheet of the Excel spreadsheet as shown below:
5. The Key Step — Portfolio Optimisation
Now let’s produce an optimum portfolio by running the optimisation techniques.
We are going to use the SciPy package. The scipy.optimize module, within the SciPy package, offers a variety of optimisation algorithms. The module includes un/constrained algorithms, global optimisation routines, least-squares minimisation, scalar and multivariate minimisers etc.
It offers Newton-Krylov, Newton Conjugate Gradient, SLSQP, curve fit and dual annealing algorithms amongst others.
5.1 SciPy minimize function
There is a minimize function within the scipy.optimize module that performs the minimisation of a scalar function of one or more variables. The minimize function makes it easier for us to execute the required algorithm on an objective function.
The signature of the method is:
scipy.optimize.minimize(fun, x0, args=(), method=None, jac=None, hess=None, hessp=None, bounds=None, constraints=(), tol=None, callback=None, options=None)[source] funx0args=()method=Nonejac=Nonehess=Nonehessp=Nonebounds=Noneconstraints=()tol=Nonecallback=Noneoptions=None
The key arguments are:
fun: This is the objective function which we want to minimise. In our case, our portfolio is composed of a number of assets. We want to find the allocation of each asset that gives us the least amount of risk. The first parameter of the function is the 1-D array of allocations. We can also pass in a tuple of other parameters to the function too.
This is the objective function which we want to minimise. In our case, our portfolio is composed of a number of assets. We want to find the allocation of each asset that gives us the least amount of risk. The first parameter of the function is the 1-D array of allocations. We can also pass in a tuple of other parameters to the function too. x0 : This is the initial guess. We can assign a value of 1/number of assets, as the initial value of x.
: This is the initial guess. We can assign a value of 1/number of assets, as the initial value of x. args : This is a tuple that can contain the extra optional arguments. As an instance, if our target risk function takes in the covariance matrix then we can pass it in the args tuple.
: This is a tuple that can contain the extra optional arguments. As an instance, if our target risk function takes in the covariance matrix then we can pass it in the args tuple. method : This is a string argument where we can pass in the algorithm name such as SLSQP
: This is a string argument where we can pass in the algorithm name such as SLSQP constraints : This is where we will pass in the constraints such as the sum of allocations should be 1.
: This is where we will pass in the constraints such as the sum of allocations should be 1. bounds: These are essentially the minimum and maximum pairs of each element in x. As an instance, we can indicate that we don’t want the value of allocation to be negative implying that we don’t want to sell an asset.
5.2 Portfolio Optimisation Routine
To perform constrained minimisation for multivariate scalar functions, we can use the minimize function with the SLSQP algorithm.
SLSQP stands for Sequential Least SQuares Programming.
def solve(self, x0, constraints, bounds, covariance):
return minimize(self.__risk_function, x0,
args=(covariance), method='SLSQP',
#prints covergence msgs
options={'disp': True},
constraints=constraints,
bounds=bounds)
5.3 Initial Guess And Bounds
We specified an initial guess of an equal proportion portfolio and a lower bound of 0 along with an upper bound of 1 on each of the allocations.
x0 = np.ones(self.__portfolio_size) * (1.0 / self.__portfolio_size)
bounds = ((0, 1),) * (self.__portfolio_size)
5.4 Constraints
We also specified the constraints. The idea is to minimise a function of x subject to functions of constraints. The constraints can be linear and non-linear. They are defined as dictionaries.
There are two constrains:
Constraints on the allocations are added which ensure that we maximise return Constraints are added to ensure that the sum of the allocations is 1.
Now the optimiser has to produce a portfolio with minimum risk within the bounds that are subject to these constraints.
The keys of the dictionary of each constraint include:
type: This specifies the type of constraints such as ineq (inequality) or eq (equality). If you have an equality constraint such as:
A + B = C then it will be represented as A+B-C
def con():
return A + B - C
It would be equality ( type='eq' ) constraint, where you make a function that must equal zero:
def con(t):
return A + B - C
If you have an inequality constraint such as:
A + B ≥ C then it will be represented as A+B-C
def con():
return A + B - C
It would be an inequality ( type='ineq' ) constraint, where you make a function that must be greater than C:
def con(t):
return A + B - C
fun: The function of the constraint such as the sum of allocations of assets in the portfolio should be equal to 1.
constraints=[] constraints.append({'type': 'eq', 'fun': lambda inputs: 1.0 - np.sum(inputs)})
constraints.append({'type': 'eq', 'args': (returns,),
'fun': lambda allocations, returns:
my_return - self.__return_function(returns, allocations)})
5.5 Execution Of Portfolio Optimiser
optimiser = obj_factory.get_optimiser(targets, len(expected_returns.index))
portfolios_allocations_df = optimiser.generate_portfolios(expected_returns, covariance, settings.RiskFreeRate)
portfolio_risk_return_ratio_df = portfolios_allocation_mapper.map_to_risk_return_ratios(portfolios_allocations_df) #plot efficient frontiers
cp.plot_efficient_frontier(portfolio_risk_return_ratio_df)
cp.show_plots() #save data
print('7. Saving Data')
fr.save_to_file(portfolios_allocations_df, 'OptimisationPortfolios')
fr.close()
We specified a list of our target returns.
def get_my_targets():
return np.arange(0, 1.5, 0.05)
For each of the returns, the optimiser ran the optimisation routine and produced the most optimum and best portfolios which are known as the efficient frontier.
For each target, it returned the most optimum portfolio. The array of allocations are the weights (proportions) of the assets which make up the portfolio for each of our target return
The red line above is the efficient frontier. These are the optimised target portfolios.
6. Complete Code
The complete code is uploaded on GitHub
7. Next Steps:
We have a long way to go but we are getting there! The next set of steps is about:
Adding superior measures to calculate the return Enhanced risk metrics to calculate the risk of the portfolio Implementing a forward-looking correlation matrix Allocation of weights to the actual amount Company extractor to fetch us the right companies and enriching additional information such as sector, volume, ratings etc Adding additional constraints on the sector, currency, ratings, etc Appropriate allocations by units of shares
8. Notes Worth Mentioning
We need to consider transaction costs.
Additionally, we need to remember that the past does not always dictate the future accurately.
The risk and return measures are not superior and have many flaws. We need to explore other measures such as weighted average returns and expected shortfall risk measures along with forward looking covariance matrix.
We need to start considering the factor models.
9. Summary
This article documented the following sections:
The Theory Of Efficient Frontier The Process Flow Of The End To End Solution Implementation in Python Path Of The Complete Code Next Steps
If you are interested in the next phases then please let me know. Also, let me know if you have any other ideas. | https://medium.com/fintechexplained/end-to-end-python-implementation-of-finding-optimised-efficient-investment-portfolios-8d12693f537d | ['Farhad Malik'] | 2019-11-27 11:48:34.389000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Finance', 'Fintech', 'Programming', 'Python'] |
The Future of Connection: Metrics for Digital Communities | How do we know our online communities are healthy and functional?
Photo by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay
What are Digital Communities?
While historically, communities were mobilized around geographical proximity, modern society has a potent tool at its fingertips: the internet. The powerful computing abilities and deregulation of the internet has reduced the barriers to entry making the internet affordable and accessible to large groups of people around the world¹; these leaps in our collective technological prowess have created tools for social mobilization: digital communities.
Digital communities can be formed at a local, national, or even on a global level and can mobilize people at a faster rate than we’ve ever witnessed prior to the internet.
The first example of a social network that enabled the formation of digital communities around personal networks was in 1997. SixDegrees.com had many of the features of a modern social media platform: finding friends, surfing friend groups, and connecting over shared interests². This was the first digital community hosted on the internet and paved the way for the present-day Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.
Digital Communities are the Future: The Internet is Still Young
Digital communities have evolved since then. While some of the largest and most well-known digital communities are currently established on social media sites, ‘forums’ have always been and still are one of the most prevalent forms of ‘community’ on the internet. The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has unearthed and popularized this ignored industry: new communities like Animal Cafe, Virus.cafe, and many others foster online connections outside of social media. In 2020, the Reddit-user-created digital forum ‘r/wallstreetbets’ became so popular that it toppled the stock market³. Another such incident in 2021 was when a BTS (K-Pop) fan group collaborated with Gen-Z Tik Tok communities to sabotage the US Former President’s Kickoff rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma³. This is the power of community. Despite the rise in new digital communities such as Clubhouse, existing social media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram have an indisputable majority making them a great space for creating and engaging digital communities.
Figure 1: Number of Social Network Users Worldwide
Figure 1 outlines the growth of social media platforms between 2017 and projects into the year 2025. In 2021, there are a projected 3.78 billion users of social media platforms⁴. Another statistic indicates that Facebook alone has 2.78 billion unique, monthly active users⁵. To put this in perspective, the sum of the two most populated countries in the world: China (1.39 billion) and India (1.36 billion) represents fewer people than the number of unique monthly active users on Facebook. Almost 37% of the world's population uses Facebook every month. This number doesn’t even account for the total number of Facebook account holders, but merely active users. With the largest digital communities currently being formed on social media platforms such as Facebook, there’s a growing emphasis on the need to understand indicators of whether these digital communities are contributing positively or negatively to their communities themselves, members, platforms, and society as a whole.
Engagement Metrics
Social media sites include engagement metrics that measure how effective each post is. These are often used by marketers to measure whether they have successfully created engaging content to keep the attention of their followers.
Examples of engagement metrics are:
Pageviews
Likes
Shares
Subscriptions
Time spent on each page
Bounce rates
Top exit pages
Over time, these engagement metrics determine whether a community is created or not. However, these engagement metrics are often misleading: they don’t tell you the quality of the community you have created or whether the information that is creating the engagement is legitimate; engagement doesn’t necessarily equate to community health. Oftentimes, engagement is a better indicator of popularity and has the potential to come at the expense of community health.
Community Health Index (CHI)
While the current engagement metrics are not sufficient to measure whether a digital community is effective, there is a lack of extensive literature on alternative digital community health metrics. The two main reports around community health metrics are from Khoros (formerly known as Lithium) and Higher Logic.
The Khoros Whitepaper is one of the main papers that address the concept of ‘community health’. They describe community health as a ‘spectrum’ of how healthy the community is and identifies parameters that reflect this notion⁶. Additionally, Higher Logic, an SaaS online community platform, also suggests 3 formulas to measure Activity, Value, and Reach. These six main indicators for the Community Health Index by Khoros and the three indicators within the Higher Logic’s Engagement Benchmark score⁷ are tabulated below.
Khoros Whitepaper Metrics
To calculate each of these metrics, refer to the Lithium Whitepaper.
Higher Logic Report on Community Metrics
To calculate the EBS metrics, visit the Higher Logic website here.
Due to the lack of existing literature, we contacted Vincent Boon, an expert on Online Communities. He is the Co-Founder of Standing on Giants and one of the leading experts in the burgeoning world of community management. Previously giffgaff’s Chief of Community, Vincent has turned his attention and talents to Standing on Giants & various other projects.
In addition to those discussed above, we suggest considering the following metrics that expose user behavior on a more detailed level.
Community integration and Engagement efficiency in communities centered around specific products measure the percentage of customers who have a community account.
% of users/members posting
% of content that is help related
% of new ideas (+ #comments on idea)
2. Highly Active Users: These are users who spend a minimum of 4 hours a week on the platform and post at least 3 times each week
3. Quality of Interactions: These are topics that receive more than 3 replies from different unique users.
4. Diversity of Users: % of New vs Existing Users, Anonymous vs Users who have a good reputation, etc.
5. User Turnover: How quickly are users who leave a community replaced by new members?
6. Richness of Content: This indicator measures the number of characters, links, pictures, videos, reactions. These are indicators of how interesting the content is to the users.
7. Reported content:
%Content Reported: This is the percentage of all content reported by the community, based on the total content created. A healthy community will have at least 1% of its content reported by the community.
This is the percentage of all content reported by the community, based on the total content created. A healthy community will have at least 1% of its content reported by the community. % Abusive Content: This is the percentage of Abusive content reported, based on the total content created. A healthy community will have a maximum of 0.3% of its content reported by the community being abusive.
Choosing the Right Metrics: More Research Needed
These indicators add another dimension of community engagement that measures how lively, highly active, responsive, and self-sustaining a community is. However, unfortunately, these are very limited indicators that measure community health. Each community needs to create personalized metrics that impact their communities. Some potential metrics could include accuracy of information being shared within the community, socially positive outcomes such as improvement in public health, level of innovation, influence on policy (either within companies, societies, countries, or on a global level).
However, each metric that is included within a community will include the bias of the people creating the infrastructure underlying the community. If I value accurate and complete information, then I will include a metric on transparency within the community that I create. However, businesses and marketing professionals need to be mindful that these metrics aren’t generalizable to every member of a community. Therefore, more research needs to be conducted on how to update the current method of measuring engagement and digital community health.
Some factors that can affect the generalizability of these metrics are:
Homogeneity of the Community: The more homogenous a group in terms of demographics, the easier it is to create metrics that represent the entire group. For example: Within a community of social entrepreneurs, if all members are from a similar gender, nationality, and region that speaks the same language, they might have similar values regarding social entrepreneurship. These values can be more easily converted into metrics than within a diverse group with diverse opinions. As new members who have different preferences join a group, the community might need to revise its metrics to accommodate newcomers. Broad vs Narrow Communities: Communities that are created around a specific topic might have similar underlying values or goals which can be translated into metrics. For example: A community of new moms might value family time while a gaming community might value innovation in gaming technology. However, communities that incorporate broad topics such as politics might have to include metrics that measure community health for all members involved; these metrics need to function irrespective of a member’s political, social, or economic leaning.
Conclusions
The current engagement metrics used on websites, social media platforms, and other online communities seem insufficient towards identifying whether a digital community is healthy or not; the thresholds for determining health using existing metrics is an area that needs work. While Khoros and Higher Logic have started the process of addressing this gap, more research needs to be done on whether and how we can create and incorporate metrics for heterogeneous groups. A key issue to discuss is whether the current metrics are reflective of digital community health and if not, we need to create and establish new metrics that measure the health of large digital communities.
References
This article is part of a series on digital community health, find out more about digital communities in Healthy Online Communities: What Tech Can Learn from Biological Ecosystems | https://medium.com/arkius/the-future-of-connection-metrics-for-digital-communities-d789362df482 | ['Sanchita Shekhar'] | 2021-09-14 19:07:08.772000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Engagement', 'Analytics', 'Community Management', 'Digital Marketing'] |
How to Succeed on TikTok | Tips to Become Famous on TikTok
Unless you’re Charli D’Amelio, you have to work hard to get more TikTok users to view your videos.
The more views your video has, the more likely it’ll be shown on the For You page, which brings you more followers.
Here are some tips you can try:
1. Personalize your profile photo
TikTok videos are real, raw, and authentic. So, make your profile look consistent with your videos.
You don’t need to put your best face forward. As long as the photo is you or reflects your personality, it’s okay.
Get inspired by these examples. The profile pictures of @timdessiant and @sunnycusine resonate with their video themes.
2. Find your niche and stick to it
You can follow trends and create the same thing as most people do and still get views.
But if you want to differentiate yourself from other TikTok creators and create your own community, you need to find a niche.
Look at the TikTok accounts @sisterdrink and @irisallop. While the first account chooses the “make a drink” niche, the second focuses on showing people how to make delicious food from a small kitchen. They have their own niche.
Your niche can be anything, but it’s best if you choose to do something that you’re passionate about. That passion will keep you motivated and creative along the way.
3. Post videos every day
Even if they don’t reach many people.
On Medium, if you’re a beginner and want to get more views, more readers, and more followers, you have to write a lot and publish regularly. Some even write more than one article per day.
The same rule applies to TikTok. If you want your videos to go viral on this platform, be consistent.
Remember: when people like your videos, they want to see more. Don’t get them to wait for you because videos from other creators can distract your followers’ attention from your videos.
4. Use hashtags wisely
Using hashtags doesn’t guarantee your video a spot on the For You page.
But according to Vice, if posts include at least one of these #fyp, #foryou, or #foryoupage hashtags in their captions, they’re more likely to appear on more For You pages.
5. Capitalize on trends
The For You page shows trending videos. Pay attention to and capitalize on them.
If ten different videos use the same song, that means people like it, and there’s a trend going on.
You don’t need to create the same videos. Learn what works from those videos, be creative, and make your own masterpiece.
6. Show something unique
Besides following trends, you should try something people haven’t seen before.
Doing that helps you establish your personality — what makes users recognize you among millions of other creators.
To inspire you:
Unleash your creativity and wildest, wackiest side. People are waiting to see that.
7. Engage with TikTok videos you like
Your comments on other videos can make people aware of your TikTok profile.
A good start is to engage with influencers. Follow them, share/comment/like their videos, and interact with their followers.
Doing that will help you lead people to watch your videos and check your profile.
8. Redirect your followers from other social media accounts
If you already have an Instagram account or YouTube account with many followers, let your followers know about your TikTok profile as well.
For example:
Since they already follow you on social media, they probably won’t hesitate to find you on TikTok.
9. Advertise on TikTok
If you want to reach the top spot quickly, you can try TikTok ads like these:
Currently, TikTok offers five types of ads: | https://medium.com/better-marketing/how-to-succeed-on-tiktok-e221ef2ca364 | ['Lavender Nguyen'] | 2020-09-24 17:12:45.805000+00:00 | ['Marketing Tips', 'Social Media', 'Tiktok App', 'Success', 'Ecommerce'] |
Powerful Ways to Be Fearless | Someone once told me the definition of hell: “On your last day on earth, the person you could have become will meet the person you became.” When I first heard this line, it sent shivers down my spine. Why? Because by the time I was 26, I had lost my entire student life through fear: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of risk, fear of change, and most of all, fear of anxiety. Finally, I failed in the Numerical Analysis paper in my first semester of Masters in Computer Science. I almost decided to leave my master’s degree. Timely advice from Admiral Kanan saved me.
We all have fear — it’s an emotion that’s as normal as breathing. Fear plays a huge role in nearly everyone’s life. Unfortunately, for many, emotional pain from the past drives these fears. Because of this, most of us do whatever it takes to avoid those situations in the future, and it can have a significant impact on our actions. Maybe you’re not addicted to drugs. Perhaps you’ve never struggled with anxiety. But we all have fears. To identify what might be holding you back, you need to reflect on this. Are you afraid to ask that person out through fear of rejection? Are you unhappy in your current job, but you’re scared of change? Do you know what lights that fire in your belly, but you’re letting your dreams slip through your fingers because you’re afraid of failure?
All of these fears are perfectly understandable, especially when past experiences are driving them. But imagine how life might look if you push through these fears. Imagine if you began asking yourself this question: “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?”
By telling people how you feel, you might find the partner of your dreams. By sitting with your anxiety instead of avoiding it, you might realize that it’s not as scary as you believed it would be. By having those difficult conversations, you might save your relationship or get that promotion. And by embracing failure and shooting for the stars, you could be living the life of your dreams. The problem is that most people cling to their fears and are therefore unable to move forward in their lives with the necessary change.
I have learned a lot about fear in my life as a professional in the armed forces and Corporate World. I’ve learned that the only difference between people who achieve greatness and those who do not is that the former ditched their fear. Many of the methods I have used to prepare for tremendous performances have helped me conquer fear in other life areas. Here’s how you can start overcoming fear:
When you make decisions based on what is always valid and works, instead of guessing other people’s agendas, you advance your Life. Why don’t you train yourself in the fundamental realities of life that are true for everyone? You already know that if you don’t pay attention, you have collisions.
You already know that you are unique. No two humans are identical. Even identical twins have some small variations and often develop differing personalities. You already know that you depend on oxygen, water, and food. You get clothing and other commodities from the rest of society. You probably didn’t invent this Internet or the devices you are using.
You have experienced the ‘goes around, comes around’ effect. Sometimes the connections aren’t obvious, yet you take actions every day and expect commensurate results. You breathe and expect oxygen to reach your cells. You keep seeing things change, yet Life goes on. You know that attitude and aptitude are both critical. You know that none of us was born knowing what we know now. To advance in Life, you have to receive training and train yourself.
When you make decisions based on what is always valid and works, instead of guessing other people’s agendas, you advance your Life. Why don’t you train yourself in the fundamental realities of life that are true for everyone?
When you advance your Life, you can also help others and make things better all around. You know that it is more fun to live among happy, prosperous people than unhappy, frustrated people. You also understand that to effect change reliably; you need to take action with the right tools. Many people developed the tools for reliable life changes over a long time. They are available for free, and the steps can be taken wherever, whenever you choose.
What’s stopping you?
The details of Life are often as confusing as driving in fog. See-through the mist with the light of the four essential relationships of Life. The Bold words are part of the mantra you can use to get more transparency. Here is my experience based on being a follower of Nichiren Buddhism philosophy since 2009. Nichiren Buddhism focuses on the Lotus Sutra doctrine that all people have an innate Buddha-nature and are therefore inherently capable of attaining enlightenment in their current form and present lifetime. There are three essential aspects to Nichiren Buddhism, the undertaking of faith, chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo accompanied by selected recitations of the Lotus Sutra, and Nichiren’s study scriptural writings called Gosho.
You respect reality, Nam. You are unique and part of the whole. Myoho What you do makes a difference, and you can wake up at any time. Renge. Lives change, yet Life goes on. Kyo. You breathe in seconds rhythms, have a heartbeat in seconds rhythms, have brainwaves in many beats, eat-drink-purge in parts of days meters. It is best to also nourish-clear your mind-heart in rhythms, twice a day.
To be fearless, no matter what happens, is the root of true happiness. To move forward resolutely, regardless of what lies in store-that is the spirit, the resolve, leading to human victory-Daisaku Ikeda | https://medium.com/@capt-vinod/powerful-ways-to-be-fearless-10f4fd4557c5 | ['Vinod Bhardwaj'] | 2020-12-25 13:49:01.602000+00:00 | ['Reality', 'Nichiren Buddhism', 'Humanity', 'Uniqueness', 'Fearless'] |
A letter to my lover: | A letter to my lover:
You may not know this, but damn you have brought so much joy to my life. The little things you do and say always fill my heart. You may not always notice, but I study the little things you do and everytime I look at you, you fill me with life. Your quirky, yet you choose not to admit it. You black wavy hair, dark brown eyes, the little lunares all over your lovely brown skin; the little things that drive me crazy. You taste of sweet warm comfort, and every time you hug me from behind and bury your face in my neck, damn. It gets me every time. You remind me of a warm day with a cool smooth breeze. A day at the beach and that feeling of the sand burning and warming up my skin as I bury myself deeper into it because that’s just a weird thing I like. Yeah, That’s what you are. Warmth and comfort. And although what we have is somewhat new, I feel like what we have is real and we were meant to meet. I like the silly thought that you were made for me because we both have a lunar on our shoulders; same place and everything. I hope what we have lasts a while. It’s been a cool minute since Ive felt THIS loved, and I savor it every moment I get.
I can’t wait to continue getting to grow with you and learn all your small quirks.
All love,
The girl that still can’t fully love herself. | https://medium.com/@gabriellakgp/a-letter-to-my-lover-ca9be11f236e | ['Gabriela Gonzalez'] | 2019-03-20 20:40:56.621000+00:00 | ['Love Letters', 'Youngadult', 'Feelings', 'Poetry', 'Dreams'] |
Molding a Success Story —ORBIS PLATFORM | The ORBIS system can provide this on a 24-hour basis, either online or in-person at an ORBIS branch. This will allow everyone to access the benefits that cryptocurrencies provide them, including low transaction costs, no-limit transactions, fast payment, and the removal of geopolitical barriers to payment.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”. Abraham Lincoln
Just over 150 years ago, the USA experienced one of its most influential and inspiring presidents. 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln is remembered for his exceptional visionary drive for change and reform which he indeed carried out during the four years of his office.
Buy ORBIS Token (Click Here)
Lincoln quite naturally inspired those generations who followed after him and indeed he will continue to do so for generations to come. However, this inspiration which remains in every American’s heart is not only for his years of presidency but it is also because he was a highly shrewd businessman. Responsible for the success of his father’s business Filene’s Department store, he was both an exceptional president and a guru of business. His wisdom has quite naturally touched and inspired people across all walks of life not only because of who he was but because those lasting words make complete sense.
The quote above is salient to any project but even more so for those projects which wish to innovate and catalyze change. In the case of ICOs,marketing is at its height and often the words “innovation” and “change” are purely the selling speak of their product. It is just because of this that gauging an ICO such as ORBIS PLATFORM can, at times, be highly challenging. So what could be better than to go back to the days of yore and refer to the words of an old man of wisdom who has not only stood the test of time but whose actions both in business and politics were so successful? Indeed, Lincoln’s words make perfect sense and they go across the board of life’s adventures. Just as a the mountaineer does not climb Everest without a map, nor the football coach train his team for the World Cup without a strategy, likewise no business project can be successful without a realistic roadmap. All lies in a well thought out, viable strategy and planning — after all the tree won’t fall if those four hours are spent gauging the height and weight of the tree when the axe remains blunt.
OrbisSolutions OÜ has build an unique blockchain with two coins that are used to Withdraw ,Transfer with No Fee, Store, Spend and Invest your Money and Cryptocurrency via NFC Mobile App, Desktop Software, Orbis Card or in our future Worldwide Self-service Orbis Branches.
Buy ORBIS Token (Click Here)
The roadmap is the core of every project and should be one of the first things referred to when gauging a project. Questions such is the timescale viable? Is each step addressed logically? Are there sufficient stages to its development and is the timescale sufficient or too ambitious? These can be tell-tale signs of the good or indeed bad management of a future project.
1 Feb 2017
Start of ORBIS Project.
1 Mar 2017
Project design and team gathering
1 May 2017
Orbis blockchain platform concept testing with success
1 Jul 2017
ICO and marketing project done
16 Apr 2018
Pre-ICO start
30 Apr 2018
Pre-ICO finish
1 May 2018
ICO start
29 Oct 2018
ICO closing
1 Nov 2018
Release of Orbis desktop/mobile platform, ORBS, ORBSi coins, ORBIS Wallet and ORBIS Mobile app
15 Nov 2018
Listing and trading ORBS and ORBSi coins on most of big exchanges
1 Dec 2018
Release of Orbis Debit card to customers
1 Jan 2019
Presenting ORBIS Investment
1 Feb 2019
Presenting the Orbis Branches project (self-service cash dispensing machines VR customer service)
1 Mar 2019
Releasing to public buy Orbis Franchise
1 Oct 2019
Presenting Orbis Phylantropic Projects
Taking as an example ORBIS’s roadmap* (OrbisSolutions OÜ has build an unique blockchain with two coins that are used to Withdraw ,Transfer with No Fee, Store, Spend and Invest your Money and Cryptocurrency via NFC Mobile App, Desktop Software, Orbis Card or in our future Worldwide Self-service Orbis Branches). We can see what can only be described as a positive example of what a successful roadmap should look like. We are able to quickly glean that the team behind the project has thought of most eventualities. The first quarter clearly indicates that the team have taken time to look at all angles of their project before embarking on their adventure. Furthermore they have delivered this stage according to plan. Looking through the years of their planning, they have also recognised the amplitude of the work involved to get it off the ground successfully. They have a sensible implementation timescale and have planned a realistic testing period; done step by step so as to ensure that their user experience at the end is one which is perfected.
We provide our customers with tools that allow the generational leap to a safer Blockchain 5.0, able to create synergies among cryptocurrencies and to adapt to their specific needs, splitting and rejoining itself , allowing for a neater and faster data flux, which can manage the assets in a complex structured universe via Orbis Coins.
Buy ORBIS Token (Click Here)
They have clearly researched their markets and a methodology on how they will spearhead it. The roadmap is indeed interesting and certainly it shows one which is not in a hurry to move too quickly.
Studying this plan is well worth the while of a potential investor and is easily findable: an encouraging factor and an indicator that the main players aim is not to bamboozle. I would certainly recommend that any potential investor should look carefully at this roadmap. My conclusion after reading this is that the leaders of this project have certainly taken into account Lincoln’s wise words. Indeed the axe will be very sharp and therefore it is in keeping with the ambition and change that this project promises.
For More Details Visit these links:
Website: https://orbistransfer.com/
ANN Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3844192.0
ICO: https://orbistransfer.com/auth/register
Author:
Bitcointalk username: GeckoTrader
Bitcointalk Profile link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1846257 | https://medium.com/cryptocurrency-beyond-limits/molding-a-success-story-orbis-platform-d879e5425978 | ['Gecko Trader'] | 2018-07-29 10:59:22.611000+00:00 | ['Cryptocurrency', 'Blockchain', 'Erc20', 'ICO'] |
Why Startups Fail to Generate Revenue Quickly — And What to Do Instead | Why Startups Fail to Generate Revenue Quickly — And What to Do Instead
The more revenue you have coming in, the better the chances you can raise (and not waste) investor funds
Credit: PM Images/Getty Images
At startups, the difference between survival and running out of runway always comes down to taking our eyes off revenue.
We don’t want to do this, and we certainly don’t do it on purpose. But when we’re in the middle of the startup run, it’s pretty easy to fall into a trap of wasting time on feel-good tasks that feel like progress but don’t bring in any money.
No entrepreneur is immune to this trap, myself included. It’s part of the drive that makes the successful entrepreneurs successful.
I’ve founded, worked at, and advised a ton of startups, and each one tends to make the same mistakes where revenue is concerned. Whether a founder is launching their first company or their fifth, there’s one universal fact they can’t ignore: The path to success starts with survival.
The odds of survival depend on how fast you can generate revenue. The key to getting to revenue fast is to do nothing else but seek it out. Here are the easiest traps to fall into and how to sidestep them.
“Remember: Raising money is not the same as generating revenue.”
Mistake #1: Raising money before you’re ready
No one joins a startup to do something ordinary. But if you want to do something extraordinary, you’ll need a shitload of money to get it all done.
That doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in stages — sometimes long, mostly boring, often very scary stages. The problem is that we usually see, hear, and read about startups as overnight successes: Some kid genius has a great idea, drops out of college, works on it for a couple months, and then raises a few million dollars at a $1 billion valuation.
This is the trap: Like the lure of the lottery but with pitch decks and spreadsheets instead of Powerball tickets.
Before you try to raise money, you need to establish that what you want to build will generate revenue. And remember: Raising money is not the same as generating revenue.
Here’s what I usually advise to avoid this trap: You might estimate that you need a few million dollars to take a serious run at your dream company. Break that number into small pieces, and raise just enough to get to that first revenue-generating piece. As a guide, think about how much of your own funds you can scrape together to put into your company. Multiply that by 10 and go raise that.
But even before that, figure out how you’ll get to your first dollar of revenue, and then build your deck, financial model, and pitch on repeating that process over and over. Because this is what almost all successful entrepreneurs do anyway — they just take bigger strides. It’s also the reason investors love repeat entrepreneurs, because those entrepreneurs can say, “Remember that time I made all that money? I’m going to do it again but a little different.”
Unless you have already built a track record, you can’t say that to investors — and believe me, it’s not that simple even when you do have a couple exits under your belt. The more definitive your proof that revenue will be coming in, the better the chances you can raise (and not waste) investor funds.
Mistake #2: Building out the company before the product
From business plans to business cards, founders can spend a lot of time dreaming and building their company before the first dollar is made. Here are some of the things startups don’t need before going after revenue:
A website or social media presence.
A mission statement, brand statement, or logo.
A board of directors, advisory board, or management team.
A financial plan or P&L statement.
Office space, T-shirts, or stickers.
It’s not that a startup shouldn’t have these things. But how the initial revenue comes in will drastically alter not only whether those things are needed, but also what their true purpose is. A common example of this trap is building out an amazing web app and then realizing all the things paying customers actually need are three or four clicks deep.
I get that company and brand building are intended to establish legitimacy. The advice I usually give to avoid this trap goes like this: “You want to be an entrepreneur? Boom. You’re an entrepreneur. But no matter how cool your brand is or what your mission is or how far out your financial plan goes, you’re not really an entrepreneur until someone pays you money for something you’ve made.”
Everything will change when that happens, so make it happen early.
Mistake #3: Hiring or teaming up before the idea is fully formed
I can’t exaggerate the number of times a startup co-founder has come to me with the lack-of-revenue issue and it turns out there are a dozen people fighting over the strategy of a company that doesn’t have a single paying customer yet.
Look, running a startup can be hard to do alone. But for your own sanity, as well as for the integrity of your vision, it makes sense to get as far as you can down the revenue road on your own. You may not be a coder, but there are a number of SaaS tools that can get you to MVP. You may not be a financial expert, but most of us can wrangle a spreadsheet in the early days. You may not have sales magic, but if your idea is good enough, you’re probably the right person to get it into the hands of those first paying customers.
Yeah, it’s always easier building something with other people, except when it isn’t. There are priorities to juggle, schedules to wrangle, agreements to hammer out, decisions to get consensus on. Believe me, especially in the early days, it can be much less of a headache to go it alone.
Mistake #4: Mapping out the full infrastructure of the product before the first release
If we’re building a rocket, we first need to build something that manages to take off and land without exploding. How far it flies, its reusability, and what color it is don’t matter yet.
This is a trap that most repeat entrepreneurs get caught in, and I still fall for it. I know the true vision I want to build is not version one, but version five of my product, and the trap I fall into is trying to build all five versions at once. In other words, before I launch, I plan for every use case in every scenario with multiple features across multiple customer segments.
My advice to avoid this trap is something I still tell myself on a weekly basis: Narrow it down and get to a small feature set for a small segment with manual steps. Then collect money, figure out the priorities based on where the money comes from and what breaks, and move on to building the next feature.
Mistake #5: Focusing on innovation before execution
A startup without innovation is a small business. But innovation without execution is just a great way to earn a doctorate degree.
Obviously, the trap is worrying about innovation before building the product. Again, I raise my hand as having been guilty of this many times over, just not anymore. My advice is something I started doing about halfway through my career: If you want to innovate on a product, first you need to sell the product. If you have a new way to mow lawns, start by selling regular lawnmowers. If you can’t sell a lawnmower, you can’t sell the lawnmower of the future.
Mistake #6: Chasing a large number of customers before landing one
Almost everyone makes this mistake, especially during the early stages of their startup. The trap is trying to sell your minimum viable product to hundreds or thousands or even millions of customers at once, tailoring the marketing, the pitch, and the price to a target we think might be somewhere in the middle of the curve.
This seems like a good way to generate revenue quickly, but it’s really just a flawed way to try to generate a lot of revenue. It’s also crazy expensive. My advice is to start with one customer and sell the heck out of them. How that first customer gets sold, how they get onboarded, how they adopt the product, and when they stop using it will all be lessons to learn.
Learn from customer number one, then go to 10 customers. Learn from them, then do 20, and so on until you have definitive, repeatable, scalable revenue streams. Then go innovate, launch new versions, hire the team, build the company, and — if you’re still interested in growing — raise the money. | https://marker.medium.com/how-startups-get-to-revenue-fast-3575332f2955 | ['Joe Procopio'] | 2019-09-27 13:49:05.144000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Investors', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Startup'] |
Say It Without Spraying It: How to Breathe and Talk During a Pandemic | Breathing
If you rank different face activities — like coughing, sneezing, talking, and breathing — by the total amount of liquid that sprays out, breathing is by far the least offensive. But if you’re in an enclosed space with other breathers, enough little droplets of liquid could accumulate in the air over time to create a much larger risk.
Unfortunately, asking certain coworkers or extended family members to “stop breathing” is not an option. However, there are some steps we could all take together to lower the risk that comes from breathing around others.
Ostracize the mouth breathers
Sure, everyone occasionally breathes out of their mouths. But some people sit around catching flies with their mouths all day long. In general, research finds that mouth breathers send many more droplets into the air than those of us who keep our mouths shut. Breathing through our noses may become more difficult as allergy season ramps up, but if we keep our nasal passages clear and functional, it could help reduce the total amount of liquid droplets in the air.
Count to five
This may sound crazy, but if you must exhale through your mouth, it’s best to first pause for five seconds before exhaling… then exhale slowly. Research finds that this type of exhale creates only 18% to 40% of the droplets normally produced by other types of exhales. But don’t blindly trust the scientists — see for yourself by fog-testing different breathing styles on a mirror.
An additional bonus to counting in between breaths: It’s also a popular form of meditation. Most of us are dealing with extra stress right now, and a little breath meditation might be a good source of support.
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably dying to know why this breath trick works. The reasoning is as follows: Imagine someone eating a peanut butter sandwich with their mouth open. In between each chew, gooey strings of peanut butter snap and fling little bits of spittle as the teeth open apart. Similarly, each time you inhale, tiny moist lung sacs fill with air, and the re-opening of these lung cavities creates a “film burst.” But if you wait a few seconds before exhaling, most of these little droplets will have a chance to settle back down in your lungs.
Reduce indoor physical exertion around others
When we exercise or do manual labor, we breathe harder, faster, and often with our mouths wide open. Clearly, this sends many more liquid droplets into the air, which can quickly accumulate into a steamy, germy mess without proper ventilation. If breathing does end up being a significant source of coronavirus infections — remember, this has yet to be fully researched and proven—then fitness classes, gyms, and dance clubs could pose a high risk.
Increase ventilation
Obviously, we all need to breathe. And no matter what tricks we use, we will still send little droplets of liquid into the air around us. That’s why, if we must be together indoors for work, play or prayer, we need to focus on diluting the concentration of droplets in the air.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to keep the windows and doors open. A good ventilation system or HEPA filtration might also do the trick. When possible, gathering outdoors would be best — although still not a perfect solution, especially if everyone is crowded together.
Wear face masks
One of the easiest ways to reduce the number of respiratory droplets in the air is for everyone to wear a face mask. Research shows that simple surgical masks can reduce the number of exhaled viruses carried in large droplets by 96%, and in aerosols by 64%. Another recent paper also confirms that simple surgical masks can reduce the number of seasonal coronaviruses carried by aerosols and larger droplets. Masks are by no means perfect, but at this point in time, every little bit counts. | https://betterhumans.pub/say-it-without-spraying-it-how-to-breathe-and-talk-during-a-pandemic-4d50bdca2731 | ['Adrien Burch'] | 2020-04-24 21:17:49.481000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Health', 'Science', 'Virus', 'Disease'] |
The Smart Media Revolution: Part I. New Business Designs at the Intersection of Media, Metadata & Technology | Over the course of the last decade, an extraordinary convergence has emerged across varied and vying media industry segments. The combination of powerful new media metadata types, new highly discoverable and direct-to-consumer content distribution paradigms, and computing power leaps in immersive, virtual, and 3d spatial technologies; have led to a unique moment where media and technology — content and context — are converging as one. Singularity.
At the heart of this smart media revolution are uncontainable market dynamics — which include The Streaming Wars, an explosion of algorithm driven Addressable TV & Ad Tech, and the advent of immersive and gamified ‘story-world’ ecosystems commonly known as The Metaverse. These forces will power the next generation of multi-screen TV, film, advertising, gaming, and non-linear content distribution for decades to come; and accordingly spur new technology, insight, and vast digitally interconnected economies.
The five gears of the coming Smart Media Revolution engine are:
1. Distributive Disruption: Direct to Consumer — OTT & Virtual MVPD Streaming Content Platforms
2. Hyper Granular & Discoverable Content Technologies: Volumetric Media + Addressable TV + Ad Tech
3. Virtual, Augmented & Immersive Presence Technologies
4. Telepresence, Remote Tech & Virtual Events
5. Adaptive Content
Enhancing their limitless power and possibility, is the interoperability and frictionless scale potential of each gear, in additive relationship to the next, as well as the whole. Accordingly, each creates a value economy and interlineated growth driver that simultaneously powers both itself and its neighboring gears; creating a powerful self-driving value engine. A flywheel, of flywheels — each force multiplying the drive force of the others.
Together the gear segments loosely form an interlineated solutions web, covering for the first time, the whole of the media<>data value chain: from capture, to management, to distribution, consumption, enhancement and engagement. This evolutionary convergence is propelling paradigm shifts in both value chain architecture and supporting economics. As we move from linear TV (network distribution via cable and satellite Multi Player Video Distribution systems), to non-linear media and programming (media distribution in non-linear star economies such as programming over direct-to-consumer and platformed services, including Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD e.g.,Netflix), Advertising Video on Demand (AVOD e.g., Youtube) and Transactional Video on Demand (TVOD e.g., Apple iTunes Rent/Download), the next way station will bring us to an amazing new place — inter-linear — an integrated mash-up of different media types, all consumable by viewers within varying contextual medium environments or “storyworlds,” driven by a host of key matching user interest and relevance algorithms, and tightly sewn-in addressable metadata. A world where we watch our favorite programming in an immersive environment from our own customizable 3D vantage point or POV, being served relevant product and related media offerings driven by our current viewing habits, is — though in its infancy — currently available. Fortnite’s recent launch of dedicated concert events and the viewing of programming content within the immersive confinesof its gaming environment; puts us at the forefront of a new, fully achievable, and monetizable media value system — a new golden-age in media-metadata based technologies.
With the opportunity development foresight and strategic know-how to execute value via the technologies, product solutions and teams powering these five outlined pillars, highly differentiated and defensible value growth are in play for decades to come. | https://medium.com/@nick-5135/the-smart-media-revolution-part-i-452ea04107af | ['Nick Sciorra'] | 2020-12-21 19:10:13.452000+00:00 | ['VR', 'TV Series', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Immersive', 'Advertising'] |
Chapter 2/4 The path of the boy | For a bit he just stands there looking around, enjoying the feeling. Then he hops back up on his horse and continues riding down the path. In no time he gets back into the sea of memories:
“After that talk, Mama sent me back to my room as they continued to talk outside. I didn’t hear them, just some distorted mumbling. My room was so small my bed barely fit in. It only had a small window, so not much light could come in, though the upside was that the temperature didn’t rise much even on summers. I had one shelf on the wall where I kept my most recent findings Some dirty metal part of a machine with a hook worm living inside, a very small bone I’d find the other day in the ground, and a cocoon of some insect though I didn’t know the species, that was still alive, at least I was sure of it.
Don’t know how much I’ve waited there, but couldn’t have been long. “Drustan, come here” Mama shouted. So I walked out slowly, I was curious, though a bit afraid too. When I got in the kitchen I saw them standing at the front door, smiling at me; Mama still with tears on her face.
As I reached them, lady Stanara asked me “Have you ever ridden a horse Drustan?”
“No” I replied to her a little confused, though the question also made me excited a bit.
Mama crouched down to me, and said “Drustan, now we won’t see each other for some time. Be a good boy and listen carefully to Lady Stanara.” She stopped for a moment looking deep into my eyes. ” I love you.” she finished.
After a brief silence I replied as I slowly started to realize, what was happening. “Okay Mama, but how long will I have to stay? Why do I need to go with her?”
“You will realize soon Drustan… now go. We will see each other soon.” She replied with the same excited, joyful expression on her face, still in tears. I’m sure she was sad too, but she didn’t let it show back then.
As we left the house, Lady Stanara whistled and in almost that instant her horse appeared, running to us from behind the house. A black steed, with a few big and lots of small, white spots on her. Also what caught my eyes was that how magnificent her fur was, shining under the light of the noon sun. When it arrived to us, she put me up on the saddle and then she jumped up in front of me. | https://medium.com/@essencethestory/chapter-2-4-the-path-of-the-boy-957f585f4776 | ['Essence The Story'] | 2020-12-25 11:59:27.547000+00:00 | ['Mystery', 'Adventure', 'Storytelling', 'Fiction', 'Writing'] |
5 Canine Heroes Who Distinguished Themselves on the Frontlines | 5 Canine Heroes Who Distinguished Themselves on the Frontlines
These pups were more than just mascots
Airedale terriers trained by Lt Col Edwin Hautenville Richardson for service in World War I (Getty Images, fair use)
“Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war.” — Mark Antony in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
As far back as ancient Rome and beyond, man’s best friend has accompanied him onto the battlefield. Here are the stories of five of the most celebrated warrior dogs of the 20th century.
Sergeant Stubby — World War I, United States Army
Sergeant Stubby, a hero of World War I (public domain)
Sergeant Stubby (1916–1926) was a stray dog of uncertain parentage, possibly part Boston Terrier. In July of 1917, members of the 102nd Infantry Regiment (United States) found him wandering the campus of Yale University where they were training. Stubby was friendly with all the soldiers, but one in particular, Corporal James Robert Conroy (1892–1987) took a special liking to him and took responsibility for his care.
Conroy hid Stubby beneath his overcoat when he boarded a troopship bound for France. Luckily, the soldiers had taught Stubby to salute, so when Conroy’s commanding officer discovered the stowaway, Stubby showed him proper respect. This persuaded the officer to let Stubby stay with the men.
General John Pershing presents Stubby with a gold medal from the Humane Education Society in 1921 (public domain)
Stubby served with the 102nd for eighteen months in the battlefield trenches of France. He participated in four offensives and seventeen battles. His first taste of combat was on February 5, 1918, at Chemin des Dames, where his regiment was under constant fire for more than a month. Stubby was wounded in the foreleg by a German hand grenade and convalesced with the rear guard.
When Stubby recovered from his wounds, he returned to the trenches. The army issued him a specially designed gas mask to protect him from mustard gas attacks. But Stubby was more than just a mascot and morale booster. He located wounded soldiers in no man’s land and used his superior canine hearing ability to detect incoming missiles, barking to warn his fellow soldiers.
Sgt. Stubby’s brick at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri (image via wikipedia.org)
Stubby was once again wounded by an exploding grenade, this time in the chest and leg. He received sole credit for capturing a German spy in the Argonne, earning him a promotion to the rank of Sergeant. For his injuries, Stubby was awarded two wound stripes (a precursor to the Purple Heart). He was the most decorated dog of World War I. At the end of the war, Conroy smuggled Stubby home again.
Promotional graphic for the animated film “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero.” (fair use)
Sergeant Stubby would go on to meet three U.S. presidents, lead many military parades, appear on the vaudeville stage, and be adopted as the Georgetown Hoyas’ team mascot.
After he died in 1926, the New York Times printed a half-page obituary recounting his life and accomplishments.
Robert Conroy donated Stubby’s preserved remains to the Smithsonian Institution in 1956. In May 2018, Conroy’s descendants donated a life-size bronze statue called “Stubby Salutes” to Veterans Memorial Park in Middletown, Connecticut.
Stubby’s life has been the subject of at least four books and a 2018 animated film.
Rags — World War I, United States Army
Undated photo of Rags (public domain)
Rags (1916–1936) was a mixed breed terrier found on the streets of Paris, France, by Private James Donovan, an A.E.F. signal corps specialist serving with the U.S. 1st Infantry Division. Donovan said he named him Rags because he looked like a pile of rags lying in the gutter when he first saw him.
Donovan had been marching in the Bastille Day parade and was late getting back to his unit. To avoid being considered Absent Without Leave, Donovan told the military police that Rags was the 1st Division’s mascot and that he was part of a search party to retrieve the “missing” dog.
A view of the Montmartre district of Paris where Donovan found Rags, c. 1910 (public domain)
Donovan’s job was to repair telephone lines damaged by shelling. Until the lines were fixed, the army usually assigned men to carry messages, but they were often killed or wounded in the process. Donovan trained Rags to carry written messages attached to his collar, eliminating the need for human runners. The task was safer for Rags because he could more easily get around shell holes and through barbed wire.
In July of 1918, Donovan and Rags were with an infantry unit of forty-two men surrounded by Germans. Rags carried a message that led to the group’s rescue. In another incident on October 2, 1918, Rags carried a message from the 1st Battalion of the 26th Infantry Regiment to the 7th Field Artillery that led to securing the Very-Epinonville road, saving many soldiers’ lives.
Cover of a picture book about Rags by Margot Theis Raven (fair use)
On October 9, 1918, Rags successfully delivered a critical message, despite being partially blinded by shrapnel and inhaling mustard gas when his gas mask slipped off. His friend Donovan was seriously injured in the same attack.
Although Rags quickly recovered, Donovan’s condition worsened and he was sent back to the United States for treatment. Members of the 1st Infantry smuggled Rags out of France so that he could stay with his friend. Donovan was treated at the military hospital at Fort Sheridan in Chicago. Sadly, he never recovered from his wounds and died there early in 1919.
1930s newspaper clipping showing Rags and Maj. Raymond W. Hardenbergh (public domain)
Major Raymond W. Hardenbergh and his family adopted Rags in 1920. He accompanied the Major on his various postings and was reunited with the 1st Division on Governors Island in New York harbour in 1924.
Rags became a celebrity in New York. Numerous newspapers and magazines carried his story and at least two books were written about him. He marched down Broadway with the 1st Infantry in a parade commemorating the 10th anniversary of World War I.
Rags spent the rest of his life with the Hardenberg family at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, NY. He is buried in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Jack — World War I, British Army
Lt. Colonel Richardson at the British War Dog School at Shoeburyness in 1940 (public domain)
When World War I broke out in 1914, the British Army had only one dog in service, an Airdale Terrier trained by Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Hautenville Richardson as a sentry. Richardson does not mention the dog’s name in his book British War Dogs: Their Training and Psychology, but he does say that the Airedale gave its life when a shell exploded along the Aisne River in France.
Richardson convinced the British Army of the value of using dogs to carry messages because of their stamina, agility, speed, and intelligence. He established the British War Dog School in Shoeburyness, Essex, England, and began training dogs for use in combat.
Richardson found that the best dogs under fire were Airedale Terriers and terrier mixes. As the war progressed, Richardson’s program's success led to high demand for military dogs. The British government appealed to the public to donate their family pets and many responded. Soon there were thousands of dogs attached to the British Army. They acted as sentries, messengers, and the Red Cross sometimes used them to transport medical supplies and find wounded soldiers.
“I’ve given my husband and my sons, and now that he too is required, I give my dog.” — letter from an Englishwoman volunteering her dog for active duty in World War I
Among the dogs Richardson trained was a dog named Jack, killed in the line of duty in 1918. In a BBC interview, Alastair Petrie, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Territorial Army told Jack’s story. He said that Jack’s battalion was totally cut off, surrounded by shell-holes and barbed wire. They sent Jack to summon reinforcements. “No man could get through the environment, and their one chance was Jack,” Petrie said.
A dog handler of the Royal Engineers reads the message that has just been brought to him by his messenger dog. The dog has just swum across a canal to deliver the message, near Nieppe Wood, 1918. (Image via nationalgeographic.co.uk)
“A piece of shrapnel smashed his jaw, but he carried on, and another shell tore open his coat right down his back, and he kept on going. Finally, his forepaw was shattered, but he dragged his body for the last three kilometres. There was the glaze of death in his eyes when he reached headquarters, but he’d done his work — he’d saved his battalion.” (NOTE: I was unable to substantiate the details of Petrie’s story, but it was typical of the heroics performed by the war dogs of World War I.)
It is estimated that 20,000 dogs had served in the British Army by the end of World War I. Richardson went on to train dogs for service in World War II.
Chips-World War II, United States Army
German shepherd mix Chips, seen at left getting a treat during WWII, was honoured with a medal in a London ceremony attended by John Wren, right, whose family donated their dog to military service from 1942 to 1945. (Image via insideedition.com)
Chips (1940–1946) was a German Shepherd mix whose owner John Wren donated him for military service during World War II. Chips was sent to the War Dog Training Center in Front Royal, Virginia, in 1942 for training as a sentry dog.
The army assigned Chips to the 3rd Infantry Division in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany.
In 1943, Chips and his handler Pvt. John P. Rowell were pinned down on the beach by an Italian machine-gun team during the invasion of Sicily. Chips jumped into the pillbox and attacked the gunners who then surrendered to US troops. Despite sustaining a scalp wound and powder burns, he helped take ten Italians prisoner later that day.
Chips meets with General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Chips received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, and the Purple Heart. Unfortunately, Army policy prevented the official commendation of animals, and his awards were later revoked. His unit unofficially awarded him a theatre ribbon with an arrowhead for an assault landing, and battle stars for his eight campaigns.
Chips was discharged in 1945 and was reunited with the Wren family. Sadly, he died seven months later due to complications from his war wounds. Chips was posthumously awarded the PDSA Dickin Medal in 2018 and the Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery in 2019.
Sergeant Gander — World War II, Canadian Army
Gander with an unidentified soldier in Canada (Image via cdnhistorybits.wordpress.com)
Perhaps one of the most moving stories of canine heroism is that of Gander, a 130-pound New Foundland who had originally been a family pet named Pal. When Pal accidentally scratched a child’s face, his owners, the Hayden family, were afraid he would have to be put down, so they gave him to soldiers at nearby CFB Gander.
The soldiers renamed him Gander and he became the mascot of The Royal Rifles of Canada who “promoted” him to sergeant. When they shipped out to defend Hong Kong from the Japanese in October of 1941, he accompanied them. According to Gander’s handler Rifleman Fred Kelly, Gander liked to beat the heat with frequent cold showers and was also fond of beer.
Gander en route to Hong Kong with Infantrymen of “C” Company, Royal Rifles of Canada, October 27, 1941 (Image via cdnhistorybits.wordpress.com)
The Battle of Hong Kong began on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Gander proved to be a ferocious defender of the men in his unit. Whenever a Japanese soldier would get near, he would attack him and nip at his heels. Since most of the battles occurred at night, Gander’s black colouring made him hard for the enemy to see clearly.
The Japanese later questioned Canadian prisoners of war about the “black beast.” Apparently, they were so impressed by Gander’s tactics, they wondered if the Canadians had been breeding ferocious animals for use in warfare.
Gander’s true moment of glory came in the wee hours of the morning of December 19th at the Battle of Lye Mun. An enemy hand grenade landed among a group of seven wounded Canadian soldiers that Gander was guarding. Without hesitation, Gander picked up the grenade in his mouth and raced back toward the Japanese. In saving those men’s lives, he gave up his own when the grenade exploded.
Video via YouTube
The Battle of Hong Kong ended on Christmas Day with the victory going to the Japanese. In addition to Gander, Canada lost 290 men. All 1,685 surviving soldiers were taken as prisoners of war (POWs).
On October 27, 2000, the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animal posthumously awarded Gander the Dicken Medal for Gallantry. His former handler Fred Kelly accepted the honour with a New Foundland dog at his side.
Inspiring stories of war dogs are not just a thing of the past. In 2018 a dog named Kuga and in 2020 a dog named Kuno were awarded Dicken Medals for their service in Afghanistan. | https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/5-canine-heroes-who-distinguished-themselves-on-the-frontlines-6ead9297fc2c | ['Denise Shelton'] | 2020-10-26 12:02:31.504000+00:00 | ['World War I', 'World War II', 'Dogs', 'History', 'Heroes'] |
The secret of successful YouTube channels | Skip to product
I will earn commissions from purchases made through this link.
DECEMBER 23, 2020
TubeBuddy Coupon -Increase YouTube views & subs!
TubeBuddy (Loved by more than 3,000,000 YouTube creators), benefits:
YouTube Certified and approved
Optimize videos
Rank higher in search results
Advanced keyword research
Receive more views and subscribers without breaking any of YouTube’s rules.
TubeBuddy integrates directly with your YouTube channel for easy management and promotion.
TubeBuddy Installation is easy and free. Below is a way to upgrade with a TubeBuddy coupon should you decide to upgrade.
TubeBuddy is Certified by Youtube to promote and manage your Youtube channel(s)
Here are some informations about how to get a TubeBuddy coupon:
You can install and begin using Tube Buddy for free. Later on you can upgrade to one of the inexpensive packages.
If you do decide to upgrade, you will notice several coupon options to receive a discounted upgrade. Please take advantage of the discounted rates! Eventually upgrading to the highest level, will open up all of the tools. You can also begin at their highest licensed level but do not forget to use the coupons they offer. On the pricing page, look for these discounts and simply click what applies to you to receive your discount.
To apply for TubeBuddy Coupon & Discount you must:
*have less than 50,000 views
*be willing to pay yearly
*have more than 1 channel
*be partnered with an MCN
*be part of a Non-Profit
These discount options make it affordable for everyone — single small channel owners to multi-channel owners and marketers.
One of the best things TubeBuddy is YouTube certified and approved so it is completely compliant with YouTube. It integrates directly with your YouTube channel which allows you to control your channel directly through Tube Buddy. It is super easy to use.
The tools also help you brand your channel and each of your videos. Create branded thumbnails so you look like the larger channels and attract more viewers. Too many tools to share in this review so click on this link to learn more and install TubeBuddy for free:
Click here to learn more about all of the tools offered, install and try for free!
I will earn commissions from purchases made through this link.
Never purchase YouTube views!
Never purchase youtube views as it is against YouTube’s terms of service. If YouTube determines your views are purchased, you can easily lose your channel which you worked so hard in creating. Again, Tubebuddy is YouTube Certified so you do not have to worry about using all of their suggestions and tools. So if you were planning on buying Youtube views, use the money with Tubebuddy instead. Not only will you get more views but have many tools to make your channel compete with your competitors.
Besides great content, it is all about optimizing your videos and channel and Tubebuddy shows you how.
Lastly, whether you are a business growing your brand and want more sales, a gaming channel where you simply want more views and subscribers, or desire to earn more money with YouTube’s monetized program, you will be happy you installed Tubebuddy and used all of their great optimizing, promotional, and growth tools.
Click here to learn more about all of the tools offered, install and try for free!
I will earn commissions from purchases made through this link.
TubeBuddy Tools and Information:
TubeBuddy adds a layer of amazing functionality right on top of YouTube’s website. You can perform bulk updates to your videos such as adding annotations or cards to all your videos with just a few clicks. You can perform Find/Replace on your videos just as if you were using a word processor. You can generate professional custom thumbnails using screenshots and branding/text layers. You can engage with your audience quicker and more efficiently. You can export your list of subscribers and their social profiles. You can get details analysis of competitor channels. You can promote your new upload across all other videos. The list goes on and on.
Click here to learn more about all of the tools offered, install and try for free!
I will earn commission from purchases made through this link
Be sure to use the coupons on the pricing page.
Keywords: tube buddy, tubebuddy coupon, tubebuddy installation | https://medium.com/@saydihassanethiam/the-secret-of-successful-youtube-channels-dccb1fa6e6ae | ['Saydi Hassane Thiam'] | 2020-12-14 20:08:12.658000+00:00 | ['Video Marketing', 'Online Marketing', 'Videos', 'YouTube', 'YouTuber'] |
We need a new way to pay for antibiotics — Dr David Payne | We need a new way to pay for antibiotics — Dr David Payne
There is currently little incentive for pharma companies to develop antimicrobial drugs.
by Gary Finnegan
We tend to take antibiotics for granted and not value them in a way that matches their lifesaving role, says Dr David Payne, head of the antibacterial discovery performance unit at pharmaceutical company GSK.
He says that partnerships between governments and companies can help to accelerate the development of antibiotics but a new commercial model is needed to unblock the research pipeline.
How urgently do we need new antibiotics?
‘A report for the UK government estimates that without decisive action, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) will cost 100 trillion dollars and cause 10 million deaths per year (by 2050). It’s hard to predict the precise impact but it’s on that scale. It would mean that a lot of the advances we’ve seen in modern medicine would be compromised. If we can no longer manage infections we wouldn’t be able to do open heart surgery, for example, and the benefits of transformational medicines for cancer and heart disease would be lost for many.’
Why is the search for new antibiotics more challenging than drug discovery in other areas?
‘One of the really fundamental challenges comes at the very beginning of the drug discovery process. A lot of investment has been made in running high throughput screening experiments (which allow researchers to quickly conduct millions of tests) to look for early chemical starting points for novel antibiotic targets. Larger pharmaceutical companies — mainly GSK, Pfizer and Astra Zeneca — have put hundreds of millions of dollars into this without seeing much return at all. We have a huge problem finding promising early chemical starting points for the first phase of research.
‘In addition, some complex infections require high doses of antibiotics, up to 7.5 grams a day. This is much higher than most medicines where doses are measured in milligrams. As a result, we often lose promising drug molecules to toxic side effects. We are looking for something that is really safe at very high doses and that makes our task distinct from drug discovery in other areas.’
What are the commercial barriers to developing new antibiotics?
Dr David Payne says that there is currently little incentive for pharma companies to develop antibiotics. Image credit — Dr David Payne
‘It takes a lot of effort, time and funding to get a new antibiotic to the approval stage. Then the big challenge is that there is no real commercial reward for licensing a new antibacterial. Antibiotics are used for perhaps seven to 14 days rather than for the rest of a patient’s life. That’s a good thing but it means the use of the product is short-lived.
‘While the demand and urgency are high, the market can be quite small. Take urinary tract infections, for example. Millions are affected but we would only want to use a new antibacterial in a small subset of the patient population. So if we create a new antibiotic — which is the right thing to do for society — the number of prescriptions will be low. The return on investment is just not there.’
‘Antibiotics have been taken for granted — they are not priced in a way that matches their lifesaving potential.’ — Dr David Payne, Head of the Antibacterial Discovery Performance Unit, GSK
Do you think antibiotics are underrated?
‘I think we tend to think the miracle of antibiotics happened a long time ago when Fleming discovered penicillin, but the life-saving role of antibiotics continues everyday — I think we have forgotten that. We tend to take antibiotics for granted — they are not valued in a way that matches their lifesaving potential, unlike some other new medicines.
‘It’s the perfect storm: a very challenging research problem coupled with limited incentive to solve it. That is why many companies have stopped working in this space.’
How can that be overcome?
‘A new commercial model is needed. Academics and people from biotech or pharma companies have been saying this for years but now we are hearing multiple governments and other global stakeholders calling for the same thing.
‘There are lots of alternatives to the current approach. For example, instead of companies getting a return based on the number of prescriptions sold, there could be lump sum payments. That would also remove the incentive to try to sell more antibiotics. This would encourage appropriate use of new antimicrobials and attract investment.’
How can collaborations between public funders and industry help?
‘Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are propping up the antibiotic pipeline by helping to share the risks associated with drug development in this space. One of the most important PPPs is the Innovative Medicines Initiative’s (IMI) New Drugs for Bad Bugs (ND4BB) which is working on just about every aspect of the problem.
‘The ND4BB project, TRANSLOCATION, focuses on the very early stages of antibacterial drug discovery and looks to improve our understanding of designing molecules to optimally penetrate bacterial cells. (Another element called) ENABLE provides a platform for running antibacterial discovery projects, COMBACTE has developed clinical trial networks to support clinical trials of new potential antimicrobials (and) DRIVE-AB is a group of economists, academics, public health researchers and experts from industry, working to find a more viable commercial model. The DRIVE-AB group will report in the coming months and will make proposals which could be embraced in Europe and elsewhere.’
How can the US and the EU join forces to tackle AMR?
‘There is some discussion between clinical trial networks in the US and the ND4BB networks which aim to overcome the challenge of running global trials. We have also seen progress on harmonisation between regulators in the EU and US. The European Medicines Agency and US Food and Drug Administration are working towards aligning the requirements for bringing a new antibiotic to patients.’
Are you optimistic for the future of antibiotic development?
‘I’m really impressed with what has been achieved in several areas. Ten years ago, the PPP approach was non-existent but is now accepted as absolutely critical to the pipeline we have today, fragile though it may be. Without the IMI and some US initiatives we would be in an even worse position. Progress in the regulatory areas has also been very encouraging.
‘My big concern is around the commercial model. If we don’t work out a solution to that we’ll push investment away from this area and have even fewer companies working on the problem. If we manage to create a new commercial model, I would be very optimistic about the future.’
If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.
More info
ND4BB
Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
See also | https://medium.com/horizon-magazine/we-need-a-new-way-to-pay-for-antibiotics-dr-david-payne-cd1f5bfd2ca | [] | 2017-11-23 15:26:11.003000+00:00 | ['Research', 'Health', 'Medicine', 'Antibiotics', 'Resistance'] |
Understanding the Gordon Growth Model for Stock Valuation | The Gordon Growth Model (GGM) is a method for the valuation of stocks. Investors use it to determine the relationship between value and return. The model uses the Net Present Value (NPV) of future dividends to calculate assets’ intrinsic value. It’s the most popular variation of the Dividend Discount Model (DDM).
Myron J. Gordon (alongside other academicians) published the model in 1956. A strong influence was the work of John Burr Williams and his 1938 book on the theory of investment value.
The calculation does not consider the market conditions and is only applicable to dividend-paying assets.
The model assumes there will be a stable dividend growth rate, which is not very realistic. A common way to deal with this limitation is to introduce multiple stages of the model, aiming to capture the significant rate changes over time.
Gordon Growth Model Formula
The model consists of the following simple formula:
Where:
P0 is the price (fair value) of the asset;
is the price (fair value) of the asset; D1 is the expected dividend per share payout to common equity shareholders for next year;
is the expected dividend per share payout to common equity shareholders for next year; r is the required rate of return or the cost of capital;
is the required rate of return or the cost of capital; g is the expected dividend growth rate.
To calculate the Gordon Growth Model’s equation, we follow these steps.
First, we determine the dividend management expects to pay next year. Companies often present in their management reports the dividend growth rate they plan to achieve within the following year. If such information is not available, we can look at historical data and forecast the dividend’s development. To help with that, we can look at the expected growth of the industry or similar companies.
Second, to estimate the model’s required return rate, we can look at how the investor sees the risk and the market conditions. This is the model’s discount factor, and we can also represent it as the cost of capital, or WACC.
Last, to forecast dividend growth for the future, we look at the company’s profit projections and market expectations.
Join our Newsletter for a FREE Excel Benchmark Analysis Template
Proving the Model
The Gordon Growth Model follows the mathematical properties of an infinite series of numbers growing at a constant rate. It uses an endless series of discounted dividend payments to calculate the fair value of a stock. We can present this with the following equation:
This represents an infinite geometric sequence, which we can also define as:
If we apply some calculus, which I will not get into, we can present the series as:
Where the following two equations apply:
and
Replacing those in the geometric sequence equation, we arrive at the following:
We can then multiply both the numerator and the denominator by (1+r), giving us the following:
The numerator D0(1+g) represents the current year dividend increased with the expected dividend growth rate, equal to D1. If we expand the brackets in the denominator, we get the Gordon Growth Model formula:
Using the GGM in Finance
Analysts apply the Gordon Growth Model in two main ways.
They can use it to estimate the fair value of a stock and determine how viable the investment is as part of portfolio analysis. If the model’s result is above the current market price, the asset is undervalued, and it’s worth buying it. And if the modeled value is below the price, this means the asset is overvalued on the market, and it’s worth selling it. Another way to employ GGM is to compare investment opportunities and identify the better ones that would yield higher profitability.
Another way analysts may use the model is in reverse to estimate the discount factor. As this represents the cost of capital, if we know the fair value of a stock, the expected dividend, and its growth rate, we can use the equation to estimate the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) for the company.
It is important to note that we can also apply the model to scenarios with an expected negative growth rate for the dividend payouts. If it’s below zero, then the denominator (r — g) will increase, and the method will yield a lower fair value amount.
If the growth rate is equal to the required return rate, the model approaches infinity and is not viable from a mathematical perspective.
Professional valuation practices rarely use the model in its original form. Most analysts use a multistage model version, which may have various stages like ‘high growth,’ ‘stable,’ and others. Many companies also have their ‘proprietary’ models, that are often kept as trade secrets and include additional assumptions and parameters
Assumptions
The Gordon Growth Model is only viable if it meets certain conditions.
The company has a stable business model, and there will be no significant changes in its operations;
All free cash flow that remains at the end of the year is paid out as dividends at regular intervals;
We expect dividends to grow at a stable rate;
We also expect the business to grow at the same stable rate;
Growth rate (g) has to be less than the required rate of return (r);
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Gordon Growth Model
The method gives a clear relation between value and return. It’s a useful model to analyze stock values, but it has some benefits and drawbacks as other predictive models in finance.
If we calculate the model under the right conditions, meaning all model assumptions are met, we get the following advantages:
The method is easy to use — it only takes three inputs, and it’s simple to calculate. This makes it much more straightforward compared to other valuation techniques;
Inputs are easy to obtain from management reports or the corporate strategy of the company, often shared on their website;
The model is beneficial when benchmarking dividend-paying stocks.
On the other hand, the GGM has some disadvantages, which may hinder its performance and lead to ineffective valuation:
The dividend growth rate has to be constant or at a limited number of stages (for multistage models). Such stable rates are applicable mostly to mature stable companies and not very common to new and developing businesses and industries, where there’s still much inherent volatility. In reality, companies can experience fluctuations in the growth rate due to business cycles and unforeseen successes and setbacks;
The model assumes the company will exist forever and grow forever, paying dividends at a continually increasing rate.
The rate of return (discount factor) has to be larger than the growth rate. Otherwise, the model yields a negative value, which is not usable;
The method ignores external factors, like market conditions, that may impact the value of the stock significantly;
GGM only works for dividend-paying companies, which limits the cases where we can apply the model. To increase growth, newer companies tend to reinvest profits instead of paying out dividends;
Mature companies may often strive to pay more dividends to manifest their stability and strength in front of shareholders.
The model’s most significant flaws are the assumption for a constant growth rate and the high sensitivity towards small changes in growth rate and discount factor.
Example Gordon Growth Model in Excel
To solidify the gained knowledge, let us set up a sample Gordon Growth Model in Excel.
Classic Gordon Growth Model
We start with a simple single-stage model. We have a current year dividend payout at €12.45. The company’s expected dividend growth rate in perpetuity is 6.5%, and the required rate of return (the discount factor) is 8%.
We first need to calculate the expected dividend payout in the next year (D1), and then we can apply the GGM formula to arrive at the current fair value of the stock, or €883.95.
This is the most straightforward implementation of the method. However, let’s also illustrate how sensitive the model is to the inherent rate assumptions. You can see that by increasing the required rate of return (r) by 1%, we get a 40% decrease in the stock’s fair value. Alternatively, if we increase the expected dividend growth rate by only 0.50%, we get a 51% increase in fair value. This illustrates the importance of setting up proper and realistic assumptions for our model. The model is an effective valuation method, but its sensitivity towards the two rates is its biggest drawback.
Additionally, let’s illustrate the two edge cases that we discussed below. If the expected growth rate is equal to the required return rate (g = r), it’s impossible to calculate the GGM equation in Excel. Mathematically, division over zero approaches infinity. In such a case, the method is not a viable valuation technique, as it suggests the stock has infinite value.
We can also illustrate a case where we expect a negative dividend growth rate (g). Having such will increase the denominator and result in a much lower value of the stock’s fair value.
Multistage Gordon Growth Model
Let us now illustrate a more realistic scenario, where we have different stages of our expected dividend growth rate. We have refined our rate forecast and have the following inputs for our first three years and a terminal value from thereon. After the third year, we expect a stable dividend growth rate of 2.5%. The required rate of return (the discount factor) and the dividend payout remain the same in the current year.
First, let’s calculate the expected dividend for each of the next years. Here’s is where we would apply the GGM equation to calculate the terminal value at the end of the third year.
We can now discount the expected dividends for the next three years and the terminal value. Adding those up, we get the present fair value of the stock at €271.52.
Whenever we build models with high sensitivity to assumptions, it is a great idea to add a sensitivity table to our model. This table shows how changes in the expected perpetual dividend growth rate after the third year (g) and the required return rate (r) will impact the fair value calculation.
You can download the example model in Excel in the original article.
Conclusion
The Gordon Growth Model is the most popular variant of the Dividend Discount Model. It is an effective way to analyze investment opportunities and compare stocks.
When we work with the model, it is crucial to keep close attention to our assumptions’ volatility, as we illustrated how sensitive the GGM is to the dividend growth rate and the required rate of return.
Please, show your support by sharing this article with colleagues and friends. | https://medium.com/magnimetrics/understanding-the-gordon-growth-model-for-stock-valuation-943f429ff1cf | ['Dobromir Dikov'] | 2020-12-14 08:03:35.511000+00:00 | ['Investment', 'Business', 'Portfolio', 'Finance'] |
Traveling Altar | I feel I should preface this post with this — an alter is not an altar. Alter means to change, like you altered your hairstyle for your upcoming job interview. An altar is space for ritual—it can be permanent or temporary, as mine is. I have seen people use these words interchangeably — and understandably as they are only one letter different, which is confusing, especially for people who may be learning English.
An altar is common in many religions and spiritual paths — it is the place of honoring and ritual practices, which of course can look vastly different between different practices, but most altars serve this purpose.
My altar lives in an Altoids tin that a friend of mine pulled out of her neighbor’s recycling. Some people may not be attracted to the idea of using a discarded item to house their tools for ritual, but for me, this felt perfect. As an artist who loves working with collage and re-purposing the old into the new — spray painting an Altoids tin black seemed right up my alley.
In order to spray paint my Altoids tin, I washed it, dried it, cleansed with the smoke of burning rosemary and sanded it with a fine grade sandpaper in order to roughen the edges enough so the spray paint had a bit more to grip on to. I spray painted this outside in 4°C/39°F temperature, wearing a knitted beanie, a puffy jacket with the hood up, a face mask, and extra large kitchen gloves — in short, I looked bad ass! I sprayed the tin, let it dry, sanded off any lumps, sprayed some more, let it dry, sanded off any new lumps and sprayed it once again before moving the tin into the garage where it was warmer and drier, which allowed it to dry faster. I should say that if you are interested in doing this yourself, I highly recommend doing this outdoors or in a well ventilated area—spray paint is not human lung-friendly or environmentally friendly. The whole process of spray painting the tin took a few hours and honestly, it felt worth it because now I have a lovely matte black tin to house my altar. The insides were lined with paper that I drew stars on — I am on the fence about this and may consider painting this in the future, but for now, I like it.
I am still very new to the craft, but know this much — I love oranges, bay leaves, rosemary, candles, and creating sigals — so it only makes sense that these were included in my tiny back pocket sized altar. The rosemary and bay leaves were grown in the backyard, the orange peel came from an organic orange I ate a few days ago, the candle is an ordinary basic candle from a 50-pack, matches, and a golfer-friendly sized pencil and paper for sigal creation. I could potentially fit a small vial of essential oil or a gem stone, but I don’t currently feel called to include those items.
One thing I have noticed on social media especially is the prevalence of people purchasing altar kits on sites like Etsy and then unboxing them on YouTube videos. I think some of these altars are absolutely stunning and have provided inspiration for the future and more permanent altar I hope to create once I move to a home of my own — but I also really enjoyed creating my own little altar, the items I have included all feel important to me, it cost me very little money to put together and I don’t feel like I will be wasting any of the materials. Some of these pre-made altars come with lots of herbs, gemstones and essential oils that might never be used—and for me personally, I don’t like to waste things, let alone pay money to never use something. A few YouTubers like HearthWitch have some great videos on budget witchcraft that emphasize the importance of intention over tools. And I am so thankful for these types of videos because they have encouraged me to be mindful of what I am doing and served as a reminder that I do not need any fancy tools in order to practice witchcraft. I believe it is a common misconception for people to believe they need all of these fancy tools in order to be a successful witch, that said, I also believe if you know you will use them, by all means go for it!
And now, because I am a curious little elf, I want to know — do you have an altar? Is it something you created yourself or did you purchase a kit? Are there things included in your altar that you never use? Are there things you hope to add to your altar?
Thanks for reading and blessed be! | https://medium.com/@tenderflame/traveling-altar-14202f9035e9 | ['The Tender Flame'] | 2020-12-16 18:33:05.171000+00:00 | ['Queer', 'Witch', 'Witchcraft', 'Altar', 'Spirituality'] |
How I Lost My Savings in the Forex Market and What You Can Learn From My Mistakes | How I Lost My Savings in the Forex Market and What You Can Learn From My Mistakes Matthew Prince Follow Jan 1 · 6 min read
Photo by Travis Essinger on Unsplash
In 2015, I quit my low paying teaching job. It wasn’t just the pay. The hours and work I put in for a life I wasn’t happy with wasn’t worth it. I went on to build a network marketing career. Unbeknownst to me, the network marketing business was a network-marketing-like Ponzi scheme. The scheme crashed in a few months, leaving me jobless and desperate for a source of income.
I moved out of my parent’s apartment earlier that year, so I had to take care of myself and pay the bills that were staring me in the face. I was torn between going back to a 9 to 5 job or starting a business that will give me the liberty to work from home. I chose the latter. Isn’t that the dream? Working from the comfort of my home and making millions of dollars?
At that stage of my life, I was desperate and vulnerable; it was easy to fall into the trap of quick and easy money schemes, especially with the internet and social media usurped by people who claim to earn thousands to millions of dollars per-diem.
I was not the kind that believed everything I am told or what I see on the internet. So when I saw FOREX traders starting telegram channels and showcasing receipt of their earnings, I was skeptical. It seemed too good to be true. And you know what they say about anything that looks too good to be true.
I stayed on the sideline, observing. I observed for a few weeks, even though I already thought I was leaving money on the table (why does my brain have to lie to me?). Nonetheless, I didn’t forget my discipline so early. I picked up my first trading book, Market wizard by Jack Schwager, and then Trend following by Micheal W. Cowel and another and another. In two months, I had read over a dozen books on day trading and swing trading.
One more thing, I needed a mentor. I saw an ad on a local signpost. A trader was enrolling students for his training and mentorship program. We fixed an appointment. The next week I was in a multipurpose, shabby looking office with a talkative man who told me, for the umpteenth time, of the opportunity in the trillion-dollar industry and how he “crushes” the market trading like the huge banks. His training and the mentoring course was $200. I was down, even though I didn’t check his self-acclaimed track record of success in the market (so much for an intelligent guy). The training started, and all he said were things I had read in my books.
If he uses the candlestick, trendline, support, and resistance in crushing the market, then I can too. That was the holy grail confirmation I needed.
Feeling like a Wall Street trading guru, I was ready to kick asses in the market. Why not? I knew about the emotions of fear and greed that influence a trader. I knew how to draw trendlines, support, and resistance line. I knew the meaning of FOMO, and I knew I should buy the rumors and sell the news. I was ready.
If you look me in the eye and see nothing else, you’d see that I am intelligent and disciplined (at least so I thought). Intelligent people don’t leap before they look. They use one foot to test how deep the water is before they jump in. That’s exactly what I did. I tested the water with just a few dollars in my trading account. Demo trading account is for unserious people who are too scared to lose a dime. That wasn’t me. One can never know how it feels to lose money when trading a demo account. And losing money is inevitable in trading. The goal is to break even and become profitable.
My First Month As a Trade.
I started my trading account at $300, enough to get the feel of trading. I already had a strategy; trading price action, candlestick set up with support and resistance confirmation, 2% maximum stop loss. All were supported by my so-called mentor and the myriads of books I had read.
Looking back, at the end of the month, I had crushed the market. I was up 14% for the month. I was ecstatic. I could already smell my Lambo. I grabbed a piece of paper and did the math. If I invested all my savings, I would make enough to live. I could travel the world, trade by the beachside, and sleep in a penthouse.
My Second Month As a Trader
I was sure I had cracked the trading code. I invested all the money I had in my account. It didn’t feel hard. I tested the waters the previous month, and it tasted like wine. Remember?
In excitement, I set up my trade on the first day of the month. The day after, I checked the positions. 80% of my open trades were in the red. My heart sank. But as a pro trader who knew losses are inevitable, I could handle that. I had read about traders who close trades just before prices skyrocket. That couldn’t be me. I opened some more trades, pretending to be unfazed. The next time I opened my trading account, I was down over 60%. I was sick to my stomach. I stared at my computer screen, almost tearing up. What was I to do next? A 60% loss isn’t recoverable. I was doomed. I closed all trades and withdrew the money that was left.
What I Learned
The trading profession is full of charlatans: The people showing cars and trying to sell you a course are probably making all their money from the sales of courses and not from trading. Don’t be like me. If you must learn to trade, do your due diligence on the tutor. Be sure to check the trader’s two-years trading history. A month or two of profitable trade may have been because of luck and not skill. Don’t be fooled by beginner’s luck: While it is wise to test the waters, be sure to take your time before jumping in. you might be lucky to have some pleasant months, and that doesn’t mean you are ready to go all in. You are not as special as you may think: When I was reading all I could on trading, I had known that only 1% of traders are profitable. For some reason, I believed I would be in the 1%. 99% is probably not as smart as I am. Laughable, right? I paid dearly for such irrational optimism. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is: We have all heard this axiom time and time again, but when it is time to adhere to it, we forgot. Every good thing comes with hard work and perseverance. Set attainable goals and work towards them with diligence. Fast money may cost you more than you bargained. It’s not what you know, it’s what you do: Before I traded, I knew about beginners luck, about the law of small numbers (you shouldn’t make conclusions from a small sample size), I knew that I should stick to a small trading size. I knew them all, but I didn’t adhere to what I knew. It’s comparable to a smoker who knows smoking is bad for health but can’t quit. Self-awareness is key. Understand yourself and know if trading is for you.
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel | https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/how-i-lost-my-savings-in-the-forex-market-and-what-you-can-learn-from-my-mistakes-cb45a214d8f9 | ['Matthew Prince'] | 2021-01-11 02:26:11.557000+00:00 | ['Investment', 'Finance', 'Forex', 'Money', 'Investing'] |
API REST — Tutorial. Hi, all! | Hi, all!
Here is a brief tutorial about REST Architecture to facilitate the execution and bring up your web services’ flexibility.
We will create a rest server based on a registry. REST -Representational State Transfer — has fundamental characteristics for web application development; it is a set of principles and definitions needed to create a project with well-defined interfaces. One of REST’s fundamental principles is to separate the API into semantic resources, which will be managing through HTTP requests, and they should make sense to the users of the API. Also, there is the CRUD, which is an application that contains the “registration screens.” These abbreviations represent the services “create”, “read”, “update” and “delete”, respectively. Therefore, the CRUD system is a direct link to the operations and not to the system itself. In the tutorial, we will use GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE, which have the same functions as CRUD.
In this first step, you need to open your VS CODE and click on the “Add workspace folder” option. After that, you’ll create the folder with the name you want for your project. And after completing the folder, you will need to open it, and done in “Open folder” and select the folder you just created. Already with the editor open, we will create a python file, the server file. This file we will call by app.py. And we’ll type in the code below:
from flask import Flask from flask_restplus import Api, Resource, fields from werkzeug. contrib.fixers import ProxyFix
This code will import some necessary resources with a direct connection to the flask.
In the next step, we’ll readjust the preview page about the records we’ll create. Then we’ll make the title, description, and API services. For that, we’ll use the code:
app = Flask(__name__) app.wsgi_app = ProxyFix(app.wsgi_app) api = Api(app, version='1.0', title='Registration',description='...',) ns = api.namespace('register', description='...')
After that, we will start with the types of data that will need for the records. In our case, we will have three types: ID, FIRST, and LAST NAME service, as shown in the code below:
register = api.model('register', { 'id': fields.Integer, 'name': fields.String, 'last name': fields.String})
Here, we’ll have a better idea of attributes. Since we’ll have an ID, FIRST, and LAST NAME service, we can specify them, as the code below shows:
registers = {99:{"id":99,"name":"Anderson","surname":"Henrique"}, 9:{"id":9,"name":"Tatiana","surname":"Moreno"}}
As we can see, the records directly match with the previously created structure.
After we finish the attributes part, we’ll start with the collection, but we’ll first understand a little bit about the GET and POST function. GET is the simplest HTTP request method, the same that browsers use every time you click on a link or access through the address bar. With the instructions, the server transmits the information identified in the URL to the client. The information should never change on the server through a GET request that would be read-only. Still, of course, from the moment the client receives the information, he can do whatever he wants — for example, format the information for presentation in the browser. The POST function should use repetition in the process executed when a POST request gets executed more than once. Besides, POST requests must run the body’s process as a subordinate to the URL that you’re posting. Now, let’s start the collection! For that, we’ll make the registration of an API using the GET service because it will return to the dictionary of previously created records and, besides the “get,” we’ll have to start the marshal. After all, it will bring the list of declared record types and the POST, cause in this way; we’ll give the client the power to add records, remembering that we must associate this service with namespace on the root route. And for that, we’ll start with the code:
@ns.route('/') class CollectionAPI(Resource): @ns.doc('GET=(R)etrieve ALL') @ns.marshal_list_with(register) def get(self): return list(registers.values()) @ns.doc('POST=(C)reate') @ns.expect(register) @ns.marshal_with(register, code=201) def post(self): reg = api.payload registers[reg['id']]=reg return reg, 201
Great! We did our collection!
An essential part is to start what we call an “entity.” An entity is an object of light persistence. Usually, an entity represents a table in a relational database. Each instance of the entity corresponds to a row in that table. It is where we should change the API route, specifying the ID. And besides that, the parameter also needs to be determined. We also have to bring the GET service. However, we won’t list; this time, we’ll use the service as an individual to obtain the registered person’s ID. After that, we will have to bring the PUT, which will update all the system data. In this last step, we will give the DELETE service power because this function will allow the administrator to delete the records created. We will do this by the code:
@ns.route('/<int:id>') @ns.response(404, 'Not found') @ns.param('id', 'ID') class EntityAPI(Resource): @ns.doc('GET=(R)etrieve [one]') @ns.marshal_with(register) def get(self, id): reg= registers[id] if (reg!=None): return reg else: api.abort(404, "Record {} doesn't exist".format(id)) @ns.doc('DEL=(D)elete') @ns.response(204, 201'Deleted') def delete(self, id): del registers[id] return '', 204 @ns.doc('PUT=(U)pdate') @ns.expect(register) @ns.marshal_with(register) def put(self, id): registers[id]=api.payload return api.payload
Well done! We did our entity!
Finally, we will specify the port that we want the server to run, and our application will be ready!
if __name__ == '__main__': app.run(port=8888, debug=True)
Great! We need to go to the VS CODE terminal and type the command: python3 app.py click on the port it opens, and our project will be running correctly!
We can relate REST to the GO; at first, it is essential to mention that REST needs to call any customer; as an example, we will build the first demonstration in GO. And in the next tutorial, we will have the second part of the article, the REST service in full GO.
As we could see before, we have created some services. GET, POST, GET(ID), DELETE, and PUT. The technology we developed in REST, until then, is very transparent. Every part was creating in Flask and Python, and we’ll make the GO client call the GET service. Now, we’ll have to open VSCODE, create a new folder; doing that, we’ll need some libraries, as we can see below:
package main import ( "net/http" "fmt" "io/ioutil" )
After that, we need to specify the link of the code with the URL of our site. If an error occurs, for example, a connection error, it’ll fall into if shown in the code below:
func main() { resp, err := http.Get("http://127.0.0.1:8888/") if err != nil { fmt.Println("An error has occurred!", err) }
If it connects and works, it’ll fall into the code below. So, in this way, we’ll get an answer. He’ll fall into code 200.
if resp.StatusCode == 200 { fmt.Println("The site has been loaded successfully!")
We need to start a display code that shows the response’s body and processing the necessary data in the browser. And in REST, this content is displayed in JSON.
body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body) if err != nil { print(err) }else{ fmt.Print(string(body)) }
However, if there is an internal error in the code, any error code will appear, and, for that reason, it will fall into the “else” below.
} else { fmt.Println("The site is broken! Status Code:", resp.StatusCode) } }
Well done! We have finished both the REST API tutorial and the GO language connection. I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Thank you! | https://medium.com/wearewebera/api-rest-tutorial-cb68bbab3b7d | ['Anderson Henrique'] | 2020-12-10 12:27:58.750000+00:00 | ['Golang', 'Rest', 'Rest Api', 'It', 'Technology'] |
How Writing An Ebook Can Empower You To Live A Financially Free Lifestyle | Financial freedom is an enticing prospect of having your own successful ebook business
By now, anyone one who’s heard about the world of ebooks or internet marketing knows or recognises the power of writing an eBook and selling it online. There are countless courses, books and blogs dedicated to writing your first eBook. While this isn’t necessarily what I want to talk about in this article, it will cover the basics. However, I do feel it is important to start from the beginning, and explain how finding your niche, especially for your first book, is essential to your success.
Since Amazon introduced Kindle eBooks to the market over a decade ago, it has shaken up the publishing world and allowed thousands of people who never would have been able to been previously published to finally see their work in digital or print. The beauty of this is that anyone can now write, edit and publish their own eBook, build an audience, create an email list and get paid handsome royalties as a result.
The book writing process has been taken out of the hands of the publishing elite and back into the hands of the people. This has raised and been of contentious debate in the publishing world, primarily because of the concerns over the quality of what is now available online. It does mean however, that authors can now rejoice, as the power of the written word is now back in the hands of the buying public.
As a result, many budding authors are now finding the perfect readership and regaining their confidence as writers. Long gone are the days of writing a book for weeks, months or even years on end, trying to find an agent, and then writing a pitch and sending it off in the vain hope that you may only receive a rejection slip in return.
Being A Book Writer Is Easier Than Ever
There are so many ways to write and publish a book in the 21st century
For writers in the 21st century, writing and publishing eBooks is now a viable means of making a living, as well as just been great fun or a bit of side-income. There is nothing more empowering than saying that you are a published author, who has been recognised or has achieved credentials in their chosen field, or to hear feedback from people who simply love to read your stories.
You can set your own hours, work when you want, write what you want, choose your own editor and publish your book just how you imagine it. From start to finish, its now possible to create your own eBook or information product with what you find online.
You can contact experts at the touch of a button, select the marketing service of your choice such as an agency, find willing reviewers who can write amazing blurbs about your book, or even contact an influencer on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or YouTube to give your book title a shoutout. There are so many ways you can market a book, from word of mouth to PR campaigns and even a book launch, depending upon your budget.
Finding Your Book Market
Defining your book market niche is essential to growing your loyal readership
What writing an eBook really comes down to is making a decision about the type of book content you want to write. Choosing a book niche that’s right for you is really easy. Simply ask yourself the following questions:
What am I passionate about? (What lights me up) What can’t I live without? (What’s important to me — hobbies, values etc) What do I enjoy reading? (What kind of book content do I enjoy?)
If you can write what you enjoy reading, then you are onto a winner. Not only do you have knowledge or expertise in the subject matter, you will also find it easier to stick to your writing routine. In fact, you will feel empowered to write every day, to show your message or creative story with others and may even become an influencer in the process.
What writing comes down to is giving your readership value. Give them something new, exciting and that makes them feel like they have learned something they didn’t know before.Then you simply have to ask yourself, what is your purpose in writing your eBook?
Is it to:
Inform or entertain an audience
Build my own credentials
Create a passive income
Write for fun?
Perhaps your answer is all of the above, and that’s fine. There’s no right or wrong answer. Once you’ve made that decision, it’s time to do your research. A good place to start is Amazon itself since you will no doubt be promoting your book there or on other platforms.
Find out your book niche, genre, titles and book cover images that are currently bestsellers on Amazon. You can find this information by going to amazon.com and going to the ‘Departments’ section and then clicking on ‘Kindle Store’.
How to find the Kindle Store on Amazon.com
From here go to ‘Kindle eBooks’
How to find the ‘Kindle eBooks’ section on Amazon.com
And then click on ‘Best Sellers & More’ section.
How to find the ‘Bestsellers’ section on Amazon.com
Here you will be able to see Amazon’s bestsellers, including the Kindle Select 25, Best Books of the Month, Amazon First Reads and Category best sellers, updated on an hourly basis. Using Amazon is the best place to start if you plan to sell on there.
If you plan to sell a book independently on your own website, or another eBook platform such as Payhip, Kobo, Lulu or BookBaby, it’s best to do your research on Google and see what books are trending by keywords.
Using Google Trends, you can track popular keywords over time that people are searching for information on. This is useful no matter if you are writing non-fiction or fiction books.
From here you can create a book outline, and using valuable marketing tools such as answerthepublic.com you can find lists of keyword topics that people are asking questions about.
This can help you to see what people are searching for when it comes to creating your book’s content. In fact, it can help you to form the chapters if you are writing a nonfiction book.
Writing And Marketing A Book
Writing requires discipline, but you can make it part of your lifestyle
Then it’s simply a matter of being disciplined and getting down to the writing process itself. Having a set time each day can help you to focus on getting the book written. Or perhaps you work best when it’s off the cuff and working spontaneously throughout the day.
In this way, you can write when inspiration strikes you and then with this free form of writing, you can choose to edit the book afterwards or have a professional editor look at it. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to add writing into your day, you have to simply do what works best for you.
Challenges In Writing A Book
Having enough tme is one of the biggest obstacles that writers face
Asides from writer’s block, one of the biggest challenges writers face is having the time to begin the project in the first place. Imagine all of the writers who have given up or decided that they don’t have the time to add writing into their life because they are very busy with their work and family life. Think of all the creativity that has gone down the drain because people are too afraid to begin and equally afraid that they won’t finish the writing.
As we live in an age of distraction, it’s easy to give up on your writing intentions. Much easier to click on social media, read another article on how to write a book or to daydream about what it would be like to have a bestselling book or indeed, become a best-selling author.
What If Someone Could Write The Book For You?
Think about how much time you would save if someone else can write the book for you and take the weight of a writing project from off your shoulders.
You could go about your day spending time with your family, meeting a friend for coffee, or going on a cinema date, and return home knowing that your book has been written and is ready for publishing on Amazon after your review.
The good news is if you struggle with writing, you can simply do a search on Fiverr or Upwork.com where you can find writers who can write for you for a small-cost.
Creating Lasting Value With Your Own Email List
Creating an email list is the best way to build your own audience of loyal readers
Writing the book is just one way you can build a passive income online through sites such as Amazon or Apple iBooks, etc. Making real and lasting passive income so that you can truly live a freedom lifestyle, means having certainty in your market. It means having your own dedicated email list of readers who receive so much value from your books, courses or other digital-based products, that they can’t help but buy from you.
Building an email list may sound tricky but it’s a simple step-by-step process that involves giving your readers a gift, in exchange for the email address. If you want to learn how to create your own email list I highly recommend the List Warrior Training here.
This advanced training will show you how fun it is to build your own email list. It will show you how to provide the most value to others, how to radically get more free traffic, and how easy it is to get others to do the “work” in the process.
But…How Do I Create My Own Product?
Creating your own unique product can be challenging for writers who are not tech-savvy
The other challenges that writers face is knowing how to create their own unique product to give away. Perhaps you have no idea about what type of free gifts you could give away in exchange for building your list. One of the biggest obstacles is doing something that hasn’t been done before and that remains true to your brand and unique voice.
Knowing where to get started with this is tricky because it can take real-time and effort to create something of lasting value. Not only can the design software be expensive, it can be difficult to know how to use it, or to make changes to the product itself, resulting in feelings of upset or frustration that it is taking so long. This is doubly the case if you are a writer and not tech-savvy.
One way to overcome this is with Perfect Product Creation. This video course shows you how to create your own products at once with the same amount of effort. You’ll discover what makes your products sell, how to scale up and make your product a success, while creating an ecosystem that supports and grows your product automatically. You’ll also find out how to get free traffic to your product automatically, so you’ll have buyers ready to spend their money with you.
If you’re looking to create a product at top speed, Perfect Product Creation is newbie-friendly and only involves a small-cost, making it ideal for anyone wanting to make their own unique product to offer real value to their readership.
Following The Footsteps To Freedom
Financial freedom is a journey worth taking, but take it step by step
Finally, achieving the Freedom lifestyle means being patient and disciplined with your goals. Taking action to make it happen means having a clear outline for a book, being dedicated to the writing practice and using the latest advice and software solutions to overcome any technical or writing obstacles you may be facing.
See each part of the writing and marketing journey as a footstep on the road to freedom and you won’t just dream about becoming a successful author or have your own book business — you’ll actually make it happen. | https://medium.com/@annacjones/how-writing-an-ebook-can-empower-you-to-live-a-financially-free-lifestyle-6ca8bcc1a8fb | ['Anna Jones'] | 2019-09-14 14:24:39.211000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Internet Marketing', 'Ebooks Online', 'Ebook Publishing', 'Financial Freedom'] |
I Joined a Daily Blogging Challenge for 31 Days | Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. — T.S. Eliot
Early in July, I joined the BYOB (Blog-Your-Own-Book) Challenge hosted by Shaunta Grimes. Unlike most writing challenges, it’s a four-month challenge.
In July we picked a topic for our book and planned out the posts that we were going to write on the topic. August was for writing the actual posts. Yep, all 31 of them.
Now it’s September and we are going to edit our posts. Then we’ll publish them in a book format in October.
Everything sounded great on paper. The trouble is, I’ve never done a challenge like this before.
While I did develop a daily writing habit a couple of years ago when I was writing my first book, I’ve since lost that habit — most likely on the same day that I handed in my final manuscript to my editor.
Oh well.
Since then, I’ve struggled to write regularly. And I’m not talking about writing daily — I’ve been struggling to write even once a week.
Writing brings me a lot of joy — when I eventually get around to doing it. So, I thought this BYOB challenge would be a great kick up my butt to get me back into daily writing.
Since I’m a new blogger, I had a very modest goal and I just wanted to finish 31 posts in August. Everything else was a bonus. Here’s what happened.
What Went Well
I finished writing all 31 posts.
Yay me! However, only 27 of them got published. I had submitted some pieces to big publications and they didn’t get published by the end of August.
I increased my curation rate from 50% to 67%.
In July I only published 8 pieces and 4 of them got curated, so that’s a 50% curation rate. In August, 18 of my 27 published pieces got curated, and my calculator informs me that it’s a 67% curation rate.
I honestly thought my curation rate would go down because of the increased volume of my writing, but apparently the curators liked my stuff more, not less.
I started my own publication and I got into 6 new publications.
I started my own pub Thrive Now, and got into a few big publications. I also got into some smaller but really cool ones that I’ve had my eye on ever since I joined Medium.
They included: The Startup, The Writing Cooperative, P.S. I Love You, Invisible Illness, An Injustice! and Home Sweet Home. Now I have more “homes” for my new pieces.
I wrote faster.
I’m a painfully slow writer. It takes me on average 3 hours to write a 1200-word blog post. But my saving grace is my focus. If and when I choose to use my superpower, I can focus for hours on end and get into a flow state pretty easily.
As a result of the challenge, I’m writing slightly faster now, so maybe 2.5 hours per post instead of 3. It’s still slow I know, but it’s progress!
I wrote every day. And I still do.
This is the biggest win of all. I wanted to form a daily habit, and now I have it.
What’s more, I thought I would be so sick of writing by the end of August and probably need to take time off to recover from all the stress. But so far that hasn’t happened and I’m still writing every day.
What Didn’t Go So Well
I didn’t write “on topic” all the time.
Yes, we were supposed to come up with a topic during our planning process and plan our posts around it. I did, but I didn’t follow my plan.
My topic was perfectionism and I probably wrote 2/3 of my posts on that topic, while the rest of my posts were all over the place, ranging from relationships and parenting to gender equality and a couple of really left-field ones.
I didn’t publish all 31 posts.
The perfectionist in me didn’t like that. I wanted to write and publish 31 posts, damn it! But the reality was once I submitted my piece to a publication, I had no control over how long it would take for them to publish it. Oh well.
I became slightly obsessed.
I became a little obsessed with writing as a result of the challenge. I went to bed thinking about writing and woke up thinking about it, too. Some days I woke up in the middle of the night because I had just thought of a better phrase, subhead, or quote for one of my pieces.
And depending on how late it was in the night, a few times I actually got out of bed, went downstairs to my computer, and made the changes right away!
I got into trouble with my husband (well, a little).
In my early days of building my coaching business, I often worked right through lunchtime and ended up getting into trouble with my husband. One of his frequent questions was, “Did you eat today?”
I’ve since learned to put in strict boundaries around my work hours, and I only work on weekdays now. Because of the challenge, however, I ended up writing on weekends too.
My husband complained that I was working harder than him (I’m a working mum — of course I work harder than him even before the challenge. But don’t tell him that), and he was feeling neglected.
Should You Join a Daily Writing Challenge?
Fortune favours the brave. — Virgil
I think so, especially if you’re a new writer or blogger like me. You’re probably trying to find a writing rhythm that works for you, and writing every day for 30 (or 31) days is a great way to do that.
However, what really made it work for me was that I made a commitment to the challenge. And that means two things: time and accountability.
The Two Keys to Commitment
I set aside two- to three-hour blocks of time every day either first thing in the morning, or first thing after lunch to write. I put my 3-year-old toddler in front of the TV with her favorite show, loaded up her food supply, and off I went.
Child neglect? Maybe. But I made up for it by spending quality time with her before and after my writing time.
I also did extra writing on the two days that she went to daycare, and on weekends when my husband was around to help out. The other three days of the week I just did the minimum to get my writing done. So, that meant shorter or less in-depth pieces. It wasn’t perfect, but I was okay with it.
In terms of accountability, I joined a wonderful writing group and we had regular write-in sessions on Zoom where people just showed up for two hours and wrote.
It was so helpful to have that level of accountability, and I only missed a few of those sessions during the month. As a newbie, I needed all the help I could get!
Give it a try
I’m only halfway through the BYOB Challenge, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that you try a daily writing challenge.
And if you want to increase your success rate, make sure you set aside time and have some accountability in place.
Whatever happens, you’ll learn something incredibly valuable about yourself, your writing process, and your readers. And that’s priceless.
Everything else — increasing your curation rate, doubling your followers, or getting amazing feedback — will be a sweet bonus. | https://medium.com/ninja-writers/i-joined-a-daily-blogging-challenge-for-31-days-on-medium-8f2d7a7e4da9 | ['Annie Huang'] | 2020-09-15 23:23:09.805000+00:00 | ['Byob', 'Business', 'Writing', 'Blogging', 'Writing Tips'] |
#VoxPopuli | Stuck | by Gwen Valimento
I was obsessed with sticky notes.
Around this time last year, my window would be covered in those pieces of paper: Math quiz tom! Tournament on Saturday. Research proposal due Wed.
I believe in preparation: to finish an essay at least three days before, to not cram for an exam, to properly allocate resources and time.
Could anyone have prepared for this new normal? That Monday in March plucked us from the four walls of our classrooms and dumped us in our homes. I don’t think anything could have prepared us for something that takes our colorful life, desaturates it, and cramps it all in a 4.7-inch piece of screen—bigger if you can afford it.
Affordability then comes in when questioning this new normal. This pandemic made social interaction that we need as human beings something you can access and rely on only with a decent internet connection and a laptop that doesn’t crash every fifteen minutes. A more high definition laptop screen would let you see your classmates better, a faster gadget would let you load tons of tabs for your research. This pandemic highlighted the ugly truth of life that favors the privileged. In a world that exhausts us with its meritocratic system that is nevertheless embedded in the unfairness of the wealth distribution, life goes on as we’re stuck in our homes. College applications, internship programs, job opportunities—all of these keep coming and depending on our experience and performance. How do we expect everyone to perform their best when some have to worry about what to pay for internet connection for next week when it costs the same as food for a family of five to live off of for a day? When the mental health of some are deteriorating being stuck at home? Preparation needs proper resources. I don’t think that those who need it have been given what they need nine months into quarantine.
I don’t think our country is prepared. I don’t think any of us is prepared.
When the staggering effects of this pandemic could have been answered by proper systems of implementation and properly subsidized healthcare workers, our government sleeps. In a country with healthcare and education systems that seemingly have to beg for the budget and proper leaders in order to reach rural areas, we can see the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the government when MRT stations are still filled to the brim, when no contact tracing and mass testing are done, when science is kept on being pushed to the sides, and when workers are being laid off and finding a hard time keeping a stable job in a declining economy. It’s not hard to see how the poorest in society bear the brunt of the pandemic.
The sticky notes on my window that used to pile up with the piling up of requirements went posted in weird places: the bottom of a cabinet, the ceiling, the handle of the door that all seemingly asks for attention whichever way you look. Written in the thickest pen I could find, the contents changed too; from requirement deadlines and training reminders, it became something you can find printed on alongside a live, laugh, love shirt: Deep breaths. Focus. One day at a time.
This pandemic broke the five-year streak of the Pisay hustle, the fifty-pesos delivery charges, six laps of pack runs around the field, and the tradition of going to Trinoma after exams. Now we have to spend 24 hours alone at home, with the occasional ping from Discord and another email notification from Google Classroom. The things we took for granted, traffic jams, mornings in the back lobby, spending Research periods in the library seems bleak in the possibility of ever happening again. Would we even return to normal?
It has been a relentless paradox when we as humans need social interaction but it leads to the inevitability of seeing the bad news that keeps coming. It’s been hard to navigate between social life and this mess, when every refresh of the news feed brings about a different terror: a killed lawyer, a typhoon incoming, some dolomite replenishing. It doesn’t make it better when these platforms in our four-inch screens are our only way of looking out from the four corners of our home.
Sometimes the future seems bleak, but every day we pick ourselves up from a lonely night, a tear-stricken morning, and a stressed-out day from cramming requirements, all for one thing: the promise of tomorrow. One day we triumph and smile, and on another we don’t. But we slowly learn to decipher our moods: what makes us feel better, how to distance ourselves from toxicity in social media, how to navigate this difficult set-up. There is progress even in the four corners of our home, just a tad bit different from those in the four walls of our classrooms. This pandemic has made us embrace our innate human tendency to insist. To insist to see the future when we can finally hear a friend’s laugh again, to see another sunset in school, to go up the stage on delayed graduation, to see a day when climate change is solved, to find our research projects reach the Philippine community.
We triumph by seeing another tomorrow, by reminding ourselves over and over again that tomorrow is worth waking up for. And we do—we wake up, we survive, we see another day, and we try again.
I remind myself of those by writing on a sticky note. | https://medium.com/@scischo/voxpopuli-stuck-dc0db53de815 | ['The Science Scholar'] | 2021-01-18 09:05:50.567000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Philippines', 'Productivity', 'Online Learning'] |
Why I Started a Crypto Meetup and What I’ve Learned | The Start
If I’m going to write about making a crypto meetup, I might as well start at the beginning. My story with crypto goes like this:
I first heard about Bitcoin in early 2011 on the internet; probably reddit or Hacker News. I only really “got it” enough to realize that by the way it was described, something new and different was happening. These bitcoins represented digital ownership of a thing that couldn’t be taken from you. That was as far as I got into my understanding at the time.
It was intriguing enough to me to go through the effort of setting up a Dwolla account, a “bitcoinmarkets.com”, a Mt. Gox account, and getting $100 to the exchange. I bought about 5 bitcoin with that $100 in June 2011 (during the first run up from $0.75 to $30 lol) and sold them for a loss in August 2011. Womp womp 😞.
Right about when I bought my first BTC. Sold during the dip a couple months later. https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/price/
I’d always been fairly frugal, wasn’t making much money at my day job, and didn’t want $100 in this online bitcoin account thing when it would have been more fluid and useful for me in my regular bank account. So, my experiment was over. I bought and sold some of these bitcoins, and then I was done.
Cue to me getting back to work, changing jobs, getting married, having a kid, doing life, and becoming better at designing software and bigger technical systems. Then all of a sudden, it’s mid-2016 and I notice that a bitcoin is now worth $450! I remembered how I bought and sold 5 of them for $100 TOTAL a couple of years ago, and the seed that had been planted back in 2011 finally started to grow.
The Breaking Point
By March 2017 I had spent the previous 9 or so months studying how Bitcoin worked. As a software program, as a distributed network, and as a selfishly-incentivized economic model. It was fascinating to me. It pushed all of my buttons. I’d been using a group chat with my friends to talk, argue, and learn about crypto. It was a pretty dominating topic for our conversation for a few months. But I needed more.
At the time, I was working at a great place called DXY and had met a new employee named Parker who also had a more-than-casual interest in cryptocurrency and blockchain systems. He was deep in the local meetup scene and encouraged me to start one focused on crypto. There were a couple older existing Bitcoin and Ethereum specific local meetups, but they had been inactive for years. I reached out to their admins about getting them going again, but they said they didn’t care to reboot their meetups and gave me the green light to start my own.
Crypto Cleveland’s first meetup happened Wednesday, March 29th, 2017. There was a good turnout and I spent a lot of time talking about how a blockchain worked, given my current level of understanding. Explaining things to other people is one of the best ways to solidify the understanding of that thing for yourself.
Nice turnout for a first meetup! There were probably 15 people there total. Here I am waxing poetic on the brilliance of a blockchain.
Here’s a picture from our second meetup, which took place Wednesday, April 26th.
https://www.meetup.com/Crypto-Cleveland/photos/27804507/460408853/ — Thanks Nathan Hodgen for leading a spirited conversation on blockchain entrepreneurial ideas. And thanks to DXY Solutions for hosting!
We spent the next few months meeting monthly and talking about all the different hot blockchain-related topics. Scrolling through the list of past events will show how much was content was covered, and it always felt like there was so much more to discuss at the end of each meetup.
The Monthly Grind & Doin’ it My Way
I’d never even been to a meetup before starting Crypto Cleveland, so I feel very lucky to have this thing “stick” on my first try. I’m a stubborn developer and have a tendency to think that I know what’s best, so I ran this meetup My Way, which (I stubbornly think) attributed to its success.
Timing played a big role, of course. Early 2017 was THE TIME to start a cryptocurrency meetup, considering the ridiculous bull run and increased social exposure experienced that year.
Content played a big role. I made sure to approach each month with a topic in mind. The blockchain ecosystem is vast and provides a wide array of topics to dive into deeply. One of my goals was to identify a topic each month and make sure enough of a structure was in place around that topic to have a good discussion about it. Sometimes that meant I would put a presentation together and teach at the room, other times it meant that community members would lead discussions about topics that they were passionate about. Regardless, there had to be a topic, and people had to be stimulated.
Food played a big role. This should go without saying but give people pizza and beer if you want them to show up at a place around dinnertime. I’m proud to say that every meetup has provided complimentary pizza and beer to attendees. Except our new Bagels and Blockchain weekly morning meetup series. Those have bagels and coffee.
Regarding doing things My Way, I identify my pizza policy as one of those things. I’ve never asked for money from attendees to fund the food and drinks. I wanted the meetup to grow, and my idea was that to incentivize someone to do something difficult (like show up at a place at a time), offer them something in return (judgement-free, free-as-in-beer, pizza and beer). So, sometimes DXY paid, sometimes I paid out of my own pocket, sometimes it came out of the paltry “marketing budget” of my new company, decent. (Parker has written more about how decent got started, go give him a clap).
Only lately have I accepted the idea that refreshments can (and probably should) be sponsored. If I tried to “get funding” too early, I thought it could put the whole dynamic of the meetup at risk. Money is power, and the longer money stayed out of the meetup the more it could organically grow without any questionable behaviors by anyone. Now that the meetup has gained some traction, it makes more sense to allow its influence to be used as a platform by and for supporters. On that note, thanks to the Unify Project and Rascal House Pizza for previously sponsoring Crypto Cleveland meetups.
John Lazuka talking about his Mining Operation at our Mining Meetup, pizza and beer sponsored by Rascal House
What I’ve Learned
Learn from those who have done it before you, but don’t copy them. Do things your own way all the time, but allow your way to be constantly molded and modified by past gained experience and the experiences of others.
Doug Meil runs another successful tech meetup and gave me some good advice:
always be on the lookout and hunt for people to give small talks about a thing, as long as they’re not simply selling a product
neutrality is important. In that regard, I’ve been making an effort to keep the meetup location “decentralized” since we outgrew DXY.
Recruiters and Sales & Marketing people need love too! Granted, there are not many local blockchain recruiters (yet?), and there aren’t many local projects that have Sales & Marketing budgets, either.
Always take pictures! This one is important regardless of whether or not the event is live-streamed and/or recorded. I need to be more conscience of this, as I realize how few good pictures of past meetups I have for this article 😖
I’ve realized the importance of having strong opinions and being a leader. Don’t be afraid to push boundaries, make statements, or question why or how things are being done. No one has all of the answers. A new thought or idea might be just as accurate/relevant (or even more-so!), as an old one.
But, like, be cool. When making a strong opinion in a public forum, it might be best to sleep on it for a night first. I’ve made some strong public opinions that, while I don’t necessarily wish to revoke, I do wish I had waited a day, re-written in a politer tone, and then clicked “send”. What Am I Talking About? This, which was sent as an email to all ~700 members. I’ll save you the click.
Title:
Crypto Cleveland is Rebranding
Beginning of Message:
Just kidding. I’ve been receiving a lot of “advice” lately about distancing myself, and this community, from “crypto” and to be more focused on “blockchain”. … These are just words. There is no substance behind that advice. “Crypto” means cryptography. “Crypto” means cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is applied cryptography, and is the incentivized fuel that allows blockchains to be built and secured in a distributed manner. Without “cryptocurrency” there IS NO BLOCKCHAIN. Period. < this goes on for many paragraphs >
Yikes.
If I could rewrite it, I would leave off the snarky title, the snarky tone of the whole piece, and begin it like this:
I’ve been receiving some of well-intentioned advice lately about having the meetup focus more on the “blockchain” and less on the “crypto”, due in part to rightfully-publicly-perceived shadiness of ICOs and other cryptocurrency projects. However, I have some fundamental thoughts that make it hard for me to genuinely downplay the importance of “crypto” in “blockchain”, and I’d like to take the opportunity here to publicly state my case. …
It feels good to say that.
The best teachers are students. Listen to everyone, and let their ideas help shape yours. You’ll be surprised who you learn the most from.
What’s Next?
My limited research on meetup.com shows that Crypto Cleveland is the largest crypto / blockchain related meetup in Ohio, in terms of member count. That’s very cool and kind of shocking. It’s been amazing watching the community grow, and I’m grateful to be in the middle of it. At the end of the day, bringing people together to convene around an idea, or a movement, feels good. I hope for Crypto Cleveland to continue being a pillar for the local crypto and blockchain community, to be used as a resource for education, thought-leadership, and networking.
Whatever comes next, it’ll be big, and fun, and I won’t have any idea what I’m doing. | https://medium.com/decentlabs/why-i-started-a-crypto-meetup-and-what-ive-learned-cfd319970d7b | ['Adam Gall'] | 2018-08-13 14:44:20.842000+00:00 | ['Meetup', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Community', 'Bitcoin', 'Learning'] |
Sodomy and Me; A Tale of Activism | It’s 1997. I’m 28 years old and living in the beautiful island state of Tasmania, the last bastion of Australian anti-gay sentimentality and dubbed by international media as “Bigots Island” due to some of the harshest anti-homosexual laws in the world.
In those days I was a Mormon, a seriously square peg trying to fit into an even more serious round hole. An emerging feminist, I’d been struggling with the faith I was raised in since my early teens and now, as a young woman, a wife, and a young mother, it was becoming ever more apparent that the religious community I existed in was not a place for individual expression, much less freedom of thought, and certainly not an ideal place for anyone who wasn’t white, straight, and male.
It was at a church function that I was approached by a woman asking that I sign a petition. Being the social activist type I was happy to meet another politically engaged Mormon so I sat down to listen to her. But as she passionately revealed the reason for her angst I, in turn, became passionately agast. Unbeknownst to me this quaint little island community I called home had managed to retain a certain law that was suddenly being challenged, and by some foreigners too if you please! How dare!
In 1997 the United Nations Human Rights Committee was putting pressure on Tasmania to repeal its archaic sodomy laws. The law, inherited from Britain after colonisation in 1788, criminalised anal intercourse whether consensual or not. This law had stood unchallenged until the 1970s when the first gay rights organisation ‘Campaign Against Moral Persecution’ (CAMP) was founded and a shift in Australian attitudes towards homosexuality began.
South Australia had led the charge in 1975 when distinctions were made between sodomy during rape and sodomy between two consenting adults; providing, of course, it was entered into behind closed doors. Other states soon followed and by 1990 the whole country had abolished a morally biased religious law in favour of a more secular and liberal view; all states, that is, except Tasmania.
By keeping sodomy firmly entrenched in the criminal code, Tasmania had hoped to keep its pristine shores free of an unwanted homosexual contingency. Perhaps they could all just head north to a more liberal society, was the thinking of many Taswegians. Melbourne and Sydney — Australia’s own Sodom and Gomorrah — would be a much more appropriate gathering place, and surely criminalising anal sex would achieve this aim. After all, an appreciation for all things anal is what defines a homosexual, is it not?
As my fellow Mormon clutched her pearls I found myself wondering, does the proliferation of homosexuality really come down to just one word? And what about gay women, how is their sexuality viewed legally? Little did I know that as I pondered this question a young Tasmanian, Hannah Gadsby, was rotting “quietly in self-hatred” and, despite today being the darling of comedy, still struggles with the low self-esteem fostered during that period of intense hate in our state's history.
So what is sodomy?
Depending on whether you speak the Queen’s English or the President’s you may have a different view of sodomy. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is, to put it bluntly, anal sex. However, according to the dictionary favoured by our American friends (Merriam-Webster) it also includes, to put it bluntly, oral sex. If we were to search even farther afield the broader definition goes so far as to include masturbation, which would put possibly 80% of the human population at serious risk of incarceration, sexually segregated incarceration at that — a rather ironic thought. As such sodomy laws were used to criminalize love between two people of the same sex regardless of gender.
The research told a different story
In 2011 Joshua Rosenberg, Professor of Global and Human Health at George Mason University, conducted the largest ever study into the sexual behaviour of the gay and bisexual male community. “Of all sexual behaviours that men reported occurring during their last sexual event, those involving the anus were the least common,” Rosenberger said. “There is certainly a misguided belief that ‘gay sex equals anal sex,’ which is simply untrue much of the time.” The study, which was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, revealed that 75% of the 25,000 homosexual men participating in the research stated that oral sex was their preferred style of sexual intimacy.
And what about straight men? If porn hub is anything to go by, a lot of straight men are sodomites, and no more or less than gay men considering half of them admit to it and the other half aspire to it. The only thing stopping them it seems is finding a willing female partner.
However, I didn’t need research to tell me what I already knew, though it sounds cliché; love is love. As for promiscuity (another archaic concept); that wanton act of having sex just for the simple joy of it. Who was I to question other humans for doing something I rather enjoyed myself?
As I sat there listening to the outrage of a woman — who really felt that homosexuality was not only a crime that God should judge but one that she and my entire religious community needed to ensure they could continue to judge (and punish) too— a different jury had come in for me and it was clear that I needed to speak up about this; in my church community, in my local community, and in my home where I was just starting to raise a socially aware and ethical child. | https://medium.com/an-injustice/sodomy-and-me-a-tale-of-activism-492dcff8680c | ['Sarah J. Baker'] | 2020-12-14 23:24:46.645000+00:00 | ['Equality', 'LGBT Rights', 'Society', 'Memoir', 'History'] |
5 tools to measure the social impact of companies | Note: This article was first published in Spanish and can be found here.
The sentence “what is not measured does not exist or can not be improved” is especially important and interesting when dealing with the measurement of the impacts of companies in their environment.
Beyond the discussion of whether the phrase is more or less true or applicable, one thing is clear and is the difficulty that organizations often have to quantify, assess and draw conclusions from their actions and activities related to corporate social responsibility and their efforts to contribute positively to society.
To assess these impacts, there are several tools that the Forética Social Impact Cluster has included in the guide “Midiendo el valor del Impacto Social Empresarial. Guía de herramientas de medición y valoración del Impacto Social Empresarial” recently published.
The measurement of this social impact will help companies to account for their social performance, externally value their contribution to society, improve strategic decision making and the management of expectations and results, and generate greater credibility in groups of interest such as customers, suppliers, investors or public administrations.
The social impact has already entered the business agenda
While in the environmental field there are already more standardized and consolidated measurement strategies, in the social field there is no consensus nor a single frame of reference, even existing methodologies with more than 20 years of existence.
All these methodologies have particular approaches, scopes and processes that must be adapted to each specific company and at the same time it makes it difficult for them to be used to establish comparisons of results and therefore be adapted as standards.
In addition, some organizations more concerned with these issues have developed their own measurement tools by developing existing ones.
Because all of this, it can be said that the social impact has already entered the business agenda.
For example, investors are integrating with great interest these impact metrics in their business models and in the valuation of investment opportunities.
The rapid growth of impact investment stands out in this area. which includes within its expectations of return, in addition to the financial, variables of environmental and social impact.
This social impact is also being integrated into public procurement and the concession and financing of large investment projects.
The public administration thus tries to have greater traceability on their projects, promote the social value of them and contribute to the improvement of the impacts.
The companies subject to this type of operation are the ones that, for the moment, are leading the efforts to develop measurement models and metrics that are increasingly more advanced.
The communities themselves also consider that they are interested in companies advancing measurement models that allow them to know and understand what the impacts of the activity are in the environment, since in this way they can control the process, legitimize their actions and contribute to the improvement of it.
Challenges and opportunities of measuring social impact
The methodologies for measuring social impact are still at a stage of incipient maturity, even in those organizations with greater exposure to the agents of change already mentioned.
Measuring social impact faces challenges, but also generates new opportunities.
Among the main challenges we find consequences of its novelty, such as the absence of a measurement model considered as standard and that is simple at the same time, the lack of management objectives in the field of measurement, or the lack of knowledge in the organizations for its implementation.
Also other challenges already existing in other areas of business management such as the lack of time and resources to devote to the measurement process, or the difficulty of obtaining and analyzing the data and material indicators.
On the contrary, as opportunities, the measurement of impact can bring about improvements in the reputation and external recognition and internal management, the generation of new business opportunities, the generation of a common culture and a shared purpose, or the contribution to Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Specific tools for specific cases
The Forética guide presents five different tools for the measurement of social impact, based on what it is specifically intended to be used for and to which interest group the result of the measurement will be directed.
The SDG Compass has also been added, although it is not a tool for measuring and assessing social impact, but it is relevant when assessing the contribution and impact of organizations in achieving the SDGs.
The Social and Human Capital Protocol is a methodological framework developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and emerges to respond to the need to try to create a homogeneous framework for the measurement and assessment of corporate social impact.
Its methodology is composed of four differentiated stages (object, scope, measurement and evaluation and application of results). It is a very complete framework, applicable to different sectors and industries, and can be used in conjunction with other models of social impact measurement.
The second proposed international tool, the LBG Framework, is a model for the measurement, management and communication of initiatives and projects of strategic investment in the community or social action based on an input framework (resources set by the company) and output (results obtained through the inputs).
It is also a useful framework for the measurement, management and communication of projects of third sector organizations, and is recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) as a best practice to inform the contribution to social action.
The Rockefeller Foundation, Acumen Fund and B Lab were the ones who devised the Impact Reporting & Investment Standards (IRIS) framework, characterized by being a catalog of benchmarks of performance (metrics) that guide and help impact investors to know the social, environmental and financial impact of an organization.
Its use is part of only one phase of the process of measuring social impact, which includes the identification of metrics or key measurement indicators. Each of the performance indicators are selected by each organization based on its measurement objectives.
For its part, the Social Return on Investment (SROI) is based on a purely economic indicator widely used in the business environment called Return on Investment (ROI) which includes the concept of social value (SROI), and we find it of two types: the forecast SROI and the evaluation one.
It offers a quantitative approach to understand and manage the impacts of an organization, project or initiative, assigning an economic value to each of the identified social impacts.
SROI refers to the perceived social value (not so much the economic value), which entails experiences, qualitative information, quantitative information and financial information about the changes that have occurred as a result of the results of an organization, project or initiative, thanks to which we can support strategic decisions.
Finally, the Socio-Economic Assessment Toolbox (SEAT)was developed in 2003 by the company Anglo American, and is an impact assessment model applicable to all stages of mine development.
The tool is designed to identify and manage social and environmental impacts from exploration to the closing of the operation, reflecting the complexity of managing such impacts in large-scale extractive operations at the local level. | https://medium.com/@albert.vilarino/5-tools-to-measure-the-social-impact-of-companies-e081434a66f4 | ['Albert Vilariño Alonso'] | 2019-07-22 12:44:02.016000+00:00 | ['Sustainable Development', 'Corporate Responsibility', 'Social Impact', 'Sustainability'] |
Steps To Help Your Child Transition From Their Crib To Their Own bed | Steps To Help Your Child Transition From Their Crib To Their Own bed Naomi Harrison Apr 1·3 min read
Your toddler may spend the first few years in the crib, or it may just be time for him to say goodbye. It is likely that he will talk or behave in a way that expresses his unhappiness with the crib, or he may simply climb out.
Then what should we do?
Most experts suggest removing them at around 3 years old when your child’s body is able to accommodate bigger spaces and to feel safer.
By doing this, your child can go through giant developmental leaps during the day but revert to the comfort of sleeping in his old bed at night.
Additionally, children younger than 3 years of age are very impulsive, and this makes it difficult to understand and follow directions or rules (containment for example). you can expect to be waking up to a little visitor next to your bed pretty much every night if you transition to a bed before the age of 3.
It is essential, however, that you support your child along the way in making a smooth transition from sleeping on the floor to a bed. Here is a guide to help you do so:
1.Provide a safe environment:
Make sure the child’s bedroom is secure and that no other rooms where your child might be tripped over can be open. Secure windows, the top of stairs, and all stepstools to prevent injuries. Your child’s door may need a safety gate, and in his room, you may install some small night lights to increase his sense of security.
2. Choose the mattress:
Take your child to the mattress store or any other seller of mattresses and have him or her help you choose the mattresses and beds. With safety being the prime consideration, you’ll only need a twin-size mattress, a box spring, and side rails. Get some fun new sheets and special pillowcases, and you’re all set. Just remember to adjust the height of this new bed accordingly until your child gets used to it.
3. We recommend taking the crib apart (together):
Take your child’s crib down after the new bed arrives home so that he or she feels part of the transition process to the new bed and can also say goodbye to the crib.
4. The bed — Setting it up:
You can add a safety rail to the exposed side of your child’s bed so they feel safe. Put the bed in one corner of their bedroom so that the head and side of the bed flush against the wall and side panels. Their cribs provided them with this same level of protection.
5. How do bedtimes work?
It is imperative for your child to know that sleeping in the bed as a baby will soon cause him to be unable to wake up until the sunlight is bright enough to see.
6. Don’t forget to go to bed early:
In the first few nights in his new bed, if you read to him for an additional 10 minutes while he sleeps, he will feel more comfortable in his surroundings. You can make a child feel safe by making him or her feel secure in his or her environment. If your child appears enthusiastic, then you may have successfully maneuvered through this transition.\
If you’re having problems getting your baby to sleep, CLICK HERE and try this quick quiz and watch the video to learn a simple and effective way of putting your baby to sleep very easy | https://medium.com/@naomiharrison/steps-to-help-your-child-transition-from-their-crib-to-their-own-bed-59418969e138 | ['Naomi Harrison'] | 2021-04-01 01:40:21.846000+00:00 | ['Baby Sleep Routine', 'Baby Sleep Training', 'Baby Sleep', 'Babys', 'Baby Sleeping'] |
The man called Ansar | The man called Ansar
A glimpse of my late grandfather
“Naam ka hoon Ansar, rehta hoon Urdu ki tarha. Sab jaantay toh hain, magar poochta koi nahi.”
Translation: I am known as Ansar, but I live like Urdu. Everybody knows me, but they don’t ask how I am.
Chotay Chacha (younger uncle), was my father’s uncle, but he was like a grandfather to me. During my childhood, I would visit him every Sunday, with my father, and spend less than an hour, at his place. I knew him as a retired, lonely, old, grumpy man, who adored his isolation. His small house in the P.N.T (Post and Telegraph) Colony, was his palace. He had grown cheeku, banana and anaar (pomegranate) trees, in his back yard. My dad would bring some fruits, change his bed sheet and some times, get medicines or pay his bills. He would often insist me to stay with him, but I would refuse, as I instinctively felt strange.
He would often say, “Saatth (60) saal ke baad aadmi retired nahi, retarded hojata hai.”
Translation: After the age of 60, one becomes retarded, not retired.
His life after retirement was quite stagnant, yet his routine kept him going. He would wake up at 5 a.m, having his breakfast, read the newspaper, then sit outside on the charpoy in his back yard, enjoying the sun light. Then lunch at 11 a.m, followed by a siesta, then in the late afternoon would go for a stroll around the block and meet his neighbours, on the way. Sometimes, his friends would come over and visit him.
He had a collection of old indian audio cassettes, a stereo, empty old spice bottle, some antique items, a few calendars hung on the wall. Under his pillow, he kept a tasbeeh (rosary), his old radio and a stress relief toy. On the side of the bed, he kept a book, which I believe was a novel by Intizar Hussain. He had a tiny store room, full of biscuits. He would give us a mini tour of his special room, and ask us to pick any brand of biscuit, we preferred.
Ansar Hussain, migrated from Dibai, India, soon after the partition, during the late 1950s. He completed his intermediate (12th grade) and got a clerical job at Post and Telegraph (now called PTCL). He went through a year of training and learned the morse code. At that time, telegram was used to communicate and thousands of messages were sent and received everyday.
Post and Telegraph building
He was not really ambitious, but had a strict schedule. His anger was sublimated into his busy routine, which included, walking, going to the YMCA sports club, and playing tennis with his friends. Then he would reach his office at 8:30 sharp, and would get upset if his subordinates would show up late. In the evening, he would do the chores, and spend time with his family.
He was a deeply sensitive man, although his personality was quite the opposite. He was 6 feet tall, with a broad physique and quite outspoken, yet he would take care of his family and loved children. He would bring us ice cream, whenever he would visit us at Nanoo’s (grandmother) place in Seaview. At that time, ice cream was considered an exquisite dish.
He was a fan of classical literature, music and hindi films. One of his all time favourite films were Mughal-e-Azam, Pakeeza and Mahal. During his last days, he would ask me to play the songs “aega aega” and “chalte chalte” on my phone, and would lose himself in nostalgia. As he would fall asleep, his soul would travel to Dibai and would become a child again and play with his friends, who were no longer with him.
On his last day, he was completely unresponsive and was struggling to breathe. We rushed to get an ambulance and soon, the driver came with a stretcher and we carried him in the van. Suddenly, I saw a crow in my garden, lying in a puddle, taking his last breaths. I picked up the poor thing and put him under the sun, and covered him with a cloth. I could sense that it was an omen that Chotay Chacha won’t survive. After an hour he departed from this world and entered the next.
“Khwabon ki koi sarhadain nahin hoti, phirta hoon gali gali.”
Translation: Dreams have no borders, I roam around, from one street to another. | https://medium.com/publishing-well/the-man-called-ansar-f2e5480e52f8 | ['Taha Abbas'] | 2020-06-14 05:35:39.857000+00:00 | ['Karachi', 'Ancestry', 'Partition', 'Dibai', 'Nonfiction'] |
In Quarantine | Quarantine : Prompt
In Quarantine
The last shot of quarantine
Photo by BRUNO EMMANUELLE on Unsplash
We have been in quarantine for so long
In quarantine of oneself
in quarantine of extraterrestrial civilizations.
This current quarantine only brings to light
these quarantines that we have been going through for so long
that we are generally unaware of.
We relive these quarantines just before
regaining our higher self and
contact with those who gave us free will. | https://medium.com/queen-s-children/in-quarantine-6c41894fd271 | ['Jean Carfantan'] | 2020-12-05 09:41:31.852000+00:00 | ['Shakti', 'Sacred Feminine', 'Quarantine', 'Prompt', 'Newsletter'] |
Trump supporters should learn from O.J. Simpson supporters | Trump supporters should learn from O.J. Simpson supporters
Know when to shut up because your guy is so very guilty
Photo credit: Gerald Johnson/Wikimedia Commons
I was surrounded by attorneys and real estate agents at a temp job I found one summer. I’d already been asked by the hiring manager if I was interested in working there full-time, and I told him I was pleased to hear I was being considered. They’d all been pretty friendly to me in the two months I’d worked there, and it paid decent money for the kind of expenses I had as a new college grad. I kept conversations light and usually only talked about entertainment news, but I’d never had any reason to not like anyone in the office — minus one guy who always gave me “the look.” But the office environment took a turn one day, as I typed away on a computer, inputting new purchasing documents.
I’m still unclear on why O.J. Simpson came up. I believe a point was trying to be made about the criminal justice system, and one attorney was trying to point out how criminals walk free. He made a smug comment about how “O.J. Simpson was guilty, and everyone knows that killer should be in jail!” I glanced up, still typing away, and responded, “Johnnie Cochran proved he wasn’t guilty, so he walked free. J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant walked, too. Were you this mad about them?”
Trump is doing the equivalent of “I’m not black, I’m OJ” in this second presidential run. He’s gone full, “I’m not even the American president, I’m the white supremacy president.”
I watched the white attorney’s face turn red. He told me I was the “problem” with the legal system. The hiring manager heard me, shook his head and said, “You should’ve just kept on being quiet. You were better off that way.”
A real estate assistant nodded her head, saying, “You really stuck your foot in your mouth this time, huh?”
I looked in both of their directions and said, “Actually, I believe he’s guilty. But again, I ask, were you this mad when Emmett Till’s killers got away with it, too?”
The real estate assistant and the manager both looked at me, confused. Finally one responded, “Who?”
I turned back to the computer. “My point exactly.”
I put my headphones on. A week later, the hiring manager asked how the job market was looking for me and saying he didn’t have “enough work” for me. I laughed. Just like that, for disagreeing with the two, I was back on the job market with a job offer off the table and genuinely couldn’t have given a fawk. (I found a full-time, higher-paying job about a month later, happily moving out of my parents’ house after less than a year of my return home with a degree.)
They mistook me being quiet for me being in agreement with their thoughts. The reality was I was silent and kept conversations light because I was listening to find out the type of attorneys — and people in general — I would be working with. I have never backed down when I felt it was important to stick up for black people or against racism. I don’t care how much money is on the table. I’d already risked expulsion for that reason alone. We both made the right decision by not working together. | https://medium.com/i-do-see-color/trump-supporters-should-learn-from-o-j-simpson-supporters-e76669df5ce8 | ['Shamontiel L. Vaughn'] | 2020-10-01 14:30:44.214000+00:00 | ['Criminal Justice', 'Racism', 'OJ Simpson', 'Donald Trump', 'Election 2020'] |
PyTorch / XLA is now Generally Available on Google Cloud TPUs | PyTorch / XLA is now Generally Available on Google Cloud TPUs PyTorch Follow Sep 29 · 5 min read
Authors: Ailing Zhang (FB), Joe Spisak (FB), Geeta Chauhan (FB), Vaibhav Singh (Google), Isaack Karanja (Google)
The PyTorch-TPU project was announced at the PyTorch Developer conference 2019 and originated from a collaboration among engineers and researchers at Facebook, Google, and Salesforce Research. The overarching goal of the project was to make it as easy as possible for the PyTorch community to leverage the high performance capabilities that Cloud TPUs offer while maintaining the dynamic PyTorch user experience. To enable this workflow, the team created PyTorch / XLA, a package that lets PyTorch connect to Cloud TPUs and use TPU cores as devices. Additionally and as part of the project, Colab enabled PyTorch / XLA support on Cloud TPUs. Fast forward to September 2020, and the PyTorch / XLA library has reached general availability (GA) on Google Cloud and supports a broad set of entry points for developers. It also has a fast-growing community of researchers and enterprise users training a wide range of models accelerated with Cloud TPUs and Cloud TPU Pods including researchers and engineers at MIT, Salesforce Research, Allen AI and elsewhere.
PyTorch Developer Conference 2019 | PyTorch on Google Cloud TPUs — Google, Salesforce, Facebook
What’s new for the GA release?
With PyTorch / XLA GA, PyTorch 1.6 is officially supported on Cloud TPUs. Other notable new features include:
Support for Intra-Layer Model Parallelism: All-Reduce operation can now be performed with multiple operation types and groups. More communication primitives have been added to enable interesting applications such as distributing large embedding tables over multiple TPU cores;
All-Reduce operation can now be performed with multiple operation types and groups. More communication primitives have been added to enable interesting applications such as distributing large embedding tables over multiple TPU cores; Additional XLA ops: As PyTorch / XLA usage grew across an ever-widening range of new models, users asked PyTorch ops to be mapped to XLA, and we responded. Since the beta (1.5) release, we have incorporated XLA lowerings for replication_pad1d, replication_pad2d, max_unpool2d, max_unpool3d, and other ops;
As PyTorch / XLA usage grew across an ever-widening range of new models, users asked PyTorch ops to be mapped to XLA, and we responded. Since the beta (1.5) release, we have incorporated XLA lowerings for replication_pad1d, replication_pad2d, max_unpool2d, max_unpool3d, and other ops; Better Experience in Colab / Kaggle Notebooks: Now you no longer need to run the env-setup.py script on Colab / Kaggle before you start training; and
Now you no longer need to run the env-setup.py script on Colab / Kaggle before you start training; and Support within Deep Learning VM Images: Google Cloud Platform provides a set of Deep Learning Virtual Machine (DLVM) images that include everything you need to get started with various deep learning frameworks, including PyTorch. PyTorch / XLA 1.6 is now pre-installed in DLVM and optimized for Cloud TPUs. The official PyTorch 1.6 is also pre-installed in the same Conda environment. Follow this user guide to get started.
What models are supported?
PyTorch / XLA has been used to train numerous deep learning models on Cloud TPUs. Reference implementations are available for a diverse set of models such as:
In most cases, training these models on Cloud TPUs requires very few code changes. You can find official tutorials on Google Cloud here: ResNet-50, Fairseq Transformer, Fairseq RoBERTa, DLRM, PyTorch on Cloud TPU Pods. Check out the PyTorch / XLA GitHub repository for examples of other model architectures trained on Cloud TPUs.
How does PyTorch / XLA work?
PyTorch / XLA works using a ‘lazy tensor’ abstraction. With lazy tensors, the evaluation of tensor operations are deferred until the result of that operation is required (control/reporting). Up until that point, the operations are captured as an Intermediate Representation (IR) graph. Once results are required, these IR graphs are then compiled via XLA and sent to TPU cores for execution. This XLA compilation can also target CPU and GPUs.
Additional technical details about the approach are available on GitHub.
What code changes are needed to get started?
To start training, you need to create a Google Compute Engine VM (user VM) with the PyTorch / XLA image and a separate Cloud TPU Instance.
Once the user VM and the Cloud TPU instance are created, you can set the appropriate conda environment and set the XRT_TPU_CONFIG environment variable to point to the Cloud TPU instance:
At this point, you are ready to start training your model on a Cloud TPU! Let’s look at some sample code for training a “toy model” and notice the elements unique to PyTorch / XLA:
The lines highlighted above are: import statements for PyTorch / XLA components, the method to access the XLA device abstraction, and the parallel dataloader to facilitate overlapped data transfer and Cloud TPU execution. Also note the optimizer_step method, which performs the all-reduce operation followed by the parameters update (optimizer.step) behind the scenes. (GPU and CPU device types are also supported by PyTorch / XLA with no change in the code. Only an XRT_TPU_CONFIG variable is set differently to target these other hardware platforms.)
In contrast, here is an example code for training the same model on 4 GPU devices using PyTorch (without PyTorch / XLA):
As you compare the two code samples above, you may note the following: 1) The model code required no changes to execute on Cloud TPUs; 2) In the training loop, there are similarities between the PyTorch API and PyTorch / XLA to wrap and transfer the model object to the corresponding device abstraction (CUDA in case of GPUs and xla_device in case of Cloud TPUs). There is also an additional element for parallel data loading as described above.
Training on Cloud TPU Pods
PyTorch / XLA also provides utilities to scale the training you just executed on an individual Cloud TPU (v3–8, for example) to a full Cloud TPU Pod (v3–2048) or any intermediate-sized Cloud TPU Pod slice in between (e.g. v3–32, v3–128, v3–256, v3–512 and v3–1024), this scaling is done using xla_dist wrapper:
In order to set up distributed training, you create the Cloud TPU Pod slice of the desired size and a corresponding instance group with an appropriate number of VMs (matching the number of TPU cores divided by eight). Also, make sure that the training dataset is accessible to the respective virtual machines (workers) in the instance group. To start the training, launch your training script with xla_dist wrapper as shown above; xla_dist will orchestrate the Cloud TPU mesh configuration and execute the training script from each of workers.
A more detailed guide on how to get started with Cloud TPU Pods is available here. Further details are available on GitHub.
Getting Started
Colab notebooks provided in the official PyTorch / XLA repository are an excellent place to start exploring PyTorch / XLA on Cloud TPUs. Once you are familiar enough with the API, you can start to work with your own models following the setup provided in official examples.
Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible without contributions from Alex Suhan (Prior affiliations with both Google and FB), Bryan McCann (Salesforce Research), Carlos Escapa (FB), Jin Young Daniel Sohn (Google), Davide Libenzi (Formerly at Google), Jack Cao (Google), Mike Ruberry (FB), Shauheen Zahirazami (Google), Shauna Kelleher (FB), Soumith Chintala (FB), Taylan Bilal (Google), Vishal Mishra (Google), Woo Kim (FB), Zach Cain (Google), and Zak Stone (Google).
The announcement from the Google team can be found here.
Cheers! | https://medium.com/pytorch/pytorch-xla-is-now-generally-available-on-google-cloud-tpus-f9267f437832 | [] | 2020-09-29 15:58:22.929000+00:00 | ['Tutorial', 'Machine Learning', 'Tpu', 'Pytorch', 'Google Cloud'] |
Emily Hicks | Emily Hicks
President and Co-Founder, FREDsense
Emily Hicks is President of FREDsense, a Calgary, Canada based biotechnology startup focused on the measurement of water quality. Emily co-founded the company with CEO David Lloyd in 2013. FRED stands for Field Ready Electrochemical Detector, which is the product that Emily — along with her FREDsense colleagues — invented, developed and brought to market. It’s used to detect trace amounts of chemicals in a water using a groundbreaking new approach using biologically engineered bacteria.
Her studies in biomedical sciences at the U of C eventually led her to work on the technology on which FREDsense is based. She is a named inventor in the 2013 patent related to that work.
Amongst her wide variety of accolades, Emily has been selected as a Kairos Society Fellow, one of the Top 30 under 30 in sustainability in Canada, a National Nicol Award winner in 2014, the Parlee McLaws Females in Energy Scholorship, amongst many other awards.
Emily Hicks is a passionate scientist and entrepreneur. In our wide ranging interview, she not only eloquently explains the FREDsense technology in terms we can all understand but also the pleasures and pitfalls of the entrepreneurial life. It’s a candid discussion for which the answer to at least some of the questions will come as a surprise to our listeners.
Our interview with Emily was recorded live at the INVENTURE$ conference in Calgary, in June of 2018. | https://medium.com/the-worknotwork-show/emily-hicks-5c3196bd14d2 | ['Terence C. Gannon'] | 2019-03-23 01:44:19.121000+00:00 | ['Biotechnology', 'Startup', 'Podcast', 'Interview', 'Water'] |
Permissionless Professors #2: Sam Parr | We believe monetization is a hidden secret. Secrets hiding in plain sight. From the psychology of anchoring, the mathematics of power-law pricing tables, the application of demand elasticity, and the market positioning of your price — your path to better monetization awaits.
Follow | https://medium.com/monetization-manifesto/permissionless-professors-2-sam-parr-54a603be925b | ['Gary Bailey - Monetization Manifesto'] | 2020-12-17 14:47:49.428000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Marketing', 'Monetization', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
Highlights from the Epic #WirVsVirus Hackathon in Germany | Highlights from the Epic #WirVsVirus Hackathon in Germany
Between 20th to 22nd of March, 2020, the Kineo.ai team supported the #WirVsVirus hackathon by providing participants with the company’s machine learning modules and hassle-free access to all AWS products (read more here). This includes our team’s observations about AWS cloud usage, even highlights, and where you can find information on the event and projects.
What’s this #WirVsVirus Hackathon?
The #WirVsVirus Hackathon was a nation-wide call by the German government and seven leading organisations for assistance on solutions to the current Covid-19 crisis. The event was reportedly organised in a few days, but had an overwhelming response from the public, which included participants outside of Germany as well. Because this event was hosted remotely, the organisers have gone to great lengths to do documentation. There were over 800 proposed solutions and you can find them on DevPost.
You can find the following:
The event had a bumpy start on Friday evening by stretching Slack to the limit. The organisers had to contact Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s CEO, directly to get all 42,000+ invitations sent out. But once we were in, the channels were set up and everyone was ready to roll!
Kineo.ai’s Slack Channel
Although the event was reportedly organised in four days, you wouldn’t have known it from the number of companies supporting. Kineo.ai was beside giants like AWS, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, Adobe, Redhat, CERN, Auth0, MongoDB, and NewRelic and the company was the second most popular in company support and cloud provider channel — supporting 100+ projects! Kineo.ai’s three co-founders, Korbinian Kuusisto, Ferdinand von den Eichen, and Robert Kaletsch, were touched by the amazing atmosphere and how polite people were when asking for help.
Kineo.ai’s Slack channel with 120+ Users had great questions, ideas and projects
Kineo.ai’s team provided hassle-free cloud infrastructure support
Overall we had 100+ users in our AWS account
Some of you may be aware that AWS supports many startup and developer events by providing service credits or vouchers. Using AWS cloud infrastructure is a great way to get started on projects, but for the purpose of speed, it is often easier to join an existing account rather than setting up new infrastructure from scratch. The Kineo.ai team decided to offer AWS access through the company account, with no strings attached. The AWS DACH team, which was also present at the hackathon, supported this initiative.
As you can imagine, before the event, we were a bit nervous to potentially allow 42k+ users to access our AWS account for free. This is why we were exceptionally happy to see how well people behaved and how it all worked out so well in the end. — Ferdinand von den Eichen, MD Engineering at Kineo.ai
Most projects were around hosting apps and websites. When looking at the AWS services used during the weekend, the team saw that the budget went to databases and EC2 instances.
We were impressed by how responsible participants were in choosing small machines (e.g. t2.micro < $0.02/h) to keep the costs low (and keep credits free for others):
Overall the hackathon stayed far below the expected budget, with around $370 costs. As there is budget left over, the Kineo.ai team has decided to give #WirVsVirus hackathon teams more time to migrate their solutions into individual accounts as they grow their projects. Kineo.ai will keep this open account open a little longer, roughly until Sunday, March 29
Some #WirVsVirus projects
As a machine learning company, Kineo.ai’s founders were also excited to see some data projects this weekend. In addition to offering the company’s AWS account, Kineo.ai’s team also provided machine learning module support, actively reaching out to projects to offer assistance. As to be expected, due to the lack of proper data, there were only very few teams who could realistically use machine learning services over the weekend. However, we did see projects that will definitely need this support if developed further. They included chatbots, fake news detection, or even image recognition to detect toilet paper:
Some examples of projects hosted via our platform:
SymptomTracker
You can check out their website.
Twitter: @symptomtracker1 (involved @th_sattelberger @BendlerBlogger @BarrelLive)
Social Distancing Dashboard
Twitter: @DistancingDash #EveryoneCounts
More AWS startup tips for future hackathons
Many participants used the AWS platform for the first time this weekend. This is great! If you want to dig a bit deeper into the resources AWS provides, check out their AWS Startup Resource Hub: https://emea-resources.awscloud.com/
We hope that many of your projects will evolve and become a tool to navigate us all through those challenging times. — Robin d’Alquen, Account Manager Startups at AWS
If you decide to take your project to the next level and make it a social startup, check out this page here. You will likely be eligible to receive further funding:
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/02/aws-launches-activate-founders-package/
Links and follow up
Finally, a big thanks to all the organisers for their time, energy, and to make this amazing event happen :)
@Tech4Germany @codeforde @initiatived21 @ImpactHubBLN @PT_Deutschland @prototypefund @SEND_ev
This is just the beginning for many of these teams. We encourage you to check out the submitted hackathon projects and use DeepL.com to translate them. Wherever you are in the world, they may inspire you to create your local solutions for your communities. | https://medium.com/@athena-lam/highlights-from-the-epic-wirvsvirus-hackathon-in-germany-530790d41306 | ['Athena Lam'] | 2020-03-24 00:12:34.316000+00:00 | ['Social Impact', 'Germany', 'Wirvsvirus', 'Hackathons', 'Startup'] |
“OkCupid is a dope org that is doing more than just hooking up people.” | “OkCupid is a dope org that is doing more than just hooking up people.” BUILTBYGIRLS Follow Apr 1, 2016 · 3 min read
#BUILTBYGIRLS fell in love on Valentine’s Day — with data science. Ok, we admit, we already liked it a lot, but the second event in our Hashtag Series, this time hosted by OkCupid, showed our girls all that’s possible with curiosity, technology and brilliant mentors.
The Hashtag is a monthly #BUILTBYGIRLS event series designed to highlight how trending companies use tech and expose high school girls to the incredible careers and experiences that technology can unlock for them.
To help us better understand February’s event theme — Tech of Love & Communication, we started with a panel of experts from different fields:
Mike Maxim, GM & CTO, OkCupid
Amanda Bradford, Founder, The League
Alexandra Martell, Online Managing Editor of Cosmopolitan
fred benenson, VP of Data, Kickstarter (and the mastermind behind the emoji translation of Moby Dick)
Patrycja Slawuta, Social Psychologist
Moderator Samantha Steinberg, Amanda Bradford, Alexandra Martell, Fred Benenson, Patrycja Slawuta
In the beautiful IAC building in New York City, our rockstar 16-year-old moderator and coder extraordinaire Samantha Steinberg led a discussion about how tech is changing the way we communicate, while 25 high school girls listened in. The panelists shared how they use data to better understand human interactions, discussed how tech can help us feel simultaneously connected and lonely, and debated how to be your true self in a digital-driven world. They left us with a lot to think about, and a list of their favorite emojis: side-eye-smiley-face for the win!
A dream team of OkCupid data scientists took over next, and software engineer Dale Markowitz shared some of their amazing research into human nature. The #BBG audience had a ton of questions (no, they can’t use the app until they are 18!) but we left time for pizza and #BUILTBYGIRLS M&Ms, and then put the girls to work in small teams.
We asked each team to brainstorm a new product that solves a problem using data science, with the help of the OkCupid gurus. And let us tell you, they delivered — in 15 short minutes. One team developed a cyberbullying add-on that warns you before you view explicit or offensive content. Another thought up an app to connect environmental factors with cancer diagnoses. Newcomers from our partner Girls Write Now helped brainstorm an app to crowdsource safety on college campuses.
As always, the girls blew us away; we tried to bargain for equity in these amazing ideas, but no dice. Maybe we’ll have better luck next time.
Besides realizing that OkCupid is a “dope org that is doing more than hooking people up,” the girls left our IAC with a determination to further explore data science — 94% agreed that this event opened their eyes to the possibilities of technology and data science that they were unaware of and now say they “understand how algorithms can be used to develop theories about societies decisions.”
Here’s to the next generation of killer female data scientists. | https://medium.com/a-world-builtbygirls/okcupid-is-a-dope-org-that-is-doing-more-than-just-hooking-up-people-ec15d285d365 | [] | 2016-04-01 13:11:03.989000+00:00 | ['Coding', 'Data Science', 'Women In Tech'] |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.